july is crazy...

...as demonstrated by July's socks. Look at the crazy pooling! I keep telling myself to embrace the pooling, and love the weird zig zags that will go around my foot... but. I'm not super crazy about them. I got a skein of solid purple for the heels to keep the swirls intact (maybe the toes, too). They will have to wait until after vacation, though!

My love of handpainted yarns with very different colors is waning. There's just a limit to the number of socks one can have with crazy stripes. The vacation socks are from a subdued Regia, with a new gray every round, and a little red every once in a while. I think that will be a good cure to my sock blues!

vacation knitting

Vacation is nearly upon us, and I am really ready to hit the road... errr, skies. But I'm not exactly thrilled to be flying, given the recent developments.

However, vacation means knitting. And I'm turning to my favorite yarn producer to keep me going throughout the trip. It's Morehouse Merino laceweight, in a quad skein, to make Melody's Shawl. Tens of thousands of knit stitches in the round. Really, a practically perfect travelling companion. There's basically no start or finish, so it's easy to pick up and go whenever there's a little time.

The scale isn't really evident in the picture. The skein is just huge. I could be working on this for a year. I'll start some new socks, too, of course. ;)

proof i don't belong in the 'burbs

You Belong in Brooklyn

Down to earth and hard working, you're a true New Yorker. And although you may be turning into a yuppie, you never forget your roots.

Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

sock finishing sunday

I had my most productive day EVER. I finished three pairs of socks. I maybe have managed to conquer grafting (though I still shouldn't be interrupted while working on it). I also took lots of pictures of my completed socks, but Blogger crashes Safari whenever I try to upload pictures.

So: an update on my sock-of-the-month challenge.
January - autumnal Koigu
February - Retro Ribs
March - Regia pink/orange/blue socks (which I mailed as a birthday gift and failed to photograph)
April - Regia light blue/blue/tan Hubby socks


May - Regia black and pink stripy socks


June - yellow and purple Koigu


July - (still in process!) orange and purple Koigu, with purple heels and toes to keep the crazy pooling stripe in one swirl

It's not so bad. I think that I can finish 12 pairs by the end of the year!

In other exciting finishing news, I completed a sweater for a new baby as well. It's done in Knit Picks Crayon (100% pima tencel). Knitting with this yarn is not the funnest thing ever. However, it's great for seaming, because the texture is so crazy that you can get away with very messy sewing. I used the boat-neck sweater patter from Debbie Bliss's Beginner Baby Kints (or something like that).

Pictures to follow, once Blogger decides to work!

bbq lemonade

To accompany the leftovers from the piggy pig-out, I cooked up the following:

8 oz. lemonade (I used the Whole Foods brand)
4 oz. bourbon
2 oz. cointreau

Dump it in a pitcher, give it a stir, and serve over ice. It serves two. It's very yummy! I probably would have made more, but ran out of lemonade. Maybe this weekend, because the leftovers are still plentiful!

second blankie

At my birthday party on Saturday I was able to place the third baby blanket of the year in the future mom's hands. I've been hiding this for a while, since Mom is a reader. I think that she really liked it!


The blankie had a little photo shoot before getting wrapped up for presentation. It's roughly 25 inches square, done in Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran. After I got it sewn together... and thought that it needed a little something.


So I added a quick boarder to tie the whole thing together. Having two 30 inch circulars on a blanket, while on the train, did cause a little alarm on the train. The best thing about the blankie is that it is so, so soft. Just the thing for cuddling forever (I hope)!

happy belated birthday to me

Balloons! Big glass balloons!


The party atmosphere is everywhere...


It included a visit from a little piggy... who was really yummy. And had teeth (little ones).


After eating half a pig, what do you want? Cupcakes!


There are many events, knitting and drinking, that require an update. Just not all tonight.

hey, urban september baby-mommy

Here's a little preview!

odd, but good, train happening

Last night, I sat next to a woman who was working on some sort of document. I'm always trying to determine if all of the people in my town are bankers and lawyers... thus accounting for the slightly dull nature of life 'round here.

I'm also a bit of a snoop. I think it's interesting to see what people bring home for work. There's some woman who edits depositions on a computer with a big screen. I once saw her cleaning up a deposition about Enron. (She only cleans up spelling and punctuation, just so you know.)

So, I glance at the printed email at the front of this woman's file. I see that she's being solicited for a legal opinion from someone at Citibank; ah ha! Lawyer and banker! And then...

I notice that email is from a former co-worker of mine. How bizarre. She has a very unique name, and after checking around today, I confirmed that she works at Citibank. What are the chances?

the sixth sock

I'm cruising along on my sixth pair of socks for the year. (Please don't remind me that I'm so far behind on my plan to get twelve pairs done this year.) I got this Koigu in two different stores. The first skein came from Knit NY, the yarn-cafe place on 14th street. I thought that I'd use it to make baby booties, since at the time I didn't do socks. After I started thinking that making socks would be fun, I brought the tag along with me on a trip to Lee's Yarn in Bedford. Lo and behold, I found a matching skein: colorway and dye lot!

Of course, it seems that they aren't exact matches, or my tension changed drastically over the time between making up the legs. The differences in the stripes are very strange. Ah well. I can live with it!

heirloom alert!

It's finished!


Just over a month of working on this little darling and I'm done!


It's off in the mail to South Carolina tomorrow, to protect a little friend from the over air conditioned climate.


The yarn is (what I assume to be) left-overs from making Takhi Cotton Classic, based on the knots and odd weights of the skeins. It was packaged under a different and annoying name. The eyelet pattern is from Rowan 39's Crinkle cardi. I'm pleased as punch with this!

donde esta air that i can breathe?

So: very weird experience this afternoon. At 4:30, the most senior member of the staff (present in the building) gets on the paging system and says that the power to the building is being cut at 6pm, they don't know if it is just our building or the west side, and he's closing the office immediately so people can get home. I do not need to be told twice to vacate in order to get home.

Not really knowing what's going on, I rush to GCT, hop on a train, and make it home at 5:30. Phew. No power failures. And then it starts pouring. Build the ark kind of pouring. But it's cool, and refreshing. And I don't have an umbrella. I decide that I don't care and start walking. By the time I hit the area with the shops on my block, I am presenting a bit of a peep show in my very light blue linen shirt. Thankfully I didn't realize how bad it was until I got home.

Let's hope that I don't encounter any of the people I met on the street anytime soon. It would be too embarrassing.

sweating in my socks

Though it's been said, many times, many ways...

It's really fucking hot.

The heat will be gone in 24 hours (supposedly). Despite my misery, I've enjoyed hearing multiple news outlets call New York the "Baked Apple." It's too too appropriate. It's also amusing to hear Mayor Bloomberg ask people to hold off on doing laundry until the weekend (dryers eat up a lot of electricity, evidently).

So, like others out there in knit-blog land, I've been knitting a wool sock for the past few days. It's little. That's fine with me. I would take a picture, but the camera dock is in the office room, and it's been sealed off to save on cooling. I had to run in there for a few minutes this evening, and it was baaaad. This weekend!