While I hadn't planned to post again until you got here, I've been inundated with so much good stuff this past week that I had to share. Both gifts that I've bought for myself (it's good to be nice to yourself sometimes) and one's that I've gotten in the mail - from you!
That's right, your package of Easter and Birthday gifts finally arrived - how nice to get to celebrate these holidays again! I love the 'historic/eco' theme to all my birthday gifts - from therecycled yarn to the vintage knitting needles and 'knitting pins'. Plus the Yarmouth Lighthouse is historic too - how better to honor that than with a candle? (Well, maybe there are better ways, but I'm going with that reasoning for now). The Easter gifts were much appreciated by all as well- I had to stop myself from consuming my entire chocolate bunny within a short 24-hour period, but it's going down fast. And as you can see, the Wizzo was a hit with the lady too:
She hasn't quite figured out that it's not for chewing on yet and there are already a couple of punctures but other than that it's holding up well!
Also in the mail on Friday was a gift for myself that I couldn't resist: A What-Would-Madame-De-farge-Knit t-shirt. That's right, I can proudly proclaim my knit-geekiness to the world, as well as my dedication to the CraftLit podcast where we are now listening to (you guessed it) A Tale of Two Cities. It should be perfect to run in, and maybe to bring a double take or two to the people who stop me for directions. (That's right, people in cars stop me when I'm running to ask for directions -last Friday it was a group of teenagers wanting to know where "Haight & Asby" was. I knew I emitted 'helpful person' vibes normally since people often ask me questions when I'm walking down the street, but I didn't know they transmitted so far as to infect people even when I'm moving at speed!)My biggest gift/splurge, though, came on Saturday when Nathan & I checked out the SFMoMA Artist's Warehouse sale, and I came away with this:
It's a photograph, Deer, by local artist Nadim Sabella, who did a photo survey of abandoned houses in the West. This acquisition was funded in large part by birthday money given to me by Glenn & Tina. I had been looking for just the right thing to do with it - saving seemed, well, logical but uninspired, but I also didn't want to use it for an everyday purchase. This was perfect! So thank you Glenn & Tina - I can't wait to get it framed!Since it's better to give than to receive, I have also been working on a gift for Nathan's cousin Alison who gave birth in March to a beautiful baby boy, David Ramon. With the many t-shirt shoulders left over from cutting the fabric for the rug (which only used the torso sections), I was inspired to modify Martha's sock-dog pattern from the Holiday Handmade Gift magazine to use the soft t-shirt fabric. It took a bit of fiddling and reconstructing to get this all together (even though I had more seperate pieces, I ended up sewing the body together pretty much as one) but I think the end product is pretty cute! Here he is once the pieces were all assembled:
And again now that he is all stuffed and ready to go to his new home. As you can see, he's gotten pretty comfortable here hanging out with Rushka, but I'm sure he'll like it with David too!
On the knitting front, all of my projects are humming along - I'm trying to get a certain amount done on each every day (the one exception being the water bottle cover, which is relegated to public transit knitting mostly right now) and I'm making quite a bit a progress as I go. My Lady E is now on tier 31 which mean only 6 tiers to go! (since I need to end on an odd row to make the ends match up) Once I get to row 36 I think I'll measure out all the yarn I need for the fringe (which is quite a bit - it's complex) and if I have enough left I'll take it on to 43 tiers total. Since I still have another unused skein of the lighter pink wool, I think I'll be safe. 43 = Nathan + Me, so it's my favorite knitting number!
Of course, coming to the end of this stole (and my ripple mystery project, also in the home stretch) I'm already thinking of what to do next. Thursday I met a friend for tea and we took a quick trip to Imagiknit where I picked up all of the leaf green Baby Ull that they had on the shelves for knitted gifts for Sarah. (I'm planning to combine two pattern sets from Dale Book 164.) If airport rules allow, I think that her baby knits will be the bulk of my travel knitting in Asia - the yarn is light for the heat and the blanket should be good 'mindless' knitting while in the air. Plus I need to push through if I'm going to get it all done for mid-June!
Loading this green in my 'upcoming projects' basket at home, I found the yellow Fleece Artists merino sock yarn that has been waiting to be cast on since I bought it at Doris' in December. (It was wound up this spring to show Glenn how the winder & swift worked together - he was intrigued by the mathematical construction of the swift). Then I looked over at the two skeins of hot pink Tess' silky wool sitting in my 'waiting for a project' yarn basket and thought:
Project Spectrum colors for April/May! So here is my photo for this color triad. I think the silky wool may become a Hanami stole from Pink Lemon twist, although it will probably be more of a scarf (that's the size I got out of my last two skeins of silky wool, a beautiful smoky grey that became a bird-nest's scarf based on the shawl pattern in Folk Knits). It's the right pink, and the concept behind the pattern is great, so we'll see if that idea holds.It seems that right now my to-do project pile is quickly exceeding my ability to knit fast, since I also picked up the latest issue of Rowan Magazine and am now trying to decide which sweater to cast-on once I get done with Eveleen. We'll not mention the fact that I'm only into repeat 4 of the 9 lace scallops on the body of Eveleen and have yet to even contemplate the intarsia panel on the chest! I'm already thinking out yarn options and colors for either one of these two as the next project: Joy (which is crochet, and I'm always on the lookout for good crochet patterns) or Ophelia (with or without the sleeves, I'm still not sure)
I don't know if it's the spring flowers in the photos, the ice-cream colors of the yarns, or just the general warm feelings from having so many inspiring ideas and goodies to play with, but I went out to buy some flowers and actually found lilacs (rare here in San Francisco). The sight & smell of them brought me right back to the end of the school year in Ottawa when we all picked lilacs for our teachers in elementary school, wrapping the stems in wet paper towels secured with aluminum foil to keep the fresh on the way. Now every time I walk into the kitchen I am transported back. Too bad we don't have the warm sunny weather here right now to match!
Maybe you can bring some sunny Yarmouth weather with you when you come tomorrow? We could use it - we are supposed to have lots of fog and rain over the next few days. So sad!
One thing I am glad about, though, is that I will be picking you up at SFO and not in Oakland, since I do not want anything to do with the massive traffic nightmare over in the East Bay that is the melted freeway. Today all public transit in the area is free to try to lure people out of their cars, since cars won't really have anywhere to go on the other side of the bridge anyways. What they will do for the next 6 months it will take to get the interchange back together, I don't know.....
Until your arrival, I will leave you with another photo in my flowers of San Francisco series. These are huge flowering masses that rise up out of bushes and eventually topple from their own weight. While the ones in Buena Vista park are mostly purple, these ones that I photographed in the Marina were more blue. All are lovely!I'll see you tomorrow at the airport,
Megan
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