happy earth day

Happy Earth Day.

On April 26th, my husband and I will be working on a park clean-up. This particular Earth Day celebration is a bit late this year, but just as well. As my friend Greg pointed out, “Every day is Earth Day.” The weather was awful on the 19th. It kept hailing throughout the weekend (maybe this was a message).

I am celebrating it by going to see the Yarn Harlot and participating in the Blue Moon Fiber Arts replica of Toronto’s Inexplicable Knitting Behavior yarn crawl. I am buying some carbon offsets to offset the driving around for the day (even though this may be an empty gesture). (Here’s an article about the debate.) I will also celebrate it all summer by going to my local oregon farmers’ market every Friday and Saturday. (I still have two localities). It isn’t much of a gesture since I’m its’ program coordinator, but I will definitely support it!

Many of you know that I work in the environmental field. It’s hard to call it a career since I’ve bounced around so much: administrator at a land trust, environmental law paralegal, national environmental policy act coordinator,  leed a.p., volunteer sustainability programs coordinator and programs coordinator. What I actually do is coordinate programs and information and I’m best at ones that have to do with community and environmental issues.

I want to share with you some books and papers that changed my life when I was 17.

• The End of Nature – Bill McKibben
• Home Economics – Wendell Berry
• The Tragedy of the Commons – Garrett Hardin (Please note: I am not a fan of lifeboat ethics.)
• The Land Ethic – Aldo Leopold
• Encounters with the Archdruid – John McPhee
• The Control of Nature – John McPhee

These are three books I really like.

• Cradle to Cradle – Bill McDonough
• The Omnivore’s Dilemna – Michael Pollan
• Cadillac Desert - Marc Reisner.

It’s interesting to see what influences me now versus what influenced me at 17.

Here are some books that are Pacific Northwest and Oregon specific.

• Landscapes of Promise – William G. Robbins
• The Greening of Ben Brown – Michael Strelow
• Empty Nets – Roberta Ulrich
• A Richer Harvest – Ed. Craig Wollner and Tracy Dillon

These are other books on my book shelf that I’ve been meaning to read/finish.

• Desert Solitaire – Edward Abbey
• Last Chance to See – Douglas Adams
• The Blind Watchmaker – Richard Dawkins
• Earth in Mind – David Orr
• Ecology of a Cracker Childhood – Janise Ray
• Water Wars – Vandana Shiva
• The Small-Mart Revolution – Michael Shuman
• The Creation – E.O. Wilson
• The Future of Life – E.O. Wilson
• Run River Run – Ann Zwinger

Got any you’d like to add?

more yarn and birthday stuff

My birthday was in January and it included 2 gift certificates to the Loopy Ewe. And I had another one in my account already, so I’d been saving them for just the right moment. That moment was last week and the yarn came on Friday.

I’m sure you want to see the Casbah in Paris by Handmaiden,

the Mermaid Sock by Lime and Violet in Myrna Loy

and the Bellisma by Zen String.

All in all there has been a lot of slippage lately. I’m only allowed to buy 1000 yards more this year right now and that doesn’t include last weeks’ moment of weakness at Sweet Georgia Yarns, the Earth Day Yarn swap package I’m expecting, 2 shipments of Loopy Ewe Sock Club, 3 shipments of Scout’s Swag’s Sock Club, yarn at two festivals, or yarn at the Yarn Harlot’s Book Signing. Hmm, do I have anything on order? I’d better get knitting!

And the Salem Area Ravelers wonder why I keep avoiding the yarn crawls.

earth day in portland

I have it stuck in my head that Earth Day is April 22nd, but that events take place on Sunday. And I can’t follow directions. I read them and reread them and just when I think I’ve stopped misreading them, the inevitable happens.

So when Blue Moon Fiber Arts posted about the Inexplicable Knitting Behavior scavenger hunt, I had to remind myself several times that I had to do the scavenger hunt on Saturday. I probably wasn’t going to be able to make it to see Stephanie Pearl McPhee, aka the Yarn Harlot, on Tuesday. I had it in my head to go Saturday and run into other knitters even though I couldn’t go get ‘credit.’ It turned out my husband wasn’t available Saturday.

And then I realized that I was going to go and hell I’d do the scavenger hunt on Sunday, when my husband was available. This was going to be fun for both of us since as Salemites (but frequent visitors to Portland), we hadn’t seen most of these things. Somehow, Sunday became April 19th and my husband and I went off to PDX to go scavenger hunting and I forgot which days of the week were what dates. The hallmark of ADHD is poor short-term memory. Or at least that’s what it looks like. You can be brilliant at thinking your way through a problem, but then forget three minutes later what you did.

My first planned stop was the Blue Moon Tavern, which also happens to be a McMenamin’s pub. Three potential points. I got the shot outside and then convinced the bartender to pour a local brew and pose with the sock under their chalkboard that says Blue Moon Tavern on it. Not bad, eh? I don’t know the bartender either so that was a bonus point. Four points.

Then we decided to stop at Ken’s Artisan’s Bakery, which is just up the street on 21st. We’re fans of the bread, having had it at Navarre. Josh wanted some coffee. Lo and behold, they serve Stumptown Coffee. So another potential two points. I don’t think the bird in the picture is the Stumptown Rooster, since it’s just a bird, but I think I finally solved the mystery of the origin of the name for the Rooster Rock color way. On the way in, I read the directions out loud to Josh and he says, “Steph, it’s the 20th”.

accomplishments

Too often I don’t give myself enough credit. Or any. I focus on what I haven’t done rather than what I have. I’m not as cynical as I was as a teenager, but…

And there it is. The little but that I really need to get rid of.

So here is my accomplishment of the (week/month/whatever).

Knitting: Sent off Earth Day Swap Package. I sent it internationally if that’s a hint to my partner.

Knitting: Knit 5″ of Juno Regina. (Since this is the accomplishment of the moment, I will NOT talk now about how I haven’t given you the photograph yet).

book review

For me, color is one of the biggest attractions of knitting. In the winter, I practically drown myself in it in an effort to replace sunlight. Unsurprisingly, I’m interested in doing some hand dyeing of my own. If you read this blog regularly, you may remember that I received several jars of jacquard acid dye for Christmas, although I have yet to dye a hank.

Over the past year, I’ve been picking up hand dyeing supplies. Kool-aid here, sponge paintbrushes or gloves there. I’m down to the big one – the pot, microwave or other device I need to actually cook the skein in.

So it was natural that I picked up a copy The Yarn Lover’s Guide to Hand Dyeing: Beautiful and Simple Knits by Linda La Belle. This book appears to have slid under the radar. There are three things I really like about it: comprehensive coverage, cute projects and interviews with professional hand dyers. It also happens to have clear instructions and well chosen photographs. Any one of these things alone would make a decent book. All three together make for a magnificent introduction to hand dyeing.

The book covers multiple techniques for hand dyeing – kool-aid acid dyeing, eucalyptus dyeing, cold pad dyeing, ktiton immersion dyeing, jacquard acid dyeing and the list goes on. Yep, it’s all there. It even lets you know the pros and cons of using the different dye types. The book coversJacquard Acid Dyes and Ashford Wool Dyes and Procion mx fiber reactive dyes dyes and you can see some sample results.

There is probably one too many ‘little projects’ in the pattern section, but I enjoy the fact that some are knit BEFORE the dyeing, while others used the finished yarns. All of the projects show the dye job beautifully, which is probably the important thing.

I think my favorite aspect, the one making the book worthy of being a permanent reference book, is the interviews with hand dyers like Cheryl schaefer, Maie, Taiu and Kersti Landra (Koigu), and Nancy Finn (Chasing Rainbow Dyeworks.)

Available through and from Amazon.Com for $15.28 – $19.80 US.

I’ll recommend this book at four and a half yarn cakes. Sweet!

in knitting news

I’m behind. Way behind. So much so that I have an unfinished post from a month ago. A while back I bought another skein of Dream in Color Classy in the Happy Forest Colorway. Green is definitely a hot color for me right now.

During the break between Round 1 and Round 2 of Sock Madness, I started on the second sock of my Jitterbug Pomatomus Socks. Everyone loves the Jitterbug and I get compliments on that sock wherever I go. I was trying to continue a trend of finishing projects. First, I finished the Sock Madness Round 1 Zombies and then I finished my plain Socks That Rock Socks.

The arrival of Round 2 of Sock Madness thwarted my attempt to finish a third pair of socks (in a row) in three weeks. I’m not planning on finishing the Sock Madness Round 2 socks. They just weren’t for me. I’m wondering when I’m going to start the Round 3 socks.

They are intriguing, but the pressure is off now. I bet you want to see the yarn for those though. I nearly forgot! It’s Tess Yarns. It’s really pretty. I’m going to have to get some for lace projects some time. It’s an effort not to develop a lace weight stash though. I hardly think my small amount of lace weight counts as a lace weight stash. (I’m crossing my fingers.)

I got the Earth Day Swap going and a very nice knitter (Doulton on Ravelry) sent me a bonus package of applewood bacon flavored chocolate and Silkie Socks That Rock in Pallas Athena. I REALLY want to play with it but I have a lot of other projects in the works. My package arrived but I’ve got into more trouble with registered mail and my husband may need to pick it up.

socks out

The second round of Sock Madness went fast. Way too fast by half. In a week where I moved my out of my home away from home (a small 10′x10′ bedroom) to a much more spacious apartment, I tried to faithfully knit on my socks, whilst furnishing the new place with things ferried from home number one. It didn’t work. I got about half a repeat into the socks before I got home last night where I saw, to my dismay, that the Tennessee Vols group had 19 completed pairs. Even had I stayed up ALL night, there was no way in.

These aren’t my favorite pair of socks so far, even though I find the stitch pattern intriguing, so I’m going to toss these and participate at will. And I’m going to save that Sweet Georgia Concord for something else. I do have the coveted laceweight yarn for whatever round they are in, so I’m certainly going to be knitting that pair of socks. But now I can go back to finishing some other projects and having a more normal knitting life.

I think I knew I was going to be out earlier this week when I thought, ‘Crap, this is keeping me from working on x, y & z.’

Picture to come soon.