Technical

I was putting the finishing touches on a pattern (you might have seen the prototype in the pictures from the Highline - it's going to be called Night Watch Cap) tonight before sending it off to my tech editor when I realized there were a couple of bits of text that would be better as links (URLs and a mailto). I know those can be added in Acrobat but I had a feeling I could do them in InDesign. So, I found the options to do it, and it worked! Had to tweak things a little to get them looking nice (the programming on that bit seems a little clunky - you can't edit the hyperlink or its appearance once you've created it), but I was pleased with this little thing that everyone who uses InDesign probably knew about three years ago. Pleased to have figured it out, and pleased to have gotten it to do what I want. Kind of like how I feel about knitting.

Back in the day I was more of a bleeding edge girl when it came to technology. I went to conferences and had programmer friends (including the guy who put the monster easter egg in QuarkXPress - hi, Ed!) and worked for O'Reilly & Associates, for goodness' sake. But these days I prefer to stay away from bleeding edges. Guess it's the mom thing.

Rainy day + Red Cross donation

Nick's back to work, but the girls are still home, which is a tough time for a cold, rainy day. We made it through pretty well, even ended up cleaning a bunch of things out of their room (along with some dust bunnies that are trying to throttle me - ah, allergies). I haven't knit yet today but keep looking at the swatch of tosh Pashmina I worked up yesterday. Not sure if the needle size is right (may need to go down to a US3) and not sure if my idea is going to work up the way I imagined. Just not sure. So, I should go work on a couple of patterns.

I also donated some money to the Red Cross. In the interest of making a larger donation, I will donate 50% of all pattern sales until the end of April to the Red Cross. If you've been thinking about getting a pattern (or helping out with the terrible events in Japan), now is the time. I will add this information to all my pattern pages on Ravelry, too. Thanks in advance!

FO: Sidecar Mittens (Sunday's post)

Realized in bed last night that I'd forgotten to actually write the blog post for which Nick had snapped these pics. Lazily, I did not get up and write the post, so you, poor things, had to wait until this morning.

Anyway, these are Sidecar Mittens, a great little $3 pattern written by Thea, worked on Malabrigo Silky Merino.

Boston fan, incognito

I didn't do the undercuff, since my attempt at gauge wasn't the best, and the mittens are a little bigger than they should be (completely user error on my part). But I like them a little loose, since they are spring mittens. I might make another pair, going down a needle size, for next winter or make a complete inner mitten with the Malabrigo Sock in Persia that was supposed to go under the lacy cuff to line the whole thing and make them twice as warm.

A fun and quick knit, I made them in just a few days. [Ravelry details]

Pinterest

And I wondered what I was going to blog about today (the birthday party Isobel attended at Chelsea Piers was interesting but not particularly blog-worthy - I am a terrible bowler, though I do have fun), and then my friend Emily invited me to join Pinterest. Just what I need: roll Flickr, Etsy, Facebook, and your favorite food/home/style/knit blogs into one, and Ravelry for those of us who spend days scrolling through patterns. And I thought I had trouble tearing myself away from my computer before!

I think it's a great tool. Now, I just have to figure out how to pin all those beautiful things I've been saving to my hard drive. Guess I need a rainy day once the kids are back in school.

March Madness

I don't think it gets much better than this. What a gorgeous day! We went to the Highline this morning with the kids and then checked out Chelsea Market (I was overwhelmed by the options and ended up eating nothing there - crazy!), which I had also never been to. Top it off with some park time in the afternoon and dinner at Mel's Burger Bar with friends. Seriously close to perfect.

And, frighteningly, not a stitch knit. What is going on? I think I'm kind of stuck on my next design project, since I have some seriously gorgeous yarn waiting (tosh pashmina in Bloomsbury, which is such a me color I'm struggling to create the perfect project for it, as well as tosh vintage and lace, both in the makes-you-crazy-it's-so-gorgeous Fragrant colorway) but have a pattern that needs to be re-knit since I gifted the first version. But it's hard to knuckle down to re-do something on such a beautiful spring break day.

Anyway, here are some snaps from this morning's adventure, including the new hat (pattern coming soon):

On the Highline

Cheese!

Lounging on the tracks with my new 'do

Night Watch Cap

Sunshine Day

What a gorgeous day! And tomorrow is supposed to be even better.

Oddly enough, I haven't knit a stitch today. But I did write up a pattern. On my phone. While we were enjoying the fresh air and sunshine on campus. It's for the hat I knit up over the weekend, and I really like it, which is funny, considering the weather is too lovely to contemplate wearing a warm hat like this.

But I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow of the hat and a light sweater I finished last week because we're going to check out the Highline. I'm very excited, since I've never been, and we thought it would be a fun thing to do with the kids before Nick has to get back to teaching. And the pictures will be even better because I finally got a haircut today (ah, the exciting life of a WAHM).

So, visuals tomorrow, folks. Hope you had a great day, too.

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!