adventures in san francisco pt 2, all things sheepy

Anabel, her friend Christina and I went off to Japantown where all things sheepy can be bought for less than $2.00 at the Japanese dollar store. Okay, some things aren’t sheepy. But they are wonderful, no?

 

 

1. oven mitt, 2. sheep box cutter, 3. sheep clips, 4. chop sticks, 5. push pins, 6. animal rubber bands (includes sheep), 7. sushi project bag, 8. sheep pad and led key chain, 9. Christina’s New Sheep Tote* (which matches her previously purchased sheep decorated converse shoes. Yep with a black sheep on the heel.)

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

electric sheep

My husband recently told me of a screen saver that uses the sheep up, sheep down voting system, a form of approval voting. Electric Sheep is a screen saver of true beauty and a knitting must have for this season. Here is a quote from their website.

“When [sic] computers “sleep”, the screen saver comes on and [sic] computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as “sheep”. The result is a collective “android dream”, an homage to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.”

Use the arrow keys to vote whether or not you approve of the screen saver. An up key results in an upward facing sheep in the foreground of your screen saver, while a down key results in a downward facing sheep. The votes upload themselves to the internet.

Happy voting.

oregon flock and fiber

I think the call was for Oregon Flock and Fiber pictures.

I had a great time at my first fiber festival. I have to admit that the Blue Moon Fiber Arts table took me a little by surprise. I knew they’d be there, but I hadn’t anticipated the mill ends. I was restrained and spent $32.50 (1 medium-weight skein of mill ends and one light-weight skein of Rare gems) at the BMFA table. This panicked me quite a bit, as I’d been at the festival for about three and a half minutes before I landed there. BMFA was nice enough during the festival to save some for day two and I was terribly tempted to go back for more.

This is the Abundant Yarn and Dyeworks tent and is where I purchased the prize for Second Sock September. It’s Trekking that they hand-dyed. It’s nice for fall I think.

I had a lot of fun. I ran into several of the PDX knit bloggers. I also ran into Donna. It’s surreal to run into someone who actually reads your blog. She was helping Chrissy market her new patterns. I might have bought some were I not so acutely aware of all my WIPs.

I was mighty tempted by A Swell Yarn Shop’s tent. They make Duet. I resisted. It’s beautiful stuff, but I think I prefer to match my heels myself.

I had a lot of fun checking out the fiber menagerie at the festival. Llamas, alpacas, sheep, yaks (yes I said yaks), camels, goats and rabbits.

Last but not least, here is the Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn pr0n, along with views of the rest of my loot, with the exception of the basket I bought. I can’t believe I got mill ends. The medium weight mill ends were $14 a skein.

 

 

1. Socks That Rock – Lightweight in Rare Gems, 2. Socks That Rock – Medium-weight Mill Ends, 3. Socks That Rock – Medium-weight Mill Ends, 4. Silk and Merino Roving from The Dizzy Ewe, 5. Spindle from Wool World
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

I really want to thank Rebecca of The Dizzy Ewe for giving me some lessons with my new spindle. Her roving is gorgeous and you should definitely have some. I really want some of the yarn she has for dyeing too.

on bunnies

Today’s theme is bunnies (the ones that live in grassy fields, not the ones that live at the mansion). Note the vegetable stand at Pike Place Market in Seattle. If I lose you at any point during this post, you’ll need to click on the links to get back on track.

One Easter we were given a black rabbit. I think her name was Cara. My mother let Cara run all over the house, although unfortunately, Cara was not litter box trained. This was not why Cara went to live in the country though. She would have stayed with us for longer except that it turned out she liked to chew electrical cords. My mother found a new home for her where she would have a lot of room to run around without the risk of turning into a fried bunny.

When I was in Walla Walla, Washington, I played Killer Bunnies with some friends. That was a fun, low key game. Just playing it is the fun part.

Spartacus among the saffron

Spartacus among the saffron

Originally uploaded by moiraeknitting.

Maybe a skein a day is a tad ambitious. My slogging has come to a dead halt. See why? Maybe she’ll do a few rows for me? That would be great! The row I’m on, 27, is a doozy.

knitters gone wild at the mall

Over 500 (that’s my rough guess) knitters ran wild this weekend at the Mall of America for the Knit Out. The Knit Out was sponsored by the Minnesota Knitter’s Guild and featured knitting and crochet lessons, book signings, displays of the latest knitwear, speed knitting competitions, and a dog sweater fashion show. Knitters of all ages were spotted standing in half-hour long lines for free crochet hooks, coupons, knitting needles (Clover in various sizes), yarn (from Michael’s) and other swag (sometimes known as Stuff We All Get).

One or two people found the event disruptive. A non-knitter was overheard remarking that the mall was overrun and it made parking and shopping difficult. On the whole, people enjoyed the event. In particular, the doggy sweater fashion show and the speed knitting competitions were well attended.

The models (Abby depicted above) were provided by the Animal Humane Society and are licensed therapy dogs. They serve as ambassadors for the Humane Society and frequently travel to cheer up the sick and the elderly. Many different types of animals are licensed therapy pets; more information can be found here.

If you are interested in learning more about knitting for your dog, check out Dog Gone Knit, a Squidoo site. It’s a sort combination of a blog/catalog about knitting for your dogs and has some free patterns. I have a cat myself and there’s no real knitting for cats. They’ll sit on or play with all of your knitting.

Now for the sickeningly cute part. I asked if I could photograph the models and addition to being allowed to post the photographs on my blog, I got to pet everyone too! I’m sure my blood pressure dropped a bunch.

fustration nearly saved by yarn pr0n

After messing around with yet another sleeve on the Huntington Castle pullover yesterday, I realized some more things about sweater design, sleeve changes and whatnot and decided I really hate the entire thing. I sewed the shoulder seams first and tried it out. I’m not happy with the length. I’m not happy with the width. I hate the dang sleeves and I’m going to redesign the whole thing…..someday. I’m going back to my Pearl Buck sweater for now. I still have high hopes of finishing it by my birthday next month, so I have to pack it for my Christmas vacation.

celebrating the solstice with increases – m1 (make one)

My main order of business is to tell you about some the knitting techniques I’m using to work on the sleeves for my Huntingtion Castle pullover (Interweave Knits Fall 2004). But first, there are a couple of things I want to catch up on and then we in the Northern Hempisphere can go and celebrate the winter solstice. I’m a bit of a pagan if anything at all.

I promised a couple more pictures of my One Skein, One Day Wonder hat. So here is the best I could do in this rainy, grey weather we’re having. Sorry about the focus, but if I used a flash, the color would be off.

Also, I knit another Lizard Ridge square on Monday and have been debating about whether it goes into the Afghans for Afghans or not. I may still knit another blanket for myself at some point. But I haven’t blocked it, so I haven’t photographed it yet.

modifications to the sleeves of the pearl buck jacket

These are notes primarily meant for me, but feel free to try to follow along and watch me struggle through the knitting math involved in modifying the armholes to fit my non-model arms for the Pearl Buck Jacket shown in the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. I have never done this level of pattern modification before, so if you are also new to rescaling patterns at least wait to see how it turns out before following my lead. If have some more experience in this area, please chime in with any suggestions you might have.

today is a good day for widdershins

Topday is a good day for Widdershins socks. Sort of. First, my husband found my keyboard in the computer box. It was under the foam. I’m guessing my computer box got turned upside down during the move and so I didn’t see it when I unpacked my machine. Second, the weather is a little better (it’s 90F, feels like 91F as opposed to 92F, feels like 107F). And third, my house looks more like a category 4 than a category 5.

Here are the Widdershins. Those cables were more irritating than I thought they would be, but I enjoyed using the toe-up cast-on.

Pattern: Widdershins from Knitty
Yarn: Trekking XXL, probably Trekking 100 .
Yarn Source: digs
Needles:3.25mm (US 3) Clover and Brittany birch DPNs
Gauge: 7 st/inch over stockinette stitch

I promised that my next socks would be something risky and self-designed, but I’m beat and it’s hot, so either I’m going to knit some plain cotton socks for a little bit of a breather or I’ll work on my adaptation of the Lotus-Blossom Tank. I really did want to do some socks using Euny’s pretty cables from her amazing pink Twisted Stitch Sweater. I would also like to make her new socks as soon as she posts her new pattern. They are pretty close to what I had in mind.

Here is what my cat had to say about the air conditioned room.

Here is the state of my house.

roughing it

The Widdershins socks are made with a very interesting heel. I’m not sure exactly what I was supposed to do with the wrapped stitches, but I tried to follow the directions and I appear to have a rather nice looking sock heel. I think the Widdershins pattern looks great with the Trekking XXL, don’t you? (Spartacus included for scale. No animals were harmed in the taking of this photograph.)

Knitting in the new apartment is done on the floor, in a folding table, or on the air mattress. Our furniture is still with the movers in Denver and hopefully it will be here Tuesday or Wednesday. We only had an air mattress to sit on for a few days, until some of my husband Josh’s colleagues graciously lent us a few chairs and a folding table. Practically, this has translated into two chairs for the cats and two chairs for us. I suppose we could have people over and put the cats on the bed, but we’re not really set up for entertaining at the moment.

We’ve bought a number of survival items that we were unable to pack in the car. This included a new toaster oven (which we needed anyway), some cheap silverware and dishes from Ikea, dishtowels and potholder. The cups were $0.50 each, the silverware was $1.99 for a four pack, the steak knivers were $1.99 for a six pack and two plates and two bowls totaled $6.00. The one thing I did pack in our gear was the wireless router. After all, the router is smaller than a toaster oven and not covered with rust and grease.
We’ve been cooking in our toaster oven and microwave. We’d use the stove, but we haven’t got any pans! So we’ve had a lot of packaged food (microwavable Mac N’ Cheese and some packaged Indian), sandwiches and a bunch of fruit. One thing we made in the toaster oven was sausages with green peppers and onions. What do we care if we can’t roast a chicken? It’s brutal outside and we’re not accustomed to humidiy

In the meantime, it’s pretty hard to keep entertained and that’s why I’m knitting socks like mad. I’ve got lots of sock yarn, a couple of books and occasionally I get to login to the web and hunt for a job. My main job search will begin in August after we get back from London and I’m determined to find a good job It’s either that or give up buying yarn.

completed sock

Does something about this picture look familiar? I did the kitchener stitch and then I finished the first sock! It’s a bit loose around the foot , but I think the fit is pretty good!

Here is the completed sock, drying.

Also, I just want to show you a picture of the most shameless cat ever. No knitting involved in this one.