Remembering I have a blog

Since I moved to the Pacific Northwest, Memorial Day weekends have meant a time to prepare for the glories of summer.
Living in the South, this prep time happened in March, so by Memorial Day if I didn't have the grill going and a case of bug spray on the deck, I was screwed.

So this past weekend, A.K. restained the deck and made me a planter box. I transplanted the tomato (when I lived in Florida I could have had a vine-ripe tomato with my Memorial Day burger) and prepared for summer crafting-style. (Brace yourselves, it's an actual, honest-to-god finished object)



It's what I'm calling a wristlet bag. Perfect for carrying a few essentials, such as your money, phone and a killer CD. Okay so I have Lisa Hannigan on my phone in MP3 format, but you really must buy the CD. All the lyrics were hand embrodiered by Lisa and her sister. So if you are in a CD-buying mood, this is the one you should buy.


The wristlet is perfect for sunset-watching, you can throw a camera in the bag, and your flip flops to keep them sand free (totally helpful for your car upholstery.) I modified the pattern from a Lotta Jansdotter pattern. Well, the truth is, I think I modified it. The book is in Japanese with very little instruction. So I messed up a bunch of times until it look like it did in the picture.

Hope you had a great weekend. I'm trying this new thing – which I'm calling 'updating my blog regularly.' We'll see how it goes. Thanks for sticking with me.

I (heart) Tuesday, New Zealand edition

STERIOGRAM'S WALKIE TALKIE MAN
Greatest video EVER that features mass amounts of yarn. Steriogram is a great New Zealand band. This song was used in one of the the iPod silhouette promos, but they should have shown this video. In fact, I bought their album before the iPod commercial because of this song.



Also this is the behind the scenes video about how they did it.



While I'm at it, I think I'm a Kiwi-phile.

My spinning wheel is an Ashford,

The New Zealand Merino is my favorite sheep,



I'm not-so-secretly crushing on Flight of the Conchords,


and who didn't like Lord of the Rings? (seriously, do I need to link to this? How about I link to Bret of Flight of the Conchords and his adventures as FIGWIT?

Am I the only person ...

who thinks "Client No. 9" would make a great band name?


If you were in a band, what would it be called?

Don't worry, next post will be about knitting, promise.

How to avoid knitting a steeked bag

If you are wondering to yourself 'what steeked bag is she talking about,' here's a recap ...

I decided to dust off the summer 2000 Interweave Knits and knit a bag Kristin Nicholas designed using steeks. But the truth is, I'm afraid to cut into my knitting, and since finishing the Calla Lily socks, I really have had no excuse not to finish the bag.

I thought the colorwork was going to take up a lot of time, but it really goes much faster that I was anticipating.

So above is what I've done with my time, since I wasn't picking up the steeked bag.

I went to see the Raconteurs live at the Moore.
If you ever get the opportunity to see them, you really must. I'm in my early to mid-thirties now and thought rock shows were behind me, (i nodded off during the opening act), but when the Raconteurs came on, all of a sudden I remembered how to bang my head and pump my fists in the air.
When Jack White (yes, that Jack White) picked up his guitar and started jumping around the stairs, man, I couldn't stop screaming. And I was totally crushing on Brendan Benson. (don't tell A.K.)

When the ringing stopped in my ears, A.K., Lilly and I went camping at Alder Lake with some friends. It was a bit cold, but the lake was beautiful.

Also trolled the internet and the Local Fabric Shop for solids for the quilt. Spent last night washing and ironing all the fabric I bought. I'm of the belief that all the washing and ironing didn't do much, but since I've never sewed a quilt before, I'm going to follow the directions.

When I went to check out my mom's sewing machine, I thumbed through the manual, and noticed my mom recorded the date of purchase in it. And noticed that the machine had a 25 year warranty that expired in April. My mom's too cute. (The machine checks out fine, and should be ready to fire up once I get all the pieces for the quilt cute)

And I found some time to make some bath salts for me and some friends. No particular reason, except I didn't want to pick up the steeking.

Before anyone out there starts mistaking my distractions as having a life, I'm going to be good and start back on the steeking tomorrow. (or maybe the next day, but not saturday night because I have to see Talladega Nights, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby).