Knitwith Homespun

We like to affectionately call last year “The Summer of Bleeding Money”. This summer IS going to be different. We will not get stuck in Idaho because we are not going to Idaho. Woohoo! We are going to Portland. But….on the way, we are stopping in Eugene for the Black Sheep Gathering. I have sent in my pre-registration and I hope to attend three workshops; multi-directional scarf, woolen versus worsted spinning, and entry-level entrelac. So the trip will go like this:

1. Drive two days to Eugene and haul our trailer up there.

2. My last workshop is on Saturday at 4:30 and we will leave right after that. David is going to leave in the morning with the trailer and drive to Portland and park our stuff up there. He will drive back down and pick me up after my workshop.

3. Sunday, June 22, David will race at Pats Acres in his chosen genre, Supermoto. He is very excited. We will then go up to Portland and stay for a minimum of 1 week and visit with sisters and cousins. We are taking the Wii to play with cousins and have a great time! I am very excited for all the fun we are going to have.

Here is what will not happen:

1. We will not get stuck in Idaho.

2. We will not spend a fortune. We should save a minimum of $800 for the trip by staying at an RV park with full hookups, water, laundry, and two pools! David is thrilled because this is the shopping capital of Oregon, apparently. He figures we can pack light because there are a million malls right next to where we are staying.

3. I will NOT get sick and get a swollen uvula.

4. Bella will NOT have any asthma episodes.

That’s it! I think this trip is already shaping up to bet better than the summer of bleeding money.

On the knitting and spinning front, I am at the toe of my Fiddlesticks. I should finish them up by the weekend at the very very latest. I think I will try to felt them just a bit to make them fit better. The next pair of socks I am going to knit on the smaller size scale.

I have frogged triangle number 4 of 25 on my Magique Cloak because I totally lost track of the rows and messed them up pretty bad. I have been concentrating (when I am knitting that is) on my socks and therefore haven’t picked up my cloak triangles in a little over two weeks. I forgot to knit in the back loop on all the knits and every other row is decreases. If you forget where you are, you are way messed up. The cast on is only 41 stitches so the frog is no biggy. Perhaps some of you more experienced knitters can give me some advice. During the knitting of this triangle, I have to cast on 41, knit a row, and begin decreasing. I decrease at the beginning of the row, then knit to the center three stitches, decrease two stitches here, then knit to the end and decrease one there. In the center, I am placing stitch markers on either side of the center 3 stitches but I have to move them each time I decrease and then reknit on the next row. I am wondering if there is a better way to keep these stitches marked without having to move the markers. It’s not a big deal but I could knit these triangles much much faster if I didn’t have to do that part. It takes about as much time to move the markers on each triangle as I am spending actually knitting. Does that make sense?

The first image here is the pre-decrease. Next we decrease two stitches from the center. What I do is take the markers from each side and move them out to include three stitches. Any ideas?

Next, I got this new book on photography. It should be a lot of fun because there are exercises in it to make me look at things differently. I’ll keep the pictures coming.

On Saturday, I took a photography class, “Getting to know your digital SLR”. It was cheap and I got what I paid for. The best thing I learned is about white balance which I didn’t really pay much attention to in the past. I knew what it was but I just used the auto white balance setting on my camera and let it all go at that. As it turns out, this isn’t always the best way to handle things. The instructor in the class wasn’t really very helpful because he doesn’t like digital, doesn’t like to use the screen on your camera, doesn’t like any auto settings (neither do I), doesn’t like the computer, and says we all overuse our cameras and take too many shots of the same thing. I am a huge proponent of overusing my camera. Last year alone I took 32000 pictures with my Rebel XT. This is excessive and I realize that but I am very pleased with some of the shots I took.

That being said, I also want to be more precise with my time and energy spent on the images I do take. This image is an example of trying to expose my images correctly and focusing manually. After the class on Saturday, I bought something called an expodisc. This disc is something you point towards your light source before your take your picture and then set your camera’s white balance to that image and then you are ready until your lighting situation changes. This process should shorten your time processing your images and capture more accurate color when you take your pictures. I thought Kitty would be a perfect subject for such an experiment because she is black and white. I wanted to expose her without blowing out the white and underexposing the blacks. The focus on her fur and eye lashes is spot on. I am very pleased with the histogram for this image as well. You can’t take an image with a black and white cat without peaking a little on one side of the other and I am ok with the way this turned out. I intend to use the expodisc frequently and I am very happy with the results.

Kitty and I have been bonding lately too because I have had a horrible headache for two days and haven’t left my bedroom. Another reason I took pictures of her. I am better now, thanks!

Moon! I have always wanted to take a detailed picture of the moon. I thought it was full tonight but in this picture, you can see it isn’t quite yet. I’m so excited!

There is a geocache that was hidden about a half mile from the one I hid earlier this month. The middle school kids in our school district are on minimum days for conferences. My niece and nephew are both in middle school but Bella is in second grade so she didn’t go. We picked up the kids at noon and had lunch in Irvine Park. We hid our cache coming up to our coordinates by going through Santiago Oaks Regional Park. We wanted to see how easier or hard it was to get up there by going through Irvine Regional Park. The total hike from Santiago Oaks from the parking lot to the top where our cache is is 1.3 miles. From the map, it looks like the hike from Irvine Park would be shorter. I was way wrong! As the crow flies, of course, I was right but from where we parked the cache is located 1.83 miles. that almost doubled our hike. It was very beautiful, however, and very enjoyable. We had to be on the constant lookout for rattlesnakes though and we didn’t see any. We did, however, see about a billion lizards.

There are wildflowers blooming everywhere in Orange County and other places in California. We are going on a drive on Friday to explore and see some in the canyons and deserts close by but these photos show how lovely it can be. The image with the purple flowers is of the areas that were burned in one of the many fires last year and the year before. You can see the skeletons of the sage bushes mingled in with the new growth. It’s really quite beautiful to see how nature works in my opinion.

I also believe that the hike from Irvine Park was a little tougher than the hike from Santiago Oaks. Christine, my 13 year old niece, said Mountain Goat trail is tougher to climb. Perhaps it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. I can’t decide but it’s a beautiful either way.

My newest project that I am working on is the amazing Magique Cloak by Maie Landra. It’s an oversized modular knit made up of 41 skeins of Koigu Premium Painter’s Palette Merino. I anticipate spending a year or more on this project. Here’s my plan of attack:

1. This is a modularly knit cloak and it’s oversized. I will buy the yarn as I need it.

2. There is one KPM color and I need 5 skeins. I bought that first. I need to knit 25 triangles of this color and I have already started that. Here is that triangle.

3. The modular knits are cubes. There are simple cubes and complex cubes and the cubes are knit with 3 or 4 colors each. I will buy the next batch of 3 colors when I finish with my 25 triangles of this color.The pattern calls for 5 balls of 2170 which is a navy for this triangle. Purl Soho warehouse didn’t have this color so I opted for a blue but a bit brighter, KPM 1018. I think it should work well with the other colors in the cloak. I sure can’t afford to buy 41 balls of KPPPM at one time so this is how I hope to get it done. I can’t wait to get more of this done and I am going to try to post about this and my progress once or more a month depending on what I get done.

If you want to knit this along with me, the pattern is in the Knits from a Painter’s Palette by Maie Landra. There are some really beautiful patterns in this book and I am thrilled with it. Yipppeeee! Let’s knit modularly!

Edit:  The knitting on the cover of the book is the cloak I am knitting.

October Tofutsie sock yarn club pattern using Noro Kureyon Sock yarn. This sock fits, but it’s very loose. This proves to me that I totally need to practice knitting socks. So, the next couple of things I knit will be socks. I love this pattern! It’s very easy and it’s very fast. There are some glaring problems with this particular sock, holes, size, missing odd rows. Oh, didn’t I mention that? I forgot all the odd rows. Since there are no knitting police, I continued and didn’t frog. I really love how the colors work up with this. I really wanted to make sure that this didn’t end up an orphan sock. I cast on the second sock immediately and it’s working very quickly. I think I will definitely use the sock yarn again. It was a little rough in the beginning but now it’s softening up and the colors really progress nicely. If you don’t pay attention, you don’t even notice that you are using a different color until you are way into the next shade. It’s very nice and makes for interesting knitting. I am very happy so far, unless of course, you count the stinkin size problem. Is that a problem?

I am not sure because I think I can felt just a bit and all will be fine. Should I try? We’ll see.

I have also picked my next project. Project is definitely the right word here because I think it will take me a year to buy the yarn and a year to complete the project. My project is the beautiful and wonderful Magique Cloak from the Knits from a Painter’s Palette book by Maie Landra at Koigu Wool Designs.  There is a kit you can buy for all the yarn but the kit is $533 including the pattern.  I don’t want to drop that kinda cash right now so I am going to buy the yarn one color at a time.  The project is knit modularly and then seamed together so I think I can just buy the yarn as I need it.  I can’t wait to start this project and it should be a great take along project as well.   If anyone has made this project before, please let me know how it went.  I can’t wait!  I am going to Purl Soho warehouse today to buy the first color.

I’ve been tagged by Nicole.

These are the rules!

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Six non-important things:

1.  I can’t go to bed with the covers messed up.  David sleeps messy and I sleep neatly.  If the bed isn’t made, I have to make it right before I go to bed.

2.  I can’t cook chicken.  I am an excellent cook and I invent recipes and I love to cook but chicken is too tough for me.  I under or over cook it every time.  I make a lot of excellent chicken dishes but the meat isn’t right.

3.   I am a bad housekeeper.

4.  I used to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day and quit cold turkey when I got pregnant.  I haven’t picked it back up again, but on my death bed, I will.

5.  I love computers and software and gadgets.

6.  I can always cook for 12-20 on a moments notice without going to the store and I have done it well more than twice.  3 in our immediate family but we are the house to come to when you are hungry.

Now I have to tag some people.  I have never done this before so here goes:

1.  Jocelyn

2.  Zuleika

3.  Kate

4.  Angela

5.  Kyle

6.  Velma

I apologize in advance if memes annoy you but it is what it is.  I found it amusing and not at all bad.  Thanks Nicole!

First, I turned the heel on my Fiddlesticks today and I am very happy about that.  I should finish the foot and toe tonight and start the next sock over the weekend.  This pair of socks is way too pretty to suffer from SSS and I refuse to let that happen.

Next, attitude is everything and I am reminded today that we all control our own destiny and our own attitude.  Today, I had lunch with my husband who was not having a good day.  I sat with him and listened and helped when I could and I think I was able to help him.  However, a talk like that can bring you down and I think that’s what happened to me today.  After lunch I had to pick up my nephew from school, go to the grocery, start some laundry and then get Bella (she had Brownies today).  It was a busy afternoon.  So all went well until the grocery store.  Nothing really bad happened but it sure wasn’t pleasant.  So I was making David’s favorite dinner to make sure his evening was better than his day, spaghetti and meatballs.  I was at State Brothers at the butcher counter and there were two guys in the back busy doing their work.  I stopped at the counter and stood waiting for them to finish what they were doing and another guy comes up behind me, stands kinda in front of me, and when the guy comes up, this other guy gives his order.  I just stood there flabergasted!  I thought, well I’m not in a hurry so I won’t say anything.  Then in the checkout line, I was second in line with only a few things in a basket, probably 10 and I hadn’t yet started emptying it.  A store employee got in behind me with one thing.  She said something to the lady working at the stand next to me (that was closed) and the lady there took her over and started checking her.  Then, people started pouring over there and she opened her stand.  Screwed again.  Then the one lady in front of me who was pretty much done, started bagging her own stuff cause she was in a hurry and we had no bagger in our stand.  That took a bit of time.  So then it’s my turn and all is well.  I think it can’t get worse (even though it’s really not bad).  But I was wrong, of course.  While I was checking out, our bag girl just left.  Without finishing my stuff.  Wow.  Seriously?  Not a lot of stuff so not a disaster by any stretch but a little annoying.  I walked out and loaded my car, closed the door, and was walking my cart around my car.  I was looking for a place to stash it.  The cart guy was right there.  He sneezed.  I said, “God bless you”.  He said thank you and offered to take my cart since I was so nice.

Now nothing catastrophic happened to me.  It’s all just irritating piddley crap.  But my mind immediately went to my attitude.  My simple decision to say “God bless you” when the guy sneezed turned my attitude from sour to a lot more pleasant and was then reflected back to me from the sneezer.  It really made me think about how we control our own lives and are completely responsible for our own happiness.  That’s all and I remain happy right now having my spaghetti.

Flickr: 1586 Photos
Days in Flickr: 416

I take pictures all the time. I have been snapping them hundreds at a time. Tonight, I transferred my December photos to my archive external hard drive. This means I have a full year in my archive at this point. I am evolving and chaning my photography style and really trying to be specific with my shots. I am taking fewer shots and I am taking more shots. My 40D has a high-speed option for 6.5 frames per second which is great for motorcycle racing and other sports.

Here is the question that David wanted to know while I was doing this chore: How many photos did I take in 2007?

Some days I have no pictures. Some days I have 800 pictures. I don’t use them all and I don’t delete any of them EVER. I pretend they are on film and I can look through them and appreciate them later if I want but if I delete them, I can’t do that. If you want to take a stab at guessing here is some information for you:

I have a folder for every day I took pictures and sometimes there is more than one folder for each day due to multiple imports to my computer. There are 373 folders. The folder with the least pictures has 2 and the one with the most has 454. Any guesses?

I have no pictures today but Dirt came back on FX today and I forgot how much I LOVE this show.  I missed it.  I am the biggest Friends fan on the planet and can tell you every line from every episode.  I am annoying like that.  Does anyone but me watch this show?  The relationship between Lucy and Don always touches me.  Their connection is so deep I have never seen it anywhere else on TV.  They are so alone together and the acting is impeccable between these two.  I just love it for this alone, but the tabloid aspect is really interesting and well done.  Thank you Courtney Cox and Ian Hart!  That’s all I have to say for now.