Knit, and Pearl

Public Market. Budapest, 2003.
Originally uploaded by panopticon.

Above is the latest finished print. We're gettin' there.

The quality of the light in the Public Market in Budapest was the first thing I noticed. It comes in from high up, bounces off the ineffably soft color of the walls, and bathes everything in a tone that (to me) mimics the quality of the "golden hour" at the end of a fair day.

I could be wrong, but this woman probably does not think of herself as a beauty. To me, she is.

The first time I saw it, in 2003, it was wonderful - an actual market full of real people truly marketing. It was the same a year later, except that the real people were supplemented by 15,000 pushy Japanese tourists. Alas, poor Budapest. You are now officially Over.

Also on the portfolio front, a trip to Pearl Art & Craft yielded a very promising carrying case, though it didn't come from the shop's portfolio section. But once I'm done with it, I think it'll look pretty sharp.

Actually, Chris and I found the selection at Pearl to be spectacularly bad. They were out of most everything we were looking for - and our list was both long and commonplace.

They didn't have a single pre-cut matte in stock in the exotic size I was looking for (11x16), and most of the mattes they did have were in weird colors or had been banged up so much they were useless.

They were entirely out of google eyes for Chris's orange chenille stuffed octopus.

And if you're tempted by the listing in Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation to check out their knitting supplies, don't bother. Even my low expectations were too high. Nearly the entire shelf of yarn was empty. There were a few odd skeins of so-cheap-it-squeaks acrylics, and ugly novelty yarns in shades like booger green. The needle selection included one or two packs of double-points in sizes 01 and 4, and a size 8 circular on a loop too short to do anybody much good. They had no point protectors at all, no bobbins, no yarn scissors, no ring markers. There were, however, empty spaces marked for a healthy cross-section of basic notions.

So while Chris was checking out the book section, I asked a so-helpful employee about the depleted state of things and whether it was the norm, or had they just had a big sale? She said they don't make much of an effort to stock those shelves because nobody really wants knitting stuff.

Hello?