This is the first shawl I've made with more than one pattern throughout. I absolutely love it, even though it came out bigger than I anticipated. I knitted it on US 4 needles with just over half a skein of Skacel Merino Lace in Red, which I overdyed with some purple Kool-Aid for a darker, richer red.

( Pictures and Notes! )

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This cabled shrug is done in doubled bulky weight yarn on size 13 needles. I used some Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Bulky in Hazelnut, culled from my stash. While a bit heavy for the Los Angeles spring heat, I think it will work well for fall. The shrug's construction as well as the cables used in the pattern are VERY simple (just a rectangle folded in half with crochet around the armholes and body hole, and a simple six-stitch cable cross), so it would be a great project for an adventurous beginner just getting started with making body-shaped garments and/or cables.



( Pictures and Notes! )

The medium-sized Totoro from the Miyazaki film Tonari no Totoro. I crocheted this from about three skeins of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes (just over two in Winter Night, one in Cloud) on a 3.5mm (E) hook.



( Pictures and Notes! )

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( Lots of pictures and notes! )

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( Pictures and Notes! )

X-posted to knitting.



( Here there be FOs (with lots of pictures and text). )

Let's see, what have I been up to?

Well, I was up in Green Valley Lake (just a bit below Big Bear) with Misho and his family for practically all of winter break, minus Christmas and New Year's. They're all skiers, so of course we spent some time on the slopes. Skiing feels very unnatural to me. All that equipment, the stuff strapped onto you, the bigass uncomfortable boots, the cold. Actually, the cold wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be, in the beginning. It just snowed and snowed for a week, during which we didn't go out, then when we finally did go out it was unseasonably warm and I skied in a spaghetti strap shirt and snow pants some days.

Speaking of snow pants, I was just borrowing a ton of clothing from Misho's parents for my first few days of skiing since we didn't know if I'd like it. I was also renting skis, which gets to be expensive. Finally I decided it would be worth it to get my own skis and some proper snow clothes, so we went out to a shop and I bought some ex-rental skis and boots. I also got some sweet snowboard pants and a jacket online, which I will get pictures of sometime.

I'm still terrible at skiing, of course. I'm just a little scaredy-cat about heights and going fast. I've graduated from the bunny slope to the "intermediate" hills, but I still go fairly slowly and hate hate hate the feeling of not being in control.



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Upon coming back to school, I realized that I'm close enough to graduating and have gotten enough of my shit together that I can pretty much take it easy. I'm only taking two classes (Milton and a Shakespeare seminar), both of which I love, and am auditing one of my favorite professors' Shakespeare class. I was surprised and amused to find that barrytelium is likewise auditing that class. Small world.

Misho and I still dance a lot, though not as much as we did when we were first dating. Actually, I think we actually might dance the same amount, just more practice and less clubbing. We're still rehearsing with our UCLA company and it's going fairly well, though I wish we had more rehearsal time. Liz has asked me to compete in the Mayan World Championships with her and several other professionals, which I think will be fun if terrifying.

I've taken up yoga, too. Misho and his friend were going to take a class so I decided I might as well. The first class was fun and stretchy and the teacher wasn't too, you know, earth-mother-open-your-heart-chakra, so I've officially signed up for it. We got mats and everything. Hopefully this will help with my extension a bit, especially since I'm planning on taking two to four classes a week.

Last week Misho took me to my first hockey game. Actually, it was my second, but the first one doesn't count because it was so bad that Misho (and his cousin from Slovakia who took us) said that it couldn't be called hockey. We were close to the ice and the game was pretty exciting. The Kings lost, but that's okay because our guy won in the big fight.



I've been rather tired lately. I don't know what's going on, since I'm not exercising more than I usually do, and I'm getting the same amount of sleep and caffeine as usual. The last few nights we've driven home to my apartment and I've just zonked out immediately while Misho did his Japanese or German homework*. Hopefully I'll catch up this weekend.

Tomorrow, I've got a girls' night out with Liz -- dinner and a movie. Sounds like a date to me. Any suggestions on what movie we should see? I'm thinking Benjamin Button.

*Yes, he's taking both at the same time. He also speaks Spanish and Korean. I don't know how he doesn't get confused -- I got extremely discombobulated when I was taking Japanese and Latin at the same time.

I was on TV on my birthday!

The Conga Room, downtown LA:

(Photo by Vladimir Estrin: www.DanceAfficionado.com)

• 20:02 "It was like TENTACLE RAPE!!!... except with cobbler." #

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• 16:59 "...I don't know anything; I'm just a girl." #

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• 18:56 Frozen grapes. Mmmbrrr. #

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• 01:30 "... So we come in the next morning and the robot's on fire." #
• 02:04 I just had a dinner conversation with four scientists that consisted mostly of grammar talk. I <3 my friends. #
• 17:43 "Oral, then brownies?" #

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I've been practicing my henna using chocolate frosting in mylar supercones, the same cones I use for regular henna. The frosting is about the same texture as henna paste, and it lets me practice a lot of designs without having to wait for the henna stain to fade.





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• 04:12 Pain pain pain. #

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• 00:01 "Would you like me to be sweet or vulgar?" "Sweet, then vulgar." #

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I realized this weekend (while up in Big Bear with Misho and his family) that I never posted about the Hollywood Bowl thing.

Basically, it was the craziest thing I've ever done as a dancer. We got there in the morning for tech rehearsal and ran through the number twice with the band and the orchestra to get familiar with the stage. We didn't have any choreography as of yet, so we just improvised. We then rehearsed for an hour and put down a little bit of choreography, then went home until call time.

The problem with doing any kind of choreography was that the mp3 the Bowl people gave us of the songs we were supposed to dance to had been arranged differently for the performance. We weren't sure where the hits were going to be, or how long the songs would be, or pretty much anything. Oi. We just kind of put some small sections together and said we'd watch each other a lot and play it by ear. I've never worked with dancers who were professional and confident enough to do that. In fact, my partner and I were the only dancers there who weren't actual professional salsa dancers/instructors.

The shows themselves were amazing. The Bowl is just an incredible venue. I hadn't been nervous at all throughout rehearsals, but I got nervous like two minutes before we walked on. Friday night was really nerve-wracking because we'd never done the full number on the stage before. Saturday was much more relaxed, and we got to have more fun.

We did two numbers: one regular one and one encore each night. It was awesome because after our encore, the orchestra did their own encore, so we always bowed out to "Mambo" from West Side Story.



( In case you can't tell, I'm the one in red. )

I'll probably have the video up eventually. At the moment it's only available on Facebook video.

• 04:56 Performing at the Hollywood Bowl today. Eep! #
• 06:29 Sooo nervous. Can't sleep. #

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• 01:11 Every once in a while, I wish I could pull off the whole goth look. #
• 18:59 Two rounds of knitting, four reps of weights (or situps, or pushups) of some kind. Repeat. I feel productive. #

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• 00:35 I kind of feel like a terrible person right now. #
• 03:50 I feel much better. My boyfriend is pretty awesome. #
• 06:41 Whoa. What the hell is the sun doing up? #

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