Bike Night at the Hammer April 14!!!

Bike Night at the Hammer! is happening once again on April 14. Totally psyched to be presenting the BMX classic film RAD! It took Claudia a whole lot of sleuthing, but she finally found a 35mm copy of the 1986 film. 

This is the third springtime Bike Night event at the Hammer Museum, and, again, we'll have free vegan food and a lot of other stuff happening in the courtyard. Also the museum will be open late so you can catch some art while you're there. 

Attended bike parking, and it's all free! Rad will be shown 35mm in the Billy Wilder Theater and projected video in the courtyard. So rad.

Art Fair!

Got a flat tire on the way to the fair. Maybe that's why I look like such a monster in this photo!

A new year is also just another day.

After finishing the red cardigan, I made a couple of hats. One is already lost! The other is keeping my head toasty.  A third was a failure. I bought some pretty amazing hand-spun camel hair and made a hat for Louis, but the natural color of the camel doesn't look great on him and the camel hair doesn't have a lot of natural elasticity, so I don't like the way it fits. I'm going to unravel that one and use the yarn for I'm not sure what. Now I'm making a very simple saddle-shouldered sweater out of Norwegian wild-sheep wool. I'm hoping to finish it by the time I visit Norway in March, but so far there is only one sleeve that is mostly done. It's pretty easy knitting so far, just mindless to go around and around in circles and can be done anywhere, from faculty meetings to dinner parties to sports bars. On the subject of sports bars, I just wanted to note that the unfortunately named "Big Wangs" in DTLA has a vegetarian chicken wing that has fake wooden "bones" and is super-delicious. So don't let that vegetarian lifestyle interfere with your life as a beer-drinking fight/game-watching knitter.

 The cats brought 2011 the same way that they left 2010, by being super cute and perfect. Bob has spent the last week working in the back hallway on their new litter box. We are calling it the Taj Mahal because it is completely over-the-top. Daisy and Clyde's litter box includes custom cabinetry, a sink, and a counter top. Drawers below the counter are on heavy-duty sliders so that the litter boxes can be pulled out for cleaning. The girls will access their two private spaces through cute mousehole shaped openings. Custom LED lighting is still up for discussion. Do cats need light in order to do their business?

The new year began with Louis and I hanging out on the couch in the living room. We had some people over for dinner, which is why the ugly cat-protection blanket has been removed from the couch. Looks much better this way, but maybe we just appreciate it more since we never get to see it uncovered. Clyde was too shy to appear in the photo. Sweet thing.
2011 is on!

Do Ask Do Tell Sort of Available!

 Now that "Don't Ask Don't Tell" has been overturned, it's time to celebrate "Do Ask Do Tell!"
When I first designed this piece a few months ago, I thought of it as a protest to the military ban on gays serving openly. But, unlike most of my work, this piece was designed to be manufactured as an edition, and history moved forward at a faster pace than institutional approval and production. So now, it's not a protest- it's a celebration!
In my work, I like to be able to design and wear something pretty quickly, while the topic at hand is fresh. So it's always a challenge to design something that might not move at my own pace. I'm interested in the way that time can change the work, and how the freshness of the topic can be interpreted over days and years.
We're officially in the era of "Do Ask Do Tell" now, but the kinks are still being worked out in the military. They have to somehow figure out how all this asking and telling is going to happen, how to make a bureaucratic process out of coming out.

 

 This limited edition of wearable or displayable knitwear will be available at the Hammer Museum bookstore. They are being produced as we speak, here in Los Angeles, and they should be ready in the next few weeks. Pre-orders are being taken on the Hammer website. The color of the sample piece is pink and black, but the "real" ones will be purple and black and knit from super soft merino wool. Do Tell!

Do Ask Do Tell!

Just missing the buttons...

I think I started this sweater over a year ago. Seems like forever, but it's finally finished!

I got the yarn last June at Prick Your Finger in London. The pattern is from an old Jack Frost knitting book. It weighs about a million pounds, and has a lovely sheen. I think the sleeves are about half an inch too long but other than that, it seems to fit perfectly! I just have to add buttons now and it will really be finished.

Daisy's new hat!

 

I made a hat from Norwegian wild sheep wool and put it near the window to take a picture of it, and it wasn't long before Daisy came by and claimed it for the feline kingdom. I'd made cat toys previously with this same wool, and perhaps she thought that everything I made with it belonged to her. The hat is a little big on her but it fits me well. I knit it from the top, starting with six stitches and adding another six every other row until there were enough to go around my head. 

That little devil of a cat

The gray alone was a bit dull so I spiced it up with some stripes of handpainted merino. This was a good use for this yarn, which I'd fallen in love with as a skein but then had no idea what to do with it. I made some wrist warmers and they were a disaster, a cacophony of color. 

Witchy!

Also, I have learned that spinning wool into yarn is bit like alchemy and very magical, perhaps even magickal.