Knitting Practice

I bought a couple of new knitting books this past weekend and spent some time practicing new stitch patterns. I love the fact that just a few variations in your basic knit and purl sequences can result in such pretty and complicated-looking patterns.

Here are a couple of patterns I've been trying out:

This is a basket weave pattern.

Here's a zigzag pattern. I really liked this one.

One of the books I bought combines two things I love. Knitting and nerds.

My favorite project in this book is a pattern for "Hobbit Feet Socks". They're socks with "fur" knitted into it, just like hobbit feet!

Excited to start.

Long Term Project: Bucilla Honeycomb Afghan

What a shame! It's a partly sunny Saturday and Kevin and I are holed up in our apartment with the flu. There's a lot of orange juice/tea drinking and chicken noodle soup eating going on. On the bright side, this will give me a chance to watch old Arrested Development and Golden Girls episodes, and work on a new long-term project.

I recently went on a Goodwill run and, to my amazement, found two completely unopened Bucilla crocheted afghan kits from the 1970s. I'm currently working on one of them now:

Crocheting all of those little honeycombs sure is time consuming, but it's still fun and the end result will be awesome!

Eventually it'll all come together like this:

I'll keep you updated with the finished product when I'm all done. Only 90 more pieces to go!

Some Thoughts Here and There...

Hello! Just a little update on a few things.

I stopped by one of my favorite places in Capitol Hill after work today, Stitches. They are a wonderful craft store specializing in all things that you stitch. They have great knitting & crocheting supplies, really cute fabric and lots of other stitching necessities. I had to pick up a few crochet hooks to help me get started on a long term project that I'll be sharing soon.

And also a little book update. Battle Royale was phenomenal and now I am on to Carl Sagan's "Contact". I love Carl Sagan so much! He is definitely a huge inspiration. Happy reading!

Crafts: Fair Isle Knit

I've always loved knitted items done in fair isle knit. Fair isle knit typically uses about two to five different colors to create its patterns. Here are some examples of some typical fair isle sweaters:

This is a knitting technique I would love to get really good at, so I've started practicing with a much simpler two color pattern. It's more time consuming, but it definitely gives your knit a special quality that solids and stripes don't have.

This scarf I'm working on is on a size 8/16 inch circular needle done in stockinette stitch. One thing that makes fair isle knitting so much more complicated is that you are working with multiple colors of yarn simultaneously, constantly changing colors every few stitches.

It's challenging, but that's part of the fun!

Crafts: I've been knitting...a lot.

The chilly fall and winter weather we've been in lately has inspired me to knit a ton of circle scarves. I just love knitting and it's a much more functional hobby now that I'm in Seattle. Thinking of patterns and matching different colors has been fun. As you can see I've been trying to perfect my striped skills.

All of these were knitted in stockinette stitch on circular needles, which I've just learned to use recently. Seriously, circular needles are one of the best things to ever happen to me! They allow you to knit in a round, forming a tube shaped piece.

knitty.com

I'm planning to get a lot of practice in and hopefully master some really awesome (and more complicated) knitting techniques.

Something Creepy...

Kevin has been helping me work on some projects lately and one of them was a great logo design for some of my upcoming works. Using a piece of embroidery I made a while back and his amazing design skills, we came up with an official Creepy Girl logo. As most of you know, Creepy Jen is one of my nicknames and I really wanted to honor it.

When Christmas came around, one of Kevin's gifts to me was a custom made stamp with my logo.

He had it made through Impress Rubber Stamps. They did a wonderful job and it came out nicer than I could have ever hoped.

Now what's it for? Hopefully for something new and great.

Check in for more updates!

Crafts/Music: Weezer Memories Tour

Hi everyone! Man, there have been so many concerts the past couple of months. I've been to more shows in the past two months than I have in the past few years back home in Hawaii.

Last week we had the once in a lifetime opportunity to see Weezer's Memories Tour and it was amazing. In this tour, the band played both the Blue Album and Pinkerton in their entirety. Those two albums are pretty much their best and the only ones I really listen to, so it was a treat.

In commemoration of this event I made a cross-stitched sampler of a lyric from "Undone (The Sweater Song)":I think I'm going to start making a whole bunch of these featuring lyrics, movie quotes and book quotes that I love. What do you think?

And of course, here's a video of Weezer playing this very song at the show. Sorry for the shakiness and quality, we were really far away and kevin and i took turns holding the camera. :)

Better videos to come!

Wednesday Weekly Geek...on thursday

I think Blogger was having some issues yesterday, so I wasn't able to post anything last night, so you're getting the Wednesday Weekly Geek today!

A few months ago, my good friend, Derrick, told me about the blog, Regretsy. They're tagline is "Where DIY meets WTF". The blog mainly features real posts from Etsy sellers with "questionable" products. I think it's hilarious (some people don't).

But once in a while, they feature awesome products. One particular post featured cross stitch samplers from Steotch. Check out their website HERE and their Etsy store HERE.

They are AMAZING. Some of them are very geeky and I love it! Here are a few of my favorites:

Star Wars sampler

And of course...

And probably one of my favorites, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 sampler

They have tons more and not just nerdy ones. Check them out, they are awesome!

Summer's Here!

Hooray! Today is the first day of summer and it was actually sunny. I wore a dress WITHOUT leggings, can you believe it?

This summer is going to be a busy one. Here's a little sneak peek at what's in store for the next couple of months.

SAN FRANCISCO FOR 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND

THE RX BANDITS FAREWELL TOUR

THE URBAN CRAFT UPRISING @ SEATTLE CENTER

TUBING IN LEAVENWORTH

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! So much to do.

Crafts: A New ATC Swap

I hadn't done an ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap in forever, so I was very excited when my very good friend, Shannon O., suggested we trade some. Shannon is an AMAZING artist back home in Hawaii who I was very lucky to meet while we both worked at the Vans Shoes Outlet in Waikele Shopping Center.

Check out her art on her website HERE. And read more about ATCs HERE.

We decided it would be a free theme and here's the great Karen O. ATC she made for me:

Look! It's right next to my Karen O. picture on my inspiration board. :)

Shannon loves the Red Hot Chili Peppers, so I thought I would make a RHCP ATC for her:

Usually on Swapbot I do swaps with people I don't know, so it's really nice to trade with friends. Thanks Shannon!

Wednesday Weekly Geek

This week's Weekly Geek is a tribute to that classic accesory, nerd glasses!

I found tons of awesome things on Etsy that feature those super specs.

Glasses patterned pouch from CutOutAndCollect

This romantic Ira Glass card from MerryBluesArt

Cute little nerdy otter from BiteTheHippo

Glasses tray from blancoynegro. You could put your glasses on it!

This great art print is from thepairabirds

There was all this and so much more!

And that's this week's Weekly Geek.

Crafts: Congratulations Tommy!

Yesterday was one of our best friend, Tommy's, graduation from the University of Washington. In Hawaii, it's customary to give flower leis to the graduate. It gets to the point where you can't even see over them, you get so many.

Even though we're in Seattle, I wanted to give a lei to Tommy, so I made one out of some extra scrap book paper I had.

I looked up how to make some paper flowers for a lei and found a good tutorial on Instructables.

I crocheted a chain out of yarn and strung the paper flowers on it. The chain is knotted in between the flowers so there is a little space between them.

Me, Tommy and Kevin.

Congratulations, Tommy. We're so proud of you!

Places: Folk Life 2011

This weekend is the annual Northwest Folk Life Festival held at Seattle Center. Kevin and I met up with our friend, Derrick, to check it out yesterday. It was great! The Folk Life Festival is a chance for the community to celebrate folk, ethnic and traditional culture.

They have music, dancing, crafts and lots and lots of food from all different cultures.

We ate Kenyan sambusa, Southern peach cobbler and strawberry lemonade.

They had some arts and crafts too. Here's some vinyl artwork by Manticore Stencil Art.

I'll take a Nimbus 2000, please.

There were tons of performances too.

There were so many good performers and we especially liked the Capoeira demonstration.

I'm so glad we got a chance to go, it was so fun!

Books: I need this book!

My next book store mission is to find this book:

I originally saw it on the Craft: Blog.

It has projects like this:

And this:

Off to the book store!

Speaking of books, our tiny little "book club" has chosen its first book to read and discuss. Book number one is Neuromancer by William Gibson.

It's supposed to be one of the must read sci-fi books of all time. My cousin suggested it and said it has influenced pretty much every sci-fi story written since. I'll let you know how it is!

dangly earring kind of gal?

I've never really worn dangly earrings, but I do think a lot of them are pretty. If I say I wish I were into dangly earrings, does that mean I am into them? Maybe I'm just not used to them, so it seems like they would look odd on me.

Here are some I'd really like to try sometime.

Victorian button earrings from Betsy & Iya.

Leaf earrings from Alisha Louise Designs.

Brass spike earrings from Lumafina.

The awesome thing is that all these sellers are going to be at the Urban Craft Uprising's Summer Show at Seattle Center in July. So excited. Might have to buy me some!