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Slowly, though Vermont

Submitted by domesticat on 30 April 2013 - 8:26pm

I’m about to head out on the road again, and thanks to a quirk of airlines, I’ll be flying into Vermont and out through Boston. I’m doing it purely so I can roadtrip through Vermont, and see what there is to see.

I have no idea what I’ll see, but I’m taking my new camera rig.

Any suggestions?

Wondering why Vermont? See this map, and it’ll make sense:

Time to cross New England off of the list, once and for all!

Transit

Submitted by domesticat on 25 April 2013 - 8:00am

When I put yesterday’s fresh rounds of travel into TripIt, I saw a line that summed up my year:

You’ve traveled 43,660 mi to 44 locations.

I nodded, thinking to myself about the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met — or reconnected with — and felt profoundly grateful. I’ve been welcome in a lot of places over the past year, slept on a few new couches, met delightfully new recombinations of humanity. All unique, none replaceable.

Extended amounts of travel, over time, affect you. The anonymity of airports begins to rub off on you after a while. If you’re not careful, your web of connections to the world at large comes at the price of feeling a little less seated in the place where you ostensibly live: when you consider where to shop, or where to order takeout from, you first reset your expectations by asking yourself what city you are in today.

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Equinox

Submitted by domesticat on 6 April 2013 - 1:50pm

spring

Date:

27 March 2013

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157633181327908

Recipient:

Pattern:

Chopsticks

Level of completion:

Sewn, awaiting quilting

This quilt is a simple one, born out of frustration with a work project that ate a lot of time out of each day, and continues to do so. At the end of each day, I’d feel that I’d not actually accomplished anything new, and I’d be frustrated with myself because I felt like I’d wasted that day.

I started thinking about Misty’s “make something every day” artistic pledge, and I joked about it with her while we were attending an intro-to-letterpress class. She mentioned how this craft meant that you couldn’t necessarily get far with 20 minutes a day, but 45 would probably do better.

This quilt top so far has been comprised of 30-minute chunks of time stolen in the evenings. Because of the changes to the house (new flooring, new paint) I’ve been leaving the mini-blinds up as much as possible, and enjoying the light. I wanted to queue up something after Invariant that was its opposite. Not Japanese somber neutrals, but light. Bright. Soft.

Easter was coming, after all.

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Invariant

Submitted by domesticat on 24 March 2013 - 5:26pm

Date:

2 March 2013

Photoset:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/domesticat/sets/72157632900554336

Recipient:

Katherine's son

Pattern:

Half-square triangles

Level of completion:

Sewn, awaiting quilting

This morning, while working to finish Invariant, I found myelf reflecting on the travel schedule I’ve been maintaining over the past year and the conflicting effects it’s had on my creative time. My stash has picked up fabric from Denmark, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado, Holland, and England. That same travel schedule has made it very difficult for me to actually work through the projects in my head, making me feel that I am “unproductive” when, in fact, I’m just not at home long enough to dig into anything larger than what I call a “snack food project.”

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The undersides of things

Submitted by domesticat on 9 March 2013 - 12:55pm

house

I’ve been dreaming about this week for a long time: the week where I finally had the carpet removed from our house, and put in the hardwood I’ve wanted for so long.

It is Saturday, and I’m sitting with headphones on, and as usual, the details of the reality didn’t quite match my rosy envisionings. I didn’t anticipate that we’d find water damage on the right side of the chimney, requiring an immediate roof repair.

I imagined finished rooms. The bedrooms, hallway, office, and sewing room lived up to the expectation. The foyer just needs quarter-round to finish off the look, and the living room is half-completed. We tore it up with the best of intentions,