This Lady Knits

Yesterday DH and I decided to go test drive the Lexus RX hybrid, it was a beautiful brady wine color, and oh did it handle well.  I even went so far as to talk lease with the sales lady, but then DH reminded me we were going to  test drive the Toyota Highlander Hybrid as well.  So we put the sales lady at lexus on hold and went down the street to test drive the Highlander.  Very very nice ride, not quite as nice as the Lexus, but the cost of maintenance, the prepaid maintenance plan and the ride itself, well pretty much sold me on the Highlander.

I swear I was just going to talk price with them, had no plans on driving it off the lot.  Well…. I took this home last night

Toyota Highlander Hybrid, it has 3rd row seating in it!  and the 3rd row is big enough that it will sit 2 adults way more comfortably than the Civic did in the back seat.  3 zone climate control, that’s right the passenger and driver zones and a separate control for everthing behind the the front seats.  Built in back up camera and a few other bells and whistles, leather seats yada yada yada.  the only thing it doesn’t have in it is NAV, a rear audio system and a kitchen sink, oh yeah no table like the CR-V’s had.

Well DH and I took it for a little spin up to Bellingham today, and I am more in love with it than I was yesterday when I drove it off the lot.

This is a Superwash Corridale, I started out with about 8 oz, what you are seeing is 6.8 oz, approximately 396 yards, and it’s 3 ply.  Colors are not very true, but it’s late and it’s dark out, to lazy to clear a space near the natural light lamp, it’s pretty much buried deep.  This is about 16 or 17 wpi, so about a sports weight.  The fiber is from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club, about 3 or 4 months ago, and the color way is “Toxic”, purples, whites, oranges, reds and some browns even.  This is destined to be at least 1 pair of socks for yours truly.  Oh this was spun on my Lendrum, and now I have 3 wheels free, so I’m off to throw one of my Sheep 2 Shoe kits on the Rose.

A little over 11 months ago, I took a 1 year contract position, which is due to end at the end of March.  Well that contract will be ending just a tad sooner than originally anticipated as I was offered the same position, but as a full time employee, and I’ve accepted, so I’ll be starting my “new” job on 3/10.

Silly me, went and bought yet another wheel this weekend, the Majacraft Rose.  No worries, I didn’t go for any long drives, I bought the wheel from a friend, who isn’t quite as happy with it as she though she would be.  It’s a wheel I’ve been looking at for a while now and was planning on buying in a few months anyway, so now I don’t have to.

Pictures?  What are those?  there are some of the new wheel around here somewhere, I know DH took some, but  if you want to see the new wheel in the mean time, you can see some here, it’s the one with the rose engraved on it.

Sorry all, I totally spaced the camera again, so no pics from Madrona.  I did come out alive but I’m not sure my wallet survived day 3.  I swear I’m going to get around to taking pics, hopefully some time this week.

 So Day 1 I took a Make it Fit class, who knew so much work went into making something fit you.  We took measurements, don’t ask what mine are I’m not telling *wink*.  Learned about body types, I’m mostly an X shape.  Learned about darts and short rows and where to put them and a whole host of other things that are still settling into my brain.  The class was informative, fun and exhausting at the same time.  By the end of the day, it was all I could do to get some grub and back to my room. By necessity the Make it Fit class was here’s a bunch of information, absorb it and take notes.

Day 2 was a class in Spinning Worsted and Woolen.  A very good counterbalance to my prior day’s class.  This was a more relaxed class, not in information but in teaching style.  The class format was more here’s a handout with the basic differences, now here’s how you do it.  The morning was spent learning Woolen preperation and spinning, she showed us how to do it then gave us fiber and set us free, while she wandered around the room critiquing and answering questions.  We did the same thing in the afternoon for Worsed prep and spinning.  Lots of fun and there were at least 5 of us from my spinning group in that class.

 Day 3, no classes, but I went down to spin with my spinning group, as always a good time was had by all, with periodic excursions back into the market. Sachi came over for the day too, we had a great time catching up as always.  She’s looking for a 2nd wheel, so there may be a trip in our nearish future to Woodland Woolworks to “visit” the wheels they have there.

Oh and I’ve been meaning to mention this for a few weeks now and just clean forgot.  I’ve been beta testing Knit Visualizer 2.0 for a few months now, and all I really have to say about the software is…..WOW.  Version 2.0 now can handle color, has apsect ratio setting so you can actually chart fair isle in color on a knitters graph.  The biggest feature in this release, IMHO, and the greatest, again IMHO, is that you can now create your own stitches.  Not only using KV font, but JKnits font is built in as well.  You can also use any font that is on your computer.  You can create any stitch you’d like and even change the foreground and background color of the stitch.  Go check it out, this is an amazing piece of charting design software.

Oh I do have a pic to share:

This is what I saw on my way into work this morning, through the fog, I was actually able to capture his pic with my camera phone.  I see it quite often, but it rarely translates into something I can capture with my camera phone.

Can I just say wow.  My brain is fried from yesterday’s Make it Fit class, I’m still absorbing what I learned but I swear my brains are still leaking out my ears.  Today’s Worsed and Woolen Class, great counterpoint to yesterday’s class.  The Make it Fit was more of a structured class, where information was given, and given and given….it’s a lot of info.  I can already see where it’s going to complement the 3 month every other Monday, Design Your Own Sweater class I’m taking at an LYS and enhance it.  I just started that class and already I know 2 different ways to take measurements that complement each other.  In the spinning class, it was much less structured, sort of here’s the information, some examples on how to spin woolen and prepare the fiber, lots of sample fibers, then after lunch more examples, this time on how to spin worsted and fiber prep and more fiber samples.  I was in this class with 5 other ladies that I spin with regularly, and it was a lot of fun.   Tomorrow I’m heading back down, to spin with my spinning group, but most of all to spend some time with Sachi.

I forgot to bring a camera, and even if I had brought one, I probably would have completely forgotten I had it.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember one.

Oh the Market, I though I was good until I emptied out my trunk, more on that later, once I’m sure the shopping has stopped.

Pattern: Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf

Needles: Options #8

Yarn:  Handspun by Moi on the Victoria and Plied on the Lendrum. Cashmere & Wool blend, dyed by Chasing Rainbows, I don’t remember the colorway, silly braid bands disappear as quickly as the ball bands.  Navajo Plied to retain the color progression without minimal muddying.

I needed a “bar” knit for a b-day party I went to last night.  This really is a quick knit, I cast it on and did the first row before leaving for the bar, came home, sewed on a button and wove in the ends.  Done did deal.

…well ok, a turn at the wheel does wonders as well.  Edge, what edge you ask, well this knitter has a 4 hour interview tomorrow, so I finished the socks that were supposed to be done last Sunday at knitting tonight.

Pattern:  Earl Grey by none other than the Yarn Harlot

Needles:  #2 circular needles 10″ with a stretch cord and KP 2.50mm DPN’s.

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy but the ball band got away and I didn’t note the color in Ravlery so I don’t know what the color is, but it’s a beautiful slightly variegated brown, perfect for a pair of socks for DH.

Thoughts, this was a fun knit, well except for those needles (the circular not the KP).  The little needles were surprisingly easy to knit with, and I liked the stretchy cord, however, I didn’t like the join, it caught every stitch and was rather a PITA to deal with.  I’ll probably never use them again, the entire experience would have been a complete joy had the joins just let the knitting slip right on by.

So I haven’t made any progress at all on DH’s sock, well that’s a lie, the gusset is done, but it still is missing a foot.

I tripped on the socks and look what came off my needles…oh wait, it jumped on my needles last night, while I was studying for work.

Pattern: Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf

Needles: Options #8

Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa 127 Print Colorway 14

Just doing some stash busting that and this will be the perfect last minute B-day present for a co-worker.

Here’s Thelma showing off for the camera. Ain’t she sweet?

Yes, that is 1 complete sock, and one sock that almost has a complete gussett.  Yes I realize that yesterday was DH’s B-day.  Yes I do realize his feet are probably cold today all because I’m a bad wife and didn’t finish his socks. Yes, I am a bad knitter because I didn’t finish in time.  In reality, I am not really a bad wife or a bad knitter, I just get distracted so easily, so in the case of the sock I am both.

I didn’t make it, so this is what DH got for his Bday yesterday.  Granted I have several excuses good reasons for missing on this one, well ok, 2 shiny objects got in my way, and it didn’t help that when we went to breakfast I fogot to bring the 2nd dpn i was using on the heel.

 There’s this bamboo i’ve been trying to finish spinning, and for what ever reason it chose yesterday to call my name and call it loudly.  So I was just going to take a 15 min break and spin some bamboo and one thing led to another and an hour later I was still spinning.

 The other shiny object, well I’m beta testing software for a friend and I fell into the black hole of my computer for quite some time late yeterday afternoon. Then DH got home from his SB activities and well I couldn’t very well put his sock over him. 

Ok, I’ll have to admit I heard the call of sleeve island yesterday too.

Pattern: Shedir by Jenna Wilson (Knitty Fall ‘04)

Needles: Addy Turbo 16″ #3 & Knitpicks #3 DPN’s.

Yarn: Rowan Calmer Colorway: 479 - Slosh 2 balls, well actualy one and just a bit from the 2nd.

Cast on 1/1/08

Cast off 1/31/08

Yes I know I rarely actually know how long it takes me to knit anything usually it’s just an estimate of how many days, weeks, months, years it’s taken me if I post even that much, but this was for my OOP’s GKA (group knit along) for January, so I know when I cast it on, and my goal was to finish at least 1 of my January KAL’s in January, this was much easier than finishing the Sleeves on my EDC, which I will get back to tomorrow.

The pattern calls for 1 ball of Calmer, and I knit to gauge, others have been able to just get by with one skien, but for some reason, I ran out of yarn in the first ball with 20 or so rows left to go. I really had honestly thought this was the only ball of Calmer in this colorway in my stash, so I was very worried about running out of yarn, so I did what any knitter would do and knit faster, but alas the ball ended and I still had 20 or so rows left to knit.

I went on a stash dive, hoping and praying that I was 20% wrong when I thought I was 80% sure I didn’t have a 2nd ball of this in my stash. I found 1 ball of Calmer in a cream/white, and seriously thought about finishing this with that ball. I figured found 1 ball, there must be another, so i went in again. This time I came up with 1 ball of Calmer…hot pink, not exactly what I was looking for, so back in I went. Came up with yet another ball in hot pink again… back in I went. Wait there’s a 2nd ball of hot pink, it was in the back, so into the cotton shelf I went again, this time I went deep and low and behold what was hiding in the very back bottom corner of my cotton shelf (btw, it’s 5 shelves up, so just above my eye level) there I found another ball of Calmer, not only in the same color way, but from the same dye lot. This hat was meant to be, or so I thought.

I went off to meet with one of my knitting groups, fully intending on finishing this hat, only to find while I brought the new found ball of yarn, and the hat and a sufficient number of DPN’s, but no pattern. I was at knitting, so I knit on DH’s sock, which btw is still not done, but I still have a few hours to finish that one, he’s off for some Superbowl testerone bonding, so I bought myself some time. Hopefully he’ll come home to a completed pair of B-day socks (Happy B-day DH). But I dirgress. Left knittting early that night, so I could finish Shedir in January. I came home an knit, and twisted stitches and decreased then wove in my ends and finished at 11:12 on January 31.

I must knit, I am on the heel of the 2nd Earl Grey sock, and I have until DH gets back from his SB activities to fnish.