bag 'n' trash -- home of monster yarn

I Wore A Scarf Today

it's officially fall.  the house was cold this morning.  and i wore a scarf in to work.  i think we're supposed to hit a high of 65 degrees today.  it's awesome.

in other news.  the work auction was yesterday with all proceeds going to hurricane relief.  my throw made some money $50 but my little crocheted flower pins -- $2 for five.  no appreciation for high fashion, clearly, but what do you want from a bunch of computer geeks and statisticians.  if they have pants on it's a good day.  (sorry no pictures, i am still sans digital camera but word on the street -- ritz camera sent me an email -- the new camera is on it's way.  woo-hoo).

i also received two new knitting books in the mail yesterday.  yes, because i needed new knitting books.  because the 1,249 knitting and crochet books that i currently own just aren't enough. 

i love this one.  i've only flipped through it quickly.  this weekend, i'm going to sit on my couch, and lovingly page through it.  from what i can tell, the photos and designs are beautiful.  the colors used are rich and vibrant.  it's like melanie falick's weekend knitting but better.  she's an incredible editor.

and the other book i received was hot off the presses.  so hot, that amazon doesn't have a picture of the cover.  it's by debbie bliss and it's called "Home:  27 Handknits for Living."  what a disappointment.  i'm a big fan of patterns for the home -- you know me and my afghan, throw, pillow obsession.  but this book is going back.  maybe she should have talked to sarah dallas before publishing this one ... because it's virtually the same type of book, with the same type of patterns, only not as wonderfully photographed.  been there, done that. 

finally, can i tell you how friggin' excited i am that it's friday?

And We Do The Dance of Joy

tom delay indicted.  it's a good thing.

RIP

my dearest coolpix 950.  it's with a heavy heart that i send you to camera heaven.  i'm so sorry for dropping you once too many times.  but i thought you were safe this last time, wrapped in your cozy case, stuffed in my "wedding" purse.

but alas, you were not.  your battery door didn't close anymore but if that had been your only injury, i wouldn't have had to replace you.  like mcgyver i would have fixed you up with a bit of duct tape.  no, the diagnosis was much worse...you were unable to focus. 

i will miss your 2.1 mp, the way you swiveled your little lens, your weight in my hands, and the almost instant gratifcation you gave me when taking pictures.  you were technologically obsolete, but i loved you.

in the meantime, i need a camera.  so i think i'm going to get the coolpix S4.

but this little guy isn't out for another month.    i'll never love him like i loved my 950.  but life goes on.

rest in peace 950.  rest in peace.

For Sandy

A weather picture for Sandy

Friday, September 23, 6:30am, Milford, MA

I'm IT!

i've been tagged by Lori ... which is cool because until she tagged me i didn't "know" her.  nice to meet you!

Here are the "rules":
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.

in my 23rd post i blogged about meeting Rachel and her sister when they visited boston.

"Rachel and Beth were in town just for fun for a day, staying with Amber (a Bostonian), and i was lucky enough to get to meet all three and hang out. "

my first blogger meeting...how far i've come.

if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged.

I am Obsolete.

Quiz comes via Rabbitch ....

You are 'French'. In the nineteenth century, it
was the international language of diplomacy.
It is a 'beautiful' language, meaning that it
is really just a low-fidelity copy of Latin. You know the importance of communicating
'diplomatically', which for you means both
being polite and friendly when necessary and
using sophisticated, vicious sarcasm when
appropriate. Your life is guided by either
existentialism or nihilism, depending on the
weather. You have a certain appreciation for
the finer things in life, which is a diplomatic
way of saying that you are a disgusting
hedonist. Your problem is that French has been
obsolete for a long time.

What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

sounds like jealousy to me.

Knit Out!

is anyone going to the boston knit out on october 2nd?  i want to go, but i won't go unless i'm positive someone i know is going.  because i'm still 14 years old and i don't want to drive all the way into boston only to find myself amidst all of these people, not knowing a soul, like a great big dork.

Wild Kingdom

a couple of weekend's ago, j and i stopped here on our way home from the inlaws.

heh heh they said "bang"

here's ma:

she's giving us the hairy eyeball.  this is why:

i love this dog sitting in the classic convertible, just waiting patiently for his ice cream:

 

other forms of wild life:

that thing was hanging right next to my doorbell.  blech.

the only thing spinning around my house.   just so happens is that there are many doing it.

finally, some FO pictures:

the katrina throw is done.  i had a bitch of a time taking a picture where the colors weren't totally off.  this one shows too much red.

this one shows too much blue.

this throw, measuring 38 x 42 inches was made with a little over 6 skeins of lion brand homespun in harvest.  yarn was doubled and crocheted on a size P crochet hook.  i made it in 2 days.  it helps that i was home sick. 

while i was home sick i received these in the mail (when i was a little girl and home sick, my mom used to bring me coloring books and paper dolls  ... this time the post man was my mommy.)

the book on the bottom is odd ball knits. 
nothing earth shattering but a lot of cute projects made that can be made with leftovers.

and then there's alterknits.  i really like this book because it pushes the limits of what you can make without being totally out there or without needing to be 16 to get away with them.  i may not make any of the patterns, but it's definitely given me ideas for other projects.  yes i'm being purposely vague because i think you need to leaf through it to see what i mean.

i love sunflowers .

ok, i have to get ready for work.   i hate how it gets in the way of my life. 

have a good day!

 

Blue Sheep

dear santa, i have been a good girl this year.  i want these.  no need to get the elves involved.  just a knit pixie. 

9:11

look who links to me!  someone from Turkey!  isn't that cool?  i don't know anything about this person, because, well, i don't read Turkish ... but it's certainly a pretty blog!  hi turkish person who links to my blog!  if you speak english ou si tu parles le Francais, please say hello! 

***************************************************************************************

in other news:  i started work on this crocheted throw yesterday.   

in a couple of weeks, my work is sponsoring a silent auction with all proceeds going to one of the katrina victim charities -- which one hasn't been decided.  i'm hoping someone bids on it.

every now and again, i still get a little bit freaked when i look at a clock and it reads 9:11.   so i'm a little surprised that i didn't realize what today was until early this afternoon. i learned of the attacks while riding the number 1 bus on the stretch of mass ave between boylston street and symphony hall.  j was home and he called me on my cell phone to tell me about the first plane.  we both dismissed it as a tragic accident.  minutes later he called me again.  that evening after work -- a day spent doing everything but working -- my friend kate and i went to a candlight vigil at the christian science reflecting pool.  then i went home.  j and i spent 6 hours on the phone, often times saying nothing, just watching the attacks over and over again.  we started dating 9 days later. 

Just Do It!

so i was all set to write a post about crazy aunt purl's intarsia situation and found myself paralyzed with writer's block because  how can i even attempt to write an interesting and amusing blog post when by virtue of linking to her post, my  post will suck by comparison.   suck suck suck.  even my cats are less interesting....

but there's something i've got that she doesn't --- so take that you knitting blogger rock star --- i'm not afraid of intarsia.  so there ...

anyway, the purpose of this post wasn't to be all "in your face" and it wasn't really to educate because i'm not an expert knitter, but rather to show that if i can do it, you can do it. 

first of all, there's no magic with intarsia ... at least i don't think there is.  when switching colors there is one thing to remember  ... be sure to wrap the yarns around each other so that you don't get a hole.  as for whether to use bobbins and weaving in the ends or stranding across the back this is what i do.

if it's a great expanse  of color then i use bobbins (and that's just another way of saying i cut a length of yarn and roll it up into a little ball), but if it's just a little motif here and there or there are only a couple of stitches of color change, i strand.  just like that.  am i 100% correct?  probably not.  i know there's some expert knitter out there who will tell me that i'm wrong, but you know what?  it works for me, and i'm not afraid of intarsia.

case in point ... the "never to be finished although i promised i would finish them last year ... oh shit i just remembered that i forgot her birthday !!!! .... fuck "  chicken pillows.

chicken pillow 1 -- the prototype ...

(it still needs to be blocked, so no mocking)  here's the front.

here's the back.  we've got bobbin work here and very ugly stranding that should not have happened because the expanse of black was too wide.  but hey, i learned and moved on.  but where i had just a couple of stiches of black or color, i stranded.    (yes i still have to weave in the ends.)

here's chicken pillow 2

and here's the back ...

see, not so terrible.  when stranding,  just remember to keep your strands nice and loose to prevent puckering of the fabric.

and here's an example of stranding that actually serves the purpose of creating a warmer, denser fabric.

here's a detail of a sweater i made a hundred years ago (i'm so afraid that the pattern will show up in stitchy's MOKS one day).

and the other side:

let me tell you, this is one warm sweater, but because of all of the cables and bobbles on top, the stranding on the bottom half of the sweater works.  plus, if i had used bobbins and then weaved the ends i would have never finished this sweater.  i probably would have ended up strangling myself with all of the yarn ends.

anyway, my point is, there are no hard and fast rules.  just try different things and see what happens.  the worse that will happen is that it'll suck and you'll have to try something else but unless you blog about it, no one ever needs to know.

and thus concludes "Intarsia and You .... Perfect Together."

Google Meme

i think by now you know the drill.  when i don't know what to post, i post a meme.  this one is from  jenifer at cast on cast off (check out her stylin' banner) who got it from the fearless knitter, who got it from someone who ate the rat that lay  in the house that jack built.

Google an image for the following things in your life:

First Car

any excuse is a good excuse to post a picture of my mini.  yep, the mini cooper 2004 is my first car ever.

Place where I grew up.

this kind of complicates things a little because i moved around so much as a kid ...

i was born and lived until i was 3 in midtown, manhattan, in the section known lovingly as hell's kitchen.  i'm not so sure it was very hellish at the time though.  (i ended up living here again after graduating from college.  a little more closer to hell).

then we moved to irving, texas, a suburb of dallas.  (look how close i came to growing up a republican!  the mind reels.)

that 3 year stay was followed by 5 years in california, palos verdes peninsula to be exact.

and because my parents hated me (not really), they moved me from this idyllic setting to emerson, nj, right in the middle of the 5th grade.

then because being 13, starting the 8th grade, going from a 32 AAA to a 34 B in 4 weeks and getting my period wasn't bad enough, my parents moved us to france.   chaville, a suburb of paris west of paris to be exact.  it was a pit.  we lived there for a year.  i went to the american school of paris in st.cloud,  another (much nicer) suburb of paris. 

after only a year, dad got transferred to tehran iran. 

i like this picture because this is how i remember tehran.  this was the view from our kitchen window.  i loved it there. 

after getting chased out by revolutionaries, i ended up back in france to finish off high school.  this time, not so bad.  we lived in le chesnay, another suburb of paris right next to versailles.  we had moved up in the world.

Place I live now.

milford, massachusetts.  it's a far cry from tehran, iran but it's starting to grow on me.  and i'm less likely to get chased out by revolutionaries. 

What showed up when I typed in my name.

my full name, nothing.  (phew)

my first name ....

none of these are pictures of me (phew again ... hell double phew!!!)

What showed up when I typed in my blog name.



i really should finish those chicken pillows.

My Favorite Food

mmm puppies .... just kidding... i love me some of that chinese food! 

and pho

Favorite Drink

 

and of course ...

yes, i like my beverages to be mood altering...

Favorite song

i don't really have one ... but i am a sucker for Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife...

that must be mack.

Favorite smells

oleander

linen (not the fabric ... duh ... but the scent commonly called "linen")

baby powder ... i know i'm a sicko

 

and a pyro ..

Favorite shoes

the lowly clog -- from my first pair at the tender age of 11 -- shiny red leather on a cork sole -- to my dansko professionals -- also red.

these might actually fit me!

ok that's enough.  i'm not passing this to anyone ....

And The Winner Is .....

julia!  your comment was lucky number 1000!  email me your address and i'll put together a little package for you ...

as for carolyn and janice  ..... you two ladies are just PAH-THE-TIC!!!  julia just commented once .. and look she won.  all of you two did was get me a little bit closer to comment number 1,500.

other administrative issues:
1.  some of you asked me how i know how many comments i have.  typepad tells me.

2.  have i been showing up in bloglines lately?  just wondering. 

3.  a lot of you have been talking about the horror that has become katrina's aftermath.  i've been watching the news with a very heavy  heart -- not only for the tens of thousands of people who have lost loved ones and their homes -- but also  for the historically beautiful city of new orleans.  i never got a chance to visit.