This has nothing to do with knitting and I’m somewhat of a hippie, so if you are more of a GOP type folk, you might want to skip down to the **

I don’t have a ton of time to blog because I’m busy sending anti-Keystone Pipeline emails. It isn’t going to create very many jobs and the oil will not be sold domestically after traveling through the heartland of America. I am not a fan.

**On a more positive note, Hunter’s pattern is available! (and I’ve no idea what her political thoughts are – she has not approved being in the same blog post as the above, so please just ignore my political rantings and go buy her pattern and knit socks until the world is full of bunnies and flowers and peace).

Happy Thursday! :-)

Hunter called for test knitters and I was fortunate enough to try this pattern for her. I am thrilled with the first sock and the second one has been singing along. I’d actually been looking forward to knitting these socks since Hunter blogged about them. She was writing about rain and they looked like rain to me, but was knitting them in an orangey red and I kept hearing the Adele song “Set Fire to the Rain” on the radio, so I called the socks this in my head and hoped that soon I’d be able to knit them up……in blue….per my usual m.o. One of the coolest things was that it really rained here just as I was finishing the first sock, so I guess knitting these is some kind of rain dance! Look!!! Green clover!

I really enjoyed the pattern. This was my first time to try Handmaiden Casbah (color: salt spray) and it is beautiful. For some reason, I have a bad feeling about how well it will hold up, but time will tell and I’ll report back. I do recommend magic loop rather than dpns for this pattern due to the charts. Totally worked out for me since I was magic looping due to a plane knitting strategy and then decided that was smart way to go about these socks.

The pattern should be out soon if you are a fan.
Ps. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Monday morning, as they were getting ready to leave the hotel, Lisa calmly said, “we should leave most of our cash in the room because if we’re going to get mugged, it’s going to be today.” So, they dumped half their cash and left on an adventure.

They started the day in Chinatown where Lisa purchased a messenger bag. Katie purchased a smaller messsenger bag for her knitting and an origami seahorse. It is a miracle the seahorse got back to Texas in one piece, but survive it did.

The girls then went to the 9-11 Memorial. It was very moving. Make your reservations and go if you ever have a chance. You’ll not regret it.

After that, they were hungry, so they visited O’Hara’s Pub. It has been around since 1980ish. The food was great! Lisa had shephard’s pie and Katie had stew AND a grilled cheese sandwich. The waitress was understanding about this photo. She mentioned that the booties were really cute and people evidently bring traveling gnomes in sometimes.


They headed to Purl Soho, which was quite a bit smaller and had less selection than expected. The smallest yarn shop in Austin is about twice the size of Purl, so we suppose everything really is bigger in Texas.

Off to the NBC store where they shopped for the TH’s. Katie bought TH a Star Trek magnet that said, “Phasers…Because sometimes diplomacy fails. ”

They got dinner at Etrusca which was very good. Considering their attire, they were pleased not to be condescended to. Lisa’s pronunciation was quite a bit better than Katie’s but the waiter did not seem that worried about it.

They packed and watched the Betty White special on tv. Katie managed to get her purchases back into her bags which was no small miracle. Lisa was better prepared as usual and did not have as difficult a time.


Tuesday morning, they walked to Central Park so Katie could visit the Ghostbuster building. Sadly, it was under construction and was mostly covered in scaffolding, but she saw it in person and could tell that is what it was, so she’s checking it off her life list just the same.


They also saw the Trump tower and had some yummy French food for breakfast at Maison. Katie said a quick thank you prayer in her head that they were not taking an Italian cruise ship home and they headed to the airport.

There is no place like home.
There is no place lke home.
There is no place like home.