March Around the World movie challenge!

Throughout March I played along with this Letterboxd movie challenge called March Around the World, and I got really into it! If you followed my instagram stories you saw as I posted each one I watched… The challenge was to watch 30 movies from 30 different countries in March but I ended up getting up to 38! These are everything I watched in the order that I watched them:

Grid of every movie Lee watched for March Around the World challenge

And below are my top 20 sorted by my rating—everything except the last two are all the movies I rated 4 stars or higher, so many great movies! (The last two were 3.5 stars but there were a lot more that I rated the same so those weren’t necessarily in my top 20.)

grid of Lee's favorite 20 movies from the March Around the World challenge

A requirement of the challenge was to write a review (had to be more than just a couple of sentences) for each movie watched, so I’ll share my reviews for my top five! Four of my five favorites happened to be political movies; I watched lots of movies for the challenge that didn’t have political themes but my favorites mostly happened to.

My greatest discovery of the challenge was the director Mikhail Kalatozov and my top two are a tie between the two of his I watched. His filmmaking—framing, long takes, cinematography—is incredible, in the true sense of the word, like there are shots in both of the movies that I have no idea how they were created. I love movies. Btw, my top five aren’t really ranked, just those first two by the same director and then my three other faves which could kinda be in any order.

still frame from the movie Letter Never Sent

Letter Never Sent (USSR, 1960, on Criterion Channel) — my review:

Holy moly this movie was amazing!! SO freaking beautiful, truly every frame a painting. And INTENSE! And unbelievable, like truly, how TF did they make some of those segments?! I want special features on this so bad, telling me how they made it, all the details, I’d watch hours of features/commentary/anything released about this film, but sadly nothing seems to exist. The criterion blu ray has an essay and nothing else 😦 Anyway, the story is simple, but I’d recommend this movie to everyone based on the visuals and suspense alone!

still frame from the movie I Am Cuba

I Am Cuba (Cuba, 1964, on Kanopy and Hoopla) — my review:

Wow. Spectacular. I’ve done a bit of research about it after watching which has enhanced it (since I went in knowing nothing except that I LOVED Letter Never Sent and this was the same filmmaker), and I plan to watch some more video essays about it and then rewatch in the future. Truly amazing filmmaking, gorgeous, and beyond impressive, like baffling. The only reason I gave it 4.5 instead of 5 is that, upon first watch, I was a liiiittle bored during some segments and felt like it could’ve been a wee bit shorter, BUT, I did watch it on a night when I was a bit sleepy, and like I said I went in with no context, so I think probably on a future rewatch I’d up it to a solid 5.

still frame from the movie The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers (Algeria, 1966, on Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and also Max) — my review:

A movie about a resistance movement against a western occupying force who has been oppressing an Arab population on their own land for generations and claiming it’s ridiculous for people to call them fascist because they were on the anti-nazi side in WWII. The occupiers aim to take down the leaders of the resistance movement, declaring that once those fighters are gone the resistance will be over, not realizing that with their forceful oppression they are only creating a new generation of resistance fighters who will eventually win in the end. 

The atrocities committed here by the French were actually much milder than what’s being done by Israel (funded by the US) as I’m writing this. It’s distressing to think that there’s probably a sizable population who would watch this film and side with the resistance and yet believe that Israel is in the right. (I’m coming at that theory from a point of being cynical about media literacy and people connecting dots to the present, and that “sizable population” I’m imagining is made up of people who’d never watch this movie; my partner disagrees that they’d side with the resistance because racism, so who knows!)

still frame or promotional image from the movie Beans

Beans (Canada, 2020, on Hoopla and also Hulu) — my review:

Oh I LOVED this! It had me crying all throughout, but that’s partially the buildup of watching a lot of heavy movies back to back to back for March Around the World, sometimes I cry at a small thing because of the weight of everything. 

But damn there were some relatable feelings in this. The feeling of experiencing (or witnessing) political violence and wanting to be way stronger and tougher and braver so you’re ready for next time, because you know there will be a next time. A twelve-year-old should not have to feel that way, but I knew exactly how she felt. 

That mixed with some general coming-of-age feelings and happenings. High stakes and low stakes all mixed together. A very specific story about a very specific person in a very specific time and place, and yet completely relatable in multiple ways. Really really loved it.

still frame from the movie Unrest

Unrest (Switzerland, 2022, on Criterion Channel) — my review:

I LOVED this! I can understand that’s it’s definitely not for everyone and many (most) viewers (if forced to watch for some reason) would think it’s boring, but it ticked some rarely-ticked boxes for me personally! 

1: Anarchist political history! Very interesting topic, more movies please! 

2: Period setting about, like, normal people, and dealing with art & technology of the time and the part it plays in people’s lives. By normal people I mean, not royal or ultra-wealthy people, as so many period films are about, not about war, or someone famous (well except Kropotkin, but it wasn’t even really about him, and it was definitely not a biopic!). And the way we saw the novelty of this new technology / artform of photography, the collecting of portraits, and also the new tech of clocks + telegraph, so times could be synced, and what a big deal that was… 

I loved all that in the same way I loved Portrait of a Lady on Fire, seeing how if a normal person (without a lot of money to go to the symphony or whatever) wanted to hear music, they had to make it themselves, and if they wanted a picture of someone, it had to be drawn or painted, and if they wanted to embroider flowers onto cloth, well they didn’t have a way to take a picture of the flowers to use for a reference point, so they had the actual flowers as the reference for the needlework. All these things, things we don’t think about, taking for granted that we can hear any kind of music any time we want, etc, I love seeing that in films, but it’s rare. That more realistic look of what things were like in a past time for people living their lives. More please!

still frame from the movie Omar

Those were my top five but since we’re getting into issues with some of these movies I’m going to toss in my review for one more that I liked a lot…

Omar (Palestine, 2013, on Kanopy) — my review:

A complex story with twists and turns, but the fact that the Israeli military treats Palestinians like prisoners in their own home is never complex, that’s always clear. An anxious movie, good pacing, the love story aspect didn’t fully click for me, but I definitely mostly liked it and thought it was a good and interesting look at what it’s like to live in the West Bank. Of course, watching it in 2024 makes it tougher, and maybe that should say “what it WAS like” because I’d assume it would be different now.

And a quote from an interview with actor Adam Bakri, because I didn’t know that the wall divided between neighborhoods within the West Bank, not just between Israel, until I watched this movie:

People would actually think it divides Israel from the West Bank, but actually it also crosses through Palestinian towns in the West Bank, and it divides neighbors from each other. Even when I did the scene and I was standing in front of the wall, it hit me, the meaning of this huge thing that you see every day. And that they see every day in the West Bank. It almost covers the sun.

spreadsheet of every movie Lee watched for March movie challenge, with what country they're each from and the primary language

If you want to read my silly reviews of any others you can find them all on letterboxd here! Since I’m a big nerd, I made a spreadsheet of the movies I wanted to watch, and I kept adding new movies/countries throughout the month. In the end, above are all the ones that I watched in March, 38 movies/countries in 25 different languages.

One of the rules I made for myself was that every movie had to be streaming on either Kanopy or Hoopla (both free with my library card, no ads), Criterion Channel or Mubi (the two film streamers I’m currently subscribed to), or Tubi (free to everyone with ads). Limiting it like that simplified/streamlined the challenge for me a bit, and I figured would make it somewhat accessible for sharing recommendations—most people in the US should be able to get kanopy and/or hoopla with their library card, and Criterion Channel is amazing (I’m brand new to it and it’s my favorite streamer, I love it so much!!).

spreadsheet of all the other movies Lee didn't watch for March movie challenge, with what country they're each from and where they are streaming

The 40 above are all the ones I have on my spreadsheet that I didn’t get to in March—40 more countries! So I actually changed my Letterboxd list from “March Around the World 2024” to “2024 One Movie Per Country!” and I’m gonna continue adding to it every time I watch a movie from a new country throughout the year. We’ll see how close I get to all 78 by the end of the year (or if I end up growing the spreadsheet even longer!).

As I’ve mentioned before, I highly recommend using the JustWatch site or app to check where movies are available to you, especially if you’re not in the US or if some time has passed since March 2024. Where I said something is streaming in my spreadsheet is where I plan to watch it (or did watch it), not necessarily the only spot it’s available.

I really enjoyed doing this, and definitely plan to do it again next year but maybe just 30 next time. I actually enjoyed the movie challenge so much that I immediately found another movie challenge that I’m now doing throughout April! It’s less intense—no reviews, for one thing, and most movies don’t have subtitles and many of them are a bit sillier, like less attention required, so it’s just a fun way to watch some things that have been in my to-watch list for years, and/or that I wouldn’t normally watch.

Grid of 25 assorted movies

Most of the movies I plan to watch for this challenge are in the grid above, and all the ones I’ve watched are here. I get to watch another by Mikhail Kalatozov for this challenge (yay!) plus there’s a little overlap with countries I haven’t done yet (Belgium, Turkey, Rwanda). If you’re interested, it’s the Letterboxd Season Challenge which runs from September through early-May every year, but I’m cramming it all in now since I only just learned about it! Later this year, I can start the next one on time and it’ll be a chill, slow-paced one-movie-per-week challenge as it’s designed to be. In conclusion, yay movies!

Sooooup! Swap + Pumpkin Black Bean Beer Cheese Soup Recipe (+ FOUR more soup recipes!)

I know how annoying it is to scroll forever to get to a recipe, so I’ll go ahead and post the main recipe first at the top, then I’ll tell you all about my annual Soup Swap afterwards, plus give you a few more favorite recipes I’ve made to swap over the years!

large pot full close to the top with the pumpkin black bean soup

This recipe that I wrote was adapted from this tweet that I bookmarked back in 2022. I don’t know the person, but I saw that prompt asking for soup recipes and read through all the replies, copying the ones I wanted to try into my recipe notes:

screenshot of tweet by Erin Jean Warde @erinjeanwarde on Sep 30, 2022 saying: One of the great things about soup season is they are delicious and also often inexpensive. Anyway SOUP THREAD — tell me your faves. and reply by NBA Carl Jungboy @jigglebologna saying: Can of pumpkin, can of black beans, a diced onion, maybe some smoked sausage, a beer, maybe some chipotle, spices of choice. Brown onion, sausage in butter. Fry pumpkin and Chile for a minute. Add drained beans, beer, and stock. Simmer 15m. Mix in shredded cheddar at end.

So I tried it out in January, took notes, and wrote my version all out as this recipe:

entire recipe in an image file, same as blog text recipe

Pumpkin Black Bean Beer Cheese Soup

Makes about 5 large servings.
Contains: cheese, gluten. Could substitute vegan cheese to make vegan (use a kind that melts well and has some sharpness, ideally.)

Ingredients
2 TBSP olive oil, divided
1 fake sausage (the large Field Roast Smoked Apple Sage works well; this is optional or use whatever meaty element you like)
½ tsp liquid smoke
1 green onion, finely chopped
4 TBSP flour
1 can of pumpkin
1 TBSP diced chipotle peppers
1 can of black beans, drained
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 can of beer (I use Simpler Times lager)
4 cups broth or water + Better than Bouillon of choice (for this, I use approx 1 tsp BTB paste per 2 cups water, added directly to pot after adding water)
4–5 oz shredded cheese (cheddar or blend)

ingredients: a cutting board with fake sausage sliced thinly and green onions with a knife; liquid smoke, chipotles, simpler times lager, black beans cans, pumpkin cans, better than bouillon vegetable base, sharp white cheddar, all-purpose flour

Instructions
Heat 1 TBSP olive oil over med-high in pot, add sausage, turn down to medium and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until it’s lightly browned.
Add liquid smoke, green onion, a little salt and pepper, and cook while stirring another couple of minutes.
Add another TBSP of olive oil, then whisk in flour 1 TBSP at a time.
Add pumpkin, then chipotles, stir all together over heat.
Add beans and all spices, stir together, then stir in beer. Scrape bottom of pot at this point to deglaze anything that’s stuck.
Add broth (or substitute), stir everything, then bring to a boil. Turn heat down to simmer for 15–20 minutes.
Taste and add seasoning if needed.
Turn off heat and stir in shredded cheese.
Serve!
Eating with good bread for dipping is recommended!
Or I bet pretzels would go well.
It freezes surprisingly well! (But if you worry about the cheese freezing, you could freeze before adding cheese, then add cheese after reheating.)

package of Field Roast brand smoked apple & sage plant-based sausages

A few more notes: That’s the sausage I used for this, I like it a lot! I think the soup would work well without the meaty element. The first time I made it, I used a bit of Ikea’s pea-protein based fake ground meat (which is no longer on their website so maybe they stopped making it, sadly) cooked with meatless pork flavor powder (from an Asian market) and fennel seeds to make it sausage-like. That worked well too!

I added the flour step to thicken the soup more, because I like a thicker soup, and I think it worked, but feel free to skip that step! You can definitely use regular onion if you like, as the original recipe tweet said, I just prefer green onion and I think it works well here.

mason jars with papers taped on saying: pumpkin black bean beer cheese soup with fake sausage, contains: cheese, gluten, and chipotles in adobo

That’s my soup all jarred up for my Soup Swap! I doubled the recipe to make about 10 servings, bringing 7 to the swap and keeping a few for myself (mostly because I had 7 empty jars).

photo of a bunch of containers of frozen soup, all with labels or recipes on top

My knit night group started having annual soup swaps, every year around February usually, almost 10 years ago! Our first one (pictured above) was January 2016, and we’ve done it every year except 2020 (because we were late to plan it that year, put it off till March, and then you know what happened) and I believe 2022 as well—in 2021 we swapped outside and it was a bit less fun, so I think we skipped 2022 and then got back into it last year.

photo of a table filled with glass mason jars of frozen soups, all with labels of some kind

We evolved over the years from plastic containers to glass mason jars, which work quite well for single servings of frozen soup! We each make around 6–8 servings of our soup, put some kind of labels on them (with allergens), freeze them beforehand, and bring them to the swap in coolers.

a freezer filled with jars and containers of frozen soups

We hang out, knit, eat lunch (soup, of course!), and then it’s swapping time! Someone counts swap participants, puts pieces of paper with numbers in a bowl and we draw numbers for our swapping order. This year I drew #1! Then we go around and say what our soup is and what it contains, so we can start planning out our top choices.

photo of a table filled with glass mason jars of frozen soups, all with labels of some kind

Then it’s swap time! We go around in number order, each picking one soup, around and around, until we have the number of soups that we brought. I brought 7 this year so I chose 7. If you bring 8 or more you risk getting multiple of the same soup or leaving with your own soup, since most people bring 6–7. The more participants, the more soups you won’t get, so as our swap has gotten bigger strategy has gotten more important (choosing the ones you think will be more popular first) and we have to just accept that we’re not gonna get all our top choices. (This year I missed out on 2 or 3 that sounded amazing!)

photo of a table filled with glass mason jars of frozen soups, all with labels of some kind

That’s how it works! We’ve gotten the process pretty perfected over the years. I recommend organizing a Soup Swap with your soup-loving friends!!

mason jars filled with yellow soup with handwritten labels saying corn chowder with a circled V

And now, some of my favorite soups I’ve made over the years! Last year I made a pretty great corn chowder, using this recipe from Monson Made This and modifying it… here’s my version of the recipe:

Sweet Potato Poblano Corn Chowder

Ingredients
4 TBSP olive oil or vegan butter
1 medium-sized onion, diced (I used a shallot)
1 red bell pepper, seeded & diced
3 poblano peppers, seeded & diced
Optional jalapeño and/or serrano pepper(s) for spice (I used 1 jalapeño and 1 serrano)
1 large or 2 smaller carrots, diced
3–4 garlic cloves, minced
½–¾ cup flour (depending on how much you want to thicken it) (I used chickpea flour)
8 cups vegan chicken broth (or other veggie broth—I used vegan chicken bouillon cubes)
¼–½ cup nutritional yeast
Black pepper to taste
Salt to taste (approx 2–3 tsp)
Optional more spices (I used 1 tsp each aleppo pepper, smoked paprika, mushroom umami)
2–4 sweet potatoes (depending on how large they are), peeled and cut into ¼ inch cubes
3 ears of corn kernels removed, cobs reserved (I used 6 of the frozen half-ears, plus a bit more frozen sweet corn)
1–1 ½ cup full-fat coconut milk
3–4 green onions, thinly sliced
fresh parsley or cilantro for garnish (optional)

Instructions
In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, combine the oil, onion, peppers, carrots, and garlic. Sauté on medium heat for about 5 minutes until the veggies begin to soften and sweat, but not brown.
Stir in the flour and cook for another 2 minutes.
Add stock, nutritional yeast, sweet potato, and reserved corn cobs. Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste.
Bring the soup to a gentle boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook uncovered for about 10–15 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are just cooked through.
Remove the corn cobs. Using an immersion blender (or carefully remove 4 cups of the soup and blend it completely), blend the soup until it gets a bit ruddy in color, but there are still large bits of pepper and sweet potato remaining.
Add corn kernels and coconut milk. Continue to simmer for another 5–10 minutes.
Stir in green onion and taste for seasoning.
Serve warm, with optional herb garnish. (Could also add spinach, kale, or cabbage, etc, to bulk it up and add some green!)

11 containers full of orange-ish soup with chunks of sweet potato and kale showing

Back in 2019 I made a Sweet Potato & Farro Curry Soup which was a slightly modified version of this from Cookie and Kate. It was amazing and I made it a few times since but kinda forgot about it and really need to make it again for myself! Pretty easy, too!

Sweet Potato & Farro Curry Soup

Ingredients
2 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped (small or large, depending how much onion you like) (my double batch used 1 large onion)
1 red bell pepper, chopped (I used 5 little Sweet Baby Bell Peppers for every 1 regular bell pepper)
1 pound sweet potatoes (2 small to medium or 1 large), peeled and diced (about 3 cups)
¼ tsp salt, more to taste
2 TBSP Thai red curry paste
1 cup uncooked farro, rinsed
4 cups (32 oz) vegetable broth
1 can (1½ cups) coconut milk (see note below)
½ cup water
1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas
½ bunch of kale (4 oz), chopped (about 3 cups) (mine was made with baby kale, less than this, around this much total for the double batch)
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, to taste (optional, if you like it extra spicy) (I skipped this so everyone can add their own spice to eat as they like)

Instructions
In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering. Stir in the onion, bell pepper, sweet potato and salt. Sauté for five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to soften.
Add the curry paste and stir until the vegetables are coated and the curry is fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add the farro. Add the coconut milk, vegetable broth, and water, and stir to combine.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 25 minutes. (Note: if you’re using Trader Joe’s brand farro, it’s partially cooked already, so it only needs about 10–15 minutes here.)
Test the farro for doneness—if it’s tender and cooked through, add the chickpeas and kale. Stir to combine, cook for 5 more minutes, or until the kale is cooked to your liking.
Taste, and season with more salt as needed. Stir in the optional cayenne pepper.
Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Leftovers keep well, covered and refrigerated, for about 4 days. The soup freezes well, too.

red curry paste can, brand name Maesri

Notes
I used Trader Joe’s Reduced Fat Coconut Milk; use non-reduced-fat for a thicker soup. For a thicker curry, less soup-like, to eat with naan or rice, skip the ½ cup water and use more sweet potato, smashing some of it after cooking, to thicken. Original recipe had no coconut milk, only 2 cups water instead.
Original recipe goes in to detail about using different grains instead of farro.
The red curry paste I use happens to be vegan (no fish or shrimp content) but many (most?) are not, so be sure to read labels if that’s a concern!

closeup of a bowl of peanut stew with kale

The very first year I made a Vegan Peanut Stew from this recipe on Budget Bytes and it was amazing. It’s one I remade again for another soup swap year because everyone loved it, and I’ve made a few more times for myself. I hadn’t made it in years and then about a month ago I remembered it and made it again—it’s so easy and delicious!! A great lunch (I froze servings with rice in the same container so it was a ready-to-go lunch, perfect for bringing to the office), will definitely make it more regularly!! Even though I use the recipe pretty exactly from the website, I’m going to put it here because nowadays you never know when sites will stop existing and that link above will become broken.

Vegan Peanut Stew

Ingredients
1 TBSP vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic
1 inch fresh ginger
1 medium sweet potato
1 medium onion
1 tsp cumin
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
6 oz can tomato paste
½ cup chunky peanut butter
6 cups vegetable broth
½ bunch or 2–3 cups chopped collard greens (or kale or mustard greens—I usually use kale)
cilantro
rice for serving

Instructions
Peel and grate the ginger using a small holed cheese grater. Mince the garlic. Sauté the ginger and garlic in vegetable oil over medium heat for 1–2 minutes, or until the garlic becomes soft and fragrant.
Dice the onion, add it to the pot, and continue to sauté. Dice the sweet potato (½ inch cubes), add it to the pot, and continue to sauté a few minutes more, or until the onion is soft and the sweet potato takes on a darker, slightly translucent appearance. Season with cumin and red pepper flakes.
Add the tomato paste and peanut butter, and stir until everything is evenly mixed.
Add the vegetable broth and stir to dissolve the thick tomato paste-peanut butter mixture. Place a lid on the pot and turn the heat up to high.
While the soup is coming up to a boil, prepare the greens. Rinse the greens well, then use a sharp knife to remove each stem (cut along the side of each stem). Stack the leaves, then cut them into thin strips. Add the collard strips to the soup pot.
Once the soup reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and allow it to simmer without a lid for about 15 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are very soft. Once soft, smash about half of the sweet potatoes with the back of a wooden spoon to help thicken the soup. Taste the soup and add salt if needed.
Serve the stew hot with a few cilantro leaves if desired. You may also add some rice, and add some spice if you want! I usually add brown rice.

a big pot full of red lentil soup

The second swap year I made Four Corners Lentil Soup from My New Roots, which is one of my favorite lentil soups I’ve ever made, definitely recommend if you like a lentil soup! Again, this recipe is straight from that website, but already the webpage has a broken image so who knows how much longer that link will work.

Four Corners Lentil Soup


Ingredients

1 cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed very well

1 large onion, or a couple leeks, chopped (I used shallots)

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 TBSP minced ginger root

1 TBSP Ground cumin

¼ tsp cayenne pepper
(I also added a small amount of Turmeric)

1 15 oz can of tomatoes (some of mine were fire roasted); or 4 large, fresh tomatoes, chopped

4 cups stock (I used vegetable broth)

salt to taste

1 un-waxed, organic lemon

Instructions

Heat oil in a medium pot and sauté onions, garlic and ginger for 5 minutes until soft. Add a pinch of salt.

Add spices and stir for another minute or so, until fragrant.

Add tomatoes, 3 slices of lemon and rinsed lentils, then add vegetable stock. Stir well.

Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. Squeeze in the rest of the lemon juice.

Serve hot with some cilantro, green onions or parsley on top with a slice of lemon.

Happy soup-making, and please share your favorite (vegetarian) soup recipes in the comments if you have any!! I’m always looking for new ones to try!

My Improvised Cable-Yoke Sweater

How about some knitting content on this blog?! I started knitting this sweater in summer 2020, with plans for it to be my around-and-around in plain stockinette movie theater sweater when I started going to movies again, once the bottom edging was done. And then I originally had a vague plan to do a simple raglan top, with like a cable design running along the raglan decrease lines. When I actually got to the top years later, I had a new idea to do an all-over cable pattern as a round yoke instead, and it worked!!

Lee wearing the sweater, looking forward and smiling, standing on the sidewalk, hands on hips

I picked out Hawthorne sock yarn held double, for a worsted-ish weight, in the Cattail colorway. I knit the bottom edging in 2020, then just kinda let it sit, waiting to go back to theaters, since the whole point of it was to be my theater knitting project. That ended up not happening until summer 2023, so I ended up knitting small bits of the stockinette body off and on throughout 2021–2023, then I did knit a few chunks in the theater for Barbie, Talk to Me, and Bottoms… and I finally finished up the body in fall 2023 when I had covid and was wanting a lot of mindless knitting.

two photos of Lee wearing the sweater, showing the back and the front

Since it worked out so well, I thought I’d share what I did for anyone who might want to try to copy me… The explanation below is based on notes I took for this sweater that I improvised / designed on-the-needles for myself, to fit my own body. With the exception of the bottom edging, this is not a pattern, just me telling you what I did. Adventurous sweater knitters will hopefully be able to use my notes as a starting point or guideline or as inspiration to improvise their own similar sweaters, maybe. If anyone does, I’d REALLY love to see, so please comment here with a link to photos!!

Lee wearing the sweater, looking forward and smiling, standing on the sidewalk

I don’t have any photos of the bottom edge by itself, but it’s constructed the same way as a lot of my old patterns (like this top and this hat and this shawl), what I called the “sideways edge cast-on”—stitches are added along one side across the whole edge so you don’t have to pick them all up later. You basically knit the sideways edge pattern, always increasing 1 stitch at one end (at the beginning of every WS row in this case), and leave the extra stitches on the circular cable for later. Then you’ll increase extra stitches across the first sideways row, which tightens up the sideways stitches and makes the row-to-stitch ratio correct for a smooth edging.

closeup of bottom edging on sweater laying flat

Bottom Edging
Cast on 9 sts.
Setup Row (WS): K1, purl to end.

Row 1 (RS): Cable 2 over 3 Left, K3, Sl1 WYIF.
Row 2 and all WS rows: KFB, purl to end.
Row 3: Sl1, K2, Cable 3 over 2 Right, Sl1 WYIF.
Row 5: Cable 3 over 3 Left, K2, Sl1 WYIF.
Row 7: Sl1, K2, Cable 2 over 3 Right, Sl1 WYIF.
Row 9: Cable 3 over 2 Left, K3, Sl1 WYIF.
Row 11: Sl1, K1, Cable 3 over 3 Right, Sl1 WYIF.
Rep Rows 1–12 until piece is the circumference you want around your body. You may want to put some stitches onto scrap yarn or another circular needle so you can hold the whole piece around your body. Or, determine the final measurement you want the piece to be, measure half or a third of that final measurement along the in-progress piece, count the top stitches, and multiply to determine the final stitch count you want.

My stitch count when I stopped the edging was 144 top stitches, plus 8 working cable pattern stitches, so 152 total stitches.

On the next RS row, bind off 8 stitches (the cable stitches), then K1, (M1, K2) to end.
Stitch count has increased by half of the original stitch count (minus the 8 bound-off stitches). My original stitch count of 144 increased to 216. Piece is now ready to knit stockinette stitch around these stitches.

I worked around in plain stockinette now, until the piece measured my desired length from bottom to underarms.

in-progress sweater body, with crochet-chain provisional stitches where the sleeves will go

Then I did some math and decision-making for what to do next. I had this idea for a cabled yoke in my head, and I ended up planning it all out once I had my stitch count figured out.

To start, I bound off for the underarms:
I knit to 6 sts before beginning-of-round, bound off 12 sts, then knit to 6 sts before the halfway point, bound off 12 sts, and knit to end.
My stitch count at this point was 192.

I decided, for my cable pattern plan, to figure out my sleeve count so that my total stitch count was a multiple of 20 (so each half—front and back—was multiple of 10, because I planned to do 9-stitch cables with 1 stitch between). I determined my numbers based on gauge and desired measurement of sleeves at the top…
So my sleeve count total per sleeve was to be 66 stitches, minus the 12 picked-up stitches on each sleeve (those 12 stitches I bound off for the underarms, to be picked back up for the sleeves) = 54 new stitches per sleeve, times 2 = 108 stitches added for the yoke. 108 + 192 (my current stitch count) = 300 stitches total to start the yoke.

So I worked my yoke setup round as follows:
*Provisional Cast On 54 sts with scrap yarn onto left-hand needle, knit across half the provisional sts (27), place marker for new beginning-of-round here, knit other half of provisional sts, then join across to other side of bound-off sts and knit across the half-round to next set of bound-off sts; rep from * (placing second marker for halfway-point), knit to beginning-of-round marker.
My stitch count now = 300 (150 each half).

Now that I had my yoke stitches ready to go, I began the cable pattern that I’d planned out. I worked each half (front and back) the same; each half had 150 stitches, so 15 cable segments. Each cable segment was 9 stitches wide plus 1 purl stitch. I added the cables one at a time, and only added the purl stitches once there were two cables next to each other.

My cables started as 3-over-3-over-3 braid style cables, worked as follows.
Rnd 1: Cable 3 over 3 Left, K3.
Rnd 2: Knit all.
Rnd 3: K3, Cable 3 over 3 Right.
Rnd 4: Knit all.

in-progress sweater with a couple of inches of the yoke worked, crochet-chain provisional stitches where the sleeves will go

So that’s the basic cable pattern, a 4-row repeat. Since I introduced a new cable on every cable row (every other round), half the cables were introduced with the left cable worked first (Rnd 1), and half with the right cable first (Rnd 3). That way all cables were worked the same, all left cables around the same row, etc. On the “Knit all” cable rows nothing happened with the yoke pattern, so it was just a knit-all round, until the purls started being introduced between the cables (once they filled in enough to be placed next to each other), so then the knit-all rounds became “knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches”.

My first four rows were worked as follows.
Yoke Rnd 1: (K40, place marker, Cable 3 over 3 Left, knit to marker) twice.
Yoke Rnd 1: Knit all.
Yoke Rnd 1: (Knit to marker, K3, Cable 3 over 3 Right, K51, place marker, K3, Cable 3 over 3 Right, knit to M) twice.
Yoke Rnd 1: Knit all.

So then I just kept added a new cable on every other round, placing a marker at the cable, until they started being right next to each other with the purl stitches between—then I didn’t place markers anymore because the purl stitches made it clear where each cable started. I had the cables all planned out, so I’d know which one to introduce next. I made this basic spreadsheet chart just to plan out the order of the cables. It’s upside down but the point was just to decide when each cable started, so I could count how many stitches to knit between them on each cable round.

quick and simple spreadsheet chart of cable placement

When all the cables had been introduced, there were 15 cables across each front and back (30 total) as well as the same number of single purl stitches between each cable, and back to just 2 stitch markers, one at the beginning and one at the halfway point.

So now I started working decreases, decreasing every other cable on a round, spreading the decrease rounds out more at first, then closer together as I got closer to the top. So half the cables became 8-stitches wide, then the other half, then half became 7-stitches wide, then the other half, and so on. I continued working the cables as braids, so they’d become 3-over-3-over-2, then 3-over-2-over-2, then 2-over-2-over-2, and so on, until they eventually became 1-over-1-over-1 braids.
Note that for the decreasing section that follows, the front and back were no longer exactly identical since there was an odd number of cables on each side.

in-progress sweater with several inches of the yoke worked, crochet-chain provisional stitches where the sleeves will go

I kind of experimented with exactly how to work the decreases in the cables, seeing what was easiest while also looking good. It didn’t end up mattering too much exactly how I worked the decreases, in terms of looks. I think it was easiest to decrease in the back-cable section of stitches, so the decrease was hidden under the cable twist. However, I didn’t always have control over where to put the decrease, depending on when the decrease row happened within the cable pattern—at first, you can chose anywhere to decrease, but then you have a 3-over-3-over-2 cable and the next time you decrease it needs to be in one of those 3-stitch chunks, not the 2-stitch, and then when you have a 3-over-2-over-2 cable of course the next decrease needs to happen in the 3-stitch part. So where the decreases were placed would be determined for each cable round, whatever made the most sense.

Here’s vaguely how I worked my yoke decreases.
Rnd 1: Work even (knits as knits and purls as purls).
Rnd 2: Work cable row with every other cable decreasing 1 stitch (15 sts decreased total).
Rnd 3: Work even.
Rnd 4: Cable row with no decreases.
Rnds 5-6: Repeat Rnds 3-4.
Now repeat Rnds 1-4, so every other cable row is a decrease round, switching which half of cables is decreased, until all cables are down to 6-stitches wide (2-over-2-over-2). 210 stitches total.
Continue repeating Rnds 1-4 until all cables become 4-stitches wide on a Rnd 2 repeat, stopping after that Rnd 2.
Now repeat Rnds 1-2 only twice more so all cables are 3-stitches wide (1-over-1-over-1). 120 stitches total.

At this point, I worked some short rows for the back of the neck. I didn’t write down what I did, just worked back and fourth a few times, continuing the 3-stitch cables in pattern as established.

closeup of back neck short rows on sweater laying flat

Then I worked 1×1 ribbing for a few rounds, and I bound off using the Tubular Bind off. I was so relieved to try it on at this point and see that it worked!

Now the body was done, it just needed sleeves. I put the provisional stitches onto the needles, picked up 12 stitches along the underarms for each sleeve, and starting working stockinette around them, two at a time.

Lee wearing in-progress sweater with yoke completed, crochet-chain provisional stitches where the sleeves will go

I decreased 2 stitches every 7 or 8 rounds, until they were about 3 inches shorter than my desired final length. At that point, they were each 49 stitches, perfect for dividing into 6-stitch wide braided cables with 1 purl stitch between. I worked 2-over-2-over-2 braided cables with no knit-all rounds between for several rounds, to really pull in the cuffs, then I switched to working a round plain between cables to loosen up the bottoms of the cuffs. This was a weird improvised choice; if I were to re-knit the cuffs now I’d just do the plain row between cable rows for the whole cuffs. Oh well, they turned out find in the end!

closeup of cuffs on sweater laying flat

And that was it, I weaved in the ends, tried it on… it was good, but didn’t fit PERFECTLY… the neck was a bit tight and the sleeves were a little short.

Lee wearing finished sweater, pre-blocking, inside house

So when I blocked it, I pulled the neck to stretch it a bit bigger, and I tugged on the sleeves to lengthen them a little, and now it does fit perfectly, yay!! I love it so so so so much.

two photos of Lee wearing the sweater and holding arms up to show off the sleeves

Btw, the hat I’m wearing in these photos is my Siskiyou pattern in Knitted Wit yarn, one of my most-worn hats in the winter time!

Lee wearing the sweater looking away from the camera to show the back, hands on waist

I’ve improvised sweaters before, but just boxy drop-shoulder styles (this pullover and this pullover and this cardigan—these are all in my ravelry projects if you want to see them there) so this was my first shaped garment that wasn’t using a pattern someone designed. I’ve been editing garment patterns for my job for 5 years now, which means I’ve basically been knitting them in my head, so I think I’ve absorbed a lot of garment design basics that help my brain think about how to go about knitting a sweater without a pattern now. I plan to make many more like this, without a pattern, and I may have even cast on and started swatching a new idea for one last night! It’s so fun!

2023 Favorite Movies!

It’s time! I’ve finalized my 2023 movies list. I wanted to see as many 2023 releases as possibly possible before putting a cap on the list, so I kept watching them through the end of last week and then I messed with the order a bit more and called it done. I’m sure I’ll have second, third, eighth thoughts about the list order in the future but at some point you have to just call it done!

grid of twenty square images, cropped from movie posters so you can't see the movie titles on most of them

There were A LOT of great movies in 2023, and I watched 172 of them, so I decided to make an official top 20 list, and then include 15 extra honorable mentions, which are just my numbers 21-35. I am counting movies that became available for me to see (in Portland, Oregon, USA) in 2023, so that means a lot of movies on this list are labeled as 2022 in Letterboxd/IMDb but that’s because they premiered at festivals or in other countries that year. And some movies that were on a lot of critics’ lists are not eligible for mine because I don’t get to see them until 2024, so they may appear on 2024’s list.

Notes about where to watch things: I’ll say where they are currently available to stream at the time I’m writing this, but most are also available for digital rental, and where they are streaming might change by the time you’re reading this. I highly recommend JustWatch where you can search any movie (or TV show) and see where it’s available to watch. Some of these are very new and are only for rent (or in theaters) as I’m writing this but may be streaming somewhere in a couple of months.

With all that said, let’s go! Starting with my number 20 and working down to number 1…

a thousand and one movie poster
the artifice girl movie poster
the royal hotel movie poster

20) A Thousand and One. Small indie drama. Good damn movie, excellent acting, and a great subtle look at gentrification and its impacts, etc. Streaming on prime.

19) The Artifice Girl. This one I didn’t love at first, I think because I’d been expecting something completely different, and when it ended I was like, huh, that was something else, okay. Then I listened to some people talk about it, thought about it a bunch, and gave it a rewatch a few months later. Recommend it for sure, but be aware going in that it’s a very small movie (small budget, cast, setting) about big sci-fi ideas, but it’s mostly just talking. It’s so good tho and can’t wait to see what the filmmaker does next! Streaming free on hoopla and tubi.

18) The Royal Hotel. Another one with an internal conflict between my expectations and what it ended up being, but like in a really interesting way. I went in expecting not to like it very much and then kinda loved it. Very tense thriller where not a lot actually happens but you’re constantly on edge because you never know what might happen, and you’re really feeling the anxiety of the main character at all times. Another one I kept thinking about after. For rent.

sick of myself movie poster
lola movie poster
are you there god? it's me, margaret. movie poster

17) Sick of Myself. Wild movie. Not for everyone. So uncomfortable but I loved it. Streaming on paramount+ / showtime.

16) Lola. I love this movie. It’s not perfect (like, I can’t think too hard about some aspects or I start picking them apart) but low-budget indie sci-fi found footage + fighting nazis + time travel (ish) yesssss please thank you!! And it’s fun and funny and scary and sad, good stuff! (Also, it’s only 79 minutes long and streaming free, so no excuse not to check it out!) Streaming free on tubi.

15) Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Another one I had to sit with awhile; didn’t feel like I LOVED it immediately after watching (I never read the book so I didn’t have a personal connection beyond having been a tween girl) but then I found myself thinking about it, and it grew a bit in my mind, and I think I even ended up changing my star rating from 3.5 to 4 after a few days. Good stuff. Streaming on starz.

fremont movie poster
killers of the flower moon movie poster
the quiet girl movie poster

14) Fremont. Weird, so so funny at times, interesting, thoughtful, just really great and also that guy from The Bear who everyone loves is in it so check it out! Streaming on mubi.

13) Killers of the Flower Moon. I don’t think I need to say anything about this one, it’s great. Glad I was able to see it in the theater. Streaming on apple tv+.

12) The Quiet Girl. Went into this not knowing much except it was nominated for an Oscar last year and it popped up on Kanopy so I threw it on one night. I was knocked out by it! I’m gonna actually quote a Letterboxd review here that I read after watching because it made me love the movie even more than I already did: “…first watch since I saw a significant review call it boring. Each to their very own, of course, but there is so much taking place in glances and snippets and half-sentences and closeups of wallpaper and a stolen cup of milk and a single biscuit and a busybody and a broom and a card game and a weeping mattress and why haven’t they brought the hay in yet, that I simply cannot ever be bored by this gentle and perfect piece.” –review by Gemma G. So when I finished it, I thought it was a 2022 release since it was in last year’s Oscars, and I even snuck it onto my favorites list for that year, then I was so happy to later realize it didn’t come out in the US till ’23 so I could put it on this list! Streaming on hulu, and on kanopy for me (might vary by library).

anatomy of a fall movie poster
theater camp movie poster

11) Anatomy of a Fall. Another one I’m so glad I got to see in the theater. I highly recommend the filmspotting podcast discussion of this one if you’ve seen it; that made me appreciate the movie more that I already did. So good. Best kid actor AND best dog actor. For rent.

10) Theater Camp. This one, I liked it but didn’t LOVE it the first time—I don’t think I even had it on my in-progress favorites list early in the year, or maybe I did but it was low down in the honorable mentions zone. Then I rewatched it on New Years Eve, and I guess I was in just the perfect mood for it because it was SO FUNNY, I was laughing so much, alone in my living room. I guess it needed a second watch for me, it just clicked, I absolutely loved it. So I squeezed it into my top 10! I moved numbers 10-13 around a bunch, but in the end, I thought… this list is my favorites (not “best”) and Theater Camp was the most enjoyable for me to watch, so it gets the spot! Streaming on hulu.

barbie movie poster
poor things movie poster

9) Barbie. Again with the enjoyable factor. Just so fun. Watched this a second time too, and there are so many jokes packed into it, I still couldn’t even catch all the hidden visual jokes in the background. Love it. Streaming on max.

8) Poor Things. I was happy to get to place this side-by-side with Barbie on my list because they are so similar! Was also happy to have gotten to see this in the theater, excellent big-screen movie, visually spectacular. Not for everyone (the older couple sitting down the row from us walked out about 20 minutes in!) but so much going on, so interesting and creepy and fun and weird. (And for the record, I’m not a big Yorgos Lanthimos fan; this is his first one I’d say I loved.) Still in theaters.

how to blow up a pipeline movie poster
bottoms movie poster

7) How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Fucking fantastic. If the title makes you bristle, treat it as a heist movie. Streaming on hulu, and on kanopy for me (might vary by library).

6) Bottoms. Funniest movie of the year. So funny. SO so so so so funny. Streaming on mgm+.

blue jean movie poster

5) Blue Jean. This one hit me SO HARD. It’s not like breaking new ground or anything (indie drama about a lesbian teacher), but it’s just so well done at what it is. I LOVED the last 15 or so minutes (maybe even just 10 minutes, I think you’d know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it) so so so much, really stuck with me. And it’s EXTREMELY timely to right now in the US (and the UK too) even though it takes place in Newcastle in 1988. Streaming on hulu.

asteroid city movie poster

4) Asteroid City. Bought it on blu ray, rewatched once already, plan to rewatch more times. It’s so dense and complex and also fun and silly. Top tier Wes Anderson for me; we’ll see where it settles once it’s not new (and there are several I need to rewatch) but this could potentially be my favorite. Streaming on prime.

may december movie poster

3) May December. So much has been said about this movie, I don’t feel like I need to say anything beyond, it’s excellent. And Charles Melton deserves all the awards and success. (I loved this video essay if you want more!) Streaming on netflix.

rye lane movie poster

2) Rye Lane. Perfect rom com. Perfect movie. The art design, the clothes, the actors, the energy, the humor, the sweetness, everything. Perfect. Everyone who misses good rom coms should watch it. Everyone who thinks they don’t like rom coms should watch it. Everyone should watch it. Streaming on hulu.

past lives movie poster

1) Past Lives. I know for some this has an even more personal connection, but for me, this deeply personally relatable movie was about the human experience of only being able to have one life, and grieving the other lives you don’t get to have. Not because of regrets and not because you wish your life was different, but simply because we only get one life. And that realization is worthy of mourning when it surfaces. For rent; supposed to be on paramount+ / showtime on february 2.

grid of 15 movie posters: showing up, reality, revoir paris, priscilla, return to seoul, monica, lakota nation vs the united states, suzume, polite society, the eight mountains, mutt, riceboy sleeps, totally killer, influencer, infinity pool

And then, my honorable mentions list (or numbers 21-35)—I still REALLY loved all these, especially the ones in the top half, and wish they all could’ve fit in my top 20 but that’s not how numbers work:
Showing Up — streaming on paramount+ / showtime, hoopla, and on kanopy for me (might vary by library).
Reality — streaming on max.
Revoir Paris — streaming on prime, and on hoopla for me (might vary by library).
Priscilla — not streaming yet, but it’s supposed to be on max eventually.
Return to Seoul — streaming on prime.
Monica — streaming on amc+.
Lakota Nation vs. United States (I was terrible about watching documentaries in 2023, but I watched this one and it was excellent!) — streaming on amc+.
Suzume — streaming on crunchyroll.
Polite Society — streaming on prime.
The Eight Mountains — streaming on criterion.
Mutt — streaming on netflix.
Riceboy Sleeps — for rent.
Totally Killer — streaming on prime.
Influencer — streaming on amc+ and shudder.
Infinity Pool — streaming on hulu, and on kanopy for me (might vary by library).

To be honest, my honorable mentions were initially 13, ending with Totally Killer, but I wanted a nice clean grid so I forced 2 extras onto the end; I chose 2 horror movies that I liked because I was sad I had almost no horror on my entire list even though I love horror. Just not a good year for horror. Plenty that were fine or okay, just none that I really loved. Totally Killer was the only one I’d say I loved but that’s because of the fun time travel and 80s elements and stuff, not the actual horror of it. (It’s a wacky slasher that’s like “Murder Back to the Future” in the way that Happy Death Day is “Murder Groundhog Day” and Freaky is “Murder Freaky Friday”—so check it out if you like that kind of thing, which I do!) And honestly, I liked M3gan better than those last 2 I added, but I figured everyone knows that already so I wanted to choose ones people might not know or have seen. Influencer is really fun; Infinity Pool is definitely not for everyone but worth watching if you like horror!

spreadsheet of 172 movies listed with date watched, ranking, rating, and language if not english

That’s my list of all 172 movies I watched that were released in 2023, because I’m a spreadsheet nerd! I got that spreadsheet by downloading my data from Letterboxd and editing to be all the 2023 releases. In order to more easily keep track this year, throughout the year instead of just at the end, I plan to make a 2024 ranked list and add all the 2024 releases to the list as I watch them. So, 2023’s list was my 35 favorites; my 2024 list (no link yet because I haven’t watched any 2024 releases yet) will be ALL the 2024 releases I watched.

Letterboxd screenshot of Lee's year in film 2023: 472 diary entries, 47 reviews, 2 lists, 71 likes, 0 comments, 810.1 hours

And speaking of Letterboxd, here are my 2023 stats (everything I watched in 2023, so different from 2023 releases): 472 movies watched in 2023, including rewatches.

Letterboxd screenshot of genres, countries & languages (first highest are: drama, USA, English; second highest are: horror, UK, French) then theme & nanogenres (highest are terrifying, haunted, and supernatural horror, and eerie, bloody, horrifying) and breakdown which shows approx a quarter 2023 releases vs older, mostly first-time watches vs re-watches, and mostly not reviewed vs reviewed.

And those themes and nanogenres are fun! I think horror movies must have more overlapping nanogenres and themes, because I watched more drama than horror and yet almost all of those are horror, hah! I’m not constantly watching horror movies, I swear, letterboxd out here making its users look creepy af.

10 narrow vertical strips of movie posters, with poster colors going from red/orange on the left through to yellow, green, blue, and purple-pink at the right side

That’s it for 2023, glad I got this up while it’s still January at least! Maybe at the end of 2024 I’ll be able to do better about seeing everything I want to see in December and I’ll be able to finalize my list closer to the end of the year… it’s so hard though because so many possibly-good movies are released in theaters in December! And I’m usually only able to go to the theater once per weekend, so I can only see so many. Sigh. Anyway, let me know if you watch any of my favorites and what you think! Happy movie watching!

My 2023 wrap up… making & doing

I’ve thought of 2023 as Senior Year of the pandemic. Not because there’s any graduation or ending in sight, just because it was the fourth year, and I feel like we’ve all grown and changed so much since 2020, or Freshman Year. 2023 was a bit rough—it’s the year I finally got covid—and it’s also been, like, the year of finally feeling like we’re living normally within the new post-2020 world. First vacation since 2019, regularly going to movie theaters since we stopped in March 2020, working in the office part-time throughout the whole year.

Lee wearing a mask and a green cardigan in a movie theater

This is also the year I spent a long time re-thinking, re-designing, and finally re-launching this blog. There aren’t a ton of new posts yet, but I think it’s going okay so far. I’d made plans to “start blogging again” a couple of times over the years… and that never really worked out, as you can see by scrolling through my one single post in 2018, then one single post in 2019, then, well, nothing until I redesigned it last year. So that’s one big project I did in 2023! Restructuring my websites too—now that the year has come to an end, my old web server space (that I’d been paying for since December 2003, yes TWO THOUSAND THREE) is finally cancelled and leethalknits.com is no more, so I have plans to repost a lot of my old knitting tutorials that lived there here on this blog this year. Anyway, big change for me, no longer having that web space.

In other genres of making… knitting! I kind of returned to knitting / knit-designing for work a bit this year, which is awesome and I love it! I still do graphic design for all the books and patterns for Knit Picks (I’ve designed 61 books/ebooks total now! SIXTY ONE <surprised face emoji!>) but we’ve been cutting back a bit on books and I’ve now had time to also regularly design free knitting patterns for Knit Picks!

grid of 19 knit accessory patterns, mostly hats

I designed a bunch of hats in the last year and really enjoyed doing it! Hope for a lot more to come in the future. You can see all the patterns I’ve done for KP (most free, a few paid) on ravelry or Knit Picks, or I have a page on my payhip site where I list them (but that’s not always up to date).

silly photoshopped image of me and Stacey sitting in chairs at a desk but cropped off mid-body, and photos of Alena, Regan, Jen, and Andi on the wall

For work, I am also the cohost of the Knit Picks Podcast, which comes out twice a month most of the year (with short hiatuses in summer and for the holidays right now). I always chat with Stacey about what knitting projects I’ve been working on, so give that a listen if you’re into that kind of thing. (We also interview people and have other coworkers join us.) I’ve chatted a lot about starting new sweaters without finishing ones I already have on the needles, but lately I’ve been trying to finish some for the end of the year!

I finished this Andean Treasure cardigan (the Atrium pattern from the book Metropolitan Knits) very recently, which I absolutely love, and which I started in 2019! Ooooops. Here it is on ravelry or on instagram for more info/photos.

And I finished this Chroma Twist pullover (which is the Ice Fire Wrap pattern converted into a simple drop-shoulder sweater) last night, at the time of writing this! (Okay I started writing this post a couple weeks before finishing it… I finished the sweater on December 30th, just in time for it to be a 2023 FO!) Here it is on ravelry or on instagram for more info/photos.

In the first half of the year I knit a couple of gifts that I was really happy with: an improvised hat with yarn that I spun, and Elizabeth Zimmermann’s 2-piece Baby Jacket in sock yarn leftovers, held double. I have two more knit sweaters and one crochet sweater still actively on the needles right now, plus another sweater that I kinda started over a year ago but never really got going on, and another sweater that I got pretty far on a couple of years ago, and then lost a yarn ball that I need to find… anyway, those will be 2024 projects! Oh and my movie-sweater project—I knit a stripe every time I see a movie in the theater (on ravelry here).

As for sewing, for the last couple of years I haven’t been doing a ton. I did sew a few things I love this year, like these pants! (Free Range Slacks pattern, one of my most-used patterns.) And those navy blue pants I’m wearing with the Ice Fire sweater above (Peppermint Wide-Leg Pants pattern).

And two very comfy pairs of flannel pants, both made with thrifted flannel sheets, both using the Luna Pants pattern.

And these two pairs of shorts, both using the Iris Shorts pattern, which I like a lot!

2 photos of Lee: on the left wearing a bucket hat, a white and blue tee, and shorts that look like a skirt with a colorful print; on the right wearing an orange bucket hat, a black tank top, and a belt bag cross-body with illustrations of glasses and pencils on it

And also these Skye Shorts, which look like a skirt! And then I grabbed the Rey pattern set from Seamwork which is a belt bag and bucket hat, and I got kind of obsessed with making bucket hats!

I made a few bucket hats for myself, wore them a ton in the summer, and then went wild making bucket hats for Christmas gifts for my entire family! So fun!

I custom-picked the fabric for each person’s hat from Spoonflower, and used thrifted fabrics for the solid-color sides. They are all reversible and have plain solid neutrals on the other sides.

I think that covers everything I sewed all year (except my Halloween costume, which I mentioned at the end of my last blog post), but I did buy some fabric throughout the year, so I REALLY plan to get back into regular garment sewing in 2024! For real!

I talked A LOT about movie stuff in my last two posts so I won’t spend much time on that, but this was definitely the year I got REALLY back into movies, spending a ton of time watching them, shopping for blu rays / DVDs, keeping up my Letterboxd, etc. A major hobby of 2023 for sure.

I was also still really into cooking as a hobby (which I got REALLY into in late 2021 and have been ever since), as well as gardening in the summer months, which I link with cooking since I garden for the food. 2022 was the first year I got REALLY into gardening, built a big raised bed and another smaller bed, sewed a bunch of fabric grow bags, woodchipped the whole garden, etc. In 2023 I built another smaller raised bed and sewed more bags and expanded what I grew.

I grew almost everything from seed, with a whole seed-starting station in the house with three grow lights. So fun to start with a tiny seed and watch what it becomes!! I did this fun seed-organizing project too, using VHS cases! (More on instagram about that.)

two zinnias, one orange an the other red in the center and white around the outside of the petals

I also got more into growing flowers than I had before, because I learned how important it is for flowers to attract the bees and other pollinators who will then pollinate the food plants, so it’s all connected and also zinnias are so pretty!

tomatillos growing

Gardening has been a frustrating hobby for me, since my yard gets A LOT of shade thanks to some very large trees, so between that and the slugs and squirrels and aphids, I have a lot of factors I have little to no control over making it hard to be successful.

With all that, I still managed to grow a good amount of tomatoes (15 different types!), peppers, beans, tomatillos, greens… and a much smaller amount of squash, cucumbers, carrots, beets, potatoes… and even now in January I’m still eating kale, leeks, and some herbs fresh from the garden!

This year, I plan to focus on the things I most like to eat, and the things that have been relatively easy in my experience, and not try to grow ALL THE THINGS. Easier said than done… it’s always so enticing in the spring to start ALL THE SEEDS when they are tiny seed-starting cells and it feels so low-commitment. Then summer comes and things are taking up space that aren’t all looking healthy and I don’t even love to eat some of the things and it feels very silly to be nurturing plants like that but I’ve done this to myself. Sigh.

And then in 2023 I made a lot of delicious foods! I’ll just show you the things that I made for the first time in 2023, to keep things limited. I made hot sauce using very hot peppers from my farm share. It turned out TOO HOT for me, so I separated it into 2 bottles, the super hot one for Pete to use, and I blended the rest with a peach and it worked so well! Delicious!

I made kimchi for the first time using napa cabbage leaves that I grew! My cabbages didn’t form heads, but the leaves still worked, and the kimchi was great!

I made nocino using green walnuts from my friend Anna’s yard. I made two kinds, one with lots of added spices, and the other with only cinnamon sticks and nothing else. As of late December, the cinnamon-only batch tasted good and the other one did not, but I’m leaving it to sit for longer and hoping it tastes better after more time!

I got very into soups in the fall and winter! I used leeks that I grew to make potato leek soup and it was soooo good, and I made pozole verde using tomatillos I grew (and soy curls as the “chicken”) and I loved it so much!! Will definitely make again, an excellent way to use tomatillos!

I made a vegan corn chowder for my annual soup swap, which was very fun as always. This year’s soup swap is coming up soon and I’m thinking I’m gonna make a pumpkin-beer-cheese soup with black beans that I tried recently and was delicious.

I made bagels! They were soo good. I need to make them again. They were surprisingly pretty easy to make; the hardest/most annoying/messiest part was adding the toppings so I had a plan to make them again without toppings, maybe just adding something to the dough itself instead. But I still haven’t done it, oops. I will soon!

I made deli “meat”! I’m a big fake-meat lover, so I wanted to try this recipe, but it turned out a little disappointing. Very airy, like a spongy texture, almost. I still enjoyed eating sandwiches with it, but I’d try a different recipe next time.

I started 2023 by making sushi rolls on New Years Day! It was a serious project, took many hours total, but was delicious and fun to eat and worth it to do once in awhile as a treat. I did it again in October, but not quite as many rolls or different fillings that time. I did mostly no-fish rolls—I think I used one can of smoked salmon but that was the only fish. I made chickpea-based and tofu-based imitation crab salad kinda things, and then just lots of different veggies, teriyaki tofu, cream cheese, etc.

As for other things besides making… I took a trip to Des Moines (to visit my brother and now-sister-in-law) and Chicago (just for vacation, my first time there) and it was great! Above is Pete, me, Renée, and Matt at the Iowa State Fair, which was very weird and had a lot of tasty food!

I got to meet and hang out with Renée’s kids which was the best part of the trip—they are awesome kids, and I’m so happy they are now part of my family!! Matt met Renée in… 2018? 2017? But they lived in different states, then he moved from California to Iowa in 2020 (I think? time is blurry) and this was my first time seeing his new home and meeting his family so it was a long time coming and a fantastic time!

So then since we were taking the trip out to the midwest, and we had the vacation days, and we had friends taking care of the cats and garden, we decided to also go to Chicago. It was a long trip, around 5 days in Iowa and 5 days in Chicago, some of those being partially travel days, so it was basically 2 very different vacations back-to-back, which was A LOT after not having traveled since 2019. But no regrets, it was worth it, just exhausting!

In Chicago, we tried to explore as many different neighborhoods as possible during our time there. Our favorites were Pilsen and Avondale; there were so many cool spots, stores, museums, etc, all over the city. Above is the Haymarket memorial statue, very cool to see. I posted more photos and wrote more details about where we went and stuff on instagram if you’re interested: day 0 (just there in the evening/night) and day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4.

A few months before our big trip, to test out being away from the cats overnight (because we got them in summer 2019 and had never left them alone for a single night!!) we took a one-night trip to Bend and the Painted Hills, beautiful!

A highlight was that the last remaining Blockbuster is in Bend, so fun! It’s a fully functioning Blockbuster, just like the one I worked at in college (2003-2004 in San Diego) but it also has some kind of museum display stuff on one side. I bought a couple of previously-rented DVDs and a mug as souvenirs. So silly to think it was just my workplace 20 years ago and now it’s this novelty.

I also took a trip in December down to Burbank to hang out with my parents and see my other two brothers. I got some knitting done with Gracie the cat supervising. Ate some good California Mexican food, yum!

Thinking back on 2023, a few hard times stand tall in my memories… first, in February, on the day Portland got the second most snowfall in one day in all of recorded history, our old furnace broke and, after a series of events involving a despicable company and then a very good company, we ended up being without a working furnace for (I think…) about 10 days. Thank goodness for space heaters and electric blankets! We were okay but it was a very stressful time. If you’re in Portland, never ever ever consider using Pyramid Heating, and I do highly recommend Three Rivers Heating.

Then the day after we lost heat in the snow storm (or possibly late that night), a tree (okay, a big chunk of tree, but it was the size of a small tree!) fell on our house in the back yard. It didn’t do any damage, but it was a whole other thing to deal with during an already stressful time. That’s a week I’d never want to relive.

And lastly, speaking of times I’d never want to relive, in October we both got covid for the first time. My first symptom was 100 days ago today as I’m writing this, and I’m happy to say I feel very close to 100% of my old self now. I think I crossed a line around New Years Day… For most of December, I was still coughing almost every day, getting tired more easily, etc, but I think the last time I had to use the inhaler I was prescribed was mid-December, and for the last couple of weeks I have not been coughing at all most days.

Anyway, moving backwards, we managed not to get covid until then with a combination of very good luck, always masking indoors, never eating inside restaurants, and avoiding high-risk situations. We took these precautions on our midwest trip and made it home safely and healthy. But masks and luck will only take you so far, and Pete finally brought it home from the office at the beginning of October. Both of our first symptom was a very sudden bad stomach ache; his on October 5th and mine late on the night of October 7th. Because no other symptoms came with the stomach ache at first, we figured it was something we ate and had no reason to think it was covid. But then he had his first flu-like symptoms on October 8th, felt worse on the 9th, and then I started feeling it on the 10th, and that’s the day he tested positive. So, it was clear based on that that he was the one who got it first and gave it to me, and that he was carrying it and likely very contagious without knowing on the 6th-8th… which was important because we went to a party on the 7th! Because we always mask indoors, we stayed in the outdoors section of the party the whole time, except to go inside to grab food, where we masked. Of course we were two of the only people who put masks on to go inside, but hey, turns out we would’ve probably given covid to a bunch of people if we weren’t, so yeah. As far as I know (and of course I told the party host and my friends who were there!) no one got covid at that party. Masks are good, wear them, they work, they kept us healthy for almost 4 years, and they kept others safe from us as well.

Lee and Pete, both wearing masks, in a store with a turquoise wall and a bunch of framed, reflected in a mirror

And because that paragraph was so long, I’ll repeat that both of us had sudden stomach aches as our first symptom, 2+ days before other symptoms, so if you think you may have had an exposure and you have a weird stomach ache out of nowhere, consider that a warning sign that you should stay home and avoid others for a few days just in case (or at least wear a mask!). After the main symptoms started, Pete was lucky and only felt very sick for a couple of days. He was already feeling much better by day 3 and then had some lingering cough and ickyness for maybe 2 weeks total but not bad at all. Me, on the other hand, I got much worse on the second day, and then worse again on the third day… I couldn’t eat anything, I couldn’t do anything. I called the doctor to try to get paxlovid I think on day 3 of main symptoms, couldn’t get through to anyone all day, got a video call appointment the next day, was told I didn’t qualify for paxlovid, but she prescribed me 4 other medications, for nausea, cough, respiratory. They helped somewhat (the nausea one helped A LOT since my biggest problem was not being able to eat) but I stayed very sick for quite a long time. I took a week off work completely, and then I managed to work from home for the next two weeks since I didn’t want to use all my time off but I was very foggy working for at least that first week. Once I tried doing anything other than sit on the couch, I would get very tired quickly… and then after like 4 full weeks I’d try doing things like go to the office for a day, or go to a fiber festival, and I’d have to fully rest the whole next day to recover. If I did two things in a row, like go to the office for a partial day, then stop at a grocery store on the way home, I’d feel so tired like I’d run a marathon by the end of it. So all throughout November and most of December I tried to have a rule for myself that I could do one thing per day. Like, go to a store, or go to the office, or cook a complex meal, etc, and pretty much rest the rest of the day. Like I said, finally around the end of December, I felt my body shift and I no longer get exhausted from doing two things in a row or whatever else. I’ve taken some long-ish walks recently and they’ve gone well. So I’m very relieved because after a couple months had gone by and I felt how I did, I was quite worried I might be stuck that way! I do think that forcing myself to rest as much as I did throughout those months helped my body to heal and return to normal.

Phew, that was wordy and not so fun (so here’s a random photo of socks that I finished knitting early in the year) but I wanted to write about it! I am terrified of how my body might handle a second covid infection, so I will be continuing to live how I’ve been living for the last almost-4 years. I know I’m different from most people, but I do encourage anyone who read this far to think about how hard it is to wear a mask indoors versus how hard it would be to live with long covid. For me, it’s a non-issue. Wearing a mask is so easy and just totally normal now, even if I’m the only one in the room. Covid is still mysterious in so many ways because it’s so new, but a lot of experts, researchers, doctors are thinking about it as similar to HIV nowadays, in how it affects immune systems. People are getting basic colds now that last weeks and feel brutal because their immune systems are messed up from multiple covid infections. I very strongly believe that it’s in everyone’s best interest to avoid getting it as much as possible, so I’ll use this tiny platform to say that. I don’t plan to talk about it more on this blog unless there’s a reason to, but it was a major part of my 2023, so that’s that. Happy new year!

Lee's shoes on the ground below a spray painted stenciled quote: you have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world and you have to do it all the time -angela davis

My Favorite Movies of 2022… plus movies in 2020 and beyond

I initially wrote a massively long post about my love of movies over the last several years, with multiple favorites lists, and then I realized that was ridiculous and I needed to at least split it into two parts. So, my previous movies post became part one, which was kind of just about movies in general and leading up to 2020 and my faves-of-the-decade list… so now we’re at 2020.

I was always up and down with how much attention I gave to new movie releases and stuff, but I pretty much always gave movies some amount of care and attention. And then 2020 hit. The year of 2020 was okay, movie-wise, actually, because theaters shut down, and all new releases were happening on streaming. So I was continuing to pay attention that year, listen to my podcasts, catch as many new movies as I could. I was keeping up enough that I made a top-ten list at the end of that year. I posted that on social media and then I have heavily updated it on Letterboxd over the last couple years, adding ones that I hadn’t seen yet when I made the original list, and moving things around a little (the order is very arbitrary… every time I look at the list I want to movie things around, and there are several I want to revisit and possibly reassess):

screenshot of 18 numbered movie posters: 1. portrait of a lady on fire 2. Sound of Metal 3. the 40-year-old version 4. promising young woman 5. kajillionaire 6. birds of prey 7. soul 8. palm springs 9. the half of it 10. the vast of night 11. crip camp 12. the lodge 13. minari 14. first cow 15. the assistant 16. the invisible man 17. never rarely sometimes always 18. my octopus teacher

And then 2021 hit… that was when things got hard. Movies were being released in theaters but I wasn’t going to theaters. Listening to film podcasts started making me sad. I mostly stopped paying attention to new releases. I started watching mostly TV shows. I started keeping a Diary on Letterboxd in 2021 and logging all the movies I watched—I was still watching movies on streaming sites, but mostly just whatever I came across while browsing. This continued on through 2022. We went and saw Nope in the theater that summer, but we were anxious about it, and it was fine but it didn’t make us excited to keep going to the theaters, so that was the only time we went that year.

In November of 2022 something in me snapped back in to place and I suddenly wanted to watch all the good movies that had been released that year! I started listening to my podcasts again, and started watching some movie YouTube channels. I don’t know why it happened so suddenly, but I just wanted to watch everything! I think it had to do with crossing a line around that time from feeling like I was waiting for things to go back to normal, to coming to terms with the *new normal* and knowing that we were never returning to 2019-life. The movies that had been made were available for me to watch at home, and at that point I’d been watching movies solely at home for two and a half years, so I was used to it, and there was nothing I was waiting for, so I just decided to dive in and catch up on everything I’d missed!

So from November 2022 through January 2023 I watched as many 2022 releases as I possibly could, and then I made a massive favorites list! It was this intense project that I put so much time and thought into, like I was making up for the past two years of not caring about movies. So below is that list in reverse order; it started as my top 25 of the year, and then I since added three more that I didn’t have the ability to watch until later.

Notes about where to watch things: I’ll say where they are currently available to stream at the time I’m writing this, but most are also available for digital rental, and where they are streaming might change by the time you’re reading this. I highly recommend JustWatch (I use the app on my phone but you can just use it in a browser) where you can search any movie (or TV show) and see where it’s available to watch. Also, Kanopy is my favorite streaming service and it’s completely FREE with my public library card! If you don’t have it, look into if it works with your library! (Hoopla is also free with library card and very cool but they don’t have as many movies.)

*JustWatch seems to be having an issue with Kanopy and newer movies—Kanopy is not showing up as an option for a lot of movies that I know are on it, on my app. So if I list Kanopy* that means it’s there for me, but JustWatch doesn’t list it, so maybe it’s not for all libraries, I’m not sure.

And again with the arbitrary ordering… I agonized over the order at the time when I made the list, but now, almost a year later, some of these have stuck with me much more than others and I feel like my order would be quite different if I did it all over again now. I still at least like all the movies though, so whatever it’s fine!

So here they are, my top 28 films of 2022!

poster for the movie Three Minutes: A Lengthening
poster for the movie Emily the Criminal
poster for the movie Meet Cute

28. Three Minutes: A Lengthening. A documentary about a short film snippet of a group of people in a Jewish village in Poland in 1938. Currently streaming on Kanopy and Hulu.

27. Emily the Criminal. (Kinda want to take this off the list because I’m mad at Aubrey Plaza for that fucking milk ad; only partially kidding…) Currently streaming on Netflix.

26. Meet Cute. I think a lot of people didn’t like this because they expected a silly rom-com, which it is not. What it is is a time-travel movie about depression, and I kind of loved it. Currently streaming on Peacock.

poster for the movie God's Country
poster for the movie On the Count of Three
poster for the movie Significant Other

25. God’s Country. Intense. Currently streaming on Hulu and AMC+.

24. On the Count of Three. Another comedy about depression, light on the comedy heavy on the depression. Currently streaming on Hulu.

23. Significant Other. Sci-fi horror with some original elements that made me really like it. Currently streaming on Paramount+.

poster for the movie Fire Island
poster for the movie all the beauty and the bloodshed
poster for the movie Riotsville USA

22. Fire Island. Super duper fun. Currently streaming on Hulu.

21. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Icon. Currently streaming on Max and Kanopy*.

20. Riotsville, USA. EXTREMELY relevant today, and also a very engaging doc. Currently streaming on Hulu.

poster for the movie Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
poster for the movie Bros
poster for the movie We're All Going to the World's Fair

19. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Currently streaming on Netflix.

18. Bros. I know a lot of people didn’t like this, but I thought it was a really cute and fun rom com and I liked the cheesiness and the song at the end! Currently streaming on Prime.

17. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Not for everyone, very slow and not much happens, but it stuck with me and made me think a lot. I will say, I’ve seen people compare Skinamarink to this and I hated that one, so I don’t think they are much alike although I understand the comparison. Currently streaming on Max and Kanopy*.

poster for the movie Something in the Dirt
poster for the movie Prey
poster for the movie Not Okay

16. Something in the Dirt. Another weird one that made me think a lot! Currently streaming on Hulu.

15. Prey. Excellent. (A note: I’ve never seen any other Predator movie and that didn’t affect my enjoyment of this one.) Currently streaming on Hulu.

14. Not Okay. I don’t think many people have seen this one, but I think it’s worth watching! Currently streaming on Hulu.

poster for the movie She Said
poster for the movie Glass Onion
poster for the movie Triangle of Sadness

13. She Said. I thought this was fantastic and it hit me very hard and I’m a bit angry that it got little awards attention and I think most people just never watched it. Currently streaming on Prime.

12. Glass Onion. Just a really really fun time! Currently streaming on Netflix.

11. Triangle of Sadness. So much fun. One of the only movies on this list I’ve already watched twice, first alone and then I had to show it to Pete. I had originally squeezed it into my top ten but then I had to add one more later so it got bumped to 11. Currently streaming on Hulu and Kanopy*.

poster for the movie Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
poster for the movie Hit the Road
poster for the movie The Fallout

10. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Currently streaming on Paramount+, Showtime, and Kanopy*.

9. Hit the Road. Currently streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Paramount+, and Showtime.

8. The Fallout. Simple but extremely effective for me. Made me a huge fan of Jenna Ortega. Currently streaming on Max.

poster for the movie Women Talking
poster for the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once
poster for the movie Aftersun

7. Women Talking. This is one that I wasn’t able to watch until after I made the initial list—I loved it so much that I had to squeeze it into the top ten. Currently streaming on Prime and MGM+.

6. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Currently streaming on Prime, Paramount+, Showtime, and Kanopy*.

5. Aftersun. Currently streaming on Paramount+, Showtime, and Kanopy*.

poster for the movie Nope
poster for the movie After Yang
poster for the movie Petite Maman

4. Nope. So so good. These top five were hard to put in order! For awhile I think this was in the number two spot. Currently streaming on Prime.

3. After Yang. One of my favorite genres: quiet drama that’s also sci-fi. By the writer/director of Columbus. Currently streaming on Kanopy*.

2. Petite Maman. By the writer/director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. As an extra bonus, it’s only an hour and 12 minutes long. (This is generally listed as a 2021 release but I went by US release dates.) Currently streaming on Kanopy and Hulu.

poster for the movie Barbarian

And my number 1 of the year: Barbarian! I randomly put it on one night thinking it was just a whatever-horror movie, and WHOA. I tweeted this immediately after watching it: “I just watched this—was planning to do some crafty stuff while watching but once it started I was so tense & not wanting to look away, I ended up watching the entire thing without multitasking (rare for me!!) and pulling Karl onto my lap for comfort when it got scary. Very good!” Then I listened to some podcasts talk about it, and watched some YouTube videos (this is a good one!) and I kept liking it more and more. I watched it again with Pete and it completely held up on a rewatch. It’s just so fucking good. Currently streaming on Hulu and Max (and NO physical media release planned! so sad!!).

So after I finished making that list, I kept on paying attention to new movies, watching whatever I could, listening to my podcasts… I have an in-progress 2023 list where I’m dropping all movies that I give 4 stars or higher, so I’ll finalize that into an official list in January, once I’m able to see all the 2023 releases I want to see. (Frustrating how so many come out right at the end of the year, or have had a very limited release so are on critics’ lists but still aren’t available digitally for the rest of us.)

Lee and Pete wearing colorful clothes and masks in front of a movie sign that says Barbie 5:20

In the summer we wanted to join the Barbenheimer fun, with Barbie being the one we were actually excited to see, and opening weekend happened to be Pete’s birthday weekend too! So we dressed up in our most Barbie-and-Ken-esque clothes, masked up, and saw it at our local chain theater, which happens to have comfy recliner seats, making it extra spread out. We had a great time and decided we were ready to start seeing movies in the theater again!

The difference between summer 2022 and summer 2023, in terms of comfort level in a movie theater, for me anyway, I think, is that by summer 2023 I’d been required to work in the office part-time for over a year, so I’d gotten very used to being in an indoor space for many hours in a row, wearing a mask, around lots of people not wearing masks. In summer 2022 that wasn’t super normal for me yet and I’d get anxious in a space for a length of time like that; by this year, it’s just life. So being in a theater is comfortable again! Yay!

Lee wearing a plaid t-shirt and a mask standing in front of a wooden door with a chalkboard sign that says Talk to Me now playing

We’ve now seen eleven movies in the theater this year so far! Some have been great (like Anatomy of a Fall) and others not (hated Saltburn), and there are ones we’ve watched at home that I really wish we’d seen in the theater (most recent was May December). I’m just glad to be going again, I missed it so much!

A final side note, my fave theater experience of the year was not a 2023 film—it was the remastered Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense at the Hollywood Theater, so good!! I’d never seen it before, so seeing it for the first time on the big screen with a crowd was amazing and instantly turned me into a huge Talking Heads fan! I took my Halloween costume idea from it even, Tina Weymouth in the jumpsuit she wore in that doc:

side-by-side images of Lee dressed in a blue-grey pants and top outfit, holding an 80s bass guitar, and Tina Weymouth from the Stop Making Sense documentary wearing her awesome grey jumpsuit

Moviiiiies! My off-and-on life obsession, and my faves of the 2010s list

I’ve always loved movies, always always, but I’ve also kind of fluctuated with how big a part of my life movies are. My whole family was always big into movies… in fact, my brothers loved horror movies from an age way too young to actually watch them! They just loved the idea of horror movies and like the trailers/commercials and pictures, and would dress up at Halloween every year as characters from movies they hadn’t seen. When I was 10 or 11 (?) I was Garth from Wayne’s World (which I’m pretty sure I also hadn’t actually seen), Matt (8ish) was some kind of horror villain dude, and Ben (6ish) was The Terminator. (Ben is now a cinematographer, and has worked on horror movies like Bone Cold, Dylan’s New Nightmare, and 13 Fanboy. Paul is also a filmmaker!)

old photo of four kids dressed up for Halloween, lined up tallest to shortest in front of a door. first is dressed as Garth from Wayne's World, second is some kind of blood-splattered bad guy with a bat-like weapon, third is wearing a mask with metal on one half and a black denim jacket and red boots, and the fourth is a firefighter

So I lived in a movie-loving household, and in high school I would go to the movies pretty much every weekend, then in college I stopped for a few years because I lived on campus without a car and it was a big deal to go see a movie, but also I started taking film classes so I was learning about older movies and watching different kinds of things that were new-to-me. In my last year of college I worked at Blockbuster Video so I rented tons of movies and was going to the theater a bit more too. Then for a few years after that, money was tight and I didn’t live near any cheap second-run theaters so my main movie consumption was Netflix DVDs… until we moved to Portland in 2007 where (at that time) there were a bunch of awesome cheap second-run theaters!! So we started seeing tons of movies all the time, basically up until 2020. (The Laurelhurst theater below is one we used to go to a lot, back when it used to be second-run, mocked up with movie posters I designed for graphic design school!)

Also, in that time, post-2007 until I went back to school in 2016, when my full-time job was knit designing I would watch tons of movies while knitting for work… I got into several film podcasts—I’ve been listening to Filmspotting since I lived in California in 2006, and am still a regular listener; my number one fave film podcast now is Maximum Film! since I discovered it around 2019 I think. In 2011 I even did a year-of-movies thing on the blog where I watched 365 for the year and kept track of them all (like a proto-Letterboxd-Diary). Over the years I had phases when I’d watch lots of old stuff, criterion-type stuff, etc, although when I was designing I couldn’t really do subtitles because I needed to look at my knitting/notes.

maximum film podcast logo
filmspotting podcast logo

These days, I knit a lot of more basic things just for fun, so I can knit to subtitles, and I’ve been watching lots of movies in other languages this year! I was initially going to have this blog post be catching up on movie stuff up to the present but that got WAY too long, so I’ll be posting again soon with my 2022 best-of list and more present-day movie stuff.

DVD or blu ray copies of these movies lined up on a shelf: never let me go, scott pilgrim, cabin in the woods, bridesmaids, safety not guaranteed, frances ha, her, what we do in the shadows, grand budapest hotel, inside out, the witch, arrival, 20th century women, blindspotting, annihilation, us, parasite

In January of 2020 I put together a list of my top films of the past decade—my top two of each year 2010-2019. So, it’s a bit different from what my actual top 20 of the decade might be. I also only allowed myself one film per director on the list, to help narrow things down. Below is my resulting list!

I’ll say where each movie is currently available to stream at the time I’m writing this, but most are also available for digital rental, and where they are streaming might change by the time you’re reading this. I highly recommend JustWatch (I use the app on my phone but you can just use it in a browser) where you can search any movie (or TV show) and see where it’s available to watch.

My Faves of the Decade:

poster for the movie Never Let Me Go
poster for the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

2010 number 1: Never Let Me Go (currently streaming on Starz); number 2: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (currently streaming on Netflix). I loved Never Let Me Go so much that after I saw the movie I read the book, then I got the movie on DVD and watched it again, then years later I listened to the audiobook. (I’m not usually a big rewatch/reread person—too much new stuff!!) One of my top favorite movies and books of all time. If you haven’t seen or read it, I recommend doing whichever you prefer to do first—I really think the book and the film are both worth anyone’s time. If you have no idea what it is, I’ll tell you it’s a kind of soft-sci-fi drama, but I actually went into the movie knowing nothing about it, not even the trailer or plot summary, and I’m glad I did, so I’d recommend not reading anything at all about it!

poster for the movie Cabin in the Woods
poster for the movie Bridesmaids

2011 number 1: The Cabin in the Woods (currently streaming on Roku, Tubi, Pluto—all free with ads); number 2: Bridesmaids (currently streaming on Peacock). I loved Cabin in the Woods so much when I first saw it that I saw it twice in the theater! I can’t think of another movie I went to twice in the theater since Titanic when I was 15. I don’t know how well it holds up now though because I haven’t watched it in probably ten years.

poster for the movie Safety Not Guaranteed
poster for the movie Frances Ha

2012 number 1: Safety Not Guaranteed (currently only available for rent); number 2: Frances Ha (currently streaming on Kanopy—free with library card, Netflix, Mubi, Criterion, AMC+, and Tubi—free with ads). If I rewatched both of these now I’d probably switch the order. I loved SNG so much when I first saw it in the theater, and then I bought it on blu ray and rewatched and haven’t seen it again since; whereas Frances Ha, for some reason, I didn’t see when it was new, and I actually didn’t see until I was making this list in 2020 and looking for blindspots. I absolutely loved it, and I’ve since bought the Criterion blu ray, but it felt weird to put a movie I’d just seen for the first time as my number one fave from 8 years earlier.

poster for the movie Only Lovers Left Alive
poster for the movie Her

2013 number 1: Only Lovers Left Alive (currently only available for rent); number 2: Her (currently streaming on Max). I’ve seen each of these only once and really need to give them both a rewatch! I think I’ll still love them both.

poster for the movie what we do in the shadows
poster for the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel

2014 number 1: What We Do in the Shadows (currently only available for rent); number 2: The Grand Budapest Hotel (currently only available for rent). Another pair I think I’d flip now, or I actually think I’d probably choose a different film instead of WWDITS just because I feel like that one was really of its time, and there are a few others I like better than it now, shrug.

poster for the movie Inside Out
poster for the movie The Witch

2015 number 1: Inside Out (currently streaming on Disney+); number 2: The Witch (currently streaming on Kanopy—free with library card—and Max). Yet another I’d change if I edited the list now—I haven’t seen The Witch (or the vvitch) since the theater, so I’d want to rewatch. I did actually rewatch Inside Out a couple years ago and I feel like I didn’t love it as much I did the first time… and I think there were some other 2015 releases that have risen higher for me now.

poster for the movie Arrival
poster for the movie 20th Century Women

2016 number 1: Arrival (currently streaming on Hoopla—free with library card, Paramount+, and Pluto); number 2: 20th Century Women (currently streaming on Kanopy—free with library card—and Max). Love these both so so much.

poster for the movie The Florida Project
poster for the movie Lady Bird

2017 number 1: The Florida Project (currently streaming on Kanopy—free with library card, Hoopla—free with library card, Showtime, and Paramount+); number 2: Lady Bird (currently streaming on Kanopy—free with library card, Netflix, Paramount+, and Showtime). So good.

poster for the movie Blindspotting
poster for the movie Annihilation

2018 number 1: Blindspotting (currently streaming on Max); number 2: Annihilation (currently streaming on Hoopla—free with library card, Paramount+, and Pluto).

poster for the movie Us
poster for the movie Parasite

2019 number 1: Us (currently streaming on Netflix); number 2: Parasite (currently streaming on Max). These two are kind of tied, and I need to watch Parasite again because I only saw it in the theater, then I might flip them… but there’s something weird about my personal number one movie of a year also being the Best Picture Oscar winner, you know?

A big stack of 17 DVDs and blu rays and a smaller chunk of 8 more lined up against the stack
physical copies of movies from faves of 2010s and faves of 2018 and 2019 lists

Looking up JustWatch for beloved older movies to see where they’re streaming is reinforcing my commitment to buying movies I love on physical media! I own all the movies on this list except three and I’m on the lookout for those. I buy a lot of used DVDs and blu rays and also Criterions during sales and I’ve started buying more recent releases new if I really love them, to support the films and to support physical media continuing to exist! Best Buy announced they will no longer have physical media next year; Barnes & Noble still does and they are my favorite chain store to buy from (online or in-store). Of course I prefer buying from a local non-chain when possible, but sadly most of the places where I used to buy them either closed or have little to no movies anymore, and the place where I love shopping for used ones barely has any new. Anyway, I love having a physical collection!

screenshot of 13 numbered movie posters: 1. blindspotting 2. a simple favor 3. annihilation 4. the miseducation of cameron post 5. sorry to bother you 6. if beale street could talk 7. can you ever forgive me? 8. eighth grade 9. roma 10. game night 11. burning 12. juliet, naked 13. hereditary

If you like lists, I also have best-of lists on Letterboxd for 2018 (above), 2019 (below), 2020 & 2022 which I’ll do a separate blog post about, and an in-progress list for this year, which I’ve basically been using to drop in all movies that I give 4 stars or higher, making it easier to form my list at the end of the year.

screenshot of 10 numbered movie posters: 1. Us 2. Parasite 3. ready or not 4. booksmart 5. knives out 6. the last black man in san francisco 7. wild rose 8. doctor sleep 9. hustlers 10. marriage story

I joined Letterboxd around 2018 I think, but started using the Diary to log everything I watch in 2021. I love having that record, and the longer I do it the more I can use it to look back and see if I’ve already seen something (and if I liked it, etc), since my movie memory gets foggy after awhile. I love Letterboxd so much that I wanted to include it as a social media link on this blog, but the WordPress template doesn’t have a logo for it, so that generic link at the top after the twitter bird goes to my Letterboxd profile. If you love movies, I highly recommend it! I love looking at reviews on there after watching a movie, especially if I really loved it (or really didn’t)!

So all this kind of leaves off at the end of the previous decade. I’ll do a separate post with my more recent lists, because (spoiler alert) I made a top 28 faves list for 2022!! And since it’s so recent I wanted to really list them all out. If you’re here for knitting content, that’ll come too eventually. It’s what I do while I’m watching all these movies, after all. It’s all connected!

Pizzzzzza!

Around the end of 2021 or maybe the beginning of 2022 I think I saw a video or something on social media where someone made a pizza using a cast iron pan. I thought, hey I recently got a 12″ cast iron pan, I’ll get a pizza dough at Trader Joe’s and try it out. This was the first cast iron pizza I ever made, in January 2022; it was delicious:

an uncut pizza on a wood board with the toppings listed in the caption
mushrooms (sautéed in the pan first), sliced garlic (put on the pizza raw), two kinds of mozzarella, fake pepperoni (put on the pan in oil briefly hoping that would help it get crispier which I think worked), and olives on my half only, then fresh basil added at the end

Six months later, I was attempting to make my own dough, and we were having weekly homemade pizza nights almost every week! I spent nearly a year trying different dough recipes and variations, making tiny adjustments each time and writing everything down, with the goal of perfecting my dough recipe.

closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
shishito peppers, black olives, mushrooms, and a little pineapple

Around the spring of this year, I felt pretty good about it, and I created a little mini-zine recipe book so others can use it too! The printable, foldable zine is available for free download in my free payhip “shop” here, but below are all the pages for you to read right here on the blog. Scroll to the bottom for some process photos too.

hand holding folded zine with cover saying "make cast iron pan pizza!" in handlettering, with a drawing of a pan with stream lines coming up from it
the printed & folded pizza-making zine
The recipe makes two dough balls, which are two good size servings each (a 10–12” pizza); if you only need to make one pizza at a time, the second ball can be frozen for later. You can make the dough a few days before you plan to eat pizza, then making the pizza is pretty quick and easy! I usually make dough every other Sunday night, so it’s ready on Thursday, and I put the second ball in the freezer and have that one on the following Thursday! For the pizza, you’ll need a cast iron pan, ideally 12”, but 10” should work for a thicker crust. You can use All Purpose flour or Bread flour—both work well, but bread flour will result in a slightly more chewy crust, and AP will be a bit lighter/airier, so choose which you like better, or try out both options! A little Whole Wheat flour is recommended for flavor & texture, but keep it to only around 10% of the total flour (approx 30g). A scale is highly recommended for measuring the flour and water accurately. 310 grams flour (approx 2.5 cups) 1 3/4 tsp salt 1 1/4 tsp sugar 1/4 tsp yeast (active dry or quick-rise/instant) Mix above ingredients in a large bowl, then add: 211 grams warm water (7/8 cup)—to be safe, weigh out the amount first then add to bowl—NOT hot, just a little warmer than room temp; if using quick-rise yeast then room temp is fine 1 TBSP olive oil Mix with a wooden spoon (or similar tool) in a large bowl until there’s no more dry flour—you may want to switch to using your hands to get it fully mixed. Then cover and let sit 10 minutes.
pages 1-2 of the pizza making zine, instructions for mixing your dough ingredients
Knead briefly with your hands, just to get it all fully mixed; now it shouldn’t be as sticky. Cover bowl and let sit overnight, or 8–12 hours, at room temperature. Dough should be double (or more) in size now. If it’s not doubled (ish) and the room is cold, it may need more time. Divide in half (use scale to get perfect halves, or just estimate). Get two containers ready—plastic tubs with lids, sized to fit a dough ball with plenty room for it to rise (large yogurt type containers work great). Drip a little olive oil into the bottom of each. For each ball, make into a tight dough ball using this method: fold dough in half by bringing the top and bottom up to meet in the center, then with the seam up (where the two halves met) turn dough 90 degrees and fold in half again. Repeat that 4 or more times, turning and folding up to the same side, so the other side is becoming a smooth ball. After the last fold, hold the seam together, grab the two ends, and fold them into the center, so the other side is a round ball. Here’s a video if you’d like some visual help: youtu.be/oZxNbL5XB7w Place dough ball with the gathered seam side down in container. Place the containers with the dough balls in the fridge for up to 7 days (3–5 is ideal). If freezing, allow to cold ferment first (that just means sit in the fridge) for 3–5 days, then move the container to the freezer.
pages 3-4 of the pizza making zine, instructions for kneading, balling, and cold fermenting
On the day you’ll use the dough ball, take it out of the fridge about 2 hours before using (or 3–5 hours if it was frozen). Let sit in container on the counter for 30–60 minutes first, then put a little olive oil on work surface (like a large cutting board), place dough ball on it, and cover with a damp towel or upside-down large bowl. Let rest until ready to use. Move oven rack to highest position. Preheat oven to 550°F/290°C (or highest possible temp) and heat large cast iron pan on stove as follows. If cooking any toppings (meat, mushrooms, etc), heat pan to appropriate temp (medium or medium-high), add olive oil and cook. Then remove toppings and keep surface coated with a little oil. If not pre-cooking toppings, then heat pan to medium and coat with a little olive oil. Turn pan heat down to low or medium-low heat. Stretch dough to pan size by pushing out into pizza shape on work surface, focusing the pulling around the edges so the center doesn’t get too thin, then pick it up and stretch it more, tossing it back and forth in your hands and/or rotating it around until the size is approx the size of your pan. (There are lots of videos on youtube for visual help!) Place dough into hot pan—this it tricky and you’ll probably need to adjust in the pan. It’s fine if it’s not perfect! If any holes rip, cover with dough. Sprinkle a little salt onto dough then add sauce, cheese, and toppings. No rush adding stuff—during this time, the bottom is pre-cooking a bit, to help get a crispy bottom, so it’s good for it to take several minutes.
pages 5-6 of the pizza making zine, instructions for using the dough
Once pizza is topped and oven is preheated, bake for 7–10 minutes on top rack, then turn oven to broiler setting for 1–2 more minutes (try 1 minute first—some ovens will burn if you give it longer than a minute!). Your times may need adjusting to achieve pizza perfection. Take out of oven and top with anything that didn’t need to be cooked (fresh basil, parmesan, etc). Let sit for a minute, then transfer from the pan to a cutting board by grabbing the pizza with tongs and sliding it onto the board. Let rest for another minute then cut and enjoy!
last page of pizza zine, instructions for baking pizza

The zine includes brief cooking instructions, but I’ll also point to you to this Bon Appétit video which is basically the method I use, first using the cast-iron pan to cook toppings (like mushrooms, peppers, and fake meat), to pre-heat the pan and get it coated with flavored olive oil, before using it for the pizza. Another very helpful youtube video is this one that’s mentioned in the zine, for balling your dough.

a cut pizza on a wood board with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
mushrooms, broccoli, cashews, and red sauce

Of course there are lots of great reasons to make your own delicious pizza at home (save money, don’t have to leave the house, pizza night is fun and a great way to end the work week, you can make choices based on allergies/sensitivities/limitations/healthfulness) but my personal favorite reason is toppings!

an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption
pear and gorgonzola with olive oil, mozzarella, and fresh lemon thyme sprinkled on top after baking

I love experimenting with different topping combinations, using ingredients from my garden when possible (or my friend’s feral orchard or local farms, etc), and using things like fake meats that are uncommon at restaurants.

an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
crumbled up Field Roast fake Italian sausage (to make it more like classic pizza sausage), red bell peppers, mushrooms, a little roasted squash from the freezer stash, and a little kale, with homemade pomodoro sauce I made and froze

This blog post features a huge assortment of successful pizzas from the last 2-ish years. I do occasionally make not-so-successful pies, like the time I tried to make a taco pizza by using salsa as the sauce. That one wasn’t good, mostly texturally, but the taco pizza using queso as the sauce was VERY good!

three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption
leftover homemade gochujang queso as the sauce, potatoes, fake chorizo, peppers, a little salsa, cherry tomatoes, and fresh cilantro added after baking

One of my absolute most favorite topping combos I’ve discovered is some kind of roasted winter squash + some kind of fake sausage (or bacon works too), and it works great with pesto as the sauce, or olive oil & garlic, or red sauce. Fresh basil and good quality parmesan makes is extra amazing.

a cut pizza on a wood board with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
roasted butternut squash, fake sausage, carrot top pesto as the sauce, and fresh basil added after baking—one of my all time favorites!

So, all the photos have the toppings listed in their captions. Some of the pizzas are older so the crust may be from a store-bought dough or a different dough recipe. Every topping combination I’m posting here is one that I liked and would recommend copying, even the ones that seem weird!

closeup of a cut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
broccoli, cashews, pomodoro sauce, and I threw on the carrots that simmered in the sauce as well as the parmesan rind cut into small bits, which was a real winning ingredient!

And hey, if you do eat meat, you might want to consider trying out fake meat on your pizza — when it’s combined with all the other elements, especially if it’s not really the star of the pizza but just an extra bonus flavor, you probably won’t even know it’s fake. I fed my midwest-raised meat-loving parents a fake sausage & squash pizza and they claimed to love it! Field Roast makes great sausages, in the refrigerated section of most grocery stores; unfortunately they’ve gotten more pricey lately (as so many things have) but 4 big sausages are plenty for 4 pizzas so it’s not toooo bad, and the cut, cooked sausage freezes well for future pizzas.

closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption
fake bacon, pepperoni, and sausage, shishito peppers, tomatoes on my half only, mozzarella, Gorgonzola, and (jarred) vodka sauce

Oh that reminds me of another thing. First, the recipe makes 2 pizzas worth of dough, and it freezes well, so I always make a batch and one gets used that week, and the second gets frozen for the next week (or whenever). And I use the freezer for toppings a lot too! I’ll usually cook double or triple the sausage I need for a pizza, and the rest goes in the freezer; I’ll often do that with mushrooms, peppers, squash, and other things. That way, on a night when I have less time, all I need to do is take the toppings (and dough, if it’s frozen) out of the freezer awhile before pizza-making time, and everything is ready to go!

three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption plus lots of cheese
fake sausage, summer squash from the freezer from when I cooked up extra when it was in season and froze a couple of pizza’s worth, and a jalapeño

Okay I’m just going to post a bunch more pizzas with different toppings now… keep scrolling for more instructional content at the bottom…

three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption plus lots of cheese
roasted rutabagas, turnips, black radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, and broccoli stem
three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption
pear and gorgonzola with olive oil, mozzarella, and fresh lemon thyme sprinkled on top after baking
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
whole shishito peppers, cubed summer squash, mushrooms, and fresh basil added after baking
three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption plus lots of cheese
roasted little carrots, turnips & radishes, dandelion pesto, plus two kinds of basil, green onion, and lemon thyme, ALL from my garden
closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption
potatoes, mushrooms, fennel, pesto, smoked Gouda, and basil added at the end
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
sauce with lentils added (imitates a meat sauce), fake sausage, jalapeños, snap peas, and sautéed pea shoots from the garden, plus some young leeks that I accidentally pulled out so I used them like chives
an uncut pizza on a white cutting board with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
homemade red sauce with canned lentils mixed in to make a fake meat sauce, topped with mushrooms, jalapenos, and kale
three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption
roasted potatoes, olive oil, fresh dill & garlic, and three cheeses (mozzarella, white cheddar, sharp cheddar), drizzled after baking with some homemade ranch — this one was REALLY good
closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
coconut flake fake bacon and winter squash
closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
kale chips, sautéed garlic, fake pepperoni, Calabrian chilis, ricotta, and parmesan
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
buffalo “chicken” made with soy curls, cauliflower, and ranch added after baking
closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
kabocha squash and fake sausage with some fresh basil added after baking
three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption plus lots of cheese
peanut sauce, “chicken” (soy curls), carrots, a little broccoli stem, peanuts, and cilantro added after baking
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
fennel, peppers, and garlic from my farm share, plus fake sausage and (jarred) vodka sauce
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
shishito peppers and fake sausage with sauce that I made from cherry tomatoes from my garden
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
pesto, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, cashews, ricotta, and olives on my half only
an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese
fake pepperoni, pineapple, jalapenos, and black olives on half, with red sauce
three pizza slices on a plate with toppings listed in caption
(fake) bacon, Brie, and basil, inspired by Waffle Window’s “Triple B” (note: this combo makes an awesome sandwich too!)
closeup of an uncut pizza with the toppings listed in the caption
(frozen) mac & cheese, peas, spinach, garlic, tomato, and fake bacon

This one was made with fancy birthday-present ingredients from one of our favorite local pizza spots!!

an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption plus lots of cheese, and part of the lid of the Scottie's sauce container
beech mushrooms, fake sausage, and garlic, using fancy dough and sauce from Scottie’s Pizza Parlor

And here’s a calzone made with my dough, not nearly as photogenic as pizza but a fun variation and also delicious!

an uncut calzone on a glass plate
calzone with kale and radicchio sauteed with garlic, plus fake meat, pesto, and cheese — not so pretty but delicious!

As a bonus, below is a cast iron pan baked pasta — I used the method in this video to toast the dry pasta, cook everything as one-pan pasta in the cast-iron pan, then bake the whole thing in the pan, works so well! This one has mushrooms and fake sausage, and I think some kale or other green thing; I’ve also made this with that winter squash + sausage combo, which works just as well with pasta as it does with pizza, unsurprisingly. Sooo good!

baked rigatoni pasta covered in bubbly baked cheese, in a cast iron pan
baked rigatoni with mushrooms and fake sausage, covered in baked cheese

And now, some pizza-making process photos (and a “what not to do” example)…

bowl with flour, on scale reading 310g, with bread flour and whole wheat flour (both King Arthur brand) on the counter
measuring out the flour on a scale
bowl with dense dough ball inside
after kneading and forming ball, ready to sit at room temperature for 8-12 hours
bubbly big dough in the same bowl
dough after sitting 8-12 hours
two tight dough balls sitting at the bottoms of plastic yogurt containers
dough divided into two balls, each balled tightly and sitting at the bottom of a plastic yogurt container, with lots of empty space above
2 containers of bubbling dough up near the tops of the plastic yogurt containers
dough balls after sitting in the fridge for a day or two

The zine instructs you to let the dough sit out at least a couple of hours before making your pizza. Sometimes when I’m using a frozen dough ball, I’ll take it out of the freezer several hours early, and leave it sitting on the counter in the container, then forget to move it from the container to the cutting board an hour or so before using… a couple nights ago I did this, I moved it from the container to the board basically when I wanted to use it. I let it sit for only about 10 minutes instead of an hour+. The result is that the dough has a hard time stretching to pizza size; it rips in the middle, and it just won’t stretch to full size. I took bits of dough from the edges to patch the holes, and we just had a small pizza. The crust also doesn’t rise as much. So don’t be like me, let your dough rest before using!!

pizza dough stretched in cast iron pan, with some rips patched up by torn off pieces of dough
dough stretched badly in the pan with some patched-up rips, a cautionary image

The pizza was still delicious, just not quite as delicious as it would’ve been if I’d followed my own instructions!

an uncut pizza in a black cast iron pan with the toppings listed in the caption
roasted carrots, turnips, and watermelon radish, peppers, and pesto as the sauce

If you like seeing my toppings, I usually post my pizzas in my instagram stories, and there’s a pizza story highlight on my page. I’d LOVE to see your pizzas, so it would be awesome if you wanted to tag me on instagram, or comment here. Always up for new topping ideas too!! Happy pizza making & eating!

Blogs are back, right?

I have no idea, but I miss mine, so I’m bringing it back. New name (sort of) & domain for the new decade, but the old posts are all still in the archive and searchable, all the way back to 2007. When I started the blog back then, it was meant to accompany my printed zine, do stuff!, and then it evolved into a place to talk about my knitting patterns, and sometimes review books and stuff… and then when I switched careers I wanted it to kind of keep going as what it used to be (just posting stuff I do, basically) but that just kinda never happened.

top-down photo of a cutting mat with some flannel fabric strips, 2 pairs of scissors, a seam ripper, a rotary cutter, and a pin cushion

Around the beginning of this year, I started thinking about it again, wanting to use it again, but different. I’d started dropping the old leethal name sometime last year, switching to LeeDoesStuff (or some variation of that) on social media, and making my knitting pattern store just Knitting Patterns by Lee Meredith instead of leethal knits. So I didn’t want to start blogging on the old “leethal blog” again… I considered maybe starting a substack, but dropped that quickly once I started looking into it… I bought the domain leedoesstuff.com, and then transferred the old blog to the new domain and spent months redesigning it, only to have my server glitch out so badly that I can’t use them anymore. So in the end I wound up signing up for a wordpress.com paid blog, with the new domain, and redesigning it again, and I actually like the new new redesign better than the first redesign anyway, so yay for that. I kept it extremely similar to the old blog, with the very simple one-column style, but now searchability is good, and there’s the new header/footer and archive page, stuff like that. I’m letting my old leethal.net and leethalknits.com domains die and leaving my old server behind. So I now have my leemeredith.com website, which links to everything and includes my graphic design portfolio website, hosted by carrd, my knitting pattern website on payhip, and now this blog on wordpress, with my only two domains (that I’m keeping) being leemeredith.com and leedoesstuff.com. A little online decluttering!

an in-progress knit in orange, pink, white, and green, and a cat sniffing the yarn

So, what’s this gonna be now? I’m not totally sure, but the reason I’m reviving it is I sometimes hate how fleeting social media is with certain things; I wanted somewhere more permanent to share some stuff. For example, I made a couple of music playlists in 2021-22 that I put SO MUCH time and thought into, and then for each one, I posted them on twitter and instagram, and if people saw them cool, and if not, they were basically gone in a day. So I plan to put those up as blog posts soon now. And other stuff like that, that I want to exist as more than a twitter thread, or whatever.

Lee wearing colorful pants, a tee that says All Cats Are Beautiful, and a bucket hat, on a trail in the forest

For this “oh hai I’m back” post I thought about what to post, or what to show, what photos to include, and since it’s been so damn long since I’ve been here, it’s kinda overwhelming. So I decided, let’s stick with today, basically. I started this Sunday morning with a hike in Forest Park, where I wore some pants I recently(ish) sewed, as well as a new bucket hat. We snapped a few photos of those, which I’ll post on instagram at some point, where I still attempt to post every single thing I sew (eventually).

a vintage sewing machine with flannel fabric going through it, and a mug sitting next to it that says "I just want to drink coffee, create stuff & fight hate"

I’m working on sewing some new flannel pants. The fall weather kicked in this weekend and I’m wanting to wear flannel pants at home every day now. I’m using the Luna Pants pattern and a couple of thrifted flannel sheets to make two pairs.

kale and peppers in a bowl being held in a garden with plants and woodchips below

In a short while, I’ll be cooking dinner, which will be like a pasta e fagioli hack with soy chorizo, plus lots of peppers, tomatoes, and kale from my backyard garden. It’ll be kind of a mashup of the Pasta Fazool recipe from the Rancho Gordo beans cookbook and this Off-Script with Sohla Any Green, Any Bean, Any Pasta video/post.

an in-progress knit in orange, pink, white, and green, with a textured twisted stitch pattern

Later tonight, I plan to watch a movie while knitting on my current cardigan project. I’ve been watching a lot of 2023 movies lately so yesterday I started putting together my work-in-progress faves of the year list (on Letterboxd) which I’ll keep adjusting as the year goes on of course. I’ve always been into movies but I’ve been more obsessively into movies since the end of last year, so I’ll for sure be putting some top lists here in the blog at some point.

Letterboxd screenshot of 10 movie thumbnails, from 1 to 10: Past Lives, Rye Lane, Asteroid City, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Barbie, Bottoms, Infinity Pool, The Artifice Girl, Return to Seoul, M3gan

I thought what I’m up to today was a good little glimpse at the stuff I might talk about here on the blog… cooking, gardening, sewing, knitting, movies… I’ll be trying to keep things useful, like recipes you can try, patterns that I liked using, playlists you can check out, etc. This’ll be a place for things that I want to give a bit more long-lasting life to than the insta grid, so hopefully it’ll be posts worth checking out.

black and white beans soaking in water

If you got this in your email inbox, it’s because you’re still subscribed to my old leethal knits mailing list. I set up the new blog to go out as emails for anyone who wants that. If you already got it and you want to keep getting it, do nothing; if you want to stop getting it, there should be an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. If you’re reading this on the blog site and you want posts in your email inbox in the future, there’s a subscribe link at the bottom of the blog.

close-up wide-angle photo of a grey cat sniffing the camera

I honestly don’t know if anyone will be interested in this resurrected little personal project, but let’s give it a shot and see what it becomes! As always, since it started in 2007, there will be no ads or monetization (of the blog itself; my knitting patterns still exist for sale, but all sales are donated now), just me sharing stuff with you. Maybe blogs are indeed having a comeback and you will actually be on the other side reading this. If so, hi! Feel free to comment. So happy to be here with you!

It’s Me Made May and I am Ready! (Or, my first full year as a garment sewist)

Oh hi blog! Since I only pop in here once in awhile, I’m going to start with a little life catch-up, then I’ll get on to garment sewing! Wait but FIRST, I have been blogging a little bit, for my work! I did a post for my work blog that I’d been meaning to do here on my own blog for YEARS and had never found the time to do: all about my UK-Ireland trip sweater project! Check it out!

travel sweater with labels

And I did a pretty in-depth Kool-Aid yarn-dyeing in the microwave tutorial, which is a different method from all the old blog tutorials I did years ago.

kool-aid dyed yarn

It’s now the beginning of May, so I’ve been working at Knit Picks for over SEVEN months wow! I still feel kinda new. BUT, my position changed halfway through that time, so I am relatively new to my actual job. The good news is I like my new position a lot better than the first one! Yay! My company is awesome because they paid attention to me and a co-worker who started at the same time as me, watching our strengths, and decided that hey, she would be a better fit in a different position and I would be a better fit in her position as book designer. And it’s true! So I’m designing print books now instead of emails & web graphics and I feel more confident in my work, happier with the workflow, and just all-around like I’m better and the job is better for me. Yay! I just finished the first batch of books that I fully designed, which will be out in the summer. The set of books coming out very soon was the first round I was in charge of, but the positions were all kind of mid-transition, so it was all hands on deck. Another designer did the covers and title treatments, and another helped a ton with photo selection and layout, so while I had a huge hand in those books, they were a team effort. Luckily, my team is great! But I’ll be really excited when the first all-me books come out in a few months! (Maybe I should add, don’t be TOO excited—I’m working within a set template, on a very tight timeline, so my creative freedom isn’t wide with these books. I’m actually super cool with the restrictions; since I don’t need to make design choices about everything, because most of the basic layout stuff is already decided for me, I can put a little extra time into fun design details, and, more importantly?, put plenty of time into proofreading, fine-tuning, and trying to make the books as perfect as possible for knitters to use! But yeah, they won’t actually LOOK very different from all the other Knit Picks pattern books.)

Taku sweater

So, I started my job at the beginning of October; I was so overwhelmed by the huge life change of working full-time in an office that I had little weekend energy and I didn’t sew anything for the first couple of months, and didn’t knit very much either really. I finished that Norah Gaughan sweater above, which I’d started in June, and I started another sweater that I still haven’t finished yet:

Spiral pullover

In November, I got started thinking about gift projects, which I didn’t really start until December, and I finished them by the end of January, so all my creative time and energy was spent on those until February. Here are a couple of those gift knits.

gift knits

And then February was the month from hell. On February 2nd, Banzo died, unexpectedly at only ten years old. I was so completely heartbroken and devastated (still am) that I could barely sleep or eat in the days after it happened, and my body reacted to all that by getting the worst cold I’ve had in years. So then I was heartsick and body-sick through most of the month … and just to top it all off with a cherry on top, the month ended with learning we had rats living in our attic. I did knit a lot that month, therapeutic stockinette in pretty colors. I got most of the body done in February, and then finished it at the end of March:

Gaugeless Cardigan

Finally in mid-March I gathered up some sewjo and made a dress. For some reason, the thing I was motivated to make was a summery caftan dress, so I had to style it up warm to be able to wear it in early spring.

Mojave caftan

That weekend was the first of seven in a row now that I’ve made one item per week! This weekend will be the eighth if I make one of the things I want to make soon… but I JUST picked up my freshly up-and-running new old Bernina Record so I’ll be practicing on that this weekend and might not actually complete a project. We’ll see! (In the background there is my cheapo Singer which is what I used to make everything you see in this post!)

sewing machines

Anyway, here are the things I’ve made each week lately: that first dress above was Mojave in a thrifted sheet. Then I made a flannel LB Pullover.

flannel top

Zinnia skirt in a thrifted sheet. My first pleats!

pleated skirt

One Hour Top in a thrifted knit sheet. (First time using a twin needle.)

simple top

York Pinafore in reclaimed corduroy and a fabric scrap for the pockets, both from Scrap.

pinafore with patterned pockets

Another Mojave in a thrifted flannel sheet with a couple of Connecting Threads bits.

flannel caftan

And lastly, last weekend I made an LB Pullover dress hack in a thrifted duvet cover. Whew!

bright big dress

But hey, that’s just the last two months! My garment sewing journey began in earnest one year ago, when I decided I wanted to wear something that matched my graphic design portfolio for my graduation portfolio show. I’d been using a sewing machine since I was… 6, 7, 8? Not sure… and I’d done clothing re-construction projects and simple improvised garment sewing, but I’d never actually used a pattern until the summer before that (July 2017) when I sewed my first Dress No.1.

simple dress with patch pockets

After that, I made another Dress No.1…

simple dress with elephant stencils

…and I also made some leggings using a self-drafted pattern.

leggings with craft stencils

I kept planning to get more into using patterns and making cool clothes, but I just kept not having the motivation to devote time and energy to the learning process; there were always too many things on my plate. But then, I was using these hand-drawn patterns in my portfolio, which I thought would look so cool on fabric, so I had the idea of sewing something with the fabric to wear and I got obsessed and HAD to do it! It was the motivating factor I needed to finally learn how to make clothes! Because I wanted to make something that looked good—not improvised, not scrappy, using a pattern more complex than Dress No.1 … so I needed to teach myself how to do it. And find a pattern to use, starting from scratch, not really knowing anything about the sewing community and indie patterns, etc, etc. This happened to be around the beginning of May that I started brainstorming this idea. So I stalked the #memademay instagram hashtag to start collecting patterns I wanted to make. I use Pinterest to keep track of patterns (this is the only thing I use pinterest for anymore!), so you can browse the patterns I want to make, the ones I now own, interesting free ones, vintage ones I like, and sewing tutorials & inspiration.

pinterest screenshot

So right away, after deciding to do this thing, I started practicing using patterns, first by sewing an Endless Summer tunic, which was a pattern recommended by a friend as an easy beginner-level pattern (it’s quite a step up from Dress No.1 though!)—my first one was a bit messy but pretty good for how much I was still learning:

first tunic

And then I played around with this Mix and Match Wrap Dress pattern… the first half I made was way too big, so then I made another half in the smaller size and it fit fine but was still kinda weird… but all that was good practice!

two-part wrap dress

And I made a self-drafted Boxy Tee as more sewing practice. Funny thing about this: I made the pocket to exactly fit my phone, and then like a month later I got a new phone, and of course it’s bigger and doesn’t fit! I still like it though.

multi-sheet fabric top

And then I pretty much just went for it with my chosen pattern and nice Spoonflower fabric! Eek I should have made a wearable muslin first, but I was short on time and heavy on confidence. I went very slowly, and it all turned out well! My chosen pattern was the River top, and here is my portfolio top, in action at my portfolio show:

portfolio top

It worked! Here’s my matching portfolio, front and back laser-cut wood covers (stained with turmeric):

portfolio covers

So that was it, I now knew how to use a pattern, and I had bookmarked a ton of patterns I wanted to make, and I’d started collecting fabric (from thrift stores, mostly), so I was officially a garment sewist! I made another River as a dress from a thrifted curtain:

white and blue dress

And I made two more Endless Summers: the first two I made are basically only for wearing around the house in the summer…

two tunics

…and then I made a flannel one that I LOVE and is one of my fave things I’ve made so far (all three of these are from thrifted sheets):

plaid flannel dress

I made another fun Boxy Tee:

rainbow tee

And I played around with the Mix and Match Wrap Dress some more, making two more halves. I still don’t have a complete wearable dress that I like, but maybe someday I’ll break out the pattern again and make something good from it!

two more dress halves

Another River dress from a flannel sheet that I LOVE (I think flannel is my favorite kind of fabric!):

plaid flannel dress

And an Akita top from that same sheet.

plaid flannel top

I made another Akita top that did not work very well and is for around-the-house wear only, and I attempted an Akita dress hack that I did a terrible job of drafting the bottom on and I need to just chop it into a top or tunic and then finish it so I can wear it… maybe I’ll do that this weekend!

two tops

I used the free York top pattern to try set-in sleeves for the first time:

top with sleeves

And I made a simple tank top to match the wrap skirt I made long ago:

tank top

Side note: I grabbed this pattern at JoAnn because the basic tank top, basic dress, basic pants all seemed like good things to have. I am not used to using big-4 patterns and I think I was supposed to add seam allowance and didn’t, so it turned out way too small (I added the panel in the center to make it fit, which I like, so everything worked out!), so I need to be more careful about that in the future… but then another weird thing is I can’t find this pattern anywhere online, to link it—all I can find is one ebay listing. It doesn’t exist on the Simplicity site, the JoAnn site, or anywhere else. I don’t understand how big-4 patterns work! So weird.

tank pattern

During this same time (basically all last summer, into early fall), I also made a dress from t-shirts that was an idea I want to develop more… it may turn into a blog tutorial or a free pattern download or something! So you get a sneaky closeup photo of that only—it’s a surprise!

t-shirts sewn closeup

That last stuff was made right before I started my job and lost my momentum. I jumped back on the machine in December when I decided to make a shirt for Pete for a gift! I got a bit ahead of myself… I bought the Negroni pattern to make his shirt, but then I had this plan to make a shirt for myself first to learn how it worked, so I bought the Archer pattern for myself…

shirt collar

I read a bunch of tutorials and stuff, learning how things like collars and sleeve plackets worked, but I really learn best by doing (can you tell?) so I started making myself a sleeveless Archer to make a collar, yoke, buttonband, as practice. But hey, guess what, there are different ways to make shirts! Turns out, basically every single element of the Archer shirt is different from the Negroni shirt—yoke, collar, buttonband, sleeves… completely different constructions. So I mostly made mine anyway, but since it was December and my shirt was sleeveless I still haven’t gotten around to finishing the hems and buttonholes…

two shirt collars

And I just went for it with his, but in a silly flannel fabric for the test run. And then I plan on making him a good one in nice fabric in the future. But it worked pretty well! The only major problem is the sleeves are WAY too long!! That’s an easy fix for the next one I make.

pete's flannel shirt

The yoke and the sleeve plackets were both SO COOL and magical to make! Crazy sewing origami-esque trickery.

flannel shirt closeups

Those projects taught me about flat felled seams, which was a game-changer, since I don’t have a serger. I did flat felled seams in my recent York Pinafore, LB Pullover projects, flannel Mojave. So much nicer than zig-zagging or pinking!

seams closeups

So those two shirts were so intense and I learned so much that I kind of burned myself out again, which leads us back to the top of this post when I finally gathered my sewjo back up a couple of months ago! Yay! And now it’s full-circle back to Me Made May, and I’ve sewn enough in the past year that I’m attempting to wear a handmade GARMENT every single day in May! I’ll be posting my outfits in small batches over on instagram.

a bunch of handmade clothes hanging

Handknit garments count, but I haven’t made very many of those. By the end of the month, I’ll probably be wearing some of my older reconstructed and improvised garments. Some of these, I want to re-reconstruct, fix them up now that my skills are built up. Like making nice, even hems on the old t-shirt skirts I made way back, and add pockets!.

tee skirt

Something else I’ve been doing since I really started sewing clothes is collecting fabric from my favorite fabric stores: thrift stores! Duh. Sheets can make awesome garment fabric, with great yardage! Of course, lots of thrift store sheets are too worn & pilly, or bad fiber contents, or just plain ugly, etc etc… there are lots of times I find zero good fabrics at a store. Then sometimes I’ll hit a jackpot shop and leave with like five awesome pieces of fabric. Sometimes it’s in the form of actual fabric, like with the selvedge still on, but actually that can be riskier than a sheet because sheets (and curtains) have tags that tell you the fiber content and washing instructions. I’ve bought a few pieces of fabric from actual fabric stores (that LB Pullover flannel came from JoAnn, and I have nice pieces from Bolt and Fabric Depot [RIP] that I’m saving for the right projects), or Ikea, but most of my stash came from thrift stores, Scrap, and then a bunch of free scores from work (I’m in the same building as Connecting Threads!).

fabric stash

I do plan on getting more from Spoonflower; that’s pretty pricey, so I like the idea of mostly using extremely inexpensive, reclaimed fabrics from thrift stores, and then putting that savings into treating myself occasionally with Spoonflower yardage.

spoonflower fabric swatches

Something else I’ve been brainstorming about is ways to use fat quarters (also Spoonflower swatches). I’ve gotten tons free from work, and I love treating myself to a couple of awesome fat quarters from places like Bolt, donna and toots, and Cool Cottons, or shops I find while traveling. But I need ways to use them! If I try one of my ideas and it works well, that might be another blog tutorial in the future.

pattern piece

That’s a shot of a pattern piece I printed on papers from graphic design school… for years, I brought home all full-size sheets that were blank on one side, knowing I’d find a use for them! Yay PDF patterns! Okay I need to stop writing and start trying out my new Bernina. May has already knocked my sewing energy up a notch and there are so many things I’m excited to make!!