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When in doubt, post yarn.
Yarn. Pretty Pretty Yarn.
My first shipment from Sundara’s Seasons club. The colorway is Roasted Persimmon over Green Papaya and the crappy light (I tried, I really did, but I spend almost all the daylight hours in an office building, or en route to/from said office building) does not do this yarn justice. It is much less pink and much more red than the picture indicates.
The deep rich reds with the faint nips of green/yellow peeping through actually remind me of the gorgeous autumn foliage in New England that’s happening about now, and is making me simultaneously homesick, and wanting to carry the yarn everywhere with me.
I love it so much that I think I need to veer from my narrow Stockinette or Jaywalker sock policy for this yarn. Right now the Twisted Tweed pattern is leading the pack, however, I am open to suggestions…
Rhinebeck
Rhinebeck is only 2 days away. I have so much to do between now and then that it hardly seems like just 2 days, but I suppose that staying busy will make the time fly. (It has been. I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already?!)
Admin
For some reason, comments are being sent to my old Yahoo email account. I’m still trying to figure out how to fix this… the inefficiencies of moving are killing me (sigh).
No, I’m not talking just about moving the blog. Tonight I have about 8 storage bins that need to be sorted through before Eric makes the trip to his parents this weekend to clear out things we don’t immediately need from our new apartment. Yes, it’s for a really really good reason – we need a place to put all the awesome baby stuff - but it’s amazing how much TIME and ENERGY is expended (months and months worth) every time you move.
And we’ve moved 4 times in the past 4 years. Consider my wanderlust (completely and one hundred percent) satiated.
Thank god today is a bank holiday/partial staffing day, because I am a baggy-eyed pregnant zombie this morning. We had the most wonderful weekend up in Massachusetts – my mother went all out and threw us a co-ed tailgating themed baby shower, complete with football toss and cornhole competitions, a life-sized fathead of Tom Brady, and a bunch of our family and friends.
The overriding theme of this pregnancy for me is how often I’ve felt like I’ve been hit by a bus. When I found out I was pregnant, I walked around numb for days (weeks?), feeling like I had been hit by a bus, emotionally. Was it for real? Would there be a heartbeat? We had been waiting so long, and it seemed so surreal… and because I kept steeling myself for something to go wrong, it took me weeks and weeks to accept it and get really excited about it.
Then, over the summer, with the anemia and debilitating exhaustion, I simply felt like I had been hit by a bus. A double-decker bus. Each day. Repeatedly. Stupid bus.
And this weekend seeing how happy and excited our families are, and seeing so many of our friends (some for the first time since we found out) was wonderful in and of itself. And then when we got home last night, we sorted through all the gifts, and got to linger over each onesie and flip through each baby book and read the directions on baby monitors and marvel over how tiny infant diapers are… it was incredible, and I have been completely whalloped by the collective generosity of our People. It may seem obvious, but damn, the bus hit is much easier to take when all your People are on it, and the bus is made out of receiving blankets, binkies and boppies.
(For the record, this baby now has about 20 Red Sox outfits, 10 Patriots outfits, 1 Celtics outfit, and 1 adorable pair of maroon BC overalls with a coordinating white polo shirt waiting for him. Oh, and if you count bowling as a sport, then we can include the onesie that says “The Dude Abides”.)
My brother Tommy took a million pictures – I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ll put them up on Flickr when I do. For my part, I spent most of the weekend enjoying being surrounded by family and friends, and trying to make sure I ate enough. There was no time for pictures, I was too busy soaking it all in.
I’ve been working on the ubiquitous February Lady Sweater on and off for months. There was something about the Malabrigo with the Denise circulars that just wasn’t working for me… actually, let me be blunt, it was hurting the hell out of my hands.
The Malabrigo just did NOT want to slide smoothly over the joins and along the needles, resulting in a slow, painful push and shove routine every row.
I ignored it for a little while, and obsessively worked on Icarus instead. Then, when I turned my focus back to the Feb Lady Sweater a few weeks ago, I decided to switch to Addi Turbos, and it helped tremendously. Until a few rows in I realized I had forgotten what size I was making, and it didn’t even matter because my stitch count was all screwed up regardless of which size I was making.
I literally spent about 6 or 7 hours working, and ripping back, the SAME 4 ROWS. It was frustrating. (I have a sneaking suspicion I’ve been working from an old version of the pattern which has errors around that particular part. It certainly doesn’t absolve my miscounting/wrong size errors, but I’m pretty sure it’s added to the confusion.)
This is all a long way of saying that I’ve been reconsidering my choice of Malabrigo for this sweater. Yes, it’s a lovely color and it’s all wooly and wonderful. But, it’s a bit bulky in the garter stitch section, and I wonder if it’s going to be too heavy altogether for me to enjoy wearing it.
Then, a few weeks ago I was at knit night with Maya, where she was working on her own Feb Lady Sweater, in the most gorgeous yarn ever. Go check it out on Ravelry or on her blog. No seriously, go look. I’ll wait.
It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? And the pictures don’t even do it justice.
Anyway, of course I went and ordered some Brooks Farm of my own to re-start the Feb Lady Sweater (conveniently reallocating the Malabrigo to other projects in my mind – it’s really a perfect shade for Eric now that I think about it…).
It arrived, I cast on, and a week later this is where we stand:
(Okay, I knit another inch or so last night after this picture was taken. Use your imagination.)
I’m just not sure about it. It’s not really pooling, but I’m not sure I’m in love with the idea of a 2-toned sweater. Then again, I’m often surprised by what I like in a finished project, and maybe I should just relax and give the yarn a chance? I do love the yarn. The sheen, the drape, even the colors are lovely, I’m just not sure I want them mixed up in a sweater.
Add to this confusion the (misguided) idea that if I bust my ass, I might be able to finish it in time for Rhinebeck AND the nagging suspicion that I should rip back and re-knit the buttonhole (may I point out the conflicting nature of these 2 goals?).
I’ve got about 5 hours to decide – we’re leaving for Massachusetts after work and it’s either coming with me, or it’s not.
What to do??
To celebrate the arrival of my new camera, and the completion of the Endpaper Mitts, I took them down to Rockefeller Center for a little photo shoot. It was a great idea, if I do say so myself: it was a gorgeous autumn day, and only a short walk from my office. Bonus points for choosing a location where I wasn’t the only nutjob pulling a camera out every 5 seconds to take a picture.
Oh. And it was fun too.
This is on the hedges just above the skating rink:
In the background you can just make out (very fuzzily) the workers painting the statue in preparation for the holiday season.
I work 4 short blocks from Rockefeller Center, and this was only the 2nd time in a year I’ve been down there during the day. Really, it was only the thrill of getting to use the camera during daylight hours that prompted me to do it…
I’m wondering if having a (good) camera is kind of like having a dog? We never knew our neighbors or went out for walks around the block before George – but now we’re out 3 times a day and are on a 1st name basis with half the people within a 4 block radius.
This camera has me interacting and looking at the city and my surroundings in a whole new way as well. It’s interesting to think about.
The Camera – Details
The new camera is a Nikon D40. Nothing fancy, just an entry-level DSLR that I was able to pick up on sale. It wasn’t my absolute first choice, but it was on the list of models that I would be happy with, and when I found one in my price range (after 6 months of watching and waiting!) I snapped it up.
Endpaper Mitts – Details
Links: Ravelry, Projects Page
These took about a month to knit, and although I was nervous about the tweed overpowering the pattern, after a good blocking everything cleared up fine. The pattern was great (as per Eunny’s usual), clear, clever, concise, and it’s given me a taste for stranded knitting again.
I’ve long since been dissatisfied with the appearance and organization of this blog. I stumbled into blogging a little over 4 years ago, a brand-spanking new knitter with a desire to join the Thrummed Mitts KAL, and with just a few clicks at Blogger.com, I was all set up.
I never had a vision for the site, I was barely set up to take pictures and upload them. I was hardly even able to contemplate these things, as I switched jobs, bought a condo, got married, sold a condo, moved across state lines, got pregnant… it’s been haphazard and crazy around here.
But still. This blog has been a blessing in every way. I’ve met some of my bestest and closest friends through it. I had my first pattern accepted for publication only a few months after setting up the blog, and 2 years later I had my first book contract through it. I’ve been endlessly inspired by the blogosphere, in both my knitting and how I choose to live my life. It’s been a wonderful way to keep in touch with family and friends, particularly once we moved away from Boston.
And now, with the impending birth of our first child, I’ve been wondering how the blog would fit into it all. Maybe it’s nesting, maybe it’s just been a good way to keep busy while I’m waiting for this baby to pop out, but I decided to start clean and overhaul the whole site.
(Okay, the complete crash of my backend WordPress software and the resultant blog-eating frenzy by spambots helped a bit with the decision of what to do with the archives. If I can figure out a nice way to export them and organize them in accordance with the new site, I will. But for now, just know that they are in a safe place.)
Sure, it’s a work in progress, but after years of intention, I actually have a Projects page set up, with a list of FOs, complete with pictures and details. Same goes for the Patterns page, where the pattern for B.O.B. will soon live, and where future patterns will be available as well.
Poke around, visit often, and welcome to my new blog-o-home.
