Friday, December 25, 2009

holiday cheer

merry christmas! this is the little tree that i brought to my parents house this weekend. we got decorations last night at the drugstore. not much of a selection but i still think it's cute. hope you have a safe and happy holiday!

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Monday, November 30, 2009

catching up

wow it's been ages since i last blogged. summer just flew by and it's already december. unfortunately southern california hasn't gotten the memo yet and we've been having really warm weather. a lot has happened over the last few months including a trip to france, 3 weddings (one of which was my brother's in hawaii) and a medical scare with my dad. i do want to catch up on all of it one day soon. i have lots of pictures from france and hawaii that i want to share.

for now i am just trying to get going with all of the holiday knitting i have to do. crossing my fingers that i can finish it all before christmas. i'll try to post again soon. hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

Thursday, September 03, 2009

a bit absent

not much has been going on. i've just been enjoying the summer. hope you have been, too.

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Saturday, June 06, 2009

weekends are for everyone

we've started summer hours at work, which means that we can leave early on friday's through the summer. it makes such a huge difference in my outlook of the week just knowing that i get to go home early on friday. we're having a bit of june gloom in los angeles, but i don't mind. the grey skies and drizzly weather are perfect for curling up with a good book or some knitting (knitting pictures to come in the next post).

the sun did manage to peek out for a little while today during my friend's housewarming party. she has a whole room in the house just for her yarn and craft projects. i didn't take a picture of it, but trust me, it's awesome.

tomorrow i hope to do a bit of cleaning and organizing. i also have a date to go to the movies to see drag me to hell. i like scary movies and i hear this one is pretty good. might try to get in one more movie tomorrow as well but we'll see what happens. i leave you with one of the jumping pics i took at the party today (don't you just love the continuous shot button on digital cameras?). have a great weekend!

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

summer comes

summer is right around the corner here in sunny los angeles. the sun has been shining and it's been hot, hot, hot. luckily i was able to stay pretty cool this weekend and had some fun while doing it. saturday, my friend m and i decided to go to the strawberry festival up in oxnard. i'd never even heard of it before last week but it's been going on for a long time. unfortunately i think everyone else had the same idea as us or at least were heading up to the northern beaches to beat the heat and it took us almost exactly 2 hours to get there in gridlock traffic. there were a couple of times where i wanted to scream and pull my hair out but we managed to get there finally. the festival was a lot bigger than i thought it would be but i was actually disappointed in the strawberry-ness of it. i kinda felt like it was a big fair that just happened to have a strawberry corner. i imagined vendors making all kinds of imaginative strawberry dishes and cute, strawberry themed toys and knicknacks. there were lots of vendors but they were selling random items like name art, dragonfly pins, and handmade purses. where were the strawberries? we did manage to seek out all of the strawberry items. below check out some of what we ate and saw.

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strawberry nachos - these were probably my favorite thing that we ate. i love anything with cinnamon and sugar.

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official strawberry festival merchandise

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my strawberry shortcake from the build your own shortcake bar and the tray of strawberries we bought from a local farm.

it was a strawberry filled weekend because on sunday, my friends and i woke up at the crack of dawn to make a trip out to glendora to see the donut man. if you've never had donut man, you're missing out. he makes seasonal fruit filled donuts along with some other super tasty treats at his shop.

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here we are at 7:30am. took us over 30 minutes to get there but so worth it.

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the maple and chocolate logs are excellent and the crumb cake donut is fantastic as well.

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awesome

after our early morning donut run, it was off to my friend k's house for a drinking and knitting. not sure if those two are the best combo, but it sure is a lot of fun. there was snacks and drinking and a little bit of knitting.

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that's a new malabrigo scarf i've been working on. it's the scrunchable scarf on ravelry and the color is sauterne, the most lovely, bright yellow. this weekend i am off to northern california for a slew of bridal showers and bachelorette parties. see you all when i get back!

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edgar says have a great weekend!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

a day of books

this weekend was the annual la festival of books at the ucla campus. i planned a day out with some friends for book shopping, falafel eating and ice cream sandwiches. the weather was lovely this weekend, unlike the usual 100 degree heat wave that book festival usually brings. we had a great time browsing the book vendors and people watching. the festival seemed well attended even though there were some vendors missing (noteably the cook's library and barnes & noble). i got a few good books - a michael chabon collection, the kind one (from book soup) and a patchwork book from kinokuniya.

we came home exhausted, full of good food, and heavy with new books. all in all a great day. i hope your weekend was fabulous as well.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

lazy daisy

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just spending a quiet evening at home with my new twilight dvd and my february lady sweater. sadly this sweater was actually supposed to be completed in february and i am way behind schedule. maybe watching vampires will give me some superhuman knitting powers. :)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

an auspicious day

i have the pleasure of working basically next door to the nbc building in burbank. normally this fact doesn't play much into my everyday life except for dodging the occasional tourist walking against traffic by my parking garage. today was different though because president obama was going to be on leno, meaning he was going to be a mere building away. while we didn't get to go to the taping, we did decide to do a little obama stalking and wait near the back entrance of nbc where guests usually depart from. we actually go there just in time to see his motorcade leaving.

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he's in the second car, not the one closest to me. i actually saw him through the window of the car. we waved at him and he smiled and waved back. it was pretty awesome. there wasn't a huge group of people there. i got the feeling that most of the people were people from the surrounding neighborhood or people who worked nearby like us.

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this is what we looked like right before he came.

something else also arrived for me today.

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it's my new kindle! my friends got together and got me a big ol' gift card to amazon to put towards a kindle and it came today. i'd been curious about them for awhile but i started really wanting one a couple of months ago when i figured out that i could read while knitting. it's a great way to do some knitting and get my reading done. until now i'd either knit and watch tv/movies or not knit and just read. now i can do both. i haven't played with it too much yet but i look forward trying out a pattern in pdf on it. yay for a fun day!

omg

i can't believe that i just saw president obama leaving the tonight show. and he waved at us. awesome.

Monday, March 09, 2009

pie party and a new hobby

i know i always say this but i really can't believe that the weekend is over already. this weekend was a pretty relaxed one for me. no huge plans. on friday night we had tix to the imax screening of watchmen at the burbank 16 (who knew they had imax?). we had at wait in a very long line upstairs and around the corner from the theater. my friends and i were joking that the signs were leading us to imminent death because we had to go down this creepy, narrow hallway that had no escape. we emerged from the line unscathed though and even managed to get good seats in the back. i actually really liked the movie. i had read the book a long time ago and re-read it again recently to prepare myself for the movie. i'd seen footage at comic con last year (which looked awesome) so i was looking forward to this and was trying not to have too many high hopes, lest the movie not meet my expectations. but i was pleasantly surprised that they managed to get almost all of the back story told in a cohesive way and visually it was great looking. patrick wilson was a really good nite owl and jackie earle haley was the perfect rorschach. i must say though that i couldn't tell that our theater was an imax theater. the sound was really good but the picture quality, to me, looked like any other theater. if you're going to see it in imax, i would suggest going to a theater whose imax screen is dedicated solely to imax films instead of one that is only used for imax once in awhile, like the theater we were in.

saturday was also our day for a pie party. i have a few friends who love the tv show pushing daisies as much as i do. we are so, so sad that the show has been cancelled but i am glad that it will live on in dvd and there have been talks of some kind of movie to wrap it all up. so we decided to have a big pie party to celebrate the awesomeness that is the show.

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we have blueberry, cherry and chocolate cream pie. i like that we have 3 pies for 5 people. it's a good thing that i decided to bring ice cream instead.

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this is my friend's dog edie asking for a slice of pie. sadly, i had to say no.

i also have a bit of a new obsession.

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i bought a drop spindle a couple of years ago. it was a part of a learn to spin kit that also included various rovings and a how to spin book. i tried it once or twice right after i bought it but i never really got the hang of it and put it away in a drawer until now. seeing all of the beautiful batts and rovings and spinning wheels at stitches renewed my interest in learning to spin and, last week, i picked up my drop spindle again. the first few times i tried spinning were not so pretty, but i kept practicing and i had a friend at work show what she knew and now i have a lovely little ball of yarn. the yarn in the picture is my second ball. i am trying to spin enough so that i can ply the two together. i bought a couple of really pretty rovings from stitches west and i can't wait to spin them up.

and that was pretty much the weekend for me. what did you do?

Thursday, March 05, 2009

yarn overload

well i am back again after a wonderful long weekend visiting my parents and going to my first ever stitches west. my friend laura decided to fly up with me thursday night since we found that southwest still had some awesome plane ticket deals at that last minute. unfortunately she could not stay for the weekend so she just had a super quick 24 hour trip to the bay area. luckily we were able to fill it in with plenty of fun, fiber and food.

we spent the entire day on friday at the marketplace. i opted out of taking any classes this time around just because money was a bit tight. we got there first thing in the morning and had to wait in a bit of a line, even with our prepaid tickets, but it actually went quickly. i made a beeline for the blue moon booth, as rumors on ravelry were that they would sell out of most things pretty quickly. we got there in time to get a good selection of mill ends and rare gems to choose from. i was very frugal though and wanted to stick to my budget so i only got 2 mill ends.

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those are my two skeins of socks that rock hanging out while i eat my tasty vietnamese sandwich lunch. it was really fun to see all of the vendors, and be able to touch and see all of the yarns in person. there were many beautiful yarns but i was very good and only bought things that really called to me. everything else i figure i can order online later.

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that's most of my haul. includes mill end from blue mooon fiberarts, a skein of pigeonroof studios' superwash sock in delight, pigeonroof roving in chard, 2 skeins of creatively dyed superwash sock in midnight and a skein of woodbrook worsted from creatively dyed in tree. missing is the bmfa mill end of spawn of braun, which is super bright and candy colored. i started swatching it already and just need to find the perfect pattern. also missing is a mixed bag of handspun yarn from pigeonroof studios in purples and pinks, patterns from cocoknits and some hiyahiya needles i got at the urban fauna booth (which had great stuff). oh and stitches refueled my desire to learn how to spin. i have a drop spindle that i haven't picked up in years and i dug it out again. i am going to do a little bit of practicing before i try using some of the really pretty stuff i bought at stitches.

all in all it was a really fun experience and i hope i can make it again next year. now to actually finish some knitting!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

best laid plans

a tale of sock woe for you. i am probably the world's slowest sock knitter. i have been working on the same pair of socks since last july. it's not that the pattern is hard or that i don't enjoy knitting on it. i don't know what it is but unlike other sock knitters who take their socks everywhere and knit on them when they have a spare moment, i end up knitting on my socks only once every few months, which leads to slow socks. i finally finished a pair of socks this week out of some beautiful yarn from sunshine yarns. i was all excited and grafted the toe and even wove in all my ends. and then i tried them on.

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you might not be able to tell from this picture but the sock on my right foot is waaay bigger than the first sock i finished (see how the heel looks all bunchy?). how this happened i do not know. i mean, i know gauge can change over time, but really? it's been less than a year and i am already making these socks on size 0s. what more do the knitting gods want? my first idea was to try to block the socks to see if i could get the one to be a little narrower and a little shorter. uh - that didn't work. in the depths of despair i thought that maybe i could give it someone with feet slighter bigger than mine. however, most of my friends have feet either way bigger than mine or the same size. i sat and stared at the sock for awhile before deciding that i would just have to rip back. so i found the end (that i had hidden so well) and frogged back to before the toe decreases. i laid the first sock under the too large one to see how far i would have to go back. so now the sock is back on the needles and i am starting the toe decreases again. i am trying to knit tightly and will be trying on the toe every few rows. even if it's still a little wide, hopefully at least the length will come out right this time. wish me luck.

oh - and did i tell you that i am off to stitches west next weekend? i couldn't resist the cheap air fares and the chance to hang out with my parents. i am SO excited.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

wine and chocolate

it's been a pretty lazy sunday so far. i woke up this morning with a mild case of vertigo. for those of you who've never had it (lucky you) it's kind of like your head is a snowglobe and someone shakes it so that everything you see goes swirling crazily before your eyes. and then you get to feel nauseous from all of the spinning. it's really not fun but i think i am feeling a bit better now and might venture out of the house. before i leave though, i thought i would show you what i've been working on for the last week or so.

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it's the february lady sweater by flintknits. some friends are i are having a mini elizabeth zimmermann's almanac knitalong this year and we started with february. since i don't know any babies, i am making this sweater for me. i am working it in a lovely shade of dream in color classy called in vino veritas. it's my first time working with the dream in color and i like it a lot.

i'll leave you with something sweet (made by two of my baking buddies).

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happy (belated) valentine's day!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Saturday, February 07, 2009

through the looking glass

i spent a fun and somewhat surreal evening at the natural history museum last night. i went for the first fridays series, where they open up the museum at night and have djs spin and bands play. i've never been to the natural history museum here before and it was kind of strange seeing people mingling and bands performing in the midst of these old dioramas (which my friend said were first constructed around 1930). the bird and the bee also performed and they were excellent. they did a cover of the bee gee's "how deep is your love" that i'd never heard before. it gave me a new appreciation for the bee gees. before them a band called jukebox the ghost was on and they were surprisingly good as well. i wish i had taken more pictures of the museum but you can see a few shots below.

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large bird case - egrets are big!

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display of woodpeckers

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peering out

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abstract of the bird and the bee

the rest of the weekend i plan to knit, read and catch up on some sleep. knitting photos coming soon.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

inspiration

last weekend my friend and i took a trip down to santa monica to see the hyperbolic crochet coral reef exhibit at bergamot station. i can't really describe it so i'll show you some pictures.

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it was really amazing looking and there were so many colors. the colors and forms were just so beautiful and inspiring. i was surprised by how lifelike some of the pieces looked. we spent a long time in there taking pictures of everything. it was fun, too, because i recognized some of the yarns used. if you live in the area and get a chance, definitely stop by. i think the exhibit is running until the end of the month.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

my version of being a trekkie



what people will do for a good yarn sale.

Friday, January 30, 2009

on color

i am a big fan of color. i love every color of the rainbow in all of its subtly and contrast. i can never understand how someone could have one favorite color. how do you choose just one? i have never really noticed if i had a pattern to what colors i am attracted to. my stash is proof of my eclectic color philosophy, but then i noticed something this morning.

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the colors in this ceramic skull are almost the exact same colors in the skein of handmaiden casbah i bought last week at twist yarns. i think it's pretty funny that they match so well. it almost mades me sad to knit it up and break them apart. this color is called "cosmic" by the way and i think it's the perfect name. it's what i would imagine a meteor shower or shooting stars would look like in space. i am thinking of making a lacy scarf of out of so i can have that gorgeous softness around my neck. i am not sure what pattern would look best with such high contrast colors though. any suggestions would be welcome.

this weekend is going to be full of knitterly events. tomorrow, my friend and i are heading out to bergamot station in santa monica to see the knitted coral reef exhibit. the pics i've seen of it look awesome and i can't wait. sunday morning i am getting up bright and early to get in line for unwind's annual superbowl yarn sale. i plan on picking up some koigu in the front room but have no idea what in the 50% off back room this year. i am going to try to be good though and only get yarn i can really use and not just because it's on sale. we'll see how that goes.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

working spaces

last weekend my friends and i made a trip out to the blum & poe gallery, as they are having a showing of some new yoshitomo nara work. he's one of my favorite artists and this show didn't disappoint. the best part of the show was a wagon that housed an incredible little craft/living space. it was like the best little kid's room ever. my friend and i wanted to move in. take a look.

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on the knitting front, i have been working on my pair of bella's mittens for awhile now. i admit to being a huge twilight fan and when i saw the movie, i just knew i had to have the long mittens that bella wears. thankfully knitters are extremely clever and motivated people. i didn't have to wait long before a pattern was drawn up. i knit mine up in briggs & little atlantic, a bulky, sheep-y yarn from canada. while the yarn softened up considerably in the wash, i decided i wanted to knit a squishy lining for my mitts. in comes a double strand of drops alpaca in blood red and you've got some really warm mittens.

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i am kind of eyeballing the whole thing right now. i might use ann budd's book of patterns to help me out with the thumb gussett. so far, though, it's turning out very nice. will i see any of you at the unwind super bowl sale this sunday? i plan on being there bright and early!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

i made something!

yes, there has been knitting going on. i just get too lazy to blog about it most of the time. however, i do have a lovely hat i finished over the holidays. it's brooklyntweed's habitat made from my favorite yarn, mmmalabrigo.

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pattern: habitat by brooklyntweed (my ravelry page here)
yarn: almost and entire skein of malabrigo merino worsted in azul bolita
needles: us 6 for ribbing and us 5 for rest of hat
size: i made the longer size so it would cover my ears. fits well on my 21" head.

i highly recommend this pattern. the cables are lovely and everything is clearly written and charted out for you. i am getting better at taking pics of myself in hats. i like to see hats on a person but it's hard taking a picture of yourself in one when you have short arms and no tripod. but i think i am getting better at it. i only had to take about 30 shots for this to work out. :)

has anyone watched the premiere of lost yet? i wasn't feeling well last night so i skipped it but am hoping to catch up this weekend. i have no idea what's going to happen but i think it's going to be good. and yay for tomorrow being friday.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

events

i can't believe that the holidays have come and gone. what the heck happened? well what better way to start off the new year than with a party? my fave lys, unwind, had a 5 year anniversary party last thursday. on hand to celebrate were the jess, casey and mary heather of ravelry fame, lorna's laces and namaste. i went with a couple of friends and we had a lot of fun. the store was jam packed with people and it was great to meet some people i've only seen online. i was too shy to say approach the ravelry peeps but i did say hi to the lovely marielle (aka subliminalrabbit) who designed the awesome pattern for the mittens that bella wears in the movie twilight (which i am almost done with). i managed to only walk away with a beautiful namaste laguna bag in peacock.

below are some pics of the event that i took.

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Friday, December 25, 2009

holiday cheer

merry christmas! this is the little tree that i brought to my parents house this weekend. we got decorations last night at the drugstore. not much of a selection but i still think it's cute. hope you have a safe and happy holiday!

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Monday, November 30, 2009

catching up

wow it's been ages since i last blogged. summer just flew by and it's already december. unfortunately southern california hasn't gotten the memo yet and we've been having really warm weather. a lot has happened over the last few months including a trip to france, 3 weddings (one of which was my brother's in hawaii) and a medical scare with my dad. i do want to catch up on all of it one day soon. i have lots of pictures from france and hawaii that i want to share.

for now i am just trying to get going with all of the holiday knitting i have to do. crossing my fingers that i can finish it all before christmas. i'll try to post again soon. hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!
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Thursday, September 03, 2009

a bit absent

not much has been going on. i've just been enjoying the summer. hope you have been, too.

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Saturday, June 06, 2009

weekends are for everyone

we've started summer hours at work, which means that we can leave early on friday's through the summer. it makes such a huge difference in my outlook of the week just knowing that i get to go home early on friday. we're having a bit of june gloom in los angeles, but i don't mind. the grey skies and drizzly weather are perfect for curling up with a good book or some knitting (knitting pictures to come in the next post).

the sun did manage to peek out for a little while today during my friend's housewarming party. she has a whole room in the house just for her yarn and craft projects. i didn't take a picture of it, but trust me, it's awesome.

tomorrow i hope to do a bit of cleaning and organizing. i also have a date to go to the movies to see drag me to hell. i like scary movies and i hear this one is pretty good. might try to get in one more movie tomorrow as well but we'll see what happens. i leave you with one of the jumping pics i took at the party today (don't you just love the continuous shot button on digital cameras?). have a great weekend!

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

summer comes

summer is right around the corner here in sunny los angeles. the sun has been shining and it's been hot, hot, hot. luckily i was able to stay pretty cool this weekend and had some fun while doing it. saturday, my friend m and i decided to go to the strawberry festival up in oxnard. i'd never even heard of it before last week but it's been going on for a long time. unfortunately i think everyone else had the same idea as us or at least were heading up to the northern beaches to beat the heat and it took us almost exactly 2 hours to get there in gridlock traffic. there were a couple of times where i wanted to scream and pull my hair out but we managed to get there finally. the festival was a lot bigger than i thought it would be but i was actually disappointed in the strawberry-ness of it. i kinda felt like it was a big fair that just happened to have a strawberry corner. i imagined vendors making all kinds of imaginative strawberry dishes and cute, strawberry themed toys and knicknacks. there were lots of vendors but they were selling random items like name art, dragonfly pins, and handmade purses. where were the strawberries? we did manage to seek out all of the strawberry items. below check out some of what we ate and saw.

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strawberry nachos - these were probably my favorite thing that we ate. i love anything with cinnamon and sugar.

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official strawberry festival merchandise

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my strawberry shortcake from the build your own shortcake bar and the tray of strawberries we bought from a local farm.

it was a strawberry filled weekend because on sunday, my friends and i woke up at the crack of dawn to make a trip out to glendora to see the donut man. if you've never had donut man, you're missing out. he makes seasonal fruit filled donuts along with some other super tasty treats at his shop.

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here we are at 7:30am. took us over 30 minutes to get there but so worth it.

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the maple and chocolate logs are excellent and the crumb cake donut is fantastic as well.

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awesome

after our early morning donut run, it was off to my friend k's house for a drinking and knitting. not sure if those two are the best combo, but it sure is a lot of fun. there was snacks and drinking and a little bit of knitting.

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that's a new malabrigo scarf i've been working on. it's the scrunchable scarf on ravelry and the color is sauterne, the most lovely, bright yellow. this weekend i am off to northern california for a slew of bridal showers and bachelorette parties. see you all when i get back!

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edgar says have a great weekend!
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Sunday, April 26, 2009

a day of books

this weekend was the annual la festival of books at the ucla campus. i planned a day out with some friends for book shopping, falafel eating and ice cream sandwiches. the weather was lovely this weekend, unlike the usual 100 degree heat wave that book festival usually brings. we had a great time browsing the book vendors and people watching. the festival seemed well attended even though there were some vendors missing (noteably the cook's library and barnes & noble). i got a few good books - a michael chabon collection, the kind one (from book soup) and a patchwork book from kinokuniya.

we came home exhausted, full of good food, and heavy with new books. all in all a great day. i hope your weekend was fabulous as well.
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Sunday, March 22, 2009

lazy daisy

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just spending a quiet evening at home with my new twilight dvd and my february lady sweater. sadly this sweater was actually supposed to be completed in february and i am way behind schedule. maybe watching vampires will give me some superhuman knitting powers. :)
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Thursday, March 19, 2009

an auspicious day

i have the pleasure of working basically next door to the nbc building in burbank. normally this fact doesn't play much into my everyday life except for dodging the occasional tourist walking against traffic by my parking garage. today was different though because president obama was going to be on leno, meaning he was going to be a mere building away. while we didn't get to go to the taping, we did decide to do a little obama stalking and wait near the back entrance of nbc where guests usually depart from. we actually go there just in time to see his motorcade leaving.

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he's in the second car, not the one closest to me. i actually saw him through the window of the car. we waved at him and he smiled and waved back. it was pretty awesome. there wasn't a huge group of people there. i got the feeling that most of the people were people from the surrounding neighborhood or people who worked nearby like us.

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this is what we looked like right before he came.

something else also arrived for me today.

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it's my new kindle! my friends got together and got me a big ol' gift card to amazon to put towards a kindle and it came today. i'd been curious about them for awhile but i started really wanting one a couple of months ago when i figured out that i could read while knitting. it's a great way to do some knitting and get my reading done. until now i'd either knit and watch tv/movies or not knit and just read. now i can do both. i haven't played with it too much yet but i look forward trying out a pattern in pdf on it. yay for a fun day!
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omg

i can't believe that i just saw president obama leaving the tonight show. and he waved at us. awesome.
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Monday, March 09, 2009

pie party and a new hobby

i know i always say this but i really can't believe that the weekend is over already. this weekend was a pretty relaxed one for me. no huge plans. on friday night we had tix to the imax screening of watchmen at the burbank 16 (who knew they had imax?). we had at wait in a very long line upstairs and around the corner from the theater. my friends and i were joking that the signs were leading us to imminent death because we had to go down this creepy, narrow hallway that had no escape. we emerged from the line unscathed though and even managed to get good seats in the back. i actually really liked the movie. i had read the book a long time ago and re-read it again recently to prepare myself for the movie. i'd seen footage at comic con last year (which looked awesome) so i was looking forward to this and was trying not to have too many high hopes, lest the movie not meet my expectations. but i was pleasantly surprised that they managed to get almost all of the back story told in a cohesive way and visually it was great looking. patrick wilson was a really good nite owl and jackie earle haley was the perfect rorschach. i must say though that i couldn't tell that our theater was an imax theater. the sound was really good but the picture quality, to me, looked like any other theater. if you're going to see it in imax, i would suggest going to a theater whose imax screen is dedicated solely to imax films instead of one that is only used for imax once in awhile, like the theater we were in.

saturday was also our day for a pie party. i have a few friends who love the tv show pushing daisies as much as i do. we are so, so sad that the show has been cancelled but i am glad that it will live on in dvd and there have been talks of some kind of movie to wrap it all up. so we decided to have a big pie party to celebrate the awesomeness that is the show.

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we have blueberry, cherry and chocolate cream pie. i like that we have 3 pies for 5 people. it's a good thing that i decided to bring ice cream instead.

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this is my friend's dog edie asking for a slice of pie. sadly, i had to say no.

i also have a bit of a new obsession.

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i bought a drop spindle a couple of years ago. it was a part of a learn to spin kit that also included various rovings and a how to spin book. i tried it once or twice right after i bought it but i never really got the hang of it and put it away in a drawer until now. seeing all of the beautiful batts and rovings and spinning wheels at stitches renewed my interest in learning to spin and, last week, i picked up my drop spindle again. the first few times i tried spinning were not so pretty, but i kept practicing and i had a friend at work show what she knew and now i have a lovely little ball of yarn. the yarn in the picture is my second ball. i am trying to spin enough so that i can ply the two together. i bought a couple of really pretty rovings from stitches west and i can't wait to spin them up.

and that was pretty much the weekend for me. what did you do?
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Thursday, March 05, 2009

yarn overload

well i am back again after a wonderful long weekend visiting my parents and going to my first ever stitches west. my friend laura decided to fly up with me thursday night since we found that southwest still had some awesome plane ticket deals at that last minute. unfortunately she could not stay for the weekend so she just had a super quick 24 hour trip to the bay area. luckily we were able to fill it in with plenty of fun, fiber and food.

we spent the entire day on friday at the marketplace. i opted out of taking any classes this time around just because money was a bit tight. we got there first thing in the morning and had to wait in a bit of a line, even with our prepaid tickets, but it actually went quickly. i made a beeline for the blue moon booth, as rumors on ravelry were that they would sell out of most things pretty quickly. we got there in time to get a good selection of mill ends and rare gems to choose from. i was very frugal though and wanted to stick to my budget so i only got 2 mill ends.

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those are my two skeins of socks that rock hanging out while i eat my tasty vietnamese sandwich lunch. it was really fun to see all of the vendors, and be able to touch and see all of the yarns in person. there were many beautiful yarns but i was very good and only bought things that really called to me. everything else i figure i can order online later.

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that's most of my haul. includes mill end from blue mooon fiberarts, a skein of pigeonroof studios' superwash sock in delight, pigeonroof roving in chard, 2 skeins of creatively dyed superwash sock in midnight and a skein of woodbrook worsted from creatively dyed in tree. missing is the bmfa mill end of spawn of braun, which is super bright and candy colored. i started swatching it already and just need to find the perfect pattern. also missing is a mixed bag of handspun yarn from pigeonroof studios in purples and pinks, patterns from cocoknits and some hiyahiya needles i got at the urban fauna booth (which had great stuff). oh and stitches refueled my desire to learn how to spin. i have a drop spindle that i haven't picked up in years and i dug it out again. i am going to do a little bit of practicing before i try using some of the really pretty stuff i bought at stitches.

all in all it was a really fun experience and i hope i can make it again next year. now to actually finish some knitting!
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Saturday, February 21, 2009

best laid plans

a tale of sock woe for you. i am probably the world's slowest sock knitter. i have been working on the same pair of socks since last july. it's not that the pattern is hard or that i don't enjoy knitting on it. i don't know what it is but unlike other sock knitters who take their socks everywhere and knit on them when they have a spare moment, i end up knitting on my socks only once every few months, which leads to slow socks. i finally finished a pair of socks this week out of some beautiful yarn from sunshine yarns. i was all excited and grafted the toe and even wove in all my ends. and then i tried them on.

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you might not be able to tell from this picture but the sock on my right foot is waaay bigger than the first sock i finished (see how the heel looks all bunchy?). how this happened i do not know. i mean, i know gauge can change over time, but really? it's been less than a year and i am already making these socks on size 0s. what more do the knitting gods want? my first idea was to try to block the socks to see if i could get the one to be a little narrower and a little shorter. uh - that didn't work. in the depths of despair i thought that maybe i could give it someone with feet slighter bigger than mine. however, most of my friends have feet either way bigger than mine or the same size. i sat and stared at the sock for awhile before deciding that i would just have to rip back. so i found the end (that i had hidden so well) and frogged back to before the toe decreases. i laid the first sock under the too large one to see how far i would have to go back. so now the sock is back on the needles and i am starting the toe decreases again. i am trying to knit tightly and will be trying on the toe every few rows. even if it's still a little wide, hopefully at least the length will come out right this time. wish me luck.

oh - and did i tell you that i am off to stitches west next weekend? i couldn't resist the cheap air fares and the chance to hang out with my parents. i am SO excited.
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Sunday, February 15, 2009

wine and chocolate

it's been a pretty lazy sunday so far. i woke up this morning with a mild case of vertigo. for those of you who've never had it (lucky you) it's kind of like your head is a snowglobe and someone shakes it so that everything you see goes swirling crazily before your eyes. and then you get to feel nauseous from all of the spinning. it's really not fun but i think i am feeling a bit better now and might venture out of the house. before i leave though, i thought i would show you what i've been working on for the last week or so.

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it's the february lady sweater by flintknits. some friends are i are having a mini elizabeth zimmermann's almanac knitalong this year and we started with february. since i don't know any babies, i am making this sweater for me. i am working it in a lovely shade of dream in color classy called in vino veritas. it's my first time working with the dream in color and i like it a lot.

i'll leave you with something sweet (made by two of my baking buddies).

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happy (belated) valentine's day!
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

it's the little things that matter

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Saturday, February 07, 2009

through the looking glass

i spent a fun and somewhat surreal evening at the natural history museum last night. i went for the first fridays series, where they open up the museum at night and have djs spin and bands play. i've never been to the natural history museum here before and it was kind of strange seeing people mingling and bands performing in the midst of these old dioramas (which my friend said were first constructed around 1930). the bird and the bee also performed and they were excellent. they did a cover of the bee gee's "how deep is your love" that i'd never heard before. it gave me a new appreciation for the bee gees. before them a band called jukebox the ghost was on and they were surprisingly good as well. i wish i had taken more pictures of the museum but you can see a few shots below.

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large bird case - egrets are big!

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display of woodpeckers

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peering out

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abstract of the bird and the bee

the rest of the weekend i plan to knit, read and catch up on some sleep. knitting photos coming soon.
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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

inspiration

last weekend my friend and i took a trip down to santa monica to see the hyperbolic crochet coral reef exhibit at bergamot station. i can't really describe it so i'll show you some pictures.

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it was really amazing looking and there were so many colors. the colors and forms were just so beautiful and inspiring. i was surprised by how lifelike some of the pieces looked. we spent a long time in there taking pictures of everything. it was fun, too, because i recognized some of the yarns used. if you live in the area and get a chance, definitely stop by. i think the exhibit is running until the end of the month.
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Tuesday, February 03, 2009

my version of being a trekkie



what people will do for a good yarn sale.
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Friday, January 30, 2009

on color

i am a big fan of color. i love every color of the rainbow in all of its subtly and contrast. i can never understand how someone could have one favorite color. how do you choose just one? i have never really noticed if i had a pattern to what colors i am attracted to. my stash is proof of my eclectic color philosophy, but then i noticed something this morning.

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the colors in this ceramic skull are almost the exact same colors in the skein of handmaiden casbah i bought last week at twist yarns. i think it's pretty funny that they match so well. it almost mades me sad to knit it up and break them apart. this color is called "cosmic" by the way and i think it's the perfect name. it's what i would imagine a meteor shower or shooting stars would look like in space. i am thinking of making a lacy scarf of out of so i can have that gorgeous softness around my neck. i am not sure what pattern would look best with such high contrast colors though. any suggestions would be welcome.

this weekend is going to be full of knitterly events. tomorrow, my friend and i are heading out to bergamot station in santa monica to see the knitted coral reef exhibit. the pics i've seen of it look awesome and i can't wait. sunday morning i am getting up bright and early to get in line for unwind's annual superbowl yarn sale. i plan on picking up some koigu in the front room but have no idea what in the 50% off back room this year. i am going to try to be good though and only get yarn i can really use and not just because it's on sale. we'll see how that goes.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

working spaces

last weekend my friends and i made a trip out to the blum & poe gallery, as they are having a showing of some new yoshitomo nara work. he's one of my favorite artists and this show didn't disappoint. the best part of the show was a wagon that housed an incredible little craft/living space. it was like the best little kid's room ever. my friend and i wanted to move in. take a look.

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on the knitting front, i have been working on my pair of bella's mittens for awhile now. i admit to being a huge twilight fan and when i saw the movie, i just knew i had to have the long mittens that bella wears. thankfully knitters are extremely clever and motivated people. i didn't have to wait long before a pattern was drawn up. i knit mine up in briggs & little atlantic, a bulky, sheep-y yarn from canada. while the yarn softened up considerably in the wash, i decided i wanted to knit a squishy lining for my mitts. in comes a double strand of drops alpaca in blood red and you've got some really warm mittens.

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i am kind of eyeballing the whole thing right now. i might use ann budd's book of patterns to help me out with the thumb gussett. so far, though, it's turning out very nice. will i see any of you at the unwind super bowl sale this sunday? i plan on being there bright and early!
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Thursday, January 22, 2009

i made something!

yes, there has been knitting going on. i just get too lazy to blog about it most of the time. however, i do have a lovely hat i finished over the holidays. it's brooklyntweed's habitat made from my favorite yarn, mmmalabrigo.

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pattern: habitat by brooklyntweed (my ravelry page here)
yarn: almost and entire skein of malabrigo merino worsted in azul bolita
needles: us 6 for ribbing and us 5 for rest of hat
size: i made the longer size so it would cover my ears. fits well on my 21" head.

i highly recommend this pattern. the cables are lovely and everything is clearly written and charted out for you. i am getting better at taking pics of myself in hats. i like to see hats on a person but it's hard taking a picture of yourself in one when you have short arms and no tripod. but i think i am getting better at it. i only had to take about 30 shots for this to work out. :)

has anyone watched the premiere of lost yet? i wasn't feeling well last night so i skipped it but am hoping to catch up this weekend. i have no idea what's going to happen but i think it's going to be good. and yay for tomorrow being friday.
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

events

i can't believe that the holidays have come and gone. what the heck happened? well what better way to start off the new year than with a party? my fave lys, unwind, had a 5 year anniversary party last thursday. on hand to celebrate were the jess, casey and mary heather of ravelry fame, lorna's laces and namaste. i went with a couple of friends and we had a lot of fun. the store was jam packed with people and it was great to meet some people i've only seen online. i was too shy to say approach the ravelry peeps but i did say hi to the lovely marielle (aka subliminalrabbit) who designed the awesome pattern for the mittens that bella wears in the movie twilight (which i am almost done with). i managed to only walk away with a beautiful namaste laguna bag in peacock.

below are some pics of the event that i took.

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