shadow napping on his heated windowsill

That little penguin loves the spot light!

Still running on the fumes from a very delightful Rhinebeck, we went to Park Slope to hear Stephanie read from her book at her first stop on her book tour. We’re still kicking ourselves for not bringing a coffee (and chocolate) survival kit and hope that she’s forgiven us. We’d also like to wish her a happy 8th blogiversary.

Oh there was so much fun to be had that night at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio for Gale and Joan to talk about how this book came about and all the many delightful things that they unfortunately had to leave out. My greatest apologies for the terrible camera phone photo. This talk inspired me to pickup my 30for30 preemie hat project again and in late December I made a small contribution to Pat Pat’s Hats and the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.

We burnt many calories laughing with Franklin at his talk Impractical Magic: Oddities and Curiosities of Nineteenth-Century Handwork at The Lion Brand Yarn Studio in early December. I’m not sure if the blurriness is I was laughing too hard and deprived of oxygen (and kindness to Franklin) I didn’t turn on the flash or my hand was covering the sensors (yet Again) but let’s just say this is Franklin and Ping as seen through a veil. Ping loves Franklin now as he is forever immortalised in my knitting notebook as a much taller and slender penguin.

Ping is a science and technology geek. Who could blame the little guy. It’s endlessly fascinating. When he found out that Connie has a PhD in Physics he was after me to sign up to listen to her first ever book talk. It was a delightful evening learning of the inspiration for the designs in the book and to touch many of them. She and I have a mutual love for buttons and finer weight yarns. If Ping lets me process the photos I took I’ll share some of the buttons that really make these projects something special. Ping loves how she uses “penny weight” yarns to create a greater canvas for stitch and texture exploration.

Ping had loads of fun and inspiration during class with Cookie A at The Lion Brand Yarn Studio. We laughed, we spoke of our love of graph paper, we talked maths, we talked four colour theorem, we thumbed through such a vast array of stitch dictionaries that our heads are still full of excitement and want to swatch.all.the.things and we played with creating our own stitch patterns. Ping is very thankful that Cookie took a few moments before being whisked away in her cab to pose with him and to sign my knitting notebook. What inspires him more is she had taught throughout VK Live that weekend and had already taught a class at the Studio earlier in the afternoon. He wants me to have energy like that.

Ping hopes that you enjoyed his recent book signing and knitting class adventures. He hopes he has inspired you to attend a book talk — and if you do, please buy the book at the store. Please don’t buy it online unless it’s directly from the author if self-published or from the publisher if small-press published.

In addition to that pile is the pile on my night stand, the pile that fell off my night stand, and the bookcase. Yes. a bookcase full of to-be-read books. it’s not the largest or smallest of bookcases, but it’s this size, with an extra shelf. That doesn’t count all the reading I have electronically either.

But I also have some progress. The shawl I’m knitting for myself since it’s January and ignoring that I did not knit anyone a gift in December, I’m being selfish anyway. I’m now halfway done with a very delightful shawl, I’m pleased with my yarn selection, I’m loving knitting the design, I’m thankful to be busy but I just want to knit it all day long.

A plan. I’m tired of tossing up posts because it’s a Tuesday (I mostly gave up on two posts a week). I’m saddened that because I felt compelled to post on certain days and didn’t schedule enough time for other writing, I thus missed out on explaining really important topics and potentially giving the impression I’m silent when I’m definitely not. I will try to post on Tuesdays and Thursdays and maybe other days of the week, but I am not going to promise. It’s not going to be every week, or maybe it will be. I want to publish content that is polished and (I hope) useful and hopefully educational in some way. This post not withstanding.

Kitten photos. I will try to post these weekly but ever since he lost his collar (somewhere in the house) he’s been even more interested in the camera when it’s turned on and I’m less able to get clear photos. I’ll try.

If you miss following weekly-ish progress reports and want to follow what I’m reading, I keep GoodReads pretty current. If you want to see some of what I’m knitting follow flickr or click on the names on the right to my Ravelry projects, I try to make sure project pages are public. (Note, as of this post’s date, I hadn’t cleaned up the theme so you only see the sidebar of Ravelry projects from the main page). If you want to see what is inspiring me in some way, is making my mouth water, or is a random reference I want to keep for later, I’m using Pinterest more. I’m also posting some of the odds-and-ends websites and things I find to my tumblr page. There is also twitter, google plus, and facebook, but I don’t often follow those streams rivers in a timely fashion.

Don’t forget, you can buy a small little something for your heart or home from the shop!

Yes, a topic I want to write about is my view of the changing role of the personal blog and custom websites in today’s diverse social media and profile driven landscape.

Can’t figure out my system? That’s the problem. I don’t have a system. I have a growing collection of various knitted cowls and shawls. Hooks could work for the simpler items, but my request is mostly for suggestions on how to store lace shawls. The space available above the storage unit (under the mess, it is tidy) is approximately 36 inches by 36 inches and 7 inches deep. Items could be hung there, I don’t mean the items themselves but boxes or something. I don’t necessarily need to see every item, but I would like them stored so that Shadow can’t cuddle on them and that I can wear them when I need. I’ve tried several methods over the past few years and this is the solution that’s been the most consistent. I don’t like it. Ideas?

Cold winter has hit our nest this week. Brr! I have several warming projects on the needles or in sketching stages. My question to the world is thus:

Why do I wait until it is actually frigid to work on replacements for those knits I wore hard last year and are beyond mending?

I know denial and strong dislike of the cold kept me from facing the inevitable chilly fact that winter arrives here in late December and stays for a while. I’ve had plans to knit a new pair of mittens since that cold week last January. Oh I’ve knit them many times this past year. I’ve even knit them several times today… in my head.

Imaginary knitting leads to imaginary mittens which leads to imaginary warmth.

Even if the yarn choice is alpaca. *sigh*

Hmm… these socks cannot keep my feet warm unless I knit a bit more of them. They are a little further along than this photo proves. On Sunday their heels were turned so it might not be too far in the future that I’ll have a new pair of socks. The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Soulmate. It contains some (30%) Outlast and theoretically result in a balanced fabric. I’m not sure if this yarn will live up to its hype, but for now I’m enjoying knitting it. The twist is tight and the nylon (15%) content has me hopeful that this sock will last longer than some of its mates in my sock drawer.

This year I hope to knit a little more for myself without guilt. I’ve been knitting lots for the shop. I did not knit many socks last year, yet the sock stash bin is overflowing and I’m afraid to tally up the total yardage napping innocently there. My current plan is that a sock will alternate with a project for the shop as commute knitting. That should restore some balance and make a dent in the stash.

* or puppy, or hedgehog, or ball of sock yarn, or ….