Welcome to my blog! This is a sketch book of things I'm drawing, photographing, writing, or just thinking about when I'm not busy designing fabric.
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www.inthebeginningfabrics.com
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One. Meryl Streep is just so good. I can barely remember seeing Julia Child on TV when I was a child, so I’ve never formed any idea of what she was like as a person. Meryl Streep plays her as a woman of such verve and joy…she’s impossible to resist. You get a sense of Julia Child’s irrepressible spirit, and then there’s the scene with Julia and her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci), where she receives a letter from her sister…and in that one brief scene there’s a hint of her great depth. Stanley Tucci…also terrific. I loved this movie.
Two. It was sort of coincidental that I’d been looking through my UFOs a couple of days ago, and came across three knit swatches.
I made these two years ago, I think, and I made them because I wanted to try knitting cables, but didn’t really want to commit to a cabled sweater or anything major. So, I bought this book, “Vogue Knitting Stitchionary 2,” which is a stitch dictionary of nothing but cable stitches.
Looking through it again the other day, I thought that THIS is the book I’d spend a year with, if I were doing a “Julie & Julia” type of project. It’s a beautiful, inspiring book, and it is a little bit tempting to say, “365 days, 202 cable swatches, one overextended knitter.” But…I’m not going to say that! (And hey! The Julie/Julia Project blog is still up at salon.com. It’s here.)
Three. So, one more thing occurred to me, and that was to wonder if Meryl Streep and Alan Rickman had ever worked together. Nothing turned up in my google search. I was thinking how I’d go to see any movie with both of them in it, and then I thought that what I really wanted to see was a movie with Meryl Streep (as Julia Child) and Alan Rickman (as Severus Snape). Julia Child has Mastered the Art of French Cooking, and Severus Snape is the Potions Master. In the movie, they’re both trying to cure something…something rare…and photogenic…hmm…a deathly ill panda, maybe…by unconventional means. Julia Child uses her culinary skills. Professor Snape his magical skills. The panda languishes for 90 minutes while Julia Child and Professor Snape (trying all of their best recipes/potions on the panda) go from a relationship of mutual suspicion and distrust (easier to imagine on Snape’s part than Julia’s) to one of professional respect. In the last scene, the panda (after a heart-breakingly close brush with death) is finally restored to health. In this triumphant moment, Snape says something snarky. Julia says, “Severus,” in mock reproof, in that great voice of hers, with a twinkle in her eyes. Snape cracks a tiny smile. THE END. The audience (me, at least) swoons in happiness.
I know I just did a whole post about this felted cat, but here she is again. Phoebe. She has a name now, and a new home (at my workplace) where the nice women have given her a pretty name and haven’t tried to claw her eyes out.
Unfortunately, there are pictures of her enemy, Emma, all around.
Phoebe has gotten me thinking about felting in new (to me) ways. The felted clutches were my first attempts at felting, so I’d only thought of felting in terms of: you knit an object, like a purse, and then you felt it, and it becomes smaller and denser, but it’s still a purse.
But, cutting up the clutches to make Phoebe got me thinking that a piece of felted knitting is really just a piece of fabric. You can cut it up and manipulate it in all sorts of ways. And maybe working with felted-knitting-as-fabric would be really interesting. And so…
Here’s my stash of feltable wool yarn…I’m going to knit it up and turn it into fabric!
(Here’s a link to good felting instructions at about.com.)
Wednesdays Are UFO Days
The felted cat is finally done. She looks apprehensive…and I blame Emma for that. I had put two wool-felt eyes — one oval, one round — on the felted cat’s face. They were held in place by their own feltiness, no pins or anything.
Emma was sitting on my table, looking at the cat and, as I was trying to decide which eye shape I liked best, Emma reached over and swiped the oval-shaped eye right off the cat’s face.
I thought: no need to be so dramatic! But, basically, I agreed with Emma’s choice and we went with the round eyes. And now the felted cat looks perpetually scared.
To recap. I started with this…
And ended up with this…
That means that next week I can feature a new UFO. It’s a scary one. My expression is probably just like the felted cat’s.
Tom and I were out walking a month or so ago, when I saw a dog in someone’s yard. Then I did a double-take and said, “Hey, look! That’s not a dog. It’s a goat!”
Tom said, “I don’t think that’s a goat. I think it’s a sheep.”
(Also, there were two of them. One stayed mostly hidden in the shrubbery.)
I’m embarrassed to admit that judging strictly visually, I have no idea whether this is a goat or a sheep. But…how could I judge, if not visually? By the law, that’s how. I got over the lethargy that prevented me, last week, from looking up “dog days of summer” and, last night, I googled two things.
“Keeping goats in Seattle” … is … legal! If they’re miniature goats.
“Keeping sheep in Seattle” … is … illegal! Unless you have a lot-size of at least 20,000 square feet.
Therefore, the animal in my photo, on a lot-size much smaller than 20,000 square feet, must be a goat. A miniature goat.
Case closed!
Wednesdays Are UFO Days
Emma, who is my Personal Assistant, doesn’t quite get the distinction between an Unfinished Object and a Destroyed Object. That thing up there had been a completely finished pom-pom.
Here is Emma, looking dismayed about the misunderstanding.
Emma has also been helping me with the Felted Cat. Soon, it will be either finished, or finished off, depending on which one of us prevails.
Every time I see photoshopped tape in a magazine or book layout, I think: what a cheesy gimmick. But does that stop me from photoshopping my own piece of tape? Not at all!
In fact, I’ve made more than one piece of tape because if there’s anything I object to more than a cheesy gimmick, it’s someone being lazy about their cheesy gimmick…like using the same, exact photoshopped piece of tape 15 times in one magazine article. If you’re going to use it that many times, I think you need at least five different pieces of tape.
Why do I need tape anyway? I decided that I should retire my cheesy photoshopped pin because I’m trying to make this site look more like a sketchbook, and who pins things in a sketchbook? Tape. That’s what I need.
Here’s how the tape looks in action. (Note that I’m using a photo of Toby ONLY for the purpose of demonstrating tape. This is not a cat blog.)
There. That should hold it.
P.S. Picture of Toby was taken this morning, specifically for “b,” who expressed some concern for Toby in the comments. Emma, while a Grade A Pest, has not yet ruined Toby’s ability to enjoy his catnip fish.
The temptation is really strong to just post pictures of Emma all the time. But that would make this a cat blog, and I’ve heard such derogatory things about cat blogs. I’ve already had to rein myself in after posting (perhaps) too many pictures of Toby.
Anyway. Here we are at the dog days of summer. I think. Maybe I’m wrong. The dog days have something to do with the Dog Star Sirius. Or not. Here’s the thing: I know all the answers to any questions I might have about the dog days of summer are only a google search away, and I also know (or think I know) that dog days are associated with a sense of lethargy.
So it is only fitting that I’m feeling lethargic about googling “dog days of summer.” They may or may not be about:
And I’m fine with that.
Would a picture of Emma have been better after all?
Wednesdays are UFO Days
Here’s the latest progress on the felted cat, who started life as a series of felted clutches. You can see the last of the felted clutches there at her side. Its days are numbered though. I’m going to use it as an accent color…maybe on her paws? Her arms are made of one felted clutch, cut in half and then rolled up. Same with her legs. Her head is another felted clutch, stuffed, with ears made by stitching across (what had been) the bottom corners of the clutch. Her body is another clutch, stuffed, and with darts formed at the shoulders to make them narrower.
All the body parts have been sewn together, and now I’m moving on to the clothes. The skirt is a clutch, with the bottom cut open. The vest is another clutch, with the bottom cut open, then cut right up the center, and two armholes cut at the sides. All very simple so far.
Still to Come
She needs facial features. Her clothes need to be gussied up. Perhaps there will be embellishments. This is my favorite kind of project…where I’m just winging it. There’s no picture on a pattern that I’m hoping to match. No right way, no wrong way. Lots of experimentation. No clear destination…
(A little out of focus.)
So the kitten adoption didn’t quite go as I’d planned. Instead of an 8-to-12-week-old boy kitten, which is what I thought I wanted, we came home with a 1-year-old girl. Emma has had a rough few months. She gave birth (kittens having kittens: so wrong), her family gave her up, she was spayed at PAWS, then caught an upper respiratory tract infection, then went into foster care so she could recuperate, then was transferred to PAWS Cat City. She’d just settled in at this latest – in a string of too many – new place when this woman (me) walked in, looking for a kitten.
I’d decided to take in the Cat Adopter Survey (Meet Your Match) paperwork on Friday evening on my way home from work, maybe meet a few kittens, then Tom and I could go in together on Saturday and adopt one. Right away a particular gray-and-white kitten caught my eye. It was a girl, not a boy, and she looked like Simon. Looking at her just made me feel sad, but I was pretty sure that she was the one. Because…she looked like Simon.
I filled out some additional paperwork and, when that was done, the kitten room was full-to-capacity with human visitors. I’d talked to the PAWS volunteer about Toby, and the importance of a new cat getting along with him. That’s why I wanted a kitten. Someone who wouldn’t challenge his position as top cat. The volunteer understood and didn’t try to talk me out of it. She did say that introducing another adult cat into the household will often work out. Depending on the personalities involved. So, as I waited for my turn in the kitten room, I said…maybe a young adult would be OK? Do you have any young adults? Two, as it turned out. One was a 1-1/2 year old boy. The other was Emma.
I looked at her and felt happy. She looks nothing like any of our other cats. She’s got her own personality, her own story. She doesn’t have to fill the hole left by our irreplaceable Simon. I visited with her for about half-an-hour. She was friendly, affectionate, playful. She curled up in my lap. PAWS agreed to hold her for us so that Tom could come visit her. Tom thought she was great.
So, here we are. We’re hopeful that Toby and Emma will become great friends. Toby has an easy-going temperament, and Emma seems to as well, so I think chances are good. We’re not rushing anything.
One last thing: Tom and I thought we’d seen about everything in cat behavior in our twenty-plus years of living with cats. But at about 4:30 a.m. we woke up to that cat-scrambling-and-crashing sound that can mean just about anything. But this time it meant that Emma had leaped from the foot of our bed up to the top of our bedroom door, where she balanced precariously, looking down at us. What made her think that something 1-1/2″ wide was a good landing spot? We thought: that’s new. In that one move, she also proved she had an impeccable sense of timing, because as all cats know, these sorts of things should be done when the people are asleep. And it’s even better when you can watch their astonishment when they wake up and see what you’ve accomplished.
Oh, and one more last thing. As Tom and I were adopting Emma yesterday, a family with two little girls were in the kitten adoption room. One of the girls was holding the Simon look-alike, folding her arms to hold the kitten close against her chest. Both girl and kitten had their eyes closed, breathing each other in. Love.
