Patchwork Planet » crafts

“Surly” is the word

Jennifer — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:39:01 +0000

Somehow this morning I forgot that New Year’s is the BIGGEST HOLIDAY EVER in Ukraine. And I made a horrible mistake: I went to the grocery store. I cannot adequately put into words the scene that met me when I entered the store (after wading through the pack of street dogs that had taken residence just inside the entryway, of course). Being from the Midwest, I would liken it to what would happen if the biggest blizzard of the year was being predicted to hit the night before Thanksgiving. But add in the general pushiness factor of Ukraine, and subtract the general overly-polite factor of the Midwest. It was not a pretty picture. I think I even saw riots breaking out at the Kievsky Tort counter. How I managed to survive, I don’t know.

But on a more positive note, I have a finished craft project to share. A few months ago, I stumbled upon this site with a crochet pattern for mini safety cones. My first thought was that they were the most adorable things I’d ever seen. And then I started reading about how people associate these orange cones with safety and protection. I realized that after a year and a half in Kyiv, my associations are totally different. Here, orange cones are either used to designate where one should not park - there’s absolutely no authority associated with this; it’s often business owners trying to keep cars off the sidewalks in front of their shops - or I’ve also seen them used by the traffic police as just another way to extract bribes. And I realized that Ukrainian orange cones would not be the happy-go-lucky cones that the pattern shows. They would be cranky…surly, even. And so I present to you, Surly Ukrainian Traffic Cones:

Aren’t they cute? In their own cranky post-Soviet sort of way?

Finishing up

Jennifer — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:15:42 +0000

I’ve spent today finishing our Halloween costumes. I’ll be sure to post photos from the party tomorrow night. They should be pretty entertaining.

Obsession

Jennifer — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:09:19 +0000

One of my many obsessions is buttons. Not the silly slogan/photo kind of buttons, but the ability to actually function as a closure buttons. When we lived in Providence, there was an antique shop at Wayland Square that had an old library card catalog with all the drawers filled with old buttons. I used to just go and dig through those whether I actually “needed” any or not. And a weird thing about Kyiv is that I find old buttons on the street all the time. Where they all come from, I don’t know, but I pick them up anyway.

A couple weeks ago, Shawn started taunting me with the promise of a surprise coming in the mail. Well, on Monday, it arrived….

Buttons! A box of random buttons purchased on e-bay. I am not very e-bay savvy, so I had no idea that you could even purchase such a thing. But what a great husband, huh? He not only deals with my craziness, but encourages it.

(And as you can also see, I immediately began to feed another one of my obsessions: organization.)

Old-timey

Jennifer — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:40:45 +0000

One of the things that I find amusing about Kyiv is the fact that there are some aspects of life that seem stuck in the past. Like, say, the 1950s. I had one of those moments this week when I needed to buy snaps for a sewing project.

So I headed over to our local sewing supply store, “All for Sewing.” (Weren’t the Soviets great at naming things? 95% of the office supply stores here are called “All for the Office.”) Anyway, I got to the store and went to work determining which counter I needed to go to in order to purchase the snaps. Luckily, it was one of the first ones I checked. I peered through the glass to determine exactly which size I needed, and pointed it out to the woman working at the counter. She then proceeded to pull out a box of snaps affixed to pieces of cardboard with a perforated line between each set of 6 snaps. I told her I would take 12, so she tore off that many for me, I paid, and I was on my merry way.

But look at this packaging! How old-timey is that? I feel like this is something my grandmother would have purchased at the general store in town.

I did notice that it says “made in Czech Republic” rather than “made in Czechoslovakia” like I recently noticed all the busses say. Come to think of it, the busses kind of look like they’re from the 1950s as well.

Blog envy

Jennifer — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:41:22 +0000

I see that another week has passed since my last blog entry. Remember when I said I was going to be better about blogging? I swear, people, I’m trying. I don’t know how so many people seem to find the time to blog every single day. But they do, and recently I’ve become a little obsessed with blog reading. Maybe too much of that is why I can’t find the time to blog myself?

I have realized that there is a huge community of people who craft (knit, sew, draw, etc.) and then blog about it. How cool! I love seeing what other people are doing. It gives me so much inspiration, as well as a long list of craft books I now want to purchase. The other thing I’ve noticed is that there is what seems to be a large crafting community in Portland, Oregon. Why did I not know that when I lived there? I guess I was right out of college and more focused on things like “deciding what to do with my life” and “making a new marriage work” than really following my crafting passion. But now I feel like I missed out on something amazing. How is it possible that I have already lived in the perfect place for me and will not have the chance to live there again for another 30 to 40 years?! For now, I will live vicariously through the blogging of others who are there.

Here’s a list of some blogs that I’ve been reading on a daily basis lately:

Additionally, I’ve had some really excellent online shopping experiences recently. Since I now do most of my shopping online, I’ve been trying to find smaller businesses to frequent, rather than giving all my money to corporations. Not only do I feel good about helping out “the little guy,” these businesses know how to use personal touches to make me feel like I’m actually important as the customer. A novel idea in our world of Wal-Marts and Targets.

I got some spectacular fabric from Cia’s Palette - I would show it to you, but it’s for a quilting challenge I have with my mom, who just happens to be one of my faithful readers. And tucked in with the fabric I ordered was a good sized swatch of a different fabric that was equally awesome and in complementary colors! I also got a great vintage dress pattern from Eva Dress. This was going to be the dress I made for myself for this year’s Marine Ball, but it turns out we’re going to be out of town that weekend. Maybe next year… And finally, I picked out a Japanese book on embroidery and some floss from Superbuzzy. And tucked in that package was some Japanese candy! This experience basically taught me that I love getting surprise presents! And the shipping time for all three of these orders was way less than when I order from companies like JoAnn Fabric or KnitPicks. Granted, shipping time for us has a lot to do with the whole Diplomatic Pouch mail system, but I got the feeling that these people packaged my order and took it right to the post office as soon as I ordered. Very cool.

So there’s some online exploring for you to do. Obviously, I highly recommend all of the sites I listed. Let me know if you know any great sites that I should be checking out. I need something more to fill the time between work, dog walking, crafting, eating, and sleeping.