Susan, that is the most exciting news I have heard for a long time – that someone else besides you is following the progress of my ASJ in or near St Thomas, Ontario. All I can say is, gosh. And, thank you for telling me.
(I didn’t include a link to your blog because my ancient computer freezes when I go there. I’ve added you to my Google Reader list, and will follow you in the slightly reduced form provided there.)
Day is slowly forming outside the window (I have saved my Extra Hour to spend later) – it looks dry, and if so I’ll attempt another doorstep picture of the ASJ. It’s now possible to see where we’re going with the front mitres.
(I didn’t include a link to your blog because my ancient computer freezes when I go there. I’ve added you to my Google Reader list, and will follow you in the slightly reduced form provided there.)
Day is slowly forming outside the window (I have saved my Extra Hour to spend later) – it looks dry, and if so I’ll attempt another doorstep picture of the ASJ. It’s now possible to see where we’re going with the front mitres.
But I spent yesterday, as promised, on the Christmas Project. It progresses. I think I probably won’t need the 5th ball of Cocoon, which is rather a pity, given what it cost.
Yesterday two skeins of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport yarn arrived, charcoal-coloured. I ordered them recently from a eBay shop, and realised immediately after the mouse-click which committed me irrevocably that I didn’t want Sport, I wanted Sock. (Which I subsequently ordered from Angelika – it’s not here yet.)
But Shepherd Sport is lovely stuff. I have thought of another possible Christmas Project on which these two skeins could be employed – I, who abhor the concept of Christmas Knitting. And I also wondered how Shepherd Sport might do for the Grandson Sweater. I went through the conversion process again, grams to ounces to metres to yards, and – if I did it right, a big if –Shepherd Sport seems to be slightly lighter than the yarn Pagoldh recommends (in “Nordic Knitting”, for her Portom Sweater).
But it’s a yarn I love and trust, and I think I’ll go with it. I still haven’t heard from Sweden. If I get a reply, I’ll order the Rauma Finullgarn I asked for. Otherwise, Shepherd Sport and swatching.
Chicago Place Names
(for Lorna’s Laces colours) The idea is wonderfully evocative. And how appropriate that one of their Famous Blogger colourways comes from Franklin, Chicago’s famous citizen.
What about “Andersonville” and “Tuscany”? two of the colours I’m using? Are they places in Chicago, too, as well as more famous places elsewhere?
I have found it absolutely impossible, over all these many years, to explain to the British why they are wrong to translate the Monopoly board into well-known London addresses. It should have been Nottingham, or Exeter, or even Perth. I didn’t know for decades, along with millions of others, that I was walking the streets of Atlantic City when I played Monopoly. I didn’t know what a Boardwalk was. Although I wound up in Asbury Park (where that particular question was answered), and have APHS in common with Bruce Springsteen, I have never been to Atlantic City. To think of actually strolling along Marvin Gardens!
I’m awfully glad to know I’m knitting Chicago into my ASJ. It was there I went for the interview which won me the scholarship to Glasgow which set the course for the rest of my life.
Jean, you have a KAL of sorts going on here in Southern Ontario--and we do gather at the Little Red Mitten. I am keeping up with you solely by using DK weight yarn...isn't it amazing how the addition of each new colour turns the ASJ into something entirely different!
ReplyDeleteAndersonville is a neighborhood in Chicago; the name comes from the number of Swedish settlers. (My sister lives there.) There's a nice small museum, the Swedish American Museum www.samac.org
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Tuscany (I've only visited Chicago myself).
Mary
Yup! Andersonville is a swedish neighborhood on the north side. The best place to get lefse in the city. :) As for Tuscany, I don't know of any neighborhoods named after it, but there is a Tuscany restaurant in Little Italy, which is conceivable as a reference since they seem to have named one after Buck's Bar!
ReplyDeleteWhat else have we got here? This is sort of fun.
Edgewater is another colorway named after a neighborhood. Huron is probably named after the Great Lake, but there's a Huron St. (in the section of east-west Great Lake-named streets: Ontario, Superior, Huron, and Erie - Michigan having already been used as a north-south along the lakefront).
Argyle, Devon, Montrose, Rockwell, Winona, Somerset and Sheridan are all north side streets; Sheridan is a colorful one as Lake Shore Drive ends at the north and turns into it, and it then winds its way along the lake all the way up north to Wisconsin as an official "scenic path" roadway. South Shore is the roadway that Lake Shore Drive turns into on the south end, and it takes you through some lovely old neighborhoods into Indiana.
Lakeview is an other northside neighborhood, and like Andersonville, is home to a large part of Chicago's LGBT community. Uptown is right next door to Ravenswood, where Lorna's is. Beverly is a south side neighborhood, as is Woodlawn, which also has a namesake street running up to Hyde Park, where the President's home is, which is just past our next colorway place.
Midway is the name of one of the airports, but it's also a wide, park boulevard (The Midway Plaisance), which was built for the 1893 World's Fair. Although it only runs for about a mile, at one end it has the only permanent building remaining from the White City (not to be confused with BBC Television Centre in London, hehe - we have no TARDIS!), now the Museum of Science and Industry, and at the other end has a Laredo Taft sculpture, The Fountain of Time. In the summer, kids play soccer in the sunken park of the Midway, and in the winter, there's ice skating. (I had to go on a bit there as the Midway is one of my favorite places in the city, despite how cold it can be walking across it in the winter, with nothing to break the cold wind straight off the lake!)
Flames may just be coincidental, but it's also the name of the mascot for the University of Illinois at Chicago - the UIC Flames. Had to throw that in there as I went to UIC. :) The University of Chicago is a bit tougher as their mascot is a Phoenix (rising from the ashes... fire's a whole big theme with us, as you see!), but their color is maroon so perhaps that's something for a Hyde Park colorway someday.
So that was kind of fun to go down the color card and look at. We have a pretty neat town here, so it's neat that Lorna's spreading the fun. Now if they'll just get working on that Printer's Row colorway for me, I'll be happy... :)
When you first bought the ANdersonville, I thought I commented on it. What is really fascinating about that neighborhood, I think, is that as the Asian Indians or Pakistanis (not certain of exact origins of imigrants of about 25 yrs ago) bought up the businesses, they left many of them Swedish, like the Swedish gift shops, resulting in some interesting encounters. Why mess with a successful business? I agree it is great fun to go through the color names!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit off the point since I am commenting back to yesterday's post, but I was fascinated to see the pictures from the Times article, and to get the date.
ReplyDeleteYou had mentioned it before, and I went back to my old Times Sunday magazine pages, carefully saved, and could find no trace of any SJ's either B or A. I now realise that my articles come from sometime between 1979-1983 - can't say closer than that but I do remember where we were living when I squirrelled them away. 1986 was Hampshire, and I don't think we had a Sunday paper then.
I wish I had seen them - I am sure I would have sent for the patterns. At least that explains why I spent such an age scouring the old pages that I have, and could find no mention of those patterns. All that there is of EZ is a pattern for the brioche rib watchcap.
At least I now have the relief that I am not actually missing something.
I certainly enjoyed Sabrina's tour of the Chicago neighbourhoods. I lived on Sheridan in Evanston for a year within easy walking distance of the Northwestern campus.
ReplyDelete