Reading the adventures of Formerprincess in searching out fabrics for her quilt has caused me to think about the process of buying fabric.

For me, it is quite different from the process of buying yarn. When I buy yarn, I think to myself, "I want to make X." I calculate how much yarn of what type I will need, shop around at the available places, and buy the stuff that meets my need at a reasonable price. When I finish that project, I repeat the process.

I realize that many knitters -- as well as many apparent yarn collecters who buy lots and lots of yarn and rarely actually knit anything with it -- have a completely different approach to yarn buying, but this is mine.

Fabric, for me, is different.

I used to buy fabric for quiltmaking. Sometimes that means you have thought of a quilt you want to make so you go buy all the fabric, but just as often it means that you have found fabric you love, so you buy some and then think of a quilt you can make with it. In fact, quilt shops sell fat quarters for a dollar or two, so you can buy one or two at a time and amass a collection, adding them to your rag bag so they will be there for that moment when you need a particular shade or visual texture.

But when I took up dressmaking again last year after a hiatus of some years, I had to think of fabric in a different way.

(I am not saying that I don't quilt any more, of course. I have two WIPs and the fabric and plan for two more, though, so I won't be buying any quilting fabric in the foreseeable future. Unless it's a fat quarter in a quilt shop while traveling. Which I also won't be doing in the foreseeable future. But we all know that fat quarters bought while traveling don't count.)

I have three more pieces to make in my SWAP Part II. Naturally, this means that I have begun thinking ahead to SWAP Part III.

I had to, because I found this print.

The rule for SWAPs is to begin with a print that contains the two main colors of the SWAP. These colors are to be a neutral and a "fashion color" that you can wear as frequently as you would a neutral. For me, these were gray and burgundy. You carry your print around to fabric stores with you and pull the solids that are in the print. You then add a contrast color (blue, for me) and sew up your 11 pieces in these colors.

For the second stage of the SWAP, you make your contrast color the #2 color in the plan, and add a new contrast color or two (I added green and plum). For the third stage, you make the contrast color from the second stage the new #2 color, and add another contrast, while still making sure that your new pieces all work with one another, and with at least three pieces from your previous SWAPs. I'm using my favorite green, so my Sophie bag from a couple of years ago will go with it.

So when I saw this print, a lovely rayon challis in burgundy and sage green with gray, I obviously had to buy it.

It comes from Candlelight Valley Fabrics. I happened upon the link over at a sewing blog, and idly clicked on it. Having had a terrible time finding prints that followed the rules for my first two SWAPs, I knew that I couldn't fool around in this case for fear of its selling out, so I snapped it up. At full price. $12 a yard.

Now, I am not a bargain shopper, exactly. I agree with the maxim that you should buy the best materials for your crafts that you can afford. You are putting time and skill into your work, so it does not make sense that you should use shoddy materials and end up with something of poor quality. At my rate of output (in a year, I can expect to make 2 or 3 sweaters, one quilt, and a couple dozen sewn things), I could routinely spend $12 a yard and $6 a skein and still it would be cheaper than, say, smoking or golfing or many other hobbies. I also know that a ready-made skirt in such a fabric would never be available at under $25, so if looked at as part of the clothing budget rather than the entertainment budget, it is still a reasonable price.

But fabric is one of the many things that goes on sale all the time. The phenomenon of sales and discounts has skewed the whole notion of value for money, so that we now have to consider that the price might be completely different if we wait a week or two. So, even though the fabrics that I like -- natural fibers or microfibers in complex colors -- typically retail at $10 to $30 a yard, I hardly ever pay that amount for them.

That also means that I can't, since I want to have these bargains, just go buy all the fabrics together in a civilized fashion.

No. I haunt the clearance tables and check the online discount fabric houses. When I see a good quality fabric at a low price -- in my SWAP colors -- I buy some. Palmer and Pletsch say "Don't be a remnant queen." They recommend bying your fabric eight yards at a time. Maybe I will work up to that. But I know that three yards will do any pants, skirt, blouse, or jacket, and five yards will do any suit or dress, so those are my magic numbers for yardage.

Here you can see the fabrics for my SWAP Part III. From left to right, here are their histories:

• Blue-green wool bought in summer from the winter-fabric clearance table, $2 a yard.
• Gray, green, and burgundy wool, watched until it went on sale and then bought at $5 a yard.
• The perfect print, bought at full price, not taking any chances.
• The coordinating Ralph Lauren jersey, ditto. Listen, there's no way you can pay shipping on one cut of fabric. You have to buy two. $6.95 a yard.
• Gray microfiber from last year's Memorial Day sale, $3 a yard.
• Navy blue linen from the clearance table (it seems to me it was the summer fabric, last fall), $2 a yard.
• Khaki twill from an online discount fabric place, $1.99 a yard.

With any luck, by the time I am ready to begin sewing, I will have picked up the remaining needed fabrics at equally good prices.

Today I will be up at the store again. We are getting busy, but everyone is still cheerful. This is a nice time of year to be in retail. However, we are also being asked every day about more summer workshops, and I am having to explain that we don't have any scheduled. That was probably an error. It would probably be more profitable to have me continue doing workshops than to have me on the floor all day.

Oh, well.

It is Friday again, and that means that another week of the Summer Reading Challenge has ended. Possibly week 4. I have lost track. In any case, this week's two completed books were Soapsuds and Saturday. Last week's were Triple Witch and True Lies of a Drama Queen, neither of which I mentioned at all, so I have fallen down a bit on the challenge -- we're supposed to read the books and blog about them, not just read them.

It appears to me that I ought to read two books this week that begin with R, but I don't think that will be happening. I am still reading A Short History of Everything, and enjoying it enormously, to answer Universehall's question. I've just been reading about volcanoes and earthquakes.

Oddly enough, I happened upon a lesson on that very subject yesterday. It involved questions about what sort of house one should build on the side of an active vocano. It also talked about the importance of building a strong house because of earthquakes. It was apparent that the author of this lesson didn't know much about either volcanoes or earthquakes. Bryson mentioned that Yellowstone is an active volcano about due for an eruption, and that the last time it erupted it rained ash on the whole country west of the Mississippi. In the previous chapter, he had remarked that the earth was about due to be hit by an asteroid. In both cases, there would be little or not warning, and nothing we could do about it anyway.

At book club the other day, the ladies were telling me about bomb drills. The kids in their generation were told to get under tables in case of an atmoic bomb.I laughed. But one of the ladies said it would keep the children from panicking and running around screaming in their last moments, so it was a good thing. Bryson suggests that the last few months before an asteroid hit the earth would be extremely interesting, but I think there might well be a lot of running around screaming. Think of Y2K.

A Short History is the kind of book that I like to read a bit of and then set it aside and think about what I have learned for a bit before picking it up again. I am also back to reading Bones to Pick, an innocuous bit of mystery-cum-chicklit that I keep beginning and then giving up on. It has a ghost, completely unnecessary to the plot, and lots of characters so unmemorable that I can't keep them straight, and two love interests who never show up but are only talked about. Maybe if I had read the whole series, I would be more interested in it. Maybe not. I may just put it away and begin Death Comes for the Archbishop, recommended to me about a year ago by Dingus and currently sitting on my unread shelf. I had intended to read Mansfield Park for Knit the Classics, and even got a copy from frugalreader, but have mislaid it and the deadline is fast approaching.Still, those could be my books for this week. Who knows?

The deadline for my encyclopedia entry is also fast approaching. I am writing about a county, a couple counties to the south of here. I sent it in on time for the first deadline, and it came back with queries from the reviewer. Had there been Klan activity there during reconstruction? What were race relations like? Things like that. It is very hard to find these things out, since there are no published documents regarding this county since the 19th century-- just a few news reports. This county contains the first Southern elementary school to integrate following the 1954 Brown vs. Topeka decision, though news and court reports from the time say there were only three African-American children involved.  Census data says there are no African-Americans living there now. No Asians. Few Hispanics or Native Americans. There aren't all that many white people. Are the numbers so small because they are racist there, or does it look racist because they are little bitty rural towns that no one much moves into?

I may have to leave it to the fact-checker, and hope that the fact-checker is a local person who can track down the local gossip and visit the local historical society and things like that. When I was doing the entry on the beauty queen, I had the good fortune to run into a friend of her mother's, and that made all the difference.

I am a firm believer that "the weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory," and not one to rely on oral history, but it becomes hugely important in cases where people aren't writing things down.

As far as knitting goes, I have finished the heel flap on the second sock, and am still turning possibilities for Erin over in my mind, but I am also thinking of making Elsebeth Lavold's "Ivy" from the rest of the sock yarn I have. I bought two skeins of burgundy, and haven't yet finished one in the knitting of my current socks. At the same time, I bought six skeins of gray. I was thinking that it took two skeins of this yarn to make a pair of socks, but I think it really takes one and a fraction. I don't think that I want to make five pairs of gray socks. I love the yarn though -- Knitpicks Essentials -- and it could make a very nice sweater. Considering how far it goes, I think I have enough to make a sweater. So I think I will. After I finish the socks.

Canadian National was saying I sounded busy, but not busy.

Actually, I am busy!

Here are a couple of pictures of the gardens at the local university. My kid has been told that he can have a job taking care of these gardens, but at the moment he is not sure that he will apply. He has a lot of odd ideas about workstudy. I am hoping he will get over them, but I am not trying to persuade him.

I rarely try to persuade my kids of things once they are past the age of being told what to do.

I ended up getting to like McEwan's Saturday, and book club was great fun as always.

Good conversation is worth a lot.

I am really having trouble with some of the queries on the encyclopedia entry, so it is not finished, even though the deadline is this Saturday. I may be burning the midnight oil on this one. I've tried the local library and the internet, and that's about all I've got. Maybe I should have gone down to the county I'm writing about, but now I definitely won't have time.

There really wasn't any downtime in my day yesterday, except for a spell at the end of it when the boys and I made popcorn and watched "Li'l Bush," a new cartoon in the adult cartoon lineup.

It was coarse, disrespectful, and not funny. Mr. Bush can be quite funny, and laughing about him is one way to cope with the really quite horrible things that the White House does, but we were not amused.

Back to the salt mines!

Freshman orientation is one of those events, like showers or baptisms or graduations, that is important and something you want to be there for, without actually being very entertaining or even interesting. We spent a lot of time standing in line. Parents on the right, students on the left, in this case.

I learned some things, actually. My kid is going into horticulture, and was the only one in his orientation group who was. That meant that we got a one-on-one meeting with his prof, and that was good. My son said the prof was "goofy," but it was a positive comment. He had an irrepressible love of plants. He would get all excited and twinkly over the thought of a plant, and he and #1 son had a jolly little talk on local carnivorous specimens, at the close of which the prof raised his arms and sighed, "I'm a plant geek."

But before this there was a group meeting with the entire group going into the college of agriculture.

There was a preponderance of blondes. There was one guy in overalls who kept making cell phone calls about his hogs, and a couple of fellows doing pre-vet studies. Then there were all these glamorous blonde girls. I am sure that they were all very individual and different from one another, but in a group they ended up seeming all alike: a dozen artificial blondes in shorts and baby doll tops, with lapel tags showing androgynous names and Texas hometowns.

I assumed they were there for poultry science.

This was based on math -- poultry science is the big program in our local college of agriculture, the one people come a long way to join, so the largest number of students must be there for the chickens.

Not so. I had a faulty premise. I had no idea, till the adviser for the department told me, that we have a famous fashion design program. It is the largest department in the college of agriculture. I don't have the right term. The word "apparel" is supposed to be in there somewhere. But, really, what a surprise. If this had been a question in a game -- which town is the one to study fashion design in, Dallas or fibermom's little town? -- I would unhesitatingly have chosen Dallas.

Three of the girls were actually from Dallas.

Yes, well, that was the most interesting thing about orientation. Except that when it was all over and #1 son picked up his student ID, he turned to me with an enormous involuntary grin. He always tried to be inscrutable, and rarely smiles except for politeness, but he couldn't help it.

I raced in to work and got there just before opening time. Cleaning, entering the mail orders into the computer, planning for the next event ... I checked up on the online press releases I had done on Saturday. It's kind of like a game now. I imagine what someone might google for, and then a few days later I google it and see whether I succeeded or not. In this case, yes I did. Four hits on the first page.

This will work as long as I guess correctly what people will look for.

 I came home with leftovers from The Empress which I was able, with very little effort, to turn into a dinner the boys were actually happy with, and then Partygirl and I went for a walk in the park. I finished Soapsuds -- a very disappointing ending, by the way, and the book was not worth reading just to get to an ending like that -- and picked up Saturday by Ian McEwan again.

I have been trying to read this book for the past month, and can't get into it.

Here is a covert picture of a place where I was reading, for the Summer Challenge. I was waiting in this spot for #1 son, and glad that I had brought a book along.

Saturday is for today's book club meeting. It is one day in the life of a neurosurgeon, and is filled with gore. I'm not enjoying it much, but I keep thinking that my mother would like it, so I will pass it along to her.

It has some moments, but I doubt that it will be on my list of favorite books.

My husband had to get up at 4:00 this morning, which meant that I did, too. I tried to go back to sleep, but with no luck, so I lay in bed and listened to the rain and read about the neurosurgeon.

I have a teeth cleaning this morning, which will give me further opportunity for reading, and then is book club, so I will get to hear why the others really liked the book. This is one of the many good things about book club: you get to hear why someone else loved a book that you didn't like. It is very rare that we all like the same book. But hearing someone else's positive response allows me to rethink my negative response and perhaps to see the book's good side.

I'm in a major hurry today, and so I just have a few quick notes for you:

If you are charging people to attend orientation (not a good idea, IMHO), you sure as heck shouldn't put half of it on Power Point. This is like charging people to come see your slides.

There are just so many times you can use the word "engaged" in a single presentation, especially when you aren't talking about marriage.

If someone is paying your tuition, it is better not to tell them "I don't plan to get the most out of my college experience. I just want the diploma."

We are actually supposed to be back on campus right now, so I need to go wake up #1 son. And possibly get dressed. I am going on to work after getting the boy registered, so I won't be back here till tomorrow.  See ya!

There were suggestions about the fate of Erin.

Formerprincess asked whether I might not wear Erin after all if I finished her. Yes, I certainly would. That's the problem. I will wear anything. If you have ever seen the program "What Not to Wear," you will have seen people with my approach to clothing. I am the schlump saying "But it's comfortable" in a bewildered voice.

 That is why I am thinking that it might be better if I not finish it.

Erin is this type of sweater -- a frumpy sweater, as Chanthaboune says.

You can see from these pictures that when you make a rectangular Fair Isle sweater, however beautiful, the wearer looks like a small, colorful refrigerator with a head perched on top. The model at left is young and lovely, the happy woman at right looks delightful, but neither looks the least bit soignee, does she?

Ozarque had the happy thought of quitting the fancy stuff now and simplifying the sweater from this point on.

If I were knitting from the top down, that might work.

You do see sweaters like this one with the pattern bands at the shoulder and some shaping in the plain bits. The sweater Pipes that I made for #2 daughter is like that. It has a single pattern band and then a foot or so of ribbing at the waist.

#2 daughter is a model-sized girl, but she still won't wear shapeless things with horizontal stripes.

But I am working from the bottom up, and am now about five rows from the division for the arms. Switching to plain now might make me look like the cartoons of people wearing barrels.

I did, however, as I was searching around for some way to take Ozarque's advice, see this  vest approach. A deep V neck and no sleeves might be a possibility.

Have any of you ever made such a thing? And if so, was it a plain boxy rectangle up to the armscye? And if so, did you feel like a person in a barrel when you wore it? It looks to me as though there was some shaping in the example garment, here, but it is a model, so it also possible that they safety pinned it at the back.

I have a new schedule for Back to School. I will be doing computer work from home and then driving up to the store for eight hours, four days a week. In return for the extra hours, I will have three days off each week. This is one of my days off.

Yesterday's intensive sewing afternoon resulted in a finished pair of pants and a skirt that would have been finished if I hadn't run out of hem tapes. I should be able to finish it today.

Both are from Tencel, so there is that liquid aspect that keeps them from looking like clothing. You will just have to trust me on it, I guess. Both are made from Simplicity 4950, and they are pieces 7 and 8 of my SWAP Part II.

I love this verdigris color.  Here they are in a heap with some other pieces from the SWAP so you can see the interesting color combinations.

I may be going with #1 son to his orientation today.

If not, I may get a bunch more sewing done. I have pieces 9 and 10 cut out already, and have decided about number 11, so the end of the SWAP Part II is actually in sight.

However, I also have a deadline on amendments to my current encyclopedia article, and lots of neglected housework, so we shall see.

Here's something else you can do with cucumbers, by the way.

There is a plate of them, just sliced with various kinds of onions.

There is also a sauce of plain yogurt, diced peeled cucumber, and a chiffonade of cilantro and mint. This goes with the tandoori chicken. There is also a nice squash casserole and some plain steamed green beans. In recognition of their valor in tolerating all these vegetables, the boys insisted on white rice.

 I spent yesterday at the store. First, J.J. and I gave the place a good cleaning, assuring one another the while that no one would mind. There is something about cleaning people's messes up behind their backs...

Personally, I would love to have someone clean up behind my back. #2 daughter sometimes does, when she comes to visit. She believes in strong chemicals for cleaning, while I am a vinegar and baking soda cleaner. So she likes to go buy lots of toxic stuff and paper towels and scrub things. Often thing that I haven't gotten around to scrubbing in a long time.

It's fine with me.

But I have a new work schedule for the Back to School season. I will be doing the computer in the morning and then driving up to do eight hours at the store four days a week, and then having three days off to make up for the long hours.

If I am going to be at the store four days a week, it can't be that messy. Blessing came in after J.J. left and admired it. We will have allies in this.

Then, once it was clean and tidy, I got going on online press releases. This is only slightly less boring than faxing press releases.

So, with one thing and another, I had a lot of thinking time. I was thinking about the process vs. product issue in crafts. I was thinking about this for a couple of reasons. The first is my SWAP Part II. I had intended to get that finished by now, so that I would have things to wear for the back to school at the store, and I am only halfway finished. If I power out today and tomorrow and take a product view instead of a process view, I could finish it. Do lots of machine sewing, not so much hand sewing, quit dithering and make decisions... that's what I was thinking.

So I came home last night and cut another pair of pants and a skirt from the other length of Tencel, using the TNT pattern with the side zip instead of giving in to thoughts of changing to some other pattern. I can certainly do the machine work on them today -- and I could do the hems and facings and zippers by machine, too. This doesn't have to be couture.

But I enjoy the process of doing fiddly hand sewing. I enjoy thinking a lot about what I will make and how I will do it. I'll just save that for some other garment that I don't actually need.

I was also thinking about Erin, the gorgeous cardigan I started over a year ago. Between then and now I became aware that a big, boxy, wooly jacket with enormous horizontal stripes is not the best look for me. Erin has been languishing.

There is no way I am going to frog Erin. But I also can't quite persuade myself to knit the second half of her, knowing that I would not buy such a garment.

I am thinking that I should just complete the band I am on, and make her into a cushion or something.

And the socks. I am ready to do the heel for the second sock, and it was at this point on the first that I made an error and the trellis ended up int he wrong spot. Should I repeat the error so that the second sock will match the first, or do the second right and frog the first so that I will have two perfect socks?

My kids point out that no one will see my socks. They will be between my pants legs and my clogs, invisible except for the heel, which has no errors.

How much time can we put into things we are making just for the process? Wendy of Wendy Knits famously says that she makes lots of complex sweaters and never wears them. In her position, I would then give them away to people who would wear them, but she has never asked my opinion on the subject.

If you are making something that you intend to use or wear, do you take shortcuts and hurry to the finish? Does that take away some of the pleasure of the process? Do you have production stuff and then also have your art stuff? Do you make things because you want to make them, without regard to their future usefulness? If so, do you distinguish between those things and the things with utility?

I think this bit of philosophical maundering was also influenced by that magazine I told you about, Somerset Living, which had gorgeously decorated clothes hangers and clothespins. There is something about the notion of making every single object a work of art that is hugely appealing to me, even while I think those people have way too much time.

But I think that after church today I will be practical and get as far with my SWAP as I possibly can. Then, if I want to, I can start some elaborate thing with lots of handwork and numerous decisions to make.

Possibly my two quilting WIPs that have been languishing just as much as Erin without such a good excuse would meet the case.

She was getting ready for her date with The Cattleman when the email  from the Second Trombone arrived.

She called me.

"What do you think this means? He says he is not what I think he is but he also thinks that I am not what I think I am." She was choosing earrings, slicking on lipstick. "And then he says he will watch my future career with interest."

"Hmmm... Does he know you think he's a loser?"

"Well, he's been telling me for a while now that he isn't a loser."

"Never attractive."

"No, but I guess he realized that I was thinking that. But what does he mean about my not being what I think I am?"

"Well, does he know that you think you're pretty hot stuff?"

"Sure. He has met me."

"Well, then, I think you're being insulted. I am not quite sure what he is saying, but I think it is intended to be an insult." I glanced critically at the growing lattice, trying to decide whether to repeat the error I had made on the first sock so they would match. "On the other hand, I think you can count that as his having broken up with you, so now you don't have to bother doing it."

"That is a plus." Rustling sounds ensued. "I'm wearing that new dress you picked out for me. It is ver' cute."

"I bet. Are you going to tell the Cattleman about the email? As a funny story?"

"Not on the first date. But you know, it isn't the Second Trombone's job to break up with me. I was hardly even dating him. He was still on probation, and it didn't look like he was going to make it."

The conversation made me think about how people behave when they fear rejection.

They parade all their least attractive qualities before their potential rejector. They get angry and say bitter things, trying to hurt that person before that person can hurt them. They scramble to be the rejector instead of the rejectee.

And maybe I should even say "we" instead of "they." It is years since I had anything but an abstract interest in dating, but we all face the possibility of rejection in our lives. People who don't want to be our friends, people who don't want to hire us, people who don't accept our opinions.

If we developed gracious responses to rejection, we might be bolder in our lives.

Here's what happened to the first cucumber from our garden. I sliced them up and put some bottled salad dressing on them, that being my mother's famous cucumber recipe, which everyone loves.

We also had zucchini and yellow zucchini (that might have another name, but if so I don't know it), so I added some mushrooms to that and made a nice pasta dish, thus blighting the young lives of my sons, who complained about the excessive vegetables for about five minutes before eating.

The store hit #5 on google yesterday (I don't count the folks who pay for their placement), and I was quite thrilled about it. Those Canadians with the same name as ours are still #1, as always, but we've left Ohio in the dust.

If you are starting up a business in this computer age, I think that having a unique name (in the real sense of "a name no one else has," not in the modern sense of "a really really cool name") would be half the battle.

Following my link campaign and preparations for today's workshop, I finished up those Tencel pants.

I offer you a picture of them with some other things in the SWAP. This is at least in part because Tencel appears to be some sort of liquid, and photographs of the pants by themselves end up looking like a small gray stream rather than clothing or indeed any solid object. With the jacket and tank top, the context will give you the idea.

I will not be wearing them today because I am not sure I can do a workshop in liquid pants, but I look forward to wearing them soon.

The other thing I am questioning about the workshops for today is whether I should begin with My Joke. I am not a joke-telling kind of person. A little dry wit, maybe, an amusing anecdote or two (and I have some good ones on our state history), but not jokes. My state history joke began as just one of those throw-away lines. I had been working on an encyclopedia entry on one of our early, colorful political leaders. There had in fact been sort of a string of early colorful political leaders in my encyclopedia assignments at the time, so my work on state history had leaned heavily toward duels and outright murders, because we do seem, back in territorial days, to have felt that a murder would be less trouble than an election.

So I made my usual claim that our state history is very interesting. "We have pirates," I said, "and duels and murders and gangsters -- and that's just the government."

People laughed and it got the workshop off to a good start, and since then I have sort of fallen into the habit of saying that at the beginning of my state history workshops.

But I have now said that a whole lot of times this month. It might be beginning to sound rehearsed. Or people might already have repeated it to one another. I may have to skip that.

I got the machine sewing done on the pants I was working on yesterday.

They are in a charcoal gray Tencel twill from Fashion Fabrics Club. Tencel is a very silky, drapey fabric. It may not be possible to make pants in Tencel without feeling like you are making pajamas. There may also be nothing wrong with that.

Now, I say that I got the machine sewing done, but I pulled off the front facing when I tried them on after tacking down the facing, because they did not have a smooth, sleek front, which I think is the point of side-zip pants.

Because, while it is certainly much easier to put in a side zipper, it is not as easy to get dressed in them, which you do hundreds more times than putting in the zipper, so I can't quite allow myself to think that I have done this only because I was too lazy to do a fly.

But this morning it strikes me that since I do not have a smooth, sleek front without these pants on (I have four children, I am getting old, smooth and sleek are no longer words that can be applied to me), it may be unreasonable to expect the pants to have a smooth sleek front when I try them on.

I also gave diversified instruction a try with my youth choir.

I think that it can be done. We divided up into smaller groups now and then. I think that if we break down the overall goal into smaller, discrete bits, it would then be possible to give tasks which were clear enough and small enough that the groups could work cooperatively to do them on their own, especially if we have an adult or an advanced student with them. If we make sure that the break-out groups aren't always remedial, no one will feel bad about being asked to work in a small group or with the directors. And if we structure tasks so that they involve games, or warm-ups, rather than things actually requiring instruction, we won't have to supervise everything.

Plus, you can get young choirs to sing in their heads instead of in  their chests, and they will try to match vowels, bless their cooperative little hearts.

I'm also trying to make sure that IT doesn't dominate our choir. My other instructional jobs -- doing teacher workshops and lesson plans -- are completely dominated by the state-provided frameworks. I am doing a couple more workshops tomorrow, and the whole thrust of them will be to help people shoe horn state history into classrooms already so stuffed with testing and dibbling and paperwork that the teachers can hardly move.

But our choir isn't like that. We have loose, fun goals, we have a few pieces of music that I picked for us to start with and are adding others that other people suggest, we are working together to reach a level of skill that the participants care about.

Yesterday was a day off for me, so I tried not to be thinking about diversified instruction all day. I resolutely  pushed all thoughts of state history and marketing to the back of my mind. I even went shopping.

This is somewhat amazing, since shopping is not something I would normally choose to do on a day off.

However, while I was shoe shopping with #2 daughter over the weekend, she persuaded me or I persuaded myself that it would be sensible to have two pairs of flat shoes.

I therefore went, when I needed a break from struggling with that Tencel, and bought a second pair of flat shoes, one that #2 daughter had assured me was sufficiently stylish that I could wear them without embarrassing her. I also bought a copy of Somerset Life, possibly as a reward for having gone back to the shoe store.

This is an interesting magazine. They  are all about bringing an artful sensibility into daily life. They have charming projects for making your office, bathroom, kitchen, and other such mundane places beautiful.

But will you really make a lovely little collage to decorate your disposable water bottle? Yes, I mean the one you bought from a vending machine because you forgot to bring your own.

Will you deck your paper lunch bag with ribbons and silk flowers?

I admire the impulse. And even as I write that, I realize that we are not talking about impulses here, not in the least. You may have an impulse to write a sweet little note for the lunchbag you pack for your child or spouse, but trimming that lunchbag is not an impulsive thing to do at all. Printing clever quotes out on parchment and scenting them so they will be ready for that impulse is not an impulsive thing to do. The approach to life that this magazine advocates is one of planned and meticulous beauty. It may be quite a glorious and gracious life, but I would expect that few of us would have the leisure or the devotion to do it.

I haven't even weeded my garden, as you can tell. However, I hope that you noticed the sculpture that my husband made for the cucumbers. He put red flags on it not for the beauty of it, but because he thinks they will prevent our putting our eyes out while picking cukes.

Whether this is a sweet show of solicitousness or an indication that he thinks he lives with a bunch of dafties I have not yet decided.