garage sale

A friend of mine is having a garage sale today, tomorrow, and Saturday in Kansas City, and she's selling a bunch of my stuff. It's all good stuff, in working condition that I'd be keeping if I could. Since I'm moving to NY I just don't have room for it any more. I'm selling sewing machines, an ironing board, a Polaroid camera, vintage chairs, window shades, a stereo, a Christmas tree, an awesome vintage wood filing cabinet, and more. Everything's $2, $5, or $10. I'm just trying to get rid of this stuff without throwing it away, because that seems wasteful. E-mail me if you're interested in going, and I'll give you the address and times.

sunshine and shadow dress

Last summer I obsessed over this dress (by Sunshine and Shadow) for months, but in the end prudence won out. I realized I really couldn't afford it. So a year later, I finally got around to making one of my own! It was so fun to sew something just for me. Also, I've never purposefully made a straight up knock-off of something before, so this was a good challenge. I tried to make it look as much like the original as possible using only photos I found online. I love it, and best of all it fits me perfectly. The one downside is that it's too short for a dress because I ran out of fabric, so I'll wear it as a tunic. The only photo I have of me wearing it is this photo strip from the Junior Boys concert on Friday night. So many of my friends were there, and it was awesome.

Hey, guess what? I'm going to New York next weekend, and my birthday is in 10 days!!! Joe's birthday is 3 days before mine, so we'll celebrate together in New York. He's going to be 30, which is officially an adult in my book. I'm so nervous about finding an apartment. If you're reading this and you live in New York, please e-mail me if you hear of anything good.

Our realtor came over to our house yesterday to assess things, and he's going to start showing the place to buyers while we're in New York. Right now we're frantically doing some last minute touches and fixing things up. Our house is going to look so good that I won't want to leave it!

back from california

Joe and I just got back from California, where we spent a couple of days in L.A. and then the rest of the time at the Coachella music festival. Wow. What a fun vacation. Seriously. Almost too fun, because now that I'm back I have a cold. Blah. We accompanied Joe's brother Kris and his wife Julie, and since they are in the music industry we got free VIP tickets and lodging and everything. I asked Joe, "What qualifies us to be VIP's?" And he said, "Because although we ourselves are not cool, we know people who know cool people." Haha, so true. We got to see one of my favorite bands, Fleet Foxes (and we noticed Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, and Busy Phillips at that concert). I also saw Morrissey play for the first time, although he freaked out halfway through because he smelled "animal flesh burning". Besides watching music, we spent our days goofing off by the pool, drinking cocktails, and reading. It was very restorative. Just what I needed to gear myself up for apartment hunting in NYC next week.

easter bunny

I made a bunny over the weekend because it was Easter. And Easter is about bunnies.....right? I got the pattern from this book (given to me by Andrea), and all the instructions were in Japanese so I just followed the pictures. I'm a little disappointed that mine isn't as cute as the ones in the book, but then again I'm not very experienced at making stuffed animals. My little bunny is made of flannel, and the underneath part of his ears are linen. It was going to be a gift, but now I'm too shy to give it away.

japanese knitting

Remember when I posted about this book a while back? I finally found it online! It's really cute, and I wish I would have bought it when I was in Portland.

Here's another nice one that is sort of similar to the first.

And this one is beautiful too. The whole site has lots of Japanese goodness to inspire.

And about the Humanoid sweater from last year that I'm trying to replicate, I got the idea from Elly. She tried it once, but it accidentally shrunk in the dryer. So she's in the process of trying again. I thought it would be fun to do it too. I'm making my own pattern up, and if it turns out well, I'll share and post the pattern here and on Ravelry. We can all make one! : )

crochet patterns for spring

I found this beautiful Japanese crochet book here. The weather is cold, but my heart is full of these pretty colors. Last weekend Mindy called my yarn stash "the taupe rainbow", and I have vowed to make something colorful soon. Unfortunately, the sweater I'm working on now is as taupe as it gets.