Write Letters! * Play Ball!

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So as you baseball fans know, yesterday saw Opening Day for the baseball season. And as you Domesticat fans know, yesterday also saw the start of the Knitterly Letter Swap.

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And here's my first letter recieved--from Domesticat herself!! YAY! It was both exciting and strange to find the fancy, sealed envelope in the mailbox, one because of the beautiful stationery found amidst bills and ugly flyers, but strange too because when I first saw the handwriting on the envelope, I thought it was a letter from a long-ago, now estranged, friend. Domesticat's handwriting is just like the handwriting of that friend I once knew, and so it was an unusual moment of thinking that she (lost friend) was suddenly contacting me. I was quite relieved, in fact, to see it was Domesticat, and then I was just plain enthusiastic to read my first letter in the great Knitterly Letter Swap. See the Rowan yarn strand she included? Only knitters would understand the pleasure of receiving snippets of yarn....So thanks Domesticat!

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Other wonders showing up in the mail have included Megan's fragrant, delicious soap (yum!) which I'm too busy smelling as it sits on my desk rather than using it yet. (I don't want it's yumminess to be gone too soon--)
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And next wonder of the etsy world--this print by Black Apple. It sits above my crafting table, spurring me on to make the world--through my mind and then through my hands--a better place. My crafting table is where I banish bad thoughts, and dream the world a better, more beautiful one through fibre, textiles, a string, a needle, etc... I always feel quite calm and settled when I sit down here to practice some of my new sewing skills or fondle different fabrics, or just sit and gaze at the beauty of my knitting needles and yarns knowing that great possibilities reside in them all.

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And in me.

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So for a girl who tends towards the pessimistic, I look up at the Black Apple girl (for whom I am finding a frame this weekend!), and am reminded that crafting is a way for me to be optimistic, and that in this crafting corner of my life, I firmly can and do believe that we are leaving our marks on the world in a very good way for handmade goods are powerful in their ability to connect to people in what increasingly feels like an alienating, crazed, consumerist world.

But hey, I don't need to tell you people that! The Yarn Harlot's experiences in NY is all the evidence we need (as if we needed more, but I'm just sayin')...

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And so create I will...
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Now, whatever might I be swatching for?????

No, I Haven't Flown The Coop....Yet....

Yes, I'm still around--no taking off here for a fun Spring Break trip (oooooooo, how I envy Ashley!!) What I am doing is sitting in a library carrel (or I am *supposed* to be sitting in the library carrel), trying to get writing done. With Spring Break, the library is ghastly quiet (but I like it that way...hey, it's a library, right!?). Really, it's just me and this bird, who keeps landing just outside my library carrel window.




And, a la Megan's literary spectrum, here's a shot of some books in my carrel. Typical grad student fare. I'm not actually reading these (I'd be in trouble if at the late dissertation stages, I'm still trying to make my way through the cheat books!)*, but I do like lining some of these up with their colors and their "weighty* names. The Lowell is in there just to give me some poetry breaks from time to time, when the bird isn't around for me to take a break with.

Promising this: that modelled shots of Kiri are on their way. And Forecast? Well, I'm on to the first sleeve, so I'll show you some shots of that too.

And what am I lusting after now? Well, after perusing the B&N bookstore's knitting section (oh right, I'm supposed to be in the library carrel!!), I am wanting to make the crew-neck sweater from Glampyre's Fitted Knits, a jacket/sweater/cardigan from Erika Knight's Classic Knits, many, many things out of Lace Style (see Julia for a great review of this book), these socks, and these socks, and oh so many other things....

And what am I addicted to smelling right now? This....Hmmmm...

*Of course I (we!?) still use these kind of cheat books in the later stages of writing the dissertation-- :)

Post Sans Photos (of My Own Taking...)

Well, I have so many things to show you: a newly knitted beret (inspired by Julia's and Anna's); a finished EZ baby sweater; a rice-bag footwarmer (a la Dogged Knits); amazing shots of snow in a city that never gets snow; funky, fun, charming Japanese china (6 cups and 6 snack trays) that I got for $5.99, and a beautiful Banana Republic tweed coat, $9.99, procured at thrift stores this past week!

I cannot, however, for the life of me, find the cord that plugs my camera into my computer so that la transfer can happen. So, instead, I offer today a photoless post full of links of things that I love or find amusing or find thoughtful in order to entertain y'all whilst I search for that darn camera cord--

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As I said, I love Ashley's foot-warmer and she has graciously offered a tutorial for it so that we all can have warm feet tonight. I also want to make this "stop-the-draft" window-sleeve, as Little Birds has done so marvelously.

I love Olga's thrifty, homemade laptop protector sleeve that she made out of a felted turtleneck.

I also want to make some of Yarnmonster's drawstring bags to beautify my bag lunches and to carry my knitting projects around in.

I love this post, from La Vie En Rose, about starting to explore what sexy means and how one is or isn't, how one gets it or doesn't.

I love that I have found Dooce and am feeling sheepish that I didn't know about Dooce before now.

I was happy to see this exhibition mentioned in The New Yorker.

I love the breakthrough that Crazy Aunt Purl made with her relationship with food and wished that my mother could have made this breakthrough years ago. Or that she could make it now.

I love this idea for recycling paper into an address box by UglyKitty.

I love the new bedroom Twelve22 has created for herself: so pretty--!

I want, someday, to own my own UrbanChicks and, like Yarnstorm, have fresh eggs every day and some fine ladies to keep me company--

And I love the fact that 4 skeins of Cascade 220 are on their way (which I scored for $20 off of Ebay) so that I can hop onto the Forecast KAL bandwagon!

(Oh yeah, and how I wish this would become a reality, and would be, in fact, a true commitment made by our leaders, instead of being just another political ploy/desperate maneuver from an oh-so desperate man...)

** (The Anthropology of Turquoise, by Ellen Melloy, and Graeme Gibson's The Bedside Book of Birds are just two of the many books piled high beside my bed right now. The book I'm most into right now [halfway through] is this one.)