this life is lived in perfect symmetry
My uncle posted this picture to Facebook of my grandmother and Bob Hope at a USO show in the 1940’s. It has completely blown my mind – doesn’t Bob look young, and isn’t my grandmother gorgeous? I wish I’d known about this picture earlier. Uncle Joel says he didn’t know about it for a long time and when he asked my grandmother about it, she said it was “No big deal.”
I wish Cindy were still alive, there are so many questions I would like to ask her.
I totally knitted an Ishbel shawlette while nobody was looking.
(Least of all myself – this was a fast knit.)
I have turned into a chart knitter without noticing – if a pattern doesn’t have a chart, I won’t use it. The charts on Ishbel are great; easy to read and interpret. I will definitely be making this shawl again, probably in the bigger size.
I knit it in Malabrigo Sock in the Terracotta colorway, and this thing weighs nothing. I will have to show a pic of it modeled because wowza, this yarn feels so nice against your skin, soft and wonderful.
I knit this on an Addi Turbo lace needle in size US 6 that I picked up at Cottage Yarns in South San Fran a few weeks ago. These needles are great, and I really think that helped with how fast I knit this sucker up.
I also had an urge to crochet on my Babette squares, which comes and goes in fits and starts. But I’m almost done with the 49 4-round squares.
(Aren’t they purdy?)
Yesterday I cast on for an Aeolian shawl, also out of Malabrigo sock, plus beads. Pretty awesome!
And finally, I made sushi for the first time and it was great:
I am too chickenshit to deal with raw fish, so there was none of that, but I did use a variety of fillings, including avocado, cucumber, crab (fake), tuna, green onions, and tempura shrimp. Above you will see my practice sushi; I forgot to take pictures of the “real” sushi that I made for when my friends came over on Saturday to sample it.
Above all, my favorite was the spicy tuna roll, which was a mixture of canned tuna, mayonnaise, and sriracha sauce, plus green onion I think. I am not sure how my friends liked that one, but they did enjoy all of the different varieties and I was complemented specifically on the California roll, and also how “nice” they looked, which I thought was funny, but apparently some people don’t roll them very well.
Anyway, super easy to make, and now I’m going to have to keep tuna on hand for when I want a spicy tuna roll. WTF! I never eat tuna. UNTIL NOW, apparently!
…And I thought I was sick of sushi but I guess not because now I want a spicy tuna roll again. Go figure.
***
This weekend is my ten-year eleven-year high school reunion, which should be interesting. I am going to bring my camera to document the event. I am looking forward to it, but I’m going to be bummed if a couple people with whom I would specifically like to chat with don’t show up.
It’s Design-Your-Own month at Ravelry’s Sock Knitters Anonymous group, and for the first time in months (February) I’ve been compelled to knit along with the group. Actually, I would have in May for the Anne Hanson KAL but I have been hit in the face at work, thankyouverymuch so I’ve been super busy.
Anyway, so I cracked open my Japanese stitch dictionaries and chose a really elaborate cable motif for some socks. I needed to invert it and convert to in-the-round stylin’, so it’s pretty involved. I also didn’t take into account the fact that because it’s basically all cables (1×1 and 2×2), the sock really tightens in on itself. Therefore, I had to add a bunch of stitches to make it fit!
And I had to choose a yarn that I thought would work. I first used some awesome Araucania Ranco Multy that is having a hard time finding the right pattern. And it looked awesome in the turquoisey-brown colorway, but alas, it was an original swatch over 68 stitches that was just too small! I’d also ripped out this yarn a couple of times, so I started to go fresh, and finally chose Dream in Color Smooshy in Flamingo Pie.
Yes, please, can I have some more?
Okay!
Yeah, it’s turning out pretty nicely. I’ve got some interesting design elements up my sleeve for the heel and toe, too. I hope I can figure everything out and keep track of what I’m doing because I hope to release the pattern eventually (if anyone wants to test knit it, that would be awesome) in three sizes. That’s the goal, anyway.
Here’s what else I’m working on:
Those are another pair of Hearts Afire socks (for Malvina, who expressed some love for the pattern) out of Shibui Sock, and a plain jane pair of stockinette socks out of some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock I had lying around. That yarn (in the Life’s a Beach) colorway, I had always intended to be a plain sock, but I’m not really motivated these days to knit a plain sock, even though they are nice to wear. But after all the last few socks that I’ve made (pretty much all the ones I’ve been working on this year) I needed a break – no ribbing, no pattern, no nothing. Now of course, I cast on for that ridiculously charted and complicated orange sock, but… whatevs. Heh.
I’m also working on an Ishbel shawl, but I apparently didn’t upload those pictures to Flickr. It’s out of Malabrigo sock in the terracotta (way orange) colorway. That Malabrigo sock is super fabulous. I don’t know how it will hold up for socks but it should work all right. I do have some plans for my other skeins in the stash, and since the shawl is knitting up so nicely, I could definitely see a couple more shawls in the future.
And, just for kicks, here is a pic of my current work space, that I finally more-or-less finished (I put up the cork board). It’s where I do all my jewelry stuff and computering (drawing/writing – I use my eee PC for internets).
