Secret Pal: The Reveal

Well friends, it's over, that wonderful thing we call Secret Pal 10. While the ending is bittersweet (in that it's over, and there won't be any more fun packages to look forward to), I found out that Fawn was my wonderful spoiler! Go now (I'll wait) and check out the adorable octopus she just designed - this is heading straight to the top of the must-knit queue! Whilst designing and knitting George of the eight legs, she managed to put together this great final package for me, with a rainbow theme: Check out these chopsticks - so cute! There is also all I need to try some more Kool-Aid dyeing (and I suspect some Kool-Aid to drink, since I have quite the sweet tooth), a pleasantly scented but not overpowering eucalyptus candle, mini colored pencils (how did she know I love to color?), lip gloss (quite tasty), and a Taurus measuring tape. Until recently I'd never really believed what knitters say about the need for multiple measuring tapes, but lately mine have been running off, so it's great to have another one!

She also included a catnip-stuffed knit toy for Oliver, who is becoming very spoiled. I think I forgot to mention that Amie, my Knitters Tea Swap pal, sent Oliver a felted mouse that she made and stuffed with catnip from her garden (!), so he's been one lucky kitty these last couple of weeks! He was quite interested in his new toy, which reminds me of a manta ray. He helped with the opening: And took a shine to the ray right away:

Thanks for being a great swap pal, and let's keep in touch!

Tomorrow is the kick-off of the Mystery Stole Along, and I'm pretty excited to get started. We'll see how long I can keep up...I don't have a busy weekend planned, so I have hopes for staying with the group at least for this week. Next Friday I will be visiting my family in PA, so I might not have much time to knit. I always take a ton of knitting home but never get much accomplished. I'm sure that I'll overpack the projects again this time - old habits die hard!

Tomorrow I'll try to update you on my progress with the $1.50 cardigan, and wax rhapsodic (or not) about the mystery stole...

Plan B

Now, I really meant to make the Twisted Flower socks for my Sockapalooza pal. Really I did. I made a valiant (kind of) effort at it, but in the end I decided that, while the pattern is lovely and I would love to make it someday, this is not the day. There's no way I could finish those in time without devoting a lot more effort to them than I am willing or able to. So, I've moved on to something else for my pal. Not that she's not worthy of the original socks, but at 20 minutes a round I just can't spare the time to finish them on a schedule. So, now I'm using this lovely green variegated yarn to make the Angel's Rest socks (from the Fiber Trends Peak Experience Socks pattern). The yarn Monarch sock yarn from Angora Valley Farms, in the Ivy colorway (not currently on their website).

So far I'm about 3.5" into the leg, and I'm really enjoying knitting this pattern. The color is more accurate in the first photo of the yarn cake. Because it's much simpler than my originally intended pattern, the vibes that are going into this sock are much better than my pal would have received from the Twisted Flower socks, so I think this is for the best. Based on previous experience with this brand of yarn, and having seen many sample socks knit with it at various fiber festivals, I expected to have some striping action. I just finished a pair of socks using this yarn in another colorway (need to blog those!), which striped nicely, and that was one of the reasons I chose to use this for this pattern, which is ideal for striping yarns. But, instead of striping I have a bit of a wide spiral going on, as you can see clearly in the photo. I'm actually okay with this and think it looks pretty cool, since all the colors are greens. I hope my pal doesn't mind! I suspect that this yarn would stripe with a different stitch count or without the lace pattern (which I realize isn't apparent from the photo). I've only devoted about 3 hours to these so far and they're moving along quite quickly, which is good since I'll need to start devoting a fair bit of time to lace once the first part of the Mystery Stole pattern is released on Friday!

Baseball!

One of my birthday presents to Dave was tickets to last night's Mariners-Red Sox game. Now Dave is a HUGE Red Sox fan, so it was a real shame for him and the many other Sox fans at the game (who were no small portion of the crowd) that their boys lost 9-4. We had much better seats than we've had at any previous Mariners game - the vendors even came around to us! And no binoculars needed to see the action. Big success as a present, but Dave is apparently a curse for the Red Sox as they rarely win when he goes to games. On the other hand, I'm good luck for the Mariners, who have won 75% of the games I've attended!

Mystery Stole 3 - The Swatch

I've signed up for Melanie's Mystery Stole 3. As might have been mentioned here in the past, I feel like I want to knit lace, but haven't yet done so successfully. Not because I've screwed it up, but because I've never really gotten going (Both times I've started I've used circular needles, and the combination of the fine yarn, large needles, and the way I knit has made that a tough combo. Straight needles are apparently much better for me with something like lace). However, I love a good puzzle, so I'm giving this a shot. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the mystery stoles, the basic idea is that the pattern is released a bit at a time over a several month period. You don't know what the final pattern will look like until the end, so the whole operation is a big surprise. The recommended colors for this year's theme are black, white, or variations thereof, but I've decided to go against the grain and use purple, as seen here: This is just a swatch, and bears no resemblance to the actual stole pattern. The idea was to determine if there is a good balance between stockinette and yarnovers, which I think there is. For the curious, this is Zephyr (a 50/50 wool/silk blend) in Plum, knit on size 4 needles. After blocking it is 5" across, which means, since the stole is about three times as many stitches, that my finished stole will probably be about 18" (Yes, I can multiply. 5x3 = 15, but more lace = more stretch). The other purpose of the swatch is to practice knitting with beads (recommended for the stole) and to find beads that match well. I bought two types of beads at Fusion Beads, some shiny ones (top) and some dull ones (middle). I'm going to go with the shiny ones because they pop out more and I don't think it'll be worth the effort to do the beading if the beads aren't obvious. The beading is really fun - I've knit with beads before but always used the prestringing method, where the beads were on the yarn and then you just used one when required. However, that method is a bit tough on the yarn, since it has to support the weight of all those beads moving around on it, and thus isn't good for fragile laceweight yarn like my Zephyr. So, I'm putting the beads on as I go with a tiny crochet hook (size 12). The way you do this is described quite well in this Knitty article, but briefly you put a bead on the hook, then pick the stitch up off the knitting needle with the hook, then slide the bead down over the stitch, and replace the stitch on the knitting needle. I then slipped the stitch to the right knitting needle without knitting it, which I think was right but if anyone knows differently please let me know! The first clue comes out on Friday, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm really hoping that I can get into this stole project and keep up with the group so that the surprise isn't ruined for me. Jennifer is knitting it as well so I'm hoping that will keep me on task!

Well-stocked

Yesterday Dave and I went and picked 15 pounds of strawberries at Biringer Farms. This is what 15 pounds of strawberries looks like: Last night (and tonight) we had strawberry shortcake, one of my favorite desserts. And today I stayed home and played domestic, and made 11 pints of strawberry jam. 11 pints! That is a lot. I also cut up and froze five quarts of berries, some with sugar (for more shortcake) and some without, for Dave's breakfast smoothies. And, now this is all we have left...

I'm planning on giving the small jars of jam as gifts this Christmas and keeping the less decorative large jars for ourselves. I think this is the first time I've made jam by myself and it was really fun and very easy. I'm looking forward to blackberry season!

One down, four to go

I've finished the first piece of my $1.50 cardigan!

You can't tell from this photo, but this piece (the back) is actually quite wide, and I'm a little bit concerned. I realize I've voiced this worry before, so instead of belaboring the point I'm going to carry on and hope it works out. I ended up starting the armhole shaping at 15" instead of the 18.5" the pattern recommended, although I made the armhole the same depth (well, maybe 1/4" smaller). I think this length will work out much better for me than that in the original pattern. I was a bit torn about which piece to start next, and I've decided, on Jennifer's advice, to do the striped front next (instead of the cabled one), since it matches the back. I think this is a good plan. I intended to cast on the first front tonight but instead worked on the Purdy Plum socks, the second of which is just in need of about 1/2" of ribbing. They will be a Christmas gift, done very early!

Catchin' Up

Like my Tea Swap post, this post is a bit belated. I had a very busy weekend as my friend Heidi came to visit from Chicago. Heidi is a good friend from college, and one of the few I've really kept in touch with since we graduated 6 (gasp!) years ago. Heidi arrived on Friday, and Saturday we went to the Fremont Solstice Parade. I've decided to spare you the naked cyclist photos, just in case there are any children watching (although there were plenty of children at the parade, including some in bike seats behind their naked parents, which I suspect will result in expensive therapy a few years down the road). I really liked these penquins, as well as these crazy water-dinosaurs (really I'm not sure what they were meant to be). The parade wasn't as good as in the past, mostly due to even more disorganization than usual and the "chalk fairies," who were kids that came around distributing sidewalk chalk to the audience while also writing on the street, which took forever and really destroyed the momentum from the naked cyclists. Heidi and I were quite crafty. I taught her how to purl (after teaching her to knit almost three years ago), and we almost got to circular needles but ran out of visit time. That will be tackled when I go to Chicago for Labor Day weekend. Saturday night we dyed yarn: This is mine, pre-reskeining, and I'll show you Heidi's when she sends me a photo of the skein. We also made paper:Above is the always-attractive pouring-of-the-pulp shot, and here is some of what we made: Making paper is really addictive, being fast and cheap. If one sheet doesn't go well, you've really lost nothing, you just rip up some more paper and begin again!


We also did some sightseeing. Here I am at the original Starbucks, near Pike Place Market. This is Pike Place Fish Co., the infamous fish throwing booth in the market: Check out the size of that Copper River salmon on the right! We also got to see a lovely sunset city view from West Seattle: And Heidi got to meet the Fremont troll. Yes, that is a genuine Volkswagon Beetle he's crushing! We had a lovely dinner outside at Aqua Verde on Monday night (even saw some otters), and here is a group shot of everyone but me, since I was, as usual, the photographer.Clockwise from the left: Kristen, Shibani, Paul (Rachel's husband), Rachel, Heidi, and Dave. It was really great to see Heidi, and I hope she had a good time as well!
I have loads of knitting to show and talk about, so keep your eyes peeled for a post with actual knitting content soon!