Being a Torontonian is as close as you can get to being Asian while at the same time being a tall, blondish white girl. I love Asian fashion, and my favourite knit bloggers are either Asian themselves or make copious use of Asian style. Of course, there are some down sides to this: I wish I were as rail thin as the bloggers I read, but I’m a bit plumper in the T and A regions. This leads me to many situations where I say “I will knit this sweater that this Asian girl modelled” and then realized that in order to do so, I would have to become a shape shifter. A mammary changeling, if you will.

Well, I am in that situation again. I love the above sweater, but I don’t know if it would look good on a round-eye*. I am also distracted by the 30+ bug bites I got a few days ago at an outdoor concert in Sudbury, land of mosquitoes. Maybe I’ll bookmark it and when I finish my current sweater (soon!), I can put more thought into it. I like the addition of sleeves, too. Hmm… decisions, decisions…

* This is me being edgy. I also plan on taking back the word gaijin.

I’ve been in Europe for 3 weeks and I just got back. I’ve had another insane month but I wanted to check in a little bit. This isn’t fibre-related but they are animal- producing- fibre- related: here are some instructions for making rice balls look like sheep!

How to make sheep rice ball

Check out this cute Sock Giraffe! It’s one of a few sock animal patterns: a Sock Giraffe, Hippo, Turtle, and Pig. The hippo is my favourite.

I’ve been blogging for 10 years.

I couldn’t find any animated cake gifs that were hilarious enough, but I did find lots of marios. And so, to celebrate my Blogiversary, you are getting marios:

Ten marios each, for each of the 10 years I have been blogging. And in honour of 1999: Booyah!

Craft Sound Tip #1:

If you want to mimic the sound of aliens communicating via subfrequencial televibrations, walk around with a small cellophane bag filled tightly with googly eyes.

These glasses is super sex.

Are you serious??? Adorable.

They’ve already been sold, but check out this eye candy by Jennifer Morris! Not only is it beautiful to look at, but you can learn a lot about styling by looking at the various images for each set of jewelry. The various backgrounds used above highlight different aspects of the objects, and I love the effect of what looks like a lensbaby (or something similar, judging from the chromatic aberration). Absolutely gorgeous images.

Via Lobster and Swan.

Wanted to throw this one out there in case there is a knit blogger on earth who doesn’t read brooklyn tweed. Rowan Lima is constructed as i-cord, taming alpaca fibres and, I imagine, making for some interesting texture. Will I restrain my tight-fistedness enough to buy a ball… or two? Only time will tell.

We may not have enough science funding, and our Prime Minister might be a dork, but I love this country and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Here are some things I love about Canada:

1. Moose
2. Blueberries in Sudbury!
3. Tommy Douglas, who brought us Universal Healthcare and was voted one of the greatest Canadians. Our healthcare system has saved millions of lives (especially the poor ones, which American media folks seem to have forgotten in their haste to bash the fake Canadian system they’ve conjured up from anecdotes about Medicare), including that of my aunt.
4. Canadian David Suzuki. ‘Nuff said.
5. Diversity in Toronto
6. Beach on St. Joseph’s Island
7. Caribana
8. Canadian Snow
9. A deer I ran into (on campus!) who was about 10m away but looks really far because I only had a cellphone camera
10. Mr. Dressup
11. The beau’s cottage
12. Kingston Sheep Dog Trials