Natalie Knits

A little while ago, I saw on lolly's blog a link to a site that lets you tilt shift photos you have taken. I had to try it-- this website uploads your photos, and then you can adjust how much of it is blurred to create a very different visual effect than is seen in the original photo.

According to wikipedia, tilt shifted photos create a shallow depth of depth of field, giving the illusion that the image is a photo of a miniature scene.

So-- after a look through some of my pics, I came up with these. In the words of Joel McHale, please to enjoy:

I made a lot of the gifts I gave this Christmas, but one stood out in particular: The Central Park Hoodie. I made this for my younger sister, who waited very patiently as I made sweaters for others in the family. But in my opinion, it was worth the wait-- this is my favorite thing I've made:

Pattern: The (ever popular) Central Park Hoodie
Yarn: Cascade 220, in Christmas Green (how appropriate)
Needles: addi turbo circulars, size 7.
Cast on: July (?) 2008
Finished: December 2008
Notes: I knit the sides and back in one piece-- after the initial setting up of the pattern, it was so easy to do the rows this way, and minimizes seaming! I also decided to continue the cables up the hood in the back-- the pattern calls for this to be plain, but I thought it needed a more continuous look from the back to the hood. For most everything else, I followed the pattern! The buttons are wood, purchased from the button lady. Her collection of buttons-- located at her antique shop, gibbon's shop, is not to be missed. I took the sweater pieces in with me, and Evelyn told me what I should get. And she was right! See this blog post over at joy to the blog for more pics and info!

A closeup of the buttons:

The back: (I decided to continue the cables up the hood on the back)

The side:

I also decided to make the sleeves a little longer, and to make a built in wrist warmer by creating thumb holes. They were much appreciated by my sister:

It fit her perfectly, and looked beautiful on her:

And, one last with Simon:

Tuesday was a beautiful day. Perfect for...say... an inauguration!

From Inauguration Day 1.20.09

I'm so glad I was there!!

From Inauguration Day 1.20.09

From Inauguration Day 1.20.09

We stayed with some family friends in Richmond, Virginia. I had never been to Richmond before, and it was an amazing little city. We saw some amazing older architecture, and some nice views of the river.

We also had a minute to stop by the Poe museum-- incidentally, on Poe's birthday!

It is also the oldest house still standing in Richmond:

One nice thing about the trip (aside from the inauguration fun) was making the drive through the mountains again. It's been a few years since we've made that drive, although it was something we did a lot when we were living apart. Sometimes it's nice to get a different view of the land, and to get out of the normal routine of what we see every day.

I finally finished the second sleeve of the Central Park Hoodie, and managed to block the sucker this past week:

Tomorrow: The search for buttons begins! Stay tuned, there will be some finished works here soon!

I'm experimenting a little bit with how I post pictures to the blog. I think I have a backlog of pics to share-- and it really tends to be the holdup in posting-- choosing the pictures, formatting them, uploading them... just thinking about it all makes me a little tired. So I thought if I had a new system, I'd be good to go.
Let's see how this works:

From Simon!

From Simon!

Ok, you may have noticed that I love Simon, and I find him to be very photogenic (and usually a willing subject).
I am excited by this development-- I uploaded these using Google's picasa, a photo management system that I have been using for a few years, but never thought to use in conjunction with the blog.
So, it turns out it's super simple to do-- much more so than uploading through my blog (s-l-o-w) and keeps things organized really well. I can create an album in picasa, then choose which photos to upload to the album all at once, then when I select a picture I can choose the size, and if I want the album to be linked to here. So as you can see, I have a medium, small, and large photo, some with links to the album below them. This is great!!

This past weekend Karen and I entered our home-made jam into the jam tasting contest at downtown home and garden.

I made raspberry-pomegranate jam with blueberry (otherwise known as razz, pom, & blue), and Karen made rasp-cherry. Number 48 is mine:

One highlight of the weekend was walking by the "Obama bake-sale" down the street. They had amazing cookies and cider, and even art for Obama. Oh, and the cutest kids ever. When I asked if I could take a picture of them, the 2 little girls posed by their bake sale table, and the little guy working with them took off down the street-- photo shy! His mom said, "don't worry, he does this a lot-- he'll just head down to the corner and then come back."

The other exciting weekend occurance was stopping at treasuremart in Kerrytown to do some shopping, and I found a really lovely chest of drawers that have glass panes in the front of each drawer. Thanks to some help from Karen and J, I managed to get it home and up into the loft, and all cleaned up and filled with yarn! It's the perfect yarn home for my stash! The more I look at it, the more I love it. I also discovered that the piece of furniture is made by the company riverside, which makes some really gorgeous stuff, and expensive! I really lucked out to find this at such a good price at the treasuremart.

Lately I've felt that there are so many projects I'd like to start, but I've been keeping them all in my head, and not putting enough down on paper (or screen, as it is) to organize what I'd like to do, for whom, and when. So here goes-- a little knitterly housekeeping to keep my head from feeling too overloaded!

1. (Obviously) the Central Park Hoodie for Olivia has been at the top of my list-- and I've been making steady progress. The back and fronts are done, and because I did them all at once, no need to seam! I am on sleeve 1-- then I have 1 more sleeve, hood, button band and buttons, and blocking and seaming.

This weekend I am going to visit my Grandpa in PA, and I believe the sweater recipient will also be in attendance, so I had better not bring it along. Lots of covert knitting! She also knows her knitting, and is inquisitive, so I don't think I should try to slip it by her.
Thus, I've needed to find other projects to work on. So, here they are:

2. I've been dying to make some cowls. I've got some good patterns and perfect yarn, I just need to get the supplies all together. I've got some beautiful malabrigo silky to make Lindsay a cowl (and possibly wrist warmers) as a winter gift. This might be the knitting project of choice for the weekend! I like the pashmina cowl from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and I also am a fan of the sherbrooke cowl, from one of my favorite knitbloggers.

3. I've also been thinking about how wonderful it would be to make the ever-popular clapotis. I also stashed some Malabrigo silky for myself, and I could see it keeping me warm all fall.

4. Along the same lines, I think this is a pattern my mom would really like, and I've got a whole basket full of yarn with her name on it. I've been thinking of making the Clapotis and changing yarns ever few rows, to give it a more variable look. I'll have to start it and see how it goes-- but I have a gut feeling it would be pretty awesome.

5. Sweaters, sweaters, sweaters. I always have sweaters on the brain, because they are so lovely and useful and fun to make. There are so many wonderful patterns out there-- I just need to figure out how the yarn I have in the stash would look sculpted into my favorite patterns.

6. I am almost done with my latest scribble scarf-- and I am in love with the colors, perfect for this fall. I'd like to finish this off soon.

So-- I'm hoping to have something new to show after this weekend, even if it is a WIP. Or maybe I'll feel inspired and have a FO!

Yesterday was a great summer day. I spent the morning at the you-pick blueberry farm with Molly and her mom, who was visiting from West Virginia. I gathered a bucket full of berries--7 pounds!! They were so ripe they were practically falling off into my bucket.
After that I stopped at the market to pick up some produce to get us through the rest of the week. And as I had blueberries in the strainer in the sink, beets cooking on the stove, and zucchini and tomatoes from the garden all around, I realized, I had a whole garden rainbow in the kitchen.

Red Beets:

Orange Tomatoes (and pumpkin):

Red Tomatoes:

Green Zucchini:

And a mountain of blueberries. Heaven!

It is finally underway!!
I got the pattern for the CPH over a year ago, and the yarn a good 6 months ago. I wanted to make this for my sister (though I won't mention which one! Though she is, as of yet, sweaterless). And thus far, it has turned out to be the perfect Olympics project-- I've been making steady progress every night.

This is to be a Christmas present-- fitting, as the yarn is called "christmas green". I know it might seem a little early for work on something so far away, but I know once the fall term starts all bets are off as for what I can get done for the holidays! Plus, as I may have mentioned before, I am a sweater-knitting-junkie-- I can't get enough!

If you haven't yet visited Earthchickknits, go and check out her blog. She is currently trying to raise money for Women Touched By Grace. As a feminist who has felt a lot of frustration at the lack of women leaders in the church, I think this is a cause I can get behind. As if one needed more reason to give, check out all of the amazing yarn and fabric related prizes she is raffling off to those who donate. An added bonus is all of the great craft and knitting related posts and pictures to check out-- I wouldn't expect any less from a fellow Ann Arbor knitter!