iamsarah

End of the term.

Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 9:42 p.m.

So. It's April. April means lots of nice things. Spring, Easter, Doctor Who. But unfortunately, in my world it means OMFG THESIS PRESENTATIONS ARE TWO WEEKS AWAY!

Our teacher keeps telling us that these aren't Thesis Defense's, and they're not big presentations. They're ten minute "progress reports" (followed by fifteen minutes of questions). That's not that bad, except they're in front of the WHOLE FACULTY both Toronto, and Rochester, and there's some real critical prof's in that bunch. I'm terrified.

They're the 19th and 20th of April. Then we've got a month to write our first drafts. Ironically, that doesn't seem so hard compared to these presentations. I don't even hate presentations, we had to do, like ten last year, and I got used to it. It's just this one. It's so intimidating.

Anyways. That's what I'm doing. Knitting has come to almost a standstill. I'm working on a stockinette curtain for my sister out of Noro Laceweight. That's all I can handle.

In other news: here's my recently overdyed and buttons-sewn-on Moch Cardi.

The dying isn't perfect. There are blotchy areas on one arm, and on the back, but I don't think it's very noticable. So meh. I like it. Also, I love the buttons. They're not the ones I originally planned to use, but these are also vintage, larger, and shinier, from Courage My Love.

Here are some photos:

This is my life lately, working on the massive ad database I'm making

This is what spring looks like in Rochester. It's pretty nice.

Today we went on a tour of the nitrate film vault.

We saw some awesome stuff, like original camera negatives for The Wizard of Oz:

And screen tests for Gone With the Wind:

It was pretty fun. Nitrate film is really flammable, so it needs very special storage conditions, away from residential areas.

Well, that's about all I got for you all right now. This knitting blog is sadly going to be missing knitting content for the next month. Oh well.

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I am hard at work. I swear.

Friday, March 26, 2010 at 12:02 a.m.

Observe this awesome comic which I stole from my friend Tasha, who stole it from somewhere else. It sums up my life right now.

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NYC.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 10:43 p.m.

Back from New York! and OMG, what an awesome time I had!

We (my friends Soo, D'Arcy, and I) were supposed to stay in a hostel in the Financial District. We got there late last Wednesday night only to find out that they double-booked our room (!)

But, they had a better room available in their other location in the Upper East Side. So, their driver came and picked us up and drove us there. We went from a two bed room with no bathroom, to a FOUR bed room with private bathroom, and shared kitchen and shower, and second bathroom which we didn't have to share with anyone! AND, they gave us a discount. It was awesome.

NYC as always was beautiful, especially because it was so warm! I didn't even wear a jacket the whole time!

Looking @ Kahn and Selesnick photographs

We saw A LOT of art. We went to the Met, the Museum of the City of New York, 10-ish smaller commercial galleries, ICP, Sothebys, Swann, and AIPAD. We basically walked around from 9am 'till 10pm. It was exhausting.

It was awesome, because we didn't just do the tourist stuff; we toured the vaults, we got to talk to curators, and gallerists, and got to see things that other people didn't. Plus we just got to see A LOT.

By the end of most days, we were blind with gallery fatigue, but it was so worth it!

Plus, we did a lot of other fun stuff too! Galleries close eventually, and when they did, we mostly ate a LOT! Every night D'Arcy and I went to a different veggie restaurant. They were all awesome.

The only yarn store I had time for was Purl, which was teeny, but awesome! Also, they're moving at the end of this month, so they won't be teeny anymore!

I was restrained, and only walked out with one skein of an organic merino sock yarn, in this amazing colour. There's over 500 yards, and it's going to be a shawl sometime soon.

We got invited to a party at a private photographer collectors house. It was so cool seeing his collection on the walls.

we took the subway (a lot!)

I took a photo of a daguerreotype at the Met which is displayed on the wall terribly.

(come on, that's Southworth and Hawes! and you can't even see it!)

We took photos in awesome art deco elevators on the way to see galleries.

We did cliché tourist stuff!

and tonnes more.

Basically, New York is one billion times better then Rochester.

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Drive by blogging.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 12:36 a.m.

This video is amazing! I'm impressed with the detail, and especially the lighting! it's so like the originals.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

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Eighty Percent

Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 12:53 a.m.

A long time ago I knit this hat for Dave. He requested an alpaca hat with colourwork, and this was what I came up with. A while later I knit another one for the shop.

I'm finally getting around to putting the pattern up! I am slow.

It's knit with less then a ball of each colour of Baby Alpaca Sport from Diamond Yarns, and it would make a great first time fair-isle hat.

and yes, that's crochet along the edge, but if I can do it, so can you!

(i suck royal hippogriff at crochet!)

You can download it here!

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Andromeda shawl.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 4:02 p.m.

I love this shawl.

I love the structure, it's modular, and not like other shawls. I love the edge, even though it's a pain in the ass to knit!

and I love the yarn! It's Viola Sock, dyed by my awesome friend Emily who has an amazing colour sense.

The shawl took me just under a month to knit, and that's with the knitting olympics thrown in. It's not a hard knit, but you do have to pay attention. Every row the chart only repeats once, so you're stuck looking at the chart the whole time. And it's a big chart. But oh so worth it. I love it. Have I said that?

The one bad thing is that I really need blocking wires. Pin blocking just doesn't cut it for this shawl. I'm itching to block it again, properly, with wires.

In other news, lest you all fear I'm still stuck in the middle of a snowpocalypse, Spring has arrived in Rochester. (kind of.)

Aren't they beautiful?

Heading to Toronto for the weekend tomorrow. I can't wait!

Then NYC next weekend! for AIPAD and massive amounts of museums and galleries. Also, I'm thinking Purl Soho, and Brooklyn General.

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Snowstorm aftermath.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 5:55 p.m.

Apparently, that was the biggest snowstorm in three years. The snow was crazy!

Here's what it looked like when D'Arcy and I went out on a walk the next evening:

It came up to my knees!

The Eastman House gardens.

GEH

Then, despite the snow, Cheryl came to visit me!

It was fun. We ate too much, and watched Heroes and Supernatural, and on Sunday we went to a concert!

It was Frank Turner, and Flogging Molly. I love Frank Turner, and it was awesome because we got to meet him:

But things got shitty from there. During Flogging Molly, there was a crazy crowd. Now I've been going to punk shows since I was fifteen and thought I was badass. I'm old now. Cheryl and I just wanted to have a few drinks, dance, and enjoy the concert.

The security guards went into the crowd (i'm not sure why, everyone was being very friendly) Someone pushed me, which wasn't an unusual thing, I got pushed around a lot, but this time, I got pushed into security. Hard. They grabbed me, one on each arm and ejected me from the frigging show dragging me the whole way, despite me trying to explain that I was pushed, that my younger sister was in there, and would panic if she couldn't find me.

So I stood outside, in the snow for 45 minutes, in a t-shirt until the show was over. They wouldn't let me back in for my coat, or to find Cheryl who was panicking. Finally, after Cheryl had accosted all the security guards inside telling them that she couldn't find me, she walked by the door and I saw her.

Long story short: Don't go to concerts at the Main Street Armory in Rochester. I'm a fucking 26 year old grad student. I didn't DO anything. The security are assholes.

Nice to pay for a concert you only got to see half of though.

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Gold, and snow.

Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:41 p.m.

Ok. so scratch what I said in the last post. Apparently, once I challenge myself to knit a sweater for the olympics, I must finish. Because I finished a week early.

Behold: The Olympic Moch Cardi

Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, 10.5 balls.

Mods: My gauge was off by a stitch, so I made a smaller size then I would have otherwise. Also, I added a full buttonband after finishing the body, instead of doing the half button band that the pattern calls for. Also, when there's buttons, they'll be all the way down. I didn't want another top-buttoning only sweater - I already have two.

The knitting is finished. However, it's not ready to wear. You see, I hate the colour. I ordered the yarn from Knitpicks, and when it arrived, the blue-ish teal colour I thought I ordered was plain, boring, bland blue.

Not the end of the world. I'm going to overdye it. But I don't have a big enough pot. Well, I do, but it's in Toronto, and I'm not. So, if I can't find one (pot) at the thrift store this weekend, I'll just have to wait 'till I get back to TO.

All is well here in Rochester, where unlike Toronto, we actually are having winter. Check out the snow! (we're supposed to get 12-15 inches in the next day.)

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Knitting Olympics.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 11:48 p.m.

The Knitting Olympics / Ravelympics / whatever you want to call them start this Friday. I've always participated. I've got a team canada jersey from four years ago, and this Friday I'll be casting on as part of team Naked Sheep.

I'm going to make the Moch Cardi, out of knitpicks Wool of the Andes. I've wanted to make this sweater for a while, since it was released. I'm excited to finally have an excuse to knit it, because I think it'll be a very wearable sweater.

However.

I'm feeling ambivalent about the whole deadline knitting concept this time around. I am always up for a challenge, but life is hard for me right now. I'm up to my ears in school, and while I'm not going to lie, I still fit in more knitting than I should in any given week, I'm still really busy. Yes, the Olympics fall at the beginning of reading week, so while I'll have more time then normal to knit, I also have a literature survey for my thesis due at the same time.

So yes I'm participating. I'm excited for the sweater, to spend time with my Naked Sheep teammates, and to brag to non-knitting friends about the knitting olympics (it always makes me look like an even bigger freak then I am to them!) But I'm not going to stress the deadline aspect. I'm not going to pull all nighters to finish the sweater, and I'm not going to put knitting ahead of grad school.

6 more months. I keep telling myself that.

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Vintage photographs.

Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.

Today D'Arcy and I went to Bloomfield, a nearby town with a lot of antique markets. I spent 11 dollars total, but walked away with some awesome photographs, and some vintage buttons.

These are the buttons. I'm thinking about them for my upcoming olympic Moch cardi, or perhaps for the Vine Lace cardigan.

I've never posted photos of my vintage photo collection. I've managed to amass some awesome things.

This I bought today. I think it's an early photobooth portrait.

Those three photos came in a set, and all of them have the same woman in it. They are all postcards, and from reading the back, we determined her name is Ellie.

This one i've had for awhile. It's a photo from an old Kodak #1 - the first point and shoot camera -"You press the button, we do the rest."

This is a hand coloured postcard. I have a set of postcards that I keep meaning to frame and hang, all of which are hand coloured.

This one is a portrait of two men in a studio (I'm assuming) in Niagara Falls. There's a painting of the Falls behind them.

I keep all my photographs in an archival box that I made with trays for different sized prints. As a rule I don't pay more than a couple of bucks for any of them, and I choose whatever interests me, either because of the process, or the image.

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End of the term.

I am hard at work. I swear.

NYC.

Drive by blogging.

Eighty Percent

Andromeda shawl.

Snowstorm aftermath.

Gold, and snow.

Knitting Olympics.

Vintage photographs.

Tweets!

Tweets!

ravelry!

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