New York City has decided to favor me with one last beautiful snowfall before my departure. The icy little flakes are gilding the berry clusters on the mystery tree I never did manage to identify (a blow to the pride of this woodland girl, I can tell you) and sizzling down the chimney onto the firewood I’ll never burn. I’m drinking one last glass of tea from the adorable shop downstairs before I pack away the kettle and the last of the glasses. It’s a bit of a woebegone day for me. Tomorrow the movers will come and I’ll have one last hurrah with my Spiders. And then on Tuesday we’re off to the next chapter. Time is passing shockingly fast. In fact, I’ve wasted more time staring out the window at the snow than I’m willing to admit.
So let’s turn to more cheerful thoughts. When I alight in Portland, it will be Spring. I’d almost forgotten how much earlier the season comes in the temperate west. My belle-mere, with whom we’re settling at least for the first couple of months, is an excellent gardener. I’ll have the chance to really get my hands in the dirt. In no time I’ll be photographing my knitting among the tulips and rosebuds instead of against the brick and concrete of my deck here. Mr. Garter’s mom is also a lapsed knitter, and she gets inspired when I’m around, so I’ll have a companion in the craft. And I’ll have all this to knit up:

Behold the European yarn haul: an absurd amount of chocolate tweed wool/alpaca for the Cabled Riding Jacket (I’m so nuts about this stuff I’m thinking of asking my friend in Milan to bring MORE when she comes to the States in April); enough wine-colored wool/angora for a sinfully soft, lacey sweater I’ll probably design myself; and two yummy hanks of wool I’ve earmarked for some kind of fair isle mitten pattern. Not the Pirate mittens, I think – the colors aren’t piratic enough. I’ve been eyeing that Foxes & Geese mittens book, whatever it’s actually called, and maybe there’s something in there that will call to me.

So much fabulous knitting to be done, and I’ll have lots of time for it, at least for a couple of months. Definitely something to look forward to. I’m scrambling to finish Cozy for my sister-in-law so I can hand it over when I see her in two weeks, and I had to dash off a pair of my favorite Koigu ruffle-rib booties for new baby Tyler, whom my cousin produced in February:

But it’s almost time to cast on something new. I’m bringing everything I need for the Hourglass Sweater – what’s better car knitting than endless stockinette? – as well as my trusty Montse Stanley in case I need to bust out a provisional cast-on on the road. And I’ve had one sorry Retro Rib sock languishing mateless in my drawer since October, so I’m bringing the yarn for that, too.

I’m chasing the sun west, my friends. Good things must follow. Change is opportunity. Now if I can just discipline myself to finish packing the last two $*@#ing boxes…

Pssst…anybody there? I think we’re clear! Mr. Garter is out for a run, so I think we have about twenty more minutes where I can slouch on the packing and blog…oh darn it, I was wrong. He’s at the door right now. Maybe he’ll take pity on my hapless out-of-touch state and let me finish before I go back to breaking rocks packing the kitchenware boxes. Although he’s angry at me for having used the only two unpacked towels to dry some sweaters. Okay, so I forgot it’s his running day and that he’d need to take a shower tonight. But anyway, I’ve packed him, complaining, into the shower with a damp towel that smells of mothballs (sorry, honey), so now we can talk knitting for a few moments before someone shows up to look at the apartment.
I did finish my Olympic knitting with time to spare, and to celebrate I wore it out to a secret hipster restaurant in NoLita on Sunday night instead of watching the closing ceremonies. We at Blue Garter don’t typically frequent secret hipster restaurants, in case you’re wondering, but we were meeting Mr. Garter’s boss and he picked the place. You go into what looks like a little corner taqueria and (if you have a reservation) through a door marked “employees only”, and the oh-so-much-chicer-than-thou host ushers you through the kitchen and into the secret hipster sanctum. It’s all done up like a slightly divey Mexican cantina, but expensive divey (I don’t know if they pull this off anywhere outside New York City, honestly). The drinks and food are pricey but delicious, and my knitting really did pull the “outfit” I’d cobbled out of what’s not pack together pretty admirably. Really, though, you can wear anything you like in New York City as long as you look confident doing it. I know I’m a terrible tease not introducing said knitwear at this point, but it really does need a good six inches of ripping and reworking and then I’ll be able to make a decision whether or not to pursue publication of some kind.

So I give you this:

Olympic knitting, baby! Here I am at the Palasport Stadium in Torino, cheering on the Canadian men’s hockey team during their rout of Germany. Now we will have a moment of silence for the subsequent ignominious fate of said hockey squad, during which we will recognize that they were just setting themselves up to make the tremendous arse-whupping they’re going to dish out in Vancouver 2010 all the more satisfying. Just look at that woman in the seat behind me – she thinks I’m the whackest thing she’s ever clapped eyes on, including the five German guys down below us who are dressed as farm animals and (apparently) Little Bo Peep. Feast your eyes, lady. This is all in the glorious cause of Olympic knitting. How awesome are the gold medals, by the way? Totally better than the real ones, which look like those blingy model CDs they give music artists when their records go gold or platinum.

Okay, now it’s time to pack another box and roust out some odds and ends for dinner. I think it’s going to be spicy black bean burgers and pasta with garlic and olive oil…the remaining contents of the kitchen are pretty uninspiring. I can’t wait until the move is over. We’re going to have all kinds of changes around here. There’s a snazzy new design in the works and everything. I promise, it’s gonna be good! Just stay tuned and bear with the intermittent posting. Thanks!

The European adventures have concluded, and I’m back in familiar New York. I’ve bailed my cat out of jail and returned to the routine of packing boxes for the Big Move Out West. Talk about post-vacation reality checks! We’re still working on loading our photos onto the computer – we shot raw images and the computer is apparently a little more geriatric than I would have believed. So unfortunately, we haven’t gotten up to the one of me knitting at the hockey game, or displaying my incredible yarn haul in Milan. But here I am at La Droguerie:

Note the paper bag in my left hand, which contains a modest two skeins of yarn, some beads, and some buttons. We had the Ryan Air baggage restrictions to consider for our flight to Milan, so I held myself well in check. Such was not the case once we reached Milan, which contains what must be one of the best-kept secrets in the knitting world: Lanar. This unassuming shop, tucked back in a courtyard on a street that receives little tourist traffic, caters to a lot of machine knitters and offers some of the best deals on bulk quantities of high-end yarn I’ve ever seen. The yarn appears to come straight from the mill, and they sell it by the half kilo. Friends, I made out like a bandit. For a mere 60 euro, I came away with enough lush chocolate tweed 80% wool / 20% alpaca to make a Teva Durham Cabled Riding Jacket and some soft wine-colored DK/worsted wool/angora for a simple sweater. Pictures of that to come, I promise.

I also finished my Olympic knitting project. I’m not going to display it here just yet because I haven’t come to a decision about whether to submit it for publication. I’m leaning towards just offering the pattern here, and it needs some reworking anyway, but my Spiders will see it in person and the rest of you will see it sooner or later. Sorry to be all mysterious! And now my allotted blogging time is up and I need to dive back into the boxes and wrappings for another hour or so. The blog may be sporadic over the next few weeks, but I promise more consistency beginning in April, when we’re settled in Portland! Thanks for your patience, everyone.

Ciao, amici!

This time I write from Milano, where we’re staying in the very comfortable apartment of two good friends. I hoped I was going to have some pictures to show you – clutching my purchases outside la Droguerie, knitting on the TGV, and most importantly, Knitting at the Olympic Games. Sadly, our Mac-calibrated iPod won’t interface with our friends’ PC, so no photos until we return to the US. But about that knitting at the Games…

Last night we went to our first event, the men’s hockey game between Canada and Germany, in the newly built and very beautiful Palasport stadium in Torino. The torch burns above the small stadium (Mr. Garter got some incredible pictures with the long lens), and the stadium itself is faced in ovoid-stamped metal pierced with scores of thin horizontal windows. Inside, it’s all clean light – huge mirrors reflect the milling spectators in the broad corridors outside the seating areas, clear plastic bucket seats line the fairly intimate stands, and giant glass doors would bring in natural light during the day. It’s as pretty a sports venue as I’ve ever seen. And we had an excellent position high above the goal that Canada first defended. There were 8500 people attending, and by the second period the stands seemed pretty full. Most seemed to be supporting Canada: red and white clothing everywhere, flags by the hundred, painted faces and torsos, etc. But the Germans had a strong showing, too, including some boisterous fellows dressed as farm animals and, apparently, Little Bo Peep in a pink dress and bonnet. It was a great crowd – The Wave made about seven consecutive laps around the whole stadium at one point – and we had a terrific time. Of course it helped that it was clearly Canada’s night, and a goal just before the buzzer made the score 5-1 despite a powerful German defense. We were worried about making the last train back to Milan, so we left our seats two minutes before the end, watching the final play from the balcony below, and then sprinted screaming and celebrating with six or eight other Canada fans out the doors and through the security checks (they didn’t try to stop us) back to the main street, to be first onto the shuttle bus. The less athletic among us nearly killed ourselves in the effort, but it was well worth it as we made the train with time to spare.

And of course you know I made the night even better by whipping out my Olympic knitting between periods. Mr. Garter got a nice picture for the blog, although he declared me the biggest dork on the planet. But how can you call yourself a true Olympic Knitter if you don’t take the opportunity to knit at an actual Olympic event? Anyway, it was a great night, and even worth the cold I seem to have caught. Tomorrow it’s up to the mountains for the men’s Super G, and possible the short track speed skating in the evening. But first, I’m off to scout the local knitting territory. Our friend here crochets and she’s given me a tip on a great yarn store called Lanar in downtown Milan. Tally ho!

Arrivederci!