I Was Thinking About Batman

This comic strip pretty much sums up my attitude towards everything. I feel this way ALL THE TIME... signing mortgage papers, buying a fridge, everytime I rent a car I am shocked that anyone is letting me do these things..


I <3 xkcd

Faking It

I've been reading and watching a lot of photoshop tips and tutorials lately. Mostly I'm trying to be better at "fixing" all those little mistakes I make in-camera, and trying to improve my photoshopping skills in general. But sometimes I just find something FUN. This photo was taken on our last trip out East in June 2006. It was a brief glimpse of blue sky from a Lunenburg street and the original was pretty uninspired (see below). Based on this tutorial I created a photoshop action to "fake" the HDR (High Dynamic Range) look of photos in an instant, and after playing around for a lot of time applying it to bunches of my old photos, this was my favourite one. I love how that siding pops in this new and improved version. The clouds are a bit pinkish but the siding just looks gloriously detailed to me, which I love.

ZOMG, a Finished Object: Tattoo-less Kimono Shrug

Have you ever experienced love at first sight?

I first saw this sweater on the marketplace floor at the DKC Knitter's Frolic this past April. I was shopping with my best friend Meredith and we were both determined to buy only things that we loved. Usually this means just a few skeins of expensive luxury yarns for me and a selection of beautiful but practical yarns and projects for her. But when we both saw this sweater I'm pretty sure we both fell madly in love with it at the same time. Luckily for us, the wearer of the sweater not only shared the name and origin of the pattern but let us know that it was for sale in the very next room. We both bought the pattern, and after rejecting the idea of buying 10 skeins of Malabrigo (it would have been lovely but $170+tax for a shrug seemed a bit insane, even to me) I settled on two fat skeins of a silvery-grey wool-silk blend. I wound it up and started knitting that very night; masses of garter stitch were the perfect antidote to a completely crazy period at work around the same time.

I think I may be the only person grateful for the crapppy summer weather we've been having so far, since it allowed me to wear this cozy shrug a lot more than I thought I would be able to in June. Which worked out perfectly because it meant that I could convince the talented photographer Jacquie to do these shots for me on her recent Toronto visit. Also, if you like the jewellery I'm wearing, it is by Sprout Jewelry (etsy). I adore these diamond earrings, and they were ridiculously affordable.


Pattern & Modifications
Tattoo Kimono Shrug by Danielle Wilson from Spun Fibre Arts in Burlington, Ontario. As it turns out, you can buy it directly via Ravelry as a downloadable PDF, something I wish I had taken advantage of since I have a terrible time keeping track of paper patterns and I fully plan to make another of these in the future. The only modifications I made were to eliminate the "tattoo" part and just knit a solid garter-stitch back instead, and to completely knit my own size since the pattern as written was turning out giant for me. Probably a gauge issue but I didn't bother checking, I just ripped and re-knit to what you see here. I wish I'd taken better notes about that, actually. (see this project on ravelry)


Needles & Yarn
I knit this on hefty 6mm (US10) Addi Turbo needles. The yarn is Fleece Artist Margaree in a lovely silvery grey colour called Salt Spray: it is 45% Mohair, 45% Wool, 10% Silk and in each giant hank of 250g you get 375m, pretty great yardage for a heavy worsted. The wool/silk mix make it cozy, drapey and gorgeous; I've been wearing it a lot and see no sign of any pilling so far, something I often have a problem with in yarns soft and drapey enough to wear right next to the skin.


Timeline
Cast on April 25 and completed on May 28, 2009. The only reason it took so long to knit was a lack of knitting time (due to work) and the fact that I had to knit the entire body twice due to a major sizing issue. As it turns out, it was cold enough in June to wear it anyways!

MP3 Shuffle

Tagged by Yvette, who has a mostly female lineup of oldies and goodies :) Since I just recently replaced my lost 1GB iRiver with a shiny new 8GB iRiver, I have a whole bunch of new stuff on my player, so it was fun to just sit here and shuffle through 'em. Here are the rules:

• Turn on your MP3 player.
• Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
• Write down the first 15 songs that come up--song title and artist--NO editing/cheating, please.
• Choose some people to be tagged. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about your musical tastes, or at least a random sampling thereof.

And my songs were:

1. Death Cab for Cutie - New Candles
2. Corey Hart - Boy in the Box
3. The White Stripes - We're Going to be Friends
4. X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage, Up Yours!
5. KMFDM - Brute
6. Black-eyed Peas - Anxiety
7. Ash - Burn Baby Burn
8. The Killers - All the Pretty Faces
9. Kimya Dawson - So Nice So Smart
10. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Not Forgotten
11. Rancid - Not to Regret
12. My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - The International Sin Set
13. Dayglo Abortions - Wake up America
14. Furnaceface - Just Buy It
15. Goldfinger - 99 Red Balloons (cover)

What is in your random 15? I tag Jacquie, Dr Steph, Joyce and Glenna. Now I get to see if any of them even read my sad neglected blog anymore, too!

(This post also contains a random photo day photo! These are details from some photos I took at Casa Loma a few weeks ago.)

All That Sparkles

Must be beaded.

I don't know why but lately I have been seized by the urge to knit with beads. Little sparkly accents just seem right, and so I have been seeking out projects with a generous amount of bling. Combined with my recent startititis, and I find myself with teensy crochet hooks and bead-filled tupperware everywhere.

First there was Fabergé (Rav link), a pattern I came across the last time I went on a major cowl spree (sometimes I become obsessed with knitting one specific type of item and then spend hours lurking on ravelry and adding tons of them to my faves/queue). Some sexy Handmaiden Samira, some random sparkly beads I had in my craft stash, a teensy crochet hook and I was good to go.


Then that familiar feeling hit... I needed to start something else, something new. And while I was at it, I could use another cute shrug. I like to wear tank tops to ride my bike to work, but I'm not comfortable showing my shoulders (especially with my big black tat on one shoulder). So, a little lightweight shrug is perfect to throw in the milkcrate on my bike and slip into before I hit the office.
Oh and, did I mention the beads? Cobweb (Rav link) is just pretty and perfect. Lace and beads. I'm using some laceweight Zephyr silk from my stash, held double and combined with lots of shiny blue and purple beads for this one. Now that I've started knitting it I kind of never want to stop, even though I am starting to think I may run out of beads before I finish the second sleeve. I'm also thinking vaguely of adding a tie and extending the body length to have more of a wrap/cardigan feel to it -- it is so light and airy I think that would be super cute.


Oh and for my next trick... I'm kind of in love with Morning Glory... at this point it is more a question of whether I have enough beads for it and where to find an appropriately sized purse frame.