July 2008 Archives

I was sort of on the line about whether I wanted to blog this garment, because I thought it could be something fun to submit to Knitty Spin or Spin-Off, but I've decided, what the heck, it's another top-down fitted raglan. If you can't find 450 patterns like it, you just aren't looking hard enough.

I'm calling it the Sam I Am Cardigan because it feels very Dr. Seuss to me, with the sort of wonky stripes. The wonkification (technical term) comes from using handspun yarn, of course.

I've been working on this piece between deadline projects. It's good, relatively mindless knitting and it's in my favorite color combination, if you haven't noticed. The showcase yarn is merino in the colorway, Sage, from Spunky Eclectic. The purple is from Penchant to Knit, and the white cormo is from Black Berry Hill Farms. All three finished fibers have some seriously thick and thin qualities with the white tending to be thickest and the purple tending to be the thinnest. I'm amazed at how they all seem to come together into a cohesive whole.

I don't know how long the finished piece will be and I don't have a scale with me, in LA, to check on my current usage, but I'm a little further along and expect to be able to get half length sleeves, and the body at least a few inches below my waist, plus all the bands. I'm looking forward to diving into my stash of vintage buttons to finish off the look.

I had to include a shot of Julia's cat, Townes when I was over her house, knitting this piece. He was giving that yarn the hairy eyeball and when I tried the piece on later, he crawled up and grabbed himself a little pawfull. I guess I can't criticize his excellent taste in handspun.

In entirely unrelated news, my friend took me to see Diana Ross in concert at the Hollywood Bowl, this weekend. It was a lot of fun and crowd was nearly as entertaining as the performance.

I'm officially at the halfway point of my business trip, end of day 5 of 10 days total. It's been a mostly good trip, I'd say. There have been some hurdles and unexpected challenges that have come up at work, but we've managed to make the best of it.

Anyway, I feel like this blog has been sorely neglected lately, and it has really nothing to do with my desire to blog, and everything to do with my limited time. So in the spirit of poorly planned blog posts that are light on content, here's some random stuff from my trip so far.

My brother and his girlfriend Aileen treated me to sushi.

Matt's grown himself some extravagant facial hair and is now known as "the colonel," amongst some of his colleagues. This shot really doesn't do the handlebar justice.

Apropos absolutely nothing, I think this picture from today's Cute Overload, is so funny I can't stand it.

I've brought along a bit of my recent handspun. I don't really have any good spot to shoot them (not much natural light in my hotel room) so I've taken a quick, "what's that weirdo doing" shot of the skeins, draped over the balcony here at La Quinta.

The solid one is some silky B-type pygora from Peppermint Pastures. The multicolor is called Iridescence. It's black alpaca and all kinds of sparkly stuff. I bought it from this Etsy shop.
Both are 3ply, spun up on El Matchador. I still have another batt of the sparkly that I'll spin up at some time. I do want to take some better shots of each skein, at some point. In case you are wondering, I have no idea what I'll do with it all.

Last down our road trip of nonsequiturs, here in the no segue zone, is me being all laughy and silly, while talking to Leo on the phone.

He went to a local jazz bar, in Portland and was listening to some great Motown music. Every time a good song would come on, he'd call me so I could hear.

That's the band I missed. It sounded great, but damn, it made me miss home.

Oh well.

This weekend should have lots of fun in store for me, which will make up for all the hours spent working.

I'm in OC* for work and missing my sweet little stinker-bells, already.

I took this shot before I left the house today. Then I spent about 10 hours traveling, well, mostly waiting to travel, and being generally hungry. Did you know they don't even give you pretzels on United flights less than 3 hours long? Even if you are actually siting on the plane for what amounts to 3 hours, but not flying for about half of that time. I didn't know this. I would have paid them $30 for a bag of yogurt covered raisins (I hate raisins) by the end of my first flight.

I managed to survive, though, and wolfed down inordinate amounts of faux dim sum at the SF airport, while I waiting and played musical departure gates.

Weeeee! My life is so glamorous.

Well, it's late and I need to be up early. I hope to have something more substantial to post soon.

* It's not "THE OC," just OC. We may put the article in front of the highways, such as "I'm taking the 405 to the110 today." But we don't put an article in front of the initials for Orange County. Only teevee does that.

The pattern for the Alsace Le Monstre Hat, Doll and both combined, are now available for sale.

Special thanks go out to Julia getting knocked up and inspiring me to come up with something unique and to Ada for her tech editing work.

If you have any trouble purchasing the pattern or find any issues with the instructions, don't hesitate to contact me.

It's been in the 90s which was toasty when we were acclimated to life in LA, but is downright miserable now that we've become accustomed to Portland weather. The beach seemed a perfect way to cool off a bit.

Leo's work gave everyone Thursday and Friday off for Independence Day. Since I didn't have such a luxuriously long weekend, we agreed that he and Leela should have their first road trip together, and I'd get some work done around the house, and keep the girls entertained. What I feel for my fiber arts, Leo feels for exploration and doing so on bike is all the more exhilarating.

He brought the camera along and took some amazing shots, whenever he had a chance to park the bike. It was drizzly but nothing to keep him from enjoying the scenery.

It's hard to believe all his stuff fit in two saddle bags and a little net on the back of the bike, but the man knows how to rough it in style.

He says those yellow flowers were incredibly fragrant. I know nothing about flora but it sure looks pretty.

Leo spent his second night near big foot. He's obviously a fan of fun fur.

After a rainy night, Leo got everything packed up for a leisurely ride home.

Unfortunately, the rain was unrelenting. By hour 6, of his drive home, he was starting to feel a little sorry for himself.

Boy, was I glad I let him go solo.

Anyway, all in all, it was a pretty great trip and he scoped out a bunch of great spots for future camping events for the 4 of us. If you are curious, here's the approximately 600 mile drive he did.

If you want to see all his pictures, you can see the Flickr set here.

It's Independence Day, here in the states which Panda would probably call, "the worst freakin' day of the entire year, which sucks donkey balls and makes me want to pee myself." Or something along that line. With the holiday falling on a Friday, we can expect a weekend of fireworks and a truly miserable dog who is completely inconsolable. Well, the panchetta offered a brief (very brief,) distraction, but she was entirely uninterested in the peanut butter, which should tell you something. That whole "try to make something scary positive" tactic just doesn't work in this case.

Thea is fine, thanks for asking.

Leo, is on a weekend motor-pickle ride up near Fork, Washington, where he is doing reconnaissance for future camping trips with the rest of us. This left me to catching up on loads of knitting, pattern writing and some cleaning that are all sorely in need of my attention. In case you are wondering, it was my idea that he go solo, since I just wouldn't have the time to join him.

But, my friends Larry and Erica offered to make me homemade waffles for breakfast today, which is about as fantabulous an offer as I could envision. So, bright and early, after my first full night's sleep in, probably, 2 weeks, I took the train to the Pearl district to see them.

When they opened the door, they were wearing...

PANDA!
They are way too cute for their own good. And, no, they don't walk around town in matchy matchy get-ups, they donned them in unison for my benefit. **squee!**

Then Erica gave me gifts for the girls, from Canada, which Chewie (short for Chewbacca) promptly bonded with.

After that, Larry got down to BIZ-NIZ!

While enjoying warm fluffy waffles (is anyone else feeling hungry right now?) Erica mentioned a glass spinning wheel at the local craft museum, and I knew exactly what she was talking about.

So, of course, even though the museum was closed, we had to go walk by and get my classy mug in front of it, because I had no idea it was hanging out right in my little city.

Then I started hamming it up.

There's a far far less flattering picture (ok, maybe a few pictures) as well, and my friends are likely to chime in about the obvious omission here, but that is one of the great benefits to having full editorial control over the content of my site.

Anyway, it was a lovely little break from what is likely to be a pretty busy weekend for me, so yay for that.