45.

Some of my christmas knitting is a secret so I'm photo-less right now but, I can say that I am what I feel like - very behind on christmas shopping. I have 8 days essentially to get everything in the mail, home, wrapped. I can't knit quick enough. Shit!!

I'm kind of hungover, it was my anthonys birthday last night and I ventured out to a club in the west village that is way too expensive, way too smokey and way too far from my house but for once I had fun. I have to work at 330, I'm not sure how that is going to work out.

I'm going to not really say to much because of my current state but here is an awesome blog with some great music :
Le Freak C'est Keek

and a couple photos.

x
-erin.

from selkas film about the magic tap shoes.

one of my little plants
menupages.com - projectors.

44.

I'm back from Miami, to say the absolute least it was an amazing time! I generally hate florida (except Orlando) but, I figured I had never been down for an event of sorts, I've always been there on tour. I hoped to change it. Upon arrival (after getting up at 6am to rush to JFK) we picked up the rental car and checked into our cozy little hotel by the airport. They had a "general store" on the ground floor that was on an honor system. You drop exact money in a little box for whatever item it is that you want or fill in a little slip with your room number. After first glance, we decided our hotel looked like a loonie bin.

After settling in we hopped in our cute little silver box and headed to south beach. We kicked if off at the Tokion magazine party. Met up with the lovely miss Heather and drank some free wine. It was a bit chilly, wind blowing and of course 2 girls from New York going to Miami neglected to bring sweaters or things that may help in a windy or cold situation. We were somewhat screwed but we fought through and pushed on. We later checked out the Aqua Art and called it a night around midnight.

Thursday was full of fun... Io was to speak on a panel about outsiders coming in at 2pm so we woke up, searched for starbucks for about 2 hours then barely got to the Gen Art fair in time.


Post Gen Art/Vanguard we rolled on over to the Theme Magazine party in Wynwood where we met up withLogan & Jeremiah. This was the beginning of us "rolling 13 deep". Its like a snow ball, you keep pushing and pushing and going and going and all of a sudden you're in Miami (where 12 hours before you only knew maybe 2 people) driving around like you grew up there with your 11 new friends.

We rode on over to South Beach where we hit up the Ricky Powell party. An impromptu fashion show with half naked women strutting in bikinis may or may not have happened, a couple drinks... some painting. But the bikini's I think was the highlight of the party. Or maybe the hispanic guy that asked me what my sign was and told me that he needed be to buy him a drink becaue the police stole his bag.

Next stop, Beautiful Decay party - our group got bigger. We went to the Pharell party at Le Baron - an underground club lit up by only red lighting (to make people look beautiful) where we got seated at a table, 3 tubs of assorted beer and a bottle of 10 cane rum. For free.


stollen photo from logan.

After that, there was nothing more than sleep.

Friday I forced Io to take me to the beach. I knew that if we didn't go, we would never make it. It was so beautiful.


Friday night was the Scion party at the Raleigh hotel in the Penthouse. Pretty fancy stuff though they only had one bathroom which if you ask me was pretty silly considering they had an open bar party. None the less, I met a ton of new people and hung out with my crew of 12 until we rolled onto the next stop which was the Obey party. I took a few pictures there but got the memo that Russel Simmons was there and didn't like cameras so I had to put it away.

Next stop was the GenArt party in Wynwood where we stayed for aprox 10 minutes before walking the (way longer than we should have walked) "6" blocks to the next party. Living in New York and thinking about blocks is like a facade. I think 'oh, 6 blocks is not that far at all - thats like walking from the train stop to my work which takes me 5 minutes'. In other cities - blocks have the ability to be almost a mile long. Ugh - it was a stupid choice to walk. I was in heels. It was annoying and kind of chilly. But, we got there - we had to go back to the car to get our ID but - we did finally get to the Nike/ANP party.

At first the music was so loud that we had to all go to the bathroom to get toilet paper for our ears. We had to pay 13.01 for 1 single drink that had 15% gratuity included, at a bar where they didn't serve tap water - only bottle for 6$. It was shit. Terrible... too loud, too expensive I almost thought about suggesting leaving untiiiiiiiiil - Heather saved us and showed us there was free wine & beer in the garden out back where we then accumulated a cabana!


stollen again from logan.

The boys finally at one point decided to leave us and head back to South Beach for bed when they shut down the garden and we shortly followed but didnt go to bed. We closed the diviest of bars on 14th & Collins called Mac's Duece club. Made it home around 530am. I haven't done that in what feels like forever.

Saturday we dedicated to being art day. So, I'm just going to picture through saturday :





I found these two at the NADA art fair. This is a performance piece they have been working on together since 2006. It is one giant pink crocheted tube. I of course stopped, took photos, took video and asked them a bajillion questions. A link to more info about the super super long pink tube.

Anyway, that basically sums up the weekend, our flight left very early on sunday morning so after one more meal in south beach, we went home to our little insane asylum hotel.

I didn't get much knitting done (obviously). I did start a hat and realized after all the ribbing that it was big enough to fit 2 heads so I had to start over / back on track now.

I have no christmas presents yet other than the 2 dishcloths... I better get on it.

Thats all for now.
Thank god for a day off.
x
-e.

43. FO - wooman socks.

So, here I am with the socks that took me nearly 2 months to knit. Knitting while on the train, at work when it was slow, sometimes out at bars with friends or at friends houses - basically the "i have spare time and I need to entertain myself somehow". Now, this isn't to say that I love them any less than anything else I spend real time working on because I have been endlessly excited about finishing them and getting them on my feet. I mean its my 2nd pair of socks ever, first pair for myself... They are a big deal.

So, I am going to start with all the basics :

Yarn : Koigu - Bought at The Yarn Tree in Brooklyn on sale!!
Pattern : A combination of 2 patterns - knitting from the toe up, knitting the heel last.
Size : Woo-Man size. A tiny bit too big for my feet (size 8) but, not enough to make it annoying.

Needles : Size 2 US
Notes : I love the yarn, Its so lovely to knit with. It hardly ever splits, it slides around on my bamboo DPNS perfectly... I am for sure going to be using it again, in fact I have 2 more balls wound ready to be turned into more socks! (these might be jaywalkers - ignore the boob)



Now - tragedy insues (sp?) ... They look fine from here right? Totally cute, little, colorful socks?

Well, have a closer LOOK !!!
So, I have this nasty habit of smoking cigarettes, which I don't do in my house and had I left this project at home this may have never happened but, I took them out to the "big game" last night (because i hate sports and figured I'd try to finish my socks while the minnesotans watched sports) and somehow a cherry from my cigarette decided to jump off the tip of my cigarette and into my purse where my poor veunerable sock was harmlessly hanging out. My sock was hurt and upset, mostly that I didn't notice it being attacked by the burning cherry in time enough to save it from the little hole. I am pretty upset about it... I did the best I could sewing it in hopes of it not coming apart again. Every stitch I tried to sew to would break in half - they were all creating the "facade" of being real stitches but, infact - they were already damaged.

I'm wearing them anyway.


In other news, I knitting these for my boyfriends mother for christmas - dishcloths from this pattern, I improvised a little on one of them but, I figured it would be a cute gift for a mid-western mother. Mojo is super excited and she doesn't even know it.

I have also decided both my grandmothers will also be receiving these for christmas. Mom, don't tell them.

I have to go to work now. I really don't want to. I am going to Miami on wed so I would really like a little rest before my vacation but, I suppose I do need drinking money in south beach? Im delerious and need to wash my face.

xx.
e. & g.

p.s - new post on chopstickbusinesscard.
p.p.s - i broke my phone again. patiently awaiting a new one.
p.p.p.s - where is team knit?. I miss them.

42.

My friend Nima said something the other day about how he likes that my blog posts are titled by number. It makes it easier for following if you don't have one of those "I read it already" markers. I agree with him. 42 does come after 41.

I have all these ideas about things that I'd like to write about almost always (oh so conveniently) while I'm walking down the street. I sometimes wish that I had a mechanism that would read my thoughts as I think them and put them in a storage bank that I can later re-visit so I can write about whatever weird and (almost) dillusional thing I am thinking about at the time. I being an aquarius, am incredibly loose minded? Scatter brained? Something like that - therefor I almost ALWAYS forget the "brilliant" idea I had to write about.

My roomates parents are currently staying with us. They are kind of adorable. The father does magic as a proffession, he keeps showing me little tricks. They're kind of awesome. I am tempted to ask how they're done but 1. I don't think he'll tell me and 2. It will probably kill the mystery. I came home to find a bible on the table today which is a not so common thing to find around my apartment. I'm not going to lie, it threw me off a little bit... I am definitely not used to censoring myself in leui of parents. I never grew up with christian, wholesome parents so I am infact finding that I have to bite my toung quite a bit. Example - My roomates mother has sleep apnea (I have never encoutered until yesterday) which I wasn't aware of. Upon entering the bathroom last night to have a shower - I came out yelling "who's damn scuba gear is in the sink??" = I am an asshole. Another instance, "If you're around on thanksgiving day, I'll show you my whole magic show", says Naomis' dad to which I promptly reply "HELL YEAH!". I suppose it was better than "F*&* yeah".

Anyway, onto knitting things... I have made some serious progress on Scarfy Cardy. I love Scarfy Cardy so far but I'm already thinking of some alterations I might like to work on after I finish the 2nd sleeve. It isn't quite wide enough for me to close so I was wondering, should I add on some front panels by picking up stiches and knitting out in stockinette? Or should I knit pannels and sew them on after so the stockinette stitches go in the same direction (up & down)?

I also knit some semi-ribbed random stitches around the wrist cuff so it wouldn't curl but, when i turn it up, I really like the way it looks so I'm glad I did it.

The little "woo-man" socks are coming along nicely too. I am just about at the heel of the 2nd sock now. I cannot wait to get them on my feet because it has been coooold the last few days!

My friend Vanessa had a surprise birthday party for her boyfriend Wade on friday night last weekend - I was 'documenting the night'. This is one of the photos that Trav took for me :

These were essentially the only two people I knew when I first moved to New York. I lived with them for 2 months as soon as I got here. I had known Vanessa (middle) for about 15 minutes before she dragged me out of the apartment with my sunglasses to avoid getting flipped out on my ios (left) mother for moving into her aparmtent on 3rd street without being informed. "This is not a HOTEL io" is the last thing I heard before I ran out the door to Tomkins Sq park with vanessa. Its been 2 years now (on Dec 5th) since I moved to NY. I love them very much. Thank you vanessa for saving me from Rebecca (who now loves me for the record).

I should go, I am geting magic tricks done to me by Naomi's dad.

x
-granny.

41.

I did it, I made my first adult designer million dollar clothing purchase. Of course, I documented such experience considering I am quite proud of myself. I think I may have a christmas dress for Minnesota! Its so lovely :


My roomate works at a store at Spring & Greenwich called Aloha Rag and yesterday they started a 40% off everything (except gold) sale. My roomate had a suggestion for me already as soon as I walked through the door and it was this dress.

I'm incredibly in love with it.

Knit news :

"woo"-man socks 60% finished
(working foot on 2nd sock)

scarfy cardy 50% finished
(2 more inches of body, add sleeves & scarf)

I don't want to work today.
x
-erin.

p-s : (the mirror in the first picture is one of my favorite things in my room. it was a design by my best friends cousin, he used some sort of chemical to burn that image into the glass. its so beautiful.)

40.

You'd think with a handy little card that gets me 40% off at the M.A.C cosmetics store, I'd be able to find someone to come makeup shopping with me? Alas, no luck. Maybe thats because a lot of my friends have day jobs? I'm not sure. I suppose I'll just have to go by my lonesome.

So yesterday was Franks last set of puppy shots and his rabies vaccination, he now is the proud owner of a huge red tag that is almost bigger than his head that says he is rabies free. I am pretty proud of him for making it through all those needles. Poor little guy, getting stabbed once a month with multiple needles. I am not looking forward to the day he gets his _____ chopped :/ - I'm probably going to spoil him rotten for a week.

Its gotten cold here... I could complain but, I suppose it is November. I wont.

Some music that's been getting me really excited lately, a visit from Roy Ayres - Everybody loves the sunshine... Why did I ever loose that song? Why did I neglect it for so long? God damn is it ever good. Another is this young sweedish girl, Lykke Li. She is a cute. Very much a cute.

Knitting? I have finally overcome my inability to knit more than one thing at a time so I am currently working on 2 things! My "woo-man" socks that I am so desperately wanting to finish so I can put them on my feet (42 degrees is cold) :


Preparing to knit on the subway, as I do. Often. And annoy people I'm sure.

Progress is being made on my scarfy cardy :


Have I mentioned yet that I plan on attaching a scarf to it?? I posted a picture of a big squishy cardigan on here a month or so ago with a huge fluffy scarf attached around the collar. I am going to go for it but, should le scarf be a wide rib or should I maybe throw a cable in there somewhere? I'm not sure I need to do the cable, its a pretty simple sweater all around... Suggestions?

My throat has been swollen the past couple of days. Not so much fun, especially while working but what better for a swollen throat then a few beers with some friends ? (Bad idea : Good photo fun.)


And finally, I'm going to end on some more pictures. A discovery around the corner from my apartment building. A "Glorious" discovery.

fin.
x.
-granny.

39. Pattern : Rudy short for Rudolph

Rudy short for Rudolph :

Materials :

Needles : size 10 US circular 16" needles / Size 10US DPNS - for finishing.
Yarn : 1 skein Catalina Baby Alpaca Chunky
One stitch marker.


Cast on : 76 sts, PM

-Join round, Rib 2x2 for 2 inches.

-Knit in round for 2.5 inches

Pattern RND (1 round only) : *yo, sl1, k2, psso (repeat * until end of round)

-Knit for 2 inches

DECREASE :

Rnd 1: *k17, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 2: *k10, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 3: *k9, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 4: *k8, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 5: *k7, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 6: *k6, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 7: *k5, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 8: *k4, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 9: *k3, k2tog (repeat * until end of round)
Rnd 10: *k2, k2tgo (repeat * until end of round)

Weave working yarn through all remaining stitches, pull tight & weave in ends.


x
-granny.

38. the first day of a new america.

So here is the canadian girl being incredibly happy and releived about what is about to happen to america. I don't think anything drastic is going to happen in the next 4 years but at least its a start, at least this is a beggining of something that desperately needed to happen and thank fucking god it is this man who is going to start the ball rolling.

So much of america is so naive to how their government really effects the rest of the world, how america is tried in to so many other countries on so many other levels. Somewhere near 10 people in ONE department of my moms work IN canada lost their jobs because the US executives of the company decided they needed to cut costs... i'm sure its happened with other north american companies as well... it is so important (especially to north america) that the US gets back on its feet and that it has someone with their head on their shoulders with the best intentions set forward leading it back to a state of normalacy (as we know it). Anyway, the change is going to happen, I am SO glad everyone figured it out. I wasn't sure I was ready to move back to canada ;)

In tribute of this historic day/year/election - i photographed 3 new balls of yarn in patriotic form :




top: the softest of handspun, undied, merino from chile (to make other appearances in this blog post)
bottom left: rudy (the sequel - still to be knit) blue sky alpacas, dyed cotton 100% organically grown
bottom right : flossy (the seuqel - still to be knit) blue sky alpacas, dyed cotton 100% organically grown

I am quite excited about the merino yarn, it feels so soft and squishy and lovely I want to rub it all over my face. It will be face rub-able after I knit my neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew....................



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CARDIGAN!

I haven't knit anything for myself in what feels like months... I did the Orangina but, I don't ever wear it (christmas present?) so it doesn't really feel like mine. I've been wanting to make myself a very simple stockinette stitch cardigan that hugs my waist, goes past my butt and doesn't need to close in a soft lady like color so what better to do it in than an off-white. I bought this yarn at Downtown Yarns on Ave A with intentions of making myself a cape but, I figured I don't want to wear a coat over a cape and this yarn isn't thick enough to knit in the same gauge of the pattern I have so sweater it is. I am not knitting from a pattern so I hope it works out - I had to start it over twice and rip back once so far. I'm knitting on US 8's and its about 5.5 sts to 1 inch. I started with 80 sts and ribbed for an inch and a half then devided like this :

k8, PM, k14, PM, k36, PM, k14, PM, k8

I figure thats about 6 inches across the back, 2.5 inches over the shoulders and i'm increasing by kfb on both sides of every marker so, 8 increases every other row. If anyone knows that its not going to work, speak now or forever hold your peace. i was thinking about doing 5 decreases on both inner seams (when I get there) and 5 increases to hopefully get the hourglass type shape. Might only do 4 because I don't want it to be too tight.

End on something kind of funny? Sure.

So, I had a makeup job yesterday for Hashett (the french publishing company) to do makeup on a couple of their head editors for some interviews and whatnot. The job was at noon and so waking up at 730am I had some time to kill. I took my time checking my morning internets and drinking my 3 coffees. Finally I realize I have to kick it into high speed because I've diddled around too long. I am running around, clothes, makeup, hair. At about 10:45 I walk to my desk with my camera cable in hand to replace in the shelf where it lives and promptly go into my roomates bedroom to show him some halloween pictures I had posted up on my flickr. For some reason my brain seems to think its okay to tell me I can do both of these things at the same time - I go full force into multitasking and whack my face off his door frame. Yes, I walked into a door.

Good thing I had enough makeup on to cover it at the job yesterday but here's where its at today


At least its only a tiny cut and not a huge black eye like I was expecting. Should be gone in a couple of days but it hurts to sleep on my left side. I am, have been and always will be the clumsiest woman alive. Thanks for that mom.

x
-erin

p.s - in her defense, she isn't really that clumsy. its just me - i just have to blame someone.

p.s.s - i started a photoblog with my best friend and i posted my first post