Knitting by day, belly dancing by night...

So Long!

2008-12-24T21:49:00.001-08:00

Well, I guess I figured this was going to happen sooner or later. I have decided to pick up and move over to wordpress. All of my old posts have made it over there, along with the promise to update more regularly like I used to. Please update your blog readers!! http://gypsyknitter.wordpress.com

The Milinda Trilogy

2008-12-05T14:43:00.001-08:00

The Good News: Joan dyed 3 new skeins of yarn for me based off a sample that I sent in from the yarn I was working with on my Milinda Pullover before realizing I was going to run out before getting the sleeves done. The dye job came out so well. The colors are so close that I'm sure only I know where they were added into the top.

The Better News: This morning I finished the sleeves! I am almost done and so ready to wear the top. I'm actually looking forward to wearing it for an event on Sunday for the first time. I already have the shoulders seamed up, and it's looking great! I am really excited about this.

The Bad News: I hate seaming. I have seamed and re-seamed the left side 3 times, and each time it comes out looking horrible. Why am I suddenly so bad at seaming?? It's leaving me a bit frustrated. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to get this looking good and soon, because I am ready to have this done!

Bummer!!

2008-09-26T17:54:00.001-07:00

So remember how I said I purchased the Milinda Pullover Kit forever ago at Stitches West? Well, this is certainly a time when I wish I had started a project sooner (although, it probably wouldn't fit "new" body). I have finished the back (yai!) and am 1 repeat away from finishing the lace pattern on the bottom of the front (yai!!), but it looks like I'm not going to have enough yarn to complete the whole top (BOO!!!). I've been a little uneasy as I see the yarn in my little yarn cake disappearing. I've gotten pretty good at guestimating yarn amounts and something just didn't look quite right. Lucky me, I have a scale that I can weigh my yarn with. Woo hoo! So I am supposeed to only need 500g of my yarn for the size I am knitting. And in a kit that ranges from needing 400-600g, I should be safe even making minor alterations, right? Well, that assumes my kit had the correct amount of yarn in it. Stuck a bowl on my scale, tared it, and put all of my yarn and pieces in the bowl. 296g. :o(

It wasn't just eye trickery, I am really not going to have enough yarn to finish this top. I don't have receipts, proof of purchase, and I don't even know what credit card I had used or if I still have it. I've already emailed Joan explaining my very very sad situation, and I guess for the moment, that's all I can do. I'm pretty bummed out by this, but I guess things happen, huh?

Guess I'll watch the debate instead of worrying about the top for now.

Milinda Progress

2008-09-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

I've been plugging away at the Milinda Pullover. I'm not finished with the back, but almost! I am only a few inches from binding off. Then I'll be repeating most of it with the front, and including some short rows for bust room.
When I ripped my "old size" and restarted with my "temporary size " (haha, like that? ;) ) I decided that I didn't want as much cinching at the midsection as the pattern calls for. The directions say not only to decrease a few stitches, but to decrease the needle one size. I decided to go ahead and decrease the stitches, however not to change the needle size. At the top of the waist, I increased the stitches and of course didn't change needles.
I'm really loving this pattern and it's getting to the point where I can work on a small section, put it down, and pick it right back up later. This is especially good when there is a very young baby who doesn't wait for the end of the row. :p
And pictures will be posted either tonight or tomorrow. Promise!

Stitches West 2009

2008-09-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again when registration opens up for classes at Stitches West. Every February (usually right on top of Mr Kiwi's birthday), XRX comes to the Santa Clara Convention Center, trailed by knitters from all over California, the entire West coast, and a few of the more inland states. Armed with pointy sticks and string, they descend on the nearest hotels, booking them solid Thursday-Sunday. Any out of town traveler who happens to be at one of these hotels during this time must have quite a shock seeing so many knitters all at once. Lucky for me, I am a mere hour's drive north, and if I cheat and stay at Dad's house in San Jose, I'm even closer. To a first timer, this knitting convention is huge and overwhelming. My first year I couldn't believe that there could be so many booths filled with so much different yarn, patterns, tools, and people. To those who have experienced it before and have had a year to recover, the market place is only half the draw. The other half is getting to take a class to learn or refine a specific skill (or 3).
On Friday, the class brochure came out and I promptly downloaded, printed, and forgot about it. Moday morning I spent a good amount of time trying to decide what class(es) I wanted to take. I wanted something on the weekend (this is a Thurs-Sunday event) so that the easy solution for Little Kiwi would be to have Mr Kiwi stay home with her, however, none of the weekend classes appealed to me enough. The ones with the big draw were on the weekdays. Mr Kiwi so kindly offered to take a vacation day from work to be with Little Kiwi on a weekday so that I could have my fix of knitting heaven.
Last year I treated my mother in law to 2 classes with me (and even with early bird registration, the price added up!). This year, I am taking 1 long class (6 class hours). So, very reminiscent of college and getting our time slot to sign up for classes for the next semester and waiting for the *second* the slot opened to be sure that the desired (or required) classes weren't already full, I got up, searched for the registration page, and got to make my choices. My first choice is a Fair Isle class, and the second is a Pattern Writing class. I should easily get into the Fair Isle one, since I submitted my info 9 minutes after registration opened, and probably not too likely to have been sold out in that time. It's an all day class, so Friday will be spent learning fair isle, knitting, shopping, knitting, having fiber overload, knitting, and fair isle-ing some more.
Only 5 more months, and the knitting sensory overload can begin. :o)

New Knitting Body

2008-09-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

About 6 inches into the back of the Milinda Pullover, I realized that I was knitting my "old" body size, and would not fit (or be particularly flattering on) my "new" body. Rip rip rip. I'm now 1/4 inch into the next size up. But at least I realized this now, instead of after I seamed the whole thing.

Knitting Notes

2008-09-15T08:29:00.001-07:00

Time goes by so quickly with a baby; things happen, and I think "I have to write this down!" and before I have a moment to do so, time slips by and more events occur. So being true to form as of late, I'm scrimping on pictures (blame Mr Kiwi!!) and will give quick accounts of recent happenings.

Remember a long time ago when I knit that really pretty maternity top from Expectant Little Knits? Well, a few weeks ago I wanted to wear it as a nice breezy top, however when I put it on, something didn't feel right. The fit was somehow strangely different, and no it wasn't the part around my belly changing because of having the baby. The bust and shoulders were fitting differently, and that doesn't change once a baby is birthed. I looked in the mirror and realized it was the yarn I had used. One of the skeins was NOT what it said it was, fiber content-wise. It had felted!! I really have to take pictures of this, because you can see exactly where I switched from the first hank to the second. The first hank which, lucky for me, made up most of the top is still gorgeous and bouncy, however on the straps in the front and from the armholes up on the back it looks shaggy, felted, and littered with holes from the fabric pulling unevenly. This was such a bummer. It's way too noticeable to just shrug it off and continue wearing the top, so I'll probably have to rip the whole thing out, trash the felted parts, and re-wind the bottom portion to be used for something else later. Sighhh... So sad.

The garden! Well, most of the plants are doing well. I have already picked 5 or 6 lemon cucumbers, and they are very fresh and yummy tasting. The tomatoes are all ripening, and I've had a few here and there. I have a feeling, they are all going to redden at once, and I'll be eating tomato salads for days! The eggplants are sprouting beautiful lavender flowers, but not a bud of a veggie yet. The honeydews and getting bigger, and the sunflowers have all bloomed many times over. And then there are the pumpkins. They were the first to do spectacularly well, however possibly to my own garden inexperience, it caught a pumpkin leaf powdery mildew that has no treatment (so I'm told). It spreads white all over the leaves and only gets worse when watered. I think it ends up killing the plants. Most of my pumpkin leaves have the mildew, and a good number have died, leaving me to actually see the soil underneath where the giant leaves formerly spread. I still have 2 decent pumpkins that are on their way to ripening if the plant can hold out that long. Am I bummed? Only slightly. I was just proud that my plants were successful at all, seeing as how this was my first garden. I've learned something about pumpkin plants, and maybe can use this knowledge for next year.

I have finally finished the Sanpoku bolero that I started working on 3 days before Juniper's birth. Again, no pictures (just finished it yesterday!) but I really like it. I absolutely love the way Karabella Breeze feels knit into a top. Oh my, it is luscious. Too bad I still have almost 3 balls left that I have to figure out what to do with. :o) I originally thought that the Sanpoku would eat up all 7 balls, but apparently not. Perhaps I'll make a nice thick scarf of small rectangular shawl with the remaining balls. Now that I know how it feels on, I can't let it sit there for another 3 years!! (yes, that's how long it's been in my stash waiting, no, lusting! to be made into something.) Verdict on the pattern overall? I like it. I intended for it to be a nursing top for when the fall hits, and it will serve such a purpose very well. It's also lucky that I like boleros and will wear tops with short backs; the back is a whole 12 inches long. I think the one flaw that others who have knit this have found is that in none of the pictures do you see how short the back is, until you're reading the pattern and thinking "wait a minute.... where's the back again?" I almost edited the pattern to increase the length of the back, but it probably would have worked out the way I was attempting.

So now what am I doing? Busting through stash. I'm on a roll! At Stitches West 2007 (or was it 2006?) I purchased the Milinda Pullover in a kit in the teal color from the White Lies Designs booth. Pre-baby, I was wearing a good amount of fitted and snug tops, that hugged my midsection. Now... I need to do a bit more dancing before I'll pop on another tight shirt. I am in need of some tops that are more flowy and less huggy on my belly, and the Milinda (if I work it right) might just be the top for it. So last night I cast on! Especially after doing a whole top in stockinette, the pattern is very fun. It's challenging my knitting mind to do a 10 row and 4 row repeat at the same time. I can't wait for this top to be finished and to be wearing it this season, after again, some 2 or 3 years waiting to be knit up.

With all this stash busting, soon I'll actually be able to fit all of my yarn INSIDE my drawer unit, and not inside, on top, next to, and in a box in the garage. ;o)

Quarter of a Century

2008-08-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

For my birthday on Friday Mr Kiwi asked me what I wanted to do for the day. He is very big on the importance of birthdays, so I got to choose whatever I wanted to do all day. I had some things I wanted to do that were pretty important. Such as taking 5 more minutes in the shower, taking my time putting on make-up, actually putting on lotion for the first time in a month, doing my hair, and getting out of the house. And I got them all accomplished, thanks to Mr Kiwi's help in watching after Little Kiwi while I indulged.

The first thing we did while getting out of the house was to go to Article Pract. I had never been to this yarn store before, and had been meaning to since very many of the people I knit with love this place. Finally, I have a chance to go. I must have looked at every ball of yarn they had in the entire store, and I'm sure I spent a good 15 minutes in front of the books section. I had a "birthday budget" that I got to spend, and I was looking for some good knitting books since I already have enough stash to last me a while. My stash will certainly also last longer now that I am knitting much slower than I used to. I picked up the recent issue of knitscene, Knit So Fine, and Fitted Knits. I had considered picking a project from one of the books and buying the yarn then, but I was pushing my budget, we were running out of time for an appointment, and I needed some time to plan, so I skipped the yarn and off we went to a nearby cafe for a quick lunch. Since then, I have also found a number of patterns I am excited to start and are queued up in Ravelry, since I surprisingly have enough yarn in my stash to work on 3 sweaters out of the books.

After lunch at 3pm, we arrived at Brushstrokes Sudio. One thing I knew I wanted for Little Kiwi was imprints of her hands and feet so we can always look back and have something physical to show how small she used to be. We decided to get some extra pieces and give them to grandparents for Christmas gifts. Little Kiwi was not thrilled to have her hands and feet smushed into the clay and screamed almost the whole time. She did well with the first hand print, but she was also so kind to spit up on that clay piece the moment we pressed her hand on it. Lucky for Mr Kiwi, he was filming. Not so lucky for Little Kiwi, he was filming. I'll post pictures of this event (not the spitting up) when we go back in 3 weeks to paint the fired pieces.

Before dinner, we stopped at OSH to pick up 2 containers of ladybugs. I'll write a second post for them because it may get long.
We had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in Berkeley (where strangely one of the bussers recognized us from the cafe I knit at on Wednesdays, where he also works). Little Kiwi was pleasantly quiet the whole time, and while she cried in the car all the way home, it was very nice to have a peaceful dinner away from home.

Our Garden

2008-08-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to make 2 posts in one day, especially since I have acquired such a great reputation for long periods in between posts, so here is what else happened yesterday morning!

If you remember from here, I had made a cute little vegetable garden that we weren't sure was going to be a success or not. First of all, let's see what the whole thing looks like as of yesterday morning. This is the left side, which is melons, tomatoes, and lemon cucumbers (that you can see from this angle).

This is the right side which is still some cucumbers, mostly pumpkins, and then tall sunflowers.

In the morning, I was poking around, looking at all the plants and checking out the flowers when I saw something really exciting... PUMPKINS!!!

These are about the size of spools of thread. It's really neat to see our first attempt at a garden actually show success! I was too excited taking pictures of the pumpkins that I forgot to take a picture of the tiny watermelon that is (no kidding) the size of a pea. I'll have to do that later today.

Soakers and a Wrap

2008-08-12T10:54:00.001-07:00

I have finally taken some pictures of a few soakers that I finished... almost a month ago? Wow, has it been that long...
Well, here we go. These are all the Curly Purly pattern, and are in the order that I finished them. I knit them almost one right after another until I couldn't bring myself to knit another soaker (or had a baby.. you know.. one of those).

This one is actually more recent than the others; I just "finished" it on August 9th. It is not entirely complete, because when i went to buy the velcro to actually hold it together, I bought the wrong kind. One side has a sticky backing while the other is sew on. The sticky backing will not work for this project, and I must get the correct ones. Sighh.. Other than that, I think it looks really cute!
The pattern is the WHW Plain Wrap, and it's pretty easy to make! We'll see how it works out, although (yet again) the smallest size they had is still too big. I'm currently making an even smaller one using my own numbers, and hopefully that one will fit soon.

Size Does Matter

2008-08-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

One of the problems with having a baby that weighs only 6lbs (at 2 weeks old) is that none of her clothes fit. At all. She looks so silly in just about everything we have (except for 2 kimono shirts), including all the soakers I knit for her that I thought were going to be "too small". She would fit into preemie clothes, but at ~$30 for a single preemie outfit... Everything she has is huge on her teeny little body. Except for one thing.

FunSize First made and gave me a cute little pair of baby socks for her, and tonight I was finally able to get them on her wiggly feet. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much) it was infinitely easier to get the socks on her feet than it was to actually take pictures of said socks on her feet.

These socks are the only thing we have for her that fit perfectly. And they are so cute!!

So thank you, funsize for gifting something we can use now. :o)

Thank Yous

2008-08-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

I decided that I wanted to knit a Thank You gift for my two midwives for their help and support with the birth of my daughter. What could be a more fitting gift than Womb? I had some pink yarn that was the perfect weight, and after a little digging, I found US8 DPNs. Actually, I found 9 US8 DPNs, and I think I know where the last one is...
Anyhow, knitting womb was pretty fun and quick, which is just what is needed when a constantly hungry baby is in competition with the knitting for attention. Since I had 2 midwives, I made 2 wombs.

Tonight I had a visit at the birth center, so I brought along the little gifts. It is so easy to please them. Unfortunately we forgot our camera, so we didn't get a picture of the glee on their faces when I pulled them out of the bag. I think these were some of the best received gifts I have ever given, and they certainly were fun. I would never have any personal use for them, so I probably won't knit them again, but this was definitely the perfect gift for my midwives and the parts they played in one of the most important days of lives of the Kiwi Family.

We Goofed

2008-08-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

So yesterday Mr Kiwi and I decided we needed to wash baby laundry. We have a bin dedicated to burp cloths, clothes, receiving blankets, etc that is separate from the cloth diapers. Pretty self explanatory, right? Well, through some miscommunication between Mr Kiwi and I as to what is a "soaker" (things I knit) and what is a "diaper cover" (non-knit things), the little white soaker managed to make it into this laundry bin. I knew it had been placed in there (I think I asked 10 times where it was before doing the laundry) but for some reason it kept escaping me to take it out before washing the clothes. I didn't remember it was in there until everything was thrown in the dryer. Of course this wasn't helped by the fact that almost all baby clothes we have are white. Why do they do that? Babies are messy; why is white, the color that just about every stain will show up on, the most prevalent in baby outfits? So of course, the white soaker blended in with all the other white clothing.

All knitters should be cringing about now. Soakers are made from 100% wool to give them the high absorbency that they are used for. 100% wool when stuck in a washer which has heat + agitation and then in a dryer that also has heat + agitation, and yes, even in a front loading HE washer... will felt. I figured the damage was done, and I might as well fish it out at the end of the cycle.
Sure enough, it had felted. Not nearly as bad as I had expected it to, but the fabric was denser and it was a bit smaller than it had been before going in. I brought it into the house to show Mr Kiwi what had happened and to explain the difference in terminology and where things belong. Covers get washed with the diapers. Soakers are knit and get washed by hand. They don't go in the bin with clothes or diapers, and must have a designated area somewhere else. This is what happens to machine washed soakers.

We looked at the soaker for a minute, and looked at the 6lb baby, then back at the soaker. One of us got the bright idea to see if it still fits, since everything we have is huge on her. We pick her up, go to the changing table, and stuff her (gently of course) into the newly felted soaker. Surprise, surprise, it fits better now than it did before. Previously, it was huge and bulky, but now it fits like it should. This of course won't last long, but it is nice to know that A. we now have at least 1 thing that fits her properly, and B. the soaker is not a complete loss.

Sewing Project!

2008-07-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

So it was really easy. All I had to do was a little cutting, a little hemming, and a little measuring and stitching. And here we have Mr Kiwi modeling the sling with the sleeping Juniper curled up inside.

I have enough different fabrics to make at least 3 more, and possibly add some pockets to the tails.

I Have A Good Excuse!!

2008-07-30T16:04:00.001-07:00

Like anyone still reads this because of my more and more infrequent posting, but this time, I have a really good excuse for not posting in over a week. Really, I do!

That excuse is little Juniper.

She was born on July 21st (16 days before due date) at 12:04am (or 00:04), and weighed 6lbs 1oz. The morning of the 20th if you had told me that the next time I went to sleep it would be with a baby in my arms, I would have laughed at you. Actually, you could have told me at 9:30pm that night and I still would have laughed. It was a very fast labor (1hr 45mins!!) and we made it to the birth center just in time. Any later, and she would have been born in the car.
She is a trooper little baby and I am so proud to have her. We are all doing fine, although my knitting time has suffered a bit. I did however get one crafty project in yesterday, and that was to make our own sling! I had previously (in April, even, I think) purchased fabric I would need as well as the rings, and had anticipated working on them a little later. Well, schedules change, and I made my first sling yesterday. It's a big hit with the baby who loves to be carried and cries when the carrier stops walking... even if it is 3am... and it's just as much a hit to the Mr. who is now glad to be able to carry the baby while still having the ability to use his hands for other things. He's much happier taking her for a walk around the neighborhood this way instead of full in his arms.
We'll be taking pictures tonight and they will be posted shortly.

Backyard Garden

2008-07-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted about this! One of the draws to the new house was that I had free reign over the yard. I had big plans to make my first garden full of flowers and veggies and was really excited. The problem? I was starting out with dirt that's worse than clay. This ground had not be watered in over a year, aside only from the rain California had in the winter. So this is what I had to start with:This was what it looked like the morning of June 22. I had already planned and prepared for my garden to be, so I had planted sprouts that were waiting to have a more permanent home. For example, these pumpkins that I started from seeds.
We had bought sand, top soil, bricks, and tools and dug up the rock hard dirt in the corner of the yard. It took all day (on the first 100°F+ day of the summer) and half of the next before we were done. At the end, this is what it looked like, and I was quite proud of my new baby.
Each day I walk outside to pay attention to and water the garden, I am completely surprised at how amazing it is doing. Nearly a month after we set out to make a garden, this is what we have:

So, my first garden is looking like it's a success. Bees are visiting, and flowers are getting pollinated. Vines are sprouting, and I already have the start of my first yellow bell pepper! It's only about the size of a quarter, but it keeps getting bigger every day.
So this garden is yet another reason why I am slow to update and not being as productive in my knitting as I should be. Speaking of which.. progress really has been made. I'll post tomorrow instead of having one huge disjointed post tonight.

Soaker Mania!

2008-07-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

I've done as much cooking ahead as I can do at this point due to a way too small freezer, where almost half of it is consumed by an icemaker (which of course is a waste of space since it doesn't even work). I have 8 bags of dinners frozen which should be 8 dinners for 3 people. Assuming my mom is out here at the time, being the third person of course. I'm pretty proud of myself for the planning ahead, and hope that a week of meals is enough.

When I'm not cooking, I'm working on knitting soakers. They're pretty quick, even if my knitting productivity has slowed way down. By the time I take pictures of the last 2 I have finished, I have 2 more that need to have pictures taken. I've started my 6th soaker. Woo hoo! I've gotten pretty good at the Curly Purly pattern, so 5 of the 6 are the same pattern, just various sizes, colors, and yarns. I had wondered for a long time what I was going to do with the remaining yarn from the Frog Purse that I knit 2 years ago. Because of the red and green, it looks like I have Christmas soakers in my stash, however I have not knit a red and green soaker. One was red and white, however...

Once I finish the soaker I started yesterday, I think I am going to work on a cover-up for nursing during the colder months. While at Stitches West in February, I picked up this booklet, and some of the tops would be excellent. I'm thinking the Sanpoku would be excellent. I just have to make sure I have enough yarn for it. It will also be nice to have a break from soaker knitting.

Large scale cooking

2008-07-15T16:15:00.001-07:00

Today is my second day on maternity leave. I have had plans of things to do to keep from going insane being cooped up in the house all day. Over the weekend, Mr Kiwi and I went to Costco to buy some ingredients for me to do some massive cooking for freezing and having on hand when I'm too exhausted to even think about what to eat. I bought ingredients for Lasagna, Eggplant Parmesan, and Beef stew. Today (after a mid morning nap) I set on to cooking the lasagna. I cooked everything to the point of assembling it, then instead of in the oven, it went into the freezer for a few hours to thicken up. I then cut it into thirds and each third went into a freezer bag with the cooking time and temperature written on it.

While waiting for the lasagna to freeze, I started the eggplant parm. I had to wait until I transferred the lasagna before I could assemble the eggplants, since 1. My freezer is small and 1/2 of it is absorbed by an ice maker that does NOT work, and 2. I wanted to reuse the same pan since I was making enough mess with dishes anyhow.

I had plans to also do the beef stew today, but because of the freezer size (I want everything to cool flat as long as possible before I tilt them at funky angles) and the fact that my feet and lower back are pretty sore, I think that will be saved for Thursday.

I feel pretty good knowing that no matter when the baby comes, I won't have to worry about what to eat. I'll have at least 3 meals ready to go and all I'll have to think about is what sides to make. I feel pretty accomplished knowing that I'll have a couple of weeks' worth of meals already ready to go.

I've also finished another soaker since the last post, and am half way through another one.

Owed Pictures

2008-07-07T20:07:00.000-07:00

Man, I used to be so good at posting in a timely manner! Now, I really stink at doing any sort of updating, let alone a good picture post.

But here we go!
I have everything that I talked about in this post; 3 quick soakers and a baby sweater that I had just started at the time, but have just finished* today!

*Yes, I still have to add buttons to the back. I didn't realize I needed buttons when I started.

I made 2 soakers from the Curly Purly Pattern that seems to be quite popular.
The first soaker I decided to knit in the newborn size since, well.. I'm going to be having a newborn, not a toddler. Makes sense to me. Having never had a newborn before, I am *still* unsure of their size. it looked pretty small to me when i completed it, but it seems as though it might be the perfect teeny size for the first few weeks.

The other Curly Purly soaker I made was in the next size up. I also decided to try some color work! I made a row of three little white hearts in the background of red. These are really excellent stash busting projects, since I was wondering when and how I was going to use up my remaining Cascade220 from various felting projects that I had previously done. I think this one I am most pleased with, not just because of the hearts, but I like the size. This of course may change once I actually find out what size a real baby is.

This last one is from Ms Crafty Galore. I liked doing this pattern because it was slightly different from the Curly Purly, (and gave me excellent practice on kitchner stitch) but I am not sure how pleased I am going to be when actually putting it to the test. Where I picked up around the leg holes are slightly bigger and floppier than I would like, leading me to suspect that it would be enough for leaking. I'm going to have to figure out what I want to do with those; maybe undoing them and changing to smaller needles or doing a rolled cuff instead. This one ended up being the largest of the three soakers and was made with Crystal Palace Fjord, instead of Cascade.

Finally, I have the Sirdar #3170 sweater I had made (and realized I massively messed up on KIP day). The mess up wasn't a big deal, and I certainly like it better now that I have it knit up correctly. Just today I finished seaming and weaving in the ends. That counts for something on timeliness, right?! Seaming really was a pain, but I stuck through it knowing that if I didn't get it all done today I wasn't going to want to touch it or any other knitting for a little while. I am very happy with the final result and can't wait to stick a baby in it! Planning ahead, I made the 3-6 month size, since well... I can't think of anyone who would want to be stuck in this thing during the whole month of August, and by the time winter hits, look at that! The Little Bit will be ~3-4 months old, falling in the age-size thing that baby patterns seem to go by. Hopefully my plan works. This was also knit using Plymouth Yarn's DreamBaby DK.

So there ya go! The knitting I have been working on as of late. Tonight, I think I may start another soaker and bust through more Cascade. I'm going to have to buy more wool for this purpose. Hmm.. what should I use?

Felting!!

2008-06-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

Let's talk felting. Taking a knit item and throwing it in the wash so that it shrinks and tightens. I'm not talking about when you have that really nice sweater that your mother-in-law bought you for Christmas the year before you became in-laws, and after the third wearing, you accidentally stick it in the washer and dryer in your college dorm laundry facilities and it comes back squat and too small. No, I mean the trendy thing to do when you knit something loose and HUGE with the intent of throwing it in the washer, beating it beyond belief, and ending up with this cute little... whatever it is.

I don't claim to be an expert on felting, by any means. I know the simple rules: temperature, agitation, wool. One can get more detailed in these rules, such as alternating very hot and very cold water, what is the best way to agitate the fabric (tennis balls, jeans, etc), and what percentage of wool in the yarn composition. Oh yeah, another basic would be no super-wash. That defeats the purpose.

The one thing about felting that I just don't get however, is that people are constantly claiming that you "can't felt in a front loader/HE machine". Who in the world started this rumor? I mean really. I had never heard of this rumor until after I had successfully felted 3 projects. ..in my front loading HE machine. The first project I felted I knew very little about felting. All I knew was that I needed heat (hello, whitest whites setting!) stuff it in a pillow case so that felty bits didn't get caught in my washer, add some detergent, a pair of jeans, and go! I let it go for one single run. When I pulled it out, I was expecting that it was going to be saggy and not the nice little crisp bag I was intending. I was actually prepared for having to run it multiple times before getting the size and thickness I wanted. Woah, was I wrong! It came out perfect that first time.

So why is it that I am still hearing all the time that you can't use these washers for felting? Why do people still question it? Why don't people trust that it will work? No, really?

Knitting and heat

2008-06-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

The past few days as it gets hotter and hotter, knitting becomes harder and harder. It's not that I am working with wool at the moment, or working with anything huge or thick. However as it reached 100°F today, as I try to knit the yarn gets stuck on my fingers. It doesn't move and it is hard to keep proper tension. Eesh!

All I want to do is relax and knit, but what can you do when you can't even knit due to the heat?

New Knitting

2008-06-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

Once again it seems I have fallen victim to the empty blog. I need to stop starting posts out with some such variation of a guilty admittance of not having written often enough.
Well! The Icarus ended up being very nice, and was fun to wear at the wedding. Unfortunately, only moments before I left the house one of the peaks snagged on a door and pulled about 3 inches of yarn, creating this nice floppy loop. I can't figure out in what direction to pull or where it came from in order to get it back into place. It may take some really good looking into, or maybe something as simple as a reblocking (which it needs anyway since it spent about weeks crumpled up after the wedding). It's not too big of a deal though; someone would only notice if 1. They were a knitter, and 2. They were specifically looking for it because I mentioned it. Which means I have to be careful around all of you ;o)
Since finishing the Icarus, I decided I needed some quick projects. I needed to work on baby things. Soakers!! One can never have too many of those, and they burn up stash wool, like all of the Cascade220 I have managed through felted bags. I made 3 soakers, 2 being the same pattern, and one being a different one. They all ended up being slightly different sizes since I still don't know how big babies are when they're born adn how long they stay at certain sizes. Of course I don't have pictures, but I'll try to remedy that quickly.
Fearing I'd get burnt out on soakers, I decided to start a baby sweater with more stash yarn (are we sensing a theme here?). I misunderstood one of the directions in the pattern, and although I thought it looked strane and that things were just not right, I kept going anyway. It wasn't until I was 3/4 finished with the back of the sweater (and at KIP Day!!) that I looked at it and said "something really is just not right". I had to rip back to the first inch of 1x1 ribbing border, but no big deal! It's a mini-sweater, so frogging went quickly, and now I am already back to the point of where I had ripped. Much less painful than frogging a full sized swweater, and much easier to recover from.
As I slipped in above, I did get a chance to go back to MFA and hang out with some of the regulars for Knit in Public Day. It was very fun and good to see people again. My only complaint was that my sciatica was acting up so bad that it was very painful to walk even though I was only walking about 2 blocks at a time. And even then, it was very infrequent. I'm not used to walking so slow, but I sure was being forced to or I'd probably fall over. The weather was excellent and very cooperative. No more 90° heat, just some nice sun, cool breeze, and thanks to the scaffolding we had some shade too! A nice start to a very relaxing weekend.

Are We Sick of the Icarus Yet?

2008-05-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

I blocked the shawl yesterday when I got home from work before cooking dinner, bathing a cat, and running out to go to our class. In my excitement, I completely forgot to take a picture of it unblocked, and really wanted to take picture of it while it was soaking in the sink, but at the time Mr Kiwi and the camera were not home and it had to be done quickly so I could finish the remainder of the above list.

Since we have moved to a house with no carpet, I can't sit down and pin the shawl to the floor. That's what beds are for; beds with pillow top mattresses. I started to pin the length of the shawl with blocking pins, but after doing only half of it, I decided it was a stupid idea since it would be faster to just thread in the blocking wires, pin it in 4 places and then move on to pinning the peaks. I'd also avoid unwanted scallops on the straight edge this way as well. Unlike last time, once I got the wires in I only had to pin the shawl once since I followed the directions on binding off in the loose way they directed. I am pretty impressed with the size and am also glad that I spent a whole day ripping out those 14 rows since 1. I have a few yards of the ball left over, and 2. it seems to be the perfect size. Mr Kiwi was not exactly thrilled to come home from work to a frantic me with a wet shawl pinned across the bed, however when we got home from class at about 10:15pm he was a good sport and quickly hot some pictures before I ripped all the pins out and passed out on the bed.

Speaking of pictures....

This shawl was really pushing the deadline. I knew this was a busy month and that I would cut it close, but due to some unforeseen events it took about a week or two longer than I had anticipated. The point however is that I will be wearing it to the wedding tomorrow, and may get some good shots of it in action. I am very proud of this shawl, and am excited about getting to wear it out!

Icarus Complete!!

2008-05-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, almost. I still have to block the shawl, but as of this very moment it is completely bound off and waiting to be soaked and stretched. I still have to figure out exactly how I am going to accomplish this since my oh so convenient carpet that I used for blocking is non existent in the new house. Looks like I might have to lock the cats out of the bedroom and block on the bed.

Last time I updated, I was excited about only having 24 rows left; ie Chart4. I forgot that there were also 4 rows of edging that had to be done. I also surprised myself in that I did complete all of the charts by the end of the Memorial Day weekend. The 4 edging rows were not very complicated at all, and went by pretty quickly... as quick as that many stitches in one row can go.

Hooray! I made my deadline! I finished only 3 days before it was "due" and am pretty proud. This means that I can begin knitting other items, perhaps baby related. I think I need a few small projects after those 2 huge shawls in a row.

Again with the excuses: moving, unpacking, yadda, yadda.. pictures will be posted eventually.. I promise!

More Icarus

2008-05-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

I am starting Chart4 of the Icarus Shawl. Only 24 rows left to go! If I complete 4 rows a day, I should be done Thursday night. However, with work and evening commitments, I am not sure I can get those four rows every day, so luckily with the long weekend I can hope to get most of it done this weekend in time to wash, block, and wear it on Saturday.
I don't think I'm ever going to knit on a deadline again. Too stressful!

Icarus Update

2008-05-20T20:04:00.001-07:00

And we've moved! We are now settling into our new house and are happily procrastinating unpacking all of the boxes. And we have had internet at the new place for about an hour and a half now. But this is not the point of the post.

This is an update on the Icarus that I am so trying to complete (less than two weeks!) for the wedding. I had previously thought that it wasn't going to be big enough and decided to add an extra repeat of Chart1 before doing the partial chart and diving into chart2. While I was working on the partial repeat AFTER completing the extra repeat of the chart, I decided that no, this was now going to be an Icarus blanket, not an Icarus shawl. And we don't want that. During the move, I managed to hurt my hips to the point where I could NOT remove myself from the couch without shrieking in agony (no lie) so I spent most of my time working on the shawl/blanket. It was during this time that I decided to rip back the 14 rows needed to undo the extra mess that I had created for myself.

Ripping lace is not entirely straight forward. If this was anything else, I would have slid the stitches off and started pulling, confident in my abilities to sort it out in a timely manner. The size lace weight yarn I am using and the Yo's next to ssk's and k2tog's made it so that I really didn't want to just rip and hope. Of course, being the cocky knitter I am, I had no lifeline. So what am I to do?

After doing one row, I decided that tinking was going to take waaay too long, and seeing as how I have a fast approaching deadline this was almost certainly not an option. I tried about 10 times to thread an afterthought lifeline, but alas the YO's, ssk's, and k2togs made it almost impossible to see if I was picking the right stitches. Solution? I decided that tinking back every 5 stitches out of 12 was better than tinking all those 12, so I thread a lifeline through the 7 plain knit stitches and skipped the pattern part. I dropped the knits and tinked back on the pattern, making sure not to drop anything vital. This ended up being much faster and successful than my alternative, and had I known in which box or bag the camera was in, I would have taken pictures of the before and after shots.

I am happy with the decision since I know the size will be what I want, but the only thing that makes me sad is the time that I spent doing all those extra rows and then having to undo them. I could have been getting it right the first time! Oh well. I am now almost finished with Chart2 (only 2 more rows left!) and will soon be moving on to Charts 3 and 4. I'm estimating that even if I power through I'll still be cutting it close and may finish May 30th. Today is the 20th after all... I only have 10 days left to work on it before having to wear it on the 11th day.

Knitters' Baby Shower

2008-05-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last night was my last Thursday night knitnight group for a few months. My birthing classes have been so (in)conveniently scheduled for 7pm on Thursday nights in San Francisco, which is the same time as the knit group meets. The wonderful knitters threw me a baby shower since I won't been seeing them much before the baby is born. On the MFA group on Ravelry they kept a post going communicating with each other planning last night, and I was forbidden to look at it. I behaved and didn't click it until I got home last night.
It was a wonderful event with some delicious cake, fruits, and drinks. I received a beautiful blanket of 16 knit squares that the knit nighters each made. It was beautifully peiced together, and each sqaure was very pretty and interesting. With some of the left over yarn RevKnits made a cute little hat. AuntieJojo gave me a set of 5 cute onsies, VSkiver gave me a little washcloth square that matches the blanket, Ms.Crafty knit a beautiful little sweater for the baby, Suzanne gave me cute little bootees, and Aliflo gave a cute monkey comfort blanket. (I think I am remembering everything; I don't have my cheat sheet on me!)
Everyone put in so much work to throw such a fun party, and I appreciate all those wonderful people have done. Lynitter did an excellent job coming up with little games to play (even though we kept getting distracted by knitting and yarn to focus on racing to get the games). The "guess the size of the belly" game with the yarn was amusing; I decided to play as well, cutting my own string after everyone else had. All but two people overestimated my belly size; even me!
It was such a fun night, and thank you all so much for planing this out. You are all so wonderful, and the next time I'll see most of you is the knit in public day!
Of course because of moving to a new house this weekend, as of tomorrow I am going to be out of internet and won't be able to post any pictures of the event. I do hope a certain someone sends me photos so I can post some up here, but it will certainly won't be a speedy process.

Suffering Knitting.

2008-05-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

I know, I know.. I haven't been updating. A lot has been going on here; we are in the midst of packing all of our belongings to make a move from our crummy apartment to a slightly less crummy house. Work has also been more stressful than I can summarize, and my knitting has been suffering. I've had less time to knit with everything going on, and am starting to feel stress about making my May 31st deadline for the Icarus shawl. I'd take a picture of the progress, however the camera and computer that it hooks into are already packed up.
We're moving on Saturday and won't have internet for a while, so my updates are again going to be pretty sparse, unfortunately. But hopefully my knitting will pick up and when I do get a chance to post again, there will be many pictures and fun things to write about

Shawl Status

2008-04-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ever since finishing the Flower Basket Shawl I have been working on the Icarus which I plan on wearing to the wedding on May 31st. It's been pretty slow going since I've been under a lot of life pressure. There's been stress at work, but mostly we have been spending all of our time searching for a new place to live. Last week we finally found a place and put down the deposit. We've spent some of the past 2 days packing boxes to move to the new place, and the rest of this month and into May we're going to be packing more, moving, and unpacking. So all of this means less time to spend knitting. Hopefully I'll still manage to get the shawl done in time for the wedding, and not blocking it the night before the wedding!

I wore the flower basket shawl to the bridal shower, and it was a hit! People were impressed and it was very comfy and fun to wear. I've gotten a lot of compliments on the shawl, and it makes me pretty proud that my first lace at this gauge was received so well! The Icarus is being knit at an even finer lace weight, so hopefully it will come out just as nice and be just as impressive.

Flower Basket Shawl

2008-04-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

Over due post! Last week (April 14th) I finished the Flower Basket Shawl. Usually, I do a sewn bind off because it leaves the edge nice and loose, which is what I wanted with this. However, binging off some multi-hundred stitches this way is less than efficient, so I did a regular I don't know what to call it bind off, and went up 2 needles sizes. All proud of my finished shawl, I spread it's ruffly self on the bed to take a pre-blocked picture and measurements, and then threw it in a sink full of water and Soak for 15 minutes before pulling it out, squishing it in a towel, and attempting to block it on the floor. I pulled out my blocking wires for the first time (yai!) however it was not a successful block. In the time it took me to try pinning, undoing, repinning, and readjusting, the whole thing dried, and I was still not getting the pretty little peaks that were supposed to be there. It took me maybe an hour and rug burns on both knees to decide that maybe I needed to undo the bind off, and redo it with a much looser one. I stayed up late picking the stitches apart (which probably took another hour) and then redid a nicer bind off. Really now, who among us has not ever stayed up late just trying to do one more row, get past this one part, or finish the whole thing because "I'm so close!!" Even before re-blocking, I could tell that this new bind off was going to be a lot more successful.

The lesson I learned this time was that blocking and getting the peaks works MUCH better if you bind off correctly. It also takes less than 1/4 the time to do. Don't make the same mistake twice. I'm pleased with this, although because "it's only a shawl" I didn't do a gauge swatch, so when I took it off the needles, I didn't know how big it would be. Jon said it looked like a cape. This instantly led my mind down the lines of purple-flower Bat Girl!! I didn't say it out loud, but the image is still there and amuses the crap out of me.

Onto the pictures!

Pre-blocking:

Closeup of blocked detail:

Showing the back being worn just before the shower:

And a side view to see the belly... oh, and the shawl!

Dresses and Shawls

2008-03-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

In continuation of my shawl and dress dilemma, I decided to stop off on the way home from work to a maternity outlet store. This store was really nice and big and had a huge selection of dresses! I was pleased that I actually had enough that looked decent and actually had to think about a few. I ended up unable to decide between two dresses, and since they weren't crazy expensive, I bought them both. That way I could show Mr Kiwi and get opinions, and take my time over thinking about them. I can also wear them a bunch of times and get good financial mileage out of them. Mr Kiwi prefers one over the other, so that will be the one I wear to the wedding, however I also have the bridal shower to go to where I could wear the other one. I am so NOT a dress person and usually go out of my way to get out of wearing one, but right now I am not so much a fan of pants. Or shorts. Or anything other than my underpants. So I may find myself in a comfy dress more than I'd have thought (Mr Kiwi was actually surprised to come home to find me with my pants still on since for the past few weeks, ripping them off is the first thing I do once getting in the door).
As if anyone really had to question, both dresses are predominantly purple. They are also highly patterned, so I don't feel I can used a variegated or bold yarn without it clashing with the dress. So because of the colors, I am down to the Misti Alpaca from two posts ago, as well as the Jojoland merino. I am still trying to decide if the Jojoland is too variegated. I might just stick with the Misti Alpaca since it it is solid and a safe bet. As for the pattern? I'm debating between the Icarus and Flower Basket shawls. Hmmm.

A Long Post... But with Pictures!

2008-03-25T17:34:00.000-07:00

I took pictures of my most recent finished projects. Woo hoo!

First, we have the Double Wing Top that I recently completed. I have worn it twice since it came off the needles. The verdict? I'm still getting used to it. I like the way the pattern looks, however I wish the charts were written in the right order so I could have the lacy pattern at the bottom and the closed fabric on top, or all lacy pattern. I think it kinda looks a little off having the solid pattern on the bottom with the rest lacy. Since this is a more summery tank for me, I am pretty happy with the lacy-breezy feel, but it just means that I have to wear a small tank underneath. The only other thing I'm not too happy about it its length. This is my own fault however, since it is entirely the yarn I was using, but I also figure that it'll be one of the last shirts that still covers my stomach come July.
The yarn I used was Sweet Grass Wool Toe Jammies. It is a superwash wool and tencel yarn, which means that blocking is difficult. The yarn likes to soak up water and stretch as far as it can. For shawls, great! For tops, not so great. I was pre-warned (thank god) that if stretched, this will NOT spring back. So instead of proper blocking, I have used the dryer. It actually did a good job of what I would expect from blocking; more even stitches, nice fluff, soft..
You can also tell in some of the pictures where I wasn't actually doing math to figure out where to make my modification to string in the rope, but it's not too big of a deal to me. I am also VERY glad I did, since the "empire" shaping that the directions had me do were not enough and without the rope I look like a frumpy square. Thank you, insta-shaping!

Next is the Pinwheel Baby Blanket that I March 14 and finished March 22. It was knit on size US10 needles using Cascade Bollicine Maxi. The blanket went pretty quickly and was a nice brainless knit where I didn't really have to think too much about what I was doing. The only thing that was a tad bit irritating was having to start with the DPNs. Because I am not used to using them (hello, magic loop!) some of my stitches were wonky towards the center, however when I figured I had enough stitches, I moved up to the smallest circular needles I had. When the stitches got to crammed on those needles, I replaced the cable for a bigger one. THIS is where the Knit Picks Interchangable Set comes in quite handy. I decided instead of doing a plain knit cast off I would try to make a fancy edging. Also, because (as everyone knows) stockinette curls, and no amount of blocking is going to eliminate it completely. I decided to try a picot edging to see if that helped with the stitch's tension. It seems to have helped some, but of course not 100%. I'm still quite happy with it though. I also decided to start the bind off when I had a little over half a ball of yarn left, and good thing too! By the time I was finished, I had a whole 3 yards left. Whew! Yes, by the half way point I was sweating quite a bit.

And finally on the evening of March 22 I cast on for the Vine Lace Baby Hat. The only thing I remember about the yarn is that it is wool. This is a very easy pattern to memorize and knit, and I ended up finishing the next day, March 23. The only edit I made to this pattern was to add an extra panel or repeat since I wanted it to be a slightly larger size and since the yarn was smaller than gauge and I only have limited DPNs (see comment in the Pinwheel Blanket). It didn't make a difference to the decrease directions, with the exception of how many stitches I pulled the yarn through in the bind off; 10 instead of 9. I used a balloon to block the hat, which also doubled as a perfect model for pictures. I also decided to photograph the crown since I think the decreases are pretty cool looking.

Decisions, decisions...

2008-03-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

I finished the Double Wing Top on March 11th (and still have to get Mr Kiwi to take pictures..) and set on to a new, fast project; the pinwheel baby blanket. I had 5 skeins of a nice worsted weight wool and acrylic blend, and am almost finished with the blanket too!

I'm already plotting out my next project, and I am sure most of us knitters have found ourselves in a similar situation... I have a wedding to attend the last weekend in May, and am told that it may get a little chilly at the evening reception. New project: shawl! The problem? I don't have my outfit picked out yet, so picking the appropriate shawl and color is proving to be a bit difficult. So far I think I've convinced myself to either knit the Icarus Shawl or add some repeats to the Swallow Tail Shawl. I have plenty of time if I start next week, right? Since my yarn budget is quite tight right now I am trying to knit from my stash. My options are:
one skein of Claudia Hand Painted in the Blue Fields colorway.
2 skeins of Misti Alpaca Lace

2 skeins of Jojoland Harmony in the hc09 colorway
or 4 skeins of Crystal Palace Kid Merino.

(and yes, I realize how lame it is that I only have 1/2 the pictures)

So I have purples, a blue/yellow/green, and a cream/brown/white. I know that her bride's maids are going to be in moss green dresses with pink flowers. Seeing as how this is the first wedding I'm attending since being of the age of being forced into the flower girl role (oh, the scars! The memories!!) I don't know if I should match their colors or if I should wear whatever I happen to show up in. And should I plan the shawl and get the dress based on the shawl, or should I get the dress with these color combos in mind and then plan the shawl? Or should I just give up on knitting a shawl altogether and try to find a dress that matches the Famous Boise Shawl? All this, keeping in mind that a "simple dress" is not so easy for me to find since I am on a limited budget, and am restricted to maternity stores.

Maybe I should cut to the chase and go dress shopping this weekend and then look at my shawl making options. Hmm...

Results!

2008-03-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

Well this morning we had our appointment for the anatomy scan and to find out the sex. About an hour before we were planning on leaving there was a huge accident on the west end of the Bay Bridge closing 3 lanes and making the bridge even more congested and backed up than it usually is. The appointment was in San Francisco (UCSF Med Center) which meant we had to scurry to make it accross the Richmond and then GG Bridges as alternate (more expensive due to tolls) route. We ended up getting there at 9:45am when the appointment was at 10:30. Lucky for us, the u/s tech was ready and waiting (someone must have been unlucky enough to get stuck in the bridge mess) so we got in instantly.
Most of the pictures were for measurements, checking fluid, heart chambers, and all that fun stuff. It was weiiiird to see a picture of the face straight on and actually make out the eyes, nose and mouth. I'd say it was beautiful and moving, but honestly it was kind of scary in a creepy horror show kind of way. Since it was in the morning, I hadn't eaten more than a bowl of oats, and hadn't been moving a heck of a lot, someone was still napping in a nice little tightly curled ball. I was actually mostly expecting and preparing myself for a shy baby not giving up the goods. The majority of the people at work and in knitting who gave input on what they thought said boy, while only 4 total said girl. In order to get better glimpses of the baby, the tech had me roll on my side, or stretched the table out, or flipped me upside down. I think after laying flat the first time when the tech went to measure the femurs, he asked if I had been having much morning sickness. Luckily, I haven't. He replies with "Well, there goes that theory". Of course since it is a fuzzy black and while image of bouncing sound waves, it is not 100%, but it seems as though we have a little lady floating around in there.
Now we get to embark on the name game. We've decided that just in case, we'll also come up with a back up boy name, but for now it's focusing on narrowing down those girl names.

Non Knitting Post

2008-03-05T18:20:00.000-08:00

So this coming Friday (as in the day after tomorrow) is the day we go in for the "Big Ultrasound". I figured I'd play a game with any and everyone who reads my blog and have people place bets or guesses as to what they think we'll find. I'd embed a poll in here, but I'm not computer savvy enough to figure out how. Plus, I have a very short attention span.

So! Comment with your guess! Not promising a prize for the winner(s), but I'll let everyone know once Friday is over. :o)

Picture Updates!

2008-03-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

I've been promising post after post to actually put up some pictures of knitting that I have completed. Well, it seems like this is the post.

Here is the Simply Marilyn that I completed in November and never took pictures of.

It's started pilling some, but I half-assed took a sweater stone to it, and it looks a lot better already!
Here is the most recent FO; the Minimalist Cardigan.

This is a very comfortable Cardigan and since it doesn't close in the front, I can wear it for a while as my belly continues to expand.

I am currently working on the Double Wing Top from Expectant Little Knits, and I actually have details of the progress thus far!

Stitches West 2008

2008-02-25T19:11:00.000-08:00

This weekend was amazing. And not may people can say it happened to be the same weekend their in-laws were in town.

It was a combination weekend of Jon's birthday and a gift in the form of an event that I gave my MIL for Christmas. Jon and I both took Friday off of work, but that didn't mean that we got to sleep in any. His parents came over at about 8am, and shortly thereafter his mom and I took off for Santa Clara. We had Stitches West, a knitting convention to go to, and we were taking classes! This was exciting for many reasons; it was the first of the three years I've gone that I have been able to take classes, I was going down for more than just one day, and I got to share it with someone who was really going to appreciate it as much as I do.

It was a trick finding parking, and decided to skip the line of traffic circling the convention center, which left us parking illegally in a lot across the street. We were one of at least 500 cars that had also already parked, so we felt safe that they wouldn't ticket and tow each one of us. We got onto the market floor, and of course it was fiber overload. We bounced from booth to booth, oohing and ahhing, touching, petting, and admiring every yarn we saw. For the most part, we had decided not to buy anything on Friday and that it would be better to wait for the sales when we came back on Sunday. Of course, there were a few exceptions to the rules. I ended up buying a skein of medium weight Socks That Rock in their Purple Rain colorway from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Deb ended up getting a kit from White Lies Designs to make the Alyce Tee, and of course I want to steal the pattern from her once she is done. I had to replace a pattern for the Milinda Pullover that was taken from me, and of course picked up another one for the Leticia Cardigan. How could I resist? The final pattern purchase of the day was at the Stitch Diva Studios Booth for the Hourglass Jacket. Most of their patterns are so interesting and give the impression that they are a blast to make. It wasn't until I was home with the pattern that I check whether or not it was a knit or crochet pattern. While I learned crocheting first, I am a much better knitter and it would probably take me 100 times longer to finish a crocheted piece, if only for the time it took me to stop and look up how to do each stitch I was supposed to be using.

At about noon, we had lunch (read, Deb had a burger and I stupidly only had fries) before finding where we were supposed to go for our first class at 1:30pm: Stashology taught by Christine Bylsma. The premise of the class is that knitters are really good at acquiring yarn, making something (or not), and being left with little left over bits that fill our stash bins. She taught us how to effectively use up these remaining bits to make a tasteful sweater, top, pillow, or whatever. It was a really cool class, and without going into obnoxious details it really made us think differently about our yarns, how we use them, and what we can do with the remainders. The only thing I wish to unlearn from the class was how to do the "diva stitch". It was basically making fringe hang out from the middle of your work to make a yarn-boa, ugly fringey pillow cover, or...something else very.. unattractive. But aside from that, the class was wonderful and worth it.

We walked around the market a little more before deciding we were finished for the day and headed to the mall for dinner and some shopping before coming home. Remember that french fry lunch? Well, at this point I was really feeling it. I was so overstimulated that I was ignoring my stomach so my body got back at me by giving me an awful headache and an all over crappy feeling. We ate, and I felt better enough to get some clothes, which means cycling through more than just 5 outfits for me. Woo hoo! Diversity in things I can fit into! We got home at about 9:30pm, and stayed up until about 10:30 while we waited for the guys to get back from railfanning in Oroville. I couldn't take it anymore, so we both crashed.

On Saturday we all spent the day together at the Cartoon Museum, eating at home, and running some errands. I had to recover from my lack of nutrition the day before, so I napped for a few hours just before dinner.

Sunday was the earliest day of them all, since we had a class at 8:30am. We ended up making excellent time due to the lack of anyone else on the road, and got to the convention center at about 7:30am. We got some pastries and coffee/tea for breakfast before heading off to find the room for our class on Bead Knitting with Betsy Hershbergh. This promised to be a very interesting class, since I knew that there were a number of ways to embellish knit items with beads, but I didn't want to spend the time finding out and researching everything myself. It did end up being informative and we got to make a swatch with different methods of getting the beads in there. I think my biggest complaint with the class was the speed. I realize I am a fast knitter and have ADD, but it kind of bored me to finish the row we were supposed to be doing, along with the set up rows for the next sample, and have to wait 10 minutes before she suggested to the group that we get to the set up rows for the next sample. I kept getting ahead because I had nothing else to do, and would get frustrated when I actually had to stop and wait because I couldn't figure out on my own what we were supposed to do. I think at that time I was 20 minutes ahead. Deb and I took that time to plan our attack on the market floor with what we were going to buy that day. By the time the class was over, it was nice to get up and leave, however it was also a pretty educational class, so I can't complain about the pace too much. Sunday we were smarter than Friday, and after stopping only at Brooks Farm Yarn so we could each indulge, we instantly headed for lunch. This time I had a burger since it was bigger and had more substance than a thing of fries.

I quickly got distracted from my food and was looking at the surrounding booths planning what I would be attacking next. After much more wandering, debating, and wandering some more, I ended up with a pattern for this super cute kids' hat from KnitWhits, and Deb bought me some Superwash Merino Tencel in a color close to a light version of the Iris colorway (of course it's not written on the hank) so that I could start a maternity top that I have been drooling over. The pattern is the cover from Expectant Little Knits. After deciding that we had done enough damage and were sufficiently overloaded, we headed home to relax.

It was exhausting weekend, and I was not ready to get up this morning, but it was well worth it. :o)

Minimalist Blocking

2008-02-17T18:13:00.001-08:00

That's it! The Minimalist Cardigan is off the needles, and blocking. Hooray! Hopefully tomorrow I can start seaming it up and have it completely ready for Stitches West! My very next post should include a bunch of pictures of the Minimalist blocking, being seamed, and being worn! I also owe pictures of the Simply Marylin that was finished eons ago but was never photographed.

Now the dilemma is: what to knit next? Mr Kiwi has hijacked my sock needles or I'd start a pair. I think someone should just buy me new Addi's and keep the ones he's harboring. ;o)
I'm thinking something small-ish, quick, and doesn't require a lot of brain power. A scarf it is! I love the feeling of accomplishment.

Finished baby Bear items

2008-02-10T08:14:00.001-08:00

Yesterday morning I finished the baby gift that I was making for a friend's baby shower. It was the Teddy Bear Hood, Mittens, and Bootees pattern from Debbie Bliss' Kids' Knits for Heads, Hands, and Toes. I thought I would get a picture of the finished set (sans mittens.. I didn't have time) however when i tried using my camera, I found it stubbornly broken. What a weekend for Mr Kiwi to be in Tahoe skiing with his sister, thus taking his camera with him, huh? So to make this not another pictureless post, I found the image that was in the book. Hopefully in a month I can get a picture of a baby wearing the one I made ;o)

This was the only photo that was shown, which was good and bad. There were some parts in the pattern notes that were not exactly clear and because they are not visible in the photo, it was a little challenging to figure out exactly what I was supposed to be doing. A little trail and error, and I figured it out.
Knitting baby stuff is very quick and fun. It's almost instant gratification because they are so small and fast to make.

Knitting Change?

2008-02-01T18:26:00.001-08:00

Last night a friend brought many baby knitting books for me to cruise through and knit baby items from. I took advantage of the great timing (and her generosity!!) and set to work finding a baby pattern... for a friend's baby shower that is taking place next Saturday. I had pretty short notice that this shower was happening, so I have to get on it pretty quickly! After consulting the other women I was with, we chose a pattern from the three options I gave everyone.
Since the shower is a little over a week away, I have to break my one project rule and get started on the gift! And honestly, I was looking forward to getting a bit of a break from the never ending moss stitch that my entire sweater is being made with. So tonight I sat down to begin knitting, and after the cast-on row, the instructions set me up for.. yep. 1x1 ribbing.
Ironic, huh?

Finally an Update

2008-01-26T11:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, it has been waaay too long since I have updated this site. I have been feeling bad because my track record lately has been of pictureless posts, and I wanted to wait until I have actual pictures to post so that some color and pretty could be brought onto this page. However, it only resulted in no posts whatsoever, which makes for a much more boring blog.

So! When we last left our hero she was working on obtaining the very last ball of Debbie Bliss needed to finish the Simply Marilyn sweater that she was working on. (okay, enough of that) I finished the sweater Thanksgiving Day while at a family friend's house celebrating with a Turducken (it is really a heck of a lot tastier than it sounds... trust me on this one). Instantly after finishing, I picked up and worked on what little I had done of the Minimalist Cardigan. Even without working on any other projects in the meantime, I am still finding myself working on the cardigan. So much for monogamy making knitting one item go faster, huh? Well, I have a good excuse..

The weekend of Thanksgiving, we found out I'm expecting. Yep, my home of two is about to become a home of three. And that sounds very weird. With the low energy I have been experiencing, doing something as easy as knitting has become too much effort, when all I want to do is lay on the couch, sleep or eat everything in sight. Recently however, I have picked up the sweater again and am forcing myself to knit through it. I'm beginning to get some (some, most definitely not all) of my energy back and knitting has resumed. I am half way through the left front panel and only have the sleeves left to do. thank goodness they are 3/4 length. ;o)

While knitting on the Minimalist Cardigan, I decided to play around with the way I purl. I've never felt comfortable with purling, and have changed my method about 3 times already. I knit continental. I finally figured out a nice way to hold the yarn over my fingers as I knit and purl so that transitioning between the two is easier and smoother. This is essential as I'm doing Moss stitch and am alternating knits and purls with every stitch. I've noticed that with my stockinette my stitches have become much more even as well. Hooray! I've finally found a method that I am comfortable with!

There are still more "Me" things I want to knit before diving head on into baby knitting, so I haven't done any of that yet. I have however ordered Expectant Little Knits from Amazon, and am impatiently waiting for it to arrive. I figured since little baby items knit so quickly, I don't really have to start knitting them until June. By then, it will be so warm I won't want to be knitting anything big anyhow and a nice little baby hat/socks/whatever will be much more welcome and quick, perfectly suited for my lacking attention span. I'm due August 5th, but of course that should be taken with a grain of salt.

So that's what's been going on in this little Kiwi's life as of late! Happy knitting in 2008!

2007-11-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

The Debbie Bliss yarn came in a lot sooner than I expected. I think on Monday the LYS owner let me know that it was in and I could pick it up. So yesterday on my way home from work, I decided to swing out to the shop and pick it up, along with some yarn for the one and only Christmas knitting I will be doing. I unfortunately made the wrong decision and took the longest most traffic filled way, when I thought that it would actually be fastest. I took the highway that EVERYONE takes when trying to get to San Francisco (or the airport), so it was nice and backed up... at 2pm. Then I had to go through a tunnel, which wouldn't have been so bad, but a car fire was blocking one of the lanes and backed it up for about a mile. Whew! But I made it and my happy little perfectly matching ball of yarn was waiting for me.

This was the first time I was in The Yarn Boutique in about 2 years, and they had moved locations since I had been in there. It's a nice little place, and looks like they have more space than at the old location, and each inch of the store is certainly taken advantage of for housing yarn, books, and notions.

When I got home, I was excited to start knitting my sweater again, without having to worry about running out of yarn. I seamed up the sides and was knitting some of the collar when I got too excited and pulled it over my head. When I walked to Mr Kiwi, he popped up out of his chair and was sure to tell me how great and cute the sweater is and how much he likes it. (I think he's gotten really good at putting up a show about my knitting ;o) ) Because of the super chunky yarn, it is pretty heavy to hold, but once it is on, it feels so soft and warm. The pattern makes the sweater slightly loose and not fitted at all, but it looks nice and is very comfortable. I think this sweater will be in competition with the Placed Cable Aran as my favorite go to sweater. I've also noticed how similar they to are to each other with the cables running up the front and back.

To all of the American readers: Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone gets massive food induced comas all day and all weekend, and still manage to do lots of knitting!

Sweater Knitting

2007-11-16T16:42:00.001-08:00

I had been working on the Simply Marilyn throughout the week, and brought it to Stitch n Bitch with me on Wednesday. Before I left, I realized that I might need one extra ball of yarn. I had just finished the sleeves, and needed to attach everything and knit the collar. About 30 minutes into SnB, I ran out of yarn. So close to finishing the sweater too! I have found an LYS that found one ball of not only the color I needed, but the same dye lot too! All I have to do is wait for it to come in, and then my sweater will be finished soon after. Hooray!

While I'm waiting on that, I figured I should do some more stash busting and knit something out of the yarn I already have. I have decided to knit the Minimalist Cardigan with Alpaca with a Twist that I got on some crazy sale while visiting Booth Bay Harbor. So far, it is going very well. Because I am using such small yarn, with all the ribbing and seed stitches, this will be a pretty long project compared to my track record. But it feels so nice, so I'm really going to be enjoying this one. The alpaca is also a smaller gauge than the yarn they require, so I am simply following the directions for a larger size in order to get the size I really want.

It's Back!

2007-11-11T16:21:00.000-08:00

After Thursday's post of not enjoying the Mustard Parallelo, I decided enough was enough. It's unfortunate that I'm not going to finish that project, but on the bright side, I now have enough yarn to knit two much more enjoyable sweaters instead of the one. I might even have a ball or two left over from one (or both!) to make a hat or scarf from. All of these are much better situations than fighting with the darned pattern that will only make me think of how frustrating the knitting was each time I wear the sweater. Not something I want to think about each time I put on one of my own projects. Instead I will have two or more that will be more exciting to knit, and more fun to wear.

Friday after getting off of work, I sat myself down to try to find a new project to work on. I decided to walk away from GGH Bel Air and Soft Kid this time, and I'll focus on frogging later. My mother in law had sent me some yarn for my birthday that I haven't done anything with yet, so I figured it would be a good idea to use that up. Plus, since it is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky, it will end up being a quick project.

..little did I know....

After a bit of searching, I found Simply Marilyn which called for the exact yarn I have, and in the exact quantity. Great! I cast on Friday evening, and now Sunday afternoon, I have finished the front and back, and am working on the sleeves. This is much more rewarding than the last sweater; it's going quickly, it's enjoyable, relaxing, and I am looking forward to when I get to wear it.

Perhaps I'll get some pictures up when Mr Kiwi is around and let's me use his camera.

Rebecca Magazine

2007-11-08T22:08:00.001-08:00

Perhaps I got cocky. I plowed through my first two sweaters with absolutely no problems, and even modified as I went. I had too much faith in my knitting abilities. Now, I am one who rolls my eyes and mumbles "shut up!' when someone says "I am scared of [insert technique here] because it looks so haaardd and scary!" It's really annoying, and dammit, there is no reason to fear multiple circular needles, DPNs, cables, socks, etc. It's only knitting.

However, as I work on the Mustard Parallelo, with is pattern 32 from Rebecca Magazine Number 32, I find myself learning where UFO's and abandoned projects come from. These patterns have all been translated from German, and I have been having problems with it since I cast on. Nothing is described in a way that I can understand, and somethings simply don't make sense at all. Following suit with my last project (yeah, that lace scarf that no one really knows about), I feel like throwing this damn half finished sleeve in a corner and doing something else.

I know this can be a great sweater. A very comfortable sweater. But when I can't even figure out what the hell the pattern wants me to do, it makes me want to take the yarn out and make something completely different that does not come from a translated Rebecca magazine. They have very cute patterns, but dammit if I am ever going to try to knit one of them again.

Glute Rant

2007-11-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, so what's the deal? I've been in level2 for a year and a half, and I still can't walk and squeeze my glutes at different timings. This is most basic move, the foundation of my dance, and I can't execute it. What the heck is wrong?! My butt's not working right!!

This is definitely a situation where my brain is many levels ahead of my body and it is so incredibly frustrating.

IK Winter 2007 mini review

2007-11-06T08:09:00.000-08:00

Wow, I have not been posting as much as I used to! Why am I posting now? Well, it's turning into winter. When does winter officially start? How about when I get my Winter 2007 of Interweave Knits! I got my copy in the mail on Friday, and at least waited until I had to distract myself on the BART before cracking in and looking at everything. I must say that this time none of the patterns really jumped out at me screaming "Make me NOW!!" as some had in previous issues. And I actually found some of the articles were very good and drew me in more than the patterns (wait.. there are actual articles and not just pictures?! ;o) ). I found the alpaca information very interesting, and seeing as how I have only made two sweaters and was never told anything about sleeves, I was very interested in the Designer Secrets on Set-in Sleeves. There was a lot of good information that will definitely have me marking this page so that I can refer to it when playing with sweater patterns (which I am apparently apt to do).

Maybe it's me, and maybe I need to get myself up out of my never ending slump before I can really appreciate the patterns in this edition. Some look good, and I am impressed with the Ivy League Vest, however I have never done colorwork and I don't really wear vests. So while I can appreciate it, it's probably not something I will see myself making.

If any knitters really do subscribe or read my blog, leave me a comment and tell me what you thought of the issue. I am interested to know!

Dance Changes

2007-10-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling a bit guilty about not going to my dance classes as much as I used to since July. (Does that sentence even make sense?) I decided that I would go to the one class that I have neglected since the instructors headed off on tours/expanding/self serchings. Dance movements, here I come! I was expecting Kit to be the instructor for this, but I was mistaken. It was someone who is a very experienced dancer, but not someone I recognized. The class size was pretty small; maybe 10 compared to the 20 that I had previously been used to.
The new instructor is most likely classically trained, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. More specifically, for others it may be a good thing, but for me, at age 24 with this being the first time I am trying to do any sort of jazz/ballet, it is most definitely a bad thing. The whole format of the class has changed. Where I am used to using this class to build my strength and balance, it has turned into a full on jazz and ballet class. Where I used to be able to do about 1/2 of the things with confidence and maybe 1/4 with the idea that I'm almost good enough, now I could only fumble through half of it. I flopped around in this class the way I did when I first started "the other" one, however now I have no desire to continue. I don't feel like I am getting enough time in my stretches, and that it doesn't tie in well with my goals. I don't want to learn a jazz choreography at the end of class, and I feel like the whole class is geared towards getting the students ready for the choreography. I want to build strength and balance, and if I am too busy trying to figure out what the hell the instructor just did, it's never going to happen. The classes are too expensive for me to fumble and be frustrated the whole time.
So now I get to decide what I want as my second class of the week. I can take 2 of the same bellydance classes a week, a fusion/cymbals class, or Kit's own gypsy dance class. Maybe I'll just sit in and watch some of those classes to see which I most like. I know I've been meaning to take the fusion/cymbals class for about a year. Maybe this is my change to get up and do so.

A Little Bit of Self Reflection

2007-10-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of finding out who I am lately. In my knitting, my dancing, and my general creativeness.

It's interesting, how I still feel like the same person creativity-wise as I was in highschool, however I feel like I was more whole as a 16 year old than I am now, as a 24 year old. Since then, I have gone to college and earned a bachelor's degree in two fields. I like them both, but that is more or less a different story. All the reader needs to know from this is that I am a "scientist". My job is to do research on complicated biology stuff than most people find "impressive", "interersting" or "challenging". People find out what I do for a living, and sudenly, that is what defines me. To them, above everything else, I am a nerdy scientist who wears goggles, a lab coat, and hides in a creepy place with my ethanol, DNA preps, cells, mice, and bunson burner. Second to this total geeked out image am I an artist to them. I am told "you think like a scientist", "you're analyzing", or "you think about things differently than artists do". Every time I hear these words, a part of me is beated down.
I view myself completely different. The exact opposite. To me above everything else, I am a sketch artist and painter who knits, and is trying to get a hang of this dancing thing. I am this creative person who is trying to support what I love doing by having a "real job" out in the big world. I still see myself as myself and my classmates saw me at 16; the weird, pierced theatre chick with big pants who was always drawing in the sketch pad in the middle of class.

Getting back in touch with old friends has somewhat woken me up. Every time I tell them what I am doing they seem stunned and shocked saying "Are you serious?! I never would have guessed you'd go into biology. I thought you were going to be an artist!" They find it hard to imagine me with a normal job, obeying a boss, and being restricted to "work" which does not lend itself well to creativity... unless you count goofing off at lunch coming up with experiments to see who can tell the difference between sugar-water and splenda-water "creative".

Earlier this week I brought my old sketch books into work to show a coworker. I hadn't looked through them since I was 19, but somehow managed to remember to cart them around with me where ever I moved to after college. It was strange. I remember exactly where I was when each picture was being drawn, when I drew it, and what I was thinking. They were all from 9 years ago. My coworker was impressed and didn't realize I had this side. It baffled me for a minute, thinking "But *everyone* KNOWS I can draw". But everyone doesn't. Nobody realizes I have these abilities, because I left everyone behind. I sold out on myself. I decided I didn't need to go to college for art because the one time I actually took an art class, I hated the instructor looking over my shoulder telling me that my picture needed more of this or that. (It's a story for another time, but my bratty teenaged self used my creativity and pictures to tell her to STFU.. which she did. and she never commented on my pictures after that) After taking that class, I decided that art instructors were stifling and limiting, killing my creativity, and dammit, I didn't need that; I was going to go to school to become a biologist.

I must have lost myself on my 18th birthday, because that is where it all changed. I stopped drawing. I stopped creating. I was stuck in books, homework, labs, and exams. And now? I feel lost. I feel like I abandoned myself somewhere between Florida and Pennsylvania, and I'm somewhat upset that it took me until THIS WEEK to realize that I'm lost. Where have I been for the past 6 years? And most importantly, how do I get myself back? How do I prove to everyone that I am more than a pipet and plasmids and really belong to my paper, pencils, and imagination?

That's the million dollar question.

Finding Myself

2007-10-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

::looks around at my bare page::

Well, there certainly has been a lack of pictures going on here. And a lack of posting, especially compared to my old track record of almost every other day. As someone put it to me last week, I have a knitting hang over. I burnt myself out by pumping out the Gatsby Girl, Cashmere hat and scarf and 1/2 finished lace scarf, Placed Cables, baby sweater/hat combo (which I never mentioned here), and now another pullover (which I will mention shortly). All those since June. Less than 3 months of non-stop uber knitting. I need a break, and I've been taking it. I have been slowly chugging along on my Rebecca Mustard Parallelo. It also doesn't help much that I ahve to translate the German knitting language into English (American) knitting. Certainly makes it interesting! It's nice to slow down a little bit.

I also have not been dancing much since July. In part because of laziness, and in part because I was feeling overwealmed. It's hard to imagine that just over one year ago I was training my ass off drilling every day, and going to three classes a week so that I could be in shape enough to not collapse on the second day of my Level2 weeklong workshop. It became a kind of addiction. The endorphines were certainly pumping nostop, and kept me going even though I couldn't feel 8 of my toes for 1.5 weeks after the second day. This year's workshop is coming up towards the end of October. There is still a few spots left, I'm sure, but I have been doing the opposite of training. I have been slacking. Actually, I think that I am still at the same level I was when I walked out of the studio that Friday, dispite continuing to practice regularly since then. Maybe I'm not drilling hard enough or putting enough effort into it. Maybe my plataue is lasting longer than I thought; I almost had the interior squares layered on pas de bourres and chasses when the workshop ended. I still dan't do them.

I still feel like I am flailing around in class. While the other girls look like they are effortlessly dancing, I still feel like an awkward duck trying to figure out where the down beat is and which direction am I going again? Oh, and which foot are we on? I am definitely noticing the differences in the teaching styles that I have been exposed to. I have been studying Suhail Salimpour's format for almost exactly 2 years now. The workshop last year and the past 3 months are the only times I have studied dierctly under Suhaila herself, and the rest of the two years I have been taught by Kendra and Tiffany. All three have vastly different styles, and the longer I dance at the studio, the more I notice it. Since Suhaila has come back, I feel as though my Level2 class has turned into a Level2.5.

It's hard. Last week was rough and I came home asking myself what the heck I am doing and why the hell do I think I can be a belly dancer with no prior experience. Tonight's class was painful, but mostly in a good way. I felt like a flailing dancer (instead of a flailing duck), but I still felt like I was really dancing... or drilling and making it look somewhat good. I wasn't sharp; I was a bit wobbly, but it happens when your trying to do double time 3/4 interior hip circles on top of pas de bourres/ chasses/ a combo of both/ gapevines, or my favorite: doubletime singles walking doubletime. Perhaps this is what I need. To be beated down and struggling to keep up in order to actually make progress. If I can do it, it must be too easy and I must not be challenged enough. If I am struggling to make the movements and get it together, I know where I need to be and see the progress I can make; I see the next level that I must achieve.

I still think it will be at least another year before I allow myself to struggle through Level3, though. I can only imagine alternating undulations on top of hip squares ontop of singles ontop of some rediculous foot work. Layering like that comes way later.

Lime & Violet: The Daily Chum

2007-09-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

So I know you guys have heard of Lime & Violet, right? They have an awesome shop full of sock yarns and rovings, and have a buch of cool podcasts out there. Not to mention the Daily Chum.
Well, guess who's Etsy shop was featured today on their Etsy Shop of the Day! If you guessed it was me at Jupyter Designs, you my friend, would be correct.

I'm so thrilled and excited! :o)

Losing Interest

2007-09-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

I have been somewhat neglecting my knitting lately. I am still working on my lace scarf with a center pattern from Victorian Lace today, and it is pretty slow going. The middle section of the scarf is just faggotting stitch, which is pretty easy and nice to run throguh. However, picking up adn doing the edging is pretty painful for some reason. I have only done about 4 repeats of the edging, but I am so ready for it to be over! I'm ready to take a huge break from this project, and that idea pains me.
What's more is that the Weekend Pullover that I am working on to keep from getting repetative stress from the fine lace is not exciting me much either. It requires a lot of thought and attention, especially since I am substituting the yarn with good stitch gauge, but not so accurate row gauge. So I can't follow the rows in the pattern perfectly, and instead have to take notes on when I do what so that I can do it on the front. Yes, this one I decided to do flat.
I keep thinking of other things I want to knit and what I want to start and get going. And instead, I look at my two projects and not even touch them.
What is wrong with me!?!?!
What's the vote? Should I start some short quick things for a little while, or should i suck it up and pump these out?

Lazy Belly Dancer

2007-09-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

I have been a tired, sad, little lazy bum for the past two or so weeks. First of all, for an entire 12 week rotation I had only been showing up to one of the two classes I take at the studio. SAD. That means my body is falling more and more out of shape (I have gained weight!!!) and when I do make it to that one class I am sluggish and.. pathetic. For the last few weeks I have been spotty on showing up to that one class I do take. Way to stay in shape, Kiwi!
Determined not to slide out of dancing completely, I decided no matter what, no excuses, I am going to class tonight. Holy crap! It was such a workout. I was soaking in sweat, and where I usually only drink half of my bottle of water in one 1hr 15 min class, I had consumed almost the entire bottle by the end of the first 45 minutes. Whew!
It's also pretty cool to walk into class and see the instructor walking on Margaret Cho's back to help loosen her up. Yeah, THAT Margaret Cho. This is not the first time I have seen her in the studio. The only other time was when I walked in at the end of a weeklong workshop that she was taking, where I was going in for my level 1 certification. I was such a belly dance "baby" that I was way too stressed out trying to do some last minute studying/freaking out before taking the test to be star struck over her. And is it funny that when she was laying face down on the floor I recognized it was her by her tattoos? heh.
She's a good dancer and blended right in to the class. And either nobody else realized who she was or they were good at keeping it to themselves since she was left alone that whole time to dance just liekt he rest of us.
I think that tops my adventures for the week.

..or month.

Lace and Such

2007-09-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been putting along working on the lace scarf that I posted about last time. I have found however that if I trying working on it for too long my hands start to cramp up and it becomes quite irritating. Thus, in order to not create some long lasting and quite damaging repetative stress syndrome in my hands, I have begun knitting a second project at the same time. This way, I can knit the lace when my hands are feeling up to it, and when I can't knit on such fine yarn, I can work on my larger project to give my hands a break.

I am learning a lot from the lace project, and even though it is a really simple pattern, it is showing me exactly where my tensions change and where I need to work on perfecting it.

The second project I am working on is the Weekend Pullover from Interweave Knits Fall 2006 (interestingly, I just noticed, the same issue in which the gatsby Girl Pullover was published). I have substituted the yarn with Karabella Breeze which I have been looking forward to using for a long time. My sweater is not going to be as thick or warm as the one in the magazine, but instead it will be a light and cool sweater. I am also going to have be editing the pattern along the way since I got my stitch gauge spot on, yet my row gauge I am off by a bit. This is also certainly a pattern that I have to pay attention to. I am sure that by the time I get to the arm holes of the back I'll have it down ..for the most part.

Maybe by the time winter comes around I'll be ready to stock up my wardrobe for the summer....

Very Knitting Weekend

2007-08-27T15:41:00.001-07:00

This weekend was full of knitting events. Saturday I visited my dad about an hour away, adn he gave me a little bit of spending money to splurge on myself with. Usually when given gift money, in the bank it will go to later be used to pay bills or collect interest or something logical and responsible like that. I decided that this time I would instantly spend some of it on yarn for me. I visited Purlescence and Commuknity in Sunnyvale and San Jose respectively. I didn't end up getting anything in the first shop (although they did have a nice lace section....) and ended up doing all my damage in Commuknity. I bought Victorian Lace Today after flipping through it and becoming overwealmingly inspired. I also bought a skein of Claudia Handpainted silk and 2 balls of Harmony lace

On Sunday I had finished knitting the hat and scarf set that a friend sent me for my birthday. It's a Karabella pattern, and it says that it calls for 3 balls of Karabella Supercashmere, and oh my it's not kidding. At the end of every knitting project, I always have scraps left over. At least a little bit, even if I can't make anything with it. With this pattern, however I used every last little bit of yarn that I had, and had exactly enough to get them done. I was holding my breath at the end of the hat, and I wasn't able to make the little nub that sticks up on the top; I was that close on yarn.

It's very comfortable, and even in the heat yesterday I was wearing the hat around the house just because I didn't want to take it off. Being the single project knitter that I am, when I cast off the hat and had it woven in, I began knitting one of the lace patterns in Victorian Lace. I believe this is the first time I have used lace *this* fine. It is a comletely different experience, and I have to get used to the slipperiness of the needles and yarn and be careful not to let the needles fall out! I took a picture just after beginning, and it has since been ripped out in favor of making the "shawl" thinner to become a lacey scarf instead. I am currently knitting with Misti Alpaca Lace.

Placed Cable Pics

2007-08-23T15:19:00.000-07:00

You know, I should really have better timing with when I knit sweaters, and also when I decide to attempt to photograph them. For example, yesterday was not the day at 85 degrees to decide (in my air conditioning-free apartment) that it would be the perfect time to take a picture of my Placed Cable sweater.

So here it is! Be gentle, and remember that it has not yet been blocked.

At first I was not to thrilled with the sweater, since I was expecting something a little closer to what was in the magazine; the slightly oversized, big and comfy sweater, but I think this is going to turn into one of my favorite sweaters to put over top a light shirt. The feel of the yarn was a huge plus; the RYC Cashsoft Aran is so SO soft, and feels very nice.
This sweater (as you can tell by my blog posts) was a very quick knit.

PS. This is my first post as a 24 year old. Woo hoo!!

FO: Placed Cable Aran

2007-08-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! I have just finished my second sweater! I bound off the sleeves last night and just had a few minutes to stitch them on to the body. The sweater needs to be blocked before I can document it (and harrass Mr Kiwi about using his camera) and posting here.
I never thought that I would be knitting sweaters so quickly so soon after knitting my first one. They're really not too bad!
Now I have to think about my next knitting project. ;o)

Almost 1/4 Century

2007-08-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

My birthday is in 6 days. This past weekend, I was surprised by gifts from two friends, both knitting related. One gave me the very pretty Summer Shawlette that she knit from Knitting Daily. It is so soft, and for it's size, so warm and comfy! I *think* it was knit from RYC Silk Wool, so that could explain some of the wonderful qualities, along with the hands it passed through before making its way to me.
Another friend who lives all the way on the other side of the country sent me a box with a lovely hat and scarf pattern as well as the required Karabella yarn to make the set. Just in time to get it finished for fall and winter! Mr Kiwi yelled at me for opening my box early, but I am sure he is the only one who minded. ;o) That hat and scarf is an excellent excuse for me to stop the lengthy projects, take a break, and knit up smaller quicker projects. Excellent thinking, and thank you very much!
I'd post pictures, but Mr Kiwi told me my camera is inferior and to use his for picture taking, however there are so many darned buttons and settings on his brand spanking new camera that I have no idea how to take advantage of getting the good picture quality that it offers. So *hint hint* Mr Kiwi..

It might be me growing out of my kid phase and merging into being an adult, but I think this is the first birthday that I am not looking forward to simply because it means that I will officially be one year older and the digits will change. That's an interesting feeling. Maybe I can skip work and stay in my pj's and knit all that day. ..or maybe not because my experiments need to be assayed that day. Why do we celebrate birthdays anyway? Can't we just pretend that time freezes and you really don't ever get older? Of course, when it comes time for cake, I might change my mind a little.

Fun Times...

2007-08-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have been working pretty hard on the Placed Cable Aran lately (for the past week) and today I got to the point where I was about to bind off the shoulders and begin the neck. Remember: thus far I am 2 for 2 in altering the pattern so that it can be knit in the round as far as possible so that there were no seams. My plan was also not to bind off around the neck where possible, so that I could just pick up the live stitches so that (again) there would be no seams from the body of the seater to the neck. I did however have to bind off 14 stitches on each side for the top of the shoulders, leaving the other 14 stitches to be picked up later for the neck. I did the three needle bind off on one shoulder and it went well. Then I did the same bind off on the other shoulder, which also went well.

..until I realized that I bound off the inside 14 stitches of the front to the outside 14 stitches of the back, instead of the outside stitches. If you can picture it, that would make a pretty... funny looking sweater. So I had to undo the bind off, and redo it correctly. Not too traumatic, but I thought it was a very silly mistake to make.

Placed Cable Aran

2007-08-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

I have been making some good progress on my Placed Cable Aran from the Interweave Knits fall 2007 issue. The issue just came out and I received mine shortly before finishing my cabled socks (which of course I don't have a picture of). I was very excited about a number of patterns in the issue, and I realized that I have the perfect yarn substitute for the Fiber Trends Naturally Harmony 10 ply that is called for in the Placed Cable Aran Sweater. I had to play with needle sizes and knit (and frog) quite a few gauge swatches. I finally got gauge by using US10 knitting needles with my RYC Cashsoft Aran yarn that I purchased at the Stitches West in February. Perfect!
This sweater, as with the Gatsby Girl Pullover, I have edited in order to knit it in the round for not wanting to have seams on the sides. I am also planning on not binding off the neck of the body only to pick up the stitches again, so instead I will place the stitches on holders and pick them all up together. I never thought knitting sweaters could be so easy! This is only my second top, and thus far I am 2 for 2 in not following the pattern exactly and somehow modifying it to my own desires.
This sweater is going pretty quickly (especially compared to the 2x2 ribbing in the last one!) and I am already working on shaping the sleeves on the back. I started this on Wednesday, and I think before too long I'll be trying it on.

I'm Knitting, I Swear!

2007-08-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

I know it looks like not a lot of knitting has been happening around here, but there really has.. I just haven't had time to take pictures of anything yet. Just tonight I cast off a pair of cable socks I made. This was my first pair of socks made with Claudia Hand Painted Yarns. This is also the first time I have had to use almost all the yarn from both skeins. Usually, I am able to get a pair of ankle socks from one 50g ball, but it this case I really needed to use almost all of the 50g ball for each sock. This is one reason I love knitting both at once, toe up. I can tell instantly when I am going to run out of yarn, how much I need to use, and how far I can get. These ended up being "tall" socks compared to what I usually do. I'm pretty pleased so far! Of course, I haven't yet had a chance to wear them more than tying them on.
I also cast on for Placed Cable Aran tonight. I had to play around with gauge and needle size a bit on a swatch before starting since I was not using the yarn that is specified in the pattern, and I had to make up for it being slightly different is size and weight. I'm happy though! This looks liek it will be a very fun sweater, although right now I have miles and mile of stockinette stitch to knit up! Oh well, I have some nice mindless knitting to go on after having to pay so much attention to the socks and sweater before this one :o)

SF Bay Ravelers

2007-08-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

Today a group of knitters that met in the SF Bay Area knitting group on ravelry.com got together and met up at a yarn shop in San Francisco. Being in the East Bay, I had to take BART over and managed to get lost for about 10 minutes after setting foot out of the station before figuring out which direction was the correct direction. Our first stop was Urban Knitting Studio, and due to my lack of directional skills I showed up just as the woman in the shop was giving the tour of how the shop was organized. It was my first time being in Urban Knitting, and it was a pretty big place! I think the size fo the studio dwarfed their yarn and made it look like they had less than they really had. They actually had a fair amount of just about everything and it was nicely organized. Just before taking off, we all stood outside and took group photos. Of course I managed to forget my camera at home, but luckily most of the others had remembered theirs and made up for my lack of planning (or at least remembering).
Next we made our way to Art Fibers, where we arrived minutes before their shop opened, so we went accross the street to grab some lunch. Once we finished lunch, our small group met another two ravelers back at Art Fibers. This place was pretty cool! I had never heard of it before, but apparently they only sell their own yarns. I kept sticking my hans out to touch all the swatches that were hanging around next to their cones of yarns. I couldn't believe how cool it was! I kept flip flopping over which yarn I wanted to get. I ended up getting Bitty Bunz 70% angora, 20% extra fine merino, and 10% nylon. Once I decided on this particular yarn, I had to decide on which color to get! Lavendar ended up winning out over the Seafoam green, but they were both so pretty!
Here I also had my first group-swoon over the iPhone. One of the knitters wanted to look up some information on a pattern she wanted to knit, but didn't want to call her husband for the unpteenth time, so I enabled her habit by pulling out my phone. It took a little longer than it should have to look up the information since the moment I pulled it out all of the others bounced up out of the chairs we were all sitting in and ran over to check it out and take pictures. I was amused and it added to the fun of the day.
Next, we had planned on going to Imagiknit, but we were ending up leaving a littel too late and didn't want to be the huge group of knitters to show up 10 minutes before closing. Le sighe... we'll just have to come back another time. Instead, we headed to Noe Knit which was where we planned on hitting up after ImagiKnit, and is also conveniently just down the street. I had already been to Noe Knit, but this was only the second time. I decided against getting too involved and falling in love with yarn that I would just have to take home since I had already spent plenty at the previous shop. It seems as though everyone else had a blast in there though. The owner of the shop was there and was more than happy to have us ravelers crusing about.
I ended up having to leave at about 4:30 (can you believe all of this was crammed into such a short amount of time?!) and it prompted a few others to take off as well. Some of us made our way to the Bart station and took our separate trains back to our respective areas.
Once I got back to my station, Mr Kiwi picked me up and we instantly went to Montero's for the school's monthly dance show. A bunch of students from all over the country were in town and danced since this is the beginning of one of the week long workshops. There were two from out of town who were really incredible, and I greatly enjoyed watching. They did a more tribal and goth interpretation instead of some of the cabaret that most of the dancers at home do. I also watched one of my friends perform a complicated sword dance that she has become very good at, as well as a separate zills performance which she put together in 2 weeks.
Today was certainly a very full day of knitting and dance, and it was an excellent way to finish off the weekend. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some of those pictures from the other knitters. And we are definitely going to have to be doing this again.

What Happened to the Dance?

2007-07-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

So after last week, I was very excited to get to take my first weekly class from Suhaila herself, after only having learned from her during a weeklong workshop. When I first took classes from the Suhaila Salimpour School of Dance, I loved my instructors, but I wished that as students at the "mothership" we would get more of our mamma bear than a simple post card from whichever tour/workshop/world domination destination she was at next. Now, a year and a half later, I have become very accustomed to my instructors, and their absence while on the most recent world tour with Suhaila showed how much I really appreciated them. Not to say I didn't appreciate the sub-instructor who had taken over while all three were gone, but I have been so used to seeing one of the two every week.
Now on a forum, someone bursted my happy little ignorant bubble and expressed how "weird" things have been at the studio and that they need to stop leaving us in the dark and to tell us what is going on already. And here I was thinking that everyone was just on world tour and things would be back to normal shortly. The new studio isn't opening, when for MONTHS it has been hyped up and everyone has been talking about how excited they are. And then there is talk about the instructors, and Suhaila herself alluded to some changes. The one thing I know for fact is that one of the instrutors I have become so used to (who recently told me we should have a celebration when I get a few more inches down into my split) is moving on career wise, and is no longer going to be an instructor at the school.This was a bit of a shock to me, but I am sure it is exciting for her; to break off and advance herself in whatever ways she needs. But then there are rumors that the other instructor will be leaving too.
I have such a mix of emotions and feelings over this. First, I am excited to be taking weekly classes from mamma bear. That is super cool to not just be a student at her school, but to take the classes directly from HER. Selfishly, I have a little bit of anxiety and sadness that the instructors I have become so accustomed to are leaving the studio without letting any of us know, with no warning and as of yet, no explaination or official anything at all. Not so selfishly, I think it is great that these very talented women are going to be making their own marks in the belly dance world. This -whatever "this" is- will be excellent in excelling them into their futures.
And tonight I go to class. Not sure if anything will be said or if people will pretend things are "normal". Perhaps there will be an explaination at Montero's or at the poluck? Eesh.

She Teaches

2007-07-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

I have been going to my dance class on Thursdays lately since I like the fact that it is somewhat emptier than the Tuesday night classes. The class after mine on Tuesday is the Level 3 class (which I am nowhere near yet) and the one after level 2 on Thursdays is a Choreography class. The two instructors and the founder of the school have been on a "world domination" tour for about a month, so the choreography class has taken a break until they get back. This means that the girls who would show up for a level 2 warm up before their choreo class have been skipping the level2 on that night, however some of the level3's are still going to the Tuesday night level2 class prior to their class. (Are you confused yet?) Basically I am trying to describe why lately one night has been lighter than the other. this week however, I decided it was time for me to make an appearance at my Thursday knitnight and since both class and knitting is at 7pm in very different locations, I was going to move my dance class this week to the Tuesday night instead.
I did my usual getting to class, talking to some other girls, find my spot in the studio and do some light stretching. Kit, who had been teaching in the absence of our instructors was wandering in and out of the back room just before class started. Something was different, and I could feel it. At one point I looked up into the huge mirrors at the front of the studio and I see Suhaila Salimpour smiling and walking out. Looks like they're back from their tour! This was a special treat. I have been tlaking classes at her school since the end of 2005, and only once have had the pleasure of learning from her, and that was only because I shelled out for a week long workshop taught specifically by her. Maybe half of the students in the room had never seen her and didn't realize who she was. She made a joke about how when she would show up to teach a level1 class, they would look at her and say "So who's the new teatcher?"
She wove in and out of the students during warm ups, fixing some of their positions or talking to some she was familiar with. During drilling, she challenged us. She made us do a balancing drill that I had never done, solely to get us to think about where our weight is each time we do something as simple as shifting the location of our leg. When she came to correct us, it was always positive feed back. We were getting our asses kicked, but it didn't feel like it at the time because the class went so well.
It was very refreshing to get a chance to learn from her during a normal hour long class. I wonder if I'd have gotten this chance if I showed up to class tonight instead of Tuesday...

FO: Gatsby Girl Pullover

2007-07-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

The Gatsby Girl Pullover is officially now an FO. It is 100% complete, and I don't need to thread/stitch/weave in/touch anything. Hooray! Now it can sit and wait for 4 months for it to get cold enough for me to wear it. Well, that part really sucks... But it being finished is really cool!! And since I have blabbed on enough about it in previous posts, I'll show some pictures.

So.... now what does this one project wonder knit next? Suggestions?

Gatsby Girl: Done!

2007-07-17T20:40:00.001-07:00

The Gatsby Girl Pullover is soooo close to being finished! Right now it is laying out, slightly damp, and pinned to blocking mats. The ends on the sleeves are all woven in, and the picot edging on the neck is sewn over, and the shoulders are seamed together. The only things I have left to do is to sew over the picot edging on the bottom of the body and the bottoms of the sleeves, as well as making the loops for the buttons on the left shoulder as well as attaching them. It's just finishing that I have to do! I am so excited. This is my first sweater, and it is almost complete! Hooray! And you know that the minute it is finished I will be posting pictures of it. I am even thinking about wearing it to work the first day it is done. How can I justify this? It's always cold in the lab and I have a sweater that lives there anyway...

Cats + Yarn = Argg!!!

2007-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my cats drive me absolutely crazy. Thus far I have been able to keep them from attacking any of my yarn that I am using for the Gatsby Girl Pullover. Until today. I got home excited to work further on my second sleeve, which is sooo close to being finished. I open the door to see my sleeve on the floor next to half of the ball, and strings stretched half across the living room next to the other half of the ball. So instead of getting to relax and instantly start working on my sleeve, I had to spend an hour untangling the mass of yarn. Damn you, cats!!! ::shakes fist::

Vacation Pictures!!

2007-07-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

While on vacation in Boston, Mr Kiwi's mom and I went to a knitting shop by her house, where we spent a long time looking at everything. That shop had been there for years, and she never knew it! She ended up buying me 2 skeins of Claudia Hand Painted. Mr Kiwi and I had also taken a 2 day trip to drive to Maine, where let me tell you, even the smallest town had at least 5 yarn shops (can I move to maine now?). I really wasn't expecting to go to so many yarn stores and farms, but it just sort of happened. I hadn't planned on getting more yarn than I could pack and take home with me, it just sort of... happened. So what does one do when they end up with not enough space to pack the things they accumulate on vacation? Why, you pack boxes and have the in-laws ship them once you're home, of course! Seeing as how Mr Kiwi wanted to take some things of his home from his old room, it's not like we were just shipping all yarn. On top of that, his sister bought us clothes at a rediculously marked down price since she works at the clothing store and gets discounts. (Can we talk about the awesome leather biker jacket she bought me?!)
I digress. The boxes showed up today! Mr Kiwi unpacked his things, and handed me two of my alapca skeins I bought. First thing I did was smoosh them to my cheeks, grin, and sigh. He wasn't quite fast enough with the camera to get it. Instead, he settled for throwing more skiens of yarn my way in attempts to get me to do it again. Of course, I did.

As I promised a long time ago (and never actually followed through) hrre are the pictures of the wonderful yarn that I bought on vacation.
I bought this baby alpaca in Booth Bay Harobor. Unfortunately, the shop was closing, but that meant that it was on sale for me. :o) The pictures shows it slightly grayer than it really is; it has a slightly richer purple to it.

I have two of these; one in the blue, and one in green. They have futures as hats.

This is the Claudia that Mom in law purchaed for me.

This lovely alpaca was purchased directly at the alpaca farm. So nice! I am still not quite sure what I am going to make with this.

Finally, this is from the Romney farm that we found only by the sign that called out "YARN" on the side of the road on the way to Booth Bay. Support your local farmers and spinners! That means all you people in the Maine area!

Dance After Vacation

2007-07-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

I knew when I went to my bellydance class last night that it was going to be pretty rough. I was expecting it. I had slowed down with my dance movements classes right before going on vacation, and then hadn't danced at all the entire vacation. No dancing in almost 2 weeks. Eek! Warm up was a little rough, since I wasn't stretching either, and it showed. My left leg was especially weak and would shake like mad screaming "what are you DOING to me?!?" We were working on hip locks this week. They weren't bad, although I think mine kept going to the sides when I walked. I felt pretty good about it, until she started us doing SuzyQ's. I have only fumbled around SuzyQ's (what is with the sudden fixation? It's been a boom of them lately) while standing in the middle of the room. I surprised myself. I decided to go ahead and try them around the room, and I could actually do it. I was giggling alot, so I'm sure I looked like such a great dancer. I could only do them however if I was actually looking at my feet; the second I looked up or tried adding the hiplocks, my feet screwed up. So I was content to be proud of my SuzyQ's. Then I suddenly realized when we turned to lead left that I could only do them to the right. My feet did not want to cooperate.

I was feeling really good about the class and how I was doing considering not having done anything useful for a while. And then it was the "routine" part of class. It encompases the last 5 minutes or so. I sucked. I couldn't do anything further than foot work, and was shoddy at that too. It's frustrating sometimes that I know what everything is supposed to looke like, and what I am supposed to do when, but then my body doesn't respond. So instead of looking like a gracceful and controlled dancer, I look like a flailing idiot. Eck. Oh well, I guess that is what practicing is for.

Pictures!!

2007-07-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

Okay! I decided to try on the Gatsby Girl Pullover to see how it fit, it its completely unfinished state. I used stitch markers to close the parts of the shoulders that need to be seamed, and slid it on. I am SO excited. This is my first sweater/top thing, and I am overjoyed with how it fits.

Please excuse the bright undergarnments shining through the lace. That will be fixed before wearing the top out in public, I swear.

I am into the beginning of sleeve one, and I sure hope it fits and works out as well as the rest of the sweater. Funny though, how cute it looks without the sleeves. I'm sure it would look better if it were actually finished properly, though.

Woo!!!

Knitting Vacation

2007-07-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Whew! I am finally back from my vacation (and of course I came back with a cold...) and can finally sit down and write.

First of all, I would like to say THANK YOU to my secret pal Melissa for sppoiling me in Secret Pal 10. Over the course of the exchange, she gave me an entrelac washcloth, knitting note cards, jewelry for Tibet (!!!), and the last "package" sent was gift card to kpixie (which since I *just* got home I have not had a chance to take advantage of). Thank you so much!

As for the vacation, I visited Mr Kiwi's parents in Boston (as well as attended two of his friends' wedding) and we took a few side trips. Mr Kiwi's mom and I went to a near by yarn shop where we got into trouble and had fun. I spent some time teaching her how to knit toe-up socks, which she seemed to be getting quite a kcik out of. Mr Kiwi and I took some time for ourselves and drove up to Booth Bay Harbor, Maine, coincidentally on their annual Windjammers Days. We did some train things that he enjoys, and planned on making a stop to one yarn store at the Harbor for fun for me. We ended up seriously lucking out on that end. The shop we went to was closing because the owners wanted to retire. I got so much loot on sale! Lots of interesting yarn companies that I had never heard of before. I'll have to post pictures of *everything* when I am slightly more sane.
While we were sitting on the grass waiting to watch the parade just for us, I found an ad for Winters Gone Farm; an alpaca farm nearby. Jackpot! It was the coolest farm ever. There were alpacas everywhere, and two babies; so cute! There was also a store where we could buy alapca goods; clothes, girsts, random crap, and YARN. I felt it would be.. cheap buying a premade or random manufactured item instead of yarn, so I bought 2 skeins of yarn from one of the alapcas that lived on the farm.
But is that all? Absolutely not. Driving on the way to Maine, we saw a random sign on the highway that said "YARNS". I made Mr Kiwi follow the signs up to a private home, which of course had some sheep and a small farm. On the way up, it was closed, but on the way home we were sure to try again. It turned out to be the Romney Ridge Farm, and the woman who greeted us was very nice and friendly. She had so many yarns crammed into such a teeny little hutch that she was selling from, and they were all so incredible. If you're ever driving near Woolwich Maine, be sure to stop by the Romney Farm! While we were there we picked up a map of all the yarn shops in Maine, and holy jeeze!! Even the teeniest town would have 5! I think I found my new favorite state ;o)

Finally, my Gatsby Girl Pullover is going fantastically. I only have the sleeves left to do, blocking and then minimal seaming. Of course, those pictures will come when I am more settled.

Happy Knitting, and for those in the states, a preemptive Happy 4th of July!

Pictureless Update

2007-06-25T06:15:00.001-07:00

Has it really been a week since I last posted? What have I been doing? Well, too much. Friday night Mr Kiwi and I took a red eye out to his hometown on the opposite coast. The plane left at 1:30am (which was 30 minutes later than scheduled) and the doors to our connecting flight were closing as we ran off of our plane. So we got to wait 1.5 hours for the next flight. I didn't sleep too much on either flight, so there was a mix of watching Apollo13 on the laptop and knitting. It must have been amusing to see the two of us sharing ear buds watching a movie and swapping out batteries when we thought one was dead.

I have been knitting a heck of a lot as flights (especially long ones) will do that. I am still chugging away at the Gatsby Girl Pullover... would you expect anything less? As of last night, I am done with the main body and am working on the lace pattern. This is where things are going to start getting interesting, since I haven't exactly figured out where, when, and how I am going to break my knitting in the round so I can leave space for the arm holes. I'll get it figured out though. I never knew sweaters could go so fast! Almost 2 weeks of knitting this, and I feel like I have done so much!

Mr Kiwi's mom also knits, and it has been a blast talking about knitting with her. She wanted to learn how to knit socks, so before I left I bought and balled some sock yarn for her. Today we are going to a new yarn shop to get her some small needles and on we will go! Last night Mr Kiwi took pictures of the two of us sitting on the couch knitting our sweaters.

Of course since I am not at home I don't have everything I need to be able to post pictures. I have the camera, but no way to move the pictures onto the computer. There will be a picture ridden post when I get back though!

Gatsby Love

2007-06-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

After frogging the Gatsby Girl Pullover on Tuesday, I cast on for it again on Wednesday night. I convinced myself that attempt #1 was practice, and for the real thing I would change the pattern to knit in the round. The front and back peices are exactly the same, so why not? The only thing I have to do is remember that even rounds are what they call "wrong side" and pay attention when it comes to the arm holes. I spent a heck of a time knitting this weekend, and have gotten pretty far. I am using RYC Cashsoft DK, and it is incredible. This yarn even makes my hands feel soft! No need for mosturizer, I just knit a while and my hands feel silky smooth. I am leaving for vacation Friday night and am trying to calculate how many balls of yarn I should bring. I was thinking 3, but since in one weekend I plowed through an entire ball of the yarn, I may have to bring a few more.

I've also been in organization heaven. Maybe a week or two ago I received my ravelry invite, and I cannot express how cool this site is. I can post my pictures, list everything about what it is I am making, add the books I have, list my to-do projects. It's fabulous!! Not nearly everything is up yet, but I'm having fun organizing and making notes for the time being. I'm gypsyknitter on ravelry.com, if you find me, say hi!

Ribbit

2007-06-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I was beginning to wonder if the Gatsby Girl Pullover was really going to fit properly. Even after making a gauge swatch it seemed as though the top might end up being a bit too small. A few hours ago I ripped it all out (after being one row short of finishing the waist shaping) and decided to take a different approach. The pattern is written so that the back and front are knit in sections and seamed later. I am not so much a fan of seaming, so I decided to convert the pattern to the round. So far so good. Let's hope that's the only time I have to rip it out. :o) Also making the top in the round gives me a perfect opportunity to use a bunch of the stitch markers I made for myself. ;o)

Lots of Finishing and a Start

2007-06-10T16:09:00.001-07:00

I have finally gotten around to taking pictures of my lastest finished objects. Here we have two hats, both made out of RY Classic Yarns, Silk Wool DK.

They were very nice to knit with, and super soft. The second hat I finished on Sunday in the middle of my Knit in Public stint. Of course I planned poorly and didn't think that it would be done and also had not thought of or brought a back up project. Being a one project gal, when I came home, I still had to take a moment to think... what now?

Remember these?

Yeah, that was a long time ago. I am happy to say that they are now finially finished, and what a relief! The unfinishedness of these Mitts haunted me. It had been so long since I touched them that when I first looked at them I had no idea where I was. This helped in the procrastination of actually getting them going again. However, once I figured out where I was it was pretty quick to just pick up and go. Since they are made for someone with smaller arms than mine, I had to have Mr Kiwi model them for me. He had just woken up from a nap and was not too thrilled with how I wanted him to model. He also complained of dirty hands and kept trying to hide them.

Last night I cast on for the Gatsby Girl Pullover from Interweave Knits Fall 2006. I have been waiting to knit this since it came out, but have just gotten around to setting it as a goal. Mr Kiwi also had a hand in it saying "You need to knit something that takes up more yarn out fo your stash!" Apparently using only one skein at a time to make a bunch of quick hats doesn't count as "stash busting". ;o)

Finishing!

2007-06-06T09:10:00.001-07:00

Since finishing the socks last week I have made a lot of progress. Or at least it feels like it. In less than aweek, I started and finished a nice little hat that took only one ball of yarn. I also picked up and finished the Mt Tam mitts from forever ago! I looked at them and the pattern and thought "I have no clue where I am!" I had previously left the pegs in my counter board to remind myself where I was with each mitt, but when it travelled with me over the how many months, the pegs would fall out and eventually I just gave up. After figuring out where I was, it wasn't too long before I finished them last night; weaving ends adn everything.
I'll be posting pictures later today perhaps. With all this getting things done, I now have nothing on the needles. There are these moments right after finishing something whene I am forced to sit and think "...now what?" So here I am. With a knit group tonight that I really want to go to, wondering what I could and should quickly cast on to bring with me to StitchnBitch.....

SP and FO

2007-06-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of things I need to write about here. First of all, I have to thank my Secret Pal for the package I received on Thursday after work. I had a nice little package with a card stuck inside along with 3 amazing peices of jewelry. There are two bracelets and a pair of turquois earrings. So cool!

Thank you pal! I am sure these will quickly make it into not only my regular wear, but also into dance costume peices. They're perfect! :o)

Thursday evening I also finished Mr Kiwi's socks. They were promptly washed and left to dry over night. The next morning they were not quite dry so he did not get a chance to wear them. This morning he asked if he could wear them, but I had not yet taken pictures. We just arrived home from a few activities and I let him put the socks on and model them. I don't think he is going to take them off for a while.

Instead of staring yet another pair of socks, I have cast on for a quick hat. I need some fast knits before delving into a huge project. Plus, it breaks down my stash, which is a major goal for the moment.

Gypsies!

2007-05-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

I am changing the url of my blog, so very shortly old links won't work. My title will remain the same, so you can always search for that, but the url will be slightly different :o)

Memorial Day weekend

2007-05-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

I love 3 day weekends. Especially 3 day weekends that come when I absolutely need them the most. Up until this weekend, I was approaching my breaking point. Work was incredibly stressful, and I more than needed time to get away and not have to think about how it was just around the corner waiting for me to come back. Funny, how one extra day can give you that feeling of relief. Usually, at about 5pm on Sundays, Mr Kiwi and I realize "the weekend is over!!!", however yesterday at 5pm our celebrations were just starting. Really. We were at that moment on our way to a BBQ at a friends house, where later we got to spend some time under the stars in a hot tub, looking out from a hillside over the entire Silicon Valley. It was awesome.

I also managed to get a heck of a lot of knitting done, and made some progress on Mr Kiwi's monkey foot sized socks. They are coming along very well, and I am knitting the ribbing along the leg. I expect that before too long these socks will also be finished, and I will be on my way to another project.
I hope everyone in the US had as great a holiday weekend as I did, and a Happy Birthday weekend to a certain someone - hope you had a very excellent weekend ;o)

Jazz Shoes

2007-05-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

I bought my first ever pair of jazz shoes in highschool. I was in theatre at that time, and my extracurriculars were consumed with rehearsals for one show or another. Since you can't (at least the ladies in the show) wear sneakers or regular shoes for dancing in the musicals, we were required to buy one pair of jazz shoes and one pair of character shoes (fancy heels that were specific for dancing). Black of course so that no matter what we were wearing the shoes would automatically match. Since I had never taken a dance class before, when I bought those shoes I had no idea what I was doing. I walked into the dance shop, looked around for something with the label "jazz shoes", tried on some random black pair and walked out with my new shoes. They were the kind with split soles and laces.
I have been wearing those same shoes since highschool for all of my dance related activities. I have been wearing them to my current dance classes, and continued to wear them even after one of the damn cats chewed half of one of the laces off.. which made tying them tricky. They were broken in, comfy, and finally molded to the sizes and shapes of my feet. Last week in the middle of my dance movements class, I looked down and noticed this nice slice right above my big toe on my right foot. Damn. I realized that I was wearing out my first pair of jazz shoes. Time to get new ones. The problem is that I am not 100% symmetrical. It usually doesn't bother me, but my right foot is 1/2 size bigger than my left. In normal sneakers or sandals this isn't a problem, but in shoes that are supposed to be nice and snug around the shape of the foot, it causes quite a bit of discomfort. So before class yesterday I bought new split sole slip ons (no laces to chew, cats!!) and wore my mismatching sized shoes to class. They are quite comfy this way, and it works out well.

And yet, I can't quite bear to take my worn out shoes out of the passenger seat of my car.

Finished Items!

2007-05-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

After some persistent knitting, I managed to finish not just one but two items before the weekend began. Friday evening I finished the socks I was working on and got them blocking. Here they are right before I took them off the blockers.

Needing to start something new, I decided to get a start on the baby items I needed to knit. I started on the Vine Lace Baby Hat from Interweave's Knitting Daily. It went surprisingly fast, despite my working them on DPNs (I have learned through this that I am not a DPN gal, and will stick to my circs). By Saturday morning I was trying to figure out how in the heck I was going to block it, seeing as how I didn't have anything resembling a baby head near by. I stuffed two wash cloths in a plastic bag and vigorously molded it into as round and head shaped as I could, as stretched the little hat on top.

Knitting things for babies rock! They go so fast and look great also. And this hat took slightly less than half a ball. I can make another one! :o)

SP10 Contest: Flash Your Stash!

2007-05-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

This week's SP10 contest is to flash our stash. I am sure a number of people I knit with are interested to see how I keep my yarn and how much I actually have. I believe I do have a decent sized stash, but it is organized and tightly packed into its "home" that from the outside it may look like I have nothing at all.

Here is the unit where I keep all of my yarn. Anything that does not fit into the drawers is either piled ontop of or in front of said unit.

Here are the yarns that are piled in front. There is some Sidar, Cashsoft, Cashmerino, and the blue is a kit for the Milinda Pullover from White Lies Designs.

The drawers in the unit are somewhat organized, by what exactly, I haven't yet figured out. But they are organized! The pictures are starting from the bottom drawer and working up to the top drawer. The bottom drawer is filled with all the crap that will fit in it that I have no idea what to do with. I have some Sugar n Cream cotton that was for hacky sacks and dishcloths. There are some samples and freebies that I have obtained from Stitches West last year and never got around to dealing with, along with the miscelaneous yarn ends left over from past projects. The purple in the lower corner is some yummy yummy hand spun that I bought when I first started knitting that I have no idea what to do with. It'll come to me.. sometime. Same goes for the ornage in the lower right and the curly purple right above it. There is also a large skein of blue hand spun 100% baby alpaca waiting to be knit up.

Second drawer from the bottom has light sweater/top yarns along with a skein of blue bamboo and hand spun green cotton.

All of the yarn in the middle dreawer is destined to be sweaters or tops, all which have the patterns already picked out. It's just jumping in and doing them that is holding it up. The exception to this is the orange alpaca that will be made for Mr Kiwi. Not sure what I am making with it, but it's for him (if you have met him, you know why this is more logical that me keeping it).

Second drawer from the top has yarn that will be made into sweaters and tops, and the yellow and blue yarns will be made into blankets (too many people having babies!)

And here is the top drawer! It has mostly sock yarns and lace weights for making shawls. It also has the famed Karabella Breeze that won me the last SP10 contest.

Finally, there is the top of the unit. There is some Cascade220 that is left over from the Frog Purse I knit my mom last year, as well as some Misti Alpaca (one of which was a winning.. thank you Robin!!). Here you will also find my one and only WIP, although not by choice. I ran out of yarn at the very end of those fingerless mitts and was waiting for the recipient to send me more yarn so I could finish them. I just obtained the yarn (see the gray yarn in the first picture) and very soon it will be off the needles and off the unit.

Whew! There it is; my very first Flash Your Stash post. Now... what project to start working on next...

Knitting Meme!

2007-05-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

This is a knitting survey that has been going around lately. I figured I see where I land in this. Feel free to take it upon yourself to do it too!

Bold for stuff you’ve done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you’re not planning on doing.

Afghan/Blanket (baby)
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit (Can I just say how sexist this question is and how much I dislike it? Just because someone is male doesn't mean they are automatically knitting challenged!!)
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

Knitting Weekend!

2007-05-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

This weekend was accidentally filled with yarn and knitting. Without meaning to, both Saturday and Sunday Mr Kiwi and I visited a few yarn stores we had never been to. Saturday we had made our way to Western Railway Museum in Solano County. It was very much in the middle of nowhere, and it was quite windy. It was really neat, and I got to knit on one of the trolly cars as it ran on the tracks. On the way, however, we stopped in Benicia at the Benicia Knitting Circle. The store was pretty small, but it was stacked to the ceiling with yarns. Giovanna was the woman who was there at the time we showed up, and was very helpful with a few questions I had. I ended up grabbing a few skeins of yarn that I am going to be using to make some baby hats for a coworker's future baby. The ultrasounds said girl, so let's hope so! One skein is Baby Star merino wool, and the other two are Plymouth Yarns Dream Baby DK.

Today we drove in to San Francisco and went to two knitting shops that I have been dying to see. The first one was ImagiKnit. It was so overwealming! I have never seen a place so big and so full of yarn! Interestingly enough, before I even got past the door and the sock yarns, I heard some one call Mr Kiwi's name and say hello to us. It was Romy who had hosted the WWKIP get together next to the Berkeley Rose Garden last year. I can't believe it had been a year since we saw her and of all places, we run into each other at a yarn store that I almost didn't go to. This shop had two very large rooms filled with yarns. They had a huge variety of just about everything; lots of silks, novelties, sock yarns, and wools. It was an incredible store, and when I asked one of the staff some questions, they were quick to help. I was impressed, but didn't buy anything since I was waiting to see what the next yarn shop had to offer.

Very near by was Noe Knit. While it was not nearly as large a shop, it was very nice. After touching almost every since skein in the place, I ended up buying a few. Four were Debbie Bliss Rialto (two in admiral blue and two in blue) and one skein of Regal Silk by Art Yarns in color 123 (descriptive, huh?)

The Debbie Bliss is so soft! I bought two skeins for myself, and thought a certain pal of mine would appreciate the other two. I am keeping the "blue" ones, and they have a future as a pair of fingerless mitts. Also, although I can't keep from touching silk, it is also going to go to my pal. I hope she doesn't see this before it gets to her. It's some awesome stuff, and I hope she can knit a cool scarf with it. I'll have to touch it a few more times before sending it off.

And since it is picture time, I started these socks last Sunday.

These are craptastic pictures, which is odd since I used the same camera settings as the other pictures and they were taken moments appart. The yarn is Tofutsies, and it is the warm colors. I think the oranges and pinks are making the pictures look kinda bright. These socks are going to be a gift for another friend. Who doesn't know it yet. Ha ha. It's also hard to tell, but at this point, I am in the middle of making the heel gussett, so they are near half way finished. I'm really enjoying this pair, and I can see progress after I knit for an hour!! ..Unlike the lace that became huge and it was hard to see how much I done in one sitting. Speaking of which, those pictures will be up before too long. The shawl needs some blocking before pictures can be taken.

A break from crafts to preach some pet health

2007-05-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

Usually I am not very verbal about endorsing products. Maybe I am to friends, but only if it is already brought into a conversation. However I can't help but talk about my cats and their food. Before the whole food contamination thing, I was feeding them the generic pet food. Purina indoor formula or something. Because it sounded "healthy". Then I decided to try feeding them "organic" cat food, or what I thought was organic. Again, because I thought it was "healthy" for them. Then there was the cat food contamination. There was no food that was safe, and it even reached the Nutro food that I thought was safe. It got so bad and so many brands were getting hit that I went as far as researching what cats need in their diet and how hard it would be to feed them a diet of people food and supplements to makes ure they had everything they needed. It's not as easy a feat as I thought, adn I knew going into it it would be though.

One of the problems with the cat food and the ingredients being imported from China is that the labeling laws are different between ouir countries, and not just in pet foods; in human foods too. If there is less than a certain percentage of an ingredient, they are not required to put it on the label. That and they cut corners and don;t see anything ethically wrong because it saves them a buck. For instance, cats needs a certain amount of protein in their diet, and if you look on the package, you will see their breakdown of how much protein, iron, fat, etc is in the food by percentage. The food companies purposefully added the melamine to the wheat and rice gluten to give the illusion of higher protein concentrations in the food. When run through tests, the chemical looks similar to protein, so they add that instead of the full amount of protein in order to save a little bit of money and seem to have no problem with the fact that it is killing pets.

Because I cannot sit back and accept that I will have to feed my cats food that can potentially kill them, nor can I dedicate the time and research I need to figure out what "people food" in what percentages is safe and most healthy for the cats, I decided to change the food I feed them. I found out from a friend that she feeds her pets human-grade food. Basically, there is nothing in these bags of animal food that would not be the same grade that would be safe for human consumption. If it's not good enough for people, it's not good enough for pets.
These are three of the pet foods I know that have human quality ingredients:
Wellness Pet Food
Flint River Pet Food
Innova Pet Food

My cats have been eating Flint River food for senior cats (even though they are not old kitties) because it has a lower fat content that is suitable for indoor cats who do not get quite enough excersize running aorund in a yard. And here comes the "sales pitch"... I can't believe how their behavior has changed since I started feeding them this food. Previously, they were lethargic, didn't play as much as I wanted, and were chubby and lazy. Since I have been feeing them this food for about a month, they are still a little chubby (hopefully that'll change) but the energy they suddenly have! They chase each other around the house, they play with everything, and they actually wear themselves out from being so active instead of simply being lazy and laying aorund all the time. Think about the engery difference we would have if we ate veggies, fruits, and hummus for a week versus a snickers bar for every meal for a week. Can we say lethargic much?

Never will I go back to the other crap food. And I really urge everyone to consider what you are giving your pets and if you would yourselves put in your own bodies what you are feeing the animals that don't have a choice other than to eat what you put on the floor for them.

Done preaching!! :o) Just wanted to share.

Jury + knitting

2007-05-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

I had jury duty today. I had a feeling that it would take forever for anything to happen, so I thought it would be a good idea to bring my knitting with me to feel rpductive while I waited to fulfill my civic duty. I show up to the courthouse, place my bag through the scanner that looks remarkably like the ones you'd find in airport security, and begin to walk through the metal detector. The woman looking at the bags looks at me and asks "Do you have knitting needles in your bag" My heart sinks. I say yes. "You're going to need to put those back in your car. Dammit. So I go back out, put them in the car, and come back to a sudden long line whith some rather moody people (trying to stick their paper lunch bag in the Xray machine and being angry when the security woman kept trying to hand it back and give her proper instructions...). I do get through and then have to wait in the juror room along with the others as they file in.

8:45am and we finally get our questionairres to fill out and turn in. I get mine done, stare at the floor, stare at the ceiling, stare at my shoes, the people near me, the people on the other side of the room, and the pictures of past and present judges on the wall. And thought about my knitting. We finally get "orientation" as in "don't lie on your surveys, and by the way if you are employed by the state/county/etc you won't get your $15/day juror pay (wtf?!?! I make MORE than that in an hour!)" before watchng a video on how cool it really is to be a juror, and how you can learn so much, and hey! these jurors kept in touch after the trail! Be a juror; meet new friends! I smell a new dating service in the making. The moment the viedo started playing I wanted to burst out laughing. However, even at 9am I was smart enough to NOT start making fun of the video, seeing as how I was in the courthouse and all. Thank you, you wonderfully strong 2 cups of coffee that I drank at 6am, for making me think before ending up on the other side of the juror's bench. I laughed very hard on the inside.

After the quite amusing video we got a "20 minute break". I bought a muffin (after being informed that we could be there as late as 5pm; thanks for letting us know BEFORE HAND...I could have packed my own paper bag lunch and tried to force it through the Xray machine) and ate it back in the juror waiting room thing. 20 minutes turned into 30. 30 turned into 50. After that, I kinda lost count. At about minute 18 I was thinking "you know... I could be KNITTING right now. I could be zoning out while my fingers ran circles around needles and yarn, but Nooooooo. Knitting needles are too much of a weapon." So I did the staring at everyone, my shoes, the ceiling/floor/pictures thing again. Until I found a tennis magazine. I was 2 pages away from the end when I hear a shreik "ALL RISE!!!" At that point the judge came in and told us that all the trials set for today had reached "deals" (or agreements or whatever it was he used) and that we would not be needed. And I didn't get any knitting done.

The bright side of this whole thing? I am exempt from being called to a jury again for at least 12 months. Sweet! And I had a half day of work. And I still expect my $15 if only to pay for the damn #@%$T expensive ass gas that it took to get there and NOT knit. ;o)

Knit Quick?

2007-05-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

As I sit here at the very beginning of what looks like miles and miles of picot edging that I must complete in order for my ShoalWater Shawl to be officially complete and bound off, I realize that it may take an entire day to get this darned thing bound off. I so desperately want to start something new, because I am anxious and eager, and dammit! I have finally become bored of this and need a quick easy project that doesn't take .. 5 weeks? How long have I been working on this? And then I look at a number of other knitters and the speed at which they finish their items. I know some people who claim to be "the world's slowest knitter" or a "quicki knitter" or what have you. But I honestly have no idea where I fit in to this. At knit night, the ladies come in with the same project, something different, always changing. I can't keep track of what's done and what's not, especially since there are a number of UFO's floating around places. Then I look at some blogs where there is post after post of "look what I just started" then BAM! "look what I just finished!" Sweaters, blankets, tops, whatever pumped out in no time. Are we living in different speeds of time? I didn't consider myself to be a slow knitter... I actually have no idea how I compare. I knit an awful lot while I am home... I hate to admit but I spend more time knitting than I do practicing my dance. So why does it take me so long to finish things, while it seems to take so much less time for others? Maybe I need to drop the size 5 needles and below for a minute and make a sweater than takes a good size 8!

And back to those picots I go. Maybe this will teach me that there are some things in knitting that no; just because it is there it doesn't mean I have to know or do it.

Kiwi Creations

2007-05-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

I have never been good with secrets and surprises. I am the one who buys a Christmas gift for someone in October and am squirming until December 25 because I can hardly keep it quiet. Thus, it should surprise no one that I so quickly announce what I have been wokring on with my stitch markers. In addition to my Etsy shop, I now also have Kiwi Creates, a blog dedicated to all of my hand made items. As quickly as I can get pictures taken of the markers, they will be updated and put up on the site. :o)

Shawl Progress

2007-05-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

I guess it has been long enough since I have last posted. My working life has become busy, my knitting has been powering on, and so has my stitch marker making. New changes are to come with the stitch markers, but I will wait to reveal that until it gets closer to the time when the changes will occur. The shawl has been powering along. I am 50 rows away from being finished! I estimate that it won't be too much longer before I am wearing a new FO and beginning a new project. These pictures were taken about a week and a half ago, I believe. And of course I left out anything that could remotely resemble something to use for size comparison, unless you squint to see the itty bitty stitch marker action happening at the top. Oh well.

More updates more frequently; I promise!!

Contest Winning!

2007-04-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

It turns out that my SP hostess's husband (who was judging the entries) enjoyed my story of searching for the Karabella Breeze yarn in the last contest, and I co-won with Eyevea. In turn I won a lovely skein of Misti Alpaca Lace, which Robin suggested making the Swallow Tail Shawl with, since it apparently is exactly enough. I may just take that suggestion.... after I finish my Shoal Water Shawl, which is going so nicely! Pictures later, I promise!

Shameless Self Promotion.

2007-04-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

So for the past 2 weeks, people have been asking me to post pictures of the stitch markers I am selling on Esty to this blog. Since they ask, I decided that I would oblige and post some pictures. These are not all of the stitch markers I have up, and as one of my friends discovered last night, if you ask for additional sets that I may not have on hand, I am more than willing to make more for you. :o) My Etsy shop is located here so you can look around at the other items and full descriptions. Feel free to comment or email me if you have any sort of questions. :o)

SP10 Contest #2

2007-04-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

This contest is to tell of the craziest fiber-related quest I've ever been on, going out of my way and spending months searching for a yarn.

It happens that I have the perfect story. While visiting my college during the first spring after I graduated, a friend and I went to check out the LYS that was right down the street. What timing! The woman running the store decided she had had enough but couldn't find a buyer, so she was closing the store and having a sale. My friend and I took this opportunity to buy a few yarns that we otherwise would not buy at full price. Remember, at the time I was only a year out of college and well into year 1 of 15 of being in debt to student loans, so anything over $7 a skein was more than I'd usually pay. I found 5 lovely balls of karabella Breeze, and decided they were destined to come home with me to become something great. Of course, I didn't have a pattern already picked out, so when it came time to actually try to knit with them, I found for almost every pattern I was 1 or 2 skeins short. Drat! I chose the near impossible task of searching high and low for 2 more skeins of this stuff, and hoping that maybe the lots (since I knew I'd never be so lucky to get the same one) wouldn't be too noticably off. Remember, I bought these skeins 3000 miles from home, and only realized I was short after getting home,a dn after the other shop closed.

Ever since April 2006, every yarn store I would go into, the first question would be "do you carry Karabella Breeze?" My LYS conveniently carries every Karrabella yarn out there... except for Breeze. I searched another shop close to me. A shop in Berkeley; no luck there either. One in San Carlos? Nope. How about on vacation in other states? Nope, not there either. One weekend Mr Kiwi and I drove up to Davis to hit up two yarn stores, one of which was established and the other which had just opened. I was hopeful. The new one did not have Karabella (although they had lovely yarns and a beautiful set up) and the established shop had a total of 2 Margarite Bulky, and a Boulce yarn. No Breeze. I was beginning to feel like I was out of luck and may have to figure out some creative way of using my skeins that did not involve a cute top, which I was so hoping for. I had about given up when Christmas time came. The friend I had initially gone with to get the skeins had sent me a gift certificate to an online knitting shop which it turns out she loves. I think it was for $25. I cruise around the online store, and think "I wonder....." I searched, and ho, ho! They carried Karabella Breeze! In my color! No way! My gift certificate was enough to buy the two skeins that I had been searching 8 months for. Rock on! At this point, I didn't even care what the dye lots were. It had been too long searching, and what were the chances that an on line store and an out of business brick adn mortar store would carry the same lot? How big are dye lots anyway? It didn't matter. About a week later, I received my long awaited package. After opening it, I dug out one of the original skeins to see how badly the colors looked and how I was going to alternate skeins to make them blend in and not look too bad. They actually didn't look too bad. Actually, they looked pretty damned exact. I checked their tags, and wouldn't you know it. Both said color 28 (of course) and to my surprise, they were both also Lot 3692.

I like to believe it was luck and that there isn't really no dye lot for this yarn. It's just too cool. And I have plans for those puppies. Oh yes I do. ;o)

Etsy Shop!

2007-04-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

My Etsy shop is open! As I make more designs, they will appear in the shop with or without announcement. I am very excited that these cool stitch markers that I have designed are popping up in my store, and that people are taking interest in them. I still have way more stitch markers that I am going to design and already have the materials for, and yet I am already thinking up the designs for the next round. :o)

And the link for the shop is in the side bar to the right. Also, if you happen to be snooping from SP10, I do give free shipping. :o)

Nature Update

2007-04-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

The pigeons that had hatched on my balcony are getting big. I haven't seen them fly yet, but I have noticed the mother leaving them for longer and long periods without sitting on them. She is mostly nearby though so a watchful eye is always there. I think it si really cool that they are there and that I have seen them from hatching to growing feathers, but I am ready to get my balcony back. I am looking forward to seeing them fly off and making their own nests elsewhere so that I can reorganize, sweep off the poo, and have beautiful plants growing again.
Here is what they look like as of yesterday. Looks like they have finally grown into their eye balls.

Secret Pal Gift

2007-04-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on my way home, I was thinking about my Secret Pal. As is my usual routine, I checked the mail before going inside, and look at that! I had a package from my Secret Pal! How exciting! It was a very nice package, which included a pack of cute knitting note cards, a washcloth, and a note. The washcloth was apparently my Pal's first attempt at entrelac, and it was a darn good job at that! The colors are very nice and my Pal did a very good job. I finally got a chance to take pictures of everything today.

Here is a picture of the washcloth and cards:

Close up of the beautiful entrelac:

Thank you, Pal!!! :o)

Etsy

2007-03-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

Since beginning my lace shawl, I have not been able to stop thinking about stitch markers and how much I have come to like them in the past... week. Because of this, I have decided to make my own stitch markers. In the middle of the week, I bought the basics for what I needed to make some markers, and I am hooked. Today I bought more decorative beads and have been chugging out sets of markers in no time. I believe since yesterday I have made 14 sets with 5-7 markers in each set. By the end of this weekend, I hope to have my Etsy shop up and running. I am very excited about this, and already have a number of favorites.
So this is my shameless plug that you should check back and look for my Etsy shop to be up!

Most/Least Favorites...

2007-03-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

My SP10 Hostess, Robin has asked her group to write about their most favorite and least favorite yarns, why, and what we have knit with them. I had a somewhat difficult time trying to decide which yarn I absolutely loved knitting with, and had to think pretty hard abaout it. One of my thoughts was Karabella Boise, because let's face it. Who doesn't love cashmere? However this yarn lost love points from me because if I made one teeny itty mistake, I had to tink back extremely carefully so that the stitches didn't felt together while frogging. Speaking of chashmere, I think Lana Grossa Pashmina would be one of my tops picks. This is very soft to knit with and is increadibly soft and lovely. The other yarn tied in first would be Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb. 50/50 silk and merino wool, I made a scarf out of this for my Mother in Law. It was so soft on my fingers and it just flew off the needles. I couldn't believe that blocking it would make it even softer, but it did. This stuff was incredible.

As for my least favorite yarrn, I would have to say hands down without a doubt it would be Lion Brand Suede. A few years ago in my knitting infacy, I saw an adorable pattern for a bolero that I wanted to make, and bought some Lion Suede. It would be my first attempt at making a fitted garnment (this is pre-sock making) other than a hat. It was going great; I had the front and back finished and was waiting to make the sleeves before seaming everything together, then I realized the back was an inch longer than the front, and I had to frog. This stuff is *awful* when it comes to frogging. It lost what little bounce it had, fuzz stripped off and left balding patches on the yarn, and when reknit, it was clear which section had been ripped once, twice, and three times. Before I was able to finish the sleeves, I shoved it in the bottom of my stash and left it there. For almost 2 years, before I finally cut my losses, pulled out the needles and stitch holders, and threw the thing into the garbage. It made my hands hurt trying to knit it was it was not at all fun.
I am not one to turn my nose at a yarn because it is acrylic, or a blend, or "fake", but not all man made yarns are created equal. There are good quality acrylics, and then there are the sad excuses for plastic yarn. The second is when the Lion Suede falls.

Stretch!

2007-03-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

Last week I only went to one of my dance classes; dance movements. I decided that I didn't want to spend the other class struggling, since I knew we were going to be working on V's, and I am still trying to wrap my mind aorund how to flex one or the other hip flexor *without* lifting that leg. I promised myself that even though I was';t going to class I was still going to practice at home, and do my stretches and maybe run on the treadmill and do some weights in the weight room. Yeah right. Knitting got in the way. That and the fact that time runs away with no warning.
So I have not been to class in a week. Bad Kiwi. I did go again tonight though. And if I didn't know any better, I would think that I needed breaks from dancing more often! It was incredible. I felt the correct muscles contracting when I wanted them to. My balance was better than previously. And my turn out feels stronger and more controlled.
At the beginning of class, we warm up and do stretches, including splits to each side and when in belly dance, we'll even do a straddle. I have never done splits before or even attempted them before dancing at this school (note: I started at the end of September in 2005). Every class I have been working on getting into my splits properly and having both my hips facing forward instead of one opening out, as well as geting as low as possible. This of course means I am supporting myself on my hands at the same time. Today was no different than any other day; I was focusing on keeping my left hip down and forward while working on my right side split, when T walked up behind me and said in my ear "Don't be scared." as she placed her hands on my hips, nudged the left one further forward and pressed down. Holy!! I had dropped 3 inches, at least. I was more concentrated on breathing through the burn of opening and stretching to take a moment to look in the mirror to see how low I was, and truth be told, my eyes were closed through most of it. When we switched sides and worked on the left side split, I tried to mimic the same thing she had done and forced myself to go trhough my safety zone. My left calf was touching the floor, and looking in the mirror, I was only inches away from being in my full split. Woo!!!! I'm stretching! I am gaining more flexibility, and my dancing is going to improve because of this!
Who's excited? That would be me. :o)

Knitting in Progress

2007-03-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

I have been in a posting frenzy the last week! But there has been so much interesting things that I can post pictures of instead of just babble about.
Once I finished the blanket, I picked up the Mt Tam Mitts that have been patiently wating for me. I would bring them to knit night to work on since, well.. the blanket was not portable. When I had last touched them, one was ready to start the thumb gusset, adn the other had the gusset in the making. This was the first time I had ever done a mitten/mitt/glove/whathaveyou, so I did not actually realize how long the gusset would be and how much yarn it would require. I actually thought it would be pretty short, so I used more yarn than I should have getting the main part of the mitt with the pattern knit before even starting the gusset part. On the first mitt, I managed to get a couple of rows past getting the gusset on scrap yarn before running out of yarn, but on the second one, I was maybe 3 or 4 rows short of getting the gusset onto scrap yarn before running out. I only need half a ball of yarn and maybe 30 minutes and both these beauties will be ready to be washed, blocked and worn. Even though it seems like they took forever because I was not constantly knitting them, they were very fast. Both main sections could be completed in one day, and both gussets (assuming I had enough yarn!) could be completed in another day.

My new project is, as I suggested in my last Stitches post, a lace project. I have decided to work on the Shoalwater Shawl from Fiber Trends. This was a pattern that I bought when I have *just* learned how to knit. After buying it thinking how cool it looked, I opened the insert and thought "what???". At that time I did not know how to read charts, and probably didn't know some of the stitches that I am using. Every time I started a new project since then, I have thought of this pattern, and how I was *eventually* going to work on it. So, why not now? Lace seems to be one of those things like socks, steeks, and short rows, that people are scared of doing. When talking about lace it is a gasp and a whisper because oh, it is so lovely but (in the whisper) it's so hard! If there is one thing about knitting that I don't understand, it is the fear of something new. I looked over the instructions before starting, checked out the charts (which now make *perfect* sense), and thought "awesome! bring it on". To me, lace is not that hard. It requires that you pay attention to what you're doing, stopping every now and then to make sure you have the right number of stitches, and just being careful in general. I also learned rather quickly that stitch markers and life lines are a necessity, luckily, a lesson not learned the hard way. I have not had to rip back to a lifeline far away ::spits through fingers:: and have finally found an appreciation for those dangly stitch markers I had randomly obtained from different places. For most things, I found the danglies to get in the way, but here I actually like the danglies better than the plain little stitch markers of which I ahve more than I know what to do with. I currently have 5 dangly markers and all of them are in use. In a few rows, I am going to end up needing more. I might be making a trip to the etsy stores before too long.

I am almost at the end of the second chart, and it is going so smoothly. If there is any knitting that I have done that was soothing and relaxing, this is it. The only thing I could see being a problem with this particular piece is that the yarn I am using most probably will not block. So unlike most lace knitting, what I see when this comes off the needles is what I will get. There will be no blooming and stretch. But hopefully in spite of all this it will still look fantastic.

Blanket Done!!

2007-03-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

It's finished! I cast off last night and finished seaming it together and weaving in all the ends today. Hooray! I have less than half a ball left, so it will probably hang out in my stash with my scraps until I can figure out what to do with it. Now all I have to do is finish off the Mt Tam Mitts, and I can start something new. Hmm... what to do next. :o)