Knitting in the Shadows

So What's Taking So Long?

Some of you may be wondering what's taking me so very long to finish up the Scotland posts.

Well, the day after we got home, I started school!

After years of being unable to get a job because I'm either over- or under-qualified (and most often some bizarre combination of the two) for everything, I decided to just start over and get certified in something new so that I become employable again.

I've started the Massage Therapy Program in our local college.  This week that has meant studying chemistry (in particular body chemistry) in my Physiology & Anatomy course, memorizing the basic skeletal bones and about 50 muscles in my Musculo-Skeletal Anatomy course, and learning the structure of the brain in the psychology class.  My brain is numb.

And, I seem to stay up later than I'd like studying every night.   Luckily, I seem not to have a ton of homework on Wednesday nights, so I can still have knit night  :-)

But, it means that I seem not to have the hours I usually spend tweaking pictures and posts.  I'll try to get back in gear now that I've gotten all the administrative kinks worked out.

Beach Trees -- Rebuilding More than a House

I recently posted a review of Karen White's, The Beach Trees at the BlogHer book club.  It went live there on July 15, and I'm reposting it here, just because....

Penguin's summary of the book said, "From the time she was twelve, Julie Holt knew what a random tragedy can do to a family. At that tender age, her little sister disappeared-never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on. As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can't help feeling protective. It is a friendship that begins a long and painful process of healing for Julie, leading her to a house on the Gulf Coast, ravaged by hurricane Katrina, and to stories of family that take her deep into the past."

Frankly, that doesn't tell you much about the book. For starters, it leads you to expect that the story you'll be reading is about Julie's loss and what how her family erodes.  Not so much. 

This is a book about three generations of women (or girls) who disappear, and the mysteries behind those disappearances. 

Julie Holt's sister disappeared when Julie was twelve.  In some ways, Julie blamed herself, as kids are wont to do, and thus she devoted much of her life to finding her sister.  Despite developing a bright career in the arts in Philadelphia, she spent every night poring over all of the internet sites with information about missing people, or missing children instead of building a vital life of her own.  She stayed in contact with the detective assigned to her sister's case until he retired, and then with the detective who took over the long cold case.  Her life revolved around hunting for her sister.

Eventually, she met Monica... a woman who had left her own family for reasons that she never told Julie.  I find it a tad difficult to believe that Julie, who had devoted her life to finding the sister who had disappeared so long ago, would be so accepting of Monica's decision to leave her family wondering what happened to her, but that acceptance is necessary to the rest of the story.  Over time, Julie and Monica became such close friends that when Monica died of a heart condition, she left a will which gave Julie Monica's share of a house on the beach in Biloxi, Mississippi, and made her guardian of Monica's five year old son.  She also left Julie a painting ... a painting of Monica's great grandmother, who also disappeared, leaving her family many years before.

The Beach Trees is the story of how Julie, unable to find her sister, unable to solve the mystery of that missing child, is eventually able to resolve the mysteries of two other missing women whose ties to her family are half a century old.  It is also a story of rebuilding, and rediscovery.

We meet Julie as she's on the road, having abandoned her career in favor of taking care of the five year old son of  and heading towards Biloxi, Mississippi to find this house.  Upon arrival, Julie discovers that the house had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.  She then seeks out a woman that Monica had told her to find, where she is given the original painting by Abe Holt -- a painting of Julie's great grandfather.

Now the story really begins.  Julie meets the rest of Monica's family, including Monica's brother (who owns half the house) and grandmother, Aimee.  She learns about Monica's past, and  discovers that her own great-grandfather painted the portrait of Monica's great-grandmother, which Monica left to her.  She meets the people who have lived and worked with Monica's family since Aimee was young, and learns the secrets that bind them to Monica's family.

As Julie learns Aimee's story, and discovers the mystery of Monica's great-grandmother's disappearance, she also works with Monica's brother to rebuild the house in Biloxi.  As Julie learns to understand the meaning of home and family in a new way, she comes to understand why people rebuild after hurricanes. Over time, she and Aimee slowly put together all of the pieces of the puzzles of the past, ultimately discovering what happened to Monica's great grandmother, and why Monica ran from her family.

In these stories, we see New Orleans of today, and of the 1950's when the Mardis Gras Crewes were still in their hey day.  White's descriptions of New Orleans are not as vivid as some, but still invoke the city for those who know it.

This is a quietly satisfying book.  In the end, we still do not know what has happened to Julie's sister.  But Julie, at least, is at peace with not knowing.

 

 

Walkin' up that Hill

Having rejected the opportunity to spend twenty pounds apiece on a tour we didn't want, we turned back up the hill.

Straight away we found something totally appropriate for a blog that is, ostensibly, about knitting:

No, that forbidding door is not to a gaol, it's to ...

The Scottish Craft Center!  (Okay, peering in the window revealed a courtyard that showed no signs whatever that knitting, spinning, or weaving ever took place there.  Indeed, I'd suspect this served potters more than fiber workers.  But still...)

We wandered uphill a bit more, and ran into what looked like a wee museum -- the Museum of Edinburgh. In an old part of an old city surrounded by old old buildings and such, this free museum had things in it that made that Craft Center and the castles that surround the town look positively young.  As it turns out that only the ground floor is wee ... upstairs turns into a maze full of old, and sometimes historically relevant, china and silver and glass and armor and....  But I think the oldest things were on the ground floor --

Oh sure... a coin you say...

The sign is a tad confusing, for I get AD 69-79 as being in the FIRST century AD, but still that sucker is nigh onto 2,000 years old! Yes, that's the right number of zeros. I really meant two thousand years. 

These don't look to be in as good a shape as the orichalum above, but they're still pretty darned old.

They also had the clock movement from a bell tower that has since been upgraded.  That was very cool to look at, but impossible for me to get decent picture of.  Alas, Golf Pro is not as fascinated by all this old stuff as I am, so I didn't spend a lot of time in the museum. 

By now, it was getting on to hot and thirsty, though after that breakfast, I clearly needed no more food.  Luckily, Golf Pro happened upon this practically modern pub.

Though not nearly as old as some of the stuff in the wee museum, it has definitely been around (and continuously serving pints) for quite a while.

While I did not partake of any pints (or half-pints) of ale, I did thoroughly enjoy a pint of cider. 

What?  of course I had knitting with me.  I always have knitting with me!  And I thoroughly enjoyed a bit of sock knitting while sipping my cider. Cider, by the way, is an alcoholic beverage... so I had only one.

Perhaps the alcohol explains why the next stop was in a wee gift shop in which I finally parted with some pounds to buy pressies for the girls.  Perhaps not (they were different from the drek I'd seen in other shops).  But thereafter, we turned to and hiked right up that road towards Edinburgh Castle.  ...

Waking Up in Scotland

Finally, our first full day in Scotland.  What better way to start it than with a Traditional Scottish Breakfast?  After all, isn't vacation supposed to have a little adventure?

In case that's hard to read, it includes

• Fat and Juicy Pork and Sage Sausage
• Smoked Ayrshir Back Bacon
• Stornaway's Famos Black Pudding
• Haggis hand made by ...
• Oxenrig free range eggs
• Scotland's own "tattie scone"
• Fried Mushrooms
• Grilled tomato
• Baked Beans

(and of course, tea, and orange juice).

And... because I could -- Arbroath Smokie.

It looks like this (without the smokie)

And yes, I did taste everything on my plate.

I confess, the sausage didn't do anything for me, but the Back Bacon was delicious.

The black pudding tasted a wee bit like corned beef hash, but the texture was far different.  The haggis tasted a wee bit like liver pate, but again, the texture was far different.  The tattie scone was delightful.

I did not clean my plate.  But I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast, and thus fortified, we set off to see what we could see.  Having already gotten a glimpse of what was up one side of High Street, we chose to head down this time... in the hopes of seeing Holyrood Abbey. Holyrood Abbey is right next to Holyrood Palace (which is still the official residence of the Monarch in Scotland (i.e. where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland).  I wanted to see the ruins up close, but alas, the only way to do that is to pay for and go on the tour of the Palace as well.

I bailed on the palace tour, but did see some interesting things on my way down the hill to Holyrood.

 Oh, come on, you knew there was going to be one, right?

Okay, on a more historical note... beautiful old buildings...

REALLY old crosses...

No, seriously, check out the date:

More lovely old buildings.... with interesting uses:

Other pretty buildings...

Followed by a jarringly... well..non-conforming structure

Alas, we couldn't go in.... no pass. 

And right across the street?

Another building into which I did not go.

Once we got down to Holyrood Palace, which has this in its courtyard,

we learned that the only way to see the Abbey ruins was to take the Palace tour.  I didn't really want to see the Palace tour, so we turned and walked back up the hill.  Going up, we noticed that we had a new view of Calton Burial Grounds...

and of Arthur's Seat...

 

And since this post is already so long, I'll show you the uphill journey in the next one!

 

Yarn Store Results, and More High Street Fun

As I'm sure you figured, I bought yarn at that shop.

Though it messes some with the time line, I thought I'd show you the results of that purchase. (This also allows me to prove that some knitting progress was made).

 

 The original design had fun intarsia cables, but the repeats would not have worked out to create something that actually fit Golf Pro, who had forgotte to bring a warm hat for golfing....

Meanwhile, back on the streets, we encountered more fun things.  A cheesemonger...

Which made me think of this Monty Python Sketch:

Or if you'd like to see all the cheeses they discuss....

 Then we encountered this

Which was fun, and as these dissipated, their maker made these

 And then ....

This....

Around another bend we found....The Castle, of course,

which we'll see much more of soon...

 

I'll leave you with a theme song for this shot...

 

A Stroll Before Supper

Having gotten our bearings, we returned to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.  This time, we stepped out of the hotel and turned right, walked a block, and hung another right onto High Street, where Festival was in full swing.

Check out those feet...

We strolled past St. Giles Cathedral

 

where we had to walk around this performance...

We then slipped down  George IV Bridge to Victoria Bow, where we found The GrainStore, an absolutely wonderful restaurant, where I began my Scottish Food Adventures.  I was a bad blogger, and failed to photograph the lovely courses as they came past my plate.

For dinner, I had a wee taste of crisp tounge, followed by a succulent serving of venison and venison liver.  I confess here that the venison was not an adventure, it was a treat - one of my favorite foods. The tounge was an adventure.  My dad tells stories of toungue food fights in his dorms....  ahem.  It was okay, but not delightful.  The venison liver, on the other hand, was exquisite.

After dinner, we strolled further down Victoria Bow where I encountered something I'd hoped I might find sometime during our trip, but had feared that I would not...

K1 Yarns Knitting Boutique.  I'm sure you'll be stunned to know that my first souvenir purchase came from this store.  I bravely resisted this yarn at 20 pounds a skein (what with a pound working out to be about $1.75 these days), I couldn't quite justify it.  Instead, we picked up two hands of Artesano Aran  from which I plan to make a hat for Golf Pro, and something for myself.

We wandered a bit more, and hooked back up with High Street as the crowds were working their way into the Castle for The Edinburgh Tattoo.

By the time we got back to the hotel we'd passed DOZENS of shops with T-Shirts, and dozens selling --- cashmere!

A Walk About to Get Our Bearings

Having settled in, we took ourselves for a bit of a walk before supper. 

Stepping out the door to the hotel, we turned left to see if we could find that castle like building we'd seen.  After a walk across the North Bridge, we turned right on Princes Street and wandered along until we readed the Old Calton Cemetery. It looked intriguing, so we climbed the stairs and took a look around.

Clearly, we were closer to that castle-like building.  But we were also in the presence of some interesting resting places.  Among those buried here are David Hume. Hume believed that desire, and not reason, guided human behavior.  As he said, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."  This clearly holds true for knitters.  If reason guided our behavior, we'd never buy yarn for which we did not have an immediate use.  Hume explains our S.E.X.** Drive.

Also buried here were various actors, booksellers, tradesmen and other interesting people.  Some of the gravestones are marvelous resources for genealogy buffs, as they include informaiton about a number of people in a given family.  Take this one:

After meandering about for a bit, we went back out to the street, discovered that the castle is currently the governor's house (and does not at all appear to be open to the public).  We then crossed the road to wander about on Calton Hill, from which there are splendid views of the city.  From here, one can see the Firth of Forth... it's that hazy gray blue bit in the middle.

Here we can see down onto more of Old Calton Burial Ground

And one can see Arthur's Seat

and Holyrood Palace

Of course this isn't the best view of the Palace.  For that one needs to go down a different street.... but you do ge a nice peek at Holyrood Abbey

Of course the Hill itself has lots of monuments to see.  There is, of course, the Nelson Monument

And the National Monument (which was to have been a replica of the Parthenon, but the money ran out).  I still think it's impressive ..

When you walk back down the hill, the view is still interesting,

and at the bottom you wind up in front of the Scottish Government Building

It takes on a very different flavor when you look up...

And those folks up top look awfully stern to me...

After that, we headed "home" to get ready for dinner.  The concierge had recommended what sounded like a truly lovely spot, and we didn't think that jeans and t-shirts were appropriate attire. .....

**Stash Acquisition Expeditions.

A lovely view

Once we were settled into our rooms,....

What? oh yes, rooms.  Our hotel has some lovely quirky places, which included our rooms.  We'd a wee sitting space, with two chairs and a table, downstairs ...

And then our bedroom and bath upstairs.  The view from the lower room looked like this

Zooming just a wee bit, you see this:

And cranking the zoom up even further you get to see this:

And yes, there is a castle in the middle of Edinburgh, but no, that's not it.  I think that might be the Governor's House.

Going upstairs, and looking out that window, you can see this

and this

That tall spikey thing is the Sir Walter Scott Monument.  I've more pictures from later in our visit.

And from our bathroom window, we could see this

I rather liked the gargoyle...

Even though the weather was a bit soft, we decided to go take a walk around town after we'd settled in.  I'll tell you all about it once I find a few links to help the explanation.

Frankfurt and Edinburgh

Frankfurt Airport is an interesting place. 

First off, once we'd left our arrival gate, we  were guided nicely to our next concourse (up a wee glass elevator to a trainlet (only two cars), which took us to the next place), and then down the escalator.  All escalators had bars in front that made sure no one could try to take a luggage cart on them.

Turns out that when you change concourses, you get to go through security again.  There was no warning about that... not that it made a big difference.  After all, we'd not acquired anything since we last went through security.

Alas, once we arrived in the concourse from which we'd depart for Scotland, we couldn't find anyone to check us in for our departure to Scotland.  That was... perturbing.  Lufthansa was everywhere, but no one was manning the various stations.  We figured it might be a tad early, so we went to breakfast in a restaurant called the Goethe Bar.  Right there in the middle of the airport, there was a statue of the man himself:

We had coffee and croissant, and then went looking for Lufthansa folk again, when this caught my attention:

Yep, a HUGE Bayer sign hanging from the ceiling (and yes, that is a Tiffany store in the background on the bottom... and yes, that is a McDonalds McCafe upstairs).  Never did figure out why the Bayer sign was there.

Eventually, we got boarding passes, and settled in to wait at our gate.  Our gate which was downstairs.  On the ground floor.  I'd never seen a gate on the ground floor that didn't lead to a wee puddle jumper of a plane whose rickety roll up steps you had to climb to reach the plane.

Evidently, this is commonplace in Frankfurt.  When we were called, we all boarded a bus that took us 'round to our plane at it's Apron....  The bus looked a lot like that one...

There were plenty of planes out there on the apron, waiting for passengers.

The flight itself was pleasant ... and when we arrived, customs was not nearly as bad as we'd prepared ourselves for.  Soon we were in our room at our lovely hotel, armed with a cuppa tea.

Later, I'll show you the stairs... and the view from our window... and take you on a bit of sight seeing....

Continental - 0, Lufthansa +1

We were supposed to leave Maine on Tuesday, flying from Portland to Neward, and from Neward to Edinburgh.

At 1:47 p.m., I printed out our boarding passes.  We didn't check with the airport after that, and at around 4:00, my dad drove us to the airport with all our luggage, we hauled it all into the building in plenty of time, we stood in line, and learned that the flight from Portland to Neward was cancelled because of weather -- in Philadelphia.  Evidently, they'd cancelled the flight at 2:00.

Sigh.

Two days before, while flying ATA, I'd gotten a text message about every freakin' change in the timing of everything.  Over the past weeks, ATA had called us, and emailed us, about changes to our flights.

But on the day of the flight, did Continental call us? nope.  They claimed we'd not given them any contact information.  Of course, the same travel folks (our credit card company) had made both sets of reservations, on the same day.  I find it hard to believe that they provided info to one airline and not the other.

Anyway.... the best Continental could offer us was a flight out of Boston the next day.  And no, they couldn't cover any of the money we'd have to spend for taxi, or hotel, or even getting to Boston!  I get that with weather issues, they don't pay for hotel. But you'd think they'd at least make sure they covered getting us out of the same airport their cancelled flight left from.....

Sigh.

Not so much.

So, we took a taxi back to my mom's house ($75.00), and had a good night's sleep.  Then we tried to do the online check in for our flight.  That took about an hour, because even though Continental told us that the flight out of Boston was a Continental flight, it turns out tha tit was really a Lufthansa flight.  It took most of the time we had in the house in the morning to solve that problem.  Even then, I could only get checked in for our first leg (Boston to Frankfurt).  We just had to hope that there were no problems in Frankfurt, though we hoped we'd be able to fix that in Boston when we checked our luggage.

Dad drove us in to Brunswick, where we caught a bus to Boston (another $75), and hauled our luggage into the International Terminal.  It did not feel at all like an airport.  The frenzied energy of the regular airport was completely missing.  This was a calm place.  A soothing place.  People walked slowly. No one rushed.  Everyone was polite.  It was a lovely change.

Alas, we still could not confirm boarding passes out of Frankfurt.  Luckily (??) we had a six hour lay over in Frankfurt to resolve the problem.  Now, in the States, I'd have left the airport and gone for breakfast with those six hours.  But in Frankfurt, there'd have been customs to go through first.  So, we had too long to be pleasant but not long enough to do anything.

Our flight was lovely.  Lufthansa Airlines wins my vote.  I'd like to fly them anywhere.  Stewards were delightful. Dinner was very good.  Coffee in the morning was great.  All in all, a good thing. (Except for the part where I never really got any sleep).

 

Tomorrow -- Frankfurt, and our arrival in Scotland!

 

A wee change in plans

Somehow, despite putting up pictures of all sorts of pretty lace yarns, and contemplating dozens of pretty lace patterns... at the very last minute I changed plans completely.

I have printed out the pattern for the 22 Leaves Shawl (though I will be knitting the 34 Leaves version).  And in lieu of all those lovely yarns, I wound up my 2 skeins of HandMaiden Sea Silk to knit it in.  I did not, however, bring the photo files for all the yarns I own (well, okay, they're on the iPod... but I'm too darned lazy to move them over...).

I'd planned on posting this, with a picture, before we actually left the country, but it didn't happen.

So... Day One of the Trip

Despite traveling with far too much luggage --

our flights out to Maine were uneventful.  We had plenty of time during our layover in Atlanta to eat a decent burger.  Our ride was waiting just where he should have been, as was all of our luggage.

Day Two -

We went into town for a bit of necessary shopping. Oddly, I can't remember the main reason for the jaunt into town, but while we were out.... I lured the family into Halcyon Yarn to pick up two cones of cotton for a planned project.  Sitting there in "our" room at my mother's house is clear evidence that I've gone quite over the edge.  Having gotten Golf Pro's assent (even happy agreement), I'll be turning two cones worth of cotton into curtains (full length curtains) for our front room using the Dwarrowdelf Pattern.  Somehow, I thought it would be better to fetch and carry than to have the yarn shipped.

I did get a hug from my favorite Halcyon employee anyway.  :-)

After that thrill, we enjoyed a bit of supper Maine Style.

Want a better look?

Tomorrow - the transportation saga.

 

 

A finished Catkin

Yes, ladies and gents, I do sometimes finish things.  I also blog ahead sometimes, so that when I know I'll be too busy to do it, the poor blog won't lie fallow.  I have promised to blog regularly after all.

Wednesday, I bound off Catkin.  Yesterday I soaked it.  Last night I blocked it.  Today... I photographed it, and discovered a serendipitous pairing.

Here it is, all stretched out on the floor wondering if I'll actually go buy it some buttons.

If you're familiar with the pattern, you may notice that my corners are a bit different.  You'd be right.

I realized that the subtle differences between the colors look lovely in general, but totally lose what the designer was aiming for when the corners are worked up the way she planned. I was sure I'd taken a picture of that issue before I frogged it, but evidently not.  Here is what I did instead.

My version does round the corners a bit (the original has nice crisp ponts), but I rather like the softer corner given the soft colors here.

And for the art shot...

As I was laying this out, gearing up to pack, I happened to toss this shawl in the direction of a dress I'm contemplating taking along just in case it's warm....

The colors work even better together in person, but I don't have time today to do the good photoraphy that would let me show it off better.  I'll just sit hapily delighted that by total accident, I wound up making just the thing for somethign that is in my closet.

If I ever get a shot with someone actually wearing it... I'll share it.

Perhaps, someday, I'll knit shawls in colors that specifically go with clothes I own instead of just knitting in yarns whose colors I'm drawn to in the shops....

Make Up - the Mary Kay Edition

As you know, I agreed to test some Mary Kay products and blog about the experience.

When I first received my little box of Mary Kay products, it contained the following: a Compact Mini (which one loads up with blush and eye-shadow); a Mineral Cheek Color; and  Mineral Eye Color Bundle (three shades that are supposed to work together to make your eyes look marvelous).  They look like fun, except for one minor detail - my eyes are blue.  They sent the Mineral Eye Color Bundle whose "expert shade choices were customized for" brown eyes; I talked to them, and since they really do want me to blog about the appropriate product, they also sent me one "customized for" blue eyes.  

(We interrupt this blog to comment on shipping practices.  I received a box from Mary Kay that looks like this (note the catalog for size comparison):

As you can see, the box in which my carefully customized eye shadow collection is packaged is not quite as tall as the box in which it was shipped:

And it's no where near as big as the box when laid flat therein:

This kind of thing makes me just a little nuts.  It costs more to ship that box than it would have to shipp a well padded envelope.  It costs more to make said box (and thus for them to buy said box).  In the end, that kind of shipping costs us all both economically and ecologically.  However, it did, indeed, ensure that the make up arrived in perfect condition.

Interruption over.)

Just for fun, I'll show you both shadow sets with my blue eyes.  We can judge for ourselves which looks better.

Here's what they have customized for blue eyes:

 

and here's what they have customized for brown eyes:

 Once again -- for blue eyes (and yes -- there are three colors on my eyelid):

and for brown eyes (still three colors):

Now me... I don't see that either one makes my eyes pop more than the other. 

Golf Pro likes the formulation for blue eyes, but I think that's because he's not a big fan of make up that looks like you're wearing make up.  I'm debating on which, if either, I'll be packing for my trip.

My thoughts on the Mary Kay make up in general....

I find that the Bare Minerals stuff goes on much more easily.  This claims to be "minerals' but doesn't have the easy flow of the other brand. Who knows whether I'd have loved it without the Bare Minerals to compare it to??

I find the difference in ease of application very noticeable with the blush.  Mary Kay's blush takes a LOT of roughing up to get onto your brush, and then seems not to spread as well as the Bare Minerals blush.  Mary Kay is $3.00 cheaper, but I think you get more with Bare Minerals (though I don't thin the amount you get from either is the same - one is hard packed and one is not, so it's really hard to tell).

With the eye shadows, I found it difficult -- okay, nigh onto impossible -- to get the intensity of color on my eyes that they show in the pictures on the prodcut box.  Perhaps I'm just too timid with the brushes.... but Bookworm, who is not at all timid about putting on make up, also seemed to have trouble getting enough on my eye to show the intense colors they show in the pictures.  Again, this may have been because one has to work hard to break the stuff loose from its densely packed presentation.  And again, I find it much eaier to spread the Bare Minerals eye shadows.  Here, however, the price differnce is more significant:   A set of three colors like the ones Mary Kay sent to me runs about $20.00; each individual minerals eye color is $6.50.  Meanwhile, over at Bare Minerals, the eye shadow pots are $13.00 each (the liquid stuff is more expensive).  Of course, the pots are loose eyeshadow powder, and the Mary Kay eye shadow is packed, so once again, it's hard to tell how much you really get.  -- and Mary Kay offers more color options.

 If money were no object, I think I'd go for Bare Minerals.  BUT.... I do like the presentation of the Mary Kay product - you may recall the mirrored compact, which holds a blush, three shadows, and the brushes.... (shown here with just the blush, as I've not yet chosen which shadow set to load it with).

 

Dithering ....

I'm almost finished with two projects --

Catkin is in its final rows....and too scrunched on the needles to show off well.

And while Fairy Stars (which I've been working on for what seems like ages), is still on the needles, it's too close to the end to be appropriate for travel knitting, which is what I must plan now.  In fact, it is within the realm of possibility that it will be finished before I leave. (I'd show you, but it's really squished on the needles right now).

So.... I've been poring over my queue trying to decide what to take on my upcoming trip to Scotland.  When I leave home, I'll be gone for two weeks. Think of all that knitting time as I sit forever in airports waiting for my next flight... and then on the plane....  I could finish something on the way! (By the time I get home, I'll have sat through five layovers, and been in the air for about 28 hours).

On the other hand, one wants something that weighs very little, and takes up not much room, but affords hours and hours of knitting time.  Worsted weight takes up tons of room in the suitcase, making it not a good candidate for a carry-on bag.  And now that the airlines want to charge big bucks to let you put baggage in the baggage compartment, one does not want to carry more than one bag under the plane.  I'm pretty sure DH would be unhappy with me if I tried to use up all the space in our one checked bag with yarn.

So, I've been thinking of doing something with one of these yarns(all but one of which are a good thousand yards or more, so I can make a nice big shawl, and thus will not run out of knitting while I'm gone):

Some yummy yarn dyed for me by Alyse.  I really should figure out how many yards are in this 225 g of light fingering weight yarn...

Briar Rose Angel Face - 2500 yards of luscious alpaca (the largest skein in consideration).

 

BB Knits Divinity Lace -- 1320 yards of cashmere, alpaca, silk (possibly for Kamile?)

 
Tanis Fibers Pink Label Lace-weight - 1000 yards of merino

Fleece Artist Suri Blue 1320 total yards of alpaca/wool (in two skeins).

Miss Babs Mulberry Silk - 1250 yards of SILK.

There's also a lovely kit using Just Our Yarns Almaza that I can't seem to find a picture for -- but that one has beads.... and I'm pretty sure that the airlines will not be happy with that sharp little beading hook.

Dither Dither...  Recommendations?  Suggestions....

I will, of course, be taking a pair of socks, and a pair of fingerless mitts (that out of Malabrigo Sock, yumm).  I'm also contemplating something out of a heavier yarn, just to give my wrists a break.

 

 

Lammas Loaves

August 1 is Lammas (or Lughnasadh)(It runs from Sundown to Sundown).  It is, among other things, a harvest festival for the first harvest. In addition to being the Midieval Festival called Loaf Mass (which gave us Lammas), it's also the first of three Celtic/Saxon harvest festivals.

Traditionally, one bakes bread.  So today, I actually rememebered to buy yeast ... and baked bread:

I used an old friend's Challa recipe, and am quite pleased with the results. That loaf is a triple braid.  I call it the goddess loaf, for the Celtic triple goddess.

Why name my loaves? Well, because Michelle's recipe makes a LOT of Challa. That means there's more than one loaf of bread in play.  It also yielded this loaf, which I'm calling the family loaf.  Why? well, we've four members of this household and the second loaf is a four braid....

This is my first foray into the wonderful world of Challa.  I know I've baked braided loaves before, but never with the egg-centric recipes that yield Challa loaves.

I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Here's hoping that I can start baking bread more often. 

Lammas is a day for letting go of regrets.  Pause for a moment, contemplate the things you regret not having accomplished this summer (or this year).  Write them down on something (a dried corn husk perhaps? or maybe use sidewalk chalk to draw pictures or just write it out...), and let them go ... then throw away the object in some way that won't pollute anything. ( The Celtic festival usually involved bonfires, and folks would throw their husks into the fire, but who wants fire when the temperature is taunting triple digits every day?)