Not So Bitter

It's warmer!  Barely below zero and, look!, the birdbath thawed out.  See those little black and gray birds?  They're called juncos and they leave their arctic home in summer to come here where it's warm.  Yeah, warm, it's been real warm here, little birdies.  Goofballs.  Schools have been closed this week which means they may have to make up a day or two at the end but it would have been madness to make kids walk to school or stand out in the -50 wind chill waiting for the bus.  In. Sane.  Now we need a little snow to cover up all the bunny poop and birdseed hulls, just freshen things up a bit.  I don't think we've had fresh snow since right around Christmas--and that's been two weeks already.

I made it to all my appointments yesterday--lab, doc's appointment, chiro appointment, and yoga class--just fine and on time.  I even had time between the doc and chiro to pop into a quilt shop to look at the fabrics.  I didn't find one thing I had to buy, not even on the sale rack. 

Durwood says that it was obviously a sub-standard fabric store, I say that it was the fact that they have a whole lot of one kind of fabric (cotton) and nothing else interesting (linen, drapery & upholstery fabric).  I'm not very traditional when it comes to my fabric choices, I guess, and while I loved some of the prints and all of the colors (except blue, I really don't care for blue) nothing just begged to come home with me.  I was also kind of looking for more upscale jelly rolls of bright colored fabrics and they had none of those.  None, only yardage on bolts and fat quarters.  Oh well, I didn't really have any money to spend and I've got quite enough fabric anyway.  But it was fun to look.  In between the lab and the doc I went downstairs and finished the last five bowl

cozies I had cut out.  I need to cut out one more because Durwood thought of someone we need to send some to but I also have an idea for another something to sew, and I need to finish that chaos quilt I made last weekend, plus I started swatching cables for my design contest entry for knitting guild and I'm making a doublethick warshrag just for a quick and easy knit when I don't want to concentrate, then there's a few baby patterns in a one-skein crochet book I borrowed from the library last weekend...  Oh man, I need a few extra pairs of hands again.

January 8--Egypt, Thebes, Reign of Thutmose IV, Fragment of Wall Painting from the Tomb of Sebekhotep.  White cotton clothes were the only way to dress in Egypt.  Even in winter it was too hot to wear anything heavier than thin cotton garments.  Clare sketched the simple tunics of the people in the wall paintings in the Theban tomb and made herself sundresses and skirts out of the fine Egyptian cotton she bought for a song in the bazaar.  It had taken a few false starts to get the fit right and to get the ancient treadle sewing machine to work but once she did those two things she was off and running.  In Egyptian culture men were the tailors so it took a bit of stubbornness to get thread and buttons from them.  None of them would even talk to her at first but Tom kept saying he was sure she would fight her way through and eventually she did.

Have you even noticed that the word "Egypt" is a pain in the keester to write?  It's no picnic to type either.  I'm off to shower, etc. because I get to go to work again.  I might just have to stop to see LC on the way which means I have to get a move on to leave 45 minutes early.  Toodle-oo!
--Barbara