My Feelings Exactly

Ever wonder what cats do when you're at work all day? I had a chance to see firsthand as I spent the first of a few upcoming vacation days cleaning house and waiting for my friends to show up. Here's what the cats did:

Calypso, more-or-less conked out.

Darwin, in his favorite belly-to-the-wall lounging position

I think they had the right idea. I was a fairly busy bee most of the day but I did get to spend a solid couple of hours finishing The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (fabulous, heartwrenching book, btw). I can't remember the last time I had that much guilt-free time to just sit, by myself, and quietly read. It was nice and probably good to get it in now before my friends and I get to where we're going: a 10-years-since-we-met-Cornell-'family'-reunion in Cape Cod. I can't wait to see everyone for longer than the timespan of a wedding! So far, we've all gathered together from our various corners of the country once every year since graduation. I love that.

In knitting news, I've been doing my best to work on my Zombie Shawl but life has been intervening. I'm hoping I find time to catch up with things this week. I think I'm going to go with the darker colorway for the lace, thanks for chiming in! Since I have no knitting to show you, have some pretty yarn:

The lovely folks at The Verdant Gryphon periodically get together to have 'drunken dye parties' and then sell the resulting skeins as special, one-off colorways. I had not yet purchased one but was very happy to win this fun skein of Bugga in a lottery on Ravelry!

Happy Friday, everyone. :) My your weekend be as chillaxing as my cats' weekends will likely be.

Happy, Happy Monday!

Three things that made me happy this Monday:

1) Discovering that people still liked me! All last week I thought I had received zero comments on any of my blog posts because I stopped receiving emails and because blogger said '0 comments', which made me sad. Not like I expect a ton of responses but I usually have a few on each post (and what blogger doesn't love comments?). But I was happy to discover today that if I actually clicked on the '0 comments', a whole bunch of Google+ comments showed up! Yay! :) Now please give me your honest thoughts on the Google+ comments, I don't think I like them (mostly because of the weird disconnect with Blogger) and I don't really see the advantage of using them. Any thoughts?

2) Residual soreness.

The Fiasco and I spent Sunday traipsing about Beavertail Park and Watson Farm in Jamestown, RI and it was a lovely day. Sun, wind, mud, water, and green green everywhere. And finally (saved the best for last)...

 3) My new nephew arrived today!

In the middle there is all 8.7 lbs of Logan, with his little grumpy gnome face and oversized hat. I wish I could've been there to squish those itty bitty cheeks! Top left are the beaming mom and dad, below is the happy big brother Liam, top right is a totally engrossed grandma, and bottom right is an already smitten grandpa. These pictures make me happier than I can say. :)

Hope your weeks are off to a good start, too! I am now overwhelmed with the urge to knit some tiny human things.

All Caught Up!

Alrighty, I've already shown you some photos from Cheekwood Gardens as well as photos of my totally-necessary-and-wonderful-sourvenir yarn and the Nashville Zoo. Here are just a few remnants from last week's vacation (two weeks ago already?) to round out your vicarious adventures.

There were some neat sculptures along a wooded path in Cheekwood Gardens. Here you see my Fiasco befriending a tortoise sculpture, my mom demonstrating the power of another sculpture, my favorite sculpture showing a body/tree trunk, and my Fiasco and Dad trapped with T-rex arms in chairs too small for their shoulders (just because it's adorable).

By the end of a week in Nashville I was more than a little sick of country music but here are photos of the outside of the Grand Ol' Opry, a stylin' dress from within the Country Music Hall of Fame, and Elvis's totally reasonable gold-plated, diamond-dusted vehicle.

I lived in Florida for a year in between my undergrad and grad school days, during which time I made a very dear friend Candice, shown here with her fiance, Greg. I had only been able to see her once in the past 5 years so it was awesome to get to see her again, however briefly! We headed to the woods for a hike where we saw rivers, old Native American forts, and idyllic farmhouses.

The Fiasco and I took advantage of our time alone on the trip to see more streams, happy smiles, neat water-carved rocks, and big ol' trees with gnarly roots.

Finally, for no reason whatsoever other than it seemed A Thing To Do In Tennessee, we visited the Jack Daniel's whiskey distillery. The Fiasco dislikes whiskey and I only vaguely remember drinking some that was passed around at a party once so it's not like we were big fans but now I'm curious. We couldn't taste any at the distillery because it's located in a dry county (ironically hilarious!) but the tour was still pretty interesting and it was free so I'd recommend it if you have an hour. I couldn't take photos of inside the main parts but shown above is the visitor center, the Fiasco sniffin' some filtered whiskey, the place where they burn sugar maple wood to make their filtering charcoal, our tour guide Dusty sitting in front of the water that is used to make the corn mash whiskey is distilled from, a cool chair made of old whiskey barrels, a bald cypress tree because I LOVE cypress trees and I miss them (they don't grow in the north but I did my undergrad thesis on them and think they're awesome, and yes I go to a distillery and take photos of the trees), and finally, a photo of the barrel house which was pretty impressive inside. Did you know that whiskey has to age 4-6 years before it's ready? Now you do!

Phew! That got a little rambly towards the end there, didn't it? Hope you enjoyed it anyway and are having a fabulous holiday weekend!

You Animal!

It's either the biologist or the child in me (most likely both) that makes me really love zoos. I feel like I should hate zoos or feel more guilty about these wonderful "wild" animals being held captive for our viewing pleasure. However, zoos have played important roles in conservation and in many cases if the animal wasn't in a zoo, it would be in danger of poaching or extinction through more widespread, long-term, and very real threats like climate change and habitat loss. So really, in light of how the planet is pretty much going to break down and go haywire someday, keeping a few well-cared-for gibbons in an enclosure designed specifically for their needs doesn't seem so bad.

Man, that got dark (I should probably lay off the dystopian novels). Here are some animal photos from the Nashville Zoo to cheer you up!

We saw very athletic gibbons, playful cloud leapords, the rare and unusual ostrich flower, and the original angry bird.

 

We saw a pair of supremely happy tortoises, a curious porcupine, swift-footed meerkats, and graceful flamingos.

And there were domestic animals! A dead sunbathing alpaca, goats-in-a-bucket, goats-about-to-headbutt-overeager-little-ones, and the rare conservation breed of sheep, Cotswold.

They had one of those enclosures where you can go in and feed I-totally-forgot-what-kind-of-bird some nectar, I love those things. This photo shows me, my little-cousins-who-feel-like-siblings Megan and Austin, my kinda-freaked-out-Dad, and my dear Fiasco.

And some final photos, on top is my aunt and cousin Austin with their buddy the giraffe and a photo observing my family observing the giraffes. Bottom left is my Fiasco attempting to convince Austin to eat a bacon-cheddar-flavored cricket (yes, cricket). Bottom right is the Fiasco's face after Austin wisely refused and he ate the cricket himself. Mwahahaha oh man, it cracks me up every time.

I hope you enjoyed our little trip to the zoo! What's your favorite zoo animal?

Spazzzz

After staying up far too late last night researching ethical sources of clothing for plus-sized women (more on that later) I slept in, made some tea, cooked some eggs, sliced an apple and -BAM- sudden back spasm. I had never felt anything like it before. It felt like the worst charlie-horse you can imagine (which I get often in my calves and feet) but instead it was happening in my upper back, near the base of my ribcage, which made it difficult to even breathe let alone stand up straight. Thankfully the Fiasco was home to take care of me. He got me a heat pack right away and then ran out for some Aleve and Icy Hot patches (and some chocolate). It was a striking reminder of one reason why it's a pretty good idea to shack up with someone: every once in a while your body is going to totally spazz out for no reason and it's a wonderful thing to have somebody around to help, especially someone as selfless and sweet as my Fiasco. I am now safely set up on the couch where I will probably remain for the rest of the day guarded by kittens.

It's not so bad and could definitely be worse, but this whole back spasm thing is still really cramping my style. We're going to Tennessee next week to see my cousins graduate college and for a sort of mini family reunion/vacation. (Speaking of, any recommendations for sites to see or yarn stores to visit in Nashville?) I have an entire long list of things I wanted to do today in preparation of leaving... things like empty the fridge, clean the kitchen, pack a bag, etc. I'm trying really hard not to stress out about it. Things will get done, and if they don't, well, we'll just have some old lettuce and moldy cheese to deal with in the fridge when we get back. No biggie. 

I am kind of bummed to be missing out on a spinning event today. There's an old historic building in my town called "Smith's Castle" and this was opening weekend with a bunch of people dressed up in period costumes and a bit of a festival going on where my spinner's guild were going to spin. Here's what I was GOING to work on, out in the sunshine on this beautiful Sunday:

Gradient-dyed BFL

I started on the purple-blue-green braid of my June Pryce Fiber Arts gradient-dyed fiber a couple of weeks ago but have barely had any time to work on it since. Hopefully I'll get back to it soon, it's a real pleasure to spin and I'm excited to get through the color changes.

Instead of all my plans, I think I'll tackle this:

Hello, my old, holey friends.

 That, dear readers, is a rather daunting pile of handknit socks that need darning. The poor Fiasco has been living with only a single pair (his Fiascos, of course) because he blew holes in his other two pairs. My mom also blew a hole in one of her pairs of handknit socks and I need to fix it before I see her next week. And the rest are mine, which apparently prove that I put a lot of weight/friction on the ball of my foot and/or the back of my heel, since the fabric rubs through to nothing in those places. As much as I love Socks That Rock, and I do truly love the yarn, the Merino wool does eventually wear through after a couple of years of wear, especially if you're not particularly gentle with them. I handwash all my socks but I still wear the heck out of them: walking on carpet, hiking in boots, attacked by kittens, etc. I'm considering adding reinforcement thread to the soles of my socks, or knitting with two strands of yarn, or duplicate stitching the ball of the foot, or going down a needle size on the sole, or something. I'm not a super tight sock knitter, I only achieve 7 or 8 sts/inch depending on the thickness of the yarn on size 1 needles, and I'm loathe to go down to size 0's or smaller to knit them with, so I might have to just thicken the soles somehow. Any suggestions? Have you had luck with any sock strengthening techniques?

Finally, I made a discovery today:

This is my cat on drugs.

Whatever is in Icy Hot must be similar to catnip because Calypso is going all blurry-faced-crazy over the heat pack I've been leaning against for the past few hours. Silly, crazed kitty.

WIPWed #23: Easy Now

I've been all "what do I knit next?" and "which pattern do I match with these yarns?" for a couple of weeks now and my crazy schedule lately has provided an easy answer: ANYTHING. Knit anything simple that I can manage in the very few minutes I have in which to do so. Between (still) trying to finish a publication based on my master's thesis, the Fiasco's car spectacularly failing inspection leading to a bout of reluctant car-shopping, dealing with a cell phone that quit on me out of the blue, worrying over my mom's neck surgery she had today, and preparing for big meetings at work -- things have been a tad hectic. Here's what I've been able to knit this week:

Tiny Turn-A-Square:

Sanguine Gryphon Bugga, colorway Box Jellyfish (now sold by Cephalopod Yarns)

I have seriously been casting on what will be a baby-sized Turn A Square hat for my future nephew since Saturday. Crazy, right? Right. What is nice, though, is that I was able to get out of work early enough to enjoy some sunshine today, so I headed straight to a local wildlife refuge and took a 2-hr walk through some coastal areas:

My cell phone takes lame photos so this is all you'll get.

After essentially hibernating January through March, it felt so good to be outside again. The only problem is my feet and legs didn't quite agree. I wore new sneakers that have only seen the treadmill for a half hour at a time, so traipsing for 3+ miles over gravel, sand, and grass trails was a bit rough. My feet blistered up pretty bad and I'm sure I'll be feeling the walk in my legs and hips tomorrow... but it was worth it. :)

No other knitting has occurred this week, I swear -- which is just wrong. I have been winding some yarn, though (yes, I'm still in the process of that, too):

BMFA Socks That Rock Mediumweight, colorway Budding Twig

This lovely springtime-colored-skein will become a Lintilla shawlette, designed by Martina Behm. It is a sweet, ruffly, garter stitch shawlette that will be perfect for office knitting. I'm starting this project instead of all of the ones I debated before, in order to 1) use my home-knitting-time to finish up some old WIPs and 2) give me more time to make up my mind on the other shawls. Solid plan, I think. Plus, who could resist knitting such a happy springtime colorway mid-April? Nobody.

Hope you're all having a good week! Check out more WIPs by clicking the image below.

Baby-palooza

Last Saturday the Fiasco and I went to Woolapalooza, a little sheep festival at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, MA. On the drive back, we visited our good friends who had recently had a sweet baby girl for whom I had been knitting many things. Between the lambs and goat kids and tiny humans, it was a veritable baby-palooza and nearly too much cute for one day. Prepare yourselves.

Favorite part of the sheep shearing was when a 7-year-old boy explained to whomever would listen: "See that pink part?         That's the penis. Or maybe it's the lady penis. I'm not sure how that works." (It was the udder!)

Clean white wool underneath.

Lamb!

Two lambs!

A leicester of some sort?

Don't know her breed but she sure is cute! (Romney?)

Angora bunny

Three little goat kids.

Brand new baby, the mama was still dealing with the umbilical cord!

Sunshiney snuggles

Candid shot of my Beribboned Hat and Syrinx Shells cowl in the wild!

The color markings on these goats were just lovely.

Babies and mama!

Now for a human baby (Hi, Lyra!) and mama (Hi, Bridgi!)

My, what a lovely hat you have!

Prior to this photo, the Fiasco made a crazy face that both stunned and amused the wee one.

I stole this photo straight from Bridgit's facebook because the sweater she knit to to go with Lyra's Easter dress is just too sweet not to share!

 

I hope you've had your fill of adorable things today. :) You're welcome.

WIPWed #21: Learning Lessons

Well folks, I've returned from my dangerous journey with no dragons slain, exactly, but instead tamed and made less fearsome overall. It was an exhausting ordeal but one worth doing that will ultimately lead to better times ahead (here's hoping). In my absence, I enjoyed reading the Inspiration Saturday posts put up by Joanna at the knitlit twit and Erin at Knitting in Beantown. Thanks, guys, for keeping the inspiration flowing!

I've sadly only gotten a tiny bit of knitting done, which is not great for my Malabrigo March goals as March is swiftly coming to a close. For some reason, instead of working on some of WIPs, my stressed out brain decided it would be a good idea to start a completely new project... a lacy scarf without a pattern, based on a stitch from one of Barbara Walker's dictionaries. I'm not far yet but the yarn is such a bright, springy green that it's making me very happy indeed:

Proof of exhaustion: I pinned and photographed the scarf backwards. This is the reverse side. Oh well.

A generous Raveler was willing to trade a skein of the much-coveted-but-hard-to-obtain Malabrigo Dos with me, and a little bit of Dos is just the thing to make everything better.

Finally, the other day the Yarn Harlot posted some very interesting thoughts about how much guidance knitters need/want within patterns. It's something I've dithered over while writing my own patterns (write something out or point to a resource, specify a technique or assume it's known already, etc.) and I tend to lean towards the 'more detail is better' camp with the caveat that the detail has to be clear and concise, it shouldn't ramble on and prevent the knitter from seeing the forest for the trees. A specific pet peeve of mine as a knitter, is that I like to know how many repeats were knit to obtain the length shown in the sample for things like hats, scarves, cowls, shawls... yes I know these are all adjustable in size but I'm better able to judge which modifications I'd like to make if I know what I'm looking at on the model. Plus, I can make up my own hat design, but if I purchase a hat pattern it's because I want to make EXACTLY THAT HAT, so I'd like to know what was done. And last but not least, I learned most of my favorite knitting techniques from patterns that either described them or pointed to a resource for learning them. I've personally learned more from knitting a whole bunch of different designers' patterns than I have from books, videos, or in-person knitters, so I like to treat parts of my patterns as 'teachable moments'-- including some of these tips and tricks and keeping beginner knitters in mind. How do you prefer your patterns: detailed and all written out or concise and more choose-your-own-method?

Click below to see more WIPs!

Off

I'm off for the weekend, folks. Going to journey into the vast and terrible unknown to slay some metaphorical dragons. This is to inform you that I did not have time to prepare an Inspiration Saturday post beforehand, I apologize! Hopefully one or two of you will keep the ritual going, I'm sure we can all use a little extra inspiration in our weekends.

Instead, I'll leave you with a cute kitten picture (for fortitude, of course):

Cautious snuggling!

Good vibes would be appreciated as I venture off with nothing but a bit of Malabrigo to maintain my strength... See you on the other side!

White As Snow

Here in Rhode Island, we got quite a bit of snow over the weekend and lost power (and thus heat) for a couple of days. What does one do during such dire conditions, you ask?

Gaze out the window at the sugar-dusted greenery.

Watch your Fiasco leap over the snow pile the plow made behind your apartment.

Watch your Fiasco shiver.

Spin a bit (and spin some more later by candlelight!)

Observe Calypso's 'come no closer, buddy' sidelong glare aimed at the ever-growing Darwin.

Try out your "it's 50 degrees INSIDE look" and thank wool you're a knitter.

Go for a brief, brisk walk and admire the wintry woods...

And the little frozen creek you never noticed before...

And some of your fine-looking designs in the wild! (Dissipative Cowl on me, Giving Comfort hat on him.)

Finally, finish a lovely commissioned knit! (More on this later.)

How did you fare this weekend?