Vacation Knitting

We're planning an awesome vacation this summer: a 4-night Disney Cruise to the Bahamas. I. Can't. Wait. Which is sort of weird because I don't do hot weather, and I don't really enjoy beaches. But, I'm so excited about this cruise, I'm just about beside myself.  I intent to keep my extremely pale self well-protected, with a big sun hat and loads of sunblock. Maybe even an umbrella. Oh! I could get a really lovely parasol. That would be cute, right?

What I've been contemplating the most, though, is vacation knitting. I love vacation knitting. We do a lot of road trips, and my husband prefers to drive. Plus, our kids are old enough to keep themselves well entertained in the car. This means tons of knitting time for me. Past vacation projects have included shawls, sweaters, a Moebius scarf, and more. This year feels a little different, though. I know we're going someplace hot. It's highly unlikely I'll have the time or inclination to knit while on the ship, but I still don't want to be unprepared if the urge strikes!

So, I've been looking around Ravelry for inspiration. I'm seriously considering the Bigger On the Inside shawl, inspired by The Doctor's Tardis. This would actually look great with a couple of Tori's dresses, so maybe it's destined to be hers. I've had Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl in my queue for a long time, and I have some Malabrigo Sock yarn that would be quite nice with that pattern. But I wonder if it's not a little ambitious for vacation knitting. It's big and will require some level of concentration. But it's so lovely... Same goes for the Morning Glory Wrap; I think the Briar Rose Sea Pearl that I talked about in my last post would be perfect for this! Or, I could go the easy route and work on socks. Lord knows I have plenty of stashed sock yarn to choose from.

I just don't know. What kinds of things do you like to knit while on vacation? Do you like to challenge yourself because you know you'll actually have the time and brain power to put into learning something new? Or do you prefer to go with something easy and mindless to make your vacation more relaxing?

Fiber Event

Sorry for the long absence. No excuses, just life. And Tomb Raider. And kids' school projects/homework. And. And. And.

But, I'm back now!  And I don't have a ton of tangible accomplishments to report. I finished Tomb Raider to 100% completion. I'm pretty proud of that. I also made those music bags that I mentioned in my last post. Oh! The Fiber Event was in April. It's my second-favorite day of the year (Christmas is #1). I always spend an exorbitant amount of money at the Briar Rose booth, and this year was no exception. I also purchased yarn from Robin Edmundson, who has an amazing sense of color. Tori picked some sock yarn from A Good Yarn. And there was jewelry made from recycled knitting needles. Observe:

This Briar Rose Wistful, which is an alpaca/merino/silk blend. LOVE!

This is Briar Rose Fourth of July, 100% merino. Again, I love this stuff. I can't photograph the color accurately, no matter how many different ways I try. This photo is the closest of all those I took, but it's still not perfect. This yarn is the color of fall. Green, brown, orange, gold. Gorgeous!

This is a special edition sport-weight superwash merino. It's really soft and wonderful. Both pics are of the same skein, just flipped over. So many colors in one skein! I can't decide what to do with it, but it needs something really special.

The final Briar Rose purchase is Sea Pearl, a fingering weight merino/tencel blend. I love this yarn so much, there aren't even words! Every year, I buy at least a shawl's worth of this yarn, usually in greens or purples. I changed it up a little bit this year by going with blue.

Now for the yarn I bought from Robin J. Edmundson. I really like Robin. I've taken a couple of color classes from her in the past, and she's just amazing. She always chooses wonderful base yarns for dyeing, which just makes them that much better!  This one is a worsted weight bamboo/cotton blend. I've already cast on a project with this yarn (Lamb's Lace Cardi), and I'm loving it! I think it will be perfect for my office this summer, which is perpetually chilly.

The final yarn purchase was chosen by Tori. She's a total Batman fangirl, and Harley Quinn is her favorite character. I'm fairly certain that's why she chose this yarn. It's a merino sock yarn from A Good Yarn.

And, finally, the jewelry from Bur Oak Studio. I love these pieces, and am seriously considering emailing the designer/creator to see if she can do a necklace to match the earring/bracelet set.

So, that was my Fiber Event haul. I sat down to write this post with lots of other things in my mind, but I'll save those for another day. There's a lot of exciting stuff going on, including an awesome collaborative project with Tori. More on this in the next few days, I promise!

Bread and bags

I keep expecting life to slow down, and it never happens. Am I the only one who feels this way? I'm always saying to myself, "Okay, this weekend, we don't have anything planned, so I'm going to [insert hobby here]." But something always comes up. Activities with the kids, visiting family, cleaning the house, school projects, etc. It's always something.

Fortunately, I have hobbies that can be done during little bits of stolen time between other activities. Sometimes even DURING other activities. Basketball game? I can knit in the stands. Parent meeting for the marching band trip? I can knit something simple while still paying attention. Cleaning the house? I can bake bread and take little breaks from cleaning when it's time to knead or divide the dough or whatever.

A couple of weekends ago, I went on a bread-making frenzy. I made five loaves of bread. One long-rise no-knead bread that is absolutely delicious! And four loaves of multi-grain whole-grain bread that requires a bit more attention.

First, the no-knead bread. 

So good! And so easy! Excellent warm from the oven, slathered with real butter. Also, it makes an amazing grilled cheese sandwich. My husband, who isn't really a "bread" person, even loved it! This is the kind of bread that, even though you have to start putting it together the day before, really requires very little work.

Next, four loaves of the multi-grain whole-grain bread.

This bread is also really yummy. It starts with a multi-grain hot cereal, is sweetened with honey, and offers options for the addition of sunflower or pumpkin seeds. I couldn't find the 7-grain cereal called for, so I used a 5-grain rolled hot cereal mix. I've since discovered a  source for the 7-grain cereal, which isn't rolled, and I can't wait to try it! If you look closely at the bottom picture, you can see that I added sunflower seeds. I like this bread toasted with butter and cinnamon or jam. It also makes a good sandwich if you slice it thin enough. Yum!

As good as this bread is, it really requires quite a bit of work. Soaking the cereal, mixing the dough, letting it rest, adding the salt, resting again, adding the seeds. let it rise, divide into pans, let it rise again, then bake. But, it's totally worth it. I just set the timer on my phone to remind me when to go back and do the next step. I'm hoping to mix up a couple of batches of this soon so I can freeze the dough for future use, for those days when I don't have time to do all the fiddly bits.

In other news, my son Aaron, who is 11 years old, started taking piano lessons a couple of weeks ago. He seems to really enjoy it, but he doesn't have a bag in which to carry his music. And, as much as I *love* bags, I don't own any non-girly-looking bags. What's a boy to do? Go with his mom to JoAnn's and pick out fabric for a custom-made music tote. I thought he'd want "licensed" fabric with Thor or Mario or some other video game character or super hero. But he surprised me and chose this, which is extremely appropriate:

I'm planning to line it with black fabric, and I think I got enough to make a tote for Tori, who plays flute in the band. Maybe I'll even ask Aaron if he wants to use this opportunity to learn how to sew. He's on spring break next week, so that might be a great activity for one day.

Lunchtime goodness

I had a very productive (but still relaxing!) weekend. I spent a lot of time with my sewing machine. This is what I made on Saturday:

It's a lunchbox! I have a really great lunch container that is perfect for salad and a couple of small sides--like sliced cucumbers and cottage cheese. But it's quite a big container and doesn't fit in any lunchboxes/bags I've ever seen at Walmart or Target or TJ Maxx. So, I figured I'd make my own!

I made it up as I went along. I mean, I measured my lunch container and used that as a starting point, but otherwise, I just flew by the seat of my pants. And I couldn't be happier! I used a great cotton home decor fabric, insulated it with InsulBright, and lined it with ripstop nylon. If ripstop nylon sounds like a weird choice, consider this: it's water resistant, easily wipes clean, and is machine washable.

On Sunday, I made some coordinating accessories. I made two snack bags, following Mauby's Ultimate Reusable Snack Bag instructions.

Mauby used PUL fabric to line hers, but I went with ripstop nylon again. I don't plan on putting wet things in these bags, so I didn't need mine to be really really waterproof. I'm thinking crackers, pretzels, grapes, carrots. Easy stuff. I also made a reusable sandwich wrapper (using ripstop nylon instead of fused plastic bags), but didn't use it today so didn't have it with me for pictures. I'm not really a sandwich person, but I like to bake bread, so I can see myself using it to transport a couple slices of homemade bread to accompany my salad and soup.

Here's what it all looks like put together:

What isn't in the picture is my cup of soup (Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili, which is a HUGE hit at my house) because it was in the microwave at the time.

I'm so pleased with these projects! I don't have to use a plastic shopping bag as a lunch bag anymore. I love the reusable snack bags because not only will I save money not having to buy plastic baggies, but I can't even imagine how many baggies it will save from the landfills!

Digital Hoarding

I'm not afraid to get rid of stuff. I watch Hoarders and can't even begin to understand why they do what they do. (Yes, I realize that in most cases it's a mental illness.) I'm happy to throw things away, send stuff to Goodwill, whatever. In general, I honestly do not develop emotional attachments to Stuff. Do I have my hangups? Sure. I like yarn. I like having a lot of yarn. But, it's organized, inventoried, and frequently used. It isn't taking over the house or preventing me from living a good life.

Another, maybe more serious, hangup for me is information. I love information. When I was a teenager, I had a few magazine subscriptions (anyone remember YM?), and I would tear out the articles and keep them in file folders by subject, in case I ever needed to reference them again (I never needed to reference them again.). As I grew up, I did the same with other magazines. I even created an accordion file of home decor and craft ideas. Needless to say, I no longer have the articles I painstakingly curated when I was a teenager. However, I do still have a milk crate full of hanging files with those home decor and craft ideas. I think I'm about ready to let most of those go and just need to make the time to sort through them.

Then I learned how to knit and discovered knitting magazines. At one point, I had literally hundreds of knitting magazines on my bookshelf. I also had hundreds of knitting patterns in binders--some printed from online sources, and other purchased at yarn shops. A couple of years ago, the idea hit me to "destructively digitize" my knitting magazines. At work, I have access to a top-feed scanner that will automatically scan both sides at a fairly high resolution. I used a paper cutter to remove the bindings and used personal time (not work time) to scan in all of my magazines. I have a redundant storage system in place--all digital copies are on Box.com, on my hard drive at home, and on discs (though I will admit that the discs haven't been updated in some time). I keep all current issues in paper, and when a new issue comes out, the old one gets scanned and recycled. It's a beautiful system that allows me to keep all my "information" without taking up physical space in my environment. I've filled nearly 22GB of virtual space on Box.com with knitting magazines and patterns.

There are two more sources of information that I can't resist. Ravelry and Pinterest. Let's talk about Ravelry first. It allows me to keep track of all of my projects, inventory my yarn, enter my magazines, books and patterns in the library, AND purchase additional patterns and ebooks to add to my library. It is a knitting information-lover's paradise! I can see what patterns have been knit with particular yarns. I can see what yarns were used in a particular pattern. I can read about another knitter's experience with both yarns and patterns. Everything is cross-referenced and beautifully organized. If you are a knitter (or crocheter!) and you aren't on Ravelry, go now. Join. Seriously. Now. Do it. (My username is gaeacreations, if you want to check out what I've been up to on Ravelry.) Where I get in trouble is with the ability to Queue and Favorite various things. I currently have a very reasonable 41 projects in my Queue. That means I want to knit them soon-ish. I say this is reasonable because at one point, I had nearly 200 things in my Queue. That was just crazy. That's when I decided that anything I liked but wasn't sure I'd ever actually knit would go in my Favorites. There are 840 things in my favorites, all tagged, so I can sort by yarn weight, type of project, etc. 

Now let's talk about Pinterest. When I joined Pinterest, I knew no one else who was on it. There were a few people I followed, but for the most part, I used it to Pin things I found on other websites. Then Pinterest exploded in popularity, and a whole world of Information became available--mostly because it was stuff I wouldn't have thought to search for on the internet. When I look at my boards on Pinterest, I start to wonder if maybe I have a little problem with Digital Hoarding. I have 58 boards and more than 3,600 pins. Pinterest has totally taken the place of my files of magazine articles and pictures. Do I ever go back and look at those Pins? Actually, yes. I have them sorted in a way that makes lots of sense to me, and when I need a piece of information or inspiration, I know right where to look.

I don't feel bad or guilty about my hoarding. All of the information I hoard is well-organized and referenced fairly frequently. But I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if it's psychologically related in any way to the hoarding of physical stuff, and it's just more acceptable because no one can see it. What are your thoughts?

Knitting and When there's no place to go but up!

So, my big plans for 2013 have not come to fruition yet. I've been doing a lot of knitting, but not much else. Between a couple of weeks of feeling very run down by a cold that lasted too long (but never run down enough to call in sick to work) and sort of unexpected time-consuming things, I just haven't felt well enough or been home long enough to tackle any of my big projects. Crossing my fingers that it will change this weekend! It's supposed to be a cold, snowy weekend, so it should be perfect for staying in and getting stuff done!

What I have done so far this year is Knit. A lot.
On Saturday, I finished a small shawl (really a scarf) I started in January (Pattern: Rondelay; Yarn: Dream in Color yarn club October 2012):

On Sunday, I finished a shawl I started in October (Pattern: Fragile Heart; Yarn: Dream in Color Smoshy with Cashmere):

Also on Sunday, I finished a pair of socks I started at Christmas time (Yarn: Plymouth Sakkie, which just might be my new favorite sock yarn)

I made a two-layer hat that still needs to be blocked (my own design; Yarns: Classic Elite Lush and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino). (no picture yet....mostly because it still needs to be blocked....)

I have two nearly-completed sleeves for my Wonderful Wallaby. (Yarn: Classic Elite Waterspun, which is long discontinued)

I started a pair of socks for Victoria (Yarn: Wisdom Yarns Poems Sock).

And, I'm looking forward to starting another sweater project SOON using yarn I purchased at River Knits last week. (Yarn: Classic Elite Soft Linen; Pattern: Linen and Lace Cardigan) The second picture better represents the actual color of the yarn. It's a wonderful blue-green that's really hard to photograph well.

I think one reason I've knit so much over the past month or so is that it eases stress. At least for me it does. (So does shopping. See yarn purchase mentioned in previous paragraph.) We had a crazy four or five weeks during which a lot of people I love were going through some really tough times--either family difficulties, mental/emotional issues, or physical health concerns. In most cases, there was nothing I could do but worry and send my love and let them know I was thinking of them all the time. To keep the worry to a minimum, I focus on something I can control: Knitting. For me, knitting is very meditative, and I feel that if I'm thinking about these people and their problems while I'm knitting, it's sort of like prayer. Like each stitch is a bead in a Rosary. (I don't mean to make light of the Rosary; so if you are Catholic, please don't take offense at that statement. I mean it in a very respectful way.)  There are thousands of stitches in a sweater. Heck, the socks I finished Sunday have 5,760 stitches JUST IN THE LEG! Not even including the foot. That's a lot of opportunity for prayer or meditation. I'm not a very religion-y person--I don't go to church (anymore), and I'm not really sure what I believe. I might even describe myself as agnostic. However, I know there's something to be said for the energy we put out into the universe, whether it's through prayer or meditation or just how we think. When you think positive thoughts and look at things in a positive way, positive things happen. Now, I know that my knitting and thinking about the folks I love can't make their problems go away. It's not a magic wand. But, with each stitch, I'm sending a little bit of that positive energy their way. With each stitch, I'm saying, "I've been thinking about you. I hope you find peace. I love you." 

Laugh till it hurts

Full disclosure: We don't do a lot. I mean, we do tons of stuff. But, Tim and I don't go out a lot. Our lives tend to revolve around kids and work. So, Thursday, when he texted me with, "Can you get out of work about an hour early tomorrow?" I immediately replied yes (because at that moment I was looking at my calendar) and wondered what the heck was going on.

Turns out, Chris Hardwick was performing at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, and Tim wanted to go. Awesome! Like I said before, we don't do stuff, so this seemed like a spur of the moment adventure. He ordered tickets to the 8:00 show, and I booked a hotel room package that included tickets to the 10:30 show.....or so I thought. Turns out, they weren't supposed to sell that package on weekends of "Special Engagements," which this show definitely was. Needless to say, we were really disappointed, but glad we had tickets to the 8:00 show, so we were nice about it. The manager of the hotel called the owner of the club to try to work things out, and we went about our business.

When we arrived at the club for the show, the owner came out to talk with us, apologized profusely and really wanted to make things right. But, all the shows were sold out, so there was only so much he could do. He was also extremely glad that we were nice about things. And we were rewarded by our tab being completely covered. Sweet!  We were also told we were welcome to come back to the 10:30 show, but we would probably have to stand.

After the 8:00 show, Chris came out and signed autographs and posed for pictures.

For this picture, I was a total dork and forgot to turn off the flash on my phone, but the pic is hilarious.

 After that, we walked around the square and ended up at The Trojan Horse for dinner.

Chicken gyros. Yum!

At 10:30, we wandered back to the Comedy Attic to see if maybe we could stand for the second show. turns out, they were able to seat us! I think the second show was funnier than the first. I don't know if it's because I already knew most of the punchlines or because I had been drinking all evening. Either way, so funny!! All in all, an excellent evening.

The next morning, as we were checking out of our hotel, they also felt really bad about all the confusion the night before and gave us $50 off our bill. Double sweet!

I think the moral of this story is: Just freaking be nice. Seriously. We had a wonderful evening made better by people who wanted us to have a wonderful evening. It was awesome! And we'll definitely go back. If you ever find yourself in Bloomington on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening, go to the Comedy Attic.

Also, two doors down from the Comedy Attic is a yarn shop.Yes, I went there this morning. And yes, I bought some Robin J. Edmundson yarn I can't get in Lafayette. Life is good.