Do the mash!
This post will be a little bit of a mish-mash, so please bear with me. In fact, I'm having issues figuring out where to start! So I'll start with the first thing on my mind. I met up with my lovely friend Froukje this morning at Mabel's for some coffee and yarn (she is knitting a sample sock for me and ran out of yarn right before the toe - we used that as an excuse to get together for a little knitting and java). I didn't get much knitting done, however, since I had the boy with me and he was running around the shop like a small crazy person.
While we were there, a vaguely familiar-looking woman sat down at the next table. After a minute, she looked over at me and said "have we met? You look familiar." It was Larissa, who I met about a year and a half ago, at Mabel's. Even funnier, Froukje had just sent a bunch of squares in for Larissa's Square-Along and won the prize for the most squares knit. Larissa wrote this funny post about the mysterious Froukje, so how hilarious that the day after I read it, we all end up at Mabel's together?
Anyway, I went over to Larissa's blog, which I read occasionally but not as regularly as I'd like to (as is the case with every single blog on my Bloglines list), and found this post waiting for me there. I'll let you read it for yourself instead of trying to paraphrase, but it's once again about knitters pulling together to help someone deal with a horrendous tragedy. Go see if you'd like to help.
On a totally different subject, I've been thinking about my Japanese yarn, thanks to some e-mails I've gotten from y'all. First, thanks for all the many offers to help me translate the incomprehensible Japanese ball bands! I've got the word for "wool" figured out along with what I think is "mohair", but the rest are still Greek to me. After several of you wrote to tell me that you have friends or relatives who have lived or are living in Japan, I realized that a friend in my knitting group majored in Japanese and lived in Japan for a year after college. Duh! I am going to bring the yarn to our group next Monday and test her retention. She's pregnant, so it's going to be an extra challenge with that shrinking pregnant brain! If she can't figure them out, I'll start looking elsewhere for translation services. The biggest problem is that the ball bands are all in Japanese characters, so I can't exactly put them in an e-mail (unless I scan the bands in). Someone did send a website that lists Japanese knitting terms, but I haven't made it over there yet. I'll see what I can find out and let y'all know.
Also, my SP9 spoilee, Polly from Polliwannablog, said that she was wondering about the prices of the Japanese yarn. I kind of wandered through the week with this vague notion about yen vs dollars, so I didn't even pay any attention. And I wonder why my credit card bills are so frightening! I will try to dig up one of my receipts (although I won't do the math for you - the exchange rate was about 118 yen per dollar). I thought I was going to post the prices now, but the receipts are nowhere to be found, and none of the balls have price tags on them. I think that I remember my Okadaya purchase totalling around 7400 yen, but I could be way off (especially since the first time around, I typed "740" which would be about $7). I am a little bit daft about math sometimes.
So as not to leave you with another completely pictureless post, here are a few of my favorite pictures, taken atop Tokyo Tower (a bright orange Eiffel-tower-looking thing with two different viewing platforms and fabulous views of the city).
These first ones are on the lower level, where they had these crazy windows in the floor that you could look through to see the ground. I could barely stand to put my foot on one, even with the other foot planted firmly on solid floor. Sydney, however, didn't have that problem.
Not afeard of heights, that one! We thought it would be cool to get a picture of our feet standing on the glass. I tried first, but this was the best I could do:
I could NOT bring myself to stand on that glass, even though I knew it was probably prefectly safe. Bill didn't have the same issue:
Although after all the kids piled on with him and started jumping, he decided he didn't want to test the strength limits of the glass and quickly retreated to safety.
Here's Sydney at the tippy top:
Isn't she the cutest?
While we were there, a vaguely familiar-looking woman sat down at the next table. After a minute, she looked over at me and said "have we met? You look familiar." It was Larissa, who I met about a year and a half ago, at Mabel's. Even funnier, Froukje had just sent a bunch of squares in for Larissa's Square-Along and won the prize for the most squares knit. Larissa wrote this funny post about the mysterious Froukje, so how hilarious that the day after I read it, we all end up at Mabel's together?
Anyway, I went over to Larissa's blog, which I read occasionally but not as regularly as I'd like to (as is the case with every single blog on my Bloglines list), and found this post waiting for me there. I'll let you read it for yourself instead of trying to paraphrase, but it's once again about knitters pulling together to help someone deal with a horrendous tragedy. Go see if you'd like to help.
On a totally different subject, I've been thinking about my Japanese yarn, thanks to some e-mails I've gotten from y'all. First, thanks for all the many offers to help me translate the incomprehensible Japanese ball bands! I've got the word for "wool" figured out along with what I think is "mohair", but the rest are still Greek to me. After several of you wrote to tell me that you have friends or relatives who have lived or are living in Japan, I realized that a friend in my knitting group majored in Japanese and lived in Japan for a year after college. Duh! I am going to bring the yarn to our group next Monday and test her retention. She's pregnant, so it's going to be an extra challenge with that shrinking pregnant brain! If she can't figure them out, I'll start looking elsewhere for translation services. The biggest problem is that the ball bands are all in Japanese characters, so I can't exactly put them in an e-mail (unless I scan the bands in). Someone did send a website that lists Japanese knitting terms, but I haven't made it over there yet. I'll see what I can find out and let y'all know.
Also, my SP9 spoilee, Polly from Polliwannablog, said that she was wondering about the prices of the Japanese yarn. I kind of wandered through the week with this vague notion about yen vs dollars, so I didn't even pay any attention. And I wonder why my credit card bills are so frightening! I will try to dig up one of my receipts (although I won't do the math for you - the exchange rate was about 118 yen per dollar). I thought I was going to post the prices now, but the receipts are nowhere to be found, and none of the balls have price tags on them. I think that I remember my Okadaya purchase totalling around 7400 yen, but I could be way off (especially since the first time around, I typed "740" which would be about $7). I am a little bit daft about math sometimes.
So as not to leave you with another completely pictureless post, here are a few of my favorite pictures, taken atop Tokyo Tower (a bright orange Eiffel-tower-looking thing with two different viewing platforms and fabulous views of the city).
These first ones are on the lower level, where they had these crazy windows in the floor that you could look through to see the ground. I could barely stand to put my foot on one, even with the other foot planted firmly on solid floor. Sydney, however, didn't have that problem.
Not afeard of heights, that one! We thought it would be cool to get a picture of our feet standing on the glass. I tried first, but this was the best I could do:
I could NOT bring myself to stand on that glass, even though I knew it was probably prefectly safe. Bill didn't have the same issue:
Although after all the kids piled on with him and started jumping, he decided he didn't want to test the strength limits of the glass and quickly retreated to safety.
Here's Sydney at the tippy top:
Isn't she the cutest?
posted by knittinmom at 1:09 PM
4 Comments:
Oh my goodness - I'm getting all sweaty and anxious just LOOKING at the pictures of them standing on the glass. I could NEVER do that. nope, nope, nope :o)
What Lynda said, and double it. I am sitting in my nice safe kitchen with no glass floor and getting the heebie jeebies. I could maybe have taken a picture of a ball of yarn sitting on it. Maybe.
Yes she is the cutest!
What great pictures! It looks like you had a wonderful time. There never is enough time to shop when the kids and husband are in two, but you managed quite a bit!
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