At Home She Feels Like A Tourist (Sweater Story)

Despite the nod to Gang of Four in this post's title, I think the Daft Punk song is the better soundtrack to the story of the Tourist Sweater.  Feel free to have this playing as you read on.  If they were all knitting terms, it would perfectly describe what I've done to finish this sweater.

Okay, ready?  So when we last left the Tourist sweater, there was a bit of a yarn issue, and I thought I'd try blending the two different dye lots, alternating one row with another, to make it work.  But just the thought of that was oppressive.  Then, as the ladyfriend and I were having lunch at a cafe in Prenzlauer Berg, I saw a woman wearing a short-sleeved, cowl-necked sweater, with matching arm warmers/gaunlets (like sleeves that weren't attached).  Hurrah!  A possible solution to my problem.  So I went home and unraveled the sleeve I'd sewn and started making short sleeves.

Feeling like I was almost done, I thought I'd try the sweater on.  Holy F*! (sorry, Dad) It was too damn long!  Was this sweater ever going to work out?  Now instead of putting it on a time-out, I just wanted to kill it.

There was no way I was going to rip it back - there was waist shaping involved and that pouch that I'd already knit twice.  I would operate on it instead...

This will only hurt a little.

First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin

We had a stop in New York before flying out to Berlin.  In fact, we flew out of JFK because we were able to find roundtrip tickets for the both of us that were less than the price of one roundtrip fare out of Toronto.  Really, Canada needs to figure out the flying thing.  Anyone close enough to a US border is hustling that way to fly because the prices are so much better.   Yes, we can get into a discussion about government subsidy and taxes and fuel charges, but it remains - it's cheaper to fly from the States, and it's not like they're using vastly cheaper labour or anything.

Besides flying, we went to NYC to attend the opening of Raw & Rare, a show at Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art curated by a couple of our friends.  The opening was great.  Besides featuring both well-known as well as lesser-known works, it happened to be attended by a ton of our Toronto friends.  In fact, it seemed to be some kind of friend reunion, which was amazing.  We were flying out the next day so it felt like the perfect send-off.