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.

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

official strawberry festival merchandise

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.

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

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

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.

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!

edgar says have a great weekend!

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.

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.

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!