A day in the life

I took the day off to go observe a photo shoot for the magazine today. The next issue includes their annual wedding guide, and we shot on location at the Memorial Union on campus. There was cake and flowers and a “bride” and “groom” and crazy photo lighting, and it was all very interesting both from a graphic designer’s perspective and from a photographer’s perspective. The photographer was super cool, and we all got yelled at once for no good reason, and even though I’m all windblown and have sore feet from walking there in the blustery rainy weather, I’m so glad I spent my day doing it. I wish I’d taken my camera with me to photograph some of the behind the scenes, but at the same time, didn’t much want to take it out in the rain.

I thought I was going to also have the time to sew the handles on a couple of things so that I can finally show you, and work on the layout for a brochure for the Food & Wine event, but instead I’m sitting here with my feet up in the quiet for just a little bit, and then heading out again to grab a drink with a friend after her class. Hm, to walk or to drive, that is the question?

Looking back, backwards

We made butter from scratch.

I packed a package that’s headed far away, but lost an address.

I read 108 pages of The Time Traveller’s Wife under a blanket in the quiet of the morning.

Nate made corned beef hash for breakfast.

It snowed.

I started another pair of loungepants, and forgot the interfacing on the buttonholes.

I made our favorite baked macaroni and cheese.

This whole premise is sweaty

Spooky, scary…

When I mentioned that “synergy” is my Most Loathed Word Of 2008 and Molly said that it makes her laugh hysterically every time Alec Baldwin says it on 30Rock, I realized that I should probably be watching that show. I have this weird aversion to Alec Baldwin which prevented me from wanting to watch it initially, even when it was winning awards and everyone said it was hilarious. The only thing I could stand him in was Beetlejuice, and everything that came after just seemed like Alec Baldwin playing himself rather than actually acting. But synergy drew me in. So we’ve been catching up from the beginning for the past few weeks, thanks to Netflix. And now Werewolf Bar Mitzvah is in my head. And I don’t mind Alec Baldwin as much.

Also, I got the polaroid out after a long hibernation. And I’m thinking about maybe a week long polaroid a day project.

My new favorite pants

When I was a young college student, I had a couple of pairs of thrifted scrubs, that I wish I could find now. I’m sure they got Goodwilled in the midst of some move of mine in the past decade, but I sure did love those pants for lounging. Except, they never quite fit just right, you know? Sure, they had the drawstring, and they were loose and baggy, but somehow not loose and baggy enough in the right areas, and too loose and baggy in the wrong areas.

I know it’s been said before by others, but I’m pretty sure I’m the last person in blogland to get around to making the Amy Butler loungepants from In Stitches. I’ve seen these cuties everywhere, and been drooling over them forever it seems (omg, how great are these?!). You see, I have a special place in my heart for jammie pants, as well as a love for anything of the wide leg or bell bottom variety, and these are both. And they are better than those old scrubs, because they fit through the hip, and drape just right through that wide leggyness. And because I made them. I…! I have made pants!

I was told I would love them, and I so totally do. I just can’t believe it took me so long to scrape up the motivation to get a library card and put In Stitches on reserve. I am lame that way.

I made this pair from a vintage sheet that I got from Beki awhile ago. Which I still haven’t returned the favor for, in fact. Thanks Beki! I love them so much that I feel compelled to cut out another pair this week from another one. I see in my future much scouring of thrift stores and garage sales for more vintage sheets to make even more pairs of these. And maybe some flannel ones come next fall. Would it be weird to have more pairs of loungepants than regular pants?

Change of place

We are lucky enough to live within walking distance of the UW Arboretum, a 1260 acre tract of land that is habitat to birds, plants and animals that you wouldn’t think would live in a city. One of our favorite jogging routes follows the road through the arboretum, but until last week we had never explored much more than that. As always happens at the very end of winter, I was feeling restless, and really needed a change of scenery, so we took a late afternoon walk and found some new favorite places.

There’s a narrow boardwalk that loops into the woods and eventually past a marsh where there were geese clucking to each other on the still frozen water, cranes echoing their call from afar, and cattails upon cattails. The ice was melting and settling and making sounds like a cooler full of ice cubes at the end of a day of tailgating. Redwinged blackbirds were swooping everywhere and chatting with each other, and more geese were setting in for a landing. It was quiet, and the light was gorgeous, and it was definitely a good change of surroundings from my yard and four walls of house that I feel like I’ve exclusively occupied for the past few months. It was just what I needed.

Also, I did a ton of sewing this past weekend that I’m looking forward to showing you this week!

Eighty One

Nine times nine. Nine squared. This started out as six times six, because two inches times 6 is 12 inches, right? But then I finally realized that that when sewn that would only yield a block of about 9 inches since, duh, seam allowances. And I was shooting for a 12 inch block, so I started to do math with more authority. That was when I discovered that there is a very big difference between 36 tiny squares and 81 tiny squares. More than double the difference.

BUT IT IS SO WORTH IT.

This is the first of a handful of blocks that I plan to make for my Pops Of Color quilt for the twelve square virtual quilting bee, because I want to make this into a bed sized quilt, so I think I’m going to need more than 12 finished blocks. They’re all going to be different, to blend with the diversity of the blocks to come from the bee ladies.

I was going to wait to start making my own blocks, to avoid influencing the other quilters, but I couldn’t stop myself with this one. And I guess I could wait to share it, but when you’ve pieced together 81 tiny squares it kind of makes you want to show it to someone, you know?

I was inspired by this block of Alicia’s, and I was driven purely by the motivation to see if I could logistically build something like this, knowing full well how difficult it would be. Although it has a couple of wonky corners that don’t quite match up due to shifting of the folded backs/inattention while sewing them together, I think it turned out pretty well, and I’m proud of myself for doing a halfway decent job of it. Most of those corners look good, and that’s a good experience for me.

This was my first employment of chain piecing, and it helped immensely. It went alot faster than I expected it to. I can’t even imagine snipping thread from 144 (I think?) separate thread ends. It was also the first time I’ve ever worked with any kind of pleating, and I totally winged that part. I cut out all of the 2 inch squares and arranged them to get a feel for how they would be laid out. Then I ironed the pleats into a longer piece of gray fabric, and chose a spot for it in the layout. I machine stay stitched the edges of the pleats with a thinner seam allowance to try to avoid too much movement when I sewed it together with the adjoining squares. This helped a little, but it still turned out a bit crooked.

I think knowing that I’m not responsible for making EVERY block in this quilt gives me some freedom to be a little crazy. I’m quite smitten with this block too, which is even more complicated…

I am really excited over the squares that some of my quilty ladies have already finished, like, REALLY excited. You can see them here. The bits of texture and pops of color are awesome so far!

Some People

Some People are so good at posting on flickr or their blog something that is so totally appropriate for whatever holiday it happens to be. I am not one of those people. I came across a photo in my contacts of a clover, and thought, St. Patrick’s Day! Of Course! I could never have the forethought to do something like that, find a clover and shoot it. Heck, I don’t even remember to wear green when I get dressed on St. Patrick’s Day, even though it’s one of my favorite holidays.

However, Irish luck was on my side this week, perhaps? Because I have these photos of green yarn on my camera, and I was totally intending to post about it this week sometime. Appropos.

This post is writing itself, I’m telling you. I don’t know how it’s happening with the luck and the green and the oh good lord I should just go drink my Guinness.

So, last week I went to knit with a group of ladies that meets at one of the local bars. I’ve only recently gotten up the courage, not to mention, found the time, to engage with a knitting group or two, and I do quite enjoy beer. Not only was it a fun time, but I came home a skein heavier. Rhonda, who dyes, was looking for some knitters to swatch some of her hand painted sock yarn. Of course I volunteered. It’s gorgeous yarn, and once I’m done I’ll have a good reason to start my first pair of socks. St. Patricky socks, maybe. I’ve been meaning to put socks on my to-knit list for awhile now.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

An Essay: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I’ve been needing a vacation, very badly. So badly, in fact, that although I have not changed locales for any length of time recently, nor taken any time off of work, evidently I took a photography processing vacation. I kept taking self portraits every day, but everything else that I shot fell flat in my eyes, and I couldn’t bring myself to process a single image for a week. Or so.

They sat.

But in some early morning quiet time this weekend I got some spark back, came back from vacation, and processed a whole bunch of photos. Mostly selfies, but there were a few others intermingled that I really didn’t even recall taking. So this is what I did on my not-so-much-a-vacation-as-I-would-have-liked.

We made flourless chocolate cake, which is seriously one of my favorite things. Use good chocolate. We used Ghirardelli.

It rained for a whole weekend. A weekend that I was really looking forward to taking walks outside and stuff, a weekend when my mom came to visit, and it just. Kept. Raining.

But it was a little bit nice, because as I was working on cooking a slow braised pork ragu to go over handmade pasta that turned out frigging delicious, I opened the kitchen window to let out a little of the heat, to hear the pitter patter of raindrops outside.

Impulse purchase. On a trip to Trader Joe’s I saw a bunch of barely opened daffodils that I couldn’t resist. There were buckets of them, and when it’s early March and you’re just pining away for it to just finally be spring and the daffodils are still weeks away from actually flowering outside its pretty near impossible to look at a bunch of that pale green and yellow and leave them there.

I’m developing a thing for faux mustaches.

I think I was channeling Rachel when I took this. It just feels like her to me. She shoots film, and I am so inspired by that. I have come to the conclusion that alot of my work through photography is essentially trying to find the essence of film through digital. I know lots of people do this, and that I’m not alone, but I think my style and purpose has become more cohesive. I would love, of course, to shoot film, I have a list of cameras that I want to add to my collection, but at the same time, I don’t want to spend the money involved. So, I stick with digital, for the moment.

Dawn sent me a boxfull of sweetgum pods. I love pods. And these are such a funky shape, aren’t they? I totally forgot they were coming so opening the box was a fun surprise. Nate calls them “spores” as a joke, which I think is funny. Obviously they aren’t spores, but they do sort of look like they could be alien lifeform capsules or something. I’ll be doing more photo shoots with these babies. Thank you, Dawn!

And that’s what I did on my not-so-much-a-vacation.

Ed’s Impact On My Reading List

In this Economic Downturn, which I think I will furthermore refer to as “Ed,” we, along with so many others, are cutting back. So yesterday I went to the library, which is 5 blocks from my house, and got myself a library card. I love books, especially in the summer, laying on the porch with some tasty beverage, or on a picnic blanket padded with fluffy grass beneath a shady tree. That second one doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should, I just realized, and I plan to put it to action as often as possible this summer.

I equally love owning books. I tend to reread some special favorites, and I like the growing library of art and design books and classic and contemporary fiction that I am slowly collecting. I love the feel of a new book, and the knowledge that the dogears and smudges come from my journey with it. As a graphic designer, I appreciate the design of a good cover, and the printed page, the smell of the ink on paper, albeit not as ecologically sound as I tend to be for most things, is something that I love.

But buying books is just cost prohibitive right now, unfortunately. So I’m borrowing. It’s been years, if not over a decade, since I’ve had a public library card. And not that it was ever all that difficult to go to the library and check something out, but it’s gotten even easier, which makes me excited. I have already started a Netflix-esque list of books on hold from around the public library system. And I hear it’s a treasure trove of all the super expensive graphic design books that I’d love to buy but wouldn’t want to spend the money on even in a good economy. I don’t mind at all the dogears of others, either. That just means other people are on that journey too.

Spooked

I had my first experience talking with Applecare on the phone this weekend, my first taste of what it could be like if my beloved Macbook Pro were to fall ill. I think **knock on wood** that maybe the problem is fixed. I’m hoping so. And I don’t think it was life threatening. But still. It spooked me. Most everything really important is backed up, but quite alot of photography is not. Not to mention that it’s a heavily used tool career-wise. He’s not that old yet, and I just hope that our relationship is strong for a long time to come.