September 13, 2011

Call Me Ishmael

So. Let me start by saying that I've read Moby Dick, and I'm not a fan. Man, that Melville could really have used a firmer editorial hand. The book is about 625 pages, depending on your edition and there's really only about 250 pages of story there. Everything else is just minutia...pages and pages of minutia. Was the guy getting paid by the word?

Our friends over at Feeling Stitchy are running a little contest called Covered in Stitches. Essentially, you stitch up the cover of a book. It can be your own design or you can embroider an existing cover, doesn't matter. But it got me to thinking about book covers and cover artwork in general. And I'm going to repeat something I've been saying for years: here in the US, we have terrible taste in cover art. Nothing says "chick lit" faster than a blurry photograph of some cropped body part. But digging through my (massive) book collection tonight, I found a few that stand out:



Why yes, it is Laundry Day...why do you ask?

Uh, yeah...up in the corner of that one photo is....Moby Dick. The cover art is about the only thing that I like about that book. And I like it a lot. In fact, I'm thinking that it may be my entry for the Covered in Stitches contest.


September 2, 2011

Every Day I Write the Book*

I've never been someone who keeps a journal or diary. It takes time and self-discipline, both of which I never seem to have enough of. But I keep hearing over and over about how important keeping a regular journal is to the creative process, whatever your outlet is. And I get it -- I do. It's just that I feel so, well....uninspired. My life is....mundane. Ordinary. Boring. And I like mundane and ordinary, for the most part (drama is really overrated, trust me). But the very qualities that make for a relatively comfortable existence don't necessarily lend themselves to scintillating self-expression.

And then I saw this. And this.

And I've been thinking about one of these.

And I'm feeling kind of...inspired.

I like the 30 Days of _____ idea. And starting with lists is brilliant. For me, it's perfect -- I can take the day's topic and expand on it as much or as little as I want to. Or have time for. And I love lists -- I'm always making mental lists of things. And so without further ado:

Things I'm Looking Forward To

1.  Receiving my new Fuji Instax 210 and experimenting with it;
2.  Lunch at Zono on Monday with my friends, Penny and Sue;
3.  Finishing my current embroidery project
     (it's a secret for now since it's for someone's birthday);
4.  Starting 2 new embroidery projects:
  • A black-work portrait of Franny based on a pen-and-ink drawing that some friends' daughter did years ago;
  • Feeling Stitchy's September Stitch-Along;


* Every Day I Write the Book is an Elvis Costello song. Because my life has an 80s soundtrack.