Lucky Moments

"Harlem Seagulls" Taken this morning

Been feeling not so great for awhile but that doesn't mean I don't recognize the truth occasionally; that there is beauty beneath all this tangled and apathetic misery. When you see it, wave hello.

Dad loves scarf!

Dad loves scarf!
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

My dad, a professional photographer, is in the book and has a company website in progress so I'm sure he won't mind me posting this photo of him to illustrate the finished puff stitch scarf I made him for Christmas.

He is super happy with it and I just knew he would love it but nothing beats actually seeing him look at the scarf for the first time.

Not only is it stylish but it's super soft and warm, made from pure merino wool. It was a bit difficult working with this yarn as it is thin and soft but I was really happy with the way it came out. I'm presently working on making one for myself in green. I'm halfway done.

Discovering leg warmer love

Discovering leg warmer love
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I hated when my mom used to make me wear these during Brooklyn Winters as a kid. She would wrap me in layers of stocking and long johns (UGH!!) and a puffy snow bunny suit and then leg warmers! ARRRGH!!! Needless to say, I could hardly move but I was warm.

I was also never into this look during the 80s when "Flash Dance" made them popular. But I'm really digging this re-emerging style lately.

I remembered before I left for work this morning that someone had given me a pair last Christmas and that they were near by somewhere in my room. I dug them out, put them on and didn't hate them. Plus I love the way they feel! I'm pretty sure I'm gonna knit a couple of pairs this winter. My knitting needles have been feeling neglected since I've taken up crochet. Stay tuned.

The Walkman or What I used to do before I started working

I was born in 1975. The Sony Walkman was developed in '79 I think. My family didn't get it's first Walkman until the 80s and I think it was my mom who got it. That big bulky thing with raised buttons was one of the best things that had ever happened to me. Not that I didn't always love music, but I compare the experience of first listening to the Walkman to the first time I listened to an Apple iPod. Total transportation. An insulated, private, perhaps even revolutionary moment. I was maybe nine or ten and having borrowed my mom's Walkmen I would lie in my parents bed listening to whatever cassette tapes we had. I would listen to Elvis' Christmas album and I thought it was magical or I would just listen to the radio to whatever caught my ear.

By the time I was eleven after we had moved from Brooklyn to the Bronx, one of my favorite things to do was listen to my dad's Patrice Rushen (yeah, I listened to my parents' music) tape and lip sync to it in the bathroom mirror or the wall length mirror we had in the living room. That rocked my world. It was like being in my own music video. I had a pretty big imagination in those days. 

I don't think life will ever be that simple again.

Puff Stitch is a Fun Stictch

Puff Stitch Crochet Scarf

So I finished crocheting my dad's Christmas scarf last night and then I wore it for about half an hour because it is so soft and warm and wonderful I just couldn't resist. I just love it. He's really lucky this isn't my color, otherwise I would have a hard time giving it over. LOL!!

I actually used two entire skeins of worsted wool yarn I picked up at the Yarn Company for this project. I've been making several puff stitch hats but this is the first scarf I have finished. I like it a lot. The way the puff stitches line up on the scarf make it hold it's shape in a really nice uniform way. And with a stitch like this, a little error here and there is hardly noticeable and actually adds to it's uniqueness.

There are ten puff stitches in each row for this scarf but don't ask me how many rows there are. I just keep crocheting until the yarn runs out. I've already picked out yarn for my own puff stitch scarf which I will hopefully get started on sometime today. I'm really excited to make a few more with yarns of different textures. Stay tuned. 

"I have such mental landscapes too."

"One thing I wanted to tell you is that I often think of him." Tamaru said. "Not that I want to see him again or anything. I really don't. We wouldn't have anything to talk about, for one thing. It's just that I still have this vivid image of him 'pulling rats out' of blocks of wood with total concentration, and that has remained an important mental landscape for me, a reference point. It teaches me something-or tries to. People need things like that to go on living-mental landscapes that have meaning for them, even if they can't explain them in words. Part of why we go on living is to come up with explanations for these things."
-1Q84

The Brushed Suri

The Brushed Suri
Originally uploaded by Zanalee
Took a little trip to a place called "The Yarn Company" after work today. It's a place I've seen a bunch of times but have never gone in. It's one of those shops that is just above a street level store so you have to buzz in before you go up. I was just desperate for more yarn and looking for a store that was not too far from midtown.

The store has a really nice layout, a veritable fine yarn haven, mercifully quiet and relatively spacious. The women there were super helpful and nice. I took a long look around, taking photos and touching several things before I settled on two skeins of brushed suri so unbelievably soft, it's just crazy and two skeins of worsted wool to make something for my dad.

I thought it would be harder to work with the suri but it's really not that bad. I was very careful with unraveling it though. These kind of skeins always worry me. I would never take it out of the apartment to work on which makes me a little sad because I love working on these at "work."