Gauss visits Boston

Boston. Cambridge. Lots of history and yarn stores and what not.

All I will remember, however, is this:



Is it juvenile that I crack up every time I remember this plaque? Perhaps, but I can't help it.

PS. I wasn't that impressed with Boston after all. But I only had a few hours to explore and it was $%^! cold outside.

More reasons to love my job

Besides the awesome fact that it exists and will still exist for the foreseeable future, I also love my job because it allows me to do this:



Frolic on the beach with my dog at 2.30pm on a weekday! Granted, it's one day a week that I get out so early, but it's better than nothing.

What a beautiful day - sunny for a while and not exceedingly cold. The dog's first time to the ocean, and he absolutely loved it. The water was cold, though: so cold there were still patches of ice and snow! Even the dog seems incredulous:

Red socks and red shoes

Finished and worn as I am typing:



Toe-up socks knit from Mountain Colors Bearfoot, colorway "Ruby River" on once again my slightly bent but still functional bamboo dpns size 1. I followed roughly the pattern for Interlocking Leaves, but substituted my own interpretation of the Waving Lace socks pattern. Actually, I thought I could remember the pattern but obviously switched the direction of the decreases or something. Anyhow, the socks are warm, elastic, lacey and very red; they provided much needed entertainment during travels and I am very pleased with them.



And now for something truly exciting and special. Last weekend's trip to TJ Maxx (only my second such trip ever!) yielded a particularly rich assortment of high quality, comfortable shoes at ridiculous prices. The fairest of them all:



Cole Haan demi-d'Orsay pumps with the tiniest of heels and little red laquer ribbons woven through. I am in love.

Short report from the field

I went out for a long walk today with the dog, looking for signs of Spring. Besides a few chatty robins I didn't see much worth reporting. It is a bit warmer today here, but we might have a bit of winter to slog through.

Fancy sweater photos

I seem to be the first person on the internets making this sweater, if you don't count the one other project on ravelry; but the other person doesn't have any photos up and no details, so it doesn't quite count, does it?

Jennifer Lindsay's "Shetland Fern" from "The Natural Knitter" book, in the original yarns and colors:




Such a well-written pattern, with lots of thoughtful details (like knit rows before color changes in ribbing, thus avoiding purl blips) and a gorgeous, never-gets-boring chart. There are a couple of printing errors in the charts, but they are very easy to spot, as the charts should have a vertical line of symmetry. I cannot rave enough about how beautiful this fabric is, even in its squished unblocked state:

The collar is an exercise in wrong-side fair-isle ribbing, since it repeats the pattern at the lower edge but it worked flat: you wouldn't want to have a steek at the edge of your collar... Very distinctive and not as difficult as it seems.

This leaves the sleeves, my nemesis. I hate making sleeves, especially in the round and attached to a sweater. You need to move the entire sweater around and around... not a very zen-inducing process. I have an entire gansey that is almost finished except for half of the sleeves - maybe I should tackle that next.

Catching up

My husband and I often discuss how he loves to take lots of pictures, why I only take the minimum necessary. I call him "my Japanese tourist" and he gets angry because I don't take pictures of him, etc. Such is the excitement in our lives. 

I have been knitting some, but kept postponing to take photos. It doesn't help that the only times I'm at home and the light is decent are in the weekend, and on weekends I am even more of a lazy-bum than usually. Yesterday though, in a fit of productivity, I took a few pictures:

Interlocking Leaves socks from the Winter'09 Knitty, in Dream in Color Smooshy, color "Gothic Rose", on my trusty size 1 bamboo needles. The yarn is a lot darker than I was expecting, but I love its moody quality and the very romantic name. It's always difficult to balance the wearability of a sock (read: dark colors, since it is so difficult to get them fully clean) with the readability of the pattern (lighter colors! but then they will never look clean again), and I think this one is a bit on the dark side. Nevertheless, the pattern is gorgeous and the construction is genius: toe-ups with Judy's magic cast-on! The answer to the fuddly-duddly Turkish cast-on which, while doable, can be such a pain. If you don't know what it is, go look it up now (knitty has a tutorial). Then a toe-up gusset with short rows and a heel flap and everything - this is now my dream sock construction. I made the socks fairly long: 



The Smooshy yardage is very generous - I still have a lot leftover - and it's nice to have longer socks. I knit the last few lace repeats on size 2 needles to accommodate my shapely calves; all those hours of dancing are showing quite nicely. Also showing: my long silk underwear, bought in the middle of another frightening winter from a specialty store in Madison, WI. They last and last and last and I'd be so lost without them.

Coming up next: fancy sweater photos.