9.16.2010
Falling into Fall
I think that it's about time to try this blogging thing again. Fall is here (well, sort of) and I am full of project ideas for the season so this will be a great way to keep motivated. First up is a pattern that I have been talking about using for over four years, Norah Gaughan's knitted panniers. Originally my plan was to frog an old sweater and use that yarn, but the sweater's construction prevented that from being a possibility. Then, I went back and forth about what yarn I wanted to use for the project, Lopi is out because I find it too rough to knit, and I need something that isn't going to be prohibitively expensive. Today I added two bags of Cascade Eco+ in color number 4010 to a shop order specifically for this project. Cast on in t-minus seven days.
7.12.2010
My Forecastle Overview
This weekend, the March Madness Marching Band performed at the Forecastle Festival in Louisville. Forecastle isn't typically the kind of festival I would attend (not enough bands I like to justify the high price tag,) but since it was free for performers I decided to return from my summer hiatus to play the festival. We did five performances throughout the weekend each one taking a 2-3 hour block of time for costuming, organizing, and performing so I missed several chunks of the weekend and a few of the bands I wanted to see. Regardless, it was a great weekend and I did get to see some really great performers. Also, I got to stay at 21C which is the coolest hotel I will probably ever stay in.
Friday-
Due to the consumption of too much alcohol and too little food, my recollection of Friday is a little fuzzy. I am pretty sure we went to see Manchester Orchestra, but since I can't remember the show I will critique the one thing I do remember- Rain Organics Vodka. I bought a bottle of Rain Lavendar Lemonade vodka for the weekend (plain would have been more practical, but the idea of lavendar was very enticing in the summer heat.) For those of you who don't know, Rain is made in Frankfort at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. It is organic and distilled seven times so it is pure and very smooth. The lavender vodka was great by itself, but even better when mixed with Sprite- the perfect summer drink.
Saturday-
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals- I tried to like them, but the lead singer has that slightly raspy folk singer voice that always turns me away from bands.
Mucca Pazza- So fun, but definitely a band you want to see live. Kinda puts our little marching band to shame, in a good way.
Cake- Wanna feel old? Go see Cake.
Devo- Exceeded expectations. I imagined that Devo had amazing shows in the 80's, but I didn't expect too much from this reunion tour. Well, the show was incredible, everything I would have hoped a Devo show to be.
Cloud Cult- The problem with music festivals is the band overlaps. We missed the beginning of Cloud Cult because of Devo and while I don't regret staying for all of Devo, I do wish that we got to see all of Cloud Cult. They were amazing, even with the microphone problems. (on a side note: they are providing the soundtrack for this blog entry.)
Smashing Pumpkins- Billy Corgan is a douche. I made it through one song and about a minute of stage banter before I had to leave due to a feeling of complete disgust. Die Smashing Pumpkins, die!!! Supposedly it was between Smashing Pumpkins and Pavement and the Forecastle organizers went with the Smashing Pumpkins, total fail.
Sunday-
Dar Williams- I have seen Dar live about a million times and she has yet to disappoint. Plus, every time I see her live I come away with a new favorite Dar song (this time it was The Ocean.) This show she managed to play all of my favorites (partially due to the fact that she takes requests and I was in the front yelling my playlist) and pulled Sara Watkins (of Nickle Creek) on stage for a couple of songs including Iowa, my all-time favorite Dar song. I was in a very happy place for this show.
Sara Watkins- Sara Watkins has a beautiful voice and an amazing stage presence. She has a sweet bluegrass sound that really feels like home to me. Bonus- she pulled out a ukulele for a couple of songs. Oh how I love those girls with ukuleles!
Cirque Berzerk- Mostly acrobatics with a dark vaudeville twist- joyous, sad, and beautiful. I don't know how often these guys actually tour, but they have a regular show in LA so if you get the chance to see them, do it (this goes for all of you PETA people about to migrate out west.) They asked us to perform with them at two of their shows which was an amazing honor.
She & Him- I have mixed feelings about this band. I have both albums and I enjoy them (mostly as background music at the shop,) but honestly I couldn't imagine going out of my way to see them live. That being said, I was a little excited to see them in the Forecastle line-up and I did rush over from our performance with Cirque Berzerk to see the show. I think a lot of the hype about the band is due to Zooey's crossover and not because of the actual music. Their music can border on mediocre, but Zooey has an amazing voice and when she belted out the encore she really proved how much potential she has in the music industry. Hopefully their future albums can capture a bit of this power.
Spoon- By this point, the exhaustion of little sleep and five performances had really kicked in, but I still found the energy to dance to Spoon. I have never really considered myself a Spoon fan, I like their music, but don't listen to it with any regularity. I think that is about to change.
Flaming Lips- This was my first time to see the Flaming Lips in an outdoor venue and I have to say that while the show is definitely suited for a festival setting, the crowd was full of assholes who were there more for drinking and assholery than for the music which made the show slightly less enjoyable. I still had an amazing time and would do it again.
Friday-
Due to the consumption of too much alcohol and too little food, my recollection of Friday is a little fuzzy. I am pretty sure we went to see Manchester Orchestra, but since I can't remember the show I will critique the one thing I do remember- Rain Organics Vodka. I bought a bottle of Rain Lavendar Lemonade vodka for the weekend (plain would have been more practical, but the idea of lavendar was very enticing in the summer heat.) For those of you who don't know, Rain is made in Frankfort at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. It is organic and distilled seven times so it is pure and very smooth. The lavender vodka was great by itself, but even better when mixed with Sprite- the perfect summer drink.
Saturday-
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals- I tried to like them, but the lead singer has that slightly raspy folk singer voice that always turns me away from bands.
Mucca Pazza- So fun, but definitely a band you want to see live. Kinda puts our little marching band to shame, in a good way.
Cake- Wanna feel old? Go see Cake.
Devo- Exceeded expectations. I imagined that Devo had amazing shows in the 80's, but I didn't expect too much from this reunion tour. Well, the show was incredible, everything I would have hoped a Devo show to be.
Cloud Cult- The problem with music festivals is the band overlaps. We missed the beginning of Cloud Cult because of Devo and while I don't regret staying for all of Devo, I do wish that we got to see all of Cloud Cult. They were amazing, even with the microphone problems. (on a side note: they are providing the soundtrack for this blog entry.)
Smashing Pumpkins- Billy Corgan is a douche. I made it through one song and about a minute of stage banter before I had to leave due to a feeling of complete disgust. Die Smashing Pumpkins, die!!! Supposedly it was between Smashing Pumpkins and Pavement and the Forecastle organizers went with the Smashing Pumpkins, total fail.
Sunday-
Dar Williams- I have seen Dar live about a million times and she has yet to disappoint. Plus, every time I see her live I come away with a new favorite Dar song (this time it was The Ocean.) This show she managed to play all of my favorites (partially due to the fact that she takes requests and I was in the front yelling my playlist) and pulled Sara Watkins (of Nickle Creek) on stage for a couple of songs including Iowa, my all-time favorite Dar song. I was in a very happy place for this show.
Sara Watkins- Sara Watkins has a beautiful voice and an amazing stage presence. She has a sweet bluegrass sound that really feels like home to me. Bonus- she pulled out a ukulele for a couple of songs. Oh how I love those girls with ukuleles!
Cirque Berzerk- Mostly acrobatics with a dark vaudeville twist- joyous, sad, and beautiful. I don't know how often these guys actually tour, but they have a regular show in LA so if you get the chance to see them, do it (this goes for all of you PETA people about to migrate out west.) They asked us to perform with them at two of their shows which was an amazing honor.
She & Him- I have mixed feelings about this band. I have both albums and I enjoy them (mostly as background music at the shop,) but honestly I couldn't imagine going out of my way to see them live. That being said, I was a little excited to see them in the Forecastle line-up and I did rush over from our performance with Cirque Berzerk to see the show. I think a lot of the hype about the band is due to Zooey's crossover and not because of the actual music. Their music can border on mediocre, but Zooey has an amazing voice and when she belted out the encore she really proved how much potential she has in the music industry. Hopefully their future albums can capture a bit of this power.
Spoon- By this point, the exhaustion of little sleep and five performances had really kicked in, but I still found the energy to dance to Spoon. I have never really considered myself a Spoon fan, I like their music, but don't listen to it with any regularity. I think that is about to change.
Flaming Lips- This was my first time to see the Flaming Lips in an outdoor venue and I have to say that while the show is definitely suited for a festival setting, the crowd was full of assholes who were there more for drinking and assholery than for the music which made the show slightly less enjoyable. I still had an amazing time and would do it again.
1.27.2010
1.22.2010
New yarn
Since it is Friday, let's make it a fiber Friday.
This is my latest yarn, corespun from a batt I made yesterday with a silver autowrap. The little rainbow nubbs are recycled sari fiber and though you can't see it in the picture, there is some handdyed firestar thrown in for extra sparkle.
This is my latest yarn, corespun from a batt I made yesterday with a silver autowrap. The little rainbow nubbs are recycled sari fiber and though you can't see it in the picture, there is some handdyed firestar thrown in for extra sparkle.
1.20.2010
Insubordiknit Nashville
For my birthday this year I decided to go to the Nashville Insubordiknit spinning workshop. There was a closer workshop last fall, but due to shop scheduling problems, that one really wasn't a possibility for me, plus waiting for the Nashville workshop forced me to stop procrastinating about taking a trip down to visit Nieves.
I could go on and on about the workshop and everything we learned, but it is all on Jacey's site so you can just see it there. Jacey was an amazing teacher, informative and entertaining. I was definitely one of the more inexperienced spinners in the group and with the exception of a couple of techniques I had very few problems. My favorite thing that we learned over the weekend was corespinning. I LOVE CORESPINNING!!! I understood the concept of corespinning, it was just a technique that I never bothered to try. The yarns produced by spinning carded fiber around a core yarn are light and fluffy and the technique really shows off the contents of a batt (especially a sparkly batt.) Here are the pictures of my favorite yarns so far.
My first corespun yarn. Jacey gave us some brown carded fiber to learn on. I later went back and autowrapped the yarn with some metallic red embroidery thread (you had to expect me to put some sparkles in somewhere.)
Next is the supercoiled yarn. I spun the single before class with scrap Ashland Bay top that was in the back of the shop. This was a really fun technique, but very time intensive when you calculate the amount of yarn that you end up with (it took me two hours to spin 10 yards.)
Last is the corespun that I spun up last night. I made a super sparkly batt just to practice this technique on my Traveller and I was so happy with the resulting yarn that I carded up a duplicate batt to make another hank of it. Lovely sparklies make me happy!
I could go on and on about the workshop and everything we learned, but it is all on Jacey's site so you can just see it there. Jacey was an amazing teacher, informative and entertaining. I was definitely one of the more inexperienced spinners in the group and with the exception of a couple of techniques I had very few problems. My favorite thing that we learned over the weekend was corespinning. I LOVE CORESPINNING!!! I understood the concept of corespinning, it was just a technique that I never bothered to try. The yarns produced by spinning carded fiber around a core yarn are light and fluffy and the technique really shows off the contents of a batt (especially a sparkly batt.) Here are the pictures of my favorite yarns so far.
My first corespun yarn. Jacey gave us some brown carded fiber to learn on. I later went back and autowrapped the yarn with some metallic red embroidery thread (you had to expect me to put some sparkles in somewhere.)
Next is the supercoiled yarn. I spun the single before class with scrap Ashland Bay top that was in the back of the shop. This was a really fun technique, but very time intensive when you calculate the amount of yarn that you end up with (it took me two hours to spin 10 yards.)
Last is the corespun that I spun up last night. I made a super sparkly batt just to practice this technique on my Traveller and I was so happy with the resulting yarn that I carded up a duplicate batt to make another hank of it. Lovely sparklies make me happy!
1.01.2010
It's that time again
Time for some New Year's resolutions. I have big hopes for 2010, especially since 2009 was such a horrible year (actually, the last month or so was pretty good, but the rest was positively dreadful.) The only goals I set for 2009 were to knit 12 sweaters (I only knit 6) and to read 52 books (I read 68.) I didn't quite make it, but in my opinion I was close enough.
For 2010, I don't really have resolutions, just a list of things that I would like to do so here goes.
For 2010, I don't really have resolutions, just a list of things that I would like to do so here goes.
- Start accordion lessons.
- Take the LSAT.
- Get my etsy shop up and running again.
- Completely revamp all of ReBelle's digital communications
- Remodel the backroom of the shop and put additional shelving in the front.
- Join a book group (I am thinking the monthly NPR group @LPL)
- Take a vacation, preferably two weeks in the Pacific Northwest focusing on hanging out with friends in Portland, visiting Crater Lake, and camping in the redwoods.
- Take a short NYC/DC trip.
- Continue playing in the MMMB.
- Build two pieces of mid century-inspired furniture of my own design.
- Format and publish existing patterns on Ravelry.
- Write 5 new patterns for publication.
- Start shooting again
12.10.2009
I heart my drum carder
About a year ago I bought a used drum carder. The lady who sold it to me had no idea the age, make or model, but said it worked great and it fit perfectly in my price range. As soon as it arrived, I blended all of the dyed roving I had on hand and then some. The carder was absolutely perfect, fast, easy, and best of all there were no blades for me to slice my fingers on (if you know me you understand why this is important.) Recently, a friend was doing a little research and discovered that my drum carder closely resembled a Duncan Carder. A few pictures and an email to Duncan and I now know that I have an older model Duncan carder. This doesn't really change my feelings toward my carder, but it is nice to know what it is so I can recommend it to others when they ask.
Now for a few pictures of my most recent batts...
Battered Barbie, 5.7oz
Sticky Rebellion, 4.25oz
Manic Monday, 5.5oz
I will have these batts and many more at the Bazaar Bizarre in Cleveland this weekend so if you are in the area you should stop by and say hi.
Now for a few pictures of my most recent batts...
Battered Barbie, 5.7oz
Sticky Rebellion, 4.25oz
Manic Monday, 5.5ozI will have these batts and many more at the Bazaar Bizarre in Cleveland this weekend so if you are in the area you should stop by and say hi.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)