Niagara Falls!

I’m home after a hellacious 18-day business trip. We are now officially watching the Cubs tonight, since the Pens aren’t doing so hot (we have TiVo, so we can go back and catch up if there’s a reason to).

Hopefully, I’ll be flush with free time once I get caught up on sleep. Meanwhile, I bring you a Yarn Pr0n Friday Saturday from one of my very best sock club sign-ups, Fiber Baristas.

The May shipment was handled by the #1 reason I signed up for this club in the first place – Roxanne from Zen Yarn Garden. Do me a favor and admire the texture in the first three pictures, the color in the final one.


The theme of the 2009 Fiber Baristas sock yarn club is “Postcards from Home.” Each dyer has done something to give us a taste of the area of the world they call home. Roxanne lives in Toronto, so other than generally being in love with the yarn she dyes, I was particularly excited to see her shipment.


This yarn showed up just hours before I left for the first half of the aforementioned business trip. As many of you know, my family has a summer home on the shores of Lake Erie, about an hour’s drive from Niagara Falls. The postcard in with Roxanne’s shipment was of the Falls with a Maid of the Mist included in the shot, but it focused on the Horseshoe Falls.



There are many tones of seafoam green in this yarn (yes, it’s green, not blue. Remember, I told you to wait for the last shot to look for color!) and nearly white spots representative of the foam in the falls. It’s the Serenity Sport base, 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon, 4 oz, 250 yards, and I adore it.

Roxanne took the time to get the color right in the above photo. I thank her again for letting me "borrow" this shot. Yes, I asked first and am using my own bandwidth.

It is a perfect reminder of “my” lake, and I’m going to have to figure out something perfect to make with it. Many thanks to Roxanne for letting me borrow her color-corrected photo of this yarn. I tried, but just couldn’t get the color figured out properly!

This Is A New One ...

I've stayed in lots of hotels, and seen lots of nice ... and odd ... touches in hotel rooms all over the country. But this is a new one.


Bet it's not hard to figure out what goes through my head every time I walk into the bathroom ...

"Rubber ducky, you're the one! You make bath time lots of fun! Rubber ducky, I am awf-u-lly fond of yoooooooo..."

I (obviously) made it to Salem safely, if a little carsick. Things get busy tomorrow, so here's hoping the hotel room bed is comfy. I'm pooped!

Bawk!

Three or four Saturdays ago, I walked in to the store for my shift at Bloomin Yarns and Michelle said "Do you want to knit a chicken?"

Of course I said yes. By the time I left (early) at 2 pm, I had all the green chicken-bits (including beak and legs) all made up. Others in the store have knit other chickens. This past Saturday, Michelle asked me to keep working on getting the chickens ready for their debut. I knit two beaks, seamed up Mr. Pink and crocheted a pathetic pair of legs for Mr. Pink.


They need some beans in their butts, stuffing, beady eyes, combs and tails. I think they're awesome.

I'm off to Salem, Va., until Monday night. I'll try to post while I'm gone, but who knows what life will have in store. Don't get into any trouble while I'm gone.

Pattern is "Gordon, Jamie and Hugh Chickens" from "Rowan Purelife, the Organic Cotton Kids Collection." It's a great book with patterns for many animals and kids age 0-8

Warm Paws

I had been wanting to try colorwork for quite a while. When I started browsing the “Critter Comforts” section in the Winter 2008 Twist Collective, I was pretty sure I had found a great first colorwork project. I think I was right.

Michelle at Bloomin is responsible for those pansies. NOT me.

I started these mittens just before Thanksgiving. They also feature my first-ever knitted hem! I did a provisional cast-on for both mittens, it only unzipped properly on the second mitten, thanks to a Lucy Neatby YouTube video.

They had several stops-and-starts between other projects. They were my Super Bowl project, and I had to tink about two rounds that I knit (incorrectly) during the last minute of the game. But that's OK. I'll take it.

Thanks to CelticQueen for modeling my mittens, since it’s very hard to take pictures of your own hands.

I got a little confused with the decrease instructions on the chart for the mittens. You have to “steal a stitch” from the previous half-round each time you do a double decrease. I figured it out, but not before a few false starts on decreases for the first mitten.

I like the checkerboard pattern on the underside of the thumbs, showing here.

I did do a gauge swatch, but I wound up tighter than I should have been anyway. As a result, they are just barely big enough for my small paws. I’m hoping these mittens loosen up a bit with a good soaking/blocking, but if they don’t they might be a gift for my sister-in-law. And that’s OK too.

Postwar Mittens

Pattern: Postwar Mittens by Mary Ann Stephens
Source: Twist Collective, Winter 2008
Size: one size
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull in blue, black and white
Source: Bloomin Yarns
Needles: US 2/2.75mm Hiya Hiya (2-16” circs)
Started: 23 November 2008
Finished: 16 May 2009
Mods: None
Ravelry Project Link

Better In Person

I’ve been on a vest kick. Not so much with the actual knitting of the vests. More of a “boy, I wish I had more vests!” feeling. I fought it off in the fall, but couldn't resist this spring.

Back at the end of March, we had a quiet afternoon at Bloomin Yarns after running our final set of classes for the Shetland Triangle KAL. We had a couple of knitters concentrating on starting their Shetland Triangles and I started itching for a vest.

I started flipping through the store’s three-ring binders for women’s vests, and I found the perfect pattern. After a brief quest (with an entire LYS at my immediate disposal, I had plenty of options), I settled on Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed cotton. Then I was off to the races.

It was a very quick knit. Would have been well under a month had I not rediscovered my mojo on the evil Cloning Anemone socks. I finally felt like I saw the finish line on those and knew I had to strike while the iron was hot.

The plain stockingette back was my hospital knitting when the Hubster had his shoulder surgery back at the end of March (he’s doing great, BTW! Not quite halfway through his physical therapy, but a couplea weeks out of the sling).

I wanted a pic before I went to Maryland. This was it.

The cable front was fun. I used a modified version of Hungry Stitch (YouTube link) for my SSK’s, so I feel like I learned something on this project. After knitting my armbands and neckband, I chose to bind off all in knit, rather than K1P1 rib. I like the smoother edge.

I should have tucked in my shirt (and lost 30 lbs) before this picture. Oops.

This is the handknit I wore to Maryland Sheep & Wool, as you may remember from my recap post. I got several compliments on the vest while traversing the festival grounds (hence the post title), which was fun. This was a great knit, it fits me perfectly, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if I knit it again. Highly recommend!

Necklace is from CreationsbyUli on etsy. Love. It.

Cabled V-Vest
Pattern: Cabled V-Vests by Lisa Carnahan (pullover version) SW-004
Size: 48”
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Dyed
Color: 310/Coffee
Source: Bloomin Yarns
Needles: US 6 (ribbing)/US 8 (body) Lantern Moon Destiny Circular Needles
Started: 21 March 2009
Finished: 26 April 2009
Mods/Errata: No actual mods, but there is one exceptionally nit-picky small error in the pattern. I have two purl stitches leading up to my cable panel. On Row 1 of the front for my size, it should begin with a purl stitch, not a knit stitch. By the time I got to that point and realized I had a problem, I was not going to rip and re-knit 53 sts of 1x1 ribbing.
Ravelry Project Link

Special thanks to CelticQueen, who was kind enough to take the two "modeled" shots this afternoon when she stopped in at Bloomin Yarns. I particularly like the last one of the neckline!

BOOM

I think my family started going up to the Lake when I was six. We bought a house the following year. Picture this house, but white with green trim/shutters:


And in a different location. I’ll get to that.

In 1990, my parents decided that rather than doing all the fixing that was going to be needed on the old/existing cottage, we’d build a new cottage on the same site, from scratch. You’ve seen a million pictures of this house. Here’s the easiest one for me to grab, since I'm too lazy to go hunt for a better one:


In order to clear the site for the new cottage, we sold the existing cottage for a paltry sum on the condition that it was moved off-site by a certain date. Somewhere, I have pictures of that white-and-green cottage on a cart, being moved down to the end of the street.

That’s where it stood for 18+ years. Down at the end of the street. We passed it on the way to our (shiny new) cottage every time we came in or out of VBP. At one point, it was sold and the new owners did an amazing job of fixing it up. They had cool flowering bushes up on the street, flowers in the boxes, the whole shebang.

Sunday morning, my mom called. The old cottage? It went BOOM on Saturday night.


The owners -- the ones who did all the work to make it look great and be comfy for the bulk of the year -- were at the restaurant just outside of the community when a fire started, probably in an upstairs bedroom. It consumed enough of the house that (they think) it got to the gas water heater, gas stove, gas furnace. Explosions were heard. Shockingly, the next-door neighbors slept through the whole thing.

I’m quite interested to see what it looks like when I get up there in a few weeks. And I’m very thankful nobody was hurt in the fire! Pardon me while I scurry off to find fire extinguishers for this house and the lake!

Holi-Dazed and Confused

Well, not really.

After my painful experience with the Cloning Anemone Socks (I wore them over the weekend and they are quite comfy, in case you were curious), I needed a ‘palate cleanser.’ The lemon ice of my knitting world at this point of time was Socks that Rock Mediumweight.

I couldn’t find my Turtle Daddy blockers immediately, so the cedar ones are in this photo

The pattern provided with this Rockin’ Sock Club kit was a traditional cuff-down pattern. But that’s just boring.

Toe Pic! - I tried to do a standard toe and it wouldn't cooperate. So Garter Toe it is!

Well, that and why should I pick up heel flap stitches when I don’t have to?

New Pathways heel

So I took the 8-stitch, 16-row stitch pattern and plunked that bad boy right into a Riverbed architecture from New Pathways for Sock Knitters (c’mon. You knew I’d do that, right?)

Mirror image cuffs!

I also took the pattern and did a mirror image chart for use on the second sock. I think it turned out just great!

Nice spring sky!

Of course, when I went to make that mirrored chart, I realized that I had omitted a row from my “portable chart.” Oops.


Oh well. Nobody will notice. Right?

Holidazed Socks
Pattern: Holidazed by Anne Hanson
Source: Rockin’ Sock Club, November 2008
Yarn: BMFA Socks that Rock Mediumweight
Color: Muddy Autumn Rainbow
Needles: US 2/2.75mm, Addi Lace, Magic Loop
Started: 22 April 2009
Finished: 12 May 2009
Mods: Diagonal Twill Rib pattern knit toe-up into the Riverbed architecture from New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Ravelry Link

Sheep. Wool. People.

It’s been a week, and I’m just getting together the energy to blog about my trip to the 2009 Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. Pathetic.

But, the website for my fabulous job was down from noon Friday until noon on Monday last weekend, resulting in about 300 emails coming through all at the same time. All-America nominations for my division closed on Wednesday and my phone was ringing off the hook. It was a completely miserable week of work.

I’ll get back to blogging more regularly very soon. I miss it and I miss all of you guys!

Meanwhile, my mom, my aunt and I drove down to Maryland last Friday and went to the Festival on Saturday. I almost immediately ran into the group of people I most wanted to find. If you read Turtlegirl’s blog, you already know the amazing group of women she hung out with last weekend. Shortly after meeting up with all of them, I met Javajem …

Cristi (Turtlegirl76), Pam (Trillian42), yours truly, Jody (Javajem). Photo borrowed with permission, since I had major Camnesia all day.

And, this year, I made sure I got my picture taken with my favorite Turtle

Again, stolen with permission. Isn't Cristi's sweater awesome?

I spent the rest of the day wandering around, meeting up with mom and Suzie on occasion and basically enjoying the day.

The one and only time I busted out my camera was just before I met up with the aforementioned bloggers. Roaming Tigger takes requests, especially from dyers we really like. So just for Roxanne …


And, in case you can’t figure out what dyer that might be, here’s where you can see her labels a little better below.

Tigger likes pretty yarn!

I hardly bought any yarn, but did buy a decent amount of non-yarn stuff, so here’s a photo of all the loot


One skein of Autumn House Farm sock yarn, two STR-M mill ends, a Blue Moon Fiber Arts Twisted Rare Gem, a lucet, a nostepinne (both rosewood), a pair of mittens made from recycled felted sweater and fleece-lined, the paper bag is soap, there’s a festival tote bag on the right, a set of Signature Needles DPNs (2.5mm, 5”) and it’s all lying on the sheepskin I brought home to keep my feet from becoming blocks of ice next winter.

Our TV room is right above our garage, so my feet get really cold really fast on the floor in this room during the winter. We have at least one more winter in this room before we start moving things around on this floor, so I figured that purchase was worth it.

I also got some Hiya Hiya sock needles, in pairs of 16” circs, but I forgot to put those in the picture and they aren’t very exciting anyway.

I’ll try to come back and blog a little more about some of the non-yarny bits soon. Here’s hoping I can throw up another post tomorrow!

I Thought I’d Never Finish

I started knitting these socks in another lifetime. Roughly when softball season started. Now my work stuff is kicking into high gear in honor of the end of the season. I start to travel next month for Championships.

But at least these socks are finally finished.

Thicker cedar blockers used b/c they made the ribbing spread out

This is the Rockin’ Sock Club kit from September, 2008. I opened the package took one quick look at the Cloning Anemones pattern and said “That’s an Upstream.” After my class with Cat back in November, I suddenly had all the confidence I needed to translate published patterns into Cat’s New Pathways.

Just for Turtlegirl … toe pic!

The pattern was written top-down, but I wanted to knit toe-up. So I started with Judy’s Magic Cast On and started zipping along until my toe box was completed. When it was time to start the arch increases, I got to work.

Master Reinforced Heel from New Pathways

With four stitches in the middle of the instep to start the arch increases, I was able to start the cable chart right away. It’s a 1x1 cable, every four rows. It drained my soul for nearly three full months.

As I increased within the center “V” two stitches every three rounds, I was easily able to incorporate those added stitches into the pattern as they appeared. It’s an easy pattern to “see,” so the only hard part was owning up to the fact that every few rounds, I had to cable more stitches.

But it’s so pretty!

By the time I got to the end of the leg of the first sock, I realized I was in trouble. But I seem to have whatever the opposite of “Second Sock Syndrome” is, meaning that I’m too damn stubborn to leave the pair unfinished. So I soldiered on.

Please excuse my pasty white legs

Cloning Anemone Socks

Pattern: Cloning Anemone Rib by Team Blue Moon
Source: Rockin’ Sock Club, September 2008
Yarn: BMFA Socks that Rock Lightweight
Color: Tide Pooling (RSC 9/08)
Needles: US 1.5/2.5mm, Addi Lace, Magic Loop
Started: 5 Feb 2009
Finished: 19 April 2009 (note: first sock was finished 2/21/09)
Mods: Knit toe-up into the Upstream architecture from New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Ravelry project link

Field Tripping

Last week was a blur. I worked Monday and Tuesday. In fact, Tuesday was at World Headquarters (my dad/brother’s business) because the contractor was refinishing the floor and it smelled awful here at the house.

Wednesday morning, I woke up at 5 a.m. and drove to my nation’s capital. Landed at my swanky hotel (thank you, ncaa!) shortly after 10 a.m., then high-tailed it over to the Verizon Center to start my volunteer duty at the hockey championship. Four press conferences on Wednesday afternoon (one for each team) then back to the hotel to collapse from exhaustion.

Oh, and by the way? My roommate was a college student from Denver. Who flew out to volunteer for the championship. And who slept from 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night to 11:30 a.m. Thursday night. I kid you not. She was a peach, lemme tell ya!

Anyhoo, I was up reasonably early on Thursday morning, worked for a few hours in the hotel lobby (free internets in the lobby, not so much in the rooms), then woke Sleeping Beauty on my way upstairs to get organized to meet a college friend for lunch.

By the way? If you’re in DC and in Chinatown/near the Verizon Center/near the National Portrait Gallery? Proof has a great $12 lunch. We had to eat on our laps, but a really good entrée and a glass of wine for $12. No complaints here.

Then I started the Tourist-ey stuff. Took the Metro to Smithsonian with College Friend, hoofed it over to the Jefferson Memorial (too many people to make good photos), back over to the Washington Monument, then straight down the middle of the Mall to the Capitol Building, then zipped up to the hotel to shower and head for the rink for the semifinal games.

Friday, I got up and basically went straight to the rink for press conferences with the two remaining teams. Worked with their reliable and strong (and free) wireless at the rink for a couple hours, then started my Quest.

Stopped at Fahrney’s and got myself an awesome new pen (theotheramanda? I love it!), then walked over to The Ellipse, where I took a bad picture of the White House from far enough away to make me mildly cranky, then headed onto the Mall.

First the World War II memorial, where I took possibly my favorite photo of the trip (#11 below). Can I just mention how ironic I find it that there are a TON of signs at the WWII memorial saying “Please respect the memorial. No wading. No coins.” And yet? The entire center fountain portion of the fountain was lousy with tourists wading. Until a mounted Park Police officer showed up and made four laps to get everyone out of the water. Grrr …

And yet? There were maybe two signs on the reflecting pool, but no tourists wading in the water. Yes, that’s because the water is gross, as only stagnant water can be. But still. One is obviously a memorial and yet people are more important than respect for our veterans. But I digress.

After WWII, I hoofed it over to the World War I memorial. If I won the lottery, I’d start a fund to clean that thing up. I really enjoy it, but it looks as if it’s in desperate need of a good cleaning. Then I sucked it up and walked down the reflecting pool to Lincoln. Which was crowded.

Then it was over to Einstein, up to Foggy Bottom and George Washington's campus to catch a Metro back to the Portrait Gallery, then over to Verizon to watch the Hobey Baker Award presentation, then back to the hotel. Up to Union Station for some food, then over to the Capitol Building to take some night pictures. Shower. Sleep.

Saturday was rainy, the first bad weather day I’d had on my trip. I took the Metro out to Cleveland Park and had lunch with same College Friend from Thursday, then zipped back to the hotel to change and head to the rink. We had to be there four hours before the game (I’m still not sure why). Puttered around. Had a group photo taken at center ice (fun!) and got down to work.

Sunday morning, I met a former co-worker for brunch, then hit the road home. All in all, a very fun trip. And I’m reminded of how much fun it is to be a tourist in Washington, D.C!



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Minimal knitting or other crafty stuff has been taking place. The renovation is juuuust about done. I’ll try hard to get back to some regular blogging in the immediate future.

Roaming Tigger Does the Frozen Four

1. RTwash, 2. RTmall, 3. RTholocaust, 4. RTcastle, 5. RTjeff, 6. RTarchives, 7. RTart, 8. RTcapitol, 9. RTwhitehouse, 10. rtWWI, 11. RTlincolnext, 12. RTlincoln, 13. RTeinstein, 14. rtWWII, 15. RTportrait, 16. RTbench, 17. RTrail, 18. RTice

Renovation 1

I don't have the energy for a lot of verbiage, but here's a peek at the "boring" half of our renovation. 

In order to enlarge the master bathroom without getting into a major nightmare, we moved the closets to the opposite side of the room. In the "start" photo, you can see the relatively shallow dormer window and how the slope of the front wall truncates. We knocked out all of that space and now have what was formerly "dead space" available for the interior of our closets. I encourage you to click through the links below the mosaic, as I've put some descriptions on all the Flickr photos.

1. FrontStart.jpg, 2. 0310closet.jpg, 3. 0310front.jpg, 4. 0310seat.jpg, 5. 0313front.jpg, 6. 0318seat.jpg, 7. 0324front.jpg, 8. 0325front.jpg, 9. 0325seat.jpg, 10. 0326seat.jpg

Oh yeah, for my Hurricane Knitter friends who encouraged me to go with some color on the walls?

THANK YOU!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!

I'm still here.

But just barely.

Hubster had shoulder surgery yesterday. I think I was more worried about it than he was. Yesterday was an 18-hour day that proved that I hit the parent lottery ... huge. My mom sat with me at the hospital part of the time Hubster was in surgery, then came to the rescue at the end of the day. When we finally left the hospital, she met me at home, had the front door open, then went to the grocery store for me and cooked me dinner while the Hubster snoozed.

He's doing much better today, but I'm still shot. Here's hoping I get a good night's sleep tonight.

I'm sorry I haven't been feeding the blog. I have a huge renovation post floating in my head, a tribute to a wonderful friend that I still feel the need to write about, some knitting stuff and other general bloggy-worthy stuff.

Meanwhile, please don't delete me from your blogrolls. I'll get back here again soon. Once I get some sleep.

Yarn Pr0n Friday: ZYG Art Walk

Yeah, I haven’t stopped blogging, I’m just still exhausted from my trip. I have plenty of stuff to blog, just no energy to do it. So to hold you over until I can grab a good night (or two) of sleep, I bring you a Yarn Pr0n Friday!


One of my (too many) sock yarn clubs is the ArtWalk club from Zen Yarn Garden. I adore Roxanne’s base yarns and her dying skills, not to mention the relationship she cultivates with her club members. Honestly, if you want to try a sock yarn club, I’d highly recommend one of the ZYG clubs.


This particular club is a monthly club in which Roxanne picks a piece of artwork and uses it to inspire that month’s sock yarn. The March painting was Musique by Gustav Klimt.


While it’s mostly a very nice deep blue and a rich gold, there’s an under-dyed chunk as well as a small section of green


I really enjoy this club and I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s peek at my March shipment!

A Roaming Tigger Travelogue

Visiting with the Wild Alligators in Alabama 

(Wild alligators? Really? There are tame alligators? Who knew? Either way, we couldn't find any gators inside the fence at the gas station/convenience store. Probably best.)

Funnel Cake at the field. Yum!

(we split it with an 11-yr-old. Kaci's mom -- the sanity-saving Karen -- wouldn't let her have a whole one by herself, but funnel cake was approved if someone would share. We were volunteered, but it didn't take much to convince us.)

Sticking our toes in the sand on Panama City Beach

We took a half-hour walk on the beach after our games finished for the day yesterday. Right at sunset. At high tide. Still, it was fun and I'm hoping to repeat the experience tomorrow morning and Sunday afternoon/evening.

Feels like we've been on the road for a month. We get home Monday. I already know I have renovation stories to tell, but they'll keep.

Sunset, Panama City Beach, Fla., Thursday, March 5, 2009

I did NOT pack for this!

I have been in Columbus, Ga., since Wednesday. We had a beautiful day in the high 60s on Thursday, a good morning of weather on Friday, then Noah started to figure out where he had stored his Ark.

We got in 15 of an originally planned 50+ games. And woke up this morning to this:


Roaming Tigger got into the act too

Brrr!!! We're in Georgia, right???

I thought we left this weather at home!

We were supposed to drive back to Starkville, Miss., today. But someone in our travel party (Those who know me off the blog can guess and probably get it right. ::sigh::) got the Yukon stuck up to its axels in the mud at the field. So three of us stayed here in Columbus until we can (hopefully) get the truck un-stuck in the morning. At that point, we'll head to Panama City Beach, Fla., for the second tournament.

We had to change hotels from the Columbus Marriott to the Phenix City, Ala., Quality Inn for the evening. Please send happy thoughts for un-sticking the truck tomorrow!

Meanwhile, we're warming up by the fire in the Quality Inn lobby. Comfy couches and basketball on the TV to go along with the fire!