linky links

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pretty pretty pretty by Fringe and Fettle 

pretty pretty pretty by Fringe and Fettle 

 

Mark Ruffalo is AWESOME.  "Ignorant little jerks," indeed!

I love this in air cocktail kit, (go support small biz and buy it here!) and also want to DIY it with my own preferred bitters and bar snacks (spiced nuts? meh) and an altoid tin. 

Related: Maggie Mason's genius way to make travel toiletries with a straw.  You could totally do this for individual packets of sugar or other cocktail mixins.

Also related: guess who just bought a heat sealer? The real question is how did I not have one of these before?

This solution to refilling the soap dispenser is freaking genius.  If only our built in dispenser weren't busted. 

I love a good pottery tray, and these by Fringe and Fettle are stunning. 

sad kitty news

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Last night we lost our younger cat Henry in a freak accident. 

Henry

Henry

He jumped off the ottoman and landed against our tv stand hard and broke his back. It was a jump he'd made a million times before, he just landed wrong and we lost him.

He died quickly, and I am very much hoping without any pain. He was clearly unable to move, and only able to moan a bit before his breathing slowed then stopped.  I pet his head, but I was also alone with the kids, and trying to keep them from hurting him further. It was terrifying and traumatic to see the whole thing unfold, so quickly, and not be able to do anything to help him.

I'm crushed. The biggest little is crushed.  The littlest little is wandering around going "Cat-cat? Cat-cat?" wandering around looking for his friend, the fat black cat who would sit still for his enormous toddler hugs, patiently (or was it terrified?).  Milo, our older, somewhat crankier cat, is also doing the same, wandering around looking for his frenemy and playmate. 

Henry and Milo.

Henry and Milo.

We got him in either late 2006 or early 2007 as a baby kitten. We suspect that he'd been removed from his mom a bit too early as he was super needy and cuddly, but refused to sit on a lap.  He grew quickly into an enormous mass of muscle who was also a big squish.  He loved to be petted and scritched, but still refused to sit down on a lap, preferring instead to pace back and forth, back and forth, over you while you pet him or scritched his belly.  He was super pretty, and liked to pose, and was very accomplished at hiding his giant belly and his buck-tooth fangs, which caused him to drool.  

baby Henry. He never stopped moving, thus the blur.

baby Henry. He never stopped moving, thus the blur.

He was not the smartest cat, at all.  Once, I saw him, completely awake just fall from his perch on the arm of the sofa.  Just fell, shook it off, and waddled off. No reason.  Just rolled off the couch. As you do.

Teenage Henry, before the tub packed on. 

Teenage Henry, before the tub packed on. 

He loved it when people visited the house and would always come say hi, and stay around long after other cats would have (and did) gone for their hiding places. And he tolerated and welcomed every single child who would come through the house, ignoring their yanks and pokes and letting himself be smooshed into baby hugs and pats.  

toddler hugs

On birthdays and mother's and father's day, JBB and I write cards to each other from the cats. Milo is a very dignified elder statesmen, a gentleman of a cat, who signed his name Milo the Cat, Esquire, and of course, perpetually annoyed and somewhat perplexed by his companion, Henry. Henry however was pure energy, bounding and excited, mispelling everything, missing articles, verbs, syntax and often writing in all caps with backwards "e"s  (I HENRY LUV THE FOOD LADEEEEE!). It was totally how he would have written.

giant eyed Henry.

giant eyed Henry.

He LOVED wool, and would knead knead knead away on anything wool. He had a knack for balancing his enormous weight (seriously, 20 pounds AT LEAST) on his tiny tiny little feet, and purring like a madman. 

Henry loves him some wool.

Henry loves him some wool.

He was built like a well-padded truck, solid SOLID muscle under about 2 inches of tub.  One of the saddest things to me was petting him after his fall and not feeling his very alive muscled self, but just ...limp. He died in his favorite place to nap, in front of our tv stand, right in line with the heating vent. 

Henry in his favorite spot.

Henry in his favorite spot.

He got up in my face, headbutting me, nudging my head while sitting on the back of the couch and I am going to miss him something awful. 

And for folks in North Jersey, the folks at the Animal Emergency & Referral Associates in Fairfield are lovely and compassionate. JBB took Henry there when he got home, and they were fantastic. 

"I'm lazy..."

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I say that a lot, and I honestly think it's true. I am pretty damn lazy.  

But I also do an awful lot of stuff.  As JBB points out--often--I don't have a problem finding something to do, ever.  

Yet, still, I consider myself lazy. (I mean in college I  very often convinced my suite mate to turn off my overhead light for me as she was walking by, because I didn't want to get up. She did it because she is a lovely and kind person.) Hard work is HAAAARRRRD.  

I finally realized a few things today when I saw this Thought Catalog piece posted on facebook.  First, I am so not "very overdriven but also very lazy," as described by TC, as not many of the descriptives outlined there applied to me. Second, one piece of wording jumped out at me as truth:  I am NOT actually lazy, I do things that don't feel like hard work to me.  

For example, one time I was out of tissue paper and working on something involving decoupage.  It was rainy and evening, and there was no way I was going to actually bother getting dressed to go out and purchase tissue paper to complete this project, because EFFORT.  And so I painted some coffee filters to get the color and effect I wanted.  Easy! Some may say that's a lot more effort than buying paper.  I say I didn't have to move or put on pants, and there was no need to put the project on hold. Lazy! 

Also in this ilk? Hand whipping cream because I am too lazy to wash the mixer bowl. 

A wee tumbler

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remember what I said about shrinkage with clay? Well this one I knew was going to be wee. 

a tiny tumbler. Probably good for bourbon, right?

I normally lean toward pieces with feet, glazed in something with a bit of blue, and this piece has neither. I am pleased with the balance, both shape and weight wise, but also with the glaze.

ok maybe a little bit of blue

The first dip of glaze is cream, which is a soft semi matte, with a bit of a velvety hand to it. Interestingly it broke a bit reddish brown (shino-y) where it was heavy. Then I dipped the room in moss, which alone is a complex brown-green semi matte. Through the magic of chemistry, not only did the overlap come out glossy and somewhat translucent, but it ran a frosty baby blue at the lightest application.  

Glaze is not like paint where red and blue pigments make purple. The components of glaze change chemically in the kiln as they melt and attach themselves to the clay body, and when you combine two glazes they interact with each other as well. Even there color of the glaze when dipped doesn't necessarily correlate to the color when fired. So instead of red plus blue equals purple, it's more like bathtub plus lunchbox equals telephone. 

the inside. Totally bourbon, right?

two mugs

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I've been throwing pottery pretty consistently for the last six or so years (save a full year off when I had the littlest little, cause baby).  I started doing pottery back in high school in my outstanding and amazing Crafts elective taught by the outstanding and amazing and terrifying (in the BEST WAY) Ms. G.  That's a whole 'nother post though. 

I take classes at a local studio, which fires stoneware to cone 6.  Right now we're working through some reclaim clay, which doesn't really bother me (save the THREE times I've picked out plaster--what? BAD--and the one time I found a piece of packing strapping in my clay.  Annoying, but at least I found it).

So here are two of my most recent results.

mug the first

DETAIL OF THE HANDLE DWEEDLYBOB THING (AKA, ADDED BIT OF CLAY I SMOOSHED WITH MY FAVORITE CARVED BISQUE STAMP I MADE A FEW YEARS AGO)

I really like this first mug.  This glaze combo is Standard pottery glaze Chambray (first dip) with Frosted Moss (second dip).

I'm pleased with the translucence of the glaze, and how it settled in the stamped lines and pooled on the handle and the interior.  I'm also pretty pleased with the foot of the mug--I love big feet on pottery.  While I was trimming this one, I added a small ridge right by the foot with the idea that I'd glaze this one with one of the slightly runny glaze combos. The ridge acts as a bit of a glaze catch to keep it from running all the way down the foot and onto the shelf.  It mostly worked, too.  

The one thing is there are two bits of something or other on the interior of the mug, embedded in the glaze.  I suspect it's something that was in one of the glazes itself, and it's not easily reached to grind or polish off.  

mug the second.  please to note the SUPER KLASSY photo platform of my notebook, and background of the messy kitchen. 

drippy glaze is the best glaze! unless you have to clean the kiln shelves. then it's the worst ever.

I chose the bottom glaze on the second mug on purpose, but I'm still on the fence about it.  I like it in parts, and I love the combination with the second partial dip (which is a full dip on the interior).  After the first dip, I waxed the bottom a bit higher up so I could just dip full on into the second glaze, but the best parts, right by the handle, are where I kind of smudged the two glazes together a bit with a damp sponge, and where the wax wasn't a hard line.  

The real issue is that it ran right down and off the handle, and pooled on the shelf, so I had to grind/sand/diamond polishing block a chunk of glaze off the bottom of this one.  No foot, no glaze catch. 

This one is first dip (long dip) of Standard pottery glaze Snow on Brick, topped with Midnight Sky.  

I'm still awful with negotiating the shrinkage percentage of the clay--all clay shrinks as it dries, then again in the kiln, so to get an item of a specific size you often have to make it bigger than you eventually want.  I like big mugs and so these are a bit small for me. Eh, getting there.

 

linky links

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Food52's examination of who makes the best black and white cookies is so up my husband's alley. Though not up my alley. They are not cookies, they are cakes, and bleh.  (By the way, he says the best ones are by some place in the Bronx.  I'm sure he'll comment to tell you all. HINT HINT.)

Most self striping yarns are dyed to work for socks, not shawls. Caterpillargreen self striping shawl yarn is genius--they dyed their base yarns so you get perfect stripes as you knit your top down shawl.  

No one gives a bad review quite like Kirkus. Sick burns, the best of Kirkus Reviews.  And those who know me, yes, the best bad review of all made the cut.

Oooh, fancy shelf paper makes me want to rearrange things.

to zip or not to zip?

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To zip or not to zip?  That is not really an option. Thing thing will have a zipper come hell or high water. The question is WHICH zipper? 

So remember that sweater I made the biggest little this winter? The warm and cozy wool hoodie that I didn't finish until April, when it turned warm?

Whelp, I finally got the zipper choices for it, from zippersource.  (I am the only reason it took forever to get them, their shipping and customer service was and is great! custom length! many colors! I am just a slacker when it comes to ordering)

dun da-da-dun, I'm Super Contrasty!

Too dull?

So which color do we like best? I purposefully chose a not-perfect-match for a bit of contrast, and I'm planning on facing the zip with  a ribbon more in the realm of the sweater than in the realm of the zip.

I'm torn: The red is a nice punch of contrasting color, but does it look too superhero? I like the slightly lighter blue, but is it too pale of a blue?

Should I--dare I say it--order a different color and put off the finishing of this sweater YET AGAIN?

I mean, who are we kidding, it's not like another week or two will really matter at this point. The kid isn't getting much wear out of it with this gross muggy humid weather.