Yesterday with Friends

There's a group of us that meet once a month in Queen Creek - we call ourselves the Yarn Yankers. We hang out for a few hours, show each other what we have been up to. Bring stuff to give away - teach each other new things. It's a lot of fun. Recently one of our members has been having some health issues and we haven't seen as much of her as we would like to.

Yesterday we had an impromptu gathering of a few of us and it was really nice to see them all.

Beverly had to try on my mothers shawl and show us her runway style



I had no idea how much difference it makes to get together with a few friends for a couple of hours and just talk about what we do with fiber. It's amazing how recharged I feel afterwards. The sense of community, of fitting in with your own small segment of society. Most of my life I have felt like an outsider. The kid on the sidewalk watching every one else do/have/be what I wanted. This little bit of time with them takes that "outsider" feeling away.

Portland Souvenirs

This post is long overdue - but I have been out of sorts lately due to the theft of my company laptop at work. Yes, at work, during working hours..... kinda creepy to think there is a thief with that much balls hanging out where I work.

ok, on to the swag...



Beautiful new spindle from Woodland Woolworks along with some gorgeous silk to spin on it. By the way - that place is very hard to come away with only 3 items. There was so much more that I wanted. Luckily for me, there was no equipment that needed me on the day we were there. I told the staff about the little wheel I purchased that is now living back in Oregon with Melissa.



more gorgeous silk - 2 ounces of hand dyed yummyness



These two skeins of Koigu KPPM for socks for me me me are from Knit Purl as my souvenir from the PDX Knit Bloggers Meet up

There is also two more skeins of Koigu that will not be posted until they are transformed into something else so that one of the readers of this blog will be surprised.

Progress report for two projects

I am knitting socks for my sweet Sarah out of the Panda Wool yarn in Red Cinnamon colorway. My intention is to knit a ruffle at the top from a knit ribbon yarn that amazingly matches it almost exactly. I made sure the first sock fit her to the heel yesterday before starting the second one. Here are both of them so far.





I have 10 more rows to go on clue two, perhaps I will be able to start clue 3 tomorrow. This photo is not true to the color of the handspun I am using for this. What appears to be green is actually a blue/teal color.

Finished Socks

My sister Juanita spotted this yarn as soon as it came into my house from Ray and put her name on the ball band - so here are Juanita's socks...

Superwash merino and nylon - toe up with the figure 8 cast on and the YO short row heel - my standard sock recipe - the stitch pattern is an offset broken rib that I unvented to show off the colors. the instep and leg are knit as follows: k2 p2 for three rows, k for two rows, p2 k2 for three rows and repeat. The gauge for this stitch pattern kept the yarn in stripes rather than any pooling. Juanita really likes them, she put them on even though it was 110 degrees yesterday. Said they are the most comfortable socks she has ever worn

Yarn P0rn

Look at what was waiting for me when I got back from Portland..... It almost made coming back ok in a small, non-heat related way.




This is two more huge skeins of sock yarn from Ray. I just can't say enough about this yarn. My favorite LYS just placed an order from him - so now I can go fondle his yarns before buying them!




My first order from Knit Picks. I've heard lots of great stuff about their yarns from Melissa, and met the owner at the PDX Knit Bloggers meet up. So here are 3 pairs of socks just waiting their turn.



This is some test yarn sent to me by the distributor so that I can knit it up and give my opinion. Who'da thunk it?

Promised Portland Pictures

Ok, bad blogger that I am, these pics do not have captions.

Suffice it to say that a good time was had by all. Food was eaten, Yarn stores were visited, friends were hugged, knitting was done etc etc etc (imagine Yul Brenner voice right there)

I am a Yarn Yenta

I took this quiz over on DIY and got 8 out of 10 correct. It would be interesting to know which ones I got wrong.

Ok, I know that I owe pictures from the Portland Trip and the PDX knit bloggers meet up. I still have not unpacked - the camera cable is in the depths of my suitcase somewhere. Tonight - I promise.

I am knitting away on the MS3. I am about 80% done with clue 2, but clue 3 came out today. I am almost caught up. It would go a lot faster if I didn't have to knit each pattern row twice. That is an exaggeration, but not by much. I am knitting and then unknitting about every 3rd pattern row at least by half. I was hoping to get better at this, not worse.

home again

Whew! It's hotter than HELL here and I wish I was still in Portland. Even though it was warm there, it was still a lot cooler than here.

Didn't get home until after 11 last night and I have to go to work this morning. It will be tonight or tomorrow before I get the pics posted from my trip.

Up to row 117 on the MS3. I was able to get 10 rows done in the airport yesterday afternoon waiting for my plane.

There were stacks of packages waiting for me - books and lots of sock yarns. Yarn from 3 different sources -nice!

Portland Visit - Day 1

Wah!!! I took photos, but am using my work computer and cannot download or upload....

pics will be added at the end of the trip or whenever I figure out how to post flickr photos to blogger. Usually I post pics from PicasaWeb and that works fine.

Anyway - a great time today. DeVia and I met Melissa B, Duffy, Gary, and Mary for lunch at Dan and Louis. It was so nice to see Melissa and Duffy again, to meet Gary and Mary for the first time and to give DeVia a small glimpse of the excitement generated when two or more knitters are gathered together.

After leaving Dan and Louis, we headed towards the yarn store, but stopped at Starbucks first for a chai and bit of a knit.

We then went to Knit Purl for the PDX Knit Blogger meet up. Bobbie invited me to join them and conferred on me honorary PDX knit blogger status. The store personnel could not have been more welcoming - there ending up being about 25 of us and they handled it very well.

DeVia hung out for a little while and then headed to Powells. She came back for the ending and was recognized as the outstanding fiber enabler that she is.

There was chocolate, yarn fondling, pattern oohing and aahing.... I can't begin to remember everyone's names - Kathy wrote them all down (including blogs). 3 other knitters were working on the Mystery Stole 3 - I had to put mine away as I just could not concentrate on the lace and talk too.

Another Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl

Here are some unblocked pics of the most recent incarnation of the Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl.





More later once it's blocked.

Taking the do even shorter

Hey - hair is fiber!

It's too dang hot and I decided to take my hair even shorter. I did not want to get my hair cut like Annie's, but really wanted to go shorter than it was.

Luckily I got an appointment this morning and went to see Robin at Jacar. She is so good about really hearing what I am trying to say about my hair.

Look at this great cut!



They take before and after pics. I'm not showing the before, cause only my hairdresser should see my hair like that. As it is, I'm thinking that pic should not really be posted on the WORLD WIDE WEB - lol.....

Off to Portland in a few hours. Yippee! We are meeting some knit sibs for lunch tomorrow and then doing a small yarn crawl.

DeVia has to work Monday and Tuesday, but I will be roaming the city. PDX - look out!

Another pair of socks

My sister Bonnie is such a little foot and her feet get cold easily, so even though she lives down here in the desert (or HELL as I usually call it) I made her some wool socks



The yarn is Noveau Riche from Knitivity and the pattern is a chevron with an eyelet rib. I liked the look of the chevron on the Jaywalker sock, but I knit socks toe up and that made the chevron point the other way. I also wanted a more open look, so I changed the increase from a Kfb to a YO which created a wonderful eyelet rib running up the center - but you can only see it when the sock is on the foot.



It's knit over 60 stitches, toe up, magic cast on, YO short row heel.

MS3 - half of clue one

I joined the Mystery Stole 3 KAL very late - yesterday in fact. I cast on last night hanging out at Tempe Yarn and Fiber and was able to get thru the first 50 rows of the first clue.



The second clue comes out today, so I am going to hustle up to see if I can get the other 50 rows of clue one out of the way this morning.

This is my very first KAL and I am hoping to have fun. This is already the most complicated lace I have every knit - everything else has been small pattern, easily memorized. Every row on this is different and there is no pattern repeat so far.

Lots to say - more later

I have a bunch of stuff to blog about - finished my sister's socks, knitted for the 4th at my favorite LYS, cast on the first clue for the MS3, and the most important thing of all - I got a call today saying that the waiting list for SOAR finally got to me!

Yippee! I am going to SOAR this year!.

I will try to take some pics tomorrow morning before work.

On Saturday, DeVia and I are off to Portland again. She will be at a conference, but I will be hanging out with the PDX bunch and trying to get a group together to go to Woodland woolworks on Monday or Tuesday.

Very interesting results - but no surprises here

I saw this quiz on Queer Joe's blog and had to take it. 20 questions about beliefs later and here are the results:



Your Results:
The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Mahayana Buddhism (91%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (90%)
4. Theravada Buddhism (89%)
5. New Age (88%)
6. Liberal Quakers (71%)
7. Secular Humanism (68%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (65%)
9. Sikhism (63%)
10. Taoism (62%)
11. Jainism (61%)
12. Reform Judaism (60%)
13. Hinduism (56%)
14. New Thought (50%)
15. Scientology (46%)
16. Orthodox Quaker (45%)
17. Nontheist (37%)
18. Bahá'í Faith (31%)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (30%)
20. Orthodox Judaism (26%)
21. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (25%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (18%)
23. Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (15%)
25. Islam (15%)
26. Roman Catholic (15%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (11%)

Insidious LYS

I ran a couple of errands yesterday - I needed a couple of dpn point protectors that I can only get at one LYS and needed to replace a broken brittany size one at the Place I Love. It was only going to be a couple of quick stops, cause I wanted to get home and start the second chevron sock for my sister.

It was a quick trip at the first place - they have just moved and are always too busy for me to feel comfortable there. When I got to the second store, I got my needle replaced and Terry started showing me the new yarns. I showed her the sock I finished out of Ray's yarn and we started talking. Then I sat down at the table and the next thing I know there are a few people around.

I showed a couple of people how to do the magic cast on and by 7:30 or so had finished the foot of my sister's sock.

I am not sure how, but this yarn followed me home.

I have not knit with cotton blends before, but I love the colors. The single skein is a ribbon yarn that I experimented with that forms ruffles when you knit it. It matches the sock yarn exactly and I am going to put some ruffles at the top of the socks I am going to knit for Maegan. Pink is her favorite color. It's all I can do not to cast them on right now, but I am determined to finish this other sock first.

I have also decided that the knit/spin from stash 2007 does not include sock yarn - thanks Wendy.

Who knew?

I was kinda surprised to find that this rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• queer (2x)
• crap (1x)

This was interesting to do....

Part 2 - Sea World Trip

4 adults, 3 children, one minivan, 4 nights, 800 miles, two motel rooms = one glorious trip.

We really had a blast. I think all the kids had a great time, I know that DeVia, Juanita and I did.

Melody was miserable for part of the trip, but she had a much better time than last year.

Here is a slideshow of some of the over 400 pics from the trip:

Part 1 - Sea World trip

We had such a good time. D, her granddaughter, my sister Juanita and all three of Juanita's children rented a mini van and drove to San Diego to spend 2 days at Sea world and get some beach time.

Here are the first set of pictures from the swimming with Dolphins event that we did.
All five of us in the water to stroke the underside of the dolphin. The 18 year old did not want to do this event, so I got to do it again. It was just as much fun this time as it was in Hawaii. These pictures do not show how cute my hair cut is - cause I had to take the combs out of it and it's pretty funky looking in these shots.

My beautiful sister Juanita.


Princess Maegan


Shawnee had a great time on this trip. It's the first time that we have spent more than just a few hours with her and we really think she had fun.

Sarah looks so natural in the wet suit. She had lots of questions to the trainer about how to work with the animals.


All five of us, giving a signal to the dolphin.

Another Finished Object

or rather two of them - socks count for two - right?



Here is the pair of socks that I started on my trip to Mom's right before Mother's day weekend. I started the second sock on my trip to Portland to see the Yarn Harlot. She said that she liked the yarn - it's from Ray. The stitch pattern is an offset rib with a couple of knit rows between - like this k2 p2 across for 3 rows, k two rows plain, p2 k2 across for 3 rows, k two rows plain. figure 8 cast on with 12 stitches and a YO short row heel down to 12 stitches and then back up.

It's my generic sock formula with a pattern stitch on the instep and leg.

I finished the socks last night at the guild meeting and cast on for a new pair immediately. This new color is very intense and I think I am keeping them for myself.



I'm trying to figure out what kind of pattern to do on the instep of this one.