Saturday, February 28, 2009

Nana-nana-nana-nana-dicebag!

I finished Dusty's Batman dicebag, and it is a huge hit - he and all his friends think it's awesome! So yay!



Mardi Gras was fun - we usually go to the FQ, but only during the day; we left at 4pm. We ate chargrilled oysters at Acme (yum!!!! - best part of MG!) and walked around, particularly enjoying the costumes on St. Ann's Street. Got some great pictures!

Oh, I finally learned the named of my favorite flower - odd, as it's been my favorite my entire life, and I see it yearly, since they grow wild here. But I never thought to ask before, since I had my own name for them anyway. My friend Jenny is a plant person and she enlightened me when I was talking about how I want a garden full of them and daffodils (though I don't think they bloom at the same time, also I think daffodils don't grow so well around here as we don't have the cold weather they require, so they apparently get refrigerated). Anyway, it's Lycoris radiata, also called "Hurricane Lilies" and "Spider Lilies" (but not the Spider Lilies I think of when I think of spider lilies).



Beautiful, no?

Still working on the quilt. Tying is supposed to be quick, but I am finding it very tedious.

I MUST stop getting bored with my knitting projects. Sigh...

How are all these people on Craftster and Ravelry so amazingly creative and talented?!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Saturday, February 14, 2009

FO: Eiffel Flower Painting

I finished a painting yesterday - one for myself(!) this time. This is a painting I just dubbed "Eiffel Flower" because "flower" rhymes with "tower." It's done on 16x20" canvas with acrylics (sadly, cheap craft paints because that's really all I can afford), spray paint, and a fine-line purple Sharpie. The idea of this painting came to me as I decided I wanted to do a painting of the Eiffel tower, but I did not want it to be just a normal painting. I wanted a different angle than the one we are mostly used to seeing, and I really liked the idea of a collage painting. The birds are borrowed from a cool photo my mom took of some birds on a power line, that I wanted to incorporate into the painting. The flowers are from photos of Dusty's trip to Hawaii; I think his dad took that photo. This was my first attempt at painting flowers, and I think it turned out pretty well. The lace was actually a strip of fabric lace I bought and laid on top of the canvas, and spray painted. I was a bit hasty and didn't spray the middle of the lace as well as I should have, but I still think it came out great. All in all, I am really pleased with this painting and it is going on the wall asap!



On the knitting front, I've been making a dice bag for Dusty, with the Batman symbol on it. I also started working on the Sideways Grande Cloche from Boutique Knits for a bit of mindless knitting, and I'm still working on the Drops Sweater. I got the yarn for Sylvi and it is oh-so-vibrantly purple and lovely!

Today I am going to work on finally getting my quilt sewn, and of course, the daily dose of study. I think we are going to eat at Acme Oyster House for V-day, yumm!

Thursday, February 05, 2009

FOs: Verity and St. Vincent Cloche

Yes, I know... I haven't even mentioned these projects on here, and now I'm posting them as FOs. Sorry, I suck.

The St. Vincent Cloche is a free pattern I started on last year. I actually finished it before Christmas, but just now stitched the ribbon down to the hat. This hat was inspired by the hat that Anne Darrow wore in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. I loved that hat so much. Of course, mine doesn't look much like it, but I still think it turned out well.

This hat is knit and felted. I used Paton's Classic Merino in natural. It took over one skein but well under two. The hat came out HUGE. I am not sure how many times I had to felt it to get the right fit, but it was a lot. After I'd finally gotten the crown to fit my head, I had to cut the brim to make it just the length I wanted (about the length of the inspiration hat). It is waterproof. Very much so. To shape it, I had to wet it, and it took a lot of water to accomplish that. I need to reshape the brim, I think; it looks a bit squished.

I found the ribbon for around one dollar at Michael's. It is Christmas ribbon, white with silvery-gray snowflakes. I machine stitched it onto the hat.





Verity is a project I started and finished last week, in just a couple of days. It's a hat by the super-talented Ysolda Teague. It's available on Ravelry. I had a skein of Malabrigo that I'd bought from someone's stash on Ravelry (it seems all the online stores that sell Malabrigo charge flat-rate shipping and that's usually good for big orders, but I can rarely afford to make large orders, though when I get rich, I am buying so much Malabrigo!). Malabrigo is my very favorite yarn. I love the current trend of slouchy hats. I will probably be wearing them even when the trend ends. This one is really not that slouchy (I made a M), but I like the fit of it. I made the M because I was worried I'd run out of yarn with the L, otherwise I would have liked to do the L hat and M brim. But no worries, I still love the hat! And I didn't have a button lying around, and I really wanted to go ahead and wear the hat, so I found this old (fake) gold brooch whose origins I do not know. It is a little heavy for the hat, but it looks cute imo.




Tomorrow I am going to try to have the nerve to finally sew up my quilt. The Drops sweater is still going - I've finished and blocked the front and have just started the back.

I have become obsessed with Sylvi from Twist Collective. It is so striking! My birthday is next month, and as one of my gifts, I asked for yarn to knit Sylvi. I found a purple color I love, Phantom in Louet Riverstone Chunky. I've read that this yarn is thin for a bulky, but even if it is, that's ok... I think this sweater-coat calls for much more ease than I'd ever need or want. It was also a great price, from WEBS Yarn. So I didn't really splurge in asking for that, as even the Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes Bulky would not have been much cheaper, and they didn't have a purple that I loved. I wish they carried it in the color Hyacinth like their worsted WOTA. LOVE that color so!

I bought both Vogue and IK for Winter 2008 and now I don't think I'm going to knit anything from either. Maybe the Victoria Yoke Pullover from IK; it looks surprisingly good on curvier women.

Anyway, that's it for now! Cheers!