Borrowing, II.

Yay for going paperless. These books are due on my baby sister's 18th birthday. That's crazy. So this is what I'm reading. This week, a little BUST contributor lit, a little EZ (need baby gift ASAP), a little Erma, some goofy stuff with great photos to inspire, and I'll read anything Dave Eggers ever put his name on.

Davenport Public Library
Main Street
Check Out Receipt
Customer name: HOLST, ERIN M

Title: Job hopper : the checkered career of a down-market dilettante
ID: 30050054260046
Due: 11/14/2007,23:59

Title: All I know about animal behavior I learned in Loehmann's dressing room
ID: 30050039205249
Due: 11/14/2007,23:59

Title: The best American nonrequired reading, 2002
ID: 30050050453264
Due: 11/14/2007,23:59

Title: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's almanac : projects for each month of the year
ID: 30050039284442
Due: 11/14/2007,23:59

Title: The Salvage Sisters' guide to finding style in the street and inspiration in the attic
ID: 30050054411540
Due: 11/14/2007,23:59

Title: Between friends : craft projects to share
ID: 30050046071790
Due: 11/14/2007,23:59

Total items: 6
10/24/2007 5:14 PM

Thank you for using the
Davenport Public Library

Have a great day!

YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY TOO DAVENPORT PUBLIC LIBRARY THANK YOU.

Chicks With Sticks, hopefully I'll be seeing you fine ladies tomorrow.

Toting.

You're all going to laugh but I need a new bag, and I am thisclose to just ordering a Boat and Tote from LL Bean. Everything at the stores looks the same, everything on etsy looks the same, all the bag patterns look the same. I'm getting aggravated. And the Boat and Totes are indestructable and visually unobtrusive.

Meanwhile, this is a great and tremendously useful site : u-handbag. Maybe she can help me.

Piecing.

The alternate title for this post could be Why I Won't Be Leaving The Fort Until 2008 At The Very Earliest. There are not one, but two interesting pieces of patchwork afoot here, and this photo is of one half of the first. Interesting to see what the prints "do", how they blend and fade and read through the camera lense. Fascinating. Wish me luck, that this hodgepodge will be transformed into two throwy (45"x60"-ishy) quilts for the little sisters by Christmas. Of this year.

Borrowing.

I should rilly just buy Passionate Patchwork before they notice how often I check it out. Also I don't think I am old enough to be reading I Feel Bad About My Neck, but I am going to anyway. I didn't expect my thrifted copy of Erma's If Life Is a Bowl Of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits? to hit me like it did, so you never know. I love that book. I should probably make it my life's work to obtain every edition of said title. I only bought it because the "bowl of cherries" cliche kept popping up in my work (don't you think that cherries are a really loaded symbol? Maybe it's crass, but I do), and it had goofy illustrations I wanted to cut out and paste to some silly thing. But then I read it, and I remember crying on the bus, thinking how weird it was that I was reading this hilarious book and crying on a bus. It's the seed of Desperate Housewives, only no one is gorgeous and people don't get killed all the time.



Davenport Public Library
Main Street
Check Out Receipt
Customer name: HOLST, ERIN M

Title: Created in darkness by troubled Americans : the best of McSweeney's, humor category
ID: 30050054411672
Due: 10/24/2007,23:59

Title: I feel bad about my neck : and other thoughts on being a woman
ID: 30050056722332
Due: 10/24/2007,23:59

Title: Ready made : how to make (almost) everything : a do-it-yourself primer
ID: 30050018309285
Due: 10/24/2007,23:59

Title: Passionate patchwork : over 20 original quilt designs
ID: 30050046016035
Due: 10/24/2007,23:59

Title: The happy hooker : stitch 'n bitch crochet
ID: 30050018315357
Due: 10/24/2007,23:59

Total items: 5
10/3/2007 3:36 PM

Thank you for using the
Davenport Public Library

Have a great day!

Going.

I suck at having a blog. This photo is what our life is like. There's bills and Diet Coke and more fabric and less sewing and Anthropologie catologs (I regret ever signing up for that, they just makes me irrationally angry) and crumpled-up construction paper with MISS ERIN written in shaky crayon letters, everywhere. I mailed Alex's birthday gloves without taking a picture of them, 25 days after her birthday. Nevermind I am a bad blogger, I am an even worse sister. Who am I kidding. This blog is a joke. Oh well. I'm going to a cocktail party now. Call me. See ya later.

Posting.

Tres novel, no? Forgive my (not entirely unusual) lack of blog. This time my excuse is that I left the camera in the glovebox nearly two weeks ago after a W900 show and I can only seem to remember this fact when the car and I are many miles apart.

I am having an EXTREMELY hard time accepting that THIS sensational clock is from WALMART. I WANT it. Resistance is futile. We are a cuckcoo clock lovin' family over here and I can't believe that clock is from Walmart and I need it. This is the first time ever in my entire blog-reading life I have seen something on the extremely inspirational decor8 that I could actually, conceivably have for myself, without guilt or excessive credit card debt.

Anyways, I finished the Birthday Girl's gloves a few days ago, they are blocked and dry and lovely and they need to go into the mail ASAP as her birthday was 3 weeks ago now. I still haven't solved the dilema of how to photo them. So that's good. I finished something

Oh and speaking of finishing. Last week I spent half an hour sitting on the floor trying to trace the crotch of a pair of pajama pants so I could sew up a pair for me out of some fabric that has been waitingpatiently for me for a very long time. Crotchlines. Not Fun. So I said Bump This and went into work at the Fabric Hole the next day and as soon as I clocked out, I went through the book of whatever company was on sale (Butterick at the time), grabbed a jammie pattern for less than 2 bucks, went home and turned them out. I feel like I should have been able to figure the shaping out, but if it took ANY LONGER than it absolutley had to, they were not going to happen. Cursed, stupid crotchline. Wonderful sloppy flannel pj pants though, coffee and donuts print. Best pants ever.

Pulling.

sometimes i'm tempted to forget myself
jump back into the skirmish as a mercenary.
what little time my poor soul may have left
i'd rather that i lived it in sanctuary.
i don't take orders from the war room anymore
this is one recruit who's surrendered.
i don't take orders from the war room anymore
now i am my own defender.


I realized tonight that I've worked at JoAnn in Davenport longer than I worked at JoAnn in Rochester. I really do live here. How geeky that JoAnn is my barometer.

I think I need to go to St. Ambrose University for Early Childhood Development and then everything will be just fine. How could it not be? Ambrose is walking distance from my house. I could be there in less than ten minutes.

Happy Birthdays out to Alex, my sister, who is 21 today, and Sophia, one of my kindergarteners, who is 5.

I'm gonna fall asleep at the keys and I have to work in 8 hours. This is the LiveJournaliest entry ever. BYE.

Reassessing.

I know this is boring by now, but this is seriously how stupid I've gotten.

I got my order of Alexander Henry prints (tattoo, city girl, beauty bar, kissable color, & tsukiyo) from Denver Fabrics on Monday, yesterday at work I killed the bolt of pink skulls (flora de los muertos), because it is on sale and all of the sudden I grew terrified someone else was going to get it before I could, I'm working on making someone to go with me on a trip to get more (inked, etc.), and I'm on eBay right now looking at the AH offerings, contemplating some Bad Choices...

I think I need to make an Alexander Henry label for all these dunb posts. I've seen some pretty crazy quilters (and I've spent 45 minutes cutting their fabric) but this, to me, is weird. Never in all my crafting life have I had an obsession this bad, this single-minded, that I couldn't snap out of. It is not normal.

Does anyone else have a crafty crush that they simply cannot shake, that makes them do dumb, irrational things? Please say yes. I'll give you a prize if it makes me feel better about my addiction.

P.S. I do have a couple of projects in the works. I swear. All of the recent haul was bought with a destination in mind and that is no lie. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't make my heart pound and the blood rush to my head. I suppose it can't kill me but dang, it's, like, $8.95 a yard!

Falling.

Alone at home after school with the sun coming in through the curtains, the cats have been fed and are lounging contentedly, just the white noise of cars outside and birds that have built a nest in our fireplace chirping (don't ask). It's quiet. Peaceful. I want to pretend it's fall but I know that outside it's 86 degrees and Mississippi River Valley humid. It can be fall inside at my house, anyway.



I ran around like a lunatic all last week stressing about the brief ( nonetheless, short-notice) visit from A's family. I changed the sheets on the guest bed and went and did something else and this is how I found Norton upon my return to the spare room. It just made me laugh. He climbed into the blanket tunnel to escape the whirling crazy person tearin' it up all over HIS house. When we moved here, for the longest time he spent most of his days under that blanket, which was the bedspread at the time. He would not come out for nothin'. This went on for what seemed like forever.
"Hey, have you seen Norton?"
"Um, no. Check the futon."
Cat-shaped lump under the red blanket. Yep. And now that he's settled in, he is into everything. While I don't appreciate him knocking every object in sight off the kitchen counter, I felt sick knowing he was so uncomfortable he wanted to hide in bed all day. But he's all better now, and back to his old tricks.



So on my home inprovement binge, this happened and it's just as cute as I imagined it would be. I love when that happens. Mary Engelbreit's "Chair Of Bowlies" print, my salt & peppers, a can of red spray paint, and some homesewn aprons. It's my new favorite spot in the house. Bless A's heart for hanging that stuff for me. And powertools. Bless powertools.



We did a very grown up thing and got a mirror for over the fireplace. It's like, the thing to do. Nothing lights a quick-decorating fire under the arse like a visit from A's mother, no?



Knitting: The sistergloves grew fingers, spontaneously. It amazes me how creepy they look spread out on the table versus how classy they look on. But the ends need to be darned up and also it's astonishingly hard to photograph your own arm with results that even approach normal. It's hilarious, actually. Try it sometime.

Catching.

This is a cute little baby rabbit I spotted through the kitchen window, just chillin' out in the alley.


The dining room table needed a reminder that it is a dining table, not just dumping grounds for junk mail and bills. And thus, Baby's First Floral Arrangement. I broke a pair of scissors trying to trim the stem off a fake glob of hydrangeas. The orange flowers are from the only line of pretend flowers I like from the Fabric and Craft Hole (they look like calico to me and I decided I liked them long ago but was only able to bring myself to buy them because they were 50% off), and the yellow ones are from an odd bag I picked up at the DAV once that prompted my dearest Aaron to ask, "What are you going to do with all the funeral flowers?". The hurricane is from Pier One and the plastic citrus are yet another weird DAV find. No faux floral without irony here. OH, hell to the hell to the nooooo.



Hey this is hush hush but someone very chic and special is going to be 21 soon and needs her own pair of cashmere (OK, CASHMERE-BLEND) opera-length fingerless gloves with a scalloped edge and lacey travelling vine pattern (#135, VK Stitchionary Vol. 1, pg. 91). Cross your fingers that her sister can finish them in the next ten days and get them in the mail quickly.

OK, Knit Talk: I pored over the usual knitting library suspects (a book or two by the completely insane Nicki Epstein, etc.) and the difficulty in choosing a lace pattern was compounded by the fact that I needed one that could be simply translated to knitting in the round. I SO wanted to do the Nosegay with all the bobbles (there WILL be bobbles, make no mistake, whether she'll like them or not, so-help-me-Jesus) but only the patterns with the "rest rows" seemed within do-ability (I'm just knitting when I'd be purling if I were knitting flat). Has this happened to you?!! Am I weird?!! Don't most peeps prefer knitting in the round to avoid purling and seaming?? I also remember reading somewhere about the difference between "lace knitting" and "knitted lace" which to me is splitting hairs but I think I am knitting knitted lace. I don't have a good reason to give a damn one way or the other, I just want to make a nice prezzie for somone fancy on her birthday!!

Ummm, if I am not mistaken, SNL ought to be on at this time and yet there is pro-wrestling on my TV. I must be off to go rectify this situation. I will check you later, blog. Don't tell my sister you know what she's getting for her birthday. xoxoxox.

Melting.

There must be something wrong with me.

Innocently enough, as I occasionally do, this morning I checked the local NBC affiliate's website, KWQC.com, for the weather report. I walk most of the places I go. I like to know just how miserable I am going to be. Pretty effin' miserable:


WTF, IOWA?! WHAT FOR? WHO NEEDS THAT!! Ack ack ack, a thousand times, ack.

The weird part though, is that while most folks are currently experiencing cooking ennui, not I. Oh no. Since I got back, I swear the oven has been going going going and the little house has just been hotter than hot. But we've enjoyed lovely lasagna (see 7/27/07 for the Lasagna Show), some molasses cookies that promised soft and chewy but delivered cakey, Alton Brown's Good Eats Granola, samosas (Molly Katzen style), and today, easily 90 degrees out, I made banana walnut bread. It needed to be done. I added a sprinklin' of nutmeg and a generous dose of cinnamon and it's pretty awesome. Aaron keeps coming home saying "Hi peanut something smells good Jeeeeesus it's hot in here". Next up: SEITAN!

I've also started knitting the Twinkle Shopping Tunic from VK Holiday 05 out of some white Wool Ease Thick&Quick that I picked up from work for 97 cents a ball, crocheted a handful of granny squares AND I've completely fallen madly for the quilts of Kaffe Fassett (a topic for another post). There has to be some kind of seasonal disorder that explains why I am dreaming of blankets and knitting sweaters when the temperature of my house rivals that of the earth's core.

Slaving.

The promise of lasagna is not an empty one. Behold:

Only thing I messed up is please add a layer of noodles after the first saucing. I must have forgotten to snap that step. Also note that I am too generous with my materials at the beginning and have to scrape towards the end. I don't usually boil the noodles before they get piled on, and they come out okay, but next time I make it, provided it's any less than 4 million degrees in the kitchen, I think I may give them five minutes of boiling time.

Going.

Oh, hi.
I chilled with 99 percent of the people who read this blog while I was there, so I guess I will just say that my trip to Rochester was lovely. I had fun every day. Even the rainy ones. You can too go home. Whoever said you can't is a bully. Although the word "home" does start to get quite blurry and convoluted as time wears on, you can go. At least for a bit. I went home and then I went home. If I talk about this topic at any length at all I start getting quite teary and also nauseous so I'm stopping now, so I'll end by saying I look forward to my next visit and thank you all for being so dear.

I'm actually quite tired and mildly screwed up from probably more the staying up all night than the one piddly hour time zone change, and from spending the past two days wrassling scrapbook embellishments, with many more to follow. Tiny paper wine bottle. Tiny paper french fries. Tiny paper grad gown. Tiny paper phone booth. Tiny paper Statue of Liberty. Tiny paper sushi. Tiny paper prom. An entire life told in tiny paper approximations.

I'm missing Interpol at Harro East Right Now. GRR. But should this be the greatest injustice of my life, I'll recover.

Spooning.

::::falls over and d.i.e.s. from the cuteness::::

I never knew it was possible to desire measuring spoons.

[Beehive Kitchenware Co. via oh joy!.]

Cutting.

Oh, "<-----Place On Straight Grain Of Fabric----->", how you do make me so very nervous.

Welcome to the Alexander Henry Dress Factory.

Wondering.

Unless you are Jenna Small Bird, you can go look at this flickr set of a project that's been in the works for over a year now (or I worked on it for 2 months solid and then let is sit for a year, and then I did something with it a few days ago). If you are Jenna Small Bird then it's going to be in your mailbox in a few days anyway so I wouldn't peek. I shouldn't even be posting this until it's in transit but I couldn't resist and it looks like rain so no bike ride to the PO for me.

Digging.

I went to the thrift store today. The DAV never disapoints.





When the house started "coming together" a bit (it's still far from done, but what I mean is more like, "when we got a couch"), I was surprised how many people were surprised by the decor (words like "Pottery Barn" and "Martha Stewart" are being used). Is this more what you were expecting?

Biting.

I skibbled into Steve and Barry's (who I see have dropped "University Sportswear" from the chain's name) on Thursday on my way to work to check out dear SJP's new collection, Bitten. Like everybody, I was skeptical of whether it was actually going to be cute. I think in the wake of Sex and The City, we're having a hard time separating Carrie from Sarah Jessica. Carrie's style was created by Pat Fields. Sarah's style was created by I can only assume Sarah and possibly a stylist. Holy moly, it's actually cute. I'm going back. In a place with no H&M, my beloved source of cheap and interesting clothes, Bitten is a good thing. H&M is one of the top five things I look forward to most about my trip to Rochester next month (1. fam 2. knitters/wedding 3. various friends who don't knit 4. thali 5. H&M. Ta-da.) I feel bad about my lust for trendy made-over-seas clothes, but I don't know how you can assuage that guilt when you're on a tight budget. I like SJP's motives, which are (so she says and I want to believe her) growing up in a big family with no money. That's pretty noble. I'll toast to that. Any thoughts?

Practicing.

Just so you know, for the past month or so, nine out of ten nights, this has been the scene in my basement. The upside, for you, lovely reader, is that this is a still picture, with no audio. I can dig the audio these dear boys are producing, it's just that it, like, permeates my entire stinkin' house. It's not very peaceful. You think you wanna be one of those moms (wives?) where all the kids feel welcome at your house, but this whole "Um Shit You Guys We Have A Show In Six Days And We Gotta Learn Twenty New Songs By Friday Night Holy Crap Dude" ordeal has taught me that probably, you don't. At least, not four beer swillin' dudes with amplifiers and drumsticks, anyways. Oy.

Coupling.

First & Most Biggest & a few days late:



As of 6/4/07, this dude and I have been married for two lovely years. And I still have done nothing in the way of creating a wedding album. He is my best friend in the world and I adore him a little more every day. I smile when I think of him. This photo is apparently the most glorious picture of us ever taken because I have a pillow case with it on it. Long story, you don't really want to hear it. Anyways, to commemorate this stupendous occasion, Aaron surprised me with a pink rose at work, and after my shitty twelve-hour workday was finally over, we went out for pancakes. It was stupendous.

Also on the subject of weddings:



It's really no secret that I am a weird Martha Stewart semi-fanatic. I am not alone. Many a blogger has confessed that she will buy pretty much any magazine that Martha publishes. I am among them. My only regret towards our very brief engagement was that only two issues of the utterly gorgeous MS Weddings came out during my time as a Bride(zilla)-to-be. OK but did you know that if you buy the fancy Collector's Edition of Weddings ($9.95) that's on the stands right now, that you get a free year of Blueprint? It's crazy. My plan is buy it with the 50 percent off coupon from the JoAnn NPI so then I get it for five dollars. FIVE DOLLARS = SIX ISSUES of Blueprint and the magic fancy issue with it's many pictures of lovely flowers and cake for looking at when I am sad and when I decide we need to renew our vows in 18 years so I can have a mini-wedding with cupcakes. Oh, blog, I knew you would understand.