Oh. Hi.

So I might've ignored my blog for a whole summer, but that doesn't mean I can't just jump in without excuses and post, right?

…Right?

Well something that happened in my absence was my birthday. And people not only saw fit to get me birthday gifts, they saw fit to get me really awesome birthday gifts.

And I treated myself on some things as well :)

Cascade Heritage Sock in Blood Orange

And introducing my new best friend: the Canon PowerShot SX120 IS

Meh

Since I am the most boring person in existence, have a list!

Things I Have Not Gotten Around to Reading Yet:
~The daVinci Code
~Life of Pi
~Three Cups of Tea
~Looking For Alaska
~Flush

Things I Really Want to Reread for the Possibly Billionth Time
~Fairest
~The Tale of Despereaux
~Chasing Vermeer
~The entire A Series of Unfortunate Events set
~All of the Harry Potter books
~Twilight (for mocking purposes only, I assure you)

I Really Need to Finish:
~Little Dorrit

That One Teen Romance Book My Cousin Recommended:
is getting pushed to the very, very back of the queue

Yes, most of these are kids books. I'm judging you too.
The problem with books is that they require a lot more time allowance than say, homework or checking email.
Thanksgiving break, meet paper cuts and decreasing vision!

Sun been down for days

Unable to think of a proper title, I opted for the so very original song lyric.

Onwards!
Presenting some recently acquired items:

A cactus

A bangle

Some buttons

A sketchbook

And better-than-classic literature ;)

I just downloaded an immense amount of photos from Phipps Conversvatory, so those should be up soon…am I forgetting anything?

Slowly getting back into knitting, what with school being mean and taking all my time away.

ALSO! I looked through my archives. Oy vey. I deleted a ton of uselessness from three years ago (was I really that annoying?! …Don't answer that), and now Thinking in Magenta is slightly more clean, and well, tasteful.

And with slightly less of these: ;P

Getting around

To knitting (FINALLYYYYY)



And art


And reading (for myself, at last)

To review his life, was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower, and seeing all the branches wither and drop off one by one, as he came down towards them.
'From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile, my return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to the afternoon of this day with poor Flora,' said Arthur Clennam, 'what have I found!'
His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and came as if they were an answer,
'Little Dorrit.'

-Charles Dickins, Little Dorrit

And a new layout! Woo! Hopefully new buttons will follow soon enough.

Summer's nearly over. Sheesh, it went fast. Pretty soon it'll be chilly and wet and I'll need to wear scarves and hats.
…Hopefully not that soon, though ;)

I'll have to crack down on holiday knitting as well. Or at least, knit things for myself to wear in the holiday season, haha.

I want to make more socks. Hmm.

The Quest for Creativity

Cure for artist's block: let your cousin wear your mittens and she will happily make a fool of herself in your backyard and surprisingly you will get some good shots in.

Cure for reader's block: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Cure for knitter's block: seed stitch <3

Sorry I've been away so long :(

Art history repeats itself

What is it about school assignments that inspire me? The fact that it's obligatory? ;)

Okay, so for the English Festival, we have to either submit 3 drawings based on the books or do a book report on 3 extra books you have to read. So you can see why I chose the first option.

Marie, Dancing is one of my favorites we've had to read this year. It is about a French ballet dancer (a dance I took for about 7 years) at the Paris Opera (setting of the Phantom of the Opera, my absolute favorite musical) who poses for Edgar Degas' (my favorite artist) sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

It was not hard for me to love this book.

On the book's back cover is a picture of the sculpture, my third drawing assignment was due Thursday (it was Wednesday at the time), and I had no inspiration, so I just decided to free-hand draw the sculpture for my last assignment.
Problem: I got too attached to this picture to give it up.

Luckily, my teacher accepted a pretty exact copy from the school's copy machine, and my English Festival work was complete.

A strange coincidence between this picture, myself, Edward Degas (from Marie, Dancing):

"I understood that Monsieur Degas recieved many offers for his stauette, but he refused to sell it."

"When Degas' heirs visited his studio after his death, they found dozens of small sculptures in wax and clay . . . [T]he heirs chose seventy-three of the best-preserved pieces and took them to a maker of bronze castings . . . Today about thirteen hundred individual bronzes can be accounted for, including . . . several copies of the Little Dancer . . ."

*Creepy music*

Goodies

I don't usually like Sundays, but yesterday earned A+! Well, more of an A-, since I did have to go to bed early (school night=yuck).

My mom dropped me off at Barnes and Noble for half an hour while she went to Wal-Mart, and I picked up a classic.

I swear, it's like the knitting equivalent of Jane Eyre (which I am currently attached to). EZ really is sitting next to you, calmly discussing her ideas and methods through the pages. *love*

After that, to Michael's!
Now I don't really like Michael's all that much. To me, Jo-Ann has a much wider selection of craftiness, and a lot more knitting stuff. It's debatable, but not now, cause I have yarn to show off!

Three skeins of Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in Terracotta. Soooooo yummy :P

I will be using them to make the Cropped Jacket featured on p. 57 of Adorn Spring '07. . .

. . .but I'm forcing myself to wait until I finish Cinquanta Otto to cast on for what I am going to call Trendsweater. Catchy, huh? Cute, no?

Alright, hang in there until Wednesday! The hat's almost done (wow, that's surprising even to me ;) )

Uptown Mitten 1

I can't seem to get the lighting right in knitting pictures. Oh well. The first mitten conceived from brain scratch is coming along nicely. The braided cable isn't coming out exactly as I pictured, but it isn't terrible, so I'll deal.

Also, if any of you come across a book by the author April Young Fritz, I advise you to run far, far away. Her books are very boring. Trust me. My Language Arts teacher is forcing us to read them. It's the equivalent of watching paint dry.
And when you are finished running, stop and buy the Uglies trilogy, or anything else by Scott Westerfeld. It will instantly wake you up. ;)