Sunday

I have so many knitting projects going on that I felt like I needed permission to start another one, so I called Kris.

 After he gave me the obvious answer, it was agreed that this Baktus Scarf in Sundara Sock "Beaded Turquoise" was a sound choice. I'm mixing it up a bit with a purl row every once in a while, but otherwise it's all Baktus.

So that's my Sunday. How's yours?

Almost summertime

A little damselfly paid my hat a visit!

 I was sitting there last night, about to begin to knit on a sock, when I heard some yarn talking to me. It was Catskill Merino, which Clara at Knitter's Review wrote about a few weeks ago, and which had arrived on my doorstep "by accident." I listened carefully as the yarn -- a soft, plump worsted weight singles dyed with indigo -- asked to be knit into something right away. So I cast on a Honeycomb Hat from The Knitter's Book of Yarn. 

Still there!

 By this morning it was off the needles, so I washed it and set it out on my little deck to dry. I love this yarn! It's not a true single, because up close you can see that two strands have been twisted together, but it behaves like a single, and I'm sure that it will pill with abrasion. It's just right for a soft, warm hat. I've made one of these before, and it's my favorite hat to wear.
 

A few days ago Annabelle ventured down the stairs, but something across the driveway made her turn around just after I took the picture. From this angle her rear end doesn't look too ample, so she said I could post this. She's very careful about such things, you know. She rarely goes outside; she wants to, but she doesn't like to, so every once in a while I let her try it. She lasts about three minutes, on average, which is just fine with me.

In another "right in my own back yard" moment, about ten days ago I took this picture of a pale pink peony. I like what the Hipstamatic iPhone app does with color. It looks so old.

Ten days? What have I been doing? Working. The store move is complete, except for a couple of shelves that are still being built, and we're about to enter the real Summer Season. In any spare time, I've been resting up and knitting.

I had been plugging away on this pair of Celebrate Spring socks in Sundara Sock Sage over Butter, but the second one is on time-out. This one just doesn't fit right (I think it's the unforgiving rows of purl stitches that go right over the biggest part of my big ankle), and I'll need to think about it before I proceed.

I still have socks going on, though. My friend Kristopher and I are having a little Summertime Sock Knitalong, just the two of us. We decided on a pattern (Anne Hanson's excellent Dolomite Socks), made a "rule" that we had to cast on with a yarn in our stash that we haven't used before (that's easy, but it meant No Sundara for me), and off we went. My yarn is Frija from Spirit Trail, and Kris is working with Briar Rose Grandma's Blessing. This pattern is nice and stretchy, and easy to memorize. The yarn is lovely -- it's merino, cashmere and a little bit of nylon.

Knitting will keep me going all through the summer, as it always does. There have also been quarts and quarts of local strawberries, my other early summer salvation. I froze most of them for later -- smoothies in August!

I've been trying to reclaim my reading mojo, which left a couple of months ago (distressing, when you sell books for a living). I'm reading Simon Van Booy's short story collection, The Secret Lives of People in Love. He's brilliant -- his stories really are like poems, as Roger Rosenblatt is quoted on Simon's website. He's also a frequent visitor to the bookstore (as is Roger; we're so lucky!), and he's coming to read and sign books this Saturday.  Stop by if you're in the neighborhood -- 5:00pm on Saturday the 19th.

The hat should be dry by now, and my socks are calling. Another Sunday off is coming to a close, so I want to make the most of what's left.

Right in my own back yard

I forgot to bring my "real" camera with me when I went out in the world today. It was a spectacular day. Bright, warm, breezy, and full of life. I took some iPhone photos of stuff in the back yard, though. There's a pot of pretty chrysanthemums at the turn of my little walkway.

 And this is a sort of scraggly peony bush, but the petals are still rich and velvety.

The little irises are starting to bloom. They get a lot of sun, really they do.

 

My primary mission today was to take these packages to the post office and send them on their way. My secondary mission was to stock up on provisions. The Summer People will be arriving for the holiday weekend, and I need to be prepared to go from home to work and back home with as little extra interaction with them as possible. That includes standing in line at the market as they order five pounds of lobster salad while speaking to the nanny on the cell phone, when all I want is a piece of chicken or a quart of milk.

I'm being too harsh. Actually, I look forward to the excitement, and the favorite customers I haven't seen since last year, and the boost that we all get from the presence of so many people. I'll grumble about rudeness, disrespect, and lack of basic manners when the weekend is over and my rose-colored glasses are all scratched and wonky!

Moving (not far)

I went missing again, but it was for good reason. I was buried under a mountain of books! In the time since I last posted -- on my birthday -- the bookstore that I manage decided to move, closed, packed, moved, and reopened. "Nothing short of a miracle," says our general manager. I agree. Who in their right mind would or could move an entire store, start to finish, in such a short time? Well, I'm not sure we're in our right minds, but we did it, and we did it well. 

Granted, we just moved next door; but it was a monumental, physically draining, emotionally stressful three weeks. I'm proud of all of us who made it happen. Our new space is light, airy, clean, beautifully renovated --  and it has hot water. We gave up the creaky wooden floors, so loved by our customers, but I'll take hot water over creaky wooden floors any day.

There's even more moving going on -- I moved the blog to my own domain. I feel like such a grown-up! If you arrived here via notplainjane.blogspot.com, you'll notice that you've been redirected to not-plain-jane.com. At least I hope that people will end up here... I'm not quite sure what happens to the feed.

Just to be on the safe side, please update your feed reader to 

http://www.not-plain-jane.com

(and when I publish this, we'll see what happens).

 

I've been trying to maintain at least a little of my knitting mojo in these weeks. This is my version of Evelyn Clark's Old Shale Shawl, which was first published in the Jan/Feb 2005 Piecework Magazine. I'm knitting with my own handspun -- it's that blend of BFL, cashmere, silk, and merino from Spirit Trail Fiberworks. I decided to knit the shawl in stockinette rather than garter stitch, because this pretty yarn deserves to show off. I'm also leaving out the traditional garter ridges in the classic stitch. I think of this as Feather Without the Fan. 

When I began knitting, I knew that I would run out of yarn, and more fiber was already on the way from Jen. I kept knitting all through The Move, and now that life is going to be a little (not a lot, just a little) more sane I'll spin up the rest of what I need. I'm usually distressed at the idea of running out of yarn in the middle of a project; aren't we all? But this time, since I knew from the start, I could spend my little bit of knitting time enjoying myself. 

The other thing I'm going to do now that the bookstore is getting back to normal is send out the giveaway prizes!  I'd like to offer my sincere apologies to everyone who has been checking their mailbox and wondering what on earth became of that nice yarn, or that big book. 

 

This is what I do when I have a whole day ahead of me, I'm too tired to do anything serious like vacuum, and there are fresh blueberries in the fridge. I love these old muffin pans; they were the ones my grandmother used, and they're probably about sixty years old. I know, that was only 1950. But saying they're sixty makes them seem antique rather than just retro. The muffins are pretty tasty, too. The secret is a little lemon peel, added at the last minute.