alisonknits

Still in limbo...

Later this week I'll be moving into the "real" new apartment. In the meantime I have plenty to keep me busy. In fact, I don't know how I'm going to do everything. But I'm trying to have faith that it will all work out.

This weekend I had a whirlwind trip to Massachusetts to look at some houses with my dad. He has sold his house already, and was originally planning on renting an apartment until next year when Scott and I are ready to move up there, but is now thinking of buying immediately and having tenants until we move. We looked at two houses, one in my hometown of Lexington that we liked pretty well, and another in Wakefield, where my dad lives currently, an incredible house which we all fell in love with. We decided to make an offer on that one, but tragically, someone else beat us to it with an offer that was actually higher than the asking price. We were all very disappointed. We haven't yet decided how to proceed - make an offer on the Lexington house (a very nice place, just not as great as the Wakefield place, but it would be cool to be back in Lexington), or keep looking (necessitating more trips to MA, which I don't really have time for), or go back to the old plan where dad would rent for a year. A decision must be made soon, since dad has to be out of his house in a few short months.

Lots of good knitting going on at least. I did manage to dig out my Noro Silk Garden and start the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf. It's very pretty. The yarn is variegated with browns, turquoise, fuschia, and gold, and looks lovely in the pattern. And as I'd anticipated, it's nice and mindless.

But since I wanted something else between mindless and Hank8, I also started a poncho in an alpaca, silk and wool blend from School Products. The poncho was a store pattern, but I adapted it to make it a little more interesting, with slightly fancier cables than the basic 4-stich cable in the pattern, and with the cables continuing up through the neck, rather than the plain ribbed neck of the original.

And I did work on Hank8 some last week... the end is in sight! Well, sort of. It's still gonna take a while. And I realized the other day that I've now been working on it on and off for a year. Pathetic.

Our internet access in the new apartment is supposed to be switched over along with the phones on Thursday, so I'll try and get some new pictures up soon.

In limbo

We finished moving just about all of our stuff out of the old apartment. Hooray! It wasn't fun, but there were no major problems. So have I started unpacking, you ask? Well, no. See, the apartment that we will ultimately be living in will not be vacated by the old tenants until next week, and we had to be out of our old place, with time left over to clean it so I can get my security deposit back. So what we did was rented a smaller apartment across the hall from our "real" apartment, just for the month of March. (The theory was that we would spread the move over a longer period, but that didn't really happen.) So all our stuff is squished into the living room of the small place, with only the bed, clothing and a few other essentials in the bedroom, which we'll be living out of for the next week. It's a little like living in a motel room.

In other news, check out Ellen's new blog! It's highly amusing.

And knit teacher/designer extraordinaire Annie's book is out! You can buy a copy here. I did.

I had my first spam comment today. Hopefully this won't happen too often. Tech-savvy I'm not, and I don't really know what one does about these things.

In knitting news, I have something shocking to report. I did not knit a single stitch last Thursday, Saturday, or yesterday. The main reason was the move, obviously. My excuse yesterday was that I was finishing reading White Teeth, which I liked very much. Also I don't have a commuting project that I'm terribly excited about right now - I've been working on my leafy-lace shawl intermittently since I finished my gloves last week. And I can't start anything new because all my yarn is packed. Maybe I'll try to dig out the Noro Silk Garden that I bought with the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf in mind. That looks like a project that won't take too much concentration, and I really need one of those right about now. I did keep Hank8 accessible and hopefully I'll get some work in on that this week at home.

Posts on the blog will be few and far between, and pictureless, until I get settled in my "real" new place with internet access and all. Don't miss me too much!

Gotta get movin'...

Yup, my big (7-block) move is this weekend. So you may not hear from me for a while. Especially since I haven't packed yet. (If I ignore it, it will go away, right?)

Meanwhile, I've also been planning a little coffee house at All Souls this weekend. If you've never been to one, a coffee house is like a talent show, only with coffee. And fewer children. I was planning to sing a song with my dear friend Elizabeth, but we've lost our accompanist. If anyone knows any decent piano players in NYC who are free Saturday night, let me know! We were going to be so good, singing "What You Don't Know About Women" from City of Angels. Betcha didn't know I could sing, did you? Well neither did I, until fairly recently.

In knitting news, I'm back in the Hank8 saddle. Too bad I missed Christmas, and then winter entirely, but this thing is going to be finished soon, dammit! Then I can finally begin the Swan Sweater from Norsk Strikkedesign... oh how it calls to me........

I want one of these!

Up until now, I've been fairly ambivalent about the popular Rogue pullover. It's lovely, but I knew I would never wear a hooded pullover. But when I saw Claudia's fabulous cardi version, I was in love. You see, when I was a teenager I went through a rather long phase of wearing a zip-front hooded sweatshirt constantly. In fact, it was something taken out of my dad's closet, and the thing had holes and was a very boring shade of heather grey. But I loved it. This is like a much more elegant version that I could wear and feel just as cozy but not look like a slob. Love it. Must have one of my very own. I bought the pattern, printed the modification note, and very soon I will buy some Aurora 8 and off I go. But what color shall I choose? Aurora 8 comes in 56 beautiful shades... should I pick a color color, or something that will go with everything like off-white or *cough* heather grey? I'll be pondering this for days, I'm sure.

And two makes a pair...

Gloves - yea!

Grrrrr... iMacs suck!

Don't you hate it when your computer freezes and you lose the entire blog entry that you were just about to proof read and post? This is what I get for posting from work (on the dinosaur of a computer that I use at my desk job).

Here goes my attempt to recreate what I said:

Thanks very much to all who posted comments about what yarns they would want with them on a desert island (hopefully not a tropical one, as Ellen cleverly pointed out). I was very pleased that for the most part my instincts about what yarns people like were fairly accurate. And if you haven't commented yet, I'm still happy to hear more ideas!

I also appreciated the comments people left about the practical side of starting this business. I'm still very much in the brainstorming phase; I don't know yet if I'll even be able to swing it financially when I first move to Massachusetts, and I need to do a lot more research about what shops already exist in the Boston area and where. In all likelihood, I'll be moving to a suburb west of Boston, but I don't know which one yet.

And a side note on blogging: my practice has generally been to respond individually to commenters, rather than responding on the blog itself or in the comments. What do people think about this? One the one hand, it's easiest for me to reply directly to the commenter via e-mail, and that way you're sure to get a personal response. But on the other hand, maybe people would like more of a discussion in the comments, and see my responses to others. What do you think?

In knitting news: my lace pieces that I was doing for pay are finished - woo hoo! I'll be handing them off to the designer very soon I hope. My gloves only want one index finger and thumb, then they're good to go. I hope to finish them tonight, since tomorrow the forcast is cold, with possible SNOW! Good weather to test out my gloves, but not good for much else as far as I'm concerned.

After that I really should get back to Scott's sweater as commuter knitting and Hank8 for on the couch, but who am I to do what I should? Instead I'm going to make a lacy poncho that Berta created as a store sample at School Products out of the cashmere blend that I made my purple sweater with. Berta was kind enough to let me exchange the leftovers from the sweater for a different color, a sky blue. (This is against store policy; cones are not returnable - I'm fortunate that I get special priveleges for working there.) The poncho is done in a very simple lace stitch, and made in a L shape. Then you sew a side edge to another side to make the poncho. It's like the cabled poncho in Weekend Knitting, if you have that book. Should knit up super fast on size 11's, and be a perfect spring cover up.

Happy Monday...

Yarn Shop Dreaming

I'm planning on moving to the Boston area in summer of 2005, and I've got it in my head that what I'd really like to do when I get there is open a yarn shop. This is all Ellen's fault (my friend who is planning on opening a yarn shop here in NYC, and briefly flirted with doing it in New England instead). Of course, many knitters dream about running their own store - who wouldn't want to play with yarn all day? - but I figure I have an edge, given my experiences working at yarn stores, and my above-average knitting skills.

Tonight someone suggested to me the idea of having a yarn shop in part of my home. This holds some appeal, since that way most of the upfront cost would be inventory. Still would have to lay out a lot of money, but I figure I could start small, with mostly mail-order, and also run classes and private knitting lessons out of home too. Meanwhile, I could be looking for a retail space.

Maybe it's a pipe dream, but maybe it could work.

So here's my question for all you wonderful knitters reading this: Given that I'll probably have limited space, I'll have to start with a limited selection of yarn. If you were stranded on a desert island, what three yarns would you want to have with you?

New photos

Got around to taking a picture of my Koigu glove:

It got good reviews from the knitters at Starbucks tonight. hooray! Too bad I don't have a pair yet; it's pretty chilly this week and I dislike my store-bought gloves.

Having been given a slight reprieve on my for-pay project (it's not due until Monday; briefly it was going to be due on Friday), I'm now trading off between that and the second glove.

By the way, I also took a couple pictures of the lacy baby blanket I made out of pretty green cashmere a little while back. The photos are in my photo album (see link on sidebar). Hopefully I'll be able to give this to the 2-week old baby Rebecca soon! Her mom and dad are visiting the proud grandparents, so I haven't been able to go see them yet.

What country are you?

You're the United Nations!
Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of beating each other about the head and torso.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result.  But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

One glove and no time

I finished one of my Koigu gloves the other day, but now I'm scrambling to finish the sweater parts that I'm doing for pay. I had a little break from that project when I was waiting for a response from the designer about a discrepancy in the pattern. But now I'm back to chugging away at it. Frankly, I'm very bored with the pattern and can't wait to finish this.

The glove came out beautifully; I'll post a pic from home tonight (I'm typing at my desk job at the moment). The last pair of gloves I made ended up not fitting quite as well as I would have liked; the fingers were just a tiny bit too short, so they rode up a little. When I make gloves, I try them on frequently as I go along, and this time I made sure that my finger tip was covered before I did a decrease round, drew the yarn through the remaining stitches and fastened off. Last time I think I assumed that the decrease round would take a bit of room, but I guess that covers the top of the finger. I used the pattern from A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, which I like very much. I showed the glove off at the office, and at my knitting class last night. All were suitably impressed.

My class last night was the final class with this group of beginning knitters. This group was really quite talented, so much so that I had to get creative to come up with more stuff to give them than I usually do with the beginning class. My only concern was that a couple of women who were more average beginning knitters might have felt like the dunces of the class. I tried to keep assuring them that they were making very normal progress, and that this was a flukey class where many people seemed to take to knitting much faster than the norm. In any case, everyone seemed to have a good time, and I got very complimentary written evaluations back at the end of class.

Thanks to all who left comments about my new apartment. I am still looking forward to this new beginning, but have not done any packing yet. I'm a notorious procrastinator. One time I waited until the night before a move to pack, and stayed up all night with my ex-boyfriend, whose apartment I was moving out of, and who was nice enough to help me. By the end of the next day, I was a total zombie and passed out on the couch as soon as my stuff was in the new place. I really hope I'll be better this time...