AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

another trip back in time

I've been on vacation for the last couple of weeks (going back to work tomorrow). The vacation started off with a trip to Las Vegas for a wedding. 

Vegas isn't my thing. I don't gamble and I hate everything about smoking. Glitzy lights and loud noises leave my brain is this state of frizz, like I turned on every station in the world and all I'm getting is the snow combined with the Emergency Signal Tone (that you just heard). I didn't hate it, but I was not completely sad to leave either.

That said, there is plenty to do in Vegas. I went to see O, which I've been dreaming about since I discovered Cirque du Soleil a gazillion years ago (thank goodness for the friends who introduced me). O is their water show and it lives in the Belaggio. Now the only thing I like more than food and crafting is swimming. I love water and even now wish I lived a little closer (oh, Hough's Neck, why weren't there any homes for sale when we were looking?). 

There was a lot of construction while we were in Vegas including signs for a place called Sugar Factory. Ignore their couture lollipops (and with my move away from chocolate and to hard candy it isn't as scary a sell for me as it was while I was in Vegas). There was a Sugar Factory store in the Miracle Mile Mall near our hotel. The milk shakes were hugely generous, making them actually affordable in Vegas terms and not much more than I would have spent for a slightly smaller milkshake at home.

Then there was the brownie.

Their brownies were fairly huge (though the last day the plain brownies were really flat looking - it happens to the best of us), and they had a red velvet brownie. We bought one our last day to take with us on our plain trip back, a great idea because we were held up at least an hour for weather in Vegas and another 10-15 minutes for more weather in Boston.

The brownies were good, but I knew I could make them at home. So I did.

My version was as simple as making the One Bowl baker's chocolate brownies with a cup of chocolate chunks added before baking, layered with Pinch My Salt's red velvet cake recipe (I used clabbered milk and put half over the brownies and the other half as mini cupcakes). Once it was cool I made a lactose-free cream cheese frosting recipe using the Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese (it isn't better, but it does taste completely like cream cheese as soon as you add almost anything to it. Plain it has an aftertaste).

So, I have been eating pieces of red velvet brownie all week long. They are pretty tasty and at least as good made from home as a huge slab of brownie from Sugar Factory.

Of course, if they opened a shop down the street, I wouldn't say no to just buying one...

Rhinebeck was my free day

I went to Rhinebeck with an allowance of sorts (cash only, all cards left behind, super limits to the amount of danger I could fall into), which was a great idea!  Rhinebeck was so wonderfully overwhelming that I was hard pressed to remember where some things were if I didn't buy them right away. 

The sweater that I had just finished was a total of 7 skeins, so I told myself that was the most I could buy.  I knew I wanted to buy yarn for the February Lady Sweater, something with a bit more color depth than I could get from a skein of Cascade 220 as it were, but not quite as dear as the Sundara yarn that the original was knit in (umm, yes, I drooled quite unattractively). I wanted the sweater to be about the same cost as it would be in Cascade 220, and I'm just between the sizes for the XXS/XS (mostly because I prefer a close fit for most of my clothing).  I also wanted to have the option to fall hard for other yarns... and oh yes, I did.

This will be the yarn for my February Lady Sweater:
 

At first glance it is just a nice, saturated blue, but it is really more than that.  It has hints of purple and brighter bits of almost magenta.  I have a close up, but I'm not going to use it.  It's just not the easiest to photograph.  Especially in my normal lack-of-natural light conditions.

Then K- and I went back to the laceweight (well, and some wondering around before that) and fell down hard!  I buy laceweight like some people eat potato chips.  With a reasonable thrifty mind, laceweight is the best bang for the knitter dollar.  It offers beautiful generous yardage, takes a goodly amount of time to knit up, and is often disgustingly gorgeous.  The biggest bang for my laceweight dollar is the Misti Alpaca, because those skeins are really affordable, but that doesn't mean I won't buy pricier laceweight...

Like  these:

  

The top is the Cashmere Silk from the Skacel both.  It's the only non-blue thing I got and is wonderfully soft.  It isn't quite enough yardage for any of the big shawls, but it is certainly enough for a Flowerbasket or similarly sized shawl.  Gorgeous!

The bottom is a slightly smaller than average skein of Clotho from Spirit Trail.  It's blue!  It's semi-solid! And at 437 yards is big enough for shawl or a stole.  There quite a number of options available from a quick search in Ravelry!

a good knitblogger has photos

I'm not nearly so skilled, so while I did take photos of some of the animals that all stopped within my first 20 minutes on the site.  As I entered through the main gate, the first animals were more like a children's petting zoo rather than a 4-H fair.

Most of these were for my hubby, because really Monkeys!

A cute little goat!  It's not the best picture in the world, but I was trying to not take pictures with the flash.  I find it disturbing enough and I know what is going on.  I can't imagine having bright lights going off in my face all day long.

This ring tailed lemur is mostly for my hubby.  He's looking directly at me and saying, "What do you want?"  Seemed appropriate.  I mostly feel the same way when people surprise me with a question or something.   

 This lemur didn't want to play.  Just sticking his butt out at us for all the world to see.  Silly emo lemur (though admittedly if I were in a cage I'd be emo and antisocial too).

I didn't get any other pictures while I was there.  Not of animals, potential stash, food, or people.  I had the camera in my pocket and extra batteries in my bag and it just didn't matter.  I was much more interested in exploring my surroundings and petting all of the sheep that would deign to come close enough than I was in testing the limits of my photography skills.

I did finish something last week (umm, the sweater I wanted to finish for Rhinebeck actually) and I did buy some yarn, so there will be more pictures later this week.  It is just that they will all be in the local lack-of-ambient-light conditions that occur when you do all of your photography before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m.  It's autumn in New England!

the kindnesses of strangers

The day after my first Rhinebeck trip is a little like a hangover, or at least what I imagine a hangover would be.  I am tired and a little sore.  I'm happy I had the time there and I wonder what I missed in my "Ooh, shiny" approach to exploring the space.

I'll probably blather about the trip most of the week, so please forgive me.

I enjoyed the trip, but I almost didn't get to go.  I left my condo with the intention of walking to Quincy Adams at about 5:15 in the morning.  Three miles away.  I thought that there might be an underpass along the path to possibly cut some of the time.  Heck, I didn't think to write out the directions, and so I dared a few of the side streets and then a few more.  I walk jogged and at about 5:57 a car was driving by and I waved.  "Can you tell me how far I am from Quincy Adams?"  I probably sounded a little frazzled.

"Pretty far.  Would you like a ride?"

This nice guy (probably a few years younger than me) drove me to the T where I met up with the rest of the people catching the bus from QA.  The route was just long enough that I would have been another 20 minutes walking, provided I didn't get (more) horribly lost.  I hate to ask for the kindness of strangers, but I was so thankful to receive it. 

If I do this next year, I think I'm going to ask for a departure of about 5 minutes later, so I can just take the T.  Or practice the walking route, so I don't get lost along the way.

desperately looking on the bright side of things

Today has been full of a lot of bad things, and I'm trying pretty hard not to think about them too much.  So, I'm thinking about the good things.  October things.  Rhinebeck things.

I don't drive.  Heck, I don't know how and I don't really want to learn.  Trust me, you don't want me behind the wheel either unless you are behind a nice armored wall.  So, when a local yarn shop was doing a day trip to Rhinebeck with plenty of advanced notice, I just jumped at the chance.  Last year, Circles (or the year before?) went down, but it was more than a day and kind of pushed the entire thing out of my price range.  Too bad, but it was a good choice to make.

Of course, going to Rhinebeck means forgoing the free days I've earned a la stashalong, so I can save both money and yarn space up for the trip.  August was pretty paltry.  2.5 skeins for one top, and 2 skeins (as soon as I weave in the ends) for a pair of socks.  I'd love to get down there with both enough funds (what is enough funds for Rhinebeck anyway?) and enough earned skeins for a sweater.  Am I dreaming?  Maybe.  We'll see.

In other thinking of happier things, I've finished another book.  Knitting by Anne Bartlett.  I'm probably the last knitter to read this (much like the EZ Knitter's Almanac).  It's a quick read, and while not the happiest book on the planet (the snarky part of me reserves that honor for Order of the Phoenix) it was surprisingly uplifting.  I'm getting pretty good at knitting while reading.  As long as the book will stay open to a page on its own or I can hold the pages open without covering a lot of text, I can get both done.  I can't read quite as fast this way or knit quite as fast, but I'm getting them both done which makes me quietly happy.  My current book I'm reading this way is Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.  I'm hoping to finish this tonight, so I can get more books from the library now tomorrow.

Level 4A

Only bloggers would do  this --->

Last week was a whirlwind.  I went to Pittsburgh to see my brother-in-law get married.  Along the way there were good times, games, the World Series, and more food than any one being could possibly eat.

I could write for days about this, but there is too much.  I'll sum up.

Level 4A
Where we parked the car before the wedding reception on Saturday.  My MIL et al told me to remember where we were and I took the camera in my pocket, walked back and snapped a picture.  It worked too.  I remembered it (without the picture being necessary). 

The wedding and reception were beautiful.  The opening cocktail hour (which is always more than an hour) featured masks to mark what table you were at for the reception, food I didn't eat, coffee I definitely drank, and an accordionist who played a remarkably good selection of music.

The reception involved cakes (wedding and grooms) as well as a cookie table.  One of the neatest things about a cookie table, a western Pennsylvania tradition, was seeing all of the different kinds of cookies and the effort made by the members of the two families.  While it could probably be all done by one very enthusiastic individual, it was put together by a combination of members of the two families.  A great way to get to know the other people!

The grandmother of the bride in addition to making hundreds of delicious cookies also made these roses to decorate the cookie table.  They are made by rolling gumdrops out with extra granulated sugar (so they don't stick) and shaping them into roses with toothpicks.  There were boxes available to take cookies home with you, so we added a couple of gumdrop roses to our pile.

And of course the Grooms cake.  I didn't eat any of it (though I meant to snag a piece after it was cut), but had to take a picture.  I mean, really!  Steelers cake!

The wedding cake was an elegant buttercream and lemon affair, simple but delicious.

Flying  
These are the pictures of the plane and in the plane on the way there and back.  Probably not exciting to many, but definitely exciting to me (we flew JetBlue and were going nearly 666 mph with the jetstream behind us).

Of course, I did more than fly and wedding.  I have finished (well, fine almost finished - I need to 3needle bindoff and weave in ends) my Sock Savior socks, which I hope to mail out this weekend at the latest.  My MIL has requested that I knit her a baby blanket to be given to a cousin (this is now my default designation, because it is a very large family).  I'm going to be using the Hoover Blanket pattern and need to find an appropriate yarn this weekend.

Last picture?

The New York Adventure - Kinokuniya

Kinokuniya
  n.
  1.  A great excuse to visit New York City.
  2.  A Japanese bookstore with a crafts and hobbies section
  3.  The source of this knitting book

When Sasuga was local (and I was more local than I am now), I used to work for them.  I'd work on the newsletter, hand craft web pages, scan book covers (mostly manga), and a ton of other little tasks.  My job was eventually made obsolete through the power of the database driven web site, but I loved it (loved a bit less the 3 jobs to pay the bills thing).  My Japanese is woefully rusty, but the best thing about playing Japanese video games and having friends as into Japanese as you are is the constant incentive to not let things slide.

So, I now have a Japanese knitting book and I will be making this pattern first (if I can come close to gauge with the yarn).  I am armed with my poor Japanese reading comprehension (I'm so much better at listening - sad, because that's not that great either) and websites.

ABCs of Knitting Japanese Patterns
Clearwater Japanese Charting Lessons

I am pretty sure that I know enough Japanese to smooth out the edges of my learning curve.  It would be great to finally have a decision on what I'm making with all of my Silky Wool (though that will have to wait until I'm done with the Fiery Bolero).  I have already figured out the stitch pattern - the charts are on the second page - the patterns for the increases, decreases, and some of the particulars for my size.  It comes in two sizes, Medium (98 cm) and Large (104). 

As far as I can tell (and I really haven't had the book for very long) the best thing about Japanese patterns is because they tell you how many rows and stitches every section is (including how many stitches you are decreasing every so many rows) is that it is even easier visually to change things to match your stitch and row gauges.  I bought Silky Wool over a year ago to make Scoop It, but my row gauge was so compressed that I gave up on it.  I'm pretty sure I can make this pattern work even if I don't manage to expand my row gauge (I was getting nearly 40 rows per 4 inches).

The New York Adventure - Part 3

Gosh, my photography skills are poor.  I didn't take pictures during Stephanie's talk (it just felt rude), but it was quite a gathering of knitters.  I recognized four or five people (max), but was too dang shy to talk to anyone.  Kind of silly, because we were all there for the same reason.

It was wonderful to see all of these projects in person (though there were a few too many Clapotii for me) and fun to sit in a place where you were encouraged to knit at your hearts content.  What I saw:  knitters with lace, knitters with socks, knitters with the most gorgeous shawls I had ever seen.  There were young punk knitters, knitting normal looking things (socks, scarves, squares, what have you) and working age women (and men) knitting fancy and functional garments.  There were older men and women knitting tons of interesting things (most of the people near me were working on shawls, sweaters or socks). 

Of course, because I was being stupid and shy the most conversation I had with anyone was with a woman who asked me about the sock I was knitting.  The conversation went something like, "What size needles are those?"  "0."  Hey, it was what I had on hand (and both the yarn and the needles came from my trip last year to Toronto).  Granted, I'm now wondering if I've finally managed to make a pair of socks too small for my feet (instead of my normal too large). 

Stephanie's talk was humorous and a bit dogmatic.  She was obviously a wee bit nervous (though she managed to talk at a human pace - I would have been rambling and fast).  I think some small part of her must have been thinking that it would never work, that the knitters wouldn't come.  But come they did.  There were knitter(s) from England and Lucerne (Switzerland), and from all over the United States.  Made my boring train trip seem short and easy by comparison.

The New York Adventure - Part 2

Yarn.
I'm a knitter.  I love yarn.  I'm also on a budget and the stashalong (though the program with free days is a lot more flexible and happy making), and I needed 4-5 skeins of yarn for the Fiery Bolero.

I didn't go as wild as a lot of the knitters I saw (I'd have needed to save up yarn dollars for quite a number of months to equal that haul), but I did get to Habu Textiles and School Products.

Habu was a novel experience.  Sale yarns were in baskets on the floor and involved some vibrant reds, a few vivid purples and then mostly naturals for the rest of the color sets.  A lot of the yarn was on cones or small packages.  It was nifty, but nothing I was going to go completely gaga over.  Then someone noticed the room with the non-sale stuff behind a curtain and people started to file in there.  I've bought from Habu before (online) and it is not really the place to go with a project in mind.  You need to see what is there (especially the smaller bundles of yarn) and decide what you can make.  It's like building a functional art object.  I bought a single bundle of bamboo lace weight (because I need more lace weight like I need a hole in the head... umm, exactly) in a silvery grey color.  I'll probably make one of the smaller Interweave Knits lace shawls or I'll get a copy of Lace Style and see what I can make in there.  I already have a lace project on the needles (too nascent to show off) and enough lace weight for four or five shawls, but anyway more lace weight!

I went to School Products on the suggestion of a friend, and for making a published pattern it is definitely a better place to go.  There was a lot of variety (and if I hadn't been shopping for a single product there was some Koigu in a s et of wonderful berry reds that I would have snatched up), though it is black hole of Karabella products.  The owner suggested Karabella Margrite for the Fiery Bolero, and once again I succumbed to the softness of the yarn.  It is hard to buy a yarn quite that expensive.  I was hoping to make the bolero out of something a bit more affordable, but the yardage on the more affordable yarn I was looking at was small enough that the price difference for the project was 3 dollars.  I skimped by only buying 4 skeins.  They were alarmed at my not buying the standard extra ball.  The project calls for 6 skeins for my size (but so does the next larger size) or approximately 605 yards.  I have more yarn than that and knit loose, so I will make do.  This will, of course, be the time it doesn't work out.  I need to finish one of my older projects on the needles to reclaim a size 5 for the project.  Maybe I'll do that this afternoon.

When I go back, I think I'll take another yarn shop address or two and see what other areas I can explore (and go to the Cupcake Cafe or some other sweet shop).  Heck, I might just go back with a few coffee shop addresses of the non-$bucks variety and drink the happy brew.

The New York Adventure - Part 1

I'll probably end up writing about this off and on over the next week, because for all that I wasn't there for long I feel like I covered a lot of ground.  Probably literally.  This isn't a timeline, because no one really needs that, including me.

The short notes:
I took the Amtrak Regional, which leaves on the late side and gets in butt early.  I think in the future I should just take the 6 a.m. bus and both leave and arrive on a shorter term basis (the things I wanted to do most were all 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. kind of things).

MoMA!  It was wonderful and having a friend with (who actually knows things about photography - duh!) makes the entire experience better.  I'm mostly a casual appreciater of art.  I like looking at things and making my own connections, but most of the time it is on a purely visceral level.  Having someone there with more background helped me take at least some pieces out of my gut and more into my head.  I'll probably ramble about the exhibits later when I have caught up on sleep (about the same time you get my two lousy pictures).

I didn't do the Today Show or the Sock thing.  Despite being out there with a blog that theoretically anyone can find (hi Mom!  hi Boss!), I am really shy around most people in public.  The city was full of knitters and I would keep on running into them, but I'd rarely say anything even when I recognized them (maybe especially if I recognized them).  I did some yarn shopping with my Stashalong Free Day and got a little bit of laceweight bamboo from Habu and 4 skeins of Margritte (not exactly within my budget *sigh*) for the Fiery Bolero.

The Harlot.  The presentation area was huge.  While we were waiting for it to start, there were slides of socks on rocks (and other interesting places and with interesting people).  It was insanely funny and just a tiny bit more dogmatic feeling than normal.  It was a very different experience from when I saw her at Circles.  Almost larger than life (and she only said arse once during her talk (and a few more times during the Q & A)!).  I was trying to explain to my friend earlier in the day about knitting and what was going on and I ended up using the word cult.  I'm not completely convinced that I am that far off base.  It's like one of those huge strange religions that no one talks about with odd customs and weird symbology.

The Craft Yarn Council of America worked with Storey Books to have a bag for each knitter with yarn, needles, and a small write up on Warm Up America.  Most of the knitters at the start of the talk cast on for a 7x9" afghan block.  I'm getting two out of my ball (and it is yarn I know I have in the stash, so I'll be making more).  It's always good to know what you're doing with your yarn (other than just petting and drooling on it).

I need to go to bed.  The 3:15 a.m. train is not the most restful place to get your night's shut eye.