Paper and Glue.

I can not stop playing this album, and in particular this song. MP is so very patient……this is one of the songs that I sing my heart out to over… and over. The lyrics are outstanding, and the minor chords- well, those are my favorite. Emma Pollock is from Glasgow, Scotland and this is her first solo album.

Along with this album, which is so catchy and melodic the songs will stick in your mind and drive you crazy, in a good way. The Bird and the Bee are from Los Angeles.

I’m thinking of trying out an adult kimono, white voile or linen. It may be a loose top or it may be a robe. Not sure yet.

Sunny and Bright.

Natural Osnaburg on one side, reversible to Amy Butler’s Lotus on the other. I love the Amy Butler print….a beautiful ochre with 2 shades of gray (a warm and a cool) and bright baby blue accents. The binding is a cool gray poplin, handmade.

Slippers, not Booties.

When the kids morph from crawlers to walkers, Jules usually stops with the hand knit booties I send her way. This is a bummer for me because I love to knit booties (which are more or less a classic Debbie Bliss bootie that I’ve long ago memorized and modified). Socks, not so much. But booties I love. I tend to use wool, and that stuff is slippery on hardwood floors so I understand that it’s a safety thing. When Fin was little, I tried painting the bottom of the foot with “puffy paint” to make them non-slip, but it didn’t work. Well- I was at my LYS the other day picking up some new cotton for a new baby, and saw these Regia Sock Stoppers. You iron them on the bottom of the sole (the instructions are in German, so don’t quote me on that), and they’re available in 5 primary colors. This little bear paw print is the only pattern available (which I find a bit odd, but ok- it’s cute).

I am going to test them on some new slippers for my niece (she’s too big for booties) – so I asked my sister to give me Floria’s (who is 2 years old) instep measurement and she emailed back “well, she was moving around a lot, I think it was 7″. Apparently my baby niece is a Sasquatch, since I am a grown woman and my instep is 6″. I decided to forgo her dimensions and instead I went to a children’s shoe store for sizing and made up my pattern from there. So, if they don’t fit, I curse you Jules!

Disastrous Proportions.

Remember this pattern? How excited I was……thinking it would be a quick sew and I’d kick off summer with a couple of new dresses?

Let’s start with the good….

• Love the fabric
• It’s a very easy, fast pattern that can be made in half a day.
• I fine-tuned the self-lining bodice.

And the bad….

• According to the instructions, I’m a size 12 (ow!).
• My vanity forced me into making a size 10.
• The size 10 is huge. Not just ‘kind of big’. GI-normous.

Perhaps tomorrow if MP can ply me with enough Bellinis, I will take a picture. Because it is a laugh riot.

To summarize: If you are thinking of making this pattern, I would advise going down a few sizes from the pattern instructions. For reference I am a size 0/2 at the Gap and in hindsight I would make the size 6 (my usual pattern size), not the 10.

As for me, I’m going to rent Lars and the Real Girl and start some new baby knitting. The sewing is all cleaned up and put away for the time being.

Screech Owl Design.

I ordered a few sets of these cards a couple of months ago from Screech Owl Designs. They have come in so handy for sending along notes with packages, but I also plan on framing three of them and putting them in a wall collage.

Scarlet Tanager.

Tuesday is birdwatching. A group of enthusiasts from my association head to Mt. Auburn Cemetery at 5:30 to catch the mating patterns and songs of some little birds. The cemetery is a stunning, absolutely surreal garden cemetery, designed 25 years before Olmsted began his career. It’s hard to focus on the birds when surrounded by such beauty.

But, we did and I saw some elusive beauties:

Eastern Phoebe.

Yellow Rumped Warbler.

Baltimore Oriole.

And the ultimate highlight, the Scarlet Tanger. I didn’t get a photo of the scarlet tanager because I was too caught up in the excitement.

I’m getting a little bit better about spotting the birds as quickly as everyone else (they are speedy), and slowly familiarizing myself with the songs. At one point our guide, while walking along the trail, stuck his arm up in the air suddenly and took off running. Before I knew what was happening, the older woman next to me was hissing at me “Scarlet Tanager. Scarlet! Tanager!” I was mightily impressed.

Spambot Hack.

Do not click on any email you receive from my afinlarc at yahoo account with no subject line. If the subject reads:

Re:

Delete it or spam it. Certainly do not click on it or the content of the message. I had the highest security setting available on Yahoo, and yet my address book is gone. STOLEN. Therefore I can not email my contacts to tell them not to click on it. It is a fake eBay email from a China wholesaler. Please mark it as SPAM and do not click anywhere on the message.

I am so, so sorry. I have no idea how this happened. I’m furious beyond anything I can explain coherently, this sucks.

Summer Soundtrack.

I love music….. It’s a way for me to bond with people and get to know them in a way that is very telling, very full of meaning. I am passionate about some musicians and every piece of music they’ve made. Others are just for fun or maybe my own little one-hit wonder. Still others, I may like them on the radio or respect their music, but not enough to own it as part of my collection. My husband has been known to stare at me, sullen and speechless, when I hit ‘replay’ on the same CD for the 47th time and say “this is my favorite song”, so I can appreciate anyone else with an intensely personal love of music, even if it’s not music I like.

Julie and I used to spend weekends making mix tapes at our Dad’s house, we’d sit around looking at all of his albums, and eventually his Cd’s. So, I love it when Julie hasn’t heard of a new band…. I make her a mix CD and when she calls to tell me which songs are her favorites, I feel like we’ve had a lengthy conversation with just a few spoken words.

Here is the new mix CD I made for her, available as an iMix if you’re on iTunes. (EDIT: if you click on the iMix link, you will get a scary error message asking if you want to ‘launch software’ because it could be trying to expose a weakness in your system. Click LAUNCH SOFTWARE and your browser will open iTunes and then the iMix should pop up).
Otherwise, here is the insert:

Additional Edit: Here is the Amazon Listmania List for the music.