Flickr

Hi all, I have two, "one free year of photo hosting" with Flickr going a-begging. If anyone would like one, or knows of someone who would like one, please let me know. I have been really happy with their service, and it is in my best interest that they succeed!

Fear the Yam

Did I mention that I am a member of the fearsome and dreaded Sour Yams Motorcycle Gang? Husband will have to fill me in on the real details, which I will pass on in a later post. I am only a Yamette at present, but I hope to achieve full Yamhood soon. And then I will be privy to all the rights and privilages of the Yam.

The Yams had no mascot. As my first act as a Yamette, I decided to design the official Sour Yam mascot. They are felted out of Orange Koolaide and Berry Koolaide dyed roving. The google eyes are glued on with Elmer's Wood glue (didn't have any white glue), and the eyebrows and mouth are embroidered with high quality embroidery floss.
A Yammering of Yams


The Yam rides alone.


Fear the Yam, for it is sour.

Messy measuring and grafting gone wrong...

(WARNING, there are no pictures in this post because my Camera and I had a minor disagreement on Memorial Day)

I did finish the Chevron Tank top. But I some how lack the capability to accurately translate 25cm into something that I can understand. Yes I have a tape measure that measures both in inches and centimeters. Yes, I understand the need to measure twice, knit once. Yah yah yah. The pattern "suggests" that you knit 25cm of strap for the tank top. This translates to boobs somewhere around my waist. Not a good look. Those German models must be rail thin and ginormously tall! I do not span 12.5 cm from the top of my boob to my shoulder! Silly me, I asked the Husband to eyeball where the straps fell, and accepted his, "looks about right" (this is the man is always befuddled by the shape and size of my clothing, this is also the same man who bought me the most beautiful cowboy boots - four times - because he thought my feet looked like a size six, or seven, maybe eight... try ten???) Doubly silly me I grafted the straps to the back before I tried it on!!!! Scheiße! I may not be a German Giantess with low-slung boobs, but I can swear like one!

All is not lost; I will just cut the straps on the tank top, unravel 2 inches (or 5cm, see I can do the math...) of strap and re-graft the straps at the shorter length. I will measure this time. I could even use Dolores, my dressmaker's dummy, instead of the spouses' eyeball, which would be a better use for her than presentt gig as creepy headless office mate...

To top off the low boobage debacle, my camera ate all the loverly photos that I took prior to blocking, sewing and grafting! There is a little button, set far, far away from all the other little buttons on the back of my camera. This little button looks like a trash can. When you repeatedly press this little button in an attempt to get a menu to pop up, you apparently delete the contents of the memory card. Again with the reading instructions! I am beginning to see that there may be an advantage to reading manuals.

I knit, really I do, but last night I got LOST

Oh my oh my oh my, its good to know that I am not the only
knit blogger out there who is consumed with worry for Walt's safety! And Sawyer? And Jin? And Sayid? Ack. It really should be called Lost; Island of Hot Men. Is it just me, or does anyone else wonder about the connection between JOHN LOCKE 17th century ideologue and philosopher who believed in the essential goodness of man and the inalienable right to freedom, and DANIELLE (Jean Jaques) ROUSSEAU 18th century philosopher who contended that man is naturally good, that man is corrupted by his engagement in society? hmmmmmm? Ok so our John Locke is not exactly demonstrating his faith in human kind by blowing up the hatch when it so clearly disturbs Hurley. And Danielle is just plain whacked, but maybe deep down she is the the noble savage... or maybe she is the antithesis of Jean-Jaques' belief that society corrupts, and that in fact it is only through our society with our fellow man (and by man I mean humanity in the academic sense, not to offend or present a gender bias). Or maybe she stole Claire's baby in order to save him from the offences of society...

I didn't even realize that Sawyer was such a hottie until last night when Walt caught him reading the notes from the islanders. The camera panned in on him in his jerry-rigged glasses, and well my knees went all jiggly. Shivers. He has that bad boy mystique; a thoroughly reprehensible man, and yet, irresistible. There are glimpses of humanity in him. Is he Tom Sawyer all grown up and gone bad? Yah, I think so. But will he be back? One of Popeye's crewmembers shot him!

Why did Claire name her baby Aaron at the last minute? What mechanical boogey man got Locke? And despite the plane crash is Hurley/Hugo's luck changing? The nice Oceania crew member said to him, "Its your lucky day", as they let him on the flight back to Los Angeles. Irony? Or maybe something more? And the spooky, snaky smoke?

This show is ripe with symbolism, just ready for the picking. I am just so terribly bummed that we have to wait an entire summer to get
LOST again! I guess I'll just have to re-visit the TiVo'd shows and work up my theories over the long, dull, sunny summer. Humph.

And TV induced anxiety is hell, HELL I tell you, on tension. Witness the mess:


It’s a good thing that the purse I was working on during the season finale of 24 is going to get felted because it is all wonky. (Not to get back on the TV horse again, cos really I don’t watch that much. Really I don't... but wasn’t it nice to see Tony and Michelle back together? I got all teary. And heart pounding when we thought that Jack was dead, for that brief moment in time. But now he is poised to be Jack Baur, Super Duper Undercover Secret Spy Man. ‘Nuf TV for now.)

Now that all the good TV is over I will be able to get down to the serious business of paying attention to my knitting again. I fully intend to finish the camisole this week, and start Butterfly over the weekend. I am a little apprehensive about starting Butterfly. I really, really, really want it, but I am so worried that I am going to bollix it up, and the kid silk is so finicky. Also after the generosity of a certain knit blogger, who translated the pattern for me, I really feel the need to succeed!

I promise, from here on out there will be more knitting, and less TV. At least until next season…

Does anyone know when the new season starts…(feeling a little like Charlie before he discovered the stash of Virgin Mary statues…)

A sunny weekend and...

…very little knitting happened. It was comprised of riding these around the hills and valleys of Santa Clara. 'Cowboy', my wonderful bike is in the foreground, and 'Max', Husband's new ride is in the background…



The weather was glorious, the sun was shining, and the open road was calling. And so we heeded that call.

Now you might wonder at the names. I have long held that all modes of transport are feminine. I think this comes from some old wives tale that ships are given women’s names, some where along the line in childhood I came to believe that this extended to all forms of transport. 'Cowboy' is a girl, don't argue with me, she is! 'Max' on the other hand might be the very first vehicle that I have met that is decidedly masculine.

‘Cowboy’ also provides handy storage…


I rarely see gear that I covet, but on Sunday I saw this
helmet. Click on the helmet pictured at the bottom of the page called "Flowers". I long to make my practical silver helmet into something more, well, feminine and sorta sassy. I thought I might find some nice stickers to jazz it up. Any suggestions? Perhaps a few decorative knit flowers? Here my practical helmet is loafing in the garden with the very little progress that I made on B’s purse.


On a side note; Gina Lola Cat is disgusted with the dog bias of this blog. If she were bigger she would eat the dogs and rule the world. She is working on the “getting bigger” part of her master plan by eating all of her kibble for "Cats in Active Maturity”, as well as as many unguarded pork tenderloins as she can find.

Details, details

Being new at this blogging thing, I forgot to list the details for my hoodie. But I am happy to babble about its details!

The yarn is Trend Collection Linie. I purchased 8 100 gram (approx 166 meter) skeins. I appear to be a "prepared" knitter as I have a skein and some left over. The yarn is a fairly heavy cotton with a little bit of a sheen to it. It is not as splitty as some cotton yarns, but still has that annoying tendency.

The pattern is the Hooded Pullover with Two Sided Frost Flowers from the Spring/Summer 2005 Vogue Knitting.

It took me just under three weeks to complete. The most complex part of the pattern is in the switch from the right side to the left side of the front as it is knit in one piece. It took a few trys, but once I figured that out it was smooth sailing!

And just in case you wanted to see it again....

The Politics of Dancing...

the politics of ooooooo feelin' good...

Huh? Wha? Me too. I walked into Trader Joes to pick up some lunch, and smack dab into 1983 (or thereabouts). I got a little giddy while picking out my yogurt flavor, I was trying not to dance while I chose my soup, by the time I got to the check out I was only able resist waving my arms in the air like a bleeding idiot because I was loaded down by a basket and a purse.

But what the hell are the politics of dancing? I think I'm down with the politics of oooooo feelin' good. But dancing? And now the song is burned in my brain. Sugar sweet boppy silliness. Get me some shoulder pads, some 3-inch pumps in turquoise, and a strawberry blond fall and I am set to lobby for the politics of dancing.

And speaking of turquoise....

…late Tuesday evening

…some sewing took place...

and this made its public debut on Wednesday!



I was practicing the politics of ooooo feelin good during my photo shoot.

BOO!

And there was finishing, too. Stories and pictures manana...
(Disculpame por el enne, my key board only speaks Ingles)

Our Little Brown Otises

[What follows is a shameless plug for a favorite animal of mine]

You will notice that I have added another button to my links "Adopt a Bat". This will link you to Bat Conservation International.
BCI does wonderful things in the world of bat conservation and education all over the world. I won't go into my limited knowledge of bats, instead if you are interested, visit them. Adopt a bat if you wish. We did.

After reading Diane Ackerman's The Moon by Whale Light I fell in love with bats. Living for so many years in San Francisco I disparaged of ever seeing a bat out side a zoo. Then I moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains. One spring evening while Husband and I were sitting on our deck, we saw a bird swoop by, its flight pattern was erratic, zig zagy (? should be a word if it isn't), and then it disappeared. And then came another, and another and another. Slowly it dawned on me that these were not birds, but bats! In my own back yard! I wrote to BCI describing the flight pattern of my "birds", their approximate size, and where we live. BCI wrote back to tell us that we share our home with California Brown Bats (Myotis Californicus), or as we like to call them Our Little Brown Otises.

They are back. It has been a wet spring, so not as many of them are out yet as in past years, but they are back! Quietly eating up mosquitoes and other flighty, bitey night bugs.

Go Bats! Bats are cool!

There will be knitting this evening.

Travest y and Triumph

First the travesty.

Have you ever believed that your prowess as a craftswoman was so all encompassing that you believed that you could teach yourself a skill overnight? No? You sure? Ok, maybe I am the only one with the arrogance to believe that I am so smart that can teach myself to crochet in a few short hours. I signed up for a crochet class, I won't say where, but I will say that I was told that I needed to know how to chain, double and treble. When asked if I had those particular skills I blithely answered "Of course!” as if to say to the person who was helping me 'cha, don't we all know that.' Two weeks go by, I am still confident that I possess these skills, although I don't know where my one crochet needle (hook?) is. Friday night I decide that I need to hone my crochet skills in preparation for this class. I pull out my one lonely crochet book. I demonstrate complete mastery of the chain stitch. I attempt the double. And I attempt the double again. And again. I crochet a small round thing, not at all approximating the picture. I drop the hook, I tangle the yarn. I attempt the treble. I attempt to unsnarl previous attempts. I cannot get the hang of it. Geez, knitting has got to be more difficult, you are juggling two sticks. How can one 6-inch stick beat me? I concede defeat at 11pm, vowing that after a good night's rest I can teach myself how to crochet before 2pm the next afternoon. WRONG. I slink away in defeat. In shame I postpone my participation in this class until such time as I can learn how to crochet. I will be taking crochet classes under an assumed name this summer...

Now the Triumph

Sunday I took a class in felting at the newest LYS on the block Yarn Dogs! I have always been attracted to felting, but I have never worked with roving. I learned that what I do in my washing machine is technically not felting, it is fulling.

Deborah of Yarn Dogs invited fiber artist Carin Engen to teach this workshop.



It was held in the lovely courtyard outside the back of the shop, in the shade of a gorgeous Japanese maple. Carin gave us an engaging demonstration on the art of felting with roving, and then let us go to it on our own. We first learned the technique for creating 'faux pots' in felt. Then she taught us a technique for making scarves (or banners such as the one posted above), but it could even be used to make table runners, or place mats, or drapes! Some of us even made purses. Well I didn't, I was too enthralled with the pots.

Carin is such a personable and joyful instructor, that I am inspired to do nothing but felt for the rest of my life. Carin hand dyes all of her rovings, and the colors are so lush. She had some examples of large scale felted pieces that she makes. Wow! There is nothing you can't felt. Not only that the resulting fabric is really sturdy. Sturdy enough for the wear and tear of labradors retrievers. (On a side note, Godiva was terribly interested in the felted vases, from her vantage I am sure they look like brighly colored tenis balls...)

Here are some of the crafty ladies making purses:



and one of the purses ready to be sewn up:

,

The process is time consuming and wet, a pefect antidote to knitting a heavy wool sweater in summer. Some more crafty ladies intent upon their work:



The class was a perfect size; there were ten of us. A great mix of women with different backgrounds, but each of us has our own love of fiber, and particular niche. And this technique is so freeing. You can't screw it up!

I'm afraid that my picture taking was somewhat limited because I was so engrossed in turning out my little genius works of art. I saved the best picture for last... all of our little pots sunning themselves under the maple.

Hello blue, blue sky!

Today there was this:

And this:

Which made us feel like this:


After what seems like an eternity of blah weather there is today! The air was cool, the sun was shining, and there was promise in the air, and smiles, and a happy home!

Ventured into YarnDogs, Los Gatos latest yarn store addiction, umm, addition. Great light, great atmosphere. And a great class in felting roving. Which I plan to sign up for since I learned this evening that we are not going out of town on Sunday as we had planned... Yay!

Never One Tattoo

Falling in love again,
Never one, but two,
Oh what am I to do?
I canhhhn't help it.

Sung in my best Marlene Dietrich (who incidentally I do very well; might have something to do with the fact that neither of us can sing. Also always thought that the chorus to that song was "never one tattoo" it all made sense. If you are constantly falling in love, it would stand to reason that you might have a list of your lovers’ names tattooed on your various appendages. Yes? Well I think so!)

But I digress.

I am falling in love again with the latest LYS on our block. The gorgeous CommunKnity in San Jose; beautiful natural light. And soon they will have a terrific, well-lit classroom in the back. Can't wait... might even get up the courage to take a class or two and met other actual knitters! Yikes! So far, my knitting obsession has been a fairly private affair. I share it with my husband, who oohs and ahhs richly, wondering how I can do what I do (honey, I can't figure out how internal combustion works and you can take a car apart and put it back together - that is your knitting, this is mine) and my mom, who oohs and ahhs richly, because I am her daughter, and she is a knitter, and we are both so thrilled to share a hobby.

I am falling in love with more Rowan yarns. I was prepared not to like the denim yarns. I am not that interested in jeans, not that interested in yarn that behaves like jeans. Hello, fading and shrinking are not things that I am all that in love with... or so I thought. A visit to CommunKnity changed that, all that light, all those colors, and I was drawn across the room to the rich blue denim yarns.

Being an inveterate stash-o-holic, I bought enough denim yarn to knit this "Chevron Tank Top" from Rebecca...


I have been eyeing this skirt from the same issue of Rebecca, so I bought enough Rowan cotton glace to knit it up, in a rich, rich red.

(please note that cute German-Sarah-Jessica-Parker-like model has a bit of a belly - rah rah!)

Then I made the dangerous mistake of touching the Cash Soft line. I had my own little fondle fest... did the dusty lavender feel softer than the grey? Yum Yum Yum. I suppose the lavender did feel softer than the grey because somehow this came home with me as well.


On top of this I am still in love with my hoodie, which is nearing completion. I did have to set it aside last evening in order to play with my new yarn... or rather I chose to set it aside in order to play with my new yarn. As you might have noticed I did start on the Chevron Tank Top. Ooops. But I did make a great deal of progress on the hoodie before I set it aside. The back and the sleeves are blocked (no photo - booooooring). I have finished the right front, and am about half way up the left front. This pattern is very clever, almost so clever it nearly defeated me. The front is knit in one piece; starting with the right side of the hood, down the right front, then up the left front to finish the left side of the hood. The turn from right side to left side was a bit of a trial, had to frog it three times before I finally got it right. Don't ask me how I did it, I had already gone to my happy place...

And lastly I am still in love with Butterfly and the Kid Silk Haze. The wonderful doyen of "Gromit Knits" translated the pattern from "propah" English to "Amurican" for me. I am utterly blown away by her kindness, to help a fumbling newbie on the other side of the country. I am practicing the lace pattern in heavier gauge cotton before I start with the Kid Silk Haze per her suggestion. I can only hope that the stash fairy smiled on her with great favor in MD this past weekend.

Hie thee forthwith

to Tilt-a-Whirl, if not for the fiber fantastickness* and spinning (wow, I really need to not be interested in spinning... at least for the time being) then for the gorgeous labs Sasha and Tank!

Corsa and Godiva give their paws up!


*A word that really does deserve a place in the OED.

Kid Silk Rage

WARNING - POST CONTAINS VIOLENCE AGAINST YARN - WARNING

Admire the lovely Rowan Kid Silk Haze.


It wants to become the lovely Butterfly from Rowan #37.

It makes me feel unstable. I don't like to feel unstable. It is uncooperative. It misbehaves. It sticks to my bamboo needles, it sticks to my plastic needles, it even sticks to my metal needles. Who knits with this ridiculous yarn? I must punish this yarn.


If I didn’t believe that my life would be made much, much better by owning and wearing “butterfly” I would throw the lot of it out window. (I am reminded that I would be throwing roughly $75.00 out... gah!) Please tell me that there are some tricks out there for working with spider-web thin merino silk blends....

And what up with the English patterns? I am a pretty fearless knitter, but everything that I have taught myself to date has been in “Amurican” english. “Butterfly” is written in 'propah' English. I am confused by “yfwd” and “yon” - am I to assume these are two ways of writing “YO”? Or is this something that I have not encountered in my vast (two years) experience of knitting? And also how does one read “(K1, yfwd) twice”? Does this mean knit that pattern two times? Because as I read the next row and come to the corresponding stitches I come across “(K1, P1) into double yfwd of previous row”. Seemingly that would mean that the first “yfwd” is a double “YO”? Is there a conversion chart out there in the knitting universe somewhere...

Help me before I do other unspeakable things to my Kid Silk Haze involving Aztec Gods and popsicle sticks...

Les quiero presentar mi muy buen amiga...

La Dolores II Desnuda

And La Dolores II


Dolores II is pictured above wearing a dress that I will never finish. Its a loverly dress, but cut on the bias, which is a pain in the ass cut successful. She is also sporting one of my first knitted projects, skinny scarf in black gorilla, um, eye lash yarn. Once upon a time there was a Dolores I. She was not adjustable, but she was dependable. She perished in flames years ago in the infamous 'Day-after-Thanksgiving-Haight-Street fire' of 1994.

Dolores II came into my life about a year ago. She had been working as a lingerie model in a friend's bedroom for nearly eight years. The friend was downsizing, and so Dolores II came to me. I should add that Dolores II was named in honor of Dolores I by said friend. Now Dolores II is in my steady employ as a knit wear model, 'cos really its easier to take a picture of* your finished projects on a person (object) than to juggle a camera, compose a shot and take a decent picture front of the mirror. (I have proof positive that some of you can do it, and with good result, not me).

Corsa and Godiva feel that it is not fair that Dolores II gets a whole blog entry to herself. They also would like everyone to visit their Dogster pages. They would like to go on record that they had blogs long before the author did. So there!


* (05/04/05) Good grief, I really can finish my sentences. Apologies to all who read this post last night when my editor was on VACATION!

Move over Kate Spade...

there is a new bag lady in town!

"Should I line my bag?", I mused aloud while doing the dishes. To which Husband replied, "Yes, of course!" Now I had thought that I was musing to myself, but I was not. Husband is quite the cheerleader for creativity. I rummaged through my scrap trunk and found a 1/4 yard of Op art-ish fabric that fit the bill. And so...


Failing my dastardly plot to unseat Kate Spade as supreme ruler of the hand bag business, I might try to unseat the hat king of the world...


Can anyone tell me who the hat king is?

PS Flu bug has gone! Twas a 24 deal. Thank dog!

Felting on the edge...

Firstly, many thanks to all who responded to my plea for help regarding the YO dilemma. I think I am on track now, and will post pictures as I go.

I am laid low by a flu bug at the moment. Thing seems to have come out of nowhere, not a soul I know is sick right now, and I have the sturdiest constitution known to womankind! So I am deeply distressed by this turn of events; deeply distressed, achy, stuffy, sore and cranky! Lovely combo! To top it off, our workplace has instituted a "if you are sick, don’t bother to show up" policy, which is fine if you are salaried, but for me, it means I don't get paid. Oh well. Less yarn for me this month.

A few weeks ago I started a felted bag of my own design. I decided that I wanted a little summer bag, in pink and yellow. I fearlessly began knitting. I did, in a moment of clarity, write down my steps as I knit the first side. Lucky thing that, as yesterday I decided to knit the second half of the bag. I finished the bag while watching Neverland (sobbing hysterically, Johnny Depp and a Scottish accent... had I died on the sofa yesterday, it would have been as a happy woman!).

Here is the bag pre-felting:



And post:



I am very pleased. Contrary to my last foray into felting with Cascade 220, this bag is not bizarrely shaped, it is exactly as I had envisioned it. Honestly I don’t know why or how it turned out as well as it did. I did write up the pattern which I am happy to share with anyone who is interested. I am thinking of needle felting a flower on to the front. Any suggestions?

Now I go back to the Hoodie, and Godiva goes about her business in the garden....