katiesbooks.org

Hi!! How are you?? I haven’t seen you in so long, oh my God! I know, I know, I’ve been awful. It’s so good to see you, though - you look great! Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Reading

• I’m reading the third book in the original Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey. Good stuff, man!
• My latest from LT Early Reviews was Olive Kitteridge - I found it so-so. You can find my review on LT, and I may post a bit more about it here.
• I’ve just begun Jodi Picoult’s Vanishing Acts, and it’s promising to be another pleaser.
• I read Libba Bray’s Rebel Angels over the holiday - and I preferred it to the first in the series

I’m working in general on being nice to myself, and that includes not judging my own reading. I wish I was reading all highbrow literary fiction, heavy-hitting history, poetry both modern and ancient, but nope. I’m reading mysteries and historical fiction and young adult and fantasies. I think I’ll always have at least a little problem with this - but I’m trying!

Crafting

• One of my biggest craft projects recently has been the little gifts I gave out to my co-workers. I made paper bird ornaments with pretty decorative papers and lots of glitter, and attached them to Paper Source pillow boxes filled with a Trader Joe’s nut mix. It was more work than I thought it would be, but also a lot of fun. And the leftover birds went on my tree!
• The log cabin throw has slowed down a lot, but I’m still moving. Hopefully I’ll be on the last round soon.
• I’ve been making a lot of bookmarks, and I’m going to use my Christmas gift certificates to get more papercrafting materials. Hopefully some neat stuff will be posted soon.

Speaking of posting, one of the reasons I’ve been posting so little recently is the photo issue. I’m finding taking/managing/posting photos to be a real pain. I’m going to look around and see if anyone has any good advice about workflows for this…

Oh! And I’m on Ravelry finally - I’m ladypeter there, as I am on LT.

Sometimes I feel like the weirdest mix of the masculine and feminine, and I think that this collision is illustrated in my blog reading, which is split between content that’s aimed specifically at women and other content that’s aimed pretty much at men. I mean, this is what I’ve read today:

Cute Overload
All my knitting sites, including Mason Dixon knitting
All my general craft sites, headlined by the Craft Magazine blog

Then there’s BoingBoing, not totally masculine, but getting there.

And then, what’s this? My new blogroll category, infrastructure! Here’s where I have completely gone over the edge into Boy Country:

Telstar Logistics, the blog about “The Technology of Land, Air, Sea, Space”, etc. I spent a few happy minutes listening to their audio of a pissed-off JFK ground traffic controller trying to figure out who’s supposed to be going where, when. Awesome!

There’s aslo gCaptain (”for mariners, by mariners”), from which I followed a link today to Popular Mechanics. They had an infographic about a container ship captain.

Man, it’s not that I’m a boy, it’s that I’m a complete, 50/50 boy/girl hybrid. Are other people like this? I can think of one friend, I guess, who’s similar (points if you can self-identify, person!). But it seems like an anomaly in our culture. Guess I should just enjoy what I enjoy, but it creates a bit of a cultural disconnect.

This makes me remember a craft project in which I actually brought together these two sides of myself: I made an embroidery based on an architectural drawing by Robert Mallet-Stevens:

Now I want to create more things like this, and bring together male and female!

Reading gained on knitting when I started The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, but knitting hit back hard yesterday. I’d finished my first Sugar N Cream hand towel, and not started another traveling project yet, so I didn’t bring any knitting with me to work. I felt just as naked and vulnerable as if I’d not brought a book with me!

What’s happening to meeee?? Will this end? It feels odd to have more than one passion, but I certainly do. On top of making and reading, I started the new chorus season last week. At least I’ve given myself a pass to not be at all ambitous about singing. I like it, so I’m doing it. I’m one of the slow kids in that class, and that’s alright. Funny note about chorus: a woman in my chorus works at Windsor Button!

In other craft  news, last Friday while M was out at a work party I played with papercrafts stuff. I made a bunch of little cards/bookmarks out of business cards and scraps. They’re kind of like tiny patchwork quilts. I like them! I also made some larger things.

As I said, I finished my first hand towel, put up a hook by the sink, and it’s already saved numerous paper towels! I tried to start the slightly fancier striped towel made with Lion cotton-ease, but I had to give up because the metal needles don’t work at all with cotton that slippery! I could barely work it and was dropping stitches left and right. So that’s on hold until I can get plastic or wood needles in the same size. Instead I wound up one of my new balls of variegated Sugar N Cream. This one will be stickinette with a rib border. Pictures of all the above to come…

And meanwhile, the shawl is coming along well. It is as plain as plain can be, but lofty and warm and not without its charms. I’m hoping to be done soon.

Aaand, I’m almost ready to jump into socks and sweaters. I think I’ll try a Mason Dixon “perfect sweater” in the next month or so…

Diana, Madeleine, and Tex (or Mike, as you prefer) at Greek Corner:

Boston Common and State House on a cloudy summer day:

The new Wagamama in Harvard Square on the preview night we attended:

Niece Ria eyeing her 4th birthday cake:

Ria about to blow out her candles:

As blogged about previously, a really odd T ad for a football walk
for liver wellness, featuring a footbal (character design clearly ripped
from Stewey Griffin) holding a liver. Yes, a football holding a liver.
SO wrong.

Aaand some cratfy pics. My birthday haul (thanks Manish!):

Sewing stars tree in progress:

Tree in "summer":

Embroidery floss stash. I want to use more of this!

I was late to work this morning, and the co-worker who is ususally on the Special Collections desk on Wednesday mornings is out sick (shout-out, Laura!). So I had to eat my nasty nasty donut breakfast “around the corner”, i.e. behind a bookcase that divides the reading room from the preservation lab. So as I was munching my breakfast, I was gazing at the shelf in front of me, which houses outdated and never-used encyclopedias. We’ve got an Americana and a Britanica there, both from the 70s or 80s, I guess. Anyways, I was enjoying reading the almost poetic notations on the spines, where it gives the first and last entries in a volume:

A to ANJOU
ANKARA to AZUSA
B TO BIRLING
BIRMINGHAM to BURLINGTON
BURMA to CATHAY
CATHEDRALS to CIVIL WAR
CIVILIZATION to CORONIUM
COROT to DESDEMONA
DESERT to EGRET
EGYPT to FALSETTO
FALSTAFF to FRANCKE

To my eye, it is beautiful, calming, profound, sometimes funny.

I thought I’d like to make an embroidery the depicts the spines, relatively realistically, either just the area with the titles, volume numbers, and guide, or maybe the entire spine. It would make a piece that was an unusual shape: very long and short. It could either be a pillow that ran the length of a sofa, or a reaaaly long framed piece. Or a valance?

Inspiration! It becomes reality so slowly and so seldom.