It takes a lot to laugh...

...it takes a train to cry. The song has been stuck in my head for the last few hours, uselessly, while I try to think of upbeat, cheerful songs to send to a close friend who's going through a rough patch right now. It seems like most of the songs I find inspirational are love songs--and a lot of those are sad love songs!--which aren't really appropriate in this case. I came up with this list, but it's unsatisfying: mirah - person person yo la tengo - sugarcube wilco - heavy metal drummer beulah - well, I can't decide which beulah song is appropriate, but I think one deserves to go in here. i imagine it'll be "if we can land a man on the moon, surely i can win your heart" the delgados - everybody come down daniel lanois - shine lambchop - up with people love - alone again or super furry animals - venus and serena the wedding present - make me smile (come up and see me) stereolab - lo boob oscillator Help! Anyway, I haven't really been updating because I no longer have a decent camera to hand...I've still been knitting--I finished a teeny version of My So-Called Scarf which will be frogged in favor of a better use of the yarn, and also one of those cute (not-)Totoro bonnets from Hello Yarn. Right now I'm blocking the Baby Bolero from One Skein. I upsized it by about 1/4 because I thought it'd be silly to make something that fits a newborn (i.e. fits for 10 minutes) and used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Somerset. I had to make a few changes after making ridiculously deep sleeves, and I followed the general advice of not binding off and seaming everything together (too much work for a baby garment!). There are still a lot of ends to be woven in... It's very pretty, although blocking it made it substantially bigger than I'd expected, so it looks like it'll fit a 1 year old rather than a 6 month old! Not such a bad thing--I just hope the wool fluffs up again when it's dry, because the fabric, which was nice and squishy, is pretty thin right now. So the only thing left on the needles is Midwest Moonlight. And since I promised myself I could cast on for something when I only had one project left, next up is Mystery Stole 3. I'm excited--there have been some beautiful pictures cropping up on the web so far!

Pick me up

I've had a lazy last couple of days. Mike left for Mallorca on Sunday and will be there for three (!) months, so my human contact outside of work has drastically declined. We've got skype set up, so it won't be too bad...and, as Mike reminded me before he left, we got through the four years that I lived in North Carolina seeing each other one weekend a month. I splurged on yarn at Full Thread Ahead and Richesse (they still have a great sale going), as well as on girly bath stuff, but I still feel like I need a pick-me-up. So tonight I'm making tiramisu (or tira mi su, Italian for "pick me up") and then I'm going to wrap it up and not touch it until tomorrow, when it's headed to a July 4th barbeque in Queens with me. Except for maybe the extra that doesn't fit in the pan. The next three months will be short on pictures, since Mike took the camera with him, but I do have the seamed up (and as-yet-unlined) Promenade bag...I made it with three skeins of Berroco Flax that I picked up when Handknits in Englewood closed. I think the pattern tells you to cast on the wrong number of stitches, so I cast on a few more. It looks quite different from the original because I didn't have the pattern to hand when I started the lattice rows--I did my yarnovers after the knit stitches rather than before, so it's a slanted lattice. I was afraid I'd run out of yarn, so I made it more of a purse than a market bag by doing one yarnover rather than two--the holes are smaller and (I think) less stretchy this way. It's still unlined because I have yet to find a fabric store in NYC that's not hideously expensive. I thought I'd have success around Herald Square and below, but all of those shops seem to sell sunglasses, perfumes, and ridiculous tchotchkes. I'm thinking of using an old t-shirt--I need something fairly reversible, since it'll show through the outside of the bag. The search continues...