This Is Where I Get To Squee

This is the part where I squee like a little kid.
Why?
Because there's a better than 50% chance that I'll be going to Reinbeck this year.
Squeeeee!
It isn't settled yet, but it's a possible, and as Eleanor of Aquitaine says in The Lion in Winter, "In a world where carpenters are resurrected, anything is possible."

Here's the deal. On Friday I fly up to Boston for the Bat Mitzvah of my friend Naomi, whose parents are some of my closest and dearest friends. I've known Naomi since the day she was born, and used to babysit her. At one point she wanted to be a lawyer, an architect, and an interior designer, all at once. It's a lot of schooling, but hell, she's a smart kid. That was when she was eight, now, at a stately 13, I wonder if she still wants to become all those things. Anyway, our friend Kim* will also be at the Bat Mitzvah, and she lives in Schenectady. We could go to Reinbeck on Sunday. I would have to be back in the Boston area by Monday, but it's possible that I can get there this year. And I've been putting aside money from each paycheque for such a yarn carnage, so if the stars align, you know I'll be there.

If I am unable to make it to Reinbeck, at least I get to see dear friends, eat some amazing food, and get to experience a little bit of fall (while the humidity has abated somewhat, it's still in the high 80s here in the Crescent City, and it's still uncomfortably hot to me). I hope there are still some leaves in colour when I get up there, though I know I've totally missed the peak colour, and most everything will be brown. But if I can see one sugar maple. . . .

Speaking of sugar maples, a friend from the far northern reaches of Vermont was visiting last week, and she brought me a whole gallon of Vermont maple syrup! Such riches! Such extravagance! Such deliciousness! That stuff can't be had for love or money down here.

So now I hope that Kim and I can swing this trip. I haven't been to Reinbeck in a wicked long time. It will be good to see it again. So, fingers, toes, and eyes all crossed (which makes it decidedly difficult to type!).


*One of my fondest memories of Naomi is from when she was about two. She'd point at Kim and say, "Ken!" then she'd point at me and say, "Kim!" and then she'd dissolve into a fit of giggles, and then she'd do it all over again. Even at two she noted the similarity of our names.

Toe In the Water: A Return to My Blog

Well, hello. It's been a while. Sorry about that. I was busy knitting. I fell in love with a pattern, and by the fifth iteration of it, I had fallen quite out of love with it. I still need to finish that fifth iteration, and make two more. I hate to think of knitting as penance for my sins, but there you are. Sometimes that's exactly what it is.

In the last seven or so months that I've been away from this blog, I visited the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival in May; I bought many gorgeous yarns, and passed even more by, since I was on a limited budget. I've enjoyed New Orleans Pride, Southern Decadence, and am planning a trip to Boston for a bat mitzvah later this month. My yarn stash has increased, despite my attempts to knit my stash, which has been an abysmal failure, I got defriended on Facebook by two people for whom I was making hats (nothing I did or said, I think they were just cleaning up their friends' lists of people they'd never met in real life, but I'll never know, will I? I'm not taking it personally. Well, yes I am, fuck them with a steak knife, but I struggle to be all Zen about it). I've already given one of the hats away, and am currently looking for a recipient of the other hat. Not everyone I know is yarn worthy. Life has had triumphs and set backs, like all lives.

I have been working on the Dragon Scale pattern. I've done it in Baah's London Blue. I've done it in Mad Color Fiber's Land of Oz green. I've done it in Zen Garden's red. I've done it in Mad Color Fiber's Amethyst. I'm currently doing it in Madline Tosh's Blood Run Cold, which is a gorgeous red, and is the only one that isn't merino, since this line is in Blue Face Leicester. I'm struggling with this last one, since I'm a bit bored of the pattern. I find that when I actually knit it , I sort of enjoy it (except for the purled backside), but I'm unable to work up some enthusiasm about it. But two or three more repeats of the pattern, and I should be done. That's a mercy.

Here's a picture of me talking to a llama at the NHS&WF, May, 2018