perfect after 17.5 years

my husband's nickname for me is Mrs Fussy. because i am. honestly.

here's the story behind this gorgeousness and how it came to be.

in 1989, my beloved presented me with a lovely engagement ring. the setting was very nice, but i really wanted to wear the ring next to my wedding ring on the same finger, and the design wouldn't permit it. so we had the diamond put into a standard claw setting.

i am a bit of a klutz, and hit my hands hard on things. as a result, the claws kept coming loose from the setting, meaning the diamond might be lost at any moment. after having this ring fixed 3 times, i took it off my clumsy hand and put it where i thought it would be safe until we could afford to put it in a sturdier setting.

and then our house was burgled. only two things were taken: this ring and a computer my husband had been given for a work assignment.

it was bad, people. took a long time to feel like i could even leave the house again. but we did have insurance, and with the money, hub went and bought an even prettier diamond [if that could be possible]. this time, we were stubborn and chose what we thought would be the most durable, unbreakable setting. something a lot like this one. done by richard booth, a very posh jeweler in yorkdale.

when i went to have the ring re-appraised [our insurance company makes us do this every 3 years], a little surprise awaited me in the appraisal. "Diamond is chipped". WHUTTTT??? leave it to me to whack my hand so hard, exactly on the unprotected spot in the setting, that i chipped the diamond. unbelievable. i hadn't seen the chip [i don't see fine detail very well], but now that i knew it was there, i found easily it with a fingernail.

vainly, i'd also been bothered by the yellowness of the setting, since i don't wear any yellow gold any more. white metal, that's it. so now with the excuse of a damaged diamond, i started to dream of getting it reset, once and for all, after the diamond was recut.

then i took silversmithing classes from Sarah at The Devil's Workshop and began to admire her work with gemstones and gold. i signed up for her lost wax class next, hoping to remake the setting on my own under her expert guidance, and soon realized that i was in way over my head. instead, i asked Sarah if she would make the ring for me and she agreed.

sarah handled the recutting of the diamond for me, carved an exquisite wax model of the setting exactly as i wanted it, cast the wax in 18k palladium white gold [palladium is the alloy that makes it as white as possible] and had the diamond set magnificently.



it fits perfectly with my anniversary band and i absolutely adore it. possibly my favorite thing is how the diamond sits low in the setting and the bottom of the diamond shows in the little opening above my finger. if she'll have me, no one else will ever do any jewelery work for me besides Sarah Wan. go look at her gallery of finished objects. she is an extraordinary treasure and i'm so glad to have met her. she's also really good people.

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p.s. feeling much better today. the cold seems to have vanished overnight [which is very weird] and i'm just a bit tired now.

home, lucky, sleepy, sick.

snippits of what might be a reasonably boring blog post, if i had the energy to write it:

- turbulence: i hate it. sat in row 40 of a 41-row plane on the tampa-detroit leg and was terrified for the first 30 minutes. the plane verily waggled side to side. not exaggerating. then the pilot got us high enough that it wasn't a problem again for the rest of the flight.

- lucky: because the cold hit full force the morning i left Florida, and i only read this after i got home. i'm lucky that my ears recovered as we landed, instead of bleeding or staying permanently blocked or exploding or something. but man, it did hurt for the 3 hours in the air.

- sleepy: thanks to dayquil/nyquil, my new best friends. i was able to work today thanks to the magical orange capsules of happiness

- sick: obviously.

but the trip was great and i'm glad i got good pictures so that i'll remember it once i'm coherent again.

right now, the best thing in the whole world, besides boeing's incredible shrinking bladder stone [seriously -- hub took her in again because she was acting odd this morning and the xray showed the stone is now half the size it was...which means it's going away on its own. weird, magical. we're thankful. and she stopped acting weird.] is OUR BED. and the duvets.

i'm going there now. see ya.

pelican pelican pelican

I've never seen a sunset like this before. Ever. Supposedly they have these every night here.

Wow.

Also, those are pelicans, fishing for dinner in the Gulf. Continued wow.

[see you back in the land of snow and freezing rain...start warming up the hot chocolate, okay?]

where i am

dateline: venice, FL
beach time: 10 minutes [too crowded]
pool time: hours and hours
skin condition: lightly pink
favorite thing consumed: lemon picked from a tree nearby
current state: sore throat [mild but threatening]
current location: bed

the place my folks rented is decorated in late grocery-store-sale-section, but it's got everything we need, the beds are comfy and the pool is fabulous. i hope i am not really sick so i get to go in again before i have to fly home. more pics here, and more to come when i get them off the camera.

hub is home with a killer cold in snow and freezing rain. that's not fair, but we guess it's better that he didn't fly all the way here to be stuck in bed.

nighty.

blueberry love + flaaaaridaaaaah

way back when my gall bladder and i broke up, the Purlescence girls sent me a get-well love package. it worked! :-)

the sparkly stuff on the right is Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in the deliciously named color Blueberry. i've had it hanging in front of my desk since it arrived and last night, a little lost without a quick-knit sweater to work on, i cracked it open and cast on for the simplest thing ever: a triangular shawl in garter stitch based on the Tuscany silhouette. perfect travel knitting and so beautiful to look at.

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travel knitting? why, yes. this is very odd to me, but i'm going to florida. this is something many people do every winter, but i've never gotten to be one of them. until this year, when my chicago-based parents got all, "winter is too cold! we must escape!" and rented a place on the gulf side for the whole month. the whole fam has been invited to visit sometime during the span, and my week starts tomorrow.

luckily for me, the house has wi-fi, because i'm full-on into spring Knitty mode and can't stop. but it will be mighty nice to take breaks and such by the pool in the backyard. wow.

so...i'm not into touristy stuff, but is there some amazing fibery thing i can't miss that's gulf-side, an hour or so south of Tampa?

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hub's staying home to concentrate on programming, watch many boring documentaries and fuss over the bunnies.

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psst:


yup, that's color accurate. can you stand it?

i'm not saying oy vey, really.

Miko was taking pictures of my Artfibers coat [this is the first one that I finished ages ago] and making me giggle. my eyes get very small when i giggle. Scout thinks it's me saying, "oy vey!"

so here. my finished coat. i do adore it -- it fits well, and my absolute favorite touch was jillian's idea:

the final 4 rows of the collar are knit in my first real handspun [from silk hankies]. it turned out to be a good enough gauge match and there's something about the color that sets off the purple perfectly. jillian, you are a genius.

the other Artfibers sweater turns out not to be so flattering when closed on my frame. here's a closeup of the front:


shawl pin purchased at the Purple Purl to celebrate my finishing! i actually think i'll wear it on the purple coat instead -- it suits it better.


this is the front, closed. again, not the best angle, if you ask me. and here's the back:


it's got that shruggy back construction, because of the way its made. doesn't bother me. notice the length is perfect, despite my neurotic worryings.

i'll try again tonight to get a pretty pic of it from the front, because it CAN look flattering when open.

so there. TWO FO pics in one post. please try not to die from the shock.

the bag.

i have a little bag thang. a fetish. whatever. i like me some bags.

i was stunned to realized, when i got to Norway, that i had neglected to pack a purse. what kind of bag freak forgets a purse? never mind. i was hanging around with Theresa's s&b group and every one of them had a cool box-bag pouch thingy for small knitting bits and so of course, I asked the obvious. who? where? can i?



who? Felisi!
where? she's one of the Oslo s&b girls!
can i? you bet! [I think it was about $30]

Felisi makes these cool bags from great fabrics [this one is made from Ikea fabric] and they have a little divider inside, a handle and if you're the grommet type, the divider has a grommet so you can feed your yarn through.



what's that on my zipper?



a Norwegian crown [1 krone]. money with a hole in it? how cool is that? of course, i chose one with the year of our visit [2007] so I'd never forget when i was there. not that i could.

i used this bag as a purse until i got home and now it's the bag for my long-term laceweight scarf. if you want a bag from Felisi, contact her via her blog. she speaks lovely English and i know she'd be glad to sell you a bag or two.

Monday morning randomness

My new favorite Podcast: Answer Me This Podcast -- often rude at times and definitely something for not-easily-offended adults listening privately. Helen and Olly speak their minds and they're damned funny. Well, I think so, anyway.

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Imogen is FINISHED. As Jacquie told me to, I trusted the pattern and it fits really nicely. I realize I owe this blog photos of both my Gypsy projects [Imogen and the purple jacket] and will beg someone at the Purl tomorrow to take them. Pony pants for everyone!

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I'm back on the long-term laceweight stockinette scarf. It grows easily and doesn't often require me even to look at it as I knit. A perfect KIP project. When [if ever] I finish this one, I'll cast on another with a new skein of laceweight. Because I don't think I could have enough of these scarves, and knitting them is a mindless joy.

done!

it's done. and yeah, my hands are tender.

but it's not blocked yet, in case he wants to wear it in THIS:



and now...back to Imogen!

please don't faint.

This is my current WIP. I'm taking a wee break from Imogen -- almost complete! -- for love. It doesn't look like the kind of yarn I usually use, does it?

See, hub has no winter hat that he'll wear. I was recently in Americo, and couldn't keep my hands off their new dehaired baby llama yarn -- part of their new Eco line [this stuff is natural, as it comes off the llama].


Yes, an animal yarn. [Reminder: I'm allergic to wool, and sensitive to the barbs on all animal fibers.] This one, however, felt quite nice in my hands. Because it was dehaired? Probably. So I went home with one beautiful naturally brown skein, which has been sitting, staring at me for a little while.

And then we were forecasted a snowstorm, and hub's head was cold, and he gave me a PEEEEENK iPod, for heaven's sake! So I just cast on. A little hat for valentine's day for my beloved. The top photo shows me just starting the decreases for the crown using this pattern.

So how is the knitting? Well, keeping in mind that I am accustomed to full-on softness and smoothness running through my fingers as I knit, it's very different. However, it's only a tiny bit uncomfortable from time to time on my princess-and-the-pea fingers. It's just three days of knitting and, at the end, hub will have a wonderful, warm hat, and I will have stretched my fiber boundaries a little. Will I keep knitting with dehaired baby llama? Probably not. But it was nice to know I could.

If it feels this soft to me, I can't imagine what it would feel like to a woolly knitter. Heaven, perhaps?

p.s. In looking for the Americo link, I noticed they now have a yarn catalogue on their website. Please forgive me.