Meme... blog fodder during Deadline Sweater Knitting!

First off, you have until 5 pm tomorrow to VOTE! I'm currently in 3rd place, but I have already won the title of "longest entry" at 108 inches, so hey, it's all downhill from there, right?

So Maryjoo tagged me, and I need something to write about due to Deadline Knitting and Article Writing that I hope to wrap up by Sunday night. Here we go!

1. What were you doing ten years ago? I was between my Junior and Senior year at New York University, where I got my BS degree in Studio Art and English. However, I was not living in my Queens apartment at this point ten years ago, because I had a job as a counselor and art instructor at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in The Middle of Nowhere, Northern Michigan.

2. What are five things on my to-do list? Go to the gym (back and biceps tomorrow), work on Deadline Sweater, call my parents, get some, uh, waxing done, and stop picking at the sun rash bumps I have on my arms right now. That last one is going to be the most challenging.

3. Where have I lived? Grand Rapids, Michigan for the first 18 years of my life, then New York City (Manhattan for one year, Queens for three), and various neighborhoods in and around Boston. For one lovely summer I lived in Prien am Chiemsee in Bavaria, learning German among a lot of people who spoke nothing but. If I got the chance to choose, I would live in Bavaria.

4. What would I do if I was a billionaire? I would pay off my student loans and go live in Bavaria. Beyond that I can't imagine that much money. I would investigate various causes and donate.

People I'd like to know more about? iknityouknot, a homely heroine, heidi's knitbits, kglo, and knitology. Okay! Answer the above questions if you're up for it!

TIME TO VOTE!

Head over to the Little Knits Blog to cast your vote for the Honeycomb Shawl, or whichever entry pleases you most! THANKS!!!

Deadline Knitting: Windsor Button to the Rescue!

This past Friday I realized I have a knitting deadline on June 20. The days, they fly by lately! Could not get out of work early, ran to the subway, ran from the subway to Windsor Button in downtown Boston, got there 4 minutes before closing, and met Sockpixie and Susan, the owner, who were so nice as to let me in to browse for summer yarn for Deadline Project. I ended up with this, which Max loves:


Cotton Ease! Yay! I'm already well into the project and should be done by the end of the week. Love the Cotton Ease... cheap, not hard on the hands, machine washable, available everywhere, and the available colors are quite nice.

In other knitting, I've been working on Norah Gaughan's Noemi scarf for a gift. I'm using SWTC bamboo; love the color, love the drape, hate the weird splittiness. The construction is like a chain, and, if you're not super careful, you can hook a tiny thread of the chain that will then split away and cannot be reintroduced into its strand. If I use this yarn again it will not be for a pattern that involves ssk and the like.

Other than that, lots of biking and War and Peace reading. I'm almost 100 pages in, and loving it. I'm finding it surprisingly easy to read and engaging. Slow, yes, but I'm in no rush. If you're on Ravelry, check out the discussion.

More soon! I'll post as soon as the voting is up at Little Knits for the Trenna contest. All the competition is up there, five total, all very different. Check it out!

God Bless the United States of America

It's a big night. I'm proud of my country right now.

For your viewing pleasure...

The Honeycomb Shawl... a new Weaverknits design that is 108 inches of silk and wool goodness in a shockingly easy to create, all-garter-stitch form now up for examination at the Little Knits blog. It is part of the Trenna lace contest I mentioned a few months back, and, if it wins, the pattern will be available through Little Knits. If it does not, the pattern will be available for a nominal fee through me.

So... check it out, and Vote Weaverknits! I promise Grellow for all and Pornge for some.

Memorial Day in the Park

with a thermos of gin and tonic. It was good. The weekend was filled with biking and gym and food and family and finishing my book. Next up? War and Peace. In light of the comments Hannah and I have been getting, I think we can add a knitting aspect. Something Russian. Or with a Russian name. Maybe each participant can choose. We can start a Ravelry group. Discuss the book, discuss the knitting. Why not? Want to join? Send me an email or Ravelry message, or leave a comment.


I've been toiling away at Lochinver, and finally got a nice daylight photo that does justice to the different gansey textures it sports. I'm just starting the underarm gussets. I also got the yarn for a new project at Yarns in the Farms. Grellow, meet Pornge. Don't go thinking I'm done with Grellow. There's plenty of room for both in my House of Yarn.


The thing on the right is a simple scarf for my mom made of Alchemy Haiku. It's coming along. Finally, I saw Taylor, the office Yarns in the Farms Fiber Elf, in her completed Neiman. From Rowan Cashcotton DK. Perfect!

Another instance of Strong

In lieu of knitting content (Chris' Lochinver is still a large brown tube, mom's scarf is still a hazy blue blob), let me salute my friend Amy, who has just successfully defended her Harvard dissertation in Art History of the Ancient Near East. How to praise someone who has worked for ten years on something done solely for the love of it, the ideal of it, something that may take years to lead to a steady job with health insurance? Sometimes I feel that I surrendered by leaving that world for a job with a better salary than that of an assistant professor, with Blue Cross insurance, with paid vacation and the ability to leave my job when I walk out the door. However, Amy is strong. Stubborn. Smart. She just kept going until it was done.

So, what do you do for someone like that? Well, how about a gift of a mitered dishcloth and a bakelite pin from Brimfield Antiques Show?

Which, by the way, was awesome. I'll post photos to Flikr. And my miter is done, Hannah! Next project with iknityouknot? The War and Peace along. We both like the classics but don't like feeling like sophomoric drones who read them out of a sense of duty. I'll obtain a copy as soon as I finish The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which is fantastic, by the way.

I'll end with a self-portrait from Brimfield. Lately it's been too many adventures and not enough time to chronicle them. Memorial Day weekend (did I mention paid vacation earlier?) should give me a chance to catch up and haul out some knittin to show you all.