Odds and ends

This week's blog post is going to be a bit of a mish-mash of things. Life is busy lately with finery goodness, and I'm combining all of that into one update for you.

FINISHED
First of all, last weekend I finished my Lowry Pullover, almost two whole weeks early! It took me about five weeks to knit this, and I think my strategy of doing the sleeves first really paid off in terms of speeding up the whole process.



My thoughts on the pattern:
--I don't normally make patterns exactly as written, but in this case I loved the pattern so much that I didn't modify anything. Weird for me, but a credit to the designer for such a fantastically shaped sweater.
--That said, if I ever make this again, I will need to modify the lower sleeves. For some reason they're uncomfortably tight on my forearms, which is not usually a place I have issues with fit. I think I would just start with the next size up, and do fewer increases.
--Sportweight yarn makes this sweater warm but not too warm, so I might be able to wear it more often here in Los Angeles (vs. some of my worsted or bulky weigh sweaters).

My thoughts on the yarn, Madelinetosh Pashmina in the Tart colorway:
--This yarn is deliciously soft, and is wonderful to wear against the skin. This is thanks to the merino and cashmere content, which unfortunately also means that the sweater is pilling already, and today is the first day I've worn the sweater.
--The color is an amazing semi-solid red, and I got very little pooling on the garment. However, there are no dye lots listed on the skeins, and I found very noticeable differences between skeins. I think I managed to arrange the transitions so if anyone notices it will look intentional, but just be aware of this if you're going to use this yarn.
--A sweater's quantity of this yarn is not cheap. I felt it was worth the investment, but this isn't going to work for all budgets. It's a wonderful indulgence, and I highly recommend at least trying one skein of this yarn for a smaller project.

VOGUE KNITTING LIVE


As some of you may know, Vogue Knitting LIVE! was here in L.A. for the weekend. I didn't have time to take classes all weekend, but I did manage to take two incredible classes, "Teaching Classes that Rock" with Trisha Malcolm, and "Photography for Knitters" with Amy Swenson (of Indigirl designing fame). Both classes were amazing, and hopefully I'll at least be able to take much better pictures for this blog in the future.

MY NEW IPAD
Because I have the most wonderful husband in the world, I now am the proud owner of a brand new iPad! He gave it to me as an early present for our upcoming fifth wedding anniversary, and despite some initial learning the hard way (like backing up before you update the iPad software) it's been awesome so far.

Anyway, I am looking for suggestions on fantastic iPad knitting apps, so please leave a comment if you have a favorite. And I apologize for the lack of links here, I'm still getting used to my iPad blogging app!

UPCOMING EVENTS
I will be attending SOAR in Manchester, New Hampshire during the first week of October. I'll be taking classes on how to spin sock yarn, how to handcard wool, and others. I'm really excited about this, and can't wait to get there!

Also, I will be at Rhinebeck in NY on the third weekend of October. This will be my first time ever attending, so I am prepared to be overwhelmed by all the fibery goodness.

In short, I've got a lot of great stuff coming up, and will be posting here on how it all goes.

Until next time, happy knitting and spinning to everyone. Enjoy the start of fall, and all the knitting goodness that comes with it!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

9/11 Memories: My Story

In memory of those lost

In honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 today, I'm going to forgo my usual knitting & spinning topics of discussion in favor of writing about my memories and experiences of the event.

Understand that I think this is terribly cliché, cause it seems like everyone else in the world has spent the past week writing and talking about their own experiences from 2001, and I hate to admit that I'm following the crowd on anything.  But I realize that I've already forgotten a lot of the details of that day, and it's only going to get worse as time goes on.  My hope is that, by finally writing down my personal 9/11 memories (or, at least, what I can still remember of it), I will be able to arrest the memory decay that naturally occurs with passing time.

In September 2001, I was an undergraduate student at Syracuse University in central New York State.  My now-husband and I had started dating in August that year, and he was spending the semester in the Catskills doing a co-op (like an internship program, but going to school in the summer and working full time during a semester).  We were a few weeks into the fall semester when the world changed forever.

On the morning of September 11th, I didn't have class until around 10 am, so sometime after 9 am I was getting ready for the day ahead.  I sat down with my oatmeal (peaches and cream flavor, I'm pretty sure) and wanted to watch a little bit of TV before I left for class, so I turned on the television and saw smoke pouring out of the Twin Towers.  Shock and disbelief were definitely the first things I felt--it really took a minute or two to register that this was even real.

I'm not sure what I expected class to be like that morning, but when I got there the professor had already made the decision to project TV news coverage on the screen and just let us watch, instead of trying to teach us something when we all would have been too distracted to learn anyway.  One of the girls in my class had a brother who worked at the World Trade Center, and when we saw the towers fall live on TV, she left the room in tears (turns out her brother was fine, but she didn't know that until later).  According to the university, about 10% of students were from the city, so there was obviously a lot of concern around campus for families and friends.

I remember trying to call my dad after class, and I was having issues getting through because the cell networks were too busy (presumably because everyone else in the state was trying to call people as well).  I finally got through and talked to Dad for awhile.  Even though none of my immediate family members were anywhere close to New York City, it still made me feel better to touch base and know that everyone was still okay.

My husband (then boyfriend) was working all day on a construction site, I think in Poughkeepskie, which is only an hour or two outside the city.  They were listening to the news on the radio all day, since they didn't have TV at the job site, and so he had a very different experience of it, not seeing the pictures until the end of the day.  I didn't talk to him until sometime in the evening that day, since he didn't have a cell phone back then.  It's obviously impossible to say how our relationship would have ended up without 9/11, but I really think it brought us closer and made us prioritize spending time together a bit more.  Since we're still happily together 10 years later, we must've done something right, with or without 9/11.

I've forgotten a lot of how I felt and what I did on that day, but in the weeks and months after I distinctly remember a sense of togetherness and patriotism all around (because nothing unites like a common enemy, right?).  People were nicer, more understanding, and less bothered by petty things.  This newfound unity didn't completely last in the long term, but I see hints of it this weekend, when we're all reminded of what happened 10 years ago.

On September 20th, 2001, the city of Syracuse held some kind of 9/11 remembrance event in Clinton Square.  The photo above is one I took at the event, where Syracuse firemen were paying tribute to their fallen comrades in New York City.  This picture was so poignant and personal to me, despite the fact that I don't personally know the people in the photo, that I actually had it hanging on my wall for several years.

And now, 10 years later, the 9/11-themed commercials on TV are making me want to cry, reminding me of the tragedy and loss, as well as  the heroism and sacrifice of that day.  The world is different today than it was on September 10th, 2001, to be sure.  But hope endures, and even though some of the personal details are fading, we will never forget what happened on 9/11 or what it means for America.

My flag pin, still with me after 10 years

Labor Day

For Labor Day weekend, Chris and I spent a few days up in Mammoth Lakes, where we usually ski in the winter.  Last March he lost one of his skis on the mountain, and we were hoping the snow would be melted enough to finally find it.

It was a beautiful morning on Saturday when we hiked up the mountain to where he though the ski might be (he had already searched a few months ago, but there was one area where the snow hadn't melted enough until now). No luck finding the ski, though, and we've given up the search.  It was a beautiful morning, though, and at least I got a couple of nice pictures (and a bug bite or two!):

 High hopes to start out the hike.

The "hole in the wall", that used to be covered in snow over the winter.

Searching for the ski.

The sky couldn't have been bluer, I swear.

No ski after all :(.

Mammoth is about a 5-hour drive each way, depending on traffic, which meant lots of knitting time for me this weekend.  I was a bit concerned about working on my Lowry Pullover in the car, since it requires actually looking at what I'm doing on the cable rows, and in the last several years I've really started getting nauseous when I read or stare at my knitting in the car.  So I got myself a set of Psi Bands to see if they would work (since I kind of hate Dramamine because it puts me to sleep), and surprisingly enough it really seemed to do the trick!  My yarn was even making happy swirls at me as I pulled it out of the skein:

Happy swirls of yarn.

I'm making really good progress on my sweater, having already finished the waist shaping.  Doing the sleeves first had the added benefit of getting me to memorize the cable chart, so I only have to count my rows so I can remember which one I'm on.  I might actually finish this sweater in time after all!

Done with waist shaping, almost ready to divide for the V-neck.

Also, while we were in Mammoth, we stopped by the Labor Day Festival of the Arts.  No pictures, unfortunately, despite all the fantastic handcrafted stuff, mostly because I felt it would be rude to take pictures of stuff I wasn't buying.  Oh, well, I'm still learning… 

Happy Labor Day to all, and I hope you had a wonderful holiday!