Mail Day!

The super sweet and adorable Julie over at Restless Hearts is one of my newest pen pals. Check out what the mailman brought me from darling Julie...  a sweet little envelope with some R-rated spoke cards (even though I don't even own a bike at present). You can see the ones that Julie has on her bike in this blog post.

The envelope was a little puffy for just a note and some 70's soft-core p o r n. "Gee what else is in there?" you may be asking... this amazing breakfast plate that Julie whipped up! How did she know that I was craving a hearty helping of steak and eggs?!   

discovering my breakfast

I haven't decided what I am going to stitch this tasty breakfast onto yet.  Maybe a hoodie, or one of my old punky/thrashed cardigans (i have a weird thing for old cardigans that have been poorly stitched back together like frankenstein).  Perhaps I will sew it onto a pillow cover so that I can lay my face down into my food.  OR... how about I put it onto one of the sassy new skirts that I plan to make so that I can wear my food around town? 

the spoke cards: get it? ride? bicycle... it's punny. 

in effort to not offend anyone I added the sunburst over the naughty bits.
& i do hope that no one was offended.

Have you received anything good in the mail recently? Leave me a comment and tell me about it. 

❤  
-t

& speaking of awesome things + the Restless Hearts blog...

just a reminder that Saturday is the last day to enter the giveaway over Yonder to win one of my Hip-to-be-Square journals.    

Mail Day!

I love opening the mailbox and finding packages just for me! A couple of weeks ago my friend Caren from tea & chickadees got her first Chemex.  

Mind you, Caren and I have been tweeting about Chemex coffee makers for several months.  I casually tweeted about how much I love mine.... about how I love having something that encompasses 

design + tasty coffee + vintage sensibility.  I was very surprised that the lovely Caren (queen of vintage, lover of tasty coffee, collector of tea-pots) didn't have one of these, much less never heard of them.  

I buy recycled and unbleached paper products whenever possible.  But when it comes to chemex, I have heard from several trustworthy folks that the unbleached filters tend to give the coffee an added "flavor".  Being a trusting soul... I have always bought & used the bleached filters.  Upon reading Caren's post, My First Chemex Experience, I noticed that she was using the unbleached Chemex filters.  I offered to send her some of mine to do a taste test.  Being a genius, she suggested we swap.  

Without further ado I give you my Chemex-Coffee-Cat themed package from Caren:: 

(I swear to you... this post started out being about getting a package in the mail) 

the package contained:: 

• a beautiful greeting card with a very humorous edit by Caren (see the pretty girls tattoos)
• a super cool felt coffee cup cozy (little did Caren know that I have been jonesing for one of these for a very long time!!!) 
• an Instax polaroid of Strongpaw, Caren's kitty & one of Rosco's many long distance girlfriends. (sorry Ladies... he's just too much cat love for one you to handle)
• a faux-laroid drawing of Rosco modeling one of my silk & cashmere cowls. Wow! I have original Caren Art!!! 
• & oh yeah... unbleached coffee filters

The photo which inspired Caren's amazing drawing of Rosco P. Coltrane

{source}

We had one of these beauties in my home when I was a kiddo in the 70's.  Mind you I didn't drink coffee back then, but I was quite taken with the idea that my mother would make & serve her daily coffee in a science beaker (or what I thought was a science beaker). 

One of my all time favorite characters is Mary Richards.  I grew up watching reruns of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.  I now own several seasons of the show.  It's one of my favorite background shows to play while I am crafting throughout the day.  I get silly giddy when I see her using her Chemex.

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

What is your preferred method of brewing coffee? Get anything good in the mail recently? 

❤

-t

Knitting Naughty Deer

Using the same earflap hat generator as in the post before this one.... and the fornicating reindeer chart (by Anne Rutten) from here... and i made a fu**ing reindeer hat. I believe that you have to be a member of ravelry in order to view that link. This was my second project using the stranding technique, and my first working from a chart. I had to re-chart the deer and trees from the original 32 stitch repeat to a 36 stitch repeat in order to accommodate the sizing for the hat. I basically flushed the trees out, adding one extra stitch to each half of the trees, and added an extra space in between each tree and deer. I also made up my own border design... that part looked better on paper.

Other fun stuff is the conversation whether these are reindeer or moose. Apparently some very straight men were upset that both reindeer have antlers... which would make them gay. Some husbands actually insisted that the front deer have the antlers edited out, to be sure no confusion would be made. Hell... makes me want to make one in rainbow colors.



It is a little big on me... but should fit the recipient like a dream! I love this hat generator...pattern.. thingy. Can you call a generator a pattern? A hat generator pattern? Whatever it is... it is fabulous! I was a little concerned about the reindeer chart being so high and that the seam created by sewing the inside hem down was going to create an unsightly bulge that would land directly across their cute little fu**ing noses... see note below about blocking



I used ella rae classic (#132-dark charcoal) for the main color of the hat & cascade 220 (#8401-light heather grey) & cascade 220 (#8400-medium heather grey) for the contrast colors. **side note... i did not like working with the ella rae, mostly during the short rows, when you un-knit or slip stitches back and forth the yarn splits like crazy** I used #7 addi turbos. I might actually use a #6 with this weight yarn for future stranding projects. After blocking it relaxed enough that it could stand to be a little tighter.

If i weren't a believer in blocking before... this project alone would sell me on it. Every single little lump and bump literally melted away when i dunked this mofo into a bath of water & woolwash. Of course i waited til days AFTER the heatwave had passed to block... so it is taking several days to dry... but oh so worth it.

"Be Still My Bacon Heart"

Happy Belated Valentine's Day to all of you!

I knit an anatomically accurate heart for my valentine. And although this Valentine post is belated... the heart was completed well before February 14th.

The pattern is from Knitty... it is called... are you ready for this... Heart. It was a quick-ish knit... or maybe I was just having so much fun knitting it.. and so much excitement knowing that the recipient would adore it that I could not put it down for a minute.

I even knit the whole thing on double pointed needles!!! I could have easily used magic-loop. Which as the entire world knows, i am in love with the loop of magic. But I had so much fun using double pointed needles again. I did use a 32" addi as a stitch holder, I didn't want my addis to feel left out.



As I had suspected... the recipient LOVED it. He has a bacon fetish... well fetish makes it sound sexual... which I don't think it has gone quite that far... but let's just say that he is obsessed with Bacon. So I titled this project "Be Still My Bacon Heart". I made a little banner with the title and our names and the date on it. And of course I did not photograph that before handing this heart over... haha

Lincoln Logs...???

*****EDIT****** For some janky ass reason the allow comments feature was turned off! I was feeling so sad that not one single person had left me a comment! hehe XOXO's to xtina for calling it out to me!

NOOO! Not Lincoln Logs!

Log Cabin Blankie! It's all the rage right now, and you know me... such a follower! (that was a huge joke, in case any of you have never seen me in person) All of my friends are making 'em. So anyway, always trying to be one of the cool kids (again... haha), I thought I would leap onto the bandwagon and start a Log Cabin Blanket. I am using Lamb's Pride Worsted in Spruce, Bronze Patina, Oregano, and bulldog Blue. I am "stacking" the colors so that they appear in "v's"... at least that is the plan. I could very well end up ripping the whole thing out (all 8 square inches of it, HA) and starting all over again. HEY! That’s just the way I roll.


Walking to work from the parking garage... They are restoring the old Fox Theater Building in downtown Oakland, which is one block from the store. It's going to be fabulous! Downtown Oakland has SOOO many amazing buildings. Very art deco, very cool, very old Oakland. I am trying to get in the practice of toting my ancient (i.e. heavy) camera around with me all of the time, so I will begin snapping photos of Oakland to share with y'all. I may even throw in some photos of Alameda, because we rock too!

Speaking of work... some of my handy-work. I get to wrap gifts, some days I get to wrap a lot of gifts. Now some of you may not know this about me... but I LOVE LOVE LOVE to gift wrap. Come Xmas time I am one happy camper. In fact bring your gifts to me and for a small and reasonable fee I will wrap them into an amazing feast for your eyes! The recipient of said gifts will be soooo amazed at how much effort you put into the eye popping wrap that they won't even notice that the gift inside was something they in fact gave you last year! HAHA Hey... is there a job in there? Will people pay me to wrap presies? hmmmmm, wheels turning in my little head.

Hmmmm, I wonder what's in there??

The week before Mother's Day was a big gift wrap week! YAY!

I will leave you with a photo of me with my new haircut. Now I will say this again, as I always do when sharing photos of me on haircut day.... Ir will never look like that again... well, not until I get it cut again. My stylist does a great job in making it straight, my dream hair. But as soon as I wash it... it will never be straight and shiny like that until the next time I sit my butt down in that salon chair.

EEK! Is my nose really that pointy?

P.S. This is my first post using Firefox as my browser. Now I have used Firefox in the past... here and there. But for some reason I have always been super content with Safari (maybe it just sounded more adventurous! I am going on Safari... uh, no... I am just surfing the net from my same old boring dinning room chair). But after trying to post here for two days and not being able to... it dawned on me that maybe a different browser would improve my situation... (I am not very bright when it comes to computer stuff). And here I am... and WOW! So many more formatting features are available on Firefox! There is even a button to add links! WOW! Now I don't have to remember all of that pesky Html crap! wooo hooo, it's a new day and the sun is shining!!!