All for the Sake of Knitting

I Give Up

2010-08-05T14:17:00.003-06:00

I apparently can't update with any kind of regularity. It does mostly have to do with my hesitation to even begin to upload photos here. I am just lacking in the kind of patience that will take me right now.

What am I up to? I am making a Montego Bay scarf (Rav link) out of Happy Hands Toe Jamz sock yarn -- colorway "Pictures of Lily." I hope that link will work to make up for the fact that I cannot bring myself to do photos. I will find it in me again eventually. Right now, though, to write this I am actively ignoring the two year old who is throwing shoes on the floor in a heap. Yes, I am a baaaad mother, but right now I need a break, since I have been trying to get him to take a nap for the past 3 hours. Joy. I will admit that I am not enjoying this stage too much. So it goes -- I know it'll pass. Just want to know: when??

When I have a moment to give some actual attention to a project (rare, but an occasional 10 minutes here or there), I am also working on the Fern Garden Scarf from Bad Cat Designs (Ravelry link). I am doing it in a kind of cayenne colored Jade Sapphire's Lacey Lamb and am loving it. Well, I don't know how I'll feel about the scarfy/shawl thing because I am new to the nupps. I do know that the yarn is soft and dreamy. I hope that it doesn't pill too much -- that is a definite concern for me.

Other than that, I've been working on the business plan and that's taking all of my so-called free time. I need to stop here to figure out what the heck my son is up to. This is definitely a lame post, but at least I did it! Ciao for now.

Ahem

2010-03-24T12:12:00.003-06:00

Well, so my posting isn't going so swimmingly. I have figured out a project, and even been working on it for a while. I have been doing the Cavendish blanket, or an approximation thereof. (That's a Ravelry link.) I have been wanting to do that blanket for a long, long time now and finally have a reason -- too bad it's such a bummer reason. I say it's an approximation because, honestly, I can't find the Noro book that has it (it's floating around here somewhere), so I looked at the photos of it online and figured out the pattern. I am pretty sure I did anyway. So, I'm chugging away at it. My friend doesn't know about it yet. I haven't called her for an update in quite a while, either. All I know is that as of the last time we spoke, the doctors said that she did not have to have her fingers amputated, which is exactly what she was hoping for. Ugh. The lame-o thing here is that I have some photos of the yarn, but none of the current WIP and none of them are loaded on here yet. That takes me so much time, for some reason, and as I believe I mentioned in my last post, is a big reason why I never post.

In other news, I am working on a business plan to start a yarn store in my neighborhood. I think I might be crazy. We'll see.

Carrying a Torch

2010-02-15T15:15:00.005-06:00

Well, then. It has been a while, hasn't it? It's funny how we've come full circle. I started this thing for the purpose of blogging about the project I wanted to do as part of the last winter Olympics' knitting Olympics kal thing that the Yarn Harlot does. As it turned out, I'm a little, well ... slow ... and the Olympics had been the year before. I don't pay too much attention, etc. We'll ignore that. And now, here we are: back at the Winter Olympics. I can't actually participate this time around, because I cannot possibly find the time. I wish I could.....

So, here I am, more than two years after my last post. Every time I'd thought of writing over the past few months, I've thought: 1) I don't really have much to say and 2) wouldn't it be better to just wait until the 2 year mark? Why? No idea. I probably would have let the 2 year mark blow right by, because I haven't been able to knit too much lately, but even when I do, managing to upload photos has been ridiculously impossible. This is because of the munchkin I had almost two years ago. He has been a major time suck. He's evil. Ha. Just kidding. I'm crazy about him, but I do have a hard time getting too much done that takes any kind of attention.

Something happened, though, that made me want to write. One of my best friends called me today and told me that she had had a second catastrophic accident. Yes, a second. This is the friend who taught me to knit. She is passionate about so many things that one does with one's hands -- she knits, woodworks, cooks. Yet, something happened last week that may have destroyed her only good remaining hand (her other having been shattered in an accident). I am still processing this information and she is still definitely in denial, or at least a state of hope that maybe isn't reasonable. Anyway, I can't stand the thought that I'm so far from her and there isn't a damn thing I can do for her. So, what shall I do? Knit, of course. I'm trying now to figure out what. I'm thinking a blanket of some sort would be comforting. Suggestions?

Uh, it has been a while, hasn't it?

2008-02-11T11:04:00.000-06:00

I decided that even if I don't have much to share I should probably write something in this darn blog anyway because it has been so long! Of course, the reason I should not be writing (and the reason I haven't been writing) is that I have to do so much stuff around the house right now. I have a bunch of Ikea packages in the other room just waiting for assembly.

You see, our house is a disaster area and there is so much to be done to be ready for baby in April/May. The weight of this has been great and I've been trying to get a lot done. Needless to say, plenty of other things get in the way, so I don't get every thing done as quickly as I'd like.

I haven't gotten around to photographing much lately, so I can't even show you works in progress or anything. I mean, I could, but I can't justify the time and, well, more importantly: I'm lazy.

I did finish the two sweaters I made for a friend of mine for her baby shower. I made two of the Placket-Neck Pullovers from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. They came out like so:

Here's a closeup of those cute ladybug buttons:

I have to admit that I hate uploading photos. I think they enhance the reading experience, so I do it, but I don't like waiting for them to come up and they really mess up the formating of the site when I do it. I'm sure there's some trick to this.....

Anyway, the sweaters, as promised by the book, were very quick to knit. This pleased me greatly. I chose to do them in acrylic because they're washable. I know, I know, there are arguments against that, but that's what I did. I also liked that I could get bright colors. I don't really love working in pastels anyway, but my friend doesn't know what kind of baby she's getting out of this deal, so I went w/ non-pastels since I think it offers a greater palette for non-gender specific colors.

My last bit of knitting news is that I did something very fun with my SnB group on Saturday. We went on a field trip and this was just what the doctor ordered for this knitter! We have had so much snow and gross weather that many of us in the Chicago area have been pretty housebound. So, on Saturday we went to a few places outside of the city to check out knitting and spinning goods and I really enjoyed the people I was with, the scenery, and the stores. Good stuff.

Maybe in my next post (or in my next life) I'll even post a picture of the two whole skeins I got!

Now, on to Ikea!

Two Down!!

2007-12-18T09:57:00.000-06:00

Well, since I'm not doing any Christmas knitting, really, I've not been too bad at getting my projects done. I finished the two tulip sweaters that I was doing for the two little girls. Hopefully I'll find out today if they liked them. Well, I'm sure the baby won't actually care, but you know what I mean. I guess I mean, I'll hopefully find out if their mom liked them.

Apparently the 3 year old met the baby (who came into the world on Sunday) and wanted to feed her, so that seems like a good sign. It was my desire in creating two of these things that the 3 year old would feel special too, since I imagine it will be hard for her to deal with a new sibling. It always is, right?

A note to those of you considering doing the tulip for the bigger kids: I made some modifications. Remember that I used the Coldwater Collaborative version of the pattern, rather than Dream in Color's. For some reason, CC thought that DiC's version was wrong - something to do with the shoulders, I think. So, change 1) CC didn't change the portion of their directions regarding the i-cord edging from that of the smaller version of tulip. In the smaller version of the tulip sweater, only picking up one stitch while turning the corner was enough, but you need more than that when you do the big one. This is probably obvious. And more importantly, 2) I changed the way that the sweater closes. I decided that there was no way that a little tie around the neck was going to be sufficient to hold that bigger sweater together, so I added a button band. I am glad that I did this, because I think it makes for a much more practical, warmer sweater. However, it wrought some havoc with the look of the sweater in that the connection between the i-cord edging at the neck of the sweater and the edging around the sides of the fronts was a little awkward and not as pretty as I'd like. But, it's not so bad that I'm going to undo it and/or be unhappy about it.

Last, proof of how cold it has been around here (gratuitous shot of cats):

These guys (all of them, actually) have been huddling together more. It's pretty darn cute.

Oh, and proof that I'm not the only crazy knitter: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119766934184930123.html?mod=blog

I had seen buttons for this but didn't know what it was. How freaking funny!!

Fall has come late to Chicago!! Somehow there are tulips involved as well....

2007-11-13T13:13:00.000-06:00

I can't believe that as I write this on November 13, there are still leaves on the trees. I don't think they normally last anywhere near this long. In fact, my mother maintains that they are usually gone by Halloween. Weird. Anyway, here is some badly shot proof of the changing/falling leaves in our area. I really didn't do that great a job capturing how bright and wonderful the leaves are. They're just electric right now. It was hard to shoot, though, because of the position of the sun, my laziness (not wanting to leave my porch), and the fact that I didn't want our SUPER paranoid neighbors across the street to think that I was trying to photograph their house or something....
If you click on them and blow them up you can sort of see how pretty they are.

Of course, the fall tulips I spoke of in the title are the ones I'm knitting. I speak in the plural, but you can only see one here. This is the 6-9 month version. I am awaiting now the kit from Coldwater Collaborative that will bring me the 6 year old version. I am finishing the current sweater for a baby that is due in December and the bigger one will be for her big sister so she can feel good too. Hopefully they will both get some use out of these sweaters!

A note on the size: I do have the 6-9 mo pattern, but I have knit it in smaller gauge. As far as I can tell, no baby in the plains is going to need a sweater from June to September, so I think making it available now is a good idea. Of course, since I don't know what size newborns are, or more importantly, what size this one will be, my choices in making it smaller are definitely arbitrary. I've got my fingers crossed. If nothing else, hopefully she can wear it in the spring . . . so long as I haven't made it too small . . . which I don't think I have. But we won't know until December, will we?

So, here it is:

It's going together nice and quickly, which is encouraging since I have to make a much bigger one soon. And hopefully I will have learned from my mistakes. Heh.

Here is a blurry close-up of the i-cord bind off. I was pretty nervous about that part, but it was super simple and it's kind of a fun way to finish!

I made a couple mistakes as I went a long. Big surprise. I have to admit that for the first time, I didn't really fix most of them because most of them were not big enough to notice. I hope. I did do something that is noticeable, though, and that is that the parts that I picked up on the insides of the cardigan front are not equal -- that is, the seed stitched parts on the left and the right front insides of the cardigan are not equal because I didn't go as far up in picking up stitches on the left side. Hooray. I would have fixed it, but I would have had to undo so much at the point where I discovered it. I am hoping very much that when I do the i-cord around the neck, along with the i-cord strings for tying the sweater, I will be able to hide that somewhat. And of course, there's always that deeply delusional hope that I will be able to block out the difference . . . . Ha, ha, ha. Man, I hope so. If it's horrible in the end, I'm sure I'll rip it all out. I don't like having messed up stuff to give out as gifts, that's for sure.

Two notes about the pattern, both of which may have been obvious to smarter knitters than me:

1) when I picked up stitches for the cardigan front panels, the instructions said to pick up three stitches for each four rows. At first I thought maybe I should do this with the outer-most stitches, but those were slipped and I didn't quite know what to do, since they didn't represent the number of rows and it would have been hard to count. I tried it for a second and found that the stitches were waaayyy too loose and looked terrible for picking up the stitches. So, I quickly moved instead to picking up stitches from the column of stitches just inside of the slipped/outermost column. This worked much better for counting and for the tightness and visual appeal of the sweater. It is probably obvious to some that this is how to do it, but I had to think and try it before I decided to change my approach, so it's possible that someone else could have the same problem.

2) in the first row of color change, my instructions say "slip 1st stitch purlwise, k1, p1*, repeat from *...*." I wrongly slipped, k1, p1, all the way through that row because I assumed (though perhaps the "1st stitch" part should have given it away) that the ** would include the whole thing -- I had to make something up since it was unclear. Later I looked at the top of the instructions and for some reason that part is repeated up there. THAT one had it correct: slip 1st stitch purlwise, *k1, p1*, repeat etc. Don't make my mistake.

Lastly, this week, I'm going to give you a gratuitous shot of my cat Bobcat strutting down our street because it's such a lovely shot. Enjoy. :)

Happy Halloween (a day late)!

2007-11-01T11:58:00.000-06:00

As usual, it has been a long time since I last wrote. We have been on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. Well, not exactly, but we were in Southeastern Wisconsin three weekends ago (to celebrate our first anniversary), then we were in Northern Wisconsin the weekend after that (for my dad's birthday), and last, we drove to the Atlanta area for my aunt's surprise b-day party and then onto Jacksonville, FL to see Andrew's family. In the Atlanta-Jacksonville trip alone, we put 2400 miles on the car!! All trips were pleasant, though, and worth the effort.

Weirdly, I managed not to take any pictures of most of the things we saw/did. Well, maybe the Europe trip was weirder -- the fact that I got so many pictures. I am not so good at taking photos of stuff -- it doesn't come naturally, I have to force myself to do it. Anyway, this blog entry will probably be photo-light (especially compared to those from Europe).

Here is a picture of us having lunch at the freezing cold cafe in the cool new wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum:
Very exciting photo, no? If you want to see a weird image of the new building, click here. It is strange looking because the "wings" of the building can move and this photo shows the wings in their different positions moving from up to down or vice versa. Normally the wings are just in one position and quite lovely to look at. Anyway, it is a really neat building and worth checking out if you're in the area. Besides being freezing when we were there, it was a nice place to see art and it also gave one a very nice view of Lake Michigan (and the Milwaukee marathon that happened to be going on at the time we were there).

I don't have any photos from Northern Wisconsin. When I say Northern Wisconsin, by the way, I'm talking so far north that if you went any further, you'd fall into Lake Superior! Here is a fun link to the history of Washburn, WI (the town we were in). It's amazing to see how much industry used to be there, given how small the place is today. You can see from the top photo on the page's frame how pretty it is up there.

A week after returning from cold, cold Washburn, we headed to considerably warmer Atlanta. Here is a picture of all of us (this includes immediate family and lots of friends -- including some who had flown in from Baton Rouge, LA just that day solely for the purpose of surprising my aunt!) waiting for my aunt in the foyer of my cousin's house.
The door is open because my aunt has just come in. I wish so much that I had a picture of her face when she saw us. My cousins and uncle truly outdid themselves with this party and there is no question that she was surprised. It was wonderful! It probably took her the length of the party before it all sort of sank in.

So, did I knit for her? You bet I did. Unfortunately, I flaked out and forgot to get a picture of what I did. :( I knitted the Not Pedestrian Peds -- thank you Stitchnsnitch! I got the link off of Ravelry. I'm so mad I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but I do have a photo of the yarn:
There is great significance to this yarn, you should know. Not only is it a color that my aunt happens to like very much, but waaaay more important is the fact that it is called Mustang Sally (by Blue Moon Fiber Arts). Why is that significant? Because my aunt's name is Sallie, of course!! I told her that even if the color had been horrendous (not that BMFA makes horrendous colors), she would have gotten socks out of it anyway because of the name. It is particularly pleasing that it happens to be a color that she really likes.

Other than that, I haven't been doing much knitting lately. Truth be told, I have been going through a bout of morning sickness (I can say that now that our family knows!) and was not feeling up to par or like I had the energy to do anything -- including knitting, if you can believe that! I am doing much better now, though, as I am beyond the first trimester and so I have begun another gift project.

Ta da!
I am knitting the Tulip sweater (scroll down on that page) that is so popular right now. I am making it for someone's upcoming baby. I think it will be really cute. I have already screwed something up of course so I need to rip back a bit, but overall I am pleased and am looking forward to making this thing. I am particularly looking forward to completing a second project in a month's time. I feel like I haven't been finishing anything lately!

Oddly, this is my first baby sweater! It is fun to make something that I think will go together quickly. Normally, I make blankets (see previous entries!). I will keep you up to date on how it goes.

That's all for now! Who knows? Maybe next time I will have cast on for my own little impending being. It all seems so unreal right now, though, so that's not likely.

Last European Vacation Post: Paris!

2007-09-28T16:13:00.001-06:00

Say it isn't so! I cannot believe that it has been a month since I last wrote. I've gotten really bad about this. Uff.

This is my last post about the European vacation we took this summer. I wonder how much better I'll be at posting now that I don't have a million photos to pour through every time I want to write. Ha. As if it's the photos' fault that I've taken this long!

So, last I wrote, we were in Amsterdam and Utrecht. From there we took a train to Paris, our final stop. Our hotel was near-ish to the Eiffel Tower and the first thing we saw in Paris was just that! As we walked to our hotel from the Metro (subway), we saw it looming in the distance. So, we grabbed dinner and then walked toward the light. Here it is in the evening (quite beautiful, if I do say so myself):

Sometimes -- I think it was every hour, on the hour -- the Tower just starts to sparkle all over, with the background lights going off and only little lights lighting up (and seeming to move) all over the tower.

The next day, we went to Notre Dame. Incredibly (to me), Notre Dame took nearly 200 years to build!! According to Rick Steves, much of the work on the cathedral was done (for free) by the parishioners themselves. You would recognize it if I were to post a picture that looked like this. I have to laugh, because I am probably the only person in the whole entire world who comes back from Paris with only a picture of the back of freaking Notre Dame!! How did I do this? I don't know. Truth be told, though, I think the back is almost more beautiful. A very lucky thing that happened to us as we were touring Notre Dame is that there was a choir practicing while we went through. I felt very lucky having a chance to hear the church used that way -- a non-touristy way. It gave you a sense of what it's like to worship there, not just be a tourist there.

From Notre Dame, we wandered around the Left Bank area and walked by a very famous book store (Shakespeare and Co.) that Ernest Hemingway wrote about in "A Movable Feast." There is so much history in Paris -- so much art (visual and verbal) history -- that there is always something exciting to see just around the corner, it seems.

Another way that we got to see some architecture (especially getting a close-up of the bridges) was on a boat tour. Our tour was not so great in the sense that, as I said of the one in Copenhagen, there is little room for the narrator to ad-lib when they have to present in multiple languages, so we learned only very by-the-book info about the stuff we saw. It was still nice to give our weary legs a rest, though, and to see the city from a different perspective. We saw all the usual stuff on the tour, but we also saw this:

I know it's not very good paparazzi-ing, but this is a shot of some big Ratatouille shindig. It looked quite swanky. It was along the river and it was a perfect night for just such a soiree, it seemed to me. I have no idea if anyone famous was there or not, but it was clearly a big, expensive party -- unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the gigantic cake they had.

On our way home from our boat ride, we stopped by the Louvre. We walked home from the boat and it was a verry long walk. Still, it was nice to see the Louvre all lit up at night.

I think one of the most shocking things about the European museums is how unbelievably large the buildings that house the museums are!! This place was HUGE. It used to be a palace. Note the, um, interesting pyramid from (I think) I. M. Pei in the middle.

We went another day to see the inside of the Louvre. We did see the infamous Mona Lisa. She is small. But, I'm glad we got to see her. I really, really wish we had been able to get into some of the modern museums, but our timing was off for that while we were there. I am actually a much bigger fan of modern art than of the old classics. This is not to say that I don't appreciate the older stuff a all, but I just don't get quite as excited over it as I do the newer and Paris has an incredible, gigantic collection of art from every age!

From high art, we went the next day to Montmartre, where many famous artists have spent time doing some very not high minded things along with their art that eventually became known as fine art. We are talking here of Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Van Gogh (briefly), and many, many others.

High atop Montmartre is the Sacre-Coeur. It is an amazing church that looks like it is much older than it is. Not only is the outside beautiful, but it has gorgeous mosaic all throughout the inside. I am a nut for mosaic, so I enjoyed the inside of this church more than even Notre Dame. Please note: BIG freaking hill.

After climbing the BIG freaking hill to get there and walking through the place, my husband naturally thought it would be a good idea to walk to the top of the church.... Yes, we walked hundreds of tiny steps to the top of the darn church. We even climbed around a little bit outside on the roof, to follow the path to the top. Yes, this was kosher. We paid an entrance fee to do this. So, basically, we paid to climb. Oy.

Then we walked around a much more profane space: the market place at Place du Tertre.
I kinneared a shot here, basically. All around there were current, active artists selling their goods, painting, and playing chess! It was great! It was very moving to think that years ago, it could have been Picasso, or one of his colleagues, that was selling here. I thought that was pretty cool.

Two more images from the area:
The building on the right is the Lapin Agile (Agile Rabbit -- named for the picture of the rabbit jumping out of the stew pot painted on the building). It is another place on Montmartre that is famous for being an artist hangout. Specifically, Rick Steves mentions Picasso, Renoir, Utrillo, Modigliani, etc. Quite impressive!

Lastly, at the end of our trek around Montmartre, we saw the infamous Moulin Rouge, which means, by the way, Red Windmill.
As it turns out, there had been lots of windmills in the area. This one just happens to be the famous one because of the cabaret that was associated with it. The can-can was started there, I believe.

On our last day of Paris, we finally made it to the yarn store. Yes, our last yarn for the trip and the blanket. The store we went to was La Droguerie. Apparently there is also a yarn store at Le Bon Marche, a department store in Paris, but given my experience with the yarn store at Stephen's Green in Dublin, I didn't even want to take a chance. Here is a photo of the outside of the store:
Why only the outside, you ask? Because the people inside wouldn't let us take one of the inside!! Seriously!! I have very mixed feelings about La Droguerie. They had some really wonderful embellishments and good stuff for sale there -- beads too! A person who likes that kind of stuff could get lost there forever even though it's not that large of a place.

So, what's negative about it? Well, mostly the vibe, I thought. The first thing that happened was that we were told not to take a photo. They certainly have the right to say no, but it was kind of a turn off. Then, their yarn selection was kind of limited. Well, not exactly. I mean, they had a wide variety of colors and a couple of different blends, which was great, but they only carried one brand of yarn -- presumably theirs (it had no labels or anything on it).

So, I looked through the yarn and decided to get something very neutral, because, once again, I had forgotten to bring my clippings from the other colors that I had. Fine, so I took them off the hooks and walked around the store to look at all the other goodies. All around us there were shiny objects just begging to be touched, but all of them had signs on them saying not to touch -- a salesperson would help you. As I was sitting with Andrew, fondling my yarn, taking it all in, a very polite and quiet saleswoman came up to us as asked if there was anything else we needed. I said no, thank you. At which point she explained to me that at that store, you weren't even supposed to pick up your own freaking yarn!! There were no signs to this effect on the yarn, but I guess I was supposed to know this somehow. It was very embarrassing. :( I handed over my yarn and she took it back behind the cage (where the crabby no-photos lady stayed to complete the sales transactions for everyone as they checked out. It was kind of weird and definitely not the happy, fondle-our-yarn experience that all of the other yarn stores throughout Europe were. I know a lot of people like this store and I can understand why, but I was apparently having a culturally inept day and it kind of turned me off. Oh well. Here is our yarn:

Despite how uncomfortable the experience was, I did enjoy shopping for yarn in Paris and think that the store is a really unique place. On another day, I might have fallen in love with it. By that time, we were both pretty tired from travelling and about ready to get home and I'm sure this colored the experience.

So, at the end of our stay in Paris, we got on a plane and jetted off for the U.S. We had a great time, got some wonderful yarn, and were pretty happy to get home, too.

Amsterdam

2007-08-28T11:12:00.000-06:00

From Copenhagen we went to Amsterdam. We went via train, then boat, then train again. But, here's the amazing thing that I've never thought of or seen before:
I don't know if you can tell, but this is a picture of the train ON BOARD THE BOAT!!!! Can you believe this???? I had no idea. Wow.

Here is a long-distance photo of another one of the boats and I don't think it really gives you any idea of the size of the boats, but I was impressed (especially because my train was on board the boat I was on!):
Not so clear.

We got into Amsterdam late at night so we didn't do anything but go straight to our hotel. We did manage to pass a few red light windows, which was sort of interesting, but we kept walking. Then, with our back packs on our backs and waaayyyy too much yarn in hand, we encountered this:

which we had to walk up.

This set of stairs led to this:
which we also had to walk up. I thought I was going to lose my mind when I saw these, but once the back packs were off (after we were at the top of the stairs in our room), the stairs weren't quite so scary. Still.... Whoa. I don't think these photos do these stairways justice!

It's hard to say what we did in Amsterdam, exactly. No, this is not because we were hitting all of the coffee shops and imbibing in all those things that aren't legal here in the U.S. It's because we were there for a short time and we mostly did the Rick Steves' walk again. We had a nice time.
Amsterdam is a pretty city

and there is a lot of interesting history there. I particularly liked learning about the Dutch resistance to the Nazis. It's just too bad the people in the Netherlands didn't wake up to the threat the Nazis posed until after they had taken hold of the country!

We went to the Anne Frank House, too, which was very interesting. It's always a unique experience to have something physically in front of you that you've only read about. You get to walk about the whole house and it brings the book to life. Oh, and you should definitely follow Rick's advice: go later in the evening. In the earlier part of the day, the line is really, really long. For some reason, it becomes much more manageable later on and you can walk through the place without feeling claustrophobic.

Besides the historically significant stuff, we just enjoyed walking around. Among the random things we took in was the Amsterdam Tulip Museum, which was surprisingly informative and enjoyable for being so small and not being something we were looking for.

Also near the Anne Frank House was the yarn shop De Afstap. Their site is entirely in Dutch, by the way. This site has a very brief English description -- plus the address! Franklin, of the Panopticon, wrote about this place and was quite excited. I, however, was less so. I am sure that this is at least partly because I was looking for Dutch wool. De Afstap sells Rowan wool exclusively, basically. That's great, of course, if that's what you're looking for. I wasn't. And I couldn't really fathom going to a shop that sold only one brand of yarn. It was a cute place, though:
This second picture is of the inside (with me posing painfully for the camera). In the lower right hand part of the photo you can see the wool along the wall. The frames to the left are for all of the needlepoint, which is located upstairs.

Other random stuff we saw:
lots, and lots of bicycles!

A funky flower that lots of people were growing:

And many tilting buildings!
I don't know how well this photo conveys this, but they were all leaning to and fro. It was pretty strange to see. Apparently it has something to do with the water.

The highlight of my trip to Amsterdam, though, was seeing a dear friend of mine whom I haven't seen in a number of years. She moved to the Netherlands from the U.S. about 10 years ago! She looks as fabulous as ever and it was as if we had just seen each other last week when we got together.

On our way back to our hotel from meeting Jasmine, Andrew met the woman of his dreams:
There were a bunch of metal lizards crawling around the grass in this area (the Leidseplein) and he couldn't resist her.

Lastly, on a whim, brought about by Jasmine, we went to Utrecht the next day on our way to Paris. It was a lovely town -- a college town -- and would have been a lot of fun to check out if we hadn't been rained on. However, before getting too wet, I did get this shot:

Jasmine also showed me the shop where she gets her yarn and that is where I got ours for our blanket. Amusingly, despite my unwillingness to get the Rowan while at De Afstap (where I would have gone back if Jasmine and I hadn't had a discussion about yarn the night before we left), I ended up buying Rowan at the place in Utrecht instead! I can't remember the name of the place, but it was probably Modilaine. There is not much Dutch yarn in the world, as it turns out, so we had to settle on something else. We got Rowan Felted Tweed. I have a photo on a card in a camera that isn't at my house right now, so I can't show you, but you can imagine. It's not too exciting (here is a picture of someone else's).

The store was cute and I'm glad that it provides my friend with a nice place to get her yarn. :) I will warn you, though, that the woman who was there when I was (I think she was the owner) didn't speak English at all. Now, this is perfectly reasonable, given that I was in the Netherlands and all, but it's easy to get used to finding English speaking people all over Europe, because so many of them are excellent at it. I'm sure you can handle a yarn purchase in Dutch, if you have to, though, right?

From Utrecht, we set off for Paris...

Denmark! (Copenhagen)

2007-08-22T10:06:00.000-06:00

Well, I've finally located a camera that I can use for getting pictures of the yarn that I bought in Denmark, so we can move on!

We arrived late at night from Sweden and walked all of about a block and a half from the train station to our hotel and promptly crashed.

The next morning, we set out to do as much as we could, given that we were going to be there only for a couple of days. In fact, if I remember correctly, we were only there basically for one day (not counting the days of travel as complete days).

So, we went first on the Self-Guided Walk -- "Stroget and Copenhagen's Heart and Soul" from Rick Steve's Scandinavia 2007 book. To do this walk, we started at the Radhuspladsen (City Hall Square). There we saw the Radhus (big surprise) -- City Hall. It is a beautiful building and I could show you image after image of little details on the building.

As a side note, I think that of all the places we went, Copenhagen surprised me the most. I had never thought much about it, but it turns out to be a very beautiful city and I would love to go back.

From the Radhus (where there is, of course, a big statue of Hans Christian Andersen (you can find the text of a lot of his stories for free here), who is Danish), we looked across the square to see the Weather Girls on what is now the Phillips building. Here they are:
They are meant to predict the weather and when it is nice out, the girl on the bicycle is supposed to be showing and when it is going to rain, the one with the umbrella should be out. As you can see, they are somewhere in between in this photo. Apparently, they have been stuck there for quite a while. In other words, years, I think. It's almost nicer this way, though, because despite the fact you can't count on them to tell you the weather, you can see them both better this way!

From the Radhus, you can also see the Tivoli Gardens (if the link doesn't show a page in English, look for the tiny English flag in the upper left hand corner of the website). It is a rather large park and it would have been wonderful to see what was inside, but alas, we didn't have enough time!

According to Rick Steves, "In 1843, magazine publisher Georg Carstensen convinced the king to let him build a pleasure garden outside the [former] walls of crowded Copenhagen. The king quickly agreed, knowing that happy people care less about fighting for democracy." (pg. 56) Well then! Sounds like a reasonable assessment, I think.

From the Radhuspladsen, we walked on to the Stroget, which is a pedestrian shopping mall. What this means is that it's along a street (so it's not like a mall in the U.S. -- one huge building, but it's also not a strip mall) that is closed to car traffic, which allows pedestrians to spill into the "street" and walk all over the place, while window shopping (and shopping for real, no doubt).

Here is a picture of part of the Stroget. The people are all standing in one place because they are watching a street performance (break dancers).

Besides tourists, there was an abundance of bicycles. I don't have any good photos of them, but wow were there a lot!!

At a few points along the Stroget walk, we wandered off the main drag and found some other cool things to look at. One of those things was the Copenhagen University. It had some beautiful buildings and a wonderful interior. We couldn't imagine going to school at a place that looked like this as you walked in to go to class:

Here is an outside photo of one of the University buildings (I think -- or it was right near it at least) and I thought it was magnificent. Like so many of the other buildings in Copenhagen, it had all kinds of wonderful little details on it, but I can't bring myself to upload the bazillion photos I have of the details, so we'll stick with this:

Sadly, it doesn't tell you much. It's a cool photo, though, right?

Near that building, too, we saw Niels and had to take his picture for my father-in-law, since he's a physicist. Niels was apparently a faculty member at Copenhagen, but he fled the Nazis and that's how he ended up in the U.S. If you don't know who Niels Bohr is, join the club, but I can tell you that he won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922. I can also tell you that he worked on the atomic bomb . . . .
I can also tell you that he wasn't real pretty.

From the Stroget portion of the walk, we ended up walking over to the Little Mermaid.

I'm sure you can't really tell this from my words, but we walked a LONG ways. Rick recommends doing this on bicycle, if I remember correctly, but we didn't have a bicycle and we are very stubborn, so we carried on.

Here is one of the things that we saw near the statue of the Little Mermaid:
Why do I have this photo? Do you see the windmills in the background? There were a LOT of windmills in Europe and Andrew made me photograph all of them. So, here is one of those photos. Exciting, no?

On the way back to Nyhavn where we took a boat trip, via a really old, but functioning army barracks, we walked by this gorgeous thing:
I have better photos of the structure, but you can't see how pretty the grounds around it are, so I settled on this. Anyway, it's a church, pretty clearly. All I can tell you about it is that it's an Anglican church built entirely of flint.

From there we went on a boat tour that departed from Nyhavn:

I forget our tour guide's name, but she spoke 4 languages. Yes, really. Crazy, huh? It wasn't the best boat tour ever (we took a really good one in London a few years ago), but I think this is because the woman couldn't really ad lib at all, since she would state something and then repeat it in three different languages. You pretty much have to stick to a script in that situation, I think

On our boat tour we saw some interesting buildings and some interesting people:
I suspect he's one of the inhabitants of the liberal, alternate-reality outpost in the city called Christiania.

That's just a guess though . . . .

Okay, so I think I've gone on plenty. I will leave you with this. The next day, before boarding the train for Amsterdam, we went to Sommerfuglen, which was a terrific store. It looks small, but they had some delicious stash and the women who worked there were great.

It was the best yarn shop I saw while we were in Europe -- hands down. They had a great variety and lots of good stuff knit up. Should you need it for some reason, they also have English-Danish translation for knitting patterns on their website! (Click on "Tips and Advice," then "Glossary.")

For our Danish yarn purchase, we got a kid mohair/merino blend and it soft and beautiful! And, no, I still don't know how this is all going to go together, especially given the different weights of yarn, but we'll see:

I couldn't get a picture that showed the colors too well, but I think this is the best one I have.

Wow! That was a long post!

Sweden Part 2: Kalmar

2007-08-14T11:49:00.000-06:00

This has taken me far too long. I thought that I didn't really have much to say in this post, but I think I have plenty as I look at it. What I was going to do was include a post on Stitches Midwest and the yarn I bought there, because Stitches was incredible AND because I could link it to the Sweden post -- the link would come from the fact that I took the Bohus Stickning class with Susanna Hansson on Sunday, which is a Swedish-designed style of knitting. However, I cannot for the life of me find my camera, so I don't have any images to share of that stuff. So, here I am, sharing with you just the Kalmar portion of our trip to Europe.

It began with our train trip from Stockholm to Kalmar. It was my husband's first European train trip, so of course I had to document it:
Doesn't he look excited? I'm sure he'll want to kill me for posting this picture. If I were him, I'd want to kill me....

We went to Kalmar for Midsummer. I thought that we'd get to see some of the traditional festivities associated with Midsummer, which is the celebration of the longest day of the year. Unfortunately, we did not. In fact, as it turns out, the Swedes take their vacation/holidays pretty darn seriously and everything had basically shut down. I was initially disappointed, but it was nice not to feel like we had to run around everywhere sightseeing, etc.

What was open when we were there, though, was the Kalmar Castle and that was a cool thing to get to see. Here it is:
I really enjoyed it. It wasn't packed full of people or tons and tons of information. It was just right -- it was curated surprisingly well considering its location. There wasn't a lot of information, but the information that was there was very clear, and it was so open, you almost got an actual sense of what it would have been like to live there (it had a more personal feel to it than many of the historical places one visits that is full of visitors and lots of audio-visual information).

In addition to the normal stuff, they had an exhibit on the botanist Linnaeus (about whom the Swedes seem to be very excited). It's the 300th anniversary of his death. While it makes sense that they would celebrate such a big year, it seems like I saw a lot of items around Sweden commemorating each decade of the man's life -- whenever the year ends in a 7. Maybe I'm exaggerating, though. I got this impression particularly at the glass studios.

They also had a really good exhibit on the women's jail that was located in the castle for a while. That exhibit detailed the kind of crimes that the women who were jailed there had committed and how those different crimes would historically have been treated.

Additionally, they had a display on rag rugs. This doesn't sound exciting, but I really enjoyed it. Here are some photos:

These reminded me of rugs I used to see (and even got to make once) at the Woods Hall Craft Shop on Madeline Island (in Lake Superior in Wisconsin). I wondered, since there are so many Swedes in the Great North Woods, if the rugs they make there were inspired by this rag rug tradition. These rugs that were shown at the castle were all old. They had been laying around, wasting away in people's homes in Sweden, when someone decided that these rugs should be documented. Interestingly, of course, the people who had them thought of them as rags and as things of very little value. Funny how that happens. They were made of men's old work shirts and other used items that were laying around the house when the weaver wanted to make something. It's much like the tradition of old quilts which were made of leftover fabrics that were around the house.

The same is true of the Bohus sweaters, I think. I mean, they were never made of leftovers and they have always been haute couture, but they were put away in people's closets never to be seen again since they went out of style in the 60's. Then Susanna Hansson (and some others) took an interest and decided to look into them and this has revived the interest in them. It's interesting how that happens -- the way that we have something for a long time, maybe even love it, but we get sick of it or things change and we stop loving those things -- sometimes swinging to a fashion that is vastly different specifically for the purpose of rejecting what we have been doing (and loving). Then, after enough time has passed, we come back to those old things that we loved and see them as new again and want to have them around once more, thereby creating a renaissance of that item. It's wonderful, I think, that the things that we've loved so much do come back to us again eventually.

Anyway, we left the castle and wandered around a little. What we found was this weirdo tree:

And at the restaurant where we had dinner, we found this guy:
The guy I'm talking about here is, of course, the guy with the Santa Claus outfit on in the middle of June....

On our last day, we decided to do the glass works tours that our guide book advised us against since we loooove glass. So, we went to Pukeberg Glasbruk first. It was an old facility and we bought some glass there. Of course, I can't show you what we got, because as I said above, no camera.... Here is that place from the outside:

From there, we went to Johansfors, where we didn't like the glass all that much (all of the glass works had really distinctive styles, so every one could find something they would like, but I also don't think anyone would like all of the glass works' styles) -- though I admit some of my dislike may simply have been for the display. Outside they had a cool mosaic, though:

From there, we went lastly to Kosta. We LOVE Kosta glass, but we didn't get anything there, because we already had bags full of yarn and it would have been hard to fill up with glass, too, but it was also a lack of desire to carry super breakable stuff around with us everywhere we went. It is also true that a lot of the things that we saw at the huge retailers, like Kosta, are things that we see in the U.S., so I think that tempered my enthusiasm for buying as well. The one thing we did miss out on, though, because of this decision, was the chance to get the glass at much reduced prices.

Well, that concludes the Swedish portion of our trip. Yes, we really made it away from Kalmar without yarn -- there was none to be seen. Boo.

Onto the train, now for Copenhagen!!

Onto Sweden and Swedish Yarn.... (Part 1: Stockholm)

2007-07-30T12:43:00.001-06:00

We left Dingle and drove back to Dublin, spent one night in a cruddy hotel by Dublin Airport and left the next day, which happened to be my b-day, and went to Stockholm.

Here is the view from our hotel room:
Stockholm is a pretty city and quite different from Ireland. I suppose this is obvious, but I think it's nice when one bothers to travel for one to see something different, new, and interesting! So we did....

Of course, the first thing we did when we got there was take a nap. What can I say? I'm a pretty wild and crazy chick and you never know what kind of exciting things I might do on a big day like my b-day...nap for example....

When we awoke, this is what we saw from our hotel window:
Pretty cool, huh? I took it as a good sign. You can't really see it that well, but there are two arcs that are distinct rainbows and one of them -- the lower, if I remember correctly -- actually has two layers of color to it (like a double rainbow). This was one rainbow for each decade of my life thus far (if you count this as 3), so maybe it means something. Then again....

Anyway, as it turns out, Stockholm is a watery city. There is a lot of naval history here. Here is a picture from the Strandvagen.

And here is a picture from Skansen, the first outdoor museum. It is a big open air cultural exhibit. It's kind of like Epcot or something, but it is more realistic feeling -- definitely less Disney-esque. They have lots of old buildings from all over Sweden that represent life in those different regions over the years. This is taken from up on a hill within the park (it is not of the park):

Lastly, here is a picture of Gamla Stan, the old part of the city. It's pretty fun to walk there and see the older part of the city. It definitely has all the skinny, winding roads that I think of when I think of oooold Europe -- created well before the car was invented. This is nearly impossible for us Americans to imagine if we haven't been to Europe, I think. We are so used to having HUGE roads here and lots more space.

Now for the important part, right? The yarn!!

We initially set out for a yarn store that I had read about online at that website I mentioned earlier in the first Dublin post. That place was gone, but unbelievably, on our walk there, we just happened to stumble upon a sign set out in the street for another shop that was a few blocks away. I think maybe the store is relatively new. I could not believe our luck! Isn't it wonderful? Anyway, that yarn store is called Nysta. Here is their clever little "Open" sign. Can you see the yarn?

Oh, and here is a very attractive, flattering picture that Andrew took of me inside the store. I'm sharing this ONLY for the greater good of letting you see the inside of the shop:

Of course, if he hadn't taken this picture, you wouldn't have one to see. I am pitifully embarrassed by asking people if I can take pictures of things like the inside of their store. Andrew is not. That's why we make a good team, I suppose.

I don't even sort of have a clue as to what the name Nysta means. Also, they apparently sell Monster there and if anyone can tell me what that is, I'd be eternally grateful! I DO know what garn is, though, and we bought some! Here it is:

As you probably recall, I was collecting yarn for a blanket. I knew setting out on this journey that I might have gauge and color problems with the yarn I was buying. This is especially true since we wanted to get yarn that was made in the country where we bought it. Since I hadn't had foresight enough to take samples of the Irish yarn with me to the store, we were stuck just dealing with the color. The decision I made was to pick a neutral as I figured that would be the easiest thing to deal with. "Neutral??" you are thinking. "That looks anything but neutral!" Well, you're right. I might have had a little incident while I was there. Maybe I left with a little more yarn than intended. Maybe not.....

Here is the neutral stuff:
It does have a little bit of red in it (I don't know how well you can see that) so it's not entirely neutral, but pretty good. The gauge is WAY off from the Irish yarn.... So it goes. It was the only yarn they had that was truly 100% Swedish (from start to finish -- no, not Finnish! Ha, ha, ha), so we had to have it. The name Mullvad apparently means Mole in English. I think that's what the owner woman said. Sounds sexy, doesn't it?

specs: 100% wool, made by Fargkraft, color: Mullvad, 700m per skein

And then, this somehow made its way into the shopping bag:
I assure you that this has nothing to do with my weakness. And nothing at all to do with the sales woman showing me a shawl that could be made with this stuff..... And it definitely didn't have to do with my thought about how I'd maybe never be back there, never be able to buy Swedish wool ever again. This color is Havsgron, which means sea grass or something like that. Some kind of grass. I don't know.... I should add that I've omitted the Swedish accents so I could be writing an entirely different word than that meant by the label. Oh well. I apologize to the Swedes for being so lazy.

Lastly, in a moment of true breakdown, we got these:

I am proud to tell you that Andrew was right behind me on this one. The stuff on the left is for socks for me and the stuff on the right is for him. It just so happens that blue is his most favorite color ever and it has the double whammy of having the same colors as the Swedish flag. He is, after all, the Swede in this family. Good colors and symbolic all at the same time. How can you say no?? The wool that the yarn is made from is Peruvian, I think, and it is dyed (and possibly spun) in Sweden. It is by Eko, which I read somewhere on the web is made by a cottage industry group and is eco-friendly in its production. The colors don't have names.

And a close-up:

If you're really interested, you can go to the Nysta website, click on "garn," click on "Ovrigt," and scroll down to Fargkraft for the first two and Eko for the other. I'm not sure what you'll do with that info, since I don't believe you can buy from them and if you're like me, you don't speak a lick of Swedish (though I can say thank you, you're welcome, and yarn!). Good luck anyway. It's always nice to drool over yarn, right?

Ireland: Part 3 (Irish Wooooooool)

2007-07-26T09:58:00.000-06:00

Let me begin by apologizing for how picture heavy this post is. If you have dial-up you will probably hate me. So, sorry for that.

Now, you may or may not have wondered why it has taken me so long to post since the last one. The short and simple answer is that I was avoiding the web like the plague because I was convinced (as a result of a few close calls) that the answer to the ending of the Harry Potter book was going to jump out from the web and bite me before I finished. However, I am back again despite the fact that I am not finished with the book. So far I have not been bitten by the end -- I've been very careful not to find out and I plan on staying that way until I have finished the book.

Anyway, back to Ireland! In my last post I stated that I had finally found yarn and that I was elated, but that I was utterly convinced that I was not going to be able to find any more yarn in Ireland because a) I hadn't found much yet and b) the woman at the store said so.

Turns out I was wrong (sort of -- I only found one kind of yarn, basically). But, let's do this chronologically, shall we?

From Kinsale we went on to Dingle, or An Daingean as it is now called on the maps (I use them both interchangeably). This naming, as it turns out, has been a point of major contention in the area. Ireland has been working on reclaiming its language (Irish) and part of this has been to designate areas of the country as unique for the maintaining of cultural traditions and language (a heritage site, basically). An Daingean was one of those places. The result was that the government renamed what had been called Dingle for a long time -- they called it An Daingean (obviously). This is all well and good, in theory, but unlike the rest of Ireland, where everything is posted bilingually -- in English and Irish -- An Daingean is now listed only as that (not Dingle). Long story short, the business owners of Dingle were never asked whether they wanted the town's name changed and they are mad about it, because they feel it could affect their business.

Anyway, so we went from Kinsale to the town of An Daingean/Dingle on the An Daingean/Dingle Peninsula. It is just north of the Ring of Kerry, which is apparently famous for its beautiful sites. Happily, Dingle is just as beautiful, but supposedly less crowded. No, I suppose it really is less crowded, but holy cow were there a lot of tourists there anyway. Happily, when we went off to do our car tour of the area, there weren't that many people on the road or at the sites. It was terrific.

The scenery on our drive onto the peninsula was spectacular. I don't have a great camera, so I can't even begin to describe what it looked like with this crappy picture, but hopefully you get the idea.

On the way in, we saw lots of these:

I read somewhere that An Daingean has about 40,000 people year round and 500,000 sheep. Imagine what we knitters could do with that place!

The town of Dingle was where we anchored ourselves for that part of our Ireland stay. It was a really cute little town and it was full of great music and yummy ice cream.
One of the coolest things about it was that it had many multi-purpose places of business. It had a barber shop where hair is cut by day and drinks are served at night when it becomes a pub. It has a hardware store like this too. What a hoot!!

On our drive around the peninsula, besides lots of green stuff, we saw a huge number of ruins. Apparently the ruins have been unusually untouched because the people in the area consider them haunted or enchanted. If you mess with one of these places, you mess with the fairies that live there too. And for those who don't believe in fairies, I'm sure they've come to appreciate the value of these ruins for business as well. There were a lot of famous ones in the area, but I'll just show you two shots:

Pretty cool if I do say so myself.

On our drive around the peninsula, we got stuck in a traffic jam. I saw the slow down up ahead and I couldn't believe it -- was fairly irritated, in fact. And then I saw what it was that was keeping us up:

Suddenly, I wasn't so irritated anymore. The sheep came complete with shepards and sheep herding dogs, neither of which I got a good picture of, so I don't have one to show you here.

But what about the yarn, you ask?? Well, we found two places to buy yarn. There was the Kerry Woolen Mills place that had yarn that wasn't too exciting, but the guy was nice and price was right, so I got some yarn there.
I got what I believe he was calling "organic wool," if I remember correctly. It is wool with its original color. I would not normally be that excited by this, as I am a color woman, but something about the fact that I had seen so many sheep while I was there made me want something that looked a lot like them (more than hot pink does, for example).

Then we went to this wonderful place called Commodum. At first I thought the woman there wasn't very friendly, but eventually I figured out that she was just letting me do my thing and that English wasn't her first language, so perhaps she was a little shy about approaching people in her shop. In the end, the woman was nice and I enjoyed myself very much. (My husband got me a birthday gift there too, which I have forgotten to photograph. It's a beautiful little sculpture.)

How could I ever have doubted them, with windows like this?:

At Commodum, I went a little nuts. Here is what I got:
The colorful stuff is for the blanket that I am going to make (which I mentioned in a post before leaving) that is going to be a memento of our trip and in honor of our wedding. We are both excited about this!

The big thing of grey wool is for a sweater for myself. I really need a no-nonsense wool cardigan. My old cardigan is wasted and my mom makes fun of me every time she sees it..... To give you an idea, it has something elastic in the yarn and although it started out as a perfectly normal cardigan, it now practically drags on the floor when I wear it. Nice, huh? Perfectly unacceptable for a knitter, I say!

So, we found yarn in Ireland finally. Perhaps too much. To give you a sense of how much yarn this is (you have to imagine us dragging this around in our backpacks and in additional bags), I give you a picture of my husband with the yarn on him (including that from Kinsale) to give you scale. Yes, I think that WOW would be a reasonable response!

Only four more countries to go!

Harry Potter Interlude (Neighborhood Pride)

2007-07-20T06:44:00.001-06:00

Yes, I've been writing about my trip, but today is special. Today is the day before the Harry Potter book is released. In case you didn't know....

I just wanted to post a note about how I think I might have the coolest neighborhood in the world. You see, my neighborhood (Andersonville in Chicago) is hosting a Harry Potter Book Release Celebration. Of course, it started with the local book store Women and Children First, which has been planning a Harry shindig for months. They said it is a lot of fun and a good time if you have kids, and even if you don't, it's a lot of fun watching the kids go nuts as the time approaches for the book to be sold. Because I don't have kids, I wasn't too excited about that prospect -- kids hopped up on anxious energy and sugar? No thanks. But then again, the book release at 12:01 AM....

Happily, when I got to the store the other day, I saw this:

I don't know if you can read what it says if you blow it up, but the point is that this party is no longer just for kids (well, it probably never really was since there are so many non-kids who read the stuff) and it's no longer limited to the bookstore. I couldn't believe it when I heard that the bookstore had actually gone to the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce to hook others into having "a Neighborhood-wide celebration of all things Harry Potter, featuring a scavenger hunt, costume contest, food and drink specials, games, prizes, [etc.] . . . ."

So, you see, I DO in fact live in the coolest neighborhood ever. Not just because they got on the HP bandwagon, but because they did it in such a fun way and because they've decided to make it fun for everyone! I am truly impressed that there is such a willingness to embrace silly things in the name of fun -- to make the neighborhood a more pleasant place -- and I am reminded once again why I wanted to move back to this neighborhood when we came back to Chicago! Hooray!

If you can't see what it says and you actually care, I will tell you that among other things, 9 local restaurants and bars have gotten on board to offer HP themed food and . . . butter beer!! Does such a thing actually exist in real life? I can only imagine. And some of the places offer discounts on items after 12AM with the book! I can't wait!

Ireland: Part 2 (Out of Dublin)

2007-07-17T09:30:00.001-06:00

So, we left Dublin on the 15th of June after having been there really only 2 days. It was hardly enough time to see the city, but it was good to have gotten a taste for it and we were really excited to get out to the countryside, as this is where everyone who visits the country raves about. We hoped very much to buy some yarn, too, gosh darn it, but as you know from the previous post, we had difficulty finding yarn in Dublin, so it was hard to imagine finding it anywhere else....

After discussing our route with the woman at the car rental agency at Dublin Airport, we decided to drive along the eastern coast on our way to Dingle, which was our ultimate stop. Dingle is on the far west side of Ireland (on Dingle Peninsula, just north of the Kerry Peninsula), so the other people at the car rental agency thought we were crazy. They all said it would take too long. We did it anyway. And it was worth it!

We went south and east from Dublin. We went through Wexford, where we got a flat tire, thank you very much:

What we learned about Wexford, though, is that 1) they have vegetarian food despite not being a very big place, and 2) the people there were pretty darn friendly. In addition, they had a space with crafts for sale, which as you can imagine had a certain pull for me as soon as I heard about it, and it was located in this really cool old church. Because I'm not so good with the foresight, I didn't get the name of the church, but here is a picture of it:

As I'm sure you can see, it is missing its roof. That's how old this place is! There is a church area on the grounds with a roof that is much more likely to be the actual location of worship. It was fun to think that if we hadn't gotten a flat tire, we never would have stopped in this town.

Next major town we went through was Waterford. Yes, as in the place that the crystal is from. We even drove past the plant. Here is a picture of what Waterford looks like:

Because of our flat tire, or flat tyre, as they would spell it, we were driving a little later than planned, so we didn't stop and do anything in Waterford.

We ended up spending the night in Kinsale. If we get a chance to go back to Ireland, I would definitely want to go check out Kinsale some more. It is a cute little town (a picture from our hotel room at The White House ....).

This was the first night we were awake enough to take advantage of the old music in the pubs, which was excellent, as we had read so much about this. It was also advantageous as we were stuck in the room directly above where they were playing (at our Inn) since all the other rooms in town seemed to be booked. It was a good time and I was shocked at how many people (young and old) could sing along with the old music. I thought this was just something one heard about. Very impressive. If you can tell from my blurry picture, these guys are pretty young themselves. The real reason I took this picture is because of the jersey on one of these guys (the guy on the right).... Boston friends, do you see it?!?!?

I know it's hard to see. Blow up the picture. I think you can imagine what it says. Their name, by the way, was ... brace yourself... Streams of Whiskey.

On a whim, the next day, we looked for yarn shops and asked around. There were none. However, we did stop into Heather Mountain to look at the sweaters for my mom. Guess what? We found ... yarn!! Oddly, we found yarn only by one company and packaged in large amounts. Since we were never going to find anymore yarn on our vacation, though, we went ahead and got some. Here it is:

We almost got a multi-pack instead, but decided for green for our blanket. The color is prettier in person than it is in this photo. We did, for the record, ask about why there weren't any yarn stores anywhere when we were at Heather Mountain. The women there said that this was because most of the people there found yarn to be too expensive, so they would get together as a cooperative and buy large amounts as a group to make it less expensive. This made sense, I thought -- particularly for all of the people who must have been making the sweaters that were for sale at this store. There were a lot of sweaters there. Seriously. Maybe not a lot for the Gap or something, but when you figure that all of them had been hand knit!?!? Wow.

After FINALLY getting some yarn, we left Kinsale happy, and on our way to Dingle. Some where on our way to Dingle, we saw this thing:

I think it's a statue of something vaguely sheepy.... What do you think?

Finally! Ireland: Part 1 (Dublin)

2007-07-11T10:08:00.001-06:00

Well, so I promised to post this last week. And I didn't.... I think I'm still dealing with jet lag, what can I say?

I've decided to talk/blog about our trip chronologically and this means the yarn will come up chronologically as well.

We started out from Chicago's O'Hare on June 12. Here we are, looking appropriately cheesy--including the little pins that we had made for the guests at our wedding which we are wearing that you probably cannot see (husband busted them out of his bag just as we arrived at the airport). I don't remember if I made this clear or not, but besides traveling to celebrate our birthdays, this trip was our very belated honeymoon!

Please note how little luggage we had with us -- we were going for 3 weeks!! We took those two bags/backpacks and one carry on per person (my purse and husband's messenger bag). We were very proud of ourselves for traveling so light. We decided to follow Rick Steve's recommendations and just take a minimal amount of clothing so that we would have less to carry. Seeing as how there was no way we could carry 3 weeks' worth of clothing with us, this seemed reasonable -- we'd just have to wash clothes as we went along.

Besides many delays, our traveling was pretty uneventful.

The first moment I realized I might have a problem with my packing (after we FINALLY got our luggage, which of course had to get separated from us) was the instant I opened it and saw:

Do you see the problem? Half the contents of my bag is yarn!?!?! How did I let it take over my brain like that? You see in here the Noro book and yarn that I have for the sweater I wrote about quite a while ago. Also included was the sock kit I got from Blue Moon Fiber Arts which I wrote about quite a while ago as well. I figured I was going to have time on trains so I should probably bring some knitting along.... Am I the only one who gets this over zealous? Not pictured here is the pair of socks that I was already working on for my husband. Let me just warn you now: the yarn to clothing ratio did not improve on the trip....

But let me explain something. I thought that we would find hoards of yarn shops in Ireland because of all that I've heard about Irish Knitting. We did not. Not in Dublin, especially. We went to a Mills store (I can't remember which) that was just on the north side of the Ha'penny Bridge expecting yarn galore and didn't find much there. We found some pre-made sweaters. We also saw some sewing notions and a handful of yarn -- most of which looked to be acrylic, which was not what I was looking for. I'm pretty sure this was the Dublin Woollen Mills. Disappointing, to say the least.

Then we went to Hickey's which was recommended on this site. Hickey's is a fabric/home decor store, as it turns out. The Hickey's on Henry St. had some yarn downstairs, as promised. However, there really wasn't much. I would not bother going there unless you're ONLY going to Dublin, you HAVE to have souvenir yarn, and you can't get anywhere else. Oh, and do NOT go to the one at St. Stephen's Green, as they don't have any yarn. I didn't get to check out some of the other shops that were listed on the site I mentioned above. I really wanted to go to the Springwools shop because it looks good from their website AND my grandfather's last name was Spring (as is my mother's). So, it would have been a fun homage. However, we couldn't make it to that store. We were in Dublin for such a short time!

Alas, we left Dublin without yarn and I have to admit that I thought that I just might leave Ireland without yarn! I mean, if the big city doesn't have it, who will??

We did manage to get a little sightseeing in besides the yarn shop. Among other things, we walked along Grafton St. Here is a shot of that:

It is a pedestrians-only street for shopping, which is pretty cool. And, yes, we had our obligatory Irish rain.

Even the agony of the rain and the yarnlessness were soothed by a stop into The Foggy Dew which was in the trendy Temple Bar area (picture includes husband, who hates having his picture taken). The bar was quite lovely. It was dark and cozy and a welcome retreat from the rain. We were also feeling quite jetlagged still at that point, so it was nice to have a pleasant, mellow place to duck into.

We found it fairly well populated by people who seemed to have stopped in after work to hang out with friends and let the stress of the day fall away. The inside was all covered with rich wood paneling and on the walls were album covers for English bands. I thought this was a little odd given that we were in Ireland, but who doesn't feel respect for The Who, David Bowie, etc.??

And, of course, we had our very first real Irish Guinness. Look at this baby. I don't normally drink Guinness at home, but I had to have it in Ireland (I had read that it's actually much better in Ireland, as it is very fresh). It was very smooth and nice. The bartender took forever to pour it, just as we had been told they would. Nothing gets poured like a Guinness -- they don't take that long for other beers (I watched). Somewhat surprising was the fact that it was cold. I had heard that beer isn't served cold there, but this was not what we found over all, actually. Maybe it was that we were frequenting places that Americans turn up at all regularly and they complain about warm beer, etc., but The Foggy Dew didn't have anybody else who was obviously American (we found them elsewhere on our trip and then some!).

Oh, and the glasses our Guinnesses came in might have made it home with us . . . . Darn you, Erinn!!

Well, that's the sad story of Dublin and no yarn. It was a lovely city, though, and it would have been nice to have more time there. In no way could it beat the countryside, however, which I will write about next.....

Oh Boy!

2007-07-05T08:14:00.000-06:00

We're back! We just returned on Tuesday from our three week trip to Europe and I have been exhausted. Hopefully I will get over this soon and start posting some photos of the yarn that I bought, the stores we visited, and the places we saw while we were away (that being the order of importance, of course!). This really gives me a new appreciation for all the people who go on trips and blog while tripping or even immediately after. Phew!

I have so much stuff to dig through still, a kitchen to clean (that was mostly finished just before we left town), and photos to download before I can do this, though. I also received my Blue Moon Rockin' Sock Club package and have not . . . gasp! . . . opened it yet. My mom is out of town and I promised to wait to open it until she got back. Since I am completely and utterly overwhelmed with how much stuff there is to do here it is an easier thing to agree to. Of course, I admit that I checked how many days she'd be gone before I agreed to any such thing. I am not about to promise waiting for all that long! I can't even read the RSC posts right now because I don't want to know what's in the package!! But, my mom will be back tomorrow so I will get to finally see it. Hooray!!

So, hopefully a post tomorrow with some pictures, etc. We will be beginning with Ireland.

Husband's Bday and Tentative Itinerary!

2007-06-08T11:47:00.001-06:00

Well, first things first. Tuesday was my husband's 40th bday. So, we celebrated that with a cake and various random things like going to the eye doctor. Woohoo! We had a nice day, though, and I think he really enjoyed himself despite how unexciting it sounds.

I gave him a pair of socks that I made for him. I was actually done with one of them, but then I had him try it on and it was too long in the foot. So, I pulled it apart and took a half inch off the foot length. It fits better now. Here it is at this time:

I'm knitting it with STR In the Navy. Most importantly, I'm using a pattern that I found on the net. Here is the link for the boyfriend socks pattern. I really like it. If I were to do it again, though, I would find a nice solid color -- I think her gray is beautiful -- that really shows the cables better. My husband LOVES blue, though, and I am a * little * obsessed with Socks that Rock yarns still.

I also wanted to say that I don't know when I will next post to this blog. We will be leaving on Tuesday the 12th of June to go to Europe for our bday celebrations/honeymoon. We will be gone for 3 weeks!! I've never gone anywhere that long before, I don't think.

Today I started to put together a list of yarn shops that I would like to go to. I want to get to one in each place that we go to (at least...). I realize that this may be fantasy on my part. I have figured out a way to get my husband to go along with this though. I told him that I wanted to get at least a skein of yarn from each place and I would knit it into a blanket/afghan for us as a memento of our trip. He was actually pretty psyched about that, so I think it will be fun.

I think this will be an interesting way to site see. It is true that we will want to do the more normal touristy stuff, but I think this gives us a chance to get off the beaten path a little bit and gives us a chance to see the places we're going to from a different perspective -- more like the natives, hopefully. Well . . . more like the native knitters anyway. :)

I am excited at the prospect of finding yarn there that I can't get here. I am a little worried that this won't be the case -- that all yarn shops carry most of the same brands. Keep your fingers crossed that this is not the case. Either way it will be fun and enlightening.

So, see you in a while! Hopefully I can post while on our trip, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Just think: by the time we get back in town my RSC June Package will likely be here! Yes, that's right -- too much fun for one person!

More Chevron Scarf! And a question....

2007-05-31T15:31:00.001-06:00

Okay, so my simple project has been a little more of a pain in the butt than expected. Which is not so surprising, I guess. I am a bit of a fiddler, I think. I mean, I can't just leave these things alone and so I had to rip up my scarf and restart it so that it would be a tighter weave. I don't know if you can see the difference, but check this out:

I am now knitting it with Susan Bates size 5 circular needles. Who cares? I don't know, but now you know what I'm knitting with. Very exciting.

So, I'm not exactly that far with my quick project. As you can see:

I think that I'm liking it now. I have a bad habit of not liking things that I make and then giving them away (to people who want them -- no I'm not that evil!). The fiddling is worth the while some times. I'd rather not end up with something that I don't like, especially given how much I LOVE the yarns that I'm using for this scarf. I just hope that it flattens out more.

NB: Oh, and another note on this scarf: knit it for a couple of inches before you decide anything on it. One of the reasons I went to a bigger needle to begin with (which I have downsized from now) is that it looked like it was puckering in strange places. I assumed that this was because of the tightness of the gauge. Not so. It was simply the shaping that occurs from the increasing and decreasing in this scarf, which I would have known sooner if I had just knit further in the pattern to see how it would lay. I mean, I think I knew that was what it was from before, but I could see after a few more inches that it didn't look as strange as I thought it did. I'm liking the tighter knit much better.

Now, my question, which has nothing to do with this scarf: I am going to some places in Europe in a couple of weeks and I'm wondering if any of you know of cool yarn happenings or stores in any of the places that I'm going to. I'm going to be in Dublin (one of you gave a suggestion on this, which is awesome and which got me thinking about this question in the first place), Stockholm, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Paris. Ideas? I'd love to hear them.

Caved: Chevron Scarf

2007-05-25T11:35:00.001-06:00

Well, I finally caved in. I got so tired of starting, knitting, and ripping things that I decided that I would just go ahead and work on something easier. So, I've been working on the chevron scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts using the Socks that Rock medium weight yarn. I LOVE the colors. I have Lemongrass and Fire on the Mountain in this scarf.

I picked Fire on the Mountain (the one on the left) because it's awesome and I wanted something that would highlight the colors in that, so I picked something that contrasts strongly with it (the Lemongrass) for my other color. They do definitely stand in strong contrast to one another.

Of course I probably don't even need to say this, but my "simple" project started with me ripping it about 4 times at the beginning and restarting. It is simple. But, it still took some getting used to -- including deciding on needle size. I'm using size 6 Boye interchangeable needles.

The problem? I love the colors in this thing, but I don't know if I'm loving the scarf. I liked it in pictures. It may just be the way that I'm doing it -- too big needles, perhaps? I don't know. The last thing I want to do right now is rip it, though. Ugh. One of the problems I'm having with it may be the result of the fact that I'm knitting so loosely on the increase stitches. They are very loose looking, but I found that when I knit them too tightly there was too much pucker in the knitting and I wasn't liking that. It's already weird how much the chevron pattern pulls the scarf into such a not-flat shape. I'm mostly okay with it, I think, but I don't want to add to the problems by having puckering that isn't supposed to be there. Maybe I'll play with knitting a little less loosely on the increases and see if that helps, without creating more pucker. Of course, that requires me to rip it again if I like it better with the different tension.... Ahhh!!!!

Here it is:

Important note, I think, regarding color: the scarf instructions talk about color A and color B, and when you start the scarf, you start with color A. No big surprise. But, because you start with it, I thought it would be the predominant color. Wrong. Color B seems to be the predominant color. This was one of the rips I did w/ the scarf. I wanted the Fire on the Mountain yarn to be the predominant color in the scarf, so I started with it and quickly realized that because of the effect of the increases and decreases on the knitting, color B is actually the dominant one. So, to sort of help you understand what I'm talking about, here is another view of what it looks like with Fire on the Mountain for color B:

Lastly, a funny picture of a brazen squirrel. We have lots of cats and two dogs living here with us and this squirrel hangs out regularly on our porch. Here it is (looking a little demonic), but it is actually kind of cute:

Testing my Perserverence

2007-05-16T15:15:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been busy lately, as I stated in a previous post. There were two surprises that I was working on that I alluded to but which I could not show you at that time. However, both surprises have become un-surprises since then so I can show you now!

First, I was working on organizing a trip as a surprise for my husband's birthday. His birthday is June 5, but I felt this was something I needed to tell him about sooner rather than later because it is kind of an undertaking.... This is the form the gift took:

We will be flying into Dublin on the 13th of June and flying out of Paris on the 3rd of July. So, you can probably now understand why it would take some preparation!! I am very excited about this and I am pretty sure he is too.

I will admit that this trip is as much for me as it is for him. Truth be told I am much more likely to want to fly off to who-knows-where than he is, but, he enjoys travel too and since my birthday is two weeks to the day after his is, I think it's fair. Plus, we haven't exactly had our honeymoon yet and we were married in October. It's about time, gosh darn it!!

Oh, and I hear that there might be some yarn in Ireland . . . and Sweden . . . and maybe elsewhere that I should check out. Muahahahaha. Yes, my husband, bless him, is incredibly tolerant of this madness of mine. Thank goodness.

The other surprise is this pair of socks that I was working on for my mom for Mother's Day.

It is the Circle Dance pattern from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, made from one of their Sock Candy kits. If you are interested in doing this, don't make the same mistake I did and assume that kit means that the pattern will be sent with the yarn. IT WILL NOT. You have to get the book, too. I don't understand this approach, nor do I particularly like it, but there you have it. Besides, the women are so nice at Blue Moon that it is hard to get mad at them or stay mad at them for long for things like this.

I am loving the colors, but I keep screwing up the socks! I keep knitting too tight and frogging them. I have decided to knit them very, very loosely one more time (I have completed a pair of socks and then some when you consider how much knitting I've done on these babies) and if that doesn't work, I'm gonna have to find something else to do. I am worried that the looseness will make them slouchy and unwearable, too, so I'm not sure if this will work. I hate slouchy socks. If you have any ideas about how to avert this particular catastrophe, I'm all ears.

Which brings me to the point of the title of this post: I have had to frog so much of my sock knitting lately -- including the April shipment of the Rockin' Sock Club -- that I am thinking of laying down the DPNs for a while and finding something else to knit. I love the STR yarns and colors and I am enjoying making socks, but a woman can only take so much ripping and redoing. Seriously!! I think I might get started on my chevron scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Or, I could use a shawl, so I may do that instead. But I hate to leave so much undone!! Guilt, guilt, guilt. What can I say? It is so dysfunctional and unproductive that I hope to get over it soon.

Oooh, I've been bad about this

2007-05-09T21:35:00.000-06:00

I haven't written in a while, it's true. I promised a long time ago that I would show some of my swag from Blue Moon Fib er Arts. The colors are sooo delicious. I almost thought about not showing you everything that I got because it's too embarrassing how nuts I went with my coupon from the Rockin' Sock Club, but I have to share because they are so gorgeous that it would be karmically bad for me NOT to share them. Drum roll please . . . here they are:

I feel that I have to point out what you probably already know: these photos don't even begin to do theses yarns justice. For anyone curious enough to ask, those colors are (from left to right): Fairgrounds, Fire on the Mountain, Lemongrass, Puck's Mischief, Rolling Stone, Farmhouse, Love-in-Idleness, and Chapman Springs. The colors don't look much to me in reality like they do online, but, if this is possible, they are EVEN BETTER In person than online. Yes, really. If you're eyeing some Socks that Rock yarn, DO it. That's my two cents worth. Well, okay, let me tell you, it will definitely be more than two cents worth in the end..... It is quite possible to spend maybe a little too much on their website (though not too much in the it's-not-worth-it kind of too much).

As for what I'm going to do with all of this yarn, I have a plan for all of it basically. Most of the plans involve Knitty sock patterns from Cookie A. But, I am going to make the chevron scarf that has made its rounds through so much of knitterdom with the Fire on the Mountain and the Lemongrass. I am hoping that they stand in strong contrast but that it isn't so bright it gets irritating after a while. Here they are:

And, the Fairgrounds colorway is spoken for (by my mother). It looks oddly like it's not nearly as colorful as all the other colorways I got when you see it in a skein:

However, I have taken the image of the Rock and Weave socks as incontrovertible proof that it is full of more colors than one can see at first glance. Of course, it is quite possible that because I'm not using that pattern, it won't be so much. But, I look forward to working with it nonetheless.

I am up to way more than this, but I cannot disclose right this moment what some of those other activities are. They are all good and fun, though....

April Sock Kit!

2007-04-28T09:56:00.000-06:00

Oh, I have been so remiss with this blog lately. Primarily it has to do with getting photos of everything so I can post them (in other words, being too lazy to do this). But, I also have found a handful of other random things to do that take up my time. Boring subject, really. All I can say is that I really, really do need to post photos of my gorgeous new skeins from the Socks that Rock folks, because they are to die for.

Instead, I am going to post my April sock kit. I do like the colors in this month's kit pretty well. Like last month's kit, they are not colors I would normally pick out on my own, but I do think the yarn is pretty and let me tell you: it is soooo soft. I has silk in it this time -- the first time they've dyed with it. I am very excited to try it. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Socks that Rock Silkie in the colorway Walking on the Wild Tide.....

Here is a photo of the kit that I received:

And here is the pattern -- actually two patterns, in that you can make a long or short version:

I am going to make the short version.

That is all for now! I have to do some knitting and hardly want to spend any more time blogging right now. Ha.

Salvation!

2007-04-22T17:33:00.000-06:00

I have had a crappy few days. Nothing big, but definitely stressful and a little more overwhelming than they probably should be. Friday was incredibly long. I had to do continuing legal ed stuff for the Illinois Bar (and have to do more on Monday) and I was feeling crabby and tired at the end of the day -- among other things, I'm not even sure why I was there taking the class, since I'm not a practicing lawyer. In addition to this, my cell phone appeared to be broken and my transit card wasn't working. BUT! Lo and behold! What did I have with me during that awful day? My Rockin' Sock Club sock!!

I didn't knit while people were presenting -- they could see me and I was concerned that they would take it the wrong way -- but I did get to knit when a presenter didn't show up that was supposed to and I did get to knit on the el home, which made me a considerably happier camper by the time I got home. Seriously, it made my life just a bit better. I am SO glad to have had this to do.

To make things even better, I got a bunch of yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts (the people who make Socks that Rock) on Saturday, which I will definitely have to photograph and post because the yarn is AMAZING. It made me so much happier. Though, I have to say that I was a bit frustrated when I realized (too late) that their sock kits (that they sell on their site -- not their rockin' sock club kits) don't actually come with instructions (for the pattern that you've bought the yarn for). To be fair, they do state this on the website, but I didn't see it. I was too transfixed by the pattern that I thought I was buying in kit form to notice the words. Waaaahhhh. It made me feel very whiny. I shall survive, though. I was going to make this project for mother's day, however, and I don't know if I can get it done in time, now. :(

Lastly, today, I was at a Green Living festival here in Chicago. I walked in and it was PACKED. I am not much for crowds. I was completely overwhelmed by the place. I was in a crowd-stress-induced stupor in about 10 minutes after being there. Yikes. So, at some point, I left my husband behind while he asked important questions (that I wish I had had the patience to wait for) and went outside into the incredibly beautiful day and knitted. Once again this weekend, knitting saved my mortal soul. Yay! I sat in the middle of Lake Shore Drive on a grassy knoll....

I think I may actually finish my Feb. socks before the next kit arrives in the next week or so! Yay! I just wonder whether I'm going to be able to cable on the train. Probably not. So, I'll read instead. Unless I start one of my other fabulous knitting projects now that I have all of this unbelievably gorgeous STR yarn.

One down, one to go....

2007-04-13T15:38:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally finished ONE of my Inside Out Socks from the Rockin' Sock Club's February 2007 kit. I did the toes and heels on 1s, the main part of the foot on 0s, and the leg on 3s!!! Here are some pictures of the sock, which is meant to be wearable on either side! (I don't know why I can't get any good colors with my camera. Obviously it has to do with light. Sorry if you can't really tell what the socks look like....)

The sock:

The sock's cable from the outside:

The sock's cable from the inside:

I feel like a big loser for having taken so long to complete this, but what can I say? I really have knitted about 4 of them, if you count all of my froggings, so I tell myself that I'm not just incredibly slow. The result of my latest obsession with finishing them is a very sore wrist, by the way. There has to be a way to do this without injuring myself. I'm gonna have to figure that out -- I don't want sock knitting to be a painful experience every time.

So, why did I have to frog the darn things so many times? The short answer is: because I've never done cables before. The first time I did the leg I did it on 2s. The legs looked good, but I got nearly to the end and decided to try them on. Well ... that was when I learned that my cables were WAY too tight. I ripped them apart and started the legs again.

The second time I did it, I realized that I changed my pattern somewhere and needed to fix it (not paying attention) and had to rip it, rip it, rip it. The third time, I realized that I was just completely wrong about the pattern. Somehow I had managed to make up a pattern that was only loosely based upon the actual pattern. Anyway, ripped that apart. I cannot believe that particular mistake and have a hard time pardoning myself for it.

Needless to say, by the time I figured everything out, I went nuts trying to finally get one finished. And I did. Which, as I noted above, caused me big pain. But I'm still happy to have the darn thing finished. I look forward to finishing the second sock and doing it right the whole time.

If it wasn't for my bazillion froggings of the sock, I would change a few things in my second sock. Since I don't want to re-do the first one to make it match the second one, though, I won't. The changes I would make are:
a) I would change the length of the foot. I think I did it a little too long. Actually, I might change that in the second one anyway because I think that it won't be too noticeable a difference between the two socks.
b) the gauge of the foot. I think I might play with the needle size on the foot. I think in the long run, it might be a smidge too tight on my foot. It's not painfully too tight or anything -- no lost circulation, to be sure. It's just what I think is wrong with it. Lastly,
c) I would try to knit the leg on 2s instead of 3s and just be really loose when doing the cables. However, because it actually fits on my leg on 3s, I'm NOT touching them again!

TOTALLY UNRELATED QUESTION: if you were to receive a baby sweater, would you rather get a cardigan or a pullover? Which one is easier for parents to use? I can imagine arguments for either one. Also, if I do a cardigan, what is the deal with the buttons? What do I have to do to make sure they aren't buttons that will be put into the mouth and choked on?

Thanks!

Great Mojo

2007-04-10T12:26:00.000-06:00

As I try to figure out which place is the best to receive the hand knitted items that I got as The Hat Lady here in Chicago, I've spent some time with these items and I have to say that they have a remarkable amount of good mojo. It is wonderful to see these items that so many people clearly put time and love into. The Harlot said in her blog something about the thought of homeless folks wearing something that was made with so much love and how good that made her feel. At first I thought this was just a nice sentiment. Then, after seeing these wonderful goods and meeting the people who made them, I have a new understanding and appreciation for what she said.

Here is a picture of all of the items together:

Here are some of the ones I felt like taking close - ups of. They might give you an idea of why I felt so impressed by these guys. Admittedly, maybe these aren't incredibly difficult to do or anything, but they prove (to me at least) that when folks set out to do their knitting for this event, they didn't just slap something together. Everyone made something nice:

It also helped me to appreciate how different we all are as knitters. There are many patterns in the world that I would never do because they are just so not my style. But, when I see them knitted, I can really appreciate their beauty (at least all of those that I got to see here in the hats, etc. -- there are admittedly some patterns in the world that will never look good to me) and am glad that there are so many of us making such different things. Life would be too, too boring if everyone knitted the same things that I do.

So, that's my deep thought for today.

No new reports really about what I'm up to with my knitting. I am STILL weaving in the ends on the baby blanket from a hundred years ago. I still haven't done the accompanying bear for it. I haven't gotten anywhere with my sweater. I had to frog the leg portion of my STR Inside-out Socks, because my cables made the leg too tight. And on it goes....

The Harlot!! And a tale about how I became The Hat Lady for Chicago

2007-04-04T11:28:00.000-06:00

I think the reason that I blog about my knitting has to be almost 100% Ms. Harlot's fault, so it is fitting that I should be able to post something about The Harlot herself. Last night, my mother and I went to Borders in Oak Brook, IL to see Ms. Pearl-McPhee.

We left our house pretty early so that we would miss the rush hour traffic. We got out to Oak Brook (from the city) at about 5 and went to dinner and then to Borders at about 6:15. Seeing as how it was more than an hour before her talk (she was beginning at 7:30), I felt kind of embarrassed and clearly overeager by being there so early. HOWEVER, when we got there, the seats were already almost full!! I was so glad we had gotten there when we did and would likely try to get there earlier the next time I wanted to see her.

By being there so early, I had an opportunity to talk with my neighbors and I met a lot of nice people (what a surprise, right?). Also, at some point, a woman in the crowd decided to organize an impromptu show-and-tell. We all got up and showed what we were working on, mentioned the pattern, and the yarn, and everyone else in the crowd nodded knowingly and appreciatively:

I probably don't have to tell you that there were A LOT of socks. But, there were a lot of other good things too.

It was wonderful. One of the women in line with me to get the book signed said, "It's really cool how you can say what pattern you're knitting and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about." Sometimes folks could even guess what others' patterns were. It was pretty unusual and wonderful.

The Harlot's talk was funny -- so funny it made me cry. In fact, I overheard one of the guys who works at the bookstore saying, "I don't know what she said -- I couldn't hear her. All I know is that I heard lots of laughter, some more noise, and another burst of laughter." This is the same guy who (when I was buying the book) actually said the words that we had all talked about but I never actually expected to hear: "I've never seen so many knitters." To this I actually said, "Muahahaha! That is exactly the point!" Yes, I may have outed us and our plans, but it had to be done!

After TWO HOURS of waiting in line to get my book signed, I finally met her. The way I justify this kind of wait is that I had to wait anyway, since I was The Hat Lady and had to collect the hats! A lot of people just handed me their hats, but I think there were more than a few who were suspicious and who wanted to share them w/ Ms. Harlot, and they dropped them off at her signing table. Embarrassingly, my mother took a picture of the exhausted (but gracious) Harlot and me:

That is THE Bohus sitting in front of me on the table. It is unfreakingbelievable. It is beautiful, soft, and exquisitely knitted. Well done Harlot!

As for how I became The Hat Lady for Chicago, I noticed that no one else had taken on the job. It's that simple. So, I posted on her blog about doing it and got no response. It occurred to me that the woman is BUSY, so I emailed her directly about doing it and she said she'd like that. So, I did it. I will be posting pictures of the hats soon. There were a lot of them very generously donated. I couldn't believe it. So, stay tuned.

If you live in Chicago and have a brilliant idea about which homeless organization these should go to, please let me know. Otherwise, I will be doing the research and determining where they should go soon. I will let you know what I pick.

A Child's Bicycle, a Street Sign, Doggie Chew Toys, and More!

2007-03-31T11:10:00.000-06:00

Those are some of the things that we've found under the bushes in our back yard! And that is part of the reason I have been writing so little. I don't know if I've explicitly stated this before or not, but we have a ~~crappy old house~~ house that is terribly in need of love. I shouldn't say too many bad things about it -- truth be told, I think that will simply create bad karma/tension between us and the house -- so I will simply say that we have our work cut out for us. Anyway, we just moved here at the end of September, got married at the beginning of October, etc., etc., and we have been slightly overwhelmed. But, this week, we finally got through THE EVIL VAULTS in our back yard and can now both stop spending money on the darn things every month and go through some of our stuff. Hopefully we'll feel like we've moved in one of these days.

Needless to say, this work around the house has not prevented me from getting myself started on way too many things lately. By things, of course, I mean knitting projects. Yes, despite Ms. Harlot's warnings, I have been struck by ...duh, duh, duh... (loud announcer voice) START-itis....

My WIPs:
1) I STILL haven't finished that darn baby blanket. I hate sewing in the ends.
2) I am finishing sock number one from the Rockin' Sock Club. I have never done cables before and it is an interesting experience. I'm psyched to be doing something new, but I have the unfortunate feeling that these socks are not going to go onto my feet w/ these darn cables. Maybe this feeling is the result of the KAL/blog that is associated w/ this sock club. I love it for many reasons -- it's nice to see who's out there knitting with me and I've definitely learned a lot from the comments (for example: cable loosely because the socks may not fit otherwise!) -- but I also find the comments made on the blog a little discouraging or frightening. I mean, I read them and I think: If these people can't do these socks, how could I possibly do it?? But, I carry on anyway. The only way to get anywhere with them is to just do it, right?
3) I am working slowly on a very simple cardigan out of Noro still. I love the colors so much that it really keeps me going, but for some reason (surely not the fact that I have a million things going at once), I don't seem to be getting through it very quickly!
4) ... boy, who knew that this list would be so long? ... I started a hat (yesterday!!) for the Harlot's tour. I don't know if they'll still be collected or not, since it seemed to be primarily for the NYC event, but I'm making one just in case. My best excuse for it: I'm getting a chance to practice cabling a bit more before carrying on with my socks that may be a failure.... Hope to have it done for Tuesday when she'll be out in Oakbrook, IL.
5) I have to finish the dress I started for my mom's dog, Trixie. Yes, you read that right. I don't know if it's the right size and shape for her really. I started it when she was 3000 miles away from me and I couldn't check (I was in Boston, she was in San Jose, CA). Now I can hopefully fix it before I hand it over. My mom is really hoping that I have it done before Easter. Yes, really. We'll see about that.
6) Well, we won't talk about the rest of the things in the bin waiting to be worked on -- like the sweater I started for my husband a few years ago....

I have to say that writing that all out was therapeutic and has definitely helped convince me that I need to stop starting for a while. Go team go! I will finish these items...really I will.

And, I won't even begin on the list of books I'm in the middle of (two Salman Rushdie books, one John Irving book, etc.), but I WILL mention that last night my husband and I went to Women and Children First to hear Rebecca Walker (daughter of Alice Walker (Color Purple), but writer in her own right) talk about her new book. She was delightful!! She was so funny and charming. We both really, really enjoyed it. And, my husband gets major points for being the only man in the room.

No, no pictures this time. It was all I could do to write this time. :/ I know it makes the posts exceptionally less interesting.

Just Do It Already!

2007-03-19T09:52:00.000-06:00

Uff, there are a lot of things that I've been putting off lately. Instead of doing those things, I have written in this blog or done other things. So, what has been good about this week, while I have been putting off this blog is, I have finally not been putting off other things. This is good news!

First things first, though. This past Saturday was St. Patrick's Day and so I went downtown with my mother and my husband to see the dyeing of the Chicago River green. I've never really seen it before and so I thought now was the time. The crowds were horrendous so we gave up entirely on the whole parade idea, but the day was beautiful and it was enjoyable. Here is the place where they put the dye in:

I know it doesn't look all that green, but trust me when I tell you that it was very green. Check this out:

Also good is the fact that my mother completed the knitting bag that she was making for me.

Here is a photo of the inside and the outside:

Things I finally started:
1) My Noro sweater that is sooooo yummy. I am loving the colors, which is great since I was a little concerned that I might not once I began to knit it. Sometimes skeins that are made of so many different colors are much more beautiful in theory (in the skein) than they are in practice (the worked product). I am farther than this now, but here is proof!

2) My Socks that Rock socks! Hooray! I was so afraid of starting these things. I don't know if it was the comments that other sock club members made about how difficult these babies were or what, but avoid them I did. Well, I was afraid of the provisional cast-on for one thing. But, I have taken it one step at a time (no pun intended -- these are socks we are talking about, after all) and it has worked out okay so far. Though, they are taking forever because I am working the foot in 0s. Yep, tiny. I am still afraid of the legs -- whether I'll have the right size needle or not -- and more specifically, the cables. I've never done freaking cables before, let alone doing them in something where their apparent ability to completely zap the stretchability out of something can be life-ending (for the project)! That alone strikes fear in me. But, I shall carry on -- especially since I don't want to deal with sewing in the million ends on the Teddy Bear blanket. Or with finishing the bear himself.

This is just the swatch that I knit, but still it does make me feel like I've accomplished something just seeing it. In reality, I am past the toe. But no further.....

3) Emptying out the pods that are in my back yard. Well, we didn't get all that far with those, but often with fun projects like that, starting is half the battle.... Right? Maybe....

Things that I am still successfully putting off:

1) My teddy bear blanket finishing. The good news is that I was able to fix the terrible shaping by simply re-binding off the outside with needles that were one size larger. Simple fix, right? The problems that I'm having with the connection between the seed stitch portion of the blanket and the stockinette portion is not all that fixable at this point as far as I know. It is not warping nearly so badly w/ the outside fixed, but the seed stitch still doesn't want to lie flat with the blanket so much. I am hoping that blocking this thing will help some, but honestly, it's cotton and acrylic, so how much can really change?

2) Looking for lots more jobs to apply to. I had an interview today which was good, but I won't know what they've decided for a few more weeks. I need more places to apply to! :( I don't really feel like looking, though.

Well then... (Rockin' Sock Club Spoiler)

2007-03-08T13:02:00.000-06:00

So, I have had some good moments and some bad ones over the past couple of days (primarily yesterday). Mostly things are very good: there is sun, snow is melting, my cats (and husband) rock, and I got my first Rockin' Sock Club shipment yesterday. That shipment was like manna from heaven. I thought it was never going to get here -- I've been reading for what, a week?, about other people's drooly moments when they got their package and I've just been dying to see it!! I avoided all the spoilers, etc. and finally it was here.

I nearly tackled the postman (recurring theme among us in the club) when I saw that he had a package that looked like the ones posted on the Sock Club blog, but I was so afraid that it wouldn't be the package that instead, I sat in my car holding my breath, waiting to see if he would take it into my yard and put it on my porch. Much to my amazement, he did, and I got to fondle the yarn finally.

I will start by saying that this yarn is not a color that I would normally pick out and neither is the pattern. However, as I stated on the RSC blog, I am truly excited about the opportunity to delve into different patterns and colors than I have before. This is exactly why I joined the club -- to do new things! So, I am very happy about this shipment -- I think the yarn is incredible and beautiful even though it's different from what I would normally do. It is soft and the colors are soooo rich. I have spent more time fondling this yarn than is healthy and I don't think I've spent quite so much time just holding onto my yarn before. Seriously. It's kind of sick.

Just to prove how sick I am, here is a picture of the yarn becoming part of the family (please ignore the nasty walls, etc. -- long story).

And, here is my cat Chopper welcoming the folder and all of the package contents into the home (I just hope he's willing to give them back to me some time -- I DO need that pattern, after all).

So, what is the bad news? The puckering on my blanket. The puckering, amazingly, does not come from the tying together of the loose ends, but from the seed stitch on the outside. This is
what I think is the problem, anyway. I think that when I switched to seed stitch it changed the gauge of the knitting and therefore, it tightened up -- hence the puckering. So, I have devised a clever plan (hopefully) that should fix it. Maybe. I realized that it would be impossible for me to change my tension through that whole bit of knitting around the outside of the blanket, so I am going to frog to the beginning of the seed stitch and I am going to go up one size needle to see if that will loosen it up enough to do the job.

Of course, that won't help w/ the puckering in the center, but I plan on pretending like that isn't happening. Maybe I can block some of that out? PLEASE keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Not Much New

2007-02-27T11:28:00.000-06:00

Well, I don't even have any cute pictures of the animals to post today. I just thought I should check in here because it has been a while. I'm trying to be disciplined about something, for heaven's sake! I have been getting sloppy about so many things.

I have been working on my Teddy Bear blanket at a rate of about 3 rows per sitting. That means that I'm not getting very far, obviously. The thing about this blanket is that it has mitred corners, so it gets bigger every other row by 8 stitches, which means it takes longer and longer to get through a row. I also think that I must be doing something wrong with it. I have 800,000,000 ends that I'm going to have to sew in.

The blanket uses a different color every row and becuase there are 5 colors, there are 5 rows before there is a repetition of the color that you're using. The dilemma here is that I don't know how else to do this but to cut the yarn at the end of each row and start it again when I get to the next use of that color. I don't know if I'm being an idiot -- I have a history of making things more complicated than they need to be -- but I can't figure out any other way to make this work other than what I'm doing. ANY help would be appreciated. I just keep coming to the conclusion that if I left the string connected and just carried it up to the next row where it is used, I would end up with a corner that is really messed up and definitely not neatly attached. Or attached at all, really -- not in a seam sort of way.

The unfortunate thing is that this darned book, as the comments on Amazon stated (I read them AFTER I started with these patterns (bought the book elsewhere) thank you very much), does not give me a clue as to what I should be doing with these ends. Maybe this is the only thing to do, but it doesn't seem very elegant a solution. Uff. I just hope it looks good in the end.

On a brighter note, I finally got to go to the Stitching Salon downtown yesterday and it was wonderful. I mean, there wasn't much to it, but it was a nice environment for knitting purposes (great, comfy looking seats) and they had some FANTASTIC artwork up on the walls there that, as far as I could tell, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Stitching Salon. I appreciated it nonetheless. I was not able to stay and knit there, however, as I had things to do. If I had, I'm sure I would have lots of good stuff to say. But, the people I did talk to there were really nice and welcoming. Good stuff!!

Also, the Socks that Rock shipment was supposed to have left Oregon yesterday, so I hope to get that soon. But, with the Chicago mail system the way it is . . . well, who knows? I can dream, can't I?

And on it goes...

2007-02-16T11:57:00.000-06:00

Well, the Hey Diddle Diddle blanket is finally done. Here is a picture of the backing. My mom did that part and I think it saved the blanket. Please ignore how bad my intarsia is . . . .

My cat Chopper has given it his endorsement as well. Thank goodness.

My knitting of the Teddy Bear blanket goes on. The recipient baby was born a couple of weeks ago and now I definitely feel the pressure to finish this thing up! I do NOT plan on putting a backing on this one. I really don't have the patience for that stuff -- which is sad, considering the fact that I haven't been the one to actually sew on the backings. Oh well. Some day I too will learn patience. Maybe. At least I can say that I am happy to actually be finishing projects. That is something. I'm not always too good at that. It helps that the things that I'm knitting are for other people -- puts more pressure on me finishing!

On a related note, I hope to start knitting something for myself soon. I went out on Valentine's Day with my mother to find myself a knitting bag (her V-Day gift to me) and instead I cam home with a bag full of Kureyon. Again. Yes, I know I complained previously about Kureeyon's scratchiness, but really, the stuff is just beautiful, so I couldn't resist. Here is the color that I picked. I love the brightness -- wonderful for this grey, icky, COLD, time of year. I am a little worried about what it's going to look like when it is knit up. It may not turn out to be the sweater I am hoping it will. I want something I can wear with everything, etc.

Here is a picture of the design (you can almost tell what it looks like). There was another one I wanted that looked warmer -- that was the whole point in allowing myself to get yarn for myself -- but, I couldn't find an Iro that would go well with it and the gauge of the Kureyon just wouldn't do. So, I'm doing this one instead.

I have to admit another fear with this project (besides the color fear): I am afraid I will get bored with it. Besides the fact that I'm not too good at knitting stuff for myself anyway, a boring pattern could do me in. I am hoping that the delight that I feel as I watch the color pattern unravel (metaphorically) before me, I will be so excited that I will enjoy knitting this thing. I am a process knitter, rather than a project knitter, I guess you could say. I don't normally knit so that I can have something. This is a new experience for me. The good news about this project is that I think it will be some thoughtless knitting that will keep the hands busy and the mind meditating, rather than cursing. I could use some of that, I think.

Lastly, I am excited to say that I am a proud new member of the Socks that Rock club! Yes, I too succumbed. I can't wait to get the package. I am not one of those people who spends 90% of her time knitting socks, but the thought of getting a mystery package of yarn with instructions in the mail every other month was just TOO much for me to resist. So, on we go!! I'll let you know when it shows up.

The Windy City

2007-02-09T16:39:00.000-06:00

I don't have much new to say about the knitting I've been doing. I'm STILL not done doing the embroidery on the blanket that I posted photos of the other day. I've been seeking solace-giving knitting lately and that ain't it. The teddy bear blanket I'm working on is a little better for what the Yarn Harlot calls "Idiot Knitting." But, honestly, I'm going to have SO freaking many ends to sew in when I get done it makes my blood curdle. Ahem.

So, I thought I'd write about a bright spot in my knitterly life: the city of Chicago. I have moved back here after 5 years' absence and I am so glad that I did. It's the best city in the world. For me, at least. Of course, when I say the world, I mean the very limited part of it that I've experienced.... I really like London, though.... But I digress.

Anyway, one of the coolest things about this city is how much fun stuff there is going on here and one of those things happens to be knitting!! The city has been doing a Stitching Salon this winter. I don't know if they've done it before or not, but I never knew about it. Anyway, they just extended it until the end of March. I have not yet had a chance to check it out, but I am very excited about it and am pleased that it has been extended, as that increases the chance that I will be able to see it before it closes. Obviously, it has been popular, since they've extended it. More converts!! The only bad thing about this is that it means less room for me.... But, I think I shall survive -- especially since I haven't yet made it there. But I WILL!! muahahahaha.

Will it ever end?

2007-02-06T12:32:00.000-06:00

I am STILL finishing up my Hey Diddle, Diddle blanket.... I have finished knitting it and have FINALLY woven in all the ends. Happily, I did get the camera out and deal with it, so here is a sample of what I had to work with:

I have blocked it and am fairly pleased with it. This is a terrible picture, of course, so you can't really see anything, nor can you tell that I've blocked it, but I promise--I have. I still have to do some embroidery. I have to put the details on the faces and some stars on the blanket. I will add that while the book does show where to apply much of the embroidery, it does not show everything -- like the violin strings and bow. Also, it does show approximately where the stars go, but it does not show the exact location and size of them all. Yes, I am capable of working this out on my own, but it would be so much easier to just be told where to put these things -- this way I have to worry about balance and proportion. It is frustrating to me.

After doing this, I am going to put on a backing. I purchased some lightweight flannel the other day with a very simple baby-ish pattern for this purpose. I didn't want something that would stand out too much, so I it's hardly exciting enough to show you. My mother, who loves to sew, will probably help me with it. I don't really enjoy the finishing/sewing aspect of knitting. It is the part to which I always say: "Do I have to?"

I do hope that the mother and/or baby enjoy this blanket. It will make the embroidery stuff worth the time, if they do. But, who am I kidding? I am nuts and will continue on with my knitting addiction, which means I will continue to knit blankets or whatever for every baby or non-baby that I get an excuse for! Whether they appreciate the blankets, etc., or not. Maybe some day I'll even allow myself to feel justified in knitting things for myself....

11 days? Really?

2007-01-26T19:55:00.000-06:00

I've been wanting to wait to post anything until I got my photos up on this site, but I'm feeling neglectful, so I feel compelled to write something. I really can't believe that it has been 11 days since I last wrote. It certainly hasn't been 11 days since I knit!

One of the things that has taken up my time over the last 11 days has been: dealing with the dye in my mom's scarf. I made my mother a scarf out of this beautiful red/variegated w/ other colors yarn that is half silk, half wool. It is Ellyn Cooper's Yarn Sonnets' Hand-dyed Yarn in Chinese Poppy. I bought it because it was so soft (and beautiful) and I wanted her to have something nice against her neck -- not a scratchy wool job. The first thing I noted about this yarn as I was that it turned EVERYTHING red as I was knitting with it. What do I mean when I say everything? I mean it turned my fingers, my finger nails, my needles, even my freaking jeans red as I knit with the stuff -- !?!?! But, it was so nice looking that I did it anyway.

I gave it to my mother and she has been wearing it. The problem? You guessed it -- it turns all her stuff red too. So, I started a search online to figure out what to do about this dye -- how to set it, etc. What I found was a lot of information about setting dye in wool roving or dyeable yarn that one dyed at home. I didn't find anything on setting dye in yarn that one has bought. This is probably because I have selective blindness and don't seem to be able to find things that are right in front of me sometimes, but as of this posting, I still haven't found what I was looking for.

I did remember having heard about using salt water and using vinegar for setting dye, so I decided I would use them. I bought both items (didn't have either in my house, remarkably (long story)). I read first about the vinegar for setting dye and read that it was good for acid-based dyes. I have NO idea whether the dye in this baby is acid-based, so I chickened out. And, besides, who wants to smell like vinegar? So, I decided to do salt water instead. Which I did. Did it work? I don't really think so. What I ended up doing was soaking the scarf in cold water, dumping out the bright red water, and doing this with clean water until the water that the scarf was in was considerably less red (after about 4 baths, I think -- the first one being a saltwater bath, so that MAY have affected it, for all I know, but I'm not sure).

The sad thing is that while it seems to have worked, it does seem to have washed out the color some. This shouldn't surprise me, I suppose, but I am still bummed out over it. If anyone out in cyberland has recommendations for how to get dye to stick/wash out without washing out the color, that would be awesome. The color is not terrible, though, so I don't feel like I ruined the scarf. I do feel like maybe I was lucky, though, and COULD have ruined the scarf. Who knows? So, as I said, this has been one of my recent adventures in knitting....

Adventures in Babyknitting...

2007-01-15T11:19:00.000-06:00

Bad pun. Well, my newest adventure has been in trying to get yarn to do the Pocket Dreams blanket from the Vogue Knitting Baby Blankets book. I have been trying to find an affordable-ish yarn that was washable and had good colors. The blanket is shown in the book using Cleckheaton yarns. They are apparently from Australia and not so easy to find. When I did find them, they did not have the colors that were used in the book. So, I picked the usual baby colors -- the parents of the baby allegedly do not know the baby's gender (I question this since all of the things that they registered for were for boys, not unknowns, but maybe it's just a subconscious thing?). I got my yarns from Patternworks. I was going to go with Knitpicks, but the yarns that fit the gauged that I wanted were a) unwashable and b) very bright. I love the brightness of the yarns and used them for the Wild Stripes blanket from Knitty, but it didn't seem right for this one. Plus, this mother seems to like calmer colors in general and I wanted to make something for her that SHE would like -- not just me.

So, here's what happened: 1) I went to the Patternworks website and it was down for repairs. I waited until 12AM, when both the site and I were ready, to order the stuff! 2) I tried to figure out their ordering process whereby you put the color's number into the box to get the site to recognize which yarn you want -- don't allow any spaces or anything and don't used the color's name. ONLY use the number associated w/ the color. 3) The first color I wanted was out of stock, so I was very nervous that this would happen with all of the colors. Thankfully, it did not. But, it did change the color combination. I got all the colors I wanted otherwise for the most part -- except that I chose an orangey color to take the lilac's place and the website wouldn't recognize the number. It said it was invalid. Go figure. So, instead I got a greeny-color. I didn't get overly pissed off because I decided it was karmic. I had hemmed and hawed tooo much about the color and decided that this was the Fates deciding for me, so I went with it.... 4) I paid and all was fine. It wasn't a horrible experience by any stretch, but it was not quite as smooth as I would have liked.

I look forward to getting my shipment!! What is more fun than getting a box full of yummy yarn?? Yay!

On another note, in looking for a link for the Vogue book, I found the comments of the other purchasers of that book and they have scared the bejesus out of me!! They talk about how messed up the directions are, etc. Yikes. I often find directions to be frightening, but so far have been okay with this book. Of course, I've done ONE pattern (that I'm not yet done with). Although I have not had big problems with the pattern that I am working on, I do fully agree with their sentiment that the designers have not thought through very thoroughly what these things are going to look like in the end. Are they meant to be used??? Mine is intarsia (as many of them are) and it is a HUGE freaking mess in the back. I have been sweating this, actually. If they lay the blanket down somewhere and never use it, no problem, right?? But, I am giving serious thought to putting a backing on it so that all of the threads will be covered -- so it doesn't look so ugly -- and so that it might be less inclined to pull apart after being used/washed once. I am sooo convinced this baby's gonna fall apart. I have spent a lot of time on it, too, so that would be a big problem. I'll let you know how that goes. And, gosh darn it, I need to be photographing this thing.

Tried and True

2007-01-11T00:59:00.000-06:00

Hot damn! I tried my new scarf today -- the one by Karen Bauer, I believe. Holy cow. I have never worn something that I've made and I've made a few things. It was a beautiful day today. My new gorgeous scarf (gorgeous not because of me so much as the Noro yarn itwas made of) was so warm and perfectly fabulous today that I can't even stand it. Hooray for my multidirectional diagonal scarf!! Yay. :)

Debbie New/Yarn Harlot

2007-01-10T14:22:00.000-06:00

Well, I got to post my first comment on the Yarn Harlot's site today. Yes, today is a proud moment. I am now officially as geeky as they come -- I say that word "geeky" with love, of course. Similarly, I use the word "nerdy" with love.

Anyway, Ms. Harlot did something fabulous--showed me Debbie New's work. I thought I was so cool because I worked in a yarn shop in MA for a short while and learned SO MUCH about knitting that I had it all figured out.... Well, no, I never really thought that, but I thought that I had at least heard of all of the major designers out there. NOT SO. Debbie's stuff is gorgeous. It really takes knitting to a new level -- that of art, rather than simply craft. Of course, the debate on what is art and what is craft is an enormous one and one I am definitely not suited to tackle, but I think I'm using it right this time. Holy cow! Here is her book: Unexpected Knitting (I'll say!).

I am sooo excited about finding this knitting community online. I had no idea it existed. There is so much out there for me to learn and I can't imagine ever getting to the bottom of it all! But then, what fun would there be if I did?

not much accomplished

2007-01-09T19:58:00.000-06:00

Well, not a lot of knitting done in the last couple of days. I've been off with everything for a couple of weeks now, it seems. I've been sick or finding other ways to not get things accoplished and this has pretty much left me in limbo for a while. I am hoping for a reprieve soon. Blech.

One good thing that happened today is that we may have found one way to dig ourselves out of this limbo zone that we are in. We moved into a house that needs a lot of TLC at the beginning of September and besdes sometimes finding a few small fixes for the house over the past few months, we have been more successful at avoiding the problems with the house by doing random things than we have at getting the problems fixed around here. I don't want to imply that nothing has gotten done around here, but not as much as we would have liked -- we're all so darn overwhelmed by how much there is to do! Today I think we came to a compromise that might help us get somewhere, though, and the decision was mainly to try to do less. I should probably take a lesson from this. I'm sure this relates to knitting somehow....

oh, colds

2007-01-04T17:28:00.000-06:00

Yes, I have been hit by the lowly cold -- the most common of viruses, and for me, one of the most potent. Damn. I am tired of being sick and tired. Blech. I even went to Joanne's today to get a crafting fix (thought it might help with the cold) and I nearly passed out. Whoa.

I am still knitting along -- when I can hold my head upright -- the scarf w/ the Noro Kureyon. My mother has seconded my feelings of vexation with Noro. She had never seen their yarns before and nearly passed out at how beautiful, b0th texturally and color-wise, their yarn is. She was wishing very much that they had a softer yarn. She claims to still like the one that I made her for Christmas (yes, a sad, sad bit of knitting for holiday), but she does get that crazed look in her eye when she gets around my stash of Kureyon...so I'm not so sure I should believe her.

AND the baby blanket. Not getting too far with that baby. Besides being sick, I've been watching too darn many movies w/ subtitles lately!! NOT good for knitting. Just can't do it -- especially with the baby blanket where you actually have to pay attention to the design. Uff.

What I wonder is: how many baby blankets can one reasonably do in a year without going crazy? I have one more I wanted to make for a friend and another friend who is having . . . gulp . . . twins. I was thinking about making something for her. If one has twins, does one get two blankets?? Probably, right?

Ah, Noro, you vex me

2006-12-27T12:49:00.000-06:00

I've begun the multi-directional diagonal scarf by Karen Baumer with my Kureyon yarn and I am psyched at how easy it is. Everyone kept telling me that it was easy, but I didn't believe them...until now. It seems as if the Kureyon and this scarf were made for each other -- each new triangle highlights the self-patterning colors of the beautiful yarn -- and it is lovely. (See how freaking gorgeous this stuff is??) HOWEVER, what I want to know is why Noro makes such rough yarns! I mean, I know that wool is always at least a little scratchy, but can you imagine how lovely and red my neck will be after wearing this scarf for awhile? And yet, I can't think of another yarn that I would rather do this scarf in! Argh. I guess the work around will have to be that I wear something between my scarf and my neck, which completely makes the use of the scarf in the first place moot. But, then again, if I had it hiding under layers of clothing, no one would see my lovely handiwork, right??

On another note, I may finally finish the baby blanket one of these days. Slowly, but surely, that puppy is knitting up. It is going surprisingly quickly, but it is going to be a beast to sew up all those loose ends after I'm done. I know, I know, I probably should have been sewing them in as I go, in order to avoid having a TON of this at the end, but I'm really not that disciplined....

lefse

2006-12-18T11:22:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been terrible about my knitting lately. I've spent more time at craft stores looking for crafts to do than i have doing my stuff. Woohoo. Not such good thinking, unfortunately....

On the bright side, my husband and I are officially back on Aunt D's lefse list. I have to admit that I do not know much about this stuff and have not fully acquired a taste for it as yet, but I am excited to be back on the distribution list. If anyone out there in cyberworld has a suggestion about how to prepare this stuff so that i will fall deeply, madly in love with it, I would appreciate it.

On to my knitting: I am currently knitting a blanket from Vogue's baby blanket book (I think it's Vogue, but I don't remember and I can't disturb the cat on my lap to go find it and determine this). I'm doing the "Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the fiddle, [etc.]" story blanket (again, not sure of the name). It is an intarsia blanket and it is driving me nuts. I can't really say that it's that difficult -- it's primarily Stockinette stitch -- but keeping track of the fifty million balls is driving me nuts. I have to admit, also, that I tried to eliminate some of the balls and just draw the string across the back of the design early on and it was a disaster -- too much bunching up!! (Yes, I did restart it -- can't be a proper project if I don't restart it a hundred times, right?) I still can't figure out what to do about the back of this thing. It's going to be a mess...well, not a mess -- I haven't made an unusual mess out of it -- it's just that it definitely has a wrong side and I can't decide whether I should cover that wrong side w/ flannel or something, or if I should just leave it be, as the designer for the book seems to have done. Perhaps I will post a picture of it....

oh why don't i read better??

2006-12-11T11:51:00.000-06:00

uff. i was all excited about doing the knitting olympics that the yarn harlot created--i just clicked on the link on her website and FINALLY read about it (i'm relatively new to this online knitting thing). i was actually considering what i wanted to make, etc. then, just now, i realized: duh. it was february of '06. as in ALREADY over. i'm such an idiot sometimes. pretty darn dissappointing. of course, if i actually knew when the winter olympics occurred, that might have clued me in. ha.

the saddest thing about this is not that i no longer get to compete and become a world famous knitter (and to call myself an olympian!!), but that i don't have any particularly legitimate sounding thing to use as an excuse for knitting instead of doing something that i'm supposed to!! argh. so, now i'm back to knitting blankets for peoples' babies and scarves for christmas presents. this means no real challenges and nothing fun for myself. now, of course, this is entirely self-imposed. i do it, though, because i cannot otherwise justify buying tons of expensive yarn and using it. i'm supposed to be looking for a job, for heaven's sake--not spending time and money on knitting...and yet....

is it just me or do other knitters out there find themselves knitting for people who they don't even know all that well just because they're having a baby and have conveniently provided you with an excuse to knit something? i knitted two blankets last year for babies that i've never even met. this year i'm knitting something for a baby that i may never meet. and yet, here i am finding time to knit whenever i can -- using the blanket as an excuse: "i would love to go out with you, but you understand -- the blanket." and everyone looks at me knowingly, "yes, the blanket." because we do this stuff for babies and they need blankets, it will mean so much to the parents, etc. little do they all know... it's not the babies or the parents -- it's the friggin' knitting that makes me do it!!!

muahahahaa