Are you sitting down? I hope you’re sitting down, because here’s a shock.

I went into New York this weekend.

Yes! I know! That’s twice within 12 months. What is the world coming to?

Well, what was coming was Vogue Knitting Live.

I didn’t sign up for any classes. I had thought about it when they announced the STELLAR group of knitters who would be there, but I figured, who knows what the weather would be like? (Not an unreasonable question, considering how storm-filled this winter has been so far.) But I had always thought that I MIGHT go in for the day. And since we had snow on Friday morning, but not Saturday… Mom and I decided to go.

Can I just say here how much I love my mother? She doesn’t knit at all, but she’s always happy to go to knitting events like shearings and wool festivals and such to keep me company.

So, Saturday, we got up early so we could catch the 8:14 train into Penn Station. We got one of those double-decker trains, so we went upstairs and chose seats right behind one of the “doubles” that face each other. This turned out to be a wonderful choice because a stop or so later, two moms and their four kids got on board, all dressed “up” for a special day in the city. From eavesdropping … well, is it really eavesdropping when the conversation is spoken at top volume by 3- and 4-year olds? Anyway, we learned that they were all going to the city for Disney on Ice, and they were all very excited. Very. The kids all sat in the seats in front of us, with their Moms across the aisle, and I’ve got to tell you—four children under the age of five can be very, very bad as train companions, but these four were just adorable. Happy. Excited. Just so darn cute.

They clustered at the window with their noses pressed to the glass. They said cute things while eating the snacks their Moms had brought. And when did kids start having such adorable hats to wear? They told jokes, too. My mom and I both broke into quiet giggles when one of the kids said “Knock Knock” and the other three replied in chorus, “Who’s there?” Except for a little fidgeting, and with the help of an iPad movie to help the time pass for them, they were all so good on the train—especially for their ages. We were highly entertained the entire way. There’s something irresistible about little children laughing together, and this group did a lot of that. How can you possibly complain about HAPPY children?

After we got to Penn Station, Mom and I did something that neither of us had ever done before.

We took the subway.

Mom has been adamant for my entire life that she refused to ride the subway. Now, granted, when I was little in the 70s, this was probably a wise choice. The New York subway was notorious (rightly or not) for being unsafe. But recently? It seemed a safe enough choice. Especially considering how COLD it was yesterday. Walking from Penn Station all the way up to 53rd Street was just way too long when we could catch a train for $2.50. So we did.

The fun part, though? I have a good sense of direction, and I plan ahead, so even though I don’t know NYC well (read: at all), I knew where we were going. I knew we needed to take the E-train north. I knew what stop we needed. I knew where the hotel was in relation to that stop. But…

We got to Penn Station and followed the signs to the subway, bought our tickets, and went through the turnstile for the E-train Uptown. But standing on the platform, there were flyers posted saying to use the Express Line. Um … huh? I hadn’t noticed any difference between Express or Local, and this had been the only platform I saw that said E. We weren’t the only ones confused though, and I heard another person down the platform saying, “They said we need to go down the stairs to the the Express,” so I walked further down and, sure enough, there were stairs. I beckoned to Mom and went exploring, all while she’s saying “We should ask someone.” But, yes, sure enough, there was a tunnel to another platform that we arrived at with perfect timing to catch the E train. Excellent.

We got off at our stop and climbed the (many) stairs to the street and paused to figure out where we were. Going by the map I’d studied the night before, I knew we needed to walk along 53rd toward 6th, opposite the one-way traffic, but Mom was sure we needed to go to the left, so … okay, maybe she knows better. We started walking that way (brrr!) but … nope, that’s 8th Street. So we turned around to walk in the direction I’d wanted to go and found the hotel.

We bought our Marketplace tickets and … my God. What a madhouse! Talk about crowded. I said to Mom that it was like Rhinebeck with carpeting, it was so packed. Really crazy! But fun. Lots of vendors selling yarn and odds and ends. And Knitty City had a monopoly on book signings—all day long. I would have been happy just hanging out there all day to meet some of my favorite designers.

As it was, I met Sally Melville, and told her how much I loved her books and that I’d made her Gray Cardigan and gave it to our Realtor when she found us our house. I met Beth Brown-Reinsel and stupidly didn’t think to tell her that I was in the middle of making her “Celtic Dreams” sweater for the second time.

I also stupidly didn’t buy the nifty new “Vogue Knitting Knitopedia” book that debuted there. Not sure exactly how I missed that. You KNOW how much I love books of all kinds and knitting books in particular.

By 12:30, though, Mom and I were both hungry and decided to take a break for lunch. We figured we’d want to leave the hotel, but that we’d look to see what they had first. I headed down the escalator, and Mom said, “But I thought I heard that woman say the food was on that floor?” “Really? I’m pretty sure the restaurant is on the lobby’s level, but…” So we turned around, went back up while she asked and… yep, I was right. Back down. Found the restaurant which (1) was expensive and (2) had a really long line. So we left and paused on the sidewalk to think. “I know right where to go,” I said, and started walking back in the direction we’d come. “Lindys?” Mom asked as we walked by, but no … Europa Café, which Mom loves. As luck would have it, I’d noticed it on the corner when we took our inadvertent detour leaving the subway. (So, chalk that one up to all’s well that ends well.)

After lunch, we headed back to the VKLive Marketplace and hung out in the Lounge on the first floor for a bit, but then started thinking about how long it would take to get home, and how much Chappy must miss us, so we got up for one last circuit before leaving and, as luck would have it, bumped into a few people we knew. Ina (who took our picture for posterity), and Kim and Annie. I missed meeting Pixie Purl’s Brandy, though, which I was disappointed about. We TRIED coordinating via Twitter, but it just didn’t work. (I don’t know about her phone, but Verizon’s web service stinks, and it’s not like I have a smart phone which presumably is better.) I didn’t get to see Joanna Johnson, either, to tell her how adorable her new book is. (But it IS, and you should absolutely check it out.)

Heading back, we stopped at Crumbs bakery. (Conveniently located across the street from the subway AND across from where Mom was sitting while we ate lunch, so that she had time to see it.) Bought tickets, headed down to the E-train Downtown platform, got on the train … and Mom started worrying that it was the wrong train, and making enough fuss that she got ME doubting it, so we jumped off before the doors closed, only to realize that I was right after all and to luckily get on before it left. I told her I was NOT going to listen to her giving any directions for the rest of the day.

Got to Penn Station, accidentally took the street exit from the subway platform rather than the tunnel back to the actual station, but that was okay. We had missed the 3:11 train by now and had 45 minutes before the next one at 4:11. And we won’t discuss that we accidentally turned the wrong way at the corner, but we realized before were even halfway down the block. Went into Penn Station. Went to the NJ Transit waiting area, and Mom started to freak that we weren’t at the right level for the trains. We needed to be downstairs to get the train. “But, this is the WAITING AREA and we’ve got 45 minutes. I am not going to stand down by the tracks for 45 minutes. They wouldn’t have the waiting area with these nice screens posting departures if we weren’t meant to use them.”

“Okay, but my cellphone battery died. Call Dad and ask him to go pick up sandwiches for dinner so they’ll be there when we get home.” I called Dad and he more or less refused. He figured he’d be going out to get dinner, but he wanted a HOT sandwich, not something that had been sitting for two hours. And I did manage to get Mom to sit for almost 30 minutes before we headed down to the other platform to wait for them to list our departure track.

The ride back wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the way in had been. No cute kids. It got dark outside before we were halfway home so looking out the window didn’t work. And I was even too tired to knit on my sock for more than a few minutes.

Chappy was DELIGHTED to see us when we got home. Me especially (because I’m his favorite). He was also adamant that I was NOT allowed to do this again any time soon, particularly because it made his dinner about two hours later than usual.

And if you’re wondering if I bought anything at the VK Live Marketplace?

Just some SOAK, which I needed anyway. I bought three small bottles in different scents for a change. Usually I use the Citrus scent, but variety is nice, right?

Today I’ve been lazy. Or, relatively lazy. I got my review for Freddie’s Blanket posted, finished reading an 862-page book on the Civil War, did laundry, baked an apple pie. (Did you know it’s National Pie Day? Good thing Dad was willing to go to the store for the apples since Chappy refused to give me permission to leave the house.)

I did the tiniest bit of spinning, too, for the first time in over a week. I had a hangnail on my right middle finger that got infected and had to wear a bandaid for a week. I hate wearing bandaids, especially on my finger tips, and that made spinning more or less impossible because I couldn’t feel the fibers properly to draft.

Oh, and my new Celtic Dreams? I got the fronts (I told you it’s a cardigan version, right?) to the same length as the back while we watched a movie last night. (I know. I’m impressed I had the energy to knit, too.) Tonight I’ll join them together and it will finally start looking like a real sweater.

I’ll also be watching Downton Abbey on PBS, too. Have you SEEN this show? It’s wonderful, a 1912-1913 period piece with an Upstairs/Downstairs kind of feel. Really wonderful.

Tags: General by --Deb
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Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this blog. I love this blog, but it’s got this weird glitch–not only does it often not show the current posts, but it’s draining a lot of bandwidth–way more than my modest little blog should pull, which makes my hosting provider very unhappy. (They’ve cut me off twice for going over my bandwidth allotment, and since I can’t figure out what the problem is, I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut it off a third time. At which point I’m in serious trouble because they’ve also got a three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy, of which I am currently living in terror.)

You see my dilemma. I WANT to write new posts, share pictures, tell you folks what I’m knitting and doing, but am terrified that inviting you to come, you know, read stuff is going to cause me to exceed capacity.

So, you know, try not to crowd.

Ideally, I’d re-install WordPress completely on the server and re-install my blog (with the hopes that the problem isn’t stored inside any of the blogpost/comment code), but I have no idea how to do that. I know how to do WordPress upgrades, but stripping the entire site back to the beginning and starting fresh? Way outside my coding skills. (Considering my programming skills are of the “click here to install” “Yes, okay” variety, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.)

Or, I could change hosting providers, which is an option but certainly involves a fair amount of work–the research, the agony of moving everything. And it’s not just Chappysmom, either. It’s Knitting Scholar, too. But there’s no way I can afford to switch to their more expensive hosting plans, so…

Anyway, in other news and speaking of being able to afford things, the newest thing here in Chappy’s house is the living room television. Our old TV, which dates back about 18 years, finally gave up the ghost yesterday. It’s not entirely a surprise because it’s been showing signs of failing for a while. We weren’t even sure it would survive the jostling of the move 14 months ago, so we’re grateful to it for hanging in there as long as it could. But, obviously, we need a television, so last night the three of us went out to buy one.

As much as I prefer to buy things on the internet (if only because of sheer laziness and entropy so that, once I’m home from work, I want to STAY there), this required an in-store purchase. Like trying on shoes, it’s definitely best if you can SEE the screens beforehand–the clarity, the brightness, the color. All that stuff you can’t see on a computer monitor.

More importantly, buying from PC Richards means that they not only deliver (and install) the television, they take the old one away. I can’t over-emphasize the importance of this. Our current television is, in a word, huge. Massive. Monolithic. It’s an old-style console tv with shelves, speakers and screen all in one, big piece of furniture. And I mean big. Not only that, it has a swivel base–the bottom inch is a piece of wood on which the rest of the (enormous) unit sits. This is handy because, sure, if you want to turn it an inch or three because of glare from the sun, you can do so without having to move X-number of pounds of electronics. But it’s also incredibly UN-handy because it means moving the actual television becomes impossible without actually lifting it. If you want to move it 6 inches to the left, well, you’re out of luck unless you have a body-builder in the family. (Especially when you’re in a townhouse with wall-to-wall carpeting so you can’t even slide the thing.)

So, Saturday, they’ll bring us our new television and take away the old, and in the meantime, we’ve got this little 14″ television that used to live in our old kitchen balanced on the top for our television-viewing pleasure.

Oh–the other thing? Since we’ll now have a flat-screen tv, we need someplace to put it … which means a table. So today, Mom and Dad headed to IKEA to buy a television stand that I’ll put together on Friday to be ready for the PC Richards delivery sometime on Saturday.
The delivery also includes setup, but I don’t think they’ll be able to handle it. Not really. Because we’re still so old-school a family that we still own and use our VCR. Not only for watching old VHS tapes (yes, we still own a few dozen), but also to watch basic cable when the DVD-recorder is busy recording something on another channel from the cable box.

We also have a DVD/hard-drive recorder that we use to temporarily record shows … it’s not a DVR. (Much as I would love one, that’s not an option.) No, this is the kind of recorder you need to manually program, but it gives the option of recording to the hard drive (like a DVR) or to a DVD. Which is great, because I like having hard-copy of shows I want to watch again … except the actual DVD drive broke last summer, so we also have a stand-alone DVD-recorder which stands between the HDD-recorder and the television so that we can, in theory, play something off the harddrive, record it to DVD on its way, and watch it all at the same time.

Hey, I told you we were old-school. It’s a fairly elaborate system of not-entirely-current technology, but it works.

The trick is that I am the only one in the family who understands where each item stands in the system. The cable comes in from the wall and gets split to the VCR which goes directly to the tv, but also into the cable box, to the DVD/HDD recorder, to the DVD recorder (which we also use to play movies) to the television.

Adding in high-def into this mix is going to be interesting. Because it’s not like we have a multitude of high-def cables for all of this!

So, there’s that. I wanted to buy some of the pretty newly-dyed yarn from Juniper Moon Farm, but, well, I just bought a television. (Or half a television since Mom, Dad and I are splitting the cost, but still. You know what I mean.)

In knitting, I’m making the Celtic Dreams again, did I tell you? This time in Juniper Moon Farm yarn.

The difference is that I’m turning it into a cardigan because, let’s face it, I wear cardigans about 98% of the time and pullovers almost never. This means I need to choose a cable for the front edges, even though I love the center-back cable. I thought about just putting it at both front edges and overlapping them with buttons, but it’s 22-stitches wide and I don’t think it would look right. (I think it would look dreadful, to be entirely honest.)

We celebrated Dad’s LXXIVth birthday this week, too. Just in case you were keeping track.

I also spent a lot of time last weekend going through my recipes. I’ve got lots of recipe. I’ve shown you before, a long time ago.

So, I went through all my recipes … all of them … and weeded out the ones I didn’t need anymore. And I went back to the original sites of all the ones that came off the internet and then copy/pasted the recipes into Word, so I could throw away the paper printouts. Then I went through yet again and took all the photo copies that I had taken of recipes from magazines and typed all those recipes into Word, too so I could throw away THOSE paper copies.

What’s left is just index cards. SO much neater! I can actually flip through my recipes without having to cram my fingers between cards. Ultimately, I’d like to get all of these typed into the computer, too (for backup if nothing else),but at the moment, I feel I can live with this (grin).

Tags: General by --Deb
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Here’s a special opportunity for you!

I’ve got an ARC  (that’s Advanced Reader’s Copy) of Sara J. Henry’s new book, Learning to Swim and YOU COULD WIN IT!

Not only that, Sara is going to be coming here for an interview on her blog tour. I read her blog all the time and I couldn’t be more excited.

How about you? Excited yet?

Here are some of the quotes from Amazon:

• “Learning to Swim is a thriller of the most thrilling kind—a smart and crafty story with whiffs of Rebecca that insists from the first sentence that you sit down and not stand up again until you’ve read the last word. Tell your loved ones to take care of themselves.” —Quinn Cummings, author of Notes from the Underwire

• “With a strong believable cast of characters and a breathtaking plot, it’s a non-stop thrilling ride that’s impossible to put down.”  —Cat Connor, author of Killerbyte and Terrorbyte

• “If The Usual Suspects and a Jodi Picoult novel had a love child, it would be Learning to Swim—a thought-provoking, evocative, and thrilling read.” —Steph Bowe, author of Girl Saves Boy

• “A mesmerizing confluence of mystery, intrigue, and suspense, with undercurrents of deep personal drama…Learning to Swim will hook you from the first page.” —Jamie Ford, bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

• “From the grabber beginning to the heartfelt conclusion, Sara J. Henry’s Learning to Swim is an auspicious debut … Fresh setting, well-realized characters, cleanly written, with a mysterious and suspenseful story – just what I was looking for.”  – Daniel Woodrell, award-winning author of The Death of Sweet Mister and Winter’s Bone

• “Impressive…Henry adroitly handles Troy’s exposure to new emotions as she re-examines her life and relationships.” - Publisher’s Weekly

• “In her debut, the first in a projected series, Henry proves herself to be a smooth and compelling storyteller. And her lead is highly appealing: An athletic, fiercely independent young woman who, like crime-fiction author Gillian Flynn’s feisty females, is capable of making delightfully acerbic observations.” -Booklist

So much praise, and the book isn’t even out yet!

Stay tuned for Sara’s visit–and your opportunity to win this copy of her fantastic new book!

Tags: Reading by --Deb
1 Comment »

Mom and I went into the center of town yesterday morning for coffee as we usually do on a Saturday. The unusual thing? Look how empty this street is! There are some cars parked on the right, clustered in front of the diner, but … no traffic. Literally dozens of available parking spaces. All at 10:00 on a Saturday morning. I’ve literally never seen Broadway so empty.
It was so unheard of, I had to stop to take pictures.

I finished my current knitting project–this square shawl/blanket knit in my handspun. (It’s folded into quarters for blocking, so that it fits on my blocking board.)

I had THIS much yarn left when I was done!

Next up? I’m thinking an Aran sweater in my JMF yarn. I wound off 2 balls of it earlier and just need to make a swatch.

Unpinned, it’s almost impossible to get a good photo of my shawl/blanket that doesn’t look like a shapeless blob, so the best I can do is to show it in action.

I’ve spent the weekend reorganizing my closet and my knitting stash–including repurposing some sweaters. I felted three storebought ones that I now just need to figure out what to do with–but at least the fulling part is done. Now I just need to figure out what to DO with them. SUGGESTIONS?? Bags? Slippers? Oven mitts? My only mistake was that one was a wool/angora blend, and while it fulled wonderfully, it generated tons of lint (thank God for zippered pillowcases) and the finished fabric is kind of … hairy.

Anyway.

I took my old Autumn Dreams which NEVER fit right and felted it. The arms, voila, will now be wrist-warmers, and I’m going to turn the body into a purse. I just need to figure out how to attach those handles.

These handknits have never been satisfactory, either.

The Manos Sweater, which I designed (more or less) shortly after restarting knitting in 2004, ended up with Romulan shoulders. The Romulan version of Tasha Yar (whose name I forget) would have loved it. The yarn is gorgeous, though, in that golden brown color (called “Topaz” here) I love so much.

(I also love how, even unraveled, you can still see exactly how the stitches were laid out.)

The other was my Olympics Sweater from the 2006 Knitting Olympics.

Oh, and the green one? I’m thinking it would make a nice pillow. It’s always been problematic. I never found a zipper I liked for it, and the weight of the hood makes it pull backwards when you’re wearing it. It’s just … weird. But the cables are gorgeous and I love the apple green Cashmerino yarn. It’s just that … the thought of unraveling all the seams to repurpose that sweater seems very, very wearying. Sewing it into a pillow shape seems much easier.
So, I unraveled them. With this assistant who helped hold the sweater upright:

I must say, it was helpful that I was the one who knitted these sweaters in the first place. Even though it’s been YEARS, I still remembered the direction of the knitting, how they were assembled, when the sleeves were added. All that stuff. They both just took forever because of the colorwork. Frogging colorwork is much harder than frogging all one color.

Today, I washed all the yarn.

I also pulled out ALL my yarn from the closet and sorted through it, reacquainting myself with all the beautiful stuff in my stash. I also weeded out a pile of yarn I don’t really need anymore.

I’ve come to accept that my stash is made up of three things. Sweater-sized lots of yarn. Yarn for socks. Yarn for lace. Anything else–medium-sized quantities for, say, matching hat and mittens or single skeins that aren’t sufficient for a full pair of socks–tends to never, ever get used.

I really need to accept that I like larger projects and stop BUYING yarn for small or medium-sized stuff. With the exception of socks, because I like handknit socks AND they’re perfect for carrying in my purse. By rights, I should get rid of bunches more yarn that falls outside my usual knitting projects but … it’s so pretty!

I hope 2011 is going wonderfully for all of you!

Tags: Finished Knitting by --Deb
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Books I read in December:

1. The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler by John Lukacs. Not as riveting as I’d hoped, but interesting nevertheless–Churchill and Hitler feeling each other out.
2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. More classic Holmes stories.
3. The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman’s Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis by Tara Austen Weaver. Here, the author is told by her doctor that she should start eating meat for her health, but she has been a vegetarian her whole life, has never cooked meat of any kind … what is she to do? A little too much agonizing, and the conclusion, while good for her health, seemed to make the whole journey kind of pointless.
4. The Grey Horse by R.A. MacAvoy. Fantasy. A hundred or so years ago, in Ireland, a grey horse comes courting … love this book. Love Ruari as both a horse and a man. Love the story.
5. The Lady by Anne McCaffrey. Speaking of horses–this is one of the few non-sci-fi books by Anne McCaffrey and tells the story of 13-year old, horse-crazy Catriona trying to figure out the many changes in her life.
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: 10th Anniversary Edition (Harry Potter) by J.K. Rowling.
7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling.
8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling.
9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling.
10. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.
11. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling.
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling. Um, yeah. Harry Potter. Do I really need to say more?
13. Once a Princess (Sasharia En Garde) by Sherwood Smith.
14. Twice a Prince (Sasharia En Garde) by Sherwood Smith. A duology with a spunky, fighting princess, an alternate universe, a missing father … Cute.
15. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker. A serious look at how the brain works and we process language. Thorough and interesting, but kind of dry and I confess I put it down halfway through.
16. Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution by Joel Richard Paul. The behind-the-scenes maneuvering between three unlikely people in France during the war.
17. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, more classic Sherlock Holmes.
18. Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn. Fantasy by one of my favorite authors, and one that I keep going back to.
19. The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry. Another YA fantasy. Lucinda’s parents died years ago and she’s been forced to work for an evil aunt until one day Beryl, known as the Amaranth Witch, walks into their shop and everything changes.
20. The Healer’s Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson. Basically a retelling of sleeping beauty. Enjoyable and more believable than the Amaranth book.

Tags: Monthly Reading List, Reading by --Deb
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