Friday, November 30, 2007

when all else fails...

...cut your hair off!



I still have the sticky out parts at the back of my neck, but now have little wee bangs and stuff. I like. Even the hub likes.

p.s. these are the old glasses. the new ones won't come for a few weeks. i do like these, but they're not going to last much longer. frameless are a bit delicate for even careful me.

p.p.s. i had no idea i was copying jacquie until she left her comment. SHE DID IT FIRST, people. though her bangs are much more bangy than mine are. :-) of course, if she'd ever blog, we'd see a picture of her hair and how different it is from mine and i'm blathering now, aren't i?

Labels:

Thursday, November 29, 2007

today [a summary]

I'm in the thick of the winter Knitty slog, so this will be short.

- for those at LK last night, and those who love bunnies, the news: Boeing [who is acting fine and wonderful now] does have a 12mm-long stone in her bladder. our vet says we can try antibios, which will help if it's one kind of stone. if in 6 weeks the stone isn't smaller, then it's the other kind that can only be fixed with surgery. in any case, all bunnies in this house will be transitioned to a new low-calcium diet.

- hub now has caught up to me. we both need, um, several different levels of focus in one lens. and my RX has changed a little too. so we both ordered new glasses today. the frames are never the financial problem, but our lenses are over $400 a pair. for each of us. very, very painful.

- I made a mess with Laura last night, and it was wonderful. Laura is the queen of the chemicals. [more on this later, if I'm allowed to.]

- really, can't talk. Knitty. bye.

Labels: , ,

Monday, November 26, 2007

the annoying cop of doom


the annoying cop of doom
Originally uploaded by amysinger
This is not supposed to be how it goes.

I've been spinning these silk hankies for more than a year [but only a month or so with actual intent to finish] and had my final batch to ply up.

"I'll use my Norm Hall spindle," I sez to myself. It's big and heavy and sexy. And so I began.

The whorl, which handily adjusts from top to bottom [as you wish] would not stay in place.

The cop fell apart and only the bottom hook kept it from puddling on the floor.

It was not an enjoyable experience. But the yarn, she is pretty. She look like this:



This is all I've got. That cop above, plus what's on this 1-yd niddy-noddy. I am looking forward to setting the twist and seeing just how much I really have.

Anyone with a Norm Hall spindle who has figured out how not to have this happen, please write. I'm ready to glue the whorl in place and remove the bottom hook, and that seems like a sacrilege.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

this stuff amuses the crap out of me



Seriously. I got this in my e-mail box this morning out of the blue. I didn't ask for it. I didn't arrange it. Cafepress just sent it out. Oh! Okay, then. Thanks for the discount!

[marketing stuff like this amuses me, especially now that I'm no longer a proofreader in an ad agency! w00t!]

Seriously, if you wanted the 2008 Knitty calendar or anything else we sell in the Knittyshop, I guess now's the time to go grab it and save some bucks.

---

Meanwhile, I started my day by frying up onions and garlic to make a huge batch of sauce. Ragu-ish [a little more moist than a traditional Bolognese ragu, I guess]. I'm no purist. I totally avoided the true soffrito -- that would mean adding carrots and celery to the onions as I fried them. All I could think of was big chunks of limp celery in my tomato sauce in Oslo, and I just couldn't do it.

My recipe:
-2 lbs of lean ground beef
-1 lb of lean ground pork

salt the meat, fry, drain well.

-portobello mushrooms, one huge onion, two cloves garlic -- all minced and fried in good Tuscan olive oil
-three large cans of crushed tomatoes
-little bit of oregano
-nice bit of basil
-good bit of marjoram [that's my secret, if you ask me]

simmer, covered, on lowest heat ALL FREAKING DAY. eat some for dinner, save some for tomorrow's lunch and freeze the rest in one or two-person servings.

---

You don't really care, do you? Okay, I'll get back to work. But man, it sure smells good in here right now.

Labels: ,

Saturday, November 17, 2007

what happens to my brain when Knitty needs to come out

My blog posts get short and pointy.

---

I saw commercials for Stardust, and at first glance, mistook it for The Golden Compass. Figured out within a minute that it wasn't, but maybe I wanted to know what it was anyway. I subsequently found Stardust as an audiobook on Audible.com, listened to the sample and bought the audiobook, narrated by the author. I listened to it every night before I went to sleep while at SOAR.

As a result, I am now so deeply in love with not only the sound of Neil Gaiman's voice, but a] the words he chose to put on paper b] the way he tells his complex, beautiful, occasionally quite scary stories gently in my ear and c] the sound of his voice (yes, I repeat myself), that I used up my remaining Audible credits to buy everything he's narrated himself.

I'm more than halfway through Neverwhere and am quite sure that, should I ever meet the man in person, I would actually faint, dramatically, Victorian-style.

Don't tell my husband.

Labels:

Friday, November 16, 2007

The Purple Purl is open!


IMG_3448.JPG
Originally uploaded by amysinger
I totally gapped that we were getting another new yarn shop in town. Since it's in my old hood and not far from the beach, I headed out there today and met new mama Jen and darling baby Fenner for a peek about.

They've got lovely stuff, a huge space and will be serving coffee and snacks soon.

I've taken a few photos. Wanna see? Yeah, I might have bought one skein of the Indigo Moon purple silk. Can you blame me?

Labels: ,

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The 2008 Honorable Mention gallery is up!

And you can see some of the fabulous photos here on Flickr. Now you see how hard it was to pick winners for this year's calendar contest!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!

Labels: , ,

facebook users, read this

from the CBC website, a story about the new Facebook Beacon advertising system and how it collects -- and SHARES -- the data with others, whether we like it or not.

One worrying paragraph:
"If you buy a book on Amazon, a little bit of code is embedded within that site then sends the data to Facebook and informs your friends that you've bought a particular book. Or say you're surfing the recipe/food site Epicurious and rate or comment on a few recipes, again your Facebook friends will be notified of your culinary interests, as will Facebook itself and their advertising partners."

Read the rest of the article. My finger is on the "delete my account button" and will hover there until I'm sure my private info will stay private. If it won't, buh-bye, Facebook.

---

I have several much cheerier posts in me. Just not tonight. The no-voice thing has turned into no-voice + general malaise, so I'm trying to shake/sleep it off.

Monday, November 12, 2007

going home.

well, i'm done teaching for the year. good timing -- i have totally lost my voice. seems that's going around, and i didn't help myself by talking nonstop for 3 days [only some of that was for work :-) ].

teaching at Threadbear was a blast, only superceded by hanging out with the Threadbear boys at their house. they are superb hosts and really, really nice guys. and the funny? big with the funny.

so i'm sitting on Jillian's couch, and will have to get myself together in a while and drive back home. i'm currently waiting for Fedex to bring my passport, which i brilliantly left on the dining room table instead of taking with me. lucky i managed to be allowed into the US, but there's no chance the Canadians would let me back in without my magic permanent resident card.

see you on the flip side!

Friday, November 09, 2007

i fell down at SOAR

Full SOAR report later, but for now, I thought you'd want to see my biggest falling-down.

This, my spinning friends, is the new Ladybug wheel from Schacht. She's all mine.

I didn't mean to buy a wheel at SOAR, though the thought of it as a possibility was in the back of my mind. I roomed with Carla [who had her Journey wheel with her] and Jillian [who has a Schacht Matchless] and watched them spin so happily the whole time. So with an entire room of wheel vendors at my disposal, how did I manage to avoid testing any wheels until the last day? Willpower. Fear. Mostly fear.

The morning of the last day, Jillian casually said, "You should spin on the Ladybug." Because she knows me, what I spin, and what I like. And all day, that's all I could think about. Because, of course, my enabler had given me permission to try it out. So at the end of Saturday, I *did* spin on it. And within seconds, was making yarn more effortlessly than ever before. Deep, instant love.

So meet the new Knittyspin wheel, my Ladybug. My birthday present to myself.


The most recognizable feature of this wheel is...the wheel. It's a red bicycle mag wheel [plastic? not sure. will find out]. Did you know that Schacht's other business is building bicycles? Clever people. The treadles look like ladybug wings, and just to make it unbearably cuter, they include a wee ladybug on each wheel [in a unique position] to keep you company while you spin. Here's mine.



I can't stand it.



They ain't kidding.

So, you might ask, what will happen to my Ashford Joy double treadle? Well, it's a really fabulous travel wheel, which is what it was designed for. It went with me as carryon baggage on even the smallest planes [Embraer 4 jets] in the overhead compartment with no trouble. So it's got a very important job to fulfill. I also was able to have Richard Ashford [himself!] tune it up at SOAR, and he signed it, which he was doing for many of the Joy users. Very coolness.

The Ladybug is, their website says, a great beginner wheel. It's also significantly more affordable than the Matchless [which I've heard called the Jaguar of spinning wheels], and therefore more suitable for me, a spinner on a budget. It doesn't fold up, but it is only 12 lbs and very light to carry. I may hang it on the wall in my office to keep it out of bunny-nibble range!

I'll have much more about learning to spin [finally!] on the Joy and will explore the Ladybug more in future editions of my soon-to-be resurrected column, Knittyspin.

Labels: ,

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Who won the calendar contest?

It was harder than ever to pick this year's winners. We had so many great entries!

Our grand prize winner this year is Amelia Hajda. Her simple, perfect picture exactly encapsulates winter in my mind [and might make you reach for a pair of mittens!]. Her winning entry is on the cover and on the page for December. Amelia wins a ridiculously huge box of goodies from the Knitty review cabinet, including yarn, knitting books and other surprises. I may need a forklift to get it to the post office!

Here are the rest of the winners:
January: Alicia Ramirez
February: Sarah Wilkin
March: Jo Kerrigan
April: Flora Wermuth
May: Jenny Spencer
June: Suzie Putnam
July: Heidi Kastner
August: Angela Daff and her bunnies!
September: Lindsey LaPlant
October: Angela Moore
November: Jennifer Schmitz

Each of these runner-up winners will receive a copy of the calendar, fresh from the shop! Take a peek at all the calendar images there!

The honorable mention gallery will be posted in a week or so, and there are some wonderful images there, too. Knitty readers clearly have talent beyond their needles.

---

The full fall surprise just went live as well. Big day around here!

---

Meanwhile, I'm off [stop laughing] to Ann Arbor today to see Jillian, her hub and her kiddos [my honorary niece and nephew], and to teach some classes at the hallowed halls of Threadbear. The Tuscany class is pretty much full, but there may be a spot or two if you'd like to learn about the No Sheep stuff with me this Sunday. Call Rob or Matt at the shop and they'll let you know if you can sneak in.

---

Last night, Denny surprised me when I thought I was surprising her with my sweater. I want to write fully about this surprise, so I have to hold off for a bit. But I promise pictures when I do post. [It was a REALLY HAPPY surprise.]

Maybe I can ask Jillian to snap a pic or two of me in the finished Artfibers sweater, too. This could be dangerous. :-)

---

Okay, I've gotta pack! What am I doing blogging at a time like this?

Labels: ,

Monday, November 05, 2007

Denny's secret

Denny, she likes to do the seaming. Denny, she likes to weave in the ends. Place a pile of knitted pieces in front of Denny, and her eyes light up.

I am guilty of knowing this and intentionally mentioning the doneness of the pieces of my Artfibers coat to Denny while we were at SOAR. I had fear of finishing. Denny had no such fear and had it immaculately seamed within 24 hours.

She was worried [because she knows me] that I might lose steam and not finish the rest. I could not let her down. So I picked up stitches for the collar right away, and packed the unfinished sweater and yarn and took it all over Europe with me.

Jillian suggested the perfect way to end the collar involving my first good handspun. I finished knitting the collar in Theresa's living room and Jillian is [no surprise to me] a genius. Tonight, I finished one side of the button band and, knock wood, I should be able to finish the last side tomorrow. Which means finished sweater for Wednesday at LK. Denny, I will see you on Wednesday [I hope!], with my finished sweater on my person.

For obvious reasons, pictures will have to wait. Denny has to be the first person to see it.

---

For those interested, London and SOAR recaps are still forthcoming. :-)

---

eta: you have NO idea how close I am to running out of the thinner dark purple silk yarn. please light a candle for me.

eta: psst. done!

Labels:

Sunday, November 04, 2007

koselig

Okay, so Oslo.

This whole trip was made possible by Maud of Maud's Garn and the kind folks at the Tveita Strikkefestival [knitting festival], and completely and totally facilitated and enabled by Theresa. Now, Theresa and I have been online friends since before there was a Knitty, but we never had a chance to be in the same country before now. So not only was I excited to see Norway and spread the Tuscany love, but I was totally psyched to meet Theresa.



First thing we noticed about Oslo is that there were leaves on the sidewalk. In fall, leaves to walk and skoosh your feet through, and nobody had taken that pleasure away from us. We liked this very much.

We spent much of the trip wandering and walking, taking the Trikk [streetcar] whenever possible. The subway, unlike in other cities, didn't seem so useful for downtown navigation; instead, you take the Trikk or the buses.


SHOCK: in Oslo, you simply enter the bus, subway platform or trikk without having to show your transit pass, unless you have a single-fare ticket. We each had a week's transit pass, so we just got on and off whenever we wanted. There were signs warning of surprise spot-checks to make sure everyone had a valid fare, but we never saw one happen and we would have liked to. We did see a driver stop his Trikk in the middle of a street to tell a passenger in the back that his headphones were making too much noise [you know that leaking-out of sound that headphones do?] and he had to turn it down. From these two things, we clearly understood that you don't mess about with the rules in Oslo. It's understood that you are to behave, and so people do.

Unlike other trips where we were able to figure out the local deal and go with the flow, in Oslo, it took us about five days to get our environmental bearings. Not which way is south, but what's normal, what to expect, what to do to fit in. The people of Oslo, except for the cranky people behind the counter at the mini-market, were funny, kind, nice and really helpful to tourists, when you engaged in conversation with them. But on the street, there's little-to-no eye contact and people are quiet when they're out in public. If the people are loud, they're tourists.

That is, we learned, until the weekend comes. Friday night, all bets are off and people let loose. Saturday morning, I got on the T-bane [subway] to go to Tveita to teach my last class and walked past a group of gentlemen who clearly hadn't been to bed that night and smelled like it. Saturday night, there was bonified party-screaming outside our window. And then Sunday, it was back to quiet, serene tidyness. None of this is criticism, just observation. We've travelled to a few countries [by no means a lot -- so far, France and Italy, plus a little of the Caribbean] and this was the first time we'd ever felt so foreign in a foreign place.

So yeah, a little culture shock. Theresa had a copy of this book, Brown Cheese, Please. It's about Norway and Norwegians, written by an Australian who now lives there, and it explains what we experienced really well. We bought our own copy. :-)

FREAKOUT: the food. We just didn't get it. The coffee and pastries were beautiful, but chopped celery in spaghetti sauce? Mayonnaise-y shrimp salad on your hot dog? Um, no thank you.

The knitting classes were a blast, though it was highly intimidating teaching some of the women who I'm sure know more about knitting than I ever will. It's in the blood in Norway. But we all enjoyed ourselves, and Tuscanies were building on needles all around me. I had the privilege of meeting Annemor Sundbø, an amazing woman who bought a mill and ended up discovering centuries of Norwegian knitting traditions in the rag piles that came with it. You must read her books.

AMUSEMENT: I was the only non-continental knitter in the whole country, it seemed. Every single knitter I met knit continental -- not combination, nothing else. So people were fascinated watching me do my efficient throw [I call it the flick] English/American style knitting.

I bought little yarn in Norway, understandably. It's almost all wool, and the stuff that isn't is stuff I can get at home. [My rule when travelling is to buy what I can't get at home.] This was Theresa and I browsing at Norges Husflidslag [which I thought was called Husfliden. I'm so embarrassed. :-)] I can't convey how cool this place was. Supplies for knitting, weaving, every other needlecraft, traditional Norwegian sweaters, regional costumes, housewares. Just a really, really cool place that I could have gone mental in for twice as long as we spent there. Thankfully, we left before too much damage was done, but I did get two small cones of linen to do something with later. And a really huge stitch holder that could likely hold an entire sweater front's worth of stitches. I also got to buy a few woolly presents for a friends and live vicariously through them.

Eden, I think I found the same earrings you bought -- and of course I bought them, too! From Juhl's Silver Gallery, which had tons of stuff I could have happily brought home with me.

And then there's Theresa. I said I was sure I'd be sad to leave without her, and I was right. She was a hoot, a fabulous hostess [making sure we saw the coolest things in Oslo, getting our transit passes for us, and countless other things], and a great friend. Happily, we got to stay with her and her husband the last two nights. We watched Kopps and almost peed our pants laughing. Theresa made sure we tasted traditional Norwegian foods, and we really liked the mooseburgers! I could live without the brown cheese and the hvalbiff, though.

On our own, we got to Holmenkollen, the site of the 1952 Winter Olympic games, via T-bane, all by ourselves [so proud]. Hub got in the ski jump simulator and loved it. I watched from outside. Hey, someone had to take the pictures!

But I'd have to say the sightseeing highlight was the day Theresa took us to Vigeland Park, which I've heavily documented in my Flickr album. It was a deeply grey day, without rain, and very cool. We walked through the park, captivated by the sculptures, each one designed by Gustav Vigeland. 212 sculptures in bronze and granite, plus the gorgeous iron gates. We walked, took pictures, listened to the accordionist playing French love songs [seriously] and soaked it all in.

So there you go. A week in Oslo, summed up as best I can. It was astounding, confounding, stunning, warm, and most definitely koselig [which is sort of pronounced "koosh-e-le"]. You know that feeling when it's cold outside, and you come in, cheeks red, light a fire in the fireplace or fill your living room with candlelight, snuggle into the couch and feel supremely cozy? That's koselig, and more than anything, I love Norway because they have a word for it.

Labels: ,