Twisted Stitcher

Happy Birthday to my Sister!

2010-09-12T14:20:00.002-07:00

September 12, 2010

How time does fly! Happy Birthday to Margie! And thanks to all who sent me birthday wishes. I had a really great birthday yesterday.

I went shopping in Boulder Junction, ate pizza at the Sayner Pub, talked with Mike on the phone, watched movies, and knit. I did get a very quick dip in the creek to celebrate my birthday. It was cold. I’m not even calling it chilly or refreshing anymore, it’s just cold.

Today I took a bike ride over to Crystal Lake. The bike paths up here are fabulous, with the possible exception of two or three hills. It’s around 7 miles each way. It took me about an hour to get there, because I did have to stop to take a picture or two. So my legs were a little tired when I got there.

The lake is as beautiful as I remember. Of course I stuck my feet in. It’s such a pretty lake, all sand and you can see your toes even if you are standing waist deep in the lake. I think you could see your toes even if you were shoulder deep, but I didn’t get that wet today. It was about 65 and a bit breezy. I think the last time I was in Crystal Lake was around 1963 or so. I remember pictures from around then, and I remember it was so much fun to swim and play with my parents and sisters.

After I got back I took a quick bath in the creek, and it was every bit as cold as yesterday. Mira had fun chasing her tennis ball, which has replaced the sticks I used to throw for her. I think she can see them better and she brings the ball back a little bit better than the sticks.

I gathered up some blankets and towels to wash and headed into St. Germain. I ate a double scoop of ice cream at Cathy’s and am now sitting at the Red Canoe Coffee Shop. It took quite a while to round up Mira, since just before I was ready to go she happened across a porcupine! Luckily, even though the porky was slow, she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do, other than bark at it. I am very, very glad that she is so clueless because pulling quills from her nose was not on my agenda.

The porcupine was slow, but not stupid. It climbed up a tree just past the wood shed while Mira was running around the garage looking for it.

So, off to do laundry, then back to the house. The sun is shining nicely and I can see some porch knitting in my future.

Mostly Cloudy with a Chance of Rain

2010-09-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

September 8

That has been the weather for the last little bit and is the forecast through the 13th or 14th. The high’s supposed to be no higher than upper 60’s. The hummingbirds have left for the year. Good thing the trees are turning such pretty colors and that fall is my favorite season. It’s decent compensation. I expect the colors to be getting prettier and prettier until I leave. The trees around the house don’t seem to be changing as quickly as those along the roads to town.

Really, other than the roof being done not much is happening here. The roof looks great and the sound of the rain on it is nice and quiet. I was a little concerned since it is a metal roof. But they put down a layer of rubber stuff on top of the weather/ice layer, and so no worries. I’ve had plenty of rain to make sure the noise level is low. I haven’t had a really huge storm or hail, but I think it will be just fine. It looks quite nice.

I got the stove cleaned out and polished. It was very messy, but it looks great. Unfortunately, Mira decided that she would check out how well I did and managed to get soot all over herself. She went in the creek today and some of it came off. But I think I have to get in the creek with her and try to give her a bath with shampoo. Y’all can wish me luck since the creek is chilly and she really hates shampooing. I hope it’s at least a little sunny tomorrow. I had to make the house really warm so that she wouldn’t be chilled when we came up. I tell you, there’s nothing like a wood stove to throw off some real heat!

So that’s about it. More reading and knitting and spinning. I did go out to do the laundry, which I didn’t get to like I thought I would. I also went to Wolf Pack. Even when I am starving, I can’t eat 3 whole pancakes. Just a thing to remember for next time....

September 10

The weatherman lied. Today was an absolutely beautiful day at the creek. The sun has been shining all day long, it’s about 66F right now at 3:30 on the porch. Mira and I are up from the creek, which is quite cool. Let’s just call it very refreshing.

I did give her a shampooing yesterday after all. It helped, but there’s still a little sootyness left since washing a dog who really doesn’t enjoy baths in a relatively fast moving stream that is cold is perhaps not the easiest job. Today she made sure she stayed farther than an arm’s length away. She learns quickly when she wants to. Right now she’s in a nice sunny spot under the big white pine just outside the porch.

I did get the new wood under the eaves stained and the doorframe painted (2 coats). As I was painting the door frame, I noticed that the trim around the window in the door need painting also. So it has one coat, and I will give it a second coat tomorrow. Then I noticed the bottom of the door could use a little repair and staining, but I haven’t figured out exactly what to do about that. I think the door needs to be taken down, some repair done then sanded and stained. Perhaps a kick plate. I don’t think that I have enough time and the right weather forecast to do a proper job. So either my sisters will do it next summer, or I will the summer after that when I get up here again.

I’m off now to get myself together for a nice drive around the area and perhaps a visit to Trout Lake for a sunset.

The end of summer....

2010-09-03T13:29:00.001-07:00

September 3, 2010

There is a definite nip in the air today. It’s noon and only 55 degrees on the porch. There is a little tree I can see from the couch that has turned a goldish color. Pretty, but I was hoping for a little bit more hot, or at least warm, weather. I still am hoping for some more days that will be warm enough to spend a lot more time at the creek.

It’s an afgan day today. The sky is gray and dripping, the wind is more than a little breezy, the afgan is cozy warm, and the pot of tea is steaming hot. I’m splitting time today between knitting and reading. Not too bad. I’m going uptown in a bit to catch up on laundry and internet stuff.

The roofers came yesterday at 7:30 AM, after all of these weeks that they have been putting us off. Fortunately, Russ and Betty were already up. They were packing to leave (more about that in a bit). So, I got up and threw on some jeans and talked to them. It was raining, so all they did was drop off their trailer and some materials. They came back around noon, after it started to clear up. They worked about 4 hours and promised to come back today around 7 AM. They got about half of the creek side torn off, and the weather/ice shield layer down. Good thing that is waterproof, because it rained a lot last night and most of this morning. They showed up at 7:15 this morning to drop off the rest of the materials, and to let me know they will be back when the weather co-operates. Anybody who knows me at all will realize just how happy I am about having to be ready for roofers at that time in the morning. Oh well, at least it is finally getting done.

I’ll try now to catch you up on what’s been happening since the last entry, over a week has gone by which I can hardly beleive. I did get into town and uploaded some photos here. Not all of them went through, but at least there are some. The Red Canoe in St. Germain is a great little coffee shop with good food and internet access. They also have a lot of nice little knick-knacks, wine, and candles to buy. I resisted them all, which was harder than it sounds.

I did some grocery shopping for my company, and some laundry. Went to Wally World and got a new coffee pot for the house, a bookcase to hold the three new bags of books I picked up at the library “Basement Buck a Bag Book Sale”, and a baby gate to keep Mira out of the bedroom that the company will use, since I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want a dog sleeping on their pillows. Other than that, not much happened. I got to spend a lot of time at the creek, did a lot of reading, spinning, and knitting. Also did a bunch of just sitting on the porch enjoying the experience.

Bob’s Dad and Betty came up on Monday, August 30th at about 3 pm. We had a nice little visit and Italian Dinner. We went to Three Lakes, which was apparently named “The Best Single Town in America” for 2010, on Tuesday. We took a short tour of the Three Lakes Winery and I bought (more than) a little wine. They import chocolate and raspberry chocolate wine! Sounds like an unbeatable combonation, and it is very tasty. I couldn’t resist.

We went to a couple of little antique shops and several tourist-y shops in Eagle River. Had lunch at a soda shop/diner, then headed out for the quilt store. Betty and I had a good time there!

On Wednesday, we headed towards Lac du Flambeau because Russ wanted to track down one of his cousins who lived there. I decided to see if I could find any information on my phone for her, and I tracked down somebody who knew where her husband worked, which happened to be Woodruff, so we headed in that direction. We found her husband, Ken Ferg, and he told us that Carolyn was on vacation in the U.P. with some of their grands and great-grands. But at least he got her new address and they can keep in touch.

We went to the little antique shop in Woodruff near McDonald’s after lunch. Betty and I both found a few things that we couldn’t pass up. Then we went thru some more shops in Minocqua. I have picked up a few little things for Christmas presents, so I’m ahead of myself there. They wanted to tour some of the model log homes, and then we went home for supper and to visit some more.

They left early Thursday morning after the roofers left. I did a bit of straightening up, then some knitting. For those who are interested, I am about half done with the Triple S Shawl that I started when I got here. It’s looking really nice. I have the blue wool singles to ply, but I’ve been having a little trouble with the wheel, and have to create a lazy kate. I really hope to have that done before I get home.

So, that’s what’s been happening around here. I still have to tweak a few more pictures before I can post them. I haven’t exactly been able to figure out the most effective way to get photos to the blog, Ravelry, and email from this Mac. The mail program seems to not recognize me, so that makes it a bit harder. I’ll be working on that pretty soon, since one of the books I got at the library sale was Mac for Dummies. Like I said before, I think I’ll head uptown to upload this and to do some laundry. I really wish the laundromat had WiFi, that would be very good. Maybe that should be my new career, laundromat/internet cafe. Hmmm

The sun started peeking out just as I was leaving for town. Still cool and windy at 2:30.

Sisters

2010-08-26T12:02:00.003-07:00

August 25, 2010

Well, my sisters came up late Monday night and it was wonderful to see them again! They got here around midnight, and we stayed up talking until about 2 am.

We took a nice long walk out to C via the bike path on Tuesday morning. The weather was cloudy and cool. Mira thought the walk was fabulous. We found some blueberries and blackberries, so we had a tiny snack.

I took a quick bath in the creek, then we headed out to Eagle River. They wanted to check out a little quilt store, which turned out to be not really little. The store, Karen’s Quilts, has a really fabulous selection of fabric and patterns. We all found some things we couldn’t live without. Margie is quilting some really cute things using hand dyed wool fabric and applique. I couldn’t resist a snowman pattern and a table runner kit. The people there do really great machine quilting. The samples in this store were among the best I’ve ever seen.

On the way there, we stopped by a pier company to check out the selection. We are going to put in a new pier next year. We all agreed on the size and color of it. Its decking is a composite material that won’t wrap, rot, or get icky in general. We will have it installed, since none of us want to do it.

We all did a little needlework in the afternoon, after a nice time in the creek. Margie was quilting, Karen was cross stitching, and I was spinning. I did get the llama/silk blend singles done before bed Tuesday, and plied, washed and have it hanging up on the porch right now. It’s looking pretty good.

We tried out a new restaurant that has been around for a while, but none of us had been there before. It’s called Marty’s and it is on 51, just a bit south of M. The atmosphere was very nice, the service was not rushed, the drinks were great, and the food absolutely delicious. We had the stuffed crepes for a starter. They were fabulous.

Over dinner, Karen and Margie started telling me about the barn quilts that they have seen and love. People paint big pieces of plywood in quilt patterns and then hang them on the barns. Some people paint the entire sides of their barns in quilt patterns. Karen wants to put one on the Creek House, and Margie and I thought that’d be a good plan. Ours in going to be 4 feet square. Each of us was going to design a square, and then one to represent Mom and Dad. We ended up deciding to each do a square based on the quilt pattern that Mom made us. So I will be drawing out a Grandmother’s Fan, 22” square. We are all going to sign our block, and then I have to mail mine to Karen. She and Margie will be doing the painting. We decided to do a pine tree block for Mom and Dad.

After dinner, we played three games of pinochle. Margie didn’t have such great luck. Karen got double pinochle in two of the games and I got it in the third. Very unusual! On hand I hand 66 meld! A run in diamonds, a roundhouse, and a double pinochle. That was a quick game. It was so fun to talk and laugh and just hang out with my sisters.

Today they took a much longer walk in the morning. I didn’t go. When they got back we went to Wolf Pack for breakfast. Those are some great pancakes! I have no idea why they are, they just are. Their motto is “Peace, Love, and Pancakes”.

Then we went to the hardware store to pick up some parts to fix the drain for the toilet, some things to create a lazy kate, and a coffee pot. For some reason, the old pot has disappeared from here. We had to stop three places before we found what we wanted, the aluminum percolator kind. They had one at Sayner hardware, but only one. And since Margie wanted one for her house, I told her to take that one home, and I will get one tomorrow when I go into the big city.

We took a few pictures of us on the pier at the creek. After much effort, I finally got one that had everyone sitting on the pier with nobody’s head cut off. Mira had her usual good time chasing sticks. We had a bit of a snack. then Karen went to Minocqua to pick up a picture that Margie found at a flea market, and Karen had framed. It’s a really nice picture of a big sister reading to her two little sisters. We hung it up in the living room. It’s really a nice picture, and it’s in a perfect place.

We spent a tiny bit more time on the porch, and they left around 5. I spent a little bit of time straightening things up, hunting for Margies missing earring and my missing tape measurer. I found my tape but not the earring. I think it may have been lost in the creek. I’ve uploaded the pictures and gotten them ready to post tomorrow when I go to town. I am going to put the tractor away, then we are going to have a bite to eat, do some knitting, and maybe go to bed early.

It was a really great two days.

And for today, an essay from the dog....

2010-08-21T14:07:00.001-07:00

How to Handle a Thunderstorm

by Mira

First, if you are not alone in the house, make sure your mistress is awake to protect you from the scary thunder and lightening. This is most effectively accomplished at 4 am by crawling up to the pillows, leaning hard against her, and shaking uncontrollably without stopping until she wakes up to find out what’s wrong.

Then, once she is positively awake, hop down to the floor and try to crawl under the bed, even though you don’t fit under it. Make a bunch of noise with whatever is under there. This is more effective if she has no idea what is under the bed, then she will have to get a flashlight and investigate. This will assure you get more time to shiver and gain more sympathy.

Then hop back up and try to wiggle under the covers. If that doesn’t work, hop down and try to squeeze behind the headboard. If your mistress starts to get cranky, jump back up from the floor and back again a few times to let her know you aren’t upset with her. Then jump back to the floor and find the tiny corner next to the dresser to sleep through the storm. It helps to make a lot of noise by scratching the carpet for a long time to get the nap just right. The floor will be a safer place than the bed because you can’t see the lightening as well, and so you can totally ignore it.

Because you know she will be awake for a while to make sure that nothing bad can happen, you can now safely go to sleep.

Update from Up North

2010-08-19T14:42:00.001-07:00

August 19, 2010

A quick update.....written at the Sayner Laundromat, which is a fair use of time if I do say so myself.

Let’s see, how shall I sum up the last 10 days? Fabulous, wonderful, relaxing, quiet, green, with a decent amount of thunderstorms, not too many deer flies, and mostly really nice weather.

We’ve played in the creek, messed around with yarn, fiber and needles, gone for walks on the road, washed the kitchen floor, purchased fudge at Dan’s, groceries at Red Owl, and postcards at Pastimes. I may actually write them sometime. The bat did make it’s way out of the house. We saw a huge wild turkey. It’s body was bigger than Mira, and she weighs 40 pounds. It could have fed a big bunch of hungry Thanksgiving guests. I haven’t seen it since. Maybe it knows I have the shotgun loaded. I also haven’t seen a single deer. Lots of chipmunks and a few little squirrels.

Things I’ve realized so far: a front loading washing machine really gets your clothes clean (and it’s way more fun to watch than mine), 25 cents to dry a load of laundry for 9 minutes seems a little steep (good thing we have a dryer at the Creek), I read really fast, my dog prefers her sticks to be thrown in the deepest part of the creek, spinning on the porch makes your yarn more even than at home, I like the farmers market in Woodruff better than the guy who sells veggies by the road in St. Germain, listening to my Mom’s voice on tape describing the old photos can make me cry, and that not working with the wood stove for so long makes you forget how to keep it from smoking up the house.

I have my sisters coming up on Monday which will be really great, and then Dad and Betty coming up the week after for a few days. It will be wonderful to see them all again. The roofers are also coming, but I didn’t think they would be of general interest.

I may try to post some pictures, but I really haven’t taken that many, and the hummingbirds are not cooperating. There are 6 or 7 of them around the feeder, but they go away when I pick up my camera. Tricky little things. And just so nobody is surprised, you won’t see any early morning pictures. They are too hard to take when asleep.

Up North

2010-08-15T15:46:00.000-07:00

August 9, 2010

Got to Creek House yesterday around 6:30 pm. Started on Saturday, just Mira and I. Drove to Prairie Rose State Park in Iowa and camped at a really nice little spot. It was hot and humid.

The cruise control was broken, but the air conditioning was not, which was a blessing! I unpacked the car and went in the creek. It was wonderful! The creek is high, and wasn’t too cold. The mosquitos had not realized I had arrived, so the creek time was absolutely perfect.

After that, I got my stuff sort of organized and put away, read on the porch and went to bed. Mira has had a great time running around in the woods, playing in the creek, and napping on the porch.

I was woken up at 5 am by a BAT flying around my bedroom! It brushed my face and freaked me out a little bit, since we all know how much I really hate those creepy things. I heard it out in the main room, so I shut my door and went back to sleep.

I got up at 9 or so and looked around for the stupid bat. Couldn’t find it, so I started opening the windows to get a breeze in the house. When I opened the kitchen window, there it was. It flew out of the valance above the sink, and tried to get out of the window, but was stopped by the screen. Eeewwww, creeped me out!

So I quickly slammed the window shut, trapping it, and tried to think about what to do next. I went to the garage to look for a fishing net or something to catch it in so I could let it go outside. There was no net, but I found a little bait bucket that I thought I might be able to use.

When I went back into the house, it had disappeared. That was not really great, since there was no place it could go! So I looked closer, and saw it had tucked itself up in the window track way up at the very top. I opened the window, very carefully so it wouldn’t fly back into the house, then opened the screen so it could fly out. I’m waiting to see if it figures it out. Until then, I am keeping the window shut. And no, I am not taking a picture!

What a slacker!

2008-03-03T17:12:00.003-07:00

I've decided to go ahead and finally post again. Ravelry has been taking up a lot of time, and I can hardly believe was the end of last May that I wrote last.

OK, I can't really blame Ravelry for all of that time, hence I've been a real slacker.

There's no way to catch everybody on everytime that's happened in a year. I have gotten quite a bit done, knit- and crochet-wise. I'll try to get the photos up. I did get a couple posted over on the Photos page. But I have forgotten to take pictures of some of the stuff.

Right now I'm just finished with my daughters flip top mittens and will be starting on my sons as soon as I get off the computer. I have to swatch for his, since the yarn isn't something I've worked with before. It's a wonderful soft charcol gray alpaca...yum.

I'll try to be better at posting, but you know me!

Time Flies...

2007-05-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

....and sometimes with super sonic speed, as in the case here. A knitter with good intentions of blogging on a regular basis, which was never meant to be every third month.

I did get a lot done since my last post. Lots of knitting, lots of painting inside my house, lots of company (that explains the painting), lots of weeding in the garden, and lots of pictures taken. Lots of kids home from school and a new High School graduate. Just so you know, in case I haven't bragged enough about the kids, they are all doing great. Mike is a new Lance Corporal and will most likely be going to school in Fort Collins next fall; Meg did wonderful in school last year, is a new assistant manager at an athletic shoe store and is getting her own apartment for next semester; Matt has chosen Fort Hays State University to study Graphic Design at ( I think he gets his creativity from me) and is excited about moving on.

Before I forget, here is the link to my Photobucket space. Right now it's password protected so here are the details. My user name is LindaKGS and the password is 615olive. There, that should get you to some good stuff. The sub album of the bootcamp trip is horribly out of order, which drives me nuts, but if I waited to fix it, well you know...

Another reason I needed to blog tonight was that I decided the Twisted Stitcher group is going to meet on Wednesday nights starting tomorrow. The location we picked for right now is Pikes Perk on Academy just north of Vickers. The time is 6 pm to whenever they kick us out, which will be 9 or 9:30, I can't remember.

See you there.

Ok, who said it could be February already?

2007-02-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

Holy Smokes, time sure is flying by! I have nearly gotten used to writing 2007, but the fact that February showed up this fast is boggling my little mind. So much has happened since I wrote last. This is going to be one long post! Also, when I get the pictures in, it will be rather picture heavy. My apologies to the people with slow connections.

The photos are going to be added later. I have a ton of photos from our trip that will probably go into PhotoBucket shortly. I got a new camera and have to play with the software for it before the pictures go up. Links will be added later as well.

WARNING: THIS POST HAS A LOT OF NON-KNITTING CONTENT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The Big Event of January for our family was Mike’s boot camp graduation. Yes, we now have an official Marine in the family. The trip out to San Diego was short but packed with lots and lots of activity and fun. We left really early on the 10th out of Denver. When we got to San Diego, the weather was overcast and cold for them, but felt warm to us. Meg was pretty impressed by the palm trees, and the fact that bird of paradise flowers grow everyplace and that jade plants are used as shrubs was very cool.

We were all so tired from the early flight that we spent some time napping in the car at a neat little place downtown call Seaside Village (I think). It was a neat touristy place and we had a snack there before picking up my sister at the airport in the afternoon. We expected the California prices to be higher, but over $7.00 for a smoothie was a little shocking.

We found our way to the hotel in Del Mar, checked in, got showered and dressed and then out to dinner at Red Robin. We had a great time. One of the things the kids noticed was that there weren’t any dirty cars. Anywhere. And no older, slightly “used” looking ones either.

On Thursday, we got over to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot early. We got to see the guys practicing for their Eagle, Globe, and Anchor ceremony, and finally figured out which one was Mike. Then we strolled around the base mall (a small open shopping and food area) a little bit before being guided over to the place the guys would be for the start of their “Motivational Run”. It’s their last company wide event before graduation, and the company commander, battalion commander, chaplain, and other important people including the senior drill instructors and drill instructors all run as a group. This is a big deal for the recruits, and it gives the families a chance to see their sons for the first time in 13 weeks. It was really an emotional time for me, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It was great seeing him again, and I seemed to get pictures mostly of Mike trying not to cough. Megan made fun of their running shorts.

We all lined up by the Theatre and waited for the 3-mile run to finish. It was cool. Then they ran off to get ready for the ceremony and we saw a short presentation in the Theatre. The base commander is Brig. General Angela something. (I’ll look it up later). The Drill instructors were introduced, and I have a short video of that. I’ll try to get that posted someplace.

The EGA ceremony is where they officially become Marines. It was awesome. Mike was a squad leader and got to hold the pins while the Drill instructor went down the line giving each one of the guys in his squad their pin. The sound of all those marching feet and of them all snapping to attention was something special. There were over 480 men in the company. The ceremony started at 11am and when it was over we got to spend until 5pm with Mike. He was thrilled and surprised that Margie came with us.

He got to eat “real” food for the first time at the Food Court. Meg thought it was really funny that his posture was so perfect, that he had to salute people, and that he stood at attention at the credit union. She made me take a picture of that. She loved the prices at the store. He showed us around as much of the base that he could. It was so nice just to spend time with him.

We went back to the hotel and then out to dinner at Rubio’s. It’s a Mexican fast food franchise that had nice fresh food. It was delicious, but Meg was a little put out that when she asked for “queso” she got grated cheese instead of what she was expecting, which was melted cheese dip.

Everybody else went to bed fairly early, but I was up until the wee hours of the morning finishing the sweater. It did get finished, and I like it a lot, but there are a few small things I’ll be tweaking to get it put together better. So that makes two sweaters finished in the last two months. Not bad for a girl who never made herself a sweater before!

We got to the base early Friday as well. We had breakfast and then went over to the parade deck for graduation. It was a fantastic ceremony. The sun was shining, the Marine Band was playing, and the excitement was everywhere. The Marines looked so good and the families looked so proud.

After the graduation ceremony Mike got his bags and stuck them in the incredibly cool mini van that we rented. We spent a little time on base, and then went back to the hotel so Mike could change into civvies. He spent some time in the boys’ room showing stuff to Bob and Matt. Then we went to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Park and rode the tram around and saw all sorts of great animals. We got there late, so we didn’t get to see the lions for Megan. She wants to own a lion cub, and was planning on taking one home from there, so maybe it was just as well.

We ate at a pizza place that night and had a wonderful time. The kids spent some time in the gym and hot tub. It was nice to know they had a chance to catch up without the parents around.

Saturday I drove Margie back to the airport and then we took Mike to an emergency health clinic to get something to fix his pink eye. We ate lunch at an In-n-Out burger place and then went to Legoland. It was very cool. The kids went their way and Bob and I wandered around looking at the neat Lego creations. Meg and Matt got their Lego Driver’s licenses. They all went on the roller coasters, which look really tame, and they all thought the rides would be mild. But I guess they were more exciting than they looked. Maybe because they were all open cars, not like the monster roller coasters with tons of safety bars and padding.

We had a really good time at Legoland and then drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped at a beach that I was for sure going to remember the name of and stuck our feet into the Pacific Ocean. The kids had never seen an ocean before, so it was a neat thing for them to be able to do. We found some seashells and watched the sunset. It was peaceful and relaxing. After that, we went to Marie Calendars for supper. The food was wonderful, and the desserts were perfect. Thank you very much to the person or persons responsible for making that happen. It was so nice to have everybody together again. We spent a lot of time talking and laughing, it was really good.

Sunday we got a late checkout and watched the Bears win the NFC Championship. That was great, but we won’t mention last Sunday’s game. Remember, there’s always next year! We flew back into Denver Sunday night. What a rude greeting, weather wise. Man it was cold!

Mike spent the rest of his 10 days of leave at home and is now back in California at Camp Pendleton doing his Marine Combat Training. He graduates from that on the 13th of this month, and will be headed for Fort Sill (that’s in Lawton, OK) right after that for his MOS (military operations school). He again made squad leader, which is good, but he describes it as a lot “like herding cats”. He will be there until the beginning of April. He has a cell phone that he can use now, and we will be able to send letters and cards there as well. I’ll have that address in a couple of weeks. Let me know if you want his contact info.

Okay, so on to the rest of my life.

Meg’s doing fine. Working hard, going to school, and playing rugby. Yes, even in this weather. They have a tournament somewhere the weekend.

Matt’s doing great also. He’s getting excited about graduating in May. We are going to look at a college over President’s Day weekend. He also has a new job at Quizno’s.

I started and finished a pair of socks from some yarn I got on my trip to Wisconsin in September. They are very comfortable and bright. They cheer me up on gray, cold days. What more could you want from socks?

I also started the Fair Isle cardigan that we are doing as a Knit-a-long in our Saturday knit group. I am a little behind everyone, but no matter, I’m enjoying it and there is no deadline. I had to change needles, the first ones I tried caused a lot of struggle and readjustments. The new Addi’s I’m using are, as expected, so much easier to knit this sweater with.

I have changed the first orange and green checkerboard stripe to fawn and green. The fawn is an orange-y brown, it’s a little more subdued than the straight up orange. I like it a little better, it’s not so…oh what do I want to say? It is more me than the orange/green combo. The next orange and green stripe will also be changed slightly.

Here’s a neat little thing I found online. It gives you a description of you and your “perfect” color, based on your birthday. I’ve looked up the birthdays of some of my family and friends and it seems fairly accurate. It was a fun way to waste some time in between calls at work.

Also in knitting news, my friend Christy of Crazy Monkey Creations, was mentioned in Lime and Violet’s yarn p0rn segment of their podcast. Issue 22, if I remember correctly. So Christy, if you were wondering about a spike in your hits after January 10th, this may be why. They loved your stuff, especially the tropical colorway.

I plan on updating all of my links and buttons, as well as pictures very soon. Of course I planned on doing that before, so it will be a pleasant surprise for all of us when it actually happens!

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it's 2007 already. Where does the time go? I hope everybody has a fabulous year, and that peace breaks out all over the world. A pretty big ambition but hey, dream BIG!

I'm not planning on making any resolutions just for the new year, I make them up as I go along. I stopped the once a year resolutions shortly after I decided that doesn't really work well for me. That was over 25 years ago. I do really like the Knit Fom Your Stash in 2007 KAL, but I won't be joining. At least officially. I am going to try to use my stash yarn whenever possible, but I am well aware that I would be making so many exceptions it would be ridiculous.

So far I have yarn for two more sweaters and some sock yarn that I want to use that are already on the list of things I really want to knit up. Not to mention the bootccamp sweater. Which is almost 2/3 done! I have the back done up to the point of the neck decrease. And I have the front ribbing done. Whoopie, 11 whole rows. I will be knitting the fronts at the same time instead of one at a time. That should be pretty interesting, since the cables are mirror images of each other.

Here at last, a picture of Megan's last year present. The true color is difficult for me to get a picture of, even outside. The bear is a little bit redder, and slightly darker.All of the pieces were knit quite a while ago, but I was procrastinating big time on the sewing up. I don't know why, I actually am a very good seamstress. The pattern was from Sirdar, as was the "Funky Fur". The fur color was Ruby, which I personally think would be a good name for this bear. But the bear is not mine to name. Perhaps Megan will post a comment when she decides on the bears name. Of course, she hasn't seen the bear in real life yet.

The bear is hanging around under the tree with presents for my son Mike, who will be home soon. The tree skirt was made by my Mom as a Christmas present the first year Bob and I were married. It's felt and sequins, not my normal style, but my tree would look very strange without this under it. And Leo the cat is behind the bear, you can only see his butt. He has been sleeping under the tree since we put it up. He is going to be fairly upset when we finally take it down.

Holy Crap, it's the 19th?!?!?!?!

2006-12-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

That means I have 6 days...no, let's be realistic...5 days and 1 hour since I'm writing this at 11 at night....to have everything done for Christmas. Stop laughing, it really isn't funny. No pictures today, can't find the camera.

On the knitting front, there is no Christmas knitting. Score. Well unless you count Megan's present from last year that is knitted but not sewn together. The bootcamp sweater has both sleeves and 2" of back done. There are several things I'm dying to cast on but so far I'm controlling myself on those.

I also have some fabulous roving calling from the craft room. I'm thinking keeping the door shut is helping, but if the wheel adds it's voice, I'm sunk.

I have NO grocery shopping lists created, so no grocery shopping done. That obviously means no cookies baked. This is a big problem.

Presents this year are simple. The most time consuming will be stocking stuffers. We don't have a lot of people outside the immediate family that we buy for anymore. And our family's "big present" this year are airline tickets to San Diego for Mike's Marine bootcamp graduation. We will be visiting places like Sea World and the Zoo and having fun in the sun. It's probably our last family vacation all together, that makes me sad but I plan on enjoying every second of the trip.

How's it going for you?

Whoa, two in a week!

2006-11-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

I know, hard to believe. Two posts in a week. Very unusual. There really hasn't been a lot of progress on the sweater. Maybe two or three rows, so no picture of that. There was knittting, and a completed project!I ran across this pattern on a message board. It's from dixiehellcat and it is her obscenely simple knitted house sox pattern. I printed the pattern, just so I wouldn't lose it, and then it sat on my desk and mocked me for several days. It taunted me to knit up a quick pair since the yarn was in my stash. Yeah, I will admit it, I have some Lion Brand stuff in the stash. It's good for some things, like these socks!

It whispered things like "I'm a quick pattern, the sweater won't mind being put on hold. And besides, your feet are a little chilly." So who am I to resist a pattern that wants to be knit? I cast on the first sock last night at around 9 pm. I finished it in just about 4 hours. Yes, I was up until 1 am. That's not unusual, but it was pretty cool to have a sock done that fast. I even remembered how to kitchner the toe without dragging out a book. I cast on the second one shortly before 2 this afternoon and finished it a little before I took this picture at 7:30. This is a picture of my desk at work. Very vanilla.

I knit it the second sock at work between calls, so 5 1/2 hours, minus a 1 hour lunch that I spent running around doing errands, is not too shabby. They fit OK, and even though they have too much acrylic in the fiber, they are still going to be neat little house socks. Actually, they would make great hiking or snow shovelling socks in a bulky wool.

Hmmm, as I typed that last sentence I remembered a nice vareigated red Lamb's Pride super bulky hank of yarn in my stash. The temptation to drag it out of the bin and whack off another pair of these is overwhelming. But I promised the sweater that I would finish the sleeves up until the increases stop. And since I want the sweater happy, I'd better get moving.

Happy Monday!

2006-11-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, believe it or not I am happy this Monday. I wasn't until the mail was brought in, up until then it was a boring, normal, icky Monday. But I love mail, and especially mail from my son at bootcamp. We got 3 letters today, so I am a very happy Mom. He's doing fine, things are going about how he expected, and he is not sick anymore. Yay!

Speaking of bootcamp, here is a picture of the sweater. Again, the color on this picture is showing up a much brighter red than the cranberry color it really is. Someday when I remember, I will take a better picture in natural light. That should help. I am knitting both sleeves at once so that all of the increases and decreases happen at the same place on both sleeves. I have about 10" done. He is about 47% done with bootcamp, I am about 15% done with sweater. I am using the sleeves as 25% of sweater theory.

My friend Anne said sweater sleeves are about one third of a sweater. I will continue to use the more conservative figure, thereby tricking myself into thinking I need to go a little faster. I'm not worried. Yet.

Two Weeks Worth....

2006-11-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the days are getting shorter and the view from my travelling knitting studio has changed quite a bit. I don't have to worry about parking in the shade to stay cool and comfortable at lunch anymore. I am starting to park in a sunny spot to take advantage of not only the great view, but to have a little extra warmth. A note here, I work a later shift and my "lunch" starts at 4pm. It has been cold enough to wear the Trekking sweater, but warm enough to knit in my car at lunch. Colorado weather is wierd, but I like it a lot.

I finished spinning up the brown Teasdale roving, and then finished doing my first ever 3-ply yarn. It's not as even as I'd like, but it looks pretty good. I have about 211 yards, and that may be enough for a pair of mittens. We will have to see what I decided to do with it. I need a new digital camera, this one does not have a macro mode for close-ups, or a decent zoom lens, which I will need in January at bootcamp graduation.

Speaking of bootcamp, I am out of the swatch stage of the sweater. I have 1/3 of a sleeve cuff finished. If you use the guidelines of the two sleeves making up approximately 25% of a sweater, I figure I am....hmm....really not far enough along. Mike is 35% done. I think I still have a decent shot at wearing the sweater at graduation, please don't let on that you know I am delusional, OK?
This picture looks slightly lighter and redder than the reality. The picture of the swatch in the prior post actually shows the color better. It is more of a darker cranberry color than this.

A First for Me

2006-11-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's a first for me. It's a sweater I knit for myself. The sweater was knit using Barbara Walker's "Knitting From the Top Down" book, basic raglan pullover. I love it. I finished it last Sunday but have not gotten a chance to wear it because..... get this..... it's been too warm! All that snow and now it's too warm to wear the new sweater. How unfair is that?I used 8 different shades of trekking sock yarn, holding two strands together throughout, and size 7 needles. The color combination was from a previously posted pattern. I think the next one may have a more subtle blending. Yes, there will be another, probably in browns and greens and blues.
Now I have to get cracking on the bootcamp sweater. Mike is 23% done with camp, I am 50% done with the swatch. I know it looks like a whole swatch, but the gauge is off. I am optimistically believing I'll only have to change needle sizes once to get the right gauge. It's a neat little texture, I like it a lot. The designer calls it a fake rib pattern.
I've also done some plying of the brown Teasdale, it's also looking pretty good. There is still some roving to spin and then finish plying. I have started the first of 13 helmet liners and that is going OK. I'm not perfectly happy with the needles I'm using. The circumference of the circular needle is only a tiny bit long, but the length of the tip is too long. I am constantly shifting stitches and that's kind of annoying. I have made very little progress on sewing Meg's present. I had to throw that info in, just in case she's reading.

Colorado Weather, Gotta Love It!

2006-10-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

We had a beautiful weekend here in Colorado. There was great company on Saturday, Lisa has pictures on her blog. She always remembers not only her camera, but also to actually take pictures! We had a Spin-In at the Llama store. I got quite a bit of the light cocoa brown Teasdale fleece spun up. After a very helpful tip from Anne, it was nice and thin. It's almost even as well. I spun a lot more after I got home as well. I should be plying it this weekend. I'm going to try a 3-ply, since I finally have yarn thin enough to do that without getting a super bulky finished project.

On Sunday my youngest son and I went to my daughters rugby game. This is a picture of the great weather and Pikes Peak from the stands. Pretty, no? And there were no major injuries during the game, which was great. Not even much blood :o)The wonderful weather lasted until today. I woke up to take a call from the place I work saying the site was closed, stay home. Now I don't know about you, but the feeling that I get when a "free" day appears makes me very happy indeed. I used to live for snow days when I was going to school, and I love them more as an adult. Yes indeed, a snow day. Actually, a blizzard day. By one o'clock, this is what my deck looked like:About 2' of snow on my table. The dog nearly vanished in the back yard when I let her out. The snow was up to her back, all I could see was the top of her cute little brown head. She's a Springer Spaniel, and was bouncing all over the yard. She absolutely loves snow, I had a hard time convincing her to come inside.
You would think a lot of knitting got done, but you'd be wrong. I got up late and then did a lot of nothing, and it felt really good. I did spend some time updating our friends and family on my son's last call from boot camp, and talked to a friend I haven't spoken with in way too long.

Late in the afternoon the snow stopped, the sky began to clear, and the shoveling began. I shoveled out my car so I can go to work tomorrow. I also shoveled a bunch of space by my mailbox, since I'm hoping a letter from Mike will show up there tomorrow, and I want the path clear for the mailman! I was really hoping for some mail from bootcamp today, but the mailmen took the day off too.
Shoveling the wet, heavy snow was a pain, but it had to be done. Here are a couple pictures of my reward:

A beautiful sunset sky.

Fall? Really?

2006-10-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is what fall looks like here in Colorado Springs. This is a picture I took of my front yard on Wednesday morning.Here's a picture I took on my way to work Thursday morning. Part of what I like about living here is that one day there are slidey streets and crappy weather that makes you want to hunker down at home with an afghan, tea, a good book, a classic movie, and of course your knitting...and the next day it's blue skies, sunshine and nice temperatures.
There has been some knitting this week, but not the bootcamp sweater or any helmet liners. I'm really not ready to admit that it's time to knit those, as if not knitting them somehow will change the fact the Mike is at Marine boot camp. Monday we did go to this buildingand said goodbye to him for 13 weeks. We thought we would be able to see his swearing in, but it turns out that had already happened earlier in the process. We did get a chance to visit with him for a bit, and I didn't cry, which surprised all of us. I had been carting my cell phone around with me since then (except the first day because I forgot to) in case he got an opportunity to call. He did get to call, but he called on the house phone at 7 pm last night, and neither Bob or I was home, so he got to talk to Matt. It was a 45 second call, all he was allotted, that went something like "I'm here, I"m fine, how did the Bears do?" He's on day 4, and I miss him a bunch.

Fall

2006-10-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

I love fall, it's my very favorite season. For some reason, I seem to have more energy and get so much more done this time of year than any other. This includes knitting, but maybe not blogging. I have posted a couple of finished item photos, which feels great because it means something is done.
I am also getting the Twisted Stitcher group that used to meet on Friday mornings back together. For the time being, we will be meeting at the Pike's Perk on Academy just north of Vickers on Wednesday mornings at 8 am. I can only stay until 10:30, but y'all can come whenever and stay for however long. Everyone's invited, the more the merrier. I can't promise I'll be there every Wednesday right smack on time, but I am going to try!
I got some spinning done in the past couple of weeks, it's the gray Teasdale
and the blue sparkly mix from Estes Park. There is about 110 yards of each. I have no idea what to make. So naturally, I needed more roving from the store. This is a wool/silk mix called "denim". Seeing it in this picture shows how much I love these colors right now, it looks really good with the sweater yarn.It feels fabulous, and I am looking forward to seeing how it spins up. While at the store, I picked up this wool (which was on sale) for mittens. On the subject of roving that feels great, do you remember the roving we had processed up in Victor that was, let's say, a disappointment? Well, some other people had merino from the same flock, sheared by the same woman, processed at the same place and it turned out really fabulous. How weird is that? I will be trying to get a sample of what they ended up with and wander up to Victor to talk to the owners and see what the **** happened to ours. Stay tuned. (Hey WW, I lost your email address, tried to send an email with what I thought it was, don't know if I guessed right. Please get in touch with me, OK? I have a book you wanted to borrow.)
One of the things I want to learn in the next year is how to spin better. Not only more evenly, but how to get the colors looking the way I want to. I love the surprises I've had so far, but it would be nice to have more control.
The other current big project is the Trekking sweater. It's all bunched up on the circular needle at the bottom, but you get the idea.I'm knitting it top down and have finished the rolled neck, a few inches of each sleeve past the spot where it is divided into parts, and down to a few inches under the bust on the body. I used the short row bust shaping from this book and I must say it seems to fit very well so far. I love being able to try it on in progress, because I can see how far I have to go and what adjustments I need to make. I did some decreasing for the waist and was able to just try it on to see if I'd decreased enough or not. How cool is that? It's a nice easy knit for work, just seemingly endless no-brainer stocking stitch.
There are a couple more projects in the works. Our Saturday group is going to do a KnitAlong for this sweater starting in January. Some of us will not be changing the color chart, but there are a couple who plan to definitely mix it up. I'm planning on sticking with the pattern, but I have been known to veer from the path once or twice before and can't promise not to again. The box o' yarn for that is in my craft room, waiting patiently for it's turn on the needles.
But my biggest challenge for the next 13 weeks is to knit one helmet liner per week and finish this sweater. It will be just like the picture, but shorter, in red, and with no pockets. It might also get a cable around the bottom like the sleeve has, and may get clasps instead of buttons. But other than that, it will be just like the picture.
I have had a hard time blogging about this sweater and especially why I am knitting it. Some of you know the story, but most of you don't. Last July my oldest son told us that he was thinking about joining the military. There was much discussion and he did decide to join the Marine Corps Reserves. He has a 12 year plan and he has given careful consideration to this decision. We support his decision and are very proud of him. That doesn't mean I'm not worried. He is leaving for boot camp on Monday morning.
One of the things that was decided was that our family will be traveling to San Diego for his boot camp graduation. To keep my mind busy I decided to make myself a sweater that will be a challenge to knit to wear for the occasion. Then I got to thinking that seemed sort of self-centered and decided that knitting helmet liners would be a good idea also. The one per week of boot camp seemed reasonable to me, until I remembered I wanted to knit a whole sweater also. I did not think that my deadline was realistic, but my friends reminded me of my Olympic knitting, so now I think I can do it. After all, compared to boot camp this will be a snap.

Third and Final Trip Thoughts

2006-10-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

Let's wrap up the trip details and move along to more current events. On Monday, the weather turned quite a bit cooler up north. The high was about 58 degrees; very, very chilly in the creek, I can tell you that. I took another drive and ended up here. It's a cute little yarn shop just outside of St. Germain, WI called Sutter's Golden Fleece. The nice ladies there took pity on me because of the cold and poured a nice, hot cup of really good coffee for me. I love the wildflower garden in front of the place, and can imagine what a relaxing place the front porch would be to knit on in better weather.We had a good visit and I was just about to purchase a ball of locally spun yarn as a souvenier, and got totally and completely side-tracked by this sweater kit. It's Trekking, which we all know I have a weakness for. I did buy the blue colorway, which will be great with jeans. The sweater is being knit as a top down raglan, I'm not using the many pieced pattern directions. The picture was taken when I got home, the kitty in the background is questioning my sanity. The rest of the day was spent beading the infernal green mobieus and taking a really nice walk around the property. Here are some pictures that do not show the incredible beauty of the place, but are enough to give you a hint.
Tuesday I got up early and drove back to my sister's house, and then went to the train station and caught a train to downtown Chicago. From there, it was a quick trip on the L to Midway airport, and a flight to Denver. My husband picked me up there and drove home. I think I spent over 16 hours travelling, but because of the great knitting time, it wasn't really much of an issue. All in all, it was a very fast, very wonderful trip, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Part Two of the Big Trip

2006-09-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

OK, so it wasn't a huge round the world kind of BIG TRIP, but it was a big event for me. When last we left our knitter....
Sunday morning I got to drive up to our family's creekside cabin the Northwoods of Wisconsin. I haven't been there in over 3 years, which is waaaaay to long. Especially since it is the place where I feel the most myself, if that makes any sense. I know you know what I'm talking about, that special place in the world where you feel connected and somehow more real. The place you think of first when someone asks where you would live if you could live anywhere. The place that has tons and tons of special memories. Enough already, let's get to the knitting.
I stopped by this place in Stevens Point on my way. Would have stopped at Schoolhouse Press, but it wasn't really on my way, and I was short of time.Herrschners Catalog Outlet Store, or Mecca, whichever you choose. They of course had tons of stuff I really wanted, but being a good girl (at this point in the trip) I bought only these things...Kroy sock yarn in a great color that now that I'm looking at it is MORE blue and green for me. Gee, I wonder what my favorite color is these days? And Socketta, gray with yes more blue and green, but darker, so I totally needed it.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way to the Creek. Here's what the fridge looked like.

Only the essentials: Cranberry-Raspberry wine from a local company, Wisconsin cheese and salami, Diet Coke, and butter. The bread and fudge were on the counter. The bread was for toasting in the oven (see below). The stove keeps the house nice and warm and makes great toast! And yes, I do know how to cook on the wood stove. My specialties are a killer fried egg, bacon, and toast breakfast, and fried chicken to die for. I made neither of those this trip. No dishes, what else needs to be said?

After I unpacked the car, which took all of two minutes, I headed down to the creek for a nice bath. Oh, did I not mention no shower in the house? The creek was beautiful and peaceful. The colors fantastic, and the forget-me-nots still blooming. The water was cold, so I didn't stay in the creek long.

The weather was warm and cloudy, but the sun came out in the afternoon, so I took a drive to see the fall colors. I really miss seeing red and orange in the fall. Here we get pretty much only gold. I plan on posting lots of pictures later, but here's a peek at some fall color near Trout Lake.

I had a great pizza at the Sayner Pub for dinner, and went back to the Creek for an evening of knitting. Most of the time I worked on the mobieus, because "all" I had to do was stick the beads around the edge and bind off. What a pain in the butt....over 3 hundred stupid little beads that all had to be put on individually. It's finished, but I am sick of looking at it right now so I don't even know if I'll wear it.

I'm going to stick a collage of photos on the photo page for now, and will post more later. I seem to have caught some nasty cold/virus thing that has me cranky and tired.

Stay tuned...

I'm Back

2006-09-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Didja miss me?

I sure missed stitching with my friends these last couple of Saturdays. For those of you who didn't know where I was it was because I couldn't tell you I was going anyplace. So fortunately for you, you missed the whole discussion of which projects to bring, the debate of check the bag or carry it on, etc. With the new restrictions it was a little harder to pack, since I hate checking baggage. No liquids, gels, or aerosols. What a pain.

I managed to bring the following projects: (clockwise from dragonfly socks)blue and green dragonfly socks, a ball of yarn for a helmet liner, the Pi shawl, a green mobieus with beads, some roving and my drop spindle, and in case I got bored, another ball of Trekking for socks. This really sounds excessive since I was only gone for 5 DAYS, but it made perfect sense while I was shoving it all into my bags.

I flew to Chicago on Friday the 15th to surprise my sister Margie for her birthday. My flight left DIA at 6:15AM. Yes, that's really early. Ask Matt if you don't believe me, he was the lucky guy who got to drive me there. Did you know the security folks don't start until 4:30am and if you get there early you have to wait for them? And did you know the coffee and foods shops aren't open that early? Imagine a sleep deprived knitter waiting for her plane with no food or coffee. It wasn't pretty. I did have my new I-Pod with me, and I did download all of the Cast-On podcasts, so I had knitterly company anyway.

After I got to Chicago, I took the L out to a place my sister Karen could more easily pick me up. We drove to her farmhouse in southern Wisconsin in her cool new Z3 with the top down. That was a lot of fun. She has 3 Newfoundland dogs and a Great Pyrenees. Please don't check that spelling, I know it doesn't look right, but I'll fix it later. I'm guessing you could spin dog hair at that house from now until forever, if you wanted to. I did finish sock number two that afternoon, and it fit just fine. Then I did what I swore I wasn't going to do....I ripped out sock one to the start of the heel gusset and re-knit the stupid thing all over again. Now I have a pair of socks that fit and it doesn't take a lot of time and cursing to get them on. I have learned several things with this pair of socks, but I'm way to tired to go over the list. Here's proof, for those who may doubt...socks on my feet this morning before work.

We had a great time Saturday. My nephew Cody made me wonderful scrambled eggs for breakfast. I had fun surprising not only my sister but also my Mom on Saturday. I picked her up from the nursing home to take her to dinner. She was glad to see me, but more glad I think to be "sprung" from the place.

We all had a lot of fun at the Gale Street Inn on Diamond Lake road, and my sister was totally shocked to see me. Lots of good food, yummy drinks, and the very best part of all, time spent with family. You just can't beat that.

I'll post more of the trip notes later. I'll update links, correct spelling, and add pictures. I promise, but I've had a real Monday here, so I'm going to bed.

*updated 10-10-06

A quick update

2006-09-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

No exciting news to share. The dratted socks are still kicking butt (mine). The finished sock was tried on at knit group Saturday. It took quite a while to get it on, please don't anybody say anything about binding off too tightly. I know. And I still did it. At least it was good for a laugh. Lisa took pictures. If you must see, drop on over, her link is on the side.

I had to unbind the sock and use a yarn over bind off from the Knitting Answers book that I will put up a link for later when I have time to do tricky stuff. And, yes I know it's not that tricky, but I am under a little time issue here. The new bind off is much better.

The second sock is NOT done, even though I really wanted it to be, but I'll have scads of time tomorrow to finish it. I will be computer-less until Wednesday, but expect a long post either next Wednesday or Thursday night. Probably late, you know how I am.

Happy Birthday, Margie!

2006-09-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of my sister, the Birthday Girl a "few" years ago, and a picture of her at her daughters wedding last November. Not only is she beautiful, but she is fun, loyal, extremely kind-hearted, sweet, patient, hard-working, brave, smart, talented, believes the best about everyone, is a wonderful Mother, a daughter who takes incredible care of our Mom, and almost never made fun of me when I was growing up. There was that "Shamu, the killer whale" comment, but that's about it. She is also the only person on Earth that knows I am telling the truth about flying like Mary Poppins with my umbrella to school one day a long time ago when I was much, much lighter.

She was the person who knew me best while we were growing up and always was encouraging and supportive. We shared a room, sometimes co-operatively, sometimes not. She likes to sleep with the window cracked open even in winter, even if it meant I had to take a blow dryer to it early in the morning to close it because it froze open. She never used to match her socks, and hated her hair in high school. She never had homework and got good grades, which at the time was very annoying. She has a made a home that is warm and inviting, and always makes a person feel welcomed and valued. She is 364 days older than me and I always loved being the same age as her for one day per year. She reads the last chapter of a book first, which makes me crazy, but suits her just fine. I miss being able to share birthday cake with her. If you are ever blessed to know a person this special remember to tell them how much you love them.

So Margie, I love and appreciate you very much. I can't imagine how my life would have been without you, but I know it would not have been as rich and wonderful. I am so glad to be your sister. I wish for you always all of the very best life has to offer.

Negative Progress, and then Positive Progress

2006-09-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's September 5th already. Where did the time go? Oh yeah, it's been sucked up by the sock. When last we left our story, the sock was seeming "a little loose". It turned out to be a lot loose and took another trip to the frog pond. I restarted the darn thing and finally got the size around my foot to be OK. For anyone counting this would be the second trip to the pond. The first trip was ripping two socks that were done up to the heel.

I was making great progress up the foot and around the short row heel. Looks good, right? And remember that this year was the year to try socks all different ways, toe up, cuff down, lots of kinds of toes and heels. You know, try to find the way I like to knit socks best...Well, apparently I can scratch off "short row heels" as a good way to make socks for me because the darn things did not fit! My feet are too, as Ann said on Monday at the bonus knit, "fat". The short row heel just does not have enough material to go around my heel angling up toward my instep. So it's now three trips to the pond, but this time only a short dip back down below the heel. Good thing I had my new best friend Charlene's book with me. I stuck in a heel gusset, and I've worked one full pattern repeat up past the heel. I have tried it on, and it fits OK. It's a little tighter than I would like, but I'm going to go with it and not rip out any more. This is not because I do not have the willpower to rip again, or that my self-imposed deadline is upon us, but because in a fit of full-blown, heavy-duty denial: I believe that the sock will fit well, once I lose enough weight. Try hard not to fall out of your chairs laughing and be grateful that you have a friend that wants to make sure your life is lightened by this moment of craziness enough to actually write that bit of insanity down for all to read.

On to more positive things. I did go to Greeley to take Megan her stuff including her pet, Hypnotic. Here's a picture of the little thing. Why yes, it is a rat. It shared my biscuit on the ride up. Megan likes her a lot, and I think she's OK, but I'm glad she is out of my house. The rat, not Megan.

I was going to stop and visit Cathy, but when I got there the girls had a list of stores that needed visiting, and a literal car load of stuff that needed buying. And please remember, I have a full size Bronco, it was stuffed full. I didn't leave there until after 4 in the afternoon. I was exhausted, but took the scenic road home through Loveland and Big Thompson Canyon. In Loveland I stopped at Woolen Treasures and picked up some books and patterns I have been looking for. The drive through the canyon was peaceful but rainy, so I did not stop to take pictures until I was past Estes Park. This picture really doesn't do justice to the view.And here is a close up of one of the plants in my new garden. I am really liking the way it looks. It's so nice and cheerful, much better than the bunch of weeds we had before.I have also made progress on the photo project. I have all of the scanning I wanted to get done finished. Now it's a matter of organizing the files. This is what the room looks like now, nice and empty of boxes and albums. The pictures are in nicely labeled boxes, sorted by date, and in albums that are more or less in order, and placed neatly in the closet. I took the picture at 1:30 in the morning and didn't feel much like folding up the ironing board, so ignore that, would ya?In the little basket on the floor, under the green pillows is where I am stashing my fiber to be spun. I think it's a manageable size. I might need more soon.

At knit group on Saturday, it was so obviously a hand-knit sock day, both Lisa and I had to take a picture. The people at the coffee shop think we are nuts.Too bad for them, we have a lot of fun. That's one of my trekking socks on the left, Ann's socks in the middle, and Lisa's jay walking trekkers on the right. It's funny that her blue trekking and mine are both jaywalkers. OK, maybe not hilariously funny, but amusing to me. Notice the "fat" feet in my sock and the graceful skinny feet on my friends. I am not jealous at all, no, not me. That green sweater Darci's knitting, her own design. Talent there ladies and gentlemen.

On the trip to Greeley, one of the stops the girls and I made was at Wal-Mart. They picked up plenty of stuff, including some dish towels that are hot pink, orange, lemon yellow and lime green. They did not pick up any dish rags, or warshrags, whatever you call them. I don't know why, it seemed strange to me also. But the next store we went to was Hobby Lobby, so you all know what I got there. Yep, 5 balls of Sugar'n Cream cotton in the above mentioned 4 colors, plus a variegated pink, orange, and yellow. So I have been knitting on those at work and at my son's football game, which was Saturday after knit group. He did quite well, and the Palmer Terrors beat Chatfield 29-19. You will be getting updates on the season as it goes along, because I am a mom. Ignore it if you wish.

Here is how much dish rag I can knit during a game:Several people were giving me odd looks, but really, there is a lot of time not much is going on at a football game. I am not a bad mother because I need something to occupy my hands while watching a game. I'm glad it was a day game, because I can see that night games might be a little more challenging for me.

Here's a picture of the dish rag I finished at work, lounging in the traveling studio with the other yarn and the rag in progress. It sounds odd to think I'm knitting a "rag". But that's what we call them at our house, we have dish towels and dish rags.This is really a long post, but I found a couple of things I thought were interesting, and since it's my blog, I decided to throw it in. Someone once asked how long I've been knitting, and I thought since I was about 10 or so. I know Barbie has a couple of stunning knitted tube-shaped evening gowns I made. Here though is proof I knitted more than I thought. For Christmas in 1981, I knit 3 sweaters, one for each of my sisters, and one for my niece Melissa. Remember it was the 80's, so be nice about the pictures. I also did some remarkable knitted yoked sweatshirts in 1987, and my daughters Christening gown in 1988. I might post a picture of that later. OK, the pictures will be on the finished object page, since I'm having technical difficulties getting them from the files.

that catches me up for now. Talk to you later!

More Progress

2006-08-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

First of all, there has been knitting. Here's a picture of the new dragonfly socks. I went up to a 2.5mm size needle, which changed the stitch count, so I had to refigure how to fit the pattern into that. I am not sure I'm going to like how they look, but I do like how fast they are coming along. I have tried the sock on, it seems now to be a little loose. I'll hold judgement on the size for a little bit longer. Lord knows I do not want to rip these out again!

Progress on the garden:

It may not look like much to you, but I know how bad it looked before, and this is so much better. We still have a bunch of branches and bushes and so on from the back yard to turn into mulch. Once that is done, we can mulch the new flower beds and call it a day for the major landscaping. That will be a good day.

Progress

2006-08-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

Knitting progress was made today.
I now have a completed pair of brown Trekking socks. I wish it were cold enough to wear them. I will take a hike with them this weekend probably. Maybe somewhere near Greeley, or somewhere between here and there.

Meg's surprise is not put together. I plan on working on it tomorrow at lunch. I really think I can finish it by Friday or Saturday.

Lisa and I were talking mittens at group on Saturday, and I told her my all time favorite mitten pattern is the one from this book. I've made at least five pairs from this pattern and like them a lot. Here's a question for you all, what is your favorite mitten pattern?

On a non-knitting note: The garden did not get finished tonight. I got home from work around 8 pm, and I was going to go in the house, throw on some digging in the dirt type clothes and finish it up. I got sidetracked my Meg, whose wisdom teeth check-up revealed she had what they call "dry socket" in the two bottom extraction sites. So I had to run out and get her a smoothie for dinner. When I got back the boys, who were finishing up some other yard work convinced me to take them to Chipotle's for dinner. We got back after 9:30 pm, which is too late to garden. So, let's all keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow.

A bonus picture for you... This is what the sky looked like when I left work. I just love Rocky Mountain sunsets

Knitting, what knitting?

2006-08-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

There was knitting yesterday, lots of knitting. I went to knit group in the morning. Lots of fun projects going on, lots of conversation, lots of new ideas all over the place. I worked on Meg's surprise, and nearly finished it.

I went to Knitters Kove, to scope out the new digs and get a couple of new yarns. As I went through my stash last week, I noticed a lot of blue/purple mixes. So what better than a stash busting wrap? A nice big dramatic fling of a wrap. I plan on knitting it lengthwise, changing yarns every other row and creating the fringe as I go along. I noticed I didn't have any smooth yarns to mix in so I had to pick some up at the store. Why, when trying to lose some stash into the finished object pile, does it always seem as if you need to purchase some more yarn to make the idea work? It's a rhetorical question, since I am assuming that nobody will ever know the answer.

Not much gardening got done. I did get most of the weeds pulled, which was good. Then I came in and got ready to go to a bonus knit meet in a cute little part of town called Old Colorado City. It has a bunch of nice little tourist-y shops, and a friendly vibe. It also has a yarn store in the midst of the main part of the area, and another one only a few blocks away.

We met at a little coffeeshop that was nice and comfortable. I picked a cushy leather couch, and finished the knitting on Meg's present. There was only one little problem with the nice cushy couch...I kept sinking farther and farther into it. Kirsten and Chery thought it looked like a bad horror flick, "The Couch That Ate Linda".

It was so comfortable I didn't even notice that I was sinking. Getting out of the couch took some doing and wasn't very graceful. Good thing I was with nice people who don't laugh (out loud at least) at a friend with a seating problem.

But there was no knitting today at my house. I got up late, and worked on the garden from noon until 6:30 or 7 pm, when it started to rain really hard. I have nearly all of it finished and with any luck at all will be able to wrap it up tomorrow. I am so sore and tired that even though the sock just needs the toe, I'm giving up and going to bed....If I can hobble down the hall.

Finally Friday

2006-08-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

I am so very glad the weekend is here. It's back to group tomorrow, a very good kind of therapy, I must say. I will be bringing Megan's Christmas present to group to work on. She has been asking about it, and wants me to finish it before she goes to school on the 25th.

In case anyone was wondering, here is what my dragonfly socks look like....Use your imagination, I have to! I really want these done by my birthday. I have less than 30 days to do that. Good luck to me on that deadline. I am still trying to decide: larger needles, same amount of stitches as before; or same tiny needles with a larger amount of stitches that I know will work? Any opinions out there? I may be forced to - gasp- swatch.

Part of what we did this month is celebrate this lovely young lady's 19th birthday. Man, the time flies, and some of it is not fun. But the results are worth it. Shortly after her birthday celebration, Meg had her wisdom teeth pulled. She is not so happy right now. She thinks she looks a lot like a chipmunk. She feels so bad, she hasn't even plastered on -oh I mean applied with great taste and sublety- any makeup since the 15th.

This coming week we will be helping her pack her stuff for the trip back to Greeley, CO for school. She will be taking 15 hours of classes, working part time, and playing rugby. Rugby, for God's sake! The sport every mom wants her daughter to play. Read the last sentence with large amounts of sarcasm, please.

Here is a picture of sock number two in Trekking brown. They have such original names for their colors, like "number 78" and "number 101". The sock is about three rows shy of having it's toe put on. I love finishing projects! I don't know why I don't do it more often.This picture is taken in my travelling knitting studio. The studio is called "The Ford Bronco". I knit in my car at lunch nearly every day at work. It is so peaceful and quiet. And the view is good. We have had lots of cloudscapes these past weeks. The rain is doing wonders for the weeds in my yard, they are nice and green and tall. The landscaping project is not done, because I don't like digging in mud. I will have to this weekend since the plants are begging to be stuck into the ground. They want out of the pots in a major way.

I have posted also a picture of the three used to be almost but now totally finished projects from the last post. The links for the easy baby sweater are on the finished object page.

Another big deal this week is this...the very last "first day of school" picture for kids going to public school. I have taken these pictures by this same tree since Mike was in first grade. That is 15 years. I don't know why I didn't take one for his kindergarten first day, but I didn't. It might have to do with the fact that at the time he was 6, Meg was 4, Matt was 2, and I was tired. I will take pictures of kids going to college, but these other pictures are very precious to me. Matt, seen below, is now 17 and a senior at Palmer High School. This year will be the seventh year I have had at least one child there. I am ready to graduate.

Saturday Catch-Up

2006-08-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, eh? How on earth did it get to be the middle of August already? We celebrated my daughter's birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary last week. Time goes so fast....

Here are a couple of pictures from our spin-in from a week ago. That's Kirsten on the left and Darci on the right. In the middle, more great Christy dyed yarn. It had already been partially picked over (I really mean that some people had already swooped in and snatched up the alpaca pink laceweight, sorry MJ) by the time this was taken. I don't know how Christy comes up with these great color combinations, I just hope she keeps doing it for a very long time. There were wheels all over the place, see Lisa's post for more pictures. I never remember to take enough. We had spinners and knitters and food and fiber. What better way to spend a Saturday?
Here is Kirsten trying her hand at spinning. She thinks she spun crap, we all know she spun yarn. And there is no such thing as crap yarn. All of it has a purpose, even if it's beyond our reckoning. But hers was really very nice, not anywhere near the crap my first yarn was.
Here's Christy spinning on a drop spindle some of the absolutely gorgeous silk she dyed. There were several attempts to have that awesome stuff jump into assorted bags to go home with people that weren't Christy. You can't see the color and the sheen, so stop saying you would never covet fiber so much as to hope she was looking the other way while the yarn mysteriously found it's way into your bag.....
On the home front, the first brown Trekking sock is done, and here's a picture of the progress on the second. Not too bad, I actually feel as if I can finish the pair this month and take a hike while wearing them.
I've also had my sons moving rocks around in our yard. I decided it was time the front yard had a little "curb appeal". We are thinking of downsizing our house, since the kids are getting to the point of not living here and only the dog enjoys the yard, but only if someone goes out to play with her. I bought a bunch of plants and did about a third of the work I needed to outside on Thursday. I was planning on finishing up today, but it rained and while I don't mind a little dirt, I decided to put off planting until tomorrow. Besides, I need to trim up some trees and Bob doesn't know it yet. He doesn't really like surprises like that very much.

Lisa got me to thinking about projects in progress and so I trolled around in my room (and the annex) and only found 4 projects on the needle. And one pair of frogged socks that I really want done by my birthday. I thought it was worse than that. So that's 2 pair socks, one shawl, one mobius, and Megan's last Christmas present, which is still a surprise for her so I can't say what it is, but it is red. I also took pictures and posted some finished projects.

There are three almost finished objects that I am committed to finishing today. For goodness sakes they only need ends woven in and buttons stitched on, I can probably handle it. I checked the annex and found only some yummy blue stuff, chocolate teasdale, and some llama/silk roving to spin. So that's under control.

The not quite so under control issue is, no big surprise here....stash. I have concrete plans for:
finishing a pumpkin colored lace vest from 1981 (no, it won't fit)
4 baby sweaters and/or blankets
4 scarves of various sizes and shapes
1 shrug
4 additional pairs of socks
1 felted bag
3 more shawls
1 heirloom baby blanket
13 helmet liners
1 sweater (no yarn purchased for this yet)
1 pair pink fuzzy slippers (because Meg asked nice)

This is only yarn that has been earmarked. There is much that is for other, undetermined projects. I'm not saying how much, you can't make me. I really only have yarn for three helmet liners, but 13 is the goal. Please note, no dates for completion are listed, except for the first 2 pairs of socks. I thought about it, but got a headache. I will pin down some priorities later, since the list is maybe a little long.

Here's a priority...friendship. There was a lot of drama this week, but it boils down to you can't fix what you don't know is broken, sometimes when you say your piece, it ain't very peaceful, and fixing broken friendships is a top priority for me. My son's take on the drama summed up in one word...."Chicks."

Rainy Days and Mondays...

2006-07-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's both a rainy day and a Monday. Actually, it's a rainy evening, but that didn't sound quite as good. And they don't usually get me down.
There has been progress on the trekking sock. It's looking and fitting quite well. I'm really loving them. I mean it, there is only one so far.There is also quite a bit of progress on the photo project. Just three more boxes and six more albums to go. Then I will have all of the photos in order and "findable" instead of all over hell and gone. It's looking good in the room my husband now calls the "knitting annex".So you'd think I'd be in a reasonably good mood. However you would be incorrect, but only because you don't know what I know. And that is....the wonderful dragonfly socks that are a fabulous color that reminds me of my favorite place in the world, and in a pattern that compliments the yarn, that are both done up to the heel, and one of them slightly past the heel are, get this....TOO SMALL.

I decided to try them on this morning, just to make sure the length was right after putting in the short row heel and knitting about an inch into the leg. The foot length is perfect, just wonderful, the heel fits properly, all is well. Except that I have been ignoring the fact that the foot has seemed tight the entire time I have been knitting them. I have been in some kind of delusional knitting zone with these socks. They were tight every time I tried them on to gauge the length, but I kept thinking that was OK, I don't mind socks that hug my feet.
This morning the magic spell these socks had cast on me suddenly went away. I could tell that they were squeezing my foot so tight that it would be impossible to wear them for more than a minute without restricting my circulation. The problem is not really the foot (see, still delusional) but the place the sock turns at the ankle. I tried really hard to believe that I could fix that for about 5 minutes, but came to the sad conclusion that it is off to the frog pond for the socks.

Rainy Days

2006-07-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

Man, have we had a ton of rain here lately. Lisa, you won't miss the Pacific Northwest, we have enough rain to make you think you are still there. It's actually humid, which is a weather condition I haven't had to deal with a lot since moving here 21 years ago. I don't like it, that's one reason we moved! But the weeds in the front yard are looking really nice and green.

I'm sure it affected the weight of the merino that I divvied up last night. It really feels great and I am looking forward to spinning it. I'm going to try to get a better picture of it so you can see the nep-iness. Oh look, a new word. You are welcome.

I am trying to get the other fibers spun first, but something tells me that at least some of the merino will be rude and cut into line. Sheep jump lines, so I think the fleece might too. There were a lot of second cuts, but it should spin up just fine.

I did actual knitting today on the trekking sock. It seemed to have grown the leg long enough while I wasn't looking, so I thought it would turn it's own heel while waiting for me in the car. It did not, I am somewhat surprised. So, the heel flap is nearly done now. I love turning the heel and picking up the stitches, which is one thing that the short row heel has against it.

I am going to post some more pictures tonight also, so go take a peek.

Merino goodness

2006-07-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Today I took off of work early and went to Victor, CO to pick up the merino yarn we dropped off earlier. I made a quick stop at Chick-Fil-A for a quick bite to eat on the road, and got one of their yummy chocolate/strawberry shakes. I had planned on just popping on the highway and up to Victor, but a rather large pothole caused my milkshake to spill all over my shirt and a large portion landed in my lap. Not fun, but helpful to LeeAnn. So I made a short detour to my house to put on clothes that were not "cool and refreshing".

Mira the dog wanted to go, so after I cleaned up the mess in the car, we took off. I drove up on the paved road, since I had to make sure I had time to get there before they closed.

The roving is soft and wonderful, and the people who did it for us did a fabulous job, from what I can tell right now. I have a couple other things in line for the wheel, but this looks like it should spin up really well. The folks that did this for us do llama and alpaca also. The prices are very reasonable, and the service is top notch.

Mira and I decided to drive back home via Gold Camp Road. The trekking sock was looking for a little adventure, too. Here are some pictures of the scenery. I love driving on this road, it is so beautiful. Let me know what you think!

Mira, riding shotgun... after a quick dip in the scenic pond. She is usually a fluffier and nicer smelling travel companion than this.

The sock, hanging on during one of the many scary "look Ma, no guardrails" part of the road....

A big old bag of roving. Yes sir, yes sir, 12 pounds full....

I can hardly wait to spin up my share of this stuff. It feels so good. I wish I could describe it better for you.

Progress

2006-07-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Progress has been made on the KoolAid yarn. I had it all balled up the other day.
Then I plied it together, one strand of blue/green with one strand of red/blue. I had no idea it would look like this.
I happen to love it a lot, and I'll probably have enough to do something large with it, maybe a shrug.... But I still have to ply the rest together, and the rest is sitting here... Yes, there it is, waiting to be plied into something useful. Right there above the many, many, many boxes of photos waiting to be compiled into the "big project" of the summer. Right now we are taking bets as to what gets done first. And you guys don't even know the other major project rolling around in my head!

It's about the yarn...

2006-07-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

OK, just for Lisa...it's yarn, specifically half of the gray Teasdale I got at Estes. I think it looks pretty good. I plan on spinning the rest of this tonight. I'm thinking maybe mittens if I have enough or a hat. I am undecided on that part of the project.Then, there is this....
It is KoolAid dyed recycled wool from a Goodwill sweater. I'm planning to ply the blue/green with the red/blue and see what happens. It was $3.00 for the wool and $1.00 for the KoolAid, and fun dyeing and plying, so I really don't care what it turns out to be. It's always a surprise at my house anyway!

Happy Independence Day

2006-07-04T17:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day to you all. I hope you all have a great time camping, BBQ'ing, picnicking, and visiting with friends and family. It's raining here, has been most of the weekend, so I doubt I'll see any fireworks, which as some of you know is one of my most favorite things to do. SO I hope you will all OOOH and AAAHHH for me.

Please remember the sacrifices that those who came before, and those who are serving now, have made. Freedom is not free.

Once per week...

2006-06-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I post once per week on Wednesdays. I had no idea I was so consistent, at least for the last three weeks. But we all know that can change, so don't expect a post next Wednesday!

I have spent some time with my wheel this week. I have spun up about half of the gray Teasdale from Estes. It is so fun, I can't even describe it. Anybody that wants to can come on over and play. No picture of the results, because if I got up to take a picture now, I would surely get sidetracked by this....

which is, to the ones of you sharp enough to catch it, not one bit further along than it was before. Don't even bother trying to find the differences in the photo. There aren't any!

No other news right now, but if you know anyone who needs a 1989 Mustang hatchback with a missing right front fender, I know where you can get one.

What have I been up to, you ask?

2006-06-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

Before Thursday this is what's been keeping me busy. I am getting to the point of being really sick of my mess of a room. This will be cleaned up pretty soon, I hope.

The last week has been lots of fun, starting with a trip to the fiber processing mill and shop in Victor , CO with Lisa. We heard about this place through a person we met at WWKIP day. So up we drove with 25 pounds of merlino fleece in the back of Lisa's car. We will keep you all posted on how we like the fleece when we get it back. The price for merino was slightly higher than we thought it would be, but compared to the prices we saw at Estes, it was very reasonable. And we didn't have to skirt it. That is a major plus, if you ask me.

After we dropped off the fleece, we stopped here and met a nice lady with a shop cat that was very happy to greet us. We saw this funny little store, but did not have enough time to stop. After a quick lunch in Cripple Creek, we did a little recon at the big shop at Academy and Constitution that has a ton, and I'm not kidding, a TON of vendor booths inside. We had heard that they had a knitting booth, and we were curious to see what they had. It turns out they have quite a large selection of yarn and notions. They had Lamb's Pride, Dale, and several other nice brands. I got a new pair of Addi's. The prices were not a bargin but, and here's the good part.....they are open on Sunday!

On Friday, I drove up to a cabin I rented in Estes Park. Ellen got there before me and we had a nice evening sitting around and knitting. It turns out I can't knit lace when talking to somebody else. Only about one half of a round got done on my Pi shawl. We went to bed reasonably early so that we could leave the cabin at 8am, go to Starbucks, and then head out to the Wool Festival. We thought there might be a line. There wasn't. So we got into the vendor barn before the crowds. It was so overwhelming! There were so many colors and textures all around, it was very difficult to focus. But you've got to love a place that has a sign like this:We wandered around and met a lot of friends. I saw a woman I used to have Girls Night Out with back when my twenty year old was a baby. It was so much fun catching up with her and the goings on of her family. We also saw some alpacas, goats, sheep,and llamas.I do not know why the "llama wash" fascinated me so much. It just tickled my funny bone.
I did spend time testing out a bunch of wheels, and absolutely fell in love with this one.I tried about 6-8 wheels, but this one just felt right. How else can I explain it? It spins like a dream. Here's a picture of the first yarn off of the wheel. It's the blue varigated Romney I got at the Ruxton Ave shop.
I did get more roving at the Festival, no big shock to any of you about that. I also picked up two skeins of yarn that I know I'll never be able to come close to. A beautiful skein of kid mohair from Brooks Farm, and a 100% silk from Manos. Ellen ended up with a drum carder. It's pretty bad when the vendors are so happy that they lend you a hand cart to haul away your goodies....I spent Saturday evening playing with my new wheel and went to bed early.
Sunday, it was back to the fairgrounds for more wandering around. I met up with Lisa and her husband, then headed home.
I took the longer, more scenic route along the St Vrain River. The sock and I took a little hike along here. We stopped for lunch when we found this perfect spot to sit and knit. The water was icy cold. It felt wonderful.There were some people a little ways downstream panning for gold. They were having a great time, and did manage to get some gold. There will be more pictures posted on the picture place. But not tonight.

Happy Flag Day

2006-06-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's Flag Day here in America. Here is some background info for you.

Please ignore no knitting was done today, yet. I hope to do some before bedtime.
Here's another picture to distract you. I am hoping this works...

Photos 10,000 Knit stitches 0

2006-06-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

I am in the midst of a BIG photo project, and zero stitches were knit by me today and yesterday. Big yuck.

I am trying to get my pictures all together in one place in the house, which was way easier said than done. I think I have accomplished that step. The next step is putting them in sort of chronological order, which I am mostly done with, sort of. Then I have to get them into archival safe storage, which means taking them out of the old albums that have turned many of them yellow, and into new, safer albums. Or at least acid free storage boxes.

I was going to do the whole "every page is art" kind of scrapbook, but YEAH RIGHT....

I think I hear my sock calling, and I am going to answer it.

Here is a picture to make you ignore the lack of knitting progress:

Yes, the big dog is walking the little dog around on a leash.

Wonderful weekend, part 2

2006-06-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

The great weekend continued on Sunday with a visit to Ellen and Jan's nice little ranch near Castle Rock. We were invited to watch the llama shearing, which was great fun. I got there after Apollo had his new hairdo. He was looking pretty spiffy, but not real happy.Then it was Einstein's turn. I wondered how you got a llama to stand still enough to get shorn, now I know. I love learning new stuff.Lonestar was looking quite concerned while he was waiting his turn, but he decided the treats he got while getting his new summer 'do were worth it.I did get a little of his fleece (or do we say hair?) to play with. The dog and cats at my house didn't even register anything unusual when I brought home sheep fleece last weekend, but boy they were all VERY interested in the llama fiber. It washed up very nicely, not much dirt at all. I don't know what I'll do with it, but it's fun to play with...Thanks Ellen and Jan for the great lunch and tour of the place. Tell your mom it was very nice to meet her.

Wonderful weekends...

2006-06-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Yes folks, sometimes a wondeful weeekend comes along. This one was going to be fun, but it turned out even better than I expected.

First things first, Knit in Public Day had a small but fun group turn out. I think we had about 16 or 17 people. We all got to meet new friends, which was great. The lessons I learned from this year's event....plan further ahead, and advertise more. Here are some of the new friends I met. Please don't expect that I know all of their names, and forgive me if I have misplaced your name in my brain's storage closet. In the middle are Megan, who is in middle school and her mom, Diane. The reason I remember them so easily, my daughters name is Megan, and we ran into these two ladies later in the day!
There was progress made on my dragonfly socks, and on the trek sock. I can see that I might get both pairs done this month, which would feel great.After we disbanded from the park, we ate lunch at the Pita Pit. I really like their food, it's nice and fresh. The parking is a little crazy on Saturday afternoon, but not too bad. After lunch Lisa and I investigated Ruxton Ave Fibers. I couldn't find a website for them, but loved her purple and blue window display. We met Diane and Megan in there. Imagine that, meeting knitters in a knitting store! She has a nice variety of things, including several colors of trekking. She has a little deck out back that overlooks the creek, and plans on getting that ready for stitchers to sit and relax on.This is what I bought:Yeah, fiber for the non-spinner. OK, I guess I have to stop calling myself that since I am now spinning. I did spin up a little of this wool, and I'm liking it so far. It's getting a little easier, and the end product looks like yarn. Lumpy, bumpy, inconsistant yarn, but still, yarn.

Slooooow day at work...

2006-06-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

It's so slow here, I get to update you guys on what's happening.

Not much.

I did get a little more done on the dragonfly socks, which I can't show you, since I have no camera here. But really, they are coming along nicely.

The Trek sock will be going to Knit in Public Day, and pictures of that event, along with the llama shearing at Ellen's will be posted either Sunday night or Monday, depending on just how tired I am.

An update for you about my sister, who I helped cast on for socks while I was in Chicago in February. She has one sock done, except she had to rip out part of it because she made the foot too long the first time. And she's having some issues re-doing the toe. She had a small mishap and the decreases were formed on the top and bottom of the sock, instead of the sides. but I am very proud that she is so far along. Yay, Karen!

It's a coaster

2006-06-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

Just a note...

When you decide you have fleece that needs carding, you need carders, and then a magazine, and who knows where this will lead? OK, some of you know, just don't tell me out loud. I'm still delusional enough to think this is as far as it goes.

So anyway, here is my coaster. Some people might call it a swatch, which is fine by me. I decided to knit the first yarn I've spun on the first needles I ever knit on.

Fitting, no?

OK, back to some socks....

No progress

2006-06-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Very sad, no progress to report on anything. After being all excited to card and try to spin some of the fleece on Sunday...when nothing was open...I went to Green Valley Weavers on my way to work Monday. I picked up some carding combs, planning to try carding at lunch. How hard could it be, right?

Wrong.

I thought that carding would remove the rest of the little pieces of grass and stuff from the fleece, leaving me clean, puffy, yummy wool to spin. I thought wrong. It still has stuff in it. I gave up and decided to eat my sandwich instead. I'll wait until Knit Group Saturday for help from the experts. Boy, is it nice to have friends!

No knitting is getting done either. The trek with me sock is sulking in my desk drawer because we have been so busy at work, I can't even do plain stocking stitch. The dragonskin ones, which I am calling my dragonfly socks, since the colors remind me of the little dragonflies that live by the creek at our families house in Wisconsin, have gotten a total of two rounds done in two days.

So now I am off to knit a "coaster" from my first ever yarn. There's not much, so maybe I can finish it tonight...

But let's not bet on it.

Red yarn and other news...

2006-06-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

The red yarn I was playing with the other day has turned out pretty good. It is still a little more orangey red than I was picturing, but over-dyeing with the wine made it a little darker and richer. I like it a lot now, and will most likely be making it into a felted bag later. I wound it and the green laceweight from an earlier post into balls and they are waiting for me to cast on.

Yesterday I went to Rock Ledge Ranch with three other women from our knit group.

We went to see the sheep shearing, which was very interesting. They had about 8 Merino sheep there, plus three others out in the meadow that they were using for sheepdog demonstrations.

The Trek along sock rested on a wall while we were watching that.

Ellen, who Lisa calls the Enabler, found out that there were some fleeces that were not spoken for, so we decided to get two. It's about 25 pounds altogether. So now we each have a half of a fleece. We each took a couple of handfuls to play with, but as to the rest, we will meet up at Ellen's next Sunday for the llama shearing she had planned, and will skirt it. I think we are leaning towards having the rest processed into roving by somebody else.

Now I know you are wondering why on earth someone who doesn't spin needs a half of a fleece. Neither Phoebe nor I had ever learned to spin. I know I've been trying to resist this particular addiction, but...

Yep, that's me learning to spin on a drop spindle and some roving that jumped into my hand at the small shop on the property. Sorry, Bob.

I made yarn. Then I plyed it together. Bob helped hold it while that was happening, thanks Honey. It's lumpy and uneven but it's mine! I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it next. Thank goodness there's Google!

Then I washed my fleece and dried it, but it still looks dirty. I hope that carding helps. I have no carding combs, I have no roving to play with, and it's Sunday so no place that would have those things is open. I'm more than a little bummed out about that but it gives me time to learn a little more about what I have gotten myself into.

I have added a link on mysidebar for extra pictures. Have a look...

Days of Wine and Roses..or Wine and Yarn, whatever

2006-06-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

First, my trekking sock took a walk at work. It's happy the ribbing is done. The sock has decided it wants to be plain stocking stitch, because it doesn't trust me to execute any kind of pattern while in motion. Yes, even though it is a young sock, it is very wise. I am going to fix the button on my sidebar to link to that site, really I am.

The other fun thing I am doing tonight is re-dyeing that red skein of worsted weight. It came out OK, but more tomato-y (it is too a word!) than I wanted. So, I looked around to see what else I had in the house that might help, and found a bottle of wine in the back of my fridge.

The picture shows a lovely Torres Gran Corona Reserva 1977. I know I haven't had it that long, but I'd bet I've had it a good 15 to 18 years. And, yes I did try a sip to make sure it wasn't drinkable. It wasn't. We did not get a picture of the face I made while doing that part of the testing, because I like my camera. The cats are a little confused and at this point they are hoping I know what I'm doing. I don't. I'm trying to heat it up in the microwave, like I did the KoolAid yarn, to see if that will set the color. The color is not a real true red, otherwise I could probably have drank it. It's more of a brownish red. Pictures of the finished product tomorrow...

Woo Hoo, it's Wednesday!

2006-05-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

The workweek is half over, I'm jazzed about that. So much fun was had over last weekend, it makes me want this weekend to get here faster.

Our knit group had a party with our puppies at MJ and Del's house on Saturday. We had a blast and a half. There were a lot of dogs, I can't remember how many, but here are some pictures.
There was some knitting done but, as Lisa noted, not by me. My puppy decided to spend most of her time in my lap. It was a little overwhelming.

We got to see more of MJ's Kool Aid yarn, we ate a ton of food, the dogs got treats and jello doggy shooters.

After that party, my husband and I went to Territory Days in Old Colorado City. It's a celebration of our town as it was back in, yes...you guessed it, the days the state was a territory. There are tons of street vendors, food tents, Native American dancers, the Greyhound rescue group, the Birds of Prey group, and assorted people. The people range from families with small kids, teenagers hanging around looking cool, women having a Girl's Day Out, bikers, and so on. Here are some pictures of that...

Sunday I spent all day in my jammies, read, and did some but not much knitting. There will be no pictures of that!

On Monday, we had a bonus knit group meeting. It was great. Lisa got to knit the same length of yarn for her sock a few times. There are of pictures of that either, it wasn't pretty.

A day to remember...

2006-05-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I remember that Memorial Day sometimes took two days. We would buy flowers, geraniums mostly, pile in the car, and drive into Chicago and plant the flowers on our Grandparents graves. We were sent to fetch water for the plants, and I remember seeing a lot of flags put up by the VFW posts.

We also had a day to drive to a little town near Edgerton, WI to put flowers on my Grandfathers grave. He is buried in a tiny cemetery near a little white church. My sisters and I used to try to find the oldest headstone there. I remember there were some that were so old that the engraving was nearly worn off. Mom always packed us a picnic lunch for the trip, and we would eat at a picnic table near a little river.

When we got older, we stopped going with Mom and Dad. We were teenagers with busy lives, and besides, Mom and Dad went. Now I live 1000 miles from there and even though I still enjoy my three day weekend, I wish I could spend part of it planting flowers for people I never met, but am connected to, as well as those I am connected to and have lost. Today I am sad that I can't put out flowers and a flag for my father. But you can bet I'm thinking of him, and of his brother Norman who lost his life in the Pacific arena during WWII.

I don't care what your politics are, I don't care if you agree or disagree with the current military action in the Middle East, please take a few moments this weekend to honor those who went before, and those who are serving now, so others can live free.

For some background on Memorial Day history, go here.

Knit in Public Day

2006-05-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Not my idea, but a great one...

Heard about via Franklin's site. Which by the way, is very funny. Here in Colorado Springs, we will be meeting on Saturday June 10th at Acacia Park downtown at 9 am.

The festivities last until we leave, who knows when that will be. Bring a lawnchair or picnic blanket, food and drink if you want to, and of course, your knitting.

There are tons of places within easy walking distance for coffee and food, there are nice big trees, and Uncle Wilbur's fountain, which may drive some of you nuts.

I hope to see you all there!

Knit Shops

2006-05-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, good news. It looks like I will need to go on a yarn diet!

Now, that normally doesn't sound right, but it looks like I'll be in Vienna, Austria this time next year! Because we are on a tight budget already around here, and I'll probably have to get a second job to pay for the trip, I'd better think about spending less on yarn. But oddly enough, this thought is not upsetting.

I'm still going to Estes Park, and I'll still spend some money there. But I think I will be able to keep the purchasing reasonably small.

After all, I have to save money for the yarn shops in Vienna and Prague.

There had better be some!

It's May already?

2006-05-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my last post was nearly a month ago....time is going by so fast! I will try to sum up the things that have been happening.

My daughter came back from college the first weekend in May. It is great to have her back, but man, you should have seen the load of stuff she brought with her. My son Matt and I had to take a second car up to school to get her, since all of her stuff wouldn't fit into the full size Bronco. The full size LTD was crammed full of stuff, too. It was like trying to fit the whole stash onto one shelf in my closet. While the girls were waiting for their RA to check them out of their room, I decided that the drive from Greeley to Fort Collins was short enough, and I had time enough to go here.

Yep, Lambspun is as great a shop as you can imagine. It has yummy yarn, tons of books and patterns, a huge variety of notions , buttons, needles, and other accessories, a room full of spinning stuff, and a coffee shop attached right to it. Top it off with really nice people, and there you go, one fabulous place to visit, since they won't let you live there. I tried to stay out of the spinning room, since I am trying to resist the temptation of that addiction. I'm hoping Estes Park won't push me over that particular cliff. My husband is preparing in case he sees a drop spindle or roving hanging around the house. He knows that after that, there won't be much more to do than accept the fact the a spinning wheel may show up. There is a small hope that I won't like spinning...

The shop in the new books written by Maggie Sefton was based on this one. I didn't have much time there, only about a half hour, so I didn't have a big bag when I left. And the way that car was packed, I couldn't have fit much yarn in anyway. I did get a beautiful shawl pin and a small yarn pocket thing, which I hope is as convenient as I think it will be. I plan on going back, hopefully as part of a Knitters with Altittude yarn crawl. Hint, hint you guys. I'm thinking late July sometime, preferably after we all forget how much we spent in Estes Park.I have completed the blue Trekking socks, see.... I love them a lot. I did those on the "magic loop", top down, regular heel. This year, I am trying to decide what kind of sock knitting I like best. So hopefully I will get to them all (you can stop laughing now). I am going to try toe-up, top-down, two circs, magic loop, different types of toes and heels, that sort of thing. I've already done double points, which I like very much. I do like the magic loop a lot, too. Bonus points to that method for making it easy to figure out where I am when I pick up the sock after an interuption. I did cast on another pair of Trekking for working on at work. They are top down, magic loop as well. They are brown and I haven't decided what I'm going to do as far as pattern after the ribbing. On those I'm going to try a different heel and toe. I haven't figured out which one yet.

I also cast on for a pair of toe up, two at once, two circular needles. I will admit I was not thrilled at first with this method. I was having all sorts of problems figuring out where I was and which piece of yarn to be using. And we won't discuss the tangling. But I will say, I like the idea that when I am done with the process, I'm done with a pair of socks. And it seems to be going much bettter now. I should try to remember that the first few rows of any method are icky. I'm starting to wonder if two socks at a time are possible with the magic loop method....

These are made from some of the wool I dyed at knit group at Christies house. The pattern is from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury, page 136, Dragon Skin. I had to change it a little bit to make it fit into my stitch count.

These are the other two skeins I dyed. The mostly green one is laceweight, the red is worsted. The red lost a lot of color is the rinsing, so I have been playing around with overdying the skein with assorted Kool Aid colors. I think the red one wants to be a felted bag. The laceweight is just laughing at me for thinking it will be knit up any time soon.

Here are pictures from the dye day at Christies and Ben's. We are so grateful that they have the patience to have their home invaded by fiber-crazed, dye-happy Knitters. Thanks again, you two! From left to right, Ellen's yarn, Phoebe and her yarn, TOK's skeins. and MJ's creations. There was even more, but way too much to put here.

And for those of you wondering about my mystery Pi shawl, here you go.

It's not very much further along. Apparently, I am easily sidetracked by other projects. I really do plan on finishing it before August. And I am still hoping the miracle of blocking comes through for me on this.

In other news, my son Mike came home from college on Friday. I was happy to see him. It's nice to have everybody back together. We learned that his football team will be playing in some kind of European football charity thing next May in Vienna. Austria. We are very excited, as you can imagine. They will be spending 9 days visiting Vienna and Prague. With any luck, my husband and I will be going, too! It will make a great 25th Anniversary trip. We are hoping that our younger son's High School graduation will not be on the same day. I'll find out tomorrow if the dates will all work out. Everyone keep your fingers crossed!

I am still planning on going to the Estes Park Wool Festival in June. I'll be staying at a cabin there Friday and Saturday night. I could use some more roommates to split the cost. It should be a blast....an entire weekend around people who like fiber and understand why I do, too. As I said before, I'm hoping not to catch spinning fever there.

We are also thinking about selling our house and moving to a place that will fit our lifestyle better now. Read "we don't like doing maintenance and yard work, only partly because it cuts into knitting time" for "that will fit our lifestyle better", and you'll understand a little better. We are still waiting to see how the numbers are going to work out before any decisions are made. If you know anybody that wants our house, tell them to call me.

Yes, I really am alive

2006-04-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

I know some people think I have disappeared, but I am just a little behind on some things. What an understatement that is, eh? The new job is going well, it turns out I can knit there.

Here's a picture of the sock at work. I did finish that sock and am almost done with the leg of the second one, see?

I also joined the Yahoo group EZas Pi Mystery shawl knitalong. Because I have soooo much spare time! So far so good on that, too. Here are some pictures of that, looking a crumpled mess right now, but I am hoping that the miracle which is blocking will save me from myself.

I tried to take a picture of the shawl in progress on a balloon so we could get an idea of how the pattern looks. Yeah, that worked well.

I've also got some pictures here of the yummy yarn that Christy dyes. She brought it to knit group, and as they say, the crowd went wild. There was a massive yarn stash enhancement grabbing festival, and this picture shows the "after" pile. I couldn't get my camera turned on fast enough to catch a "before" shot.

I did get a picture of MJ and part of her haul....You know it's bad when MJ had to call her husband to bring us bags to help us carry it home. Some of this, the pretty green stuff, is what the shawl is made out of.

That's it for now, I'll try to be better at posting, but no guarantees!

Some Finished Objects

2006-03-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

It's so nice to be able to report that some things are actually done!

The new job I have has been seriously cutting into knitting time. I love the new company I am with, but the training department frowns on knitting in class, I can't imagine why ... I am hoping that once I get good at the job, I'll be able to knit at work again.

Back to the knitting. I finished two scarves for a friend, and a pair of socks for another friend. I also started a moebius scarf for... are you ready?... ME.

It's going to have beads, which is something new for me to try. The Knitting Olympics are still inspiring me to be more adventurous in my knitting. I'm not totally fearless, but I'm working on it!

Perfitto!

2006-03-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yep, you read it right. I am finished knitting the sweater and hat. The marvelous Mr. Ted E. Bear is modeling for me.

The pom-pom still needs to be done, but I can't find my pom-pom maker. I know I have one, but it seems to have gone missing.

I am so glad to be done. I have learned a ton from this experience.

I am really looking forward to meeting some other Colorado Knitting Olympians. Here' the party plan....

Saturday April 1st, let's get together at the Crowfoot Valley Coffee Shop in Castle Rock, CO. I think meeting there at 2 pm sounds about right. Please come on over, we will have a blast.

Steek rhymes with EEK !!!!!

2006-03-04T01:21:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed that?

I started my journey tonight, after stalling I will admit. I did have to shovel a lot of junk off of my sewing machine first. Then I realized my sewing machine wasn't working properly. Luckily, I have my Mom's sewing machine at my house, since she no longer sews. I found it ironic that the first machine I ever sewed on is the one I used for the first steeks I've ever done.

Here's what step one looked like. Not scary at all.

Then, the bobbin did funny stuff and looked like this.

Just in case you weren't sure, it's not supposed to do that. I did fix that and continued on, since I was committed. (Take that sentence however you want to)

When I got to this point I seriously wondered if this was really a good idea. I wasn't sure the people on knitty, and eunny, or even EZ knew what the heck they were talking about. I will admit EZ's quote in her book Knitting Workshop did make me laugh, briefly.

"Now you are in for a GREAT FRIGHT. You will see that the CUT has lengthened. DON'T PANIC."

Yeah, like this sight doesn't freak you out at least a little.

And then after cutting the second big slash in the knitting that took a long time, I freaked out some more....

After I sort of recovered from the shock of what I had done, I noticed that the table my needles to sew it all back together were on this table. So I poured myself a glass of wine and decided to continue later. Good choice.

I wanted a gold medal, but...

2006-02-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

I don't get a gold medal, but I have learned the following important things:

1) Dale of Norway patterns rock and now I'm addicted to them and actually believe I can finish one in my size. They have a new Colorado Springs pattern just out, so making one seems required since I live there.
2) I have just enough common sense not to do steeks at 3 in the morning even if it means not getting a gold medal.
3) My family and friends love me even when I do what appears to be strange things.
4) I can now weave in ends like a champ.
5) Knittting Olympics inspire plenty of people, it's a great conversation opener, and now my sister Karen is knitting a sock. She called me a couple days ago wanting to know what SSK in her pattern meant. How cool is that? She hasn't called back yet. I expect her to when she reads about Kitchner stitch.
6) Spending time with my family, like going to my daughter's rugby match, is more important than gold to me.
7) It's a great feeling to push past what I think my limits are, and if I can do that with my knitting, why not apply it to the rest of my life?

Party Off

2006-02-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to get the Closing Ceremony Party together, so I have to cancel =- (

I will be stitching furiously to make the deadline. I am feeling like the marathon runner who finishes last, after everybody leaves the stadium. I really hope everyone else is on track and heading for the final stretch.

Party On!

2006-02-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

There will be a party, location is still up in the air. We have a volunteer willing to have it at her house near Castle Rock. How many are coming needs to be learned so we can finalize this. Please either e-mail or leave a comment. Can't wait to meet y'all!

Progress report... body done, weaving ends in now, blocking soon. Then a mad rush to knit the sleeves and steek. Then a madder rush to do the neckband, and hemming, and buttons, and pom pom. I really hope the rest of you are in better shape than this!

Sidelined

2006-02-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

I've been temporarily sidelined. I am at the neckline shaping, and I am sort of confused by the directions. And I need to get my taxes done. So the two things have come together and forced me off the project for now. I really hope to get it all done tonight. Yeah, right.

I also have my son coming home from college for a little over a week, and my daughter and her friend coming home for the weekend. Do you think I have my house ready for that? If you said no, you would be right. I did do some grocery shopping, so nobody will strave.

One Week Left

2006-02-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Only one week left until the end of the Knitting Olympics. I am working on finding a good place for The Colorado Closing Ceremony Celebration. I will keep you posted.

Here is a picture of my event as it looked last night at 1 am when I gave up and went to bed. Note the Dove dark chocolate hearts. They have been an essential part of the process. There has been some wine involved, but not too much yet.

Here is a picture of the body of the sweater. I have two of three bands of bugs done, so I'm thinking this can be done. It is definitely an endurance event, not a sprint. After the body, two small sleeves with only one band of bugs each. I have not blocked the swatch, so I am still thinking that blocking will rid it of any unevenness. No sweat.

I think sweat happens when I try the steeks.

Back Home Again

2006-02-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

OK, back to reality, or as close to it as my life gets...

I had a wonderful vacation. I got to spend a lot of time with my Mom, who is in a nursing home. She is so cute. I noticed her hands get cold easily, so I made her a muff from some incredibly soft and yummy bulky alpaca that I picked up at great store in Chicago. She had previously made me an afghan that color with cables on it, so I thought I'd do what I could to keep her warm, too.

I spent the first 4 nights at my sister Margie's. She lives on the north side of Chicago, in the Rogers Park neighborhood. She has a cat named Murphy, who approved of the alpaca. Maybe because he's the same color as the yarn. I got to eat real pizza again, more than once. It was very, very good. Some of the leftovers went as carry-on home with me in the "overhead bins". We also had a delicious dinner at the Morseland Cafe a couple of blocks from her house. The food was fabulous, the mojitos were very tasty, the atmosphere was cool, and the people were the best. We were going to go to shop for yarn together on Friday before I left, but stuff got in the way of that. I hope she goes without me and takes up knitting again. I need more people to be obsessed with fiber.

I had time to visit 2 yarn stores. I took the L (that's the elevated train, for those unfamiliar with what I mean). If you have seen the movie "While You Were Sleeping", it's that kind of train. I went to Arcadia Knitting on Lawrence Ave. They arrange the yarn by color, very neat. That's where I found some fingering weight Lorna's Laces for a shawl. I also picked up another Dale pattern, what am I thinking? That someday I will really have time to make a whole sweater in my size? I guess I am hoping I will maybe finish a pair of mittens, or a headband. I'd insert a picture here - - but I can't yet. More about that later. Then I hoped back on the L and went downtown to Loopy. I found a lot of nice things there, including the alpaca. Both stores were great, and the people very nice. It got colder and windier and believe it or not, I had no scarf with me. I own a bunch, they just could not be summoned by me at will. So, in a clever moment, I found a skein of yarn that would make a great scarf and wrapped it around my neck twice and wore it back to my sisters house. So I know that when I eventually get around to making it, I can expect warm and comfy.

I spent the second half of my trip at my other sisters house in southern Wisconsin. I went from the city to the country. In between visits with Mom, I also got to go to a yarn store with my sister Karen. It's near Delavan. It's called Needles and Pins Yarn Shoppe. It was great, nice selection and nice people. My sister went in with me. She found a really pretty scarf pattern and yarn but decided not to make it because she doesn't wear scarves. I did kind of push her over the edge when I reminded her that she does wear socks. Then I pointed out the huge selection of Trekking XL sock yarn, and the purple kind of sealed the deal. She's never knit with double points, so I had to teach her real quick. She picked it up very fast. She didn't seem to be having any problems and knows to go back to the shop if she has any questions. Keep your fingers crossed that she has good first sock karma, or I am so screwed when she sees me next.

I did finish my daughter's red scarf, and made lots of progress on the project I can't talk about yet. The swatch is finished except for the blocking and the pom-pom, see?
It has a needle in it because the flipped up brim tends to roll. I'm really hoping blocking will help. I did not knit on the Olympic project at all. I was so unsure that my brand new teeny-weeny expensive metal Addi's would go thru screening at Midway that I chickened out on attempting that. So, into the suitcase they went, and the other project was carried on. I finally cast on the project at 5:20 pm TODAY. Two days after the official start! Yikes. That's all, just YIKES. I do have seven rows done, out of like 125 for the body of the sweater. Not time to panic just yet.

Normally I'd share pictures of the newest additions to the stash, but I don't have any of it here. It's still in Wisconsin, waiting for transport back to me. There was an issue of stuff that wouldn't fit in the suitcase. That's mainly because I had some things of Mom's that can't exactly be shipped, like some furniture and a mantle clock. So the yarn got stuck into some drawers and my son will drive it back on his spring break. He doesn't know that yet. I think I can live without it for that long. Unless my sister takes up knitting big time and decides that it should stay with her...

2006-02-03T22:11:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am in Chicago! I got here yesterday. The flight was great and the screeners at the airport were wonderful. They didn't even blink at the needles. One of the ladies at DIA is a knitter, so we did spend a few minutes talking about my project. She is working on a sweater for her grandson, in case you want to know.

One of the people in line was carrying a pillow through and the screener told her that she'd have to be detained because the tag had been removed. Everyone in line thought that was pretty funny, except her. Some people don't have much of a sense of humor.

A big plus to knitting and headphones means you do not have to talk to the big scary guy taking up the seat next to you. Until they make you turn off "all portable electronics". Then you find out that his favorite pair of hiking socks was made by his sister for Christmas. Note to self: remember not to prejudge, even when you think you don't.

I had a great time driving from Midway to my sister's house. I love Lake Shore Drive. I stopped to take a picture of Soldier Field for my boys. I can't quite figure out how to get the pictures from the camera to the blog from this computer. My husband tried to explain it to me on the way to the airport, but I wasn't taking good notes, so when I get home there will be plenty to post. It took me a while to figure out how to get my sisters computer to do what I wanted. I had no idea they make left-handed mice.....

Heading Out

2006-02-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm heading out to Chicagoland tomorrow morning. I did decide to fly instead of drive. Even though I normally love road trips, it didn't make sense this time. This will save me 38 hours of knitting, oh I mean driving, time. I get to see my Mom and sisters, and maybe my son who goes to school in Illinois. I'll also get to see my in-laws, which in my case is a very good thing.

Packing my clothes for this trip, very easy. Packing my projects to knit, very NOT easy. I finally settled on these.

There is of course the Olympic project and training swatch, the brown will hopefully become a moebius basket, the lime green is a moebius with beads, and the red is a quick scarf. OK, so only I see them as done, but I figure you would understand...

One of the actual "traveling with me" projects is a scarf that's almost done. It's on kind of long Denise needles. The other project is a gift for someone who might be reading, so no pictures or descriptions of that! I tried to pick projects that will be interesting to knit and will also not raise any alarms with the security folks. I mean, you and I both know that the TSA says knitting needles are fine, but we also know that one unhappy screener can totally mess you up.

Wish me luck...

Band O' Bugs

2006-01-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of training, no sign of stiffness or soreness in our knitters hands or wrists. That is great news, but even better...a band of bugs is nearly finished, see?

All of the ladybugs behinds are done on this swatch. The picture is still not showing the right color purple, but by the time training is done I may have the color correct. Later I will figure out how many ladybugs the sweater has compared to the swatch, but math at this time of night is risky.

I also finished the mittens, so I'm feeling pretty smug tonight. Anybody who needs their mittens to match exactly may not like them, but I prefer fraternal mittens to identical ones, mainly because I hate to waste time and yarn looking for the perfect repeat. I really like them, they are cool and stripey, and also warm and cozy. I test drove them home from work...Literally.

Training - Day 1

2006-01-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

I've officially started "the swatch". It doesn't look like I have completed very much, only about 1/2". This could take quite a bit longer than anticipated.....

You can kind of see that there is a bit of pattern going on. OK, maybe you can't, but I know it's there! The colors are a little off, that one skein is purple. Are you noticing the tiny needles? I feel like I'm knitting with toothpicks. I really love this yarn. When the website comes up, scroll down to the Baby Ull. It feels wonderfully soft, and almost makes the tiny needles seem not so bad. (But ask me again in 2 weeks) The glass of wine that is barely visible has nothing to do with the lack of progress.

I did work on the mittens most of the day. A call center workplace does have it's up side when call volume is low. I have both mittens done except for the thumbs. They will be finished tomorrow. I would have posted a picture, but I did not have my camera at work, and didn't want to bring the mittens home unfinished.

I have no idea if working on the swatch at my desk tomorrow will work well. I do have a stash of dark chocolate in my desk drawer, so that might help.

Let the training begin!

2006-01-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

Yipee! The Olympic yarn has arrived! Here it is, looking so unhappy in it's mailing packaging....
Before it could be unpacked, I decided I had better undecorate from Christmas. I know, I know, it's already Jan 28th and I should have done this long ago but I didn't. So I think I have set a new record for "Fastest Undecorating" for our house. The tree still is vertical, but taking it down, sticking it in the box, and dragging it down the stairs isn't my job. After my son wakes up from his nap I'll help him carry the stuff to the basement, but until then...PLAYTIME.

Here is the yarn freed from the packaging and frolicking on the top of the desk, next to the additional needles I realized I needed to do the swatch (hat). Why I didn't remember to get double points when picking up the Addi's, I do not know.

And because the yarn did not get to my house before I left for stitching with the Knitters with Altitude, here's a picture of the mittens. I know it doesn't look like I did very much on them this morning, but I really did. If I would have been paying attention while I was casting on for them I would have realized I had grabbed the wrong needle size and would not have needed to rip the 3" I had finished on the cuff out. So now I am back on track with that. I'm really liking the striping type thing that is happening on these. The real mitten is a little darker.

I am now of two minds. Do I finish the mittens which I want done before I leave for Chicago, or do I cast on the swatch?

Thursday's Ramblings

2006-01-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

A few random thoughts for today:
1. I'd like to see if there are any other Colorado knitters that would like to get together for an Olympic Closing Ceremony Party. The location will depend on how many people express interest and where they live. I think we might need to find an appropriate place in Castle Rock, since that's kind of in the middle of the Springs and Denver. Right now it's up in the air, but a friendly yarn store or coffee shop there might be good.

2. Why does the spell checker want to substitute "janitor's" for "knitters"? And "flogging" for "blogging"?

3. Why didn't I notice, until just this morning, that the pattern I chose for my Olympic event did not say US size 2 and 2 1/2 needles, which are tiny enough, but 2 and 2 1/2 MM, which are size US size 0 and 1? Someone shoot me. Oh well, since I didn't have those sizes I was forced to go to my LYS and buy 2 new pairs of Addis. The theory is that I will be able to knit faster (the packaging says it will) with them. We shall see.

While at the LYS, I picked up some yarn for a kitty bed ala Cat Bordhi (the dark red), yarn for a pair of easy mittens, and unbelievably another Dale baby pattern. Most of you will recognize this as "the Tink's sweaters". Why I think I will be able to make that sweater error-free the first time through when Stephanie can't is a mystery. Notice the tiny little needles.

4. The retreat WW commented on was a blast. Our knitting group rented out a great B&B near Twin Lakes, CO for a few days and had a wonderful time. We knit, ate, enjoyed the scenery and each others company. The skill level of the knitters was from one person who had never picked up a needle all the way thru people who have knitted for a very long time. We even had a spinner there. (pictures and more to follow later)

5. Someone said knitter's almost always have a cat. I have two, plus their best dog friend, Mira. Here they are. The pretty girl with the dog is my daughter Megan. The black and white cat is Leo. The other one is Libby.

Jumping In

2006-01-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm jumping into the deep end feet first and hoping that it all works out. I have been inspired by our beloved Yarn Harlot to enter the internet community of Knitters. Thank you, Stephanie for inspiring me to step way out of my comfort zone and write this, and to stretch not only my knitting knowledge but also to stretch my mind in general.

I will admit to not knowing much about the mechanics of blogging, but I figure that's why God invented teenage sons who, for a price to be determined later, will help their computer challenged Mom. I quickly learned "links" and "posting". I just have to remember that the computer stuff has a language of it's own, just like knitting.

I am starting this for a couple of reasons, but right now mainly to keep track of my event for the Knitting Olympics. I was going to put the cool link button on here, but I can't figure out how yet (Matt will have to help later). My project is the Dale Ladybug Hat and sweater. I know it's crazy, I have examined the idea after the initial moment of committing to it. But I still feel that doing my best to achieve such a feat will have it's own rewards. I hope.

Here's where I try to insert a picture, after I scan the thing. Wish me luck.

WooHoo! Ok, now we're cooking! Man, that was cool. I know, I know, some of you are thinking I'm way too excited about something so easy. What can I say? I'm easily amused.

So, back to the project... The hat will be the swatch ala EZ. I was originally going to make it in the smallest size to improve my chances of actually finishing, but realized that the 12 month size would be a better idea so that a baby could wear it more than once before growing out of it. See, I'm thinking ahead, aren't you proud of me?

The training materials are in the mail, the provisions of wine, chocolate, and coffee are laid in. When I get to the steeks I have a feeling that I will need a lot more chocolate.

I have a trip planned for that time, but I am actually considering shelling out extra bucks to fly instead of driving by myself across the Great Plains, thus saving me 20 hours each way of training and event time. This is because while I can knit while driving, I can only do single color easy stuff, and no way would this qualify as a good idea.