Friday, November 24, 2006

Breakfast


Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and is enjoying the long weekend!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Pink

I have this pink yarn. To be precise, it's 6 skeins of Rio de la Plata worsted from LambShoppe, in the "Pink Carnation" color. I love the color, but I foolishly bought all of the yarn in stock even though it wasn't enough for a sweater. I've been trying off and on for months to figure out how to squeeze a sweater that will fit me out of ~800 yards of yarn. And I think I've hit upon the solution: Give up on the sweater. It's a single-ply yarn, so if I do make a sweater it's going to pill horribly. So why not sidestep the problem and just felt it? I'm thinking, a Sophie bag (lined with some rayon from my sewing stash), a pair of felted mittens, and maybe a set of the felted bowls from One Skein. Of course, this means first I have to swatch and see how well it actually felts, but I have high hopes for some cute pink mittens in my future.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Taos!

My apologies for the incredible delay of this post. My only excuses are that a) I was out of town for three weeks, and b) as soon as I got back we started looking for a house to buy, which is a new and exciting way to use up every speck of my time and energy. But more on that later - for now, the expedition report!

One sunny Saturday morning, a bunch of Boulder knitters all woke up way too early, loaded up the cars with knitting and snacks, and drove to New Mexico. I rode along with Anne and Kate, and we had a lovely drive, complete with amazing views of the mountains. With a stop at Pizza Hut for lunch, it took us about 6 hours, but finally we arrived at the enormous traffic jam that is downtown Taos. (It might not be that bad when there aren't hundreds of knitters in town, but I doubt it.) We abandoned the car as soon as possible, grabbed our wallets, and hit the wool festival!

I knew it was a small festival, but I hadn't realized quite how small it would be. There were, maybe, 50 vendors? There were raw fleeces, hand-dyed yarns, some expensive weavings, and hand-knit goods. The most exciting, in my opinion, were the Brooks Farm and Skaska stands.
As you can see, I restrained myself to only one fiber purchase: two skeins of Brooks Farm "Harmony" in a gorgeous rich red. I was thinking of making it into the Wool Peddler's Shawl (from Folk Shawls), but now I'm not so sure. I might have just enough for a sweater. We'll see.

After a stop at La Lana Wools, which had some nice stuff but was way overpriced, we went out for terrific Mexican food in honor of Katie's birthday. (Now I want enchiladas for lunch. Drat.) And then we headed back to our suite at the charming Taos Inn for the night.

The next day the weather turned horrible. Anne and I braved the mud at the festival to look for a few last purchases, but then we fled to the indoor shopping options and ended up at Weaving Southwest. I'm not a weaver, but they had some stunning artwork for sale (all too expensive for me, sadly), and lovely yarn, and best of all, tools. I'd been looking for a really nice two-yard niddy-noddy since Estes, and I finally found one. It's alder wood with a smooth oil finish, it's simple but perfect, and I love it.

Then it was time to take off, as I had to be at the Denver airport in time for my flight to California. It turned out to be a good thing that we hit the road early, because all the rain in Taos turned into SNOW once we got up into the mountains! Thanks to Anne and her Subaru, we didn't slide off the road, made it through the weather, stopped for burritos, and still arrived at DIA in plenty of time. In a delightful coincidence I ended up sitting next to an old friend on the flight to SB, and we chatted all the way there, and then after being in snowy mountains all afternoon I was in the warm, sunny, flower-filled coast before bedtime. And that's the whole story!

Monday, November 06, 2006

Red Hat

Check me out!
Pattern: Tweed Beret from Winter 2006 Interweave Knits, the smaller size.
Yarn: O-Wool, 100% wool, less than one skein.
Time: Three days, a few movies' worth of knitting.
Opinion: I think it's kinda cute. :) It fits well, it keeps my head warm, and it doesn't squish my hair too much. Not bad!

(Sorry about the fuzzy picture - seems like I could either get good focus and bad facial expression, or vice versa. Since this is my blog I get to pick the more flattering picture!)

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Back in Boulder

I'm home again! And it is COLD here in the mountains, let me tell you, or at least it is compared to southern California. I'm afraid my sinuses hate me now. I'm trying to placate them with the humidifier but the sniffles continue.

The good thing about this cold weather is that it makes me want to knit. In fact, it's giving me a severe case of start-itis, and the only things preventing me from having ten new projects on the needles are: 1. my new needles haven't shipped yet, and 2. I can't decide which hat to make. Yes, it's time once more for the annual "I want to knit myself a hat but I can't decide on a pattern" kvetching! I have a skein of red Vermont Organic O-Wool that I'd like to turn into a hat. I went through the archives at Claudia's to find all the advice people gave her last year, but nothing really jumped out at me. I dragged out Vogue Knitting Caps & Hats, both volumes, and I liked the herringbone-stitch cloche, but then I googled it and saw complaints about the fit and the stitch pattern, and I'm not sure this yarn would work anyway. Then the latest issue of Interweave Knits arrived, and now I'm thinking about the beret pattern (as well as several sweaters). Swatching will commence just as soon as I have another mini Snickers bar.

I haven't forgotten about the Taos report, I promise, but I want to wait until I get my loot back from Anne so I can take pictures of my pretty new stuff!