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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Happy Birthday Paulie!

Happy Birthday Paulie!


sorry for the craptastic photo :( I can't wait to go to the cheesecake factory tonight to celebrate! YUM!

Relay for Life
last Saturday I went to the Los Altos Relay for Life to "Knit A Round." Hollis of Full Thread Ahead, organized a knitting team, and we knitted chemo caps and raised money for the relay! What fun! I got to meet Dina, Hollis, and Maglia!



the Los Altos High School Track was quite nice, one of those rubbery squishy numbers that is better for your feet and ankles. All around the track were these Luminarias that were to be lit in the evening for a cancer patient. During the daylight though, they just looked like plain paper bags.



Reader Question
Also Abigail asked where I got the pattern for the Irish Hiking Wrist Warmers. I was negligent in my linkage. The wonderful Delia of Wine and Needles created the pattern which is available here.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

fo's fo me and others

after sitting a very long time on my needles untouched, I finally picked up my sock to be and finished it off. It is my first sock, and I think I would like to make its mate after I finish off a couple more of my WIPs.

It's made of some self stripey soft TLC on size 7 circs from the Weekend Knitting pattern on striped jazz socks. I think I'd like to get better at the kitchener stitch as the end of the toe and heel looked a little funky.



I'm also heading off to a baby dinner thing tomorrow, so I've made a quick umbilical cord hat from some bernat cotton tots. So cute! I posed it with my new book, Knitting on the Edge, which I have been coveting for quite awhile, but I only bought it recently when my friend Lourdes brought me a 40% off coupon for my local Michael's!


Speaking of Michael's, I couldn't help but pick up a few beads to make this pretty choker for my mom's bday (in september, I'm just preparing early).


I also finished off Roxy's bday gift of orange irish hiking arm warmers done in that wonderful Anni Blatt yarn I bought in Texas.


If you're ever in SF on the weekend, I highly recommend looking up the Blue Jay Cafe. Their brunch is FANTASTIC and quite reasonable. Evvie ordered a pulled pork sandwich which was delish! And I got some sort of yummy andoiulle sausage scramble. The place is a small popular neighborhood spot that serves up some yummy southern type cuisine!

very staccato blog post i realize, but my brain is fried currently...

USATODAY.com - Picture perfect cell phone

USATODAY.com - Picture perfect cell phone

okay happy dance. quick post (i have a long post upcoming eventually!), but I've been on cloud 9 since I got my new sony ericsson s710a phone yesterday. I LOVE it. ok, there are some things that bug me, but really, this phone makes me so happy it feels sinful (how can I derive so much joy from such a material possession? I guess I'm freakin' shallow like that)

anyway, JOY!

Thursday, June 16, 2005

yarn haul and an amazing RAOK!

I'm so touched by the kindness of people that I've met online in the knitting blog world. I've even enjoyed meeting up with several of you to knit. When I see knitters getting together to do amazing things (like all the fund raising yarn harlot did for doctors without borders, and the relay for life knitting team that Hollis has organized) it makes me feel a little better about the world and renews my faith in people again. (on a totally random note, the movie Enron made me feel like all people might be untrustworthy and left me with a bad taste in my mouth and tears in my eyes).

Yesterday I got home and in the mail was one of the most wonderful RAOKs I've ever received! Caitlyn sent me FOUR VINTAGE KNITTING MAGAZINES!!!! GAH! I'm so happy! I LOVE vintage knitting mags! And she had a wonderful note along with it! I'm so touched that she gave me such a thoughtful gift! I've already flipped through the 2 spinnerin mags, and I think a lot of the fishermen sweaters are so CUTE (and the sweater dresses amuse me and delight me to no end)! I'm saving the vogue knitting ones to flip through once I've finished my work tonight!


If I get off my butt to the scanner, I see more vintage patterns of the day (photos) in the future of this blog! Thank you so much Caitlyn!

Texas Yarn Store Review
In asking for Chicago yarn store recommendations, I realized I didn't get a chance to review the two yarn stores I visited in Houston, Texas. Ervy and his brother were kind enough to driver around to Meyerland and elsewhere to visit two stores in one day!

The first yarn store I visited was Nancy's Knits in Meyerland. It had moved a couple streets away from it's stated location on the website, but the marquis sign told us which street it was. The new place (they'd been there for a month) was in a large shopping center with a super market and near some hunan restaurant. Unfortunately, it had no sign yet, so it was difficult to spot.

The store itself was stocked to the brim with yarn. It had a lot of yarn in too little space if you ask me. There were towering cubes filled with yarn separated by small 2 foot aisles that were a little claustrophobic. I was excited to see that much wonderful yarn, but I was highly dismayed to find that nothing had a price label on it. I find it irritating to have to ask each time I pick up a skein how much it costs. So of course I didn't, and I ended up spending way too much money.

I bought 3 bright orange balls of Anni Blatt yarn (okay, up until yesterday, I thought it was AMY Blatt, the two n's sort of melded together in my mind. Then another knit friend corrected me yesterday. oops!), 2 balls of a yummy merino PaintBox yarn, and some other yarn that is on its way to my SP5. I was also searching for some non metal short circulars to bring on the plane with me. The store itself didn't have any short enough. The saleswoman did offer to lend me hers and I could mail it from California (again, knitters are such wonderful people!), but I knew I was heading to another yarn store, so I thanked her and went on my way.



The second yarn store we visited was Yarns 2 Ewe

I liked this yarn store better as it was brightly lit, had more space to move around, and had prices on everything (and a nice sale area at the back). The staff was fairly friendly, and the told me about a spinning shop I can visit next time called The Upstairs room. I ended up buying the summer and spring issues of spin-off, 3 sale skeins of Classic Elite Paisley wool yarn, and 3 clover tools that help you tie fun asian knots for buttons and closures!

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

chicago has good hot dogs, right?

So there is a possibility that I will be going to Chicago for 5-7 weeks this summer with work. This is both exciting (it's an amazing opportunity for me) and daunting (I hear it's really really hot over there, and I'd be working LOTS, the work may be really demanding and stressful, and there will be no ervy).

I won't know for a bit if I'm going or not, since my professor is offering the opportunity to graduate students first. So, we'll see :)

Anyone know any good yarn shops in Chicago?

Monday, June 13, 2005

cousins' graduation

*ahem! cough, cough *



yes, so... I went through all of my cousins' graduations and receptions and lunch/dinner without anyone noticing (including myself) my fashion mishap. Only as the family gathering was dispersing did my cousin Christine ask, "Um, Lori, did you know that you're wearing two different shoes?"

ack! I was deciding between the two shoes yesterday morning, and I really thought I had put both the flower ones on before I left. oops. Both shoes were similar in height so I didn't notice any problems walking, and they are similar enough in color that no one noticed it right off the bat.

This is a short blog burst today. My brother showed me his new cell phone yesterday, and I had fun playing around with it. He's actually going to return it and get a better one (with a 2megapixel camera), but I like his. My dad has already agreed to getting me one for my birthday! yay! more photo taking capability for the bloggy blog! the pic of my shoes above and the following two are from his cell phone (i shrank them in photoshop)

big headed asha


and sleepy nikko

Friday, June 10, 2005

Saving Face

Saving Face was probably the best movie I've seen in long time. It's amazing that you can forget how good a movie can really be until you see one that really resonates with you. Really this movie was funny, emotional, and mentally stimulating.

I know this is often said about other Chinese American movies (think JLC), but they really captured the Chinese American (adult generation) community well, and many scenes were amusing in their familiarity and obvious silliness (at least from the point of view of this 3rd gen gal).

Y'all should go see this movie! The only part I found hard to swallow was the ending, but, heck, it's hollywood. I liked the rest of the movie enough anyways.

I'm even going to recommend to my parents that they see this movie, although I know there may be some scenes that make them uncomfortable (really just 1 or 2 short scenes).

spinning
I started spinning again 2 nights ago while watching TV. I spun up almost all of the superwash merino my wonderful SP4 sent me! The most fun discovery of the night was that I can finally do the long draw! (or at least I can do it with this roving). It is uber fun, and I definitely think i'd like to sping this way more often in the future. Anywho, I spun it up into singles and spun up some wonderful bright red wool singles to ply it with. The resulting yarn is very bright and pretty and reminds me alot of of some of the bright plies of snapcrafty yarns. Pictures to come later when I dig out my camera.

so this isn't an entirely pictureless post, here's nikko when he first investigated the cubby of the dvd rack that ervy built:


the cats have been wigging me out. Nikko jumps onto the stove and counters when we're not looking. I've caught him on the stove, and he gets a good squirting, but he doesn't really seem to care afterwards, since he'll jump right back on again. This mainly means that 1) we have to be uber careful when we're cooking (no leaving unattended stockpots heating on the stove 2) no waiting to clear up leftovers out of the pans on the stove or nikko will do it for us (I've caught him doing this) 3) I need to keep anything fragile or dangerous off the countertops. Meaning I can't leave wine glasses that need washing next to the sink or nikko may topple them over, and no leaving sharp objects on the counters. This morning I found a pair of scissors on the bathroom floor that Nikko (I guess it COULD have been asha, but nikko is the one who mainly jumps on the counters) had dragged off of the kitchen counters. He's such a trouble maker!!!

Thursday, June 09, 2005

movie week

This week is movie week. On Monday evening, my friends and I went out to catch the latest Star Wars Movie. I personally think it was a waste of money. Very cheesy. Ervy sent me this cute comic about it that amused me.

Tuesday night we watched Finding Neverland with Paulie. I lurve me some Johnny Depp. I enjoyed the movie, and it reminded me a bit of Big Fish in some of the more imaginative parts.

Last night ervy and I finally saw Hairspray (yay John Waters). I still think I like Polyester best, but Hairspray was fun/interesting. I didn't know anything about it besides the fact that it was by said director and ricki lake is in it. It was a fun throwback to times of old when people would actually watch tv just to see people learn actual dances. I did think the beatniks were an odd/amusing touch.


Tonight: Saving Face. I have heard good things about this movie from some of the Asian American online communities I'm on. It's by local director (San Jose) Alice Wu.

Monday, June 06, 2005

i'm alive and well

sorry to have left everyone hanging. I was quite quite ill when last I blogged, but then even after the doctor's appointments, I still had to run into work to try to tie up some loose ends, and then pack like a mad woman before I trucked off to Houston to see ervy's brother graduate.

Here's Sean, the happy high school graduate:


I got to meet scads of evan's family. I learned all about the past year of one of his uncle's medical history (stuff neither evan nor sean had any clue about) as told by his aunt while ironing sean's shirt for graduation. I had the wonderful chance to be caught off guard by evan's mom's birthday. Apparently it was the sunday of graduation May 29 (again, evan and sean were clueless that it was their mother's birthday). There I was stuck without a gifty, so evan and I raced out before graduation (like 30 minutes before) and picked up season 3 and 4 of West Wing for her.

Graduation itself was quite interesting. It was threatening to rain the entire time, and as they were calling out the graduates names for them to get their diplomas, it started to thunder and lightning directly over head so that half the audience ran away while the ceremony continued.

This is the puzzle that saved me during my trip to Houston. It's 2000 pieces, and provided wonderful focus for me during times of M familial stress and bustle.


food tour
Most of my time in Houston after focusing on the graduation weekend, was spent seeking out tasty food places. I made sure to hit my favorites like Goode Company Barbecue (the ribs and sausage are quite yummy, and the smoked duck is AMAZING. And don't forget the jalepeno bread) and House of Pies (for that wonderful pie 24 hours of the day!). I also went to Pappadeux and had some tasty creole food (my first time having dirty rice and shrimp creole), and I ate the most fantastic sweet potato pecan pie *YUM*! Evan's mom made red beans and rice for me (a dish fairly foreign to me, but yummy all the same). I had some of the tastiest pizza Houston has to offer from Star Pizza (their salads are so yummy, I think I had the "chelsea"). We had some mediocre vietnamese food at Mai's (I think it was mediocre because the dishes ordered weren't really vietnamese (but instead a poor rendition of chinese food), there were two tofu dishes that basically tasted the same and were unextraordinary). The last meal we had there was sought out in the Bellaire area of Houston. We went to Santong Snacks for some of the yummiest dumplings I've had in a long time (sean refused to try the pig ear appetizer we got). Here's a photo (not mine) of some of the yummy dumplings at Santong Snacks for your drooling pleasure. The dumplings we ate were not fried.


devil's many disguises
Wow. this Walmart (seen near the Meyerland side of Houston) looks like a Whole Foods... weird creepy image change, no?