Category Archives: Knitting

It looks benign

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This capsule that I get to take once a day for 21 days. Then I get a break for 7 days and then I get to do it again. The plan is X6 at this point.

there are a ton of red label warnings –

Only ½ of which apply to me. Oh yes, and rituximab once a month as well.  I am really glad that I have no copays or deductibles.  The bill would not be fun. (This was an early morning commute. I was westbound on the Bay Bridge so wasn’t impacted by the 2 car/3 death fatal crash on the east bound side on the San Francisco side of Treasure Island).

While I was there, I managed to work on the Ten Stitch Afghan –

working my way up one side, around a corner and starting down the next side. I am just about done with the first ball of gray ombre and well into the second ball of the blue.

Started last fall while on on the Star Breeze – Octavia Morgan is one of the Sheep punk from ForbiddenFiberCo, I didn’t get all that much done, but some progress is always good –

even a few hundred stitches count.

 

Packed

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The day started with errands and ended with me being ready to head to bed early.  Packing took me all of 10 minutes at least for the clothing portion. As soon as I finish up this note – I will pack up the laptop – and add it to my carry-on along with my one knitting project (yes, only one). I also have several cross stitch projects left over from last year. I would love to come back with at least two, and potentially all four finished,

The youngest and I have an early flight to LAX. Then we have a bit of a wait for the RCCL Shuttle bus to the San Pedro Cruise Terminal. From there, we are headed down the coast to Mexico and back (on the 26th) before resuming real life.

So the knitting project – a variation on the Ten Stitch Blanket (Pattern free on Ravelry)

this one in two colors which will spiral around each other till I run out of yarn.

I also managed more stitches on the Horrorflies –

Which leaves me the top of the remaining wing and about four much smaller flying critters a bit further down the project. Since I am now at 84% complete – I think this will probably be the first one I tackle when on the ship.

(Did I mention that we will be leaving for the airport ~ 0400?)

Not too much

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It was one of those days – I managed to finish a knitted blanket. Ok – lap blanket. I had five skeins of silly yarn and just kept going till I ran out.

The yarn originally came from DMC a number of years ago on an after holiday sale costing about $1/ball. Initially meant for hats – each ball came with a “topper.  I just checked their website – apparently they don’t carry this anymore. :I suppose I could tie a dreidel topper in each corner….  I also have a number of balls in other colors …

I am thinking just a bunch of squares and sew them together. I can’t see any kid I know wanting a hat with a weird bobble thing on top. Not that it would survive all that long.

Tomorrow is going to be an early and long day. When I have to head in to SF – I go early enough to beat the traffic. Much rather sit in the car on the top level of the parking ramp (free) and stitch or knit than spend the same amount of time stuck on the Bay Bridge.

Perhaps there is a floor

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in my craft room after all. At least I think I can walk across it now without too many things going crunch or me slipping and falling down. I am still trying to figure out completely what goes where. But I think I have at least three more bins to go to the garage and have done some major reorganization. I can now get to both built in drawers and 1 of 2 built in cupboards. I also have enough floor space now to consider a major move around on my sewing table & extra desk.  But mostly it is the extra floor space which is important.

The downside? Out of sight, out of mind more than likely. And I would really like to use up a lot of fabric in this coming year. Not just yarn and stitching supplies, but actually sewing fabric.

Anyway –

We went to the Cal Women’t Basketball game today against Washington State. George goes for the Basketball – I go for the band. It was another iteration of the Alumni Band since Cal really doesn’t start up again till this week. One couple said it had been 35 years since they graduated….

The game ended 73-72 Cal in overtime. Washington State was really aggressive, shot well and made their free-throws. Cal had their usual issues in the 2nd & 3rd quarters with not quite having it together. Plus one of the refs was calling fouls that no one else saw…

I made further progress on two things today (besides the clean up) – have the 2 color spiral Ten Stitch blanket finally figured out which now means I just go around and round till I run out of the darker blue yarn – then add the second cake of it.

and  436 stitches into a new cross-stitch project on 20 ct Darlin’ by Fortnight Fabrics. with yesterday’s start, this puts me at a whopping m1.2%

 

A trap for the unwary

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I managed to put in several hours more of cleaning/sorting/reorganizing the craft room. As a result, walking across the floor right now could be viewed as a bit hazardous as I am partway through sorting several bins.

And then, of course, I have found more things that can be donated. Cheap yarn that looked like a good deal, but wasn’t, a lot of small cloth sip bags, some of which have come from airlines over the years, and all the candles I could lay my hands on.  I also found more things that can potential go down to the garage. Now all I have to do is pull out the last of some bins, sort through them, sort most of my floss into smaller bins by dyer and finish covers for a number of notebooks.

Nah, nothing, right?

After putting 144 stitches into a project, I decided to finish out the all the knitting I had pulled out of two cabinet drawers. This resulted in four things completely frogged (or was it five) since they weren’t really worth finishing. Seven more scarves and shawls that only needed ends woven in leaving me only one for the morning.

Suggestion from one of the women in one of my Zoom stitching groups – the Ten Stitch Blanket (spiral version) by Frankie Brown found on Ravelry. The double spiral version looked like it might be fun and could use up yarn – always a good thing =

so this is the start. Two ombre yarns on size 5mm needles. the outside one is obviously blue, the other is actually grey. The next section will be 20 stitches across (10 of first the blue, then the grey) with stitch pick up the the blue edge. 10 ridges (=20 rows) and I will get to do another short row corner. From here, each section will get longer and longer, but there is ZERO sewing together which is what makes it lovely.

Off to get some sleep…. still running really, really tired and there is a lot of trash to take out tomorrow before the pickup on Monday….

A little bit better

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I think I actually got some sleep last night and was able to be up and about today with only the occasional coughing fit. I managed to

  1. empty two boxes in the garage of stuff which need to find homes elsewhere
  2. finished a cross stitch that has been hanging out since April 2021 – that burger at the end was a pain.
  3. brought up two more empty bins from the garage so that I can pack up more “stuff”
  4. started an easy small blanket on 5mm needles. ( I have about 400 meters of yarn, so that is what will be used.

Not bad for the day – oh, yes – went over to the Oakland VA and checked that particular appt off the list for this six months.

Tomorrow? Pack two boxes – drop off towels/blankets and some other stuff. Finish yet another left over project – this one from Oct since all the parts hadn’t been released before we departed for Japan.

Speaking of Japan – a shot of the harbor just before we departed Yokohama

Too fancy for postcards

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As our youngest appreciates postcards (I sent them to her while she was in the US at University and I was traveling) my payback for taking me to the airport at  ungodly hours is re-establishing the habit of collecting postcards for her.

We are staying at the Prince Sakura Tower Hotel (Tokyo).  Then it gets complicated. There apparently is a “Prince” hotel group in Japan. Apparently it is also an affiliate of the  Marriott Hotel group. Now that it is daylight, it is easy to see that we are barely a block from the Shinagawa Train Station.  Late this morning (seriously late morning since we woke up about 0300, breakfast wasn’t till 0630) we took a stroll around the area. It seems to be business oriented + a ton of quick food locations due to the proximity of the train station. There is a lot of steel, glass, and towering buildings.

There is even a 7-11. What there was not? Any location selling tourist type things.  Specifically, no postcards. I didn’t even see a newsstand which would have been my other thought.  However, I did find the StarBucks & obtained both the Tokyo & Japan thermos. Interesting that all the US and Canada ones are shiny silver while these

are obviously not. We gave up and came back to the hotel. An inquiry at the desk as to whether or not they had postcards featuring the hotel? No… I am hopeful that at least I can start tomorrow at the port since souvenirs, including postcards, can often be found at cruise terminals.

We skipped lunch and will have an early supper before heading to bed at a fairly early hour. I am close to exhausted and decided that cross stitch was just too complicated for me so sticking with knitting a small shawl in garter stitch.

(time here – 1630 on 29 Oct)

Summer Cat

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Thinking back to earlier this week – I guess I really don’t notice my eyes. They are just there. My glasses are on/off my face depending on what I am doing and which method seems to get the best result.  Obviously, driving a car calls for glasses. Knitting or stitching? Depends.

I have a relatively simple scarf that I have been knitting on Sundays when I head to Avenue Yarns for the Sunday morning knit group.  I think I have maybe an hour left on it. Then I probably should find another partially done project and work on that…

I am ending the day at 88% on the Summer Cat – another Barbara Ana with only about 700 stitches to go. The rest of the cat’s face, the hat and all the things she is holding in her second hand.

Oh, yes, eyes. My left eye still feels weird. Maybe it is just the bit of ache or soreness, but most of the time it feels like almost like my 20s when I wore contacts – just the feeling that something just might be floating there. There isn’t. No signs of infection, irritation or subluxation of the newly implanted lens. But it is coming close to driving me nuts… Hopefully it will be better tomorrow….

 

just a few purrs

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the couple of hours spent at Avenue Yarns for the Sunday morning open knitting was lovely. I had to re-cast on Strider (a Martina Beam pattern I have already knit a couple of times but falls into the lovely category of mindless garter stitch)

then there was the cat check.

obviously, you need another picture of a cat –

getting his well earned (!) scratches. In reality, I am not sure that Boo was being all that sociable. Rather, he was trying to lure me into feeding him Greenies. Failing that, it is his thing to try and sucker an unsuspecting person into belly rubs. Not a good idea, and I am not that stupid. Teeth and claws are so not my idea of a good time.

After getting home, I finished the latest portion of LolaCrow’s Greenhouse of Oddities – the green roots and the flower being new additions.

and Part 3 of TemptingTangles Dream is now underway.

when I finish this segment, I will head back to the beginning and complete the backstitching and flourishes…

Treasure Island

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I have been suckered in again. This time by Owl Forest (http://owlforest.co.uk) whose designers, in addition to a lot of Russian looking patterns, are the guilty parties behind my 85% complete Alice from 2021. And the Vintage Black Sampler now at 89% complete. Anyway – each year there is a free Stitch-a-Long which is in about 18 parts one of which is released every two weeks. The first section was released May 12.

The fabric is 16ct Moccasin from Fortnight Fabrics and I am pulling out random Silks4U and substituting for the DMC.

I am not really happy with the white – although it matches the DMC. Looking at their website – that sun and half the moon are definitely yellow. Looks like I might just have to do a bit of backstitching ….

this part was only about 1200 stitches. Easily doable in a day.

Otherwise, I headed over to Avenue Yarns for their open sit&knit and managed to gift away two lengths of spinning roving to other attendees who are also spinners. I have more than several lifetimes of fiber and realistically am never going to spin most of it….

 

NCL Sun – Day 3 – Spinnaker Lounge

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Map of the evening.

On this ship, the top deck forward lounge is called the Spinnaker Lounge. Not only is it a lovely place to sit and stitch in the morning as there are  not many people, no broadcast of lousy music, and a great view of the ocean,  but also the place where NCL seems to schedule groups of various sizes.  In the case of this morning – the Veterans & Military group at 0900, Knitters & Stitchers at 1000 and the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet at 1100.

The military group seemed to be about 1/3 those of us who had retired from active duty and 2/3rds of the Viet Nam area draftees. The numbers also seemed to be split between Army and Air Force. Didn’t find any Navy or non-US military although I am sure that there are some on board.

The knitters and stitchers group was up to about 10 when I wandered off to see if the Cruise Critic group was worth whatever. Initial tally in the fiber craft folk was three with crochet hooks, a woman from Cologne who was stitching, knitters from Canada (Alberta & Halifax), a woman from Stockholm whose husband was proudly wearing a Sweden Polo Jersey (who knew there was a Sweden National Polo Team), and a second German woman who lived about 20 km from the first.  I think the plan is to get together on sea days.

The Cruise Critic Group was over 100 all told between the website and FB chatters. Other than some snacks, coffee and intros to most of the Hotel Director’s Staff, there wasn’t much and I headed out to find peace and quiet.

and Chocolate – a bite from a dark chocolate Mint Bar. I don’t know J.D. Gross chocolatiers. But it is pretty good.

I spent the afternoon stitching and have made some progress :

 

The top border is complete and starting down the sides. That clock tower goes down a ways, and then there is a rather large house to follow. 

Tomorrow we are suppose to dock in Lanzarote fairly early. 

 

Beside the Sea

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This weekend the last part on this SAL (stitch-a-long) was released. Normally Patty releases her pattern updates on Friday, but delayed till today.
That was fine with me. It is not like I don’t have enough other things to work on. 

I was caught up, but for a small portion of the frame to the outside of the lighthouse. 

The final part added a pair of seagulls. 

1054 stitches later, I could claim I was done!

Beside the Sea

stitched on light blue Aida (sorry about the lighting) with Sulky instead of DMC. Main colors substituted included 1001 (Parchment) for the gulls and lighthouse, 4055 for the frame and little blue beach house, 

My first DONE of February (and likely the only one). 

Otherwise, I started a simple blanket in a half-log cabin pattern and just switch directions about every 12 rows/6 ridges of garter or when I get bored. It is a great project for Zoom conversations and meetings..

Portland

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After staying in Ashland this past night, I drove the rest of the way to Portland. Discovering that the people for whom I was hauling toys from my garage lived in the SW area which turned out to be the easiest to reach. Lovely, I avoided downtown Portland completely.

I don’t think that Keith was expecting the number of boxes and toys which I off loaded. He was thinking small, circular sock knitting machine. I have one of those but it is still buried somewhere in the garage. Instead, I happily gifted the two larger knitting machines complete with stand, a spool rack, a warping mill, several rigid heddle looks, and a bag of weaving toys.

Unfortunately, looking at my garage, the absence of these items hardly makes a dent….

Otherwise, I had a lovely afternoon. There is a lovely coffee shop with in walking distance followed by stitching, listening to an audiobook and and sipping my latte.

Ashland Oregon

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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

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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

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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?

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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….