Nibbling Along

I Knit London

Well, I'm in London right now, and I did make it to a knitting shop -- a real knitting shop, too. I'm not sure the knitting shelves in the haberdashery sections of department stores should really count, although I appreciate the opportunity to use the word "haberdashery," which never fails to charm me.

I Knit is out by Waterloo station; a bit of a jaunt from where we're staying in Wimbledon, but not too bad since I was making a day of it by doing some shopping near Oxford Circus anyway. I've seen the shop mentioned on Ravelry boards whenever people ask for London yarn shop recommendations, and although I can't say it was mind-blowing, it certainly was a nice shop with a very good selection, especially considering how small the place is. I would say that it was the kind of place with not enough room to swing a cat, but I've never really understood the metaphor -- considering the nature of cats, I don't think there is really anyplace in the world you could attempt to swing one and get away with your eyeballs intact. Unless we're talking about "rock-a-bye-baby" type swinging, which I believe some felines on the cuddlier end of the spectrum would not oppose, at least not violently; I've always envisioned someone grabbing a puss by the tail and heaving away. But I digress.

At the shop, I was rather taken by some German self-striping sock yarn. I believe the brand is Schoppel Wolle, and the type is Zauerball, though I may be reversing that. Either way, the colors are lovely and it's a fairly soft, tightly spun single ply. I'd say it's about as soft as Noro Silk Garden Sock, though it's less hairy and the color repeats look like they might be longer. I bought two colors, one russety-orangey-red, and one purpley-plummy-maroon. I think at least one is going to be a gift. Likewise, I think the other two skeins I picked up will be gifts -- one is a Wensleydale Longwool, spun in Yorkshire from the fleece of Wensleydale sheep. There's a nice lustre to the wool; it almost looks and feels like a wool/mohair blend. (It's the paler green skein on the top right.) The last yarn I picked up is a Scottish-made yarn, J.C. Rennie Supersoft. According to the label, this yarn is a blending of the "first clip", from lambs' first shearing. It's pretty soft for a shetlandy-type yarn. I can't decide whether this one is for me or whether I should use it to knit a gift for someone.

My final purchase was that of the earrings you see in the second photo. The wee studs I bought for myself, since I think they'd be cute to wear to the next Stitches, and the gaudy turquoise ones are going to be a gift for Jason's grandmother, who likes both knitting and silly dangly earrings. The maker, Max Alexander, has a web site -- and an Etsy shop.

Tomorrow, we're heading to Brussels. I may check out a yarn shop or two while I'm there, though at this point I'm a bit more interested in shopping for clothes. I usually find tons of awesome stuff when I'm in London, but today's excursion was disappointing. I'm holding out hope for Brussels, and, more importantly, Paris!

Everything is Better Deep-Fried

There's a restaurant in Santa Barbara called Bouchon which Jason and I have some fond memories of. It's where we first tried Cambria's pinot noir, which has since become a longstanding favorite, and it's where we first had fried, goat-cheese-stuffed squash blossoms.

OK, maybe not everything is better deep-fried, but frying does some pretty good things to squash blossoms. They're not bad sauteed, but frying them makes the petals all crispy and delicious. Also, if you stuff squash blossoms with a bit of goat cheese and then fry them, then you end up with a shell of crispy blossom goodness encasing a blob of soft, molten cheesy goodness, and it's a match made in heaven.

These are pretty easy to make. First, peel the little green stemmy bits from around the base of the flower. Stuff each blossom with a teaspoon or two of chevre, then set up your frying lineup: in one bowl, whisk together an egg and a couple of tablespoons of water to make an egg wash, then in another bowl stir together some flour, salt, and pepper. In a tall pot, heat up about an inch of your favorite frying oil over medium-high heat (I used olive oil, but something with a more neutral flavor would be fine too.)

When your oil is hot enough to sizzle a drop of water, start rolling your squash blossoms in the egg and then the flour mixture. Don't do all of them at once; just dip the ones you are planning to fry together. The amount you can fry in one batch will of course vary widely depending on the width of your pot and the size of your squash blossoms; keep in mind that you don't want to crowd them.

Keep an eye on your blossoms -- they'll take just a few minutes on each side to fry (the first batch of anything fried usually takes the longest, in my experience), and you're looking for a light golden brown color. When finished, remove the fried blossoms to a plate covered with paper towels to soak up excess oil, and sprinkle a little salt on them ASAP. Serve them while they're still hot, but warn everyone that the cheese inside will tend to be very hot even when the outside blossom has started to cool down. Enjoy.

I'm Still Here...

In case you were wondering, I haven't been hit by a bus or anything, except in the metaphorical sense of being hit by a busload of stuff that needs doing -- the usual end of semester stuff, general grad school stuff, magazine submission stuff (yes! I have been submitting designs! Not just saying "oh, I should really submit something" and forgetting about it!), plus Measure's birthday stuff. He turned two last week. You can tell, because now he sits down on the floor wailing "no! no! no!" when you thwart his plans.

Also, I got a teaching job! My grad program sets aside ten freshman composition classes for graduate students to teach, and I applied and got one of the spots. I'm very excited, because I'll be finishing up my thesis as well next year, and this means that I'll have actual teaching experience to put on my resume when I go out looking for a job. This also means that I will be pretty damn busy next year -- I'll be doing my thesis, teaching, plus looking after Measure, plus trying to continue with knitting design. It's a full plate.

So yeah, I may not be blogging so much in the coming months, and I may not be commenting on other blogs much, but I am still reading a lot of blogs, and I'm still pretty active on Ravelry. And I'm still knitting, of course, but since I'm trying to do a lot of design submissions, it's not always stuff that I can actually blog about. But I promise to blog about anything really exceptional, like if I get a new design finished (I'm working on a couple), or get something published in a magazine (and there may be something to report on that front in a few months).

And since every post needs a photo, I give you a shot of my final Sundara Seasons subscription yarn, the lovely Viridescent aran silky merino. I'm using it to knit a Vivian. Slowly. But that's ok, because I don't need an aran weight cabled wool/silk hoodie for the summer anyway, right? Right.

Do you ever get the feeling that you really want to be knitting -- even when you're already knitting? Even though I have a few things on the needles (Na Craga is languishing in a basket, I cast on for a Shetland Triangle using some gorgeous laceweight I bought from the A Verb for Keeping Warm booth at stitches, and I've also got a garter stitch blanket in progress, not to mention various other UFOs buried in the depths of my closet), I still keep feeling the urge to cast on for something new.

That's the problem with having a stash -- once a few skeins start whispering "knit me!" the rest start to pick up the refrain. It's hard to resist. I bought a few skeins of Malabrigo Sock from WEBS recently (my brother gave me a gift certificate for Christmas, and I think I showed admirable restraint in waiting this long to use it), and I'm just itching to use every single buttery soft skein. It is taking a lot of willpower to just leave them on my desk.

The funny thing is, I still feel like I'm in the "auditions" phase with every project I'm working on right now. None of them has taken on a starring role, like the last couple of sweaters I've knit did. None is a diva, demanding all of my attention. They're all perfectly nice projects, they just aren't jumping into the spotlight, singing and dancing. (The garter stitch blanket is cute, though, isn't it? I'm surprised I haven't seen more of these around. Ravelry shows only 195 projects, which seems kind of low, considering how satisfying and simple it is.)

So maybe I should wind up a skein of this luscious sock stuff. The only other pair of socks I have on the needles has mysteriously vanished. These socks managed to make it from Japan to Thailand back home without incident, and now I suspect they have disappeared into some mysterious vortex in my living room. Or possibly the bedroom. It's a small house, but it's messy. Since I can't find them, maybe they don't count as a current project. And in that case, you could say that I don't have a pair of socks currently on the needles, which I think might be a violation of some very basic sock knitter principles. Casting on a new pair will restore balance and harmony to the universe. And maybe take the edge off of this startitis. Anyway, if you see one and three-quarters of a pair of socks in Noro Silk Garden Sock wandering the streets, tell them that I'm not angry, I'd just like them to come home.

Stick a Fork In It...

...It's done!

I started this sweater almost a month ago exactly, according to my notes on Ravelry. If you recall, it's the sweater-ized version of the cardigan I knit with Sundara sock yarn which I finished in February. This one is obviously different in a couple of respects -- it's a sweater vs. cardigan, it's got longer sleeves, it's got a little lace edging instead of garter stitch edging, and it's knit in a merino-silk blend (Sundara Fingering Silky Merino) instead of merino sock yarn.

I'm working on a pattern, I promise...and while I do that, I may or may not be casting on for a third version (but the next one will have a shallower v-neck, and maybe a simple allover pattern stitch.) Is it weird that I keep on wanting to knit variations of the same thing over and over again?

More photos over here on Flickr, by the way.

Work In Progress

I am a little ridiculously happy with how this sweater is going. At this point, I still need to knit the sleeves (as well as decide how long I want them to be) and the neckband edging, but hey, the body is DONE. It's so satisfying to finish binding off the hem of a top-down sweater, try it on, and find that it fits just the way you wanted it to.

This is the sweater version of the cardigan I finished a couple of weeks ago. That one was knit with two colors of Sundara sock yarn, this one is knit with just one color of Sundara Fingering Silky Merino. Both yarns are the same weight, and I'm using the same needle size, so this one is serving to kind of help me test the pattern notes (such as they were) I took for the first one.

Obviously the two are going to look quite different when they're finished -- this one will have a lace edging, and the sleeves will be different -- but the basic numbers and the basic shape are all the same. I think I see more variations on this theme in my future.

Problem Exists Between Eyes and Monitor

If you know anyone in the tech industry, or anyone who has worked in a call center, you have probably heard of PEBCAK, which stands for "Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard," i.e., the problem is with the person using the equipment, not the equipment itself. (Stories of clueless PC users confusing a cd drive for a cupholder come to mind.) I think producers and consumers of yarn sold online need a similar acronym: PEBEM, or "problem exists between eyes and monitor." Sometimes, for whatever reason, yarn just does not photograph well, or the seller's monitor isn't properly calibrated, or the buyer's monitor isn't properly calibrated, or the browser does weird things to certain colors (I've heard that this can happen with Firefox, anyway), or any number of other things can interfere with the correct communication of color.

Until now, I've never had any catastrophic misinterpretations of yarn colors. I've bought a few things which turned out to be a little darker or lighter, or more or less intense, than how they appeared -- but nothing too dire. Usually, if it looks like the photo has been heavily manipulated, or not taken in great light, I just skip buying altogether until I can see some of whateveritis in person. It's just not worth it. But Sundara's yarn photography is usually really accurate, in my experience, so I was pretty surprised when the Aran Silky Merino I ordered earlier this month turned out to be green and reddish-brown, when the photo I remember was of a goldish/ochreish/orangeish yarn. Very weird. It's so different, I'm thinking I should email Sundara just to see if she can compare my photo (which is really accurate, on my monitor anyway) with the one she put up when she sold it, just to make sure that some sort of mislabeling didn't occur. Because the color I got, while pretty, is probably not going to be as flattering on me as the color I thought I was going to be getting, and I am really kind of tired of going through the whole destash rigamarole. We'll see how that goes.

So tell me -- have you had any truly terrible PEBEM experiences?

I *heart* Etsy

I love Etsy. Apparently everyone else is feeling the love, too -- I heard that many Etsy sellers did way better than they expected to over the holiday shopping season. I guess one good thing about a turndown in the economy is that it drives people to seek out handmade gifts instead of expensive big-box store stuff. Good for makers and sellers of unique handmade stuff, anyway.

Some of my favorite Etsy vendors include BeckyM (I got a really cute felt food set for Measure for Christmas), Maryse, of the very cute knitterly photo cards, and Sharon Montrose, whose animal photography is just awesome. I got my father-in-law a couple of her photos for Christmas, and am seriously jonesing for a set for myself. One of my favorite booths at Stitches was that of Etsy seller Pigeonroof Studios, full of beautiful colors and totally squishable yarns. It was great to see all the pretty goodness in person.

My very favorite vendor, though, is of course my little sister, Emily. Even if I weren't related to her, I'd still think the stuff in her shop, Emcards, is really cute. I especially like the little moleskine notebooks she Gocco printed with wooly mammoths. She also prints the mammoths, as well as Dodo birds, on notecards. The animals may be extinct, but hopefully the art of the handwritten note is not.

Sundara Strikes Again

Sundara really needs to stop dyeing yarn (just a little break, please!) so I can stop buying more and finish knitting what I have.

The downside of falling in love with a beautiful sock yarn is that when you knit socks, your beautiful yarn ends up on your feet. Sure, it performs the admirable service of keeping your toes warm, but if you wear your handknit socks often, they inevitably begin to age and deteriorate, and gradually pass out of existence having been truly appreciated by one or two people. Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for knitting socks. I'm just saying that sometimes, you really can't help wanting to go up to everyone in the entire world and say, "Look! Look at how pretty this is! Touch it! Isn't it pretty?" Which might get you some odd looks. (Then again, maybe this would be a great strategy for bringing about world peace. How can anyone fight if everyone is distracted with pretty yarn?)

Of course, sock yarns are also great for scarves and shawls and stoles and hats and cowls and gloves, which give them a better opportunity to beautify the world. But sometimes...you need to up the ante. For that, you need a sweater. When I got my Sundara Artist's Choice yarns in the mail, I was completely bowled over by the beauty of the Royal Touch colorway. It called out to be knit into a larger project. So, I knit this short-sleeved cardigan. It only took two skeins, plus a little bit of another great Sundara sock yarn, the "Arabian Nights" colorway.

The weather has been pretty gloomy here, and the photos don't come close to capturing how pretty this yarn is. But I'm really happy with how this came out. I kept things simple, to let the yarn shine. I knit it from the top down, so it would fit exactly the way I want it to. And it does.

I've already cast on for another one, using Sundara's other fingering-weight yarn, a merino/silk blend. I took some notes when I knit this first one, but I'm doing better this time so I can write up a pattern. I'm also planning on knitting a coordinating camisole, and offering a couple of different options for the hems and edgings.

So if you've got a sock yarn that is calling to you that it MUST be knit into something the whole world can admire, stay tuned.

Two-Track Twist

New pattern! Betcha didn't see that one coming. This design is called "Two-Track Twist," both for the way the horseshoe cables seem to run both up and down the sock, and for the fact that I feel like I'm on two different life tracks at the same time -- the mommy track, and the school/professional track. Sometime it's a little weird to go from discussing Elmo to discussing schema theory in the space of an afternoon, you know?

As a Valentine's Day present (because I love) the Two-Track Twist pattern will be available now through Valentine's Day for only $2.

The pattern can be purchased via PayPal using the "buy now" link above. The pattern PDF will be e-mailed automatically when payment is received.

These socks are knit from the top-down on two circular needles, and the pattern includes a photo tutorial on working the wee cables without a cable needle, to make your life a little easier.

For one sample, I used Cascade Heritage sock yarn (one skein makes a pair) and for the other, I used two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (two skeins make a pair). You can of course substitute any number of other sock yarns, but I recommend using something which has a multi-ply construction, as these yarns do, because you will get better stitch definition. The pattern looks fine in two-ply sock yarn, but a multi-ply will make the cables "pop" just a little bit more.

I used US size 0 needles (2mm), but I think I may be a bit of a loose knitter, so be sure to use whatever gets you the correct gauge. The size of the pattern repeat makes it a little difficult to add or subtract repeats as a way of resizing the socks, but you can certainly get a larger sock by adding length to the cuff and foot, as well as using a larger needle. Those with smaller feet may find that the only adjustment necessary will be to shorten the length of the foot, as the pattern stitch draws in like a ribbing, providing some flexibility in fit.

The Ravelry page for Two-Track Twist is here, and you can see a few more photos here, on my Flickr page.

November Sweater (a little late)

You may remember a sweater I started way back in November, using Dream in Color Classy in the very appropriately named November Muse colorway. The thing was, even though all of the skeins I had were the same dye lot number, they did not match. If you click on the link to that earlier blog post, you'll see that the top half of the sweater is a nice warm brown, while the bottom half is decidedly muddier and duller. What's up with that? I mean, what's the point of labeling your yarn with dye lots if there's that much variation within the lot? It makes no sense.

I really hate alternating skeins in the round, so I just knit and seethed a little, and decided I would deal with the problem later. Now, normally I would have probably finished the sweater, said "ugh!" at the now-glaring and galling differences in the skeins, and banished the sweater to a dark corner of the closet. But luckily, I read Suzanne's blog, so I knew that the problem was fix-able. She is a master (mistress?) of overdyeing. Check it out: her Sahara is a great example of how to deal with a project that ended up using two very different dye lots, and her more recent Autumn Leaves shows us that all is not lost when a yarn fights with the pattern into which it is knit. Cool, huh?

So, I popped my sweater in the washer with a packet of RIT dye in Cocoa Brown -- which was not far off from the color of the yarn to begin with -- and gave it a whirl. The dye bath was not super concentrated, so the variegation in the yarn still comes through, but now the entire sweater is all the same color. Hooray!

YUM.

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Reese's peanut butter cups. They ought to be good, because they are made of peanut butter and chocolate. And yet, upon actually eating one, I am inevitably disappointed. For some reason, most of the chocolate used in commercially produced candies has a weird bitter, slightly chemical-ey aftertaste that I can't stand. Maybe it's the corn syrup? Or the fact that they're using the cheapest possible ingredients? I don't know. But it's a sad way to execute a good idea.

Homemade peanut butter cups taste way better than anything you'll buy in the shop, and actually really easy to make. All you have to do is melt a little chocolate in the microwave, and mush up a mixture of peanut butter, sugar, and a little vanilla. You really can't go wrong. I used the recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel, and I highly recommend it. I didn't have mini cupcake liners, so I just used regular ones and made only six. They're quite decadent. To fancy them up a bit, I sprinkled a little bit of my favorite flake salt on top. I think it's a good addition, since it brings out the saltiness in the peanut butter mixture nicely. Because the chocolate isn't really tempered, I'm not sure how well these will hold up at room temperature, but I think they taste better straight out of the refrigerator anyway.

Souvenirs

It seems like all I'm doing on the blog lately is apologizing for not blogging! Sorry about that. One of the less pleasant souvenirs I brought back with me was some kind of nasty stomach bug. On Tuesday I ended up going to the hospital to get IV fluids and antibiotics, I was so sick. Very unpleasant. Jason and Measure were both under the weather as well. It sucks to be sick, but at least we weren't feeling lousy during our trip, right?

The other souvenirs we brought back were much more pleasant. We got some presents for our family, and I definitely did a little shopping for myself. Thailand is a great place to buy clothes -- we ordered a custom suit and some shirts for Jason, and a jacket, pants, and a skirt for me at one of Chiang Mai's many tailors. Chiang Mai also has tons of cute, independent boutiques, and I found some stuff I really like. In Bangkok, one of my favorite places we visited was the Jim Thompson House. If you're ever in the city, I highly recommend visiting and taking a tour. The house itself is actually made of six traditional Thai houses, all made of teak, which Thompson purchased from various places in Thailand and had assembled together on the property. It's all set in really beautiful gardens, and there is also a nice casual restaurant and a shop at the same location. The shop sells nicer than usual touristy t-shirts and stuffed animals and the like, but the real highlight is the selection of silk products highlighting the beautiful Thai weaving that inspired Thompson to start his business. I had to get a scarf of course, and I wish you could see it in person because the photo really doesn't do justice to the subtle interplay of colors. Definitely a better souvenir than the stomach bug!

There's No Place Like Home...

...And there's no feeling quite like jet lag. Sorry to be away from the blog for so long, but for the last part of our trip, I was just too busy or too tired, or both.

Now we're just recuperating. Measure and Jason both seem a little under the weather, and I am just incredibly tired and still recovering from the cold I caught when we were in Japan. But I did get a really beautiful woven silk scarf in Thailand, and some other cool stuff I really want to share with you, so I promise photos and a more engaging post as soon as I feel a little bit less like a zombie.

Monkey School and Elephant Camp

We're having a lot of fun here in Chiang Mai. The weather is beautiful -- not too hot, but pleasantly warm -- and we've been having fun hanging out with our friends here. Today, my friend Chris took Jason out rock climbing, while Chris's girlfriend Nid and I went and got pedicures and went shopping.

Yesterday, Chris and Nid took us out to visit both a monkey school, and an elephant training camp. At the monkey school, trainers teach monkeys (actually, a couple different species of macaques) how to harvest coconuts. They also put on a little show for visitors.

The baby monkeys were a big attraction, as they cavorted and played. The show was also very cute -- the monkeys demonstrated their coconut-gathering skills, as well as a variety of other behaviors, such as dunking and shooting hoops, riding a tricycle, and even swimming.

The elephant camp was also a lot of fun, though we decided to skip getting an elephant ride. Measure liked the elephants, but only as long as they were a little distance away, so I don't think he would have been too keen to go for a ride. We did have fun feeding them, though.

The trainers and elephants also put on a big show for visitors (of which there were probably a couple of hundred -- the show takes place in a large outdoor stadium, and the seats were all full.) The elephants demonstrated how they haul and stack logs, then got to the fun stuff: they played soccer, threw darts at balloon targets, danced and played harmonicas, and even painted. They didn't just hand the elephants paintbrushes and have them slap paint around, either, they've trained them to paint flowers, trees, cherry blossoms -- even elephants. As usual, I've got more photos posted in this set on Flickr if you want to check them out.

From Tokyo to Thailand

I didn't mean to go so long without an update, but we all caught a bad cold in Tokyo, and then in Bangkok had only limited internet service. The rest of our trip to Tokyo was fun, though. We got an omakase sushi lunch at a really good sushi place on the day we flew out.

In Bangkok, we didn't do too much -- still recovering from the nasty cold, we spent our first day there just resting. The following day, we went to the royal palace and the temple of the Emerald Buddha, both of which are in the same huge complex. If you'd like to see more photos, I'm putting all of the ones I've taken from this trip here.

Yesterday we flew north to Chiang Mai, and we'll be here for several more days, visiting friends. Today, I think we're going to go to an elephant training center -- I'm definitely going to bring my camera.

Imperial Palace

You would not believe how tired my feet are. No blisters, luckily, but I feel like my bones are complaining. Yesterday we spent the morning in Ginza, where hundreds of people were lined up in front of the most popular shops by 10 a.m., waiting for them to open. I think the Apple store might have won the "longest queue" award -- the line stretched down the block. We walked past the storefront just before it opened, and the two dozen or so employees in brightly colored t-shirts lined up inside, ready to greet customers, looked a little nervous.

After a tasty tempura lunch, we headed out to the Imperial Palace. Most days of the year, only a smallish portion of the palace grounds are open to visitors, but on two days of the year, the emperor's birthday and January 2nd, visitors can walk through and get a closer look. Since it's not likely we'll ever manage to be in Tokyo on one of those two days again, visiting was high on our to-do list.

The palace is surrounded by a high stone moat, and the grounds are carefully manicured. Not surprisingly, there was a huge contingent of police officers and security personnel lining the path, and they searched everyone as we entered. It was a really nice walk, though, and I'm glad we were able to make it. For the holiday, the national museums across the street from the palace grounds were offering free admission, so when we'd left the palace, we did a quick tour of the Crafts Museum, where we saw a beautiful exhibit of kimonos, and one of laquer work.

Today, we're meeting up with our friends again, to take the kids to the Ueno zoo. I think Measure will really enjoy seeing the animals! Right now, though, I really need a cup of coffee...

New Year's at the Temple

I'm usually terrible about blogging while on vacations, but since Measure is napping right now and I managed to actually get photos from my phone onto the computer, I figured, why not?

I really, really wish I'd remembered to bring my regular camera with me today. This morning I didn't bother bringing it out when we got up early to find an ATM and coffee in Ginza, which was a mistake. I wish I could have taken some photos -- the streets were amazingly deserted. We were up early because of jet lag, everyone else was sleeping in late! Then, I forgot the camera entirely later in the morning, when we headed out for the day. Jason's friend Alex lives here in Tokyo with his wife and kids (both who are pretty close in age to Measure) so we met up with them today and they took us to visit Sensoji temple in Asakusa.

There was a really massive line to get into the temple. There is a corridor of shops a couple of hundred yards long leading up to the temple (we window-shopped and bought a few snacks while in line), which are preceded by an imposing structure called the Thunder Gate, as you can see in the photo. See all those people? That's the line we were at the end of. Luckily (long lines and toddlers being a dangerous combination) it moved relatively quickly.

The temple itself was thronged with people going in to purchase charms and to throw coins into an area in front of the shrine, for good luck. Measure thought throwing the coins was really fun, he kept saying, "money, money" after Jason helped him toss a couple in.

The temple was also surrounded with food tents and souvenir and charm vendors. We had some really good festival food -- noodles with ginger (Measure loves ginger, so he ended up eating nearly all of ours) and octopus dumplings. The dumplings, called takoyaki, were served packed together by the half dozen, spread with a little sauce and sprinkled with fish flakes. They were absolutely delicious.

After meandering through the festival booths a little more, we wandered through the nearby shopping district. Everyone was out and about -- I saw lots of women in beautiful, brightly colored kimonos. Measure got a lot of attention; sweet little old ladies kept coming over to say hi and pat him on the head, and one charming old gentleman gave him a roasted sweet potato. Unfortunately, he had a bit of a meltdown on the way back to the subway station, but once we got on the train he calmed down, and he and Alex's son had a lot of fun on the ride home, playing with a couple of tape measures I had in my purse. Go figure!

Happy New Year!

  Happy New Year! Jason and Measure and I welcomed in the new year in Tokyo. Since we were really tired after a long day of traveling, we didn't go out, but we could see the Tokyo tower from our hotel room, and heard a lot of cheering at midnight.

Now, we need to hunt up some breakfast -- I'm still a little jet lagged, and starving!

The Fix

A few days ago, I posted about a pair of socks I knit for Jason -- each with a different style of heel, because I stupidly forgot to double-check what I'd done on the first one when I began doing the heel for the second. One was a stockinette stitch short-row heel, the other a garter stitch short-row heel. Because I didn't want to rip out the whole leg of the sock (having only discovered the problem when I was a few rows away from finishing) I decided to let Jason try them on, and decide which heel he liked best. Then, I would perform surgery on the less-favored heel.

Are you surprised to hear that he favored the garter-stitch heel? I was! The texture of garter stitch seems like it might not be as comfortable as stockinette on the foot, but it actually wasn't a problem. And the great thing about garter stitch (well, not always a good thing, if you've ever knit a garter-stitch scarf and had it grow like the Blob) is that it stretches lengthwise pretty well, so it cupped his heel more snugly for a better fit. Therefore, the stockinette stitch heel had to go!

Here it is, awaiting its fate. I decided to snip at the top of the heel, unravel it -- picking up the newly live stitches -- reknit it to match the other one, and graft to join. Want to see how I did it?

I picked out a good-looking spot at the top of the heel, and snipped a stitch in half. I didn't want to end up accidentally unraveling around the entire leg, so I tried to err on the side of caution. Luckily I hadn't bothered knitting the wraps together with the wrapped stitches on this heel, so I had the wraps as a kind of guide to where the heel rows began and ended. Then, I began unpicking the row one stitch at a time, picking up the stitches on the leg side as I went along, as you can see in the photo above.

Once all of those stitches were on the needle, it was time to unravel the heel. I tried to be fairly gentle, since I didn't want to cause any of the stitches at the starting row to drop. That would have been a pain.

That done, I picked up all of the stitches from the sole side of the heel with my other needle, wound up the unraveled yarn into a little ball, and started re-knitting the heel.

Sorry for the lousy flash photograph, I didn't get a chance to finish knitting the heel until later in the evening. In this photo, the leg of the sock is in the lower part of the photo, the sole and toe in the upper part. You can see the garter stitch heel on the needles -- this is right before I began grafting. I used the usual kitchener stitch to graft the long row of stitches together. I would show you a picture of the finished socks, but I haven't had a change to get Jason to model them for the camera yet. He started wearing them almost immediately after I finished weaving in the ends, though, so I would say this operation was a complete success!

Ooh, Shiny!

I know I said in my last post that I'd follow up on what happened with Jason's mismatched sock heels, but hey, I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.

I've been seeing these yarn ball wreaths popping up at Starbucks, Joanne.com, on Ravelry and blogs, and since we have virtually no holiday decorations in or around the house, I figured it would be fun to put one together, to make things look a little more festive around here.

At first I was planning on doing a lot of yarn balls and attaching them to a wire frame, which is how I think the Starbucks-type ones are constructed, but the craft store was all out of those. Luckily, they had some unadorned fake evergreen wreaths on sale, and they were the perfect size, so I picked up a few. I could have used stash yarn, but I wasn't sure I had any appropriate red in the stash, and all of the green yarn is yarn I want to use for projects, so I picked up a little bit of the Vanna's Choice acrylic. I also grabbed a couple of packs of ornaments -- frosted red and gold globes -- and some packs of styrofoam balls.

To construct the wreath, I began by wrapping the balls with the yarn until the styrofoam was completely covered. I started off each ball with a little bit of glue to tack down the ends of the yarn, but to be honest that probably isn't even necessary.

Next, I arranged the yarn balls on the wreath to decide how I wanted to place them. At this point, I fluffed up the fake evergreen "branches" to make hollow spots to place the yarn balls. I thought about trying to glue the yarn balls to the wreath, but then I realized that I could just use a tapestry needle and lengths of the green yarn to sew the yarn balls onto the wire frame of the wreath. That worked really well -- I just made sure to go around the wire and catch the ball at least twice, and to knot it securely.

Then it was time to place the ornaments. At first I started to sew those down too, but it was easier just to shove them onto the branches. Each ornament had a loop of wire where a hanging hook would normally be placed, so I just shoved the little branches through those loops, then adjusted the branch so it wouldn't come off. Finally, to hang the wreath, I did a short chain of single crochet, drew it through the wreath's frame, and tied it off securely. Then, it was all ready to hang on the door. All in all, the project took less than an hour, and now I've got a cute custom wreath!

D'oh!

As we were driving around Sonoma last Sunday, I pulled out the socks I've been working on for Jason. I knew I was almost ready to start the ribbing for the cuff of the second sock (these were knit toe-up) and was extremely pleased with myself for actually remembering to bring the first sock so I could compare and make sure that both legs and cuffs would turn out the same length.

Then I looked down at the heels D'oh! One is a stockinette short row heel...the second is a garter stitch short-row heel. I could have sworn I knit a garter stitch heel on the first one. Instead I just ended up swearing.

Jason suggested I rip back the second one. "You like knitting," was his reasoning. Good point, but somehow re-knitting just isn't the same. Especially when it's a big stockinette tube on size 0 needles. So, I finished the second sock, and told Jason he'd just have to try them both on. This way, he can decide which heel he likes better. The one he doesn't like is going to go through surgery! Stay tuned to find out which heel won out, and which one is going to get the snip and rip treatment.

Sonoma on a Sunday

This Sunday, we went up to Sonoma to go wine tasting with some friends. Their daughter is just a few months older than Measure, so the two kids had fun playing while we adults had fun tasting.

The weather was what you might call gloomy -- gray skies, intermittent rain showers -- but it had its own kind of beauty, with clouds wreathing the hills, and the gold and rust and blood red shades of the vine leaves providing a painterly contrast to the more muted tones of the sky.

At Unti Vineyards, we startled a fox -- or possibly a small coyote -- in its pursuit of a jackrabbit. He wandered around for a little bit, occasionally looking back at us reproachfully. If you look closely, you can see him in the center of this photo, although his coat makes him blend in with the colors of the furrows very well.

We were more successful in our hunt than he was in his -- we came home with a nice little bundle of new wines. Unti was probably my favorite spot, as I liked pretty much everything they were pouring, but Seghesio had some zinfandels I liked (and I don't like a lot of zinfandels), and Frick had a nice selection of more esoteric varietals. I think our cellar is nicely stocked up for a while now.

To Err is Human

Despite a pile of Christmas knitting to do, despite final projects and final essays and plain old finals to study for, I somehow found myself casting on with some of this lovely Sundara yarn.

I'd tried telling myself that this would be a good project to bring on vacation, I'd tried telling myself that I have no time for personal projects -- and even if I did, I've got a couple of sweaters already on the needles waiting to be finished. But I am weak. The yarn sang to me its siren song, and I did not have the willpower to resist.

The only justification I have, the shred of dignity that I cling to, is that this is my own design, and a prototype for a pattern idea I've had kicking around for a while. It's just a top-down raglan construction, so it will be a breeze to knit to a custom fit, but it's going to be spiced up with cute details. And since it's knit with sock yarn (which knits up faster than you think, because although there are more stitches, you can knit more of them per minute) it's going to be really fun to use as a canvas for all the wonderful handpainted yarn-art out there.

Loooooving Youuuu Is Easy 'Cuz You're Beautiful...

La la la la la laaaa...and so on and so forth.

The other day I got my Sundara Artist's Choice sock yarn in the mail. It was a good day. Although they were all beautiful yarns, I was "meh" about the Citrus Twist, so it found a happy new home with a fellow Raveler.

See what I mean? It's pretty, it's just not my style.

I also got two skeins of Roman Toga, one of which is pictured here with a skein of Roasted Persimmon over Green Papaya from the Seasons mailing a couple of months back. They've got similar combinations of colors, but in different proportions. I like the Roman Toga well enough, but I am trading it for things which suit me even better. (Roman Toga is on the left in the photo.)

What sort of things suit me even better? Why, rich, decadent, opulent shades of brown. I was happily able to swap one of my Roman Togas for a gorgeous skein of Arabian Nights (left) with a fellow Raveler who happens to live just about 15 minutes away. The third set of skeins in my package was Royal Touch, the gold-and-brown skein on the right. I'm really hoping I can trade for or purchase a third skein; I'd love to be able to make a sweater out of it. If not, I might be able to combine it with the Arabian Nights or another yarn. Decisions, decisions. Right now, though, I'm just enjoying it as the lovely bit of artwork that it is.

It seems like I'm rapidly approaching SABLE status (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) and I'm not even 30. Of course, I justify my stash (especially the sooper special sock stash) by reasoning that some skeins will eventually become gifts for my friends and relatives who knit. For some reason, some of the most beautiful skeins are also the most difficult to photograph, so I can also justify their existence by virtue of the challenge they pose, pushing me to improve my skills. And of course they are great inspiration for design. I even knit with them occasionally! The ultimate justification, of course, is that beauty is its own excuse.