The Urbane Homestead

Every day, into the breach.

Coming up at random

  • Peru: Guinea pig??

My daily rounds

  • Manolo's Shoe Blog: Shoes, Fashion, Celebrity, and Manolo!
  • Now Smell This
  • I Love Orange, my crafty friend
  • My Salad Days
  • Rocketboom
  • The Nietzsche Family Circus
  • Whip Up
  • Window on the Day

My hope chest of projects

  • A vardo for the backyard
  • Fabulous coat
  • Bottle wall
  • Willow house
  • Book Arts
  • Very cool pincushions

On the Night Table

  • Lisa Goldstein: The Red Magician

    Lisa Goldstein: The Red Magician

  • Jonathan L. Howard: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

    Jonathan L. Howard: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

  • Daniel H. Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

    Daniel H. Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

  • Frank Baker: Miss Hargreaves: A Novel (Bloomsbury Group)

    Frank Baker: Miss Hargreaves: A Novel (Bloomsbury Group)

  • Stacy Schiff: Cleopatra: A Life

    Stacy Schiff: Cleopatra: A Life

  • Stephen Benatar: Wish Her Safe at Home
  • Ian Roberts: Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles to Dramatically Improve Your Painting (Mastering (North Light Books))

    Ian Roberts: Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles to Dramatically Improve Your Painting (Mastering (North Light Books))

On the ePod

  • Nickel Creek - This Side

    This Side
    Nickel Creek: This Side

  • Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid (2LP)

    The ArchAndroid (2LP)
    Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid (2LP)

  • Dixie Chicks - Top of the World Tour

    Top of the World Tour
    Dixie Chicks: Top of the World Tour

  • Bettye LaVette - A Woman Like Me

    A Woman Like Me
    Bettye LaVette: A Woman Like Me

Finished, I think

I think this drawing is done, but I can never tell. It's done with Prismacolor and Derwent colored pencils on Stonehenge paper.

Household Archaeology

Household ArchaeologyESikkenga

February 12, 2011 in handwork | Permalink | Comments (0)

It figures

I like pictures. I like blogs that are mostly pictures, like Vicki's. I like pictures that illustrate text—for example, I think they can add a lot to those tedious blogs where people just go on and on about how busy their boring lives are. (Ahem.) My own photography tends to suffer from entropy, so I have lots of pictures of the first day or two of most of my travels, and none thereafter. But sometimes I get an idea that is best expressed through photography, and then I'm willing to keep at it; Window on the Day is just such an idea. I've been thinking about doing that project for several years now, and when I happened to think of it first thing on New Year's morning, well, it was clearly kismet.

And now kismet is biting back. My shiny little camera, which has spent most of its time since arriving here at the house a year and a half ago relaxing in its special cushioned bag with the Indonesian embroidery, put up with daily use for exactly one week and then broke. Doesn't it just figure? Sheesh.

I will plod on with an older camera, an early digital model that could usefully double as a doorstop. But somehow the tiny new camera made me feel like I was stealing a quick bite of the morning light, while this one feels like when you take a bite of something that turns out to be much, much chewier than you expected, and just when you're realizing that it's going to take you several minutes to chew it up into something you can actually swallow, someone asks you a question and the entire table turns toward you with expectant faces, waiting for your answer.

How we suffer for our art.

January 09, 2008 in handwork | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh! my! gawd!

Thinking about our trip to Argentina in June, I decided to do a little advance scouting and see if I could find any yarn shops there. Imagine, if you will, Howard Carter stepping into Tutankamen's tomb for the first time: the catch of breath, the flush of heat as the heartrate increases—in a flash, the blinding awareness that life will never be the same again. That is how I felt when I learned that Buenos Aires has, not just yarn shops, but an ENTIRE YARN DISTRICT.

March 12, 2007 in handwork | Permalink | Comments (4)

The ridiculous and the sublime

First, the ridiculous: You Knit What?! have surpassed themselves with this indescribable "garment."

Second, the sublime: Who knew that the enormous could be as captivating as the miniature? Truly a new way of seeing the world.

June 27, 2006 in handwork | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recent Posts

  • The status of the experiment
  • Resolution already broken, but that's not the point
  • Finished, I think
  • Be it resolved....
  • Priorities
  • About travel, and life in the third grade
  • Memories of travel
  • Stinky
  • ta da!
  • What a great day!

Recent Comments

  • Belstaff leather on Be it resolved....
  • Jen on Be it resolved....
  • anne on Resolution already broken, but that's not the point
  • Essaouira Morocco on Be it resolved....
  • Edward Vielmetti on Be it resolved....
  • 734elizabeths on Be it resolved....
  • Steve Burling on Be it resolved....
  • Margaret P. on Priorities
  • Jayne on Priorities
  • Jayne on About travel, and life in the third grade

Categories

  • Books
  • family
  • food
  • handwork
  • housework
  • reading, listening, watching
  • school
  • the garden
  • the house
  • the whole megillah
  • vacation
  • work work
Subscribe to this blog's feed

Archives

  • June 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008

More...