About two years too late

So I received a text message from my friend Kristin at 7 a.m., telling me that she had passed a new yarn store on her morning run in Manhattan. It's called Yarntopia, and it's at W. 108th St. and Amsterdam Ave.

Do you know where I lived from Aug. 2002 until Aug. 2004? On W. 108th St. near Amsterdam Ave.

Now, this was perhaps my worst living situation ever -- and I'm counting the Queens apartment with mice, noisy neighbors and a collapsed bathroom ceiling. My 108th St. roommate was out of her mind, an agoraphobic, unemployed actress/computer programmer who put her stinky pet ferrets on restrictive diets and kept their ashes in heart-shaped boxes.

Still, as bad as it was, would I have stayed had there been a yarn store mere yards away? Maybe. Here's a peculiar article about its opening on Friday. Jonathan said I blazed the trail for this place, that I must have made the area hospitable for knitters.

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So I realize that I had a little blogging hiatus -- blame it on a general "I had to work on Thanksgiving" malaise. During this break, though, I made serious progress on my modified-beyond-recognition Something Red. Here it is, preparing to be blocked.



I'm starting to wish that I'd done some waist-shaping, but that's what the belt will do, right? And I'm a little unsure about the collar. I redid it, like, 85 times. We'll soon see.

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Finally, a football story that I actually care about! Has anyone else heard about this guy? He's Ian Johnson, a Boise State running back AND an accomplished crocheter! Apparently, though, he got in hot water for selling his finished objects because it's against NCAA rules. He says he has a backlog of requests -- Ian, join the club! I can't find any images of his work, though.

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And while I worked Thanksgiving day, interviewing crazy people who were shopping instead of relaxing at home, I did have a wonderful evening. Stuffing, merlot and yarn by an open fire!

This and that

My four day weekend is rapidly coming to an end. Seems like only moments ago I was pulling into my super parking space and settling in for "Grey's Anatomy." Sigh. Anyway, here are some random ruminations from my mini-break.

* Homemade hummus is fantastic, but not worth the effort unless you have a decent food processor. We had coworkers over for a little housewarming Friday, and I basically had to process one chickpea at a time. (But everyone loved it.) And did you know that some brands of tahini have 17g of fat per servings. Yowza!

* My former boss found evidence that, once again, my fake owl is such a failure at scaring pigeons that it is now actually LULLING THEM TO SLEEP.



* If you spend a lot of time researching, you'll probably find the perfect plant for your apartment. If you stop into the first florist you see and buy the only plant in your price range, you're likely to end up with a mystery plant. Anyone know what this is, because the guy at the florists sure didn't.



*Anyone else think the new James Bond looks just like Clinton Kelly from "What Not to Wear"?





* Knitting? Well, I had a great time meeting celebs like Angela this weekend and I made serious progress on my belted cardigan creation, which still kinda looks like a top-down raglan. Here's the back, in all its variegated beauty:




* And lastly, I think these quizzes are one step up from hocus pocus, but this one was eerily accurate. Hurrah for western Pennsylvania accents!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Both knitty and gritty

You know that our motto here at Every Word's a Purl is "Come for the knitting, stay for the bathroom tile regrouting." So I won't disappoint today.

First, the knitting. I've been hankering to knit some sort of belted wrap sweater ever since one of my stylish co-workers sported one in a variegated yarn that reminded me of Brooks Farms. I picked up that yarn at Rhinebeck but didn't find quite the pattern that I was looking for. So I've decided to whip it up on my own.

Well, not entirely, since I have no designing experience whatsoever. I'm using Knit and Tonic's Something Red as my guide with just some modifications.



So far, I'm not using the yarn over increases for the raglan shaping. I also plan to make long sleeves and only using ribbing for the bottom edge, not the bottom half. I think I'll need to increase a little so that it will wrap slightly around my waist, and, of course, I need a belt. So this just has disaster written all over it! Wish me luck.

Now, onto the home repair and improvement. And yes, I realize that it's weird and probably uncouth to post pictures of your bathroom tile on the internets. But oh well. Yesterday morning, I decided that I'd simply had it with our bathroom tile. It was just nasty, no matter how much I scrubbed. And I realized this was because there was no grout left! It was just, like, ground or something. I would need to regrout.



So I picked up the necessary items at Bruno's Hardware on Court St. I guess grouting is not the hip hobby of choice among too many young woman because the elderly clerk looked at me, impressed, and asked, "Do you cook, too?" I felt like saying, "Yes! And I also knit and work full-time! Go me!"

The process was simple enough but kinda tedious. You spread the mixture with a floater, which is a bit too big to fit in corner and small nooks. And I was covered with grout afterward. Of course, unable to leave well enough alone, I also regrouted the upstairs bathroom as well. Here's the after shot:



Oh, and I also sewed pillows out of Amy Butler's Gothic Rose fabric. Unwilling to pay shipping, I darted over to City Quilter after work. I really liked it there - it's roomier than Purl Patchwork with more staff and a larger selection. So here they are, along with the triptych that I finally purchased. Now I just need a plant for that corner ...