A Matchbox Rainbow

We spent the weekend at my parents' house where my mom has painstakingly gone through my brother's (now vintage) Matchbox and Hot Wheels car collection to find all of the ones with opening doors, hoods, trunks and sunroofs and polished them off for the child. Needless to say, he's in hog heaven at Gamma's house (and not for this reason alone - where else does he get undivided attention and all the juice he can drink?). After I grew bored of endless trips down the car ramp and mini 50-car pile-ups, I made us a little car rainbow.

PS: It seems you can't get a modern day Matchbox car with opening doors anymore - where's the fun in that?!

The great West Coast yarn tour and wedding fiesta

This past weekend was my best friend's wedding in Portland, Oregon. Before heading to Portland, we made a stop in San Francisco to catch up with some friends and the city in general. While the Boy worked, I made it my business to visit every yarn store I could think of; I only missed one that I know of (don't tell me if there were others).

My favorite is Imagi-Knit. Since my last visit they've almost doubled the square footage of the store. It's like every yarn shop in NY rolled into one - everything from Koigu to Brown Sheep, all under one roof. I was so overcome I forgot to take a picture, although I did not forget to take home these gems - that's two skeins of fabled Seasilk in Rose Garden. It is so soft and yummy that I carried it around the store like it was my little toy puppy.

I exercised restraint - that was my only purchase despite the fact I hit the Urban Knitting Studio, Artfibers and Noe Knit as well. Urban Knitting Studio was nice but a little austere for a knitting store. I loved the feel of Noe Knit, though - warm and inviting with lots of people lounging around in comfy chairs and at a big table.

I also cruised through Britex in San Fran - Oh. My. Goodness. This place was amazing. The colors! The selection! The organization! I just had to take a picture of their zipper wall - have you ever seen so many zippers so well arranged?! When I go buy zippers in NY I have to dig through a decrepit box marked "blue" which has zippers of all lengths and hues arranged as though they've sprung from Medusa's scalp. I came home with all manner of thread, twill tape and elastic but there was so much fabric I couldn't get my head around buying anything but a remnant of flannel! Shameful, I know.

While in Portland I hit the Dublin Bay Knitting Company, which was lovely and inviting with a beautiful selection. I also poked my head into the Knit Knot Studio and was dismayed to find an old favorite, Lint, is closing its doors! The place had clearly be ransacked by the time I got there and it was sad to see it all cleared out.

Lest you think nothing was accomplished but shopping, I did sew up this little number before I left. The bridesmaids' dresses were a lovely shade of blue shantung and I had no purse to match. So on the morning before my flight I chopped up the hem of my skirt (left over from alterations) and made this little zip pouch which has grosgrain ribbon accents and is lined with cream cotton. It's a little wonky because I rushed the zipper, but it did the job of holding my lip gloss and the bride's perfectly!

Sadly, it's the only scrap of the bridesmaid dress that I still have. After our flight home, my Boy and I idiotically waltzed off the plane without our garment bag, which the flight attendant had helpfully hung in the first class cabin (far, far away from where we were sitting). Nestled in said bag were the Boy's best suit, his dress shirt, my dress from the rehearsal dinner (which I adored and wore only that once) and my bridesmaid dress. We realized our error when we got to baggage claim but by the time I sprinted through the airport, convinced someone to give me a security pass, went back through the metal detectors, stripped off my shoes and had my water confiscated, the plane was no longer at the gate and gone was our black, plastic, completely nondescript and unidentifiable garment bag... with close to $1000 of clothes in it. I am still so mad I could spit. C0ntinental is purportedly looking for the bag but as each day passes with no word, I'm losing hope. There is an outside chance it will wind up in their warehouse in Houston but I'm not holding my breath... because if I did, I wouldn't be able to scream at the top of my lungs "I AM SUCH AN IDIOT!!!"

Back

We are back from vacation. For anyone who can swing it, I highly recommend the two week vacation. You feel just about human again at the end of it.

We saw things like this:

and this:

and also this:

We also ate a lot of this:

Really, quite fantastic.

Very little knitting was accomplished on the trip. We actually spent most nights reading, which was wonderful. I finished Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky and am halfway through Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, both of which I highly recommend.

Before I left I did finish the now-christened Square Bear, who was given to Baby J yesterday. I made the legs and body in the round without any seams using a turkish cast-on for the toes (each leg was knit separately and then joined in the round in sort-of accordance with the pattern). When I got to the chest I stopped going in the round and split the front and back as though it were a raglan sweater. I knit one paw in the round and then got concerned with how it would attach to the body so I frogged and knit them flat. It turns out I probably could have made these in the round too; next time. I always feel like my knit bears wind up with a kind of cranky expression, but Baby J's dad seemed to love Square Bear so I guess he turned out alright.

Yesterday I also stopped by Purl and got myself some of these much-discussed Addi turbo lace needles. They are indeed quite excellent! I have a very neglected Peacock Feathers Shawl on the needles and have been bemoaning the inadequacies of my Inox needles. I blame them for a dropped stitch some time ago that resulting in the tinking and reknitting of 16 rows (at close to 200 stitches apiece, it was a bona fide nightmare!). Since then I have not been on good terms with Peacock Feathers. Hopefully these needles will renew my interest in finishing her! Unfortunately I do not enjoy the yarn and the rows are soooooo long and prone to mess-ups, it's just not that much fun to knit. :(

I also have a lot of sewing projects in the wings at the moment too, so I hope work behaves and I'll get some time to get cracking!