Project365: Color, anyone?

The 3 themes to work into this week's shots are lines, color, and B&W. I'm taking a very literal interpretation to these themes, yesterday's shot was of some power lines. Today, for the color theme, I took a picture of this big color wheel-type artwork that is in the library I work at.

This is painted on a wall that's about 20 feet high. There is a small balcony that overlooks this area, and that's where I took the picture. I took several pictures from that height and from the floor, but I chose to show this one because you can see some brush strokes. This picture was taken with the natural light available, which to me didn't seem to be all that much. The room is enclosed on 3 sides, and there are only a few small square-shaped windows. Luckily I got in to work early, before the lights were turned on. The lights in that part of the building are either sodium vapor or metal halide, and I'm sure the look would have been much different.
This is only half of the artwork; the other half is painted on the other side of the room, on 2 of the walls. Here's what it looks like.

I know there's a certain way you're supposed to look at the two to get the full effect, but for the life of me I can't remember what it involves.

I am an Assassin.

At least that's what I hope to be. I joined Hat Attack after seeing it on Starknit's blog. I think my hat skills are pretty decent, it's the cabling I'm a little worried about and so I'm practicing on how to do cables without a cable needle. It starts Feb. 9 and I think they're still taking signups. Go join!

Little Leaf Lace Scarf, Redux

Remember the white scarf I made for my mom? She said it was too short. It's supposed to be neckwarmer size, but she still wanted to wrap it around her neck like a longer scarf. Per her request, I added more repeats of the lace pattern and topped it off with "fringes."

I decided to rip out the end with the really loose garter rows.

Then I made the cut:I can't believe I did that on purpose!

Here's the finished product:Pre-op length: 33"
Post-op length: 45"

Project365 Assignment: Permission Granted!

The third and final assignment for this week was to get permission to take a photo.

This is the elevator shaft of the library I work at. Last week, when the maintenance guy came, he told us that there was about 4" of water in the bay, which meant we had to call the Facilities Maintenance engineer in charge of elevators (fondly referred to as "the elevator guy") so he could come out and take a look. He did, and said he would return with plumbers the next day to pump the water out.

That night it rained. About more rain than we see in about a year.

I don't know how much water was in there when they started to pump it out, but as you can see it did get one of the plumbers into boots and one of those disposable overall things. And, we're forecasted for more rain. According to the elevator guy, it'll be a chance to see where the water is coming in from.

Project365 Assignment: It's About Time!

For our assignment about time, I decided to photograph my husband's watches. Er, some of his watches. Some he keeps in the boxes they came in. You'll notice that they're not all showing the same time. For the battery-operated ones, he pulls the stem out so as not to wear the battery down. The others are the self winding kind that stop if you don't wind or move them.
I put my everyday watch in there, can you see it? It's the one with the Paul Frank monkey on the right. I put it next to the one with the big honkin' face.

Project 365 Assignment: My feet!

In order to nudge along the creative processes a bit, the Ravelry Project365 group was given some themes to work around for the next week. One of those themes is "your own feet." I made it halfway...

What you see there is the sock I started last July. I have yet to finish but am motivated now that the progress bar has shown up on my blog courtesy of Casey at Ravelry. (I'm sure you can also see that I'm nowhere near the 30% completion rate the bar professes.) So hopefully this will motivate me to finish, they're ankle socks, for crying out loud!

I also finished another mitered square today, bringing my total to 2.

A Duo of Firsts

I'm embarking on a couple of big projects here:

On the left is the first of many mitered squares I will make for a very big blanket. All I know so far is that I need to go beyond the 80 squares as called for in Mason-Dixon Knitting, but I need someone to help me do the math.
On the right is the first of at least 140 books I will need to read for the class I'm taking this semester, Children's and Young Adult Literature in a Multicultural Society. It's not as tedious as it sounds, roughly 125 of them will be picture books. Now, if only I was able to knit a square each time I finished a book...

New Look!

My blog has a new look. I really like the 3-column layout and hopefully you will too! I think it looks a bit more polished this way, and I'm hoping to add progress bars for my WIPs as soon as I can figure them out.

I do still knit...

I realize that I haven't posted any actual knitting content in a while. Not to fret, I do have some FOs, even some that are worth showing. Now that school is back in session, the needles will have to take a back seat to the 140 books I need to read for my class. However, let me show you what I've been working on!
This is a closeup of the Little Leaf Lace Scarf I made for my mom. She requested a white scarf after I gave her a purple one(her favorite color) for her birthday. That one was the Falling Leaves Pattern.

I also knit up the Curly Locks yarn my friend Christine brought me from her cruise to Alaska. Had to frog it once because it was too wide and too short. Unfortunately, I lost the neat criss-cross pattern the yarn worked itself into the first time.

My first Noro scarf!

This went to my friend Geli, although I was tempted to keep it for myself. I'm especially fond of this bit right here:

The next one I make will be mine.

And last but not least, this Seaman's Cap, which is really my first FO of the year. (The scarves mentioned above were started in November and December.)

It was a really quick knit too! I think my post in Flickr is wrong, I actually cast on for this on a Thursday, after finishing the white scarf, and finished it on Sunday. This went to my friend Ramiro, his wife told me that he was going to ask me to make him a beanie; he refused to pay $30 for one at a high-end sporting goods store.

That's it for now, I'm going to attempt to finish that sock I started in July, and I've also started on my first mitered square for a big blanket. But right now I've got to hit the books.

Project 365 assignment: Think pink!

We had a theme for today's photo, to use the color pink. We got this assignment a few days ago, and so I had some time to think about what I would do. My new knitting bag is black and pink, and my co-worker is sporting a new pink purse, so I thought I'd do something around that. In the back is my co-worker Ady's jacket, and the Day of the Dead purse is hers too. The black and pink Lexie Barnes bag is mine, along with the small Paperchase pouch I'm currently using to hold knitting notions. The pink Hello Kitty water bottle is courtesy of my co-worker Divya, who is with us this week while her library is closed for recarpeting. And since she lamented that I didn't get Kitty's face in the shot, this one is for her:

Billy Volek is my hero!

Just adding on to my post from a week ago, it was yet another good day for San Diego...even with Philip Rivers and LT out of the game, the Chargers pulled off an impressive win over Peyton Manning and the Colts to advance to the AFC Championship game against the Patriots next week. Kudos to Billy Volek for stepping up and preserving the lead! I guess someone's carrying your bags around now! (That's Volek in the middle, after he takes the ball in on his own.)

I've been keeping up with Project 365, again I'm not posting the pictures to my blog but to a flickr photoset here.
There is someone in the group who is a professional photographer, and she's been giving great comments to everyone's pictures. I finally got a comment from her!

School is starting up again in a couple of days, and I still don't have access to the syllabus. I've decided to stop stressing about it. This week I need to finish a birthday scarf for my friend Geli, and I think I'll start on another golf club cover for hubby.

A good day for San Diego!

Thank goodness for the Chargers win, because now I can proudly show off my picture for today:

It was a bit nervewracking in the beginning of the game, and wouldn't you know it, as soon as I leave the room to work on my job application we come out and score big! It's our first postseason win since beating Pittsburgh back in 1994. Now we get to face the Colts. We actually beat them earlier in the season, but that was here in San Diego and Peyton Manning was not very good that day. But at least we get to watch another game.

Need content!

It's the 4th day of the New Year and I'm proud to say that so far I've stuck with Project 365/52! Yippee! I may not be blogging every day, but you can find the pictures here. I'd like to show this one though:
This is my first attempt at food porn. I think it looks quite nice, even though the green beans are still a little frozen. This is in my crockpot; when we come home tonight we will have Mexican Minestrone for dinner!

Happy New year!

So far I guess I'm getting off to a good start keeping my New Year's resolutions, I've got one day down, only 364 left to go! Here is my first entry for Project 365:
My husband would kill me if he saw that I posted this. This is basically what is behind my computer desk. It's been that way for at least a year, and it seems he has no motivation to sort it all out. It's horrible, but I've been slowly throwing things out, there's so much junk I'm sure he hasn't even noticed. I'll take another picture in a few months; hopefully there will be some progress.
I do have some nice pictures to show though. In my haste to post the last post of 2007 I neglected to show some of my nice knitting FOs! So here's what I have to show for my first year of knitting:
I made this scarf for one of my coworkers who loves pink. I knitted this in October so I guess it also counts as a breast cancer awareness scarf? I used several different kinds of pink yarn.
My mom's birthday was in November, so I decided to try my hand at something sort of lacy...It's made with a worsted weight yarn, so I don't know if it can be counted officially as lace. And now I know why one needs blocking wires! The pattern is called Falling Leaves.
When I gave the scarf to her for her birthday, she took one look at it and said, "you should make me a white one now!" Well, here it is:This pattern is called Little Leaf Lace Scarf by Sivia Harding. It's a very easy pattern to remember; I was able to knit a few rows while playing Mario Party while my family was in town for the holidays. This scarf is taking a while to finish because I've been bit by the Noro bug.

It's true what they say about these scarves, it's hard to stop knitting because you can't wait to see what colors come next! I'm using Kureyon combined with Aurora for this, and I love the bits of sparkle that the Aurora lends to it. On Ravelry some people are using Patons SWS to make striped scarves, and if I keep an eye out for sales I might just be able to buy up enough to make plenty of scarves to give as Christmas gifts.