Hey Luuuucy! I'm hoooooome!

Ahhh. What a glorious two weeks of fun in paradise. We spent a week on the big island and a week on Oahu... I enjoyed the big island but WILL be going back to Oahu, again and again. Some highlights:

- trillions of goofy self portraits with amazing backdrops


- high speed catamaran ride from Waikiki at mid-day = wet and wild fun in the sun

- snorkeling for the first time ever and LOVING it so much that I did it 4-5 times

- seeing fabulous sunrises like this one looking out over Kailua Bay:


- night hiking down at Volcano National Park to see the lava spurting out into the ocean

- sunset dinner on a sailboat for our 5 year wedding anniversary

- finding out that boogie boarding is not only fantastically fun and exhilarating, but is also an awesome triceps workout

- basically hanging out in places like this every day:



Remember that Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock I bought to make socks with while travelling? Yeah. I knit about an inch of one sock on the way to Hawaii, and that's it. No kidding. I haven't done any knitting for TWO WEEKS! We were so busy the whole time. Which is good. I did read The Kite Runner (excellent), About a Boy (hilarious), and Talk Before Sleep (don't bother).

Today I got to visit with Fulay at Little Knits -- she was having a sale and I offered to help out a bit -- I got to meet Samantha (I hope to see her again soon!) and bought 10 skeins of Classic Elite Gatsby in this pretty robin's egg blue tweed... yummy... bought it to make the Diagonal Twist Princess Seam Jacket from Loop-D-Loop. Little Knits has the best price on it ANYWHERE (41% off!!) and Fulay prides herself on speedy delivery and spot-on shipping fees. Go check it out!


Now I feel the need to knit. Good to be home, even though I had 872 Bloglines posts to catch up on... You guys are chatty! :)

Pack Your Suitcase

Getting ready to leave for Hawaii. Aaaaahhhhh...

Leah asked what yarn I'm using for the Union Square Pullover. I did kind of tease and then drop the ball, didn't I? Well, I'm going to be using Misti Alpaca Sport in grape for the body and lime for the contrast. Sounds fun, eh? I'm getting it through Little Knits. They don't make sportweight in lime, so I'm going to experiment with double and triple strands of laceweight to get gauge. The contrasting color is so minimal that it shouldn't be too big a deal, right?

Misti Alpaca is like buttah. No kidding. And Sue has the color cards for all the different weights so you can see all of your options if you decide to use this yarn for Union Square or anything else, for that matter.

We leave on Wednesday morning and will be gone a couple of weeks. I'll leave you with a couple of travel photos from a different part of the world. Last summer I traveled all around eastern and southern Europe; part of my mission was to visit the small village of Komiza on the island Vis in what is now Croatia.

When my ancestors left there at the beginning of the 1900s, it was considered Austria. This is a picture of the family shortly after arriving in the United States. The little boy, who was named Mateo, would grow up to become my great grandfather John. So ridiculous how folks changed their names to sound more American.







His mother, also seen here in this photo where she's enjoying a visit to Vashon Island, was named Tomazina, and was probably Italian.

My mom met me in Budapest and traveled to Komiza with me -- it was her first time abroad. We stayed a week in the Dalmatian Islands, not just on Viz but also visiting the isles Hvar and Bisevo. Here's one of my favorite shots from our hotel room in Komiza.



And below is what the much of the town looks like... very small windy lanes with a little shade (it's HOT there in the summertime!) and little flowerboxes. It's a little bit like what I think Greece is like; the island is very arid and rocky with no real chance for agriculture except for vineyards. The economy depended upon wine and fishing, politics and wars affected this area quite strongly, so over the years, a good number of families left for better oppportunities. The population took a dramatic dip after World War II. The island was used as a military base until pretty recently and tourism has been nil until the last ten years or so. Which was nice because the water and beaches were still pristine. Gorgeous.



Enjoy and I'll post again in a couple of weeks!

Baccarat Player

Have you seen this?

Did it catch my eye because of the India connection? The shaping? The neckline?

Little Airplane Knits

Yesterday, I went to visit my friend Sue at Little Knits. I'm looking at two great yarns for a couple of projects I want to make, including the Union Square Market Pullover from the most recent Interweave Knits. If her rep can get the two colors I want, I'll show and tell... if not, that just means I get to go back over and play with yarn some more!

In the meantime, I joined the Union Square KAL, because clearly I need more projects.

While I was at Little Knits, I picked up a couple of skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport. I love this colorway, called Georgetown. It has blues, greens, aquas, purples, all blending together.





I think it will make a great pair of Conwy socks from Knitting on the Road. So this just might be my airplane knitting for our trip to Hawaii that's coming up quick.

I just noticed that my little blog has 50 subscribers already. Wow! Hi everybody! I hope you don't all think I'm obsessed with my boobs. I was chuckling to myself that I should've called my blog Bustline or something. But I've lost a good amount of weight over the past year or two, and I'm still getting used to what I look like and what sizes I wear. Too bad my brain takes longer to get used to it all than my actual body does. Body image and all.

And try applying that to choosing the right sizes for handknit sweaters...? That's where the obsession lies, if there is one. Especially after yesterday when I found out that my bra size has changed again. My band size has finally gone down to 34. But guess what? You can add another D to my Bustline.blogger.com (ha ha). I've changed alphabetically to an F! Gah! The woman who was helping me was really great, but when she offered me a G, I said, "NOOOO!". Thank goodness I tried it anyway and it was way too big. So now 50+ perfectly nice knitty strangers know all about my boobs. Isn't that swell. :P

In other news, tonight we go to an Independence Day party on a house boat on Lake Union. It's the perfect place in Seattle to see the fireworks. Have you seen Sleepless in Seattle? That's the house boat! No kidding!

The Kindness of People

I won a Rebecca magazine from a German seller and I assumed I could use PayPal, since I've used it tons of times with UK sellers. This seller had never heard of PayPal.

After some digging around, I found that sending money via Western Union ($20 fee), doing a wire transfer from my own bank ($45!), etc. would be too expensive relative to the purchase. So I asked her to either sign up for PayPal or allow me to send actual currency in the mail. Risky... Or, if it's too much of a headache, to cancel the auction. :(

She said, oh don't worry, send the US currency, and I know you're a sincere person, so I'll send the magazine today, trusting that the money will arrive.

How cool is that?

Mostly, it points to my feeling that people in the US are not very trusting in general. I can't imagine an American eBay seller doing the same.

H R Shrugs N Stuf*

Thanks to everyone who weighed in with their opinions about itty bitty shrugs and not so itty bitty bustlines. I think, for the most part, they don't work together very well. But then I got an email from Tracy, in which she told me about her own One Skein Wonder. Tracy knit a OSW in combination with a sleeveless shell that she designed. The set, in my opinion, makes the most of both worlds and is very flattering on her!

So if I ever decide to make a shrug, I'll make it in combination with a shell so they look continuous together.

The rest of you cute little things should definitely make more shrugs if you wanna, 'cause they look fabulous on you!

In other knitting news, I finished Aprikot Jacke's back and cast on for a front piece. So I'm about halfway done with the knitting part. I guess I should update my sadly neglected sidebar, eh? I also found a bunch of black, white and mint Cotton Ease almost by accident yesterday. Definitely colors I'll use. The Pistachio I might use for someone's baby gift. Trellis, maybe?

Happy Canada Day!

*Remember H R Pufnstuf? Man, we had some seriously psychedelic kids' shows back in the day....