30/30

Day 30--Self-portrait
This is my last photo in the 30-day Photo Challenge for June 2011. I hear tell there will be one for July but I won’t be entering that one. I’m still debating if I have the stamina to even do any sort of photo-a-day projects. I’m torn between feeling like I need to always be out-of-doors and trying to open up my home life more. And I’m not sure I’d like to do the latter. Plus with the Beanlets around the place isn’t always spiffy and photo-ready. ;)

I’ve been knitting off and on through this time. I’ve been busy on Pinterest, seeing lots of things I’d love to make; sewing and yarn-craft alike. The latest item to pique my interest is Mao, a cute little one-piece knitted toy cat. Mao is designed by blogging-multi-crafter OiYi. I have to admit that most of my unwillingness to knit toys was because they usually involved knitting a bunch of separate parts you would then have to seam together. This is done in one big section(just add the tail–no biggie), and you stitch on facial features with embroidery thread or thin yarn. Easy peasy. Mr BeanKnit has a few new 3rd(4th?) cousins coming soon and so I’ll definitely have little ones to give them too. Several weeks ago I bought a bunch of cotton yarn at Michaels for some potholders but those will have to go on hold while I make some Maos.

I haven’t done much sewing other than fixing a ripped seam or three but I am gonna have to dig in my heels and get to sewing because my wardrobe is woefully skimpy these days. I usually dress in layers during the colder months but since it’s warmer(read: hot!) now, all I need is one layer per section and I’m good to go! I’m not ready to tackle pants. I can’t bring myself to do it and I’d prefer more skirts. I’ve been loving the jeans skirt to death because of the built-in pockets but I will have to bite the bullet and add some pockets to the skirts I plan to make.

Well, just touching bases to let you know I’m still kicking! TTFN!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Numbers

Weekly Photo Challenge-- Numbers

Metronome Clock at Union Square, NYC

I admit I actually thought this was a US debt clock but it’s not. Oops. It’s just a regular clock. The first 7 numbers indicate the time in 24-hour format, down to the seconds. The last 7 show how long til midnight, again in 24-hour format. Way cool.

Day 3: Clouds

Day 3--Clouds, at sunset

They took forever to show up. I went out to the park earlier today, to knit on the Multnomah shawl and get a cloud shot. I packed a light lunch, the shawl, my tripod and camera and hit the road.

Got to the park and blammo: The Great Lawn is off-limits due to bug spraying.
And it was chillier than I’d expected and I had a short-sleeved shirt.
And there was not a cloud in the sky.

I thought about practicing long-exposure landscape shots, but I was just too cold to take the time to set up. I was warmer if I kept moving, so I kept walking, from one side of the park to the other. No pics, but I got some exercise.

Fast forward to early this evening when, as the sun was setting, I looked out the window and behold: CLOUDS! Some manner or other of cirrus clouds, but I’m not really sure. Very nice.

Hopefully tomorrow I won’t have such a hard time capturing the theme: Green!

Day 2–What I wore today

Day 2-- What I wore today
These pretty earrings were on the accessory rack at the cheap-y shoe store. Yeah, I’m cheap. But they were pretty and I’d been feeling like I needed some new earrings. I have a nickel allergy and many pairs of earrings/other jewelry always start to irritate me once any coating has worn off. These advertized being nickel-free so I bought them. It’s been several weeks and so far, so good. The teardrops have a pink tint to them. There was another pair that had a blue tint to the drops. I had to stop myself from buying both pairs. But I still find myself wishing I did.

30-day Photography Challenge–First Day: Self-portrait

Yes, the blog is sort of turning into a photo blog. Trust me, I’m still knitting. See?

Day 1-- Self-portrait

Still working on the Multnomah Shawl I started I-don’t-remember-how-long ago. I figure it’ll be done by Thanksgiving 2012 at this rate. :)

Now, back to the challenge. I’ve taken on a 30-day Photography Challenge based on this page I found through Pinterest.

I’ve been sputtering along trying to understand and learn photography and so far it’s been fun. But something was missing. I don’t have the time-freedom to take classes and all my photography-loving friends are on a different schedule than I am so it’s very hard to hang out with them when they’re in the mood for photowalks. So I’ve been winging it on my own, Bean-style. (Every craft I do now was learned by books or photos/video online. I’m a visual learner, more than anything else.)

Enter the photo challenges. Back when I first got my dSLR I made up my own version of a “Project 365″ which didn’t last a month. Oops. Maybe I needed a daily topic/theme to get me on track and keep me there. So here we are.

Food Frenzy!

So far the week’s turning out to be fairly good despite the rain. No good outdoor pics since every time I saw something snap-worthy it was raining and I couldn’t take the camera out. But in between those drenching moments…

All that remains..

This is all the remains of the yummy lunch I had today. Zagat was sponsoring a Food Truck Frenzy today! It was actually last week but the rain caused a postponement. No matter,k as it rained today too, though not hard enough to stop me from enjoying the food samples. ;)

I’m no foodie by any stretch of the imagination so take these reviews with a grain of salt:

1) Luke’s Lobster Truck: The offerings were a Lobster roll or a Shrimp roll. I choose Lobster and loved it! I’ve tasted chilled lobster before and I didn’t like it at all, but this roll sample had it with a tasty, slightly spicy sauce, on a sliver of buttered roll. Mmm good. I’d definitely get a whole one if I could meet up with the truck again. They weren’t allowed to sell at the event or I’d have seriously bought one! Add one to the twitter contact list!

2)Desi Truck: Having always wanted to try Indian food, this name jumped out at me on the event list a few weeks ago. The choices were a Biriyani, Haleem, and various Kati rolls. I chose the Kati roll with chicken. Sadly, I’m not impressed. Now, I’ve never eaten a Kati roll before so I truly didn’t know what to expect but I would have liked the chicken to be way more moist than it was. It’s as though they just cooked up a bunch of the fillings in anticipation of the crowd and then let it sit. The wrap was light and crispy which was a nice touch but the flavors just didn’t get me. I won’t be clamoring for this truck any time soon.

3)La Cense Beef Burger: They were serving Grass-fed Angus Miniburgers with a few topping choices. Having never tasted grass-fed beef before(as far as I could recall, anyway), I asked for the burger to be plain so I could taste the meat better. Yeah? No. It reminded me of those mystery-meat ‘burgers’ they served in the school lunches years ago. Umm No. Either they’re lying about the quality of the meat or I just don’t like grass-fed. Gimme grain-fed any day! NEXT!

4) I wanted to try the Steak Truck but even after almost 40 minutes they still weren’t open. I don’t know what their deal was but I would have thought they’d have been ready by the opening time. Oh well. On to Treats Truck!: The offerings were a Pecan Butterscotch Bar or a Mexican Chocolate Brownie. I went with the first one. It was nice flavor-wise but this, too, was a bit on the dry side. It was just the right amount of sweet for after lunch. I could see myself going back and maybe trying something else. Maybe today was an off-day?

Then I got to wash it all down with an ice-cold bottle of Perrier. And they even offered these little Colgate Wisp mini-brushes in case you had something sticky or garlic-y. That was very thoughtful.
So that’s it for my mini-reviews. I’m supposed to vote for my favorite truck and today that was the Lobster Truck. Mmm I miss it already.

TTFN

Fleece Festivals, Beanstalks, and ZOMG I ruined my Shawl!!

I know I promised a post about Mother’s day, shawl WIP photos, tea and potholders. That’s not gonna happen. At least not yet. Haven’t started the potholders and probably won’t for a while yet. Tea’s not really that big a thing to talk about here so I’ll leave that out. It’s rained probably 10 of the last 11 days so I couldn’t get any decent shawl WIP pics(though I will discuss the shawl and why the pic didn’t happen the one day it was sunny), and Mother’s day was really uneventful. So there.

Let’s get this show started!

I did get a gift for Mother’s day from Littlest Beanlet though. She brought a little seed packet with some dried organic green peas, a little slotted planter box(kind of like what berries are sold in), and a little baggie of soil. I planted the peas that day and 11 days later we have this:

Progress!

I put in 5 peas but only 3 stalks have emerged. Remember, how with the other plants I tried last year I lamented my lack of full sun in the livingroom. This little plant has spent most of its time on my the windowsill in my son’s room, where there’s more sun. So far it’s been thriving somewhat. I’ve been thinking about getting more peas and taking another chance at growing something. It hasn’t been all that sunny the last week or so and yet this thing just grew like wild! It’s quite encouraging..

Speaking of lack of sun, that last time we had a nice warm day I set out with the hubby to the local Botanical Garden again. Just the two of us for a little date. We had a great time, despite learning that we’d missed the cherry blossoms and magnolias. Aww. But we had an awesome time exploring the new Azalea garden:

At the Azalea Garden

There was a guy there with his tripod taking pictures and I was wishing I’d brought mine so I could get a picture of both of us, but a kind lady offered to take the picture when she saw me taking solo pics of him. Thank you lady, wherever you are!

On the way out the garden I was hoping to get a spread-out shot of the shawl but I couldn’t. When I pulled out the work I noticed I’d left it with a few stitches left to that row and the needle had come out of the short side!! Ugh. I put the needle back in and then realized some of the stitches seemed to have been dropped down a bit. I spent maybe 10 minutes standing there trying to figure out how many I’d lost(remember lace means YOs and such, which complicates counting rows), and wound up having to give up because we were running late to get the Beanlets from school in time. So I never got the picture I wanted. And I was horrified at not being able to figure out where the stitches were dropped exactly without just ripping back a few rows. The lifeline was back by about 10 rows and had partially snaked out of the row so ripping back would have required going back 21 rows!!(I had the lines every 12 rows). I was so heartbroken I didn’t even touch the shawl for a few days. When I finally did pick it back up again and really counted the row I discovered I’d screwed up the count somewhere and that I was initially correct in the number of stitches I’d first attempted to pick up. Phew!

Between all the recent crazy going on in the media and the seemingly unending rainy days, I was glad to get out of the house for a little sun and warmth with the Beanfamily. The Prospect Park Zoo was holding its annual Fleece Festival and since I’d missed every one of them since I’d first heard about it several years ago, I packed up everybody and we headed thataway. There were some tables hosting spinning and felting demos, as well as small weaving looms. Boy Beanlet took to the loom like a moth to a light:

I've rubbed off...
He did NOT want to leave! In the back of my mind I was thinking, “Hmm.. Maybe I can get a small loom if I tell hubby Boy Beanlet wants it, instead of me…”. Bad LadyBean! ;)

During the festival, there was to be two sheep shearing events and I got to take pictures and video of one of them! Yay!:

Cotswold Sheep pre-shearing

That cutie wasn’t too thrilled once she realized what was going to happen, but eventually she calmed down and took it like a trooper! Click through the photo to get to a video of the shearing! (approx. 6 min. long)

It was a glorious day and I’m glad I got to spend it with the people I love the most. :)

Stay tuned for more crafty fun!

TTFN!