More Movies

Although the summaries are written by me, these are my comments.

6. Clueless – Based on Jane Austen’s Emma, Cher enjoys fixing up couples…especially when it improves her grades! Except that not all couples she  fixes up work out the ways she wants them to…starring Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, and Brittany Murphy.So nineties…but very amusing…WHATEVER!***

7. Never Been Kissed – Drew Barrymore plays a 25-year-old newspaper reporter who has never been kissed. She’s looking to move forward with her career, and is given an assignment to go undercover as a high school student. Except that high school was a disaster for her the first time….will it be so bad this time? Despite cringe-worthy moments, good stuff. ****

8. What a Girl Wants – Amanda Bynes has lived with her mother in Chinatown for as long as she can remember, and never known her father. Upon turning 17 she goes in search of her aristocratic father (played by Colin Firth).Can I just say I really, really like Colin firth even though he’s like 30 years older than me? The guy who plays her BF is pretty cute too.  ****

an open letter

Dear Meg Cabot,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing all the many wonderful books you do. As I reread through “The Princess Diaries” series – which I loved the ending to, by the way, I am struck by how AWESOME your books are, again. They are perfect escapist reading.

In fact, your books have always been escapist reading for me. The first book I read was The Princess Diaries. The second week of sixth grade, my middle school had a book fair. I saw the book and, having seen the movie about a month before, HAD to have it. I remember that as soon as I saw it I stared thinking about how I was going to get the necessary $5.99. How I did, I  have for gotten. But Tuesday of the second week of sixth grade happend to be 9/11/01. I bought it on 9/11 – which I only know because I remember reading it that night while the news was on. In my childhood, there are few times I can remember the news being on in the evening – they are: the 1996 Presidential Election, the 2000 Presidential election, and 9/11. I remember reading a little bit, watching a little bit.

From then on, your books have always been escapist reading – especially through middle school (which was the worst three years of my life thus far and I would only do it again for a million dollars a year after taxes each year for the rest of my life).When I was in eighth grade, following the second biggest snow storm I have seen, you came to Portland, Oregon. To Portland’s awesome Powell’s Bookstore (on a side note, that particular branch moved, and they demolished the building it was in. So sad!). I got to hear you speak (a lot of it was about lyme disease, which you had recently been diagnosed with). And you autographed all six of your books that I owned at the time plus the book we bought then (Boy Meets Girl, which you were touring for).

Several of The Princess Diaries books I have actually gone to the store the day they came out to buy – and Forever Princess was no exception. I bought it, started reading it on the bus on the way home, and finished it in a few hours. It ended exactly the way I wanted it to end, too! And having graduated from high school six months before, it really hit home with me. I was, admittedly, sad that it was the last of The Princess Diaries books. Please, please, please write more – about Mia in college!!! Being in college now myself, I would LOVE to read them!!!!!

Do you think you will ever write and illustrate any children’s books? Because that would be awesome!!!

Keep on writing awesome books! Kudos!

Sincerely,

Caroline, A Very Devoted Meg Cabot Fan

Sewing!

I don’t really talk about sewing on this blog…in the “About Me” part, I list it as one of my hobbies, but I don’t really talk about it. This is because when I learned to knit, knitting blogs were becoming big on the net. But I’ve been sewing since I was a little kid, and didn’t really assciate it with the web until knitting blogs started talking about sewing too.

Well, here’s what I’ve been sewing lately…

three bags...

The bottom two are box bags from this tutorial and the top one is a small cosmetsics bag derived from the box bag tutorial. All of the fabrics are from my stash…the ice cream cones and cats were fat quarters, as was the lining to the cats bag.

More movies.

3. Brokeback Mountain – two men’s lives are changed forever when they spend a summer herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain. The movie tells the story of their hidden love in a time and place where gay was not ok. Starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal.  *****

4.Chicago – a woman murders her secret lover when she finds out that he’s just using her and he’s not going to make her into a star the way she wanted. Upon her arrest, she is given the opportunity to become famous. Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones. ***

5. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Bridget Jones looks for love among the Mark Darcys and Daniel Clevers of the World. Starring Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant. ****

wow…

I didn’t mean to disappear from the blogosphere for so long! I guess I kind of got distracted…finishing up my first year of college (I passed Calc!) and then moving home for the summer (I SWEAR I’m not taking that much stuff to school next year. Seriously, it was RIDICULOUS.

In liau of picture of the knitting I’ve done/been doing, I present….

100 Great Movies

…a new feature, because I want to share, in no particular order, 100 movies I think are good. Some of them are better than others. They’re all rated out of five *****.  But I like all of them. They’ll be here and there…whenever I think to post, basically. As of now, I haven’t got a full list of 100 movies…I’m at 95. So here we go.

1. Pretty Woman – Edward (Richard Gere) gets more than he expected when he asks for directions from a Hollywood hooker named Vivian (Julia Roberts). Both of their lives are changed forever by Edward’s lack of navigational skills that lead him to hire Vivian. Edward is skillful at breaking up companies, but his skills with women leave something to be desired…until he hires Vivian for a week. (And boy, Richard Gere’s hair is so much darker on the movie poster!). CLASSIC romantic comedy. ****
2. 10 Things I Hate About You – Based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”, Patrick (Heath Ledger) is paid to win the heart of Kat (Julia Stiles), so that Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) can go out with her little sister (Larisa Olynik). Many, many good songs, including Heath Ledger singing “Can’t take my eyes off you”. Includes must-have elements of 90s teen movies: Partying, misunderstandings, and a dance.  ****

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bennet

So I finished this sweater last week….the “Elizabeth Bennet Cabled Cardigan” from Stefanie Japel’s Fitted Knits.

When I first saw this sweater, I KNEW I had to knit it….it is named after one of my favorite heroines of all time (although I think Persuausion may have surpassed Pride and Prejudice as my favorite Jane Austen novel). And it has many things I like, such as cables and seed stich and being constructed as a top-down raglan.

I modified it for a different gauge and a different bust size (I’m kind of small…who am I kidding, more often than not I have to alter patterns so that they’re smaller than the smallest size…I’m TINY) and had problems with the sleeves. Last week, I finished it (and it was raining raining raining, obviously finishing the sweater cleared it up so I couldn’t wear said sweater right away). Details Raveled here.

So I present to you…the Elizabeth Bennet Cabled Cardigan….

It’s no surprise that I took this quiz and got this result:

Take the Quiz here!

Love my new sweater, and also love the fact that this quiz confirmed what I already kind of knew: I am an Elizabeth Bennet!

Red Riding Hood Beret Pattern

Red Riding hood Beret

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, I didn’t need this beret, but I wanted to make a slouchy, lacy, red beret from the yarn I had left over from my red cardigan….this is the result!

Lace pattern based on “Little and Large Diamonds”  from Lace & Eyelets: 250 Stitches to knit from the Harmony Guides.

Materials:

180 yards Aran weight yarn – I used two skeins Debbie Bliss “Stella” (91 yards/83 meters per 50g skein, 60% silk, 20% cotton, 20% rayon), color 38009 (this yarn is discontinued).

1 US size 9 16” circular needle

1 US size 10 16” circular

1 US size 10 dpns (set of 4/5)

Gauge: 4sts/in in St st.

With smaller circular, CO 84 sts. Work in k1, p1 rib for 8 rnds. Switch to larger circular needle and work 2 repeats of lace chart.

Switch to dpns and work Dec rounds as follows:

Dec Rnd 1: K2tog around (42 sts)

Next Rnd: k2tog around (21 sts)

Next rnd: *k2tog* around, K1 (11 sts)

Next rnd: *k2tog* around, K1 (6 sts)

Break yearn w/ 6 inch tail and draw through sts. Weave in ends.

18

\

O

O

/

16

\

O

O

/

14

\

O

O

/

12

\

O

O

/

10

O

Δ

O

8

O

/

\

O

6

O

/

\

O

4

O

/

\

O

2

O

/

\

O

12

10

8

6

4

2

	Knit
O	Yarn over
/	K2tog
\	Ssk
Δ	S1, k2tog, psso

actual knitting content

So…actual knitting content!!!

here’s what I turned 8 skeins of the discontinued Debbie Bliss Stella (which was on sale at a store in Eugene) into:

The sweater is the “#6 Cropped Hoodie” from the spring/summer issuer of Knit 1. I decided not to put a hood on it, and also to put buttons on it instead of a zipper. I don’t have buttons, I’ll get them out of my family’s buttone box when I go home for the weekend in two weeks, so for now I’ m using safety pins.

The hat was out of a desire for a slouchy beret. It’s my own pattern, not too hard, I’ll post it later.

Both of these were fun! The sweater was done in 10 days, the beret done in one viewing of “Mean Girls” (and side note…just because a limit is aproaching zero doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!!! Seriously, if you’re going to have complicated math in a movie, try and make it, I don’t know, ACURATE), one viewing of the BBC “Northanger Abbey”, one episode of “Tough Live” (reality show on VH1) and one episode of “Sex and the City”. Which makes it about a four and a half hour project…not bad!!!

I really like this yarn, and it’s too bad it’s discontinued….although I like it when I can get a lot out of less than $50 of yarn!!!

Actors that make a movie worth seeing

(in no particular order)

1. Colin Firth

2. Johnny Depp

3. Heath Ledger

4. Anne Hathaway

5. Julie Andrews

6. Keira Knightly

7. Hugh Grant

8. Chris Pine

9. Julia Stiles

10. Catherine Zeta-Jones

11. Julia Roberts

12. Kate Winslet

13. Cameron Diaz

14. Jude Law

15. Jack Black

This is by no means a complete list, just the first 15 I thought of. And completely biased, of course.

Have watched “Bridget Jones Diary”, “What a Girl Wants”, “Love Actually”, and I’m either going to watch “Love Actually” again or watch “The Importance of Being Earnest”.

Which all have something in common……………..

_____ _____ Movie Marathon

Am I the only one…

…who finds it just a little funny that the star of what is probably the most popular video on YouTube currently has the name of a combination of two brands of knitting needles? (Susan Bates +Boyle)

If you haven’t seen the video, here’s the link.

Shows I have seen & loved

In the span of about a month, I saw four really fabulous shows.

Hello Dolly – I went home to see my high school do this (they do my favorite show THE YEAR AFTER I GRADUATE!!!!!!) and although it wasn’t really professional or anything, I LOVED seeing a bunch of people put on a show I know & love (I really wanted to sing along to most of the songs). And it was my favorite show I have EVER SEEN AT THAT SCHOOL (and I’ve seen shows there since I was in 3rd grade).

As You Like It – performed by the University Theatre at my school. They redid it so that it took place in Vegas and a resort-ish place outside of Vegas, but As You Like It (sort of a combonation of Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is probably my new favorite Shakespeare play.

Wicked – this has been in Portland for the past month, and I saw it over spring break. It might be MY FAVORITE MUSICAL. Although not entirely true to L. Frank Baum’s Oz books (for instance, my sources tell met there is a book about the tin woodman that tells a different story about him than Wicked does) it is really freaking AWESOME. Elphaba is just a misunderstood animal rights activist. Gotta love that. I really just wanted to turn around and watch it again afterwards.

Fame – Over spring break I also saw Fame at Vashon High School (we went to Vashon Island – in Puget Sound just north of Tacoma). They did a really good production – better than my high school’s production of Hello Dolly, actually. My only complaint is that their orchetra needs to learn about DYNAMICS. You can’t just blast through the whole show (my HS band director would have called it a blast fest). However, the leads were really good. Seriously can’t wait to see this show again sometime.

So, favorite musicals/plays?