MarQ1

I give up on the Lamb’s Pride Bulky. What a struggle at what a cost. Ten bucks a skein for what I’d estimate would end up a 5″ by 20″ strip, maybe 5.5″. Four to five more skeins would be needed–for something smaller than a baby blanket. A sweater would cost how much? Merino could be cheaper and easier to knit.

I’ve switched to [*shudder*] Paton’s Decor (only 25% wool; guess what the rest is) and it’s not that bad. Knitting-wise, it’s flexible, doesn’t feel like plastic and knits so much faster than the Superwash (which might as well be rope-grade cotton) and is washable. The remarkably uniform color does lack subtlety, but for the price I’ll live with it. And I believe the dogs are colorblind anyway.

No bike ride today. It threatened rain all day, and my thumb is still throbbing.

I’m amused when biking through a Brooklyn neighborhood and I pass a traffic sign that says “Bump Ahead.” Just what have I been biking over for the last hour and a half? The wonders of Brooklyn pavement would do my poor finger no good.
I did bring you these from my Saturday morning, two-hour, five-minute ride.

Click for the full view.

As you can see, Saturday was a beautiful day for a bike ride. Not hot at all, not too humid, but the wind was a bit stiff at times (note the flags). If you want to go to Coney Island, 10:30 am is perfect. The crowds weren’t crowds at all.

Here’s the Ferris wheel:

Click for the full view.
On the knitting front, yes I can still knit, but I keep whacking the nail the knitting needle. Bright? No, but I keep doing it anyway.

I’ve been trying to knit something to fit my mom’s shivering whippets and got this far:

Click for more detail.

The cables are not that bad to do, but there are just too many of them and they slant the wrong way and they gobble yarn. It’s too fussy for a whippet. I hate to frog it though. I wonder what I could adapt it to. My sister just might get her cable pattern pillow.

This yarn is Lamb’s Pride Superwash. I like the fluffy effect (upper swatch) it got in the dryer and it barely shrank, but it squeaks as it’s knit, it’s got little give and it splits horribly.

I’ve started over in Lamb’s Pride Bulky (even worse, but it shrinks even less) doing mainly the twisted stitch lattice from Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns, Vol 2., on an #8 Addi Turbo circ. Again, it’s eating yarn as if there were no tomorrow (and it weren’t $10 a skein)
Lastly, are kalanchoes supposed to do this?

Click to make bigger.

Sean’s socks are really cool, but his blog, the comments part, is broken, so I’m commenting here.

I walked into the desk, smashing my left middle finger between the desk and my pelvic bone. Blood. Pain. Throbbing (and not in the good way).Blue-black under the band-aid.

Gross.

I’ve managed to drop (intentionally) two rows and pick up a miscounted back cross on my cable pattern, which is a good thing to know how to do, since I just miscounted again and have to drop two rows to correct the front cross.

Finally, from my wanderings around Brooklyn, some pictures, some actually from Queens.

This was from Saturday’s bike ride down to Marine Park and Coney Island, much of which was surprisingly uphill, including the stretch on Knapp St where I passed a dozen sanitation trucks with sewage treatment plants on either side of the road. At least the wind was in my face and not coming from the side.

The view is from the north shore of Sheepshead Bay, which marginally sounds better than Floating Dead Fish Bay. The floating dead fish in the bay are why you only get this shot of the FujiFilm blimp.

Yes, it was that hazy. I am a so-so photographer, but not that bad. And I was trying to avoid dripping on the camera.
From today’s trek:

This is Flushing Avenue with the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the right. Not entirely impressive, except to note that the street is relatively flat, smooth and deserted on a Sunday morning. Fast biking.

This is an armory in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, probably the 47th. Here I started to sweat profusely. Stopping to take pictures didn’t help.

A view from the Pulaski Bridge over the Newtown Creek, which really doesn’t smell at all, though it should. Funny, they didn’t put the observation deck on the side facing the sewage treatment plant.

You can click to enlarge the picture . You can see through the haze the Empire State Building (center left), the Chrysler Building (mid-right) and the U.N. (farther right). Tuesday, when the humidity levels are supposed to drop, this will be a beautiful view.

This is Fishing Pier 4 (click to enlarge). Presumably there is a 1, a 2 and a 3, but I didn’t see them. See the abused bike and the U.N. building on the other side of the East River. I don’t know what the large metal structure is. I’m in Queens, btw.

Here I tried to get you a better shot of Midtown (click to enlarge), but the haze is rather thick. And I am dripping like a fountain. Disgusting.

Brooklyn usually avoids attracting attention to the fact that is actually located on Long Island. Everyone in Manhattan can see this. No shame, I guess.

That’s the Queensboro Bridge in the distance.

What’s Queens without a graveyard.

I mean, cemetery, Calvary Cemetery, usually seen from the BQE. It’s actually very attractive in a gothic way. This route took me through an industrial back way, under the Pulaski and Kosciusko (sp?) Bridges, along a few of Queens’ confusingly numbered streets, roads and avenues. I passed the Midtown Tunnel, a remote outpost of NBC, Fresh Direct, the cemetery, UPS, and Canada Dry. Eventually I got back to Brooklyn, went through neighborhoods that are doing better than they have in the past, went under the Myrtle Ave tressle where there is no longer any train, and got back home three and a half pounds lighter than when I left and with no other photos.
A good ride.

Sometimes it’s best to to know when to stop.

Note on the foot end of the sock, the right, the nice stripey spiral and on the left above the heel, the unmoving blob of color.
Now I’m playing with cables.