White Shroud

Oh sweet baby Jesus I've been busy . . . especially since I haven't posted in two weeks.  So without further ado, here's a few things across the way these days.

At the beginning of January I ventured to the depths of AHA hell, or some such, as post (once I was back home) I got crafty in the house.  These fabulously tacky pillows are nothing but pure awesome.  Some Anna Maria Horner velour, some fringe from the shop by the Ditmars Ave stop, two random zippers, and making up shit as I went along gave me this.  One side is leopard, one the dots. Up.  Don't lie, you know you want some.  They are that awesome.

There was a few runs through the park.  Sweet baby it's been cold.

Of course, there were also several days of frozen water ways.  

Yea, it says something about frozen rivers . . . in the heat of the city too.  

Though, on instagram folks got the see the Extreme Plaid Matching: Weekend Edition.  The Negroni, another pencil, and a tissue, silk, knit altered Renfrew (micro stripes).  

I matched the plaid like a bomb, but the pits needed a little touch as they were not aligned (how I don't know).  But, seriously, my patches are like divine intervention.  

 So, it was intended to the second one for the Dude (as I gave it as a Christmas present because I needed to make sure the green one fit first).  Well, I put girl buttons on here . . . so I've got a Negroni instead of an Archer.  I might take the sides in . . . might.  As, well, I wear it with leggings and in this sub freezing weather I'm warmer than not.  Also, the Dude says it looks like I'm wearing his shirt which is cool in his book.

So, the best part here is that Plaquenil has another side effect . . . it makes you succumb to your husband's desire for matching flannels.  Yea, I'm so going there.  I actually started to make the second one, but realized that I only had two yards (and I had bought three).  So I scrambled to get another yard.  The other Negroni is on que for sometime in the next three weeks.

I knitted a pair of knee socks, which I promptly gave away for a birthday gift.  No fear, I have enough yarn to make myself a pair.  Look at the matchy matchy . . .

 Boston.  I missed you.

 A run in the Public Garden and around Boston Commons.  Shit it was COLD.

Boston is one of those towns that holds a warm and melancholy place for me.  A long time something or the other is from there, and through the course of several jaunts I've fallen for its New England charms.  Ironically, I began life in Seattle . . . and Boston is the Seattle of the east coast.

I tend to think of it as a grey town, with hidden life beneath the layers of public fraught.  Just around the corner a sun beam will form, shining a path into something brilliant.  In the regard, Boston always leaves me feeling refreshed.  In an oddly melancholy way, I find that a nice moment of mental refuge on weeks and days when I have no end in sight.

Leigh was in town, hence my visit in the January tundra.  She had a birthday too.

Oh, I found shoes for 30 bucks.  You're jealous, I know.  

A frozen pond in Boston Gardens, on our last day there.  Leigh had never stood on a pond before .  . .and yea, it got like 50 degrees outside . . . it felt like summer!

The train ride home.  

Muttly showed her disdain for my being gone.  

I knitted most of this hat on that train ride.  I heart.  Until I washed and dried it.  So, it's going in the Etsy shop for sale (it's a child's size now).  Luckily, I have another ball and a half of the Amy Butler stuff my sister sent me for Christmas.  I'm on Ravelry if you want the notes.  It's a basic on the round with a wide rib stitch hat.  I hijacked a pattern .  . . as in, it really my pattern now.  

The facial expression is also representative of my mood these days . . . stress, a to do list longer than a mile, academic politics, and so forth.  I need a vacation.  In May or June I'm taking a week.  Not sure how or where, but I am.  

In case you were wondering . . . there's been a disproportionate amount of snow.  The white fluffy stuff . . . yawn, stretch.  The white shroud is certainly helping my waistline with all the removal.  

So much white shroud fluff.  

Last weekend I had a knit fest one day.  Three Renfrews and one self drafted skirt later  . . .

 Tiffany, the roommate  got her Birthday gift.  FYI, I cut the sheer dots on the opposite grain, so that it would stretch across her chest and no where else . . . creating a sultry look and not sleezy, baggy.  I'm good, I know.

For my skirt: I was lazy and used the pattern piece to my Amy Butler Barcelona (The A-line).  I cut it on the bias, serged all four pieces together, then made a waist band three inches shorter than my thick waist by 15" high.  Sewed to a round, folded in half, serged to the waist while putting unstretched elastic (to hold the seam in place on my body) around the waist.  It's too cold to wear my Khaki Chevron now, but come spring . . . though, I'm beginning to doubt the validity of spring.  

I made a Sloppy Josephine too (not pictured).  Added an inch to the front and back pieces, two to the sleeves, and well . . . On Sunday I wore it with leggings and was deliciously posh while sewing and lounging in my apartment amongst a frozen Gotham.  

Oh, I got my vac card as I leave for Ecuador in about a month.  I have two talks to write before then too.  

On that note, I have a coat to finish for Naked Baby Angel Day. The Dude really married up when he found me, eh?