Knitting Designs, this and that.

So, I have now sold 4 designs, and have 2 more submitted for which I'm anxiously awaiting a reply.

I plan to resubmit some ideas to another publication, and i have some new design ideas, too.

The Knitmore girls are having a contest for designs of baby hats, so I threw together (and knitted) a pattern for that, too.
So I'm busy with that.

I should mention that I have a story on the Never Not Knitting podcast , The Prodigal Knitter. Alana was also nice enough to mention my new pattern. Check it out - you'll enjoy it:-)

Next Friday I'm going to the LA Stitch 'n' Pitch event; a bunch of knitters sit and knit together at a Dodgers game. One of our LYSs is organizing a little party beforehand and renting buses for us to go all together. They are having a yarn sale too.
I'm so looking forward to it!



Gratuitous baby pic.

OK, now some knitting

First, the play, The 3 Musketeers, was fun. Some actors were better than others, but overall I think they did a great job. They took some parts of the original very long novel and made it hang together fairly well. The setting was gorgeous, in Topanga Canyon at the Will Geer outdoor theater.


I still continue to be surprised that there are these lovely pockets of wilderness right in the city.


So, in knitting:

I finished the baby booties for my granddaughter, and they were very well received.

It's winter there, so she will get good use out of them. They match a sweater I made for her last May. It's on the right over here.

She is staying incognito so that the paparazzi don't stalk her :-)

Next, I've almost finished a super secret project for publication (Yay!). It's a child's cardi for Tangled - an online magazine. I'll post a link when it's published, natch.

This is my second published pattern! Here is the first.

I've been inspired lately to submit design ideas everywhere. I've also had 2 more designs accepted for a hand-dyed yarn company (Yay again!)

Also, I'm working on the Sassymetrical sweater. I'm not sure that it is going to drape properly, so i'm going to add beads to the border. Sneaky, eh? I hope it works.

I have a pair of socks on the needles which I work on sporadically. I do have one done.

This is a really different pattern - they are knitted sideways!

And finally, I couldn't resist casting on this cute baby hoodie, called Snug, done in sideways garter stitch. So adorable! I'm doing it a rust cotton worsted, with cream trim.

More next time...

P.S. I'm continuing to throw out one thing a day, at least! Plastic containers, jars, expired grocery items... and I haven't even hit my closet or bathroom yet.

Cooking, a resolution, and of course, knitting

In cooking:
Sometimes we get into a rut and just make the same old stuff again and again. Well, I do.
Pasta, burger, fish, chicken; Pasta, burger, fish, chicken; etc. (we try to limit red meat as much as possible, so the burgers are mostly veggie-burgers).

Anyway, one of my favorite French desserts is clafouti– a custardy cake made with fresh cherries. So I finally made one, for the first time, last weekend. It was yummy, just as good as the ones I’ve had in France. And here it is.
You can only do this when cherries are in season, so it’s a fairly small window of time. It’s really an easy recipe: you make a batter of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, and you pour this over the cherries in a baking dish, and bake. You don’t even pit the cherries!

I don’t know about you, but when I was little, my mother would never dream of heating up the oven for just one thing. I guess the electric bill was a big item for my family back then, and you just didn’t waste energy (we had electric stoves).
I still feel guilty about using the oven for one item. Therefore, I made up a batch of blueberry bran muffins at the same time. They were great too. After eating two while they were still warm, I froze the rest for quick snacks or breakfasts later on.

Resolution
After living 18 years in the same house (yikes – where does the time go?) we have accumulated a fair amount of “stuff”. I wouldn’t say our house is terribly cluttered because we do manage to find places to put our stuff, but nonetheless we have too much. Both DH and I have trouble letting go of things; we get sentimental about the little artifacts, souvenirs and gadgets that we accumulate.
At the same time, I’m lazy and don’t care to spend a beautiful sunny day indoors cleaning out a closet. When I saw this suggestion in a comment on the Crazy Aunt Purl blog, I knew it was for me. This is it: Throw out one thing a day. Simple, no?

I started with an old cookie sheet that’s old, tarnished and stained. I have 2 like-new cookie sheets that I will use in the future, so why keep this one?
The second thing was a glass jar. I have many of these (sigh, I have trouble not washing and saving jars from jam, olives, pickles, etc.) This is also a habit inherited from my mother.

Between kitchen stuff and clothing items I’m sure I can get rid of lots of stuff. And you don’t have to literally throw it away -- you can put it in a box to donate.

Knitting – I will have to talk about it next time, as I have to go now; we’re going to see a play – The Three Musketeers – in an outdoor theater set in Topanga Canyon. Should be fun!

Bye for now!

NEW POST !

Well, long time no see, right? I will try to avoid cliches like that in future, but, hey, it seemed to fit. Yes it's been almost a year since I last posted.
I've been lured away by Facebook and twitter.
But, I will attempt to write every couple of days and thus eventually catch you up on my all my doings. Assuming you're interested in my doings, of course.
OK, I will start with a major one -- I have a new baby granddaughter, called Elise. She is the cutest thing, of course, and is both intelligent and beautiful.




We've been fortunate to have been able to visit her 3 times in the last 9 months. (She is in Sydney Australia.) On one trip we even brought my mother in law with us, so she could meet her first great-granddaughter. That was a wonderful and emotional visit. My MIL is now ill and so it's not likely she will be able to travel that far again.

I have knitted her lots of cute things which you can find here on Ravelry.
More tomorrow!

Long Time No Hear

There was a big ship...

There were gladiators....

A breezy afternoon...

Any guesses?

Yes, it's definitely been a while. Did you miss me ? Did you notice ?
We are back. We were away from late June thru to the end of July.

We did a cruise, then 12 days in Paris, then 10 days in Israel, where my SIL had arranged 2nd Bar mitzvahs (near the Western Wall) for 3 of her sons. (She has 6 kids, ranging from 7 to 18.)

The cruise was wonderful. It was our 1st cruise and we were very impressed. It's just like being in a luxury hotel, that magically moves. You barely feel any movement at all - it's very smooth. The ports were -- Messina, Athens, Kusadasi Turkey, and Heraklion Crete. All pretty interesting.

The best was Turkey - we'll have to go back there.

Food and service were excellent, and we were upgraded to a room with a balcony, which was very pleasant. About 40% of the passengers were Italian, and 40% American, with the rest a mixture of many other nationalities.

It's a huge ship, and you never feel crowded or cramped; there's lots of space, plenty of deck chairs, and places to walk. 16 bars, 3 pools, etc.

Then came Paris, which we enjoyed very much. The apartment we rented was very convenient, and in a nice location, right near the Eiffel Tower, in the 16th arrondissement (district).On Bastille day we watched the parade on the Champs d'Elysees, and then gorgeous fireworks at night on the Eiffel tower. Truly stunning.

There were huge crowds but everything was very orderly and polite.

Here's a shot of the parade.

We did a lot of walking, enjoying yummy pastries, and seeing all the sights in a leisurely fashion.

Here's a shot from a yarn store there -- the famous La Drogerie (near Les Halles shopping complex). Finished knitted items from their own exclusive patterns, and yarn galore.

Israel was wonderful as well. There is lots to see, but it’s very hot.

We visited lots of DH’s relatives and unfortunately also attended a funeral as DH’s cousin (who had ALS) passed away while we were there.

I hope you’re all having a great summer!

I will update you on my knitting activity soon !

P.S. Please leave a comment so I'll know if anyone's reading this ! That will spur me on to update more often :-) .

WWKIPD

For WWKIPD - World Wide Knit in Public Day (not "what would KIP do"), I went to the West Hollywood Stitch n Bitch group that I attend sporadically, at the Farmers Market on Fairfax (which is 75 years old this year, and that's very old for LA).

Had great fun chatting with people and admiring their knitting. Ellen will be posting pix on her blog shortly here. I wore my new Feb Lady sweater and showed it off just a bit.

I'm almost finished the baby blanket, but it's too big to carry around and has too many ball of yarn trailing it, so I didn't bring it. Instead I brought the baby sweater I started.

One of the other knitters there had brought her 6 month old grandson along, so I had the (brilliant) idea of measuring the baby to see how big a 6 month old actually is. He was very cooperative and didn't mind a bit. :-)

After that I went to the gym, and had a lazy afternoon.
Our good friends K & T came over later, we chatted a bit, then went to a fabulous tapas place, Cobras and Matadors. They have a woodburning oven, and all the food is wonderful. Sweet potato fries, smoky eggplant, baby lambchops, artichoke croquettes, and roasted mushrooms are just some of the yummy things we ate.

From there we walked to the Grove (shopping center with a village street atmosphere which is attached to the Farmers Market mentioned above) and from there headed back to our place for coffee and dessert - delicious baclava from Trader Joe's.


All in all a great day!

I'm back - Did you miss me ?

Hi everyone,

Sorry to stay away so long, stuff just gets in the way.

I'm not caught up on email either :-)

I thought I’d check in and bring you all somewhat up to date.

DH got laid off from his job (this is one that was literally around the corner) so is just retired now. He’s not looking for anything else.

I don’t have any consulting gigs on the horizon, but I’m content to have the summer off.

So far I’ve worked 50% of the time since taking the company early retirement package, and that is just fine with me. (They have since laid off 1000's of people, and decimated my department, so it was a good decision to leave when I did.)

I finished up my project at xxx Insurance Company in Feb, then we went to Australia for most of the month of March. DS and DDIL moved there in Sept. 2007.

We had a great time visiting them, as we hadn’t seen them in 2 years. Here they are.

We spent one week together (all 4 of us) on the Gold Coast (near Brisbane) which is a beach resort area.

It has the most gorgeous beaches I’ve seen anywhere – very wide and clean, great waves, warm water. Perfect. We went to great restaurants, and had a couple of BBQs and picnics. Visited a National Park, played mini-golf, relaxed, swam, hiked. Did a little shopping.

Sydney (particularly the area where they live - Newtown) has lots of ethnic restaurants – Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, African, Caribbean, you name it – and we had fun trying them out.

Here's me at Doyle's with a yummy seafood platter, with fish and chips featured prominently!

On a visit to the Art Museum of Sydney, I noticed this.

See the woman on the left?

Yes, she is knitting a sock.

I had a chance to visit the largest yarn shop in Sydney, Tapestrycraft aka J. Morris, and bought some very soft Merino wool.

I also went to a nice button shop - All Buttons Great and Small - and got coconut shell buttons for my February Lady sweater.

They lend an exotic touch, don't you think ?

DDIL's parents had us over to their house for a BBQ and we enjoyed that too. They are warm, lovely people. Both are school teachers.

Our flight home had a 2 day stopover in Tahiti on the way back, and that was VERY nice too.

I do have some news. DS and DDIL are expecting a baby! In October. They told us the news when we were there, so that was pretty cool.

Yes, DH and I will be grandparents soon! Very exciting. So, I guess we’ll be back for more frequent visits in the future.

Of course I don’t feel old enough to be a grandmother – I still feel about 30. When did this getting old happen? I never noticed it. ;-)

Naturally, there are lots of baby knitting projects planned and on the needles. I will discuss these in my next post. Baby knitting is loads of fun !