It was supposed to be the Summer of SockS. I was supposed to a sock knitting tornado. Instead I have ONE sock completed. Not one PAIR. One SOCK. Ah the delusions of a knitter in Summer. Well, I’ve got the yarn just in case my hidden tornado tendencies kick in.

And Charlie wants to make sure everyone remembers that he is priority number one. We can’t get to anything else in our inbox until we pay attention to him.

“What is inside our head that makes us do the opposite, the opposite of what’s right…?”

Not only have I purchased the album but, looky here, MMJ will be at the Greek in Berkeley September 19th. An Indian Summer night under the stars and with these guys singing live. Who’s with me?

Have a listen and let me know what you think:

Things I may or may not have done at BlogHer this year: (a la UGC)

Made a fool out of myself upon seeing the lovely Andrea from Superhero Designs who was so gracious when I chased after her shouting: “Look, look, LOOK! I’m wearing your necklace! I LOVE it, and I wear it all the time, and I LOVE your blog!”

Was overwhelmed by all of the great information and fantastic photography session by the adorable Me Rah Koh.

Met crafters whose work I’ve admired in lurker mode for years (I promise to comment)

Failed to introduce myself to Mrs. Kennedy because I was afraid of a repeat fangirl squeal (see above).

Took very few pictures compared to other years, but I had just the right timing on this one of Chef Rocco and babysteph (from adventures in babywearing) and it will always make me giggle.

Dropped an appetizer, missing myself, but getting it on the furniture (Sorry Macy’s).

I’l just stop there and say that it was another fun year.

It’s my favorite time of the year : BlogHer Time!

If you’re a BlogHer (or BlogHim) stopping by to see what goes on here, below are a links to a few of my favorite posts.

Hey! I made plum sorbet!
A Lotta Fun with fabric printing
Christmas Charlie (featuring Charlie the Office Cat)
My Year in Pictures (I took a picture a day for 365 days in 2006-2007)
Toe up sock video tutorial (knitting)

Great to meet you, thanks for stopping by!

She made plum ice cream (very tasty) - and I made plum sorbet. Man o man is it hitting the spot today. I mostly followed the basic fruit sorbet recipe I found at RecipeZaar.

I started out with plum puree (run through a food mill) - 2 cups

And I made a simple syrup with equal parts sugar and boiling water (2/3 cup) and after the syrup cooled I mixed the two. It was a little lacking so I added a splash of lemon juice. Actually it turned out to be two splashes. (I just splashed until I said ooooh, that’s nummy. Next time I’ll measure,- sorry)

Threw the whole mix into my ice cream maker and turned that sucka on and waited for the magic to happen.

Anyone else look at this and think of the opening sequence for Dexter?

So I obsessively checked every 5 minutes and I started to see real progress after about 15 min.

I was tempted to stop after 20 minutes, but I’m glad I kept it going.

I pulled it out after a half hour of churning.

It is still quite soft and needs to go into the freezer for a bit. I’m not saying I didn’t have a couple spoonfuls right then, I’m just saying that it was quickly melting and more the texture of a very thick slushee.

So into a pyrex and into the freezer it went.

I think it has just the right amount of tang and true plum taste.

It goes perfectly with a slice of brownie. But I’ll need to get a few more opinions.

Hey! No licking the monitor!

The instructor was Rik Olson, a professional illustrator and we were provided with a package of materials that included some samples of blank scratchboard and some carving tools.

It was fascinating to watch his demo of the scratchboard technique. He started out by drawing a rough sketch on a piece of vellum and transferring the basic lines with a red carbon paper. Next, he used a yellow colored pencil and fleshed out a bit more of the details.

He then picked up his carving “pens” and started removing the black ink to expose the white surface. Rik explained how he had to think about where the light would hit on an apple and how to illustrate it. He started with the leaf and stem and the top of the apple.

It was almost magical to watch the apple appear from a blank black canvas.

Rik told us that some scratchboard artists remove the entire background behind the central image before working the details. He chooses to work it in sections so he has more flexibility and can adjust the dimensions and add other items. He took the suggestion of one of the other students to add a worm poking out of the apple’s side.

It seemed that in no time at all he had finished the main image.

He finished it by adding the cast shadows and some crosshatching. Or I should more accurately say that he removed the ink and left the shadows.

It was a little intimidating, but I managed to eek out a flower doodle on my scratchboard.

I like the effect and may try my hand at doing more of these. We were told that scratchboard illustration was sometimes called a “poor man’s wood engraving.”

In class we used Ampersand Clayboard Black (5″x7″) readily available at most art supply places. Dick Blick’s prices are quite reasonable at $5.94 for a 3 pack of that same size.

Related links:
San Francisco Center for the Book is a non-profit center that promotes book and paper arts.

Rik Olson, instructor and professional artist: If you look through his portfolio no doubt you’ll recognize at least one or two pieces of his commercial work.

Dick Blick supplies Ampersand Clayboard materials

Rik also brought a couple of inspirational books for us to look at:

Scratchboard for illustration / by Ruth Lozner

and

How to cut drawings on scratchboard. / by Merritt Dana Cutler

According to the AccuWeather widget on my desktop by tomorrow it will be a very pleasant 78 degrees. Well, I don’t believe it - the SF people are still talking about being hot and sweaty meaning there’s no fog in sight. NO FOG! This isn’t supposed to happen until September or October. The heat makes me one cranky librarian.

Tomorrow is the first official day of Summer. Do you know what that means?

Let the sock knitting commence!

See the group of four in the far left? They’re working on a Charity Blanket using Blue Moon Socks that Rock yarn. 4 people work on it simultaneously. At the start of the day it looked like this:

People rotated in and out. It is a little intimidating but with words of encouragement (ahem - read threats and shaming) and some tasty fuel like:

and :

from Irishgirlieknits and ilikecake the blanket grew and grew.

Isn’t it beautiful This was my first taste of “Socks that Rock” yarn and it is as nummy as they say to work with. Soooo very glad I have some in my stash (more on that later).

Still not sure how the “knitting in the round works?” Well, I can’t quite get my head around it either, but here’s a little video that shows knitting in progress:

So I always jump up with my camera when people start gathering and tell me to “come and look at this.” You have been warned (I was not). Here is my first attempt at a picture of the creature.

It was in one of our smaller meeting rooms. That sucker was BIG!

Crazy B-Horror-Movie-BIG

So I was elected to grab the grounds crew (I’m so glad they were there). And they stood around discussing what it might be.
“Doesn’t look quite like a tarantula”
was said, then:
“Oh, I’ve seen those - They can jump 4 feet high.”
That’s when I backed off - WAAAY OFF

So the guys scooped it into a trash bin.

and took it out so it could find its way home.

Hard to see, isnt’ it. Oh it is certainly there hanging out.

Still don’t see it? Here’s a closer look:

You betcha it scares me that it is soooo hard to see in the leaves. I won’t be running into the bushes to get Charley so quickly any longer.

There are a few more pictures in my Flickr set.

They had set up the tables with fabric paints, brayers, and Lotta’s rubber stamps, stencils, and a few potato stamps.

Lotta called us all to attention with a brilliant four-fingered whistle. Then thanked us for coming and gave a few simple instructions.

We all dove in and tried our hand using various techniques.

Lotta demonstrated the proper way to stencil. Don’t use “paint strokes” just dab at the fabric lightly and build up layers of color.

Here are a few of my favorites that I saw. They were all so wonderfully inspirational.

I love how this person placed background stripes using the brayer directly on the fabric.

The above print made me think of a tropical getaway.

There was wine and Lotta’s friend Alicia did a great job providing fun background music.

Isn’t she adorable?

As time wore on people started getting a little braver and more enthusiastic about embellishing.

This woman stamped the shirt she was wearing!

Lotta also signed copies of her book for us.

She is so creative in everything she does - I love the cute way she signs the books:

She also asked if we could leave half of what we made. She plans on making a collage or quilt out of all the submissions.
In the picture above, my piece is the one in the top right with the “branch” and circles.

A big Thank You to Lotta Jansdotter and everyone who made this event happen. It was a blast!