etc.

We’ve been camping this weekend and there was food and fun aplenty, a pig roast (with an apple in its mouth!), beer, kids, a pinata, fireworks, and an impressive camp fire made even more impressive once last year’s dried up Christmas tree and multiple bales of hay showed up. And tonight for supper, the freshest corn I’ve had, picked a mere four hours before it hit the pot of boiling water on our stove, followed up with sugar pears, also picked this morning. Good times.

And now, here we are at the very end of July and I haven’t yet made my sock monkey (even though I’ve had the socks for it for weeks, donated by the very kind Mel; the sock backstory is here), nor has my copy of the book arrived for the Modern Quilt-Along (even though I have ordered the book three times: once from amazon.com, once from amazon.ca, and the last time from chapters.ca; the first two had to be cancelled on account of the orders not having been shipped days after they were scheduled to arrive! The tracking info on the last order tells me that it’s on the way, guess who isn’t holding her breath?). I won’t even start in on all the other craft, work, and library-type things I haven’t yet done because that would just put my brain in a fog, and that is no way to wind down a long weekend.

But, a very good way to wind down a long weekend would be to brew up a cup of Oolong and visit all my blog friends, which is exactly what I am going to do. Away, fog! Onward!

Good day. To-day is the birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, and Stanley Kubrick. I’m not much of a fan of Shaw’s theatre, I admit that I have never read Brave New World, and Kubrick has been on my mind lately on account of just having watched The Dark Side of the Moon, which was bizarre, and good, and makes you appreciate the subtle and challenging (and devious) work of film editors.

This is not, at all, where I was going with all this, but what the hell, here are some other films I’ve watched lately, starred out of five:

• War of the Worlds **** (we went to the theatre!)
• Runaway Jury ****
• Blade: Trinity *
• Meet the Fockers ***
• The Island *** (we went to the theatre again!)

And, on a note entirely unrelated to the one already struck, I have been knitting. I’ve just finished “Earth” from Rowan 29 (scroll down a bit), which was light and breezy knitting. The pattern calls for Linen Drape, of which I have an ample amount in my stash drawer, I am just a little terrified by this yarn for its unforgiving weight and lack of, well, give (no give, zero give), so I substituted it for some Jo Sharp Soho Summer in a pale blue called “cloudless” (which it has been, both the knitting & the weather). The substitution was less than perfect on account of the fact that I was so thrilled to get the correct stitch gauge on my first try (huzzah! I don’t have to knit this with Linen Drape after all!), that I completely overlooked row gauge, which matters with Rowan patterns, doesn’t it? It’s that nasty habit they have of accounting for the number of rows instead of simply telling me how long it should be at regular intervals. Still, no matter. I am a fan of over-sized knitwear, O yes I am.

Soon after completing Earth, I started in on Swank (scroll down some more, and then imagine it without that belt and, therefore, with less bathrobe potential and more cool-summer-night potential) with a couple of bags of All Seasons Cotton that have awaited a project of just such substantial proportions. The yarn is the bluest blue I have ever knit with (and will ever have worn), a discountinued colour I got on sale last summer, that I almost immediately regretted buying on account of its incompatibility with the rest of my wardrobe. However, the colour now reminds me of the pool I’ve been swimming in daily for the past few weeks, and happy colour-associations make for happy knitting and, hopefully, equally happy wearing.

Soon, pictures! Happy, happy!

It’s been a week. There are things to tell you, but not now. Here, have some links:

• Mechak: Centre for Contemporary Tibetan Art. I’ve been visiting this one quite a bit lately, I’m blown away by all the colour and texture, and I’m in love with Sonam Zoksang’s photographs.
• The Industorious Clock. Just neat, that’s all.
• Robert J. Lang Origami. Origami is one of those arts that I have always been just on the verge of trying. This site is all the push I need.
• thanatos.net: Postmortem Photography, Death Masks, X-Rays and Forums. Eminently morbid and definitely not for the faint of heart. I find death photography utterly fascinating.
• The Collier Classification System for Very Small Objects. Cool. And not just for those who get a kick out of perusing new classification schemes and nomenclatures.
• Stephen’s Lighthouse. Another one for my librarian readers, Stephen Abrams is blogging.

My 17 days off have whizzed by and I’ve managed to score precisely one item off my to-do list. Still, I refuse to beat myself up about it because I now have a studio! Here, go look at the pictures. I decided to go with a very pared-down version of genre book-organization, so, for example, all fiction is shelved together, but in no particular order. I wrestled with this for a bit but decided to go with broad categories so that new books added to the collection can be integrated with ease (my book-buying has dropped off dramatically in the past two years, but I’d be irresponsible to not allow room for collection development, wouldn’t I?).

The studio set-up took a lot longer than I expected. On account of the big ugly furniture and clutter we had to schlep out of there, what I assumed would take a couple of days ended up consuming my entire vacation! Which means, I now have all of two days to spend in there before heading back to work, and spend it I will! The first creation born in the new digs is up in the shop.

I contributed some earrings and note cards to The Sampler last month and received a subscription for the month in return! Lots of lovely trinkets, bibelots, jewellery, and buttons. Like Christmas in July!

Also, my backtack goodies arrived last week and this picture scarcely does them justice. I got a lovely notions holder (here, have a closer look), a quilted book holder, and all manner of other sewing and beaded goodies! Thank you, back tack partner! Now, if only I could figure out who you are… (found the fabric in the gallery, but no “from” & “to”!)

I have to admit, I’ve had these pictures taken and downloaded for a few days, but I was enjoying hearing about everyone’s book organization so very much that I delayed posting as long as I could so that I could keep collecting your comments! Thank you! When I posted the question I mostly expected minor variations on genre/alpha-ordered books so I was thrilled and floored by so many different organization techniques! I’m happy to say that my books have been shelved and the rest of the studio is coming along nicely (we’re 90% there), so stay tuned for the impending reveal. The anticipation!

Those who know me well know that I am a bit of an instant gratification fiend. That is, when I decide that I am going to do something, I need to do it now; not later, not tomorrow, but right now. This week, I’ve been harping on the studio, and because we haven’t had the chance to whip it into shape instantly, I’ve been somewhat grumpy and difficult to live with (bless the mister, he is some sort of saint for putting up with me). The bookshelves we ended up buying (and not building ourselves on account of finding shelves that were both practical and affordable) were delivered last Tuesday and this evening we finally had a chance to put the first one together (we bought two), so I am now in considerably better spirits and the mister can finally exhale a little.

At the moment I am thrilled (I can start organizing!) and overwhelmed (there are too many books!) at the same time, and really, I’m a bit ashamed to be so daunted with the task of organizing my books (I don’t think I have to tell you what I do for a living), but there you go, it all seems a bit crazymaking. So, instead of plunging ahead, I decided to make myself a cup of tea, have a wander around blogland, and leave the big decisions till tomorrow. In the meantime, how do you organize your books?

I forgot to wish you a happy 4th of July, didn’t I? I am a terrible neighbour. Happy 4th of July for yesterday!

I forgot to pick up my film from the developer’s last week. I finally picked it up yesterday. Let the scanning begin.

I forgot to show you the sewing loveliness that my back-tack partner sent me. Soon.

I forgot how much I enjoyed listening to things while I sat for hours with a pile of knitting on my lap. I’ve remembered.

I almost forgot how much fun it is to sit for hours with a pile of knitting on my lap. Almost.

There have been movies lately. A great, big barrel of movies, in fact, a few of which have been very good, some of which have been just good. Here they are, starred out of a possible five:

• The Motorcycle Diaries *****
• 13 Going on 30 ***
• Bad Education ****
• The Pacifier ***
• The Woodsman ***
• Troy **

It felt like much more movies than a mere six, but that is, perhaps, because we have not seen a movie in ages, and then, this glut. And yes, there have been two Gael García Bernal films in one week. Gael is my new Latin boyfriend.

Last week, I spent an evening at a focus group whose purpose was to gather opinions on The Documentary Channel, a channel that is close to my heart (as cable channels go). Notwithstanding, the evening was a bit of a waste of time for me, and for the research house who hired me as one of the members of their 10-person-strong focus group, because I had not a single enlightened thing to say about The Documentary Channel, documentaries, cable, or even just television. At the end of the evening, I made out like a bandit with the small envelope of cash they handed me, squirelling away before someone called out, “You, there! Yes, you! You didn’t give us anything we could use, we’ll take our money back, thank you.”

And, look! It’s a quilt-along!

P.S.: The scones turned out fine. Well, in fact.

I’ve just done a very silly thing. I’ve just woken up, padded down to the kitchen, whipped up a batch of English scones, and put them into a 220°F oven rather than a 200°C oven. While I have been baking for a very long time, it appears as though my capacity for processing simple instructions is greatly diminished at early hours on a long weekend.

O, long weekend!

Claire just announced that the theme for the July Month of Softies is “Sock it to me! — a world of sock monkeys”. I am thrilled! I have had a hankering to knit socks lately, and just the other day I thought to myself how lovely it would be to knit singles and turn them into devilish little sock monkeys! So, I will have to have a go this month. And no, I did not forget last month, nor am I poky, I just decided early last week that I wouldn’t have time to get in a June Bug before the deadline, so I didn’t try.

Bring on the sock monkeys!