Saturday, August 16, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
twentyfive: the weasley blanket
i have been trying to force myself to like this afghan. it is not my typical aesthetic, but i have found a way to like it. i decided that it would be a perfect fit with the weasley family - you know from the harry potter books. i am now embracing the left-over, patched look of the quilt, and am more forgiving of its ugliness. i know this sounds silly, but when i work on it i imagine mrs.weasley sitting in the the burrow, crocheting and talking to harry potter. now that there are no more upcoming harry potter books and the movie has been postponed, this is helping me to keep my harry potter fantasies alive.
i love mario kart and the earlier mario brothers games, so when i found a website dedicated to nintendo themed crafts i had to try to do something myself. i decided to make my brother, who is an avid gamer, a mario brothers pillow. i never expected my brother to like it very much, but seems to enjoy showing it to people and is even taking it back to college with him.
i love mario kart and the earlier mario brothers games, so when i found a website dedicated to nintendo themed crafts i had to try to do something myself. i decided to make my brother, who is an avid gamer, a mario brothers pillow. i never expected my brother to like it very much, but seems to enjoy showing it to people and is even taking it back to college with him.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
twentyfour: big news!
i am no longer unemployed! yess! after my long and fruitless search i have finally manage to snag a job and it happens to be a fairly good one. i am not exactly sure what i will be doing, but who cares! i have a little under two weeks before i start work, so i am taking advantage of my free time before i start my life of drudgery.
i haven't been doing much crafting lately, instead i have been reading. i blame jhair for my new obsession with the twilight series . the best way i can describe it is that it's a teen-vampire-romance (it's a lot better than it sounds). i have read the first two books and am now waiting for amazon to send me the last two books. i am not really sure what to do with myself while i wait, i am constantly thinking about what will happen in the next two novels and what did happen in the first two. i suppose it is healthier for me to take a break from this vampire saga, but i am finding it almost painful!
in-between reading and crafting i am trying to become a more rounded, more intellectual person. in order to achieve the lofty goal of improving myself i have been trying to perfect my crossword skills and i have been reading more poetry. i am not really sure if a knowledge of poetry and crossword solutions makes one more rounded or intellectual but it seems to make sense to me. i usually only read works by e.e. cummings, but i am learning to appreciate a larger spectrum of poets. one of my new favorite poems is the love song by j. alfred prufrock by t.s. eliot. i am not sure i totally understand it, but that kind of makes me enjoy it more. it is quite long, but i think it is worth a read.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
-T.S. Eliot
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
i haven't been doing much crafting lately, instead i have been reading. i blame jhair for my new obsession with the twilight series . the best way i can describe it is that it's a teen-vampire-romance (it's a lot better than it sounds). i have read the first two books and am now waiting for amazon to send me the last two books. i am not really sure what to do with myself while i wait, i am constantly thinking about what will happen in the next two novels and what did happen in the first two. i suppose it is healthier for me to take a break from this vampire saga, but i am finding it almost painful!
in-between reading and crafting i am trying to become a more rounded, more intellectual person. in order to achieve the lofty goal of improving myself i have been trying to perfect my crossword skills and i have been reading more poetry. i am not really sure if a knowledge of poetry and crossword solutions makes one more rounded or intellectual but it seems to make sense to me. i usually only read works by e.e. cummings, but i am learning to appreciate a larger spectrum of poets. one of my new favorite poems is the love song by j. alfred prufrock by t.s. eliot. i am not sure i totally understand it, but that kind of makes me enjoy it more. it is quite long, but i think it is worth a read.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
-T.S. Eliot
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
twentythree: earrings
my hands are sore. i have been making earrings all day and could have made more if i could still grip a pair of pliers. despite the fact i have been working most of the day, i only made 7 pairs of earrings. i ran out 'normal' earring hooks, so i used some over-sized ones i bought a while back. the over-sized hooks look a bit weird, but i think it makes them more funky.
job update: i got a call this morning from a company i submitted a resume to several months ago. so, before my interview i will have to search the internet in hopes that i can find a job description for the position. i really don't understand what takes people so long to start interviewing job candidates.
job update: i got a call this morning from a company i submitted a resume to several months ago. so, before my interview i will have to search the internet in hopes that i can find a job description for the position. i really don't understand what takes people so long to start interviewing job candidates.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
twentytwo: pearls!
i have been working on making more sophisticated jewelry lately. these are my first two classier pieces. i think my favorite of the two is the one made with the funny-shaped pearls (i am not sure what their proper name is). i tried to make the necklace very simple, in order to feature the shapes of the pearls more.
i made this other necklace with a piece of paua shell that a friend from new zealand gave me a few years ago. my mom bought the grey pearls in Tennessee for me a few years ago.
i am going to make miriam's sister a pair of earrings as a wedding present, so i have been trying to look at earrings in magazines, on tv, etc. miriam's sister has just spent the past few years in new york, so i feel like the earrings have to be new york funky. i think i am going to make a few different kinds and then give farrah (miriam's sister) or miriam the task of choosing which pair is best.
job update: starting another temp job on thursday and am having awkward informational phone conversations with people i don't know.
i made this other necklace with a piece of paua shell that a friend from new zealand gave me a few years ago. my mom bought the grey pearls in Tennessee for me a few years ago.
i am going to make miriam's sister a pair of earrings as a wedding present, so i have been trying to look at earrings in magazines, on tv, etc. miriam's sister has just spent the past few years in new york, so i feel like the earrings have to be new york funky. i think i am going to make a few different kinds and then give farrah (miriam's sister) or miriam the task of choosing which pair is best.job update: starting another temp job on thursday and am having awkward informational phone conversations with people i don't know.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
twentyone: a whole lot of nothing
so, unfortunately i have not been keeping up with my blogging or my crafting. i just finished my second temp job yesterday and am hoping that i will have a few days to catch up with my crafting before the next job comes along.
i heard a really interesting story this morning on npr. it was a review on a jewelry exhibit by the artist alexander calder. he made a lot of different wire jewelry without soldering and using different 'every-day' objects (telephone wire, for example). i really like the look of a lot of the pieces he made and the fact that he used relatively inexpensive materials (like the wire that wire hangers are made from). exhibit is in phili until november, so i think i might take a trip up there before it ends. i think i might try bending some old wire hangers i have laying around, but i am not sure i have enough talent/strength to make anything remotely similar to what he did.
i am in the middle of sewing some of my granny squares together for my afghan, i will take some pictures of my progress for my next post.
i heard a really interesting story this morning on npr. it was a review on a jewelry exhibit by the artist alexander calder. he made a lot of different wire jewelry without soldering and using different 'every-day' objects (telephone wire, for example). i really like the look of a lot of the pieces he made and the fact that he used relatively inexpensive materials (like the wire that wire hangers are made from). exhibit is in phili until november, so i think i might take a trip up there before it ends. i think i might try bending some old wire hangers i have laying around, but i am not sure i have enough talent/strength to make anything remotely similar to what he did.
i am in the middle of sewing some of my granny squares together for my afghan, i will take some pictures of my progress for my next post.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
twenty:
i have a confession to make, i am obsessed with the wii game link's crossbow training. all i think about is hitting targets and how many points i can get. i have never been addicted to a game like this before, so i am not sure how to go about overcoming my urge to forgo all human contact in favor of a video game. i blame this all on my brother, who had to inflict this horrible (but so wonderful) game on me for the summer. i have the high score for all but two levels, so it is now my mission in life to beat my brother's scores on each level. i think he finds it amusing that of all the games to become addicted to, i chose the simplest and dorkiest of his collection. i am hoping that once i have beaten his high scores i will be able to kick my game-playing habit.
during my forced breaks from target practice i have made a few pieces of jewelry, but have not been as inspired to create as i am to play. i am, however, quite impressed with my recent projects. i made some jewelry to match a dress that i am wearing to miriam's sister's wedding. i used some beads from an old necklace that belonged to my grandma and some pearls that my mom bought at a bead shop in tennessee.
i have a feeling that these earrings might be a little bit heavy on my poor ears, so i think i will only use one loop.
here are a few other necklaces that i made with no particular event or purpose in mind:
job update: after a week and a half without work i am going to start another temping job tomorrow. fortunately, this one has an end date, so if it is not my cup of tea, i won't have to awkwardly refuse to work there any longer.
musicness: i have recently become a fan of the band travis, i cannot get enough of the songs sing or driftwood.
during my forced breaks from target practice i have made a few pieces of jewelry, but have not been as inspired to create as i am to play. i am, however, quite impressed with my recent projects. i made some jewelry to match a dress that i am wearing to miriam's sister's wedding. i used some beads from an old necklace that belonged to my grandma and some pearls that my mom bought at a bead shop in tennessee.
i have a feeling that these earrings might be a little bit heavy on my poor ears, so i think i will only use one loop.
here are a few other necklaces that i made with no particular event or purpose in mind:
job update: after a week and a half without work i am going to start another temping job tomorrow. fortunately, this one has an end date, so if it is not my cup of tea, i won't have to awkwardly refuse to work there any longer.musicness: i have recently become a fan of the band travis, i cannot get enough of the songs sing or driftwood.
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