Get Your Woolies On!

on hiatus

2007-12-31T11:04:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to let you know that this blog will be on hiatus for awhile. In the meantime, have a happy new year!

A sure sign that summer is over

2007-11-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

Snow on the barbeque. Those long, lazy days of summer are certainly past.

Old Man Winter is on his way. We've had our first flurries of snow today, with just a dusting over everything. Time to knit faster...

There are no shallots in this town!

2007-11-21T17:43:00.000-05:00

One of the things I love about living in this small town is the slower pace. I went to the grocery store today to pick up the last-minute ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner. I made a point of going early--mid-morning--to avoid the mad scramble for food that always happens the day before Thanksgiving.

The cashiers were harried, frustrated, and tired, as you would expect on this crazy day. But the crowds? Where were the crowds? The "crowds" consisted of three--count them, three--people in each checkout line. Oh, the madness!!

But there is a downside to being in such a small place. I've always taken for granted that I can get what I want, when I want it, from the grocery store. In Boston, I lived within a few miles of three different Whole Foods stores. In Austin, I was a short walk from Central Market. Here, we have Wegmans, which is a fabulous store--but it's a half-hour drive away.

But here, our options are so much more limited. Shocked to discover that our local grocery store was out of what I consider basics--fresh mozzarella, shallots--and shocked to see that all their so-called fresh herbs were brown and wilted (and still being sold for $1.99 a package!), I had only one other option: Walmart. And we all know how much I love Walmart... :(

Amazingly, Walmart actually had the mozzarella, but no shallots. There isn't a shallot in this entire town.
[image source: www.restaurantwidow.com]

Oh, how I miss Whole Foods! Oh, how I miss Central Market! Mr. Wegman, please oh please open one of your stores here! We NEED you.

A beautiful sight

2007-11-15T17:02:00.000-05:00

No, someone didn't egg our house. This is the sweet sight of an insulation installation. The last week has been chaotic, with workers swarming around the house, drilling holes, mixing the foam, and filling our walls with goo. (Actually, it's not goo, it's Air-Krete, a moldproof, rodentproof, fireproof insulation for walls) It's left our landscaping trampled (okay, there wasn't much landscaping to deal with, fortunately), and it left my patience wearing a little thin at times (such as when I had teleconferences for work and had to keep hitting the "mute" button so that my coworkers in two different states didn't have to share the noisy joy with me.) But it's done, and now we can look forward to a toasty winter.

It's hard to believe that people having been living in this house since the 1870s with no insulation in the walls. Do you know how cold it gets in the winters in the Finger Lakes? Well, I don't know yet from firsthand experience, but I've heard it gets COLD. (As a side note, there was an infamous Civil War prisoner-of-war camp in Elmira, just south of Seneca Lake. There's a reason the Confederates named it Hellmira, and it wasn't because it was hot!)

Anyway, the house looked like it's been in a street fight, what with all the patched holes for the insulation to go in. But it's worth it! A toasty house AND a lower fuel bill this winter. Can't beat that with a stick!

Of course, I still plan to keep warm by knitting. I'm about 2/3 of the way through my scarf project (begun in August! :( but I am stubbornly refusing to put a new project on the needles until this one is done. (Of course, that doesn't stop me from buying yarn for new projects--I just can't start them yet!)

Natural beauty

2007-11-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

When I first moved to the Northeast, I was so disappointed when we moved beyond peak leaf season. The blaze of color was so amazing to these color-starved eyes that it was just downright depressing once the leaves started falling and the brilliant colors started to fade.

But after a few years of that, I began to look beyond the obvious beauty of the peak of autumn toward the more subtle delights. Here are a few that I saw the other day at a nearby park.

This bark reminded me of an Aran sweater. There are several trees that have this kind of twisted bark facing the lake, but the bark on the opposite side is linear. I wonder if cold winter winds caused this to happen? Nevertheless, it is quite stunning.

I've always loved the look of bare-limbed trees against a brilliant blue sky. Nature's lace.

Even though we are well past peak here in the Finger Lakes, this stubborn crabapple tree is hanging onto its leaves and fruits.What delightful color!

And this one just made me giggle. All the picnic benches lined up in this way reminded me of dancing poodles in a circus. I'll bet they'll look even more like poodles once they have snow on them in the winter!

Then and Now

2007-10-29T20:32:00.001-04:00

So much has changed in the last year. Massive move from the city to the country, and nothing says it better than pictures.

Last year, just before Halloween, we went to the Boston Common to see the attempt to break the record for most jack-o-lanterns carved and lit at one time. With two little ones in tow, we didn't stay until after dark, but it was quite impressive to see the massive numbers of carved pumpkins in one place at one time. It was a beautiful sunny day, marred only by the pervasive stench of pumpkin guts in the warm sunshine....

Flash forward one year. A much smaller pumpkin patch, but beautiful in its natural setting. Plus, we had Portia with us this time to help pick out the best pumpkins. Bigger boys, too!

A Study of American Wallpapers

2007-10-16T14:10:00.000-04:00

I love my house.

Let me just say it again, I love my house.

I love the great tall ceilings and the leaded glass in the living and dining rooms. I love the cozy fireplace and the Victorian-era woodwork. I love the quirky upstairs bathroom and my office with the view of the backyard.

I do not, however, love the wallpaper.

Yes, there are acres and acres of wallpaper in this house. A veritable museum of wallpapers. And so I bring to you my study:

"It Takes a Village (to tear all this stuff down): A Study of American Wallpapers, circa 1970"

FIGURE 1: A delicate montage of daisies, cosmos, and monarch butterflies in tones of murky and murkier

FIGURE 2: An elegent faux-toile in shades of sage and dirty grey:

FIGURE 3: A garden of peach roses scattered over white frilly bits:

FIGURE 4: Um...daggers? half-completed crucifixes?

FIGURE 5: A scrubland scene viewed through dust-stained windows during a rainstorm:

FIGURE 6: Mud viewed through dust-stained windows during a rainstorm:

FIGURE 7: Invasion of the blue butterflies:

FIGURE 8: Just turn the lights off, please!

FIGURE 9: It only gets worse:

FIGURE 10: Was butterscotch the only color they had back then?

FIGURE 11: And my personal favorite. This isn't wallpaper; it's FABRIC. Nothing like some naughty bathing scenes to keep you entertained while you brush your teeth in the morning.

This concludes our study of American wallpapers, circa 1970. I'm sure it all looked stunning at the time. And I'm sure that my children or grandchildren will think I'm stark raving mad for thinking it's ugly. What do you think?

It's about books today

2007-10-07T09:23:00.000-04:00

Wanda at Fiberjoy has tagged me for a book meme. I've done a few of these from time to time, but I really like this one. Books, books, and more books!!

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Generally I prefer hardcover books. I plan to keep every book that I buy, and I'd much rather have a library of hardcover books than paperbacks. However, paperbacks definitely have their place--when reading in the bathtub or when traveling, for example.

2. If I were to own a book shop, I would call it…
Tracy's Books?

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
...difficult to decide! One of my many favorites comes from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The opening line is "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." It is a line delivered plainly--for it was largely true in Austen's day--and yet, there is a touch of irony in it, once you get into the book and learn more about Elizabeth Bennet's character.

4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
Crazy Aunt Purl (Laurie Perry)! I've been reading her blog for ages and am now reading her book and enjoying every page of it. Plus, I think she'd be a real hoot to have lunch with!

5. If I were going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be…
my journal, so I could write down my thoughts.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…
would hold a book above me and turn the pages while I read in the tub, on or the beach, or on the couch...

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…
so many places! Hot, dusty secondhand bookstores in north Texas. The stacks of Davis Library at the University of North Carolina. The pounding of my heart in the archives of the Fawcett Library in London, when I first laid my hands on the papers of Teresa Billington-Greig, the British suffragette I wrote my senior thesis about.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
none of them! I love to escape into someone else's life in a book, but I'm quite happy to return to my own when I'm finished reading.

9. The most overestimated book of all times is…
(in my world) everything that one of our competitors publish. I work in educational publishing, and as each new competitor's book is published, there's always a flurry of nervousness about how the competitors are going to take the market. But I've been in the business long enough to know that there is no revolution in this business. There is incremental change, certainly, but a single book never radically changes the market.

10. I hate it when a book…
...is poorly edited. As an editor myself, I have little patience for companies that don't take the time to make books properly.

The Genographic Project

2007-10-05T11:51:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm still knitting, but in the absence of anything interesting to show, I thought I'd write about something I just discovered: National Geographic's Genographic Project.

I know, I'm probably the last person to have heard about it, but I find it so exciting that I just have to share.

Under the auspices of National Geographic, Dr. Spencer Wells is heading this massive five-year study of human migration, charting the migration of peoples through the analysis of DNA. One focus of the project is the collection of DNA from isolated, indigenous peoples--those whose separateness is threatened by growing contact and intermingling with the rest of the world.

But the part of the project that I find personally fascinating is the public participation aspect. The project is collecting genetic samples from anyone who chooses to participate, providing further depth to the knowledge about the migrations of peoples. If you choose to participate, they send you a kit for you to take a DNA sample (through a cheek swab). Some weeks later, they will post your results on their website. You can find out more about your deep ancestry than you ever could have before. You'll learn which path your family took from our common origin in Africa. It's not genealogy; it's a glimpse into your own prehistoric past.

Of course, it's just a glimpse, a limited view into your past. Women will learn the migration path of their family only through the maternal line, because the mitochondrial DNA is what remains unchanged from one generation to the next (except for mutations, of course). Men can choose to trace their family's migration path through their paternal line (because the Y chromosome is unchanged except for mutations) or through their maternal line (through mitochondria). But I think it's absolutely fascinating to be able to get even this limited glimpse into this previously unknowable past!

Our kits arrived from National Geographic yesterday, and we'll be sending the samples in tomorrow. Then, waiting on pins and needles to see what we find out!

If you're a foodie...

2007-10-03T21:10:00.000-04:00

Since moving to this part of upstate New York, we've discovered some amazing foods at the local farmers' markets. Corn so sweet, so delicate, so delectable you want to eat it at every meal. Grapes so sweet and thin-skinned that they pop into sugary goodness as soon as you put them in your mouth. And pie....oh yes, the pies. Apple pies. Cherry pies. Fruit flavors so intense that there's barely enough room for sugar, and yet they're so sweet. Pastries so flaky like my mom used to make...or even better than my mom made. (Love you, Mom! Love your pie!)

And there seems to be a common denominator to all these lovely foods: they come from Amish or Mennonite farmers.

I know very little about the Amish or Mennonites. I plan to learn more, now that I'm living in an area where they live too. But as I'm going through my own process of simplification, of making life more genuine, of spending my time and my energy and my money on things that matter to me at my core, I wonder how they manage. How do they live their separate lives in this relentless modern world?

Last weekend, we went to Ithaca for the Apple Harvest Festival. Massive crowds of people from all walks of life, with so many ways of marking their separateness from mainstream American society. Hot pink hair. Tattoos. Piercings. Long, flowing, all-natural clothes. Black lipstick. And there amongst the rebels of American society, there were these plain people, entire families, some selling pies and other baked goods, others quietly observing the world around them. As we stopped to watch people ride the Ferris wheel (which, thankfully, none of the kids wanted to ride--I have a healthy fear of Ferris wheels from traveling fairs), I looked around and saw we were standing next to an Amish or Mennonite family watching the Ferris wheel too--the mother and girls in their starched caps, the father and the boys in their plain blue shirts, all in the same fabric. They were so unlike us, and yet, so like us. How do they find their balance in this crazy modern world? How do we?

Happy Birthday, Portia!

2007-10-02T20:48:00.000-04:00

On this beautiful autumn day, our Portia turned nine years old--last year of the single digits, last birthday before middle school, one foot in childhood and the other striving toward adulthood.

The world is your oyster, Portia! Make a wish!!

Enough with the birthday wishes, we want cake!!

Gorgeous autumn

2007-10-01T11:36:00.000-04:00

I love autumn. And I feel so fortunate to live in a place that rewards us with brilliant colors in the fall.

In the part of Texas I grew up in, autumn was the time that leaves just went brown and fell off the trees. It didn't change the color of the landscape much, because it was already pretty brown from the scorching summers.

In school, however, we celebrated fall as if we were in the heart of New England. We drew pictures with bright red, orange, and gold leaves, and we made our own fall leaves out of colored construction paper--bright reds, oranges, and yellows. As an adult, I was known to make wreaths out of craft-store "silk" autumn leaves, just to have a hint of that eastern color.

Now that I've moved to a place where the leaves actually do change colors, it amazes me to think how eastern-centric we were in Texas. We not only mimicked the east with our fall colors, we did the same thing in winter--making snow scenes out of paper and glitter and glue. We only had snow once every few years--and never enough to warrant snow boots--and yet, all the pictures we learned to draw in wintertime had to have snow in it. Why didn't we celebrate the seasons the way they actually were?

But anyway, now I'm in the northeast and loving the colors. The trees started changing here quite early--at the very beginning of September--but we're still just approaching the peak of color. In the Boston area, the best color was always found the week of Columbus Day, but I'd always heard that this part of upstate New York was a little earlier than Boston. But here it is, just a few days from Columbus Day, and we still have a long way to go.

That's fine with me. I love the autumn and wish it could last a little longer. There are a lot of cold and grey days to follow, so I want to keep the memory of these brilliant colors as long as I can....

Little boys, getting bigger

2007-09-06T14:54:00.000-04:00

My two little munchkins just amaze me with their resilience. In the last month, they have experienced tremendous change. They've moved away from the only home they've ever known, left all their friends, endured weeks of living with all their own toys boxed up in storage, and living in temporary digs until our new house is ready.

I expected a trying time of adjustment--tears, longing, defiance, sleeplessness, worry. And yet... they surprise me! They've had their moments, but both boys are doing so well with all the changes going on in their lives. Of course, they miss all the people they love in the Boston area, but they are embracing this new life with both hands.

Yesterday was the boys' first day at school: Aidan in kindergarten and Douglas in preschool. This picture pretty much sums up their attitudes toward it--Aidan was a little hesitant, while Douglas was unmistakably gungho.

And while yesterday was officially the first day of kindergarten for Aidan, today was his first full day--without Mom. I was a little nervous for him, since he was a little flustered yesterday by all the crowds and activity. But today, he was so eager to get to school that I couldn't keep up with him on the walk to school. Then today on my lunch hour, I drove past the kindergarten playground on my way to the grocery store, I saw him running with a big group of kids. He's making friends already!

But the work continues. We're finally in our new house, with boxes and boxes to unpack. Moving is hard work....

Welcome to the Finger Lakes!

2007-08-30T09:49:00.000-04:00

Whew! It's been a long slog, but we finally made it here. Multiple truckloads of household items and workshop items, getting cars from one place to another, getting kids and cats from one place to another, but we've made it!

We're in temporary digs for the next week or so--our house closing was delayed awhile for a number of reasons, but we're lucky enough to have a comfortable place to stay while we're waiting to get into the new place. We're starting to settle in--a few days ago, we took Aidan to visit his new school, and he got to meet the principal and see all the classrooms before the Big Day. Plus, he and Douglas have played at both playgrounds at the elementary school (they have one just for kindergarten and another for the older kids), so they both know there is FUN to be had at school.

And, I've already visited what will be my LYS, which is Finger Lakes Fibers. The women there are so friendly and helpful--just attentive enough to make sure you have the help you need, while allowing you space to browse and soak up the woolliness of it all. (And yes, even though they had a big sale on summer yarns in cotton and linen and bamboo and all sorts, I still was drawn to the wools, even though it was about 95 degrees on the day I visited...)

I needed a project to help me keep my sanity, but my yarn stash and needles and patterns are all in boxes...somewhere...! So, I bought everything I needed to make a lace scarf. First, the pattern: Fiber Trends double fuschia scarf (the pink one on the left). The yarn: Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a pale grey. It's my first lace project, and after one false start (complete with gnashing of teeth and a little sulking), I managed to learn the pattern and make quite good progress. Photos to come when I find my camera....

The knitting world

2007-08-17T21:05:00.000-04:00

As I sit here on my lawn chair, listening to the crickets and some unidentified summer-time noises outside, I have a rare moment to ponder things that usually escape my notice in the whirlwind of family life.

I think about the brood of Muscovy ducklings we saw on our walk yesterday. There is a pair of Muscovy ducks that live along the shores of our pond, so I took the boys through our "secret passageway" to the spot where the ducks usually hang out. They weren't along the shore or in the grasses nearby. Instead, they were across the street, with their six ducklings, hanging out underneath a parked car in our neighbors' driveway. What a funny sight--six fuzzy yellow quackers huddled together underneath the back bumper of the car, while their pudgy mom and dad (with their distinctive red masks) waddled around keeping guard.

I've also been thinking about the knitting world, though I'm miles away from it at the moment. My knitting stuff is in boxes one state over, and I won't be getting back to it for some time, I'm sure. But I keep up with the blogs I read from around the world, and I'm pleased to see that people around the world are beginning to read mine. Hello, Australia! Hello, Peru and Brazil! Hello, UK and Ireland and Japan and Thailand and Canada! Hi there, Israel and Turkey and Finland and Belgium and Austria! What a fantastic thing that through blogs, I can be in touch with people all over the world, through my own words and through theirs. Wow.

This fascination all comes back to being an exchange student at heart, I suppose. Way back when, in the year between high school and college--back when Reagan was president and massive shoulder pads were in fashion and the Cold War was still going strong, I spent a year as an exchange student in Austria. That was the single most transformative experience of my young adulthood. It was so much more than learning to speak German and living with another family for a year. It completely changed my outlook on the world and on my own life. I'm still discovering things about myself that have their origins in that year. I could write dozens of blog entries about the gifts of that year, but for now, I'll just focus on how that year made me realize how much I am a part of the world community.

That may seem like a no-brainer to those who grew up in more cosmopolitan surroundings, but for me, that was a tremendous revelation. My world, growing up in suburban north Texas, was remarkably insular. Most people I knew didn't look too far afield. Few kept up with world events. Most had never traveled out of the country. No one in my family had gone overseas specifically to learn about another country--as far as I knew, their only international experiences had been in wartime (and 1917 wasn't the best time to visit France, nor was the early 1940s the best time to visit the islands of the south Pacific). People like us weren't cosmopolitan and worldly.

But I had a fabulous French teacher in high school who recognized my budding interest in language and culture, and she encouraged me to consider becoming an exchange student. Looking back, I'm shocked I actually went through with the idea, because I was such a shy, quiet kid. But the experience was the making of me.

By the time my year in Austria was over, I realized that the only thing you need to be "one of those people who travel" is simply money, a passport, and an open mind. You don't have to be born into a certain class or to a certain family. And what a vast level of enlightenment to see myself in a world context! To learn about America through the eyes of others--to see for myself how we are perceived by the outside world. It was so humbling at first--I had been taught a strictly positive view of American history and American foreign policy, in which what we did was for the good of everyone. It was eye-opening to see it all from another perspective. It was also difficult for me, as so many people I met in Austria expected me to explain and defend Reagan's policies (which I couldn't and wouldn't do!).

To cut a long story short--and to bring it back to the topic of knitting--some of my most treasured memories of that year are about making connections with people. We speak different languages, eat different foods, live in different kinds of houses. We may have different politics and different views on the world. But somewhere, there is something we all have in common. So I love to see that people in so many nations have stopped by here--just as I stop by the blogs of many people in nations I've never visited yet. We may connect over knitting, then find we have other things in common too.

And if more people would realize how much we have in comon, the world would be a much safer place.

How long is it until January 20, 2009?

Eye of the hurricane

2007-08-16T19:02:00.000-04:00

My aching back can attest to the fact that it is definitely moving time. We've had days and days of packing boxes, hauling out the trash and recycling, driving to the Goodwill drop-off point, and ordering more boxes...and more boxes. Yesterday was the big day--loading the truck. We hired the most excellent Zeke and Johnny of Intelligent Labor and Moving to load the truck. Those guys were amazing! They worked quickly, smartly, and kept a sense of humor the whole long, hot day. (If you are moving in the Boston area and are looking for responsible, efficient, and friendly movers on a budget, I highly recommend these guys! Give them a call!!)

It probably didn't help that we were still packing when they got there--I have to admit that I'm absolutely embarrassed about that. I've never been less than ready for moving day--I've always been so compulsive that I'm ready a day or two early. But not this time. This was the first time that I've been involved in moving a whole house, with children, and even though Tim and I shared the work, there was just...so...much...to...pack.

But in a "short" ten hours, the truck was loaded, and this morning off it went to the wilds of the Finger Lakes. Meanwhile, we're camping in our house--the closing for our new house has been delayed, so we decided to stay here in the Boston area until the closing on the house we're selling. It's a quick reminder of my college days, with lawn chairs in the living room and boxes serving as chairs, tables, and desks. But what are these children doing in my dorm room...? They're enjoying our in-home camping trip (complete with air mattresses) and love the space to run around and chase each other without fear of being impaled on the furniture.

It's going to be an interesting week. We're taking it easy, relatively speaking--we have the final cleaning of the house to do before we turn it over to the new owners, but for the most part, we're just hanging out. I'll actually be working from home next week before we leave town--good thing I don't do video conferences, because it would be hard to keep up a professional editorial presence when I'm sitting on the living room carpet in my shorts and t-shirt with my computer propped up on a box.

Ah, but then this is the eye of the hurricane. At the end of next week, we'll have the other half of the saga. Moving into the new house. Going from a cramped 4-room bungalow to a spacious two-story house with garage and workshop. I won't know where to put anything....

Now, let's just hope my back holds up!

blogging break

2007-08-07T11:04:00.000-04:00

With our upcoming move and all the chaos that comes along with it, this may be my last chance to blog for a little while.

First, some knitting news. Some actual knitting news! I'm making good progress with my new tam, using the yarn from Bear Farm in Burdett, NY. The colors are so gorgeous in their natural woolly brown and woolly tan, with a touch of red to spice it up. Pictures to come....when I find my camera again.

Other knitting news--I was in the mall the other day and wandered through the Discovery Channel Store. The store is closing soon and is selling everything at rock-bottom prices. They had a toy knitting machine similar to this one:

...for $6, so how could I resist? I took it home, wrestled with the nasty eyelash novelty yarn in the kit, gave up and started using some variegated yarn I'd bought in England years ago, and before I knew it, I had knit a 6-foot tube!

Now, I don't know what I'm going to do with tubes--they're too small for hats (despite the fact that the instructions say you can make hats--they'd be too small even for infants.) But I could make lots of skinny scarves, or perhaps braid a bunch of skinny scarves together? Wind them up as a turban? Whatever, it's fun, and boy, is it fast!

Of course, there will be no substitute for hand knitting. Never!!

stress, but a good kind

2007-08-01T10:42:00.000-04:00

There's no such thing as moving house without stress. Especially when you're selling a house in one state, buying a house in another state, and coordinating a move from one state to another, while working a corporate job and taking care of kids and cats.

Deep breaths. Take lots of deep breaths.

We're heading into the final days of the house-buying journey. All we need is for the title work to be done and the closing to be scheduled. But then I found out today about a 2-week delay in the title work that makes our schedule just a little too tight for comfort.

Need to find out more information, take more deep breaths, and remember that it will all work out.

We're also so close on selling our house here. After lengthy negotiations with the buyers, we should be signing the purchase and sale agreement today.

Knock wood, cross fingers, more of those deep breaths.

Then there is all that packing to do. We have ordered and received our packing materials--boxes of all sizes, packing paper, etc. Now, of course, those materials are in the middle of the living room, making the house feel even smaller and cramped. I've packed a whopping six boxes so far...

It'll happen. We have time. Not much, but we do have time.

And today? My going-away lunch at work, then Douglas's checkup, then dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (my kids' favorite). Somewhere in there, I need to figure out how to go sign the purchase and sale agreement, which is due today. I need a few extra hours in this day....

It will be so nice once we've moved and settled in.
It will be so nice once we've moved and settled in.
It will be so nice once we've moved and settled in...

Cowtown on the blog

2007-07-26T09:27:00.000-04:00

I'm just so tickled this morning--I got up to read my favorite blogs, and what did I see but that Jo of Celtic Memory Yarns went on a weekend trip to my hometown, Fort Worth! What a wild and strange paradox--in 1999, I went from blistering-hot Texas to Ireland on a pilgrimage in search of wools and sweaters, and now she just went from Ireland to Fort Worth in search of the same (well, in search of a dyeing class).

I hope Cowtown treated you well, Jo!

Ravelry invitation!

2007-07-19T09:26:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited--I got my invitation to Ravelry this morning! They are really working quickly through the waiting list. Just last week, there were 400+ people ahead of me, so they're getting people signed up fast.

Now, to find time to get going!

Life here is getting busier, but it's all seeming to fall into place. We had an offer on the house yesterday! Finally, after all this waiting!! I knew it would happen, but these kind of things always seem so impossible until they happen. I love this house--I have always loved this house--so it's not a crazy idea to think that someone else would love it, too. But until that actually happened...

I've been hearing such pessimistic news about the housing market here in Boston--prices plummeting, house sales down, qualified buyers evaporating. How different it all is from the time I bought this place! Back then, in the balmy pre-9/11 days, buyers were fighting for property in Boston. Houses went on the market on a Friday and were sold--with multiple offers--by Monday. People were even skipping inspections in order to get an edge over other buyers. It was so competitive.

Fast forward seven years, and it's a very different landscape. Houses are sitting on the market for weeks and months. I've known people to give up and take their houses off the market because they aren't selling. And I've had a well-meaning co-worker asking me all too frequently if the house has sold yet, and I've had to tell her again and again and again that no it hadn't, and no we had no offers.

But that's all changed now! Hurrah!! Now, to get on with LIFE!

I'm in the middle of two projects--the first is the famous French Market bag. The knitting is complete, but I haven't felted it yet. (Does anyone but me have a problem with the usage of "felting" versus "fulling"? What everyone calls felting is actually fulling, and there seems to be no correcting it. Grrrrr....)

My next project is one I started planning back in a former life (or so it seems), long before we began considering our move to the Finger Lakes. Last summer, we'd been there on a visit, and I stopped into what was then a brand-new LYS, Finger Lake Fibers. How friendly they all were! What a great shop! I was ready to plan a new tam (I love tams!), and I bought two skeins of a lovely local yarn from Carole and Mark Harth's Bear Farm in nearby Burdett. Lovely natural shades of Oatmeal and Dark Sheep's Grey. I also picked up a skein of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a rich brick red for an accent color. Now I've been sketching and planning a tam of my own design. More to come!

a day out

2007-07-07T19:01:00.000-04:00

One more chapter in the saga of the long, slow goodbye to Boston.

Today, it was time to have another ride on the Swan Boats. These are such a Boston tradition (going back to 1877). Fifteen minutes of peace and quiet, of watching the ducks and the geese and the swans (still no cygnets), and imagining how different and how similar the view would have been back in 1877.

When I first moved here years ago, I really wanted to take a ride on them, but I felt a little sheepish going on my own without kids. Fast forward a few years, and I have kids who are more than happy to take their mom on a Swan Boat ride.

Some beautiful iron fencing around the Central Burying Ground on Boston Common. I'd never noticed this before. How simple, and yet how lovely.

A grim reminder about the price of "progress." When Boston began building its subway in the 1890s, they ended up moving some unidentified "persons" to a mass grave in the Central Burying Ground.

Hours and hours of walking, and "seeing what we can see," and talking and laughing and pointing and listening and questions questions always more questions. Finally, keep the kids quiet and cool with an ice cream in a special spot on Beacon Hill. A buck fifty for an ice cream and a view of life on Charles Street. Life is good.

It doesn't get more local than this

2007-07-07T08:35:00.000-04:00

One of the things I'm looking forward to about our move is having more time to cook. I do like cooking--real, authentic, good, flavorful food that isn't microwaved or warmed-up, and that isn't a 30-minutes-or-less kind of meal. But that kind of cooking doesn't work with the crazy schedule we've had. By the time we've finished our full days of work, picked the kids up from daycare, and decompressed a little around the house, there isn't much time for good old-fashioned cooking. And the weekends? That's for catching up on all the other things we couldn't get done during the week. And interesting menus seem to fall by the wayside most of the time.

I've been watching a few shows about good, real food, mostly on BBC. Jamie Oliver's shows often annoy me, but I have most of his cookbooks and I like what he does. Gordon Ramsay, as rude as he is, celebrates good food (though in places I could rarely afford to eat in). And I've found a new show called "Food Heroes" that celebrates the regional foods of Britain. It's a celebration of local food, and that has given me food for thought...

I want to learn how to cook regionally and seasonally. That doesn't mean swearing off foods that aren't in season or that don't come from a 20-mile radius, but I'd like to learn how to make the best use of the best food out there--which is food closest to the source. Ithaca has a good farmer's market, and I plan to make good use of it once we've moved.

But for now, here's our local-most produce. It doesn't get more local than this--straight out of the garden.

Even better with a big serving of organic vanilla yogurt.

Mmmm. Boy loves berries.

A tavern, a monument, and lots of ducks

2007-07-02T13:42:00.000-04:00

Some months ago, we discovered a great little place in Charlestown--the Warren Tavern. Apart from the lure of the historical (supposedly the oldest tavern in the U.S., a favorite haunt of Paul Revere, and a place where George Washington was known to quaff a pint), we like it because (and this would horrify Washington, Revere, and the rest of the Patriots), it feels so ENGLISH. I've been to so many fake-Irish pubs (pubs-in-a-box, some of them built in modular form in Ireland and shipped over), it's nice to have a meal and a pint in a place that seems a bit more authentic. (That said, this place has probably changed so much over the centuries that it most likely bears little resemblance to its 1780 self.)

So on Sunday, we headed north to Charlestown to have a leisurely lunch at the Warren Tavern and to see what we could see.

Gaslights--real, or reproductions? I think they're pretty fabulous, whether they were put up in 1880 or 1990...

Of course, no trip to Charlestown is complete without a trip to the Bunker Hill Monument. Okay, so the battle actually took place on Breed's Hill, but what's a little historic specificity among friends? I have yet to make it to the top of this thing, and I can confidently say that I never will. The last time I tried it, it was about 95 degrees and wicked humid outside, and I was (unbeknownst to me) in the earliest stages of pregnancy. I hiked like a maniac up the spiraling stairs, higher and higher, ignoring the growing feelings of claustrophobia while climbing inside an obelisk with only a few random slits in the stone to let some natural light in. About 10 steps from the top (and there are 294 steps to the top), my head started spinning, I broke out in a freakish cold sweat, and I knew that if I didn't sit down That Very Minute, I would pass out and tumble down each and every one of the 284 steps I had climbed.

Needless to say, I'm not keen to give it another go.

But being near the Bunker Hill Monument is pretty darn fun on a beautiful summer day. We had blue skies and cool breezes, and the kids enjoyed frolicking on the lawn.

Aidan has learned to do cartwheels, which he demonstrated proudly.

We puttered around the area for awhile, soaking up some atmosphere and taking pictures of architecture. The house we're buying in upstate NY was built in 1876 and is currently painted in a shade I think of as Tedious Boring White, so we're looking for interesting color schemes. Out came the camera!

I love the colors on the house on the right--they're a bit richer in real life than in the photo. They seem wonderful rich and warm, without being in your face. Something to think about...

I love the roof pattern of this house and the details around the window.

Our new old house has pairs of rather plain brackets just underneath the roof line, and while I wouldn't replace anything that's authentic to that particular house, it got me thinking about brackets.

What I have often found interesting about historic houses in the Boston area is that the exteriors may be ever-so plain, but the brackets show off the age of the house.

Well, I could only keep a soon-to-be-three-year-old and a 5-year-old interested in architecture for just so long, so we hopped on the Orange Line and headed back into familiar kid territory. Time to visit Mrs Mallard and the ducklings in the Public Garden. But on the way we saw...

...the weirdest bike thing I've ever seen. This is a Pedal Party bike, where 6 or 8 people can sit on the thing and pedal it together. It looks like a weird kind of fun, and if the kids had been just a bit older, I'd have said we should hop on and give it a whirl!

So we finally made it to the Public Garden. This is the time of year when they try to fool you into thinking that Boston is tropical. I never get used to seeing palm trees in the Public Garden!

And every year, they bring a mating pair of swans to the pond there. They fence them away from nosy visitors and cross their fingers in the hopes that the eggs will hatch and there will be little cygnets on the pond.

Mama Swan is doing her best. When she stood up to change her position, I could see a number of eggs in the nest.

But there are always duck families on the pond in the summertime. Here's a happy duck family--could it be Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack, and Mrs Mallard, too??

Toward the end of the day, a stroll down to Copley Square. The reflection of Trinity Church was tremendous. What a great place for peaceful contemplation (if only that were possible with kids in tow!)

Ah, knitting time.....!

2007-06-28T16:40:00.000-04:00

I had two whole hours today to knit--in public--at work! We had a company-wide meeting, which for those of us in a satellite office means huddling together in a conference room around a computer screen and a telephone, watching Powerpoint slides on the computer and listening to one disembodied voice after another give us the latest status on the company. I knew I'd fall asleep if I had to sit still for two hours like that, so I brought in my knitting. What a wonderful thing--I was able to listen (and pay attention!) to all the details of the meeting, all while feeling utterly decadent and completely useful while knitting. Hurrah me!

My latest project is inspired by Lene, who knit the cutest French Market Bags I've ever seen (here and here). Gorgeous!

I don't have pictures of mine yet -- at this point, it's just a blob of orange stockinette. (Besides, it was gutsy enough to knit in the conference room today. If I'd been taking pictures at the same time, who knows...?). I'm using Cascade 220, which I understand felts beautifully. I'd like to embroider something on it the way that Lene has, but I haven't decided what my motif will be. Birds? Leaves? Sunflowers? Happy faces? (okay, I can safely say it WON'T be happy faces!)

It just feels so good to be knitting again--even though I have to crank the air conditioning to even consider having wool in my lap...

Friday, or Fryday?

2007-06-22T14:33:00.000-04:00

Actually, I think it's going to be a fry-weekend. Tim has had a serious hankering for serious chicken wings since moving away from upstate NY, so he's bought a Wing-It, a dedicated chicken-wing deep-fat fryer. He's just tickled pink about it (especially since he got the world's greatest deal on it--brand-new at half the price!). I am struggling a little to share his enthusiasm, though--having always been squeamish about meat on bones, the idea of chicken wings doesn't exactly make me drool. (There is no bonier meat than chicken wings, except perhaps ribs.)

Hmmm. It'll be a real joy to see his face light up when he makes his first batch of wings. I've promised I'll try them...once.

Onto a knitting topic--I am a knitter in search of a summer project. I still have Tim's sweater on the needles, but it's hard to get enthusiastic about a lapful of wool in the summer time. So I'm thinking I should do a scarf, or a bag, or something else smaller and lighter. But what?

I'm at such a loss! Usually I have a backlog of projects I want to do, but I'm directionless. I think it's perhaps there are too many choices for me out there. This world of blogging is a delight, but I see so many beautiful things that others have made, that I want to make them all! But as soon as I think I'll make this scarf or that shawl or this pair of mittens, I see yet another pattern that looks delicious too.

Or, I could just read blogs and never get started on anything....

New things to look forward to

2007-06-20T10:43:00.000-04:00

We had a quick trip out to NY week before last to start getting things ready for our move. We took Aidan to his new school, where he passed his kindergarten screening test with flying colors (scored a 94%!) and was thrilled with the books they gave him to read over the summer. We took Douglas to his new daycare, which is a wonderful cheery place run by a warm and creative woman named Chris whom I'm looking forward to getting to know better.

We also had a major turn of events that seemed quite threatening at first, but turned out to be delightful. We were planning to live in the house Tim had had before he moved to Boston, but for it to work with all of us, we needed to add on more living space and a workshop for Tim's business. We had everything lined up, and the excavators were scheduled to come in two weeks. Then we found out that the zoning laws had changed in such a way that made our plans unworkable.

Talk about a pit-of-the-stomach feeling! The central part of our whole plan was living in that house, and it wasn't going to work.

So, on impulse Tim stopped by a realtor's office and picked up a few flyers on local houses for sale. We'd never talked about getting a different house before, but he thought it might be worth exploring.

There were just a handful of houses in our price range with enough space for all of us. There was just one that also had a workshop already built out back. What was the likelihood that it would work out? Practically none.

We saw it, we loved it, we're going to buy it!

It is simply amazing how much farther housing dollars will go outside of the Boston area. The house we're buying has literally three times the space of our suburban Boston house--at less than half the cost. Amazing!

There is a catch (there is always a catch). The house was last decorated sometime in the late 1960s. Acres of green shag carpeting. Outdated floral wallpaper in all of the bedrooms. A very piney office. There will be a lot of redecorating to be done!

But the fact that the house hasn't been renovated recently means that there are a lot of original features (and interesting vintage ones as well) in this circa 1876 house. Leaded glass windows. A quirky 1940s-era shower. A built-in china cabinet in the dining room. It even has a late 1940s-vintage stove, the same era as the one I already have. (Mine is a gas stove, which my grandmother bought new in the late 1940s and which I shipped from Los Angeles to Boston even before I'd bought my first house!). Even with its dated interior, the house is warm and welcoming, a real family home.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, but it will be grand!

Please buy my house!

2007-06-12T16:01:00.000-04:00

I'm not the most patient of creatures. It may take me ages to make a decision, but once I do, I want everything to fall into place right away.

Okay, so our house has been on the market for all of 11 days, but why hasn't it sold yet? It's adorable! It has a great location! It has a view of a pond! It has a fabulous garden! It has a great location for commuters to Boston or to the western suburbs! It's priced right! So what's the deal???

I know, I know, I must be patient. The right buyer is out there, somewhere.

I need knitting time

2007-06-01T16:47:00.000-04:00

I'm certainly not the first person to note how therapeutic knitting can be. It's a form of meditation. I'm convinced it brings down my blood pressure. I know it feeds my soul.

These are good times for my family. We're about to embark upon a new venture, picking up stakes and moving west (okay, to the Finger Lakes, but it IS west of here!). I've had official approval from the folks at work about my plans to telecommute (I knew it would be approved but official word just came down today). My days as a diaper-changer are coming to an end as Douglas is finally recognizing that the potty isn't just a substantial white chair in the bathroom. And Tim and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary this weekend. There's a lot to be happy about.

But there is so much to do! Get the house sold! Get everything packed! Make arrangements for new schools and new daycares! Figure out how we get three cars to NY with only two drivers! My head is spinning....

Scraped knuckles, pruney fingers

2007-05-30T15:22:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I've ever gone through a house sale as a seller. What a job! I'd had no idea--when I bought my house a long long seven years ago, I thought buying a house was an ordeal. All the open houses! All the drudgery of walking through one ugly house after another! All the nervous waiting--would I ever find the right house for me?

That's nothing compared to being the seller.

Our house officially goes on the market on Friday, but today was the "preview" day for the local real estate agents and the day that the photographer showed up to take pix for the web. So, we spent our "holiday" weekend getting the house in shape (in and among other obligations, like Aidan's music lesson and his long-delayed 5th birthday party!).

There's nothing more humbling than viewing your house through the eyes of a judgmental potential buyer. Oh, the cat hair! Oh, the grubby handprints on the wall! Oh, the paint chips and the dented moldings and the unfinished projects!

Yecch.

However, now our house is a gleaming jewel. Tim put up crown molding in the hallway that gives an elegant touch to our modest entryway. I thinned out my collections (okay, I'm a pack rat) and packed away all the extras. Tim hauled it all away to hidden corners of the basement. And then we scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed some more.

It's a good thing I've never been vain about my hands. I've always had short wrinkly fingers with a lousy manicure, and a weekend of soaking in cleaners and degreasers didn't help any.

But the house sparkles.

And somehow, magically, it got about ten times bigger! Isn't it amazing what happens when you get rid of the clutter? Note to self: remember the joy of anti-clutter. BECOME the joy of anti-clutter. I want to live like this, always!! (Of course, that means fighting with a habit that's been entrenched for 40+ years, but it's never too late to change, right?)

Next hurdle: the open house on Sunday.

Oh, but the good part about all of this is that we don't have to be a buyer at the same time as a seller. We have a second home in upstate New York--Tim's house from before we got married--and we've decided to leave the big city in favor of some semi-rural peace and quiet. It'll be a big change, but a welcome one. I'll miss Boston, but I'm ready to slow down the pace, enjoy life at a quieter pace, and have LOTS more time for knitting!!

Knitting is taking a back seat

2007-05-23T10:04:00.000-04:00

Things are really busy chez Woolies these days. The big news is that we're getting ready to put our house on the market, so there's lots of work to be done! It's a sobering thing to look at your own house like a stranger would. Suddenly, you see all the imperfections in glaring clarity. All the unfinished projects, the semi-organized piles of papers, the kids' toys everywhere--what you have lived with comfortably for ages suddenly seem vile and unacceptable.

So, we've been having a big clear-out. Bags of papers to recycle. Boxes of outgrown clothing and toys sent to Goodwill. Do we really need this? Do we have to take that?

And then there are all those little repairs that hovered on the to-do list for months (okay, years). Painting the front stoop, repairing the broken bathroom fan, putting up crown molding in the entry hallway (after replacing the ceiling drywall 6 years ago and never getting around to quite finishing the project...).

And on top of that is the "staging." I've watched too many real-estate programs on TV and I have a giant insecurity comlex that our house needs extensive prettifying in order to appeal to a buyer. So, I've been tidying the garden, planting a big container to warm up the front door, spreading bags of mulch to cover up the bare earth until the perennials come all the way up. And that's just the outside!

By the time all these big jobs are done, then we'll have the task of keeping the house eternally clean -- with two exuberant boys whose middle names are "Mess-Maker"!

UGH. So, needless to say, there hasn't been much actual knitting in the Woolies household, though there has been a lot of fantasy knitting going on. Does that count?

There is life on the other side of this, right?

NH Sheep and Wool Festival!

2007-05-13T18:16:00.000-04:00

For Mother's Day, my boys took me to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. Good sports all, they were very patient with me as I coveted the yarns. So much selection! And there were so many spinners out--when I have just a little more time, I must learn how to do that! It looks like so much fun.

I managed to avoid temptation--I bought not a single skein of yarn! But I came home laden with business cards and brochures. I just can't make decisions on the fly like that--I know that I'll either buy nothing at all, or buy everything in sight. So, to spare my pocketbook, I decided to take the cards and brochures and decide later.

But the boys loved the animals! Who can resist a freshly shorn sheep? And the alpacas! Why, they look like something out of Dr. Seuss when they're freshly shorn.

We watched a few rounds of competition with the border collies and sheep, delighted in a homemade apple crisp, and jumped for joy when Aidan finally lost that wiggly front tooth! He was so proud. One more wiggly front one to go!

giddy flashes of color

2007-05-03T22:48:00.000-04:00

There's something about the intense colors of spring that make me go all giddy inside.

It's the quick onslaught of color, after months and months of dull grey skies and leafless trees.

Each year it happens, and yet it's different every year. This year, we didn't get so many blossoms on our forsythia. I must have pruned it too late in the season last year.

I especially love the way the ferns emerge all curled up. They really do look like fiddleheads.

But then there's always the big dose of reality. My most successful flowers in the garden are bright yellow, bloom all summer, and can't be killed no matter what. Gotta love the dandelions.

Studio Furniture Show in Boston!

2007-05-02T11:48:00.000-04:00

Support the arts!

Come see a gallery show that opens this weekend at Gallery NAGA on Newbury Street in Boston. The show is called “Coffee, Hall, and End: Small Tables by Studio Furnituremakers” and it runs until June 2nd.

My beloved husband has a table in this show (ten points if you can guess which table is his!). Come see the tables!

REALLY feeling better about the spring

2007-04-22T18:09:00.000-04:00

When Boston gets its spring on, it does it in a beautiful way. I love the magnolias that line Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street. These are on Comm Ave. Absolutely voluptuous blossoms--they're almost vulgar.

And this next picture just tickles me. Along Comm Ave, we saw a delightful statue of a black Labrador peeking out between the balusters. Notice that there's also a bronze tennis ball just to the left...

As we were admiring the statue, we heard a voice coming from the second-floor balcony. "Here's the real one!!" she said, and a friendly black Lab stuck his head out between those balusters and barked hello.

That made us smile for quite a while.

Feeling better about the spring

2007-04-06T09:53:00.000-04:00

Okay, so perhaps I was unnecessarily grumpy about the snow. It didn't stay around long. It never does this late in the season (knock wood!). And today is simply glorious, with bright blue skies (though it's colder than I'd like).

At least the Easter bunny won't have to hide the eggs in the snow!!

no no no no NO!!!!!

2007-04-04T15:22:00.000-04:00

It's snowing.

HARD.

It's sticking to the ground and the streets and the cars and everything.

I can't even bear to take a picture of it. It's just so WRONG.

Wake up, sleepyhead!

2007-03-31T21:27:00.000-04:00

At long last, signs of life in the garden! We have buds on the lilacs, which will be gorgeous by Mother's Day.

A few flowerbuds on the saucer magnolia that I planted three years ago. Last year, I had one glorious bloom, and I'm hoping for more this year. The mature trees are positively vulgar with blossoms at the height of spring, but it'll take a few years before this one is anything but modest.

The rhubarb is looking weird, like some kind of tumor growing next to a pruney foot. But it'll be huge and delicious soon. I just wish it would be ready at the same time as my strawberries so I could make a strawberry-rhubarb pie. But by the time the berries are ready, the rhubarb is old and stringy. So instead, there will be rhubarb pie, then strawberry pie. (And a few weeks after that, raspberry pie!)

Last fall, I filled the garden bed around our little fountain with tulip bulbs, and they're popping up, ready to go. I never noticed before how the foliage is tinged with pink. I'm starved for color now, so perhaps my eyesight is a bit keener. (Notice the rocks. Gardening in New England is all about rocks.)

Ah, but here is the star of my garden at the moment--the moss. My picture doesn't do it justice--it is the greenest of greens, as if it were lit from within. The back and side yards are full of moss (and ferns too, a little later in the season). My next-door neighbor (who's lived in her house since the 1950s) gave me all sorts of tips and tricks for getting rid of moss when I first moved in, but I thought she was nuts. I spent decades in Texas, for Pete's sake, where everything is dry and crispy by May. Why on earth would I want to get rid of cool green moss??

And this ugly thing shows no signs of life in terms of greenery, but it's usually teeming with life all winter long. The birds love this hideous overgrown rambling rose bush. They congregate there, chasing each other from one cane to another, singing their songs and reminding me all winter long that the spring will come again. The bush itself is quite horrible--it's overgrown, half-dead in the middle, with blooms that look gorgeous for all of a week and nasty thorns that catch your clothes (and your skin) all summer long. But I love it for the birds and don't have the heart to take it out.

There is something truly delicious about these earliest days of spring. It's all potential right now. This is the year for the fattest raspberries, or the juiciest strawberries. Maybe I'll have a million magnolia blossoms on the tree, or I'll manage to actually grow tomatoes in our weird and wonderful climate. And every day, I eagerly search for new signs of life. Then seemingly all of a sudden, the spring picks up momentum and the world explodes into color and life (and weeds, of course!). I'm afraid knitting takes a bit of a backseat...

Must. Buy. This. NOW.

2007-03-28T16:27:00.000-04:00

Oh my God. I've just discovered Hanne Falkenberg's designs. (Where have I been living? Under a rock?). And I discovered Mermaid. Beautiful Mermaid. A gazillion different colorways Mermaid. I could wear this every day. With jeans. With skirts. Dressed up. Dressed down. If I had this jacket, I'd be as thin and gorgeous as the model in the picture. I just know it.

But $250 for the kit? Ouch.

Is the pattern available elsewhere without the yarn?

Getting ready for the garden

2007-03-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the snow has just barely melted and the backyard is like a bog, but I've got gardening fever! The bulbs are starting to break free of the soil, the rhubarb is pushing its cheery red stalks above ground, and soon, the weeds will take it all over! But right now I'm in fantasyland, thinking this is the year my front garden finally gets that lush English cottage look, that my magnolia tree will bear more than one blossom, and that the raspberries won't go moldy before I have a chance to pick them.

Oh, and while I was at the store picking up yet more gallons of milk (for thirsty boys!), I saw the cutest gardening tools for kids. SpongeBob and the Backyardigans--it doesn't get better than that (if you're 5 or under). Perhaps the Easter bunny could be persuaded to include them in the Easter egg hunt this year...!

He was a good friend

2007-03-28T13:51:00.001-04:00

This is Fonzie.

He looks grumpy in nearly every picture I have of him. Not at all! Though independent, he loved people and would drool like mad when you petted him and purr as loudly as could be.

He forged a special bond with Alec, and the two usually curled up together whenever they slept.

Fonzie passed away today. He will be missed very much.

Relics of the Past

2007-03-24T08:11:00.000-04:00

Renovations are underway at the Arlington Street station on the T, which is one of the oldest stations in the system. The other day, I saw something quite wonderful. Underneath the old walls are the original signs, made of small black-and-white mosaic tiles.

This one made me chuckle. It's a stencilled sign showing which way to go for the Arlington and Berkeley Street exits, and if you look closely underneath the names, you'll see little Victorian hands pointing the way.

Sadly, all of this is being covered over in the name of "improvement" and most certainly "economy." Other subway systems not only save their past but promote and celebrate it, but not the T. It may be the oldest subway system in the nation, but it's got a long way to go.

For my favorite example of a city celebrating its transportation history, take a visit to the London Transport Museum (now closed for renovations but expected to reopen this autumn). I last visited this marvelous place in 2001--what a treasure! They have omnibuses and train cars from the Tube and all sorts of delightful relics from the city's transportation past. I was delighted (and a little dismayed) to recognize some cars from the Tube from my first visit to London in 1984. Made me feel a little old to see things from "my time" in a historical museum!

Lest you fear that this is becoming a Boston blog instead of a knitting blog, let me reassure you that there will be some Actual Knitting Content to come very shortly. I'm starting a new sweater for my husband--I previewed the pattern way back in November, got the wool in January, and have finally started the sweater in March! I hope I will get it done in time for him to wear next fall and winter....

Cold, cold parade

2007-03-18T17:05:00.000-04:00

St. Patrick's Day is a big deal to me. I'm not of Irish heritage (though many people have told me I look like I am), but it is my birthday. What better day to celebrate than with a bunch of people wearing green plastic hats and being of questionable sobriety?

And what fun to be in Boston, which takes the whole Irish thing pretty seriously! This year's parade was wicked cold--grey skies, a snow shower here and there, and strong winds. But there was merriment to be had!

First of all, the obligatory green silliness:

Then there were the local (and not-so-local) pipe bands. It takes a real man to wear a kilt during a Boston winter!

Though it did look painfully cold (note the grumpy faces...)

There's the expected visit by the patron saint himself...

As well as some unexpected parade participants, such as the guys from a local sheet metal union...

But despite all the fun, it got to be too cold for the little ones, so we did the "fast-forward" parade viewing by walking toward the T station in the opposite direction of the parade itself. And it all ended beautifully with a free ride on the T.

Happy St. Patrick's Day (a day late) to you all!

Let the Gardening Begin!

2007-03-17T16:59:00.000-04:00

According to local gardening lore, St. Patrick's Day is the first day that gardening can begin here in the Boston area. Coming from Texas, that seemed really late to me (I started my Texas garden in February). And now, after nine years in New England, I still don't believe it.

Especially not this year...

cable-y goodness

2007-03-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

Quinn is done...YUMMMMMMMM! The last time I posted about this one, I'd just finished the top band of cables:

And here's the finished bag, photographed in the weak light of a Boston late-winter day. It was so much fun to do--I love the deep texture of this pattern, worked in Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran yarn. I have to admit I didn't like working with the yarn--I found way too many knots (I found three in one ball of yarn!), and the yarn was so weak that it ended up breaking a few times. But the end result is beautiful!

To finish it off, I sewed a lining of brown cotton with a matching brown zipper at the top. The original pattern didn't specify a lining or closure, but I wanted to use this as a handbag rather than as a tote, so I thought a lining would make it more durable and a closure a necessary security measure. Also, the original pattern called for a three-strand braid of i-cord for the strap. I like my straps a bit wider, so I made a 5-strand i-cord braid instead. It's a little stretchier than I'd like, but it works just fine.

Happy Texas Independence Day!

2007-03-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

So, they can take the girl out of Texas, but they can't take the Texas out of the girl....

Today is Texas Independence Day--the day in 1836 when a handful of uppity American settlers in Texas met in Washington-on-the-Brazos to tell Mexico "Adios!" and declare the Republic of Texas open for business. The experiment in independence was a resounding failure (but don't tell that to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas). By the early 1840s, the baby republic was up to its eyeballs in debt. Hostile Mexicans and Indians took their toll, and lots of Texans (who'd started off as Americans in the first place) started the drumbeat for annexation by the United States. By the end of 1845, it was all over, and Texas became the 28th state.

But hey, it's a particular point of pride that Texans can boast of having been an independent nation. Even if it was (shh) a failure. Even if it lasted only 9 years. Even if it accomplished absolutely nothing of note apart from setting aside land for primary schools and two universities...

Yee haw! Now where are my cowboy boots?

Chinese New Year in Boston

2007-02-25T16:24:00.000-05:00

Today was the big celebration of the Chinese New Year in Boston's Chinatown, and after having lived here for 9 years, I finally managed to see it! We watched as the dragons and drummers went from business to business, stopping at each door to dance, "eat" an orange and a head of lettuce, and set off firecrackers. We didn't know the symbolism behind , so we stopped a couple of Chinese teens to ask what the significance of it all was. They couldn't tell us, so looks like I'm going to have to do a little research...

When lunchtime approached, my mouth was watering for some fabulous Chinese delicacy, but with two young kids in tow--especially Aidan, who is hardly the most adventurous eater--we had to settle for far less interesting food. Yes, that's right, in the midst of all this cultural extravaganza, we ended up eating in Chinatown's McDonald's. (I'm so embarrassed to admit this...) However, our lunch was saved from being a complete cultural wasteland by the dragons and drums, who actually came into the McDonald's for a dance. They ate the orange and lettuce (didn't set off any firecrackers, though!), and made the rounds through the place before heading back out to the streets. You don't see action like that in McDonald's very often, do you?

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our day. When I learn more about the symbolism, I'll come back and add some captions.

is it spring yet?

2007-02-21T11:18:00.000-05:00

Sure feels like it. Okay, so it's a whopping 37 degrees Fahrenheit out there, but after last week's snow and wind and bone-chilling cold, it's starting to feel positively balmy to me.

Perhaps I've lived in New England too long.

This is the time of year when I take my encouragement when I can. What a thrill it is to leave the office at 5:00pm and still have about half an hour before the sky goes pitch black! How wonderful to see the mountains of brown ice piled along the roadways begin to melt (even though I know we'll have more snow to come before winter is over). And with February on the wane, I start to think about my garden.

Despite the fact that I've lived in the Boston area now for nearly 9 years, I still have to fight my internal gardener. No, the planting season doesn't begin in late February. No, I can't put my tomatoes in by late March. In theory, I should be able to plant peas by St Patrick's Day, though every time I've tried, they've rotted in the cold, wet soil. When I first moved here and started asking questions of my new gardening friends, I thought one of them was pulling my leg when she said it's safe to plant tomatoes by Memorial Day. What? In Texas, that's when you start to harvest tomatoes, not plant them! This would take some getting used to.

But despite the short growing season and the late start, there are some real advantages to gardening in New England. For one thing, there's spring--a real spring with daffodils and tulips and saucer magnolias and dogwoods and everything erupting into color all at once. I can't describe the rush I felt when I first discovered the magnolias on Beacon Street in Boston, how they explode with fat pink voluptuous blossoms, so many that you can hardly see the trees for the flowers. Or how about the thrill of the first blossom on the tiny saucer magnolia tree that I planted? Or the delight in seeing that the daffodils and tulips I planted in my front garden come back year after year? That may hardly seem like rocket science to most gardeners, but in Texas, if you want your bulbs to come back the next year, you have to dig them up and put them in the refrigerator for at least six weeks, to give them a "real" winter. Who has time for that?

And don't forget about the summer. Here in Boston, my garden thrives on the sunshine. My poor Texas garden limped through summer, baked bone-dry every day in the torrid sun. Not to mention the fact that the torrid sun baked me, too, which made gardening more of a chore than a delight by the time July rolled around.

Oh, but I am getting ahead of myself, aren't I? There are still two matching mountains of ice either side of my driveway. My car is grey from road salt, and I still have heavy winter gloves tucked into the pockets of my coat. Winter's still here.

But spring is on its way.

goodness to come

2007-02-16T14:39:00.000-05:00

After a week spent in Texas, and a few days spent here in the miserable ice and snow, I vow to update the blog.

I will tell you about the wild animals we saw in Texas.

I will tell you about the three (three!) knitting projects I have going.

But not just yet. With aching muscles (from shoveling snow and ice at lunchtime!), seriously caffeine-deprived head, and Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story" on the iPod, I must return to work. Just wanted to reassure the world that I'm still here!

More to come soon.

a (silent) poetry reading

2007-02-02T10:08:00.000-05:00

I read about this on several blogs--first Anne's then Amelia's then Cara's then finally Deborah's. Here's my contribution, a poem I learned when I was studying French.

Il pleut il pleut
Il fait beau
Il fait du soleil
Il est si tôt
Il se fait tard
Il
Il
Il
Toujours Il
Toujours Il qui pleut et qui neige
Toujours Il qui fait du soleil
Toujours Il
Pourquoi pas Elle
Jamais Elle
Pourtant Elle aussi
Souvent se fait belle!

—Jacques Prévert

55 minutes until chocolate

2007-02-01T14:05:00.000-05:00

We're having a big company meeting in less than an hour--one of those quarterly corporate meetings where they try to funnel three months' worth of news in about an hour to those of us in the trenches. Were it not for the food they provide as an enticement, most people would simply opt out. I know for a fact that there's going to be chocolate. I'll be there.

Yes, this is the inevitable result of my dieting attempts. The moment I decide it's time to shed the extra weight I've gained since Christmas/pregnancy/high school, all I do is think about food. Crazy, isn't it? This time, though, I'm trying to do it mostly for the health benefit (although losing a dress size or two would be a boost, too).

I've been watching Turn Back Your Body Clock on BBC America, and even though it's a cheesy-trendy reality show, it has really made me think. I've always been the eternal optimist about how I treat my body--I had endless amounts of time to lose the weight, get in shape, eat healthier foods. If not this year, then next year. Or maybe the one after that. But the episodes of this show have focused on people in my age range who have felt the same way. Most of them are MUCH harder on their bodies than I am--they smoke heavily, they drink vast quantities, and never exercise. And it shows. For the people on the program, it shows outside as well as inside, but it gets me to thinking--what if my own unhealthy habits are showing on the inside already?

Bad habits aren't easy to change, so I'm approaching it gradually. I don't have the luxury of an 8-week intensive course with personal trainers, nutritionists, and motivators to keep me on the straight and narrow. So, I've given up French fries. Hard thing, because I'm a carb-a-holic and love my fries. And I've given up most fast food (with the exception of an occasional slice of pizza with the kids). I'm boosting my activity level with time on the exercise bike (in preparation for spring biking!) and more walking.

But when there's going to be chocolate during what promises to be a long and tedious meeting, how can I pass that by?

soon it begins

2007-01-30T09:44:00.000-05:00

My oldest son Aidan is just on the brink of his formal education--he starts kindergarten in the fall. He's so excited by the prospect that the greatest compliment you can give him now is to say he is acting "just like a schoolkid." He role-plays the school day all the time--our family dinners become cafeteria lunches, drawing sessions become homework, and time at the park across the street becomes recess. I hope this enthusiasm continues once he really is in school!

But there's one part of his education that I think we'll need to supplement, and that's his education in music. My own music education was woefully spotty. I had a few private instructors teach me (first on the organ, then on the guitar), but they never followed any particular curriculum. I came away with bits and pieces of knowledge from one teacher, and a little bit of something from the next. And what I learned in school didn't fill in any of the gaps.

So, in the time-honored tradition of wanting better things for my kids, I've decided to find a good music teacher for Aidan. But where to start? There are countless private teachers in this area (with the same potential pitfalls I faced). There are schools that teach the Suzuki method, the Yamaha method, the this-method, the that-method. It's all very daunting to a musically untrained person like myself. I want a logical, systematic curriculum, but most of all, I want it to be fun for him. Much of the reason I gave up music lessons was because of being bored to tears with scales and exercises. I want better for my kid.

But not only that, he also wants to play soccer.

I live in fear of becoming one of those stressed-out families, with too many time commitments and not enough time. One of those families that never eats dinner together and only sees one another in passing from one lesson to another. I won't let us become that, but I want the kids to be able to explore the things they're interested in. It's going to be a balancing act.

The knitting is coming along just fine. No photos of the progress on Quinn, but I'm getting into the home stretch on the main part of the bag. A few more quiet evenings of work on it, and I'll have something to show!

new projects, not all knitting

2007-01-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

I have new projects to work on these days, but the first isn't really new. The other day, I made the bold decision to start keeping my journal in handwritten volumes again.

This was a big decision for me. When my first son was born nearly 5 years ago, I abandoned the handwritten volumes and started keeping my journal on the computer. After all, I can type so much faster than I can write, and keeping the journal electronically would allow me to keep up the habit of a lifetime during a very busy time of my life. But as it turned out, I hated the Microsoft Word journal. Even though I was able to capture my ephemeral thoughts more quickly, the electronic words had no life of their own. (Ironic that I should say this at the very moment I am creating more electronic words.) Anyway, I was in Harvard Square and went to a wonderful stationers shop, where I found a delectable orange leather journal, with pages and pages of space to write. I bought a new pen and a giant cup of tea, and set about the task of writing all my personal stuff down. It felt so good! I started my first journal in 1974 and have never stopped writing since. Yum.

And more knitting projects on the horizon. I'm making a purse with the Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran I bought at Wild and Woolly in Lexington. I'm using Yvonne's pattern Quinn, and it's turning out beautifully so far. The top of the bag is a cabled band worked horizontally, then stitches are picked up along the edge of the band to work the remaining part of the bag.

I have to say, Rowan has just not impressed me with this wool. I've found not one, not two, but THREE knots in a single skein of this yarn! Not only that, but in places the yarn is so weak that it breaks. I'm not a tense knitter--my knitting tends to be on the loose side--so that really means the yarn is weak. All I can say is that I'm glad I got the wool on sale. I would have been mighty angry if I'd paid full price for this knotty, weakling yarn!

Not only that, I received my first shipment of Knit Picks yarn. I've read so much about it on other people's blogs that I just had to try it. I bought their merino yarn for my husband's new sweater, and spent a whopping $37 on it! The yarn is silky soft, and I can't wait to get going on it!

With the yarn for my husband's sweater, I also received enough yarn to make another tam...

snowy day

2007-01-19T10:01:00.000-05:00

It's the tiniest of snowy days today, by New England standards. Maybe a quarter inch of wet slushy snow has fallen on the ground, not even enough to shovel. But there is something about snow, even a little bit, that makes the world slow down and become quieter. It's as if Mother Nature is putting a blanket over the world and telling you that humankind isn't really in control here. Today's snowfall isn't even to keep anyone in, but it's enough to dredge up memories and stories about snowstorms of all kinds, especially the Blizzard of '78. I wasn't in New England then, but I've heard the stories, and it gives me a healthy respect for what Mother Nature can do.

For me, though, snowy days make me really want to curl up on the couch and cover up with the Magic Afghan.

The Magic Afghan was knit by my mother probably 40 years ago, from acrylic yarns in then-fashionable shades of avocado green and harvest gold. It became known as the Magic Afghan because it used to always make me fall asleep when I wrapped myself in it. It's one of my prized possessions, and my kids are growing to love it the same way I do.

more hats!

2007-01-18T10:29:00.000-05:00

I finished my hats for Portia and Throsby and put them in the mail.

Portia's hat is made of wonderfully heathery purple Cascade yarn knit in the Coronet pattern from Knitty. I made just one small modification--I created a small hole in the back for Portia's ponytail to poke through, so she can wear a hat and keep her whole head warm. Now she'll have a purple hat to match the one that her American Girl doll is wearing...which was supposed to be Portia's hat, but it came out WAY too small!

Throsby's hat is a double-layer hat made from Reynolds Andean Alpaca Regal yarn in shades of black and grey. With a provisional cast-on of black yarn, I knit ribbing for a bit more than 4 inches (twice the depth of the cuff when flipped up), then knit a basic stocking cap out of dark grey. After finishing the dark grey cap, I then picked up the stitches from the provisional cast-on and knit another stocking cap going thr other direction in a lighter grey. When the second cap was finished, I turned one cap inside the other and tacked them together at the top. This hat should be wonderfully warm, which should keep Throsby's ears toasty warm when he's on his paper route!

Next on the knitting agenda is a cable knitted bag called Quinn. I'm using Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran in a deep chocolatey brown that I bought at Wild and Woolly's semi-annual sale. Yum!

tempus fugit (time flies!)

2007-01-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

Saturday was a magnificent spring day (in January?!), and the boys and I decided to wander parts of Boston to "see what we can see." I had my camera with me, so you can see a little part of our long walk. Warm and sunny, the day was a real gift.

We started our walk in Downtown Crossing, with a visit to Windsor Button to buy some size 7 circular needles. (Yes, I have a million sets of circulars, but no size 7s. And I think I'm doomed never to have size 7s, because the pair I bought disappeared as soon as I brought them into the house. But I digress.)

Just outside the knitting shop, I looked up and saw this wonderful torch. I love the Art Nouveau styling of the building number. The shopfront here is completely nondescript, but fortunately no previous renovator decided to dismantle the lovely torch.

We picked up some lunch and decided to have an urban picnic. We found a place to sit near Macy's, where we spent some time people-watching while we filled our bellies. This part of Downtown Crossing is a great place to watch people, because it is such a crossroads for the city. The kids loved watching the taxis and police patrolmen and hotdog vendors.

This is an area of real change. Longtime Boston residents lament the closing of Jordan Marsh, and more recently Filene's. Chain stores have moved in--and moved out--of the area. Some things seem eternal, like the chiming of the bells on the old Filene's on the hour, every hour. And then there are new discoveries, like the solar-powered trash compactors.

Here's a view of Washington Street heading north. Like many older cities, it's a real mishmash of architectural styles, including the 18th-century Old South Meetinghouse, generic skyscrapers, and a humble little 1970s-era CVS. Just a short walk from here is Boston's famous Faneuil Hall, as well as its hideous City Hall. Such a city of contrasts.

Look up when you're in Boston, and you'll see some interesting details.

This medallion is over the side entrance of a once-grand building whose first floor has been remodeled beyond recognition. Perhaps because this medallion was on a side street, nobody thought it worth the effort to remove in the name of "progress."

Here's one we saw later in the day, a small detail of a building on Boylston Street in Back Bay.

Sometimes this amount of detail can seem almost overwhelming, but it amazes me to think about the value that businessowners and architects used to place on detail. I think fewer people think about the longevity of buildings today, so they often aren't as willing to invest in the effort to create beauty.

Aidan shares my interest in old graveyards, so we went to explore King's Chapel Burying Ground.

Most of the graves there are from the 1600s and 1700s, though I did notice one from 2003! Anyway, we used this visit to talk about the imagery we saw on the gravestones and what they symbolized. Most are quite somber, but this one made death look quite cheerful.

This one was more somber and serious, in keeping with the many skeletons and skulls we saw carved upon the stones. If you look carefully, you can see the skeleton holding a candle-snuffer, ready to snuff out the flame on the candle. Heavy stuff indeed.

Something lighter was in order next, so we walked over the Boston Common to see what was happening (along with 99.9% of the city's residents who were out enjoying the glorious day.) A few brave souls ventured onto Frog Pond for some ice skating, but the surface of the ice refused to freeze. As some of the more accomplished skaters made quick turns, water sprayed off the blades of the skates and glistened in the sunlight.

Time to be an airplane!

Here's another part of Boston that is about to change--the Ritz-Carlton. Later this week, it will become Taj Boston, after having been sold away from the Ritz-Carlton company. Actually, this isn't really part of old Boston--it only goes back to 1927--but there is so much changing in Boston that a lot of people are getting very nostalgic. I have to admit, I'm one of them. I always fancied having "tea at the Ritz," but it doesn't sound the same to say "tea at the Taj" (though that sounds like it could have an exotic appeal, doesn't it?).

Dazzling display of cherry blossoms in January.

Delightful, beautiful, and yet so sad because the cold weather will come and shock the living daylights out of the trees. I wonder if we will have much a spring after getting this preview so early?

Our usual stop to see Mrs. Mallard and her babies, the bronze statues in the Public Garden modeled after the characters in the book Make Way for Ducklings. Douglas and Aidan seem to have a built-in homing device that alerts them when we're within walking distance of Mrs. Mallard, so we go visit her just about every time we're in town.

This time, though, we had a little drama of a quarrel between two stubborn 4-year-old girls over the next-to-last duckling, Pack. Despite the fact that Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, and Quack were all free, the girls fussed and shouted screamed about sitting on Pack. Both little girls were as cute as their behavior was horrid, but their parents laughed off their behavior, even when one of the girls smacked her mother and told her "I hate you!" Her mom saw that other parents were watching, and she simply laughed and said "see what I have to put up with?" Oh dear, her future is going to be mighty grim...

But at long last, our day of discovery came to an end. With the sun dipping low in the sky, it was time to cross the bridge in the Public Garden and head back to the car. Two weary boys and one weary mom, but it was a beautiful day. I'll remember it when the snow comes...later this week, they say!

new year, new projects

2007-01-04T17:48:00.000-05:00

After the dismal failure of Portia's purple hat (which ended up too small and now graces the head of her American Girl doll), I have started a new one. This one is based on the Coronet pattern from Knitty, but I made one small change. I loved the idea of a hat with a hole for a ponytail to poke through, so I added one just above the braided border. Portia wears her ponytails low like that, so I think this should suit her just fine.

I have to say, though, I don't like knitting in the round on double-pointed needles. Despite the fact that I inherited my grandmother's massive collection of knitting needles, I didn't have a set of size 8 circulars. Every place I went was sold out, so I've had to do the whole thing on the dp needles. They really slow me down! With circulars or with regular flat knitting, I can fly, but the dp needles are so awkward for me. Needless to say, I have no desire to try knitting socks....

I know I'm completely in the minority here, because I see from so many blogs that knitters everywhere love knitting socks. How many thousands of socks were knit for Socktober? How many of you have lovingly posted the pairs and pairs of socks that you've made for yourselves and your family? But I just don't get it! Apart from the dp needle issue, I would find it heartbreaking to knit something that will get worn out! I've worn holes in countless socks, and I've felt no compunction about tossing them out. But a handknit sock? I'd cry!

Maybe the appeal is the small size of the project? If that's the case, I'd much rather knit hats and scarves (can't have too many!). Next, after Portia's hat, I'm making one for her brother Throsby. His will be a double-layered hat in some deliciously soft Reynolds Andean Alpaca Regal. I made a hat for Aidan out of that yarn two years ago, and not only is it wonderfully warm, but it wears beautifully.

Now if only I could find more time to knit! I have such a backlog of projects--and my favorite yarn shop is having its semi-annual clearance sale next week. Yes, I will be one of the insane knitters queuing up at 7:00am to be one of the first in the door...

time for knitting again

2006-12-29T15:30:00.000-05:00

As usual, Christmas went by in a flurry of activity, and now life begins to calm back down. In and amongst the presents, the cookies, and the Christmas cake we somehow forgot to finish making (!), I had time to work on a couple of projects. Astounding!

The first is a basic tam, using the pattern in Mary Rowe's Knitted Tams book and that luscious Mountain Colors hand-painted yarn that I bought at Windsor Button in November. I flew through this one, finishing it in a mere two days after casting on. I'm not a huge fan of variegated yarns, but I like the way this one made almost a spider-web pattern, with the swirls of the decreases looking like a subtle shadow-spider.

It will need a little elastic around the ribbing to help keep it snug, though. I've made two other tams using Mary Rowe's pattern, and the small amount of 1x1 ribbing isn't enough to keep the hat on my head, especially in Boston's sometimes ferociously windy wintry days. A little bit of cord elastic, though, and this hat (like the others) will suit me perfectly.

There's something almost unbearably optimistic about a tam or beret, I think. You can't help but wear it at a sort of jaunty angle, which never fails to give me a jaunty attitude.

Next is a work in progress that should be finished very shortly. My two stepkids gave me the most thoughtful gift--two balls of Artful Yarns' Flirtation, a wonderfully nobbly yarn just right for a playful scarf. This yarn has been a very quick knit, and I've finished up one skein and am midway through the next one. I love the way the colors fade from one to the next, with a texture that reminds me of the toy poodle I had many years ago. (My mother used to say that it would be great to save all the hair from that poodle to knit into sweaters. At the time, I thought she was nuts, but it's not sounding so crazy to me these days. How many people do you know have an authentic poodle scarf? :)

And today I made a trip to one of my favorite metro-Boston yarn shops, Wild and Woolly in Lexington, for some yarns to make hats for my stepkids. The purple hat I'd made last week was woefully too small, so that became a winter hat for Portia's American Girl doll, and I will start again for one for Portia. And Throsby could certainly use a warm hat to keep his ears warm on his paper route, so I will be making a double-layer wool hat for him. More to come as I make progress on these ones.

never start a knitted gift this late!

2006-12-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

I should know better. In fact, I've patted myself on the back for knowing better. But then I succumbed to the temptation to make a knitted gift at the last minute.

Bad news.

About a week ago (not quite the last minute, but close), I found a wonderful pattern for a hat (Piggle from the latest issue of Knitty). I picked out the most wonderful purple yarn (Dalegarn) and started knitting. It was a lace pattern, which was new to me (despite having knit for 30 years!). Finally got the whole thing finished, and it was just adorable.

And it's too small.

It's supposed to be one size fits all, but it's not going to fit. Was it my gauge? I didn't do a test swatch (bad Tracy!), so that's the likely reason. And I know I don't have the time, patience, or fortitude to do it again in time for Christmas.

So, looks like I'll be stretching out Christmas into the new year.

the cardigan, at last!

2006-12-17T12:47:00.000-05:00

Here is Aidan's cardigan, finished at last! The sweater is deliberately a bit too big, because this boy grows at supersonic rates. He loves the sweater, despite saying it's itchy (hardly!), and was very keen to wear it the very day I finished it. Phew!

Next to him is Douglas wearing a cardi I made a couple years ago. Yes, it's a hand-me-down from his big brother, but that's the benefit of having two boys. The sweaters have two lifetimes this way!

The Christmas cake is in the oven, courtesy of Delia Smith and two enthusiastic sous-chefs (alias Aidan and Douglas). Yes, the cake is about three weeks late, but better late than never!

Later today...the Christmas tree. The holiday is fast upon us!

to be jolly

2006-12-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a hectic week, what with doctors' visits for checkups, work, school visits, etc. I finished Aidan's sweater and put the buttons last night, and he's proudly wearing it today (though part of it is covered with an enormous "I had a checkup!" sticker he received from the dentist today). Pictures to come as soon as I wrangle them out of my camera.

But to keep the healthy habit of blogging going, here's a little meme for the day, thanks to Amelia at My Fashionable Life.

Egg nog or hot chocolate? That’s a difficult choice. Either is fantastic, as long as they’re homemade.

Does Father Christmas wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Here the tradition is changing. When I was a kid, Santa put the unwrapped presents under the tree. But there weren’t any other little kids in the house, so it was clear that every unwrapped present was mine. Now that Santa visits my two boys, he wraps and labels the presents so they know whose is whose!

Coloured lights on tree/house or white? Mostly white. We—meaning I—broke down and bought some lighted reindeer for the front yard. I haven’t giggled that much in ages as when I saw them lit up for the first time. Who says Christmas is just for kids?

Do you hang mistletoe? No. Too many years of seeing it grow like the parasitic weed that it is in the trees in my Texas backyard.

When do you put up your decorations? It’s an ongoing thing. It all starts to come out after Thanksgiving, but the tree will go up this weekend.

What's your favourite Christmas dish? Do cookies count? I love the cookies my mom makes—Dutch speculaasjes. Just the best ever!!

Favourite Christmas memory as a child? I remember the sense of wonder and awe the year I was five, when I came into the living room and saw that Santa had really been there. I’d thought I’d heard him up on the roof on Christmas Eve, and how happy I was when I saw he’d brought me the Little Kiddles dolls and dollhouse that I really really wanted.

But I also had a very special Christmas the year I lived in Austria as an exchange student. Though I was sad to be away from my own family at Christmas—the first time I’d been away—it was wonderful to experience the holiday with a loving family with traditions of their own, some familiar, some not.

When and how did you learn the truth about Father Christmas? I don’t remember when I actually stopped believing, but I remember when I started to question. I asked my mother if there really was a Santa, and she told me that he would continue to come visit me as long as I truly believed. And he continued to fill my stocking until I had kids of my own…

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? I did when I was a kid, but no more. Why spoil the fun?

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Complete mishmash of ornaments I’ve collected over the years. And this year, we’ll add my mishmash of ornaments to my husband’s for a truly spectacular tree.

Snow! Love it or dread it? Depends on the time of year. The early snows are the best, simply magical, but by April, I’m getting r-e-a-l-l-y tired of it all.

Can you ice skate? Only under duress.

Do you remember your favourite gift? Actually, my favorite gift wasn’t one I received, but one that I gave. Way back in the 1980s, I was a member of my high-school yearbook staff. We had a big clear-out of one of the storage closets and came across some yearbooks from the late 1960s and early 1970s, all in brand-new condition. They wanted to throw them out to make room, but I saved a few of them from oblivion. And I gave them to my sister, who had never gotten the yearbooks while she was in school but really regretted it years later. I gave her back a piece of her childhood, and that was simply the best.

What's the most important thing about Christmas for you? The joy of children.

What's your favourite Christmas tradition? Making Christmas cookies. And this year, I can get the boys involved in the floury, frostinged mess!

What tops your tree? Um, not sure yet. We’re combining ornaments for the first time this year, so we’ll see what my husband has for the top of the tree. I’d made an angel for the top of mine years ago, but she looks a little demented. I wouldn’t mind it if she were replaced…

Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Giving, by far. I just find it so much easier thinking of ideas for other people.

What's your favourite Christmas song? Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime. It’s just so cheery!

Candy canes? Thanks, but no thanks…

Mom, it's itchy!

2006-12-08T16:03:00.001-05:00

I'm so close, so close to being done with Aidan's cardigan. It's all sewn together. Every stray end of yarn has been woven in. The cardigan is at home, blocking as we speak. All it needs now is buttons.

So last night, just before blocking it, I had Aidan try it on. I just had to see how this work of art would look on the handsome lad. And wouldn't you know, he wanted to pull it off right away. Mom, it's ITCHY!!!

How could that be? He was with me when we chose the @#$%& yarn. He tested every skein of yarn at the shop for itchiness and proclaimed this one to be entirely, unreservedly, without question free of itchiness. ARGH!

Do they make yarn out of polar fleece?

short season

2006-12-04T14:49:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a short season. Went back to the store for those yummy scallops, only to find out they are no more. Sad Tracy.

On the knitting front--I'm slowly making progress on the buttonband for Aidan's cardigan. Once that's done, I just need to find some buttons and I can race ahead to the next project. I'm so ready for this one to be done. It's beautiful, but I'm ready for a new challenge.

Okay, so I announced (weeks ago!) that I would be starting a sweater for my husband, which I will do. But, I've been vicariously watching Yuki knit lace, and I'm tempted to start a lace project. I've never done lace before, and it looks really intimidating. Sure, I've been knitting for about 30 years. I've knit all sorts of Aran sweaters. But lace just looks so...hard. Still, I think it might be fun for a new challenge, but I may just be kind to myself and save it for the new year. Right now, I have plenty of challenges on my plate!

I don't have to finish any knit projects for gifts this year, thank goodness. I made a vow to myself long ago never to knit to a deadline. That's the best way to ruin all the fun! But I still need to do 90% of my Christmas shopping. I know it's still 3 weeks until Christmas, but time has a way of sneaking up on me...

Like yesterday, for example, when Tim and I planned to take the kids to get a Christmas tree. We'd talked about it the day before. We even drove past the place we'd like to get one, just to make sure they had trees this year (yes!) and that the place looks suitably festive for a Christmas-tree-acquiring event (yes!). And Sunday came and went, and we totally forgot about it. Both of us. Didn't remember until this morning.

How could I forget about Christmas???

mmm...Georges Bank scallops

2006-11-29T10:20:00.000-05:00

When I first moved to the Boston area from landlocked central Texas, I expected to find delicious and cheap seafood everywhere. All they had to do was pull it out of the sea, right? I was a little surprised to find that while the seafood was good, it really wasn't any cheaper than what I could get in Texas.

Until yesterday. Fresh sea scallops from Georges Bank, off the Massachusetts coast. Cheaper than farm-raised salmon. Available for a limited time. Delicious, creamy, fresh-never-frozen sea scallops. Sauteed in butter with a smidge of garlic, just one minute per side. Could there possibly be a more perfect food?

the siren call of a sexy yarn

2006-11-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

Oh, that hand-painted yarn is still calling to me, sitting right here next to me, next to the computer, just begging me to transform it into something luscious. But I can't just yet--the floors need mopping, the children need feeding, and all the general work of a Sunday 'round the house needs doing. Tim's outside wrestling with the Christmas lights, and though the work is frustrating now, it should pay off tonight with some cheery light in the darkness.

So, I'm going to resist temptation for now, and go mop the floors. I'll be good...for now.

zooming through the holidays

2006-11-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

With Thanksgiving over (already!), we seem to be hurtling through the holidays at breakneck speed! Why, we haven't even finished the Halloween candy, and Christmas is just around the corner. My mother always said that time goes by faster the older you get, and I think she was right.

I'm making good progress on Aidan's cardigan. All the pieces are made, and I'm sewing up a few seams before doing the color and button band. I'm pleased with this sweater, and it's been fun to make. And I'm glad that it will be done in time for plenty of cold-weather wearing!

But I'm keen to get going on something with this luscious yarn I just couldn't resist. This is Mountain Colors hand-painted yarn from Corvallis, MT, in the color Ruby River. I saw this gorgeous yarn last week and had to buy it--couldn't afford more than one skein of it at the moment, but it was just SO beautiful I had to have it. Now, what to do with this bit of beauty...?

this says it all

2006-11-21T15:11:00.000-05:00

from Bread and Roses to the Mensch of Malden Mills

2006-11-17T21:31:00.000-05:00

I'm really drawn to places that are past their prime. For one thing, many towns that were once prosperous have been too down-at-the-heels to renovate, leaving more relics behind than their wealthier neighbors. I feel closer to history in places like that, because they haven't been obliterated in the name of progress.

Today I was in Lawrence, Massachusetts, an old mill town near the New Hampshire border. In its heyday, Lawrence was a mighty textile town, employing tens of thousands of immigrants and others in the mills. Of course, the laborers who worked 56-hour weeks didn't enjoy the prosperity of the boom years. When working on an American history book a few years ago, I first learned about the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912. Such a significant event in labor history--and such a testament to the courage of the workers to keep the strike going in dismal and often violent conditions. This part of labor history was never taught in the history classes I had in school. Back then, industrialization was taught from the vantage point of the wealthy factory owners. Industrialization was seen as the great salvation, bringing this nation from the backwardness of near-frontier conditions and catalpulting the United States to the forefront of the world economy. But we never learned about what it was like to be the ones running the machines.

I was in Lawrence today to visit Malden Mills, makers of Polartec fleeces. They have a wonderful outlet store there where you can get the real McCoy at good prices. I'm making a few Christmas presents, and fleece from the dreadful chain fabric stores just would not do. So I trekked north.

In some ways, Lawrence is much as it ever was. It's still a city of immigrants. Today, though, the immigrants speak Spanish instead of Italian. And though you still see the massive brick mills across town, most of them seem to have been converted to other uses. But Malden Mills is still going strong.

In 1995, it didn't look that way. The mill was devastated by fire, and everyone assumed it would be just one more mill to close up and send its work down south or overseas. But the owner, Aaron Feuerstein, vowed to rebuild. Not only that, he paid his workers while the rebuilding was taking place. It was an extraordinary thing for a businessman to do--I remember hearing about it on the news when I lived in Texas, long before I had any connection to Massachusetts. What other company can you imagine would consider its employees to be such an asset that it would protect them in that way? Feuerstein was lionized for his actions and given the nickname the "Mensch of Malden Mills."

I know things have changed since the rebuilding. Feuerstein no longer runs Malden Mills, because the high cost of rebuilding and safeguarding the workers cost him control over the mill. And I heard that the company went through bankruptcy proceedings a few years ago. But I'm still in awe of what happened, and to me, it's worth going out of my way to give them my business.

lullabies

2006-11-16T23:02:00.000-05:00

Today, Douglas didn't have a nap. He's at that awkward stage--if he naps, he has a hard time getting to sleep at night, but if he doesn't nap, Mr. Cheerful generally loses his cool. Today, I thought he'd be fine without his nap, and he was, until about 6:30 when his world came unglued. So, on with the jim-jams, find Mickey and Minnie and Tigger, and off to bed.

I never really thought about how unorthodox my lullabies were until we had a babysitter last weekend. Nancy, a colleague of mine with two boys of her own, graciously offered to look after my two so Tim and I could attend a gallery opening. Aidan very seriously reported the next morning that he had a lot of fun with Nancy, but..."she didn't know all the songs."

We always start off with "London Bridge." Pretty normal there.

Then "Alexander Beetle," a song from 1970 that my sister used to play for me. A folk singer named Melanie recorded it (A.A. Milne wrote it), and it's just a simple tale about a girl whose friend accidentally lets her pet beetle out of the matchbox she kept it in. Somewhere in Texas there is a reel-to-reel tape of me singing the song when I was about 6 or 7.

Next, if time permits, come two Texas songs: "San Antonio Rose" and "Roly Poly." Gotta love Bob Wills. I didn't realize until very recently that Bob Wills isn't one of the American "standards" like I'd thought he was when I was growing up. His music is a little cheesy, but you'll find your toes tapping as you listen to "San Antonio Rose" and you'll sit on the edge of your seat waiting, just waiting for...."ahhhhhhhhhhh-HA!"

And we always end with "Sleepy Eye Town." You won't find that one anywhere online because it's a song my great-grandmother wrote and sang to her babies. My family didn't have much to pass from one generation to the next--no great properties, no fabulous antiques, certainly no money. But this song has been sung to five generations of babies in our family. (Just in case you think my math is off, my kids are the 4th generation, but my niece has babies of her own in the 5th generation). It pleases me to think that after all the decades of change---from radio to 78s to 33s to reel-to-reel to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to my iPod--- "Sleepy Eye Town" lives in the same place it's always been--in the hearts and voices of the mamas in my family.

impatience

2006-11-15T14:44:00.000-05:00

The sleeves of Aidan's cardigan are growing again. I finally worked my way through my frustration, frogged a few rows, then got it going again. The annoying thing is that the pattern is seriously wrong. If I'd followed the pattern as written, the sleeves would have been about six inches too short!

I'm so tempted to set it down and get going on something new. I've become a knitting blog addict, and watching what other people are doing makes me crave something fresh and new. I want to try knitting lace! Socks! More sweaters! Toys! More more more!!!

Of course, what I really need to do is to frog two half-started projects that I put down and never finished (a too-basic ribbed pullover in bulky denim yarn and a delicate cardigan for myself with a pattern too fussy for my modern, streamlined, sophisticated taste... ;)

But the saddest of all sad WIPs is my Starmore Cromarty. Ah, Cromarty, she is beautiful. She is exquisite. She nearly made me pull my hair out until I finally figured out the pattern. I made my Cromarty with a lovely rich blue yarn I found in Ireland in the summer of 1999, and she was going to be an absolute work of art.

That is, until I realized I didn't have enough yarn.

I was about halfway done with the front, and I calculated that I probably had enough to do the back, but not the sleeves. What now? No hope of finding more of the yarn. I think it was discontinued when I bought it, and it was so long ago it's impossible to find the same dye lot. But I couldn't frog it, not after all that work! So there it has been sitting since January 2000, stunted, waiting for a brilliant brainstorm of mine so it can see the light of day...

on being called "miss"

2006-11-13T13:33:00.000-05:00

I've mellowed in my old age.

After I had my feminist awakening in my early 20s, I cringed whenever someone called me "miss." I felt smaller somehow, as if the speaker thought of me as a child. I felt belittled, as if I weren't considered worthy of being spoken to with dignity. And I felt singled out, annoyed that someone would presume to know my marital status--and angered that they felt the need to define me by it.

I lived in the South until my early 30s, so I was called "miss" a lot.

Today, I went to my local package store (as they call liquor stores here) to buy beer. And the salesclerk said "I'll need to see your ID, miss." How charming, I thought. I've been legal to buy alcohol since Ronald Reagan was president, and this delightful (and presumably BLIND) saleclerk called me "miss" and wanted to see my ID. You should have seen the look on his face when he realized I was born smack in the middle of the swinging sixties.

I'm going to savor this one.

swanning about

2006-11-12T15:32:00.002-05:00

We had a good visit with the swan family yesterday. Aidan, Douglas, and I took bags of stale pita bread to the pond to feed the ducks. Then the geese realized that supper was on. Then came the swans from the completely opposite end of the pond. I always imagine Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie" when I see them heading our way. Very dramatic.

As graceful as swans are in the water, they're pretty clumsy-looking when they're on shore. And big. And pushy! They wanted our bread. All of our bread. NOW. I actually had to get in between the Big Daddy Swan and Douglas for fear that the swan would snatch the bag of bread right out of Douglas's hand. The bird was bigger than HE was!

But what about the knitting? Oh, I've hit a wall with the knitting. I've been working on Aidan's cardi for so long that I've internalized the pattern. Or so I thought. Made a big goof a few rows after the main pattern begins, and I just don't want to take the time to fix it. I'm so close to being done! But I can't let it stay there, because it will drive me nuts. So, the sleeves remain abandoned on the coffee table until I have the strength and fortitude to face them once more.

my next project

2006-11-09T16:39:00.000-05:00

This may be it. Last night, I hauled out all my knitting books and had my husband take his pick. I think this may be the one. I love it and I think it'll be a fun knit. It's from The Best of Knitter's: Arans & Celtics.

how I became a knitter

2006-11-08T15:13:00.000-05:00

It all began on a hot, dusty Texas prairie about 30 years ago...

Well, actually, it was in the suburbs of a major north Texas city. My mother, who had been knitting since the Great Depression, since the time when you had to knitif you actually wanted a sweater, taught me the basics of knitting. Mom liked the practical yarns--those tough, hard-wearing acrylics that could be washed and dried without shrinking or fading. She taught me to knit the English way, where you keep dropping and picking up the yarn. I learned, clumsily, and made a couple of truly hideous sweaters. An argyle vest big enough for me and my whole family to wear. A red-and-white boucle short-sleeved sweater that bagged around the neck. Each project uglier than the first. Needless to say, I just gave up.

Which was just as well, because at that time (late 1970s/early 1980s), knitting shops were going the way of the dinosaurs. First the fabric and yarn departments of major departments stores disappeared. Then the local yarn shops. Pretty soon, all you could find in my town was a bunch of squeaky, petroleum-based, plastic-feeling yarns from the local branch of a national craft store. Who wanted to knit anyway?

And then I went to Austria.

I was an exchange student in Graz, Austria, for a year after I graduated from high school. From the very beginning, I was charmed by the old-fashioned traditions that many Austrians still practiced. All the teens I knew took ballroom dance lessons in preparation for ball season. All the kids in my host family (all six of them--it's a Catholic country!) were musical and played classical music the way most American teens played the radio. And they knit. Even the boys. They all knit.

On Saturday nights, the kids (from 13 to 20) would gather around the kitchen table with their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends. They'd drink coffee and some would smoke cigarettes and talk about politics and philosophy and life--and they knit. When they knit, though, they flew--none of that time-wasting pick-up-the-yarn, drop-the-yarn, pick-up-the-yarn business. No, their hands looked like parts of a machine, click click click, as they made stitches and rows and whole garments. I had to learn myself.

So my host mother, whom I called Mutti ("Mom" in German) taught me how to knit continental style. She took me to a yarn shop at the Hauptplatz that was full of amazing wools. Big bulky wools, delicate lace-weight wools. Not a squeaky artificial fiber in sight!

And I was hooked.

My mother was amazed when I came back from Austria--not only was I drinking coffee and speaking German, but what the heck was I doing with the yarn? I tried to show her how I'd learned, but she had about 40 years of knitting behind her at that point, so continental knitting was something that just wasn't going to take. But she was so pleased that at last I was a confirmed knitter.

Then there was the infamous American Airlines incident.

Fast forward to the mid-1990s. My career as an editor had finally taken off (after years of making coffee and answering telephones), and I was off to a conference in New York City. Wow--the Big Apple! I was going to eat in fabulous restaurants, visit world-class museums, shop in all the right places, and be as urban and sophisticated as a girl from Cowtown could be. And of course, I had to look the part, so I took all my best clothes--including the hand-knit Aran sweater my mother had given me for Christmas just a few weeks before.

You know the rest of the story. The airlines lost my luggage on the return flight. Never to be seen again.

I was mortified. How could that have happened? I'd never lost luggage before! How could I have been so stupid as to put my favorite sweater--the one that my mom had just finished--in a suitcase??

Well, I couldn't tell Mom. She had worked for the better part of a year making that sweater. By that point, I was living three hours away from her, so she'd probably never know about the sweater, right?

But I couldn't take any chances. I'd have to duplicate the sweater myself.

I tracked down the pattern she'd used. I found the same yarn. And I taught myself how to knit an Aran sweater. It took so long to finish, I couldn't even remember when I'd started it. But at last, after months and months, I could be proud of what I had accomplished.

And then I told my mom my deep dark secret. I admitted I'd lost the sweater in a suitcase, and her response was....

"WHAT sweater?"

quiet days

2006-11-07T13:36:00.000-05:00

One of the things I love about autumn is the way that the world--at least, my little corner of it--seems to slow down from the frantic pace of summer. No one seems to use the park across the street from my house after baseball season is over, so I get the feeling that the land and the pond are mine until the next April. In spring and early summer, the park is swarming with Little Leaguers and their parents, and the land next to the pond becomes a parking lot filled with SUVs and minivans. But by July 4th, the baseball players seem to vanish and the park and pond are mine.

On Sunday I took Aidan to the pond to see if the swan family were out. A few days before, we saw them--two grown parents, and four nearly-grown cygnets. The cygnets had been hiding all summer, it seems, because I hadn't seen them all season. The day we saw them, they seemed eager for company, for as soon as they saw us from the other side of the pond, they headed straight for our shore. I couldn't help but think they looked like a flotilla of pre-industrial sailing ships.

Anyway, this time, the swans kept to the other side of the pond, but the water was so still I had to take a picture of it anyway. It's hard to believe that the bustling city of Boston is just a 15-minute drive away.

Now I thought I should show you a work in progress, as opposed to hauling out the old relics. Here is a sleeve from a cardigan I'm making for Aidan. The design is by Debbie Bliss, and the yarn is Cleckheaton Country 8 ply in a bright blue. The back and both fronts are done now, and for the first time ever, I'm working both sleeves at the same time (I put the other sleeve on the other needle off-camera so you could see the pattern a bit better). I thought that would help me make sure that the sleeves are the same, but boy, it sure is slow going! I sometimes feel like I'm making no progress at all, but I am.

a new old tradition

2006-11-06T10:01:00.000-05:00

Tim had a hankering for a Sunday roast yesterday, and I was willing--home-cooked comfort food? That I don't have to cook? Terrific! But this was a roast with a twist--he roasted the chicken on the barbeque instead of in the oven. Wow, what a beautiful bird, and so delicious too. And the roast potatoes--roasted in the English way so they got really crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. Wish I could share the deliciousness through cyberspace, it was that good.

All the talk about the Sunday roast got us talking about traditions--what he grew up with in England and what I knew in Texas. As it turned out, we both had the Sunday roast tradition as kids but it had fallen to the wayside over the years. In my case, it was my mother making a pot roast with carrots and potatoes cooked around the beef, with my sister, her husband, and their kids filling the house with noise and activity. But over the years, the Sunday gathering fell by the wayside--my niece and nephew grew up and found their own activities, I went to college, and eventually I left Texas. And Sundays became just another day to get things done.

But I've missed those slow, lazy Sundays where we just putter around the house, with the high point of the day being the magnificent Sunday dinner. So we're talking about reinstating the tradition ourselves. Neither of us has extended family here, but we can make this a tradition for the kids. In an age where families rarely eat together--where TV stations run public service announcements urging families to have one meal a week together (one?!), I'd love the kids to grow up with the warm, cozy memory of our family meals--and the weekly Sunday roast.

Remember remember the 5th of November

2006-11-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

This morning, Aidan asked me if today were a special day. Apart from the fact it's a weekend and we don't have to work (hurrah!), I told Aidan about Guy Fawkes Day and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (after I brushed up myself on some of the details), and he asked if we were going to England tonight to see a bonfire. Alas, not this year....

One more set of hats to show, then I'll move onto something new. The first two designs I created are these two berets. The first beret I designed about five years ago, knit in Alice Starmore's Campion yarn. This was my favorite winter hat, worn day in and day out. Then one day in the cold, snowy winter of 2003, it disappeared. I thought I'd left it behind in a restaurant. Wasn't there. Checked the parking lot of all the places I'd been that day. No luck. I felt just sick to my stomach. I truly mourned the loss of that hat.

Then months later, in the spring, one of my coworkers said she'd seen something colorful in the parking lot, where the mountains of plowed-up snow was finally melting. There, in the salt and sand and dirty slush, was my hat! It had a few tears where it must have had a brutal encounter with a snowplow, but it was back! A good bath and a few skillful repairs later, I had my old faithful hat back again.

I designed the second hat to have a colorway reminiscent of the woods in late autumn. As much as I adore the colors of a New England autumn at its peak, I also love the earthy colors and the last shades of autumn are fading and winter is fast approaching.

boys' hats

2006-11-05T10:51:00.000-05:00

More from the pile of relics.... Here are a couple of hats I've made for the boys. The first I made for my youngest last year. It's a Sherlock Holmes hat (designed by ? Debbie Bliss, maybe?). We get comments on this one all the time—people love it!

The second hat is a very plain stocking cap that I made for my oldest. He was only two when I made it; now he's four and still loves this hat. Very warm and cozy...

beginning with a few relics

2006-11-04T09:43:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd start with a few pictures of completed projects. This first one is a picture of my younger son wearing a hat and sweater set I made from yarn I bought in a shop in Waterford, Ireland, years and years before I ever had children. I can't remember which yarn it was—I didn't keep track of that information until quite recently—but it's a soft, non-scratchy wool with flecks of color mixed in with the brown. Enough color to be interesting without detracting from the cables.

I used a vintage pattern from my mother's stash, with a few alterations. The original called for a zipper closure, but I wanted a more traditional look, so I used buttons instead.

Good morning!

2006-11-03T11:44:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to say hello. I have lots to say. Be prepared.