guess the art, win some artyarn!

this yarn collage was inspired by a famous matisse painting. the first person to correctly guess which one will win a lovely skein of artyarn!

the collage was a homework assignment from my knitwear design class. keep in mind it's verrrry abstract, e.g. it appears to be "stash hurl." mea culpa to matisse!

october 30, 2006--addendum:
apparently, i owe a bigger apology to matisse than i originally thought. despite my best efforts to pay homage to the master of color, i've failed to create a collage that's even faintly recognizable. keep guessing. my artistic reputation--to say nothing of my bruised ego--lies in the balance!

bewary

i wish i was wary meyers. these guys do it all: wall coverings, interior design, marshmallow window displays...hell, they even make jean skirts. as far as i can tell, they haven't gotten into knitting. yet.

FO: missoni-style opera gloves

finished in the nick of time. we were in the adirondacks for the weekend and i had forgotten my gloves. it was coooold up there. but apparently not cold enough to keep the deer in their...where the hell do deer live anyway?

the point is, we were driving on a twisting mountain road in heavy rain and pitch darkness when our trusty passat was hit by a deer. it was just like one of those vw commercials where the people are driving along, yapping about the preeminence of pabst blue ribbon over bud when, BAM.

i was sitting in the back holding our little dog-son mac. all i remember seeing is a white splash on the windshield. thank god no one was hurt. besides the deer, that is. and then, no one even bothered to stop. except some toothless guy in an old pickup who sped off in the direction of the fallen deer the moment we told him we were okay. (wait mister! our cell phones don't work!)

limping along with a smashed and steaming radiator, dimming lights, broken alternator and god knows what else, we finally made it about 10 miles up the road to a charming burg known as star lake. there in the heart of town, the nice 'n' easy mini-mart, they were kind enough to let us use their phone to call the police.


poor mac waited anxiously in the car while we scurried about, filing the police report, calling AAA, and trying to rustle up a cab driver willing to drive 45 minutes to pick us up. (thanks, al.)


as it turns out, the way to an innkeeper's heart isn't loyal patronage, guest referrals, or extravagant tipping. i recommend having your car totaled by a deer. works like a charm. we arrived at our destination about two hours later to find the lodge fridge stocked with food and our rooms laden with wine and snacks. awww, shucks, guys. you shouldn't have.

from there, it was smooth sailing. we had the busted-up vehicle towed back home, rented a car, and drove home sunday night. all's well that ends well. or so we thought.

the next morning, jim left for a biz trip at about 6 am. he called me from the airport about an hour later to tell me his briefcase (with laptop inside) had been stolen out of the rental car while it was parked in our driveway.

oh yeah, that, and the mets lost.

but i still have my opera gloves.

let's go mets!

moovement

this is the coolest thing to happen to calling cards since movable type. you pick 100 of your fave flickr pics and upload to moo. from there, you can crop and add a single message to the back. under $20 for the whole pack, which arrived in the cutest little white box. i uploaded all my knit pics and imprinted the back with my blog address to hand out to my knitting buds.

crazy yarn, crazy man

let's start with the yarn. i first spotted this creampuff of pink mohair on the amazing laurent's laine zinzin. i fell in love with the shade called "just pink," only to find it was sold out. little did i know it had been purchased (and promptly squirreled away) by the owner of my fave LYS. over the weekend, i was in the shop and there it was, dangling from a hook on the wall. it was like a celebrity sighting...the yarn of my dreams...in all of its posh pinkness. now the only question is: what to do with it?


and then there was crazy drawing man. late last week, i was making a presentation to a client in a local cafe. we were sitting on some sofas in the corner when this skinny old guy saunters over. there are about 50 empty chairs in the cafe, but he decides he's going to sit on the sofa, right next to my client and directly in my line of sight. he finally leaves and we notice a scribbled napkin on the table in front of us. i thought it was kinda cool and took it home with me. when i looked at it again, i realized it was a sketch of me. i have no idea what the "music girl" descriptor is all about. crazy, huh?

wip: missoni opera gloves

finished my first missoni-esque opera glove last night while watching the PR finale. (damn that jeffery! i just hate the fact that i love his clothes. he's such a little prick. and i hate the way the producers are manipulating us into believing that he's gonna get booted off the show. AS IF.) this is my first glove ever, and much easier than i imagined. i had visions of going crazy knitting those teeny tiny fingers in the round. this shot is pre-blocking. blocking it is opening up the scallops at the top quite nicely. at first, i wasn't sure about the "patchwork" look of the striping on the fingers. but now, as vincent says, it just turns me on. and patchwork is the new knitting--right? keep your fingers crossed that second sock syndrome doesn't carry over to gloves.

shoe coma

three pairs of shoes. one prada. one chanel. one alaia.

no, this is not a typo. the alaia's were originally three. thousand. three. hundred. dollahs.

pick me up off the floor now!

okay: here's the clincher. i got all. three. pairs. for the sum of one hundred feety dollahs. at marshalls. yeah. you heard that right. they were $49.99 each. my friend mary ann and i were literally whispering in the corner of marshalls so as not to set off a feeding frenzy. because the fact of the matter was, NO ONE knew about this little treasure trove. all these women were blithely going about their shopping, completely immune to the fact that fifty pairs of bergdorf-goodman leftovers were sitting mutely in boxes right under their very noses.

wip: missoni opera gloves

finally started the missoni opera gloves, inspired by a pair i spied in a shop in saratoga this summer. those sold for almost 200 bucks. i think these will be just as cute and so much more satisfying. the yarn is fortissima colori/socka color in "missoni" colorway, which i am totally digging. it's so fun to see the stripes emerge in the chevron. there's a great chevron stitch pattern in jaywalkers, but i didn't see that until after i had already started using a different chevron stitch pattern. this is my first attempt at gloves. so far, so good. but we'll see what happens when i get to the fingers.

fo: bonnie

hot off the presses. had to tear hubby away from the mets to do the photoshoot. (can you tell i just figured out how to work the effects tool on my iphoto?) still have to do some blocking, but all in all, i'm thrilled with how it turned out. it's a wee bit short, but i'd probably wear it with higher-waisted stuff anyway. the smocking is a blast to do via the embroidery method. lots of ends to weave in though. decided to make the sleeeves three-quarter length for fall. the perfect length for my next project: the opera gloves.