Tuesday Project Roundup: Another Positive

Since I'm finding the silver lining of my far-from-successful trip to Las Vegas, here's one more: I got to make another knit dress, this time with some really nice wool jersey.
(Please ignore the cat on a towel on the rug in the reflection.)

I used the pattern in the Sew U: Home Stretch book that taught me how to sew knits and I got the fabric from my favorite online discount place.
As I've mentioned before, I feel as chic in navy as I'm sure the hipsters and artists and designers feel in black. Plus, I don't get bored sewing navy fabric and I always have to think of Coco Chanel. So a win all around, made possible by Las Vegas (ugh).

Where You Folks From?

So I was in Las Vegas most of last week (which you may not have realized due to the magic of scheduled posts) but it just wasn't how I thought it would be: I've been twice in the last ten years and I guess enough time lapses between trips that I think it's a glamorous, exciting place complete with Elvis and Danny Ocean, when in reality it's a glorified miniature golf course.

There wasn't a lot of sunshine, I don't gamble, vast seas of humanity are not my idea of a good time, I missed Toby...I could go on and on (and on. Ask me about the cleanliness of the rooms in the Monte Carlo sometime.). But instead, I will choose to look at it as my oldest friend suggested: I got out of my comfort zone and pushed my limits, so really it was a trip of growth and self-discovery.

And I will remember this discovery when Vegas starts sounding exciting again in about five years.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. This has been making the rounds on all the design blogs already, but it's funny: Unhappy Hipsters, which puts funny captions to pictures published in the mod design magazine Dwell.

2. I've just discovered businessguysonbusinesstrips.com which has comics making fun of advertising life. This one is eerily true to life when the senior people and the clients get going:

3. Palm trees! I'll be seeing palm trees!

Thank You Very Much

So as I mentioned, I'm going to Las Vegas (where it is even more warm and spring-like than it was here on Monday), so of course I had to track down some Elvis videos on YouTube. While this isn't the original version of "A Little Less Conversation", the mix below does a great job of showing him in his bespangled, be-jumpsuited Las Vegas glory. Enjoy.

A Cocktail For The Last Half Of Winter

While I'm not one to get tired of whiskey or scotch or gin (oh my), sometimes it's nice to break out of the seasonal rut--which for me in winter is whiskey or scotch or a Gibson. I'm slowly stocking up my bar for the 30 Things, so when I was thinking of cocktail options I wasn't able to make a Sidecar with brandy, but I discovered the Chelsea Sidecar.

Take 2 ounces of gin, half an ounce of Cointreau, and a teaspoon of lemon juice and shake it up. Enjoy the lemony deliciousness and the frosty cold gin. Just enjoy slowly, because this one is strong.

Besides its delicious taste, this one gets extra points because it's an even lesser-known variation on an old-fashioned cocktail and it has "Chelsea" in the name, which makes you feel all sorts of late 60's mod and hip. Although that could just be the gin.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Viva Las Vegas

I have a trip to Las Vegas coming up with my friend from my stationery days, so of course I had to make some things to wear for it. As I reviewed my progress on the 29 Things at the end of 2009, I realized that I hadn't sewn any knits since that spring. Knits + travel = easy packing and no wrinkles, so I made a couple of knit dresses.

Here's the first, with some ordinary fabric from JoAnn (in case I was out of the habit of sewing knits). I used this pattern from Simplicity and, despite cutting the back a little crooked, it turned out pretty well.

The print reminds me of the old casino signs, so it's perfect for fabulous Las Vegas.

We Made It Through January

Happy February first (or Imbolc, if you're a Druid). Did we all enjoy the mix of snow and sun and high 40's yesterday? It made me think that yes, we can get through this. I always think of a Wallace Stevens poem at this time of year--"at the end of winter when afternoons return."

The Poems of our Climate

I
Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
Pink and white carnations. The light
In the room more like a snowy air,
Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
At the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations - one desires
So much more than that. The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
With nothing more than the carnations there.

II
Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.

III
There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

Salinger-Related Information (On A Friday)

1. I learned yesterday (like most of you) that J.D. Salinger died Wednesday, at the age of 91. His New York Times obituary focuses mainly on his 50 years of reclusiveness, but did have this to say about the italics:
The stories were remarkable for their sharp social observation, their pitch-perfect dialogue (Mr. Salinger, who used italics almost as a form of musical notation, was a master not of literary speech but of speech as people actually spoke it), and for the way they demolished whatever was left of the traditional architecture of the short story — the old structure of beginning, middle, end — in favor of an architecture of emotion, in which a story could turn on a tiny alteration of mood or irony.

2. I have to admit that I always wondered if more Salinger would be published after he died, but now that he's dead I'd rather think of him still writing every day than of being able to read more of his work.

3. If you would like to read any of the short stories online, you can use your subscription to The New Yorker to do so here or you can read them for free (gasp! just like a library!) here.

ETA: 4. And The Onion's take on it: Bunch of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger. Thank you, Onion.

Speaking Of Alcohol...

A few weeks ago I found a news article about new research that makes the claim that early humans developed agriculture not for a steady supply of food, but a steady supply of booze. As the article tells us,

[Archaeologist Patrick McGovern's]bold thesis, which he lays out in his book, Uncorking the Past. The Quest for Wine, Beer and Other Alcoholic Beverage, states that agriculture--and with it the entire Neolithic Revolution, which began about 11,000 years ago--are ultimately results of the irrepressible impulse toward drinking and intoxication.

"Available evidence suggests that our ancestors in Asia, Mexico, and Africa cultivated wheat, rice, corn, barley, and millet primarily for the purpose of producing alcoholic beverages," McGovern explains. While they were at it, he believes, drink-loving early civilizations managed to ensure their basic survival.

Hey, I think it sounds plausible. If I had to struggle to survive every day, I'd want a drink, too.

When Hemingway Comes In Handy

Monday night I took a wine class (through the U's Continuing Education) with a friend from work. Our class was "Value Wines of Italy" and as we moved onto a Tuscan red (not, apparently, an "official" Chianti), the teacher asked, "Who knows what the straw-wrapped bottles of Chianti are called?"

And I had to remember all the times the Colonel in Across the River and Into the Trees asked the hotel staff in Venice for "a fiasco" of some wine or another, and that was indeed the answer.

The teacher went on to explain how most Americans' first experience with Chianti was so bad that the term was adopted to mean "a complete failure"--which isn't exactly what the dictionary tells me*, but sounded very charming and plausible when she said it.

*My dictionary says the term came about from the phrase "far fiasco," literally "to make a bottle," and was used in Italy to mean "complete failure" since the mid-19th century. Tomato, tomahto...both of which are very nice with Chianti.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Now With More Cables

Remember at the beginning of the month when I talked about making a traditional Aran sweater? And I was intimidated by the traditional pattern and construction methods? Well, this is the year of speaking up sooner if something is not how I want it to be, and the traditional pattern of the intended sweater was not only difficult--it wasn't cable-y enough.

Here is the traditional pattern:


And for comparison, here's something with LOTS o'cables:I don't like knitting projects to be that challenging (or require that much concentration at night), so this is not the winning pattern. Instead, I compromised with this pattern (very popular among knitters) and a different cable.


Here's the progress so far


and here's the different cable--it's called a staghorn cable.

And I think I used "cable" about 5 times in 100 words. Cables!

Happy Birthday, Virginia Woolf

And happy birthday yesterday to Edith Wharton. If you want to be a perceptive lady novelist, it's a good time to have a birthday.

(Can you tell I've been busy at work? I'm sorry things have just been links or images lately--I don't have as much time to find or prepare better material. On the upside, we are actually helping to promote a mixed martial arts event in South Carolina and I get to write scripts for the ring announcer. My career is complete!)

Friday Unrelated Information

There's an animal theme today:
1. BoingBoing posted about the kid's book Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and used the phrase "beatnik monkeys." I'll have to see if the parents still have our copy so I, too, can admire those cool simians as an adult.

2. Animals with Lightsabers. You may have seen this, but a recent entry was captioned "Jedi Reepicheep"!

3. And finally, seagulls:

Do You Need More Pictures Of Cool People In Your Life?

If you do, check out If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats. It's a visual blog of old photos of musicians, actors, mobsters, famous people--and even vintage pattern covers. There are such diverse categories as "The Gunslinger's Guide to Julie Christie," "Artists in Action," and "Before and After" (in case you want to see how people have aged).

Check it out--any blog that has a category devoted to Bob Dylan pictures is OK by me.

Another Reason To Visit The Cook Islands

If I did, I'd get to see the stars from the Southern Hemisphere. The Astronomy Picture of the Day site had a photo last week demonstrating just that:


On the left the outlines show Orion seen from a beach off Tasmania, and on the right you can see it in the Northern Hemisphere, from the Alborz Mountains in Iran. (See more details and a bigger picture on the APOD site.)

That's just very cool. My sister-in-law is going to South Africa in the spring and I am jealous!