It's Not Really 5AM, Is It?

I thought I would start on my weekend wrap-up now (it's 5:18am on Saturday) even though I'm sort of feeling sick to my stomach but I surely don't want to get into bed). I've been reading lots of knitting and quilting blogs and I want to start off with one comment - please don't put music on your blogs. I know, I used to have music back when we had a website for our guinea pig rescue and I thought it was oh-so-cute but, here's the rub, if you're listening to anything else (i.e., a podcast, or perhaps your media player) it really can make one crazy. I love to look at the other people's blogs while I'm listening to podcasts but, if there is music, I totally skip it. Just sayin'.

Okie doke, let's see - this week. I will start with Friday and work my way back (if need be). Today, my dad came over and helped get the sewing nook in shape. I used to go to a friend's house to sew and quilt. She had a full basement and we had this awesome studio set up. Well, she called me this week and said that she needed to store some furniture for her mother-in-law in her basement and we were going to have to move some of my stuff out. Actually, we moved all of my stuff out. So, Dad and I are creating a nice little area in a corner of my kitchen for me to sew. (Of course, I just got "spare oom" fixed up just right to be a knitting studio, right? So, now, I have to regroup and figure out where I'm going to sew.)

So, for starters, I had already moved my sewing cabinet downstairs to the kitchen (thank you, son Michael, for help with that) but I really didn't have many of the sewing/quilting accoutrements nearby. Today, Dad installed my thread holder and we made plans for some awesome additions, including cool lighting, which I think we will do next week. He is going to put up a pegboard for my rulers and such and take the track lighting out of my mom's bedroom to reinstall here. (Thank you, Mom. I hope you're looking down on this and approving. Especially since I'm using mass quantities of your quilting fabric.)

I am really looking forward to having a cozy little sewing area. Granted, a lot of the fabric is going to be upstairs and the actual sewing center downstairs, but that's the way it goes. I shall cope. BTW, let me say right here and now that my Dad is totally awesome - I swear, he can make anything. He's 86 and looks like he's in his 60's and probably has more energy than I do. If you don't believe me, just ask the grandkids. The man is amazing.

Knitting is going along well. I started on Caitlin/Squirrel's slouch hat and am about halfway done. It started off much better than Mary's now that I know what I'm doing on the tubular cast-on. But, I'm at the point where there is a lot of cabling so it goes rather slowly. Why, oh why, do my daughters insist on hats in black, I ask you? I am knitting precariously perched under a light at my desk and really can't sit anywhere else because I just flat-out can't see the stitches. Hey, kids, if there are booboos in this, it's y'alls fault because I could totally see what I'm doing if you would just request a lighter colour. sigh.

I think I've got a couple of orders for the fingerless gloves - squee! I am having such fun designing them.

I finished reading Breakfast at Tiffany's in the wee hours of Friday morning. I am, of course, one of those people who is only familiar with the movie and was surprised to see how different the short story is. I was reading one of those Amazon reviews recently where somebody liked the character of Holly Golightly better in the movie. After reading the story, I have to say that, although the movie is different, I love the way Truman Capote fleshed out the character of Holly. He had a wonderful style and you just have to appreciate the way he wrote it on its own merits. I am enjoying his short stories very much - I never read anything of his before but his writing is really quite an art. Much as Flannery O'Connor's is. You can just see them working and reworking every single sentence to make sure it turned out perfectly. I have to wonder what he thought of the movie version - it is quite toned down from the original characters. It's unfortunate that we have taken for granted that the movie version is the "canon" version and that, when reading the author's version, we might say "ooh, I don't like the way he portrayed her as well." For pete's sake, he did it first, people! Remember that his story was adapted to something more suitable for the movie-going audience of that era. Holly was definitely more of a free spirit in the story. Check it out.

(As a silly digression here, I must admit that I started reading Capote for two reasons - first, I really do love Breakfast at Tiffany's and I wanted to see what the original story was like but second, I know that the character of Zero the Hutt (or however you spell it) was based on him and it was sort of kicking around in my brain. Actually, I have this urge to get a copy of Murder by Death and watch it again. Geez, I loved that movie.

So, I think that's enough for right now - still not feeling one hundred percent but really getting too tired to blog coherently. I shall return to finish at a later point this weekend when I can tell you about - Squee! I got my business cards!