Trip is booked!

I'm just relaxed thinking about the trip we're taking in September. Lovely beaches. Blue water. A private cottage with an outdoor shower. Snorkeling right from our resort. Look out St. Lucia, here we come! I can't wait to knit on the beach, and to get our in-room couples massage!

Even before that we have a camping trip and a road trip to Toledo & Detroit planned. There is a wedding of a family friend in Toledo, and once we are there, my parents place is only an hour and a half away...so we'll spend the rest of the weekend with them. We haven't been there since last August, so we are due for a visit. And Mom has found a great yarn store up there that I am anxious to experience.

The weird part about camping is that it looks like it will just be the two of us. Tom will be away on vacation, Janice has to work and Erin has talked about coming, but we don't really believe that she will be there until she shows up. :-) We might try to go back for a shorter weekend in September, if we can find a weekend that other can join us. We are going back to the same place as always. I've heard comments about other state parks from my friend Annie...but it has been such a busy summer it was easier to go to a known location than to try out a new place. Maybe next summer we'll experience a new park for camping.

Still a secret

So this blog isn't a secret, really. But I also haven't told anyone about it. Take that any way you want...

Not a lot of progress on the knitting front. I expected to get a couple of hours done yesterday during a work trip to Ohio, but my traveling companion was extremely tired so I did all but one hour of the five hours of driving. I think I got three or four rows of the blanket done. And it has definitely reached the point where it is too big for the bus.

I'm nearly done with my first bib. I'm using leftover green cotton, and I created a big diamond in the middle of it by doing a garter edge and stockinette where I wanted the diamond. The stockinette is a little loose, but I think it will tighten up a bit with washing. I'm working on the strap, which should go pretty quickly...although I might run out of green before it is long enough. My mind is full of lots of possible variations - so I see these bibs as a good alternative to knitting lots of dishcloths.

I haven't finished frogging Ribbon X-back yet. I've tried to measure gauge about 10 times and I'm not sure I'm getting a real number...so more math is in my future for that one. I either need to work on the math for that or clean the house after work tonight. We will see what wins. :-)

Shopping & Surprising Socializing

Friday - After work I went to Kaufmanns and shopped for clothes. I haven't really gone clothes shopping in a while. I've gone to a store with a gift certificate and/or bought a few items here and there...but not a grab everything that looks like you might like it and try it on shopping.

I was in desparate need of summer clothes. Now I'm not, thank goodness. I didn't have any shorts that fit properly and only 3-4 shirts that I really liked. Now I have shorts, skorts and several more shirts. Camping and our anniversary trip will be much happier as a result.

Saturday, Rudy had to work in the morning and early afternoon. After getting up slowly, I did some cleaning and laundry around the house. We had an expected visit at 4 from two friends. Tom has been a friend of Rudy's for a long time and his girlfriend Rachel is who owned our kitty Stewart before we did. (as described in previous blog) Well, the four of us went over to the coffee shop in the neighborhood, and while we were chatting we were offered four free tickets to see "Tommy" downtown. It wasn't really on top of our list of things to do, but it seemed wrong to turn down second row seats to a show! Tom and Rachel were not interested, so we ended up going with two other friends that we managed to wrangle at the last moment.

The show was okay. Well executed but not a lot of heart. But it was pretty cool to sit that close, I think the closest I had sat previously was Row M. Afterward we went out for food. With shows at two theaters and a baseball game, downtown was full of people, and quite a variety of them!

In knitting news, I'm more than halfway through the blanket and Ribbon X-back needs to be frogged. It's too big, as expected. I made a gauge mistake, and I just really need to redesign it vertically to fit my odd, short-waisted body. It's only been 2 1/2 weeks on the bus that I've been working on it, so it's not a huge deal. Hopefully I can rewrite the pattern for me before we go camping so I can work on it around the campfire.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a swatch for a felted purse and/or start my first cotton bib. :-)

Gaaah! Too big...

I'm working on ribbon X-back, seen here:

http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring05/PATTxback.html

I'm about 9" up from the bottom and I decided to try it on. Well, it was supposed to be 35" around and it turned out at 39" around - I must have messed up the gauge when I measured it.

So I just decreased 14 stitches evenly around, and that *should* take me back to 35". I've only been working on the tank a little over a week and I think that will solve my problem because I can certainly use the extra ease around my hips. We will see how it goes.

Since I'm using a different gauge than the pattern calls for I have to do lots of math when I get to the straps. I either have to get the math done before my knitting get together this weekend or work on something else. I can't do math and gossip at the same time. :-)

On the cat front, we got an email today from the woman who we adopted out cat Stewart from. Her name is Rachel, and she had to give Stewart up because of allergies. The timing worked perfectly for us, as we were looking for a new young cat that hadn't been in a shelter or been an outdoor cat. (We have a 16 year old cat who we didn't want to expose to an viral infections or other illnesses.)

Anyway, Rachel is finally ready to visit Stewart in his new home. I think the first few weeks were pretty tough for her (I can't blame her!) and she is now ready to come see how he has settled in here. Currently Stewart is napping in the window, so I think he has settled in well. :-)

Really, really dumb

On Sunday night, I took the first half of the photos for the highland park house tour. I stayed mostly in the flat part of the neighborhood, the sun was behind the overcast sky and I only took about an hour. On Monday night, I went out to take the second half of the photos, which involved walking through the hilly part of the neighborhood. I was out for about 90 minutes and there were a few taxing hills, but I seemed to deal with it okay, even in 85 degree muggy weather.

The problem came when I didn't take care of myself when I got home. I should have taken a cooling shower and had plenty of water to drink. I didn't. I became dehydrated and was up all night sipping water and waiting for my body to get back to normal. Fun fun.

So no work today. In fact, other than sleeping, knitting, resting and watching TV/DVDs I didn't do much. But now I've seen most of the extras on the Beauty and the Beast DVD, so I guess that is an accomplishment. :-)

So far the name was the hardest part...

Deciding to create a blog was pretty easy, and so was the initial setup...except for choosing a name. I fell asleep thinking about it last night, I asked a bunch of online friends for suggestions and then I looked through the names of all of the soundtracks I own (in my iPod).

I considered fairly "obvious" names like Amy the Architect or Wicked Knitter...but I decided that I didn't want the name of the blog to represent what I do, but rather what I think. All of the things that I do are important to me, but I don't want this to be a knitting blog, or an architect blog or a theater blog or a pittsburgh blog...it should have elements of all of those things.

So seeing the title of the musical "Passion" sent me on a tangent of thought that led to this title. The commencement speech that I wrote (but didn't get to give) was spawned from a quote by Le Corbusier (not my favorite architect, but I love the quote).

"Passion can create drama out of inert stone"

Love that.

So, the blog name is a bit different...but it comes from the idea that I, as a designer/knitter/painter/architect/etc., can become passionate about yarn, bricks, paint, etc and transform them into something more than they were to begin with...into art.

The fact that it has the name of one my favorite shows in it isn't half bad either. I was really trying to get a name with "Wicked" in it, but the only one that had a nice ring to it was "Wicked Knitter", and that was a little too specific.