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.

You know you live in Southern California when ...

you get this excited to see...



yep, puddles of rain.



We are having a glorious, rainy day here. You have to appreciate it while you can you know; we only see it a few times a year.



Look you can even see it falling off the roof (because we have no gutters, because it never rains in Southern California)!

Hope you are enjoying whatever weather you have today.

Mini mi-s (mittens that is)

Last night I just didn't want to work on any of my current WIPs. Not an unfamiliar feeling for most knitters from what I can tell around here in blog land (I think that's how people end up with 15, 20, 40... wips). Rather than cast on for another large project, I decided to try my hand at some mini mittens.

You'll perhaps remember the cover of the Webs holiday 2007 catalogue I showed you earlier this month and my delight at all the little tiny mittens? Well I've been thinking about this ever since and even found the pattern for the babies on the Webs' webpage. Last night seemed like the perfect time to look through the my leftover yarns and whip out some little mittens. Easy, breezy, super simple, and they look so cute. Two pairs down, no telling how many more I'll make.

This morning I thought about how I would take pictures. I've been really impressed lately with some blogs I've been visiting and really feel inspired to improve the overall visuals in mine (for a sample take a look at Tiennie Knits, a friend to knit with, cashmere blend, flint knits, dyed in the wool, ... and another thing, and bag 'n' trash - home of monster yarn, not to mention brooklyn tweed just for a sample).

I started out with the same old mittens on the dining room table runner that I seem to always use...



boring.

Maybe I really need to make a light box to improve the color and visuals. But even then, maybe we need some staging....

So I went to the back room, found the pine cones and bark I brought home with me from our trip to Maine this summer and did a little prop utilization. I think the top photo is a little better. Lest we forget where we've come from, I give you the doggie rear for some perspective (on life and the size of the mittens!)



Thanks for visiting today!

Home

S is back from Maiduguri! I'm very jealous because it sounds like his trip was fabulous! Here's a few photos to give you a small taste of Nigeria.



Here he is (far right) with members of the International Sociological Association PhD laboratory travel group and some faculty and students from the University of Maiduguri.



These are women from a village called Alau.



This photo is one of our favorites... a man fishing near the dam at Alau.



And fishing.



Here's a street scene from Maiduguri... S said that motorcycles were the primary mode of transportation around.



Beautiful hmm?



Many more photos can be found on flikr.

I'm glad to have him home... he's definitely still jet lagged, but catching up. Sounds like the group was treated incredibly well there, but it's good to remember that not all parts of the world have access to all the riches and privileges we have here in the US. Seeing his pictures and hearing his stories definitely makes me interested in visiting Africa and gives me a much bigger picture of the world.

A relaxing weekend

This has been one of those delicious long weekends where you've been able to do a whole lot of nothing. I love that. And the best part... there's still two days left of the weekend to do more nothing!

Now I say I've done nothing meaning that I've done what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Took some long walks with Sterling, did a little knitting.



Through the magic of free time I finished up the back of the celtic tote. I'm about 1/4 through the front now too.

I also pulled my clapotis out of hibernation and worked on her a bit. I did, that is, until Dylan knocked over a cup of hot tea, onto the couch, my yarn, and me. Had to put that aside to dry out. Laugh... maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

And best, last night I heard from S. Last night was his last night in Nigeria and then his long days of travel begin. He'll fly back through Amsterdam again (although no fun there on the way back, just a few hours of lay over) and will be back at LAX tomorrow afternoon. Can't wait for him to be back!

Giving thanks

There are so many things in my life to give thanks for. Everyday is a good day to give thanks. Today is a good day to give thanks.

[photo shows our early thanksgiving celebration about a week ago before S left for Amsterdam and Nigeria; S's trip continues to go well]

Tote-ing along

Have you noticed that there has been no knitting mentioned on the last few posts? Could it be that I haven't been knitting?

Well actually, for once, that's not it. I have been knitting!

As I shared in my post before I left for Philly, my brain decided I really needed to cast on for a new project... the celtic tote... to take on the trip. The tote and I, we shared some time together on planes and in airports and we are now very friendly.



I just love cables!

Now this back of the tote really should be bigger... about 14 rows bigger in fact, but I had two instances in which I had to play kermit. The first was just after starting. At first I didn't pay close enough attention to the chart and didn't realize that one type of cable used only 3 stitches rather than 4. I realized my error even before I finished knitting the row, but had some difficulties ripping back. I ended up just ripping back to the plain reverse stockinette stitch and starting over.

My second mistake was a bit bigger and took more time before I convinced myself that there was indeed a problem. At some point in my travels, it seems that I stopped paying close attention and knitted one row of the chart twice. Now on face value, it may not seem that this woud be that big a deal. Well it was a bit of a problem because I started cabling on the back of the fabric instead of the front. Somehow, I managed to keep the purls on the front (the purls are the background) but only the cabling on the back. Sigh.

At first (probably within a couple of rows of making the mistake) I thought things looked a little odd, but I decided I shouldn't jump to conclusions and continued. Planes changed, I moved from one knitting environment to another, before I knew it I had a number of rows knit and it was clear something was wrong. The cincher... when I looked at the back I could (sort of) see the cables that should have been on the front (but of course since I kept my purls on the right side even these weren't perfect).

With some despair, I finally admitted my mistake and rip, rip, rip. Thank goodness I've finally learned to read my stitches because I had to do a bit of investigation to figure out which line I did twice and then rip back only that far. I also didn't want to undo and cabling on the last row I ripped/saved.

Fortunately, the bag was saved, everthing was re-grouped, and all rows with errors have been reknit. I'm back to a clean slate and moving forward. Yeah!

So far I'm very pleased with the bag and think it's going to be very attractive. I'm hoping to make a bit more progress this weekend.

And the other good thing... you know the reason I started this bag was to teach myself to knit continental. I think I've got the basics down. I'd love to see how different people hold their yarn when knitting continental because I'm not totally comfortable with how I'm doing it (my pinky keeps cramping up holding the tension). My purls are definitely more challenging than my knits as well (I need to find a trick to wrapping the yarn around the needle in a purl).

If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

So what's a girl to do ...

... when surrounded by so much lovely fiber?

Well bring some of it home of course!

I'm actually very excited about the yarn that I acquired on my trip to Philadelphia. Not only was it quite fun to check out new stores, but what I found I either "needed" or I really, really "wanted".

Let's start with the want shall we?



Blue Sky Alpaca's Suri Merino (60% baby suri and 40% merino) acquired at Loop. Man is this yarn soft! I just love the rich color of this yarn, and have I mentioned how soft it is? This will definitely have to be some sort of stole, scarf, or shawl.

I would definitely fit this into the luxury yarn category (not the price of a new car, but not a bus ride either) and therefore my splurge was limited to two skeins: 328 yards total. I need to look around to come up with a good idea for this stuff. I definitely don't want to waste it!

And in the need category:



Cascade 128 purchased at Rosie's Yarn Cellar. Suprisingly I haven't been able to find this yarn in any other LYS and had been planning just to order some online eventually. When I saw enough in stock to make a cardigan, I scooped it up. I've had an eye on a Stephanie Japel pattern, the bulky cabled cardigan, that I think will work very well with this. The color brown is even richer in person than in the photo. I'm looking forward to this knit... should be quick given the chunky yarn.

In some ways I think it's very sad that new yarn makes me so happy. But you know what, I'm happy! Future hours of knitting joy to look forward to!

Philly fun (and a S update)

This past weekend was my annual trek across the country for educational conferencing (and usually a bit of fun too). This year's destination was Philadelphia and good times were had by all. In addition to all of the good work-related activities (which I won't bore you with here), we explored the city a bit...



we ate some good food, we did some shopping, I helped Em get her knitting skills polished up, and, are you ready, I successfully coerced people into going on a yarn crawl with me! Now I did not think this would be a possibility at all before the trip. But Friday night as we were looking at the conference schedule for Saturday, and as I was helping Em with her knitting, I realized that I needed to get Em a set of needles (so I didn't have to send mine home with here, which I had taken off a project in process). What a good time to go yarn shopping right?!

First stop, Loop.



These pictures do not do the place justice (sorry for the blog-unworthy blurriness).



Bright, open, airy, colorful. A beautiful selection of really nice yarns. The staff were very friendly.



(a wall of koigu... nice).

They had lots of very nice yarns, including some very high end products. I was struck that this place was very much modern. Clean lines, bright, lots of open space. Reminded me of some popular up-scale clothing stores these days. (Interestingly, looking at their web page, they say they carry "hand-dyed and luxury yarns" and I think that's very accurate.)

After a bit of time there, we walked to Rosie's Yarn Cellar.



I thought this place was great! (Also terrible photos... many apologies!)



This place was warm, cozy, just full to the brim with lots of different yarns. Again, the staff were incredibly helpful.



In some ways these guys were the perfect complements of each other. I felt like, going to both, I got all my needs met. Warm and cozy + bright and open. Both had super stock, both had friendly people to help. And amazingly, I don't think I completely exasperated my friends who went along for the ride.

Next time I'll share the purchases I made.

The weekend zipped right by... between all the shopping and conference sessions, the weekend was gone before I knew it. Fortunately yesterday my travels home were also noneventful and now I have a short week. Yeah!!

On other travel fronts, S made it to Maiduguri, Nigeria (which he describes laughingly as a "charming little developing city of 15 million." Sounds like the rest of his trip to Amsterdam was good and he's enjoying Nigeria so far. I'll post more pictures as I get them.

That's the life!

I am sooooo jealous! S is having a fabulous time in Amsterdam. Through the miracle of digital cameras, the interne, and skype (for actual voice conversations), take a look.



S having dinner with our friends Doug and Ilda at an Indonesian (dutch colony) restaurant... the food was called "rise table" like dim sum. The curry mackerel was yummy according to S.



Here's S on a bike... they rode from Doug and Ilda's home to the Hague. Notice what's on those little hands... yep fingerless gloves knit by yours truely. Don't you love seeing a good handknit in use?



A molen (windmill) in Doug and Ilda's little city of Wassenaar.



The queen's place. S notes that it has a moat around it buts says "then again everything has a moat around it here."



S loved this photo... look at all the trolley car lines overhead. He says that there are thousands of people using bikes for transportation and lots of public transit. Nice.



This is in the hague. The building to the right is the Mauritshuis Museum and then the one with the green light is the Binnenhof (the Netherlands Parliament)--the turret part is where the prime minister's office is. S and I think that this is beautiful lighting.



And last, one more beautiful photo of the Parliament building. S said they basically rode their bikes right up to this building and the PM's office--no security. That's the way it should be, I think.

Makes you want to travel doesn't it?

Inspired or Insane?

Yesterday was a big day here at the LizKnits household. S flew to Amsterdam ... yep, the city in the Netherlands. Yesterday afternoon the shuttle came, picked him up, wisked him away to LAX, and (sort of) deposited him on a plane. This morning he called and he's there! He's only been there a few hours so far (it's a long flight, and to boot, they are 9 hours ahead of us) but it sounds like he's having a great time. They've taken the train to where he's staying (amazingly we have friends that are living there this year and he's staying with them for one night in Wassenaar) and now they are going to bike over to the Hague and go out for dinner and drinks! It sounds like he's getting treated royally.

This trip is actually part of a world-wide extravaganza. S gives two talks at the Free University while he's in Amsterdam and then flies to Nigeria for the main part of his trip. He's been selected to take part in the International Sociological Association's International Laboratory for Ph.D. Students which is being held in Maiduguri, Nigeria this year. He'll give another talk there, see a few of the sites, and then will return home in about 10 days. Wow!

So what's a girl to do with such activities surrounding her? Well she could get ready for the trip to Phildelphia she's taking tomorrow. Apparently my brain decided that the best way to prepare was to swatch (see that pretty picture above?). (I'll point out that this was instead of working on one of many other work-related projects that need to be done asap).

Now it's not clear to me whether this is inspiration or insanity, but as you may know, Michael's is having a 25-50% off sale on all yarns this week. On monday I went in and bought some Patton's wool. I knit English method (throwing) and I've wanted to learn how to knit Contiental. I've seen many people recommend that you start with a felted project as the felting will hide all sins in the irregularity of the fabric as you learn to manage gauge with the new method. I had picked out a couple of felted bag patterns as starters (the Andrea bag, Celtic Tote).

Well you'd think I'd be satisfied with that, I have wool, I have a plan, I can go on my trip and take up this quest when I return. Well... not so much. For some reason my brain decided that maybe Patton's would work well for another sweater pattern I have my eye on (and of course I'd need to check gauge to see if it would work so I could rush back to Michael's before the sale ends). Now I'm not really a big believer in big-shop yarn so you'd think I'd know better, but I felt compelled to swatch to see if I could get gauge for the sweater. Hence the lovely green swatch of many patterns and many needle sizes above. You swatch for a bag, you swatch for a sweater... you see where this is going. Long story short, I realized the Patton's will be too scratchy for me for the sweater but should work fine for the bags. At least I don't have to crazy go back for more yarn.

So I should be able to return to work... prepare for my trip now ... right?



Turns out that casting on for the Celtic Tote was part of my mind's idea of preparing for travel. Yep last night I sat down at my computer, watched some videos on how to knit and purl continental style at KnittingHelp.com (love the site) and started knitting.

Now I still feel like a kindergardener with one of those giant 1/2 inch diameter pencils making ugly, non-word looking scratches on a paper, but I did manage to eek out a few rows and I at least *think* I understand what I should be doing. The best thing ...



Look you can already see the beginning of the cable design!

I think that I'll be taking this project with me on the plane. I don't want to risk messing up Elizabeth, and after my allergen-provoking-trauma knitting experience on the plane last time, I probably shouldn't take clapotis (alpaca) or Elizabeth (angora) with me anyway.

So maybe this was inspired?

The cable-ing... at last!

I am really beginning to appreciate what people mean when they get stalled out on an UFO because of miles and miles of unfinished stockinette stitch. Lucky for me, the miles of SS came at the front of Elizabeth (the Elizabeth Bennet cardigan from Fitted Knits by Stephanie Japel) and they have now ended!



Yep, right down there, at the very bottom of the picture, right after those purl rows... the beginning of cables!



They are still little babies but I've never been so happy to move onto another stage of a project. I think the cabled peplum of this cardigan will keep me much more engaged that the upper bodice has.

And the other good news...



Tentative reads suggest that the final sweater should fit. The waist will hit where the waist should hit and it doesn't seem too big or too small (so far). This wool-angora blend is definitely growing on me too (literally and figuratively, given the shedding). The soft halo of the fabric is definitely attractive. Maybe that generally fuzziness, given the right lighting, will transform the everyday appearance into something special... you know it seems to work in the movies when everything is blurry (see Horse Whisperer for a good example... grin).

I'm excited to have gotten this far, not just for the pure joy of getting here, but also because I joined the Fall Cable KAL. Now I have some pretty little cables to post. Hopefully they will grow and grow and become impressive in a short period of time! This also seems like a good time to post an update on the Fitted Knits KAL. I still haven't seen many Elizabeth's out there on the needles. It's still too early for a final vote, but so far I'm giving it a thumbs up. Maybe the KALs will encourage others to cast on.

See you at the KAL!

Yarn crawl

Yesterday I had about 10 different things I could have done.

There was a conference I could have gone to in LA.
There was the SnB LA knit and spin in at the Original Farmers Market.
There was a sale for a yarn business going out of business.
There was an artisan sale here in Pomona in the Fairplex.
I could have stayed home and worked on conference submissions (this is what I will be doing today!)

OK... I exaggerate... there were 5 choices. I was a bit overwhealmed by the choices though. The best ones were all in LA which is about an hour's drive for me with traffic and all events started at 10am. I'm not a big morning person and Friday night I just couldn't commit to any one choice. Saturday morning came and I still couldn't decide. Maybe I should just hang out around the house and just do nothing? Finally the moment to make a choice and get anywhere on time came and I at least took a shower so I could go if I had inspiration while I was wet.

In the end (big suprise) I did some of the yarn related activities. By the time I was dressed, I was committed to not going to the conference. Then S asked me to stay around and have lunch with him. He's working on several big deadlines right now, and this made my choice easy. No early morning yarn related activities -- maybe next time LA SnB. After lunch I still was back and forth... should I drive an hour to go to a sale that may have nothing? What if they have really great stuff (like Cascade for $3 a skein as suggested in the ad)? After a bunch of wasting time I decided to just get in the car and go.

Off to the sale at what used to be Azalia. Traffic was terrible... what gives with the thousands of cars on I10 on a saturday? And the sale... pitiful. Now I didn't get there until 2, so all the good stuff could have been sold in those 4 hours, but there was nothing. No cascade, not a single skein. Not even a big gaping hole on a table where cascade could have been. A bit of a dissapointment.

Well not to waste a trip to the city, S did send me on another shopping errand. Soap from Soaptopia. Have you been to Soaptopia? It's a great little store. We stocked up on soaps and sea salts for ourselves and a few for gifts too.



They gift wrapped one bar of soap (middle left, cellaphane bag). Isn't it cute? I also got a cute little candle, vanilla scented, as a gift (for spending so much money... laugh). You should check the store out... it's in Venice which is a great, funky little community and close by to my next stop, A Mano Yarns.

A Mano was hopping yesterday. There was a group of knitters all hanging out, knitting away. I, of course paralyzed by stupid anxiety, just looked around at yarn but didn't join the group. Have I mentioned this silly social anxiety fact before? Geez... why don't I just get over myself. After time spent amongst the wool, I was off... back to the traffic. (Ohh I just looked at their calendar and A Mano has a garmet finishing class. I need to sign up for that!)

Cleverly, on the way home I decided to hit one more store, Unraveled in Monrovia. A quick detour off the highway and there I was 30 minutes before closing. You know this really is a lovely store... open, friendly staff, good yarn. I fondled a few skeins, considered my next knitting goal and then...



Yep, I came home empty handed. Despite all the great stuff at both A Mano and Unraveled, I didn't buy a thing. How's that for restraint? (I did learn that Unraveled is having a 25% off everything sale next saturday for their anniversary though -- put it on your calendar if you're close).

Of course when I came home I found this...



the Webs Holiday 2007 catalogue. Now this looks like a great tree for the holidays! I wonder how much left over yarn I could scrounge up to do something like this?! I also saw more than one sweater in the catalogue that caught my eye. Maybe there is more shopping in my future....

The weekend begins

I am soooo looking forward to this weekend. It was a crazy busy week and I'm ready for a little down time. Of course it may only be a little down time as I have some work that must be done by monday. We'll see how I manage that.



Elizabeth is coming along nicely... cables are in sight. Since I took this photo, I've finish the waist decreases and just have some straight stockinette before the fun begins. Maybe I'll actually get to that this weekend and will have pictues to share by monday.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with myself tomorrow....