Yarn Balls

asparagus season

as everyone has been noting, it is now May - and that means that asparagus season has come upon us yet again.

maple, also, but Americans typically associate that with cold seasons. article about maple and asparagus in last spring's Spun Mag. (not that I get all my produce news from knitting/craft web magazines - I just think it's amusing. not the article, but rather the fact of the articles in Spun and The Anti-Craft.)

asparagus is one of my favorite foods, and so I for one will be heading out to one of the many great local farmer's markets. my favorite market is the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market. there are tons of other great ones, though.

this afternoon, my mom went to lunch at Mark & Orlando's, where I reccomended she try the asparagus salad with tomatoes and a vanilla bean vinagrette. yum. she says it was delicious. she did not bring any for me however...

horray spring! horray asparagus!

weekend plans

I missed the party to celebrate Wendy and congratulate her again about her book. my excuse is not very good. it was Friday evening, and I stayed at work too late to make it.

hopefully, I will see you all this weekend, at MS&W. if anybody wants to make meet-up plans or the like, just let me know.

crunchy

some days I wake up, look at the iCal, and go "omg. how is THAT due already? and how can that exam be so soon?" etc. on the pro side, my semester is over very soon. my last day of class is the 3rd, and then I just have to wrap up a couple things and I will be done. for a couple weeks, at least, before I start summer classes. (why can't we all just agree that I have learned enough and let me leave?) on the con side, I am all discombobulated right now.

this afternoon I needed to give a presentation about a group of 2004 campaign ads. I had everything ready to go - copied my little handouts, wrote out my notes. then I realised that my cantakerous old iBook can't burn DVDs.

no problem, I had a plan b: I went over to my mom's house this morning to use her much newer iMac. only then I realised she had no blank DVDs. I went to Staples to buy one, as the time for me to be at school is rapidly approaching. brought the DVD back, sat down to burn it, and totally failed. it just did not want to burn my presentation. I pitched quite a fit. I was frustrated and getting later by the minute. I gave up and assumed that, well, I guess everybody can squint to see the little Quicktime window on my laptop screen or something.

I showed up to class about 35 minutes late. to find my professor in the middle of a lecture. because my presentation is NEXT Monday. sigh. I should have just not showed up at all.

at the same time, I'm getting phone calls today because my work project is coming right up - the event I have been planning for months is happening May 11. everybody is freaking out - right on schedule. that, at least, I am prepared for. more time would be great, but I think it should be fine.

a year from now I am going to be planning my graduation party and this is all going to be forgotten. maybe.

yarn - free to good home

something approaching two years ago now, my Stich n' Bitch group had a yarn swap. everybody brought things and exchanged them and I agreed to take home the left-overs to give to a member of the group who said she would use them for a project where she taught knitting to kids in a local school. unfortunatly, she and I never were able to work out the arrangements to get it to her, and I put the bag away in the closet. where it has just hung out, mostly forgotten-about, until now.

I do not want this in my house any longer. part of the Apartment Therapy project has been Mass Purging, and keeping this around does not jive with that.

so here is the deal: I would really, really like to give this yarn to someone. it is mostly not nice yarn and there is no particular color or theme, so it has to be someone not picky. also, I do not want to give it to someone just for personal use, as that was not the intent of the swap - it needs to go to some kind of charity/service/volunteer project.

if you know anybody who could benefit from this, please let me know. I know there are places where I could probably send it away to (which I may do yet), but obviously my preference would be if I could just drop it off with somebody nearby.

thank you!

Apartment Therapy

I really like the Apartment Therapy blogs. I read the original New York City based one, the newest one out of Chicago, and the all-food/cooking one The Kitchen.

the founder of Apartment Therapy (which, in addition to blogs is an actual decorating/home cunsulting company) has a new book out called, shockingly, Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure. I had been idly thinking about picking it up, but what really drove me to go make a special trip to the bookshop and buy it immediately is the book blog.

have you ever wavered about knitting a particular pattern, and then decided to do it because there was a knitalong for it and everybody was going to do it together and you could look at each other's pictures? well, that's what is going on over there for the 8-Step Cure. everybody is making tidier, happier apartments together. we wanted to get in on that!

my photos will be on a Flikr account. I will update this with a link once the pictures are posted. but I decided that I would also blog about the process a little over here, as kind of a journal about the process and to see if it actually works out well for us!

at this point, we are well into Week One (of 8 weeks). there are many assignments and tasks. some of these may be challenging - like getting rid of things!

anyway, if I am to get the "before" photos up before Week Seven, I need to get on it, but you will be hearing more as we go along...

easter egg

look. I made yarn.

ok. so maybe not "made" exactly...

I started with about 400 yards of merino sock yarn, and dyed it with a bunch of different colors. I had never dyed any yarn before, so it was sort of an experiment. I think that the colors came out nicer than I expected, although I am still not crazy about it.

in the 'art bathroom' is another hank with different colors in progress. I got a bunch of Henry's Attic yarns and some other materials and about a dozen dye colors so I can whip up lots of stuff. Obviously, I won't be able to knit all of that, so I will be selling some on Etsy when I have time.

super-cool socks

I do not knit socks. I have no objection to it, I just never have. anyway, lots of people do, and even those of us who don't can appreciate the awesomeness that is this pair of socks/stockings from See Eunny Knit!

check out her blog for more pictures and information. apparently, she is writing the pattern to distribute sometime soon.

via Whip Up

quiet

we had a very busy (and rather loud) week, attending conferences, shows, parties, and other events in Austin. lots of fun was had, and some productive stuff too.

I think I will post some more about bands and things on the other blog, but for you all I will just leave this one picture to give you an idea:

Craig chit-chatting during a set by The Subways with Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips (a band which, by the way, has been together longer than Craig's been alive).

austin grill

Saturday I knit as much as I have knit in a couple months I think. since my semester started, I have only been knitting maybe a few minutes a week before lectures and that sort of thing. that weekend when it snowed? I knit a hat. that is the only thing I have finished in a while. the other day I knit solidy for about three hours.

why is that, you might ask? because I was on an airplane on my way to vacation!

Craig and I are in Austin, TX where we will be for over a week. we are here for a giant music conference/festival/party called South by Southwest. It should be really fun, and I will probably post some photos and notes over at my other blog.

tagged.

Thank you, Erin, for tagging me on this!

Instructions: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place, then add your blog to the bottom slot:

y(e)arn
knitgirl's stash
fidget
invisible handy wipe knits
yarn balls

Then add 3 people to tag (you're it... in a very non-pressure kind of way, of course):

Stephanie - The Knitting Nurse
Rossanna - Knittish
Bronwyn - The Happy Handpainter

What were you doing 9 years ago?
I was attending St. Stephens & St. Agnes middle school in Alexandria, VA.

What were you doing 6 years ago?
I spent much of the summer and autumn working in Portland, Maine for the Democratic Coordinated Campaign office, and for the campaign office of Rep. Tom Allen.

What were you doing 1 hour ago?
Finding out I won a pair of tickets from a radio contest, and thinking that I should probably get around to some work I need to do for tomorrow.

Name 3 movies/tv shows you can't turn off if you stumble across them on TV:
“Law & Order”
“The Daily Show”
“Degrassi”

Name 3 things you want to improve upon this year:
Being a gooder student
Knitting more
Cooking more

Name 3 things you can't live without (aside from knitting):
Internet
Espresso
Pillows

Name 3 things you could live without:
Onions
Half my shoes
My apartment’s ceiling leaking (again)

Name 3 things you really like about yourself:
I try to think about things before I do them
I am loyal
I understand that not everything is worth stressing over