Since Kim and Amy were brave enough to post photos of the era of BIG glasses, here is my contribution:



Don't be hatin' on the giant lenses... the '80s were so totally awesome!

This just in: Vashti has stepped up and made peace with her big glasses!!

Testing 1, 2, sibling sibling

Here is a video that I shot on Monday.  I want to add more video to this ole blog in the near future and Godaddy, while inexpensive, sometimes makes you jump through hoops.  So instead of just using the embed code offered up by YouTube, I had to go deep into the Help files and discover that I have to subscribe via Godaddy to a feed of my own favorites (so if you see on YouTube that I've favorited some of my own videos it's not because I think I'm all that - I'm just saying) and then come back to Godaddy and jump through few more hoops to get the video posted.  Wish me luck - and let me know if you can watch this:

        

These last few days have been a scurry of catching up on all that fell behind during Snotfest 2008.  The biggest project has been completing the proposal for my next book and getting it to my agent.  She's been so patient with me but I know that it's time to get the next project in the works.  Presales of Designs for Guys have been strong so I'm encouraged that someone out there may let me do another book!

PS: if you are considering writing a book proposal there will be an excellent opportunity this summer at the CGOA Chainlink event in New Hampshire.  Rita Weiss and Jean Leinhauser will be heading up a full day dedicated to the publishing industry.  And if anyone knows anything about getting published, it would be those two lovely people - the co-matriarchs of all things fiber.  More info here:  CGOA Professional Development Day 2008

Almost Harvest!

I love the first harvest of the season.  The lettuce is young and tender, the basil is sweet and robust, and the assassin bugs are small enough to not hurt if they bite!

Don't Forget

Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday - don't forget to order some flowers and send a card!!

        

I'm very happy to report that despite the snottage of the last 7 days I was able to make a little progress on the studio and have moved out of the rest of the house once again.  Normally I would devote an entire day to clearing the room out, sorting, cleaning, etc, then reassembling the studio collapsing exhausted when it was all over.  This time around I'm trying a new strategy: I cleaned the desk off and re-established a working area in under two hours.  Now although there is still mayhem behind me, I can get some work done AND have dinner in the dining room.  Awesome.  Next week I'll work on the mayhem.

Yesterday in the Garden

I had to shoot some photos over the weekend of a project that is due today (!!) and while in the backyard I took some photos of the latest flowers to bloom.  Good thing too because today it is dark, gloomy and very rainy!

Cleo Found a Strange Mirror

Apparently Cleo has found a mirror into Bizarro World.  Here she is trying to figure out what the heck is going on!

        

Thanks for all the virtual well wishes, chicken soups and hot toddies!  I'm sure they all helped me to get to feeling a whole lot better.  I wish I could say 100% (it is the weekend after all - who wants to lose part of a weekend to a snot-fest?) but 80% is pretty good.  I'll take it.  For now.

So here is a list of everything I've managed to accomplish this week:

• Sleep
• Lose 6 lbs

That's just about it.  I'm hoping by the end of the weekend to be back to work, nose to the grindstone, etc.  You get the picture.

Ever Have a Kitty Wedgie?

        

I don't know what I got into over the weekend but I am out of it big time.  Please send orange juice and kleenex.

        

I hope you find lots of fun things to do this weekend!!

        

It's official, it looks like a bomb went off in my studio.  I have this amazing ability to slip into a complete world of denial when it comes to accumulated clutter.  I would much rather be designing something, or doing an oil painting, or working in the garden, or give myself a root canal, than sort, organize, create an "action box", etc.


And in that magical land free of organizational responsibilities the obvious solution is to migrate.  Although it is a finite period, there is time to go to a different place and start fresh.  No boxes! No clutter!  No desk to clear off!  Let's all go to the dining room and start fresh!


But sadly (depending on which way you look at it) there comes a point when one has to say "stop! it's time to migrate back to the studio, eating at the kitchen counter is so uncivilized, Martha would be furious!".

And that's where y'all find me today.  I am in the dining room and the clutter has begun to take over this new location now, boxes need to be broken down and trashed (do I save them? they're such good boxes! what about the bubble wrap? I may need to ship something fragile!) and paperwork needs to be filed and in order to avoid migrating to the guest bedroom (look at all that space just sitting there, I'm not expecting a guest anytime soon, I could just check my emails on that desk over there!), I need to go back up to that first photograph of the studio and start there.  After all, there is a good reason the room migration started to begin with, right?

Why doesn't Photoshop work in real life.  I mean, I could just cut and paste all that stuff out of the studio and move right back in!  And have flawless skin and no red-eye!

        

Wow, last week was so much fun I can’t explain!! I was in the studios in Detroit filming two seasons of Knit and Crochet Today. I’ll try to show you via some photographs that I took. I have a lot more but the producer asked me to leave certain things to the imagination at least until the show is closer to airing which makes total sense to me.

Anywho, I arrived in Detroit on Monday at around noon and took a car to the hotel. For those of you who remember when I went to Detroit last year to shoot a segment for Shay Pendray you may recall that we all stayed in a “hotel” that is actually a row of Victorian homes that have been restored and turned into what is much like a B&B without the charming overworked couple that would run the place. This hotel is fully staffed which makes staying there very pleasurable.

Unless you stay in the room I stayed in last year, in which certain bygone brides come to visit you at the end of your bed in the middle of the night. I’m just saying is all.

This time around I had a room in that same house but in what was once the parlor of the home on the ground floor. No unwanted hovering guests thank you very much.

We ended up shooting 13 episodes in three days which meant that a LOT had to be prepared, and a LOT of clothes had to be camera ready. Every segment that I was in meant a costume change and here are the shirts that made the cut:



Then of course there was makeup involved. We are so lucky to have the Emmy award winning makeup artist Amanie there (I call her the Miracle Worker) and she did a great job making a regular Joe look camera ready!

Here is a little montage of photos from the week:




The 4th photo is of me and the other expert that will be appearing on the same episodes as me (she's the knit expert, I'm the crochet expert - fun, huh? such a great format!!) Her name is Kristin Nicholas and I'm sure you've heard of her and visited her blog where she shows her and her family living on a sheep farm and also she has her own line of yarns with Nashua called Julia.  I'm so not worthy and she really made me feel at ease which shows what a great person she is.

And this is how I felt most of the time:



And when I got home this is what I found:



And the summer flowers have begun to bloom as well:





No matter how much fun an experience is, it’s always great to be back home, isn’t it?!

        

Thanks to everyone that contacted the Creative Home Arts Club Magazine about the Prairie Style Afghan (see below) they have now put the pattern up on their website!  So if you aren't a subscriber (magazine is for club members only apparently) you can still go to their website and get the pattern!



Click here:  The Crochet Dude's Prairie Style Afghan

Life Outside The Show?

As much as I'd like to say that I luxuriate in my boxers all day waiting for my closeup on national television, the reality is that I have eight projects that are due, well, within the next few days.  In my frenzied state I actually forgot to photograph two of them before shipping yesterday so don't have extreme closeups to tease you with, so you'll just have to trust me that they are awesome (just ask me, I'll tell you) but I do have this extreme closeup:



It's for a project that is nearly completed but not quite. 

Speaking of The Show

I just found out last night that I have the opportunity to design a man's sweater to be showcased on one of my segments of the show that starts filming in just a FEW DAYS (eeeeeee!) and so I just ordered the yarn this morning, which hopefully will be overnighted to arrive tomorrow, then I get to design the sweater, create the "hero" which is the finished one that will be on the mannequin (I don't think there are models for this segment) and then I get to make the sweater again in pieces to show how to assemble it, then I get to make the different pieces again which are called "step outs" so that I can demonstrate how to do the stitching of each piece. 

Don't even ask about the knit project that I am in the middle of for the show (same steps as above, but a little less complicated of a project)

Here I am teaching Cleo to knit so that she can help me:



And here is how the first class went:

        

This is a gown that I designed last autumn for South West Trading Co. to show off their incredble Yin & Yang yarns on the 2008 runway circuit.  Here is a photo that I believe from the copyright notice is from Stitches:


© 2008 XRX, Inc. Photo by Alexis Xenakis

You can also see the dress in action on a different model at TNNA in Long Beach back in January here on YouTube:

click:  The Crochet Dude's "Hespera" on the runway

In the video there are four groups of models that come out showing knit and crochet designs.  Hespera is the first shown in group four.  Enjoy! =)

You can find SWTC's Yin and Yang at your LYS and online.  Yin is a wonderful Wool/Silk/Bamboo blend, and Yang is the same yarn but with sequins spun in making it super easy to coordinate and accent a project.  In Hespera I made the top out of Yang and the skirt with Yin.

If we all collectively keep our fingers crossed I'm hoping to have the pattern available by this spring.  Stay tuned!