Scenic Nevada and some super-warm mittens

So I'm back from my first long sales trip up through NE California. It was pretty wild. Not so much the yarn, the yarn was pretty tame, but the scenery was pretty spectacular. I took a wrong turn on my first day driving from Reno to Cedarville, CA and came across Pyramid Lake. It's a pretty big suprise to find a lake this huge in the desert. And believe it or not - it's one thing we didn't steal from the native peoples of our land. It's all part of a giant reservation.

So I made it up to Cedarville Tuesday afternoon - it's amazing how right after you cross the Nevada-California border, things start looking up. I saw deer - a whole heard of them, and sheep and cows and green. Oh and snow atop the Warner Mountains. Pretty gorgeous country if you ask me. I might be able to live up there if it weren't so completely isolated. You'd have to make a lot of babies to keep busy.

Tuesday night I made it through the pass and down to Alturas. Much to my dismay there was snow along-side the road despite an outside temp of 70. Leads me to believe I'm lucky I wasn't there the week before. And despite my nasty cold I could still smell the pines - I think it would be pretty spectacular without sinus congestion.

Wednesday I visited Alturas and then headed off again towards Chico. I saw a whole lot of Mt Shasta on my drive that day. Who knew Northern California had a giant, snow-covered volcano? Well, probably lots of people, but I was impressed.

Thursday and Friday I was in Chico and Paradise (really cute town) and then I decided to call it a week and head back for Berkeley.

Whew - I guess that's my adventure in a nutshell. My mom's coming with me on my next big trip - so I'm definitely looking forward to the company. I had the pleasure of having my Aunt Marion along one day on my visits in the Tahoe area, and it was quite nice to have the company - and an assistant.

I didn't get nearly as much knitting done as I had hoped. I had all sorts of aspirations and brought a ton with me, but all I managed to finish were these mittens, but they're pretty rad so it's ok.

Pretty much the warmest mittens ever, what with their self-lining. My sister thinks she wants a pair, but I'm pretty sure it's going to take awhile for me to forget that making these is really like knitting four pairs of mittens, two of which are on size 2's. Sorry, Kathy, I think you're out of luck.

Out and About

Wow, this has been a great week. Friday I got to do the Oakland Art Murmur, Saturday I got to sit outside and listen to great music at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park and Sunday I got to take a class on color with Ms PunkRawkPurl (aka Tammy) at knit-one-one. Whew! I'm beside myself with satisfaction.

Tammy's class was rad. I always have a great time at knit-one-one but this was a different sort of class and I wasn't sure what to expect. Tammy made us think outside our favorite colors and play with new color combinations. She wanted us to pick out a color we would never knit with - this wasn't hard for me as one of my least favorite colors is currently one of Tammy's favs - ochre. (it just looks like baby poo to me) but then I started picking out things that could go with it, and I came up with this interesting combination:


I think it might actually make a pretty dashing sweater for a certain one-year-old that I know for Christmas. Elaine thinks it would make a darling "church-sweater," and luckily his parents are church-goers.

In other excitement, some of you may know that I've been working on becoming a yarn sales representative for some time and I'm finally getting out on the road. I've been toying with how I can comment on these adventuress on my blog because although I'm going to have some excellent insights on shops in Northern California and will get to see a lot of rad shops, I'm just not sure if there's a conflict of interest in me posting about the shops I sell to. Maybe if I just accentuate the positives everywhere I go?

I'd love to hear what you all think about my shop-blogging quandary!

Schnoodle Fever & Learn to Knit!

How much do you want a schnoodle? I never thought I needed a dog until I met this wonderful creature. I think he's secretely a cat - but the kind I'm not allergic to, best of both worlds. Thank goodness for Sammie and his snuggles or this might have been a very slow summer. So I've got it bad for Sammie, but I also like speding time with Sam's mom, the wonderful Kate Freeman.

I suppose after all my ravings about Sammie I could expound on some of Kate's merits - after all, she has many! Kate is a knitting genius -she's joked about starting a knitting bar much like the Mac genius-bar where people could come with their knitting catastrophes and with a less geeky smile than your average Apple-Genius she could walk you through the fix! For those of you in the bay area who are not yet knitting (and I was saying to Tammy George - everyone who I know that's worth knowing already knows how to knit!) this is the opportunity of a lifetime to join the club. Ms. Kate is teaching a beginning knitting class this month at knit-one-one and boy am I jealous of those lucky enough to learn from an expert (rather than my original attempts out of some crappy book from the craft section at Wal-Mart). Anyway, check it out, she's one rad teacher.

P.S. I hear Sammie is looking for a more public distribution of his thoughts on the world - I'll let you know when his blog starts up.

Thank God They're Cute!

Well I've taken a long recess from blogging... but I haven't been idle. July was the month of hosting. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely wonderful getting to see three of my best friends from college and six relatives this month, but I'm glad to have life back to normal for awhile.

The above picture is of my ridiculously cute first-cousin-once-removed who we will herethereto refer to as my "niece"- white people are weird with their familial titles. Her mother and I had a wonderful time showing her around San Francisco, although I think she's a little young to grasp travel...

I haven't gotten as much knitting done as I would like to, but I did finally finish up my blanket for the Linus Project, and I think it turned out fabulously:

Happy Anniversary!!!

While I was in Iowa, we celebrated my grandparent's 65th Anniversary. The whole gang was in town and much family merriment was had, including three slideshows of my mom and her brother and sister's childhoods. This pic is of my mom on her third birthday. I think she was pretty darned cute.

Along the lines of family fun, I discovered when I was home that my Aunt, Uncle, their three kids and one grandchild will be coming to California the first week of August for more family fun and tourist activities. So here's a pic of the one that gets to stay with me (of course in a hat I knit her!).

Wicked

Sunday in Chicago

Sunday was another great day in the Windy City with my parents, here we are in the lobby of the Ford Theatre:


We were there to wicked, which was pretty great, but I don't think it lived up to all the hype I'd heard (of course part of that could have been that I was doped up on half of one of my dad's codine because I forgot to bring any migraine pills... you can see why even half of something meant for my father might have a greater effect on me...)

Jello Salad

Well, so far my Midwest adventure (aka visiting my homeland) has been a great time. Thursday I flew into Chicago and got to meet up with my long-time friend, Diana (see her wedding blanket here). As Diana is also a knitting enthusiast, and also the person who first taught me to knit, we of course had to include some knitting adventures in our trip. Our first stop was to Diana’s favorite yarn shop in Chicago, Loopy Yarns, which actually is quite fantastic. They have a great selection of high-end yarns and also some fabulous yarns at very reasonable prices. I found a couple of yarn brands I’d like to investigate more including Pear Tree Yarns of Australia and Frog Tree Yarns of Bolivia. The ladies working at the yarn store were fantastically helpful and knowledgeable. One of the workers, Lisa Whiting, is also a knitwear designer with some fantastic patterns that I will be repping as soon as she has them reprinted. Yay! Diana purchased some Frog Tree Alpaca to make a Slytherin hat for her hubby and we each picked out some sock yarn as we’re going to do our own little self-striping sock KAL. Picks to follow as soon as we get to the socks…..

When we got back to Diana’s place we had an exuberant show-and-tell of her yarn stash and my works in progress that I’d brought along. Diana showed me her new pride and joy… Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears and The Knitters Almanac both of which were immediately added to my wish list.

The coup d’etat of my reentry into Midwestern society for the week was our making of what I think is the official mascot of all Midwestern potlucks – the Jello Salad. Mmm… We made a lovely raspberry jello with Mandarin oranges. Fantastic! Why don’t we eat this more in California? I’m bringing it back.

Step one: Pour Jello powder packet in a bowl

Step 2: Pour in boiling water

Step 3: Add delicious canned mandarin oranges

Step 4: Refrigerate until firm

Step 5: Enjoy!!!

Friday

Friday, Diana and I decided we simply must do something cultural with our time as on my last visit the only museum we made a point to visit was the Swedish National Museum of Modern Home Furnishing and frankly we only made it to their gift shop, IKEA.

So this time we vowed to be better and decided to visit The Lithuanian Museum. I’m going to honest and say, this was not the best museum I’ve ever been to. Our introductory video to Lithuania was nothing more than a tourist propaganda video about the many merits of Lithuania’s beautiful nature and Medieval architecture, but it failed to touch on the fact that Lithuania is cold and dark a great deal of the year. The museum itself was just a few cases of Amber Jewels and some great examples of Lithuanian textiles:

Insert diana’s pic here

However, despite the museums time-worn displays and lack of funding, I was still sold. Lithuania is definitely on my intrigue-list and we wanted to learn more.

Our next stop of the day was Duke’s Lithuanian Restaurants, Chicago’s newest and fanciest Lithuanian restaurant (as far as I know there are only two Lithuanian restaurants in Chicago, but it’s still something). Diana and I apparently have the chick look of an Eastern European import because the hostest managed to speak to us in Lithuanan a few times before she caught on to the fact that we were just Americans. How boring. We decided to delight in Duke’s Potato Plate Sampler. Until this meal, I had no idea just how many ways there are to prepare potato-stuffed-meat and/or meat-stuffed-potato. Here’s the view:

Insert Pic here

I don’t think I’m going to be eating this meal anytime again soon. Nothing like a brick of potatoes in your tummy to help you go on an all-liquor diet for the rest of the day.

Saturday

Saturday I said goodbye to Diana, Carl and their lovely cat, Ninja, that Diana was kind enough to sequester to her bedroom for my stay (due to my extreme allergies not my hatred for animals). I met up with my parents and we headed off for our own Chicago adventure.

Our first stop was lunch at the Greek Island Restaurant. Pretty tasty. I was still feeling the effects of my Latvian extraganza and stuck with simply greens, but it was great.

Next up we swung by the Field Museum. This was my absolute favorite museum when I was little, but for whatever reason I was less impressed this time. Maybe I’ve been to too many museums now, each showing similar exhibits that I’ve become numb to the extrodinary displays that now replace the endless rows of cases filled with artifacts. I don’t know, I think sometimes the artifacts, fossils and art can speak for themselves without an overwhelming array of media and interactability. I think it’s ok to draw a firm line between museum and arcade. Let’s hope it never gets there.

Saturday night we ate out at The Italian Village, a long-time Chicago tradition of my parents. Apparantly it predates me, which to me seems quite old (after all I will be 25 this summer).

Dazzling Daiso and Delicious Dim Sum

Best weekend ever! Well, maybe not ever, but it was a pretty great weekend filled with lots of knitting and great people, so it was right up there. Friday night I hit up Beckett's Irish Pub with Kate and co. and I think we have officially become old women as we just wished that darned-musician-would-turn-his-music-down-so-we-could
converse-like-civilized-people-gosh-darnit. But it was a great time

Then Saturday was the long awaited and much anticipated Daiso and Dim Sum adventure in Daly City, hosted by the ultra-hip knit-one-one. Here are some photos of the excitiement at Daiso, "Japan's No.1 Livingware Store."

Kate admires all the possibilities in the "Household Platsics" room

Shaleece debates just how many things she needs for only $1.50 each

The Queen Bee herself wasn't messing around - she found a lot of good deals, but it's ok they were "for the business"

After making hundreds of really important decisions over which knick-knacks we needed, we headed over to Koi Palace for a well-deserved lunch. This was my first Dim Sum experience, and although I happily ate everything put in front of me, I'm glad I wasn't sitting on the end of the table where the decisions were to be made. I don't think that's an experience for amateurs.


We ended the day with a trip to a knitting store in South San Francisco, Cottage Yarns. Obviously one can't go on a knitting field trip and not buy any yarn, so I had to get two balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran which I've already knit up into a wonderful hat.

The finished hat:

Friday Night Knitting Club

Well, it was a wonderful night of knitting, chatting and fine wine at Ms. Libby's this month. Libby certainly outdid herself on the food (I think she even trumped me and I'm unemployed with nothing better to do that make hors d'oevres). The Cherry Chocolate Almond Poundcake went over well, but I don't think I'm going to make it again anytime soon. It was good, but not enough better than the much easier pound cakes to make it worth the effort. So that's my review of that. :-)

Here are some pictures of we lovely ladies:

Adelina showing off her progress from last month on her Noro Silk Garden Scarf.

Kate, Carrie and Cordelia (lovely alliteration team) knit away...
(notice how Cordelia is just starting her baby hat...)

Because here it is, finished! Too cute!










Finally, here is Ms. Elisa modelling the "before" shot of my soon-to-be-felted tote. This I made out of some lovely mohair yarn I got in New Zealand mixed with some Cascade 220.

All-in-all a fantastic night!

In which I bake a cake

It's been an exciting week here in Berkeley. I've gotten to do some organizational work for the lovely Ms Sile (nothing excites me more than organizing!), I attended a fabulous knitting soiree at Entrez! (the cutest little shop in Oakland) and tonight I'm off to knit with my girlfriends. Who could ask for anything more? (Well, maybe a date would be nice... but that's neither here nor there). So in honor of tonight's gathering I decided to complete my next cake out of The Cake Bible. I got this book for my roommate, Lindsey, for her birthday, and I've been working my way through the cookbook, so far I've made:

-Lemon-Poppyseed Pound Cake
-Deluxe-Double Vanilla Pound
-Chocolate Bread
-White Spice Pound Cake
-Golden Butter Cream Cake with Royal Honey Buttercream Frosting
-Sour Cream Butter Cake with Royal Honey Buttercream Frosting

and today.....

Chocolate Cherry Almond Pound Cake

This has been by far the most labor-intensive of the cakes I've made, in fact it's taken me about three days to put it all together. First you start by making brandied cherries:Next you toast whole hazelnuts and grate them in the food processor:

And then you chop a lot more chocolate that you would think to:
Then I put it in all in the oven and said a little prayer....



So it looks pretty delicious... let's just hope it tastes proportionally good to the amount of effort it took.

Next up on the lineup: Golden Almond Poundcake!

Knitting for Others - February

February's fabulous Knitting for Others project at Article Pract was The Mother Bear Project. The Mother Bear Project is a "non-profit group dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children, primarily those affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations, by giving them a gift of love in the form of hand-knit and crocheted bears."

This has been my favorite project so far. Not only was it fun to see my own bear come to shape from the scraps of yarn I used, but when I finally dropped my bear off at the donations bin in the front of Article Pract, I got to steal a peak at all the wonderfully different bears the other knitters had created. It's amazing how different each bear looked even though they were from the same pattern and supposedly on the same size needles. I can't wait to finish all my other projects (yeah right) so I can make some more...!

Frantz-Anderson Afghan

My senior year at St Olaf College, I got the brilliant idea in my head that my girlfriends and I should knit an afghan together for our dear friend, Diana Frantz who was to get married right after graduation. After a little coaxing and assurance that I would help them knit, I talked to wonderful girls in our "pod" to secretly knit squares for an afghan. The squares tickled into my dorm room during our senior year until one day, Diana announced that her June wedding would be postponed indefinitely. Well, of course we were sad for her, but we decided to knit on anyway and by graduation I had most of the pieces and put them in storage at my parents' home to be pulled out when the time was right.

The blocks sat there for over a year until one day I got a call from Diana letting me know that they had set a new date for the wedding and that she would be getting married in three months! Although I was quite excited, a moment of panic hit me as I remembered those squares and the promise I had made to my girlfriends to assemble the blanket and deliver it at the wedding.

I quickly called my mom and had her send me the box full of finished (and some unfinished) squares and all the extra yarn. As I began to take the squares out of the box, I quickly realized this was going to be a bigger project than I had imagined. Being a group of knitters of different abilities... none of the squares were the same size. Apparently we had all missed the chapter on gauge. So I arranged the "squares" as best I could and added boarders and blocked and stretched and finally decided sashing would be the best way to hide the imperfections. And then of course I couldn't stop with just one border... no let's make it three! Luckily this was during a period of my life when I needed a lot of time to sit on the couch and watch Law & Order and think about nothing but the feel of the yarn through my fingers and the rhythm of the stitches passing from one needle to the next.

It may not be perfect, but it was made with lots of love and good intentions.

And here are the beautiful ladies that knit it at our graduation, May 2005:

Front: Michelle Wiersma, Linsdey Reed, Carrie Wiersma, Amy Miller, Carrie Vermazen, Diana Frantz (the bride to be)
Back: Laurna Strikwerda, Lauren Christiansen, Bridget McGuire, Sonja Paulson

Knitting for Others - May

Here's my Knitting for Others project for May (modelled by my lovely roommate, Lindsey). The first Sunday of every month, Christina of Article Pract hosts a different charity knitting project. This month we were knitting for the Warm Wollies project that sends knitted goods to impoverished children in cold climates. The hat pattern is from the new book, Charmed Knits, which features Harry Potter inspired knits, this pattern is available to download for this project from the Charmed Knits Blog. Iespecially like how the top looks:

Chickami Finished!

I finished the chickami today! This was made at another wonderful class at knit-one-one with Sile. It turned out to be a bit of a knit-one-one teacher-sampler as our poor teacher, Rachael (Ms. Yarn-a-Go-Go herself) was sick, so both the wonderful Kate and Julie W filled in. Of course we had a great time, as always!

It's not the best picture, but it fits great! I made the size 32 (it's got a lot of give!) and added four inches onto the bottom to make it more tunic-y. I made it out of Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora, which shed like crazy! but feels amazing on. I still have 4 balls of it, so maybe my niece will need a matching top?

Huh, this might be addicting...

Ok, one more for tonight and then I'll stop procrastinating and go to bed.

Here's my first pair of booties, that led to my first knitting sale. These were made for my co-worker Jennifer this December for the birth of her second son, Andrew.



And finally, here are the booties that officially made me a professional knitter (in that I received monetary compensation for them...)

First "real" yarn!

Here's the first project I ever did with real-live wool from a real-live yarn store. I thought I was crazy to spend so much yarn on one project (if the me then could see the me now...). So of course I made my boyfriend at that time swear he wouldn't lose it (which of course he did). But oh well, I can still remember the way that silk/wool tweed blend felt I sat knitting in mock-cable rib for hours on end in the TV den of Melby Hall. Just me, the needles and Law & Order Special Victims Unit.

Project completed winter 2003-2004

My first knitting ever! (circa January 2002)

So the word is out! (Thanks Sile!) And now I feel obligated to put something on my blog, so I thought I'd start at the beginning. This is the first knitting adventure I embarked on. It was cold, dark and winter at St Olaf College my freshman year when I first saw knitting up-close and personal. It seemed like everyone was doing it. Now whether they were knitting because it was tres chic at the time or because of their strong Norwegian roots, I may never know, but it was a very popular pastime. I was lucky to have landed on such a talented corridor my freshman year, and my knitting instructor and corridor-mate, Diana, is still one of my best friends to this day. She's who taught me to knit this lovely garter-stitch scarf on some sort of cheap boucle. Diana taught my roommate, Allison and I at the same time, and I do believe that Allyson eventually finished hers too, her scarf was red.

I worked on this scarf all through J-Term in Minneapolis on my "Food Work and Culture" seminar. (Best excuse to eat ethnic food ever!). And despite all the dropped stitches and wobbly edges, I wore the heck out of that scarf through four years of being an Ole. Um Ya Ya!

Knitted Purse Swap 2 Questionnaire

Here is is secret knitting pal: :-)

Questionnaire

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
- I love knitting with soft wools and alpacas. Like so many people, I first learned to knit on cheap acrylic yarn, and it still feels so luxurious to knit on anything else. I don't really like knitting with anything too scratchy, but that's a pretty subjective term... I like it to be soft and pretty.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
-Funny you should ask. I just spent a portion of my weekend reorganizing my circular needles by putting them in baggies with lables and arranged them in order by size in a plastic box, never again will I have to dig through all of them again, needle size gauge in hand... My straight needles (which I hardly ever use) are in the bottom of a box, but I'm hoping to get around to sewing a roll for them one of these days. Oh, and I just got the Denise kit, so that's my life better!

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
- I learned to knit in the cold harsh winters of my freshman year at St Olaf College in Northfield, MN. And that was 6 years ago? I would consider myself to be an intermediate knitter, I'm just now embarking on my first sweater for myself, it should be exciting.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
-Of course I do! And it primarily exists of all the fabulous knitting books I hear about on knitting podcasts...

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
- Vanilla (or anything else in the baked-goods genre). I don't like floral scents, they make me sneeze...

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
- Do I ever! I pretty much require a daily dose of ice cream. My favorite candy are peanut butter cups.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
-I enjoy sewing and am currently taking a tailoring class at a local community college. I'm also thinking about trying embroidery, but I'm not sure I have the patience for it. I love assembling furniture...

8. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
- My favorite colors are probably blue and red, but not neccessarily together. I like jewel-tones. I don't own anything yellow, that's definitely not my color.

9. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
-I'm a single lady of 24, enjoying a love/hate relationship with all the freedoms and choices and unknowns of this age. Why didn't anyone warn me that the world wasn't waiting for me? -No pets for me, I'm allergic to cats (oh, that's a good note, if my purse comes from a cat-home, can you please make sure it's cleanable (washable or drycleanable) somehow so that I will be able to use it without sneezing?)

10. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
-Anything more challenging than my last project. I'm all about building skills right now, so I love taking on a new project and trying to figure it out.

11. What are you knitting right now?
- I'm working on a third scarf for the Red Scarf Project
- The Nantucket Jacket (from the winter issue of Interweave)
- A pink and white sweater for my niece that's been on hold until I figure out what I'm doing...

12. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I definitely prefer circular needles, but I don't think I have a strong preference for material, I guess it depends on the kind of yarn.

13. Is there anything that you collect?
Clutter - but not actively. :-)

Well, that was probably more than you needed to know. I'm really looking forward to this swap!

Uncovering the scene

I'm on a quest to uncover as many tunnels in the underground knitting scene as possible this winter, here's what I've done so far.

1. Found two new yarn stores in my area
2. Attended classes at one yarn store and two knitting studios
3. Joined a knit-a-long
4. Attended a "magical mystery knitting party"
5. Joined a local knitting group recruiting members on craigslist (although it's not so much of a group as me and one young man - I haven't ruled it out as his pick-up tool).
6. Attended a charity knitting event (the red scarf project - so far I have two done)
7. Attended my first yarn tasting
8. Knitted 1 baby sweater, 3 pairs of baby booties, 3 hats, 1 pair of mittens, 1 wine tote, and 3 scarves.
9. Joined my first knitting swap!!!!

Who knows what will be next... Will I attend Stitches West?

A little late... but I guess I'll jump on board

I never really understood the appeal of a blog... but now that I see how it can be applied to my recent obsession with knitting, I suppose I can join the wave. Now if I can just remember to take pictures of my knitting adventures....