Down Memory Lane

I guess it started at Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey tryptophan tends to unleash flashbacks of the leaner times of our youth, and we like to spend an hour or two frightening the teenagers with stories of walk up apartments with no doormen, insolvent and secretive roommates, and food budgets that didn't exceed $7 a week, beer included.

We spent the next meandering through the old neighborhood, which looks nothing at all like the old neighborhood of our memories. There are certainly some improvements: we saw two great shows at The New Museum which was pretty much empty due to the holiday weekend and had a nice lunch here. We considered going to the Tenement Museum, but after taking a look at the admission price, we realized we could see the same thing at home for free by knocking on some of the other apartments in our building.

We also had a good laugh in the John Varvatos store which inhabits the old CBGBs. There are a few artifacts from the club left in the store, albeit covered with glass as if to protect it from people who are spending $375 for an acrylic watch cap. They used part of the wobbly bar for the cash register counter and were selling a used copy of my all time favorite record for $35.

Note: the bathroom was clean, and unremarkable.

Now I Remember

As I was standing on the PATH platform this morning waiting to squash into the train car, I remembered the name of that pattern: Pleated Scarf.

Amnesia

Neighbor, has this every happened to you? I found a pattern on Ravelry. I improvised on said pattern. I knitted a garment! I threw out the pattern, because - yes! It's all on Ravelry, no need to keep the piece of paper laying around. Now I cannot remember the name of the pattern, or when it was published, or in fact anything about it.

Except here it is, done in what was pretty much the last skein of yarn available for purchase at the Briar Rose stall at Sheep 'n Wool.


The original pattern was for size 5 needles and I did this one in 13's. There were eight rows of the pattern but I did three, casted on only 24 stitches and whipped this up real fast. I wish someone would hurry up and invent Feel-o-vision for the internet so you could squeeze it and see how soft it is.

If you have seen this pattern, let me know. I'd like to credit the designer. I'd like to be reassured this happens to everyone. I'd like to think I haven't sunk into some knitting bender where I don't know knit from shinola.

Far Flung Knits

Happy to report that the Newsboy Cap is back from China and by all accounts had a great time. Here it is sitting on Emily's head in front of that amazing National Stadium Building in Beijing:

My Girl Swirled Around The World

With Emily gone these last two weeks I decided to do something about all that Noro hiding around the house. These sassy little fingerless gloves use only one skein of Kureyon. While I like these little mitties, my hands get cold so I layer them over the cheap stretchy gloves you can get anywhere.


This super simple project should take you two nights, tops.

My Girl Swirled Around The World

What you need: 1 set size 8 dpn; 1 skein Noro Kureyon. Unlike other patterns in the round, you do not need a marker.

Gauge: about 20 stitches for 4 inches, but this pattern is very stretchy.

Okay let's go: cast on 36 stitches and divide them on 3 needles. Join, being careful not to do anything I wouldn't do.

Then, just jump right into the pattern: Knit 2, YO, Knit 2, Knit 2 together. Just keep going! It's very liberating to get so much pattern for so little counting.

Stop after 4" though, and Knit 6 stitches on waste yarn. Then, go back and knit those six waste yarn stitches again. You can pick up the pattern after knitting the waste stitches.

Continue this for 3 more inches, then bind off. I prefer to use this bind off: K2tog, and put the stitch back on the left needle until one stitch is left, then draw yarn through loop and voila.

For the thumb, undo those waste stitches and pick them up on three dpns. I recommend you pick up a stitch or two in any area that shows a gap in the main mitten; it's the thing I dislike most about this type of thumb. Knit four rounds, then bind off.

Shanghai'd

I spent the better part of this evening researching yarn stores for Emily to visit in Shanghai tomorrow. Thanks to the miracle of Ravelry, I located about 25 of them which could easily be visited in an afternoon by an energetic teenager. I even got this map of yarn stores to help her out, and I am sure the one marked with the big red star is the best:



I immediately texted her with this important information. She sent this by return text:

:-P

Which I am sure is a typo.

Rated "G" , But Not Why You Would Think

Emily won't be back for another week and I'm sinking low. Although I outright refused to do so with Emily, I took Lou Lou to see High School Musical 3 because I missed hearing Emily sing along on her Ipod to all the songs all day long. Also, I was curious about the recommendation of a man in my office,who pronounced the movie to be "the gay cinema classic of this decade".

Honey, he was so right. The plot seemed to be a little bit "All About Eve" and a little bit "A Chorus Line". There were so many scenes of sweaty, muscular teen boys frolicking in the locker rooms and on the dance floors I was surprised when they burst into song, because I expected them to burst into porn. And the outfits! One boy seemed to have this Weimar/Golf thing going, with plenty of sweater vests, madras shorts and knee high patten leather riding boots. I couldn't find any pictures of the clothes, but I did discover that some of the clothing was designed by the sadly overlooked Project Runway contestant Elisa Jimenez, go figure.

I'd say it was a minor knitting classic too, since there is a lot of, well, deconstructed argyle going on there. Again, I could not stomach looking at one more Disney website to find pictures of the clothes, but I will tell you there was something that looked like this, and something else that looked like this.

Hitting a Great Wall

As promised, Emily took a picture of her Newsboy Cap on the Great Wall of China.

Did you know? the Great Wall of China is the only manmade structure visible from space, and therefore, so is the newsboy cap?

Here's a picture of the Great Wall of China from Outer Space. Or, as Emily used to call it, Out of Space:


The hat is either by the red arrow or the yellow arrow, look closely.

Digging to China

Emily called this early this morning from China to say good night as she was getting ready to go to bed. It was a strange, topsy turvey feeling, imagining me on one side of the world and Emily upside down on the other side of the world.

When we were kids, one of our favorite activities was digging to China in our tiny backyard with teaspoons. My brother Fred still likes to do this when we are on vacation in Maine:


He pretends he's keeping an eye on the children but really, it's China he's after.

Bon Voyage

I've been busy packing, unpacking and repacking because Emily is leaving for China tomorrow with her high school class. She's going to Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai. When I was in school, our class trips were here and here. And sometimes we went here.

She will be taking her Newsboy Cap with her and hopefully taking a picture of it when she visits the Great Wall. Honestly, that is the only thing I want her to bring home from this trip. Really, what's the point of being a world traveler if you don't take some handknits along for the ride?

You can depend on Lou Lou to remember every occasion with a card, and she made this one for Emily:


In case you no longer remember how to read First Grade, it says something along the lines of "I Will Miss You When You Go To China".

My sentiments exactly.

American Pie

A lot of my colleagues at work voted for the first time yesterday, and I want to share this email one of them sent me about her experience.

"I must tell you that for the first time in my life I felt like I actually mattered yesterday. That a decision I make about not only my future but my 10 year old daughter’s future could possibly make something we’ve always been told is impossible become possible. So at 7am with sleep in my eyes I made my way down 4 blocks to my daughter’s school which is my polling site. Holding tight to my voter registration information I printed from the internet the day before I joined the line with people I know and people I don’t know. There we stood united, ready to cast our votes for whomever we choose with hope that it would be the change we so hopefully dreamed of. I felt a sense of empowerment. It was in the air. It seemed to surround all of us. Especially those like me who had never voted before. I felt a little ashamed of that for some time but that all went away once I got on that line. I waited merely an hour before being shuffled up to the booth. I was then greeted by a woman who made sure I was in the right area for my Election District, signed my name to account for my presence and then I was up. My heart pounded in my chest so hard I could literally feel it beat. Ever so gently I said to the woman, “Excuse me, this is the first time in my adult life that I’m voting. Would you be so kind as to show me how”. She stood up, took my hand and led me in. She explained to pull the lever to the right and push the switches for whomever I am choosing to the left. My boyfriend says before the lady stepped away from me I had already pushed the switch for Senator Obama. I made the rest of my selections, checked that I saw all the X’s and just to be sure slide my hand down all of my choices to make sure I didn’t miss one. I pulled the lever back to the left and TADA! I was done. It was one the best days of my life and I will never forget it."

Two Years Ago in Hoboken

Electile Dysfunction

Oh, how I wish it was Tuesday already. Mostly I wish I had thunk up the phrase "electile dysfunction" which perfectly describes how restless, worried, anxious and just plain disabled I am waiting for this election to be over, but these guys thought it up first.

I'm even too jittery to knit much, but I finished up a few things and got around to getting some pictures of things I had finished before:


Having almost more Noro than I know what to do with, I've made a few of these Lizard Ridge hats. The bumps are made by short row shaping but it gives a great shibori look. Here it is up close:
The mittens I am wearing are made using the stitch in the Cable Twist Sock pattern by Hello Yarn. Mittens are so soothing to knit, it takes my mind off the possibility of a country run by Caribou Barbie. Here's the mitts:




This pattern also does a lot of work for you if you use varigated or self striping yarn. This here yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted.