Yarn Torture!

Sivia Harding's pattern for the Diamond Fantasy Lace shawl says, and I quote, "block severely". Not "aggressively", "severely".

Done, and done.



This is Blue Moon Fiber Art's amazing Seduction (50% Merino, 50% Tencel) in Winter Solstice. Love, love, loved knitting with it!

I'm not a particularly loose knitter, but this blocked 9" longer and almost 20" wider than the pattern size. (And no, I didn't do an extra pattern repeat -- in fact, I just went and recounted!) Mind you, I'm not objecting to the size. I'm tall, and I was thinking about adding a repeat or two if it looked like it was going to be small.

Now the hard part: waiting 'til it dries!

Milestones, Albeit Odd

Two years ago -- well, 25 months ago to be accurate -- I bought a 200 foot roll of plastic wrap. I'd just moved back to the Pacific Northwest, was living in a studio apartment, about to start working for Portland Fire & Rescue, and househunting. And while the studio apartment had some amenities (two plates, two coffee cups, two sets of cutlery, etc.), it did not include dishwashing soap or plastic wrap.

Tonight's dinner leftovers mark the end of that 200-foot roll.

At 25 months per 200 feet, how long will the recently purchased-from-Costco, double-pack of 750-foot rolls of plastic wrap last?

(Comparing my personal use with what Tina and the Barn Gals go through every day at Blue Moon Fiber Arts amuses me greatly!)

Tracy and Jen's Grand Adventure: Results

I may have mentioned that Tracy and I won a grand prize basket in last week's Portland Yarn Crawl. Today, we finally had a chance to catch our breath, meet up, have lunch... and then we headed back to her house to spread out our booty. We fondled, we discussed, we divvied, and we're both quite thrilled with the amazing gifts in this basket.

Seriously, thank you to the vendors who donated and THANK YOU! to Northwest Wools for participating.

This, gentle beings, is everything spread out.



This Lantern Moon basket is staying with Tracy. (You'd be proud, Susan: Tracy's stash still fits in baskets!)



The Lantern Moon needle case and Destiny circ came home with me; the Sox Stix stayed with Tracy.


I've now got Knitted Socks East and West and Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans; Tracy has Knits Men Wear, a Pocket Pals pattern, and the winter edition of Knitting Traditions. I expect to borrow Knits Men Wear, she expects to borrow the afghan book.


Two skeins of Aslan Trends cotton - we've each got one,



and two skeins of Asland Trends Pima classic -- again, we've each got one. The brown Poems sock yarn came home with me, as did the Classic Elite Alpaca sock yarn.



Berroco Ultra Alpaca and a pattern book, and Imperial Stock Ranch yarn and pattern. We, um, didn't feel compelled to keep the bits together -- so I've got the Berroco yarn and Tracy has the pattern, and Tracy has the purple Imperial Stock Ranch yarn, and I have the dark gray. Tracy has the Tahki beret kit -- she'll actually make it and wear it!



Frog Tree chunky alpaca and Classic Elite Silky Alpaca lace -- both Tracy's colors. I somehow managed to miss taking a picture of Lanaloft bulky from Brown Sheep that's pretty close to the Silky Alpaca green -- also Tracy's color.



In the top picture, you can also see bottles of Unicorn Fibre Wash and Rinse (I've got the wash, Tracy has the rinse -- trust us, there's a logic to that split!) and a sample of Bar-Maids salt scrub.

So, keeping in mind that this is HALF of the stuff that was originally in the basket, here's Tracy's basket:



And my half, pretty well filling a Yarn Crawl bag.


Again, thank you to the vendors who donated, to the shops that participated -- especially Northwest Wools, who picked my name out of the hat -- and thank you, Tracy, for sharing the adventure!

Patience is...

Patience is a nuisance, sometimes. Seeing no viable alternative, that's where we're stuck.

The Portland Yarn Crawl was last weekend. What with one thing and another, Tracy and I had exactly one day -- Friday -- to participate. We agreed that, in the unlikely event that one of our names was drawn for a prize, we'd split it. It doesn't cost to dream big, after all!

We went to nine stores in seven hours (we had a plan and a GPS), hitting stores we'd never visited before (Close Knit (need to go back, now that we know what they've got), Yarn Garden (lovely space, lovely people), Happy Knits (near Yarn Garden, lovely people, entirely different lovely stuff!), and Northwest Wools (kind, helpful people, and they group yarn by color within weights!)), favorites (Twisted (love), Dublin Bay (love), Knit/Purl (love - and Tracy knits samples for them), All About Yarn (more love), For Yarn's Sake (hadn't been there since opening day, and were even more delighted with them now)) and, had we not run out of time, two more favorites (Knitting Bee, Kathy's Knit Korner) would have been included.

Yes, that's a lot of stores but, as I said, we had a plan. And we didn't just stop in, sign up for the prizes and leave; oh, no!

One of us -- and usually both of us -- found something that HAD to come home with us at every single store.

Well.

Today, Northwest Wools called, and said we'd won a grand prize basket.

Okay, technically, they'd pulled my name out of the hat. But it could have as easily been Tracy's. So, from my perspective, WE won a basket. I did collect it on the way home from work tonight.

But here's the "patience" part: I'm up to my eyeballs in grant writing this week. Tracy is up to her eyeballs in family stuff this week. We won't divvying stuff up until Sunday.

We may need another prize for "remarkable restraint"!

Personal Best

(which is a kind way of saying "Knitting Olympics FAIL")

As you may recall, I signed up to make Sivia Harding's beaded Diamond Fantasy Lace shawl for Steph's Knitting Olympics. Might have worked, too, if I'd remembered a) my schedule and b) "beaded".

After Sivia's class at Madrona (see how clever I am? I signed up to knit something with a teacher and instructions!), my shawl looked like this:




A week-plus-weekend-plus-another-week later, my shawl looked like this:


The final weekend, I admitted that I wasn't happy with the start:
- the first bead was on the wrong side,
- Sivia (herself!) said that she'd probably use a different double decrease if she were writing the pattern today (and then taught it to us),
- errors fudged into compliance,

but I also knew that I seriously loved the fabric created by Tina's BMFA Seduction (oh, BAY-bee!).

To make a long story short ("Too late! Too late! ," I hear you cry) I cut off the first attempt. I started over on Friday morning of The Final Weekend.

I didn't manage an entire beaded shawl in two-and-a-half days. But I did manage enough that Sivia's pattern calls it a "scarf " and I'm well on the way to producing a shawl I'll actually wear and enjoy.





(note to self: If you're knitting a shawl, you probably need an Addi Lace longer than 24" Good thing that Tracy will remind you at PDX Yarn Crawl!)

I'm amused

I've been going through the prove-you-don't-need-money-so-you-can-borrow-money process of refinancing my house.

Wells Fargo had the original mortgage.

The refinance process is complete, and the original mortgage has been paid off by the new mortgage company...

Wells Fargo.

I'm sure this is logical in some cosmic sense but, in the meantime, I'll just be quietly amused. (And ahead on my mortgage, thankyouverymuch!)

Silly...

It's a silly thing I miss from my old, married life.

MAJOR qualifier: I love my current life. I am truly blessed. Last weekend, I was at Madrona with Tracy, who wrote one of the nicest Valentines I've ever received. This weekend, I was at Cannon Beach, listening to one of the most inspirational speakers I've heard in a long while.

But life - and laundry - goes on, y'know? I've been home for a couple of hours. It's back to work tomorrow morning. I'm tired and my muscles ache. What do I miss from my old, married life? Not something in the relationship. It's something from the house:

My decadent (for me) bathtub.

Nothing fancy -- no spritzing jets, no whirls or vortexes -- just a "garden" tub long/deep enough that I (!) could stretch out enough that my knees and shoulders could be under water at the same time.

I think I'll go take a vertical bath.

p.s. Olympic knitting? Exactly where it was a week ago...