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I love the idea of wearing skirts. But if I'm walking around and generally taking part in daily life I don't find skirts entirely all that practical. Instead I wear jeans. Even in the middle of summer. I have one pair of black capri pants. Although I'll spend a whack of money on jeans that I can wear year-round, it seems as though I'll only buy capri pants when they are heavily discounted. I've tried sewing pants in the past, but it turns out they are a lot of work and they never seem to fit as well as my favourite jeans. So, really, what's the point of bothering to make something you'll never wear because you prefer the store-bought stuff?

Recently I found a pattern for Thai Fisherman Pants. The pattern is foolishly simple. There are a mere three pieces. I didn't entirely understand how the pieces were going to look when assembled, so I made them exactly the size the instructions said. I could have easily made them bigger, but they're really not too bad. I opted to go with two different fabrics only because of the limit of my stash of fabric. The top piece of fabric gets folded over and needs to look good on both sides (I briefly thought about lining the top panel, but I decided it would be better to make the pattern at least once before trying to modify it).

I really shouldn't wear them for another other than slumming around my own house, but I'm pretty pleased with them. One leg is rolled up because I was still thinking about capris at that point. In addition to the pattern you can see instructions on how to do up the pants over at Flickr.

Amanda and Pete are visiting from England this week and here's a shot of them enjoying Lake Huron. (And later Amanda and I enjoyed our way to the bottom of a bottle of 2005 Henry of Pelham Baco Noir Reserve. "Sadly" Pete doesn't drink wine.)

The best thing about having friends in town is playing tourist in your own region. We drove up to Sauble Beach and had supper at Driftwood. Then we drove up to Oliphant to see if the kite boarders were still riding the waves (they weren't). We proceeded up the beach a bit via car and then wandered out to the water's edge for some photos. It was absolutely gorgeous and wonderful to smell the fresh air and have the wind rip through my hair (and have moments of no cel phone reception). Remind me why I'd never think to make the trek 30 minutes away on my own?

I know, I know again with the shawls... This time I'm looking for a pattern that has the following requirements:

• is not a single pattern from top to bottom (the flower basket shawl is starting to drag on, and i'm only 1/3 done)
• includes beads in three shades (I'm thinking as a stop-light-esque pattern toward the border)
• only needs one skein of sea silk (400m)
• is vaguely water or droplet themed 

I'm willing to be flexible on the pattern part...and am happy to work from random charts as long as you can help me figure out how to estimate yardage. I'm thinking something like the Icelandic spiders at the top and feather and fan towards the bottom? Field of Flowers as a triangle (Ravelry has better photos, and here's the corner on Flickr)?

Recently a board member emailed me to ask about the Web site stats for one my online communities. In her response to the low number of Web site visitors she asked if maybe people were just Facebooked-out... Here is part of my response:

People congregate online where they feel there is community, and especially where they feel benefit from interacting. The benefit may be social or financial or something entirely different, but there must be a return on time investment before time is re-invested. The community this Web site has attracted to date does not seem to congregate. They don't have a physical space where they come together and they don't seem to come together online either. You need to decide if you want to shape the community and teach people to congregate online, or be shaped by the market and recognize that the community infrastructure we have built is simply not a priority for the intended participants--that the other list of things they need to accomplish in a given day precludes the individuals from having the time to congregate.... or of course it might also be a combination of the two. Throwing more technology at the Web site won't make any difference...instead you need to find out what the community is willing to participate in (not what they say they want or need, but rather what are the activities they are willing to donate time towards on an ongoing basis).

The idea of really knowing your community has been a theme of mine for a while. I've compiled a series of five articles I wrote for Full Circle Magazine into a single page called Making Change Happen and right now I'm finishing up an article for Linux Pro Magazine on how to run your own community conference.