i biked to the cambridge public library this morning to pick up a copy of the essential guide to color knitting techniques by margaret radcliffe. it's that rare book that garnered a perfect 5 stars out of almost 50 reviews. first i had to brave the gauntlet of lunching teenagers congregating outside the cambridge rindge-latin school right next door. i was ready for the comforting solace of book browsing except a young japanese mother and her baby happened to be in the knitting aisle as well. i found my book and quickly checked out.

for lunch i had some chicken sausages, a fried egg, and a banana-strawberry smoothie. i turned on the window fan even though the temperature outside was cooler than inside (i was just ventilating some of that fried oil smell).

in the late afternoon i motorcycled to assembly square mall to buy some cheap practice yarn at ac moore. there was a sale on caron simple soft acrylic yarn (2/$5) and i ended up buying 4 skeins. i spent a long time squinting at the different colors, trying to find the best matches. i ended up getting: soft mint (a shiny turquoise), charcoal heather, country blue, and bone. that should be a good enough palette for me to practice some color knitting. i know acrylic yarn has a reputation for being cheap, but i'm using them for practice anyway. there were some red heart brand yarn that was even cheaper (about $2 a skein) but they only came in ugly primary colors. what i like about the yarn i got is that they're shiny. the fact that i even bought yarn in the first place means i've taken another step to becoming a knitter.

still no signs of any assembly square ikea structures,¹ but there's all sorts of mysterious industrial equipment in the empty lot. i stopped to take a few photos before returning home.

i used to park my motorcycle on a private way, on a little patch of dirt in front of an empty lot. there's currently ongoing construction happening in that area (a 6 unit condo will be built there), and i see a lot of trucks coming in and out. i've always wondered if my bike was in the way, and occasionally i'd be worried when i see a large truck trying to maneuver into the lot. yesterday i moved my bike to the front of my house, and noticed today that they put orange cones where my bike used to be parked.

i ran into bruce, who's back in town for the columbus day weekend. marco came back home around 7:30 then promptly went out for a night time run. i finished the rest of my leftover chicken stock, this time with some rice noodles.

i tried my hands at some color knitting this evening. the essential guide to color knitting techniques is a great book and explained a few more things but i still wasn't 100% sure how to go about doing colors. the easiest thing are bands which is what i tried, using some bone and country blue. the yarn has a tendency to snag on my bamboo skewers (not really knitting needles) and when i knit sometimes the strands separate and i can't pick up all of the looping yarn. i'm still not sure if i'm doing it right (particularly how to carry the unused yarn), but at least i managed to switch to a different color.

¹ apparently the somerville ikea was supposed to open back in september of this year, but with the bad economy, construction has stalled for the time being. the town even extended the building permit, since driving out the swedish furniture chain due to their construction delays would be detrimental for the economic future of somerville. until then, there's always the stoughton ikea, 26 miles away.

it's easy to lose track of time when you're knitting. it's almost 4:00 and i just finished my first knitted multi-colored swatch sample. i'm not sure if i casted off correctly (i used a purl cast off). also, the way i carried the bone colored yarn, it's pulling the swatch on the right side.