mmm.... coffee.....

an influx of thousands of kittens

this was my half of the table at the Alumni Sale saturday morning - we were steadily mobbed for the rest of the day.  sales were slow for me at first, but picked up later & amongst other things, i sold the slug messenger bag!  the weather was gorgeous, i had fries from the Idaho potato man & my thermos of coffee to get me through the day.  we had a surprise visit from alison of wonderlandQ which was awesome.  bob & ginny of OrangeBags came by with their new little baby, so did my former boss Michelle & i got to see anna of annabuilt who is totally pregnant.  am i finally at that age?  babies everywhere!

since the sale on saturday i have done nothing!  absolutely nothing!  okay, not entirely true: teresa & i went to our friend josie's house for a little bbq saturday night, but i didn't last long.  sunday morning we went to breakfast & were joined by stacy & allison.  afterwards we checked out a sewing machine/fabric yard sale extravaganza jenine had spread the word about & then there was a trip to savers.  i added to my button collection, stacy almost bought some cool shoes & teresa convinced me to buy a little round, turquoise suitcase.

but if we act all shy, it’ll make it ok, make it go away

there is nothing craft-related in this post.  i just wanted to share with you the insanely adorable baby bunny i found shivering on the sidewalk this morning!  i know i shouldn't pick up wild baby animals because it will smell like me, but it was on the sidewalk & i didn't want either:
a) a college student to try to keep it in their dorm room.
b) a high school student to mess with it.
so i took it over to the little lawn next to the library where i know a family of bunnies lives because i've seen them there before.  actually, they live all over campus & i'm guessing this one wasn't far from home, but home had just been ruthlessly landscaped.  oh, it's so cute!  it didn't really move around when i picked it up & held it, but once i tucked it under the bushes it set about cleaning its face & hopped around a bit:

it was still there when i went for coffee, but i'll check on it again at lunch.  i'm kind of worried about the little guy, but it is a wild bunny & seems big enough to fend for itself.  i really didn't want to let it go, i wanted to hold it or take it home, but that didn't seem right...  right?

update:  by the end of the day the bunny had scampered off & i haven't seen it since.  i did a little research & leaving it was the right thing to do.  it wasn't an infant , it wasn't injured & it has only a 1% chance of survival if i brought it home!  it was possibly old enough to be on its own or it's mother came looking for it in the night & i didn't move it very far from where i found it.  i still keep an eye out for it every time i walk by.

your head is bent out of shape, but your feet are on the ground

to entice you to stop by the Risd Alumni Sale this saturday, here are the messenger bags i have made so far.  they are all fully-lined with an inner pocket, adjustable strap & heavy-duty velcro enclosure:

i am completely in love with the one i made myself & take it with me everywhere i go.  i put the pocket on the inside front so it's quick & easy to find my keys & cell phone.  the strap is strong webbing so it won't stretch out & stays put at the length you choose.  i added more velcro so the bag will stay closed even when over-stuffed.  this saturday i'll also be bringing a pile of ipod sleeves & tons of wrist cuffs in the favorite styles & a couple new ones, too!  here is a sneak peek a some of them:

i might have a few clutch purses with me - depends on how fast i can sew this week...  the weather is supposed to be really nice this weekend so come on by & check out my new haircut!  Benefit Street, 10am-4pm (rain or shine.)

perhaps margaret is right - piracy is our only option

these photos are to entice you to see the Wunderground show, they can't possibly convey what it feels like to be in there.  i'm going back (when there isn't a billion people & a marching band) to take better photos.  the majority of the posters i've collected are in the show, but i have quite a few that aren't.  we found several of paul's posters among the over 2,000 on display, some of my favorites were there, many that i hadn't seen before & so many that i remember from when they were wheat-pasted up around the city:



it's because of artwork like this that i desired to do graphic design without a computer.  my professors said i should be in the illustration dept if i wanted to draw or the printmaking dept if i wanted to screenprint, but i wanted to do it all...  in case you hadn't noticed, i have quite a few interests/talents/skills/hobbies.  i can't imagine picking just one.  and i don't think i lack focus because i am extremely focused on all these things, sometimes they overlap & combine.  i even find my graphic design background creeping up & showing itself in the strangest places.  all these diverse interests make up who i am & i am not easily defined...

in addition to the thousands of posters, there is a room filled with installations called Shangri-la-la-land.  this part made me sad, whereas the poster display felt like a celebration, the installations felt like a memorial.  even more evident here then in the photographs of the rubble of what was once Eagle Square, you can tell this era that has ended.  now what i want to know is, what's next?

a mind-pounding, eardrum-harming experience"

it's quite possible that we don't share the same sense of humor...  i think my newest pincushion is awesome, but it's okay if you don't want to have a dead one-winged raven to stick pins in!  i'll just keep it for myself:

i meant to post this the other day, but i was struck down by some random allergy attack & then, well, the rest of the week got away from me.  that keeps happening, although every day lately feels like it must be monday, somehow it is already friday...  and tonight is the opening for Wunderground at the RISD Museum, i'm going with my friend Paul Lyons.  the show spans 1995-2005, which i guess is kind of my era in providence, it's a little weird & i'm not sure i'm ready to see it spread across the walls of a museum!  i'm both excited & a little freaked out about it - i am curious to see how many of the posters i've stolen are in it & if i have any that aren't.  just to the right of her shoulder is one of my favorites, a long skinny BSR 88.1FM poster:

(photo from projo.com by Gretchen Ertl, click it to go to the article)

first comes the nurse

rachel & i went to the mall last weekend, we cleverly bought things together that were on sale so they would be cheaper.  ah, the mall, i love the mall.  yes, i said it, i'm from long island, i must love the mall, it's in my blood to love the mall.  i hate it, too, but it calls to me & i must go.  we stopped by jonathan & anna's apt on the walk home & were invited in to watch "dog day afternoon" a fabulous 70's al pacino movie.

the bookstore rally went well, the news covered the event (tv & paper) and somewhere between 100-150 people showed up despite the wind, cold & freak snow flurry!  the second blurry photo is of robert coover who did a little reading & got the crowd especially fired up by mentioning that dave eggers has signed on to support the bookstore.  i hope there are more events like this.  i know, what you really want to see is pretty pictures of what i'm working on, but sadly there isn't much to show.  i'm still dragging my feet about finishing the large quilts & i still haven't gotten into crazy-craft-fair mode.  i'd better get started, but since i'm working the extra job with rachel i don't see many daylight hours in my studio & it's harder to get going at night.  perhaps this will motivate me, a list of the events coming up way too soo:
risd alumni sale, providence RI  May 6  10am-4pm
renegade craft fair, brooklyn NY  June 17 & 18
artbeat festival, somerville, MA  July 15 &16

there's a rumor going around the office

i know many of you aren't even from this state, coast, country, etc. but this issue is really important to me.  even though i don't work there anymore, the staff at the brown bookstore are my family.  i love them.  check out the website, there's a lot of information on it that may surprise you.  please help them keep their jobs & help our little community from being completely overrun by huge conglomerates!

Keep the Brown Bookstore Independent!

This Wednesday, March 15, at 5:30 pm. A rally to keep the Brown Bookstore independent. We need you to turn out and show your support. See the action page for details.

Since 1970, the Brown Bookstore at 244 Thayer Street  in Providence, Rhode Island has been an independent bookseller, providing the Brown and East Side communities with a wide selection of books, magazines, and other merchandise. However, Brown University has recently announced it is considering contracting bookstore operations to a national vendor—either Barnes & Noble College Booksellers or the Follett Higher Education Group. This would represent the end of more than 30 years of independent self-operation at the Brown Bookstore.

The Save the Bookstore Coalition strongly opposes outsourcing Brown Bookstore operations, and we need your help to convince the Brown University Administration that this course of action should not be undertaken. We believe that the presence of a national bookstore chain on Thayer Street would drastically change the character of the neighborhood, negatively impact the long-term sustainability of other locally-owned businesses on Providence's East Side, and harm the experienced and dedicated employees of the Brown Bookstore. To learn more about the potential impact of a chain vendor, see the information section of therirsite.

Get involved!

quails:1 america:0

it finally snowed!  we got a huge blizzard this weekend & i loved it.  despite being a little sore from all the shovelling (my landlord is conveniently away in Florida) it was great fun being "trapped" inside, forced to work on my olympic knitting.  (seen posing with the sock knit by clementine's shoes)  it's turning out to not be much of a challenge after all, i may have to adjust my plan to seeing how many socks i can knit before the closing ceremony!  there was quite a bit of unknitting here & there, i started it then had to frog because i finally decided to knit the elfine's sock.  the sock has progressed over the ankle & has been nearly finished since that photo, but it's hard to take good shots at 2am.  here are some knitting & snow photos in no particular order:



as you can see i was fueled by olives for a good part of the knitting.  it's a childish thing, i know, but when i was young my mother wouldn't let me eat too many olives.  "you'll make yourself sick," she said.  when i moved into my first apt & went grocery shopping i bought a jar of olives & yes, made myself sick eating them.  they're just that good.  you can also see the poor little craptop in all it's blueberryness - i finally found & deleted all the "laugh" sound files on it so it no longer giggles at me.  there's my new roommate, rachel, who being from texas is not quite a fan of the snow.  i was also fueled by those new strawberry yogurt burst cheerios, buy some, they're awesome.  allright, that's all you get, pictures of kool-aid dyed yarn saved for later - i need to go trek through the snow to buy some more sock yarn!

it's a shame about ray

i realize that most of this post won't be of interest to the majority of you, but i'm going to go ahead & make it anyway.  i went out on the town saturday night.  what?!  erica left her house?!  yep, i went to AS220 to see my friends' band Midnight 1,2,3 play their first show.  it was awesome.  i had fun, which is good because i probably won't be allowed out of my studio again until January!  i've been busy sewing vinyl cuffs since suddenly people have been asking for them - i'm not complaining.  i had to put aside the quilts for now, they're hanging in the corner of my studio & continue to inspire me.  i'm really itching to make a bed-sized quilt & and will have to get my mom to discuss a collaboration when they come up for thanksgiving...  next week!  when did that happen?  i need to clean my apt  and, since my landlord finally built some stairs, i can catch up on all that laundry piled in my teeny tiny bedroom.  these are some dark little photos i took of the show:

these are some neat (i think) shots of piles in jonathan & anna's apt that i mentioned earlier.  i really like piles, i'm a piler, are you?  my father definitely is, i think that's where i got it from, i pile things in my studio & then forget what's in them...

on an unrelated topic, i'm having some problems with my webhosting & haven't been able to acess my email reliably.  i apologize if i haven't gotten back to you regarding something, i will try to catch up on it soon.  do any of you have a suggestion of where to take my website?  cheap is most important, that's why i host with doteasy, but i'm sick of them & their bad service & unresponsiveness.

all dressed up in dreams

i took these pictures walking home from work last week.  usually i stare down at the leaves under my feet, but it was such a beautiful day that i found myself looking up.  i keep thinking "QUILT!" when i see the changing colors of the leaves & the idea finally started to germinate.  the closeups came out better than the full shots because there was only a small patch of sun slanting in my studio this morning.  so little teaser shots is all you get!  the little orange to green 6" square one is my more typical kind of mini quilt, but the others, wow, what happened?  no symmetry & they aren't even straight lines!  i'm really excited about that.  i was rather productive this weekend, here are the results:

  of course this isn't what i should be doing, i should be sewing vinyl clutches & cuffs for the bizarre bazaar boston...  that'll happen, too, but these were begging to be made.  this weekend was full of all sorts of good things: 
friday morning & afternnoon i sewed
friday night i went out for coffee & knitted with jodie
saturday morning teresa & i got breakfast and fabric
more sewing
saturday afternoon jodie & i got fabric and notions
i had a delicious dinner saturday evening cooked by rob who owns the garden grill!
late saturday night i hung out with jonathan (cool pictures of piles & paintings will be posted later)
sunday morning was coffee & walking outside in the weird weather
then more sewing sunday afternoon & evening!