Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Yesterday was a long blur of time in the car punctuated by visits to some special places.

After hitting up Au Bon Pain, the Harvard Bookstore, and J. August, we bid Harvard Square farewell and drove up Routes 1 and 128 to one of the cutest yarn stores in New England, Yarns in the Farms. Sadly, Jill and Carolyn weren't there, but Jill's lovely daughter Anna was womanning the shop, which is as colorful and yarn-stuffed as ever, though probably not quite as stuffed as it had been over the weekend for the North Shore Yarn Crawl. And the cherry on top was that Captain Dusty's, the ice cream shop across the street, had just recently opened for the season - always a sure sign of spring. We did the naughty thing you're never supposed to do with your kids and had ice cream for lunch. Whoohoo, Spring Break!

Since we'd already hauled our offspring up to Beverly Farms, I decided it was best to go up to Gloucester now and not regret it later. We drove past my old house and then went in search of Coveted Yarn, which was also filled with yarn, including some yarns dyed by the owners sister right there on Cape Ann. Unfortunately for my stash I was pretty wiped, so only some cute buttons came home for the BSJ that's knit up but needs to be assembled:

Yes, that bright blue lump of knitting will soon be an adorable baby-filled jacket!

On our way back to New York we stopped in New Haven for some pizza. This time we tried Sally's (named for Salvatore Consiglio, not some chick named Sally), which is very much an old school family operation with signed photographs and letters from The Chairman of the Board himself and lots of Syracuse football plaques. The pizza (or should I say apizza) was yummy; however, things moved very slowly since there was only one man taking orders, writing up checks, and talking with the regulars, of which there seemed to be many happily eating their apizzas. My white clam was delicious (no mozz!). We'll try Modern Pizza next time (gotta try 'em all, you know), but if you've got the time and want to try wood-fired apizza, give Sally's a try.

So, now we're back in New York for the rest of Spring Break. Happily, the weather is supposed to improve over the rest of the week, and I did a lot of housework today, so I'll be free to play!

Knitblogger of the day: Babycocktails (3/15/11)

[Blogging the day after I should, since yesterday (Tuesday) was another travel day.]

Monday morning Penelope and I got to meet up with one of my favorite knitbloggers, Thea Colman of Babycocktails fame. We met some time back when Thea came down to New York City, and we did a mini yarn crawl with Colleen, Subway Knitter extraordinaire. Luckily, Thea had a little time for coffee, knitting, and designer shop talk in the midst of selling her house, so we met up at a groovy (and huge, especially by NYC standards) coffee shop, Diesel Cafe in Davis Square. We were too busy having fun and chatting to take any pictures, so you'll have to use your imagination :)

We did a little show-and-tell, Thea gave Penelope a little paper cocktail umbrella, which helped Miss P warm up to Thea, talked about how we do what we do. I even got a sneak peek inside Thea's design notebook. It's so interesting to see and discuss how we do things. Thea and I are more seat-of-the-pants types when it comes to designing, working out a lot of the details on the needles, while Thea's friend Amy Herzog of Fit-to-Flatter fame has everything written and spreadsheeted out before she knits a stitch.

I would love to hand the same yarn to a bunch of different designers and see what they come up with. I bet no two would be alike.

After a delicious latte topped with one of those foam designs (sort of a leafy branch thing), we stopped in to the Davis Sq. Goodwill to see what adventurous bargains they might have. There was even a dress form in the window Thea and I both noticed. But all I found was a big Spongebob coloring book for Penelope. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the racks and racks of clothes, I think.

Penelope was a trooper on the T, and I even got to grab a burrito from Anna's Taqueria (one of my favorites) for lunch.

Blogger of the day: The Ravell'd Sleave

What better day to select for mentioning my friend Bridget's blog than today, her birthday!

Bridget's blog is always interesting to read. She's got lovable furballs (including Riley's twin brother from another mother, Jetsam), a passion for Christmas, and monthly book reports with lots of great books you may want to check out yourself. Plus she was a docent at Eastern State, an historic penitentiary, in 2009 - be sure to go back in the archives and read about it. Seriously entertaining.

Be sure to go on over there and wish her a happy one. Happy birthday, Bridget! Keep up the good blog :)

Sunday Travelling

Perhaps there is a good reason not to travel on Sundays...

We drove up to Cambridge so Isobel could see her father and Nick could visit the rare book library at Harvard for some research on his own book. Penelope and I came along for the ride. Unfortunately, said little person got sick, not once, but twice, on the way up. Ick. But what are you going to do with a child who think yogurt and milk are a good breakfast? Personally, I need some starch (cereal, bread, waffle) to keep my stomach settled. Needless to say, we were all a bit frazzled by the end of the journey. While I'm sorry not to have made plans to see some of our family friends, it probably was for the best.

I did start working on a hat pattern in the car, though, and am really enjoying it. It's a watch cap but with a little more going on that will give it a few wearing options, if that makes sense. And I think this hat is going to be part of a small collection of patterns I am going to put together and publish in a booklet, or at least an e-book. They will be available individually, as well, but I think I have enough of a theme going to put them together.

Because, really, after all my years in book publishing, I should be able to do this. I've been a copy editor, writer/editor, production assistant, advertising designer, marketing specialist, graphic designer, web designer, and art director. I think I have the bases covered, don't you? So, I've been trying to get myself organized (hence, all those project sheets on my bulletin board to visualize the work completed and the work yet to be done). I'll keep you posted, obviously, and hope that actually mentioning it here on the blog will push me to make it happen.

MIA? AWOL? I'm back (Saturday's post)

Wow, laziness got the best of me on Saturday, but I will make up for it.

We had a beautiful, sunny day in New York, so all of us escorted Stephen to his ballet lesson, and then we played at the awesome new Union Square playground. We even saw a butterfly sunning itself on a park bench.

While at Union Square I checked out the farmer's market, which is much larger than the one up by Columbia. Even the stands of the vendors we see at our market are larger at this one. Of course I found the yarn vendors! And a skein of Catskill Merino's Saxon Merino Undyed Lace yarn came home with me. I was so tickled by it that I wound it up into a ball right there in the playground. Soft and creamy, just a little bit of chaff here and there. Absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it (just 225 yds), but it is ready to go when I do.

BSJ

Man, are Baby Surprise Jackets fun to knit! Especially when using yummy yarn. I worked one up over the past few days and hope to get some buttons tomorrow, at which point I'll take a picture (it's too dark now to show off the rich blue of the Lapis colorway).

The morning with the book making kids was fun, especially with Penelope on hand to keep everyone on their toes, so we have books to show, too. Again, too dark now to see all the glitter Isobel put on her handmade piece of paper. She's a girl who loves her sparkle. Wonder where she got that from :)

Glue Fingers

I helped out at Isobel's school today and ended up with Elmer's Glue all over my fingers. Can you remember the last time that happened to you?

At the kids' school the week before Spring Break is called IPW (Integrated Project Week), and groups of students and teachers (in our case ten and two) get together to explore a topic not usually covered in the curriculum for a week. Isobel chose Papermaking and Bookmaking, and I made the "mistake" of mentioning my years of book making experience (albeit on a larger scale, usually having pressmen do the dirty work) to Isobel's teachers, one of whom is leading Isobel's IPW. I said I would come for a morning to help out when they were putting together their books, since an extra pair of adult hands would be helpful when you've got ten first and second graders, glue, and sewing needles.

I ended up spending all day there and am going back tomorrow morning to help finish up their projects, which have to be done before the school Showcase begins at 1pm. Penelope is going to help, too. I'm already exhausted :)

But it's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed spending time with the kids and seeing how they all (teachers and students) interact together in the classroom, albeit not during a typical day. First and second graders are still so squirmy. Some of them gnaw on their shirts (they are still teething, after all). Sometimes they are so excited about their ideas that they forget to raise their hands. And they all want my help. They love interacting with adults who are willing to sit down at their little tables. The teachers are patient and kind and fair yet also human and with high expectations for how the kids should handle themselves and faith in what these children can do. I'm always impressed with how great the teachers and staff at the school are, but this was a special treat for me. A day on the inside, if you will.

I helped out with accordion books for half the kids at the beginning of the day and ended up making my own, which I'm excited about*. And late in the afternoon we decided to "go for it" and make classic bound books, too, which the other half had made in the morning. We managed to get everyone's boards attached to book cloth spines and wrap the boards before the day was done. Tomorrow we'll sew signatures together and attach the book blocks and endpapers to the boards. So much fun. And it was so neat to see how excited the kids were about their books, especially after we copied/shrunk the stories they've been working on all week so they could paste them into their books.

I'll show you my work (and Isobel's) after we get to bring everything home tomorrow. Until then, go smear some Elmer's on your hands and then peel it off. It is still as fun as ever.

*Back in my publishing days when people still bought books at their local book store, the highlight of my job, much as I enjoyed the designing and directing and whatnot, was when I got to make little packaging models. The box manufacturers would send me files showing how the eventual box would be printed on a sheet of cardboard. I would print this out on a piece of letter paper, cut it out on the die-lines, fold it on the fold lines and put together a wee sample of what the box would be like. That way I could understand where to place the graphics on the big sheet that would eventually be cut and folded into a package. I always loved my little models, probably because it was a chance to get out the Exacto knife and tape. But it was also because you turned this simple sheet of paper, with a few folds and cuts, into something completely different. Guess I kind of do that now with sticks and string. See, fun!