I've given the blog a face lift. It had been over a year since the last time, so it seems that I was due. I really wanted to incorporate actual sewing of the tumbling blocks quilt pattern into the header, so there we have it. There's nothing wrong with linen and gray, right? The blocks were my first go at English paper piecing, and I can see why so many people find it addictive. They're like potato chips—you can't stitch just one. Doing the 60 degree diamonds was a bit tricky, though, because there was a lot of fabric to wrap around the pointy tip. You don't have to worry about that with the hexagons though, now do you?

While I was giving the face lift, I also added a Tutorials heading and a Contributing heading to the side bar. I've just been meaning to do that forever, and now they're there for easy reference. Hope you like.

At about 2:15 this afternoon, a colleague came into my office and suggested we just go get drunk. I was more disappointed than I ought to be that she wasn't really serious. It was a bit of a ridiculous day. So on our commute home, when Elie let me know he picked up Dead Guy while he was buying Challah, I was pretty happy. We pulled into the yard and the weekend started happening. Beer was opened, steaks were put on the grill, the lonely chicken was let out, and she followed me out into the garden where I did some casual weeding. I pulled up the very first harvest—some delicious radishes.

Now I'm listening to every version of Tiny Dancer YouTube has. The song gives me the creeping willies—it's the whole having a tiny dancer in your hand part—but it's been in my head for over a week and it keeps making cameos in my life, so it has to go. I'm pretty sure learning all the lyrics is the only way to do it.

I've been thinking a lot about blogging today. Do you go through periods of doing this? I do, but I have a known reason this time. Smile Politely, Champaign-Urbana's very quality online magazine, did a post on this little blog for their Top of the Blogs column. Smile Politely keeps its reporting largely local and it's a real source of info for what's happening (that I care about) in this college town that's more complex than it looks from afar.

It was the first time I've ever really been interviewed, at least, when the interviewer wasn't asking me things like, 'What's your favorite color?' Joel was nice and I didn't get The Tough Questions, in fact he didn't really ask all that many questions—I did a lot of rambling. Seriously. I'd like to chalk it up to nerves, but I think I might actually talk that way. I brought him the simple patchwork coasters you see above. Elie thought that was weird and might make a person feel odd, and maybe it did, but I hope not too much. But, that's what I would do if I had a meet-up with you, right? I'd make you a little something?

Back to the interview. More odd than being interviewed, was being interviewed about blogging. I've been blogging for over three years now, and I really love it. But, what I love is not the blogging itself, but the incredible community of crafty people that I have gotten to know through blogging. Thinking back and talking to Smile Politely about how I started blogging made remember just what it felt like to stumble into craft blogs and be amazed by the beautiful work and comraderie that was happening here. I think about how much fun it was to wake up to my tea, open screen door, and computer that first summer and just sit and click through the craft blogs, following links from one place to another until I was just lost in it. Did you/do you do that? I feel a little sad that I take it for granted now. I have not reached the end of the internet. Maybe on the contrary, there is just so much out there that it can be a bit overwhelming to explore.

In the beginning of the article, I tell Smile Politely why I didn't start blogging, and that's all true (although Elie says it makes me sound like a wallflower, which I am not). But I think I missed a key point. Until finding craft blogs, I thought blogs were largely about being a mini-wonk of your area, about expounding on your opinions, and really enjoying confrontation and argument. I don't really enjoy these things. The few times that this blog has felt at all that way have been uncomfortable for me. So, finding a community, a craft community no less, that supports itself and encourages its members so much has been a truly lovely thing. I like you. Whether you're an old friend or a new visitor, thanks for being here.

Please do stop by the article if you're interested, and drop me a comment if you'd like—here or there. I'd like to hear from you.

Isn't this chick so cute that it looks fake? Oh, it's real and soft and full of peeps. She's currently living in a brooder in my basement with her two sisters. They're Ameraucanas, which means that they'll lay blue-ish eggs and they'll have big fluffy check tufts, commonly known as "beards". That's right, bearded ladies. We're so excited to have them.

Now for the sad. As seems to be the way with chickens, our excitement is tempered with a bit misfortune. We had a big storm last night and it blew the chicken coop door open. Some animal took advantage of the open door to make a meal out of two of our three grown hens. We think it was raccoons. The little red hen was just gone, but I think the big one, who really was a large bird, was too big to move. Our remaining hen is not quite sure what to do all by herself, and I don't really know what to tell her. Maybe, "Don't worry, we've got uppity young pullets coming!" Awww. Even though I know loss is an inevitable part of keeping chickens, I can't help thinking about how scared they must have been, and how I wish we could have battened down the hatches just a little bit more. I really like the chickens. As bad as losing two to raccoons is, it feels way better then when we lost all three of the birds we had last year to roving neighborhood dogs. I feel like I can blame Nature and not lack of a leash, and Nature has to do what it has to do.

Just so I don't leave you on a totally down note, here is a nest of baby bunnies. Eva and I are reading Watership Down right now, and we think we see Fiver.

I've got a killer head cold, and yesterday evening I felt soooo yucky, and what I really wanted was teevee on the couch. But we don't have the teevee. Alas! Usually I don't care, but yesterday I wanted Talk Soup or reruns of Seinfeld or America's Next Top Model. Quality. Instead I dug out a DVD that my mom had given me for Christmas—9 to 5, you know with Dolly Parton? It was just about right. Late 70s working-lady and boss-guy fashions are so fun and painful. Elie and I had a discussion about this where he wanted to call them 70s fashions and I wanted to call them early 80s fashions, but the movie was made in 1980, so I really think he's right.

So here's the deal with why my mom got me this movie: When I was in High School, my mom was into New Country or maybe it was called Modern Country. My sisters and I thought this was hysterical. We lived in New Jersey. There was so much good fodder for mocking sing-alongs. (All My Exes Live in Texas, anyone?) Anyway, one of my mom's Dolly Parton mix tapes had the song 9 to 5 on it, which is actually a great song to get you going in the morning. (It is in my head while I'm in the shower on more mornings than I care to admit.) We would listen to it in the van on the way to school, and we'd crank it up really loud, and we'd drive by my boyfriend who was smoking with all the aloof smokers just outside school property, and we'd wave. It just cracked me up so much. It probably made me the biggest dork in the world, but we were so entertained.

Up there, that's my newest border. I went a little lighter.

It may be ridiculous, but before this year I did not know how to really dress for winter. How is that possible? I guess I just didn't realize that I was so cold and there was something I could do about it--isn't that weird? It is, and it bothers me more than a bit to look back on my poor little cold self and just think of how much more comfortable I could have been if I had known. And, we all know that being more comfortable makes you happier--just think of how unbearable a tight waistband can be. Knowing how to dress warmly has actually made the winter something to cling on to. I could be more excited about spring, and I'm not yet ready to give up the woolens.

Theory of warms
my theory on dressing warmly to enjoy the winter

1. Good socks are very important. Smartwool or similar are the best. (I'm sure handmade are also very nice, but I don't have those. yet.) I get annoyed of my sock doesn't come higher up my leg than my boot shaft. If I'm out of the best socks, then I wear knee socks--they keep your whole lower leg warm! If I am out of kneesocks, then I wear regular socks with legwarmers. Actually, I think legwarmers is a whole other item. Plain cotton socks are not enough.
2. Legwarmers. People mostly think of these as a fashion element, but I think they're highly undervalued as a functional element.
3. I wear an undershirt. I tuck it in. I am my mother. Arrrgh! Actually, she is a very nice person, but she tried for years, possibly my whole life, to get me to wear undershirts and to tuck them in. I would not. I couldn't think of anything more dorkily constrictive. Mom was right. Tucking it in makes me warmer, plus it hides any unsightly pants gaps.
4. Something around the neck. I recently finished the cowl in the picture. It's from some cashmere + other fanciness blend that I got at xmas. It is so warm and so cozy, and I can hide in it like a turtle when necessary. Necks have a lot of skin, and covering it makes you warmer. I think my friend Jeanne taught me this. She wore some kind of scarf every day, and it looked good and was her thing, like a cross between crunchy and guerrilla and librarian. She said it was her defense against the drafts in her old house.
5. I wear my fair isle hat that I knit all the time
6. Last year I wouldn't wear a sweater every day. I was always cold on days that I didn't and had to wear my office sweater, which has gotten weird over the years of hanging in my office. Sweaters always.
7. I tried to get myself a new pair of boots 6 times this winter, but no luck. None as are good as the Keen London boot I wear almost every day. Next year I am going to cut the nonsense and just get another pair of Keens. Thinsulate actually works. I tend to think that stuff like Thinsulate is just marketing people trying to trick me, but in this case, it's not a lie.

That's about it. If I do these things I am warm, but not too warm. I can enjoy the cold weather and the one season where opening a pickle jar doesn't make me break out into a sweat.

If you're hoping to attract the right kind of people, then may I suggest wearing your February Lady Sweater to the Valentine's Day showing of Coraline? Eva and Elie and I went to see the movie today, accompanied by a couple other knitters, and had a lot of fun. The movie is that good, and I am a Neil Gaiman fan from back when I read Sandman in high school. I wore my February Lady and had not one, but two separate people give me a shout-out. Hey Knitta Lady! It gives me a cozy nerdy feeling—internet community extending beyond the internet. Plus as one of the knitters put it, "With so much knitting in the movie, there were bound to be a few of us here." You betcha.

Pre-movie, this lady was sweet enough to invite Beebs and I over to share in their Valentine's Day tradition—decorating cookies. Good fun and good company. Kristin and Co. decorate cookies a few times a year with a different palette for each season. I love the creative abandon within a confined set of colors. Lucky for me, the winter season includes chocqua and red.

This little piece o'knittin' has been sitting around my rooms for a couple months now. I had wanted to try entrelac, probably more because I wanted to see how it works than for any other reason. I used this tutorial, which is very clear and easy to follow, and it came out just like entrelac should. But, I think it's not for me. Part of it is that I'm not the biggest fan of the yarn, noro left over from the tam I love. I both love and hate noro, and the problem is that the dividing line between love and hate is somewhere in the middle of the ball. Oh, ball of blue-gray noro--why did you turn fuchsia and gold? The actual knitting is a bit complicated, not hard per-se, but requiring more attention than I like to give my knitting most days.

What should I do with this little bit? Frog it? Felt it? Part of me really wants to make a kangaroo pocket out of it, you know, to put on some type of little jumper, but that would be highly unwashable.

Here's something. On Monday night I implemented a hot water bottle for the first time in my life. Eva has been caught by some sort of terrible stomach bug that strikes only in the wee hours of the night. Our daycare provider has had a heating pad for her to use (genius!), but we don't own one. However, we do own a hot water bottle with a plush bear cover (a gift from Eva's cousin) that we hadn't ever used before. In my family, we didn't use hot water bottles growing up, did you? In my head they were completely in the category of old-fashioned, doesn't-really-work, and possibly old-wives-tale. You know, like leeches. I really did not buy Martha, or anyone else, telling me that I might want to cover one in cashmere.

Please let me say right now that I had complete misconceptions about the hot water bottle. It's actually very nice. I picked up Eva's bottle out of her bed two hours after I had filled it and it was still warm. Also, because of the plush cover, it was a little like holding a fat kitten. If it didn't smell so much like rubber, I would want one of my own to cover in a felted sweater. Maybe I want one anyway.

We don't have TV or go to the movies often, but we do watch lots of netflix. This means we experience our entertainment a few months later than most. This is why we have only just recently watched There Will Be Blood, and why all three of us can't stop doing the "I drink your milkshake!" bit. (Eva did not see the movie, apart from the milkshake clip.) We are now hysterical about what pop culture was hysterical about a year ago. Elie does Daniel Day Lewis very well. Here's a SNL skit. Here's a girl who does the scene and makes me especially laugh. Elie says I now do her doing DDL, instead of doing DDL.

On the weekend we had milkshakes. With straws.

In other kitchen news: Elie and I tried to win the instructables tool contest with our custom, built-in fridge-on-the-cheap post. We did not make it, but maybe you're interested to see. It's here.

I'm coming in at the very tail end of this. There are still two hours for you to write the Consumer Product Safety Commission and ask them not to require makers of handmade toys to pay to have their products tested. The form is simple, so go ahead and take a minute. There's more information on much further-reaching blogs than mine, so read up if you haven't already.

This mama cat went to a dear little one-year-old friend of ours for her first birthday. She's a little different then my other mama cats--because I knew she was going to a baby I left off all the buttons and went with embroidered eyes instead. I made this toy, and I care about it and the person who receives it.

Actually the expensive testing of toys reminds me of illegal raw milk. There's nothing wrong with either, maybe even, both are more wholesome than their counterparts. But, because large manufacturers/producers have taken shortcuts that have caused people harm, the government (us) tries to protect us and goes too far. Hamfisted! Says my husband.