credit: frscspd

I forgot to post yesterday –oops!

Mental Landscape Sunday
+ Thanksgiving dinner!
+ Second Thanksgiving two nights later!
+ Waiting (im)patiently for my boyfriend to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
+ Dreaming of my lunches for the rest of the week (cucumber, lettuce, and cream cheese on whole wheat sandwiches are figuring very large in these fantasies).
+ Elizabeth Gaskell novels and their BBC adaptations, especially “North & South”.
+ Going through my old favorites on Tumblr and feeling the urge to live a gleefully twee life.
+ The reimagined V series.
+ Tiger Beatdown’s take on the reimagined V.
+ Staunchly resisting the urge to curl up in a patch of sunlight, like all three of my parents’ cats.
+ Finishing my Christmas knitting ahead of schedule.

The older I get, the more I fantasize about interior decorating! This is ironic because, up until this point in my life, my only interior decoration goal was “Can I still walk through my room? Awesome!”.

I love my current room, but it’s very plain and has an odd set-up. My apartment building was once part of the Smith College dorms, but now it’s been broken (rather roughly) into apartments. My room has its own door into the main hall, but I get very little sunlight and I have no closet. My roommate, on the other hand, has three closets (and is kind enough to let me use one!).

I’ll have plenty of time off over winter break, since I won’t be working, so my time will be spent making the most of decorating my space:

+ Repainting my walls to a crisp, clean white.
+ Repainting my bookcases a rich turquoise — it’ll match my Ikea duvet and pillowcases!
+ Buying cheap picture frames from the local thrift stores, covering them with silver spray paint, and then printing out black and white pictures of marine life, like this arrangement:

I think it’ll look great with frames of different shapes and sizes, fitted together in a jumble all along one wall…perhaps over my desk?

+ When my grandparents moved out of their house on the Cape, we got their amazing braided rugs, made out of fabric scraps. I plan on snagging the biggest, to replace the cheap Wal-Mart rug I bought when I moved into my first apartment. It’s thick and soft enough for bare feet, and hopefully it’ll be warmer than the carpet I have now.
+ I think a wall covered in a mass of fabric yo-yos would look both logical and organic, like in this picture:

Maybe the wall directly over my bed? In different shades of the same color (like green!), it’d look stunning.
+ I’ll finally hang up my collection of prints of black cats!

That should take me the better part of the month to accomplish all of this, since I am not exactly the most motivated person on the planet. It’ll probably take me two weeks to just clean my room!

That’s right. I finally got off my rear and took pictures of my Farmer’s Market Cardigan. I originally wanted to have this finished to wear to Rhinebeck, but I figured out that goal wasn’t realistic and that I didn’t want to rush through and be disappointed in the results. I finished it on November 12th, almost two weeks ago, and I’ve barely taken it off since then.

Guest appearances from my inability to stay serious and my double chin.

Pattern: Connie Chang Chinchio’s Farmer’s Market Cardigan, from the Fall 2009 Interweave Knits.
Yarn: ShiBui Knits Merino Worsted in “Bark”, about 8 skeins, purchased from Eat. Sleep. Knit.
Needles: Size 8 24″ circular from my Knitpicks Options.
Mods: I made the 43.5″ size, which is at least one size too large for me. I wanted a slouchy cardigan for layering, though, and my gauge was a bit tight, so I worked a larger size than needed to compensate. I also only increased up to 46 stitches for the collar, instead of 49.

This really is my dream cardigan. The yarn is heavenly — the color of chocolate, silky and cuddly — and Connie’s pattern is genius. GENIUS, I tell you. I kept squee-ing to my boyfriend about all the little details of shaping and how amazing they were. She made me feel brilliant, just from knitting the pattern.

I finished up a cowl and a pair of Fetching, too — both from one skein of Madtosh Worsted in “Oxblood”, with which I am completely obsessed. I cast on 112 stitches on a size 6 16″ circular needle, worked six rows of garter stitch, then popped in the lace pattern from the Embossed Leaves Socks from the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits for the cowl, and finished up with six more rows of garter stitch. It took me all of a day to knit up the cowl AND the Fetching — but they’re darned hard to photograph.

Most of what I have on the needles currently are projects meant for Christmas presents, so I have to keep those under the radar. I’m selfishly knitting myself another cardigan, high off the success of my Dream Cardigan — I’m working on the Bel Cardigan from the Fall 2009 issue of Knitty. I’m working it up in Madtosh Worsted in “Baltic”, and it is dreamyyyyy. Hopefully I can finish it over the long Thanksgiving weekend!

Mental Landscape Saturday

+ early morning pancake breakfasts
+ awesome women-driven horror movies (The Descent, Martyrs)
+ seagulls
+ layering!
+ getting to the bus stop just in time to see the bus come round the corner
+ slowly collecting every José Saramago novel (currently reading The Cave)
+ having two versions of the same song coming up consecutively when my iPod is on shuffle
+ getting complimented on my hair when I’ve done absolutely nothing special with it
+ stirred-up chicken (our Friday night dinner!)
+ raging at the insipid, insulting monstrosity that is Twilight
+ Jim shutting down Ryan most awesomely on The Office
+ the newest Why? album
+ forcing myself to be social and actually enjoying it
+ the way my cat, Murphy, sits when he’s birdwatching:

+ taking a nap on a sunny afternoon
+ planning outfits around “statement handknits”, like my Laminaria shawl, or my Farmer’s Market Cardigan

(Yes, I know this is a shameless rip-off of Gala Darling’s “Things I Love Thursday” but with the way her blog has gone downhill, I’m disassociating myself from it, heh)

What’s on your mind lately?

I just took part in an autumn swap with some members of my favorite Livejournal community, Stay Sassy. I’m sure I’m breaking the first Sassy rule by posting about it, but I have no fear! I got my swap package this morning as I was heading for the bus, and I was too excited to leave it in my apartment to open after work. I opened it at the bus stop and, I’m sure, annoyed everyone waiting for it with my squeals of glee when I saw this:

You can only imagine how I felt when I saw that my swap pal had sent me The Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Calendar:

…and 4oz of merino roving from A Tree Hugger’s Wife in “Pumpkin Jack”.

I’ve heard amazing things about A Tree Hugger’s Wife but I haven’t tried her roving yet. Now I can! I’ll be doing a lot of practice spinning this weekend before I give this a try — I really want to do it justice! Perhaps yarn for a pair of socks…

Last but not least, check out these adorable stitch markers!

Black cats! And snowmen! BLACK CAT STITCH MARKERS! I am overjoyed and will be using them as soon as I start the second Monkey sock tonight.

Thank you, swap pal! You are amazing and a great cure for Second Sock Syndrome

Three weeks ago, over Halloween weekend, I got to take part in an Edgar Allan Poe conference at UMass. I’m still bummed about the turn-out, because we had such amazing presenters, but the people who did come really enjoyed themselves.

There’s something about admitting to liking Poe’s work that makes people look at you like they just caught you in front of the fridge at four in the morning, eating ice cream from the carton while crying. You’re supposed to feel guilty about liking Poe because he isn’t supposed to be serious literature; he wrote scary stories because he had no daylight inside his heart, he wrote scary stories because he wasn’t good enough to be a real writer. Wrong, so very wrong. The more you learn about Poe, the more you realize he was a fascinating, brilliant, mercurial, and kind man.

Anyways! Part of the reason I was so excited for the conference was because I got the chance to be a writer-wrangler for one of our guest readers — Elizabeth Hand. She’s one of my favorite authors and I spent most of the weekend trying not to be outwardly star-struck. The fact that John Crowley (yes, that John Crowley) and Martin Espada also read didn’t help with the not-being-starstruck bit. Martin Espada is one of my professors, but a semester full of lectures could not have prepared me for hearing him read “The Bells”.

After the reading, some of the faculty and students involved in planning the conference went out to dinner with Elizabeth Hand and John Crowley. I went with them and — wow. About halfway through the evening, I sat back in my chair, a glass of mango juice in my hand, and realized that I had just debated the various merits of Harry Potter with two of my favorite authors. It was a dreamy moment.

The next morning, I did a short, nervous presentation on H.P. Lovecraft and Poe — I should have done much better, but the fact that Elizabeth Hand and my father both came to see me present really wracked my nerves. I’m still sad that I didn’t do more justice to my material.

It was a great weekend, as you can tell by the glee on my face in this (really awkward) picture of me with Elizabeth Hand:

Check it out — flaunting my Laminaria!

Of course, only I would meet my favorite author and forget to ask her to take a picture with my sock-in-progress. Aaaah!

Check it, yo. Even with a day off in the middle of the week, I’m still too tired out to do anything on a Friday night. Tomorrow I’ll be stopping by the Twist Craft Fair for a little Christmas (and selfish) shopping. I’m tempted to blow my entire paycheck on Nervous System’s gorgeous jewelry designs, but a girl needs food — and yarn — money. I’m madly in love with their Branch Earrings. Someday!

After that, it’s paper-planning, Christmas knitting, and seeing 2012 with my roommate and some friends from work. It looks like it’s going to be a terrible movie, but if they pull the “animal in distress” card, I’ll be weeping into my popcorn.

I need to get moving and take pictures of some of my FOs — I’ve finished a cowl, Fetchings and a sweater (the Farmer’s Market Cardigan, to be precise!) and they’re all languishing, unrecorded. I’m actually wearing my cardigan now and have been since the moment I finished weaving in the ends. Connie Chang Chinchio is a GENIUS! I kept squee-ing over aspects of the design to anyone who would listen. She’s the sort of designer who makes you feel smart just by knitting her patterns.

Back to working on my newest pair of Monkey socks! I think this is my sixth pair and I’m still not sick of this pattern. I may even have a completed sock by tomorrow night — I plan on procrastinating very hard on these three papers and that will be very good for my knitting.

Sock-in-progress, Ishbel, and the almost-unseen Farmer’s Market Cardigan. Bonus peek at my Harry-Potter-reading boyfriend!

I usually try to avoid pop culture — especially pop music as much as possible. I LOVE knowing when new movies are coming out and I’ve spent countless Friday nights just watching all the available trailers on Apple.com, but that’s about it. Tonight, someone on my favorite LJ community posted the new Lady Gaga music video. I’ve missed out on most of the Gaga giddiness but for some reason I can’t stop watching this video (most of those 55,000+ views must be mine!).

A few observations:

1. They must have done something to her eyes when she’s in her peach-colored hair incarnation; they’re freakishly huge and it is tripping me out.

2. The white-vinyl-cloaked dancers crawling out of the coffins (spacecraft? rice cookers?) remind me of the bowling alley scenes in Suicide Club. Eeeehhhh.

3. WAS THAT SEAN BEAN?

4. Bondage shoes with gold sequins.

5. I kind of love Lady Gaga now, because I get the distinct feeling that she does not give a sweet shit and is just having fun.

This semester hasn’t been a fun one. I’ve been sick on and off since the end of August, and I’ve been too busy to really rest and take care of myself. The Poe Conference is over, Rhinebeck is over, and now it’s time to start the holiday/exams panic.

Until I actually have blog content again (which should be tomorrow!), I’m going to steal this quiz from KateOhKatie’s blog.

The Only-One Game

If I could have ONLY ONE shirt, which would it be? My dark green and gold tie-dyed deep v t-shirt from American Apparel.

If I could visit ONLY ONE website, which would it be? Ravelry, obviously! I’d miss LJ and WordPress and Gmail and all the webcomics I love reading…but Ravelry is where it’s at.

If I could have ONLY ONE set of knitting needles, what would it be? I’m tempted to count my Knitpicks Options as a “set”, but I think that would be cheating. In any case, I’ll take my Size 4 29″ Addis. And I’ll probably try to sneak in a set of Size 2 DPNs as “hair accessories”.

If I could eat at ONLY ONE restaurant, which would it be? Zhang’s!! Delicious cheap Chinese. Mmmhmmm.

If I could read ONLY ONE book, which would it be? Jane Eyre. I keep going back to this book, even if I know chunks of it by heart.

If I could watch ONLY ONE DVD, what would it be? Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, extended edition.

If I could own ONLY ONE shawl, which would it be? My Oxblood Laminaria.

If I could order ONLY ONE item from Starbucks, what would it be? Caramel apple cider!

If I could have ONLY ONE piece of jewelry, which would it be? My Celtic knit necklace.

If I could visit ONLY ONE state, which would it be? Maine.

If I could wear ONLY ONE cosmetic, what would it be? Burt’s Bees Replenishing Lip Balm with Pomegranate Oil. I am happily obsessed!

If I could bake ONLY ONE item, what would it be? Chocolate chip cookies!

If I could have ONLY ONE pair of shoes, which would it be? My Lifestride Debuts in black.

That helped to pass the time at work! Now it’s back to counting down the hours — in six of them, I can go home. Sigh.

I haven’t been able to do much spinning or knitting lately (I started a sock today on the bus, but yanked it off the needles because the yarn wasn’t the right gauge for my chosen pattern — hard luck!); the usual enemies of work and school have reared their ugly heads. I’m helping to plan a conference for Halloween weekend: Poe and the Writers and Artists of New England. I would link you to the site, but…I haven’t finished it yet. That’s the main job for tonight (thank goodness for Kompozer), and then I can have the weekend free to knit and spin! I may be going over to Fuchsia’s apartment on Sunday for some of that much-needed spinning and knitting, with the added bonus of social interaction.

I went to my parents’ three weeks ago for a long weekend, and spent most of it knitting and watching over-the-top action movies (in one 24-hour period, I watched Predator, Predator 2, The Running Man, and Demolition Man). I guess all the excitement helped my knitting because I finished a record FOUR projects in four days.

I’ve already knit this pattern twice before but it never gets old, and in such a gorgeous yarn, I really didn’t want it to end!

(thanks to my dad for the impromptu photoshoot!)

Pattern: Laminaria from Knitting, Spring 2008.
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Lace in Oxblood, less than 1 skein.
Needles: Size 4 circs (Knitpicks Options — love these needles!)
Mods: I worked two extra repeats of both the Star and Blossom charts on top of making the largest size, and only used a single strand of yarn for the bind-off.
Ravelry Project Page

This yarn bled a bit while it was soaking, but the colors are still lustrous and rich even after two long soaks before blocking. The Madtosh yarns are addictive and I’m slowly buying up all the Oxblood and Silver Fox that I possibly can.

Currently on the needles: the Farmer’s Market Cardigan from the latest Interweave Knits (my Rhinebeck sweater, if I can afford to go!), Mokira, and a pair of knee socks in Madtosh sock yarn. I’ve got some Cormo for my bobbins, and a whole weekend ahead of me. Hurrah!