It's a Beautiful Day (in the neighbourhood?)

On Thursday I finally finished all my school stuff for this term, and the weather has taken a turn for the better, it's like everything finally decided to stop sucking so much. I still have two more half credit classes before I can graduate, but I'm going to hopefully do those downtown at U of T. I'm so sick of spending all my time on transit to get to school. First year geography anyone?!

Not having school means that I have a huge surplus of time, which means knitting time. As soon as I finished my last essay I grabbed my Oceanside Stockings to knit in class on Thursday. They were started in California, but I tried them on a few weeks ago and realized that they are way too small. So I ripped them out on the subway and went up to a 2.5mm, which is the recommended needle size anyway. I thought I would be smart and do it on a 2.25, which is what I usually do my socks on. No dice, so I had to restart. These are looking much better, but I might still put in an extra repeat or two. I changed the top to a rib, and I even put in an eyelet row so that I can run a ribbon through them.


And I've decided that I'm going to start Shetland Shorty with this yarn I got off e-bay ages ago. Pretty! But the cast on might kill me. 280 stitches?!


With increased time also comes increased working, which means increased shopping! I have been looking for a pair of short cowboy boots to wear with all my skirts and dresses for ages. There are a whole bunch of vintage places in Kensington that have them on a rotating basis, so I always go in and check to see if they have any in my size. The problem is that they are always mens sized, or a 5.5. Neither of which I fit. Today was my lucky day, because I finally found a pair that were a 7.5! And I love the tassels.

I love summer...

Blogging in the AM aka why am I still awake?!

So I woke up at 4am this morning and could not get back to sleep. I tried for a bit, but if that doesn't work within the first 5 minutes, I end up waking myself up more. By 4:30 when I heard when I heard some suspicious bangs (cars can't backfire more than once in a row can they?) I was wide awake. So here we go. I also typed up some of one of my papers, so it was not all for naught. I'll also let you know what I've been up to in the past few weeks, since school has made me well slack in the blogging.

After much deliberation and compiling of votes, I pretty much decided that I was going to do one of the pictures of Jonny and Ben for my painting class. I talked to the prof, who was actually a substitute that day and she completely changed everything. Instead of doing one of the pictures, she suggested I put two pictures from Spiral Beach together. The one of Airick and Maddy did have the best colour, but I would never have thought of putting Dorian in too. As she said, "Those two are having a little lovefest singing over here, and this guys is just rocking out on his own..."

So I did a preliminary sketch to figure out the placing for the three figures. I separated Maddy and Airick a little, since they were overlapping, and pulled Dorian in. This helped a lot as well with figuring out the colours, since the green/red really needed to be balanced so that it didn't look like a big Christmas party. I changed a couple colours to fit a bit better. Dorians' bass is red instead of orange, and I added a purple light instead of a blue one.

Stage two! This is an underpainting and all the skin tones. I kept the style pretty loosey-goosey to keep with the idea of movement. Also I just like painting like that.

This is the painting at about 90%, before I took it to class. I darkened the background and fixed up the lights a bit, and raised Airicks left shoulder quite a bit. I blended some of the skin tone shadows, especially on Maddy's arm, as they were getting very cartoony.

And now it's done! I might go into it a bit more once I'm done with school to fix up some little things. Dorian's teeth need some help, and no one like that white smoke between Maddy and Airick. Right now I'm glad to have finished that class! Only three more to deal with....

Also finished in that hiatus is Alexis's socks! They were indeed finished in a week. The toes were seamed up at The Local out in Roncesvales, while watching New Country Rehab play. These Socks that Rock really rocked!


I went in the Friday afternoon and gifted them to Alexis who professed them a success. I'm thinking I will write up a pattern soon. I wonder if she'll part with them long enough to have proper shots taken?


Speaking of proper shots, I got a camera! It's a Nikon D40 and it is currently en route to California. No, you didn't read wrong and no, that's not a mistake. I didn't want to get screwed on customs and shipping, so it's being shipped to my dad's office there. One of the admin ladies is responsible for holding onto all our internet shopping, so this will come as no surprise for her. Unfortunately this means that I won't get it until my dad's next trip, which will be the first week of June. But that's probably a good thing, since I have loads of work that needs doing right now for school anyway. Not to mention that the savings totally make the wait worth it! I'm excited! Now back to essays. Or sleep. Whichever comes first.