Mary, Mary...

Life and Taxes

2011-04-15T13:28:00.004-05:00

My little write-offs.
Thanksgiving 2010

Some people find that they have 'senior' moments and others have 'Aha!' moments. I have 'Erma Bombeck' moments. You see, I live with 2 boys who are transitioning into teenagers. The younger one will be officially 13 in a month, but he received excellent training from his 14.5-year-old brother. I'm positive that schizophrenia or bipolar disorder doesn't run in my family, but I'm starting to have my suspicions. Imagine if you threw "The Simpsons," "Tosh.0," "Lucha Libre," "The Golf Channel" and "Dark Shadows" into a sitcom blender, then you'd have a close rendition of my life. They are completely evil, smelly, messy and rude. They are funny, affectionate, clever and curious. They are the future. They must be stopped. They say stuff like, "When I grow up I want to be a real boy," in a silly voice that makes me laugh every time.

And have I mentioned that they sleep a lot? They sleep so deeply that I'm always tempted to grab a mirror to see if they're breathing. But not always. When they're not sleeping, they're eating which brings me to my latest enthusiasm:

Frugal Fixes for Leftovers!

Periodically, I get a sanity break when the boys stay with their father. And, inevitably, I am left with half eaten bags of chips, cookies or a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I am not about to eat 4 doughnuts and they'll get stale by the time the boys are back with me. Remembering an article I read in the NYTimes, I searched their website and found "Jelly Doughnut Pudding."
I only had 4 regular doughnuts and not the original 14 jelly doughnuts as called for in the recipe, so I used about a quarter of the ingredients. I cut the cooking time to 45 minutes, removed the foil and baked the pudding for another 10 minutes, broiling on high for the last 2 minutes. I might drizzle a little chocolate sauce over it...or I might not.

Knitting

I just taught a class on working 2 toe-up socks at the same time, using "Socks from the Toe Up," by Wendy D. Johnson. Judy's Magic cast-on is a marvel. Watch the youTube video and cast on the stitches when you'll not be interrupted. Another delight was the heel. It's a deceptively simple gusset heel that neatly rejoins the instep stitches without any holes. We did work the final decreases to 36 stitches instead of the 34 as written in the pattern. Now, we're working on the "Ruched Yoke Tee' from IK Spring 2011. I cast on for the 38.5" and have increased to the 42.5" size as I want a tighter neckline. I also plan to work my keyhole opening a little deeper as a result. If you want to make a cardigan version of this piece, then try the "Tea Leaves Cardigan" from Madeline Tosh. This pattern has you work with 2 different needle sizes to create the ruching effect.

I feel like I just paid for the new craft room at the Treasury Department, so I think a little recycled doughnut goodness is in order....

Mr. Darcy for Cat Lovers

2010-12-02T18:57:00.005-06:00

www.austencats.com Thanks to my old NYC slumlord, Debbie, for giving me this postcard. (caption reads: "All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." Yuk-yuk-yuk.

Go ahead, check out the link and post a pic of your cat with a Jane Austen quote. I can wait while you rummage around and look for some white lace and a small bonnet to put on Mittens. Don't forget the oriental carpet and Moroccan bound books. I'd skip the teacups, personally. Snap a few pics. Yeah, google Austen quotes and mull over the perfect one to caption your pic. I'm still here......and you want to know why?

I have never read Jane Austen and I don't plan to. Horrors!!!
Yep, can't do it. Tried and tried. All I wanted to do was throttle everybody by page 150 and blow up the vicarage. I read the Cliff Notes in college in order to fake it for my Lit degree. Recently, I bought "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," but I never got past the cover. Now, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate astute observations of social mores and human foibles. I just prefer them in a more....er, scatalogical?....way. How about "The Poetry Lesson" by Andrei Codrescu? You may know his wonderfully chewy consonants and dry humor from NPR or his online journal, Exquisite Corpse. Anyway, here's the 30 second pitch: "Screwball students(not really, more like post-modernish) collide with Poetry 101 filtered through the slightly Nabokovian(sensual, sexual, detached observation/inner dialogue) lens of a retiring professor at a Louisiana college. Hey, kids, get your Ghost-Companion poet NOW!"

Thanksgiving has passed and I was thankful because I didn't have to cook or clean up. Hell, we didn't even have turkey, even better. My uncle prepared a leg of lamb/veggies/salad/dessert for me, my boys and assorted guests at his restaurant, The Liberty Bar, in San Antonio. Best line of the night: "Dwight, I sure like your meat!" (this is best said in a deep Southern drawl--it cracks up the boys every time) The steak tartare is really really good with oven roasted potatoes and a small salad. Go there. Eat. You'll thank me, plus there's an illustration of my mom in the entryway.

FOs!

Baktus scarf(Prism Merino Mia, 'embers') and "Ich Bin Ein Mobius"(FDC Superior, col.23 and Manos Silk Blend, col. 3068) wrap. I found the Baktus pattern on Ravelry and cursed the miles of garter stitch the whole time. Now, it's my 'go-to' scarf and I love, love, love it. It's super long and I can wrap it around my neck in all sorts of ways, although I am trying to avoid Sarah Bernhardt syndrome. 'Ich Bin" is a personal design. I just cast on a million stitches and started up with moss stitch before popping in a row of elongated knit stitches here and there. Another mind numbing piece with spectacular results. Super cozy and wrappable and wearable here in Austin.

OK, one last little confession: I have a new addiction. And it is called Law&Order: UK. Bad guys with British accents in London. Doink doink. Sigh.
Jane, would you like a cuppa?

Drink, Shoot, F%ck

2010-11-19T20:50:00.005-06:00

(how "Eat, Pray, Love" translates into Texan)

I realized tonight that there's been something like a two year gap in my knitting, spinning, blog, photography, and my 'real' life to a certain extent. I just went through a pile of craft magazines dating back to Fall 2008 and I have no memory of buying them. There are WIPs made with yarn I don't remember buying. And fiber on the bobbins that I can't figure out. What happened?

Well, my marriage ran out of gas and I got divorced. My friends, old and new, knitters and non-knitters alike, extended their love and support throughout the process. My brothers did their bit with weekly/monthly calls and football chats. My newly teenaged sons and I redefined our boundaries and how we communicate. (uh, yelling, listening and big hugs) I also rediscovered my inner teenager and then I met a Republican (we cancel out each other's votes) and fell in love. Yeah, it's been that kind of crazy around here. Meaning I'm in a consistently bipolar state of responsible single mom and wanton she-devil. And it all feels normal because they all RESPECT THE STASH. I do try to update my Ravelry page (MaryMary) on a regular basis, but I'd like to 'reblog' if you will. Sooo, let's see what's been happening in the yarncave....

"Buttery Soft Baby Blanket" pattern from Hill Country Weavers. Tunisian crochet, Great Adirondack Bamboo Cotton, 10mm hook. This yarn is the softest stuff ever. Evah. I just wish Great Adirondack did this in solids so I could play with more defined stripes using Tunisian crochet. Tunisian crochet is dead simple but didn't go quite as quickly as I thought it would. I'm adding a solid border in olive green to stabilize the sides. (for future Japanese/Jewish baby in NYC)

Granny Stripes Baby Blanket, Ravelry pattern, Tahki Cotton Classic, 5.5 mm hook. I had bought a grab bag of the yarn from Cotton Clouds and this was the perfect pattern to use up 10 different sunset colors. I did buy 4 more skeins in burnt orange to add a little width and then finish off the borders. (for newborn American/Argentinian baby girl)

Tomato by Wendy Bernard, Noro Chirimen with Debbie Bliss wool/cotton, size 44. (nice trick with the earrings, eh?) I tripled the number of decreases from 4 to 12 for the waist shaping and lengthened it a bit. The yarns played nicely with each other and I was inspired by Turtlegirl's Tomato from a couple years ago.

OK, so it took me a lot longer to finish mine but now I'm loving it. I'm finding all sorts of projects in random bags and finishing them....like the Baktus with Prism Merino Mia and my 'Ich Bin Ein Mobius' done up in Manos' Silk Blend (col. 3068) stranded with FDC Golden Line 'Superior' (col. 23) a moody lime green. Both are quite lovely as the weather's getting nippy and I'll post pix asap. And there's been some (paid!)finishing work as well....look for the Red Monster (Vogue Holiday 2007, #13 Mod Jacket) to appear soon. I'm working on the High Line shawl in Malabrigo worsted, col. Paris Ten. Madeline Tosh seems to be the drug of choice in these parts and I'm awaiting the arrival of 2 skeins of Pam Allen's Tern (Quince & Co.).
Stayed tuned.

The Swarm of Shawls: World Cup Knitting

2010-06-13T10:24:00.004-05:00

aka Summer Knitting: Vuvuzelas and Lace

(warning: moth picture at end, a really scary moth picture)

At the moment, I am sitting on my extremely comfortable and soporific couch which we call 'The Trap' (once you're on it, you never leave. really.) watching Serbia play Ghana in Group D of the World Cup. Actually, I'm listening to it and working on the 'Garden of Alla' shawl in Hand Maiden Camelspin in the Paris colorway. I'm up to the first full repeat of the main chart and loving the symmetry of a center stitch lace pattern. It looks all shlumpy right now, but it's gonna be a stunner.

And it sounds like every killer bee, hornet and cicada decided to have their own Insect World Cup in South Africa as well, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Somewhere in the Bushveld, Cary Grant is driving hell for leather with an ever darkening sky behind him while Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint and Grace Kelly are cheerfully buying souvenir vuvuzelas in the Cape Town craft market. They sense there's nothing amiss until Grace gives a sharp cry of pain. The other women gather around her as she stares at the bee sting on her hand. The camera cuts to a shot of a squirming bee on the ground surrounded by their teetering high heels and then slowly pans up to show the native vendor quietly packing up his wares. But I digress.....

Catherine's Mini Cardi with crochet trim (free download on Ravelry)

I was gifted 2 skeins of the Tilli Tomas Pure and Simple and immediately cast on. I skipped the ribbing, knowing I would add the crochet trim later. Also, I used a size 8 needle and knitted up a size small. This was a calculated risk as I figured the silk would relax quite a bit after blocking and loosen up to a medium. And it did!

Hanami is also on the needles...Hand Maiden Sea Silk in Peridot. I've gotten through the first trellis lace repeat without too many injuries to my knitter's ego. I find this repeat more of a challenge and the pattern calls for 7 of them before you hit the dots. I may have to save this one for the Tour de France as you can go for hours without looking up before the mass sprint at the finish. I can always pull out a sock during the mountain stages. And now I'm going to have a glass of Robinson's Barley Water and leave you with some recent shots of the garden...

AAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!
What the hell is this? Does anybody know? It's gone now. Off to South Africa, I guess....

Edie Springtime Shawl...

2010-03-16T12:57:00.003-05:00

IS DONE!

I finally sewed on the stars during a marathon viewing of "Cash in the Attic" on BBC and then proceeded to photograph myself in the rain. Hence, the dodgy smirk. Anyway, I love it! Really, I do. It's long enough to drape over my shoulders, a shawl pin helps, and it's lightweight enough for layering or arctic movie theaters in the summer. The short frill around the edges is just enough to offset the stockinette roll and give it a feminine touch.

Here, let's check out the whole package...gee, looking a little brassy in the hair department. Anyway, I think the crochet stars add a certain crunchy granola touch in a 'I recycle my pricy yogurt containers' kind of way.

Now, I can get back to my Baktus scarf/shawl that I'm working up in Prism Merino Mia in the 'embers' colorway. The knitting is mindless, but it is a bit like climbing a pyramid as you increase every fourth row before getting to make the grand descent of decreases.

One of the interesting side effects of my divorce is that I've been doing a lot of home cooking for me and the boys. By home cooking, I mean Texan white trash soul food. The boys get all sorts of elaborate ethnic gourmet meals with their dad, so I swerve to the other end of the spectrum and keep it simple. 'Brown Sugar Bacon' from "The Pastry Queen Christmas, by Rebecca Rather, is a huge Sunday morning sleepover hit with the guys while 'Comfort Meatballs' and 'Cheese Grits' from "The Pioneer Woman Cooks," by Ree Drummond takes me to a happy place somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12. (FYI--cut the recipes in half or you'll be feeding the whole county) I've been reading the "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" blog for ages and her cookbook is a celebration of the hardworking homeschooled ranch life that I occasionally fantasize about when I wear cowboy boots and ride in a pickup truck. I was totally addicted to the installments about her courtship with Marlboro Man while my marriage was quietly disintegrating. (check it out under 'Love Story' on her main page) Heck, I read more dang romances during that period than any other time in my life. Now, I'm reading "Money Shot," by Christa Faust..."They thought she'd be easy. they thought wrong." Let's see...bullets, babes, adult videos and bad guys. Works for me, honey!

There's a recipe in "Pioneer Woman" for 'French Breakfast Puffs' that I'm really craving...would someone please make it so I don't have to gain five pounds after gorging myself on them????

No Springtime for Edie

2010-02-15T14:47:00.006-06:00

Edie Springtime Cardigan, pattern from Knitwhits. Noro silk garden and kureyon sock yarn, color 252

I knitted this up last year and realized that I would look like the love child of Margaret Hamilton and Eisaku Noro after the Soylent Green swap meet if I dared to put sleeves on it. It got put back into the project bag for an extended time-out while I goofed off with some cashmere and silk. Sooo, I came across it recently and thought I would

crochet stars to cover the armholes and then crochet a loose frill all around the border to turn the whole thing into a shawl. No problem, I should have this whipped up by the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics.

Lately, I was perusing the new additions at a LYS when my eyes fell upon these pretty little bundles of springtime giddiness:
Noro Sekku, col. 6
Any ideas?

Blankety Blank Blankets

2009-10-06T10:36:00.003-05:00

(Debbie Bliss Moss Stitch Throw, DB cashmerino aran)

There are process driven knitters and there are project driven knitters and then there are those who can't finish a damn thing but can take your baby blanket with a few booboos and make it look like an inspired piece of work. That's me.

The woman who made Alix's first sale at Vineyard Knit Works had brought along a project that she wasn't pleased with. There was a dropped stitch or two, some wonky spots and a couple of odd joins. We took a look at it, stated that it was only a matter of blocking and some strategically placed crocheted circles. Next thing I know, I've got an extra project in my suitcase. Now, the fact that a complete stranger who lives in Washington, DC, was entrusting her knitting to my care in Austin, TX, shows you how desperate she was. Call me The Blanket Whisperer or, better yet...The Finisher.

I discovered this hidden talent while I was working in Miami. Knitters would bring their projects into the shop and bemoan their mistakes or that it needed to be blocked and pieced and how they dreaded doing it. I'd take a look, shrug and say, 'No problem, just leave it to me.' The project comes home with me where we get to know each other, take a long bath with a cool rinse, relax on a couple of beach towels while we dry off and chat about the pattern details. I turn on some loud music, get to work and soon enough that 4x12 throw is now 8x6. Or the stretched out tunic is now a cropped pullover. Or the baby blanket now has some crocheted circles that give it more visual interest. It gives me great satisfaction delivering these projects back into the creator's hands, knowing that they'll get even more pleasure out of it than the intended recipient. Farewell, Moss Stitch Throw...keep that baby warm and happy!

(Noro Crochet Blanket, Noro Flowers Book 4, Jenny Watson Designs)

My carry-along project these days is another giant Granny Square throw. I'm using various colors of Noro Kureyon sock yarn with some Araucania thrown in for contrast. This one is going to be for the new couch that finally arrived about 2 weeks ago. The couch is looooong....long enough for 2 boys and a large dog to lie on it and not bug each other while watching 'Family Guy.' Long enough that you can fall asleep on it and not bend your legs. Long enough that you can watch football with your grown sibling and not get their cooties. Long enough that I think I need to make two of these....oh, dear!

(ACL Music Fest, 10/2/09)

The boys and I went to ACl last Friday night and it was perfect. Cool weather, waxing moon, the grass was all squishy and fresh, the Mighty Cones were hot and crunchy and Karen O rocked the bejabbers out of the park with the YeahYeahYeahs. I wasn't that moved by The Kings of Leon, but how can you compete with a woman who gives you the willies while opening her show covered in a some tribally marked hood and later goes crowd surfing while giant inflatable eyeballs bounce around? No contest.

What happened to August?

2009-09-15T19:32:00.002-05:00

I ran off to Martha's Vineyard to help open up a yarn shop and poof! it's the middle of September. I've been busy trying to get the house refinanced (aka water boarding for home owners), dealing with a feverish kid (can I take the nightime Theraflu w/vodka instead?), and the usual transitions that divorced women make. I was born with my maiden name, so why is it so danged hard to get it back on all my stuff? But enough of that reality, let's take a gander at my holiday pics! Fine, grab a BIG libation and put yer feet up while we take a tour of that quaint place known as:I was contacted through a mutual friend to help crack knitter Alix design and organize her guest house into a yarn shop. When I showed up, I was faced with this.and this.
CinderMary went to work as I cleaned, scrubbed, rearranged furniture and made stray teenagers haul things off in order to get the space in working order. There were at least 4 dogs, 2 birds, a guinea pig, a rabbit and a flock of chickens to keep me company while I busied myself. Throw in another houseguest, a stray husband and 3 more kids and you can get a good idea of the ambient chaos. A few days later, Alix had her first sale!
We made a visit to the Martha's Vineyard Farmers Market and take a look at all of the goodies:

(click on the pic and you should get the flickr description) Yep, that batch of Wild Turkey orange sock yarn from Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm is mine, all mine!

Three cheers for Alix and Vineyard Yarn Works! It's a short drive from West Tisbury. She's 'cocoanuts' on Ravelry--go say hi and give her a big, BIG hug. She's a brave and ballsy gal for doing this, so book that fall foliage/New England getaway vacation NOW.

Martha's Vineyard

2009-08-06T10:39:00.002-05:00

It was worth spending the whole of yesterday in airports and ferry terminals because last night I got to sleep with the windows open with lots of FRESH, COOL NIGHTTIME AIR. And now I'm going to put on some madras plaid shorts, a beat up polo shirt, flipflops and work on some.....needlepoint. Specifically, a canvas that I bought from Anneke's Needleworks that says "Deck Them Halls Y'all."

I'm on vacation and I've gone to the dark side of preppy.

Oscar Cable Update!

2009-07-30T22:04:00.009-05:00

aka "Laziness vs. Patience...You Decide"

Three years ago, I saw this Oscar de La Renta Sweater in the runway highlights and thought, "Holy Big-Ass Cables, Batgirl! How can I knit this?" Then, the store version came out for a mere $2200, 100% cashmere. I knew I could make this sucker for way cheaper and I'd use a wool/cotton blend to work in central Texas. I ordered the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in the 'cottonball' colorway and set to swatching. I looked into all sorts of cables in Barbara Walker...'Giant Braided Plait' comes to mind as well as as fiddling with changing needle sizes, increasing before the cable row then decreasing after, working a few rows on a separate dpn and then cabling those stitches. I got bogged down into pattern details and adjusting for different sizes. Friends would send me links to any really big cables they saw. Phildar has a nice one in their Phildar № 006 Créations, Automne-Hiver/Fall-Winter 2008/2009 issue. (thanks, Ravelry) I even ordered that edition, but it wasn't enough to stir me from my jotted notes and over-researched stupor....

and then, while I was perusing the latest issue of Interweave Knits(Fall/09) I saw this....

I just knew if I was patient and/or lazy enough that somebody would 'adapt' this design with a few tweaks and publish it. Here, check it out for yourself at the skacel collection website. So, I hope all the knitters in the Yahoo aran knitters group and the devoted blog souls who have long given up on me will now turn their energies to knitting up this pattern and kvetch about it on Ravelry. I just can't handle that kind of pressure right now. But.....

You know, I'm not so sure I'd run that smaller cable up the arms. I think it makes for a slightly jurassic look and, goodness knows, I'm old enough as it is. And I just bet that neckline is folded over which means supertoasty---not a good thing here in TX. And what about cable splay at the hem and sleeve edges? Now, I just know I could do better.......!????

Stop the presses.....

2009-07-18T18:08:00.002-05:00

it's an effing FO!!!!

Sleeveless Klaralund from the Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Hand Knitting Collection, Book Number Two. Queensland Collection Pima Fresca, emerald. Size: extra large.

I was planning on making three-quarter length sleeves when I started this in July 2008. I put it down, picked it up this spring and thought short sleeves would be better. I put it down, picked it up again this summer and decided that sleeveless would be best if I ever wanted to wear it in this decade. I worked the 14 row garter stitch border, then 6 repeats of the extended garter stitch pattern before knitting a shorter garter stitch border for the neckline. I made an extra large because I was that much bigger last summer, so it fits nicely across my bust and a little loose around the waist. It's in the dryer right now after I chucked it in the washing machine, so the Pima Fresca should shrink just enough.

It's a real confidence booster to finish something after all this time. Especially something that's cute and actually fits. I had someone contact me on Ravelry about the Noro Tibiori that's in my stash. I found the yarn and had completely forgotten that I was going to make a little crochet top from 'Amazing Crochet Lace.' I had made one motif and poof! got distracted by something shiny....I'll send her the yarn as I rather help out a desperate knitter than wait on my powers of concentration to return. But that hasn't stopped me from looking at patterns....recent faves include:

Featherweight Cardigan from knitbot.com

that calls for Malabrigo Lace. I have 2 skeins of Robincat's hand-dyed laceweight wool/silk in the green/blue/wow 'Dinosaur tops' colorway that would be perfect for this...like an arranged marriage with a happy ending.
Paloma from French Girl Knits that calls for Louet MerLin Sportweight. I would shop the stash for a substitute.
Sanpoku from Berroco. More stashbusting.

And, then again, I could pick up another UFO and, you know, FINISH IT!

Why, hello stranger.....

2009-07-03T23:02:00.008-05:00

Me and HPNY hanging out at Zabar's.

Welcome back to the constantly morphing planet of Mary, Mary! Let's see what all has happened since I last posted. Oh, gosh, I have lost about 25 pounds. This was due in part to the adrenaline, anxiety and stress caused by my recent divorce. Yes, I know, big effing life change doings. It was mutual and we're much happier as friends and co-parents than spouses. It's a huge transition for all of us, but I think we'll get there in the end. Texting your kids nonstop is my idea of an umbilical cord. Anyway, I had a few days free and recently ran off to New York City to see old and new-ish friends. I did pick up 2 skeins of Alchemy Pagoda, Costa Brava colorway on a quick trip to Knitty City w/Hila(HPNY). I started a cluster pattern scarf but have ripped it out because the texture of the fiber totally obscured the stitch pattern. Something simpler and bit more dramatic--double YOs--may do the trick. There is a nice scarf pattern in the summer VK with dropped stitches, but I am a little worried that it is a bit delicate for the wear&tear of a lacrosse/soccer mom. And then.....

I am a finishing geek and I blocked my friend Jane's 360 degree Feather and Fan shawl. I'm not sure what pattern she used, but it spread out beautifully. I used a million t-pins to enhance the crochet edge.

And I think you can see for yourself how happy Jane was with the results...

and let's take a look at the back...

She's getting ready to go to Knitting Camp in Wisconsin and if she doesn't kick some KC butt, then I will be sorely disappointed. I forgot to mention that she knitted a hat out of my old old Gameboy charger cords mixed with Malabrigo and buttons.
Jane. Rocks.

Imagine sitting on that roof deck on the right and listening to Gogol Bordello while drinking an ice cold beer on a lazy summer night. Cheers, New York!

What, it's Friday already?

2009-05-08T17:39:00.003-05:00

My, how time flies when all you do is listen to Ida Maria and Camera Obscura while whooshing away on an elliptical trainer, hoping you can get into last summer's shorts before June. Sometimes, I go to the weight room when I want to get in touch with my inner Kellie Everts and pump some 8 lb iron, man. I know, I had absolutely no idea that there were female bodybuilders who stripped for God. I thought it was for, like, a paying audience. Who knew?

Ok, I want to start something, anything, and it has to be with stash yarn. Well, how about this little number from Stitch Diva? I can wear it over a tank and it works up on a DK/light worsted gauge. It's kind of like Cherie Amour with air conditioning. I just downloaded it and hope to start tomorrow.

And here's Louie tapping into his inner Barry White. I dunno, I think he strips for mice.

What if...

2009-04-21T18:10:00.002-05:00

the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about?

I saw that on a bumper sticker today and had to share it.
I'm taking a hiatus from crafts these days to focus on losing weight and recalibrating my personal life. I'll continue posting odds & ends, so please stop by and wave hello.

Oscar the Grouchy Bunny Cupcake

2009-04-10T19:35:00.003-05:00

and Sean the Sheep wish you a very happy holiday weekend.

My friend, Anneke, asked me to write a post for the Anneke's Needleworks Blog about ordering the Blue Sky Alpacas yarns with her at TNNA in San Diego. Go check it out!

Good Handknit Sweaters Last Forever, People Don't

2009-04-04T19:19:00.002-05:00

"Hellooooo everybody! I am taking a little break from all of my crafty hobbies to enjoy looking at my handcrafted gold wire and quartz candle snuffer. It comes in so handy when we have seances and stuff with that charming little gamine Rosemary. Ooooh, and here are all the obituaries that I need to put into my scrapbook. Gosh, remind me to get some library paste! I just love to snuggle up in my cozy lavender mohair sweater, pick up some needles and get to work. The neighbors hardly complain about the screams, ever since I accidentally left some rat poison out on the fire escape and Miss Precious Perfect died. Sigh. It takes so much energy for a busy girl to find new creative outlets."
One busy girl in Austin glued plastic eyeballs to her car which I saw at the library.
Another busy girl made new friends after a long run on Town Lake. Gee, Velma really took her vitamins!
And another busy girl put on her handmade Lucchese boots which were made for walkin' after midnight.

Spring Break

2009-03-20T21:45:00.002-05:00

rib-eye steak, corn-on-the-cob, Weber grill, Austin 2009.

I'm working on a striped Tomato ala Turtlegirl except with my own little spin.(yeah, yeah, pix to come) I also have various knitting repair jobs for friends that have been languishing while I pretend I'm bulletproof and 21 as I catch up with visiting friends during SXSW.(the biggest bestest kick-ass music confab evah)
And there's some mobius action going on with the spring green manos and FDC.

Cookin' with gas, baby....

Spring Back, Fall Forward?

2009-03-06T19:21:00.003-06:00

(Manos del Uruguay silk blend (30%silk/70% extrafine merino, kettle dyed, col. 3068) and Filatura Di Crosa Golden Line Superior (70% cashmere/ 30% silk, col. 23)

It's been a long, cold, difficult winter season...let's just take a Gatsby moment to look at some pretty green yarn and hope for brighter days and better projects. I saw these two yarns knitted up as an amazing Clapotis at Hill Country Weavers, but I think I will try something different, as in "I ain't knittin' no Clap, no how." I have nothing personal against Clap, but I need something....dumber. Yep, I said it. I'm not trying to recreate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In fact, I think I just want a non-Turkish Stitch shawl that's a little smarter than it looks. Feel free to share your ideas.
Oh, and the color...I just knew I had seen it somewhere.....
Yep, it's the color of the trim to my house aka "The Asparagus Omelet." I'll be sure to throw a green party when I finish this shawl and invite you guys. Honest, I'll serve omelets and mimosas.
The only remarkable thing about these socks is that I actually finished 2 of them. It's the standard Ann Budd recipe with Kureyon Sock Yarn, col. S40m, and I wet-blocked them with some conditioner and they feel great. As opposed to the Harry Potter yarn which I'm just not loving at the moment.
And as for the Edie Springtime Cardigan, things have gone horribly wrong. I'll post a pic next week, but suffice it to say it looks like I've knitted a......short Snuggie. Gah!
Last Sunday we treated ourselves to a family outing when we found out Springsteen tickets were going for $300 apiece on eBay. For a tenth of the price we, and I mean kids and adults, had a blast listening to Chrissie Hynde tear up the stage at Stubbs. Yeah, sometimes we get really close to cool around here.

Don't forget your clocks!

Ravelry, Revelry and God Only Knows What Else

2009-02-21T19:47:00.003-06:00

Jess, myself clutching Malabrigo sock yarn, Mary Heather photo#2: Jess(foreground) and Casey(background) try their darnedest to interpret central Texas accents while waiting for more cherry lime-ades from Sonic

and if I mixed up people's names...whoopsy-daisy!

Last weekend the ubercool Ravelry posse descended upon The Knitting Nest which was reason enough for me to drag my 12-year old across town to smile and gawk. The place was packed with local Ravelers, especially as they were giving out door prizes. Yep, I scored the purple Cascade Lana D'Oro alpaca/wool blend AND a hot pink Namaste bag in the silent auction. There was a bin of Malabrigo sock yarn in the front and I did not emerge from this calvacade of convivial knitterly networking until I had 4 skeins of Velvet Grape in my grubby mitts. Mine, all mine! I have visions of a swirly Stevie Nicks gypsy coat with lace detail on bell sleeves, lace motif in the center back and soft flowing ruffles along the fronts. All I need are some spiked black suede boots and a velvet dress. Maybe I should check out Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart and throw in a little Janis Joplin while I'm at it.

I had just left The Knitting Nest and was heading home when this beauty was in front of me. We have a number of unique antiques on wheels in Austin and it always brings a smile to my face when I see one. One of these days, I'll take a shot of the mobile bulletin board on the back of my car. As for the birdcage on the right, this was in front of my house on Valentine's Day. There were a couple of ponies pulling it and they clomped up and down the street a couple of times. Frankly, it was kinda creepy.

As you may know, I'm a huge fan of Hilde's work. She even sells it on DaWanda and I couldn't resist this black felted bag with the little people on front. And check out the fun b&w stripes! I have been using this bag to tote around Very Important Documents--it lightens the mood in some very somber settings.

I'm very close to finishing my KnitWhits Edie Springtime Cardigan using Noro Silk Garden sock and Silk Garden light. This project monogamy thing is yielding results one month at a time-who knew?

Thank you, Ceci!

2009-02-13T19:24:00.004-06:00

I thought a moment before posting this because sometimes these things feel a little like a chain letter to me. But then I thought to myself "Accept the compliment, you idiot, and link to some REALLY creative people!" Because it's fun to see some other blogs that you may never even know about--kinda like seeing what people read in the bathroom, eh? ME: old knitmags that don't have any patterns I want, old quilting mags for the same reason and, somehow, a couple of skateboarding mags for when Tex needs a little quiet time.
FYI: If you got a comment on your blog from 'Yoku,' that's actually from me but using my kids' sign-on. Those rascals....
And here are the rules if you've forgotten (copy and paste award, link to who nominated you, list 8 blogs that you're nominating and leave messages on their blogs about the award).

Here are 8 blogs that I think have something interesting/creative/amazing going on:

Hilde takes me to a calm place that has intrinsic beauty. You can see her work here.

HPNY is one of the first people to ever read and comment on my blog. We even met up for a fun time in London a couple of years ago which leads me to Nordic Stash Queen, Garngamen aka Yarn Dragon in Swedish. While HPNY methodically churns out really lovely pieces interspersed with great pix of NYC, Garngamen always has new stash with something involving at last 5 colors on her needles. Check out her Finished Projects and you'll see where that stash goes.

Kloobok doesn't post much but look at her crochet. She has some stunningly intricate pieces.

Sweaterproject and I lurk on each other's blogs. His knitting usually involves cables, socks, sweaters and/or kilts, but it's his rollerderby pix that just slay me. Did you know that the roller derby renaissance started in Austin just a few years ago? Well, this guy was all over it like white on rice, baby...

If you enjoy a little armchair travelling, then check out what's happening at Bazar Pimpampum. There's always something interesting over there.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. Check out the blog and then go to the main page and look for the Lamb Cam. Can't beat that virtual cuteness.

Elizabeth is a working designer who has published designs with the defunct Garter Belt and currently with Knit Circus. I've always admired the classic, sophisticated lines of her designs.

Some of these people are Ravelry friends and, believe me, I would have a lifetime of projects just based on their Ravelry favorites and queues. Enjoy!

Callooh! Callay!

2009-02-10T18:38:00.003-06:00

I have slain the Flapjack Throw from Colinette. It was stop and start for a couple of years, but here it is in all of its multi-colored glory. It measures approximately 55"x55" unblocked and it weighs a ton. I followed the pattern about halfway through then I just crocheted up stripes skein by skein. I also switched to a larger hook because a) I couldn't find the pattern and b) I wanted to finish this thing pronto and c) it was there.

This future heirloom will reside on Bandit's bed where there is already a very brightly colored quilt that I made years ago.
The UFO monogamy is great, but I'm at a quandary as to what I shall finish next. There are THAT many choices....

I can only imagine the day when this cherished object is brought out of mothballs for Bandit's firstborn and his wife takes one look and says, "Not if you want another kid, Babycakes." Good for her--I'll keep it in my spare bedroom and the kids can use it for a circus tent or a magic carpet. Unless....unless, he gives it to a college girlfriend. Gosh, I hadn't thought of that.

2009-01-30T18:06:00.003-06:00

Go ahead, wander over to Obamaconme and goof off. Have a good weekend!

2009-01-25T11:27:00.003-06:00

DONE!
"Barking Mad" sweater inspired by Keith Haring for my slightly mad, dog loving son. The pattern is my own but I did use the Norwegian collar from Elizabeth Zimmerman. I had always been curious about that collar. I used Classic Elite Newport Light cotton which is a discontinued yarn. The orange and navy blue were purchased at my LYS while I found the white on eBay, hence the rugby shirt effect.

UNDONE!
Girl Genius here thought she could convert the top-down 'Star Capelet' (Bernadette St. Amant) into a cardigan. Well, ten jillion short rows and a couple of wonky sleeves later, I'm here to prove that you can level out the angles and still end up with something best suited for Mothra. This has been frogged and placed in the ubiquitous Ziplok bag. I'm sure I'll find something in "Knitting Noro," by Jane Ellison who I met at TNNA in San Diego. She was simply lovely and a little stunned, I think, by the sheer numbers of vendors and the legions of Noro cult members trying not to storm the booth. FYI--Noro is coming out with a lot of new colorways which means some old friends will fall by the wayside. I'm already stockpiling col. 184 in Kureyon. Go to the Knitting Fever website to doublecheck those colorways.

My old boss and old friend, Anneke(Anneke's Needleworks, Miami), and I meet up every couple of years at TNNA to goof off and place orders for the shop. She (with the help of her trusty sidekick me) loaded up at Blue Sky Alpacas who had the cutest booth at the show. Did you know that there are 37 colors in the alpaca/silk? Which means choices had to be made. We also got into a lot of trouble at Tanglewood Fiber, where the 'Newport Rocks' colorway was killing me in their beaded cashmere/silk blend.

And did you know that Louet is coming out with a vicuna blend fiber later this year? I was very disappointed that they wouldn't take my firstborn as a down payment for a bag. Other items that caught my eye were the buttons and shawl pins at Annie Adams, Alcheny sock yarn, the great looking samples knitted up from the new book, "Knit One Below," by Alexis Xenakis and the groovy felt kits from Artfelt. Last stop of the day was Tilli Tomas which is like eating the chocolate truffles after you've just had dessert in a fancy restaurant.

But did it stop there? You can order yarn at TNNA, but you can't buy yarn there. I had mentioned the Brooklyn Tweed Noro scarf to Anneke who wanted to cast on immediately. This led to us zooming all over San Diego in our friend's rental car with me frantically pulling up the map and Ravelry on my iPhone while Anneke and her daughter, Sophia, were providing the color commentary in the backseat in a knitter's version of "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride." Our choices were severely limited by who was open on Mondays. We got to The Needlecraft Cottage in record time and were out of there in less. The shop in La Jolla was closed, so we drove to the Bonita Knitting Store(only ten miles away from Tijuana!) which happened to be closed as well. We peered in through the window and were equally disappointed. I may be a yarn snob and usually I'm not a shop snob, but both of these shops had that sad, 70s dusty time-warp quality about them. Half the yarn was still in bags with a 'do not open' sign taped above with out of date pattern books in the corner and a few samples piled on a table. I have been in huge 4,000 square foot shops that have left me cold and I've been in tiny little shoeboxes that were full of charm and personality. We had just come from a building full of yarn where even the most seasoned shop owners get a gleam in their eye to chapter one in "How Not to Sell Yarn." It wasn't a total waste though. I got back to my hotel room and was treated to this:

Yes We Will

2009-01-21T11:12:00.003-06:00

My friend Julie went to DC at the last minute and took photographs of the city and the people at the inauguration yesterday. I was flying back from TNNA in San Diego and spent the whole day in airports and on planes. I want to share these amazing images with you. You can see them HERE and HERE.

Please excuse me while I go get some more tissues.

Resolutions for the well-intentioned

2009-01-08T11:39:00.004-06:00

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but it does give me an excuse to update my current priorities. I really want to do a lot more colorwork, especially one of these wonderful fair isle designs.
So I started with a little something to get warmed up as my first 2009 FO:

Lucha Libre!

The pattern is from "Son of Stitch 'n Bitch." I picked out the yarn, Berroco Comfort acrylic, and Tex picked out the colors. Don't worry, Bandit's got one in the queue. I made the crown about 1" shorter. I'll probably make the space between the nose and mouth a little shorter on the next one and keep the original numbers for the crown. Also, the pattern calls for a size 5 needle for the ribbing and I think it's a little snug. I'll probably use a size 6 on the next one.

If there's a guitar playing, skate boarding, slightly moody pre-teen boy in your life then you have to make this. It's quick, it's funny and, best of all, they'll actually wear it.

I also plan to knit extensively from the stash and only shop locally as needed except when there's a killer sale and I've been looking at that Sea Silk for months and...well, you know how that goes. My Patternworks gift card is an exception and will be used as my 'lifeline' in case I get a little twitchy and start trawling the internet...like here and here. That's right, you go check out those deals. I'll just sit here a spell and finish a few hundred WIPs.

Last year, I quit smoking and I feel great...except for the 20 lbs that I gained. It may not seem like much, but it all went to my gut which is new territory for me. Usually the extra lbs go to my butt and thighs. Anyway, I'd like to lose that weight instead of shopping the sales for larger sizes. I've got the gym membership and diet books. Now, I need a new gadget. Well, no, I don't need one but I ordered it anyway. Yep, I've ordered a Bodybugg. I get the gizmo, plus 6 months computer tracking AND it's Mac compatible. (not all of these things are).

I don't need pep talks, I just need the raw data. As in "Honey, you better get off of your ass and swing a few cats because those three Milanos just cost you 180 calories." And you want to know what's really cool about it? It not only keeps track of calories burned while walking and working out, but while knitting.

I can't wait to see how many calories a sock burns!

Lidsville for Crafters

2009-01-02T17:37:00.007-06:00

I wish everyone a Better New Year and many happy returns!

I fell in love with a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in the Edgewater colorway at Gauge and brought it home to meet the stash. I immediately went to Ravelry and found a link to this basic hat pattern(FYI: you can also use Touch Me...this would get me out of making the vintage scarf pattern from "Scarf Style" that I meant to make eons ago) which I knitted up as a Christmas present for a friend. The colors pooled in a nice blobby way. I had just enough yarn leftover to make another hat, so I used the same pattern but knitted *yo, K2tog* every row. Yep, my old friend, Barbara Walker's Turkish Stitch, most recently utilized in the Christmas Creep Scarf.

Ah, the world of knitting is an organic place, especially on the internet--constantly changing but always tapping into the old. You think you've come up with something terribly clever and then you get an e-mail from Knitting Daily announcing their free patterns. You scroll down and spot the one called "Swirl Beret" and dang, if it's not a Turkish Stitch pattern.
Great minds think alike?
Check out that lovely Fair Isle effect! I used the Latvian Cast-On which my friend and uber-knitter Jane Lippman showed me at our local coffee shop. It's basically a longtail cast-on where you alternate looping your thumb over and under the yarn. It makes for a very stretchy edge. Later, I added a couple rows of crochet to lengthen the hat a wee bit and finished it off with an I-cord loop, very handy for hooks.

There's been an addition to our family of Bollywood tree stumps. This one is on the street, quite close to the driveway of our neighbor, Mr. Wilson aka Mr. Grumpy.
It's amazing what hot pink vinyl and sequins will do to a dead stump. Saucy little devil, eh?

Laissez les Bonnes Temps...

2008-12-28T18:54:00.002-06:00

Roulez, baby!

Dateline: New Orleans
We tore up New Iberia a couple of days ago and went hogwild in the Tabasco factory giftshop on Avery Island. Now, we're in New Orleans where Mr. Mary proposed to me at Arnaud's some 21 years ago. I've already visited The Quarter Stitch in the French Quarter and I'm hitting Garden District Needlework tomorrow. I saw a lovely Adirondack bamboo/silk in the chili pepper colorway, but it's a bit pricey for my recessionista blood. Maybe one skein... For souvenir stash. Meet us at Live Bait for lunch and I'll treat you to the 99 cent red rice and beans. Profitez en!

Seasoned Greetings: A Liberal Holiday Rhyme

2008-12-24T15:47:00.008-06:00

'Tis the season to gather near
and celebrate a night so dear.
When red state and blue state, electronic vote and mail-in
welcomed Obama and said farewell to Palin

We light the candles and tend the fire,
as our economy darkens and the bills get higher.

Lion and lamb, sheep and goat,

acoustic and electric, analog and remote...

the table beckons as

we're truly grateful

for the deep discounts and sloppy seconds.
Let us grant the nattering nabobs of negativity
a place of peace in front of the Nativity.

Here's to Rachel and Keith,

Jon and Steve,

and don't forget Chris,

who helped us celebrate while Bush is in stasis.

We'll drink a toast--

better make that a double,

and thank George W. Bush for an

ANNUS ABOMINABLE.

Happy Holidays, y'all!

Christmas Creep Scarf

2008-12-19T16:31:00.004-06:00

Twinkle Handknits Soft Chunky, 200gms/83 yds, black

Thanks to the ever industrious elves at Ravelry, I found this pattern when I realized 2 days ago that I didn't have my traditional gift for my kid's teacher--a handknit scarf. It was important for me to knit one as this is the last year I'll do it. I have always knitted scarves for my kids' elementary school teachers, but have opted for end-of-year gift cards for the middle school bunch. So I grabbed a skein of the Soft Chunky at my LYS, came home, looked up patterns on Ravelry and, about 4 hours later, had this ready. The pattern is my old friend, the classic Turkish stitch, and it adds a nice texture to this super bulky yarn. The size 19/15mm needles are clunky, but with only 10 stitches, you can watch Law&Order, the evening news and The Daily Show and be done.

Question: Is it rude to send your 50-year old divorced brother's girlfriend a Victoria's Secret giftcard labelled "To: Redneck's Girlfriend, Happy Holidays from Redneck's Sister" and you haven't met her yet?

All I know is that he's disappeared off the face of the earth, he's not deer hunting.... and I thought it would be pretty funny.

Thanks for the names for the sailfish. I thought Spike and William were great, but I'm going with......

Mr. Bill

Bookshelf Quilt and a Really Big Fish

2008-12-16T20:06:00.010-06:00

It's done!

Bookshelf Quilt, adapted from "The Modern Quilt Workshop," by Ringle & Kerr (Quarry Press, 2005) Thanks to my goofy 12-year old for the photographic assistance.

I backed the quilt top with grey fleece and skipped the batting. This quilt is intended to cover my friend's legs in her favorite reading spot, not as a major bedspread. Quilting on fleece makes for a trapunto-like effect and I'm happy with the results.

This frees me up to finish Bandit's Keith Haring/Barking Mad sweater for Christmas and to transform my newly overdyed cashmere tunic (a super steal at an outlet shop) into a coat.

Big Fish, Big Box, Big OMG

I am one of those yee-haw! Texan females who can shoot, fish, quilt, knit and crochet. This is not as talented as one might think. I had an aunt who nailed rattlesnakes with a shotgun while wearing Ferragamos and had a regular poker game on Tuesdays at noon. Anyway, sometimes I like to get on a really noisy boat, work on a sock, and go deep sea fishing while on vacation.

I caught this sailfish off the coast of Puerto Vallarta last August. Normally, it's a catch and release deal, but this time the fish smashed the bait and swallowed the hook way deep. Uh, that means he was a goner. I've caught a lot of fish and released them, but this guy was special...I killed him. He deserved to be the first, last, and only trophy I ever plan to get.

I figured they could stuff the fish and mail it to me somewhere down the road.

So, they took pictures and measurements and made me a trophy.
It turns out that they normally don't use the actual fish as the skin will deteorate with time. They either make a plaster mold of the fish or use one similar to the dimensions of the caught fish. It's set in fiberglass and handpainted, like a custom surfboard or something.

This carton arrived yesterday. It took me longer to unpack this box than it did to catch the damn fish.

I thought I'd hang a few ornaments off of it and then knit up a 'billfish cozy.'

What should I name it?

2008-12-12T12:17:00.002-06:00

Bouton d'Or organic wool, organically dyed. 50gms total, aran weight

I came across this little egg carton appropriately titled "Mini MailleBox" (which loosely translates to "Mini StitchBox" in English) while cleaning up the "salon des arts decoratifs" which loosely translates to "craporama in the living room" in Texan. It comes with a pattern to make 6 little hats for soft-boiled eggs ("Les explications pour realiser 6 bonnets a coquetier").

C'est tres drole et malin, non?

(I ain't making no hats for no stinkin' eggs.)

Cheap & Cheerful, part 2

2008-12-10T20:24:00.006-06:00

Long ago and far away, I lived on the Left Bank in Paris. I was slim, chic and charming. Oh yeah, I had a husband obsessively writing a book about Hemingway, two very small boys underfoot, and a surly neighbor downstairs (aka Mr. Grognon). I learned to insult French taxi drivers(they're OCD about their Mercedes rides) and navigate the social nuances of park playgrounds. At some point in this Gallic wonderland, I celebrated my birthday with an impulse purchase of a "herbag" from Hermes. It's like their version of the Pappagallo bag in the 70s.
The purse came with 2 covers, but to buy more you basically have to buy a whole new purse. And Hermes isn't exactly pushing this item. Sooooo, I saw this groovy wood grain oilcloth fabric at Craftorama and the lightbulb went off.

Oh man, I am so going to pimp this bag.

Cheap & cheerful

2008-12-10T13:32:00.002-06:00

I just love Ravelry. Especially when you see stuff like this. You have got to admire the brain behind that idea.

Stay tuned for "Let's Tie-Dye a Cashmere Sweater."

Quilts and Such

2008-12-05T17:59:00.004-06:00

I have more UFOs than Whitley Strieber's imagination. There are cardigans, socks and shawls for me, a sweater for Bandit, patterns that have been matched to fabric or yarn, a future felted Christmas stocking now in it's third annual appearance, a granny square throw for me, a granny square throw for Anna, a granny square throw for the planet, and various items that I think I'll finish in time to sell at the local holiday craft festival next week.

Ah, well...I used to get stressed about this sort of thing and then I remembered that trick about imagining people naked. You know, the one where if you're nervous about speaking in public then imagine your audience naked. Well, my twist on this is to imagine all my projects as wild affairs only replaced by yarn and fabric...

You naughty mohair blend, behave! Ooooh, Herr Baumwolle, I'm all yours. Sturm und strang, eh? And as for you, you saucy little silk brocade, I'll see you later. Yep, I'm a serial crafter.

This is a quilt top that I finished last spring. It's a ginormous Lone Star with provencal fabrics around the points. I had even gone so far as to pin the top, batting and bottom layers together. This piece is 92 inches square. And there it sat in my living room. And sat. And sat. And then I looked in the yellow pages and found Legacy Longarm Quilters in nearby Georgetown, Tx. The quilt has now left the building.

As nature abhors a vacuum, I now have the mental chops to finish my Bookshelf quilt which I started, uh....awhile ago. This quilt was originally intended for my cream and black living room, but now it's the perfect housewarming/holiday throw for my friend, the librarian who can inspire any kid to read a book.

Some of these gifts will make it under the tree and some won't. I'll just cut a snip of yarn or fabric, tape it to a holiday card and give it to the future recipient.

UFOs:2009---here I come!

Pardon the Turkey, Smoke the Ham and Relish the Cranberries

2008-11-26T19:07:00.002-06:00

cranberry orange relish, New York Times cookbook, Craig Claiborne, 1961

I am thankful for many, many things, especially tryptophan which makes for excellent afternoon naps. Oh, and cheaper gas is right up there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas wish list

2008-11-23T20:08:00.003-06:00

I would so use this sheep as a stool for my spinning wheel. And then I could drive around town with Sheep in the backseat with the windows open and become the official Crazy Cat and Sheep Lady of Austin. I'd be such a baaaaaaad-ass!

2008-11-21T16:52:00.002-06:00

Artyarns Cashmere Sock Yarn, 50gms/160 yds, Col. 140 aka "Louie"
I'll probably use a pattern from "Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders," by Judith Durant

I recently made a little extra scratch and treated myself to this rather expensive, low yardage sock yarn all because it matched my cat. Oh yeah, like you buy sock yarn to match your wardrobe. Right. Actually, I had been obsessing about mustard green, grey and black for a sweater for Tex. Uh, not anymore... Anyway, I brought the yarn home, hid it the yarncave, cleaned the catbox as penance and connected the dots...it looks just like Louie! Yep, another nail in my middle aged crazy cat lady coffin and I'm afraid it's only going to get worse. Here's another shot as proof:

Sanity arrives in the form of having my SnB group over to prove that I'm not the only one with this affliction. They don't color coordinate their pets with yarn purchases as far as I know, but they do put yarndex to shame. And I'm forced to tidy up a bit.(!)

I've been feeling extremely middle-aged lately. My 12-year old son is hotrodding around in skinny jeans and high-tops while I'm shopping for elastic waist stretch pants and shoes that can hold my orthotics. I recently bought "The Flat Belly Diet," by Liz Vaccariello and "You, On a Diet," by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (You, on Oprah) because I can't seem to lose the 20 pounds I've gained since I stopped smoking. Both books basically ascribe to the Mediterranean diet(olive oil vs. butter) which I embrace wholeheartedly as I pour myself a glass of red wine. But this malaise is not just about thinking like a 28-year old when you're 45. It's stuff like seeing Carla Bruni(age 41) on David Letterman and watching him play le flaneur to her breathy ingenue. Like looking at the Anthropologie catalog and realizing you'd rather analyze the cables on this sweater than wear a filmy blouse with cut-off shorts and suede boots.

There is hope for us Gen Xers in the culture wars. Her name is Michelle Obama and she's married to

008
Obama, Barack Obama

Yes We Did

2008-11-11T22:35:00.002-06:00

I've been a wreck for the past 2 weeks. Can't knit, can't crochet and forget about sewing. I've gotten past the intermittent tears of joy stage to the 'can we have the inaugural tomorrow please' phase. Obsessively watching Rachel Maddow helps a little. It's such a terrible time globally and, yet, I feel that there's been a cosmic shift. It's not about the Democrats' majority and the Republicans' identity crisis, the new Obama cabinet or Supreme Court fantasy picks. It's about the PUPPY, people.

I wish Tom Lehrer could write a song about this.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T18:48:00.004-05:00

Flo from the Progressive Insurance commercials.

Elton John, circa 1975.

Vote Early

2008-10-30T10:31:00.003-05:00

Undset the Undecided wants to vote early so he can touch up the highlights on his comb-over before meeting Pat, Kelly and Alex at the chalet for some aquavit.

Randy the Republican wants to vote early so he can take his magical friend, "McQuain," for a walk in the park.

Don the Democrat wants to vote early so he can work on his drum major costume.

Mary the Knitter voted early so she could make up silly captions for vintage knitting magazine covers.

votevotevotevotevotevotevotevotevoteVOTEvotevotevotevotevotevotevotevotevoteEARLY

paws & effect

2008-10-22T12:32:00.008-05:00

VOTE NOW, NAP LATER

Y Viva Espana

2008-10-21T11:22:00.005-05:00

Here's the view from my friend's balcony in Barcelona.
Here's the funeral carriage museum.
Here's a naked man knitting in last week's Time Out Barcelona.
Here's the Drops 95-13 that I didn't wear because it was just as warm and balmy as in Austin.
And here's the view from the taxi to the airport.

Barcelona was a lot of fun but I can't give you much of a report, because I spent all of my time visiting with my dear friend Sally and her family. And, because Barcelona still observes old school business hours, we spaced out and didn't make it to her LYS which was fine as I had just spent a wonderful afternoon knitting (and shopping) at Knitch on my layover. This was a case of knowing the website before the shop. And what a charming and welcoming shop! It's well-lit with plenty of insanely gorgeous yarn, genuinely helpful staff and a big table smack dab in the middle.I picked up a skein of this sinfully soft Artyarns Cameo (75%cashmere/25%mohair) and a skein of their Beaded Mohair & Sequins (and some tasty Habu cotton boucle). I've cast on for a shawl using Harrow Stitch from the Mon Tricot guide. It's a variation of the wave stitch using double wraps around the needle for 5 stitches instead of staggering the wraps. The yarn is three singles that are very loosely plied. There's also a tavern a couple doors down that perfect for a lunch of roasted beet salad and crab cakes. You'll need to ask the bartender to call you a cab.

Shop News:

Gauge is celebrating their first birthday this Saturday. Three cheers for Karli and Allison! And many many thanks for letting us (the North Austin SnB group) really class up the joint on Sundays. I plan to drop by with the boys in tow. Gosh, I hope there's some cake so I can bribe them to hang out for awhile.

I just found out that Artfibers in San Francisco is closing their shop in January (they will keep selling their yarns online). The DH had just brought me back three skeins (Bhutan, Oki, and Ginko) from a recent business trip and I just ordered more as they're running out of dye lots. I know, I know. It's not like they're going bye-bye forever, but it's not the same thing.

I used to travel to SF on a regular basis and I remember the first time I walked into Artfibers about 15 years ago. It was this tiny space crammed with some of the most unique yarns that I had ever seen. The colors and the fiber blends were so much more sophisticated than even the double de-luxe Adrienne Vitadini and Missoni yarns at my LYS( the now defunct Woolgatherer) in Washington DC. I thought to myself, "I am not nearly good enough to knit up these yarns." That's how stunning they were. Then I bought a few skeins and a longstanding tradition of hunting down LYS on trips began. I still have a few 'vintage' Artfibers yarns in my stash. Remember Ballet and Scottie? Yeah, me too. Here's a detail from my Da Vinci cardigan: As I'm quite capable of poring over every yarn on their website--one of the first really well designed shop sites, by the way--as if I'm translating the Rosetta Stone I know I won't be totally bereft.

Life's too short

2008-10-09T17:11:00.002-05:00

I'm in the Atlanta airport waiting for a flight that I missed yesterday due to bad weather. I had planned to visit a dear friend in Spain.I had three choices: take the next flight home and reschedule, go to Miami and join the DH and kids, or take the same flight a day later. Frustrated, I asked a group of people next to me. "Go. Life's too short," a woman insisted. She was right.

I spent a wonderful day knitting at Knitch, one of the warmest,well-stocked, prettiest shops around. I, uh, started my vacation with a little 'souvenir' stash enhancement. And now I'm off to the home of Manu Chao.

So, while the economy goes berserk I'm taking a little time out from reality.

Flipendo

2008-09-29T14:01:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday I went to the Lone Star State Knitters' Knit Out for the first time. There were door prizes and, thanks to my friend CJ...
I got the first one!

This is Opal Yarn's Harry Potter sock yarn, colorway 'Dumbledore.' 75%Superwash wool/25% polyamid, 425 m
I had no idea that there even was a Harry Potter sock yarn collection.

Now, who is special enough to get a pair of these socks?
Why, my favorite librarian, of course!

Irrational Exuberance at the Yarn Shop

2008-09-24T15:17:00.006-05:00

Why let the destruction of the Texas coastline by Hurricane Ike and the current meltdown of Wall Street and the American economy deny me the pleasure of enjoying 25% off of my latest purchase at Gauge? Ah, the joys of being a frequent buyer. I'm doing my darned best to stimulate the local economy, one LYS at a time. Honestly, I can't imagine not knitting while watching the news these days, can you? (especially if you quit smoking a few months ago...)

I have a terrible weakness for kid mohair. Great colors, so fine, so foofy and easy to double with another yarn. It creates an instant halo and warmth to any garment IF you aren't allergic to it. I saw this colorway and immediately fell for the chalkboard effect of the charcoal grey with flecks of primary colors. I paired it with the Twinkle Cruise, a silk/cotton blend, instead of a wool yarn so I can wear this sooner than later.

Crystal Palace Kid Mohair, color 439 night lights, 25 gms/240 yds (28% kid mohair, 28% merino, 44% micro nylon)
Twinkle Cruise, color 9 black, 50 gms/120 yds (70%silk, 30%cotton)

I hunted around Ravelry for a pattern and saw this Drops bolero and immediately cast on. Drops Designs, 95-13.

Things are grim these days, so here a few pix to cheer you up:

"Whoa, dude, check it out! Free yarn and they don't ask for ID."

Well, hello yourself.

There's a silver lining around here, somewhere...

Apophenia and Yarn

2008-09-13T16:45:00.002-05:00

Here are today's random acts of patterns:

Hurricane Ike (check out the middle finger), Louie's eye (yep, he's a boy), and Fibra Natura Cobblestone, 100% superwash merino.

First, Hurricane Ike didn't come anywhere near us. It's 100 degrees out and sunny. My heart goes out to everybody who did go through it. Watching The Weather Channel during a hurricane is like when they do the slow motion thing in action movies--you see the same satellite image slowly rotating on a loop while somebody's gutter goes flying by your house.

Second, there was an episode last week that I refer to as 'Sexing the Kitty.' The cat was bathing itself and LuLu is a Louie and 10-4 I got a visual confirmation on that.

Third, I just saw this yarn at Gauge. It's 100% superwash merino that's milled to look like handspun which I think is an interesting development in the world of commercial superwash. What really caught my eye was their new shipment from HandMaiden. Here's the HandMaiden Great Big Sea, which is the worsted version of Sea Silk, and this 'Midnight' colorway is soooo very tempting. I've got some SeaCell (peridot) on the needles and I really like the way it feels.

Here's a shot of the shop, so you can enjoy all the fiber love.

I have been knitting and spinning, but I'm known as the knitter who sews over at Gauge. Karli asked me to sew up a couple of things for her. Awwwwww...lucky baby!

Louie is actively campaigning for Palin these days....

something about dead parrots and lumberjacks.

LULU-palooza

2008-08-24T20:25:00.002-05:00

Fiona has gone to live with a university professor who has been waiting all her life to be adopted by a 2-year old girly girl cat.

Let me introduce you to Lulu, fearless 6-toed tabby kitten that came home with us a week ago.

She is fearless. She is cuter than all get-out. 85 pounds of Chuy (the dog) mean nothing to her. She loves watching Guitar Hero Aerosmith with a bunch of 10 and 12-year old boys. Occasionally, she talks politics with Chris Matthews and with our resident Cuban author. One of these days, she'll kick my butt.

I'm in love.

tgiypf

2008-08-15T17:33:00.002-05:00

Please excuse the blur--I had to use the purse cam as the battery was dead on the big boy.

Noro Silk Garden Sock Yarn, col. S252

That little bit of lime green surrounded by charcoal grey and cobalt gets me everytime. The yardage is good (100gms/300meters) for a thicker sock, but I got 2 skeins for Mr. Mary's doublewide pontoons. I don't have a particular pattern in mind but that will change now that I have discovered the "friend activity" button on Ravelry. This is genius, sheer genius. I consider my 'friends' to have exceptional taste and so it is with great pleasure that I can track their favorites, the latest additions to their queues and newest photos. This way I can piggyback on other people's time. It's like gawking with a purpose as opposed to, um, randomly looking at stuff while hours pass by.

And look what I found!

cute crocheted hawaiian flowers, the Wendy Moreland Penispoopcakewaffle socks, the Eden Scarf from "Knitalong," Brella's Townhouses Lego Needle holder, and Pamela Wynne's free pattern, "February Lady sweater." OK, all of y'all knew about this already, but we're among friends, right?

Uh-oh. Look at this. It calls for the Noro Kureyon sock and Kureyon. It's stash time here at the Ponderosa.

Land, Sea & Air

2008-08-11T19:13:00.007-05:00

This is the middle of nowhere past the BBQ joints in Elgin and before the Bluebell ice cream factory on the highway between Austin and Houston. Hell, even dogs aren't sleeping in the road. And then...

This is Yarnorama which is in Paige, TX, aka 'the middle of nowhere on the highway between Austin and Houston.' Jane and Alexandra are a couple of crazy knitters that I hang out with on Sundays. I drove and they navigated--you can't expect me to do everything, sheesh. See those shit-eating grins? Yep, we've got a couple of satisfied customers here. Let's go inside and see why.

Oh, my. It's a treasure trove of yarn, fiber, looms, wheels and all sorts of goodies. There's an adjacent cafe where the local construction guys get their sandwiches. Anyone who remembers the Diet Coke commercials will catch my drift. And, yes, there's herbal tea and cookies. And Malabrigo, Jojoland, Louet fibers, their own hand-painted fiber/yarns, wood floors, skylights and lots of good karma. I picked up some Louet 60/40 wool/linen blend fiber for spinning and then I saw the charkhas. Susan, the owner, graciously showed me how they worked and I practically swooned. They have a ratio of 100:1 and they're what Indians use for spinning cotton, linen and silk. The wheel is flat inside a wooden case and folds up into a small laptop sized box. You spin the wheel with your right hand and use a long draw with your left. She made it look effortless and...I'm on the waiting list for the next shipment.

All that excitement got us good and hungry so we paid up, loaded up and drove back to Elgin, the one city that Texas Monthly did not mention in their recent BBQ round-up. Cartwright's BBQ(formerly Crosstown BBQ) is on the main square in Elgin and they have really good barbecued chicken. Smoky, moist and falling off the bone. That, with some sauce and white bread will put you in a very happy place. Jane and Alex sampled the brisket and sausages and it looked like an 8 on the BBQ Meat-o-meter. We flipped through the Fall Vogue Knitting for dessert.

A few days later, Mr. Mary whisked me off for a weekend in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Una michelada mas, por favor.

I treated my Noro Kureyon sock to some deep sea fishing and thought I'd take the the rod myself. Woohoo! I nailed a 90-inch sailfish which was simply stunning when it crested. This unfortunate creature swallowed the hook and could not be released back into the sea which is the normal custom and my preference. As a result, it will have a place of honor in our foyer in about three months' time. I plan to knit a cover for the bill.

It was a marvelous trip until airport security confiscated my size 2 Addi turbos and a pair of size 6 Crystal Palace bamboo needles. Hellooooo, I was able to enter the country with them so why can't I leave the same way? This is the first time in 7 years that this has happened, so I shouldn't be surprised. Luckily, neither of my projects was that far along. But, pulling the twin leaf shawl off the needles without a lifeline was, well, not pleasant. You could say I experienced "yarn rage." Even my Spanish got a little testy. I did ask them why they just didn't take the sharpened pencils out of my purse while they were at it.

I went to Gauge today, bought some new needles, and put the sock and shawl back on their respective sizes. All better. And now I'm off to bed where dreams of charkhas, cotton and glistening water await.

Should I should sign up for a yoga class?

We interrupt...

2008-08-06T20:09:00.002-05:00

this sporadically posted blog to report that I'll be back after a whirlwind trip to Puerto Vallarta this weekend. It was a big surprise from Mr. Mary (to make up for the debacle in Belize) and I just cast on for the Jojoland Twin Leaf shawl using Sea Silk for the plane. Oh joy!

What's that? You mean it's a romantic getaway and not an excuse to knit in airports and on airplanes. Oh, come on, who wants to knit on a beach full of, you know, sand with ice cold beverages? And no kids?

But the real news is about my field trip to Yarnorama in Paige, TX. Now, that's my idea of a romantic getaway.

Summer Reading

2008-08-04T18:05:00.002-05:00

I list these in no particular order, but now realize that I have, um, diverse tastes in reading material.

Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Thirty-something NYC divorcee roams Italy, India and Bali in search of self. I was all set to hate this one but a good friend insisted that I give it a try. "At the very least, you can come up with some fun theme meals for each of the sections," she suggested. I told my brain to be open-minded and started reading. I had a couple of smirks in the first couple of pages and sailed through the rest. Gilbert's willing to laugh at herself while going solo on her own vision quest. And, yeah, I want to have a beer or chai or whatever with Richard from Texas.

Echo Burning, by Lee Child. I read a couple of his books on the plane to France and now I'm craving another. It's a 100 degrees here in Austin and it's going to be Fahrenheit 551 by the time one-man-destructo-derby Jack Reacher is finished with El Paso. Warning: lots of guns, blood, and all hell breaking loose.

Love Is A Mix Tape, by Rob Sheffield. Remember that college boyfriend who spent hours making the perfect mix tape for the next byob party in your ratty old studio with the crappy AC? He was cute and all, but you kinda wished he'd just STOP IT and get naked or something. Well, Rob Sheffield was that boyfriend in the 90s and he married that girl with the thrift shop clothes and funky hair. They were all over the alternative music scene, writing about it, getting published, hanging out in Charlottesville, VA and making mix tapes. And then she died. Sheffield writes a memoir that captures the essence of those times, the music and and his survival. Hey, I'm all fired up and getting my mix tapes put on disc--80's indie rock for me, baby.

Deathnote 3, by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. I don't have time to track this stuff down on TV, so I buy the books instead. I call these books 'snacks' because you can pick one up and finish the whole thing before you know it. I am fascinated and repelled by Ryuk, the Shininami death god.

Bangkok 8, by John Burdett. I know. Another violent thriller, but this one's got a buddhist cop. Consider this the love child of Elizabeth Gilbert and Lee Child or Christopher J. Koch and Dengue Fever.

Nasa/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America, by Constance Penley. I was interested in the origins of slash fiction. Penley does a nice job of covering the history of Nasa and Star Trek and how they are not mutually exclusive. Her feminist perspective of slash fiction explains how this genre has flourished.

Wonder Woman: Love and Murder, written by Jodi Picoult. How cool is this? I just want to crank up Us Amazonians, sung by Kirsty Maccoll, put on a bustier and some bullet-proof bracelets.

Knitting...knitting?

Mes Accessoires Signes and La Droguerie's Babies (Creation La Droguerie). I picked these up at Le Bon Marche in Paris. The accessories are clever( gorgeous leaf scarf), the baby clothes should have adult sizes(kimono with flat ribs) and I love the colors. Tres chic.

Hungry?

Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, by Padma Lakshmi. Ok, everyone knows she's the host of Top Chef, a model, and Salman Rushdie's former girlfriend. But her recipes are fun and not too Eurofusion. In fact, they're quite good. "Sea Scallops with Crushed Peanuts and Cucumber Relish" is next on my list.

Moro East, by Sam & Sam Clark. My DH picked this up when he was in London, but I'm sure it will hit the States pretty soon. Moro is one of my all time favorite restaurants in London (St. John is another) and I have the two previous cookbooks written by the Clarks. This one is based on their garden plot in the East End and their diverse plot neighbors--Turks, Cypriots, Greeks, with recipes influenced by all corners of the Mediterranean. I've been on a vegetarian binge lately and those recipes are truly stellar, but there's yummy stuff for carnivores as well--"pigeon salad with figs and pomegranates," "fish stew with yogurt and vine leaves," "squid, celery and preserved lemon salad." Be still, my growling tummy.

2008-07-10T19:20:00.006-05:00

Pima Fresca, Queensland Collection, col. 06, emerald..looks more like turquoise to me

H...E....Double Toothpicks

Yep, it's that hot already back here in the land of cherry limeades, Jim-Jim's water ice and Mexican martinis. I don't mind because I've parked my butt on the couch to watch the Tour de France and knit up Klaralund with the Pima Fresca. I've always liked the look of Klaralund and there's something appealing about knitting up rectangles into something clever, especially when you can watch cute guys in bright colors ride their bikes. I plan to modify the top for a short sleeved version, maybe with a different stitch detail since I'm using a solid yarn and not the Noro that the pattern calls for.

I know...I'm always tweaking those patterns, but I didn't in the case of Slouchy Cardigan from Greetings From Knit Cafe. Heck, I even used the yarn that the pattern calls for and everything! I started this last year and then promptly put it into time-out when I had to rip out one of the fronts after discovering the errors on the publisher's website. Grrrr.....

Miles and miles of stockinette, some serious wet-blocking and then poof, a wonderfully slinky classic. FYI: I made the larger size which tops out on a US size 12 and/or 42/44" bust.

Next up: Summer Reading!

Postcard from Provence

2008-06-15T05:51:00.002-05:00

Who knew Amsterdam could be a lot of fun with 2 boys in tow? We covered the 'G' or 'E' version of the city with a canal boat tour, shorter visits to the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt's house and stops for pancakes, t-shirts and clogs over the course of a couple of days.
"Why are there three x's on everything, Mom?"
"It's part of the city crest, dear."

Thanks to the April issue of Craft, I made a stop at the de Afstap yarn shop which carries all of the Rowan yarns. I bought two grab bags of the 4-ply cotton for 14 euros, 400 grams total, various colors; of course, I got the 'you can't find that in the States?' look from Mr. Mary. Not on sale, dear....

I have to mention that our flight on KLM from Amsterdam to Marseille had some of the nicest flight attendants I've seen in a long time. Amazing how a little smile can go a long way on a routine flight.

And now we're in Provence, just south of St. Remy. The air is perfumed with the smell of broom and lavender. The weather is mild, meaning anything under 90/30 degrees is mild to a Texan. I should have the second sleeve finished on my slouchy cardigan and have it finished tomorrow, just in time for a visit from my IN-LAWS!

Summer days driftin' away...

2008-06-06T17:04:00.002-05:00

from left to right: Bamboo top-down raglan shrug, slouchy cardigan with Blue Sky alpaca&silk(my airplane sweater), Lovlund with HandMaiden cotton/silk.

The daily temperatures are in the 90s and working with wool is pretty much out of the question. If I was as monogamous with my knitting projects as I was in my marriage, I'd be the poster child for summer knits. Alas, I've got three WIPs that are at different stages of completion. I just saw a fall/winter 2008 preview from Berroco and thought, "Fine, you guys can't run away from cotton, linen, bamboo and viscose fast enough, but what about the other 2/3 of us sweating schmos that won't see 60 degrees until November 24th?"

The dog got shaved and I got my summer clip complete with striped highlights. This is to distract you from the 12 lbs that I've gained since I stopped smoking. I told my kids that this is what Rogue looks like after she leaves X-Men, gets married and has kids. Recently, I blew through all three books in Sharon Kay Penman's trilogy about Wales and England during the 1100s. Someone mentioned that after reading "The Sunne in Splendour" they actually understood the The War of the Roses. So, here I am, ready to tuck into this 927 page epic, just in time for summer vacation.
The aforementioned weight gain has me sewing at the moment. I've got some stash fabrics waiting to get matched to patterns and, on the right, are some skirts I've made. That beaded ribbon won't last long, but it's fun. The other two are leftovers from shift dresses that I made years ago.
I love the 'A' version of the caftan top--kinda like 'Sahara' for the sewing crowd. The 50's dress would be cute in the madras plaid to the far left(above) and I like the simple, clean lines of the dress on the right--maybe one of the big florals with a solid contrast?
Here's what I plan to run up in the next couple of months. I saw the pattern on the left done up in a really cute fabric for a 'hottie hausfrau' look. I love, love, love the 3/4 sleeve version of the pattern on the right. The French call these 'gilets' and there are some stunning examples of hand embroidered gilets in the Musee de la Mode de la Ville Paris. Speaking of which, it's that time of year again.....

Mark Miller Eiffel Tower fabric, discontinued. I just got the last 3.5 yards from Fabric Finders. Hmmm...dress, top, or skirt?

The (5th grade) Graduate

2008-06-04T20:11:00.004-05:00

Stocking cap, Lion Brand Microspun, original design

Today was the last day of school and Tex attended his 5th grade graduation with all of us in tow. Now, as to why we're commemorating the fact that my kid is going on to 6th grade is a mystery to me. Currently in the United States, there are graduation ceremonies for kindergarten, 5th grade, 8th grade as well as the traditional high school and college rites. Apparently, while we were living in Paris from 2000-2003, President Bush decided to "leave no child behind." Everyone got so excited that their kids passed the state tests they celebrated every chance they got. Today's ceremony, lasting longer than my own high school graduation, had four speeches, a special song and an event video available for sale at the front door for thirty-something dollars. Have we set our expectations this low? This is a public school in Austin TX, people, not some $30,000(or more) a year private school on the East Coast.

There was even a guest speaker and this is where I draw the line. How can anyone expect a bunch of 11 and 12-year olds to pay attention to, much less appreciate, the amazing story of a world class runner that survived the genocide in Burundi? Gilbert Tuhabonye spoke to the kids about his childhood and brutal experiences during the Hutu uprising against the Tutsis. I am definitely not one to shelter my children from the harsher realties of life and the world, but hearing someone talk about burning buildings at their boarding school, machetes and death is a bit hard to reconcile with the advice, given later, to "listen to your parents" to a bunch of kids squirming in their seats. Look, Mr. Tuhabonye's accomplishments are incredible and his work is inspirational. I just think the speech would have had more impact with 8th graders than 6th graders. The whole ceremony was a bit over-the-top--I would have loved to hear the new Cuban chief of police, Art Acevedo, talk about when his mom calls him on his cell phone at crime scenes. OK, I'll work on that for the next year's graduation ceremony.

Here's a stocking cap that I knitted up for a friend of mine. Her kid loves Snoopy and wanted a hat just like him, soooo a few months and a million waiting room visits/music lessons later, here it is. Just knit a hat in the round and then, towards the top of the crown, start decreasing. This hat measures about 20 inches. You may want 24-30 for a skate-boarding teenager.

2008-05-30T17:29:00.002-05:00

HandMaiden Silk Cotton, 'dandelion'

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words about the hail storm. Even the insurance adjuster said she hadn't seen a storm like that in Austin in forever and then she handed me a check for 2 broken skylights, some dented metal fascia and a piece of corrugated clear plastic with a perfectly round hole in it.

I bought this to cheer myself up after the mass destruction of my garden. The colors remind me of Provence and the silk/cotton blend is very cool to the touch. I immediately cast on for Lovlund which is a chevron shell normally knit with Noro Hana silk. The angles will break up the horizontal lines which I really don't need to wear these days. (see below)

Lovlund detail, Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton, Book Number Two

Busted!

There's no excuse for this. I got caught in a weak moment. A very weak moment. See, I got an e-mail yesterday from Hill Country Weavers that they were having a huge sale today and tomorrow. The sale was so huge that it was in the owner's garage and driveway. I drove over and started scouting out the yarns. Lots of novelty yarns..been there, done that...heavy cotton blends...no, thank you...some sparkly stuff and...hmmm, what's this? S. Charles Merino Cable for $5, Noro Big Kureyon for $9, and Ironstone Flirt for $14. I bought enough of the Merino Cable in assorted colors for another one of my phantom future "colorwork" pieces, some of the Noro for a couple of Blips(blankets in progress) and, well, the Flirt was supposed to be just a bit of silliness. It's an acrylic fuzzy superchunk boucle with 27% wool that is soo soft. So, uh yeah, I bought enough for some kind of wrap. And, please don't remind about my growing collection of big needle wraps. There was a lady ahead of me who snapped up 17 skeins of that Big Kureyon in the same dye lot, so I'm not the only one on the fast track to excess.

Now, this really cheers me up! That, and and the fact I'm off to play Knitty Bingo tonight at Gauge. Woohoo!

All Hail Broke Loose

2008-05-16T11:02:00.003-05:00

There is some kind of funky karma going around the planet. Mother Nature paid us a visit.
There was a violent hail storm that passed through our neighborhood just after midnight a couple of days ago. By the time it was over, we had 2 adults, 2 boys and 1 dog all piled into our bedroom. The cat ran for cover under Bandit's bed.

This was what greeted us the next morning. A 2-foot high pile of hail on the patio. We were extremely lucky that there wasn't any extensive damage.

Neighbors have broken windows, damaged roofs and huge trees uprooted.
It looked like a plague of locusts had stripped all the trees. We had just transplanted this crape myrtle.

One banana tree got plastered while the other survived.

Dr. Who Scarf made from Lion Brand yarns. This is a birthday present for a godson in Devon, England.
We're all fine and it's a beautiful day.

Zen String + Robincat=My Stash

2008-05-09T20:13:00.003-05:00

My apologies to anybody waiting on new listings with Zen String and Robincat. This insanely beautiful and incredibly spun lace weight merino never made it out of the area code, much less onto the internet. It's slotted for Scheherazade--a yarn this exquisite demands to be a showstopper shawl and I've got about 1,400 yards to wrap around myself.

Zen String "Deep" merino roving,
Robincat handspun, laceweight

Zen String "Deep" merino roving,
Robincat handspun, laceweight

Zen String "Deep" merino roving,
Robincat handspun, laceweight

There was a broken fire hydrant down the street today.

The temperature was around 90 degrees fahrenheit.

My Japanese sponge was ready for work.

Color My World

2008-05-02T18:32:00.004-05:00

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm 70% kid mohair/30& cormo worsted. Colors from center top: Saffron, Lavendar, Cinnamon, Chili Powder, Parsley. Fabric: Martha Negley for Rowan & Westminster Pattern # MN08

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm 70% kid mohair/ 30% cormo sport weight, color: Turmeric

We are enjoying the fleeting moments of spring before the summer heat sets in. My pelargoniums (what a magnificent word) wintered over and are ablaze with scorching hot pink blooms. It's a good thing I have a buff colored dog to offset all the primary colors in the house.

There were some fantastic sales in Martha's Vineyard, all the better to offset the $4.20 gal/gas. If you want to make yourself feel a little better, then go and check out how much the Europeans pay for gas. Gas is taxed much more heavily than here, so as a result, they have some pretty amazing autoroutes/highways without a bunch of skanky billboards for strip clubs near the county line. Oh yeah, those joints get points for clever--The Booby Trap and The Landing Strip have always been faves of mine.

Back to the sales--The Lilly Pulitzer shop had all LP sheets and fabric for 70%off, so I got two sets(3 yards each) of 300-count sheeting fabric for $30 each. I've never been a thread count junkie, but this sheet is crack, baby. And now I've chopped it up into big pieces for a queen-sized Texas star quilt. I'm using my stash of provencal fat quarters for the background.

Somehow, this columbine just showed up and is quite happy to hang out with my canna 'tropicana.' The colors are all wrong, but they're such happy bedmates that I can't separate them.

I decided to 're-ply' the turmeric mohair/cormo sport weight(re-ply on the right, original on left) and I'm much happier for it. It makes for a sturdier yarn with the same silky drape.
Pink and green--what more could a subversive retro preppie want in her suburban garden unless she decided to plant a white oleander?

Who says gardeners can't have their little jokes?
Speaking of which, Humphrey Lyttelton died this week and go check out out BBC Radio for some gems. Goodnight, Samantha!

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Fest

2008-04-23T12:57:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, I ran off to Martha's Vineyard for the first annual Fiber Fest. Looks like they were expecting me.

The weather was simply perfect as knitters/crocheters/spinners from near and far gathered to ogle Susan's yarns and watch the shearing. The buzz of the clippers lulled us into some kind of happy trance as we imagined all those lovely fleeces turning into yarn and roving. And calculating how big the CSA shares would be.

Chappy's Mom and LiquidLace were there from Ravelry as well as a few others. It was a regular party at the MV Fiber Farm table as the other vendors/farms watched us squealing and laughing. Susan's worsted and lace weight mohair/cormo yarns were serious crack and the colors are spectacular. I had to audibly growl at people to keep them from snagging my pile of "souvenirs." I thought I knew what good wool was UNTIL I got to feel the fleece straight from the sheep. We're talking crystal meth, people. The frothy white wool still coated with lanolin was passed around the group like a joint at a Grateful Dead concert. Then they passed around Basil the baby goat and people started to swoon. And then they got out the Kool-Aid. OK, not really, but dang near. I'm not sure if I could handle a bigger fiber festival. I think I'd have some kind of tactile overload and start blubbering things like "wawawawawool....pretty yarn...pretty pretty yarn...like yarn...must touch yarn...yarn happy."

Later in the day I checked out a needlepoint display and thought I had wandered into another universe. Hushed tones in an old house with some door prizes, needlepointed pillows and counted cross stitch bunnies. God bless the needlepointers(I have stitched a few pieces myself), but they're not exactly a laugh a minute. And they don't have Basil.

I drove around the empty roads imagining what a nightmare the traffic must be in the summer. I think it may be a Texan thing to immediately hop in the car and drive all the way around the island and time it. It took me just over an hour to cover it and that includes wasting 10 minutes thinking about taking the ferry to Chappaquiddick. Instead, I spent some time near the Gay Head Light House. The whole island was wonderfully empty--just locals and a few mad knitters. No lines to get a lobster roll at Garcia's deli or a table at The Black Dog. Heck, even the teenage girls working at the StopnShop were in a good mood.

I stayed at The Mansion House in Vineyard Haven and had a lovely room with chintz and stripes. I wanted room service, privacy and the Red Sox on cable in lieu of the chatty coziness of a B&B. And I got it. Hmm, maybe I should book ahead for next year.....

Barking Mad

2008-04-15T19:56:00.002-05:00

Keith Haring Sweater front, Classic Elite Newport Light, yarn discontinued
(I came of age in the late 70's and there were a lot of wildly creative people running around New York City. I remember seeing Keith Haring's images all over downtown Manhattan buildings while syringes littered the streets. Well, we all grew up in a hurry and I still think of those beautiful crazy creative boys who died before we even knew what they had.)

Bandit, aka "Squeaky Wheel," was promised a sweater and this is what he's getting. I bought half the yarn heavily discounted at Gauge and the rest on eBay. We are still having chilly mornings, so he may get to wear it this spring. It's wide enough that it should be fine for a couple of years.

"Barking Mad" is British slang for bonkers, bats in the belfrey and a pooka lover.

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Fest

I recently bought a spinners' share of the Fall shearing from the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. Please, go ooh and aahhhh over those darlin' kids--who can resist Saffron and Sassafras? I defy you not to crater at the very sight, unless you have your own farm and you're thinking dinner. I may be a rancher's granddaughter, but this is the closest I'm getting to livestock in the foreseeable future. And so I was idly perusing Susan's blog, when I saw the link to the Fiber Fest and one thing led to another. This translates into my DH owes me big time for all the business travel he's had lately, so it's my turn to run off. And run off I will this weekend.

The IRS, Taxes, and Why I Could Never Be French
Our accountant informs me that I overpaid my taxes and I'm due for a refund. This is what happens when your Depression-era mother(born in 1931) raises you to hoard, hide and save all the extra cash that you have. I don't clean my plate, I never save rubber bands or string, but I send that check to the IRS like clockwork, honey. This is completely opposite to the financial gymnastics that the French practice as a national sport. Don't believe me?
I celebrated this windfall by trotting off to Gauge with my SnB group last Sunday. It was my tenth purchase which enabled me to enjoy a discount and the acquisition of 5 skeins (300 yds) of Jade Sapphire 12-ply cashmere in "Burnished Gold." And that, thanks to Ravelry's pattern search, became my 'Reversible Winter Capelet.' I cast on for a 20-inch neckline (I'm old enough to know better) and lengthened the arms and body by a few inches. This is a very fast knit and really quite perfect for using up a smallish bit of bulky yarn. This 12-ply cashmere is insanely thick and rich, like clotted cream and scones in Devon. (Strawberry jam on top) FYI--this piece is unblocked due to FO exuberance.

Here we have the chair of "The Barking Mad Ladies' Garden and Knitting Social Club" preparing for the Summer Bee Line.

Quick plug--here's a groovy platter designed by Cristina Sosa Noriega called "My Loteria" and it's on sale at the website and HEB in Texas. Go ahead, buy some and improve your Spanish. Hijole!

Land of Linkin'

2008-04-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

This may sound like an awards speech, because there are a few people/shops that I need to mention publicly for their recent help and/or ingenuity in making my stash-driven lifestyle an even happier one.

Yarniverse and Loopville: I always seem to go to Yarniverse when I need more of that great yarn I bought 3 years ago. She's bailed me out more than once. Yarniverse had the marble colorway I needed in the Colinette Tao silk to finish the Hanami-inspired Shrug. Well, Yarniverse had it in stock online until I got a call from their owner the next day saying that whoops-a-daisy, that darned virtual inventory was all wrong. I started to get all sweaty--what, NO more marble...ANYWHERE? This wonderful woman assured me that she knew Loopville had it and it would get to me asap. It did, I finished the shrug(round of applause) and one of these days I'm going to fly to Memphis just so I can do a yarn crawl from Yarniverse to Loopville in Knoxville. In my rented 1972 convertible Cadillac towing an Airstream camper with a cooler full of Moon Pies and RC Colas.

One Planet Yarn and Fiber: I had a bought a skein of Hand Maiden Sea Silk in the peridot colorway locally, but I needed at least one more to knit Hanami as more of a shawl and not a scarf. One Planet not only had it, but the color matched my solo skein perfectly when it arrived. I then popped this into my cart because I have a near addiction to pink and yarn from Wales and this wasn't even Colinette. I've already knitted it up--the wonder of huge needles--and I am mulling over a funky crochet edging. And that peridot? It was to counteract the Malabrigo laceweight in Pagoda that I've already slotted for Hanami. Pagoda would be the uber-pink girly girl/Audrey Tautou cherry blossom shawl versus the cool rains of April/Faye Dunaway peridot shawl. Oh yeah, like y'all never contemplate the many moods of the rainbow, your knitting mojo and movie stars.

Speaking of funky crochet edgings, I bought "Crochet On the Edge" because it seemed like a more user friendly book than Nicky Epstein's. Kinda like the difference between the Moro Cookbook and Paula Wolfert on couscous. You can get one page or twenty, take your pick. I have this theory that if I read enough books on crochet that by some kind of late night wine-induced osmosis I will actually absorb the lingo and the logic. This thinking has led me to check out Amazing Crochet Lace more than once from the library. Well, I finally bought it so the librarian wouldn't chide me for cracking the binding. What I love about this book is taking those clever spiral crochet motifs and blowing them up. Really, really big. I mean circles for knitters are like the Holy Grail. Hookers can just blithely chain 6 and whale on it. Eat my dust, dpn. I will say that the hookers have nothing on ribbing compared to the knitters. Ah, but those big wide open spaces!
Doris Chan has a lovely forward about being raised in Japan by her ethnically Chinese parents. This fact further convinces me that the future of really complicated and elegant crochet and knit patterns lies with Nihon Vogue and other Japanese craft mags.
I absolutely dare you not to be intrigued by these titles and the few photographs that you see. Double dog dare you.

Finally, I've jumped back into baking(gasp!) after fooling around with the master recipe from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." I like this recipe so much that I bought a baking stone and a pizza peel to play with at home. Don't believe me? Try the modified recipe that ran in the New York Times. My family is already making various requests, but the pumpernickel is MINE, ALL MINE....ha-ha-ha-haaaa-haaiieeeee!

One Last Finally--Watch Tracey Ullman's State of the Union. I've loved her ever since since her first show when The Simpsons were just a little diversion and she wore this great PINK chenille bedspread of a bathrobe at the end of her show. She's a knitter, people---"Knit2Together"--the slouchy cardigan is a UFO and I have the doctor's bag on the brain.

Now....go home!

De Worm, De Gum & De Silk

2008-03-28T17:49:00.003-05:00

Habu kamikuri silk cocoons

First, I have to thank Wormspit for having such informative and confidence-boosting silk cocoon tutorials on his blog. Heck, he makes it look like any 'ol fool can just chuck a bunch of cocoons in a pot and whip up some hankies. And this fool did just that.

A few years ago, I went to the TKGA conference in Atlanta where I took a spinning class using a supported Russian spindle and I first ever saw Habu fibers. ( One event affects the other.) I circled around the Habu display a few times before zooming in and swooping up various stainless steel, silk and cotton yarns. And like the magpie that I am, I spied some bags of these kamikuri cocoons and bought a couple for good measure. And just what in the Sam Hill was I going to do with these nifty little blobs of gold? Uh, I dunno...sew them onto stuff? Make groovy fiber jewelry? Put them in a drawer for a few years and then recently find them?

During my recent manic craft week a go-go, I rediscovered the cocoons and decided to do a little research. It turns out that the kamikuri cocoons are considered much like the good looking children in a trophy marriage: decorative but high maintenance as opposed to the more classical bloodlines of their bombyx mori half-siblings.

Luckily, I have all the various chemicals needed for degumming as I'm housing a small DYE FACTORY in my guest bathroom. I like to think that the cocoons were taking a nice hot bath at some ersatz Japanese ryokan after a long spell in a plastic bag.

I'm sure the hardcore degummers have elaborate frames to dry their fibers on. Me? I had a big wire colander in my kitchen.

Then, I carded the dookies out of this snotrag, er, hankie and got some vaguely promising batts.

20 grams, 233 yards. Not too shabby.

Now you must excuse me. The McMansion next door is having their housewarming party and they're having a crawfish boil.
Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Sex, Crafts & Rock'n'Roll

2008-03-21T19:16:00.003-05:00

Hanami inspired shrug: Colinette Tao silk, 'marble' with Swarovski crystal bead

Future Hanami: Malabrigo laceweight, 'Pagoda' with beads

Future Serape? Handspun/dyed merino/tencel plied with llama, 'Navajo'

Yep, that's what happened when my DH took the boys to spend a week with their grandparents in Miami. I had a whole week all to myself. Let me repeat that--a whole SEVEN days of nothing but the pure clean air of Planet Mary. The first thing I did was to go shopping. OK, the first thing I did was go back to sleep after dropping them off at the airport. And, thanks to Homeland Security, I didn't have to go into the airport and do the whole tearful hugs (of joy) thing at the gate. Nope, it was a drive-by drop-off at 5:30 am.

Later, I hit the mall, I hit the stores. I tried on 12 pairs of jeans and bought three. I went to Sephora for the first time and left with a 'beauty insider' card. I took my time and moseyed over to our local national bookstore chain store where I loaded up on steamy romancesSex, a couple of books on precious metal clay jewelryCrafts, and some new CDsRock'n'Roll. One last stop for AAA batteries and some plonk and I was good to go.

I partied with my SnB friends, I watched Leno, Letterman, Ferguson AND O'Brien. Yarn, fiber and assorted knitting paraphernalia started to escape from the confines of the YarnCave and into uncharted parts of the house. It was a short hop from the dining room table to the kitchen and then, in a burst of Fiberfest Destiny...the bedroom with CAT in tow.

I bought some yarn online, offline and from a seedy chick down the street. I was goofing off at Gauge when I saw...Hanami. Go check it out. Go check it out on Ravelry. I love it. I love the modern look of all those eyelets countered by the geometric pattern on the other side. The closest we come to observing cherry blossoms is pulling over the pick-up truck and making our kids smile while sitting on top of a bunch of blue bonnets (lupinus texensis).

A friend of mine was complaining about her daughter's plain Jane Vera Wangesque wedding dress when I volunteered to knit up the Mulberry shawl from the Colinette 'Arboretum' book. I already had the Tao silk and Parisienne silk/mohair in 'marble' from an UFO. The bride then informed me that she would prefer a 'toreadita' aka 'bolero' aka 'shrug' to a shawl on her shoulders. I had already started the back with Barbara Walker's Vertical Lace Trellis from Book 1. I worked a few rows from each of the various Hanami charts and voila! the Hanami inspired shrug.

Handspun/Halfobi

2008-02-29T19:55:00.004-06:00

Handspun Ramouillet blend from Dudley Spinner roving.

Halfobi
I first saw the link at Knit Me a River and found the pattern here.

I used Noro Cotton Kureyon and made a size Large. I could have gone with a Medium, but I wanted something looooose and I'm feeling a little large these days. This is one of those easy knits that involve miles of stockinette, a few episodes of American Idol and at least one democratic debate. This will be perfect for the few remaining chilly nights we have and, later, for air-conditioned movie theaters. The yarn is 70%cotton/30% wool and knitted up nicely except for the odd split when there wasn't enough twist. I may chuck the whole thing in the wash just to see what happens--it could use a little shrinkage.
I used some ribbon from Bouton d'Or or Anny Blatt for the crochet trim and I crocheted 2 rows of single crochet instead of one for more stability.

Donkeys & Elephants

Wowee! The primaries are just next Tuesday and Texas has been in the news more than when Baby Jessica got stuck in the well or some guy from Midland ran for President back in 1999. We're getting all the commercials, the phone calls and various TV news correspondents reporting from stadiums, parking lots, vfw posts and the UT campus. Yep, we could be the ones to put one of the democrats over the edge literally and figuratively. My kids watch the debates and announce the play-by-play while the DH and I enjoy the first really interesting campaign year in ages. I've already voted early and can't wait to see that former Scud Stud, Wolf Blitzer, go to the big map and update the numbers as they come in. Or should I watch Brian Williams? Who's got the better graphics? Heck, who's got the cutest butt?

The Optimist Club of Yarn

2008-02-22T18:38:00.005-06:00

Filatura di Crossa, Brilla, col.386,
future 'airplane cardigan'

I quit smoking. I feel fine. I thank the lovely people who created Chantix for making this possible. I've been knitting up miles of stockinette. I think I've gained 5 lbs already. It's all good. And, if I get a little twingy, I take really deep breaths and think happy thoughts such as "Wow, imagine all the yarn/fiber/books you can buy with the savings!" "The dog will love you even more if you walk him--again." "Cuticles? Who needs stinkin' cuticles?"

I picked up this "merry little hound" of a yarn over the Christmas holidays in Miami. Years ago, I bought a yellow rayon cardigan in Paris for what I thought was a steep price--probably $80. I was in a rush, needed something for the plane trip back to the States, it was a souvenir, right? I threw it into my carry-on, got on the plane and have been wearing it on airplanes ever since. Spring and summer, of course. Heavy enough to cut the chill of air conditioning in airplanes and movie theaters, light enough to throw in a tote bag for a cover-up.

Well, you know where this is headed...I still have that cardigan, but it's been washed and worn about 5 times too many. It's been put in the same pile with the ratty sweats, really sad faded Red Sox t-shirt, the accidentally bleached shorts and my other gardening clothes. I try (honest) to look presentable in public, but when I'm working in the yard...I'm reminded of that scene with Scarlet O'Hara clutching radishes. I'm tired, dirty and sweaty. Don't even think about it.

The Brilla reminds me of the daffodils popping up in my garden--bright, happy, shiny and summery. It always cheers me up. Maybe, I'll adapt the slouchy cardigan pattern from "Knit2Together."

WIP Update: I've ripped out major amounts of my Malabrigo capelet and have worked short rows to offset the angles. They're little marvels of engineering, those short rows. I feel particularly clever when I finish a section like when I mastered parallel parking and how to spell it.

I saw a reference to the Halfobi on Knit Me A River and immediately downloaded the pattern. It's being knit up on some vintage Cotton Kureyon that I scored on eBay.

Climb Every Mountain

2008-02-13T11:15:00.002-06:00

Alpine Shrug, Rowan #42. Made with Rowan Biggy Print and trimmed with Twinkle Soft Chunky using size 20mm/US36 needles. aka Swatchzilla

I had frogged the Human Tea Cozy and the sight of a giant ZipLok bag full of Biggy Print just bugged me. I really think I should try that with my more neglected yarns--put them in a big plastic bag and leave it in the middle of the floor just waiting for me to get tired of stepping around it. Anyway, I went on Ravelry and was checking out the patterns when I came across the Alpine Shrug from Rowan #42. Aha! Eureka! and Gotcha! all went off at once because I already had the magazine and the yarn. It was meant to be. So what if the original pattern calls for Rowan Big Wool and size 15 needles? I had a pile of Biggy Print and some bodacious Addi circulars that look like they're connected by surgical tubing. I'll just supersize it!
42 inches square

I cast on the first stitch last Saturday and went into a frenzy of obsessed feverish knitting better known as The BNZ (Big Needle Zone). I managed to bang out the fourth and last motif on Sunday at my SnB group. Since we meet at Gauge, I conveniently picked up the fuchsia Twinkle Soft Chunky as I was pretty much out of the Rowan. I worked the last 6 inches of each motif in the Twinkle and then crocheted them together.

FYI--I would have added a regular K or P stitch before each row of the motif pattern. Normally, you start each row with a YO. My YOs were bigger on the knit side than the purl side and that extra stitch would have made more even YOs and easier seaming.

I stitched up the side seams and tried it on. Whoa, Nelly! This wasn't Alpine, it was positively Himalayan. The total combine weight is 2.5 pounds(1100 gms), most of which immediately sank to the location of my bum. The front view makes me look like a postergirl for a fire insurance company. I can see the TV commercial now:

"When your stash burns, what will you save first?" intones the voice of Morgan Freeman as the camera cuts away from my burning house to a shot of me wrapped in this HUGE knitted swatch tearfully watching the yarncave erupt in flames. The DH and the boys are in the background, clutching their iPods and Swiss army knives. A sooty teardrop trickles down my cheek as a neighbor hands me a hot cup of coffee.

"Yarn, needles and hooks can be replaced, but not your Finished Objects. Choose wisely, choose State Yarn Insurance."
This is a pear tarte tatin that I made using the recipe from the The French Farmhouse Cookbook, substituting pears for apples. It's how I reassure Mr. Mary that I still love him. This is not all that complicated, but it is time consuming (a PITA if you ask me). The only tricky bit is when you have to invert the tarte. In my case, this involved a really hot 10-inch cast iron skillet holding the tarte, a plate and bulky oven mitts. I hate this manouever almost as much as those YOs in the shrug. I gamely made the awkward flip and heard something pop in my wrist. Yep, a minor sprain or something. Ok, fine, YOU go place a plate over an iron skillet and flip it over with oven mitts. I'll be the one having another bite wrapped up my toasty new lap rug.

Collection vs. Stash

2008-02-08T15:00:00.001-06:00

WINTRY MIX

Clockwise from top: Judi & Co. rayon ribbon, gifted hand-dyed wool, Tilli Tomas rock star atmosphere col. 3033, my hand-dyed silk

From left to right: Judi & Co. rayon ribbon, gifted hand-dyed wool, Tilli Tomas rock star atmosphere col. 3033, my hand-dyed silk

So, when does your stash become a collection?

I was mulling this over as I grabbed this group of yarn to photograph. I was gifted the Tilli Tomas and the Judi&Co. about 2 years ago. Later, I dyed the silk because I was trying to capture the essence of pearl grey. Then, Zen Mama brought the hand-dyed wool that had been gifted to her to SnB and I nabbed it, remembering my 'grey collection.' I like to stay monochromatic when mixing different yarn textures and I think I've got enough here to make a retro 50s bolero--with the beads along the edges and cuffs.

I don't think it's matter of having, say, ten skeins in one color. That's practical as you can always make a garment/shawl/something out of that amount. I'm talking about trawling sale bins and online shops for additions to the currently existing collection that you already have. I have collections mostly based on lots of colors in one particular yarn for those future mythical pieces from Poetry in Stitches and Norsk Strikkedesign. Let's see...I've got a healthy amount of Dale Svale, GGH Mystik, Bouton d'Or merinosoie and Rowan Silk Wool DK. I bought 2 skeins of the Rowan in robin's egg blue while in London. I came across the same yarn in a great red at a LYS, then I added a couple more skeins in cream to balance out the blue and red thinking future argyle. There's also my Noro collection of their more offbeat offerings such as Cotton Kureyon(eBay) and Ganpi Abaka Tape(sale bin) plus a stray skein of Noro mohair in lipstick red. Why did I buy the mohair? I had never seen Noro mohair before, there was one skein left and it was a souvenir of our trip to Tokyo. So, is it me or is collecting yarn normal?

Speaking of collections, all you sewing/fashion people should check out this auction of Poiret originals. If I were the hot young thing in Hollywood I'd wear #53 to the Oscars. Later, when I already had won a couple plus a Palme d'Or, I'd wear #83 with jet beads. I'd slip into #81 (a blue jacket) with a cream silk t-shirt, tweedy brown slacks and a sharp pair of sling-backs for my Vanity Fair interview. But....I'm a 44-year old soccer mom in Texas swiggin' Shiner Black Lager on a Friday afternoon waiting for the boys to get home. I bought this hoodie to replace the one I swiped from my DH. All right, Mr. de Mille, I'm ready for my close-up...

Kidrobot Yo Gabba Gabba! Muno sweatshirt.

Back on Track

2008-02-01T10:50:00.000-06:00

Come and get yer yarnpr0n!

Panda Wool, col. 0441 'chocolates'

Louet KidLin, 'candy apple.' (the true color is a lot more muted)

Dudley spinner wool blend, 'archie' colorway (I think)

Wacky Ways to Control Your Destiny
Put Murakami stickers on your old Doc Martens and stomp out that bad mood(and a few cockroaches).

Buy a new iMac with an external hard drive, extra memory and updated software and get a new hard drive installed in the old iMac. Surprise your kids with their very own fun machine while you swoon over the temporarily empty desktop on your 20-inch monitor. Just smile when the 'clean room' data retrieval guys tell you that the dead hard drive is a hopeless case.

Buy sock yarn and dare to not knit socks. This will be the Athena Smoke Ring from "The Knitting Goddess."

Start the Malabrigo capelet, add Noro Silk Garden and decide to turn it into a cardigan. Will it work? Will it even fit? Boy, the suspense is really killing me on this one.

Grab that old Rowan Biggy print sweater that makes you look like a human tea cozy and frog it. Hmm...future felted bag or something else?

Give your husband and kids a private cooking class with a Thai chef for a Christmas present and enjoy a great dinner.

Gasp in amazement when your kid announces that he got a blue ribbon for his science project.

Listen to your pets snore and imagine what they're dreaming.

Finish your Noro sock and show it off to your family only to hear them each howl, "And where's the sweater/socks/quilt that you promised to make me?"

and finally....

Get out the camera with the macro lens and take yarn pix.

Answer: Drink Spiked Lemonade?

2008-01-22T19:10:00.000-06:00

Question: What do Tough-n-Easy Texan gals do when life gives them lemons?

This delightful post is coming to you from my old G3 iBook that I bought in Paris in 2000, complete with a French keyboard. And you thought I had a thick accent. The dramatic death of the hard drive on my G4 iMac (2003) last week with one kid's science project on it and the other kid's magnet school application--5 essay questions, all done and ready to go, has been only the latest in the worst streak of bad luck that I've had in a long while. Please, don't get me started....all I can say is that at one point I listened to 'Lime and Violet' podcasts for hours while it rained nonstop in the jungles of Belize. And it was chilly. And I was wore the same clothes for 5 days. And I ran out of books. And I did start a Malabrigo capelet. And the DH had a horrible cold. And we ran up a huge bar bill. And then we came home.

Really, we're just fine and dandy. I'm just waiting for the data retrieval guys to get back to me and then I can start using my kids' college fund to pay for the new G5 intel 2 GB iMac with external hard drive, extra memory, and updated software(I'm not taking any chances, did you guess). And the new hard drive(plus labor) for the dead Mac so the boys can abuse it with impunity.

Did I mention that I had a huge falling out with my oldest, dearest friend in the world? Yep, there's a man involved. Not mine, thank goodness, but this may take years to wait it out. That's ok--I've got lots of spiked lemonade.

Seasoned Greetings

2007-12-27T18:13:00.000-06:00

The holiday was merry and the day was bright
as I surveyed my work in the twinkly light.
Sweaters for the teachers and cheese straws for the dear,

I was happy that gifts would soon appear.
Ah, bat glasses from my cousin, Batts that we are,
as my French santons looked on from afar.
The big box appeared and all looked on with fright
for what would DH give Mary tonight?

The paper parted and there appeared
a full length cashmere blend coat, minus the beard.
I smiled, I cringed, and faked my delight
for who am I to groan tonight?
The following morn my DH insisted,
did I love it or was I pissed?

I gazed upon my love as only years can muster
and told him sweetly with my Texan luster,
"Ice cubes to Eskimos and all of that,
please return the coat, mi amor,
and give me THAT!

He started and stamped and finally agreed
that a macro lens was a fine thing indeed.

Noro Kureyon sock yarn, col. S40

Putting the Mary in Christmas

2007-12-11T14:02:00.000-06:00

Briar rose

Every year, I drag myself kicking and screaming into the holiday season especially since we've been living in subtropical climates for the past four years. It's hard to even hibernate when it's 80 degrees outside much less get all cheery and bright. One of the ways that I pre-empt this annual malaise is to be my very own 'Secret Santa.' My Secret Santa just knew that I wouldn't be able to resist a sale on A.L. de Sauveterre's Estelle cashmere at Loop. A couple of these are destined to be gifts which makes me a bit of a double agent in the Santa department, if you can follow my logic.
Orion and Hill of Tara
Tobacco

My secret Santa got a little out of hand by ordering a Woolee Winder for my spinning wheel last week. In order to appease my Puritan outrage at such excess (yeah, I've got Vermont roots), I agreed to line a bunch of felted bags made by Pretty Purl over on Ravelry. She brought over 19 and I set to work matching bags with various fabrics. And then she brought over 9 more. I don't know who's more OCD--her or me. But, it's quick work and keeps me from stalking our UPS guy.

I was digging through my sweater chest the other day and found this mouldering at the bottom: Death Poncho 2000! This little gem was something I whipped up after we moved to Paris in 2000. I was soooo ahead of the curve. The fug curve, that is. First, it's chenille. Never to be repeated. Second, it weighs a ton. Third, I looked like a reject from "The Prisoner" the couple of times I wore it. People stared and I'm sure I heard some sniggering, but my French is spotty at best. I thought about converting it into a throw pillow, but now it graces the dogbed.
OK, so we've got skeletons on the tree. What's Christmas without a little touch of Halloween?

FO Friday

2007-11-30T09:45:00.000-06:00

Boy, when I wasn't busy giving thanks for a five day holiday, interminable political campaigns and Helio winning 'Dancing With the Stars' in the past week, I was stuck indoors with the dog, cat and kids thanks to cold, wet weather. They played Halo3 and mind games while I finished some WIPs. Let's take a look, shall we?
These are the huge Regia 6-ply socks that I had been knitting for the DH. Well, now you can squelch all your Sasquatch comments, because they fit him perfectly. I'm not sure what's up with those stripes, but I'm done. Next:
This here be "New Old Faithful." I made this sweater for my husband in hopes of replacing the 20-year old indestructible grey acrylic fisherman's rib pullover that his mother bought for him in Spain. Yep, that sweater has got some real emotional baggage. Anyway, I ordered a bunch of Paton's Shetland Chunky in 'Thunder Marl," carefully measured the original and set to work. The sleeves held me up as I picked up stitches and worked them in the round--really bad idea. It was like twirling a beach towel around the needles--over and over again. I got it finished and immediately had Mr. Mary try it on. Too small...what? I glared at him and hissed, "You've gained weight since last year, you gourmet guzzling wine swilling soccer dad! I measured this piece exactly to the old one. Grrrrrr."
FYI--I do growl at people. I even bark sometimes.

It looked great on me but I don't want or need a dead boring drop-sleeved acrylic/wool blend pullover with an Oedipus complex, no matter how great the fit. I figured what-the-hell and chucked it into the washing machine as some kind of ersatz knitter's infanticide. Then, I blocked the dookies out of it and left it to dry overnight. I was awaken the next morning by the vision of my husband wearing a perfectly fitting grey acrylic/wool sweater---mine.

"Uh, can you do something zippy with the neck and the cuffs?"
"Grrrrrrrr."

My dear friend Sarah wanted to knit something special for a teacher at her kids' school. I gave her an old pattern of mine and she bought a bunch of Berroco Zen. Now, this pattern calls for casting on a gazillion stitches as you're knitting the shawl horizontally. Sarah, being the dutiful advanced beginner knitter, did so and slogged her way through half of the piece...on plastic needles. I offered to finish it for her and immediately switched to my Addis and fairly zoomed through the thing by the time Helio had nailed his last quick step. Apparently, the teacher loved it--a lot. Yay, Sarah!

This little number is the result of some leftover Debbie Bliss Alpaca/Silk and a skein of Noro Silk Mountain that I had picked up somewhere. I just kinda goofed off with it and then decided I wanted a flat crown, instead of a round one. It has a fun porkpie/80s ska handknit vibe to it, like some rudegirl grew up and became a whack knitter. Uh, I guess that would be me.

I even helped my kid kill some flies and feed to them to the Venus Flytrap for his science project. I'm on a roll, people.

What can I say? Even Fiona, the Part-Time Cat, deigned to join us for a little face time.

Old Dogs and Tricks

2007-11-16T11:00:00.000-06:00

Handspun and dyed merino superwash/seacell plied with merino superwash/tencel

It's done and I'm pretty pleased with the final yarn. I made it a thick and thin bulky weight(well, more deliberately than what happens usually) which makes for a challenge when plying the two different weight singles. It wasn't until after I had set the twist that I thought I'd take another look at The Spinner's Companion for any tips. Wow, I hadn't looked at this book in 6 months and realized that I actually understand what they're talking about. I can't say that I'm any good at it, but there's a few tricks in the old dog yet. A lightbulb went off...Spinning is like driving a stick shift. I doubleclutched some handspun a couple of weeks ago by plying it twice, or rather resetting the twist in the plied yarn for more tension. And then, on page 74, it says you can correct excess twist by 'unspinning' a section by slowly treadling in the opposite direction or respinning the whole bobbin the same way onto another one in more dire cases. I'd been killing myself adjusting ratios, the brake band and weighting down skeins to counteract various kinks when, in reality, it's just like forward and reverse. Like aha! and duh!
Gee, I wonder what nuggets of wisdom I've missed in the Dyer's Companion.I felt good enough about the quality of this batch that I took it over to Gauge to be sold on consignment. Three cheers for the Gauge gals! Yep, my babies have gone out into the big world. And if they do come back home in 3 months, well, that'll be a dry run for when Tex and Bandit get out of college.
Knitting:
Not as much as I'd like, since I had to frog a sock back to the gusset. There was some cussin' and then some more. That sock now lives in my purse and has been to guitar and fiddle lessons and the 5th grade music class presentation of 30s showtunes. It's a musical sock. Go take a looksee at the gorgeous sweater Hilde made with the Elann Peruvian Uros Aran I destashed last year.

Here's the wonderful librarian at the boys' school dressed up as Mr. Margorium for the annual PTA book fair and doing her bit to "Keep Austin Weird."

Every little bit helps...;)

And What Do You Do?

2007-11-13T10:46:00.000-06:00

I was recently asked this question on one of those rare occasions when I wear something dressier than a t-shirt that still fits, slap on some warpaint and venture forth from the friendly confines of my zip code after dark. The occasion was the annual cocktail party for the authors at the Texas Book Festival and I was accompanying my husband as 'the author's wife.' A woman professional (as opposed to a professional woman, nudge-nudge) looked at me expectantly.

"I'm a stay-at-home-mom, I knit and then I blog about it."

That pretty much delegated me to the seventh circle of cocktail party hell as she gave me a funny look. And I don't mean funny ha-ha. It's ok, you hear the best gossip from the seventh circle regulars as they have nothing to prove.

This topic has been addressed by many sahms, knitters and stitchers, but it still happens to all of us. Later, I realized that I should have used a more grandiose description, something like:

"Oh, when I'm not multi-tasking domestic arrangements as CEO for a small privately-owned family with a full-time dog and a part-time cat, I'm a fiber artist working on stitch definition, wraps per inch and a photographic portfolio based on my blog."

Handspun and dyed merino/tencel
I have about 600 yards of this that I've dyed with Procion and Wilton's. It's being overdyed now to color the tencel. I plan to ply it with this:

Handspun and dyed seacell/merino.
I bought the seacell on eBay from this seller who lists it periodically.

It's true that the Wilton's black icing color separates and comes out a deep blue purple. I overdyed this with some orange and brown to knock off the blue tones. The seacell/merino is wonderfully soft and very slick to spin up. I have some more that I plan to spin up as a sportweight yarn.

The DH has gone to Miami and New York for a few days. House rules and dietary restrictions are greatly relaxed and all hell breaks loose.
Before setting off the smoke alarm last weekend during my kid's sleepover and having the security company talk me through manually shutting off the system with a phillips screwdriver because I forgot both our password and passcode while the boys continued playing Halo Three, I picked up some really great cupcakes at this groovy spot on South Congress Ave. It's called Hey Cupcake! and I recommend the Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting. Oh, and they're just across the street from Hill Country Weavers, so you can kill two cravings with one trip.

Red Sox Rock

2007-11-02T10:52:00.000-05:00

Hill Country Yarns Sweet Feet Sock Yarn, 100% merino, Cherry Red

I'm still in shock that the Boston Red Sox swept the World Series. They've won twice in 4 years? As a longtime Red Sox fan (for reasons too byzantine to explain easily), this has me all startled and confused. I was more in my comfort zone when they were down 3-1 against the Cleveland Indians. The drama, that pending sense of doom and the nailbiting finishes were the stuff that we fans thrive on. Reminded me of the good times when they had to battle it out with the Yankees until 2 am every night back in 2004. And my children are getting a skewed view of the Red Sox because they think their favorite baseball team (it gets passed down genetically) are a bunch of winners. The only way to restore my angst is if they sign Alex Rodriguez and trade Mike Lowell to the Dodgers where he'll play for (gasp!) Joe Torre. Now, that will keep my fingernails short and ragged.

It's been non-stop funfunfun around here. First, there was the school carnival where I stood around for 3 hours watching 500 kids caroming all over the schoolyard, secretly praying that neither one of my boys would win the cake walk.
Cherie Amour then made her debut at the Renaissance Festival the following day. I found a long grey skirt at Goodwill to which I added velvet panels and a bit of trim at the bottom. I was RenFaire Lite compared to the beautifully detailed costumes that Ana and Robin wore. Unfortunately, my camera's battery was dying and I didn't get any decent pics.

We had fun walking around, eating turkey legs and checking out the various festival goers that seemed to fall into different categories: traditional chainmail/kilt guys with women in elaborate corsets/long flowing skirts; goth angels from hell all dressed in black leather, pixie girls with green eye shadow and a few strategically placed pieces of chiffon; fairies who looked just the pixies except they had wings; lesbian pub wenches with leather corsets, heaving bosoms and dog collars; codpiece lovers; and, finally, white fishnet hose lady who left very little to the imagination. Yeah, the boys had a good time checking her out.

All this pageantry got us in the spirit for Halloween.

Here's Bandit as a pin cushion, while I got wacky with the aluminum foil. Yep, I was a sex thimble. Go ahead and groan, but the kid came home with 5 pounds of candy while his brother who went in the 'last-minute bloody shredded t-shirt costume' came home with a very meager haul. Originality pays every time. I think Bandit should be a cockroach next year and I can be a venus flytrap. Oh, the possibilities...

Ply It Again, Ma'am

2007-10-26T11:27:00.001-05:00

Thanks for the great comments about Cherie Amour. She makes her debut tomorrow and just wait until you see the whack skirt I've cooked up. Goodwill rocks!

Superwash Merino roving, source: unknown

Angelina recently plopped down this roving at our SnB group. Someone had sent it to her and she was destashing. I politely waited a second or two before pouncing on it.

I spun it up and fooled around with using a short draw.

I plied it loosely and had a bit left over that I plied with some merino/tencel. It looked like a bad marriage between soggy ramen noodles and a nursing home lobby in Ft. Worth.

It was time for...

Wilton's!

But it was still tired and limp. And no red-blooded woman wants that.

The savvy SNB spinners rode in on their wooden wheels and advised me to ply it again.

And it worked!

I'm knitting it up into a little cardi with a lace edge and 3/4 sleeves. I'm knitting dangerously as I've about 500 yds, more or less.

Now, it's off to the school carnival where I get to turn live people into skeletons for the "Day of the Dead" spookhouse aka "Mary's Revenge on the PTA." Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Cherie Amour

2007-10-19T18:49:00.000-05:00

Noro Lotus, col. 156

It all started when I saw Turtlegirls's Cherie Amour on her blog on Oct. 14. I had seen the pattern in the Fall 2007 Knitty, but didn't appreciate the details until I saw her photos. It was soooo pretty, soooo curvy, soooo perfect for my ensemble for our first ever visit to the Renaissance Faire in about a week's time. I shopped the stash for a bulky weight yarn which I don't have a ton of because we live in Hades (90 degrees today, people). I found a bag of Noro Lotus (Attention Yarncave shoppers, there's a bag of Noro in bin 3!) that I scored on eBay because I've always liked this yarn ever since I made the Chinese Charm Bag from Stitch 'n Bitch. It's got lots of preeeety stripey colors, metallic sparkle and knits up on size 13 needles like the way I drive---real fast...unless the kids are present.

It's 57% rayon, 23% nylon, 12% acrylic and 8% cashmere which seems like a total waste to me. I guess if you closed your eyes and thought real hard you'd feel that cashmere, but it's not exactly overwhelming you with it's 8% presence. Anyway, this high falutin' Japanese acrylic-san was perfect for the pattern and our less than frosty winters.

I downloaded the pattern, swatched and knitted like a big dog all week long. And I mean BIG dog.
FYI: Don't let the following notes put you off this pattern. The numbers all work out quite nicely. It's just that I have a habit of pimping my sweaters.
Yes, my arm is up (again) and I'm convinced that it looks thinner. Hey, let's raise both of them and see what happens!

Alterations:

I made a size medium, thinking that this yarn would have zero memory and relax with time. Plus it looked great on the T-Girl.
I made the bottom lace section shorter than the pattern calls for because the world doesn't need to see 31 rounds of lace traversing my beam at its broadest point.
I used a size 9 needle as called for the 2x2 ribbing but switched to a size 8 for the middle bit to cinch in the waist a bit more. Just call me the Sands of Time because I've got the hourglass, baby.
I read Turtlegirl's observations closely and she mentioned problems with the front decreases. Boy, was she right! I ended up making my own chart so I could get those decreases in line with the 6-stitch pattern repeat. And all of this headache over 20 friggin' stitches to start with. Remember, it's a 6-stitch repeat and stitch markers are your friends. You may end up working a few more decrease rows than shown on the chart. Ok, maybe that's a me thing and not a you thing.

TIP: I worked one row of knit followed by one row of purl on the back and the fronts before that 3-needle bind off for the shoulders--it gives more support for a bulky yarn.

Methinks it's mead time.

Sleeves: I cannot wear a bulky weight long sleeve in this climate plus I wanted something in character for RenFaire. I didn't want thick seams or the pain of joining a sleeve in the round, so I got creative. I picked up stitches around the armhole with a size 10 needle and worked about 7 inches in the 2x2 rib. I tried doing a couple of repeats of the bottom lace pattern, but my brain couldn't handle the lace and the Red Sox in game 5 at the same time. So, I opted for my alltime favorite lace cop-out; YO, K2tog followed by a purl row. I worked it back and forth so I'd have a split cuff and the Maid Mary, Mary thing going.
TIP: I don't like an unfinished edge on a neckline so I worked a row of single crochet around mine with a strand of Anny Blatt Victoria in burgundy to give it a flat edge and a nice finish. (DMC floss or a solid yarn will do, I just happen to have accrued tons of Victoria after 3 years living in France.)

I realize that you may think that all this lace is wasted on such a busy yarn. It's true that you can't see the detail like you would with a solid, but here the lace serves the dual purpose of air-conditioning as much as decoration.

Forty grams left and the Red Sox won!

Komon Kimono

2007-10-11T19:38:00.001-05:00

Presenting the Komon Kimono from Knit Kimono. Noro Silk Garden Lite with Noro Cash Iroha for the neckband.

This piece has a backstory that involves LIES, Trickery and deceit. As soon as I bought the yarn and received my copy of Knit Kimono the same day, I just knew it was destined for a very special person, someone dear to my knitty heart--Miss Renee from my SnB group. She had just announced that she was getting a big fat promotion after years of hard work (yay!) and was relocating to Dallas(boo).

Fellow posse member Robincat was all over the idea like a duck on a junebug and she cranked out the fronts and the sleeves while I banged away on the back and the 54-inch neckband. I mention the neckband because at about mile 36 I was getting a wee bit tired of the garter stitch with built-in i-cord over and over again. Blatantly knitting on it in front of Renee gave me the extra gas to get it done. See, Robin and I are such good liars that Renee never suspected a thing, even after reading my blog. This bears thinking about if we ever embark on a career as the knitting embezzlers or the handspun hackers.

The big day arrived for Renee's farewell lunch at Maudie's Tex-Mex and here are the results:

Before margaritas......

and after.

We're gonna miss ya, honey!

YPF and then some

2007-10-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

Handspun merino(?), 20 gms=100yds. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Regia Kaffe Fassett, col. 4261

This is a pair of Naughty Monkey flats that I bought for $2 on the sale table at a local boutique. Sometimes, I think it's my role in life to rescue the fugliest sale items, find all of the orphaned skeins buried deep in the discount bin and pick yarn in the worst colorway imaginable to keep them from their pending doom of oblivion--that perennially dusty corner in the shop where everything has been picked over so much that the labels are all tatty. I call it The Land of the Misfit Fug. Personally, I like these shoes--they make me laugh with their goofiness. That's why I'm wearing them right now with my yellow La Tejedora t-shirt and jeans.

Last night, we saw "A Ride with Bob", the musical about Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and there was a trio of fiddlers called The Quebe Sisters who are not only crack fiddlers but great singers as well. I bought their CD in the lobby and they all autographed it, plus their guitar player Joey. Great show, gals!
This cd is the perfect soundtrack for reading all about Ree and Marlboro Man.

AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR WACKY CAPTIONS...

My friend, Renee, is moving to Dallas and bestowed upon me the honor of babysitting her mother's extensive collection of knitting patterns from The Hamlyn Publishing Group. The company is based in England, but apparently published these patterns in a series of packs in the early 1980s.

"Starmore, MacShmarmore. This bleedin' sweater pattern will never sell."

(just for you, Robin)

"It was Evangeline Henry's solemn duty to break the color barrier for African American models in the knitting industry. Sipping Listerine was a small price to pay."

Sixty years later, Ms. Starmore has the last laugh until...
"Uh, Miss Rashad, Mr. Cosby thought it would be more wholesome if you wore matching sweaters. Miss Rashad? Miss Rashad, please put the ashtray down. Aaaaaaiiiieeeee!"

Greetings from Tyvekistan

2007-10-03T10:33:00.000-05:00

In my neighborhood, if you don't know the neighbors personally then you name their houses. There's the yellow house aka Marytopia, the yappy dog house, the dead magnolia house, the three ancient Volvo station wagons house, the rooster house, the Steelers fan house, the creepy old man house and so on. And now we have Tyvekistan, a hulking 4,000 square foot structure being built for three people; 2 adults, 1 child. Three people. And no backyard.

I will try to keep my rants to a minimum, I promise. I will try to channel my negative energy into something positive, something constructive, something that celebrates the indescribable beauty of life on planet Earth. Like planting more bamboo.

I'm just about done with the Komon kimono and it should make its FO debut fairly soon. In the meantime, I spun up this wee bit of laceweight from a wee bit of roving that was included in an order from the Black Lamb. It was good to get my hands on something smooth and slippery after going mano a mano with the burro, whoops, churro.

I have about 100 yds as single ply. Hmm, maybe I'll make a little hairband doodad with some cunning stitch from Barbara Walker. The color is almost burnt orange which brings me to...

Hey, sportsfans!

I grew up with a father and two brothers who marked the beginning of football season by having the TV on nonstop from September until after the Super Bowl in January. After we had grown up and moved out, my father set up a command center in the kitchen with one TV, 2 radios and the other TV in the living room all set to different games. The wall behind the TV was decorated with University of Texas Longhorn football memorabilia and pictures of my brother, a former offensive lineman for the Longhorns who played with Earl Campbell. Weekend visitors to this hallowed ground were admitted only if they(including my blessed sainted stepmother and the dog) understood the house rules:

1. No chatting, gossiping or 'girltalk.'
2. Drinks may be refreshed only during commercials, especially those involving the ice maker.
3. Telephone calls are forbidden unless you go to another room or you are absent and call after the big game.
4. Shouting and cursing is dictated by seniority; the younger you are, the less noise you can make.
5. Doorbells will not be answered--go to the back door and come on in.
6. Any personal, emotional, or financial issues will be addressed after the sports highlights on the local news and the Longhorns win. Otherwise, deal with it.
7. Never, ever, walk in front of the TV during third and long--this action could get you banned for life or seriously maimed at the very least.
8. Questions will be answered as deemed necessary; be prepared for stony silence and glares.
9. No jiggling of change in pockets, tapping of feet or any other irritating and repetitive sounds.
10. Shut up and watch.

I will be enforcing these same rules from my own kitchen command center this weekend when I watch the Red River Shootout and keep an eye on the Red Sox. Things could get real ugly around here.

YPF: Cash Iroha

2007-09-28T14:11:00.000-05:00

Noro Cash Iroha, col. 80
I'm using this for the neckband on my Komon kimono.

Here's the back:
Twenty two inches of basically a 2-row pattern that includes a P3, pass 1st st over last 2. Purling has never bothered me, but that passing the first stitch over the last 2 is right up there with driving my kid to soccer practice during rush hour in 95-degree heat. At least, I have a dramatic piece in the making. As for Banditinho, I think we're in for the long haul.

Here's my Fortissima Colori, #4007, sock in progress aka SIP on a wine bottle. Straightforward sock, nothing fancy for Mr. Mary. This sock was a big hit at the Parents' Information Night at my kids' school. The father seated next to me leaned over and said, "Wow, that's nice. Uh, what is it?"
"It's a sock for my husband," I replied with a serene smile that barely concealed my pointy little teeth, thereby cementing my reputation as some kind of Luddite knitter, gift wrap sale hater and neighborhood crank.
Periodically during the meeting, I would pause and look up at the speaker whenever they said something relevant. The people around me would then pause from watching me knit and look up as well. I must improve on this technique to gain total mind control over members of the PTA. no more gift wrap sales..no more gift wrap sales..no more gift wrap sales

Later, this sock made it to a PTA committee chair meeting as I'm the Library Liaison, meaning I'm in charge of the volunteers who come in to help the kids and shelve books on a weekly basis. This time, I could clearly feel the power of the sock as the PTA president became more and more discomfited while I knitted more and more. no more gift wrap sales...no more gift wrap sales...no more gift wrap sales

I've been spinning up this black Navajo churro which is very grabby with a slightly rustic scent. Read: Eau de Ewe. I've got some in white as well thanks to the allergies of Miss Robincat. I'm imagining a felted bowl with Native American motifs or patterns.

I'm not sure if William Morris would have approved, but I love my new Jack Purcell sneakers.

Stay tuned for the latest from Tyvekistan!

2007-09-24T13:08:00.000-05:00

Let's take a stroll through the garden and look for signs of fall since it's practically freezing outside with the thermometer reading 86 degrees F.

The guards have donned their formal uniforms for the occasion.

Thanks to an extremely rainy summer, there are crab spiders all over the place. (Gasteracantha cancriformis)

Plumbago, Meyer lemon, hibiscus. You silly plants, don't you know that summer's over?

I planted you from a packet of seeds I bought in Japan and I don't even know what you are. Domo origato for the long lasting blooms.

What's that ruckus? Oh dear, the flamingoes have run over to the fence to watch the construction next door. I have told them repeatedly to stop bugging the workers for scraps when the taco truck drives by.

And here we have a crab spider sucking the brains out of a fly.

And here we have a McMansion sucking the morning light out of my garden.

YPF: Habu

2007-09-21T16:43:00.000-05:00

Habu wool stainless steel, silk.

My yarncave has become the location for a new reality show where my WIPs play survivor. I came across the Habu (attached to 8 inches of a cardigan back) yesterday and greeted it like a long lost friend. It is a long lost friend along with Sunrise Circle Jacket, a dark purple mohair jacket and a couple of summer tops languishing in a cabinet. Alas, one item got voted out of the cave:
Mork's Nightmare Sock from the Rerun Graveyard

This is a sock that I knitted FLAT. Just for the fun of it. Just to see if it could be done. I threw in the ruffle and the ruching just for grins. I seamed it up nicely and even crocheted the heel just to see what that would be like. There is a reason why you never see patterns for flat socks, crocheted heels or ruching on socks---they just don't work.

I couldn't bear the idea of just tossing it or frogging it. Sooo, it got stuffed and sewed up and tossed out of the cave and into the backyard. (Don't worry, Hilde, I've got plenty of yarn to make a proper pair.)

The backyard has become traumatized by the looming hulk of the McMansion next door.

There's nothing I can do about it, but fantasize about poison ivy, huge mirrors and voodoo dolls.

Blue Monday

2007-09-17T12:25:00.001-05:00

I guess blue underpants are going to be the hot item next spring.

YPF: Mystical Creations

2007-09-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

Mystical Creations cotton twist, "candyland"
Mystical Creations 10/2 tencel, "hisami"

I got a serger and look what happened:

McCall's M5390 skirt, retro cowgirl pin-up fabric from stash

Meet Texas State Trooper Starnes. He guards our front door and scares the bejabbers out of unsuspecting visitors and deliverymen. He's real polite, always saying 'yes ma'am' and 'no sir' when we have chats or offer him some iced tea. He's been steadily on the job for, oh I don't know, donkey's years and has some great stories. But when it comes to off-duty, well, Trooper Starnes has a little secret. Good thing we wear the same size.

adapted from Neue Mode J23310 skirt pattern, retro 60s print from stash

I made a simple sheath dress from this fabric a few years back. I had just enough yardage for a skirt that I zipped up with some lime green trim I found in the home decor section of Jo-Ann's. The fabric didn't drape as much as I wanted, so I rejiggered the seams to create the a-line. Now, where's my mojito?

Yarnifornication: FO WIP LYS DIY LOL

2007-09-12T12:03:00.000-05:00

Horizontal Bat Stitch Scarf aka Pittsburg Special
Diakeito Diadomina, just over 2 skeins
Size 13 needles
I cast on as many stitches as I could cram onto my 36-inch circs and knitted up about 5.5 inches. Knitting a scarf horizontally is always the most fun when you bind off because you're never sure exactly how long the scarf will be. This particular stitch didn't stretch too much because of the slipped stitches but I still ended up with an 8-foot long woolly python. All I need to do is feed it, wrap it up and mail it to the worthy recipient.Here's the progress I've made so far on the Komon kimono in Noro. The pattern stitch is dead easy and makes such a nice fabric. I'm working on size 10 needles, so it's going pretty fast. I can't wait to see how the second skein of this colorway knits up. It's going to be bright, but I don't think we're looking at "Mary & the Amazing Technicolor Kimono" or a reject from "Maude."

YIPPEE-DOO!
Austin is getting not one, but two new yarn shops this month. This has all of us fiber-lovin' yarnos in a tizzy. We're practically running around the room squealing like a bunch of 3-year olds jacked up on Mountain Dew and Charleston Chews. Um, some of us are still running around the room. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with the 2 yarn shops that already exist; each has their loyal fans and their loyal nonfans. Me, I've been quite happy with both (with a hearty side helping of internet yarnpr0n), but my friends would say that's because I'm highly impervious to most anything when in the presence of wool, silk, cotton and cashmere.

So, Gauge opened up last weekend with a party that included wine, beer, a dj, some spinners and Vickie Howell. I wasn't there, but my sources say she's even cuter in real life. I bet every knitter in Austin trooped over there last weekend for a recon, including my SnB group. Thanks to late Sunday hours, we able to squeeze in a spur of the moment field trip. There's Miss Renee fondling Vickie Howell, er, her yarn I mean. Robin and Ana got involved in some kind of competition over who had more projects in their bag while I was perusing the latest arrivals from Debbie Bliss. Luckily, there's a nice big table in the back room where this sort of wackiness is encouraged. This shop is only 10 minutes from my house, so I'll be excited to see their full inventory. Alison and Karli, good luck!

The Knitting Nest is in the process of opening and her blog gives updates about when she'll be able to process credit card orders. This shop is in south Austin, probably a 20-30 minute drive for me depending on traffic. The pix on her blog look like it's going to be another fun space, so I'll be wandering over there pretty soon.

The real question is: Roving? Batts? Spindles? Will Austin area spinners finally find a place at the grown-up's table?

Speaking of batts, my drum carder was politely asked to leave the living room.

I'll take door number three, Monty.

Who needs a tub/shower in the guest room when you can create your own E-Z Klean Karding Station and Fun Factory?

YPF at long last

2007-09-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

Go ahead, grab a cold one, and enjoy yourselves. It's back to school and back to YPF. Yee-haw!
Noro Silk Garden Lite, col. 2015
Yarn Place Graceful Lace Yarn, col.609246, 50 gms/903 yds

Diakeito Diadomina, col.305, and horizontal bat stitch scarf aka the Pittsburg Special

Recent additions to enhance my curriculum fabricae and a little something for the yarn to sip at happy hour.

My LYS had a one day sale on their new shipment of KFI yarns and that means Noro, bay-bee! I threw on my Katia Jamaica tank top(kind of like a press pass for knitters to wear something handknitted at the LYS) and was over there quicker than a duck on a June bug, only to find marauding girl gangs grabbing bags right, left, and center. There was one group that clearly met on a regular basis. You could just sense them sending messages telepathically like:

"Two o'clock, she's grabbing the Debbie Bliss and there's one bag left!"
"False alarm, she put it back. Hey, do you have this color? Do I need this color?"
"Who's that chick in the stripey tank? The top's cute, but check out her ass...has she got a doublewide or what?"
"OK, who's up for a Lizard Ridge?"
"Too hot. Nine o'clock, Doublewide's heading for the Silk Garden Lite. Let's go check out the colors in case we need to, ahem, grab them all."
"She can have it. I need more Kureyon to make Booga Bags for all my secret pals."
"Ooh, did you see what mine sent me this week? The cutest stitch markers from Entrelac. Hey, who's up for Tex-Mex?"

I managed to grab not only a bag of the Silk Garden Lite, but was able to pick all the skeins that started with the same colors. Veddy sneaky. I was ready to check out when I passed by the lace yarns and saw the Yarn Place display. Oh. My. It's 100% pure new wool, just soft enough, and there's enough yardage with 2 balls(1806 yds) to make any dang gossamer lace shawlski you could want. Oh, and the shopgal told me that the striping is very gradual. The other colors were more muted shades of light blue and beige.

I came home to see that the nice folks in the Amazon warehouse had gotten my order out. "Threadbared" is really funny and gives all of us former "You Knit What?" junkies a desperately needed fix of unspeakably ugly sweaters and snappy wisecracks. "Knit Kimono," is a marvel for all of us who are feeling rectangular. The front of the book is all about the history of kimonos with a handy template to design your own kimono. The patterns cover the various periods and styles, including the ubiquitous 'happi' coat that you see all over the souvenir markets in Tokyo. It may be me, but when I say "Knit Kimono" I also want to say "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" (I know it's Chinese, but still) and "Zero Zero Seven."

Such linguistic silliness did not stop me from picking out the Komon pattern(it's on the cover), and start swatching. The pattern calls for Berrocco Glace. I know that yarn and I love that deep deep red, but I can't stand knitting with it. I looked around and the Silk Garden Lite jumped onto my needles working its way up to a size 10 for a nice comfy gauge. So, this kimono is either going to look like some kind of ethereal homage to all things Japanese or else it's "SayaNoro, Fugsan."

Can you point out the big difference in thse 2 pictures? They were taken no more than thirty minutes apart. I need a shot of Soak or something stronger.

Labor Day=DIY Day

2007-09-04T22:44:00.000-05:00

Wow, guys look thinner when they raise their arms. Who knew?
We went to lunch on Sunday(Java Garden all-you-can-eat Indonesian buffet for $8)and, since my SnB group was taking a break, we had the brilliant idea of repainting the boys' truckstop, er, bathroom. Oh what fun! Let's go to Home Depot and have the boys pick out a color. I wasn't surprised when they chose opposite/complimentary colors; 'Aquatic Pool' and 'Mango Madness.' (my genes control 50% of their brains and anything to kill the 1950's pale piss yellow/dead mouse brown tile)

Now, Big Mama gets a turn and chooses a nice bright red called 'California Poppy' to make sure the other two paints get along. Oooh, let's go check out the doors and see the dog doors since Chuy is so huge...uh, I thought I saw a guy around here somewhere...he was just here a minute ago...stop that!...you can kiss your birthday goodbye...please stop touching everything...Stop. It. Now...where's the cashier?...Oh, can you grab a bag of rags and some WD-40?

Wow, what a flashback and lunch was so good. Anyway, here's the result:
La Vida Loca Bathroom and Lounge

Sure, it needs a few touch-ups, like some cinderblocks and wood for stadium seating in the bathtub but there are outlets for a margarita machine and a boom box on the vanity. I've got Mark Ronson and Pink Martini on my i-Pod, what'll be?

I did decide to keep the purple tranquility scarf for myself. My winter coat needs a new friend. So, I cast on lengthwise for a scarf using some Diakeito 'diadomina' in color 305 that I bought in Harvard Square a couple of years ago when the RED SOX won the World Series. I won't fuel any fires, but you Yankee fans are at least 7 games out, right? I'm using the 'horizontal bat stitch' from Mon Tricot 800 stitches which reads as follows:
multiple 3+1
Row 1: K.
Row 2: *K1, sl 2 purlwise,* k1.

This yarn is 40 gms, 122 yds. 50%wool/21%mohair/29%nylon and puppy soft(as opposed to kitten-in-a-teacup soft, y'know) with a slight glimmer from the nylon. It is a striping yarn with muted shades of grey, beige, rust, and burgundy with a touch of eggplant. Now, that should make Pittsburg happy!

Yes, Chuy the dog is not quite a year old and he's bigger than my 9-year old.

Do Knitters Cheat if...

2007-09-01T13:16:00.000-05:00

they buy this on sale, remove all 56 bobbles(edited from bobbins, believe me, they were bobbles) and dye it to look like this? And the knitter calculates that it would take about 10 skeins of something like Berroco glace, doublestranded, to make this top and would save at least $30 plus the potential doom of another WIP? You betcha, babycakes. I'm not so blatant as to tell people I actually knitted it myself. Now, that would be...really cheating.
Random Music
I downloaded this song because it keeps playing in my head. Now, I keep imagining that I'm in the Oslo airport with a raquetball raquet in my carry-on.
Colissimo Karma

I recently knitted this scarf as a thank you present for the nice lady in Pittsburg who called to let me know that she had the lost box that I shipped to myself from France in June. It's one of those long, drawn out stories involving repeated phone calls to an international courier service in the Bronx, veiled threats, and tracking numbers from 3 different couriers. It even became my Friday afternoon entertainment to call Jovanee at company X, hassle her, and then thank her warmly before hanging up.
It's a good thing I gave this a good soak before blocking. Sheesh, call the paramedics! The more I look at it, the more I think how good it would look with my winter coat. And I could always find something even warmer in the stash, something really practical for those Pennsylvania winters. Yeah, that's it, and I bet she doesn't even like purple.

Tranquility Stitch Jabot Scarf details:
Merino/silk handspun gifted to me by Angelina and I can't remember who actually made it.
Pattern: I cast on 3 times the number of stitches I wanted for the width of the scarf. I worked these stitches in tranquility stitch (Barbara Walker) for about 12 inches before decreasing down to the desired width. I then knitted up about 56 inches in stockinette stitch with a garter edge before increasing to final tranquility stitch edge.

Pear Chutney
A nice thing about having relatives with a ranch is that periodically they show up at your door with an 8 pound bag of hard pears and say, "We thought you might be able to do something with these..." Well, 12 jars later, I've got Christmas presents for friends and neighbors.

GGH Mystik, cotton/viscose

I have a thing for cotton/viscose blends. The warm weather friendliness of the yarn, the matte/shiny dressy casual feel and the rich colors. So, I spotted this at the yarn shop when I was on one of my periodic 'spot checks' to make sure they were keeping their inventory updated, their magazines/patterns selection current and their shelves in order. I saw the yarn and the yarn said to me in a low Barry White kind of growl, "Ooooh aaah baby, you gotta to snap me up, knit me up, ooooh aaah baby, Scandinavian colorwork, never going to give you up, oooh aaah baby, I know you need it girl, ooooh aaah."

What, you were expecting Harry Connick Jr.?

Road Trip

2007-08-28T19:43:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday, we decided to gas up the car, load up the boys and head for Fredericksburg, the ersatz capital of the Texas hill country. These local trips are often tinged with melancholy as I see what used to be acres and acres of ranch and farmland converted into gated developments with names like Vista Pointe, Highland Villas, Bel Terra and other linguistic anomalies. I can't fault the farmers and ranchers for taking good money when they've got hardscrabble land and tough living. I don't blame the towns for enjoying the economic perks and a more stable tax base. All the same, I'm sad to see hard evidence of what has been happening for decades: fewer and fewer family ranches and farms and the slow motion fade of real cowboy culture.

But, hey, let's stomp grapes! It was the annual Becker Vineyards Grape Stomp (yes, we make wine in Texas. Well, we try.). And that leads to lunch at the Rather Sweet Bakery where you better not to fill up too much on lunch so you'll have a big spot for dessert.(this isn't dessert, it's soap. Really.)

Afterwards, skip the candle and country furnishings shops for a bit of culture. And that would be the National Museum of the Pacific War. My dad was in the Marines and we bonded while watching The World at War during the late 70s, so I enjoy this osmotically. Let's see, here's a really big propeller.And then, there's the surprisingly lovely Japanese Peace Garden where boys can ponder how best to catch koi with their bare hands:Okay, Huck Finn they ain't, but they're mine.

There was a slight detour to Stonehill Spinning where I picked up some cream alpaca and black llama for spinning and a couple of Cushing dyes. Pix to come.

On the way back, we skipped the opportunity to visit a Texan president's ranch and just enjoyed the scenery and the local highlights.
I got plenty of time to knit up a hand spun/hand dyed merino/silk scarf which I plan to overdye and give away.
And that's another story...

Battery Empty

2007-08-24T16:52:00.000-05:00

FO ALERT
Child's Striped Top Down Raglan
Yarn: Bouton d'Or 4 Teen's Acrylique.
Standard issue pattern and I changed colors whenever I felt like it.

That groovy gang at Bd'O thought they'd punch up the French label on the packaging with the line, "Debutantes: It's my first "triko"!" As opposed to, you know, "Passing out at parties is no fun and Mother got really pissed off when I barfed chunks on her Narciso Rodriguez. So, Chessie and I hooked up with a couple of geezer guys from the club and now I can pay that shitty drycleaning bill!"

DIY Fiesta Craft Apron, made from Mexican oilcloth, scrap denim and cotton webbing

I was spinning some merino/tencel earlier this week when I realized that I needed to make a run to the store. I'm at the register when I look down at my skirt. Good Lord, I looked like I had been going mano a mano at lucha libre with the Persian cats from the Fancy Feast commercial. I even had a piece of roving stuck to the back of my t-shirt which I'm sure cemented my reputation as the whack mom who lets the neighborhood kids run riot through the house while she spins, knits and watches shows on the DIY channel.

Here's my cheapo and easy solution: Grab a lightweight oilcloth tablecloth and a chef's apron that you wear. Using the chef's apron as a template, place it on top of the oilcloth and cut along the lines of the fabric. Sew cording/ribbon/webbing to sides and for the neck. Add a large pocket to the top if you need a parking place for reading glasses, tv remotes, iPods, cell phones, etc...
You can finish off the seams if you want to get all fancy about it. I don't find wearing it hot in my air-conditioned living room and I fold down the top if I don't need to lug stuff around. The oilcloth means that I can use this for dyeing with dignity.

I was going to take some pix of other projects, but both cameras gave me the 'battery empty' message. Dang it, my battery's empty, too. I've got to hunt down an old pincushion for Tex to use as a voodoo doll, Bandit wants to make Jell-O pudding by himself and I should make some effort to corral all the DIY/Crafts/Fiber stuff back into the yarncave. School starts Monday...happy hour starts now.

T Minus ?

2007-08-21T00:03:00.000-05:00

I've been trapped in a lost Twilight Zone episode titled "The Neverending Summer." Thanks to the Austin Independent School District, our school calendar has been pushed back 2 weeks giving all the kids more time to inflict themselves on the frayed nerves of their parents. Last year, the boys went to camp, got home and promptly started school four days later. Good times.

(Insert humorous 50s black and white photo of perky housewife here.)

Now, I'm waiting seven days until my hellspawn return to the municipally funded institution created for their education. We have already seen The Simpsons Movie and today we hit the latest Harry Potter at the Imax theater. The 3-D special effects didn't happen until the last 20 minutes, so save yer money. When we got home, I had them hunt for sticks in the backyard to make wands in a fit of inspired craftiness. Shouts of "Expecto Patronus" and "Abracadabra" reverberated around the house. If I had a patronus at this moment it would be a shrieking bat out of hell while the boys' would be Itchy and Scratchy.

(Insert creepy black and white photo of Frankenstein's bride here.)

I managed to escape a couple of times and treated myself to some shopping. Watching the clock, drumming my fingers on the kitchen table, waiting for 9:45 am so I can bolt and the shops will be open. My first outing was a trip to the Neiman-Marcus' perfume counter with Robin for a big sniff-off. We're both scent queens and I even had a list that I had gotten from Basenotes.
Our main goal was to reevaluate the house of Guerlain. I speak French, but not Guerlain. She loves it and for more detailed notes, please check out her blog. I do like Samsara when there's snow on the ground--I caught a whiff of it once on a woman's fur coat dusted with snowflakes in an elevator. The rich ylang ylang/sandalwood/tonka mixed with the metallic ice and slightly animal scent was amazing and, no, I don't swing that way. (think Julie Christie/Lara in the sled with Zhivago at Varykino)

Anyhow, I digress. We had two salespeople to help us (it was that early) and they trotted out a couple of bottles of Creed. Oh my. Millesime Imperiale has a wonderful crushed leaf verbena with bergamot that draws down to a light iris, with a tangy sillage. Score. Then they sprung Tabarome on me. It's got a ginger green lilt that immediately draws down to a leather/cigar combo with a hint of bergamot. There's a wee touch of patchouli that perfectly balances out the tobacco in the sillage. Just bring on Ian Richardson in "House of Cards." So, I was all done for the day until a bottle of Hermes' Kelly Caleche eau de toilette caught my eye. Normally, I'm not a big fan of redos/sequels on scents and I actually prefer Equipage, but this takes a little something from Caleche and makes it completely different. It starts with the teeniest tiny hint of green guava and then immediately shifts to a very restrained rose/mimosa vibe with some leather cropping up later. Ask Robin, I'm veddy picky about any rose scent and this one won me over. S0me people may think that it's too restrained (low sillage)--I think that if Hermes comes out with an eau de parfum, they'll change their minds. (I bet this is what the young journalist wore in "House of Cards.")

(Insert picture of Mary, Mary being pushed off the roof of the British Parliament here).

I won't bore you about the shopping trip where I got fitted for a bra and flunked another grade. But I will say thanks to all my Sunday knitting posse for turning up to support Mr. Mary's chat at the bookstore. And I will say a big woohoo and thanks to HPNY for naming me a rockin' girl blogger. I plead diplomatic immunity on naming anyone else, but I'm quite pleased all the same. THANKS!

Ask Mary, Mary

2007-08-10T18:26:00.000-05:00

In my ongoing efforts to provide you with entertaining and informative knitting blog content, I will indulge myself in creating a Q&A section titled..."Ask Mary, Mary" where I ask myself questions and proceed to answer them. (This is also an easy dodge for no pix or FOs to report).

Dear Mary, Mary,
So where the hell have you been for the past 3 weeks?
Yours truly, Mad&Marvelous

Dear M&M,

Well, first we celebrated my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary with a family reunion in Tampa/St. Pete. Fun was had by all, especially when I rode a JetSki for the first time with Bandit in front and my 10-yr old niece hangin' on for dear life in the back. I topped out at 32 mph and was politely asked to slow down by my fellow passengers. It rained most of the time which gave us a full afternoon at the Salvador Dali museum. I then immediately shipped my boys off to Camp Longhorn, a sleep-away camp that I went to back in the 70's. Mr. Mary and I have been basking in the glow of an empty house, if you catch my drift. Oh, and I'm now on Ravelry--just look for, you got it, marymary.

Yo, Mx2,
Did you catch the new issues of Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits? Were they lame or what? Mary&Rhoda

Dear M&R,
Yes, I was a bit disappointed with both issues and for different reasons. I loved VK's 20th anniversary issue and I was looking forward to another keeper. Instead, I had to slog through the mutual admiration society articles featuring 'old school' designers and 'new school' with the notable absence of Amy Singer. The sidebar interview with Barbara Walker was definitely worth the price of the mag and made me cackle with fiendish glee. I am going to personally write La Belle Dame Sans Merci aka Babs and thank her for not giving into the smug sycophancy shared by the others. The patterns--eh. And if VK is ever interested in featuring a plus-sized and over 18 model, I will be more than happy to oblige. And don't even get me started on the poorly lit tone-on-tone photos.
Interweave Knits just didn't blow my skirt up. Can't explain why exactly. At least, they've branched out on the models. Unfortunately, with the same Tweeds Catalog circa 1990 photography.
Both magazines have new editors which means they have to piss on the fence and redesign their respective publications. I like Eunny Jang(IK) and hope editing doesn't overrule her creativity.

Dear Mary, Mary
Are you sure you're not sharing something else with us, you little hand-biter?
Cheers, Marytini

Dear Marytini, you boozy wench,
Yeah, yeah, here I am venting about VK when they asked to use one of my photos on their website. It was a nice surprise and you can see it here on their community photo gallery page. Just scroll down and look for me in the Holiday 05 red jacket. So, that should eat up about 1 minute of my alleged 15 minutes of fame. Probably less, if they check blogs.

Dear Mary, Mary
Any recommendations for beach reading?
regards, Marion the Librarian

Dear MtL,

I whipped through Harry Potter #7 in about 2 days. No spoilers here, but I smell 'Big Chill' HP reunion in about 3-5 years. All this basking and glowing, got me wandering through the romance section of my local big chain bookstore. Holy cats! Who fired the censors? The titles haven't changed much...."Wild, Wicked, & Wanton," "Forbidden Pleasures," "Somebody's Lover," and "Naughty Paris" are just a few titles I sampled...but I missed the clit lit revolution. And what's with all the vampires? It seemed like every other book had hot vampire-on-vampire action. I was disappointed not to find "Buffy Does Dallas," but I'm sure that's in the works. Three cheers for the romance industry for realizing that there's more to erotica than Nancy Friday and Anais Nin.

Well, gang, that's it. We pick up the boys at camp tomorrow, so I better tidy up around here and straighten the chandelier.

My Bag of Tricks

2007-07-20T20:38:00.000-05:00

It's not been all fun and games here at chez Mary. First, I finally finished the 'Granny Pentagon' aka baby gift for an old friend. (Tahki Cotton Classic, size 8 needle, er, crochet hook.) I thought I was done with that when I got to thinking about this baby's older sister sobbing uncontrollably at the cruelty of a world that has no knitted love for her. Sooo, I started this sassy little top-down raglan to appease my sibling jealousy conscious. Where did I get the inspiration for the stripes? Just look at that table runner and the espadrilles. Who needs stinkin' originality? Reinvent the wheel all you want, I've got a sweater to finish.

My Vacation Photos: Provencal Prints and Garments

This special edition of my factory warehouse purchases is for that stasher extraordinaire, Knit Me a River.(Her dog and mine have the same stuffed duck chew toy--that's what really bonds us knitters--mine, uh, Chuy's is missing the head btw) I didn't buy any fabric by the meter because I have a truckload moldering in my fabric stash--fat quarters for a French Braid quilt, lovely terracotta and cream patterns for a dining room in a former apartment and the usual suspects that make you ask why after a long cooling off period.

These are the cheapo shirts I got for about $7 bucks apiece. They're 100% cotton and have long tails that cover my huge bum in a most decorative manner. I know I look like a tablecloth from behind, but I can't see myself from that angle. So, la ferme!

Here we have the four bargain priced flounce skirts all in variations on the same pattern. It's a good thing I graduated from high school in 1981 and still believe a little flounce does wonders for the knees and calves. No, I'm not wearing fishnets and headscarves with these, girls. Let's update an oldie but goodie with these nylon/lycra print pull-on pants. Once I've chopped them off and turn them into Bermudas or clam diggers, all I need is a pack of menthols and a beehive.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a collection of espadrilles that I replenish every year at the 8 a Huit (the French keep shorter hours than 7-Eleven) in Mausanne les Alpilles. Yeah, they may get a little stinky by May or June, but they can't be beat for house shoes/slippers/gadding about. I spotted these striped marvels on the Ile St. Louis in Paris and nabbed them forthwith. Along with some salted caramels from Brittany to soften the blow of big city prices--about $30 each pair, but look at those stripes. Sigh.

And here is the biggest surprise of the week. My spinning sp sent me another wondrous box of goodies and it turned out to be Momma-Monkey(Knittyhead) in Hawaii which means dark chocolate covered macademias. They're now a happy memory strolling down my gastrointestinal tract. I once had a bottle opener from Maui(trip circa 1992) and now a souvenir keychain! I am such a magpie and this appreciation comes from hours spent in drugstores as a kid. Oh, the possibilities, the choices--it took hours for me to make my mind up. And, now, I get all the fun without the angst. Only a bouquet of roses will do for you, my dear!

My Summer Vacation:Photos

2007-07-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

click on any photo to enlarge or go to my flickr page.

Just a hint...

2007-07-06T09:54:00.000-05:00

of things to come...

A lovely surprise was delivered the day after we got back from France---my goodies from my Knitty Spinning SP. A nice juicy bag of merino/tencel, which is my favorite winter blend, a darling keychain sock blocker complete with a pattern (which is most appropriate given my sock knitting commitment issues) and another bag of Merlin The Cat's This&That blend in moody reds and greys with a hint of pink and cream and the odd bit of lime green. Hey, Merlin, I'd call this 'Witches' Blend,' seeing as I really love those colors, heh-heh-heh.

THANK YOU, merci beaucoup and muchas gracias, You Spin Me Right 'Round, for a real treat. It was just what I needed after the world's longest day flying from Paris back to Austin. And now I need to get cracking on mailing assorted goodies to my spinning sp. Because nothing makes a spinner/knitter happier than when the postman rings twice.

Bargain Hunt

2007-06-28T04:37:00.000-05:00

Three boxes full of yarn and new plates have been mailed off and I've got a fourth waiting to be filled with a years' supply of local soap, a salad bowl and my latest fashion finds. There are two local producers of provençal fabrics/clothes that have pricey boutiques in Paris and in the more touristy towns. One is Les Olivades and the other is Soleiado. Now, if you ever find yourself in Tarascon or Arles and see all the locals wearing brightly patterned shirts you may think they're a pretty well-heeled bunch around here as these shirts usually go for 70 dollars or so. Thanks to a casual mention at a dinner party, I found out where and when that most sacrosanct of local bargain hunting was to be found--the Soleiado factory warehouse sale.

I left the kids, I left the husband, I even left a full glass of rosé behind at lunch as I took to the wheel of our dusty rental car and set out for the second roundabout after Les Olivades and next to the Formule 51 hotel in a zone industriel outside of Tarascon. And there it was, a nondescript warehouse with a parking lot full of dusty Renaults, Peugots and Citroens with packs of Marlboros on the dashboards. Inside bins and bins of bright yellow, green and fuchsia shirts and skirts with shelves of tablecloths, placemats and fabric. The most expensive thing was maybe 15 euros---paydirt, baby!

As the shirts were 5 euros, there was a certain amount of jovial jostling as I elbowed my way in among the Tarasque housewives, grandmothers and daughters. Husbands were milling around and patiently standing by as their wives held up shirts that look more suited for back-up singers at Dollywood than the local plumbers, electricians and boule players. I always buy the largest sizes as the French have yet to recognize that big-boned American gals are a head taller and 4 sizes bigger than their gallic counterparts (those French are all convinced that they wear a 36 or 38 regardless of age). Two shopping bags later, I returned to base camp and that glass of rosé.

So, the next time you're in Austin and you hear some broad humming "Jolene" in a bright green paisley shirt and hot pink leggings in the wine section at Whole Foods, it will be yours truly.

New York-Milan-Provence

2007-06-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

New York--Enn Brasserie(great fresh tofu, soba noodles with warm duck broth), Barney Greengrass, Spicy and Tasty in Flushing, brunch at Resto. Lots of baby doll tops with leggings or tight jeans. NOT a good look for anyone over 25, although we had dinner with a woman who solved the problem by pouring her ample bosom into a neon orange bra that she wore under her filmy top. It certainly drew the eye away from what looked like her third trimester.

I did check out Yarn Co.(row counter) and Knitty City(bryspun circulars, 4 skeins bamboo) on the Upper West side for some, ahem, supplies that I forgot to pack. The Barnes&Noble nearby has a surprisingly good selection of knitting books where I picked up a copy of Alice Starmore's Ganseys book.

Milan--tight suits with heels, models past their sell-by date accompany wealthy older men to meetings, dinner and ? Speaking of food, this begins Mr. Mary's assault on the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna. He has brainwashed Bandit into joining him in this task while I sample salads at lunch and go easy at dinner.
Bologna--great university town with a maze of medieval streets and lots of bookshops.
Pisa--Hotel Queen Victoria is a wonderful old hotel complete with a plaque from the Automobile Club of France from 1951. Rooftop terrace is a riot of vines, bougainvillea and potted plants. Yep, the tower's still there.

Provence--alfresco lunches followed by a nap before watching Mr. Mary whip up another regional dish. And yes, I've been knitting furiously on the swatch. This cable is a 12/12/12 plait that involves ersatz short rows on the crossovers and I'm mulling over the possibilities of a 5/3 cable knitted through the back loops for extra pop. I plan to cast on this weekend.

Anny Blatt Factory Outlet field trip is scheduled for next Thursday. Please dress casually and wear comfortable shoes. We'll be stopping afterwards at a local cafe for a light lunch and a possible side trip to Monoprix. Trip price doesn't include wine. Meet at the Mausanne post office at 8:30 am sharp.

...and the living is easy.

2007-05-31T20:11:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year when we get to dust off our restaurant French and relocate to Provence for a few weeks. Volumes have been written about this region of France and I won't bore you with my own musings except for mentioning that this is where the Anny Blatt/Bouton d'Or yarn outlet is located. Because that's what really got my SnB group all charged up last Sunday and now I have their wishlist which is top heavy with Kanpur silk with Merinosoie coming in a close second. Have I trained those girls well or what?

I will be working on designing a pattern for this sweater. There are a few very patient aran knitters that have been waiting for me to stop 'researching,' get off my bum, and just write up the damn thing. Oh, and I'll be knitting it at the same time to make sure it will fit somebody. Everybody, if I can help it, but at least it will be test knitted (what a novel idea!).

I'll blog updates whenever I get to the internet cafe in St. Remy. Pix will have to wait and will add a note of delicious suspense, heh-heh-heh.

Salut!