Music under the stars

The Time Warner Center has their holiday stars up again. 

They're one of my favorite decorations of the season.



Unfortunately, they also mark the start of Christmas knitting season. 
Pardon me while I panic,
Joyce

Elephants in Columbus Circle

I was walking through Columbus Circle the other day and came across elephants.

Well, bronze elephants.  They are life-sized and really quite wonderful!  The fountains surrounding them made me think about elephants at watering holes and how beautiful and playful they can be. 

This one is about to take a bite out of the Big Apple! 

That guy sitting on its trunk should probably get out of the way,
Joyce

Stitch-N-Pitch

Stitch N Pitch NYC took place recently and I got to go with the ladies from my knitting group.

We got to watch the Mets play the Nationals and, sadly, lose. 

But the knitting was great.  We geared up before hand by knitting yarn bombing squares. 

The knitters were allowed to yarn bomb our section of the stadium this year. 

Knitty City coordinated the efforts and my knitting group was assigned two garbage cans.  I think we did a great job. (Sadly, mine squares were attached at the back of the can by the wall.)

The people from Warm Up America were there giving out yarn and needles for knitting blanket squares (which are really rectangles, but let’s not get into that again). 

By the end of the night we had enough squares for a small blanket.  (Which then became enough squares for a large blanket because people kept giving us squares.  Did I mention that awesomely weird things happen when I’m with the knitting group?)

But my favorite part of the night by far was the cowbell man.  He rang a cowbell during the game to get the fans to cheering.  I, of course, thought of Christopher Walken the whole time.

More Cowbell!
Joyce

Random NYC

Now you too can dress like the Statue of Liberty!

I know it's what I've always dreamed of,
Joyce

Random NYC artistry

Note to self: insert non-crude caption here,
Joyce

Random NYC

Eeek! There a giant iguana crawling down the side of the building!

Run away! Run away!
Joyce

Random NYC artistry

Of course a sheep would only speak of love,
Joyce

Spring flowers

I love spring! 

As I've mentioned in the past, I also love that NYC does my gardening for me. 

When the plants bloom in the spring it makes me feel like all things are possible.

Please enjoy the flowers with me.
 

Thank you April showers,
Joyce

Sunrise, Sunset

Sunsets in NYC are absolutely beautiful.  

The only problem is that actually seeing them can be rare.  With all of the tall buildings, even if you're in a relatively flat area, seeing the sunset is difficult. 

But sometimes I find myself in a position to see a beautiful sunset.  The most recent time, Hubbie and I were going back to our car in the parking lot on the top of the movie theater and there it was.  An amazing sunset.  

Seeing the sun rise is just as elusive, but even more rare for me 'cause I like to sleep in. The last sunrise I saw was during my last visit to GiGi.  The only reason I saw it was because I was on my way to airport for an early flight.  

Did I mention that I'm a night owl,
Joyce

Tulips for trying

Working on a PhD sometimes makes you feel like a mole person huddled in the dark hunched over your computer.  So I was really looking forward to going on a field trip with my lab class this week.  I was hoping for sunny weather so I could get some springtime outside time.  Unfortunately, we had a rain storm that was bad enough to cause me to have to cancel the fieldtrip. 

But New York was nice and rewarded me with tulips and hyacinths for at least trying to go outside for a little while.

Even though I did have to get rained on to see them,
Joyce

Park Ave version of spring

Hubbie and I were wandering around the City last week and came across these.

There are huge metal roses all along Park Avenue in Midtown.  They're amazing.  (I've only seen them at night, thus the bad photo.) The bug person in my loves that they have bugs on them. If you look closely at the middle rose, you can see a lady bug!  She's keep away those giant metal aphids! Wait, what do you mean not everyone is having problems with those?  Only me?  Again?

They're an art installation by Will Ryman.  They went up in January (get the feeling that I'm not on the upper east side much?) and will be there until May 31st. 

Which means that maybe I'll get to see them in the daylight,

Joyce

NYC Vegetarian Food Festival

The first annual NYC vegetarian food festival is being held this Sunday, April 6th. It's being held at The Altman Building, 135 West 18th Street (Between 6th and 7th Avenues) and is free to everyone!  TK, her sweetie (the Ninja), Lana, and I are going.  I can't wait! 

Yay food!
Joyce

Spring has sprung!

Finally!  I have to admit that I was getting pretty tired of the snow and cold.  But then I came across these.

The crocuses are blooming.  Aren't they beautiful? It's like mother nature is smiling at me.

I can't help smiling back,
Joyce

NYC gardens for me

As I wander around the City, I come across beautiful late summer/ early fall flowers.  Some of these are expected.
Such as the ones in Flushing Meadows Park:

Or the flowers in Central Park:

Still others are really quite unexpected.

This Moon Flower was growing up the side of a garbage can at the 72nd Street entrance to Central Park.  I was a bit startled to see it staring at me boldly as I approached to trash can with my trash, looking at me as if to say , "Don't make me have to show you why you're happy you threw that trash in the can instead of on the ground. What?!?!"

I just wanted to say Thanks NYC! for doing the gardening for me.

Birthday thoughts

I turned 30-mumble mumble this past week.  Many people mark the start of the new year on January 1st.  For me the new year starts on my birthday.  I feel as though that day marks both an end and a beginning.  On my birthday, I let go of the hurts and disappointments of the previous year. I turn instead to gaze upon the year ahead where all things are possible with the feeling that I can make positive life decisions and enjoy what the year has to bring.

Oh, and what am I going to knit this year?  How exciting!

I freely confess that I am a shawl knitter.  I love to knit shawls (shawls, and more shawls).  Socks are beautiful, but unlikely to be knit by me (you have to knit TWO of them, in the same yarn even!).  Ditto sweaters (this may change, but since I don't wear them, why knit them?).  I do knit the occasional hat (oddly, the nephews won't wear shawls), but 99.9% of my stitches go to shawls.
So, that said, I know WHAT I'll be knitting this year- shawls.  I even know who most of them will go to- GiGi (she's insistent like that), but I don't know yet what they will look like, what size or shape they will be, or what yarn I will use.  All of these questions get me quite excited for the new knitting year ahead.

Oh, I'm imagining it, NYC, and it is awesome!

I started the lace weight version of the yellow highlighter shawl.  Hey! I only promised TK the shawlette version, so she should be ok. :-D

As you can see, it's not highlighter yellow, but more buttery.  GiGi, however, loves butter yellow and I have to have something to give her for her birthday next year.  It won't take that long to knit, but I've already made her Christmas present.

Meet Mercia, or at least the corner of Mercia.  She is a fingering weight shawl that I've submitted to the Knit Picks Independent Designer Program.  I've released three patterns with them and a fourth to be released in the next week.  I'll make sure to talk about them soon.

I spent my birthday working.  I teach a couple of Biology labs at one of the colleges that make up the City University of New York.  I'm also working on a PhD in Biology with the same university.  So I spent my birthday teaching and working on my research.  On a positive note, I got to spend the morning in the woods at Inwood Hill Park.

It's the closest thing that Manhattan has to a natural area.  The weather was cool (high 60's) and sunny.  It was a beautiful way to start out the day.  Plus I got to knit on the train on the way back to campus.

Hubbie Trickery

Hubbie woke me this morning with plans for an outing into the City (Manhattan). For those of you don't know the man, this is a surprising, nay shocking, turn of events. While he generally likes Queens, he tends to avoid the City like the plague because it has way too many people.

So when he suggested lunch (Chipotle, yum), the Strand (who can resist 18 miles of books?) and a trip to Lula's (a vegan ice cream place that makes my little heart go pitter patter) and a movie, I was all for it! Even if that movie was Scott Pilgrim, which he had seen 3 times (4 now). It's a cute, fun movie and the music in it rocks!

I suspect that Lula's and the Strand are simply just forms of bribery so he could see the movie again. I'm not above accepting bribery, especially if it looks like this:

Meet Lula's soft serve Cake Batter vegan ice cream cone. It tastes just like yellow cake batter and is make mostly of cashews. It's heaven in a waffle cone.

I was also able to get some knitting done in the movie theater. Knitting has gotten me through some really bad movies (Piranha 3D anyone). It's usually limited to stockinette in a fingering weight or larger. But sometimes can include a simple lace repeat. For my third viewing of Scott Pilgrim I chose stockinette.

This beginnings of a shawlette is in Knit Picks Stroll tonal sock in Canopy. It's a Merino/Nylon blend and really pleasant to knit. I found it to be a bit squeaky while wet, but it block beautifully and, despite the nylon content, it holds the block really well.

I spent much of yesterday designing a couple of shawlettes and redesigning a couple of others to go with some MadTosh Pashmina I got Wednesday.I absolutely love the highlighter colors (yellow-Edison's Bulb; orange-Tangelo; pink-Neon Rose; green-Chartreuse). I've designed a series of shawlettes specifically for these colors, one for each. TK, my test knitter extraordinaire, requested to knit the yellow one. She's been drooling over the Edison's Bulb for months. Given that she's also my PR person, enabler, and often used knitwear model, who am I to say no?