Oh, hai.

...It's been a while since I've been here. It feels like the combination of Ravelry, Facebook and the rare moments of actual face-to-face contact with other humans have been holding my attention recently.

Knitting
Yup, I'm still knitting. I'm doing the Tour de France KAL, which is being held on Ravelry this year instead of on the blogs. I had started to knit the edging for the christening robe from Heirloom Knits.



But I got distracted by the plight of some skeins of Silky Wool. I had meant to make the Gathered Yoke pullover from Interweave Knits, but partway through I realized that my gauge was too tight and I didn't like how a looser gauge looked, so I frogged it and started the Drapey Neck Silky Tweed Cardigan by PiPiBird (pattern on Ravelry only) instead.



...by the way, I'm not being paid by Ravelry to shamelessly plug their site, I just like it.

Part of my goal for this year's TdF KAL was to finally finish a bunch of WIPs, including my market bag from last year's KAL. I'm kind of getting there, but weaving in the ends really takes it out of me.



I have managed to finish something! Behold, the Ocean Toes socks from Cat Bordhi's book...what's the title? I think it's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. It's the one with all the different templates for heels etc. I had some trouble picking yarn to use with this book, because most of my favourite patterns call for heavier sock yarn (e.g. Socks that Rock mediumweight) whereas most of my sock yarn is lighter weight.



The cats continue to look cute and beg for food.





I started taking a couple of short photography courses last week, so now I have more motivation to go around photographing all kinds of random things.

Tree Baby

I know that people occasionally lose things when they're at Green Lake, and kids and babies are the most likely to drop stuff, and it makes sense to prop found objects in trees to keep them kind of clean in case the owner comes looking for them, but I still found this doll a bit jarring. Thank goodness it wasn't a carrot jockey.

Knitting
The knitting continues, though a bit more slowly these days because of music stuff. I'm nearing the ankle of the German Stocking, and I decided to start knitting the pattern I bought at Madrona. It's for a cabled sweater, and the gauge is puzzling me...I've already dropped two needle sizes and I think the sweater is still a bit wide! Argh. I do love the yarn, though.

Music stuff
The music stuff is starting to freak me out a bit...there's Holy Week and all that implies for the church choir, and a performance of St. John's Passion by one of my other choirs, and a workshop and concert on the same weekend later in April. So much to learn!

More yarn?

I went to my first Madrona earlier this month. I had kind of forgotten that it was going on, and it wasn't until the Friday after it started that I even realized that for the first time in my life 1) I was within driving distance of a fiber festival, and 2) I had the resources (car and driver's license at the same time) to get myself there. Since I could only go for a day I browsed for yarn in the marketplace and knitted with others in my LYS's group.

I picked up some Socks that Rock lightweight in Hobgoblin and Basan from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth...

...and some Jacob/alpaca/mohair blend in fingering weight from Toots LeBlanc & Co, plus a shawl pattern by Evelyn Clark...

...and some lovely brown wool yarn and a sweater pattern from Black Water Abbey Yarns. I think that stuff still smells like (clean) sheep.

My next goals should be to take a "knitting for speed" class and switch to audiobooks to free up my hands.

The Leyburn socks are not going very well.

I was up to the ankle on my first sock when I realized my gauge was a bit too loose, so I took the whole damn thing apart. I had also been thinking I don't really like the colourway (I only got it as a Stitch 'n' Pitch souvenir), so now I'm trying to decide whether to start again or to bail out of the KAL and either turn the yarn into something else or get rid of the yarn entirely.

The cats, on the other hand, are doing pretty well, and I hope they stay that way!

Spending some quality time with each other.


Melon in one of his favourite hang-out spots.

Maybe I'm just stalling

I keep thinking of stuff to blog about and then forgetting to actually blog it. Let's see...

1) I joined the Socks that Rock Leyburn KAL. The pattern is here and there are photos of the sock in a different colourway here. I'm using the Sea-Mar colourway that I bought last year at the Seattle Mariners Stitch 'n' Pitch. Pictures will come...at some point.

2) I finally finished the wool hat for my dad and mailed it off. It's either late or really really early though, since he's going off to Taiwan soon and probably won't need the hat by the time he gets back. The only reason I can think of for the delay is that I didn't like the pattern I started with so I modified it, then bound off the hat before realizing the mods made it too small, then frogged a bunch of it and re-modified it, then saw that I had about ten ends to weave in instead of the two I was hoping for, and then got depressed about the whole thing and left the hat on the coffee table for a few days until I finally decided to weave in the ends. But it's done and mailed off, and I hope it fits and that the rain on the way to the post office didn't wet the hat and result in mold formation en route to my parents' place, because that would just be too ridiculous.

3) Um...I think it was on my way to the post office that I saw the tiniest slug ever. Here's a photo, with a pencil and some sock yarn shown for scale.

Friday randomness

Needlefelting

I bought a needlefelting kit from SpiderFelt last month and made felted geodes. Then I think I got a bit carried away and decided I wanted to learn how to make felted critters. I've put some books on hold at the library, and will just have to see what happens.


Knitting
The dad hat is still chugging along. I've gotten a bit distracted, though, by the skein of Louet KidLin and the Evening in Eden pattern that I bought at Fiber Gallery last week.


Pets
The cats think they're gangstas.



One of the sweet potatoes has sprouted. I'm not sure if I want to throw it out or plant it.

Yoke

Knitting
I finished the second sleeve on my Hourglass sweater yesterday and started the yoke. The body still looks a bit short, but I'm hoping it's just because the fabric has been rolling up and that sewing the hem will help. If not, I think I'll have enough yarn left to lengthen the body and maybe make the hips narrower.


Cats
The cats have both been making good use of the cup bed.



Music
The concert on Friday was fine...we had a decent turnout in spite of the sleet and slush, and I only made one major error in the Bach (I miscounted the number of times I had sung "omnes" in one entry and got a beat ahead but was able to fix it quickly). Next up: his Christmas Oratorio. That, fortunately, will be with a much larger choir.

Yargh

I'm having a mild freak-out right now. It doesn't involve Christmas knitting, such as that is (or isn't)...no, I'm freaking out because I have another choir concert on Friday and I feel nowhere near ready, either vocally or musically. We're singing Vivaldi and Bach (the latter one singer per part!), and I'm a bit worried that I'm going to miscount, or accidentally transpose up instead of down (A415 + perfect pitch + accidentals + fast = all kinds of exciting), or sing the wrong text, or sing too quietly, or sing sharp, or squeak on my breaks or high notes or low notes, or look weird, or just get really tense (which of course worrying will solve!). Plus the acoustics still feel weird in that place. Fortunately we have one more rehearsal, and I have one more voice lesson, before it all hits the fan.

In more cheerful news, I finally took some photos of the hourglass sweater in progress.



Melon wandered over and decided the sweater would be the perfect place to do some light grooming.



He may roll in the litter box to relax, but at least he knows his yarn. Oh wait, maybe I should train him to appreciate something hideous instead.

Wachet auf!

It's already Advent! After a few years of feeling kind of meh about December, something seems to have snapped and I feel like sticking foliage all over the place. It started after service this morning when I walked out to the lobby and into a cloud of pine scent. People were making Advent wreaths, and I figured I might as well join in since I'd never made one before. The church provided candles and a wooden base with a wire mesh attached, so all my friend L and I had to do was thread in pine and cedar fronds.



It was nice, but the center looked a bit plain and showed all the cut branch ends, so afterwards I bought a spray of berries and leaves from Fred Meyer, dismantled it, and added them to the wreath.



While I was at FM I thought about getting a wreath for the door and some cedar garlands for the balconies as well, but decided to wait a couple of days in case this is just temporary madness from all the fog outside.

Knitting
I've finished most of the body for the Hourglass Sweater and knitted half of a sleeve. I haven't taken pictures yet, though, because I used up most of the camera's memory photographing the cats (sorry...they're cute, they're photogenic, and they're here). Based on the pattern measurements I figured I would have to make the body in one size and the sleeves in a different size, which really messed up the raglan shaping, so I set up an Excel spreadsheet with a revised set of decreases. Now I think I might have made the sleeves too big! It might be more a kimono-hourglass top. I guess I could always frog the sleeve if it looks really bad.

And the cats
So yes, here are more gratuitous shots of the cats.

Catching up

The knitting

I finished knitting the Pennants and Peepholes poncho pattern I picked up at Stitch 'n' Pitch this summer. Next step: block, weave in the yarn ends, and sew side A to side B. Actually, the next step will really be to find a blocking surface.


Pattern: Pennants and Peepholes by Joni Olmstead (Village Yarn & Tea)
Yarn: Kauni Effektgarn, also from Village Yarn & Tea.
Difficulty: The poncho was pretty simple to knit once I put in stitch markers. It was a complete pain in the butt before that, but that's mostly my fault.

Here's a photo of the Hydrangea Lace Scarf I finished. It too needs to be blocked and woven in. I think I'm more into process than product when it comes to knitting.


I've started the Firestarter socks. The yarn is Claudia Hand Painted, and I think the colourway is Desert Dusk or something like that.

The Paisley Long Shawl is kicking my behind. I had stopped working on it for a while, and then when I resumed it about a week ago I managed to skip a row (or something) and not realize until about 10 rows later. I haven't gotten around to fixing that yet.

I've also started, and started, and started, and started the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I had to frog once to fix the gauge and frog another time because I twisted my cast-on when joining. Thanks go out to Kristen for her tip on knitting straight across for a few rows and then joining! That fixed that problem.

The cats
This, again, is Chester. He's been a bit subdued lately. I hope he isn't getting sick.


This is Melon. I think he's trying to be the alpha cat.


(He's very pleased with this cat bed.)


They like to hang out in front of the heating duct.



Life in general
We got a new washer and dryer! The old washer had an annoying habit of breaking down; instead of stopping when unbalanced it kept rotating until it rotated itself right off of one of the support springs. Boy, that thing could dance. Anyway, our landlord was really generous and replaced it with an HE front-loader, which should both help the resale value of the condo and help us avoid that stupid imbalance problem.

The cats have no idea what to make of a front-loader.





I'm also up to my ears (hah!) with choir stuff right now now. I'm in a new Renaissance music choir (no, it's not like neo-Classicism, it's a new choir that sings Renaissance music) and our first concert is this Sunday (for anyone in Seattle, the choir is Sine Nomine and the concert is at 7:30 on Nov 16 at Trinity Parish Church downtown at 8th and James. Admission is free/goodwill offer). Then in December Orchestra Seattle and Seattle Chamber Singers is performing Handel's Messiah and Bach's Christmas Oratorio, and the chamber choir and orchestra at Our Lady of Fatima are performing Vivaldi's other Gloria (i.e. the one without the orchestral octave leaps in the first movement) and Bach's Magnificat in E-flat. Eek!

Knitting! Kittehs!

I do seem to dwell on both of those topics a lot.

Knitting!
We went to Rhode Island to visit the in-laws this past week, and on Saturday I had a chance to get together with Rachel, Kristen, and Kimberly at Fresh Purls for a couple of hours. I picked up a couple of skeins of Tosh Worsted that were dyed in lovely shades of green. They might work well as a baby sweater.


More knitting!
All of the plane time meant I was able to get a lot of work done on my Baby Surprise Jacket. I've finished the knitting, cast off with an I-cord, and sewn up the shoulders. Now I have to find some buttons.


Combined knitting and spinning!
I've almost finished my Hydrangea Lace scarf, but...I'm out of yarn. And it's my handspun. I have a couple of options: 1) buy and spin some more roving in the same colour blend, or 2) incorporate some stuff I'm spinning in the same fiber but different colour blend. I peeked at what I'm spinning now and I think there's enough grey in the new mix to counteract the red, and I only have 6 rows of garter stitch to do, so I'll probably go with option #2.

The wide bit at the top is where I got desperate and started using some of the early batch of handspun. I did it on a drop spindle and it turned out much thinner than the rest. Hm, maybe I should go buy that roving after all so I can redo this bit.

Kittehs! Puppehs! Wildlife! Fundraising! Oh my!
I've signed up to help out with registration at the 2008 PAWSwalk taking place on September 6th. The walk raises money to help care for the animals at the shelter and provide education and advocacy. If you're interested in participating or donating, go to the PAWSwalk page above (for walkers and general donations), or to my own donation page.

Our own cats!
I suppose they're learning to get along.

We still haven't figured out a good name for the new cat. M is thinking of Melon, since the cat looks like he just swallowed one whole.

Yawn!
Yeah, it's late.