sunset highway

As you can see by that big grin on the kid’s face, we had a fabulous time at the seashore. Play Eat Repeat. I even squeezed some knitting in and managed to finish my Sunset Highway. I decided to knit short sleeves in keeping with the whole summertime casual easy breezy theme. I love that the yarn for this tee was all pulled from stash but the control freak knitter in me is not sure about the colors. It all looks okay together but I can’t help enviously drooling over all the pretty Sunsets on instagram and ravelry with their seemingly perfectly curated color choices (who knows maybe most were stash inspirations as well). Does that happen to you sometimes when trying to use your stash? But at least most of the envy is balanced out with the satisfaction of turning perfectly good yarn into a finished object.

under attack

pattern: Mercury socks yarn: hue loco glitz sock in the eskimo colorway

First for the good news: I finished a pair of socks and I love them to bits! The pattern (handpaint highlights socks ) plays so well with the pretty colors of this highly variegated yarn by phydeaux designs. Definitely plan on repeating this pattern with other colorfully fun sock yarn in the stash.

Now for the not so good news: my sock wips appeared to have mysteriously multiplied overnight. I am not quite sure how this happened. {cue music for the Twilight Zone} Maybe some unknown law of quantum physics is at play. Or there could be the existence of an alternate universe where knitting projects self-propagate and then travel through the space-time continuum to land in our wips basket. A nefarious plot by elves and fairies? Regardless of how they came to be, I now have to accept their existence and come up with a plan of attack:

*take a much needed seaside vacation
*bring only sock wips
*do nothing but knit (and eat)
*resist casting on any new socks (at least until a few of these are off the needles)

*find fellowship and support from others who are in the same boat #knitwipkal

Sounds pretty simple right? Wish me luck!

thirty

"Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that." — Ally Condie

This past weekend was surreal, joyful and bittersweet. I am so glad that I was able to travel back home to northern New York to see these old high school friends of mine. Didn’t realize how very much I missed them until I saw their smiling faces again. So many memories to revisit and new ones made. Laughter, tears and hugs. Until next time friends!

p.s. One of the best parts of the weekend was discovering how many of us were knitters/crocheters/quilters. There might have been some plotting going on for a crafty reunion. Oh how I hope it happens!

socks galore

February: paintbox yarns, passion fair isle colorway

March: twizzler socks, West Yorkshire Spinners signature 4-ply, mojito 

Hi friends! Just wanted to check in with you all and give you a quick sock update before I head off to visit Vietnam for a couple of weeks. I am flying solo on this trip so there will be a lot of travel knitting and reading to look forward to (over 20 hours of flight time). I am horrible at dealing with jetlag. Any tips? I know that staying hydrated is a must. I will also try to eat according to my destination time. But sleep is always an issue for me on planes. I have tried noise-cancelling headphones, sleep masks, travel pillows and melatonin. Nothing seems to work and Benadryl makes me extremely groggy for a long time which defeats the purpose of taking it. My husband suggested fasting during my flight but I don’t think I can go that long without eating. So I will probably end up watching all the movies, knitting on my socks and pigging out :) Speaking of socks, April is looking like a fun knitting month full of socks. I will be participating in the Coffee & Craft Podcast’s Sock Sprint that Bernadette is hosting. It is a challenge to see how many pairs of socks we can finish in a month. The hard part is trying to figure out which yarns to bring with me.

I will be flying out on Sunday so wishing you a wonderful Easter if you observe it. Have a lovely start to April!

summer traditions

yes, I started another blanket...more details coming soon!

It wouldn't truly be summer without our annual seaside holiday. There is something to be said about little traditions that stay with you year after year: eating at our favorite off-the-beaten track food joints, making sand castles and knitting at the same lovely uncrowded stretches of beach, resting our heads at night and waking up to beautiful sunrises from a familiar spot. It's always bittersweet to leave but there's a reassuring knowledge that we will be making the same trek next summer. Is there a summer tradition that you look forward to year after year?

wildflowers & honeycomb

If socks could evoke an image, these would definitely bring to mind a charming English cottage garden, the kind that has hidden winding paths & is left to run a little wild. I could just picture myself wearing my wildflowers & honeycomb socks while enjoying afternoon tea in such a setting *sigh* Okay, back to reality (and my dried out pitifully neglected garden).

Lots of firsts with this pattern: I love the star toes (wonderfully comfortable fit) and the interesting honeycomb stitch pattern used on the heels. This was also the first time that I knitted a lace pattern for socks. Which is probably why it took me so long to finish the pair since lace knitting, even if it's an extremely easy eyelet pattern, is hard for me to memorize and knit without having to refer to a chart. I found that the pattern worked surprisingly well with this variegated SpunRightRound yarn (colorway = Levitate). There are lots of pretty color combos on Ravelry & Instagram.

I've recently been on a little staycation. Really enjoyed some downtime with the little guy while the hubby was in New York at a motorcycle rally. We ate takeout every day, took long walks to all of the local beaches, hit every single ice cream/frozen custard/froyo stand and pretty much chilled out at home. I had lots of crafty plans to start a cross stitch project, catch up on my journal and swatch some interesting stitch patterns from a new Japanese stitch dictionary. But pretty much all of my time was spent catching up on Outlander & Game of Thrones, reading and of course, sock knitting. Which is all good since my little sockcation has resulted in 3 finished pairs of socks. I hope that your July has been filled with lots of summer fun as well! Can't believe that it's almost over!

vegas

My brother, sister & I surprised my mom with a quick jaunt to Vegas. We ate lots of great food, walked The Strip, shopped and people watched. It definitely is a uniquely surreal place! The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the company excellent. I even managed to fit in a little bit of pool-side sock knitting:

I was quite surprised by how enjoyable the trip was since my ideal vacation usually involves lazing around the beach, preferably with an endless supply of fresh squeezed lemonade and knitting at the ready. Now it's onwards to finishing up the school year. Just one more week and our summer vacation will officially start. Can't wait for the more relaxed pace of summer. Looking forward to sleeping in, soft ice cream cones at our favorite stand and beach knitting :)

on the verge

the view from terrapin beach, a mile's walk from my house

Summer around these parts includes lots of trips to the ocean which is happily less than two hours away. Even though we are lucky to have several beautiful local beaches here on the island, there's just something so compelling about the vast expanse of sand and sea and the pounding waves only to be found at the shore. Plus there's the boardwalk fries, ice cream, fudge and salt water taffy. I am missing it already! Also love all the beach knitting that was achieved while we were there last week and now I am finding myself on the verge of finishing a couple of projects:

just the bind off & blocking left on the Shetland Trader MKAL shawl

hitofude cardigan

Can't wait to get started on a couple of new projects as soon as these are done. I've got the yarn already lined up for a Morning Mist tee. Simple stockinette with a cute lace detail on the back. Perfect beach knitting project.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July weekend for those of you who celebrate. I just ordered my first grill and can't wait to try all of the yummy summer recipes that I've been collecting over the years. Grilled pineapples...chicken kebabs...flank steaks....! What is your favorite thing to cook on the grill? Would love any recipe suggestions/links you might have.

journeys

The last few months have been chock-full of journeys, both big and small. Most memorably, I traveled to Vietnam to visit my parents and had a wonderful time seeing the country through their eyes. Not surprisingly, most of our focus was centered around food :) I spent a lot of time at the numerous markets shopping, exploring and trying new things.

My mom doing her best Lunch Lady impersonation. This food stand was featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.

One of the highlights of the trip was a tour of the Mekong Delta.

Seeing the floating markets first hand was pretty amazing.

We also had an opportunity to visit several fruit orchards and some local cottage industries. I loved seeing all the different varieties of fruit grown in the region.

Such a peaceful place compared to the hustle and bustle of Saigon, where highrises are sadly taking over the landscape:

I am hoping to return in a couple of years to explore more of this amazing country.

I'll save the smaller journeys of the knitted kind for the next several posts. In the meantime, there's lots of catching up and visiting to do. I've really missed being present in this space but felt like a break was necessary. Hopefully with the school year winding down and with work becoming less crazy, there will be more time to spend on the fun stuff.

lazy days of summer

As you can tell by the post title, we are in total summertime mode around these parts. There has been a string of gorgeous sunshiny days here lately, which we took full advantage of on our beach vacation. Lots of great food and even some new foodie adventures for the little guy while on our trip. He tried sashimi for the first time and really enjoyed it, which utterly thrilled my husband who is a Japanese cuisine enthusiast. Wish I thought to take a picture of the moment! In fact, we pretty much went unplugged the entire time. As for the beach knitting, the only thing I managed to finish was this:

I also started on a new cardigan, the lovely and popular Hitofude, using Quince & co. Sparrow. Really enjoying the cool & crisp feeling of the linen yarn in combination with the easy to memorize lace pattern. Planning on taking my time with this one.

Also taking my lazy time with the finishing bits on Uniform. Hoping to get the neckband knitted soon so I can wear it with this fun top. Is it sad that I require pretty buttons or a hula halter top to motivate me to finish my knits?

Lastly, here are a couple of new books that I am enjoying.

I want to knit pretty much everything in Sweater Girls. If, like me, you adore vintage and retro sweaters, then this book is a must-have. Lots of beautiful pictures and styling, too. I can tell already that Up, Down, All-Around is going to be my go-to stitch dictionary. In fact, I couldn't resist casting on a new project using this stitch pattern from the book:

Of course, there's no rush on this one, too. It is summertime after all ☼ ⛵ ☼

quick recap of vkl

the view of Times Square from my room

Tomorrow reality sets in again with my first day back to work. But today I am still daydreaming about what an amazingly fun vacation it has been. Vogue Knitting Live was so cool on so many levels. The best part was meeting and socializing with a bunch of friendly & fun loving knitters from different parts of the country (one as far away as Alaska!). Knitters are the best people! I also had a chance to meet up and go out to dinner with an internet friend :)

Siljan Mittens by Nancy Bush

My second favorite part of the event were the two day long classes that I took with Nancy Bush (on twined knitting) and Franklin Habit (on different colorwork techniques). Both are awesome teachers who are passionate about passing their knowledge onto new knitters. I am very excited to apply some of these new techniques to my knitting and to share them in more detail with you.

Riverside Studio Yarns from Quebec

Matryoshka doll shawl pin from Michelles Assortment & bird buttons from Incomparable Buttons

As you can see from the above two pictures, the third best part was the Marketplace. So many terrific vendors, so little time to shop. Plus, it was super busy. But I did manage to get my greedy hands on some new-to-me yarns and pretty little notions. Aren't the buttons adorable? They, along with the woven basket below, were handcrafted in Africa.

Camp Out Mitts

Lastly, it was simply wonderful to knit knit knit without interruption. I love my two guys, but sometimes a girl just wants to knit have fun! Lots of things came off the needles this week and I am excited to show them off on Friday. Until then, I have a lot of blog reading to catch up on!