Author: Lorette

My name is Lorette. I learned to knit in 1999, and took up spinning in 2009. I'm a physician specializing in internal medicine, and live in the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy my blog!

Hawaii

by James Michener


Lordy, where to start with this one. I liked this in some ways, hated it in others. I learned a lot of Hawaiian history that was new to me, but Michener’s writing style drives me a bit nutty. Any book that starts off with “millions upon millions of years ago” and ends in the 1950’s is guaranteed to get on my nerves after awhile. It ends up being a bunch of short family stories within the grander epic story, which left me feeling like I really didn’t care about any of them very much. Michener handles this format by making apparently everybody who ever lived in Hawaii related to the same three or four families, which I’m sure isn’t quite the case.

At any rate, I finally finished it. I almost threw it into the recycle bin a few times, but now I can move on to something more enjoyable, preferably less epic.

937 pages.

Finished Project!

I finished John’s socks while we were in Arizona a few weeks ago, and just haven’t gotten around to posting them. Here they are:

Project Details:

Yarn: Mountain Colors Weavers Wool Quarters, color Red Tail Hawk.

Needles: Ivore double points, size 2.75 mm.

Pattern: My own jerry-rigged sock pattern, on 60 stitches.

Started: February 7th, 2009

Finished: March 5th, 2009

For: John, to replace the first pair of socks I ever knit.

What I learned: Sportweight yarn knits up into socks faster than “sock” weight (duh!). I like knitting socks with nice yarn better than I like mending socks made from crappy yarn.

He loves them, and I think he’s finally given up on the old holey pair.
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Portland was a fun trip, even though we were there for just a short time. The train ride there is really the way to go. If you figure in the cost of parking a car once you get there, it’s much cheaper to take Amtrak, especially since Portland is such a walkable city. My sweetie surprised me with tickets to Wicked one night, which was fabulous. And I got to shop at Powell’s, and at Knit/Purl, so the whole trip was a success.

On the remodeling front, the floors are done, and now we are just waiting for the cabinets to be finished. Once those are installed, the guys can measure to cut the granite for the counter tops. We’re figuring about another three or four weeks before it’s back in usable condition. We’re already starting to plan what our first meal in the new kitchen will be!

Evacuating

We’re out of here for a few days. The kitchen remodel project has gotten to the “sand and repair the kitchen floor” phase. There are a few places that will need patching where we’re changing things, so most of the kitchen and part of the dining room have to be sanded, stripped, and restained. We knew from experience that none of us can be in the house during the finishing process, and the noise is really a pain in the butt.

We’re hopping Amtrak to Portland for a few days. We figured as long as we need to be in a hotel, we might as well have a little fun in the process. And I hear that there are some good yarn shops there. (Shhhhh, John hasn’t heard this part.) He wants to watch Carolina play in the NCAA game Thursday night while we’re there, so I’m planning on trading that for a trip to a couple of yarn shops. Anybody got any favorites??

The pets are all at Green Acres Pet Resort*. That is, all except Lucy. She disappeared when it was time to get them all in the car, and didn’t come out until it was way past the time for us to have to get them on the road. Of course she came out about 20 minutes after John was on his way, so now she’s corralled into the cat carrier for the second trip to Green Acres this morning.

I have a finished project to show, but it will have to wait until we get back. We’re off to the train station!

*”Green Acres is the place to be! Farm living is the life for me! Land spreading out so far and wide, keep Tacoma and give me that country side!”

You are very welcome. I couldn’t resist spreading the earworm.

But Where Do We Make The Cocktails, Dear?

We’ve decided to stimulate the economy in a rather spectacular fashion this spring. A kitchen remodel has been in our long-range plan for the house since we moved in here. It got sidetracked a bit when we had to rebuild one whole side of our house in 2006, but it was on the schedule for this year, economy be damned. Those ugly grey plastic kitchen cabinets have been on my hit list since I first saw this place.

Our kitchen appliances started to bite the dust last fall, and when we had to replace the gas cooktop ahead of schedule due to the death of the old one, the new one required a little chainsaw action so it would fit in to the center island. This left a gaping hole in the middle of the island. Then the old refrigerator died, and we had to get a new one. We measured the space carefully, and went to buy a shiny new refrigerator. Of course, since this entire house apparently was built from stolen plans for a Halloween fun-house, the new refrigerator didn’t quite quite fit in the space that the old one came out of. One side of the cabinet above the fridge was a little lower than the other, so the whole cabinet got emergently ripped out, leaving a second gaping hole there. We’ve been living with the gaping holes for about six months, but it was clearly time to proceed with the rest of the remodel.

Our contractor started work this week. We’re getting new cabinets, replacing the oven and dishwasher that are on their last legs, and new granite countertops. Right now here’s what it looks like.

The only solution to that mess is to leave town. Fortunately the house has a tiny “kitchenette” in the basement, so we won’t starve during the couple months that this is projected to take to finish. We’re leaving this morning on our annual visit to Arizona to compete in the Great Mexican Train competition, AKA the Knitting Doctor’s family reunion. I might be able to post from the road, otherwise I’ll be back next week!

The Church of Bluegrass, 2009

Well, it’s all over. I still have banjos ringing in my ears, but Wintergrass is done for another year. 2010 tickets are already on sale, and though I haven’t gotten mine just yet, I will soon. Gotta get those early-bird prices, you know!

Highlights of Saturday and Sunday? The festival Saturday ran all afternoon and evening, at five different venues in and around the hotel, including the Rialto, an early 20th century movie house that has been restored as a performance hall. That venue, as well as one of the oldest Baptist churches downtown, are likely everybody’s favorites, both audience and performers.

My favorites on Saturday included another Mike Marshall group, Choro Famoso. He had a Brazilian mandolin player, Danilo Brito, playing with him. They played a whole set of mostly choro music which was just fabulous. Another one of those surprise groups was Cody Bryant and the Riders of the Purple Sage, playing good old fashioned cowboy music. They were a lot of fun to listen to.

Sunday’s festival was just at the main pavilion, and started out with a bluegrass gospel show, then finished up with Laurie Lewis, the Isaacs, and Blue Highway. I would have trouble picking just one of those as a favorite, though I’d never heard the Isaacs live, and they are just terrific performers.

Best of the weekend? This year it’s nearly an impossible choice, which is a good thing. In the not-quite-bluegrass category, it would have to be Mike Marshall and Choro Famoso, though there were a lot of very close seconds. In the more mainstream bluegrass category, Blue Highway is my favorite, though again, it’s a tough choice!

In the category of festival knitting, here are my winners:

I finished one sock and grafted the toe on Saturday (during Choro Famoso!), and then got the whole cuff of the second sock done yesterday. Since John likes his socks a little longer, I knitted the cuff of the first one as long as I dared. Yesterday I started getting a little concerned about yardage, so out came the trusty scale. I weighed the first sock, then the second half-done sock and the remaining yarn, then subtracted the weight of the needles.

Enough to finish the second sock, with several grams to spare! Whew!

Wintergrass, Day 2

Just a quick post, since I’m headed out the door. Last night was yet another spectacular WG evening. Lots of good music, bad festival food, and mindless knitting.

Picks of the evening for music? Three Ring Circle, with Rob Ickes on dobro. They were so good that I listened to two sets. And Scythian. They’re at best a distant cousin to bluegrass, but if you ever get a chance to hear them live, just go. Somebody should figure out how to bottle their energy.

Later!

Wintergrass, Day 1

As usual, the first evening of Wintergrass brought some great entertainment. The festival starts Thursday night, then continues Friday evening, most of the day and evening on Saturday, and all day on Sunday. Thursday is sort of the “warmup” session, but there are always a couple of “sleeper” groups that turn out to be great. Last night the Tallboys, a string band from Seattle, were my favorite. It’s an old time string band, and as they point out, are neither all boys, nor all tall. They have fiddle, banjo, bass, and a clogger girl. What more could you want in a group?

The other hit of the evening was Mike Marshall and one of the many group iterations that he plays in. This particular group was the Big Trio, playing acoustic string music that is difficult to pigeonhole into one genre. Mike is also playing with a Brazilian acoustic group tomorrow, and that should be terrific as well.

As to knitting, I worked on True Blue last night. I’ve finished the back piece, and cast on the front so I was ready for the evening. I managed to just finish the bottom ribbing and the increases last night, so now I’m ready to just knit mindlessly back and forth on the body without having to pay much attention. The ribbing is a twisted rib (P1, K1tbl on the front, K1, P1tbl on the back), so I had a bit of trouble with it in the dark, but from here on it should be easy. Here are photos.

The back, done.

Those little clips holding the extra yarn on the shoulders? They are from a set of bag clips that we got at Ikea. The smaller ones are just a little too small to work well on food bags, but are perfect for this application!

Ribbing done:

What? You don’t have a pirate pencil case??

I suppose you want to see inside, too.

Well, of course it came with the pirate pencil sharpener and the pirate eraser.

Arrrgggh, matey. I’m ready for the weekend.

Wintergrass

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Wintergrass, the annual bluegrass festival held in Tacoma, starts tonight and runs through Sunday evening. As usual, I have tickets for the entire festival. I also have my knitting lined up.

The Peacock Shawl is not one of the things that I’ll be taking. It’s not so difficult that I can’t work on it when chatting or being sociable, but it is definitely not something I’d want to work on in near darkness while the fiddles are playing. Here are a couple of progress photos.

It’s just really difficult to get a good photo of this at this point. It is going to be one huge shawl when it’s done, since the pattern calls for laceweight yarn, and this stuff (Blue Heron Mercerized Cotton) is somewhere between a heavy laceweight and fingering weight. I have 50-some rows to go, and the rows are close to 400 stitches at this point. It’s taking me a little over half an hour to get across one of the knit-side rows. The wrong-side purl rows go a little faster, but not much.

What I am taking to Wintergrass is socks. I have two pairs of socks in progress, both at a point where I can just knit around and around in circles mindlessly. I’m also still working on that True Blue sweater, and have just finished the back and have the front started so I can knit away on that as well for a little variety. I’ll show photos of those next time.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Lewey. He frequently can be found sitting by our kitchen windows, with his chin resting on the window ledge. He just likes watching the animal activity in the back yard, especially the birds.

I’m off to listen to the banjos!

The New Brown Socks

OK, I figured I’d better get knitting, since you’re all expecting Man Socks here. I found the perfect guy-approved hank of yarn, in the stash, no less, which appealed to my guy’s sense of frugality.

The yarn is Mountain Colors Weaver’s Wool Quarters, a sport weight 100% wool yarn. I bought a bunch of this for socks way back when, before MC came up with their Bearfoot sock yarn. At 100% wool, this stuff has to be hand washed, and it felts like nobody’s business. It makes great socks, though. They are a bit thick to wear in dress shoes, but since I almost always wear Birkenstocks, that’s OK with me. John pretty much lives in his Birkies, too, so these will work for him as well.

Here’s what I’ve got so far. One advantage of sport weight yarn is that it knits up relatively fast.

The color is Red Tail Hawk, the pattern is my own, this time using 60 stitches and my trusty Ivore needles, in 2.75mm. The gauge I’m getting is about 7 stitches per inch.

And here’s the old next to the new:

In case you were wondering about the size of the new socks, I’ve tried these on, and they fit me with a bit of ease, meaning they’ll fit John perfectly. I think you may now be getting a sense of the full ugliness of the old socks. He was sweet to say he loved them, though. The new ones will actually be socks he can wear in public.

And in the category of small victories over my tendency to enhance the stash in the middle of the night with internet access and memorized credit card number: After I started knitting the new socks, I was reminded of how much I love this Mountain Colors yarn. In no time, I had an internet shopping cart full of new skeins. I then turned around, opened the sock box, and found 9 more hanks of this stuff already in my house. I emptied the cart, turned off the computer, and went to bed.

Next time: An update on the Tidepool Peacock shawl!

The Tribe Has Spoken

I guess I’ll fix those damned socks after all. As of right now, the vote is 64 to 48 in favor of darning the holes in the Ugliest Socks Of All Time. Interestingly, the vote in the comments was overwhelmingly in favor of tossing them out. There are some lurkers out there who want these things mended, apparently.

Of course, now that I’ve gone through all this angst over the holey socks, John now thinks new socks would be better after all. Maybe I’ll do both. I need to find some kind of ugly yarn that “matches” the ugly brown Wool-ease. I am so not buying new yarn for this, so it’s going to be non-matchy, thus making them even uglier, if possible.

If anybody pays attention to my sidebar, there was a little “whoops” this month. The Great Stash Knit-Down has apparently turned into the Great Stash Buy-Up. The net number went into a negative this morning after I added a little bag of yarn that I had added to the stash this past month. I’m blaming it on Kris. Sonny & Shear had that blasted end-of-the-year inventory sale, and some of the bargains were too good to pass up. Do you want to see some of it? Of course you do!


This is one of my favorites. It’s Imperial Stock Ranch Sock Yarn, in Wild Iris. This is just the loveliest “wooly” wool, the kind you want to just bury your nose in. Kris still has some of this stuff left, though not in this color. Go buy some, so I don’t feel so guilty.


This is Dream In Color Baby, in the color In Vino Veritas. It’s a heavier weight lace yarn, almost fingering. Who knows what this will be, but I couldn’t resist the name. I already have some of the Smooshy sock yarn in this exact same color, so I can have a matching shawl and socks. Cool!

Last but not least is more shawl yarn. This isn’t from Kris, but from Sharon from Three Irish Girls. I’m a member of the Sock Yarnista sock club, and this was the December offering. Sharon solicitated color names from members on Ravelry, then dyed yarn to match the most popular name. It’s called Mulled Wine. Of course, only one skein of this was included in the sock club, but I bought a couple extra so I could have enough to make a shawl. I’m thinking Cluaranach, by Anne Hanson of Knitspot.

Of course there was more, but I’m not showing it just now. I need to go knit like a banshee* to get that net number back into the positive range.

*Do banshees really knit? If so, can I get one to help out around here?

RIP

No, I’m not frogging anything, and nobody died. It is however, a sad day around here. John’s favorite hand-knit socks have bit the dust for the last time.

When I first learned to knit, I waded right into a sweater after I had done about six interminable inches on a garter stitch scarf.* Then I decided to knit socks. Knowing nothing about sock yarn, much less sock knitting, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought not only Wool-Ease yarn, but the absolute ugliest skein of brown Wool-Ease yarn they made. It was brown, and John claimed it for his own. I had a generic sock pattern from somewhere, and ended up with these.

As you can see, we have a little problem here. Here’s another photo with both socks.

The heel of one went at exactly the same time as the toe of the other one. I’ve already darned these once. The last time he wore holes in them, I tried to toss them out, but he convinced me that they were the best socks ever and that I should fix them. Fortunately, this time I have no more of the ugly brown Wool-Ease left to repair them**, and they’re headed for the trash. I had to do a little bargaining, and promised him that I’d make another pair, better than the first. They’ll be brown, but they won’t be Wool-Ease.

*The sweater eventually was finished, the scarf wasn’t.

**If any of you have brown Wool-Ease in your stash, just keep it to yourselves, OK? He does not need any encouragement.

Back From Vacation!

And what a weather shock. We had beautiful weather in Maui, except for one day that it rained hard, and another where the wind howled all day. But heck, it was warm, we had rum drinks, and I wasn’t at work, so it wasn’t all bad. It’s been in the low 30’s most of this week since we’ve been home, with rain and grey skies, and yesterday morning we woke up again to snow. Sheesh.

We did lots of cool stuff in Hawaii, as well as lots of relaxing by the ocean. We did a luau, saw whales, and drove up to the top of Haleakala Crater. It was socked in with fog on the drive up, but cleared off as we neared the summit, and was in full sun by the time we got to the top. On the way up, we saw a few miserable looking bicyclists coming down the mountain in full rain gear, looking wet and cold. It seems there are quite a few lunatic people who get up in the middle of the night so they can go to the top and stand there in the fog and rain at sunrise.

Here are just a few photos. Here’s the link to the whole slide show if you must see more.

John on the beach:

On the whale watch cruise, a big whale breached twice in the span of a few minutes right in front of our boat. We didn’t catch the whale in the photo, but caught the splash-down.

Big banyan tree in Lahaina:

Socks on the beach:

Socks on the mountain top:

Knitting by the beach. Here are two photos that show that this yarn is the same color as the ocean tidepools.

And one last sunset at the resort:

Alas, all vacations must end. Here’s the plane ride home:

What? Don’t try telling me that you’d send Sweetpea through checked baggage. She always goes Princess Class.

A World Undone

by G. J. Meyer


I actually started this one in 2008, but what the heck. It’s my blog. It’s also close to 800 pages, so I’m counting it.

This is the story of the 1st World War, and Meyer manages to cover a complex period of world history in a style that is easy to read and understand. In each section, he provides background stories of the major players in the war, enabling the reader to follow the complicated politics of Europe that led to the bloodbath called the Great War. Once you finish reading this account of the “war to end all wars”, you will more easily realize how the world was set up for a second great disaster in World War II.

Meyer includes a helpful chronology in the beginning of the book, as well as a list of the major characters. There are a handful of photographs, and only a few maps. Probably my only criticism of the book is that more maps would have been helpful.

The last sentence in the book follows a background section entitled “The Fate Of Men & Nations”, in which Meyer describes what happened to the major characters in the Great War over the next decade and a half. After discussing Winston Churchill’s eventual warnings about the rearmament of Nazi Germany, he ends the story by saying, “But that is another story.” I can only hope that he plans to write that story as well.

777 pages.

Dead Until Dark

by Charlaine Harris


This is the official first book of 2009. Dead Until Dark is the first in a series by Charlaine Harris. If any of you watched True Blood on HBO this past fall, you’ll recognize this story. It’s the story of a cocktail waitress named Sookie Stackhouse in Bon Temps, Louisiana, and of her adventures with vampires and murderers. It’s a great story, there are some hilariously funny moments, and Sookie is an entertaining heroine. There are 8 books so far in the series, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of them.

292 pages.