sweater project

sweater project sweater project survival of the knittist i am so done. october 22nd, 2007 wow. my second rhinebeck has come and gone, leaving me to sit in my hotel room with a swirl of memories rushing about like autumn leaves in the wind. and if the cheesiness of that sentence doesn’t tell you how completely blissed-out i am right now, nothing will. i can’t even remember the order of everything at this point, so please bear with me. there will be dates misremembered and names forgotten or mis-applied. i take no responsibility for anything involving my mental abilities at this point. i flew in on tuesday and had an already-blogged horrible dinner. i woke up on wednesday and started to make up for it by having brunch at the cia in hyde park. i cannot stress this enough - if you ever have the opportunity, go there. the food at the cafe is great and the restaurants are nothing to sneeze at, and you get to see and talk to budding chefs as they go through their days. it’s fantastic. wednesday evening i drove out to my brother’s place in connecticut for my nephew’s birthday party, which involved a present of legos, the transformers dvd, several squealing children and lots of pizza. it’s the first time i’ve seen my brother’s place and it was really nice, from the front door all the way down to the garage where his triumph rests. you’re livin’ large, bro. i got back late that night and worked some more on my sock, mused about the upcoming events, and watched some csi back episodes on my laptop. a very big chunk of thursday was spent driving a scenic road out to the tobacco valley stitch ‘n bitch, which was waay out in connecticut. the drive was mostly along route 55 and was bordered by horse farms and small towns and it was just - aah. gorgeous. i wish someone else had been driving so i could have taken more of it in and taken pictures. the stitch ‘n bitchers were very friendly and were working on a fascinating assortment of projects. the whole experience was a little less than i’d hoped for though, because one of the things i was hoping to do during it was catch up with lilith, my ex, but due to circumstances beyond my control we didn’t have much decent chat time. another long drive home in the dark - this time along the highway instead of the scenic route - and i was back in bed and ready for friday’s events. i met up with anne and her entourage at the cia’s french restaurant and we had a blast. anne was extremely generous in allowing me to invite myself to their luncheon a couple of weeks ago via e-mail, and i tried to return the favor by buying a really nice bottle of bouchard pere & fils bourgongne pinot noir to go with lunch. mmmmm, duck and pinot noir. it was very close to my idea of heaven - good food and great company. we stopped by morehouse merino for a bit and fondled the yarn, and then i did a little bit more gratuitous driving to stay at my brother’s place for an evening. finally, saturday arrived. and from there on out it’s just kind of a blur . . . until i have time to get to my notes, i’m just going to give you a link to my flickr set from the weekend and say that i met several old friends, made a huge number of new ones, and flirted shamelessly with the entire weekend’s female population of rhinebeck. i also got a heap o’ yarn which is hopefully preceding me to san antonio as we speak. posted in personal | no comments » post-rhinebeck kilt pr0n! october 22nd, 2007 while i’m stuck in the detroit airport on my way back from rhinebeck (did i mention i was at rhinebeck?), here’s some quick kilt pr0n to tide you over. mel of red maple sportswear made his own kilt - i am jealous. i’ve got to dust off the sewing machine and see if i can show him up next year. posted in personal | 2 comments » listening to your gut october 16th, 2007 so, i’m in poughkeepsie, several days in advance of rhinebeck so that i can bum around the historic hudson valley, eat at the cia, and generally be a person on vacation. so far, i think it’s working - i slept on the plane flight(s) up here and didn’t once wake up from a nightmare. yeah, i haven’t blogged about that at all, but suffice it to say that i’ve been really, really wound up the last few weeks. months. whatever it’s been. anyway, i had a lesson in listening to one’s gut this evening. last year when i was here, i went out the first night to get some dinner and avoided the temptation of a convenient red lobster in order to seek something a little more local and unique. and while that wasn’t a culinary outing to remember, it was at least honest and comforting. tonight as i went looking for a place to eat, i passed that same red lobster and soon became aware of the fact that i was ravenously hungry. so i saw a place that looked like a chinese restaurant from the road and turned in there. turns out it was the “bugaboo creek steakhouse”. okay, i’d already stopped, i figured i’d give it the benefit of the doubt. i continued figuring this even after i walked in and saw that it was kind of an outback steakhouse clone. there were mounted heads of animals on the walls along with tin signs, snowshoes, and all that bought-at-a-fleamarket memorabilia that one now associates with big homestyle restaurant chains. i ordered a glass of wine and a sirloin, the latter of which was delivered by a surly-looking chef who literally dropped it on my table and muttered something that sounded like “enjoy” after he’d turned his back and stalked back to the kitchen. as i was digging in to said victuals, a spotlight turned on over a mounted bison head on the wall and it started talking. an animatronic buffalo was telling me to enjoy my meal even as i was eating its kin. this did very little to settle my mind and reminded me that one should never, ever ignore one’s gut feelings when it comes to culinary adventures. i took very little solace in the knowledge that i’ve produced better meals in my kitchen at home as i continued to eat my meal in grudging acceptance even as moose head on the opposite wall came to life and a stuffed raccoon poked its head out of a barrel next to me and squeaked. please dear gods, let me never show such weakness again. tomorrow i’m going to bury myself in pastries from the cia to atone for these sins. posted in personal | 15 comments » heading to rhinebeck october 15th, 2007 well, it’s that time of year again. tomorrow morning i’m hopping a plane and heading to albany (and thence to poughkeepsie) for rhinebeck! i’ve packed my kilts and clothes, got some new shoes that i hope show off my kilt hose, and am generally fretting trying to remember what key thing i’ve forgotten. updates when i’ve hit the ground in new york and dialed down my anxiety about twenty points. posted in personal | 2 comments » 2007 yarn crawl october 7th, 2007 yesterday was a day completely consumed by knitting, fondling yarn, and hanging out with friends - with a brief interlude for pie. where to begin? melanie of yarnivore had this idea of setting up a yarn crawl. seven area yarn stores agreed to participate, and the game is this: you buy a $5.00 passport at any of the stores and get it stamped at each one you visit. each store had put out a couple baskets of free skeins of yarn,and you could help yourself to one skein from each store. the idea, of course, is that you don’t just dash in and out of each store, but that you actually hang out and look around for a while. so mary, michelle, her daughter and i got together at the yarn barn, where a thick crowd was already forming. knitters were there from all over. in the book area, i ran into these two knitters from austin (ladies, i am so sorry, i have forgotten your names, because i suck that way). the one on the left was very happy with the book selection at the yarn barn - which, i have to say, is incredible. it’s really the only game in town for hard-to-find needlecraft books of all varieties. she lowered her voice conspiratorially and told me, “you know, i wasn’t really sure about this place, because i tend to judge yarn stores by their websites . . . ” before she could complete the sentence i extended my hand, smiled broadly and said “hi, i’m david, and i run the website.” the combination of her reaction and her friend’s laughing was absolutely priceless. we made nice though, and her criticism is spot-on - i really need to spruce up the yarn barn website some more. (anyone out there want to contribute articles for a newsletter? anyone? mary? anyone?) from the yarn barn we went on to yarnivore, home of melanie whose brainchild this whole affair was. there was much yarn fondling and oooh-ing and aaah-ing over the spinning wheels. there was more, much more, but you must excuse me while i watch new zealand and france beat the crap out of each other in rugby. go all blacks! continued dag nabbit. new zealand got beat by two. good game, france. right, where was i? oh yes, yarn crawl. we lunched at a chinese restaurant next to yarnivore. being in a silly mood, i snagged some of mary’s lo mein noodles and started knitting with them on my chopsticks after we’d finished eating. the proprietor came up behind me while i was fooling around and cried out “what are you doing with my noodles?” which was pretty damn funny. after lunch, we put san antonio behind us and headed out i-10 to boerne to visit rosewood yarns and ewe and eye. i’ve been to both stores before, most recently rosewood. barb, the owner of rosewood, was working on some bobbin lace. michelle’s on a yarn diet, and stuck to it admirably throughout the day. (i think the next time she sets foot inside a yarn store, it’s going to trigger a reaction that sends a hundred skeins flying at her and covering her completely.) mary, on the other hand, picked up a humongous skein that i think is destined for a shawl. i picked up some skacel merino laceweight as well in a grape colorway. later on we left boerne and traveled to fredericksburg and discovered stonehill yarns. michelle had been before, but i’d never found it - and it was great. it’s in a lovely rustic wood building, the ladies are great (and one of them turned out to be an old friend of mine), and while they don’t have as wide a variety of yarns as some of the other stores, they stock really good shit. i got another laceweight skein of yarn from them, this time silk from claudia yarns. afterwards, we got pie. mmmm, pie. here’s my modest haul from the crawl, patiently balled up at each shop: i cannot wait to find patterns for each one. posted in personal | 12 comments » holy crap, top chef live!!! october 3rd, 2007 i didn’t know this was coming - the season finale of top chef is being broadcast live. excuse me while i spend the next hour trying not to swallow my tongue from excitement. they’ve got an ingredients table that has every freaking meat and vegetable i’ve ever seen in my life. whoah. the three chefs have two sessions for preparing their final dishes - the first three-hour prep period is a day before the meal is served, and each one gets a top-ranked professional chef to work as their sous chef. awesome. the next day, as each chef is finishing their menu, they bring in three of the previous contestants to act as sous chefs in the final hour of preparation - and they announce that each chef has to add another course to their menu. good grief. shit. casey isn’t going to make it. what??? hung? oh man. okay, he’s an awesome chef, but i really wanted dale to win it. damn. okay, bedtime. posted in personal | 5 comments » acrostic attack! october 3rd, 2007 i’ve been tagged by michelle and mary, so here goes: demented - in need of adult supervision. i like causing mischief. analytical - when something seizes my attention, i want to understand it. i like to look at it from every angle i can, take it apart, re-assemble it, completely understand it. voluble - when i’m around my friends, listening to them talk, i can’t help but interrupt with puns and jokes. i try to temper this impulse so that they don’t kill me. inquisitive - it’s often embarassing, but when someone talks about something that i don’t understand or i’m unfamiliar with, i make a point of asking them what they’re talking about. you can’t shed your ignorance if you don’t confront it. derivative - i like coming up with my own ideas, but i also really like taking the ideas that i see around my and synthesizing them into someting now. the old adage is “there is nothing new under the sun”, but there are infinite combinations of existing ideas if we can just see how to realize them. posted in personal | 2 comments » racing the clock with a cardigan september 29th, 2007 i’m hoping i get this thing done before it starts getting cool around here. not that it’s ever exactly *warm* in my office, but i’d like to have it finished and blocked before i have to wear it from my house to work. in any case, it’s coming along nicely, warts and all. working on the first sleeve, as you can see. i wish i’d done some more of these so i had some slight idea of what the hell i was doing - but it’s not like that’s ever stopped me in the past. posted in personal | 7 comments » new page: photography for knitters september 23rd, 2007 i thought already wrote this entry once, but it seems to have vanished into the ether. feh. so, new page up in the sidebar: photography for knitters. this page is a lot less complete than i originally envisioned, but i spent so long trying to get it right that i decided to just go ahead and publish the darn thing and then try to improve it as i got feedback. so, please, if you’re a knitter with a point-and-shoot camera and you want a little advice on taking pictures of your knitting, have at it. if you think it’s noticeably incomplete, please let me know. posted in personal | 1 comment » it’s all about the words you choose september 23rd, 2007 there’s a news story that’s going on right now that is really, really pissing me off on several levels. here’s the story: star simpson, a student at mit, went to the airport to pick up a friend. on her jacket she had a breadboard with several leds and a nine-volt battery that powered them. now, i’m choosing my words deliberately here, because word choice is one of the things that’s so aggravating about the way this story is being reported. in case you’ve never played with one, a breadboard is a plastic board with holes in it and metal circuits inside. it’s used for prototyping electrical circuits - it’s re-usable and much easier than printing up your own printed circuit boards. but i digress. the cute little artsy breadboard was identified by airport personnel as a possible bomb. star was arrested, had to pay $750 bond to get out of jail, and is currently charged with “posessing a hox device”. the news media is consistently using the phrase “fake bomb” in their reporting. here’s what really gets me: security from the airport confronted this girl and arrested her. they saw the breadboard up close. they decided it was a potential bomb. ever since the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001, the entire world has implemented lots of extra security measures in airports, but the people who are supposed to be the experts in security can’t tell a bomb when the see one - or don’t see one. there are people walking around airports with machine guns and the authority to potentially send you to prison without legal counsel for the rest of your life right here in the united states, and they are not very bright. this should make everyone worry. posted in personal | 14 comments » « previous entries my flickr photos www.flickr.com this is a flickr badge showing public photos from druzziel. make your own badge here. pageskilt hose notes photography for knitters redirection reviews the knit stitch the purl stitch rhinebeck kilt host playlist shawl notes shifty socks notes sock conversion chart team sock notes the shed visiknit (cable graph generator) blogroll the god of hellfire marnie's murals kelly's quotidian crazy biker chick geeks ants on the melon ed heather spoon todd will knitters all this by hand amputeehee around 'n around she goes big pink cookie busy mama dogs steal yarn donnazchaos emma and company enchanting juno jess, of the bugs katherineofitall kathy the knitigator knitiot savant knitting at lr2 knitting ranger knotty purls lair of lunacy ljl spins and knits los dos sock knitters mary's little lambz mary, mary quite contrary mimo knits moth heaven pippy knit-a-log redlipstick right to bear yarns scout's knitted swag seed stitch sock wars swim mom knits the panopticon the yarn harlot two sock knitters urban gypz yarn ball boogie yarnings photography strobist categories cafe bastille cables (18) candleflame shawl (10) cycling (21) experiments (24) fiddling (1) hats (49) holey moley (3) monk’s travel satchel (13) pasha (1) personal (450) politics (5) sakiori (11) samus aran (1) shawls (14) socks (22) software (54) sooper sekrit projekt (17) sweater project (89) tools (1) uncategorized (101) web (css/html/javascript) (9) workouts (2) yarn (31) archives october 2007 september 2007 august 2007 july 2007 june 2007 may 2007 april 2007 march 2007 february 2007 january 2007 december 2006 november 2006 october 2006 september 2006 august 2006 july 2006 june 2006 may 2006 april 2006 march 2006 february 2006 january 2006 december 2005 november 2005 october 2005 september 2005 august 2005 july 2005 june 2005 may 2005 april 2005 march 2005 february 2005 january 2005 december 2004 november 2004 october 2004 september 2004 august 2004 july 2004 june 2004 may 2004 april 2004 march 2004 february 2004 january 2004 december 2003 november 2003 october 2003 september 2003 august 2003 july 2003 june 2003 may 2003 april 2003 march 2003 february 2003 january 2003 sweater project is proudly powered by wordpress entries (rss) and comments (rss).

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