Warm Hand, Warm Heart

This is going to be one of those long, rambling, picture heavy posts. Consider yourself warned.

Huh. Who’d a thunk? Telling people they might have a chance at free yarn on the Internets is the same as yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. They don’t walk, they RUN! I’m sorry if anyone got trampled. Oh and don’t say I didn’t give you anything. Trust me. The answers won’t be so easy next time. For one thing, I’m going to make you email me the answer. NO CHEATING. You know who you are. That’s all I’m saying. 😉

So far I’m having a really great weekend. It’s not over yet (it’s Sunday night around 9:43.) Georgie’s making tacos and I just diced the tomatoes which was UBER FUN with G’s better-than-an-ipod type thing. It’s great to hear the music he’s got going – not all of them are my favorites, but they’re all SO G. Work wise, I’m fucked this weekend. I did manage to do a first read of stories for class this week and I folded a buttload of clothes, but I didn’t do ANY picture work which is really, really bad.

Why? I’ll tell you.
Saturday I met up with those amazing girls from Boston – Wendy, Elisa and Kellee! YAY! I met them at Macy’s and we immediately headed up to M&J Trimmings. Great buttons. Maybe better than Tenderbuttons. I WILL be going there next time I need some. I called Kay while we were there to tell her where we were so she could meet up and the first thing she asked was did you see the tape dispensers. It was the first thing I noticed. All of the tape dispensers were covered with ribbon and buttons and sequins and were the best darn tape dispensers I’ve ever seen. So pretty. Of course I don’t have a picture for you because the I didn’t bring my camera. Wendy was the only one taking pictures and I don’t know if she did or not. You’ll have to ask her.

It’s not about 9AM, in case you’re keeping score.

From there we made our way in the direction of Rockefeller Center. Because that’s exactly where I want to be on December 3rd – three days after they lit the damn tree – but SOMEONE insisted. And dudes, ask her how close she got to that freaking tree! RIGHT UNDERNEATH IT BABY! But I digress. On our walk we came upon Bryant Park – right behind the main NY Public Library (the one in Ghostbusters 😉 ). They had their annual holiday bazzar thing going on and I bought a few fun things for blog gifts. Look for them in future Showcases! Then we went Chipotle, apparently a delicacy unavailable in Boston, for a very nice lunch. While we were eating, we mapped our plan of attack. Literally. Did anyone get a picture of the map? Wait! I might have it!

I know it’s small, but can you make out Purl and Dinner?

Okay, so the plan was to head up to Rock Center – to see the tree blahblahblah – and head to Kinokuniya Bookstore. While they didn’t have the book (they were heavy on crochet), I did manage to pick up some more cute stuff for Showcase gifts.

We met up with a couple of friends of Wendy’s there and headed out to Habu. Where I had one of my first blogger in public moments. I wasn’t really interested in buying anything at Habu (my third time there – the first time I spent my fortune) and I was sitting on the floor knitting my Jaywalker when someone said, “Cara?” I looked up and immediately felt awful – because I had no idea who the woman was. I feel like if someone knows me – I should know them, right? Anyway – all was good when Lauren introduced herself. Lauren doesn’t have a blog, but she reads this one and I sent her some yarn she needed a few weeks ago and she’s in the Jaywalker KAL too! What a coincidence. Can I just say, Lauren was wearing THE MOST GORGEOUS wrap – from Scarf Style I think – the entrelec one? Gorgeous. We compared Jaywalkers and Lauren had to go – I think she was a little more freaked than I was running into us. Thanks for stopping Lauren! Hopefully we’ll run into each other again.

Sadly Lauren pointed out my one and only real fuck up of the day as tour guide – I didn’t know that School Products closed early on Saturday, so we missed it. Next time girls.

After they oohed and ahhed and bought, we headed down to Purl. On the subway. YAY! Purl was packed. I grabbed a seat and worked on my sock while the girls shopped as best they could. I ended up with some purchases, but they’re mainly gifts so no pictures. I was pretty good this shopping trip. I only bought one skein of yarn for myself – and that was to supliment what I already had – more on that later.

With Purl out of the way, we headed down to Seaport – I planned that stop last because it was pretty close to where we were going to eat dinner. I was PARTICULARLY proud of myself here – we got on the subway – and I managed to get us to the stop that was AROUND THE CORNER from the store. Lucky us because I always get lost down there and we were running short on time. Seaport’s where I spent the most money – but only because I bought enough Addi Turbos to have a Jaywalker on the needles for every day of the week. I’m only half kidding. The girls had fun – Elisa at one point buried herself in a pile of Cherry Tree Hill. There’s picture evidence of this so check around.

Then it was off to dinner! I’ve blogged about this restaurant before – Gigino’s. For anyone in the NYC area – it’s a must hit. Kay was there before us and we had a great table in the back corner – perfect for five hungry giggly girls. Kay had a bottle of wine waiting as well – what was it Kay? I couldn’t remember and wanted to tell G. We ate and talked and laughed and we were warm and cozy and it was the perfect ending to the perfect day.

Or it would’ve been if we hadn’t tried to leave without paying. I’ll let someone else tell that story. 😉 Suffice it say, everything’s good and I assured G that we can still show our faces there.

Girls – I hope you got home okay?! You did’t let me know like you promised! It was so, so good to see you all and hang out and I wasn’t anxious at all and I love you. Come back soon! And Kay – lunch when I’m calmer. Two weeks maybe? Love you too!

Because I don’t want this to get out of hand – I’m going to an extended entry. It’s picture heavy, so click if you want. Thanks for visiting – I totally understand – if you don’t. Have a great day!

In the I would’ve liked a tiara but now it looks like I need something else for my birthday category – check this out:

Can you tell what this is? Maybe another picture will help:

Yes. I broke my swift. Super human strength you ask, or super human stupidity? I’m winding, winding, winding and my winder is making this awful sound and the swift is slowing down and I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it, so instead of stopping, I keep winding. Sure. Why not? The other side of the skein had wound it’s way around the base like 4,279 times and I wasn’t paying attention and the damn swift snapped in half like a twig. I cut myself too. Bastards. So yeah. I need a new one. Fucking A.

But I did manage to wind the yarn for this before I broke it!

For the Warm Hands KAL. I’m using Manos, number 114. I bought an extra skein at Purl – incidentally the three others I have in my stash were from my yarn crawl with Wendy last February, so really these should be called Warm Wendys because all the yarn was purchased with her! I used Ann Budd’s pattern – cast on 40 stitches on size 7 Addis. Two circulars method. I was going to use size 8s, but I realized that while it looks like I only have one size 8 circular, I have literally SEVEN size 7s. How that happened I have no idea. I fudged some parts of the pattern – like I did kitchener to close off the top – but otherwise it’s all good. I like it! I’ll cast on for the mate in a couple of days – it shouldn’t take me long now that I know how to do an M1R. That was a bitch. Don’t ask.

Now for the best part! IT SNOWED! I woke up Sunday morning to a blanket of snow – I never got to see totals for my area, but we had to have had about three inches. It was a good heavy wet snow, so it probably looked like more than it really was, but I was outside before 9AM. I love snow – especially walking around before it’s really been lived in – everything’s so quiet and I love the cold when you’re warm in your coat and it was just lovely. It really rejuvanated me – especially since I haven’t takent pictures for myself in a long while. I’ve been kind of panicked lately because I don’t have a holiday card lined up yet. I always send out a photo card to friends and clients and I’ve used the archive already. I was going to knit some ornaments and take a picture (in my nonexistant spare time) but now I don’t have to! I got a GORGEOUS picture. Simply wonderful and G likes it because it’s not really Xmasy but very dramatic and very different and I’m not going to show you until the cards are sent out, but then I’ll post it. So, instead, I’ll leave you with these:

I’m off to the OBGYN today. I’ve been putting this off for awhile because I’m embarrassed to tell her that we backed out of the IVF last year. I think I can do it – but I’ll probably cry. That might help with the sympathy factor. To top it off I had all kinds of weird breastfeeding dreams last night. As in I had a baby that I was trying to breast feed. Good shrink fodder, don’t you think? Have a great day – send some good vibes my way. Showcase winner tomorrow!