There are things blocking everywhere

This is Ishbel from Ysolda, and I did play with the pattern. Made it with sock yarn because I loved the color and once I got to the last lace pattern I just kept going til I had barely enough yarn left to bind off. It is a large scarf or a VERY small shawl. I will know better once I get it off the wires, but it sure did come out pretty...LOVE that color.

And then there is this which is another one of my subway scarves, I played with blocks, different sizes of squares with some spacing rows of yarn overs. This one is another one of the leftovers from the Mason Dixon dishcloth on steroids. A pale cream color. This is the aromatic cotton from Colourmart.com.

Color is not right in either picture, but ..it is going to rain yet AGAIN!! When did they move New York to England or Thailand or Seattle, and why didn't they tell me before it happened?

Someone got another haircut

Don't her eyes look HUGE?? Who says a haircut can't change your outlook on life?

Ok, I am bragging...

I got the mirror hung on the medicine chest .. with help from Blogless Nicki ... and I think it looks great, so here are some shots of what my bathroom looks like now. The light is not the best, because it is, as usual, going to rain any minute, but you can get the gist of it all

The stained glass in the window is "real". I found it, and another one, in Atlanta years ago and have been carrying them around since then. I have never had them in a window before this apartment. The other one is in the kitchen, but that is for another day. Today we are celebrating the bathroom.

better photo of the whole top of the mirror

I never took a picture

of my bathroom mirror, I have been hunting through all my Picassa files trying to find one and I guess there is just not one to find. In any case, this is the story of my bathroom mirror. First, it is not the original that came with the medicine chest. The previous owners added a bigger mirror with a not-my-choice-ever silver wooden frame. In addition to that, the mirror had a lot of places along the bottom that had de-silvered (or whatever the technical term for black ugly spots is).

Since I am short, those black spots were right in my eye level view, although the top of the mirror is just fine. So one day I drummed up some paint, took the mirror down and painted the frame the same green that I had painted the frames of the three pictures that hang in the bathroom. BIG improvement. Then, while I had it off the wall, I turned it upside down in the frame so the black spots were up at the top. Blogless Nicki came by and we managed to re-hang the mirror and it was a lot better, but those damned spots still bothered me and the hinges that were on it were loose and I couldn't get them any tighter.

NOW!!! I got some Pebo Vitrine glass paint, drew some circles, drew some lines, slung some pait and my mirror, which I can't hang back up by myself and is sitting here waiting for 4 hands, has a new "stained glass ish" top and the black spots are INVISIBLE!!

I was so proud of it that I had to show you even though the fan is visible in the picture and it needs to be rehung in the bathroom, which I will do when I find an unsuspecting stranger with some time on their hands who wants to spend that time in my bathroom .... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Above is the full top of the mirror. The design is about 3 inches by about 15.5 inches. Those brown things are the bedroom ceiling fan blades reflected in the mirror.

closeup of part one.

part 2

part 3... there is more, but it is not quite in focus. More later when I find the extra set of hands.

So I know it is after the 4th of July

But this year I went down to the river near my apartment because THIS year, the Macy's fireworks were on the Hudson River.

We got there just as the sun was setting over the Little Red Lighthouse. Isn't that a yummy picture?

There were a lot of people sitting around waiting for it to get dark enough and admiring the view down the Hudson.

They lit up the bridge for the 4th also. They have converted the String of Pearls to LED's and it is now looking really good because they are all lit for a change. Seems that before the LED conversion a few lights in the string were always out. The supports look SO amazing lit up.

We were too far away to see the low ones, but the evening was a resounding success anyway. The big problem was that you couldn't really HEAR them.

My building has the most interesting trash!!

This was in last night's trash waiting for the porter this morning. It didn't qualify for either of the recycling buckets, I guess...

Sunday Brunch

Friends appeared from DC today and we met for brunch. The place was Bodrum Turkish Mediterranean on Amsterdam near 88th. The meal was yummy and the outside space was fun and not so busy that you felt as though you were sucking up bus exhaust. There was also a pizza that I didn't get to photograph alas, but it looked very pretty and by all reports was good.

It was also interesting conversation and I got a surprise, which I will document later. Something EXACTLY up my alley to use to play with in the jewelry that I am pushing in some new directions. HOORAY! and thanks so much!

If you have an attachment to clamps

consider the above picture and weep. Sienna, a character well known to my faithful reader(s?), is crated when I leave the house for longer than 30 minutes or so. Mostly this is to keep her from eating cat food and otherwise annoying the other fur critters in the house. However, during the 4th of July fireworks there were some "local exhuberance" fireworks set off right behind the apartment and they scared her. She managed to open one side of her crate and squeeze out. I figured it was a terror reaction and refastened the side of the crate but yesterday when she greeted me at the door again I knew a stronger intervention was required.

So, today when I left for brunch, I clamped the side she has managed to open together with 2 clamps, opening inward with handles on the outside.

When I came home, the items in the picture above were on the floor of the crate, and Sienna was lounging on the couch.

Maybe she will learn to drive next and come find me whenever I go out?

and finally

I made these, well, actually, I am making these, one is done the other has the heel turned and is almost there. They are from the insanely creative CookieA

Sock Innovation is an amazing book, I was getting bored with socks a little but she gave me back my sockness.

HOWEVER .. she does socks from the top down. She has reasons, and they are valid, but socks from the toe up are the ones I like to make. We shall not discuss my inability to do Kitchener stitch in polite company. Aside from that small issue, I have small feet. I have, as a matter of fact size 6 feet and I like my socks LONG. There is no way to tell how much yarn you can devote to the top when you start at the top and work down because you are always worrying you won't have enough for the feet. I mean, how awful will it be when you have created this glorious top part of the sock ... the part most people see ... and you don't have enough yarn for the toes because you added an extra repeat.

So just briefly.. I copied her pattern chart, turned it upside down and knitted the blasted things from toe to top. The pattern generally worked. There is some oddness where I think the side panels were supposed to cross into the cable-y part, and that didn't work so well, but the rest was fine and I improvised an eye of partridge toe and heel and I LOVE them.

She is a genius, that Cookie A. I just wish I knew what was supposed to happen in that wonky little bit that didn't work upside down. But, overall, I am pleased and they fit my foot like gloves without the fingers.

Also

I have knitted several of these. I knit them on the train and just do a row of yarn overs when I get bored. This one is done in aromatic cotton from Colourmart. They seem to be out of a couple of the colors, but this is nice stuff. I made the scarves from the leftovers from the dishcloth afghan that stole my life awhile ago.
I keep giving them away, but I am on the train a lot so I can make more as long as the yarn holds out.

All my work is Clementine inspected, so you know it is good.

and this is required, even though it is late

This was the start

of how 4th for July looked around here... I LOVE this bridge

I walked across the George Washington Bridge

This was the view from the North Walkway. It was hazy all day and followed by rain, which I missed.

Opened to traffic: October 25, 1931
Lower Level opened: August 29, 1962 Translation: they added Martha later, she was an afterthought

Length: 4,760 feet or 1,451 meters (between anchorages)
Length of center span: 3,500 feet or 1,067 meters
Width: 119 feet or 36 meters
Width of roadway: 90 feet or 27 meters
Height restrictions, Lower Level: 13' 6"
Height of tower above water: 604 feet
Water clearance at mid-span: 212 feet or 65 meters

The Upper Level is suspended from four steel cables, each 36 inches in diameter and composed of 26,474 wires. The cables are carried by saddles on top of two 604-foot-high steel towers.

On the New Jersey side, the tower rises out of the river 76 feet from shore; on the New York side, the tower stands on land.

Since there are 4,760 feet from one anchorage (the place where the cables are attached into the palisades rock) to the other, both ways, plus the extra walk to see what it all looked like from New Jersey and to and from the apartment had to be 2 miles. Two FLAT miles once you go up the stairs to the walkway.

This is the walkway, and as you can see it is very narrow. The traffic is pretty close to you as you go along, but the overall effect is still great. You are sharing the walkway with bicycles and runners and other walkers.

These guys didn't have to share their walkway with anyone. One looks like the Silver Surfer who was always one of my favorite comic book superheros.

This is the view from New Jersey. The north side of the bridge is the only one open during the week, so the view from the roadway is all upstream. That may be great when the weather is clear but the South side has the NY skyline, so now I am going to have to do that one. The South side walkway is open on the weekends according to one of the bridgeworkers.

Le Corbusier ------

"The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the sky like a reversed arch. It is blessed. It is the only seat of grace in the disordered city. It is painted an aluminum color and, between water and sky, you see nothing but the bent cord supported by two steel towers. When your car moves up the ramp, the two towers rise so high that it brings you happiness; their structure is so pure, so resolute, so regular that here, finally, steel architecture seems to laugh� The second tower is very far away; innumerable vertical cables, gleaming across the sky, are suspended from the magisterial curve that swings down and then up. The rose-colored towers of New York appear, a vision whose harshness is mitigated by distance." I thought I had this post scheduled but it appears that blogger requires 2 numbers in the day portion of the date, or it won't publish.. oh well, this was supposed to be the 4th of July post