Today's book emporium finds:

Winged horses rival unicorns in awesomeness.

This would be awesome if it were actually about vikings.

What I can only assume are large phallic paperweights.

I was back in BAM today and thank goodness someone vacuumed the floor. Anywho, I stumbled upon a new cover by Coralie Bickford-Smith for Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. I've never read any Dickens myself because I like to stay happy, but now I'm curious, is there any knitting in this novel?

UPDATE: Ali says there is lots of knitting and "it's all metaphorical and shit."

Jane Austen Knits

Mom and I went to our community's new Books-A-Million this evening. I understand that the corporate big-wigs want to profit from the holiday season, but it seemed obvious that the store was not ready for opening, at least not cosmetically. Empty bookshelves, a box-dump corner, and dirty carpet didn't make the best impression on us. But Mom found her Family Tree Magazine and I found Jane Austen Knits.

Westie Bestie Baby Cardigan

I'm always learning as a knitter and I like to challenge myself. Colorwork and seaming are two of my weaknesses, so of course, I decided to tackle them in the same project. 

My best friend from college gave birth to her second baby boy in June, and in July, I started knitting the 6-month size of "Baby Classic Sweater #3165" from 1946's Fleisher Fashions, Volume 75. The pattern suggests embroidering sailboats or flowers on the finished sweater, and although I'm eager to improve my embroidery skills, I thought it would be an opportunity to try some colorwork. Ha ha ha. Knitting this baby cardigan nearly made me homicidal.  Small needles, Fair Isle technique, kitchener stitches, picking up stitches, vertical seaming, and hemming all threw me for a loop (See what I did there? Knitting = loops). Weeeeeeeeee!

First thing's first: I had to design my terrier puppy dog. My inspiration was the family dog, Ruger, and my specific terrier of choice was the West Highland White Terrier. I wasn't sure whether to use intarsia or Fair Isle method, but opted for the latter. Despite multiple do-overs and some rough edges, I think my puppies are cute, even if Ali did tease me that they look like cows. She's mean.

I used the kitchener stitch to connect the two puppy fronts with the back piece. What. A. Bitch.

Next came picking up stitches on a vertical edge; first along the neck for the collar and then along the body for the arm. This seemed to trouble me the most, especially at the neck, and it was at this point that I decided to take a break from my project. Resting your mind and fingers can be very good for the creative soul. Unfortunately, it ended up being a 3-month break and babies grow, you know. So, yeah, I started to bust ass in October. Once I figured out how to pick up only 54 stitches out of some 80 stitches across 8 inches, I used this site for reference.

Trying to mark stitches for pick-up along the neck.

Moving onto the sleeve, I realized back-lighting helps.

Phew! Stitches picked up for the sleeve.

I chose to knit the sleeves in the round because in my book, the less seaming, the better. Though I may have only managed to complete one sock, it served its purpose by giving me practice with double pointed needles.  They no longer intimidate me. I split the picked-up stitches among three size 2 double pointed needles and switched to my size 1 dpns for the ribbing.

With the sleeves complete, I did some gentle ironing and moved on to using vertical seaming on the sides between the front and back pieces. Ali made up for her cow comment when she said my seaming looked professional. And, ugh, weaving in the ends. I HATE that part.

Then came my superbly underwhelming hemming, button-hole finishing, and button sewing job. Oh! And a french knot in black embroidery floss for the puppy nose. :)

I also gifted this little boy with a pound puppy! I didn't realize that someone somewhere was still making these! It made me ridiculously happy. :-)

On a related note, this has been sitting in our basement since about 1985. Future craft project?

Winter brings knitwear for sale and I can't stop fondling it and taking pictures of it to see if I can reproduce it. It's like an obsession.

In case you were wondering why I haven't been blogging of late....

I've been all busy making my Sims Social house be-yoo-ti-ful.

Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks

God bless public radio -- where the good music lives. Specifically, WXPN introduced Ali and me to the Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men with "Little Talks" from the album My Head Is An Animal.

I'd just like to note that last night in the car I asked "Is that an accordion?" and Ali said "If it was an accordion, you'd know it," implying that it was not. What do we have here? An accordion. Uh huh. :)

Also, the drummer vaguely looks like a hairier, Icelandic version of my Swedish love. I'm totally down with that.

Marcel the Shell

I just discovered Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Well, actually, I discovered Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Two. Both are stop-motion short films written by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate, directed by Fleischer-Camp, and voiced by Slate. Personally, I think the second one (released this week) is just as cute but more funny. But just the idea of putting shoes and a googly eye on a shell and making it talk is awesome because it's something weird and absurd that I would likely do.

Marcel: "I used to have a sister."
Camera: "Used to have?"
Marcel: "Yeah."
Camera: "What happened to her?"
Marcel: "Someone asked her to hold a balloon."

I also love when the dog barks at the doorbell and scares Marcel, who dives into the couch cushions. I can relate. I still jump every time our shetland sheepdog barks. That shit is LOUD.

Your Hair Looks Like Starlight

Yesterday was a downer, so Ali and I decided to watch some happy animation. I felt like watching Up, but it's no longer streaming, so we settled for the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's 2004 anime film Howl's Moving Castle.

Although I enjoyed the animation, especially the castle, I only really started caring about the story when Sophie turned into an old woman and marched into the Wastes. I think this is due in part to the character's increased confidence and sense of humor and the actress Jean Simmons.

That castle's pretty bad-ass.

From the first moment Howl started speaking, I was thinking "Why is he talking so weirdly? He sounds like Christian Bale's Batman." Uh, yeah...I had no idea that the voice does indeed belong to Christian Bale and I laughed hysterically when the credits rolled. I then felt compelled to check the chronological order of HMC and Batman Begins: 2004 and 2005, respectively. So, now I'm convinced Bale channeled his wizard voice for Batman. I hate that voice regardless.

Batman voice begins.

My favorite characters: Heen and Turnip Head.

Who doesn't love a short-legged, asthmatic dog with a yellow hair tuft? And Turnip Head was such a considerate fellow. He also prompted Ali and I to wonder what turnips taste like. Is that wrong?

I should probably watch the Japanese version, if for nothing else, so I stop laughing at Howl's voice. I should also watch Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, but I only have so much animation attention span.

Howl: "Wow, Sophie, your hair looks just like starlight! It's beautiful!"

Dad, who is silently browsing the Internet in the corner of the room, starts laughing: "I'm sorry."

Me: "You should try that line on Mom."

More chuckling from the peanut gallery.

Dear beautiful dress...

Dear beautiful dress at The Limited, that I want very muchly but cannot justify buying on account of having yet to wear (more than once anyway) the last expensive-but-awesome dress I bought (this one from Land's End) even though it is about 50 times more casual and therefore practical:

You are beautiful. (Did I mention that already?) That is all. I am afraid to try you on, but perhaps I should, so that I can see you look far from awesome from me, and I can then stop crushing on you.

And I will find solace in what I did buy, my new favorite shirt and the first thing I've bought from the Gap in years and years and which, you will note, is NOT a solid color (Although mine is gray and not purple), and which I will miss mightily when I put in the laundry today.

Love,

Ali

Rock Star Crackle Nails

A while ago (like before Border's closed), I read about some self-manicures in a magazine (the name of which I can't remember).  One manicure involved painting your nails two different bright colors and then painting silver crackle polish atop them.  Crackle polish may be all the rage now, but I remember it from the '90s.  I had some white crackle polish from Bath & Body.  I remember being only slightly impressed.  (And white's a horrible crackle color.)  Ali hooked me up with some OPI crackle polish ordered online because I could not find it anywhere.  Like I said, the stuff is trendy, but way better than my '90s crackle polish.  Here's my go at crackle:

Kele - Tenderoni

I don't really care about this song's lyrics and the video is kind of shit.  I like the beat.  I need to add it to my workout playlist...and you know, workout.  This is Kele Okereke's (from Bloc Party) "Tenderoni."

Yee-Haw, Little Doggy!

I so very much want to get my dog this Halloween costume, but she has no doggy parties to attend.

I would also like my dog to smell like strawberries, but I'm still working on that one. ;)

Wish I could bend my mind to forget.

After having an upsetting argument with someone, what's better than drowning yourself in a stupid movie?  Ali and I attempted this with The Last Airbender.  I didn't really have any interest in seeing the movie when it debuted in theaters because I had no investment in the cartoon series and none of the actors interested me.  Let me just say, 15 minutes into this movie, I was really jonesing for some hard liquor.

The dialogue and its delivery are painful.  Sadly, there's a lot of talking, as well as standing and staring.  I couldn't understand half of what Jackson Rathbone said because he either talked with a clenched jaw or tried to speed through his lines.  And that pony-tail, AAGH!  Dev Patel wins my "best" vote in this group of young actors.

The most entertaining parts of the movie are the element-bending battles.  Earth vs. fire was pretty cool.  And the dragon spirit Aang kept chatting up was like a cross between Falkor, Aslan, and Yoda (you know I just wanted an excuse to stick these pictures together).

The film caused a stir by casting white actors in Asian/Native-American roles.  I was certainly confused when I noticed that Katara, Sokka, and their grandma were the ONLY phenotypically white people in their relatively small, isolated village.  I mean, are we to infer that this family has always been a part of this particular village?  Is their family inbreeding?  Do the filmmakers understand genetics?  But okay, I might be willing to suspend disbelief in the face of incredible acting...Mmm, yeah, NO.  Right or wrong, I think M. Night Shyamalan did miss a good opportunity to cast young Asian actors in these roles.  However, there are two Indians, an Iranian, and a Maorian with lead speaking parts, which is very nice to see.

Bottom line: Unless you really, really like the cartoon, I think you need not bother watching this -- EVER.  Turns out, people were NOT over-exaggerating the suckage of this movie.  But alas, it did make me forget my troubles for a few hours.

Things I discovered on my 1AM Visit to Wally World, Part 1

Look who's on the cover of TVGuide! Only my... I was going to say my favo[u]rite Irishmen but that might be an exaggeration. Definitely in the top ten, which makes me think I should probably make an official top ten list in that vein. Anyhoo, it's Jason O'Mara, who I will once again be able to see weekly come fall, supposing his show doesn't suck. And in the meantime, I'm off to watch Ned/Mattie Berkeley Square montages on Youtube.

 

Knot My Best

So, I made my first friendship bracelet since, oh I don't know, 1994?  You guys, this shit is way harder than I remember!  But then, I was never particularly skilled in this area.

Aye, Treasure, ARGH!

I decided to dig for pirate's treasure, which could possibly be a key, skull, ring, hook, coin, necklace, pearl, or crown.  It's more difficult than you might think and my finger hurt for three days afterward.

Let's DO THIS!

Am I done yet?

I see it, I see it!

Ah, yes, now I remember why I hate archaeology.

FINALLY!

Lots o' Stitchery

Today's bargain-basement find is 1979's The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery written by Mildred Graves Ryan and illustrated by Marta Cone for $3 (thanks, Al!).  It touches on crocheting, embroidering, knitting, macramé, rugmaking, sewing, and tatting.  The knitting chapter alone is 200 pages!

Peter Bradley Adams - I Cannot Settle Down

Here is music from Peter Bradley Adams featuring Molly Parden.  I like the laid-back atmosphere of this collaboration in a 1968 Airstream trailer and the beautiful harmony.

Tift Merritt - Mixtapes

I love Tift Merritt and I love mixtapes.  Win-win!

Sssnake Style

I felt like wearing my new hot coral dress today just for the hell of it.  And then I decided to try my Mamaw's vintage 1970s adjustable, skinny, black metal mesh snake belt with gold details and red rhinestone eyes (whoosh, that's a mouthful), just because.  Heck, I could even make it a necklace if I felt so inclined!  I love finding family leftovers.  I feel closer to Mamaw by wearing it.

I've also been enjoying my simplistic gold snake ring from Charlotte Russe.  I'm not a big fan of actual snakes, although I'd rank them above spiders, but in accessory form, they're quite lovely.  

Damn, I should better moisturize my hands.

Coincidentally, I was wearing this ring when driving to my friend Julie's house a few weeks ago to watch True Blood (the summer guilty pleasure I mostly watch for the hot Swede) and accidentally ran over a black snake.  Then, on the show, there was a snake sacrifice.  Weird.  I worried briefly that it might have been an omen, but I'm not particularly superstitious.  I did find something about Navajo snake taboos with #23 "Do not run over a snake in your car or you will have a bad life."  I'll also take this moment to point out that 23 is my birth date and lucky number.  But you can't trust the Internet, right?  Right??

Aforementioned hot Swede.