Yes, I think I’ve used that title before. Oh well. We’re still on vacation, but I thought I would show you just a few photos (if the wifi allows!). We had a couple of very nice days in Quebec City, then took the overnight train to Halifax, where we’ve spent the last few days.
Pretty flowers!
John posing with statues.
They make wine here!
A school in the little town of Lunenburg. This was the town public school, but it’s now closed. The building is up for sale. Anybody think this would make a fine yarn shop? Of course the top floor is haunted, but I don’t think ghosts knit, so we’d be OK.
More churches!
They make beer, too! A fine spot for knitting!
Sunshine! The Atlantic Ocean!
This is the Old Burial Ground in Halifax.
The lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove just outside Halifax.
Part of the Fairview Cemetery, where 121 of the victims of the sinking of the Titanic are buried. Many of them were never identified. It’s a very sobering place.
On a cheerier note, this guy was playing outside the lighthouse and let me get a photo.
He also was kind enough to stand still for the obligatory photo with the sock. I don’t think he even rolled his eyes.
And the answer to that old question “what do Scottish men wear under their kilts?” was answered at last:
I know, I know. I just might have hit a record here for longest stretch without a blog post. I may not have been blogging but I HAVE been knitting. Here’s some proof:
Old Friend, 2.0. There has been some progress since the last post. This is great mindless TV knitting.
Same socks. I’m still working on them, finally rounded the corner and heading for home. They really are that bright. And no, that’s still the first of the pair. This is also great mindless TV knitting. (Or mindless work meeting knitting.)
Now here’s something that hasn’t seen the light of day in a very long while.
That’s my Froot Loops Morning Glory stole. This is NOT mindless TV knitting. I hauled it out of the not-quite-forgotten pile and started working on it again today. It’s very nearly half done. I haven’t played with this in quite a while, since I had never even finished setting it up in Knit Companion on the iPad. I started this back in May of 2009, according to the blog that never lies. Who knows when I worked on it last*, but it hasn’t been since I put Knit Companion on the iPad, that’s certain. I finished setting it up this morning and discovered that this is MUCH easier with the KC app. Anne Hanson, the designer, writes up a very clear pattern, but this is a relatively fidgety pattern, especially in the biggest Morning Glory section, which is patterned lace on both sides, and the pattern repeat shifts to the right and left wildly. I might actually finish it now that I’ve got it set up in KC and can keep track of things.
And why am I working on Ancient Lace, when I have two perfectly good lace projects on the go already?
Here’s something you don’t see around here everyday:
I couldn’t wait for it to actually dry to take a decent photo. It’s DONE! And it’s LACE!
I’ll do a proper post once it’s dry and I can take a photo with some daylight, but that there is Seraphim, by Miriam Felton. I started that in January. Of THIS YEAR, people! Criminy. It only took me 9 months to knit something that’s largely stocking stitch.
That’s all for now. We might just be planning a vacation in the next few days, so I’ll save that up as a surprise for the next post.
*Once again, the blog comes in handy. Here you go. That bit of industriousness apparently didn’t last long.
Yes, it looked bigger before. Yes, I’ve knitted many more rows than this. Unfortunately, the gauge fairy didn’t let me know that I was delusional until I had knit the ribbing and another four inches of sweater.
Gauge off, rip. RIP.
Start over, hopefully this time on the right size needles. For the record, the ribbing this go-around is on 4.5mm, the main knitting will be on 5.0mm.
I’ll report back later as to how this all works out.
Well crap. This is just what I needed, another project on the needles. You remember that purply-blue Peace Fleece from my last post, right? Well I really couldn’t control myself from casting on. There are all those Ravelry Peace Fleece group members that are doing their KAL, so I thought it would be unfriendly of me not to join in. Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. That’s the ticket, I’m just being neighborly.
I started with an ordinary long tail cast on, didn’t like it, ripped out. I decided to figure out how to do a tubular cast on. There are apparently more ways to do this than you might imagine. June Hemmons Hiatt (Principles of Knitting) sort of lifts her nose up in the air and sniffs at all of them. It seems like a tubular cast on is not for good old June, despite the fact that she details about a gazillion different cast ons in her book. Out came the Vogue knitting book, and pretty soon I had it figured out. There is also a nice explanation on Knitty here.
Cast on half the stitches you need for your ribbing. You knit a few rows with a contrasting waste yarn. Please make sure that there is really a CONTRAST in your contrast yarn. You’ll see why later. Then you knit four more rows with your “real” yarn, ending with a knit row.
Now you start your ribbing on the “wrong” side. You purl one stitch off your needle, then dip down into that row of purple purl bumps, pick up that stitch, and knit it through the back of the loop. Click on the photos to make them bigger so you can see.
Keep going with knit one purl one until you are done. The last knit stitch is really just half of a purl bump at the very edge.
Now you can start your ribbing. Knit the knits, purl the purls, and then you are ready to snip out your waste yarn. Here is where you will be glad you started with a really contrasting yarn.
Really, click on that photo. You’ll be glad you did. Cutting your knitting! It’s wonderful! Try not to cut the “real” yarn stitches. That would really suck.
And you have a very nice edge for the bottom of your sweater! Please excuse my poor excuse for a manicure. Yes, I have been known to trim my fingernails with my knitting snips. What can I say, I’m more into function than beauty.
Back to studying!* I scheduled this week as an education week, so I’m home studying for hours a day. I’m just enough of a nerd that I actually find this enjoyable, though there are a few too many distractions around here for my own good. If I finish reading my cardiology module, I’ve promised myself a little knitting as a reward.
*And yes, that is iced tea up there. Even I am not delusional enough to think I can remember anything about valvular heart disease after a glass or two of wine.
Well, three of them, anyway. I’m only taking photos this morning of the things I’ve been working on in the past few days. The rest of them can sit over there in their little bags and be quiet. Have you ever been taunted by your knitting projects?
Here’s the first one.
That’s my Green Jeans sweater, a little blue today, apparently. We have no sun this morning, so photos were a bit challenging. As you can see, I’ve started the first sleeve. I have to tell you, I am not a big fan of this “sweater all in one piece” trend. Picking up the sleeves from the armhole and knitting towards the cuff is WAY more work in my opinion than just knitting the sleeve flat and sewing it in like a sensible person would do. On a positive note, I’m getting better at knitting with two circulars. Knitting this sucker on a short 16 inch circular lasted for about one row before I was ready to immolate the whole mess in the back yard.
Next up, the sock.
As you can see, Will is helping. This is Lorna’s Laces “Live Long & Prosper” sock yarn. It’s really more vivid than that photo shows. Again, no sun. Western Washington in July, what can I say. It’s all the way up to 59 degrees so far this morning. Woo hoo!
Last but not least, the lace bit.
This is Seraphim, and I’ve finally gotten past the plain stocking stitch part into the lace section. Will was quite interested. I turned away to transfer the photos to my computer and he tried to make this his cat bed. Thankfully I rescued it before he could dig it to shreds.
So what about all those other projects I’m not showing you? According to Ravelry, I have 8 projects on the go, including those three. So I did what any sensible person (there I go, being sensible again) would do.
Over on the Peace Fleece Ravelry group, they are about to start a sweater KAL. I have Peace Fleece in enough colors to make a half a dozen sweaters, and was going to make one for myself. John got this really sad look and looked longingly at the Peace Fleece stash, so the plan changed. This one will be for him. The color is Violet Vyehchyeerom*. The pattern is the Old Friend Pullover, and he heartily approves.
That’s what it looks like on the owner of Peace Fleece. Imagine it in purple, and with John’s head, and you’ve got it. It’s the ultimate “guy” sweater, though I plan on making one for me as well. It’s not like I don’t have the yarn around here.
I’ll leave you with one last photo. This is one John took earlier this week. Note that there was sunshine when he snapped this one.
*No, I have no idea how to pronounce that. If any of you speak Russian, chime in here.
Oh dear. Not again. I’m apparently hopeless at keeping this thing current. How about I just post a few more photos of our June trip to Montana? Some of them even have to do with knitting.
The car, ready to go. We’re light packers, what can I say? After we got all loaded up it dawned on us that we needed to pick up my sister Diane and her husband at the airport in Kalispell on the last leg of the trip out to our cabin. We hoped they were traveling light.
There’s just nothing to say about that. We took about a million photos, and every view was spectacular. It’s just difficult to capture the magnificence of the park in photos.
I did find a few yarn shops along the way.
Some tough competition.
Just a little snow.
More crappy views.
Finished socks, just in time for Father’s Day.
I don’t really need to do a Finished Project post, do I? Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn, color name A River Runs Through It. For John, same old pattern. I did a bit of modification around the ankle, doing the gusset decreases every third row for awhile so he can get them over his instep. I usually do my socks on 72 stitches, I did these on 76 stitches and they fit him perfectly.
Flute playing in a roadside campground! I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here, but I started taking flute lessons back in March. I used to play a million years ago, then it sort of fell by the wayside over the years. I bought a new flute in February, then found the Community Music Program at the University of Puget Sound here in Tacoma. I take a private lesson once a week, and yes, I did practice on the trip. I had to be a bit creative on the road trip back since playing in a hotel room probably would annoy people. We stopped at this campground which was totally deserted, and I practiced until the mosquitoes threatened to cart me off.
Enough for now. I’ll leave you with a photo of Lewey.
This is going to be a very short post, since our internet access here is slowwwwww. We’re in a cabin outside Glacier Park for a week with my sisters and their spouses. It’s glorious, we’re having a blast, but the photos will mostly have to wait till later. Here’s one:
I did finish John’s socks the day we got here, just in time for Father’s Day. He put them right on and wore them for three days straight, so I think he likes them. I’ll post a photo later. That’s the new sock up there. It’s Lorna’s Laces sock yarn, the color name is Live Long & Prosper. It’s the colors of the Star Trek uniforms. What can I say, it amused the geek in me.
That’s all for now. The thing to do when the internet is slow is to take it as a sign and turn off the devices. I’ll post more photos when we get home.
I woke up this morning with a stomach bug and just decided to stay home instead of going to work and giving it to everybody else. I’m already feeling better, so it may have been food poisoning instead of a virus (can you say “food truck”?).
I didn’t get much of anything done today except laze around, but I did finish the body of that Big Green Sweater.
Yup. It’s a big green square. There is actually a stitch pattern in there, and I keep saying the yarn is prettier than my photography skills can demonstrate, but basically, a big green square.
Now all I have to do is knit sleeves.
I just realized that I haven’t posted in a bit. My oldest niece and her family came for a long Memorial Day weekend and we had a total blast. She and her husband have two delightful daughters, aged 11 and 9, and we hadn’t seen them in quite a while. We ate a lot and played tourist. We had a Seattle day, where we visited Pike’s Place market, and rode the Duck. And had Serious pizza at Serious Pie. We took a day trip up to Mount St. Helens, and found 8 inches of new snow. We had my famous fried chicken, and John’s famous baby back ribs. And we tried to see if there is anything Brianna (11) will not eat. Apparently not.
Raw oysters! And let’s see, she ate clams, calamari, those ribs, artichokes, beets, and Dungeness crab. And liked it all, as best I could tell. That’s Brian, being a bit incredulous in the background.
Here are a few other random photos from the weekend.
Elise and Brianna, just hanging out.
Tired duck after the Duck Tour.
Captain Clem Chowder. I sincerely do hope that’s not his real name.
Look more closely at that bear’s hand.
Who knew bears knit?
Donna and I in the middle of a very competitive game of Mexican Train.
So I did finish the first sock of the pair. After all that measuring of the foot, I got to the last row of the toe decreases and had John try it on before I grafted it closed. I knit on the edge, but I’m not a complete idiot. Of course it was too short. I was tempted to just knit some more rows onto it but realized how totally dumb that would look, and ripped it back to the beginning of the toe increases and added a few more rows. Now it’s Really Done.
Click to embiggen!
The second one is started:
In other news, even though I’m only a Mother to four-legged creatures, I got a swell Mother’s Day gift from them. I didn’t even know that Lewey HAD a credit card! Anyway, they picked out a very nice Tamron macro lens for my Canon 60D. I’ve been taking photos of everything around here, as has John.
Really, do click on those to get a better look. Even if you don’t care a hoot about one pitiful sock, you should care about pretty flowers and martinis!
This is a moment that all of you that are sock knitters know well. You get close to the part where you start the toe decreases, and you are SO CLOSE!
About a billion hours ago, I measured that against a sock* that is the right length for him, and there was about an inch more to knit before the toe decreases.
A billion hours later, and about 8 rows, which should be a little less than an inch, I measured it again. There is about an inch left to knit.
How does this happen? Oh well, it’s a good thing I have more NCIS lined up to watch.
*Don’t judge me on that yellow and green striped sock. It’s some ridiculous non-sock yarn in John Deere green and yellow, and he loves them to pieces.
I sort of disappeared again. It’s been a bit of a busy week or so, and I just forgot about the blog. I didn’t forget about the contest though! Karen from Nova Scotia won, with this:
There once was a Doctor who knit.
For acrylic she cared not a whit.
It was Cashmere she wanted.
So the yarn shops she haunted.
And she bought up every last little bit.
That was chosen by the random generator, but if I’d have picked the joke that made me laugh the loudest, she still would have one. She chose the Mama Llama sock yarn, which is on its way to her house. Here’s a photo of it…
The really funny thing is that John and I have been planning our big fall trip, which involves trains, planes, and automobiles, and includes a trip to Halifax, NS where Karen is from. So I’m hoping it works out that we can meet up, and she can give me the lowdown on all the local fiber opportunities.
I’m still knitting the same old stuff. I’m working on the Big Green sweater, and am nearly done with the back half. It’s knit in the round, which I’ve decided I really don’t enjoy. It’s gotten too huge to stuff in a knitting bag, so I can only work on it at home. I rather enjoy doing seams, and I think they give a sweater some structure, but the real advantage is that it makes for a more portable project right up to the end.
I now have three lace things on the needles, that Pretty Thing cowl, which is in a time out, and two shawls, which aren’t really in a time out but I only have so many hours in a day. I’d like to petition Congress to do something useful like add another 8 hours to each day, but I doubt they could ever agree on the details, so I suppose I’m stuck with the usual 24. And then there is John’s one lonely sock, which I’m nearly done with, then I have to get to make its mate.
I’m off to knit. My husband is at a Tacoma Rainier’s baseball game with a buddy*, so I have the afternoon all to myself at home, which is a rarity. Maybe next time I’ll have some progress photos to post!
*I was offered first shot at sitting next to John at the game, but it might hit a high of 50 today if we’re lucky, and it’s been spitting rain off and on all day. No thanks. I’m a fair weather baseball fan.
Here we go again! Another year of blogging. Let’s see, this whole thing started in 2004 with this entry.
Since then, there have been 623 posts, including this one. There have been 8557 comments! You guys can be a talkative bunch.
This past year I was sort of a slowpoke in the knitting category. I actually finished very few projects. I’m hoping to get a few more done this year. Stick with me and you’ll see what I’m up to! There should be knitting, spinning, perhaps some dyeing! And as always, cooking, travel, and just general silliness. And whiskey and frogging, you can almost always count on that now and then.
In my last post, I showed the frogged lace cowl thing. It did get restarted on a 16 inch circular, which is working out better. Here’s a photo.
I’m about a third done with it, I think. This yarn is really, really fragile. It also has a major halo, which is OK in a cowl, but I don’t think it would hold up to any kind of wear and tear. Click on that photo to see the fuzziness. The KAL on the KnitCompanion website includes a wrister pattern to match, but I’m not sure I’ll do that. I doubt I’d wear them, and I’m sort of sick of knitting this. I have so much other stuff on the needles that I would rather work on. So there. It’s my knitting, I can do what I want.
Last but not least, let’s do a giveaway in honor of the blog anniversary, shall we? That always draws out the crowds.
Here’s how you enter. All you need to do is leave me a joke in the comments. It can be a knock knock joke, a shaggy dog joke, a limerick, or anything else funny. I’ve done this one before, and it always provides me with days of laughs.
What are you playing for? It will be for one pair of sock’s worth of yarn from my precious stash. I’ll draw one random winner from the bunch, and since I know tastes vary, I’ll let you choose from four different possibilities. Here they are:
Click to embiggen and really see what’s up for grabs.
From left to right we have:
Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes, color Ann Mare (AKA very pink), 367 yards
Mama Llama Sock, color Day, 400 yards
Jitterbug, color Lagoon, 267 meters
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, color Flames, 430 yards total
(2 skeins)
Let’s see. Let’s give you all until this Sunday at midnight, my time (Pacific daylights savings time). After that I’ll pick a winner, and you can choose some lovely yarn.
Here we go. I’ve been a slackard when it comes to blogging and knitting. I’m hereby posting photos of some of the things from the top of the heap in hopes of inspiring me to get knitting. There are a few more UFO’s in the pile, but I’m not dragging them out. These are the “in progress” projects.
That’s the Platinum Seraphim shawl. I just finished the first chart, which is mostly stockinette stitch. On to the fun part!
Oh, by the way. I had purchased an ancient version of this pattern, way back when the designer, Miriam Felton, had a different blog and website. There is a rewritten version of this that you can download automatically if you had bought it from her new website or from Ravelry. I had run into trouble with the stitch counts on one of the rows, and sent her a message on Ravelry. Literally within minutes she responded with a “fix”, which was all I really needed, but she sent me a link to the pattern and had the new version in my Ravelry library waiting. I love good service!
A River Runs Through It Socks, for John. That’s the first sock. John’s feet are about the same size as mine, but his foot is wider around the instep, so I’m doing a little widening around the gusset area so he can get them on his feet.
Evenstar! Beads! I have to tell you, the beads are making me pull out every swear word I know. They are very pretty though, so I’ll suffer through them.
Right. Another crappy Green Jeans Corduroy photo. That yarn is just impossible to photograph attractively. It’s Araucania Nature Wool, and the color is not quite solid, but not really variegated. In real life it doesn’t look so horrifically splotchy. And it’s hard to tell, but I’ve finished the bottom part and am knitting the back.
If you have too many UFOs, the only sensible thing to do is start another, right? Right. That’s a Pretty Thing. I skipped right over all of February between our trip to Hawaii and when Riley got sick, but there was some Great Big Fun in there. Dorothy came to stay overnight to visit the fiber and yarn market at Madrona in February. We met Sally, the owner and inventor of the Knit Companion software. The three of us wandered by a booth with this incredibly soft yarn, then discovered that it was real MINK. We each swooned and picked out a skein, and a Pretty Thing KAL was planned. Here we are:
We should look happy. All three of us got a lot of loot at that market. Sally is a genius by the way. I can’t imagine knitting without Knit Companion at this point. You should go check it out.
The Pretty Thing pattern calls for doing this on a 16 inch circular, which I’m not very fond of, so I found a video to teach me to knit on two circulars and took off. This will have to be frogged and restarted, unfortunately, since it looks like crap. My joins at each end are loose and wobbly, way too ugly for even me to tolerate. Part of it is my inexperience, but part of it is that this yarn has absolutely no memory, so it’s not very forgiving of knitting inconsistencies. I’ve dug out a 16 inch circ and will bite the bullet and use that on the do-over.
By the way, those needles are Chiaogoos, which are hands down my new favorite lace needles. The tips are perfect, the needles themselves have just a touch of texture so stuff doesn’t just slide off, and the cables are flexible but not too flexible. They also don’t have any memory, so don’t coil up on you while you are trying to knit. And the join is absolutely smooth. I dithered over whether to buy the interchangeable set or just a bunch of the fixed sizes, and decided on the latter since I mostly use the smaller sizes of needles anyway.
Things were in quite a whirl around here after Wintergrass. I realized that I had never picked my favorite artist of the festival. It just has to be Seldom Scene. We saw two of their shows, and they were just terrific as usual.
My favorite song was their rendition of Darlin’ Corey. Here’s a relatively recent video of them performing this. Lou Reid’s voice alone is worth the ticket price to a show. If you ever get a chance to see them live, don’t think about it, just go.
Last but not least, Riley came home for good today. We decided to have her cremated, and the vet that did the home euthanasia brought her ashes back today. It was a bittersweet moment, but we’re glad we paid extra to do this.
Sheesh. I’m trying this from the WP app to see if this works better on the ipad. Let’s try a photo, shall we?
Those are my new socks. The yarn is Lorna’s Laces, color is the January color of the month, A River Runs Through It. It came in the mail, my husband saw that blue, and said, “mine”. So these will be socks for John.
That’s all I have. I’m just trying to find a better way to blog on the road.
And that pretty much says it, right? I only have crummy phone photos for you, and not many of those. Yes, I brought the “real” camera, and yes, I’ve taken lots of “real” photos. I just forgot to bring that little extra piece that lets me upload photos from the camera to the iPad. So you get a few phone photos instead.
We’re on the Big Island, which I’ve never been to before. I think it might be my favorite of all the islands. We’re staying “upcountry” on the hillside overlooking Kailua-Kona, with a terrific view of the bay, well out of the traffic of the main town. The cottage that we’re in is part of a small coffee farm, and we have noisy chickens and tweety birds instead of city sounds. We don’t have air conditioning, but it’s been quite pleasant without it. We have wall to wall sliding glass doors along the ocean side, and it’s been nice enough to sleep with the doors open at night, and it’s been cool enough that we’ve needed blankets. And wool socks at night.
Here are a few photos.
Yes, I found a yarn shop. I only bought one thing. The shop had a surprisingly large inventory, with a great selection, but my vacation yarn buying goal is to try to buy stuff I can’t get at home. Here’s what I found.
It’s from local alpacas, hand spun, natural colored. There are 400 yards of it, I might try dyeing it with some of my natural dye stuff that I have at home.
Being upcountry in the tropics, you might guess that there is a bit of wild life here. Our hosts warned us about mongoose, and the rare wild boar that wanders in. Last night’s fauna was a gecko that we found in one of the kitchen cabinets.
Last but not least, a Finished Project! This was one of my January goals.
I’m not going to do a whole Project Details thing with these. The yarn is Frolicking Feet, from Done Roving. The color is Pot o’ Gold. I used size 0 Pony Pearl double points.
I’ve already started another pair but that’s for a different post. Blogging from the road on an iPad sounds lovely, but the WordPress dashboard interface with the iPad browser is less than ideal. That’s it for today, we’re off on another adventure!
