Oh man, it's hot. I'm trying to embrace it, but heat is really hard for me. It makes me pouty and annoyed. Plus, this is not supposed to be a hot month! June is normally sort of misty and cool in Los Angeles - June Gloom. Where is it? I liked it. Please come back, June Gloom! Good thing that cold beers and ice cream exist on Earth. I remembered how much I love ice cream in Ohio, which may or may not be a good thing. The Jeni's right across the convention center + it was a bazillion degrees = we ate so much ice cream!

The lovely Kristine from A Verb For Keeping Warm (if you haven't seen her fiber yet, and you are interested in yummy naturally dyed goodness made by a very nice person... please just click on that link right now and I'm sorry about your PayPal balance) tagged me with a meme, which is great, because I have been wanting to blog but feel like I have so much to say I don't even know where to begin, and now I can just begin with the questions! Excellent.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

I had just finished my third year at CalArts and was waiting tables at Spago Palo Alto for the summer. I got to take wine glasses, which was fun. Edit: Classes! I took wine classes! I have never taken a wine glass from a restaurant in my entire life!

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

Blog entry (mine and also work), groceries, cook yummy dinner (salmon & veggies), watch a movie... um. That is it. It's Saturday and I am kicking it. Sunday will be busier.

Snacks I enjoy:

Kettle corn, chips and salsa and/or guacamole, almonds, peanuts, salt & vinegar potato chips, kumquats, Haribo gummi bears.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Buy a lot of wheelchairs (and do so many other Good Things), buy a house, travel. Life is pretty sweet... I guess I do this stuff anyway. Except the buying a house (yet).

Places I have lived:

• Pittsburgh, PA
• Fairfax, VA
• Palo Alto, CA
• Valencia, CA
• Val Verde, CA
• Van Nuys, CA
• Los Angeles, CA

Jobs I have had:

Babysitter, waitress, nanny, teacher at after-school arts center, LYS manager/teacher, knitting/crochet designer, Director of Operations, Ravelry Person (woo hoo)!

I finished a project! A pair of socks. I have only blogged three finished items this year (two pairs of socks and a hat) and that had me a little bummed, thinking that was all I had actually knit. (That's just not like me.) Then I remembered the finished silk garden sweater, much loved but not yet photographed, and the unbloggable things large and small, and felt better. Makes me wonder what pre-blog projects I have just completely forgotten about. Sad. But! More pictures later, which is good!

 

I am six days into it - hope I can keep it up!   

More pictures of handspun....  I feel like, as I learn to spin, I'm learning more about knitting as well.  This fiber is Superwash Merino, and is as squeezable and springy as I would expect any Merino yarn I would pick up at my LYS to be; perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at this, that the springy-ness must come from the fiber itself - that it's there, in the Merino sheep - but I was.  Don't you love those "oh... of course!" moments that you get when you learn something new?

When I saw Adrian's French Press Cosy, I knew I had to have one right away.  It's so cute!  I love my French Press... well, loved it, I guess.  I broke mine this morning while I was drying dishes.  It was not a pretty moment.  Let us not speak of it again.  I'll get a new one later today, because I love French Presses and am very much dependent upon cranky without used to having my coffee made that way every morning.   But I didn't have the right yarn to make the cosy; everything was either too thin to really insulate, or was slated to be another project already, or wouldn't be washable (um, I know that for most people this wouldn't be an issue, but trust me... it will need to be washed, I'm sure of it... note the story of how I drop things while doing simple tasks... ok I'll come right out and say it:  I'm clumsy!  Now you know.).  That's when the lightbulb went off - spin it myself!  Of course!  I know I'll use the cosy every day, so making it "from scratch" is a blast.

This is Juniper Berries from Spunky Eclectic, another almost-solid colorway.  It is the perfect type of greeny-blue color, I'm just a nut for greeny blues and bluey greens; I think that's been documented pretty well here on this blog!  I bought 4 oz of this fiber, which I know is more than enough, but I want as much left over as possible (to spin some finer yarn for something... a hat?  Another La-La? Fingerless gloves?) so I'm spinning as I go... spindle spindle spindle a thick-and-thin single, Andean ply it, admire the colors, wind, wash, dry, knit until I run out of yarn, set aside, repeat.  I'm on my third and possibly last cycle right now, spinning the singles. I probably wouldn't go about most projects this way, but for a funky French Press Cosy that I just had to cast on right away, it works!  I've been knitting away on two bigger projects that I'm really enjoying (my Stranded Colorwork floral-yoke sweater and a giant Manos afghan) but they don't fit on top of my bathroom cabinet AKA my new favorite picture spot - my Kermit-green bathroom gets much more light than any other room in our apartment - so I'm itching for a chance to set up pictures outside.

This little guy has a new home with a newborn baby boy... I had planned on making him a teddy bear, but when I saw this super-soft tiger print at Gypsy's Palace, I knew I had to make the kitty from the Wee Wonderfuls Put-together Book. I thought the black velvet would be nice for the little baby boy to touch, but there was a moment while in progress that it looked very stern, like I was making a Tiger Pilgrim, or something.  I think the lopsided tie makes him kind of friendly and silly, though... he's huggable! The put-together stuffies I made before have become favorites of my youngest cousins (The four-year-old sleeps with "Cookie" every night... awww... and also yes!),  so these patterns are not only fun to make, but also officially kid-approved to me.

grr!

 

My mom drove down the coast from Santa Cruz to come and visit me this weekend, to see the documentary film Spirit Riders, which was being screened outside at Malibu Bluffs Park as part of the Malibu Celebration of Film.  Go see it, if you can... it is a lovely movie about an international peace movement started by the Lakota people in 1990.  The rides begun with a memorial ride and service to commemorate and heal from the 100 year anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee, and has grown and spread worldwide, with ceremonies on the Summer Solstice each year. 

This morning, I surprised my mother with some little handmade favors to take home:

Yes, that's right, more Mason Dixon Knitting dishcloths!  I'm spreading the love.  I used Sugar 'n Cream cotton in bright, beachy colors, because my mom is a bright, beachy person.  One ball in each color made the three dishcloths, and I had enough left over for two matching crochet-topped kitchen towels, too:

I'm so used to having this kind of towel in my kitchen, I love them.  My Mam-maw makes these and sends a set to me every so often... I have Spring towel sets, Fall towel sets, Christmas towel sets...  a whole drawer, stuffed full.  They may not be the most modern decorating choice for the kitchen, but I always have two on my oven handle.  My oven is right behind my sink, so close that I pretty much had to crawl under my sink to get that picture, and I reach for these towels constantly while I'm cooking and cleaning.  I've had those sun buttons since I was in high school... boy, it feels good to use up long-term stash, even if it is just buttons that take up no space at all!

Embroidery.  Instantly I remember a pale blue hoop; refuge from humid August afternoons; Mam-maw showing me her needle-threading trick. I love the need to be precise, to focus.

Wee Wonderfuls Stitchette pattern by the always inspiring Hillary. I backed her with some passamenterie pack fabric that I love.  I mean really, really love it.  Lots.  I picked embroidery floss to go with the fun floral pattern; purple, red, and yellow are colors I rarely use, but now I can't figure out why on earth I avoid them. While in progress, I had a hard time deciding what I wanted the embroidery to become... torn between putting it in a frame and making a sweet, simple stuffie, I decided at the last minute to blanket-stitch a circle of wool felt to the open bottom of the stuffed doll. A display doll; with the felt bottom and some interfacing, it stands up straight, but is still soft enough for a toddler to run around with.