Saturday, February 28, 2009

Day of Rest

Had fun yesterday, but sure was a tiring two days. We both woke up around 7:00 this morning. Usually, DH will decide he's awake and go downstairs to find a war movie or 1930's screwball comedy on the tube. Today, I asked him if he was getting up, he said "not sure," and the next thing we knew it was 9:30. I'll take that as a 'no.'

We both putzed around the house, gearing into the day very slowly, until we were both at the kitchen table at 11:00 to listen to "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" on NPR. At noon, I gathered all my Stitches yarn purchases and proceeded to spend the next two hours winding that yarn, plus the stuff I got at the year-end sale at Bobbin's Nest, plus the yarn I got for Christmas, plus some other yarn I found that hadn't yet made it into cakes. (Yes, I know you're not supposed to wind them until you're ready to use them because winding them makes them less stretchy, but I take care to wind them slowly [= loosely], and dudes - when I want to knit with something, I was to knit with it NOW and don't want to have to drag the swift [not Swiffer] and ball winder downstairs, set it up, wind it, fix any knots or scraggly bits, take it apart, then drag it upstairs again. No. When I'm ready to knit, I want to go to the craft room, pick up the yarn cake, and cast on. So nyah, I wound them today. Loosely.)

Yarns: Pagewood Farms Denali (merino), Pagewood Farms Alyeska (merino + cashmere), Mountain Colors Bearfoot (mohair), Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks Willow (merino + tencel), Creatively Dyed Yarns (merino), and a bunch from BMFA: Silkie, Mill Ends ('scratch & dent' yarn), Rare Gems (one-off colorways).



Oh, and Kelly planted the Christmas tree. One picture makes it look big and tall; the other is more real and shows it's about 4' high. Grow well, little tree, grow well!


Now I'm deciding if I want to shower then knit before going to help set up for the Bobbin's Nest after-Stitches party, or if I want to knit then shower. Decisions, decisions, decisions. It's so hard being me!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Midway Through Stitches

Thursday PM class was cool. Merike Saarnit taught "Fiendishly Difficult Stitches" to a full class of eager (and often befuddled) students. She talked briefly about what makes a stitch 'fiendishly difficult,' then gave us a handout with 3 patterns that she thought fit the description. Ah... yeah. I've become a chart person, preferring to knit pattern stitches from them instead of verbal descriptions ("*K4, P6, C6B, P6, K4, P6, C6F, P6, K4, repeat from * until you lose track of where you are in the string of Ks and Ps). But some of these stitch maneuvers defy charting.
"From back to front, stick the right needle between the 4th and 5th stitches, purl this stitch [what stitch??], bring it around back, put it on the left needle, purl it [again?], drop it off the needle, slip the next 4 stitches from LN to RN, pull the purled stitch over the 4 slipped stitches."

Yes, that's a real stitch. And it actually it isn't all that hard to do and looks pretty cool to boot. But... um... dudes... there's no universal symbol for THAT one! The words are okay, but we really needed to see her fingers make the movements to really get it.

The Market preview was after the class, from 5:00 to 8:00. Bee-line to Blue Moon, scored the Silkie yarn I was looking for, then found a lovely Rare Gem. Um, then later I found a Mill End skein that jumped into my bag. ChickWithSticks found the booth selling Kollage square needles, and their circulars have the most awesomely limp cords! Bought one of those, then also found some wood circs, with the cords made from medical tubing. Got one of those, too. Picked up two more tiny crochet hook key chains (although I found the expensive ones, Knitterliness found the cheaper ones, with even smaller sizes - hope she can find/remember which booth so I can get some of those). I think that was it for Thursday's bounty.

Had a lovely dinner at Tomatina's in Santa Clara with Knitterliness, ChickWithSticks, and SarahG, doing show-and-tell before we got tomato sauce on our new yarns.

Back again this morning with Kadootje (after a stop at OPH for some 49er Flapjacks!). I had been eyeing the Namaste Zuma bag with lust in my heart, but after (trying to) carry it around Balls and Skeins in Sebastopol a few weeks ago, found that it just didn't stay up on my shoulder. Not good. I'm not a crook-of-the-arm purse holder, I'm a shoulder-sling kinda gal. So I got their Newport bag instead. Roomy, with separate pockets for purse-stuff and knit-stuff. They retail around $70; Fibersphere was selling them for $59, so I bit. Plus the set of 3 little mesh bags to stow stuff inside. Got 2 more of the medical tubing needles, too. No more square needles - for the price of one set of square circulars ($16) I got 3 sets of the tubing ones ($5 each). I suspect the square ones will last longer than the tubing ones, but hey...

Kadootje scored just about everything she was looking for (including a skein or two [cough.orthreeorfour.cough] of Blue Moon in some gorgeous colors, and some yarn for her sister's pending baby. We departed before 1:00 and promptly ran into traffic on southbound 101 - a truck hauling humongous rolls of paper fell over and they had to close 3 of the 4 lanes. We finally got through it and had a rushed lunch at Red Robin so she could go pick her son up at school.

I've been spending the afternoon trying to come down off that yarn-fume high (and organize my purchases, photograph them, and have a sharp talking-to with my budget).

Tomorrow? Post-Stitches party time at Bobbin's Nest! I'll help with the prep, spend some schmoozing time, then giddyup home... so I can go back to Stitches Sunday morning for my last class! Yippee!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Fruit of Our Labor

No, not fruitS of our labor, plural, because there's only one. If we had actually put any labor into it, we might have more than one... blood orange, that is. Pretty, and tasty. There are two more on the branches, but they're a little bit away from being ripe enough to eat.

With the recent rains, the rest of the backyard has turned into a lake. What isn't lake is marsh or bog. We avoid going out there.
In mo' bettah news, DH got his Dupuytren's Contracture taken care of (the picture of the hand on the "symptoms" page of that website could be DH's; looked exactly the same). That's the condition he has on his right hand where he can't straighten out his pinky and ring finger. Thanks to a referral from our GP's wife (whose dad had it done), we found a doctor in Larkspur who has a non-surgical fix to the problem. Pictures show before, after with bandage, and after without bandage. The discoloration in the bandage, by the way, isn't blood or betadine... it's barbeque sauce! His hand is still a bit achey and black-and-blue, but his fingers can now extend fully!


In our trip to Healdsburg this weekend to visit KB, we dragged poor DH around to 4 knitting shops: Llama Llama Knit in Novato, Village Knitters in Santa Rosa's Coddingtown Mall, Cast Away in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square, and Balls and Skeins in Sebastopol.

Llama Llama Knit is really cute, very comfortable, and carries roughly the same types of yarns that Bobbin's Nest does (Rowan, Louet, Misti Alpaca, etc.). I would feel comfortable bringing my knitting and just flopping down in their knit pit.
Village Knitters is actually a small side area inside Village Sewing at the Coddingtown Mall. It's jam-packed with yarns and there's a small table to gather around, but it doesn't feel like a "sit and knit" kind of place. They have a HUGE selection of Cascade 220, 220 Superwash, and Lamb's Pride, plus they had Mini Mochi sock yarn. And they carry Royale Hare yarns and fibers, which is a Santa Rosa local company. They also posted on their website that they had a sock yarn that self-striped on the diagonal, but the clerks on duty when we visited knew nothing about that. They offered to find out and give me a call, which they did a few hours later. Word was that it's an Opal yarn, but try as we might, we can't find any reference to a diagonally self-striping Opal yarn. It's a mystery, son.
Cast Away is adorable! From the boat in front to the pug/terrier doggie who greets you to the lovely displays, it's a cozy and comfy place to be. (I also envy the owner's - and her daughter's - gorgeous red hair.) They, too, carry many of the same yarns that Bobbin's does, along with some of the artiste Cascades (Nicki, some other hand-paints), organic fibers, and more unusual vendors (ggh, BeeSweet). She also carries Mini Mochi, as well as Adriafil Knitcol, which I had never heard of before (of course I got some, in color 46 - Monet Phantasy).

Balls and Skeins was probably the most surprising of the lot. It's in a non-descript building with an awkward parking lot, and you sort of have to know where it is in order to know where it is, so I wasn't impressed from the outside. But inside... wow. It was warm and inviting, and had more unusual brands of yarns: Conjoined Creations (not just Flat Feet, but their other yarns), Blue Heron, Shaeffer, Wildefoote, I can't even remember the others. And they carried Offhand Designs and Namaste bags. I walked around carrying a pink Namaste Newport bag, but in the end decided not to buy it. Yet. I may get one at Stitches or I may wind up going back to Balls and Skeins after all.
After the knit-shop whirlwind tour, we (DH and his 2 "nieces") had Valentine's day dinner at K&L Bistro in Sebastopol. Wow. Really good. I made a pig of myself with their fabulous French Onion soup, frisee salad with warm pecan-covered goat cheese, Boudin blanc sausages and fries, and a hot fudge and caramel ice cream sundae (I paid for being a pig that night - uncomfortable). Everything was amazingly wonderful.

Drove home in pretty much continuous pouring rain. Very tiring, but made it home safely. Today is for kicking back (then some work for RP).

Monday, February 9, 2009

Good Update

Got a call from my aunt today after her third chemo treatment - so far, she's had no ill effects, other than getting a small headache. This flavor of drug apparently doesn't automatically make you lose your hair; so far, she hasn't lost any. I sent a hat to her anyway, just in case. (Of course, it's a joke hat - Hallowig, from Knitty.com.)

DH and I are planning to visit her and my dad at the end of March. We'll finalize the plans as soon as one of his clients decides if they need/want a meeting on Friday, March 27. If they do, we'll take the red-eye Friday night; if not, we'll travel Thursday evening or all day Friday (depending on cost). We're also tying the trip in with the Disaster Recovery Journal's "Spring World" conference, so DH can do some schmoozing with vendors and some clients who will be there. Unlike other times when we've gone, though, this will just be a visit to the marketplace and vendor stalls; no sitting in on sessions - the conference costs almost $1000 per participant, it's free to walk around the marketplace.

Before then, there's Stitches West! Yay!! It will be held this year from February 26 through March 1. I originally only signed up for classes on Thursday, but started itchin' to take more, so signed up for a class on Sunday morning with Chickenknittle. And even after shopping at the Market Preview on Thursday night, I'm very likely to be back on Friday. And, of course, after class on Sunday. (Yes, I will stay away on Saturday. Zoo!) Photo is of last year's bounty. Let's see... I sold the roving, have used the needles, read the magazine, have one of the sock yarns on needles (that's Pigeonroof Studios), and have tried to figure out what to do with the 3 mini-skeins of Malabrigo lace weight. Haven't used the burgundy yarn from Yarn Place (will use the beads for whatever it will be), and have an idea of what to do with the Newton's cashmere/merino, but nothing definite yet. Of course I need more yarn. Why do you ask?

The last bit of travel in the early part of the year will be the two nights we'll spend in San Simeon wiht DH's sister, brother, and sister-in-law the last week in April. Back in the day (before I joined the family), his mom, dad, siblings, and sib-spouses would spend a week at "their" motel in San Simeon, all rooms facing the water, all visitors using the time to decompress and unwind. By the time I came along, mom and dad were no longer up for the drive (it's a few hours from Oxnard), and the siblings let the tradition die down (except sister - she's been back 2 or 3 times on her own).

This year, DH, me, his brother, sister-in-law, and sister (sister's husband passed away 3 years ago), will be there for a couple of days in April. This tickles mom to no end. I'm looking forward to it, too. Not only because I like his family, but gotta search for yarn shops around San Simeon!

Knitting stuff... Am trying to be monogamous. Well, okay, am trying to keep number of active WIPs down to 2. Okay, 3. I really need to get the re-knit of my aunt's sweater done. I'm almost at the point where you do the last buttonhole and split for the arms. To balance that, about 2 weeks ago, I picked up my Pigeonroof Studios sock toes to find a pattern worthy of the yarn (this is, like, my 4th attempt). This time, I committed myself to a pattern. It's from a sweater, and is very much like Janice Kang's "Early Spring." So far, I like it. Problem is, it's a 16-row repeat, and while it's technically easy to make each stitch, I can't commit the pattern to memory. So, last night I cast on some Blue Moon Fiber Arts Mediumweight in Rhodonite. They will be Leyburns once I get past the heel. I needed something non-thinking and portable. I will enjoy knitting the foot and instep in stockinette... round and round and round. (Except for when I'll put in the Cat Bordhi arch expansion.)

Gotta publish this, then re-edit it in MSIE... Google's Chrome can't handle when I try to move the pictures around.