Category Archives: Knitting

Ashland Oregon

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

A friend assures me is a lovely town, well worth a visit in non-Covid times. There is a Shakespeare Festival, historic inns. It might be lovely, it might be industrial, I have no clue. When arriving off I-5 around 1900 in the evening it was impossible to tell. Most certainly it is not a town that is spending significant resources on street lighting. Located 16 miles north of the California border, the sign for Ashland was a welcome sight.

The sun is setting earlier and I do not enjoy driving in the dark. Not in the dark, not up and down hills (mountains?), nor around curves. We will not speak of the fact that more than 50% of the vehicles sharing the road with me had twelve wheels or more. They sail down hills before gradually slowing as they grind their way up the next. Their head lights provide an unwanted glare in my rear view mirrors. The few other cars dart past, between the trucks sometimes managing a speed only marginally faster than required for overtaking.

This kind of excitement and stress do not bring me joy. I really, really no longer enjoy driving at night and have decided that I will not blow this particular popsicle stand prior to decent light in the morning.

In case you are wondering, I am currently headed to Portland. There is a knitting friend there who is also a weaver. He is a brother to a much longer known friend, indie.dyer and yarn shop owner in the San Juans. I have “toys” that have been occupying space in my life, our garage prior to our most recent move to Germany if that gives you an idea on the age. I am never going to use them again. Selling them is just too much of a pain. So why not give them to an engineer? Neither he nor his son have a clue as to what fills the back of our  VW Golf. But I was reassured that there was plenty of space in his great room.

We shall see….

Whatever in 2009

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I looked back at 2009. Eleven years ago. The blog is mostly about the sweater I was knitting at the time – the infamous Phoenix –

prior to blocking

 

and dashing to the train. nothing about Passover, little about work or the family. A bit of remembrance of heading to Bosnia. A time of restricted movements, being stuck inside the fence with care about where I went, when I went and with whom

Gee, little has changed.

Fleet Week

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is just starting in San Francisco. In the back of my head, I sort of had filed the information away along with all the other local events that are interesting but don’t elicit any personal interest in participation.

Then I noted some rather low flying, fast, expensive aircraft buzzing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Right – Fleet Week – when Navies get together and show off – their ships, their abilities, and, in the case of the US Navy – the Blue Angels.

I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing last year – but I remember 5 Oct 2017. I was headed round trip through the Panama Canal on the NCL Sun in the company of good friends from Australia. We were due to pull out from San Francisco at a reasonable time of the afternoon. And then the fun started. It was a Friday afternoon. The tannoy announcement informed us that we were going to be delayed secondary to the Blue Angels rehearsing. Along with dozens of others, I went and staked out my territory on the upper deck. Up at the bow with a good camera and excellent lens. I checked the old post to discover that I hadn’t uploaded pictures at the time. And since I have changed laptops since then, I have to find the connector, pull out the backup drive, and find the photos.

Right.

Anyway. It is Friday. And what started out this whole train of thought was seeing what I thought was a low flying aircraft out of the corner of my eye. George’s window mostly faces another section of the Long Building. I can see toward downtown (East) if I look out and too the right between the two wings of the building. Huh? Walking to the lounge at the end of the hall, I had a clear view of the stretch of Bay which separates San Francisco from Marin and includes the Golden Gate. Contrails slowly dissipating. Oh – ok, Fleet Week, Blue Angels.

Back to my audio books and knitting.

Cotton Blanket

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So, my day wasn’t all that exciting.

about 550meters worth of cotton

knit into a blanket. Finished now except for the blocking

a reasonable start on the puzzle

a bunch of nagging and errands.

 

and yes, there is knitting

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
since it is something I can pick up and put down whenever there is an interruption.

Last Friday, when I stopped at Avenue Yarnshttps://www.avenueyarns.com – I decided to buy another ball of some kind of cotton that would be easy and simple. Katia Yarns produces this lovely Fair Cotton Craft. One ball makes a number of simple items, scarves and small blankets being among them. (Free Pattern on their website, you just have to hunt inside the pattern for your particular language since they have produced a “one pattern for everyone and every language.”)

147 stitches

 

across and a simple increase/decrease that reverses with 10 stitches between each repeat. Each color appears only once with the majority of the yarn being a basic natural. Size 3.5mm needles and I was all set. Task list, yarn, headphones, audio book….

 

 

As far as I can go

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
on my shawl for the Wild Swan MKAL. In case I haven’t explained it – MKAL stands for Mystery Knit Along. The pattern for the knit-a-long is published in increments which means that none of us participating have a clue as to what the final product will look like. Ravelry has updated their software so that it now possible to post progress pictures on the forums but have them hidden under a “spoiler” label so that each person can make the choice of whether or not to peek.

Me? I don’t want to wait until after the full pattern is published to start – that takes all the fun out of participating. But peeking means that if, for some reason, I decide it isn’t worth my time, I can bail out earlier in the process. I really don’t need any more UFOs (Unfinished objects) lying around.

So here I am – 6 rows short of completing Chart G, the last.

see the needle?

After reading most of the discussions, I decided that I could end the shawl after o this particular row with a regular rather than a picot bind off. Not enough yarn. I am stuck and am very glad that I contacted the dyer several weeks ago for more yarn.

I don’t wait well…..

and today is?

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
It was partway through the day when I figured out that one half of the email list was dated correctly and the other half stated it was “19 Jan 2019.” Now obviously that was not true. What was probably worse was that I originally thought that the 13th was the incorrect date.

Something tells me that I was not feeling as well as I would like to have imagined.

It was obviously a slog to get to school. I made in through my two morning classes, the return through BART and was grateful for a pick-up by George. I was going to use the excuse of being completely brain dead as to why I wasn’t really studying for the rest of the day. But really, is knitting a complicated lace something I should be trying in a brain dead situation?

Through Chart E

the left “wing”

I won’t bother to tell you how many corrections I had to make on the return rows to finish the last portion of clue 3. Let us just say that there were a lot of yarn overs and beads involved.

Yep. Gave up. Went to bed with the intention of getting up early….

What used to be here

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A long time ago – or when I lived in Heidelberg – which may or may not be all that long ago in geological terms I wrote about some of the brass plaques inserted in various sidewalk locations in memory of those who had lived at that location and were taken and killed as part of the Holocaust.

As it turns out, there are plaques with a similar purpose set in the sidewalks here in San Francisco. These don’t relate to the Holocaust (obviously). So far I haven’t found any that relate to much of the California shame of the WWII internments. But what I found on my walk from the Powell Street BART to UC Hastings via various streets in the Tenderloin – was the following:

B’nai Brith arrived in San Francisco in 1855. Started originally to help widows and orphans, nationwide it became a strong supporter of the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel Foundations and BB Youth Organizations.

And here is a link to the California Digital Press Archives from 1897.  The archives are searchable and there are a number of contemporaneous articles on the 1906 Earthquake and the aftermath (1, 2 , 3- which discusses the libraries that were lost in the fire)

In researching more recent times – there were three remaining Lodges in SF which combined in 1997 to one. Of interest is that of those involved was still named the Golden Gate Lodge (see picture above).

In 1999, the official office closed and the organization became completely run by volunteers.

At some point, they even decided to admit women.  (gasp!  I remember the mother of a good friend saying – the men do B’nai Brith, the women do Haddasah. The local chapter likes to bowl, and bowling is just not a Jewish sport, I don’t belong! This was the early 1970s. )

In 2005, the remaining San Francisco lodge celebrated 150 years of activity in San Francisco.

It was at this point I ran out of time following various links down newspaper archives and various other bit-buckets. Something about a couple more classes this afternoon and maybe being prepared?

Wild Swan

now through 94 rows –

Wild Swan

Holly Doyne Posted on by 2
For something completely unrelated to all my usual bitch, moans, and whines – knitting!

The Gradient Group on Ravelry is having a knit along (KAL) and the pattern is called Wild Swans. After looking at several of the spoilers, it actually seemed like both a nice shawl pattern and an interesting knit.

Of course I have yarn. I have lots and lots of yarn. So no excuse to buy any more. I also have a significant number of knitting needles in almost every size (which means that I spent almost 30 minutes digging through draws, bags, bins, and boxes till I located exactly the needle that I wanted).

The yarn is from Fierce Fibers which I purchased last fall while in Portland on that American Steamboat cruise with George. The yarn type is Abyss which is a 50/50 merino & silk blend. It is not superwash (duh) in color Midnight Oil at about 645 yds.

 

Abyss Yarn – Midnight Oil

The pattern starts with an I-cord tab. The clues are released on 1, 3, 5, & 12 January with the deadline 15 Feb.

Clue 1 included Chart A

Chart A – 36 rows

Clue 2 includes Charts B, C, & D

Thru Chart B – 42 Rows

Which means that I am now off to tackle Chart 3 after which I will have 48 rows (and 144 stitches on my 3.5mm needle)

Tiling in the New Year

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The break is over. Today we have workman on the foundation downstairs.

getting ready to pour again

Yes the foundation is complete, but they are adding the steps/skirting at the entrances. We looked at ramps, and they can still be added in the future but at this point would take up so much ground space as to eliminate all the green outside the kids front door.

with dump truck out on the main road

At the same time, the large pile of slippery clay is being removed and tile is being laid in the downstairs. I think I mentioned that we put in radiant heat? The subfloor is finished and the gentlemen who did the tiling upstairs in the 2014 renovations are doing the downstairs. Their tile work is amazing.

Back to the floor. We are being simple, attractive and extremely easy to clean. The tiles when laid give you the appearance of a wooded plank floor without the upkeep or scratching that is going to occur with two rather good size dogs living in the place. Not quite drain in the floor – hose it down, but easy to sweep, mop or vacuum.

looking like aged wooden planks

 

meanwhile, today has been busy – Dani to work at 0500 and bailed out at 1230 – Alex dropped off at 1300, run to the lighting store for a fixture for the front entry and cabinet hardware. Dani had asked a reasonable question this morning – how am I going to get the drawers open. Answer? We need to by handles. Only took two stops – those at the first were lovely but extremely overpriced so we went to the main hardware store used by our contractor, found something just as nice and 1/2 the price (before builder’s discount.)

otherwise, I am cranking away on my version of Illumine knit from two alternating balls of Katia Infinity

up to row 78

Palma

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No, I didn’t bother to take the tour today. I figured it out. Instead I went for a short walk.

Well, not so short.

a lovely day for a walk

Instead of heading directly into town I went left to the old Navy port and where the Tui (Mein Schiff whatever) was docked. Turns out the old weapons are inside the current naval base, so no tour of those…). Then back to Port Pi (shopping center) and down Joan Miro all the way into town.

Would you believe that I found a yarn store? (duh you are probably thinking)

Katia yarn

You have to understand, I have drifted through Palma half a dozen times over the last six years and haven’t struck gold. This place was packed with yarn floor to ceiling. Also Anchor crochet cotton and a full range of embroidery floss. The lovely owner didn’t speak any English, my Spanish is close to non-existant. But I received help from a lovely English woman who has lived there for close to 50 years. She is originally from Camberley but moved to Palma when her mother remarried. She has extended family now in the area (sisters, stepsisters, daughter, granddaughter…) which is good since she has just started her second bout with chemo therapy, the last being a couple of years ago. She mentioned not having a lot of energy, obviously no hair and misses her eyelashes the most. Ruling out experimental therapy (and trips to Barcelona) she has decided that knitting would be better than crochet for now and is embarking on a sweater for the granddaughter.

We talked for a while, then each went our separate way. Me thinking that I have had it easy compared to her: chemo made me crabby and tired but not all that sick. I, hopefully have bought a few years before I have to make any more decisions. She is facing those decisions now: but more than two years with pancreatic cancer is quite amazing. Life is precious, but not at any cost.

From there I went on a hunt for hand lotion. No the ship doesn’t provide it. And a bit through the old city.

On the way back I walked through the start of a holiday market before braving what seems like the endless pier to get back to the ship…

MSC Seaside

 

all told I probably put in about 30k worth of steps (according to a fellow passenger who recorded over 15k walking just one way….

Projects update

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It seems much more reasonable to update you on my fiber projects than to discuss the As horrible performance in Texas last night. It takes some kind of talent to lose a game 10:5. Obviously the pitchers weren’t doing well as the home runs added up. The only positive I can draw is that the Giants also lost (Schadenfreude).

It also avoids me having to talk about not sleeping much last night so that staggering out of bed around 0330 this morning was less that thrilling. There is a reason that the early morning flights are cheap. Even Southwest had 40 empty seats on the plane. It also avoids the entertainment of getting through TSA. I went through the PreCheck lane which didn’t help at all when they looked at my cooler bag containing five pre-filled syringes which need to stay cold.

Is it gel?

No, ice. Spent the night in my freezer. You are welcome to look inside or feel around, but I can’t afford to have the meds warm up. Five minutes of fishing around and I think the guy finally figured out that I was harmless. Meanwhile, Noah asked about security measures and was ignored in a different lane. Then they got all upset when he hadn’t taken off his shoes or taken out his laptop. Please note the complete absence of signage….

I hates needles.

Anyway – on the needles –

More importantly – tomorrow I get back to Fractured Time – since I now have all the colors and didn’t want to take the Flower Spray off the floor stand

26 March 2017

 

After listening to the game through the bottom of the 9th, we went downstairs to grab a sandwich. A’s won; the Giants didn’t.

Down memory lane

Holly Doyne Posted on by  
last night I finally downloaded the 2007-2015 content from proseknitic.de in preparation for cancelling the site.  Should I bother to tell you how many spam comments I had to kill. I found them, of course after I had done the import so I am hoping that most fell outside the import windows.

Then I took a look at comments from way back when and started following links from all the knitters.

Should I not have been surprised to find most of the blogs inactive for years or that I have lost track of a number of people? Part of it makes sense. The blog[s] drifted away from pretty solidly knitting content only to being more about travel with the occasional opinion rant more than fiber. In other cases, I think various people found that Ravelry was easier to use than posting on a blog where few people ever commented. Feedback is important unless your soul is basically that of a writer, in which case you just need to express yourself and the h* with anyone who can’t take a joke.

Thinking back – April 1998-March 2007 – email list. March 2007 (ten years – that is quite scary in some ways) to the present with more or less consistency running both the blog and an email list that varies in size depending on the subject, the year and the drop of those not interested. The last has been balanced by the gain of new friends.

 
My first mailing lists actually went out from my laptop but through a military server. Use of that server lasted till ~2000 when it finally quit tossing outside emails and implemented some security procedures. After that it was min.net for 10 years till the guys got bored and went out of business. Then there was YahooGroups which I think lasted almost until the UK. At some point the restriction on number of addresses was lifted and I went back to emailing straight. Now? Gmail doesn’t have a problem with a serious number of addressees and cross posting from the blog is pretty much cut and paste along with the occasional editing.
 

At the end of my session with the computer I verified that those pictures which were still on the old blog transferred to the new. Those which seem to have disappeared off that site won’t be found till I dig through my photo archives at home. I knew there was a reason that I backed up everything. I’ll finish PDFing the archives and pages just to have them before pulling the plug on the last three sites hosted in Germany.

 

Clock Fractal

I am making progress

15 March 2017

Hatter up!

Holly Doyne Posted on by 2
Now, as you have probably figured, I ride BART regularly. But as it turns out, I am really only familiar with a couple of routes. I go into SF or to SFO or to the Coliseum/OAK and from any of them to home. What I don’t do is travel from downtown SF to OAK.  So there I am, after an interminable bus ride on the #38 from the SFVA back to the BART. Getting on at Powell, I grab the first train going in the right direction figuring I can change at either Embarcadero or West Oakland. It isn’t till I am sitting there staring at the route map on the inside wall that I finally twig to what would have been obvious to anyone else. I got on the Dublin/Pleasanton line. I can change trains, but there really wouldn’t be much point to it, the branching off from the Freemont line happens AFTER the Coliseum. Duh!

So I listened to an audiobook and continued to knit till my stop.

The reason for doing this detour? Picking up an extra ticket for both the As vs Giants Game  1 April and opening night 3 April. Did I mention that paying the extra BART fare and walking around the entire freaking stadium was cheaper than buying the tickets on line?  No service charge when purchasing in person and I get my season ticket holder discount…..

just a stray end or two but –

the blue hat is done

the small glittery beret with circles is also finished

and I’ve a good start

on what I am now calling the safari hat.

All of this is to take my mind off now having antibiotics to take on a daily basis (something about not too many white cells left) which might be balanced out by at least a bit of progress on tumor reduction. Back again for chemo next Wed.

Not 500 hats but…..

Holly Doyne Posted on by 9
of hats – I had this sudden thought today – I have too many hats in progress.

hats x 4

I have this blue watch cap which will have a fold up brim. It is long, striped and I worked on it at a sales pitch the other day. I need to swap over to double points and just finish it up.

There is a version of the circle beret which now needs to go to double points – it is knit out of yarn with glitter.

There is the second hat for Bill which I started when I though the first one was lost. And then there is the start of a dark red beret because someone I know said she thought it was a fabulous color.

and then there is the cross-stitch which I think I failed to show a completed picture

Fractal 363 – finished 6 Feb

 

which leaves me to the last note of the day. It was raining off and on. There was plenty of mud in the parks. Dani cleaned this one up – before letting her into the house –

Gwen likes mud

 

 

The hat saga

Holly Doyne Posted on by 8
talking about the Exeter Hat for Bill took me back to when I started this whole, perhaps has not silly, knitting hats for fellow cruisers. The year was 2013 and I had been back cruising on Royal Caribbean for a couple of years. The ship was the Radiance and I was going to be leaving the ship at the end of the cruise after doing a number of back to back to back cruises and headed home to Germany. Early in this last cruise, I was talking to the hotel director who mentioned going on vacation (New York) at the end of the cruise and how he wasn’t going to be prepared for the cold. I looked at him – would you like a hat so at least your head would be warm?

he was pleased. In return, he mailed (it must have been hats) to Maus who was going to school in NYC.  Then someone else asked for a hat –

which I knit the next day because it was easy.

and didn’t think any thing more about it.

Fall of 2014 rolled around and it was cold on the North Atlantic

easy stripes

then there was the Splendour in fall of 2015 where there were several people headed back to places seriously colder than Venice or Dubai

since England can get cold

I didn’t capture Egbert or Tony in their hats –

But I still think this one is the cutest.

Baby hitchhiker hat with baby

The five year hat

Holly Doyne Posted on by 8
Since it was raining, I had the perfect excuse to stay home. My prednisone is done, there were some scones that wanted to be baked and that cross-stitch to be finished. So, I got to be the one watching everyone else come and go all day; to meetings, to work, to run errands, to check on the Eldest (no I didn’t go see which virus she has..) to BART etc, etc. Instead – yes, I read, spent time in the hot tub and otherwise didn’t push it.

Remember me talking about running away from home in Fall of 2011? When I took the Grandeur of the Seas that November I met a number of incredibly interesting people, Bill & Jo being among them. I first met them on a sea day about day out on the pool deck drinking coffee with a few others. We chatted a bit, traded emails and have just stayed in contact for what I realize is now more than five years. Bill was the one who was in Colorado and needed a hat. After knitting the hat, I sent it off, but to his postal forwarding, not current address. It finally caught up with him this weekend. He will now have a warm head for the next snow storm.

Bill R & hat

Tomorrow

Holly Doyne Posted on by 16
I have to be over at the VA in the morning to start my next round of fun. Since Bauer has changed the shuttle  schedule, I don’t have quite the flexibility of before. Instead of 0915, the last one heads to the VA just after eight.  Since I finished up the last remaining testing on Monday and had blood drawn then I can jump in with a bang (or something) as soon as I get there.  That is probably ok considering I am facing several infusions plus liters of hydration. And non-excitement, boredom and a rapid decent into crabbiness.

Oh, doesn’t that sound like just so much fun?

Not. But since I’m not interested in joining the ranks of palliation, I’m going with the best presented alternative. Surgery, as in tumor de-bulking, still isn’t an option. Not that I am in love with surgeon’s or their trade mind you, I was just looking alternatives. I like the option of radiation even less. So here I am contemplating nausea, hair loss and at least a few days every three weeks of total disagreeable nastiness. Not the effects from the chemo directly, mind you, but my likely effect on the rest of the family. Prednisone is so not my friend. Unfortunately, it isn’t just in the line up as a blunter of side effects but as an active contributor to the program I can’t just skip it. Some people it makes depressed, others it turns into homicidal maniacs. Be glad I don’t do fire arms…..

I managed to run a few errands today, pretty much ignored the garage, knit for a while and made a bit more progress on the cross-stitch in-progress.

I’m thinking a good nights sleep tonight wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

St Kitts x ?

Holly Doyne Posted on by 10
I think this might have been my fourth, more likely the fifth time I have docked in St Kitts. Since I decided the price to ride the train was outrageous, I elected to do nothing. The train dates from those days when almost the entirety of the island’s  680 acres was planted in sugar cane. Up to 68 plantations, of course with the slave trade having provided all those whose manual labor would serve to make the owners, now good English one and all, quite wealthy.

In my case doing nothing entailed another lovely day spent on ship with very few other’s about. I spent time in the lounge. Snagged the rare and hidden mint tea bag for my afternoon refreshment and spent a bit of time knitting on Bonnie’s Shawl. I wasn’t happy with a couple areas the first time – so took the time today to restart.

 

and checking the schedule for tomorrow –

the benefit of magnetic clips

 

 

While I was at it, I packed up my towels and tote bags

the new tote bag design

 

into the duffle I brought for just in case along with extra shoes and dirty clothes. Ought to take me all of 10 minutes to pack on that last evening.

I did mention chocolate covered strawberries didn’t I?

even if they aren’t exactly ripe