The Night They Invented Champagne

It's plain is it can be- they thought of you and me! Especially when they were making the movie Gigi, one of my absolute favorite movies of all time starring the amazing French actress Leslie Caron as Gigi, and of course Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier. It is one of the prettiest movies ever made, besides having a wonderful plot and an insanely wondeful cast. The music is also excellent- I have the entire soundtrack and now the movie on my ipod and I love to listen to it in the car!!!










It's about a young woman named Gigi, her coming of age, and her decision that she basically refuses to become a very high-class prostitute, despite the best efforts of her family. In the end she triumphs, and is finally accepted the beautiful adult lady that she truly is by the person she loves- played by Louis Jourdan. He returns to her with honorable intentions after he learns how truly special she is, and that he must appreciate her as an adult woman, worthy of being treated as such, even though she is poor and female. She turns his whole world upside down :).



The movie is uncommonly beautiful- as is Leslie Caron as always and of course as is Fance. It shows turn-of-the-century France in such a spectacular and colorful way, and it just amazes me. I looooove this movie so much- can you tell? I took lots of printscreens to show off!




















Gigi drinking champagne during the song "The Night They Invented Champagne"
Well it's been a champagne day today. I knitted, and I am working up the right sleeve steadily, but best of all guess what: MY DRESS FORM CAME! It too is uncommonly (that's a good word huh?) beautiful. I took pictures of it from when it first came out of the box to remember my excitement. I was a bit nervous at first, the box came with no directions and at first I was a little confused about how to put the legs on, but it all worked out in the end!

The dark wood is sooooo beautiful and French looking. It really is like an artificial me, and I am now sure it will serve its purpose quite well- I tried Celeste on it and now I know what it looks like on my back. Before I had to stand awkwardly with my back to the mirror and try to look over my shoulder at it, but now I can not only see it from the back, but pin and adjust it. I love this sooooo much.

I will send more pictures of it later- I need to take better ones. :)

Oh and one more thing about Gigi- It also features my future bathroom. Gigi's aunt has what is quite possibly the most beautiful house in the world and in it there is the world's perfect bathroom. In what other movie could there possibly be a lace-draped bathtub?
























I think I shall name the dressform Mireille, after the main character from French in Action but I don't know yet. I don't even know if naming it is such a good idea. Since it has the bearing of a real person... one with almost my exact same shape ironically enough... I sometimes find myself accidently thinking it is a real person when I walk into the room and find myself getting a big shy. Hahahaha I swear, I got all shy last night when I walked into my own room!!! It was like a headless woman sitting there staring at me! "With every turn of your head you see her face again" (Within Temptation's "Jane Doe" look it up, it's a really good song). But now I'm used to it and I love having it near me at night so I can even examine it in bed. It is serving its purpose wonderfully as a decoration too, my bedroom has never looked prettier with it here to brighten things up. It definitely adds a little "Frenchiness" to it!

Serenity

I finished the right sleeve cuff for Celeste today, and it is being blocked now so that I can pick up and knit along one selvedge edge to work the sleeve in the round. Of course before I do that I have to graft the 21 stitches at either end of the flat work so that it will be a circle and I can knit the sleeve in the round from it. Here's a picture:

I am only lightly blocking this so I thought I would spend an hour or so blogging here :) in the meantime.

I love many things: reading, science (scientesse get it?), French stuff, movies... all things beautiful. I love music too... all sorts of music. My favorite singer is Sarah Brightman, and as of right now my favorite band is the Dutch symphonic metal band Within Tempation!

I share my love of Within Tempation as well as my love of science and science fiction (in particular the shows X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, and FIREFLY) with my amazing, awesome, crazy BFF, Anya (that's not her real name but for the sake of internetness it is now). So in honor of Anya I am blogging in particular about hers and my favorite things.

First up Within Tempation- lead singer is the amazing Sharon Den Adel, who Anya made some pretty amazing collages of which can be seen at her website (the link is also at the bottom of the page) http://www.anyaprynn.com/

Favorite songs from WT include: Jane Doe, Jillian, The Howling, Stand My Ground, What Have You Done, and The Heart of Everything :) and of course all of them! I looooove the live Black Symphony album which includes all the songs sung with all necessary special guests- Keith Caputo we love you :)

Anya also got me crazy into the amazing scifi show X-Files- yay Mulder and Scully. I am now on Season 6!!! My mother and I love them, and we watch them together in order (pretty much :)) and we recently watched the movied, Fight the Future, the link between seasons 5 and 6!!! It was soooo good! Anything X-Files is good :)!

Mulder and Scully printscreen from season 1 episode Darkness Falls:

Didn't it come out nice?! I have that episode on my ipod. Anya has a fanfiction that makes a whole buncha referances to it too she loves it.

Then of course there's the show Firefly... I don't know quite how to explain Firefly... futurstic scifi- rebels against an evil alliance that pretends to be perfect... classic plotline but still it has amazing characters and its own special take on everything. It has an awesome diverse cast too. I wrote my own fanfic in honor of Anya, and she made me my own collage of one of our favorite characters, the beautiful Inara:

This can of course also be seen on her website :)

Don't you just love the background she chose? :) She makes her collages in a program called GIMP, and she is obviously the GIMP queen see her website for proof! Anyway today has been a serene day, so I decided to title the blog Serenity because that is how I feel plus that is the name of the ship from Firefly.

Celeste Left Half Done!!!

Me again! I have finished the left half of Celeste from French Girl Knits and I am soooo happy! It came out beautiful, and I am really happy with the results. Sigh... I love the yarn. It is Rowan's Kidsilk Haze! I put a picture up of my materials and my finished left half on my bed. (Note the long strings of cotton yarn as makeshift stitcholders :o)

It went surprisingly fast, and I am looking forward to making the left half and finishing the whole project. After that I want to make quite a few other patterns from the book.

I did try it on, and has such a wonderful drape. It has graceful fluidity, and it compliments my figure and movements. The yarn feels soooo wonderful next to the skin. It feels like wearing magic fairy cloth or something :)! I am very proud that I have come this far, and I have learned so much from this project- oh la la short rows, side-to-side seamless construction, that bell sleeves are AMAZING...

Geeze the yarn even smells good in my opinion! Side-to-side seamless construction is also AMAZING expecially with Kristeen Griffin-Grimes's (geeze that's a heck of a lot to type) special kick where she makes it totally seamless except for the kitchener stitch graft up the center back where the right and left halves meet. As you can see in the picture, this pattern is worked in two vertical halves that will be grafted later.

Each half starts at the bottom of the sleeves, which are knit in the round up until about the shoulder area. Then more stiches are cast on and knit across on one side of the shoulder. Once you have knitted across those stiches on one side, pick up and knit down that same side, and now you have stitches on the both sides of the same cast on. The side seam for that half is "sewn" this way. Then the work for the body continues in rows knitting with the these stitches. Right side rows begin at the back hem and progress up and over the shoulder and down to the fron hem. So the construction is side to side as opposed to the traditional bottom-up or top/down sweaters with their vertical construction.

Okay I know this sounds really confusing and scary and hard and oh no no no, but get the book and read the author's instructions and see the pattern and you'll be like "ooh that sounds fun let me do this... and then when you're done you'll be like "wow that was easy, yay"... really I'm so glad I just went ahead and did it. I was afraid at first- this technique was soooo new to me especially since I have only ever made sweaters in pieces and with very basic construction. I am soooo glad I did this- I may never go back to "made-in-pieces" again.

Salut :)

Salut

It's my birthday today and I am very excited and happy because I have ordered my first dressform in honor of above-mentioned birthday to be used for my knitting projects. I was inspired by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes's amazing book French Girl Knits, which focuses on beautiful seamless construction of graceful figure-flattering garments. With the dressform I will be able to get an idea of the drape and "flow" of the garment I am knitting on my body as I am actually knitting, so it won't be so much guesswork... well that is if this works out that way it's planned :)!

It will of course be very decorative. I might paint it or cover it in fabric- maybe toile!!! Ooooh..


Here's a picture of the one I bought:

I got a white one too, only mine is going to have black wood!!! Very exciting :) yay!!! ok

I also got my very first, very own, personal nobody else has ever used it or ever will... LAB COAT so happy :)! My life is now complete I have all the yarn for my current project, a great geoscience textbook, glasses, and one HECK of a labcoat. It even has a special tie in the back to make it figure-flattering! Gasp! Will probably blog more later since this is fun... hmm... au revoir