Happy Memorial Day!
I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend as much as I am. I still get a little thrill out of having a day off of work and still getting paid.
I've had some good crafting time over the weekend. I finished up the last of my Knitters for Obama preemie hats:
These are winging their way off to the old home state, South Dakota. And with that, the primary/caucus season is over and we're done knitting preemie hats. Once the nomination is official, we'll be knitting for the general election, if you're interested in joining in.
I've also started a couple of new projects. The first I officially started a couple of months ago, but I put it on hold to finish up my projects from Yarnover. And it's not even knitting:
It's the first square for the Babette blanket. I'm not much of a crocheter, but I got help getting started from two women in my lunchtime knitting group who are very good crocheters and now I'm on my way. It's a fairly simple pattern to crochet, if you're thinking about it and intimidated by the idea of crocheting all those squares. Obviously, it's a bit futzy with all of the color changes and sewing the squares together, though.
The original project is gorgeous and brightly colored, but since I already made a really brightly colored blanket recently, I decided to go in a different direction and go with more neutral colors. The original also calls for Koigu, which is fantastic, but a little pricey. So I'm using one of my all time favorite yarns, Rowan Classic Yarns Cashsoft 4-Ply. Not the cheapest yarn on the planet, but I got a lot of it on sale at Elann, so it wasn't prohibitively expensive. And it's amazingly soft. Stay tuned for more developments.
And I couldn't let a long weekend pass without a movie:
Oh my gosh, I loved this movie! I don't know what took me so long to see it with a cast like this. Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell star as a couple of Irish hitmen who work for an English gangster played by Ralph Fiennes. Farrell and Gleeson are shipped off to Bruges, Belgium after one of their hits goes awry and then need to hide out for a while. This suits Gleeson just fine - he loves the architecture and history of the place and Bruges really does look gorgeous in the film. Farrell is bored to tears though, having the intelligence and maturity of about a 12 year old. Things don't go as planned in Bruges, either, though, so Fiennes ends up having to show up and set things straight. And that's all I'll say about the plot, because you need to see it all unfold for yourself. It's all put together like a thing of beauty - with one event causing another, causing another. It's really a well written script. It's so unique too - hilariously funny but deadly serious in turns. I guess the closest I could compare it to is Pulp Fiction. Though this isn't anywhere near as bloody as Pulp Fiction and is actually funnier. And I can't review the film without commenting on how great it is to see Colin Farrell again, especially in such a great role. A few if us at work came up with our lists, you know the list, the five people who would get a pass from your significant other for if you had a chance to you know, get intimate with. Farrell is on my list and seeing him in glasses really confirmed his place on the list!
I also need to bring your attention to another film I saw this weekend, this time on DVD:
This is an amazing documentary about how our handling of post-Saddam Iraq has gone so poorly. The film clearly and in a really simple way lays out the decisions that were made and how that led to the chaos that ensued. Most of the most illuminating interviews are with people who were part of the Bush Administration's work in Iraq, so these are not crazy-eyed liberals who were opposed to the war from the start. I can think of no better way to honor our servicemen and women than to see this film and really understand why so many died needlessly in this war and how to make better decisions in the future so that this situation does not happen again.
I've had some good crafting time over the weekend. I finished up the last of my Knitters for Obama preemie hats:
These are winging their way off to the old home state, South Dakota. And with that, the primary/caucus season is over and we're done knitting preemie hats. Once the nomination is official, we'll be knitting for the general election, if you're interested in joining in.
I've also started a couple of new projects. The first I officially started a couple of months ago, but I put it on hold to finish up my projects from Yarnover. And it's not even knitting:
It's the first square for the Babette blanket. I'm not much of a crocheter, but I got help getting started from two women in my lunchtime knitting group who are very good crocheters and now I'm on my way. It's a fairly simple pattern to crochet, if you're thinking about it and intimidated by the idea of crocheting all those squares. Obviously, it's a bit futzy with all of the color changes and sewing the squares together, though.
The original project is gorgeous and brightly colored, but since I already made a really brightly colored blanket recently, I decided to go in a different direction and go with more neutral colors. The original also calls for Koigu, which is fantastic, but a little pricey. So I'm using one of my all time favorite yarns, Rowan Classic Yarns Cashsoft 4-Ply. Not the cheapest yarn on the planet, but I got a lot of it on sale at Elann, so it wasn't prohibitively expensive. And it's amazingly soft. Stay tuned for more developments.
And I couldn't let a long weekend pass without a movie:
Oh my gosh, I loved this movie! I don't know what took me so long to see it with a cast like this. Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell star as a couple of Irish hitmen who work for an English gangster played by Ralph Fiennes. Farrell and Gleeson are shipped off to Bruges, Belgium after one of their hits goes awry and then need to hide out for a while. This suits Gleeson just fine - he loves the architecture and history of the place and Bruges really does look gorgeous in the film. Farrell is bored to tears though, having the intelligence and maturity of about a 12 year old. Things don't go as planned in Bruges, either, though, so Fiennes ends up having to show up and set things straight. And that's all I'll say about the plot, because you need to see it all unfold for yourself. It's all put together like a thing of beauty - with one event causing another, causing another. It's really a well written script. It's so unique too - hilariously funny but deadly serious in turns. I guess the closest I could compare it to is Pulp Fiction. Though this isn't anywhere near as bloody as Pulp Fiction and is actually funnier. And I can't review the film without commenting on how great it is to see Colin Farrell again, especially in such a great role. A few if us at work came up with our lists, you know the list, the five people who would get a pass from your significant other for if you had a chance to you know, get intimate with. Farrell is on my list and seeing him in glasses really confirmed his place on the list!
I also need to bring your attention to another film I saw this weekend, this time on DVD:
This is an amazing documentary about how our handling of post-Saddam Iraq has gone so poorly. The film clearly and in a really simple way lays out the decisions that were made and how that led to the chaos that ensued. Most of the most illuminating interviews are with people who were part of the Bush Administration's work in Iraq, so these are not crazy-eyed liberals who were opposed to the war from the start. I can think of no better way to honor our servicemen and women than to see this film and really understand why so many died needlessly in this war and how to make better decisions in the future so that this situation does not happen again.
Labels: Babette Blanket, Movies, preemie cap
rdladd@arnan.com
