novamade

the tomten session

So you know that kid in The Opinionated Knitter.  The rockstar modeling the tomten?  Yeah, that one.  My original intent was not to replicate the rockstar; but, who am I to argue with laundry day and my kid's rockstar tendencies?

So IT is done.  And it is, in a word, HUGE.  It's really noticeable when all zippered up (zipper chosen by his hipness, himself).  I intended to make it big enough for wear next year, but it might be part of the fall and early winter wardrobe for the next two years.  Maybe.  Some would say it's dowdy...

As excited as Little Sir is about the zipper, I think even he recognizes that rockstars can not rock the casbah in dowdy duds.  The fact that I zipped it up in the first place was an afront to his coolness.

It's not so bad unzippered though, right?

I thought I could get away with leaving off the pockets.

This may not be the case.  And you know those rockers, they can by so demanding; and, they can also be challenging to photograph.  They never really listen, and they often insist on dancing (which may take the form of jumping).

And then they realize that it's hard to rock a jacket-y sweater when it's all spring-like.

Mostly I am including this shot so you can see that the "right side" has been made the inside; and the "wrong side" is now the right.  You know me, I am so edgy.

And so is Little Sir, when I said, "give me GQ" (like he would even know what that means...), it was clear that he was so over this photo shoot.  Because like a true rockstar, he stormed off the set.

Deets in the gallery.

hi oregon, bye oregon

I went on a spontaneous (for me) trip to Portland, Oregon over the past weekend.  A very good friend was celebrating her 30th birthday (a huge deal, right?) and her husband was throwing her a surprise do, so we went.  Sure, we just got back from Hawaii; but, you know, needs must.

In addition to a great birthday celebration, we did and saw a great deal during our, way too brief, time in Oregon. 

There are some really great gardens in Portland. 

We only made it to the International Rose Test Garden and the Japanese Garden, but I hear the Chinese Classical is pretty great too, perhaps next time?  We went to Powell's Books, of course; and, we took a side trip to Cannon Beach, which was awesome. 

But I am going to concentrate my discussion here on my visit to crafty places, specifically a yarn shop. 

There are some pretty great yarn shops in Portland.  But I wanted to devote my short amount of craft touring time to checking out one shop in particular, Knit/Purl.  I have ordered some great stuff from the store on the internet and had really great customer service (beautiful packaging, quick delivery, personal correspondence, the whole bit); I wondered if the service would be the same if I shopped there in person; or, if I would get that vibe.

Vibe?  Only good ones here, my friends. 

The people at Knit/Purl are just as great in person (greater, actually), they are helpful without being pushy, and they had fun with my kid and even invited him to have fun (which he did, loads--he is koo koo for Koigu too!). 

Any store that welcomes children (and cameras, I asked) gets a star (a super star, actually--I am authorized to give those out...just like all people with astronomy derived names) from me (but aren't they just cultivating customers for tomorrow?).  I loved the openness of the store, they had great stock, and they sell Shibui Knits yarn (which is my  new love--that brownish goodness so many of you commented on, Shibui Sock), and there is a wall of Koigu. 

A. Wall. Of. Koigu.

I bought an embarrassing amount of yarn, a great deal under the influence of other knit bloggers using some really nice stuff (like Sea Wool...).

At Cannon Beach, I found a great quilt shop. 

It was very well stocked with all sorts of fabric goodness.

I bought a few things, lots of buttons (which I can not find at the moment); but, mostly I just browsed, so did Little Sir (on hiatus from his music making, obviously).

When I returned home there was a mail waiting for me in my mailbox from Oregon.  Sandy from Knit/Purl wrote a note telling me how great it was to meet me and my family.  And the only way I can think of to show my appreciation for her kindness and customer care is to buy more and buy often.  I am not in the habit of telling people where to spend their money, but Knit/Purl wouldn't be a bad place to toss some coin (especially for some Shibui goodness).  Just sayin'.

As much fun as we had in Oregon, I am sad about missing a chance to meet up with Christy.  But she was on her own vacation, and probably didn't miss me at all!

And there has been knitting.  Maybe I will actually post some of it soon...

island in the sun

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain *

I am not a beach person. 

I am not crazy about sand finding its way into places it should not be. 

I am not a fan of tanning (being of natural beige-ness), and I am most definitely not a fan of the sun burning one's epidermis. 

Despite my curmudgeonly views of beach-y places, I had a fabulous time in Hawaii. I even enjoyed the beaches.  How could I not?

Special K attended a conference in Waikiki for a few days (clearly the archivists need to get on board this ship of having conferences in exotic locations) so it was something work related that provided the impetus for this island jaunt, but no complaints here. 

The beaches were beautiful, the ocean blue, the weather perfect; and the mojitos, well, they were unparalleled. 

There were beautiful things to see,

wonderful things to do,

and many things to spend money on

--some things completely unnecessary;

but most were totally justifiable.

A high point for this knitter was meeting up with the Aloha Knitters at their weekly meet up.

(photo taken by Special K)

Thank you for the invitation Barb,

and thanks to the other Aloha Knitters for letting me crash in on the group--they are a lively bunch.

I conveniently sat next to Opal (knitting socks which turned out just perfectly) without realizing that she was the author of one of the many blogs that I lurk on (I am obviously a lurker no more).

It was a very successful trip.  And I haven't even talked about the knitting projects I took with me (and worked on).  Well, not yet anyway.

*weezer

i just want to celebrate

May has been a  month of celebration for me.  Special K says I must think of it as "the month of me."  It's a celebratory month, sure, but there have been a lot of things to celebrate this month not just my birthday (but yes, that was really great!). 

Every time I skein my newly plied yarn, I feel like I am celebrating a little bit of success (have I mentioned how much I love "making yarn" with a drop spindle?  It's magic, people). 

So, celebrating new skills, that has been big this month.
 
I got a chance to celebrate being a mother (as most mothers did this month).

That was pretty cool (but maybe not as cool as standing all by yourself).

And really, I got a chance to celebrate childhood. Not just my own, which is (in some small way) part of a birthday celebration, but also Little Sir's. 

He has a lot of fun, and I have fun watching him do the kid thing.

And it's always fun celebrating not being just a mom, but also a wife.

So, celebrating family, if you will.

As May comes to a close, I find there is one more thing to celebrate.  It's the whole wife thing again.  Special K and I have a wedding anniversary coming up this weekend.  That's a reason to celebrate, right?  Unfortunately, Special K isn't going to be around this weekend, so that means I have to celebrate alone...or do I?  How about I celebrate with you?  Contests are very celebratory, so let's do that. 

Here's how it goes, leave your guess as to which wedding anniversary Special K and I are celebrating (or how many years we will have been married) in the comments of this post.  You have till Sunday (the 27th) 0600/ 6:00 a.m. EST to enter.  I will draw a name from those who answer correctly.  And just to be sporting, if you received an invitation to my wedding, then you can't play...that just wouldn't be fair, now would it.  Winner gets a gift package o' fun (you know, yarn and other stuff).

So, please excuse me while I go and celebrate...another day of living...

good, better, best

I intended to put this post up last month--on the 30th to be exact, but I decided to observe blog silence; but, then I forgot, better late than never I suppose.   

I would like to say that I am a student of photography, but really I just point and shoot and try to figure things out as I am going along.  There are so many great (exceptional, really) photographers in our "little" knitting community, they are inspirational (especially the professional ones).  I wonder if they read manuals to understand their cameras...I should try this manual reading thing, it seems like a plausible road to success.  In any case, I am trying to figure out how to take non-blurry close-up shots working with available light. I think it might be more of a lens issue (ISO, what's that?), with some of the pictures I have taken, but whatever.   In an effort to take some close-up shots while also highlighting "the good, better, best" nature of my April, I am giving you three photos.

The good:

buttons, green buttons for some green goodness... It took me a while to find the right buttons for my little project. Happiness is finding appropriate buttons, my friends.

Striving for better:

truly better than some past iterations of this scarf; better than my last try, at least.

The best way to end any month?  Well, food.  I make things for people.  Besides the knitting there is food, I cook for people, sometimes for no reason at all, most times because they can't cook for themselves, for whatever reason.  And you know, people have to eat.  So last weekend I made dinner for some friends who had a baby.  They asked me to make this cake for them. I am known in my circle for this, the best of chocolate cakes. It's flourless, it's sinful, it's easy, well, sort of.

I want to take better food shots.  I wish I could convey through a photograph how good this cake is. It's called la bete noir, French for "the black beast."  In French or English, this cake is just good, no the BEST.  I guess you will just have to make it for yourself if you don't want to take my word for it.

wind-o-rama

A friend of mine from Maine visited over the weekend and we bought a lot of yarn.  I figured this was the fair thing to do since I badgered her into learning to knit.  We both acquired an unnecessary amount of yarn, it was fun.  Since my friend doesn't have a swift or ball winder, I wound her yarn into little cakes for her--it was very gratifying (as you can imagine).  There was some pink Lorna's Laces, which is gorgeous (and that is saying a great deal coming from me, I think--that is for my friend's first pair of socks).  Some Sheep Shop Yarn deliciousness (mine) and some Artyarns Supermerino (hers).  I think there are at least two Chevies in this picture, you just can't see it yet.

Usually, when I put a shot like this up, I get a few questions about whether I use a light box.  There is a great deal of shadow in this shot, but it turns out the shadowy shot is the most true to color this time, so that's why I used it.  In any case, no light box for me.  I am kind of lo-tech.  So that is what you see.  Here is what I see:

That's right.  A folded piece of cardboard set up next to my front door--and a curious kid.  Very lo-tech.  I know, the magic is gone, isn't it?

and i'm back

Thank you all for your time-away well wishes, they were much appreciated and all that well-wishing must have worked because the family de la archivist had a fabulous time.  It was really sunny and warm, and though I don't love the whole overly hot thing, I had a big appreciation for the weather on the left coast after our flight home was delayed due to ice on the New York runways and trying to dig out our car from the snow and ice (nothing says "welcome back to New England" like defrosting your car in 7 degree weather!).  And although I was rather ambitious in the (5...yeah, I know) knitting projects I took with me, it should take no genius on anyone's part to figure out that I didn't spend my whole time away knitting.  While I didn't get a ton of knitting done, I did do some other fun things, like...

I learned that Little Sir is afraid of grass (you know, the kind that is grown in lawns and parks...you know, the legal kind with no medicinal purposes whatsoever).  I tried Pat.  We thought he would have so much fun...no...no.  He won't even touch the stuff.  And it's pretty sad that his parents kept trying to get him to experience the fun that is crawling and rolling around in the grass purely because of his averse reaction to it, seriously people it was funny if not a bit cruel...(and the winners for parents of the year are....).

Although he was not a lover of flora and greenery in general, he was quite a fan of the animals that ate them... like giraffes.  We loved the San Diego Zoo (thanks Parikha for the snack insight, very handy).  And really, who doesn't love a giraffe or two?  I think giraffes might be my new favorite animal.

I was able to make some yarn acquisitions from here and here, both are fantastic places and they are literally down the street from each other.  I am very happy about my purchases.

No really, look how happy I am, even Little Sir got excited about the yarny bits of our trip.

While in San Diego I was able to meet up with a knit blogger.  And while I was excited to meet Theresa who blogs at Knitting Underway, clearly our socks were also ecstatic about the meet-up.

It was fun to meet someone from the knit blogging community.  She was even nicer than I imagined her to be based on her blog.  And I got to see her bright and sparkly ring up close and personal, and she got to see Little Sir up close and personal...who’s to say who got the better deal?!

While in San Diego , I was also able to meet up with my best friend from college.  She happened to be at a house that was a 15 minute bike ride from the Zoo.  The reason we were able to meet was because she did a weekly check of my blog and saw that I was coming to southern CA (yet another reason to love the whole blog thing).  While you might think this wasn't so serendipitous, let me correct you.  She is something of a wandering spirit (who does not knit, the travesty!).  I thought she was in Thailand or Arizona (I know, big difference, just work with me) ...not so much...

On Part 2 (sort of) of our trip we visited Fallbrook, apparently Tori Spelling and her baby's daddy (I have no idea what his name is--ah, Dean...that's right...) just opened a B&B there--in case you are interested. We were there because we have family there and look at the view they get to see every sunset and sunrise.

I get to see street and my neighbor's pick up...

There was a park in Bakersfield , CA (part 3 of our California adventure) that has bark on the playground instead of grass.  Little Sir likes bark, it’s much better than grass.  Apparently bark is the new cool, who knew?

As much as he loved the bark, Little Sir loved the swings and slides most.  I had some great swing shots, but I thought this picture from the slide captures the joy of childhood (well, at least my kid's childhood) perfectly.

And as much as I enjoyed my much needed time away, I think Little Sir enjoyed it more, he was kind of sad for it all to end.

I will have some more evidence of knitting done on the trip to post in the coming days, but there will be a lot of posting fun this week.  There's a big celebration happening at the end of the week and I hope all of you take part in it.  There will be crazy posts and some fun give away action going on (no contests here, life is a big enough contest as far as I am concerned).  And hey, spring, it's just around the corner!

snap a dozen days, january edition

I figure a good time to reflect on January and its significance to me is the very end of the month. For some people, January is all about renewal, a fresh start and all that.  For me January is all about love, my love for my husband, Special K.

There are so many reasons that I love this guy, but to keep this list bearable I will boil it down, David Letterman style and just give you ten...

10. Special K is goofy. Most people who think they know him really well don't really know about his goofiness because he is usually pretty serious. A good deal of our time together has me rolling my eyes while he yucks it up...

9. He is supportive. When I had a job that burned me out and came home in a crummy mood for about a month he listened to me every single night as I vented about how horrible my life was. When I came home one day and said, "I want to be an archivist." He asked, "how do we make that happen?" And he was totally serious, he didn't even ask me what an archivist was.

8. He puts my needs first whenever possible (and practical).  After figuring out how to make being an archivist happen, you know--developing a plan, Special K changed his career/academic plans to accomodate mine .

7. He is interested in everything I have to say. Now that Special K knows what an archivist is, he listens to me talk about my profession at great length...with interest. I, on the other hand, find his work completely dull (it is over my head really) and I make no effort to fain interest in the technical math-y stuff. I consider this my gift of honesty to him...

6. He is always thinking about ways to make me smile. When we were in Maryland so he could attend some seminar on something technical that I don't understand, he heard about the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival on the radio and thought, "hey, my wife likes to knit, I bet she would like to go to that." And he took me there, it was a nice surprise.

5. He is generator of great ideas. After taking me to MDSW and listening to me talk about knitting, wool, Rowan and Koigu ad nauseum all the way back to Connecticut, he suggested that I start a blog (actually, now that I think of it, this means he doesn't have to listen to me talk about knitting as much...huh). Clearly, this would have never occured to me. It still astounds me that anyone is interested in anything I have to say...

4. He is the yin to my yang, the moon to my sun, and all that.

3. He makes me feel beautiful.

2. He is an awesome dad. He likes being a husband and all, but being a dad? That is his thing. He would like to become an "expert dad" and thinks that requires having four more kids. I have suggested that he take this issue up with his next wife...

1. Special K is truly special, and he loves me just the way I am...and if I change, he will still love me.

Good grief, with all this talk of love, WHAT will I talk about next month?