Knittinggarden

I've been doing some knitting, but haven't been too diligent about keeping the blog updated, so here goes.  It seems a little frivolous to babble about knitting when so many people have been devastated in Japan, so I'll pass on a small way to help that I learned about this morning.  I went online to the Red Cross to donate and after I did that, I visited my forums on Ravelry.  Little Knits is a yarn shop in Seattle with a large online business.  There was a thread in the group today regarding Japan, so I read it.  The owner of Little Knits announced that she would match donations for people who had no corporate matches and donate up to $10,000.  So I emailed the Red Cross with the matching information and also advised Little Knits so my donation amount could be double checked.  I know there are lots of worthy organizations to which to donate, but the Red Cross is a great one and doubling my money was a welcome opportunity. So back to knitting. ...

Yes, I've been back here in lovely Palm Desert, CA for a week now.  It was a bit rainy and cooler when I arrived, but it quickly returned to sunbathing weather (at least for me!)  When you're used to cooler weather, you tend to get the shorts out when it gets into the 60s (F) so 70s and lower 80s is all gravy. Knitting since I last posted:  I was sad to leave my Cassidy at home but knew I wouldn't need a worsted weight, cabled wool sweater here.  I think I wore it every day after I finished it and I like it very much.  Now I'm trying to finish up my Geodesic cardigan out of Wollmeise lacegarn in the Merlot colorway.   I should be finished in the next few days and will post a photo then.  I still like this project, but it wasn't the easiest thing to knit and working with the laceweight and following the directions given isn't always pleasant.  I do love the yarn and will plan to make a shawl out of the substantial ball of leftovers. Since I ne...

So, I guess making fun of the snowstorm that didn't hit my neighborhood wasn't a good idea.  Not too long after I posted yesterday, this is what it looked like out my window. Luckily it didn't last too long.  It's quite cold, though, below freezing, but luckily no more precipitation is expected so the roads should be okay.  Today the sun is out and the scene this morning was lovely.

I imagine all of you living in parts of the country where you can really tell that it's been winter were amused to see Seattle on the weather channel yesterday.  Yes, we've had all our local news reporters out in their yellow jackets marvelling at the tiny bit of snow that has everyone in an uproar.  To be fair, there was some significant accumulations in the surrounding areas and in the mountains, but here?  Nah.  News stories of kids sledding into muddy grass while enjoying a "snow" day are very entertaining.  Doesn't take much to get us going here.  Here's a photo of the sun glinting off the tiny layer of snow in the yard.  It looked very pretty in real life! In other weather news, though, I'll be heading back down south early Saturday morning, where it's been cooler and rainy (60s) but hopefully will be heading back up into the 70s shortly after my arrival.  I've been wearing my Cassidy sweater as much as possible, since I know the worst...

This report is a little bit late, but I liked the alliterative headling, so I'm sticking with it!  I did spend much of Superbowl Sunday seaming up my Cassidy .  I started this sweater with the Knitmore Girls' podcast Knitalong but have had a couple of delays along the way.  I'm trying to get it finished so I can wear it next week to Madrona if I want to, so we'll keep fingers crossed. The seaming:  I do not like sewing and seaming is more sewing than knitting to me.  No matter how careful I vow to be, the seaming never looks very good to me.  So I won't enter the sweater in the fair...it looks like it will stay together and the sides are even and it fits! so that's all good.  I picked up the stitches for the hood the other night (another job I don't much care for) and the hood is coming along.  However, my ball of yarn is getting suspiciously small and I know it's the last one, so I'm hoping for the best.  I did have a little more yardage t...

I don't have any teenagers any more.  Whew!  It sure doesn't seem like 20 years have gone by since my last baby was born. My beautiful girl, you've had some challenges this past year, but you're learning to manage them and I'm proud of you.  I can't resist sharing a few photos of your new year's trip to Cancun that AR helped me snag from your Facebook page.  You've changed a lot in the last 20 years! You're awesome; I loved our half marathon adventure and will remember it proudly always. Have a super wonderful day, Sweetie.  I love you more than you'll ever know.

I'm not sure why I didn't want to spend the winter here; tiny condo, no yard, no pets....what's not to like?  Now I don't want to go back to Seattle on Saturday to deal with the bills, yard, pets, kid, rain, cold, etc.  I'm getting so much knitting done!  Oh well, I'll be back before too long and while I'm home I'll get to take a spinning class and visit the vendors' market at the Madrona Fiber Art s retreat in Tacoma, WA.  I didn't go last year and am looking forward to it this time.  I'm sure I'll do some stash enhancement, but my thinking now is that if I'm going to split my time between two homes for the next few months, I'm going to have to divide up my stash a bit.  I've ordered a few skeins of yarn that have come here, but it's not quite enough yet.  When I come back I have visions of my suitcase being filled with yarn.  Or I could just ship a box to myself.  That would be easier.  I have to have a variety of yarn a...

Posting again from my vacation spot in Palm Desert, CA.  The Weather Channel says that there might be a record high temperature today in this area.  The old record was 87F.  Not bad for January, huh? This morning DH and I went for a nice bike ride.  It's really flat here and there are bike lanes on some of the busy streets, so that's nice.  There are also very wide sidewalks, meant for golf carts I guess, and no one walks here, so you can ride freely on them.  I try to get a run or walk in frequently and it's truly California; everyone drives everywhere.  You really have to watch out crossing streets since drivers aren't used to pedestrians. Anyway, we were riding down El Paseo (the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert) and I heard a woman ask, "Is this what summer is like?"  (The temperature was in the 70s when were riding.)  I wanted to answer, since I've been here in July and August a few times, "No, at 9:00 in the morning in the summer, it would...

So here's the photo of the yarn that came to christen my home in the desert.  String Theory Colorworks Duality in the colorway "Event Horizon" and Continuum in the colorway "Blue Giant". I think they're beautiful....and I seem to be having a little problem with self-striping yarns.  I just might have ordered two more skeins of Vesper sock yarn from Knitterly Things this afternoon soon after getting the email that the shop had updated.  Oops.

Last weekend I drove from Seattle to Palm Desert, CA with DH.  We have a little condo here in the desert that we've tried to rent as much as possible during the past several winters.   This year, DH decided that he'd had enough of the cold and wet and would come south for the winter to work.  He explored some job possibilities, we loaded up the old Volvo wagon, and set out last Saturday morning.  As we continued further south, it seemed to get colder and colder, which was not what we had in mind.  We spent the night in northern California and had to scrape ice off the car in the morning.  Hey, we could be at home and do that... Anyway, we arrived to mild weather and sunshine and the days have warmed up nicely.  It might be approaching 80 in the next couple of days!  While DH has been organizing his work, I've been getting some knitting done.  I'm working on two pairs of "vanilla" socks; one out of Wollmeise in the Saami colorway, and one ou...

Here's to the first day of 2011.  So far, so good.  We had a lovely New Year's Eve at the home of some old friends, excellent food and company and a clear, dry, cold night in which to drive home.  All good. My first cast on object for this year is a pair of socks.  I joined a group on Ravelry where we will knit a pair of socks each month from our existing stash.  Not a problem for me and I probably do it anyway, but it's fun to be in a group!  I started a pair of plain stockinette socks, cuff down, 1x1 rib at the top out of Wollmeise 100% superwash wool in the Saami colorway.   This was a club colorway during the one year of the Wollmeise club and I wasn't sure I liked it right away.  However, seeing some socks knit in it (Goatlady's!) made me change my mind and I can't wait to get mine finished. I have a few things to finish up, of course.  This week I need to finish and mail the vest I'm making for afghans for Afghans  so it gets...

This year Hanukkah came at the very first part of December, right after Thanksgiving.  No kids were home, I was in Vegas for part of the time, and we just couldn't arrange to get together for our family celebration.  DH and I lit candles the nights we were home, and I put up some decorations, but in my position as Queen of Everything, I rescheduled Hanukkah. The Princess and her devoted follower came home for a week, the filmmaker came home for a few days in advance of coming home permanently (!), and our gainfully employed son lives in town.  We rounded up a few more family members and enjoyed our traditional family Hanukkah on Christmas Eve. Despite the unfortunate burning of many of the latkes and the unusual runny-ness of the spinach casserole, we had an enjoyable and hilarious time.  Our group may be relatively small, but we're still noisy!  The hilarity and possibly the latke burning was probably due to the martinis and/or eggnog.  But whatever......

Registering for the Las Vegas Rock and Roll Marathon:   $145 Plane ticket to Las Vegas:   $250 Co-payments at doctor's offices and physical therapy for knee pain due to deciding to be a runner at age 57:   $250 Cool running gear: pants, shirts, jacket, hats, water bottles, waist packs, ipod shuffles, running watch:  Not quite sure but substantial $$ Hotel reservation at Mandalay Bay so we wouldn't have to walk too far to get to the race and, more importantly, back to the place to lie down with ice afterwards:   $350 Miscellaneous food and other shopping expenses:   $200? Spending the weekend with my girl and sharing an awesome experience: PRICELESS!!!