Not in Philly! (posted by Lani)

We had a near miss in Philly Monday morning -- too near a miss, frankly, way too near, due to a small plane not in contact with the control tower, not on the radar, and directly in our landing pattern -- and all I could think was "Please, God, not in Philly!" I'm really not ready to die anywhere, when it gets right down to it ... but as I sat in my jumpseat and listened to all the alarms going off and heard the strain in the pilots' voices and felt the plane take evasive maneuvers, that's all I could think. Please, not in Philly. Obviously deep in my psyche there's such a hatred for the Philadelphia airport that I'm not even willing to DIE there. That's Philly for ya.

So anyway, prior to playing dodgeball with small planes on Monday I had a long overnight in Erie, PA on Sunday. Nothing compared to Singapore or Sydney or the Great Barrier Reef, and I'm waiting impatiently for diving pictures Annie, but hey it is what it is, and what it was for me was Erie. Pretty much everything around the hotel, with the exception of a bar and a hot dog/ice cream stand down by the beach, was closed because it was Sunday -- but the mall in Erie is actually supposed to have some cool shops. Ok, I'll go mallhopping, why not? Then I discovered that the local taxi services have a flat rate to the mall ... the 5.69 miles away mall ... of $24.00. Each way. Now, the mall in Erie may be cool, but $48? That's an awful lot of cool. I'd spend that kind of money on a long lazy Sunday afternoon to get to the Smithsonian, say, or the Met, but to a mall in Erie, PA? I don't think so. Sheesh. What's with that?

Askew:

I finished it, blocked it, said "oh Hell", blocked it again, said several more pithy words, seamed it, tried it on, and sure enough, it's too small. What's frustrating is that I swatched not once but twice, and I got gauge perfectly on the second swatch. Apparently when I actually knit it I knit far more tightly than I had when swatching -- I still haven't figured out just why, but there ya go. I wondered several times at how small it looked, but I kept going back to the part of the pattern that talked about how much it would stretch width-wise and consoling myself that, after all, I got gauge and therefore all is well. Sigh. Next time I listen to my inner skeptic! On the up side it's lovely (the pictures don't nearly do it justice), and it was a learning experience, and someone, somewhere who wears about a size 8 is going to get a top knit from Noro, because I'll be damned if I'm frogging it. I'd show you just how small it is on but, well, just imagine a sausage in a lovely Noro casing and you've about got it right. Fudge.

Other knitting: Almost finished my lavender DD shawl.

Isn't it funny how a shawl still on the circs looks like nothing but a pile of tangled yarn? The second picture shows the pattern a bit better, but you still don't get the full effect; obviously this will look much nicer once blocked. I had intended to finish it on last week's trip but didn't quite make it; I'm thinking two, maybe three more repeats and then the (easy as pie) garter stitch edging. Once that's done I've picked yarn and swatched for this top for a knit-along with friends, and will take both the shawl and the yarn/needles with me on this week's trip. Yes indeed, you can bet that since Askew went so askew I'll be trying this baby on as I go.

And finally, I'm happy to report that I've infected Amanda (remember her? My FO this month?) with the knitting bug; after watching with fascination as I knit whenever we had long sits, she asked if I could teach HER to knit since she thought it'd be a great idea to knock out some scarf/hat combos for Christmas presents while killing time on trips. She's from Minnesota, too, so scarves/hats will obviously be much appreciated, especially handmade ones. I'm bringing her a set of needles and some yarn, and we'll start her off with a nice simple garter stitch scarf this weekend. That should make this trip more fun ... maybe I should bring needles for our captain, too!