still here...

Tomorrow, the 140+ page paper goes to the printer, so this is going to be short. I've got to do a final read-through.

And finish the other paper due Monday evening. At which point we are handed the final. (But that's take-home, so no worries.)

But the end is in sight. Less than two weeks now! After yesterday's big presentation of the big paper, I fell off the Knit From Your Stash wagon and bought yarn at Downtown Yarns. I love that place! And I was in the neighborhood.

This week in knitting, I unpinned the Thinking Dress from its blocking moorings, and knit a bunch of a sock using the magic loop method. My first time! I adore a self-striping, stockinette sock.

I can't wait for school to be over!

one fine journalist

David Halberstam died yesterday. He wrote about baseball, so of course I think he's wonderful. He wrote about the NYFD station near my office that lost almost everyone on September 11th. But before all that, he was a brave journalist, and if we had more people on the beat like him, I think that the country and world would be a better place to live.

This is the text of the convocation speech he gave at Columbia two years ago. A rich and privileged life, indeed.

happy earth day!

I celebrated Earth Day by going to the New York Botanical Gardens... where I edited a paper, until my pen ran out of ink. True story. Pens do die, and it's when you are peacefully settled under towering pine trees with daffodils waving in the distance and a lovely breeze blowing. And then you have to get up, walk to the gift shop, and pay a horrible sum for a pen with "NYBG" on it.

But there was a primrose theater, so it wasn't all bad.

And the Thinking Dress is ready to be sewn up! And have lots of edging.

BUT: my thesis paper was accepted by my advisor, so no more revisions there. Appendices, bibliography: yes, but no more writing. I can totally do that.

overheard in new york

Tourist couple, speeding down a street within Rockefeller Center, away from a crappy, overpriced tourist restaurant.

Woman: But my sister went there and said it was wonderful!
Man: Exactly!

They continued into the night.

Earlier in the day, I got to see one of my favorite NYC sites.

The return of the union rat! I love the very long tail (so realistic!) and beady eyes. This was only the 10' rat, but I've seen them bigger.

Grad school is almost over, and when not writing and editing as fast as I can, I got a little knitting done. This is the back of Miss Bea's Thinking Dress (in Cotton-Ease, of course). The hard part, with the big cable up the front, comes next, but it's going to be much slower going. I love this series of books, and can't wait to start the next project from them.

The final exciting thing to report is that more purging took place this morning. It's feeling really good to get rid of stuff. Hubby went to ask the maintanence guys for some big, strong garbage bags, and after he dragged the full bags back downstairs, he was asked if we were throwing out any wine. We have quite a notorious reputation, I guess. But Hubby brought him a bottle from his stash for the help.

baby blanket fini!

It's done! Sometimes, 784 square inches of stockinette is just what you need. And I feel great about my 28 inches of beautiful mattress stitch, too. Just lovely. I did learn that Cotton-Ease isn't meant for seaming. After just about three inches, the yarn started spliting apart. No worries here, since the colors changed pretty frequently and there was always another end to grab. I'll estimate that the whole blanket took just about three skeins of Cotton-Ease (600 yards or so).



This means that I still have waaaaaaay too much Cotton-Ease in my stash, but I've got three more upcoming projects planned for this yarn, so that should help cut down on the bulk. I want to search out the new colors of Cotton-Ease and see how they look, because it seems like you can never have too much!

(This is pitiful.)

Side note: I wasn't sure we needed to go for the HD TV when we had to replace our 14 year old set a couple of weeks ago. HD channels are free with our cable package, but I wondered how different the picture would be. I've discovered where it's AMAZING: Yankees games in HD. The grass is such a beautiful bright green, and I can see each and every snowflake showering Derek Jeter. This is close to being there, but not nearly so cold... and I can knit without fear.

happy spring!

Happy spring, everyone!

Last weekend we went to the Stone Barns Center for Sustainable Agriculture for lunch with M&E, to celebrate M's successful defense of her dissertation! Yay, you! Happily, there also was a sheep-shearing going on in one of the barns, so we got to chat with some spinners and watch the fleeces come off the sheep. I'm sure that I'd seen this years ago, but it was really fascinating to watch it again.

After hanging out in the barn, and visiting the pigs and chickens, M and I went back to their house and knit for a while. So great, and I can't wait to do it again soon! Just about a month until I'm done with school...

Oh, and the name of Stone Barns' sheepdog? STELLA. STELLA! How great is that?

a dulaan dulaan a dulaan dulaan

(Are those flowers plastic? They just keep going and going...)

Saturday morning, I'm about to head into the city for class and a potentially confrontational meeting. This is not the time to pack knitting that requires a short-row heel. This is a time for big-ish needles, no pattern, and knitting in the round. A quick look at Ann Budd, a guess at gauge and needles, and the skein of SWS from the Yarn Harlot Represents is all it takes. At the end of the weekend, the Dulaan hat is complete. It's sized for the 18 months-4 year old head, which wasn't well represented in my Dulaan collection thus far.

I'm not sure how I feel about the SWS, though. The colors have a lovely sheen, and self-striping yarns are a lot of fun... but. There are places with hardly any twist, and I often found myself jabbing a needle right through the yarn. I think it will look better after a wash, but I'm not sure that I would want to do a whole sweater with it. (Yikes: I have a six-pack of a different colorway in the stash.) One final thing: the label recommends a size 9 needle. I know that I knit loose, but on a size 7, the stockinette is quite loosy-goosey. I'm hoping that disappears in the wash too.