I don't know if autumn is coming early this year or what, but in the last week I have had a spasm of nesting like nothing in recent memory.  Moving to the new room has sure perked me up.  I'm realizing now that the old room in the garret was darker than I realized, with just a sliver of direct sunlight a day even at the height of summer. By contrast, there's so much light in the new space I hardly know what to do with it. 

But I definitely need drapes.  Not so much to protect my neighbors from me, like I once thought, as to protect me from them.  They are so unbelievably boring.  It's distracting.  It's really all I can do not to shout "do SOMETHING!  ANYTHING!" out my window at them.

I cast about a bit for some suitable curtains, but I couldn't find anything in my price range that inspired me.  And since I've decided that I'm not going to spend the winter living like a refugee, I will have the curtains I want if I have to make them myself.  I woke up this morning and thought, hell, I can even throw in new pillow shams. 

Good thing there are at least two craft gurus in the house and a fleet of sewing machines at my disposal.  My new crafts guru, E-Dawg, always has a project.  Right now she's making a quilt...


She's all like, "what's the big deal?  It's just a quilt."  As if normal people just up and say, "I think I'll make a quilt today!"  If she had the view into my neighbors' apartments I do, she would know that's not the case.  Most people, when they have nothing to do, end up channel surfing and eating Cheetos on the sofa.  Sooner or later they'll find their hands in their pants.  That's Man in the State of Nature.

To tell the truth, I don't want to get that deep into the whole crafts demimonde, myself.  I'm not looking to start making my own calico coveralls and funky crocheted hats and toesies.  I am not a crochet revolutionary.  I'm wanting whatever I whip up for my windows to look like I bought it at Design Within Reach.  Stealth crafts is my thing.  And curtains aren't too complicated to make, thank God. 

Saturday E-Dawg graciously agreed to initiate me into the vast underworld of fabric freaks, accompanying me to Fabric Corner in Arlington.  I told her I needed her eyes, but the truth is, I was afraid to go alone.  You definitely need a guide.  I mean, these crafts people are serious.  You'll have to pry that bolt of fabric out of their cold, dead hands.  That's how serious they are.

I wanted something light and bright.  As expected I gravitated towards the oranges.  E is what's known as "deep crafts" and understandably tried to sell me on their huge selection of batik prints.  I'm not big on batik, to tell you the truth.  Too crafty-looking.  I know it seems strange — everybody's supposed to want totally unique, handmade housewares these days... 

In fact, I just picked up a couple of little pots from Crate & Barrel, and noticed they were just slightly different, and obviously intentionally made that way — each to look just ever so slightly different enough from the next that when you notice it it irritates you a bit... 


I mean, at first you're like, are they different or aren't they?  And that goes on for a while.  You hold them up and turn them over, comparing them.  And then, when you've settled the matter to your satisfaction — they are, indeed a little different, come the existential questions:  why?  Why are they different?  I mean, really why?

Because, come on.  There's obviously no real reason for them to be any different.  Once you put a plant in it, you won't notice one way or another anyway.  So it seems to me it's only to make you feel, at the time of purchase, as if you've got something at least nominally unique on your hands that they're any different at all.  But personally, when I go to Crate & Barrel I don't have that particular need or expectation.  I've got enough uniqueness in my life, without adding needless individuality to the mix.