Jobs

I finally got a job here in Portland that I believe is best suited to my needs.
It is a bit far, but I figure I can just take the bus and knit the whole way there.

YARNGARDEN!

it's a wonderful place and the owner is such a wonderful lady.

wonderful wonderful wonderful.

i'm very excited about tomorrow, it's my first day! it's a training day, and i should be there from 10am-2pm.

she said i could do some sample knitting and it's free!
the best part about this job, is that in the interview i brought a couple pieces of my portfolio with me... including the entrelac gloves i've been working on for so long!

she said i'd be able to teach, no problem. especially with a pattern like that. If I teach a class, not only do i get moneys for doing that (about 50-85 bucks an hour, depending) but i'll be able to sell my pattern to people and make all the money off of those! the job also gives me insight on whether or not i would want to own my own yarn shop/cafe... although, Linda (the owner) says she's getting rid of the cafe room and turning it into a classroom. Although, we will still have coffee and tea - it'll just be free this time around for all the customers. She found it to be quite impressive that I knew how to make coffee, which was fortunate for me.

yesterday, in celebration of the new job, old friends and i drank and were merry. we got a breakfast lunch out at a cafe and Brandon created a fantastic elixir that I will share with you... it was absolutely mind blowing!

take a punch bowl and fill it with ice...
then!
a couple of tall boys of pabst blue ribbon
a couple cups of vodka
and a half to full can of frozen orange juice or lemonade concentrate...
or you could use pink lemonade and call it a Pink Panty Pulldown, like we were calling it... alliterations are extra fun when you're drunk

i sure miss you guys!
miss nancie is coming to see me!
i also hear train tickets are nice and cheap....

An Ode to Flavors of Memories...

Listening to JUSTICE, so fucking hot like... a year ago. give me a break, pffb!

Safely arrived in Portland after a long road trip with my mother to get here. Although the ride is tough, I feel like I go through some kind of weird PTSD thing where I automatically forget the ridiculous emotional and mental pain I went through to get to where I was going... it's a rough ROUGH road, 16 hours. yessir, let me tell you...

Anyway, I recently experienced a spoonful of the new flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream... It's called Cinnamon Buns, yes. I was so inspired by this particular flavor, I decided to take up my word with the big guys...

"Dear Ben & Jerry's,
I used to work at one of your very fine establishments. To be honest, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Sure, a summer job scooping ice cream in a beach city with all your high school friends and making a butt load of money doing so sounds fun in itself... but getting to sample your wide and VAST collection of delicious and meticulously concocted ice creams truly made the experience something I will cherish forever. I am currently enjoying a spoon of your new flavor Cinnamon Buns and have to say that, so far, it is my favorite flavor. This flavor in particular has inspired me to write this message to you, thanking you for this magic I am currently sharing with all of you at Ben & Jerry's.

Laura Lewis 21; Portland, OR

P.S. Willie Nelson's Peach Cobbler flavor is totally rank... despite however much I may love the man."


Yes, life is trés good... I miss you all.

As far as knitting is concerned, I've been very very busy writing my very first actual documented pattern that I think you will all love.

I've also got a new blog/website I'm thinking about setting up - along with a few other tricks up my sleeve.

That's all for now lovelies.

SOOOOO

FIRST THING'S FIRST, check out this amazing site someone sent me:

http://gallery.andreas.id.au/knitting.html

I have no idea who did these, which is a real shame because they look like someone's thesis project. They are so beautiful and well constructed. I wish I knew the scale on them. Anyway,



So it's march the 1st and I haven't posted since December the 29th! what a bummer!
i've been busy with school and sometimes (most times) doing anything else is totally tedious.

so there is much to be said!

1. my 21st birthday is on the 15th
2. spring break is coming on the 24th
3. got a new AMAZING pipe
4. i gots babies!

i'm turning 21 on saturday, march the 15th. it's pretty awesome, but pretty bizarre and scary. i'll be a bona fide adult... i'll be able to rent a car and tell kids about back in my day when we had dial up internet and ace of base. yes, those were simpler times.

spring break is coming and it should be awesome. it will be the first spring break where i can essentially do whatever the fuck i want with some legal limitations... but not ALL legal limitations as far as age goes. with that, it shall be incredible. i didn't, however, think ahead and invited my little sister nikki (15 years with epilepsy) to hang out for the whole week. bad idea? we'll just have to see about that when it comes around.

this amazing pipe that i got... well... it's amazing. it's a vapor pipe! now, i don't know if you guys are familiar with vaporizers, but they are pretty fucking amazing. basically, instead of the flame touching the herbs (whether it be weed or lavender or mint or chamomile or anything!) it heats a volcanic rock just before touching the herbage so it bakes it instead. What does this do laura? you ask. well, instead of giving off dangerous toxic carcinogen filled smoke, it just gives off the vapors created by the herbs reaching a certain level of heat given off by the even distribution of volcanic rock filtration with a regular bic lighter.

translation: better for you, better high!

tastes just like REGULAR vaporizers, only completely portable AND not 300 dollars! and! there's more!

the top screws on so it's completely spill proof, AND it's powder coated so it's durable as hell. i've dropped it at so many parties it's ridiculous. with a glass piece, you'd have to go to the nasty head shop and buy another and haggle and bargain... fuck that! with the Vapor Buddy, you can count on having a good time, every time.

and there is my spiel, hopefully they will give me my own line of designer proto pipes. here's what mines looks likes:

VAPOR BUDDY!

lastly, world... ladies, especially... meet Dude & Walter:







The Dude









Walter


these are pictures of when they were little babies. they're a little bigger right now. currently, they are the pride and joy of my life. i love them immensely and it's incredibly embarrassing. i went to this party last night and they were pretty much all i talked about. some people are cat people, some people are dog people, i'm DEFINITELY a rat person. absolutely, no questions.

i sure miss you guys and i sure love you guys.

laura

ode to a french man

sea lion woman by feist

what a man!

today was excellent, the ladies and i all met at the coffee bean, had lunch at royal bakery, and went to anacapa's for a while.

i had to leave all early because my boyfriend told me to come home and talk to him, to which i obliged.

i truly love my man. look at this morning face!



you can't beat that, not one bit. when we break up - i will have to find another french man, no question.

also, he asked me to marry him this afternoon. i said no, of course... but in 5 years, if he's still around? forget about it!
so now he calls me his fiancée, and i call him my french man.

i think that's a good enough excuse for my "get up and go" behaviour today.

Zig Zags and Half Tone Apples

Animal Collective - "Leaf House"

Oh lord! It's been a long time coming!

I have so much to tell you!




I finally finished my Squirrely Swedish Mittens and I couldn't be more happy!

I used a Temple Turquoise and Blue Blood Red yarn by Wildfoote.


IT SNOWED IN PORTLAND! of course, I had just smoked a bowl of "TOBACCO" and this guy next to me was like,

"where are you from?"
"uhhhh... fucking like... somewhere that it doesn't FALL FROM THE SKY"

he LITERALLY just backed away from me slowly and didn't say anything. i felt weird and awkward for about TWO SECONDS and then marveled at how the sky was falling right on my eyelashes. it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen.


As per Miss Becky's request, I am showing you pictures of my drawing class midterm. It's about 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall.

(DISCLAIMER:this is a joke, i didn't really make pot brownies nor do i smoke weed. it's bad for you and puts holes in your brains. please do not smoke or ingest weed unless you bought it from reputable sources through the state appointed government regulated medical marijuana program located in states like California or Oregon! thanks!)

Speaking of WEED! I went home for Thanksgiving and before I did i ate two FAT FUDGY HOME COOKED BROWNIES with about a dub of pot in it. genius! Here's my recipe:

What You'll Need:

- 6 squares unsweetened chocolate
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter (12 tablespoons or a stick and a half)
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
- 1/8 oz weed (optional!)
(for you dime baggers, that's 4 ounces... or 4 dimes!)

Take the butter and put it in a small saucier pan over low heat, you want the butter to froth a little, but make sure it's a deep enough pan so the butter doesn't get too hot AND doesn't brown too much (although browning the butter just a bit does provide an overall nutty taste in the brownies - but remember, browning it too much means BURNT!)

PREHEAT YOUR OVEN TO 325!!!

now you're going to have to crush the weed to make sure all the leaves and crystals and hairs have a chance to intermingle with the butter evenly. i have what's called a Chromium Crusher which is essentially a "tobacco grinder" sold at any head shop, or if you are a fellow venturian, Salzer's! If you don't have a "bud buster", you can ALWAYS use your food processor - but remember, what's left in the bowl is gonna be left OUT of your brownies.

now that the butter is melted down with a bit of froth, go ahead and add the weed.

(i know what you're thinking, sheesh! waste an 1/8th? but this is a great high, and it utilizes ALL of the weed, including the stems which you don't really want to smoke anyway because it's super harsh on the throat... not to mention, ingesting the weed doesn't give you red eyes or the delightfully hilarious but offensive odor. ANOTHER THING, ingesting weed is great for your lungs which can super suffer from long term smoking use, even with a bong or water pipe! so just TRY it for pete's sake! if you DON'T like them, they make excellent and hilarious all-encompassing holiday presents for your in-laws, especially if they don't know what's in them..)

let the weed and the butter steep for about half an hour to really let it all come together. the longer it stays on the heat, the more thc will be released... like i said though, be careful about burning it. then strain the butter into a glass bowl that fits into a saucier but doesn't touch the bottom of the pan. (these brownies will be much better than the ones you had in high school where some nobody just dumped a bag of weed into some box brownies - these are gonna be straight DANKENSTEIN)

alright!!! so, now you will take 6 squares of unsweetened chocolate in a glass (or stainless steel) bowl over an inch of water in a sauce pan. this is called double boiling! yay! new techniques!

mix the chocolate and the butter together until they are nice and melty and warmy and gooey. do not eat this! it's going to be super yummy, but we need it! (maybe you can dip a finger or two in it)

Now stir the sugar into the chocolate until it is well blended and take the chocolate OFF the heat.

mix your eggs together with a fork (not a whisk because you might add too much air to the mixture) and do a TEMPER on the eggs.

this is when you add a little bit of the warm chocolate to the eggs that you've whisked so that it doesn't cook the eggs too quickly. you want to just bring them up to temperature by gradually adding about a 1/4 of a cup of chocolate at a time (nobody wants chocolate scrambled eggs... maybe). once you have about a full cup of chocolate mixed into the eggs, NOW you can add the egg/chocolate mixture to the original double boiling bowl.

add the vanilla and take the bowl onto the counter.

stir in your flour and your nuts (making sure not to OVERMIX) and place the batter in a greased 9x13 glass baking dish. bake for 30 minutes!

et voila!

i know it SEEMS like a lot of work, but it's really not -- essentially, the recipe seemed so long because of all the added crap about how to do things you probably already knew!

these brownies should be unfuzzy for a couple weeks in a ziplock bag in the fridge, although in my house they never keep that long...

Fudgey, Crispy, Crunchy, Dense, and Chocolatey! Just the way mama made them.

anyway, i love you guys and really consider making a dish that's fun for the whole family... pot brownies! an age old and often neglected tradition.

Laura Anne

p.s.
NEW HAIR, NEW PLUGS, NEW JACKET! loves it!!!

my lordy loo!

it's been a month since i last updated and things are going swimmingly!

i've been going to class and enjoying my classes.

i left the flue open and now soot has blown all over the living room and all over my laptop. it has also blown all over some of my work for drawing and design, but it wipes off easily.

i miss you guys so much! my life is so cluttered and all over the place!

i can't wait to come home for christmas and thanksgiving.

anyway, this isn't such a detailed entry - more so a hurried one. i love you all and hope to see you soon!
laura

Capital Knockers, madame.

my boyfriend, i love him so much now.
i don't know how he did it, but i am truly enamored...
look at this letter he sent to me in the mail:

"mon amour, je t'aime. je t'envoie ses 2 petites photos pour être un peu plus avec toi et pour que ta penses à moi à chaque dois que tu regardes ses photos. je sais que c'est trés dur pour toi de vivre seule et de penser à moi tout le temps sans pouvoir me toucher mais je pense que toute cette attente et cette patience doivent être vécus pour que notre futur soit plus beau. je t'aime et je t'aimerais toute ma vie.
p.s. nos nuits passées ensemble me manque terriblement..."

(a small letter he wrote on a the back of a picture, it's on my fridge now!)

You will just have to find out for yourself... unless you're Nancie, in which case you probably understand fully.

yes, even though he's gone - i'm incredibly happy... although i would be happier with him around.

mon dieu, i'm so tired all the time. i have no time, i'm almost glad my Yoyo isn't around because then i would have no time for all my work!

loook at these incredible knitted finger puppets i found at last thursday:




also, i got this excellent piece of outsider art at the same last thursday for only $10:




i love you all so much and i'm coming home for thanksgiving... i'm not so sure if we will have time to chill - i'm sure we'll make time.

BISOUXXXX