Sunday, November 30, 2008

bella's mittens

**UPDATE: Click here for the latest Bella's Mittens pattern and photos**

bella's mittens

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(Original Post)

bella's mittens

new (free) design available on the sidebar - or here (pdf download). it's a first draft - need to take some decent photos in sunlight after the mitts are fully dry.

these were inspired by mittens kristen stewart wears as bella in the movie twilight. yeah, admit it - you're obsessed too!

bellamittenscropped

Saturday, November 29, 2008

this seems to be a theme

bella's mittens

yep, another saturday night spent designing! this afternoon i received a package from webs: cascade 109 in the color platinum. the color and gauge seem perfect for an attempt at replicating bella's beautiful horseshoe cable mittens from twilight. my swatches are blocking now!

in the meantime, i've knit up a surprise holiday gift and finished my owl mittens (which are also blocking). here's a photo of the unblocked first mitt:

give a hoot!

now to find the perfect button eyes! happy thanksgiving weekend, all.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

wednesday am

it's raining! los angeles gets so little rain, it's like a party every time it happens. our new house has two skylights and it's so fun when it rains.


this was our monday night: the decemberists at the wiltern. oh, it was a wonderful show! one of those concerts where everyone in the crowd is either singing or hushed, listening, and dancing. no background babble; everyone totally into it. they are SO GOOD. this video captures one of my favorite moments - you can't see it, but everyone in the audience is swaying and singing and it was just amazing. if you ever get the chance to see them live, do.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

my kind of saturday night

toddler vest

yes, mom - i'm working on it!

sparkly monsters

Twilight - 11/21/08
the longest line in the west.

Twilight - 11/21/08
team jacob hits the concrete.

Twilight - 11/21/08
an hour and a half later, there are still smiles?

Twilight - 11/21/08
screeching tweens + sparkly monsters = good times.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

much ado about knitting

so. i've finished knitting the minimalist cardi, but it's sitting in my knitting bag partially seamed. i had an altercation with mattress stitch - it just won't look even on both sides of the sleeve cap. did some research and asked the nice folk on ravelry and it all amounts to the inevitable riiippp... looks like i need to seam this sucker up using backstitch. which is a yarn-eater, and i'm currently using the extra skein of cascade 220 for these:

Owl Mitts I Must Knit

i came aross the pattern via some blogs and gazed longingly at it for a good five minutes. then b told me to cast on for crying out loud. so i listened to his advice. i NEED these mittens. it's going to be cold in ohio over the holidays, right?

because these are only going to work indoors:

cabled armwarmers

they're perfect for my freezing office; i wore them yesterday and my hands were nice and toasty - and i could still type! i've written up the pattern and already emailed it off to a fellow raveler for test knitting (she wanted to knit cabled armwarmers for a niece for christmas), but they need a name. any suggestions?

cabled armwarmers

i'll take some decent photos this weekend (hopefully).

finally, i leave you with the breaking dawn emergency reading kit i gave one of the girls on my team last night. she is the last of us to leave any bit of the twilight series unread, and is powering through the final book this week with the promise to finish before tomorrow night so we can all discuss in line while waiting to see the movie.

twilight reading pack

tea, hard candy (red of course), a granola bar, and bells on an elastic to wrap around her wrist and wake her, should she fall asleep and drop the book. ;)

Thursday, November 06, 2008

seriously

okay. so.

Edward

we had to buy this for one of the girls on our team - and had it shipped to work. her face, opening the box? priceless.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

civic duty

election day 2008

there were about one hundred folk in line when i showed up at the polls at 7AM and the line just kept growing! if you haven't already - go vote!

Saturday, November 01, 2008

houston, we have a sleeve

a proper sleeve

sleeve #1 is reknit! boy did i learn my lesson on this one: read the pattern instructions. twice.

next to the sleeve you might notice a copy of moby dick. b and i signed up for a class at LACMA offered through a partnership with the public school and machine project called "blubber, bowlines and boat hulls". we read moby dick, meet in the middle of a serra sculpture at the museum, and learn how to tie nautical knots. there are also conversations about the book itself but as the class is being moderated by a couple of conceptual artists and neither one's a melville expert - or even an expert in the field of 19th century lit - well. that portion of the class so far has been a bit of an experiment in modern jackass-ness. but tomorrow they're bringing in someone to teach us the knots which is all i really want out of this!

happy belated halloween!