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.

She's Snoody...

Okay, sorry for the punny title but I couldn't help it, I love puns! I'm up late playing around with new Interweb tools after spending most of the day laptopless (I reformatted, all by myself--Eric, didn't think I had it in me, didja?

Time for a finished object!! It's the Art Deco Beret by Grumperina, from the fall issue of Knitscene. The yarn is Sheep Shop 3. I have a few hints--it is much, much easier to knit from two balls. I tried to knit from the outside and the inside (you alternate knitting with the beaded and non-beaded strand) of one center pull ball and it was a massive tangle fest. Another tip--look for knots. The unexpected knot on your beaded strand will BUM YOU OUT. When I was about 2" from finishing one ply finally gave out. I was at Eric's and the crafty engineer whipped out an old guitar string for me to use as a big eye needle. After carefully restringing my beads I knit about one round and found A KNOT. Knot cool.

Anyhow, the yarn is gorgeous and I love the fit, I'd wear this as a snood but blocking it over a dinner plate definitely yielded a beret shape. It was a fun, addictive pattern with a very cool cast-on...tubular-ish but I'm not sure. I'll have to investigate, it looks like it'd be great for socks. Now for tons of pictures!

My tribute to Emily (I think she'd like my golden mirror):

Over and OUT,

CR

Incongruous.

So, it's officially spring here in Massachusetts, and it is almost glorious. I say almost because I'm going through some love life tribulations that are sorta neutralizing my spring high. To be honest this whole year has been one big trial, with graduate school and relationships. I'm doing my best to keep my spirits up and that means a lot of walks, water, fruit (I've finally developed a taste for it, thank goodness) and of course, crafting! Between the AMAZING RAVELRY (are you on it? Let's be friends!) and Project Spectrum, I've got plenty to keep my mind off of sad things (and you know, my schoolwork...)

Speaking of Project Spectrum, here are some scraps...

My February/March project is finally done. Here they are, very pleased with these. If they look a little fuzzy it's because I've already worn them a LOT. They are the ever popular Jaywalkers in STR Lightweight, the Lucy colorway.Those who are sensitive to pooling might want to avert your eyes now...




YELLOW: I've just now opened a package from Blue Moon Fiber Arts and one of the skeins was looked like it would be brilliant sunny yellow, but it's actually more like delicious peach ice cream, a soft orange:


I can learn to love it, but I'm in a serious yellow phase and I am a little bummed. I'm so into yellow at the moment that I'm seriously considering getting some serious shoes in 'avocado'. I learned about Remix from the painfully adorable Emily and it was perfect timing since I've recently committed myself to wearing REAL shoes at least 80% of the time. My feet are too bad for flip flops and canvas flats. Anyhow, yellow is perfect when your wardrobe is mostly grey and black, something I have in common with the lovely Jenny Gordy.

I have some big plans for this golden yarn that may not have been the wisest color choice. I know I can't wear yellow, but that doesn't stop me from liking it!


GREEN: My love for green yarn is well-known, and it hasn't weakened any. I'm planning on doing some sewing tonight, a dress out of this lovely branch-heavy print. I'll be sure to post it when it's done. Oh, the STR Hoofle Foofle had a friend, Jade:


PINK: I started a sock in a colorway that might as well be called Project Spectrum April/May, because it's a lovely lemon yellow, a deep raspberry and a bright emerald. It's actually Fleece Artist Merino Sock in Paris, and it's lovely. The pattern was a freebie that came with a Hello Yarn order. Thanks to Ravelry I realized that I'm kind of knit-stalking poor Adrian, I've knit about 6 things inspired by her knits! You know what they say about imitation...



Another 'pink' thought I had was on avoiding sun damage. It's become more and more important to me over the years and I'm channelling almost all of my frivolous cosmetic money into my stash. After several CVS sales and coupon cash-ins I finally have the ultimate non-sticky, non-smelly, non-irritating, non-blemish inducing stash of sun protection. You can read all about it at my Flickr page.

In other news, I was the happy recipient of a random act of kindness from a UK blogger who sent me a little project bag after I mentioned I liked hers. It's adorable, and this was such a nice surprise to get in the mail. I love getting mail, especially crafty mail.

Speaking of surprise mail...I'm starting to understand why the Sockapalooooza is bumming some people out...I haven't heard from my secret sock knitter or from the person I have. I've emailed my pal and left secret comments on the blog. I have to be honest, I was a little perplexed by all the people freaking out when they didn't hear from buddies after a few days but now I'm starting to feel like a....loooza. Ha.

Okay, I have killed a good couple of hours with this post, it might be time for me to get back to the schoolwork.

Itchy.

I've got a raging case of the mean reds. Could be because sewing is so distracting to me that I can hardly get any real work done or leave the apartment. I've taken up watching The View for a number of reasons, but I've got to stop. It derails my day. I get up around 9 (late for someone who used to row and work a 'regular' job) and do some organizing/reading/craft planning. Eric makes coffee and eat cornflakes really noisily. I glower. He leaves. At 11 I'm watching the View and eating a little brunch. I started off just watching the opening 'hot topics' segment but now I usually watch straight through. By noon I still haven't showered (there is a reason I'm admitting to this publicly--I NEED TO BE SHAMED!) and I don't have to be to campus for any particular reason. This isn't just a spring break schedule, it's like this every week. The earliest I'm expected to be anywhere during the week is 3:30 p.m. Yeah. It's bad.

Anyhow, the View. Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck have the most ferocious political arguments, I am just waiting for the day it turns physical. Rosie jokes about not liking her job as 'gay mascot' of the show but the fact that she discusses alternative sexualities on an almost daily basis and gets applauded for doing so blows my mind. It's not the lesbianism that I'm necessarily impressed by it's her voiced attraction to various celebrities regardless of gender. She endorses a carnivalesque approach towards human attraction, claiming that we're all on a spectrum that is above all things mutable. She pulls no punches politically and it's a thrill to see it happen on daytime television in front of audiences that I'd (perhaps unfairly) assumed to be the very opposite of forward-thinking.

Oh! And on a lighter note, her and Joy Behar talk about what it means to be a woman in comedy almost daily. I'm currently cobbling together a paper on Sarah Silverman for a conference in April so anything about the subject catches my interest these days.

So anyway...I've been sewing more than knitting these days. Here are some pictures, and all the details are over at Craftster:






It's only Tuesday and it feels like my break is flying by...I've been buying a crapload of sock yarn lately and I swore I'd finish some very old chunky weight projects (I just typed 'problems' instead of 'projects'...is that a sign?) so hopefully my next post will be...yarn-ier.

CR

Home Ec x 2

I have a feeling you're all going to get soooooooOOooo sick of this top!


It's another Built by Wendy Home Ec top, and anticipate making about one zillion of these! My size takes just under 2 yards of fabric and it's the perfect project for trying out lots of different seaming/edge finishing techniques. It's getting super fast and I absolutely love wearing them, they are super comfortable. This one is also a size 10 but I've since purchased a new pattern and my next will be the right size, a little less fitted. Right now it's a bit snug under the pits and the back is a little blousy:


The best part--my very own label!! I had these made at Namemaker.com, I also have some 'skrillaknits' ones, I'll debut those as soon as I finish a dang sweater. I haven't come up with a good way to sew them on, any tips? This is the best I could come up with...


Lastly, it appears that my worrying about Interweave was for naught--the scholarly, reverent Eunny Jang is taking the helm! This is by far the coolest blogger hits the big time story yet. I'm psyched, I bet it's going to reach encyclopedic proportions!

Speaking of being excited about academics...I've been really up and down about graduate school this year. On the bad days I feel incredibly inept and frustrated, but on good days I feel the way Emily does about her artwork/cottage industry:

"It's strange to say, but The Black Apple has been pretty much a best friend for the last few years, even before I had my online storefront or blog. It has been my constant companion through two different wonderful-but-difficult-in-their-own-way relationships, the changing and shuffling locations and closeness of friends, and two big moves. People ask all the time for tips, or pearls of wisdom about the success of my cottage industry, and maybe it's as simple as that. It's my companion and if I'm not working for it, I'm thinking of it."

I just dug through some old papers looking for a syllabus from a colloquium I taught as an undergrad and it was really heartening to see that I'm pretty much following the trajectory I dreamed about 5 years ago...it's hard to stay the course, but I think I will. Speaking of Home Ec (my name for the easy peasy top), I'm cornering my thesis idea more and more, I'll tell you all about it soon...

Oh! A public thank you to all the Western Mass. blogladies who joined me on Sunday for a knit-together. We were all tempted to photograph it for our respective blogs, but we showed remarkable restraint. Inside joke time:



Laters,

CR

It's been awhile!

I can't post long, I'm heading off to Stitches West in, oh, 4 hours or so! I can tell you that

A. I cheated: I bought yarn! From our competitors, no less! It's for Thermal!


B. I finished: I finished a sock in Gail's Franklin for the store, isn't it gorgeous?!


C. I cheated: I sewed! And I love it!


Mensch, ich muss jetzt schlafen! Bis spader!

CR

First Interweave Review?

I picked up Interweave Knits Spring 2007 yesterday and after Googling for reviews today and not finding any it occurs to me that I could be one of the first to review it! This never happens! Except you know the whole thing about if you don't have anything nice to say...?

Well...first of all, they've re-designed the magazine. Pam Allen does a great job of explaining the reasoning behind this in her editor's letter but I really don't think I'll get used to it as she urges us to do. I really loved that the layout of Interweave was different from the typical fashion layout with patterns in the back approach. I loved not having to flip back and forth to see a close-up of something. Patterns are now arranged in thematic 'stories' and I hate to say it but I thought it was an ad for several pages before it clicked that I was in fact looking at the heart of the issue! This move towards a more commercial look just doesn't do it for me. But! I'm sure many will love it. Example:



How about a moment of silence for all those involved with the silk thong--designer, future knitters, wearers, um...beneficiaries? I actually love the two camisoles and the socks.

I'll be honest, I was sort of more excited by the actual ads. I tend to not care much for the warm weather issues. I finally 'cheated' on Webs and purchased a set of Options needles:

Shh, don't tell anyone, they might revoke the Ms. Webs crown! Then I'd have to blubber at a podium for a 'second chance'. Speaking of the ads, have you ever seen me so very groomed??


This ad from Blue Moon Fiber Art has me thinking that this will be the year I finally buy some Socks That Rock yarn at Stitches. In the past I've thought my sock knitting skills too shoddy for $$ yarn, but these colors...I just hope they aren't exclusive to the Sock Club. Because I'm a vendor's employee I will have the distinct pleasure of getting a crack at it before the masses descend upon it which, truth be told, is the real reason I haven't purchased any so far. The melee (which I'm sure some of you have been party to!) is downright ugly, I think the word 'scrum' is really accurate.


On the crafty front I made some book weights! This was great practice for making straight seams and just generally getting aquainted with my machine. I made several, tweaking the design as I went. They're filled with popcorn and (I think) adorable! This was all inspired by Anjali asking what to do with very precious fabrics and by Ysolda's amazing Reading Jumper. Ysolda and I even have some reading in common!

My set-up (the awesome mixed-up fairy tale fabric is from the swap I had with Anjali!) EDITED TO ADD: I started whipping these bad boys up for all my grad school friends and one of them called (just as I was sewing his, no less). I excitedly told him about it and he said (in a very HIM tone) "Is it particularly tiring to hold your books open?" I realized that the main reason I was making these was because I knit and read at the same time unless the book won't stay open. Other people don't necessarily have this problem, but I did make a pretty good case for free hands leading to better notes. I tell you, as a grad student reading is no laughing matter. We continually have debates about favorite highlighter brands, scamming free copies and holding books hostage from the library. Good times!

That is a Zimmerman book in the back there, I needed some reading knitting of my own so I cast on for a Baby Surprise Jacket (my first!). A professor/friend is having twins soon (a boy and a girl!) and while they wanted gender neutral, I couldn't help putting these colors together. They will most likely have dark hair (who knows, but one of the parents is Italian and dark hair IS a dominant traits...) so I hope the brown is suitably non-traditional for them. Now to decide which side is cuter...I'm thinking 'wrong', the one with more striping!


Lord knows I love my stripes...

CR

5 Things+then some (a F.O., even!)

I was tagged by Into the Fray quite awhile ago! I haven't forgotten, I've just been busy. These 5 things might not fall into the 'weird' category, but they are frivolous little factoids about me that the average Skrilla dabbler might not come across.

1. I have always had a love affair with magazines. I used to think that I wanted to be a magazine journalist and pursued this for about 2.5 years in college. I made a zine in high school called Wit's Ashtray under the pen name Rebel Without Applause. A highlight was when a local (this was in Germany) hardcore band mentioned it at a show of theirs while I was in the audience. Now I just cut my mags up and use them for design inspiration. Here are some pages from my notebook that is full of these clippings:






2. I have a serious salt problem. I often joke that I want a salt lick, like a deer. Eric is always begging me to go easy, and he's right. It's in my blood (no blood pressure pun intended), my Nana loves her salty Italian cold cuts and Dirty Martinis. For me it's salt and vinegar chips, French Fries (with mayo no less, what's up heart disease??) and popcorn. I get by with nutritional yeast sometimes.

3. I am fastidious about school/office supplies and anything related to them. This is slightly OCD, but I can't bear smudges, crinkled edges, sudden pen color switches. I once wrote and performed a song (spontaneously) that sums up the level of crazy this involves--it's called 'Tape Lamination' and it is sung to the tune of the Bee Gee's 'More than a Woman'. Crazy, I know, but when I spill coffee on my notebooks I just WIPE it off!

4. I actually hate shopping. I am very sad that my beloved local Trader Joes is getting more and more crowded. It used to remind me of the old mini-market exhibit at the Boston Children's Museum. I am in love with Internet shopping because it allows me to A. not drive, B. comparison shop until I'm blue in the face without getting the eye from store owners, C. support friends with stores and fellow crafters, D. act like Veruca Salt and get basically anything I want in the world. I know that sounds terrible, and fear not, I support local merchants as often as I can but places like Ex Libris Anonymous and the like make me very happy. Also, like all humans, I love getting mail.

5. I can't believe I'm going to turn 25 this year. I still feel like a little girl.

Time for a mini book review! I've gushed about Built by Wendy enough, and I sorta feel like it's already old news in Blogland. And a quick Google search just turned up a far better review for this book than I would've written.


I'll just add that I find the clear pictures very helpful for a new sewer like myself. They are probably embarrassingly simplistic but I think the assumption that a verbal description is sufficient is a major failing of most sewing books.

The photography is gorgeous, spare, tres chic and all that. I have been batting around the idea of writing a paper on the Anthropologie aesthetic that seems to authoritatively dominate anything geared towards young crafty types with cultural capital to spare. The A-word has been uttered by stylists at several of the photoshoots I've done and it seems to be heavily ripped off in the catalog world in general. There is also the influence it has with crafters--I wonder what the numbers are for people like me, who get the catalog and pore over it (sometimes going as far as interpreting the designs) but can rarely afford to buy any of it. I'd like to get to the bottom of its appeal.



This is my favorite project in the whole book. I still die laughing everytime I see a granny cart because it reminds me of Grumperina's saga about her granny cart breaking and no one in Cambridge helping her. I can't for the life of me find the post on her blog, but it was super, super horrible/funny.

I finished some socks for a friend who recently turned 31 and will be starting to write his dissertation soon. He claims that he loves tweed but doesn't wear it because he doesn't want to be a 'professorial cliche'. I figure this way no one has to know. I knit them toe-up because I was wary about my yarn, but each sock took less than a ball of Regia 6-ply tweed. I knit it them on size 3 Susan Bates. I'd started them on 2s but that was nearly cardboard. These were supposed to have an 'embossed' (read: purl stitches) monogram but it looked crap so I skipped it. It was also supposed to have a 'princess foot' (read: reverse stockinette sole) as a joke (as in, he is a delicate flower) but it looked odd and I skipped that too. Yawnsville, but still, a finished object(s).

The best part of this process was taking my pattern book to a copy shop and having them chop the spine, drill holes and spiral bind it for me so it will lay flat! I can't take credit for this (a Webs customer came in with all of her books sporting this treatment once) but that doesn't stop me from feeling WICKED CLEVER whenever I look at it.


Still with me? Here are some randoms, Eric wearing a LOT of handknits at Mass MOCA (it was great, you have to go and see the Notion Nanny):

Just a few more sew-y pictures including my ham (hee hee!):

Some more fabric:

A few more 1.99 patterns:



And my current WIP, for the store. This is Valley Yarn's new sock yarn Franklin in Mountain Spring, dyed by Gail the Kangaroo Dyer. Very pretty and knits sort of like Lorna's Laces. It's hanging out with my new textbooks right now. I should quit blogging and attend to both...


Have a great week and sorry for the sporadic and massive posting habit I've gotten into =)

CR