The Wrens-This Boy Is Exhausted

Posted on September 22, 2005
Filed Under Song of the Day | Leave a Comment

… yes. Better late than never. And yes, I too am exhausted.

“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”

Posted on September 20, 2005
Filed Under Blather, politics | Leave a Comment

I know there’s no need for me to say I told you so. I’ll leave that to Molly Ivins, who lays out some of the latest reasons to be disgusted by Bush and his cronies in W. Loves Politics, Hates Governing.

Knitting update

Posted on September 19, 2005
Filed Under Blather, knitting | Leave a Comment

So, I said that there weren’t any patterns out there that I especially want, but finally some more interesting fall patterns have appeared (literally) on my doorstep. One that caught my eye is Reynolds Andean Alpaca Regal Cabled Pullover (of course it’s a cabled pullover!)–not sure yet what color I would use. Maybe dark mauve or iris. Celdon is lovely, but one of the sweaters I have in progress is a similar color. I have so many patterns already–we’ll see if this one ever rises to the top of the pile. I might do one from an old issue of Rebecca next–after I finish/get going on all the projects I already have yarn for! I should knit for others, though. Well, I am doing that one sweater for Ez, and some other little goodies.

I’m thinking of trying Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK for a project, as a nice machine-washable DK yarn in yummy colors is called for. Anybody reading this tried it before? Is it nice to work with?

A tiny little update

Posted on September 18, 2005
Filed Under Blather, family | Leave a Comment

The last few days have been pretty draining. Kim has been through surgery twice on top of the c-section. It seems that she is on the mend now. It’s been harrowing for me, and I’m just up here worrying–I’m not even down there in the hospital.

I do have some pictures of Hope now. She is progressing well.

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Hope and her daddy, Glenn

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Fast asleep

As you can see, she is VERY tiny! I am sure these are just the first of many pictures of her I’ll be sharing with you all from now on. Get ready for wallets and brag books full of them…

Hope Gillian Fleming

Posted on September 15, 2005
Filed Under Blather, family | 1 Comment

I’m an aunt! I will post more details later, as I’m exhausted, but I have to tell the world now that Ezra and I have our first niece! Hope Gillian Fleming was born today (on our anniversary) at around 5:30PM (I’m guessing–I don’t have the official time yet, but it was a c-section). She is very early and very tiny (less than 3 pounds at birth), but she is doing well! She has a little blonde-red hair, her eyes were open at birth, she has all her fingers and toes, she was blowing bubbles (just like her mom did when she was born!), and she came out screaming (her lungs are functional!)… Pictures are forthcoming. I’m told she’s a cutie (already!). Wow! Happiness!

Knit chick questionnaire

Posted on September 12, 2005
Filed Under Blather, friends, knitting | 5 Comments

The lovely and talented Editrix posted this knitter’s questionnaire on her blog. I saw it and felt the urge to answer the questions. It’s silly self-spouting, but until I answer this here questionnaire, I may have trouble doing much else. Please forgive me… this gets pretty long.

And how did it get hot again all of a sudden? Garbage.

The questionnaire:

Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you?
Honestly, I think of Red Heart as craft yarn, and I can’t see myself using it for a knitting project. I used Lion Brand when I was just starting to knit, and it wasn’t so bad. That said, I doubt I’d use it now for a project that was important to me. Good yarn makes a project that much nicer to make and nicer to keep when it’s done.

Do you spin? Crochet?
No. I’ve crocheted in my life, but I don’t recall how. I’m sure I could learn easily enough for a knitting project (and will need to sooner rather than later, no doubt).

Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.)
I tend to have bad reactions to insect bites, and I can’t eat cucumber, unfortunately. Pickles are OK, though. :) I think that’s all.

How long have you been knitting?
I first started knitting after college, so it’s been about 9 years. Considering it’s been that long, I’m not the most accomplished knitter.

Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Yes. I tend to update it around birthday/Christmas and then don’t look at it for ages. I’ve prioritized the items since I added certain things a while ago.

What?s your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
For soap, vervienne probably wins. I also like lavender, eucalyptus, and lemongrass. For candles, I like spice (like food spice, NOT musk), light vanilla, cinnamon–that kind of thing.

Do you have a sweet tooth?
Sort of. I like fruity things, but I’m not a huge chocolate lover. I love Teenie Beanie (not Jelly Belly, though I’ll eat those in a pinch) jelly beans–the fruit mix. They’re kind of hard to find, I think. Sometimes I see them around Easter. I love those gummy raspberry things, too.

What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do?
Hmm… I sketch, I take pictures. I like to grow flowers, though this year the garden was a bit of a bust. I’ve messed around with paints (acryllic and watercolor) a bit, but not for a while. I also used to be pretty into oil pastels, but again–it’s been a while. I’ve made paper/printed invitations and cards, sometimes in collaboration with Ezra.

What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s?
Easily discovered on this blog. Yes, mp3s.

What?s your favorite color? Or ? do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can?t stand?
Love milky blue and burgundy. Also black. As for colors that don’t do much for me… plain yellow.

What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
Ez and I married on September 15, 2001 (yes, our anniversary is in just a few days). We live in a condo in Somerville with our 2 cats.

What are your life dreams? (Really stretching it here, I know.)
Not sure how to answer this. I could either go on and on, or say nothing at all, really. I’d say I want to be happy and healthy, I’d like to be able to create things and go new places.

What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with?
Ooo! Well… I love Jo Sharp. I have been knitting a throw with her Classic DK wool and it’s just wonderful to work with and luscious. Love it. I used wool from Green Mountain Spinnery for a sweater, and that was excellent. I also like Debbie Bliss. Classic Elite’s Waterspun was nice.

What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I don’t like the trendy stuff… crazy textures and mega-stretchy stuff and ultra-bulky. Nothing too stiff.

What is/are your current knitting obsession/s?
A while ago I was really into collecting vintage (mostly 1960s) knitting patterns, but now I’d say I’m mainly just really into cables. Projects without cables just aren’t nearly as appealing.

What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
Sweaters for sure, though I haven’t finished many. I also like to knit little hats (so quick!), and I’ve made a few blankets. Those are fun if you have a really good pattern, because you can enjoy the stitches and not worry too much about shaping or finishing. I should knit myself a new scarf, and probably a hat, too. But I have a bunch of other stuff already in the works…

What are you knitting right now?
Well, the thing I’m doing RIGHT now I can’t mention because it’s a surprise for someone who could be reading. I have a bunch of projects in process. These include:
*Jo Sharp Sunday throw (about 3/4 done, in Jo Sharp DK in a light taupe)
*Heather sweater from Rowan’s A Season’s Tale (All pieces are done, and have been waiting a while for me to sew them up. I’m using Wings, which is soft and a pretty color, but doesn’t knit up exceptionally evenly.)
*Ski Slipover sweater from an old (early 60s?) Columbia Minerva pattern book (about 1/2-way done, using a green Debbie Bliss yarn, haven’t touched it in a long time)
*Rhapsody in Tweed sweater from Interweave Knits Fall 2004 (Just started–for Ezra! I’m using Tahki Donegal Tweed homespun in a mossy, woodsy green.)
*Hush sweater from Rowan’s Calmer Collection book (I have yarn and pattern for this, but I’ve only fiddled with gauge swatches so far. I looked at the suggested yarn for this and didn’t like it at all, but I love the pattern, so I’m using Jo Sharp again, this time in bordeaux.)
Maybe I am forgetting something.
Where’s the “what have you finished” question?

What do you think about ponchos?
A lot of them are awful, but I had one that I loved when I was a kid. I saw one in a knitting catalog that was pretty appealing, but I doubt I’d ever make it. Then again…

Do you prefer straight or circular needles?
Usually circular.

Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
Addi Turbo are my preferred needles, but a good bamboo pair is also nice.

Are you a sock knitter?
I knit a stocking, but never a sock. I need to learn to do the 3-needle thing.

How did you learn to knit?
My mother taught me the knit stitch. I don’t really remember the first time she showed me. My first piece was bright red–I think it was leftover yarn from a sweater Mom had knit for my sister when she was a toddler–and it changed size and shape terribly, but I now realize that it wasn’t so bad for a first go. My friend Bridget taught me to purl. I learned some of the rest on my own from just figuring out patterns, asking random knitters, and from books and magazines. I did take one beginners class after I’d been knitting for a couple of years.

How old is your oldest UFO?
So something that is still in existence? My oldest one was a cardigan that I attempted to knit before I knew anything about gauge and yarn selection. It was knitting up so tightly that it felt like boiled wool! I say it WAS my oldest one, because I finally unravelled the whole thing and tried to start a blanket with the yarn. I think it’s too scratchy, though, and probably not suitable for much of anything. Oh well. Now I know why the yarn was cheap! Lesson learned. I’m not exactly sure when I abandoned it, but I started it in 1997, so I probably left it late that year. As for the projects still going, I think the Columbia Minerva sweater is the oldest. That’s almost two years old, I think–but that’s not that old by my standards! I often have multiple projects going at once and take a while to finish sweaters and bigger items.

What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird?
I will do a little interpretation here and say Mooch and Earl from the comic strip Mutts. I also love cats. I like lots of animals, so it’s hard to make a choice or list them all.

What is your favorite holiday?
I have to go with Christmas. Christmas is really wonderful in my family. I love old-fashioned Christmas music, Christmas trees, baking, seeing friends and family, buying/making/finding gifts and wrapping them, giving holiday parties, snow, etc. etc. I collect antique Christmas postcards and some antique ornaments. I don’t like cheesy/commercial Christmas. I guess it’s a personal thing, and my personal Christmas is pretty well-formed.

Is there anything that you collect?
Ha! Funny… see above… Antique Christmas postcards, striped socks, Interpol items. I guess I could say that I collect other things, but I’ll leave it at that.

What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
Vogue Knitting. Recently Interweave Knits has looked pretty good, and some issues of Rebecca are fantastic. I’ve also picked up Knitters from time to time, but because some issues of Knitters have specific themes, I like some more than others.

Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on?
Heh, sure, I’d love a copy of Alice Starmore’s Stillwater. Anybody got a spare $175? I think the prices her out-of-print books go for are absolutely insane. Why doesn’t her publisher reissue them, for God’s sake? There are loads of non-knitting titles I’d like. Referring to Amazon to jog my memory:
*Mick LaSalle’s Complicated Women
*Holly Hobbie’s Toot and Puddle: Top of the World
*Wolf Erlbruch’s Mrs. Meyer the Bird
… and maybe another Garbo biography.

Any patterns you have been coveting, but haven?t bought for one reason or another?
Mm… I’m sure there are. I feel like there were more pattern books and things I liked a year or two ago. Recently everything seems trendy or boringly easy (not that I’m a knitting guru!), but maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. Also, it is probably partly a result of all the new knitters out there, and I can’t complain about that. I have a ton of knitting books and patterns though… enough to keep me busy for a while.

What are your foot measurements, and what kind of socks do you like?
I wear a size 8.5 shoe, which I think is a 39 in euro sizes. I like striped socks in nice colors, but nothing too clown-like.

Fun and Frolic

Posted on September 12, 2005
Filed Under Blather, dining, music, photography, the telly | Leave a Comment

First off, a pal sent me a vhs tape of the 11/8/04 Interpol show at Lupo’s in Providence. I’ve been waiting to see it since the show (it was obvious at the time that it was being filmed), and well–it’s fantastic! Yay! It was aired on an odd Showtime channel that I couldn’t get even if I wanted to. Anyway, happy times for the Interpol fan.

Ez and I had a fun-filled (you know, skipping the bad parts) weekend. The weather was super gorgeous. On Saturday we ran lots of Ez errands. He ordered up some new eyeglasses and finally got his beloved Powerbook. The mall, I must say, is a scary place on a Saturday. We ran quickly to the nearest Whole Foods and purchased ingredients to do some cooking this week. That night we tried a tofu and mushroom marsala from the current Vegetarian Times. Pretty tasty…

Yesterday I did a bit of work and a little sketch. Then last night Ez and I went to see Of Montreal and the Management. The Management were pretty silly. I wasn’t really dwelling too much on their silliness because I was so psyched to have my camera with me. It was new camera’s first show. When the guys in the Management weren’t flailing too much, I took their pictchas.

MGMT

MGMT

I could be a jackass and tell you that I am too cool for Of Montreal. But what a shame that would be. Of Montreal are this big tidal wave of a party band. I imagine seeing them is the closest I will ever get (maybe) to an experience anything like what seeing the B-52s must have been like circa 1979-1980. And Of Montreal formed in Athens, too. I was probably one of the older people in the crowd–at least, up front. It seemed like a sea of college freshman. But it was so great to see the kids dancing that I really didn’t care that many of them seemed at least 10 years my junior.

I’ve noticed that happy music is coming back (or maybe it’s not coming back–maybe it IS back). I don’t know if this is obvious… but I was thinking last night that during the 90s, when on the surface the Western world seemed to be humming along pretty well, a lot of music was dead serious and full of righteous posturing (Pearl Jam, anyone?). Now that the world situation, on the surface, is not so rosy, music is turning back to being more about fun. It was the same for part of the 80s, I think, and maybe the comparison could be drawn back even further.

Anyway, Of Montreal was a blast. If I’d left my camera at home, I would have danced more. As it was, I was happy to snap a few shots before my battery died (I’m still learning the hard way how to be a responsible digital photographer). They provided lots to look at.

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Of Montreal

Of Montreal

I loved the beak. And I think my mom used to have that shirt! The guitarist standing right in front of me reminded me a lot of Alice In Wonderland-era Peter Cook. He was a cutie and kept smiling like a kid. They all seem like fun people… good attitude (or lack thereof).

Anyhoo… return to the workweek–it’s always a challenge. So far it doesn’t seem like it will hit 90 today as weather.com predicted. I hope not!

Baby Panda update

Posted on September 11, 2005
Filed Under And another thing... | Leave a Comment

Thanks to Kim for sending me this article, updating me on the progress of the baby panda at the National Zoo.

Labor Day

Posted on September 5, 2005
Filed Under Blather, Red Sox, daytripping, dining, family, music, the written word | Leave a Comment

Last Thursday night Ezra kindly joined me for the Hail Social/Rainer Maria show at the Middle East. I am loving Hail Social–their whole album is quite infectious, and the only disappointment at the show was the crowd. The place was a bit empty. I guess a lot of folks still don’t know about Hail Social. Part of me wishes I’d taken my camera, because it seemed like I would have been able to take loads of pictures. Oh well–maybe I’ll take my camera for Of Montreal on Sunday. We did have Ezra’s camera and managed to get a few pictures–mostly of Rainer Maria. They were decent. I’m not a huge fan, but it was an OK show.

Friday night my parents arrived for a weekend visit. It’s always nice when they come up here to visit–it tends to feel more relaxed than other visits for some reason. On Saturday we grilled in the afternoon and attempted to go to the night’s baseball game. That didn’t quite work out, but I was able to get a promise that they’ll plan ahead to go to a game with us next year. Sunday we drove up to Ogunquit. I thought we should check it out since it’s just one exit past Kittery and we’d never really been there. We parked in Perkins Cove (we had the magic touch with parking spaces all day) and walked around, taking everything in. It’s very cute, and after a couple of downpours on the highway on the way up, it turned out to be a gorgeous day.

Boats, Perkins Cove

We drove back along Route 1 past the little houses and many antique shops and stopped for some “Back to School” shopping at the outlets. Then (of course) we took the folks to the Portsmouth Brewery for dinner. I think they enjoyed the day. I know they really like Maine, so I wanted to get up there, and I wanted to go somewhere new (Ogunquit). They left after breakfast this morning.

It’s another gorgeous day. I was going to do some work (yeah, I know, despite it being Labor Day), but then I had to get outside, so I went for a jog. I’ll probably still do a little work anyway–but just a little.

Maybe you’ve noticed that I haven’t written much about all of the terrible things that have been happening in the world lately. It’s not that I don’t know or that I don’t care. I do care–it’s always there, but I can’t dwell on it all the time. I guess I care too much.

Not quite the same… but essentially on target, is this poem by Anne Sexton that I love. Here’s a bit of it:

(Different…)

“Is life something you play?
And all the time wanting to get rid of it?
And further, everyone yelling at you
to shut up. And no wonder!
People don’t like to be told
that you’re sick
and then be forced
to watch
you
come
down with the hammer.”

(But coming to the same…)

“Today life opened inside me like an egg
and there inside
after considerable digging
I found the answer.
What a bargain!
There was the sun,
her yolk moving feverishly,
tumbling her prize –
and you realize she does this daily!
I’d known she was a purifier
but I hadn’t thought
she was solid,
hadn’t known she was an answer.

[…]

I say Live, Live because of the sun,
the dream, the excitable gift.”

Happy Friday!

Posted on September 2, 2005
Filed Under And another thing..., Red Sox | Leave a Comment

From today’s Boston Globe: “After witnessing Boston’s four-game sweep, Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella said, ”Thank God we don’t come in here anymore. I’ve heard enough ‘Sweet Caroline.’ “

Song of the Day

Devo-It’s Not Right 

Photos

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The Knitting Turnip

On My Needles

Rhapsody in Tweed cabled pullover for Ezra! using Tahki Donegal Tweed in Forest, from Fall 2004 Interweave Knits. I've just picked this one up again, so it's moving up in the queue!

Sweater with Cable Patterns pullover using Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in Mauve, from Rebecca Magazine Number 28

Heather Pullover using Classic Elite Wings in Larkspur, from Rowan’s A Season’s Tale... This needs the knit doctor. I'm going to have to frog back a little bit and redo the shoulder area. Long story.

Hush Pullover using Jo Sharp DK wool in Wine, from Rowan’s Calmer Collection

Recently Finished Projects

In the Groove boatneck pullover using Manos del Uruguay in Black and Cheek (pale pink), from Fall 2006 issue of knitscene. SWEATER IS DONE!

Stash Stealer Scarf for me, using delicious yarn that darling Amy let me raid from her stash. I made up the pattern--a couple of wide ribs rimmed in moss stitch. It's soft and fuzzy and DONE!

Moss Stitch Jacket with Collar for Hope using Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo in Ivy, from Quick Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss. JACKET IS DONE!

Next in line

Brompton cardigan using Noro Cash Iroha in Jewel Green (my name for shade #100)

Eyelet Yoke Pullover using Debbie Bliss Merino Aran

Under consideration

Loads!

More scoop on my knitting endeavors can be found at my home on Ravelry (clicky here).

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