Busy Bee

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Carrie

I’ve been a busy bee since the holiday gift-making flurry.

First, I just had to have a pair of knee-high boot socks.  I went to a local fiber festival with a few knit girls and their moms and saw this lovely sock yarn offered by a local dyer.  Browns, blacks, a smidge of gold – perfect!  Little did I know that this…

would turn into this…

I was pleasantly surprised at the patterning.  Several comments were made about the tiger striping while I was knitting them.  So fun!  I made it to just a few inches shy of my knees when I ran out of yarn – very impressive, given the yardage in a skein of sock yarn – so I picked up a small skein in a complementary solid color to finish off the top.  These are so soft and comfortable that they are my new favorites.  Must remember to add more of this yarn to my wish list.

Next up, I also wanted a small shawlette to use during the cooler months as both a shawl (the office is a freezer sometimes) and a small scarf.  I had a particular pattern and yarn in mind.  So, while I was at the yarn shop picking up yarn for my brother’s hat over the holiday visit, I picked up a skein of sock yarn dyed up by Rachel (aka Dyeabolical), my favorite dyer in St. Louis.  Then I spent several hours on the bus, and some mad Super Bowl hours, knitting this.  It’s called the Multnomah shawl.  Some of you may remember from one of my very early posts that there is a beautiful waterfall in Oregon by the same name.  It’s not really a coincidence.

Apparently I was in the mood for the brown/black/gold colorways.  What can I say?  It goes with nearly everything in my wardrobe.  Never fear, I have since moved out of that phase.

Once the boot socks were finished, I needed a pair of socks on the needles for commute-time knitting.  I got this Knit Picks yarn in a fun blue colorway for Christmas and decided to cast on.  (Apparently my knitting needed a color infusion and my family was there to lend their support.)

Then Husband decided that he needed a pair of socks too.  Now you may not know this about him, but he’s a lover of bright colors.  Make those colors sporty in any way, shape, or form, and he’s hooked.  He met me at the yarn shop, I gave him a range of yarn options to choose from, and he made his choice of yarn and color.  Enter the blue and gold striped socks.

He’s a size 13 shoe, which we’ve discovered is exactly twice the size of my shoes.  No joke, mine fit inside his…comfortably even.  They may take a while.  I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Last weekend there was a large fiber festival.  It’s big enough to attract notable names to teach workshops, etc.  And of course I came home with yarn.  To be fair, only one skein of it is actually for me.  This is what I cast on with the rest…

I just finished weaving in the ends a few minutes ago and I’m so excited about how it turned out that I’m having to hold myself back.  Otherwise, I’d be rifling through my stash to find enough yarn to make another one, for myself this time.  (I might not succeed, but at least I’m making a valiant effort.)  You can’t see the finished thing.  Because it’s for someone else, silly.  That would spoil the surprise!  But isn’t it beautiful?

So, in case you’ve lost count, that leaves two projects on the needles.  No worries, I’ve got plenty more queued up.  (Because I can never have just two projects in progress at any given time.)  Busy busy busy!

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Everyone Gets a Snow Day

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Carrie

You might have seen it on the news.  There’s strange weather afoot in Seattle – it’s not raining.  The city is quiet as everyone has settled in to hibernate for a few days.  Or work from home.  Whatever your preference.

See for yourself.  Scenes from my yard in a little corner of the metro area:

Happy snow day!  Got snowflakes?

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December’s Projects

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Carrie

Now that gift-giving is here, I can finally post these finished projects.  Both are the product of several months of solid work, so I naturally needed to narrow down the list of folks I crafted for this year.  The mothers won out over everyone else.  I think you’ll agree, that was probably the safest choice.

The first is the shawl for my mother-in-law.  You’ll recognize it from some of my other knitting progress posts.  Thus far, she wasn’t a frequent visitor to the blog so I felt fairly safe that secrecy would be maintained.

The yarn selection and pattern turned out to be a very good pairing.  The finished fabric is perfectly soft with a nice drape around the shoulders.  With the aid of several dye experts across the Internet, I was even able to overcome the dye transfer problem.  A long vinegar soak and steam heat turns out to be just the trick.  Husband loves how the lighter flecks were enhanced after washing and blocking.

For reference, here’s the state of the bathwater on the first pass.  I was a little frightened.  (No, the shawl is not in the water for this photo. I had removed it just prior to grabbing the camera.)  But yes, it did indeed rinse clear in the end.  Whew!

She wasn’t expecting to be gifted knitted items on our first Christmas as a married couple.  I hope she’s pleasantly surprised.

The second item is for my mother.  I have made the rounds of my family members, crocheting an afghan for each household.  Now that everyone has one (except myself, of course – perhaps the next one should be mine), I decided to create one for my parents’ lake house.  They have begun to spend more time there in the cooler months now that they are both retired.

I wanted this one to have a cottage feel, so I selected a pattern that made one large granny square rather than several smaller ones that are pieced together.

I thought I was avoiding the necessity of weaving in a lot of ends.  But…look at all those color changes.  Ah well.  It was worth it.  I have to say that weaving ends in crochet is much easier than weaving ends in knitting.  Especially in worsted weight.

So now it’s back to full time knitting on my next pair of socks.

Oh, and toss in a hat for my brother.  He’s decided that it’s cold enough now to need a hat and he’d rather get a handmade one from me than one from the store.  (So sweet!)  Even in the hat making flurry that was last Christmas, he missed out – he had been bugging me for the Yoda I crochet him instead.  An emergency trip to the yarn shop was in order (yay!) so I could whip out a beanie for him while I’m visiting my family this week.  There were at least a few hours of car knitting time thrown in, so I was pretty comfortable that I would have it finished before I fly back home.

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Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Carrie

Merry Christmas!  I hope today finds everyone enjoying a wonderful visit with family and friends.

My own lovely family just reminded me that it’s been a month since I last posted.  So I thought I would share the snow flurry that I created over October and November.  My aunt and I were dreaming of a white Christmas, but this looks to be the only one we’ll encounter this year.

I created a total of 16 snowflakes this year, at my aunt’s special request.  The intent was for no two to be the same.  They are snowflakes, after all.  However Mom requested a snowflake lesson, so I crocheted one twice so I could give her a refresher lesson on the stitches needed to work the pattern.

Enjoy the festivities.  And have a happy New Year too!

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Yarn Whorl

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Carrie

I may not be as speedy as some knit girls I know, but I’m still making progress.

I finished the spinach green Lace and Cables socks.  These are from the Socks from the Toes Up book by Wendy Johnson, in Abstract Fiber’s Supersock in the Spinach colorway.

I thought the yarn might be a bit splitty when I cast on and knit a few rows, but it turned out not to be so.  I’m really happy with the results and can’t wait to wear them now that they’ve softened up even more in the wash.

I’m also just past the midway point on the Mehndi shawl.  This is my regular knit night knitting project, though I do make sure to get quite a few rows in on the weekends.

I have completed one whole side panel and the center panel now, and am a handful of rows into the second side panel.  The center panel has twisted crossed stitches that made me scratch my head a bit until I figured them out.  The pattern doesn’t really cover how to do these in detail, so I did a little Internet searching.  Really, they’re just crossovers, with a twisted stitch or two thrown in to make it that much more “interesting.”  (Read: make you pay attention.)  But still not a big deal once I figured it out.  Add one more skill to my resume.

A note about the yarn that we chose for the Mehndi shawl.  It is Swans Island’s Certified Organic Merino, fingering weight.  The yarn is lovely, though I did curse it several times when winding it up.  It has the perfect drape for this project and I can tell it will wash up to a very soft finish.  Alas for my poor hands, it is dyed Indigo.  Leave it to my husband to pick the one color that loves to share.

These blue-stained hands are the result of casting on 97 stitches, then knitting eight rows.  Eight!  So, there are multiple baths in this shawl’s future (and for my poor hands!) before I gift it to the recipient.  Filing that away as a lesson learned too.

Since I finished my commuter knitting project, I cast on another one.  I’m giving in to the urge to knit a slouchy hat that I can just pile my hair into on a bad hair weekend or weeknight.  I had some Rain City Fiber Arts Whidbey Sock hanging out in my stash.  This has a bit of cashmere in it, which likely contributed to the urge to rescue it from the local yarn shop.  The cashmere content was also keeping me from wanting to put this particular sock yarn on my feet.  Sockhead Hat pattern to the rescue.

I’ve completed the ribbing and am halfway up the body of the hat now.  This pattern is so easy and fast that I’ll likely be finished by the end of this workweek.  Which is a good thing, because there is a skein of sock yarn already queued up for the next pair of commuter knit socks.

I’m also still chugging away on the large stealth crochet project for holiday gifting.  It’s a good thing that crochet is so easy to put down in the middle of a row/round.  I find the rounds are taking much longer than a sitting now.  Which means I’m nearing the end.  I estimate less than 10 rounds left.  I’ll be finished in time for gifting.

One of last years “extra” holiday projects were three crocheted snowflakes which I attached to three special packages.  I knew the recipients would instantly recognize them and understand how special they are.  And they did, which warmed my heart.

One of the recipients has requested that I create several groupings of crochet snowflakes so that she can share them with her community this holiday.  So I am sprinkling in creating a snowflake here and there when I need a break from the other projects I’ve got going on.  No pics yet, as an unstarched snowflake looks like a hopelessly tangled mess of nothing.  They’ll be beautiful when blocked, promise.

Is it snowing at your house yet?

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Autumn (Knitting) Fever

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Carrie

Similar to Spring Fever, Autumn Fever has hit with a vengeance.  We really only got about a week or so of actual summer this year, so I’ve happily skipped on to Fall a bit early and switched out a portion of my wardrobe accordingly.  No, I’m not making this up.  Several of us witnessed actual healthy live trees with fully turned leaves yesterday.  I knew my internal nesting clock wasn’t wrong.

Almost as soon as the wedding dress was finished and the guests gone I started my fall and holiday knitting/crochet projects.  I’m back to having several projects going at once.  Yay!  This is my natural state, since it allows me to have things of differing difficulty and technique going on at once.  I pick up to work based on my mood, not what happens to be on the needles at that point in time.  If I want something challenging, I pick up project A.  If I want mindless TV work, I pick up project B.  And so on.  It works for me, at least until the deadlines loom.

So here’s what I have going on for the second half of this year so far:

I cast on a lovely spinach green yarn for a pair of moderately easy lace and cables socks (Ravelry link).  This pair is for me, to add to my sock stash.  The pattern is easy enough to count as commuter knitting, but interesting enough to take to Knit Nite if I have nothing else portable on the needles.

Though I’ve discovered that my cute small project bag is just slightly too small for two-at-a-time socks.  On the lookout for a slightly bigger small project bag to add to my wish list that will fit this purpose.  I could make one myself, but there’s no room for that in my project list!

This watch band replacement (Ravelry link) project was a quick Sunday afternoon knit.  I had been looking at the bracelet project page for a while, thinking about whether I would actually wear a bracelet, when I had the idea to modify the pattern to thread through the band slits on my watch.  I just used a bit of the sock yarn left over from my mom’s sock project last year.

I’m more than happy with how it turned out.  The color works with the majority of my wardrobe and the band is super comfortable to wear (not to mention much more attractive than that nasty velcro thing).

I discovered that some good friends are pregnant with their second daughter, due this winter.  I made them a neutral colored cabled blanket for the first one.  She was so happy with the color that I decided to repeat it for this daughter too.  I finished this easy lace blanket (Ravelry link) last month and washed and blocked it last weekend.  I’m very happy with how it turned out and the fact that I’m finished several months early.

I also started a large stealth crochet project for holiday gifting.  No pics here, since the recipient is a devoted reader of this blog.  My knitty friends know how to see the details.  It’s a little over halfway finished now, and is my mindless TV project.  As it grows, each round is now taking just under an hour of TV time.  Guess that’s a trade-off for distracted crochet.

Last weekend Husband and I went yarn shopping for another stealth knitting holiday project.  There are several things I don’t like about the yarn we found, but I think I’m going to be happy with the finished project anyway.  My frustrations are technical in nature and have no bearing on whether it is suitable for the project and will make the recipient happy.

I chose an advanced level pattern for this rectangular shawl project (Ravelry link) and was a little scared of all the twisted stitches when I began.  But now that I’m well into it I can see their benefit and my hands are quite used to working them.  Scary hurdle safely crossed.  This is my challenging project, so I thought it would be difficult to multitask while working on it.  I have successfully attended two knitting groups while working on it, so I guess it’s not all that bad.  I’m very excited about how it is turning out and can’t wait to see how the twisted stitches pop the swirl pattern once it is blocked.

This weekend I tagged along with some knit girlfriends to a small fiber festival on a nearby island.  We had a fabulous day and I picked up some yarn to knit up another pair of socks.  I think these will be plain, since there is so much color variation.

The moms who went with us thought I should use it nearer my face, since the color agrees so much with my hair color, but I think I’m sticking with socks.  The dyer is local, so I can always get more if I want a scarf or shawlette in a similar colorway later.

That’s enough for now, don’t you think?

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We’re Married!

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Carrie

Yes folks, we tied the knot.  We are officially Mr. and Mrs. G.  It was a tiring effort for such a small ceremony, but it was so worth it!

For those of you who haven’t been following the details, I’ll fill you in.  We got married on Mount Hood in Oregon, at the very intimate Silcox Hut situated at about 7000′.  The snow was sufficiently melted to give us a small clear space for the ceremony right outside the door of the hut.  This is the view:

We couldn’t have custom ordered a better day!  The sky was so clear that we could see for hundreds of miles, without the usual haze that accompanies such views.  The temperature was so warm I didn’t even need my long sleeves.  The only person complaining (just a little bit) was the photographer who was trying to capture some not-so-washed-out photos of our event.

My brother was my Man of Honor and Mr. G’s brother was his Best Man.  They were very helpful in performing their duties, though they were both extremely relieved to discover that they wouldn’t be required to give a toast.  Here is my brother helping out while I do my hair.

And here is my little man entertaining himself with a book while the adults do their getting ready thing.  Actually, this seems to have been his theme for his visit with us this summer – he was hardly ever without a book.  He read 6 (!) books this size over the four week period.

Our guests rode up to Silcox from Timberline Lodge in the red snowcat you see in the photo above.  After the ceremony we all went inside for dinner.

For those of you following my knitting projects, here is a pic of the finished dress in action.

For those of you not following my knitting projects, yes, I made the lace overlay portion of my wedding dress.  It was a wonderfully fun project, and very adventurous on my part.  There was no pattern – I made it up as I went along, going by the picture I had in my head for what I wanted it to look like.  From start to finish, it took me three solid months, during which time I didn’t work on any other knitting or crochet project.  I crochet it using a basic pineapple stitch pattern and lace weight merino wool.  It turned out exactly as I envisioned and was perfect for my personality and my day.

We spent the night at Timberline Lodge and joined our families for brunch the next morning.  Mr. G got in a couple of hours of snowboarding before our leisurely drive back home.  We haven’t taken a honeymoon yet – the week off before the wedding for our staycation exhausted my vacation time – but have plans to work in a trip or two before the year is out.

I’ll leave you with a little tongue in cheek photo of the happy couple post-event.

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Summer Staycation Part 2: Space Needle & Aquarium

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Carrie

What would a staycation in Seattle be without a visit to the Space Needle?  It’s gotta be done.  And since this was Son’s first trip to Seattle, it really really had to be done.

So here is the obligatory cheesy family photo pasted on their stock background.  It was free, so why not?

Yep that’s us.  Aren’t we cute all bundled up in our jackets in the middle of everyone else’s unbearably oppressive heat wave?  We’re wearing shorts.  Promise.  And here is my little man at the top with the overcast day behind him.

I ordered a sunny day.  The weatherman promised a sunny day.  It did not happen.  Despite the fact that it is summer and summer here is supposed to be sunny.  We had a week of clouds.  No rain, just clouds.  I was a bit miffed.  We should have been able to see the mountains ringing the area.  Sigh.

Next up: the Seattle Aquarium.  I highly recommend a visit to this family adventure destination for anyone with kids.  This trumped the zoo, Mount St. Helens, and the Space Needle in the first 15 minutes.  To score extra large parental bonus points, try to learn when they might be feeding some of the animals and time your visit to coincide.  That alone triples the kiddie joy factor.  And it was fun for the adults too.  We were there in the late afternoon, so we found out they would be feeding the octopus and the sea otters while we were there.  Happy accident!

They have two large touch tanks where visitors can see what sea stars, sea urchins, and anemones feel like.  The staff there are extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and patient…and there are lots of them.  One volunteer answered a whole list of questions from Son about how and what the sea urchins and anemones eat, and then provided us with a live demonstration.  Yes folks, my son got to gently place a small portion of food where the animals could get it and watch as the spikes and sticky arms moved it around to their mouths.  It was the coolest thing ever.

Then they fed the octopus and Son got a nearly front row seat for that.  They fed it a couple of squid as we craned our necks to watch over the crowd.  Of course, Son says the best part was when the octopus released a cloud of…um, waste product.  He’s 10, what do you expect?

I have to say their exhibits are well done.  It’s not all set up like fish tanks where you just look at the animals.  A bunch of the exhibits are interactive.  In the case of the octopus, she has two 360 glass tanks that are connected by a tube, so everyone can see and she’s not hiding behind a rock.  They had jellyfish swimming around in a glass ring that you can walk through.  And the sea otter tank was three sided as well.

We also had a front row spot for the sea otter feeding.  They were so darn cute that everyone had a big grin plastered on their face.  I snapped about three dozen action shots, but I’ll spare you from that boringly long slide show and just post the highlights.

They would float on their backs while snarfing up the fish.  And if they happened to get more than one fish at a time, they would stuff the extra in their armpit for safekeeping…generally only for about 30 seconds, because they eat amazingly fast.  We also witnessed some acts of sharing, where one would pause halfway through a piece of fish and hand feed the rest to another.  So glad we didn’t miss that experience.

The aquarium also had a large section on different types of salmon and their habitats.  The facility has a salmon hatching program and a fish ladder so they can return to spawn when the time comes.

Salmon young on their way to growing big enough to be released into the sea.

After all that walking and fun we parked ourselves at one of the many seafood restaurants lining the street along Puget Sound in downtown Seattle and we ate huge heaping platefuls of goodness.  The day was definitely a win for the staycation.

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Summer Staycation Part 1; Mount St. Helens

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Carrie

Yep.  We did the staycation thing this year.  I mean, really, we’re still learning about this awesome city that just happens to be our new home.  Not to mention that this was my son’s first visit to Seattle.  So we stayed and played.  It was a blast!

We started with a day trip down to Mount St. Helens.  It was mostly sunny and I hoped that the clouds would hold off at least until evening.  Son was hoping the volcano didn’t decide to erupt again while we were there.  Volcano = bad stuff, you know.  But to allay his own fears, this 10-year-old had done some studying on the different types and how/why they erupt.  This seemed to make him feel better about getting a closer look.

The clouds held off just long enough for me to get a couple of good shots as we drove along the highway to the park.  There is what’s left of the once-massive mountain, still high enough to have reestablished glaciers along the slopes.  And that valley there, with the little stream running down the center?  That is what’s left of the river that was filled in by the lahar in the eruption 30 years ago.  The ranger said the ash/mud/glacial melt mixture is over 100 feet in some places.

We drove all the way up to the Johnson Ridge Observatory, which is alarmingly close to the face that blew off the mountain (just 5 miles away).  Between the clouds that ring the mountain, we could just make out the growing lava dome that has formed inside the crater.  There was no way my camera could really capture what my eyes could see through the clouds, so sadly no picture.

Instead there’s this one of Son attempting to give me a dirty look for taking his picture.  He’s too cute to look menacing, so it didn’t really work.

The exhibits at the Johnson Ridge Observatory filled us in on the last several eruptions (the big one in 1980 and a small one ~2004) and how the landscape and surrounding communities were impacted.  I recommend going all the way there and paying the fee to visit; it enhanced the experience in a much larger way.

  

For example, these tree stumps are what’s left after the initial blast wave took out the forest.  They weren’t burned, they were shredded, splintered, and torn from their roots.  Scary stuff.

But then the ranger also told us the stories of the people who were caught in the blast area and survived.  That was pretty darn cool.

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Birthday in Oregon

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Carrie

We needed to make one more trip to Portland and Mount Hood to finalize a list of wedding to-do items, so we decided to schedule it around my birthday and make a relaxing three-day weekend of it.  Foremost in this decision is that the county courthouse where we needed to get our marriage license is only open a few hours on Fridays and not at all on the weekends.  So we drove down to Portland on Thursday evening after work and got up to complete a whirlwind of errands on Friday.

First up was the marriage license.  After which we took a scenic detour while driving back through Oregon City to stop at one of the first hydroelectric dams built in Oregon.

The falls aren’t all that high, but they are very long, which meant plenty of opportunity to build the factories right on top of the power source.  Which, of course, they did.  Also, of course, most of those ugly utilitarian buildings are now abandoned and crumbling, ruining the view for the rest of us.  I tried to cut most of that out when taking my photos.  You’re welcome.

We then went back to Portland to visit with the cake vendor, JaCiva’s.  We tasted a plateful of their delicious cake flavors, trying to narrow our selection down to just two.  It was hard work, let me tell you.  If you’re looking for a good summery cake flavor, they’ve got you covered.  They also happen to be a chocolate shop, so I couldn’t resist buying some extremely tasty caramel and milk chocolate morsels to help me celebrate my birthday.  Calories are canceled on your birthday, after all.

Next on the to-do list was to visit the florist in Hood River, OR to select the floral theme and give them a list of arrangements.  We took the I-84 route this time, which runs along the Columbia River.  We hadn’t even left the Portland metro area when we hit these views:

Mount Hood

Seriously, that mountain is 60 miles away and is still gigantic.  And you can’t even see all the other mountains around it.  I was also blown away that we could see Mount Saint Helens from Portland as well.

Mount Saint Helens

I’m just boggled.

After finishing up at the florist we wandered down to the waterfront park along the Columbia River in downtown Hood River.  This is a prime kite surfing location, it was a beautiful warm day, and the kite surfers were out taking advantage of the perfect conditions.  There is a little food trailer set up on one of the piers.  So we grabbed some yummy fish tacos and a couple of cold beverages to enjoy in the lounge seating area at the end of the pier while we watched the surfers doing their tricks out on the river.  A perfect summertime afternoon activity.

We spent Saturday afternoon riding bikes along the river trails in Portland – I’m told I biked 14 miles that day – and grilling out for dinner.  Thanks to Fiance’s friend John, who lives in Portland, we get an excellent tour guide every time we visit.

In all, a fabulous productive and surprisingly relaxing weekend.

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