Art around my house

This week, they knitty blog-stalkers are doing "art around your house," and here is my contribution:

First off, the oil painting in our bedroom. I couldn't get rid of the glare (oil reflects flash), but I think it's still pretty recognizable. This painting was done by a very gifted unschooled artist in Kucevo, the small Serbian village where my mother grew up. It's a bit surreal, but mostly,t here are loads of things characteristic of the region. Dried red peppers, small houses, home-made bread... It's a very small village, and to this day, there's a village fair where people trade cows, goats, sheep, and where toothless old women in black clothes and scarves gather to gossip. Time hasn't exactly stood still, but it hasn't advanced very far, either.


This is a wedding gift from my friend Linda. Linda is a master tilesetter in Germany, and this is a large, heavy mosaic done in tile, with my and my husband's initials and the two rings. She's not only an excellent tilesetter, she's also a very gifted artist, and a wonderful human being.


This is the golden Jesus given to me by my uncle when I got married. Sorry about the glare, he's opposite a window, one of the first things you see when you enter our house. As you can tell, I was brought up in the Serbian Orthodox tradition. Now, my husband and I go to an Episcopal church, but I'm not giving up on my religious roots.
It took our parish a while to figure out that you can be goth, wear black, and still go to Church regularly!


This is another oil painting. My mother bought it for us in Belgrade. She got stopped at the airport because you can't export art of any kind without official paperwork. She wanted me to have this picture because the books and wine combination reminded me of her. Finally, my uncle in Belgrade got the paperwork straightened out, and my parents brought the painting the next time they came to visit.

Seaming disaster

I don't know if the picture is too blurry for the problem to show, but I'm not happy with my seams. One of them looks like crap, and I had to mess up both of them to get the front to lay flat. It's looking a little less awful now that it's blocking, but it still isn't good.
The neck opening doesn't look uneven when I'm wearing it, by the way. It's an adjustment I had to make for the symmetrical top to fit my asymmetrical body.

Freezer shot, Lotus Blossom Tank, Oh my!

Well, here they are, the insides of our freezer. Ice cream, fries, Uno's Pizza frozen pizza, some veggies in the doors... I guess it's time to go grocery shopping again!


And now that I have satisfied the Knitty blog stalkers, back to knitting: Here is LBT in the bizarre pastel hippie yarn, about 2 inches away from getting short-rowed. Don't get me wrong, I love the way it's turning out. I even love the large pooly bits that turn into thin lines as you go up. It looks so cool, it looks intentional.
But pastels??? What was I thinking???

Almost!

Today is my sweetie's birthday, so no paper writing. But it's going to get done tomorrow, I'm going to hand it in, and that'll be it. Almost done... World beware, here I come!

LBT is going well, by the way. I've finished the front and am in the 7.5" stockinette section before the short rows. Again, almost done!

Paper-induced delay

I know I haven't posted in over a week, but my final paper for the last course in my program is due on Thursday. I'll be done. I'll be a librarian!

To make up for the delay, I promise not only to post pictures of my knitting progress, but also at least one picture of myself with a bun. It'll be great.

SP Surprise!

Look! Look what was waiting for me when I came home from work! A package filled with goodies from my SP, Spazzy Pickles. It really made me feel special. Why?

Yarn Harlot! Need I say more? Knitting Rules cracked me up, and I can't wait to get started on this one. My paper for my intellectual freedom class is due, I've been running from consulate to city hall to immigration office to get my passport and other documents renewed, and I've been job hunting. I really need a good, knitting-related read right now, the timing couldn't be more perfect.

Then there's the chocolate. Not only does it look yummy, but if you look more closely, you'll see that it says "Dagoba" on it. Only the best SP ever would go to some gourd-forsaken swamp planet at the end of the galaxy to get me chocolate. Must have snuck it past Yoda, too!

The highlight, though, is unquestionably the sock yarn. Blues, pinks/fuchsias, some purplish tones... soft and pretty. But the extra-special thing is that it's hand-dyed by Spazzy Pickles! HAND DYED, just for ME! I've been petting the skein. I've been carrying it around the house. Even the husband is impressed, and he usually doesn't show much interest in yarn.

Last but not least, there's the cute card with a kitty on it, an allergy-free kitty-in-a-box from my SP. I really feel happy and spoiled.

Now, I have to go back to petting and ogling that skein...

Unexpected Gift

I knew the people on knitty were special, but lindydiva did a wonderful, touching thing for me yesterday. She knew I'd had a crappy week, and she showed up to our SnB with a surprise for me: A pretty bag I'd admired earlier, one of those fun Madlib thingies, and a piece of soap wrapped in a hand-knit washcloth! I'll have to post pictures, she really made my day.
Thank you, Eileen!

Tempting, new bangs, and a WIP

My husband and I just spent a wonderful week with his mom. We drove to Cape Cod, where we stopped at the cutest little yarn store, and my sweetie bought me two skeins of Silk Garden, which will make there debut on this blog when they've been knit up -- or when I feel the urge to post some yarn pr0n.
I also used the time away to get my hair cut. He's still getting used to the new bangs. Men, it turns out, don't like change. Too bad. I love the way this looks, everyone else seems to like it too, and I finally look good with bright red lipstick! Woohoo!

I know I haven't posted any pictures in a while, so before this turns into Batty's Boring Blog, I give you... the finished Tempting!
(...and my bangs)


I put it on in a hurry and didn't tug it straight, but on the whole, I think it looks rather nice. The bow is off-center on purpose, and I like the thin ribbon better than the gift-wrap like broader version. My bow-tying skills suck, so the hangy part looks way better than a big, wide bow.

The details: The sweater was knit on aluminum US 9s, in Debbie Bliss Cash Merino. The yarn is wonderful, soft and warm, and the main reason I altered the pattern to make longer sleeves. It feels so luscious, I want to be able to wear it year round.
My only peeve is that it produces a very, very stretchy fabric. It doesn't reveal anything it shouldn't, but when I tug at anything, it bags out and stays that way. Further tugging fixes the issue, but who wants to tug and tug and tug all day?
I almost wish I'd done some decreases around the shoulders for shaping. There are no sweater getting away problems, and I probably won't bother, because it looks fine. It's just the perfectionist in me trying to get out.

So much for tempting, now for something different: the Lotus Blossom Tank.

I just started the third repeat of the lace pattern. As can be seen, a lot of blocking will have to be done before this turns into a non-spaghetti-like piece of clothing. I've never blocked lace knit in the round that isn't supposed to lie flat. I have no idea how to go about it, but am hoping the nice people at knitty.com and my fellow LBT'ers from the LBT knitalong will know what to do. Their wisdom has been of invaluable help in my knitting life.

Why the pastels? Beats me. I hate pastels. With a passion. Yet when I saw a picture of this yarn, I had to buy some, and I knew it wanted to be a Lotus Blossom Tank. It'll take a lot of black eyeliner to make up for this piece of girly fruh-fruh!