There were many changes for me in 2009. I relocated to Georgia, found a new job, and purchased a home. It was hard to find chill time, but when there was, I worked on a vest pattern from the Debbie Bliss knitting magazine – Fall/Winter 2008 issue. I’m still a little shocked to have typed 2008 in the last sentence. The magazine is more than 1 year old, so that means I’ve been working on this vest for the longest time…The vest is 3/4 finished…. Hurrah!
My nieces and I are starting to knit again. My nieces joined Ravelry, a great site to organize your crafty projects online, search for patterns, and make knitter connections. Some patterns are free and some are not. JJ has said that free patterns are downloaded and then re-sold for a fee somewhere else. There should be a copyright protection law for knitting patterns? I’m looking to knit slouchy hats and found some good and simple patterns on Ravelry. Yep, they were free. No, I am not going to repost the pattern to sell for a fee. I joined Ravelry when it first started and this site has changed since then. I love the library feature where downloaded patterns are stored, among many other cool features. Here’s the link to Ravelry – www.ravelry.com
My nieces and I bought yarn from www.knitpicks.com. We pooled our purchases to get free shipping. I ordered yarn to knit some light weight slouchy hats to wear in Georgia, where the weather is generally warm. But it hasn’t been warm lately. There was snow last month. Around 4 inches of snow that did not stick to the ground. I kind of missed snow, having lived in NYC for many years. We recently visited family in NYC in February for Chinese New Year. NY had 2 or 3 days of snow by the time we arrived. It was a welcome sight for me and I did not mind the dirtied snow. In the city, the sidewalks were cleared as if it did not snow. I met up with a few friends in Korea Town for lunch then met my family in Manhattan Chinatown. I wrote Manhattan Chinatown to distinguish it from the other Chinatowns. There are several in the outer boroughs – there’s one in Flushing, Queens and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. There are 2 other Brooklyn neighborhoods with small Chinatowns – Avenue U and 86th Street from 19th Ave to 23rd Ave. We walked from Chinatown to Soho and onto Japan Town in the East Village. Then we walked back to Chinatown to have dinner. Since it was Chinese New Year, we ordered a dish that was the restaurant’s special for the New Year.
As I’m writing this post, James Morrison is singing ,’Once When I Was Little ‘ in the background. I love his voice – raspy and strong, very similar to Rod Stewart. Mr. Morrison is an Englishman and his song,’ You Give Me Something’ was a worldwide hit in 2007. Where have I been to have missed this? On U-Tube, I watched an interview where he says his fans love his music because of the honest lyrics, and I think this is so true. One can hear the honest lyrics in the song,’ You Give Me Something’. Here’s one verse from the song:
You already waited up for hours
Just to spend a little time alone with me
And I can say I’ve never bought you flowers
I can’t work out what they mean
I never thought that I’d love someone
That was someone else’s dream
I don’t know why but I like the two lines about never having bought flowers because he doesn’t understand the meaning of it. These two lines is a shout out that he’s a guy who is not sentimental and yet he understands love. No nonsense lyrics, all right. He has been compared to Stevie Wonder and one can hear the similarities. He looks a little like Chris Martin of Coldplay, you know striking blue eyes and a little nerdy but attractive nerdy. Is there such a thing? Well, I don’t know but I do know that my niece-ys and I are knitting again.
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