Mutant

What a wonderful weekend I had! Saturday I met Stacey at the Ant's Pants Cafe for a yummy brunch, with mandatory sweet potato fries. Then we headed over to La Va for some knitting. Our Maudes are looking lovely, but how can you go wrong with acres of Koigu? I am almost at the half way point and the short rows. Hope I don't mess it up.

Andrea came over on Sunday for brunch and sewing. She made scrumptious blueberry muffins, and I tried my hand at an impromptu quiche.

I figured how wrong could you go with six eggs, milk and a ton of swiss cheese? I took my cues from swiss cheese fondue and threw in a bunch of nutmeg and a glug of Kirsh for a little whooo-hoo. The thing puffed up like a huge souffle, absolutely brilliant. Fortunately it tasted pretty good too. So, that is not the mutant of my subject line.

I cut out a layered skirt by Amy Butler and Andrea played with the serger. The machine was misbehaving in embarrassing fashion. The back loop stitches were all loosey goosey and sluttish. We threaded and rethreaded, tightened the tension, loosened it, and called Jeannie for her advise. She recommended a repair shop.

Andrea got it working within her acceptable limits and finished off one of her Piddleloopish bags. She gave me a 5 minute tutorial and fled. I was left with my prepped fabric and a third of a bottle of champagne. Well, champagne should never be wasted.

WARNING: never drink and use a serger. All mistakes are permanent. Here is my mini mutant.

It's actually quite cute, despite the goof. Fortunately it was on my second corner so I could repeat my error and make it symmetrical.

Despite its odd shape, it still held a big ball of sock yarn, and almost a whole sock on DPNs. I think it would be much better with circular needles. Guess I'll have to take up the Magic Loop!

What's making me happy...

Friday's experience as the "human pincushion" turned out

not to be an issue on many accounts:

No shots in the bum(yeah!)

The cutest male nurse with the best touch...

what, you're done already?

No bruising, no soreness.

Turns out knitting is an excellent way to

keep your muscles moving to disperse the vaccines. Who knew?

And the best (sorry, Robin) it cost me zip, not even a $30 co-pay!!!!!!!!

On the way home, I stopped at Eastern Mountain Sports.

Another charming young man (and you know how I love them)

helped fit me for a backpack for the trip.

Guatemala here I come!

While I was tromping around the store with a weighted backpack,

I found these adorable shoes!!

OMG, they're Crocs...

Sherry, I think your hubby would let you

out of the house in these.

Uber uber comfortable.

I may buy more...just sayin'

And I have finally conquered the Baby Surprise Jacket.

Take that Elizabeth Zimmermann!

Feeling Good

Love, love, love, Nina Simone!

Aux armes, citoyens!

Yesterday the good citoyens of Philadelphia celebrated Bastille Day. Yes, I did say Philadelphia.

Philadelphians celebrate by storming the Eastern States Penitentiary. The rabble comes armed with many things... muskets, single shot pistols, pitchforks and pool skimmers. The festivities kicked off with God Bless America, followed by a rather weaker rendition of the Marseillaise. We really needed a french Kate Smith to lead the way.

The banter between the leader of the peasants and Marie Antoinette (with her huge bon-bons) was particularly funny this year. Or the sound system was better so I heard more of the punchlines. The script is always very current, possibly written that morning. They did note a drop in local joke potenial now that John Street is out of office.

We are still waiting for Marie to meet her end, not at the guillotine, but by toppling drunkenly from the ramparts of the prision. But please, Marie, for the love of all things French, what are you doing swilling Korbel? This is your last day...wouldn't you want to go out with a bottle of Perrier Joeut Fleur de Champagne?

Every year Marie's wig gets a little wiggier. I think she's been hanging out a lot with drag queens this year. I wish my pictures showed all the birds, mardi gras beads and assorted unidentifiable stuff tucked into it.

Madame de Farge's knitting celebrity has been eclipsed abit by the likes of the Yarn Harlot, Ve-Ve, Eunny and Elizabeth Z (damn that Baby Surprise). Regina, Marissa, Robin and I let her know that we still thought she rocked the knitting world. She very graciously took some time out of her demanding beheading schedule to pose with us for a picture.

This little girl's costume was awesome. She looked fabulous. And now I know what to do with all the left over scrap quilt batting that I have shoved in my trunk/coffee table.

But the absolute bestest part of the day...Tasty Kake is back!!!! Gone are the horrid Twinkies of the last few years, ta-ta Hostess, hello butterscotch krimpets. The little cakes hurt like hell as they hurled down to earth from the ramparts. But the sugar high was worth it, sans doubt.

A Matter of Preference

The design element of the empire waistline came up as a topic last night at knitting circle. I have always pronounced the term ahm-peer, the French pronunciation, not the English way, em-pyre.


My sister Muffy would normally have told me I am being pretentious, but she's not around this summer. Kate stepped into the vacancy and called my pronunciation douche baggy.



Uhm, that's douche baguette to you, missy...

Turning Japanese

My weekend's highlight was a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's new Perelman Building. I love that the PMA has acquired this cool building, that was empty for several decades. I am a huge fan of recycling the beautiful empty buildings in our fair city.

Some gal pals went to see two exhibits, Fashioning Kimono: Art Deco and Modernism in Japan and Hello! Fashion: Kansai Yamamoto, 1971–1973. Quite the fun contrast.

My apologies for the sub-par photos, however they are remarkably good considering they are from my crackberry!

These two kimono were amongst my favorites. Both are hand tie-dyed using the shibori method. All of the lighter areas were created by tying off tiny bits of fabric....thousands of them. Talk about anal detail. The effect is stunning.



The Kansai exhibit was funky, baby! I wish they had more pieces on display, but they did have a wonderful video playing of a Kansai fashion show from the 70's. (BTW- nice to see models with a little meat on their bones.) The mannequin below is wearing a knit turtleneck bodysuit with a Kabuki mask on it....anyone relieved that I didn't see that in Vogue Knits when my taste was less refined?

I am an intelligent person who can count to 100.

I have been knitting for many many moons.

I have knit many baby sweaters.

I love to knit with Koigu.

Many of those baby sweaters were knit in Koigu.

I think garter stitch shows of Koigu brilliantly.

All of my Koigu baby sweaters were knit in garter stitch.

So why am I getting my ass kicked by Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket?

Hubris.