TGIF! This has been an unusual week. On Tuesday my husband and I packed a few things, got in the car and drove to Lexington, KY — over 300 miles — to see Pearl Jam at the Rupp Arena. It may seem strange, but seeing Pearl Jam live in concert was the fulfillment of a 20+ year dream for me. I had pretty much given up on ever seeing them live, so I was astonished and delighted when Stuart agreed to this insane plan. Why Lexington, KY? Because both Chicago shows were sold out and Lexington was the nearest venue that still had tickets available. So we drove and drove, and checked into a hotel and went to an amazing concert, and then crashed at the hotel and got up in the morning and drove and drove back home on Wednesday. But, was it worth it? Heck yeah.

We had a bird’s eye view of the stage at Rupp Arena.

Thursday I was back at work, and it was national Take Your Sons & Daughters to Work Day. I got to entertain 33 kids aged 5-9 in the library for 50 minutes. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. With the help of another staff member and a student worker, we played games, did some coloring, talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up and toured the library.

So, I am ready to crash this weekend. But, before I do that, here are this week’s links:

• Edouard Martinet makes amazing animal and insect sculptures out of bicycle, car and motorcycle parts.
• Dutch divers found a 400-year-old silk dress preserved in a shipwreck.
• Ancora Crafts has a helpful review of glow-in-the-dark embroidery threads. I have a couple of skeins of the DMC glow-in-the-dark thread, but I have not used it for a project yet.
• Did you do any finger knitting as a kid? I did. But, Flax and Twine shows us how to use finger knitting to create a beautiful rope trivet.
• Bored Panda has a roundup of “20 artists who took embroidery to the next level.” I have linked to some of these artists in previous blog posts.
• Celebration of Needlework is happening this weekend in New Hampshire. Maybe someday…

Video of the Week

This was an astounding amount of work for 40 seconds of animation:

The “making of” video is pretty awesome, too.