The art of the ladies room

OK, this may be a little off the usual blog entry that people expect here.

I’ve started a photo series exploring what the ladies’ room of today looks like, now that we don’t have fainting couches and such waiting in the lounges of department stores. The most I’ll ever show is mirrors, sink, tile, etc. The rest of the facility I’m editing out (unless I’m in the Victoria Albert Museum and there’s a museum exhibit of the swan toilet from the Victorian era). Thank you Philadelphia Museum of Art for opening the Perleman wing. The quality of light throughout this museum… well, there’s a lot more to the exhibit than just the art — the light is mesmerizing. I did get some great shots of large glazed pottery urns in the light in the main exhibit hall. But the real fascination started with the photo to the right, because the light coming in a bathroom window was just amazing. And then, I saw the sink and realized that American Standard and all sorts of other sink manufacturers would love light like that in one of their catalogs. Since I was in a museum, had a camera, and was absolutely alone (I would never use a camera if there was someone else there…. ew!) I shrugged and took the photo.

Goin’ West

For Project Spectrum, I headed West to the land of tall buildings and the fictional home of JR Ewing. Back again, without extra yarn. I’m hoping the pictures I took will come out and I’ll be able to show you the few blue skies I got to see during a short visit to Dallas. There was great food, I got to see people I see once a year, and I wasn’t in the office. The bad part — I’m exhausted, I’m not sure I have something appropriate to wear tomorrow morning, and the cats were very very angry.

No, I did not go to the museum about Kennedy’s assassination. I did get to see an amazing Asian art museum (if you’re ever in Dallas, check out the Crow Asian Art Museum to hear calming beautiful music while getting to look at some of the most splendid jade from China and interesting marble temples from India). It’s weird that I got to go West to see mementos from the East. But here we have East brought to the West by avid collectors; and the old within the modern world of skyscrapers.

Noodling about, thinking about a dreamswatch shawl

I have some Koigu that I’m swatching today. I will see how the swatch(es) knit up (size 0 needles, but they’re square needles so the gauge is really small), and then think about what I want to do next. It may all depend on what the yarn feels like when it’s washed. Options include:

• Dreamswatch (7 to 15 repeats of the pattern) for a kind of shawl or stole if the yarn does not wash up to be as soft as I hope
• Socks (that’s a ravelry link — it’s for the Interweave Knits Windowpane socks, and would need a background color)
• A baby hat (no pattern in mind, but it needs to be soft!)

I kind of wish there was more olive in the yarn, because that would have made it visually fight less. It’s always interesting the difference between the nicely coiled hank and the yarn balled up or knit up. Of course, it’s always interesting to knit up items that have marinated for a long time in the stash drawer. I can’t remember which pattern I originally thought I’d do. So, think the dream swatch shawl would be a good idea?

Eine Kleine Destash Project

I’m trying to design a little sock. I want something that reminds me of water, summer, and clean rivers. Guess I’m plunging into the Water element of Project Spectrum.

I have two different yarns for this project: Opal ZwergerGarn in white-blue (streaks of white and streaks of navy blue similar to Mississippi 2085) and Regia 4 Fach Haltbar (4 colors are in #5374: dark blue, light blue, gray green and light gray green). Both skeins are similar in weight and yarn thickness. Both were bought as sale yarn years ago, so I don’t feel bad about a possible Frankensock.

I will probably adapt a plain pattern, and then play around with a bit of Fair Isle knitting… Think: knitting finger paints! I’m left with the question one sometimes asks when pairing two kids together on the first day of camp: “Wonder if they’ll play together or fight?”

In other knitting news, I keep knitting on the Sampler Sock (Little Child’s Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks). I’m up to row 94, and hoping to get to the wacky “break the yarn” stage after row 109 soon.

Hope everyone out there is taking advantage of these last sweet days of summer. I got to go to the State Fair on Saturday, and may have some pictures of the horses in the equitation competition.