Sweater for Harry Winston

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Friends had a baby in November, they named him Harry Winston, isn't that cute. So I am knitting Harry the Child's Placket Pullover Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (check the errata, here, if you get the inclination to knit it.) I'm using Pear Tree Baby Merino in a beautiful shade of green (technically Moss, but it is not the color of moss) and I am looking for tiny, diamond like buttons, because nothing less will do for little Harry Winston!

On the Horizon

It has been a long, cold, snowy Chicago winter! I know, I know, what do I expect; I've lived in the midwest my whole life, winter is long, cold, and snowy. But this winter has been particularly brutal. Big snows followed by sub-zero weather. So come March, we long for a break, a little sun, sand, and beach. This spring break we're renting a house on St. Thomas with some friends and I am really looking forward to it. Thought I would share a couple of pictures of the house, because it's so freakin' awesome!

When life hands you lemons...

make a Vegan Chocolate Strawberry Trifle! I made a resolution to eat more Vegan meals this year; if it were just me, I would go Vegan in a heartbeat, but my husband and kids are total meat lovers, so it's not easy. Still I try where I can. This morning I made a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance: Scrambled Tofu. It was delicious, I pretty much followed her recipe, but added broccoli and didn't add nutritional yeast (because I have NO idea what that is or where to look for it!). This afternoon, I was making a Vegan Chocolate Cake (Namaste cake mix from Whole Foods) and the cake got stuck in a pan & made a big crumbly mess, so I cut it into cubes, then layered it in a trifle dish with Soy Whip (mixed with a little melted Scharffenberger Antilles Dark Chocolate) and strawberries. Voila, a beautiful dessert because my mom is coming over for dinner tonight and she deserves it!

Too Bad, So Sad

So I haven't posted in forever & now I'm only going to post only so I can whine about the airlines again and I know that's lame. In knitting news, I've knit a bunch of hats and scarves and two socks over the past couple of months. But back to the whining, and I think this falls under the "life's not fair" category, because it's nobody's fault really, although United Airlines still sucks, as they did last April when they stranded me at LaGuardia for the night and then were mean about it. My sister & I were supposed to go to Sawgrass for a spa weekend in Florida this weekend. We had appointments galore scheduled for Saturday: facials, mani/pedis, massages and Telly Savalas waxings (I'm kinda glad that didn't happen, my sister booked that particular service, and of course she scheduled mine right BEFORE hers). But I digress. She was booked on the 8:08 am flight out of O'Hare and I was on the 1:15 pm flight. Since it snowed 8 inches that night, her flight was cancelled, and the 2 other flights to Jville that day were overbooked, so they couldn't get her out until the next day; but we were scheduled to return on Sunday at 11 am, so sensibly, my sister decided she didn't want to fly to Florida for 24 hours and declined the offer. However, this is where we encountered a problem. Because of course my flight was still going, and even though it was overbooked and they obviously needed my seat, they wouldn't work that deal on the phone for me, I would have to go out to the airport in order to get credit for my flight. But frankly I was not about to go out to the airport if I wasn't flying to Florida, so now I'm out the cost of the ticket. And the worst part of the story, after her flight was cancelled, my sister went to the baggage claim to get her luggage & they told her it was going to Jville & would be back in 5 days, they would deliver it to her house at that time, which would cost her $50. When she pointed out to the attendant that there was no way her suitcase had gone anywhere as no flights had taken off, he just pointed to the framed policy stating that he couldn't help her, once she checked it, it was going to Florida & frankly it was staying twice as long as we were planning on staying. United called my sister yesterday, they lost her suitcase. And, get a tissue if you need one, her favorite shoes were in the suitcase. For which they are offering her $150 compensation, roughly the cost of one shoe.

Da Bomb

So on Sunday, Tamara came over to make "Lush" style bath bombs with me. We were inspired by 1) Tamara's recent visit to Lush at Macy's and 2) Glampyre's blog where she talked about making bath bombs herself. So Tamara brought a ginormous bag of baking soda which she bought at Sam's and I picked up some citric acid, almond oil, and grapefruit essential oil and we made some pale pink "bombs." My youngest tried one out on Sunday night and it worked great, fizzed like mad and smelled like pink grapefruit. Next time I'm going to order the citric acid from here, where it costs $2.25 per pound vs. $10 per pound at Whole Foods. If you want to make some yourself, we found instructions here, here, and here.

In other news, I finished my Chevron scarf on Sunday night, although it practically took an intervention to get me to stop (it was 76" long, but I still had more yarn!) I will post pictures after it's blocked and dried.

Also, true to my name (Sisyphus) I unraveled my Bluebell Boatneck sweater (and I was halfway through the ribbing!) because I tried it on and the neck was off my shoulders. This is extremely weird as I measured all over and I got gauge exactly (18 sts. and 24 rows=4 inches) and then I measured my neckline and concluded 24" would be ideal, which leads to casting on 24*(18/4) = 108 stitches, which is exactly how many I cast on, but my neckline was 34" wide! So I don't get it, but I think I'm going to try again with smaller needles for the 4 initial garter ridge rows

Hallowig

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Why did I knit a blue wig? Who knows? Daughter #1 might wear it for Halloween, it was fun and fast and what else are you going to do with a skein of blue acrylic?

I just got back from NYC last night, by the skin of my teeth. Typical LaGuardia, they cancelled 200 flights, it was pure luck that they didn't cancel mine; otherwise I would have been #70 on the standby list as usual.

Travel isn't nearly as much fun at my new job as it was at my old one, mostly because I don't get to travel with Rian anymore. He and I have the same basic travel sensibilities: 1) Be organized and efficient, have all your materials ready, itineraries printed, and mapquests so you know where you're going, 2) Be willing to travel to the ends of the earth for a good meal, our best was Chez Panisse, 3) If you're stuck at the airport with time to kill, a ginormous cocktail is the way to go.

Snake socks

Adrienne in knitting group pointed out to me that these socks look like snakes and she's right! I knit most of this in the Dallas airport, waiting 3 hours for a flight, I estimate this sock took me 6 hours altogether. I messed up the kitchener of course, but Adrienne straightened it out for me. I'm halfway done with the second.

Has anyone noticed all the very cool knitwear featured in magazines this fall? I pulled some extra bulky knit items out of W but can't find them, here's a sweater that was in Town & Country: