Mersydotes

This month was my beautiful cousin K's birthday, and the timing was perfect because she was actually going to be flying through NYC on business!  We spent a sunny day in Bryant Park, squeezing in all our chatting and laughing and catching up before she had to catch her plane back home.  I love these flyby visits- they make me feel like the city is actually a friendly and familiar place! I wanted to make her a little something handmade and brightly colored that she could take with her back home (but that wouldn't bulk up her carryon!), and I decided on a set of summer coasters.  In the past, I've made the Yvestown coaster pattern for our own house, but the yarn I have now is of a more delicate gauge, so I had to adjust the pattern.  You can find the original pattern on Ravelry  here .   Here are my two rows of ad-libbed stitches:  Round 4 (my pattern): 7 ch between each ch 2 space, sc in each ch 2 space, secure with a slip...

There've been two hanks of t-shirt yarn lurking in my closet ever since we moved to NYC.  It's lovely, but I've never been sure what to do with it.  At first, it was meant to become a throw rug for the kitchen, but after I finished stitching it, the final product just didn't feel as squishy as I had hoped, so I frogged the entire rug and rewound the yarn balls, deciding to wait until I had the right project for the t-shirt yarn's texture.   And then last weekend, I started thinking about how nice it would be to have enough pots to hide away all of the pens and pencils and bits and bobs that otherwise clutter up our desk.  So out came the t-shirt yarn!  It's sturdy enough to support the sides of a basket, and pliable enough to allow for little dome-shaped lids. I didn't use any special pattern, but just did the following: ***** Small Pot ***** - Begin with a magic circle Round 1: 6 double crochet into the magic circle beginning with a ch...

A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine celebrated the upcoming arrival of her little baby girl, and for her baby shower, I stitched the "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" Blanket designed by Merilyn Sehn of "The Baby Crow".   It was probably the most enjoyable project I've ever stitched- the bobble stitches were a lot of fun!  I made the blanket in white acrylic for easy washing. My only worry is that, for the life of me, I could not get the blanket to block properly.  I felt bad gifting a still wobbly-wobble edged blanket to my friend, but after all my steaming and ironing, I decided that it's only hope might be a good wash.  I hope it evens out for her! Isn't that absolutely adorable!  It was great fun watching the words slowly take shape- Mr. Mersy kept asking me, "What does the blanket say now?", and I was quite proud when it finally said "Star"!  If you'd like to see more great bobble patterns from Marilyn of ...

We had a grand day out last Sunday!  Just me and Mr. Mersy wandering through the Cloisters (a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) in the middle of Fort Tryon Park all the way up in the very northern reaches of Manhattan.  It was hilly and rocky, and we were in the middle of a forest on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River.  It had stormed the day before and the air was just hazy enough to protect us from the sun and let us gaze out over the water without squinting. We wandered through the medieval chapels and gardens, among the columns and tapestries, gazing through the stained glass and at the illuminated manuscripts.  With architecture saved and salvaged from European ruins at the beginning of the last century, there is an outpost of the Middle Ages right here in NYC. As we wandered, I remembered visiting the Mus é e de Cluny (Mus é e National du Moyen- Â ge) when I was living in Paris.  I...

Is there anything more satisfying than coming home to a pet that loves you and missed you and just can't help but greet you with a waggily tail, shining eyes, and a licky little tongue that just won't stop giving you nose kisses?  It's the best! Penny is a champion greeter when Mr. Mersy or I come back in the door, whether it be from a day of work or a trip to the laundry room.  But every evening after Mr. Mersy comes home, she does something that is, if possible, even cuter.  She insists on having Papa-Time.  She won't let him read or type without nudging the book or the computer off his lap.  She won't let him stretch out on the couch without snuggling up behind his knees.  And when he scratches her on the head, she's in seventh heaven: Do you have a warm little ball of fur who can't wait to see you?!  I hope so! Lots of love, ~Mersydotes

I recently read a quote from T. S. Eliot :  ********************** "We shall not cease from exploration  And the end of all our exploring  Will be to arrive where we started  And to know the place for the first time." ********************** It made me think of the great big leaps in life as well as the smaller steps of the everyday.  All that we see and learn and feel and explore swirling into a deep appreciation of who we are and where we stand on the Earth. So here are some snapshots of the smaller steps that we took this week- the place where we started and which we are trying to know for the first time:  (New street art in our neighborhood in Queens)  (Busily crocheting an absolutely gigantic rug with t-shirt yarn)  (A pasta sauce jar covered in washi tape, some flowers, and a card from "mi media naranja")  (A happy puppy with a milk mustache) (hors d'oeuvres for dinner, and an awesome...