an ent knits

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.)

ECF: lizards!

Last Friday, on my Day To Do Fun Things In New York With My Parents, we went to the natural history museum for their exhibit of live lizards and snakes.  (I'm not entirely sure what happened.  We used to go to art museums a lot, and I like art museums, but I haven't been to one since the Dalí exhibit came to Philly.)  Anyway, it was lots of fun.  I hijacked my parents' camera, which is much fancier than mine, and took lots of pictures.  Here are a bunch of them:

collared lizards

green basilisk

(several more in the extended entry)

Thanksgiving weekend: cooking and some scenery

I tried to get a Thanksgiving-y picture of the clock tower (I think it's the "old Met Life building") that I posted last week, but they all came out horribly blurry.  I did, however, get a picture of the Empire State Building that I really like.

Doesn't this make it look sinister?  It was a lot darker in real life, just foggy... 

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I spent several hours yesterday cooking yummy food.  (Yay, "vacation"!)  Pictures and such are in the extended entry.

ECF: clock tower

By the time you read this, I'll be in New York for Thanksgiving, where I'll have this view.  The lights will be autumn colors instead of springy colors (this photo is from Passover a couple of years ago), but it's a lovely sight either way.

not this week...

I really meant to have a nice One Local Summer post for today. But the earliest I got home last week was around 8pm, and I spent all of yesterday either in New York or on my way there or back. So no cooking really at all.

New York was great fun, though. I went to the Darwin exhibit at the natural history museum in the morning. It was definitely populated, but really not crowded. I wouldn't say I learned much science at the exhibit, but there's a lot of historical perspective that I don't usually think about. And, overall, it was a very well executed exhibit, with some interactive things that taught some comparative anatomy and taxonomy to go with the historic bits. And the beetle specimens and bird specimens and such, and the notebooks and reproductions of letters...all very cool to see. Also, I'm never going to argue about seeing iguanas or horned toads. (I'd've taken pictures of them, but photography wasn't permitted.)

I had a little time left after the Darwin exhibit, so I wandered through some of the exhibits on native peoples of the Americas. Being me, I spent much of that time looking at their textiles... There were some amazing weavings. I was particularly impressed (as someone who doesn't know so much about weaving) by one of the techniques that cropped up a few times, wherein the weft was just holding the warp threads in place, with multiple colors of warp but not weft, and the designs were made by moving the warps (it looked like there'd be one in front of another). They were set up with the warps tied (?) to a string (?) running between sticks, and the weaving progressed downward--not much of a loom to deal with.

I then headed back downtown, where I met up with Juno and Cassie at School Products. (Cassie? Juno? I found the piece of paper with yarn shop addresses. I'd left it in lab.) There is much of droolworthiness there (I will be going back), but nothing in particular caught my eye. Even with our additional stop at Seaport Yarns (ooooh, Grafton Fibers...), my only nonfood purchases of the day were the new knitscene and some Japanese dollar store things. I think it was moving that brought home to me just how much yarn & fiber I have... I need to use some of it up before I buy anything else.

number five

I have been to New York five times since the beginning of this academic year. I've visited for my uncle's wedding, for his funeral, for Thanksgiving, for a day of wandering around and meeting Cassie, and, yesterday, for the funeral of my uncle's widow. I spent six hours on trains yesterday, with my dad (who was and is again in Philly for meetings), and never once pulled out my knitting. (We did do a couple of crosswords and a sudoku, though.) Hey, world? I know that people get old and die, and I can deal with that. But could I have at least six months to recover from this year so far before anything else scary happens to my family (or friends)?

So that this post won't be entirely depressing, here's a picture of a sign we found amusing, on the way from dinner to the train home.

new year's eve eve

I had a very exciting December 30th. It began with my waking up for real at 7:12, not all that long before the 8am train that I was supposed to be on. I'm quite proud of myself for actually making it there, since I'm usually very slow in the morning. But I was, indeed, on time for the train, so I got to spend two and a half hours with my college friend K as we headed up to New York. (We swapped rather similar midwinter holiday gifts: I gave her some homemade granola, she gave me some dried fruit from the farm in Argentina where she's been working.)

When we got to New York, K headed off to Connecticut, and I made my way to Ess-a-Bagel for brunch (whitefish salad on pumpernickel) and half a dozen bagels to bring home. I'm glad I got there when I did, as there were only two pumpernickel bagels left! I ate my brunch on a sunny bench in Stuyvesant Square and then headed toward SoHo. I was intending to take a bus, really I was, but I started walking, paused once for a bus that turned out to be a Limited when I was at a local stop, and then just kept going on foot. (It's ridiculous, sometimes, the way I just don't like waiting for buses. I swear, one of the reasons I picked yesterday for my trip to The City was that I could take an odd number of rides on buses/subways and no longer have an odd number of dollars on my metrocard. Didn't work--I wound up not using any intra-city transit except between 30th St. and my apartment.)

There were several tables of people selling things on the south side of Houston, and I picked up a birthday present for my mom from one of them: really pretty earrings that were copper that I suppose was really, really thinly enameled and then chipped away in certain places so you could see the copper again. (It's funny, I think the last time I bought something from an artisan-vendor there, it was a different kind of copper earrings...)

A few minutes later, I realized I was at Houston and Sullivan with an hour and a half 'til I was supposed to meet Cassie at Purl (about a block away). Silly me, I was worried about getting there in time! So I had plenty of time to wander in and out of several Tibetan-import stores, the Evolution store (lots of fossils and specimens; Jill, I thought of you while I was admiring the beetle and spider and scorpion keychains), and a more generic East-Asian-import store that also sells lots of beads. I bought a stone torus to become a pendant. And then I wandered back toward Purl.

I was very tempted by Purl's selection of Lorna's Laces. Sockish yarn in flame colors, and a lone skein of Helen's Lace in a color they called Pewter for no reason I could see. I have never seen green pewter, but I'll grant that it was a very greyish green. It would've been absolutely perfect for the Peacock Feather shawl (and cheaper than the two skeins of Fleece Artist that I still haven't actually ordered) except that it was already pilling. I stood around for a while, staring at it and going back and forth about whether the pilling would be a problem, and then Cassie (who is, unsurprisingly, as cool in person as on the internet) arrived and nudged me toward my final decision that, since I was concerned about it, it wasn't quite worth what it would've cost (in both money and potential frustration).

And then we headed to The Point for coffee and knitting. Mmm, that's a nice yarn store. (It might be nicer with a teensy bit more space, but I realize that it's in Manhattan and space is at a premium.) Good coffee, a place to knit, and lots of yarn to admire. We were particularly intrigued by the sock yarn that said it had aloe vera and jojoba in it, perhaps to moisturize one's feet, or perhaps to keep one's hands moist while knitting... Oh, and the gigantic boxes stuffed full of Fleece Artist yarn. Heh. Alas, no miracles--they did not include the exact yarn I want. (Had I the Lotus Blossom pattern and no shawls on needles, I might've gotten one of the sort of brownish-bricky-pinkish skeins of bfl, but I Have Priorities.)

After a lovely afternoon of knitting and talking, Cassie went home, and I went to the Strand. Yay, books. I was extremely virtuous in the two yarn stores, coming away with only a birthday present for Ella. (Happy Birthday, Ella!) So, I suppose, it was bound to happen that I'd spend relative lots of money on books... At least it was under $30, including a book I picked up for my mom. I'm especially happy with two of my acquisitions: a hardcover of HP6 for $12 (it's the Bloomsbury kids' edition, which has an atrocious cover illustration that I may have to conceal with wrapping paper, but $12!) and a three-in-one edition of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy for $4. I have a picture of my (non-food) purchases, so anyone except Ella who wants to look can click here.

When I decided that I had to leave the Strand lest I spend money I really didn't have on books, I headed off toward Penn Station for the train home. I picked up some fancy salad bar food for dinner (I wasn't hungry enough to eat before getting on the train--that was a large bagel with a lot of whitefish salad) on the way, and went to the NJTransit waiting area. I would've gotten on the 7:03, but the sign by the stairs said it was a peak train, and I had an off-peak ticket. Same with the 7:13, and there still wasn't anyone in the waiting area or by the bottom of the stairs whom I could ask. By the time the 7:29 train was boarding, I figured something fishy was going on and found my way to the (line-free!) customer service window and confirmed that, although the sign still said peak, it really was an off-peak train. So I got on, got to Trenton four minutes after the Septa train left and 56 minutes before the next one, and then got to sit on the Septa train in Croydon for an hour while an Amtrak train in front of us had some kind of breakdown. I'm really beginning to wonder whether I should plan on hour-long unscheduled stops in southbound train rides, after the hour in Charlottesville last week. But we did get to Philly around midnight...

...And I (sort of obviously) hadn't lit candles yet, having been in various trains or train stations. So, not wanting to either blow out the Chanukah candles or stay up too insanely late, I cut the candles in half before putting them in the menorah. Not exactly orthodox, but that's a pretty good descriptor for much of my life.

Tonight? Well, I've been exhausted all day, what with all of the activity of the last few days three weeks two months, and I have a long-standing policy of not going to parties out of a feeling of obligation. (Work parties, held during the workday, I may attend for up to ten minutes out of obligation, but that's about it.) So, instead of going to the two parties I'd planned on, I'm spending the evening with my adorable kitten, and I'm hoping I'll feel fully rested and refreshed for the new year. I'm going to get ready for bed as soon as I finish this post or when tonight's candles burn down, whichever's later.

Happy New Year, everyone, and a happy (almost-)birthday to Cara!

rhinebeck! (part one)

Yesterday was a gloriously beautiful day, perfect for a drive and then wandering through a sheepandwool. We (Jill, Laurie, Sean, and I) got started a bit later than we'd intended and thus arrived a bit late, but there was still plenty of time for fiber overload. Our late arrival did mean that I somehow missed the entire bloggers' meetup, but I still ran into Parker and saw Chantal and Anj and Sue.

And I saw lots and lots of fibery and fiber-associated animals. I spent a lot more time in the animal area at Rhinebeck than I did at Maryland...

border collie puppies, which were in an enclosure in the vendor area

no, I'm not sure why the rabbit stayed in the cardboard box, or, for that matter, what it had to do with fiber

goats

another goat

an angora rabbit--that black shape to the right of its face is its left ear. so fuzzy!

an alpaca

Jill, attempting to pet a pair of alpacas

a llama with great markings

Anj with her bag of fleece

the view from the parking area. check out the beginnings of fall foliage!

the billboard as you come off the highway on the way to the fairgrounds

I didn't take pictures of the vendor areas or the food building, but we spent a fair amount of time in both. The cheese was tasty, the wines tasted really odd after the half apple that was a late afternoon snack, but the maple cotton candy that we all shared was great. It looked a lot like a batt of undyed silk... We skipped the Gem and Mineral building and the Halloween Tunnel in favor of trying to catch all of the fiber stalls. (I'm not sure how accurate this impression is, but it seemed to me that Rhinebeck had more nonfibery stuff than Maryland did.)

Anyway, at around 5:30, we finally left the festival for the car, where we had dinner, and then set off for home. Sort of. We had been admiring the scenery so much on the way up that we decided to drive over to one of the nearby large hills/small mountains (toward a decent-sized mountain, but I don't think we quite got there). And then we drove up it, and most of the way back down, and partway back up, and then back down. At which point we realized that we didn't know how to get back to the roads we'd used to drive up, and the maps were in the other car. So we took a nice, roundabout route home that involved going southwest on route 209 and somehow approaching Stroudsburg twice, and didn't get to West Philly until about 12:30am. But we got to see mountains and deer and stars (whole constellations, even!) and some much nicer scenery than is visible from the throughway. And, hey, I wasn't driving, so I managed to nap for a while.

Next post: what I bought.

habu

While I was in New York last weekend, I stopped at Habu Textiles. I hadn't been there before, though I'd heard about it from lots of people. It felt a little weird, since the door opens on a sort of weaving showroom, but I settled in to spend a good, solid forty-five minutes in the closet-sized space with yarn hanging from the wall. Much of the yarn that they have is too fine for much knitting--I was tempted by a beautiful saffrony color, but it was basically thread, so it seemed a tad impractical. And they had a lot of cotton, which I don't really like knitting with, and a lot of silk. I didn't see any of the stainless-steel blend for sale, but I did get to touch a sample. I'm not sure I'd want to wear it, but it would be interesting for some sort of hanging.

oodles of laceweight

I wound up buying three kinds of yarn, but you can only see the one that's for me. The others are gifts for people whom I'd like to surprise... Anyway, the yarn I'm keeping is $11.85 worth of A-93, which translates to close to three thousand yards of natural laceweight wool. I'm thinking about dyeing it, but I can't quite decide on a color. I have some acid dyes buried in my art supply crate (but no mordants on hand), I was thinking of trying kool-aid dyeing... Maybe red, since that should be doable with kool-aid, or possibly some kind of dark gold-orange color. I'm also debating about splitting it into a few different batches, in which case I might make one of them blue or purple and use it as a gift.