Purlene’s Corner

(ames)

Spring has sprung here in Charleston, and it is – well, it’s a little cold at times, and a little rainy at times, and pretty at times, so I suppose it’s a fairly typical spring. Have some pictures!

I took all of those pictures in my grandparents’ backyard. It was a glorious day, blue blue sky and cool breezes, and everything seemed to bloom at once. So now that it’s getting warmer, it’s obviously the perfect time to knit a wool sweater, right?

Simple Green Sweater, knit by me with yarn from aya, and it fits my mom perfectly. Yay! I knew it would fit someone, and I’m thrilled that it’s her.

I also made a new friend for my kitty:

A buddy for Buddy! You may recognize this as leftover sock yarn from the Bright socks! I finished a few weeks ago. This little guy is about three inches tall, a little bit askew, and completely adorable. Buddy isn’t totally on board yet, but a little catnip (once I get some) should get him excited.

That’s what’s happening here! As a reminder, posts in green featuring cats (like this one) are from the Amy in Charleston (formerly Chicago, call me ames if you like), and posts in black featuring bunnies are from aya in Boston. xoxo!

(ames)

So it’s been a bit of a few weeks here in amesville.  In the past month, I have:

• packed up an apartment and moved states (again)
• been wined and dined throughout Chicagoland as my friends and I said goodbye
• became the new BFF of a little poodle named Buffy
• watched my cat slowly become King of the LabUpstairs
• remained unemployed, sigh (although that’s not new)
• finished a pair of socks
• met my mother’s crazy friends
• sewed one seam out of many in my sweater
• played with cute babies
• contemplated starting a completely insane shawl that makes my fingers itch from wanting to knit it
• hooked up with two old friends, one from law school, one from high school
• watched Julie & Julia with my parents and got completely inspired to cook.

It’s been kind of insane!  So, to expand.  For various and sundry reasons that include, but are not limited to, my lack of employment, my grandfather’s increasing age, and my family missing me a lot, I have returned home.  Home, for the record, is Charleston, SC.  I haven’t lived here in roughly 18 years, and it’s like living in a completely foreign city.  Well, kind of – I still know where things are, but so much has changed!  My father came up to get me, which was very nice of him.  The poor man pretty much drove for four days – two up, two down.

The drive was peaceful, although marred in the middle by the surprise death of my little grey cat, Sergei.  It was a surprise in that I wasn’t expecting it that night, but I also wasn’t expecting him to be one of those cats who lives to be fifteen.  He had a heart murmur, and was slowing down a lot in the past few months.  So that was sad, and I worried a bit about how Buddy would handle it, until I remembered that he was moving into a house with two miniature poodles.  Cue chaos, hahaha.  They’re settling down now, but oh my – Buddy hasn’t had this much excitement EVER.

The socks!  The knitty girls and I went to YarnCon last October, and I scored this sweet skein of Sophie’s Toes:

Candy Corn colorway, and it is most beautiful.   I know you’re thinking that the brightness is because I abused the flash on my camera, but you are wrong, because this is some seriously BRIGHT yarn.  And it makes cute socks!

Very cute, yes?  Yes!  Sadly, that’s the only completed knitting I have to share. I’m still avoiding the seams on the sweater just out of contrariness, and there’s a hand towel of Mom’s that I’m finishing (linen! very stiff, I’m mostly working on this because I want to see it become lovely and soft), and staring at a crazy lacy beaded wrap with absolute knitterly lust.  I want to make it.

Instead, Mom and I cooked.  Beef Burgandy (I am most tired of typing out the French name, you’ll have to live) a la Julia Child.  Witness:

It was good! It was a little heavy for my particular eating today, but I didn’t care and ate it anyway.  Yum.

(ames)

Here, have a sneak peek of a project-in-process!

A sweater! This is the back, and off screen are two sleeves, all done and blocked and waiting. I’ve got the front well on its way.
Basic Sweater Pattern
Dream in Color Classy, Happy Forest colorway
US9, and I have no idea who this will fit. I went for the size that would use up my yarn, haha.

Look how pretty this yarn is! I love it.

(ames)

It’s been a bit of a chilly winter here in Chicago. We’ve had days of single-digit temperatures, and snow, and frigid rain, and it’s still not as bad as it was my first and second winters here. That second one just about killed me. This year, I’m a little more hardened to the extreme chill, and ventured out for some picture taking fun.

There is a bunny in the snow! In someone’s front yard! Looking cute! (Smack in the middle of the picture, with a glowy eye. I had to stalk him veeeeery slowly.)

My standard Lakefront shot, this time with snow. It’s just strange to me, this juxtaposition of lake, beach, and snow. Snow on the beach – how strange.

Pretty snow and pretty red berries against a white white sky. The sad thing about snow is that when it’s actually snowing, you lose the blue blue sky. (Obviously.) But the nice thing is that when it’s done, it’s breathtaking.

It was so chilly right before Christmas, that this was all you could see of people – hats and scarves, heavy coats and cold noses.

One of the girls in my local knitty group had a baby recently, and we did some sneaking around and yarn shuffling and secret knitting, and made her a pretty pretty blanket.

Under construction! Everyone knit one or two stripes, then Jenny and I settled ourselves in her basement, listened to holiday tunes, and learned how to seam garter stitch. It was fun, but after four or five hours, we still were not done!

This is the closest I have to a picture of the finished work. The part of me that likes symmetry wants to add another strip vertically and horizontally, so the squares aren’t cut in half, but I think it’s pretty darn cute as-is.

I also knit mittens for Lola and the warmest hat I’ve ever made for me. I was pondering giving it away while I was making it, but it’s mine mine mine.

Frog Tree Alpaca, basic mitten pattern from Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, on loan to me from Amy M. Awesome book, I’m too lazy to find a link right now, but I love it. Lola’s hands are a bit larger than mine, so I sized them by trying them on over gloves. Perfect fit!

Star Crossed Slouchy Beret, Malabrigo Worsted, and completely yummy.  Please excuse the pink face – you can only do so much when your poor skin is pelted with ice on a regular basis.

I’ve been on a serious salt-diet for a few months now. I’m at the point now where I don’t really want it, except for some food that really needs it to bring out the taste. It’s amazing how much salt is in food! I’ve got a tub of what used to be my favorite chicken salad from the old deli, and it is so salty I can barely eat it. I miss ramen (so bad for you but so tasty), but can’t eat it for all the salt. :\ It’s probably better for me, it is better for me, but I’m having food mourning.

(ames)

I’ve got copious amounts of free time right now, as I was laid off from my job a couple of months ago.  (If you know of any legal jobs or benefits/HR-related jobs in Chicago, let me know, resume available upon request.) You’d think this would translate into a massive knitting fest, but it has not.  I blame Plants v Zombies, lots of reading, and the startling realization that I am a situational knitter. When I was working, I spent two hours of every day on public transportation, which is prime knitting time. It would be me, an audiobook or DVD commentary, and the current knitting project. I would do it all on the train – a sweater, delicate lace, hearty socks, a blanket. When I came home, I would sometimes knit, but would be just as likely to read, play on the computer (FFXI ftw), chat on the phone, or do anything else. But those two hours a day of dedicated knitting time got me through many a project.

But now I have all the time in the world to knit, and little inclination. I have projects that have actual deadlines, projects that have been hanging around for far too long, a sweater that is one re-knit front and a buttonband away from being finished, and umpteen million other ones that I want to do (gloves for a friend, socks for me, another sweater for me) – and yet I don’t do them.

What I do instead is read!
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – a great book set in a small village in China back in the 19th century, a place where women’s feet were bound. It’s a gorgeous story of the deep friendship and love between two “old sames” – Snow Flower and Lily, bound together at age 7 in a ceremony designed to form an emotional bond between them that would last a lifetime. The girls’ friendship is immediate and powerful – they send each other small gifts andnotes, but save the most important messages and life events to write on their shared paper fan, which is sent back and forth.

Hyperion – Written in the style of Canterbury Tales, this is the story of seven pilgrims who journey to a world named Hyperion to answer the mysteries of their lives. It’s the first in a series, and I’m eagerly waiting for the next one to be returned to the library so I can get my greedy little hands on it. The seven stories are each fascinating in their own way – the father, the priest, the warrior, and others, each with an unresolved question that they hope to have answered. Loved this book, and sent it to my older brother almost immediately after finishing it.

I’ve been watching tv! Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Fringe, a re-watch and finishing of Pushing Daisies (which ended far too soon, but beautifully), and a rewatch of the entire 10-season run of Friends. It may be cheesy, but Friends is my desert island show. I love it, I love that I can see my friends and myself in it (Erin = Ross, Meg = Monica, and apparently I am Ms. Chanandler Bong), and it still makes me laugh and cry. I’ve been watching Horatio Hornblower, and have plans to go see the new George Clooney movie next week.

I’ve been taking long walks along the lakefront, although not nearly as many as I should. My tendencies towards sloth and laziness are strong and hard to fight, but I will prevail. I’ve been job hunting and interviewing, although not much has come of it. And yeah, I’ve been knitting a little, but finishing almost nothing.  I’m heading out to the burbs in a few hours – there’s a day trip to The Fold on the schedule tomorrow, and I’m very excited about it!  And there will be knitting. I’ve got a nice hefty commute out there and back today and tomorrow, and projects need to be done.

In conclusion, here are some things that were finished recently. Phew.

Hat and mittens for Baby D! I have to make the mittens a little longer, and he was completely befuddled by them, haha.

Frilly wristwarmers, from leftover Manos. They’re kind of silly, but cute, and I knocked them out in an evening.

Aya has been visiting me this weekend, and today she sat me down and made me update Ravelry with all my yarn stash. Such an undertaking! She took over fifty pictures of all different types of yarn, and I pretty much never need to buy sock yarn again. Which I already knew.

She also gave me the prettiest pair of socks!

Aren’t they LOVELY? She dyed the yarn with Kool-Aid, and got this gorgeous semi-solid pink shade that is perfect. Pattern: Waving LAce Socks from the 25 Favorite Socks Book (Interweave Press).

And in more sock news, I finally finished the Bayerische!

Aren’t they nice? I’m very proud, and very sick of twisted stitch cable patterns. Next sock – plain old stockinette. Or at least something simple.

(ames)

It’s been a fairly crazy time lately.  I feel like I’m rushing around like a fool, going here going there, squeezing things in and inevitably losing time and losing little bits of quiet.  Two fairly major life events happened in the same week, neither of which I think I’ve processed yet.

First, my best friend moved to the West Coast. She packed her entire life in her car, threw out or donated what wouldn’t fit, and took off to move in with her brother and his family in Oregon. I am incredibly proud of her, totally supportive of this move, and I miss her tons.

Second- I moved apartments.  I didn’t go far, just about a mile or so up the street, in the same neighborhood.  I thought about branching out from the northside, maybe going west, maybe going a little further south, but I love Andersonville.

Andersonville at night

It’s got just enough quirk to not be boring, but isn’t so quirky that I feel out of place.

Best cheap sushi in the city. Plus, if you dine in, you get free green tea, miso, and cucumber salad before you even order!

Third, and this isn’t one of the Big Huge Things, but it could save my sanity, is that I signed up as a volunteer with Chicago Volunteer Legal Services , hoping to work with mostly probate and adoption cases. I got my first prospective case last week, and am just waiting on the client to call me to schedule a time to meet. I am just a tiny bit terrified (because what do I know about any of this?) and a lot excited (because I have a freaking law degree, dammit), and I hope this works out and I enjoy it. For all my whining, I lead a pretty self-indulgent life in my off-hours, and it’s past time I gave back.

In trivial news, look at who signed the Coffee Mug of Awesome!

AMANDA TAPPING, PEOPLE. I loooooooove her.

Anyway, I’m not done unpacking and moving in yet. My new place is exponentially smaller than the old place, by choice, but I have a lot of stuff to squeeze in. I’ve decided that Friday night of a three-day weekend is not the time to start things like this, and I left for here:

George’s Ice Cream & Sweets, the new dessert place that replaced the old dessert place

And I am doing this:

Autumn is almost here, if you go by the calendar, and totally here if you go by the actual weather. It’s going to be a good season, I can feel it.

(ames)

So, it’s been a while.  My camera died, which is SAD, and also kind of a relief.  I bought it six years ago for a trip to Australia.  Digital cameras were very new then, and I wasn’t sure how they worked or how you got the pictures off the computer and onto paper.  So, I took both a digital and a 35mm camera!  Lots of camera switching, let me tell you.  Anyway, that’s not the point.  The point is that I had a camera, and then I didn’t have one anymore, and they’d become a lot more advanced and awesome than my original one was. It took a while to replace it, is what I’m saying.

Also, I have not been much with the knitting. It is a sad but true fact that my knitting mojo gets depleted in the summer, even a cool and comfortable summer like Chicago has had this year. Instead of knitting, I have been running around and Doing Things. aya’s been making her first sweater, and I’ve – not. Here is what I’ve done this summer instead!

* Charleston for a WEEK! It was the most time I’ve been back home since I left in the middle of my college years, and it was great. Incredibly unseasonably hot (aya, I promise it’s nice in February, should we go back), but I loved seeing my family again and being able to spend more than just an hour here and an hour there.
* Had a birthday!
* Saw Star Trek FIVE TIMES. It was worth it every time.
* Fell in love with Sanctuary on the SyFy channel.
* Hung out with my Mom and visited a cute-as-heck yarn shop in Oak Creek, WI.
* Saw part of the Osh Kosh, WI Airshow that my Dad volunteers at every year. He and I wandered all around the fairgrounds looking at the 28947524508756 planes. SO MANY. Fortunately, Daddy knows all about them and was happy to share and teach.
* attended the first of what was to become many going-away parties for friends who are leaving Chicago. Sadness.
* Decided to change apartments. Cue chaos.
* Saw Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy, and thoroughly enjoyed them both – although FOB a little more.
* Realized how lucky I am to have so many good friends both here and far from here. <3

But I did knit. Witness:

Eesti Trail Hiking Socks from Favorite Socks, Interweave Press
Mission Falls 1824 Superwash Wool in Stone and Spruce

EDIT:  Because I am a ninny, and was updating Ravelry at the same time as the blog, I neglected to say here that the sock are for my Dad, who saw the Bayerische socks on the blog and requested hiking socks.  The original pattern has a standard heel flap, a spiral toe, and a snowflake design around the calf.  I ditched all of that.  Afterthought heel (which I hate actually doing, although I love the look), wedge toe, no snowflake.

The second Bayerische sock is in the commuter bag for CTA knitting, and is going well. I have also finally cast on for the Summer’s End cardi, which – well, I wish the designer had a better link than just to Ravelry. Not everyone is ON ravelry! Sigh. Anyway, it’s cute – lacey bottom with stockinette top, and the sleeves are stockinette with a lace panel going down the outside. I’d show you what the lace looks like, except this is all I have done so far:

Sergei is most unimpressed. :D

See? I have not dropped off the face of the earth! Also, it’s been nice here on weekdays, and I’ve been wandering Chicago on my lunch breaks. If you want a picture of a Chi-town landmark, let me know! If I can get to it and back in an hour, I will happily provide. Possibly with sock (although that’s really the Yarn Harlot’s thing, and I hate feeling like a copycat.)

(ames)

I have obtained a new camera. I know you’re all thrilled.

(ames)

OK, so here’s the deal. My camera died right after my trip to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. It won’t turn on, and it isn’t the battery, it’s just a seven-year-old digital camera and it’s gone to be with Elvis. I’ll get another one eventually, but in the meantime, I have no pictures.

Well, until last night, that is. Mom reminded me that her digital movie camera (that can’t be what they’re called) takes stills! And so I did that. The pictures are kind of grainy, which you should attribute to the lighting inside my apartment and not the camera itself, but look. I have things to show you.

Bayerische Sock The first one! Lorna’s Laces, I think the colorway is Sunshine (I will check when I get home), US1 needle and ta-da. I’ll probably cast on for the second one next week when I head home to Charleston for vacation. I have many hours of travelling that day, from the el to the plane to the other plane, which is lots of time to knit complicated twisted stitches and whatnot.

I’m gonna say that this sock is a lot easier than it seems. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and there’s an increase row right after the cuff ribbing that is BIZARRE, but if you want the pattern to flow out of the ribbing nicely, you’ll do it the way Eunny said to. Also, this is the second year in a row that I’ve knit on a yellow twisted stitch sock at Bitcherie Weekend in Ann Arbor. Either it’s a tradition or a coincidence. We will see what happens next year.

Here’s a closeup of the pattern:

Onward. This is a sock that is no more:

It’s lovely, and it’s going to be done, but I need to go down a needle size. But look at that – a toe-up sock. Honestly, why people do these and claim that they’re so much easier is beyond me. A figure-8 caston is just about the most fiddly annoying thing I have EVER had to do in my life, but I will not let it defeat me. Yarn: The Unique Sheep Sushi, in Garden Tomato, and it is gorgeous. Shimmery and beautiful. (dude. I need a new camera.)

There has been playing with the drop spindles!

There has been sock knitting and birthday yarn!

Lorna’s Laces Tuscany, in a simple 2×2 rib, offset by one stitch every six rows

Dream in Color Classy, in Happy Forest. One of four skeins given to me by Aya for my birthday next week, YAY. I’m thinking they’re going to be a pretty lacy cardigan. Summer’s End and I apologize for the Ravelry link, but the designer linked to it on Ravelry from her webpage. It’s awfully shortsighted of her not to have at least a page on her own website for it, since she has a website, but whatever. I don’t run the world. More’s the pity.

And that has been your knitting update from ames! \o/