flicker

Remember those boxes of doilies and lace trims I got for Christmas? I think this is what's going to happen to them. Do we love it?

Norwegian Blue

Let me introduce you to my newest knit project.



When Brett and I went to Rhinebeck, I budgeted for a small scale colorwork project and this is what I've come up with. The yarn is a simple, very richly dyed, wool yarn in Blueberry and White. I pieced together the pattern from a chart in Mary Scott Huff's The New Stranded Colorwork, a very nice book with beautiful, inspiring photographs (also a Rhinebeck buy), and the traditional stranded black and white mittens in Selbuvotter.



I made up my own chart and it's needed a little tweaking but it's working very well so far.

Wheee!

Brett was looking for some workout clothes in the dryer this evening.



Instead, he found one of these:



Bwahahahahaha. Silly Chester.

Been using my time off from work to be productive (ish). We haven't signed contracts yet but we've started filling them out for a photographer and a caterer. We have printed up our Save the Date postcards and will be mailing them out really soon. Wedding plans progress! (I can't wait to show you the photographer's website; I love his work and can't wait to see what he does for us.)

I finished a pair of mittens for Brett. Double thick. At about a 8st/in gauge. Oofda. A nice knit for picking up whenever there was time but it was pretty simple. Reports are that they are very warm. Now I've started a pair of blue and white colorwork mittens. The yarn is from Rhinebeck and the pattern is mishmoshed from the Selbuvotter mitten book with a motif lifted from Mary Scott Huff's The New Stranded Colorwork as the center. I'll show you pictures soon.

"These streets will make you feel brand new"

Yesterday, Brett and I finally made it down to the big city! He took me down for my birthday and we had a great time. We drove about 4 hours, parked the car and hopped on a train.


Love trains! I wish I could commute on one every day instead of driving.




We did have some trouble finding the station so we could buy our tickets. We ran around in the 0 degree wind chill to all the buildings near the train tracks and we found a lawyer, a post office, a bus depot, and then finally decided we could buy our tickets from the conductor on the train. Little did we know that on the over pass over the tracks, there was an automated ticket machine. Awesome!



We sped our way along the Hudson river


and saw a bald eagle.

It's the little black speck up there. So on the way to Rhinebeck, Brett saw a bear and on the way to New York City we saw a bald eagle. Neat, right?

We pulled into Grand Central and met up with my college friend Kate at the clock. What a beautiful train station. The ceiling is a ethereal cerulean color painted with the constellations. There's intricate metal and stone work everywhere. Lots of oak leaves.

"Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who funded the building of Grand Central, created his own family crest featuring acorns and oak leaves to symbolize his rise from rags to riches.

We walked down towards Times Square and saw Bryant Park and the Conde Nast building on the way. Stopped for lunch at a cute little pub that Kate frequents. Times Square is pretty overwhelming even on a slow Sunday, with video billboards dozens of stories tall, vendors and all kinds of people.

The best part of the trip was Rockefeller Center where we saw amazing Deco art and stopped in the NBC store. (Who wants a Top Chef apron? I do!) Brett and I bought tickets to go up to the observation deck while Kate waited for us down below. I wasn't super keen to go because it's a little pricey, but it was completely worth it. The first level of observation is mostly inside with a few corner balconies you can go out for another (colder) view. Then there's another floor that's all outside, protected a little by big plexi barriers. But the best view was waaaaaaay at the top on a small patio.

There's literally nothing higher than you on the whole building. We could see Central Park, the Empire State building, the Chrysler Building, and far out the Statue of Liberty. New York City is a BIG sprawling city.

After the Rock, we stopped for tea and a birthday cupcake at Dean and Deluca's then strolled down 5th Ave taking in the beautiful art and architecture. We checked out the stunning Plaza Hotel which smelled of lilies and made me think of An Ideal Husband. Kate and I overheard a young mother with very poofy lips ask a hotel staff member where Eloise was and he replied without missing a beat that "Oh, Eloise is in Paris." I wish I'd had the nerve to take a picture of the box of Kleenex in the back window of the Rolls Royce parked in front of the hotel. Didn't really feel like getting in trouble with the guards though, so we finished with a quick jog over to the Central Park subway station and took it back to Grand Central to take the train back to our car. It was a long ride home, but what a great day!

And today, for the first time in what feels like a very long time, there. is. SUN!

Changes the whole look of the wintery world, and I can't even say how grateful I am for that.

christmas catch-up

My brother's glittens went out in the mail yesterday and hopefully they will arrive soon to warm his poor frigid 1850 workin hands. They were a pretty simple pattern that I whipped up to use up left over yarn bits in green and blue and red. It's perfect "recession knitting" and they're all ideal yarns for hardwearing handwear. Hope he likes 'em.

I'm working on a pair of mittens for Brett with some of that Rhinebeck yarn. It's the same basic structure as most of my other mittens, but since the yarn is a little on the thin side, I'm going to line them like I did with Aunt Karen's alpaca mittens.

Christmas was excellent for collecting antique textile things. The awesomness started in the stocking where there was a lovely little apron with purple gingam and an embrodiered cluster of grapes. Also a pocket. Love it! There was a darning egg (I needed one, remember!) that opens to store your darning needle and thread. It's wonderful! AND! There was a whole collection of these weird little crocheted hot pads? decorations? rodeo clown flags? in shapes of things like bloomers that I have no idea what to do with. Suggestions?

There was also a whole bunch of beautiful handkerchiefs that I would love to work into the wedding somehow. There's one in particular that I think I'll probably be carrying down the isle. Want to see?

Flora

I promised my Aunt I'd throw a post up about wedding flowers.

I've been collecting pictures online for a while now, mostly from The Knot and Offbeat Bride as inspiration and to try to decide the styles, shapes, colors and kinds of flowers I like the best. The plan at the moment is to do most of the centerpieces and ceremony arrangements ourselves and to have a florist do the bouquets and boutonnieres. I'd like to be able to talk to a florist with general conceptual ideas and then let him or her get creative and fun with it.

Generally, the flowers should have a simple, old fashioned feel to them, like they just came out of someone's wonderful garden. (If I get really lucky, maybe they even will be...) The fabric details will all be royal blue and the floral details will be bright orange, yellow, and red.








I like this style for the pews at the ceremony, with the pretty galvanized pail and the billowy hydrangea. The white is good, but big orange carnations or marigolds would be nice too. I think the silver detail would be nice with all the warm natural wood in the church. And we can pick the pails up and take them with us to the reception site pretty easily.

At the reception, we're going to go with simple groupings of tall skinny vases with single blooms in each. Like this!


I think these are carnations and dahlias and I love the way they just float above the table with all that pretty glass below. Imagine these in those flame colors with just 4-6 blooms on a table.

The use of herbs at weddings is a pretty old and usually overlooked tradition, but I really love the idea of fresh smelling rosemary, mint, and lemon balm in among the flowers. This arrangement has mint in with zinnias. How summery and pretty is that?

Maybe a pretty pitcher full of mint with a few golden nasturtiums nestled in to put on the desert table would work for us?

I don't know logistically how sprigs of rosemary would work tied to menus or napkins (we're short on set up time between the ceremony and the reception...) but isn't this a lovely little set up?


In India, marigolds are traditional wedding flowers. They string them in gorgeous long garlands. How beautiful would a few of these look curtaining the door to the reception?



For the bouquets?
The girls should definitely have fun bright blooms. I love the one on the top of the post with the little blue buttons! And how's this for elegant?


For myself? I like the one above. And I lurve this relaxed white and slightly blue bouquet.


So I'll probably either go with some serious color, or a pretty white and blue thing, depending on the advice of my floral artist!

Of course, I haven't ruled out flower alternatives, like these gorgeous fabric (or maybe paper) blooms. How fun are they?


For other gorgeous paper and fabric flower pictures, head over to Martha Stewart Weddings (right here, actually) and don't blame me if you waste the next hour looking at all her pretty ideas.

Argyle!

I didn't do much Christmas Knitting this year, which is either a blessing or a disappointment, depending on who you are. I pick my Christmas projects very carefully and both the ones I worked on this year were specific requests. My grandpa asked for a pair of socks and my brother asked for a pair of convertible fingerless glove/mittens. I love making things that I know will be appreciated.

My Grandma used to make handknit argyle socks for Grandpa back when they were first married, so I figured I'd give them a shot. I ordered the yarn in September and cast on when I got the package a few days later. I put the last stitches in on December 21st.


Pattern:
Based on Minerva's Argyles, sized for a 10.5 men's foot.
Yarn:
Knit Picks Gloss, 1.5 skein burgundy, 1 skein mushroom
Needles:
US 2 circular on the flat, US 2 dpns for the toe
Notes:



Oh goodness, argyle is a seriously major project. I like color work, but argyle is done intarsia style, so it has to be knit flat with a seperate strand of yarn for each color section. Most clever intarsia knitters wrap a section of yarn onto a bobbin to keep the extra from getting in the way. Since this was my first project, I wasn't sure how much yarn to bobbin up, so I wound the yarn into smallish balls and worked like that, but this resulted in a ton of fidgety twisting, balls rolling away from me, and slow slow progress as I had to stop and reset everything every few rounds. It was about the least portable project I've had yet. It involved a huge seam up the back

(have I mentioned how I loath seams?) and a whole lotta duplicate stitch to put on the cross marking. Not hard but was a little tedious.



Of course, I didn't take a picture of them completely finished, but I was pretty pleased with the end result and Grandpa loved them. He said that store bought socks just don't have the same fit as a handknit and, of course, he's right. If he likes them and wears them it's completely worth every minute of work.

I'm pretty sure I'll do more argyle someday. I know better than to swear off any technique for the rest of my knitting career. But I don't think I'll be doing them any time soon and I'll absolutely be using better technique!

Next season on Penelope Knits

Welcome 2010. Thank goodness you are here.

Last night Brett and I watched the ball drop in Times Square, rang in the New Year in the customary fashion of a glass of bubbly liquid and a hopeful kiss, and then immediately went to bed. Brett's been under the weather since about Cleveland on the way home from Christmas vacation and so we figured we'd better take it easy.

It was great to be home with both sets of folks for our holiday celebrations. It just wouldn't be Christmas without family, after all. But the drive is always long, and we did bump into a bit of blizzard on the leg from Illinois to Iowa that made things a little more exciting. Other than that, we pretty much dodged the winter weather.

Now we're back in NY, feeling like that drive is just too long.

So what do you, my loyal readers, have to look forward to the upcoming year?

There will be more knitting. After all, this is a knitting blog, and as often as other things pop up in my life, that's the touchstone for my corner of the Intertubes. This year is an Olympic year, and I'm hoping that The Yarn Harlot will again be championing the Knitting Olympics that she founded back in 2006. I missed the 2006 event because I was just finding the online knitting community, but I'm ready for competition now. I'm still deciding what project to tackle. It should be a personal challenge to complete during the running of the Olympics from torch lighting to closing ceremonies and no longer. So there's that to look forward to.

I have yarn for lots of socks, (including Rhinebeck yarn and some gorgeous new Christmas yarn)
a few sweaters worth, at least one colorwork project planned, and plenty of loose balls for one off projects, not to mention rather a lot of fiber to spin. So there's that to look forward to.

But it can't all be fiber goodness all the time. Sometimes we're going to be talking about other things, including my very exciting wedding planning. (We started registering and we probably found our caterer. Only about a thousand more decisions to make till the big day!)

There will be various crafty posts. Projects for the house and for my friends and for my wedding and all sorts of things. I'm definitely going to need to show off some of that neat stuff (or bemoan my miserable failures with a little company).

I hope I'll also be showing off my amazing super healthy lifestyle. You know the one where I eat 3 cups of veggies a day, go to the gym all the time, and drop about 20 lbs? I'm sure you'll be seeing lots of posts about that!

You'll get to see the pride of my good days, and probably some of the frustration of the bad while I start teaching at the HoF and keep working on Penelope Fiberworks. There will be the boredom and the beauty of our small little village in the hills of New York. You'll see my impatient garden plans in late winter and the first green of the land in the spring. The summer mists and storms and the brilliant fall colors. And all sorts of things that I can't even imagine yet.

Stay tuned. You don't want to miss 2010.