amigumuri octopus

I made this little dude for a friend's birthday last month. I found the pattern online... it's a great beginner crochet pattern.

knitting backlog

I worked on several knitting projects this summer/fall that I finally photographed. zigzag & linked rib were some good stash-busting projects from the book "knitting new scarves" that I got for my birthday. brioche cable was just because I wanted a blue scarf :). And lastly, a co-worker of mine had a baby so I had to make a hat. They subsequently took photos of him posed next to a bunch of real pumpkins :).

more hollywood, imperial newt, and nasty pear

all of these photos were taken in natural light. except for the pear, which was taken inside on a tabletop, they were taken on the top floor of my apartment parking garage. the top left shows a general view. the lower left one is a tag that someone etched onto a glass window in my apartment building. i liked the way the warm light contrasted with the deep blue sky behind, and the way the tag is illuminated by the light behind it. the pear was one that i forgot to eat, i snapped a photo before throwing it away. and the newt in the upper right is part of a series by jim woodring called imperial newts. he also has a crazy newts series, i really like both sets and will continue to photograph our collection.

devil fish ping pong

i'm continuing to try to take a photo a day (pad); here are ones that i took today and yesterday:

1. devil fish:
   
2. ping pong tournament:
   
   the annual ping pong tournament at my workplace has started again, so there are lots of picture taking opportunities during the day at work. last year, i ended up with lots of blurry/fuzzy photos and/or ones of people's backs. i took the idea for this pic from one of etravus's shots last year, but mine is kinda fuzzy/grainy. but it is still going to count as my photo.a.day for today...

another goose egg

This weekend I spent a long time working on a large goose egg pysanky that turned out to have an inch-long crack right through the hole at the end. I didn't even notice the crack until the egg was halfway finished, and blue dye began collecting in the crack edges. Goose eggs have very strong and thick shells compared to regular chicken eggs, and they seem to take dye more reliably than duck eggs. Hopefully the crack will not spread further through the shell after it is varnished. This design was abstract in nature and used 7 colors (turquoise, blueberry, navy, violet, apricot gold, lime, orange). I got to practice making my wax lines smooth, straight, and evenly spaced, a skill that I'm finding to be a challenge. The first photo shows the egg during the wax application; the second set of photos show the egg after the wax was removed. I still need to apply some polyurethane varnish to bring out the colors and make the surface smooth and shiny.

Go try this now - Middle East Cast-On!

I have gone crazy with the knitting this past week. Maybe it has something to do with a local yarn store going out of business which led to my sudden ownership of beautiful yarns and knitting books with wonderful projects. My husband had to finally put his foot down b/c I would wake up and immediately start knitting and would knit until bedtime. Sigh .... Anyway, one of the projects I have been working on is a pair of socks for my grandmother. My recent yarn discovery has been the Koigu sock yarn. I love the colors and texture. Though I'm usually not a fan of entrelac, I was very intrigued by this pattern by Eunny Jang published in the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits that I found while browsing through Ravelry. I thought it was well designed. A knitting friend of mine actually owned this issue and so luckily got a hold of the pattern sooner than later. I have gotten this far on the project. I'm not going to make the socks as long since they are for my grandmother. The socks are knit starting at the toe. My favorite thing about this pattern is that I learned the Middle East Cast-On which results in a seamless toe. It's very cool! On the other hand, I probably won't do another entrelac project.

I also just finished this headband for a friend of mine (also found on Ravelry). Here is the pattern. I used a skein of Noro Kureyon. I casted on only 100 sts. and used #7 needles. It's a little small, but I think it will still fit.