Yarnbombing the SubZEROfestival

Yesterday was rad! The yarnbombing went off splendidly, so many sneaky stitchers came out and really impressed me with their enthusiasm and wild ideas. Josh Marcotte of Lost San Jose followed us around and shot amazing photos of the siege. He had about a dozen cameras of all types, including one that had 8 lenses to take a mini stop motion movie. I'm glad he was along, I once again didn't take any photos! We got some of those balloons up really high, so hopefully they'll stick around awhile. I think people are going to end up breaking their necks trying to get them down, but they'll do it anyway. ;) I think we may try to completely cover al the rungs of a park bench sometime in the near future. Perhaps at Caesar De Chavez park...
I had a bit of a hot glue disaster as my car got so hot that it melted a lot of the glue on my cardboard house. Cherri let me run into Anno Domini and glue it back together. I'm sooo glad I brought my glue gun! People were lining up all night to stick their head in the house, so I guess they trusted me not to put something horrible in there. I put up some pictures of the house here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evilrobot42/sets/72157624210090978/

I really wish I had thought of this earlier, Peter was saying I could have put a camera in the house to record peoples' heads popping in and out, which would have been so funny! I'm looking forward to searching for pictures of people with their heads inside, a lot of people were snapping them. I even had some guy with a blue mohawk (and matching can of blue ribbon in one hand) manage to get his head inside. I'd really like to do this again but on a waaay grander scale (keeping the dollhouse sized scale intact, just making monster-big 8 story house amoebas).

But for now, I'm really happy to get back to oil painting. I've been so busy these past few months I haven't been able to work on new paintings. I'm going to hack all of the shelving from the sketchbook show into sparkling new panels, hopefully next weekend. I'm hoping to completely rework my wall at KALEID in the next couple of months. I miss my oils so much! I even acquired some new colors second-hand recently and I'm really jazzed to start messing about with them.

Sculptures

I'm working on an installation for SubZERO (www.subzerofestival.com). I've been sculpting and building all weekend and I still have tons to do. Here are some pictures of the figures I've been making from polymer clay. I've made a total of 4 people for the project so far. I may make 2 or 3 more. The bulk of the project is being made from cardboard which is awesome because it is free! The knitting is still moving along as well, slowly thanks to my distracting new project (why, oh why can't I stick to doing just one thing at a time)? I wish I had figured out what to do for my subZERO exhibit a few months ago, I only have until June 4th to figure all of this out! Still, I guess I work well under pressure, which is good because I keep creating more of it for myself. Many thanks to Cherri for helping me figure out an awesome idea for my exhibit! I'm really excited to watch people interact with it. I think it will be funny...

The ninja beanie pattern :)

Here is how I made the Ninja Beanie! Gauge: 3 sts per inch with ww yrn (I think, lost the packaging) on size 8 dpn & cn
CO 6 sts using size 8 dpn
join in a circle
rnd 1: inc 1 around (12 sts)
rnd 2: k1, inc 1, rep (18 sts)
rnd 3: k
rnd 4: k2, inc 1, rep (24 sts)
rnd 5: k
rnd 6: k3, inc 1, rep (30 sts)
rnd 7 & all odd rnds: k

Continue in this manner, adding one knit stitch before the increase each time you do the increase round, until you have 8 stitches before the increase. (You will have 60 sts) Switch to circular needles.

(note: I did rnds 14, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28-37, 41, 42, 46, 47 & 51 in contrasting color. This is optional. You could do it with just rnds 28-37 in cc, since that is the part around the eyes that looks like a black mask!)

place a marker at the beginning of the rnd and k for 28 rnds. You may want to do a few extra rnds if your head is bigger than mine (which is entirely possible!) I measured the distance from the top of my head to my eyebrows and knitted until I got there.

rnd 29: k20, *p2, k2* rep between *s for 22 sts, k to end of rnd
rnds 30 & 31: repeat rnd 29
rnd 32: k21, BO 20 sts, k to end
rnd 33: k21, CO 20 sts, k to end (these last 2 rows create the slit that you see through)
rnds 34-36: rep rnd 29
rnds 37-52: k
work the last 13 rnds in k2, p2 rib, BO loosely
Weave in the ends and finish!

Note: you may want to add more rnds after the eye slit if your head is longer than mine is, or if you want the neck part to cover more. Or if your head is much larger around (mine is 21.5") than another increase rnd may be needed, bringing the total to 66 sts around. It's always good to check the gauge and adapt the pattern a bit to fit yourself!

Hopefully these directions are accurate, I wrote them down the day after I made it!

Ninja Beanie!

Today I made a beanie to wear (quite inappropriately) in June when I'm yarnbombing. It makes me look rather like a ninja! A very bright ninja. Randomly, I did an interview this morning with Kris Sanchez from NBC 11 about yarnbombing, I'm hoping I didn't seem totally dorky...
So it occurred to me that perhaps at some point someone may want to make a knitted balloon too (or even help make them for the bombing this June) so I've pasted the pattern I made up below. It's quite simple, if you can knit in the round it should be no problem for you! It's pretty easy to dress up with stripes, or fun stitch patterns if you like that kind of thing (and I do). Today I popped the balloons out of the knitted balloons that had dried. They make a rather delightful pop, then little crunkling noises as the balloon begrudgingly peels away from the hardened glue on the knitting. I've finished 16 balloons so far (I would have finished one more, but I got distracted and made the ninja beanie today instead)!


Knitted Balloon
(let me know if you need any clarification)
I'm using bulky yarns mostly, size 10.5 dpn and 12" circular needles

rnd 1 cast on 6 sts, divide onto 3 dpn.
join in a circle
rnd 2 increase every stitch all the way (you will have 12 sts)
rnd 3 k 1, inc 1 rep
rnd 4 k
rnd 5 k 2, inc 1 rep
rnd 6 k
rnd 7 k 3, inc 1 rep
rnd 8 k
continue in this manner to increase every other rnd, adding a k st before the inc until you have 8 sts before the inc.
K for 12 or so rnds

the decrease begins!
rnd 1 k 8, k 2 tog, rep
rnd 2 k
rnd 3 k 7, k 2 tog, rep
rnd 4 k
rnd 5 k 6, k 2 tog, rep
rnd 6 k
continue to decrease every other row in this manner, subtracting 1 k before the decrease until you have 12 sts
k 2 tog around
finish by cutting the yarn and running it through the remaining sts and knot.

Now you dip the knitted balloon in a mix of 1/2 water, 1/2 Elmer's Glue. Then you insert a balloon into the bottom and blow it up (this is kind of the gross part) and hang to dry. Pop the balloon once dry. All done!

Knitting Away

I've been working on a bunch of knitted balloons for my yarnbombing project this summer. I'm working on my 12th one right now. I'm dipping them in white glue to stiffen them for hanging. I want to try and make a ton more of them, maybe 50 or so. Depending, you know, on how much I get distracted by other stuffs... There is a facebook page for the SJ Yarnbombers now, http://www.facebook.com/sjyarnbombers
Yay sneaky knitting!
In other news, the painting for Snoopy on Ice at Great America is getting close to finished. I love how many awesome set pieces there are to pose with in a compleately cheesy way.

Small Watercolors at Cactus Gallery

I've been experimenting with watercolors! I just finished a set of 20 little pencil/watercolor paintings, you can see all of them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/evilrobot42/sets/72157623870100394/

I'm mailing them off to Cactus Gallery in LA tomorrow morning. www.eclecticcactus.com

These are sort of little tests for larger oil paintings I'm going to start working on next month as soon as I get my panels built. I'm reusing the wood from the shelves of the sketchbook show, heh heh, heh.

Upcoming Stuffs

I'm curating my first group show!
I'm quite nervous about it, but I think it will be really fun.
Music by DJ Coco, Catering by Fundamental Gourmet.
March 5th 7-9pm
www.kaleidgallery.com