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!”

Project Spectrum, Tales of the Neighborhood

Signs of the city

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Welcome to everyone who managed to find us after our move yesterday – thanks for the kind words about our new home! Please be patient while I get familiar with WordPress – there will be lots of tweaking for a while.

I was wandering around my neighborhood recently and I noticed a lot of Project Spectrumesque signs.

Ok, this sign isn’t blue… but it’s the iconic emblem of Uptown, Minneapolis (and look at how blue the sky is!) – the Uptown Theater. However, the Lagoon Cinema just down the street does have a blue sign:

Shoes…

The YWCA used to have blue awnings, which would’ve been perfect for PS June, right?! Nope. They recently changed the color (after PS April, alas):

Uptown has many cafes.

I live in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood, which is also known as “The Wedge” due to its pie slice shape.

“Check out the new digs! I’m glad I didn’t have to carry of the heavy stuff when we moved.”

Randonymity, Reading

Randomly Wednesday

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All sorts of interesting little bits and bobs this morning.

Jeanne has a funny post about making some absolutely adorable felted catnip mice.

Jenn suspects her cat Cocoa has been reading about Chaos while Jenn’s at work.

SRP: Sunday I finished reading Treasure Forest by Cat Bordhi, 288 pages. Winner of the 2004 Nautilus Award. I was familiar with Cat Bordhi’s Socks Soar… and moebius books, so when I heard she had also written a fantasy novel, I was intrigued. It’s a sweet story, with bits of spinning and knitting intertwined with spiritual, new agey bits.

Some of you know I read while I knit. I firmly believe that reading while knitting is a skill that can be learned (with many thanks to WildKnits for convincing me of that!). However, it really helps to have the right bookstand. I use a ReadUpon, which is a small pillow with a clear plastic bookholder attached. Unfortunately, the company that made this bookstand appears to have gone out of business. There are some other bookstands that might work – but please note that I haven’t seen or tried any of these, ok?!

The BookGem might work, if paired with a pillow. The Peeramid might work, although I’m not sure that it will hold the book open for hands-free reading. The Reader’s Laplander Lap Desk seems a bit big (and expensive) and I’m not sure it will give you a good reading angle. The Hold-and-Read might work, if paired with a pillow, but looks like it can only handle paperbacks. If anyone has other ideas, I’d love to hear them!

Shannon of Yarn and Chocolate had a contest to collect ideas for thrifty knitting and I won the lovely skein of Mountain Colors pictured below. Thanks, Shannon! (The skein is the bit on the right side of the picture…)

“I’d like to see you try to knit with me. Hmph.”
Alongs, Tales of the Neighborhood

Urban Trekking with feckless yarn

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On Saturday, I trekked over to Nicollet Avenue, also known as “Eat Street,” to knit with Renee at Bad Waitress.

We had some tasty coffee and breakfast foods and caught up on things.

I was chastised by a staff member for trying to take pictures of some of the kitschy decor for y’all, so you’ll just have to image the stuffed hammerhead shark and other such gems!

I worked on my Trekking #78 sock. I didn’t pull my Trekking sock out during the walk because it was windy and the last thing this Trekking sock needs is to be exposed to wind… Can you guess why?!

Yes, there were some severe yarn vomit issues when I started the sock. About 1/5 of the skein came out while I was searching for the end! (I was even getting a pedicure at the time, so I could start my Trekking season out right. Ungrateful yarn.)

“Oooooooh, I shouldn’t have eaten that TRT… Look how bloated it made me!”

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