9 posts tagged “knit”

We celebrated today at a local breakfast/lunch place, Starling Diner.  We're both on such restricted diets right now that dinner would've been ludicrous and our absolute favorite restaurants too problematic.

This was my poached Eggs Benjamin with microgreens, smoked salmon, and sauteed spinach.  Mr. ESB got my potatoes & bread (which he opted not to eat).

And Mr. ESB got a salmon sandwich with sauteed spinach instead of soup/salad.  The soup had dairy in it -- A LOT -- of dairy.  The salad was cold, raw food, which is verboten for him right now.  Of course, we noticed later that the tomatoes & sandwich greens were raw, but doused it all not with champagne (verboten, too), but hot herbal tea (one of the few drinks we can both have right now besides water).

It's a little uncommon to correct health problems through diet, but we're both strong believers in using restrictive diets prescribed by our acupuncturist instead of expensive medicines not backed by good lifestyle choices.  Not that we don't miss naughty foods -- ice cream, chocolate, even fruit is out of bounds for both of us and salads....

I had my hair & make-up done at Meleesa the Salon -- hair by Meleesa and make-up by Marie.  This picture shows me there, wearing my Noro Aurora Twist Top Dress (with Fiesta Yarns Heaven mohair not shown forming the short skirt portion of the dress).  They had me stand on a ladder to reach this backdrop.  I was actually so short that I just barely cleared the counter with my shoulders.

For some reason, these Christmas gift-making months, I've been OBSESSED with making only stashbusting projects.  Take this Dianna Shawl by MaweLucky/Jane Araujo.  I KNOW I'm not making the most attractive version possible.  I KNOW the color combinations are a little wacky, but for some reason, I still fully believe that I can pull it off for my gal pal whose birthday is next month, who doesn't celebrate Christmas, and who can't stand animal hair of any kind against her skin.  So I pooled together all my single skeins of Elann Lara, a cotton yarn, and decided they looked well enough to attempt this shawl.  I like how Kaffe Fassett pulls together a lot of colors by finishing some of his gorgeous sweaters and cardigans with striped ribknit bands using the remnants of all the yarns he used.  I plan to do that, too, and hope that it will come off well enough that V will actually wear this shawl where she lives in the Central Coast of California.

I briefly showed this scarf to my gal pals last Sunday over crafting and potluck brunch day (we do this once a month). It's my blue acrylic yarn stash buster.  Granny gave me so, so, so, so much yarn but a lot of it is acrylic and so I have been knitting and crocheting as much of that over the years as I can for guy gifts.  (Guy gifts meaning, gifts for guys that are handmade but using yarns that hold up with lots of roughness, machine washing & drying, etc.)  I asked them, "would a guy wear this?"  "No," they chorused.  "What if he's gay?"  "Yeah... probably."  Sigh.  Oh well.  It might not be nice enough, but he does live where it snows....  I'd like for him to keep warm!  But I can't spend a fortune buying merino wool and alpaca for all my friends.  Not when I have all this yarn from Granny:  scratchy vintage wools, acrylics manufactured so long ago that the companies no longer exist, nylon-mohair blends in colors I'd never wear....

My Poffertjes for AJ is another attempt to bust up the yarn stash from Granny.  The white circles turned out to be fun to knit but the diamonds suck.  My first one looked a bit dismal.  I know it just takes practice (and seems to look better with DARK YARN which I'm unfortunately not using) but I still put the project down for the time being, anyway.  I need to mail AJ his present by the day after Thanksgiving.  That way, I'll have missed his bday by a few days (ANOTHER Thanksgiving-time bday friend!  why is it that most of my friends have birthdays right around xmas?!) and I'll be early for his xmas....  That way, I can catch him before he goes home for the holidays....

Why do I suddenly dream up new stashbusting yarn combinations during meditation?  Sigh.  Then of course, since I've got about 40 sewing projects to finish up plus all my xmas/bday-time presents to complete I won't get very far....  But this was the perfect combination:  the shedding angora that made my eyes water tamed by the splitty Berocco Lumina and the overly slippery Filatura di Crosa Silkyna....  But now that I've cast on, I want to frog and put it on circular needles!

My god, I love doing this!

Materials:

•  Rib Knit or jersey/knit fabric (this is what t-shirts are made of & the collar is rib knit) with good stretch about 45" wide and about 14" long (have the fabric store cut you 7/8ths of a yard and you can cut that in half to make two) 

•  Fabric shears

•  Sewing Machine that can zigzag or serge

•  Slightly contrasting thread color 

Actions (practice on a small scrap of t-shirt you may have cut off an old t-shirt)

1.  Cut material to desired width.  The width of the jersey has now become the "length" of the scarf/stole.

2.  Thread the machine.  Set the machine to zigzag.

3.  Start at one corner and zigzag the fabric.  Your goal is to LETTUCE-EDGE the fabric by pressing slightly on the fabric.  Let the feed dogs of the sewing machine pull your fabric through and using your index finger, offer a soft resistance, enough to create the lettuce edging or rippling effect of the raw edge.  DO NOT PULL the fabric from behind the needle or offer so much resistance that you begin to throw off the delicate tension maintained by the older model machines between the upper and lower thread tensions.  If you sew a straight seam and the tension is off after running your practice sample, then you know you offered the jersey fabric too much resistance.

4.  Without disconnecting the seam, when you reach a corner of the fabric, simply stop the machine, lift the presser foot, turn the corner, and continue zigzagging the raw edges.

Note:  the selvedge edge will barely lettuce edge.  Let that be.  It's the raw edges are where you'll create the most ruffling of the fabric.  

This is as great quick birthday or xmas/winter holiday present.  I've gotten a lot of compliments from my own and oddly enough, this is one of the simplest, most no-brainer projects I've made.  <sigh>  I guess it's the process that counts ;-)

This came close:  knitting at Fingerprints music store and listening to G.E. Stinson and Nels Cline laying it down.  A fellow knitter even came up to me beforehand and we had a lovely little chat before the music started.

Nels is on the left and G.E. is on the right.  I didn't push myself up front with the serious musicians who were exchanging quips with each other and their local luminaries:  Nels & G.E. before and after the show.  I guess this is kinda a "dude"-aesthetic but I like listening to people take material further and further.  They make choices I might not think of making and I feel like my mind and insides get stretched.

Once peeled, the lychee burst juice all over the table, our finger foods, ourselves....  The light, sweet fruit tasted much like the canned variety I grew up eating but to my friends, they found the fruit strange in appearance.  One kept calling it the "shrimp fruit" and the other cringed from it, too, saying, "it looks like flesh."

So I ate it all myself.

I love, love, love the Ralph Lauren-esque knitted fabric created by knitting with 3 strands of yarn for my Saoirse Shawl:  a boucle thread yarn someone gave me (no labels), Colinette Parisienne in "Tapis" colorway, and Lana Borgesa Bollicina cashmere in a dark taupe.

This was my favorite piece in the Fashionistas! show at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, California.  This Brazilian Carnivale-like costume is constructed from yogurt lids and 6-pack rings by Shaun Musculo, "Single Serving Gown."

Me and Julian posing behind my piece in the show, the "Boho Coat" from LotusMonkey Boho Fall Fashion 2008.  I got to see four of my ballet dancer buddies that night.  Yay!  And Connie DK Lane, the sculptor, helped me install the Boho Coat better than the curator had.  I mean, even though all my data was submitted on a disc per OCCCA's request, they couldn't spell my name right, they couldn't spell my piece right, they couldn't keep the dress form at the proper height....  The Boho Coat looked like the kid from the first marriage that no one wants to deal with....  Hahahaha.

Here's a piece in the show that cracked us all up:  Absolut B%$tch (the title is uncensored on the tag).

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Playing with my ESB at a Thai restaurant last February.  We were talking about a mutual friend last night who was temperamental on this night of the spring full moon.  ESB said, "you know, the only problem with D is that he doesn't give women the space to be magical.  To just let things happen.  He probably has women in his life but they're all problematic in the same ways he is."  Wowwww....  No wonder he's my ESB....  He gives me space.

Lately, I've been into knitting wrap sweaters for myself so that I can actually wear what I knit to work.  For Croisette, I've knit two lace panels already for the two lace sleeves and I'm about to cast on and begin knitting the bottom hem lace panel -- all in Noro yarn leftover from Rosedale United.  I have some lovely Colinette mohair and some remnant Noro Silk Garden from previous projects for the body of the sweater, too.  I like the lace hem because I'll be sending the tie through one of the yarn overs so that the sweater hangs well instead of strange and flippy like my Grace Wrap Sweater does....

So here's BBT's Portable Throw Xmas 2008 present, slowly inching along on my circular needles.  I'm so tempted to turn the afghan into a coat for me to wear.  I've noticed a lot of celebrities wearing cozy knit cable sweater-coats in gossip mags lately and thought:  well hey, I can make that for myself.  But no, I'm making do with my old, old, oversized sweater-coat from the late 80's that I knit up.  

I've decided that the throw is too narrow for my taste.  I'm going to take leftover yarn (hopefully there will be some!) or contrasting steel blue and knit cables sideways on the width.  Hopefully I can avoid using the blue, as BBT's house is all muted colors in neutral taupes, grays, beiges, and brown with a lot of wood -- wood floors, wooden furniture, wooden frames and moldings.  He's terribly tasteful and not as Boho as myself, so I hesitate to do unconventional color schemes in anything I give him.

I'd timed the photos with the cd so that the 44 outfits worn by the 7 courageous, non professional models (all pilates instructors or clients, except for one lovely art historian) so that each model came onstage and returned taking 21 seconds each.

What happened when the show started and adrenaline kicked in was 12-17 second showings.  To make up for lost changing time backstage, a couple of the models -- who are dancers -- improvised to the music.

Obviously, this was Led Zeppelin!

And here, Gypsy Kings!  Viva Selena and Donna!  Ole!  Be inspired!  Live wild and free!

These designs pictured from the defile and all the other 44 designs can be seen on my Flickr Vision Account and are available for sale through LotusMonkey.Etsy.com