eye candy friday

Sunset on Tuesday.

From Madison Square Park last Wednesday (the 25th)–this was intended for last Friday’s eye candy, but I didn’t have my computer with me and thus never quite managed to borrow enough computer time to post. I got a “look, someone’s taking a picture!” comment while I was stopped to take this. I was amused.

Also from my Thanksgiving trip to New York:

We went to see the Mapping the Hudson exhibit at the public library, and stopped first in the children’s room to see the original stuffed animals that were the basis of the Winnie the Pooh stories. They’re clearly well-loved… And Piglet is a lot smaller than I’d've guessed!

I haven’t done all that much fibery stuff lately, but I knit half a sock heel at the Paul and Storm/Jonathan Coulton show last night. They turned the (rest of the) lights off after the intermission, and I couldn’t see well enough to pick up the wraps as well as the stitches, so I’ll have to finish it either at lunch or this evening. (The concert was great, though.)

 

eye candy friday

The one real downside to this spinning-while-walking thing is that I’m a lot less likely to pull out my camera. So, today, I have two photos from April, from Fort Tryon Park:

*

I went contra dancing last night for the first time in way too long. Maybe this’ll be the time when thinking “I should really do that more often” will translate into reality…

 

lace in the sun

I went up to New York this past weekend, to meet up with my parents. I also wanted to see the Fashioning Felt exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt. I was a little worried about convincing them that they’d want to go, as they’d seemed singularly uninterested when I suggested it in April, but I think their recent experience of making felt (cat-toy-like balls, at Shelburne Farms) may have changed their minds a bit. At any rate, we all really enjoyed the excursion, though I will admit to being a little disappointed by the sustainable design exhibit upstairs.  (It was okay, and there were a few particularly interesting bits, but it wasn’t as awe-inspiring as I’d hoped.)

Though most of the Felt show didn’t permit photography, I took a few pictures in the one room where it was allowed:

I’d be tempted to try to set up something like that, if I thought it’d survive for more than a few days without being a very elaborate cat tree…

*

I haven’t done any felting recently, but I did add a couple more repeats to my Estonian lace scarf, and I’m getting fairly comfortable with the pattern.

(The second photo is more true to the colors.)  It’s a wee bit longer than that now, but the light on Sunday afternoon was lovely (and I’ve missed all the nice daylight since I got home).

 

eye candy friday

These are from the gardens at the Cloisters, taken last month.

 

eye candy friday

Adamas is off the blocking board!

I’ll need to reblock it, after redoing the second half of the bindoff, but I think it’s going to go to Maryland more or less as-is.

The Aubrey/Maturin novels are still taking over my leisure time (I’m on book 12 now!), but I took a break last weekend to hang out with my parents in New York, where I talked them into going to the Cloisters. Fort Tryon Park was absolutely beautiful, so we spent a while there on the way to the museum.

More later–I need to fit some lunch into my midday break.

 

weekend in the city

I went up to New York this past weekend, mostly so I could see the Calder exhibit at the Whitney. I would highly recommend it to anyone who can get there while the exhibit’s still on (the next month or so), and I also quite liked the William Eggleston photography show they had.

They don’t allow photography in the museum, though, so my weekend’s photographs are from my ramble through Central Park after leaving the Whitney.  The snow was sticking more in the park than on the streets, and it was simply lovely.  (By the time I got back to where I was staying, though, there was enough snow on the sidewalks that I regretted not changing out of my earth shoes–I got snowpacks in the heels.  Not fun.)

.

Also, according to Chris, at least, today is Delurking Day.  Say hi!

 

Thanksgiving vacation, in pictures

As usual, I went up to New York for Thanksgiving with my parents and New York family. Whenever traffic and weather allow, I like to walk through Madison Square Park on my way from the train station, and I’m really glad I did so on Thursday–the current art installation is a bunch of small tree houses (“tree huts”).  (I also caught a bit of the Macy’s Day Parade outside Penn Station, but I figured Pikachu’s back wasn’t picture-worthy.)

I saw this as I was leaving the park, and thought it was appropriate signage for Thanksgiving:

I didn’t take pictures of the food or the people, but here’s a shot of the centerpiece (a cyclamen from the Greenmarket):

I continued to neglect my camera all day Friday, despite seeing the World Trade Center site for the first time since going to the tkts booth there ages ago, but I shot this from my bed on Friday night.  (Please pardon the angle; I was too tired to get up, and there wasn’t a real tripod handy.)  I know lighting like that has to be incredibly wasteful of energy, but I love the way it looks.

…And then, today, I came home to a snuggly cat.

The plastic bag in front of Mel is holding the yarn for my new lace project:

I’m using my corriedale/silk singles for Mim’s Adamas Shawl.  I’m a little concerned about how well the yarn is going to stand up to blocking, but I’m really enjoying the process.  It’s a really nice pattern, and the yarn is incredibly soft.  (And it’s handspun!  And lace!  What more do I need?)

All in all, a very nice vacation.

 

eye candy friday

Friday snuck up on me this week! These pictures are all from last Saturday evening, as the illuminated buildings replaced the sunlight.

 

two things

1. Go read this. And this. And then e-mail or write to the HHS.

2. I went up to NYC this past weekend, to hang out with my parents. And I finally managed to get myself to the Yarn Tree. (This requires being in Brooklyn on a not-Friday with some extra time.) I have to say, that was perhaps the second-nicest yarn/fiber store I’ve been to so far (after Shuttles in Boulderish, though I may be shorting NEFA a bit because I didn’t really know what I was doing when I went there). So many kinds of fiber I hadn’t seen (or noticed, at least) yet! Lots of colors of basic wools! And, not least, a table and chairs in the middle of the fiber/spinning room, so my parents didn’t get impatient. They actually seemed interested in some of the things with odder names or appearances, like the silk cocoons and silk hankies, and they agreed with me that the Kundert spindles were very pretty.

I had planned to buy very little–maybe an ounce or two of some unusual fiber that I hadn’t tried before, but nothing much. Instead, I, um, bought a lot. Including a spindle.

I had been thinking I wanted a new spindle that was heavier than the two Bosworth Midis that I’ve had for three years. This isn’t that (it’s 1.2 oz, between the 1.0 and 1.3 of the Midis), but I love it.

The fiber that’s already on it is the targhee I bought.  (Also YUM.)  I haven’t yet tried the silver baby alpaca or the merino/yak or the masham, but I’m looking forward to them. And that beautiful merino/tencel on the left is from JulieSpins (jsandell on Ravelry); it just happened to show up on my desk yesterday.

 

over the weekend

I spent the weekend in New York, with my parents. I had a very good time, despite missing the 7:09am train on Saturday by about two minutes and having to wait an hour for the next one. (The train time turned into a bit of knitting and a bit of napping.)

The scarf, which I’m now thinking of as the Flames Scarf, continues to grow. I am still very happy with it, even though the sides have started curling and I know it’ll need more serious blocking than I’d hoped.

My mom likes her Fetchings, and the Lady Hat has found a happy recipient whom it fits. (Not my mom.)

She also noticed this before I did:

Aside from the amazing detail work throughout the painting, that woman is wearing knitted mitts! (The painting, “Pope Gregory XVI Visiting the Church of San Benedetto at Subiaco” by Montessuy, was one of the many things we saw on our trip to the Met on Saturday. We left after six hours at the museum, because our brains were full and our feet were sore…they do have a lot of wonderful exhibits there.)

One of the other especially fun bits of the weekend was finding my grandmother’s old Scrabble set, complete with a crocheted pouch for the beautiful wooden tiles (two colors of them–we mixed the light and dark sets together, since they were each missing four tiles), and then playing Scrabble with my dad. (If any of you want to play Scrabulous on Facebook, e-mail me. I am somewhat obsessed.)

More later, when I hope to have either a new knitting project or some fresh yarn in a nicely photographable state.

 

eye candy friday

purple-blue-gold, originally uploaded by enting.

I’m really out of the habit of blogging (and taking pictures for blogging) after a month of having no computer and lots of stress.

Here, therefore, as an attempt to shift back to such activities, is a picture taken from my grandmother’s terrace. I don’t remember this building having colorful lighting before, but perhaps I just failed to notice it. (It’s only visible from the terrace, after all…) My apologies for the blurriness.

 

eye candy friday, late-night edition

lettuce, originally uploaded by enting.

My computer is completely nonfunctional (not accepting charge) for a little over a week now. I’m told that fixing it will cost hundreds of dollars that I don’t have. Otherwise, most of life is good, or at least not worse than last week…

One of the good bits was last weekend’s trip to NYC, during which I went to the Red Hook Community Farm with a few of my friends–it’s a really cute farm, topsoil placed on what looks like it used to be a parking lot. Nearly all of their produce was incredibly tempting–just about everything, that is, except for the watermelons that were full of rat holes. Ah, well. The lettuce and kale and peppers and pumpkins (et cetera) were all lovely.

Knitting-wise, I’ve been working on a Secret Group Project and the Peacock Feather Shawl, plus I started Icarus out of the yellow/orange/brown mohair blend that I dyed on dye-day.

 

eye candy friday

In Central Park, last Sunday.  These flowers smell really good, kind of like a cross between lilacs and roses.

(PELC wrap-up and knitting update after I get back from Maryland.)