WIP Wednesday: Days dwindling and projects multiplying

Two things happened to me on Monday when I finally bought my ticket to New York for the end of the month:

• I was annoyed that I couldn't use my member miles, because they would have charged me $75 to 'expedite' the rewards in fewer than 21 days, and it didn't make sense to pay that much to use miles when for about $130 I could buy the ticket and earn more miles that I can use later, now knowing this restriction
• I realized that, dude, I'm leaving in less than 21 days

Not much has changed since last week in terms of my progress towards the move, other than plans coming together in my mind.  I still have a few days left at my current job, so I'm trying to keep my head in that game just a little bit longer.  Then I can focus on how best to fill my boxes with my spinning wheel, baking equipment, bedding, and every last thread of possible warm clothing that I own as a Texan.

One of my other goals before I leave is to finish my Vlad Helsing Shawlette.  Because blocking mats are not currently on the top of my prioritized list of items to have with me, so I want to be able to finish and block this thing before I go.  Plus, then I can show it off at my new job and establish my crafting cred.

Check out that mad lace work, yo.

I've also been working on Head in the Silk Clouds, but it doesn't really progress that interestingly.  It just becomes a bigger triangle.  I love the way it's working up, though, and it is super-simple for mindless knitting.

I also cast on a new project this week.  Because, not to bury the lead, but we completed the Hill Country Yarn Crawl over the weekend.  Fourteen official stores, one nearby that we also decided to visit, and a yarn dyer's studio.  And it was at that yarn dyer's studio, Alisha Goes Around, that I picked up some yarn for a project that I needed to swatch and cast on for ASAP, just to make sure I didn't need an additional skein.

I've been admiring Alisha's pattern for Diamonds Go Around Infinity Scarf for some time, so when I saw her bright pink fingering weight yarn and paired it with a charcoal gray, it was a perfect fit.  My mom wanted to buy the pattern anyway, so it was clearly time.  

Photo by Alisha Lariscy

Because the pattern is written for DK and I had chosen fingering, I bought two skeins of pink and one of gray.  To make sure that I didn't also need a second skein of gray, I first swatched to determine the needle size that gave me the fabric that I liked, used the pattern to tell me how many stitches to cast on based on my gauge, and then started knitting the bottom border of the cowl to see just how much yarn it would take.

If it would take more than a third of the skein, Alisha advised me to get another.  Thankfully, things look promising that I only need what I have.  So I guess this will be my next 'thinking' project after Vlad.  I'm calling it Caged Pink Monster.

There are other new projects in the works for my crawl haul, which I'll have to share in later posts.  Let's just say, I have plenty of soft packing material to protect everything I'm shipping.  Who needs packing peanuts when you have yarn and fiber?

Summer cinema: The Birds

One thing I noticed for the few days I was able to spend in London is just how much of a theater town it is.  I already knew this, because my childhood summers usually included going to see one show.  As I grew up, I checked a lot of classic musicals off of my list: Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Chicago.  I also saw some Shakespeare, both at the Globe and in Stratford.  But being in London again, everywhere you look there's a poster advertising the latest, greatest show on billboards or a passing bus.  And there are plenty of theaters to house them all, around every corner.

Here in Austin, we have just a handful of theaters, including of course the Paramount.  Before I left, I caught my final summer classic film, The Birds.

It's interesting when you watch classics like this, because you have to remind yourself that what you've now seen many times over was being done for the first time.  When we watch these kinds of movies now, we're coming from a place of awareness and cynicism that audiences just weren't back then.  So you end up mentally shouting at the screen, 'Don't go in there!' while the blonde wanders into a situation that should be obviously avoided.  You have to appreciate that this is the foundation of what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer so cool, and just enjoy the show.

While others did it for decades after him, no one does it quite as deftly as Hitchcock.  Because you still end up with moments, like when the crows gather on a school playground, when you are still totally, uncynically, scared of the birds.  I found myself eyeing the pigeons of London very suspiciously, I can tell you.

Summer cinema: The Philadelphia Story

Unlike the rest of the movies so far this summer, I have seen The Philadelphia Story many, many times before.  The first time was over the holiday break during one of my college years.  I was so taken with it that when I returned to campus and discovered that the DVD was also in our library, I checked it out and proceeded to watch it at least three times in a row.  As in I watched it all the way through and then pressed play again immediately when it was over.

So it's fair to say I love this movie.  It's in my top 5 of favorites, and it's the only one on that list that I didn't grow up with.

But there's still something special about seeing it with an audience (other than my family) for the first time.  Sitting in my dorm room with a big grin on my face as Jimmy Stewart drunkenly calls out 'Oh, C.K. Dexter Haaaaaaaven!' is one thing, laughing along with a theater full of people is even more fun.  Plus, when you have seen a movie so many times that you've memorized the lines, you can tend to only be half-watching it (and half-knitting or surfing the web), so being 'forced' to focus on just the movie is refreshing.

Back to the movie itself.  For those who haven't seen it before, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The dialogue is snappy, the characters have depth, and their relationships shift throughout the course of events.  Some things don't age well, like the treatment of Seth Lord's 'investment' in the shapely legs of showgirl Tina Mara.  It's cringe-inducing to feel that the movie sort of agrees that it's a daughter's fault for not loving her father blindly enough if he cheats.  But I do my best to gloss over that intellectually and go with the emotional reconciliations of the end of the film.

Finally, how much do I love this movie?  I love it so much that one of my life's goals is to have a pet dachshund (blame that on growing up in Buda, where we have an annual weenie dog parade and race) and name him C.K. Dexter Haven, so that I can mimic Stewart's call in my backyard, as well as Dinah's ecstatic, 'Dexter, oh Dexter you've come back!' when I let him into the house.

Tracy Lord might judge me for my ridiculousness, but I think Dexter would understand.

Inspiration Saturday: Fredericksburg Peaches

This weekend's forecast promised the slightest of cold fronts, meaning that highs would be in the low 90s rather than triple digits.  Taking advantage of this relative coolness, today we went out to Fredericksburg to look at flowers, sample and buy jams, and most importantly, get some peaches.

I don't know if the idea of 'Fredericksburg Peaches' is a thing outside of Texas, but around here, once the season starts, stands begin popping up along the side of the road touting fresh, juicy peaches from that little town in the hill country.  Whether or not all of those stands are practicing truth in advertising I can't be sure, but it's not too far a drive to go out there ourselves.

So now we have a box full of fresh peaches just begging to be eaten, plus a slightly smaller box of bargain peaches that I've already diced for baking/cooking possibilities.  All of those possibilities are what's inspiring me today.

Do you realize how easy it is to make jam?  Maybe it's not what a purist would call a true preserve, but with this microwave recipe from Good Housekeeping, you can make a chunky spread in less than half an hour with peaches and just a few kitchen staples.  And it's infinitely adaptable, mix and match fruits and flavors to your heart's content.  I've actually already made some jam this afternoon out of some of today's haul, plus some frozen cranberries.  You might see them in a later post as part of a baked good.  Perhaps a thumbprint cookie?

Another super-simple peach dish is Roasted Peaches.  Because what can really go wrong when you add brown sugar and butter to anything?  No a whole heck of a lot.  And a scoop of ice cream melting into the hot sugary peach...yum.

But I also like the idea of doing something a little more complicated.  Perhaps Joy the Baker's Peach Cobbler Scones?  I like that they take a really homey dessert that's generally served family-style and turns it into something individual that would be really easy to bring into the office.  Then there's Peach Upside-Down Cake.  I love the magical moment when you turn upside-down cakes over.  I also love this totally non-traditional idea of making Peach Flan.  That would probably be a dessert that stays at home rather than going to klatch, but sometimes you just have to be selfish.

Do you have any favorite peach recipes?  Or is there any particular produce in your area that you look forward to coming in season?

As always, thanks to Woolen Diversions for creating this blog series!

Summer cinema: The Heiress

Every once in a while at school, a class would be replaced with a movie.  Usually one with at least a modicum of relevance to the subject of the class.  Once, in our Government class, while the teacher presumably caught up on grading tests/papers/worksheets, we were treated to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  I'll never forget how all of the girls sighed over Jimmy Stewart.  Filibusters and grafts, all of the political lessons were lost on the dreaminess of this classic film star.

That memory popped into my head as I was watching The Heiress at Paramount last week.  Because like my fellow students by Stewart way back when, I was totally and utterly distracted by the beauty of one Montgomery Clift.

Who could possibly blame the naive titular heiress for falling in love with him?  For the first half of the film, while he woos her despite her comedic awkwardness and her father's suspicions, I knew it was too good to be true, but I kind of just wanted the movie to end right there and pretend that I could also be ridiculously awkward and win the affections of a Clift-lookalike.  Except I don't have the equivalent of millions in inheritance coming to me.  Hmm, a small hitch.

Olivia de Havilland won an Oscar for her role in this, presumably because the Academy was enthralled by her dramatic portrayal of the spurned young lady, but my favorite part of her performance was as the slightly comedic and highly awkward girl Clift seduces.  She was such a great mix of lovely and endearing but completely hopeless.  I love the scene when Clift comes to visit and they are left alone in the drawing room.  I might not be as gullible as de Havilland's character, but I might be just as awkward in the same room as him.

So I have another classic Hollywood hunk to add to my list of timeless crushes.  Although I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust him...

Summer cinema: The Third Man

After Destry Rides Again and Guys and Dolls, I take a nerdy pleasure in the symmetry of The Third Man being the third movie I saw in the summer film series at Paramount.  This is one of those movies that I sort of knew that I should see at some point, but had never really gotten around to.  They also screened Citizen Kane as the second film in the double feature, but I had to work the next day, so that's still on my list.  'Rosebud...'

I love old movies, and this was no exception.  Intrigue, style, setting, some great chase scenes, and a lack of cynicism that you see in movies today after all of the things I've just listed have been done and done again.  As Holly Martins bumbles around in his own investigation of the death of his friend, he makes the kinds of mistakes that left me laughing, but I imagine that at the time the results of his ineptitude wouldn't have been quite as expected.  There's something refreshing about seeing twists before they became tropes.

I also learned that animals are all on the side of evil:

• A parrot bites the protagonist
• A cat cuddles with the shadowy figure of Orson Welles
• A small dog plays the chihuahua to another villain's Paris Hilton

So, that was the third movie in my personal Paramount series.  I was going to see the fourth movie last week, but President Obama made an appearance at the Paramount the next morning, so presumably it was being made threat-proof instead of being filled with people who wanted to see The Red Shoes.  I'll just have to see it some other time.  Hopefully no heads of state are planning on being there on Thursday, so I'm still safe to go and see The Heiress tomorrow.

Inspiration Saturday: A trip to the museum

Being the party animal that I am, I think that a trip to a museum can be a really fun time.  I've been lucky enough to visit quite a few around the world.  Whether it's playing with the interactive elements at a children's museum, knitting mitts while my dad explores the train museum, or standing in front of Van Gogh's Starry Night in a traveling exhibit in Houston and promising it that I'll see it again in New York, I have a lot of memories of museums.

But there are always more to visit.  This week there were a few exhibits in particular on my radar.  Some of them may sound a little strange, but hey, I'm also a little strange.

Toilets at the Tokyo Science Museum



This popped (yes, I spelled that correctly) up on my Twitter feed from my NBC affiliate, KXAN, and I just had to click.  It's so very...Japanese.  First of all, some of the toilets that I encountered on both of my trips to Tokyo were epic in terms to features.  Musical jingles to avoid aural embarrassment, heated seats, and so many flushing options it was stressful.  It's not surprising to me that they would put on display the intricacies of a well-run waste disposal system.  And it's not surprising to me that they would offer a gigantic slide and poop hat to help make their point.

Folk Art makers' weekend at Tate Britain

Inspired by their British Folk Art exhibit (see a video here), this weekend only the Tate has a slew of really cool workshops going on.  This is another one that I found out about on Twitter when they linked to their blog post about the event.  There's embroidery, sign painting, collage, but the one I really wish I could go to is knife-carving.  You get to whittle your own spatula!  How cool does that sound?  And it reminds me of Destry Rides Again, except he whittled napkin rings.  But still, if it's good enough for Jimmy Stewart...

Chihuly at the Denver Botanic Gardens

I so enjoyed seeing the glassworks of Dale Chihuly in Phoenix earlier this year that any time I hear about something new from him I only wish I could go to see that as well.  Though I believe many of the pieces in this exhibit may be the same or similar to the ones I saw, I know that it will still be entirely different because of the different location.  Just in terms of botanics, Phoenix versus Denver offers an entirely different kind of setting for the huge pieces of blown glass.  It's running until the end of November, but I doubt that I'll go, so instead I'll just stare longingly at the gallery of pictures.

In the Company of Cats and Dogs at the Blanton Museum of Art

Here's one I probably will get to see, yay!  The closest I've been to going to Blanton in the past was when my mom knit a tree cozy for an outdoor knit bombing exhibit by Magda Sayeg.  But I've never actually gone inside.  There's so much artwork out there, I think this exhibit is a really interesting and accessible way to group some of it together.  Maybe it's hard to identify with the mixed-up faces of Picasso, but I think we all feel a connection to our animals, and have an interest in how our relationship with animals has changed throughout history.  Blending the art with some humanities and science, I think it should make for an interesting outing.

Are there any museums you would love to visit?  Particular pieces of artwork or interesting/weird exhibits you've heard about?  For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Summer of cinema: Guys and Dolls

Remember when we all watched movies on VHS?  And if there were trailers before the feature, we either had to watch them or carefully fast forward through them?  I still have, hiding in a closet somewhere, my collection of childhood DVDs.  And when I first started it, aside from the many Disney princess movies, that collection was dominated by musicals.  There were the double-tape epics 'My Fair Lady' and 'The Sound of Music', as well as the not-quite-child-appropriate 'Grease' and  others.

The musicals that I did have were watched many, many times.  But they represented just a handful of the entries in that genre, and many remain that I haven't seen yet.  'Guys and Dolls', for example, was not one of the musicals I grew up with.  It seemed like a worthy use the second of my ten Flix Tix passes to see it as part of the Paramount Theater Classic Film Series, having already seen Destry Rides Again.

Though I had never seen the movie before, it did feature in the trailers for some of the musicals I did own, so I suppose I have seen the same 5 seconds enough times to match it's total run time.  But it was good to see the other 9,000+ seconds and put that well-known 5 seconds in context.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie and I think I need to add it to my DVD collection.  Some of the songs are still popping into my head a week later, and I have to say, the Crapshooters Dance was like the Sharks and the Jets rolling dice on the set of 'Metropolis'.  Marlon Brando was very...Marlon Brando.  His romance with the upstanding citizen Sally Brown is sweet, though it does make me wonder just how many fictional romances are begun as bets.  I guess 'She's All That' utilized some classic tropes.  Frank Sinatra was fantastic, of course, but I think Vivian Blaine was my favorite as Adelaide.

Stay tuned for something completely different next time, 'The Third Man'.  Teaser: Orson Welles doesn't sing any show tunes.

WIP Wednesday: Summer social butterfly

You already know that I love routines.  Which can make me kind of a homebody by default, but I feel like this summer I've been a little more willing to venture out and socialize.  For example, this past Sunday I went to Gauge for a going-away party for a local yarn dyer who is moving to Colorado.  Sure, it consisted mainly of noshing on strawberries, chatting, and knitting, but that's the kind of fun I like to have.  I'm not looking for raging keggers.  As further evidenced by the fact that I went downtown yesterday, not to drink my way down 6th Street, but to go see 'The Third Man' at Paramount.  I'll have a post on that, and 'Guys and Dolls', eventually.

And now, I have an exciting Wednesday planned.  After the usual klatch and yoga, dinner plans will shift from Indian at Tarka to a summer salad at Panera so that I can also go and get my hair cut.  This may not be riveting to extroverted, popular people, but I've been looking forward to the Strawberry Poppyseed & Chicken Salad since last summer.  And I love my stylist.  She's super nice and is great with my hair.

I've also been watching most of the World Cup matches.  Not really with groups of people physically, but spiritually, emotionally....Twitterly.  I'll be holding my breath along with everyone else in tomorrow's match between the US and Germany.  I'm rooting for both of them to make it through the group, preferably with a draw or US win, because Germany has a goal difference cushion so I wouldn't have to worry too much about them.

All of these highly-social engagements have given me plenty of opportunity to knit, but not a lot of time to take pretty pictures of it.  So I'll have to keep you in suspense a while longer. But I am really enjoying my Twist of Death. Right now it's just knitting and knitting around and around, but the yarn is soft and pretty.  I'm toying with the idea of adding beads to the rib at the collar, but I haven't committed to it yet.

Maybe that's a decision for next WIP Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find more at Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: Stash additions from Yellow Rose Fiber Fiesta

I love fiber festivals.  Aside from the yarn and fiber temptations, we've gone to so many by now that the indie dyers are more like friends we're visiting than companies we are patronizing.

But that doesn't mean I didn't do some patronizing as well:

First, an adorable shirt.  Because it's adorable.  And I'll wear it.

Then, two yarns from my favorite, Heavenly Fiber:

This is Stellar 100 Sock Yarn in Dune Shadows.  It's a grey without any yellow tones, plus a dash of purple.  I found myself gravitating towards different greys all day, so it only makes sense that I'd leave with at least one.

And then, a gradient:

Stardust Sock in Perfect Princess has a little bit of sparkle to it, which I love.  I think this is going to be a shawl.

Finally, Silk Cloud from Darn Good Yarn:

This is a fair trade yarn, all made from silk waste.  I just couldn't resist.

After perusing the aisles of the fiesta and making these tough decisions, I'm sorry I don't have much mental strength for blogging.  In fact, I had to give myself some time to recover after getting home before I even attempted to start writing.  Shopping can be very tiring.  Especially when you are trying to restrain yourself from buying everything.  But hopefully you enjoyed the pretty yarn as much as I'm planning to.

Have you been to fiber festivals?  What's your favorite part?  For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Summer of cinema: Destry Rides Again

It's strange the memories that take hold in the mind, isn't it?  Not just which events, but what aspects of it stick.  When I was a kid, my best friend and I would go with our parents to the Paramount Theater, for what I think was a season of family-friendly stage shows.  After that we would go for dinner across the street.  I have some vague memories of sitting in the theater (of course, I remember it as being much bigger than it actually is) and eating dinner (I want to say there was soft serve ice cream), but most of all I remember the drive home.  I'm not sure why the clearest mental snapshot I have is of us all in the car, just after exiting the highway and turning off the frontage road.  I suppose it's a lot like buying a young child a fancy new toy and having them play with the box.

But still, every time I pass the Paramount, I think of those times and smile.  And this summer, I plan on indulging often in nostalgia, both personal and cinematic, because I've bought a Flix Tix pass for their Summer Classic Film series, good for ten admissions over the course of the next few months.  And that means it's good for at least ten blog posts about the movies I go to see.

Last week, I bought my booklet of tickets and used the first one to see a classic I hadn't seen before, and hadn't actually heard much about: 'Destry Rides Again'.

I've always been a bigger fan of Western comedies than Western dramas, and this one stars James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich to boot.  Pun absolutely intended.  I'll pretty much give any movie with Jimmy a try, and this doesn't disappoint.  If only there were more cowboys like him roaming around Austin, drinking milk and whittling napkin rings.

The movie is also apparently a heavy influencer of 'Blazing Saddles', a Mel Brooks movie that I've been watching since way before it was age-appropriate, so it was kind of cool to see the seeds of that here.  Especially noticing how spot-on Madeline Kahn's version of Marlene Dietrich's version of a saloon showgirl.

This is one of those easy-to-watch classics that I think everyone can enjoy, whether you come into it with a crush on Jimmy Stewart or having no idea who Marlene Dietrich is.  A great start to my cinematic summer!

Splendidly SXSW

There are a growing number of events that draw crowds to Austin these days.  The Formula One racetrack, for example, has earned us our own direct flight to London Heathrow Airport.  And currently South by Southwest, or SXSW, has all kinds of celebrities and their adoring masses gracing us with their presence.  For these kinds of things, I usually try to avoid the chaos that comes with so many people and so little infrastructure to deal with them.

But when SXSW is the means for bringing a delectable frozen dairy treat from Columbus all the way to Austin, I have to brave the hipster hoards.  It must be so, because Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream has come to town!

I think I first heard about Jeni's on one of those Food Network shows where they tell us their favorite whatever and we get to feel both jealous and hungry.  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, because I signed up to get their emails, and since then I've been craving some of their sweet Ohio genius.  Unfortunately, Texas is not one of the handful of states with a scoop shop.  There were two smaller grocery stores listed as carrying their pints, but I hadn't indulged myself yet, although I had been inspired by some of their flavors.

Last weekend they were a part of Southbites, a collection of food trucks huddled together off of Cesar Chavez.  Sure, it was a little chilly and rainy, but there was ice cream to be had.

And it was delicious.  A triple scoop of Lemon Blueberry for Mom, which she declared to possibly be the best ice cream she's ever had.  I split my double scoop between one of Milk Chocolate and one of Brown Butter Almond Brittle.  I will have dreams about that ice cream.  It was so good that when we discovered on the drive home that they now sell their pints in Whole Foods, we had to make a pit stop to grab some Brambleberry Crisp.  Brace yourselves for the delicious, delicious jealousy:

If you're in Austin, Jeni's will be at Southbites until the end of Saturday, along with some other events, check their schedule.  You will not be sorry.  Or, more accurately, you won't be sorry until your bowl is empty and you realize they live in Ohio.

Inspiration Saturday: Marathon momentum

In case you were worried that I had silently stopped my marathon training, I'm happy to report that I have just completed Week 15 of my plan, which brings me to the halfway point.  It was a cut-back week, meaning that after running 7 miles last Saturday, I did only 5 today.  But my Wednesday runs have been bumped up from 3 to 4 miles, and next Saturday I'm jumping up to a 9-mile long run.  So moving swiftly along.

Except for one not-so-swift moment this morning when I tripped and fell within the first mile.  I have no idea what I tripped over, whether it was a seam in the slabs of the sidewalk (they weren't completely even) or just my own feet.  But before I knew it, I was slammed into the cement.  My hip and elbow on the left side seemed to take most of the fall, getting successfully scraped up.  I hit my knees a bit as well, but I had long pants on so they didn't scrape.

After a moment's shock, and a quick check that none of the technology I had secreted about my person had been smashed (pedometer, iPod Nano and iPhone), I got back up, started running again, and finished the rest of the designated mileage for the day.  I didn't ever seriously think about stopping.  Partly because I'm rule-follower, and I knew I needed to get the run in.  So I wasn't going to not do it.  Plus, since I was going to run, I didn't want to have to start all over again.  I may have only put in 3/4 of a mile, but darn it, I wasn't going to run that 3/4 of a mile again!

I'm all patched-up now and just hoping that there's nothing that will keep me from going into Week 16 okay.  Along with my war wounds, I'll be taking a little extra inspiration into training from the New York Marathon being run tomorrow.  I don't know if I'll ever get to run in one of these premiere, big city events, but it is inspiring to imagine running through the streets of New York, and to think of all the people from around the world gathering to do it themselves.

With a slightly less-impressive cityscape, the Austin Marathon recently posted a YouTube video of the race route I'll be talking in just over a hundred days.

There's something a little depressing about a six and a half minute video covering the route it will take me more like six hours to run.  But still, fun to visualize.

And I feel like I have to mention this hat pattern if I'm going to talk about inspiring running things:

Photo credit: Sandra Jäger

I can just about accept that I'll be able to run 26.2 miles if I keep following the training plan, but making this seems really ambitious!  I would need another 30-week program of color work patterns to build up to it.

One foot in front of the other, one step closer to the marathon.  For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

WIP Wednesday: The end of a Crawl is just the beginning...

As if last weekend wasn't enough, this past weekend brought even more lovelies into my stash:

1. From Nan's Needleworks: Noro King in two colorways with nondescript names
2. From Happy Ewe: Wooly Wonka Arianrhod in Spice; and a pair of 60" cables for my Knit Picks interchangeables
3. From Gauge (yes, I had to come back again for more!): Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Lichen and Nekkid
4. From Yarnorama: Rowan Fine Tweed in Monsal Dale, Beresford, and Leyburn; and a mystery silk noil wool fingering weight yarn on a cone
5. From WC Mercantile: Sport weight alpaca with angelina from Bluebonnet Hills Alpaca Ranch; and two skeins of sport weight sari silk yarn

First of all, I want to apologize for the different look of the numbers in this graphic.  I had to recreate it on another computer to make sure I could post today.  It irks me, especially since my day job is about documentation standards.  But anyway...

What are my plans for these?  Or, to put it another way, how did I rationalize buying them all?  Well, the Noro was just such an intriguing texture, made up of microfiber, silk, mohair, and wool.  And I love projects that stripe alternating colorways of Noro, so I'm thinking a simple triangle shawl switching the yarn every right side row.

The Wooly Wonka I just love, and this store is one of only four I think that has it in stock.  There were so many gorgeous colors, and fibers as well as yarn, but I really liked the chocolate-y-ness of this one.  And then I remembered that I have some really cute cupcake buttons, which seems only right for a yarn from Wooly Wonka.  Oh, and the interchangeables are to aid me in turning the Wonderland mini skeins from last week into a Mini Mania scarf.

For the next few, I have a very good excuse: good deals!  The Hazel Knits and Rowan were the special 25% off featured yarns for their respective stores.  I'm thinking of dyeing the Nekkid colorway of the Hazel Knits at some point, possibly after I've knitted whatever it is going to be.  The Rowan will probably actually be used to make the pattern provided by Susan at the store:

Color work and bobbles!  I wear fingerless mitts every day in my freezing cold office, so these will make me smile as I'm working hard at the keyboard.

WC Mercantile wasn't technically part of the Crawl, but they advertised in the passport, offering a discount for participants, and once we were at Yarnorama we were halfway there anyway.  I love the stuff they bring to Yellow Rose Fiber Fiesta every year, so this was my excuse to buy the exact alpaca yarn I coveted there last time.  Plus some sari silk just for the heck of it.

Whew!  Now it's back to real life.  Except that in two weeks we're planning a trip to Houston to meet up with another Raveler at another yarn store, and then after that it's Kid 'N Ewe Fiber Festival.  I just love fall, don't you?  The good news is that while we were driving I made great progress on my Christmas knitting, so I can finish that up soon and get started on some of these new additions to my queue.

For more WIP Wednesdays, go to Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: Crawl in progress

I can't give you details on the knitting I'm doing for the holiday season, but I can give you lots of colorful details about what I've added to my stash so far because of this year's Crawl:

1. From Hill Country Weavers: Yarn Carnival Highwire 3-ply in Amaranthine
2. From Tinsmith's Wife: Malabrigo Worsted in Nostalgia
3. From Yarnivore: Frabjous Fibers Wonderland Yarns Cheshire Cat Fingering Multi-Pack of 10 1-oz skeins in Dark Rainbow
4. From The Yarn Barn: Lone Star Arts Armadillo in Ellie Avery
5. From her studio: Alisha Goes Around Panoply of Peacocks Fingering in Macedonia
6. From Lucky Ewe: Vice Paradigm in Serendipity
7. From Old Oaks Ranch: Henry's Attic Prime Alpaca in Bare and Black
8. From The Knitting Nest: Trekking XXL in 550 (aww, no name)
9. From Gauge: Little Green Finch Plumage Ltd in a nameless one-of-a-kind colorway I'm calling Cranberry Orange and Theodora's Pearls Theodora's Saphhire in Chartreuse Spritz

I have plans for a few of the skeins.  The Alisha Goes Around has been on my radar for a while now to create the Twist Pullover.  This is actually the colorway used in the sample that made the cover of Knit Wear, though it appears darker in the magazine.  I've nearly bought the yarn several times before, in yarn stores or at fiber festivals, but being in her studio, it seemed like I might as well take the plunge now.

The Wonderland Yarns were a revelation.  They are a new yarn which debuted at TNNA this summer, and I'm in love.  The colors were all so gorgeous, I couldn't decide on one for a full skein, so I splurged on the entire rainbow of smaller skeins.  I'm thinking that this is going to make a glorious technicolor Mini Mania.

The others, well, they were just too pretty to leave behind, and many of them were part of the selection of 25% off yarns that can be used to make the patterns that each store handed out.  That's how I ended up with two skeins of the Malabrigo.  Such a good price, I might as well see if I can make a medium-sized project like a shrug.  And I have so much black and white alpaca, I think that will supply several projects.  Some of the bare yarn might even get dyed.

So there are the results of my Crawl in progress, more to come this weekend!  And more WIP Wednesday posts are at Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: I would like to share with you the most amazing WIP

Hello!  My name is Elder Twit.  And I would like to share with you the most amazing WIP.  It has so many awesome colors.  You simply won't believe how many short rows there are in there.  This WIP will change your life...this WIP will change your life...this WIP will change your life!

HELLO!

So I saw 'Book of Mormon' last night.  Can you tell?  Or did you think I had suddenly become incredibly hyperbolic?  And you can't even see the jazz hands I'm doing right now.  It was a good night.

Aside from the singing and dancing Mormon amazingness, I discovered that a night at the theater is a prime location for knitting appreciation from strangers.  In the fifteen minutes or so that I passed the time before being let into our seats by knitting a row or two of my Fruit Loopy Shawl, no fewer than three people asked me what I was working on and complimenting me on the colors.  The power of the rainbow.

I'm officially halfway through the pattern, which is just as well as I am halfway through the yarn I'm using for it.  I'm really enjoying it, because it's so simple and very easy to memorize.  I like the ruffle effect of the short rows as well.

I also did some swatching in the past week, but unfortunately I undid it all before thinking to take a picture.  I've joined a cowl swap, which is pretty much what it sounds like, so I'm trying to decide on a cowl.  I was thinking of adapting the bunny cable in this pattern, and tried it in a tweedy alpaca and some spare Lustra I had.  Unfortunately, the alpaca lost the definition of the cable, and the Lustra just wasn't the look I was going for.  Nevermind, I'll make bunnies another time.  Perhaps a cowl for myself covered in NaNoWriMo plot bunnies?

Magical October has begun, and with the first event over, I'm looking forward to the weekend.  Maybe the long drive will give me enough time to finish the second half of this shawl, so I can start on the cowl that I have decided to knit.

For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Movie Madness Monday: The Butler

Another movie that's in theaters?  Shocking!  Last week it was a movie that I specifically made an effort to see, this week going to the movies just sort of fell into place as something to do on a Saturday, and what I saw was kind of secondary to that activity.  After perusing the various offerings and showtimes, we settled on 'The Butler' at the Alamo Drafthouse, Austin's favorite food-meets-film theater chain.

From the cotton fields to the Oval Office over the course of decades, one man serves as a butler in the White House while the country moves from segregation to a black president.  But because they are condensing so much, it plays like a slightly more sentimental news reel, with occasional pauses for personal drama.  It's very much a studio picture.  A lot of well-known names in every level of role, a story that is powerful but inoffensive at the same time, something that most people can safely agree to going to see.  Engaging, but unchallenging.

I couldn't help but think of a beloved professor from Sarah Lawrence and what he would have to say about it all.  And when the movie culminates in Obama's election (um, spoiler?), the collegiate nostalgia came back again as I remembered how we watched the votes come in under a huge tent on the lawn while wearing plastic patriotic bowler hats.

The most successful scenes for me were when they took the time to show ordinary moments between the characters.  Conversations around a poker game or the breakfast and dinner table rang truer than many of the montage sequences that moved us from administration to administration.  The history is covered in Hollywood gloss, and the family's issues don't have a chance to develop beyond the broadest of brushstrokes.  Trying to do two things at once means that neither really succeeds as well as it could have.

After two hours and twelve minutes, the most interesting thing to discuss about the movie was each of the actor-president match ups.  And there were some good ones.  Alan Rickman as Reagan?  Would never have occurred to me, but he absolutely has that face.  Jane Fonda as Nancy was pretty spot on as well.  Something about John Cusack's Nixon wasn't quite right, though.  He exudes this innate sense of self-deprecation that is very un-Nixon.  I wish Lady Bird Johnson had made an appearance, I owe her a debt of gratitude for the wildflowers that grow along the highways every spring.

All in all, a perfectly good excuse to enjoy some garlic hummus and veggies at the Alamo, but I wish 'Don Jon' had already been out.

There's more movie madness this Monday at Amaryllis Musings.

Movie Madness Monday: Austenland

In an exciting twist, I actually have an in-theaters movie to review this week!  I went up north to Regal Arbor, where the small, independent films often hide out when they first come to Austin, to see 'Austenland'.

I love Jane Austen, and I like Keri Russell and JJ Feild (he's already been an Austen hero in 'Northanger Abbey'), so it already had more going for it than a lot of movies playing in theaters closer to me.  Plus, it made a trip to Yogurtland for frozen yogurt almost mandatory.

I would describe the movie as cute, but not fully realized.  I think there were a lot of things that could have been explored further that were left on the surface and gave the plot a slightly jarring effect.  There are some character motivations and plot developments that couldn't help but remind me of some of the wisdom Emma Thompson imparted in the DVD commentary of 'Sense & Sensibility' about the difficulties of writing a script.  I almost wanted to go into the editing room and see if I could piece this together a little differently.

For instance, they really sped through the set up of Russell's character as a rabid fan whose love of Darcy precludes any real-life romance.  I think in doing that they kind of misjudged the balance between making her a sympathetic kind of pathetic and a possibly disturbed kind of pathetic.  And allusions to her dating past range from just the general sadness of being thirty and single to the random appearance of an ex-boyfriend who is clearly at the very least emotionally abusive.  It just struck a chord too realistic for the fantasy of romantic comedy.

Once they make it to the titular Austenland, there's obviously a lot of poking fun at the immersive fantasy vacation.  Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's ridiculous.  And sometimes, I'm not sure that the filmmakers were in on the joke.  One thing that irked me as a too-picky-person: they seem to have mistaken Austen for Dickens in the use of surnames to signify personality, with platinum guests earning names like 'Charming' while poor little copper package Jane is Miss Erstwhile.  Unless I missed the hidden meaning of Bennett, last names tend to just be last names for Austen heroines.

Overall, though, it was a sweet movie.  Silly, of course, but it was a romantic comedy that I wouldn't mind seeing again on Netflix.  And I love the vignette for the closing credits, no criticism there.

For more madness of the movie variety, go to Amaryllis Musings.

WIP Wednesday: The right kind of wrong

My inner goody-two-shoes tells me it's 'wrong' to cast on a new project before casting off an old one.  But this weekend, I just couldn't help myself.  I made a little incremental progress with both my plying and my cardigan, but both projects are so big that spending 30 minutes never feels like it yields much.

So I decided to dive into a quick project that I knew I was going to have to complete in the near future anyway, a pair of dishcloths for an LYS holiday party.  Obviously, I'm using 'near' in relative terms.  Last year I whipped up some love-ly lace dishcloths, and this year I had another stitch I wanted to try.  Instead of hearts, bricks!

My mom and I bought the yarn earlier this year when Yarn Barn appeared to be going out of business, a trio of Cascade Ultra Pima Fine in gray, red, and yellow.  The gray is for the 'grout' and then I'll have red bricks (the classic) and yellow bricks (follow the yellow brick road!), and there will be plenty left over for Mom to make her pair in whatever pattern and color combo she wants.

Here is the red brick, featured with my current reading material, Aimee Bender's 'Willful Creatures':

Here's where I get to feel like a finisher, because I did finish reading 'Freedom' over the weekend (loved it), and I actually also finished this dishcloth already.  I'm really enjoying the stitch, it's easy but effective, and the yarn has rich colors and a soft feel that you don't always get with cotton.  And you can put in a few hours' worth of crafting time and have a finished object.  Or in this case, half a finished object, since these are like a pair of socks.

Next, I started the yellow brick.  It has the honor of being photographed with something else that's so wrong it's right:

Kerbey Lane pancakes!  But these are even more deliciously evil than usual.  The top pancake in the short stack is the weekly special, called The Elvis.  It's got banana and bacon in the batter, and a peanut butter topping on the side there.  Adding to the wrong factor is the fact that I went to a lunch 'n learn about cholesterol today. But hey, I not only ran this afternoon, I took a spin class.

Right and wrong, it's a delicate balance.

For more WIP Wednesday posts this week, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: This is not what stash busting looks like

I may have conquered that inexplicable ability to control my calorie intake, but there's still a resolution I seem to have trouble with: stash busting.  Any time resolutions are being made, I seem to aim for reducing my collection of yarn and fiber.

There are, however, two forces at work against this endeavor.  First, I never seem to have enough time to make progress on my projects.  Not being a speedy knitter, I need more than the moments I can snatch after work to really turn around WIPs each week.  And then, there's my inability to resist the temptation of buying new yarn and fiber.  I can't help it, they are just too pretty to leave behind when I go to fiber festivals and yarn stores!  I think it's just time to accept that I'm not going to live up to any of those resolutions.

So this week's inspiration are two purchases I made that are not so much stash busting as stash building.

Having completed Tour de Fleece, I'm still spinning my yarn from that effort, but there were some fiber artists offering special discounts in their online shops, so I took advantage of one from BohoKnitterChic and added this lovely to my fiber stash:

A golden yellow, the touches of brown and blue along with the sparkle make me think of 'Beauty and the Beast':

With a reminder of one of my all-time favorite movies, how could I possibly be expected to resist the superfine merino, bamboo, and silk noil?

I ordered that a week or so ago and it arrived on Monday, after I made another non-busting purchase at Gauge Knits here in Austin:

The buttons were on sale, and then I found this skein of Bamboo Sheen Sport from Dizzy Lettuce that just went too perfectly to deny it.  I'm planning on making a cowl based on A Very Braidy Cowl, altered slightly to create three running cable braids, then using the gaps from the cables as buttonholes at the end.  I'm really tempted to just cast this on and knit something quick before completing my cardigan.  Maybe then I'll feel more like a stash buster.

But wait, there's more!  More Dizzy Lettuce, in fact:

I should mention that the reason we stopped into Gauge was a trunk show with Sea of Beads and Dizzy Lettuce.  She had a whole table of lovely things, plus a chair draped in still-drying hanks.  I love 'splotchy' colorways like this one, and I'm intrigued to work with linen for the first time.  It's mostly silk, so it's still very soft, and has a slight sheen in the sunlight.  I'm thinking a shawl with this, but not sure which one yet.

Just like a decadent dessert, adding yarn and fiber to my stash may not be in line with my resolutions, but sometimes, you just have to.  Cake can be run off, and cakes of yarn can be knit, eventually!

For more inspiration this Saturday, go to Woolen Diversions.