I moved!

I have my own domain now www.davinmade.com. Come visit me there!

A Gray Day

grey and red by starburn featuring Coach bags

Today is a decidedly gray day, so I've spent most of my day doing silly girl things on the computer, instead of looking for jobs, which is what I should be doing. I've spent a couple of hours on polyvore.com making my perfect gray day outfit. Polyvore is a fun way to make mood boards online. It also has the benefit of making you feel like you're 13 again. Which is fun sometimes. Especially when you're dealing with adult things and you need a little escape.

1001 books to read before you die

I tend to spend a lot of time wandering Barnes and Nobel when I'm trying to find a decent book. If only the chick lit wasn't mixed in with all the actual literature, I wouldn't get so confused. Romance novels and fantasy are separated out, why not take out the books with shoes on the cover? I always get overwhelmed and end up with a book, I think I might have heard something good about one time. That is not a good enough reason to buy a book.

Thanks to the Ravelry forums, I just discovered a really fun way to pick my next book! It's the 1001 books before you die spreadsheet. It includes a list of 1001 important books, sorted by century, and allows you to mark which books you've read. Then it does a calculation of how many books you'd need to read each year in order to read them all before you die (you plug in your age). According to the excel sheet, I've read 72 of the books, and it means I have to read about 16 books a year if I live to be the age of a "typical western female". If I'm reading the formulas correctly, the typical death age of a western woman is 80.84.

I'm going to use this as a way to keep track of what I'd like to read next and what I thought of the books that I just finished. I added a column to the excel sheet that averages my ratings from 1-10. Right now my average is 6.458333333. It's a little high, but if you think about it, this is supposed to be a list of the most worthwhile books ever. If you look at it that way, I might actually be a little too picky for my own good.

My first choice from the list is Vanity Fair. I've tried to read it a couple of times, and somehow got distracted, so I got it for my audible book this month. Hopefully having someone read it to me will keep my attention.

Gallery Jacket 4 of 30

This is the Valley Yarns Gallery Jacket. I loved everything about knitting this sweater, the color is such a nice sophisticated gray, the springiness of the twisted ribbing, even the delightful monotony of knitting the same stitch over and over for an entire sweater.

Too bad it only looks good on people who aren't named Davin. Everyone in my family tried it on, my mom, my sister (who is modeling here, isn't she cute?), my mom's boyfriend's daughter, heck, even my mom's boyfriend! Of course, I guess it didn't look very good on him either, but man-o can this thing stretch. something about it just doesn't suit me, so it became an unintentional present for the rest of my family.

I used Cascade 220 superwash, and it made a soft fabric that I loved, and felt saddened to part with, despite the fact that I would never wear the sweater.

There was one other thing that wasn't ideal about this project. When I tried to block it, I soaked it in water as usual and it got HUGE. I mean, down to my knees huge, it could have fit about 4 of me. I nearly cried. I rushed to the internet and it told me that this happens with superwash, and that is why wet blocking really doesn't work all that well. It told me to throw it in the dryer. I was super skeptical, this sweater could have fit me if I turned into an ogre. I went to the laundromat, threw in a couple of quarters, and 20 minutes later, and it had snapped right back into shape, kind of like magic.



1. Sleepy Snake and Mischievous Mouse

2. The Silk Kerchief by Kate Gagnon

3.Intricate Stag Bag

If I had a million dollars

The other day my mom's boyfriend asked me what I would do if I had a million dollars. Almost immediately I started to describe in detail what would probably cost a decent amount more than a million dollars to attain.

First, I would pay off my student loans.

Then, I would build the Up house, minus balloons.

(picture from http://www.depotdad.com/files/picture-2.png)

and buy a few of these guys




and maybe some ducks. I would tend animals all day, taking some time to knit or cook.

I'd be rich.

My mom's boyfriend was kind of floored at how specific I was, and how not glamorous. To me, I think, assuming that I'd like alpacas (I've never actually spent much time with them) it would be just about perfect.

What would you do?

P.S. I signed up to help with the Welcome Wagon on Ravelry.com, so if you sign up for Ravelry before 7/2 and your user name starts with A, I'll be sending you a welcome message! A couple of the people I welcomed this morning accidentally got the alpaca picture too.

Best Ad Ever

(photo via http://www.toxel.com)

One of my friends just emailed me a link to this ad campaign for Henkel Mir Wool, and I just had to share. I want one of these for the cold months! It wouldn't be that hard to design, right?

Aviator Bunny

I usually have a tableaux of sorts on top of the TV, which varies from month to month, or at the very least, season to season. This month is a little stranger than usual. It kind of reminds me of Redwall, only I don't think that the rabbits in Redwall ever used snakes to chase their mouse dinner.


This little guy is the product of a Wee Wonderfuls hand sewing pattern that Hillary Lang put out. It is part of a set of five adorable little animals including a snail, turtle, butterfly, and bird. You can find them here, I meant to give him away as an Easter present, but I finished him a little too late and now he's mine.

The pattern is really cool, and it includes pieces for an "earhat", scarf, and aviators.



I kind of want to make a whole army of them. It would be interesting to use the pattern as a jumping off point for learning how stuffed animals are put together. I could alter the pattern to make them all shapes and sizes, and in the process, learn how the different pattern pieces work together to make a whole.