Another year... more FOs

Knitting has become a pretty important part of my life. I realize that when I'm busy and stressed, I don't take time to knit and consequently I feel more stressed and crazy. When I make a little time every day to knit, we'll let's just say I stay a bit more centered.

Last year I resolved to take on the challenge of knitting socks and sweaters. I'm pleased to say that I accomplished both of those goals. In fact, looking back over my knitting this year, I'm pretty amazed by what I accomplished. This year really has helped me to feel much more competent at knitting. There are still lots of things for me to learn (steeks; how do you really fit a sweater to your dimensions?), but I don't feel intimidated by much at this point. I'm looking forward to another great year of knitting next year.

Here's a recap of projects finished over the past year.

February

One row scarf
Manos del Uruguay Handcrafted Kettle Dyed Pure Wool



Garter Rib Socks -- my first pair of socks ever!
Moda Dea Sassy Stripes



March

Picovoli -- my first sweater ever!
Frog Tree Pima Silk



April

Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl -- my first finished shawl!
Koigu KPM



Bold and Bulky Mini Cardi
Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick



May

Cropped Cardigan with leaf ties
Lion Brand Cotton Ease



June

Drop-Stitch Lace Tank
Cascade Pima Tencel



July

Bubby and improvised sweaters
just bits of Red Heart Soft Yarn



Retro Redux Shrug
just under 2 hanks of Malabrigo



Toe-up Socks with Peasant Heel
less than 2 balls of Cascade Fixation



August

Yankee Knitter Designs' Easy Bulky Sweater (Patterns #30)
3 balls of Steinbach Wolle Sport



Anthropology inspired capelet
3 skeins of Knit Picks Sierra/Cadena



September

Baby Bolero
2 skeins of Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton



October

FiFi
4 skeins of Rowan Calmer



Baby Bolero
2 skeins of Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton



Fingerless Gloves
a little over 1 skein of Alpaca with a Twist Highlander



November

Mini Mittens
from left over yarns



December

Neckwarmer
Lion Suede in Spice (less than 1 ball)



Shedir
less than 1 ball of Dark Horse Yarns Fantasy




Clapotis
5 balls of 100% alpaca from Village Farm Alpacas



Garter stitch scarf
2 balls of Bernat Max (100% acrylic)



I hope everyone else has had a wonderful knitty year as well!

Who wouldn't love ...

a clean dog with a cute little face like this?



Dylan, on the couch, also approves of cleanliness (Sterling just had a bath... hence the wrapped in towel love).

And another thing ...

Yes... it is amazing, but I have another FO to share.



I've had this at the office and would add a little to it on Monday nights when I had a break between my two classes. I finished it up on christmas day along with clapotis.



This is the yarn that I picked up to try for urchin. You'll remember that that didn't go so well (laugh). This is a much better use of the yarn. The thick and thins make for an interesting garter stitch look and with large needles, this didn't really take much time to do.

Ah the joys of getting back to a calm, relaxed life.

Garter stitch scarf
2 balls of Bernat Max (100% acrylic)
Color: white
US size 15 circulars
cast on October 29, 2007
finished (with very small amounts of work at at time) December 25, 2007

Clapotis... number 2666?!

There is nothing like a few days off work to make a little knitting progress!



As you may remember, I purchased yarn in Maine, during our summer vacaction, from an alpaca farm and spent some time trying to decide what to do with it. After a bit of swatching I decided on clapotis. Now I'm hardly the first to knit up this pattern. And in fact, I'm the 2666th finished clapotis on Ravelry. So much for originality hmm?



I am very happy with the finished project though. The yarn is fabulous -- soft and warm. The pattern a great compliment for it -- clapotis is by design quite snuggly and provides a great cover up for the chill.



I'm not sure that I'll join the crowd of people knitting lots of these, but I will enjoy this FO quite a bit.

Clapotis by Kate Gilbert
5 balls of 100% alpaca, Light Worsted Wt (2 oz/ 110 yds), spun in Waldoboro, from Village Farm Alpacas
Color: Fawn Like Rainey
US size 8 circulars
cast on September 16, 2007
finished (after lots of breaks) December 25, 2007

Modifications: Pattern knit as written, except knit as a longer, narrower stole (instructions for the modification are in the pattern). This was done to use the quantity of yarn available from my trip. Final size 76" long and 12" wide (with just a smidge of yarn left over!).

I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough yarn to make the pattern's 21" x 55" size. I of course kept second guessing myself, but decided to just be safe and do long and narrow so that I could end when I started to run out of yarn. Now that I'm finished, I see this was a good choice. I would have been about 1/2 a ball of yarn short if I had done the original size. Yeah for a disaster averted!

Happy Dec 25th

To celebrate our Dec 25th, S and I decided to commune with nature.

Take a look at this Southern California beauty.



These are the mountains just north of Glendora... I'm not sure what they are technically called, but at least part of it is East Fork. The San Gabriel river runs through the middle of this area and the river and mountains provide some pretty spectacular scenery.



That's Mount Baldy in the background.



At one point I had to turn the tables (the camera that is) on S ... first in gest,



then for real.



This is a great trip... well worth the drive.



Hope everyone else had as wonderful a day!

Vacation -- Day 1

Yeah! Yesterday was the first full day of vacation from work. S and I decided to take a day trip into Riverside.



Beautiful architecture.



We spent part of our day at the UC Riverside botanical gardens. I have to admit we were underwhealmed with the gardens, except...



yep... plants in the cactus garden bigger than your head... and if fact, bigger than a person.



The views also weren't so bad.









Plants like this make us think about putting alot more cacti and succulents in our gardens. They are pretty amazing plants.

In addition to the gardens, we did spend a little time driving around town and taking in the sights. S was kind enough to take me by two (yes two) yarn stores in Riverside -- Closeknit and Knit n' Stitch. Both very nice stores with very helpful staff. I was a bit amazed that Riverside had so many yarn stores (3 according to the yellow pages online).

We also managed to eat two good meals. First, we had lunch at Chico's Mexican Food. We were drawn here because we could get vegetarian and vegan mexican food. Gotta love that. The meals were delicious.

For dinner we went to a tapas bar... the Seville. This was one of the best meals we've had since we moved to California. Yummy cheeses, delicious marinated mushrooms, wonderful sauteed shrimp... everything was just great. Who knew there'd be so much good stuff to do for a day in Riverside!

sigh ... I love Southern California

Where else can you have crisp weather, blue skies, snow on the mountain, hot sunshine, and people trimming gigantically tall palm trees?



Yes it is fabulous.

I'm so pleased to report that I survived my last day at work before the break... I don't have to go back into the office until Jan 2nd! Yeah!!!

Now I will admit that I did have to bring some work home with me, but the pressure feels so much lighter now... in fact I feel almost human again.

Thursday night, in anticipation of the end, I went to my local SnB. Had such a good time. Met Veronika ... who showed me a great way to purl continental style... thanks so much!!... got to see Jane and Jenean ... made a little progress on Clapotis. The world is good my friends.

Finally.... a FO

Wow, it's been a long time since last I posted! Life, as you might guess, has not gotten any quieter and work has not gotten any better. I've been trying to think of ways to just disappear from work and not get in trouble. My to-do list there seems to grow at twice the speed of light and my ability to cross anything off the list as done... not happening!

Nevertheless, in a shameless attempt to save my sanity, I did a little gift knitting this weekend and managed to finish up Shedir. I'm pleased to say this was wrapped up and delivered to its recipient today. A great little knit... a little attention grabbing while you go but lots of bang in the finished project.



[the front view]



[my favorite view... maybe because you can't see much of me, mostly the hat... =] ]



[the back view]



[I think the crown also turned out quite lovely]



[I also like turning up the brim just a bit... fun}



Shedir by Jenna Wilson
less than 1 ball of Dark Horse Yarns Fantasy
50% Nylon, 50% acrylic
color 07, lot 2140 (purple)
US 3 circular and dpns
started December 7, 2007
finished December 16, 2007

Modifications: skipped rows 37-52 of the pattern and went right from 36 to 53.
Final hat: 8 1/2 " diameter; 8 inches from brim to top of crown ... a perfect fit!
The yarn... my first time to use it... was really great. As a 100% man made fiber, it was really nice. Very soft, held together well for the knit. I think it will be good for the recipient since she has lost her hair to chemo and I wanted a yarn that would be very soft and wouldn't have any itch potential.

Rest, snow, and knitting

This weekend was just what the doctor ordered... alot of nothing. We had quite a bit of down time, recuperating time.



Sigh... gotta love the down time. And after last week, this is what my soul needed.

Speaking of souls... have you gone to see The Golden Compass yet? You should. We saw it Saturday and I really enjoyed it. Now I haven't read all the books so I'm not sure what the experience will be for a book lover, but for the novice, very enjoyable. We did buy the books Saturday night and have started reading. The books do seem different than the movie... but you should see it, really.

Sunday morning on our walk, we noticed that there was alot of snow up on Mount Baldy.



[this is the view from over the rooftops across the street from us]

This is the kind of snow I love... the kind you can see when you have blue skies and 60+ degrees. Since it was a nice day, we decided to take a drive. Little did we know that thousands of other Los Angeleans had exactly the same idea! We got up to the community of Mount Baldy, saw snow (and even some flurries being whipped off the mountains by the wind) and then were surrounded by crazy traffic. Sensing impending danger (laugh) we turned around and went back down. A nice drive, saw the snow, but didn't really get as far as the serious snow blanketing.

I love L.A.

And the other nice thing about this weekend, I finally got back to a little knitting. Friday night I cast on for Shedir.



I'm enjoying this pattern and she is working up reasonably fast given the amount of cabling it has. The acrylic yarn still seems soft even knitted up and I think will work out well.

Yeah for the weekend. Now if I can just get through another week to another weekend!

Finally ...

I wasn't sure it was ever going to happen again, but I picked up needles and yarn and managed to knit a bit yesterday.

Last night was our SnB meeting and, happy happy, we met at Knitwitz... my favorite LYS in this area. The store was having a holiday sale, 20% off everything -- an extra lure to go to the meetup. Armed with a list of desired products, my clapotis and I took a drive.

I'm pleased to say that progress was made both on clapotis and on the shopping needs.



(cascade 220 for a future sweater, lambs pride bulky for another neckwarmer, some acrylic for a chemo cap for a friend's mother... and best, interweave's holiday issue.. yeah!)

I'm not sure my life is ever going to get better!! OK... maybe that's a bit extreme. Unfortunately, I know that the next two weeks won't be any better at work. Work is no fun! I need to make time for life outside my job... but boy does that feel hard right now.

Thank goodness I have knitting to escape to at least for short periods of time (if I can just remember to knit instead of just stressing).

TGIF!

Said the spider to the fly...

This is what it looks like when bad things happen to good people.



No you are not seeing things... those are cobwebs on my needles!

Ok, I'll admit I staged the photo but it could be real. I haven't knit a single stitch since Friday. Work is eating my lunch and I don't see the carnage ending for some time. Send good vibes my direction... I'm going to need good karma.

It's time

to prepare for your favorite holiday. My preference is Winter Solstice. I so look forward to the days getting longer. That is something to look forward to. A gift from nature.

We're all ready for the holiday season now. We've put up lights to stave off the darkness and brought greenery into the house so we can be reminded of nature even inside.

I've been doing a bit of holiday knitting too ...



Neckwarmer by Kim
Lion Suede in Spice (less than 1 ball)
started November 28, 2007
finished December 1, 2007
US 9 circulars

Times are good.