Links for 2007-07-15 &14 [del.icio.us]

• camera case interior on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  A sewn padded digital camera case with zippered interior pocket for batteries! I need one of these (been using my old 35mm film camera case with batteries loose in the bottom for oh two and a half years now, ho hum...)
• Sew,Mama,Sew! Blog » Tutorial ~ Bag Straps
• Sew,Mama,Sew! Blog » Tutorial ~ Bag Straps, A Variation
• ColorBlender.com Your free online color matching toolbox

Links for 2007-07-10 [del.icio.us]

• Fish oil may save preemies' vision
  After a study in mice discovered that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and other oils may protect against blindness in premature babies, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston are ready to test the results in a clinical trial.

• Do Sunscreens Have You Covered? - New York Times
  '"Most sunscreens are deceptively and misleadingly labeled, most perniciously to give consumers a false sense of security," Mr. Blumenthal said last week. "In my view, the F.D.A.'s failure to act is unconscionable and unjustifiable in any public sense.”

• Williams syndrome - Social Inhibition - Personality - Developmental Disorders - Brain Disorders - David Dobbs - New York Times
  "If a person suffers the small genetic accident that creates Williams syndrome, he'll live with not only some fairly conventional cognitive deficits, like trouble with space and numbers, but also a strange set of traits that researchers call the Williams social phenotype or, less formally, the “Williams personality”: a love of company and conversation combined, often awkwardly, with a poor understanding of social dynamics and a lack of social inhibition. The combination creates some memorable encounters."

• Crazy Kiwis « BitterSweet
  Fun blog post with a pattern for a knitted kiwi bird!

• DollQuiltFront on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  Cute little quilt with appliqué.

• Björk interview: 'I didn't like being a celebrity. It's a service job. Like washing toilets' | Woman | The Observer

• Johann Hari: Free speech must apply even to the odious - Independent

• BBC NEWS | Health | Sausage additive linked to cancer

• BBC NEWS | Europe | Vatican text angers Protestants
  "Pope Benedict has approved a new text asserting that Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism are not true Churches in the full sense of the word."

More craft stuff, and some thrifting

I haven't really been doing much new crafting since my last post (although the kitty is now attached at the neck) but I have some old news, and a bunch of links to things that have caught my eye. So here goes.

Another soft toy that has been languishing for a year just waiting for a face so it could go to it's intended recipient. This time a WeeBunny (also from a free pattern at the Wee Wonderfuls site). I'm sure I stuffed it full when I made it but it definitely could use more innards now. The question is do I risk doing something that will make it unpresentable for another year, or give it as is and feel unsatisfied with my finished product? I think probably I will add more stuffing -- and if I rip the seam in the right place I can take the opportunity to give the bunny a tail which I neglected to do previously. When these are done and delivered I'm going to finally open up my Big Footed Bunny book for my next soft toy -- maybe I can make one for my daughter's birthday (or mine...).

Yesterday I got my husband to take a picture of me wearing my daughter with the mei tai I made the other week. It's in the sunshine and in focus so all in all a much better shot!

Next thing is that today I tied my daughter on my back (with a different carrier that I also made but don't have a good picture of yet) and went into town without the stroller which meant I could more easily go into some of the stores in town. So I went into one of the used items stores in town and came out with a couple of tops (one to wear as is and one extra large silk shirt that may well get refashioned somehow).

Then after a treat at the bakery and a few errands I went to the less stroller friendly of the thrift stores in town and poked around swiftly (since they were about to close by the time I got there). I came away with two little plates, a package of twill tape, some green fabric, a small piece of floral print material (?summer dress for my girl?), a queen sized bed sheet (not sure what I'll do with this but I thought it was cute) and videos of a British mystery series that I think my husband will enjoy. That all came to just under eleven dollars (and the videos were five dollars). I was looking for thrifting stuff at flickr and discovered that there's actually a Thrift Thursday group. Coincidence? So here's my first Thrift Thursday post. Not sure that I'll manage to do this regularly, I don't make it to the thrift store every week after all, but hopefully that's ok.

And now for the list of links:

I saw and admired this wrap skirt in the NewVintageWardrobe Pool at Flickr. I was excited to see that there are two tutorials available at Sew, Mama, Sew showing how to draft and sew a skirt of one's very own. Yay! I have a wrap skirt that I thrifted a while back which I wore for the first time a few weeks back and love so I was thinking of trying to figure out how to make more so this should help save me some time and brain cells! I don't know whether I'll be able to make one, or any skirt, in time for skirt month though.

Loving this summer dress, lovely fabric that I'd probably never have the courage to make into a dress. I'm surprisingly bad at judging what fabric I'll like in a finished garment, I'm working on it though.

I'm interested in trying out the Sunshine's Creations tutorial for mock cathedral windows sometime. I think I'd do it with batting inside and make a quilt.

Also came across this cute "Disappearing 9 Patch" Doll Quilt at Flickr which links to another tutorial I want to try out sometime.

Oh, so much to do and so very little time! I'm already blogging when I should be sleeping again (last night I went to bed at a relatively reasonable hour for fear of blocked duct threatening mastitis, oh the joys of nursing motherhood!).

What I've been looking at today...

My husband's been away on business the last several days. By today I was getting a little crazy as the baby has been restless so when she wouldn't nap this afternoon I grabbed my ripple blanket and other supplies and headed to the park. Didn't get much crocheting done but she did nap on the way and we had a little picnic. Also we saw flowers and birds and dogs and other babies and some friends, and stopped in at an art gallery on the way home --- so many things to point at and exclaim over (mostly her but sometimes me too). All in all it was a very good thing to be out walking in the sunshine, lifted my mood considerably.


Today I haven't been reading much (not enough time for sustained focus) so this is a more image heavy post.

At Flikr:

• This sonogram tapestry is such a great idea! I have pictures from one of my daughter's sonograms up on the kitchen wall where they'll probably fade but I like seeing them there. It'd be great to do something like this with them, and with the sonogram pictures we have from our first daughter. I don't really weave though, maybe I could do something with embroidery instead.
  


• I enjoyed the story of the magic beans of oer-erkenschwick
  


• I love this baby quilt; more inspiration to work on patchwork/quilting again. I always get carried away with the idea of doing fancy things, or using a lot of colour. Then when I look at quilts like this I realise how beautiful more simple patterns, and how I enjoy the cleaner look of white with colour. I want to make my daughter quilts, and there a few children of friends who are older than her that I had plans for too...



• And here's my own contribution -- we passed this tree on the way to the park. I love this time of the year when the trees are flowering, seeing them always gives me a lift.

I like to keep an eye on the In Pictures section at the BBC website and was interested in the set Your perspective on the world: 28 April-4 May which is all pictures taken with pinhole cameras.

A How-To to bookmark (which I've already forgotten how I got to) on achieving jogless stripes when knitting in the round.

And last but not least, I was intrigued by this post at ParentDish "When kids art collides with an adult's mind" and saw some really amazing transformations where a professional adult artist uses children's art and takes it a step further.

What caught my eye today...

I'm trying a new tactic today; starting a "what's caught my eye today" post in the morning and adding links over the course of the day. It feels much more time efficient! I'm so behind on bloglines though that this post is going to be very heavy on Independent articles because I had a lot of headlines to look through from them, and they seem to have lots of articles I'm interested in at the moment.

Picture of the Day

This stunning blue quilt, hand pieced and quilted. One of these days I'll get back to quilting, my husband would love a quilt like that (blue is his favourite colour).

At the BBC:

I notice that BBC4 is featuring The Edwardians through May, lots of interesting looking programmes. The one that caught my attention in listings was called "What the Edwardians sounded like" but the link seems to be broken. There are also Edwardian themed shows on music hall, food, Saki, photography, shopping and more. I hope some of the shows make their way to BBCAmerica but I won't hold my breath.

A crossover -- scientists have found multiple ancient texts hidden in parchment recycled in the thirteenth century to make a prayer book. I noticed an article on this story at the BBC a few days back, and today read the Independent's article (which I think has more information). I love the idea of finding lost texts hidden behind other old documents. And having taken A-Level Ancient history I have an inkling of some of the lots texts we think have been lost forever that it'd be so exciting to discover hidden in this way!

In the Independent

Covering up 'best protection from sun' - experts say wearing clothes and hats that shield us from sun exposure is actually preferable to just slapping on sunscreen. (also covered by the BBC)

Why Britain can't cope with gays in high places: We like to think that Britain is a pretty tolerant place, a nation in which diversity is celebrated, where our private lives can remain just that. But as this week's sensational 'outing' of Lord Browne demonstrates, for those in the upper reaches of society, homosexuality remains a powerful taboo. Paul Bailey reflects on why one man's shame reveals a much wider hypocrisy

The Mighty Quinn: Art and agnosticism: The artist's 'Angel' was meant to provoke a debate about the existence of God. So where better to house it than a cathedral?

Theatres to be banned from turning bad reviews into a show of support - I've seen this story elsewhere too. It does seem ridiculous that theatres and similar can get away with the false advertising of taking snippets of reviews wildly out of context.

Britain's maligned moths suffer drastic decline: Sir David Attenborough is turning his attention to the humble - but increasingly endangered - moth.