Time Travel Tuesday: Hocus Pocus

What's this? A new Time Travel Tuesday? That's right, we're back, and with some serious awesomeness. This week, we're going to take a look back at one of the most fun, cheesy and entertaining Halloween-themed movies of my childhood, Hocus Pocus.





Hocus Pocus
Released in 1993
Rated PG
Starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omri Katz, Thora Birch and Vinessa Shaw

My adoration for this movie was recently revived when I started looking for inspiration for my October contribution to the Phat Fiber Sampler. The theme is "The Witching Hour," and in true Things Liz Loves style, I wanted to pull my inspiration from either a movie, TV show, book or song. Then I remembered this little gem, and it was perfect. The over-the-top colors, the silly dialogue, the family-friendly yet interesting storyline...everything in this movie is an ingredient for awesomesauce. Bette Midler even sings! You can't beat that.

A little bit of "Where are they now" info...Bette Midler retired after her last run in Vegas in 2010 after decades of Hollywood success. Sarah Jessica Parker went on to become wildly successful in Sex and the City. Kathy Najimy does a lot of TV now, including a run on the law comedy Franklin and Bash. Thora Birch went on to star in some film fixtures like American Beauty and Now and Then, and currently has 3 films in production. Vinessa Shaw has been busy since Hocus Pocus, acting in films like The Hills Have Eyes and 3:10 to Yuma. Omri Katz left acting in 2002 to pursue hairdressing in LA, and later moved to Israel with his family. And another character from Hocus Pocus found success later in life as well. Remember the boy turned immortal cat that helped the kids fight the Sanderson Sisters, Thackery Binx? That boy, Sean Murray, currently stars in the successful CBS series NCIS as Special Agent Timothy McGee.

If you're feeling nostalgic or you're looking for a Halloween movie that you can watch with your kids, Hocus Pocus is a good one to pick up. Put it on your Netflix DVD queue or pick it up from Amazon.

Things Liz Makes: New Phat Fiber Contributor!

Hi guys! Just posting to let you all know that my shop, Things Liz Makes, has been approved to be a contributor to the Phat Fiber Sampler Box! I will be contributing fiber, yarn and patterns for your spinning and knitting pleasure. Check out the Phat Fiber website and look for my samples in the October sampler box!

News from the Vampire Empire Series and Dragon-Con!

Just got an email from the publisher of the Vampire Empire series that was full of awesome! If you remember a few months back, we reviewed the first book in the Vampire Empire series, The Greyfriar. I totally dug that book in a big way, and I'm excited to be reading the second installment for review as we speak.

The publisher of the series, Pyr, has some big things in the works for the Vampire Empire, including a series of audio books narrated by the amazing James Marsters. *insert fangirl squee* You remember James Marsters. The hot piece of man candy that played Spike on the Buffy and Angel TV series.

You are hypnotized by my eyes of awesome blueness.

I adore James Marsters, so I'm ridiculously excited about the next tidbit of news I'll be giving you guys. This year, at Dragon-Con, there will be a special Vampire Empire ticketed event featuring the authors of the series and Mr. Marsters.

Attendees will be able to hear all about the Vampire Empire series from the authors, Clay and Susan Griffith. Then, James Marsters will read from The Greyfriar and women everywhere will melt. The event will be followed up by a book signing, where you can get your copies of both The Greyfriar and it's follow-up, The Rift Walker. Since the event takes place on September 4th, you'll have a chance to get The Rift Walker before it hits shelves on September 6th!

Information about DragonCon and tickets can be found at the convention's official website. There's going to be a whole lot of awesome stuff going on at DragonCon, so if you can get down to Atlanta, do it! Also, look for the review of The Rift Walker to be posted here very soon.

Big thanks to Pyr and Prometheus Books for providing the info and the awesome books to review.

A Things Liz Makes Tutorial: Crochet Staghorn Cables

Cables are like a foreign language to many crocheters. Most people think cables = knitting, and that's simply not the case. I've worked out crocheted cables before, and I was presented with a challenge to do a Staghorn Cable pattern in crochet. I did a quick search on Ravelry's pattern database, and there are no crochet patterns that feature Staghorn Cables. Not one! So I looked at photographs of knitted Staghorn Cables and the experimentation that happened over at Knotrune's blog. Armed with this information, I came up with a written Staghorn Cables pattern that can be adjusted to work with pretty much any crocheted project. I'm going to go ahead and link this up to the Ravelry pattern database for free, so you can all feel free to work the technique into your patterns. Of course, I'd appreciate a nod in any pattern that uses the technique. :) Happy Crafting!

Crocheted Staghorn Cables
By Liz Beckwith
Written July 10, 2011

This pattern swatch is written with one set of staghorn cables that is two three-stitch cable sections positioned together. The swatch is 20 stitches wide. This can be altered to include more than one set of staghorns, to make larger or smaller cable sections or to be worked with smaller stitches. Can be used with any yarn weight, hook size and gauge. This sample of the swatch is worked in worsted weight acrylic yarn and with a size H hook.

Crocheted test swatch.

Stitch abbreviations:
fdc: foundation double crochet
ch: chain
dc: double crochet
tc: triple crochet
fpdc: front post double crochet
bpdc: back post double crochet
fptc: front post triple crochet
bptc: back post triple crochet

Row 1: Work 20 fdc. For help with the chainless foundation, see the Crochet Cabana article on them here.
Row 2: Turn, ch 1, dc in first stitch. 3 dc, 12 fpdc, 4 dc.
Row 3: Turn, ch 1, dc in first stitch, 3 dc. Skip the next 3 stitches, then work 3 bptc. Cross back and work 1 fptc in each of the skipped stitches. This creates the cables. Skip the next 3 stitches, then work 3 fptc. Cross back and work 1 bptc in each of the skipped stitches, then work 4 dc to end the row.
Row 4: Turn, ch 1, dc in first stitch, 3 dc, 12 fpdc, 4 dc.
Row 5: Turn, ch 1, dc in first stitch, 3 dc, 12 bpdc, 4 dc.
Row 6: Turn, ch 1, dc in first stitch, 3 dc. Skip the next 3 stitches, then work 3 fptc. Cross back and work 1 bptc in each of the skipped stitches. Skip the next 3 stitches, then work 3 bptc. Cross back and work 1 fptc in each of the skipped stitches, then work 4 dc to end the row.
Row 7: Turn, ch 1, dc in first stitch, 3 dc, 12 bpdc, 4 dc.

To continue the pattern, start again at Row 2. Fasten off when the fabric reaches the desired length.

Close-up of the Staghorn Cable detail.

Staghorn Cables are a great adornment for any crochet project. Thank you for checking out this tutorial and check back for more in the future!

Upcoming Reviews...Who Knew?

So I know you guys that still follow this blog are aware that I have been the world's worst blogger over the past couple of months. I had some personal issues that kind of made things fall apart on here, and it's been much harder than I thought it would be to get back into the swing of things with posting. Lucky for me, the great people at some of the publishers I've reviewed for will not let me go quietly into the night. Prometheus Books deserves a public thank-you from me for helping me keep kicking in the blogging world. They've sent me another title to review, so I will be reading and reviewing The Sword of Fire and Sea by Erin Hoffman very soon. I also have copies of Matched by Ally Condie and Teeth: Tales of Vampires waiting to be read, so there will certainly be more to come from Things Liz Loves.

Another thing that has kept me from being all over the Blogosphere is the extra work I've been putting into my store, Things Liz Makes. I have a supply of handspun yarn for sale for any other crafters, as well as finished objects, both crochet and knit. If you have a minute, head over to Etsy and check it out.

Hunger Games Movie Casting: Why Everyone Should Just Shut Up About It

I am a HUGE fan of The Hunger Games, like many of you are. I am one of the many people that are eagerly anticipating the film and all of the casting announcements. I, however, am not like many of the series fans that I've seen trolling the Hunger Games Facebook fan page. Many of these fans are insanely critical of every casting decision. I've seen at least six comments on each casting decision that sum up to "the series is ruined because of this actor," especially in response to the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. This is one of the reasons that people can't stand and make fun of fandoms. Obsessive intolerance.

I am not a casting director, screen writer, movie director or anything related to the movie making process. My guess is that neither are any of the Facebook trolls, blog writers/commenters or general fans of the series. So why, without any prior experience in film casting, would any of us profess to know what is best for the casting of a movie? How can any of us think we know who should be cast in any role when we haven't seen any of the actor's auditions, or even the list of the people who were trying to get the role? Chances are, the actor you envisioned to play Haymitch Abernathy never even expressed interest in the role (this is probably the case with my beloved Robert Downey Jr.), or the actress you wanted to play Katniss could have bombed her audition (I don't know how the fan faves Kaya Scoledario or Malese Jow did on their auditions, but it obviously wasn't good enough to win the roll), or any combination of things.

What really gets me is when fans say things like "Her hair is the wrong color! This movie is going to suck!" Think about it, folks. Do you think that the casting department would pick an actor for a role based on their hair color?! If they did, then the movie would totally suck. Casting is based on the talent of the actors and the chemistry between the characters that interact with each other. Jennifer Lawrence is an Oscar nominated actress who obviously has the chops to play Katniss. Woody Harrelson is an awesome actor who has proven himself in several films and is more than capable of playing Haymitch. Even Lenny Kravitz, who has limited acting experience, had to have shown something in his audition that made them think he was the best choice to play Cinna. They don't just cast people in movies willy-nilly and hope it sticks. These things are thought out and planned far more than what 13 year old fan girls do when they make a photo manip.

The point is, none of us are qualified to decide who is the best person to play a roll in a movie. None of us are qualified to decide whether or not the movie is ruined based on any of the casting. News flash: the movie isn't out yet. No one knows if it's good or bad because they aren't even finished making it. How about we let the casting people do their jobs and wait to see what happens? The same thing happened when they were casting Twilight, Harry Potter and all the other book-to-movie adaptations that have a solid fan base. Guess what? Those movies came out just fine, in spite of the fact that people thought the casting would ruin the movie. Remember the Replace Robert Pattinson online campaign? Now look at the Twilight franchise.

Fans of The Hunger Games, do us all a favor. Get over yourselves. You can't have your dream cast in a movie and have it be good. Let the professionals do their job and make your judgments when the film is finished.

I'll step off my soapbox now.

Pics from the Lamb and Wool Festival!

This Saturday's Lamb and Wool Festival at Thanksgiving Point was so fun! I was there showing off drop spindle spinning for the festival visitors and selling some Things Liz Makes yarns, fibers and crocheted items. There was all kinds of fun stuff for people to see and do, including watching a sheep shearing, checking out all kinds of farm animals, and learning to dye wool with Kool-Aid. I thought it was awesome that they were doing that, since I use Kool-Aid for a lot of my own wool dyeing.

Here's a shot of my table at the festival:

My husband is that blur with the soda.

And here's a shot of me spinning some lace-weight yarn on a drop spindle:

It was a pretty awesome day, and I can't wait to do it again next year!