Lee Does Stuff

2011, my year of movies!

Happy new year everyone! One of many things I want to try hard at this year is to watch more films instead of tv shows – I consume a ton of media, while knitting, while editing photos and my website, while doing other crafty things, etc, and most of it tends to be tv shows because it’s so easy to start a show and just go with it… for weeks at a time… even if it’s not a particularly good show… I never stoop to reality tv (well except for Project Runway), and most of the shows I get hooked on are decent quality (most, not all), but I really wish I fit more good movies into my media consumption.

So, new project for 2011! I am going to try to watch 365 movies this year, and I will keep track of every single one! This blog post will be my list for the year – I’ll edit it a couple times a week or so, to update it with what I’ve watched. It will include films seen in the theater, but most of what I watch is while working at home, so the quality of films will vary depending on how much I need to focus on what I’m doing at the same time. I plan to re-watch lots of old favorites and films I’ve seen but only partly remember – I figure re-watching good or decent movies is better for my brain than watching (or re-watching) bad or only semi-decent tv.

I may include notes sometimes – just like whether I liked it or not – and date watched… and just for fun, to keep track of what’s what, I’ll be including some symbol coding when applicable:

** = seen in the theater
? = had already seen it more than once, aka old favorite
•• = had already seen it at some point but didn’t remember it well
BMB = bad movie bingo!

and, after each movie: (date – day of the year), so (1/20 – 20) means January 20, which is the 20th day of the year.

And now, the list!

365. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (12/31 – 365)

364. The Descendants (12/31 – 365)**

363. Diner (12/30 – 364)

362. The Doom Generation (12/27 – 361)

361. Presumed Innocent (12/27 – 361)

360. CQ (12/26 – 360)

359. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (12/26 – 360)** (I had zero expectations for this, which I went to with my parents, and it was actually a super fun time, hah!)

358. Love Actually (12/23 – 357)? (holiday season classic, of course)

357. We Bought a Zoo (12/23 – 357)**

356. Kick-Ass (12/22 – 356)••

355. Scrooged (12/20 – 354)

354. Let Me In (12/17 – 351)

353. Bad Santa (12/16 – 350)

352. Cradle Will Rock (12/15 – 349)

351. Beauty and the Beast (12/15 – 349)••

350. Cannibal! The Musical (12/14 – 348)

349. Hunger (12/13 – 347) (wow, so intense)

348. Death Becomes Her (12/13 – 347)•• (half-watched this because I remembered liking it when I was a kid. silly.)

347. Limitless (12/12 – 346) (this premise had so much potential, but it just sucked so hard, bummer)

346. You’ve Got Mail (12/11 – 345)•• (I should probably mark this as ? because I’ve seen it more times than I’d like to admit, for some strange reason…)

345. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (12/10 – 344)•• (remembered loving this movie in college – yes, still good stuff)

344. In Bruges (12/08 – 342) (took me long enough to see this one, liked it a lot)

343. Hot Rod (12/08 – 342)•• (cool beans)

342. The Freshman (12/08 – 342)••

341. The Door in the Floor (12/07 – 341) (maybe I saw this long ago… I don’t remember for sure because it was so boring and unmemorable)

340. Spanglish (12/06 – 340)••

339. In Good Company (12/05 – 339)••

338. The Safety of Objects (12/05 – 339)

337. Friday Night Lights (12/03 – 337)

336. Black Snake Moan (12/01 – 335)

335. Drive Me Crazy (11/25 – 329)••

334. Dancer in the Dark (11/25 – 329)••

333. Breaking the Waves (11/23 – 327)••

332. The Town (11/23 – 327)

331. Never Been Kissed (11/22 – 326)••

330. Dick (11/22 – 326)••

329. Outbreak (11/21 – 325)

328. Heaven (11/19 – 323)

327. Cloverfield (11/18 – 322)••

326. Life During Wartime (11/17 – 321)

325. Stake Land (11/15 – 319)

324. Contagion (11/13 – 317)**

323. Timecop (11/11 – 315)

322. Rear Window (11/09 – 313)**

321. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (11/08 – 312)

320. I Love You, Man (11/08 – 312)? (with commentary)

319. Zero Effect (11/05 – 309)

318. Prelude to a Kiss (11/05 – 309)

317. Monsters, Inc. (11/04 – 308)••

316. The Pixar Story (11/04 – 308)

315. Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox (11/03 – 307)

314. Strange Days (11/03 – 307)

313. Winnebago Man (11/02 – 306)

312. Pandorum (11/02 – 306)

311. Bill Cunningham New York (11/02 – 306) (loved it!!)

310. My Dinner with Andre (11/01 – 305)

309. House on Haunted Hill (1959) (11/01 – 305)

308. Superstar (10/31 – 304) (the Andy Warhol documentary, inspiration for Halloween)

307. Carnival of Souls (10/30 – 303)

306. Red State (10/30 – 303)

305. Attack the Block (10/29 – 302)** (excellent!!)

304. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (10/29 – 302)**

303. True Stories (10/27 – 300)

302. Lake Mungo (10/26 – 299)

301. Philadelphia (10/26 – 299)••

300. The Next Three Days (10/25 – 298) (ohmygod how can these modern day action movies be so boring?!)

299. Monsters (10/24 – 297)

298. The Puffy Chair (10/24 – 297)

297. The Ward (10/23 – 296)

296. The 39 Steps (10/23 – 296)

295. Criminal (10/22 – 295)

294. Brothers (10/21 – 294)

293. Home Room (10/21 – 294)

292. Office Killer (10/20 – 293) (being a huge Cindy Sherman fan, as soon as I discovered that this movie existed and was immediately watchable I had to watch it immediately. fun stuff.)

291. Parenthood (10/18 – 291)••

290. Coal Miner’s Daughter (10/18 – 291)

289. The Ghost Writer (10/18 – 291)

288. Brief Encounter (10/16 – 289) (loved this!)

287. Heavenly Creatures (10/16 – 289)

286. Southland Tales (10/16 – 289) (wow so bad)

285. House (10/15 – 288) (this movie was amazing. seriously.)

284. 28 Weeks Later (10/15 – 288)••

283. 28 Days Later (10/14 – 287)••

282. Shaun of the Dead (10/14 – 287)** (so fun to see this in the theater!)

281. Session 9 (10/12 – 285)

280. Blood Diamond (10/09 – 282)

279. Manic (10/09 – 282)

278. The Perfect Host (10/09 – 282)

277. Don’t Bother to Knock (10/08 – 281)

276. Case 39 (10/06 – 279)

275. The Future (10/04 – 277)**

274. Tree of Life (10/01 – 274)**

273. Dance of the Dead (9/30 – 273)

272. The Chosen (9/30 – 273)

271. Insomnia (9/29 – 272)

270. The Usual Suspects (9/29 – 272)••

269. Don Juan DeMarco (9/29 – 272)••

268. The Brave One (9/28 – 271)

267. New Waterford Girl (9/28 – 271)

266. Death to Smoochy (9/28 – 271)••

265. Alexandra’s Project (9/27 – 270)

264. Cry-Baby (9/27 – 270)••

263. House of 1000 Corpses (9/26 – 269) (blech)

262. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic (9/26 – 269)••

261. Rain Man (9/25 – 268)••

260. Ponyo (9/25 – 268)

259. Mammoth (9/24 – 267) (love Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal both so much, but damn, this was brutal)

258. She-Devil (9/24 – 267)

257. The Sting (9/24 – 267)

256. Cold Weather (9/23 – 266)

255. The Million Dollar Hotel (9/23 – 266)

254. Casino (9/19 – 262)

253. Serious Moonlight (9/18 – 261) (because adrienne shelly wrote it)

252. I’ll Take You There (9/18 – 261) (love adrienne shelly!)

251. Searching for Bobby Fischer (9/15 – 258)

250. Elizabethtown (9/13 – 256)•• (rewatched because i remembered nothing from my first half-watch years ago and needed to revisit after reading My Year of Flops – Rabin started with this review, then changed his attitude at the end of the book in review #2 of the same film. yeah it was pretty bad…)

249. Awakenings (9/12 – 255)

248. 28 Days (9/10 – 253)••

247. Point of No Return (9/08 – 251)

246. Edmond (9/06 – 249)

245. The Cry of the Owl (9/06 – 249)

244. The Incredible Shrinking Woman (9/05 – 248)

243. Apollo 13 (9/05 – 248)••

242. Beautiful Creatures (9/04 – 247)

241. The Secret of My Success (9/04 – 247)

240. You Again (9/04 – 247) (I’ll basically watch anything with Kristen Bell)

239. Hulk (9/02 – 245)

238. Tapeheads (8/31 – 243)

237. TrollHunter / Trolljegeren (8/30 – 242)** (fun time!)

236. Radio Flyer (8/29 – 241)•• (had a weird memory of this movie from seeing it as a kid and watched it out of curiosity because of that)

235. Crimes and Misdemeanors (8/29 – 241)

234. Super 8 (8/28 – 240)** (loved it!)

233. Kalifornia (8/28 – 240)

232. Mrs. Doubtfire (8/28 – 240)••

231. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (8/27 – 239) (read the first three books, so that influenced my view of the movie, but it was still excellent! visually amazing!)

230. The Morning After (8/27 – 239)

229. Missing (8/25 – 237)

228. Everything Must Go (8/21 – 233)**

227. The Man Who Fell To Earth (8/20 – 232)

226. City Island (8/20 – 232)

225. Network (8/20 – 232)

224. Welcome to Collinwood (8/17 – 229)

223. The Shape of Things (8/16 – 228)

222. Better Off Dead (8/11 – 223)••

221. The Italian Job (2003) (8/09 – 221)

220. Drop Dead Gorgeous (8/08 – 220)••

219. Scream 4 (8/08 – 220)

218. Muriel’s Wedding (8/06 – 218)

217. River’s Edge (8/05 – 217)

216. The River Wild (8/05 – 217)

215. London to Brighton (8/05 – 217)

214. Temple Grandin (8/04 – 216) (loved it!)

213. Capturing the Friedmans (8/03 – 215)

212. X-Men: First Class (8/02 – 214)**

211. The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (8/02 – 214)

210. The Long Kiss Goodnight (7/31 – 212)••

209. Superman Returns (7/31 – 212)

208. Dude, Where’s My Car? (7/27 – 208)••

207. Happy Accidents (7/26 – 207)

206. Benny & Joon (7/25 – 206)?

205. Open Water (7/24 – 205)

204. The Outsiders (7/24 – 205)••

203. Camille (7/24 – 205)

202. Emma (7/23 – 204)

201. Superman II (7/23 – 204)••

200. 10 Things I Hate About You (7/22 – 203)?

199. 8mm (7/22 – 203)

198. Lonesome Jim (7/22 – 203)

197. All Good Things (7/21 – 202)

196. Strictly Ballroom (7/20 – 201)

195. Four Rooms (7/19 – 200)

194. Shutter Island (7/18 – 199)•• (think I liked this even better after a second viewing!)

193. Skyline (7/18 – 199)

192. Win Win (7/17 – 198)** (loved it!)191. The Thing (7/17 – 198)

190. Contact (7/14 – 195)••

189. Hanna (7/14 – 195)**

188. Conspiracy Theory (7/14 – 195)•• (saw this when it came out, in high school, but didn’t remember it at all – wow terrible)

187. Red Dragon (7/12 – 193)

186. Revenge of the Nerds (7/12 – 193)

185. Blue Valentine (7/10 – 191)

184. Just One of the Guys (7/10 – 191)

183. Book of Love (7/10 – 191)

182. Barry Munday (7/09 – 190)

181. Meek’s Cutoff (7/08 – 189)**

180. Speed 2: Cruise Control (7/07 – 188)••BMB (I think I saw this when it came out, when I was in high school, but of course it’s completely unmemorable and we thought it would make for some fun bingo)

179. Accepted (7/07 – 188)

178. Super High Me (7/07 – 188)

177. Creepshow (7/05 – 186)••

176. The Bourne Identity (7/05 – 186)••

175. A Hard Day’s Night (7/04 – 185)

174. Fritz the Cat (7/02 – 183)

173. The Silence of the Lambs (7/01 – 182)••

172. Southern Belles (7/01 – 182) (I really love Anna Faris… this movie was just okay, not good, but she was great)

171. Tape (6/30 – 181)••

170. Gentlemen Broncos (6/28 – 179)

169. The Italian Job (1969) (6/28 – 179)**

168. Aaah! Zombies!! (6/25 – 176)

167. Some Girl (6/25 – 176)

166. Who’s the Caboose? (6/24 – 175)

165. Pulp Fiction (6/24 – 175)••

164. Babe: Pig in the City (6/23 – 174)

163. Get Over It (6/22 – 173)

162. Meet Bill (6/22 – 173)

161. Source Code (6/20 – 171)**

160. Sleeping Dogs Lie (6/12 – 163)

159. It’s Kind of a Funny Story (6/11 – 162)

158. Intermission (6/11 – 162)

157. Incendiary (6/11 – 162)

156. SubUrbia (6/09 – 160)••

155. According to Spencer (6/09 – 160)

154. Jack Goes Boating (6/08 – 159)

153. Wonder Boys (6/08 – 159)

152. The Open Road (6/08 – 159)

151. The Verdict (6/07 – 158)

150. Ten Inch Hero (6/06 – 157)

149. My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (6/06 – 157)

148. Loser (6/06 – 157)••

147. Scorched (6/06 – 157)

146. The House of Yes (6/03 – 154)••

145. Two Hands (6/03 – 154)

144. The Cable Guy (6/02 – 153)••

143. The People I’ve Slept With (6/02 – 153)

142. Cedar Rapids (5/31 – 151)**

141. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (5/31 – 151)** (so glad we saw it in 3D!)

140. Bridesmaids (5/17 – 137)** (gosh I love Kristen Wiig so much)

139. The Botany of Desire (5/16 – 136)

138. Best in Show (5/14 – 134)?

137. Four Lions (5/13 – 133)

136. Paul (5/12 – 132)** (best part = Kristen Wiig)

135. Extract (5/11 – 131) (best parts = Kristen Wiig + Mila Kunis)

134. Fun with Dick and Jane (5/11 – 131)••

133. The Education of Shelby Knox (5/09 – 129) (I kind of live-blogged this one on pinterest because of the rage that needed to be let out)

132. Leaves of Grass (5/07 – 127)

131. The Strangers (4/29 – 119)

130. Dead and Breakfast (4/28 – 118)

129. Best Laid Plans (4/27 – 117)

128. In Her Shoes (4/23 – 113)••

127. Chasing Liberty (4/22 – 112)••BMB

126. With Honors (4/22 – 112)••

125. Freeway (4/22 – 112)

124. Morning Glory (4/21 – 111)

123. The Lookout (4/18 – 108)

122. Six O’Clock News (4/18 – 108)

121. Amelie (4/17 – 107)? (this is definitely one of my favorite films, but somehow I hadn’t watched in at least 5 years, more I think – how’d that happen?? so good!)

120. Sherman’s March (4/16 – 106)

119. Clueless (4/14 – 104)?

118. High Fidelity (4/14 – 104)?

117. Party Girl (4/12 – 102)

116. Empire Records (4/11 – 101)?

115. A History of Violence (4/09 – 99)

114. The Killing (4/09 – 99)

113. Get Shorty (4/07 – 97)

112. A Dirty Shame (4/07 – 97)

111. Reservoir Dogs (4/06 – 96)•• (I almost watched 5 Tarantino films 5 days in a row, but missed it by a day, oh well)

110. Meet Me in St. Louis (4/04 – 94)

109. White Oleander (4/04 – 94)

108. Beneath the Dark (4/04 – 94)

107. Jackie Brown (4/04 – 94)

106. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (4/03 – 93)

105. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (4/02 – 92)••

104. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (4/02 – 92)

103. Death Proof (4/01 – 91)

102. The Last Word (4/01 – 91)

101. Black Swan (3/31 – 90)**

100. Alone in the Dark (3/29 – 88)BMB

99. Leaving Las Vegas (3/29 – 88)••

98. Flawless (3/29 – 88)

97. Laura (3/27 – 86)

96. Planet Terror (3/26 – 85)

95. Tank Girl (3/25 – 84) (wow so bad)

94. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (3/25 – 84)

93. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (3/25 – 84)

92. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (3/22 – 81)•• (watched with RiffTrax, and I use the word “watched” loosely here – I probably shouldn’t even count this, but I was in the same room as the tv the whole time it was playing)

91. The Illusionist (L’Illusionniste) (3/21 – 80)**

90. Don’t You Forget About Me (3/21 – 80) (made me want to re-watch every John Hughes film)

89. Frozen (3/21 – 80)

88. Eagle vs Shark (3/20 – 79)••

87. Zack and Miri Make A Porno (3/20 – 79)••

86. Pump Up the Volume (3/19 – 78)?

85. Joe Versus the Volcano (3/18 – 77)

84. Resurrected (3/18 – 77)

83. Splice (3/15 – 74)

82. Phoebe in Wonderland (3/14 – 73)

81. The Nines (3/13 – 72)

80. Somewhere (3/11 – 70)**

79. Kicking and Screaming (3/11 – 70) (by Noah Baumbach from 1995, not the Will Ferrell soccer movie)

78. It’s All About Love (3/10 – 69) (as recommended by the book My Year of Flops)

77. King of California (3/10 – 69)

76. Short Cuts (3/06 – 65)

75. Dogtooth (3/05 – 64)

74. Hounddog (3/05 – 64)

73. Edgeplay (3/05 – 64)

72. The Runaways (3/05 – 64)

71. Mystery Team (3/03 – 62)

70. Keith (3/03 – 62)

69. Daybreakers (3/02 – 61)

68. Superbad (3/01 – 60)?

67. I Love You Phillip Morris (3/01 – 60)**

66. Hard Eight (2/28 – 59)••

65. The Elephant Man (2/28 – 59)

64. Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (2/28 – 59)

63. Big Night (2/27 – 58)

62. 127 Hours (2/26 – 57)**

61. Henry Fool (2/25 – 56)

60. The Young Victoria (2/24 – 55)

59. Popeye (2/24 – 55) (I needed something really stupid after finishing that last one, and this was indeed really stupid)

58. Deliver Us from Evil (2/24 – 55)

57. The Importance of Being Earnest (2/23 – 54)

56. The King’s Speech (2/23 – 54)**

55. Right at Your Door (2/23 – 54)

54. Mamma Mia! (2/23 – 54)

53. Dear Zachary (2/22 – 53) (I finished this one about an hour before writing this and I still feel completely physically beat up)

52. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2/21 – 52)•• (I’ll quote myself on twitter as I was watching this: “can i just be a girl and tell you i’m watching a very silly movie for 1 reason and there is not nearly enough of him”)

51. Moulin Rouge (2/20 – 51)?

50. The Saddest Music in the World (2/20 – 51) (need to give this another watch sometime when I’m in the right mood, as I was distracted and couldn’t really take it in)

49. Red Riding Trilogy: Part 3: 1983 (2/20 – 51)

48. Beautiful Girls (2/18 – 49)••

47. Dazed and Confused (2/17 – 48)? (every time I watch this, it’s better than I remembered it being, somehow)

46. Red Riding Trilogy: Part 2: 1980 (2/16 – 47) (watched part 1 a couple months ago)

45. The Pick-up Artist (2/16 – 47)

44. Zodiac (2/15 – 46)••

43. Saved! (2/15 – 46)?

42. Zombieland (2/15 – 46)? (saw it about a year ago, or less, in the theater, loved it so much I had to give it a re-watch, so it counts as an old favorite I think)

41. Blackout (2/14 – 45)

40. The Trotsky (2/14 – 45)

39. Fearless (2/14 – 45)••

38. Easy A (2/11 – 42)

37. The Social Network (2/10 – 41)**

36. Every Little Step (2/10 – 41)

35. Stigmata (2/07 – 38)••

34. The Thing Called Love (2/07 – 38)

33. The Independent (2/06 – 37)

32. In America (2/05 – 36)••

31. Poison Ivy (2/05 – 36)

30. True Grit (2/04 – 35)**

29. Man on Wire (2/01 – 32)

28. Devil in a Blue Dress (1/31 – 31)

27. Grass (1/30 – 30)

26. Moog (1/29 – 29)

25. Identity (1/27 – 27)••

24. Y Tu Mamá También (1/26 – 26)

23. Paris, Texas (1/25 – 25)

22. The Others (1/24 – 24)••

21. Pizza (1/23 – 23)

20. Encounters at the End of the World (1/21 – 21) (So good!!)

19. Remains of the Day (1/20 – 20)

18. A League of Their Own (1/18 – 18)••

17. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1/18 – 18)

16. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1/17 – 17) (I can’t believe I had never seen this! Wacky!)

15. Drop Dead Fred (1/17 – 17) (This was another of those… remembered liking it when I was a kid, curious, it’s on instant, eh why not?)

14. Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (1/15 – 15) (Wow.)

13. A Star Is Born (1/14 – 14) (1954 one)

12. Sweetgrass (1/12 – 12)

11. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (1/12 – 12)**

10. The Sound of Music (1/09 – 9)?

9. Delirious (1/09 – 9) (I had vague memories of liking and/or being weirded out by this movie when I was a kid, so when it came up on instant, I half-watched it out of curiosity… pretty bad…)

8. Down with Love (1/07 – 7)?

7. Poltergeist (1/06 – 6)

6. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (1/06 – 6) (I didn’t know anything about Joan Rivers before watching this – now I’m a big fan!)

5. Back to the Future part III (1/05 – 5)••

4. Hannah and Her Sisters (1/04 – 4)

3. Back to the Future part II (1/03 – 3)••

2. Back to the Future (1/02 – 2)? (we had to re-watch it since Pete got me the game for xmas and it’s SUPER fun!)

1. The Red Shoes (1/01 – 1)

So that’ll be updated all throughout the year, and I’ll probably do new posts occasionally referring to it… Most of what I watch at home is from Netflix, and mostly on instant, so if you’re an instant user, you could follow along to see recommendations, and please go ahead and comment with your recommendations for me!

Just to finish off, since it is the 1st of 2011, I made a quick list of my personal favorites of 2010 – just my favorite films that were released in ’10 that I’ve seen, which leaves out tons of good movies. Our theaters are all third run, so most of the movies that were released in the last few months aren’t even out yet for us, and there are lots that we missed in the theater and are now in the DVD queue. So, with that said, my top 5, as of right now without much thought put into it:

1. Never Let Me Go
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
4. Inception
5. can’t decide… Toy Story 3 / Youth in Revolt

And winner for my number 1 absolute worst film of 2010: The Expendables (long story about why we saw it in the first place).

Ok so that’s that. Wish me luck, and tell me what I should watch!

Betiko! Mystery knit-a-long pattern revealed!

Wow it took me many days and many pages longer than expected, but the first leethal mystery knit-a-long pattern is now in normal pattern pdf format (well, maybe not “normal”… it is 27 pages long… but at least it’s all together in one file now)…

And the mystery is solved – it’s a shawl! Or a shawlette, depending on what size you want to make it. I love this small shawl size, for keeping my neck and shoulders warm without being big and cumbersome…

I’m going to first give some background about the design process a little, then I’ll get into more specifics about the pattern… and tons of photos, so bear with me here… I didn’t want to lengthen the pattern to any longer than it already was with unnecessary photos, so a lot of shots I love were left out, which means I’ll be posting them here… anyway…

If you checked out our engagement photos back when I posted them to flickr, you may have noticed a few like this and this with blurred out neckwear – well that was my first prototype version of this shawl, designed and knit to be my wedding shawl! Here it is in the engagement shots, pre-blocking:

When I blocked it out, I discovered that I loved it even more because the edging caused it to stretch and curve out and up into a U shape! And, while I liked the ruffly edge of the unblocked piece, I liked the look way more post-blocking! So that was my wedding shawl, which I ended up not wearing on my wedding day at all because it was 100 degrees that day and cooled off to pleasant when the sun went down, but definitely no need for a wool/alpaca blend around my shoulders!

So, getting to the point, I loved the way the design turned out, and a knit night buddy pointed out how the 4-part construction would be a perfect fit for a mystery knit-a-long! I didn’t love the top of this one, which is pretty simple and I mostly chose the zig-zag eyelets pattern because it’s called Marriage Lines, so I got started on a final design for the KAL – making it any-gauge – and the whole time thinking about how the construction was so great for making it any size, and for plugging in any stitch patterns, and really the basic design idea could be used to make any kind of customized shawl!

The shawl I ended up creating as my mystery pattern version had a waving ribs pattern across the top – simple, textured, kind of squishy, interesting but basic – and pretty much the same outer edging as that first prototype (but wider, and redesigned to work for any gauge and any width); I played around with the sizing for this one and ended up with a much larger shawl!

So, I kept the mystery pattern down to the size of my original wedding shawl, but I included the measurements for both of these 2 sizes in the final pattern, with notes on how to make it basically any size you want.

And then, for the final pattern, I decided there needed to be some kind of really basic version of the pattern, as kind of an intro to the construction and new techniques for knitters who might be intimidated by everything – not that it’s a hard pattern, I don’t think it is, but it does involve several aspects which many knitters might not be used to (like being any-gauge, the sideways edge cast-on, and the knitted-on sideways edging). So I made this garter stitch edged version, in the smaller size, with some soft+squooshy Malabrigo Twist:

And lastly, I wanted to test out this theory that any stitch patterns could be plugged into the parts to make a customized shawl, so I plugged in some cable patterns, and I got this! Totally worked! The pattern pdf only includes instructions for how to go about plugging in your own stitch patterns (generally, not specifics), but I am planning to put together an extra pdf with these cable charts and notes on how to recreate this version, in the future:

So, now for the massive amounts of photos, and more pattern info…

The garter stitch edged version of Betiko is written like a normal pattern, with only a few parts being affected by it being any-gauge. Most of the piece is worked until it measures a certain size, for each section, and because of the way it starts, with the panel across the top (which doesn’t affect the size of the whole piece), you don’t even need to do a gauge swatch!

My favorite way to wear Betiko is wrapped around and tucked into itself, without a shawl pin or anything to bother with…

And it can be arranged with either side in front or in back…

Or it works will with a shawl pin too…

Pete and I did this photoshoot last week at Reed college, in the freezing cold rain, so I was moving around a lot to distract myself from my numb hands and feet. I love these shots he took of me dancing around in the leaves…

…and I really love the way the wind got involved in some of the shots:

So, there’s the basic garter edged pattern, then there’s the customized pattern. This pattern has a bit more going on – the recipe kind of pattern for plugging anything (stitch patterns, cables, simple lace, etc) into the parts, and sidebars with everything you need to know to make this wavy version, with the waving ribs top part and wavy lace edging.

Every section of the pattern is adjustable, so you can make the top part and the edging each as wide as you want, and make the whole thing as big as you want.

And there are super detailed instructions for striping! You can make any kinds of stripes you want, and they are designed so that the yarn strands are all carried along the wrong side of the piece, within the body of the shawl, not along any outer edges, making for nice clean edges all around. Many of the carried strands are later worked into the piece as the modular joins happen, making the strands nearly invisible (see this photo with flickr notes to see how the strands are carried along the back, but it’s the prototype, which was messier than the final version).

This larger version is so warm and luxurious, almost like carrying a mini-blanket with me!

These yarns, by the way, are Imperial Stock Ranch Columbia wool striped with Noro self-striping Kureyon, with a darker shade of Columbia used for the edging.

If you want to get crazy with the larger shawl, it can even be worn to warm your skirt area!

And here are shots of it before and after blocking:

And then, speaking of striping again, you can stripe all or just some of the parts, however you like. In the above shawl, I striped all but the 4th part – in the wedding shawl, I striped all 4 parts:

I started to run out of yarn though, partway through the edging, and could tell I wasn’t going to make it, so I switched from wide grey stripes to wide orange stripes, at the halfway point:

The sections 2 and 3 stripes (the main body of the shawl) were all done randomly, with 2 purl ridge “stripes” thrown in there too, one in section #2 and one in #3:

This yarn is Austermann Natura and it is so freaking soft and warm, I love it so much! Merino wool, bamboo, cotton, alpaca, and mohair – weird, right? – somehow made into this magically not itchy at all, fuzzy but not too fuzzy, beautifully colored yarn!

I have been wearing one or another of these shawls pretty much constantly (including at home) for weeks now, and I’m sure I will be all winter long! Love them!

And then the cabled version… On the sides there is Barbara Walker’s Banjo Cables pattern, with seed stitch inside all the yarn-over increase wedges…

…some regular cables in the center panel (I have no idea how I managed to screw up the twist at the bottom there and not notice it till weeks later!), and Oxox cables all along the top (looking kind of weird stretched out here):

It is so so so squishy and WARM; holy moly it’s the best thing ever on a cold day!

Definitely my favorite way to wear this one is all wrapped up high around my neck. My neck will never be cold again!

This version served as a test and, while I was definitely knitting it for myself to enjoy, I was also treating it like a giant swatch. So, I tested out 4 different ways of working the edging across the piece, which is why you may notice different segments of the edge looking differently in some photos, and all those options are explained in the pattern.

This yarn, which I am completely in love with, is Berroco Blackstone Tweed Chunky, a wool/mohair/angora blend, and is also magically not at all itchy and incredibly soft! Yum!

Head to the Betiko ravelry page, or the leethal pattern page, to read more details about the pattern (like yardage estimates and other things pasted in from the pdf), and to purchase ($6 for 27 pages!), and check out the ravelry projects to see all the mystery knitters’ versions (yay!). I’ll paste in this one little paragraph from the pdf which I think is neat to know:

A couple more fun things about this pattern: regardless of how big you make your shawl, you’ll never cast on or bind off more than a couple inches worth of stitches! There is also no seaming, no picking up stitches, and only as many ends to weave in as the 2 ends of each yarn you use (meaning no breaking of yarn is needed within the pattern).

And one last thing… Betiko is a Basque girl’s name, which means “eternal”, and was suggested by naming genius Mary-Heather (who also named Swerve). My working name for this pattern was “forever shawl” both because you can keep knitting it forever and make it different every time, and because it was originally designed as my wedding shawl. I was having a heck of a hard time coming up with a good name, asked for ideas on twitter, and MH’s Betiko was perfect!!

I’m so happy to have this final pattern released, and I had a fantastic time doing the mystery KAL! I am totally planning more for 2011! So excited!

Gifts for knitters + super quick last minute knit gifts!

First, I just want to give a quick update to those of you waiting for my new pattern (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can skip this paragraph) – the mystery knit-a-long ended yesterday (well, it didn’t end exactly, since lots of knitters are still working, but yesterday was one week after the final section was released) so I’d planned to release the final pattern to all yesterday or today. Holiday stuff and life in general has been preventing me from really focusing on getting it all done, so it’s looking like a Friday release is impossible, and I’m hoping for Saturday, but no guarantees… anyway, you can see tons of photos of my different versions of the design (taken by Pete at Reed college the other day, pretty!) in my flickr stream.

Diane’s CraftyPod series this week on ways to give ebooks as gifts has been awesome, and reminded me of this image I made last year:

This is a super basic way you could gift Game Knitting – burn it onto a disc, print this out (download the original size from flickr) and slip it in the CD case as the cover. I love Diane’s felt CD envelope, making the digital gift into a much more tangible and personal present! Diane’s how-to for making a thumb drive box for holding an ebook on the drive would also work well for something like Game Knitting (65 pages) – the tutorials for printing out the whole book (with perfect binding, or stitch binding, or ring binding) would be a bit more time consuming and pricey with an ebook of that length.

The book-making ideas would be a good fit for my quick knits ebooks, though! These ebooks (vol 1, vol 2, vol 3) range around 20-25 pages each, and would make fun little books for knitter giftees (pictured below). (Of course, you can also send any ebooks or patterns as gifts to ravelers directly through ravelry, digitally, if you want to skip the tangible element. Or, you can give tangible patterns of my designs printed by MagCloud as gifts for knitters.)

And this transitions us into the main point of this post…. super duper quick last minute knit gifts!

My quick knits patterns are great for ultra last minute gift crafting – all using under 20 yards of yarn, most using around 10-15 yards! (See them all on ravelry here.) A couple free options are my penta-coasters and buttony chevron cuff (below). There are also all the patterns I gathered on my quick knits links page by other designers, most free, all using under 20 yards.

Within those mini-ebooks above you’ll find lots of potential gift items, like these stiffened chevron bookmarks, winter leaves which can be turned into a necklace, and several different pouch/case things – the luggage tag pouches below (which can be used for other things besides luggage tags!), the fitted pocket case, robot monster pouch, laced-up pencil case, strappy pouch and mini-wallet…

And then there’s the wee gift bag, which can be used to package a special tiny gift! Some others that would make good gifts are the cabled frame…

…pinwheel earmuffs, and blooming flowers (made into earrings here):

And then there are the newer club patterns like the drink sweaters, and the new cabled keepers:

As for bigger (but still fast!) items that can easily be finished within a couple days, starting with free – the buttonhead hat can be made with any weight yarn, so a bulky one will knit up in no time! And the big bulky bucket hat is great for showing off some nice bulky yarn, like handspun or something hand-dyed…

Gradient mitts and the simple mary-jane slippers are both made with bulky yarn and work up crazy fast!

And the haka hat, also for bulky yarn, and also great for showing off handspun, is super cheap and probably the fastest earflapped hat you’ll ever make:

Lastly, custom tritops are for any gauge, and a bulky version is a super fast project if you’re not intimidated by the sideways brim (it’s easy, really)!

Hopefully I gave you some ideas for any gifts that you were stuck on – I know I always have gifts I’m still figuring out in this last week before xmas! Happy knitting, and happy holidays!

Holiday cards for sale now and free with purchase!

These have been for sale through Trillium for a little while now, but now they are available through my shop as well! Connect-the-dots holiday cards!

There is a happy holidays penguins design, and a seasons greetings polar bears design (card insides are blank):

They are meant to be given to your giftee, who can then connect the numbers and reveal the greeting!

All the materials are recycled/reclaimed (cards, envelopes, label paper from Scrap, and 100% recycled premium quality paper) – because of the way I source the materials, nice envelopes are a bit harder to come by than the cards, so I’m offering cards without envelopes for a little cheaper ($3.75 vs $4), in case you don’t need the envelope. Here’s a card on a gift under my tree:

Because this month is flying by so darn quickly and there are only a few days left when shipped items will arrive by xmas, I’m having a free cards sale through the end of this week (the 17th) – buy anything from my site that gets physically sent (not patterns) and I’ll include one of these greeting cards! Let me know (via email) if you prefer one design or the other, and also if the item is being sent directly to a gift recipient, then I can write a personal note from you inside the card!

In case you’re a newer reader and mostly just familiar with my knit stuff (my focus nowadays), I used to make all kinds of things from recycled materials, and there are still plenty of those in my shop! Lots of recycled shirts (and a couple sweatshirts, like the one above) with prints from my hand-carved lino blocks and handmade stencil screen prints (I’m a baller and respect the needles tame the yarn)… A bunch of hats and a few cuffs made from recycled sweaters, sweatshirts, and t-shirts…

Clock kits with printed fabric clock faces and instruction booklets for taking apart a thrifted clock and rebuilding your new fabric faced one…

Tons of photo prints in sets of three 4×6’s and matted 8×6’s fitted for 8×10 frames…

And then there are the knit kits, which I’m running super low on at the moment, and the connect-the-dots stitch sets of course, which I’m waiting on from the printer so most of those won’t ship out till the end of the week (as noted on the webpage)…

So, grab your gift items while you still can, and I’ll ship them out as soon as I can! I use regular first class mail so I can’t guarantee arrival dates unless you’d like to pay more for faster/better shipping; if so, just let me know when you place your order. Within the states, I think any orders placed by Wednesday (or Thursday morning) should be fine to arrive by xmas…

November 1st – 29th photos

How the heck are we almost halfway through December already?! Damn! Well, I’m going to be blogging a bunch of super last-minute holiday gifty related stuff this week, which should have been blogged a month ago… Anyway…

I was really bad about photo-a-day pictures in November. For a week I was fighting a cold, for a week I was down with extreme food poisoning (that would be the missing 23rd-27th), and more than half of these photos were not meant to be my photo-of-the-day, but just photos that I happened to shoot that day for other reasons… oh well. Let’s get through these quickly, shall we?

1st + 2nd – Shot the tutorial for November’s club ebook; shot my newish solid color version of my Brimming with Color design, knit at the tighter gauge for a snug fit (have yet to update the pattern pdf or webpage to stick the new hat in there):

3rd + 4th – Awesome grilled quesadilla with bean dip, yum! Hung the framed lyrics:

5th + 6th – Put in a good chunk of time working on our library, unpacked several boxes, put my cameras up, put up the book-shelves… Watched an old movie (Peeping Tom) while knitting (of course!), and happened to randomly pause it just when this knitting close-up happened!

7th + 8th – Photographed the painted lace for the stenciled frames tutorial. Started feeling a cold coming on… cold-fighting dinner: plain pasta with olive oil and parmesan, hot apple cider with whiskey:

9th – Made breakfast pasta with the leftover penne – this is a “recipe” I plan to blog soon:

10th + 11th – Did a photoshoot with Pete at Ikea for my new grey Skoodlet, with an extra huge hood! Still working on updating the pattern pdf to include this version, but the print pattern includes it… Photographed for my mystery knit-a-long:

12th – Gave Pete my cold (luckily only for a day) so he stayed home from work – Banzo helped him to feel better by snuggling up on him, very unlike her:

14th + 17th – Spent days laying out, editing, and partially rewriting patterns into the print booklets – some of the old ones (like the Mr. Pointy hats pictured) were very updated (not the actual pattern itself, just the style of everything), and I’m now working on updating all the old downloadable pdfs as well…. Went thrifting with Pete and Star – scored this bag of cotton for a couple dollars, not bad:

20th + 21st – Got my pattern proofs and spent hours going through them and making edits… Knitting on a big swatch for the mystery pattern:

28th – Knitting cables cables cables yum! In Blackstone Tweed Chunky yarn, double yum!

22nd + 29th – Photographed my finished+blocked mystery item (rav project page), which everyone will get to see at the end of this week! Yay! And lastly, preparing all my knits for my trunk show:

So that was my November – busy and went by WAY too quickly! What a crazy time of year this is!!

Framed connect-the-dots stitched pictures!

I meant to start a series of posts like this forever ago – the main issue I hear about my stitch sets is “what would I do with them after I stitch them?” So, this is the most basic option, but in the future I’ll be showing you more project ideas (of course, they will be projects you could make with any squares of embroidered fabric, not just the connect-the-dots pictures!)…

On my wall now are 4 sea pictures – the octopus and one other from the Sea Creatures set, and the angler fish and one other from the Ocean Abyss set. You can click over to the spoilers page to see the unblurred images. For the octopus, I had fun with some mats I scored from the thrift store last week – no mat was the right size for the frame and the picture, so I layered 3 mats:

The great thing about framing the stitch set pictures is that, while they are on 6×6 inch fabric squares, the images themselves are all fitted within a 4×6 area. So they are easily framable in any 4×6 picture frame, or 4×6 mat. (That mat above is a little smaller than 4×6, so the edges are cropped a little, but I like how it looks!)

The other 3 are in basic (super cheap) Ikea Clips glass frames – the extra 2 inches are wrapped around the backs, so if I wanted to take them out of the frames later to use them for a project, they aren’t cut smaller.

By the way, if you’re still looking for holiday gifts for any crafty friends or family members – I have 8 different themes of these stitch sets (from rock instruments to woodland creatures to crafty tools to dinosaurs…), and kits too! You can get kits with 3 or 5 sets worth of images, and plenty of embroidery floss, a hoop, and a needle to stitch them all up! Get them “mystery shuffled” for maximum fun connecting the dots and revealing the pictures!

And Portland readers – the sets are also for sale at Twisted!

Wrap It! December’s quick knits ebook

December’s ebook is out! The theme is Wrap It! and the main piece is most definitely these Cabled Keepers:

An any-gauge pattern which uses short rows (sideways edge cast-ons) for custom fitting, this pattern can be used to cover any size box with any weight yarn! You just need a box with an attached lid, and a glue gun…

The cables and the overall look will vary depending on your yarn weight – the red and turquoise examples are in worsted, the green example in sports weight. This is a quick knits pattern (meaning under 20 yards) when made for a small box (like a ring box), but it can be a much larger project since you could use the same pattern to cover a big box, or any size in between. (Side note, thanks to ohsweetie for suggesting the name – much better than my working name, Cabled Box Covers.)

The second pattern is this Chevron Bow, meant to tie onto a wrapped gift. It’s pretty darn simple, but it is also for any gauge, and the chevron shaping makes it great for using up leftover bits of variegated yarns:

For the extras, the ebook has ideas for making recycled wrapping papers…

…and includes 4 different printable knit fabric patterns, which can be used as wrapping paper for small boxes:

So that’s December’s club. As usual, you can buy the ebook alone for $5 (on ravelry here), or you can sign up for a 6 month subscription (also on rav, or on my website) and save $10 on the 6 months’ worth of patterns.

In other quick knits news – remember when I half-released volume 3 of the old club patterns, and said it would be completed in November? Well, I did get the last 4 patterns added right at the end of November, so if you buy the ebook now all the patterns are in there… I just haven’t had a chance yet to update the webpage and get the individual patterns for sale separately. But, I just wanted to let you know that the Blooming Flowers, the Fitted Pocket Case (which, like the Cabled Keepers, can be made much bigger than a quick knit, custom sized as big as you want it!), and the rest of the patterns from the last months of my old club, are now all in that ebook.

I’m thinking about ending the quick knits club 6 months into next year… I feel like it’s harder to stretch for pattern ideas within the 20 yard limit each month, and maybe I only have 6 months left in me… I’m not sure yet though. I may replace it with something else new and exciting, who knows…

Printed Patterns and a Twisted Trunk Show!

Big announcement about my knitting patterns! They are now available as printed booklets! Super nice quality, full color, printed by MagCloud, available for you to order directly…

…and hopefully sometime soon, available at your local yarn shop! Now that the printed patterns have been designed and made, I’m going to start wholesaling them to all the coolest shops. Have a local shop where you think my patterns would fit nicely? Let me know! (Or, let them know!) If I can get your help with putting together a list of stores, with actual personal recommendations (much better than blind web searching!) I’ll be on my way to spreading these patterns across the country! (world? we’ll see!)

As for getting your hands on some patterns right now, before that spreading across the country thing happens… MagCloud is having a holiday sale through the end of December! Save a bit off each pattern and maybe pick up some presents for knitters on your gift list?

Oh and, an awesome feature of MagCloud is that you can preview the entire booklet there on the site – so you can see the whole pattern, front cover to back cover and everything in between, before deciding whether to buy. Just like being able to flip through the pattern in a shop!

Want to know what kicked my butt into finally getting this huge task done? (It took me about 4 days straight of layout design and pattern editing!)

I’m having my first trunk show this week! At my most favorite yarn shop – Twisted! Yay!

All those patterns and all those sample knits will be displayed at Twisted (with 10% off patterns!), along with a few Double Scoops kits and connect-the-dots stitch sets as well, from this Wednesday (tomorrow) until next Tuesday (the 7th).

The trunk show reception party time is Friday (Dec 3rd) from 6-8, so that’s when it would be most fun to come by, hang out and knit with me and my Twisted buddies, ask any questions you might have about the patterns, and check out the knits! Oh, and there might be some kind of fun raffle thing going on…

But hey, there’s another event too! My show happens to be overlapping with the awesome Blonde Chicken‘s one-night-only handspun yarn visit! On Monday from 5-8 Tara will be there with her yarn, and I will definitely be there to check out said yarn and hang out, so that would be a good second chance for you to be able to see my show, and see hers at the same time, and hang out with us all! Yeah!

So, if you’re in Portland, I hope you can make it in, take a peek at my patterns, new and old, and perhaps we can knit together a bit.

Gifts from the past: Pete’s Secret Goats Hat

The holiday season beginning has reminded me of the gifts I made last year which I never blogged about! Oops! So I’ll be doing a little series of these gifts from the past, hoping to inspire in you ideas for your gift making this year! First, I knit this hat for Pete last year from the same skein of yarn as this Buttonhead – Dream in Color Classy, yumm:

I came upon this Goat Cable pattern by Cyn a couple years ago and knew I had to use it in a project for Pete at some point (since, you know, goats are metal), so I made up a pattern for a spiral hat (based on these) with the cables:

The goats ended up looking kind of abstract-y, since they stretch diagonally, when he wears it. Plus, it’s a kind of weird fit (a little too narrow and a little too tall) which makes the cables pull out more… But he claims to like that his hat has secret hidden goats!

Since most of the hat is in reverse stockinette, because of the cables, I played around with some stockinette swirly stripes up at the top… which also didn’t turn out how it looked in my head, but I guess it adds some interest to the top. And the hat is sort of reversible, since it just looks like plain stockinette on the inside, with some weird texture where the cables happen:

I love this yarn, and it’s perfect for Pete since he’s really sensitive to wool warmth and overheats easily – it’s warm, but not too warm. Plus, it’s superwash, and grey so it goes with everything. So overall, I think it turned out to be a pretty good gift…

Last year, when I made this, I had been planning an ebook on swirling hats, designs with different kinds of cables, ribbing, and other stitch patterns – designing the goat cables into this hat was kind of a test to see how things would work. Anyway, my focus is on a different ebook project now, but maybe someday I’ll come back to that idea…

October 10th – 31st photos

Slowly catching up on photos-of-the-day… I waited for the wedding, in hopes of linking to more wedding photos, but I still haven’t gotten them from our photographer (oh I know from experience how long editing photos can take!) so I’ll post about my dress and stuff once I get those… for now, let’s get through October’s photos…

10th – Wedding day! Here’s a shot I took of the table we sat at, with my bouquet, champagne, and some of those frames:

11th + 12th – These 2 days after the wedding were spent at Disneyland! The first day with my brothers Matt and Ben, and the second day with both of our parents. We had so much dorky Disneyland fun! (Some other fun photos: we had leftover wedding pie and sparkling cider for breakfast, there was a fun crafty window display on Main Street, the Haunted Mansion was all Tim-Burton-ified for Halloween inside and out, the teacups are always fun to take pictures on at night, as was the Submarine – the new Finding Nemo parts didn’t come out in photos like the old stuff did).

13th – This was the day that was spent half in doctors’ offices, and half on the road to Flagstaff, mostly in the dark (so we didn’t get to see that part of Arizona, bummer). Dinner was at Denny’s in Needles, California, just before the Arizona border, where I asked if they had something vegetarian that I could substitute for sausage, and the server told me she was pretty sure the chicken sausage was vegetarian. My skillet (with no meat sub) was pretty darn good though (can’t go wrong with potatoes!):

14th – The sight-seeing begins! The first real day of our road trip was Flagstaff (where we ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel and did a little thrifting and yarn shopping), up to the Grand Canyon, then as far as we could get on the way to Utah, with ended up being Page, Arizona. The Grand Canyon was pretty darn majestic! See lots more photos I took in my flickr set, starting on the bottom of this page, through page 9 in the set.

15th – This day we headed up through southern Utah to Bryce Canyon – even more majestic than the Grand Canyon! Then we took all of highway 12, stopping in Boulder for lunch (and some reading), and drove late into the night till we made it to Salt Lake City. Highway 12 had the craziest (most terrifying) bits of road we’ve ever experienced – it was hard to get good photos from the road (especially the parts when my hands were shaking with fear!), but I took some video too, which I’ll go through and upload at some point. Bryce Canyon was the most photogenic part, for sure! (More shots on flickr here and here.)

16th – Spent the day in SLC, which was a weird city… Checked out Gilgal Sculpture Garden, Blazing Needles yarn shop, thrift stores, In-n-Out for lunch, downtown, and had dinner and a beer in Trolley Square:

17th – Then we headed to Boise, swinging through Pocatello (where Pete’s mom is from) for an awesome lunch and a little thrifting on the way. We happened upon a fantastic dinner in downtown Boise at Flatbread – yummy pizza, fondue appetizer, and delicious local beer!

18th – We spent the day in Boise, which we liked a lot! Great record store, nice little downtown, good coffeeshop for hanging out to pass some time, and amazing fries! Yay for Idaho potatoes:

19th – After stopping in Nampa to check out Puffy Mondaes (yes! awesome!) we drove through Oregon to Bend for the last night of our trip, spent at the McMenamins there.

20th – Last trip day; we ate the most incredible breakfast of our lives at Chow in Bend, then headed up home to Portland. It was a good trip!

21st + 22nd – Now that the trip’s over, the rest can be quicker… First day back was pretty resty; I washed a bunch of the clothes we thrifted, like my favorite robe ever! The next day, I decided to cut my bangs:

23rd – Did the photoshoot for Tritops, which was extremely backlit, making my camera not want to autofocus, making me very very frustrated:

24th – Tried making veggie burgers from Nature’s Burger mix (which we found in bulk form at Winco) – added some chopped up mushrooms to the mix, and wee bit of chopped up spinach. Turned out pretty good, but I don’t know if they’re worth all the extra effort…

28th + 29th – Finally finished up knitting this yarn into an Elizabeth Zimmerman Snail Hat, which still needs to be blocked. (It’s a quick hat to knit, but since it was a project just for fun, for myself, it took me like years to get done!) Also got lots of knitting done that day on a new Skoodlet sample! Then I did the photoshoot for the newly redone Haka hat pattern (now available through Knit Picks!)… here’s an outtake:

31st – And lastly, Halloween! We put our costumes together super last minute because of the trip… we decided to be kind of exaggerated versions of ourselves in high school… and once we got everything figured out, I realized we were kind of exactly ourselves in 1997 – Pete being his playing a show with his metal band self, and me being my 15 year old Orange County teen in the mid-90’s self. Don’t we look like we were destined to end up together? Here’s me in 1998 for real, and, an extra bonus shot of my costume a little closer up (yes, that’s a wig, couldn’t find a good blonde one):

If you follow me on twitter, you know that I’m recovering from some really brutal food poisoning… so this post that was supposed to go up at the beginning of the week got delayed (and then pushed back another day due to a server problem that just got fixed), and everything on my to-do list (including other blog posts) is getting pushed. Sigh. Well, the Mystery Knit-a-Long is running along smoothly, and I think everyone is having a lot of fun with it, so that’s awesome! Happy Thanksgiving weekend, and hopefully I’ll be back here in blog world soon!