Knitting 40 shades of green

Virginia Wine

On Tuesday I listed as one of my goals for the year to

Continue my tour of Virginia Wineries: My partner in wine is out of the country for a couple of years and unable to get to many of the Virginia wineries and so I hope to continue our quest solo and hopefully document it here.

In order to help keep track of this goal, I thought I would add a winery page to the blog and link in the side bar where all of these trips and notes could be posted. I will list the wineries there (wineries I have been to are marked with an *) and link to them as I write reviews.  So if you are interested in Virgina Wineries, go check it out. 

Weekend Away

A good friend and I have been going through some changes in our respective lives (you know the regular things, relationships, work, children, housing related stresses) and decided it might be a good time for a girls weekend away.  But with so much on our plates, we weren't sure we were up for much travel and so we headed out to Annapolis, MD.  Just 40 miles from home and yet it would offer the escape we both needed.

We booked the sleep and sip package at the Annapolitan.  A nautically themed Bed and Breakfast on West Street and were booked into the Port Pleasures Room (shown below in a photo shamelessly lifted from the  B&B website as our stuff was quickly strewn around the room before I thought to take a picture).  We really liked the B&B.  It was comfortable, clean and well appointed.  The breakfast a three course hot meal and both the hosts and the other guests could not have been more pleasant.The package include a $20 credit for wines at Crush Wine House.  We were really impressed with Crush, it was bustling on a Friday night but they were very accommodating and soon had us seated for table service despite our lack of a reservation. Crush features an enomatic wine serving system which uses argon gas and pulls the wine from the bottom of the bottle which avoids air contact keeping an open bottle fresh for up to three weeks, this allows restaurants to offer wines by the glass for more expensive wines which might not sell in an evening but will definitely sell over the freshness span of the bottle.  Another advantage of the system is that is offers three pour sizes allowing for a taste, half glass or full glass.  So you can create your own tasting, design a flight or just enjoy a glass of your favorite.  I was feeling a bit indecisive and settled on a flight of left coast reds which we paired with some lovely cheese and crackers and a few small plates to share. 

My flight consisted of three California Reds.  There was  a 2009 Seghesio Zinfandel, a 2008 Elizabeth Spencer Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 2008 Por Que No? (52% Zinfandel, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 15% Petit Syrah.  I have definitely enjoying Zinfandels lately so was surprised that I liked the ELizabeth Spencer the most but having seen the price tag now I know why.  An excellent wine if you feel the need to really splurge.  The food was good too and I will definantly return next time I am in Annapolis. 

 Saturday we spent the day antiquing and then had a lovely lunch in Pasadena at Moulin de Paris.  All in all a great little getaway.

Random Thursday: Travel edition

1. I spent yesterday traveling to attend the NEA Representative Assembly.  All of it hectic.  My taxi was 25 minutes late.  That is so not OK, especially when you are me and you mock the airport/airline recommendation to arrive with plenty of time to clear security.  I had barely over an hour to get from my house until the time the plan would take off. 
2. I made it.  This may be because I prefer to fly the handful of airlines that use the old terminal at DCA.  I think because it reminds me of my dad but also because it is quick as a wink to get through security and check in. 
3. This meant no time at the airport for knitting or even sitting down.  Let alone the traditional beer at the Sam Adam's bar served by a bartender named Napoleon (who names their kid Napoleon?  Despite the name, or maybe due to it, he is a great bartender).
4. I flew to Atlanta to get to Chicago.  I am not sure if this is due to my preference for the old terminal at DCA or if it was the only flight that allowed me the middle of the day hours that allow me to procrastinate on packing until the morning of my flight or maybe just complete inattention when buying the ticket and the price looked good.
5. When traveling I feel like I am constantly pulling out credit cards and IDs while lines of people wait patiently (or not) behind me.  I find that I end up putting them somewhere more convenient than in my wallet in a pocket of my purse inside my carry-on bag.  I have gotten some surprised looks when I take them out but I don't lose them and I don't worry about pick pockets.  
6. The CGI is taking place in my hotel.  This means the place is crawling with secret service and media personalities like Wolf Blitzer.  It also means the meeting rooms are super cold for all the men in suits.   Or maybe the Sheraton just likes to keep the place like a meat locker, this is Chicago.
7. "Deplane" is not a word.  If you can't "plane" then you can't "deplane".  We don't debus or decar or deship/deboat why do we insist on using this made up non word?  Whatever happened to disembark?  It is a perfectly good word and no one uses it.  The only proper use of this word is to talk about the Rourke's side kick from Fantasy Island.
8. The one eating experience on my radar in Chicago was to go to one of Rick Bayless' restaurants.  Interesting enough they are all under the same roof which is less than a mile from my hotel.  So, I walked over there last night and found the one seat at a very crowded bar at Frontera Grill -- a restaurant I couldn't get a reservation in online two months ago.  Pretty fortuitous, if you ask me.

November 9: Ten on Tuesday

Carole's Ten on Tuesday Topic for 11/9 is 10 Dream Vacations.


 

1. A long weekend at a beautiful place with great food like Blackberry Farm. The county side is beautiful, the oppertunities for outdoor entertainment varried and the food looks wonderful.
2. A month in Italy with farm stays and wine and pasta and history and cooking lessons.
3. Biking and wine in Northern California wine country.
4. The Greek Isles
5. An apartment in Spain
6. I'd love to go back to Ireland as there is so much we didn't get to the first time
7. Russia still holds intreague to me having grown up during the cold war when it was still the Soviet Union.  It holds so much intreague.
8. A cabin just off the Blue Ridge Parkway
   
9. British Colombia
10. Anywhere I haven't been
    

beaded knitting

While the East Coast was digging out from two consecutive snow storms in February, as soon as the airport was flying planes, I headed west to the glorious city of Tacoma.  (To be honest since I barely left the hotel, I can't really comment on Tacoma other than the fact that they lacked snow and that was enough to make it glorious to me).  The occasion was the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.  A great event should you be looking for some fun in February.  I had missed my class with Kathryn Alexander due to the snow situation but had a fun class with Betsy Hershburg (check out that link she makes some incredible stuff).  The class was on knitting beaded jewelry and it had the added bonus of resulting in a finished project.

After finishing this fun bracelet and a matching pair of earrings that still need findings, I ran around showing it to everyone who would listen. One of the women who shared the airport shuttle back with my teacher, Betsy, Stephanie, and a few unsuspecting non-knitting muggles, shared the sage advice: "Go home and make another as soon as possible."  About a week after I got home I stopped by my local bead shop (is that a LBS?) and picked up some tubes of beads.  I came home and tried a few gauge swatches.  I then stopped by my other local bead shop and bought more beads.  It seems I had rekindled my bead interest from high school (when I had to have my dad stop by the San Francisco bead shops when he was out that way for work).  This spring break I became a little excited about the whole process.

I then realized how much I was spending on the individual clasps at Potomac Bead and ordered 4 dozen  off the internet and I just received them in time to put them on the other 5 bracelets that I have made while waiting for them.  I will take care of the finishing and take pictures and get them posted soon.

Birthday Presents

I have never been much for "hero worship".  I am not overly impressed by movie stars and rarely remember their names.  I once saw Sandra Bullock  at the Capital CIty Brewery in Shirlington and had to ask which one she was.  I have run into various members of my favorite hockey team while out and about as well as at ticket holder events.  I have had conversations with some members from pretty good bands, and even sat at shows their families, and yet I never was really into getting the photo or the autograph.  I always just figured they were just another person.  But somehow it is different with artists, or maybe it is their work. 

One of the first artist I can remember becoming entranced with was one of my mother's clients named Genna Watson (the only thing I found in a precursory Google search was the resume of her studio assistant in 2001). [23 Nov edited to add:  I was tipped off by my mother that  I was spelling her name wrong.  It seems she is still in the area working on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art and GMU.  I still wasn't able to find any photos of her work] Her work completely captivated me.  I sought it out and would hang around her studio because I was so interested in the creations and wanted to look at them.

I first became aware of Kathryn Alexander when I picked up a  back issue of Spin Off magazine.  When I saw her work again in Melanie Falick's Knitting in America, I knew I had to take a class with her and so I started hunting for classes that she taught. I have taken two, the last one about three years ago...it is time to take another.  I have had a post-it on my desk for the past three months with some teaching dates scrawled on it -- I noticed the last one was coming up this weekend at Knitter's Review retreat which is sold out...then I remembered Madrona Fiber Arts and the sign ups opened today.  I just signed up for a 4 day knitting retreat across the country in Washington State.  I guess it is a little birthday present for me, from me. 

Functional Fitness, take 2

Sorry about the lack of post with yesterday's video but I went out to dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and next thing I know I am just barely getting that post in before midnight and on a school night no less. 

I loved the piano steps.  It is interesting to note the difference in the escalator use in the video after the piano steps are put in. 

When I was in London this summer, I had a few hours to kill before meeting my friend at the train station.  So I took a walk around a lovely neighborhood over by Saint Pancras Station.  There was some great architectural art:

 

Courtesy of the South Camden Community School.  But the thing that really struck me about the neighborhood was how many parks and outdoor play spaces there were.  Just blocks away from a nature reserve with a hike along a canal, there were three different playgrounds.   Next to the children's play structures,
   was the adult play structures.

A full outdoor gym!!!  Cardio in the form of stationary bikes and nordic track like machines, weights and stretching.  No need for the adults to sit around while the kids play, here is an entire free gym.  If it words in a rainy gloomy place like London, just think of the possibilities.  Check it out here. 

Roots restaurant: Milwaukee

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is do a little research and have one absolutely fabulous meal at a restaurant that features local foods and a creative menu.  I started out my search with the Milwaukee Lecturer Blog and ended it when I found the Journal Sentinel Dig-In Blog which featured a  list of local restaurants.  After perusing restaurant menus and looking at my schedule, I decided on brunch at Roots Restaurant and Cellar.  It is located in a neighborhood called Brewer's Hill that looks out over the city of Milwaukee.

It was a cloudy day with quite a bit of mist and light participation but the server allowed me to sit out on the balcony over looking the city and the garden which is outside the cellar.

Being summer in Milwaukee, everyone wanted to be outdoors despite the "threat" or reality of rain. 

True to character, I started the meal with a glass of champagne and a glass of water and was easily talked into the assortment of mini muffins. I believe they were an assortment of apricot and basil, blackberry, and a ham and cheese served with fresh butter and a nectarine compote/jam.  They were all quite scrumptious and made me wish I had more people to feed at my house so that making a batch of mini muffins every weekend wouldn't leave me eating muffins for every meal for the rest of the week.  I did make a batch of mini muffins from an entirely made up recipe and I think I may need to spend some more time in recipe development -- anyone want to be a muffin taster?

For my entree, I had the crepes which were served toped with a local aged goat cheese and filled with summer squash and corn in a bechamel sauce. They were served with mixed greens and hash brown potatoes.  It was all wonderful!  So, if you find yourself in Milwaukee, I highly recommend a drive up to the Brewer Hill.

Roots Restaurant and Cellar
1818 N. Hubbard St.
Milwaukee WI 53212
414.374.8480

Travel Knitting

After finishing the May Basket socks while at the Representative Assembly in San Diego, I immediately cast on for a pair of basic socks in Trekking.  Nothing fancy since my attention needed to be on the business of the association and not on the pattern of my socks.  I had almost finished the first sock as I came home from San Diego.  I would have loved to have worked on it on the flight but realized one of the needles had fallen to the  bottom of my carry on and I didn't want to drag everything out in the cramped space of the plane.  I soon cast on for the next sock but favored Girasole  while sitting on my couch, at least until I finished chart D and got half way through the first rendition of chart E and realized that my stitch count is off.  I am slowly tinking back (notice the stitch markers now in the knitting)

That simple sock that didn't require a pattern seemed a natural thing to pack for my trip to Wales.  I would have some time to knit on the plane and a bit while navigating and yelling"stay left, stay left" to the intrepid driver on our excursion.  I didn't get as much knitting done as I would have liked but would have finished the sock on the return flight except that I had heard rumors that Heathrow airport was much more strict in their safety checks and there was a possibility of losing my needles, so I packed it away in my checked baggage and included an incomplete set of wooden needles (I had broken the 5th) and another skein of Trekking for my carry on.  While they thoroughly searched my bag, swabbed all of my electronics and confiscated the cork screw that lives at the bottom of my purse (that I didn't realize was there since I had no problem getting it through TSA where all I had to do was tell the screener that the long thin things in the x-ray were knitting needles).  So as I waited in the boarding area, I cast on for a new plain sock and managed to get to the heel flap before arriving home.

It makes me excited to get back to ice skating with all of these new socks soon to be in the rotation.

One Local Summer: week 7

Due to foreign travel, local eating was suspended for the week, enjoy this travel photo instead. The trip was fantastic with lots of trips to see castles as well as a trip to learn about Welsh history at the Folk Life Centre at Saint Fagans.