February update

Ok, so after a few different looks in the last few days, I think I've settled on this new look for the blog. The purple just really wasn't me. :)

You've also probably noticed that posts are few and far between these days. I started teaching at the end of January, and the classes keep me pretty busy. The weeks just fly by, with not much entertaining to share with you.

And what about the knitting, you may ask? Well, despite my plan to knit one sweater a month this year (I even signed up to Ravelry's Sweatshop of Love sweater-a-month group as motivation), I've kind of stalled out on just one sweater. This is how it looked about 2 weeks ago (I think they're a little blurry - sorry):

front

back

(fyi: the ribbed bit at the bottom will eventually be folded to the inside and sewn in place)

Now, that same sweater is about 6 inches shorter, and about 2 inches wider. Glenda's crappy swatching and/or maths struck again! :) Turns out my gauge was off by 3/4 of a stitch, which over the course of 266 stitches has a serious impact on the overall sizing. And no, blocking was not going to help in this case. Although I did try it, trust me! :)

So now its all be ripped out and re-knit on needles .5mm larger than specified. If this doesn't work Mike may have an appointment with either a plastic surgeon or a fast food restaurant in his near future!! :)

But now that I've got this new blog layout sorted, its back to the SuperBowl ads for me! :)

(and maybe a little more knitting...)

Question for moms (and/or dads!) with wee ones. And some other stuff.

Typically, when I knit for wee ones, I try to use only machine washable yarns, to spare the parents the trouble of having to hand wash their baby's clothes - because I'm sure that a pile of hand-washing is exactly what the parents want to have to deal with in their already sleep deprived state. That said, how often to things like coats, blankets, and things not worn close to the skin actually get washed (sparing unexpected encounters with baby sick, etc, of course)? Are their situations where a hand-wash only, pure wool baby item is actually not such a bad thing?

K, with that out of the way, bring on the photos... :)

Rachel and Colin, our friends from Vancouver, came to visit us last week. This was their first visit to New York, and they had a few ideas of things that they wanted to do here. On Thursday night, for example, we went ice skating at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Great night to do it too - the air was crisp, but still a few degrees above freezing. And because we didn't get there till about 8, it was mostly only adults on the ice. Alas, I have no pics because I forgot my camera, and they chased me off the ice when I went to use my phone. (oops!)

The next night, we headed up the Empire State Building - after first going to dinner at a very fun little restaurant named Supper in the East Village.

In the end, we didn't actually get to the Empire until almost midnight (they're open till 2am). I totally recommend going that late at night! We walked in the front door without being hassled by people selling quick-access tickets, skipped past the rows and rows of velvet ropes marking out potential queuing space, bought the tickets, and walked past even more rows of velvet ropes for even more queuing space, and then got into an otherwise empty elevator. Turns out that lobby has space for 3 hours worth of line-ups! Yes the view is great, but not that great! - might be an interesting place to go on Valentines' Day though - with that many people in the queue, you'd have a pretty good chance of meeting someone interesting! :)

Let me end with one last FO from 2009.

This is the Baby Bunting from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Opinionated Knitter. This is a really fun pattern - you cast on 4o stitches, and then knit fewer and fewer stitches each row until you're left with only 5 stitches on the needles, and a big triangle hanging off the needle. Then you start picking up all those stitches, which causes the piece to turn 90 degrees (or so) (its like doing a short-row heel on a sock, but only on one side). And then you do the same thing 3 more times, so you're left with a big rectangle. Seam it up and voilà, super cute blanket with rounded corners and an big X in the middle from the holes left when you turn your knitting part way along the rows.EZ suggests putting a zipper on the edges (after knitting on a border), but I thought this would make it too big for its 1-month old recipient, so I made these leaves to use as holders for the snaps. And of course it needed some flowers to make it a little more girly! :) More details available on Ravelry.

(and yes, this was knit in hand-wash only wool, but that wasn't the reason behind my question)

Happy New Year!

How did it get to be the 11th of January so quickly?!!

2010 has been pretty hectic for us already. On the 2nd, we went skiing with our friends Elizabeth and Brian, up at Windham mountain. The skiing was really good, but the high winds at the top of the hill made things a little icy - I'm a spoiled West Coast skier, so I still find those icy patches a little disturbing when I'm skiing! The day was pretty chilly, so I only managed this one photo...

You can just see Mike there with the orange-lensed goggles on his forehead. :)

A few days later, it was off to the other weather extreme - a quick trip to California, to attend a work-related conference. Conveniently enough, Mike was able to arrange a number of California-based work meetings as well, so we were able to meet up out there and enjoy a weekend in the sun.

We stayed with our friends in Laguna Woods, and spent two very lovely days wandering around Laguna Beach, and check out some local sights. You just can't beat walking barefoot in the sand in January! :)

And now I'm back in the city (Mike will be back on Wednesday), and back to work. But never fear - Rachel and Colin arrive on Wednesday, to keep us from becoming too dull! :)

Post-Christmas Post :)

Now that Christmas is over, it seems like a good time to catch you up on some of the goings on around here...

First, let me show you the advent calendar in its entirety:

I think it turned out really well, and since they're just little magnets, they're easy to store away and take out again next year. I have some other fun ideas for how to make shrinky plastic advent calendars - maybe I'll get to those next year. :)

Christmas day was a fun day for us. We had a nice lazy day filled with lots of cooking, and then sat down to a great big turkey dinner, complete with mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, stuffing, and tourtiere.

Our friend Gabriel joined us for dinner - here he is pouring the champagne - the perfect accompaniment to turkey, I'm sure!

Boxing Day was equally quiet - we tried to go online shopping to get in on the deals, only to remember that America doesn't do Boxing Day. So we just spent the day playing board games instead. :)

There's also been lots of knitting going on here...

This is the 'Over the (Hudson) river and into the (Canadian) woods' scarf, so named because I started knitting it on my trip to Ottawa in October. I made it for my PhD Supervisor, as a 'thank you for putting up with me and for being such a great supervisor' gift. Its made with Noro Kureyon, and Terra Yarn from the Fibre Company. Terra is a silk, alpaca, merino blend, and I think its about the squishiest yarn ever. I love it, and if only it were just a little bit less expensive, I think I might have been forced to buy out all of Purl's stock. :)

Next on the FO list is Igor, a Doctor Elephant from Russia, who passed through New York on his way up to Ottawa to see Emmett, and help him through some upcoming minor surgeries.

The pattern is one of the Lovable toys from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. His coat is a very much modified tomten jacket, and the stethoscope was just something I made up as I went - just an i-cord that became a Y, and a modified Elephant's foot really. :)

More recently, I've been working on a Tomten Jacket for Mike's cousin, which I believe is to be passed on to her friend. I just finished it today, and its currently bathing. I made the Tomten out of Karabella's Aurora 8 yarn, and it has a tendency to grow - I'll post my findings on my ravelry page once its dry.

I have one other knitted item to share, but I'm afraid it will have to wait a few days... its not yet received its recipient, since I seem to have been incompetent with the post this Christmas! :)

But now, I think I must be going... I have a pot of poultry stock on the go, and I think (after almost 5 hours) its getting close to done! :)

Happy Christmas!