It’s pretty out here
January 20, 2012
Hi there! Haven’t stepped into this space in a little while so I wanted to pop in and show you the gorgeous sunrise I watched in Phoenix, AZ this morning.
I’m out here at TNNA for Fairmount Fibers, Ltd. and am excited to be in the Southwest for the first time ever. I definitely want to come back, with dear Kasy, our mountain bikes, and a plan to camp out in the mountains. It’s really gorgeous.
Phoenix itself, is a weird little place. I’m totally an East Coaster, so all this brown and small shrubs? It’s weird.
“What we call the beginning is often the end…
December 31, 2011
…And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
(T.S. Eliot)
And here we are, at the end of another year with the promise of a new clean future tomorrow. I’m not interested in looking back on this year, as it was one of the same old same old years. Instead, I am looking towards 2012 and thinking of the empty unknown, excitement, adventure, and clarity that it holds.
This is the year we will be putting our house on the market. This is the year we will be leaving to go on an epic adventure of the unknown on our bicycles (plans still unmade). This is the year I turn 30 and will change it all in my life in order to catch happiness and solace in myself and my surroundings.
I hope you all have a lovely end to your 2011 and a promising beginning to your 2012.
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2011
In my family tradition, and Kasy’s, Christmas Eve is where it’s at. This is the real Christmas – lots of food, hanging out, talking, watching movies, opening presents, and laughing.
So, Happy Christmas (eve)!
I made a batch of these delicious cookies that were going around my flickr-friends and twitter-friends and have plans to bake some more later today, after my Christmas present to myself (2 hrs at the tattoo shop getting more color in some tattoos in progress). They are easy as can be, all from ingredients I had in the kitchen, and taste like a dream.
Hope you are having a peaceful and cozy day with those you love.
getting in the spirit
December 17, 2011
I’m not a big Christmas music person. I don’t wear red and green or holiday sweatshirts. I don’t fill the house with garlands of pine or popcorn or lights.
But I do make Christmas trees from recycling, and put presents under them.
I started making a temporary DIY “tree” three years ago to help celebrate the holidays. Kasy and I don’t really buy into the whole cut tree thing and we don’t have a backyard that has room to plant any potted trees, but we still wanted to get the house all festive. This year’s tree was made from a Long Trail beer box and has yarn garlands around it. We’ve started to put our presents (wrapped in recycling) under the tree as well and I’m making a mental list of all the cookies I want to bake this week.
Stockings have been hung and the house is tidy and warm. And the radio even said we might get flurries in the morning!!
Holiday preparations
December 13, 2011
The cold has finally arrived in Philadelphia! It’s been a really mild late autumn, but now it feels like December. For this cold weather fan, this is greatly welcome.
I’m still so behind in photos to Flickr and posts here, but after the busy work months of October and November the holiday preparations immediately began. I also like the brief internet hiatus I was on, so I’m easing my way back in.
For the time being, Kasy and I are preparing the house for a lazy, food filled, warm and cozy holiday. Presents are being wrapped. Some knits that I worked on during shifts at Rosie’s Yarn Cellar this summer were slated as gifts and are being soaked and blocked. Food has been purchased and wool blankets are snuggled under at night.
I still have the annual tree to make and some baking to get done. Not to mention, a few gifts that require some time in front of my sewing machine. All in all, this winter is going to be excellent.
busybusybusybusy
October 7, 2011
I knew that October would be a craaaazy busy month with work, and it is indeed. I’m working double the hours I normally do, and then some. Luckily, the project is almost finished. And Rhinebeck is next week. So, here’s a drive by posting to say: Hi, friends! I’ll be back in a little bit with some knitting stuff, some crochet stuff (and a pattern!), some house renovation stuff, and Rhinebeck photos.
Apple picking by bicycle
September 25, 2011
Thank you for all the lovely comments on my crocheted blanket! I tried responding but kept having issues where my reply would reply on my blog and not to your emails. Oy, sometimes technology fails me. So, if you didn’t get an email reply I apologize!
I’m running around this morning, gathering up odds and ends to visit my parents for a couple of days in NY. Here are some lovely photos from a recent trip I took with a friend to go apple picking. We took the train, with our bikes, and rode from the station to the farm. Sadly, it seemed as though the rest of the city had picked the apples before us, but we made the best of it. Next picking trip, we’re going to grab a couple more of our friends and ride out to a different farm. Until then, these apples will have to do…
Are you doing any picking this fall?
First wool of the season
September 16, 2011
Last night, we heard on the radio that it would be a low of 48F. I had the back door open, and the house got wonderfully chilly. Wearing sandals on our back porch, last night at 9pm, made me so cold I actually shivered.
And so, a wool blanket was put on the bed. I realize that I’ve mentioned the making of this blanket in the past, and then never showed you how gorgeous the final product turned out!
I knew I wanted something scrappy, but lovely. This blanket started out using worsted weight odds and ends from my stash, and some amazingly donated by friends, following the general guidance in Nova‘s Ruby Hexagon Blanket. And so I crocheted and crocheted. And then put all the hexes aside for months at a time, picking it up every now and again.
I edged all the hexes with Cascade 220 in a light stone gray color to unify them all. All the hexes were completed before single crocheting them together. My only rule was, no two color hexes would be joined together in a row. I wanted to make sure that it was scrappy enough without any big color blocks.
Once I got the bug in my brain to finish this guy, it went pretty quickly…as crochet does.
I auditioned a few edge colors, but ultimately decided on stashed Cascade 220 in Mallard (a heathery teal) that’s been in the stash since early 2008. It had been used for an attempted Wicked Sweater which I didn’t like as well as a vest that I abandoned halfway into it. So frogged and projectless, it was great to use it and free the stash from it.
And then it was done! And on the bed! And it looked great! And then summer came quickly, and it went into the linen closet for the next few months…
It’s a great weight, and a great size. I made 80 hexes in total and joined them at 8 across and 10 down.
The ravelry project page is here.
It’s cool again today and through the weekend, but I know that fall isn’t here yet. The weather is expected to get back up to the 80s next week. But I am already thinking of fall activities and have apple picking scheduled for next week.
Have a great weekend, friends!
P.S. I owe some of you commenters emails back. Getting to those this weekend.
P.P.S. The bike trailer blog post is in progress and coming soon. We haven’t forgotten!
Looking up on a Friday
September 9, 2011
Thought it was time for another Looking Up post.
Things that make me happy right now:
Hope you are looking to the positives, on this Friday.
(And on a sad note. The hurricane kitty has passed away in the loving hands of his foster. He was doing well for the first few days and then took a nosedive. I’m thankful for the amazing help my friends provided as I was trying to save him from a life on the streets of South Philly and am sad that he was unable to make it to a long cat life. So it is, sadly, the circle of life.)
twenty-nine
August 21, 2011
-August 21, 1842 The city of Hobart, Tasmania, is founded
-August 21, 1878 The American Bar Association is founded
-August 21, 1942 World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad began
-August 21, 1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th state of the United States
-August 21, 1968 James Anderson, Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine
-August 21, 1982 Andrea was born
Today I turn 29. I’m glad that the twenties are almost over. They’ve been up and down. They’ve been happy and sad. They’ve been easy and hard. I’m glad they happened the way they happened, and I’m glad that they are almost totally behind me. Onward and upward, friends!
