i’ve been on a reading streak! it has felt really good. i owe you so so many reading posts, including about dreams of gods and monsters, pictured above! also, that mug? i tried the sharpie mug craft that you see everywhere on pinterest. i tried the version with oil based sharpies, but even with those, the edge around the top rim is already chipping a bit. ah, well.
i love ranunculus! i’ve been eying them in the store for months, but up until recently, they were all pretty rough and battered looking. i totally bought them the first time they looked healthy and lovely, though!
mirah just released a new album, and i got to see her in concert for the first time in a decade! you can hear the new album on spotify. i’m listening to it right now! you guys have spotify, right? because it is the BEST.
jake and i inadvertently had a night of local beer appreciation! both are really excellent, if you happen to see them!
the current state of the hex blanket! it’s slowly pushing all of the other things off of the coffee table. this has 13 rows and 10 columns pictured. i have two more rows worth of colors on hand, so i need to figure out what the last five will be, as well as two more column colors… i borrowed some leftover fingering weight yarn from a friend only to bring it home and realize they were almost exactly the same as some colors i already have represented here.
this robin just made it’s nest at my grandfathers!
i was there helping to pot some geraniums and other pretties for the summer.
not pictured but also happening: i’ve been getting into podcasts recently! i’m totally in love with radiolab (their sound editing is soooo good!) and 99% invisible, but also casually trying welcome to night vale. are any of you fans of podcasts? do you have any suggestions for me?
when i travel, there are a couple of places that are on my default list of places to go: yarn stores (obvo), grocery stores, and libraries. and the long room of trinity library was definitely on my bucket list of library destinations.
this place made me feel like belle when she first saw beast’s library. or like i wanted to start waltzing around the place singing ‘i could’ve danced all night’. (although no one wants to see/hear that!)
i thought this picture would be especially interesting to greta (who loaned me these boots), because she’s a woodworker, so i thought she would be as entranced as i was by these unusual cross-grain wooden hexagon tiles. which is maybe what got hexagon’s on my mind in the first place, influencing my decision a week later to start a crocheted hexagon blanket. i have now added a cross grain wooden hexagon tiled floor to my list of crazy amazing dream house wishes!
we were at trinity college to see the book of kells, which was high on all of our lists. all three of us could be very easily classified as book lovers. i don’t have any pictures of the book of kells, as photography was not allowed in the exhibit or of the book. there are loads of beautiful images available online, and it is a fascinating book, steeped in irish history. if you have any interest in the history of ireland or the vikings, calligraphy, historical illustration (it is arguably the highest example of illuminated text that exists, period), or important books, the history of bookmaking, christian or catholic religion, then this is really high on my list of recommendations.
i also watched the secret of kells before going on the trip. though it’s a fictional account of the history, it’s also gorgeously animated!
okay, all this talk and no pictures? this won’t do. here are a few images slurped from wikipedia commons:
i also have the tendency myself to get really attached to the idea of objects as conduits, as receptacles for people’s emotions and experiences, and thinking about all of the people who spent their lives and artistry dedicated to creating this absolutely amazing book, and those subsequent generations who used it as an object of devotion, a conduit of their faith, and all those who protected the book from destruction, time after time… well, i got a teensy bit emotional. i do mean a teensy, i wasn’t sobbing in the corner of the exhibit or anything, i was just a bit misty eyed while thinking of the careful hands tracing the words and illustrations i was looking at over a millennia ago.
we also visited the long room of the old library at trinity college, but i took SO MANY pictures of that, i think i pretty much have to separate it into a different post…
has anything you’ve visited as a tourist had an emotional impact on you?
i’m pretty sure this is on everyone’s radar for dublin, right? when in dublin, visit guinness. it was one of my grandma’s biggest priorities, and she is not a drinker, that’s how synonymous dublin and guinness are.
the museum is in the old storehouses of guinness, beautifully cleaned up and re-designed. it takes you through the process of making the iconic dublin beer, as well as the historical and cultural significance. i loved the aesthetic of the building, and most days i would have soaked in this information at a nice slow pace. but this day was our first in ireland, we’d come on a red eye flight, we were working with the piece meal amounts of sleep we’d managed to scrape together on the plane (not much), and a 6 hour time shift. this was not us at our optimal, information soaking prime. we managed the first two or three floors (of six, i think?) and then gave up on the museum part of the experience, and headed for the top floor, where they keep the bar with a 360 degree view of the city, and you get your complimentary pint of ‘the black stuff’.
i did something a little crazy when i got back from ireland. my sweater was done, i had just cast off a pair of socks and started another. ness had announced her spring cleaning KAL for the month of april. i had just received an invitation to a friends baby shower in a month, and i was browsing ravelry for stash busting baby knitting inspiration. i found this blanket on ravelry, and became kind of obsessed…
by the next day i had 12 little circles…
and then 16. without ever making a real conscious decision about it, i was embroiled in a project crocheting a baby blanket… i’ve never finished a crochet project before (and i am not counting the little bitty flower i made once with emi beside me to guide me through it), i’ve only picked up a crochet hook for steeking or finishing a knit in the last 7-8 years.
baiza had to test them, of course. she decided they didn’t work as hats, but they were good for baby blankets.
i started adding the hexagon round after i had like 40 circles…
and here’s the sequencing i’m hoping for. if you look in the picture above, you can see that i have the outside rings matching a diagonal line \ like a backslash, and the inside rings matching in a horizontal row. in the picture below, the external rings diagonal is a forward slash / and the inside rings are vertical columns.
and today i decided i needed an idea of what my final dimensions should be so i could figure out how many i’d need of what colors. i’m using leftover sock yarn, so i’m a bit concerned about running out and interruping the design at key points… buying more yarn would completely defeat the purpose. although i admit, i’m buying the white yarn to pull it all together. sigh.
for the moment i’m shooting for about the size of the coffee table, which is 28″x42″ (71×107 cm), though land of nod tells me crib blankets are more like 36″x48″ (92×122 cm)… by my rough calculations i need about 230 hexagons to cover the coffee table… right now i have 81, and i’ve been working on this for about a month. that’s 35% of the blanket… so two more months until i’m done. hmmmmm.
after doing those calculations, i’m feeling a bit underwhelmed by my progress. but the color relationships have been really fun to explore, and i think it’s turning out beautifully! so wish me luck!
are any of you guys impetuous project starters? tell me i’m not alone in this.
when i start thinking about writing posts about vacations, i always get caught up in how much i should try to encompass and how many resources i should reference and how all of my pictures should be perfect. and then i start procrastinating because that all sounds like a lot of work. so instead, i’ll just do this trip piece by piece.
one of the first ways i prepare for trips to completely new to me cities is by consulting design sponge to see if they have a city guide, and they do for dublin. my interest was immediately piqued when i read about the flea market, as it’s obviously an interest of mine! also, visiting the flea market in berlin was one of my favorite parts of that trip! when i read it only happened once a month, i deflated a bit, thinking the likeliness of our overlapping was slim. but it turned out it was happening the very day we got to dublin! so after checking in at the hotel and offloading our luggage, off we went to the flea market:
one among the many cool things about the dublin flea market: they hire a different artist to design each months poster! some are visible behind the whirlygig/machinery/puppet-y thing above. we ended up purchasing a collection of the first 50 turned into postcards. i intend to hang some up around the apartment. i’ll try to post a picture here when i have done.
hi!
(if buying this pouf didn’t also involve dragging it with me through two more cities and figuring out how to pack it for the plane, i totally would’ve bought this) Continue reading
second hand scarf, cardigan, belt, vintage coach purse, bean boots – j. crew striped shirt – gap navy skinnies
a good transition outfit. layers that are light but warm, easy to take off and put on in the fluctuating temperatures. this scarf was my absolute go-to this winter. it’s neutral, huge without being heavy, and warm.
ifandany 