What I did in the car in New Mexico and Illinois

The Mohair Cowl Pullover from the Winter 2004 Interweave Knits.

Mohair, big needles, all in the round, for almost no finishing work.

I used Le Fibre Nobili Imperiale, which is what the pattern specified. I even used the color specified (but only because I love rich, deep browns).

More of what my needles have done lately

I've gotten into doing patterns for construction techniques.

First is the Princess Pullover from The Knitting Experience -- Book 3. I saw no reason to sew on buttons, as the pattern suggests. Instead, I chose to do it in a three-color. The yarn is Berroco Lullaby. The construction is interesting in terms of where stitches are picked up on the back and sides. The sleeves are not sewn in to shoulders; rather, they form a saddle which are connected to the front and meet in the middle of the back. You then attach the collar.

http://www.berroco.com/shade_cards/lullaby_sh.html

http://www.stitchesmarket.com/xcart/customer/product.php?productid=7199

The next one: I had a devil of a time getting a decent picture that showed the whole sweater. It's a basic cardigan, but with a cabled scarf for the neck. It's from the Fall 2006 Vogue. I used Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Coal. One knits the body and sleeves in the usual way. The cable scarf is done separately and attached.

Next was a find on elann.com. I love that site. Great high quality yarn, rock bottom prices. This was ON Line Linie 44 - Ravenna. A nice cotton blend, light and easy to work with. I modified the pattern by doing it in the round rather than in pieces.

http://www.elann.com/productdisp.asp?NAME=ON+line+Linie+44+%2D+Ravenna&Season=&Company=&Cat=ALLY&ProductType=5&OrderBy=+Order+By+Shortgauge&Count=33

Finally, this was my prized perfect work of the year. I found some cheap Classic Elite Classic Silk.

http://www.classiceliteyarns.com/product_page_detail.php?category_id=1&item_id=26

The pattern is from Knitter's 2006. It looks hard, but it's in fact a super simple repeat lace. The yarn is soft, and it fits me beautifully.

Things my needles think about while I sleep

http://www.knittinguniverse.com/flash/knitters/GalleryDetail.php?IssueNum=80&ID=513

Using yarn I bought at Knitting in Scottsdale. I found a bag of Plymouth Tweed 5315 (a burgundy) for half off, and stuffed it into my luggage. I bought the contrasting yellow.

Punkin' carvin'

You can't see Drew's very well -- it's a gravesite. I'll try to get a better picture of it tonight.

Mine is the vampire going for the woman's neck.

Robert did the alien.

I thought they were all pretty cool.

What my needles have been doing lately

The first one is from the Summer 2004 Knitter's. About a year after I started knitting, my aunts gave me all their yarn. One didn't knit much anyway, and the other who did had moved on to other hobbies. Among the items found was a huge cache of high quality Italian merino wool. There were about 12 balls of the blue, some of which I'd used for a sweater for my sister-in-law. There were about 15 of partial balls of various colors. This pattern cried out for that yarn. I think it worked well.

http://www.knittinguniverse.com/flash/knitters/GalleryDetail.php?IssueNum=75&ID=385

The second one is from the Fall 2006 Knitter's. I found the yarn on eBay. It isn't often I used precisely what is called for, but this pattern cried out for it. I'd used 127 print before and liked it.

http://www.knittinguniverse.com/flash/knitters/GalleryDetail.php?IssueNum=84&ID=595

The second one is from an ad I cut out of a paper somewhere. Again, I used what was called for, but only because I found it half price at WEBs. It's Nashua Equinox Stripe, a fluffy bulky weight yarn. It was nice to use.

http://www.yarndex.com/yarn.cfm?yarn_id=2916

Fun with Mustard

First, we go to the Mustard Museum in Mt. Horeb.

http://www.mustardweb.com/

The owner/curator is a lawyer who recovered. He also has a very cute, dry sense of humor. This place was lots of fun.

There are millions of mustards and some cute T-shirts. There is a mustard series called The Tailgate. Each bottle is branded in some college. Believe it or not, I found Mississippi State mustard. Andrew was so happy to get that stupid bottle of mustard.

The House on the Rock

And now, for the Anti-FLW.

I never thought I'd see anything tackier than Graceland. My GOD, Elvis had bad taste.

As it happens, Alex Jordan's was worse. WAAAY worse.

The House on the Rock is the ugliest, tackiest place ever. And it is set back in the woods in Spring Green, on much nicer grounds than Taliesin. It's an affront to God to put something this ugly in the woods.

http://www.thehouseontherock.com/

The first picture is the cantilevered walk. It was mildly interesting.

The rest is just a portrait in ugly. That man had serious mental issues. Mere words cannot describe how god-awful that place was. And it cost $11 to see it.

Madison

We stay at the Sheraton. Very nice, easy to find, and relatively close to downtown. The hotel has a shuttle service and we use it.

State Street, that great street, but not Chicago's version. We walk downtown trying to find something without a wait. Japanese it is.

It's delicious. I have seafood udon soup. Takara gets a thumbs up from all.

Coffee at Fair Trade. I'd been here the last time I was in Madison. Still good.

Shopping at Shakti. I buy incense. I love incense.

To bed.

Taliesin

What's weird is that Taliesin is a bit shabby at the heels. Taliesin West is not. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps it's a money thing, perhaps it's a hangup with keeping it in the condition it would have been. And, for all of FLW's merits, staying power of his buildings is not one of them.

We can't take pictures indoors, so you'll have to be satisfied with outdoors and grounds.

Spring Green WI

So, while not a Frank Lloyd Wright stalker, I do very much like his work. So, without too much begging, I convince my friends and co-workers Judy (who IS a FLW stalker) and Jackie to go to Taliesin. We decide on a side trip to House on the Rock. Stephanie comes along.

Away we go.

I confess that I like Wisconsin and could easily live there. I also don't really mind Dubuque. I think it is a quaint river town. We drive through Peoria (insert your own joke here) and up through the quad cities to Dubuque and eat.

We continue on to Taliesin. Here we are arriving at the Visitor's Center (Pic 1). The view from the center is quite nice (Pic 2) and then we check out the various tours. (Pic 3)

http://www.taliesinpreservation.org/

We select the grounds and house tour.

Bye Bye New Mexico

I had not looked at the flight information and took Andrew at his word that our flight was at 4:45. We have all day to meander from Farmington to ABQ. We get the contintental breakfast and hit a Starbucks.

We travel south and then Andrew thinks we can take a back road through the mountains. It works for a while. Then, I see signs that say "Unpaved and unimproved road." All Andrew sees is "unimproved." He thinks that just means no shoulder.

No.

It means no pavement. We end up on a mud road, fishtailing back and forth, sliding to the ditch, and generally sure we are going to end up as stuff on the side of a cliff. We manage to turn around and by some miracle of God get back to asphalt. The car is a mess. There's mud INSIDE the car.

Then I check the flight. No, it's 3:45. That elimates a side trip to some parts of Bernalillo. Ah, well.

We get gas, and Andrew is convinced that if we don't wash the car he'll be in trouble. It knocks some off, but importantly, the car is again cosmetically pleasing. What's underneath and in the wheelwells is someone else's issue.

We then get a reason not to support Bill Richardson for president. The taxes on car rentals in New Mexico is ridiculous. Worse than Florida kind of ridiculous.

Bye bye New Mexico. I'll be back. Maybe with a moving van.

We Leave Mesa Verde

We've walked all day with nothing but a continental breakfast. We're starved. We go back to Farmington and eat at Three Rivers Brewery. I have Green Chile Chicken soup at a guacamole chicken sandwich. Yum. We're exhausted and go to bed.

.

Spruce House

Mesa Verde

Views across the canyon and in some of the super-ancient pre-Cliff pueblos.

Mesa Verde

At one point a coyote ran alongside our car. It was on Drew's side so I didn't get a picure, but he did.

http://drewmoo.com/b2evolution/index.php?blog=1&page=1&disp=posts&paged=2

At the visitor's center one gets information on various tours available, either ranger-guided or self-guided. We select a combination that costs $3 per person for the guided tour of Cliff Palace (Sorry, Balcony House -- next time) and the self-guided portions from the road, including various views of other cliff dwellings, pueblos, and Spruce House.

We wait for our allotted time for Cliff Palace. Going down is the easy part. Going up on the series of ladders wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. It was pretty easy for me, but there were a lot of old, portly Germans in our group.

My camera holds 350 pictures without an additional card and most of my shots were of Mesa Verde. Blogger doesn't let me download many, so I may move them to Facebook.

Anyway, I'll let the pictures tell the story.