Winding wool

Spent some time today winding wool. I had wound up one skein of the Plymouth Kudo and started a summer scarf. Gonna try one of those infinity loops all the kids are wearing these days.

And for the fun of it, I wound up the other balls of Kudo yarn I got last week.

Then I wound up some fingering weight yarn I've had for a while.

The green is one is Toasty Toes by Numma Numma in the Pepper Jelly colorway. To be combined with the blue/green cashmere/merino blend of something or other. Lost the ball band.

The black/purple is the Raven colorway from ... forgot already. Possibly to be combined with the Madeline Tosh light in the Tangelo colorway.

Plymouth Kudo

Went to NeedleNook yarn shop in Atlanta, meaning only to get some needles and a project bag. It's soon time for the annual Husband's family reunion and I need something to keep the yarn organized.

Well, I walked out with the above as well, except for the red skein of Kudo on the bottom, which I got last year. I seem to have a thing for Plymouth Kudo and I haven't even knitted anything at all with it. But they're so pretty! I'll find a use someday. The grey and red/white/blue Kudo skeins will be made into a shawlette or something. The yellow into...?

Kudo: 198 yds. Size US 7 needles. Cotton/Rayon/Silk

The red and grey skeins of Panda yarn will be made into the Pretty Twisted cuffs by Cat Wong at Knitty.

The grey Cotton Classic will be added to the cotton crochet blanket.

On the other hand, most of these things were on sale.

Seattle

Last week, Husband and I went to Seattle, Washington. I was very excited about going, since I had never been to the Northwestern United States. Other reasons: catching up with friends who live in Seattle, including my friend Natasha who writes the blog Maven on the Move, see sidebar. And there's yarn shops! Lots and lots of yarn shops.

Above is the the Seattle Space Needle seen from the base. Note the characteristic overcast sky.

Husband had to be there for work, I was there for fun. When Husband was doing his work thing I walked around the downtown area. Which is very hilly. That's Elliott Bay in the background, steep Yesler St in the mid ground, and a balustrade in the front. Ooof.

Now I know where there are so many Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee on every other corner. So you have a place to sit, rehydrate, and catch your breath. It's a very pretty city, with little pocket parks too to sit and enjoy the sun which it does come out.

After lunch, Husband and I took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. That's the Space Needle on the left, the downtown on the right, and the ferry wake. It was a lovely sunny day for a ferry ride. We didn't even get off the ferry, we just rode back and forth. And we saw a bald eagle fly over us, so that was really cool.

We had dinner at a kosher Indian restaurant with Husband's old college roommate who is now Orthodox Jew and my friend Natasha and their kids. Very nice to catch up with everyone.

The next day, Natasha and I and her kids (3 yo and 17 mo) went on a yarn crawl/tour of Seattle. It was a lovely, sunny day too. We went to Tricoter where I got the Fiesta La Boheme rayon/mohair yarn, Peacock colorway, which they wound for me. For lunch we went to a Vietnamese restaurant then went to the Weaving Workshop where I got the Manos and Cascade Heathers yarn. The Fiesta will become a scarf or trim for a shawl someday. The Manos and Cascade will be a cropped shrug someday. Natasha's kids were pretty well behaved but they have their limits so after that Natasha took the scenic route through the Queen Anne neighborhood before dropping me off at the hotel.

While I was off gallivanting with Natasha, Husband took a ferry ride to Bremerton. Husband grew up on a lake and loves the water. So it was a fun afternoon for all.

Husband and I wandered Pike Place Market. But for dinner we went to Elliot's Oyster House on the pier. We gorged on raw oysters, accompanied by martinis. It was so yummy. My favorites were the Sunset Beach oysters: sweet, big, meaty.

Next time we go, whenever that is, we will have to go to the Experience Music Project / Science Fiction Museum. They had a Battlestar Galactica exhibit! And a Sci-fi Hall of Fame! Oh well, next time.

All in all, it was a lot of fun.

Geeky or not?

I crocheted this water bottle holder with pocket for my phone. Husband thinks it's the geekiest thing he's ever seen. I think it's a success.

Yarn: Cascade 220.

Hook: G

Needle for the pocket: US 6

Time: about a week.

In other hand crafting news, Husband and I went Savannah for 48 hours earlier this week. He had a deposition to take there, I went along for the ride.

While there, I went to Wild Fibre, the only yarn shop in Savannah and bought:
That's Silk Purse in Koi Pond on the left, 100% silk in reds, oranges, and gold. Will probably make a ruffled scarf from Scarf Style to show off the graduated color changes.

In the middle is a single ply merino by Trabajos del Peru, which I think is like a competitor to Malabrigo and Manos del Uruguay. I'm making a 40 stitch 2 x 2 rib scarf on size 9 US. So soft and lovely.

On the right is Kudo by Plymouth Yarn, which I think is a competitor to Noro. It's silk and cotton and much softer than Noro. Not sure what I'll make with that.

While Husband was doing his meeting, I went to Wild Fiber, then Twiggs Needlepoint where I bought a canvas to give to a friend, and Shaver books, a very nice independent bookstore where I bought more gifts and notecards. While there they gave me a postcard for HandmadeSavannah.com, which showed a map t0 3 handcrafting stores: Wild Fibers, French Knot (embroidery), and Fabrika (quilting). Interesting that Twiggs is not part of it.

I went to French Knot, which is only a year old and very well appointed, big and airy. I asked who shops there and they said tourists and students from Savannah College of Art and Design. I didn't buy anything there and frankly think Twiggs has a better selection of canvasses.

I didn't make it to Fabrika but will try next time.

Working on Sunday

I have 2 grant proposals due before going out of town on Wed for Husband's family reunion in New York state.

So I'm at work trying to get it done. However, instead I am watching the Dollhouse panel videos on YouTube. But now that I've finished watching, maybe I'll actually get something done.

In other news, I went to 2 yarn shops this week, filled up my arms with yarn, and then put them all back. I should really knit down my current stash. And I have yarns grouped together for projects. But it's fun to see what's out there.

Okay, back to work. I need to get a draft of one of these proposals completed before I leave for the day.

Reorganized

This is how exciting my weekend has started out. I reorganized my yarn stash. Last night I frogged my big oranged sweater and now had all this yarn to put away.

The stash is in a drawer/armoire thing from IKEA. The top section has one shelf dividing the space and closed with doors, the bottom is 6 drawers.

Before

The entire top half are the wool yarns.

Top shelf: At the very top is the Bag of Malabrigo, resting on a box of brown yarn in the Amazon box, and a ziptop baggie of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Sapphire Heather. I'm using it to make an Opulent Raglan sweater for myself.

Underneath that are 2 wicker baskets lined in cotton, standing on their ends. I like to be able to see all the yarn at once. The basket on the right holds the superwash wools, the basket on the left are non-machine washable blue and green wools. The blue yarn in the plastic bag is left over from the sweater I made Sister here.

Just realized that the top shelf yarns are majority worsted weight, with a few skeins of sock weight thrown in.

The yellow cone is cotton, but I put it here since I have no where else it fits.

Bottom shelf: The open box to the left are the Manos del Uruguay, Berroco Foliage, other varigated yarns, Cascade eco-wool, Lopi. Interestingly, those are the bulky weight yarns.

This is what's in the wicker baskets: pink wool on the left, mohair on the right. The mohair is for the Modern Quilt Wrap by Mags Kandis, from Folk Style. The yarns are mostly Kid Silk Haze and Aura and bought at 40% off at a going out of business sale. The colors are much more muted and earthy and sophisticated than my usual primary color brightness as evidenced by all my other yarn. Hmmm. I should think about that.

You may notice some red around the edges of some of the pictures. That's because the study where the computer and my craft things are has a red carpet. And blue walls. With white trim. See? I'm a bright, primary-color kind of gal.

In the first drawer below are the dyed and dyeable yarns. The orange and yellow are my dyed yarns, and Knit Picks Bare superwash on the left. In the middle is a big back of Rowan Felted Tweed that I got on sale. And some swatches. And some gift yarn, and some leftover red yarn.
I guess it's more than just the dyed and dyeable yarn. It must be my yarn equivalent of the junk/random drawer.

The next drawer are the machine washable yarns: cotton, linen, bamboo (that's the yellow half-finished scarf), synthetics, and my one lone skein on merino silk in the brown bowl half hidden in the back. Felted wool swatches on the far right.

After:

Top shelf: no changes.Bottom shelf: Mohair in a clear container, ziptop bag of superwash wool afghan I started for Brother Two discussed here, and rearranged the wools for more visibility. The clear plastic box holds the mohairs and the top box is 8 skeins of Wool of the Andes in the Ivy green colorway for my mom's shawl.

And again with the stuff in front taken out. Purple Felted Tweed to the left, the mostly pink yarns in the middle, the bulky yarns on the right.

Top drawer: Dyeable yarns. Took out the purple Felted Tweed, put in the yarn from the giant orange sweater. Makes more sense, since one of the oranges I did dye, discussed here.
Drawer of Machine-Washable Yarns -- unchanged. The green, grey, and lavendar linen stitch thing is the middle of a baby blanket I started then abandoned. It was for a co-worker but then I ran out of time. I ended up buying her something off her registry instead.And a new drawer: The Drawer of Red Yarns. All that Lamb's Pride is for an Emerald Sweater for Best Friend, like I made for Sister. I'd like to make one for me too, from that orange-dyed yarn. Eventually.
Well, that's enough excitement for one day. It's a gorgeous day, sunny and near 80 degrees F. I'm going outside to play with clay. I'm taking a class on how to make the human figure and we're starting with heads. I'll post pictures as they come along. So far, everyone's heads are asymetrical, lumpy, and somewhat grotesque. Rather appropriate for the coming Halloween.

Husband wants a bust, complete with laurel leaves, so I better get working on it.

Hand made gifts

Monday I got my first present of the season: yarn from Best Friend. Having no self control, I opened it right away. Actually, I do have self-control. But every winter, we go to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas (the non-religious kind) with Husband's family. And I'm not about to take a gift to me, to Wisconsin, to open there. So I opened it here.

It was Frog Tree Bulky Alpaca in Bordeaux (purply wine red), Teal (dusty blue green) and Olive (light olive green). Fabulous colors that I wouldn't have chosen myself. That's the fun of gift yarn. It stretches your color comfort zone.

On Tuesday night, I couldn't hold out any longer and cast on, and Thursday night I finished this:
Basically, I took a 60 inch long circular needle in size 13 US and cast on at least 120 stitches. I didn't bother counting and really just wanted to make sure the stitches didn't crowd the needle. The yarn usually calls for size 10 US.

Then I garter stitched random rows and in the end, used any yarn left over to make some (skimpy) fringe. Half way through binding off the red, I ran out of yarn and finished with teal.

It's just about 5 inches wide and 5 feet long. And super soft and super warm.

I worked on it at work and every one's complimented the colors. Plus Frog Tree yarn is a fair trade company, working with artisans in Bolivia, 70% of which are women. So apropos. Great job, Best Friend!

Now I'm working on this scarf:

It's Landscape yarn by Lion Brand in Country Sunset. It usually calls for size 13 US needle, but I'm using size 17 needles. I cast on 15 stitches and am doing 2 rows of knit, then 2 rows of purl. Basically it's 2 rows of stockingnette stitch then 2 rows of reverse stockingnette stitch. There's a corrugated texture to it that I like.

It's about 7 inches wide and 14 inches long here in this picture. I cast on the first time at about 7:30pm tonight (during Jeopardy!) and then again at 8pmish and again soon after. But that's okay. On such big needles, progress happens so quickly, frogging is relatively painless.

I plan on giving it to one of my employees, the one who keeps raving about the Frog Tree alpaca scarf. Colors aren't quite the same, but it's got the reddish wine and the olive green. And lots of turquoise, which she might appreciate, being from the Caribbean.

Then I have 2 and half more employees to knit for. One of them is a knitter and she wears a scarf she knit herself. The half employee is a recent part-time consultant. Very recent, as in started last week after I fired Complaining Employee.

I plan to give these scarves at Chinese New Year, first week of February. For Chinese, that's the big gift giving holiday, not Christmas. Plus it buys me time!

A lot of my knitting this week got done while watching VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90's. Ah, the memories it brings back, especially of the early 90's when I was still in college. Good times, good times.

Leaning towards Hazy Corners

The more I look at that picture (see previous post), the more I like the idea of using the Rainbow of Malabrigo to make my own Hazy Corners.

I'm also wanting to reorganize my stash. Currently, it's mostly organized by fiber content, then by color within each group. There's a separate section for machine washable wool. It's from that section that I pulled the yarns for Brother Two's afghan.

The fact that I pulled the sock weight yarn from Brother Two's afghan's box o' yarn got me thinking about rearranging the stash by weight. Most of it is worsted weight, but I have lace, sock, and bulky too.

But then, looking at my Rainbow of Malabrigo, now housed in its own little basket, makes me want to organize them by manufacturer. After all, right now, all the Manos del Uruguay are together. All the Lion Brand Landscapes are together. The KnitPicks and Cascade 220s are split up by color.

I'm thinking I should divide by machine washable vs hand wash only. Then by weight with in each. Then by manufacturer. Then by weight. I might find more appropriate yarns for the Hazy Corners afghan that way.

Plus I have 5 hanks of superwash worsted weight Bare from KnitPicks that I can dye. I have been so impressed by how soft that yarn is.

The yarns allocated for projects will be housed separately.

Ghost Month has begun

Ghost Month is the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, which is a lunar calendar. This is the month that ghosts come back to the living world. There are rituals involved but as a non-observant Chinese, I don't know what they are. I had to go look up Ghost Month in Wikipedia.

Sister e-mailed me that Ma left her two similar mesages.

Apparently Ghost Month is even worse for her (born in the year of the pig) and Brother Two (snake) than it is for me and Brother One, because they are at risk of actually dying this month. Therefore, to ensure that they continue living and have long lives, they have to eat clear bean thread noodle in the mornings of 8/19, 8/29 and 9/8. At least Brother Two lives somewhere that has a decent Chinatown (he just moved to New York City) and he can find clear bean thread noodle.

I don't know shy she's complaining. Sister lives in Washington, DC, which has a Chinatown too, and her particular neighborhood is actually very ethnically diverse. Plus, there are Chinese restaurants everywhere.

When Ma called the third time, Sister was at home and had a long conversation about the importance of this month. Ma seemed really agitated until Sister promised to do this stuff (even though we never did it before). And Ma told Sister's Boyfriend (born in the year of the horse) that he had to wear a jade necklace from now until midnight of 9/10 or else the ghosts will not leave him alone. So, he thanked her for her concern and promised to wear it.

The day after the call, Ma called again to check that Sister's Boyfriend was wearing the jade necklace, which he is.

All this is kind of weird, because Ma has never been superstitious before. However, Sister made the point that Ma is getting older and becoming more worried. When Ma was younger, she used to laugh at Grandma for her superstitions and now Ma is believing them.

On the other hand, given the toilet problem yesterday, perhaps she has a point.

Speak of the problem, the office has not been cleaned and it smells mildewy, awful, and gross. So I declared an office holiday and told everyone to just go home.

I went over to the leasing office and told the manager that the wet carpet has to be cleaned today, and that we should get a discount on the rent, for all that we've had to put up with. He called the carpet cleaner while I was there and then said he'd think about what kind of concession he could give us. I reminded him that we were very good tenants and have been long time tenants.

Then I went and got my hair done (dyed it blacker than my natural color and now feeling Goth-y) and did some yarn shopping at Knitch. Love that shop. It made me think of Purl in NYC the first time I went.

Three skeins of Cascade 220 yarn in Kentucky blue for Husband's afghan and one skein of this cotton yarn, Twisted, by Suss yarns, that I've been coveting for about a year.

COLOR: Navy/Cloud
CONTENT: 100% Slub Cotton
WEIGHT: 50 grams
LENGTH: 108 yard
GAUGE: Chunky: 3.5 stitches per inch
NEEDLE SIZE: US size 7 - 9

It was the last skein, so I grabbed it.

And Brother One wanted to know when would be a good time for him to come get some red yarn to tie around his waist. I guess it can't hurt....