Went driving in the neighborhood this afternoon, and turned onto this street and had to take a picture. It looked like it was snowing, with the Jacaranda flowers falling in the breeze, and the tires making a popping sound while driving over them on the pavement. What I liked was that the street was so empty of cars and made it look so desolate.
There are none on my street, save a single tree in the yard of the house directly across from mine. We all have trees that produce strange berries in the fall.
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Just couldn’t do it
Miss Jessica was graduating from college last weekend, so the hub and I went down to Del Mar for the ceremony, which took place at the racetrack, which I guess was because the school doens’t have that much room.
On the way down, we stopped in at Common Threads, which is a shop I really like to visit when down San Diego way, because they organize the yarn by color rather than by vendor. I can get close to the vision when things are arranged this way. And the shop-folk are really nice and helpful. Then it turns out they are related by marraige or something to another shop that I really like, Alamitos Bay Yarn Company, here in Long Beach.
Anyway, I left the shop with $100 worth of fuzzy, slubby, bumpy, shaggy, tweedy and otherwise fru-fru that I would never normally buy, but I was caught up by the poncho bug that’s been going around. Plenty of knit-bloggers are making them. Some of my local Stitch and Bitchers are making them too. So I swatched, and I grumbled and started and frogged and started again and frogged again and I am not going to make a damn poncho with this stuff. It’s the vision thing, again. I picked out these yarns, but when I put them together, they look more like vomit. So, maybe I will mix them up with something more plain, like some navy blue, or blue heather or something. They just don’t work together, and why didn’t the vision stop me from spending $100 on fru-fru that doesn’t go together???
Grammy passed
My Grammy passed in April. I went up to Saint John, NB to stay with my Grampy, and I saw my Aunts, Uncles, and my mother for the first time in a while. It was wierd. I ended up with some photos though, and my Grammy’s knitting needles, which is really nice.
What was really strange is seeing all the distant relatives. I remember visiting Saint John as a kid and meeting everyone, but after many, many years, they all look like their parents looked to me 20 years ago. I could tell who was who, because I remembered what their Moms looked like, and could match them up.
There was a neighbor of my Grandparents whose dad built a rocketship treehouse in the back yard. His mom came to the viewing, and was so surprised to see me, she told her son and then later on he came too. I was so wierded out about my Grammy that I didn’t get to talk to him and after I returned home I felt really bad that I hadn’t been able to carry on a normal conversation. Here’s a pic of the rocketship. I scanned an old yellowed photo and tried to balance the color, but it came out a bit tile-y in the sky. I am not a graphic artist, so I am not worried about it.
Yeah, that’s me in the front, in the yellow space suit. 😉 I just thought that was the coolest treehouse I had ever heard of in my life. I still do. I can’t wait to build one for my kids, if they ever appear.
Since returning from Canada, I have poked around on Ancestry.com and found lots of info on my Grampy’s side of the family, back to the 1740s. What really surprised me is that most of the people were born in Canada until the really early years, and even they were born in NY. I always thought they had migrated more recently than that. That’s the maternal side of the family. On the paternal side, I’ve got nothing.
Starting a Garden
I found this web site for Square Foot Gardening which is actually a bit strange in itself, but the concept stuck with me. I constructed my box today, and will be mixing up my soil in the morning with the help of the hubby.
Here’s the box, and the yard that is all torn up and ready for the box, some grass, flowers, etc.
I am going to plant mostly herbs, some tomatoes, and maybe some beets and carrots, baby size, for salads and stuff. I am so sick of not having any basil and cilantro on hand at any time, and then finding none at the market. We are also going to grow some peppers, especially jalapeños, which are a must for salsa fresca which is the only salsa I really like. Oh, and some shallots, onions, garlic, and scallions too. Most of these won’t show up this year, but that’s ok, I never really have trouble finding them in the market.
Since this is my first garden, ever, I thought this concept was a good one for me. The box is only 4’x4′, so it’s very compact. We’ll see what happens.
Other Crafty Stuff
I broke out the sewing machine recently, and came up with a few nifty needle holders. It was getting a little hard to keep track of stuff, so this was very necessary.
For the double pointeds:
Click to see more detail on all these images.
And for the circulars:
These were inspired by the patterns in Stitch and Bitch book, but I just saw what they did and made up my own thing, using some coordinating fat quarters picked up at JoAnn. I even used the ribbon they were wrapped in for the dpn holder.
I thought they came out ok for someone who hasn’t done much sewing since 7th grade home ec. And beleive me, that’s a long time ago.
Lotsa babies
There have been lotsa babies recently. One was born to a colleague of mine, a little boy named Brandon. Around the same time, I bought a copy of Alice Starmore’s Children’s Collection in an ebay auction, and the sender also offered Debbie Bliss’s Baby Style along with it. In that book, there was a sweater that I really liked, called Moss Stitch Jacket. I thought that it would be good practise if I am ever going to make an Alice Starmore cardi covered in seed stitch.
I made this one in Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, and I really liked the way it turned out. I think Brandon’s parents liked it too. Brandon probably couldn’t care less, but he gets to do that, being a baby.
I love the little pockets. Like a baby needs pockets!
Another friend had a little girl, Ryan, and I am working on something for her too, but I think it will be something less conservative, like a Jolly Roger sweater or something. Although I haven’t met Ryan, only her sister Riley. If she is anything like her sister, it will fit. We’ll see.
A new sweater in the works
I have been working on this sweater. Here’s the fair isle band around the waist, and the steeky bits off to the right hand side:
Click to see more.
I think I’ve mentioned it before. It’s adapted from a pattern in the Knit It! magazine from 2002. Now that I am looking at the pattern, I can see it was designed by Nicky Epstein. I generally like the way her garments turn out. But looking at the kinds of things she produces, she must have wrists of steel. Her and Debbie Bliss both. They use cotton a lot.
Anyway, I have made a lot of changes to the pattern. I decided to not knit it flat, but in the round instead, with steeks. I am using Cascade 220 instead of Wool-Ease. I am not doing the purl bumps in the solid colored part of the sweater. I just didn’t like it that way. I chose my colors based on one of the Cascade Quatro yarns. It’s four colors, one ply each, twisted into a worsted weight yarn. I really liked the combination of colors, and since I don’t think I have the vision myself, and since they probably paid someone to figure out those colors, I decided to rely on their expertise.
By now, I am getting close to the collar, and I haven’t decided what to do with it. The pattern calls for Black Fun Fur in garter stich, but with my super sensitive skin, that would send me to the loony bin. I can’t stand when hair touches my face, and the Fun Fur would drive me up a wall so close to my face. But what to do? I will swatch and see when I get there.
My goal was to get this sweater finished in time for my trip to France in August. Looks like I’ll make it!
What have I been doing for that last three months?
A lot has been going on in the past three months. I will try to give a bit of a summary over the next few entries.
Brilliant
Anyone out there a Buffy Fan? If so, check out:
basbleu: Insane? Nous? for a clever rendition of “I’ve got a theory”. The nod gives two thumbs up.
Bad Week
OK, this is a bad week.
First, I find out that Angel is cancelled. What the hell! See saveangel for all the bad news.
Then Howard Dean is going to quit actively campaigning, but of course the news reports it as he is dropping out, so people that were planning to vote for him think that they can’t now. WRONG! If he’s on the ballot in your state, and you were planning to vote for him, DO IT! The more delegates he has at the convention in Boston, the better the platform Kerry (*sigh* I guess) stands on. We still get a say, even if it’s a fraction of what we had hoped for.
Good knitting news though. . . I am heading up to Oakland Saturday morning to go shopping! Yeah, I am going to the Stitches West Market on Sat. I hope to encounter actual wool, as opposed to flashy, furry, sparkly, plasticky stuff. We’ll see.