A little of everything

Hi Alene! Hope all is well in sunny AZ. It's raining today but the raspberries appreciate it. Third day of school already; the summer didn't seem too long. We had a great one despite the rough start of extreme rain and my appendectomy this spring. There's never enough time to do all the things we imagine, but we did a good number of them and had lots of fun together. The weather gave us a break by being cooler and less humid than typical, so that made a pleasant change. Because of the coolness and our late start to the garden, we still have tomatoes coming, so soon DH will be making salsa!

Still working here & there on the clear-out I started in January; things are looking better around here. Also thinking a lot about spinning and knitting and trying felting again (have had mixed results in the past). Have you seen this cool magazine from Interweave? I want to knit & felt some mittens (and maybe needle felt some sort of embellishment and maybe try some wet felting just cuz it looks amazing. The birthday book you sent is one I know I'll keep rereading.

Time to get going on our school morning routine, more soon, love, C

DS's DS case

Hi Alene, when DS learned to knit 2 years ago, he first made a cute little Xmas ornament. Then he picked out his own yarn (for the record, green Cascade 220 superwash) and decided to make a scarf. Even with me giving him yarn to make stripes, that was a bit too much project for someone his age. So when he finally had enough dough to buy his Nintendo DS, I suggested his "scarf" was long enough to fold up & sew into a bag for it. He loved this idea and here it is! He did most of the knitting, helped make a twisted cord, and picked out the button. I put in a lining. Yay!!!
Thanks for picking up the slack; more entries in the works. C

UFOlympic Update

Hi Cindy!

While you've been off enjoying the cool green northwest I've been knitting away on my olympic challange.

When I last wrote I believe I was about a foot into the body of the Cobblestone Sweater for DH. Upon restart at the beginning of the games I completed a couple of more inches of the body before deciding to switch to knitting the sleeves.

Here is the first one:

I picked up an Addi Turbo circular to use on the upper portion of the sleeves and they seemed to fly by. The first sleeve took me much of last week, between work and everything. But the second one I finished in just over a day with a lot of time spent in front of the TV. Of course after a whole day spent knitting I was pretty stiff yesterday and only got a couple of rounds done on the body. The sleeves are actually the same length as the body as that is how DH wants it to fit. His arms are actually fairly short; I would have needed an extra 5 inches for the sleeves to fit me. Here are both sleeves complete next to the sweater body.

In closing, Margi is training to be a Draft Blocker. I think she's got the form down almost perfectly. Of course at 105 degrees she's keeping the cool air in rather than out. I'll let you know when the cold finally arrives if her form changes.

Hope you had a great trip and I'm looking forward to pictures soon!

Take care, A

Happy Birthday!

Hi Cindy!
You beat me to the birthday punch. I wanted to write a post last night but we had another big storm and ended up not turning the computer on at all. I think we got over an inch at our house. Not quite as much as the big storm a couple of weeks ago but still a goodly amount. The street was flooded again. And the broken branch in the olive tree is now on the ground, although that may have happened in our small storm on Tuesday night.

Do you have anything special planned for today? Dinner out?

Our friends Fred and Penny got married in Seattle last weekend. We didn't get to go up there for the wedding but they're down here for a few days for a mini-honeymoon and we went out for dinner with them on Wednesday. It was great to see them, we don't get to often enough. Fred sang to Penny during the ceremony and one of his friends posted it on YouTube.

The Opening Ceremonies of the the Olympics are tonight which means that when I get home I can start knitting again on DH's Cobblestone Sweater which is my project for the UFOLympics. It will be a push to get it done in 16 days but I'm planning on spending as much free time as possible on it. Look for updates!

And finally, a sign I found, probably at Stuff On My Cat. I may have sent it to you already but it makes me laugh so I thought I'd post it too. Several of the people that work with DH love it too.

Happy Birthday!

Alene

The blog slacker on 8-8-08

Hi, thanks so much for the fun birthday package! Yum to the chocolate ;) and the felting book is amazing!! My digital photos are in disarray again so no pics this time, but otherwise things are going well. Next week I will teach "Spin & Knit Fingerless Mitts" (first of 2 sessions) and "Beginning Knitting" (first of 3 sessions). I have some new design ideas, she adds, slyly laying a finger alongside her nose. DH says "hi." Let's see ... Fall Rowan magazine is here and awesome. DD was perfect for her first dentist visit (whew)! The garden is doing well despite bunnies that are sneaking through the fence; we believe we have now live-trapped them all and that they will like living in the park instead. DS has turned his knitting into a Nintendo DS case which needs a lining and I will post a pic of it soon. Bye for now, Cindy, age 43

Thank you Mr. Postman

Hi Cindy,

I have been receiving some fun and informative stuff in the mail lately. Last Wednesday the latest copy of Craft arrived and they have a big section on weaving, including a small paper loom insert and directions to make your own portable loom. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

The next day KnitCircus #3 arrived. It looks so professional but I missed a book or item review by you. I guess you're too busy working on other things. ;) On Sunday I knit the Cycloswatch as a wrist cuff. I used a wonderful silk that I got at Knit1-Bead 2 in Jerome about a year and a half ago. If you and the family make it out here one of these days it is definitely one of the stores we will visit! I'm using a couple of beads for the closure but they're a little small so I've got to dig through my buttons to see if anything else works. I got the little charms at Big Lots a couple of months ago. They had containers of mixed beads for cheap and some of them were really nice.

On Friday the package you sent arrived. The DVD looks great and I can't wait to try it out. I'm going to preview it first and may make DH try it, he's looking for something to strengthen his legs for long duration sitting. Thank you also to your DS for the Louisa Harding pattern book. There are a couple of patterns in it that I may try one of these days and they are all really beautiful.

The most anticipated package came on Monday while I was home sick with a headache. I don't know if you got to browse the Interweave Damaged Book Sale a few weeks ago but I picked up a couple of the books that I've been wanting and one or two that I couldn't resist. I have one book that I ended up with a duplicate on. The cart function was a little slow and clunky and I some how got 2 of it in my cart. I think that it may become a birthday present soon. Can you guess which one and who the lucky recipient will be?


We didn't get any of the rain over the weekend from Hurricane Dolly. It all went to New Mexico instead and Ruidoso almost got washed away. In fact one person was washed away in the flooding.

I'll close this off and say "Good Night!" Take care, A

Guess what I did!

Hi Cindy,

After weeks of knitting items to contain or dry my long hair I went and did this on Saturday. The hair was starting to drive me crazy. It seemed like it was always in my face even if I had it back in a pony tail. And it was always in my way during yoga, not matter what I tried. I found a picture of me from some time in the mid-90's with my hair in a similar style and decided to take it in to show them. It turned out some what shorter than I might have wanted but it will grow so no harm done. I've tried some downward dog and it seems to stay out of my face pretty well. It is long enough that can put it in a scrunchy if I need to. The stylist cut it before perming and I would have had it bundled for Lock of Love but they only want un-dyed hair. That is the next question for me, to quit dying it and go natural or stay addicted to the bottle. There is quite a discussion thread on the Ravelry Vintage Bitches board about this subject.

There are two things that Margi loves: the camera and looking at herself in the mirror. Here she combines both.


It looks like we might get some rain this weekend from the hurricane hitting Texas/Mexico today. If we get a good storm I'm sure I'll have pictures.

Take care, A

(UFO)lympic Training

Hi Cindy!

I was going through pictures earlier today looking for some from the Chiricahua Mountains. We've taken 3 trips down there over the years and are planning another camping trip in about a month. It is the 17th Anniversary of the first backpack trip DH and I took together. I had no luck finding any pictures but I did have a good time looking through the rest and came across this picture of a younger you when you visited and we went to the Grand Canyon. What a fun trip! Hopefully your family can come out to visit someday and we can take a similar trip. How about Zion or Bryce? The picture was only about 3 weeks after the aforementioned backpack trip.


I have decided that I will compete in the UFOlympics on Ravelry. Saturday is the last day to join the group and the last day to declare your chosen competition is next week Saturday. Training is allowed until that last day of declaration. I am going to work on the Cobblestone Sweater for DH. I started it several months ago and have worked on it occassionally since. I picked it up again this afternoon to do a little training and in the few hours I worked it tonight I finished another inch or two. I have about 8 inches done on the body with another 10 inches to go before it is time to start the sleeves. If I can get a good portion of the chest done before the rest period I stand a good chance of finishing. This is about the biggest item I've attempted. Wish me luck!

To finish off, here are two recent FO's. The first is a hair-drying hat I finished recently. You may recognize the yarn; it is the white cotton you sent for my birthday the first year I started knitting. I tripled the yarn and really love the texture of the hat. I need to add an additional button on the flap so I can tighten it so it will stay. I added the loop for hanging so it dries quickly when I'm done with it.

The second is a snood I made. It is in dark grey cotton ease (Lion Brand) using the same stitch pattern I've been stuck on for the last two months; YO-K2TOG one round, knit the next. It gives a great, simple lacy affect. CG at work thinks it looks a lot like crochet. What do you think?

Guess I'd better close this and head off to bed. Take care, more soon, A

Monsoon Madness

Hi Cindy!

We had quite a monsoon storm yesterday afternoon, as you can see from the video below.

We had just taken the garbage out when the rain arrived. The deluge kept up for over an hour and the weather service estimates that Tempe, and locales adjacent, got approximately 2.4 inches. Much of the rest of the valley got less than an inch.

Our street was flooded up to my ankles when I walked out to the gutter. Hardy Drive, the bigger street at the end of our block, looked like it had turned into a raging river. A couple of cars drove down our street and turned around because they didn't dare cross the flood.

Our front yard flooded but that's not too uncommon. Our back yard also flooded and the pool came within an inch of overtopping. The bird bath is almost 2 inches deep and was overflowing in no time. The best part is that the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees as the storm moved in.

The rain came down so hard and so quickly that it over took the pumps along the low part of the Superstition Freeway near our house. ADOT ended up closing it in both directions for about 3 hours before they could get the water drained.

Many of our city parks have retention basins in them to collect the runoff from big storms. The picture below is Hanger Park, some where in Tempe. Nothing like paddling through the play area in your canoe! The picture above and below are ones that were sent in by readers at AzCentral.

No FO's today as the weather excited me too much. Did you see that the World's Oldest Blogger passed away over the weekend? She was 108 and had written her last blog entry about three weeks ago.

Take care, more soon! A

Take me out to the ball game

Hi Alene, Here are some pictures from the July 9 Milwaukee Brewers Stitch & Pitch event at Miller Park (you don't know how many times I had to stop myself from saying County Stadium :D ). DS and I had a great time. First time to Miller Park for both of us. Colorado Rockies won 8-3. I knit on my "Big Rectangle," as I jokingly call my Sonoma Mtn. Wrap. DS brought his knitting but didn't do any. He liked when I showed it off however. ;)
Crafting away on new designs and things for fall classes, love, Cindy

Fireworks & FO's

Hi Cindy!

Happy Belated 4th! It was hot, Hot, HOT here!

How goes the Tour d'Fleece? I thought about doing it but still am unhappy with the last couple of Tour d'Frances and am not ready to commit to something associated with it. I am, however, considering the Summer Knitting Olympics or perhaps the UFOlympics. I will probably do the latter and push to finish DH's sweater.

Here are a few pictures of the fireworks display in downtown Tempe. We sat on the median on Rio Salado Drive, just east of Mill Ave, so these pictures are 90 degrees from what we saw. The median was hot and uncomfortable but at least we could sit through them, not have to stand the entire time. The display started about 20 minutes late but ran for about 45 minutes and was quite a show.
(above & below: looking east along Tempe Town Lake)

Here is my MIL in the poncho I knit her for her birthday. The yarn was a merino-acrylic blend that I got at Tuesday Morning. It took around 3 full balls although I had to use parts of 4 balls. The first two had a regular transition between colors but the second two balls had a different color sequence so I had to piece the colors in. I have enough left over that I'm making her a neckwarmer that will button using the stitch pattern from Yarn Harlot's Simple 1 row scarf.

At my old position at the other state agency I didn't have to wear my ID badge or even carry it all the time. At my new place I don't have to really wear it but I do have an access card that gets me to my floor and I need to carry it all the time. I'd been ruminating on making a small bag to carry it in for quite a while rather than wearing the plastic holder all the time. Here is my creation. It is another yarn that I picked up at Tuesday Morning. It is basically the same pattern as the Soap Sock I've made a couple of times recently. I added the flap and I-cord neck strap to make it a little more useful. The only problem is that the yarn is actually pretty scratchy. It is a linen-acrylic-cotton blend. I added the small padded section to keep the scratchiness away from my neck. I used the green bead as a closure and then added the second bead for decoration. I've started another id bag in a ribbon yarn, although that may go to DH's co-worker.

More pictures soon of DH's hat and other FO's (I hope)

A

I love my loom

Hi! Here's my little loom. It's a 16 inch Ashford rigid heddle loom. In this picture is my first project, a wool scarf for DH. The warp is gray millspun yarn, pretty thin, given to me years ago, made from local wool. The weft is my handspun, the same yarn as my Sugar on Snow is knitted from, spun from the Blueberry roving I got with the gift cert. from you! I gave the scarf to DH for his birthday. The loom is easy to warp and use. I bought it and several books with the money from selling my standard gauge knitting machine earlier this year. I got the loom slightly used on ebay. I picked a 16" because I pictured mostly small projects or ones that can be seamed and because it seemed like it would be an easy reach across. I'm back to strawberry freezing, designing, and other summer fun now, ciao, Cindy

117, or is it 151?

Hi Cindy!

Welcome to this side of summer!

Hope you're staying comfortable. We, most definitely, are not. We've had a full week of "Extreme Heat" warnings and are likely to keep it up for a few more days. It felt extra hot yesterday when I walked out to the car at the end of the day. I was sure it had broken the record of 115. And on the way home the thermometer on the car said 117 so I was sure we'd broken the record. But no, the official temperature at the airport was only 112 for the day. We swam in the pool the other night at 9:30 and it was still warm out. The moon was full and it was a lot of fun although there was a slight breeze that made the skin cool when you got out.

Well, according to Blogger this should be Post #151. Hard to believe we've put out that many posts in just over a year. We have slowed down quite a bit in the last few months but we're still writing so that's a good thing.

As a close, here is an amazing picture of a male hummingbird sitting on the next. My friend Matt helps his wife out with field work on the weekends. She is working on a PhD in ecology and is mostly studying bats. While they were out last weekend they came across this little guy sitting on the nest. He let them take a few pictures of him and then flew around a little to also let them see the eggs below.

Well, I'd better close this up. I'm planning on writing about last week's WWKIP Day activity that I went to in Jerome. Check out Tempe Yarn for pictures from their Virtual KIP Event. I'm there.

Take care, A

Happy Blogiversary!

Hi Cindy!

Hard to believe it's been a year, and 148 previous posts, since we started our little conversation. It's been a lot of fun and good practice on writing, at least writing something other than memos for work. I've become more comfortable and accomplished with my knitting and have begun to design a few fledgling projects. I started spinning and, although I need much more practice, it is coming along nicely. In the next year I hope to have our Project flying along nicely and I may even muster the courage to start some colorwork, especially for some of the items for the Project. I recently taught one of my friends at work how to knit and she's threatening to teach me how to crochet. I'm not sure I'm up to that.

It's been long enough since I've posted that this is going to be a multi-themed post. Next topic, a picture of baby Jahmia. I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with Julie and Lytifa and she brought both girls along. Julie hadn't yet met Jahmia and we both got plenty of baby time.
She is just about 11 weeks old in the picture and is turning into quite the little chunk. She's a real sweety and her older sister is crazy for her.

Last week we went over to Hollywood again for a concert, REM this time. The National and Modest Mouse opened up. The whole show was really good and REM was awesome! No pictures of the show, they didn't allow the carry-ins like they did last year for the Decemberists show. We stayed just down the street again so we were able to walk to the show and not have to worry about parking. The next morning we walked around Hollywood a bit, looking for a diner to have breakfast at. We ended up a Mel's Drive-In on Highland, just south of Hollywood Blvd. It was pretty good.

Afterwards we drove up Mullholland Drive and then down Coldwater Canyon into Beverly Hills. The picture below is looking north into the San Fernando Valley. The MGM studio that burned on Sunday is probably somewhere over my left shoulder.
In Beverly Hills we turned back west and head out Sunset Blvd towards Pacific Palisades and then on down to the beach. We walked on the Will Rogers State Beach for a while and watched the waves crash. It was really relaxing but a bit cool. We weren't prepared for the beach either.
The little guy below kept heading for our feet. I think he was trying to hide from the gulls that were hanging out on the beach and looking for a bite to eat.

From there we headed a little south on Highway 1 and then up into Santa Monica. It is really pretty but the traffic was typical LA. We took Santa Monica Blvd east until we hit Wilshire, right near Rodeo Drive. The traffic was pretty heavy for a mile or two until we got out of Beverly Hills (again). Next stop, the La Brea Tar Pits. They are a series of tar seeps. The biggest one, shown below, was mined as a natural asphalt seep in the late 1800's. It has since filled up with skunky water. Every minute or so bubbles of gas, some times quite big, break through to the surface. The whole area smells like diesel. In the upper right corner of the picture you can see the Page Natural History Museum where they've collected and exhibit all the animal fossils that have oozed from the tar. We didn't actually go in the building. We walked around a little and then went into the LA County Museum of Art right next door. It is quite a big museum. We spent about 4 hours there and still didn't see it all. We're definitely headed back.

One final picture of a resin giant sloth on the north side of the property. I had to take the picture for Stu at work. He was "mauled" by a sloth a few years ago while helping to vaccinate it. He was relieved it wasn't this big. Okay, it's late and time for bed. More knitting content, hopefully tomorrow.

Take Care, A

The merry month of May ??

Hi Alene, hope things are good in AZ. The month of May was not so merry here. It took me about 3 weeks to feel like myself after my "dependix" (as DD calls it) and by then, I was in the midst of a bad cold. Arrgh. Not so terrible in the scheme of the things but enough to throw the whole family off-stride. We hoped to be further on the garden, I hoped to have a bigger garage sale (we had a little one in mid-May as part of a whole neighborhood thing), and well, I'd hoped for a lot of things. Anyway, I'm glad for a new month because I am ready for a fresh start.

I did get a fair amount of reading and crafting done during my recovery and want to get pics of that up soon (I'm behind on figuring out my digital photos ;) Will be in touch soon about The Project as well (certainly not forgotten!!) Love, Cindy