Yosemite, The Final Frontier

I've lived within 4 hours of Yosemite National Park my entire life, but I'd never been until this week. It truly is a beautiful place. My Mum, Natalie and I went for two days. The first thing we did was visit the Mariposa grove. The trees are just huge. You can see me jumping to the left of the giant tree in the picture below.

While hiking around the grove, we first saw my spirit animal. This little guy was pulling bark off of the stick to make a nest. Over the course of our visit, I saw multiple little guys. They usually showed up when I was tired while hiking and needed some encouragement. And more than once they would sneak up behind me and scare the bejeezus out of me.

After hiking around Mariposa Grove, we headed towards the valley floor. This is the tunnel that you go through right before seeing the most amazing view.

The vista point is to your left just as soon as you exit the tunnel. It's impossible to drive by without stopping. You can see El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls. A guy near me chuckled when I shared, in detail, the significance of El Capitan in Star Trek 5 to Natalie and Mum.

It's necessary to stop and high five in front of Half Dome and Bridalveil falls. If you don't do this once in your life, you are most definitely missing out.

In the evening, I was able to take a bunch of beautiful star pictures right before the moon rose. Almost every picture had a shooting star in it. (Check out the streak on the right side of the picture just above the cliff) After stargazing, Natalie got a little bottle of wine, I got a bottle of beer, mum got a flashlight and we all played scrabble at the lounge in Curry Village.

Solace In Solas

I'd been a little hesitant to buy yarn from people on ravelry because "What if I got ripped off?" That had been my excuse until I found some impossible-to-get yarn that I had to have and someone on ravelry was selling it. Short story, I now have a skein of String Theory Hand Dyed Yarn in Caper Sock - Solas. I don't even know what I want to make with it, but it's 400 yards of awesome. (Feel free to suggest patterns. I'm kind of leaning towards a scarf at the moment, but who knows.)

After breaking the ice, I searched ravelry and got some Malabrigo Worsted in a color that I hadn't been able to find at any local shops. Given the choice, I much prefer to get my yarn at local shops even if it is a few dollars more. It's important to support local shops.

My Oma sent me a surprise package of some craft booklets she had found while cleaning her house.

My favorite is definitely the 1964 sweater collection. There are a bunch of sweaters representing different countries. I may have to make myself the French Jacket. It has subtle detailing which I find quite attractive.

The Paper Kites - Bloom

I don't post what I'm listening to all that often, but this is too good not to mention. I stumbled upon The Paper Kites while surfing along youtube, and was surprised that I'd never heard this song before. At least until I saw that the album it was from was released in August.

There is decidedly little information about The Paper Kites, but from what I can tell, they are from Melbourne and have been a band since 2010.

Their song Bloom is absolutely lovely and deserves a listen two... or three, or perpetually like I've been doing. I've definitely had it....

Find The Paper Kites on:

facebook

myspace

last.fm

Or get their album, Woodland - EP on:

itunes

Yesterday Doesn't Count

Mum and I drove past a yarn shop that I frequent.

Me: "I haven't been to a yarn shop in awhile."

Mum: "Didn't you go to a yarn shop yesterday?"

Me: "Oh yeah. But that didn't count."

After all the modifications I made on this sweater, such as knitting a medium instead of a small, and adding pockets, it became apparent that even though the sleeves are striped, half a ball of green and burgundy was not going to cut it. Luckily I was able to get skeins in the same dye lot.

Although now that I have the yarn, I'm very seriously considering adding a little grey ribbing to each sleeve and leave it as a vest. I'd love to have some input on this idea. I've never had a vest, but I'd love a hoodie too. Or I could make one of each..... So yeah, input would be good. (There will be grey ribbing along the outer edge as a zipper band that is currently being added. So whatever it ends up being, it will have a zipper... or buttons. Not sure at this point.)

I also purchased some yarn for a baby sweater. I touched it and just knew I had to get it. Superwash Merino, people. Enough said.

Sock Crazy

I'm a bit sock crazy at the moment. All I feel like doing is design socks. My first sock pattern is being test knit at the moment. I'm hoping to release it in late September.

My second sock pattern only needs some pattern editing before it is ready to be test knit.

And I cast on for my third sock pattern last night. This addiction doesn't look like it is going away any time soon. I've got two more patterns on my mind and one is already being swatched.

Counting Conundrum

How many things do you see wrong in this picture? Well, for one, we can see that I have trouble counting when I'm knitting at 2:30AM and I've had a beer. It looks like I gave up counting when I got to the grey stripe. At least the decreases look correct, right?

Wrong. The decreases are going the right direction, but the top of the hood has a kind of short row thing going on. I just put in random decreases. Although that had more to do with misunderstanding what the directions meant than being up late. At least I had enough sense to see that it looked weird. I put the knitting down and went to bed.

Anne Of Green Gables Is Full Of Knits

I was re-watching Anne Of Green Gables (with Megan Follows) the other day. I'd seen it before and talked about the film and knits in a previous post, but I didn't realize how many knits I had missed the first time. Even background characters just passing through scenes have awesome knitted items! I would totally wear that hat and sweater.

Before I had only noticed sweaters on the female characters, but all the guys have wonderful knits as well. Just look at the cut on the sweater vest Gilbert is wearing. I took a bunch of pictures from every angle that vest was in, but taking pictures of a computer screen really doesn't do it justice.

This scene was full of sweater vests. Of course Gilbert is blocking them, but have a look over his shoulder. The guy with the red/ grey/ white sweater vest was my favorite. Although Gilbert's sweater was excellent as well. It isn't just a ribbed sweater. There is garter stitch in the ribbing.

I would love to have this sweater. The front paneling has a cute grain or leaf pattern. It was a bit difficult to tell because there was never a closeup. Trust me, I checked. I'm really curious about what stitch the back and sleeves are in.

This sweater showed up a bunch of times. I love the seed stitch collar. The seed stitch even extends into the button band. How clever. I might have to do that to a sweater in the future.

And I can't believe I missed Marilla knitting. I guess some one had to make all the knits in this film.