meandering along the south rim on my coffee table

I'm wandering into the land of other crafts (with knitting firmly in my hands - I'm not letting go of the pointy sticks this easy, no way!).

I'd picked up a 500 piece jigsaw from the Yavapai point observatory at Grand Canyon. I was working at it last week. Here's how it came along:











See that one little piece? That's just to prove to you that I infact have uploaded the snapshot of an assembled jigsaw and not an image off of the cover! :) The piece was fit in place before claiming the mini-project complete.

Next stop: some pattern drafting and sewing. Long overdue as I've a pile of projects pending. This blog is going to be invaded with jots of my cutting/sewing endeavour. Consider yourself warned.

Art

Anoushka, my 5yr old niece sent me these:
Queen and King. Doesn't the King look like he's expecting a hug from the Queen? :)

A beatific angel with wings, and red hair with dark highlights

A cheerful astronaut - note the lady's transport in the background :)

Also, most joyfully accepted were 2 paintings by Roopa from her original collection of oils: Tinted Thoughts

Under the Maple tree

Lonely beach

Spring Showers - of snow!

My friend Roopa and I visited the Grand Canyon last week. Unexpected snow lent much excitement to the trip, to put it mildly. Take a look:

Yavapai Point on Apr 12 '07

Yavapai Point on Apr 13 '07

On the 12th

On the 13th

Shrugged

Relentless repeating of the IK Lace Shrug drop stitch pattern later:

across the back

over the shoulder

along the arm

Yarn: cotton microfiber blend from Webs (Valley Yarn, Longmeadow) from my stash
Needles: US #5 addis (LOVE 'em)
Mods: repeats were changed across and along to fit the gauge and the yardage of yarn I possessed. Just so happened that by the time I finished with stitching the seams for the arms, I was left with not a scrap more! It was nerve-racking until the BO though as I was staring at the skeins quickly diminishing.

Notes: microfiber cotton is the way to go for summer/spring knits with snug fits. Longmeadow is squishy soft and lovely to knit with as well. I've tried Valley yarns of 3 different blends and weights and this far, I'm a happy camper!

Icarus update:
In the meanwhile, Icarus is trotting along. I expect it to be a while before I complete it and I'm in no hurry either. It's my comfort blanket of sorts. I'll always have something to work on where there's nothing else. The chart is easy enough to memorize. All I use it for it a quick peek every so often to confirm I'm on the right track. I'm marking this my zero-stress project and so it goes without saying that a rare mistake will be taken in my knitting stride and gallantly forgiven. It's a blissful way of life - recommend it as therapy to us compulsive obsessive knitters.

Blue Socks update:
I've been wearing them every single evening and night and weekend since I cast off. They look wonderfully worn although not exactly eye-candy. No holes to worry about yet. This pair of socks is most likely to felt first before wearing thin. If that happens, more merino 100% wool Valley Yarn socks will be knit - and joyfully too.

Title change - why now?

This is a preemptive post. I've made a drastic change to the title and this can spell trouble. I deliberated for all of 30 seconds on my options before I went ahead with it. This, in no way undermines the importance of holding on to a title - it's a brand after all. There was a nasty problem with my earlier one and I've looked away from it long enough. The 30 seconds of problem-solving, in this case, came not a second too early.

Begin explanation: the title this far (An Engineer's Day Out Knitting) was quite removed from the URL which suggests 'Deep-Thought workshop'. End of explanation.

Psst: I've launched a new blog: Deep-Thought Lab: A Linux Diary. Good time to set the title straight, don't you think?