Lee Does Stuff

Analog Music!

Hey did you know I like records? If you follow me on twitter, you’re probably sick of hearing about it, but my many-weeks-long project of reorganizing our collection is just about done now, so I’ll be shutting up about it after this. I was planning to post about my collection, along with some crafty things you can do with records that are no good for listening to (thrift stores are full of those!)… but then it all just got too massive, so that crafty post will come later. For now, read on if you like music on vinyl!

So, I just realized a couple weeks ago, while in the middle of my reorganization project, that it’s been exactly 10 years since I started collecting records! At the end of my first year of college I started thinking it would be cool to have a record player, and then during the summer of 2001, between my first and second years of college, I found this record player on ebay for $12 and immediately started buying records.

During those first couple years, I didn’t live near any good record stores or thrift stores, so I was mostly buying new indie music on vinyl, not much old stuff. But then I moved to a cool neighborhood for my last year of college and started digging through the rows of records at my local record stores, fun times! I was pretty picky back then, though, and my collection grew very slowly…

Then a year later, in 2005 when I started dating Pete, we got really into record shopping together, and have been ever since! We’re not always active about it – we’ll go long chunks of time without going to a record store, but then we’ll get back into it and go digging through albums whenever we have the chance. Right now, because of all this record sorting that’s been going on, we’ve gotten obsessively into it and have found some awesome albums over the last month! Our favorite shops in Portland are Everyday Music and Crossroads, and we also love Music Millennium, and thrift stores!

So, here it is – our entire LP collection:

Ordering it all chronologically involved days of sorting them all into stacks by decade/year, filling our entire living room floor with piles of vinyl…

Which, of course, meant I had to grab that opportunity to sort of recreate an image from one of my all time favorite movies:

Not perfect, but it works:

So, do you want more detail about my massive undertaking? Probably not, but I’ll give it to you anyway! I guess if you didn’t care about my records, you’d have stopped reading long ago… Anyway, I started out by cataloguing everything into a google docs spreadsheet. Here’s a tiny glimpse of that:

Then I used this list to group all the LPs into stacks of 50’s, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80’s, 90’s, and 2000’s…

Then I went through group by group and sorted them into individual date piles, and finally shelved them in chronological order, alphabetically within each year.

The giant spreadsheet of every record we own is way too much fun, by the way… Want to know what we have tons of? There’s more Bob Dylan LPs than anything else (15), with The Beatles and Elton John tied for second at 12 each. Third is David Bowie and Joni Mitchell tied at 10 each, followed by Frank Zappa, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and Beach Boys with 9 albums each, and then 8 LPs by Bee Gees. John Lennon is the person represented most, with those 12 Beatles records, 3 solo by him, 4 by John Lennon and Yoko Ono together. (I have 3 by Yoko alone as well.) A couple you might be amused by include my 6 Glen Campbell records, and 5 Carpenters (feel like I should have more, I love them so much). Ok I’ll stop now!

And then there are our 7″s…

We rarely buy these anymore these days, but I used to be waaaay into them! They are all catalogued in the spreadsheet, but I haven’t yet organized them – they’re just grouped into vague sections for now.

Lastly, I made some record “bookmarks” – to mark the place when we take out a record to play it. I have my old record player in my studio, so I take groups in there sometimes, hence the multiple bookmarks. Plus, they’re fun to make out of ridiculous album covers:

I hope I didn’t bore you too much, but I just spent so much time with this project over the last several weeks, I had to share! I’ve been pinning some of my favorite records that we own, so you can follow that if you’re interested. I just love records so much – the covers as art forms, the vinyl for the analog listening experience, everything. And now that they are organized, I will definitely be listening to them more than I had been!

This year’s garden, as of early July!

I noticed a quick spurt of overcast sky a few days ago and took advantage by photographing my garden! I planted most (from starters) 3 weeks ago, and most are doing very well!! With the hot, sunny days we’ve been having this week, they’ve actually grown quite a bit since I shot these – it’s so much fun to see them every day, how much they’ve changed from the day before…

It’s my second year attempting to grow food, and last year resulted in mostly fail (due at least partly to the terrible weather last summer); I am still very much learning and don’t expect major success, but things are looking healthy so far at least!

So, let me give you a tour. Starting at one end, with this planter – 2 tomatoes and some garlic chives over there in the corner:

There’s an early girl tomato plant, a sweet 100 cherry tomato, and then I’d thought I could squeeze 3 tomatoes into this planter, but I didn’t want to hurt them by putting them too close, so I stuck the chives there instead. (The upside down boxes are to try to stop some neighborhood cat from using this planter as a litter box! Dumb cat!)

Next is the cucumber planter:

I have 1 burpless, 1 pickling, and 1 slicing…

They are already doing extremely well compared to my cucumber experience last summer – I have high hopes that I’ll get to try some picking this year!

Next to that one are these two big pots (all the planters and pots were left in our yard by the previous owners) – I have an eggplant and one more tomato in there:

The eggplant seems healthy, though I don’t really know how it’s supposed to be looking at this point… and this tomato plant – juliet grape tomatoes – is crazy super leafy, especially around the bottom. I might try pruning a little once I see where the flowers are starting to pop up.

And lastly are these 3 narrow planters:

The long one is full of mostly lettuce – “gourmet blend” – and I know it’s closer together than it’s supposed to be, but I had very limited space to work with, and the lettuce came in a box of 6, so I just put them all in there:

One of the above pots used to be filled with tons of oregano, sage, and tarragon, and a tiny bit of thyme, from the previous owners – I was keeping it until I decided it was a waste of a nice pot for me, since I rarely used any of the herbs last year and I didn’t see that changing this year. So, I took out most of them (left a couple bags of them free on the corner for neighbors to take), and attempted to transplant some of the oregano (since I do use that occasionally) and the tiny bit of thyme that was living. That was a few weeks ago, and they are both still living, so I guess the transplanting worked! Those 2 are on the sides of this planter, and I put a new sweet basil plant in the middle:

And then my strawberries! These two strawberry plants (quinalt and another variety I don’t remember) in the small planter popped back to life from last summer and have been doing okay, but not great. And then I added one more, a bigger plant (tristar), in the same long planter with the lettuce:

Does anyone have advice for growing strawberries? My main problem is that they’re ripening when they’re still bitsy:

Most of my ripe strawberries are the size of large blueberries. Might I be giving them either too much or not enough water? Or maybe there’s a problem with the soil? I really don’t know what I’m doing, so any tips would be much appreciated! Thanks!

So that’s my garden so far… I can’t wait till I get to start eating the tomatoes! And I may get to have a whole salad from my own yard, if all goes well! If I do end up experimenting with pickling, I’ll let you know how it goes! Ok that’s enough excitement for one post!

leethal Mystery Hat Knit-a-long!!

It’s time! I’ve been planning this one for six months now, and I’m so freaking excited that it’s about to begin! You can now sign up to knit-a-long a mystery hat, in any weight yarn, custom fit to your head – it’s gender-neutral, it can have buttons if you want, and you can make it shorter or longer, to be fitted or slouchy. Because of the way it works up in any gauge, you can knit this hat over and over in different weights and get different looking hats each time!

When you sign up, you’ll get the “week 0” pdf, which tells you everything you need to know to choose your yarn, gather your materials, and get ready to knit. Next Friday, July 8th, part 1 of the pattern will go live and you can start knitting the brim; the following Friday will start part 2 (the body) and the next Friday will be the last part (the crown). The final pattern, complete with charts (no charts in the mystery pattern, to preserve the mystery!) will be released once the knit-a-long is over, probably on August 1st.

It’s $6 to join, which of course includes the final pattern in the end, and you can sign up on ravelry, or by clicking right here! You can join in any time, and you’ll get whichever pdfs have been released up to that point; so you can jump in late and catch up if you see in-progress hats and decide you want in.

Here’s some info you’ll also find in the week 0 pdf (and on ravelry)… Because the hat is for any weight yarn, the design will look different based on your yarn and hat size. It will work in any size, with any weight, but I don’t recommend going finer than a sport weight, or heavier than an aran, or a bulky yarn that’s on the lighter end of the bulky spectrum. If knitting a child size hat, it will be better to go lighter in weight, since the whole thing will be smaller – a sport or DK weight should work well.

The pattern isn’t hard, but it does involve lots of different kinds of twisted stitches, and some short rows for the construction… If you’ve knit any of my patterns that involve the sideways edge cast-on technique (as blogged about here) – which include Cassady, Swerve, Custom Tritops, Betiko, and some quick knits patterns including the fitted pocket case, cabled keepers, and the screen friendly gadget case – then the construction of this hat will come easy to you. If not, it may seem tricky or wrong at first, but once you have a couple inches knit it should start to make perfect sense!

There will be two variations for the hat brim (part 1) – one with buttons (which involves a bit more knitting, with 2 short extra pattern sections) and one with no buttons (which requires a provisional cast-on and grafting). You can also choose your hat fit style – depending on how tall you work the body of the hat, you can make yours fitted and short, fitted and long (covering your ears), or extra long so the extra body slouches in the back.

There will be some basic math required when you start part 2 – it’s just subtraction and division, very easy with a calculator, but you can always find help in the leethal forums if you need it!

Each week’s mystery pattern section will be image-less, to keep the mystery, but I plan to make optional pdfs with photos of what things should be looking like, in case you need some extra help or want to check to make sure yours is looking right. I will release a photo pdf of how part 1 should look either partway through week 1, or when I release week 2’s pdf, so you can have the full mystery for awhile before any spoilers become available.

Knit-a-long talk, help, etc, will all be happening in the leethal ravelry group forums – there will be a new thread for each week’s section, so if you fall behind, you don’t need to worry about spoilers!

You’ll need

Enough yarn for a hat in any weight of your choice – somewhere from sport weight to aran weight is recommended – in a solid color; yardage depends on yarn weight and on hat size:

— an adult size hat in sport weight will take approximately 160-190 yards (146-174 meters)
— an adult size hat in bulky weight will take approximately 90-110 yards (82-100 meters)
— an adult size in worsted weight will take approximately 120-150 yards (110-137 meters).
— yardage will also vary depending on your hat fit choice – a big, slouchy hat will take more yarn than a short, fitted hat
— also, blocking is important with this hat, so choose a yarn with fiber content that will block out well

1 16″ circular needle
Set of same size double pointed needles
(optional) 1 longer circular needle (24” or longer) will be helpful
1 stitch marker
A calculator
(buttons version only) 3 buttons; size depends on yarn weight
(no-buttons version only) Scrap yarn and a crochet hook for provisional cast-on

Trivia fun, plus film photos!

First, I put up the answers to that first batch of trivia questions, as comments after the blog post, so you can check that out if you were curious about the answers… I’m especially proud of the pop culture mashups. My personal favorite is The Bee Geesus and Mary Chain – saying that out loud never gets old! I also love Yo La TenGo-Go’s and Aimee Mann or Astro-man?…

So now I’ve started posting my second batch of trivia on twitter – one question per day, around noon-ish (west coast time). The first person to reply with the correct answer each day wins a $2 off coupon code for my patterns, which will work through my website or through my ravelry patterns shop.

I want to have a non-twitter, more permanent place that you can see what the categories are, with more details, so here they are!

Category 1 – Ten Degrees of Television: I’ll describe a tv show which connects through an actor to the next and previous shows. I’ll say who the actors are during each question, so the question will usually start by mentioning the actor who was also in the previous day’s show, and end by mentioning the actor who will be in the next day’s show. And, of course, the question will give more info and clues than just TV actors’ names!

So, today’s question (which I just posted before typing this) was: “Bryan Cranston was father Hal in this Fox comedy which aired from 2000-2006; Grandma Ida was played by Cloris Leachman.” And yesterday’s question ended with “…Bryan Cranston stars as chemistry teacher Walter White.” So tomorrow’s question will start with something about Cloris Leachman… all connected! With posting one question each day, the connections kind of get lost, which is why I wanted to post about the category here – so if you miss the previous day’s question, you can always go back into my twitter feed and find it in case it might help.

Category 2 will be Ten Degrees of Movies: Each answer is the name of a movie – each movie is connected through an actor to the previous and the following movie. Same as the connections in the TV category, except I won’t be telling you the connecting actors! Movie actors’ names are more well known (generally) than TV actors’ names, so you get to figure them out in this round. However, the answer to each question will just be the movie’s name, and the actor connecting to the previous day’s movie will just be extra awesome points. I’ll give you a virtual high five or something.

This is the same category as round 3 of my first batch of trivia, so scroll down to the comment that starts “round 3 answers” and read the questions and answers, with the connections in parentheses, if you want to better understand how this category will work…

The 3rd category will be Colorful Mashups: I will describe some kind of imaginary movie remake or other kind of project, which mashes up two different elements as pop-culture-mashups, or before+after. Here’s an example of one in which both are music-related: “The Swedish indie rock band well known for their 2006 hit single Young Folks time travels to open for the legendary singer from The Beatles, who plays some of his solo songs like Imagine” – the answer would be Peter Bjorn and John Lennon.

Again, this is the same kind of category as Music Mashups in the first batch, so check out the comment that begins “and the last of the answers – Round 4” to better understand how that works. The only difference is that one was all music, and this one will be different things – some movies, some actors, some music, etc. There will be a theme throughout however, which is hinted at in the category name…

My last category when I hosted trivia was an audio round – I played the beginnings of songs and players had to say the band and song name. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to use this at all in the twitter trivia… I may give song names and you say the band, but I don’t know how well that would work, so I’ll more likely skip it altogether. We’ll see.

So that’s that! Follow me on twitter around noon each day to play along, and I’ll be posting the whole batch of questions here on the blog like I did last time, once it’s all been played. Oh, one note – like last time, I’ll allow one win per person, per category. So, if you win one, then you can start playing to win again when the next category starts – and of course, keep on playing for fun the whole time!

To add something visual to this wordy post, these photos you’ve been seeing are from the batch of film I had developed a few days ago – I’d been saving up some rolls, since I had rolls in cameras and was waiting to finish them off, thinking I’d finish them much sooner. So some of the rolls had been sitting around for several years! Some were shot spread out over the last couple years, on various day trips, and on our honeymoon road trip, and a little bit on our recent road trip down through California (more on that later!)…

There were 3 rolls of 35mm (shot on my Canonet QL17 and my Argus C3 Matchmatic, two color and one b+w) and 3 rolls of medium format – one shot square format on my Holga (color), one on my grandma’s old square format Kodak Duaflex II (b+w), and one on an old Ansco box camera (b+w).

Click on the photos to see some info on flickr – many details are unknown because I’m bad at keeping track of things over the years. Most of these roll had been severely heat damaged and/or were very expired… and then the Holga just always get major light leaks when I shoot it square format. Everything came out though, nothing was damaged beyond repair like I had feared!

The black and white shots at the booth, at the top of this post, were taken at Zach’s Shack, where we play trivia and where I hosted this trivia live – see, it’s all connected!

A fun note – when we did my Buttonhead photoshoot at the Rhododendron garden I was actually shooting with some of those prop cameras, and some of those shots were in this batch of film! The camera I’m posing with in these shots is what was used to take these photos:

thrifty find, part 2: Painted Table!

Almost 2 years ago, I blogged that I found this table at the Goodwill Bins (outlet store) for 3 bucks, and that I had plans to do something to it… I said that hopefully “in a few weeks I’ll be showing you after photos!” A few weeks, hah! Well, after spray painting it yesterday, here’s that after post, better late than never!

The original table, straight home from the thrift store:

The top part and the legs were screwed on, so I took the pieces apart, and spray painted each…

…then put them back together…

…and bam! New table!

I love it! Yay! The hardest part of the whole project was deciding what colors to use. First I couldn’t decide between doing the whole thing one color, or multiple colors, and then after deciding 2 colors would be good, I had to choose which two… I finally just grabbed these two and went for it – and I’m happy I did! I think they match the house well.

I did a bunch more spray painting at the same time – some small shelves mostly, and I have more I wasn’t able to get to. So once all those are finished and up on the walls, I show them to you for more spray painting inspiration! Fun stuff!

June’s quick knits club: Thrift! (last club ebook!)

Well here it is, my last club ebook! The quick knits club has run its course and has now come to an end, with a theme that seemed to fit since it’s an element in pretty much every club ebook: Thrift!

Everything has to do with items you can find at thrift stores… The first, embellishments that can be sewn onto clothes to hide small stains, holes, or logos, or just to liven up something that’s a bit more bland than you’d like. From the ebook: “If you find a shirt or skirt that fits perfectly, in a color you love, with an unsightly blemish, this embellishment might be all that’s needed to turn it into your new favorite piece! I used mine to cover up the logo on a shirt and make the whole thing more interesting, and to brighten up a boring skirt.”

There are two patterns for the Bobble Star Embellishments – one with smaller bobbles and longer stems, and the other with larger bobbles, shorter stems, and a larger center part. And then there are notes for adjusting the number and length of the stems, and how I made that crazy one with 9 stems in all different lengths.

And then the other pattern is something you can knit with the actual thrifted materials themselves – make super-bulky recycled “yarn” out of either a sheet or t-shirt(s) and knit it up into a Bulky Teardrop Towel:

And hanging in action in my kitchen:

Each of the patterns have tutorials to go with them – for the embellishments, I explain how to sew the stars onto clothes, either by hand or machine…

And I show you how to make sheet yarn…

…and no-ties t-shirt yarn, which can stripe between different colors with no knots or ends to weave in.

The tutorial in this ebook is nature plates – clear glass plates are almost always found at thrift stores, so here’s a way to turn those into awesome custom dishes:

You could use the same concept with hand-cut stencils or other flat found objects; I used leaves from weeds in my yard. Maybe someday I’ll have our weed problem under control and these plates will serve as a reminder of what used to be. (Yards are a lot of work!)

And then lastly, there’s a link list of tutorials I’ve done online that are great for thrifted materials, which happens to be a pretty big chunk of my tutorials, since I do love thrifting! As I said in the ebook, thrift shops are my main source for craft materials in general, and when coming up with club ideas, always trying to use recycled materials whenever possible, I generally hit thrift stores before craft stores. For the first generation of the club, the recycled yarn always came from thrifted sweaters, and the extras usually would be thrifted as well, so I’m happy to have wrapped up these almost two years of monthly club projects with this theme!

So, you can grab this ebook on my site or on ravelry, and you can buy any of the other 9 club ebooks separately, plus all my old club patterns in ebook collections – volume 1, volume 2, and volume 3. (All my quick knits patterns are on ravelry here.) I’m excited for the club to be behind me, so I can move on to focus on my big ebook now! But, I may be putting out free quick knits patterns once in awhile if I think of any good ideas. We’ll see…..

Happy thrifting, and happy knitting!

Fancy Pantsy Frozen Waffles!

I’m back in town, and have yet to go through road trip photos and stuff, so in an effort to give you some content and make this blog something worth checking in on… here’s something yummy you can make!

There are surely endless possibilities using this concept, but here are 3 variations I made and photographed. Make some frozen toaster waffles – I use the multigrain type to pretend I’m being healthy – and go through your kitchen to find a combination of ingredients to bury the waffles under!

Up top: peanut butter spread on the waffles, banana sliced over them, granola sprinkled on top, then honey drizzled over the whole thing.

Above: peanut butter spread on one waffle, banana slices spread over it, second waffle placed over that, jam spread over that one, then topped with some granola.

Below: mandarin orange slices spread over 2 waffles, greek yogurt poured over it all, and plenty of granola sprinkled on top.

As you can see, I like adding granola to pretty much any fancy waffle creation, for that crunch texture factor – always a good thing! If you want to eat your meal on the go, make something like the middle one, but with all ingredients on the inside to make it a sandwich.

Writing about my frozen waffle concoctions reminded me of a waffle variety Pete got at a waffle cart on N Mississippi – waffle grilled cheese! It was delicious, so you can take that idea and expand your frozen waffle concepts beyond the sweet and fruity and into the savory… some ideas can be found on that post I linked to (like “savory waffled topped with cream cheese, spinach, tomato, chives and two eggs over easy”). Don’t know how those kinds of combinations will translate to frozen waffles, but… worth a try?

Ok this is a weird blog post, but I’m trying to post more often, so there you go! Eat some yummy foods, and I’ll be here working on my last quick knits ebook all weekend. And maybe also spending way too much time on my current obsession – cataloging and organizing my record collection! I got some rad new vinyl on our trip, and I rekindled my vinyl love, so I’ve become completely taken over with entering all my records into a google doc spreadsheet because I am a supernerd. It’s too much fun! I’ll manage to get that ebook done, somehow…..

Maker Faire!! wooooo!

For the first time ever, I’m going to Maker Faire this year! Aaaand, I’ll be doing a demo and speaking in a panel discussion! So super awesome and since I’ve never been before I have no idea what to expect, so I’m totally excited and crazy nervous at the same time. I’ll only be there on Saturday, so I’ll be just packing in as much as possible for that day, after completing my events – I know I won’t be able to do close to everything I’ll want to do (from what I hear) but I know it’ll be an amazing day!

So, if you’re going and want to track me down… at 10:30am (Sat) I’ll be doing a demo on No-Sew Projects Using a T-Shirt! The main project will be my no-sew t-shirt bag, which I’ve just entered into the Make Projects DIY wiki database!

And then, for the remainder of the demo, I’ll be showing how to make other things from the parts of the t-shirt that are left over after you make the bag!

The point being, of course, as little waste as possible…

Hopefully you can gather enough ideas for small tee projects that by the time you’re done crafting with one recycled shirt, you’ll have a bunch of cool stuff, and nothing more than a few tiny scraps of cotton left!

Besides lots of different kinds of bracelets and necklaces (which I’ll be doing blog tutorials for sometime in the future), you can make no-sew hats and cuffs/mitts from t-shirt sleeves:

And by the way, this is a t-shirt strip version of Olga Buraya-Kefelian’s Cable Braided Necklace knitting project:

So then after the demo, I’ll be part of Saturday’s Crafting Your Online Presence Panel Discussion! I’ll be alongside Susan Beal (West Coast Crafty), Bridget Frankowiak (Mr X Stitch), Garth Johnson (Extreme Craft), Alice Merlino (Futuregirl), and Moxie (Made by Moxie).

You can read a little more about it, and ask us questions, over on the craft social blog – the panels will be live-tweeted so you can follow along if you can’t be at Maker Faire!

After Maker Faire, I’ll be taking a little road trip around California for fun and also to stop at every single yarn store I can find to drop off wholesale catalogs – let me know if you have a favorite lys in California! (My list of shops that carry my patterns is slowly growing, and the faraway shops that I haven’t been to seem super awesome, yay! See them along the sidebar of this page.) Being my own distributor is tough work, but hopefully my patterns will make it to your part of the world soon enough!

On the trip, I’ll be doing tons of passenger seat knitting, of course, working away on my future ebook patterns. I’m so excited about those, and if I get enough done on the road, I may have something substantial to show you when I get back! I also may be working on a mystery knit-a-long pattern (one that I started designing quite awhile back, but got distracted from and had to set aside). Summer knit-a-long, anyone? I’m hoping I can make it happen soooooon!

It’s time for some leethal trivia!

Hey remember how I was going to share my trivia with you?! I think it’s about time! So, I did post all of these questions on twitter, one at a time (back in March-April), but now here they are all in one place for your nerdy trivia enjoyment. I put way too much time into this, planning out all the rounds, designing the themes, writing the questions… so I’m excited to share it all publicly and hopefully it will reach out to some trivia fans beyond Zach’s and twitter…

Since everything’s already been out there, and because it’s so easy to find the answers online, there won’t be any prizes for getting the answers here – except for one chance! No one ever got this bonus question on twitter, so I’ll put it out there for you (and I’ll even raise the prize amount!) – the first to comment with the answer gets a $5 coupon code for my knitting patterns:

In round 3: Ten Degrees, each answer is connected to the next through an actor (as explained in the category intro) – list all 10 actor connections for the bonus win!

So, beyond that, feel free to comment with answers to questions/categories you like, for fun! The questions are listed here with no answers, so if you want to play with friends or anything, don’t scroll down to the spoiler-filled comments… I will post all the answers as comments sometime next week, just to give you some time to have fun with it first.

And fun news for trivia fans on twitter: I hosted my second trivia night last week, which means I have a whole new batch of questions! This month is a bit crazy, and I’ll be out of town for a chunk of it (more on that later) so I’m planning to start twittering those questions, just like last time, at the beginning of June.

(Those photos were taken at trivia nights that Pete hosted, by the way.)

And here we go!

Round 1: Well Rounded People

Note: All clues are written to be gender non-specific, so keep in mind when I say “actor” that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a man, and some quotes used have minor edits to keep the neutrality.

1. This chef, author and television personality is “best known for culinary and cultural knowledge, as well as often biting observations of the world’s most exotic dishes,” to quote the Travel Channel website.

2. An American singer/songwriter loved by the Beatles, who, in addition to 16 albums released between 1966 and 1980, did the songwriting for the film Popeye, and wrote songs which were recorded by The Monkees, Glen Campbell, Fred Astaire, The Shangri-Las, The Yardbirds, and Three Dog Night.

3. Television personality, author, magazine publisher, designer of home furnishings and other products; two TV movies were made about a brief stint in prison, starring the same actor in both.

4. Born in 1960 in London to a Scottish father and an Australian mother, this actor has worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, acted in a performance art piece in London and Rome, appeared in many British films including several with director Derek Jarman, many American films with directors such as the Coen Brothers, Spike Jonze, Cameron Crowe, Danny Boyle, Jim Jarmusch, and David Fincher, as well as multiple Italian films including the latest which premiered in the US in 2010.

5. A major cast member in multiple TV shows from early childhood on, in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 2000’s, this Hollywood Icon has been writing and directing films and television since 1977, producing since 1980, and won the Academy Award for best director in 2002.

6. This filmmaker has written+directed movies and television with lines such as:

“Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!”

“Oh Diane, I almost forgot. Got to find out what kind of trees these are. They’re really something.”

“There’s a man… in back of this place. He’s the one who’s doing it. I can see him through the wall. I can see his face. I hope that I never see that face, ever, outside of a dream.”

“This is a story that happened yesterday. But I know it’s tomorrow.”

7. This American born in 1897 has been played in movies by Diane Keaton, Sharon Lawrence, Amy Adams, Hilary Swank, and Jane Lynch, though Lynch’s scenes were cut from the film.

8. This German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director’s films include Even Dwarfs Started Small, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Encounters at the End of the World, and the filmmaker’s first 3-D documentary premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

9. With occupation on Wikipedia listed as “poet, civil rights activist, dancer, film producer, television producer, playwright, film director, author, actor, professor”, this well rounded individual is best known as being the writer of autobiographical books and of poetry, and most recently has released a cookbook called Great Food, All Day Long in December of 2010.

10. Australian actor who has played the roles of both of two cousins in the film Coffee and Cigarettes, Bob Dylan, Galadriel of Middle Earth, and an English Monarch.

Round 2: Making Stuff

I’ll list 5 terms that relate to the making of something… you tell me what the terms all relate to. Some terms may apply to different things, but there should be just one answer that all the terms have in common. And, the answer could be a specific thing – like, for example, coffee, in which case your answer could be “coffee” or “coffee-making”. Or it could be a type of making, like weaving, for example, which could be used to make lots of different things (like scarves, blankets, clothes, etc), and your answer would just be “weaving,” not the actual thing that it’s making.

1. autolyse, biga, gringe, poolish, proofing.

2. cassette, fork, frame, headset, stem.

3. cockling, fresco, gesso, impasto, scumbling.

4. baste, boning, dart, ease, shirring.

5. annatto, labneh, rennet, slurry, starter.

6. anchor, CSS, PHP, script, SQL.

7. awl, endleaves, headband, mull, signature.

8. bolt, cloche, damping off, thinning, tilth.

9. back post half double, chain, extended single, gauge, slip-stitch seam.

10. chuck, dado, furring, pitch, scarfing.

Round 3: Ten Degrees

Each answer is the name of a movie – each movie is connected through an actor to the previous and the following movie. So, answer #2 has an actor in common with answer #1 and another in common with #3 (like the game Six Degrees). In the live trivia that I hosted, I had players write the actors that connect the movies for an extra 1 bonus point per connection. For you, win a $5 coupon for my knitting patterns if you’re the first to correctly list all 10 actor connections in the comments – connect each answer to the next, and then #10 connects back up with #1 for 10 total actors.

1. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, this film includes lines like “Joel, hide me in your humiliation!” and “I love being bathed in the sink – such a feeling of security.”

2. A story of the making of the musical Red, White and Blaine, which features the musical numbers Nothing Ever Happens on Mars, A Penny For Your Thoughts, Covered Wagons, Open-toed Shoes, and Stool Boom.

3. A quote from imdb of this film’s plot description, altered to change giveaways, reads: “A 9-year-old is left alone in New York City with enough cash and credit cards to turn the Big Apple into his very own playground. But he won’t be alone for long. The notorious Wet Bandits are bound for New York too, plotting a huge holiday heist! The kid is ready to welcome them with a battery of booby traps the bumbling bandits will never forget!”

4. This 2002 film about a 17-year-old misfit includes characters named Sookie Sapperstein, Mimi Slocumb, Bunny, Mrs. Piggee and lines like “I think if Gandhi had to spend a prolonged amount of time with you, he’d end up beating the shit out of you, too,” and “His conception was an act of animosity, why shouldn’t his life be one as well?”

5. Baz Luhrmann’s updated classic was accompanied by a popular soundtrack, with tracks by Garbage, Butthole Surfers, Des’ree, The Cardigans, Radiohead, Everclear, and The Wannadies.

6. This 2008 comedy directed by David Wain about 2 energy drink salesmen, which involves a ton of live action role playing, includes bits of dialogue like “No, venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn’t mean large. It’s also the only one that’s Italian. Congratulations, you’re stupid in three languages.” and “No, I like to rock n’ roll all night and *part* of every day. I usually have errands… I can only rock from like 1-3.”

7. This television series about LA caterers, which aired on the Starz network and was sadly canceled after 2 short seasons, was co-created by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, and shares many other writers, producers, and actors from that show.

8. A 2009 comedy set in 1987, with characters James Brennan, a recent college graduate who majored in Comparative Literature and Renaissance Studies, Joel, a college student of Russian literature and Slavic languages, and Mike Connell, a maintenance man and part time musician who claims to have played a gig with Lou Reed.

9. Noah Baumbach’s 2005 critically acclaimed film which was named after an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.

10. This 2000 film’s one-line synopsis on imdb reads: “A single mother’s life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely-seen younger brother returns to town.”

Round 4: Music Mash-Ups

I will describe an imaginary concert lineup with 2 bands or musicians, which are mashed up as pop-culture-mashups, or before+after. For example, if the question reads – “The Swedish indie rock band well known for their 2006 hit single Young Folks time travels to open for the legendary singer from The Beatles, who plays some of his solo songs like Imagine and Give Peace a Chance” – the answer would be Peter Bjorn and John Lennon.

1. A show that starts with crowd favorite song Joey, sung by frontwoman Johnette Napolitano, ends with Debbie Harry’s excellent dance accompaniment to Atomic.

2. Will Oldham is first to play this mismatched lineup, under his stage name, opening for Leslie Sebastian Charles – though he too goes by a different name when performing his hit song Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car.

3. The singer of 80’s band ‘Til Tuesday goes solo, and after contributing to soundtracks for PT Anderson films, acting in The Big Lebowski, and appearing as herself in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she plays a show with a questionable surf rock band that’s known for using theremins, tesla coils and sound bites from forgotten science fiction films and TV shows.

4. The venue is packed to the brim with ultra-hardcore fans when these 2 bands play together – first up are Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew, who delight their followers with tracks off some older albums Fakebook, Painful, and Elecr-O-Pura; and headlining is the band that made history by being the first all-female band that both wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts, reaching number one with their debut album, Beauty and the Beat.

5. It’s a weird crowd tonight at this show that opens with I Wanna Sex You Up and All 4 Love, and closes with songs from the About a Boy soundtrack and lots of Damon Gough’s famous storytelling between songs.

6. This show starts hard with glam metal hits off the album Look What the Cat Dragged In, before the hair band closes their set with Every Rose Has Its Thorn to slow things down for headliner Mark Kozelek to play his signature mellowed-out covers of Modest Mouse songs with his band, along with their own tunes from the album Ghosts of the Great Highway.

7. Fans of this beloved singer/songwriter from Tacoma, Washington, get nostalgic when her set – featuring songs like I Wish I Was the Moon, Hold On, Hold On, and This Tornado Loves You – is followed by a Swedish pop band they are embarrassed to have loved many years ago, and they can’t help dancing to Don’t Turn Around.

8. It’s an all-English band lineup tonight, starting with the indie pop beats led by singers and childhood friends Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, performing singles VCR and Islands off their debut album from 2009, and ending with the New Wave band responsible for singles The Mayor of Simpleton, King for a Day, and Senses Working Overtime.

9. After a month in a psychiatric hospital, Stuart Leslie Goddard opens this show under his solo performer name, playing fan favorites from the 70’s and 80’s just like he did at his huge 2010 show The Pirate Metal Extravaganza, and is followed by the band of a fellow Brit, whose musical genres are listed on Wikipedia as “Chamber pop and Dark Cabaret” and whose 2005 album includes guest appearances by Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Boy George and Devendra Banhart.

10. Brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb play a diverse set of hits from the 1960’s through 2000’s, then the mood changes when the headliners, led by brothers Jim and William Reid, open with the single Blues from a Gun off their 1989 album Automatic.

And that’s that! Comment with answers if you want to, play with your friends if you want to, and enjoy!
(This trivia was written by Lee Meredith, posted here only for your own personal enjoyment, thanks!)

May’s quick knits club ebook: Eat!

It may not feel like spring here yet, but I’m already daydreaming about growing some food in my yard this year and cooking up some awesome fresh veggie-filled meals! So, this month is all about food! An eating-utensil-holder for picnicking or any other portable eating needs, a coaster or potholder depending on what size you make it, an apron made from a recycled shirt, and a little zine I made to share with you meatless things I like to make on my George Foreman grill…

My favorite thing about the patterns this month is that both of them are completely modular, not even requiring so much as a picked up stitch! No sewing or seaming of any kind, no breaking yarn partway through, etc. When you’re done knitting, it’s done!

This Picnic Wrapper pattern has you start at one i-cord tip, work through the entire pattern, close up the side with a 3-needle bind-off as you work, then end at the tip of the other i-cord! It works in a way that holds in whatever utensils, napkins, etc that you need to carry, grasping them in there securely with a pocket and one i-cord tie on the inside, then the flap side wraps around the whole thing and ties around into a convenient little bundle:

The Blocky Coaster/Potholder pattern is a log-cabin-ish design, which will give you a different look if you choose to switch solid color yarns (like my potholder) or use one self-striping yarn for the whole thing (like my coaster).

The coaster is the official “quick knit” version, using approx 15 yards of worsted weight, and the potholder uses much more. The pattern is given in 3 forms: worsted weight coaster and worsted weight potholder, like the 2 samples, and any-gauge/any-size, written with variables and some very basic math.

The square is felted (/fulled) to thicken it up, and smooth out the bumps. It’s knit up using lots of simple short rows – if you’ve made a Betiko, it’ll be very familiar to you. Sideways edge cast-ons along the sides of the first few sections, then sideways edge bind-offs for the two thick side sections, all in garter stitch:

The tutorial is a photo-filled explanation of how I made this pocketed apron from a recycled button-down shirt:

The collar of the shirt becomes the top pocket of the apron, and the shirt back’s bottom is the bottom edge of the apron…

I am no expert sewer, not even close, so mine is a bit messy, but if you have experience, then you could probably make a pretty awesome version using the same concepts.

And lastly, I made up this little folding zine that you can print out – there’s this colored one, and also a colorless version if you want to save printer ink. It’s a bunch of things I like to make using my George Foreman grill, which is one of my favorite appliances, and one that I think is mostly associated with meat, so I thought people might like to learn about how great it is for non-meat-eaters as well. But, of course, you can use lots of the “recipes” with other ways of cooking if you don’t have a GF grill.

The ebook this month is a whopping 19 pages long! $5 for this book alone, or $7 for a 2-month membership (next month is the last of the club!) – grab it on my site or on ravelry here.

Hey, I would love some theme ideas/requests for the last month! I have a bunch of barely-developed ideas that I’ve come up with over the last almost-2-years doing quick knits, but nothing that I’m super excited about for the last ebook… Comment with theme ideas if you have any, or just with pattern concept ideas, and I could even do some kind of “by request” theme with different ideas that don’t necessarily have to relate… just a thought…

Which reminds me, it was a member who put the food theme idea out there – she suggested recipe cards, which I had been planning on doing at first, but then I guess the zine idea took over and those didn’t happen. Thanks Ellen for that idea!! Aaaand, it was a twitter follower who gave me the idea for the utensil holder pattern, but, sadly, twitter does not make it easy to search through old @ messages, so I can’t find who it was that gave me the idea – I’m sorry!

Ok that’s all, happy knitting!