Tales of the Neighborhood

Sculpture garden

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Twilight in the sculpture garden
We’ll walk around the place
Look upon the beautiful secrets
That all the artists made
– Semisonic

On Sunday, I also wandered through the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, just across the street from Loring Park. Probably the best known sculpture is Spoonbridge and Cherry, which is also a fountain (the water comes out of the end of the stem when the fountain is on).

Minneapolis is sometimes called the “Mini-Apple.” (Please note that the buildings of downtown are not slowly toppling over to the left. Whoops.)

I’m particularly fond of Woodrow.

And of Standing Glass Fish, which is located in a small conservatory on the west edge of the Sculpture Garden.

I thought that Paul Walters Piece looked like a very large ball of yarn.

Which reminded me to get out my Trekking sock and take another picture of it.

And then I headed home…

“I don’t think I like what you’re implying here.”

Alongs, Reading, See the Sights

Pride trekketh

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I’ll start with a quick SRP update…

Blood Rites by Jim Butcher. Book 6 of the Dresden Files. 372 pages. Once again, Chicago wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden faces tough enemies and deals with startling revelations. I love this series.
Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson. 284 pages. The latest mystery about Colorado caterer Goldy Schultz – what else can I say? 🙂 It’s light reading with recipes.

Amy of Knit Think sent me an email a few days ago, mentioning that she would working at the Mother Bear Project booth at the GLBT Pride Festival in Loring Park yesterday and that, since I live in the neighborhood, I should stop by and say hi. Okey dokey.

I haven’t ever been to the Pride Festival before. I was amazed at how large it was. Thousands of people and hundreds of booths surrounded the lake in Loring Park – this picture is only a tiny portion of the Festival.

Fortunately, I stumbled on the Mother Bear booth very quickly. I saw Amy (left) and met another local blogger, Julie (right).

The Mother Bear Project has sent nearly 11,000 bears to children in emerging nations whose lives have been touched by HIV/AIDS. There’s definitely going to be some bear knitting here at Casa de Chaos over the winter! It doesn’t hurt that these bears are seriously cute. If you’re interested in helping the project in some way other than by knitting a bear, there’s information here.

I had my purple Trekking socks with me, so I snapped a few pictures in the lovely Loring Park garden. Yes, I finally made it past the yarn vomit!

Out of all the benches in the garden, I was pleased and saddened to chance across this one:

I know you’re all worried about Chaos. He wasn’t too happy with the Pride Festival’s fireworks, but I did come back from the festival with a silly little toy that seems to have puzzled him…

“You’re not going to make me play with this in the tub, are you?!!”
Alongs, Project Spectrum

Sunday sky (whoops)

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Ok, so the day I take as completely computer free turns out to be the first Saturday Sky day. Alas! But then I noticed that Beck was also running a day late, so I figured what the heck. Besides, today it’s sunny. Yesterday was very rainy in these parts.

This picture was taken on the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge. The text is from one of my favorite poems, the specially commissioned John Ashberry poem that graces the bridge. And it’s rather Project Spectrummy, too, isn’t it?

Project Spectrum, Tales of the Neighborhood

Blue, blue building

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Last night I met Renee for dinner and margaritas at Bar Abilene. We ate, drank, and were merry, then wandered down the block to take in an advance screening of Who Killed the Electric Car? at the Lagoon Cinema (I won tickets to it!). The documentary was extremely well done and very thought-provoking. The director and one of the main people in the movie were onhand afterwards to answer questions, which was great. Check out Renee’s indepth review!

Anyone remember the bright green building from last month? This month, I present (for your Project Spectrum amusement and amazement) the blue, blue building. (Remember that you can click on the pictures to see larger versions.)

Notice how well it blends into the neighborhood?! It’s a nice bit of color, especially in the winter.

Here’s a closer view, taken in the parking lot – please note that the Dunn Brothers Coffee isn’t open anymore. Do you see the mural? Here’s a picture of the rest of the mural:

“Your eyes are growing heavy… When you wake up, you won’t remember this conversation.
You will go forth, knit bibs, and wear them. Bwah-ha-ha!”

Alongs, Knitting, Project Spectrum, Those Cats

Bibbed redux

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Way back on June 7, I participated in A Day in a Knitter’s Life. Sort of. If you’re curious about my rather pathetic effort, you can check it out.

In more current news, I finished another Project Spectrumesque MDK bib in Sugar’n’Cream color swimming pool. I’m 2/3 done with yet another bib – these things are speedy and much appreciated by parents, since they are significantly more absorbent than most of the bibs you can buy.

My model’s curiosity overcame his good sense (how could he forget so quickly?!) and he was quickly trapped for a photo shoot.

“Again, I’m so ashamed…”
“How could I forget so quickly?!”
“I would so rather be playing with Midnight Mouse.”
“Release me, oh evil bib!”
“Ok, ok, I can do this – one shoulder free! Hah!!”
Those Cats

Tail of the Midnight Mouse

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The third package was from Sachi. It contained an adorable black sheep pepper shaker and white sheep salt shaker for me. (Edit: Sachi has just informed me that these are kissing sheep – they have little magnets on their noses!!)

And for Chaos, a black Rowan Wool Cotton catnip mouse! The picture yesterday was an optical illusion – the mouse was under Chaos’ head, not in his mouth! (Fortunately, it’s way too big to fit in his mouth.) Sachi wrote in the note that she sent that “Hally asked if you could tell Chaos that I knit some of her hair into the mutant catnip mouse… Hally thinks it creates some crazy betrothed bond.” Betrothed?! Chaos, what have you been up to while I’ve been at work??

*sniff sniff*
“Is that Cosmic Catnip I smell?”
“Mmmmmm… definitely Cosmic.”
“Must rub mouse all over self so smell catnippy irresistible for Hally!”
“Dude, I am so stoned.”
“It was so sweet of Hally to command her human to knit a mouse for me…”
Thanks, Sachi and Hally!!
Alongs

Dye-O-Rama yarn and more!

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One of my blog projects is to replace pictures from old posts that got messed up when I transferred them from blogger. If you’re reading a post and the picture looks weird, click on the picture to see a larger, not messed up version. Edit: A huge thanks to Amy! for the code snippet that should make commenting much easier.
Yesterday was a very, very good mail day. I received three very fun packages, two of which I’ll talk about today and one that I’ll save until tomorrow.

First, I won a contest at Craftlilly! Jennifer sent me a fun card, Beatrix Potter post-its, a fabulous princess mirror (no, you can’t have it for Kreature, Jeanne!), some of her lovely stitchmarkers, and a skein of yummy soft Malabrigo! (Click on any picture to open a new window with a much larger picture in it.) Thanks, Jennifer!

Next, my Dye-O-Rama yarn arrived, from my Dye-O-Rama pal Celtic Kelly! This was funny, because I recently (not knowing that she was my pal) sent Kelly a skein of yarn I had dyed that I knew she’d appreciate (she loves bright colors) much more than I would. Kelly sent me two New Brunswick-themed postcards, some maple syrup and maple candies, a gluten-free chocolate cake mix, two bars of lovely dark chocolate (one with espresso beans – look out, coworkers!), a candy bar that appears to be the gluten-free equivalent of a Kit Kat…

…a gorgeous handmade black cat card, a pair of Chris and Chaos stitchmarkers, and two lovely skeins of yarn in the Chaos colorway (one light, one dark). Check out the label! Hee hee. Thank you, Kelly! What a fun and very thoughtful package. I’m looking forward to knitting up that yarn and the stitchmarkers are going to make me smile every time I use them.

I did receive a third package yesterday, but this picture will have to tide you over until tomorrow:

“Tasty!”
Alongs, Randonymity, Reading

A little bit of everything

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Hope everyone had a good weekend! I knitted (another bib almost done…), visited my dad and his wife for Father’s Day, got caught up on bloglines, and read quite a bit. Here’s my SRP update:

Widdershins by Charles de Lint, 560 pages. Some resolution to the events started in motion in The Onion Girl. De Lint always leaves me believing there is hope for the world.
Death Masks by Jim Butcher, 373 pages. Book 5 of the Dresden Files. Chicago PI and wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden searches for the Shroud of Turin and runs into an old flame. Enjoyable as always.

I have a question for you WordPress experts out there. A few people have reported that they’re seeing my sidebar stuff on top of the posts. I moved most of the sidebar stuff to a separate page until I get that sorted out. Does anyone have any ideas about what the problem could be?!

Don’t forget – to leave a comment, click on the number to the right of the post title!

For my Knit Sock Kit Swap buddy, my questionnaire responses are here.

Friday night we had some major storms moving through the Twin Cities. I tried to take pictures out the window, but I don’t think I managed to capture the intensity of the storm. These pictures were taken around 5:30 pm, when the wind was gusting to 65 mph or so.

I’m making slow progress on the moderne log cabin crib blank from MDK. I’m about 1/3 done with square #7, although it’s not easy to tell that from my progress picture below…

“Zzzzzzzzzzz… mmmmm… butt blanket… zzzzzzzzzz…”

Alongs, Those Cats

X-treme Lace in Peril

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Yes, another challenge in the Amazing Lace! The first challenge was to introduce my lace knitting team. The second challenge is to illustrate some X-treme Lace Knitting. I think technically, it’s supposed to be one picture. And I’m supposed to be in the picture. But, since I am a singleton and Chaos’ picture taking is not so good due to his lacking of opposable thumbs, I decided to take pictures of teammate Chaos and my lace project.

I present to you – extreme procrastination! Nope, haven’t even started. Actually do not plan to start until I finish the log cabin baby blanket. Hey, we have until Labor Day for the Amazing Lace! And I picked yarn with purple, figuring I wouldn’t get to it until July. Anyway, teammate Chaos seems a bit shy…

But wait, what’s this?!

“Peek-a-boo.”

*sniff sniff*

*SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF!*

*munch*

Chaos?! Chaos?!! Where are you going with our teammate, Cabernet?!

*mwmph*

Oh no!!!

*rip bite rip*

Teammate Cabernet was quickly rescued, but alas, was somewhat gnawed…

Oh dear – those aren’t the ends of the skein: poor Cabernet now has six ends instead of two…

Hope everyone has a great weekend – I’m going to take the weekend off from blogging. Maybe I’ll catch up on blog reading. Maybe I’ll learn more about WordPress! Or maybe – I’ll actually knit so I have something to blog about. *gasp*

Project Spectrum, Tales of the Neighborhood, Those Cats

Art thou blue?

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Well, I moved all my pictures here from blogger – a few of the thumbnails that appear in the posts are messed up, but if you click on them, you will go to the larger, uncorrupted image. Sorry about that! More more more changes on the way… but all dependent on free time and learning curve!

Also, if you’re having trouble figuring out how to comment, you just click on the number to the right of the post title.
Some more Project Spectrum images from my neighborhood – today’s theme is art.

The elementary school on the next block has some very cool small mosaics on the pillars of the playground fence…

…as well as around the top edge of these freshly painted primary planters:

A mural at Saint Sabrina’s Parlor in Purgatory, one-stop shopping for all of your tattoo and body piercing needs:

A stunning mosaic inspired by van Gogh’s Starry Night on the alley side of Muddy Waters – it includes mirrored tiles:

A mural in a random backyard:

Um, really, I have no idea what’s up with this giant puppet outside of Arise! Bookstore… oh, ok, now that I peeked at their website, I think they had this puppet in the Mayday Parade. It maybe looked a little less startling in the parade than sitting outside the bookstore on Lyndale Avenue!

Back at ye olde condo, Chaos looks pleased that he might have faked you all out about eating TRT.

“Hee hee!”

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.