Long weekend

This Monday was a holiday for us, Martin Luther King Day. It was nice to have a three-day weekend, especially since it's gotten quite cold. I stayed in and made soup stock.

On Saturday we drove out to Valparaiso (before the cold wave). At the University we stopped in at Brauer Museum of Art. They had a number of interesting exhibits, including one on Japanese prints.  If you're into reading the text on the cards next to the art, it was quite informative and interesting.  It featured ghosts and mystical creatures.

Brauer also had an exhibit of a Lord of the Rings collection that included memorabilia, posters, and special editions.  There was an exhibit of a woman working with Mexican copper workers as part of her Ph.D. in art project. It included copper vessels (by the masters she works with and herself) and drawings, paintings and sketches.  A painter with luminous canvases. A gallery with comparative art--similar subjects with a realistic and an abstracted image, and I forget what was in the last galleries--I think pieces from their collection.  Pretty cool, all in all.

While in town, we stopped in at Sheep's Clothing. I had gotten some yarn there last fall and begun a two-yarn, two-row zig-zag pattern scarf, only to lose the pattern. They are very helpful and figured out which pattern it was and gave me a new copy of the pattern. I realized the project had been stuck because I was unhappy with the way it was coming out, so I ripped out what I had done and began over with a smaller hook.

I like the pattern much better with the smaller hook.

While I was there I got two balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino to try out a stitch I saw in a scarf pattern on Purl Bee Blog. I tried it using size 4 needles (bottom) and size 3 (top). I like the smaller needles better and that will be the swatch I use to plan my project, a man's tie. Now I need to research ties to see what' currently in fashion (I haven't a clue!).

The top is the right side, the bottom the wrong. I rather like the wrong side.

And since I'm on the subject of knitting... Here's the pink "doctor's office project" scarf at its current length. I recently mentioned that I should show it again since it's been quite a while. I haven't measured it--it's a "as long as the yarn lasts" project.