Recently in Antalya Category

Even though Spring announced herself a week ago, the weather is volatile enough that, despite brave showings by the sun, it still feels very much like winter. I look out the window of my office and see dark storm clouds looming in the distance, and palm fronds wavering in the breeze. Inside I'm on my third mug of tea, wishing I was back in the Vaucluse! Such irony that it is freaking grey at the beach, while up in the mountains where we used to live it is beautifully sunny and the cliffs sparkle invitingly in the sun....

So, Winter, I have the hat for you.

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A hat in warm brown, a hat in cool grey.

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The first, a prototype for the pattern. What did I want in a hat? I always lost my hats, predictably at crags where, 20 or 30 feet into a route I would overheat and toss my headgear into to the bushes below, forgotten. I wanted an unforgettable hat, a design that turned heads. A hat that was too awesome to lose. I wanted warm, I wanted cables. Want. Can't get? Well then, make.

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Truth be told, I'd had this idea for a sideways hat for a while, and I have pages of potential sideways hat designs in my sketchbooks. Years of sketches here and there! But the time it took to coalesce into knitted object stunned me: from sketch to research to charting to knitting in one week. Sometimes, it just happens: a scrap ball of yarn, a pair of circulars, an unexpected bracket of free time. Brilliant.

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Memory guided me in knitting this fifth one. Boredom drove me to tweak the last cable at the top of the hat. Yes, boredom! So it became an XO cable, and the recipient was none the wiser for not knowing. (Oh, and extra ribbing, because ear tips must be covered.)

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Last week I finally went back to the library to check out more books. (And pay fines, because apparently the library doesn't think "crazy all-nighter deadlines" is a good enough excuse to not return a 10-day overdue book.) Having gotten Venice out of my system for now, I returned to fiction, graphic design, and food.

There may be other, more prolific authors than Scott Turow, but he was the one who created the legal thriller genre with Presumed Innocent, and its follow-up 20 years later, Innocent. Quite frankly, no one can match his style, and Innocent has been a compelling read so far. Any book that features flocked green velvet and spot gloss and authored by a single-name deserves a second glance, so I picked up Pash's Inspirability: 40 Top Designers speak out about What Inspires. It features old favorites like Paula Scher, Stefan Sagmeister and Erik Spiekermann, and locals like Petrula Vrontikis (CSULB alum!), and some I've forgotten about but whose work I love. It's an entertaining read when you're waiting in line! Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef intrigued me because of the rigidly-structured process of a cook's education. I had no idea it could be so formal. While I do love mom-and-pop joints, I have a better understanding of the workings of the kitchen and its cooks when I make the effort to dress up and go to a posh place! (And I do love the gory details about accidents in the kitchen! Hee!)

Have a wonderful weekend! Knit something!

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Having knit for oh, about 7 years now, I've accumulated lots of knitting material. Admittedly more magazines than books, really, because I'm looking for a certain style that is *me*. I pick my books and magazines the way I used to pick CDs, back before iTunes came into our lives: there had to be 3 great songs in a CD before I put down my money. So, in terms of knitting I've got about a dozen books and probably 4 times that many magazines. Only about a fifth of them are American; the rest are foreign language. So a few days ago when I was lazily looking through my stacks (I did a purge; some knitter at Goodwill is *really* happy right now) I decided that 2011 would be my year of international knitting.

Yes, you poor, long-ignored Phildars, Dale of Norways, Rebeccas, and Japanese magazines, you will have your turn in the sun! Even you, Rowan! No, the Queen's English is technically not a foreign language but you're British and I need an excuse to include you here! I will pick up (stash) yarn and needles and I will doggedly read through all manner of instructions and the garment I will create will be beautiful! Yes, Norwegian and Japanese are not exactly easy languages to translate, but there are online resources that can help! I will not be alone!

Speaking of biting off more than I can chew... I was hasty in my reading Twist Collective's Finish Fest. I had misread "Finish for February" as "Finish *in* February", thinking I had a complete 4 weeks to do a few projects. Easy, yeah?

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Easy, no. January 31 is fast approaching! Antalya 5's grafting will take up an hour, I can do that anytime. It was my cardi I needed to take care of. In a rush, I picked up my languishing Girl Friday, placed it back on a circular needle, and knit about 4 rows before I discovered, I don't know what needles I used. I don't know my gauge. Where are my notes? Were they inserted between some pages of a random magazine?? Did I toss them in the same bag as the Goodwill donations??? Suffice it to say that yesterday evening I frogged a considerable amount of yarn, reknit a gauge swatch and didn't get gauge, revised the pattern for my gauge and needle size, found sufficient yarn to make it with, and started knitting (Continental, mind you). And look! I have 8 inches of knitting! Ignore the uneven ribbing, be proud of me!

That's the state of my knitting to date. Beyond that, I've started to process my Amsterdam pictures. When I think of Amsterdam I think of bicycles! And so, dear reader, I have bicycles for you. Have a good Thursday!

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ETA: Wtf, FaceBook?

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Some weeks ago, Holly of Knitted Thoughts gave me a Stylish Blog Award. Thank you, Holly! Yummy Yarn, stylish? Who'd've thought?

One of the prerequisites to this award is sharing seven things about myself, and to make this more specific, I made it seven stylistic things:

1. My wardrobe is primarily California casual (jeans, soft tee, flats, gold hoops) but when working onsite I tend to wear all black. It makes matching in the dark easy!
2. I try to onsight my routes and boulder problems, as much as possible.
3. I adore mid-century modern furniture. My best find was a coffee table abandoned on the sidewalk. Score!
4. This may stem from years of presenting to clients, leading creative teams, and giving and receiving constructive criticism. And why I've been called an enabler. It's a good rule to follow: One catches more flies with honey than with vinegar.
5. Louise Fili, Rebeca Mendez, Paul Rand, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, Erik Spiekermann, Gael Towey, and Massimo Vignelli.
6. I like the Impressionist and Renaissance artists over the contemporary ones. But I make an exception for Anselm Kiefer.
7. Electronica and classical music rotate continuously on my iTunes. With the odd Britney Spears song (yes, just like you)!

On to knitting. Here's my current project at 5, then 9 repeats of pattern. It's calming knitting, something to help wind the day down. This past week was quite busy!

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It also helps that I know Antalya like the back of my hand. Every stitch, every short row turn, every loop picked up, all executed from memory. All that remains is grafting, and I'll probably wait until Shannon has finished the knitting part on hers; then we can have ourselves a little grafting par-tay!

I also signed up for Twist Collective's February Finish Fest, because I do need a little prodding with my knits. While I have an endless list of projects lined up in the coming months, a bit of reminding and egging on by the group should help, hopefully, with finishing the ones already on my needles. Care to join?