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Normally when I hear the term, “Hell Week” I think of the training period that UMass fencing team has right after returning from Jan-term. It’s a week of physically grueling excercise, aka “Hell.” The “Hell Week” for Killing Brooke, was anything but! I’ve never had so much fun working with a group of people on a film. It was a pleasure, and I hope we all get off our butts and work together again soon.

Colin Allen, who played Vance, taped a behind-the-scenes video diary of the shoot, and frankly I couldn’t sum it up any better than these videos do. So, enjoy!

Retro ’20s Handmade Crocheted Snood- One of Kind
(One Size fits most adult females)

You are bidding on the actual item NOT THE PATTERN.

Handmade out of Madelinetosh Hand-dyed 100% Superwash Merino sock yarn. (http://www.madelinetosh.com/) in colours Lichen and Ginger.

It has a small amount of elastic cord sewn into the back netting to secure your hair while wearing.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me at this address or Kt [!at] zombie-hunter.com

A collections of my attempts at understanding sewing. Some how the part of my brain that makes knitted garments won’t comply with the concept.
However, I’m getting it slowly!

Polymer Forsythia Brooch from Chicken Betty

I was in Michael’s in Hadley the other day when I noticed their abundant displays of silkesque forsythia taking up most of the middle of the store. I love the bright yellow colour of this flower and for the first time in my life I found myself considering the purchase of faux flowers, which until now I only considered necessary for collecting dust in Chinese food restaurants.

It’s probably because I recently saw this great “how-to” for a polymer forsythia brooch from Chicken Betty that I had the flower on my mind.  So, I grabbed a few sprigs of the faux flowers and thought I’d just stick them in a vase, call it a day and make dinner.  Yet, on my way to the “floral accessories” aisle (I was looking for brown floral tape), I passed a display of pink/purple orchids and I noticed how pleasing the two bright colours were together. Also, I kill orchids like my last name was “Blumenmörder,” so the idea of an orchid I can’t kill is nice.

Well, one thing lead to another and somehow I got the idea to make a wreath for the front of the house; since Scott is trying to sell the place I thought it could definitely add some “curb appeal”. I began this endeavour by finding two kind-of wobbly/seen-their-day wire coat hangers and a pair of decent needle nose pliers. It took a bit of more tensile strength than I was able to give the hanger to get the first outer one to appear even slightly circular, but thanks to Scott’s assistance the first hanger was round in no time. I took the second hanger and cut out the hanging “neck” portion using the wire cutting portion of the needle nose pliers and then bent both open ends around each other to make a slightly smaller circle. (See the picture below)

Two wire hangers bent together to make wreath frame

Then I took my newly acquired faux flowers steams and began to bend and wrap them, one at a time, around the wire frame I just created. I started with the forsythia and worked them until the wreath seemed mostly full except for two open spots at about 11 and 5. I used a small gauge floral wire to attach the stems securely, and once I felt confident that they would stay in place I added in the two accent stems of orchids in the open spaces I had left.

Once all the stems were securely in place I wrapped a double strand of sheer burgundy ribbon around the wreath as an additional accent and to insure the stability of the final product. Then, just for a bit of fun and some additional sparkle, I hot glued in a few speckled turquoise ceramic beads I had left over from another project. Take a look at the final result and let me know what you think!

Wreath on the front door

Turquoise Speckled Ceramic Beads

Recently I saw Martha Stewart convert an old toolbox into a herb planter so that she could take her fresh hers with her on vacation/whenever she needed.

Although I don’t necessarily need to take my plants around and about with me, I really liked this idea because I can easily move this around the house to get the necessary 6-8hrs of direct sunlight that herbs need.

I didn’t have an old toolbox though; what I did have was a recently acquired Lady Dewalt. Using that, some leftover stain from my spinning wheel finishing project, scrap wood, and a cabinet knob to create my very own “from-scratch” herb planter!

I attached the cabinet knob to the front of the planter so I could hang a small pair of scissors off of it. I simply used a small scrap of yarn to crochet a strong “rope” to hold my scissors. This way I can easily clip off bits of my herbs whenever I want to; since scissors are constantly migrating between rooms in my house and are impossible to find when you need them this was key to the planters success as a functional object.

www.go-ask-alex.com

Phew, I can’t believe it’s already been a week since we’ve been back from Stitches West 2009. Between the stressful flights back (a foot of snow fell on the east coast the day before our flights!) and the throat cold I had while I was there I’m only just beginning to feel recovered. The cold I blame on having to shakes hands with all the children at the fencing tournament I attended the weekend before we left; luckily I was too busy at the event to even have time to experience the cold. It was a lot of fun to get to see all of our west coast customers, get inspired by new yarns, eat out at fantastic restaurants and show off my latest designs. I absolutely love these events and can’t wait til the next one, for which I will be dosing up on vitamins and wearing gloves the week before. No more test bunny at the conventions.

It was nice to sleep in yesterday, as I badly needed it. I never got time to recover from the west coast jet lag because, although I took the day after we landed off, I had a television shoot that day. I’m very excited; my friend Ed Patterson, from Go Ask Alex, hooked me up with a class at UMass, where the students are creating vignettes and shooting them live for public access. However, they don’t have actors! This is a problem I can surely fix. The piece I worked on this week was, Liquid Courage, directed by Mike Trainor, about a down on his luck guy who tries a magical approach towards finding the perfect girl. I play the perfect girl. ^_~ I’ll ry and get a video of it up on the site asap, if possible. I’ve already been asked back for this weeks story, Mr Hyde Goes to Therapy, directed by Spencer Peterson (Wet Paint Productions). I play the therapist; well they can’t all be type casts. hehe.

It was also nice to sleep in because I went to the midnight premiere of Watchmen on Thursday (technically Friday) night. I couldn’t help myself. It feels like we’ve been waiting for this moving to come out forever. I remember checking imdb frantically when Jeremy told us they had images of the Night Owl in costume. I loved the film. I can’t possibly say enough good things about it. Despite rumours of bad casting (Keanu Reeves as Dr Manhattan >_<!!), all the acting choices were superb. I couldn’t get over how much Malin Akerman looked like Laurie Jupiter, especially considering that she’s a bleach blonde Swedish babe. And I cannot go without saying that I loved Jackie Earle Haley as Roschach. Then again, I might be biased as he’s my favourite character from the novel. What really amazed me the most about the mastery of Zac Synder and Larry Fong (DP) was how my mind kept schisming into the visuals I knew from Dave Gibbons (original illustrator) and the film itself, only to then be drawn into an eeiry concordance of graphic match deja vu, where my mind through the cell from the novel up onto the screen and it fell seemlessly ontop of the frame from the film. This happened so much so that I could see the word bubbles, and fonts (particularly for Roschach) popping up and matching what was being said. The two scenes that this sticks in my head the most for this are the inital meeting between Roschach and Dan Dreiberg: there’s a pan out leaving Dan on the steps, Archie in the lower left corner, and Roschach is walking away down the tunnel; and the entire series of images where Roschach is telling the therapist about the night Walter Kovacs died. The latter of the two is so close to the novel that it feels like a scene for scene fleshing out of the novel’s cells. This isn’t bad, in fact it’s fantastic, however, it does send the mind down a weird sensory path.

I’ve been trying all week to explain to people what this movie is about and why I’m so excited, but I really haven’t been able to. To say that it’s a movie adaptation of a graphic novel written by Alan Moore is simply factual. To try and go further and explain that until then people hadn’t been questioning the actual lives of superheros, and that this novel moves towards asking questions that allow us to see the moral ambiguity of mask vigilantes, their psychological disorders, and the blurring or “good” and “evil”,  leaves you trying to go further and further into the topic until your friend’s eyes have glazed over and you find yourself simply shouting, “The Dark Knight?”, “Arkyum Asylum?!”, “V for Vendetta?!”… SIN CITY? And so I’ve come to resign myself to simply knowing that if you don’t know why you should see Watchmen, then you probably shouldn’t. Read the graphic novel and then rent it on DVD or something.

Noro Technique on Zauberball (ShiBui Transition Gloves)

At the end of my previous post I spoke about how I was using the “Noro Technique” (”…using one colourway of a variegated yarn in a pattern that requires colour stranding. Where the pattern would normally call for a different colourway of the yarn you simply use the same colourway but at a different point in the colour transition.”) to make ShiBui’s Transition Gloves. Well it’s finished! I love the way it came out, and very much enjoyed knitting with the yarn. Even though it was a single ply wool it did not split as badly as one would imagine, however, it does have the fault of all single ply yarns: Pilling! The yarn pilled as I was knitting it and the gloves had a halo before even being worn. This being said, I still like the yarn and am very please with how it came out. I would not, however, use it to knit socks as it is intended for. I just think with the way it handled the pilling from simply being handled, it won’t be a pretty sight with all the friction on one’s feet.

Valley Yarns Pattern #262- Annabelle Head Wrap

Valley Yarns (aka- Webs) has published one of my patterns! ^_^ It’s pattern #262 - The Annabelle Head Wrap. It’s available for purchase in the store for $2.49 + tax, or online for $1.99 + tax. This is basically a simple ear warmer that I made for days when I’m rocking the pompadour and cannot wear a winter hat. It’s knit out of only ONE skein of Valley Yarns Deerfield ($6.99) a DK weight alpaca and silk blend. The yarn is so airy and light that it doesn’t mess your doo up, however it’s still warm enough to keep your ears toasty!

Honestly, this is a very quick knit and makes a nice gift because the triangular lines made from the ribbing make it look more complicated than it is. All you need is the ability to knit a K2, P2 rib and be able to increase/decrease.

Awhile back I knit the Side Slip Cloche from Laura Irwin’s Boutique Knits. Well here’s another great design from that book. It’s very rare that I find a pattern collection where I like over 80% of the book, this is definitely one of those rarities.

Variegted Strand's Finished Bubble Sweater from Laura Irwin's Boutique Knits

Variegated Strand finished this beautiful version of it out of Cascade’s Eco Alpaca, a DK/Sport weight 100% undyed alpaca. Since nothing has been done to this alpaca, except the spinning of it, it is so soft and beautiful. I was lucky enough to try this garment on in the store. It look fantastic, falling nicely around the hips with the cut away lace that is very flattering; not to mention it felt like wearing a warm airy hug! You can’t see in this picture, but it also has cut little pockets incorporated into the front blousing, and as far as I’m concerned there are not enough pockets in women’s wear. Probably because they’re all unnecessarily on men’s PJ bottoms. ^_~

And one final cool thing. I’ve made a tattoo gun out of a Crest Spin Brush and the E string on an acoustic guitar. This is my simple face on an apple. Expect more cool things to come.

P.S.- THIS IS NOT FOR TATTOOING LIVE* THINGS.

Homemade Tattoo Gun

*except fruit, which is evil and deserves the pain.