Must be Santa...or Maria Barton Star Rug Company

Check out the groovy giveaway from Maria Barton!

http://starrugcompany-maria.blogspot.com/

Typographic Trees

May 12, 2010 New Yorker
1,000 Words: Typographic Trees
Posted by Lucy Tang
Great images of books from around the world and the Web.

The artist Gordon Young and the design studio Why Not Associates created fourteen typographic tree sculptures for the Crawley Library, in West Sussex, England. I wonder which books they chose to sandblast into the wood.
(via Creative Review)Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/05/1000-words-typographic-trees.html#ixzz0nptdLXfW

Inca Knits

http://dbrl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/417206018_inca_knits

Here's a posting for the staff scavenger hunt on our new catalog.

That Voodoo That I Do

I do one thing, and I think only one thing, really well: parallel park. The subliminal geometric calculation undertaken to shear a car with one turn of the steering wheel into a parallel parking space is a pleasure for me that rivals pure bliss. Imagine my delight to find that others dwell in the possibilities of the perfect parallel parking maneuver. On NPR today: "The Formula For Perfect Parallel Parking".

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122880263&ps=cprs

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

I love poppy seeds. I still remember a poppy seed cake my aunt Elinor made at Grandma Jodie's decades ago. Ever since then, if it has a poppy seed in it, I'm on it. While checking out a delicious blog named Tartlette, I fell into this recipe for Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Meyer Lemons. Need I say more?

http://www.mytartelette.com/2009/01/lemon-poppy-seed-cake-with-meyer-lemon.html

A Kiss is Just a Kiss

This site will make you happy: http://toy-a-day.blogspot.com/

Daily downloadable paper toy patterns.

Bag a Bear

"From "Smaller", a journal of inspiration of ideas from the editors of Small:

This amazing bean bag grizzly bear and gnawed log bolsters are knitted! The graphics are made from the pattern of the wool, not printed on after. Check out the other equally astonishing pillow and beanbag designs in their Etsy shop: chicsindesigndotcom."

Forest Bathing

Have you heard of "forest bathing"? I heard it described by Diana Wells in an interview on NPR yesterday. Wells is the author of a book called "Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History" in which she " explores people's relationship with about 100 trees and the stories behind their names. They're arranged in alphabetical order from acacia to Wollemi Pine."
The term forest bathing is a tradition associated with the Japanese cedar tree. "You go into the forest and soak yourself in the trees," she says. "I live where there are woods and I will [do that] quite often and let the trees feel as if I'm part of the forest. It's very, very soothing — it's beautiful."

I'm ready to go. If you could go to any forest, where would you choose to go? Sherwood Forest? The Redwoods?

Sunrise from Nantucket

Another one of my happy places; photo by Julie Cumes/Associated Press. Published in the New York Times, 1.4.10.

Nantucket is the home of the Wampanoag Tribe whose name translates to "people of the first light." Their view to the east across Nantucket Sound is integral to their identity and cultural traditions. “Here is where we still arrive to greet the new day, watch for celestial observations in the night sky and follow the migration of the sun and stars in change with the season,” writes Bettina Washington, historic preservation officer for the Aquinnah Wampanoag, in a letter to federal officials.

The tribe is opposed to the development of a proposed offshore wind turbine farm in Nantucket Sound that "would thwart their spiritual ritual of greeting the sunrise, which requires unobstructed views across the sound, and disturb ancestral burial grounds." The proposed wind farm would be larger than the island of Manhattan. As reported in the Times today, "Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose family compound in Hyannis Port looks out on the proposed wind farm site, was the project’s most powerful opponent until his death last August." To read the full text of the article by Abby Goodnough, see "For Controversial Wind Farm, New Hurdle is Spiritual"; New York Times 1.4.10.

In my happy place

A New Look for a New Year

Ah...it feels great to shake off the old and slip into the new year. Cheers!