Knitting Through a Heat Wave

The view from Madison Square Park

It has been hot hot hot this month. Thankfully it cooled down this weekend making it possible for me to sit here and spend some time in my computer room (cooled only by a fan). The only thing I can think of to do in extreme heat is knit and go to the movies. It may sound counter intuitive to play with wool when we are breaking heat records here but it is an activity that requires very little exertion so there we have it.

At the request of my mom I knit a new version of Pollen and Bubbles with a wide brim and a shorter body out of some Madelinetosh DK. I have added the instructions to the original pattern for sale through Ravelry.

I have also been working on a super secret pattern for Sanguine Gryphon. I can't tell you much about it yet, you will have to wait for fall. What I can tell you is that, OMG Gryphon's yarn is gorgeous. It's my first time working with it and certainly won't be my last. The colors are so rich. When I opened up the package of yarn at the office my coworkers all stopped dead in front of my desk to look at it, and I work in a costume shop, we get pretty stuff in there.

Now a gratuitous picture of Shake Shack, knitting (soon to be Sockhead Hat), and some Stieg Larsson.

Bones X Stitch

My life is littered with random items from my time working at Pier One. I never intended on buying that much stuff when I worked there but when your job is to try and sell it to others, you end up selling it to yourself subconcsiosly. I cannot even tell you how many glasses or dishes ended up going to goodwill because I was never going to have those charming dinner parties I thought of having when I convinced myself to buy them.

Anyway, I have a ton of picture frames thanks to this compulsive shopping habit. I recently just finished this project that has been half done for roughly a year. Inspired by Day of the Dead stuff I made these cute little skeleton's for this Pier One frame.

For the free PDF of the skeleton patterns go here.

Graduation at Hogwarts, Clinton, and a Cold

This last weekend I had the opportunity to get the heck out of New York and attend my little sister's graduation from Yale. I decided I would document this with a bullet point blog entry.
-Yale looks like Hogwarts. It may be a juvenile observation, but it really does. Throw in some professors and deans wearing funny robes and hats carrying ornate, old fashioned flags and props and it really does feel like your at that new Harry Potter amusement park.
-I got to see President Bill Clinton speak which was just incredible. Wicked smart that 42nd.
-I saw Aretha Franklin get an honorary degree.
-I saw the Secretary of Energy get an honorary degree.
-I failed to use my NY honed celebrity spotting skills on any of the celebrities who attended which makes me a little sad. I'm usually really good at that but I missed both Denzel Washington and Steven Spielberg who were both apparently there.
-No matter what SPF sunblock I use it seems to be an inevitability that I will get sunburned at graduation, thankfully though it was not a repeat of the Santa Fe lobster red burn of 04.
-After having suffered from really bad allergies all year, I was finally feeling a little better up until Saturday morning when I was getting on the New Haven bound Metro North when I came down with a cold.
-I had trouble regulating my voice since I could barely hear so there is a good chance that I spent a weekend yelling at my sister's friend's families and misinterpreting everything they said. Actually this is not really new since I am partially deaf, I only ever hear half of what people say anyway. Have you ever played that kid game, telephone, with a partially deaf person? The results are way more interesting when you do.
-Every road in Wallingford CT is named either Barnes or Main, or so it seems when you have no sense of direction and are driving around trying to find the super cute downtown area.
-Despite what I hoped, people will practically sit in your lap on a crowded Metro North train despite coughing up a storm and blowing through a box of kleenex.
-Those people are also the ones desperately trying to open novelty size screw top bottles of champagne to mix with their orange juice at 8:00AM on a Tuesday.

And on a completely unrelated note... As of last Friday I have been in NY for 5 years. I remember last year when I told myself, I should really try and be getting out of hear by 5. Yeah, that didn't happen so much.

Well I think that just about sums up my weekend. Happy Graduation season everyone.


See what I mean by Hogwarts? Either that or imagining Lyra Belacqua running around from roof to roof.

Industrial Skies

Otherwise known as my foray into steampunk. I've been digging the whole steampunk think for a while, I daresay since Back to the Future 3 when Doc comes back in that time traveling train. I can't really pull off the look though, it is awfully fussy for my roll out of bed and put on a T-shirt way of life. That does not mean that I don't cruise Etsy for all it's steampunk jewelry glory and love the artwork on various dystopian books. It was a steampunk theme week at book blog, The Book Smugglers that inspired me and after spending some time reading reviews and amazon wish-listing anything with a pretty cover, I decided to take that inspiration to graph paper and try to translate it to knitting. The result is this cowl I am calling Industrial Skies.




This cowl is knit on Size 4 needles with sport weight yarn. It requires about 250 yards of each color.

Interesting story about the antique gold colored yarn. I was down in Soho two days before leaving for Christmas and the H & M was having a one day 75% off sale on their scarves. The selection was boring but the yarn was awesome so I purchased a bunch of things for about $2.00 a piece and ripped them all out. That is where the gold yarn came from. It is equivalent to most shiny rayon tape novelty yarns like Karabella Glimmer. The gray yarn I used is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport.



After taking a few pics at home against the white wall (the only place in my apartment that gets anywhere near enough sunlight), I didn't think it was the right atmosphere. So I enlisted J at work to grab "something like a blowtorch" and some goggles and meet me on the fire escape.



To purchase the pattern, Industrial Skies, follow this link:

Pollen and Bubbles

Spring.
I love it and I hate it. I love putting away winter coats and getting by with just a hoodie. I love that I actually see the sun at some point before and after work. I love that the Union Square green market starts to expand, and I love walking around for hours on the weekend getting veggies and bread, hitting up The Strand, and drinking Boba Tea. Unfortunately my hate overshadows all of these wonderful things because what I hate is pollen. My arch nemesis, the thief that robs my lungs of air and attacks my senses.

This year I am attempting something new. I have made an offering to the pollen gods. I designed a new hat and named it after the invisible beast that comes from the flowers and trees, in hopes that they will ease up on me and let me enjoy the outdoors.

Here is the hat I am calling Pollen and Bubbles. The pattern will be my first for sale on Ravelry. You can purchase it there or follow this link:







Luckily it was cool enough this weekend to put on my snow coat for a picture and not feel like my face was melting off.

Hera Mountain Ridge Shawl Pattern!

Months ago after knitting up the Hera Mountain Ridge Shawl for the BSG Fleet Power Battle on Ravelry, which I have been sadly neglecting this new year, I thought what the heck I will just whip up the pattern since it was so easy to make!

HA!

The concept is super easy, writing out step by step instructions was a whole other matter. I just don't think that way. I can trace this problem back to Junior High where I would fail to write out all my "work" to math problems. Then skip ahead to college and my costume construction class when we were asked what we thought the next step was and I would raise my hand and give the 10th step ahead. Or just look at the blank or confused faces of my friends and coworkers when I have started talking about something seemingly unrelated to our conversation because I failed to communicate what thought process led me to connect the two topics. I tend to assume everyone's brain follows the same problem solving path mine does so I skip stuff in the middle. Then when I try to explain the stuff in the middle it seems overwhelmingly complicated.

Anyway, I got a message the other day asking about the pattern and since it was mostly written out, just sitting as an unpublished post in my blogger account, I thought I would dust it off, attempt to edit it and just publish it. So here is the link. I recommend reading it the entire way through before starting to see if you understand what I am describing. There is also a quick paragraph at the end summing up what I had written up if you are more of a big picture, figure out the details on your own kind of knitter like I am. Let me know if you find any errors or any typos.

Hera Mountain Ridge Shawl Pattern

My Mom Makes NY Shiny

A little over a month ago my mom came to visit me in NY. It was short visit planned to coincide with my little sister's visit to the UN for the Commission on the Status of Women. Yes you read that right, my little sister was participating in an event at the UN!!

This weekend with my mom was a very welcome visit. NY has not been keeping me very happy lately and I'm not sure how much longer I will stay here. NY offers so much, but if you don't like your everyday routine, then no amount of exploring Chinatown or really, really good hot chocolate is going to make you feel much better. Since a change is still a long ways off, taking a break from that crappy routine and running around the city with my mom made NY feel all shiny again if only for a weekend... and maybe a few weeks after when I make a good dinner with stuff she got me from Zabars or use the cute tea towels she got me from Fish's Eddy.

The day she was flying was the most stressful travel day I have had since the year my flight home for Christmas was cancelled and my sister and I headed to my apartment with heavy hearts only to be greeted by a mouse. My mom's flight was cancelled, rebooked, rerouted, and delayed. I sat watching this on 3 different websites, since no airlines or airport I have encountered, so far, manages to have a completely informative and comprehensive website on it's own, while the minutes crawled by and the weather got progressively worse by the second.

Finally when I got the word that she was on her way, I picked up dumplings and made my way home in some really god awful slush. I got a call while I was on my elevated subway while I was halfway across the Williamsburg Bridge from my landlord telling me that the ceiling was leaking in my apartment so bad it was leaking in the floor below.


stupid ceiling

I managed to keep my cool on the subway, find out that the ceiling was leaking in not just the same old place but three places around the guest sofa bed, ruining several paper projects and soaking a embroidered quilt in progress, and clear off the stairs of snow/slush before my mom's cab pulled up. Oh, and I also fielded calls asking for directions because I am just going to say it, most yellow cab drivers SUCK when it comes to Brooklyn, not all but most and it make me really angry.

After clearing out everyone who showed up and could not do anything till it was dry outside, My mom and I hunkered down for a dumpling dinner and the Olympics. We were cheering on Rachel Flatt who is apparently a neighbor back home and goes to my high school.

The rest of the weekend we hiked all over the city. Sometimes in shin deep snow, sometimes through shin deep puddles, from the Upper West Side to Wall Street. We hit up Zabars, Gray Lines Linen, Veselka, Fishs Eddy, The Strand, Ikea, and City Bakery to name a few.

Macy's in the Snow


My snowy neighborhood



My mom joked that she brought the magic subway luck with her because we never waited more than a minute for the right subway, an anomaly in NY in this day and age of outrageous subway route cuts and fare hikes. That was not the only luck she brought, for some reason we were given complimentary cookies at Rice in Dumbo and City Bakery. If you've ever had a chocolate chip cookie from City Bakery, or an ice cream cookie sandwich from Rice, you know this is a real treat. I could not be more thankful to these two places for making my mom feel so welcome!

The weekend felt too short but it was really fun. Here are just a few more pictures to give you a feel for our very snowy weekend.


Grand Central at Dusk


Ghandi in a Snowy Union Square


Hipster Snowmen in Union Square


Seeing the Empire Double


Lady Liberty from the Ikea WaterTaxi


The View from Pier 11


The Library Lion Disapproves of Your Shenanigans