The Pope of Chili Town

The self proclaimed "Pope of Chili Town," aka Patrick, takes over my kitchen at least once a year. This year he predictably turned up on Superbowl Sunday and provided not only dinner for that night but enough leftovers to allow me daily visits to Chili Town for an entire week. It's a good week for that because deep freeze has finally descended on Philadelphia and since no self-respecting major corporation would heat their facilities sufficiently to keep the average human employee comfortable, a nice hot cup of chili at around 1PM has been requisite every day this week. Also required: wearing two pairs of pants to work, keeping my wool scarf on all day, and keeping a cup of hot water on my desk because if I drink any more coffee I'm going to float away but I need the warm cup to thaw my fingers.
I only half paid attention to the Superbowl. I'm just plain not that interested in football. The only team I care about at all is the Eagles, and that is largely due to adoring loyalty to my husband, combined with the fact that I was raised in a football-less home and thus have no true childhood loyalty to the Patriots (as many New-Englanders living in exile might).
So while I was half-watching the Superbowl, I finished the camp quilt. The overall effect is good, but I'm less than pleased with some of the details. Specifically, the actual quilting process did not go so smoothly. I think I got a little too ambitious for myself and my equipment. First of all, this quilt is HUGE (I think it ended up about 7'x8.' That alone made it pretty unwieldy to feed through my standard-sized sewing machine. Add to that the fact that I decided to get adventurous and quilt on the bias, AND to use one of the fancy stitch settings I've been itching to try on my new machine. Small disasters everywhere. The good news is that from the top the quilt actually looks pretty nice--lofty and inviting. The backing, however, is full of puckers due to the stretchiness of the bias combined with the sheer weight of the fabric moving through the machine...it kept getting hung up on the edge of the table. The fancy stitch pattern turned out to be a nightmare to pick out, so I picked out and re-did the worst areas, but ultimately I had to settle for good enough or else continue to work on this quilt for the rest of my life. I've put the finished quilt away in the closet for delivery to my parents at a later date. I'm hoping that by the time I pull it out again, the imperfections won't seem so obvious to me anymore.
With that monkey off my back, I'm ready for serious knitting. I have $$ set aside for yarn. I have patterns at my disposal. I have free weekend hours on the horizon plus 14 airplane hours to kill flying to London and back in 3 weeks. I have...no decision-making skills...

First Post

I've pretty much decided that I can't handle the pressure of my very first blog post. It needs to be spectacular, right? So that people won't come and read it and think I'm too boring and never return? But I've realized than in most of the blogs I read, any single post is not alone enough to make me keep returning. It's the big picture--that has to be a small picture first. So here we go.

I guess I'll start with knitting, since knit blogs are ultimately what's inspired me to do this in the first place. My experience is limited, but I'm learning fast. My FO's so far are as follows:

• One (1) pair of unwearable gray mittens. Completed winter '02/'03. Unwearable by virtue of their material (100% cheap acrylic=not warm), and their sheer enormous size which is emphasized by thumbs almost twice the length of any human thumb. I'm thinking of ripping them because I'll never wear them, but I'm emotionally attached since they're my first FO. I'd probably never re-use the yarn anyway.
• One (1) white lace baby blanket. Completed summer '05. I made this for some friends whose first child was born in July '05. It took me almost exactly 8 months to finish--possibly a lace blanket made of sport weight yarn on size tiny needles was a little too ambitious for a beginner. It came out beautifully though, all things considered.
• One (1) pair of almost unwearable variegated ribbed socks. Completed New Year '07. The sizes don't quite match, the heel flaps aren't quite deep enough to be comfortable, and like the mittens they are 100% cheap acrylic. Not the best for socks, but I view their construction as an educational experience.

That's it. I've been working off and on for about a year now on another lace afghan, but this one's on huge needles with the yarn doubled so it doesn't make me as crazy as the baby blanket did. It's about 2 feet long right now. And I'm currently almost finished with a second case study in socks--the first one is complete and I think I've resolved the fit problems. I'm also incorporating a cable pattern that I'm very proud of. These socks may actually be wearable, but they're still made of--you guessed it--100% cheap acrylic.

I think it's clear where I'm going with this...I'm ready to graduate to good quality yarn. Problem: I'm completely overwhelmed. I'm so excited at the prospect of soft, luxurious yarn that will turn into something fabulous for me to wear (I think I'm sweater-ready) and be proud of that I can't settle on a pattern, much less the yarn for it. I've been shopping around online, recently on KnitPicks, and I'm continuously finding "exactly what I want" and then rejecting it moments later when I see something else I like. I just need to take the plunge with something and realize that I can go back later for a second project's yarn.

Topic 2: Quilting

Let's get all the crafty stuff out of the way up front. I have an ugly quilt that I've had for as long as I can remember. I call it "the ugly quilt." It's big and soft and wonderful and I love it very much. Since Patrick and I have been together, he has also been lured into an irresistable love affair with the ugly quilt. Sadly, the ugly quilt, at 25+ hard lovin' years of age, has seen better days. A few years ago, as the crafty bug was first starting to get me, I took a closer look at the ugly quilt. I examined the seams and the fabric and the makeup of the ugly quilt. And I decided it didn't look so complicated. So I dug out some scraps I had from various projects of my youth (pillowcases, pajamas, etc.), cut them into squares and made my very first quilt (Completed winter '03/'04). It actually turned out quite well. A year later, Patrick, who had become as enamoured with "the heavy quilt" as he was with the ugly quilt, suggested that I should make another for his parents for Christmas. So I did. This time I bought matching fabric specifically for the quilt, and did some tricky stuff on the bias. It was a big hit. My mother-in-law said that when she first saw it she assumed we had bought it from Ralph Lauren. This praise inspired me to move on in the winter/spring of '06 to make "the star quilt" and then to move on to "the camp quilt," which I'm making for my parents' master bedroom at their lake house or "camp" in Maine. The camp quilt is nearly finished, as is "the grammy quilt" which I'm assembling from a collection of quilt squares my mother discovered in a closet at my grandparents' house.

I realize that none of this is all that interesting to read without visual aids, so I'll do my best to add them soon. Please bear with me...I'm a newbie.

Topic #3: Reading

Right now I'm reading Anna Karenina. I've been reading Anna Karenina for about a month and a half. I am just past the halfway point. I'm enjoying it, but it's a challenging read. Now it's True Confessions time. Not only did I not read this book 10 years ago when I was supposed to for my AP English class, but I have reached the firm conclusion that either I'm much dumber than I thought, or no one else read it then either. Both of these conclusions rise from my realization that this book would have soared right over my 17-year-old head (if I'd even had the patience to finish it). 10 years later, with 4 years of college and an English degree under my belt, this book is a months-long struggle requiring me to actually (and frequently) consult the endnotes and re-read large portions multiple times in order to feel I'm fully comprehending.

Topic #4: Travelling.

The last real trip I went on was my honeymoon, and I can't believe that was actually over 6 months ago now. Since then, my husby (for reasons I can't explain, the word "hubby" repulses me) and I have moved to a new city (new for me anyway...he grew up here), started new jobs (mine actually started 3 weeks before the wedding, but why split hairs), and put a lot of energy into recovering from the financial burdens of a wedding, a honeymoon, 2 job searches, and a move that all took place within a roughly 4 month period. We're finally ready to take a trip again. We're going to London and Dublin. In 4 weeks. I can't wait!!! My sister-in-law is studying in London for the year, and we're taking advantage of the opportunity to return there. It's been over 6 years since Patrick and I finished our own study-abroad year in England, and we're looking forward to visiting some old stomping grounds.

4 topics is a good first post, right? I'll raise a glass of tasty Fuller's London Pride and toast the small picture that is soon to be bigger.