Adventures in Googleland

I'm posting this from my BIL's commuter apartment in sunny Mountain View, CA (home of Google) and where we have been staying since Thursday night. Mountain View is actually a cool place - there's a little downtownish place where there are a couple of blocks of cheek-to-cheek restaurants, most of which have sidewalk tables and all of which stay open into the late evening.

Fiona and I have been looking at schools, so far hitting Sta. Clara, Mills, Berkeley, USF, Stanford, St. Mary's. On Tuesday we leave for Sta. Cruz, San Luis Obispo and points south.

I was totally expecting cooler weather so I packed kind of wrong (Why oh why are my beloved flipflops in La Jolla?) and even optimistically packed some of my knitted warmy things, but it looks like they'll go unused yet again.

Yesterday we were only going to visit USF, so we thought we'd go on a little yarn crawl first. Armed with mapquest directions, we made our way to Uncommon Threads in Los Altos. First of all, Los Altos has a cute little shopping area, much like Girard in my beloved La Jolla, but SO MUCH BETTER. Sigh.




Anyway, Uncommon Threads is a great yarn shop...in my opinion, not as great as Knitting in La Jolla, but it is roomier. I got to see a ribwarmer all knitted up, which I'd never seen before except in photos. And which, PS, I won't be making one of anytime soon, at least for myself. I think it would actually subtract inches from my height and add them to my hips - no thanks.

I also got to touch a bunch of Jamieson's wool, which I've almost bought a boatload full of before sight unseen, and discovered it's scratchy. Even after swatching. Even after washing. Still a little too scratchy for me. So see? Yarn shopping ends up saving me money in the longrun.


Instead I came home with some of my beloved Koigu, which was there in the flesh and you see pictured at the top and below, and some Lana Grossa sockyarn, and some little 4" dpns in size 2 for said sockyarn. Remember, it's vacation yarn!



After Uncommon Threads, we hit the 101 north and headed for ImagiKnits in San Francisco. It turns out that ImagiKnits is smack in the Castro, where, I'll tell you right now, people are having a damn good time on the weekends. In looking for a link for you just now, I found out that I Remember Mama took place in the Castro...it doesn't look like, however, you'll find anyone anyone vaguely resembling Irene Dunne there now.

Fiona tried to get some pictures of the local landmarks from my moving vehicle as we cruised for a parking spot (in vain), but sadly, no photo of Moby Dick. We gave up trying to park and headed for USF (pictured below) instead.



Last night we took in a show at the Eureka Theatre on Jackson, where the 42nd Street Moon puts on lost or obscure Broadway gems from the golden era. We saw Plain and Fancy, a musical about the Amish, I kid you not, from way before Weird Al even had the idea for this. It was actually fabulous!

Despite the parking, San Francisco remains just about my favorite city. It's got the culture and the art scene, it's got nightlife, it's got great food, and it's tolerant. It's tolerant almost to the point of being intolerant, true, but I love it. And everywhere you look, there's something beautiful.

And now, since it's Sunday, your weekly dose of Snoop, weighing himself.



"I gained 8 ounces this week!"

Little Cabled Hats

Alright, things are settling down around here with the new puppy and everything. I'm ashamed to say that I bought him a sweater yesterday. Yes, I bought a knitted item. But - it was half off, and I haven't had time to knit him anything quite yet! I have to be able to put him down in order to knit, and he's imprinted on me like a baby duck...I'm sure he'll be more independent soon.



I did finish the two little hats based on the Green Cables pattern. They're the same pattern and stitch count and everything, but I made them on smaller needles with worsted weight yarn. The gauge is 4sts/inch on the pink and 3.5sts/inch in the blue over stockinette, and I think they're about toddler/small child size (they're stretchy). Now I'm thinking about what to pair with them. Seems like booties would be for a younger baby, so maybe some little cabled mittens would be good.



The pink yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran that also saw this use as well as being the flower on this scarf, and the blue is Knitpicks Andean Silk in bluebell left over from this capelet. Isn't stash wonderful?

Ho Hum.

I've just finished a lace scarf that I knit mainly to be able to invoke the OO/OI rule. I'm not crazy about it - we'll have to see if it grows on me. Here it is pinned to my carpet. I used some yarn that was pretty in the ball but only so-so knit up - it can't decide if it's apricot or salmon, so instead it's just unappetizing.

In other breaking news, I finished my first shedir. Because I hate gauging (Dear baby knitters: Please knit a gauge swatch. You can be a better person than I am. But if you can't, take comfort from this ) I just launched into it, figuring the stretchiness of the yarn and stitch pattern would cover my usual multitude of sins (by which I mean the giganticness of my knitting).

Shedir is now in the drier, getting the bejesus shrunk out of it so it will fit, oh, ANYONE I know. Cross your fingers.

Cabling Along

First of all, thank you for all your good wishes towards my niece. (Who isn't pictured above.) She started chemo yesterday and is doing great - and I'm almost done with my first Picc cozy. I figure I can swatch my way into making a few; I also have a blue alpaca waiting to become a soft hat. And I think I have to make a shedir (pattern on page 3 here), too.

It's been so crazy around here that I've had a scarf soaking in the sink ready to be blocked for two nights! I'm thinking about taking it out but I haven't prepared a surface for blocking, so maybe tomorrow.

I do have a finished object though - I had a lonesome skein of some bulky wool kicking around the knitting corral for a while so I whipped out this cabled horseshoe hat (oy - enough western references already!). It's modeled by Anna, who hasn't been pictured for a while here except for her hands, which don't count. (By the way, she's standing in front of a painting by local artist Lisa Hill.)

Pattern to come when I go back and figure out exactly what I did - that's what I get while knitting while distracted!

PS I'm now down 6 skeins of yarn, closing in on 7, and there's a package on it's way with replacements!!

Resolutions...

I thought I'd have a picture of an FO for today's post, some socks I'm working on for Mary. But no, I have the cold from hell, and I can barely knit - it feels like I'm underwater.

So instead, a picture from Christmas day of Fiona (knitter of Batman hats) and myself, wearing the very incredible wool wrap I'd just received from my sister not minutes before.

Also, some resolutions. We begin with the tried and true, and segue into the more knitterly:

1. Eat healthily, exercise, lose 20 (or grow three inches).

2. Say yes to things that bring joy, and no to anything soul-sucking.

3. Continue with all things creative, without guilt - remember that creativity breeds creativity, and that it spills over onto other areas of life.

And finally, my extremely liberal, forgiving, and, some may say, self-indulgent version of Knit from Your Stash:

1. No stash bloat - I will only buy a ball if I knit a ball out first.

2. Gifts of yarn are always okay - anything less would appear ungrateful and be less than gracious.

3. Books are okay.

4. Tools are okay.

5. Yarn for a project someone asks me for specifically is okay, as is yarn to finish a project, and I'd better buy an extra skein just in case.

6. Say I travel to a place I've never been, and there's yarn there...that's vacation yarn. It's like vacation dessert. It's allowed.

7. If I fall off the wagon, so what? It's knitting, for crying out loud. But I'm going to try to stick to the one-out, one-in rule.

Also, this isn't a resolution, as such, but I'm going to try to designate a day to work on UFOs and problem children: Fix-it Fridays - it could just as easily be Weave-in Wednesdays or Mend-it Mondays. The point is, not every day will be Start Something Saturday. What if there's nothing to fix or finish? HAHAHAHAhahahahahha.....oh. Sorry. Lost my head there.

Happy New Year to all.