A Hometown Fourth

There are some benefits to living on the main drag in an old town. Parades! And without having to leave the comfort of your front porch! Every year the town of Leesburg sponsors a Halloween and Christmas parade. Alas, there was no Independence Day parade. But thanks to the diligent work of the Historic District Residents Association (HDRA), the Independence Day Parade is back. And this year, they outdid themselves.

The parade started with the esteemed Grand Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, riding in a coach and four (generously loaned by Sandy Lerner of Ayrshire Farm):





If you are in Loudoun County, Virginia, for the Spring Farm Tour, be sure to stop by the farm. Ms. Lerner is doing some incredible work with organic farming and working with rare breeds.

A young man marched, playing a patriotic tune on the clarinet:



The HDRA entered a float displaying the flags of the original 13 colonies:



And of course, the local fife and drum corps has to get in the action:



If you like greyhounds, you can adopt one from this fine organization:



There were the requisite old cars:





And no parade is complete without a Zamboni!



Or a Chinese dragon!



The dragon movements were so fluid, and the percussion accompanying the dragon was very cool. Unfortunately, that photo didn't turn out.

The Baltimore Westsiders Marching Band paid a visit. The drums were awesome!



And the younger members of the team were so cute!



And, to finish it off, the American Originals Fife and Drum Corps from Washington, DC, joined in the festivities:



The town also does an excellent fireworks show. I don't know if we'll wander down to Ida Lee Park to watch. We may simply want down the street a bit and sit on the curb and watch.

In knitting news, I was able to knock out a couple of rounds on Tom's sock while waiting for the parade to start. Surprisingly, it does fit...almost. It's a tad loose, but not as loose as I thought it was going to be.

And I've got a love/hate relationship with lace. I love to see the pattern develop under my fingers. I hate miscounting and having to unknit several rows. But Jezebel helps with the counting:



On the spinning front, I was hoping to get some time to spin today. But that's not going to happen. Maybe next weekend...

Have a happy Fourth of July! And if you are going to play with fireworks, be careful!

Taking Ironing to New Heights...or Depths

As I was wandering through posts in a forum (Software as a Human Activity Practiced Effectively), someone mentioned extreme ironing. I did a doubletake...what? Ironing as an extreme sport?

The answer is yes. And you can find out more about extreme ironing at the Extreme Ironing Board Bureau. These folks are whacko passionate about their ironing. Notice that most of the ironists (as they are called) are men. Also notice that the men are ironing underwater.

So, I think we need to start Extreme Knitting. We've got a good start. The Yarn Harlot has taken her sock rock climbing. Claudia has taken her sock on a multi-day MS bike race ride. My sock sailed from St. Martin to Guadeloupe (even though the only picture was of it being knitted by yours truly).

(Silly me...someone has already thought of Xtreme Knitting. Why should I have an original idea?)

Anyway, what is the oddest or most extreme place where you've knitted, be it a sock or something else? For those responding, you will earn an Extreme Knitter button (as soon as I figure out how to make one). And pictures would be helpful.

In other news, there was a big flap last week over crocheted nudes placed in a lobby cum art gallery. Click here to read the Washington Post article. I can't imagine being offended by what seems to be whimsical soft sculpture.

The Evolution of a Knitter

Yesterday I took a field trip to Capital Yarns to take advantage of their "Shop 'til You Drop" sale. The end result produced some stash enhancements and, more importantly, some revelations.

First, the stash enhancements.



On the left you see Cascade Yarns Success, an absolutely yummy blend of silk and alpaca. On the right is Dale of Norway's Tiur, slated for a pair of Priscilla's Dream Socks for me.

Regarding Success , I originally selected the two pink colors, thinking that it would make a nice shell. Then someone wandered by and commented that the green looked nice with it and ask if I was going to do something in Fair Isle. Too bad they don't have the green, I replied. I don't want to mix the wool with the silk and alpaca. Well, sometimes I'm not the most observant person. Clearly they did have a green. Now I'm in a quandary. How much do I buy? This stuff isn't cheap, even at 15% off. I resisted the temptation to buy all they had, opting for six skeins of light pink and five of green. I'm envisioning not Fair Isle, but something in a slip stitch pattern. Look for the FO in about 10 years.

The women at Capital Yarns were great. They made sure that customers could find what they needed, and were quite chatty. Which led to my revelation and a middle-of-the-night rumination on my progress as a knitter and budding fiber artist.

When I picked up knitting for the second time 10 years ago, I was overwhelmed by the yarn choices and couldn't see the possibilities in the different yarns. I needed a pattern and the exact yarn in order to make something. My first project was not a washcloth, or a scarf, but a shell. In a slip stitch rib. With ribbing at the armholes and a rolled neck. It was too much for me. I finished one half (which has since disappeared) and recently frogged the other half. And I didn't start knitting again until 2002, when I made a Feather and Fan baby blanket for the baby of a dear friend. That project was a success and I've been knitting ever since. Now I can walk into a yarn store and see potential in yarn. I dream about sweater designs. And I'm buying yarn for what I want to make with it, not what I see in a book or magazine (although I still do that, too). I can talk intelligently to experienced knitters and guide beginning knitters about yarn substitution. I suspect my first design attempts will be disasters, but I know that those mistakes will be valuable lessons, just like the lessons I'm learning in my first attempt at lace.



I've ripped this thing out so many times it isn't funny. My lessons:

Use stitch markers liberally, especially if there are several patterns going on at once; they prove to be invaluable to helping keep track of where you are in the pattern.

Count, then count again (and maybe again) at the end of each new pattern row. I have learned the hard way that I cannot trust the results of my first counting.

At the first sign of an error, resist the temptation to make a correction on the fly, and unknit and verify the pattern as you unknit. Doing so will help you understand the structure of the pattern better and will eventually show you the error of your ways.

Knitting and the world of fiber provides so many opportunities for wonderful journeys, both introspective and "extrospective." I look forward to continuing the journey and to meeting more of the wonderful women (and men, too) who make up the fiber community.

I'm back!

Well, the sailing trip was quite an adventure. A brief recap:

Picked up a 45-foot catamaran, Las Salinas 57, in St. Martin

Sailed to St. Barts, Saba, St. Eustatia, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Les Saintes, and Guadeloupe

Saw a bizarre celestial phenemenon (UFO?) at Saba

Accidentally rammed the dock at Port Zante, St. Kitts, and put a little hole in the side of the boat

Floated away from our anchorage at St. Kitts (the boat, not me)

Lost the mainsail halyard in the mast at St. Kitts

Lost the dinghy at Nevis (retrieved through a sefless act of bravery by my husband)

Became illegal aliens in several islands because immigration and customs weren't open when we needed them to be and we went ashore anyway

If you would like all the gory details as well as photos, go to Ship of Fools.

There was knitting:



And yes, that is a sock that I'm knitting. Nancy (in the visor) is knitting a scarf in a lovely basketweave pattern using llama yarn. Nancy wins the prize for being the most prolific knitter on this trip--she completed three or four handbags for felting (she didn't felt them on the boat, but it was hot and humid enough if she had so desired), plus the basketweave scarf. Gina (of Willy Warmer fame) was working on two shawls, Carolyn was working on a scarf in 1-1 rib, and I had my sock and the Fern Leaf Shawl.

I must say, though, that my sock (rather, the sock for my husband) has its problems. The new short row technique that I tried gave me fits, so I'll have to whipstitch the holes closed around the heel. And for some reason, the foot circumference is big...very big. Like 10 inches big. I need to grab Tom's foot and try the sock on for size, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to rip the entire thing out and start all over. This is the offending sock:



Does it look like this sock would fit the foot of this man?



Likewise, I had trouble with the Fern Leaf Shawl. I discovered that I need total silence in order to get the pattern correct. It isn't a difficult pattern; it's just that it changes every other row because it's a triangular shawl and for the life of me, I cannot get the YOs and the decreases to work out. I knit and ripped the thing out about 10 million times (well...that's a slight exaggeration; six is more like it). Unfortunately, there wasn't total silence on the boat. There was lots of interesting and funny conversation and as soon I tuned into the conversation, I lost my place in the knitting and couldn't get back.

While we women were knitting or reading, the men were doing manly nautical things, like sailing:



Or picking up moorings:



But all fun things must come to an end and we flew home on Thursday and got in late that night. Getting out of bed in the middle of the night was interesting. I didn't have my land legs yet and the house appeared to be gently rocking, just like a boat. It rocked all day Friday and finally settled down early this morning. Such a strange feeling!

Anyway, that's it for now. Tom has started working on painting the house (when he's back from vacation, he's back). I'm still on vacation, however, and am going to knit until dinner time.

Sailing Away!

Well, only three more days before we start out on our Caribbean sailing trip! We'll meet up with three other couples in St. Martin, pick up our sailboat and sail away to our first island destination. For the next 10 days, we'll be island hopping down to Guadeloupe.

And with so much to do, this will be my last post until we return mid-month. There's laundry to do, bathing suits to find, house sitting and cat feeding instructions to write, a refrigerator to purge...not to mention making sure I've got all of the knitting supplies I'll need for a project or two. And I need to track down the bathing suit I ordered. The bottom piece arrived right on schedule, shipped 2nd day. The top was back ordered and shipped today...first class mail. To arrive in 7 to 10 days. To Leesburg. Arrgh! I'll be more than halfway to Guadeloupe by then.

I haven't done that much knitting after coming back from the Knitting Experience, despite being full of inspiration. I've been trying to work out the design stitch pattern for the Rio shell and have started swatching for a couple of other projects. And it's very frustrating swatching indeed because I cannot get the gauge required! The row gauge is correct for recommended needle size, but the stitch gauge is double. Increasing a half size improves the stitch gauge, but I'm still not there. Going up a full needle size gets me stitch gauge (almost), but now the row gauge is off. I'm half tempted to get circulars in all three sizes and just start knitting the thing to see what happens when I start the lace pattern. So what am I swatching for? A lace shawl. I know, it's shawl and there's a fair amount of latitude for size, since it isn't a fitted garment. However, there's a center lace inset and I'm a little concerned that it will look a bit odd if the gauge is way off.
And maybe I'm obsessing about this a bit too much? My pitta tendencies are making themselves felt.

I promise to post pictures when I get back. In the meantime, happy knitting and spinning!

At Last...

Pictures and lots of them. If I update the blog during the week, it's usually late in the evening and it's really a major hassle to get the camera, download to the laptop, upload to Blogger, "unpublish" all the pictures, then incorporate them into the actual post. For some reason, Hello publishes one picture at a time. I'd prefer to publish multiple pictures in a single draft post, then modify it. Oh, well...

Anyway, this was the view from Kirkridge:



Kirkridge is located near Pen Argyl in northeastern Pennsylvania, not too far from Delaware Water Gap. It's very secluded and is the perfect location for a retreat, secular or otherwise. The Appalachian Trail runs through the property, giving knitters the opportunity to exercise a different set of muscles, should they so choose. However, the trail tends to be steep in places and quite rocky, so hiking boots are highly recommended.

Here are some of the intrepid knitters:



All are quite happy because they just figured out what was wrong with sample they were working on.

Gina knit this at the beginning of the retreat:



Can you guess what it is? A Willy Warmer, destined for a lucky co-worker who was giving her no end of grief for going to a knitting workshop. If you would like to knit one up for that special man in your life, you can get the pattern here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we learned a lot of techniques that were new to me: backwards knitting, intarsia, entrelac, domino and modular knitting, and Fair Isle. I doubt that I'd be able to learn the majority of these techniques from a book, unless the book was heavily illustrated. Having instructors who can watch what you're doing, analyze it, and correct it if necessary are worth their weight in gold. And Susan and Jill are excellent instructors...they manage to keep a class that has novices as well as experienced knitters running smoothly.

Here are the samples that I knit:



Clockwise, from the left:

--Mitred corner with bands
--Entrelac triangle
--Argyle square
--Fair Isle
--Short-row triangle
--Intarsia square joined by a three-needle bind-off to two mitred squares

Given the newness of the techniques and the fact that I haven't been knitting for that long, I'm pretty happy with the way the pieces turned out. The tension is fairly even and there aren't too many mistakes, except in the Fair Isle sample. For some reason, I kept reading the chart backwards, going from right to left when I should have been going from left to right, and vice versa.

One very nice feature at the retreat was that Susan brought the travelling version of her yarn shop. As the week progressed, the yarn stock depleted. I thought I was going to get away without doing to much damage, but then I got "inspired" and bought this:



It's hand-painted pima cotton yarn, color Elizabeth Blackwell. It's destined to become this, most likely as a Christmas gift for someone (unless I decide I just can't bear to part with it!)

And then I got inspired some more and got these:



The Suede is destined to become a poncho for a Christmas gift; the soy silk and Malizia will become a shawl for me, and the Rio will be my first design attempt. It told me that it wanted to be a sleeveless shell when it grew up. I've got the design sketched out and have started a swatch to get the gauge and the stitch pattern worked out. Next step is to do the math and write the pattern. Much easier said than done. Look for the completed garment in the next couple of years.

And speaking of completed garments, check this out!



The socks are complete! And the best part? They match, mostly. The part where the striping got a little off will not be noticed by most people. I mean, really? How many people are going to inspect the toes of your socks to see if the stripes match? And no, knitters are not "most people."

Happy knitting!

Ahhhh...The Knitting Experience

What a great five days in northeastern Pennsylvania! The experience started with an in-depth exploration of the rural roads between I-78 and Stroudsburg, undertaken because I-78E was closed due to a chemical spill. After sitting in traffic and travelling two miles in one hour, I decided to head left at the detour point, instead of right like everyone else. Rationale? On these two-lane rural roads, this volume of traffic just isn't going to move. Yeah, right. I discovered that no matter how quaint these towns are, somehow, someway, all the people who have cars within a 20-mile radius gravitate toward the same stoplight all at once. Add some really messed-up stoplight timing and we have...traffic jam! I was an hour and half late to the first class. My friend, Gina, however, sat in the I-78 and US-22 traffic and got there on time. It took five and a half hours to get to Kirkridge (note: it took three and a half hours to get home).

And once I arrived? I immediately whipped out my knitting needles, proceeded to cast on 20 stitches and commenced to knit backwards. Doesn't that sound like a migraine in the making? Surprisingly, I managed to wrap my head around the process without getting a headache. Backwards knitting (and purling) is very, very convenient when you are working a small number of stitches because you don't have to turn your work! The only thing that you need to remember is that when knitting backwards, the backwards knit stitch takes the place of the normal purl and the backwards purl stitch takes the place of normal knit on the rows that are knit backwards.

Thursday dawned bright and early. Gina and I were up at 6:30, with Gina in search of coffee. After finding said coffee, out came the needles and the knitting started, with a short break for breakfast. Then class, which was learning to knit with two colors, and a little bit of Fair Isle practice, before moving on to knitting an argyle square. Knitting stopped for lunch and dinner, but just barely. I got an absolutely yummy massage, followed by a great yoga class later in the afternoon. Dinner followed yoga, which was followed by...you guessed it...more knitting.

I can't remember Friday's class and the handout is upstairs. But it's safe to say that we did more knitting on Friday, as well as some pretty serious stash enhancements. I found Cascade's Rio, which just screamed out to be a sleeveless shell and I started working on the stitch pattern design. And I can truthfully say that by the time bedtime rolled around on Friday, I had pretty much had my fill of knitting.

But Saturday dawned and I was up at 6:30, needles in one hand, coffee in the other, ready to knit some more. The class material on Saturday was close to being a migraine trigger. We started tackling short rows, which thankfully I knew how to do. For socks. Making little mitered squares and triangles and mitred corners with an attached band nearly drove me over the edge. I didn't finish my mitred squares. I'm not going to. That's the only technique that I learned that I didn't like.

Sunday we were up again, early, and knitting, trying to figure out what went wrong in one of the techniques. It took some doing, but we did it, with a lot of help from Jill (one of the instructors). And then we put everything together. We learned a 3-needle bind-off (how cool!) and 3-needle bind-off with applied I-cord (how cooler!). Then we ate lunch and came home.

In addition to all the new techniques, I learned a lot about me. My knitting looks pretty good compared to other knitters' knitting, even women who have been knitting for decades. I'm able to actually learn a technique and provide assistance to other students. I don't like mitred squares.

I learned a lot about the other women who attended. We come from all walks of life: flight surgeon, pediatrician, "just" an administrative assistant (not!), dairy farmer, home economist, knitwear designer, attorney, medical equipment engineer. Some are mothers, some are grandmothers and some have no children. All are very interesting, witty, funny, strong, and most had very moving or inspiring stories to tell. Most found their need to knit increase after 9/11. Some have been knitting for 40 or 50 years, others for only a year or so.

I learned that California doesn't have thunderstorms like we have in the mid-Atlantic region. There was a rather long, lazy thunderstom Saturday night and Starr was so entranced by the lightning. I discovered that groundhogs don't exist in California, so of course we reported groundhog sitings. Hmmm...I wonder what Californians do on Groundhog Day?

I discovered that there's a designer inside me, wanting to get out and that I (almost) have the courage to tackle the task of designing a sweater or shell (I actually have four sweaters rolling around in my head trying to get out). My color sense and texture sense is improving. And I'm loving it.

I came away with yarn and patterns for several new projects and a new-found confidence in my knitting competence. I've got pictures, but downloading them to the laptop and then uploading them to the blog is more effort than I'm willing to invest tonight.

The next Knitting Experience on the east coast will be the last week in October in Shelburne, Vermont, and will be on the topic of Knit-to-Fit. Alas, I can't go. However, I'll be back at Kirkridge next spring for Finishing and Embellishments.
Susan and Jill run great workshops!

On My Way

The weekend has started! Yes, I know. It's Tuesday. But tomorrow I pack up the car and head up to Bangor, PA for the Y2Knit Knitting Experience. We'll knit, eat, knit, eat, knit, do some yoga, knit some more, go for a hike or two, knit. Did I mention that we'd be knitting?

Lots of new techniques for me to learn this weekend. Intarsia, entrelac, domino and modular knitting, and backwards knitting. That last one has me worried. It sounds like it requires a major mind shift. The last time I tried that was when I was trying to get my head around short rows. The result? Extreme frustration (I'm a knitting failure) and a major, major headache.

I should lighten up. I hadn't knitted in years. What was I expecting? Perfection? Of course!

Anyway, my knitting skills, particularly my ability to read my knitting, have improved over the last two or three years. Other than being the world's slowest knitter, I should be fine. Tune in next week to see if the Knitting Libran survived the Knitting Experience.

Mothers are Love

I'm returned from my trip home to visit my folks. I spent a little bit of time with my grandmother, who is in a nursing home. She's 94 and is still going strong, mostly. I only visit a couple of times a year and she's always so glad to see me. Her face lights up and she smiles and seems to be pleased as punch. While I'm glad that my presence can give her such pleasure, I feel bad that I don't visit more often. I'm such a bad granddaughter in that respect.

I was doing show and tell with the socks that I've knitted and Dad told me a story: A woman is driving along and while she's driving she's knitting. A trooper goes by and is horrified that this woman is driving and knitting, so he turns on the lights and sirens, rolls down the window and shouts "Pull over!" She looks at him and yells back "Scarf!"

My father cracks me up.

My mother wasn't feeling very good on Saturday, so we didn't do much other than visit my grandmother, go to Bon Vivant to pick up some Belgian beers for my husband, and go out to dinner. Despite having reservations at 7:00, we still had to wait 30 minutes before we were seated. And during that time, my mother started feeling worse and worse. Dinner, when it came, was pretty good. The desserts did not thrill, though. Back home we went and Mom went right to sleep.

On Sunday we went over to my brother's house for a picnic. My other two brothers were there and five nieces and nephews. It was so much fun and the food was so good! Steamed shrimp, fried shrimp, fried flounder, hushpuppies, coleslaw, potato salad, shrimp gumbo, garlic bread, and the piece de resistance, homemade vanilla ice cream! Yum, YUM!

The older kids are at an age where they're not quite so sullen. I played hacky sack with the two nephews (I'm pretty lame at hacky sack) and swung on the swing with the youngest nieces. Jenna, the youngest niece, kept skipping around and saying "ribbit," pretending she was a frog. So I joined her and hopped around like a frog and ribbitted. There's something very freeing about being silly. I should do it more often.

On the knitting front, I cast on the second sock (thanks to the advice from Claire and Dudley). I've finished the leg and half the heel. That's a record for me, I think. And the best part? The stripes on the self striping yarn are matching up! Woo hoo!

Pictures later...no time tonight.

The Big Weekend

Well, it seems like the whole world is going to be going to Maryland Sheep and Wool this weekend. I was planning to go. But then I started thinking (always a dangerous thing for me to do). It's been nine years since I visited with my mother on Mother's Day (which corresponds to how many years I've been married). And I haven't visited since Christmas. And the weekends are filling up fast. So fast, in fact, that this is the only free weekend before we head out on our Caribbean sailing adventure. And I wanted to visit the family before we leave.

So, Mom (and the rest of the family) trumps MDS&W.

The good news is that I'll get some knitting done while I'm there. The bad news is that my husband is going to stay behind to do more house renovation and I'll have to drive, which means I won't have hours of enforced knitting time.

The knitting life is actually going to get way better for me next week. On Wednesday morning, I head up to Pennsylvania for Y2Knit's Knitting Experience. This spring's retreat is going to be Color Work. Two color knitting, backward knitting, entrelac, intarsia, etc. You can see the schedule here. Susan and Jill run great workshops...very low key, lots of individual attention, great food, yoga, massage...chocolate. What more can one ask? They even set up a yarn shop so there's always an opportunity for stash enhancements.

I need this time away from work. I've been working in the software industry, and primarily start-ups, for almost 20 years and I'm getting tired. The last five years have been particularly frenetic. One software company imploded, which was very sad. I joined the current company before they even had a product. While I've learned a lot, I'm beginning to run out of gas. So getting away and immersing myself in knitting will be a wonderful break. I'm hoping that I'll get the courage to try a little bit of design work (I've got three sweater ideas rolling around in my head) and sort of come up with a plan for increasing the amount of knitting in my life (read fewer blogs, perhaps?)

So, for all of you who are going to MDS&W this weekend, have a great time! I'll see you there next year!

Sockage!

And that's why Buddha is smiling. I finished Sock 1 of Pair 2 this morning.



I'm rather pleased with it, although it might be a bit short in the toe. It certainly feels good on my foot.

Now the dilemma is should I start and finish my sock's mate or should I start on a pair of socks for my husband? Given that I can squeeze in about 2 hours of knitting per week, I'm torn. If I make something for Tom (or as gifts for other people), my knitting is justified. If I am making something for me, then I feel as if I'm having too much fun or being too self-centerd. Hmmm...there's some odd Puritan work ethic stuff going on here.

Perhaps I should follow the Buddha's example and accept what I do (and what I feel) without judgment, from me or others.

On the home renovation front, Tom finished sanding the floors in the little front bedroom, primed and painted the walls, and has started to prime the windows and baseboards. The yellow that we chose for the room (it faces northwest) is not quite what I envisioned but it will do. It will be nice to have one more room done. I'll post before and after pictures after the painting is complete.

Too Much!

I've got too much rolling around in my head and not enough time to post. Perhaps this weekend will provide an opportunity to show the almost finished sock (about 20 rows and it's done!) and before and after pics of the plaster work. I want to do a book review, too.

However, I was most heartened to hear that it appears that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct! It's so sad to leaf through my copy of the Golden North American bird guide and see pictures of the North American birds that are on the verge of extinction. And to hear that the ivory-billed woodpecker has been sighted in Arkansas is such good news! Maybe there's hope after all. For more information on the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker, go to the NPR story.

That's all for now.

Waiting Room Knitting

Sometimes things happen in the strangest ways. I had a doctor appointment this afternoon and decided to take my sock along in case the wait was long. As it happened, I got to knit about one round before my name was called. When I went into the doctor's office for the consultation part of the visit, she noticed my knitting and said that she used to knit. She's from Switzerland and said that she had to learn to knit before she started school and that they knit in school. Before we finished the visit, she said that I had inspired her to start knitting again! Imagine that...lil ole me and my little sock inspiring someone to knit. When I go back next year, I'll have to ask her if she did start knitting again.

There is an interesting post by Renee on knitting and feminism or rather, anti-feminism. The majority of the comments indicated that we (and the "we" includes both men and women) knit because we like it, not because we're trying to make a statement about our gender. How true. Everything I do I do because it interests me, or challenges me, or educates me. Some of those things can be considered traditional female roles or activities. Some can't. And interestingly, most things that are now considered to be a woman's domain, like knitting, used to be dominated by men and strictly regulated by guilds. I think there is a section in the Vogue Book of Knitting (I might have the title wrong) that discusses that.

Well, I would say that I'm going to go knit on the sock (I've got about 2 inches to go before the toe), but I'm on day 2 of a migraine and am going to go to bed instead.

13.1 Miles

Warning! This is a long post with no pictures!

This past weekend was the Charlottesville Marathon and Half Marathon, so Friday evening we loaded up the car and headed to Charlottesville. I drove, so no knitting on the way down. We arrived around 9pm (after taking a wrong turn) and had a very mediocre dinner at the hotel. Then it was off to bed so we would be well-rested for the run (Just for the record? I didn't run; I knitted.) Around 1am, Tom and I woke up out of a sound sleep. It sounded like there were people talking in our room. Or maybe outside our room. Nope, it was a small party going on in the room next door. They didn't quiet down until after 2. It was very annoying and I could feel the tension rising in me because I knew that Tom really needed to sleep well. We turned on the air conditioner, which helped drown out the voices somewhat and managed to get back to sleep.

Race day dawned sunny and not nearly as cold as expected. The race started at 7:30. The walk to the start was nice and after standing around a little bit, the runners were off. I watched Tom run out sight and headed back to the hotel for some breakfast and a little knitting before meeting Tom at the finish line. He had said that he would finish in a minimum of 2 hours and probably longer. I thought it would be nice to walk the route the runners were taking and then I could run with Tom to the finish line. I watched runner after runner pass me. No Tom. I got to the finish line at 2:03 and watched more runners come in. No Tom. The time is now 2:11. Still no Tom. I was beginning to get anxious, thinking he had a really, really bad run. Then I turned around and there he was. He finished in under 2 hours! His official time was 1:59:something (the results page appears to be down right now). What an awesome time, especially considering that he felt his training was bad. I was sooo happy for him! And sooo bummed that I wasn't there to see him finish.

After a brief recovery period, we hit the pedestrian mall. My main goal was to visit The Needle Lady for some stash enhancement. I think the store is set up well; it feels spacious and light. The people there are extremely helpful; one woman spent quite a bit of time helping me find just the right sock pattern for Tom and then the man in the store helped with choosing yarn. I also bought some Noro yarn in the most gorgeous color and have earmarked that for a hat. The one thing that I didn't like about store was the feeling of being rushed. After I selected the sock yarn, they were ready to ring up the sale. I said I wanted to look around some more. Tom saw a hat that knitted in chenille and like it. After being persuaded to not purchase the chenille yarn (it stretches a lot) and picking the Noro for a hat, they were ready to ring up the sale again. But...but...Look at all the yarn! Look at all the cool patterns and books! I could have spent hours looking around. As I recall, I think the same thing happened last year. Oh, well. I'm happy with my yarn purchases. I need more time synthesize everything. I am a Libran, after all. Decision-making, especially when presented with a myriad of choices, is not my strong suit.

The rest of the day was spent eating, wandering around, sitting in a park swatching the new sock yarn (even though I'm working on a perfectly fine sock), eating some more, wandering around, and eating some more. We visited Splendora's for some absolutely fabulous gelato. I got vanilla and chocolate, and oh my...what a rich, dark chocolate it was. Tom got raspberry and something that was chocolate with hazelnuts. I can't remember the name; it was in Italian. It did begin with a "g."

We met some friends at the Blue Light Grill for cocktails and oysters before dinner (yum yum!). Dinner was at Fellini's #9, just off the mall and it was quite tasty. I had a salad of grilled romaine with anchovies (marinated, not canned) and an onion relish. Dinner with baked trout on polenta with a pepperocini sauce. We had a yummy Zinfandel (whose name I can't remember) and cannoli for dessert(the filling was made with sweetened ricotta, not mascarpone).

And that was that! Back home on Sunday to yardwork and laundry. I made good progress on the sock on the drive back and should be able to finish it next weekend. Funny, didn't I say I was going to finish the sock this past weekend? And maybe finish two socks? Ha! I lied!

It's the Weekend!

Well, it's been a long week in Leesburg...

The plastering is done and the walls look really good. No more exposed lathe or plaster grains filtering out of the wall. Most of the plaster dust from the final sanding has been cleaned up. All that's left to be done is to wipe down the walls, prime, choose a paint color, and paint. But that means there are two more windows for Tom to refurbish. He's become quite the expert at dismantling old double hung windows, re-glazing, scraping, and re-assembling. He even gets the upper sash to work! I have quite the wonderful husband.

I managed to knit 11 rnds on my sock.

This weekend we'll be in Charlottesville for the Charlottesville Half-Marathon. I feel a little guilty about not running. I can't seem to get my running motivation back. I think it's because my running partner and I aren't on the same running schedule any more. And I'm still cold. That doesn't make sense because I'll warm up as soon as I start running. I'll eventually get back to it.

My goal for tomorrow is to support Tom at the start of race and then go visit the LYS, The Needle Lady, on the pedestrian mall and a brief walk from our hotel. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to some stash enhancement. And I think I'll be able to finish the sock.

It's time to finish laundry and start gathering stuff for the trip.

Smooth!

That's what the repaired plaster walls look and feel like in the little front bedroom. I'll post before and after pictures after the work is complete, which will be tomorrow. It will be nice to have yet another bedroom completed. And another good thing...there isn't a lot of plaster dust floating around the house. The last time we had plaster work done, I remember that there was dust everywhere!

I worked from home today so there'd be someone here while the plasterer was working. That was kind of nice. And even though my sock was sitting on the kitchen counter taunting me and daring me to knit, I resisted. I finished making one set of revisions to a certification document and started working through another set. If all goes well, the document might be complete enough by the end of the week for final evaluation. But then I have to start writing up the "evidence" documentation. And that's assuming that we have no testing, customer service, or "manufacturing" crises.

So, it's 8:00pm, I've finished eating dinner, and I'm going to work on my sock. Woo hoo! Week night knitting!

Melange

That word describes the weekend perfectly. The weather was gorgeous...high 60s, low 70s...and sunny. The first mowing of the grass occurred. We planned a stone patio just off the garden and hope to get estimates this week. If it isn't too expensive, it's going to be sooo nice! Tom wants to plant shrubbery around it for privacy, but I want fragrant herbs. We should be able to compromise.

And tomorrow we've got a plasterer coming to replaster one of the front bedrooms. We started to strip the wall paper about a year ago and Tom was going to attempt the plaster work himself, but decided that it would be better for someone else to do it. I agree. Plaster work is so messy and I'd rather someone else clean up. It should be done by Wednesday. And then we (Tom) can start painting and refurbishing the windows.

The stress part of the weekend came because I've been dumping my stuff in that front bedroom and it's got to be totally empty for the plasterer to work. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a packrat. And I acquired quite of bit of extra stuff from my grandmother's house (my mother's family saved everything). So I've got lots of fabric that would be good for rags and tons of Irish linen handkerchiefs, a couple of kalinskies (the dead fox wraps that were popular in the 30s or 40s), old hats, old sewing implements, some kitchenware and stuff. I tried to throw it away, but couldn't. Just like I couldn't bring myself to toss out some old silk dresses. I might be able to use the fabric to make a quilt. Or something. Sigh... So now all that stuff is in the other front bedroom which will become my "studio." It's a bit more organized than it was in the other room and I did take a quick inventory.

Foodwise...we had dinner at a friend's house last night and it so good. Everything was vegan (except the chocolate cake) and the recipes were from the Millenium cookbook. Millenium is a vegan restaurant in San Francisco. We started with some sort of tortilla torte that was served with a mango salsa. The main course was a polenta lasagna with mushrooms, spinach, a puttanesca sauce (sans anchovies) and a cashew cream. And there was a fennel, artichoke, and parmesan salad (okay, so that's not vegan). Yum, yum! I may have to find that cookbook and get it. I keep looking for different ways to cook tofu.

Tonight's dinner was Grilled Salmon with Thai Red Curry and Basmati Rice. It was served with a slaw made with green cabbage, cucumbers, fresh mint, and cilantro, with a rice vinegar and soy sauce dressing. The Thai red curry was quite tasty. Of course, anything made with curry and coconut milk is good. For dessert, I made mango with sticky rice, to use up the leftover coconut milk. For our listening pleasure, we played a CD by Vas (Feast of Silence). It's Middle Eastern in flavor and reminds me of Dead Can Dance's music.

And in knitting news, I finished the heel on the Top Down sock. Woo hoo! I think I've finally gotten the hang of picking up the wraps. A nice trick is to knit through the back loop when picking up and knitting the wraps. Doing so hides them quite nicely. And my stitches are behaving...not many have jumped off the needles lately. One did today, but I caught it before it could get away. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll have a sock finished by next weekend. Actually, I might finish the pair next weekend. We'll be in Charlottesville for the Charlottesville Marathon and Half Marathon. I'm not running; I've only run 7 miles since the Marine Corps Marathon last year. I feel guilty, but not too guilty. Tom is running and that means that I'll get some good knitting in. And I'll get to visit the knitting shop on the pedestrian mall. I can't remember its name, though. And it should be fun since I know more about knitting now than I did last year. Can we say "stash enhancement?"

Because of the renovations on the front bedroom, my spinning wheel has been relegated to (gasp) the closet. She'll come out again after the dust clears. And my husband is talking about taking a weekend climbing trip the last weekend in April. That will be a perfect time for me to knit, spin, and putter about in the garden.

It's late; I need to be up early tomorrow (the plasterer is coming at 7:30) and I need to clean up dinner and finish some laundry.

Hot!

What did I predict when I said it was too cold last weekend? That we'd go from winter to summer? Well, I wasn't far off. It got into the 80s today. Fortunately, the humidity stayed fairly low. My car was registering the outside temperature at 80 at 8:00pm! But, alas, I missed the day because I was at work. My husband suggested I take a day off during the week. That suggestion has merit. A warm day, sitting on the deck, knitting...or spinning...or both... Hmmm...

The plum tree is in full bloom and it smells so good, sort of spicy sweet, and almost like a corn tortilla. If all the stars and planets are aligned and the birds and squirrels behave, we might get some plums this year. We've been in this house for 8 years and have gotten enough plums for eating and making jam only once. Yum, yum!

This is a short post. It's not too late and I'd like to knit a couple of rows before bed...perhaps finish the heel on my sock.

A River Runs Through It

The basement, that is. We've had about 3 inches of rain in the past week and after yesterday's rain, there are little rivers running through our basement. Thankfully most of them head straight to the sump pump and are gotten rid of. More troubling is the water that's beginning to ooze from the ceiling in the sunroom off our bedroom. It means that all the time Tom spent fixing the roof this past summer came to nought. There's still a major leak in the roof. Given that it's the original metal roof and the house is 99 years old, I suspect that we need to replace that roof. But that means that Tom is going to have to rip out the drywall and insulation and replace it and that's not going to be fun. After the heinous renovation project 2 years ago (we essentially ripped off the back of the house and rebuilt it and I was without a kitchen for 4 months), any thought of any kind of demolition work makes me want to run screaming from the house.

In nature news, all sorts of things are happening. The yard is greening up nicely (mostly weeds, I think, but hey, it's green), the forsythia is blooming, as is the quince and the periwinkle. The plum will probably be in full flower later is week, and the daffodils are blooming. I can see the tulip tree across the way and it too is blooming. Our neighbor's willow is greening. Spring is definitely here. I wish it were warmer and sunnier. Now that I've said that, we'll probably jump straight to 90 degrees and high humidity.

All winter we've had a hawk hanging around the neighborhood, but I haven't been able to identify it. It isn't a red-tail; it could be a broad-winged or a sharp-shinned hawk. Last Monday, it flew into a tree in our yard. I grabbed the binoculars, focused in on it, and danged if it didn't have a snake hanging from its talons! I feel sorry for the snake, but I've never seen a hawk catch a snake before. It eventually flew away, taking the snake with it. On Friday, I saw the hawk again, perched in another tree in our yard. And, it looked like it was building a nest. I've noticed a collection of small branches at the top of one of the trees and it clearly isn't a songbird nest. I hope the hawk takes up residence there. It would be a good omen, I think.

I volunteered at the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge a number of years ago, helping with the winter bird count. It was a great experience because I got to learn how to hold birds and better identify them. On the last day of the study, I was the first out to the mist nets and, lo and behold! There was a hawk in the net! We put it in the hawk bag and after all the other birds were identified, weighed and measured, and banded, we brought out the hawk. It was a female sharp-shinned hawk. She was very beautiful. The best part is I got to let her go. It was an amazing experience to hold a hawk, then let it go and watch it soar away. I think a piece of my heart went with her. And I still get teary-eyed thinking about it, even though it's been 14 years. Looking back, I think it was a defining moment in my life.

In knitting news, I've knit about 3 inches on the sock. While working on the ribbing this morning, I dropped 2 stitches (see, the stitches did jump off the needles!) and eventually got them back on and looking proper. It's almost time to start the short row heel, as I don't like my socks to be that long. No spinning recently, but I do gaze longingly at the spinning wheel every time I go past it.

On Tension and Creativity

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was having problems with loose tension on the purl rows when knitting continental. I don't have the problem when I knit with the English method. Last weekend (it seems so long ago!) I figured it out.

I have an odd English knitting style in that I transfer the right needle to the left hand, throw the working yarn with the right, transfer the right needle back to the right hand and knit (or purl) the stitch. This transferring makes the to-be-worked stitch on the left needle be close to the just-worked stitch on the right needle. As a result, the working yarn length is relatively short.

When I knit continental, I don't transfer the right needle from one hand to the other, allowing me to knit marginally faster (but I'm still the world's slowest knitter). However, I noticed that the tension on a gauge swatch for my next pair of socks was off...purl rows were looser. So, I analyzed the knit stitch (working yarn length is short)and the purl stitch (working yarn length is long). Aha! By knitting closer to the points and making sure that the to-be-worked stitch on the left needle is close to the just-worked stitch on the right needle, the tension of the knit and purl stitches are more even.

This revelation excites me. I'm getting better at analyzing and understanding the technical aspects of knitting and this is a very good thing. I now have to let go of the fear that all of the stitches are going to jump off the needles when knitting close to the points. I'm also finding that it's a lot easier to control the purl tension when knitting flat than when knitting in the round, especially on size 1.5 DPNs.

I cast on a new sock this morning. This is the Top Down sock pattern from Y2Knit. I started working on this pattern a couple of years ago, but couldn't get my head around short rows (I don't recommend learning to knit socks as the second project). And, I couldn't seem to get the sizing right; the cuff seemed too tight and I couldn't get it over my heel. I found a reference for sizing socks on the Interweave Knits web site and realized that I should be knitting the large size. My feet are sort of wide, but short. We'll see how well the large size works.

I did finish the first pair of socks. While they aren't perfect, they'll suffice. Here they are, in all their glory:



And the beginning of the new socks:



So what about creativity? For a large part of my life, I've done some kind of handwork. Crewelwork, cross-stitch, ribbon embroidery, spinning, weaving, crochet, knitting, quilting (wow, that's a wide variety). And people always say "Oh, you are so creative!" But, truth to tell, I don't feel creative. True, I'm making things. But I'm making things that other people have designed. And to me, that's not being truly creative. If I was really creative, I'd design it myself and make it myself. I suspect that I'm being too hard on myself. I don't have the experience to create my own designs...yet. As I learn more about gauge, stitches, patterns, etc., I'll get to that point. And don't forget the math. I'm going to have to get over my fear of math before I can design something that will fit a normal human. However, fear of math is easier to overcome than fear of spiders.

All this knitting and ruminating, not to mention the dreary day, has Jez snoozing.