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| Rick Rack right side |
After suffering from "knitting block" for over two weeks, I finally settled on a pattern for this yarn that I ordered with a specific person in mind. I like the colors so much that I wish I had ordered more than one scarf's worth. And now the colorway, Knit Picks "Nevermore," is discontinued.
The cast-on edge of the yarn is fuzzy because I probably cast on over 20 times, in different patterns, including, at first, the Rick Rack design. I did want to make this Rick Rack scarf from the very beginning, but the first time I started it, the stitches were too tight and hard to knit in the pattern. I foresaw myself doing this very tedious knitting for months, so I decided to abandon the idea. I couldn't find anything else to knit, although I did try a number of patterns. I even paid for one of them, but still decided not to go with it.
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| Rick Rack wrong side |
I thought I had settled on a "cross stitch" pattern, but it was kind of annoying. The Rick Rack pattern appealed to me again because it has the look of the "cross stitch" pattern, but it's broken by knit stitches, providing a break if the pattern is too tight or hard to knit. Furthermore, the "wrong side" is not objectionable. In fact, it looks pretty normal, like 1x1 ribbing with slightly wide stitches.
Even in this pattern, I cast on 7 times with 3 different sizes of needles and 4 different stitch counts, settling on #7 needles and 42 stitches.
-吴碧芙
When I'm around on the weekend, I like to meet up with my Chinese exchange partner. She's a doctor at one of the main hospitals in town. I originally started meeting with her a year ago, but now my Chinese is in steady decline.
We spent the last few weekends with each other's parents. I mean, my parents came to visit and then we went to Sioux City the next weekend. ("Each other's" sounds like we switched places, right?)
The following weekend we had a nice weekend in Omaha. Omaha is my Hong Kong. In the vast wasteland of people and food traditions I don't understand, Omaha is a breath of fresh air. Contrarily, while Hong Kong is where we would go to get rare American foods and experiences, Mexican food, pizza, and tortillas to take back to Shantou, Omaha is where we go to get better ethnic foods, including Chinese baozi, something we haven't been able to buy at home, ever.
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| Folksy Owl |
So last weekend was our first weekend home in a long time, and my first weekend to practice Chinese in a few weeks as well. As I turned to leave, I saw the Folksy Owl all alone with a few little owl appetizer plates on a little table in the cafe. It's quite a unique looking owl cookie jar, and a happy addition to my little collection.
Imagine that previously I was looking in vain for an owl cookie jar, and now I have found 3 unexpectedly.
-吴碧芙
