Cattywampus

So much life, so little knitting!

We started the weekend Friday night at a Beer and Cheese Tasting at DiBruno Bros.  No matter how it seems like the small portion of beer they serve you with each cheese isn't very much beer at all, it always adds up.  Especially when you go out afterwards - because really, at 8:00 on a friday evening what else are you going to do?

(isn't she cute?)

It's very yummy, actually, the beer and cheese are wonderful pairings and it brings out flavors you would never imagine were in either.

(this is across the street from our building, no clue what they're doing, but they keep towing all the cars every morning)

After some quality dog time in the park Saturday we went to see KOOZA (Cirque de Soleil) with my dad & stepmom.  It was wonderful, as always.  This is the third one we've seen and it amazes me how they are all equally entertaining but with a completely different feel each time.  Though to be completely honest, I spend most of the time holding my breath b/c I think somebody is going to fall and get hurt, I try to will the performers to stay up with the powers of my mind. I doubt I do much good, but I don't think I could stop if I tried. 

Afterwards we went out for a relaxing dinner at Caribou Cafe, a nice little french bistro sort of place.  DH and I both had 'France's favorite cut of beef' which turned out to be flank steak, we asked.  YUM.

(awww, male bonding time)

Today, we went on a bus adventure (took the 33 on a detour) and did actually make it to the Free Library (anyone who has ever used public transportation will know the sheer panic experienced when a bus you've never been on before makes a turn that wasn't on the little map you were looking at online.  All you can do is hope and pray that you will end up at the place you are  trying to go.)   

There is a Book Festival going on!  I wasn't entirely sure what what to expect, but there were authors and book signings and tshirts for sale and funnel cakes.  Funnel cakes make everything better.

I'm at a little bit of a loss to explain why  Darth Vader was at a book festival, but there he is.

This I get.

There is actually an exhibit at the Rosenbach of some of his illustrations if anybody is interested.

Of course, the whole reason we were there was to see the Yarn Harlot!

She was as funny as expected and DH "didn't hate it" (to quote him), I saw him chuckle quite a few times, I would say he actually enjoyed it.  He totally gets bonus points for going with me.  The whole trip was definitely worth the bus panic.

On the way home the wind picked up and it started raining sideways, we lost a perfectly good umbrella to the unpredictability of city wind.  The planned trip to the grcoery store is going to have to wait until a friendlier environmental experience is possible. 

And now I'm actually going to sit down and knit!  YAY!

A very cool thing and some new yarn

So, I was avoiding work late this afternoon as I am wont to do every now and again.  (Don't anybody tell!)  I was blog surfing and I saw this post by Jen, my SP9 spoilee - and check it out - I was the first person to post!  Socks as random acts of kindness,  how unbelievably cool/nice/generous is that?  Now she's going to make me a pair of socks!  That is a Very Cool Thing indeed.  She's also giving away another pair to a random commenter, it's open until May 24, so go on over and check it out!

I feel lucky this week!  Maybe I should play the lotto.

A few weeks ago I got some yarn from knit picks and didn't post about it, so here it is - Shine Sport in Cherry to make the Lotus Blossom Tank.  It's crazy red, bright red, way past tomato red and arrest me red, it's bright 'maybe I should be wearing sunglasses' red.  I like it.

Some bare fingering wool/silk to make a pair of cabled socks.  It's not very exciting, but I think they'll be very pretty.  This is part of my planned travel knitting, I figure when I'm on the plane out to CA I'll have plenty of time to concentrate on something like this!  I even bought harmony sock needles to reduce the risk of them being taken away at security.

And from Webs latest sale, Ella Rae silkience to make Celtic Icon by Fiona Ellis, I think this is just SUCH a pretty sweater.

I thought I was ordering grey, but as it turns out it's called 'berry' and it's a really pale grey-lavender color.  It's actually quite pretty, so I decided to keep it.

That's it for my stash enhancement...now I need to get to some stash busting!!!

Tuesdays are the worst day of the week

Because tuesday is the day my husband gets up in the dark and flies back to North Carolina to stay in our empty house for 3 days and work at his old job.

Thursdays are the best day of the week because this is the day my husband flies home to me.

He's been doing this since we bought the place in Philly in February and it sucks.  I'm sure there are couples who have done things like this and been fine with it, I'm sure there are people who have done worse for longer and lived to tell about it, but this is my story and for me this has been the epitomy of suckiness.

It's definitely been worse for him, with all the flying and staying in an emtpy house and all that, but it's not been fun for me and it really has cut into our fun weekend time together b/c he's been so tired and we haven't been seeing each other enough to want to go spend a weekend visiting somebody else - y'know?

But here's the point.  It's almost over.

Yesterday, my husband got a job IN PENNSYLVANIA.

There are only 3 more bad tuesdays left.  He will be driving home FOR GOOD on my birthday (June 6).  Absolutely.  The.  Best.  Birthday.  Present.  Ever.

So.  WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Speaking of travel, I'm going to a work conference outside of LA the week after memorial day, I'm SO excited b/c I will get to meet Jocelyn!  Also b/c I've never been to CA at all and DH is flying out and we are going to drive to San Diego for our anniversary weekend.  YAY for fun trips, especially when work pays for the plane tickets!!! 

Not much to show

Well, I haven't been posting much lately because I haven't been doing much that's been blogworthy. 

My allergies have been kicking my butt, leaving me tired and rather unenergetic in the evenings and the weekends have been taken up with other things, so I have very little to show.

I did manage to buy a bathing suit.  A good friend just bought  a house with a pool and I didn't have one.  It's not a particularly enjoyable task for any woman, so I'm just glad I found one I don't hate and that I don't have to do it again for a few years.

The only knitting I have to show is this small bit of test knitting I did for Anne.  It's her latest scarf in the 'Little Nothing' series.  This is a remarkably easy pattern considering the delicacy of the result.

She's almost done with hers, so the pattern should be out sometime this week.

Hopefully I'll have more exciting things to show you soon...

Um. Duh.

So, here are my socks.  They're more than a little crazy.  They're also very wrong.

I was blissfully knitting away on these socks until I got them to the end of my heel.  I completely neglected to do the gusset increases I normally do for toe up socks.   I tried to do a short row heel, but quickly realized that they would still be too long as the short row heel adds about an inch.  I tried to think of anybody with a foot a inch or so longer than mine who would wear these and I couldn't come up with anybody.  Any other sock yarn and I probably would have just gifted them away...but this yarn?

It's just too crazy.

So, I figured if I had to rip them back to do the short row heel, I might as well take another inch off and do the gusset increases b/c I really do prefer socks with gussets.

Hmf.  I hate frogging.

Catching up

I had some sort of stomach virus last week and it wiped me out, seriously.  I didn't even knit from Sunday through Saturday.  Today was the first day I picked up the needles again. 

A few things came out of this.  1.  I didn't go to MD Sheep and Wool.  Sigh.  I really wanted to go, but by the time Thursday rolled around it became completely obvious there was no way I would enjoy it, I was way too exhausted and still somewhat ill.  2.  I fit into jeans I haven't been able to wear in 2 years.  I have no idea whether or not they are still in style, but I wore them anyway.  3.  I haven't been able to work on the test knit I'm supposed to be doing for Anne. 

Yesterday we spent a well earned day at home playing Super Smashbros Brawl.  Then we went to Rosie's so I could spend my hard earned yarn money that I had saved to take to MDSW.  After that we walked to Good Dog and had one of the Best Burgers Ever.  mmmmmmm

I got this gorgeous Pear Tree merino - this was a SERIOUS splurge.  Serious.  But I thought it would look so gorgeous as  a traditional gansey.  Okay, maybe not traditional, since it's this color, but traditional style.

In real life it is a beautiful pink, coral, peachy color with such depth...SO pretty.  I have been thinking about it ever since I saw it on the yarn crawl in March.

I also got this Sirdar Baby Bamboo in a pale dusty pink to make the Drawstring Chemise.

The other day I got my last Sundara Seasons shipment - aran silky merino - it's a lovely grey wash over blue, I don't remember the exact name, but it's really gorgeous.  It's more subtle than the picture indicates.

Today we tried to take the car to get inspected but ran into trouble when we couldn't cross Broad Street.   So we just took the car back and went out for brunch instead.

The clouds dissipated and we decided to spend the afternoon at the park with the dogs.  It was LOVELY.  Pixie lost what was left of her winter coat.

Which the local birds thought was grand and they set about lining their nests with her discarded fluff.

It was so funny to watch them come and gather it up in their beaks and fly away, then come back for more.

We saw a wedding party taking pictures - what a lovely day for a wedding!

Mostly we just laid on our blanket and enjoyed the lovely day while the dogs went into stimulus overload, they are both dead to the world right now.

Tonight we are meeting our realtor for dinner and I will gift her the Gust I made, I hope she likes it!!  Later in the week - knitting content - I hope!

When perfectionism meets laziness

We went to Manayunk Saturday to stroll, have lunch, and window shop - these dogs cracked me up.  We had a lot of fun, I had my first EVER Rita's water ice, and yes, it was quite good!  We found a place that has amazing cannoli, we scored a great standing mirror for the bedroom - we've been looking for one we liked for YEARS, we strolled along the canal, drove through Germantown to look at the gorgeous houses and the yards all asplendor in their spring decor, and - the highlight of the journey IMHO, we popped into a jewelry store to buy DH a tie tack and came out with a tie tack and both of our anniversary presents!  He'd been looking for a watch for a while and found one he liked, and I spyed some lovely earrings  - we're only a month early...we talked about not actually gifting them until our actual anniv, but then changed our minds and both wore them out of the store.

I am working on the Sorelle Lace Pullover in Berroco Touche, it's this lovely vibrant blue purple color that just does not come through in pictures. 

It has this double twist stitch in it and I noticed at this point that I screwed up the very first one and it was off center, so I thought I'd take some pics of how I fixed it.

First...drop all the stitches down to the one that's misbehaving.

Then I ran a strand of yarn through the errant loop and secured it in a place that looked like it was part of the pattern.

Then I grabbed the bottom most ladder strand, twisted it to make a closed loop and picked the stitches up to the needle.

Eh voila!  It's not perfect, but it should even out a bit when I block it, and I think it's less noticable than before. 

This is what happens when I don't want to leave some glaring error, but I'm too lazy to rip back all those rows and do them over.   

All about tweed

I received a copy of the book Tweed by Nancy J.  Thomas to review for you...so here goes!

The book starts out with a history of tweed fabrics and tweed yarns, how they got started, and how the tradition has carried over into present day.  The author also covers the basics of different types of processes that are used to make wool into tweed yarn and some of the technical terms you might find while looking for tweedy yarns.

Since tweed yarn is traditionally a rustic yarn (so the author says) and hence something that won't necessarily work in any pattern, Ms. Thomas gives basic guidelines for using tweed successfully and also includes a stitch guide to help you along the way if you are still unsure.

There are 21 patterns in the book, in chapters designated from beginner to advanced, but personally I didn't find any of the projects in the advanced section intimidating, so no matter what your skill level you should be able to pick and choose fairly freely.  There are a number of attractive cabled sweaters in this book as well as a cabled sampler afghan, so those of us who are cable lovers will also enjoy these patterns.

If you are someone who is drawn to tweed yarns this is definitely a book to check out.  I think for me it's more of an idea book, there are definitely some inspiring patterns in there, but the biggest impact for me was understanding what I can do with tweed yarns - I've always veered away from them b/c I just wasn't sure what patterns they would work with.   

It's not a thneed, I swear

Jocelyn and Trek agree that my last picture of this sweater looks like a thneed.  Luckily for me, it's not.  Not that a thneed isn't completely practical, I just don't think I'd wear it out of the house much.

It is loose, but not quite baggy, tho it leans in that direction.  My gauge turned out a little looser than the treacherous gauge swatch predicted, so if I did it again I'd knit one size smaller.  But I do have to admit that it's SUPER comfy.

Jemima, Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece Nymph and um...generic cream color.

I made the body longer by 2" and altered the pattern to knit in the round.  I also decided to do the button placket all the way up to the top so there wasn't a color shift there.  The buttons are from Buttonbliss, and I love them, I think they make the sweater.

41 hours in an elevator

I saw this headline about the video of the guy who was stuck in an elevator for 41 hours and the first thing I thought was this:

"OMG.  I would have finished my socks after about 10 hours, THEN what the heck would I have done??"

That makes me think maybe I should be carrying a lace project around instead of socks, I'm prepared for traffic, but not stuck elevators.

There is obviously something wrong with me.  (and many of you too, I'm sure, I can't be the only knitter who had that thought!!!)