Designer Samples

The trouble with writing up knitting patterns, I'm finding, is the samples tend to multiply like tribbles. It's bad enough when the samples are swatches (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h), far more serious when somehow in the journey between concept and realization for Meadowlands Socks and Summer Spirals I knit up five sample socks, zero finished pairs.



Must remedy this. There's certainly no lack of news to fuel UFO knitting: rioting and arson in the U.K., concerns about a politically caused double-dip recession in the U.S., famine in East Africa, the nuclear crisis in Japan, and on. knitknitknitknit



While bicycling in Manhattan on Saturday, I got caught in the afternoon deluge – before I could take shelter I was soaked to the skin. I imagine I bore an unappealing resemblance to a drowned rat (hopefully I didn't smell like one), nonetheless the friendly people at Financier Patissierie served up a restorative cuppa and macaron and even gave me a complementary sack of mini financier teacakes (said to resemble a gold bar) for the ride home. Biking in the rain is a hungry business and I have an inordinate love of teacake, but I still have a few to show off. Tasty food, nice people, convenient locations – sweet, literally.