S is for . . .

Sunday Sky at Rhinebeck


and scrumptious skeins of yarn:
"Glamour Bunny," a mix of angora and silk. And maybe some merino wool, too, but I didn't write it down and there's no label on the skein. But it's 180 yards of worsted, so if I can ever stop petting it, it will make a lovely cowl. Purchased from the Oasis Fiber Farm Mill booth, straight from Otisfield, Maine.

Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Lace in Rust (500 yards of merino wool) from Canada. The color looks pretty accurate on my monitor (for the yarn, anyway--the bedspread under it is much bluer in real life!).


and a random door prize from the bus trip! Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Ruby River--it's much richer and more saturated in person.

R is for . . .

RHINEBECK.

I signed up for a bus ride on Oct 19 to Rhinebeck--Mind's Eye Yarns is organizing it--and I'm so excited. I've never been. I don't know anyone who's going. But I'm on pins and needles of anticipation!

I'm studying the vendor lists, and looking at the maps, and trying to get an idea of where to go and what to look for. I'm thinking lace yarn, and maybe some sock yarn, depending on what catches my fancy.

And I keep singing (quietly, in my head so no one thinks I'm truly nuts) "I'm going to Rhinebeck. I'm going to Rhinebeck."

Whoo-hoo!



R is also for repeats, as in:

Repeat knit (this is my forth!): We Call Them Pirates hat. The first one (using size 3 needles) was too small for G, but just right (at the time, although I suspect it's too small now) for nephew-the-elder. The second one (using size 6 needles) was slightly too big for G, but wearable until it stretched. And then it was way too small, 'cause I over-shrunk it trying to fix the problem. The third (using size 5 needles) was just right, but made for a friend. This one (also using size 5 needles), I hope, will also be just right.

The pattern is really easy to follow--this was my first (and second and third) project using colorwork; and I think it's a good project for that. I started this version, using two colors of Cascade 220, on Thursday; last night I finished the first row of scull-and-crossbones.

Q is for . . .

Quiet.


It's been two weeks since G left for Poland, and so far it's gone pretty quickly. But this is the first weekend I'm home alone. The first weekend I was down in NJ, the second weekend my parents came up to visit.

This weekend, though-all alone.

I'm sitting on the couch, watching tv--lots of new episodes this week that I missed--and knitting. I've also got some chocolate-eating and perhaps even a little wine-drinking on tap for later this afternoon.

P is for . . .

Posh yarn Swallowtail

Beaded, because I nupped enough with Madli's Shawl to be done with that for a while, and because I only had 400 yards of yarn and wanted to squeeze as much shawl out of it as possible. The yarn is a dream--it is, as someone of Ravelry remarked, like knitting with kittens. so. very. soft.

The finished size is 52" by 24" (unblocked it was 32" by 16"), on size 3 needles. I added a couple of repeats of the last two rows of the peaked edging chart and wound up with less than a gram of yarn remaining--it's not enough to register on my scale. (Raveled here.)

It's a birthday present for one of my college roommates--we've grown apart over the years, because we've moved, and found new interests, and time, and all the usual stuff, but 35 is a big birthday, and I though pink cashmere with sparkles was a good present for such an occasion. But that's not until October, so once it's dry I'll pack it way careful and hope I don't forget where I put it!

A bigger picture:


P is also for the pi shawl that's been languishing in my almost-but-not-quite done pile for about 3 months now--it needed to have the ends woven in, and to be blocked. I finally got myself motivated to finish it:

Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace, in Watercolor, size 5 needles, EZ's Pi Shawl pattern. (Raveled here.)

N if for . . .

Our new Nikon D-40

which takes really beautiful pictures! We got the camera, complete with fancy-schmancy lenses with vibration reduction, so that when DH goes on his research trips, he can take lots of photos and show me what he's up to.

I'm not sure I'm willing to give it up, though. :)

M is for . . .

Madli's Shawl.

18 repeats of the body done, and I'm almost done with the first skein--I've probably got another 2 or 3 rows worth of yarn. I should have plenty of yarn to lengthen it--35 repeats instead of 31--using only 2 of the skeins, which will leave me with a third skein of this lovely camel yarn to knit up into something for me--a lacey scarf, maybe?

L is for . . .

Lace. Lots and lots of lace.

The Summer of Lace officially kicked off yesterday, on the first day of summer. As of Friday, I was 14 repeats done with Madli's Shawl. The pattern calls for 31 repeats, but I may make it a few repeats long. Even with 14 repeats, I've still go 9 grams (about 68.5 yards) of the first skein left. I haven't been tracking how much yarn each repeat takes, but I'm hoping that I can get another 3.5 repeats out of this skein. That way, I can use 2 skeins, rather than all 3, and get 35 repeats in. Right now, the unblocked shawl measures about 24" x 15"; the pattern says the final blocked measurements should be 62" x 19". I think that if I add another 4 repeats, I should get about those measurements--maybe a little longer--without too much heavy stretching.

And it would leave me one more skein of the baby camel yarn--381 yards--to play with.


Yesterday, however, I cast on for a brand-new lace project:


I was aiming for a repeat of the Waving Lace socks from IK's Favorite Socks book, but had a complete failure to read the actual chart. In the chart, the yo's stay on the sides of the pattern repeat, but for some reason I moved them over with the paired decreases. I think the effect of this is that the knitting doesn't pull from side to side in a bias, making them way less wavy than the first attempt. But I still like the way they're coming out, so I'm going to stick with it and knit up some not-so-waving lace socks.

K is for . . .

Knitting. Of course. :)
This is my first finished project--a scarf for my dad. When my mom taught me how to knit in 2002 (okay. when she taught me again how to knit, and it finally stuck), I was hooked. It took a while to get the hang of the purl stitch (I kept holding the yarn wrong and winding up with all these extra stitches from the yarn-overs I was creating), but once I did, I searched for a nice, easy scarf and found a basket-weave pattern I liked. I bought a skein of Wool-Ease, and off I went.

I cast on the correct number of stitches, and fell under the spell of knit and purl. And when I got to the end of the skein, I decided it wasn't long enough, so I bought another one and kept going.

By the time I got to the end of that skein, I'd forgotten how to cast off.

But I was having a good time, and was going to visit my parents in the near future, so I did the only logical thing.

I bought a third skein.

By the time I ran out of yarn, I was on my way to NJ to visit my mom, who showed me how to bind off the scarf. Which was then almost 9 feet long.

My dad can wrap it around his neck many, many times. But he wears it a lot, and claims he doesn't want a new one. So my first FO gets worn every year, and every year he teases me about how long it is. Secretly, though, I think I'd have to fight him to get it back.

J is for . . .

Joyful.

I is for . . .

Ivory silk.
Because H is for Habu--I was in NYC for a conference this past weekend, and managed to get to Habu for a few minutes. (The elevator was out, so I had to walk up the 8 floors. But it was well worth it!) The ivory-colored silk is A-39, which they list as a fingering weight, although I'd call it a very very light fingering, or a very heavy lace. I have almost 1200 yards of it; I think it's destined to become a lace stole for a friend's daughter's wedding. The wedding is over a year off, though, so it's got some time to marinate.


I also bought 2 ounces of A-1, in color 38, which is a lovely tweedy raspberry color. It's a lace-weight, about 530 yards. Nothing planned, but I couldn't resist the color.

The trip down and back offered plenty of knitting time, and I worked on a Flutter Scarf. (I took a Bolt Bus, which is a fairly new service between Boston and NYC. The trip down was great, the one back was okay. But I emailed them with a "here's why I'm not thrilled with the trip back" report, and they were very prompt about getting back to me. So I'd give them another shot.)

I'm using a skein of MamaLlama silken cashmere, in Bella, which is delicious. I got the skein as payment for knitting up a sample scarf for MamaLlama, and I've been waiting to find a good pattern for it.

Flutter is a very easy pattern to memorize (and Miriam was wonderful about helping me decide if the pattern would be suitable. and then with walking me through some technical problems in actually getting the payment to go through!). Rather than knit it as written, which is in two halves, I knit a couple of repeats, then the flutter, and am knitting down from there, with the join at one side rather than in the middle. I weighed the amount of yarn that the first end took, and am now getting close to that point on the other side. The skein I'm using is a little shorter than the skein the pattern calls for, so I'm trying to make the center part as long as possible without worrying about running out of yarn for the second flutter. Right now the scarf is about 45" long, and I'll probably get another 3 or 4 center repeats in before I start the second flutter end.

The scarf is going to be a present for my best friend's mom, who's a darling and going through a rough time right now. She's always been wonderful to me (and lately has taken to sending me knitting-related things, like pattern books and magazines and skeins of sock yarn that she's found when cleaning out a closet!), and I wanted to send her something lush and pretty.

I is also for Irony--yesterday, G and I went to the police station to have elimination prints taken. While we were there, the detective in charge of the case said they had a suspect in custody, although no hard evidence linking him to our break-in, and no real hope of recovering any of the items. When we got home, we found an automated message from the town on our machine, saying that there had been a series of break-ins, lately, both home and auto, and everyone should be very careful. A little late for that, but--nicely ironic, none the less!

H is for . . .

Harmony.*

I love my Harmony needles!

When I learned to knit, I learned on long, straight needles, with the right one anchored under my arm. I let go of the needle entirely to wrap the yarn around to form a stitch, which made me very leary of things like dpn and circulars. But I wanted to learn, and finally decided to get an interchangeable set. Only I liked wood better than metal, which limited my options. (hee hee, Options!) When KnitPicks came out with the Harmony Options set, I was sold--definitely one of my best knitting investments!

Currently otn, above: a EZ Pi Shawl, on size 5 (3.75 mm) tips, using Helen's Lace in Watercolor. I'm about 1/2 done with the last section, with 572 stitches on the needles in a feather-and-fan pattern. (Ravelry link).

And even if there hasn't been blogging, there has been knitting--mostly lace. More . . . eventually!

*Excuse the crap-tastic picture. We're still recovering from G--better photos soon.

G is for . . .

Gone.

2 laptops

1 digital camera

more photos than I can remember, including ones of me holding my nephew the day he was born

1 laptop bag

1 cell phone

more jewelry than I care to think about, including my great-grandmother's ring

The new lock we had installed a few months ago worked really well.  The door, however, is pretty much a total loss.  Our landlady is having a steel one installed tomorrow.

On the bright side, we have renters' insurance, including generous riders for jewelry and computers, so we'll at least get to upgrade the laptops out of all this.  We just went out and got me a new laptop (On which I should be grading papers right now, but I'm venting instead.)  (and evidently I'm now Mac people.  I'll let you know how I like it.  The set up was super-easy, at least.)   Fortunately, I was wearing my more expensive (which is also my more sentimental) jewelry, like my grandmother's earrings and my engagement ring.

In my best Dutch Uncle* manner, I am now going to say:  if you do not currently have renters' insurance, GET SOME.  Put a rider on for anything like cameras, computers, jewelry.  Ours cost less than $200/year, even with the riders, and in the long run means we'll get most of the monetary loss, at least, back.  Knowing that has made this whole thing a little less awful.

Mean people suck.

*In my family, "let me talk to you like a Dutch Uncle" means "let me give you some unsolicited advice." 

F is for

FishFishing equipment abounds, including this very cool hand-painted plug--one of many that G has stashed. But our fish are more than just edible, or equipment-related. Oh, no. There is, dare I say, a bit of a fish fetish around here:


A fish stapler


a fish wine stopper


fish salt-and-paper shakers


a fish plate
another fish plate
and another fish plate




a fish print
and another fish print (this one's my favorite--hand colored by the artist!)

E is for . . .

Exhausted.

No pictures; I'm too tired.

Spring break is over; we drove over 1000 miles (Boston to MIL's, NJ, to Grad School, NJ, to NYC, to Parent's, NJ, to NYC, to Parent's, to Hospital, NJ (to see the new nephew) to MIL, to Parent's, to MIL, to Boston. It makes me tired just thinking about it.)

The defense, while nerve-wracking, was a success; I now need to clean up the dissertation and submit the final copy. But I've got well over a month before that's due.

The new nephew, although a month early, was almost 7lb when he was born on Saturday (having kindly and politely waited until after Aunt Susan's party on Friday). He's back in the NICU right now, for jaundice, but seems to be getting less yellow by the minute and they expect him home in a couple of days.

Stupid annoying medical things are making me feel generally crummy and run-down, so the driving and excitement took more of a toll than it normally would. (This has resulted in a complete stoppage of all grading around here, but since we're going to a museum for class tomorrow, I don't think it's so awful. I'll have their papers done for Tuesday.)

I have a job application due tomorrow and I'm having the worst time articulating a teaching philosophy.

A more cheerful post (with knitting!) coming soon. And my F will definitely have pictures--lots of pictures.

D is for . . .

Dissertation*

*I know this is late. But I've been torn between wanting to post, and stick with the schedule, and fear that posting would jinx my defense, which is set for this coming Thursday.

C is for . . .

I had a lot of trouble deciding on a C. C, in my world, is often for chocolate. And champagne. (Not to mention the calories that go along with them.) It's also for chai, and cold, and china. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that really, the C that I wanted to show you?

Colgate, where I spent 1991-1995. (Or, as my husband likes to call it, the mythical kingdom of col-ga-tay.)

The "golden nipple" atop the Chapel, visible for miles--always a sure sign that we were getting close to campus.

Torchlight ceremony, the night before graduation. It involves a walk down Cardiac*, the main hill on campus, while wearing academic regalia and carrying a flaming torch. Good times.

Lawrence Hall, home of the English and French departments. Although I rarely use my French anymore, I double-majored: French as well as English.


Lineberry Natatorium, where I spent most of my time as a member of the varsity team, swimming back and forth. It was rarely warm enough to have the roof open, as it's shown here.


Colgate in winter, which lasted for much of the academic year. My birthday is at the end of September; 3 out of 4 years, there were snow flurries for a birthday present.

All of these photos are official Colgate photos (I saved them to my desktop, though--no hotlinking for me!). My pictures of Colgate, although precious to me, are not digital, and I don't have a scanner, so I've borrowed these to show you my C.

*Colgate-ism: you can tell the seniors from the first-years by the size of their calves, due to the number of times that they walk up and down Cardiac each day.

B is for . . .

a box


full of buttons




When I was a child, this box was my grandmother's. Every time we visited, I would play with the buttons--I loved to sort through them and organize them. I have not idea how old they are (at least 50 years, I think!), but they're heavy and detailed. My grandmother was a wonderful semstress; a lot of these buttons look like they're thrifted and show some wear. But I love them, and, when my grandmother passed away, I got the button box.

The last photo is of my favorite buttons; I'm looking for the perfect project to use them on. There are nine of them, although one is in rather bad shape, but enough for a cardigan!

A is for . . .

Academics

I've been in school for way too long--I'm in something like the 25th grade. And I work in academia, too, so when I'm not working on my own stuff, I'm working on someone else's.

A is also for

Almonds

almond paste, in particular--an excellent base for most desserts. Almond macaroons are one of my favorites, but I could not (alas!) find any at the store. Almond croissants are a reasonable substitution, though.