Maybe everyone has seen this already? Just in case not:
I don’t want to make any assumptions about how great the movie will be based on the trailer, but it’s an amazing trailer, at least. (The Arcade Fire song is a nice touch.)
Love the poster, too.
Year: 2009
Love is in the Air at the Post Office
Today is March 26th, but that’s apparently still “close enough” to Valentine’s Day for the Columbus Circle post office!
You may remember this display case from its autumnal theme that I photographed last October. The Valentine’s display is a bit more ambitious, with its paper cupid, fake roses, and tissue paper, and maybe the extra effort is why they decided to leave it up for an extra 40 days.
Or maybe the person who does the displays was laid off sometime around February 14th. That seems more likely, sadly.
See No Evil!
A little glimpse of the next pattern to hit the Mochimochi Shop. (The image represents only one-third of what the entire pattern will be.) It’s coming in April!
Some New Musics
The idea of going to SXSW was again tempting to me this year, but when I really thought about it, it would probably have been tons of waiting in lines (which I hate), loud noises (which I dislike), and standing in one place for hours at a time (which makes me woozy). So instead this year I sifted through A.V. Club and Pitchfork coverage, and came up with a few bands that I’m planning to be a fan of. These are they:
The Rural Alberta Advantage
I just bought their new (and first) album Hometowns. Everyone will like these Canadians.
Titus Andronicus
Nice punkly pop.
The Black & White Years
They are compared to Talking Heads a lot. They are also from Austin, which seems like a nice place to visit most of the year.
Parenthetical Girls
I just broke down and bought their 2008 album Entanglements. (I was planning to wait for a special occasion, but oh well.) It’s strange and silly and I love it. (You’ll probably hate it.)
Daniel Johnston Embroidery from Sublime Stitching
Jenny Hart recently unveiled new embroidery patterns over at Sublime Stitching, including a great collection of designs by artist/musician Daniel Johnston!
I’ve been a Daniel Johnston fan for a while now, but I’ve especially had him on my mind recently because I finally saw the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston a month or so ago. It was sad, but neat to see different aspects of his genius in footage from his earlier years.
I’m also a big fan of Jenny Hart, of course—I took an embroidery workshop with her a couple of years ago, and she was a great teacher and a huge inspiration to me when I was first thinking about publishing patterns. I love that she does so much collaboration with interesting artists and musicians.
Mushroom Clock
This is a rough prototype for a working knitted clock that I made a long time ago.
The idea was that I would fit the knitting over some kind of box that contained a running clock on the inside, with the shaft and hands poking through a hole in the box and the knitting. For this version, though, I couldn’t find the right box, so I just used a sheet of plastic canvas for the front panel and the base, then stuffed the rest of the clock, and attached the battery-powered clock to the backside of the front canvas with lots of tape.
To prevent the hands from getting caught in the knitting, my dad sanded down these beatutiful cuckoo clock hands to be very thin. The clock works, but the hands did start catching on the dial every once in a while. And changing the battery when it finally dies will be an ordeal.
I still would love to create a series of knitted clocks, maybe for display at a show someday. But I would have to find the perfect box or other structure, and the perfect way to attach the knitting to the structure and the clock to the structure, and I would also have to find a clock with a still longer shaft.
For now, this one has been collecting dust on a shelf. But it’s nice to look at!
I Heart LYSs
I’ve had quite a few new orders lately from yarn shops all the world over—including New Hampshire, NYC, France, and Australia—so I wanted to give a shout-out to the shops carrying Mochimochi Land patterns. Please check out the fine establishments in my stockists list and consider supporting a local small business by purchasing a printed version of a Mochimochi Land pattern along with your yarn.
If your LYS isn’t on the list, please introduce them to my designs!
Charting New Territory
The Stackable Cats cross-stitch chart is coming along!
It seemed that we weren’t going be getting to the part where we learn how to make cross-stitch charts in my Illustrator class anytime soon, so I hunted around Ravelry and found a pretty thorough explanation of one method posted about a year ago by Marnie in the Designers group.
It’s a little tedious, but it definitely works, and maybe it will ultimately give me more control over the design in the end.
Once it’s finished, the chart will be available here! In the meantime, cross-stitchers should check out the fun 8-bit designs on Spritestitch, if it’s not already in your RSS.