Late September update

Hi Alene, how are things in AZ? We've had a long stretch of summer weather but I'm looking forward to sweatshirts (and dare I say it, sweaters) again soon. We are slowly getting in the groove of a new school year.

Here are a few crafty things: I'm making some chunky socks with handspun for DH to use as slippers. Toe up so I didn't have to swatch, just have him try them on now and then. I finished the little Shepherd's Rug I started at last year's WI Sheep & Wool Festival (hmm, I was sure I only rotated the 2nd photo . . .no time to fuss with it now). I bought a pattern booklet for gorgeous Christmas stockings (I'd link to the Dale of Norway website but it is always out of date) to make one of these days. I got back to work on The Project. And did you see this? I asked DH for one for Xmas. That sure sounds like I have hours of free time but most of these things have been done in short time periods or only for a short time! Bye for now, love, Cindy

It must be fall

Signs of fall recently observed here:

*DD was flower girl to her oldest cousin (and godmother) on the first Saturday in September
*a squirrel tried to use our clothes reel as a tree (note the large green nut it is carrying)
*I got out my thick robe
*teeth are falling slowly, as are leaves
*the urge to spin cotton has been replaced by the urge to make felted wooly things
*I've been experimenting with making homemade bread
*large quanities of lovely wool have been pouring into the shop!!

I love this season! More soon, love, Cindy

Slacker, Extraoridnaire

Hi Cindy!

Thanks for posting while I've been slacking. Work has been busy the last two weeks with lots of permits coming back for re-analysis at lower pumping rates. I haven't really felt like posting in the evening and haven't done much knitting in that time either, just a few little projects with quick gratification.


I did not finish DH's Cobblestone during the UFOlympics as I had hoped. I did get the arms attached and about an inch of the yoke completed before the olympic torch went out. I've got almost another 4 inches done in the interim and I'm almost to the second decrease round. I'm to the quicker part of the yoke and once I start back on it in the next few days I should be able to finish it fairly quickly.


The next project that I started, actually the one I worked on once the sleeves were done on the sweater but the body needed work, was a beret. I used about 1.8 balls of Lion Brand Landscapes in the Deep Sea colorway. I'm pretty happy with it although it may be come a christmas gift to either my mom or my MIL. I got 3 balls a few months back for $1.50 each at Big Lots. I'm considering either a narrow scarf or wrist warmers to match out of the remaining 1+ ball.


And finally, I made a pair of wrist warmers in the Del Mar pattern. The yarn is a lovely alpaca-silk blend called Llama Set in a light gray color. I called my interpretation Foggy Morning. I finished the knitting yesterday morning and wove in the ends although I have not crocheted around the thumb hole. I've only done a miniscule amout of crochet and I'm not sure if I'm up to it on this one. I've only got a few yards left and I'm not sure if there's enough for both.


Yesterday I started a pair of Dashing for DH to match the earflap hat I knit him earlier this summer. It is out of the SWTC Karaoke, a yarn that I'm really liking right now. I have about 3 more rounds before the first cable row, although there are only a total of 6 cables on each glove so I think I can handle it. I've done a cabled headband before so this isn't the very first.

I talked to my parents yesterday. They are doing well, getting stuff done at both their house and the cottage. Dad has been in to meet with Social Security. If he retires this month at 64.5 he'll make a modest amount but if he waits 6 months until his 65th birthday he'll get a couple of hundred more. I figured when he told me the difference, plus COL adjustment at the start of the year, that he'd wait it out. Nope, his target date for retirement is December 26, halfway between the two. It sounds like the deciding factor is his health. He's still not fully back on the breathing and it makes him tired quicker. He now has his 5 years in at Generac so that helps out his pension from them. If there's a retirement party for him in December or January I think that we will try to make it back there. DH wants to take Amtrack back there, he thinks its a romantic idea. Of course we have to get to Flagstaff to do it, it's more expensive, takes longer and could take extra long if it's snowy. I'll keep you posted as I hear.

I'd better close this but I promise I'll write more soon. Maybe I'll write about the camping trip although you've probably looked at the pictures already. Take Care, A

2 FOs and a challenge?

Hi Alene, (I have no idea why my text is underlined so I am choosing to ignore it) here are 2 recent FOs: a baby blanket for my niece (goddaughter #2 is expecting her first in Feb.) and a pair of fingerless mitts form spindle-spun Corriedale.

The baby blanket (whew away went the underlining) I made on my Bond machine as a big piece of stockinette and then the textured stitches are hand-manipulated (off the machine in this case). I learned about this particular technique on Ravelry, and although it looks a little wonky to me, DH says it's nice and agrees it'll be a good size for an infant car seat.

The fingerless mitts are made with the same "pattern" that I use in my Spin and Knit Fingerless Mitts class. It's not much of a pattern, garter stitch worked sideways mostly. Easy and fun. I had a 2 inch piece of yarn left when I finished!

Now for the challenge: do you want to spin a little for Spin-Off's next Your Yarn feature? It's for spindle-spun yarn. We'd need to do a 5-yard piece and get it to them sometime in Dec., I think. Will need to look up the details. What do you think?
:) Cindy

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