TGIFriday Feast

It's a payday Friday, so let's have a feast.

Appetizer
How many pieces of jewelry do you wear most days?

Wedding ring, sometimes a necklace if I remember

Soup
What is your favorite instrumental song? This one is hard, I can never remember the names of the instrumental songs. Green Onions, I think, or

Sukiyaki

Salad
Who has a last name that you like?

Candace Eisner Strick (she's a knitting author & designer, and strick means knitting in German). I really miss Herb Caen's name phreak items.

Main Course
Name a popular movie you’ve never seen.

ET (just clips)

Dessert
Fill in the blank: Nothing makes me calm down like creating something with color (and usually fiber).

Artistic Inspiration

I took the day off from work today and went to see two museum shows which are closing on Sunday.

Show One: French jewelry of the 20th century, at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. I have just one thing to say: the designers and artisans who made jewelry in the early 1900's were incredible. The later jewelry was less awe inspiring, although still beautiful. There's also a great companion exhibit of French grahic arts from the Museum's collection.

Show Two: Vivienne Westwood: 36 Years in Fashion, at the De Young museum, also in SF. Aside from the fact that several hand crocheted garments were labelled "Knitted" this show was, to me, not exciting. I liked her tailoring, chutzpah, shoes and use of historical imagery but not really her design aesthetic. There were a few examples of knitted, felted mohair jewelry that were interesting to me as a knitter. One dress was knitted sideways in a feather and fan patterm with felted leaves and flowers appliqued around the neck.

Last night I started a new sock with some Colinette Jitterbug yarn in Jay, a great turquoise mix. The Jitterbug yarn is very stretchy, somewhat like Socks that Rock. Haven't decided what pettern to use, hopefully the Jaywalkers. More tomorrow at WW Knit in Public Day.

Edited to add: The Jaywalker pattern is working out well. I'm using a 2.5 mm needle and 76 stitches. I started off with 68 stitches and knit 1.5" of 2 X 2 ribbing. The socks measure 10" around slightly stretched. Since I have thick ankles that's okay with me. I'm going to make the leg shorter than normal so I don't run out of the Jitterbug yarn.

Fiber Weekend with Stash Enhancement:Take Two

I've made quite a lot of progress on the cream colored Regia cotton Grapevine sock. This pattern is from More sensational Socks by Charlene Schurch (Page 96). It's a 12 round pattern, but every odd round is plain knitting and the others are very similar to each other.

I also frogged the Opal Hundertwasser cotton sock and restarted it without the ribbing. I'm using a garter stitch cuff that waves because of the Vine Lace pattern's natural tendency to ripple. The sock is almost as long as it was before I frogged. I think it's looking good. I'll probably get more knitting done tonight watching the finale of the Gilmore Girls and Dancing with the Stars with DD. At this rate it looks like I'll have 3 pairs of socks finished for week 9 of the 52 pair plunge. I'm making all three pairs at once instead of one at a time.

Last Saturday I drove with a friend to an artist's open house in San Rafael (just north of San Francisco). I grew up in this area and it's always nice to come back. After the open house we had a great lunch at a little hole in the wall Puerto Rican restaurant (Sol Food) and went on a yarn expedition. We visited DharmaTrading Company for our annual fix. Dharma has expanded their yarn selection as knitting has become more popular again. I got some aqua SISU sock yarn with silver speckles there. We got directions at Dharma on how to get to a new store, Marin Fiber Arts, which is on City Plaza in San Rafael. I used to come here to get new school clothes and shoes at Macy's and Stride Rite, and now it's home to yarn stores and ice cream shops. Every yarn in the store was 25% off! They were also having live music in the plaza. What more could you ask for? Of course I couldn't resist the sale. I got another skein of Tofutsies in a color I had regretted not ordering, some Lorna's Laces to go with solid colors I already have, a skein of Opal Handpaint, some Claudia handpainted sock yarn, and 4 skeins of Nature's Palette Hand Jive naturally dyed yarn. It was a very nice store, and I'll visit again. We had planned a stop at Studio-Knit in Mill Valley but we were too tired (and broke). Turns out that's a good thing because I went to their website and it's now closed. I'd only been there once, but I had my mom in the car and couldn't stay long.

Sunday Seven/Eighths

Seven things I'm grateful for this week.
1. Stick shift cars
2. Trader Joe's
3. The Sunday paper
4. Spring Weather
5. The Yellow Pages
6. Rotary cutters for quilting
7. Kleenex

I took a class yesterday with Judy Sisneros on making a quilt pattern called Winding Paths. The quilt pieces are still pinned to the design board in my car, since I went to visit my mother instead of going home. Today we're going to Trader Joe's. I finished one of my Madtini socks last night and cast on for the other one. I forgot the pattern and the extra ball of yarn, so I didn't get very far. Luckily I had another sock project along with me. I hope to finish these boring socks really soon so I can work on more exciting projects.

Sunday VII, Part Seven

This is my delightful niece Sophia, who was born in Brussels, moved to Prague at age 2, and lives in Rangoon, Myanmar right now. I knit her a baby surprise jacket when she was in Brussels. Now that she lives in a hot climate it's hard to find things to knit for her. She's 5 years old, goes to a Japanese kindergarten, and is a tri-lingual bundle of energy. Do you agree with Sophia that she looks like Stitch?

Seven things I'm grateful for this week:
1. My Family
2. Sunny Days
3. Mosaic aka Slip Stitch Knitting Patterns
4. Barbara Walker's Treasury books
5. Fiber Weekends
6. Husbands who do laundry
7. Leftovers (food, yarn, beads)

Sunday Seven, Part VI

Seven things I am grateful for this week:

1. Spring flowers
This picture was taken last spring in my garden. This year the freesias and madeira lilies are already in bloom, but the bearded iris usually bloom in April and May. I've taken the iris rhizomes that produce this flower with me wherever I've moved for the last 26 years. The very first time the iris bloomed in my garden was the day my DD was (almost 26 years ago.)

2. Knitty On Line Magazine
The new Spring issue of Knitty is out! More sock patterns to try, OH NO. Fingerless gloves, a great lace scarf, kids clothes, a wonderful briefcase bag, an interesting shrug, great cardigan sweaters, and more. I even have some of the yarns in my stash.

3. Caring, generous knitters everywhere
4. Good friends (who knit)
5. Creative Yarn Producers like SWTC, K1C2 and Habu Textiles.
I got the newsletter from SWTC with a new Tofutsies sock pattern today.
6. Sunsets
Last night the sunset was just incredible over the ocean. I'm very lucky to live where I do.
7. Daylight Savings Time (except for the lost hour of sleep today)

Fiber Weekends

I had a fibery weekend with a knitting friend whose family was out of town. Saturday afternoon and evening we knitted and watched her new Lucy Neatby sock knitting DVD. Then we got bored and watched an old Masterpiece Theater with a very young Jeremy Irons: Love for Lydia (look for it at your local library.) We kept knitting the whole time. My friend started a new ripple pattern jacket in Silk Garden and knit 5 inches on the back.

I got quite a bit done on my Sock Madness sock, which I started in the morning. I'm almost to the toe on the first sock. I'm using some yarn I dyed myself along with a solid navy. I scanned this picture because I STILL don't have a digital camera. UPDATE: It's done! I've started sock #2.


Today we went to the Contemporary Crafts Market in San Francisco at Fort Mason (right on the bay, just beautiful today.) I bought some lampwork glass pendants and some blown glass animals: A papa penguin and baby, and a mama quail and her babies on a log for my mother. There were lots of craftswomen knitting while tending their booths. Lots of knitted scarves, brooches, knitted and felted hats, jackets, scarves, and vests.