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After we left Juneau, I felt a bit of pain in my back. By the time we woke in Skagway, my back had completely seized up. My best guess is that I strained it a little when I hit the gym on Thursday, and then all day Sunday on boats just was too much sitting and balancing for me. Nonetheless, we had plans in Skagway, and I was determined to see everything. Plus, it hurt less to be walking than sitting or lying down. Skagway is in a beautiful setting, with a lovely harbor and the White Pass behind.  We went on a hike on the famous and historic Chilkoot Trail. We hiked two miles, learning the history, hearing how long it takes for a Sitka Spruce to get big, figuring out which berries are the deadly baneberries, and stepping over bear scat. We then veered off the trail to go floating on the river.  Eagles flew overhead, the mountains were spectacular, and overall it was one of my favorite days. We returned to the ship for lunch, and then I headed into town while DH watched the kids. I took a short trail to Lower Dynes Lake, which is part of an extensive trail system with trailheads from downtown.  I then wandered around town, and of course found the yarn shop, Changing Threads.  It was a nice shop, with a good selection and variety. They had roving, too. We left Skagway and sailed overnight to Sitka. Sitka does not have a port for a cruise ship, so we had to tender into the town. We first did a "Wildlife Quest" by boat and saw a flotilla of sea otters. But with the clouds and distance, those photos are... well, let's say it was better in person than on film (or digital). Even with the clouds, Sitka was lovely. It did not have as much of a "run over by 4000 cruise ship passengers" feeling as Skagway or Ketchikan. The public art was great, and the Raptor Center is extremely cool.   Next up: Hubbard Glacier and Seward. | | |
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On our third cruising day, we neared Juneau. Near Juneau is the Tracy Arm, a fjord with two magnificent glaciers - the North Sawyer Glacier and the South Sawyer Glacier. K had read about the Tracy Arm in a National Geographic Kids magazine and was excited to see it. So was I. What do you see in the Tracy Arm? To start, lots of icebergs.  They even brought one on board for us to touch? Trivia fact #1: Iceberg ice is much heavier and denser than "regular" ice you make in your freezer, because the glacier ice is compacted by all the weight of the glacier. All the air bubbles have been squeezed out. Trivia fact #2: Icebergs bigger than about 10 feet are called "icebergs", those 3-10 feet are called "growlers", and the smaller ones are called "bergy bits". Note that Wikipedia has the growler vs. bergy bit classifications reversed of what our naturalist told us on the ship. Who is right? Does anybody know? K is here with one that is about 3 feet.  We also saw a lot of waterfalls. They were everywhere you went.  We hit a point at which the captain had to decide which glacier we would see. He said the South Sawyer Glacer had been impossible to approach all summer due to ice in the water, so we would probably go to the North Sawyer Glacier... but he wanted to take a look first. And then, he decided we could try South Sawyer. We made it within 1/2 mile.  The crew was so excited they shut down the galley to go on deck and watch it. Yes, it did calve. And trying to take a photo of a glacier calving is like trying to get a photo of your kid scoring in soccer. You'll have your camera pointed for an hour and then they'll do it the minute you have to go to the bathroom. K and I met the ship in Juneau, where DH and CJ had already gone on their own exploration. We had an evening whale-watch & Mendenhall Glacier trip scheduled. It was - shall we say - a wee bit foggy, so the Mendenhall viewing wasn't so good.  But we did see a Black Bear eating salmon from the river. That was pretty cool. And then off to another boat, for our whale watch.  The fog lifted and the sky was glorious. Juneau is beautiful, and the sky and mountains surprise you every time you turn around.  We saw humpback whales bubble-net feeding. Seriously cool. And also something you just can't catch on camera, or at least not do it justice. Did I go yarn shopping? Of course. I found the Senate Building in Juneau, which houses Skeins.   Skeins is larger than the shop in Ketchikan, but didn't have as good a selection of Alaskan yarns as the Ketchikan shop. They had a lot of "mass market" high-quality brands, and if I lived up there I'd do quite well in this shop. I didn't buy anything because... well, do you have any idea how much I spent on the qiviut in Ketchikan? That was the end of my yarn budget! Next up: Skagway (and maybe Sitka if I decide to post it all at once) | | |
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After the kids got out of school on Wednesday, we headed south to visit Nana & Papa (aka, My Parents). It was a long drive, which we broke up by visiting a few geocaches. One was near a lot of cows.  We also stopped at Harris Ranch for the bathrooms and another cache - and of course there were plenty of cows there. Later that night, K could not bring herself to eat beef... The next day, we headed to LA with Nana and Papa and went to American Girl Place. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it's a series of dolls and historical fiction books about American - uh - girls. The books are quite good. You also can get a girl to "look like you". Here's the display of options...  Yes, that price is $105 each. We followed that up with the La Brea Tar Pits, which is a totally cool thing to see. The display behind CJ in the photo below is old skulls found in the pits, dating back thousands of years.  The next day, we went to Universal Studios.  We took the studio tour, and rode the Jurassic Park ride. And we saw dinosaurs!  After those two whirlwind days, we went back to Bakersfield, just in time for WWKIP day. Let me tell you, those knitters in Bakersfield are dedicated. The forecast was 100+ degrees, and still they were out in force!   A group was even working simultaneously on an afghan.  I got to meet Suzanne, April, Joan, and a bunch of others whose names are now somewhere in the part of my brain that stores things and then loses them. Oh yes, and I saw Lisa again, after quite a few years. She is knitting from her late mom's stash, which I find very touching. And her mom had a good stash!  And then... mom and I checked out ABCs of Creative Pursuits, in the hope of saying hi to Karen (the owner). She was out sick, but I got these photos of the shop... If you were wondering whether it is worth stopping by when in Bakersfield, these photos will convince you the answer is yes!   Yes, I knit, and yes, I'll take photos of my own stuff some day. Maybe I'll even finish an object this month! | | |
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This year's AcademyHealth meeting kept me in DC for 4 nights. I was at two "special interest group" meetings (presenting papers) on Saturday, and then had presentations on Sunday & Monday at the conference - and chaired a session. Oh yeah, and attended an editorial board meeting. Wow - that was busy! After my session on Sunday, the very smart Julie called my hotel room and suggested a yarn crawl. See, I told you she is smart! We took the Metro to the Eastern Market and browsed the stalls in 95 degree heat with high humidity. The SF weather has spoiled me, and I am just not used to the heat like I once was. We bought sorbet (mango!) and then walked a few blocks to StitchDC. Yes, we both bought things...   In my hand is a skein of Farmhouse Yarns sock. Yeah, like I need more sock yarn. Well, it is pretty and I haven't seen it anywhere in California. According to their website I could find it at Imagiknit, but I don't get there often. Yes, I'm rationalizing. Anyway it is now here with me at home! On Monday night, after all the activities of the conference were done for me, a large group of about 18 went to Lebanese Taverna for a huge meal. The food was great as usual but service was a bit slow... it took an awfully long time for Dennis to get the glass of wine he needed. At the end of the meal, the Stanford crew was left in charge of counting the money - which was pretty comical.  And then Steve the Bad Influence joined us and a few of us grabbed drinks. It was a remarkably tame evening for this crowd. The next mornign I slept in and then met the fellow Academic Knit Raveler Ellie at the hotel coffeeshop. She was arriving for her own conference which started right as mine was leaving. She was knitting some gorgeous green socks from a handpainted yarn she got at a fiber festival - great stuff. And two toe-ups on one needle - I was impressed.  Today I am doing laundry like crazy and getting ready for a road trip to B'field to visit my parents... | | |
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This study I've been doing on health IT in the VA health care system is nearing an end. I just finished the site visit to the Boston VA, and have 2 more to go - in two weeks I head for Cinci and then Fayetteville Arkansas. This trip got a day of pleasure, too. I had dinner with my cousins. And then I spent a day with my aunt and uncle. I got to meet their new dog, Baxter.  Baxter is a good dog, if a bit too energetic - he's a puppy after all! And I managed to shop for yarn. I hit The Sheep Shack, in Holden Massachusetts, not far from my cousin's home. They had a nice selection of things, and a very helpful very pregnant woman working there. They had some Dream in Color - a bit of the worsted weight superwash merino, and some sock yarn. I really didn't like the colors they had of the sock yarn. They seemed muddy - I can't even identify them from the company's web page, because the two sock yarns didn't have the clarity that you see in the photos of the colorways online. That said, I really liked this one, which is Dusky Aurora. A skein of the worsted came home with me. It is super soft, and the yardage is awesome - $17 for 250 yards. The company makes a big deal of their "veil dyeing" method, which really appears to be a method in which one paints the yarn with clear variegation, and then overdyes (lightly) to tie it all together. It's not rocket science, and some color combinations work better than others.  I also grabbed a skein of Superwash Me - Sock from J. Knits. I think I have heard of this dyer before - she is based in Massachusetts. This colorway is Tampa, and it's not a set of colors I would likely dye myself, which is why I picked it up. It's pretty soft, especially for something with nylon. One criticism - I think the labels have a major math problem. They say "75% Superwash Wool / 15% nylon". Where'd the other 10% go??? (The web page says 25% nylon, so that explains it.)   Now, why precisely I continue to buy sock yarn when I dye so much? I guess I'm addicted! I do appreciate the work of other artists and dyers - everybody has a different eye for color and technique. | | |
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I just got my order from Threadless the other day, and this was in it.  Is that not the best shirt? I have two other good ones with sheep from Threadless. I think they must have a cult customer base of knitters, to keep putting up these sheep designs! I skeined a bunch of yarn, some of which is in the box for ABCs of Creative Pursuits, and some is going to Nine Rubies this weekend. My favorite? Absolutely positively the 100% cashmere in Waves.  You have to touch it to believe it. I'm having a hard time taking this to the shop. The garden is happy with the warm weather.  And the roses are stunning.  And, the cherries are in! I bought over two pounds at the farmer's market this morning, and I think at least 1/2 a pound is gone already! Red. I think I'll dye some yarn in red. | | |
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As I last posted, I had a great time at Stitches West in the classes I took. The first class was The Joy of Steeks. We were instructed to knit a swatch at home, baste a line with yarn up the middle to mark the steek location, and then machine-sew on either side. And then, after about 30 minutes of preamble, we cut! And then we added a simple garter-stitch border to one side, and we then learned how to do a front border with back facing. And then, just in case our heads were not ready to explode, we learned how to secure our steek with crochet rather than a machine. The crochet produces a nicer-looking steek. Here is my two pieces, post-steek, and the edging on one.  My Friday class was Bias Knitting without Prejudice with Lily Chin. She is a fabulous teacher, and I have learned a lot from all her classes. We started the class with bias strips - how to make them and how to put them together in a garment. We then spent the afternoon on how to design a full garment, such as a sweater, on the bias. Here are two of my swatches - the left is a bias-knit eyelet with garter ridges, and the right one is a nifty thing you can do for edgings. It also happens to be about the same as the base triangles for entrelac...  At the market, I saw this book at the Great Yarns booth - it's from Twisted Sisters and all the patterns are knit on the bias! The patterns are really fun and I think would work well my own hand-dyed yarns (plus the stash).  The lovely woman next to me in the Bias Knitting class had a slew of this yarn that she was using for her swatches. How lovely - it reminds me of the yarn from Mama-E that I used for my Embossed Leaves socks. I think I have about 300 yards of it - maybe embossed leaves fingerless gloves?  Yes, I did a little shopping. Since I am not dyeing any cellulose fibers, I picked up some merino-tencel sock yarns. Left is one from Blue Moon, and right is one from Ellen's Half-Pint Farm. I also grabbed two of Cookie's sock patterns and some solid Gems to go with one of them.   I couldn't resist getting some Caravan from Just Our Yarn. Did you see the review in Knitters Review? What a unique yarn!  I got these hair-clips-shawl-pins from some guy.  All of the above happened on Thursday and Friday! As for Saturday and Sunday... I finally met Seltsame! She was knitting the Bella sweater at the same time I was. I wore mine on Saturday, and she wore hers today. Hers is really beautiful, in a great shade of red. It was great to have a personal meeting to go with the blog. I spent a lot of time at the Nine Rubies booth, helping them sell Baywood Yarns and the other products they had on show. Linda and I spent a fair amount of time demonstrating the beaded scarf kit, which is beautiful and really easy. Here's Linda demonstrating.  In the evenings, I demonstrated my appreciation for MIL, who babysat the kids on Thursday night and Friday morning so I could help at Great Knit Designs and take a class. I seamed her sweater for her.  I didn't do too bad a job! I finished the seams, and decided to flip it inside-out to weave in the ends. This is what I found...  Yep, she cut the yarn at every color transition. I called her... "Uh, Mom, how do you want to handle the million ends?" "I was thinking I'd weave them in with a crochet hook." "Is the plan that YOU were going to weave them in, or that I am?" "Oh no, I can do it." Whew! Off to seam the Eloise sweater... | | |
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I'm already a day behind schedule... here's what happened Thursday!
I packed a good dinner snack, just in case...
I arrived as the Nine Rubies sign was going up! Look at all that Tilli Tomas right below the sign... And the Artyarns too!
Front and center is the Baywood Yarns rack - I was flabbergasted. On the front side is superwash sport, superwash sock, Butter, Luxury DK, Creme de Soie, Boucle.
Here's the back side of the rack... worsted merino, luxury sock, Fluffy Sheep, and Thick-and-Thin. Last I saw, I don't think the Fluffy Sheep and Thick-and-Thin are selling, but the Luxury Sock is going fast. So is the sock yarn and the DK silk-merino.
And here is where I worked Thursday night - the Great Knit Designs booth! Doesn't it look great?
My class Thursday was on steeks. It was really good, and I learned some tricks about how to face the steek and pick up from it. Today's class was Bias Knitting with Lily Chin - great class, although it could have been a 3-hour rather than 6-hour class. I did some shopping today too. Pictures later... | | |
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Last Saturday, I went to CJ's dance recital, held by Kirkpatrick's School of Dance. To say this was a high-stakes recital, especially compared with our Parks-and-Recreation-Department experience, is an understatement. People were putting makeup on their 5-year-olds. CJ thankfully refused the offers of blush and lip gloss. I think she looked fabulous in her natural beauty, but that might just be because I'm her mom.  She tap-danced to a song from Oklahoma, which was adorable. She's the third from the right.  I'm hoping that MIL managed to get photos with better zoom. I had the digital camera, which wasn't ideal. I left before intermission and dashed to the airport for the AcademyHealth meeting in Seattle. I presented posters on two projects (learn more here and here) on Sunday. After attending 10 straight hours of meetings and conference research sessions, I went on a nice walk with Beth & Surrey, grabbed a beer, and then had dinner at Palace Kitchen with a group. The oddest thing of the day: the luncheon plenary was a great talk about infectious microbes and national security, including the bird flu, right after we ate chicken for lunch. Monday involved more sessions, starting with a RWJF breakfast at 8am and going until I finished the lunch and took a break with Julie. We caught a bus and headed here:  Hilltop Yarns, in the Queen Anne neighborhood. We picked it based on proximity and good reviews on the web. It's lovely inside.  Most of what they had I can find in the SF region, but I did make some purchases. I have three words that justify my buying.  Fleece Artist HandmaidenThe Fleece Artist is their sock yarn. You can find Fleece Artist in one shop in the SF area. Yep, just one. As for the Handmaiden... you just can't get it in California. Really. 30 million people in this state and not one shop sells Handmaiden. I think that justifies purchases of the new Sea Silk and some Silk Rumple, don't you? That Sea Silk is as beautiful as the reviews - they had a sample scarf in the purple you see above, and the drape and sheen are amazing. With our purchases in tow, we headed back to the conference for a few more sessions. There was another group dinner - this one with Surrey, Janet, and Steve. And a few martinis. Surrey and I (and Steve, who got separated from us, but that's another story) tried to find nightlife, but apart from some strange dudes who weren't sure if they were drunk or inept muggers and a biker bar called Shorty's, we struck out. Alas. Tuesday made up for it. None of the conference sessions were appealing, so I went to Pike Place Market to get small gifts for the kids, and then took a cab to the small boat harbor for a bit of this.  Brought to you by Captain Steve.  Perfect weather, great views. We could see Mt Rainier and snow on top of the Olympics, although there was enough haze and fog that the photos didn't turn out well. Some things are better left to memory. I had one more dinner with Janet and a friend of hers, and spent all day Wednesday on a site visit for a study. I got home in time to see the kids before they went to bed (whew!!!). Today I had to go to the office, but Saturday we leave for vacation, so I didn't feel too guilty about heading out another day. Now, about that vacation... tent cabins, lots of sitting time. Socks are a given. Should I bring the cable-eight sleeveless top in Pachuko Cotton too? I'm definitely going to work on the yarn I got from Dye-O-Rama... | | |
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Knitting group met last night. Mary and Rebecca did a pre-group visit to check out Nine Rubies Knitting - they gave it four thumbs up! The shop was open late this Wednesday and they discussed with the owner whether Wednesday was the best night to stay open late. We wondered whether Vanessa's had kept up their late Wednesday hours, which they started for the holidays, so Mary & Rebecca walked down there. When they didn't return for a while, we figured the shop must be open, and somebody did indeed return with a purchase!
Laurie and Lenore also made it, and we agreed that next time we'll get a full bottle of wine!
I made huge progress on the sock, due to a staff meeting at work, a conference call, and knitting group, and I decided to finish the sock at home. I didn't want to be left with only a toe graft and no project to knit at work in case there's a meeting. I bungled the first graft, pulled it out, and reworked it, and...
It's not as snug as I expected, so I'm wondering how it will do when put in a shoe. How snug are these socks supposed to be?
 
My neighbors sure think I'm off my rocker, running around the front yard with a camera wearing only one sock! Time to cast on the other one.
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It's a big report from me, to make up for all those past weeks I haven't posted.
1. There is a new yarn shop in town, Nine Rubies. I dropped by today, as did Elspeth. It's a nice shop and the owner is very nice. They have a good selection to open, about 10 labels, and are planning to expand. They have some beautiful Schaeffer, and lots of Rowan. I hope they do well. Their hours are longer than Vanessa's, which is the ongoing complaint about Vanessa's. I like Vanessa's also, though, and hope everybody can stay in business!
2. I'm finally posting photos from San Mateo Knitters a few weeks ago... you can see a few of our projects are moving along weel!
  
3. As for my own knitting... I have several things on the needles now...
* My first sock, in Tess Yarn! I'm also down to the foot part - I have only one more decrease row in the gusset. Oh yeah, and the second sock...
* A tie-back sleeveless top from Vogue Knitting in progress using No Smoking yarn, which is a royal bitch to work with. The yarn has absolutely no stretch and is generally unforgiving, and it splits! I thought I'd be able to whip up this little top in a week, but it drags on.
* a poncho for Kaylie, which is the mystery yarn poncho. She wanted it to be turquoise, and we ordered some bulky merino from Elann. But she rejected the yarn because it is "too green". So we dug in my stash and pulled out some Classic Elite Bravo in turquoise... but it's only about 100 yards which is definitely not enough. I pulled out some cotton (7 rows Bravo, 3 rows cotton) but still thought it wasn't enough. So now I'm working in some Colinette Athene... it is a bit crazy but it's all in the same shade of turquoise and Kaylie tells me it looks good to her so far.
* a sweatear for CJ, the one with the butterfly buttons, which I haven't worked on because I owe Kaylie a sweater and don't want Kaylie to be upset if CJ gets two items in a row.
4. We're leaving to ski tonight! Lots of knitting time in the lodge coming. | | |
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I am now in Washington DC for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management annual conference. I'm presenting my paper, on the early effects of minimum nurse-to-patient staffing requirements, tomorrow.
My trip began auspiciously, with a half-empty plane and a tailwind getting me to BWI early. I had a lovely dinner with my dear friend Kim, and got to see her precious three children. I hadn't seen them in two years.
My trip then moved into an unauspicious mode, due to my hotel, the Washington Marriott, not having any more non-smoking rooms. I asked "how stinky" my room would be, and they sent me to the Marriott Metro Center, about 13 blocks away. They gave me cash for a cab and the room was nice and huge. Too bad I had to leave it and return to the original hotel today... but the conference is here and it would be a pain to commute across town for this.
After attending some conference sessions, Janet met me for a short yarn crawl. I was ravenous so we started with a light bite, and then we hit Stitch DC. I was taken by a ball of Be Sweet Magic to make a scarf, and a large 250 meter hank of Hand Maiden Stretto. The colorway is something along the lines of Dragonfly, but it could be Paris. I have no idea what to do with the Hand Maiden, but I think it will involve a capelet or something of that sort.
I had dinner with my wonderful High School English teacher, Jim. What a treat to continue to have a relationship with him. He was a great teacher and an inspiration through those horrible HS years...
More conference tomorrow... | | |
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Yeah yeah yeah. It's a yarn diet. (Never mind that I should be on a regular diet too. But something about this full-time work and full-time mommy thing has meant I'm on a full-time eating spree to deal with stress. But tonight it's red wine.)
So, I was walking home from a meeting with Mary at her Mt. Zion office, when I just had to check out the sock yarn selection of Atelier. Never mind that it's not even my favorite shop. It just happens to be on the way back to my office from Mary's.
It jumped in, I swear.
Just so you understand the gymnastic nature of this yarn, I tell you it's 4 hanks of Noro Sahara, 40% spiky angora (not as soft as regular angora but doesn't suck), 30% silk, 20% camel, 10% wool. And it was on sale. It wants to be a scarf with cables.
And a copy of The Magic Loop was very intentionally placed in the bag as well, because I'm going to knit socks whenever I finish that darn baby sweater, which I've noticed has a hole in an obvious place but I'm not willing to rip the darn thing out. Hollis offered to help me sew up the hole. Whew!
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I just got home from the Yarn Harlot's visit to Berkeley on her bookbookbook tour. Wearing her Birkenstocks, she was more petite and prettier than her photos - they don't really do her justice.
Fortunately, her writing does do justice to her sense of humor. She started with a series of photos for the sock.
And, yes, she was wearing the lovely Birch shawl in Rowan KidSilk Haze (or CrackSilk Haze, as she calls it).
She was funny, self-depreciating, told some great stories (and she made us promise to not tell the story about the Baking Powder), and then signed books. To say there was a long line would be an understatement. I was the *last* in line. Yes, the last. But I got my photo.
Of course I got the signature in the book, and managed to get a few more rows of the sock-yarn-baby-sweater-for-Jack-who-is-due-in-September done.
I had dinner with folks from Peninsula Knitters, thanks to the kind invitation of Hollis. Of course we ate at Zachary's, down the street. Thanks for saving me food, y'all!
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The past two weeks have been all about travel. They started with our family vacation at the Lair of the Golden Bear. We were in Camp Oski, in a lovely tent-cabin. Our circle of cabins had 5 other families, who were generally enjoyable, especially when happy hour involved wine and gourmet appetizers concocted by Owen. The neighboring cabin had a family with kids the same ages as ours, which worked very well for everybody.
I knit a lot. I worked on a 3/4 sleeve tie-front cardigan, pattern called "Melon Blast" from Knitters 74. Of course I'm not using the called-for cotton, I'm using Cherry Tree Hill Melange in a lovely green-blue mixture called River Run. Oddly the link on the web does not match the colors I have, probably because of the different yarn fiber content..
And then... off to Barcelona for the International Health Economics Association conference. Would I go there without doing my yarn shop research? Of course not! Here is my Barcelona yarn shop report:
Merceria Santa Ana is listed in the Shopfinder, but it's really a sewing novelties store. They have a little bit of yarn but it is behind the counter and you have to stand in long lines and speak Spanish to get to it. I didn't bother.
Oyambre is a Rowan stockist in the Eixample district. They were on siesta when we walked by, but it appeared that they have needlepoint, sewing, and knitting stuff. It didn't look like their yarn selection was huge and I can find Rowan anywhere.
Barcelana (heh heh) is in La Ribiera neighborhood, off a side street. I heard about it from a few blogs based in Spain.
The sewers were not behaving well in the old city that day, so the street was rather aromatic. Note the graffiti. Barcelona is a lovely city but definitely suffers from the problems of very old cities.
Inside...
The report is that the products are milled in Argentina. They are not labeled with any brands, and range from man-made fibers (very soft), cotton, silk, wool. There were two women in the shop, one busy with this:
They were selling woven and knit items, as well as the plain yarns.
I picked some wool-mystery yarn from these bins
I think they have something to do with "goat" which I assume means Mohair...
And I picked cotton from here
Don't you love that yellow?
The rest of the trip was knitting during conference sessions, sightseeing with Lynn, dinners with Lynn, Surrey, and Julie, and one night of dancing until 5am. A good city.
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I flew to Boston on Friday, for the AcademyHealth conference. I didn't knit much on the flight because I was working. I had lovely seatmates, and as usual JetBlue was wonderful. I packed a healthy breakfast and didn't even eat the oreos.
I had dinner with Marianne and Becks, who were kind enough to drive from Reading and Concord NH. We ate at Bricco in the North End which was very good... not the best ever but definitely very good. The food was not strongly flavored or spiced - it was prepared well but I would have put more spices and vanilla in the food/dessert. But, hey, I cleaned my plate. We then walked around the North End, bought some pastries at Mike's, and walked most of the way back to the hotel. During the walk Annie the Nanny called and my littlest was crying "I want MOM". I talked with Annie the Nanny and then littlest, and when she was off the phone she was no longer crying. Poor thing isn't used to my travel - haven't had a trip since April.
Today I attended the Workforce Special Interest Group (pretty good) and then spoke at the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues (IRGNI - how's that for an acroynm - say it: eergh - knee!). I knit a novelty fuzzy purple-orange-with-pailettes scarf throughout. Very simple stuff. A bunch of us grabbed dinner at Azure in the Lenox hotel - yum!
Tomorrow I'm presenting at 8:30 in the morning eastern time. Have I mentioned that my body thinks it's pacific time? So... I'll be loaded on coffee and hopefully coherent. Sometime I'm playing hooky to check out Circles in Jamaica Plain, and might even talk Anne into coming - a partner in crime!
And soon I'll start swatching Melange from Cherry Tree Hill to make some sort of spring/summer/fall top...the color is River Run, I bought it at the HandPaint Heaven New Year's Sale a year or two ago... | | |
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On Saturday I went to the open house for Full Thread Ahead, which launched its online store that morning. I'd heard about the store from the Peninsula Knitters Yahoo group. Hollis, the owner, has had a blog about opening the store for a while. Anyway... after getting to the farmer's market, and a playdate, I left the kiddos with DH and headed there. Quite a selection!
This is my favorite: Curious Creek Fibers, which is hand-painted in San Diego
This photo cannot do justice to how rich the golden yellow is. It's 90% mohair, 10% nylon.
Here's another treat - Rainbow Wools, hand-dyed in Australia and shipped directly to Hollis
Again, the photo doesn't really show the interplay of colors as well as would be ideal.
Finally, I bought 4 balls of this stuff
which has side-to-side baby sweater written all over it. Now I need to find or create a pattern, which you'd think would be easy but actually I couldn't find one last night.
In the meantime I'm almost done with the back of the Tagliatelli cardigan and got the newest issue of Knitters. There are a few things I might want to mark for future knitting in the issue... | | |
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