OMG, ya'll!

The first Gallery Jacket! Is it vain if I say that I think it's freaking adorable? Julie is right, you can style it a million ways...it was difficult to pick one way to show it in the catalog to be honest.

I haven't been the best blogger lately...I've been consumed with school stuff but somehow, after chatting with Lisa Shroyer at Stitches East, I thought it'd be a good idea to submit a few designs to Knitscene. I was all flattered and big headed for a few minutes but then I saw that it was more of an open call...heh...oh well, it was wicked fun to play designer for a week, it was just like playing with Fashion Plates! I suck at sketching so I did a little collage work. I'm in love with some of the swatches, here is a peek:


Speaking of secret designs, I can reveal the secret from an old post. Norah Gaughan designed a pattern, Lotus that was knit to fit my exact measurements (acoustic guitar-like: long neck, long torso, flared bottom/hip region, also monkey arms)! It was knit in Jasper, velvety soft Jasper in a deep wine red colorway that had stripes of charcoal of beige. I love it!!

What else...I'm knitting some simple winter accessories, the cold has finally arrived and they're very much needed, I play the same game the Harlot mentions here. The most exciting is the shawl I've started with Jenna's handspun:



I'm calling this the Girl Power shawl because Spunky Eclectic dyed the fiber, Jenna spun the yarn and I'm knitting it up, using a Spunky Eclectic pattern. The cirrrrrrrcle of yaarrrrn...

Poor Jenna was at my house for the final Red Sox World Series game...she is a Yankees fan and...we...may have bickered. The lovable underdog days are officially over, so I was kind of at a disadvantage, but I refuse to believe that Yankee fans outnumber the citizenry of Red Sox nation, which is much larger than just Massachusetts! Jenna ate some of my overcooked and bitter broccoli rabe and I felt slightly vindicated.

This song is currently stuck in my head and I don't mind at all...





CR

I suppose I should blog...

Yeesh, October is crazy! I have let a backlog of events, purchases, etc. pile up and now I'm a little overwhelmed by it all. Here are a few highlights from Rhinebeck, I'll tackle Stitches East in the next post. Sorry for the links to pictures, I sized them incorrectly and they looked really bad here. I'll figure it out =/

This was my first visit, and it was lovely! Jenna and I used the buddy system and had an excellent, relaxing time. Maybe we were a little antisocial, we skipped meet-ups, the Ravelry party and Blogger Bingo but we're both having insane semesters, we're running on empty.

We feasted on the famous artichokes, as well as apple pie a la mode, milkshakes, and many tiny bits of cheese. Jenna's old BF Max showed us around Rhinebeck and we caught a snippet of the Darjeeling Limited from the projection room at his family's theater, Upstate Films. Met Jessica, that was awesome. I love meeting bloggers I've read for a number of years, it's really bizarre--we were both like, "haven't we already met?"

Minor purchases were made (Jenna was hyper-restrained/disciplined!). I picked up only one skein of yarn, tie-dyed angora from...I'm not sure where. I think it's the same booth and same yarn that Jenna and Huelo purchased from at Cummington Sheep and Wool in May, Acker Acres Angoras? I asked the woman what it looked like knit up and she said "I dunno, I just dyed it and haven't knit it!" I'm thinking it might end up looking like the sky in my favorite Van Gogh.

Some insane roving that looks like intestines from Foxhill Farm Fibers and Sheep. I'm regretting not picking up a bag that was really beachy, as well as two tiny ones that were yellow and bubble gum pink. I also grabbed some very cool wool fabric--tweeds and herringbones in amazing colors. It's actually pretty hard to find small amounts of soft wool in interesting colors, so I was excited to learn where they're hiding (rug hookers hoard them!). I'm hoping to try a Denyse Schmidt style scarf.

I'm starting to feel the pull for a spinning wheel! It's a big purchase but I've been really good this year. It might seem like I spend a lot on yarn, bags and shoes (and I do) but I'm really good at budgeting everything else. Clothing, food, books etc. are all done on the cheap. I really like this blogger's thoughtful approach to buying/shopping for a wheel. I have some offers to try some different wheels. The smaller/more compact the better so I'm thinking castle or folding. I know double treadle is supposed to be easier but I have an ankle problem that makes it hard to do things evenly with both feet...I might be better off with a single treadle. Aesthetically I'm drawn to the Kromski Sonata and Minstrel, the Ashford Kiwi, the Louet S75 and the adorable Schacht Ladybug.

One of the shopping considerations is what sort of yarn you'd like to spin. I love Jacey's yarn and I lust after Spincycle Yarns. What has really sent me over the edge is all the handspun garter stitch stuff that Adrian and Jared are churning out. Remember the Spunky Eclectic roving I bought at Cummington? Well, Jenna spun it up for me on her Louet S75:




It came out BEAUTIFULLY, and it's highly inspiring. It's South African Fine from Spunky Eclectic, colorway Rocky Mountain High. I originally thought I'd make a hat and mittens (Jenna reserved some of the roving so I could thrum with it) but it's so pretty I might do a really simple shawl instead, a Spunky pattern in fact! Full circle, nice.









More later,

CR

Venti!

The other day I finally had a tattoo touched up that I'd been meaning to fix for...oh...12 years now. Yes, that means I was 13 when I got this tattoo, my first. I was living in Germany and went with my mother to get it (long, sordid story). This is really the only picture I could find, it's a tiny lavender rose (barely visible):


Anyhow, it's better now! I love the three yellow pistils...stamen? Plant sex organs. I pretty much let the artist do his thing. It's slightly more open now (appropriate, I'm older, more in bloom) and has more thorns (also appropriate!). I asked for what I thought was an impossible color (light burgundy) but he pulled it off very well and updated the green, which was a very dated shade of jade. I was very impressed with the work (Timmy at Holeshot in Amherst).



In case you think I haven't been knitting...you're wrong. I'm still ignoring my Blood Orange cardigan (the yarn really resembles the flesh of a deliciously strange blood orange) but I've been churning out small projects here and there. I have three baby sweaters on the needles and a half finished Tilted Duster (all it needs is the skirt, a collar and buttons). BTW, Norah Gaughan is about to unveil a pretty bitchin' FO/WIP, keep your eyes peeled!



The color isn't anywhere online (a seller on eBay calls it "Abusar" but that isn't it's given name) and it reminds me of the main color of Reynolds Whiskey in Enid...my poor, ignored Enid. Maybe I can take that to Baltimore and finish the yoke in my hotel room? Working at Stitches always gives me a knit fit (like a nic fit...). It's puckering ever so slightly, some of the floats span 5+ stitches so I've been 'catching' them as I go in using directions from Montse Stanley's Handbook. I think it will block flat.




I finished Foliage, my first top-down hat. I'm blocking it on a dinner plate so it'll be more snood-ish. I love snoods! I double stranded Malabrigo Worsted in Bobby Blue. It reminds me of a vintage bathing cap and was a fun knit. I used twisted ribbing and bound-off purlwise, other than that no mods. Clearer pictures at Ravelry.


I made a few adorable and goofy coffee cardigans. These are wicked fun and I actually have been using it, it makes baristas smile. This is knit with Valley Yarns Superwash (LOVE how it looks knit at this tight gauge) and features three corozo nut buttons from the Creative Needle in Amherst, which happens to be owned by the mother-in-law of a professor in my department. I love corozo nut buttons almost as much as I love shell buttons. And Moving Mud buttons. And horn buttons. And...oh, I'm a button whore, are you surprised??



I just purchased a kit to make this Greek Deli version by Jennifer Reichert, it's hysterical! This embroidered grocery purse of hers is 2 parts hysterical, 8 parts amazing.

Brain food, mmmm....I don't eat much fruit but I loves my vegetables (this site makes me drool). I have many ways of preparing them so that they taste very, very decadent. This was today's lunch, an old favorite (recipe here):




My next treat is butternut squash roasted with maple syrup and cracked peppercorn (something about the hot/sweet combination is very soothing). I do a mashed cauliflower with cream and asiago that would make you disown potatoes forever.

Meet Irma the Owl, a friend who is staring sternly down from her perch. I met her at Starbucks where she was deeply discounted and deeply adorable. She looks like an Irma, and when I looked up that name I learned that it is an Old High German/Hoch Deutsch word for...word! Perfect patron (stuffed) saint for a communication scholar, no?




Speaking of that. I have a 12-page paper to write. Probably why I suddenly felt the urge to blog. I'm going to try to link the practice of blogging to early 20th-century language theories (using some key works from Saussure, Nietzsche, Boas, Sapir, Malinowski, Jakobson, and Bakhtin...among others).

WUNSCH MIR GLUCK, BITTE!

P.S. FYI, funniest Fug I've seen in awhile.