One of my favorite blogs is written by Lena Corwin. She makes patterns and prints and has a new book _Printing_by_Hand_.
Her blog is loaded with prints, vintage fabrics, simple pictures and special finds from New York City. These prints have been an inspiration to me, and I have started taking some of my own pictures to inspire my craft.
Still trying to get the house to be a home. It may be obvious to most people, but when you have got a writer in the house, you tend to have a lot of reading material also.
In organizing my fabrics, I came across the table runners from our wedding. The material is really thick and almost canvas-like, if not really canvas.
Lotta Jansdotter’s book _Simple_Sewing_ has a nice magazine rack, and even eludes to being able to store a roll of toilet paper.
I sewed two of the runners together to get the back. Also since the edges were already finished, the holders are 1-2 inches wider than they should be. I think they look cool.
Now Lotta is Scandinavian, so the toilet paper rolls must be much smaller there. As you can see in these pictures, I couldn’t fit a full roll in the bottom pocket. I put a tiny mostly used roll there for size reference.
I know this is a craft blog, but for the most part it hasn’t been crafty this month. I’ll have some more finished pictures if the rain stops today, but right now I have a special message.
Two years ago, Ty and I got married. Above is a picture of us in Belize on our honeymoon.
Yesterday was one of the last full days off he’ll have before school starts, so we went out and took some mask pictures. It may turn into a larger project, so I won’t post any of them here now.
Last night we had a nice shrimp pasta primavera on our rooftop deck. After that we fired up the youtube.com jukebox, much like we sometimes play many different records and scatter the jackets all over the floor.
Sitting two wide on my large Rubbermaid tote computer chair, we looked for the earliest live version of so many songs. We’d find one super rare performance, or a wedding connected one, and dance and sing to it.
Still doing some vacation catch-up here, and then you will be returned to your regular crafty programming. One update though, the link to the Diane Rehm show featuring Alex Vernon is up, and after the show you can listen to the podcast after the show tomorrow.
On our way to upstate New York, we cut across Ontario and stopped at Niagara Falls. We were surprised to see all of the casinos on the Canadian side. They have the classic honeymooner part of town that is slowly giving away to high-rise luxury.
We were glad to be on the very wet Canadian side, where there are more views of the falls. There were so many international tourists there, and everyone was very dressed up and soaking wet.
We weren’t sure how to read the gas station signs in Canada. I think this one means beaver is $13 at the 7-11.
On the American side, a tower was built so people could actually see the falls. We crossed back into the US right next to the tower.
One of Tyrone’s colleagues at Hendrix College is going to be on NPR on Wednesday. Alex Vernon will be on the Diane Rehm show at 10AM central time.
Sorry Nebraskans, this one won’t be on the radio, but you can click on the internet radio feed in the top left hand column. Arkansas (and apparently many other places) actually play NPR talk shows all day, unlike Nebraska’s switch to classical music from 9AM-4PM.
Anyway, I got to talk to Gulf War veteran Dr. Vernon this weekend about this upcoming interview. He’s got a book on the cultural significance of Tarzan coming out October 15, 2008. We started talking about Tarzan this weekend. Whenever anyone starts talking about Tarzan, I try to change the subject to Edgar Rice Burrough’s “Men of Mars” series because I find it much more interesting. I’m pretty embarrassed about that right now, being unaware of the upcoming _On_Tarzan_ book.
On Wednesday, Dr. Vernon will be using his Hemingway expertise in the _A_Farewell_to_Arms_ book discussion on the Diane Rehm show. His book, _Soldiers_Once_and_Still_ examines war veteran writers including Hemingway, James Salter, and Tim O’Brien.
Just to make up for that whole “Men of Mars” gaffe on my part, here’s a link to Dr. Vernon’s first book. His memoir, _Most_Succinctly_Bred_ has a blurb by Tim O’Brien, so I’ll just let that speak for the book:
“Beautiful and smart and original, Alex Vernon’s memoir is a wise, honest, and tautly written account of a man’s journey from youth to West Point to the Persian Gulf War to the world of academia. Beyond that, it is an intensely passionate exploration of the struggle in a young man’s soul between the biddings of Eros and Thanatos, duty and conscience, commitment to ideal and commitment to self.”
Note to RSS Feed readers: I’m working on getting the books to show in the feeds, but you probably want ad-free feeds. If you’d like to click on the book links, open blog entry in a new window.
One final note, now that I’m apart of the Hendrix family, I’d like to brag that the college has been ranked one of the nation’s top 100 colleges by Forbes.com.
This week Tyrone and I had a visit from my mother, and the french foreign exchange student, Mathilde, that my parents housed 7 years ago. Mathilde also brought her parents along. They are on a 3 week vacation of the mid-west, starting in Lincoln, with a detour to the Arkansas/Tennessee area, and then finishing up in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
We visited the Clinton Library and the Arkansas River playground area and river market.
We also went to Graceland. Little did we know it was “Elvis Week” and the place was packed!
We also made it down to Beale Street.
The next day we took a tour of the Conway area, visiting a peach orchard and Lake Conway.
The highlight of the entire trip was meeting JR of www.jrenterprises.com.
He was spraying alligator weed on Lake Conway, and brought in his air boat. He asked if any of the ladies wanted a ride. The men were the ones who really wanted a ride though. Pascal and Tyrone both went out on the lake with JR.
When someone gives you the pick of a huge lot of cone yarn, and someone else gives you a knitting machine, you would think fate is speaking to you, “You should knit on a knitting machine.”
At Christmas, I picked up 40+ cones of mostly acrylic (some wool blend, some cotton blend) yarn. Each cone ranges from 1000 - 4000 yards! In April, a friend gave me her British Bond knitting machine.
Last night I drug the two out in an attempt to appease fate.
For someone who is pretty good with machines, I found this knitting machine to be the most counter intuitive bucket of bolts I’ve ever encountered. Even worse, the instructions were extremely vague, and there were a few broken parts. There are some internet sites that detail how to use a knitting machine, and they explain how to start the first row of knitting, or “cast on”. These sites allowed me to get around a few of the weird broken parts, and get started knitting.
Despite the “ease” and the “speed” of the machine, I managed to completely fail at this task.
A second attempt is in order. The first and last stitch of every row began falling off. That is probably a weighting problem. The two white objects hanging off the bottom, and the purple clip are all weights. The broken part is a weight that goes between each stitch to evenly weigh down with each row.
I also tried changing plates in the middle of the work and that failed miserably too. It’s not all fun here craft blogging.
I’ve got a bunch of vacation photos to go through. For the 4th of July we stayed at Eddie’s Cottages. Neal found the place on the internet, and we got the sailboat cottage with two beds and one futon.
The cottage was decorated with antique tables, wall hangings, and an awesome flyswatter.
Something curious happened the night we stayed, the 4th of July Fairy showed up and decorated the entire place with flags.
We spent some time on the beach, but the water was very cold. Eddie’s had plenty of lawn swings to just enjoy the sun and breeze. Ty took advantage of the setting to take some of his artsy mask shots.
I took an artsy shot of Lake Huron myself.
Overall, the cottages were excellent. We had a good time at the campfire at night, and the bedrooms were so cozy and paneled with wood that I wondered if we were on a ship once or twice. The mosquitoes were huge, and hard to kill, unless swatted at very slowly.
We also watched the 4th of July parade in downtown Cheboygan. It was full of hoop dancers, politicians, fire trucks, and Shriners!
Now to the wedding, where it seems I couldn’t take an in focus picture even in the best light.
It was a very fun wedding, complete with roasted hog, bluegrass band, quanset square dancing, and a very starry moonless sky.
It is that time of year again. Getting close to our anniversary date, I start thinking about gifts for Tyrone, my friend Katie’s birthday in September, my mother’s birthday in October, and my sister’s birthday in November. It is that slow uphill road that leads us all to Christmas gift-giving.
This year I am way ahead of the game. I found Katie an awesome Miller High Life clock at a yard sale in upstate New York, and have already gifted it to her. On a shopping trip with Katie, I found my sister’s birthday gift, and it is even very shippable to her new address in Valentine, NE.
The gifting season also means my birthday, and I get asked what I want. The truth is that I’m never that sure most of the time, but when I see something, I know, and usually I just buy it myself. It may be a piece of art or a tool or a piece of technology I’ve been wanting. Yesterday was one of those moments.
My favorite painters are bizarrely all guitar players and vocalists and songwriters who have been in a number of different bands: Jon Langford, Wendy Bantam, and former Guided by Voices band member Tobin Sprout.
Buying art can be complicated, there is usually a big upfront expense, followed by a necessary reorganization of wall space. I feel I’m finally at a time in my life where I know what I like, but the paintings I like were sold years ago. This brings me to prints. Yesterday I found out that one of my favorite paintings was available as a print!
The print is “Ten After Four” by Tobin Sprout. The original painting is a photo surrealistic. The watermelon at the top makes me happy, the General Electric stove reminds me of my childhood, but the painted metallic reflections is what really attracted me to the piece. Years ago, I printed out a really terrible copy from a gif online, had it laminated, and hung it above my desk at home and work. It will be so nice to have a real print.
This weekend we walked across the block to St. Joseph’s school. They were having their yearly fundraiser featuring an extended flea market and “old fashion midway”. We had seen them setting up behind the church for weeks and we were glad to finally walk over.
There were no thrill rides, but there were many “games of chance”. We had no luck with bingo. We also had no luck with “Ham & Bacon”.
How does “Ham & Bacon” work? There is a wheel of fortune marked with all sorts of numbers. You buy a paddle or two for two spins. Each paddle has at least one number on it. All of the booths had different prices. For pork products (and cheese), two paddles for two spins were $1, but for the cake booth, you could get six paddles for two spins for $5.
Finally, the food was awesome. The BBQ was tasty and the carnitas burritos were so juicy. Sorry no pictures of that, my camera batteries died. We had to take these cake pictures when we got home.
