Connecting

It truly is amazing what a few days off and good company can do to restore balance and happiness in your life. Before my roadtrip, I'd felt so out of sorts and disconnected that it even affected my speech. I used the wrong words, my grammar was off and at times I was just completely lost for words. Though this can also happen to me when I'm feeling happy, when my highs are so high that the intensity of that emotion leaves me speechless, and I become very quiet and calm, which is often misunderstood. Often, there just isn't any adequate language to describe what is going on inside of me, or sometimes, it's not the right language. It fascinates me to see how much language reflects a society's culture, how some languages have certain words available to describe a particular thing or state of being, that others don't. My good friend M feels 'round' when everything is in balance, and that comes really close to what I've been feeling these past two weeks, just round (and I've been eating so much yummy food lately that it can be applied physically as well ;-)
On the fourth of July I had lunch with Mary of Mamie makes, who was in San Francisco on business. We meet at a tea house right across from Imagiknit, which luckily was closed, no temptations there! Mary's blog has given me so much inspiration over the months, and I always hoped I'd get to meet her someday. Some people you just know you're going to click with, even if you've never met them in person. Three hours later, I wish I could have kidnapped her to chat all night! She brought me surprises from NY, Japanese pastry that was devoured, eh, savoured instantly and a beautiful Japanese book with designs of Japanese fabric. Thank you Mary, for the gifts, but mostly for the lovely time I had.
Surprises also came by mail from across the ocean. First, an envelope from Finland from Mari (who doesn't have a blog, I think), containing beautiful self-striping Novita wool yarn in beachglass colors. Definitely socks, I'm thinking.

I love the bird motif on the envelope!
A package from Germany arrived on my doorstep yesterday. Suzi sent me a spare Rowan magazine and as a surprise included this beautiful yarn dyed by her friend Claudia, aka Die Wollmeise.

The color is 'Rhabarber' or rhubarb, and so luscious I want to eat it. She also included this cute card from a bazaar, what a great idea to use up left-over yarn.
Mari and Suzi, thank you both so much, I'm so excited about these beautiful presents!
My little give-away (some fabric and yarn) will happen tomorrow around 9am. Whoever leaves the first comment, gets what they like. I'll pay for the shipping, no matter where to.

Back and busy

Wow, it's been an amazing July so far! Right after bf and I got back from our fantastic roadtrip we celebrated his sister's wedding and spent time with all the family that came to visit; I also enjoyed a long lunch with a lovely blogger from NY and I've been knitting and trying to sew. I'm still so full with impressions so I better start from the beginning. But there might be a sequel to this post in case I can't concentrate long enough.
The roadtrip was amazing and I'm still experiencing a sort of reverse homesickness for that nomadic lifestyle. Lava Beds National Monument is an amazing place in the north eastern part of California which no one ever seems to have heard about, hence the area lacks chain stores and strip malls and feels forgotten. While it may not be too interesting for the standard roadtripper, it's a fantastic playground for geology lovers like bf and myself. Lava flows, caves and lava tubes, a mountain covered in black glass (obsidian), hiking on wilderness trails with no one else around, except the occasional jack rabbit, kept us happy and if we'd realized just how busy the coast was going to be, we'd have stayed here the whole time.
Here is the view from a fire tower, that white peak is Mt Shasta 200 miles to the west.


Yours truly on top of the most recent lava flow which happened 800 years ago.


Crater Lake. Pictures don't do it justice. The water is the bluest blue you'll ever see.


Old Coca Cola ad on a reststop off Interstate 5. The little guy looks crazed.


Our last days were spent on the Northern California coast. It was so busy and everything booked, we were quite overwhelmed being surrounded by so many people after the solitude of the first days. But we always manage to find an emtpy spot, like this beautiful beach to watch the sunset.


The time flew by as it always does when you're having fun. Back home, we got ready for bf's sister's wedding and I made her a guestbook incorporating the wedding colors red and gold. Never mind that I added a touch of patriotic pride with the black cloth (it wasn't intentional, but nothing else I had matched the paper ;-))



I didn't knit as much during the trip as I thought I would, there was too much to do and see. When I'm camping, I always fall into a cycle of going to sleep at sunset and getting up at sunrise. Knitting has become a late in the day activity for me, something I do after work, I've been reserving my lunch breaks for reading which I've neglected for a long time. But my socks got finished eventually. Made of lovely Sundara yarn in 'bisque', I've renamed them Ambrosia socks, inspired by the colors of some store-bought Ambrosia salad (first time I've heard of and last time I tasted this concoction, in case you don't know it either, it's fruit and lots of whipped cream mixed together.) Though the salad didn't sit well with me, the socks do. I've knit them toe-up with a pattern made up of knits and purls on US1's, and finished them with a picot bind-off. They fit so well, but I really loved that the water was crystal clear after I washed them, just like the red Sundara yarn I used before. It makes me feel better knowing that the dye isn't absorbed by my skin.


Buttercup is still sulking in the cupboard and I've yet to email KH about the mistake. Indulging my procrastination skills I have thus another project in the works, Kiri! I'm using 3 balls of KSH in 'bleached', a bunny white which unfortunately is discontinued. I'm already through one ball, it's such an enjoyable project, my first lacy shawl. How can I knit sticky mohair in the middle of summer? Thank you, coastal climate! While our days are warm and sunny, the nights are chilly in my basement lodgings. It's the perfect yarn cellar.
Mmh, my brain is getting fuzzy and yours probably too, but there is still more to tell, about my blogger lunch, lovely mail from Finland, and free fabric....though unlike PBS who makes me wait another week to find out what's happening on Miss Marple and the Moving Finger, you'll get the second part tomorrow :-)

Here and there and nowhere

I almost forgot about my vacation! Bf and I are leaving tomorrow to explore the Lava Beds in the north-eastern corner of California, circle Crater Lake in Oregon, confuse stalactites and stalagmites at Oregon Caves, and shiver in foggy Redwood National Park. I can't wait to get out of the city and be surrounded by silence so my synapses can fire again. I've been so fragmented lately. I'm using the wrong words all the time, except when I'm not able to spit out any words at all, in either language. I feel, I think, it just gets lost somewhere on the way out.
When I get back in ten days, I might have a finished oject for you (and no, it won't be Buttercup, that one is staying home!) and some free fabric to give away.
Auf Wiedersehen!

Berries and Butter

I just spent the past week and a half in the land of misery, first accompanied by a painful sinus infection, which later in the week traded places with a wheezing cough. It is said that you’re supposed to stay positive because mental anguish keeps your immune system down, but that’s not so easy when you can’t do any of the things that make you happy! I did manage to finish a pair of socks I’ve been working on though, toe-up with a k2, seedstitch 2 pattern in lovely Sundara yarn which I snagged while it was available from Pure Knits.

The color is called cupid, but I’ve named my socks Berrystain Socks because they look like they were stained by smashed blue-, rasp-, black- and strawberries. Hmmm, berries…. I also started the back of Buttercup after I received my exchange yarn, pale grey-blue Ripple. Kim Hargreaves does have excellent customer service, they didn’t charge me for shipping (I only paid shipping the yarn back to them) and my yarn got here so fast. So nice. But (oh why does there have to be a but), the pattern leaves me with questions already. It’s a bit vague sometimes. When you’re supposed to do a k3tog for the armhole decreases (at beg and end of one row), why would you not do k3togtbl at the beginning of the row and the k3tog at the end? I mean, I know I don’t have to follow the pattern exactly, but is there a reason for doing it this way? And when it says: continue in pattern after the k3tog, is the pattern only the pattern repeat, or does that include the k2 with which you start and end the row? And if it does include the k2, wouldn’t it be better to k1, then k3tog, then k1 before going into the repeat, to make seaming nicer? Have I confused you yet? Maybe I should wait until I'm off the medicine.
Here is the back so far:

If you're thinking of ordering a kit from her website, check the size diagram closely, you might be able to save some money by ordering your right size. I ordered the medium but ended up casting on for the small, thanks to a lucid moment where I compared the back measurements to a fitted cardi I have. My gauge was so spot on I measured twice just to make sure.
Thanks for all your input on the quilting! It's been very helpful and I've decided to make a baby quilt first, that way I can approach it with a different eye. My sewing machine is in the repair shop right now, the weekender bag left some scars and it refuses to stitch anything other than straight stitch. But until it gets back home I've got plenty of time for fabric shopping. My eyes are glazing over at the very thought.

Fabric on my mind

Or to be more precise, the combination of patterned and solid fabrics and squishy batting into a quilted object. I've been reading The Modern Quilt Workshop over and over, and leafing through Denyse Schmidt Quilts at the bookstore. I would love to make a quilt, but find it rather intimidating. Not the sewing and quilting part, though I'm sure I'll complain if I ever get that far. I'm just having a really hard time in choosing colors and patterns that look good together. I've been collecting pictures of fantastic quilts I found on the internet and just marvel at how beautifully they work. My favorite has to be the verb quilt by Jane. This surprised me as I always think of myself prefering subtle colors, but the simple squares and the vibrant combination of the red and soft blues takes my breath away. It's beautiful. Very different, yet equally stunning to me are these wool& cotton quilts on Denyse Schmidt's website. They remind me of some of Mark Rothko's paintings.
Whenever I get into something new I often make it hard on myself by starting out with something difficult, which in the end gets tossed into a corner for lack of success. I'm getting tired of these sad ufo's taking up space and decided on starting with a small object. Man, I think I'm growing up! My hot-water bottle needed a cover, I'm sure some of the funny dreams I have come from my toes touching the cold wobbly rubber in the middle of the night. I got some cheapy cotton fabrics at Joann's, all in pink and aqua (my current obsession), made a pattern by tracing the outline of the bottle and added three or so inches on each side. It's a bit misshapen. But here you see my dilemma with the fabrics. It's too bland. I think it's the fault of the top print, because its background is the same pink as the solid on the bottom. What do you think?

Let's not even talk about the quilting. At that point, I just wanted to have a one-night project, hence the boring squares.

My Weekender Bag

After a 10-hour sewing session on Saturday and a few more hours on Sunday, I finished my Weekender Bag. I can't find the words to express how thrilled I am to have finished this and to be completely happy with the outcome. Seriously, it took me ten minutes to write that last sentence and I'm not even sure it's grammatically correct. But enough stammering, here you go:








I started this bag 4 or so weeks ago, enamored with its cute vintage look and oblivious to how much time this would take to make. The outside fabric is from Amy Butler's Sunbloom line, for the lining and piping I got cocoa colored denim at my local Discount Fabrics. If you make this bag and want to center and match up your pattern, I suggest getting at least 2 yards of the main fabric. Instead of timtex I got peltex, which the sales lady claimed to be the same. I wonder though if it's not a bit thicker, as my bag is pretty sturdy and keeps its shape very well. Buy more than one big roll of thread and buy extra needles as well, I broke so many trying to go through a 3/8" layer of fabric. Because I couldn't find a 30" non-separating zipper in the color I wanted, I got a 36" separating zipper, sewed a zipper stop at 30" and chopped the rest off. It works perfectly. While the pattern instructions are easy to follow, they often didn't work for me and I used this book to help me especially with the zipper. After many failed attempts to have my pieces lining up correctly I stopped the pinning and sewing method. Instead I pushed the pins straight through

then handbasted the layers, then sewed. Basting everything all the time through such thick layers takes a lot of time, but it was worth it, I had to rip and redo a lot less than in the beginning.
I would have liked some more explicit instructions on the cording/piping as well, instead of just "don't crowd the cording". When I made the piping, I sewed app. 1/4" inch from the raw edges, with my needle positioned in the middle (my sewing machine has a dial to adjust the placement of the needle, 3 is the middle, 4-5 move the needle to the left, 2-1 move the needle to the right). After you make the piping you will have to sew twice more, always to the left of the previous stitching line. When it came to sewing the piping onto the panel, I moved my needle to position four, while my zipper foot still sewed 1/4" from the raw edge. When you sew the last layer on with a 1/2" seam (the piping is now sandwiched between two layers), I moved my needle to position 5, my zipper foot still aligned to the raw edge (but the distance from the needle changed from 1/4" to 1/2" from the raw edge). I hope this is helpful. I'd recommend this project if you have patience. Mine was just about to run out, but my happiness over it now is already clouding the bad memories.

Hmpf.

My Kim Hargreaves kit came yesterday.


And this is how I feel about it:


I don't like the color. I've seen it before in the store and remembered it as a rich dark pink. In reality (the photo didn't bring it out well) it looks like a strange faded bubblegum pink. Maybe it needs to grow on me.
The weekender bag is getting there. I made Saturday my deadline.