Two months, huh?

I can't believe I've disappeared for so long. I'll blame it on work and multiple weddings and weekends away. I'm also working on many, many baby gifts, not all of which are ready for their close-ups. But here's one that is!


It's the Mini-Wrap Sweater from my fave, Crochet Today! This little number is for my friends Lisa and Eric, who let me crash at their place several nights a week when I first started grad school at Columbia but hadn't moved to New York quite yet. Really, it's hard to say if I ever would have ended up here without their kindness. I'll never forget how wonderful it was to finish my intro to American Studies class at night, grab dinner with Lisa in Morningside Heights then sleep in their darling guest room (which had the nicest quilt and rose-colored walls).

I don't see them as much now that they've moved to Connecticut. But they are having their third child, a little girl, so I thought she deserved a little wrap sweater.



It's worked up in South West Trading Co.'s Therapi, which I bought the last time we went to the Point Knitting Cafe before it closed. (Sniff).

Yo yo baby blanket

I have a lot of babies coming in the next six months or so -- three of my bridemaids are pregnant! Of course, I feel like this is a knitter or crocheter's time to shine.

When my college roommate and dear friend Jen told me she was pregnant, we were just so thrilled to meet the child. Really, we want to meet this child! We obviously adore Jen, but we also really adore Jen's husband -- in fact, he and Jon are independently buddies, which is really cute. They make us wish Baltimore was closer.

As I flipped through patterns, I thought about Jen, who is such a bubbly, fun person. Even in our tiny dorm room, she kept lollipops and bought outfits for our teddy bears and encouraged us to buy matching comforters and curtains to class the place up. We sang the Maryland fight song for no reason and watched lousy TV when we were stressed. ("Party of Five," anyone?) Also, she introduced me to Starbucks back in like 1995, which I always think is funny.

So I wanted something playful and colorful and maybe retro for their little one, whose gender is TBA. Jen told me their nursery colors, and I thought of the yo yo crochet blanket tutorial that I spotted on Sunshine Creation's blog.


I struggled to find the colors I needed in the same yarn, so I settled on Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby. I also have to admit that I struggled with the tutorial, but after a few tries, I managed to commit it to memory.



Now, I'm just waiting until the baby is born so I can start on some clothing.....

When you go to Prague, you need a special dress

Just popping in to say we are, sadly, back from overseas. The only good thing about it is sharing my newest dress.


It's another Built by Wendy pattern, and I highly recommend it. The elastic waist is a touch fussy, but that's it.

And I thought it was a great vehicle for showing off this lovely Nani Iro fabric. Something about the flowers reminds me of summer and childhood. (This may just be because the fabric resembles a set of sheets my parents had when I was a little girl.)


This was our last night in Prague. All of our pictures and descriptions are in sets on Flickr, if you are so inclined.

I will leave you with a taste of the Aran Sweater Museum on the Aran Islands.

I'm mere hours from fleeing the country, but wanted to just pop in first to let my friend, former editor and author Karen E. Olson guest blog about her new book "The Missing Ink." Faithful readers of my blog (are you still out there?) might remember Karen stopped by here a few years back to talk about her previous series of mysteries featuring a reporter in New Haven. (I devoured them of course). Now, she's tackling death and tattoo parlors. What could be better?


From the title of this blog, I can tell that Carrie enjoys a good pun. In fact, most journalists do, especially copy editors. I don’t know how many hours I pondered the best pun for a headline. Granted, I was never that great a headline writer, so my puns were sadly lacking.

Which is why I had such a hard time coming up with a title for my new tattoo shop mystery.

My publisher, NAL/Obsidian, which is a division of Penguin, enjoys a good pun as well. Their titles range from Evil in Carnations (a flower shop mystery) to Doom with a View (a psychic mystery) to Hounding the Pavement (a dog walker mystery).

I wanted something a little edgier than those, however. My book featured a tattoo artist amateur sleuth and it’s set in Vegas. Seems like it warranted something other than a pun.

The book is about a woman who makes an appointment for a devotion tattoo with the name of her fiancé, but she never shows. So I started coming up with possible titles: Deadly Devotion (sounded too religious), Disappearing Ink, Tattoo Heart, Indelible Ink, Hearts Can Lie, Tit forTat, Permanent Ink, Deadly Ink, Point of No Return, Vanishing Point, Tattered, Bad to the Bone, Skin Deep, Blood Lines.

You get the point.

I came up with 50 possibilities. My editor turned them all down. She said she wanted something “fun.” I had no idea what she was looking for.

Then my husband called me from the road. He had a great title. What did I think of The Missing Ink? I groaned, but I knew my editor would love it. And she did. So that’s the title. The second book? Pretty in Ink. And if there’s a third, it’ll be Driven to Ink.

What do you think? Do they work? What puns can you come up with for a tattoo shop mystery that have Ink in them?

Karen

Nothing says July like a heavy shawl

Why, hello there!

With near constant ran and overcast skies, I saw no point knitting cute camis or tanks. If summer is on holiday, so is summer knitting, I s'pose. So I knit the delightful Springtime Bandit Shawl with City Tweed sent to me by the fine folks at KnitPicks.

I'm jaunty, even though there are garbage cans behind me.

This is a great pattern that fulfills my requirement of being complicated enough to keep me interested, but not so complicated that I can't watch "Mad Men" while knitting. (Five episodes into second season! So good but depressing!)

The yarn is also very yummy -- smooth and shiny and rich. I'm also not usually a fan of super tweedy yarn, but this is nice and subtle and not too heavy.

Hanging out to dry on ye olde fire escape

Very glad I finished this so that I can take it on our trip this week -- we're embarking on a heritage trip, visiting our ancestral homelands together. So on Tuesday we're headed to Ireland, Vienna, Slovakia and Prague. Can't get here fast enough.

The one where I designed a sweater

So I've been crocheting for, what, eight years now. I've designed a few stuffed animals, and I figured it was high time I whipped up a sweater. An 80s-inspired sweater, in fact.

Thanks, mom, for taking the photos

I've been seeing so many rich, vibrant yellows lately, namely on Latika in Slumdog Millionare. (We only saw it a few weeks ago, I am ashamed to say. Since we live catty-corner from a movie theater, we can go to the movies at any time -- so we never go.) Anyway, I wanted something lemon-y and buttercup-y and daffodil-y for myself.

I was drawn to this vivid shade of Tahki cotton classic while at The Yarn Co. after a doctor's appointment a few weeks back. This is a whole lotta double crochet and ribbing, the perfect canvas for my daisy brooch. It's not as "Flashdance-y" as I imagined, but I might be too old for off-the-shoulder looks anyways.


Oh, and I found the perfect li'l buttons at Union Max, a vintage shop down the street from Brooklyn General. Seriously, the button selection there is insane.

sewing Fridays

For the past few weeks, I've spent my Friday sewing. (This has cut into my "Law and Order" naptime, but that's OK). I finished this number last week and gave it a test drive at work, where I was told it was Pucci-esque, which I think is a nice way of saying "really, really loud."

must stop taking pictures on fire escape

This is now my fourth variation of this "Built by Wendy" pattern -- there are just so many ways to mix it up. I obviously combined the gathered neck with the long sleeves and longer length, improvising a belt to give it a little shape.

The fabric is from Mood, which I keep sneaking to after work.

So I think it's time to back away from this pattern and try something new. I ordered Amy Butler's lotus tunic pattern, and, thanks to the wonderful Marie, I found some Nani Iro fabric that I have been drooling over. (Hard to find a good pic of it, but it's used in this dress.) I love it so much that I kinda want to stretch it across a canvas and hang it, but doesn't fabric deserve to become a dress or shirt?