yes, it is geeky

so we took big guy to college today. some dear friends lent us their humongous suv which fit all of his belongings being taken plus the family of four. though i am not an suv lover, i appreciated being able to fit everything into their one car instead of us having to drive our two cars.

the big guy's room isn't bad. and his roommate seems like a really nice guy. the boys were able to configure all of their room furniture and their belongings into an acceptable to them floor plan. the roommate brought a refrigerator and the big guy brought a rice cooker and gobs of rice, each being excited about what the other brought. plus they like the same bands and music. so hopefully it will all work. i mean, how can you miss when school is nestled on the side of a mountain among redwoods trees, yet overlooks the ocean? not a bad setting. and things seem off to a positive start.

but it is already quieter around the house. i don't think it will really sink in until mid-week when i realize we are not being two ships passing in the night, but he truly doesn't live here anymore. it's a challenge to let go. but a joy to see him take wing. all a mother can do is offer some pac man cloths. and i am such a geek, they are in the school colors.

it's been a bit

if someone had told me 24 years ago that i would be married to a wonderful man, have two amazing children, two cars, a mortgage and a big, smelly dog i would have laughed, gob smacked by the thought of being in such a relationship.

but here i sit, a lot older, wiser and thicker around the middle, but amazed at the adventure the last 24 years have given me.

and though it caught me by surprise, i wouldn't trade any of it for the world!

so i went a bit overboard

this is what i have collected since the beginning of the month.

both joann's fabrics and michael's crafts had sales on sugar and cream and i just couldn't help myself. some of these were $1 a ball. how could i pass that up?! the "twist" pattern balls are for christmas gifts. i am trying to arc a connection between a washcloth/bath basket and a 1 skein chunky misti alpaca scarf. but haven't quite gotten them connected yet.

the darker solids were for a christmas gift for the big guy. about a year ago knitty.com had this great set of back to school washcloths that had 6 cloths/days of study and 1 cloth/day of party. i thought this would be a great thing for the big guy since he is off to college in 8 days (yes, part of me is in denial and part of me is sobbing). but that was before tea and cakes posted the pac man washcloth. how cool is that?! so i have some decisions to make. but by the size of this loot, i could make them all...for everybody!

i just got back!

from toronto! boy was it nice!

came home friday evening to find i had received my vvs package from secret swap buddy, andrea! what a treat. the first thing i spied was the box of maple leaf maple sugar candies which are my absolute favorite. and which i can only find during the holidays! then there is the sweet little canadian moose and toronto postcards. and then two absolutely beautiful hanks of canadian yarn!

one is a hank of fleece artist, basic merino sock yarn in this beautiful bluepurplebrown and everything in between colorway; really nice. this is the first sock yarn for me and i am very excited. plus it came from nova scotia!

the second is a lace weight, hand dyed hank of hand maiden sea silk yarn. this is a 70% silk and 30% seacell which is from sea weed (my sweet friend refused to touch it after that; lucky for me!). and it is this amazing colorway! i can't wait to use it! i am already hunting for shawl, shawlette patterns.

the pictures really don't do these two beautiful hanks of yarn justice.

thanks for a great trip to toronto, andrea! hope to see you soon!

i bit...

i am #30,332 with 18,844 ahead of me. i guess time will tell.

some quick pics

my cute husband was unable to get some pics of the sorcerer's stone cloth, though rumor has it our monk friend really liked it.

but the computer is cooperating enough for some pictures of oceane. i wore it to last night's gathering and discovered it to be very long. and not as wide as i had hoped. but since it is long, i can wrap it around creatively which sort of takes care of both of the above mentioned challenges. and it got ooohed and ahhhed over by female and male alike! what more could a knitter ask for!

whoosh...and it's the weekend

it has been quite the heat wave in the bay area this past week. i am not fond of the heat. i get sort of cranky. this heat wave has sort of worn out it's welcome. i am thinking of lighting some candles and having fog calling ceremonies on the back patio.

but it is good for sitting by the fan or going to the air conditioned LYS to knit.

so after finishing the sari ribbon scarf, i started knitting my first dish cloth. i knitted insanknitty's sorcerer's stone cloth for my monk friend who is quite the harry potter aficionado. i knit it out of some solid blue sugar and cream i had in the stash box. unfortunately i did not take a picture of it before it needed to be delivered, but it came out pretty well. if my cute husband remembers to take pictures and if our continually crashing computer cooperates, i will post a pic.

but i now understand the fascination with knitting dish cloths, they are instant gratification. they are like the breath mints of knitting. need a fresher perspective on your WIP's? knit a dish cloth! they are so quick, it is almost like they are not taking time from the WIP's that are clamoring to be completed. the sister's over at the bag lady and the pro are having a dish cloth contest (scroll down) which i am willing to cast on for. plus joann's fabrics is having a sale on sugar and cream this weekend which gives ample opportunity for re-stashing!

the big reason i am willing to start a new dishcloth is because oceane is finished! wahoo! a sunday supper invite gave me the impetus to finish it since between the invite and the heat wave an evening gathering would be the perfect occasion to wear it.

i used rowan's linen print which the pattern called for, but i used size 17's needles instead of the 19's the pattern recommended. i also used 7 balls of linen print instead of the 5 the pattern specified. it wasn't quite long enough at 5 balls but would have been if i were also using it as a head and hip wrap like the pattern suggests. but since i will only be using it as a shoulder wrap, i added some length. the size 17's made it a little less "airy" which i wanted but also proved to be helpful since the last 16 rows of the pattern proved elusive to me and were unknit as much as they were knit. on the whole, the pattern is easy, fast and fun. and it looks great when it is done. i just got stuck on the last 16 rows!

and, i sent out my vvs package! i am real excited. it will get there a couple of days late; tying up the loose ends took more time than i anticipated, but hopefully my recipient will like it.

so it has been a busy week as well as being hot. hope it is cool where you are!
(since our computer is being challenged, there are no pics. will post some soonest.)

why?

over the summer i have been reading a variety of blogs and i just have one question....

why ravelry?

open for comments. thanks.

it was just an afternoon

i squeaked into the LYS yesterday afternoon with hopes of sitting and knitting. a handful of the usuals were there, so after a quick turn around the store to make sure i wasn't missing any thing new, i settled in to knit. and knit i did. i had taken my sari ribbon scarf with hopes of getting closer to the finish. after staying late with socializing, i knew i was close to finishing but still had a way to go.

i finished my errands to the market and trader joe's; landed at home for making supper, coordinating teenage activities and make peach preserves. in that order. now i haven't made preserves in quite a while. i just happened to come across two bags of close to overripe peaches that someone didn't know what to do with and all i could think of was preserves.

in the hierarchy of preserves, peach is up there because they need to be blanched for their skins to peel off with minimal loss of fruit. so there i was up to my ankles in boiling pots and peach juice. after a few hours of chopping, stirring and steaming, these were produced...

...and they taste great. there is nothing like fresh, warm preserves on toast. my cute husband immediately got a spoon and started to eat the bit that could not fill a jar (there is a sentimental story about that which i won't bore you with now).

after cleaning the sticky utensils, pots and counters, i felt like sitting and knitting. so i picked up the sari scarf just to see how far i would get. and lo and behold, this happened...

i really like it. the ribbon needs to relax, so before going to bed i hung it over a hanger just to let it drape.

one of the challenges of working with ribbon yarn is that it twists and turns on itself so rarely lays flat. this was difficult for me with this yarn because the sparkles would get lost and it just looked better if knitted with the ribbon as flat as possible. another challenge was weaving in the ends because the tapestry needle kept poking through the ribbon. i had to make sure the needle followed the stitch not poke through the ribbon itself.

but i love the yarn. if i were to use it again, i think i would make an oversize kerchief type wrap. i think it may get more use. but that is a future project.

one would assume there would be movement...

...but no, not really.

i am still in the slumps with the knitting. i picked up a few unfinished projects over the last few days and have ended up frogging what i knitted. never a good sign. i did manage to knit a few rows on the sari ribbon scarf but not quite enough to finish it. sigh.

i have been sewing up more project bags though; gifts for friends.

so hopefully i will have pictures of FO's soon. but in the meantime, breakfast and tea may help.

salved by the chocolate

my sweet friend came home from so cal today. since it was on the way, decided to take a tour of the scharffen berger chocolate factory in berkeley, something i have been meaning to do for awhile.

the factory itself is rather small and would be easily missed when driving down the street. but their chocolate is very big. their dark chocolate is very dark. even their milk chocolate is ok, though i find it pales in comparison to the dark chocolate, excuse the pun.

i took the 11:30 tour which means i had time for a good breakfast. a wise thing considering once the tour starts, chocolate tasting abounds. and once the tour was through i stopped by their cafe for a bowl of hot cocoa and, just for the heck of it, a chocolate scone. it made the knitting so much easier!

it must be mid summer

so i am in the midst of a knitting slump.

my sweet friend and i went away for an extended weekend last weekend and i haven't got my rhythm back yet. it did not help that work was absolutely slammed from the moment i walked in monday morning to the moment i left friday night.

also my sweet friend isn't home. she is visiting auntie pam down in so cal. and going to the beach every day. ahhhhh, to be a teenager on southern california beaches. that is the life. but i've been there and done that; wouldn't want to go back, but wouldn't say no to a beach house either. can you imagine, knitting on the porch of an ocean view beach house with morning coffee? i can smell the sea. or maybe it's the dog. oh well.

i am still in the midst of reading gobs of vvs blogs. you knitters out there are amazing! i am feeling like slow poke knitter! coupled with the fact that i have picked up my knitting once this week. oceane is so close to being done i can feel the bind off, as is the sari ribbon scarf. but do i dedicate time to finish them up. no. yesh. oh well. someday soon.

in the meantime head over to cass's shut up i'm counting blog. she is celebrating her 222 post by giving US presents! amazing.

sunday musings

so here are the books i have gathered over the last week or so. with only one of them read cover to cover!

i am spending way to much time reading various v v s blogs and not knitting. i have therefore missed my personal deadlines for finishing the drop knit scarf and oceane. we are going away for a few days and i wanted them both done by then. since they aren't, decided i may as well pack them because, heaven knows, there is so much to knit and so little time.

ok, ok, ok

so, i reassessed the small blue bag last seen on my sweet friend's head.

i modified the corded closing so there are pull cords from either side of the bag, which makes opening and closing of the bag a bit easier. modifications were done in time for a ferry trip to the city for a meeting; i decided to do a test run with it. i filled the bag with my cute husband's socks, which are being knit on two circulars, a small pair of scissors along with some stitch markers. not only did it all fit, but the bag worked out really well!

the only thing was the bag got lost in my big tote. so i decided it needed a snap tab that would connect it to the tote handle. that way i could snap the tab around the handle of the my tote bag and always have my knitting available and easy to get to. which prompted me to put snap tabs on all of the bags i had made, so now they look like this:

as you can see, there is a big blue bag that matches my small blue bag. i found i had inadvertently cut out more material than i needed for the small blue bag. not wanting it to go to waste, i made a dark pink bag, only bigger and with cording modifications. instead of running the cord from the inside, i put contrast casing on the outside and thread the cord through it. the big blue bag is the perfect size to carry long single point needles without them peeking out the top, which is what i was wanting.

but the most exciting project made this week was these:
needle cases. the straight point case is just that. it was supposed to have two pockets on the inside, one on the bottom for knitting needles and one on the top for crochet hooks. it also was to have fusible batting. i left off both the fusible batting and the top pocket. if i make this again, i would shorten it by about 1.5-2inches.

the case i truly love is the circular needle case. it holds my circulars snugly, including my new size 7 natura's, and though i had a difficult time envisioning the way it was put together, it was rather easy to make. the material selection for the pattern was a little odd. it calls for 2 contrasting colors and a remnant. the remnant is for the front and back (dark blue); contrasting colors are for the inside. i found what i really needed was 3 contrasting colors. 1 for the outside, 1 for the inside and 1 for the pockets. luckily i sort of figured it out, but didn't really think through the pockets so had to use some muslin i had lying around. if i were to make the case again, i would choose material and colors differently. cases and bags are a butterick. if you would like the pattern numbers, let me know.

in knitting news, i once again goofed up the eggplant stole. i spent a couple of sessions trying to get it back into knitting shape instead of unknitting it. and i think i may be there. wish me luck!

ahhh, a sale

when i arrived at the yarn sale, not only had i missed meeting davimack, but it looked like a cyclone of knitters had whooshed through, looking through every box, bag and ball for something they may have the slightest interest in and once satisfied that all possibilities were explored, whooshed out again. needless to say, the staff was a bit worn out.

the up side being, i had the place, and staff, to myself. so i walked a few rounds, finding various this's and that's, stashing them in a bag to be decided upon later. the initial round was mandalay raw silk in a cafe au lait color that gave way to a cream color to make a shell; louisa harding kashmir dk in a pastel blue; stone blue debbie bliss cotton cashmere for a top of some sort with musings of what to do with gobs of bright magenta or bright blue bamboo because the bright yellow bamboo was not a color option but knitting with bamboo was an enticing thought.

the second round found some jo sharp aran cotton in a blue similar to the db. not enough of this to do anything substantial with so found some in white with thoughts of making something striped. started to seriously consider if i would make anything to wear out of the lk pastel blue kashmir dk; considered making a baby blanket out of it along with the pink and yellow pastels that were available. quickly followed by the thought of why would i knit anything cashmere for baby spit up? noticed the boxes of pick up sticks felted flower brooch kits.

on the third round, considered a bag of ggh cotton ribbon for a shawl; found louisa harding sari ribbon in the gorgeous orange colorway; gave up the jo sharp because i am not really a stripe gal; said goodbye to the lh kashmir dk; ruled out the bamboo and found a bag of muench sir galli yarm, 100% silk in a brown white tweed and dark cream color. solicited the opinion of the 2 staff and 2 buyers about which color would be best for me; got 2 set of answers so walked another round.

by the end of this round i was done. decided no on the lh sari ribbon; looked longingly at the jo sharp aran cotton one last time; and decided the dark cream color raw silk was totally boring on my skin so went for the brown and white tweed; still had the db cotton cashmere, grabbed a box of pick up sticks flower brooch kits (whose packaging tickled the fancy of my sweet friend).

as i was waiting to check out i overheard staff talk about how much knitters had spent on yarn. i had a slight twinge of missed knitting opportunities. but i am pretty content with my choices. i got some lovely yarns. hopefully there will be another yarn sale before davimack leaves the country.

two hits and a miss

sorry, couldn't resist. the allstar baseball game was played in san francisco last night and the whole city seems to be gripped by the frenzy of it all.

but it is true. two out of three project bags turned out well. the third one just fizzled.

the two that worked out are just square lined bags; the light pink bag has 12, count them, 12 buttonholes that gather the bag in an interesting way. the darker pink bag was supposed to be all frilly and beaded. i chose to leave the frills and beads off. which threw the casing off because one of the frills was supposed to be along the top of the bag, which helped create the casing. since there was no frills, i had to do something different with the casing. but it all worked itself out and i like both bags. next time i will try making the dark pink one a little taller so straight needles will fit without poking out the top.

the miss was the circle bag. it also had extra curricular frills etc. which i left off. which then prompted some modifications which didn't work out. so i thought i would modify the modifications just to discover the bag wasn't big enough to hold a knitting project. which ended my interest in the bag. my sweet friend modeled it as a hat with no better success.

sew until next time.

dear vvs secret pal...

thanks for the great card! it sure was sweet.

i sent you an email but am not sure if it got through as the return email address was a bit uncertain.

any way, thanks! hope you are doing well and having fun knitting!

take care

all in a sunday afternoon

so this is what occupied most of my sunday afternoon.

it may look like a heap of odds and ends, but this heap represents 3 project bags, 2 pairs of pants, 1 circular and 1 straight needle holder.

i am not fond of cutting out patterns so tend to cut everything out at once. will keep you posted on their progression.

nestled among the various pattern pieces are two balls of sugar and cream. it must be selective reading, but my first encounter with this yarn was via my stitch n' bitch desk calendar where it was a yarn of the week. i had never even heard of it. as i continue to explore knitting blog world where knitted dishcloths seem to have a life of their own, this yarn is mentioned a lot. so when i saw it at joann's fabrics i thought, why not! let's see what all the hub bub is about. doubled with tea and cakes sharing a really sweet dish cloth pattern which looked extremely enticing in a different colorway of this very yarn. thought i would give it a whirl.

in other knitting news: oceane is going well. i like the way the smaller needle size is making it look. and though i am a slow knitter, this is knitting up very quickly.

even though i do not need another project, i couldn't resist. i was really just meaning to make the hank into a ball, but the yarn was so pretty and i bought new brittany needles in just the size i needed for it so...i cast on and it practically started knitting itself! so, yes, the sari ribbon yarn is in the midst of becoming a drop stitch scarf. and i really like it.

happy 4th

for those of us in the states, it could be a day of sitting in the hot sun during the town parade; visiting with friends over a bar-b-que; eating way to much apple pie and home made ice cream and for me, knitting all the while.

or it could be a nice quite, sit at home day, doing whatever takes our fancy. either way, it is nice to have a breathing day in the middle of the week. happy 4th of july!

open to suggestions

so i have been knitting with circulars a lot lately. most of my circulars are crystal palace and though i love c.p. needles, the transition from the plastic strand to the needle is driving me crazy. with all of my various circular needle projects, the yarn is consistently getting stuck there and i have to cajole it onto the needle.

i have found clover needles to be to blunt; lantern moon to be to expensive; i am not fond of the steel addi turbos but do have a couple of pairs of their natura needles, which is their bamboo needle line. the trick being,very few stores carry them.

so i am open to suggestions. what are your favorite needles, circular or otherwise? i would love to know.