knitting in the dark

I think there is a mail thief in my new building, which is so depressing to me. I live in a small (only 16 small studio units) apartment building in a decent neighborhood. Since I moved in at the beginning of August I have had two packages delivered via USPS go missing. The first was just after I moved in so I chalked it up to change of address post office confusion. But I ordered something exciting from The Loopy Ewe exactly one week ago and it shipped two days later and the tracking information indicates that it was delivered the 15th at 2:55pm. It is now the 18th. I checked with some neighbors and my super to see if anyone knew anything, but it’s nowhere to be found. Seriously, folks - really? When Mr Mail Thief opened the package did he (or she, I suppose) say - “Oh goodie! Regia Kaffe Fassett Landscape in the Storm colorway!” That’s what I would have said… but they probably actually said - “Yarn? Bummer.” And then what? Why not just tape the box back shut and put it in front of my door? I would be glad to have it…

I think what the US Postal Service does on a daily basis is pretty amazing… but the lady I spoke to this morning about my missing package was significantly less than friendly. She took my information and told me someone would call me back tomorrow. So after that I called my local branch and asked them not to leave packages at the building anymore. The man I spoke to was very nice and he took my building address and said he’d speak to the carrier and the truck driver and advise them to leave package notices instead of the actual packages. I guess it will be sort of a pain to have to make the trip to the post office whenever I have a package, but it’s far better than never receiving it because it was stolen off my doorstep!

Despite the recent cooling of temperatures here in NYC, it is still officially summer for another week… we still have a little humidity, but we’re down to the mid-70s during the day and pleasantly cool low-60s overnight. I almost need to put a blanket on the bed, but not quite. But the impending autumn weather makes me look a little less crazy for knitting wool socks (and let’s face it, sometimes I need a little help looking sane). Earlier in the summer (maybe July?) Stitch Therapy in the northern end of Park Slope had a super deal on their sale corner (but they always have good stuff in the sale corner) and I picked up three lovely skeins of sock yarn at 40% off each. I got two different colors (my favorites - blue and grey) in the Trekking Pro Natura, which I hadn’t knit before:

And I’ve already knit up the blue - FO pictures to come shortly (just as soon as I fix Photoshop). I also picked up this lovely skein of Mountain Colors Bearfoot, in colorway “Steelhead”:

I <3 Bearfoot. The first time I knit with it I was concerned about the mohair-itchiness factor on my feet, but after a few wearings and washings my Bearfoot Hedera’s are as soft as soft can be and super warm. Now to find a pattern for this yarn - Bellatrix socks, perhaps? I think it may work well with the amount of color variegation… thoughts for other patterns? I will have to consult Knitting Sutra’s “no pool” sock pattern list for other ideas…

Yay! A new knitty for fall inspiration!

Must knit the very masculine Henry immediately… for myself and possibly as a throw instead of scarf unless a man appears in my life sometime soon (ha!).

I wish the designer had a blog to follow because I want to see more…

Um. Am I the only one? I think I might be. I received my invite to Ravelry weeks ago and, while I think it’s a cool idea (I was really excited about it when I first read about it on her blog way back in the middle of April) and I think that it’s quite well designed and well made and that they’re doing an amazing job handling the demand of the masses (who knew there were SO MANY knitters online?), I’m just not sure that it has a place in my life except as a research tool. I very well may change my mind about this later but: I really like my blog here and I do understand that Ravelry only gets better the more its users participate, but right now I don’t know that I can justify the time it would require to double-post both here and there. Had Ravelry existed before I started blogging last year I may have just gone that route as I was merely looking for a place to catalog my knitting, but now it’s too late for that!

There are a few things I really like about the site: searching for a pattern I think I might want to try to see it done in other yarns by other knitters, and… well… I like the “UGHs!” Sometimes it’s just more satisfying to see things that didn’t work out right! ‘Cause I have a couple of those hanging around (but well hidden for the time being)…

And here’s my major complaint: Flickr. I’m already hosting all my own photos - so why can’t I just link to them? Maybe it would take a lot more programming to allow that… I don’t know how that works well enough to guess, but I do know that I don’t particularly want to upload all my photos to Flickr just to play along. Apparently this will be changed before they actually officially “open” to the public and maybe I will revisit how I feel at that point.

Please understand that this post is really not intended to be a criticism of Ravelry itself (as I said, the site is really well done) but merely how I feel about where the site fits into my online life at this point. Maybe there are others who feel the same…?