FiberTribe

Waving from Finland...

Can you see me? I'm still here, just off to play in sunny Finland. No, really. Well it was sunny for the first week, on and off. I landed on Saturday, Oct. 15th and will be returning on Halloween night. Last weekend I had the distinctly odd pleasure of watching a category 3 hurricane wallop my city, my neighborhood, etc. while sitting in a hotel lobby in Riga, Latvia. It was my birthday and I was sitting there watching a German TV station broadcasting their reporter live from ground zero in Naples, FL. It was beaucoup strange, let me tell you.
I hear from friends that my house is ok but the yard and trees are trashed, of course. My mother's house fared ok and she even got power back yesterday. My office is on Brickell Avenue in the financial district and it has power as well despite the debris and skyscraper destruction all around.
Though the authorities are once again embarrassing all Americans with their extreme ineptitude and finger pointing (think Keystone Kops stoned to the gills), Miamians and probably all Floridians are helping their neighbors themselves and pulling it together. Will FEMA and the State and Feds ever get past the clusterfuck approach? stay tuned. Hurricane season is not over till November 30th. Argh.
On the 'fiddle while Miami gets blown away' side, I've found beautiful yarn, learned to weave yesterday on a large floor loom, learned all about how you buy yarn in Latvia (more on this later, it's quite a process), and saw a pair of wild swans heading south overhead on their way from the small wetlands around the lake across the road from the house where I'm staying. Just breathtaking... Nature is very close in Finland. Tonight (it's 6 pm as I write this, 7 hours later than Eastern Daylight Time) we had mushroom salad with mushrooms Gomez picked a few weeks ago in the forest around her house. And drank juice from some berries that have no English name also picked in September. Yesterday I had lunch with a Finnish couple, friends of Gomez (Gomez & I have been best friends since age 12 or so), and we had cloudberries and also fresh cranberries picked by Raine, the husband, in the forest park adjoining their apt. in Tampere. These are not the large, dark, hard berries we know, but smaller, thin-skinned little luminous red orbs that get a generous helping of sugar on them before spooning them up.
Yum. And we had Forest Chanterelle soup, probably the best mushroom soupn I've ever had in my life, from mushrooms harvested earlier in the week by Raine. If the CEO of Campbells had any honor at all, s/he should shoot the company in the corporate head for daring to call that glop mushroom soup...
When we came home from picking the girls up at school this afternoon, there were fox tracks in the snow all around the house. Love it.
Le sigh. Well, just wanted you to know I'm alive and well. Will post a multitude of pictures when I return, assuming I ever get power back... I hope all of you are fine and if in So. Fla., that you survived the blow in good shape. I send you snowy hugs...

Shiva's Titties

More NYC street art... a large sculpture with the requiste males totally unable to pass those naked nips by. Their friends were taking pictures of them pinching and otherwise nuzzling the statuesque nips. I took these from across the street. A bit dark because it was twilight...

A Sunday in Noo Yawk

So this is the annual Knit Out in Union Square last Sunday.  Mindy and the Martian, Iris and Cheb, Jen, and some friends of Mindy and the Martian (and me) met up prior to Cheb and the Martian strolling the catwalk for Vogue Knitting modeling the latest, greatest kid knitwear.  Mindy & the Martian (henceforth M&M) kindly took bus and train in to meet me at Knit NY first then we strolled over to Union Square together. It was so hot that Mindy had to take off her One Skein Wonder. Yes, folks, it was easily 80 degrees. I was in knee high black suede boots with jeans tucked into the boots and sticking to the shade, thank you. No way was I prepared for Miami weather in NYC.
Here are the troupe including a slightly clingy Martian. From left to right, Jen of Nipperknits, Regina, mom of Hannah, the lovely and feisty Hannah (later heard to answer her mom's question, "do you want your sunglasses?" with a certified Noo Yawk "shu-ah" ), and M&M... Note Jen's amazing sweater, of her own design.  Doubly amazing since she's wearing it in the heat...

  And however cute you think he is from his pictures (the better ones Mindy posts) the Martian is WAAAY cuter in person. Also funny and creative. He knows just how far to put his foot outside a doorway  to get his mom to jump up from her cafe table and snatch him back inside.  Mindy is so cool, calm and collected with him, too.  She's got her mom moves down pat, heat and performance anxiety weren't no big deal. 
And so are you ready for the cutest twosome in blogland (other than maybe Rachael & Lala)?? I present to you the ladies Kalashnikova: 

And though I have no idea why the photo doesn't capture it, Cheb's eyes are the bluest blue. And Iris is wearing the hoodie she knitted from the summer Vogue Knitting in a lime, turquoise & white flecked Cascade Sierra cotton/wool blend. Really luscious.
Here's another of M&M:

Please excuse the assbeagle (thank you, Rabbitch) quality of the photo. All hail M&M for graciously allowing me to post it anyway.  And though you can't tell this either, I think there is a secret rule that all NY knitbloggers must be delicate and petite.  I personally think it's a plot to use less yarn per project and therefore afford  to buy more yarn in general. Heh. The amount of yarn it takes to cover my upper body alone would likely clothe Jen and Mindy for an entire winter. Ahem.
I was sweating too much to stay for the fashion show and so have no pictures of Cheb or the Martian stalking the catwalk to show you.  Maybe next year.
But I will leave you with the best ever street art seen whilst walking around Soho on Sunday morning. Noo Yawk is taking a page from Toronto. One of the things I first noticed upon arrival there in 1992 (I took a job there) was the cars-as-art, store-signs-as-art, and just plain ginormous wall murals as art all over T.O.  I am pleased to tell you that is now happening  all over NYC... Note the New Mexico, Land of Enchantment tags on the car, though...

and the side of the car...

Tomorrow, twilight photos of Shiva's titties... on the naked streets of Soho...