Owl Love You Forever

My second Knitted Owl (same Ravelry pattern as the brown owl) is quite a bit bigger...his eyes also ended up a bit asymmetrical so I named him Dizzy.

Owl Always Love You

This latest knitting pattern I saw on Ravelry, and thought it would be a perfect baby gift for a friend who just had a baby girl. I have never tried knitting stuffed animals, but now I am a huge fan! Super cute pattern, right?

I actually made another stuffed owl for another friend-baby, which I will post tomorrow.

Knitting Project #1

Since I began teaching grade school this past year, I have been inspired to get back into creative endeavors, though of course, I have also been very worn out. Having a classroomful of young energy to direct  constructively for seven hours a day is demanding, but incredibly fun. Anyway, during spring break I started knitting again, and I finally finished my latest successful project!

This is from some lovely yarn from Fredericksburg, Texas. If you like the pattern, you can find it here on ravelry.com. 

Botanical Easter Eggs

I made Botanical Easter eggs this year (I know this post is a bit late, but it is only the third Sunday of Easter), and I wanted to show how we did it.  There are several posts on how to do these, but I found the Martha Stewart post the most helpful.

First, gather the material:

We went with the Pysanka hollow egg method, which was actually much easier than I remember:

Pop Culture Clothing

This is a mediocre print, and $54.99 is kind of ridiculous for what looks like an iron-on image on a small mens undershirt. 


Ruche

However...if I am honest, I think I still kinda want it.  Because it's Audrey.  I think something might be wrong with me.  Fortunately, the price is so off-putting and the fit looks so iffy, this one isn't too tough to dissuade myself but...

The root of the problem is also the same reason I am strongly compelled to buy myself the T-shirt version of the Pride and Prejudice book cover even though my awesome in-laws bought me the coveted purple P&P sweatshirt as a gift, which I love and wear almost every weekend.   

OutofPrintClothing

And the 1984 sweatshirt:

OutofPrintClothing

I never got wearing a T-shirt with a band much less a gigantic logo, but book cover T-shirts?  Yes, please!

I feel I genuinely need these book cover clothing articles on some deep level.  Does anyone else find themselves helplessly compulsive about random material items?  Please share, because I'm starting to feel like I have a mental disorder. 

Dolls, Etc.

GiltGroup emails have long been ignored in my gmail inbox.  With tight funds, the last thing I need is more excuses to explain a $100 purchase with, “But look, honey!  It was 70% off!  Think how much we saved!”    

However, when I saw a Madame Alexandre sale in GiltGroup, my usually thrifty brain went:"…they’re so pretty which is unusual since most dolls tend to be creepy...my niece-goddaughter loves dolls…if it’s not a purchase for me it’s like I’m saving even more money…I win!"  

Dorothy and Toto!

I love having nieces and a nephew.  

I knew I was going too far though when I saw a Funny Face doll and almost managed to convince myself that as the fatal combination of my favorite style icon and totally the best fashion movie ever made (that I’ve seen, anyway), I should own this.  Fortunately, I managed to talk myself out of it, perhaps influenced most by the crushing weight of my Very Grown-Up Job in An Office, since in most similar cases, my adulthood actually works out as a justification for a purchase like that: the preservation of my childish whimsy.  Here’s a picture so you understand how compelling the argument was:

Funny Face

Right?!  Audrey is lovely. There are certain movie icons who remain as the Unbeaten Ultimates in American Cinema.  Sofia Loren remains the reigning queen of impossibly voluptuous Roman goddesses in human form (although Sofia Vergara is representing our era pretty well).  Marilyn Monroe is the American girl-next-door, the hardy and sumptuous farm-girl who is knowing in some ways and vulnerably naive in others; though she may have been the beginning of the cliché held by some American men that the more beautiful a girl is, the more mentally unstable she is.  Audrey is, of course, the Hollywood Princess, so convincing not from exceptional acting skill, but because of the success of type-casting.  As the daughter of an actual Dutch baroness and originally a disciplined ballerina struggling to make money after immigrating from impoverished post-WWII Holland, she more stumbled into acting than pursued it, and had all the charm  and sweetness expected from a Cinderella story.    

P.S. I just perused the Madame Alexander website and: a) a lot of their dolls are actually very creepy looking, so hooray me for finding cute ones; b) what is the deal with a doll company that insists that plastic dolls are age 14+?; and c) they have a Henry VIII and Wives collection, supposedly part of their Showtime Collection, but still weird.  Sadly, Anne Boleyn's and Catherine Howard's heads do not pop off.

Heels: My Epic Struggle Against Pointy Inanimate Objects

My Piperlime gift card fashion victory has thus far afforded me hours of entertainment.  (Yes, I am crowing over my victory.  It's not often I win stuff, so just let me run a victory lap for this one, and I'll be done with it.)  I have ordered several thing from dear Piperlime, -- fyi: Piperlime's customer service really is top-notch, despite my criticisms of their product selection -- and I got the chance to play around with many brands.  My primary focus was finding heels I actually wanted to wear.  Being just shy of 5'9 and a teensy bit gangly does present a certain challenge in professional and sexy footwear.  You just cannot wear flats with everything, and I would like to branch out into things other than fancy Diesels and Doc Martens' menswear.  So I did order the Pour la Victoire black heels as pictured below:

They were pretty, if not really up to the quality I thought should be present in $200 black leather heels.  The crux  is, that heels may make me an Amazon, but they improve outfits and make you feel sexy, yes?  I may be the exception to the rule but I cannot feel sexy in shoes that make me feel as though I am mere seconds away from either snapping the heels off my twig-like support or collapsing into a very unflattering pile of fashion shame.  Literal stability is necessary in making me feel confident, and without actual stable foundations I feel more like this:

In case you can't tell, which is entirely possible since drawing is a skill that proves to be beyond me, this is a cartoon of a cat stranded on a box in a tempestuous sea, because, of course, cats are notorious for being sticklers for texture, dryness, and proper stability, though I'm not sure how effective my cartoon is if I feel the need to spell it out.  Whatever, I'm not trying to make a living as a cartoonist, so judge me kindly.  The point being that the little black patent shoes made me feel like this cat looks...so a big fat no to those.

Anyhoodle, I did manage to find these wonderful shoes by Seychelles:

I have worn these, in real life, three times so far because whatever genius designed these shoes realized that setting the heels closer in toward the center increases feeling of stability, so I can stalk around feeling like I am not about to buckle in on myself in a magnificent architectural failure, but instead feel as though I am as spindly and delicate as the Eiffel Tower.  So yeah, Seychelles.  

P.S. I need chocolate leggings to go with a shorter dress, and I have no idea where to get good ones.  Leggings horrify me a bit, so I need advice. Give it up and I will be eternally grateful.  

On the 10th Day of January...

This print is by artist Justin Van Genderen who has a little collection of comic book cities done as vintage travel posters, two totally unrelated things mashed together with suburb success.

  

On the 2nd Day of Christmas:

I have written a personality quiz for you!  Yes, me, my own self, I tirelessly studied the intricacies of human interaction in order to present you with this quiz about you.  You're welcome.  I actually wrote it as an excuse to make use of an observation I found terribly funny, and I meant to post it directly on the blog, but the site is being terribly wenchy so I have been unable to embed it properly, but here is the link to it in the meantime: 4 Temperaments Quiz.

The 4 Temperaments is very limited, however, and honestly the Myers-Briggs is so much more satisfyingly in depth, so I recommend checking that one out too.          

Anyway, if you do take the test, leave a comment and tell me if it seemed accurate.

Merry Christmas, all!

Anti-dis-in-no-nonsense

The evolution of language is mostly pretty cool.  Also, pretty cool is the English language.  I have a passing acquaintanceship with Italian (minimal), a forced working relationship with Latin (Try as I might, I couldn't get away from Latin.  I attended insane schools that insisted on Great Books curriculum, and Latin was a requirement to get through the core.  My interaction with Latin was like a co-worker you don't like but always get scheduled with and you don't realize you actually have begun to like until they quit the position), and also a wee bit of German (a pathetically wee bit.  I learned how to order food and ask for directions in German and that was it.  I relied very heavily on the panicked, flailing gestures and Deutsch-lish to get by...when my fluent friend was not nearby.)  Anyway, while the romance languages are incredibly musical and pretty, their regularity gets....boring.  English pretty much rocks because more often than not the words actually sound like what they describe, which is ever so much better, for poetry and musical lyrics and just making yourself generally understood.  It is a language of extreme onomatopoeia.  As is German, English's linguistic cousin.  For instance, merde could be anything really, whereas scheiße! most certainly sounds like a frustrated, but mild swear word with scatological roots.

Anyway, why am even talking about this?  I'm not really sure.  I haven't posted in a bit, and I thought I should do something, and I recently experienced a wordsmith revelation.  "Nonsense" is a cute word.  There are things that make sense, and there are things so ridiculous that they are a total absence of sense: nonsense.  What bothers me is the existence of the word no-nonsense.  A double negative that, if anything, obscures the actual meaning of the word and sounds very silly when you think about it.  No-nonsense basically means sensible, but the word is terribly gangly, and sounds made up when you say it 5 times.    

The motivation of this post is obscure even to me.  This weekend has been extremely successful in catching up on sleep and not much besides.  After a couple of beers, pondering in the corporate mire in which I spend my daily hours, this is what I came up with to discuss.  Cheers.                      

Blog of the Day!

I would like to have some kind of organized theme for this blog because my mind adores categories.  Something like favorite styles on Mondays, featured products with photographs on Tuesdays, featured artists/designers on Wednesdays, nothing particular for Thursdays because Thursday doesn't count as a day, and movie recommendations on Fridays.  Unfortunately, while my analytic mind adores categories and likes to imagine sleek organization, I am easily distracted and my ambition holds no follow-through so it's more like transporting water in a sieve.  If you could read the blog in my head, you would be amazed I tell you.  


That was an attempt at explaining the slightly illogical post title.  I can't really have a blog of the day if I've never featured another blog before.  It's more like blog of the blog.  The gist is my dear friend Monica sent me a blog post and I have been reading the blog, Hyperbole and a Half almost ever since.  This blogger is hilarious, and reminds me of the startling witty, over-the-top and somehow still amusingly understated humor of my friend Mel and the manic intensity of my friend Elizabeth.  And she illustrates her posts which is darling.  I recommend you check her out.


Thursday out.        

Featured Designer: Carri Perani of Iridescence Jewelry

I have been so excited to share this with you guys for ages.  OK, intro: my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Randy stalk garage sales, vintage stores, and estate sales for random treasures, and the stuff that they manage to pick up is kind of amazing.  I really need to make a weekend visit just to join them on scavenger hunts, and they will be the masters and I shall be the pupil.  Which reminds of that time when I was like 6 and was dead-set on ditching my family and just living with Kathy and Randy, even though Uncle Randy tickled me so much I think I stopped breathing long enough to do brain damage, and Aunt Kathy was kind of sarcastic, but I could totally tell she was cool with me and that made me feel very urbane.  Anyways, during a scavenging adventure, they found a jeweler that Aunt Kathy told me about, and I want to share with you.  


Carri Perani began Iridescence Jewelry in West Virginia at the end of 2007, making the transition from a job in a corporate office.  Though she has not had any formal art training in jewelry design, she learns techniques from local goldsmith, Gene Conley of Touchstone Designs, in something akin to an apprenticeship.  Carri tells me that she is currently studying silversmithing with Gene.  (And I just need to break off for a moment to say that it makes me really happy to know that there are still apprenticeships.  Apprenticing needs to come back in a big way.)    


She generally works with sterling and 14k gold, but she also has a line of jewelry called the Rabbit Hole Collection which is what got me so fanatical about her jewelry that I bought two pieces right away.  Carri said, "The Rabbit Hole Collection is about recycling/repurposing & using what's already available. I've traveled all over the continental US, to Hawaii, New Zealand, and to several islands in the Caribbean.  Traveling is so inspiring to me because it makes me realize just how much beauty there is in the world."  She actually named her jewelry line during a walk on the beach in St. Augustine, Florida, inspired by the beauty of thin iridescent shells.  She collaborates with close friend, Cara, who started a buy, sell, trade clothing company called Journe Wear in Steubenville, Ohio.  Together they shop thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales & buy odds and ends from people like Aunt Kathy & Uncle Randy.  


The Rabbit Hole Collection

Gold Scalloped Earrings

"I think the beauty of these pieces is that it is open to interpretation, you can write & rewrite their story because every piece has it's own long lost history. You look at a piece and wonder, who did this belong to? where has this been? It all has so much character & mystery attached to it. That's what I think really draws people to it. I also think people find the rabbit hole collection intriguing because we are using found objects in very creative, unthought of ways," Carri says.

Soaring Swallow

Vintage Teapot Necklace

The Steam Punk Collection

"Steampunk places great importance on the value of beauty that reflects unusual or antiquated ideals. The steampunk culture takes its cues from the Victorian era, and speculates on how our world would be different if steam power had become the driving force behind our culture."