Sil's Fab Knitblog

Velma is not just Scooby's bitch

I finally made it home from my two weeks of constant work.  What awaited me in lovely California?  Trees still in flower and nice warm sunshine.  Good times.

I also found a bit of springy cotton at the fabric store when running an errand.  Just a fraction of a yard each.  What to do with it?  How about the Velma bag from Amy Butler?

It's really quite an easy project and the purse is a cute little thing.  Will I ever use it?  Probably not, but it's still a fun exercise.  Especially since I've not sewn for what seems like ages.  The fabric is 100% cotton and the lining was from the stash.  I used a snap as a closure instead of velcro because I couldn't find my velcro supply.

Next sewing project I'd like to make a little summer frock or tunic, but we shall see if I've got the time this week.  I'm still trying to think of ways to use up some lemons from the ever producing lemon tree in my friend's yard.  I'm leaning toward lemon bread today.  Ideas?

Capitol my dear

I thought you'd enjoy a bit of spring in today's post.  I'm enjoying a longish layover in DC and that beautiful blue sky drew me outdoors for some random street photography.  I've got a long layover coming up tomorrow so I'll be able to make some progress on my scarf.  Hopefully enough progress to make it blog worthy.

I hope your sky is blue today!

Photo series and obsessions

Salt Lake City, taken downtown early afternoon. Partly cloudy, totally spectacular.

I've become obsessed with buying a tiny travel laptop.  I've read reviews and relentlessly questioned my passengers who're using models in which I'm interested.  I found a really well priced refurbished Thinkpad on Overstock.  I've never bought a refurbished computer and need some input.  Afterall, one can return it if unsatisfied, but I don't really want to lose the 30% restocking fee.  Anyone?

My second obsession is with the Striped scarf that I've seen variations of all over the blogiverse.  Look at Norma's fabulous version.  See why I'm obsessed.  I shall have to peruse several skeins in person to gauge some successful combinations.  Someday.  Soon.

The first of many

Because of my travel schedule, worthy knitting content may not always be available.  I know!  But in an effort to use what resources are available to me, I'm starting my own personal Layover Eye Candy random blog series.  I don't really have any "rules" for myself in selecting subjects to photograph on layovers, but today I'm starting with the view from my hotel room.  This is downtown Cincinnati, Ohio as seen from my 12th floor window.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and hope you enjoy my little eye candy idea.

I'm a lady

Honestly, I've not really knit much this week.  My birthday celebrations have left me little time for leisure.  This is a good thing afterall, life is about spending time with those you love.  Of course the next two weeks see me flying my patootie off, but it's so worth it.

Tuesday saw birthday eve celebrations with yummy small plates at A Cote in Oakland, CA.  I had a Martini Normandie to whet my appetite.  I highly recommend this fine establishment, and please leave room for dessert.  That toffee thingie was amazing.

Wednesday, aka birthday D-day, found me in Chicago with the wonderful Carolyn.  We ate at a really great and stylish Asian fusion restrauant called (rather oddly to me anyway) Pingpong.  I took Carolyn's advice on delicious dishes and we even branched out and found the amazing Hong Kong Chow Fun with beef and black bean offering.  I should put out a sign, "will kill for noodles".  It's only an overstatement by a scootch.

Thursday my luggage broke in O'Hare airport!  Uh, hello!  I'm a flight attendant, luggage is kind of important to my job.  Worry not, superior luggage was purchased in Boston and I'm able to go to work tomorrow to pay for it.

Friday brought a nice family lunch at The Capitol Grille where much meat was consumed.  Dude, eat meat at a steakhouse.  It's amazingly delicious.  And fyi, they know their way around a mojito.

And if all that wonderfullness wasn't enough, my friends Laura and Steve found the most perfect coat for me.  It's ORANGE and called "The Lady Coat"!  Naturally it fits like a dream and I can't wait to get home and make a wonderful and worthy new spring dress to wear with it.  Don't you just want to lick that coat?  I won't, don't worry.

Thanks for all those birthday greetings!  I loved them all!

And so it grows

In an attempt to make my growing scarf project a bit more interesting, I foisted the thing onto the flowering orchid to add some visual interest.  It's funny though, the pink orchid really brought the pink out of the purple bits.  I don't think my friend is a big pink wearer, but I do like a colorway that is chameleon-like.  An accessory is indeed meant to accessorize isn't it?

I've been back at work and spotted a knitter on my first day in the field!  The knitter in question was a young man, 20s, casting on for a hat on bamboo dpns.  I admired his work and tried to interest him in drinking the koolaid that is sock knitting as he was quite adept at those dpns.  I dressed it up as "it's just a hat only skinnier".  I don't think I convinced him in the time it took for me to pour him a coke though.

I've got a few days off and instead of staying home and being a bum (natural inclination mind), I've got fun times with friends planned.  It is my birthday tomorrow and if I can't eat yummy food and fly to Chicago and see a show with Carolyn, when can I?  Sleep is for next week.

Hopefully on tomorrow's flight to Chicago I can knit on the scarf and show you even more incremental progress.  I'll try not to forget my camera this time too...

Scarfing fun

This weekend I go back to work flying around our fair country in a poly/wool blend uniform.  I wanted to have a decent travel project ready because my concentration fades as I get tired and the knitting pays the price with some crazy operator errors.  Interesting, but not complicated is key.

One such project is this scarf for a friend.  I've pretty much settled on this reversible cable configuration on 5mm needles.  This Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks merino/tencel blend is SUPER!  I've ripped and swatched and ripped and swatched and this yarn is taking it for the team with nary an ill effect.  I tried many different cable configurations and found the matched sets of two going in different directions was most pleasing to my eye.  The larger needle coupled with the sock weight yarn keep this scarf nice and drapey.  I mean it is California afterall, not Siberia.

Sangria scarves

One of my friends wears scarves year round.  She's always cold, even here in northern California.  For some reason just putting on a scarf warms her up.  Consequently, I've made her quite a few scarves over the years - and you know I don't often knit for anyone other then myself.

About five or six years ago I bought some pretty fingering weight soft merino at NYS&W and made a simple feather and fan scarf.  My friend has worn this scarf constantly in the intervening years and now it's felted and has a hole in it.  Doesn't matter, she still gets a compliment on it whenever she wears it.  It's the colors you see, they just seem to match everything so beautifully.

I remembered that the yarn was from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks and thought I'd try to find a similar colorway and came across this sangria.  I opted for the merino/tencel blend since that won't felt as readily and would knit up nice and drapey.  The yarn was ordered, dyed and arrived in the space of five days.  Wow.  Even better, it's beautiful.

I've got 450 yards of fingering weight merino/tencel and will have to come up with some non-fussy stitch pattern to show off these colors.  Preferably something that doesn't look like ass on the reverse.  Any ideas?