The Viking Princess

Fall in Oregon

2011-11-17T21:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's gloss over the fact that I haven't blogged about our summer vacation, fiber fests, Halloween or recent knitting. It has been crazy here, with my school, work and life.

So here are some photos from a recent trip to Oregon. The colors are intense this time of year.

Summer is Over, Time to Blog

2011-08-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

We took a twelve-day trip to the East Coast (NH, MA, and ME). It was great fun. K. and I got to meet a bunch of my husband's family. Got the whole picture now. I had a lot of fiber fun, too. I'm going to blog about that at the Purl Jam site in a couple days.

I don't have a lot of photos from the trip because my camera got broken on day three. I'm trying to get some pics from everyone else so I can blog about the trip properly.

The last year of preschool started today. It is a separate program for the five-year-olds who aren't quite ready for Kindergarten. Did you know there is homework in Kindergarten these days. One more year of a little less structure for this guy:

I'm trying to find a part-time job. Still working at the fiber shop, but need something 20-30 hours a week so we can finally buy a house. I have had enough of apartment life. My plan was to get a job when K. entered Kindergarten next year because he will be there from about 9-3, but I started looking a couple months ago, knowing it would take some time. No luck yet. Got to the second interview at one, but didn't get it. Had a phone interview at another, no dice. Then I got a call for an interview on the third day of our vacation and set it up for today. Unfortunately they hired someone else in the meantime. All of them were near home and K.'s school. Very disappointing, especially the first which was a very protracted process.

But I had a plan B. I'm taking art classes which start tomorrow. I'm finally taking Color Theory at City College. Got all my paints and supplies yesterday. I found out CCSF offers a Textile Certificate, so I decided to work towards that. I have quite a few credits toward it already, took Textile Analysis over the summer and am taking Weaving this semester, too.

Now to catch up since my last post in June. Apologies, as many of these photos were taken with my cell phone, and there are probably more typos than usual.

MY SON IS FIVE

I don't have good photos from the party, it was a Star Wars theme. Lots of friends and family came for a nice afternoon at Coyote Point. Don't hold your breath on the thank-you cards. In lieu of birthday pics, here is one of him hamming it up in Bar Harbor, Maine.

IN THE NEWSPAPER

My knitting group was in the local neighborhood paper. There's a shot of me on the inside, too. But I don't like to brag, you know.

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

I asked my potter friend for a fruit colander. She asked for a sketch. I received an exact replica. Here it is in action. I hear that she will work for handspun yarn. Good thing, I need a bowl for spinning on a tahkli.

TOUR DE FLEECE HAPPENED

I finally stained my spinning wheel in preparation for the Tour. Love the way it turned out. I washed and washed and washed Jacob fleece from the zoo shearing. I was on Team Raw Power and carded and spun well over a pound. That's a lot of rolags to turn this:

Into this:

Perhaps coincidentally I finally decided on a drum carder.

It is a Strauch "Finest". It comes with a lot of bells and whistles. Here are some of the instructions: do not to lend it to friends, do not let children play with it, do not card dirty fleece. I haven't done any blending yet, but the kid and I have prepped a bunch of zoo alpaca. You know, I think I am going to buy a fleece from a spinners flock at California Wool and Fiber this year. It will be a dream after the zoo stuff.

INSANE DEADLINE KNITTING

My friend organized the second annual San Francisco Ravelry Meet-up. There was a KAL of hats by local designers. At the last minute I cast on for Diamond Head Beret with Peace Fleece. I love the yarn and the pattern. My denial about ribbing, not so much. I knocked it out in two days, including cutting off the first ribbing and re-knitting it. Sadly, I need to do so again, still too slouchy. There was also a fun toy swap. Sadly I don't have a photo of the gnome I made or the cupcake I received.

I CAN'T STOP BUYING YARN

The yarn-buying drought that was broken at Jimmy Beans has caused a river of yarn to come in the house. In particular I got more Madelinetosh and a sweater's worth of Noro Silk Garden. Plus everything on our trip. But that's different.

No photos!!

OR FIBER

Finally got my hands on some Hello Yarn thanks to Starry Knit.

KNITTING: I STILL DO IT

I was busy with my class over the summer but I did get most of a sweater done, made a second pair of Pomatomus, and cast on for a shawl.

NEEDLEFELTING, I STILL LIKE IT

The kid requested a second piece of toast.

GARDENING

The guys spent the past year amending the soil in the tiny backyard that we cannot see from our apartment (did I mention I am sick of it here?). It was mainly a way to get the kid outside and digging. There isn't even room to run. It was so funky and overgrown that I never went out there. A few months ago I got a bunch of free mulch from the people who do the City's garbage, kind of a give back for all the stuff we put out in the compost bin. So I put it in the raised bed and planted there and around the fence. Between the couple things that were growing already, stuff that we dug up from job sites, and things I planted it is kind of nice. There is way more out there now. And there are gnomes, of course.

***

To recap, a lot of stuff happened since June. I still need to blog about some of it. Stay tuned.

The Knitting Life Summer Edition

2011-06-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

What's been happening around here? My kid graduated from preschool a few weeks ago, that was pretty amazing. The kids put on a musical and their teacher spoke about each kid individually. The words 'action' and 'enthusiasm' described mine. We'll be at the school for another year in the Young 5 program for those kids who are too young or not quite ready for Kindergarten.

***

Did I mention the S.F. Zoo sheep shearing? That was in May, too, and I blogged about it on the Purl Jam site.

***

We are taking a break between school and a couple sessions of summer camp to do things like go to the Academy of Sciences, Fisherman's Wharf, the Zoo, etc. and generally lounge about. We road tripped with my parents to Reno week before last. We played in the snow on the way up and I visited Jimmy Beans Wool, where I purchased yarn. That's right, the yarn buying freeze which lasted eighteen months is over.

We visited both the Nevada State Rail Museum and the California State Rail Museum. There was also a tram at Circus Circus. A small railfan's dream come true.

I just started a three-unit textile analysis course that is jammed into seven weeks, eight hours of class a week. Pretty intense, but I want to pursue art classes. The last one I took was when I was pregnant. You never know when we might win the lottery big time and I could go back to school full time for that MFA in Textiles. I would only have about 40 units of undergrad art classes to do first.

We are going to the East Coast in August, and I finally get to meet the rest of my in-laws. I have been studying the Fiber Trail Map of Maine in preparation.

I have been looking for a part-time job for a few months. Just in case that lottery thing doesn't work out. Still working at Urban Fauna Studio a couple days a month.

A short term goal is to get all my raw fiber washed. We are having non-foggy weather so I started yesterday with alpaca, on to the zoo Jacob today. I have hopes of sanding, staining, and sealing my spinning wheel this summer, too.

***

Last weekend I took an all-day Rosemaling class. Even though I've taken two other classes and spent time practicing the strokes over the past couple months, I was really out of my element. An all-day knitting class, even on a new technique feels challenging, but doable. With the painting that little voice that says I can't do this kind of thing kept creeping in. But in the end I was really happy with this piece, I can hardly believe I did it. Mr. TVP said we should hang it on the front door to greet people.

***

On to the knitting front. I started a sweater for myself. We shall see how that turns out.

I finished my first intarsia project, Argyle Socks designed by Margie Dougherty. Quite pleased.

I actually broke the yarn buying oath last month to knit this cowl for the great Purl Jam Birthday Cowl Exchange.

That's the Owlie Owl Cowl in Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine. For a while there I had these two fiddly projects using black yarn on size 0 needles and nothing else. Very hard on my eyes in the evenings. Plus the cowl was a secret so I couldn't even share my progress, except with one person.

More babies are coming. I wish I had taken a photo of the pink & brown hat a bought to go with these booties.

Read about this fun group project over on Purl Jam. I knit a couple squares for this blanket and at least one for the other baby, too.

And a pair of socks for each.

I think knitting will end up taking a back seat to my class for a while. By the time we go on our trip I will be free again. I'm sure I will pack at least four projects, I took three for a three-day trip to Reno.

Right now I have to go play trains.

Maker Faire 2011

2011-05-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

We went down to the Faire this morning, a flawless trip. I bought the tickets in advance to save $15, we parked in a free lot, ran to the shuttle and arrived ten minutes before the gates opened.

On the way down I was weaving in ends of the R2D2 hat I cast on last night and finished at 1:20 this morning. Confidence was high that I would finish it in time, even when I frogged the whole thing at 10:30 pm because it was too large. The hat was worn for less than half an hour total.

We went to the kid area first, which conveniently for me, was near the crafting. So nice to be there early and have room to look around. Next stop ice cream. As much as I love chocolate ice cream it was not that appetizing at 10:40 am. Even R2D2 couldn't eat more than a few bites.

We moved on and I spotted Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs. I was within six feet of him. Very exciting. This poor photo shows him being interviewed by (I think) Zachary Coffin the inventor of Colossus there in the background. There was no opportunity to actually meet Mike Rowe or get an autograph. He had quite a large group of officials and security around him. And I probably had chocolate ice cream on my face.

During the day I ran into friends from my knitting group, folks from the shop, crafty vendors, and my ex-husband.

We wandered around. I took a quick soldering class and made a little robot pin with a light. I resisted buying yarn, but did get some carbonized bamboo to spin, a pattern, and these pink wool hair elastics from NifNaks.

Many favorites were there, like the cupcake cars and Katherine Jolda's bicycle-powered drum carder.

And new things like the trackless train.

There is something for everyone at the Maker Faire.

We left having seen a lot but not everything. It got too crowded and we were tired. As we got back to the parking lot at 2:30 we heard someone in the long line for the shuttle to the Faire wondering why we were leaving so early. We laughed and wondered why people would get there so late. Arriving before the crowds is the way to go when you have a little kid.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hope you have a great day.

Knitting is Fun

2011-04-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

For fun I'm knitting argyle socks, the current One-Sock-A-Month pattern. Just to make my first intarsia as challenging as possible, they are fingering weight on size 0's. And if the knitting isn't tricky enough, the leg and foot seaming ought to be interesting.

Here's my progress since I started Tuesday. I have the edge covered up because I did a provisional cast-on with orange yarn. Distracting. After the sock is done, I will go back and pick up the stitches and do a ribbed cuff. Fiddly.

Okay, a baby got born, so I can post the socks and hats I knit for him.

I've been making progress on my Frankensocks.

I almost forgot, I finished my Kalajoki socks. My third pair in Wollmeise yarn.

On the horizon is sheep shearing at the San Francisco Zoo on May 7th. I'm organizing a spinning, knitting, wool in general demo. I hope to get some yarn spun from the Jacob wool I had from previous years.

I've finally picked out colors to stain my spinning wheel. That took two years, so maybe it will get done in the next three.

Stitches West, Birthday, FO's

2011-03-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

What a great tradition this is turning into, going to Stitches West on my birthday weekend.

Friday I took a great class on Swedish twined knitting, Tvåänddsstickning, by Beth Brown-Reinsel. It is done by working from both ends of a ball of yarn, twisting the yarn every stitch for a firm fabric. It can be done in one color or two, and is in the round. I found it quite challenging. You twist one way for knit, the other for purl. I kept getting confused. I left class a little early because my hands hurt, so I didn't get one of those cool photos of all the student projects, but here is the progress I made in class.

Once I do a little practice I will switch to a new pair of wristlets. Most commercial yarn is plyed in the S or counter-clockwise direction. If you use it while twined knitting it comes untwisted. Black Water Abbey yarn, from Ireland, is plyed Z, or clock-wise. Handily they were at Stitches.

So, yes, I broke my over year-long spell and bought yarn. Hey, I need it for a Scandinavian technique. It was birthday money. I also bought a book about twined knitting and sock blockers! I didn't go back to the market on Saturday, I felt quite satisfied with my purchases. I would have liked to look at a lot of things again, but it wasn't worth the drive back down. I had the worst commute ever Friday, the just normally just over and hour drive took over two-and-a-half. At a couple points I was sitting still on the freeway in the rain in the dark.

Side note, I got a glass head from Pier One for blocking and photographing hats last month. I love it.

I also received lovely fiber-y gifts for my birthday. A Will Taylor Lazy Kate. A lovely nostepinne.

Yarn and (not pictured) three kinds of wool to spin from my kin.

Time to catch up on knitting. I got my Bohus Nye Azalea hat done!! Here's a close-up.

The photo way up top was taken by Tracey who apparently is a reader of this blog. I also got her to take pictures of my Waving Lace socks, knit in Wollmeise.

I finished another pair of Wollmeise socks, pattern Shur'tugal late last year. I've got a third WM pair almost done.

The very popular One-Sock-A-Month group is doing argyles next. I'm all set to go.

The preschool held it's annual auction and I donated a few handmade things, including the handspun knit hat and mitts up there with the glass head.

I received some Coopworth wool. I've been wanting to try dyeing multicolors and free fiber and a sick day home with the kid seemed like the perfect opportunity for playing. I had him in a mask and safety glasses as we carefully put Jacquard Acid dyes in the hot water/vinegar/wool bath.

I was amazed that the colors actually soaked right in instead of migrating throughout the water. In the past I've been working for the opposite, dye throughout the water to get even color. We got the distinct colors, and then played a bit with blending.

I spun it up for the auction.

Late last year the kid wanted to make his teacher "Iguana yarn" it had to be green and shiny. Okay. So he picked out green dye and Angelina fibers. I dyed the wool, spun it up S and plied it Z because she's a crocheter. I had heard that yarn specifically for crochet is spun like that.

I know a bunch of ladies having babies, so I've been busy knitting little things that I can't post about.

2010 in Review

2010-12-31T20:24:00.000-08:00

It's the time of year to reflect. There were some hard times, like losing my grandpa and aunt. Some achievements. Some disappointments. And many good times, especially taking trips to see family and friends, and pursuing "the fiber lifestyle". We were lucky to have business, unlike many builders in the area. K. loves his preschool and friends.

***

On a personal front I got back into cycling, running, and hiking. I also took a lot of photos. Photos of my city:

My kid:

Myself: And fiber:

***

K. took a bunch of photos. It's fun to see things from his perspective. I guess I'm wearing off on him because he takes pics of himself:

The things around him:

And me:

***

I'm not making any specific New Year's Resolutions beyond the changes I started last year and want to continue in 2011. Perhaps I will sign up for a 5K run.

***

On the fiber front I achieved the goal of buying no yarn in 2010. Thanks to friends and family I got plenty of lovely new yarn, though.

I must have made some crazy knitting goals, but I don't tag my posts very well so I couldn't find them, beyond my list of stash-busting ideas (4 of 13 done). According to my Ravelry notebook I knitted twenty-seven items this year.

I haven't set any knitting goals for 2011 but I have a few ideas:

Knit sweaters this year: Wollmeise? Lett-Lopi? Handspun?
Keep knitting socks. Handknit socks feel so good! Perhaps enter the SF One Sock a Month 2011 Hall of Fame?
Finally finish that Fana Sweater.
Continue working from stash

I also got more into needle felting and starting working at a fiber place.

Whether I make the knitting goals or not, I know 2011 will be a fulfilling fiber year. I'm already signed up for a twined knitting class at Stitches West on my birthday in February.

***

Happy New Year! See you in 2011.

Knitacular

2010-12-05T19:31:00.000-08:00

I can finally catch up on my knitting news. First off, I am so thrilled about the just published Sluggish Mushrooms that I test knit for StarryKnit! The pattern is adorable and just challenging enough. It was a marathon knit over the week of Thanksgiving.

Staying near the redwoods, there were tons of photo ops. This was at a mushroom growing business across from a tasting room we visited.

We had our annual Purl Jam stash exchange at the first of November. At the very last minute I used the last of the yarn I received in 2009. I made this feather and fan tank out of Collinette Giotto. It took a couple months from vision in my head to finished object, but it was one of those rare occasions when the result is just as I imagined it.

That was on the tail end of knitting the Eleanor cowl from Knitty, using Arapaho Rose alpaca yarn. Another project that turned out just as I had hoped.

Also a phone cozy and little purse from Elizabeth Austen Andes wool.

We had a great time picking yarn. There is a charming account and photos of the event on the PJ site.

Here is the yarn I selected this year, from the practical to fancy yarns I have been wanting to try.

I took my tank top, this yarn, and a little sheep to a Golden Gate park for a photo shoot. Not only did I run into an acquaintance, I also roped a young man into taking photos of me. Fiber people are not weird!! And yes, I set up my tripod to take photos of myself at home. Don't we all?

Beyond swapping yarn we exchanged handmade gifts. There was something for everyone, and a little bit extra for those who used all of last year's yarn, and used a lot of it. I received delicious baked goods, jam, a handbag, stitch markers, earrings, and two mugs designed especially for my collection. And they were all wrapped in pink fur. The baked goods did not last long enough for a photo.

Purl Jam is a very talented group. Talented, and just a bit competitive. But competitive in a way that makes us better knitters.

I'm already working away at the new stash. The Sluggish Mushrooms were made with stash exchange yarn. And I made my one and only Christmas knit, a scarf which is going to St. Anthony's knit scarf drive, from exchange yarn, too.

One last knitting thing, the One Sock a Month group was featured the new magazine Knitting Daily. You can spot my rainbow fish sock here among the school of them.

Of Rain and Rainbows

2010-11-28T13:59:00.000-08:00

We just got back from a week's vacation. The morning we left it was raining, I went out early and took photos of this rainbow which spanned our neighborhood.

We rented a house in Guerneville and friends and family came from far and wide for Thanksgiving (and wine tasting). I worked on a super secret knitting project, finished it and a scarf. Despite the dire predictions of rain, and my being sick, I rode my bike all but one day.

No photos of the beautiful Armstrong redwoods but here's one of my bike camouflaging itself at the bike shop. This is only half of the pink-ness that is Stumptown Cycles.

Thanksgiving is not my holiday. Although I love pie, I don't like eating turkey, the glorification of overeating, or football. Not to mention the whole Indian/Pilgrim issue. Despite the day not being significant for me I found myself missing people who are gone. My father, who has been gone since 2001 and those we lost this year, my grandpa, and my aunt Etta.

I never could bring myself to write about her passing in September. She was my clean-living, non-smoking, favorite aunt and she died of lung cancer.

K and I took the train up to Albany where the memorial service was held. It was too soon after grandpa, and too soon to be losing my aunt. The next day we went to the cemetery where my grandma and grandpa are to add the date of his death. I had never been there before. It was raining and I debated bringing K. He had questions like "will we be dead if we go there?" and "will we dig them up?"

It was low-key and fine. We caught the train the next morning and K cried over leaving his cousins.

Back to Thanksgiving in Guerneville. A lot of the trip involved scenes like this:

My darling child had been home from school sick the whole previous week. He also woke up between 4:30 and 6:00 every day of vacation. We still love him.

One afternoon I rode out around the bend to see this rainbow over the vineyard. The next day we saw a double rainbow coming back from Sebastapol.

This post is all over the place but I have to mention that during the sick week, when I was wondering how I was going to make it, this fine fellow arrived.

He came bearing gifts of rainbow wool and more.

We came back to our apartment to settle back into the routine and culture shock of an old kitchen and small space. I found out that the pastor who confirmed me, Howard Kreiselmeyer, had passed away. He was also too young.

Rain and rainbows, that's how it goes.

Craftacular

2010-11-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

I have been doing all kinds of crafty things the past couple months. I did my first yarn bombing, which you can read about on my knitting group's web site.

Next was a stop at Lambtown in Dixon on the way to Sacramento for the Princess Promenade. I only stayed for an hour, kind of checking things out for next year. I was missing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass here in S.F., so I was thrilled to see a band, "Matt and George and their Pleasant Valley Boys", perform. I grabbed a Miller Lite and sat a spell.

There were a ton of great vendors, both familiar and new. I would like to take a class next year.

I did not visit the alpacas.

Or participate in any eating contests.

I made some gnomes. One for a Ravelry gnome swap and the other for my knitting group's stash exchange extravaganza. We made non-knitted gifts for each other, but more about that on a later, knitting post. The delightful pattern is from Wee Wonderfuls. It is easy to do, but a little fiddly since you have to keep changing thread to match each piece.

I made mushroom drawstring gift bags and they have both gone to new homes. The boy was named Olaf.

Meanwhile we were working away on a Halloween costume for K. He wanted to be an exact replica of his robot, Lilliput. We starting saving parts in September and waited and waited for the right size cardboard box to show up. Some yellow gaffer's tape and a Sharpie's worth of ink later it was almost ready. K decided it needed red glitter glue, so it was.

He was thrilled with the costume.

Click on this to see the boy holding the toy. Please note I even replicated the typefaces.

I finally did some needlefelting. I made the sheep at the top of the post, Miss Merlot, out of Babydoll fleece and mohair.

And there has been knitting. That requires another post.

Biketacular

2010-11-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

I rode the Princess Promenade last month in Sacramento with my sister J. It was 55 miles and she really pushed me to go faster than I would have. It was thankfully cool. One of the high points was seeing wild turkeys on the trail. One of the low points was driving around looking for Denney's and getting stuck in Old Town Sacramento. I should know better. I also discovered that all La Quintas are not created equal.

It was great to get away for a night, and spend time with Miss J. Instead of patches they give out medals at the end. Kind of neat. I would do this ride again, but it is a long way to go. Hopefully it will coincide with Lambtown again.

By the way, they had a chocolate fountain.

The bike season is winding down, and I've started running. Not sure if I want to start doing 5Ks again. I need to see what's coming up.

It was good to do organized rides again. It really is challenging to find the time to train to do the long rides. The Cinderella is on April 2nd. If I could keep up with 30 mile rides now training for that wouldn't be so bad. We shall see.

23 Mosquito Bites...

2010-09-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

...and one new hat.

That's what I got during our trip in Mendocino County. The main draw for me is the California Wool & Fiber Festival, but also Navarro Winery, the County Fair, and camping, too.

The hat says "Country Music Kicks Butt". The beautiful wool is from Colors of Nature in Davis.

We brought home an awful lot of dirt. I got 23 mosquito bites, the others got none, go figure. Our handknit sweaters came in handy since I forgot to bring pillows. Many s'mores were eaten. It rained this morning but we were prepared to haul out first thing anyway.

It was a great trip, we had a lot of fun. The weather was cool, but the rain held off until today. The partiers must have been scared off by the rain, we got good sleep this time. My son got a sparkly rose painted on his face:

********

In other fiber news, I finished my Rainbow Swedish Fish Socks a week or so ago.

They were the July-Aug KAL of the San Francisco One-Sock-A-Month group. Here is a group shot. Yes, on mine each row of fish was a different yarn so I had over 30 ends per sock to weave.

The current KAL is Shur'tugal which translates to Dragonslayer. I'm doing them in Wollmeise WD Granatapfal, a fire-y color.

On October 1st I'm starting another Ravelry Knit and Read-A-Long, Frankensocks. The group is reading Frankenstein and making socks from our leftovers. Here are mine:

Last Sunday was a crazy day. I got on the road at 6:15 for a 30 mile training ride. Then I rushed to sock group. Finally I caught the streetcar out to our Daughters of Norway meeting. We got a needlefelting lesson. I really want to do more needlefelting. My sister gave me a coordinated kit, and I traded with someone for a box of colors. We made hedgehogs.

Have I mentioned that I'm very occasionally working at Urban Fauna Studio? I have keys to a fiber store, watch out!

My Favorite Things...

2010-08-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

... are pink

When presented with the challenge of knitting my rejected sari silk yarn, my friend Erica knit a pouch, and then gave it to me. The hot pink bow makes is especially awesome. I hope her hands have recovered.

I love this cyclist!

Speaking of bikes, I've got a new addition to my pink one, a coconut drink holder. Perfect for a coffee cup, or, I suspect, a beer can.

(I just Googled this item, and was thrilled to find it described as "super tacky". Don't worry, I didn't pay $25 for it, it came from a clearance bin in of all places, Moscow, Idaho. Where you can ride on the sidewalks legally.)

The Past Six Months

2010-08-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

I just posted a big knitting update. It was so long that I'm doing an update of my fabulous life here separately.

I just looked through the archives. Did I really not post about my birthday? In February? Not only did I attend Stitches West and take a Bohus class I got fabulous gifts.

First, Teekay knit me the fabulous viking helmet pictured above. Pink braids, can you believe it? Whenever I wear it people want to know where to buy one or if I will knit them one? (You can't and No).

I also got yarn, fiber, homemade goodies, and babysitting coupons. I know my husband got me something good, but I can't remember.

***

K. went to camp at his school all summer, we had just a few weeks off. The school year started back up yesterday. Last week was a parent work week to get the school cleaned up. I volunteered to go to the dump. The guy who gave me masks in the past and sometimes helps me unload checked me in. He commented on all my pink stuff - shirt, mug, bottle, phone. Too bad I didn't have my hardhat on. Glad someone appreciates it.

We took a road trip to Newport, Oregon over 4th of July and I finally met my sister-in-law and two nephews who flew out from Kentucky. I tried to do Tour de Fleece but it just didn't happen this year. We only have basic cable, so I couldn't watch the race, which just made me sad. I did spin on the trip, though.

We drove home along the Umpqua River. Here's a photo of us at an Elk viewing area. Yeah, I know. They are there, behind us, trust me.

In July I was lucky enough to be a delegate from my lodge to the Daughters of Norway Convention in Costa Mesa. What fun to meet so many Sisters (and see so many bunads). My sister was an alternate delegate from her lodge, so we roomed together. It was a full trip with a rosemaling class, business meetings, marching, and banquets. My kid did great with mom gone for three nights.

The day I got back K had his 4th birthday. We had a family dinner, a bowling party, and a "birthday circle" at school. Tons of fun, and he is enjoying going to others' parties, too.

***

On the bike front I did the Tour de Peninsula a few weeks ago. This time a 31 miler with some good climbing. I've come a long way since last year. I haven't been riding a whole lot, but need to ramp up for the 55-mile Princess Promenade in Sacramento October 3rd. Look at the jersey, how could I not do it?

Of course lots of other stuff has gone on. I wish I would blog more often. But I keep breaking cameras so I think that has been holding me back.

Heat Wave

2010-08-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

Our summer is finally here in San Francisco and I am sweltering. The perfect time to finish languishing mittens, no?

These are Snow Chains Mittens designed by my friend Jessica. I started them way back in January or February, I think.

Last week I finished this stole. The pattern is called Fairy Leaves, by the pooling genius, Gladys We. She has come up with quite a few projects that allow you force variegated yarn to pool into orderly stripes. It took two days of swatching for me to get the right stitch count to use this Shaeffer Anne yarn. And then it took forever to knit, including ripping out several inches in a moving vehicle with no lifeline.

This knit tulips were for K.'s teacher. She taught them a Japanese song about tulips, red, yellow, and white.

I see I have not posted any finished items since January, so here goes. Click to see photos a little bigger.

Here's the Lopi sweater I made for Ed. He was so impressed he keeps telling people it looks like it was bought in Iceland.

This is Prepared for Vancouver, which I knit for charity.

I made more Lopi felted bags.

And this felted handbag....

...and a Citron Shawl to wear to May's San Francisco Ravelry meet-up, which was organized by two of my friends.

This is a hand spun and hand knit hat, which went to my former mother-in-law.

These are my crazy clown socks, knit from some Koigu, Cherry Tree Hill, and rainbow Serenity Garden.

Finally, Bohus socks, which I adore to no end. The cuffs were the class project in Susanna Hanson's Stitches West class. The foot is Berroco Ultra Alpaca that I bought at the show with my Webs gift certificate. Toasty.

At the end of the class everyone laid out their wristlets.

The whole not buying yarn thing is going well. I haven't used up a ton of stash because I keep picking long projects. But it has not been a hardship, especially since I got several yarn gifts. I love shopping for yarn, but it is also fun to get creative with what I have.

Another challenge is to use up all the yarn I got from our knitting group's stash exchange. That's where I got the yarn for the pooling stole and blue handbag. I've got three more projects to go.

Greetings

2010-06-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

The kid and I took a trip to visit my sister in Moscow, Idaho last week.

This photo sums up what traveling with a preschooler is like:

Full of comedy and tragedy:

We drove all over Northern Idaho and Washington. Saw a lot of wheat. Took a bunch of train photos:

This one did not turn out exactly as planned, but I know the photographer would protest if I did not include it:

The sweetest thing happened at Prospectors Days in Republic, Washington. My kid got to hold a five-day-old kid:

We got to do some fun stuff. It rained a bit, but at least it wasn't hot. It took two days to recover from the trip.

On the knitting front, I have some f.o.'s I haven't blogged about, and am working on a pooling stole.

I got back all excited about spinning for some reason. I think because the only reading I did was from the most recent Spin-Off. Yesterday I washed some Jacob fleece and finished up spinning my first Shetland which was also my first 3-ply.

Preschool summer camp starts tomorrow and I am looking forward to a summer with no school meetings conflicting with my knit night.

I'm a dumbass. Count the ways.

2010-05-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

I started hiking at San Pedro Valley Country Park. There's just enough time to drop my kid off at school, zoom down to Pacifica, do a rigorous hike, and make it back to school at noon. I had hiked here in the past, toward Montara Mountain, but lately I've being taking the innocuous-sounding "hazelnut trail".

I have seen a lizard, a snake, bunny rabbits, quail, deer, hummingbirds, and tons of wildflowers.

Right now the trail is very overgrown in places. No-one else is on the trail. Very peaceful, and every visit is different, even though it is the same time of day and week. Last week I found this on the trail:

I knew it was a from a predator because it was full of hair. When I got home I showed the photo to the former hunter and verified with pics and info on the internet that it is from a mountain lion. I know the rules for dealing with them:

make noise
don't run
don't crouch
make yourself look big

Let's review my actions the day I took pictures of twenty different flowers. I've got #4 covered without trying, and #1 also as I stomp uphill in my giant hiking shoes. And as long as I was heading uphill, #2 wasn't going to happen. But think about #3 and I am pure dumbass, stopping, leaning down and taking photos of flowers (and scat). Pretty quiet, too, composing and focusing and fiddling with settings, and all.

So after some discussion a compromise was reached. I would carry pepper spray if I insisted on hiking there alone. I thought a bear bell would be a good idea, too.

I headed back up this morning, even though I wanted to see the start of a stage of the Tour de California. Exercise and meditation won over celebrity watching. But if Thor Husvold had not broken his collar bone last week and was a mere mile from my house, the decision would have been different.

I got to the trail and discovered that in my efforts to secure the pepper spray at home I had forgotten it. I took the camera but vowed not to take pictures up on the hill. Since the sporting goods store did not have a bear bell, I improvised by jangling my keys all the way. I should also mention the guy at the store asked if I wanted to buy a Tazer for the lion. Uh no. Dumbasses probably should not have those.

I set my watch because there is no room for dawdling if I want to get back to school on time. Like a dumbass I got soaking wet on the overgrown trail. I mean water was squishing out of my shoes. I also found I could not really enjoy the hike because I was pretty scared about the mountain lion. I know they don't normally attack people, but it happens from time to time, and I knew for sure I was in their territory.

I saw a lot of small cat prints, but I'm not so scared of bobcats, they are little. But the trail got really overgrown and it was pea soup foggy, so I couldn't see much near or far. I got really spooked. My hair caught on a blackberry branch and out of my peripheral vision I mistook the still-shaking branch for a critter. I got scared by a rabbit. Thank goodness a deer didn't dart out, one look at that light-colored fur and I would have fainted. My pants were so wet that they were hanging up on things. A sensation that one could imagine is similar to a mountain lion reaching out of the brush and swiping your leg. I let my keys bang against my metal water bottle.

Then I saw big prints. I'm pretty sure these are mountain lion on top of bobcat. I risked my life to take this picture for you. What's that? Do I hear echoes of "dumbass"? There were just tons of prints on the trail. I was so relived to get off the hill and onto the last mile and a half of graded trail. I was rewarded with four different bunches of quail, two cottontails, and a deer.

I had just enough time to stop for a cup of coffee and get to the school on time. I drove into the mini-mall by Highway 1, ran in for my coffee, but left because there were a couple people ahead of me and no-one taking orders. I pulled across the road to find a police officer turning everyone away because the highway was closed for the bike race. Dumbass! I knew about the race, I even saw warning signs driving down the but they said the southbound side would be closed. Only a dumbass would believe that. The officer thought the odds of my finding the back way north would be about as good as waiting 20 minutes for the race to go by.

I made frantic phone calls to see if anyone could get to the school. Then I made the dreaded call to the school to say I would be late, fortunately my friend answered. I decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em so I went and saw the race after all. Here is my photo of the leaders:

Dumbass!!!!

In the end I only got to school fifteen minutes late. They really did open the road up quickly. I got to school, dug in my bag for money in case I had to pay a fine for being late and found my pepper spray. I mean really, how can one person do so many dumb things in a day? And it isn't even over yet.

The Very Long Week

2010-04-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad this week is over, it was a long one. I'm still dealing with my grandfather's death, which was compounded by the anniversary of my father's death this week. You never know when a wave of sadness is going to come over you.

Sunday: coffee got knocked over into my laptop. Panic. Left it drying overnight. Well mostly, had to email some files so I could do work on Mr. TVP's ancient imac.

Monday: Kid woke up sick. Scramble to attempt to find replacement for my work day at preschool. Laptop still not quite right, right half of keyboard not working. Use frustrating old i-mac. Have to take sick kid with me to drop off snack at school. Long day with kind of sick kid. I actually was able to get some work done, though. I knew he was sick because he willingly took a nap.

Tuesday: I wake up with kind of sore throat. Kid still has too runny a nose to send him to school, plus he slept in which is sign of illness, he does not like to waste precious time sleeping. Go to Apple store and find repair options. Take time to mull it over and run into friend, who takes our picture. She tells my kid that it was not his fault that he was screwing around and knocked my coffee over. I guess that's better than the reaction of the Apple employee who said "he wasn't drinking it was he?"

End up replacing keyboard, with caveat that the optical drive will probably go out. Pick it up later on the way to a school meeting.

Wednesday: kid still has really runny nose. Take him bowling for the first time. A lot of fun. Since when did they get these fancy ramps for the kids? They don't have to even push the ball down the alley? He almost got as high a score as I did. I enjoyed playing with my leopard ball and black & white saddle shoes.

Discover that several keys on my keyboard are not working. Most notably the right-side apple key that I often use for shortcuts. Still haven't had the time to go back to the Apple store as of Saturday. Don't want to drag the poor guy there again. It is crazier there than usual with all the iPad nonsense.

Thursday: Mr. TVP promises to come home really early so I can go bike riding. Did I mention my mother aka my free babysitter is out of town? K. and I go to the "Plant Museum" (Conservatory of Flowers) to see the garden scale trains one last time. Baby doll came along. We even packed him a bottle. Bonus! Thomas was there.

I never got that bike ride. Instead of early, he comes home really late, almost bedtime due to job site issues. I was frazzled to say the least.

Friday: Took K. to Marin to visit with his cousin and my sister at a fancy playground. Good time and it was a beautiful day. Despite that good start I was not thrilled that not only did Mr. TVP and I not get to go out he had a meeting and didn't come home until after 6:00. I also discover by way of getting out of breath coming up from the laundry room that the little bug is moving into my chest. Yippee.

Today I went for a run first thing, and later went on an excursion to take some photos. Got some knitting done on the bus, too. It was nice to be alone.

I'm sure next week will be better. We really did have some fun this week. And I got some good knitting in. But, I am just not cut out for twelve hours with a 3-year-old who doesn't nap. I have no idea how single mothers do it. Really. Especially old single mothers.

Cinderella Classic 2010

2010-04-10T17:41:00.001-07:00

I just got back from riding the Cinderella Classic. My first time was 1998, haven't done one in about six years. It is a metric century for women only put on by the Valley Spokesmen club. The relatively flat loop winds around Livermore, San Ramon, and Dublin. Lots of livestock and wineries (and horse trailers).

I guess I kind of kept my training a secret, inasmuch as not blogging about it is secret-keeping. I had some reservations that I would be able to do it. Mainly, having time to train and the means to get a new road bike. But my husband put up with the increasingly long Saturday rides, and someone paid me back some big bucks, so it came together.

It was rough training though. It was hard to get rides in during the week. It rained a lot. I got sick. And my pink bike is heavy (and so am I). I got the road bike only a month or so ago and was nervous about getting it tweaked just right.

Today's ride was not as hard as the first time I did the Cinderella on knobby tires in the freezing cold, but it was pretty hard. It was cold and the wind was strong. I look forward to reading other blog posts about it. The best part was spending the night alone in a motel last night, with a king size bed all to myself.

66.5 miles. 5 hrs 50 minutes on the bike. Total time 6 hrs 40 minutes. This was easier at 29 than it is at 41!

Now to figure out which other nearby metrics (or less) I can do this year.

Jurassic Park

2010-04-09T07:44:00.001-07:00

I have a thing about birds, I don't like them. Well, I like blue jays and hawks which is weird because the jays are mean and the hawks kill. But generally I don't like birds, they're prehistoric, like little dinosaurs. Cold-blooded and calculating. Except ducks. I like them.

I didn't realize just how scared I am of birds until yesterday. Background - we live in a top floor flat. You enter the building through a gate. You can either go up the steps past the first flat to ours or through a locked door to into the basement. There is also a back stairway down to the garage. But there is a door locked from the wrong side, so coming down the back you can only get into the laundry room and out the back door, not to the garage or front gate. It is pretty convoluted, and my greatest fear is getting trapped in the garage without my keys because you have to have one to get out.

Yesterday as K. and I rounded the corner to our front door, I noticed bird poop and chips of paint on the steps. There's a skylight at the top of the stairs so I thought that maybe it broke open and a bird was sitting there. Wrong! There was a bird flapping around and chirping, trapped in the stairway. He had been crapping himself in fear and pecking away at the skylight. We dashed in the front door and closed it firmly.

Panic immediately set in. We were trapped upstairs because there was no way I was going back out with the bird. And I had laundry to do! Plus I was worried about it freaking out and dying on my doorstep. And my fear of birds is nothing compared to my phobia of dead things. I freely admitted to my kid that I was scared of birds. He said he wasn't and that the bird was signing us a song. I let him think that the tortured squeaks and squawks were music and not a harbinger of death.

Now I have been "swooped" by starlings protecting their nest in the past. Since it was outdoors, and funny behavior, it didn't really bother me, I could escape. One block I lived on was particually bad. We may have sat in the parked the car and watched others get swooped for amusement. But this was different. The bird was panicked and I was trapped. I kept picturing a scene from The Birds ending with me leaping out a second story window.

I called Mr. TVP for advice. He said I could either kill it or try to lure it out by opening the back doors so it would feel the breeze and head in the right direction. It seemed weird to potentially lure it into the basement, and I didn't want it to die down there, but I wasn't thinking straight. So I hatched a plan to go down the back and open the backdoor and the two aforementioned interior garage doors. I would also venture as far up the stairs as I could with bread crumbs, leaving it a trail to freedom.

The first snag I ran into was the fact that my keys were in the front door, on the wrong side. No way was I opening the door even an inch to to reach out and grab them. The bird could have pecked my hand off or come into the apartment. And then he'd really be trapped since I have all our windows double locked due to the kid. And the back stairway is closed in by chicken wire (to keep pigeons out). But I had to have a key in to get to the front stairs, so I grabbed all our spare keys and jammed them in my pocket. Then I grabbed a piece of bread.

Next obstacle was the grill on the back door step which I had to crawl under and around. (We don't use the back stairs because they are creepy and you can see right into the neighbor's kitchen. Plus, the pigeons.) Managed that and got to the bottom of the stairs face to face with the door that is bolted from the other side, which I had forgotten about in my panic. At least I had my cell phone, so I made a panicked call to my downstairs neighbor. I explained the situation and she ran down the front stairs and let me into the garage. She agreed that birds are scary.

I opened the back door, propped open the interior garage doors, and laid a trail of crumbs down the stairs. As I was calling "here birdy, birdy", a dark figure came through the gate. I jumped and then was relived to see it was Mr. TVP dressed all in black, not a giant crow. Luckily he was nearby and had decided to come home early. I guess he didn't understand from my call where the bird was because he asked why I would want the bird to fly into the basement. Sigh.

I showed him my bread crumb trail and explained my plan. He shook his head, sighed, and asked for a shop towel. I asked him not the kill the bird. I pictured him wrapping it up and setting it free outside, but I didn't think he could catch it since the ceiling height is ten feet up there. All of a sudden he is yelling to shut the garage door. Which was kind of hard since I was cowering all the way in the back of the laundry room.

As I dashed to close the door, he announced the bird was gone. It had walked out the front gate. Amazed, I asked him how he did it. He said he flapped the towel around and shooed it down the stairs. Genius! Some comments were made to the effect that a pick-up, country music, and a cowboy hat do not a city kid transform. Whatever.

I later exulted in my freedom with a trip to the grocery store.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a road trip for my grandpa's memorial service. The Easter Bunny found us in our motel room, thank goodness. The Easter Bunny may be a girl. We're not sure, but there's an awful lot of rouge there.

Back Together

2010-03-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

My grandpa, Rufus Edwin Hiddleson, passed away early this morning. I know he is so happy to join my grandma. He was 91.

Oh Yeah

2010-03-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

...I have a blog, I almost forgot.

Things have been busy as usual. My birthday was good, fun class at Stitches West. Cool presents that need photos. As does a Lopi sweater. I haven't been knitting a lot, but here and there. I need more socks, I have decided. I love wearing handknit socks.

We attended a Las Vegas themed event for the preschool. Perfect reason to dress my husband up as Elvis:

Oh yeah, I got a road bike and have been putting it to good use.

Whip Out Those WIPs

2010-02-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

Along with managing the yarn stash this year, I want to clear out my works in progress. I got two done in January. The non-purchasing of yarn is actually quite liberating, so far so good. It was nice getting yarn for my birthday, though. And I traded a couple skeins of Wollmeise, a guilt-free package of pinkness came in the mail.

I wasn't thrilled with my French Press Slippers, but I washed them one more time and assembled them. They are cute and warm. Just not quite tall enough for size 10.5 feet.

***

I just had to get my Rovaniemi Wristlets finished. They are from a class I took at Stitches West last year, and since I'm going to Stitches on Sunday for an all-day Bohus class with the same instructor, Susanna Hansson, it was time.

I was going to write a big entry about the technique, but the Yarn Harlot did a great post about it three years ago, and here is Susanna's class description, so I will keep it brief.

I signed up for the class because the Rovanimemi mittens are a Sami design. The technique allows you to knit in the round with color work only on the front. The back of mittens are patterned, while the palms are solid. The colors are managed on little butterflies on a long knitting needle. To keep holes from appearing as the colors travel left or right you knit through the back loops on certain stitches. Did I mention size 000 needles?

The class was great, lots of samples; info about the Sami; a bit about Finland; and how the technique was perfected. We even go to design our own colorways. Here are my classmates' interpretations.

I did come home and try to finish the project, but it really needs to be done at the table, not on the sofa, and not around a preschooler, to keep things from tangling. So I wasn't inclined to pull it out often, and it languished. I finally decided enough was enough and vowed to spend a half hour a day on the project. Once I got back into it, the slipped stitches came naturally and I powered through the first one quickly. I even got to the point where I knit on the bus.

I neglected to take photos of the inside, here are Susanna's nice and neat mittens inside out:

It's a really ingenious technique. The talented Janice Kang designed a pair of socks with this technique. Beautiful! (Crazy!).

***

Now I can go to Stitches guilt-free on Sunday. I believe the class project is a pair of Bohus wristlets. I know these won't languish because I want to get the technique down so I can knit the gorgeous New Azalea hat.

I'm not going to the Market Preview tonight. If it was, say, a bus-ride away I would, but I'm not going to drive an hour each way just to not buy yarn. I will take a peek on Sunday during the lunch break.

***

So that leaves these WIPs: my Fana sweater languishing for what, two years, that I want to finish by May; and my Garden Gate socks, which I pick up from time to time; Bohus hat kit which I put on hold once I found out I got into the class.

***

In addition to the WIPs, in the past couple months I knit:

a) A hat for a group project for the workers at the cafe where my knitting group meets. The pattern, Fenced In, was designed by a friend.

b) My first Wollmeise project, Karin, by Evelyn Clark. I wore it to two Valentine's Day events. The yarn is worth the hype and staying up late to purchase from Germany. The color is so saturated and the yarn feels good.

c) A beaded bracelet. Easy. Just string the beads on; knit and i-cord, lifted beads as desired; and graft.

d) Snow Chains mittens (more), a prize-winning pattern designed by a friend. Almost done, just need a thumb.

d) A Lopi sweater that needs the collar sewn down and the underarms grafted.

Once those two are done I want to try knitting socks two-at-a-time and get a spinning project going.

Forms of Prayer

2010-01-27T18:15:00.000-08:00

I heard the best country song on the radio yesterday: "Pray for You" by Jaron and the Long Road Home. Here are a few of the lyrics:

So I listened to the preacher
As he told me what to do
...I pray your brakes go out
Running down a hill
I pray and flower pot falls
From a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flying high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are
Honey, I pray for you

Enjoy:

***

I know it is shallow, but I really hope that the rumor that Sprint will support iphones by this Fall is true. I really want one, but don't want to change providers. I wouldn't say I'm praying for it, but wishing really hard.

***

Speaking of prayer, have a look at this car:

At top we have a sticker of Jesus, then praying hands, two Jesus fish, and finally and angel Lucky Lady and a devil Lucky Lady. What is the message here? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Jesus doesn't approve of objectifying women.

Why I had Ice Cream for Lunch

2010-01-26T15:19:00.000-08:00

or Why there's a hot dog in my backpack

First off, I have been knitting away here, but the weather has been rainy for weeks, so no pics. Also I have a few half-finished things. To catch up with the past couple of months - I knit myself a pair of socks for Christmas (Jaywalkers in Dashing Dachs "Jingle Bells"):

And a pair for Mr. TVP (Basic 5-stitch-to-the-inch from And Budd, with full ribbed leg in Ístex Hosuband):

A knit ice cream cone per the kid's request (Jean Greenhowe's Christmas Special):

And a scarf for myself (Miski baby llama and improvised using Sweetheart Glovelets pattern) FYI, you can't always just turn a lace pattern upside down.:

I also knit a hat and some booties that look just like some others I had already done, no photos needed.

***

So far so good on "no new yarn in 2010". I knit a shawl in Wollmeise (pic when weather clears up) among other things. Trying to wrap up a few WIPs, too.

***

On the bike front, I have been riding a lot, even in the rain and muck. I do hope I will get into the Cinderella ride. Got filthy mountain biking in the rain this morning.

***

So back to the title of this post. My kid no longer naps. Which makes the afternoons long, but the evenings pleasant, since he goes to sleep after 7:00 instead of at 9:00. He also has started calling me stupid. Some things I let go, but that isn't one of them. I don't care for it, and I don't need him to start calling kids at school "stupid". Haven't hit on a good punishment or deterrent yet.

The new developments along with constant rain and stomach bugs has made the past couple weeks challenging. I tried to lighten things up today with a celebration. Not napping is a milestone, and he is doing well going to bed early, not fighting it too much. We will be able to do things like swimming lessons in the afternoon again. The plan was to pick him up from school, go to the mall, have lunch at Chevy's and go to Borders and buy a toy, DVD, or book, his choice.

Things went wrong right away. He didn't want to go to Chevy's even though he likes burritos and I promised they do have chocolate desserts. Plan B was eat at the mall food court. Sketchy because he only likes certain foods and we had already had pizza this week. He has never had a hot dog, but keeps reading about them so Hot Dog on a Stick seemed like a safe choice, and the Japanese place was right next door so we could sit in between, and he wouldn't have to wait for while my food was being made.

I explained about the corn dog and that he could peel the bread off. No way. Then like a rainbow I saw the plain hot dog on the menu. He was thrilled. We turn around and all the tables near us have filled. So we needed to wait and get my food before sitting down. No way, before I could even order he freaked out and pulled his pants down right there in the mall food court. I grabbed the hot dog and we headed to the only available table which was nowhere near the food counters. So no lunch for me.

I know some people would have let him sit there and cry, but I don't like to make a scene, and it takes a long time for the sushi to be made (relative to grabbing pizza or a hot dog). I was really hungry because I had gone bike riding, but the meltdown made it obvious who was hungrier.

I consoled myself with the idea that I could have some frozen yogurt with him since I was skipping lunch. Well, little mister was so excited that he ate half the hot dog and wanted to go right to the bookstore without dessert. Compost the hot dog? Oh no, save it for later please, so into my backpack it went.

On the way to the bookstore I spotted a man I used to be involved with. For whatever reason I get really flustered when I see him. Maybe it's because he can be described as having a certain charisma while I can be described as a goof ball. Picturing a half-eaten hot dog in my backpack didn't help matters. I chickened out and didn't make eye contact. Did he see me? I don't know. At least I was wearing lip stick and my kid wasn't acting up at the moment. And the zipper on my backpack didn't break, scattering kid debris and aforementioned hot dog onto the escalator.

The bookstore trip went fine since I was hopped up on adrenaline from my brush with my wilder past. We head back to get the darn frozen yogurt before I crash from lack of food. Then I realize that I don't know if the kid likes frozen yogurt. Better go with a chocolate ice cream cone, something he and his dad have all the time. That way I can have my own fro-yo, thank you very much.

Except he can't eat an ice cream cone unaided. So we trade. Except he doesn't like frozen yogurt. So I ended up eating 2/3 of the ice cream until he could handle it. And I eat my fro-yo, too, glad I got the small. Ten napkins and three baby wipes later I got out of there with dignity and sanity barely intact.

Where do you go after ice cream and frozen yogurt for lunch? To knitting group at a dessert cafe, of course! Actually I haven't had a dessert there in ages. I usually get two drinks, depending on how long I'm there.

So much for celebrations at the mall. Oh, and he called me stupid when we got home.

2010 - The Stash Year

2010-01-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

I have decided not to buy any yarn this year, I will knit completely from stash. I have heard rumors that this can be done. We shall see. Truth is I have way too much yarn, lovely yarn that I want to make into lovely objects to enjoy.

It will not be a sacrifice. Here, off the top of my head, are some of the things I could make with what I have:

Danish Tie Shawl (Yarn is spun, washed, caked and ready to go)
Birch (have the Kid Silk Haze and the Rowan book)
Bohus Hat (have kit)
Bohus Sweater (have kit)
Icelandic sweater - (have enough Lopi for an adult sweater and several kid sized)
Felted bags (have plenty of Lopi)
Get Creative & Competitive (use yarn from 2009 Purl Jam stash exchange)
Wollmeise Sweater (I traded and have enough of a particular green and a coordinating variegated)
Aran Vest (still have the Black Water Abbey from last February's Stitches West)
Socks, Socks, Socks (Wollmeise, Sundara, and lots of leftovers from earlier projects)
Silky Wool Stranding (some from 2008's PJ exchange and more I have amassed. Endpaper Mitts, Selbu Modern Hat?)
Cotton Creation (Rowan cotton yarns in pink and green from 2008 PJ Stash exchange. Just haven't been able to figure the right project. Each color family is a slightly different weight)
Hot Animals (I have three skeins of Joseph Geller Prime Alpaca. Wanted to do something stranded with animals. A garment would be too hot, though)

How did I get to this point? I like yarn. I also like to shop. And to get bargains. And to plan. I do like to knit, I swear. The problem is I keep learning about new techniques and different kinds of yarn. I get excited, buy the stuff, but don't finish a project before I get distracted by the next wooly thing. I also need to find a way to sit down and knit in the evenings, with a simple pattern since it's hard to concentrate with a wild kid running around.

I'm not being hard on myself. I have learned a lot in the past few years, and have made a lot of things, which reminds me I have quite a few items to post from the past month. Yeah, and those summer knitting goals to review. And I like a good challenge.

I have a WEBS gift card that doesn't count if I decide to spend it. That may come in handy at Stitches next month. And swapping yarn is okay, too. And knitting needles and tools are okay in moderation. But buying yarn at shops, fairs, or from eBay is out.

I have plenty of spinning fiber, and just got some for Christmas. I'm not going to take a no fiber pledge, but will be very conscious about what I buy.

We shall see how I do. It will feel good to use up my yarn, make a little space, and save money.

Greetings

2009-12-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas !

Christmas Angels

2009-12-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

We got our tree last Sunday and K. calls the ornaments "Christmas Angels" for some reason. So sweet. Also sweet was his visit to Santa the other day, pictured above. He wants a "shiny dump truck with a red cab". I asked him if he had seen one like that and he described when and where he saw it. What a memory, it was well over a month ago! He is so into Christmas this year. Both the anticipation of the day but also the idea of giving. A three-year-old can't understand religion too much, but he gets that we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus, a special person who went on to teach people to care about each other, and that's why we give presents.

I last posted at Halloween. Since then I went to Spokane, Washington as a new Daughters of Norway lodge was instituted and my sister is a charter member. I got to march around during the ceremony. I'm really getting the hang of it. The group meets at the Sons of Norway lodge, a large facility filled with neat things.

That's the only picture taken on the whole trip. The weekend itself marked a milestone. I got to sleep in a king sized bed with five pillows. Alone. I left my kid overnight for the first time and it was fine.

Next we drove up to Oregon for Thanksgiving. About five miles from home, on the Bay Bridge, we were rear-ended. No injuries, pretty bad damage, the wheel well was smashed in within two inches of not being drivable. The tail lights were still working so we went on the trip. I finally got it into the shop last week and have to use a rental for twelve days. Did I mention that my truck was a victim of hit and run outside our house a while back? It figures, since I am three payments away from owning it.

The trip was really nice. Saw family and took a side trip to the coast. Went up in the Yaquina Head lighthouse. Got to poke my head up into a Fresnel Lens. Ed said Newport reminded him of the East Coast.

Before we left I knit a pair of socks for a Christmas gift. I started a festive pair for me on our road trip and just finished them yesterday in time for some Christmas events. I've got half a pair of booties done for a baby due December 30th. Three quarters of the Christmas shopping is done, and I'm working on the cards now.

I will post this entry now even though it is unfinished, otherwise it won't get up until the new year. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Tree Boy

2009-11-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

I know most of you have seen in on Ravelry, but here is Kenneth's tree costume.

When we started talking about Halloween he said he wanted to wear a hat. A blue hat with a red B. Hmmmm, you mean the baseball hat he wears everyday? Yes. So I thought this would be a costume-less year. Then we went camping and he hugged a redwood tree. While his hands were full of splinters he decided to be a tree for Halloween. It was really fun, we went shopping for the fabric and accessories together. First it was a "leaf tree", then a "bug tree", then a "bug and apple tree". About a week ago he said from the backseat "Eyes. Eyes for my tree". I asked if he meant the letter or eyeballs. Eyeballs it was. Fortunately he forgot about that, because I ran out of time to craft eyeballs.

We worked on the tree together over the weeks, he did a little cutting. One night he told me he wanted to be a mommy for Halloween. I hoped that would blow over, he's already getting teased for having long hair. I asked if he could be a mommy tree and he said okay.

I didn't get the best photos. There's a pipe cleaner nest on his shoulder, and little twigs that stick out here and there. I knit the hat really quickly out of Lopi. Here's some silly video of him walking in the school parade, he's handing me his hawk at the end.

Halloween Dense Moment

2009-10-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Today I was thinking about the word Jack-o-lantern, or Jack O'Lantern, if you prefer. I wondered why a carved pumpkin that is lit up at night has that name. What does it meaaannn?!!! Today, at age 40, I realized that the word "lantern" is part of the word. Yeah, I think of it as jackalantern, one long word, never considered the parts.

Curious, I looked it up on Wikipedia. Carving vegetables has a long history in Ireland and England, but allegedly did not become associated with Halloween until 1866 in the USA.

On a related note, Urban Fauna Studio sponsored a fiber night Monday. We made needle felted pumpkins. Some made squash, others jack-o-lanterns. I just made a pumpkin.

The Knitting Lifestyle

2009-10-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

The other day I stopped in a local shop where my friend works, she wasn't there but I chatted with her co-worker. I mentioned that I was one of her knitting friends. He said "oh she's so serious when she talks about knitting." I played along and said "yeah, well, knitting is serious. Very serious." He said that was nice and all but he just didn't understand it. Understand what, I wondered? It was like we have this weird lifestyle that he can't relate to. Does he think we have sheep living in our homes? It's just a nice, normal hobby.

Really. I don't live the knitting lifestyle, do I? Here's a glimpse into my life this week.

Part One - Things delivered to my home:

Monday - skein of yarn from a Ravelry destasher

Tuesday - my first package of Wollmeise, from Germany. I blame the flu that kept me up coughing until all hours. Doing research about how to catch a shop update distracted me from the agony. This photo does not do it justice, trust me. The colors are so saturated and lovely.

Thursday - A Raveler flat out gave away a skein of boucle yarn, which I snagged, plus I bought a few things from her stash. She threw in a ton of other awesome (read pink) yarn. Seriously, it was a huge box, those are enormous skeins, and you can't even see it all here and this photo is crap.

Saturday - my second package of Wollmeise. No photo yet.

Oops, I seem to have forgotten the Lopi pattern leaflet from Ebay, don't remember what day it arrived.

Part Two - Things drying on my back porch this past week

More Lopi felted bags

Two other felted bags

(Hey - I used that skein of yarn that came on Monday for the flap.)

(I absolutely adore this one and how the Prism Bubbles pooled.
I got that yarn recently from a destash, too.)

Yarn

Part Three - Some Stuff I Did this week

Went to a knit night and had my photo taken with yarn (thanks Tracey).

At knit night at least seven of us started the same project - French Press Knits Slippers. So much fun working on a KAL, especially on size 15 needles. I was the slowest, it starts with three strands of yarn and I was using two ends of one ball. The tangling got me.

May have had photo taken with everybody's slipper soles.

Came home from knit night, frogged and re-knit the soles of the slippers.

Petted yarn

Spent hours on Ravelry

Cut out felt leaves as part of K's Halloween Costume

Dreamed about yarn

Ordered yarn from Ebay (just four skeins, I swear)

Was thrilled that last year's pumpkin hat still fits K and he wore it three times this week.

Sold some yarn and bags (picture me sitting here in my bright pink sweater, you guessed it, knitting):

Upon review of this evidence it is safe to say I do not live merely the knitting lifestyle, in fact, I live the fiber arts lifestyle.

Lutefisk!

2009-10-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

On our drive to Boonville we got stuck in slow traffic. I saw all these fish, could tell they didn't say Jesus, or IXTHS, and had no "Darwin" feet.

We got close enough, and what do you know, a school of Lutefisk.

Dyeing for Halloween

2009-10-08T13:59:00.001-07:00

Here's some spinning content. First, there's a contest at Martha Vineyard Fiber Farm. Go over, commiserate about moving, and enter the drawing for a total of two pounds of their fiber.

I've been getting ready to sell stuff at a craft table at the preschool's Harvest Festival on the 24th. I'm planning on felted bags, yarn, and maybe a few knitted things. I've been dyeing.

I dyed and spun this:

And I guess this is my first art yarn:

I didn't dye this, just spun it:

I also made some costumes for the school to sell. Two pink poodle skirts (easy):

And two Dorothy dresses which were very intricate.

California Wool & Fiber Festival

2009-10-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

I started this post on September 24th. I didn't have a camera to take photos of my class objects so the post languished. Then I caught the second bug since preschool started, and then I caught the flu. I am finally feeling like I'm getting better, and I used Photo Booth for my felted items, so here it is:

We spent last weekend in Boonville at the 3-in-1 California Wool and Fiber Festival, Mendocino County Fair, and Apple Festival. Like last year we camped at Hendy Woods.

The highlight for K. was the rides:

(Note this is the exact ride as last year)

He also enjoyed S'mores.

I got to take two classes, I was thrilled. On the un-godly hot day I learned some fancy spinning techniques. On the second day I tried needle-felting for the first time. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to embellish some knitted items.

That's an apple, an art piece, and a leaf. It was a fun trip. I didn't spend too much at the show since I had paid for classes.

Camping was okay except for some awful partiers. Ironically one woman/girl was screaming "sorry, sorry, sorry" at three in the morning. The next night people almost walked into our tent looking for the bathroom because they saw the light on. In the morning the ladies room was covered with vomit. Better there than our tent, I guess.

We had campfires both nights. I actually got to knit by the fire for a couple minutes. But my favorite time camping is drinking perked coffee from the bit blue pot in the cool morning. My least favorite part was having a three-year-old crawl into my sleeping bag in the middle of the night. There is not enough room!

I had to wash K's clothes twice because they had so much dirt ground into them.

Preschool

2009-09-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Whoa...I just noticed I haven't posted in over a month. One of the main reasons is that I got a call in the middle of August saying there was space at the co-op preschool three mornings a week. So I had to get doctor's notes; pack up extra clothes and gear; sign up for committees and work days; work one day a week there; and learn all the rules, rules, rules.

And voila, we have a preschooler. I didn't get first day photos because I was busy working there. He comes home each day soaked in paint. There are kids, trains, and a huge sandbox so he is thrilled to be a "preschool kid". The only tears were mine when I dropped him off on the second day after a sleepless night, and yesterday when he didn't want to leave because he wasn't "finished having fun".

I have already made one dump run for the school. Sigh. And there are two Tuesday night meetings a month, so I'm going to miss a bunch of knitting nights. Boo.

In other news, I crocheted for the first time in years. This is my interpretation of "Mouse and His Cookie".

We took a five day Labor Day weekend to visit up in Oregon. Lots of space to run in and cousins to rough house with for K. Of course we were suffering from a bug, thanks to preschool, no doubt.

Of course we found heavy equipment. This is at the really neat High Desert Museum on highway 97. There's a working saw mill, pioneer town, museum, and raptor area. We only saw a small part of it. Hope to visit some of the lava tubes in the area next time, too.

I took my bike a rode a couple times in the country and around downtown Albany. My sister and I took a few hours to shop and visited Baabaara's Wild and Wooley, where I learned to spin last year, and Jupiter Fiberworks in Bend. I was very restrained in my spending. Convinced my sister to buy a spindle and I got her fiber. Of course, met a few Ravelers.

As far as knitting and spinning lately, I better go back and see how I did on my summer knitting goals. Soon, I promise, no really, I'll post again soon!

Tour de Peninsula

2009-08-02T14:35:00.001-07:00

I did the ride, got the t-shirt.

Oh my gosh, it was only a 21 mile ride, but it was an accomplishment after being out of anything other than tootling around town for over three-and-a-half years. There were a couple climbs on the route I was familiar with both of them. I was nervous about the first one because I couldn't remember how steep it is, I remember the end being tough. The other I have done at least 75 times, which is reassuring.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a little spin to loosen up for today and I had a hard time on a couple hills that are normally fairly easy, so I was really nervous last night. I laid out all my gear, checked the bike and tried to get a good night's sleep.

I woke up with sore legs, that never happens, not a good start! But I also woke up with a better attitude. If I had to walk on a hill I would do it. At 5:45 I was in ride day auto-pilot. It all came back to me, including the nervous stomach.

Not much to tell about the ride. It was a beautiful overcast morning, my favorite riding weather. I got there really early, a little too early. I hate the standing around waiting. I was at peace with whatever might happen, and my dorky self in tennis shoes on slightly knobby tires. Then a woman waited next to me with my old bike. A few years newer but same color and model. There aren't a lot of them around exactly like that, people were admiring it. She said it was a little much for the riding she does in triathlons. I wanted to steal it, to be honest.

The ride was nice, lots of flag people, cops and closed off streets in San Mateo. I made the first climb fine, not as bad as I remembered it. A few folks were walking it, or resting half way up. The next part was through Sawyer Camp Trail, which was closed except for the riders. It smelled like manzanita, and was such a treat to ride through virtually alone (the 30 and 60 milers had a different route at that point). We came to the camera and the woman behind me said "Photo op - unzip your shirt". How did she know me?

Then the annoying thing happened. I was about 1/2 a mile from the climb that they neglected to mention, but I knew was there. Feeling good, I hear a voice say "if you raise your seat your legs won't cramp up". I said "thanks". He repeated himself and I shouted "thanks so much!" Yeah, thanks for assuming that because I am large and not on a road bike that I am ignorant. I am well aware how much my leg should extend. Have you ever ridden 480 miles across Alaska and slept in a gravel pit? It is so nice that you are teaching your son about bike riding, but you know what, I don't want your unsolicited advice. I noticed that you took a break and didn't pass me until a mile from the end, were your legs cramped? And nice ancient white helmet from the 80's.

By the way, it's not a seat, it is a saddle!!!111!! Unless you were talking about my seat. In which case, ewwww.

Anyhow, I did the long, steepish climb, then it was all downhill. Got back, and there was an insulting, brutal little uphill to the finish. Did it. Got my t-shirt and left.

Another Saturday

2009-08-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's Saturday again. Time just flies by. Here are a few updates.

My Kid and Railroad Geekiness:

The littlest Viking turned three last Saturday. I present my humble attempt at a Thomas the Tank Engine cake.

He liked it.

It was a railfan kind of day. First we drove to Martinez, where one can see Amtrak trains and sometimes freight trains. There's also a farmer's market, so we had a picnic. Remember the Martinez beaver controversy? Well, I just read that there are now minks in town as well.

We drove home the long way so the birthday boy could nap, and ended up at Tilden Park. He woke up on the curvy roads, so we decided to stop and take him on the little steam railroad for the first time. What a great surprise that was for him. This photo shows him pretending to take a picture.

Then we came home for pizza and cake and presents. We now have Percy, Diesel, Bertie, Alfie, and Spencer on our personal Island of Sodor.

Knitting:

Not much to report. I have been working on items for our Christmas in August sale next Sunday. Once that's over, I'm ready to start the leg of my first Garden Gate.

Spinning:

I want to do a proper Tour de Fleece entry, with all the stats. In the meantime here is a pile of everything I spun during the Tour de France:

I spun a lot of yarn and learned a couple new things. I also watched a lot of the Tour on t.v.

Cycling:

But the best part was my commitment to riding my bike every race day. Even when we went on vacation I managed to ride the exercise bike at the motel, thanks to the tv in the "fitness room" and my sister babysitting.

I'm feeling stronger after three weeks of riding, it is a little easier taking K. out on the bike. He really enjoys it. I got him little cycling gloves (and new sunglasses for me). He signals when I signal and is in charge of the bell and waving. Last week we took a ride out along the Marina from Fort Mason to Fort Point. He demanded I keep riding and then he fell asleep.

His seat sits on the front of the bike so it has a low back. It was interesting riding with one hand on his chest holding him up. People always smile and wave at us. We are hard to miss. Quite the bike fashion "don't". I believe you should pick one color and stick with it, so I have a pink bike and helmet. But I wear neon a neon green vest or jacket for safety. And I couldn't bring myself to get a pink helmet for my boy. So before you know it, you are a rolling neon rainbow.

On Sunday, the last day of the Tour, I zoomed down to Safeway because I forgot to get ice cream. I got a few helium balloons, tied them to the bike and rode home. I've never had cars give me so much room before! Not the Champs Elysees, but it felt good to have stuck to riding for three weeks.

I signed up for an organized ride tomorrow that benefits the San Mateo parks. I'm doing the 20 mile route, which is humbling after all the metric centuries I've done in the past. As it is I'll probably get my butt kicked by the few climbs. Oh well, got to start somewhere.

What I'm Doing This Summer

2009-07-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

We went to Oregon last weekend for my grandfather's 91st birthday. Here are some highlights of the road trip.

K. riding the "tractor" with my redneck cousin:

A goat trying to get out of the rain:

He was better off than this poor pony:

The phrasing of this sign just seems wrong to me:

Since it is at a drive through, where you would be concerned about your roof. Unless you were a giant in a convertible, I guess. Didn't see one of those.

There were a lot of fun photo-less things, including two fiber shops. If you are on Ravelry you can read about the Unicorn Donkey incident. If you are not on Rav, in a nutshell, my family thinks I am studip because I though I saw a brown unicorn. They have no problem with the idea that I saw a unicorn in the Willamette Valley.

And I have been spinning like mad the past two weeks for Le Tour de Fleece. Several hundred yards of Scandinavian breed wool for my Danish Tie Shawl. On vacation I switched to the spindle.

I spun in the car:

On a ferry:

In the La Quinta Inn "fitness room".

Tour de Fleece

2009-07-04T15:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day!

(Photo by Teekay)

So I think I neglected to mention that I got a new spinning wheel. It's a Mach 1 from Spinolution. It's the same exact wheel that I rented back in April.

I joined Tour de Fleece on Ravelry, pledging to spin every day they ride during the Tour de France. I'm working on spinning up all that Scandinavian fiber I have collected so I can knit a Danish Tie Shawl.

I actually sat and spun for an hour this morning. Got to watch a bunch of the time trial, too. I was a bit disappointed that Thor was only shown coming out of the gate, not on the road.

It is hard to say who is happier about the new wheel.

He's such a good sport about knitting and such. He loves to wind yarn. And who can blame him when his clothes match so well?

Summer Knitting Goals

2009-06-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

There's a contest over at Skeins Her Way. You need to state your summer knitting goals in order to enter to win one of three great prize packages. Go check it out, she's a mom of seven and knitting designer.

Here are my goals for the summer:

Design and knit a bunch of Scandinavian themed items to sell at our Daughters of Norway "Christmas in August" sale
Swatch and wash some Black Water Abbey in preparation for my Aran vest
Knit at least one pattern repeat on my Garden Gates a week
Secret item for a family member

Knitting Update

2009-06-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

Here are all the f.o.'s I have neglected to post. Most of you knitters on are Ravelry and have seen them anyway, I know, sorry.

The easy Branching Out scarf that had me pulling my hair out. I was doing it on metal needles, and finally gave in and bought bamboo, then things got better. Before and after blocking.

Next we have the really fun "Fleeced Earflap Hat" by Cocoknits. We had quite the photo session. It is knit in Lamb's Pride Bulky and the thrums of wool are knit in as you go.

These are the Vespergyle Mittens. Another challenge. The pattern just didn't speak to me, I had to keep my eye on the chart constantly.

This is Foliage, found in Knitty.

I had a lot of yarn left over and made up a pair mitts with the same lace pattern.

And finally here is a cupcake (pattern). I knit one for a friend, and one for K. I can totally see myself making more knitted toys. Fast and fun.

About Last Month

2009-06-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

May zoomed by, it was really busy. I'll post knitting photos another day, there are a few f.o.'s that need photos.

First was Norway Day where I dressed up as a boy and slayed trolls.

With the aid of an elixir.

In the end I saved the princess.

It all made my kid laugh. "Mommy boy".

I did some spinning with the guild and met Wonder Mike. There was also good eating, drinking, and shopping at the festival.

The next day I took an all day spinning class with Ossian Kidholm, who had come over from Norway to demonstrate at Norway Day. (I rented a wheel). Very informative and a good time to get to know some of the guild members better. Wonder Mike has a bunch of photos on Flickr from Norway Day, including Mr. & Mrs. Kidholm, and me in my everyday bunad.

***

Next up was demonstrating at the Zoo's sheep shearing day. We had a lot of fun, didn't let the rain deter us. This is Mocha, I brought home a little bit of her fleece:

And a little of the alpacas' as well.

I already blogged about our trip to Idaho. Never got pics of the fiber I bought, but it was some local alpaca, more colors of Norwegian and Icelandic, and some Pygora.

***

I forget when Mother's Day was, but I got a cup of coffee in bed, and a really cute card slammed in my face. I was impressed, it had a baby in a knit fruit hat on the front (I made several of them in the past). Is it horrible I can't remember what my gift was? Oh yeah, I got flowers, too. It was Daughters of Norway Day, and I was a hostess. I know something crappy happened, too, but I don't remember what.

***

Next we went to Las Vegas. Wow, first time for all of us. It was hot and tacky. That sums up my feelings about the town. On the other hand, I got to meet Mr. TVP's old friend from grade school and his family. That was fun, especially since our trip east got canceled for this year.

The kid is still asking to go back to Circus Circus. He won a lot of crappy toys, which I ditched here and there. Who thinks a pillow with the word "Hottie" on it is appropriate for little kids? I let him keep the dog I won him by spraying water at a target so well that my Viking Ship won a race.

The biggest challenge was finding anything healthy for him to eat, without going to a sit-down restaurant. We resorted to apple "fries" from MacDonald's and room service. He got that hang of that really fast! Note many residents of the Island of Sodor on the bed.

We spent one day as a family and then took turns with the kid so the other adult could do more, well, adult things. Kid things included the monorail. Yay!!

And goldola ride at the Venetian (Boo!)

Got back and the next weekend was my cousin-in-law's kid's 21st birthday. Here is the least incriminating photo of the over-nighter:

The next day was our wedding anniversary. We had a low-key dinner with my parents. K. got ahold of the camera at our favorite pizza place.

I swear I don't know why that kid is such a ham.

Culture Shock

2009-05-20T10:23:00.001-07:00

I know I haven't posted in a long time, there was shearing day at the zoo, Mother's day, and knitting. But right now I am recovering from a five day trip to Northern Idaho. We went there because of this, my sister graduating from UI:

First, highlights of the trip to rural/small town Idaho and Washington, without photos:

Driving up and down the Lewiston Grade, whoo-hoo
Attending a three-hour graduation ceremony with a 2-year-old
Driving over the Snake River on a blue bridge, twice
Almost missing a flight due to airport signs continually changing location of the gate
Beverage service canceled due to turbulence, after having to dump out the sippy cup at security
Getting sprayed with beer at the recycling center on the way to the airport
Driving around the Palouse. It is truly beautiful country. Endless rolling hills of wheat fields

And photo highlights:

Climbing in a rusty old engine:

Various signs of Spring:

Dairy Queen:

Walking one block to the local co-op for groceries:

Lunch at the cafe in Cabella's, with three vegetarians. My son ate ostrich meat. There is an enormous stuffed dead animal display among other things.

The giant rocking chair:

And last, but definitely not least, visiting the wonderful Paradise Fibers warehouse store. Bonus for being on Thor Street and next to an adult bookstore. I got stuff!! (At Paradise Fibers, to be clear)

What to do for an encore? Go to Las Vegas with a toddler.

Lamb Cakes Past and Present

2009-04-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

The lamb cake was a big hit:

Here's a picture of a lamb cake my grandma made for me when I was a kid:

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

We've already stuffed ourselves with candy, and now we're off to church.

Later tonight we are going to celebrate my mother's birthday with a surprise lamb cake:

Winner

2009-04-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

As chosen by the random number generator at Random.org, Kristen of audioknits is the winner of "Ethnic Knitting Exploration".

Thank you all for entering the contest.

Now I'm off the crank out a knitted birthday present. 27 reps of a 10 row pattern, I'm on #5, and need to get it blocking by Monday night.

Up In Your Grill

2009-04-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

I shot this yesterday on the way to the dump.

There's a whole lot going on here. Click to see it bigger. The grand opening sign says April 2005. You can trade your gold with them. For what? Hint, those are not tiaras, but diamond, well I don't know what to call them. You can get gold teeth, but only Monday-Saturday. You cannot add bling to your grill on Sunday. Sorry.

I have come back and added this photo. First, as proof that I really do go to the dump. Second, because it is so weird.

There are a lot of seagulls at the dump as you can imagine. But they were really swarming yesterday. This guy had something on a fishing line that he was swooping around in the sky. As I drove by I was kind of scared to look because the item looked suspiciously like a dead bird. But I'm glad I looked because if I hadn't I would have missed the hunting dog in the back of the pick-up.

I don't know if this is a dump employee having fun, they all wear day-glo, too. Or was he hired to terrorize the seagulls? Or is he a random guy who thought it would be fun to stir things up?

One of the stranger things I have seen there. Also please note the statuary on the hill. It is only a fraction of the vast collection of religious and decorative items.

The Spinning News

2009-04-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

Don't forget there's a contest going on through Friday. Check out the info post. I'm enjoying reading the comments.

A couple weeks ago I did a marathon spinning and knitting project. I spun up a Jacob/Alpaca blend to make a hat for the Zoo to use in a contest for the people who work behind the scenes at the barnyard. I'm organizing a group of spinners to go the shearing day on May 5th to teach kids about wool and let them try their hands at the drop-spindle.

I was overzealous in spinning. I only needed a little more than half the yarn. I couldn't find a cabled hat pattern I liked in the gauge the yarn knit up, so I just made it up. I did redo the last 20 rows. Two people I showed it to have asked for one, so with just a bit more spinning time, one person will be made happy.

I've joined a new Ravelry group whose goal is to spin a bit every day this month. Of course I've jumped so far into it that I haven't been knitting much this week. It's been neat documenting the spinning progress, and challenging to get daily creative photos.

I think this Falkland will become the contrast color for a pair of stranded mittens. The color is California Redwood from Girl on the Rocks. I'm trying to keep the green and the salmon separate so the mitten pattern will progress from one to the other.

I did take a break yesterday and knit up this submission for the The Milkweed Project, an art installation project. I spun the yarn a couple weeks ago from a Finn/Mohair blend.

Tonight I cast on for Garden Gate socks. We are doing a mini-KAL. The toe-up cast on really slowed us down.

On another note, have you ever seen an albino pea hen? This one lives at the zoo. Pretty weird.

A Contest - No Fooling

2009-04-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

I just realized a big thing I missed yesterday: the contest.

I have an autographed copy of "Ethnic Knitting Exploration" by Donna Druchunas to give away. If you aren't familiar, Ms. Druchunas is the author of several books including "Artic Lace" as well as articles in Piecework and other publications.

I enjoyed the first book in the series, "Ethnic Knitting Discovery", which talked about Norwegian, Andean, Danish, and Dutch knitting so much that I pre-ordered her new book, "Ethnic Knitting Exploration". The approach is less about copying patterns, and more about learning and understanding the techniques so you can design your own sweater. Each category starts with a small project like a head band or gloves. It uses drawings rather than photos, to further stimulate creativity.

The new book explores Lithuanian, Icelandic, and Irish knitting traditions. I'm interested in all three. Although I know about Icelandic and Aran sweaters, Lithuanian knitting is totally new to me. Check out the author's blog, she is posting tips and there is a blog tour.

The author is of Lithuanian descent and has studied the language as well as knitting. You know how much I'm into my Norwegian heritage, so I decided on an ethnic theme for the contest. I want to hear something about your ethnic heritage. A story, song, saying. Maybe your favorite food, Lutefisk, perhaps? If you could link to a photo, that would be fun. You don't have to have a blog to enter, but if you do, why not comment with a link to it? I have found so many blogs reading comments on other people's blogs.

The Rules:

Anyone can enter. I will mail the book anywhere.
Contest ends Friday, April 10th at midnight Pacific Time.
To enter leave a comment on this post telling me something about your ethnic heritage (see more ideas above). You must leave a comment in a manner that provides me with an email address so I can contact you if you win.
Each commenter will be assigned a number, and the winner will be picked via a random number generator.

Three Dot Blog Post

2009-03-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since I have blogged that I don't know where I left off. I have been super busy, and have been fighting a sinus infection and tree alergies. I will just share some high- and low-lights of the past few weeks.

***

40th Birthday part four involved a lovely lunch at a French restaurant with a dear friend followed by a trip to Imagiknit. It has finally sunk in. I am forty years old.

***

I had the honor of being an escort at the institution of the new Daughters of Norway lodge, Elise Waerenskjold. There was a lot of marching, that's me in the stripes.

A friend drove, so I got a lot of knitting in. To my horror I discovered I left my laptop at the church. In a panic and feeling like an idiot I phoned my friend, the president of the lodge, who went back out and retrieved it. I had to drive all the way to Roseville with my poor kid the next day, an hour and three-quarters away. I was sick as dog, all feverish and trying to stay awake. Things turned out fine though, we had a nice visit and lunch, then K. and I went to the State Train Museum in Sacramento.

***

Last Monday I took K. to the Conservatory of Flowers to see the train exhibit. He told daddy we went to the "plant museum". Little brains are amazing.

***

A couple weeks ago I was so sick I told K. that I just needed to lie down on the sofa. He said mommy was "brokedown" and proceeded to comfort me with his trains, a book, a half-eaten frozen waffle he found on the floor, and a can of beer (unopened) . He said he was "mommy K" and I was "baby mommy". Just the sweetest thing ever.

***

Speaking of sweet, K. still gets to see his little friend every week. He loves her so much.

***

I knit the pink glovelets with my birthday cashmere. The pattern is "Sweetheart Glovelets" by The Rainey Sisters.

***

Did I mention I was giving a talk to my lodge about spinning? It went well, and we had fun with a spinning lesson on CD drop spindles.

***

The other morning I was playing trains with K. after having fixed the engine "James" who had taken a bath, rendering his electronics non-functional. K. informed me that "mommy useful". For those of you without a little boy, Sir Topham Hatt, the director of the railway on the Island of Sodor, where Thomas the Tank Engine lives, often tells the engines they are "Really Useful". It is always the engines' goal to be really useful. I'm glad I succeeded. I often fantasize about living on the Island of Sodor. Although their safety record is not very good.

Things Are Looking Up

2009-03-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Just a status update. I've been busy working on several non-knitting projects the past couple weeks. And I've got a few things on the needles, like these mittens.

I do want to talk about my Stitches class, I'm just waiting to have time to write something coherent. And the contest, yes that will happen soon. I think things will slow down next week.

I leave you with this image. I drive a red construction truck, but there's no company name. And if this was the name of the company, I would probably wear a hat and sunglasses. Or at least make the "R&S" more prominent. Just saying.

40th B-Day Part Two: Stitches West

2009-03-03T12:37:00.000-08:00

I know some people don't care about their 40th birthday, or birthdays in general. But I love my birthday, in fact the whole month of February has always been my favorite. The pink-ness of Valentines Day, then my birthday, and back when I worked or had a regular job, Presidents Day off. I think we got both Washington and Lincoln's Birthdays off when I was a kid.

I also know most people tend to throw big parties on their 40th. I, however, couldn't think of a theme, and frankly, what I really have been craving is a whole day to myself, and the pleasure of being able to focus on something I enjoy. So way back when registration opened I bought an all-day class at Stitches West to make Sami handgarments. My mother volunteered to stay here all day with the little one, and Mr. TVP scheduled a late start that morning.

This was my first Stitches, and I was going for the class more than the shopping, but I took my birthday money along, and a short list of things I have been looking for. I went to the preview Thursday night to get my badge and the lay of the land. I checked in to say hi to a couple vendors I know. To get ready for an upcoming project, I got the lovely green Blackwater Abbey yarn from Ireland pictured below. I also picked up the Compass Rose Sanquhar Glove pattern from them. It's in the last photo. Look at the beautiful pair Fluffy made.

Friday I morning left at about 6:30 to avoid morning traffic. I made a bonehead move and missed one exit, (cut me some slack, coming from 280 you have to get on 85, then 237, neither of which are marked Santa Clara). But I still got there nice and early. The class was challenging and fun. The subject deserves its own post, so that will be tomorrow, or as soon as I can get a good photo of my progress on the project.

At lunch I went over to see my contest socks on the wall. Photos allegedly weren't allowed in the market, but I asked and one of the judges took my picture with the Fana sock. I'm sure the two judges I talked to were famous, but I didn't recognize them.

Here's were I will say that I did not win a prize. At first I didn't care, at one point I had actually forgotten about the contest last week, and didn't realize the socks were there until I read the booklet Thursday night. I was kind of bummed thinking about it yesterday when the realization set in, but the winning socks are truly amazing. I think what makes it hard is I spent all the time and money but haven't even worn the socks yet!

The Bohus sock is here on a wall with several of the winners. Go here to see photos that do them justic. The stranded sock top right, made by an amazing Raveler, won third prize. The green one bottom right won Southwest Trading's "Uleash the Creativity" category. I believe the long white sock is the viewer's choice winner. My sock touched a winning sock!

Next I did some shopping. I was thrilled to score some Gotland fiber from A Verb for Keeping Warm to use at my Scandinavian spinning presentation Sunday. It's long and silky. (The fiber that is, hopefully the presentation will be short and concise). Also on my list was Jacob fiber and I found some at Toots LeBlanc's booth. It is actually a 50/50 jacob/alpaca which is good because I want it to be soft, for a project I'm making for the Zoo's shearing day. Those are up there in the photo with the yarn. I also got some Targhee from 'Verb', just because I haven't tried it before. It was too shy to be photographed, I guess.

I picked up a couple patterns at my friend Karen's booth (Royale Hare). I had to show her my sweater, spun from her fiber.

I also got a few back issues of Wild Fibers Magazine and spoke to Linda Cortright. She kicked off knitting the Longest Scarf in the World, which is part of Keep the Fleece. As part of the International Year of Natural Fibers the goal is to raise $250K for Heifer International. Actually the scarf started at Stitches is part of Carolina Homespun's team.

Back for the second half of my class. By the end I was really burned out, and not just due to the 000 needles, so I made one last spin of the market, and headed home before dark.

The word seems to be that there weren't as many vendors, freebies, or deals as in the past. Since this was my first year I didn't know exactly what to expect so I had a blast just being in the fiber zone all day. A perfect way to celebrate entering a new decade.

But my birthday isn't officially over until we drink that bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

40th Birthday Part One

2009-03-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

So much has been going on that I'm breaking up my 40th birthday celebration into a couple posts.

My birthday started a couple days early on knit night when my Purl Jam buddies totally surprised me with cake and gift certificate to Imagiknit.

They totally rock!! What do we do at knit night? Share projects, get advice, talk, and sometimes model socks. These are Karyn's "Oceansides".

On Thursday I went out for drinks at Tommy's Mexican Restaurant (a world class tequila bar) with my husband. Then we had dinner at Mel's Diner for fun. Since I had already had birthday cake, I got a chocolate malt for dessert, one of my favorites. The next morning I discovered we were out of coffee. It is so rare that I let that happen. It was not a very pretty picture. Tea was just not the same for what ailed me.

Later in the day I rallied and went to Imagiknit. It was such a pleasure to be able to go in there and just get whatever I wanted. I was pretty sure I wanted something luxurious, like cashmere. I was looking around and couldn't find pure cashmere, turns out it is kept in a locked showcase right by the door. I never noticed that before, but then again I've never shopped for something so dear.

I got a skein of pink cashmere which will become the Sweetheart Glovelets from the Rainey Sisters. I also got a skein of Malbrigo Lace, I'm still hunting a pattern for that. On a practical note I got a skein of green Cascade Heritage to use with all the pink sock yarn I have left from the Bohus Socks.

Tomorrow: Stitches West

Secret Lives of Toys

2009-02-26T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'm off to Stitches West for the preview tonight. Lots to tell about my birthday, it just keeps going.

I walked into K.'s bedroom the other morning and found that one of his trains, a crane, and a mug of water I left in there had been turned into a rescue mission diorama.

I don't know why I like this photo so much, even though I know a little boy set them up, it's almost like the toys have a secret life of their own. I was a moment frozen in time.

Also makes you wonder wait little boys are thinking when they think no-one is watching.

About Next Thursday

2009-02-15T15:41:00.000-08:00

I will be turning 40 this Thursday, just wanted to get that out there. I always love my birthday, and I'm not bummed out about the changing of the decade, but it does give me pause when I stop to think that I've been on this planet forty years.

Sometimes it is hard to believe. I mean the grey hairs are getting out of control and my 2-year-old wears me out, but I thought I would feel a lot wiser at 40 than I do. Maybe there will be some huge change in the next four days and the wisdom fairy will visit me. I'll be sure to let you all know if that happens.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T19:18:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had as pleasant a day as I did. We went out early as a family for coffee at the ocean. There was hail standing on the ground, which is pretty unusual, it generally melts right away. There was even ice right on the sand at the beach. I only had my cell phone camera, what a bummer! Then we took a little trip for me to visit the job site I had yet to see. A rainbow was poking out of the clouds down the coast and back.

There were roses for me, a book and chocolate for K. Then a visit from Grandpa and naptime. This afternoon Mr. TVP and I went out on our own chocolate shopping and for a gourmet snack and drink.

On the way home we stopped in the park for a photo shoot. If we are "friends" on Ravelry then you've already seen my sweater there or maybe in person. But I did alter the sleeves and the overall length this past week.

I'm really happy with it. Makes me want to knit more sweaters!

Pointy Hat Parade

2009-02-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

Here's another pointy hat:

I blogged about the yarn I spun, 'Blue-Haired Mafia", here. I made up the pattern as I went along. I soon found it was easier to leave the paillettes on the back of the work, rather then pull them through (they are spun into the yarn). I'm sure there's a name for this, but instead of purling, I knit a section stockinette in the round, then did a wrap and turn and knit the next section, wrapped and turned. I like the roundness of the purl stitches with the pailletes. Only part of the yarn had paillettes, so I used them as an accent on the purl sections. They didn't look good right next to my face, so I frogged and left them off the first section on the second attempt.

It looks really good on the little guy.

I have a bunch of the yarn without paillettes left. Not enough for mittens, but almost. I guess I'll spin some white yarn or use something from the stash and make them striped.

Gnome Hat Project

2009-02-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

My gnome hat partner is really, really into gnomes. She has a garden full. I wanted to make her a very special hat, but not too crazy. I found out she likes purple, and with that in mind I started to look for fiber.

At first I was going to wet-felt a hat, but my practice attempt proved I am not good enough at that yet. So I looked for spinning fiber, and found just the thing. The braid is from Traveling Rhinos. I pulled some dark purple from my stash.

The pattern is called "Gnomey Child's Hat" by Adrian Bizilia of Hello Yarn. I really liked the two-tone effect, so I decided to split the fiber up into a mostly purple and mostly green. That was a bit challenging and also caused me to have to do a lot of joins in my spinning. I only used about 1/8th of the purple fiber in the photo, just enough to ensure that the purple yarn really came across as purple. In ended up with these 2-ply skeins.

I got just the effect I wanted. To me the green is like moonlight reflecting, and the purple a midnight shadow. I can picture gnomes running around the garden in the moonlight. The yarn is really soft and there's just a bit of green in the purple and vice-versa. I altered the pattern by adding a bunch of stitches and rows. It is still pointy, but not outlandish.

Gnomey Goodness

2009-02-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

Look what I got in the mail today!!!

A totally awesome gnome hat from my Ravelry swap. It is a bamboo/silk/wool handspun, shiny and sparkly.

And look at all the other goodies. That bracelet has glass and felted beads, I love it. My partner makes wonderful stitch markers.

I cannot wait to wear this hat out. It was just too warm today.

Next time I'll show you the hat I sent out.

Bohus Socks

2009-01-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

Here are my Bohus socks. I am so in love with them! Too bad I am mailing them off today for the contest. Better photos will have to wait until after they come back to me.

The pattern, called the Red Palm, was designed by Kerstin Olsson and appears in the book "Poems of Color" by Wendy Keele. There was one photo of socks in the book, but it wasn't one of these yoke styles. I just thought of it as a sweater for the legs and knit ribbing and a yoke and a plain foot and heel. The big difference was I had to decrease within the pattern instead of increase. It was interesting. Managing the two colors and occaisonal purl stitches, which is what makes these Bohus designs so striking, was fun.

The biggest challenge was finding the nine colors of solid sock yarn. I got a bunch at the LYS, but then had to really hunt for the rest. I got one skein from a Raveler, and the others at another LYS. I tried dying yarn but couldn't get it right.

A whole lot of pink!

Fana Socks

2009-01-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

I designed these socks for the "Think Outside the Socks" contest. The winner will be chosen at Stitches West next month. Colinette is sponsoring their own portion of the contest, challenging you to use Jitterbug in a Fair Isle pattern. I first bought the grey and had no clue how I could make a pattern with another Jitterbug yarn because they were all so very variegated. I went back to the store at a later date and found the pink, which is much closer to solid.

I played with different patterns, but it finally turned into a Fana pattern. I guess I still had it on my brain from the sweater. These socks are basically a Fana Sweater for the legs. The twisted cast-on, checkerboard, stripes and star are all traditional to the sweater.

I'm quite happy with them. They make me think of something seen in a reflection of a pond or stream. As the trees above move, and ripples go by the colors shift.

Next time: Bohus Socks

Hverdags Bunad Preview

2009-01-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

Part of the reason for my lack of posting lately is that I have been working on my hverdags or everyday bunad. In contrast the fest bunad, the hverdags bunad is not heavily embroidered, or as regemented.

For the last three or four weeks I worked here and there to make the blouse, dress, and belt with the goal of finishing for our Lodge's installation of officers this past Sunday. A dear member, Paula, picked out the fabric for me and helped immensely with the planning, fitting, and execution.

I just made the deadline, attaching the belt buckles right before the meeting. I was so happy that I had something special to wear as I had the honor of acting as installing marshal, presenting candidates to be installed. I wanted to look nice for them. And to my surprise, our new president had just made herself an everyday bunad for the occasion, too.

I will wear it again in March when we go to Roseville to assist in the official institution of a new lodge there. I have a few adjustments to make (belt is too big, skirt 1" too long, cuffs too loose, other piece of silver won't stay on blouse). I will get full-length photos when it is looking more polished.

It is so great to have something fancy and Norwegian to wear. I usually put on a Norwegian sweater for our meetings but on these special days I wanted something nicer. I do have a plan for getting my fancy bunad done, I'm going to devote one day a week to the embroidery.

Paula is quite the bunad expert and is holding workshops so other members can make their own. The "Old Country Nordic Pattern" comes from Vesterheim, the clasps from Ingebretsen's in Minneapolis, and the jewelry and shoes I got in Norway for my fest bunad.

Modern Lady Update

2008-12-29T12:42:00.000-08:00

First things first. I love this truck. I want to know if a man or a woman owns it. There's a pink tool chest in the back.

Christmas was very nice. I didn't knit any gifts, but did send out quite a few cookies. We stayed in town and went to a couple events, and had a quiet Christmas dinner. There are photos of a house in the neighborhood we have visited for years on my other blog.

We managed to keep the quantity of gifts down so the little one really appreciated each item, especially his new workbench. The platform bed with a slide (not a Christmas present) is set up and he immediately decided he wanted to nap in it. Woo-hoo! He also set up his trains underneath which is win-win. I win because the living room is less cluttered and he wins because he gets to leave them out all the time. The timing of the new bed's arrival and his use of the word "own" as in "my own" was excellent.

I have been knitting the second pair contest socks and still spinning yarn for my sweater. I need to get back to knitting it, because I think I am getting close to enough yarn spun. The XRX sock contest deadline was extended to the end of January, so the pressure is off. I'm even thinking of a third pair.

I haven't forgotten the blog contest. The item I want to give away isn't going to be ready until sometime in January or February.

Finally, I have been out taking photos in the neighborhood. There was some interesting trash on the street.

Christmas morning:

What a crappy gift! No wonder it was tossed to the curb. Not only insulting, but obviously second hand. Aren't Abdominizers from the 1990's? Couldn't spring for an Ab-Roller, huh?

It looks like someone's recycling bin spilled here:

This was a couple feet away:

Must have been quite the party. From afar I assumed that the pink package had housed some type of marital aid.

But it was really a pack of seven size small:

Ladies' Disposable Panties
PANTY-O
The Life Style for Modern Ladies

Off the top of my head here are the "life styles" that would require disposable underwear:

Frequent spa visits
Giving birth
Incontinence

Judging by the "modern lady" on the pack and the empty beer case, I think I must have missed one or two.

I Blog Occasionally

2008-12-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

You may notice that the BLOG 365 "I blog daily" badge is gone from my sidebar. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to quit during this year, but I managed to post here or on my neighborhood blog daily. Until last weekend. I just have too much going on and can't get photos taken. Plus I noticed that I missed November 11. So there it is. I blogged every day for almost 11 months. Whopee.

The End is Near

2008-11-28T12:56:00.003-08:00

We are going to ride on out of here tomorrow and head home.

Sadly, no trains run through the Russian River Valley anymore. We did visit the rebuilt Northwestern Pacific Railroad depot earlier this week.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T17:04:00.000-08:00

This is going to seem like a really un-American post. Truth is, Thanksgiving is not one of my favorite holidays. I'm a vegetarian. Yes, there are a lot of wonderful foods served (including pie... mmm pie), but let's face it, the meal and the whole day revolves around turkey. Now, I like to eat, but the gluttonous attitude some people have really turns me off. Eating until you fall asleep? Eating a lot just for the sake of eating? Plus I never bought that whole Indian - Pilgrim fable either. It just doesn't seem like a day of celebration for me.

Years ago my then-husband and I went to Southern California every Thanksgiving. We would hit Disneyland on Thanksgiving and then two of the other parks - Universal Studios, Magic Mountain, or Knott's Berry Farm. We avoided the obligations, the turkey thing, all of it. I did get pumpkin pie at Denny's though.

And that's another thing about Thanksgiving. It brings back a lot of memories. Some bad ones I don't want to think about and happy ones I can never relive. It's all a bit too much.

So, if it is your kind of thing, Happy Thanksgiving to you. If not, at least know you are not the only one muddling through.

Balls & Skeins

2008-11-25T19:22:00.000-08:00

I escaped the meat eaters and the toddler for a couple hours this afternoon. I drove to Sebastapol to a yarn store. True, I do not need more yarn, but I did need a tapestry needle. Normally I would not waste gas for such a small thing, but I was losing my mind and had to get away.

The meat eaters are nice about making sure I get enough other stuff to eat, and I don't mind hearing about meat, or smelling meat cooking. But this whole week is about wine and gourmet food, and the meals and talk revolve about whatever kind of meat is chosen for the day. It's like there's a club I don't belong to. Even the kid was gnawing on a lamb bone last night.

Not to mention I tend to need time alone, and have had none for days. So I enjoyed the peace of driving down the highway listening to a country station. Then I walked into Balls & Skeins. Oh My Heavens. The sights and sounds. Yarn everywhere. People knitting on sofas. Talk of yarn and patterns. Everything was for me, and all the other people spoke my language. It was like coming home. I got the needles and some yarn and returned to the rental home refreshed.

Oreo

2008-11-24T18:44:00.000-08:00

The cat's name is Oreo. I spoke to the owners of the cat, who live right across the street from the rental. Apparently the rental owners come up on a lot of weekends and let Oreo in, and feed her. Oreo's owner is not happy about that because she is an outdoor cat. A white cat with no tail lives next door, he and Oreo have words from time to time.

Babydoll

2008-11-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Remember the fleece I got from a winery a few months ago? The one I haven't mentioned in a while? Well, this is where it was from, Navarro:

Perhaps from this character:

To get there we took an epic drive from Guerneville along Highway One and Mountain View Road. We had to take two vehicles and somehow I ended up alone with the kid in my truck. He was refusing to nap. Grrr. I was elated to find that my driving for the day was done so I could enjoy the 15 wines on the tasting list at Navarro.

Later we passed through Boonville, the sight of my unhappy camper experience in September.

Insane Kitty Kat

2008-11-22T20:12:00.000-08:00

K. and I got to the rental house this evening. The drive was okay, fortunately I know the area, otherwise I wouldn't have been too pleased about driving on the narrow roads looking for the house in the dark.

I had the bikes, a cooler, luggage, and Rubbermaid containers full of cooking stuff in the truck. As soon as we got out black and white cat came up to us. I went up and opened the house to start dragging stuff up the stairs. The cat ran in the house. It was obvious he had been in here before and I had to keep the door open, so I let K. play with him while I unloaded all the stuff. Then we put the cat outside. He was not happy to so, but I didn't want to encourage him. We turned around to go the kitchen and the cat was there, like a bad horror movie. Turns out K. opened the back sliding door to the deck. I put him out again.

He has been meowing at the door for half an hour now. Wonder when he will stop.

Vacation

2008-11-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

We have been working like crazy to get ready for vacation. On Saturday we are driving up to the Russian River and staying in a rental house for a week. Different friends are coming up a different times, some for Thanksgiving dinner others later. I'm going to bring the computer because we need to keep tabs on the business. I hope to get some knitting done, including finally starting my second pair of contest socks.

Feelings!

2008-11-19T18:23:00.000-08:00

Do you even get a weird emotion or feeling that you can't put a name to? They other day I was thinking about my father and how sad it is he isn't here to see my son grow up. My father loved trains and it would have been so neat for them to do railroad stuff together. Every once in a great while when I look at my son I see what my father must have looked like as a toddler.

But then I got to thinking about how hard it was to connect with my father as an adult. Even though we lived in the same city we didn't see each other that often. Holidays and birthdays, and every so often I would get back into model railroading and visit his shop. And then I got this feeling and could actually remember a few other times I had it. A feeling I can't describe other than awareness. Even though it was related to this lack of connection it wasn't sadness, angry, loneliness or confusion. It wasn't exactly peace or acceptance either. A weird feeling.

A bit later I was resting and the loudest sound was the ticking of the clock in the kitchen. I like that sound and the fact that during the day the clock is ticking but the other sounds drown it out. If you stop and actually listen for it, you can hear it but you have to know it is there first. That ticking gives me another self-aware feeling, a kind of peace. Knowing that like that clock I am just a tiny part of the world, sometimes fading to the background, sometimes more noticeable, but always there, plugging along. Sometimes I need to be reminded that life just goes on with or without me, I'm not that important. Other times I need the reassurance that a least one thing is constant in life.

So Many Interests, So Little Time

2008-11-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to set some knitting and sewing goals. All of a sudden this 40th birthday is coming up in February and it makes me want to tie some thing up so I can move onto newer challenges.

I can't seem to make goals, so instead I'm just going to list everything I've got going right now.

Short Term:

Make second pair of contest socks
Finish Fana Sweater
Make a hversdagbunad
Sew K's book holder for his bed
Finish spinning and knitting rose garden sweater
Make some items for the Bicycle Coalition's Winterfest fund raiser (maybe felted velcro top tube cozies or fingerless mitts)
Gnome hat for swap
Use my funky "Blue Haired Mafia" yarn for hat or bag

Medium:

Sew tote with blue/green fabrics I bought two months ago
Start Bohus sweater
Lopi projects: start with mittens, sweater for K., finally a sweater for me
Spin Navajo Churro top into tapestry yarn and weave
Use pink and green cotton yarns from swap for ??
Figure out project for Silky Wool
Make stranded vest with the prime alpaca I have been gathering
Do more felted bags
Do some kind of roaming korknisse project
Make felted bowls
Make scarf or wristlets with sparkly fancy brown yarn from swap
Knit Birch with Kid Silk Haze I have stashed
Knit a pair of Nancy Bush's Norwegian socks
Knit a pair of Selbuvotter

Long Term:

Work on fest bunad
Figure out what to do with quilt that was pieced, basted but never quilted (10 years ago!)
Pursue rosemaling
Take a design class

Yarn Swap

2008-11-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

We had a yarn swap this afternoon. It was a ton of fun. Six of us filled my dining room table with yarn we no longer wanted. Well, not so much didn't want, just knew we would never use. Then we took turns selecting yarn that thought we could use. No one wanted to look greedy, so it took a little while, and a little convincing. In the end there was just a paper shopping bag of unclaimed yarn which in going to be donated to people who will use it.

I scored a bunch of pink yarn, some fancy yarn, "silky wool", tons of green cotton, and some that will felt. I've got two shades of green and two of pink cotton, all Rowan. I really want to figure something neat for that. I had fun looking through patterns on Ravelry as well as "One Skein Wonders" last night.

It was good to let go of projects that won't happen, and fun to get new stuff. It will be a challenge to find patterns.

No Photos

2008-11-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

I really need to get the camera out. I have been knitting and spinning. I guess with less daylight I'm having a hard time getting stuff shot.

In other news, I seem to have developed a bit of a Lopi addiction. I've been buying odd lots here and there and now all the Lopi almost takes up as much room as the entire rest of my stash. There will be no photos of that.

Dork-a-saurus

2008-11-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

I caught a glimpse of myself on the bike with the kid in a store window. My have things changed since I used to be a "roadie". Dork does not begin to describe it. I forgot to mention one the other problems with having his seat so close to me. I can't stand up and ride on hills. You never forget how to ride a bike, but sometimes you have to adapt.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle...

2008-11-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

...and now I can a little bit more. I gave the iBert front-mounted child seat one more try. I still have to ride a little bow-legged, and the saddle has to be too low, but at least it is ridable. And K. enjoys it enough that he puts up with being bundled up and wearing a helmet. He rings the bell and pretends we are a fire engine. It's nice that I can see what he's doing and talk to him and touch him, unlike if he was in the back.

I'm still looking for ways to make it better. I'm short so I have a small bike which means the seat sits back really far, close to me. I can't step off the saddle and over the top tube, I have to stand over the saddle. Our first ride, before I lowered the saddle was a bit harrowing, I could only stop if I put my foot on a curb. The seat also pressing on the shifter for the cogs, making it a little hard to shift.

We've gone out a couple times, not super far, 30-45 minutes, but that's better than nothing. Carrying an extra 25lbs makes for a good workout. I'm glad I have the super low gears I scoffed at.

Possible New Obsession - Wet Felting

2008-11-09T20:31:00.001-08:00

Today at Daughters of Norway a felt artist, Heidi Paul, gave us a demonstration of wet felting.

Totally cool! She makes hats and while she was making a beret, we made felted balls. I can't wait to try some more techniques. Something to do with those bits of fiber laying about.

The Sound of Silence

2008-11-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

K. went out with his grandparents for a little while this afternoon. It is very rare that I am at home when he is not, even rarer to be home alone with my husband. The quiet is amazing. The ability to relax and not have to worry about someone's welfare is refreshing.

We ordered pizza and watched a movie. Funny how luxurious that seems these days. No one was trying to get attention by turning the t.v. off, and we could actually watch a rated R flick. The best part was being able turn it up to a normal volume and then actually watch the whole thing. Neither of those happen on a typical evening, K. goes to bed so late anyway we are usually too tired to even bother.

Knitting & Blog Plans

2008-11-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

I've been having fun giving things away, and doing some trading. Cleaning out the closets a bit. It's time to face facts that we live in an apartment and probably will for a long time to come. I have to stop thinking that some day we will be in a house and I will have a sewing room and garage or attic space to store things in.

It's almost time to set some goals for the rest of the year and next year. I'll be turning 40 in February and I want to finish up a bunch of projects by then. I have been buying Lopi here and there to add to the yarn I was given earlier this year. I definitely want to make myself an Icelandic sweater, and may make one for K. first. I think I'll start small with some mittens and a hat.

There will be a contest here in the next month or so. So please keep reading!

Healing Art

2008-11-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

There's and article in the current FiberArts Magazine about Sherry Lynn Wood who teaches how to make Passage Quilts which aid the maker in the bereavement process. Using the clothing of a loved one, you work through a five step process to make a quilt. The process of choosing the clothes, cutting them up, and then piecing, quilting, and sharing the quilt gives the space to come to terms with and make sense of the loss.

She offers workshops and consultations. The quilts can mark not only the loss of a loved one, but other life changes. She is based here in San Francisco and in Durham, North Carolina. I've got a bag of my father's neck ties and have been waiting to figure out the right project for them. I was thinking big, like and vest, and small, maybe a picture frame. I have actually spread them all out on more than one occasion. Wood's process is making me think of the project in a different light. Instead of trying to use all the ties, or make them match, I need to let them be what they want.

There was an article in the paper here about another woman who uses art to make sense of the pain in our world, through sprituality. Debra Classen was nineteen-year-old an art student when her mother was raped and murdered almost thirty years ago. Classen stopped creating art at the time of the tragedy. Years later she became a Catholic and holds a degree in theology and came back to art in 2002. Her ministry, The Mute Swan, strives is:

... a non-profit, spiritual organization dedicated to discovering beauty in all its forms. Our goal is to educate and encourage others to live a contemplative life. We believe the radiance of God's beauty is to be discovered in nature, art, relationships, life, even within great suffering. A well lived life embraces the harmonious integrity of this vision and sharing God's beauty and love with others.

Freebie?

2008-11-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

Continuing cleaning out the closets. I took a small load of stuff to the Bicycle Coalition this afternoon. Is there anyone out there who wants the felt quiet book kit? Let me know.

I'm also trying to sell or trade the cloth diaper supplies (birdseye, aplix, PUL) that have been sitting unused for almost a year. It's next to impossible to have the sewing machine out and projects going with a toddler around. I have over 30 yards of the birdseye. If you know anyone who makes cloth diapers send them my way.

My Sock and Me

2008-11-04T22:11:00.000-08:00

Wow, this second sock and I have shared some special moments. We rode in a squad car, and we just watched the president-elect speak.

I went out knitting as usual, we were going to go to a local bar so we could watch the election results. There were no seats and by 7:20 it was pretty obvious Obama had won, and that there we no results of important local measures on t.v., so we went to the regular dessert shop. I wondered when McCain would concede, it would have been fun to see that, but none of us thought it would happen tonight. I stayed pretty late because I had to rip out a few rows and didn't want to stick the sock in my bag for the ride home with a ton of free stitches.

As I waited for the streetcar, one of the knitters who had gone to check the t.v. told me that McCain had just conceded. The train came and I rode home working on the sock. Some people seemed oblivious to the news. The guy next to me talked to someone on the phone, no mention of the election. I got home and all was quiet, the men were asleep. So I turned the t.v. and knit some more on the sock and watched Obama's speech. If I had known K. was sleeping I would have stayed out, I think the knitters were going to go over to the bar after I left.

Did you see Jesse Jackson with tears in his eyes?

Thankful

2008-11-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

The police captain called me today and thanked me for taking the time to deal with the grafitti kids the other day. I thanked him for the having the station open for trick-or-treaters. Sometimes our neighborhood feels like a small town.

Plant Food

2008-11-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, while we were having the warm and sunny part of autumn, we started some seeds. I knew the weather could turn at any moment, so we started them indoors.

Last Tuesday we transplanted the sunflower seedlings outside. If we're lucky maybe one or two will make it. If not, it was still fun watching them grow.

Later we walked by the pot and K. dropped a Goldfish cracker in. I asked him if he was feeding the plants and he said "yes, babies".

Freebie Kit

2008-11-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

Hey readers, I've been cleaning out the craft closet. I'm going to a yarn swap in a couple weeks, but I found some sewing stuff I don't think I'll ever end up using. I found homes for some things on Ravelry, but wasn't sure what group to put this kit in, so I thought I would offer it here.

It's a felt "quiet book" kit from Keepsake Quilting. I think I had a quiet book as a kid, and I know my cousins had a neat one with Bible stories. So when I was pregnant I bought the kit with dreams of my little boy sitting quieting lacing and unbuttoning things. The reality is my son will not sit and be quiet using it, so it isn't worth putting the time and effort into making it.

With the kit you get the felt for the pages, shaggy felt for the bear, velcro, and a shoe lace. You provide the fabric for all the pictures. Of course you don't have to use the pattern included, you can use your own drawings.

If you would like it, I'll send it, within the U.S, to the first person who emails me at the gmail address over on the right column. Just let me know who you would make if for. You don't have to be a regular commentor or anything, lurkers welcome.

Knitting Behind Bars

2008-10-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was waiting for the bus, on my way to meet my husband for pizza and a beer. As I stood there with a bag of Halloween candy over my shoulder and a sock on the needles, I saw some kids "tag" a bus shelter. I can appreciate true graffiti art on building walls, done with permission, but the tagging of public and private property makes me so mad. It's my tax dollars that pay to clean buses and bus shelters, and homeowners should not have to spend money and time to paint over crap done by kids who can't find something creative to do with their time. We've had a rash of graffiti in the neighborhood the past couple weeks.

In fact, as one kid walked up he boasted that he had made one of the marks already on the shelter. I watched one, and then another draw on the bus shelter and the sidewalk. I kept knitting as I tried to memorize what they looked like. Then I called the police, and to my surprise they answered on the first ring. To my further surprise an officer called me right back and a patrol car drove up.

I hid around the corner as the police questioned the kids. I see them hanging out quite often, and don't particularly want them to know I busted them. It's a busy corner so quite a few people were watching. I just kept my head down knitting, wishing I wasn't wearing bright colored Halloween clothes. I talked to the officers and it was decided I would identify the kids from the back of a patrol car.

Yuck-o! Since the last time I was in a police car things have changed. The back seats are molded plastic, so there was a pile of crumbs and I-don't-want-to-know-what funneled into the bottom of the seat. The debris doesn't sink down out of sight like in upholstered seats. And it is small back there. So I kept knitting. And took a photo of my sock.

I identified them. Afterwards I was transfered to a plain-clothes car, which had a bottle of hand sanitizer mounted in the back seat. They dropped me off at the pizza place. The pizza was a little cold, but it was worth it possibly scaring some sense into these kids, who apparently have been arrested before. I wonder what their parents think they are doing? Throwing a football around in the park? There's a youth center a block from were they were tagging. Maybe some of the people who were gawking will realize that there are people watching them who care about the neighborhood. Knitters are watching.

Ironically, I was already planning on taking K. trick-or-treating at the police station. When we got home I was having second thoughts. What if I ran into the officers? I didn't want to look like some neighborhood police-obsessed wacko. But after looking up and down our street and seeing no houses with decorations or porch lights on I decided the police station might be the only place my engineer could do his first trick-or-treating.

It turned out to be fun, they had the station decorated inside and out. A lot of other kids stopped in and an officer was giving out candy, stickers, balloons and such. No, I did not get photos of the little engineer.

As we walked back to the truck my past collided with the present. The bar I used to hang out at is half a block from the police station. When I parked my truck across the street I thought it was early enough that my ex-husband wouldn't be there, but no, he was right on the corner with his buddies. So I did what any mother would do, I'm sure, took my son trick-or-treating at a bar. No, we didn't actually go in, they brought the candy out to us. It was kind of fun, we had a nice chat.

We drove home and parked a block away and trick-or-treated at a few houses up there. K. didn't quite get it, he kept storming into the homes. All-in-all he decided he likes Halloween, the pumpkins and the "cocoa".

Blue-Haired Mafia

2008-10-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

I did get 4 oz. of the rose spun this month for my sweater. I'm also working on my contest socks.

I decided I needed a break to make something just for the fun of it. This merino was hanging on the wall at Urban Fana Studios right next to the paillettes. Immediately I thought of the older ladies who "ran" the church kitchen and basement when I was growing up. My step-father called them the blue-haired mafia. Sometimes their dye jobs were quite blue, and at least one had a crocheted hat with paillettes. I got home and found I had some metallic fibers in the stash.

I think you are supposed to blend the fibers into a batt, but I wanted to see if I could just integrate them as I drafted, and it worked. The bigger challenge was how to wind the cop after I plied the yarn with the paillettes. I hadn't strung enough on, so they are only in the first third or so of the yarn.

I like the skein, but am going to strive to make the rest more think and thin. I'm also going to knit a swatch to see how the spacing is. I'm picturing a hand bag with paillettes at the top, and the same yarn, but paillette-less below. I'm not sure I could rock a hat, but we'll see.

No Gracias

2008-10-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was sent down to 16th and Capp St. to pick up a plumbing fixture. For those of you who don't know, 16th & Capp is the probably the number one place in the city to pick up a crack whore. A lovely way to spend the afternoon.

This Mission is home to many taquerias. I was stopped in traffic and got a shot of this place. Taco places cater to various kinds of customers. The one I go to is pretty limited in choices, there's nothing too wild.

But this place has a lot more than just beef, chicken, or pork burritos. You can see the Goat Soup sign (no thanks, even if I wasn't a vegetarian I don't think it would appeal to me. Although I love goat cheese. Go figure.) The smaller signs offer "buche" (pig esophogus) and "moronga" (big's blood sausage).

I really like the cactus tiles on the wall, though.

Safety First

2008-10-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Shouldn't they at least use "safety green" or stencil a Shamrock or Celtic knot or something on their sign?

Crafting

2008-10-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

I have been spinning and knitting. The spinning is more and more and more of the same rose for the sweater, so there's nothing new to show. I've started a pair of socks in two colors of Jitterbug for the Think Outside the Sox contest. I probably won't put photos up until they are done and sent off.

Crazy Thoughts

2008-10-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

The other day I was sitting in the coffee shop, enjoying a latte and knitting. A woman was sitting two tables down, she had a bunch of whole fruit in front of her, which was kind of odd. She was quietly talking and talking. The man next to her said "what?" It took him a minute to realize she wasn't really talking to him, just rambling, and not in English.

After a few minutes he got up and left. I have to admit I did focus on my knitting since I was the next closest target. She did keep looking at me and talking, but the words didn't make sense. She did same to the woman on the other side of me. She kind of smiled and went back to typing on her laptop.

Is there really that big of a difference between someone who just says everything that comes to mind and the rest of us? I have a constant dialog going on in my mind. Well, maybe not a dialog, but thoughts that are in the form of words. And the woman at the keyboard certainly had a stream of thoughts coming out. The only difference is that we kept ours quiet, while the woman couldn't seem to do that.

As I packed up the crazy lady looked right at me and pointed at my knitting. I have no idea what she was saying so I just smiled.

When I was sitting in church yesterday I was kept having the fear that I was going to say something out loud that I was thinking. Something like, "wow, I like that turquoise jewelry", or "I wish I could wear hats". Or something less kind. And I remembered that I often had this fear, sitting in church or other places where someone was speaking and I was alone with my thoughts, trying to focus, but failing. Does that make me crazy, too?

Church Ladies

2008-10-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today I attended the memorial service of my step-siblings' mother, Elisa, who died of pancreatic cancer. I was there not just to support them, but to pay respects to a woman who helped shape the person I am today.

Our families attended the same church when I was growing up. We attended regularly and the church family really was like an extended family. There were quite a few women who I observed over the years, they were like aunties in a way. Watching them interact which each other and their kids shaped the person I am today, and the person I am still striving to be. Each has their own gifts of creativity, honesty (sometimes brutal), generosity, dignity, and strength.

Many of these strong women were at the service today. It was a peculiar feeling to now be one of the "women" instead of a kid or teenager. Although I have been an adult for a long time, there are certain phases of life that make you feel more and more grown up. For me those were working seven years at the same job, getting divorced, losing my father, and having a child. Sitting in the church among these women I have known my whole life made me reflect on the person I used to be. In the past it might have made me feel like a bumbling kid again, and believe me, these women have seen me struggle, but today I felt like one of them. I am no longer a shy kid, but I feel like I now have lived enough to have wisdom to share with the next generation.

The Freaks Come Out At Night

2008-10-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

I looked out the window at 6:00 this morning to find a shopping cart in the back of my truck.

I have found trash many times, but this is the biggest item to date. People are weird.

Blind Dates

2008-10-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

The other night I went to a meeting of a neighborhood historical preservation group. I got to the bar/restaurant and looked for the one person I knew. He wasn't there, so I wandered the lobby a bit. On my third pass a man standing close to the restaurant said "you might be looking for me". I was amused because it was obvious that he was waiting for a blind date, but I smiled and asked "are you with the Western Neighborhoods Project?" He said "no" and looked a little sad. The way things are going lately it was flattering that someone hoped I was his date. That is, until I realized he observed me for several minutes before deciding that it wouldn't be a horrible thing if I was his date.

I wish I had said 'good luck' or something, it takes a lot of nerve to go on a blind date. I have only gone on one, well technically. It was a blind double-date when I was about eighteen. My co-worker was one of those types who was so happy with her boyfriend that she wanted everyone else to be matched up, too. She suggested that we go on a double-date with a friend of theirs. I asked a bit about him and reluctantly agreed. I asked what he looked like, shallow, I know, and she said "not classically handsome". Funny the details you remember over twenty years later.

My friends picked my up and we went to the blind date's house. Met his mother and chit-chatted. We went to his room and the red flags started waving like crazy. His room was plastered with photos of Morgan Fairchild. Plastered. Talk about an insecurity complex. I looked nothing like her. Blonde? No. Blue-eyed? No. Petite yet busty? No. Mature? No. If this was his dream woman, why would I bother trying to impress him? I had my share of posters hanging in my room, Leif Garret, Shawn Cassidy, Andy Gibb, etc. but I wasn't fixated on one person.

Fast forward to later that evening parked at Twin Peaks. My friends were in the backseat doing what people do back there. I was in the front seat, miserable, with a person I didn't like. I don't remember why I didn't like him, but I didn't. There was a big bottle of beer. I was never one to drink in high-school, but I did partake that evening, when I realized it kind of blurred the misery. I believe we went and shined flashlights in the backseats of other cars. There was some mooning of passing vehicles as well. Mercifully the evening ended and they took me home. My date escorted to me room and put me in bed fully clothed. He proceeded to chastise me for letting him in the house because he could have taken advantage of me. My friends were waiting outside so it didn't cross my mind to be afraid. And even though I didn't like him, I didn't think he was a bad person to be feared. I didn't have the words or experience back then to articulate my feelings about that statement.

I didn't invite him in for anything, and he knew that. I'm glad he didn't attack me, but should I be thanking him? No. The crazy thing is I went out with him again, alone. I don't remember much about it other than a very vivid memory of waiting for the streetcar and wishing the evening was over. Never saw him again.

I let my friend set me up again, this time with a co-worker who I was interested in. On our first date he suggested I change my hair style. On another date, at the drive-in, he was appalled that I wanted a sip of beer, since I was underage. He had a Bronco, which has bucket seats. We were watching the movie and all of a sudden he was in my seat. I asked him if he knew beforehand that we would both fit. He admitted that he did have practice jumping into the seat like that. A while later he asked me if I would take my shirt off, claiming no one would see me since we were in a truck. Riiiight. I guess he felt that there was no legal age for toplessness, so it was okay. I actually liked him and we had some fun dates. He had a truck and liked country music, a rarity in San Francisco. But he just wasn't happy with me. He liked me because I was "nice girl" but was also frustrated that I was "nice".

It turned out that he was in love with an "older woman" who lived somewhere up north. They would meet halfway and go on romantic camping trips. Bye-bye. At least he finally told me, so I realized the problem was not me, just that he wanted me to be this other person.

Many years later when I was divorced I answered a couple personal ads just for fun. I met the first guy at the ice skating rink at the Embarcadero. As soon as I saw the leather patches on his tweed coat I was turned off. He was equally unimpressed.

The second one was too good to be true. We were both vegetarians, had common interests, shared the same birthday, and it turned out we worked for the same company. We talked for hours on the phone, and then went to lunch. We had too much in common. It was like, why bother asking questions, we knew the answer, there was no mystery. I would have liked to be friends with him, but he was romantically interested in me, so that didn't work out.

My final attempt at a blind date was set up by a co-worker. She had a classmate who would be perfect for me. I was very reluctant, but was in a phase where I was trying to be less shy, and forced myself to never turn down a social invitation. It was to be dinner with my co-worker and her boyfriend at their house. I got there early and helped cook. They guy was coming from Marin and called to say he was running late. I was nervous and wished he would just get there. A couple more calls and he said he wasn't coming.

I was pissed off and hurt. The only thing worse than having a blind date ditch you is having to continue the evening with a happy couple. The boyfriend was none to happy that my co-worker had tried to play matchmaker, resulting in a miserable woman disrupting his X-Files night. Looking back it is so silly to feel rejected by someone I never met. He knew next to nothing about me or what I looked like. He just chickened our or something. But at the time it didn't feel that way. I emailed him the next day and told him off. I don't remember his response. Who knows what the story was.

And that was the end of my blind-dating career.

Moot Post

2008-10-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't go knitting tonight. I was out last night and wanted to spend time with my sweeties at home this evening.

I leave you to ponder this note I saw on the floor of the streetcar the other day:

I always thought a moot point was one that wasn't worth debating because it didn't matter anymore. I stand corrected. According to Merriam Webster:

1 a: open to question : debatable b: subjected to discussion : disputed
2: deprived of practical significance : made abstract or purely academic

Why was this scribble napkin on the floor of the streetcar? Did someone drop it by accident, or on purpose, in hopes someone would stop and think? No matter how you look at it, it's a moot point, because I'll never know the answer.

Criminal Minds?

2008-10-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

The captain of our local police station sends a daily email recapping the day's crimes, and the block where they occurred and the perpetrator lives is listed. It's good to be forewarned of crime trends. I'm careful in general, for instance I know not to leave tempting items exposed in my vehicle, but it's good to know when there's a rash of break-ins nearby so I can be extra careful.

I've noticed a few graffiti arrests which is heartening since the last time I called in a group of kids (three times over a 20 minute period!) as I followed them for blocks and watched them tag a streetcar and then a bus shelter, the police didn't show up. It's sad to see the domestic violence cases, and creepy to see how many people die in their homes.

A favorite is people who run the stop sign half a block from the police station. Really? I can see that you live in the neighborhood, you really don't know that the police station is right there?

It's amazing how dumb some of the criminals must be. Every day someone is stopped for running a stop sign, or driving with headlights out, only to be hauled away because they don't have a license or drugs were found in their vehicle. If I were going off to a drug deal with thousands of dollars' worth of drugs in my trunk, and there was a warrant for my arrest, I would make sure my headlights were on and would make an effort to follow all the traffic laws. If I were forced to drive without a license, I would certainly not have an open container of alcohol in my lap.

These reports sheds a different light on the term "criminal mind".

Neighborhood Greening

2008-10-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

I went to our neighborhood "greening" event today. Timberland sponsored the tree-planting and park cleaning in exchange for a promise of 400 volunteers. I signed up to work on Sunset Blvd., which is the widest, greenest street in this part of the city. I have walked, biked and jogged literally hundreds of miles on it in my lifetime.

At first I assumed I would be cleaning it up, then I read in the paper that trees were going to be planted along the boulevard, although it didn't say when.

I got to the meeting place at 8:20 and got in line. It was quite confusing. Turns out one entity was coordinating tree-planting, and another the park cleaning, but it wasn't clear where to go.

This guy brought three bikes that powered the P.A. system. Pretty cool.

Little by little my group formed, I noticed it was all teenagers. In fact, many of the volunteers were teenagers which I think is really cool. I know many of them have to perform public service in order to be in clubs and honor societies, but they all seemed pretty cheerful. I was a little less cheerful when I found out we weren't planting trees, just cleaning up. But one of the group leaders said I looked familiar to her, and I felt the same, I was looking forward to talking more to her, so there was that.

Finally we picked up our tools and garbage bags and got on a nice biodiesel tour bus at about 9:15. I was kicking myself hard for not bringing any knitting, I could have done quite a bit with all the waiting around. The group leader announced that she needed five people to volunteer to go to a different site with her. I hoped I could go, but five kids wanted to stick together so I didn't. We roamed around the neighborhood on the bus dropping groups off and finally got to our spot. I was a little glum. The other leader asked me to take half the kids in the group since I was the only other adult. Herding teenagers, the day was not exactly looking up. At least it was foggy, the sun wasn't beating down.

Of course the boys went with the guy, and the girls with me. We split up at about 10:00, off to pick up trash, and clear the edges of the path where grass and weeds have grown over it. Turns out the kids were from my high school, Lowell. They were actually good kids and fairly enthusiastic. Being a leader is not my forte, but we did fine, and the girls worked hard. Well, a couple didn't exactly know what to do, but they were receptive enough when I gave them direction.

The first block was really hard, but worthwhile. The path is paved for mixed use, but in some places several inches have been lost and it makes it a bit tricky when you are on a bike and want to pass pedestrians. This has always been a peeve of mine on this path. A lot of the people walking are elderly and I want to give them a wide berth, not startle them with my bell, and swooop right next to them. Yet, I am not going to ride on the overgrown edge for fear of running over hidden glass or other debris that could flatten a tire. This block was one of the worst, luckily we had a couple of sharp shovels and were able to cut it back and make it more usable.

We did the next block quickly, and everyone, including me, was flagging a bit when we crossed to the other, unpaved side of the street. We just picked up trash which was much easier than edging. I spent most of my time trying to get one person with a trash bag to walk at the front of the group, and the other at the back. If you are going to hold a trash bag, at least carry near the people pinking up the trash! We met up with the guys at 11:45 and waited for the bus to take us back to lunch.

We got back and dumped the tools at about 12:15. Lunch was supposed to be at 12:30 so I killed time in the library which was conveniently right there. Checked out four knitting books including a major score - a pattern that I can tweak into a gnome hat for a Ravelry swap I just signed up for. I got in line for lunch at 12:30 and tried to determine if there was anything but meat on the grill, then it was announced that lunch wouldn't be for another 10-15 minutes. I was hungry, not particularly interested in the food, and fifty people were ahead of me in line, so I left.

Problem was I couldn't go home because K. was napping, and would be for two hours. I was kind of dirty and in Carharts and work boots, so I couldn't go anywhere too nice. Worst of all, I was wasting precious knitting time! I went to a local pizza place that has a bar and had a beer and lunch and read the knitting books, and worked on converting the gnome pattern. I got home and could not hear any noise inside so I sat on the door step and read the mail. Thank heavens the kid woke up right before I was forced to read the only thing left, this month's Fur Fish Game.

The day didn't turn out quite as I had expected, but we made a tiny bit of difference, and I got a hat and a t-shirt. It was nice to sit at the bar and chat with people, and enjoy a meal.