Start of bag and pattern,
originally uploaded by bookworm knitting.

OK, so I am starting some Christmas books a little late. This one probably won't even get to the recipient for a couple of weeks what with drying time and shipping time. I love working with heavier weight yarn (or two strands of worsted weight held together) and large needles. It just makes the project knit up so quickly! I started this purse in the afternoon yesterday and am finished with it (other than weaving in the ends, sewing the bottom together and felting it) this afternoon.

I am going to be starting on the next purse (exact same pattern but different colors) this evening. The sun is shining so I will be riding the horse while the weather is good. Perhaps there will be time to walk the dog, too?

My Fortune Cookie of the Day

My Fortune Cookie told me: Chocolate-coated lofts! Dozens of them! All of them hapless! Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Hehe.

The key to a party

The final round of Christmas parties has finally come to an end. Don't get me wrong, I love visiting with all of the people but it can be a bit much. In high school, we used to have a cookie party each year. The tradition didn't continue when I went to college. This year, however, we decided to change that. Apparently we went a little overboard! My family ended up having 3 parties this year. :)

The first and second parties happened on the same day. The first was in the afternoon and the second in the evening. Much soup was eaten, many stories shared, and meeting new people was done but not much cookie decorating happened. The third party, on the other hand, was a cookie decorating machine. (I know that sentence doesn't make sense but stick with me on this one.) I had to start baking more cookies during the party so there would be more variety! All of the parties were so much fun. I just love socializing and feeding people :)

My family had a quiet but nice Christmas. The cat and the dog stayed in the same room to see what all of the activity was about. We use cloth bags instead of wrapping paper so the cat couldn't have fun attacking the paper. In the way of knitterly gifts, my aunt gave me a gift card to the LYS (<3) and Mom (and presumably Dad) gave me a set of Knit Picks Options needles. I didn't get all of my presents finished for Christmas (oops) so I am still working on them. Perhaps New Year's presents?

Just might make it

I have finished the heels on Mom's socks and just might make it for Christmas. Hope she doesn't want a long leg! This picture was from yesterday. I happened to be reading the chapter on socks in Knitting Rules! while making these socks :D

This picture is from today with both of the heels made. It should be pretty smooth sailing from here. I'm not wearing the other sock because it would have done interesting things to the circular needles.

FO (Finally) and WIPs


Picture time!



The picture to the right is the Forest Canopy Shawl being blocked. Note to self: get more T-pins!!!




This picture on the left is a close-up of the stitch pattern. See the detail? I definitely like it better after blocking. It looks much more like a leaf. I think the green was a good choice for the pattern.

These socks are the socks I am making Mom for Christmas. Note to self: stop sleeping! It is cutting down on the gift making time!! They are made out of Cherry Tree Hill yarn (<3)in Spanish Moss colorway.




And this is what I did yesterday at work. I really like the 3D snowflakes. Easy to make yet look very complicated.

Mozart and more Mozart

On Andi, Emily, Karen and I went to Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart and town known to everyone who has watched The Sound of Music. Here is a quick photo collage.

The guesthouse where we were staying was one train stop away from the main train station and a couple of minutes walk. Well, it would have been a couple of minutes if we had not been lugging our luggage (funny how similar those two words are) up a steep hill. The guest house on Panoramaweg was very nice, pleasant, and cozy. The proprietress met us at the door and showed us to our large 4 person room. The next morning we were not able to see much from the breakfast nook because the fog had rolled in during the night. :( That is the downside of visiting Austria at the end of November and the beginning of December.

We made our way into town and began walking around. The streets of the old city were very charming. Everything was decorated for Christmas and the Christmas markets were in full swing.

Speaking of Christmas markets, I don't think I have ever had alcohol as early in the morning as I had this trip. The gluehwein and punsch were freely consumed. Probably explains why many of my pictures are slightly tilted. Hmmm.

My friend, Sarah, is currently an au pair in Germany. She and her boyfriend, Aaron, were visiting Salzburg at the same time so we met up with them in the Christmas market. The 6 of us trooped up to the fortress which hangs over the city. How anyone ever stormed castles is beyond me!

Feldkirch

To start off, our trip to Feldkirch, Austria was interesting. We landed in Zurich and were going to take the train to Feldkirch to meet Andi. We bought the tickets and had an hour+ to kill. We hung out in the train station until we were asked to leave for loitering (or we think that is what he said in German).

We went to the track where we thought the train was leaving from. The word "thought" is very important here. I blame jetlag. The train left at the correct time but ended up being a local train. We were riding along blissfully (me knitting then napping away) until the train came to a stop and the dreaded words "Last stop" were heard. Keep in mind that we had no map of Switzerland, only Austria, and were on the wrong train.

Luckily, a girl in a shop at the train station spoke some English and was able to direct us to a train which would take us to a place where we could connect for Feldkirch. Meanwhile, Em, Karen and I are worried that Andi would be waiting for us at the train station and not knowing where we were.

We arrived in Feldkirch (with a side trip to Lichtenstein) 2+ hours later than planned. Andi wasn't there waiting for us and we realized that we didn't know where she was teaching, living or her phone number. Ooops. We did know the address of the hostel so we trudged our way there. Not an encouraging start to the trip.

The owner of the hostel let us check in super early and put our stuff in our room. We sent an e-mail to Andi telling her that we made it to the hostel, were going out to find food, and would be back at the hostel later. The Italian(ish) place we stopped at was OK though there were major difficulties with the credit card machine. We wandered some in the old town when what should appear? A yarn store! It was the one I had found online :)

Zum Schwarzen Schaf was the best store I found the entire trip. The people were so friendly, the store was so bright and happy, and it was stocked full of beautiful yarns. I bought some Austermann Step yarn there (with aloe vera and jojoba oil). There was a BEAUTIFUL other sock yarn that I didn't buy because I thought I would find it later in Vienna or Salzburg. That was stupid! I should have bought it then because I didn't see it anywhere else. *Sigh*

Walking back to the hostel we met up with Andi and, boy, were we happy to see her! She had gotten our e-mail and told us that somehow she had written down the wrong address in her date book and was expecting us Thursday not Wednesday. She scrambled and was able to leave a day earlier than planned though we wouldn't have a chance to meet with her friends. Emily and I declined to go to her Wednesday movie night but Karen did. I think we (Em and I) to sleep at 7.30. Ugh, jetlag.

The next day we met up with Andi again and she showed us around her town. Feldkirch is a cute medieval town. We wandered to the castle there but it was closed for the season. Andi showed us around the old town. We had lunch in a very nice restaurant and I had a traditional Austrian dish almost like maccaroni and cheese but much heavier. After lunch, we stopped by the supermarket (International SPAR!!!) to buy food for the train. Then we started the hike to where Andi lives and teaches.

Let me tell you, by the end of her time there, Andi will be able to race up mountains without pausing for breath! It was a pretty steep hill which would ensure that you didn't buy much at the supermarket. I am just glad that she didn't take us up the steep stairs!

Andi's school and dorm (and a couple of other buildings) are all connected. Genius for those cold, winter mornings when snow is falling. The commute to work wouldn't be bad at all :) Andi's room is much bigger than I expected. It reminded me of my room in England with an extra room tacked on. The view out the window was amazing!

That evening, the four of us got on the train to Salzburg.

P.S. Go to this link to Austria pictures and this link to see New York pictures.

More vacation stories (oh, how I wish I was back there)

Meeting up with Karen and Emily was extremely easy at the airport. They had a little more difficulty because our tickets were purchased as a group but I wasn't there yet. That problem was resolved quickly and they were checked in.

The flight over to Zurich was amazingly empty. I would say that the plane only had 1/3 of it occupancy filled. Everyone was able to spread out and almost everyone was able to have a row of seats to themselves. I was really looking forward to watching the in-flight movie, The Devil Wears Prada (who else thought the book ending was much better?). It did get started late so I wasn't able to get as much sleep as I should have. Also, the individual lights weren't working so they never turned off the main cabin lights :( I did, however, get plenty of knitting done.

I guess we were really getting pushed by the tailwinds because we arrived in Zurich almost an hour (!) early.

Yes, I am alive

All of us made it back to the United States easily. I am going to do one post for my New York trip and probably break up the Austria/Switzerland trip into different posts.

There was knitting and yarn shop visiting all of the places I went. Ironically the best store in Austria was the one I visited first. Isn't that always the way? :)

New York City. . . (mini picture)

My cousin Carolyn is currently living in the city so I went to visit her and be a tourist. The only other time that I had been to New York was when I flew out of JFK in 2003 to study abroad in England. Didn't see too much then.

My trip to NY started on the day after Thanksgiving because that is when the ticket prices were the cheapest. The only problem was that I was working the day after Thanksgiving. Small detail. So I had to pack the night before and was all ready to leave directly from work. Mom drove me to the airport.

I wrote about my first little bit of NY in an earlier post. So read that and I will skip ahead.

On Sunday, Carolyn, Greg and I went to see Spamalot on Broadway. Carolyn and I got up earlier (kind of) to try to get discount tickets for it but we weren't sucessful. We ended up having to buy them online like everyone else. Oh, well. The play was just like the Holy Grail movie come to life. I think my favorite song was the "Song that Goes Like This." Monty Python humour all the way.

I was expecting to meet up with Mike, Karen and Emily sometime either on Sunday or Monday since we were leaving on Tuesday. Well, I forgot to take my phone with me on Saturday. Of course, that was the day that Mike kept trying to get a hold of me. He realized that they would have nowhere to store Emily and Karen's bags while going around the city. Oops. So we ended up having to give Mike keys to Carolyn's apartment in Brooklyn so they could put their stuff there. We met up with Mike right before the play. Em and Karen's bus was coming into the Port Authority which was only 2 blocks away.

Once they got all the way out into Brooklyn, they ended up being too tired and hungry to make the trip back into Manhattan. Carolyn told them how to get to the Alligator Lounge so we all met up there. Yummm, pizza. Six of us ate 9 pizzas. NINE. It was really fun to catch up and have my friends meet my cousin. After dinner and many games of pool, we went back to Carolyn's apartment. Dre and her boyfriend were there (now the number of people fitting into the apartment was 8). Most of us played poker late into the night. Skittles as poker chips worked well until they started getting sticky. Sticky skittles with slivers of serviettes. I, of course, knit socks :) Em, Karen and Mike took off around midnight or so for Long Island.

The next day I did the touristy thing on my own since Carolyn had to go to work. I went all over Manhattan and seemed to walk most of the way. Course I walked everywhere because I got confused on the subway, took the wrong stop, and decided to walk from 14th St up 5th Ave to 59th St. Yeah, that was nuts. Later, I walked around Central Park. Way too much walking! It was really nice though to walk along 5th Ave and see all of the shop windows.

I also went to the NYPL but, as it is now the Humanities Library or some such thing, it was closed on Mondays. I did take plenty of pictures of the lions. Then I wandered over to the Mid-Manhattan branch (sort of across the street) to sit down and look through my guidebook. I happened to sit at the table where all of the city guidebooks were located so I was able to do some more research. Then I wandered over to the Grand Central Station and ate lunch from the fresh air market in it. Later, I wandered over to Central Park and had a very nice walk. I'm really glad the weather was so good.

I did, however, have a goal for the day; visiting a yarn shop. It was on Ave A so I took the subway to a stop nearby and walked. In my walk, I went by a restaurant, 7A, that Carolyn, Greg and I had eaten at on Saturday. It was kind of nice to be able to recognize landmarks. The yarn store, Downtown Yarns, was really nice. They even had a store dog! I sat there for a while and began a sock with some beautiful yarn I got there. Here that sock is at the Statue of Liberty.

Later, I met up with Carolyn and Greg to eat in Little Italy. That makes it sounds like I knew where I was going. No, I did not. I got horribly lost and ended up in the completely opposite direction of where I was supposed to be. Ugh. I hate getting lost. Luckily, I had my map (and it screamed tourist) and I was able to navigate my way back. We had a pretty good dinner and made our way back to Carolyn's apartment. My stomach was upset so I stayed in when Care and Greg went to karaoke. Later, I watched Heroes with Dre and her boyfriend.

The next day, I wanted to be at the airport 2.5 - 3 hours before my plane left around 5. I figured it would take me a longer time to get there than it would Care (because she actually understands the system). So that meant that I wanted to be leaving Care's apartment around 1 -1.30. Decided to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in the morning, meet Care for lunch, then head to her apartment to gather my stuff. Let me tell you, sitting on a boat with an upset stomach is NOT a good thing. I felt very green.

I decided to not go into the Statue because I didn't have much time. Walking around the Ellis Island building was really neat. The 3-D representations of immigration graphs were interesting. The part I liked the most was the pictures of the island before it was rehabbed. It was just pictures of the empty buildings. The best one was a picture of a chair in a deserted room, captured in a light shaft.

I easily met Care for lunch. Then I made my way back to the apartment and headed to the airport. There, I was able to check in easily (yea!) and met with Em and Karen at the gate.

Wow, that was a lot of info! I will put pictures in later.

still alive in austria

right now in vienna. already visited a couple of yarn stores in feldkirch and new york. going to try to find one in vienna

NYC

I made it to New York safely. There was absolutely no problem with the knitting needles through security. I turned the heel and completed a couple of inches on the heel during the wait and the flight. The worsted weight yarn and larger needles really makes it easy to make progress.

According to the guy at US Airways, I was scheduled on the 3.15 flight (he was telling me this at 3.30!) even though my e-ticket said I was on the 5.20 flight. Everything did work out though. I was able to get on the plane and everything went smoothly. The flight left late but we arrived early, go figure.

I met up with my cousin in LaGuardia. She and her boyfriend picked me up and we went to her appartment in Brooklyn. We hung out for a while at the appartment, met her roommate, her boyfriend and some of Carolyn's friends. Then we went out to a bar called the Alligator Lounge (?) where you get a free pizza with every drink. It was really good and just around the corner from Carolyn's appartment. As you can tell from the time of this posting, we were out for a while.

I think we are going to be going to see a play (Spamalot) on Sunday. Tomorrow is going to be full of a lot of touristy things. Definitely want to visit some yarn stores. (They think I am crazy.) I am hoping to meet up with Mike, Emily and Karen on Monday to go around the City. That reminds me, I need to plug in my phone tonight.

Finished Objects!

This is about to be a whole lot of pictures of FO.

shawls pre-blocking, click on the picture for a larger image
This is a picture of the forest canopy shawls on which I have been working. The dark green one is the "test" yarn that I used before making the same pattern in the light green mohair.

This is a close-up of the leaf pattern in the mohair. You would not believe how warm this thing is! The pattern will be much clearer once I block the things.

This is the purse I have been working on for Christmas/Thank you gift for my cousin. I am going to be staying with her for a couple of days before leaving for Austria. This picture is of the purse before felting. The handle and bottom of the bag are re-enforced by garter stitching them with two strands of yarn. The handle and the flap are beaded.

The second picture of the bag is it in the felted state. Surprise, surprise, it looks like the before picture! ;) The inside pocket has beads across the top so you can feel it easily. I realized as I was felting it that a black purse might not have been such a good idea. They are black holes anyway so this one will be a super black hole. Oh, well!

Testing Bloglines

So I am having fun figuring out my feeds for this blog and am testing to see if I have the settings correct. I'll see if it is right once I subscribe to my own blog in Bloglines. I suspect that this might be a very, very sad thing.

I am getting ready for my trip to Austria. I can't believe I leave on Friday for New York! Not having packed anything, I am starting to get a little nervous. I just need to make sure I have my camera, batteries, and knitting. :)

Quote of the Day

Steven Colbert talking about his being named as a sexy man with glasses. This quote came from the bottom of the article. "Note: Glasses can make ladies sexy as well, but only as they are taken off, followed by a slow-moation shake of head to let her hair down out of that librarian bun."

OK, not thrilled about the stereotype but the quote is funny.

Going crazy with the posts today

Have fun with this little quiz

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
North Central
The West
Boston
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

OK, the link to the website is deciding to be white and I don't want to wade through the XHML to find out why. Just click under the last box thingy to go to the link.

Right! Knitting
Almost forgot to talk about the knitting. I am almost finished with my gift purse. It is a black felted bag with beads on the bag flap and handle. I hope it will turn out really well. In order to make the bottom of the bag and the handle stronger, I used two strands of yarn together. Even before felting it feels like nothing could go through it. Can't wait to see it after felting. I swear, I will talk a picture of it!

I have darted off to another project: Very Tall Socks. They are very fun but I think I want to do them in a bigger needle size. Making them on #2s would take FOREVER. And, if I have a bigger needle size, those needles could be bamboo. Then I could take the bamboo on the plane to Austria. The only thing is, do I want to take all of that yarn? Hmmm. Might have to do some smaller socks with needles that I buy over there.

I am still working on the mohair shawl. I still love the yarn and the pattern is still (cross your fingers) going well but I have just gotten distracted by all of the other stuff.

Next Friday (ack, 6 days!) I am flying to New York to visit with my cousin before leaving for Austria on the 28th. My friends and I will be over there for 2 weeks and, boy, am I ready! Somehow the date crept up on me and suddenly I have so much to do before I leave. Definitely need to get the passport out of the bank vault. Have to get student discount card. Have to pack (ugh). Have to call the credit card company. Have to call the bank. *Pant, pant* Whew. Somehow it will all get done. Somehow.

Finally, Blogger!

I tried to get onto Blogger all day yesterday and it was doing something very odd.

I am going to be a huge library dork and talk all about the OCLC tour I went on yesterday. Someone from Kent State arranged to have a tour there. They had to drive down to Kent and I didn't because I live near Dublin. I've also taken a class at OCLC with the woman who gave the tour (I heart Nancy because I am basically her mini me.) We never got to have a tour there during class because it was held in the evenings when most of the people have already gone home.

Anyway, Nancy gave a brief talk about the history of OCLC and a little bit of what they do there. Then we went on the tour. We got to see the usability lab and talked to the man who runs it. One of my papers this month was about website usability so I definitely knew what he was talking about. The amount of cameras in that room was amazing.

Then we got to see where they manage/observe the 200+ servers. In a way, it kind of reminded me of a NASA control room, lots of monitors and projected images. If there is ever a problem with one of the servers no matter where it is located, they know about it in a couple of seconds and track down what is the problem. The people who work there work in 12 hour shifts (!) and the room is staffed 24/7, 365 days/year.

We took a tour of the OCLC library. (Talk about a special library.) They had a lot of periodicals and books available to the staff. The library is open round the clock, too, but it is not staffed around the clock. Any of the staff members can pick a book of the shelves and check it out themselves. They don't have any due dates because they figure it is easier to purchase a replacement.

The one building on the campus was built around the original hulking computer systems. It used to occupy 3 floors of the building. With the new technologies, they need a whole lot less space for the computers so now they rent out the space to other people. We were able to go to an observation room and look at the OCLC computers. It was kind of freaky all of the white space, computers and no one around.

We got to see where they print the catalog cards (yes, some libraries still use catalog cards). I think the noise of the ribbon printers would have driven me crazy very quickly if I worked there.

**Lunch Break** :)

We went to one of the other buildings and got to see where they do cataloging. The number of languages they can catalog in is staggering. They have specifically hired people with cataloging experience and who speak at least one other language. We met one of the Russian specialists.

Then we saw the foreign language collection. If a library discovers they have a need of a foreign language collection, they can call OCLC and will be sent a ready-made collection. All of the cataloging is already done and there are a variety of books in the collection. Amazing!

It was funny that, in all of the public areas, the grounds, and (most) work areas, the architecture and interior design was very nice. The hallways, however, made you think of an underground bunker. No joke. Kind of narrow, few doors, no windows and painted a beige-ish color. The places where the public can go (which isn't far without an escort) are simply amazing. The courtyard of the Kilgour Building is an atrium with a grove of live trees in it and plants all around the walls. They had white Christmas lights all around the tree trunks. Very pretty. It kind of reminded me of the Seattle Public Library plant beds which are inside the building.

It was a fun day all in all.

Jinxed!

I did jinx myself yesterday by saying I felt confident working with the mohair. Last night, I just did silly things with it. I had to rip it out a couple of times (talk about fun). Today, I just seem to have my counting off. Over lunch I got so frustrated with it that I had to stop. I think I will start (or continue) one of the other projects to give myself a break. Arrglyes anyone?

OOOOOOOOO, Pretty

Aren't these shawl pins georgeous? They were featured today on Scout's Swag and are in her store.

V-day

Did you remember to vote today? FINALLY the election adds will be over and Dogpile has a cute logo today. I don't know about the other states but Ohio has been lousy with the ads. If you watch TV, there is a little bit of show in the middle of lots of political spite. It doesn't matter what politics to which you subscribe, everybody is slamming everybody else. It amused me to no end that I could vote on Saturday. No lines, no hassle. Pretty simple process.

Knitting stuff (sort of)-- Java was featured on Romancing the Yarn. Isn't he cute? :) OK, real knitting stuff. I keep meaning to charge my camera batteries so I can take pictures of the stuff I have been doing recently. I felted a couple of purses in a denim-like blue wool. I like the way the one turned out but the other was waaaaaay too short and too wide. I cut it apart and am sewing it together again. The cat has decided the strap is her play toy and won't let me have it back. So that means the purse is going to have to be finished later. I am still working on finding a purse pattern that I like.

I finished the Forest Canopy shawl in my test yarn. (I wanted to do the shawl in mohair that I picked up from DeStash but wanted to learn how to lace with an easier yarn.) I am going to block it tomorrow and take a picture. I started on the same pattern with the mohair and I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooove it! :) The mohair is a light green almost like lime sherbet and looks perfect with the pattern. The green is just the right color for new spring leaves. I am very happy that I practiced the pattern first because I feel very confident now. Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself!

Sock news -- Well, nothing really. I found some more sock yarn that I love at my LYS, The Needling Yarn. I really like the colors of the Cherry Tree Hill yarns. This one is called "Peacock" and how perfect is that? :) Now I just have to find a pattern for this gorgeous stuff. Perhaps Pomatomus?

I am still working on the Lonesome Skein KAL but I only seem to be adding to the stash recently. Not enough time and too much wonderful yarn.

Well, off to school tonight to turn in the last paper of the semester! Yea!