More Chicago

I know I promised more Chicago picts yesterday, but I'm a bit behind. A lot of the pictures are actually going to be links to The Chicago Art Institute because their pictures are so much better than what I could take, even with my decent camera and the Institute has tons of the famous paintings that you always see everywhere - American Gothic, The Child's Bath, Nighthawks, and one of my favorites, Renoir's Two Sisters.

Also at the Institute were these. So, click on the link. I'll wait. You can click to enlarge. Are those not the coolest things? Do they not look like real-sized rooms? Sixty-eight miniature rooms in 1/12th scale (which means one inch of the miniature equals one foot of the real-life equivalent). As much as I loved just about everything else we saw in Chicago, I really loved these miniatures. One of my many interests are miniatures and seeing these at the Art Institute really inspired me to get my basement cleaned and organized so I can have a studio down there to work on some miniature projects. Let me tell you, it's a big undertaking, but I'm going to do it!

Now this picture was taken from atop the Sears Tower.

The big white building in the center is the Shedd Aquarium and the domed building in the upper left is the Adler Planetarium.

As for the skirt, I'm nearly done with the front (or back as you wish, it's the very same thing. I still have to make another one.) I was going to probably finish up my tank after I finish the first half of the skirt, then come back to the skirt and finish it and hope it's actually warm enough to wear my new stuff by then. I also have something else planned; I ordered the yarn from Webs on Monday. I'll tell you about it as soon as the yarn gets here.

More Chicago and Maybe Just a Little Yarn

The trip to Chicago - it was cold. Cold is, of course, a relative term. I'm from Georgia and have never lived north of Virginia, so I may find certain temps a little colder than someone from, oh let's say, Minnesota ;-). I have actually gotten used to temps in the 30s, but in the week preceding our trip to Chicago, it was in the 70s and nearly 80 here, so 30 degree weather was cold. (Granted, it did get that low here while we were gone, too, so I would have been complaining about the cold here, too.) Anyway, now that I've completely bored most of you, for any still reading, on our first day we went to the aquarium.

We saw a baby Beluga Whale with its mom:

Penguins:

An octupus who had to be the most bored octopus in the world because he kept climbing up the rocks in its display, then letting go and floating down to the bottom only to start all over:

There were also lots of lizards and fish, of course. Lots of underwater viewing for the whales and dolphins. Pretty nice aquarium.

In Millennium Park, we saw this odd sculpture named, "Cloud's Gate" (I think) because locals just refer to it as "The Bean". Wonder why:


I did not get to any yarn shops in Chicago (I know, hard to believe). But for those of you still with me, here's something that was waiting at home for me:

That's Regia silk in pink (mere coincidence that it's one of Project Spectrum's colors) from The Loopy Ewe. And I'm still not going to tell you what it's for just yet :) Soon.

And also waiting was my Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival catalog. Less than a month to go! Anyone else going to be there? And is anyone hosting a blogger meetup this year?

The Windy City

This is where I've been for the past week:

It was cold, but totally worth the trip and I'll have lots of pictures to share in the next week or so. Not a lot of knitting as we stayed pretty busy, but lots of museum stuff. Did you know the Art Institute has a really cool display of miniature rooms?! But it will have to wait a couple of days. We've been on the go for a week; tired, glad to be home (sort of, I really did enjoy Chicago!). Lots of blog reading and blogging to catch up on!

More Chicago pictures to come though!