In case we haven’t ever reviewed Double Shots, and I don’t think we have although we’ve met there several times, I’ll do that first.

It’s full name is Double Shots Espresso Bar, and it’s located at 211 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19106. It’s website just lists it’s numbers and hours, and says that a full site is coming soon. They offer a fairly good selection of coffee and tea drinks, sandwiches, and pastries, and have seating and free internet access, once you obtain the password at the counter, and a couple PCs in one corner. They have a few board games available, although we know for a fact that the piece for Ms Scarlett is missing because we found a little piece of paper labeled with her name on the floor as we were knitting. The music is a little loud when you sit under the speakers, so it will be interesting to see if we were able to make ourselves heard over it during the podcast.

Knitting took place, as usual, Andrea was working on her Sock Yarn Blankie, Joanna was working on her Undulating Rib Socks (which had a stitch jump off the needle without her knowing until she was working on them in the dark later that night). Connie was working on Kai-Mai and Corona, and I was working on Mira, a shawl I’m in the process of designing as I knit. I don’t remember if any of us took any pictures of anything we were working on.

When it got to be close to time for my second parking meter to run out, we recorded our podcast, which will be posted as soon as the appropriate editing has taken place. We talked about back to school, knitting, and who knows what else, with our unpredictable tangents. You’ll have to listen to find out!

After the podcast, Andrea headed off to see a comedy show, while the remaining three of us used up the remaining time on our parking meter and discussed what to do for the rest of the evening. We decided to head to Northern Liberties for free parking, dinner, and more knitting.

Since it is August, Joanna said it was time for her monthly seafood fix, and we headed to Koi for sushi. It was still early for dinner in the city on a Saturday night, so we were able to get a parking spot right in front of the restaurant and were seated right away.

Koi doesn’t have a website th at I could find easily just by googling it, but it is located at 604 North 2nd Street Philadelphia, PA 19123.  The various review sites state that it serves Japanese, Korean, and sushi .  It’s open for lunch and dinner, and offers take-out and delivery.  It is BYOB, and a few patrons walked in after us with cans of PBR.  Reservations are recommended, but like I said, we walked in and were seated right away.

I ordered edamame as an appetizer as we tried to decide what we were going to have from the sushi menu.  Joanna decided on the Salmon Skin roll and Vegetable Tempura roll, Connie also had the Vegetable Tempura roll and a California roll, and I ordered a Spider Roll because Connie had never tried one, and a platter with Spicy Tuna roll, Yellowtail with scallions, and a Philly roll.  The waitress kept our water glasses full and we had Mochi for dessert.  Everyone was pleased with their dishes, and after we finished eating we were full enough to decide that a walk up and back Second Street was in order.

At some point during our walk, our inner tourists came out to play.  We were taking photographs all the way up and back.  Hopefully Connie and Jo will post some of their pictures, since mine are on my phone and not yet postable. 

We decided we needed to eat at Bar Ferdinand again, and then realized that we needed to eat at most of the places along Second, including in the Piazza.  By the time we made it back to my car, we were ready for more knitting and a bathroom break and headed over to Higher Grounds, our regular spot over on Third. 

However, we lost track of time, and HG was closing up for the evening, so Jo and Connie got iced tea and we headed down to the community park on Third and Wildey.  We took more pictures, talked about gardening in the community garden next to the park, and maybe hosting a KIP there, and settled down on the stage to knit for a while to enjoy the evening.  There was some great people watching, and it was here knitting in the dark that Joanna realized she had dropped a stitch in her sock.  And then, when we finally found a locking stitch marker to hold it, realized that she might have forgotten to change her needle size as well.  (I found out the next day that she ended up frogging back to fix both). 

I dropped them off at the station on Second, and headed back down 95, and was home before 10.

More pictures from our wanderings

I’ve been working on starting and completing 10 projects this year and I’m doing quite well (I’m on 8, 9 if you count the breastfeeding shawl I made for a friend, 6 if you only count items I’m making for myself). I’m about to start the Bonyard Shawl with an angora merino blend called Jolie. One of the projects was Citrus which is in this year’s house color – blue. I have a few photos on my Ravelry page. Well, off to start season 2 of 24!

Happy Knitting everyone!

The Clap – or Clapotis – is a scarf/shawl that is knit on the bias with dropped stitches that make for perfect Twitter updates as progress reports.

I’ll update more later, or someone else will. I’m going to go eat dinner, watch Lost and knit some more!

**Enter Joanna**

This is my third Clap. The first, I knit for my mom and I nearly didn’t give it to her, I loved it so much. The second, I wear as a scarf nearly all the time in cold weather or in my chilly office. As a matter of fact, I wear my blue Clap so often, I decided a few months ago that I needed a second one in a different color. When the idea of a Social Knitworking Clapotis Knit-Along came up, I was all in.

I’m using fingering weight yarn for a lighter scarf than the pattern suggests. In the photo at the left you can see I’ve completed 8 drop stitches. Isn’t it pretty?

Modifying the Clapotis pattern for different yarn weights and amounts is very easy since some genius discovered The Rule of Fifths. Here’s how the rule works: Weigh the yarn you’re using. Take that weight and divide it by 5. That number, 1/5 the total amount of your yarn, is the amount you’ll use to knit the Set-up and Increase Rows of the Clapotis pattern (Sections 1 and 2). Section 3 of the pattern, the Straight Rows, will take 3/5 the total amount of yarn, and Sections 4 and 5, the Decrease and Final Rows, will take the last 1/5 of your yarn.

In my case, I’m using three skeins of Knitpicks Stroll Multi in the Hearth colorway. This yarn comes in 50g skeins, so I have 150g in total. 1/5 of my total weight is 30g. So I used aproximately 30g of yarn in the Set-up and Increase sections of my Clap. Since that took less than a full skein of yarn, I’m using the last of that first skein and a full second skein in the Straight Rows. I’ll also start the last skein in the Straight Rows, but I’ll start weighing my skein as I knit. When I knit down to the 40g point I’ll get ready to start the Decrease Rows.

If our knit-along were a race, Nysssa would be winning. If you follow her tweets, you know she’s already started the decrease rows. I think that’s crazy awesome. And here she is, Evil Genius Nysssa, wearing her mostly finished Clapotis.

She’s using Halcyon Yarn, Victorian 2-Ply in black. Since she has a ridiculous amount of this yarn in her stash (5 skeins), she’s not using her total amount of yarn for her Clap. Rather, she worked the increase rows as written and knit the straight sections until she got to a length she liked.

We decided to meet at our Tuesday night spot, Higher Grounds, where we’d feel comfortable sitting and knitting and waiting while we ran whatever errands if we couldn’t meet when we wanted to.  I sat by the window, had some chai, and worked on my Destroyed Cowl.  I had to park in a two hour spot, the ‘unlimited’ parking was all full, but it would hold me over for a while.

Springviolet arrived, also ordered some chai, and set about winding yarn for her Robot Hat.  I lameneted my lack of EVER using Manos.  I should fix that soon.

In any case, my parking spot was about turn my car into a ticket, so we decided to peruse the neighborhood for some food.  Koi was our first choice, for some sushi to celebrate Springviolet’s vegetarianism, but it looked closed.  So we decided to look for Honey’s Sit and Eat, a local hot spot that we’d both never been to, but had heard much about (especially about the hours long waits that occured for brunch time on the weekends).

We forgot where it was exactly, so we drove around Northern Liberties for a little while and finally found it.  I grabbed the first parking spot I saw (and could have found a closer one, but it is what it is).  We walked in and there were only a few tables taken, apparently we had good timing.  We were seated, and given the breakfast and lunch menus to order from.

Springviolet picked the chorizo omelet.  I’ll let her describe it for you, but I know she ate all of it :)

I had a shrimp po-boy sandwich and an order of brussell sprouts.  The sandwich came out open-faced, and in my effort to consume less bread, and because I had no idea how to pick it up to put it in my face, I ate with a fork and knife.  The sauce was delicious and I ate more of the bread than I intended because I wanted the sauce.  The shrimp were cooked perfectly and were spicy and nice.  The sprouts were also very good.  Very garlic-y – and a tad undercooked for my preference, but I still ate them all!

We agreed that we probably wouldn’t wait to wait in line for hours on the weekend, but it was definitely worth coming back during the day when you could walk in and sit down.

The placemat which had ads and a map of local businesses, and we still had several hours until fiber night, so we decided to try out the Random Tea Room, just a few blocks away on 4th Street.  We walked, since it wasn’t worth getting my car in case we weren’t going to stay there.  The sign outside advertised a $1 house Chai, so we went inside to investigate.

It was cute!  There were a few people there using laptops, and talking with the proprietress, and the whole room smelled like chai.  There was room to sit and we ordered tea (I got my first taste of pu erh, and I believe Springviolet got honeybush).  We decided to sit an knit, so I went back to the car for my project and found a parking spot right in front, refreshing my two hour parking time from the previous spot where I had parked from Honey’s.

There was a sweet Boston Terrier sleeping nearby, and while the chairs weren’t set up great for face to face conversation, we were able to sit and chat and drink and knit comfortable for a few hours. 

We commented that a 2-hour time limit cafe crawl would be a lot of fun for the sooner than later future, if we could manage to coordinate it, where we’d visit small local spots, eat/drink and knit for two hours and then move along to the next one.

We finally tried the house chai, which was very tasty and I purchased two ounces of another loose tea (the minimum, even though tea is priced by the ounce)  for my Pollyanna partner. 

I kept the placemat – there are few more places on it that we have to visit!

So what are knitters to do without a good way to get to or from our beloved Higher Grounds but find a more transit-less friendly location for our mid-strike dose of sanity?  We decided we’d go to T Bar, located at 117 South 12th Street,  and online at www.tbarteas.com

It has seating, food, tea, and we can get there without being affected too much by the strike, great!

Or not.

We were able to snag some semi-comfortable spots near the window, and I went up to the counter to order a beverage and a sandwich.  I’m not the best at decision making and hadn’t been there before, so I decided to ask the barista for a tea suggestion.  I didn’t want caffeine, or anything else that might keep me up, so I smiled nicely and asked for a recommendation.  Apparently, it was an inconvenient question.

“What kind of tea do you recommend?”  I asked.  I’m pretty sure I was being friendly.  I try to be friendly with people who are making me things that I will be putting in my mouth.

“It depends on what kind of mood you are in.” Well that’s great.  I’m starting to get cranky – do they serve cranky tea?  I don’t have a mood, I just want a good cup of tea that someone else finds enjoyable so I don’t have to think about it or make a decision.

“Well, what is your favorite?” That is more specific, right?  I want to know what he likes.

“It depends on what kind of mood I’m in.”  Well, damn, that’s helpful. I’m trying to give you money here, emo boy!

“Ok, well, what are you drinking tonight?”

“Rooibos Bourbon”

“That’s decaf right?” (Yeah, I walked into this one)

“Well, not really decaf, because that implies that there is caffeine in the tea to begin with…” (Now, readers, I know that rooibos isn’t caffeinated to begin with, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything sneaky in it that might keep me awake, and phrased my question in an improper way – but you should have seen him recoil with fear at my lack of proper terminology)

“Sounds great.  I’ll try it.”  I also ordered a Thai Chicken Wrap, because I like to eat, and it had peanut sauce on it, and I love peanut sauce.

I paid, sat down, and admired Jo’s tea pot and cute cup of tea.  How nice.  My tea came out in a paper cup.  Oh, I didn’t know there were options.  I wanted fancier dishes.  Oh well.  I sipped the tea.  It was FABULOUS.  Really really good.  I’m glad emo boy was in the mood for it.

Then my wrap came out and it looked very pretty.  I took a bite.  It was chicken. And some lettuce.  And a hint of maybe some peanut sauce that thought about coming out of the bottle but just didn’t feel like it that night.  Oh well, it was food.

Andrea has by now arrived, and has ordered herself some tea and a tasty something, and she gets a pretty tea pot too.  Our wonderful emo salesboy didn’t even try to sell me more than one cup of tea.  Whatever.  I know I can resteep my bag and have a second cup later anyway, if not two.

Andrea sits down, starts eating, and Jo decides that perhaps she should eat food too.  She heads up to the counter, talks to emo boy, then comes back with a package of cookies.

“What did you get?”

“Nothing, they turned the grill off and aren’t making any more sandwiches tonight.”

It’s maybe 8 pm by this point, at the very latest, and I really think it was more like 730.  They close at 9.

I give Jo the second half of my not so impressive chicken wrap, and she too is underwhelmed.

We sip our tea, chat, and knit, deciding at least we were comfortable and knitting and therefore not tearing our hair out or wanting to attack anybody.

Then the cleaning started.  First there was sweeping, and the moving of chairs onto tabletops.  We look at the time, we check on the door.  They are open until 9, we aren’t crazy.  Then the mop and the mop bucket comes out.  And then the bottle of Pine Sol.

Now, I love the scent of a freshly cleaned room that has been mopped down with Pine Sol.  When it’s properly mixed with water and I’m not sitting, visiting with friends, trying to drink my tea, and knitting.  However, this was not properly diluted.  This was more like most of a bottle of Pine Sol and very little water.  And it’s at least an hour if not more until the store closes, and we are obviously settled in and planning on staying for a while, and we’ve all made purchases and aren’t just squatters taking up space.

We stuck it out until almost 9 pm.  But the the smell of Pine Sol and the obvious desire of the staff to have us leave so they could close up and go home chased us away.

So, if you want a nice cup of tea, I would say that as long as you know what you want, and what kind of mood you are in, and don’t want a suggestion from the staff, stop in and grab a cup and leave before it’s time for them to clean something and give you headache as well.

Well, let me tell you, Sock Dreams is definitely a sock heaven. The prices are reasonable, like reasonably reasonable. And guess what – any internet orders are shipped free. FREE! No minimum order, though you wouldn’t have trouble filling your cart with the goodies you can find there.

I went ahead and placed an order – some fun knee socks, a sexy fishnet lace up anklet. Got my order confirmation. Then, a few hours later, got my shipping confirmation, with delivery confirmation number! I figured it would ship Monday (this was a Saturday afternoon), but Monday morning I checked the DC number – and it was already out for delivery. From Portland to Philly – ordered Saturday an delivered Monday. For free.

I have two pet peeves about the site. One is that you can’t track your order history on their site. The other is that they don’t have a wish list.

They do have gift certificates though! If you want to know what to get me – email me a Sock Dreams GC – I will definitely find something!

Before I begin though – my current movie theater knitting project is the Windmill Bag – I soared through about 7 or 8 inches of garter stitch during the movie today – 21 stitches wide on size 6 needles using worsted weight yarn..

Ok, the movie…

If you’re the kind of person who shows up to a movie late – this movie is perfect for it. I spent the first 30 or so minutes wondering why the movie theater had so many people in it. It was extremely documentary-esque but didn’t seem to have a point and was gory and I couldn’t wait for something to finally HAPPEN.

When things finally started happening, the movie went from hmm to HMM to Oh, ok – there is a plot. It was predictable, but not in a bad way. There was a lot of splattering bodies – but by the end there were bodies being splattered that you were glad to see go. There was a lot of eating catfood – and some eating of alien flesh – not really my thing. There were parts I just didn’t watch – peeling off fingernails, vomiting black goo, chopping off offending body parts. I saw some people with small children in the theater, probably not something I’d want a small child to see – but I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night with them when they have nightmares that they are slowly turning into an alien.

My favorite character was the son – you’ll see why.

The main character didn’t have enough character – I’m not sure if it was the actor’s fault or the writer’s, but he went from wishy-washy to hero and then back to wishy-washer.

They did manage to leave us hanging at the end – please I don’t want them to make a sequel – it was interesting but not enough for another one.

This was definitely not a ‘have to see it on the big screen with the big sound system’ kind of movie. Catch a matinee so you have money left for popcorn to get your through the beginning of the movie – or just wait for it to come out on DVD.