Sycamore Grove

Adagio Teas: Li Zi Nutcracker

Rating: 4/5
Price: $10 per 5 oz. (I got it in a sampler of green tea, though)
Origin: The Guangdong province of China
Form: Loose green tea (came in an adorable tin)
Review: Out of the tin, it had a grassy, hay-like scent that reminded me of henna, actually. a pleasant, growing smell. Once infused (I actually boiled the water, oops! It's supposed to be 180 degrees.) it has a strong green scent, less like hay and more like watery green vegetables, like cucumber or zucchini. Still, very pleasant. It has a very earthy taste, not bitter per se, but with a slight tang to it. I wonder how much of that is because I made it with too-hot water. There is a bit of a bitter aftertaste. After a cup: It's funny how my taste buds get used to things. I was unsure of the whole tangy-bitter thing, but now I kind of like it. It's not something I'd serve at a kid's tea-party, or with something really sweet, but I could see it balancing out some cucumber sandwiches or stir fry quite nicely. Ooh, or a spinach salad.

Okay, now I've made myself hungry. I need to go find food. Ciao!

Yesterday I went to Indy with Amy. We went to Stitches and Scones, a lovely little yarn store just off the beaten track. It's stuffed chock full of yarn, pretty stuff, too. Lorna's Laces, Malabrigo, Tofootsies... More stuff than I could imagine. And it was more manageable than Threadbear; it wasn't quite as big, so I didn't feel so overwhelmed.

I wish I had some more money, so that I could have bought something there, but I'd have no idea what. I'm not one of those people who can just stash yarn. I have to have something in mind when I buy it, a project to make, otherwise I just can't do it. The only exception to that is sock yarn. I can buy sock yarn, because I know what it's for. Socks, obviously.

Then we went to Wild Oats, the one is Carmel, which is the rich-people's neighborhood in Indianapolis. Wild Oats is an organic grocery store; I'd love to shop there on a regular basis, but it's so expensive. I did get a couple different kinds of tea, though, so be on the look out for those reviews.

Oh, I had the best sandwich there, too. It was grilled vegetables (mushrooms and peppers and zucchini and lots of other yummy stuff) mixed with some spicy sauce stuff, it was kind of like salad dressing. Very zingy. And then it was put on bread and panini-ed. Yum.

Anyway, it was a really good day. Very fun. I wish I had more time to do stuff like that.

Frontier Teas: Organic Raspberry Green Tea

Rating: 2/5
Price: $45 per 1 lb. oz. (online), about $38 per lb at Wild Oats. I got about 1 oz. for $3.60.
Origin: Unknown
Form: Loose tea, flavoured with dried raspberries.

Review: This tea was not one of my favorites. It had a very raspberry-ish scent out of the tin (or baggie, as the case may be), almost like those saccharine raspberry cereals. When infused (boiling water, about 5 minutes steeping time), it still smelled like berries, but mellower, less sugary, and with the scent of the green tea, as well. The tea infused to a lovely deep pink colour. It had a very mild taste. Fruity, but not as sweet as I thought it'd be, from the scent. I could taste the green tea flavour more than the berry. When I added some honey, it brought out the berry more. It was okay hot, but I can imagine it'd be quite lovely, sweetened and chilled in the summer.

So, I'm having a hard time trying to decide what to do. I love to read other people's blogs, knitting and otherwise. But it really seems to me that most people who blog have a specific angle that they're working. Whether it's knitting, or journaling, or whatever.

So, my dilemma runs thusly. I want to have a personal blog here. That's really become the aim of Sycamore Grove in the last little bit. Even though there's a site collective at the main URL now.

And I want to have a knitting blog. But the thing is, I have this little yarn business. Of course, it's all but dead, but I want to revive it. And when I do that, I'll probably get a domain name to go along with it. So, if I had a knit-blog, I should probably have it over there, you know?

So, the REAL dilemma. I hate blogging in two places. Even my LJ is a stretch, but I'll keep that because of the community there; I like the instant access to everyone else.

Anyway, yeah. I'm torn. Should I add a whole section to this blog, knitting stuff, only to have to move it eventually? Or should I just forget the idea of one blog or the other? Or should I say fuck it, and blog wherever the hell I damn well please? (Wow, that was a bunch of expletives.)

...

In other news, Nick and I went to go look at some apartments the other day. And we found one (it's the 4th down) that looks freaking awesome. It's a two-bedroom, 1100 square foot townhouse with a bathroom and a half, upstairs and downstairs, and washer-dryer hookups for only $625 a month. That's a really good price around here, considering that our last apartment was $350 for a one-bedroom, one bathroom, no washer-dryer, tiny (maybe 400 square feet) apartment.

But the thing is, we'd have to move in around May, and that's when Nick graduates. Which means he wouldn't actually have a job by the time we'd have to sign the lease. Even though it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that he'll get one that pays at least 20K a year. So, we have to ask his dad to co-sign. I hope he says yes; I really REALLY want this place.

There's a duck pond, and a gazebo, and a swimming pool, and there's trees around, and I can keep my cat (places around here are very big on the whole 'no pets' idea). And man, there's something about that place that feels grown up, you know? Not college student. Not transitory. Like a home; well, like it could BE a home, if we tried.

It's taking all my willpower to not break out the graph paper and a schematic of the place and start arranging furniture. I don't want to do that until I know we've got the place. But it's really hard.

...

Lately, I've had this wild idea to write a book. I was thinking about writing a book about my Mom. Before her accident. It started out with me thinking that my grandparents are getting old, and when they're gone, there won't be as many people who remember my mother. Not as many full of stories as they are. So I wanted to go around to my family and collect stories about her, when she was young. And then maybe, I was thinking of trying to publish it. I do have a friend who's an agent-ish person. She might be willing to do that for me... I dunno. I haven't worked up the balls to call my family and ask them for stories anyway.

Yesterday was the day of craftiness, I think. I swung by Danner's (a local bookstore that also happens to carry yarn and stuff) to pick up some #3 circular needles. I had spun up some sock yarn (which was hand dyed, too; how awesome am I?), but I'm never sure that 4 oz of fiber will be enough for a pair of socks, so I decided to knit both of them from the toe up and at the same time.

Then I figured, well I'm taking pictures, I may as well snap some of other knitting related stuff that happens to be lying around. This next stuff is the yarn and swatch for the shawl I'm supposedly knitting for my wedding. The pattern is from Amy's copy of Victorian Lace Today. I was going to try to knit one of the more complicated patterns, but it didn't really work out very well. I must have made about seven swatches, and none of them came out without at least one glaring error. Hence, the simpler, yet not unrefined diamond-y pattern.

This last stuff is my stash, the blue stuff, at least. Seriously. It's really hard for me to buy yarn without a project in mind. I may not make that project, and that does indeed happen sometimes. And I can spin yarn and not have any use for it (although that's usually to sell). But mostly, I have a purpose for yarn.

But, when I was at Danner's buying my needles, I came across one skein of KnitPicks Shadow yarn (are they even allowed to resell KnitPicks' stuff?), in the colourway Jewels. It's so pretty, so blue-y and purple-y and gorgeous. I have no frickin' clue what to do with it.

So, that's all the knitting stuff that fit to print around here. I feel like I should maybe have more, but that's really all there is. Huh.

Spring Knitty is live! I love waking up to a new free online knitting magazine. Seriously.

I'm still making my way through the articles, but the "things I adore and must knit when we actually have money for yarn" list stands thusly:

Carolyn (but probably not in those colours. Pink and green maybe?)
Isabella
Briar Rose (for Hannah or Zoe)
Queen of Cups
Quill Lace
Clessidra

Oh yeah. I'm such a sock whore.

Last year, I was obsessed with my camera. I took pictures everywhere, and of everything. I've kind of lost that, although I'm trying to get back into it a little. I've been carrying my camera everywhere with me, but I often forget I have it. Maybe I'll write CAMERA! in big red letters on the back of my hand.

Anyway, In anticipation of spring (omg, get here already!), I've decided to post the following picture for Eye Candy Friday. I took it last April, on campus. It's one of my favorites.

1. Okay, so I don't know if it was the picture or what, but it was, like, sixty degrees today. I was walking around in sandals and a tank top. And, oddly enough, eliciting dirty looks from a family that were (all five of them) wearing sweatshirts and winter coats. Like they were blaming me for it being warm out. Or thinking I was immoral for wearing a tank top, even though it was warm out. It was weird.

2. So, my friend Mary was talking to this girl's boyfriend the other day. She mentioned playing D&D (almost all of our friends do; that'd be seven or eight of us), and the guy was like, "Really? I didn't think anyone did that any more." Mary shrugged, expecting that to be the end of it, but he continued: "I mean, D&D is like gay people. You hear about them, but you never really know any, or see them, you know?"

W. T. F. I mean, first of all, comparing D&D to gay people? Like comparing apples to quantum physics. Second of all, "you don't really see them?" I'd like to know the Neverland he's living in, 'cause here in the real world, they're all over the place. I don't think I've laughed so fucking long in my life.

So now, all of us want to make buttons to wear to Gen-Con that say "I'm a Gaymer, ask me how" with a little rainbow on them. Hee!

3. I spent, like, four hours skeining yarn today. The company that I bought my yarn blanks from sent me one pound of sock yarn divided into two loosely bound half-pound skeins. Nothing is more of a pain in the ass than trying to measure them out into roughly 100 gram lengths and re-skeining them. I still have another half-pound to go before tomorrow, when I'll do my dyeing.

4. Nick and I are going to drive up to Lansing on Monday to buy the material for my wedding dress. I ordered swatches from the internet, but none of them have come yet. I need to get this sewing done (at least the majority of it) before the end of this week. Otherwise, I'm going to be getting married in my chemise. So, to Lansing it is. Now let's pray we'll actually have money to pay for everything. Things have been really tight lately.

5. I'm really fucking glad it's Friday. And not only is it Friday, it's Friday before Spring Break. I really need this.

1. Make up dye-stock. Done!

2. Dye yarn.

3. Go to JoAnn's to get trim. Done!

4. Finish blue ball gown. Done! Well, mostly done. All the machine sewing is done.

5. Have tea. Done!

6. Do laundry until my eyes fall out.

7. Fold said laundry badly, because of blindness.

8. Finish working on invitations (motif on the envelope or not?) and make them a PDF.

9. Let Nick make a wonderful dinner for me. Done! And was it yummy!

10. Fall asleep, exhausted, but satisfied in the knowledge of the things I got done today. Not done yet, but will be before tomorrow!

So, we went to Chicago to buy wedding dress material yesterday. That was a fucking adventure.

We started out at noon, about two or three hours later than we'd wanted. Not that it was a bad thing, we slept in, something we both needed, and had a leisurely breakfast, but still. And then when we'd got up to the Vogue fabrics in Lansing (three and a half hours on the road), they didn't have anything I wanted. So we drove to the one in Chicago proper (about another forty-five minutes worth of driving). They had some stuff, but informed us that the store in Evanston (yet another forty-five minutes away) was the place that had the bridal selection.

Nick was already pissed off at me because I didn't call ahead of time, and I'd had a minor (read: major) breakdown in the car regarding wedding stuff and how planning one's own was for the birds. After that got cleared up, we walked to the store, only to find that they had a very limited selection of silks. Like one bolt of ivory charmeuse and a whole bunch of dupioni.

After running around like a chicken with my head cut off, looking for something to go with said ivory bolt, one of the guys suggested we go over to another fabric store that was right across the way. After a harrowing run across a four-lane road with a walk signal three seconds long (no hyperbole here), we found the place. And their $120 a yard fabrics.

After yet another harrowing return sprint, I started looking through the potential over-dress fabrics again. And found one I liked. So, then it was just a matter of finding something satiny to go underneath it. I found a natural-cream polyester satin that I liked, and we were good to go.

I love it. My mind tricks me into thinking the under-fabric is darker than it really is, until I'm imagining having a taupe wedding dress. But then I look at it again, and I see it's only a shade or two darker than ivory. It's just that it's a brown-neutral tone, instead of a creamy-yellow tone. But it's awesome, With the embroidered white organza over it, it looks almost antique.

It's funny though. I wanted silk and chiffon. I ended up with polyester and organza. But I love it anyway. And just so that you have an idea of what it actually looks like:

This one shows the colour best.

This one shows how the organza's embroidery fades up from the border.

"The Ides of March? Why, that's today. Thank you... Glenn?"

Okay, done with the RenFaire in-jokes.

Last night Nick (I feel like I should have some witty nickname for him, like other bloggers do for their significant others. Oh, well. If Brenda Dayne can call her wife Tonya, than I can call my fiance Nick.) and I went to see 300.

Wow. If you don't fear spoilers, read the extended entry. If you do, enjoy here my non-specific, non-spoilery review.

This was a movie much with the pretty. Three hundred well-sculpted men clad only in leather loincloths and red capes running around the plains of Mediterranean Greece. Yeah. And for the guys, there's the queen of Sparta, a nubile young oracle, and King Xerxes' seraglio. Everyone wins.

Seriously, though? Good movie. Worth seeing in the theatre. Beautiful colours, beautiful cinematography. Not so much with the historical accuracy (though Greece isn't my forte anyway) but it had enough fantastic elements in it that it was clear that the movie wasn't meant to be a "history" so much as a story. Which was nice. Usually after period movies, I'm moved to spend the hour after picking it apart. But not this time.

Also, very gory. For the love of Pete, Steve, don't let your daughter (does she have a pithy online nickname?) go see this one. There were a lot of slow motion stabbings and beheadings and things.

Okay, now for the specific stuff...

Adagio Teas: Sencha Overture

Rating: 5/5
Price: $12 per 5 oz. (I got it in a sampler of green tea, though)
Origin: The Shizuoka region of Japan
Form: Loose green tea (came in an adorable tin)

Review: Wonderful scent out of the tin, a bit like new cut hay, but not overpowering. When brewed, it smelled like edamame, or spinach, or some other green vegetable. Very fresh. And it's an adorable spring green colour, about the same as is in my icon. And, oddly enough, it tastes a little like edamame, too. It's a very light taste, very suited to summer, which was when this tea was harvested. Very nice; I'd drink this every day.

This is Munchkin, Indiana Eponine's daughter. Isn't she adorable? She's sitting on Joy's lap, happily eating all of her pumpkin pie.

It's kind of an older picture, from November, but I love it. Munchkin's a lovely model, too, for a two-year-old. She grins on cue.

Adagio Teas: Kukicha

Rating: 5/5
Price: $7 per 4 oz. (I got it in a sampler of green tea, though)
Origin: Japan (no region given)
Form: Loose green tea (came in an adorable tin)

Review: Again, like most of these Adagio loose green teas, I get a wonderfully grassy, fresh, green scent right out of the tin. This one smells a little less like green veggies and more like 'tea,' though, once brewed. Very herbal tasting. Light, but not sweet. Not bitter either, though. Yummy. A little lighter than the Sencha tea; very good for every day.

You know, every time I type something like that, I'm taken back to the time I worked as an "administrative assistant" for a mortgage firm. Administrative assistant, my ass. I was a secretary. Man, I fucking hated that job.

Oh well. So, on to the stuff that actually matters. I figured out how to create a syndicated feed via Livejournal. So, in case anyone out there has an LJ and wants to friend it, you can find it here.

Ugh, it's raining out today. At least it isn't in the thirties again, which makes me happy, and it's supposed to warm up as the week progresses, but still. I'm so ready for it to be spring. I want to wear cute skirts and dresses and tank tops with nothing on over them.

Okay, I don't really have anything to say. Maybe I should post some cat pictures, but I don't have any uploaded. Man, am I apathetic today. Must be the gloom. I'm gonna go before I fall asleep on the keyboard, and drown in my ennui.

Ciao.

Let's just call a spade a friggin' shovel, shall we?

Wow, that came out a lot more confrontational than I thought it would. See, the thing is, I'm really really tired. And when I'm tired, my internal censor is the first thing that shuts down, so I end up cursing like a sailor. I do that normally, in conversation, but for some reason, I always thought it uncouth to type a blog entry that way.

Eh, whatever.

The actual reason behind this tiny post before I amble off to bed is: I've added yet another feature to the blog (I didn't just edit my last post 'cause I wasn't sure it wouldn't fuck up [see? there I go again] the feed on LiveJournal). If you want to comment, but don't want to have to wait to see it until I get around to approving all the massive amounts of comments I get a day (I think my record is a whopping three), then you can go here and register for a TypePad account. That then will allow me to classify you as a "trusted" commenter (commentor? No, it's commenter. My spelling goes next.) and removes you from the "pending approval" game.

So, yeah. I hope that was at least entertaining, if not informative. I tend to get carried away by parentheses. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than having to resort to brackets to have a parenthetical note within an already parenthesized (is that even a word?) sentence.

Also, I'm taking a cure from the awesomely fantabulousNeil Gaiman and making ridiculous tags for my entries. Some of them will actually be helpful. Most of them only exist because of my ever whimsical, uh, whim.

Uh-huh. It's obviously time for bed.

This picture was from my birthday party a couple of years ago. There were water glasses around a candle, and it just looked really cool.

I'm off the LaserTag tonight to celebrate a couple of my friends' birthdays. I have plans to kick the opposing team's collective ass. I'll probably have more to write about tomorrow. For now, though, I'm off.

Okay, so movable type's being a bitch, and I'm just wondering if this is going to actually post.

Please?

[This didn't post when it was supposed to. MT was being v. bad last night and giving me errors when I tried to post. So, um, have it now.

EDIT: okay, this is really weird. Movable Type is giving me errors whenever I type the word "s et" without spaces. So, if parts of the post look odd, that's why.]

Okay. So, I'm sitting here in the photo lab, waiting for my pictures to develop, and it occurs to me that I haven't updated since Friday. And that's nearly a week! And seriously? Eye-Candy Friday doesn't really count as an update. It's just a picture.

Friday night, we went to Fionn McCool's (McCumhail's? I can't remember which spelling it was) for dinner. It's a little Irish pub in the nouveau riche part of the Indianapolis suburbs. It's really nice, actually, and not too expensive for rubbing shoulders with the upper-upper-middle class. I got "bangers and champs" which is Irish for "bangers and mash." Seriously, it's the only place I've ever heard of that calls their mashed potatoes 'champs.'

After that, we went over to Laser Flash and my team proceeded to kick the snot out of the other team. There are three s ets of three games each, so you have a total of nine games in an evening. Red Team (my team) won two out of three games in each s et. And about half of those games were won by a margin so big you'd need a telescope to see the end of it. Seriously, it was kind of sad. To be fair, the other team was comprised of two of my friends (there were seven of us in total) and a bunch of tween-agers who'd never played Laser Tag before.

But you know what? We kicked their asses. And, the last game was a free-for-all, with no teams. Let me preface the rest of this story by saying that there is a ground floor, and on either end, a ramp upwards. The upper level meets in the middle with a bridge with mesh sides that you can shoot through. Well, during the last game, the seven of us formed a squad, started calling ourselves Spartans and held that bridge against all comers like good little hoplites.

Other than that, the week has consisted of attempting not to strangle my drawing professor (with varying degrees of success), doing wedding stuff (we've got our officiant) and trying to catch up on schoolwork. All while trying to keep on top of my hobbies (moderately successfully) and have a social life (less so).

omg omg omg.

*deep breath*

Okay. So, I listen to a bunch of podcasts. One of them is Lime 'n Violet; it's two friends who get together weekly to dish about yarn and knitting and a bunch of stuff, usually, that doesn't even have to do with knitting. I luff them.

I also just opened my new Etsy store, Cloven Pine. I have this thing for websites with Shakespearean references in the names. I'm selling handpainted sock yarn with, surprise, Shakespeare names. Like I would normally do, I notified a few places that I had new product up, and left it at that.

Well, one of the places was the Lime 'n Violet forum. And Miss Violet was drooling (drooling!) over my yarn. So I said, 'pick a skein, I'll send it to you, gratis.' (I made the same offer to Miss Lime, am still waiting to hear back) And she said, 'yes, pls, thank you, I want that one.'

Miss Violet knows who I am! And loves my yarn!

*deep breath*

So, bottom line is, I have sold three skeins so far (I just posted them up yesterday), I found out that one of my knitting icons loves my yarn enough to lick her monitor, and, as a happy side note, will probably end up getting some awesome publicity from the podcast. They usually talk about yarns they receive.

Squee!

I had a lovely evening tonight. Normally, Fridays are our private Stitch 'n Bitch (there's one at a local store, but the drama-meter generally runs very high). Tonight, however, Indiana Eponine's husband (who needs a pithy nickname) needed the house for some academic thingy. So, instead, she and I and the Munchkin all spent the evening together.

First we went to the local Thai restaurant, which was very yummy. Eponine got pineapple fried rice with shrimp, and I got the shrimp hot pot with snowpeas, mushrooms, and rice noodles. Normally I'm not a big fan of savory-sweet taste combinations, but I generally tend to like Thai food. Maybe it's that there's enough of a spicy kick to the food that it overrides my aversion to the taste combination. Or maybe it's that the sweet tends to be subtle. Not like sugar on a steak.

In any case, it was friggin' terrific. Then we went to Baskin Robbins where I bought us ice cream. We introduced the Munchkin to the wonders of chocolate ice cream, which resulted in her eating half of her mother's bowl. Three wet napkins later, we decided to head over to campus.

Tonight was the opening of the student art show at the University Museum. Since I have a piece in it, we decided to go check out the scene. [A quick aside here; this is a really awesome thing. I was in the show last year, too, and I plan to have at least one piece in it every year I'm in college. That sort of thing looks awesome on one's resume.] So we went and saw my piece, and of course, everyone sighed over the kidlet, who was convinced that everyone had congregated to pay homage to her.

Once the announcements were being, well, announced, I knew it'd take forever until they were done. So while that was happening, we went out to the quad and let Munchkin chase the squirrels until she was completely tuckered out. Seriously? Anyone that says that sugar makes their kid unruly just needs to let them chase small fuzzy things that are inevitably faster than they are. Eventually they'll fall over.

After that, it was about time for the Munchkin to start heading for bed, so Eponine dropped me off at home and took off. I watched Margaret Cho on YouTube (omg funniest thing ever. I <3 her impression of her mother!) and knit on my lace scarf until Nick came home.

What? I was knitting socks? I know. But they turned out too big. Did I knit a swatch? Why yes. Two. And dutifully recorded the gauge. Which was the same. Both times. And now I am possessed of a sock that is at least an inch too big in diameter. So, I'll ignore it for a while, eventually rip it back and maybe make a pair of plain socks out of it. Eventually.

So now I'm knitting a scarf out of that green lace weight merino I posted earlier. I made the pattern up myself. It's based on some of the scarf patterns in Victorian Lace Today (in particular, the one on page 80). I chose a border from Nicky Epstein's Knitting on the Edge, but I don't remember which one. It's knit 'sideways' to the rest of the scarf, and has a diamond-ish pattern. Then stitches are picked up along the 'top' of that and knit in a simple faggot stitch (ooh, I wonder if that'll turn up some interesting Google searches). Then at the end, I'll knit another sideways border.

After that, I might actually cast on for the Wedding Shawl (if I write it in all capital letters, it's like I have to do it). Depending.

Maybe.