the sun is up; the sky is blue

it's beautiful, and so are you...

Spanky and I are listening to music from our club-going days. In the late 80s/early 90s, if you were in HS in central Florida and wanted to go out there wasn't much to choose from. BUT there was this club in Orlando called Visage that had an all-ages night on Friday nights, and I would drive my AMC Hornet (mint condition, baby!) almost two hours to get there, with my brother and a couple of friends in tow. Spanky would go with her friends from the beach into Orlando, which was about an hour for her too. We didn't know each other then, and never met. But the music was all new wave, goth, and industrial, and we would just dance for hours and try to flirt with people from other schools. It was so much fun. Sadly, after I got to college, I heard they had to close the club because of drugs. I saw so many concerts there also.* They don't make music like this stuff anymore. All the drama and mystery is gone nowadays. Everyone is so quick to lay it all on the table for you and spell it out.

Anyway. I guess I'm feeling pretty nostalgic.

But I have updates!

1. I got a new computer. It has Windows Vista on it, and so far, everything's been ok, except that for some reason, I can't get the new Flickr uploader to work anymore. I have to use the older version. Spanky thinks it is a Vista problem, but I don't know. My new computer has a card reader built into it, so I can plug my camera card right into the computer! That's pretty cool.

2. I am not sure I posted about my Richmond trip yet, but suffice it to say, there is not much in Richmond. I did manage to find a good bookstore, where I bought 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders, which I've been dying to have for a while now. It is SO GREAT. I have the first one, and it's pretty good, but this one is fabulous. I do recognize a few of the patterns from Webs already, but for the most part these are all new, and they're much better photographed than the other volume's projects were. That is one of the reasons I never used the first one. I didn't really like the pictures of the projects. I have since found (thanks to Ravelry) many people have actually made things from the first book that look much better than the ones in the book, and that's heartening. Anyhow. That was the best thing to come out of that Richmond trip. It was short and busy. Oh, and I did reconnect with a friend of mine that I hadn't seen in like FIVE YEARS. She's working at another press now down south and I ran into her at the conference!

My hotel was near the capitol. There was this great statue of George Washington:


He's surrounded by other notable guys from the period, and then further down are women sitting on cannons who represent different things like "Loyalty" etc. It's a great statue. I wish I'd had more time to explore the historical bits of Richmond. There is a Confederacy Museum there and lots of Revolutionary stuff too, but I was working too much.

3. Next, I went home to FL for my sister's bachelorette party/wedding shower.

I didn't get any pictures of the shower, since I was the hostess, so was running around like crazy the whole time. Lots of blended family stuff, but all good, I think.

4. With all this stuff going on, I did make a lot of progress on my to-do list from my last post.

4a. Trellis is finished! FINALLY. It's a real FO.


Pattern: Trellis
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Worsted, "Ocean" color, I think. (4 or 5 skeins)
Needles: size 7 straights
Notes: The needles I used were too long for the size of the pattern, and were metal, so the slick yarn slid all over the place, and I was afraid to cable without the cable needle because everything was so slippery. I really disliked working on this. The yarn is so soft, though. It's pretty perfect for baby stuff. I really really hope this will fit the baby it's meant for. He was born in September! YIPES. Oh, one more thing, those buttons are from my grandma's button box, which I sorted a few days ago, and put all the buttons of various colors together so they're all easy to find. At first I attached them with one ply of the yarn but then I remembered reading somewhere that babies can pull off the buttons, so went back and secured them with a little thread. It doesn't look as good, but better safe than sorry, right?

4b. A second FO!!


Pattern(s): Baby Tart and Saartje's Bootees
Yarn: Takhi Cotton Classic 1/2 skein each color does both hat and booties
Needles: Size 5 circulars and DPNs.
Notes: Buttons also from Grandma. I did not like this tart hat pattern either. I didn't understand it, and consequently, I think my hat is a bit shallow. It certainly is not going to cover a baby's ears, anyway, and will probably only fit the poor thing right after it's born. Also, the directions for the bobbles seem wrong to me. I don't know why you would knit the bobbles with the yarn in front. That leaves a yarn-over each time. I think you were supposed to purl them, and that's what I did, and it worked just fine. I don't know why it's so shallow, but I'm not doing it again. The other thing I'm noticing just now as I'm comparing my hat with the picture of the one on Knitty, is that my crust curls toward the berry, not down toward the ribbing. I wonder if I did that part wrong too... That would certainly explain her note in the pattern about pinning it up if it points down too far. So, I have to say I wasn't too happy with how this came out.

The weird thing was that I really did end up liking the yarn. It doesn't feel very soft in the skein, but as I was working with it, it seemed to get softer. I bet after I wash it, it will soften up even more. Perhaps I can block that hat bigger too. The booties are a joy. These are so cute, and the second time I've made them. I'm making one more pair for the breeders at work, and then I'm done for a while. I just noticed something I'm doing wrong with these though too, although I doubt it will make much of a difference. In the pattern picture, the buttons are much closer to the toe than they are on mine. I think I'll try to make the third pair the way they have them to see if it makes a difference in how they look.

5. WIP(s):

Well, I just finished that hat and booties set today, but I started right up on the last baby hat I'm making: the sweet baby cap from the Gros blog. It is so cute in the pictures! I'm already having problems though. I'll go into detail with that in my next post. It's working, but I had to make some adjustments. I'm also going to make the same booties with any leftover yarn.

I also got a good start on Interlocking Balloons, the scarf I'm making for my assistant's xmas present. I have had to put it aside for the baby stuff, but I'll be able to finish before xmas, I think.

Finally, I started working on the front of Isabella's Mary Maxim intarsia horse sweater, but oh my god, I'm going to need so much help with this. I think I'm going to have to start over again after I figure out what I'm doing. I may just go ahead and do the sleeves and back as travel knitting, since they're so plain. I'm not making promises about this one and xmas. It is my lowest priority at this point.

Going forward:

1. sweet baby cap and booties
2. baby sweater that is getting pushed up the queue because of impending baby shower (is plain stockinette though--much easier).
3. Matthew's scarf
4. horse sweater
5. sister's shrug (who are we kidding? this probably will not get done. I really hope she forgot I mentioned making it).
6. then back to finishing up dog blankie and Spanky's sweater.

*Love & Rockets, Peter Murphy, That Petrol Emotion, Xymox, NIN, They Might Be Giants, and that's just off the top of my head. It was such a great place.