There was but one egg left over after all the birthday caking (from a dozen, I don't want to think about it, thank you). And I wanted to make scones. But what self-respecting scone recipe takes more than one egg? This one sure doesn't! I didn't listen and went diving straight into the strawberries. I kneaded more than 12 times. I didn't set a timer but relied on my eyes instead. And there are scones in the kitchen now. Are they the best-ever? I don't know...but they're good enough for breakfast tomorrow. Which is what counts, right?
A friend of mine was mentioning to me that she didn't know that I was this into all the crafty stuff. To which I can only plead: I'm not. I don't have the spare time nor the energy right now to be all that productive. But I can dream, right? Which is why I spent the evening baking up scones and getting acquainted - first time out, thank you - with a rotary cutter. Which, I have to say, is kind of awesome. I have a major pile of 5.5" strips of fabric (pink at that!). Now I just have to brave the sewing machine - oh please oh please let her work...
It does seem to happen rather often that either my roommate or his girlfriend are in the kitchen cooking something up for the other.
Yesterday was Courtney's birthday so it was James' turn to take to the oven. Sadly, I was not there this time for the making of the cake - cake mix, I admit, but was there to watch James put together the icing.
I'm always vaguely fearful of James in the kitchen - he worked in a restaurant and so he'll just go to it with abandon and ice cakes and whip up tomato salads that are, as my dad would say, birdie num-nums.
So I trusted in James, and watched. He claimed it wasn't easy so once he was all done, I had a go with the leftovers. Because we've got to amuse ourselves somehow, right?
Since the day I put up my first banner, it hasn't really been something I loved. In an attempt to make that a little better, I present: Tree being eaten by icon of coffee. Hrm. Must do something about that. But today? Am tired and it's -20 or so - hello Torontonians, stop kidding about, it's COLD HERE,- and we have for your viewing pleasure: Tree Being Eaten By Icon of Coffee. It grows on you, doesn't it?!
I am not a shrinking violet, blushing rose, a lazy daisy,
I am not a hazy Sunday, summer morn or winter's noon.
I am not a million dreamers.
Not a crowd of strangers singing.
Not a chance to shine the brightest.
Not the time that's coming soon.
I am just a quiet dreamer.
Searching for the gentle ways.
Just a lonely tired searcher
In a small and quiet place.
Or (shamefully) the Mall - the biggie - where Sephora lives and H&M and that other store I talked about.
Or Marshall's. The place where good fabric goes to die - or at least rest up a little until someone who loves it claims it. The place where you can find little cards of mushroom-shaped plastic buttons, and fabric printed with large radishes - for cheap too.
One of the things that I love about fabric stores, and quilt stores that I've yet to notice in yarn stores is that they assume that if you're there, and you're young, that that's where you should be.
I'm a 6' girl with blue hair, sometimes purple hair, or maybe red, and a nose stud and even in this post-stitch 'n bitch world, I've been almost accosted in the yarn stores by the women working there who cannot understand that my cons-wearing, backpack-toting self might want to buy some lovely soft alpaca to make a wee stitched bear or bunny.
But in a fabric store? I fit. Part of this might be my much-longer love affair with fabric than with yarn (though I admit that I'm a lapsed seamstress) - I don't remember a time when needle and thread didn't fascinate me, when I wasn't stitching. I buy fabric helplessly - sometimes just a pack of fat quarters to tide me over, sometimes by the yard.
Or, what called my name this time, a lovely selection of pinks (I *swear* I wasn't looking for pinks...) that want to be a quilt:
Glowing like a secret
Eyes bright
Can't quite look away
Pain/joy barely contained
A thousand thousand pinpricks
Of
Light
Such a small vessel,
Overflowing overfilled
I want to be finished
Complete
Me
Last night I took to a box
of blue-black dye that had been hanging around the bathroom for a few months. I'd never dyed my own hair before and I was alone in the apartment sitting on the edge of the couch humming and watching the time and, I think, Will and Grace, and waiting for things to develop.
The photos that follow (dear me that's some dark hair) are what happen when I have to get up to go into work at 8:45 on a Saturday - I'm not cheerful and I take emo-type pictures of my shoes (noting, though, that those are huge-ass wide-legged jeans from 2004 when I still wasn't cool.
I think.
Having mentioned briefly that I was dreaming of the small quilts, I'm going to continue on the tack:
I don't think quilting will ever approach knitting or even other sewing in the "hip" category. It's not cool or quick, it's fairly hard to tote along. It's fairly rare that we see a really functional piece of quilted clothing (they're there, don't get me wrong, but the quilt is still pretty much uniquely the longer-term project, not something you can do in a dark bar with some wine and friends along for the ride.
Yet. I have loved pieced patchwork since I could say "boo" to a llama. Part of it has to do with my long and well-documented love affair with a good piece of cotton - It's okay that fabric makes me swoon-y, isn't it?!
Part of it has to do with symbolism: quilts are passed down and loved through generations. They're brought out in the winter (hello canada!), they're wrapped around new babies, they cover you up when you're sick or sad.
On top of all that, they're beautiful and functional - patchwork quilts were designed to use every little bit of fabric to make one warm cover.
Can you tell that I'm planning something?!
I want to stitch.
I want to embroider tiny stitches, hand-quilt random designs, put together blankets to keep me warm (the girl who is currently enamoured of the idea of lofty wool felt and wool batting for lovely quilts).
I want to make quilts that look a little like these.
So I might have purchased this book, in the hope that it would help me get there (no one in blogland is really gloating about exchange rates and I shall not either, but, uh, *bounce*).
Wish me quilting goodness luck.
I do and don't get starstruck. Hee hee hee. Starstruck.
I pretty much want musicians to go about their business and me to go about mine and when our paths cross it doesn't bother me particularly if there's no recognition on either side. Hells, I lived in Montreal - and the fact that my friend and I crossed paths (literally) with the guy from Knocked Up (Jay), (we think), the fact that Katie Holmes' Perrier was once mistaken for mine at an organic food store? Meh. Though these are stories that I'll drag out once in a while, I totally failed to be a fangirl on either occasion.
So put me in a room with about 30 other people - some of whom just happen to be Montreal's Stars (the BAND people) whose instruments happen to also be there? Well, the major thrill is hearing them play live. There's this thing here called the Glee Club at Radio Sonic. That's the extent of my knowledge. I will try to link up in the a.m. if I can find it. And Angel - called Fred - is the one who got me there and who I will be worshiping of until someone tells me to stop.
It was very very amazing to see a band you are rather deeply in love with up-this-close. I learned that Amy Millan is not in the least intimidating, that if you love your music it shows even if you're kind of quiet about it, and that drummers really are that cool.
Then, as if that weren't enough, we braved the 14-year-old emo kids to see them live tonight. The Stars make me want to cry in the very very best way. Listen here, and do it now.
