Amplify

Please see my Amplify page (http://sarahmbruce.amplify.com) for sites that I find interesting. (Mostly crafts, but some other stuff mixed in too.)

My cousin-in-law Pam calls it her clipping service.

I'm likely to update it a LOT more often than I update this blog!

Crocheted iPhone Case

Sometimes I want to put my iphone in a pocket with keys, etc., but I can't in case the screen will get scratched.

I have a regular case for the phone, but I prefer using it without a case.

So I crocheted this pouch to use simply for storing it in a pocket (or one-pocket bag, or whatever).

 I put it in head first so that the speaker is at the opening.
(the color in the first photo is representative)

New Crocheted Bag in Progress

to be called “Uncle Sam's Tote”

(see my Etsy store, http://www.etsy.com/shop/SarahMBruce)

Aaaargh!

I DETEST MICROSOFT WORD

Strange Brain

Ever since I can remember, I have considered colors (represented best by the Crayola 8 we used in early grades) to have gender: blue, purple, yellow, and orange are girls, and red, green, brown, and black are boys.

I can remember coloring in kindergarten or first grade and the girls and boys even had distinct personalities (still do): purple is the heroine, blue the mean girl, orange plain and sweet; red is the prince, green the snide iago, brown the stalwart friend.

Obviously, these assignments have something to do with society and my personal tastes—purple has always been my favorite color, and green is often associated with sickness and jealousy. But those explanations only go so far, because I was awfully young, and the sex assignment isn't limited to colors.

I have come to discover that this sexing of inanimate objects (and I'm not even French!) extends to many other categories: numbers, letters, even shapes. The numbers have personalities like the colors do, but not the letters so much.

An accounting:

Girls

3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 14, 17, 19 (higher numbers are just mixed, both feminine and masculine)

a c e f o p q s u v w y

circle, triangle, heptagon

Boys

1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18 (0 itself is neuter)

b d g h i j k l m n r t x z

square, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon

I don't know how to explain how ingrained these sexes are. I don't have to sit here and ponder it, "r" just "is" masculine, "4" just "is" feminine. And although I tuned in to the phenomenon only recently (except for the colors, which I've realized for many years), it goes as far back as my memory.

Is this related to synesthesia? (that would be cool!) Anyone out there know what I'm talking about?

Motown vs Elektra/Asylum

Bob is listening to music through his bluetooth fancy-schmancy earphones (which I gave him for Christmas); I have music playing through my computer speakers. So imagine the cognitive dissonance that results when he sings along to “Dream Weaver” while I hear “Reach Out I'll Be There.”

I Sewed! The World Must Be Ending!

I crocheted a bag from a pattern on the internet (Starling Handbag at futuregirl.com). It came out so well that, although I hate sewing and am bad at it, I decided to make a lining to really finish it right.

It wasn't actually that difficult! and it came out great!

I'm especially proud of the special pocket created just for my iPhone :)

Bob doesn't like the ribbons -- I like them, but maybe not in such a girly bow? Advice appreciated.

Predawn Snow, MLK Day

Opera Sucks

(the browser, that is—okay, I kind of hate the musical style too, but whatever)

I was enamored of Opera for a couple of weeks. It does have some cool features (speed dial), but it has SO MANY PROBLEMS (won't play Flash right, copy and pasting deletes line breaks, just two of the many). So it is back to Safari, which, although it also has some problems, I prefer to Firefox.

What do you use, PC and Mac people?

Is it lame to love photoshop filters so much? Here's a photo I took a few days ago:

and with "reticulated" filter applied.

Medway Visit

While in Medway for boring reasons, I went by Christ Church, which Mom attended for many years; I was baptized there.

I love the architecture and especially the stained glass. They still had some Christmas decorations on the tree outside.

 

The Coasters

For her birthday, I made my sister a set of custom-designed and
-stitched coasters. I started them in the spring and managed to finish them by October.

I found most of the stitches in books and on the internet, and I adapted them to the coaster size. I used DMC threads throughout.

The colors of the first one were inspired by an abstract painting she has in her living room:

The second one was just kind of pieced together. I wasn't happy with how it came out, but everyone else seems to like it. The little lavender bits in these two were a motif I intended to carry through all the coasters, but abandoned the idea when I started designing the rest.

The third one was almost straight from an internet design, except it wasn't big enough and I added motifs on the outside. The picture doesn't show the color (ecru) too well.

The fourth one I designed completely, and I love it. My sister has a lamp in her living room that was our parents'. It is an Indian (dot, not feather) design with a stylized elephant and polo player. I mimicked it for the coaster, then added a background that I hoped would resemble madras.

A pretty design from a book with my own color choices, including a variegated thread in the middle dark flowers. The lighter flowers are both white and very pale pink. (The photograph is overexposed in the highlights, alas.)

Another pattern from the book, this time adapted with a colonial color palette:

A third design from the book, with a sunburst that was achieved pretty well with standard DMC colors.

And my pièce de résistance, the coup de grâce, my stylized flowers and grass. Had a lot of fun with this one, and it came out even better than I imagined.

 

Puzzle from Keith (where does HE get them?)

You are in a windowless room with 3 switches which correspond to 3 bulbs in another room and you don't know which switch corresponds to which bulb. You can only enter the room with the bulbs once. You can not use any external equipment (power supplies, resistors, etc.). How do you find out which bulb corresponds to which switch?

Craft Explosion

So, now that I've finished my MUST DO projects (the three christmas scarves—entrelac in maroon sock yarn for Mom, knit/purl squares in brown tweed for Andrew, and hobo in green tweed for Olivia—I have turned to a ton of free patterns on the internet. More pics to come...