Such Sweet Hands

We have a restaraunt problem in Koreatown. Many great places to eat. Not one delivers. Most of the great food isn’t exactly deliverable. Though I’d love to see a BBQ on the go business where they show up with a BBQ and that yummy marinated goodness and cook it right outside your door!

We’ve tried a few places that deliver over the years and experienced the worst Indian, the worst Thai, the worst pizza, the list goes on. It’s like we live in a delivery vacuum. We currently live 2 blocks away from the cut off street used by most of the restaraunts in the mid city area. We gave up on the hopes of good delivery a while ago. Last night we were starving and cranky and both working too hard to care to cook or even go pick something up. We tried a place a neighbor recently found and *insert angelic chorus, angels holding pizza* the pizza wasn’t bad! It wasn’t our favorite, but good enough to please our picky selves. The idea that we can pick up the phone and bid someone bring us food is such a happy one. Hope it isn’t a mirage.

I am getting very excited! Next week I head to Indianapolis to hang with all my bestest Fiberleague buddies at TNNA and then hopping in a car with Shannon and Kim for a roadtrip to New York for a spot of crochet work. The 3 of us in a car for many hours…

I am intrigued by headbands. I’ve been wearing the Spiderwoman Belt wrapped round my head. More headband thoughts are on their way I think.

At this moment Rob is pacing the place waiting for his new cell phone to arrive in the mail, the cats are chattering at birds out the window.

I go warm up some pizza now…

I’ve gone and signed up for my first ever swap!  The magic yarn ball swap spearheaded by Whip Up looks like it’s just my style!  So go now and see exactly what a magic yarn ball is and maybe join me?
I’m so excited!

We’re very lucky to live in a place with a gorgeous and fruitful rose garden. This last week a bit of rain sort of knocked things around out there. When a bush full of rose blooms sits in the rain all the blooms catch water and become heavy. This caused part of one of my favorite rose bushes to fully fall over. I’m glad to say I saved that section of the bush from the gardener’s sometimes mercilless pruning shears by removing a lot of the blooms. Enough blooms and stems in fact that the task of cleaning them up and arranging them was daunting. I put them in the guest bathroom sink and promised them I’d return later to clean them up.

I didn’t so much forget as just get busy with other things…

Rob came home from work and opened the bathroom door to find the display in the sink. He seemed to find it a pleasant suprise. Or at least one of the best odd things he could come home to find in the bathroom sink and he embraced the idea.
It’s pretty fun to open the door to a usually blah room and find a bunch of pink roses!

The roses seem to like their place too, so that’s where they’ll stay. Hopefully I’ll remember to remove them before it becomes a rose swamp.

A bit of what I’ve been up to this week:

Lunch on Wedensday: Maiteeny gave me a package of Green Tea Soba noodles from Trader Joe’s. I chose to eat them cold and mixed them with chopped tomato mixed with soy sauce and lemon balsamic vinegar.

This blanket is finally almost done… weaving in ends… so many blasted ends!

Tried and failed to get a clear photo of our neighbor’s new puppy.

I’m gonna be busy working up some great new stuff for ya’ll this weekend! Go and enjoy memorial day for me!

A few years ago I went on a serious binge for crazy handspun yarns.  I know that some folks have their opinions on the matter, that handspun yarn needs to mind it’s manners and be on the simpler side.  But I like yarn for yarn’s sake! (In moderation.  I had to stop adopting this kind of yarn because I was running out of space!)  Pluckyfluff’s work has always brightened my day and given me a lift of inspiration when I needed it.
Today I found that Pluckyfluff has kept a record of two interesting yarns as they evolve. One features old crocheted lace in the yarn itself, the other is a tale of how a mumu becomes a yarn…
It’s awesome to get a glimpse at Pluckyfluff’s thought progress.  Thank you Pluckyfluff!

I have been up all night playing with swatches. I usually take photos of my experiments in natural light. But there that doesn’t work so well in the middle of the night. I had a ton of fun coming up with ways to get an interesting record of swatches using the scanner. Then I finished the work that I actually needed to finish by this morning and now I can’t sleep.

Photoshop is far too easy to play with even when sleep deprived and wired.  I took my “natural-ish” looking scans and did a lot of random clicking to get these images.
Forgive me. I know photoshop fun can turn tacky on a dime. Forgive me if this is tacky. I like it. We’ll see what I think when I wake up.

I think it might be fun to break one of these down to inspire shapes in a blanket design…

Today I received a package from France!  I don’t really know anyone from France.  The outside of the package left few clues as to what this was all about.  The Sender used a label with a home address in Norway!  Wha??  Before opening the package I finally recalled a conversation I had with a woman who had also come to London for my friend David’s wedding.  This is a very cool globetrotting kinda lady who also happens to love needlecrafts and collects all sorts of books on the subjects.  She told me she had a free form crochet book that she would send to me.  I scribbled my address on the back of my card and voila!  Here it is:

Fri Hekling by Lis Paludan

This book has all the charm of tons of color and crochet stitching gone bizerk.  I’ll have to scan an image or two to share to give you a clear idea of just how crazy it is.  I love it! I’ve already found a great technique to try with unspun fiber…  eeeeee!

A big big thank you goes to my fiber fairy godmother for being so kind as to send me this book!

A swatch for a hat fit for a night at rollerboogie!

Big Girl Knits 25 Big, Bold Projects Shaped for Real Women with Real Curves by Jillian Moreno and Amy R. Singer

I don’t know about you, but it’s rare that I read a knitting book. I peruse, look through pretty pictures, read a snippet or two. Colorful or highlighted words might intrigue me into reading. But for the most part I’m usually looking through a book ravenous for information (information in this case means stitch patterns and pretty pictures) with little patience to actually read it. All that said, I really enjoyed reading Big Girl Knits.

Yes, this book is for big girls. Yes, I am a small girl.
Amy and Jillian speak honestly about project issues that range from shaping to yarn shopping. Having been a yarn shop girl myself, I thank them for their words of advice. They encourage that patience and planning go into getting the right yarn and color, these are sane words that any girl can use.

Best Community Service Moment: they INSIST you wear a proper fitting bra. THANK YOU. Bras make a huge difference in how a garment fits. Once again, sage advice for all girls of all sizes.

Obviously, I enjoyed an evening reading this book. The information is delivered in an honest, entertaining voice. I certainly suggest this book for the for Big Girl knitters. If you are endlessly fascinated by the way a good designer tackles shaping issues, you can enjoy this book regardless of your size. To the crocheters out there: if you don’t knit and only crochet, but you have a friend who is a Big Girl knitter I highly recommend this as a gift. She won’t mind if you browsed the book for crochet inspiration will she?