It's the weekend...

Lots of odds and ends here, and a tiny rant to top it all off!

Last night we went to an interesting venue... it's called The Great Wall of Oakland, and it's a big, mostly blank wall on a building that's probably 8 stories tall. Apparently once a month they close the street (it's right downtown) and show movies or videos on the wall, and people bring chairs or blankets and sit in the street to watch.

The was a special performance by a group called "Bandaloop", who hung from the top of the building on ropes and danced a sort of modern ballet on the side of the building 4-5-6 stories up. There was live music go with the dancing. It was fascinating!  I was taking photos with the iphone, which didn't really do it justice...  the shadows they cast were really interesting, and you had the feeling you were watching a ballet from overhead.  If you have a chance to see them perform somewhere, do it!

I finished up my Caterpillar socks this morning -- just in time for the weather to warm up again. I have the next sock project picked out and ready to start.

Today, for some reason, I decided I needed a little retail therapy. I hadn't actually been in a fabric shop for ages and my excuse was I needed some easy-threading needles since the brand I had (Dritz -- don't buy them!) kept shredding my thread.  I wanted John James or Fons & Porter, which had been highly recommended...

I did eventually find the needles, but I also found a little fabric, including this:

 Have I mentioned my small obsession with rhinos? Can't explain it, really. If you run across interesting rhino fabric, let me know!

But that brings me to my little rant.  Part of the fabric I bought was to make myself a shirt.  I haven't actually made clothes for a while but I have a stack of recent patterns from one of the Joanns' sales and so I started pinning when I got home. Here's the question: why on earth do they still give yardage and layout instructions for "45 inch fabric" when no one has made 45 inch fabric for years?  Everything was fine until I got to the sleeves, which would lay out fine on 45" fabric but not on the 42" that my fabric actually measures!  (yeah I know, I can open up the fabric and cut them separately, slightly staggered, blah blah blah -- but that's not the point!)

Tomorrow: more sewing. Yay!