How cool was March? Did you have as much fun with this as I did? Pinks and reds were all over the blogosphere!

One last pink and red hoorah…

All the pinks and reds in my world this past month… the flowers, the knits, the postcards, the books, the collectibles – I truly had rose-colored glasses this month! And some 900 of you did too! Many participants chose to showcase their projects on their blogs, while others used the Project Spectrum Flickr page. It is a great inspiration to see all of your lovely creations, and I thank you so much for sharing yourself and your creativity in this Project.

The fun is not over!! Many more colors over the next few months! Remember that Project Spectrum is a no-pressure project. It can be as big or as small as you want to make it. You can create anything you desire – please do not think you have to knit something every month! This may be primarily a knitting blog, but ALL crafts are welcomed in Project Spectrum!

As the month comes to a close (only a few minutes away!), I have a few more pink and red photos to share…

Cherry Blossom trees at the peak bloom
(Don’t forget the Festival Knit on the National Mall!)

A sweet gift from Lisa! Thank you for the lovely package! I can’t wait to play with the seed beads!

My March Postcard from Ashley! I just love it! Thank you!

I have a secret knit in the works – for a certain mother of mine who has a birthday in a few days – so knitting content has been on the DL. I did however get a few more inches on my "Pom" hoodie. I love working with this Woolarina yarn!

Little bit of red and orange combined! A perfect transition knit!

Ready for some sunshiney yellow happiness tomorrow!?

Before yarn, there was books. Books were my undying passion. I devoured them at voracious speeds. I acquired them like nobody’s business. I collected them in huge wooden cases… and I left some of them in random places for others to find. I have worked in numerous libraries, and managed a bookstore. I feel comfortable when I am surrounded by books.

However, since I began to knit, my reading rate has declined. It is possible to find the happy medium: audio books and my "read while you knit!" arrangement, but the fact remains, I don’t get to read as much as I used to. (Clarification: I don’t get to read for fun like I used to – mind you, I am a graduate student, so I have plenty of reading, but those are work, not fun!)

I saw some other Project Spectrum participants posting their red and pink books, and I thought it would be fun to have a little book talk here too. Here are a few of the red and pink books I had on my shelves. As I was pulling these out, I was amazed at all of the colors – I could easily do a book post each month with all of the colors! (Are you up for a monthly meme – show your orange/yellow/green/blue/purple/neutral books in your shelves?)

I have a large reference collection – things that I use often and will be on my shelves forever. These books are many of my school books (archaeology, religion, geography, library science and history), dictionaries, and books that were given to me as gifts. Fiction books are usually just visitors on my shelves; after reading, I often pass them off to another reader, give them to a charity, or bookcross them.

Carole tagged me for a book meme earlier this month. I usually do not post memes (although I love to read them) but this one fit so well with the whole theme of this post…

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
1984 – George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell)
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herbert

If this meme is right up your alley, I tag you!

I am taking this book slow: going month by month along the Project Spectrum wheel as I read this fascinating book about the history of colors.

Color: A Natural History of the Palette

The book does not begin with RED, but I read that chapter first. I am currently reading the Orange chapter, and am equally impressed with Finlay’s research and writing style. There is an interview with the author, as well as some various excerpts from the book, for those of you who are interested…

A little search on the internet also yielded some other color-themed books. Who wants to bring some color to their reading list?

A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield

The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy

Blue: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau

Mauve by Simon Garfield

I know that there are probably scores of other works out there that revolve around colors and the history and symbolism of colors. If you have some titles, please feel free to share!

**Many thanks to those of you that shared your thoughts in my last post. It was wonderful to read your responses and gain more insight on the issue of art and craft.

Even with a little art history in my background, it is still hard to put a finger on exactly what "Dada" is all about… and as I walked through the National Gallery’s new exhibition last week, I was utterly fascinated as to how a cultural / art movement like Dada could be a "catch all" for so many of the creative expressions in early 20th-century Europe.

(picture taken at my last visit to NGA in August 2005 – East Wing)

Dada was reactive – to the times (WWI), to the prevailing notions about what art should be, and to the whole culture in general. The people involved in the movement prided themselves in creating anti-art: things that may not be beautiful to look at, things that were so ordinary that they were overlooked, or skilled pieces that did not fit into the "fine art" description.

One of the Dadaists, Sophie Taeuber, (her likeness is featured on the Swiss franc, as Cara displayed last week) took many applied art forms, such as needlepoint, sewing and embroidery, and woodworking to show that these forms are not simply handcraft, but works of fine artistry.

Hannah Höch was another influential Dadaist; she was employed by a German magazine to write knitting and crochet patterns, and she also received very high marks for her sewing capabilities.

One of Höch’s major contributions to the Dada movement was her use of the photographic montage – a very new form that was first experimented with by the Dadaists. Many of her montages made strong political and cultural statements: about the government, about women’s role in society, and about the atrocities of World War I.

The first artist to experiment with "readymade" and found art was another Dadaist, Marcel Duchamp, a French artist who moved to New York. The most ordinary of manufactured objects became art, simply because Duchamp deemed them as such. One of Duchamp’s most famous readymades is the "moustachioed" Mona Lisa.

As I surveyed the images, and the sounds (Dadaists also experimented with sound poerty and film) I was struck by the eclecticism, and by the lines that are drawn and the definitions that separate art and craft.

What is it that we do? Do we make art? When I sit down and make a postcard for my PS pal, am I making art? am I making art when I stitch together the hem on my skirt? Sophie Taeuber’s needlepoint project is in the National Gallery of Art. Is that really any different than the needlepoint that Amy’s dad is working on? is scrapbooking any different than Hannah Höch’s photo montages? and Duchamp’s found art – the Project Spectrum Flickr page is chocked full of found art, in a beautiful array of pink and red.

Think about the objects around you. Think about the paper clips, the dinner plates, the glass bottle, the needle and thread, the crochet hook… is this art? is it craft? and in the meantime, let me know your thoughts and/or definitions of art and craft – I would love to hear from you.

Sort of pink and sort of orange – I call it pomegranate-colored yarn.

This yarn is from Woolarina – the handspun and hand-dyed yarn line of two great girls: Paula and Kate. I bought it last October at the DC Crafty Bastards Arts and Crafts Fair.

Since it is kind of pink and kind of orange, I figured I would start this project in the latter part of March and extend it into April, keeping with the Project Spectrum color themes.

I saw this pattern in the new Knitting To Go deck, and really liked the simple lines and construction. I thought it would look great in a wool (á la KnitPicks) but I decided to dig in the stash and see if any of my yarns would work. The Woolarina merino laceweight crossed my mind… I swatched at the Columbia Knit Night (fun Monday night!) and finally got gauge when I went up a few needle sizes.

About three inches into the back of the body, and I am really liking the results. It will be a great airy sweater for spring and summer – over camisoles and tanks, and will transition well into the cooler temperatures.

Although the temperatures dipped back down and things are still pretty chilly here in Maryland, the flowers and trees are starting to bloom, and the promise that spring is right aroung the corner!

So… why not celebrate spring?

The National Cherry Blossom Festival begins this weekend on the National Mall in Washington, DC!

I was talking to my girl, Heather on the phone, and we thought it would be fun to have an informal knitter meetup at the Festival!

Sunday, April 9th
2:00 pm at the Washington Monument
(See the PDF Map for Directions)

Come for some knitting, socializing, and fresh spring air!

Perhaps we could bring some blankets and find a grassy knoll to sit and knit upon? Please email me if you are interested in meeting up for the afternoon, or if you have further suggestions (like a rain location? just in case!) It would be great to see all of you there!

The April Project Spectrum Postcard Swap is about three times the size of the March swap! So, if you have not received your postcard pal’s name yet, it will be on the way shortly! I hope to get all of the emails out by this weekend.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you some of the new project ideas that have spun off from the original Project Spectrum idea. I just love to see these crafters taking the idea and running with it!

• Zarah is taking names for her Project Spectrum Hand-dyed Yarn Swap! If you love to dye your own yarn, and send fun mail packages, this swap is definitely for you! Sign up over at her blog – and make it quick – The deadline is tomorrow (24th)!
• Webfrau has taken Project Spectrum into the digital realm with her new project on the Digital Scrapbook Place. If you like scrapbooking and web design and art, you have to check out this great idea! More details on her blog.
• Lynne started Project: Colorswap, a Secret-Pal style swap where all items in the package match the month’s color. Although sign-ups are already closed, it will be fun to watch what the recipients make and swap with each other!
• Mama-E rolled out some of her new hand-dyed sock yarns… and look at that! There is a colorway named after yours truly! It is yellow and orange – perfect for April! (She is taking orders!)

Mama-E was kind enough to send me a lovely hank of the eponymous colorway, and although it is a little early for the yellow/orange extravaganza, you can see how beautifully this yarn is knitting up! I am doing a simple lace eyelet cuff on this sock, and with this yarn, it looks like a HONEYCOMB! So, that is what I will call them. Yum!

Have a wonderful Thursday!

A wonderful and productive weekend comes to a close…

Strawberry Swirl Socks
Yarn: Hill Country Yarns Sweet Feet in "Strawberry Swirl" colorway
Pattern: Basic 3 x 2 ribbed cuff with German heel and toe pattern
Needles: Size 2 Aluminum DPNs

These socks were a great knit – simple pattern and lovely yarn. The variegations in the yarn turned into a pretty fabric. Hill Country Yarns has so many lovely colorways to choose from (plus all of the ones they have not unveiled yet specifically made for Project Spectrum!) that all of them really tempt me! These socks took a little less than a month to complete, as I had some other projects requiring some attention.

These socks played double time – counting for a Project Spectrum knit, as well as a completed pair for the Red Hot Sizzling Socks knitalong, hosted by Becky.

While we stayed in town this weekend, things were still busy. On Friday night, I attended a Purim play with my girl, Bec. It was a parody of "West Side Story", written by Bec’s mom – it was called "Middle East Side Story". Cute adaptations of the classic songs with the Purim story; I was humming and snapping for the rest of the evening!

Saturday morning started early with aerobics and yoga; both were wonderful! I feel as positive as ever about my lifestyle change as I continue to see results. Not only am I losing weight, but I feel so well! With the regular exercise regimen and a more strict diet over the last 5 weeks, I have managed to shed 17 lbs.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to the movies – the first time in many months. We saw V for Vendetta. Very thought-provoking.

On Sunday morning, Kris and I met Bec for a bagel brunch. After a fun time and good conversation, we headed over to the natural market. I brought my camera along, as I had a good feeling that there would be some great reds to capture…

In the market for some reds…

Radishes, peppers, apples, and chard – all red and delicious!

All of the lovely vegetables and fruits were ready for their photo shoot!

Remember, tomorrow (the 20th) is the deadline to sign up for the April Project Spectrum Postcard Swap. I will begin randomly assigning pals and sending out emails on Tuesday through Thursday of this week – there are so many participants this time around, so please be patient if you do not receive a name right away – it will be on the way!

Have a good week!