i am a butterfly…

Archive for the ‘A Thousand Words’ Category

Yes, I took my I photo that long ago and I’m finally now getting around to posting it.

(I apologize for the poor image quality in these photos. I didn’t bring the Nikon with me and the little Cybershot is on its last legs.)

Scott and I spent a really fun day at the Santa Monica pier yesterday. We got there sort of by accident when we forgot to reserve a rental car in advance and were scrambling for something to do without a car. I came up with a trip to LACMA so we asked the concierge how to get there and he gave us a bus route, then mentioned that the same bus also went to the beach. So we decided to stay on the bus till we saw the ocean and it just happened that we got off at the pier. Of course, now I have the theme from Three’s Company stuck in my head.

We saw the end of route 66 rode the ferris wheel, drank humongous mugs of beer, ate funnel cake, and I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. It was too cool to swim – for me, anyway; plenty of other people were in the water!- but I did get to wade in the water, which was pretty cold.

On the way back to LA, we did stop at LACMA. We made it there at about 6:45, which was just enough time to choose one exhibit before closing time. Then we saw the streetlight exhibit at dusk, which was the whole reason I want to go to LACMA in the first place, so our timing was just right. There were several photographers there with models posing for them, so Scott posed for me.

It wasn’t the day we had planned, but it turned out to be the perfect day.

I decided I wanted to go to Mercado 28 one morning so we all piled onto the bus and headed downtown. These photos were taken at a little place we stopped in for lunch when I saw the giant sign that said “carnitas.” On a day like that one, sitting in the stifling, airless heat, the custom of having a siesta every day is entirely understandable. We were all like heavy-lidded lizards, barely able to move.

H is for husband, and here is mine, enjoying a fantastic Mexican breakfast of meat, meat, and more meat!

I was really racked my brain for a G, and I think this one works.

A carving of a Maya god at Tulum.

It looks like just a plain old snake, but this is a representation of Kukulcan, the feathered serpent god of the Maya. You may also know him as Quetzalcoatl, as the Aztecs called him.

If I remember correctly, this is a carving of the god Chaac, the Maya rain god.

This doesn’t look like much, but it’s all that’s left of the temple of Ixchel, a Maya goddess. The temple is at Punta Sur, on Isla Mujeres, which means “island of women.” Punta Sur is the furthest east point in Mexico, so the sun hits here first every day.

What did you do?

Pattern: February Baby Sweater
Source: Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac
Yarn: KnitPicks Simply Cotton Organic Sport
Colors: Malted Milk w/ Ginger trim
Needles: US4

I love this little sweater so much! It was just shipped off to its recipient yesterday, so it will be waiting for her when she makes her big arrival.

I made a few small changes to the pattern to personalize it. For the tie closure, I just used a yo k2tog tow to create eyelets and then threaded a contrasting color  icord through them.

The cuff edging is a basic crochet shell edging. I really stretched my crochet skills here with such fancy stitchwork.

The rest of the sweater is edged in a simple single crochet edging, in the same contrasting color.

Yes, I somehow managed to screw up garter stitch. That little mistake is a lot more glaring than I thought it would be, but I’m mostly okay with it. I’m going with the idea that it was a purposeful mistake because only the gods can create perfection. Yeah, that’s it.

The great thing about cotton yarn is that it’s machine washable and dryable.  For babies, that’s essential, so this organic, undyed cotton seemed like a perfect choice. It will only get softer with washing.

I love how this turned out, and I can’t wait to see photos of Baby C wearing it. If I could change one thing, though, it would have been to knit it in DK instead of sport weight yarn. It ended up super tiny, so she won’t get to wear it for very long, sadly. That’s alright, though, because I’ll just have to knit her a bigger one as she grows.

As in new ones, I has them. It’s been years and years since I got a new pair of glasses. Fortunately, my prescription hadn’t changed much so the old ones were fine, but it was time for something new. I loved these instantly. The little blue flowers with the rhinestone centers did me in as soon as I saw them.

Let me begin by saying this: I do not collect decorative spoons.

For the 2008 ABC-Along, I wrote about the cow cookie jar we bought on our honeymoon in Aruba. I briefly mentioned that the cow was purchased on the last day of our trip, when we suddenly realized that we hadn’t bought any souvenirs the whole time we were there. It wasn’t until I was cleaning out a drawer in the kitchen last week that I remembered that we also bought this, the decorative spoon.

Have I mentioned that I don’t collect decorative spoons? I just grabbed this thing in an act of desperation so that I would have some record of our honeymoon. Some proof that we actually went to Aruba, since we also weren’t really photo-snappers in those days and have very few photos from that trip. I’m sure that I thought it was some sort of ironic purchase somehow, but looking back, it was just stupid. Now I have this decorative spoon cluttering up the kitchen and I don’t know what to do with it. Maybe I should display it with my ironic collection of shot glasses.