Sunday Stash: Make your own stash

Spinning is a very interesting being. Yes you are taking something (fiber) and turning it into something else (yarn) but you are also taking that yarn and ultimately going to use it for something else. So when i want to show off my yarn what is it? Is it stash or is it a Finished Object? If it is just stash and it just stays there in my yarn bin for ever and ever and never becomes a finished object then is isn't it a finished object in and of itself?

Have i just spent way too much of my time this weekend watching anime?

Well here is what I've been spending my time on lately (other than knitting a scarf that will be twice as tall as i am)

Polwarth yarn 464yds spun at about a fingering weight.


I didn't ply the second ball of it as tightly so it is a lot more fluffy might have some issues arise with that. although they're both enough for their of coordinating project I suppose.


this next one is rainbow (surprise surprise) made of superwash merino and tencel 50/50 Navajo plyed 272 yds


the ply is slightly over twisted which is what I wanted. and pardon the fact I'm taking the picture in my bathroom it is still drying.

no immediate plans for either of these yarns yet. They are just going to go in the stash.

also, if anyone is wonder... sewing machine still broken going to take it home and let my bestfriend's dad look at it. He will be infinately less frustrating than the sewing machine place it is currently at. and probably 100x more helpful as well.

WIP Wednesday: The never ending scarf

Last week when I posted about my sewing machine being broken? Well it still is. Still waiting for word on it. And as a result I've thrown myself into my knitting specifically a strange determination to make a scarf that is comically long. Currently it is hovering around 6 feet long. Here is my roommate indulging me for a photo op.

I've also spread it out on our couch...


on a nicer day I will try to take more accurate pictures of the colors because they're really quite nice. Unfortunately I live in the midwest and today it has decided to snow. SNOW at the end of april. Sometimes I just don't get it.

FO: Friday sock edition

I love the weather it currently is out right now it's hovering around 50 ish and that means it is perfect weather to wear shorts tights and socks. Not because I like the look especially (although lets me honest I do, its the bright colors that get to me!) But it's because I get to show of my socks! and it's not too warm to wear them yet. perfect sock showing off weather!

Yesterday I walked around with my pants rolled slightly up to show these lovelies off.


They were for the my other hobby swap malabrigo march knit a long and I actually finished them a few weeks ago but didn't take pictures until yesterday when I wore them for the first time. I need more malabrigo in my life.

The pattern is Sam by cookie a. my favorite sock designer.

WIP Wednesday: The Best Laid Plans

For FO Friday last week I really wanted to show you my finished Who's Hungry? Quilt, and then I had already decided what my next quilt was going to be (hint: more owls). Unfortunately my sewing machine Shannon had different ideas. I had the thread in hand, used the hand wheel to catch the bobbin and then the needle came up and wouldn't go back down again. It was jammed =(

Here is my quilt sitting on my floor done except for lack of binding:


Here are some pictures of my adventure with my sewing machine today:


It took me two buses, half an our and a trip to St. Paul to get it looked at. And when your sewing machine weighs about 20lbs trust me it is a haul. Look at all that metal!

And the worst of it all?

The person looked at it and said it might not be fixable =( a real tragedy.

In better news WIP Wednesday news

Here is the progress on my noro scarf for the My Other hobby swap Knit-a-long I'm using sock instead of the prescribed worsted and cast 33 instead of 39 stitches I'm hoping to make a somewhat comically long skinny scarf. I'm still trying to decide if I like the fact that it currently looks like a completely different scarf on the section I'm working on than the start.

Media Monday: Sucker Punched

Going to add something new to my day of the week blog posts

WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

Two weekends ago (sorry that I'm just getting to this now) my roommate and I went to see Sucker Punch in the theater. On opening day, in the early afternoon. The only other people in the theater with us were men, by themselves, all over the age of thirty-five or so. That should have been sign number one.

On paper Sucker Punch sounds great. There are a lot of things going for it.
1) It passes the Bechdel test (there is more than one woman, they talk to each other, not about men)

2) Two out of the main six cast are Asian Jamie Chung, Korean and Vanessa Hudgens (above) who is half Filipina

3)It's an action flick that features an all female ensemble. Girls kicking ass. That almost never happens the most recent one that comes to mind for me is Elektra in 2005 starring Jennifer Garner. That movie was terrible. Also i don't think I've seen an ensemble that was fully female before.

But Sucker Punch is god awful. It plays into the biggest fear that people have about female action flicks and made obvious by the audience that watched it with me. The females in their roles are not for empowering the women by kicking ass and taking names. They exist solely for the male gaze. For men to look upon them and be in awe at their femininity and their skimpy clothes while playing out some sort of dominatrix fantasy. Instead of being empowered they are fetishized.

When you look at the plot of the movie this becomes painfully obvious. For those of you who don't know that short plot is a girl gets committed to an insane asylum in the 60's by an evil stepfather and creates a fantasy world to get away from it.

By most trailers for this you'd think that her fantasy world is one where she is a badass and fights strange beings (steampunk nazi's, dragons, and robots). That is actually the fantasy within the fantasy. The fantasy that she escapes the insane asylum with is that SHE WORKS IN A WHORE HOUSE. It also might be a strip club I'm not really sure that is dancing and pimping. And then apparently that fantasy is so terrible that she has to fantasize from within that one that she has a sword and a gun and kicks butt? I really don't get it.

After the movie ended my roommate and I turned to each other and went "Ehhh...." and that still really sums up my thoughts for this movie.

Duct tape is my only friend

A few weeks ago when I first attached my design wall, i used command hooks and painters tape. Well it kept on falling down and down and was annoying and refused to stay and got annoying. So I went back to my old favorite way to get things to impermanently stick to walls. Duct tape... it is strong sticky and doesn't leave a residue. Why didn't I use it in the first place?


Oh? The owls you ask? They look familiar you say? Want a better look? okay let's pull back...

I finished my quilt top! YAY!

for the close up!


I have to clean my room (oops) before I can baste my quilt and hope to be sewing it tonight!

Sunday Stash: I'm a winner!

I love reading quilt blogs, and occasionally quilt blogs love me too! I won a giveaway over at I'm just a guy who quilts. After his interview with Amy Schimler the designer he gave away some fat quarter bundles of her new line Animal Party too. And I won one! You all should check out his blog especially his studio I'm sooo jealous of it.

I'm super excited to play with this fabric (more owls!)


I especially love the tree fabric
.

and the big blocks of animals! I don't know what this is going to be yet. But I think I will base it around using the big animal prints as blocks themselves.

potentially stupid (updated)

Earlier this week I did something really silly. I ironed on my cutting board and my little makeshift board isn't very heat proof and the resulting heat from my iron warped my cutting mat (oops). Feeling like I should have known better (because I totally should have) I began looking for ways to fix my cutting mat. Number one response was "leave it on the sidewalk for a day and let the sun warm it flat again. Seeing as my sidewalk currently looks like this


I don't really think that it is an option... yeah. The wood plank is to cover up the giant crater in my sidewalk.

I also read then warm water might do the trick so I gave it a bath on and off for a few hours yesterday... still didn't work.

currently I just have some heavy books on it lately hopefully it'll straighten itself out. I have a smaller mat I'm using right now but cutting on it'll probably get quickly annoying.

I'm a liberal arts major we really don't have heavy text books.


***UPDATE****

I really am potentially stupid, I forgot that one of my roommates is a chemistry major
much better.