Monday, September 25, 2006

OotP official photos!

I was just discussing this with a friend a few weeks ago -- the lack of official pics from OotP. No longer!

The Scotsman ran three pictures in their print edition this morning -- one of Harry fighting a dementor, one of Umbridge, McGonagall, Trelawney, and Filch, and one of Luna. You can see them in a slightly grainy scan here on HPANA, and the first two are also in clearer-but-smaller form on the Scotsman's online article. Umbridge is wearing a pink tweed poncho -- I'm guessing it's sewn, but I bet you could knit something similar in structure -- and Luna's got a great turquoise pullover. (I think I'm gonna love Luna's costumes, given that I dress like a color-blind twelve-year-old half the time anyway.)

Hopefully the big fansites will finagle high-res pics soon, and then we can really get started on the analysis.

Lauren posted at 11.20 on 09.25.06 comments (7)

finally getting somewhere

I woke up with a start at 8am on Saturday, after four measly hours' sleep, and said to myself, "Self, I'm gonna write the animal cracker pattern this weekend." I rolled back over, snoozed for a half-hour, then went on a six-shop yarn crawl (similar to a pub crawl in just about every way -- and certainly just as expensive -- but the sense of temporary euphoria doesn't destroy brain cells). To wit:

• School Products, for a Lamb's Pride refill (um, and Koigu);
• The Point, who no longer stock Tahki Shannon;
• Purl Soho, where I managed not to buy anything silky, fuzzy, or tweedy, despite being sorely tempted;
• Knit NY, for stitch markers (can never have enough!) and buttery-yellow sale-bin DB Alpaca Silk (already 25% of the way to being a pair of Fetching wristwarmers;
• Downtown Yarns, for a skein of bright blue sportweight Frog Tree alpaca (the nascient project deserves a post all its own);
• and an intarwebby visit to Simply Knitting, for 50%-off Tahki Shannon (yessss!)

And then, I wrote a pattern. Just like that.

Of course, my real goal was not just to write the pattern, but also to test-knit the sizes (there's four, 'member?), do my photo shoot, and be writing my unveiling post right now. I was actually on track, too, and then a deadliney project popped back up (no, I can't say what it is; yes, you'll certainly find out eventually; and of course I'm evil, that's not news), so I switched over to that.

Oh, and I also shot more yarn porn! At this juncture, I'm fairly certain that yarn falls into the same category as baby animals, sunsets, and British rockstars: It just doesn't photograph badly.

animal cracker makings...

...and the resulting hat! this is actually the one I knit last summer, but the final pattern is the same. see how the Shannon yarn makes the top all variegated and jawesome?

yesterday's Koigu. the gold's not nearly so bright in person, and looked even less bright in the store. not complainin' -- I like bright!

Frog Tree alpaca in the foreground, DB Alpaca Silk in the background. I hadn't planned it, but what an alpaca-y picture.

this isn't new, but it is sexy. Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4ply, which had been earmarked for cabled socks for Jon. I don't think his new girlfriend would take too kindly to an ex knitting for him, so I have no idea what it'll be now.

Kaalund Classic Two, laceweight wool. would you be shocked to hear that I bought it in late winter? :) I think it might become the IK Icarus shawl, if it's not too busy to hide the border.

Vee! I'm a bit further now, and I'm getting a bit terrified of running out of yarn, even though the math says I should be fine.

see how smushy and wrinkly it is right off the needles...

...and how smooth and drapey it is after it's blocked? that's silk for you, I guess. we loves it!

haven't posted about this before, I don't think. this is most of my hipster hat, 2 skeins of Classic Elite Intrigue -- metallic cashmere! the yarn was a congrats-on-permanent-employment present to myself in March.

you can't actually tell, but it's a couple inches short of being done. I was mid-decrease, too, so it'll be a bitch to get back into. I love the way the waffliness shows off the metallic thread. actually I love it in general, I'll be picking my winter coat around it.

a heavily tweaked one skein wonder -- half-length sleeves, allover butterfly lace, and an attempt at a short-rowed shawl collar. I got bored before the collar was actually big enough to fold over, but I still like the fit. (a couple skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk, which had been bouncing around my stash for ages.)

and finally...

new shoes! I was actually looking for shoes suited to knitted socks, and wound up with so-ugly-they're-cute hipster shoes. (they'll still make a nice foil for anklewarmers, so I didn't absolutely fail my mission, riiiight?) my love knows no bounds.

okay, that's it. :)

(Aaaand commenting should be working here, now, so no need to link LJ! You'll need to be register for a Typekey account, if you don't already have one -- sorry for the fuss, but this is the only way I can find to stop myself from getting comment-spammed to death again.)

Lauren posted at 0.11 on 09.25.06 comments (5)

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

sisyphean.

That's the sight I woke up to this morning. Since I'm consistently incapable of waking up early enough to block anything during the day, I decided I could bear, once in a while, to give up my bed to my ~*~one true love~*~ and spend the night on my aerobed. Sunday night saw Kiri sprawled out, and this morning it was Peacock.

Blocking lace is such a pain in the ass, but it's worth every minute spent hunched over your surface of choice, tugging and molding each YO into place. It hadn't really occurred to me, even while I was crocheting them, just how many points Peacock has, nor that I'd need to pin each one out to actually make it pointy. Didn't occur to me, either, that I might not have enough pins -- 'til all of a sudden my tin was empty, and I had another quarter of a shawl to pin out. I had to finish with sewing needles, and I can only hope that I got them all out of my bed. (eek!)

Sisyphean. That's what lace blocking is.

After I unpinned Peacock, I got out its big sisters and took a few pictures of my three painted ladies:

top to bottom: Kiri, Peacock, and Charlotte

I've yet to be happy with any Kiri pictures (nothing I've shot quite does justice to its sheen -- I still swear it must have some silk in it), but Charlotte proved a bit more photogenic.

Of all the design decisions I made on Charlotte, that's the one I love the best: I used my fourth shade (I've long since lost the band, but it's somewhere between sunset and rainbow -- deep shocking pinks and oranges merging into dusky blue and olive) to crochet around the whole thing, and the way it contrasts against the greens by the neck just kills me.

I brought all three shawls to our knitting circle at work (we're all official-like, we've even got a mailing list) because I was so chuffed over them. It seems maybe a little pompous to flit around with all this posh lacework when other people are just starting out, but it's, um, something to work towards, right? Right?

(Non-sequitur #1: Can you tell I got a new camera? Pretty much as a result of the Franz tour -- in the course of taking a thousand-plus pictures in one week, I realized how much my old camera was holding me back. The new one is a Nikon D70, and I fall back in love with it every time I feel the shutter recoil in my hand. Yay for DSLRs.)

(Non-sequitur #2: It occurs to me that, until I get commenting working on the blog proper, the LJ feed will accept comments. I'll try to remember to link to each entry once it propagates.)

comment here!

Lauren posted at 22.40 on 09.19.06 comments (0)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

why, hello there.

The LJ feed tells me it's been 42 weeks since I updated this thing.

Um, oops?

I haven't got a really good excuse for that. Closest I have is work; I went permanent (I was temp-to-perm, remember?) in March, and just as I'd expected, as soon as I stopped having to fill out a timesheet, I started working crazy hours. 50 hour weeks have become the norm for me, and I've gone as high as 70. It's downright silly. But I still really like what I'm doing, and I'm working on a couple interesting long-term projects, and they trust me enough to send me on trips to other offices (my department supports 7 of them -- so far I've been to Bethesda, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley (Cupertino, if we're being precise)), so really I can't complain.

I've done some typically crazy things on my off time. In April, I took a week off and followed Franz Ferdinand on tour around the northeast, which was time-of-my-life amazing. (I took piles of pictures; they're here, and they'll also be in the Franz fan club magazine, which will be my first photo credit!) I also took shorter trips to Boston and Philly to see the Futureheads, and I took a day off to see San Francisco when I was there for work. I went to New Orleans on Memorial Day weekend for a site visit with the ladies of Phoenix Rising.

Umm... what else. I got my wisdom teeth out last month, which wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected. (I'd set aside the recuperation time for finally putting the fringe on my Charlotte, and I forced myself to do it anyway even though I was well enough to go out.) I'm probably moving again in the not-too-distant future, hopefully within a stone's throw of where I am now, hopefully with the lovely Marilyn. I'm still (nearly) as single as can be. And concerts, I've got concerts.

And I've got much too little knitting to show for the past ten months. For weeks at a time, my only knitting opportunity was during my commute. I worked exclusively on my Peacock Feather shawl (I scrapped the blue alpaca, went for hot pink Zephyr instead :)) from June 'til September, working a half-row by rote every morning. I made a pair of springy, crocus-colored Badcaul socks, which now reside with my mother. I finished a red bulky "green" cabled cardigan just after the transit strike in December. My Kiri is finally blocking (and it's a good thing I stopped when I did, because it's exactly the size of my full-size bed). My new favoritest project is the Vee pullover I'm making in gorgeous green tussah silk -- Artfibers Golden Chai that I got as my San Fran souvenir. ;) I've got an eye for the short-sleeved Honorine from the new Magknits, too.

I'm finally excited about knitting again. It's a great feeling.

(One other note -- comments are essentially turned off right now. I'm gonna use an authentication service to prevent myself from getting spammed with thousands of junk comments like before, but it's not working yet. If anybody's got any tips on getting Typekey working, please shoot me an email!)

Lauren posted at 19.39 on 09.17.06 comments (0)