novamade

things to do in northern cali when you're crafty

I spent last week in northern California and due to having limited internet access took an unintentional blog break.  My apologies, I am working to catch myself up on your lives, projects and what-not.  But I wanted to share some of my doings with you, as most of them are of a somewhat crafty nature that you may or may not be interested in.

So here is my list of things that I did and things that you can do as well if you find yourself in northern California and you are crafty (if you are celebrating your birthday, that sort of helps too).

Pebble Beach, California. Wollmeise Gloria Cowl.

Start and finish knitting a Gloria Cowl (details here) to give to a friend for her birthday.  My friend is named Kathy, your friend can be named something else.

Artfibers in San Francisco, California.

Have your friend (Kathy) take you to local-to-her yarn shops like ImagiKnit and ArtFibers.  Acquire pretty things that make you smile.

If you are bloggy, take the opportunity to meet up with a knit bloggy friend and her beau. Especially if said knit bloggy friend is a birthday twin and is like some sort of long lost crafty twin of sorts. Apologize profusely for exposing your knit bloggy friend to your tired tyrannical toddler.

Rangsiwan meets a very tired Little Sir.

Because you can, go to a fabric store, there are lots of them in San Francisco.  If for some reason you, like me, are planning some sort of novelty quilt requiring 21 shades of silk dupioni, you should go to Fabrix like I did.

And since there is a Kinokuniya in San Francisco, you should go there and buy some Japanese craft books, especially if you can not decipher Japanese.  It makes crafting interesting.

And because you neither speak nor read Japanese and you bought a bunch of books written in that particular language, you should probably get some written in English (or whatever your primary language is) just to balance things out.

Whether you are crafty or not, you should take time to smell the roses (or whatever flora is at your disposal).

Pacific Grove, California.

And don't forget to take time to experience wonder.

Jellyfish at Monterey Aquarium in Monterey, CA.

When you return home, get giddy about the books you received for your birthday from friends near and far.

Utilize the book about pies as soon as possible, you know, if you are so inclined. 

Pineapple pie, a very sweet sweety pie.

So yes, good trip, I have a few more trips to California scheduled for the summer, but I am thinking they will not be as acquisition-friendly as this one, a birthday celebration is a great way to justify stash enhancements of all sorts.  While I usually kick off my birthday celebration on Cinco de Mayo and count up to my birthday (are you not doing this as well?), Special K suggested that we start the celebration on my actual birthday this year and add 8 days to it, isn't he sweet?  So with that said, I am still celebrating.  Though right now, I am trying to get my back to stop hurting after incorrectly lifting heavy boxes of books and documents at work.  I am also going to think about happy things, like friends in Philly having lots of fun.  And knitting, because I can do that lying down.

Hey, happy knitting, quilting, sewing, or pie baking!

what's doing? who's winning?

I have been a little absent around these parts; but, I have been up to quite a bit.  I weaved in the ends of the Sienna sweater, it's blocking.  It's been blocking for 3 days.  It should be dry tonight and I can finally get around to giving it the button treatment (and having a finished knit, everyone together now, "it's about time.").

I went to a conference for academic archivists over the weekend.  Pretty local.  Even though UConn is only 50 minutes away from me, I got lost and it took 2 hours to get home on Saturday.  There was very little knittng time at the conference, so while I didn't get any knitting done, I got a cute little desk for Little Sir for $2.00 while I aimlessly drove circles around various hinterland locales of Connecticut.  Even trade.

I even had some fiberlicious fun...

And I did some quilt planning, inspired by the blank canvas that is Little Sir's new toddler bed (the transition of which is getting better, by the way).

Speaking of blank canvas, I have contest winners...  Using a random number generator (I love these things, no cutting of paper slips!), the comments of Kirsten and Fricklet's mom were selected.  I will get in touch with you shortly for some coordination.  Thank you all for your loser knit stories, it makes me feel just a little bit better about my sweater...which, I am sure, will be a loser-knit.

And lest you think there is no knitting happening around these parts...

It is Socktober, afterall.

So, what's doing with you?

my kind of town

Chicago is a fun city.  If you have never been, and the opportunity presents itself, you should go.  I am strategizing ways to make a return trip with the family at some point (I am envisioning great joy in the eyes of Little Sir at the thought of Sue in the Field Museum , but since an empty box entertains him to no end, a skeleton of a dinosaur might just push him over the edge of reason). 

There is tons to see and do in Chicago, and three days isn't enough time to do it.  Especially if one is expected to attend conference sessions about the larger meaning of archives in a digital world, or something like that.  The conference was good (though I felt that quantity over quality was the mantra when putting together sessions this year...some of my sessions were mediocre at best--this is just my opinion though), in any case, there were yarn stores.

I was able to meet up a with a fellow knit blogging archivist, you may know of her, her name is Lolly.  We were able to hit some museums and yarn shops during our brief stay in the windy city.  The two local yarn shops we visited were Knitwerks and Loopy Yarns.  Both shops were pretty great, very different in atmosphere.  Knitwerks was the first shop we went to.

Knitwerks is owned by Cherl, she rocks.

She has only been open for 9 months.  Her shop is well-maintained and is super colorful (just like Cherl's personality).  She has some really nice selections (like Dream in Color, a Chicago dyed yarn).  Lolly and I were very well-behaved:

I got a skein of Dream in color (the choclately one) sock yarn, Lolly got the green Dream in Color worsted and some lovely lace weight dyed in California , it's pretty, see for yourself.

Lolly and I spent Friday morning and most of Friday evening with a Chicago knit blogger, Amy.  Amy spent her whole day off making nice with us.  She took us to see a globe with a knitted sweater (part of a Chicago art installment).

We also went to the Field Museum; but, there was, of course, the requisite yarn trip.  Amy took us to Loopy Yarns, a fun little shop fairly close to our hotel.  There was a lot of yarn at Loopy.

They have a great selection of vegan yarn choices.

And, of course, their Claudia's handpainted is nothing to sneeze at.

I really enjoyed our little knit bloggers meet-up in the lobby of our hotel Friday night the best though.

It was fun to sit and knit with Amy, Lolly and Rebecca.  There were definitely other knit blogging archivists at the conference (as evidenced by all the knitters knitting in sessions and the random conversation about Ravelry overheard between sessions.

I heard there are plans to organize a little more for next year's conference.  Yes, we archivists, we know how to have a good time.

And lest you think me unappreciative, thank you all for your kind words, congratulations and well wishes in celebration of my blogiversary.  I have had a lot of fun with you all and learned and laughed a lot with you.  I really enjoy being part of this on-line community of knitting fun.  And having this community certainly does make archives conferences a lot more interesting.  Just sayin'.

an artist's life for me

On Friday, I had an opportunity to play hooky from work to attend a little conference of sorts.  For the most part, I enjoy going to these things because I can see people I haven't seen in a while and there is always that chance that I will meet someone new that I like and who actually turns out to like me too.  The conference was on artist's books.  It was fascinating.  It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I like it.  There were some interesting lectures to start, but the lecture by the practicing artist pretty much made it worth the drive to get there.  Angela Lorenz is fascinating, listening to her describe her process for producing her work made me feel like I was in the presence of a genius.  And she lives in Spain, that is pretty cool--I have to admit, for a while, I kind of wanted her life--not all it, just the fancy parts.  On the way back home, I was singing "the artist's life for me" (to the tune of "A Pirate's Life for Me").  And since I wasn't the one driving (gotta love being chauffeured) I was able to get a little knitting done. 

I have a finished sock, well it's as good as finished, it just needs to be Kitchenered...(yes, I know it's not really a verb, but in my world "Kitchener has all sorts of transitive properties). 

I would like to cross off some projects from my unfinished knits list so I can feel better about proceeding onto new projects.  When starting something new I have a little UFO remorse, and that doesn't seem healthy.  So I am going to work on the second sock, because a pair of socks is usually helpful; and, I want to finish this knitted toy that I have affectionately dubbed "stupid turtle,"  it's not the turtle's fault, it's me:

It's so close to being complete, it's sort of ridiculous that it's not done.  Attached i-cord to finish, it's not so hard people, why haven't I done it yet?

And then there is this:

Not so much an unfinished knit as wasted potential.  I have about half a skein of the Bird of Paradise sock yarn left, that's about 175 yards, give or take.  What do I do with it?  Because you all know how much I love the pink.  Hmm.

On that note, thank you for all the compliments on the Chevron Scarf.  I did, for a moment, consider the benefits of getting over my aversion to the pink; but, by that point, the scarf had been "bagged and tagged." I put my finished knits/handmade gifts in bags with a tag for the recipient until the gift giving occasion of choice arrives, if I happen to finish the gift ahead of time...a rarity, truly.  And besides, this little tragi-comedy just means that I can knit another one for myself so Lolly can spot me in the throng of archivists who storm Chicago in August.  Gotta love those professional conferences.

i like you

I have been puzzling over the mechanics of how I happened to catch a mini-plague while Little Sir eked out the weekend none the sicker.  I have gotten in the habit of blaming my sicknesses on Little Sir and daycare (for the most part, rightly so); but, it seems now I only have myself (or my own petri dish) to blame.  I have done some calculations and I have not been healthy since Thanksgiving, now if that's not a bummer I don't know what is. 

I wish I could say that I spent the weekend of my sickness knitting, but not so much.  I went to a regional archivists meeting/conference in Chelmsford, Massachusetts (and probably got some archivists sick, sorry) where I met a blog reader that I did not previously know (I tried not to get her sick, she seemed so nice). As interesting as the meeting/conference was, I would say that I enjoyed listening to Amy Sedaris read her book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence on audio CD (I think having her read her book adds a little something to the consumption of the work) on my drive to and from the conference more than the conference itself.  And the other part of my weekend (when I wasn't asleep) was spent untangling this mess...

This was actually after 24 hours of untangling--what you see here took another 6 hours.  It took way too long than is reasonable to solve this situation.

This is Sundara sock yarn (second installment of the current round of the Petals Collection) in Bird of Paradise-perfect for the second installment of Project Spectrum, no?  I am not really sure what happened with the whole skein winding catastrophe.  Given my love of winding, you would think that this sort of thing would never happen to me, apparently you (and I) would be wrong.

I didn't love the colorway of this yarn, to be honest.  I liked the green and the yellow is fun; but the pink...I sort of found it offensive.  I am just not a lover of pink,  occasionally I force myself to tolerate it. But hot pink?  A stretch, truly.  In any case, after trying all of the Koigu I purchased (which arrived super speedy style) I tried all sorts of Koigu iterations for my Chevron Scarf with no success, the colors were a little too "matchy matchy" for my taste.  Then I remembered the sock yarn that I had no idea what to do with and thought, "well, maybe I will give that a try."  I am still not in love with the hot pink, but it has been downgraded from offensive to simply bothersome, and it might be completely inert by the time I finish the scarf. And really, it is sort of starting to grow on me.

So after a weekend of ire and utterances of anger and hate concerning yarn and anything scarf-related, I was able to achieve a happy note and say to my scarf (because I will completely own up to talking to my knitting and all sorts of other inanimate objects), "I like you."

reasons to get away

This week has been a busy one.  I haven't really taken any time to examine the bright spots of my week; but, after receiving a nice little package from Elli, I realized that my week wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  Thanks Elli for brightening up my week with the great package!

Next week is Spring Break at my esteemed institution, thus offering a perfect opportunity to get away for a while.  I am not sure if there is a stock set of good reasons to go on a vacation, but here are some reasons why I feel the need get away for a bit.

This is what my readers and researchers table looks like.  It's supposed to be immaculate, a blank slate even.  I have six different projects going on right now (with more awaiting processing, see those boxes in the back?).  I won't even show you my desk, it's just too ridiculous.

I need some time to turn this

into this.  Thanks to Little Sir for the background artwork, he goes crazy for the paints.

and this

into this.

I would also like to allow Little Sir some time outside.  Clearly, he is onboard with this idea.

When I took this picture this morning, it was 7 degrees (F) outside.  In southern California it's a balmy 90 degrees.  Normally, I am not one for hot weather, but now that Little Sir is mobile (he started crawling last Saturday, very exciting times) he is getting stir-crazy.

Also, I think he might like to go here and here.

A very good friend of mine once noted that any traveling plans that involved family was not actually a vacation. So I am not going on vacation, I am simply getting away for a while.  We are going to spend a week with Special K's family doing things that people do when they have no responsibilites to worry about.  It will be a fun week, I am especially looking forward to Little Sir handling the time change to Pacific time on top of losing an hour.  Hopefully, I will be back with some finished projects; or, at the very least, some fun pictures... And for those that e-mailed thoughts to Kathy, thank you!

treasures from the attic

I enjoy being an academic archivist, honestly and truly I do.  But sometimes, it can get just a little bit dull...business records, proposed policy paperwork that was never acted upon, current records that no one else has a clue what to do with, the endless scanning of images in an effort to "preserve history" (no not really, just provide alternative access, but this is a discussion for another time)...in any case, yesterday was one of those days that found me wallowing in boredom...until I happened upon this for the umpteenth time:

You see the navy blue roll there?  For the last 2 and a half years, I  just assumed it was a banner, it is sitting on top of a box with banners, so perhaps this was a logical assumption.  Also, it is very clear that there is no donor paperwork with the item whatsover (nightmare), which is enough to put anyone off of exploring.  But boredom, it makes you do crazy things...in a fit a procrastination I mused... "I wonder what that banner looks like..."  well, it wasn't a banner at all...

Huh.  Knitting needles, some would say "vintage" knitting needles (if I were pressed, I would date them circa 1940s, mid to late).  So as I finished my afternoon of scanning images, I wondered about the owner of this set of knitting needles.  I wondered what the owner, most likely a woman (as the institution where I work was once a "college for women") liked to knit, argyle socks maybe?  Argyles were a big thing during the 40s.  So were socks for soldiers...socks were definitely part of her repertoire (dig all the dpns!).   

Then I wondered about how and why this woman's treasured belonging ended up in the College Archives...with me...thinking it was a rolled up banner.  In all likelihood, this woman's child, children, spouse or some relation, cleaned out her attic after she died and found her knitting needles.  No one likes to throw things away (they say they do; but, really, they don't, trust me I know these things--my professional existence is a testament to this fact) so they start grouping things together and anything having no value to the surviving family, or anything having to do with "college days" and those miscellaneous things like knitting needles get packed and sent to a college archivist...usually in an unmarked envelope with no note, because no one wants to deal with the return of such items.  It's sort of a sad ending, really.  These needles are longing to serve a utilitarian purpose...someone somewhere needs a pair of socks....

So then I started thinking about my own collections of needles...a ridiculous example of accumulation and materialism at its worst...(sometimes I forget what I have...I'll admit it, I can't be the only one with 5 sets of US 8 dpn's....right?!).  I would like to think that my knitting goods would find a good home when my use of them ends.  Ideally, it would be nice to pass them on to a child...but you never can tell...Little Sir, he doesn't strike me as much of the knitting sort; but, he is only 7 months old, so this could change, I guess.

Sometimes I don't really treasure my crafting stuff...none of it...knitting needles, sewing stuff, the sewing machine even, it's all easy to take for granted because its simply there.  Also, since I rarely keep anything that I make, there is no tangible reminder of end products lying around.   I would like to make an effort to treasure the tools of my craft so that whoever "cleans up after me" knows that the crafting stuff is important (or at least that is was important to me...treasures, if you will), that the goods should be passed on and continue to be useful, to continue to bring happiness (and probably some frustration) to another generation of knitters or quilters or what have you.  And if my my stuff does get sent to an archives or museum, it better have my name and my project book with it (context is important, after all)...no nameless knitter stuff for me...because my stuff has history people. It may be insignificant to some, but it is my own little history, a "documentation" of my life as a knitter, quilter, crafter, whatever.

All that from a moment of procrastination...

But, just so you know that I truly do treausre my knitting needles...look how I am using them...

Hederas will be done by week's end, because those tools are well-used; and of course, they are also well treasured.