Knittinggarden

How many times have I used that title?  I guess if I posted more regularly, I wouldn't have to catch up, but that doesn't seem all that likely.  Anyway, since this blog is supposed to exist to document my knitting, here's what's been happening. The spinalong fiber has been spun and mostly knitted.  I'm making the Boneyard shawl by Stephen West out of it and it is not the most interesting knitting, so is taking awhile.  I got about 650 yards of yarn, so the shawl will be a good size.  The colors shown on the yarn skeins are more true to life than those in the shawl photo.  While this is not a combination of colors I would ordinarily choose for myself, I'm enjoying the progression of shades in the finished project. My Pogona (also a Stephen West design) is about the same size as it was when I last showed it.  However, it has had some work done on it, just not all in the right direction.  I decided I didn't like the striping I was getting w...

These are double-pointed needles.  They are size US 2-1/2 (3 mm). They are pretty small, pretty sharp, and pretty slippery.  I only have a couple of small sets of dpns, purchased a long time ago.  Back in the day when I learned to make socks, I first learned from a book and that book said you had to use dpns, so I bought some and used them.  I didn't like them very much. Shortly thereafter I took a class on how to make socks with two circular needles and I liked that much better.  The needles didn't poke me, they didn't fall out, they weren't as awkward to hold, and I didn't get the little ladders between the needles.   Once I started with the circulars, I didn't look back and learned to easily convert any pattern written for dpns to circulars.  This included finishing hats and doing mittens.  I may have even said on occasion that I didn't use dpns and didn't know why anyone else would.  That's me; never judgmental or anything! However...

Thank you, Princess.  I will enjoy this delicious arrangement and appreciate it very much!

I'm back home now in the cold, rainy Northwest, and am finally organized enough to show off some of my finished objects.  A bit of knitting and spinning has been done amongst housework, exercise, and reclaiming my house from the twenty-something who's in charge when I'm not. My Vellamo socks were finished at the end of March, and they came out pretty well.  I learned a lot from this pattern and will do some things differently (hopefully better) next time.  They are made from two colors of Wollmeise loveliness and feel wonderful. Speaking of Wollmeise loveliness, I have to mention that the laceweight cardigan I showed before is incredibly soft!  The fine gauge merino wool didn't feel especially soft when I was working with it; it was nice but quite thin and stringy, but when this sweater was done and washed, it became super soft.  I look forward to making a shawl out of the  same yarn in the future.  Thanks to Lori's trip to Germany last summer d...

I didn't know that lemon trees fruit and bloom at the same time.  Very interesting...... I've had posts spinning around in my head like crazy but I haven't written them down.  They're all very entertaining, too!  I'll start with this photo so I can get the song out of my head, then hopefully catch up with a couple more posts for publishing later.

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...