what happens here, stays here

this is a wedding dress. it's also a work of art. i wish i could say i knit it.



it was actually knit by my friend lucinda, who wore it to get hitched in vegas on new year's eve. what else would you wear to get married at the little white wedding chapel?



she brought the dress over the other night before we headed over to a new knitter initiation rite. that's michelle on the left. a jewelry designer who claims not to have knitted since she was a kid. doesn't she look remarkably relaxed for someone knitting fingering weight wool on US3s?



michelle shares this wonderful studio space with two sisters, cheryl and dona. cheryl is a seamstress and expert felt-maker. the studio is filled with amazing pieces like this felted yardage cheryl recently whipped up.


cheryl hates to have her picture taken. i don't understand why because i think she looks totally cool in this shot. she'll probably still be pissed that i posted it. (sorry cheryl).


barb is also new to knitting and also hates to have her picture taken. i had the three of them working on knitting squares to make rowan solarises. next time we get together, we'll felt them. or "full" them as the felting queen cheryl informed me. she says felting only applies to fabric created from raw fiber, not from a knitted piece.


lucinda cast on for an exciting new venture: a collection of RTW knitwear. i can't wait to see what this will turn out to be.

rad pads

leggings, bubble skirts, wayfarers, stovepipe jeans and now this. shoulder pads, it appears, have made their inevitable comeback. of course, these are mere padpoles compared to the full-blown specimens favored by joan crawford...or collins for that matter. but if these bobbled cardis from max mara's fall 2008 collection are any indication of what we have to look forward to, i'll be happy to shoulder the burden.

a visit from the yarn fairy

the funny thing about having a bum knee is everyone thinks you have all this extra time on your hands...or on your ass as the case may be. ("hey kate, just be thankful you don't knit with your knees!")

well, the bad news is i don't have to type with my knees either. my legs can't do the walkin, but my fingers are another story. which means, no lollygagging around here. there's work to be done! or so my clients tell me.

none of this will stop the yarn fairy from his appointed rounds. above is the haul from the second visit. he dyed many of these himself. a self-proclaimed old fiber fart, this yarn fairy, also goes by the name of "mad max."


one of mad max's pieces...the guy is amazing.

this is the guy who made me a garter belt for my wedding day that was strung with fire-engine red twelve-inch lengths of silk fringe. it was bedazzled with so many rhinestones, i had runs in my stockings just looking at it.


"thrums" are what he calls these mini-skeins of undyed silk, linen, flax, cotton and other wondrous fibers.



but even more wondrous than the fibers was this tiny ladybuy i found stuck to one of the cardboard cones of wool. it's as if she lit upon this wooly tangle and became transfixed. i know the feeling.

day2, run2, ski-over

one minute you're traversing across the tail end of a perfectly bumped and pow'd run on ajax mountain. and SNAP. just like that. you're being hauled down ruthie's run on a ski patrol sled, loaded into the back of an ambulance, and dropped onto a gurney at aspen valley hospital.



in the ER, every draped cubicle they wheel you past seems to have a ski boot poking out from behind the curtain. these guys know what they're doing. form follows function. the ER leads to the xray room which leads to the MRI room which leads straight to physical therapy, where a guy named louie teaches me how to put on my new BFF, bracie. say good-night bracie.

this is most definitely NOT where i envisioned myself spending my days when i set out on a girls ski trip to aspen last week:



instead, THIS is where i envisioned myself...hiking up the knife-edge of highland bowl, dropping in somewhere around gate six, and sliding and gliding my way down through the ohhhh, two to three feet of freeze-dried powder heaped inside like a jethro bowl full of confectioners sugar.



my plans for the perfect ski week unraveled faster than a skein of red heart. the hottie PA sean delivered the verdict: ruptured ACL, torn meniscus, and a lateral tibial plateau contusion, otherwise known as a bone bruise.



over the next four days, i gazed through the wooden blinds from my vantage point on the couch. over THREE FEET of snow accumulated over the mass of white stuff already on the deck. see that beige pointy thing jutting out of the snow bank? that's the tip of a tabletop umbrella.

tea and sympathy were in abundance. or shall i say, pinot grigio and vodka and sympathy. my husband even sent flowers. (speedy recovery AND happy birthday! feb 4 was my b-day. don't ask how old. it will only make me crankier.)



the good news is, what i'm missing in ski time, i'm more than making up for in crutch time. turns out, i'm a hell of a crutcher. a true crutchinado. the crutchinator. arnold crutchenegger. in fact, i highly recommend the crutch workout over all other forms of upper body conditioning. try doing it with sleeveless tops and you may never have to shave your armpits again.

also, of course, as everyone tells me, i should count my blessings. it could have been much worse. thank god i was wearing a helmet. there's always next year. i will feel much better soon. thanks also to the nice lady in the airport yesterday who told me not to worry; that she, too, had had a ruptured ACL and was back to normal in no time. i thanked her and watched as she limped back to her seat in the waiting area. and that other lady on line to board a flight who, upon noticing my predicament, advised me to "go for the cadaver." apparently, the tissue from a 20-year-old male dancer is preferable to any other form of ACL repair. "don't let them take your hamstring!" she called out over her shoulder as she passed me.

oh, and aspen has an awesome yarn shop where they measure the fur yarn by the gram on a scale formerly owned by a coke dealer.



something tells me i'll be doing a lot of knitting over the next couple of months. and of course, working. as luck would have it, a bum knee has approximately zero impact on my ability to work on a laptop. or procrastinate from my work on a laptop by blogging incessantly.