happy new year

my first crochet project of the new year. a scarf. i'm quite happy with it. bijioux, my beloved grumpy kitty loves the crochet blanket i made and is even curled up on it right now on the bed. so i think i'll make her a little blankie of her own. however, i want to try knitting! knitting in general eludes me. i don't think my brain wants to make both hands work with two needles. try, try, try i will though.

i hope everyone is having a good 2010 so far.

pillow cushion

finished! i took my time with doing the second side of the cover. this was a lot of work, but so worth it in the end. i definitely need to make my cat her own blankie now because she keeps stealing mine.

dumping all the project ideas in the pot

i've become a bit obsessed now with making a larger proper pillow cushion out of crochet squares. after picking out the colors yesterday i started on the squares today and have about 1/4 of them done.

in general, i've so many ideas of little improvements to make around the apartment to make it feel more homey considering there's no chance of us moving anytime soon. i've been making a mental list of things and thinking 2010 will be the year i start on more home projects. such as:

- find a new desk! (i'm so terribly sick of this big clunky thing)

- reupholster the sofa (talked tonight with the boy about this and may have come up with a cheap option)

- reupholster and paint the old blue chairs (i already have most supplies for this)

- refinish the coffee table (need to bug my friend about an electric sander he's got)

smaller details:

- finish painting the kitchen panels above the cabinets

- reorganize framed pictures

- try to find another cheap light colored rug for the living room (sick of living in a cave and lighter furnishings will help greatly)

so there's the list. i don't think it's impossible to get all of that accomplished, but we'll see how things go.

lastly, i was recently asked to be featured for a kitchen spotlight on The Kitchn by the lovely emily ho. i felt this to be a great honor and was completely blown away by the kind things emily wrote. here is the feature. it really actually made me cry i was so awed.

little projects

recently i've made a few little crochet things. i wanted to try making wrist warmers again and after being frustrated with some beautiful baby alpaca yarn balls i figured out what to do with them. my first pair of wrist warmers went to my boyfriend and though they were decent for a first time with no knowledge of how exactly to make them, i'll admit a year's worth of crocheting has helped me greatly in understanding how to work things better. these buttercup colored warmers are perfect and i even took them out while photographing in the woods the other day. they kept my hands warm and allowed me to easily use the camera.

i'm becoming a bit enamored with granny squares. i want several granny square cushions now and here is my first one - a winter one. once again using leftover yarn balls i'd no idea what to do with them, suddenly the idea pops in my head to make granny squares. though i used two different types of materials for this cushion i think it came out very well. i even made the inside feather pillow, which was quite a feat for me. we have old feather pillows we don't use anymore and so i opened one of them and put most of the feather stuffing into a new, smaller pillow case i made. working with feathers is super messy, but i'm awfully proud of the fact i challenged myself to this, despite making a complete mess of the living room. feathers everywhere! doing something like this again might lend itself better to being outside, but for now i have a grey shimmery and blue winter cushion.

breakfast book

i recently decided to bite the bullet and make a book of my breakfast photos. i take photos of my breakfast a lot and the idea of making a book of the photos popped up in my head several times. after a bit of encouragement from the sweet people at the of_mornings community on livejournal, i started working on the book and just finished it last week. i made the book through blurb and it's 80 pages of photos, a few written snippets about breakfast in general, and a couple muffin recipes. i'm quite happy with how it came out. at first, shock set in that i'd made something like this and had it in my hands. then criticism of it set in, but eventually the i shut the little critic up in my head and realized i'm very proud of myself for having made the book. i've learned quite a bit about myself and my photography from it.

Breakfast

autumn/winter blanket

almost finished with our blanket. whenever i work on it, zach tries to sleep on it or wrap himself in it. he's anxious for me to finish it so he can use it while playing xbox in the living room. he gets a bit chilly in there. i'm quite pleased with the colors and it's been nice working with thick yarns instead of tiny threads. but i've noticed i'm missing my tiny threads now and ideas are starting to pop up in my head and i keep writing them down in my little notebook. i'll have quite the list of things to start as soon as this blanket is finished.

mirjan

all photos from mirjan's flickr

she also has a blog

over the years i've moved away from self portraiture. in some ways i think girls take more photos of themselves starting out in photography, and sometimes move on to other subjects being predominant later. however, for those who keep it up - i give my whole-hearted admiration. self portraiture can be so tricky because it's about presenting one's self in a specific way for others to see and believe that is part of who one is, or how one is, etc... i've been completely drawn to mirjan's self portraits because of the simple honesty she exhibits. some photos are clearly posed and she mentions in her flickr working on ideas for school projects, yet there is still something beckoning about them that makes them feel closer than a typical posed self portrait. something slightly intimate and sweet. she's not afraid to be quirky. her diptychs are also quite impressive and i really enjoy her photos of her brothers and her home. they are comforting to look at and show a happy family in a beautiful setting.