FO Friday: A Couple Weeks Late

I've been delighted with my Pogona shawl since I finished it almost two weeks ago. Every time I look at it, every time I wrap it around my shoulders, I'm reminded just how amazing it is. Most of this amazingness is due to Stephen West  and Tosh Mo Light (colorway earl gray), but I'd say about 12% of it is my talent (subtle Avengers reference? Maybe not so subtle? See what I did there?). 

Overall, I enjoyed knitting this as much as I enjoy having it in my hands (I suppose technically it was in my hands the entire time I was knitting it, but you know what I mean), but the 600+ stitches per row near the end were a bit trying. The stitches were so bunched up on the needle I couldn't really see what it was going to look like, and the yarn gave me trouble in a few places. I think this was more because of how I wound the ball than the actual yarn, and I would happily buy another skein. I also want to try some other Madeleinetosh yarns, after I sample I skein or two of Malabrigo of course. 

That's it for me. In other news, I finished Peter Pan today instead of yesterday because yesterday was super busy for me and I had no time to knit or listen to anything, and I also started a pair of socks today which was probably not the wisest thing to do with Christmas 88 days away. I'll be blogging about those two topics on Wednesday... if I can wait that long! 

Thanks for stopping by! I'm linking with Tami's Amis today. 

Life Just Got Buzzier ( 4KCBWDAY1 )

That is such a good pun up there. Dad would be proud.

For the KCBW, I was sorted- rather, I sorted myself - into the House of Bee. After all, the description fits me (and almost every other knitter in the Universe) perfectly:

Bees are busy and industrious, but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest.

Pretty much a perfect fit! But, why? Today I'm meant to talk about why I'm in the House of Bee, what brought me to that busy hive, what made me make this decision? Well, would you like to have a look at all of my WIPs?


Yesterday, I put every single WIP I had, excepting 3, into my Hibernation Can. This was to help me finish my Oh My Bear! sweater more quickly, because I have a goal to get it done by the end of May and that wasn't happening with a billion other projects waiting to snag my attention. But even yesterday, I made good progress on the sweater and I've now finished the back and started the hood.

What can I say? I'm extremely proud of that bear.

The other two WIPs I left out of the Hibernation Can were my Thor Scarf and my Beekeeper's Quilt. The Thor Scarf just came out of the Hibernation Can, and it seemed cruel to put it back in again, and I'm trying to make one Hexipuff a day for my Beekeeper's Quilt and I can't reach that goal if the project is in hibernation.

Thus ends my first post of KCBW. Thank you for stopping by- if it's your first time here, follow, leave a comment, etcetera etcetera. If you'd like me to see your KCBW posts, leave me a comment and I'll drop you a visit!

WIP... Thursday?

I realize I'm a little late for Work in Progress Wednesday, and that this project really doesn't qualify for WIPW because I only started it this afternoon. But as I said in my last post, I was unable to write last night, and besides, I didn't have any new WIPs I could share. 

I'm knitting Mr. Fox Stole My Heart & Mini-Fox, by Tiny Owl Knits. I'm making the mini-fox collar, and I doubt I will ever wear it outside of my bedroom because in all likelihood, my sisters would kill me for wearing a fox around my neck. 

But I'm knitting one anyway, and I'm making it with turquoise yarn because he's an arctic fox. Were he real, he would live in Antarctica or Alaska or something and be freezing in his lil' fur coat (I'm using cotton yarn so he really wouldn't be able to keep warm), and so he would be blue. So my color choice is really very practical and realistic. 

I am having an incredible amount of fun with this little guy. I have another 9 inches of straight stockinette stitch before I get to do anything interesting though, so we'll see if I'm still as enthusiastic once I've finished with all that. I'm really looking forward to knitting the head, though. That probably won't be TV knitting. 

Bye for now! I think I'll go watch Merlin or something to ease the boredom of 9 inches of stockinette... 

p.s. So I just realized that I got a Thor valentines day card this morning, and it's Thursday, a.k.a. Thor's Day... I got a Thor valentine's day card on Thor's Day!

Loki's in the Details

This evening I caught sight of some masterfully placed dirt on our driveway. First thing I saw was, Loki!

Do you see it? The horns, the helmet, the robes/ cape, the evil stance? It's so awesome. 

This is a phenomenon called pareidolia. Pareidolia is imagining hearing or seeing something, like a face, in physical stimuli. A common occurrence of this is when one sees animals or people in clouds, or the Man in the Moon. 

And today, I saw a Norse god in a pile of dust. I suppose you could say every day emoticons are examples of pareidolia as well- while most people would see :) as a happy face, it really is just a colon followed by a parentheses. And let's face it (no pun intended)- :) doesn't bear much resemblance to a human face.

(Note: I'm copying most of this information from my sister Mary Margaret's explanation of pareidolia and apophenia at dinner several months ago. See how well the information stuck?) 

Wow- who would ever have thought I'd be writing a scientific post? You must all be shocked. 

I dare you, if you're participating in Nanowrimo, to include an instance of pareidolia in your next chapter. I know I will. 

Am I Obsessing Over Nothing?

Not really.

It all started in the summer of 2007, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book and the Order of the Phoenix movie came out. It was then that I decided to read the entire series. I had already seen the first five movies; I practically grew up on the first two and the third was my favorite for a while.

It took me a very long time to read the books- the fifth one probably took about six months. But finally, I finished. And read them again. And again. And again. And again. And again. I must have read some of them eight times in a row.

As far as I can remember, here are the things I have been obsessed with in order, from 2007 to 2012

Harry Potter (2007-2009)
Lord of the Rings (2009)
Enchanted Forest Chronicles (2009- 2010)
Artemis Fowl (2010-2012)
Doctor Who (2010- )
The Dark is Rising (2011)
The Avengers/ Superman/ Batman (2012)
The Adventures of Merlin (2012- )

So in the past five years, I have been obsessed with eight different things.  That's pretty sad. Two of them are still up and running. Of course, it would be really sad if I weren't still obsessed with Merlin seeing as I've only been watching it for a week and a half. (Or is it sad that I'm already obsessed with it?) And Doctor Who, well, it's not the sort of thing you can stop being obsessed with. Especially with series 7 currently airing.

Who knows how many other amazing things there are out there, just waiting to be discovered? And to think, five years ago I thought Harry Potter was the only best thing in the world.

Loki. On an apple.

I give my friend Rose all the credit for this idea. She did it before me. But I did it too, and I took a picture, so I'm giving myself credit for the photo.

(Technically, I should give the camera credit for the photo, because I'm a terrible photographer and the quality of the picture is entirely due to the camera)

The face is mine and Rose's all-time (no. not all time. About two weeks, though) Universal (so what if only we know about it. We are the most important people in the Universe, so...) sign for Loki. An evil face and a nice smile. My smile isn't very good, because the knife wasn't particularly easy to work with.

(:<

Tell Me My Hero

Origami fortune tellers. The wonder of it. Generally, you draw the little numbers or colors on the front flaps, but I decided to do it in more detail. I'm also a pretty terrible artist, and seeing as each little drawing is only two inches tall...

Loki is my favorite. I probably spent the most time on him, in any case. Batman was originally Nick Fury, but Mary Margaret refused to participate unless she could choose Batman, so...

Instead of fortunes on the inside, you are told which superhero–– or, if you're lucky, super villain–– you are. Which is totally awesome. So I suppose it's not so much a fortune teller as a hero teller. I'm so proud of myself for thinking this up! 

shawarma

If the Avengers eat shawarma, I should eat it too, right?

Well, that's how it was with Doctor Who and fish fingers and custard (which is delicious, by the way).

On Saturday evening, I made shawarma. Actually, I made shawarma Friday evening through to Saturday evening, because the chicken had to marinate all through the night.

That part wasn't fun... handling raw chicken almost made me a vegetarian right then and there. A very sick vegetarian. 

Luckily I didn't have to do a lot with it after I put it in the fridge Friday night. In fact, I don't think I even looked at it until the next afternoon. 

I guess I should explain what shawarma is, for all you people i haven't already told. Basically, it's what the Avengers eat at the end of The Avengers. It's also chicken/cucumbers/tahini/tomatoes/yogurt/parsley/pickles laid on top of a pita bread and rolled into a burrito. 

I burned the tahini (I know, how did I manage to do that?) so I made a yogurt sauce instead, which I actually like more than tahini anyway. 

It was delicious. I can now say that I have had shawarma, which basically makes me part of the Avengers. Right? 

the doctor's superhero dress-up

The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River Song go to a party.

Or should I say, Doctor Thor, SuperAmy, SuperRory, and Black River go to a party. Yeah, I've been at it with the crayons again. Well, markers actually.

I can't tell it's the Doctor either. Rose did this one. Due to the lettering at the top, you hopefully don't need to be told who he's dressed as. 

SuperAmy. Rose did her too. It just makes me laugh. 

And Amy's husband, SuperRory. I know he's no better off than Doctor Thor recognize-wise, but at least you can tell what superhero he's supposed to be. Right? Right?

And my personal favorite, Black River, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Now I know her hair is too yellow, but Rose had a limited selection of markers. And just ignore the fact that her gloves are the exact same color as her guns. 

This is Black Widow, drawn by Rose's older sister Joanie. I'm putting it up at her request. I think everybody asks why she has sunglasses... 

The Eleventh Doctor and his companions (and Black Widow) are going to be the sensations of this party. 

                                                           

Tony Stark Meets Struggling Artist's "Talent"

It would seem that I am utterly obsessed with drawing the Avengers. You can guess that that's what's happened when a blogger writes about the same thing five days in a row. But I'm also getting better. I mean, compare today's Tony Stark with last week's Iron Man:

I've gotten so much better! Maybe it's because I've learned the uses of a pencil... 

By the way, Stark is holding a glass of whiskey in the top drawing. It's kind of hard to tell, but he is. 

Now I have to go draw Loki before bed! just kidding...

Thor, Again.

When I see this picture, all I can think is, Thor straightened his hair. In the rest of The Avengers, his hair is slightly wavy, but here, it's perfectly straight.

So I had to draw Thor again, straightening his hair:

I also drew him from Thor rather than the Avengers, because I'm terrible at drawing armor, as I'm sure you remember from my previous drawing of Thor. And frankly, I'd much rather have a straightening iron than a hammer. 

my thoughts exactly...

who doesn't love this?

The Doctor meets Earth's Mightiest Heroes at last...

The Avengers. It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. "Earth's Mighiest Heroes" type thing.

Most five-year-olds can draw a better superhero than I can. The same goes for my friend Rose. And yet, we still went to the trouble of drawing several. It goes the with Avengers craze.

First, my drawings:

Iron Man

Thor

The Hulk

Captain America

Hawkeye

Loki

Black Widow

And then Rose's:

Iron Man

The Hulk

Thor

Hawkeye

Captain America

Wow. I expect art museums around the world will be calling momentarily with offers of five million dollars or more.

Hot Springs Village

About 15 months ago, my friend Rose and I took a road trip to Arkansas.

About two days ago, my friend Rose and I took a road trip to Arkansas.

About two hours ago, we got home.

Rose's Grandma on her mother's side lives there, in a totally awesome house on a hill. We love going there, and this was our second trip. We had just as much fun this time as we did last time.

Actually the back of the house, but still awesome

We arrived in Hot Springs Village, where Rose's Grandma lives, around 5:30 on Tuesday. As it was before, we ate dinner, then me and Rose went to our bedroom to read until late into the night. But we also improvised a bit, trying to watch an episode of Psych (unfortunately, the Dougherty's laptop is very old and a PC, so we only got a few minutes in) and played Imagine If, with the Avengers. Our favorite was, Imagine if Loki were going on a first date. Out of the six choices, I can only remember the two we picked: A dinner at a fancy restaurant with a symphony, or bail out after ten minutes.

The next day started with me and Rose eating breakfast on the front porch, while Mrs Dougherty took Rose's Grandma to her doctor's appointment. Actually, the day started with me and Rose delaying the action of getting out of bed for as long as possible. But after we got out of bed and ate breakfast, we watched Up, and then got dressed. It was probably about one o'clock by then. I love slow mornings. And afternoons.

We went to the park for a picnic, and were abandoned there for about an hour after we ate. Fortunately, we stole Mrs Dougherty's cell phone so we could call to be picked up. Okay, so we weren't abandoned, we were left by our own choice, and we were given the phone. Big deal.

Rose and I were left at the house again that evening, and we watching Captain America on the laptop while we ate leftover pizza, which we finished up today. Captain America was not very enjoyable, however, because the laptop had a very dark screen and we could barely tell what was going on. We'll have to re watch it on a better laptop...

And now, I think it's about time to eat, with my own family again. Guess what we're having: pizza!

The Avengers

You could google 'The Avengers' and maybe on the millionth page my blog would come up. You could probably count on me scrolling through page after page searching for a link to my blog, if I didn't have better things that I'd rather be doing.

I recently got back from seeing it for the second time. I saw it first last Sunday, and even though that was just more than a week ago I found myself looking forward to seeing it again as soon as I found out I was going to. It's that good. 

(Okay, so that's not saying that much. I would have gladly watched The Hunger Games a week after I'd seen it, as well as a good deal of other movies. But that's completely aside from the point.)

The obvious question after seeing The Avengers is, Did you like it? That's the obvious question after every movie, unless the movie is so utterly amazing that nobody could fail to adore it or the movie is so utterly terrible that nobody could fail to hate it. But another question just as frequently asked is, Who's your favorite superhero?

I'm sure that loads of people say Loki and Hawkeye. Me included. I'm not sure you would actually classify Loki as a superhero. But he's still my favorite. It took a while for me to decide this, but after seeing it again I decided that they are the two coolest characters. Though, Iron Man comes up pretty close behind.

If you were to stay in the theater until the credits listed the special thanks just to see if you're there, like I did, you would be rewarded, not with your name in the actual credits of an actual major motion picture, but with a short clip of the Avengers, eating shawarma, looking slightly miserable, very tired (I think Captain America is actually asleep), and full. Who said waiting through the credits was a waste of time?