Pages
Stay In Touch
ALL content on this site is the property of, and copyrighted by, the blogger at Thrums. If any content is presented elsewhere, I will pursue action. Just ask me, for heaven's sake! I'm very friendly.
Pride
Maybe, in your life, you once had a relationship that was unsatisfying, but there wasn’t really anything wrong with the person. Everyone said Oh, s/he’s so great, such a nice person, funny, etc. I did once, and I agreed with them! Still, “perfect” as he seemed to be, it was not a good relationship for me. Around that time, I heard Joan Baez sing a song that included the line I used as this blog post title: a saint is hard to live with at home. It cracked me up, it felt very familiar and personally true, and obviously it stayed with me.
This line came to mind this morning when I saw the following article in the NYTimes:
we're perfect
Yep – that’s what it says. More city preschoolers are perfect. Test scores show. To me, that suggests that the tests are imperfect, or imperfect for assessing what they need to assess. Had I seen those data, I’d have written an article pointing out the problems with the test. But New Yorkers – you know how they are – instead say that we’re just perfect.
As a Texan, I really get that, and it’s one thing I find dear about New Yorkers. Well, dear and really irritating. Just like people get irritated (or worse) with Texans for their/our grandiose views of themselves (ourselves). NYers and Texans should either get over ourselves, or at least keep our mouths shut a little more often. 
And look at this – what do we see in my gigantic knitting bag next to my place on the couch:
peasy and mondo, mixing it up together in the bag
That’s my Peasy sweater (I’m knitting a sleeve right now) and my Mondo Cable Cardigan (also on a sleeve). Two sweaters! But lost in sleeveland, the seemingly endless land of stockinette tubes. Yesterday I did a little Peasy sleeve knitting, then a little Mondo sleeve knitting, then back to Peasy. It didn’t feel like too much of a break, switching to the other. I don’t have a purse knitting project going right now, and I keep thinking I ought to cast on something small and quickly-finishable, but then I know I’d just do that instead of sleeves, and the sleeve-knitting elf hasn’t found my apartment yet so if it’s going to be done, I’ll have to do it.
Everything there is to do in this world has a bit that’s less fun than the others. I read an article by Jane Patrick in one of the first issues of Handwoven, where she talked about how much she hated sleying the reed (I think that was the detail). Then she realized that’s a necessary task, she’s always going to have to do it when she weaves, so she tried to reorient herself to the idea. That happened to me when I took my intro stats course as an undergrad – at first I hated it, but I realized it would be my essential tool so I found another way to think about it, and now I adore stats. So my mission is to find another way to conceptualize the endlessness of sleeves.
Happy Thursday, y’all.
.
Related posts
happy! joy!
SUCH a wonderful, happy day for me! I finished the final little details of my old job, tied up every last loose end, left nothing undone, left on a very high note.
I finished grafting the shawl together, and it LOOKS GREAT! I was so worried that the graft would be obvious and weird, but you know the kitchener stitch is really amazing. It really looks seamless. Now I just have to weave in a couple of ends, then soak it for a bit and do the blocking.
Isn’t it great when the things that hang over you are finished? You know that glorious feeling of liberation and accomplishment and exuberance?
Yeah. I’ve got those going. After I finish the blocking, I think I’ll do the next swatch for Peasy, so I can work on it on the flight later this week. To my daughter’s wedding. Two girls happily married, that’s another great relief, you know?
blocking
.
Related posts
I know - how many times is she going to write about those socks?! For heaven’s sake. Believe me, I understand. I think I’m just so fascinated by the pattern and this yarn. Plus, of course, I had to start over on the sock after getting through the heel flap so I’ve kind of been at this for a while. Turns out I didn’t get one sock out of one skein; I got to the toe decreases and ran flat out. But luckily I had a brown yarn in my stash that was a perfect blend. Lookie!
Related posts
Well, aren’t I glad I did this – I dutifully completed my (first) swatch for my beautiful new Peasy sweater. Last night I wet blocked the swatch, and I just unpinned it, got out my measuring tape, and checked my gauge. Using a 3.5mm needle, my gauge should have been 22 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. But I got 23.5 and 31 rows = 4 inches. Here are my lessons learned:
1) because I now know from my Wowie Zowie sock lesson that what seems like a small difference can actually be a very large difference,
2) I need to go down a needle size, and
3) the fabric is going to be absolutely gorgeous, with the most lovely hand and drape ever.
Madelinetosh is not in danger of being toppled from the top of my favorite- yarn- ever list — especially not with tosh merino light in this world — but Rowan Tweed has scootched immediately to a close second. I think I’ll knit a Manu with Rowan Tweed after I finish my beautiful Peasy and an Austin Hoodie with TML. I also have enough yarn for an Inaugural sweater.
Oh dear. I think I’ve just become a sweater knitter.* Good thing I live in a place with a long cold winter.
With a nice long weekend coming up, I have knitting plans that include finishing Marnie’s wedding shawl and getting it blocked, doing some work (you know, instead of saying work I’d rather say ‘fun’) doing some fun on my Wowie Zowie socks, and maybe I’m just sayin maybe getting going on my Peasy. Last night was the first major festivity associated with leaving my job; 20 people I work with came to a little party for me, and it was quite amazing. Much toasting and fete-ing and love; hugs and kisses from each one at the end. Tonight is a drinks farewell with my boss’s boss and my best work friend, Thursday night is my writing group. Not much will happen until the weekend but it’s all going to be fun. When it’s good, life can be really, really good, you know?
*disclaimer and acknowledgment: knitting a swatch does not guarantee becoming a sweater knitter…there is still the ability to be in it for the long haul, the perseverance to finish all the fiddly bits, and (for some sweaters) the ability to assemble pieces. The jury is still out on me with these parts!
Related posts
Finally! Finally! A finished object I can share! Yippee!! This is, after all, my knitting blog. I can knit this pattern in my sleep, and the yarn is great fun for socks, but I started them during an extremely busy time so several days would pass without a single stitch. The bulk of my knitting time for these socks was subway commuting, so a row here, a row there, you know how that goes.
Anyway. I proudly introduce you to the Minkeys …. pink monkeys, get it? (the word minkeys makes me giggle because I hear it as Inspector Clouseau — Chief Inspector Clouseau — would say it.)
the top/left sock hasn't been blocked yet - the other one has
oh, you minkeys
i love socks.......
The yarn is the incredibly soft Felici, from KnitPicks. The first pair of socks I knit with this yarn still looks great, after a couple years’ washing. They get a lofty halo, but they’re very hard-wearing. And they don’t need any special care at all, double good for busy people.
These socks are for the bride-to-be, my daughter Marnie. When my older daughter Katie got married, she gave Marnie a t-shirt that said “I’m a worm farmin’ power liftin’ bad ass” and that really says it all. Since Marnie has this photo in her Facebook photo album (and therefore it’s public) I don’t think she’d mind my posting it here.
Marnie and Tom, getting married in a few weeks - taken at Katie's wedding rehearsal
It’s such fun finishing something, if only because I feel a little less guilty about casting on a new project.
Related posts
It’s a taxonomical question, of sorts: does your blog just include everything, or do you specialize? Are you a lumper, or a splitter? I’ve been blogging for years, and I’ve tried both approaches. I started with a blog that just had everything – book reviews, movie reviews, handwork, food, life, photography – and then I decided to split them off into different single-focus blogs. I had a cloud blog, a dream blog, a book blog, a photography blog, a food blog, a NY Stories blog, and a personal blog. That got to be a LOT of work, man. And not only that, it left me feeling as fragmented as it sounds. Plus, most visitors just read one of the blogs, and I’d want to share something special but it was on one of the other blogs. So back I went to a single blog. [note: this is all a very silly problem, really.]
This blog originated as a knitting blog, exclusively. But as a very busy person, with limited knitting time, weeks might pass without something knitting-related to say, so I started filling in with other things. Now, even though it has a knitting-themed title, and I do try to focus on handwork whenever possible, it has a bit of everything…..and I like it that way. I hope you do too.
The only exception to “everything” is that I decided to reanimate my old food blog, Luscious. I wrote a post about this a couple of weeks ago. I don’t post on Luscious as often as I post here, on Thrums, but whenever I do, oh how I want you to see it! This morning, for instance, my husband made a big batch of pickles for me, as he does every summer, and so I posted it on Luscious. I put a little widget in the sidebar – take a look:
- At the top is a counter – remember, the person who leaves the 500th comment will win a skein of Noro, brought directly from Tokyo. (I hope it’s you!)
- Next down is the little “welcome to my blog” widget
- And underneath that is an RSS feed for my food blog. And right there, the top link is to the pickles post. I’m excited about that one because (1) I adore pickles, (2) especially homemade pickles, (3) the photographs are great simply because how could they not be, given the dark green of the cucumbers and the bright red of the hot cherry peppers, and (4) it’s so easy to make pickles, and they’re so incredibly wonderful, I want to encourage you to make them too.
So anyway, this post is a long, roundabout way of saying that I hope you glance over at that little widget now and then, and head over to Luscious if the subject of a link is interesting. My husband is such an incredible cook, and I bake a lot, so you’ll find some mighty fine eating.
AND! The wedding dress arrived safely in Chicago, and *wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles* the dress fits Marnie beautifully, and she looks absolutely amazing in it. I don’t want to post the quickie photo that she sent, for any of a million reasons, but I will post a photo after the wedding. I was really sweating bullets over the fit of the dress, so what a relief.
Related posts
marnie and tom, so cute
It’s getting close, Marnie’s and Tom’s wedding – July 17. A number of weeks. They’re really adorable, peas in a pod, and their wedding is going to be fun. They asked me to make the wedding dress, which really delighted me…..even if it also terrified me. I haven’t done any sewing to speak of in years. Little quilt blocks here or there, straight seams and who cares if they’re ready for others to see them. But I haven’t made clothing since my kids were young.
When they were here over the Christmas break, we went down to the garment district to search for just the right fabric. Marnie had already picked out a pattern, and given the setting of their wedding, we thought a nice green linen would be great. Here’s the pattern she selected – a vintage Vogue 1954 cocktail dress:
this, minus the gloves
It’s a simple dress, but since it’s Vogue and vintage, it’s not as simple as you’d think. There are bound buttonholes, a strange way of doing the straps, and darts and pleats deluxe….which means it’s got a lot of room for fitting it to her perfectly, and a lot of room for error. Since she lives in Chicago, the fitting part was tricky. She came here for a weekend so we could do a rough fitting, and it’s a good thing she did.
So I got it largely done, then hit a spot that totally intimidated me. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me, and I so want this to look beautiful, not home-made. So many weekends, I’d say and write “and today I’m going to work on the wedding dress” but the fear and intimidation made me think “well…..I’ll do it tomorrow/next weekend, today I’ll knit.”
She needs it quickly, though, so my mission this weekend was to get it done. And except for some handwork, and making the self-covered buttons, it is done.
just a view of the back
I’m going to get it professionally pressed; we chose a relatively heavy Italian linen, and my little old iron, my no-ironing-board set-up, and my lack of proper pressing tools means it needs to have a professional press. Then I’ll put it in a large box and send it off to Marnie, with my fingers crossed for a good fit.
Related posts
Let’s take a little walk around my neighborhood, it’s a beautiful day. I live on the Upper West Side – Morningside Heights, to specific. Doesn’t that sound lovely, “Morningside Heights”? I’ll walk to the corner of 112th and Broadway, to start:
recognize this place?
Tom’s – the famous exterior shot of the diner on Seinfeld, and the eponymous place for Suzanne Vega’s song, “Tom’s Diner.” She apparently wrote the song in the restaurant. I must say, though, the inside does not look like the inside of the Seinfeld diner. That was a set. But this was the exterior shot. It’s fun to walk around that area and hear people say “…hey! Isn’t that….”
Turn your head and look toward Amsterdam:
St John the Divine
Right at the end of the street, there it is. The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. It was begun in 1892. Bishop Henry Codman Potter bought the site of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, and organized an architectural competition. By 1911, the Bishop and the architect had died, and a new architect was hired. The result is something of a mishmash of styles: Byzantine-Romanesque, French Gothic, and other versions of Gothic architecture. By 1942, only the great nave and west front were finished. They stopped because of WWII. Over time, others worked on it, but it’s still incomplete. Here, I’ll show you around the exterior:
a partial view of the front
a partial view of the right side
another partial view of the right side, toward the front
higgledy piggledy frankenbuilding - near the back
We walked behind the church, down into Morningside Park. It used to be a dangerous place to go, but now it’s filled with parents and kids, playgrounds, all the usual characters you’d find in a neighborhood park:
baseball games
waterfalls
lots of flowers
And now we’ve come up 110th St and we’re back at St John the Divine. It’s the Peace Fountain, and it’s super freaky. It’s meant to show the battle of good and evil, but it’s an acid vision weirdo thing:
Peace Fountain
Yeah, that’s a seemingly-random LOBSTER CLAW hanging there. Here, I’ll show you a close-up:
it's holding Satan's head, upside down and maybe decapitated?
Yeah. Weird. It used to have water, like a real fountain, but it doesn’t, right now. So that’s a little piece of my neighborhood. I like to show you around, because New York is so many things, you have to see more than Times Square or the Statue of Liberty, or even the Empire State Building. It’s neighborhoods, like mine.
Related posts
Gibknitty, at Urban Muser, passed along this award to me yesterday….thank you! I enjoy these blog awards primarily because it gives me a chance to highlight other bloggers whose writing and photography I enjoy. I’m supposed to tell you 10 things you don’t know about me. I don’t know how interesting this will be, but here goes:1) I have moved 80 times in my life. I won’t be moving again, thank heavens – the 80th time was the charm!
2) I played the flute and piccolo for several years, and played the flute at a couple of weddings….both of which ended in divorce. I decided not to play flute at weddings after that.
3) My grandfather, Big Daddy, was also my great uncle. I’ll leave you to puzzle that one out.
4) I have had 8 names. My initials are LDPSGASH. Now I just use LDH.
5) I have a total of 17 tattoos, all but one of which are along my spine. I got them when I was 40 years old, in the middle of graduate school.
6) I used to do a bit of catering; my business was called Morninglori.
7) I used to own a desktop publishing business called Back in A Flash.
8 ) I used to be VP of a consulting firm; we did OSHA compliance consulting to industry, such as American Maize.
9) My childhood best friend was murdered during her first year in college.
10) The best time of my life is right now, and tomorrow.
AND NOW! The best part of this is directing you to blogs that may be new to you. I subscribe to 254 knitting blogs (but I’m currently on a blog reading diet, I’m sad to say); here are 10 that I really enjoy. Thanks again, Gibknitty, for passing the baton. I pass it along to:
two and six – a blogger on the beautiful NW coast of Tasmania
know time for knitting – a beautiful life in Utah
weheartyarn – and they really, really do!
fabric n fiber fanatic – no kidding, and in NH to boot
knitterly anne – always good for a thoughtful post
perches in the soul – an artful life in VA
pirtti – big, gorgeous photos
flying pig knits – funny appreciation of the process
turtle girl’s bloggy thing – knitting and beautiful (edit: handsome!) cats
knitting linguist – she’s a professor, she knits, she smiles
You may know some of these already, but if any are new, click over and check them out!
Related posts
What a challenge, today’s word picnic, since it’s a work day, I live in the manmade canyons of Manhattan, and I won’t get home until nearly 9pm.Or so you would think.
Manhattan is lush, full of flowers and trees and bushes and color. Benches and paths, winding brick roads. It may not be what you call to mind, but it is so intertwined in the city that I cannot think of it otherwise. Central Park, you probably thought of that one already, huge and filling the heart of this city. But there’s also Riverside Park, a place I document in this blog again and again in every season, because it’s effectively my back yard. I never get tired of walking in Riverside Park. I walk past joggers, and dog walkers, and parents following toddlers, and parents following new bike riders, and lovers, and friends, and young people, and older people, and people sitting on benches in the sun, or reading the newspaper, or eating.
Those are some of the big parks, but certainly not the only ones. There are smaller parks everywhere. Actual parks, and nearly-hidden lots that have been turned into a small community garden, or park, we all crave that kind of space. I work on Madison Avenue, in the heart of midtown. There are churches in the neighborhood, and bodegas, and diners, but it’s primarily business business business.
Ten blocks south of my office is Madison Square Park, which has been a shared urban space since 1686. In 1870, it was landscaped when the city formed its first Department of Public Parks. Every summer there is a huge BBQ cook-off in the park; in a corner of the park there’s a locally famous joint called Shake Shack, which is so popular they have a Shake Shack cam so you can check how long the line is before heading over. I had no plans to eat a greasy hamburger and fries, or to savor the heavy ice cream concoction they call a concrete. Instead, my missions were two: to get out of the office and into this beautiful day, and to illustrate the urban picnic.
breakfast picnic, on Broadway in front of Macy's
what do we do during our urban picnics? We lounge and soak up sun. We eat salads.
we eat salads and sushi in the company of strangers
sometimes we dress in a twee and precious way, read a bit of Proust while not wearing socks, and munch delicately on a classy subway sandwich, while being exquisitely aware of our own cool sartorial splendor
On the way back to the office from my picnic observing, I spotted a few things I wanted to share with you:
sunlight reflecting off one building onto another
a great horned restaurant right next to the Museum of Sex. Horns? Horned? And what *are* those things above the horns?
it's an upright town - you've gotta look straight up to see the sky now and then
happy hour at the Macy's picnic tables on Broadway
[edit: That building with horns? Turns out it's the Gershwin Hotel. In addition to regular suites and rooms, they have dorm rooms with bunk beds! You can stay there for $49 a night, in the 6-bed room room, or $39 a night in the 10-bed room. Or you could get the suite for $275/night. It's an interesting space, full of art. ]
This poem about a picnic doesn’t start off sounding like the Manhattan version, but by the end I can totally see it, can you?
Picnic on the Shore (Lois Jenkins)
Shore grass growing
among the big rocks
enduring year after year.
This is the way to live.
A simple life,
the proper arrangement
of a few elements.
But here you are
standing on slippery stone,
trying to balance
a full plate and a cup.
What with the wrappers,
the flies and the wind,
already things have gotten out of hand.
Related posts
Hi. My name is Lori and I am a photographer. I sell photographs on a stock photo site – fotolia. This is a link to the gallery of my photographs.
I haven’t uploaded any new photos in a couple of years; the ones that are in my current gallery were taken before I knew very much about taking pictures. I’d delete some of them now. There’s nothing spectacular about them, but what’s so confusing to me is that 91 people have paid for this image:
It’s a fine picture of red leaves, but (1) photos of red leaves are a dime a dozen and extremely easy to find, (2) for free. I don’t know why 91 people paid for this.
I use stockphoto sites when I’m trying to find images to use on jackets of the books I am publishing, so maybe it’s just people like me, people doing their work and needing a quick and simple resource.
Anyway, I guess this makes me a photographer. After my excessive rumination below, I guess this nagging issue is taken care of.
Related posts
I just have not had any knitting time for the last couple of weeks; my usually-reliable time (on the subway to/from work) has instead been spent gobbling up the book I’m reading for my book club (Veronica by Mary Gaitskill, quite spectacular). So I’ve been posting all those other things, because (a) I can’t show any photos of the wedding shawl since the bride-to-be reads the blog and I’m surprising her with the specific pattern (hi Marnie!), and (b) how many more posts can I write about the other small things I’m working on, for heaven’s sake!
But finally, I have a post that’s related to the ostensible theme of this blog. A woman on ravelry was selling a bunch of her yarn and fiber, and I scored this:
color: 'tobacco'
It’s 70% merino, 20% cashmere, and 10% silk, and the combination of colors is really beautiful. The photo above is pretty plain and straightforward because I wanted to show all the colors it contains. She originally bought it from Pigeonroof Studios, and my fingers are itching to spin it. Not literally, of course, because this is incredibly soft and lofty fiber.
The next time this appears on my blog, it’ll be yarn. I hope that happens soon.
Related posts
For a couple of years, we maintained a food blog called Luscious. I participated in Tuesdays with Dorie (if you’re a food blogger you know about that, I’m sure), and it was loads of fun. My husband is a wonderful cook and makes all our dinners, and I do the baking. We complement each other very well; with a luscious dinner, we’ll have my homemade bread. After an amazing meal, there’ll be some kind of great dessert. I’ve posted the occasional picture or story here, but I think it’s time to revive Luscious.
Lots of good food, some nice photos, and a few recipes. Good stuff. I’m trying to put the feed in my sidebar, but nothing is cooperating this morning.
Anyway. Off to such mundane tasks as laundry and making pizza dough for our dinner. Hope your Memorial Day is wonderful!
Related posts
2010
2009
Related posts
Apologies to Einstein – this is about relative speed of the knitterly kind. I’m not one of those cool speed knitters. I guess I’d like to be….or rather, I’d like to be able to be one of those cool speed knitters when I hit long patches of stockinette, or something. But I do love the process and can get into a bit of a hypnotic trance watching my fingers. So I don’t mind my own knitting speed, even if it’s not Speedy Gonzales.
I can put in hours of knitting on the wedding shawl and have just a bit of growth to show for it, or I can put in the same amount of time and have more than half a sock, to wit:
monkey see
Granted, since this was the first sock pattern I ever knit, and since I’ve knit four other pairs using this pattern, I can do it in my sleep by now. But the thicker yarn just obviously makes things go faster, and zoom zoom zoom I’ve turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches. Go, Lori, go!
Cute, right Marnie?
Most active commenters!