Keeping House

I have my share of domestic talents. I can sew, and cook, and make things pretty. But, as you have no doubt observed, fair readership, the gentle art that eludes me entirely is cleaning. I just don't have the knack. I have often stared at a dirty counter and wondered how to make it clean. I mean that I always have had the sense that other people had an easier time, some innate understanding that I lack. My husband mentioned in a loving fashion once or twice that he had also observed this lack in my abilities, and although cleaning isn't absolutely top of my list of things to excel at, I did wish I could get better.

Fairly recently, it occurred to me in full epiphianic glory that I know how to learn things, and that the things I learn do not always have to be in the form of abstractions. I've been in graduate school most of my adult life, and finding myself out of it, I've had some intellectual energy to burn. Why not systematically set about researching and synthesizing knowledge about the parts of my life that had previously befuddled me.

In January I set my full intellectual and creative powers toward learning to clean. I began with Amazon, and sought the perfect cleaning book. I found it in this form:
It's extremely practical, assumes you don't know how to clean a counter effectively, and most importantly, the authors are even more toxophobic than I am. It's green as can be. It's not very pretty though. So I use it in this form:
The first thing I learned was that there are simple techniques that are more effective than others. The second thing I learned is that honest to god, if you do a bit of cleaning each day, your house doesn't get super messy. I decided that I simply could not trust my instinct on this issue (it's failed me for thirty some years on this one) and created a regime. I'm very good at following regimes as long as they're entirely of my own making. Here is my regime:
(Matryoshka image "borrowed" from somewhere or other. I've got a real thing for matryoshkas. So sexy. So stern. So motherly. So sweet.)

Now, May seems to me to be quite a domestic month, and I have decided that here on my blog it will be housekeeping month. I have quite a lot to say on the subject, and promise to keep in craft-related. Things one can make. Concoctions. Pretty implements. The like. And please, offer me advice.

Gratuitous kitty attacking feather duster pic:

Today's Hand Bag

I made this little bag from some scraps today. I like it very much. It's so satisfying to make this kind of thing. Very quick and then so very useful, both for its prettiness and also its actual functionality. This whole craft thing is about that, yeah? Being able to create the useful objects around us. I used some left over duck from my dad's bag, and the lining is red stuff left over from the chair seats. The lovely flower print is left over from a soon-to-be revealed project. The button came off of a jacket I have retired. It's actually mostly there just for the photo shoot. I like decorative buttons in theory... but in actual use, the carrying this bag around part, they're a little too frippy.

Me trying to model bag. I always find this kind of shot amusing. Interesting reflection in the beveled edge of the ancient mirror.

I think this is my spring bag. Yes, it's black. That's inevitable. But it's sprigged with flowers!

Happy May Day

My school.

A Whole New World (of tartar)

We got a new camera. A whole lot of new camera. It's baffling in its capacity. I feel like this littlest matryoshka, gazing a little stunned upon a new land of possibility.

Nesting dolls from my mother. I love them madly. The littlest here is about the size of a quarter. Good heavens.

I strongly advise my mother to stop reading here. Along with anyone else who has a stronger than usual aversion to rodents.

And this is the tarter on mouse teeth. No, serious. I found this gorgeous tiny skull in the garden. Here is the whole mandible (at least that's what I think it's called... and I think it's a mouse...I'm not really much of a biologist though):
And skull:
Love the tiny fur detail. Scott took the mousey pics, but clearly I no longer have an excuse in lack of camera-power.

Contemporary Art

Just what does my husband do in the service of Contemporary Art? This is a succinct 45 second summation, filmed Sunday after Tada.


How I love him!

Video by PICA's own Brian Costello

New Adventures With Sharp Needles

Men are so hard to sew for. Many of them don't have a finely attuned sense of the transcendently adorable. But one does persist in making them gifts. For my father's birthday I made him this bag out of black duck (that's a heavy cotton fabric) with a leather pocket and bird. The bird is legit; he will probably use the bag for bird-watching. I learned quite a bit about sewing with leather, namely that I don't know how to do it. As I sewed, it stretched dramatically. The pocket began as a rectangle and ended up trapezoidal. I kept trimming and re-sewing, and it got wonkier each time. It finally ended up acceptably, but I'm going to have to work on it more, because I really like leather, and there's plenty of it out there to reclaim.
Here Shanga poses with the bag, suggesting they go for a walk immediately. Isn't she beautiful?

Self-portrait

I don't know. I really love this photo. I always was quite vain about my ears.