Is It Stitches Time Already??

Yes, indeed... This morning at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time, XRX opened registration up for Stitches West 2008 (Feb 21-24, 2008, for those of you living under a big rock...). Since I'm on a wee bit of a budget, I only signed up for three 3-hour classes, and none of them are on Friday or Saturday when the crowds really hit. (And gee, I wish I could remember what I signed up for... too damn late and I can't lay hands on the registration confirmation. You'll just have to wait to find out.)

Jazzed I am!

I did a quick check just before starting this post and saw that there's already one class sold out: "Tips and Tricks with Lily" (as in Lily Chin).

Dad's still here; we're going to hang out at the Valley Fair mall tomorrow (I refuse to call it "Westfield Shoppingmall at Valley Fair." Yecchhh.) where, for lunch, we will feast on Ivar's fish and chips made with sole. Mmmm-mmm good... Not as good as Spuds in Kirkland, but the best that we can get around here.

Gratuitous knitting picture: A mitered heart WIP (it's done now; I just haven't stuffed it yet).

A Fine Yarn Mystery

So there I was in Stockholm in August, walking down the 3-mile-long Osterlanggatan (a really long street-shopping-cafe-alleyway in the Old Town), when I spot Sticka, a yarn store. Hooray! They had a beautiful shawl in the window, and carried most of the high-end yarns (Debbie Bliss, Garn Studios, etc.) and kits for the shawl in the window and another similar one. I picked up some alpaca (go figure) and some sock yarn (go figure), talking with the other cruise-ship tourists who knit while waiting to check out.

Happy!

But wait... Down the street, not much more than 6 stores down on the other side of the street... what's this? "Anntorps Vav, Garn & Handverk"?? "Garn" = yarn, I think. "Handverk" = handwork; a good bet. "Vav" = weave? Maybe. All signs point to a yarn store, or at least a store selling hand-made yarn goodies. We walk in - it's a yarn store! They also carried some familiar high-end stuff - Colinette, Dale of Norway - but also some names I hadn't seen before and couldn't have pronounced. (Sorry, I don't remember the names.)

And.

And.

And they had what looked like hand-spun and hand-dyed yarns in bulky and worsted weights... but they also had a bin of lace-weight. Most of the colors were fairly vibrant, in blues and reds. But I dug around and found this skein of pale greys, creams, pinks, and a little streak of pale mustard. Beautiful. Well, we were running out of time and had to get back to the ship, so I bought the skein and carried it back.

Later that same night, after we had left Stockholm and the ship was rocking gently towards Helsinki, I pulled out my yarn booty to touch and fondle it. Okay, the silk/alpaca was lovely, and the sock yarn will be cool. But I kept coming back to this lace yarn. After the 4th or 5th fondling, I said, "Oh, shit." Kelly's not used to my using that language when I'm not knitting, so it got his attention. "What?"

In my joy of finding the store and finding the yarn, and in my haste to check out, the only question I asked the lady was "how much is here?" There are no labels on the yarn - no fiber, no colorway, no brand, no nuthin'. All I know is (a) it's beautiful; (b) there are 600 meters of it.

See? Isnt' it pretty?

FO FOtos

Voila! The completed shrug. None of these pictures really show off the pretty colorway of the yarn. Yeah, I know it's acrylic, but the colors are nice.

The back shot shows (sort of) the big basketweave I put in the back to stop the endless stockinette from getting to a lethal level of boredom.

Ravelry with Revelry

What fun Ravelry is! As I suspect many Ravelers have done, especially when they first get their accounts, I've stayed up 'way too late for 'way too many nights perusing, loading, photographing, captioning, and loading some projects and stash. It's been fun! I'm 'MegKnits408' there, too.

In other news, my baby brother (okay, he'll be 47 next month) and his wife arrived on 9/15 and left yesterday. Dad flew out on 9/18, so we had 4 days with 5 people in the house. The house is 3,000+ square feet with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, mind you, but DH and I have gotten so used to how we live in it, that 5 seemed like an awful lot of people - especially when 3 are blood relatives and 2 are married in! We all survived, though, and had a good time. It's been a long time since we were all together in one place - maybe even since mom died in 1997.

So dad's here now and will visit until October 2. DH and I will have to pretend we're adults for another week!

Another FO! I had started a shrug last year. It's a very simple shrug; the hardest part is keeping track of the rows so you increase evenly up the arms and decrease evenly down the arms. No, I take that back... The hardest part is knitting flat stockinette for close to 60". It was sitting partially done at about 20-odd inches long in the bottom of a bag, languishing. I figured I'd get around to finishing it "eventually" and hadn't touched it for close to 8 months. My sister-in-law's birthday is the day before mine, though, and when they arrived here shortly after her birthday, I thought it would be a good birthday gift. So I figured I could drag it out, dust it off, and finish it, then she could take it home with her as a birthday gift, to save shipping costs.

I put aside my knitting ADD and knit nothing but that shrug for 5 days, watching it grow longer and longer. I finally finished the second arm, seamed it up, and tried it on (she and I are about the same size). #*$^%# The center of the knitted back did not quite match up with my actual back, and the sleeves were two different lengths. I unseamed it, unbound the second sleeve, unraveled it to the right length, centered the back with the sleeves, then re-knit the cuff and bound off. Smarter than the average bear (this time), I let her try it on and, lo and behold, it fit. All that was needed at that point was to pick up around the opening and knit 3" in rib.

I knit like the wind, I knit during meetings, I knit during movies, I knit late at night. As they were getting ready to leave last night, I was still knitting - and still had a good 2" of ribbed collar to finish. *sigh* It's done now and will be mailed later. Oh well. It looks good, but took 'way more yarn than the pattern called for (which, it turns out, was a constant comment regarding this pattern on Ravelry - good to know it wasn't just me). Photos to follow.

Kicker? I found out that she used to knit Aran sweaters to bring in money for the family when she was younger. So here I am, giving her a super simple acrylic shrug like it's some big deal - why did no one mention that she is a good knitter?? Dope slap me, please.

I am in, baby - IN!

Ravelry likes me, they really like me! Got my email invite this morning and already put in 2 projects just 'cuz I wanted to play around a bit. It's quite lovely, and I have already found some familiar faces and yarn and projects. I must set a timer when I log in, though, or else I'll be there all day... not a good thing when you have a houseful of visiting relatives who expect to be entertained!

But next week....

Any Day Now...

So Debbie got her Ravelry invite today, and she signed up only 1 day before I did... When she sent me the message that she's IN, I knew I wouldn't be far behind. I just checked... There are only 735 in front of me now!! This week, maybe even Monday or Tuesday. Oh, I'm so excited!

In knitting news, I have put all my knitting energy towards the shrug I'm making for my SIL (Caron's Simply Soft Shadows). She and my brother arrived today (from New York) and are leaving Friday, so if I keep at it, there's a chance she might even get to take it home with her.

Closer and closer

Step by step... slowly I turn...

...and suddenly there are only 1,647 before me on Ravelry!

Birthday Wishes

For 6 years now, I have woken up on September 11, wondering if *they* did something else to us again, afraid to watch or listen to the news, in case they did. And for 6 September 11th's now, I have been grateful and relieved that they have not. Despite being an adult (okay, that's relative), despite knowing better, despite acknowledging publicly that it's simply another day in the year, I then slide right into resentfulness that *they* ruined my birthday.

I know there are far more people than I who have far more real reasons for being resentful and having their days and months and years and lives ruined by that awful day in 2001. Yet, still... I pout. I get angry. I get frustrated. I get sad. I usually cry.

Today was no different. Luckily, I have the most amazing husband and the most wonderful friends who helped get me through the bad part quicker this year than in past years. Many phone calls and emails, flowers, a gift basket, and a bounty of yarn (and cash which will go towards yarn) again remind me how truly blessed my life is with people who love me.

At the end of the metaphorical - and temporal - day, I am one very lucky fish. Life is good.

P.S. - Only 1,888 ahead of me on Ravelry!
P.P.S. - Here's how wonderful my friends are... they gave me a gift certificate that will cover more than half of next year's Rockin' Sock Club membership!!! Girl-chicks, you RULE! THANK YOU!

A Small Aside

Okay, I really do like knitting socks. And I do like knitting bigger things like sweaters and purses. But every once in a while, I feel the need... the need for speed. I need a project that I can start and finish in an evening or two, or at least make enough progress that I know the end is right around the corner.

So, with that in mind, and with my neighbor's oldest boy having his 5th birthday next month, I set out to make something cute and quick for him. Coincidentally, I had just received a "gift with renewal" - a "cozy critter slippers" booklet, a freebie for renewing my TKGA membership.

(This picture shows one completed slipper and the second one just started. Yes, for those of you who know me, I actually used the DPNs. Trust me, though, as soon as I could, I switched to my beloved circulars. You start these by making a little heel triangle and then picking up around 3 sides to knit the foot, then go circular in 1x1 ribbing to the toe.)

The alligator caught my eye (okay, it looked like it was the easiest) and I went through my stash for some green, mom-friendly yarn (read: acrylic). The only green I had was Christmas green, which is definitely not an alligator shade of green. I wound up with "Vanna's Choice" in two shades of green which I knit together (the pattern calls for double strands).

At first, I misunderstood the pattern so wound up sort of inventing what I thought the author was trying to say. The first slipper came out with a longer snout than the instructions - more alligator-like, if you axe me - so I had to make sure I replicated the proportions in the second. I finally understood what she was doing, and the second slipper went very smoothly, and wound up only about 1/4" shorter than the first one. The hardest part was doing the eyes and teeth, since the slipper is small and narrow without much room to maneuver the needle for the stitches. I kind of like them and plan to make another pair for her other son. That pair, though, will be a frog - I'll use only one color green, will keep the snout fairly snubby, and will make a little red tongue that comes out of the front.

In other knitting news, I swatched for the "Tilted Duster" on the cover of Interweave. I had some elann.com Peruvian wool that's a little lighter than the Berroco Peruvia the pattern calls for, but I like looser weaves anyway. I won't actually start it, though, until I'm done with the shrug for my sister-in-law.

Lastly, there are now only 2,237 people in front of me on Ravelry. I've already got my photos on Flickr, just waiting for that email invite to arrive. Open, open, open...

Disappointment

Well, I wanted to show WIP pictures of the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers, but today is not the day. There seem to be a couple of things wrong:
1. I deliberately made the width of the foot a little narrower than usual. Up to the heel, they fit nice and snug.
2. I turned the heel and they look fantastic. Since I figured out a better way to avoid the hole when joining the short-row heel to the rest of the sock, there are four *closed* connection points and *no* gaps or holes.
3. However... they are very snug around the heel and instep, probably because I made them deliberately narrower, etc. (see item 1).
4. I attempted to compensate for this by increasing stitches above the heel, in the inch or so before the leg pattern (Jaywalker) gets started.
5. I am about 6 rows into the Jaywalker pattern, and now the leg is too wide and puckery.

It's my own fault for not making a decent gauge swatch (okay, for not making ANY gauge swatch) and not paying any real attention to the gauge notes in the pattern. The pattern calls for Lorna's Laces, which I *know* is thinner than the STR I'm using, but which I conveniently ingnored when looking at the size notes.

So, I will frog back to about a half-inch above the heel, which means I've only increased about 8 stitches from my foot, and will probably do the pattern with only 5 or 6 stitches between the increases and double-decreases. There will be math involved. Be afraid; be very afraid.

In other news, Kelly "kidnapped" me yesterday and we took a lovely drive to the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, about 20 miles from San Jose as the crow flies, but about an hour as the car drives, thanks to twists and turns and a 6% grade that was designed to make it easy for the mule train to bring the construction supplies up (and down) the hills in the 1880's. It is a terrific place with lots of great photos of stars and planets they've discovered. There are 9 telescopes up there; the oldest is a 36" refractor (glass lens) and the largest is a 120" reflector (mirror). While we were up there, we had a good look at the fire in Henry Coe State Park, the one they've dubbed the "Lick fire." Very smoky, very scary looking, and that was yesterday when it was only 500 acres. Today it's at 5200 acres and likely to double before they get it under control. We can see it from the house, too, since we're just a mountain range (and a reservoir) away. I'd be worried, except for that 7-mile long reservoir.

Off to book tickets for our trip to Vegas in October and to see if we can get tickets to Blue Man or La Reve while we're there.

Finished Object!

Yes, my little pretties, the JoJoLand socks are finally DONE DONE DONE. They look rather cool, if I do say so myself, and Kelly really likes them. (He'll get them back as soon as I'm done showing them off...)

Here they are at rest.

And here they are working hard.

None of the pictures I took really show off the color or the pattern to their best advantage. The color changes are very subtle, and the pattern looks sort of cable-y without being bulky. If I were to make another pair, I would decrease the number of stitches around the foot. It was the right number for the leg, since the Marble Arches (modified) pattern pulls in quite a bit, but a little too many for the foot, which is now a little... um... roomy. They don't feel uncomfortable, and I don't know if Kelly will even wear them with shoes, where the looser fit might present a blister opportunity. I guess we'll find out!

While on the ship, I did make some progress on the Crystalline Lattice socks, and got the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers to the heel-turning point. (And I would have turned said heel had I remembered to bring a spare set of needles or some spare yarn to thread them onto ... I couldn't believe how doofusy I was to not have those most basic items in my portable kit!)

I also started the White Lies vest, a kit I got on my second trip to Stitches West in 2006 - had I realized how simple it really was, I would have started it ages ago! (Okay, don't hold me to that... it's very possible I wouldn't have gotten to it at all, as obsessed as I am with socks...) Photos later. Much later, since I need to concentrate on getting the vacation pix together. And narrated. Assuming I can remember what the pictures are OF. I kept a journal, but after looking at just a few of the shots, can't remember what building that is...