Sprawling kitten picture

A sprawlingly cute kitten called Mila. By Luca.

Freezing frames

Welcome back! A special welcome to my friends in Lisbon, Warsaw, Brussels, Montreal, Paris, Georgia, Coimbra, and to all the others who have been dropping by to see if I'm back yet. I'm really happy to find that you seem as anxious to see new art as I am.

Now, back to business.
For starters, let's take it nice and easy.
A few charming games with the stop-motion technique (taking still pictures and turning them into a film):
Pika Pika is an animated light pen/flashlight project, with some impressive results. (notice these are all GIF animations and not films). It inspired some other grassroots projects, here made to a remix of 3-year-old vocal artist MC Leozinho.

Their Circular Life is about time passing. Don't be misguided by the simplicity of the concept - to make something of this purity and precision must have been extremely difficult. Elegant, delicate, to the point. I just wish they spared us the philosophizing in the introduction. The work could really do without someone else thinking about it for us, or suggesting a reading that I, for one, find diminishing, not opening new horizons. That's why I would recommend skipping the introduction.

Finally, Human Space Invaders, part of the Game Over series by Guillaume Reymond from the French design group NOTsoNoisy. It will certainly remind some of you of the Human Tetris, but it has its own original style. It's also hilarious, but more sophisticated. It's impressive how even in these "simple" games with games the execution, the form says so much.

(partly via)

Stalking kitten picture

Stalking kitten picture. By ianandkillian.

Abyssinian kitten picture

Abyssinian kitten picture. Blue tackles a chair leg. By polandeze

Toby jumping kitten

Toby jumping kitten. Poor defenceless shoelace. By postmodern monkey.

Rosie kitten picture

Rosie kitten picture by postmodern monkey.

Here is the button for my blog from a request by Ivys from Brazil.

Also, I wanted to include a link to an incredible dress made by Uli Herzner, a contestant from Project Runway. The way she uses colors and prints is just amazing, isn't it? I've never seen anything like it. I'm hoping she makes it to the final 3 so we can see her fabric stash. It must be awesome.

We've had massive quantities of rain in NM and it is so beautifully green here with lots of flowers as you can see in the photos of our front and back yard.

I made a second Christmas mitten - can you see what I did wrong? In the top part of the left mitten I held the white yarn in my left hand (making it dominant) and in the right mitten I held the white yarn in my right hand. Quite the difference, eh?



Massive preparations are beginning for the party of the year. Yes, it is Peaches' 4th birthday on Labor Day. (I actually don't know her birth date since she was a rescue but I did some calculations and picked the nearest holiday.) Peaches says everyone is invited for carrot cake and fruit punch.

Kitten nose picture

By Sunflowery.

Lucy kitten picture

Lucy a kitten I'm fostering. I've had her for probably two weeks. Very sweet, very friendly and going to a foster home tomorrow now that she is socialized. She was feral when I got her a couple of weeks ago.

Now, you would never know. By artandscience.

Katie kitten picture

This is Katie.. a stray we found she weighed only 250 grams and one of her eyes was stuck shut.. she is now 10 months old and a naughty girl. By Marty Chamberlain.

New kitten

Here is a kitten my dogs found hiding on the patio a few days ago.
She's much happier now. By Fara Shimbo.

Alley kitten

Alley kitten by tanakawho

Crashed out kittens

Wally (top) and Alfie say: It's nice to have somebody to hug! By eva viezel

Laughing kitten

By chrisbernardi

Kitten TV

Milly as a kitten decides that tv is not as good as it is made out to be - same programme keeps coming on! By Dom H UK.

Intense kitten picture

By Jason and ...

Kitten meets Catnip. True love.

I love my new toy. By rockymountainhigh

The Cookie Thief

I turn my back for 2 seconds... and she goes right for my cookies. By Finiky.

Tearing up the joint kitten

This kitten is having a great time. By eamills

Yummy kitten picture

Hmmm. Tuna salad and rice. By ThinkDraw.

Lazy Sunday afternoon kip kitten picture

By Malingering.

Christmas Booklet

I found some batteries so here is another photo of the knitted Christmas lights and a bulb up close. The top is reverse stockinette stitch but it is hard to see. If I had it to do over again, I'd make sure and measure between the bulbs to space them perfectly and use a dark green for the I-cord. Oh and I'd secure the bulbs better since one of the gold ones fell off before I took the photo.






My next goal is to see if I can knit a poinsettia.

A home in the air

By Jason and Ali.

Here are the knitted Christmas lights all smooshed up in the scanner. They're really easy to do. I guess you could wear them as a scarf but I'm including them in the holiday pattern booklet as a decoration. I'm on track to finish by the end of August - I have one more hat to do and possibly a pair of socks.

Kitten McCuddles

The Kitten McCuddles
She's there on the double
For cuddles and snuggles
And Love.
Kitten McCuddles that's who
Kitten McCuddles that's you. By unity.project.

Franklin is being a bad kitten

By le.

I had heard that Nicky Epstein was doing a book on knitted flowers a year ago and was terribly excited. She has incredible technical skills and I imagined perfect elaborate reproductions of lilies and orchids and sunflowers. Maybe I'm too picky but do these even look like flowers to you?

The flowers in the first photo are done by winding a thin strip of garter stitch into a ball. Ironically there is a comment on Amazon that the flowers in the book are too hard to knit. My favorite flowers in the book aren't really knit - they're made from knitted felt that is cut into flower shapes.

Still, in the Nicky Epstein vein, I'm going to play with I-cord today to see if I can knit some Christmas lights. Yes, you heard right.

Who's that kitten?

Hamlet is fascinated by the mirror. By RBertieg.

DH and I went to the other side of the mountain to check out neighborhoods this weekend and it was a bit stressful. We both are so used to living in the middle of nowhere doing our own thing being free spirits so suburban life may prove a bit tricky. The move makes sense on many levels - we'd probably save several hundred dollars a month just on gas and DH would save 2 hours of city driving per day - but we both need some serious attitude adjustments. I did finally figure out why so many of the neighborhoods had a "Stepford" like feel - they all have homeowner's associations who maintain all the xeriscaped front yards so everything looks similar. Hmmm - this home search may take longer than I initially thought.

I just ordered Nicky Epstein's new book on knitted flowers and am looking forward to testing it out upon arrival. I'm still doing boring things like typing up patterns and configuring color charts so nothing to show today.

Today's rabbit photo is Rusty, the one who got away. I had heard about his availability for adoption and his incredible rescue from a feed store where he was near death. I had also heard about Peaches and decided to adopt her instead because I wasn't up to any rabbits with health issues at that time. I met Rusty a few weeks later at an adoptathon (yes he was adopted by a great couple) and he was a total love muffin. So on those frequent occasions when Peaches is giving me some attitude (we call it the royal bunny butt) I do occasionally think about sweetie pie Rusty, the one who got away.

Bonsai kitten picture

By tygrellilie.

Cat napping kitten

By tanjila.

I'll take good care of you kitten

By Malingering.

Red leaf kitten

By fazen.

Anne kindly gave me permission to share the photos of the Menorah pillow she made from Handknit Holidays. Isn't it beautiful? The yarn is Elann’s Filatura Di Crosa 501 Tweed in color 010, Ecru. She did a crochet edge instead of the I-Cord edge specified in the pattern.







I really need to make this pattern myself one of these days.

The Teaching Company has a free lecture you can listen to on Mozart.

Kitten sisters picture

By SunFlowery.

Kitten Burglar

By Saffanna.

I've abandoned the Knitty Manresa socks. I wasn't in the mood to deal with all those really long floats although I do think the end result would have been pretty.

One of the things I love about stranded color knitting (and why I think it is faster knitting for me) is because of the wonderful feeling of flow you get when you have a rhythm going - kind of like cruising on the interstate. I can weave in floats while keeping the flow but when there are over 20 stitches in one color it interrupts the flow for me - more like stop and go traffic. How's that for the strangest knitting analogy you've ever heard?

I think I'll spend this month working on the two pattern booklets and getting my paperwork organized. I know I wrote down the pattern for this kid's hat now I just need to find it. I think it would be fun with some simple knitted flowers added. I donated the hat to the homeless shelter so this photo is currently all I have.




Well on to the cleaning and paperwork if I can tear myself away from the forums with endless Project Runway speculation about who gets kicked off the show tomorrow night.

Box of kittens

Starting at the back from left to right. 1 - This little girl is the sweetheart of the bunch. She looks just like her mama. 2 - A little girl who liked to boo and hiss at first. Now she likes to wrestle and pull shoe laces. 3 - A little girl that loves to run and climb. 4 - This little girl had a bad eye but now is doing just fine. She likes to pull shoe laces and attack the soles. 5 - The only boy and mama's favourite. A true mama's boy. Also the meanest smart alec. By abcrumley.