best bike ever REVEALED!

Well here she is, only the coolest thing I own. This is the after picture and here is the before, did I not say this bike would end up being the pinnacle of awesome? I'm still planning on putting a rack on the front for carrying Uzo (and booze OBV) and sewing up some panniers for the rear, but since the major transformation is complete it seemed like time for the grand unveiling!

Here are my changes
- Switched the black rack to silver one
- Sweet ladies Brooks saddle
- I liked the original cockpit so instead of tearing the bar tape off to take it off and put new handlebars in I just got a new stem so switching it back to original if I ever want to is easy. The new stem is a vintage Nitto I nabbed at the AS220 bike swap this weekend for a wicked deal! It looks so good.
- Cruiser bars
- Elk hide bar wrap db got me as a gift to add the last bit of class. I feel bad but seriously, nothing beats leather and it's super nice. I thanked the elk and db.
- Clementines box! It's temporary but surprisingly cute. It was totally perfect for carrying the fruit we didn't eat and the frisbee we didn't play with haha. Luckily, it was just as effective at carrying the wallet that paid for our gigantic ice cream cone :)
- Net I made of leftover yarn from my oatmeal sweater today while I was waiting for db. It came out good right? I just made it up, it's way easier to make a silly little net than you'd think.
- Lastly, and likely most silly, are the cork bar ends! Db whittled them down so they'd fit. One is from a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and the other? Cook's Spumante, drink of the gods. Nothing like a little class/trash mix :)

So there it is, what I spend my valuable free time thinking about sometimes. Worth it! This spot was where db and I shared that enormous ice cream cone right off the bike path. It was awesome. Maybe more pics of our Memorial Day adventure tomorrow...

hound s/s 2012

lovely lovely HOUND

HOUND is a Chicago based clothing company that makes gorgeous, fun and colorful clothes. last year i bought the Beacon crop top for db and my european honeymoon! it's a sheer silk chiffon in the most bright and fun color orange you can think of. i wore it to all of the cathedrals and to the vatican so i could have my shoulders covered in style. it was also perfect for making my day outfit magically fancy restaurant appropriate. here's a pic of my Beacon in action mailing postcards to my vavó, madrinhã and my aunt (who is a legit cloistered nun) from the vatican. my love for that piece got me totally hooked!  Jen the designer also started a flickr group called "handmade wardrobe spring 2012" which i have the badge for to the right of this for all you sewers and makers of things rad.

after effectively stalking all of HOUND's social media and saving my pennies for the release of the s/s 2012 line i managed to nab a fabulous new piece to love forever. any guesses? seriously this is literally the perfect dress, i am beyond excited to get it in the mail! the print is amazing, i absolutely love geometric patterns and it's actually really hard to find them most of the time. also black and white? so ideal! every accessory i own is like some neon, psychedelic, insane thing... including a lot of my shoes. for example, i bought frye harness boots last year that i know will last till long after i'm dead. what color? purple. this dress is going to get a ton ton ton of wearing, i can't wait!

dirty doz: hooray!!!

 

well here it is, the 5th project i've started and finished this year and probably the coolest color yarn i've ever run into. the yarn is madelinetosh dk in grapefruit and the pattern is Hooray by Veera Välimäki. it was crazy crazy fun to knit. there's just something about knitting cables that is just so satisfying, they look so cool! i was actually kind of sad when i finished the cabled section.


things i loved about making this sweater
- looking at this totally rad color every time i worked on it
- making the cables. they're not overly fussy but damn do they look good!
- the double thickness collar being completely worth the extra time
- how amazing reverse stockinette looks with hand painted yarn
- the i-cord bind off
- basically everything


if you're thinking about knitting this, DO IT. it knit up pretty fast, is fun to work on (none of that "ughhhh i just wanna wear it already!"), the directions are clear and it looks really good finished. my only suggestions would be definitely block it because it makes a huge difference, if you do the i-cord bind off do it on the wrong side because it looks way better on the right side that way, and bind off looser than you think you should around the curved parts.


blah blah blah IT'S AWESOME! i'm so excited i decided to make it, now if only it were done in time to wear before it got all warm this spring, i definitely have something to look forward to this fall though. :)

dirty doz: neon neon NEON!

so here it is, number 6 of the dirty dozen of 2012! a fabulously low quality pic (thank you iphone for your selfy option) which features my even more fabulous dog. i totally love it, i've found a new way to make any outfit i own even more insane!

it's Simple Things by Mary Heather-Cogar which was a super easy but in my opinion even more super boring knit. it's ok though, i really wanted to try knitting something with a lacy-ish thing going on because i'd never tried it before and this was a pretty straightforward/low commitment project to test out. i was also beyond dying to cast on my Edison Bulb madelinetosh tosh sock because let's be real, neon is pretty much beyond all others as far as radness goes (besides uzo, glitter nail polish and being in the forest listening to birds of course).

even though it was pretty boring, i would still recommend this pattern. it's easy, works into something really useful very fast, looks a lot fancier than it is and will eat up one of those one off balls of sock yarn you know you probably have lying around if you knit. my only suggestion would be to keep the center column between the two yos stockinette regardless of what the garter stitch lacy rows tell you. i did the second and third lacy rows that way and they look much better.

enough technical talk, i'm halfway to my goal of 12 in '12!!! i have #5 up my sleeve yet to be revealed here but nice light for picture taking weather must be around the corner... right?

brimfield

this weekend i went to the brimfield antiques show with one of my friends and fellow old junk lovers linnae. we seriously look forward to this every year, it's that awesome. i've nabbed some of the most awesome vintage finds of my life there, actually THE most awesome seeing as i got my wedding dress there for a whopping $45. it's awesome, if you live within a few hours of it and love thrifting it's without question worth your time, but bring a picnic because it's so much more fun.

this year we spotted our usual completely random jfk object, got our asses kicked by $79 bruce lee, got sunburns (no big surprise there) and had burrito picnic. i also managed to find the most insane diana ross-esque dress for $20! it needs a little taking in but it's so worth it.

we ave seen some pretty funny people and things there. this time there was no pitbull wearing a saddle (very sad) but i did see hannah of hannah and landon which was pretty cool. brimfield is the best!

bunny swarm

in lieu of posting anything of unimportance, here is this picture. while it isn't me (which is a huge problem in my life i'm working on right now), it's still pretty far beyond my wildest dreams on the cuteness scale. i just want to know how do i make this happen for myself? what magic does she have in that bag? do i need to knit myself a cabled sweater dress to attract bunnies? are bunnies attracted to knee socks and bangs? i could make all of these things happen. or, on the other hand, are they all just attracted to their dead friend on her coat and this is really just a bunny death swarm?

so many questions.

pic

phillaaaay

so these are the six most entertaining pictures from our BIGGEST ADVENTURE EVER!!! eric and i, db and i and db and eric have all gone on monsterous adventures in pairs, but the three of us togerther have never made it further than my gparents' summer house in nh. this obviously had to change...

so the 3 of us ventured south to good ol' philadelphia and nj to chill with bart (who's origins will remain a mystery because he's akin to the likes of the chupacabra and other mystical creatures) and see the lay of the land. the discoveries were profound. basically nj is both by far the most horrifying place on earth in parts and in others was somewhere leave it to beaver could've been filmed. and philly? i'd hit that.

photo-journey!

day 1:
NOT getting pulled over for cramming four adults into bart's totally rad pickup


philly cheese steaks at jim's, mr t has eaten there so it must be pretty good. apparently chubby's will give us chubbies though and we should go there next time. the cheese hoagie at jim's was way better than any sandwich i've ever had in providence... i ate the entire enormous thing and db and eric were on vom watch riding behind me for a while. jerks.


at the schuylkill river being rebels, taking our bikes past the "no bikes" sign


day 2:
hike in the pouring rain to hunt for nature and Pinies. we only found Nature the toad and he didn't piss on our hands or maybe it was just raining so hard we couldn't tell.


smokey = WAY off


the ride home. i also had my gameboy pocket which somehow escaped being documented. pokemon all the way!

basically
philadelphia is cool, has lots of parks, bike lanes and friendly... fellow tourists.
nj is what made andy and larry wachowski write the matrix by giving them a pretty good idea of what the whole post apocalyptic earth will look like when we finish destroying it in a few years, but also pretty cool in other parts which was fairly shocking.

adventure success