pretty things

This is what last night looked like. I was quite pleased. I went to A.C. Moore before dinner and stocked up on some yarn. They recently redesigned the store and pretty much doubled their yarn selection. They had some beautiful colors there. I had to really restrain myself from spending a bajillion dollars in that aisle alone. So I spent the rest of the night crocheting myself a scarf and drinking hot chocolate out of a turtle mug from my favorite guy. Here is some of the sweet loot I scored last night..



The blue one on the bottom is the softest thing ever. I can't wait to do something with it. I used the pea-ish green in the first picture for my own scarf for the new coat I got this year. The coat is gray so I figured I could be a little more bold with the scarf color.



This yarn is really soft also. Love it. I kind of just went to town last night and used up one whole skein and completed half of my scarf. I have a second in that color but I think to make it the length I like I'm going to have to buy another one for the fringes at the ends.




I love crochet for that reason. I can seriously just sit there and mindlessly crochet half a scarf without even noticing I'm at the end of a skein that I just started a few hours ago. I'm really glad I made the effort to learn it. I used to be a knitter. Having done both now, it is my opinion that knitting is much more difficult. Or at least more annoying.

I learned to knit in high school because one year we started knitting for some kind of cause or something. I'm not really sure what kind of worldly problems you can solve by knitting but that's what we did. I went to an all girl Catholic high school. We knitted for causes. It's no big deal. ;)

But for some reason I was really intimidated by crocheting even though I was told it was easier. I mean, think about it. If you were told to grab hold of a piece of string and your choice of tools was either a pointy stick or a hook, which one are you going to choose? Exactly. I just find it easier to handle growing work with crochet and to correct mistakes if you should drop a stitch or something. I learned both from books though from the same amazing series. If you don't know how to knit/crochet and want to learn, I highly recommend getting Stitch 'n Bitch (knitting) or The Happy Hooker (crochet). Everything I know about turning a ball of yarn into a usable object I learned from these books.




Another awesome thing I got was the first copy of Anthology. I love this magazine. I heard about it from several other blogs and subscribed right away. I love their whole philosophy of proving that print is not dead. What better way to prove that than starting a print magazine? I firmly believe this myself and have always favored print design over the interwebs. I admire people who can make really beautiful websites but it's just not my thing. Thus the fact that I keep it simple over here.




One of the reasons I'm getting my master's in education is because when you are a corporate graphic designer, it is pretty much guaranteed that you will be doing web stuff in this day and age. In my internship, the main thing I did was email blasts. I was so excited when I got to do a conference poster or mailer piece just because it was print work. I love design, but I want to do the projects that make me happy or else I know I'll hate my job. Now that I just do it freelance I can be picky about it and I am so much happier.



The design in this magazine is amazing. It makes my eyes happy to look at it. I would love to do something like this. If you haven't discovered this magazine yet I suggest you pop on over to the site and check it out. Support print!!



See how I pretend to be a stylist? "Oh don't mind me, I just set my work down while I was reading this magazine and happened to have a camera nearby."

X)




Another reason why I love Anthology is because it combines everything I love about the blogs I read. It has food, interior design, graphic design, pretty things.. so much more. There is also a feature in this issue about the awesome lady behind Design*Sponge. Love that blog. Man, a lot of links today. I just have so much to show you!

Tonight should be interesting. I'm making something for dinner that I'm a little skeptical about but really curious to try. I'll post the recipe tomorrow and let you know how it was.. and if we ordered pizza or not ;). I'll give you a hint.. the name of this dish is two words.. the first is a guy's name and the second is a weapon.

Go!