B R E A T H E

It was a long winter, but a very busy one.

No time = no posts. We sold our house in Austin, pulled up stakes, and hove back to the Mid Atlantic region, landing softly and squarely in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mere three miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Mile marker 44, to be exact.

The cool thing about buying a house in winter is the joy of unexpected flora that is now your garden and yard.

Spring started yawning in late February with tiny crocuses poking up, daffodils stretching sunward, hyacinths bursting with fragrance and color, and forsythia arching all over the place. Now, it's the dogwood's turn. And for the last week, they've been glorious. I know they'll be back next year, because I had nothing to do with planting them.

We have them in the back yard, the front yard, the side yard, down the side slope, and probably behind the swath of bamboo on the eastern edge of the property. It's my favorite tree, a wonderful surprise, not having recogized it while house hunting in the dead of winter. I'll smile all spring as all the "new" discoveries keep make themselves known.

Knitting? Yes, I know this is *supposed* to be my knitting blog, but I just can't help but gush a bit about the new environs. I've done mostly socks, but also a couple of sweaters (in fit-and-starts progress), due to not knowing which boxes contained the bags ... or where those were. But slowly, slowly, much of my yarn stash and in-progress projects have been found. Still a mystery: Where did they put all my books??? They must be in the POD in the side yard, still shrouded in floor-to-ceiling boxed mystery until we have room for the contents. Going from a 3800 square feet house to an 1800 square foot one is a major shock, especially when considering all the 'stuff' we have. But it'll all work out. Life is simpler now.

Back to ogling dogwoods.

See the mountains in the background?

My view every single day now.

Aaaaaahhhhhh.

Inaugural Spirit and Yarny Goodness

At long last! It seemed as though it would never come: The Inauguration is a done deal, Barak Obama is our first African-American president and the 44th person to hold the office, and we can get on with the business of repairing the horrific damage that was done to our country over the last eight years.

The economy is in the tank, housing is shot to heck, our troops are still mired in the Middle East, but it's going to get better. I just know it. It might take some time, but at least we have a president who is smarter and wiser than I, which is a huge relief.

This Inaugural couldn't pass without a special celebration, in spite of all the challenges that lie ahead for the new chief executive and us. Surely, there are a lot of others I know who would watch the proceedings at home, far from the record-breaking crowds in DC. Wouldn't it be more fun to do it together? So the Inaugural Watch Party was born. I invited our entire Austin Knitting and Crochet Meetup Group for it, and 11 other revelers (and Ravelers!) thought it was a peachy idea, too. All had our projects to work on as we watched.

At noon, we followed up with a potluck lunch. We had quite a spread: Cheese and crackers, salsa, queso, guacamole and chips, romaine salad, fruit salad, crazy lasagna, pizza, even Senate Bean Soup and a special red velvet cake that Gayle made with Obama's campaign logo sugared into the top. Oh, and brownies. It was a fun, communal way to celebrate such a historic event. Decades from now I will know what I was doing (and even knitting: A special Swallowtail Shawl, cast on just for the Inauguration). When the inevitable question of "what were you doing on the day Obama took the oath of office" comes up, the answer will be a cinch.

Today I'm off to contribute to the common good. We don't have a minute to lose.

Tagged!

Pam tagged me last week, sending a Ravelry message to ask if that was OK.
Completely baffled, I wrote back: "What the heck does that mean?"
Then didn't understand her follow up explanation.
I am SO out of the loop, so unhip. So born-in-the-50s.
But there's hope. Maybe.

I read Pam's blog, which led back to Sandy's blog, which led to ... well, you get the concept. Sorry, Pam. I didn't mean to be a bad sport, a party pooper, a fuddy-duddy. You just hit me during an Oldtimers attack. My list is altered slightly because I don't watch TV very often. So there's a subcategory. You'll see.

4 Jobs I've Held:
burger flipper at McDonald's
floral designer
freelance literary events consultant
graduate program coordinator

4 Movies I've Watched Over and Over Again:
O Brother Where Art Thou
As Good As It Gets
Pride & Prejudice
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

4 Places I've Been:
Every state in the union except Hawaii, North Dakota, and Nebraska
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4 Places I've Lived:
Erie, PA
Boston, MA - Rockport, MA
Lexington, KY
Maryland, suburban Washington D.C.

Part A: 4 TV Shows I Watch:
FRONTLINE
The Lehrer Report
Fawlty Towers
NCAA Final Four
Part B: 4 Radio Shows I Listen To:
The Diane Rehm Show
Fresh Air
This American Life
All Things Considered

4 Things I Look Forward To:
Inauguration Day 2009
The next trip/adventure
Moving back east
Knitting with friends ----------------------------------->

4 Favorite Foods:
LOBSTER in any way, shape, or form
CHOCOLATE
RASPBERRIES
Anything grilled over hickory

4 Places I'd Rather Be:
Sailing the Baltic
Living in the Blue Ridge Mountains ------->
Watching loons at dusk on Moosehead Lake, ME
Drinking Manhattans on the porch at Fool's Creek (see picture below)


4 People I email regularly:
My Kids
"The Table 622 Gang"
Ken
knitting buddies




4 People to Tag:
Melyssa
Amy
Dawn
Nanette

Secret of the Stole ii KAL: Swatching away

I'm on Ravelry, which is an incredible resource for knitters about EVERYTHING knitterly. There are groupings covering every kind of topic imaginable. So it's easy to go to the pattern tab and simply type in 'KAL'; up they pop. On one such search in November, this new kid popped up: Secret of the Stole ii. I was instantly intrigued, clicked on the link, and checked it out. Im guilty of signing up for a couple of KAL's, but never got past a swatch ... or even less. The overwhelming amount of email that members generate just daunts the heck out of me, even in Digest form. But THIS TIME I am determined to work along as the clues come out. I will finish! There's a huge a huge incentive in it for me: Claire's HS graduation. She wants a shawl for it, and this is a perfect way to keep me going consistently all the way to weaving in the last loose ends. As such, it will be my first KAL. Hoo boy.

The Secret of the Stole ii is organized and sponsored by DK the Nautical Knitter and her hubby. Every Friday for 12 weeks, beginning on January 18, a new "clue", which is the next section of the pattern, is posted to a file on the SOTSii Yahoogroups site to download and knit during the subsequent week, revealing a little more of the shawl's theme. We have no idea what the shawl is going to look like, which is part of the thrill. The pattern is secret, revealed slowly in these weekly increments of 40-odd rows (I think it's 40-odd rows -- it could be less) where all the magic happens. It rather 'unfolds' before our eyes as we knit. This charms me no end.

There is even a supporting site to help those who need technical help along the way, called Knit With Us, with tutorials and technique support via video clips. Awesome! Even novice knitters can do this.

If you are interested in signing up for this adventure, (and what lace knitter, or hope-to-be lace knitter wouldn't be?) time is of the essence: Enrollment closes on January 17, when they lock all the doors and bar the windows. So if this idea appeals to you, hie thyself to the site and sign up NOW. You will need roughly 1500 yards of laceweight yarn, and make a swatch from the PDF file on the site. There's no time to dilly-dally around! DK will offer the completed pattern for sale to the public after the KAL. We participants have, as they say, the inside track.

Amazingly, there are prizes for participating. One of the prizes is a KILO of cashmere. Can you IMAGINE?!?!? I am knitting my SOTSii (as it is affectionately known) from Malabrigo Lace in the Apple Green colorway. Just think of Granny Smith apples, and you get the idea. Claire saw the yarn and fell in love with it, so my finished Secret of the Stole ii is my personal present to her. :-) She's my baby. ::sigh::

My "Apple Green" Malabrigo Lace

... and a Granny Smith. Yummy, right?

Sophie snoozes nearby while I knit.
Works for both of us!

2008: New Year

In celebration of the first day of this 2008 New Year, this morning I designed and started knitting a scarf to complement the Qivuik Webs Tam I made for Liz. The scarf that matched the tam was a pain in the tookus, but I was determined to make something for her to take back to school for the cold Philadelphia winter. After poring through tons and tons of patterns and finding nothing that had the right 'feel' and 'look' to it, I decided to design one myself. Armed with enough of the matching lavender Fable Handknit baby alpaca yarn, I'm on a fast track to finish it before she has to leave for school on the 9th. I'll publish the pattern when it's done. Already there are things that I'd change. Liz loves it though, so this first First Day Scarf is safe from the frogging machine, and will likely be finished and blocked by the weekend.

On New Year's Day 2007, I searched the web for dog rescue organizations in Austin, and found Ginger! Ginger is the star of my RAVELRY avatar, and has been a wonderful 'sister' to our senior pooch Sophie for the last ten months. It feels as if she's been a part of our family forever. A perfect fit.

New Year's Day is probably productive for me as I can't stand to sit around and watch football for hours on end; a girl has to do something to entertain herself and drown out the trite color commentary, afterall.

Claire and Ginger this afternoon.

Crawling Around for Yarn

Busy, busy, busy. Two yarn crawls. Yes, TWO. The first, on October 6, was sponsored by a LYS, carrying 50 yarnaholics just like me on a chartered bus to five different LYS in the Texas Hill Country.

The second Yarn Crawl was one that I organized for our local Austin Knitting and Crocheting Meetup Group. This past May, I organized one where we visited Sandra Singh in Spicewood, Yarnbow in Lakeway, Craft-O-Rama in Austin, and Artisan Yarns in Burnet. We had, in a word, a BLAST. There was such a clamor for another one that I figure we could do this each season, covering different shops.

Personally, I like this smaller scale yarn crawl a lot better: We rent a 12 passenger van. The ideal capacity, we discovered, is NOT 12.

It is 10, reasonably, in comfort. On our May crawl, we had 10. On this second one on October 20, we filled it to the stated capacity of 12, and it was tight. Twelve is just a tad too many, for a variety of reasons: First, the van. People need elbow room; we're knitters, after all. Second, most shops are overwhelmed when of us 12 arrive at once.
Tough to get personal service that some need, as well as make purchases a timely manner, since there's usually one computer per shop for all transactions. And as you already know, each computer transaction takes forever. Multiply that 12 times and you have wasted a precious thirty to forty minutes at each and every shop when you could be ogling and fondling yarns someplace else. All that time adds up fast: On our small scale crawl, we spent a total of more than two hours just waiting to make purchases in the various stores. That's a lot of waiting-around time. Third, it's tough to get timely and good service in a restaurant for a party of 12. We time our lunch to be on the late side, but it's still difficult on a Saturday. On this latest trip, we tried the Dodging Duck in Boerne. They offer wonderful homemade beers, and the menu choices include a delicious German lunch complete with homemade soft pretzels. Lastly, we plan an ambitious itinerary: This time around, we visited Sandra Singh in Spicewood, the Old Oaks Ranch Fiber Studio in Wimberley, Ewe & Eye and Rosewood Yarns in Boerne, and a brand new shop in Austin, The Knitting Nest. See? We could have used those two hours!


The best discovery? There are so many yarns and so many yarn manufacturers and small-scale hand-dyers that there are only a few common overlaps in the products each shop offers. Even with products overlapping, the colorways each offers are different. Everyone wins, and it is a bonanza for knitters, crocheters, and fiber artists.

So, all this yarn means I must have a lot of projects.

Projects?

Christmas is coming, and this Santa is busily working away on various items. I don't think it prudent to be more specific, since some of the giftees may peek in on this blog. Sufficeth to say there are currently 8 Christmas gifts on the needles. To top it off, I joined two Knit-A-Longs: The Mystic Waters Shawl KAL, which started today (eek!) and a Spring Shawl KAL, which begins January 1.

I can thank (or blame) Ravelry for my absence, too. I found the KALs there, and a bunch of patterns that I am adding to my queue soon (well, after Christmas is over). It is an astounding, globally diverse community of knitters making a mind-boggling array of projects. It's fabulous!