Three to go…


Cobalt and I have a tradition where we like to see all of the movies nominated for best picture before the Oscars. In general, seeing all of the movies up for best picture ensures you’ve seen the majority of movies in many of the other categories. It makes watching the Oscars really fun when you feel like you have an idea about the movies that are up (and it’s also hilarious because they always play THE WORST clip from all the movies so we can always shake our heads sadly at that too). I really like it too because it exposes me to movies I wouldn’t have otherwise seen that I ended up really liking (take The Descendants from last year’s Oscars). Anyway, this year we did a pretty good job guessing which movies would be up for best picture and ended up having seen 5 out of the 9 nominated before the list got announced last Thursday morning. The 4 remaining were: Argo (which we just saw this weekend, as you can see in the picture), Les Miz, Zero Dark Thirty, and Amour. Amour is going to prove to be the hardest to see because, as of Sunday night when I checked out my Fandango app, it is not playing anywhere in a 250 mile radius from us… Woooooo… This year we also miraculously saw all 5 movies up for best animated feature before the announcement came out too…. that never happens…

Anyway, do you have any fun traditions like this? Do you watch the Oscars? Have you seen any of the movies up for best picture? Which ones do you like? Do you want any recommendations? Cobalt and I really liked Beasts of the Southern Wild (it’s already on DVD/Blu Ray so you should check it out) and Silver Linings Playbook. Lincoln and Argo weren’t too bad either (though I found Argo REALLY stressful…). Actually all of the movies we’ve seen so far are good. It’s a tough race this year…. Leave me a comment if you want to know if you should see one of the 6 movies we’ve seen and I’ll give you a little summary/tell you my thoughts on it. :)

Top Secret Crochet Project pt 1


Meet Woky! He was my top secret crochet project #1 of the fall. This isn’t the current top secret crochet project mentioned in Monday’s post though. You’ll have to wait on that one. Anyway, this is Woky. He is an ewok in case you were thinking he was a cute teddy bear with a hood (:-/) and his hood is removable. I made him for my friend Jem! A few months ago, my friend J suggested that we make crocheted ewoks together and I thought that sounded fun! J is a much faster crocheter than me so she finished her ewok in record time. Meanwhile slow Potassium took months to finally finish Woky (this does not bode well for my current top secret crochet project….). It was awesome in the end though because I finished Woky about a week before Jem was supposed to come into town for a visit. Somehow she figured out that she was getting an ewok though I think she was still happy that she was right. She promptly named him Woky! :) Before Jem came into town, we took Woky to the pumpkin patch for a photoshoot. So without further ado, may I present Woky!

This is before the pumpkin patch; Woky decided he wanted to ride the great shark Finn across the house… Cobalt can’t look at this picture without thinking of riding the sand worms in Dune…
Ewoks in the corn maze!
I think Woky has chosen a pumpkin….

I am super proud of Woky. I’d say he turned out pretty well! His pattern was pretty hard (I had to keep asking J for help… that’s partly why he took so long to finish…).

In other fun crafty news, my friend Jem and I are thinking of starting an Etsy shop for our photographs and possibly my crocheted creatures (though I am super slow so I’m not sure about that). Anyone have any comments about that? Do you have an Etsy shop? Is it awesome? Stressful? Let’s discuss (topics: Etsy/ewoks/anything else you’ve been dying to tell me)!

Getting ready for the cold!


Well after days of having temperatures in the 60s and 70s all week, we are plummeting back down into the really cold this weekend. The high for Sunday is supposed to be 28! Craziness. Not looking forward to that one….

The picture today is pen and ink! Last weekend, my friends A and J came over and we had art night. A and I played with pen and ink on newsprint while J worked on designing a new pillowcase for a throw pillow. It was fun. A much needed break from lab, that’s for sure. Anyway, I spent the majority of my pen and ink time practicing drawing penguins. This one is my favorite. :)

What is the weather supposed to be like for you this weekend? Any fun plans? Cobalt and I have challenged ourselves to have an amazing weekend despite the cold. We haven’t decided yet what an “amazing weekend” looks like but I’m sure we’ll figure something out… :)

Skeleton bride head and such


Skeleton bride head is excited about all the new friends I can make for her with all these fun pattern books. She just hopes that I make the rest of her body (and her veil) and possibly a skeleton groom first. They have a wedding to get to after all…

(Thanks to my sister and Cobalt’s family for the fun books! I want to quit grad school and crochet all the time now…)

So warm…


Apparently we decided to skip a proper fall season this year in Boulder. The trees finally turned yellow and orange and then it promptly snowed. We got another chance at fall weather this weekend but now it looks like we’re going to get more snow tonight and tomorrow. It’s sooooo much colder today than it was yesterday (70 yesterday, 36 today) so I had to get all bundled up to walk to the bus stop. In honor of all the bundling, I am posting a picture of one of the crocheted creatures I’ve recently made. This is my whale amigurumi (Japanese for a knitted or crocheted stuffed animal!) all curled up in the hood of Cobalt’s hoodie from a few weekends ago. Maybe I will post more amigurumi pictures later in the week…

Tommy Toe


Awwww! Baby tomato! The funny thing about this picture is that I took it a few weeks ago and now there is actually a baby tomato in the place of this flower (should have done some time lapse so you could see it morph into a tomato…)! Yay! Baby tomatoes… yum… I love summer. This year we planted lemon cucumbers, Mayan Love Peppers (google them, I can’t find a fun link), sugar snap peas, and strawberries. Then my friend Paul gave me this happy tomato plant and we got some fun herb plants (such as mint and basil and chives!). Wow!
I have to note that this is the first summer I have actually been successful at having a mini garden. I can’t wait for everything to grow up and make tasty fruit! Go plants, go! :D

Portrait: What kind of freak hot sauce did you just give me?


This weekend I went to the Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show in Albuquerque, NM with Cobalt and his sister. Basically, people come from all over the country (and a few people came from outside of this country) to compete for the tastiest/spiciest hot and barbecue sauces. And then once the judging is over, the public is allowed to come and sample all the goodness/hopefully buy people’s products. Cobalt has gone many years in a row but this was my first time. I went as his personal photography assistant, photographing him eating various spicy foods and then his reactions (I also got to eat my fair share of spicy deliciousness…). This is by far my favorite of his reactions to some crazy hot sauce called the Green Flash. Yikes! Watch out! Apparently this one wasn’t even as hot as another one he tried from Jason’s Mom Hot Sauce which was so hot, it gave him the hiccups for the rest of the show. Geez… Intense. Poor Cobalt…

Cell Phone Picture: Squishy!!!


Today you guys get to see Squishy! Sorry he’s all blurry. Dumb cell phone camera… He was a gift from Cobalt a few months ago. :) I apologize for the lack of amazing story behind him because I have been so busy with crazy research (soooo tired)/getting ready for the Oscars! I am so excited about the Oscars this weekend! Cobalt and I are getting all dressed up and going to a fancy party! :) But first, we still have two best picture nominations to see! So far we have seen 8 of the 10 best picture movies, listened to all of the best score nominations, seen all the live action and animated shorts, and probably more but I can’t remember right now. Wow… so many movies…

Snow Shark

        
Another thing I did this weekend was go cross country skiing with my friend Paul! This is the first year I have gotten a ski pass so I’ve been itching to get out there and use it. Turns out I am extremely out of shape in the skiing area but that is okay because now with my pass, I can go a lot more frequently! Plus Paul was an excellent skiing buddy/teacher! Annnnnyway, as you can see, I also brought along my travel buddy Scrarmpl. I love taking him skiing with me… though I am not sure he feels the same way judging by the look on his face. The last time I took him skiing, he tried to escape from my coat pocket so this time, he was securely fastened to my backpack. He still got a bit wet/cold for his comfort I think…

Quilt Love


I know there have been many self portraits on my blog recently but this is not one of them. My Dad took this picture for me using my DSLR. This is a picture of the T shirt quilt top my mom and I designed and sewed over the break. I like to give myself little projects to work on when I have time for them and this quilt top was this year’s winter break top priority project. Basically, I took a bunch of shirts I used to wear in high school and in undergrad and cut them up (I know… sounds painful… it was for a few of the shirts… I had to keep reminding myself that I was getting them back in quilt form…). Then I sewed them into quilt squares and connected them together to make the quilt top. I am impressed that we got this far on my quilt project! Next step, making the back! :D