Out to Pasture

Starting Afresh

2012-01-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

The new year often makes me think about what I haven't done - much more so than what I've accomplished in the last 12 months. That said, I'm much more forward thinking this January than in the past. Perhaps it's because I've had time to actually think and do since leaving my job in June. And, while I've been an erratic blogger (at best), I'd like to try and be a bit more focused and deliberate here, with an eye toward documenting my fiber and textile work. Hopefully, this will help me organize what I'm doing a bit more and, with it being public, help keep me motivated and on track.

A group of friends started talking about fiber goals for the year and I managed to come up with a few dead simple ones. I think they're good, in line with what I *need* to do, and while not easily achievable, certainly possible.

1. Decrease the stash. Nothing comes in until what I have is sorted and deemed "stay" or "go". I've not renewed any of my clubs (how I will miss the sock patterns!) and I'm absolutely dedicated to getting a handle on what I have. There's plenty there to keep me busy and to push me to be creative. No problem!

2. Weave fabric for, and sew a garment. Not handspun in any way; rather, this is an exploratory effort to understand garment fabric and construction. A simple kimono-style jacket, in cotton, is exactly what I both want and need. Again, there's plenty in stash to do this, and even embellish a bit if I so chose.

3. Define and embark on a fiber/color study plan. I've spent a good chunk of time trying to understand just what it is about this craft that fascinates me so. And, unsurprisingly, I had a flash of insight whilst on a run. That inspiration gave me the thought of starting an exercise in fiber/color interplay focusing on the interaction between content and medium. Blending of fiber types and studying how they accept color and then behave in pieces is what I'm after. The next step is to work on a study plan to define specific experiments and projects. Fortunately, I'll have some time with a friend/mentor at the end of the month and I'm hoping she'll be willing to give some guidance.

So, that's it. It's rather a lot, really, but I'm excited about all of it. In between, there's getting ready for Art Fair in the fall (it's only 28 weeks away) and getting back into a routine of running and exercise. It's time to embrace fully this new life I've chosen. I played at it for a while, but it can be, and is, wholly satisfying. It's a year of good fortune and thanks. Let's begin!

And I'll do the books next week. :-)

The Art of the Start

2011-01-28T16:42:00.000-08:00

I love starting things. I love that thrill of anticipation when the project is new, the end vision is clear, a plan is formed and nothing has yet gone wrong.

Solving and avoiding problems is a big part of what I do in the real world and just getting through a week at work can really deplete my reserves when it comes to being able to motivate myself and also deal with whatever mistakes and problems life at home throws my way. But, once I find the energy to address them, I nearly always end up learning something in the process.

Witness my handwoven ~~mistakes~~ towels. Here's what they look like:

They look great, don't they? In the process of finishing them, I had to resley portions of the reed (490 ends!), twice fix serious pattern threading errors, fix two crossed threads, fix tension issues and even deal with one snapped warp thread. The first problem was after 4 hours of work - and one that cost me nearly two weeks worth of progress simply because I wasn't in a position to find another 4h uninterrupted block of time. It felt like a brick wall that was miles high and topped with barbed wire. I did eventually cobble together an afternoon to address the problem (being sick has its advantages) and once I cleared that hurdle, all those other issues weren't quite so horrible. Each could be fixed rather quickly but their collective power came from being "one more thing" that I had done wrong. So many mistakes. So much "wasted time". But was it?

Knitting has, over the years, given me a gift - it's ok to start over. I can't always start over with weaving, but a smart teacher of mine told me to "finish things, even if they're wrong. You'll be surprised at the result." What's buried in there is the gentle reminder that mistakes are learning experiences. And you know what? She's right. In hindsight, I'm glad that I made those mistakes on my towels. I tried. I experienced. I learned. And on the next set of towels I make, I'll make different mistakes, or even some of the same ones, but hopefully they won't be so emotionally burdensome.

I love those towels. What a beautiful mistake.

Training

2011-01-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm training for a marathon. That's not atypical for me as I enjoy running, even more so when I've got a goal to help pull me along. But, as I started thinking about this post, I realized that I'm training for so many other things as well.

Since I rediscovered handwork, most recently in the form of weaving, it's meant a lot to me to really be able to immerse myself in the learning process. That's allowed me to start training, and re-training, my brain to think beyond just analytics and the empirical - it's moved on to the creative and artistic side as well.

My life has really been formed by the scientific method and it's application to solving problems of all shapes and sizes. That's meant a heavy reliance on data, extrapolation, deduction and general reasoning. Spinning, weaving, knitting and these other wonderful fiber crafts are so much more (to me) about intuition and sense. There's most assuredly good science in there too - and the application of rigorous methods can really help in understanding a process or getting a specific result - but I find that I'm able to get results that satisfy me without applying so much rigor.

I also know that I won't grow/learn/become proficient if I don't start applying a bit more rigor in key places.

So, what does this boil down to? Training.

Oh and yes, I'm still running. Thank goodness this is a light week. I'm sick as a dog.

73 Runs Before I Sleep

2010-12-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

It's December 30th and I really don't know where this year has gone. There's been good, bad and ugly (as usual) but my biggest area of bad and ugly was exercise. Or, the lack of it.

I let myself go this year. Quite a bit, actually. Sure, I'd had some injuries and the weather was bad, but it's like I fell out of love with running. There were times when it was fantastic, but those really were the exception rather than the rule.

Times like these require dire measures. Yup, it's time to call on The Marathon.

I've therefore selected the Avenue of the Giants marathon, run in 2011 on May 1st. Hal Higdon has once again provided the training regimen (I'll be using Intermediate I, for those playing along at home) and I'm inserting myself at Week 2. Given that I'm not a hopeless lout, that should be fine.

Oh, and just to make it stick, I'm firing up the 100 Pushups regimen again. The strength training is important, so I'm gonna do it.

Did I run yesterday? Yes. 5.5 miles.

Did I run today? Yes. 5 miles (or so. Calf complained).

Will I run tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday? Yes. 5, 7, and 9, respectively. By Monday morning, there'll only be 70 runs to go. Doesn't seem like all that many, does it?

A finished tote

2010-11-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you'll remember a while back (Ok, a really long while back) my last post was about weaving for the Pick Up Tote from Woven Treasures. Well, I'd finished the weaving all the way back on Labor Day weekend and I've finally gotten the gumption to finish the bag.

My skills as a seamstress are laughable at best but I know enough to do pretty well. Anyway, here's the result:

Yup, it's a tote. The straps were sewn on relatively straight and the fabric wasn't stretched out of shape too much. As you can see, I added a gusset at the bottom to give it some structure.

Finally, when it came to finishing, I wasn't happy with the idea of just folding over the edges twice and top stitching. So, I used a length of bias tape to encase the open edges of both the woven fabric and the liner.

Now, having done this first one, I have a much better understanding of what I need to do differently next time so that my finished seams are better, the bag is more square, the handles are better and that it'll generally look more professional. Admittedly, I was in a bit of a rush this morning so I wasn't as careful about any of the details as I could have been. Honestly, I'm ok with that since this really was meant to be an experiment.

Whilst cleaning up, I nearly put away the belt shuttle for my inkle loom. As I had it in my hand, I chuckled a bit and thought, "No, this is going to be getting used, possibly even tonight. It can stay on the table."

I love this tote. Love.It. Don't worry Sara, the next one will be better. :-)

A little weaving

2010-08-27T10:14:00.001-07:00

I picked up a copy of Sara Lamb's Woven Treasures and I used it to do a woven band on my inkle loom a few months ago. However, I'd not done any of the projects yet and, when I started thinking about a new tote, this seemed like as good a time as any.

I've had some struggles with this project and I've learned a lot - which is why we do this, right?

First, a few details about the project.

Warp: Tahki Cotton Classic
Sett: 20epi using two 10epi heddles
Weft: Aunt Lydia's #10 Crochet Cotton
Draft: plain weave, warp faced
Loom: Schacht Flip, 20"
Inspiration: Pick Up Tote from Woven Treasures

1. Cotton Classic is a \*slippery\* yarn. It also is Big.

I struggled in getting tension constant when tying on the front apron. In hindsight, I should have tied in smaller groups (forget the 1" suggestion, 1/2" would have been better). I reknotted umpteen times, even after weaving a (short) header and inserting the sticks. I also should have pushed the knotted sections closer together. It's a little uneven at the start.

2. Tension is critical. CRITICAL!

Because I don't have a stand for my loom, I have to be creative in clamping it to work surfaces. With the softly beaten projects I've worked in the past, the clamping force required has been much less. On this project, I was constantly overpowering the lame little clamps that came with the loom and it was very difficult to muscle the heddles around to help clear sheds. I finally gave in and found the woodworking clamps out in the workshop and used them to properly secure the loom. I'm now moving heddles with confidence and am moving much more quickly. I'm also paying much more attention to the tension on the warp yarns to really make sure the ends will move past each other. Giving the beams that extra turn makes a huge difference.

3. 20epi is, indeed, as difficult as Sara points out.

For the first inch or so, I was working quite hard to get the ends to move past each other. they really are quite crammed into the slots given that there are three ends per and it's hard to get them to behave. My pick-up stick has been a godsend here and I'm using it to clear each and every shed before passing the weft. It's saved my bacon at least once in about every 4th or 5th shed.

4. 22 epi would be a better sett, indeed.

The fabric is still just a bit open, though once off the loom and washed, it may tighten up a bit more. I can see bits of daylight between the ends but I really can't see trying to warp this at 24epi on the Flip.

Overall, now that I've mostly sorted my process issues, I'm really enjoying this project. It's going very fast since the ppi number is low and I'm quite happy with the way the colors look. They're vibrant and cheery and I think this will make a great tote once completed.

Next step finish weaving the fabric and then warp the inkle for the band.

Sampling for fun and profit

2010-07-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

Phase two of the Great Sweater Spin-Up is sampling. This is something that I've never really done before. When I spun for the Wisteria sweater last year, I pretty much dove in with the lovely merino, did a three-ply with my default single and just went where the yarn took me. I ended up with a yarn that was close to worsted weight and it ended up knitting into a really nice sweater. I'm very happy with the result but my explorations over the past three days have shown me that I can do better if I slow down and think about what I'm doing.

One thing I'm *not* doing as part of this experience is woolen versus worsted spinning. The Blue Faced Leicester roving that I've purchased is a long wool and therefore wants to be spun worsted as much as possible. It started out life as combed top, but the act of dyeing will disorganize the fibers somewhat so it's no longer "top" in the strictest sense. Regardless, I'll be spinning it worsted as long my hands and patience will allow. So, on we go.

Step 1: Determine a target single wraps per inch (WPI)

Sandi is asking us to use a yarn that knits up at 5.5 or 6 stitches per inch (SPI) - that means a DK to light worsted finished yarn. However, since this is a cardigan and I'd like to knit at 5.5 SPI so that it's a bit denser, I pulled out some worsted yarns that have gotten me that gauge in the past. Specifically, I pulled out Cascade 220 - this knits up to 5.5 stitches per inch with a drape that I like.

Next, to get a target WPI for my single, I separated the strand of yarn into its constituent plies. Then, I took one of the singles, along with my control card, and tried to figure out which one was close.

From the picture, you can see that the single is close to 20 WPI. It was a bit of a challenge to get an accurate measurement that wasn't stretching the single, but I decided this was good enough to get a start. Another thing to keep in mind is that the finished yarn will bloom (increase in size) after it's washed and dried. So, I chose 20-25 WPI as a good starting point for my single.

Step 2: Sample singles and ply - first try

Armed with a target WPI for my singles, I sat down at the wheel and started spinning. I knew that the end yarn would be a true three-ply so I made sure to spin that way from the first. I set up my wheel as I normally would, grabbed about an ounce of fiber, split it into three roughly equal parts and had at it.

I kept my control card with me throughout the spinning and used it to ensure that I stayed close to my target. In the end, I kept drifting to a smaller single despite increasing the tension and slowing my treadling - generally between 25 and 30 WPI. I also took a length of the single at the beginning and end of each bobbin and made an "instant yarn" by letting it ply back on itself, again, to see if I was close. While the single was a doubtless a bit thin, the ply experiments looked quite close to the Cascade 220. Therefore, I soldiered on, finished all three singles and then plied. It still looked thin, but I was counting on a good bloom to the yarn when it was done. In the end, I got a lovely yarn that was too thin - on it's way to sport weight rather than DK.

Step 3: Sample singles and ply - second try

Given that I couldn't convince myself that this yarn would be anywhere close to where I wanted to end up, I went ahead and did a second round of sampling. Clearly, I needed to get more fiber into the yarn and just increasing the tension more and slowing my treadling further wasn't going to cut it.

Enter Judith.

I've been lucky enough to take three classes with Judith now and each time only a small portion of her knowledge seems to make it into my brain. This last time we were spinning silk and she often reminded us that each of us has a natural spinning rhythm. That said, we also needed to embrace that rhythm and learn to adjust the wheel so that our natural rhythm would yield the desired yarn. I didn't fully grasp that until this particular moment.

Go down to a lower whorl (equivalent of slower treading) and adjust the take-up to work with that whorl and then see what happens.

Magic. Absolute magic. Those poor whorls sitting on the high end of my Julia - long suffering as I bemoaned my inability to spin fatter gauge yarns. Feh. I eventually popped up two whorls above my default single and suddenly I was spinning a single that was 20 WPI with ease. I felt that I could have gotten to an even fatter single without too much fiddling at that pace. Fantastic! I quickly (and I do mean quickly!) finished spinning up the singles, plied my skein (few beats per length since it needs fewer twists per inch) and sent it off for a bath. What a result.

I also learned that my control and consistency improved if I split the roving lengthwise before starting to spin. Again, given that this was no longer strictly top, I wasn't doing myself or the fiber a disservice by manipulating it a bit to make the spinning easier. I'll keep doing this going forward.

Step 4: Swatching for gauge

Now satisfied that I had a yarn that was a good candidate for the cardigan, I grabbed my needles and started swatching. I know that I'm generally a loose knitter and that means I use a smaller needle than most so I grabbed a US4 and cast on for a stockinette swatch. I knitted away for 15 rows and then measured. The swatch was measuring five SPI but the stitches looked a lumpy so, I ripped back, stayed on 4s and knit more tightly. This attempt yielded a honest 5.5 SPI and was happy with the horizontal gauge, but again, the stitches looked lumpy - as if they were too vertically compressed. That led me to rip back again, move up to a US5 needle and end up with this result:

It's perfect. An honest 5.5 stitches per inch and I really like the proportion of the stitches versus rows and even the little bit of twisted cable looks tidy. How much do I love this swatch? This much:

And let's not even get started on the color. It's fabulous. It shines (thank you, BFL!) and it is warm as the last sunny day before winter sets in (thank you, Jennifer!). I want to pet this yarn and this swatch forever. I can't wait to make this cardigan so I can wrap myself in squishy honey. Now it's all about filling the bobbins.

Being nice

2010-06-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a brief moment to vent.

When it comes to business, I don't subscribe to the "always be nice" idea. Let me say that I do, in general, try to be kind to my colleagues. I try to communicate with them in ways that they will understand (visual vs. aural, go through pleasantries before getting down to the issue at hand; establishing relationships; yadda yadda) and make the experience of working together as easy as possible. However, I also believe that they will meet me halfway.

In the event that this state of detente cannot be reached, business still needs to be conducted. Work still must be done. Problems must be solved, products must be manufactured and money must be made. Colleagues honestly don't have to like each other, but we do need to be consistent and professional in our relationships.

Nothing, but NOTHING torques me harder than failure to follow this thinking. I simply don't understand why one person must succeed on the back of another.

There. Much better.

Spinning with a purpose

2010-06-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

Over in Ravelry, a group of us are getting ready to do a KnitALong (KAL) with Sandi Wiseheart. End result of the KAL is a cardigan that's been designed to fit the knitter (or the knitter's intended victim) and also teach us about the designing process along the way. Sandi will be starting the KAL in August because I, hopefully along with a few others, plan to spin yarn specifically for this project.

I've started a thread on Rav for those SpinningALong (SAL) but am going to blog about it as well. That should let me ramble on a bit more and add pictures where it makes sense. Goal of this series of posts is to talk about the process of spinning for a specific project with an eye toward making a yarn that you love and that also works for it’s intended project.

I’m also working with Sandi to write up a swatch that’ll be indicative of the small amount of non-stockinette patterning that is part of her design so that you’ll be able to really get an idea of what the finished product will look like. That swatch will be posted here for all to see/use.

Full disclosure - I’m a very new spinner and I certainly don’t have all the answers! This is more of an opportunity for me to be a bit public about my thought process and hopefully give and get guidance along the way.

Jennifer and Susan will be offering dyed Blue-Faced Leicster roving in both superwash and non-superwash. Please consider purchasing through them to help support the project! Details for purchasing fiber and yarn should be available this coming Thursday, 6/24.

In an earlier post, Sandi pointed us to this Knitting Daily blog entry to help determine how much yarn will be required to knit up her cardigan. To save folks some electrons, here’s the relevant section:

Misses Sizes 32-40 Bust (for a regular, comfortable-ease pullover; add 5% for a cardigan)

* sportweight: 1400-1600 yards (1300-1500 meters)
* worsted weight: 1100-1400 yards (1000-1300 meters)

For a longer, loosely fitting, or oversized misses-sized pullover (add 5% for a cardigan)

* sportweight: 1500-1900 yards (1400-1750 meters)
* worsted weight: 1300-1500 yards (1200-1400 meters)

Since the yarn Sandi calls for is a DK/light-worsted, I’m looking at numbers between sportweight and worsted to estimate my yardage requirements. Using straight-line interpolation, I’m making this estimate:

Standard fit pullover (add 5% for cardigan): 1250 - 1500 yards (1150 - 1400 meters)
Loose-fit pullover (ad 5% for cardigan): 1450 - 1700 yards (1300 - 1575 meters)

The extra 5% nets out to less than 100 yards in all cases.

My bust size is a 34, so I start out at the low end of the yardage scale so I’ll do my estimate for a size 34 and then do some fudging from there. I’m going to shoot for 1300 yards of yarn.

Next step is to work out fiber based on that yardage requirement.

A little surveying of DK weight yarns put me in the neighborhood of 250yds per 4oz. This is a bit over-estimated and also mill-spun. Handspun is often of a lower Yards Per Pound (ypp) than millspun simply because of the way the commercial process handles fiber. Again, since I’ll be reserving for sampling and generally rounding up, I’m not going to get too hung up on this.

Ok, back to calculating.

1300 yards, divided by 250 yards = 5.2

Multiply that by 4oz = 20.8oz

16oz per pound and we get = 1.3 pounds.

Being conservative and ensuring that I have enough to sample, I should be able to get away with 1.5 pounds. But, since I’m really planing to have at it, I’m ordering 1.75 pounds. This will let me relax and make up a decent sized sample skein (maybe two) so that I can ensure I’m doing the Right Thing.

Comments/corrections/readjustments welcome.

Fiber-y goodness

2009-08-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a while (again) since I've posted anything and I've got some fun stuff to show! I was lucky enough to get to the Monterey Fleece Auction at the Monterey County Fair (they sell tequila *shots* at the fair, how cool is that!??!) two weekends ago and that kicked me in the butt to start dyeing.

I've been wanting to dye my own stuff for quite some time, and the carding fun during the TDF really got me thinking about it. Finally, what pushed me over the edge was the wonderful fleece I bought at the auction. Nine pounds of Coopworth Romney cross, in a lovely gray. Oh, here's what it looks like:

Isn't it gorgeous? The majority went off to Morro Fleece Works for processing, but I stashed about 1# in a ziplock before heading home. This is post washing and pre-dyeing. Since it's gray, I wanted to try and get some blues and purples for scarves. I dyed the locks using acid dyes in the microwave. I don't think I got the water hot enough, but here's the blue pre-carding, and then the two finished batts:

I was quite surprised at how much the colors muted after carding, but the softness of both is just amazing. Have I mentioned how much I love my drum carder? Love. LOVE.

Anyway, I also had two pounds of merino top just lying around waiting for some love, so I decided to do some quick experimenting with kettle dyeing and hot-pouring. I'm much braver now about really heating the water/wool mixture and I just dove in. All the examples below use 4oz. of roving, so I've still got a pound of un-dyed roving leftover. The kettle dyeing was simple - just dump the dye in the bath along with the wool, then heat to set. For the hot pour, I heated the wool and bath *first*, then added the dye.

While I didn't take pictures of the kettle dyeing (too simple, I guess), I did try and document the hot pour. First experiment was with a blue mixture. I used a syringe to squirt the dye on half the roving:

Once that was done, and the dye started to settle, I carefully turned the roving over in the bath to distribute the remaining pigment:

For the green, I first added some water to my dye solution so that it would be less concentrated. Then, I poured more equally across the top of the fiber:

Again, once the dye pushed through and settled, I turned the fiber to better distribute the remaining dyestock

In both cases, I let the fiber cool completely in the dyebath and the dye was fully exhausted. Then, I picked the rovings out of the dyebaths, rinsed under luke-warm tap water, squeezed out as much water as I could, gave it a whiz in a garment bacg ala Alden Amos and then left to dry overnight. Results of the whole shebang look like this:

Again, the blue and green were hot-pour and the orange and yellow were kettle dyed.

All four of them are just *lovely*. The yellow is so wonderfully bright and makes me smile whenever I see it. I'm really in love with the blue - there are these great bits of blue/green in the darker areas and it's all pretty close to what I wanted. I'm going to try one more hot-pour experiment with an intent of getting more colors into the mix. I think I need less water in the bath overall (the wool floated too high) and to not rush the dye getting into the undyed spots. Regardless, I'm definitely on my way!

Oh, and in case you've not figured this out, the next color is in the reds/magentas. That part is missing from my color wheel.

Spinning soon!!! I need a happy, yellow scarf to chase away the winter chill. It is summer in San Francisco, after all.

And in other news ...

2009-07-02T12:50:00.000-07:00

I've got a quick FO sighting for y'all.

This is a Beech Wood Cowl done in bamboo/merino handspun. Colorway is Sangria by Spunky Eclectic. I got the fiber from a fellow Raveler as part of a "bag of crap" fiber swap. I was shooting for something heavier weight than the light fingering I usually end up with. This is about 10wpi, chain-plied. BTW, I'm falling in LOVE with chain-plying. Now that I'm confident in the process, it makes yarn happen almost instantaneously.

Yardage: ~170
WPI: ~11
Fiber: 80/20 merino/bamboo

I'm wearing it 'round the office today 'cause I lurves it.

Off to the mountains tonight for the long weekend and the start of the TDF. I'll post the "stash target" when I get back next week.

Three Bags Full

2009-07-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Today I started pulling out the fiber for the Tour.

I've joined a couple of teams: Team Monkey Farts, sponsored by Spunky Eclectic, Team Suck Less, sponsored by Abby Franquemont and Team Snobby Spinners. For the last one, it's all about spinning "luxury" fibers. Links go to the groups in Ravelry.

Monkey Farts is my cheerleading team. There's no Spunky fiber targeted specifically for the Tour, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the club fibers finds it way onto a spindle this month.

Team Suck Less is all about spinning a MILE of fiber in one day. A mile is 1760 yards, and if you 3-ply that, it works out to 580-ish yards. That's more than a pair of sock's wort (usually ~400 yards) and would work out to be around 5-6 oz of fiber. That's alot. That's about 10h *straight* of spinning. I'll be doing this on a Saturday.

Finally, for Team Snobby Spinners, I've got a choice of some lovely polwarth/silk blend that spins up frog-hair fine for lace or 4oz of some really nice bamboo/merino blend. I think that's the one for me.

The overall fiber count for the Tour looks like this:

1.5# of Merino for a sweater. Comes from The Sheep Shed and Carolina Homespun. The two sets of fiber are close cousins and are broken into three sets of 1/2 a pound, each. Makes it easy for the 3-ply I'm planning. This is targeted for the Wisteria Sweater from Twist Collective.

4oz of Bamboo/Merino blend. These'll be for socks. May use the SpinOff article from last year to split and ply the fiber. Otherwise, I'll be waffling between chain and true 3-ply. That's for later in the month.

~2# of Shetland fleece. My first one. I'd had some thought of dying this before I spin it, but I've both run out of time and am no longer sure that's what I want to do. If I save this for last, I can still "plot" a bit.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this - quite a bit, actually. It's gonna be great to reconnect with my wheel, play around with my carder and generally spin until I just don't want to anymore.

It's training for SOAR in October, right?

Beer-thirty

2009-06-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we hauled the brewing equipment out and made beer.

Before moving to California, brewing was a monthly (minimum) exercise with a very dear friend. I have wonderful memories of sitting on the porch, in all weather (even in the snow), with our cauldron of malty goodness bubbling away while talking about, well, everything. I've not found a new brew-buddy out here; and Chris and I brew together (he's good for the heavy lifting), but I still miss Andy on brew day.

Anyway, yesterday's beer was dead simple.

Grain Bill:

7# 2-row klages malt
1# malted wheat
1# Vienna malt

Strike with ~13qts of water at 165F, aiming for a mash temperature of 150F. We used about 12 quarts and hit 152F. Perfect. Skipped the protein rest 'cause it was all in the Gott cooler and I just couldn't be bothered.

Let rest until conversion is complete. We went hiking for an hour. :-)

Add about 3gal of sparge water at 180F to get the mash up to 170F. Sparge until liquor is at 1.008. We netted out about 6.5 gallons.

Add 1 oz Hallertau (~4.8AAU) at 0 mins, 1/2 oz Saaz and 1/4 oz Fuggles at 30 mins, another 1/4 oz Fuggles at 40 mins, another 1/4 oz Saaz plus 2T rehydrated Irish Moss at 55 mins.

After 60 mins, chill to ~80F and siphon into a 7g carboy. Add White Labs Kolsch yeast, slap on the air lock and Bob's yer Uncle.

Original Gravity: 1.050
Original Volume: ~6gal

Not bad at all. BTW, it's already delicious.

I'll take two.

2009-06-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

Must. Make. This.

I'm going to go sit in the corner and be very, very good. Hopefully this will show up.

Little things

2009-06-22T15:09:00.001-07:00

For me, the little things in life are important. I tend to get so busy that I don't always do the "normal stuff" like cleaning, vacuuming or folding the laundry. And, in life's silly ways, neglecting the "normal stuff" can lead to neglecting the big stuff.

Suffice to say that last year was not my finest. I'd say it was a continuation of quite a few years of not paying enough attention to the world around me and really losing track of what was important. I came within an inch of being single again - after nearly 20 years together - and boy was that horrible.

Where am I going with this? Well, in "happier days", Chris was pretty good at letting me know he was thinking about me by sending me flowers. It didn't happen regularly - but he always managed to figure out when I was feeling sad, or missing him, or just totally overwhelmed by life. A lovely bouquet would show up at work, on the table at home - and even once in China! There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that touches me so.

Anyway, when we were having "trouble", I actually noticed that the flowers didn't happen anymore. We'd argue. We'd pick on each other. I'd cry. While I didn't "expect" them per se, I did notice that he didn't seem to think about it anymore.

Fast forward to today. I was away again last week and came home on Saturday morning. He's been working his tail off to get the race car up and running again for a track day tomorrow and he and his partner ran into all sorts of problems. Knowing I'd be all foggy and tired, I sent him off to work on the car. Turned out that they had more problems and "one day" became "all weekend". Plus, tonight he's off to head up to the race track. Yeah, I was a little sad about it but I didn't want to prevent him from getting his stuff done. It's not every weekend, he really loves doing it, and it needs to happen.

He noticed.

I really do love that man.

Bathtub Rings

2009-06-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's post, I threatened to wash a fleece. Now, I should admit that I'm one of those people that likes (needs) procrastination. I like to hem, haw, deliberate, do thought experiments and generally delay actually *doing* something until I feel like I can be successful. It's definitely overkill in terms of angst and nervousness, but the net result is that I do eventually conquer my fears and just "try".

After putting up that post yesterday, I was absolutely GRIPPED by the idea of washing the fleece. I thought about it ALL DAY. Finally, after I'd finished up my work for the day, I picked up a few necessities at the store (drying rack, laundry bags) and just, well, tucked in.

I turned up the water heater (involved disassembling the darned thing), shook/picked over the fleece and just, well, washed it. Two soapy dunks, two rinsy dunks, some dangerous whirling of the bagged fleece in the driveway and it was over. Pretty anti-climactic, actually.

As of last night, it was taking up all three tiers of the drying rack in the living room. It's not felted. It's pretty clean (compared to the state it was in yesterday). I think I'll do this again.

(will add pix when I get them off the camera)

Tomorrow is Spinners' Day at the Farm up in the North Bay. Looking forward to sun, wool and pot-luck!

Tour de Fleece - Part Deux!

2009-06-11T08:08:00.001-07:00

Last year I wasn't a spinner. Feels pretty wierd to say that given how much I've taken to this fabulous craft. I've always loved fiber and needle arts but spinning has unlocked a whole new measure of creativity. All that being said, I have a special place in my heart for this event 'cause it's what forced me to get off my butt and start spinning.

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say that I signed up for SOAR without knowing a thing about spinning. Once signed up, I bought a wheel and then got outed by the Harlot (scroll down to the 05-July post) when I committed to making a skein of yarn during the tour. Just one skein. The rest is history.

Anyway, I'm committed to participating in the Tour de Fleece again this year and this past week has been all about setting my goal(s). My fiber stash is starting to get a little silly and that means I need to get spinning so that I can buy more (natch). Plus, with the addition of my new and loverly loom (LOOOOOM!), I've got new and amazing ways to burn through all the lovely yarn I'll be making.

So, I'm currently thinking about a few things:

1. Spindle spin just a little bit, every work day, over lunch. I'm not a "confident" spindler and that's just lack of practice. I've got time at lunch to do this, so I'm gonna. If I'm in a meeting, the spindle goes to. Phoey.

2. Spin for a sweater. I've got plenty of fiber to make an absolutely lovely version of Wisteria and it'll also be a challenge to spin something larger than sport weight. I can do this - I just KNOW it.

3. Spin a fleece. I've got two - one from a friend down the road (can't believe it's been a year) and one lovely one from Windswept Farms in Michigan. They're both small, but it would also allow me to finally get over my fear of doing this. It's *gotta* be ok for me to wash some wool, darn it!

So, I'm mostly set, I think. It's all doable in the grand scheme of things, provided I do some planning. It's off to China again next week, so I'll have some time to plot/scheme on what gets done and when - and I can try washing the fleece when I get back.

Oh, and I've also got this idea about dying up some roving and spinning that, but maybe that's for next year.

Thoughts? Anyone? Is this thing on?

LOOOOOOOMMMM!

2009-06-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hooray!

After a week's worth of waiting (I can't believe how spoiled I've been by USPS!) my wonderful new loom finally arrived. It actually showed up this past Friday, but I didn't do a thing with it until Sunday. First, I needed to finish up spinning last month's Spunky Club fiber and then we had a small task to accomplish at a semi-local winery.

So, Sunday morning finally came along and I just had to dive in and get started. I followed the excellent advice of my Spunky and Weaver friends on Ravelry and used Tofutsies as the warp (96", 10epi, 11" on the loom) with the intent of using it as the weft as well. Nice, balanced weave - that's the ticket.

I started warping at around 10a on Sunday. By the time I had to leave for Book Club at 3p, this is the result:

Amazing, isn't it? Like LIGHTNING this stuff is. I kept going and going on Sunday night, then again yesterday. I ran out of the Tofutsies about 2/3 of the way through but I couldn't bear cutting it off and wasting all that weft. So, I dug into my old crochet cotton stash and found a nice ball of ecru cotton. I grabbed that, along with my pickup stick and kept going. And going. And GOING! Then, around 9p last night, I finished. Gave it a quick soak and popped it in the dryer (!!!!!) with the rest of the laundry. A quick press and tying up the ends and voila:

Can you believe it? Isn't it FABULOUS! Wow. WOW. WOW!! I'm totally in love. The cotton is an excellent foil for the Tofutsies and the more-open weave gives it a somewhat similar drape. It softened up so wonderfully in the wash that it's like silk against my skin. Oh, here are a few more:

So there you go. The loom's folded up and stowed under the couch (Chris appreciates this added bonus) but it's likely coming out again tonight. I have this idea for another scarf, but this time I'll be doing some color changes in the weft ... assuming I can figure that out.

Yep, I'm hooked. Absolutely. LOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!

(oh, and who else is up for the Tour de Fleece?)

What a weekend!

2009-05-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned on Friday that my hubby, along with the menfolk from two other friends who are also turning 40 this year, were taking the three of us out for a glorious celebratory weekend. Well, they didn't disappoint. The weather was ideal and we had a great time. Can't you tell?

No photos of the dinner to share (yet). The six of us were all dolled up and enjoyed a nearly four-hour marathon of amazing food and remarkable wine before staggering back to the hotel. I can't even begin to describe what a magical experience it was to eat at the French Laundry. Not every dish was perfect, but the combination of the food, the wine, the presentation and the first class service were more than enough to exceed my expectations. Suffice it to say, if ever given the opportunity, go. Don't walk, run.

Anyway - I'm a very lucky girl. Happy Sunday, folks.

More greens - and an exciting weekend

2009-05-29T07:25:00.001-07:00

Last week was our first week of fresh veggies from my CSA. Given that we didn't get the box until Friday, not everything was perfect, but I was still enamored with the contents. This week was no exception. We got:

Rainbow Chard
Lettuce Mix
Loose Spinach
French Breakfast Radishes
Green Garlic
Spring Red Onions
Fresh Strawberries

This may, perhaps, sound like less than last week's contents, but that's not necessarily bad. My last salad was eaten the day of arrival for the other box! Anyway, I've not made as much of a dent in this box so far, mainly because I'm still buried under the box of cherries from the orchard, but I'm sure I'll manage to eat all of it.

All that waits until Sunday because we're going away (yet again) for a weekend with friends. My cohorts in crime, Amy and Beth, and I are all turning 40 this year. Our menfolk took it upon themselves to "do something about it" and this weekend is the big deal. The boys did a superb job of keeping things secret, and even managed to ensure that none of us planned anything on our calendars, and they finally started spilling the beans a few weeks ago. Suffice to say, they've done a fabulous job. We're having a weekend of wine tasting, cycling, general mayhem and the crowning achievement is dinner a The French Laundry. I really don't know how wonderful it will be. It's been getting mixed reviews from customers over the past few years (service declining, less variety of menu, prices skyrocketing) but it's still one of those "lifetime" things.

My plan? Close my mental checkbook, open my mouth and enjoy. See you all Monday.

Template woes - and new stuff!

2009-05-25T18:31:00.001-07:00

Well, I've managed to delete all the customizations I've made to the blog - but then again, maybe that's a good thing. I still can't get the archive calendar to work properly, but maybe that's ok, too. I'll try and take this as an opportunity to "restart" all this stuff and do a little housecleaning.

Anyway, it's Memorial Day weekend here in the us and that means a long weekend. It's a happy coincidence that this extra day off coincided with the end of our extended vacation; I wish I could take credit for planning it that way, but no dice. Doesn't mean I won't take that extra day off!

The weather has been pretty crappy up here on the mountain and today was the first bit of sunshine we'd gotten since coming home. That was enough to motivate me outside for a run (everything now hurts) and I'm glad I did. It's been too long since I'd run and I'm looking forward to getting back to it in a serious way.

On the handicrafts side of the house, I've gone off and ordered a small, rigid heddle loom from Schacht. Looks like this:

I'm just tickled at the prospect of being able to burn through a HUGE amount of stash in no time at all. Scarves and wraps from all that lonely sock yarn are destined to be gifts for family and friends. Rumor has it that I can warp the loom, weave a project and finish it in a day. Now *that's* the right speed for me. Plus, it's a nice way to ease into weaving. I really see this as a first step toward full-time fiber arts.

Anyway, it's back to the salt mines for me tomorrow. 8a meeting. Can you believe it?

Back from holiday - and fresh greens!

2009-05-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how quickly three weeks went by. We had an amazing time in New Zealand, Australia, and the Kingdom of Tonga. The first two points were more "transit stops" than destinations, but I managed to completely fall in love with the kiwi lifestyle and am scheming ways to move down there! Sydney was also good - but the highlight of our trip was 11 days of sailing in Tonga. There's just too much to tell about it, but suffice to say, we all had a wonderful time.

So, we're rested, relaxed, and ready to start working again next week. But, since it's a holiday weekend, this leaves me time to get acquainted with the box of fresh veggies dropped of by my CSA. I've bought a weekly delivery of fresh veggies and I think that the quantities should be more than sufficient for the two of us. This week, we got:

Romaine Lettuce
Red Leaf Lettuce
Red Russian Kale (this is a new one for me!)
Spring Bunched Carrots
Spring Onions
Green Garlic (also a rare treat)
Arugula
Radishes
Strawberries

I've been casting about for a recipe for the kale - and so far haven't been really taken by any of them. At a minimum, I'll be stuffing myself with salads for the next few days!

Happy long weekend everyone! It's great to be home.

A little fibery goodness

2009-04-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

Just so that you don't think I'm making up all the stuff about finishing socks and spinning yarn, here are a few pics of what I've managed to do.

First of, I really want to make C. a pair of handspun socks. I've gotten confident enough now with my knitting that I'm sure they'll fit right. Spinning up some good yarn for the project is the real challenge. The March fiber from Spunky Eclectic's Spunky Club was just the ticket. Base fiber is a dark Blue Faced Leister (BFL) with dyed segments of teal, green, red and brown. A very manly set of colors on an easy to spin roving.

Since it's for socks, I wanted a true 3-ply yarn. That meant tearing the roving into three equal parts. I then split each part into four strips and spun each onto a bobbin. Finally, I plied the three together. In the "good karma" department, two of the three bobbins emptied out *at the same time*. There was not more than 10 yards of single left on the third bobbin, so there was almost no waste. Finished product looks like this:

Spun S, plied Z. Final size around 16 WPI. Just about 375 yards. I think the initial weight was a little low, but I'm still quite happy with the yardage.

Today, hot off the bobbin, is a 100% Merino superwash roving from Zen Yarn Garden's Spin Art Fibre Club. It's the April colorway, inspired by Georgia O'Keefe's "Red Canna" painting. I did this one as a chain ply (just because I need to get better at it) and because I thought the colors would be more interesting if I could preserve them. Anyway, yarn looks like this:

Once again, spun S, plied Z. Final WPI again around 16. This time, it's just *over* 400 yards - plenty for socks for me (yeah, we just talked about not chain plying for socks) or maybe a nice scarf.

Both these yarns go on vacation with me this week. Woot!

Where did April go?

2009-04-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

So there I was, intrepid readers, poised at the brink of April, ready to get back to a life of knitting, spinning and blogging. Now here I am, a full 23 days later, with nary a post to show for it.

First of all, a big "I'm a knucklehead" to Tina. Yes, I did get your email. I even marked it as "unread" so that I wouldn't forget to respond to you. I shall do so, this weekend.

Second of all, I did get a lot of spinning and knitting done. I finished 2.5 pairs of socks, am about halfway through a random scarf with my virtual friends from The Unique Sheep and have spun up singles for a scarf, a true 3-ply for socks for the hubby and am madly working on another chain-ply for socks for me.

What does all this lead to?

Vacation.

We're about to set off on a 3-week odyssey to points south and west. There's a 10d trip onboard a catamaran with 3 other couples (this will be excessively fun) as well as a few days in New Zealand, and hopefully some in Australia. Basically, the month of May is "out the window".

But, with three weeks of time on my hands, along with 2 18h+ plane flights, I hope to get some serious knitting done. This will include the aforementioned handspun socks (hopefully) and I'm also eyeing the Botanica Medallion Cardigan from the Spring/Summer 09 VK. Ravelry link, here. This one'll be a stash-buster and perfect for those warm nights on the boat. Assuming it gets done in time.

Fine. I'll try this again.

June will be a month of posts. I hope it includes my classes for SOAR, some pictures of spinning/knitting (if I can *EVER* find my camera!) and a nice talk about my trip. Time and internet connections permitting, I may blog from the southern hemisphere.

Cheers!

Kicking the tires ...

2009-03-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how busy my life's been. I'd made some conscious decisions about *removing* things so that life would be less hectic, but that's not how things have turned out.

Suffice it to say, I've neglected this poor blog and it's time to get back to it.

Things to come:

Singles KAL with my Spunquistador friends
Adventures in dying and carding
A long, wonderful vacation
New job/responsibilities at work

April will be a month with posts. May will be a month without (due to the vacation). We'll see where June takes us.

Let it snow?

2009-02-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

Word on the street is that we're in for a Big Storm this weekend. Starting tonight, snow levels are coming waaaaay down - predicted accumulation of 3-5" at 2000' (that's us) and 6-9" above 3000'.

Now, forecasters around here don't distinguish between the mountains on the west side of the bay (us) and the east side of the bay. I think we get quite a bit of moderation thanks to the Pacific, but it has snowed a couple times this year so it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility.

Anyway, we've got lots of food in the house, lots of wine and beer, and I've got lots of fiber in various states of incarnation. Even if the power goes out, I'll be able to amuse myself without too much difficulty.

And if the power is going out, it'll be this weekend.

Cool!

Success

2009-02-09T09:05:00.001-08:00

It's finally finished - and public. This is what I've been doing in China for the last 18 months. It's been a while since I've felt this good about myself.

Reviews here, and here. Shameless plug, here.

Happy Monday.

edited to add links to reviews and Amazon website

Brigid in the Blogosphere

2009-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

Last week, Morgaine over at Carolina Homespun invited us all to take part in the fourth annual (silent) Poetry Reading to celebrate the feast of Brigid. Even older than Brigid is Imbolc. Today we celebrate Spring, the return of hope and look forward to the end of winter.

So, for that, I give you my favorite poet.

Early Spring - Rainer Maria Rilke

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.

Off to China. Posting when I'm able.

Some Progress

2009-01-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

When the batt showed up from Spunky Eclectic, I really had no intention of doing anything with it in the "short term". For me, that means it should have sat, in the box, for at least 2-3 months. You know, until all the other stuff was done. Yeah, right.

I'll admit, peer pressure got the better of me. All the other clubbers were doing some really wonderful stuff with theirs, so I just had to open the box and at least *LOOK* at it. As soon as I did that, I was sunk. (refer to last few posts for conformation). Once it was all done, I was just atwitter trying to figure out what to *do* with it. I knew the colors would be stripey, and therefore it needed a pattern that had an element of angularity to it. I really wanted to make another Tuscany shawl, but after a quick swatch, I gave up. Wrong pattern. Totally. More studying, swatching and playing around led me to settle on Adamas.

Whaddya think?

Briefly ...

2009-01-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

The spinning is done, the plying is done. The yarn is in the sink in the bathroom.

Today, it went from this:

to this:

Any suggestions as to what I should make? It's just over 600 yards of laceweight. I was thinking about another Tuscan shawl from No Sheep for You. It'd be a nice gift for my mom's birthday next month.

Isn't she Spunky?

2009-01-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

The mailman is well and truly my friend. When a package comes (fiber, yarn, tools, whatever), he makes the long-ish walk down the driveway to leave it on the porch. I've been home when this happens pretty regularly, so I get a nice big wave as he passes by the picture window. (Note to self - post a picture one day!)

On Thursday, the first installment of my Spunky Club showed up. It's 4 oz. of a beautiful 100% organic merino combed top, handpainted in the colorway "Twilight". I'd managed to resist the siren call of the package for about 24 hours - but last night, I cracked. I opened up the box and braided up the bump.

Pretty, no? The braid somewhat disguises the fact that there are two distinct personalities to this roving - a green one and a red one. When I unbraided it and laid it out this morning for "strategizing", I decided to try and meld the split personality into something more coordinated. It's destined to be a 2-ply, fingering-ish weight yarn. With the help of my scale, I ended up with two bumps that look like this:

Both are approximately 55 grams (overall bump was 110 grams) and that means I should easily get 350+ yards of fingering weight.

I then began splitting the "green" half of the roving and pre-drafting a bit so that I could get started spinning. I'm doing a modified short-draw woolen technique for this stuff. There's a distinct difference in slipperiness as the color changes - anything with a strong color is much firmer; the undyed and lightly dyed sections are absolutely effortless. It's given me food for thought about how I deal with fiber once I start dying my own. So, about halfway through, my bobbin looks like this:

Almost as soon as I started, I remembered that I have one bobbin that I don't like. It slides back and forth on the flyer just a bit and has a bit of chatter. Tensioning this bobbin is finicky. Every time I use it I say to myself, "you should mark that bobbin or something so that you don't use it."

Guess which bobbin I'm using.

Adventures in Spinning

2009-01-20T14:26:00.001-08:00

I've been doing a moderate amount of spinning since I got back from SOAR last year and I've found that I really enjoy it. I'm still enamored with the process of making yarn, but not so much with doing anything with the yarn. It nets out to an overall increase in my stash, but also a "compacting" of the fiber. Spun yarn takes up a lot less space than raw wool/fiber.

As always, the engineer in me wants to deconstruct everything and fiber is not safe from this process. I've been busily reading Deb Menz's book Color in Spinning and I'm bracing myself to get started working my way through it. She has a lot of great exercises in the back of every chapter that are designed to help the reader understand what she means in each section. I've got lots to learn about hue, value and color - and how they interrelate - and that should really help me to get everything I want in a yarn/garment.

However, before I dive in to dyeing, I want to do some fleece processing. I've got two fleeces waiting for attention - one from friends down the road (literally! I even helped with the shearing) and the other from Windswept Farms. Chris doesn't know about the second one. I have a thought that I can manage to wash one/both of them on Saturday and then perhaps get them carded into batts by the following weekend. I'd like to have a go at making my own rovings (ala Deb) and both of these are just right for that. The dark fleece wants to be left alone and knitted up - and maybe I'll do some overdying of the second.

Anyway, I'm thinking spinnerly thoughts while working furiously on a shrug for this weekend. Another party next weekend, and I'll need to work up another little thing for that. And birthdays, and late Christmas presents - and I need some handspun for both.

Man - where does work and sleep fit in to this?

Can't talk ... must dash

2009-01-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

The car is coming in abut half an hour and I'm still packing. I love going home day - I get to live twice. A quick jaunt in the shuttle, relax in the airport lounge for a while, watch 5 movies, then home.

First off, coffee. Second, a run in the trees (I can smell them already!) while the laundry spins. Then, lunch, in the car, and away.

Looking forward to a weekend of delicious food and wine with the handsomest guy on the planet. Sunny and 70s in the lovely Russian River area.

Must remember to bring aspirin. See you next week!

The glamor of business travel

2009-01-14T23:30:00.000-08:00

Many people have a rather romantic notion of business travel. I get to expense meals and drinks, I stay in nice hotels and I get *travel*! It's a tremendous opportunity to see places that I might otherwise never go and experience things that just don't happen at home.

On the face of it, that's a true statement. Reality, as always, is different.

Since I work in the world of technology (hardware and software), one of my biggest tasks is to solve problems. In techno speak, we call that "bug squashing". On this particular trip, I was more successful than I could ever imagine.

Behold, the outcome of today's Bug Scrub.

We found the bug:

We squashed the bug:

Yup, it's all about the perqs when you're on the expense account.

Home tomorrow! (and I fixed my nupp)

All the tea in China

2009-01-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

I'm on the road again this week - this time the trip is blissfully short. Leave on Monday, to arrive in China on Tuesday night, work on Wednesday and Thursday, then back home on Friday - to arrive before I left. It's a little extra time to make up for that whole day I lost on the way out.

Not surprisingly, I like to drink tea when I'm over here. In the restaurants, it's the childish Chrysanthemum tea. Slightly sweet, very aromatic - just wonderful. It's difficult to find Genmai Cha outside of vegetarian restaurants, so I have to dip into my "personal stash" for cups of that. But, after a day at work (and before meeting colleagues for dinner), I love a cup of Lemon Ginger tea. And, in this lovely hotel, my post-work libation looks like this:

Those crazy fruits on the table are Asian pears. Their texture is very similar to an apple (and they're sized/shaped the same was as well) but, flavor-wise, they're very mild - pear-like. Sometimes I like them; sometimes I don't. Over here, I generally like them.

My other excuse for tea today is because I don't have enough time to do much on this:

It's the edging plus five repeats of the Winter Year of Lace Kit - an Estonian shawl design by Nancy Bush. I started this on the plane ride over and, really, I don't have too much to show for it. I may even need to tink back the last two rows because I'm spectacularly unhappy with one of my nupps. I think I missed a loop. It's rather fiddly to do the nupps, but they sure are pretty.

I doubt this will look any different between now and my return. Partly because of jet lag, partly because work is a 24-hour-a-day proposition over here, and partly because I fully intend to sleep all the way home on Friday.

Wish me luck.

Spare Time

2009-01-12T07:28:00.001-08:00

Once again, I'm off to China. I made quite a few trips last year (nine, I think) and I've fallen into a pattern on the morning of the trip.

1. Get up a little early.
2. Have a cup of coffee
3. Go for a (short) run - this really helps to relax me for the 14h on the plane
4. Pack at least six knitting projects

I've gotten to the point where I can knock out a pair of socks on every trip. Easy. I also like to work on lace shawls (no beads - turbulence, ya know?). But, I can never make up my mind *what* I want to bring, so there's a flurry of winding, printing of patterns, rummaging. You get the picture.

This time, I'm faced with a serious dilemma. I've got an argyle sweater that I've been working on for my brother. It's an easy and clear pattern, but the intarsia of the argyle is a serious pain. It goes verrrrrry slowly. I also lost the piece of paper that had all my pattern notes on it, so I have to keep the back piece around for reference. All this translates into "big". Bulky. Not the kind of thing you (necessarily) want to take on a plane.

Separately, I need to knock out both a shawl for my mom and a pair of socks for my dad. I'm not sure that I'll be happy with patterns or yarns for either once I start. Geez.

Guess what I'll be thinking about on today's run.

See you in China.

Spindling Along

2009-01-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

A package showed up for me earlier this week but I'd not gotten around to opening it until today. Yes, it's true - I'm one of those people who can actually let a box sit, unopened, for quite a long period of time. That is, *if* I know what's inside. (I'm as messed up as everyone else in that last week leading up until Christmas. Don't get me wrong!)

Anyway, since I knew what it was, and more importantly, I knew that I didn't want to be distracted by it right away, it let it sit. The distractions were sufficiently managed (as of today) so I allowed myself to open the box. Inside, was this:

Yesiree, Bob, that there is a Golding Lignum Vitae ring spindle. A 2", 0.65 ounce spindle, to be exact. Since I got my wonderful Bosworth at SOAR (a 42 gram rosewood), I've been wanting a spindle that's more suited to laceweight. I could manage it with the Bosworth, but it's just a wee bit too heavy for a really fine single. The occasional "plunk" of it hitting the floor (it is called a DROP SPINDLE, after all) was not only frustrating, it caused heart palpitations.

Enter the Bosworth. As soon as I opened the box, I started looking around for something suitable to get the spindle through it's break-in period. I rummaged around in the Big Box of Spinning Stuff (BBOSS) and pulled out a the sample of Polwarth/Silk top I got courtesy of Francine at Rovings (also from SOAR). It's just a small amount, can't be more than 1/2 an ounce - just enough to get me started.

It's been a few months since I spun anything on a spindle, so it took a few minutes to get back into the groove. Once I did, the fibers just slid past each other and I spun off a really nice, really fine single. The spindle is just a DREAM.

FWIW, I've also got about 5+ ounces of the Polwarth/silk blend in a lovely grey that's been keeping another corner of the BBOSS warm - and I think this may be my January challenge. Whether it's on the spindle or on the wheel, I know it's going to be great. Let's see that again - this time from another angle:

In other news - my drum carder shipped. Plus, I got another present today from Windswept Farms. Darn this "work" stuff.

Rehab

2009-01-07T22:41:00.000-08:00

I broke my foot back in early November of last year and that forced me to essentially stop exercising, refereeing, even traveling for a while. It was an absolute shock to nearly every part of my life.

When it happened, all I could think about was the things I was losing - mobility, speed, even freedom. Little did I realize that losing the ability to do anything would end up giving me the ability to have everything. That's a pretty round-about way of saying that breaking my foot last year was probably one of the best things that could have happened.

Amazingly, being forced to slow down and really *think* about what I was doing allowed me to evaluate all the things I'd put on my plate by ejecting them. I basically was given the opportunity to start over - and rebuild something much more sane.

Yesterday, I started rehab. I ran. For the first time in about eight weeks, I ran.

I'm sick with a chest cold, coughing up lungs, and the weather is cold and damp - but that run was one of my all-time best. The trees were glowing green with moss. The trails were all manner of reds and russets and browns and blacks that only redwood debris can produce. Absolutely stunning. Everything smelled alive and clean. Glorious.

Today, my cold is worse (I don't think I did myself any favors) and I didn't go out, but I'm hoping to sneak in a few miles over lunch tomorrow. I remember now what I had. Time away has made it all better. Now I get to finish rehabbing everything else.

Handspun goodness

2009-01-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

I challenged my fellow alumnae from Maggie's SOAR class to spin something up in December that we'd acquired at SOAR and show it off. It took me a while to clear off some bobbins so that I'd have lots of room to do whatever I wanted.

First off the bobbins was some pre-dyed roving from the color in spinning workshop I took with Deb Menz. I had about half a bobbin's worth, so I wound it off on my hand and did an Andean 2-ply using my Bosworth spindle. It lofted up beautifully once I'd finished with it - almost twice it's size. Amazingly enough, it looks just gorgeous and the colors play against each other beautifully. Deb is not a fan of plying singles back on themselves - but I think this on is a winner. I've got about 150 yards of a heavy-sport or DK weight.

Next off was some long-aging merino top from Louet. This either came with the purchase of a wheel from The Woolery or had been destined to be thrums for mittens. Regardless, I again had two bobbins that were each about three-quarters full. I plied them together off the bobbins, then did the remainder using Andean and my trusty Bosworth. It didn't loft up nearly as much as Deb's stuff - I suspect this is because I wasn't doing as much of a long draw as I did with Deb's stuff. Regardless, it's squishy and lovely. About 350 yards, sport-weight.

So - bobbins are clear and I'm ready to go.

I took 8oz. of 100% Merino roving from Lambspun in Fort Collins, CO, and started spinning away. My plan was for a 3-ply, DK weight so that I could knit-up a nice vest (or something). It's a lovely green called Mountain Moss - a nice blended solid that is majority green with chasings of blue and yellow. The color is very rich and deep, absolutely amazing. Actually - it looks like this:

The picture isn't great, but the color is close to correct. Here's a better view of that amazing 3-ply:

I knew that 3-ply, from the bobbins and NOT Navajo-plied, makes for a wonderful, round, yarn, but I'd not gone entirely through the process with such wonderful fiber. Here's a slightly better look at the two skeins that are dry:

After plying up three skeins worth (~300yds x 2 skeins, plus one ~100 yd skein), I simply wound off the remaining singles and finished them off. I've got just about 100 yards of a lace-weight single that I'll be using to test out Evelyn Clark's Knitting Lace Triangles. Need something special for my mom. :-)

All in all, I'm amazingly pleased with how these turned out. The are *very* even and squishy. Really, truly, nice. I'm looking forward to knitting up a nice vest with them.

New Year, new post

2009-01-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

I'm ashamed to see how long it's been since I posted anything here. However, given the personal disaster that was the back-half of 2008, perhaps it's better that I wasn't posting. Bad juju, angry words and general unhappiness are not the kinds of things that I'd prefer to share with the world - so let's just put that all behind us, shall we?

Starting the year afresh, rather than making formal Resolutions, I'll just take a moment to share some of the things that are on my mind and calendar for 2009.

1. Run another marathon.

This went totally sideways when we moved house back in '07. I'd been mostly trained up, and had even picked the event, but the rush of moving/selling/packing made it impossible. Calendar conflicts in '08 prevented me from doing that same marathon a second time. I don't know that I'll shoot for the same one, but I do certainly plan to do at least one this year. I need the goal.

2. Make refereeing a sane part of my life.

I fell in love, REALLY in love, with refereeing about 8 years ago. When I fall hard for something, it has a tendency to take over. That happened here, and this past year, I realized how insane my passion for this had become. While it was (and still is) an enjoyable activity, it had clouded out other things that I loved (running, knitting, spending time with my husband). I also got a serious wake up call when I had to deal with people who clearly did not love the game - rather, they loved testosterone. It's put me off of the game and I've got a hard decision to make - whether or not to continue. This is definitely a horse, from which, I have fallen. However, even if I don't get back on, I'm not sure I'll miss it.

3. Make my work/life balance sane.

Less time traveling, more time with my husband. 'nuff said.

There's a vacation on the calendar for most of May, I've got a number of fibery and yarny clubs happening, and I'm already switching my head from New Product Goddess to Patron Saint of Sustainability. It's a GOOD change - and this year, I'm going to simply embrace life.

It's easier when you don't fight the current, ya know? Looking forward to looking like this again.

Happy 2009. And only 248 days until SOAR!

The Big Reveal

2008-07-17T10:29:00.001-07:00

As promised yesterday, I'm delivering the photos of my climb through the Pyrenees that results in my first real skein of yarn. The roving is some generic Louet sliver that came along with my Learn to Spin kit from Webs. I've been practicing with this Big Bag 'o Wool since the start of the Tour. It's spent time on the floor, time in the Sierra, and even time in the garbage can when I couldn't seem to even get started.

My first big breakthrough was learning to pre-draft. Realizing that I could save myself oceans of frustration by starting with a smaller and more malleable bit of fiber was the thing that finally pushed me over the hump and got me rolling. I was able to get a spindle full of thick-ish singles that I wound off and set aside, but I didn't want to call that my first skein. I also didn't want to give up until I was able to get the spinning wheel going.

Next was just me and the wheel. Pre-drafting and general techniques being ok, it was all about adjusting tension, tying on a leader and not getting hung up on the amount of twist or being afraid of the yarn winding back on itself. Thanks to some great advice on from the Louet Lovers group on Ravelry I was able to get the singles to wind on the bobbin. Once that happened, it was all about practice. Me and the bag of sliver. Me and the wheel. Me and all those bobbins. I resolved to use that first bobbin for just plain practice. Striving for consistency and learning to adjust tension, fill a bobbin and just get "comfortable" adding twist to fiber. Two solid nights of that and I moved to a new bobbin. Here's the result:
This is just over 30 grams of fiber, wound quite thinly. My goal was to get something that would allow me to do either a 2-ply or 3-ply resulting in fingering or sport weight. That's my workhorse yarn for socks, mittens and the like and if I could do that, it'd be like conquering the world. I also got very comfortable spinning a thin yarn.

My Maggie Casey book told me that a good way to test if you were satisfied with the single and the amount of twist was to allow a portion of the yarn to wind back on itself. It'd give an indication of what the final yarn's thickness would be like and also help to determine how much twist to put in during plying. So, when I finished spinning the amount of fiber I was aiming for on the bobbin, I let the last few inches of the single wind back on itself and I got this:

Not bad. Not bad at all. At risk of exhibiting hubris, the plied (plyed?!) single reminded me of the Satatkieli yarn I'm using for my Latvian Mittens. The individual plies on that yarn are very distinct and gives it a "ropey" look. Personally, I liked it, but knew it would be problematic if the yarn didn't soften up after washing. Regardless, this is practice and was in line with what I was shooting for. Good stuff, time to ply.

I'm still new to all of this and like to do things incrementally, so rather than jumping off the cliff and going for Navajo plying, I stayed safe and just did a simple 2-ply using my lazy kate and two bobbins. I also resurrected that first bobbin full of yarn since I felt most of it was useful, thought longingly about either a glass of wine or a beer, and got busy.

I have two tips for any new spinners that are wanting to do some plying. First, whatever phones might ring that you want to answer should be nearby. I think you can see where this one is going. Second, if you're watching TV and would want to answer the phone, it'd be a good idea to have any/all remotes nearby so that you can turn down the volume and pause the VCR/DVR. Again, proof is left to the reader.

So, two phone calls, Stage 11 of the Tour, an episode of Top Gear, a wash, a soak and a rinse later, I had this:

My first skein - resting comfortably in the hedge. I suspect that it will never get knitted into anything - at least not until after SOAR. It's my mascot for the time being and the launch pad from which I will improve and grow. I love this little thing.

Finally - my thanks to The Harlot and to Katherine for giving me the shove I needed to do this. My mind and heart have been working overtime ever since. What a wonderful thing to have a craft.

In which I conquer the world

2008-07-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

Just over a week ago, I joined in the Tour de Fleece. It was a bit of a whim, to be sure, but I also recognized it as the "kick in the butt" I needed to get started on my brand spanking new wheel/spindle/etc. Learning to spin seemed like a natural progression now that I've gotten comfortable knitting and getting in to SOAR this year sealed the deal.

If you scroll down, you'll see pictures of my first efforts with a spindle, followed by a somewhat lackluster attempt at the wheel. I've been getting more "serious" these past few days and I'm now feeling quite confident. Today I took that last step - plying.

The Internet is helpful in so many ways - YouTube videos, blogs, Ravelry - all these places had tips and tricks to help me ply my first yarn. In the end, I turned back to Maggie and just sat down and did it.

My skein has been wound, washed, rinsed and is now resting quietly in the bathroom. I expect it'll be dry in the morning. Pictures to follow.

Huh. Pretty cool.

Success!

2008-07-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

I posted to the Louet Lovers group over at Ravelry on Saturday since I'd been having absolutely no success in getting the singles to wind onto bobbins on my lovely Julia. The wonderful folks over there immediately gave me suggestions on tension, threading of the wheel and even how to make sure my leader was correctly tied onto my bobbin. They were fabulous! After 3+ hours of running around on a beautiful Sunday morning, I decided to take their words to heart and give it a try. This is what happened:

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!?!?

Nope, me neither. I feel like I've just cycled up the Pyrenees. I really CAN do this, ya know? The rest of this bobbin is practice. Pure and simple - just practice.

I'll wind it off and leave it as a single. Then the real work starts.

I'll say this about all my issues with the wheel - it forced me to learn the bobbin. I don't think I would have been nearly as successful if I'd not spent that time filling up the bobbin and really figuring it out. I also think that the yarn I made will end up as a plied skein (I do have two bobbins full, after all) and it'll be good for me to practice that separate from the wheel.

Hey, I'm happy.

Saturday is for .. well ...

2008-07-12T23:05:00.000-07:00

Refereeing and then a half-spindle full of yarn. I also finished up that pair of socks I started last weekend ... all to try and delay sitting at the wheel. However, after a fair bit of hemming and hawing, I sat down and tried.

Disaster.

For whatever reason, I just can't seem to get the yarn to wind on. There's a progression of spinning/drafting/winding that I just can't seem to contemplate while using the wheel. The spindle is working out just fine and I'm able to spin relatively consistently, but I just *know* I'd be faster and spin finer yarn if I could just figure the darned thing out. Do I wait for Maggie in October? Do I go to one of my local knitting places, buy a bag of roving and just have them teach me? Or do I just keep plugging away on the spindle and make my skein that way.

Dunno. I'll think about it tomorrow while running around in San Francisco. It's only Day 8 of the tour - there's plenty of time to sort this out.

(Way to go TEAM COLUMBIA!!!!)

How can it be Wednesday?

2008-07-09T12:48:00.001-07:00

Time just "wooshes" by for me these days - what with me working hard to get my serious, wonderful, glorious work done (it's gonna be cool, I PROMISE), watching the Tour, learning to spin and knocking down the knitting queue ... well, I lost two whole days there. Wierd.

Ok, topic 1: How's that spinning going, really?

I've gotten past my innate fear of the spindle and I think the two of us are going to be friends. My new pal, Pre-drafted Fiber (we'll call her "Pre) and I went over to hang out with the spindle (get it? hang? heh) on Monday night and things went quite well. I managed to spin something that didn't have the same diameter as a spaghetti noodle and, for the most part, don't think I over spun anything. Much. My fingers are getting used to the feel of the twist working it's way up the fiber and "charging" it up for the next round of drafting. If the temperature goes down just a bit tonight, I may take another crack at it. Regardless - spindle #2 is good. I pronounce it so. At a minimum, I need to wind it off the spindle so that I can do something with it. Cool.

Topic 2: What about those other things you said you're knitting?

Yeah, well. A LONG while ago, I made one of the Must Have Cardigans. Very aptly named. Patons Classic Merino, on the order of 6 skeins and this think knit up so fast that it was done in, like, 1 week. Awesome. I should crochet in on the back of the collar to prevent it from opening up, and also add some reinforcement to the button holes. Whatever. The pattern also makes the cables running up the arms look vaguely skeleton-like .. but the shaping is forgiving, the length is awesome, even the shoulders are just right. It's as if the pattern were made for me.

Regardless, it's awesome. I wish the temperature would go back to "normal" at the house - which usually means in the high 40s/low 50s at night which would allow the cardigan to come back out. Today it's languishing on the chest at the foot of the bed. I know it thinks I don't love it any more. Feh.

Next thing is a pair of Riverbed socks ala Cat Bordhi. I couldn't manage to get a good picture of the whole sock, but here's some closeups of the stitching. Blue Moon sock yarn is a dream to knit with - and even the lightweight stuff is just so squishy that it's a dream to wear. The yarn was originally intended for the Sock Club pattern, but that thing foiled me completely. Enter these stripey wonders.

The cuff is a 4 row pattern of 1 purl followed by 3 knit. Then, an additional 3 knit to make it roll ever so amazingly down to meet that last row of purl. These babies fit like no sock I've ever made fits. I'm in love with the book, with the pattern and with math in general. Seeing as I had, like, 12 YEARS of math, you'd think I'd had enough - but nope, it's good. Love the stripes, love everything about this sock. Just need to start on #2.

Finally, there's a Dragon Skin Baby Jacket in process. As always, the "third time's the charm" for this kind of think. First try, the edge was too tight. Second try, I couldn't count. Third try, I found a mistake about 8 rows down after casting on for the sleeve, and there was NO WAY I was frogging that far back. Enter two bamboo DPNs, a glass of wine and my fan.

Yes, that's a blackberry in the background. If it weren't for that thing, I'd never go home. Also, I think that this is a tremendous sign of optimism that I'm bringing knitting to the office. And not just socks, but FiddlyKnitting. The kind where interruptions and short bursts of time are sure to wreak havoc.

The baby is due in 1 week. Think I'm gonna make it?

Me neither.

Day 2 - The Recap and Some Plotting

2008-07-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

As promised, I got out the spindle and the Louet sliver and spent a little time messing around last night. I'd been knitting away at a pair of socks based on Cat Bordhi's ingenious toe-up creations and had gotten past the heel turn so I felt ok putting it down. After The Harlot threw down the gauntlet, I knew I couldn't just let the first day go by and not do anything.

Step 1 was to get serious about separating the sliver and doing some pre-drafting. The video on the Tour de Fleece blog is the same one I watched before we left for the cabin so I proceeded to split the sliver in two, then in four, then in eighths. It resulted in a much lighter mass of fiber to start with and I hoped it would make the going easier. Still a very short piece of wool, but I didn't want to bite off too much. In the end, it looked like this before I got started:

So, with the pre-drafted wool, I got started. Yes, I'm still firmly in the "park and draft" mode, but it certainly allows me to really control what I'm doing. I went slowly and just a bit at a time. After winding on the second time, I started experimenting with drafting the wool a bit more before allowing the twist to travel up the yarn. I also switched to my right hand as the "pinching" hand and my left as the drafting hand. Worked much better - I was able to smooth the ends down much more and the yarn was also much smoother.

The wool gets eaten up so fast ... I can tell that the majority of my time spinning will be pre-drafting. I guess that's the equivalent of swatching.

Anyway - here's the end result:

Just about 14 yards of a DK-ish weight single. I wound it off onto my niddy noddy, then let it rest overnight before winding it on to a toilet paper roll.

Today? Today I'm catching up on the Tour (go Alejandro Valverde!) and am secretly hoping that this is the year that George Hincappe makes it happen.

Oh, and I'm doing research. I've got Maggie's book out along with Lee Raven's Spin It. I'm going to read up a bit more about pre-drafting and also a bit about plying. More actual spinning tomorrow.

Finally, I'm enjoying a long, tall Boont Amber Ale along with a huge bowl of noodles. We overslept this morning and missed out on the annual Hernia Hill Half Marathon. That being said, I managed to get myself mightily lost while running in the park. The planned 13.1 miles (yes, there's a race I do in that park and I know the route) probably was more like 15. Pasta and beer is the only remedy.

Darn shame, that.

Day 1 - The Tour Opens!

2008-07-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

It's the first day of the Tour de Fleece and I've nothing to report - yet.

We're currently enjoying the Independence Day holiday up in the Sierra; a cold beer at my elbow and filching wi-fi at the Camp Connell General Store. It's pretty darned hot ouside and the thought of spinning is pretty far away.

I brought the spindle and some of the Louet roving with me in case I decide to do something about it. Perhaps today is perfect for some drafting and an attempt at spinning up something smaller than worsted weight singles.

Regardless, it's the first day of my month-long quest to spin a skein. One beautiful, relatively even, plyed skein.

I know I can do this.

(oh, and I've Tivo'd the first stage ... will be catching up on all of that tomorrow)

Tour de Fleece

2008-07-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

My friends know that I'm a big fan of the French cycling event - I would spend mornings watching it before heading in to work (one of the benefits of living on the West Coast). That being said, I'm doing my part to play along with the Tour by doing the Tour de Fleece.

This is just the kick in the butt I need to get me started spinning. I finally assembled the Julia even though it arrived almost a week ago. Me, some fleece, one spindle and a wheel. The four of us are hereby charged with making a skein of yarn.

In the immortal words of Mr. Clarkson, "How hard can it be?"

Rabbit rabbit rabbit

2008-07-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

(yes, it's been a while)

A very dear friend from college days turned me on to this tradition. The first person to say "Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit" to the other person, on the first day of the month, won. Won what? No idea. Won something. We'd sneak up on each other, we'd leave messages on the answering machine, or even ping if logged in to the UNIX system. No, there wasn't really email in those days .. not really.

Anyway, it's been a while - and I miss her.

Email sent.

Update: The Wikipedia rules all. Problem solved.

Commuting

2008-03-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

Commuting back and forth to work over here can be a harrowing experience. Anyone familiar with Asia will agree that the driving style is a mixture of chaos and zen - cars seem to move randomly from lane to lane (and I say "lane" in the loosest of ways) and everyone cuts everyone else off. It's the automotive version of the way Chinese crowds work - no notion of waiting in line and priority of place. It's just about getting where you're going as quickly as possible.

Shenzhen is a crowded city with lots of traffic. A good portion of our ~45 minute commute is either trying to get to the expressway or get across the city. Cars move quickly in a never-ending game of chicken.

Once outside the crowded downtown, things open up and you get an idea of what it was like ten years ago. I remember lots of hills, huge expanses of red-orange dirt and a patchy canopy of trees. The sides of the road are lined with huge campuses emblazoned with odd-sounding Westernized names. Whether it's a literal translation of the actual company name or a description of their goals, there's no mistaking that the ownership is local.

Those little patches of greenery are the exception, however. Most of the streets are lined with aging high-rise apartment blocks that are desperately in need of a power wash and a coat of paint. There's a perpetual curtain of laundry hanging in every window and the "indoor" plumbing was clearly an afterthought.

There's an upside to all this madness, though. No matter where you are, no matter how long you've been in the van, you can always get something to eat. They even deliver.

The glamor of business travel

2008-03-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me apologize because it's been so long since I've posted. Not that I really believe that there's a dedicated group of folks out there just aching to know what I've been up to, but more because I was starting to really enjoy this and I've been neglecting it. Well, hopefully, I'll be able to do better - at least for a while.

That being said, I thought I would take the next week to give folks a taste of the "business travel" life. I'm sure many people have a notion that going somewhere on business means great food, lots of partying, and is generally a boondoggle. Let me be clear - business travel is (for me) nothing like that. It's darned tiring first of all and it's also hard to be away from home. A phone call is not the same as being there (despite what the phone company would have you believe). So without further ado, here goes.

Step 1: The Flight

Company policy is that we fly coach rather than business class. The UA planes on the Asia routes are some of the oldest in the fleet - and the ones on the Hong Kong schedule are no exception. Ah, stowing bags on a 747 ...

This is one of my colleagues bracing himself for the 14.5 hour flight. Yup, that's right - fourteen and a half hours. That translates into three "meals" (I can hardly call that slop we're fed a "meal"), four movies, two short subjects, four Disney Channel sit coms and a bunch of time looking at the Map Channel. Note all that leg room - hey, we're in Economy Plus!

In economy, there's no choice of program - you get what you get. So, I do my best to make good use of the time. Generally, that translates to knitting and reading. I did this:

Two copies of The Atlantic, a copy of Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters and the pattern from the current Rockin' Sock Club. The yarn is Sockotta by Patons, rather than the BMFA yarn that came with the kit as I thought the kit would be too stripey. Imagine my surprise when this stuff started striping! I thought it would be more "flecky", but I'm liking the way the sock both looks and fits. I didn't get to either the magazines or the book because it took almost 10h to do the one sock, but that means I have them for the flight back!

When I'm here in China, I keep my sanity by hitting the treadmill every morning. I'm generally awake at 3am so that gives me a chance to wake up, watch a movie, have a cup of coffee and a Clif Bar before hitting the gym at 5:45a. The workout room doesn't "officially" open until 6a, but the world is down there competing for treadmills well beforehand. I've been stuck on an orbital before and it was not an experience I'd like to repeat. Anyway, the outcome of all that activity is this:

Yup, sweaty running clothes hanging up in the shower. It pretty much takes 18h for stuff to dry since it's so humid and I'd rather not pack wet clothes. This is my equivalent of "flying the national flag of Singapore".

Finally, I always leave a bit of a mess in the bathroom when I head out for the day. Toiletries, grooming aids and such strewn about on the beautiful marble top.

I'll show you what they do tomorrow. If only I got this kind of treatment at home!

Hibernating ...

2008-03-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Not dead, just BUSY!

Good news - house sold. Furniture tomorrow.

Bad news - going to China ... again.

Blog more when over there. Lots of catch-up (knitting) to do!

What a weekend

2008-01-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

The pictures I put up on Friday were just a taste of what we experienced during our first "storm" up here on the mountain. Remember that branch I said was resolutely guarding the Subaru? Well, it didn't do as good a job as I'd liked. About 2 hours after the picture was taken, I noticed that there were some big branches on the roof of the guest house (behind the Subaru) and that the cupola was gone. Here's a last glimpse of that bit of architecture:

See the little cupola sticking out from behind the carport? Ok, maybe you can't - but rest assured that it was *there* when that picture was taken. Anyway, the loss of the cupola was enough to persuade Chris to pull on his foul weather gear (thank the patron diety of man-made fabrics for Gore-Tex!) and head out to ensure that there wasn't a torrent of water in our proto-cottage.

After a short dash, and an even shorter disappearance into the cottage, he came back out and headed for the house. That led him to actually *LOOK* at the back of the car. What did he see? Well, basically that feared localized monsoon wasn't in the cottage - it was in the rear cargo area of the wagon. The passenger tail light assembly was also in pieces and the rearmost glass on that same side was shattered (but intact - initially). After a retreat back in to the house and some furious strategizing, we headed back to the cottage, retrieved a Big Blue Tarp (tm) and put it around the lift gate. Chris accidentally bumped the side glass and that caused a good chunk of it to cave in. Ah well. Problem solved, for now.

Power was out by this time, along with internet and also the phones. Cell service is spotty but we managed to open a claim with the insurance company and persuade the local dealership (7 miles and 2000' of elevation away) to take it and park it out of the rain. We battled window and door leaks (water coming in UNDER the thresholds), wrangled with the generator and marveled at the sheer force of the elements for most of the day. When it finally slowed down, we headed down the hill and put the car in capable hands.

Power has since come back as of about 1p on Sunday - and we're reveling in the cozy warmth of the furnace and a renewed appreciation for hot water. (electric hot water heater high on replacement list) No one was injured, no one died and we also managed to throw our annual 12th night party without the help of utilities.

2008 is certainly looking to be an interesting year.

Holy storm, Batman!

2008-01-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

My first post of the year is one that's also quite fitting given our new house. Shortly after we bought the place, we enjoyed a bottle of wine on the deck with neighbors and spent quite a bit of time talking about the "big storms" that come "a roarin'" over the ridge in the winter time. However, over the past few years, Northern California has taken a bit of a break from heavy winter weather so I wasn't too concerned about it.

Big mistake.

Yesterday, the first of three SERIOUS storms came "a roarin'" through the Bay Area and we're currently smack dab in the middle of the worst one. Winds have been gusting above 80mph a the weather station just down the road (click on the weather station tag in the right nav bar) and it's raining to beat the band. Now the sun has come up, here's what the cars look like:

Love that branch on the Subaru! Chris gets full marks for re-parking in the rain last night as I'd backed the car in to help with unloading. The luggage rack is also doing a fine job holding that branch off the side windows.

So, that's all well and good for the driveway - but what about that great ocean view, you might ask. Well, he's what that mess looks like:

Yeah, it's a wild day. We had power up until about 7a this morning (bouncing quite a bit, I might add) and now it's truly gone. UPS is hanging in there, but we've only got about 1/2 an hour left.

Wind's a blowing, fireplace is a burnin' and candles are a flickerin'. Thank goodness the stove is gas.

Happy New Year everyone!

Signing off for 2007

2007-12-21T15:36:00.001-08:00

and back again in 2008. We're off to the snow for the rest of the year as of tomorrow and I'm also fortunate enough to have no internet access that whole time! There's about a foot on the ground as of this afternoon and it's certainly cold enough that it will stick. Should be interesting to see how much of a space has been cleared away for us to park - and also how heavy the snow is that we'll have to dig through to get to the cabin!

Anyway, I've been terrible about posting this month but work/life tends to get in the way. Hopefully next year will be better.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Swap swag

2007-12-11T14:49:00.001-08:00

Admittedly, I'm late in posting this. I got my wonderful stuff from Meg(aphone) more than a week ago and I've already plowed through both the coffee and the chocolate. Both couldn't have turned up at a more fortuitous time as we were out of coffee (and I'd forgotten to stop by the store) and there was not dessert in the house, either!

Without further ado:

Coffee is a wonderful Costa Rican organic bean that is wonderfully mellow, but a very *round* flavor. Nice change of pace from the Indonesian varieties that are usually in the house! (Chris likes Costa Rican - that's his usual Trader Joe's bean). Next is the chocolate from local favorite, Ghiradelli. It's got (had) little nibs of espresso beans in a really rich dark chocolate. That stuff lasted moments. Best of all, a great skein of Trekking Natura (with bamboo) that is destined for a pair of socks for Chris and a cool skein of laceweight. I'm not sure what I'll do with this one yet - I need a nice black little scarf, so maybe the Dolphin Scarf or something just made-up. Regardless, there's a good quantity of mohair in there so it'll need to be something that will benefit from the texture.

Anyway, I'm back in the land of ginger and noodles - and I've nearly finished the scarf that my dad is getting for Christmas. He doesn't read the blog so there's no risk of him seeing it - but I do have the camera (clearly) so a pic or two is due tonight. What better way to spend the night than blogging? Heck, I sure don't sleep while I'm over here ...

I've been away ... but there's a prize!

2007-12-04T13:09:00.001-08:00

Yes, I've been terribly busy lately - what with the holidays and jetsetting over to the Orient (yes, I leave again on Monday of next week) but I do have something to show for myself. Ok, maybe not *show* right away since the camera isn't handy, but I'll do my best to take some pictures sooner rather than later.

I've knit, assembled, hemmed and added buttons to the Sunrise Circle Jacket. No, this jacket isn't an original idea, but I'm hoping that I actually beat The Harlot to the final step. She and I began knitting this at just about the same time (serendipity) and she definitely got to the "done"-ish stage first. I completed the assembly over the weekend and it took a while to get the button part straight.

I originally started with Kate's directions for locating the button loops but that just Didn't Work for my shape and the way the jacket fell on me. If I had more yarn (yes, I'll take a picture of what's left .. this was truly scary) I would have widened the back between the shoulder blades to make it more comfortable - but overall, I'm very satisfied. This project has worked out better than anything in the past.

Interestingly enough - I knit this with size 5 Addis. Yes, size 5. The pattern calls for 7s, I think. While I can't say that I actually knitted a swatch, I did go a fair way on the sleeves and then checked gauge - I found that spi gauge was correct but my row gauge was way off. That's how I backed down to size 5s. Who knew?

Brief details:

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed
Color: 04 - Green Tweed with spots of orange, blue and black
Quantity: 10 skeins - ALL OF IT
Size: 36"
Needles: Addi Turbo Circular Size 5
Gauge: Per pattern

Picture of the yarn, below. Pix of the sweater to follow.

I love this thing.

We did it!

2007-11-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm totally stealing this image (but not the bandwidth) from Engadget, but seeing as my company probably gave them the image in the first place, I'm not sorry about it!

Yes, sports fans, this is our baby. After six months of not being able to tell my friends and family what I do, it's time to run outside and shout to the world, "I helped make the Kindle!"

More specifically, this is why I've been spending so much time in China. Starting the factory, managing materials and generally getting things up and running. It's been incredibly hectic (got home most recently on Saturday) and it's made life extremely challenging in terms of keeping up with friends, refereeing and knitting.

However, now that it's out there, the real work begins. Regardless, life is cool. And, if I can manage to stay awake, I may even have a FO to share this week!

Hip, hip, HOORAY!

Friday is for "relaxing"

2007-11-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

or so one would think!

Life's been really hectic around here of late - what with the move, work heating up and the tail end of the fall soccer season. C. and I are both really ready for a vacation and were looking forward to getting away over Thanksgiving, but that's off the list since he's tied up with work. Couple all that with me heading over to China next week and I'm frazzled. Totally.

Last night I went head to head with all the stress and spent a good 4 hours knitting. Period. Nothing else. And let me tell you - it was wonderful. I'm not going to say what I'm working on yet (no, it's not one of those that are in the current progress list) but it's something I've been wanting to get to for almost a year and have finally managed to start. I've even taken the time to ensure my gauge is right (two needle sizes *BELOW* what's recommended!) and therefore I have high hopes that this one will turn out as planned.

Anyway - hopefully tonight will be another quiet and restful night (last college game of the season this afternoon) and that the trip next week will be uneventful. Even if we're not getting away, at least there's some time off in the future.

Thinking about 12th Night

2007-11-06T13:00:00.001-08:00

Every year I throw a big dinner party for 12th. "Dinner Party" may be stretching it a bit since it's really become more of a graze-festival - plates of finger food spread throughout the house that makes for easy drifting and night-long noshing. It used to be a true sit-down dinner, but then there were way too many people I wanted to feed and simply not enough chairs. Bring on the appetizers!

While I do have a list of favorites that make the table every year, I like to spend at least some time browsing for a recipe that will give my friends something new to enjoy. That effort has, in recent years, started about 1 week prior to the event and hasn't really panned out as well as I'd like. This year, however, it'll be different. Honest.

Witness our first entry: Pumpkin Pie Blintzes. Yes, it's another Slashfood find, but this one looks truly scrumptious. Better still, it comes with a recipe for crepes from the illustrious Mark Bittman. My mother used to make crepes for dessert (she called them "breakfast pancakes") when I was growing up and I've never mustered the courage to try it myself. This recipe is making me want to try it.

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, and the fact that we're *not* going to the cabin (insert pouty-face here ...), it's a great excuse for me to try some cooking experiments. This one is on the list.

Update: and here's another one to add to the list. Green Tea Cookies as an alternative to the King Cake. While I usually make Cardamom Shortbread from Epicurious, this might just give folks something new to talk about. I sense that my Thanksgiving holiday is going to involve way more than just baking ...

A Halloween/Thanksgiving treat

2007-10-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

found this interesting-looking recipe while surfing over at Slashfood this morning. It's for Pumpkin Coconut Panna Cotta and the picture looks as tasty as the dessert. Definitely a viable alternative for pumpkin pie (can you imagine?) and I also appreciate the reference to gelatin alternatives for us vegetarian-types. It's going on the list of things to make ... just need to figure out when. :-)

Quiet .. at last

2007-10-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

After two days of hissing and spitting, I think the cats have finally figured out that the house is "ok" and that they really are friends! The first night was just awful - the yowling was incredible. Who'd'a thunk that those two normally spend all their time sleeping on top of each other given that they weren't even looking at each other without major protest!??! Regardless - we've all moved on.

The worst of the moving is over, but there's still so much to do. All the stuff that we've accumulated over the past decade is just incredible - but at least half is going away. Donations, trash, recycling, whatever. Bottom line, it's not coming up here! Life without furniture is certainly a pain and my knitting is non-existent (then again, so is my running).

Tomorrow, it's on to the winter running schedule (lunch at Rancho, hoo boy!) and buckling down at work. Boston on Wednesday, back Thursday night - then the final pack/move this coming weekend.

... now, where's my checkbook?

A new home

2007-10-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

Ye gods - I can't believe it's been over a week since I last put anything up here. I hereby solemnly swear that I will blog once a day for the next week. Even if it's simply describing my commute or plane flight, I will do something.

Ok. On with the show.

We moved today. Ok, well maybe "move" is too strong a word. We packed a bunch of stuff, hauled some of it up the hill in the trailer, bought a new bed (yes, that's a good thing) and, most importantly, moved the cats. One is now hunkered down in the mostly empty living room while the other is snuffling around the kitchen and grumbling. This is, actually, progress. I would expect nothing else from the wee beasties.

While I wish I could say that the end of this move is in sight, sadly, it's very far from that. Given that we can only move the contents of our furniture and not our furniture itself (hence the new bed), this move will be a long and drawn-out process.

I did, however, manage to move all my knitting and about half of my stash. Hey, a girl's gotta have priorities! Pictures when I find my camera - which should be some time in June.

Coffee Swap Three!

2007-10-13T17:33:00.001-07:00

Once again, I'm lucky enough to be participating in the Knitters Coffee Swap. Last time around, my partner was Jenni over in Scotland and she gifted me a whole box full of wonderful things.

So, without further ado, here are the answers to the questions for this round:

1. Whole bean or ground? - ground - for sure!

2. Fully-loaded or decaf? - fully loaded. While I like the occasional decaf, if it's of good quality, I don't *need* it so I'll stick with the normal stuff

3. Regular or flavored? - regular. No doubt. If I want flavor, I'll add some syrup or spices.

4. How do you drink your coffee? - generally with cream and sugar in the mornings, but often black or just with cream if I'm having a particularly luscious dessert!

5. Favorite coffee ever? - Aged Sumatra from Peet's

6. Are you fussy about your coffee or will any old bean do? - generally, I'm fussy. I like a coffee with good flavor. Bad coffee is, well, just plain bad!

7. Favorite treats to have with your coffee? - molasses or butter cookies, biscotti, simple pastry

8. Anything else about your coffee preferences? - I prefer low-acid coffees from Arabia, Indonesia or Central America. Kona, while good, just can't compare to a Sulawesi or an exquisite Moka-Java. Flavor. It's all about depth of flavor.

9. Yarn/fiber you love? - Anything wool, silk, natural fiber, or a combination thereof. I also love Wick from K1C2. If it's hand-dyed or hand-spun, I'm sold. You can find me on Ravelry to check my stash. That's a good indication!

10. Yarn/fiber you hate? - I generally don't like novelty yarns, though I've used them on occasion. I also tend to stay away from 100% acrylic, though some man-made is ok. Majority of the fiber needs to be animal/vegetable.

11. What's on your needles? - pair of socks, afghan, two sweaters. I'm now three weeks behind on the latest mystery shawl, but that's because I'm moving house! Actually, just check the queue to your right ... that'll tell you everything!

12. Favorite colors? - greens, browns, reds, deep blues. Yep, I'm an "autumn" girl

13. Allergies? - not that matter here - unless you're sending a bottle of Sulfa!

14. Anything you really love, really don't like, or just need to get off your chest? - I'm just happy to be a part of this. Knitting is a huge stress reliever for me and it also lets me do things for people I love. Coffee gets me started in the morning and also keeps me warm on those ridiculously cold days. When I can combine the two - what could be better! I'm also looking forward to meeting another new virtual friend. My last partner was a real dear and I can't wait to get started!

So there it is. Answers abound. Back to moving!

Woo hoo!!!!!

2007-10-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of happiness. Two big stresses have become much smaller - not totally gone, but definitely smaller.

1. Removal of contingencies on our new house. Yup, this is as close as we get to actually *buying* the property. Folks, it's all over but the crying. And the signing. And the paying. Granted, I still have to organize utilities, garbage, pack, move, etc., but the house is just a sneeze away from being ours. Ain't it a beauty?

2. The address is correct on my Wollmeise package! I have finally managed to order some lovely wool from Germany and my heart skipped a beat because I'd forgotten to include the full address for my office. With the move and everything, I didn't want it to end up on an unoccupied doorstep, but I also never include the company name when I put on a work address. Over the weekend, however, I got an email from Claudia and she's assured me that she wrote the correct address on the box - that means I should actually get it! Maybe this week!!! OMG!

So - this week, it's more packing and boxing and stuff - and I'm also going to get a pair of halloweenie socks going for a party at the end of the month.

Hoo ha and hoooray!!!!

(oh, and did I mention - I'm back in the coffee swap! It just doesn't get any better than this!)

The only thing constant, is change.

2007-10-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I always had an idea of where I expected to be. It revolved around the place where I grew up, maybe on the lakeshore rather than inland, and it involved quiet. There would be snow in winter, there would be fish fry and beer and German Fest in July. Beer festivals in late summer, trips "up north" to see relatives - even the occasional road trip to Chicago and diving in the Caribbean. Yep, I was a MidWesterner - to the hilt.

Ten years ago, my life got turned upside-down. My (now) husband and I picked up and moved to the Bay Area based on him getting a job and me expecting to do the same. We sold our house, said "farewell" to friends and family and made a new life here on the left coast. We came out just as the housing market was going crazy and we barely managed to squeeze in to a tiny 2/1 house that was just under 1200 square feet. A huge change from our 2-story farmhouse on an acre of land! The market continued to skyrocket and we settled in for the long-haul .. because *surely* we'd never leave. Ok, so let's get started on that remodel/addition because we *DEFINITELY* can't afford to buy anything else!

Yeah, right.

Ok sports fans, toss all that stuff out the window. Cancel the permit (crap, add that to the list), call the inspectors, buy some boxes (due next week) and get ready to write that honking big check 'cause we're moving to the mountains. King's Mountain, to be specific. Though a combination of dumb luck and some fast decision-making, we've bought a new place about 6 miles west, as the crow flies. We're up in the redwoods with a peek-a-boo view of the Pacific. How much did it cost? About half the price of the remodel. Taxes will work out to be only slightly more, but overall, we're happy.

Moving day is 25 days away - and hopefully the old house will sell shortly thereafter. It goes on the market on/about November 5th.

I still can't believe it. But, honestly ... it's wonderful.

Has it been a week already?

2007-09-21T10:46:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been a week since I've last posted. However, looking back at the last few posts, I sure feel like I've accomplished something. A while ago, I promised that I would take care of some things before I moved on to other stuff. Let's take a moment to check in on progress.

1. BSJ - crochet hooks found and it's been assembled and all ends woven in. Two of five buttons sewn on (they look cute!) so I'll call this 99.9% there. Finish tonight.

2. Mystery Stole - knitting done and it's ready for blocking. My blocking board isn't large enough to hold the FO, so I'll need to use the bed this weekend. On the "to do" list for Sunday.

3. Bella Blouse - no progress. I really need to decide if I'm going to finish this thing or set it aside for the next long holiday. It may really be Thanksgiving before this gets done because I need a solid block of time.

4. The Bag - some progress here in that I've sourced the lining material and I think I have a plan for how to do this. Again, it might be Thanksgiving for this one because of the time pressure, but who knows. Weekends are just a nightmare with soccer in full swing and me trying to finish my upgrades. If only I didn't have to work so much ... (ok, make that "at all" and it's more accurate)

Separately, I'm almost done with 1/2 of a Christmas present (short row ribbed scarf) - I just need more of the SWTC Karaoke for the matching mittens.

Back to the salt mines ...

Tell me again why I do this?

2007-09-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

I like to spend time before a solid weekend of refereeing to read up on soccer news, referee chatter and generally turn off the "tech" side of my brain and turn on the "referee" side. Ok, so the sides part is in no way meant to mean the Left Brain and Right Brain; rather, it's meant to say that I have to put a different set of rules and guidelines into active circulation. I change the pace of my decision making, I turn in to much more of a manager/politician and I also get up to a more heightened state of consciousness.

During my sifting and sorting on the web, I stumbled on to this post. It basically is a laundry list of outrageous assaults on referees all over the world - from Africa to Canada - and all age groups (including a 13-year-old girl!). It's just downright depressing. A good chuck of my refereeing C.V. is made up of games where I volunteered. That's right, I gave freely of my time to help kids play soccer and for me to learn. I think it was a fair deal, but the level of abuse that came with it was legendary. Ask me some time why we don't keep standings at the U10 level for my local rec-league.

Over the years, as I've moved up to higher level games, the conduct of coaches and players and fans has also changed. The polarity is greater. Rather than a constant level of griping/nice folks there's a HUGE swing. From threats of bodily harm to very nice kids that wished me "happy mother's day". (I'm not even a mom.)

Anyway, tonight I will do a match at almost the highest level I can hope to reach. I'll be running the line on a NCAA Division 1 match with a Number 1-ranked team. It don't get much better than that. I've been obsessing all week - reviewing Laws, keeping fit, (mostly) eating right and now it's time to go get suited up. Standing under those lights and being a part of that game will remind me why I do this - it's fun and I get one of the best seats in the house. I will be challenged both mentally and physically and I will strive to do my very best. I will not be perfect, but I will give it everything. There are few things left in this world that coax this level of dedication and performance out of me - and tonight I get to do it again.

We're people, folks. We will make mistakes. But you know, it's only a game. No one's going to get killed if something goes wrong. Or maybe not. Peace. And good soccer.

My heart skipped a beat ...

2007-09-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

because I clearly have a new "impulse buy" threshold - at least for knitting. I knew it was getting higher but I'm clearly over the top. Clearly.

Take a look at the new button at the top of my Knitting Links section. See that? The Year of Lace. Now wait. Now think. Now IMAGINE what that's going to be like. Want the details? Follow the button. I'm in. I'm SO in. Then again, I think I'm already a year behind.

Cleaning my plate

2007-09-10T10:38:00.001-07:00

When I was little, my parents (good German WWII survivors) made a big deal about always finishing what I had begun before starting something new. Maybe that's why I've got a permanent case of "startitis" and like to have lots of projects lying around. However, given that I've got either an impending remodel OR an impending move coming up, I really, Really, REALLY need to get my collective sh*t together and kill off some of these knitting projects.

The siren song of a new shawl, a new sweater, a new pair of socks continues to sing in my ears, but I have got to do something! And soon! So, to that end, I declare a moratorium on all new projects until I get the old ones either ripped back or finished.

In order of importance:

1. BSJ. All it needs is finishing but I can't seem to find my crochet hooks. They've been AWOL for a little while and that's just fishy. I can sew it up and wait for the hooks to do the trim around the neck.

2. Mystery Stole. I started on Clue 6 last night and got quite a bit done. Now that it's down to the feathers it goes fast - FAST! The pattern repeat is easy to remember and there are not a lot of beads. Should be able to finish this week or next.

3. Bella Blouse. The cold weather is coming (so sayeth the Weather Man) so I need to kill this one before the season is totally gone! It'd be a shame to be this close and then never wear it. A little ripping and then it can be finished lickety-split.

4. The Bag. At least washed and ready for lining. It's completely done being knit, I just need to put it in the darned washing machine and let it do it's things. Darks are on the laundry menu for this week, so in it goes.

Whew. That's about all I can stand for now. If I manage that, I'm doing well.

Oh, and don't tell my Better Half that I'm off to the Mendocino Wool Festival on Saturday. While he's busy drinking with car guys in Sacramento, I'll be fondling fiber. Dude - I'm so going. And I'm bringing my credit card.

Granola Recipe

2007-09-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

Found today on one of my favorite food blogs, Slashfood:

2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup peanuts or toasted almonds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup coconut (I always use unsweetened, but you can go for the sweetened kind if you'd like)
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ (I often omit this ingredient, as I tend to forget to buy it)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried fruit (dried apricots, craisins and dried apple are all delicious choices)
scant 1/4 cup cooking oil (not olive)
1/2 cup honey

Mix the oat, nuts and grains in a large bowl. Measure oil into the measuring cup and swirl it around before pouring into bowl. Then measure out the honey in the same, unwashed cup. The oil will help the honey exit the cup. Toss everything together until evenly coated and then pour out into a baking pan. I use a large roasting pan, as it keeps everything contained. A cookie sheet with a lip also works, but you have to stir it slightly more carefully if you use that. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, turning it with a spatula every ten minutes or so. You want everything to be an even golden brown. When it is finished cooking, returned the baked granola to the mixing bowl, add the raisins and fruit and stir to combine. Stir gently several times as it cooks, so that it doesn't clump together too much. Enjoy!

Looks like a real keeper - something to try out over the weekend, perhaps!

Skirting around my Engineering Degree

2007-08-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the pattern for the Indigo Ripple Skirt, I wasn't too impressed. Sure, it was an interesting idea, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do anything with it. California gets awfully hot in the summertime and a knitted skirt seemed incongruous, to say the least.

Enter Eunny and her variations. First of all, Rowan Denim. Wow. This is rapidly becoming a favorite yarn. While a bit splitty (solvable by using blunter needles!), it's downright *creamy* to knit. Second, the idea of a knitted skirt that goes in the washer and pops right out - better still. Finally, I know that even a medium-weight cotton is survivable out here and a cotton "flippy skirt" is missing from my wardrobe.

Ok, I'm in.

I'm also getting braver when it comes to my kitting. No more blind pattern following - it's time to really understand what's going on and why so that the finished object is what *I* wanted; but, not necessarily what the designer intended. Elizabeth, you're my hero!

Modification 1: Stitch Density

I mentioned earlier that the Rowan yarn knits up beautifully and I really wanted to find a way to get some stretch in an otherwise non-stretchy (cotton) yarn. Simple solution is a tighter gauge. Rather that the specified US6 needle, I swatched on US5s. I got an extra 1/4 stitch per inch (5.5 vs. 5.25) and 1/4 of an extra row (6.75 vs. 7). Changing needle sizes is pretty simple math, as long as I know the gauge. Trusty Clover bamboos at the ready.

Modification 2: Fit

Because I'm "getting along in life", I don't like clothing that accentuates my belly. While not necessarily flabby, it certainly exists and therefore a skirt that fits at my true waist and tapers accordingly will simply show off a less flattering part of my anatomy. Generally, I like skirts and pants that ride between the waist and the hip so I needed to increase the size of the waistband. Second, I still needed to get the taper to finish at the right place so that made the calculation a bit more complicated. New number of increase stitches over a new vertical dimension - that required paper and pencil. Regardless, I have numbers I'm happy with and I'll give it a shot. Most importantly, the pattern is very simple. So simple that if it's not going where I want it to go, I won't be too heartbroken to frog and restart.

I cast on today over lunch. Maybe this is my new "in office" project. :-)

Gloves and Bags

2007-08-27T11:28:00.001-07:00

About two weeks ago, I started knitting on The Bag by Wendy Wonnacott. I'm using the recommended yarn, AllHemp6 from Hemp for Knitting, but with a blue/black combination rather than the two oranges shown. It's been interesting, to say the least.

I've made good progress so far - actually I'm more than half way done. Three repeats remain on the lower section, with the last repeat being the bottom of the bag. The pattern is not subtle! Also, it's just about "readable", though I find myself going back to make sure I'm doing the right filler pattern for the sides. This picture is more "true" when it comes to the overall color of the yarns and also shows where the repeats change direction at the equator of the bag. Again, this really doesn't show when looking at the picture in the book but is immediately apparent (ok, so immediately means one repeat of the pattern).

Yes, mistakes abound, but I'll live with 'em. The colors pop nicely and it's cool to look at. Hemp yarn is VERY stiff and that's resulted in a looser gauge than intended, but I do think I'll have enough to finish. It may be close with the blue, but I can certainly frog back some of what's supposed to be the lining at the top to salvage enough to finish the bottom. Not ideal, but so be it.

Exactly how I'm going to finish this also remains a mystery. I'd like to give it more structure than the original as it's big enough to be a work bag so I think a more substantial lining and handles are in order.

Separately, I'm working the Gansey Gloves from Yarndemon. A word of warning - there is no sizing information so I was going in to this a little blind. It recommended a worsted weight yarn with size 2 needles. I'm using Cascade 220 on Addi #2 and they're a little large. Here's a picture of the glove progress to date:

Peace-out, hey? It's definitely way too big for me so Chris will be the recipient of these. The pattern makes for a great learning experience - I understand how to manage a thumb gusset, add fingers, etc. From here, making my own pattern to fit my own hands seems almost trivial. It was a fun knit this weekend - a welcome change from the (not quite) mindlessness of The Bag.

August UnderCover Squares

2007-08-23T10:45:00.001-07:00

Two squares again this month. No, I don't have the names handy here at work but I'll see about updating with the names when I get a chance. Overall matched with a closeup.

The lighting doesn't really show off the color too well - it's really a very nice green with just a hit of yellow. The colorway is called "Willow" - so imagine the silvery-yellow-green that is a willow leaf. Heck, I really like it. I'd even make a sweater (or something) out of it! Very easy to knit this time around; I finished both of them in an afternoon.

Decongestants help, I think. ;-)

How'm I gonna explain this?

2007-08-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the "perq" that came with this last-minute trip to China was that I got to spend the weekend in Hong Kong. Given that I used to come here when I worked for HP, I knew that the Sheraton Towers hotel is rather nice. Called up corporate travel and bingo - room's booked.

My trip has been cut short (good and bad - but I can't talk about that) so rather than three nights here, I'm only spending one. Called corporate travel and amended the reservation.

Took the car down from Shenzhen, worried the whole time about whether or not I'd be tagged for having a fever (wasn't) and arrived in fine time for dinner somewhere close by. There was a bit of a queue at the desk, but eventually I stepped forward and, upon seeing my name, the woman immediately directed me to the "Towers Concierge on the 16th floor. This way please."

Uh oh.

Ok, I'll bite. Let's see what's about to happen. I ride the elevator and step in to what looks like Hugh Hefner's living room. Upholstered walls, nice carpeting, the works. Hrm. "Welcome Ms. Palme. You booked a deluxe room but we have a rather tight situation so we have upgraded you to a suite. You are in room 1601. Please go through."

I walk down the hall ... and walk ... and walk ... lots of other rooms ... and I get to a dead end. 1601. Corner room. Bracing myself, I walk in to find this:

Um, where's the bed? Oh yeah ... that's next door:

And what's that little doorway off to the right? Why, that's the dressing room:

and AROUND THE CORNER from that is the bathroom!

Oh, and did I mention there's ANOTHER WHOLE BATHROOM right by the DOOR!??!?!

Geebus.

There's no way this is getting past the corporate expense guys. Thank goodness breakfast is already included. I think I'm buying my own dinner tonight.

Defeated ...

2007-08-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

by the treadmill.

I was feeling poorly yesterday (sore throat, stuffed nose) and that makes me a bit paranoid when over here. As you likely know, SARS was rampant over here about 4 years ago and ever since, people are checked for fever when crossing the border. They shine a laser at your forehead and measure your temperature. As long as you're below 38C, they let you through. If above, then it's time for "evaluation". I have to cross the border today, and again tomorrow, and I didn't want to take any chances so I skipped yesterday's run.

I'm not running today, either.

Yes, that means I'm not as morally "strong" as I'd like to be, but I also don't want to get dumped in to a Chinese hospital for monitoring. I suspect that the run on Wednesday, coupled with lack of sleep was enough to make my body rebel - and the mild cold symptoms were the result.

The up side is that I'm going home tomorrow (Saturday). As often happens, there was a "development" and I don't need to be over here next week. I get to go home, go to a pool party and enjoy the mountains for my run on Sunday.

Lantau and the Tian Tan Buddha will be here for me next time. Honestly, it'll be nice to head home.

And no, I won't dignify the treadmill by taking it's picture. Beast.

A quick trip report

2007-08-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, here I am in China again. This time, since I'm here for quite some time, I thought it would be a good idea to try and post a few updates from here. Generally, being in China means being indoors. I go from the hotel, to the factory, to the hotel. There's little opportunity to explore since I'm generally working all day and it's really not safe for a woman to wander around at night. That being said, here's my office:

Note there are a lot of things to drink on the table. See the green cans? It's beer. First of all, why they'd think that I want to drink all day beats the heck out of me. Second - it's been sitting in a warm room all day! Even less incentive.

If you were to stop by, you'd see this:

yep, that's me - typing away crazily while fighting off jet lag. There are those darned warm beers again. What's that? You're wondering what's outside the window? Ah, let me oblidge you:

Factories. Lots of factories. Probably filled with people that look a lot like me, typing away at emails, and fighting off jet lag. Sound familiar? This particular part of China is actually quite modern - and quite clean. There are "shanty towns" that I drive past on the way in every day, but they're mostly hidden behind the riot of foliage that just loves this hot, humid, wet climate. The jungle would dearly love to have this area back ...

I've also said that there is an upside to being over here - quality knitting time. Here's what happened on the flight over:

This is a Tuscany shawl from Amy Singers "No Sheep For You" book. I've almost finished 13 repeats of the pattern and I've still got a TON of yarn left over. This is being knit in Hand Maiden Sea Silk - one of the 150g skeins, of course. This is what I'm talking about:

Dude - there's acres of shawl still in that ball! I'm betting that I'll get 17 repeats out of this baby (Grumperina would have done the math, but alas, no scale) before the ball gives out. It'll be rather huge, me thinks. Should be done this weekend - or sooner if I get really sick of it. I do still have socks to knit.

It's the treadmill for me tonight - and 8 grueling miles. I hate the treadmill so much that I refuse to take a picture. Then again, maybe I'll take one next week - just to show you all what a torture device really looks like.

Bizz Johnson Week 11

2007-08-10T14:41:00.001-07:00

Ok, this week will be a challenge. Next one, too. I'm overseas and it's me and the treadmill until further notice. Gods.

Monday - Cross Training actual: 0

Flight to Hong Kong. 12h of knitting on the Tuscany shawl. I'm finished with it per the pattern, but will likely keep knitting until I get to at least 15 repeats. Dude - that's a lot of stitches!

Tuesday - Run 5 miles actual: 5

Back to the treadmill. It's still hot and HUMID over here - pouring down rain. Gotta get over my vanity and realize that the jog bra is the thing. I'm running at night tomorrow for sure.

Wednesday - Run 8 miles actual: 8

! Wow. That was probably the worst 8 miles I've run in a long time. There's a "helpful" feature on the treadmill that prevents you from running longer than 60 minutes. Because of that, I decided to split my run and hopefully motivate myself in the process. I did 5 miles (8km) and then another 3 miles (5k) with a short walk/water break in between. More on this in today's post - but suffice to say, I did it.

Thursday - Run 5 miles actual:

Friday - Rest actual:

Saturday - Run 8 miles actual:

Sunday - Run 18 miles actual:

Total Scheduled Mileage: 44
Actual Mileage:

Here we go again ...

2007-08-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Remember my post from a few weeks ago that talked about China? Well, it's time for a "take two". I'm getting on a plane again on Sunday - this time for nearly 2 weeks. Yes, I'll have to stay over a weekend, but I've been "authorized" to head back to Hong Kong so that I can at least do something interesting (read: get OUT of the hotel!).

Now my dilemma is what knitting to bring. I nearly finished a pair of socks while flying over last time - this time I may take one of the skeins of sea silk I recently purchased and work on turning it in to a scarf of some kind. Also, The Bag would come in handy, but the night markets in Hong Kong are likely cheaper (and more fun).

I plan to try and drop in on a few yarn stores while I'm there - it's an excuse to get out and explore and see what's what. Oh, the joy of currency exchange.

Anyway, I'll have the camera and the connector cable along for the ride. Here's hoping that I manage to post in the interim!

Bizz Johnson Week 10

2007-08-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

Time to get back in the swing of things. Holy mackerel, this'll be a big week! I also think I missed a week somewhere (was my last post really week 8?) but we're definitely on week 10. Dude.

Monday - Cross Training actual: 0

Cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket today ... in Patons Grace Cotton. We'll see how it goes. Oh, and I found my otherwise missing skein of Nature's Palette Ice Blue. Now I can finish those Embossed Leaves socks!

Tuesday - Run 4 miles actual: 4.5

My favorite loop through San Carlos - and boy, it's good to be back running again. Just need to remember to PICK UP MY FEET, DAMMIT! ... I do get lazy sometimes ...

Wednesday - Run 8 miles actual: 7.5

Windy Hill. One of the most APTLY named parks in the greater Bay Area. This particular loop involves quite a bit of elevation gain given that it starts at the base of the Santa Cruz mountains and runs to the ridge line. It's probably in the neighborhood of 1000' of climing over the course of 2-2.5 miles. Thank goodness for switchbacks! Anyway, it was sunny and nice at the bottom but the fog was streaming over the ridgeline by the time I reached the top. Ankle is still sore (it might be doctor time ... it's been almost 2 months) and I was *whooped* when it was done. Payback for a summer of avoiding hill climbing. Regardless, I'm SPOT ON for this week and intend to keep it that way.

Thursday - Run 4 miles actual: 4

Friday - Rest actual:

Saturday - Run 8 miles actual: 8

Refereed 3 games which netted out to a good 4+ hours of activity. I put in at least 8 miles since the standard game nets out to about 6 when in the middle and 1-2 when running lines. Fun, tho!

Sunday - Run 17 miles actual:

Ran squat. Got up early and packed to head to the airport. :-(
Total Scheduled Mileage: 41
Actual Mileage: 24 ugh.

A quick trip report

2007-07-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'd mentioned a few times that I was off to China for a few days on business. The good news is that my time was in no way "wasted". Before I get to that, here's some photos. First of all, the pool.

Note the bank of windows to the left - that's the gym. I spent some quality time there every morning. Heck, I was up at 3:30a anyway. You'd be surprised how popular the treadmills are at 6a. I didn't bother with the pool. First off, no swimsuit. Second, it was so darned humid that I doubt I would have known if I was in the pool or just standing on the deck.

Now there's the view from the window:

That's the train station all the way to the right, just above that line of manicured trees. Interestingly enough, that train station was the best thing I'd ever seen the first time I was in China. (but that's another story)

And in the other direction:

Shenzhen is growing so quickly! Much of this stuff wasn't around 10 years ago. Heck, they're *renovating* stuff now.

Ok, the obligatory "harlot shot". How I wish I could have spent more quality time here:

I guess the sock likes the view:

And here's the upside of it all. They're finished. 1.5 of these socks were done on the plane ride out. Yes, the ride out. 13 hours goes a long way toward a pair of socks (ok, 3/4 of the way, to be exact.)

I love these socks. The yarn is great (STR Firebird, a RSC exclusive) - a lightweight 100% superwash. Shows off the pattern beautifully and these are my best fitting pair *EVER*. Anyway, that's that.

Oh, and one more thing. This guy cracked me up all week.

He and I go quite a ways back and I'm so happy to be working with him again. Doesn't he look just like Tin Tin?

Bizz Johnson Week 8

2007-07-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the previous post, we're hiking in Yosemite for most of this week. I'll be logging between 10 and 15 miles of walking (some w/pack and some without) rather than running through Thursday, but then it'll be time to do some make-up. I should be able to squeeze a few miles out of Thursday - Saturday, but to try and get the full 31 will be a challenge. The only bit of good news is that this is meant to be a "rest" week and the walking should give my ankle more time to heal-up.

(yes, it's still giving me trouble ...)

Monday - Cross Training actual: 8.6

Hiked 8.6 miles today, from 10,000' down to 7200'. The last three miles were hiking on the equivalent of cobblestones! We were WIPED. Absolutely wiped.

Tuesday - Run 4 miles actual: 0

Nothing today except lounging by the stream, a brief walk to the end of the lake and a nice, long nap. Merced Lake is a beautiful place.

Wednesday - Run 5 miles actual: 7.6

Hiked back up to Vogelsang via the Fletcher Creek trail today. It wasn't nearly as difficult as either of us expected and the views were incredible.

Thursday - Run 4 miles actual: 7

Back to Tuolomne Meadows via Rafferty Creek (same as the way in). Back down from 10,000' to 8,000'. Definitely warm (on, hot!) but it's always easier to walk down the hill than up it. :-)

Friday - Rest actual: 0

Oh, sweet lounging. Lazy, lazy, lounging. And the first good night's sleep since we left for High Camp!

Saturday - Run 7 miles actual: 0

Drove home. Knit. Ate a really good dinner. This is what vacations are all about.

Sunday - Run 11 miles actual: 0

More knitting and more sleeping. Wierd weather made it very difficult to leave the house. Make-up tomorrow ..

Total Scheduled Mileage: 31
Actual Mileage: 23.2 miles of hiking

Catching up a bit ...

2007-07-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've been remiss. I'd been doing such a good job of keeping my running log up to date, posting about knitting projects and even thinking about other stuff. Then, along came China.

Wierd things started to occur when I was logging in from Shenzhen - characters turned from English to Chinese (now *that* was wierd) and in some cases I couldn't even connect. Was this a symptom of the benevolent local authority "helping" me out? Was I really THAT jetlagged? Regardless, it kinda threw me off the bandwagon there for a while. I also impacted my running a bit, but things seem to be getting straightened out.

And now comes vacation! We're off to go hiking in Yosemite next week and that means no internet access (ergo, no blogging). I plan to bring along some knitting, but we'll see how that goes. No, the Mystery Stole is *not* the thing, but a pair of socks *is* the thing.

Before I go, here's some insight as to where everything is.

1) Mystery Stole - parked at the end of Clue 3. Haven't even started Clue 4, mainly due to Harry Potter and getting ready for this trip. Hope to pick it up again Thursday or Friday of next week.

2) Fawkes socks - done. Completed 1.5 socks on the plane TO Hong Kong, got a little more done on the way back, finished this past Monday. Pix in the camera, download pending.

3. The Bag - materials acquired, knitted up to the join of the CC, I'm unhappy. I think this puppy will get frogged back and restarted; there's a mistake in the CC row (missed a stitch somewhere) so it needs to be "addressed" anyway.

4. Meida's Socks - started and through 1st pattern repeat. This is what's going along on the hike. Totally portable and very simple.

That's it. Updated run info in a separate post and then I'm on hiatus until next Saturday, at the earliest.

Man ... I really need to get started on the Kauni ...

Bizz Johnston Week 7

2007-07-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

Monday - Cross Training actual: flying

13 hours in coach to Hong Kong. The good news is that I finished 1.5 socks!

Tuesday - Run 4 miles actual: 0

Now is this US time or HK time? If US, then I ran. If HK, then no. We'll leave it as "no".

Wednesday - Run 7 miles actual: 7

Treadmill! Oh, the humidity (or is that humanity?). Jet lag got me up at 3a to watch the World Series of Carrom and that meant running at 6a. Lovely view of the pool, though ...

Thursday - Run 4 miles actual: 4

Managed to sleep until 4:30a today! Definitely a step forward ...

Friday - Rest actual: Rest.

Saturday - Run 7 pace miles actual: 6

and boy was that difficult!

Sunday - Run 14 miles actual: 0

Zzzzzzz ... and Harry Potter ...

Total Scheduled Mileage: 36
Actual Mileage: 17 (boy, that's not good ...)

25 years and still going strong ...

2007-07-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what 25 years of marriage looks like? Well, here it is:

These are two of my most favorite people in the world - and last Wednesday we were lucky enough to be invited to the party. Ralph and Carol treated us (and 12 other close friends and relatives) to a cruise on the San Francisco Bay - just like their wedding! The Blue and Gold fleet hosted the ceremony while Hornblower hosted the party. Food, drinks and fireworks were on the menu for the evening and the weather cooperated by keeping the fog at bay until after the pyrotechnics were done. By the way - that white number she's wearing - that was her "going away dress" from 1982. It still fits!

Ralph was also the officiant at our wedding - and he did a darn good job. Only one problem .. he neglected to tell us that he cries a weddings. Who knew?

Oh, and here's my other favorite couple:

These two just make me want to smile. Generally, if Chris and I are doing as well as these four when we hit our dotage (which is a hell of a lot closer than I like to think), I'll be pretty darned satisfied. What a wonderful way to celebrate the 4th of July. (and did I mention, that was our 18th anniversary?)

Independence day - feh. Here's to a little de-pendence. :-)

Catching Up on the Pix

2007-07-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah. I've been meaning to do this for a while, so here are some pix (with more to come).

First FO is the Squatty Sidekick from the Knitting Daily website. I did this with KnitPicks Alpaca worsted weight. It knitted up SO fast and then I waited another week before I got around to felting it. The lucky recipient was gifted this past Friday while we all enjoyed Belgian beers at the Toronado. Little did I know that this purse also works as a hat! Harlot style, here's the bag in the front hedge:

Also, here's a set of pix of my progress with the Mystery Stole 3. The pattern called for either white or black/dark colors and I had this in stash:
This is my first time using the yarn from this supplier and let me tell you - it was a NIGHTMARE to wind the yarn. It had felted slightly as part of the dying process (I assume) which meant that the threads were stuck together and did NOT want to come apart from the rest of the skein. What should have taken about 20 minutes took more than an hour - and required the patience of my husband who did a FABULOUS job turning the winder slooooooowly while keeping tension on the yarn. I've got one more skein in a different colorway, but I'm not entirely sure I'll have the patience to use it soon! Regardless, doesn't it look scrummy? The colors are pretty remarkable and so far are knitting up nicely with the pattern.

Next pic is the stole after finishing the first half of "Clue 1". We're getting a clue every week (except week of 7/23 as Harry Potter is coming out) and the first clue was broken up in to two charts. The pic gives you an idea of the general pattern around the edge and also shows the level of stitch definition. Believe it or not, there are beads in there. I went with 8/0's and I think they're just too small for this stole. If (when) I knit another one, I'll definitely go up in size to 6/0's. So here it is after about 1d of knitting:

And here's what it looks like 4 days later, after finishing Clue 2. We're at 99 stitches wide (finished width) and have worked through 150 rows. I've no idea what the final pattern is supposed to be. Any guesses?

Next clue comes out on Friday but I'm off to Asia for a business trip and this is NOT NOT NOT airplane knitting. What with turbulence spilling the beads all over the place and losing stitches because I'm half asleep - I don't see forward progress being made. I'll just see what (if anything) I manage to get done over the weekend and then pick up again after I get back. Remember, it's not a race.

Stay tuned for the Breeze socks (need a wash already!) and the Wick socks that should be done tonight. Kauni remains properly locked up in it's bag. I just can't bring myself to open it yet ....

The Call of the Kauni

2007-07-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

Since I saw the Harlot knitting it up back in June, I knew I needed to try this sucker. It's a really wonderful cardigan (what?!?! a cardigan!?!?) that uses a Danish yarn with looooooooooooooong color repeats to make the stranded knitting go much easier. Honestly, there are only eight rows of stranding for every twenty rows of pattern. Should be a hoot, right?

There's an excellent work in progress blog here that shows all kinds of wonderful things - like the color repeat possibilities, the way to deal with the steeks and associated openings, picking up stitches for the button band, the whole she-bang. We've also got a KAL going (see the sidebar for the button) and a source for all the different colorways up in Canada. I think all the versions are represented - but the rainbow is by far the most popular. Maybe the green would have been better ...

The yarn finally showed up yesterday - and I even managed to resist (RESIST!) opening the package mainly because I have no idea how I'm going to explain this to my husband. "What's that?" Oh, some more cool yarn. "What's it for? I mean, did you have a plan or are you still 'just buying' yarn?" A cardigan. "Cardigan!?!? What about my sweater that's been totally knit and has been sitting in a bag since Christmas and we're about to go on a long camping trip where it'll be cold and I might want it? What about that, huh?!?!"

No, I didn't open the bag.

Trying to figure out where to start the colors is what's really getting me. There are essentially three possibilities and I think that they're going to result in varying degrees of contrast. Less is likely to be more for me when it comes to this cardigan, but I'm not really sure. Maybe a look at a color wheel will help.

Any suggestions?

What a weekend ...

2007-07-09T10:17:00.000-07:00

I think it's time to go see my optometrist. I spent a good chunk of the weekend working on my Mystery Shawl 3 and I think that's knocked off a good 10 years from my "eyeball life". Whew! I love the colors of the laceweight that I'm knitting with but I'd forgotten how hard it is to deal with dark colors. Shoulda remembered from my cross stitch days.

I also frogged back the Clapotis and I'm debating what I should do with the Sea Silk. I think I may do a Tuscany shawl (from the No Sheep For You book - Amy seems to like this yarn for that pattern), but I'm not sure. For now, it's sitting with my STR cotton/rayon blend.

The new Clapotis incarnation will be with KnitPicks Gossamer in the Caribbean colorway. Yes, it's a laceweight rather than a worsted weight, but I'm really falling in love with these tiny yarns. I also think that the scarf will be lighter and more wearable. Knitting on Addi #3's ... we'll see how that goes.

Also gave away the Squatty Sidekick to my knitting victim. Turns out she's going on a cruise with her boyfriend and his mom - and she wants to teach her how to knit! I'm hoping that a week of uninterrupted knitting goodness from a patient "old hand" will get Bethany started. If so, then I'll pounce. Oh, and continuing to wear my hand-knitted socks, of course.

Yes, I need to post pix. I have lots. There's just so much going on. And I have yet to get my collective sh*t together for me to get on a plane next week! Man, what knitting will I bring? I think socks ...

BIzz Johnston Week 6

2007-07-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

Monday - Cross Training actual: knitting

yup - still on track with this stuff. Finished Clue 2 of the Mystery Shawl and then got to the heel of the Wick sock.

Tuesday - Run 3 miles actual: 4

Hash night - I'll chalk this up to about 4 miles. Lots of hills!

Wednesday - Run 5 miles actual: 6

6 miles on the good ol' Sawyer Camp Trail. Nice day for it, albeit a bit windy. Regardless, I'm doing well this week! Fitness test on Saturday morning ... blech.

Thursday - Run 3 miles actual: rest

nice afternoon off before the fitness exam ...

Friday - Rest actual: 4

Chris and I took a spin at Pulgas Ridge. A nice hilly loop on a GORGEOUS afternoon.

Saturday - Run 6 pace miles actual: 3

Fitness test. Actual mileage was about 3, but it felt like 7!

Sunday - Run 9 miles actual: 14

Getting ahead of the ballgame since I'm getting on a plane tomorrow. It was hot and difficult, but I git it done. Whew!

Total Scheduled Mileage: 26
Actual Mileage: 32

Lace kitting - away!

2007-07-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

I've jumped on another bandwagon this week - the Mystery Stole 3 KAL closes signups tomorrow afternoon (there are more than 4000 of us already!) and it looked too good to resist. Basically, we get a new section of the chart every Friday (except Harry Potter Friday) so that we'll have a stole knitted up by the end of the summer.

I'm using a skein of Zen Yarn Garden laceweight in the Captain's Choice colorway. It's a cool mixture of dark and light blues that I hope will do the pattern justice. I also managed to pick up a nice set of 8/0 seed beads at the local bead store today so I'm ready to start knitting.

Addi #4 Lace needles are on order from Colorsong Yarns (free shipping, don't ya know!) but I'll probably start on my #4 bamboos. I sure don't want to have to wait until the actual Addis show up! Horrors! I'll be WEEKS behind! :-)

One of the two Wick socks is done, both finished by the weekend. The Kauni wool is on the way and now it's just a matter of what goes in the project basket for the trip to China.

Did I mention I'm going to China? :-)

Isn't that cute?

2007-07-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

After many years of dealing with the insanity that is the Bay Area as well as it's progeny, the High Tech Industry, I've finally gotten content enough with my life to be able to NOT WORK through lunch every day. That doesn't mean I don't like to bring my lunch with me (see the post about the couscous salad and you'll know what my staple diet looks like) and enjoy a little bit of down-time between noon and 1p, but I also like to put that time to good use. Generally, that means I knit over lunch.

Small projects without intricate patterns are the best candidates for lunchtime knitting - socks, scarves (small ones, not the Clapotis! No, no ... NOT the Clapotis), simple bags - generally anything allowing between 5 and 20 rounds to be completed in a 45 minute period. The pattern should be easily "readable" and allow me to stop almost anywhere without causing a serious brain cramp when I return to it in the evening. I've not gone so far as to have a work-only knitting project, but that's coming. Sorry, I digress.

So there I was in my cube yesterday, knitting over lunch and feverishly trying to finish the clasp on the Squatty Sidekick before the start of a 1p meeting when one of my colleagues breezed past. He gave me the obligatory "hey there" nod and then kept going when his mental emergency brake got pulled. The reverse lights came on, he backed-up to my cube, and then said, "Oh wow. Knitting. No one does that anymore. How cute. Good for you!"

Sigh.

Why is it that knitting (and most other handicrafts, by the way) are no longer considered to be noteworthy? I find myself mentally unmaking sweaters, cables, mittens and other knitted items seen on the street to figure out how they were made and if it was human or mechanical hands that did the deed. However, for the unspun masses out there, it's a NiceGirl hobby that's outlived it's usefulness. It's cute. I think knitting gets brushed aside because the amount of skill and talent that goes in to the making of a Thing is not readily apparent to the uninitiated. Because it's an ancient and (relatively) simple craft, and the doing of it has been generally given over to metal contraptions that generate miles of fabric every day, the human version is perhaps seen as a "waste of time". Something we could ... well, outsource. What a shame.

What if we all pledged to teach one person to knit this year? I've got my mark already picked out (and she wants to learn), it's simply a matter of getting schedules to line up. What about everyone else? Are you with me?

If only knitters got the same respect that chefs do nowadays. You think Bourdain would be willing to learn to knit?

July SKL Sock ...

2007-07-02T14:15:00.001-07:00

Wow-ee! Take a look at this pattern:

It's absolutely stunning. No idea what colors I want to use yet - and I certainly need another excuse to buy sock wool (NOT!). Seriously, it's gorgeous.

It' goes firmly on the "to do" list ... we'll see about when. Maybe during the hiking trip at the end of the month!

Bizz Johnson Week 5

2007-07-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Monday - Cross Training actual: knitting

Ok, so I almost finished the Breeze socks today. I'll for sure finish tomorrow.

Tuesday - Run 3 miles actual: 3

Today will be some speed work/training for my WCISOA fitness exam next week. Given that I've really got only about 6 training days to sort all this, I need to get serious. I don't expect to make HUGE headway in my times, but certainly prevent myself from failing. Two rounds each of the short events plus the 12 minute run and I should easily get my 3 miles in. I'll do a mile of warmup on the track before actually taking on the speed work (laps - ICKY!) but that's what I need to do. Thursday will be the same. Run, agility, then run.

Wednesday - Run 6 miles actual: 6

Oh. My. Goodness! It was ridiculously hot today, but I ran anyway. Stupid. I'm taking tomorrow off.

Thursday - Run 3 miles actual: 0

Yup. Farmers' Market and rest. And lots of water.

Friday - Rest actual: 4

Making up for yesterday ...

Saturday - Run 6 miles actual: 4.5

Ran the hash today - what a disaster. I got some distance but also spent a goodly amount of time apologizing to everyone for a poorly-laid trail. Geez. I had a great time regardless. Nice to be out in the sunshine with good friends!

Sunday - Run 12 miles actual: 12

Gorgeous day by the reservoir. I used to really *hate* this run (paved, lots of people) but now that I'm training on my own, I'm liking it much more. There's water at the 3.5 mile and 6 mile marks (which means also at 8.5 on the way back) and it's shaded most of the way. It's also further north so generally cooler. Anyhow, this was the best 12 miles I've run in a long time. Maybe the training is starting to "take".

Total Scheduled Mileage: 30
Actual Mileage: 29.5

We are fortunate.

2007-06-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

I suspect that most folks watching the news in the US is aware of the big Angora Fire burning up in Lake Tahoe. It's been a nasty little bugger - jumping the occasional fire break and generally doing quite a bit of damage.

I heard today that good friends of ours have lost their cabin. It's gone. Burned.

Recognizing that most people are happy to have one home, and that the ability to have a "vacation home" up in a beautiful area is a luxury, it's still absolutely heart-wrenching to hear this news.

We (hubby and me) are also fortunate enough to have a place to get away to on the weekends and I often complain bitterly about having to "throw away" a weekend by spending it raking, hauling and otherwise disposing of deadfall and needles around the property. It's really quite a lot of work and I'm glad to see the back of it when we're done. Let's just say I'll likely complain a bit less when we do the deed next year.

This week has been a really pisser. The death of one of my husband's employees about 7000 miles from home, the death of a colleague's beloved puppy, the loss of dear friend's home - I'm sure hoping that the old saw, "everything comes in threes" is indeed true so that I can be DONE with this mess.

So, all things being equal, I realize that my life is pretty darned good. I'm quite fiercely in love with the man I married, my job is interesting and pays well, I have a group of friends that would give me the shirt off their backs if I needed it and I'm healthy enough to run a marathon. I've traveled, gone to University (twice) and live in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

I won't say that I'll no longer complain or feel "put upon" at times. I will, however, promise that I will step back and realize how lucky I am on a semi-regular basis. Right now, I'm gonna go buy some yarn for a pair of socks and give them to Shawna. I think she needs some cheering-up.

By the way .. I DID IT!

2007-06-27T14:50:00.001-07:00

I mentioned in my post last Friday (marking the onslaught of the weekend without knitting - which was true, by the way) that I was about to embark upon an amazing journey. Obviously, based on the title of this post, I was successful. However, I'll go one step farther and say that I learned a lot not only about how to be an Instructor, but also about myself - as a person.

The class was really exhausting, but way more so mentally than physically. We spend the weekend doing impromptu presentations (3 minutes Saturday morning, 6 minutes Saturday afternoon and then 25 minutes on Sunday morning) covering the Laws. I consider myself to be a pretty good speaker, and also an "ok" instructor, so I'm confident that bringing those skills to the class put me on a very firm footing. What I wasn't prepared for was realizing that I am *not* like everyone else.

(Treading carefully, here - they don't call it an ego trip for nothing)

Growing up, I was the smart kid. Yeah, I got 100% on all the tests, blew the curves for the rest of the class, and genuinely ENJOYED learning. School (the academic part, anyway) was really wonderful for me. This was true all the way through high school and even in to the first few years of college. I got a bit dose of reality when I took subjects I really had to study for (this was even more true when I went for my Master's Degree and realized I'd forgot Calculus) but I still knew that book-learnin' just isn't that hard for me.

I just never realized that the same is true for teaching. There were a few people in the class that just clearly didn't get it. Even worse, one of those people had a background that would lead you to believe he should have excelled at this stuff. But honestly, folks just weren't getting it. For me, however, I just was able to sit down and DO this stuff (or stand up, as the case may be). I was confident, smiling, and able to deliver just the message I wanted to deliver - and made people WANT to listen to me. I'd been told before that I'm good at this, I'd just never SEEN it before. Wow.

So, where does this leave me? I'll say that I now feel I have a duty to share this - and also to do more of this. When I was up in front of the class, I was JUICED. It took a lot out of me (amazingly, I'm actually a rather shy person) but it really was fun! Better still, the instructors (one was stellar, the other also needs work) were genuinely excited to get me up in front of students. And, the best part of all - I get to replace some folks that I just KNOW are not very good.

Finally, I'm going to have a real impact on this stuff. Refereeing is such a wonderful thing for me and has given me so much joy (as well as heartbreak, BTW); I'm just tickled to know that I'll have the opportunity to do for some other person what my instructors have done for me.

God - I hope I'm up to it. Actually, I am up to it. Go, me. GO!

O. My. God.

2007-06-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

I've been doing it wrong. Wrong! This explains everything. This makes frogging back the whole darned Bella Blouse and the Clapotis ok. I had a feeling that things weren't right, but I didn't understand.

This showed me what the problem was.

I'm a "continental" knitter and it took me a long time to figure out the right way to knit. Turns out that for a long time I was knitting into the back of the loop (ktbl) which made me very confused the first time I hit a "twisted rib". Huh? What do you mean, "back loop". Wierd.

I also did almost everything circularly and with yarn that didn't really let me see the fabric. On this blouse, and with the cotton yarn, it's OBVIOUS that one stitch was twisted. Then again, the same was true with the scarf, but I was in denial (did I mention I'm half way through?!). Then I stumbled on this wonderful blog with a PICTURE!

I'm crushed now that I know I'm wrong. Then again, maybe this is all for the best - but it's certain that I'll be ... slower. Geez. That's not really the kind of help I needed. :-)

I'm gonna rip out the Bella Blouse and the Clapotis. It's the right thing to do - and I'm also probably going to do something else with the Sea Silk anyway. Not everything is a disaster ... right?

Bless you Techknitter. Really.

Bizz Johnson Week 4

2007-06-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Last week was not a banner week. I've got some making up to do but I think that's doable. I'll run after work tonight and tomorrow is guaranteed (running club + shopping - what could be better?) I've also got a 1/2 marathon on the calendar for Saturday, so I should be in good shape overall. Stay tuned.

Monday - Cross Training actual: 7

Lordy, it's still hot out here. Then again, because I live on the Peninsula, I get to reap the benefits of "microclimates". The in-dash thermometer said 86 when I left Cupertino, was up to 91 by the time I hit Los Altos (and The Dish was on fire!!!) but was back down to a civilized 72 when I got to Crystal Springs Reservoir. Tonight's run was penance for yesterday. I even turned a respectable time.

Tuesday - Run 3 miles actual: 0

Hubby needed me more yesterday than Bizz. He's still mopping up the mess from the weekend and dealing with co-workers that are absolutely devastated. The company is doing some things right, but it's also doing a lot of things WRONG (IMO, of course). So, we went for a nice walk around the neighborhood and ended up at a local sushi place for dinner. Heck, I probably saved us in excess of $200 by not going to the run. ;-)

Wednesday - Run 6 miles actual: 6

If this dish is open, that's where I go. If not, then it's likely Rancho. Regardless, I'm running tonight. The dish was specifically *NOT* open, and it's "closed until further notice" per the Stanford web page. Bummer. My run today was around the neighborhood and on one of my favorite, mindless loops. Regardless, it got done.

Thursday - Run 3 miles actual: 0

Farmer's Market, good bread, 'nuff said.

Friday - Rest actual: 3.5

Quick jaunt around the work place before heading over to pick up Chris at work. It was somewhere between 3 and 4 miles, so I'll just mark it down as 3.5. Man - it's HUMID today!

Saturday - Pace Run 6 miles actual: 6.2

Did some exploring about the cabin today - found out that the GPS isn't as good as I'd like it to be in terms of keeping signal, but that there are BEAUTIFUL fire roads and stuff where I hadn't ventured before. We're rarely up long enough for me to really run around, but today was that day. Did what I needed to do to keep on the regimen, but I was a bit worried setting up for Sunday ...

Sunday - Run 11 miles actual: 13

Today was the annual Hernia Hill 1/2 Marathon in beautiful Murphys, CA. The run has one KILLER hill (hence the "hernia bit") and is also always quite hot. The temp was around 70 when we started and was definitely above 80 by the time we finished. Regardless, it was beautiful (as always) and hubby ran the 10K, so it was a true family event. Two beers and an age-group 3rd place finish later, I was passed out on the couch for a ~2h nap. That time of 1:56:andchange is a keeper. And I'm glad to have that one behind me for the year.

Total Scheduled Mileage: 29
Actual Mileage: 35.7

A weekend without knitting

2007-06-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Can it be true? Can it be done? Unfortunately, I have NO CHOICE.

This weekend is dedicated to my other (third?) all-consuming hobby - Soccer Referee. I've been addicted to this since the World Cup back in 2002. I enjoy telling the story of late nights (drifting off only to re-awaken, bleary-eyed, to the image of Bruce Arena in the press booth), early mornings (stop yelling or you'll wake the baby!) and the loss of one *very good* bottle of wine all combining to make me think, "Huh. Maybe this is the way I get in to a referee outfit." I sent an email to my local AYSO Region and the rest is history.

I've got a three goals this season - all of which, I think, are achievable. After 5 full seasons running around with teams from U-little all the way up to amateur men's, it's time for me to get serious and really test myself. While two of my three goals have to wait until the Fall season to get started (more on that in August, or so), my first one gets underway tonight.

I want to be a USSF Referee Instructor.

Yup, I want to make more of me. I want more WOMEN referees. After two Mechanical Engineering degrees and more than 15 years in the "real world", I can hold my own with pretty much any group of guys. However, the fact that I'm looking around the conference room table and I'm the only one in a skirt (Utilikilts are more prevalent at Apple than at my current place of employ) is a wee bit disheartening. I get that same "darn" feeling looking around the referee shack/tent/tree as well. There are not enough of us - and whether I want to be or not, I'm a role model for the youngers coming up. If they see me, maybe they'll be more confident. Also, with an Instructor Certificate, my opportunity to mentor and guide young women expands.

So - I'm heading off to a weekend of Laws, presentations, techniques and assessments that will (hopefully) turn me into an Associate Referee Instructor. And, given that classes run from 9a -6p every day, with a ~40 minute commute, and homework to prepare presentations and the like, I don't think I'll get to knit. Heck I'm hoping to have time to run!

Tonight is the State Referee Exam (this also helps meet goal #2) - and I need a score of 85% to pass. Wish me luck, everyone!

Restlessness ...

2007-06-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Apparently I'm not the only one that needs to have "something new" on a regular basis. One of my favorite knitbloggers, Grumperina, writes here that even though she's got a wealth of interesting things on the needles, she's searching for something more. As you can see from my sidebar, I've also got quite a few things on the needles (though I secretly started another thing yesterday!) and I do go back and forth on all of them.

There are two projects that I haven't looked at for MONTHS - specifically the two sweaters. I blame that on season (it's getting hotter, not cooler) and also shifting interests. Small, ~1w projects have become more interesting since I have a hard time finding large blocks of time to knit. That means I need to be able to see regular progress in order to stay interested - so smaller is better. The Under Cover Club blanket has been perfect for this since a square knits up in a few hours and then I'm done for the month. The sock KALs are also nice - like a salad bar. I can knit the pattern of the month or wait for the next one without feeling too guilty.

I'm going to be more mindful of why it is that I have the semi-regular need to cast on something new before finishing the old. I suspect the new project resulted from the bit of "tentativeness" I'm currently feeling about the Bella Blouse and whether I'll need to frog that baby back. I'm not sure I'm happy with the size, and I'm also not sure that knitting it in the round was the smartest idea. There's some wierd stuff going on with my purling that I can't figure out (am I purling WRONG!?!?) and the fear of the unknown is a bit ... well ... paralyzing. I suspect that's it. Discouragement due to a mistake.

Huh. Maybe this will get me to swatch.

Or maybe not. ;-)

Bella - or maybe, Bell-ish ...

2007-06-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Brief update on my work on the Bella Blouse from this month's Interweave Knits web-only pattern. I made good use of driving and lunch hours to finish all of non-body embellishments: specifically the bottom band, both sides of the v-neck and both sleeve caps. Overall, once I'd get started in the pattern, it was very simple to leave the chart behind and just knit away. That allowed me to finish this stuff in record time. Everything got blocked yesterday.

Some interesting things to note, however, that have made the pattern more challenging than I expected.

1. Very poor directions for blocking these pieces.

In almost all cases, I've had to infer the sizes of these pieces. Other than the sleeve caps, no dimensions are given to block these parts in to shape. By looking at the drawings and reading the pattern, I've decided that the bottom band should be 3" x 40" (relatively straightforward) but I've had to totally guess at the v-neck inserts. I settled on 4" x 12 3/4" - here's hoping that's ok.

2. The k3tog stitch is ridiculous.

Given this weight of yarn, and also the size of the needles, there's no way that this stitch would work. I happily settled on the s2k1psso alternative that gives me a centered decrease (thanks Jane Sowerby!) but to even imagine that this would work is amazing to me! I'd love to hear from the pattern editors how easy it was for them to complete this stitch - and what needles they were using.

3. There's no right and left sleeve cap.

The patters for the v-neck are different depending on which side you're knitting. Makes perfect sense. However, this reversal wasn't executed for the sleeve caps - and I wonder why. Is it because they're deemed less visible? It'll clearly have the leaves running the same way in on both sides as opposed to running opposite directions like the neck. There's enough yarn leftover so that I could knit another insert after trying to flip the pattern (the neck pattern would serve as an excellent guide) but I don't know if I want to go to the trouble yet.

Anyway, I'm currently knitting away on the body of the sweater and doing it in the round rather than as a front and back piece. Again, the recommended construction method just seems odd given that the bottom border is knit all in one piece ... that'd make for *really* wierd seaming. I'm going through the yarn for the body like no body's business - though I'm sure I'll have enough as gauge is right on and the requirements for the embellishments was also accurate. I don't think I like the body yarn as much (might be scratchy) but the colors are gorgeous. Pix later today when I have time.