We are having picture perfect spring weather this week, highs in the 70s, clear, no humidity, cool at night, absolutely gorgeous (we're not going to talk about the 3 days of solid rain that's supposed to start this friday), so we took advantage of the weather and went out and about to explore our city a bit.
Even sticks taste better in weather like this. 
The thing about living in a city this size is that "they" are always doing things you don't have time to see. They - the city, a museum, some commission or another - so Sunday we put our walking shoes on and walked up to Franklin Square, one of the original city squares that had become rather derelict because it's more or less in the middle of an interstate exchange, a few years ago the city put money into making a family-friendly park, and holy cow did they succeed!
There's a merry-go-round, mini-golf, picnic tables all over the place, and playgrounds for kids of various ages. Pretty impressive. And the clincher? A Steven Starr take out burger joint in the middle for kids of all ages. (Steven Starr is one of our local restaurant moguls)
Between the fountain going strong, the music from the merry-go-round, and the noise of children playing coming from every direction, you couldn't even hear the traffic. Good job Philly, a job well done!
The other thing about walking around the city in this weather is the way it smells. Usually the city smells like exhaust, like heaven-only-knows-what, like wet bum, like subway, like all sorts of awful things, it's one of those things about living in the city that you just sort of get used to, but today after work I walked the dogs and I smelled jasmine on the breeze 3 or 4 times in as many blocks. Secret gardens, old money with yards I can only dream about behind some of those walls, with jasmine drift up over the tops for all the world to smell. How heavenly!
And believe or not, I have actually been knitting. I am 1/2 of a sleeve away from being done with a sweater. Once again, I'm about 2 weeks too late for the weather, so I'm not rushing, but soon.
I fell down on my yarn diet...I am not EXACTLY making it two out for one in this year. Sigh. This is what happened, there are two sweaters I want to make that I couldn't find yarn for, one of them is Laika, part of Ysolda's upcoming book that was released to people who purchased the book pre-publication, and the other is Vionnet from Twist Collective, I had very specific ideas of what I wanted each of them to be and nothing from my stash would do.
I am not trying to make myself miserable, I am not trying to make sweaters out of yarn that doesn't match in my head, I actually can afford to buy yarn if I want to, I'm just really, really trying not to, so I dithered, I put it in my cart and took it out of my cart, I shopped for weeks, looking at all the options, and finally, I ended up with two Lisa Souza yarns. Gorgeous, gorgeous yarn.
The first is for Laika, I would call this a Lipstick Red, it's a blue red, not an orange red, deep and lustrous.
For Vionnet...this color is called peacock and it has a lot more green in it than is showing up in the picture, it really is peacock, I can't think of another word to describe it properly, a really intense green-blue, lovely and bright.
Such gorgeousness. I do love Lisa's colors, her color palette runs along the same tones as mine, looking at her website just makes me happy, buying her yarn makes me even happier!
So anyway, I have knit up or sold 11 sweaters worth of yarn and I have brought 9 sweaters worth of yarn into the house. Not exactly the balance I was going for, but I'm still ahead...at this rate I'll have my stash whittled down in 20-30 years, no problem.
Oh, those are gorgeous colors! I love intense blue-reds like that, and that peacock - mmmm.... In then end, there's something to be said for having at least some stash, I know I've appreciated it during lean months! (Off to check out her colors to see if there's any seafoam green in there for my Vionnet...)
Posted by: Jocelyn | May 14, 2011 at 02:50 PM
Yep! This is the BEST time of year, weather-wise, for many of us. Impressive park!
And the yarns are beautiful. I forgive you... 11 to 9 is not bad. I'm gearing up for a summer of purchases.
Posted by: Julia | May 16, 2011 at 12:18 AM