Summertime Rambling and Ashley Paige's Sexy Little Knits!

Thanks for all the compliments on the Mountain Laurel Blanket! And thanks so much coming back to read this blog!

This will be my third summer in Syracuse. I’m surprised to see the difference in behavior between the people of PA and the people in CNY. I get the impression the folks in CNY really take advantage of the summertime. I’m sure it has a lot to do with the fact that wintertime around here makes it almost impossible to be overly-adventurous (unless you do a winter activity like skiing, snowshoeing, and ice fishing). So, CNY’ers seem to get out and enjoy themselves. There’s lots of going-ons downtime, people are finally discovering the Inner-Harbor, people are hitting the parks, lakes, and beaches… My point is for most people life is busier in the summer. I think that’s why I’ve been neglecting this blog for while. Not that I’m overly busy, but blogging time has been replaced by trip planning, trip-taking, or other sorts of summery things. And when my downtime comes around I find that I’d actually like to knit, watch movies/anime, or read. I can’t blog about knitting if I’m not actually knitting anything. I’m sure once Autumn is upon us once again, I’ll be more attentive to blogging again. But I’ll try to post up at least once a week for now on.

Now, onto the knitting-related:

I finished the Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet Tuesday night. I started it the Friday before that. So I pretty much had it done over the weekend. That’s my kind of knit! Pictures this weekend

In the mean time I’ve finally decided on what to knit with that recycled yarn from long ago (that’s just been sitting waiting to be used). I decided on this pattern from Berocco. I’m not a huge fan of Berocco designs, but some of their more recent stuff is pretty nice (don’t tell the You Knit What! girls). Either their patterns are right on, or waaaayyyy off. But this, I like. There are some other ones I’ve been scoping as well.

Did I tell you how much I love my local library (Hazard branch on W. Genesee for you locals)? I love them because not only do they have an awesome DVD collection that includes a good selection of anime (doubly awesome because anime is quite pricy, I saw the complete series of Last Exile thanks to them, and not to mention the first 5 seasons of The Sopranos… but I digress) they also are really good about ordering the newest knitting books. Lately, there are always at least one or two knitting books gracing their New Items shelves. Sweet. I got this one yesterday:

Sexy Little Knits by Ashley Paige

It’s quite intriguing. She’s not kidding when she says the knits are little and sexy. Sexy cuz they’re little. It almost puts a Victoria’s Secret catalogue to shame. But what I like is that designs aren’t vulgar-sexy (which really isn’t sexy, imo) more like Vogue-sexy. There are lots of bikinis (which I find most interesting), some summer-wear which aren’t my cup of tea, and some “loungewear”. She has a pattern for hipster panties, which I’m going to look into to. I like these new books that gear towards the young and “hip”. I hope to see more.

I showed Mr. V some of the bikinis when I was paging through, and then later on I saw him paging through it on his own which I thought was cute. I don’t ever recall him paging through one of my knitting books or mags on his own before. Not that I mind, but I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself (but don't get the wrong idea about him, Mr.V = best hubby Ever). Honestly, he only liked one or two of the designs, and he thought most of the bikinis were too skimpy and unpractical since knitted bikinis aren’t really meant for swimming. Oh well, I still recommend it.