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