Slow on the uptake

So remember these socks that I started in November? Yeah, I know. Not so much. Well, anyway, I finally finished them!! Ummm..about a month ago (there hasn't been much blogging time in my world).But weeeeee!!! First pair of finished socks!!

And then there is this work in progress that I planned to show you all about two weeks ago...

...but now I'm pretty much done with it. Just gotta sew on a button & take some pictures. Hopefully it won't take me a whole month to post the finished product. But it's way cute (although a little shorter than I'd prefer) and I didn't put that big ol' flower on it cuz that's just not how I roll.

The Art of New Orleans

Ever since my friend Max moved to Cali, he's been posting awsome tidbits on the happenings around his way-the hip hop, the food, the events. But I think I appreciate the posts of random graffiti he finds the most. I just love graffiti. And I love getting to know a new city by checking out what it's street artists have to say. So I decided to share some of what I came across when I was in New Orleans last month.

This is the shoe of one of the cats from ACORN. He thought I was crazy for taking a picture, but I just thought it was awesome.

There was pretty good representation going down on the trains that were nearby the place we were staying. Unfortunately we mostly saw them at night though, so I don't have many pictures of that.

The factory across the street from the one we called "home" for the week.

Bathroom of the coffee shop we would frequent. It made my heart swell up to see this a bit. I don't know; there's just something so child-like and honest about it.

This was posted on a board in the Bywater section & I thought it was interesting for two reasons. One-the only other stencils I saw were in the Bywater neighborhood & they said things like "U.S. out of the Bywater." Second-everyone we spoke with hated Nagin at this stage of the game. From what we were told he sold the people down the river & has instead used his re-election to focus on corporate interests. You know, that old dumb rationale that "what's good for the economy is good for the people."

These pieces were in the St. Bernard Parish. They were especially poignant because right now, like many other neighborhoods in New Orleans, people are fighting for the right to return to their own homes. Over 5,000 units of public housing are due to be demolished despite the fact that many of them are repairable & so many people are still displaced.

This one in particular shows the St. Bernard projects, where families are just now starting to be allowed into their apartments to salvage some of their belongings. After the evacuation, large barb-wired fences were put up around the entire complex & families were not allowed to return. On MLK day, hundreds of people occupied the complex & protested for their right to return.

There really wasn't half as much graffiti as I was hoping for. The people of New Orleans have a lot to say and it's mostly being ignored. My mind was racing the whole time I was there with visions of how their emotions could be expressed visually. But mostly every where you went the only spray paint you came across was grimly reminding you of the search parties that came way too late.

Regardless of whether or not they were currently occupied, just about every home & building had these X's sprayed on them. A reminder of the date a crew finally got around to their home. Or TFW for "toxic flood water." Or 2 bodies found. Or dates almost a month & a half after the storm, where animals were found DOA (Dead On Arrival).And pleas. Soo many pleas just saying, "we are coming back," "this is still our home," or "we will rebuild." And I guess, in some ways, that was their graffiti. Their decleration of a community worth fighting for. No fancy colors needed.

Hello, stranger.

My my, it's been a long time. My first semester of grad school took up a whole lot of my time. Oh, I still crafted. But there was no time for a proper blogging about it.

I finished my 6 week sewing class. The projects I have to show for it seem kind of plain and minimal in comparison to all of the things I learned. I learned some great hand sewing techniques, which actually greatly improves my enjoyment of the task. (If I can manage to take better pictures, I'll share the techniques I learned for those interested) I learned a great deal about my machine & a whole lot about the magic & importance of prep work in sewing.

Our first project was a pillow & pillow cover. Simple, but enjoyable.

Then we did a lined tote bag. The end result is pretty nice actually, but I wasn't a fan of the project. It was a lot of work to get it to fit properly & I'm not enough of a fan of bags to justify that kind of work. But I must say, I still learned a lot & have a great appreciation for those that do make bags so well.

Our last project was a wrap skirt. And thanks to my fabric purchasing, I learned about the skill of making the most of a piece of fabric when you've bought juuuuuussst enough (but barely). It's a little big, but I love it anyway. And as silly as it sounds, my favorite thing about it is that it has pockets. I think everything should have pockets.

Note: you'll have to excuse my picture taking. You should know that I don't even own a full-length mirror. Thus, photos like this need to be taken in the laundry room of my building in quick spurts so as not to appear like a crazed ego maniac to the other tenents.

This is a better shot of the colors though...

...with my new boots, which by the way..ahem, also have pockets.

Of course there was also holiday crafting to be done. I started making fabric ornaments like the ones my mom made for our tree when I was a kid. I always liked those best. But for reasons I won't go into now, I didn't end up giving them to anyone this year. So instead they are going into the fund of christmas crafts for next year.

But I did make myself some fabulous soft trees for my apartment, using the pattern by Little Birds. I love everything this woman makes. They are so simple, but beautiful & gratifying.

I also knit my brother a cabled hat around thanksgiving, as modeled below by my nephew. It's the "Basic Cable" hat from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation. You can't even really see it very well in the photo, but seriously..with a face this cute, who cares about a damn hat?!

knit this.

Some log cabin knitting (which seems to be all the rage these days):

It's quick & fun & is using up spare bits from a baby blanket.

A second attempt at making socks....using yarn I got at Rhinebeck.

And speaking of Rhinebeck, here's a blurry picture of some of my spoils.

Oh the things I shall knit!

I also started my sewing class. I was pretty darn sure of myself thinking I wouldn't really be learning anything at first since I've managed to make a thing or two on my sewing machine already. Turns out I wasn't threading it properly! Well, that explains why my bobbins weren't filling tightly.

I'm also learning how to do some cleaner techniques & finishing as well as the importance of doing the prep work (a lesson I so desperately need to learn). We're only making the insert to a pillow right now, so I don't have much in the way of photos to share. But needless to say, I'm still very excited about the possibilities this class has to offer.

An alarm keeps going off in my head that says I better start thinking about holiday gifts ASAP, but umm..I'm hitting the snooze button.

first cables!

I just finished this cable knit sweater & I absolutely love it. So excuse me while I gush about it a little bit.

Pattern: a modified version of Platinum, from Knit Scene Fall 2006
Yarn: Karabella Aurora 8 in Rust color (just a little over 6 skeins)
Knit time: Done in about a week and a half (and during midterm week no less!)

I just loved knitting this! It was my first time knitting cables. I was rather intimidated by cables. I'm always intimidated by the idea of something & then find in actuality it's really manageable, & cables were no exception.

There are some imperfections on one side of my cabling, but I kept them in there cuz I loved the imperfections too. Plus, there is definitly one specific cable that commemorates my attempt to cable while watching an amazing CSI:Las Vegas episode directed by Tarantino. Geeky? yes, yes it is.

I also absolutely love this yarn. In case there was any impression otherwise, let me declare that I am no yarn snob. I picked it up because I loved the color, it was super soft, and on sale for $3 a skein. I had never even heard of Karabella yarn until Heather identified it for me. And now that I am so smitten with it, I discover that it usually retails for $8.50 for a 98yd skein! Yikes!! I don't know about you, but that's expensive for me. Now I shall be scouring sale bins with direct purpose.

It's really nice to feel good about the things you make. And I think I'm a bit addicted to recreating that feeling as well.

oh me oh my

Sooo, Rhineback sheep & wool festival was fantastic. It truly was an indulging of the senses. I got to go with two of my loves, Heather & Meaghan. We haven't hung out all together in almost 2 and a half years. So, that in it's self was a treat. But oh wait, my friends...there is more.

Like gorgeous foliage because the hudson valley was in it's prime..
And magnificent yarn that I was allowed, no encouraged, to fondle. (Yeah, I'm still bitter over that Italy experience) It was just tents and tents full of colorful yarns in varying textures..


and there were adorable angora bunnies, leading me to add "start a llama & angora bunny farm" on my to-do list...


and cutsey sheep...


and lots o llamas!

Oh, but it was so much more than that! It was delicious food! (Lamb ravioli, who knew?) And beautiful spinning wheels, and hundreds of people who make crafting & fiber arts a vital part of their lives, and cute fat headed babies wearing hand knits, and recognizing peoples sewing & knitting before realizing that I was looking at people whose blog I read. Ugh, it was just so damn good.

For the most part, I only allowed myself to buy yarn that I had specific projects in the near future for. I'm making that my stash goal. But I indulged in a tiny bit more than that too. I got some very soft and luxurious alpaca to knit myself a peak cap. And some sock yarn, because I'm determined to learn how to knit socks. And I got some merino wool in an amazing turqoise color to make myself the hot lava cardigan. I also got my self some rasberry colored merino, that I have no idea what i'm going to do with, but needed anyway. I was hoping to take some photos of all of this yarny goodness, but alas..I am back to my regularly scheduled program of interning & classes & not seeing very much daylight.

Besides living it up in Rhineback, I also taught myself how to cable knit one sleepless night.

It's a little wonky on the bottom left side. I figured out what I was doing wrong though. Maybe I should've gone back to fix it, but I wanted to keep it as a signature or something. Who knows, maybe it's just the novelty of accomplishing it & as I get better at it this sweater is going to annoy the hell out of me. But I'm willing to take that chance.

The final product from the pattern I am using it actually intended to look like this, but am extending the length. The color of my yarn is actually a rusty orange brown too. I'm just loving it. After only a little over a week I'm about 85% done & I can't wait till it's finished.

I'm also EXTREMELY excited about the 6-week sewing class I signed up for. It starts in the beginning of November. And I have a feeling you are going to see more from me in the way of sewing.

notions

These photos are rather blurry, but you get the general ideas. I'm starting to think it's a combination of a sucky digital camera & poor natural lighting in my apartment.
I finished the Ruby pattern pretty quickly. Then I tried it on and realized even quicker that I'm going to have to frog & redo the front. Even though this is a layered piece, it emphasizes my boobs waaaaayyy too much. I didn't think it would so much. It's just not my style.
I finally finally FINALLY finished the Pinwheel Baby Blanket. It feels like I've been working on it for a life time. It was a boring knit. In hindsight I would have used a yarn with variated color to make it more interesting. I didn't realize until I uploaded this photo that it has a stripe around it from when I used a skein from another dye lot. And all and all I'm just not all that crazy about it. I liked the idea of a round baby blanket, but now I just kinda feel like the baby is gonna be wrapped up like a burrito in it. But you know what? What's done is done. (Um, excuse the crankiness, people. It's midterm season.)
This little fella makes me feel more at ease with sending a baby blanket I'm not crazy about. Cuz the zebra is the other part of the gift and I just LOVE him. In fact, I'm having a bit of a tough time with the idea of parting with him.
Quick knit, stash buster, and a cute smile to boot! Made from Fiona McTague's Knitted Toys.
I think I need to make more toys in my crafting.