...of Legos, Logos and Lemmings

Well, first, you'll notice a big of a redesign. This is where I'm at right now. Still not thrilled with the design, but I need the rest of the banner first before I can design the whole scheme. For now, it doesn't clash is about all I can say. It just seems a bit too purple for me! But give me some time. Eventually I will come up with a setup I'm happy with. In the mean time, you get a fresh new look on a regular basis! Variety is the spice of life :-D.

So why legos, logos and lemmings? Well, the logo part should be obvious. Meet Woobie... the namesake of this organization. She is my daughter's "lovey". Where did the name Woobie come from? Well, if you ask "purists", I think it originated from the movie "Mr. Mom". But in my husband's mind, it comes from his favorite -- Batman. (Yes, Batman... don't ask! LOL) Somehow, apparently there was a reference at some point in the most recent Batman series of cartoons to Barbara Gordon's childhood lovey, and it was named Woobie, so Mike became attached to the name, and it stuck! Of course, Cassie usually pronounces it something more along the lines of "bubbie" most of the time, but that's her. She is highly offended if anyone else calls her anything but Woobie! :-D And besides, it would loose that beautiful alliteration if it was named Bubbie's Wool!

Where did the legos come from -- well, that was what I used to prop up woobie when I took the photo from which I created the logo! Woobie is WELL loved (well, to be honest, there are 7 of her that are well loved, but that is another LONG and strange story...)! So she's lost some of her "resiliency". Happens to the best of us! So to get a straight photo where everything was set "just so" it required a bunch of legos underneath her. I took that photo, and spend LOTS of time playing with Elements to get something I eventually liked. As a good friend of mine puts it -- give a bunch of monkeys a typewriter and enough time, and eventually they will write Shakespeare! Well, while this obviously isn't Shakespeare, I think I did a pretty good job. But it was definitely the "monkey and enough time" approach!

Here's the original photo from which I worked. As you can see, Woobie has definitely seen better days. But as I said before, that's just the sign of a well loved toy!



And here's the after in black and white:



Obviously, the final result is the picture at the top.

So, other than making a logo, what else have I been doing? Well, preparing for our opening, which is now probably about 2 weeks away, give or take. And also, this brings us to the lemmings! I also decided to join in on the Mystery Stole 3 For those of you unaware, this is an ingenius idea by an amazingly talented designer. Every year she creates a stole pattern and an associated KAL (knit-a-long) on Yahoo. Starting June 29th, she is giving out "clues" (i.e. portions of the pattern). Each week throughout the summer, she will give out another clue. The eventual result is a complete shawl pattern. But for the moment, we have no idea what the theme is, nor what the final product looks like. But there are 6500 of us all joining along for the ride! And, of course, I needed to find a yarn appropriately suitable for such an auspicious event. What won out? Well, my Pomegranite laceweight, of course! It's been slow going b/c I've had limited knitting time, plus I joined a little late (didn't find out about it until 4th of July, and didn't get a chance to start until the 6th -- the day the second clue came out. But I'm hoping to catch up after our first Tiny Lady Cooperative stocking. In the mean time, here's my progress so far (not my best blocking job, but it was a bit impromptu. Besides, it's just to take a photo!):



The other KAL I joined (like I don't already have enough to do?!?!) Is a sock-a-long for the Perambulate Socks. I mentioned this in one of my last posts, but now I have a reasonable enough progress to show a picture:



I LOVE this pattern... it's just so cool! And it looks wonderful with the Lotus Toes Amethyst...

I've also been doing alot of spinning for the opening, but those will have to wait until after I've posted them on HC! I want at least some element of surprise! :-D

That's it for now. Enjoy!