Caturday Post: Scaramouche Lies in Wait

Things In My Garden: Hyacinths

The Ruins of Panama Viejo

What is left of the old Panama city, after it was burnt by pirates.

Pacific ocean, at low tide.

Banyan tree!

Old bell tower.  Which we climbed.

Current archaeological dig.

The ruins were, of course, graffitied because people are awful, but I saw my last name.

Caturday Post: Jungle Cat Will Drop on You From Above!

Friday Fabulosity: da Vinci (Possibly) Makes Sequins Plus Sequins

Or at least, he sketched a possible machine that might possibly have worked:

from http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org/Device-For-Making-Sequins.html

and also two fabulous sequined dresses, both from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/C.I.46.4.7a-c/

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/C.I.65.47.2a,b/

and more on sequins and spangles and the history thereof, from the Dreamstress. 

The Mad Person-Who-Stitches: Autumn Leaf Shirt With Greek Keys

This shirt was a try-out for copying my favorite winter button-down shirt.  Essentially a working toile, it has a lot of mistakes as I tried out working with satin ribbon, flat-lining, flat-felling seams, plackets, and generally putting a basic collared shirt together.  But I like it a lot.

Caturday Post: Brothers

Friday Fabulosity: Amazing Dress and Wig of Amazingness

In the immortal words of the great drag queen Lady Bunny, "the higher the hair, the closer to god."

Seen at Paris on Ponce in Atlanta.

In Which I Frighten Buzzards and Iguanas with a Little Coconut

I went to Panama and rode a beautiful little mare named Cocita (little coconut) up the mountain next to Volcan Baru, the dormant volcano which is the highest point in Panama. It was delightful, and we frightened turkey buzzards on the summit and an iguana near the base.

Things that grow on trees, orchids and various bromeliads.

Letting the horsies rest at the summit, with the volcano in the background.

All the turkey buzzards!

Iguana!

Abstinence Only Drowning Prevention

Caturday Post: Scaramouche Dislikes the Paparazzi

The Mad Person-Who-Stitches: White and Black

I have a whole box full of various white fabrics, and none of them is enough of the right kind of white fabric for what I want!

(Also, how did I end up with so much white??  It's not a color I collect by choice, so everything in that box had to be part of another project, or concrete idea for a project, that involved white.)

On the other end of not having the right fabric, the only black fabric I have in all of my stash is scraps of shiny 4-way stretch and scraps of sparkly velvet 4-way stretch, neither of which will do for the current project.

I must needs hie me to the fabric store.     

Friday Fabulousity: An Engineering Problem

                         "I've never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of  humans.  

                                  I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive."

                                                                                  Interplanetary Cessna, from xkcd's What If? 

Medical Monochromatic Fashion, an Evolution

I have been reading Francesco Adami's From Last Hope to First Aid: Stories from the History of Emergency Medicine. In his discussion of white coats, a color chosen for resistance to discoloring effects of antisepsis methods,  he suggests that the reader observe a number of paintings depicting doctors, from 1617 on, showing the progression from black formal gowns to white coats. So let's do that.

Anatomy Lesson of Dr Willem van der Meer 1617

Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

The Gross Clinic, 1875

The Agnew Clinic 1889

Theodor Billroth Operating, 1890

On the Operating Table, 1902-1903

The Surgeons, 1912

The Cardiologist Henry Vaquez, 1918

Appendectomy in Geneva, 1929