June » 2010 » Untangling Knots

Jeunet

I’m working on the technical stuff for a pattern I designed. I was working on the design last semester while I was in the middle of a surreal movie kick. I watched a bunch of Jean-Pierre Jeunet films while I was knitting on the project. Yes, I can knit and read subs. Here is what I watched

City of Lost Children

Amelie

A Very Long Engagement

These are the three that I own and watched. I want to see the Delicatessen as well. I think my sister has a copy of it for us to watch. If you haven’t seen any of these, you should. City of Lost Children can be a bit weird for some people, though. If you like Terry Gilliam stuff, you’ll probably like that one. A Very Long Engagement is the most straight forward of all three. Nothing that bizarre or surreal ever happens in that one. Everyone seems to like Amelie.

Anyways, the reason I decided to post this was because I decided to name my new knitting patten after one of the characters in one of these movies. You can see the prototype here. I’ve knit it in red for the pattern photos. If you’ve seen these movies, can you guess what I’m naming the pattern?

Collar Crazy

I don’t know why but I’ve been saving up a lot pictures of knit/crocheted collars from fashion blogs and old photo databases. I’ve also sketched a few ideas for collars. Yesterday I sat down and crocheted up this guy. It’s based on a beaded scalloped collar that I saved a picture of.

I used a 4.25mm hook and Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton. My mom has a huge cone of it. I don’t wear any close crew neck things so I would probably have to remake the collar with one more motif if I wanted it to really look like an attached collar. I think I’ll just wear it as is with lower cut tops.

This was a nice quick project and a good break from my cardigan pattern stuff. For those of you that remember that I was knitting two of those cardigans and are curious what happened with them, one is blocking in the kitchen and the other needs its ends woven in and a blocking.

Speaking of patterns, I’ve been thinking about doing a series of collars or maybe a little digital book of them because I have so many collar ideas. Then again, who really needs a bunch of knit/crocheted collars?

Options

Top: H&M
Pants: Thrifted
Shoes: Born

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to wear my shirt tucked in or untucked today so I took pictures of both. I ended up leaving it untucked because I took those pictures second and I didn’t want to fuss with my shirt anymore.

I kind of hate taking pictures in the summer. Summer pictures are meant to be taken early in the day. I can’t just take my pictures whenever in the day that I have a spare minute. Okay, well, actually I can but then I end up with dodgy shadows like my pictures have had lately. I took these around noon and if I didn’t angle my face just right, I’d look like I had no face because it would be massively blacked out by shadows. I do like the way these turned out but they were a bit of work to do by myself. The dramatic shadows are fun but it’s hard to feel when you have the right amount of light on your face and what not.

No Food in the House

I went to make myself dinner last night and there was NO FOOD IN THE HOUSE. I should have realized that because I made the same discovery when I went to make myself lunch earlier that day.

What does one eat when there is almost no food in the house? Scrambled eggs with fresh rosemary and thyme (we have a little herb garden) on sourdough toast (that stale bread in the back of the fridge) with laughing cow cheese spread on it. With the some-what-stale bread in the back, I found a bottle of my favorite ginger beer that I had been saving. It turned out to be a pretty decent dinner.

Today my sister and I hit the grocery store and bought EVERYTHING.

P.S. The secret to the best scrambled eggs is to plate them when they look like they need to cook for a few seconds more. They continue cooking on your plate so they’re perfect when you eat them.

Weekend Snapshot

I had a sort of busy weekend. I went out with my friends Ashley and Danielle on Friday night. We had an impromptu late night photo shoot at the old train station near my house before my friends dropped me off.

Most of the pictures are pretty goofy but I like this one.

Saturday we celebrated my sister’s birthday. We went to Toy Story 3 and had a big late lunch. Sunday I met with my friends from college in the bay area. My friend Sarah who lives in Boston is spending the summer abroad in Taiwan. Our friend Kevin and I convinced her to get a long layover in SF so that we could spend the day hanging out.

We went to Bittersweet in Oakland. They have the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It tasted like a melted dark chocolate bar in a cup. I highly recommend going there if you’re ever in the area.

So good! I got home pretty late last night and today I’m going to do absolutely nothing. Yay!

Test Knitters?

This pattern has taken a bit longer (partially due to finals, room remodels and general laziness) to get finished than I expected but I’m at the point where I’m going to need some test knitters. I thought I’d ask here before I asked on Rav. Would anyone like to test knit this pattern? It’s a cropped, seamless, top down raglan with eyelet details and 3/4 sleeves. It’s knit with a cotton wool blend and takes about 3-5 skeins of Cascade Sierra, depending on the size knit. I was thinking of asking for feedback by the 14th of July but I might make the date a bit later.

I’m going to make it available for free and I can’t compensate test knitters. The pattern has three sizes that are based on finished bust sizes. There are 34 inch, 38 inch, and 42 inch busts but the pattern is modeled with 2 inches of negative ease (38 inch size on a 40 inch bust). I’m really hoping that someone would like to test the 42 inch size because it’s the only size that I haven’t knit myself. I’d like to get a variety of test knitters, however, so it doesn’t really matter what size you’d like to knit. The pattern is still in its not-so-pretty stage so it’s just a .doc without the final photographs (because I haven’t shot those). Leave me a comment with your email or shoot me an email at andi.untanglingknots@gmail(dot)com if you’re interested.

Sorry this post is lame and not very entertaining.

ETA: I have enough test knitters now.

Not So Easy

Dress: H&M

My sister took my pictures for me today. I suck at having other people take my picture. I either look horrible and awkward because I don’t get to run around to the other side of the camera every couple of pictures and see what I need to fix or I get really bitchy. Today I got bitchy. I should probably just stick to using my tripod and remote.

P.S. How do you deal with short full skirts when it’s bare leg weather? I’m wearing cut offs under my dress so I don’t have to worry about being ladylike.

Nevada City, CA

Ashley and I went to Nevada City on a whim yesterday. I took a copious amount of pictures as usual. Here is a random selection.

This one is probably my favorite.

Ashley stopped and read every poster every time we walked past a board like this.

This might give you an idea of what the area we were in looked like.

There was rad old mining equipment everywhere. We were especially taken with this scoopy thing. I think it was a water wheel.

This is the oldest existing theatre in California. I took a picture of the placard if you want to read more about it. Go here.

Ashley and I decided that the neighborhood where I shot these pictures could not be real because it looked too much like something out of a fairytale or movie. That house in the top left picture seriously looks like a play house.

Queen of the Universe

My fat dog clearly believes the she is queen of the universe. Bean thinks everything belongs to her. New dog toys? Definitely hers. New dog bed? Hers. Old dog bed? Still hers. (We have a new dog living at my parents’. Nothing belongs to him in Bean’s opinion.)

New lawn chairs? They were clearly meant for her.

Bean thinks they were meant for her to lounge on and demand pets from me and my sister. Why else would they exist?

Duct Tape Belt

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve found a lot of old projects while redoing my room. Some just need to go but I’m kind of attached to them. I decided to photograph the projects and then get rid of them. That ways I still have something to be sentimental about but I don’t have clutter.

This is my duct tape belt. I made it when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school by covering a thrift store belt in two different colors of duct tape and images that I covered with packing tape. I guess I didn’t really make anything but I decorated this plain belt. I loved this belt for a long time. I thought it was really cool and edgy. Ha! Unfortunately, 100+ temperatures and a jaunt through the sprinklers killed the glue in the duct tape and caused the images to run. I kept the belt despite that. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Here is a rundown of the things that I loved enough to wear them everyday.

We have here part of a skull and cross bones that I designed to screen print on a t-shirt (I think I got rid of that shirt or it’s in my bag of projects to photograph and toss), OK Go, and the Cheshire cat.

Next on the belt is the Used, Dr. Frank -N-Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and part of a comic that I drew.

Here is the comic bit again, the cast of Jackass dressed as cheerleaders, and the lead singer of the band HIM.

At the end we have a completely washed out picture that used to by Johnny Depp, the lead singer of HIM again, and the parrot from Peter Pan.

The stuff I stuck on this belt is so totally random. It cracks me up. Feel free to use your judging eyes on my high school taste. Some of it is overly 15-year-old. =P