On cow shit…

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The NEWS

I left my awesome apartment yesterday… and for the purposes of this post, I came home with two things: The first of which is this fabulous purse (they’re just called “bags” here)-

I paid 5 dollars for it. It’s awesome. It even has a separator in the middle – so I can keep my sock in progress (pattern coming this weekend!!) separate from my junk-du-jour! Love this bag. Plus, it’s my favorite color!

I also came home with something else… something much different from my 5 dollar bargain…

Yea… that scarf… that dress… I picked those out from the studio of Twinkle. You know Twinkle right?  Twinkle of big city knits? Um ya… proof I was there, in case you don’t believe me.  And proof it really is from her collection, again, incase you don’t believe me.

So why do I have this?  Basically, Twinkle is doing this press thing at Anthropologie where she’s going to be teaching all sorts of magazine editors to knit scarves and throws.  I’m going to be there, in this dress (I have to give it back), walking around the room helping give people one on one help.  So I guess this means that I’ve now had some sort of “fashion” experience in NY.  How cool is this?  (At least as cool as being the second row to see Fantasia sing in The Color Purple on Broadway!)

Oh no. Someone stop me now.

I was only trying to do something nice. You know the story. Someone you (a knitter), knows is pregnant, expecting, has a bun in the oven. This can mean one of two things. Baby sweaters or baby blankets. This particular story involves a baby blanket.

It began many weeks ago, when stressed from finals, moving and a break up I succumbed to some yarn-type retail therapy. I bought 6 skeins of green Cotton Classic for a summery top I was going to design.

Days later, I knew it was a poor, impulse buy. I didn’t want to take it back (because, lets be honest, that would have been the smart thing to do and knitters are not smart about their stash), and by guilt alone, I decided to pack it for my summer in New York. This was the only yarn that I broke my strict sock-yarn-only rule for. Again, it was the guilt.

Knowing that I would be bringing it with me, the idea occurred to me that I ought to use it to knit a baby blanket for a woman I’ll be working with in August (well, her baby anyway). I thought about doing another pinwheel blanket, but dismissed it. Too boring. Plus, the next one I was going to knit would have ruffles and be for a girl. We are talking about a little baby boy here.

The next idea I had was to knit the blanket as a standard rectangle (I brought a US 6 circular needle) with stripes of linen stitch. A good idea. Something I may do in the future, but not now.

Now, it’s miters.

Heavenly, addicting, satisfying, teasing, pleasing, miters.

I can’t stop.

Of course, I couldn’t do miters in just one color. So I popped into a yarn store and bought 2 more colors.

After I knit one miter, I realized that the yarn I had would not suffice. It was evident that I needed more yarn and, likely more colors.

I’ve since bought more yarn and knit more miters. My rules are thus: Only 2 tone miters. Only greens or neutrals (but mostly greens). The final color count cannot be an even number. Final blanket size – 6 blocks (24 miters) or 9 blocks (36 miters).

This is not good. I totally understand the addiction now. Now, to cast on for my next miter…

I’m ready for an apartment…

A few weeks ago, I walked down one of the side streets in Bloomington at night and saw into this girls apartment.

Her apartment looked so warm and comfortable. If I was sick, having a couch like hers would be very inviting.

I want a couch on which to cuddle under my Log Cabin Blanket. I want to be able to make grilled cheese sandwiches and have a whole cabinet for all of my mugs and my teas.

And I’m finally done living in dorms. Finally.

Here in NYC (yep, I made it, more to come later), I finally have an apartment. But since I flew here, my roomie and I didn’t bring more than the bare minimals. I expected our apartment to be an example of extreme minimalism.

But, that’s not the case! You see, all these Columbia students are moving out – and throwing away perfectly nice things. So, Rachel and I put up a sign asking people to call us if they were tossing certain items (someone gave her a guitar. Seriously!) and walked around the buildings grabbing stuff that we liked from trash piles.

Two girls gave us this futon! It’s going to be perfect for when people come and visit me!

Then, we got a whole bunch of kitchen stuff from this kid on our floor who was moving out – his mom totally hooked us up
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The wok – is in perfect condition!  We’ve also gotten our hands on a gorgeous rug, 7 posters and some awesome storage bins.  When we’re all moved and settled into the apartment we’ll be in for the summer, I’ll post pics of everything.  It’ll be far more cozy that I thought it was going to be!

Today, I’m off to the MoMA!