Nothing much to say...

except that it is gawdawful hot lately, and the Widge, who always wants to play outside, doesn't understand why we can only do it in small blocks of time. Yesterday I got stung by a wasp, further proof that we should spend all of August indoors, reading quietly.

Went to Borders yesterday because we needed to see some new scenery, and Borders is close to where we live. I personally like Barnes and Noble better, and if they'd build a store near here, I'd go there. Widge got some new truck books, and I've noticed he's becoming a connoisseur: he now wants only books with real photos of trucks, not drawings. Or maybe thats this week's inexplicable toddler fad, along with refusal to nap. Yesterday we woke up at 5:30, didn't nap, and so were yawning before dinner. Hopefully today we nap a bit, but I'm not holding my breath.

Anyway, I bought a copy of Interweave Knits. I used to buy every issue, until I got pregnant and started buying baby magazines instead. I was actually looking for a good quilting magazine, but there aren't many: I mean they mostly are compilations of patterns, and while that's swell, I also want some technique and theory. Knitting is full of it: at Borders, the knitting books take up shelves and shelves, some pattern books, books on technique, design, and just plain philosophy, books on knitting for charity, knitting with only natural fibers, knitting without wool...piles of good books on knitting. Quilting doesn't have it: just one shelf of books, mostly patterns. I think the problem is that knitting went through such a huge renaissance, and now all kinds of people knit: young, old, male, female, from all walks of life, and the book market has responded. Quilting doesn't have that saturation yet: fewer people talk about quilting, and most people still think of it as an old-lady craft: grandmothers making bed quilts out of pastel floral prints. I think as knitters, we've changed the public perception of us, but quilters haven't yet.

I was looking for a hand-quilting book, with maybe some design, but also some history, maybe, some theory: are there advantages to different thread types? Are there different techniques that work better with different fabrics? what happens to the overall durability and finish if, instead of using a running stitch, you quilt with a backstitch, or cross stitches, for effect of emphasis? I'm not sure such a book exists. The quest continues.

Also, I have to say that I feel I've compromised my integrity as a writer. In the last post, I used the phrase: death grip. I wanted it to be one word: deathgrip, but I let the spell check seperate it instead, in a moment of weakness. I just think it looks more dramatic as one word. Two words look disassociated, as if they happened to be wandering around and ended up standing next to each other, like you might end up standing next to a serial killer in a bank line. Do you think it matters?

See, for having nothing much to say, I actually had a few things to say.