inauguration day

war president

thank you, Joe, for the use of this image... these are faces of fallen soldiers.  There but for fortune go you and I.

Peace, please.

for once in my life...

I am inspired.  I saw on Rachael's blog that she has started the Mamluke socks from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks... They are in my queue!  I have the yarn for them!  It was my last purchase (December 31st at 6:30 p.m., if you want to know) before started my January 1st I-must-go-6-months-without-buying-yarn-and-righteously-knit-what-I-already-own fast (otherwise known as the What the Hell Was I Thinking, I Manage A Yarn Store! experiment).  Enough about my personal torture, but incidentally can you tell that a box of beautiful things from Karabella arrived today, just when I was feeling like I was free from the demon of daily yarn buying, free from that wooly lust in my heart?  I can tell.

Anyway, I am ready to jump on the Mamluke socks like a trampoline, but I am trying as hard as I can to practice a little knitting restraint for once in my life.  All the baby knitting (for my friend Sheryl and of course Jacob's sister) is helping me focus.  I can actually fit all of my WIP's on the bookshelf on which they are meant to be stored.  This is sheer crazyness, I'm not used to it, but I think I'm OK with it.  Which is why I forced myself to step away from buying 0, 1, and 2 DPN's tpday (especially as I already have 2's, but they are busy) so I could go on a swatching frenzy and start the Mamluke socks Right. Away. Tonight!  I have baby booties to finish, and the yummy organic cotton baby blanket to work on over the next week.  But the Mamluke socks are in the ethers...

I am also looking forward to this:

February is for fixing!  I'm all about cleaning house.  It sure feels like spring here in LA right now (80 degrees!  Sweat!  Sunshine!)  so I suppose this spring clean feeling is appropriate. I want to use this as a goal to finally complete my biggest "fix," the felted 80's mom sweater bag (alternate project name: living proof of the sweater curse) and a whole host of other projects I will come up with when I take stock.  Excellent.

first things first

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: my mom rocks.  Want proof?

This picture was taken last week in Costa Rica, where my mom attended Surf Camp.  She had never been surfing before, never been out of the country... but there you go!  I talked to her on the phone last night, and her week was full of ocean mornings, yoga classes, mountain hikes, and sunset horseback rides.  I know, I know- she rocks.  Go mom!  Rumor has it she is now walking around her Silicon Valley office with a tan, a wrapped braid in her hair, and a new "no hurries, no worries" philosophy...

Julia called me- she's in Los Angeles!  Yay!  She'll be coming by Knit Cafe today- it will be so great to see her and chat with her again.

In Knit-Along news, I have decided to use ArtYarns Supermerino for my Sockapalooza pal.  I started a pair of socks in this yarn for my Pap-Paw- he has diabetes and his feet could really use some hand-knit love- and the yarn is now calling to me in my sleep.  It is really, really nice to work with.  So. Soft.

Other knitting news- I finished the pinky binky, frogged the Missoni vest I was nearly finished with (bummer, but I didn't have quite enough handspun for the trim I wanted, and then I got a better idea anyway so there), and (literally) tied up a lot of loose ends.  I attended a birth blessing ceremony for my wonderful friend Sheryl on Sunday, so Saturday night I made a baby poncho and hat set out of Trendsetter Blossom.  Purple and aqua, soft and cute; I just love that yarn for babies.  That was a major turn-and-burn project, so I didn't even get a picture.  Bad MH!  I spent some time yesterday afternoon organizing my knitting stuff (no small feat) and I realized that the WIP list on my sidebar is driving me nuts.  I'm going to re-do it to have different categories- so that recently finished projects or stuff that is on the way back burner is designated as such.  I have some really great design opportunities right now, and I'm very comfortable with the ebb and flow of projects I'm experiencing.  I'm in a very Zen place with the yarn fast right now.  I'm happy with what I have going on!

Personal knitting this week will be baby stuff!  Kuma (Jacob's sister) is going to have her little girl within the next week or so- I really can't believe how time flies.  I have two booties that need mates, and of course the baby blanket, which I will work on during the birth.  Amazing to think that next week there will be a new baby in the family!

i'm so tired i can't sleep

First of all- I just discovered instant messaging last night.  I was up until 1:30 a.m. chatting with my brother Michael. 

I know I'm a brat for posting this picture!

Michael is an art school student and may very well be used to staying up until 1:30 in the morning (yes, I remember the days...), but I so do not have art student sleep habits anymore.  Yikes.  This morning I was, in the words of my mother, drag-assin'.  I am so, so thankful for the glorious brown elixir that is coffee- don't leave home without it.  Incidentally, my mother is currently in Costa Rica at Surf Camp.  Yes, you read that right.  Surfing.  On a surf board.  She's a free spirit, she is!

Had a visit at work today from the lovely Parikha.  She has done some major tweaks to a Rebecca pattern, and I like her version so much better than the original!  Her peach GGH Soft Kid sweater (lots of pictures on her blog) is "supposed" to have peplum ruffles at the bottom, but she made a straight sweater, kept the pretty eyelet details on the bodice and across the back, and is now re-designing the sleeves from ruffled cap-length to long, bell, and set-in.  The set-in part is where I came in.  Parikha had done her set-in sleeve cap design research and wanted to double-check the measurements before she started knitting (I would, too- frogging mohair isn't fun for anyone).  She came in to the store, we spread reference books and knitters graph paper across the table, and got to work.  Between her freaky math skills, Virgo attentiveness and my Libra OCD (it's embarrassing how many pencils I picked up before choosing one with a sharp enough point- thank goodness Parikha's back was turned so she couldn't see my crazymaking behavior!), we charted out a beautiful sleeve cap.  (I have tried to upload the picture she emailed me tonight that we took with her camera- but my computer refused to save the whole image, and it isn't putting the picture in this post without totally messing up the formatting of the text.  So if you want evidence that we were truly geeky enough to have taken a commemorative picture of the two of us posing with her sleeve cap graph, please click here.  And when you see it, please keep in mind that despite my tipsy expression, I had not, in fact, just tossed back a few.  Evidently being tired looks the same on my face as being drunk. Thank you.) 

My brother Michael told me tonight that he thought the cabled store scarf I pictured in my last post was "some sea creature."  WTF?  Say it ain't so. 

monday, monday... can't touch that day

Today was yet another rainy day here in Los Angeles.  I knew I was going to stay home all day and be a happy ghar kukrhi,  knitting, doing laundry, etc.  But upon going into the basement of my apartment building, I discovered that my laundry room looked like this:

splish splash

I'm not sure why, but I've always been a little wary of operating electrical appliances while standing in an inch of water.  I know, crazy, right?  It's just one of those little personality quirks I have.  I should add it to my 100 things list (which now resides under my bio on the "about me" page).  So, anyway, I decided not to do laundry today.  While in the basement, though, I noticed the huge puddle of water coming from behind the locked door to my storage area- so, after getting the key from my apartment manager, I spent a nice (ha!) long time in there organizing and moving my boxes so that the porous boxes (wicker, cardboard) were on top of the Rubbermaid Keepers.  Which would have been easier if I could have set something down on the ground, but since it was wet and keeping the boxes dry was the whole point, I had to some some fancy wrangling, and I cut my finger. 

I was sweaty and a little cranky until I saw that Stephanie gave me a shout-out in today's post.  Yes, its true, I like to encourage debauchery in every language, and its nice to have my efforts appreciated!  Safely warm and dry in my apartment, I worked a little bit on this:

 

 a store sample for Knit Cafe.  I also finished up a design project I've been working on:

mmmmm.... koigu

Nice to have that done, and I promise to post more about it when I am able to!  Tonight, I am going to crochet the border around the pinky binky (nice to have this soft and soothing Esprit project to work on):

I suppose the only order of business left in my day is to make one crucial decision:

Which do I choose?