A little library culture

So I saw this picture while I was on the St. Louis County Library's website, here.

Best picture of April 2008 for sure. I wish I could have been there.

I was on the St. Louis County Library's website looking up books on graffiti. I want to read some biographies on graffiti artists. I think that sounds interesting. It's not like I have two books that are waiting to be read on my desk or anything.

So encase you were wondering here is what I'm reading now.


I'm not even on page 100 so don't ask what I think about it quite yet. I will tell you it is about Bruce, who grew up Jewish but is not practicing anymore goes to the middle east to explore where the first five books, the books of Torah took place. It is really interesting reading it from a somewhat neutral point of view. Here is a great excerpt from what I read today...(Bruce Feiler is interviewing an archaeologist who he met while in Beersheba, Eliezer Oren. He has a Ph. D. and attended Harvard, NYU, and Penn.)
"I'm going through a certain transformation," Eliezer said. "When I was younger, I was in my rebellious phase. In my lectures, I kept saying that since we don't have evidence, these stories did not take place. That goes for patriarchs, the Exodus. The older I get, perhaps I get more stupid. But I feel that my archaeological experience only enhances my understanding that even if I cannot relate a certain event, or personality, in the Bible with a specific archaeological stratum, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the question is this: Is the Bible unusual for its time and place? And the answer is: It's not. It's part of it. Dating is becoming secondary in my opinion. When I'm digging here, I'm digging with Abraham."
"So what effect has that had on your faith?" I asked.
"Those are different camps, " he said. "But I can tell you this: today I treat the Bible with much more respect."
"Can you give it a grade, in terms of archaeological accuracy?"
For the first time all morning he grinned. "A plus plus."

How is that for food for thought.

This is the second book I have in line to read....

I know I have very eclectic taste and like to read a wide variety of things.

While on the library website I was looking at books like this...

I don't know if any of these are good, or what they are really about, I'm just exploring for now.

left overs

So today I decided to catch up on my magazines. I had a couple of months worth of Vogue, Lucky, and Elle magazines. While reading these wonderful magazines I got very motivated to sew.

Sew I decided to make a bubble dress and I made it way to long. whoops.

Here it is folded under.



Here the bottom part of the dress is folded under at my waist to make a top. I added jeans and it I know it looks like the above picture but take my word for it, that it is much shorter.



So I have an idea for another dress I really want to make and it is coming soon. Today I just decided to make this dress with some left over fabric and it took an hour, so no big deal.

baby washcloths

So I've been embroidering some baby washcloths on and off for the past two weeks.

Here was item number one.
It's a little off center, but my first try.



This is number two. The snail and the red herring(?) are images that were inspired by images from this book. (Which sadly to say isn't a really great book to learn how to embroider with but has some really cute projects that could be made cool) The book that I actually learned how to embroider with was this.



Here is my latest one that I did today.


Close up.

(I suck at life)
I toyed around with a bunch of phrases to put on this. I thought I might do "I suck" or "Suck it" and my bf informed me that it was a little too inappropriate for a baby washcloth. He doesn't know that I ended up with "I suck at life" but I think over all he would approve.

Aloe please

I love Wednesdays. Wednesdays are the days that I don't have class. The only thing I usually do is read for my Thursday class. Today was a particularly good Wednesday because the class that always has reading due is canceled tomorrow! So I took it upon myself to get up and out and enjoy the beautiful weather. The weather was 67 degrees and windy. Obviously this is the perfect time to go layout.
I laid out in the back yard in my bathing suit and as soon as I would start to get hot in the sun a large gust of wind came to cool me down. I laid there and listened to Prince Caspian on my ipod, quite contently. And that's how I ended up spending 2 hours in the sun and now I look like a tomato. I hurt. I'm laying in bed and the heat from this laptop is burning my tender legs. I need some aloe.

I'm famous

Okay so I'm a big believer in google reader ever since my brother and his wife told me all about it. Every day I read a bunch of blogs, one of them is CRAFT magazine's blog.

Check out this post on their blog.

I was flabbergasted to see what was on it.

A new day

So every now and then I go to the library and pick up all of the easy to read books about a craft.
This is how I learned to crochet and knit. Over Christmas I got books about origami and used odd bits of wrapping paper to make animals and put them in the Christmas tree.
So on Saturday I went to the library yet again and got a bunch of books on embroidery. (and a couple of children's chapter books on tape for the drive back to school--guilty pleasures)

Anyways so I went to the basement and found some left over fabric from some curtains and went to town.

monogram

snail!

It all matches my bedspread too. AWESOME.
Can you tell that I'm just a little pleased with myself. I can't wait to improve.

Project: Finished

Okay so the day has come my friend, to speak of many things; of tetris blankets, sealing wax, cabbages, and kings.

this picture is to show you the texture of the blanket.

This is the back side.

This is the front side.

It measures to about 38"x38".
It's a pretty big baby blanket.
I made it all out of Simply Soft yarn, 6 oz., 100% Acrylic. It is very soft and not itchy at all.

Well, that's it. I guess I should move on to something else now. I just need to figure out what that is.