Art Lives Here

Earlier in July, I visited my friend Karin at Interlochen Center for the Arts. It's a really wonderful place, and I love wandering around and listening to all of the fantastic sounds floating out of practice huts and windows. I also love this place, Braeside Recreation Hall.

Flappy the Owl in Inside Crochet!

I'm very excited! My pattern for Flappy the Owl has won a competition to be featured in a UK crochet magazine, Inside Crochet, issue 20. You can see him on their  Facebook page or at Yudu, where you can see the front cover and the first couple of pages. I love the photo of Flappy with a little suitcase.

Here are some of my photos that I took before I sent him off. He's about a cute little owl wearing a stripy sweater and is 6.5" tall. I had fun coming up with various techniques to make the ribbed parts of the sweater, and his claws and beak. I made a prototype which my son claimed - I knew the design was good when I saw how much he like Flappy (he named him too!).

If you're not aware of Inside Crochet, it's a great magazine. In the UK I go into the newsagents and see five or six knitting magazines, but only one crochet magazine. It's only been going for 20 issues, but I hope that it's going to help popularise crochet in the UK - maybe people will eventually stop asking what I'm knitting! It's well put together, modern and up-to-date, and always has a really good selection of patterns - clothing, accessories, jewelry, toys and things for the home. This is not me advertising for them, by the way, it's just my observation. It's not just my opinion either, check out this blogpost from another admirer.

Hot List for Summer

Today's New York Times features short profiles from NYT arts critics about their "must do" summer activities. Ben Ratliff wants to listen to bird song, Allan Kozinn needs to hear the annual Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Jon Caramanica wants to go for a drive with the windows down and listen to loud music, and A.O. Scott wants to watch "Zazie Dans le Metro" again. Me? The top item on my summer hot list is the same every year: I have to get to the cottage. Long enough to spread my books out, unpack my clothes, and settle in. Here are three pictures from this summer:

The Michigan Poet

The Michigan Poet featured my poem "Hay Season" in the July broadside. They make some beautiful posters, and I'm delighted to be included in the line-up.