Brain Smatter

Sweety McSquidgirl

2009-09-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Superpower: Cuteness.

Holla'

2009-09-06T16:51:00.001-07:00

...and wave your hands in the air like you just don't care. Sick days can be so silly.

Mommy's Little Helpers

2009-08-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

Finally-finished Imogen sweater, by Adrienne Thomas, in Queensland Kathmandu DK. Best sweater ever. Best Husband ever.

Urchin II, by Ysoldes Teague. Rowan Felted Tweed. The girls liked it.

Hatteras shrug, by Katie Rose Pryal. Malabrigo Lace, of course. Of course.

There are a few others, found on Ravelry, but not all, because that would take time from clinking needles together.

Rollin' In

2009-08-21T06:22:00.000-07:00

Delcambe Shrimp Festival, 09'. Unfortunately, we'd missed the Blessing of the Fleet. It marks the beginning of the Shrimp season. Note the Rosary beads.

I have to confess that I'm having a little love affair with my state right now.

Abbeville, La. August 09'

Everything Is Muddy....

2009-06-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Charenton Beach, Summer 2009

...at the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin.

Hwy. 182

2009-05-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

Projects Pt.1

2009-05-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

Footlights Cardigan (Sarah Pope for Popknits), Handpaintedyarn.com-Cuarzo Verde.

My Raverly link for this sweater.....that I love so.

Love It, Love It Not......LOVE IT

2009-04-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

Ravelry Link: Poppy Shawl

This started as hipster-chic thing. I kept seeing all these youthful, trendy types with those re-hash Arabic scarves with all tips towards the front. An old fashion trend, come back to life in an array of primary colors. It's cute, but I figured I'd have more fun making my own. So I took some Rowan Felted Tweed and some vintage German yarn* that a friend gave me years ago and started striping away on Kate Gagnon's Springtime Bandit pattern. It's a great little pattern. Not too lacy really, a little geometric, and quickest little pattern out there. Even after adding several extra repeats to make up for the thinner yarns I was using. My only (minor) drama was running out of the grey tweed and not wanting to buy a third skein for a mere inch of knitting. So I took a chance with the ivory Kydd Silk (Elann.com) that I've had around here for a few years now. I figured it would soften the edge some, adding some contrast, and deep inside I think it makes it look a little French romantic. Sort of a style weakness of mine.I really wish you could see the variegation on the reddish yarn. Up close, you can see the red is spun with shades of yellow, green, purple, and blue. And it has a big changes between a lofty spin and a tight spin. In other words, it was worth hanging on this yarn for the last four years. It's found it's true purpose with this shawl.I lurves it. Like I lurves this diddy of a shawl. And my fashion maven girls, who wholly approved of throwing caution to the wind with this project.

* Country Club Collection, Fantacolor. Color, "Flamme". 70% Shurwolle, 30% Polyacryl.

Imagining Everbody Naked

2009-03-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Can ya' guess what I like about this one? Well, it's not that it's a super fabulous drawing or anything, 'cause it's not. It's 100% percent about the book, the glasses and the lambchops. A bespectacled, young student (presumably) stripped down to the basics. Could it be more natural a pose?

Don't You Hate It When....

2009-03-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

Cooper the Culprit , age 1 very lucky year.

....you save a dog from the pound and he makes your life an upside down mess for nearly a year and every time you're ready to yank him back to the pound by the tip of shiny black ear, he looks at with his sparkly, hopeful eyes and his deflated yellow ball in his mouth, making you scab together another two foot extension to the top of your fence? I mean I who carries around a deflated, germy ball in their mouth. It's like that Ms. Nosineighbor who popped her husband's boil and a little bitty bit got in her tea and she was so sick couldn't leave the toilet for three whole days. And just then dog finds an other low spot on the fence to escape over and you're basically left with a small patch of hair near the nape of your neck that you haven't yet pulled out, hair by hair, and the neighbor comes to tell you how much he dislikes the all the "new" barking since your dog showed up. I mean, what're ya tryin' to do, make my ulcer bubble over? So, I tell my husband, "We gotta' break a hole in the wall." And he breaks a hole in the wall and the window comes out and he rents a big saw. And I says, " That saw is gonna cut through your leg and the bone is gonna be sticking out everywhere and then I'm gonna have to call the neighbor, you know the one with ears like Beethoven, after he got the syphilis and the lead poisoning and the typhus....

I hate it when that happens.

Phase3: The one after your husband decides to take the window without any help and it shatters in and outside of you house.

All kidding aside, I love our new door, out of the office. The whole event was a comedy of errors due to our lack of planning, which can simultaneously leave you stitches and potentially leave you in stitches. Much like our dog's lucky ownership, ironically. We avoided the later, but it was tenuous for a moment there. My husband decided that chipping bricks away with a mere chisel was not the right way to half-ass this project. So we visited the Home Depot tool rental corral, which should against the law if you ask me, and his eyes lit up like a kid gazing at his first bicycle when we happened across the super-ginormous-diamond-tipped-saw-blade-the-size-of-my-backside, hand-held (gas motor, water hose and all) brick cutting saw. I've could of died of fright, right then and there. And I snarked about it the whole way home, I assure you. To no avail, of course. But to our better fortune, he managed not cut anything off. Other than the brick, I mean.

Break on through to the otherside....break on through...

I can't say that I was any more comfortable sleeping with a gaping hole in my office that night, with a flim-flam tarp protecting all that I hold dear. That too, was fussed over for nothing. But getting the door to "hang" correctly, that was fitful half day, for my husband. Shim shim here, shim there, tear it all out and start shimming again. Of all the should've-been-easy-moments, it wasn't one.

Shimming, I'm sure.

So, now, the dog can chew his yellow ball in peace, my office has more light, the kids have a new door to slam, and Daddy still has all his extremities. Except, now I need a deck and a porch light and to haul some bricks to the dump and.......

"V" for victory.

Well, Rosanna Rosannadanna, just goes to proving you right, it's always something.

Cobwebs and Painted Heads

2009-02-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

This place is covered with em'. Maybe I should, errr..., blog again. Don't know what happened to the year gone by. But I do believe I did stuff, that might, maybe be of some interest to some of you. Maybe. Gosh though, I gave away most of the knits I finished this year, without ever getting pictures. Christmas knitting was as out control as I get with give-aways. However, you'll just have to take my word on it. But do you know what I did do since I last wrote here? I put a painting in a gallery show. Teehee...

So Pretty, Susan Carter 2009.

That was fun. I was seriously afraid of not hitting the right mark. I love old school illustration; this town is sorta' 'Blue Dog'. In fact, that Roderigue fella' who paints him, he sorta' lives here. And for such a small community, we have a peculiar sensibilty for modern folk art. There's a big market for cajun conceptual, it seems. (Remind me to elaborate on it sometime.)

So anyway, it was an open-call sorta show, all artists could throw in if they could afford the entrance fee. We all got 12x12 masonite panels and could do with them as we pleased. So I pulled up my big girl panties and paid my $20 and painted.....my daughter. She, of course, contributed her lovely colorings for this project too. I figured at least I'd love the outcome if nobody else did. And given that piece didn't sell, I was just as tickled pink to bring her home and hang her on my wall. It was the Christmas gift I gave myself.

There were many, many others too. Not just these.

It was nice show though. Alot of artists threw in for it, from college students to country watercolorists. Some of my friends showed. Some of their former professors did too. And I got to take my girls out for the evening.

Joyeaux Noel

2008-12-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

My jacket is wet and
cold. Snowflakes have
wettened my mittens.
But I'm still warm
from running in the
snow. Now I'm in the
house sipping hot coco
playing Medal of Honor.
Before I hibernate.
On Christmas Eve.

-Son, age 10.

PEACE

2008-12-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

Yes, we're all very excited about Mommy's new camera. Still playing with it, but so far, so totally freakin' awesome. Thanks, Honey!

Classic

2008-10-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

This goes out to all my non-knitting friends. Because the rest of you have already seen it and peed your pants laughing.

Evergeen Green

2008-09-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

This shawl is all the colors of hurricane debris blended up and left curbside for pick-up. Believe it or not, that's a comfort. Gustav left us a little road-weary and extremely grateful for that hurricanes have short life-spans. While we made out just fine, we have yet too hear much about some of the worst hit areas....the land-fall crowd. And just in case you needed to know more about how well New Orleans made it through.....go to New Orleans. We're still a little bitter about how the media handled the rest of state's woes. Breaking news in 08' is NOT the three different industrial canal breaks in New Orleans in 05'. Just sayin'....

Anyhoo, I finished this lovely!!! It's the Evergreen shawl pattern, written by Jolene Treace, and published in Handknit Holidays, by Melanie Falick. I love this book and this pattern is one of many reasons why. The yarn is Gloss Sock (parsley), from KnitPicks; a good over-all yarn for most patterns. It was a total adventure of a knit. The lower band is knit from out-to-in, then the center stitch is knit from bottom-to-top while being attached to the inside of the band. THEN you add the edging. The focus of my concentration was deciphering the pattern and I let perfection go by the wayside. There are many...many errors that I will not go back to count.

It was started in mid-August and was blocked this afternoon. When the yarn hit the warm water, the whole shawl bloomed to three times it's bound-off size. How can you not love that? Anyway, this thing is a big-un', so big that it covered more than half of my bed while blocking. Love...

7/31/08

2008-08-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

6/19/08

2008-06-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Oyster Bay Beauty

2008-06-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Did some blocking this morning. Gosh, I finished this shawl almost a year ago and just never blocked it. And shame on me, because it turned out just beautiful and crisp and makes me want parade around in it. But all my knits make me feel that way these days. I think I may be projecting my love lost of screaming kids on my knits. Maybe?Anyway, it's Elann.com Canapone, in Ice Blue, a lace-weight hemp that is perfect for sub-tropical heat down here. Once blocked, it comes off the surface as crisp as a sheet white paper and softens as you handle it . It kept it's shape out in the heat, no problem.The pattern, Oyster Bay Shawl by Lori Law, is simple enough and my only regret is that I didn't knit it larger. But it can always be done again, right? I did mine on US 4's. With this yarn I might switch to Us 6.

I See You!

2008-06-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Self Portrait of My Girl.

Romancing the Stone

2008-06-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

Hate to reapeat a post and all, but this isn't a true repeat. In an effort to keep the wee portrait of my husband from getting squished, I baked the Fimo relief in the oven yesterday. This morning I got a chance to fool around with painting some sort of patina on it to bring out the shadows. It was totally experimental. I started with sepia-toned watercolors and while it took time to work out, it was a failure. There is a suble undertone to liquid watercolors (which are the only kind I keep on hand) that separates as it dries. Kept turning too yellow or green depending on the color used. The upside was that it washed off the Fimo with absolutely zero staining.

So I switched over to gouache....black gouache, in fact, in an effort to cut to the chase. Anyhoo, it worked well, but I learned pretty late that it stains, lightly. I also figured out that I needed to be sort of particular about where I painted it on more heavily and where not to put it at all. In the end, it turned out OK. Now I just need to mount it somehow in a shadow box or something.

Groovin'

2008-06-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Time to push oneself into pushing pencils around again. It's been a while since I've bothered to draw so much as a toe, but I like this one-minute sketch from last night's class.

Summer Summer Bo Bummer

2008-06-11T11:27:00.001-07:00

Throw Rug, Drew Emborsky...Moda Dea, Tweedle Dee.

Banana Nana Fo Fummer.....Summer! How its going. Should be at the pool, but it's all ear aches and car repairs and tweedy rugs and lace in the air conditioned coolth. The kids got off two weeks earlier than usual this year and it's been slow getting into any semblance of a summer routine. Oh well....I'll just keep crocheting along till it makes sense again.

Electric Ene

2008-06-09T17:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/redrocket/enes-scarf

I have not been this smitten with a knit project in some time, but LOOK!!! Pattern: Ene's Scarf by Nancy Bush, in Scarf Style. The yarn is Malabrigo lace weight in Indigo and Frank Ochre. I may sell children for more this yarn. It's smooshy and light and as soft as cashmere....stick a needle in my eye....swear on a crack....yeah, that soft. Only took half a skein of Indigo and one whole skein of the other, on US 5's. It's a touch smaller than I expected, but it's a perfect scarf size none the less. Oh the colors....electric, eclectic and fabulous.

Dump and Run

2008-05-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

Note: One kid missing from all pics....smart kid....the only one to make Honor Roll all year long. Very smart indeed.

This post is for the sole purpose of letting my love ones know that, indeed, I do have a pulse and my children haven't eaten me...quite yet. Total hair loss may be imminent in one weeks' time (next Friday is the last day of school) and I may only declare guardianship over one, maybe two, of my (lucky to be alive) beloved offspring through the summer vacation. As a devoted expression of love, at least one of "them" has missed the bus each and every day for the last two weeks. "Them" has developed a new decibel with to communicate their undying irritation with one another; a decibel that only serves to signal Super Stressed Mom with the power of the wooden spoon-shaped hand.

Best dog ever.

Did I mention we got a dog too? Who broke his leg the first week home? Err, let's see...Cost of adoption: $50. Cost to absolve oneself of guilt for playing with wet dog on wet linoleum floor and being the direct cause of rescued dog's immediate return to a stinky kennel with a pin in his leg: $600. Watching a child's face sour when you tell them they have to pick up the affected dog's poop: priceless.

When two "pins" are better than one.

Ahhh....but here comes summer. Sleeping late, plugging children into video game consoles and a swimming pool one block away. I'm only thinking the happy thoughts right now and I won't even acknowledge the extra cooking, cleaning, and ass-whoopings. Kidding...kidding....learn to laugh a little...jeesh. Anyway, therapy for all this cozy family bonding of late has been crochet, wee bits of knitting and more crochet. I'm a bender of sorts. Wanna see? Well, you'll just have to wait till next time....I hear kids.

Devil in disguise.

The Glower..er

2008-01-30T07:37:00.000-08:00

Like drawing but without the paper...and the pencil...and the drawing part. I don't play with clay much, but when my husband emailed a picture from work, I just felt a deep need to do something with his profile. So this is my very modest effort at relief sculpture, in Fimo. It's still a work in progress, but it's fun. With the Fimo, I figure I can just bake it when I get tired of trying to finesse his likeness from the soft clay and come back with carving tools and sand paper for the finish. Or rebake new layers of Fimo on top. In any case, I'm learning a lot about how to make shadows work to your advantage. Now, if I could make it so that my husband didn't have laser beams shooting from his eyeballs, I'd be a happy camper.

Fluke

2008-01-21T18:35:00.000-08:00

Yup...turns out the pain-in-the-butt factor of salvaging yarn was more specific to angora than to ripping and frogging in general. What a relief! See what I got in less than two hours, today, after posting about the fuzzy bunny yarn.

Silk/cashmere....easy peasy. Not a single nick, few broken strands and at one point I got my swift moving so fast, I thought I saw sparks. I kid.

Cute and Fuzzy Bunnies

2008-01-21T11:56:00.000-08:00

This here is a pile of thrift store sweaters. One camel-tan, 85% silk/15% cashmere blend. One fuzzy periwinkle blue, 65% angora, 35% nylon blend. One just has a little angora in it really, but it's four shades of fair isle neutrals. Works for me. All of them are part of my recycled yarn experiment and all together cost less than $12.

I like the idea of recycled yarn. I figure that all three sweaters together would probably make a finer quality fabric than I would normally bother with, at an 1/8 the cost of any one skein of approximately the same blend. Besides, who doesn't like the occasional do-it-yourself project, right?

There were plenty of lessons to be learned however. To start, frogging angora is probably not the most wisest choice for instant gratification. While soft and smooshy, it's also sticky and difficult to spot the stitch definition below the gorgeous fuzzy haze. Which is needed when you are ripping side seams while trying not to the nick individual stitches so you won't have to splice or felt join them later. (Did you know angora felts? I do now.) At one point, I resorted to using children's hair de-tangler around the inner armpit areas, after pulling the matted balls from the surface. It helped a little.

Days....it took me days (ok, just three) to finish unraveling this baby. Mostly because of the number of felted joins it took to salvage the yarn into 4 skeins. It's a 3-ply yarn and I kept snapping an individual strand here and there. But worse than that, I nicked alot of stitches on the sides, particularly at the top of the shoulders where they put a safety stitch into the knitted join. I got so tired of trying to sort it all out, that I finally took a pair of scissors to it and sheared the seams off. That one little action probably lost me three or more yards. No biggie, just a pain more than anything.

The other thing, angora sheds a hairball the size of a small cat every time you pull on the yarn. I'll be washing little blue fibers from my clothes for months. I even pulled some from my son's ear. Yeah, his ear.

All in all, I ended up with four large-ish skeins of sport weight yarn, from a single XL sweater. I have no idea the actual yardage, nor do I really care, but I'd say one sleeve is probably enough for a pair of mitts or a set of baby booties and a cap. Heaven knows what I'll actually use it for in the end, but it sure is nice to know that some fuzzy blue bunny out there didn't give up it's fur for nothin'.

Dee-Diddley-Done

2007-12-30T16:23:00.001-08:00

Aaaaannnnddd, I...

So...the wrap-up. Two and half skeins and an excellent use of some hard to place fabric I've had around for awhile. The one downside to having to put a lining in a knitted bag, besides actually having to sit still and sew, is that the maximum capacity of the knitted capsule suddenly deceases to the maximum capacity of what the sewn lining will hold. I swear, I probably could've shoved and entire comforter into this granny sack before sewing the lining into it. While I can still pack a whole lotta' project love in there, I was a little sad to see the potential for mass storage go by the wayside.

...will always loooove...

No matter the moot point, I love this bag. I will always love this bag. And I hope my children feel remorse for packing it up and sending it off to the Goodwill with all the other knitted chaff when I die. In my head, this baby is an heirloom. Plushy and soft, darn near perfect seaming, lined with love and hand-sewn hidden stitching; it's a vision of delicately tweeded acrylic perfection. Ahhh.....

youuuuuuuu...ooouu!

Gave Away...

2007-12-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

Red Heart Soft Yarn, Honey. Sz. 9 needle.

My favorite-est knit to date went to Mom....the Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood. It was the fastest, most satisfying thing ever to do. Took less than a week and more beautiful than I'd expected it would be at the start of the knit. I'm totally making another another for myself.

Also gifted a pair of Fetching mitts, to my niece, in Cascade 220, teal with little purple fibers running through it. There were very well-received (better than I hoped for actually), but I snapped no pictures before wrapping. No doubt, you've seen them before anyway.

Making...

2007-12-25T17:54:00.001-08:00

Counterpane Carpet Bag, Carrie Brenner (from handknit Holidays, by Melanie Falick)
Sz. 9 needles, Moda Dea Tweedle Dee yarn and I won't be using the handles in the pic. Oops.

All Wrappd Up

2007-12-25T08:41:00.001-08:00

See the half-of-a-straightpin, there in the bottom? This is the gift we got from my son's orthopedic surgeon after two days and many mind-numbing hours spent in waiting rooms to have it extracted from kiddo's foot. It's good to know those nurses in the outpatient surgery center have a good sense of humor. Hehehe...

Merry Christmas, all!

What....Who....Huh?!

2007-12-06T15:29:00.000-08:00

How long is fortnight exactly? If I calculated the time spent avoiding the blog, I'd say it's been at least fortnight or two, right? Aww, well, anyway. T'is life.

But I made stuff and I frogged stuff and I made plans to frog more stuff that I made. And I drew a little too. See!

2 hr. pose

Like I told my people*, I'm a little proud of this drawing. I was in the company of a two very talented people and a little terrified I'd freeze, but I didn't and well,......I like how it turned out. It's fairly large, on 18" X 24" newsprint with vine charcoal. Toot, Toot! (Yeah, that was my own horn.)

I've much knitting to talk about too; some of it (really super, fantastic) good, most of it bad. But collecting the evidence of such, takes a little time, so you'll get those updates later. Besides, a good knitting story should have all the passion of a cheap romance novel and, frankly, I'm too zapped for that right now.

* This is one of my favorite expressions picked from the kids. It was coined the year that we moved into our new house and the boys were making new friends in the neighborhood. Getting up to go play outside with this new group of boys, coming and going with his brothers, my 4yr. son informed his daddy that he "was going outside to be with his people." He's still that cute, some three years later.

I'm Sorry

2007-11-18T18:10:00.000-08:00

The rocket pattern has been moved to the back-burner for now. It's a matter of shifting priorities....again. Evidently, my sense of time and holiday schedules is WAY out of whack. (Did you all know Thanksgiving is in like four days?....It was news to me as of this morning!) Nevermind, my frustration with the project has overwhelmed my need to please. So, I'll try to have it finished before the first of the year. Sorry again, ya'll.

Re-Final Session

2007-11-16T11:38:00.000-08:00

There hasn't been much to show lately, mostly because I came down with a severe case of artistic insecurity. It happens. It wasn't until very late in the game that I decided not to care and I let myself go and embraced the lazy, slow approach and I'm happier with the end result of that shift.

S l o w l y . . . .

2007-11-09T18:38:00.000-08:00

...making my way to the final frontier here, I swear. In fact, I've sworn a lot since starting this whole designing-and-writing-and-knitting-and-writing thing started. There's just gotta be a special place in heaven for people with the patience enough to do this a living or even just for a day. At the very least, there's gotta be a patron saint of knit design, right? Maybe if I pray to her, my brain will stop hurting.

Color By Number

2007-11-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

More of the same, but have switched it up a little to break out of a perplexing brain block. Sorry about the poor photo quality; the sketchbook is actually a bright red. You get the idea though.

Have I Told You Lately...

2007-10-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

.....how much I appreciate the twelve or so of you who check up here regularly. I do. I appreciate you all immensely. Or else I wouldn't post the very little that I do.

Speaking of, I am fighting my laziest of urges to knit rockets without writing down the pattern and have actually knit and writ about one sort 0f...bright...rocket. I'm still working out the legs, but I will offer it as a free tester's pattern. The sort that you can freely write and complain about. Lord knows, I need the input. Coming soon...please hang in there. I hope to have it early November. If I don't, complain...loudly! I respond to disappointment, I swear.

Hung Out

2007-10-31T14:48:00.001-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

What I'd like to be doing...

2007-10-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

Sleeping, drawing, being little.

Plan-tag-e-net, adj.

2007-08-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

For my birthday this year, I was given an Ipod. The idea was to bring my tune-whistling equipment into the 21st century and away from the single cassette/CD playing boombox of 1992 that just wouldn't die. It was fine boombox. Fine enough for a ten year just discovering his taste in music. And so it has a new owner, proud to not know what a cassette tape even is. And I....I love my new Ipod. I gather that everybody loves their new Ipod, only for different reasons. My BIG reason, other than being able to fit every CD I own and still listen to on it with a mere 22GB left to fill, is audio books! Love the audio book. High prices and sketchy reviews rein this world of highly literate audio action, but I don't care. I (used to) love reading before my kids needed reading to and the internet replaced that special time we all make for page turning and immersion into the art of words. And while I do still read most nights, much of the effort leaves me with broken moments only remembered for the purpose of avoiding another literary deja vu. It can be very frustrating. Especially when you find yourself thinking of all the things you could be doing with your hands at the same time; drawing, knitting, folding laundry, scrubbing toilets......ok, that might be pushing it just a little. But you get the idea.

So anyway, I was given a copy of,"Harry Potter and the Order of something something", you know, the one the new movie is named after. An excellent unabridged 26 hrs. about a character I didn't know I cared a thing about. Very full of angst, that kid. However, what I missed most at it's conclusion was the old English accent of the narrator and drawl of strange names and new words that seem terribly overused after you've heard them more than twice in what amounts to 500...600+ pages of writing. I must be hard to please. Anyhoo, it took a lot of research, a few stand-in podcasts and even a couple of Ray Bradbury radio clips and short Sherlock Holmes stories before I found my next "old English" fix. I found it though, A mere 13 hr. commitment, short based on my previous experience with that Potter kid, to "Mistress in the Art of Death, " by Ariana Franklin. Truly excellent.

I can only describe it, in audio drama terms, as CSI: Cambridge, England circa 12th century. A female doctor, who "talks to the dead," from Salerno, Italy is sent to Cambridge, by request of King Henry II, to clear the name of the local Jewish community as "baby-eaters", basically. It had all the layers required of a good whodunit; a couple of worldly pilgrimages, deception of female vocation, at least one ax-wielding eunuch, much historical reference to religious bigotry, freaks in antlers dancing around womb-like chalk caves....oh yeah, it was all there. But what I will miss most, now that it's plot too has neatly rounded to conclusion, is hearing all the new names and the new words that will, no doubt, be stuck in my head like a tune on the radio. Words like, "Plantagenet", "Sir Rowely," "S-a-l-e-r(roll on tongue)-n-ooo." Words I suddenly feel the need to look up, curious to know why I didn't know them(better, in some cases) before, exactly as if I'd read them from a page in the book....

Vision Quest

2007-08-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

If I had to precisely guesstimate my time spent as a stay-at-home mom, I'd say it's been about 10 or 11 years, give or take my odd job as a silversmith. But that was at least two kids back and had next to nothing to do with drawing, illustration or 2-D art, in any general way. I loved it though. We fabricated, by hand, Rebecca Collins' pieces. Mostly earrings and bracelets and necklaces. The best part was.......playing with fire. Seriously. All that potential for big trouble and, yet, so much precision at the tip of a flame, from a torch, attached to a tank of gas!!! Never mind the grinders, the blades that could cut through sheets of metal, lapidary saws, metal snips, molten solder.....argh, argh, argh! Loved. It.

Mask. colored pencil, graphite, ink.

But more children happened and life went on and I was afforded the opportunity to stay home and I took it. The one thing I wasn't doing that I felt like I oughta' be doing, for money maybe, was drawing. Somehow, in the back of my head is there is a nagging voice in my head that says, "Go forth and create a portfolio...of something. Anything. Scribble scratch'll do at this point. For the love of God, woman, do it for children...." It's a very Charles Heston-like voice. Anyway, it had a point. Money hasn't really been the object of my desire, so much as not wanting to let loose the drive to try. To do what I don't know I can do....yet.

Sorry about the bad photos.

So this year, with only one child left to chase out of the peanut butter jar only a daily basis, I've decided to buckle down and "do". "Do" draw, "do" paint, "do" muddle through till I find a style that suits, with consistency. Just "do". And, in this vein, I took the figure drawing class and I've accompanied my husband to the Art Walk and I've started what I hope becomes a series of drawings and/or watercolors. Too much the personal pep-talk? Yeah, well....I'm pretty sure every quest started with some crazy dude trying to appease the voices in his head. Or is that serial crime? Hmm...

Last Session

2007-08-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Kind of a sad week. Not only was it the last class, but the model had stage 4 cancer of unknown origin and a single mom to boot. She knows it's going devastate her physical self before it's all over, so she thought she'd brave a session as a model instead of a student. Well.....it made me cry, which made me feel foolish, so I did my best to choke it and left with wet snot spots on the front of my shirt. Long story short, there's an extensive family history behind those wet spots. Grief is just sneaky like that, I guess.

Anyway, some of us went for pizza and beer after. Where I locked my keys in my car and had to wait for my knight in the shiny blue mini-van to unlock the horse that I rode home in. 'Twas an eventful night by my standards.

Twenty Minutes

2007-07-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

I hate the end of class. I never feel done.

History Repeating

2007-07-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

So I got my books from the "Hurt Books" sale at Interweave today and spent a little bit of time pursuing the pages of "A History of Hand Knitting", by R. Rutt. Looking down on page 161, I see,

"The end of hand-knitted stockings

Socks and stockings were the most frequently hand-knitted garments from the beginning of popular knitting until the 1950's. Today they can hardly be seen, and only the old can turn a heel without referring to book.........Today's knitter expects more pleasure from the craft." (pg.161-circa 1987)

I r o n y as defined by the craft of sock knitting. I dare say, the "old", i.e. the twenty years young crowd, may not be too pleased with that statement, eh? Or, at least they'd be forced to admit they had to check the internet for a reminder. I just love that. All kidding aside though, I do believe this is going to be an excellent read.

Done....Enough

2007-07-25T10:21:00.002-07:00

I think my class may be coming to close soon. Sometime in early August, at least. Still trying to decide if I'll take it again. I'd like to think I will.

Still knitting, but nothing worth showing at this point. Got stalled on my Anais pullover; waiting for another skein to show up in my mailbox. Other than that, it's all Ipod socks and fighting second sockitis. A bright spot though....that Ravelry is quite an accomplishment. You can queue up a lifetime of knitting projects that you never thought you wanted to knit before, in ten minutes flat. The only foreseeable problem is the inclination to not to talk about knitting here, however silly that may sound. Because it does connect with so many knitting blogs you may never have happened on otherwise. Maybe it's time to expand my bloggable horizons again.

In other once-enthusiastic-but-almost-forgotten news, I finally (ahem...a year later) got my Proteus painting "functionally" finished. I basically stared it day after day, standing on end, next to my drafting table for all these months and I let all the expectations of what I thought it ought to look like finished slip away. I just needed to paint the sketchy-ness away. Once I put it my table to polish off the edges, "until I got a chance to REALLY finish it", it took all of twenty minutes to make it hangable. And seriously now, who am I kidding? It's surface will likely never meet with another paintbrush again. But who cares. I love looking at it, hanging above my bed, all bright and cheery and semi-unfinished. It's basically everything I needed it to be. The end.

Exhaustion

2007-07-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

Was tired walking in. Was tired walking out. And it shows.

If I Were A Better Knitter...

2007-07-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

I'd always to take my time. I'd never ever switch needles mid-project. I'd carefully write out my modifications. And I'd give more thought to the stretch allowances of each and every type of stitch.

But I'm not that better knitter self. I am an impatient, self-indulgent, needle-switching, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants knitter who can barely pause to contemplate gauge and right-measurement. It just happens that way and the damage is always done in the doing and never in the planning. I never plan. I just "do".

However, I am a fixer and figure-er when I finally get to that part of the "doing". And in this case, I figure I'll be doing quite a bit of fixing.

I started the "Intricate Stag bag*" out of pure fascination with the chart. Not being a big fan of deer particularly, it just seemed the right chart at the right time. Also seemed a good way to burn through some my mostly unused Palette stash. (mistake #1, I think)

I love the colors I had to work with, especially I was looking to side-step the whole John Deere phenomena that abounds in these parts. But I was short a ball of dark grey and had to accommodate by using it light grey for parts. (not a mistake, I'm pretty sure)

Where the fixin' is gonna happen is in my on-the-fly miscalculations of the amount of stockinette I'd need to do in the back. I just got lazy. And bored. So I rushed the point at which I placed the mini-chart in the back and I under shot the remaining stockinette to be done. That also leads to the general un-stretchibility of stockinette, by the way.

Then, I switched needles for the last garter rows. (mistake# 3, a biggie) Garter stitched on bamboo straight needles is far more stretchy than garter stitched on the same-sized aluminum circulars. Most people know this, no doubt. Not me.

So it sits a-blocking right now. Imperfect and still kinda pretty. In phase two of how-to-better-yourself-through-poor-crafting, well....I tell you what I've done once I've done it. See, lesson one is already taking root....being thoughtful about how to proceed is one way pretending** you know what in the hoo-hah you're doing.

* For the pattern, your gonna have to sign up for Knitting Daily....it's fine....just do it.

** My fail-safe is throw the whole thing in pot of boiling water just to watch in fascination as it felts up. Just so you know.

So Goes It

2007-07-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

Flip, 25 min. drawing.

Flop, 25 min. drawing.

Had a rough time trying to focus this session. It didn't help to be told that I needed to work on arm definition. After that, all I could see were arms. With exception to these two poses. I hate that she has chub hands in the bottom pic. She was so graceful and cheery. Oh well.

It's Benderin' Time, Baby!

2007-07-03T08:20:00.001-07:00

Twas the Father's day cake as decorated by four wee impressionable persons. It's all Futurama, military history and love. Just like daddy.

Where To Begin

2007-06-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

**Warning: Last picture may be NotSafeForWork....Sorry!**

Well, first, I oughta' say that there are times when it's just plain better to live your life than to wonder when and how you were next gonna post about it . Having said that, no major life dramas have unfolded since I left the blog to collect spiderwebs and dust bunnies, well, I did wonder if my very elderly lawn guy was dead for a coupla' (ahem...six) weeks. Turns out, he's not. Phew. Secondly, I really must admit that I got so thoroughly hooked on Bloglines to keep me invested in the private lives of others that slacking got easier every day that I didn't post a little somethin' somethin'. That's all. Mystery of my universe solved. Voyeuristic slacker mom keeps secret life as real person secret. Hmm.

Bianca's Jacket, Interweave Knits. In KnitPicks, Main Line, Butter Pecan.
.

Anyhoo, I have been knitting. A lot. Well, a lot, for me. I'm slow and am covered with children like an oak green with lichen. Slow is my standard operating speed. I knit a sweater (my first!), two and one quarter pairs of socks, a rocket, a mini-rocket, a few rows of the really lovely blanket, and started a skirt for my daughter. I even, hold on to your seats, typed up a whole...half of a pattern. The mini-rocket. I started to feel poorly about the effort however. I suddenly got the feeling that if I were to write a pattern for everyone, I oughta' make it a good one....not a mini-one. You know what I mean? So, I'm putting it back on the shelf for now. *

From "Favorite Socks", in KnitPicks, Gloss; Monkey Socks, in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, Golden Hills; and another from "Favorite Socks", in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, Baltic Seas.

Okay, here's the bit I'm really excited about. I...signed...up...for...a...FIGURE DRAWING CLASS!! Yay! Short story...approximately eleven years ago I was living in New Orleans, working on my degree in illustration, madly in love for the first time and enormously pregnant with my first child. I was at a fork in the path, juggling all the great possibilities of life at once. Career, love, family. I happily skipped along the path as it took an obvious turn toward staying at home with the kids. Heck, I still got to be madly in love and to finish the degree I was already working on and to get pregnant again...and again...and again...and again. It has been a good path. However, I never shook my fondness for drawing...people...who stand still for extended periods of time. (I once considered medical illustration as the thing for me, if that gives a clue to my tendencies.)

Hip in Hemp skirt, in Elann.com Esprit.

Over the years, I have tried off and on to draw my kids. But as luck would have it, I can't even get a sleeping baby to stay still. And well, later, knitting happened. So this year, after a mini-emotional meltdown (not to worry, I have them all the time), it finally dawned on me that for the first time in years I was not gravid with child, nursing, or without available baby-sitters. Cha-ching! Put myself in the figure-drawing class through the continuing education dept. of our local university and I LOVE IT!

Best of the bunch, I think.

It's been two (shortish) sessions, but I'm finding my zen again. My goal is to become more natural with proportions, quickly, so that I can get on to doing completed drawings, with decent composition and backgrounds and all that jazz. It's taking some serious concentration on my part, but time has a way of working these things out. In the meantime, watch out for more "Naked People" posting. Woo hoo!

*P.S. Does anyone have any advice on PDF files? I could really use it.

I knit on..

2007-06-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

...as Venom lay dying at arm's length. It was tragic. Truly.

Originally, I was gonna brag on all the super fantastic knitting I've gotten done in the last month or my sudden shift back into figure drawing, but how could I compete with such an inspired staging left for me by my child? It did strike me, however, that this is a bit like a cat dropping a dead bird at your feet. Hmmm.....

I've Got Rhythm

2007-05-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Two lots of Jojoland, Rhythm. (Purty, ain't it?)

Pattern: Lizard Ridge- Knitty.com

Extra Credit Work

2007-05-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

It's was Teacher Appreciation week at the kids' school. This year I was aiming for "Please forgive my absence as a parent who should be thrilled to serve punch, chaperon a field trip (or two), and wipe a couple of noses just so the teach' could get a ten minute break." But I really and truly hate doing all of those things and, boy, did it show this year. So, what you see here is my way of saying I'd avoid doing it all, all over again.

So let's add it up....three teachers + two embellished Mason Dixon felt boxes + one 'Backyard Leaves' scarf that I was clearly never going to wear since I'd finished it five months earlier and never actually bothered to it seam together = one 'C' average mom with high marks in home economy. But hey, a 'C' is still passing, right?

I Heart NYC

2007-04-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Good gravy, it's been a fun month. There's nothing like jet planes, shopping, and a gorgeous wedding to help shake off the winter doldrums. As a matron-of-honor in my closest of close friends wedding, I was gifted a plane ticket to New York City, to spend the weekend with the "girls". While I should feel guilty about going all the way to NYC and not doing the "cultured" thing, I don't. It was a delightfully girly experience. High priority was given to a trip to Anthropologie (joy!) and H&M, as well as being ushered into the world of Sephora, which was much like stumbling into the oddies tent of a traveling circus for someone who didn't even own a curling iron before this weekend.

What I'd forgotten about the city was how effortless it is to be apart of the world of fine art there. We casually traipsed past some some very large Botero sculptures at the entrance of the make-up store and gawked at the paintings hanging at the entrance of The Metropolitan Opera House, which was right around the corner of our temporary domicile. It was freaking fabulous.

I strolled through Chinatown with new found friends. I dined at Blue Ribbon at four in the morning and it was, without a doubt, the best meal I've ever had. I bought Tibetan jewelry for next to nothing in Soho and I even glimpsed a celebrity at work. And while that particular weekend was exceptional, it was nothing compared to the last, in which I got to see my closest of close friends tie the knot. But that is a post unto itself, shortly to follow. With pictures. Probably.

Presto Change-o

2007-03-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

Never have I thought of my laundry room as the happiest room of the house, but I certainly do now. For three years, I've been laundering all of our duds and linens in the funkiest of funky 1960's outdoor laundry room, exposed to every seasonal element replete with putty colored walls, lightly dappled with little dots of mold from the humidity of it all. Hardly a motivating factor for slogging through load after load of icky sticky kids' clothes week after week. To round out the displeasure of the whole laundering experience, the path from the upper floor of the house to this lurvly outdoor home laundromat could easily have been depicted by a number of Family Circle cartoons, input the mother experiencing laundry basket blindness, nearly missing the bottom step of the staircase, balancing 10 lbs. of funky school clothes with one arm whilst unlocking, opening, and closing the first of two separate doorways, all the while shooing the cats away, backing through the screen door and trying to avoid a poorly placed skateboard. After three years, I'm still guilty of cursing the contractor who thought adding an interior doorway to the laundry was some sort of luxury. It's so at the top of my things to do, you don't even know.

Anyway, fed up with dread, I took action and advantage of hubby/babysitter/carpentry man. Emptied out the room d'loathe and deshelved the place. I got a little carried away in fact. Didn't take long to paint the ceiling, walls and trim, so I decided to paint the old shelving while carpenter man installed my clean, crisp looking counter for me. Joy! Re-shelved the joint and took to making curtains. Really girly curtains with little blue polka-dots and orchid appliqués and over-the-top floral prints. Joy!

Last but not least, of all my treasures that I love the most, my rag-tag collection of catholic reliquaries are by far my favorite. But, they are a bit too Gothic for the inside of my home so they've been stashed in the laundry room "temporarily" since we moved here....three years ago. So, we figured we'd just give them a home out there where I can love them still and it won't freak anybody else out. They now reside front and center of the laundry room and I couldn't be happier.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

2007-03-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

For lack of much else to post about right now, here's a few links that I just love:

Chinese Health Posters, in the era of Mao ....... U. S. National Library of Medicine

The Art of War--Mimi Lesser portraits of soldiers, WWII ...... The Library of Congress

Ron Mueck video via Eyebeam Reblog

Gallery of Glamour ..... Leslie Hall

And she sings too!!! ..... Leslie and the Ly's at Myspace

Rex--King of the Carnival

Maybe there's a little inspiration there for everybody. See ya'll soon.

Confession

2007-02-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

I have a small confession to make. I almost don't even wanna' say it out loud. So we're gonna' whisper, OK?

I hate my Endpaper Mitts. I'm frogging them. Tonight.

Wooo....there, I said it. I feel better, except I must clarify so as not to potentially hurt anybody's feelings. I hate MY pair....not the pattern, not others' lovely pairs. Just mine. It's the colors or something. Too subtle, too muted...don't know, but I'm movin' on again.

Bull's-eye

2007-02-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

There are days when I embrace my inner dull self, like today, with yet another knitting post. I deviated from my original plan to finish the second Endpaper mitt to knit up a quick kitty bed for our two new-ish kitties. What can I say, it was good old mindless knitting. No charts, bigger needles and a couple of very grateful kitties. Used this here pattern, by Wendyknits. And I feel like a better pet owner for it, I must say. The poor things were so in love with it that they took it over before it had even finished drying. There is now a symbiotic mass of cat and damp wool under my space heater of a desk lamp. Sweet dreams, mes amis.

Cornflake approves before it's even off the needles.

Blocking in the sunshine.

A very Dr. Suessian cake-taker cover.

Can you feel the love tonight?

Scatter Brained

2007-02-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

Yep....that's exactly how I'm feeling these days. Not much for blogging, ho-hum on knitting, distracted by bridesmaids' dresses, collecting music like it's going out of style, and pondering the deeper design potential of the word "Airline". Sounds like bad case of seasonally affected disorderly conduct, doesn't it? It's not. OK, maybe just the first two. I digress, but I can explain.

Turns out, the ideas we put forth last December, for that local charity event, put my friends and I in good standing with the organizers and we were asked to give it a "go" again. Didn't hurt the ego any to be asked early on in the process this time either. So, we agreed and our new mission is to research an "Airline" theme. Right now, we've got a mish-mosh of design ideas ranging from the super mod 60's look of Eero Saarinen and, well, a lot of other stuff. No doubt, it's going to be another interesting project.

This is also the year I get to stand in another dear friend's wedding, which of course, means a bridesmaid dress. A not-ugly-at-all, cloud-colored-with-a-brown-sash kinda bridesmaid dress, in fact. (We got to choose our own...how grown-up!) I have yet to thank the bride ENOUGH for not demanding that we wear something like...... this. Oy, that's alotta' ugly. Me thinks, I ought to thank her with a copy of this gem-of-a-book. Don't you?

About that music thing, I'm generally not much of a music person. I like it, I buy an occasional CD, I listen to Pandora when my kids' voices aren't resonating at a decibel level that would deafen a dog, but I can't really say that I'm "into it." So, I dug around a little, finding a really great local blog, Home of the Groove (who knew?) and acted on a couple friendly suggestions, finally making a couple of new purchases. And now, Janis has been updated to CD status, I now know much more about Dr. John's psychedelic roots, Norah was on sale, turns out I'm like a half-dozen Jack Johnson albums behind the rest of the world, and I'm totally going shopping for the Wild Magnolias after I leave this joint. Sometime's you just gotta' find a new groove, I guess.

Same goes for knitting. I saved this for last, well, because I feel like all knit and no play makes me a dull girl. So I'll make this brief. Restarted the "Endpaper Mitts". I'm afraid my hyacinth/med. grey combo is not as sophisticated as it could be, but they are going to match my favorite winter woobie...er, sweater. The charts would look pretty great if adapted as a plaid, I decided, but no changes now since I'm hoping to finish these before Mardi Gras parade-hopping, this Tuesday. And those little center blocks DO look a little like like fleur d' lis, don't cha' think? Not that a single drunken soul along the parade route will ever notice but me. Fine, so long as I can still catch some beads.

Ya'll have a Happy Mardi Gras!!!

Movin' Right Along

2007-02-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

Finishing up old projects from last year and loving it. I'd gotten mighty distracted over the course of the year and had not realized how close I was to finishing a couple of projects that were put to the side. So, for lack of motivation (and yarn) to start anything that will require my utmost attention, I delved into the completion of these forgotten lovelies. I started with the mitered rug. It was perfect for an afternoon of watching the Saints go marching out. I just zipped through the last couple of dishcloths, seamed it, and started in the mitered border. Viola, done. Love it. My girls liked it too, so it's theirs now.

(Gotta' give my SIL credit for fancy-in' up the dresser---I love it!)

On to the "patchwork" blanket. I'd gotten slightly obsessed with making these rounds over the summer, but felt a bit overwhelmed by having to make so many, many more of them. So, I didn't. Once I'd found my zen again after seaming up the rug, I decided that I'd start seaming the blanket just to get an idea of how many more "patches" I'd need. Well, it's turns out that I'm seam-sewing addict. It's an all consuming fix. Just ask the husband.....oh wait, he's trolling Ebay right now. Seems he found his zen too.

Now, none of this highly productive activity has completely distracted me. No, I started and got 3/4 of an "Endpaper Mitt"....and then ripped it. Loved it, but was I clearly using the wrong yarn, I decided. Started and ripped at least three different scarves. Swatched and ripped. And just plain ripped a few things laying around, just 'cause I felt like it. I swear, one of these days, I'll give you all a non-knitting post. I promise.

Part Two of the "Should'a Series" or The Working Shawl

2007-01-31T07:53:00.000-08:00

So, yeah, I finished it. Sometime ago, really. In fact, only about a week after I last lamented about it. Took all of about 10 minutes to finish. Figures. Only then did I start to worry about my yarn choice. And rightfully so, as it turns out. When I blocked the "feather" rows, I could really feel the bounce-back of the yarn. I really had to tug to get the pattern to lay flat and with that much tension I started to figure the feathers were going to find their happy, bunchy place again once I pulled the pins from the shawl. Sure enough, they did and I really don't think re-blocking will change that. But, honestly, I'm not at all put off by the results. For one, the large-ish rib pattern at the top did benefit from the blocking and the YO's look pretty darn nice. And two, I'd already made the shawl one repeat short, intentionally, and I sorta' picked the yarn that I did so that I would be more inclined to "work" this shawl in the real world. It had to weather the weather, peanut and jelly sandwich fingers, and a regular pass through the washing machine. No doubt, acrylic yarn will do that like no mohair I know. So, I love it still. It wraps around my neck like a scarf, it's warm, I don't worry about my girls tugging at it and it still looks pretty good too.

Now, having said all that, I WILL use a better quality, more heirloom worthy yarn the next time that I knit lace....and I will knit lace again. A lot of it, I think. I've got my eye on a couple of sampler-type projects, in fact. So while, I should'a given myself more credit for being able to knit this pattern and not chintzed on my yarn choice in the first place, I am pleased with what was accomplished. Forward ho!

Part One of the "Should'a" Series

2007-01-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

I should'a learned how a sock is engineered before I set to stitchin'. The ankle gussets are all wrong, on both socks. There's no point in pointing each error out, because the mistakes don't stop there. No, I bungled the toe shaping portion as well. Toe grafts....yet another talent I was born without. While you probably wouldn't have to strain your eyes to hard to find the problem areas, don't hurt yourself trying. Just know that they're kids' socks and kids don't care.

My son totally dug em'.

Another notable "should'a", it's probably wise to pick a yarn you *love* for such a task. I didn't. I totally settled, just because I wanted to see what all this sock knittin' hoopla was about. While I can't say didn't like the feel or look of the hand-dyed yarn (it really is charming), I was disappointed when I realized that I would never wear a pair of socks that looked like these, myself. Maybe it was something about the green that just left me flat. Or maybe it was thought of woolen foot coverage in a tropical climate that turned me off. Whatever the case, it left me no choice but to make a pair for my daughter, *ahem* kids, which became more a task than a longing. So I rushed and I ignored the huge mistakes I knew I was making, hands cramping the whole time because I knew that if I allowed myself to slow down one iota I'd just throw the whole project out of the window and never give it a second thought. But this is high quality ho-hum yarn and, well, I'm far to guilt-ridden a knitter to do that. It'd be like settling for a Picasso, when you really want a Lucian Freud, and then storing it in the garage till you could give it away. I'd at least hang the so-so Picasso in the bathroom, that nobody ever uses. I'm just sayin'.

This Knitter's Karma

2006-12-31T21:14:00.000-08:00

Caution: This is an analogy best suited for desperate knitters and those poorly versed in baseball lingo.

It's final inning, the bases are loaded, the visiting team is up by 74 stitches in the bind-off round, your only hitter is short 1 freaking foot of yarn and the stores won't be open on New Year's Day!!!!! DO YOU SEE IT?!? See it there...to your right? Yes right there, next to the four remaining inches of the second WHOLE skein of black Red Heart Luster Sheen.....a color I didn't even much care for.....AGGHH!!!!

I....I....I'm beat. The yarn beat me. Not by much, but it beat me. Easily six months of my life, devoted to this shawl and I can't even finish the last foot of bind off...tonight. In fact, probably not tomorrow either. It has to be karma. What I haven't decided is whether or not this is the karma I'm leaving behind in 2006 and this just the final reminder that I should be more patient in the New Year and that good things really do come to those who wait OR if this is my impending karmic state for the entire year of 07'. Am I going to be destined for a whole year of just getting ---this close--- and not succeeding when it really matters...to me?

Or, maybe, it could just mean that as I enter the year 2007, writing this very post, that this should be THE year I learn to calculate yardage properly, without fuss, and give myself over to the mercy of the yarn, for better or for worse. Viva la Red Heart and it's wicked, wicked ways!!

Happy New Year, Everybody!!!

May the next year bring you much happiness and well-being to all that you love!!!

Oh, No He Di'Ant!

2006-12-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

Portrait of Good Husband

Oh, yes. Yes, he did. He modeled the very hat* I whipped up for my 16 year old niece, just so I could show it off to all you nice folks. Original plan was to pose for it myself, which would have been very appropriate at the time considering I was in my nightgown and had a mimosa in hand this particular Christmas Eve, but I was feeling too hurried and, well, this was too priceless an opportunity to pass up. So, everybody give him a hand for his nominating moment for the "Husband of the Year" award.

And, by the way, the sixteen year old niece of which I speak, loved her hat. How could she not, right? And my 12 year old niece went ga-ga for the authentic, vintage 1980's LP's that I pulled from the far corners of my closet. I guess this good news for The Culture Club. Oy!

* Most awesome hat pattern.....ever. Considering I made it on needles two sizes too big, it lost nothing in translation. I may have to make another for myself, in fact. Also, I added an extra casing on the inner rim to cover the elastic band that is very much needed to hold this baby on your head. I thought it just felt better that way and it neatened up the look some.

So Very Merry

2006-12-18T12:49:00.000-08:00

So far behind, so little time, so I'm abandoning the blog till after Christmas. But I want to wish everybody a peaceful and joyous holiday. I painted this for our family Christmas card. It had to meet one criteria that all of the store-bought cards just weren't filling this year; it had to make me smile. And it does.

Mini-Winter Wonderland

2006-12-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

This photo and the last are pics of our miniture holiday village that sits atop our television console. Thus far, the kids have not "lovingly" deconstructed it. Can't say the same for my Christmas tree.

2006-12-16T11:01:00.000-08:00

Speeding To A Close

2006-12-14T22:08:00.000-08:00

Working on that last rocket for the smunchkin nephews. Pre-felted and lookin' rough.

A Drink Or Two

2006-12-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

The shindig is over, the dresses hung up, and the art's gone home with it's respesctive owners. It was an interesting evening, to say the least. I showed up fashionably late and was immediately directed to the farthest corner of the bitterly cold parking lot; no V.I.P. ticket to flash. I unfotunately didn't get any photographs of the psychedelic cave that I first walked through once inside. It was lovely.

Found my fabulously dressed friends and got a tour of all our spacey knick-knacks scattered about. The "Jetsons", as we kept refering to them (the tall space bamboo looking ones), found a great looking home at the corners of the bar, next to the large lava lamps. My friends did a fine job of finishing up the "lunar garden" areas, that were spaced all throughout.

The whole event looked fantastic. The dancers, in their morphy, living art outfits, were just plain fun. There were five or so of them and while they couldn't see a thing with their heads covered in these costumes, they did a fab job just writhing about as space flowers.

I don't think I got a great pic of the hyperactive painter who took to stage to paint enormous portraits in record time; four in under an hour as I recall. It was a nice diversion as we munched down on the yummy "art-inspired" grub. Lot's of seafood and cream sauce. Ironic, considering the number of starving artists running around the place. It really was delicious though.

Of course, when you have no intention of bidding an a single piece of art, art auctions can be dreadfully boring, go figure. So I took that time to take a couple of photos and help my freinds make off with their unused decorations through the back door. On our way out, I was just tickled to run into a lady asking if it'd be OK to take some of the props home. She'd already claimed one of my loopy, slinky concoctions for herself and was going back for more. I am so proud!

Anyway, it was fun. It'd have more fun if my husband had been able to accompany me and the room was filled with people I actually knew. But it wasn't and he wasn't and I had fun still.

Look, Ma!

2006-12-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

www.mrbinglefans.com

It's Mr. Bingle!!

For those who don't know or have any reason to know, Mr. Bingle is THE most beloved symbol of the Christmas season in New Orleans. He took his place on the side of the, now defunct, Maison Blanche building every year at the start of the shopping season, smack dab in center of Canal Street. Like the dreamy windows of Macy's in New York City, he captured the love of children and the hearts of all who live there. I can't explain it, but he just embodies the warmth of the holiday and, as the daughter of an area native, I heard many a happy stories about him as a child. Years ago, I moved there to go school and got to experience his joyful presence in the city first hand and now that I'm no longer in the city, it just tickles me to no end to see him represented on the internet for all to see.

So many people have written more eloquently about our unique wintry icon, that I leave you all with a list of some the best references I could muster.

In Search of Mr. Bingle

Saving Mr. Bingle

Mr. Bingle Fans

The Story of Mr. Bingle (for kids)

See How The Garden Grows

2006-12-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

Fruits of my labor

Others' hard volunteer work

This promises to be a good time, I hope.

Tree of Life

Lunar Madness

2006-11-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

First, Thanks to everybody who stopped by my humble a-blog and left such cool comments. It means a lot, especially now that I've gotten a moment to ogle at all of your really great creations too. And a huge congrats to all those who won big over at Whip Up. So many great minds at one really neat site. Thanks!

Anyhoo, what's been keeping me from my computer is a stack of pantyhose, a box of balloons and a whole lot space madness. I was asked a close friend to help out with decorations at a local arts council fund-raiser, for a free pair of tickets to event, of course. Sounded innocent enough; I figured I'd just be doing grunt volunteer work blowing up balloons and laying out table cloths. Well, it turned out to be a little more than that. In a good way. Turns out, we, that being the artist folk, were asked to experiment and create mockettes of easy-to-make table sculptures according to a theme involving other-world exploration/ zen lunar garden. Hmm....OK! So, I started bending wire and stuffing balloons in tights and soon our labratory looked a little something like this....

A couple designs were approved by the lady in charge and I suddenly find myself making many more than I'd first anticipated. At least, more than I anticipated making......by myself. I've had to ignore my husband's chants of ," ...but can you finish them all on time?...you've got to make 100!...hurry!!!" But my nerves of steel prevail and I'm having a ball with this challenge. Who wouldn't love being surrounded by this much festive lunacy? It's certainly having a postive effect on the kids, I think.

My next mission, however, upon completion of these 30 some-odd tabletoppers, will be to find a fabulous looking dress, great shoes and all the swank adornments to match, in order to attend this soiree. It might just be my own mission impossible.

Postive effects, for sure.

Mommy's Little Helper

2006-11-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

We've been painting again.

Felt, Felt and AWAY!!!---Whiplash Entry**--

2006-11-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I took a small step for knitters and felted a giant leap for me. I finished knitting Rocket #2* and then I....gasp....hold breath....felted it. And I totally freaking LOVE it!! It was a bit of a mad scientist's project this time around, because I really wanted to avoid all that time spent seaming the body panels. I also wanted some extra details, like the color spikes on the body and the ridge above the engine section. So this time, I knit the body in the round with DPN's.

Once I finished it, I turned it inside out and decided that the intarsia loops were going to be too tight for the felting process (not that I really have a clue, mind you, as this only the second time I've felted anything), so I channeled some Eunny's steeking vibe and attempted another new process. Looks frightening, but oddly, it worked. The threads loosened and the body opened up like an orange peel. Some day it might be interesting to felt something like that inside out. Hmmm....

So anyway, because I hadn't planned the steeking thing from the beginning, I didn't leave myself extra loopage to cut and ended up some very short threads holding a critical portion of the body together. Once the whole thing was assembled, I thought the best thing to do, would be to hand-felt the whole thing a little, to see if the joins would even hold. Here's a photo of my sad, wet rocket lying in limbo before being put in a pillowcase and thrown to washing machine gods. When I pulled it from the machine and pulled it from the pillowcase, it was the eeniest, teeniest version of itself...in a pefect felted state. I couldn't help laughing out loud. It feels virtually indestructable, which I was going for, since it's going a little boy of 5. I just hope he likes it as much as I do.

*Yes, it is my pattern. I free-handed the body, but I actually remembered to write down the pattern for the leg parts as I knitted the first one, so that they'd all match this time. They were garter stitched short rows. Worked great.

**I wasn't going to enter, but here goes. Whiplash Entry, if they'll take it.

2006-10-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Spaceman Spiff's Sidearm

2006-10-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

My latest finished project....the raygun. Being a total dork for all vintage sci-fi pulp, I decided that no rocketeer could be without his trusty sidearm. In fact, no fantastic voyage is without a little 'species unknown' drama requiring some serious pulp armory. Or at least, that's what my kids keep telling me. And so I became 'Mom, the make-believe weapons designer'. I suppose I'd lump that torch under this job title as well. Truth be told though, I wanted to do the raygun just for me.

I knew in my head how I wanted it to look, but I didn't know how I was going to construct it. I thought I might start with the same basic pattern that I made for the body of the rocket. But that idea was tossed out when I realized that I couldn't do the intarsia panels along the sides if I worked it in odd numbered panels. Goodness knows, we all need to learn intarsia on the fly, right? So I frogged it...a couple....er, a few times. In fact, I threw the whole charted pattern out; the very one that I diligently tried to put together. It just wasn't working for me.

Instead, the project became one big experiment. Surprise, surpise. I ended up stitching the body as one continuous piece that folded at muzzle and was seamed up the sides, adding the various other parts one idea at a time. I'm not sharing with you all, how rushed and poorly constructed the back looks, currently. I attempted the technique of knitting a small, tight round on two circular needles vs. using the tried-and-true method with a set of double-point needles. Needless to say, it looks awful and mental note to self: find a mentor. I did the whole thing in kitchen cotton this go 'round, because 1) the colors are easily accessible (and cheap!) and 2) it's just another prototype, meant to learn from. And lesson number one, I have decided that, indeed, this is a prime project for felting.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, though. Just like the rocket, it needs some more precise shaping and little extra care given to seaming. And while normally, I'd rely on my husband's astute eye for what just looks "wrong", this time I happily took the advice of my 8 yr. old son to guide me through the details. I must say, it tickled me to watch him get more and more excited about whichever new element we made a joint decision on. Sure enough, it had star appeal with all the kids once it was finished. Too bad I can't convince any of them to dress up as Buck Rogers for Halloween...maybe I'll convince the hubby. Hmmm.....

Still Catching Up

2006-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to spend some really quality time with my very ill kids this week...in a self-quarintined kinda way. But for the loads and loads of soiled laundry that piled up on an hourly basis in the first 24 hrs. and the heavy odor of Lysol all around, being locked in a house with five vomitting children for three days has it's upside. For one, they simply stop.....no bouncing, no jumping, no digging through drawers, no food mess (with exception), no littering, no loitering, no screaming, no fighting (believe it or not), no begging, no nagging and just a wee bit of whining...and they lay like little wet rags wanting little but to be watered and petted and given a heartfelt kudos everytime they managed to make it to the toilet in time. There is a certain peace to it all, once you figure out how to run a house as a hospital.

Adding to my downtime was my ka-flooey internet connection. We rearranged our office just before my husband left for work (in the Gulf of Mexico...for two weeks) and my computer was moved across the room. Well, certain restrung cable lines, plugging this device into that device and so on, failed. I spent the first week, before the kids got sick, trying to troubleshoot the problem on my own, begging advice from anybody who would listen. Turns out, both my mother and my husband (he calls when he can) have a heck of a lot more computer savvy than the lady who gets paid to troubleshoot bad internet connections on the other end of the bleeping phone. So long story short, after deciding it wasn't worth my worries until the kids got well, I had to re-rearrange the devices that make a virtual exsistence possible. And here we are.

Finally, things are mostly back to normal. My house is messy...again, the kids are fighting on their out the door to school...again, my husband'll be home just in time to miss all the fun, and I miss the quasi peace already. But now I'm free and able to share with you all what I got done between laundry loads and catch up on that recap of WIP's.

First up...progress on the 'Icarus Shawl'. My zen project. I love it, I do, but it's a whole lot o' black yarn and repeats. We're down to the very last chart, a mere 28 rows, then the trim pattern. Doesn't sound like much until you consider these last rows are 400+ stitches across. Needless to say, I only have patience enough to finish one or two rows in a single sitting, kids' needs not withstanding.

Next up, pre-emptive Christmas knitting. I blame this effort on a lady from the local knitting group. While I've only been to one meeting, I do keep myself informed of their goings-on through the website, which is how I was informed about her Christmas Knit-along site. This coupled with the desire to make something..er, anything.. from this book made for easy motivation. Alas, we've got Christmas decorations and many, many cast-ons and frogging of these two gorgeous projects, either of which I'm determined to make in this aubergine yarn.

Almost to end now with the knitted toys. Without much explanation of why he wanted it, my 10 year old asked if I could knit him....a torch. Yes, a torch. It made for good short-row experimentation and he seems to love it dearly. You've all seen the rocket, but there is one other that I will put in a sperate post. And that's about all. I'm having more fun playing and experimenting than I am doing patterns.

However, not to be left out, the dishclothes. More than anything, I do them for instant gratification. Quick, charming, mostly useless and hard to give away.

So that's just about all of it in a nutshell, sorry you had to wait so long to see so little. And now I'm off to make Halloween cotumes....

Sketchbook Saturday

2006-10-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Thunderbirds Are Go!

2006-10-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

Prototype A is finished! Surprisingly, it didn't take anytime to finish up the last bits and get them sewn onto the main body. However, considering this was my first time designing a project in knit and discovering late that throwing my original pattern out and freehanding the last couple of elements was simpler AND accounting for the goofball mistake of sewing the first leg on without attempting a way to match the other legs exactly, I think it turned out pretty well. I love, love the tweedy yarn, Patons Shetland CHUNKY Tweeds to be exact. Worsted yarn would have been smoother and more stuffable, maybe, but I like the texture of this yarn. It kept me from wanting to add rivets in excess. (psst...I love riveting...copper rivets, aluminum rivets, made-up yarn rivets...).

I was a bit eager to finish this rocket, so that I could start another project. However, I feel I need to work on technique, for sure, and do some extra shaping work on the legs and bottom. I'm happy with the bulleye pattern on the bottom, but I wanted it to be more taught and less....navel-like. Also, I'd really like to figure out how to make the increases and decreases more obvious so that it appears to look like seamed metal. Currently I lack the skills to pull it off, but it's all part of "the vision". Should all experimenting go well, I do think I'm gonna make a couple more for my nephews this Christmas, but this one is gift to my husband for now.

Sheer Abandonment

2006-10-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

...Of the blog, I'm afraid. Pre-occupation with being pre-occupied is my only excuse too. I feel no regret about it, exactly, I just needed a break from it. If only for a moment. Here's a recap of all the semi blog-worthy things I could've posted about, but instead...did not. Ten-year wedding anniversary, one-year Katrina/Rita anniversaries, one-year blogging mark, cleaned the laundry room and fell off the edge of the earth. Nothing big. Sentimental stuff mostly.

So to make ammends to anybody out there who was waiting patiently for signs of life, I offer you proof of that I have also been suffering long hours of idlehanditis whilst away. Even have a doctor's excuse from housework for it. It's true. I swear.

Truthfully, the blue bird of happiness was completed about a year ago, but I did finally semi-block it, move it upstairs and attempted to find a frame for it. So it's something right?

Much repair work has been done on some ill-fated lettering attempts.

Still short two legs and bottom "plate" for the engine. It's christmas-y, right?

This is a failed first felting project gone right. Loved it once I crocheted the hemp handle to it. Still needs a closure and some embellishing, but it's a well-functioning knitting bag for now.

So this has been 'Recap, Part 1'. There are more U.F.O.s lurking in the corners of my home presently, but I have yet to capture them on the camera as of yet. Stay tuned.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

2006-09-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

Since, I haven't the brain power lately to actually take pictures of anything that I'd be likely to post about, I'm going to, shamelessly, borrow a post of a most fascinating puppet video (who'da thunk it?, right), originally mentioned on Drawn!. I'm just so intrigued by her eyes and the work they put into perfecting the whole performance. Enchanting.

And that something blue.....my new mom-mobile. And, yes, I'm just showing off. Oh yes, my love for it is....true blue. Har har...elbow in the side. As a corndog family we're still trying to find the right name for her. Current favorite seems to be "Blue Steel". You know... Ben Stiller, Zoolander, the "look". Get it. And now you all know, it's not just me; the hubby thought up that one*.

*The proof.

New Car Smell

2006-09-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Day tripping in our first EVER new car.

All Fall Down

2006-09-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

A Hint of Knit in the Air

2006-08-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

Check one off my 'resolvable projects' list. Beautiful, but more importantly, finished. I abandoned the 'Branching Out' scarf sometime last year and it has burdened my conscience ever since. But it's finally done, leaving me free to get bogged down by the lovely 'Icarus Shawl' from Interweave Knits.

First Day....

2006-08-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

....at the bus stop....on the bus....away from mom and dad (and his NAScars too)....all day....long. He came home the happiest kid in the world. And in love. With the *teacher*.

Precious Moments

2006-08-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

An Inquiring Mind Wanted To Know.....

2006-08-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

....the scale measurements of both the picture I'm enlarging from and the size of panel I'm painting on. So figuring that other people might also want to know(and since I promised anyway), I got myself coordinated, walked upstairs with the tape measure and jotted the figures down on my hand. Here's what we've got: the picture in the book is exactly 3 in. X 7 in. and the panel is exactly 24 in. X 48 in. The finished painting should fit quite nicely in it's spot above the bed, I think.

I hope I'm not wasting anybody's time posting this update. Truth is I've had little time to paint this week and will probably have even less time to paint next week, with kids starting school in 10 days* and all. Nevermind, I'm a little nervous about free-handing the lettering that will predominate the right side of the painting. Methods of xerox transfer have been discussed** and are still being contemplated to make the job easier, but there is a learning curve involved and that alone can screw a project up. We'll see what happens.

I think I resolved my issues with the large fin/wing area. I can live with it, which also means that "Butterflish" is approximately 90% done. Woo hoo! Not the winged babe on top, however.

* Jumping with joy. Doing a happy dance. Shouting from the mounataintops. All of the above will be done after I put all THREE of my boys on the bus. May sound terrible to some, but having a full house all summer, my proverbial cup has long since runneth over, been knocked off the counter and cracked to bits. Besides, I look forward to being girly with my girls for a bit.

**E. , I think it's hairspray that we couldn't remember. No?

40 Carat Felt

2006-07-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

I was clicking my way through a couple of craftblogs the other day and found myself revisiting the Pincushion Challenge flickr set. Later that night, unable to sleep as usual, I started having pincushion visions of my own and felt compelled to sketch them out. I decided that my simple-girl-self could use a little bling in her life. What better, then, than a gaudy 40-carat diamond pincushion ring.

Since I'm not a very experienced embroiderer, that I'd start with a simple square-faceted version first. I also decided to partially rely on Verybigjen's bottle-top pattern. That's the reason for the chunkiness in the middle, but it did give me a chance to add silly little filigree-type ornament. Don't think I'll use it for the next ring, though, too much bulk for this project. In the end, I feel like I shouda' made the diamond twice as large, despite the top-heaviness, to even out the massive proportions.

Anyway, here's to domestic goddess in all of us or to the little princess in your life who needs some serious ringage to marry her imaginary prince.

First Things First

2006-07-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

This a shot of day four and five really. We've been so busy painting the room and trim and whatnot that I haven't devoted much time to my project here. In fact, I feel I spent just enough time on it to fuss it up a little too much. There are certain spots that I will have to paint over and redo, i.e. the large fin area- too much red, not enough definition. Perfectionism is a curse, I tell ya'.*

Days 4 & 5.

*I'm not a true perfectionist, only when it suits me.

In Other News...

2006-07-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

Didn't spend much time on "Proteus" today, because we applied our charmingly bland shade of grey to the walls. It works for me. The part about having to put all the crap back into our bedroom....well, that's the part that doesn't work for me so much. But I should be back on track with the painting...of the painting...tomorrow sometime.

In the meantime, here's a shot of our rescued butterfly. I harvested a bunch a basil out the garden and tried to salvage all the excess by plucking, rinsing, and storing the basil in plastic bags for a couple of days in the fridge. As we were plucking leaves, we found a hard, funny-looking chysalis on the table. So I propped it up in the leaves of my anthurium by the kitchen sink, not hoping for too much. As it turns out, he popped right out a couple of days later. Here he is still shaking the dew off. Once he was able to flop around a little, he was given a couple of life lectures on loose women and how not to become a nectarholic, leaving the wife and kids home to pupae alone. Before I left him alone to flop around the garden for bit longer, he promised he'd write.

The Saga Continues

2006-07-27T18:10:00.000-07:00

Day three of Proteus painting was spent hyperfocusing on certain details. Explaining to my husband why I was squinting at the 2" x 31/2" picture of what I'm painting had little to do with poor eyesight or bad lighting, but rather the deciphering of a watercolor/gouache/ink piece and transforming into an acrylic painting. About ten o' clock last night, I started to wonder why I hadn't started this project on paper. Screw it....I'm all in now and there's no looking back. Enjoy.

End of Day three.

Krewe of Proteus

2006-07-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

So....we're finally, two years after buying our first home, spiffing up the master bedroom. The painting plans have been laid; repaint the ceiling, paint the walls a very neutral "silver plum", and round out with some white-ish trim. All very ho-hum. But have no fear, the obnoxiously vivid painting is here! ....to hang over the bed, that is.

It's been a long-time want of mine to paint up a large scale version of one of the gorgeous carnival posters of old New Orleans. The art commissioned by Mardi Gras krewes circa the 19th century is some of the most beautiful...and over-looked, if you ask me....artwork that I've ever seen. So creative, so ornate; it's what keeps the mystique of Mardi Gras alive for those of us locals that have long since grown tired of the drunken street party portion of the season. I go to that parades for the art. OK.....and the beads, but that's just a primal urge to elbow complete strangers, really.

A couple of years ago, I picked up two volumes of Henri Schindler's collection of these fabulous works, Mardi Gras Treasures, of which he has written about and compiled them as costumes, invitations and float designs. All three books are FABULOUS, which made it really tough to pick a work to enlarge and replicate. I finally settled on an invitation for the ball of the Krewe of Proteus, 1820. The colors are rich and varied and I sort-of have a thing for nautical mythology, of which many yearly krewe themes are based. Anyway, it just seemed right.

For kicks, I decided to chronicle the daily advancements of paint job, for my sole pleasure really, but I'd thought I could share the process with you all too. I should say too, that while I enjoy creating my own art from time to time, I love to replicate pieces like this. It gives you a real sense for another painter's process and creative brilliance that goes on inside of other people's heads. It's like a design puzzle worth solving for art junkies, like me.

One other sidenote, this project is still in progress and I'm taking pictures at the and of each painting day. I do intend to scan the original work when I can, but it may come at the end of the project, so bear with me. Size is approximately 24" in. by 36" in. and it's on scrap plywood, leftover from cutting out hurricane window covers (I love that). But I'll have to measure it out later. Hope you guys enjoy.

End of Day 1.

End of Day 2.

Dish Diary: Day One

2006-07-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

You bet your sweet Aspercreme!

2006-07-15T19:35:00.001-07:00

Originally, I was just going to post my two favorite advertising taglines, of late. However, when I began my internet hunt for a picture of Aspercreme line, I discovered that I'm not the only person who is sad to see the ad line go the way of "You bet if it's Aspercreme!" *Su-ucks*, if you ask me. The original line was just brilliant, snort-soda-through-your-nose humor and that left me aching for a reason to go out and buy tubes and tubes of Aspercreme.

www.cockeyed.com

Anyhoo, the second might raise some eyebrows, but I love it anyway. Have we all seen the new Fruit-of-the-Loom music video ads? The country music one at that? Anybody? OK, well, in case you haven't, the winning line in the whole ad is ....... "You can't OVERLOVE your underwear...." Twangy, tacky, can't get it out of my head. And fortunately for me (and them), I've got no less than four males residing under my roof who really do overlove their underwear. They also overwear their underwear, but that's a whole other thing.

2006-07-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

Pretty Princess, hat.

Hello, My name is.....

2006-07-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

.....and I have an addiction to cheap cotton yarn. And bags. And, well, lots of other kinds of yarn. And starting yarn related projects, but I digress. I'm only sorta kidding, folks. Twice now, this summer, I've found myself lugging around shopping bags full of yarn for projects that require the full spectrum of the rainbow. Not for the same project, mind you. Again I digress. So, what's a girl to do when she has an aversion to plastic shopping bags holding the precious contents of a works-in-progress? She must halt all further production until she whips up an appropriate and respectable yarn-hauling bag, of course! And, no doubt, you're thinking to yourself, "Isn't that just another project that she's going to have to haul around in a plastic grocery bag?" Indeed. But these are worthy stash-busting bags! Easy-to-make must-haves with hefty purpose and work-hard spirit! And they should be REALLY roomy too. Like I said, they've gotta hold the whole spectrum.

I could/should in fact learn to store said projects and pertinent yarn stashes in plastic tubs, stacked neatly in unassuming corners of my home, but I think that takes so much away from the obsessive nature of a yarn hoarding addiction. I want to see the yarn. I want to be surrounded by all potential productiveness that the bags hold inside. I want to be constantly reminded that if I chose not to finish the blanket I started two months ago, that I have bags of other options just hanging around burdening my conscience. "Finish, woman, finish SOMETHING other than cotton-picking bags you put us in!," they scream at me everyday before I head downstairs for a cup of coffee. Boxes just don't motivate like that.

And lest you think I spend a massive amount dough on my addiction, I'm hear to tell you that once you find yourself skipping meals in order to satiate your junky knit fix, you find that food costs WAY more than handful of $1.25 Peaches N' Cream yarn. Fewer calories, too. Truthfully, I think I've spent more in library fines on knitting/crochet books and the paper I print patterns
on, thanks to a close friend with excessive yarnage. And Ebay too. Oh, and Hobby Lobby...... when Wal-Mart doesn't have what I want.

So behold my collection of on-the-go stash hoarding and soon-to-be-completed projects. It's all I've got until the kids go back to school. Ok, it's this or a week of photo-journaling the dishes drying in a rack. Day one: plastic rainbow dishes counterpoised with steely hard forks; day 2: pot stacking sculpture; day 3.......and you thought bags of yarn were boring?

*Did I forget to mention, I utilize some of my old handsewn bags as well? Made these long before I had a sewing machine and while they lack the qualities required for public exhibition, they make great stashing vessels.
**Just a side note (a little confession, really): This is, in , fact only a sampling of my hoarded goods. The rest is actually sitting in a plastic box in an unasuming corner of my home, where it can't mock my bags.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2006-07-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

I celebrated my thirty-something birthday last Saturday and my dear sweet husband gave me a beautiful new camera. The last camera was on it's last leg and just when I was getting the hang of using it, it stopped focusing...on anything. Needless to say, I'm thrilled to bits. And while I'm still learning all of the in's and out's of the new camera, at least I can put all of my little models back to work.

Research Project*

2006-07-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

For my niece, a replacement set of tonsils. Just in case she misses them.

*This is what I was researching, when I came across the bookcover in the last post.

Goodbye, Tonsils

2006-06-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

So, my niece had her tonsils out today and I got a little idea for a get well present that required some research. Along the way I came across this. Amazing that there is a book for every occasion, isn't it?

And, K., in case you're reading this.....I hope you feel better soon.

The In-Between Portrait

2006-06-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

What do with one's free time while your waiting for everyone to entertain you with new posts? Challenge one's self to create a self portrait using only MS Paint. What a crap program, I must say. But I don't think that's entirely what's wrong with this "painting." Looking like a hung-over baglady is what's wrong with this"painting." So have at it, all...it's good fun, if only for a moment.