Saturday, March 29, 2008

Still in Love

Oh yeah, still loving the intarsia in the round. This yarn is absolutely wonderful, really buttery-soft and yummy, and not only am I certain we don't get it here in the US, but I'd also bet money (if the Australian yarn manufacturers operate the same as those here) it's no longer available in Oz either. Not that I mind, actually, since I have so many other yarns that I haven't yet knitted with, not to mention the ever-expanding pile of handspun; luckily the new job will slow the spinning down. Hmm, that's lucky? Uh, well, in  way, I suppose.
And a bit of yarn porn, SOAR scraps yarn porn, to be precise. It looks nicer than it feels. It's mostly medium wools, spun too fine and tight. But pretty!
And I saw another wonderful movie (and made incremental progress on the Architectural Rib sweater): The Power of Words with Tim Robbins and Sarah Polley. This one's about a slightly strange Eastern European woman (to judge by her accent) who is a nurse for a guy on an oil rig who was badly burned. She has a few odd habits (she uses a fresh bar of soap every day, tossing the old one, for example) and won't talk about herself - she won't even say where she's from or what her name is, so you keep watching in the hope you'll find something out, but when she eventually talks, it's far more powerful than you'd have thought.

I also made more earrings for my class, but took a crappy picture, so it'll have to wait for another time.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

I Swear, Officer, I Completely Forgot

Some years back, intarsia was the default for me if we were talking colourwork in knitting, and we usually were. I have a rather oversized tunic sweater with Jenny Kee flowers splashed across the front and down one sleeve, I have a Tumbling Blocks sweater, and the beginnings of a cardigan with a view of Cape Town as seen from Blouberg Strand. I've even used mohair in an abstract intarsia sweater. Seriously.

Somehow or another, the last decade or so, it seems I just couldn't be bothered, or stranded was more fun (not that often, but from time to time), or mitred squares or other modular knitting techniques gave me the colour fix I needed. Sometimes stripes (ok, I admit it, I've taken this lazy path) were even my colour combining technique of choice.

I've mentioned my Bermuda Rectangle of UFOs, but the truth is, this is not a well-contained area, and some UFOs have been quietly tucked away in other places. 

One UFO fell off the shelf yesterday, although truthfully, calling half an inch of 2x2 ribbing a UFO might be stretching the truth a little, since it was barely even started. On the other hand, it was replete with a hand-drawn chart on a very large sheet of graph paper in the shape of a tank top (armholes, front and back necklines clearly charted) with a rather psychedelic intarsia design, its screamingness somewhat mitigated by my yarn choice, a pastel palette that I (who, me??) bought in Australia on my first trip for my middle brother's wedding. His tenth anniversary was on Saturday.

The ribbing had to go.

Many of the socks I make start with a strip of garter stitch, joined into a circle in lieu of cuff ribbing, and actually, I may have used the same technique in a sweater or two. Since the swirly-pie design of the tank top placed three colours along the bottom edge, and since the length looked suspiciously short on the chart, I reasoned that a sideways garter stitch welt could easily serve double duty as a stable base and an extension of the design, so I cast on ten stitches and proceeded to watch the last two episodes of Lipstick Jungle (ok, from time to time I watch shallow chick stuff)  online while I knitted one ridge for each stitch along the bottom edge of the tank top. I then joined the start to the end and proceeded to pick up stitches for the front and back (by this time I was watching Samantha Who? online) and began to work my charted swirly-pie intarsia design in the round.
Granted, we're talking very smooth, slick cotton-blend yarn.

Granted, it's only three colours so far.

Man, am I enjoying the hell out of it! I forgot how much I enjoy this stuff, how much I love the way it looks and why on earth haven't I done more of it since, well, whenever the last time I did it was? Seriously, why not? I swear, I completely forgot how much I love intarsia, and I forgot how smug I feel when I do intarsia in the round.

No sewing up.

No weaving in ends (I do it as I go) except for the tails after I cast off the neckbands and armhole bands (although I might decide to make cap sleeves, depending on the yarn remainder situation which as we've seen here, I'm not very good at, estimation-wise).

But that's not all I've been doing.

I completed another set of sample earrings with instructions.
I think I'm done with merino-tencel for now.

Truthfully, these yarns are destined to be in a striped-ish pullover.

Every year when I get back from SOAR, there's the goodie bag, which has fiber samples, sometimes lots of them. If I've taken a spinning workshop, and/or spinning retreat sessions, depending on the mentor, I might have copious fiber remainders. Some mentors give bigger or more samples and expect you to spin small amounts only, so the only way to use up all the samples would be by doing what we generally call homework, but which of course technically is not, since the whole point of SOAR is that it's not at home, and anyway, Dan has the cheap swill, which takes precedence. This means that I often get home from SOAR with odds and ends of fiber. Sometimes there's quite a bit.

What I have waiting for me at home is My Baby, a Patrick Green Supercard, without doubt the best (and most expensive) toy I own. My spinning wheels are my workhorses, My Baby is my toy. When the SOAR leftovers are substantial enough, I spend a couple of hours of carding, and come up with something like this.

Then, when the mood strikes me, I spin them (please excuse the awful picture. It's very dull today, and the ambient light just didn't hack it and I wasn't using a tripod).
And while I work my way through my little pile of rovings, I can take my time in deciding what the next spinning project will be.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Watch This Movie

There have to be at least two buyers of movies for my local public library, because I can't believe that the same person would have picked both "The Prince & Me" and "The Station Agent", even though the same person chose to check both of them out.

"The Prince & Me" is even sillier and more improbable than "Pretty Woman", which offended me terribly at the time of its release, as I was annoyed that it was being passed off as being within the realm of the possible, even if it is an entertaining piece of fluff. "Pretty Woman", that is. "The Prince & Me" only vaguely approximated entertaining, but was good enough for plying, which is hideously boring unless it's being done in parallel with something else. Like watching a very silly romantic comedy.

"The Station Agent", on the other hand, was a delight from start to finish. The actors all looked vaguely familiar, and by the end of the movie I'd convinced myself that I'd seen them in other movies or on TV or something, but it's entirely possible that an hour and a half lent them some familiarity to me. Either way, it's a lovely little exploration of the nuances of the way people relate to each other: friendships, ultimately. Quirky characters, lovely acting, gorgeous scenery.

Meanwhile I've been making samples and writing instructions.
Yes, it's an earring class. Yes, there will be more earrings.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Eye Candy

I've been knitting and making what feels like no progress; I just love that. 

Tthe big time sink has been preparation for BeadFest Miami for a class for which I so far have ZERO people signed up. The deal is that they allow registration until fifteen minutes before the start of class, so in theory I should be prepared for twenty students, even with none signed up before I leave home. 

Naturally, the classes which do have people enrolled either have kits or are classes I've taught before or both, so I have instructions and supplies and it's just a question of printing and packing, and if the class isn't full, then hey! I have kits already packed. The null-attendee class is therefore one I have not yet taught, nor do I have instructions, and it of course requires much more extensive samples, instructions, supplies and effort than the other classes combined.

I think there must be a made-up law relating to this somehow, like Lubarski's Law of Cybernetic Entymology which simply states "There is always one more bug", but if there is, I neither remember it, nor do I have the witty wherewithall to come up with same.

I'm done with the moans now.

To reward myself, I've been making bits and pieces to sell in my Etsy shop:
Actually, I've been spinning more merino-tencel which has been giving me a great sense of accomplishment since I've been spinning it on the thicker side, about a light worsted weight in a three-ply, which is considerably faster than a three-ply sport-weight. Very satisfying. 

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed

Well, unwashed to be sure:
This will be much prettier once it's washed, but I think it's rather nice now all the same. Still, I'm so over spinning purple yarn (the last humungo twelve-ounce skein was even more avowedly purple than the above) but I have to say, I'm loving this merino-tencel, and luckily, there's more that's not so purple, most of it interestingly enough from Traci Bunkers (I luuurrve her colours), though the partially hidden lot at left front is sort of pink and blue, the sludge version, which may be perilously close to purple.
Still, there's plenty that's not even slightly purple, and even better, will coordinate with the purple I've already spun.

In other news, I've accepted a job offer, starting the middle of next month, so I'm going to have to make really good use of my remaining days of sloth and indolence while planning expenditures for the first paycheck, well, before the first paycheck, actually: I WANT MY CLEANING PERSON BACK!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Out of Time

I have to admit it, even though fashionistas are going all retro gaga over them: the Eighties are so over, and there's little point in putting more effort into this, even though I have completed the back, a sleeve and half a front, when instead I could have this.  I mean, what would I want with an oversized cardigan with unflattering dropped shoulders? Seriously.
It's been sitting in my Bermuda Rectangle for quite a few years now, and I started it because truly, a neutral-creamy cotton-blend cardigan would be very useful in an over air-conditioned office in the summertime - that's still true, but I confess, I'm no longer comfortable with this super-oversized incredibly unflattering and oh so dated style.

Hence this:
In other news, I finished this necklace for sale (it's spoken for) and figured out a good way to make the length adjustable. The one that I'd made for myself sits higher on my neck by quite a bit (it's about 14 or 15 inches), but it's entirely possible that the sort of person who has the disposable income for such as this might have a larger neck, and/or choose to wear it a little lower, which is why it needs the adjustableness.
This is what it looks like from the back, adjusted as small as it will go as shown on me above. The dangle chain is about 2.5", so it could be about that much longer.
I made a hook that lies underneath the last circle, making for this neat, adjustable closure. I'm quite pleased with my solution.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

This Time It's Not My Fault

At least, I don't think so.

(I'm talking about my Architectural Rib Sweater, by the way).

First I decided that the pushmi-pullyu thing with both sleeve yarns being migrated from one sleeve to the second really wasn't working well, creating tangles to rival intarsia (since we have this circular thing going with sleeves in the round, not to mention the twisting so as to avoid holes at yarn changes), but because there were no ends to work with, impossible to untangle. So cuttage had to occur, after which things went swimmingly.

Since I was cutting the yarn anyway, it seemed sensible to include my new extra skein in the striping scheme of things, thus avoiding the decision regarding long cuff versus sudden colour change. The good news is that even with a fifty percent increase in the stripe cycle, the change is not obvious.

The stitch count on the current sleeve hit what seemed to be a reasonable number, so I ripped back the first sleeve and proceeded to match it to what I'd just done, except, except. There's a sort of bulgy bubble on one side seam, caused by a too-rapid bind-off of underarm stitches, so I thought it might be prudent, before finishing the sweater, to actually do a row count and stitch count (both approximate, though more accurate than "Hmmm, they look about the same") which made me a little nervous because the two sides differed by a number greater than my comfort level (which is probably about 5%).

The deciding test was to try it on, and I have to say, the fit was a horrible disappointment. Way too much fabric under the arms, too wide across the bust, all of which causes the top part to scrunch up around the neck instead of spreading nicely across the shoulders. I did some creative pinching (of the sweater, not of myself; that would be useless not to mention painful) and realised that the bust darts would be hugely improved by a much more rapid rate of decrease along the top edge (they are formed by a double decrease every fourth row), which I think would improve the neck-shoulder problem, and the rate of side seam bind-off could also be a bit faster, reducing overall width across the bust. Both changes would cause the armhole to be closer to the body, thus increasing the length of the under-sleeve seam (which isn't technically a seam if you knit in the round as I do, but is a usefully descriptive measurement anywayy) which would require a slower rate of sleeve decrease.

All this means that I have to rip out ALL the side portions, probably back to a row or two after the initial pickup, which is a relief, because picking up all those stitches took forever.

It also means that I won't have a new sweater by the weekend, but I think I can live with that.

On the other hand, I did get my new earrings listed in my Etsy shop, and completed a new bracelet too.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Not Hysterical After All

It didn't work: spinning extra yarn so as to avoid running out of what I already had, which is only a variation on knitting so quickly that the yarn doesn't have a chance to even think about running out. I really though I wouldn't need the extra skein pictured in my last post, but reality dictates otherwise.
The left sleeve was complete some days ago, but since last night, is gradually becoming less complete. I undid the cast off (oh, now I understand: if I hadn't WOVEN IN THE ENDS then I probably would not have had to do any undoing, but silly me, I was a little too optimistic) and spit-spliced the ends (I'm alternating two rounds/rows between two yarns) sometime before joining the right side seam, and due to a lack of foresight and failure to think through the inside-outness of the three-needle bind-off and how it pertains to yarn theft from one part of a sweater by another, the yarn being gobbled from the left sleeve by what is about to become the right sleeve passes up under the left bottom edge and up through the right armhole.

It's an interesting way to knit a sweater.

I'll steal from left to feed right until both sleeves are even, at which point I'll actually make a ball of my new large skein and possibly switch to ribbing for a rather long cuff. I can't decide what will look worse: an overly long cuff or a yarn colour change in the middle of the sleeve. Probably the former, as I'm not a fan of the extraordinarily long cuff.

Meanwhile, I've been beading a bunch, getting all excited about a line of earrings for my Etsy shop which have yet to be photographed and written up, but which are otherwise complete. And oh yes, making the bangle below, just a little silvery thing which I ought to have made stiffer to be truly useful, not to mention saleable. 

Oh bother. I suppose I shall have to keep and wear it. How dreadful.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

My Comfort Level

I may not need this, but now I can knit without fear or worry on my Architectural Rib Sweater, which promises to be something I might choose to wear more than once, which is a good thing, as the sweater that I knitted while I was at SOAR has been worn once, and any future on my body is rather dubious, as the pattern relied too heavily on blocking and not enough on good design, and was a lesson in Trust Your Instincts, which I should have learned by the time I did the Coriolis Sock, but didn't.

Speaking of which, I started one of the other socks from her book, the one where you place your increases on the top of the foot to create a single vee-shaped gusset-ish thing, and insert colour or texture as desired. I'm using the Candlelight pattern from Barbara Walker II, which is much simpler if only you chart it (it fits on a piece of paper 2" tall, for one) and appear to be having better success this time.
Fortunately for her.
In other news, I have a second interview with the same people who caused me to obsess about making a new jacket, and since I still don't have pants suits or other clothing easily ploppable into the "business casual" category, I might have to make another jacket which should be different than the last one in case I meet with the same guys who probably won't notice anyway as they're computer nerds like me, but you never know, sometimes there are anomalies, and it'll be just my luck to have someone saying "Dude, she hasn't even changed her clothes since last week, this could be a problem if we expect her to work closely with anyone else" and then that's that, I have to think about where else I might consider working, and quite frankly, I'd rather focus my mental powers on the next beading or knitting design, or even who the best supplier is for small quantities of gold-filled wire, chain and jump rings.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Glovesim

When I was a graduate student in Israel (*), I really managed to get a sense of how languages might evolve, because Hebrew, before being adopted as the official language of Israel, was largely not really spoken. Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, and Sephardics spoke Ladino, or the language the Jews in Arab countries (Morocco, Yemen and so on) spoke, the name of which I don't know, but which is analogous. 

(* No, graduate school was all in English, my Hebrew would not have been up to the task, and was limited to what I call "shop Hebrew": "I need two metres of the blue fabric", "Please give me half a kilo of tomatoes", "Where is the soap?" - that sort of thing. I couldn't follow the news on the radio, or too many actual conversations, let alone Computer Science Hebrew).

The language needed modernising to cope with the current world, so words for computers (developed from the root for "work"), chemistry ("khemia", which sounds a lot like the English word) and other concepts not needed in older Hebrew were incorporated into the language.

Like other langauges, foreign words were adopted as is too. French has "le week-end" (I think it's masculine), "la tee-shirt" (I think it's feminine), so there's no reason why Hebrew should not do the same. 

I'm not sure how French deals with its plurals, but Hebrew amusingly sticks to its own grammar rules for plurals: use suffixes of "im" and "ot" for masculine and feminine words respectively, hence "chipsim", which is funny because "chips" is already a plural, and doesn't actually need the "im", but perhaps they view it as a singular collective noun, or perhaps they weren't thinking, or they didn't care, or (I'd like to think) someone had a sense of humour.
Hence "glovesim", not that it's necessary, as there is a Hebrew word for gloves (something that translates to "hand-socks" or "hand-shoes" if I'm not mistaken), but I'm taken with my absurdity anyway.

Gloves fit well, I like the colour, the gauge is suitable, the design pleasing, but they were definitely an exercise in 20-20 hindsight. I really MUST remember to write down what I do for the first glove (or sock or sleeve) so that the second one does not need quite so much ripping and redoing.

You've heard it here before, but it bears repeating, if only to remind myself: sometimes I'm not all that bright.

On the other hand, I did not run out of yarn.
In other news, I was able to grant myself peace of mind with respect to the Architectural Rib Sweater, which had taken a back seat to the stupid gloves, but which was causing my Standard Worry which goes like this: "What if I run out of yarn?"

I had more Beast, I had already spun the silk years ago, and now I have what is probably close to twelve ounces of extra yarn for the cuffs, which I will no doubt not need and so use (in combination with another yarn) for another project, which will once again lead to my Standard Worry, but that's life, and at least I'm true to form so we know the brain hasn't started to develop holes just yet.


Friday, March 7, 2008

Sew What? And Then You Dye Anyway

Remember my eighties plaid that needed overdyeing?

I joined the selvages, then closed the top and bottom of the tube in preparation for fulling. I threw it in the washer and dryer with two loads of washing on warm, and then once by itself on hot. It fulled somewhat, but not as much as I'd hoped, and was of course still Hopelessly Eighties.

The jacket I wanted to make was Vogue 8430, but I had no pattern, and wasn't about to buy one, due to the current Austerity Measures in place, so I managed to find a comparably-fitting jacket in my closet, something with set-in sleeves, but not too tailored or structured - my sewing pattern stash wasn't too helpful - and traced off the pattern, focusing on shoulders and armholes and sleeves, as I'd be redoing the neck shaping anyway.

The above pattern extends the back neck to form a back collar, and the front neck too, resulting in collar seams that extend the shoulder seams, and although I was a bit dubious, I decided to try it anyway, rather than my first instinct, which was to mimic an integral shawl collar, which extends the front collar to meet at the back neck, though I might try that next time, if there is a next time.

The thing about plaid is that it has this nice grid for laying out pattern pieces and matching the grain, but the other thing about plaid is that it screams at you when the fabric didn't full evenly; in other words, when part of it shrunk more than the rest, so you have to choose between cutting out the body of the jacket according to either the grid (plaid) or the pattern, but not both.

Disgusted, I left it on the floor and beaded instead.

Then my recruiter/head-hunter called me yesterday and warned me not to wear a suit to the interview this morning, but instead to dress "business casual, say a pants suit" which posed a bit of a problem for me, as I've always worn jeans to work. I have clothes I wear to the ballet or a nice restaurant or the theatre, and I have an Interview Suit, but I most emphatically do not own a pants suit of any flavour, so I was stuck. I needed a sort of dressy-casual jacket, badly.

I examined the other couple of yards of fulled plaid and discovered that the shrink discrepancy was limited to only part of the yardage, and I had enough that had fulled evenly, so I was set.

I was concerned about dyeing the yardage evenly, and had solicited and received suggestions that I dye the jacket pieces before sewing them together, but that seemed no more efficient than dyeing the finished jacket, which is what I attempted.

My plan was to overdye the magenta, cobalt, grass green and purple with a burnt orange, but it didn't seem intense enough, and didn't appear to be depinkifying the magenta enough, so I added quite a bit of black and navy to goth it up, which I did, quite successfully.

It's actually even darker than it looks in the picture,  but if I adjust the image any more, all you'll see is black with a splotch of eighties barf, and that's neither attractive nor illustrative.

Due to my usual casual attitude towards gloves while dyeing, I did show up to the interview with somewhat stained fingers on my right hand, but I don't think they noticed.

I'm sure they were all blown away by my new jacket.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

The Day After

And then the next morning, my back yard looked like this. About a foot or so, which we haven't had since the fifteen-year-old was a baby, as far as I can remember.
The snow day was all very well and good, but we couldn't go anywhere, since I couldn't get my car out of the driveway without shovelling (and that kills my back, so I don't do it, and the boy already did the neighbours' - for money! - and was done) and even after the driveway was cleared (male-type dinner guests, one from Austin, who wondered what it was like to shovel snow. He's so over it now) everything was icy and I almost spent the night in the driveway of a friend of the seventeen-year-old (I wasn't having her drive in this) because their clearing was inadequate.

And then the temperatures hit the forties (Fahrenheit) yesterday so we're all melty and slushy, with more of the same expected today.

I spent most of yesterday working on this.

Even though these are not generally the colours I gravitate to first (but clearly there's some force of attraction since I had all these seed beads in my stash already), I'm really liking the mood and the blend.

You'd think I'd learn by now to take notes when working on one of a pair (of gloves, in this instance, but sleeves more generally. Oh. That reminds me, the Architectural Rib Sweater, hmm, yes). The second glove is taking about five times as long, because every part of it (so far) has to be knitted at least twice (and sometimes more) because I've been eyeballing the first glove for Second Glove Shaping Clues, but when you have cables and patterns and row counts and whatnot, and are aiming for the two to actually match, eyeballing turns out to be not the optimal measurement methodology.

Once I get to the pinkie, it'll be Bombs Away, and I'm expecting that today. I'm teaching beading to members of a weaving guild across the river in the next state, and I'm not driving, so unless there's chatter in the car to which I need to pay attention, I'll be able to focus on my second damn glove.

And with a bit of luck, after lunch we'll get to see eagles. I think I'll  like that.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Snow Day!

Well, for the kids - every day for me is currently a snow day, regardless of actual weather. This is the view from my kitchen door. What? You thought I'd actually step OUTSIDE in my robe and slippers? I don't think so! 

No, the graininess isn't because of super-low resolution, those are snowflakes. It's really coming down.

Those bushes against the fence are in fact bamboo weighted down by the snow. They usually do a better job of screening me from my back neighbours, but are wimpy when it comes to snow or ice.

[Edited to add] I forgot, what I really wanted to do here, but was distracted by whiteness, was a bit of self-promotion: I opened a store on Etsy which right now has mostly finished beadwork as well as a couple of kits. 

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Fits Like A

Glove, duh.
OK, it's a little awkward taking a picture of your own hand, so this looks a little crooked, but check out the cable that splits and travels into the middle and ring fingers. Here's a picture without that distorting hand:
Of course it's not taken quite head-on, but still you can see that the diamond shape is squarely on the back of the wrist, and the cable diverges neatly and symmetrically into the ring and middle fingers. 

I love gloves, they're perfect for when you need instant gratification and you have too little yarn for anything else but. I don't waste time on socks are too thick to fit inside my shoes or not thick or sturdy enough to be house socks, so I should remember that those in-between yarn weights will make excellent gloves.

My new boyfriend (as my friends refer to him), the lampworker with whom I'm hoping to develop a working relationship (working, people, WORKING), gave me a super-cool cabochon to play with. It's pretty much clear with amber cloudiness and creamy dots when set against a light background, but when you set it over black, blue tones spring out at you, which prompted me to spend a little time detailing its rear, which I would normally leave open.

It's pretty in its own right, and lends just enough interest to the front:
Actually, if I'd photographed it absolutely 100% head on (there's a slight angle), you'd be able to see the actual beading pattern a bit better, but it does emphasise the fabulous colouration of the glass inside the cab and gives it some Murk Factor, which is related to the Sludge Factor, which in my world is a Good Thing.

My usual inclination when combining colours is a monochromatic palette - not that I don't like contrasts and complimentary colours, I do, but it's not where I go when I'm picking up tubes or hanks of beads. For this one though, because I needed the blue iris charlottes (and yes, these are actually charlottes - Czech size 13 with a single facet - not true-cuts in a different size which many call charlottes but which are not technically charlottes) for the netted backing, since the Door To Contrasts has been opened, I guess I'll have to step all the way through and use a full range of blues, ambers and golds. I really want golden pearls to pick up the dots in the cab (I think they're poked from the back), but meanwhile I'm working on this also:
Isn't the bead incredible? It's by Harold Cooney, and I actually have one of my own too.
This bead is genius, absolutely gorgeous (and the photo is pretty true). It's a hollow, flame-worked bead with a slightly concave back so that it lays beautifully, satin-etched and ever so slightly translucent. I bought it at Bead Fest Philadelphia 2006, where I was teaching, at a booth with a trio of cute young guys (Andrew Brown, Harold Cooney, and someone else whose name I didn't get but was probably Bryan Kitson). I bought from two of them, and if ever I see the third one, and I have a job, I'm buying one of his cold-worked beads as they are also stunning, but at the time I was already freaking out about how much I was spending on TWO BEADS. They're both absolutely worth it though. I wish I could find a link to more of Harold's work, but I couldn't. Google might like you better than it likes me though.