Fun with Jeannie...

or how not to wear a beret*

Golf anyone?

Snoods are back in fashion, aren't they??

Don't have a paperbag or lampshade handy?

French chef hitting the wine or eyepatch alternative?

The Queen from Alice and Wonderland

Ahhhhhhhh, now that is so much prettier!

*Berets are Ysolda's Gretel and the Purl Bee Beret

Lago Atitlan

Returning to our previously scheduled adventures in Guatemala...


Muffy and I spent the night of my birthday at a very special place, the Casa del Mundo on Lake Atitlan. The guide books love this place and who can blame them? Truly, if I were to return to Guatemala, the Casa del Mundo would be why. The only flaw we found with the hotel was poor lighting in our room. Oh, and the huge, HUGE muffin sized spiders that were hanging out on the wall by my bed. The booklet in the room said not to worry, they weren't poisonous. Just really massive.

The hotel is very eco-friendly, even the water is solar heated. So in the spirit of the place I chilled out, and became spider friendly. I know, rather surprising isn't it? As I said before, Guatemala was a growth experience.

The hotel is so relaxing...hammocks on porches, terraces, a wood-fired hot tub, books to borrow, games to play and really yummy food. Dinner at the Casa del Mundo is served family style and all the guests sit down together for a candlelight meal. The experience was lots of fun and so civilized after the prior day's chicken bus trauma.

This Lace Ribbon Scarf was my choice for travel knitting. Who knew this scrumptious soothing shade of Mini Maiden would be the same color as the beautiful Lake Atitlan?

And that with all the wild bright colors of Guatemala, this lovely shade of blue would be the one to follow me home and take over my knitting? I have been very busy since coming home, working on adorable DC's Trellis Lace Capelet in Rowan 4-ply Cotton. Funny how the color reminds me of something.

Tree of Happiness Meme

We interrupt the previously scheduled installment of Lisa and Muffy's most excellent Guatemalan adventure to bring you this short meme...

I have been tagged by the crafty Carina to do the Tree of Happiness meme. I sort of forgot to do the last one she tagged me with, so I am trying to be a better blogging friend :) I am tagging these lovely people: Marissa, Andrea, Minders, Sherry and Jen. The Happiness Tree sayeth that you must list six things that make you happy. These are six of my happy bringers:

1. Beautiful weekends in the city, when nothing is so pressing that you cannot spend the day on a park bench in Rittenhouse Square reading, knitting, watching the dogs and their owners and gossiping with the other "regulars."

2. My two little furry balls of love, Artemis and Tosca. Yes, Artemis, I still love you even though you bit off the skein of Mini Maiden and buried it in my bed the other night.

3. Hamburgers...medium rare...caramelized onions...I'm just sayin'

4. My girlfriends. You all know who you are! And am including a shout out to those too, that I have only met in this electronic world.

5. The Olympics. I have been an Olympic junkie for as long as I have memories. I love the wild pageantry of the opening and closing ceremonies, the drama of the competition and the heroic achievements of the athletes. Its a big two week emotional drain for me. Boy, am I wiped out. I am also happy that tonight is the end, now I can look forward to 2012.

6. And today I met and fell in love with my friend Amy's little girl, Danielle. She has really grabbed my heart. Sorry, Jeannie, I listened carefully, but there was zero ticking of the biological clock.

Chichi and the Chicken Bus Ride from Hell

or the continuing saga of Lisa and Muffy's most excellent adventure.

Chichi, emmm Chichicastenango, is famous for its large Mayan markets held on Thursdays and Sundays. We left Antiqua on Saturday afternoon for the 5 hour trip up into the highlands.

Unfortunately, we had to take two chicken buses to reach Chichi, with an absolutely horrific transfer in the driving rain that left us soaked to the skin. Our first bus was fortunately a cushy ride to break me in gently. The connection found us on a bus with people three deep in each seat and packed like sardines in the aisle. We were the tallest of the sardines...I know...Lisa tall?...how could that be? Well, Mayans are rather short in stature. So that put my bottom directly in their faces...nice, huh? For three and a half hours, I not only had to hold on for dear life, but concentrate on not farting in any one's face.

The highlight of the chicken bus ride to Chichi happened when rounding a curve way too fast. The lady sitting directly behind me did not just brace herself against my ass, but grabbed a whole hand-full and held on way too long. Muffy and I cracked up, she was mortified.

Once we made it to Chichi we changed into dry clothing and headed out for dinner. Lots of yummy tortillas, chorizo and the best hot chocolate.

We got an early start at the market, kind of walking the perimeter, before diving into the heart of it. The market is not just handmade items for sale to tourists, there is also a lot of commerce going on in raw materials for the crafts, like this yarn stall. Beautiful colors, but it was really crunchy.

Chichi was my first introduction to street/market food with a tamales for breakfast. What I wish is that I had a picture of the hurt expression Muffy adopts when haggling with vendors...the you wound me to my soul by over charging me look...priceless!

Unquestionably, my favorite part of our visit to Chichi was sitting in the Iglesa di Santo Tomas. Listening to the quiet prayers of families, watching the rituals of lighting candles for the dead and leaving offerings of flower petals and liquor. It was so calm and peaceful compared to the pushing and shoving crowds outside in the market.

There are more Chichi pictures here.

Guatemala, Part I

I have just returned from Guatemala, where I was traveling with my sister, Muffy. She was there for two months, studying Spanish and traveling; I joined her there for a week.

It was quite an adventure, and certainly more of a growth experience than relaxing vacation. Muffy has pronounced that after this, my friends are no longer allowed to call me prissy. Are you all taking note?

The Guatemalan countryside is gorgeous. This is the rainy season, so everything was so lush and green. The countryside stands in very sharp contrast to most of the towns and homes that you see. It seems that this is a country with an extremely small upper and middle classes and an overwhelming amount of poverty. It has really put my life and how lucky, blessed, or however you want to put it, I am, into perspective. It also gave me an even greater respect for my sister and the time she spent in the Peace Corps in Benin.

We spent my first night in Antigua. This was a gentle insertion into the country...very touristy and not very crowded. We stayed at the UmmaGumma Hostel, a colorful funky little place. I had my first encounter with a Guatemalan spider hanging out in our sink. I squealed, I shrieked, I let it live. See, I said it was a growth experience.

For me, the most beautiful part of Antigua was its ruined churches, victims of numerous earthquakes. La Merced, one of the city's main churches was undergoing a renovation inside. The altar area was a blinding display of gold and silver gilt...way over the top for my taste. We did watch some of the restorers at work on one of the side altars and it was cool to see the new gilt being revealed. La Merced though was not to my taste and confirmed my love of Pisan-Romanesque churches.

There were some lovely homes in Antigua that seemed to be hiding even more lovely courtyard gardens behind their walls. I loved this orange flowering plant that covered this rooftop. There are more pictures here of my time in Antigua.

Stay tuned for part two!

Maude

An allegory for knitting my Maude...



Yup, after a rocky midpoint...brain farts, an inability to understand directions and the english language in general...Maude and I have been running joyously down the hill, arms flailing wildly, and giggling maddly.

Knitty D, darling, get over it, embrace your Maude and run headlong down the hill!

Blogger is not letting me post her pictures...booo...come see her at knitting circle.

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.

Mary, Mary...

....quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

Oh, my...I'm verging on needing a 12 step program. Watch out Meg, I am catching up to you!

Pesto?

Basil Part II has been off the needles now for weeks. This one took me a fraction of the time it took me to knit the first Basil. But true to Lisa-form, I really dragged my heels on blocking the blanket. And then dragged them again on posting my final pictures.


I think this pattern would be wonderful knit in most any finer gauge yarn. There is however an undeniable magic to knitting it in Koigu. Anyone else want to have a baby, so I can knit another?

I'm a Goner

Two Easters ago I visited Winterthur Museum to see there quilt exhibition. A majority of the quilts were single fabric tops or trapunto quilting, which is lovely, but not my thing. There were a few patchwork quilts that were gorgeous. The best was this hexagon quilt below.


About the same time, Jan was blogging about her Grandma's Flower Garden hexagon quilt. This really appealed to me. It is vibrant, gorgeous, full of fabulous fabrics (not in my stash.)

So, in my obsessive fashion I decided to make my own hexagon quilt. The obsession quickly faded though. Hexagon quilts are hand-sewn. There really isn't just an easy way to do this on a machine, blech. And as alluded to above, I really wanted Jan's stash, not mine. Honestly, I am pretty tired of my stash, double-blech. So I only made two "flowers" before setting the idea aside.


Then along came Meg and the tantalising pictures on her blog of a blanket made of knit hexagons in Noro. I had to make this blanket and stalked her blog until the tutorial was posted. The very same day I supplemented my stash of Noro Kuryeon at Rosie's and cast-on.


It's addictive...very very addictive. Noro has always been my one of my favorites because of the beautiful color progressions and this blanket optimizes that.


Bye-bye entrelac. I have a new obsession.

It was a lazy, fun weekend. It started with breakfast at Sandy's, my favorite diner. After my "usual" french toast, sausage and tea, I decided to hang out in the square and do some quality people watching and knitting, duh.

On the way, I did stop at Loop to score these sparkly little faceted ball buttons for my Martha (Ravelry link). The color is identical, but I think the sparkle factor makes these work beautifully without detracting from the rest of the sweater.

Martha is up to her armpits! She is just sooooo pretty and I am in love with the Manos Silk Blend. It feels great to knit with and has great stitch definition.

As you can see, supersaturated colors are dominating my world lately. The amethyst of Martha is so intense, but almost pales next to my Optic Waves Shawl (Ravelry link). It was glowing in the grass.

I worked on it while taking in all the activity in Rittenhouse Square. This shawl got a lot of attention! Almost as many people stopped to pet it as I got to pet dogs. My heart went to an adorable Corgi mix who decided he'd much rather hang out with me then his dog sitter. I almost felt bad for the dog sitter cause my new friend started to cry every time the sitter tried to leave.

And my extra bonus for the day was getting to meet Mindy's parents. I let them know from all the peeps how important she has become in record time to our group of friends. Seriously, Mindy, its going to be hard letting you go to NYC, but a lot easier than TX!

Sunday found Marissa, Regina and moi basking in the presence of the Yarnharlot, aka Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She was part of the Free Library of Philadelphia Book Fair. Stephanie was a lot of fun and I am really hoping that she does eventually post her talk on her blog. Our hands were too busy knitting to take notes. My disappointment was with the turn out. Philadelphia knitters really let her down, this is the Yarnharlot, folks! Where the hell where you? Only really superlative excuses will be accepted, doing laundry...not a good excuse...husband graduating from overpriced business school? We'll let you slide. I saw lots of advertising for the book fair, but not a lot for Stephanie.

Oh, and she totally loved the name Degenerknitters!!!

Catalogue of my Literary Pretensions

I've seen this meme on a few blogs and it piqued my interest to see how my reading stacked up.

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Miserables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

.....so, I think I do much better on the classics rather than contemporary works. What surprised me most was the omission of any Camus. I was hoping for bonus pretension points for reading L'Etrange in French. Ok, so I read it in French and understood zippo. Give me a break, what high school junior gives a crap about or understands existentialism? At that point in our lives, don't we all believe that are destiny is controlled by fascist vice principles and college guidance counselors?

Wow, did I digress...

So soft and juicy

The Tenley Circle Studio Sock yarn from the Neighborhood Fiber Co. really grabbed my attention, but adding the Alchemy Haiku in Kai's Goldfish is the "BAM!" If only I could add Haiku to everything in my life.

The Optic Waves Shawl from Clara Parkes, The Knitters Book of Yarn is a really easy lace pattern and so far a really satisfying knit. I was really disturbed to hear that the sample shawl from the book had been stolen at MDS&W from the Brooks Farm booth. And so in honor of shawls gone by I cast on, and am having trouble putting it down.

Bunch of the gals met up this afternoon for a some knitting and spinning 101 in Rittenhouse Square. The weather let us down a bit, it was chilly and very cloudy, but at least it didn't rain.

The weather may have let us down, but there was much laughter and fun. We also attracted a group of wee would be knitters who got to play with their first bits of Koigu...start 'em young on the good stuff!

Before we hit the park, some of us stopped at Rosie's and dove into the Koigu mill-ends. I brought some of my stashed mill-ends from past years to see if I could flesh it out for some projects. These fab pinky orange skeins are going to be a Baby Surprise sweater for Amy's newly born daughter, Danielle Rae.

And because a lovely new crop of full skeins came with the mill-ends, I swapped some blue skeins for these lovely green ones. I have a little green Koigu thing going on these days! I have Maude in mind for these lovelies.