Friday, October 27, 2006

Sad news from Kristi yesterday.  I can't stop thinking about her and her family.

I finished the Rough-and-Ready Knitted Raglan Sweater for "afghans for Afghans":

Cat included for scale.  I tried to make two sweaters, in sizes my boys would wear, intended for two similarly sized children in Afghanistan, but I only got one of them done in time.  I'll finish the second one when I can and then donate it locally.

I also finished my River Rapids Socks:

Warm and beautiful!  Details for all of my recent finished projects can be found here.

So the status of my vase at the end of the Tail-a-thon is:

Pretty darned full, but missing the tails from the project I really needed to finish -- the Christmas stockings.  I'll get to them very soon, since they have their own imminent deadline, but I just didn't have them high on my priority list this week.

Here's a quicky re-cap from the weekend's trip to the Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island.

We took a little detour on the way up and stopped in Alanson at the Dutch Oven Bakery and Yarn Shop. 

I had wanted to visit ever since I first heard of this place, and FINALLY got a chance to.  I could have spent a LOT more time there, but we had to catch the ferry to the island before it stopped running for the day.

I didn't take enough photos to fill in all the details, so I'm borrowing a few from this Spring's field trip to the island with my son's class.

Here's a view of Fort Mackinac (pronounced "Mackinaw"), up on the hill, taken from the ferry on its way in.

Here's a view of one of the docks, taken from the fort.  The ferryboat on the left hand side is the kind we rode in on this weekend.

Can you see the horses and carriages down on the road?  No motor vehicles are allowed on the island.  Transportation consists entirely of horses and bicycles.  And feet.

Here's a shot of the Grand Hotel from the ferry.  Pretty impressive, isn't it?

The average schmoe isn't allowed anywhere near the Grand Hotel.  That's not entirely true, but they do chase you away if you don't have a reservation, unless you're there for supper ($75) or breakfast ($30).  I myself have been chased away on previous visits, but not this time.  This time I walked right up to the door, opened it up, and tripped over the threshold on the way in.  A grand entrance to the Grand Hotel!

This photo was taken in the lobby outside of the main dining room.  The theme of the Grand Hotel is geraniums.  You can see some outside the window, and the colors used for decorating the interior are hot pink and bright green.  See the carpet?  Kim from The Yarn Garden, my roomie for the weekend, is knitting away, waiting patiently for me to quit acting like a tourist.

Here's a view across the bocce ball courts to the Esther Williams swimming pool, which had been drained for the season (the hotel will shut down in another week for the entire winter season). 

The pool was built for Esther Williams -- I can't remember if she was supposed to film a movie here or what -- but the weather was too cold for her, so she went to Florida instead.  I don't think she ever actually made it to the island.  That story was recited by a tour guide on my son's field trip -- I was never sure if I should believe him or not.  The pool is indeed called the Esther Williams swimming pool, however.

We saw a bridal party leaving the hotel in a carriage as we were walking up.  I'm guessing the wedding was held here by this fountain, based on the flower petals strewn in front of it:

Here's a view off of the porch of the hotel, looking at the five mile long Mackinac Bridge, which is currently the third longest suspension bridge in the world. 

True story:  Many years ago, someone in a Yugo (remember those?) got blown off, car and all, while driving across the bridge.  The guard rails aren't particularly tall.  I get the heebie jeebies riding over it, particularly on a bus with a million screaming children on a field trip.

Here's the famous front porch of the Grand Hotel. 

See the geraniums?  Someday I'm going to sit and knit in one of those chairs.  It was too danged cold this past weekend.

Here's the crew, minus the photographer (Who's missing from the photo?  Liz?):

Taken in "my" room.  Each room is different, but the pink and green are always there.  We're dressed in our best for the five course dinner.  You're not allowed to be seen in casual clothing after 6:00 p.m.  Very hoity-toity, is the Grand Hotel.  Very tolerant, too, though.  This photo was taken in the middle of what I can only describe as a drunken parade through the halls, checking out everyone's rooms.  We were a little loud.  We weren't all necessarily inebriated, but we all sort of acted that way.  Hey -- what happens on Mackinac Island stays on Mackinac Island, right? 

What else is Mackinac Island famous for? 

Fudge! 

Yum.

We hit one more yarn store on the way back home:  Cynthia's, back on the mainland in Mackinaw City (don't ask about the spelling -- I don't know why it's different).

I'm hoping that this wasn't just a once in a lifetime event.  I'd love to go back for two nights, allowing a full day on the island, and with two busloads of knitters instead of two carloads.  Wanna come?

Sarah

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

I am such a moron.  Again. 

I was really sleepy this morning, even though I went to bed relatively early last night.  More sleepy than usual.  Usually I'm just tired, which is different.  So I wasn't surprised by the morning's events -- just a little confused.  I knew I'd figure it out eventually.

While washing my hair in the shower this morning, the shampoo didn't suds up. 

I know you've already figured out what happened, so you can just go off and read someone else's non-moronic blog entry if you'd like.  I completely understand.  I have to tell the whole story, though, so I can proclaim to the world just how big of a moron I am, and then I can move on.

Anyway.  The shampoo didn't suds up, so I decided that I must have forgotten to get my hair wet first.  I ducked under the water, then squirted more shampoo out of the bottle and tried again.  No suds.  Weird, but I was too sleepy to try and figure it out.

Finished my shower, dried off, continued with my morning grooming ritual, and got to the leave-in conditioner portion of the program.  Guess what happened?  I know you already know.  I'll tell you anyway.  IT SUDS UP.  Shocked the hell out of me.  Why on earth would that have happened?  Isn't it funny that these weird things are happening to me this morning?  If I weren't so sleepy, I could probably figure it out right now, but I know it will dawn on me eventually. 

To answer the question I know you're dying to ask -- no, it doesn't hurt to be this stupid.

So I combed out the suds and left my hair to dry, which is what I always do (minus the suds), since it's a leave-in conditioner, and I'm too impatient to blow dry my hair.  I put on my coat and scarf, flipping my slightly crunchy hair up over the collar, and off I went to teach my class in Lansing.

Because I'm such a shy and private person, I told my students all about my morning shower.  Right away, one of them said, "you switched the shampoo and conditioner!" 

I looked her dead in the eye and said, "I would never do that.  I COULD never do that.  There's only one bottle of shampoo, and it's in the shower, and there's only one bottle of conditioner, and it's in the medicine cabinet.  They look completely different.  They're in different places.  I haven't moved them.  That could never happen."

Another one said, "your family is playing a trick on you."

I said, "Not a chance.  They know I'd kill them if they did anything like that."  I'm not a big fan of practical jokes, and I'm peri-menopausal.  Stay out of my way.

I assured everyone that I would figure it out when I wasn't so sleepy, and on we went with class.

Which was delightful, by the way.  Apparently I'm a wonderful teacher.  One student thanked me repeatedly throughout the class for the skills I was teaching her, and I could see the light bulbs going on all around the table.  Life was good, even with slightly crunchy hair that didn't seem to be drying even after three hours.

I stayed around and chit chatted for a while after class, and then, on the way back up to the front of the building, it hit me.

I had switched the shampoo and conditioner. 

I went to Mackinac Island this weekend, and took the two bottles with me, and when I unpacked them I must have returned them to the wrong places.

I've been walking around with shampoo in my hair ALL DAY LONG.

Not only that, but I refused to even entertain the notion that the absolutely crystal clear explanation that everyone else understood instantly could be even remotely possible.  I poo-pooed it.  Publicly, and repeatedly.

I am such a moron.

Sigh.

I know I owe you tails and travel re-caps, but instead I think I'll just go rinse my hair out now.  It's probably clean enough.

Feel free to leave comments telling me what a moron YOU are, so I don't feel quite so bad. 

Sarah

Friday, October 20, 2006

No tails woven in today.

I originally meant to fill the vase with tails by Friday (today), but instead I've been knitting like a fiend, so I've decided to move the end of the week to Sunday, and to reward myself early.  I'll continue to work in ends, but I'll be doing it here instead of at home.  I'm taking these with me:

. . . along with a couple of other projects to work on, and a couple of carloads of knitting friends, and I'll be back on Sunday evening to top off that vase.

Ciao, darlings!

Sarah

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Hmm.  Not much progress:

But there are tails from two more finished projects in there!

First, two tails from the garter stitch scarf made from cotton chenille (photo taken without flash so you can see the texture):

And then a close-up so you can see the colors -- this is very accurate on my monitor:

Second, the Lacy Evening Shawl from Melissa Leapman's Cozy Crochet book:

Fabulous photo, no?  This is now blocking on my basement floor, and in the process of laying it out I discovered at least three spots in the border that I had done wrong.  I'll probably re-do the border someday soon, but I'm still counting it as a finished object.

Details for both projects are on my Finished Projects page.

More to come . . .

Sarah

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Because Nancy asked so nicely, here's a view of the vase after two days:

The bottom layer consists of the ends (to date) from the knitted raglan for the afghans for Afghans.  I ran out of another color halfway through the second sleeve, so this project is on hold until I find out if I can get more (none of the local yarn shops that I checked have it, so I'm relying on local knitters (Plymouth Galway color 10 -- dark blue)).  If the weekend comes and goes and I still can't find more of the blue, I'll use a different color entirely to finish the sleeve.  I'm under deadline, you know!  Regardless, there were a bunch of ends dangling (you know how stripes can be), so I wove in what I could so far. 

The next layer?  Tails from the Little Girl's Lace Dress, which I finished up this afternoon and then threw, unblocked, at Sharon at tonight's Guild meeting (it's for her granddaughter).  Isn't it cute?

Designed by Beth Walker-O'Brien, my roomie from Knitting Camp.  Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern:

I used Elsebeth Lavold's Hempathy, which was a dream to knit with.  Resembles linen in the end (post washing), but is much softer to work with from the get go.  Highly recommended by moi.

No tails were added to the vase yesterday, but I made significant progress on my Lacy Evening Shawl.  I finished crocheting (!) the main triangle, and only have the border left to do.  I was a little iffy on the border directions, so I had to wait until the Guild meeting to corner Nancy McRay (crochet artist extraordinaire) for some help (which I received, thank you Nancy!).

I almost didn't make it to the Guild meeting tonight.  My beloved Volvo station wagon started sounding like a very pissed off Wookie yesterday afternoon, so into the shop it went this morning.  I have no idea what's wrong with it, but they're keeping it until Thursday, and not giving it back until I give them a whole bunch of money that was already earmarked for my new windows (being installed next week, FINALLY!).  Apparently there's something wrong with your power steering when your car sounds like a pissed off Wookie.  Husband Number One and Son Number One drove off in Car Number Two (of two) to a concert in Detroit tonight, leaving me with squat.  Various and sundry rides fell through (okay, I only called one person), but my neighbor let me borrow her van after she got home from work, so off I went (with Son Number Two in tow)!

Life is good, and I have tails to weave in.  I'm stranded at home for two more days, so significant progress should be made.  Stay tuned . . .

Sarah

Monday, October 16, 2006

Okay, I think the Michigan bloggers have calmed down after the early snow showers, so we can get back to the business of knitting.  What were we complaining about, anyway?  Go read about what Lynne's been going through . . . 

Jen at Wool and Company in Geneva, Illinois, has issued a challenge (more info here), which I have accepted.  It's a Tail-a-thon!

Of course, having tails to sew in implies having finished objects with tails to sew in.  I don't have any of those, but I have some projects that are close:

Kind of scary, eh?

My goal is to fill up this 10" tall vase by the end of this week, at which point I will reward myself with a wonderful gift. 

There will still be another week left in the Tail-a-thon, so if I've left any stragglers there will be plenty of time to finish them off.

Unless the tails have finished ME off first, in which case it was nice knowing ya!

Sarah

Later on Thursday, October 12, 2006

12:00 p.m. (noon):  I kept this photo big so you could see the snow coming down.  It was ticking hard against the windows. 

At 4:00, the scene at home is similar to the previous photo, with more snow on the grass, and less on the brick patio (there's been a little sun intermittently, which seems to have warmed the bricks).  On the way home from Son Number One's haircut, however, the scene was breathtaking:

I wasn't really able to capture the real beauty with my camera (I had to stop the car to take the photo, and there was traffic to deal with, so I was in a hurry).  This road (Cornell, for you locals) is always gorgeous in the winter, especially after a fresh snowfall.  I've never seen the greens and golds shining through the snow before -- spectacular!!

Sarah

Thursday, October 12, 2006

5:00 a.m.:  Too dark to take photos, but it was snowing.

7:00 a.m.:  The evidence:

8:00 a.m.:  In case anyone didn't believe me:

Hello?  It's OCTOBER!!!

Brrrrr!

Sarah

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Update:  I went ahead and joined Socktoberfest, as participant number 1536 (alphabetically) of 1845 (to date).  What the heck!  I'm knitting socks anyway!

Startitis.

A child sized raglan sweater using stash yarn, from the pattern here:

Nancy McRay of Woven Art sent an e-mail a couple of nights ago, which mentioned the afghans for Afghans plea for 900 sweaters by November 3rd.  I pulled out my stash of wool, looked at the patterns recommended on the site, and got to work right away. 

This raglan pattern is well written and easy to follow so far.  Every right side row is knit, one out of every four wrong side rows is knit, and the other three out of four wrong side rows are 1x1 rib.  I'll see how Son Number Two likes this when it's done -- I may have to make one for him, too.  Of course I ran out of the purple already, and I was using that as the main color, so I already sent an e-mail looking for a spare ball from the store where I originally purchased the yarn. 

I also started this sweater, from the pattern here:

Hmm.  I seem to have lost one of my needles, and the remaining one has some kind of a hook on the end.  And why is there only one stitch?  Weird.

This will be a little jacket.  Here's a close up of the stitch pattern:

I know I'm doing the stitch pattern incorrectly, but I'm doing it CONSISTENTLY incorrectly, so all is good.

And I've been feeling very socky lately, what with all the Socktober activity going on, so I'm keeping socks on the needles here, too:

This is the River Rapids Socks pattern from Sockbug, knit with hand dyed superwash merino from Karen of ilLOOMinating.  Yummy!

Kat asked me once why I didn't do two toe ups at the same time on my circular needle, and I've got a couple of Toe Up Sock classes starting in November, so I thought I'd give it a whirl and see how I like it. 

I don't.

Besides constantly attaching the socks to each other, I keep thinking I'm a row ahead of where I really am, and it's going SO SLOWWWWWLY!  And I'm in the habit of starting the first sock two or three times before I settle on the right number of sttiches to start with and to increase up to, so I'd really rather do my experimentation on one sock at a time.

Worth trying, though, and I'll add the information gleaned (positive as well as negative) to my class, so definitely worth the effort.

Hmm.  What else can I do to avoid working on the Christmas stockings?

Sarah

Monday, October 9, 2006

Well, that was a first.  I just deleted all of my posts from the month of September, from both the current page and the archives (Save AS.  Save AS.  Not just Save!!!).  I cut and pasted everything from the previously published pages, as viewed from the Internet, back into my blog files, so I hope that's good enough.  I can't go through life with a month of my personal knitting history missing!

Moron.

I also walked out of a restaurant last night without my very large and yummy doggy bag, so no lunch for me today.

Moron.

But I have pictures!  Let's look . . .

Here's my Beginner's Triangle Shawl, modeled by Dummy Sheila, who was standing in front of the Red Maple in our front yard:

The color is accurate, and I see now that the "collar" was rumpled.  Oh well!  I like to wear this shawl with the long edge turned over like a shawl collar, but without the rumple.

And Sister Number Two's Maidenhair Shawl:

Hmm.  I really might have to make one of these for myself.

And Son Number One's special request footies (there are two of them, but they look identical).  I had them done in time for the Big Game on Saturday, he wore them all day, and they helped his team win, and that's all I have to say about that.

I had the pleasure of teaching my Preventing/Fixing Mistakes class to the South Central Michigan Knitting Guild in Marshall, Michigan, last Wednesday evening.  Here's Nora from the Guild, showing off the Philosopher's Wool Kilim Jacket she started in one of my Philosopher's Wool Sweater classes many moons ago.  Gorgeous sweater!!!!  And such a cute smile!

I also had the pleasure of attending two of the four workshops taught by Melissa Leapman this weekend at Woven Art in East Lansing. 

Saturday afternoon's class was called "The Perfect Pleat", and I learned how to make a knitted box pleat (among other things), which gets me closer to my goal of making a beautiful sweater that I saw in a J. Jill catalog a couple of years ago.  Hooray!

Sunday afternoon's class was called "Crochet for Cowards".  I learned a lot of little tidbits that I'd always wondered about (like what to do at the beginning/end of a row), and got a good start on a very cute purse:

The yarn is Riviera II ribbon, hand dyed by Nancy McRay at Woven Art.

And I also started a very cute hat, which I finished this morning:

The yarn is Rio de la Plata, and was LOVELY to work with.

Melissa has two new books.  One is just reaching stores, and is called Knitting Beyond Scarves:  Easy Lessons That Let You Knit What You Never Thought You Could.  Lots of fun projects for beginners!  The second book will be out in November, although we got to see a copy this weekend.  Cables Untangled:  An Exploration of Cable Knitting is on my "must have" list.  The projects are gorgeous, the photography is top notch -- of course you can't go wrong with anything by Melissa!

That's all for now.  I'm off to the grocery store (I HATE going to the grocery store) and then I have some stocking feet to knit . . .

Sarah

Monday, October 2, 2006

Too much rain here for beauty shots of the shawls, so they're languishing for now (as am I).

Jennifer was a student in my Beginning Knitting class way back when (now called "Knitting Basics"), for which the class project is a pillow made up of stripes of different stitch patterns. 

Jennifer showed up last week in another class, and brought her almost-finished matching afghan along to show me:

Crappy lighting job (my fault), and I should have taken a picture of Jennifer holding her afghan up, so you could see how big it is (my fault again).  Isn't it gorgeous, though?  Each stripe is one skein of yarn, with different stitch patterns alternating with stockinette stitch, and she's branched out on her own with some of those stitch patterns.  Can you see the arrow-y designs in that brown stripe?  Probably not (my fault AGAIN), but they're way cool.  Wonderful job, Jennifer!  What a great designer you are!

Santa #2 is out of the chimney, which is short a few bricks (as am I!):

Please pardon the electric colors.  Blame them on the rain.

You know when you bite your tongue, and then you bite it again and again?  I keep jabbing the point of my size 0 Addi turbo circular needle underneath the fingernail of my right index finger, when I poke the old stitch off of the left hand needle. 

Ow. 

Other projects are on the needles, but I had to drop everything to work on this:

It's not every day my teen-aged son requests a pair of socks!  He tried on one of my Purl Ridge Socks (finished last month) and said "Hey, these feel pretty good!" (or something like that).  "Can you make me a pair in U of M colors?" 

Why yes, I can.

The green spiky things are the remains of the top of my decades old aloe plant, upon which someone or something has recently landed.  I'm on the lookout for the guilty party or parties.  I'm going to slime everyone with aloe goo until someone confesses.

I'm pretty sure this little ball of fluff is innocent:

All together now . . . Awwwww!

Sarah

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