February 2007 – The Knitting Doctor

February….

It’s been a loony, busy week around here. As is usual for a work week, I didn’t get much else done. Now that the work week is over, it’s time for a little fun. First was Mardi Gras, Knitting Doctor style. We had Fat Tuesday at our house with a couple of neighbors. We made homemade chicken and andouille sausage gumbo and cornbread for supper, then played a competitive game of dominos to top off the evening. This photo is to prove that I can play Mexican Train and knit socks at the same time.

Note the lovely jewelry that I am wearing in that photo.

There aren’t many other knitting photos in this post, so if that’s all you came for, you might want to look away now.

Here’s a shot I got of Will this morning. He stared intently out that window for over an hour, at exactly the same spot. I finally got up to see what he was looking at, which of course was nothing. He turned and gave me that “see, I made you get up and look, all humans are helpless against my superior powers” look that only cats have.

And now, because I know you all are wondering what the title of this post has to do with anything, other than that I am at least partially oriented:

February is indeed my favorite month. It’s time again for Tacoma’s bluegrass festival, Wintergrass. It started last night, continues tonight, and all day Saturday and Sunday. I have my sock knitting ready, and a backup plan in the unlikely event that I finish these (this is only the first of the pair). I don’t plan on missing a note.

More Sunsets, Knitting Update

Here are more vacation photos. See the previous few posts for details of where we were, in case you haven’t been hanging on every word that I post.

Yet another sunset from our condo. In weeding through the photos, it appears that we took at least 50 sunset photos from our balcony on the various evenings that we were there at sunset. Thank heavens for digital, is all I can say.

We did make it out to Catalina Island. I had that silly song in my head for the whole trip, by the way. We took the Catalina Flyer over, and spent the whole day, taking a bus trip inland to check the place out.

Here’s the bus:

And more beach/knitting shots.

We stopped at the Wrigley ranch for refreshments part-way through the tour. I took a knitting break with this fine fellow.

There were cute horses, and a cute real cowboy.

There were buffalo:

And the ferry ride back to the mainland, at yet another sunset.

We met our Germany friends for breakfast Sunday morning before we took off for home. We discovered the Crystal Cove Beach Cottages during our trip. This was a thriving beach community from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, and subsequently fell into disrepair. It has been turned into a historic district and is slowly being restored as rental cottages. The restaurant on the property, the Beachcomber, is just a hoot. I want their martini flag for our dock. We didn’t get any photos, as it was drizzly that morning, but someday intend to go back there for a vacation.

On to knitting. I worked on the Laurel Hill sweater during the trip, and finished both the front and back. Now it’s on to Sleeve Island, nothing like Catalina Island, I’m sure. Maybe playing that song would make it go faster. Then again, maybe not.

I also got quite a bit done on the first of the Solar Energy socks. I wasn’t quite certain that I liked this color once I started knitting, but it’s growing on me. It’s striping in a rather interesting fashion.

It’s actually not quite that…yellow. It’s more maize and khaki, with light purple and orange in the stripey part. I’ll try to get the color better with the next, hopefully daylight, photo.

I’m also still working on a lace project, but it’s gotten to that point where it just can’t be photographed without looking like a blob. The last photo I took of the Forest Canopy shawl was way back in September. It’s bigger than that now, but too big to spread out and get a decent photo. You’ll just have to wait.

This week is a work week, so stay tuned for another post. Who knows if I’ll get any knitting, or posting, done this week. All I have to say, is that it’s cocktail hour here, with or without the martini flag.

—————————————————————————-

An addendum: One of my new favorite knitting blogs: TECHknitting; check it out!

Trains, Planes, and Knitting

We’re back from the Great California Train trip of 2007, and boy, do I have pictures. The trip was a blast, and I’d definitely do Amtrak again. We took the Coast Starlight from Tacoma to Los Angeles, then drove to Newport Beach, where we had a condo a little ways from the water. We flew home yesterday, and I finally sort of have my act together to post a few photos. We booked a “roomette” for the trip, which is two seats facing each other in a compartment that has a big window and a sliding door to the train corridor. At night, the two seats fold down for a single bed, and a bunk folds down from above for the second bed. We slept in this type of room the last time we were on Amtrak several years ago, and it is cramped but better than sleeping sitting up in a chair. The bathroom and shower are down the hall, and shared.

After we got on the train, we asked about upgrading to a larger compartment. Just as a tip, if you do this, you are definitely risking that there won’t be a larger room available, especially during the busier travel seasons, but they quite frequently will upgrade you for much less than you would pay by booking it directly. Fortunately, they had one “luxury” compartment available all the way to LA, and we were first to ask. These rooms still have bunk beds, but the compartment is about twice the size, and has a bathroom/shower combo that is just barely big enough to stand up in and turn around to rinse off. It works, though. Here’s the train pulling in to the Tacoma station:

The Coast Starlight route goes by the water through Tacoma, then cuts inland for awhile until you get into California. Much of the route through CA goes right by the water. Here’s a view of both the new and old Tacoma Narrows Bridges. The one on the left is the new one, in the process of being built.

Here I am, settling in to the compartment for the long trip.

Of course, Sweetpea got to go along. That’s John in the mirror of our compartment.

I did a little knitting in the observation car, along the coast.

The “first class” compartments (the cars with the sleepers) normally have a separate parlor car, which is supposedly pretty fancy, but they are all offline for renovation. We’ll just have to plan another trip, I guess. They do have wine tasting on this route, every afternoon, for the “sleeper people”. Here we are enjoying a glass.

All your meals are included when you book a sleeper. You get to share the table with another couple while you are eating, so we met some interesting people on the route. The Coast Starlight is notorious for being late, but it seems to be getting better. We were only about 90 minutes late getting into LA, but as this was strictly a pleasure jaunt, the time issue didn’t bother us.

Here’s a photo of the first sunset from the balcony of our condo.

Our first lunch was at the Crab Cooker, which is sort of an institution in Newport. Fortunately, it wasn’t very busy when we were there.

We met up with friends from Germany that just happened to be in Newport on family business. It was purely coincidence, and we only found out that they were going to be there a week before we left home. Strange, indeed. They spent one night at our condo, and we had a couple of lunches together as well. We played a killer game of Mexican Train the night they stayed with us. Here’s me concentrating.

I still lost. And don’t let that water bottle worry you. The bourbon glass just didn’t make it into the photo.

Guess where we ate?

Mmmmm. Two double-doubles, with cheese, and chocolate shakes. Worth the whole train trip, right there.

We walked on the beach:

We took a boat tour of the Newport Harbor:

…With our friends from Germany:

We saw more sunsets, this one on Laguna Beach:

I’ll post the rest of the pictures later this week when I get them sorted out. There might also be a knitting update photo or two! How exciting!

——————————————————————————-

In even more exciting news, my friend Kris, the Knitting Wannabe, and her husband Dana have opened up an online yarn shop, Sonny and Shear.

Go, shop! I am on this crazy yarn fast, and can’t shop again until the 15th, but I’ve got my credit card number memorized and I’m ready. Buy enough yarn to keep her in business. I am overjoyed to no end to have a friend who owns a real yarn shop. I need to get a sign that says “will work for yarn”.

26 Miles…

Romance, Romance, Romance, Romance

I couldn’t resist…

**see the previous post, if this makes absolutely NO sense to you. Just so that song is stuck in your head, like it’s in mine!

Excuses, Excuses

Ahem. To explain further what happened in the previous post.

There were martinis involved. And wine. Then I decided to cast on for a new sock. I picked out a set of Brittany Birch double points, size 2.00 mm, and did a Twisted German cast on. If you’ve ever used this, you know it’s a bit fiddly by itself. The first row after the cast on is even fiddlier. I started a cuff with 2 by 2 ribbing, and got all the way to the end of the round. Damn, I was off by 2 stitches. I went back and counted. I had counted right, it was just that somewhere along the line I threw in a 4 by 2 section. I ripped it out, started over. Got the cast on done, struggled through the first round, and was off again. I’d counted wrong that time. 3rd try. Cast on the right number, did the rib correctly, snapped the damn birch needle while finishing the last needle’s worth of stitches. There you have it. That yarn is just seriously lucky that the whole mess didn’t get pitched into the fireplace.

The good news is that Brittany has a needle replacement policy. They don’t say anything on their website about exclusions for vodka-soaked knitting accidents, so I went ahead and emailed them. We’ll see if they send me a new one.

The other good news? I got the sock off and running yesterday. I threw in the towel on the Twisted German cast on and ribbing, and did a plain long tail cast on and a picot cuff. I definitely would not recommend doing that really fiddly hemming row while drinking. I was stone sober when I did this:

You might also notice that I changed to much less breakable Pony Pearls for the remainder of the sock. This yarn is a little bit lighter than some fingering weight sock yarn, and I’ll need to do the whole thing on the 2 mm size. I just didn’t have the heart to subject any more Brittany needles to alcohol abuse.

Thanks for all the comments on the double-ended stitch markers, by the way. I’m working on a new-and-improved version, and will post a tutorial on how to make these at some point later this month.

I’m leaving on another little jaunt tomorrow, for a week. We are using a week of our timeshare in Newport Beach, California. As an aside, ever since my husband mentioned that Santa Catalina Island is off the coast of CA near there, that song has been running through my head. You know the one, well, at least you do if you’re as old as I am. You know, “26 miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is a-waitin’ for me. Santa Catalina, the island of romance, romance, romance, romance.”

The really fun thing is that we’re taking the train from here to there. We get on the Coast Starlight (incidentally, the Amtrak line with the worst on-time record) tomorrow AM, and get to LA late Saturday night. You know what that means, don’t you?

Two (maybe three!) whole days of completely uninterrupted knitting time! We’re taking the laptop along, so if we have wireless access while we’re gone, I’ll post, but otherwise I’ll see you all in a week.

Excuse me, I need to go pack my knitting. And the martini shaker. They don’t say anything about not being able to take one on the train.