MarQ1

J & I went up to Hudson NY for his birthday—he’s Brad Pitt’s age. We drove up on Thursday, stopping at a couple of wineries, one of which was open. We picked up half a case at Millbrook, three each of a Cabernet Franc and a 2005 Chardonnay, both good for the price. We got to Hudson a quarter after three and walked around after settling in at the guest house. We decided to have a margarita at Mexican Radio, which turned into two drinks with chips and salsa and then into dinner at the bar. We stretched it out and left a bit after six.

Hudson is very quiet on a Thursday evening in mid-fall. The street was almost empty. There were only two interesting shops open after we left the restaurant. I bought two coasters from a shop selling Turkish ceramics and glass, and we looked in on a shop that had, among other things, some cute knitted things—women’s and children’s only—some hand-knit locally, but didn’t buy anything. We went back to our rooms and found it was only seven. An early night of TV and knitting.

Friday we drove up to Mass MOCA in North Adams, MA. For J’s birthday we go to museums and restaurants; for mine we go to bars and restaurants, and I go yarn shopping and he goes to museums. The museum was a great space and I liked some of the art, but I still occasionally got that feeling of a joke I just don’t get.

On the way back, we stopped at The Fields Sculpture Park in Ghent. This is worth a stop, a long stop. Acres of fields and woods and a pond with large, outdoor contemporary sculpture and installations. We only had a little over and hour to spend before sunset, but we could have easily spent the whole afternoon. Most contemporary art doesn’t appeal to me, but the big sculptures do.

We had dinner at Ca’ Mea. It was good. We stretched it out with appetizers, entrees, dessert and coffee. J really liked the rigatoni in pumpkin cream sauce.

We still got back to the rooms by eight. We played a board game and watched Roseanne on HBO. How could anyone marry that voice?

Saturday morning, we had brunch at Red Dot, walked down to Parade Hill the look at the river, then did some shopping, but didn’t buy anything. We hit another winery on the way back, but it wasn’t worth the effort.

I did try to get some knitting in, but couldn’t come up with anything I liked. I knit five or six different patterns, frogging them all as doing nothing for the Fleece Artist kid mohair/silk I have. It’s a beautifull yarn. Frustrating. I came back to Brooklyn with nothing more than frogged yarn.

I have finished my hat made of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino leftovers, mostly knit during conference calls.

That’s the outside; this is the inside. [The color is more blue than purple.]

Generally, it’s reversable, but the inside has a k4p1 rib to fit better inside the k8p1 rib on the outside. Cast on 90, btw.

Otherwise. Doesn’t Brad Pitt’s middle look a bit thick almost human on the cover of Vanity Fair?

As the purple hat for J was not particularly successful, I made another.

The wool is Debbie Bliss merino dk, knit on a #4 Addi Turbo circ and Inox dpn’s. The diagonals are twisted stitches as per Barbara Walker’s method. They carry up into the decreases to form a spiral in the crown.

The color is closer to actual here, but it does make the detail harder to see.

In other news, I went to work yesterday happier than I’ve been in a long while, not because of work or because I have today and tomorrow off, but because the Republicans lost on Tuesday. You know that it’s bad when the Democrats can’t screw up an election.

Colorado Knits has resigned.

We’ll miss you.