True or False: Leonardo DiCaprio owes his stardom and fame to me.

Think it over...Take a little time...

Ding Ding Ding. Time's up! And the answer is...

YES! (sort of)

And here is the story to prove it:

In LA, in the 60's, when a housewife felt her kids could manage on their own after school, did she get a real estate license? No. She became a Hollywood Talent Agent. Or at least, that is what my mother did. Living in the LA area, show biz was all around us, even my older brother had a few acting jobs when he was young. True story: Once my brother worked on a film with Lucille Ball and when the film was finished Ms. Ball invited all the kids who worked on the film over to her house for a swim party, and included the siblings! I could not believe I was going to I Love Lucy's house! She was kind and charming and beautiful. She let us wander around her house, splash in the pool and supplied us with lots of kid food which was catered, certainly the first catered party I had ever been too. I remember what she was wearing: black and white capri pants, a matching cutaway jacket with long tails, black high heeled sandals, and let me tell you, her lips and hair were RED. She was magnificent.


My mother was perfectly suited as a talent agent for children, she was confident, outgoing and smart, and had an uncanny knack for seeing talent in the most ordinary of kids. She got Jodie Foster her first commercial at age 4 (Coppertone) and believed in a young Hillary Swank when she and her mother were homeless and living in their car. Mother became quite a force in Hollywood, she was busy and loved this job she was so good at.

Years later I was now a married lady, living far away but I visited my mother often. One Friday I arrived at her office, she came out and said she is running late, would I like to come in and listen to a boy she is interviewing? Sure. I step in and observe him as he goes over his dialogue several times with my mother. She coaches him, encourages him, I can tell she is good at what she does. But he is good too, a seasoned actor already at this point. The boy and his mother leave the office and mom asks me my opinion. I say, (and I am not kidding), "Take him, I think he has star potential and will be big one day!"

Of course she does take him on, young Leonardo DiCaprio, the kid with the long funny name; he gets a few commercials, then a series, next there's This Boy's Life and Gilbert Grape, and well, you know all the rest. I just saw him for those few minutes, but he seemed like such a nice kid, and mother always adored him and his mom.

So, you're welcome, Leonardo.


Segue to knitting: I am most confident that Leo has dated a European supermodel named Livi. Odds are pretty good, don't you think? Here is my Livi. The clamshell lace border is FUN to make, I could have repeated those 8 rows f o r e v e r! I am using the recommended Rowan Pure Cashmere DK, but you knit it on #3's and it knits up more as a fingering weight. So about this yarn...if you could somehow spin yarn from fluffy clouds and then toss in some even fluffier clouds, then I guess this would be close to that. It is unbelievably soft, yet has structure, and I don't need to tell you that's it's heaven against the skin.  It's quite a financial investment as it's 100% cashmere, but I don't mind an indulgence every once in a while, it's good for the soul.    Raveled here.  And of course the pattern is most definitely a Kim Hargreaves design from her very beautiful book, Winter Blooms.

8/11/13, edited to add, Rowan Pure Cashmere DK has since been discontinued.  If you want to make this pattern, Baby Merino Silk DK or even Angora Haze would be good substitutes.

Just in time for Easter snacking with coffee (me) or milk (husband). I've experimented with a dozen different ways to make the perfect sugar cookie with the right balance of a good crunch with a (lightly) sweet and full buttery flavor.  This is our favorite recipe and the one I've made for years now. We prefer them just sprinkled with sugar, but these are fun frosted with royal icing. I have a great selection of cookie cutters and we make these for every occasion.

1 C butter
1/2 C shortening (no substitutes as shortening aids in the crunch factor!)
2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
4 C flour
1 t baking powder
1 t salt

Beat the first 3 ingredients until light and fluffy, add eggs and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients. Form a flattened disk and cover with plastic wrap and chill 1 or more hours. Roll out 1/8" thick and cut with cookie cutters. Lightly sprinkle with sugar before baking unless you are going to ice them after baking. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees F until edges are lightly browned. Transfer to rack to cool. Makes approximately 5 dozen. This recipe can be halved.

Happy Easter!

Maybe many of you might be too young to know this signature song by Sonny and Cher. In 1964ish at a Teen Fair in Los Angeles,  when I would have been about 13 or so, my girlfriends and I were wandering around and stopped at one stage where a girl and guy were singing. We thought they sounded bad, but stayed on because there was something about her...something cool...so we lingered and listened.  Soon the two were sitting on a fence and chatting with some kids so we moseyed over and really, I had never seen anyone like her before. She was so exotic, so original, and looked really really trashy. After all, she ringed her eyes with black eyeliner and had skin toned Erase on her lips, but never mind, so did we. And she was also wearing skin tight pants, but oh yeah, so were we. And Squaw Boots, but of course we were wearing them too.

But her makeup was not gently applied like ours, but thickly spackled on.  Her pants were not in a floral print like our girly pants, her's were a black harlequin print (!!!).  And her Squaw Boots were not white like the good girls, they were BLACK. Only cheap girls wore black Squaw Boots. At least at my junior high school. Yep, trashy.

And hey, who was that old dude she was with?

We really hated her for making us feel so un-cool. We glowered at her. She glowered back. (She must have been all of 16, maybe 17) We glared at her through slitted eyes and made mental notes to grow our bangs out to lower-eyelash-length and spackle on our own Erase and eyeliner.  And where did she get those slutty pants? We definitely wanted to look just like her.

That's the one and only time I've seen Cher in concert, but I'd love to see her in Las Vegas! Surely this time around I wouldn't despise her originality but LOVE her for it!

Well, on to the knitting. Here is the Lush and Lacy by Sweater Babe using less than 6 skeins of Rowan Kid Classic (a wonderful yarn to knit and wear, it's a mainstay around here) in a Kim Hargreaves colorway, Plush, #867. It's fun and fast and easy (even the lace panel is easy), pretty good tags for a sweater! Raveled.

For the last 5 years I have worked at a little shop that sells beautiful linens for bed, table and bath. Before I came onto the scene, the discontinued fabric samples were, hold on, THROWN OUT! I know! Of course that has all changed now. Every thing that can be mended or re-purposed comes home with me and waits patiently in my little home studio before it becomes something else. With acres of fabric samples collected, I've made dolly clothes galore, (but I knit for them too, and they now have way too many garments between them), made lapfuls of napkins and place mats, oodles of hand towels, have cut towers of squares for soon-to-be quilts and still have baskets and boxes of fabrics leftover.

When I took home a bag of 6"x20" strips, I had no idea what would become of them. But their pedigree was too fine to ignore, most are Italian silks and cottons and wools. At the same time my Kindle was needing some protection, and with necessity being the mother of invention and all, I made a simple, really simple, Kindle case. Since the edges were serged already, it took me only a few minutes to zig-zag up the two sides and voila, it was done. And I just loved the way it turned out. (Mine is the herringbone/checked one.) Then I made a few more, then a few more, and one hour later I had 24.

So they are offered up to you. They fit the 5.5"x8" Kindle perfectly and snugly and they're free! Just comment here and I'll contact you for your address. Please don't be shy. I really do have 24 and I only own one Kindle.