Quiet Day

Wednesday was a quiet day – it might have looked an awful lot like a lazy day. I’m feeling the onset of a cold and am trying to take it easy. Started some knitting. Thank you, Robin, the cowl pattern you recommended is so quick and satisfying. I’m nearly done and getting ready to block it. I think I’ve gotten over the sweater trauma. I’d also like to try this chunky cowl.

Had too many cups of coffee and pieces of toast.

Noticed that the paper white flowers started to bloom. I can’t believe I haven’t killed it with neglect.

K saw me knitting and wanted to start her own version of a scarf. We didn’t get very far.

I am loving this knitting book. The images are so beautiful. This color-block blanket has my name on it and seems very doable. I’m thinking grey and white. Or maybe I’ll be super daring and try grey and cream.

Trying to get my painting mojo back (and thinking of outfits to sew and boots I’d like to wear). Pretty pretty gouache colors, aren’t they?

I like quiet days. Today, I’m learning how to use a kiln – very excited!

Doll + Matching Dress

When K was in a co-op preschool, an auction was held in the winter every year. The initial year we participated in the auction, I made a doll and a matching dress as my contribution item. It was the first time I’d submitted anything hand-sewn anywhere, so I was pretty nervous, but I believe the highest bid was somewhere around $100 for both, which wasn’t too shabby (though I suspect a friend of mine had a hand in inflating the bid).

I was going through my picture archives for what I hope to be a fun post later this week, and found the images for the auction items. I always love finding things I’d made that I had completely forgotten about!

The dress was from this pattern book, and I made up the doll pattern and dress. I think they’re pretty cute together!

Photography Practice

One of my goals for this year is to become better at photography. I’ve worked with photos for a long time – on catalogs (if you got a Pottery Barn catalog between the years 1999-2002, I did the layouts for every single one of them! Best. Job. Ever.), as part of an imaging team at a stock photo agency and as a photo editor. But it’s only recently that I shifted my focus to the taking of photos rather than just the selections or color-processing of them. I’ve discovered that I love it though I have so much to learn.

I still get flummoxed with apertures and f-stops and shutter speeds, but with my trusty manual and lots of practice, I’m starting to get a feel for what kind of images I like and how to work with light a little bit.

Here, I practiced with some pretty pops of blues that I found around the house. I am on the hunt for good online tutorials — I’m very much a visual and tactile learner and find most tutorials with just lots of written instructions challenging. I think it’s why I like Japanese patterns so much: the illustrations are excellent and I hardly need to reference the text. If you know of any good photography tutorials with lots of visual aids, please send them my way!

 

Monday Outfit: Ahoy Audrey!

Hello, hello, I hope you had a relaxing weekend! We are a little sleepy here and are enjoying a lazy day off. Happy MLK Day to those of you here in the States! I went to K’s school for a special assembly on Friday and let me tell you…I was a blubbering mess when the first graders started singing “We Shall Overcome” (accompanied by a parent playing a trumpet, no less). I tried to hide it but felt emboldened when I saw a rugged looking Dad swiping at his eyes.

Anyway, it’s Monday outfit time! I have such a weakness for stripes. Always have. I’ve lost count of the number of striped t-shirts and sweaters and dresses that I own – most of them are in classic blacks/greys/navys with white, but I have pretty much every color combination. One of the neighbor girls actually said to me one time, “My mom looks like you today”, and her mom was wearing a striped knit top, of course (red and white).

So when I saw this knit turtleneck pattern with buttons from this book, I simply had to make it in bold stripes. With grey buttons, naturally. It may possibly be my favorite thing I’ve made to date. Very french, very nautical, very Audrey Hepburn and Tautou (Amélie is my favorite movie – I bet you’re not surprised). LOVE.

And those pants…(happy sigh). I hear that emerald is the it color for 2013, but I’m a mint green kind of gal. This is a significantly modified Oliver + S Sailor Pants pattern. I made it according to the instructions in blue, and it’s fantastic but it wasn’t the silhouette I had envisioned.  I wanted cigarette pants a la Hepburn so chopped up the pattern all over the place and eliminated button holes because they didn’t seem very functional for K. It now looks exactly the way I’d hoped it would from the front, though the back is a bit bunched up like MC Hammer – I can live with that.

And here’s the blue version with amazing vintage yellow buttons. So sassy!

I think these are great too, but K’s in agreement with me and gave a thumb’s up for the stripe top + mint green pants combo. I really like those side vents and like all Oliver + S designs, the pants are very nicely constructed but is it me, or were there a couple of errors in the instructions?

And look how stylin’ that turtleneck looks unbuttoned. Have I mentioned how much I love it? That’s a glow-in-the-dark wand that K has in her mouth.

I’m sure you’re all wondering about those fab shoes. They are Campers for kids and another Ba-chan gift (we got them at a 50% off sale). I really really need a pair in my size.

Here are some close-up shots of the top and mint green pants. By the way, we are transferring my blog to another server since there was a little spike in my traffic it seems and things keep going haywire. As we’re moving things around, it might get wonky around here for a few days…

 

 

Happy Friday + Knitting

Happy Friday! Thank you so much for all the kind comments and emails yesterday! I feel a little bit like the time M’s friends came over unannounced a few days ago. The house was in a state that could only be described as disastrous (cleaning was not a priority during the art show prep and supplies covered every available surface) and though I’ve known these friends a while, I don’t know them that well. I was a bit embarrassed to have them see the messy side of me, but I suddenly felt a lot more comfortable with them. After some furious tidying, my house is almost restored to its former semi-neatness, and now I’m eager to talk about making stuff.

So. Any crafter wanting to prove his or her mettle will usually attempt knitting at some point. That point came for me around 2007. I bought a copy of this book, some knitting needles and wool, and embarked on an epic task of adding/dropping stitches to create a sweater for M.

It took me a year.

The dark forest green wool I used is fantastic. It hardly pills, it’s mind-bogglingly warm, and the color brings out the verdant undertones of his blue-green eyes. The problem was that knitting a sweater for a man requires copious amounts of yarn. Crazy, crazy amounts. I kept running out and at one point had to make do with a similar-but-not-quite-right skein because I had literally purchased all the stock at two stores.

I was cursing that sweater by the time I finally finished it twelve months later. And to add insult to injury, despite my careful hand-washing and efforts of laying it out flat to dry, the darn thing kept shrinking. M adores this sweater because I remind him endlessly of all the sweat and tears that went into it, but I’ve begged him not to wear it — it now looks like a really bad fashion statement from the eighties and is hideously cropped on my man (but the sleeves keep getting longer…how??).

I’m afraid that I do not love knitting. However, I am a crafter out to prove my mettle and feel that the first project I took on was just too challenging for my skill level, and I didn’t give this ancient and highly respectable craft a fair shake. So I am going to try again this winter. My new knitting goal: a cowl. I will let you know how this pans out. Perhaps I will fall in love. I hope so.

Since I got all personal with y’all yesterday, I figured it’s high time I get over my phobia of getting my picture taken. I’ve been preparing to sew clothes for myself and it wouldn’t be any fun if I couldn’t share them with you. I decided to take baby steps and model M’s shrunken sweater. Hard to see here, but the sweater is actually quite roomy on me and makes me look like I have Michelin man arms.

Hi. I’m Sanae. Friends, I wore make-up for you. I rarely wear make-up these days. And my hair doesn’t look like that normally either. It’s always in some bizarre, frayed bun with pieces sticking out all over (I know that top knots are all the rage with the cool kids, but mine looks nothing like that). And because this was my first time with a tripod and remote, I kept cutting off weird parts of my body and face. It felt really odd and awkward taking pictures of myself, I must say. I can’t even go into how mortifying it was perusing them – I had no idea that I have a lazy eye and that my eyebrows are uneven! I didn’t use any Photoshop magic despite the enormous urge to do so.

Anyway, have a wonderful weekend everyone! I’ll be back on Monday with an outfit for K!