Thou Shalt Buy Yarn

Ahem. I can explain.

I fell down hard. I was swearing up and down that I didn't need any more yarn and that no more yarn was going to enter the stash... but then the holiday themed yarn started to show up. I've been looking for the perfect Halloween self striping yarn and when I visited Wei Siew, I saw her knitting it (see the bottom image), and I broke the 10th commandment. But it was too late, the yarn wasn't on sale anymore. So I waited a year... and forgot about it until it was too late again! (We moved to a different apartment. After moving everything I was convinced that I didn't need to own any more things ever again.) This year the yarn showed up again.

The color formerly known as All Hallows Eve, now known as Trick Or Treat

Unfortunately for my wallet, so did a bunch of its friends. Shipping from New Zealand isn't cheap, so it made sense just to purchase all the yarn I could ever want in one go. And that is just what I did.

Center: Kiwi Christmas. Top center then moving clockwise: Trick Or Treat, Lilah, Joyeux Noel, Pohutukawa Tree, Goth Socks, Dusk

I also bought a complementary color for the Joyeux Noel ball. I want to recreate my Vintage Christmas socks. I still love those socks, but the red moved into the white and they don't look quite like they used to. Since I know how to fix the color better in my socks now, I'm hoping this pair's colors remains crisp. (There is something about our water that makes dye come out of socks. Especially yarns that have been dyed in the Pacific Northwest. I've had different yarn by different dyers all lose their color or bleed badly.) Plus, I've found Stray Cat Socks color stays quite bright after many washings.

I asked Tracy to dye up a good chocolatey brown to go with Joyeux Noel. I also sent her a picture of my Vintage Christmas socks. I think she did a lovely job.

I'm excited to cast on one of my 8 new wooly friends. Which which ball should I knit first?

Eureka Peak And Home: ERT 2014 Day 6 & 7

Day 6 of the Epic Road Trip of 2014 started out with eggs and bacon. Actually, every morning at Camp Layman started with Mum making eggs and bacon in the little kitchen. (So yummy!) After filling our tummies we drove out to start our hike at Eureka Peak. Years ago I'd been to this lake and Mum had said, "One day I'd like to hike that." And I thought to myself, "Me too!"

One of the neat things about Eureka Peak is that you are hiking above many, many miles of mining tunnels. Although there isn't really any evidence of mining along the hiking trail. 

We passed by a little creek, and as we turned a corner, I got to see some Leopard Lilies up close.

We'd driven by some on the day we looked for the Pioneer Tree. It has been so dry this year in California that I wasn't sure if we'd see any of these lilies. They tend to grow where it is a bit marshy. But half way up a mountain there was a whole collection of them.

After hiking for awhile longer, we came to a confusing part of the trail It wasn't really clear how to get to the peak. After scrambling up lots of loose rock, we did manage to get to the top of the peak. The view was marvelous, so all the scrambling was worth it. We could even see Mount Lassen in the distance.

Mount Lassen is just below the cloud

It was a warm day, so Mum and I made plans to get another Orange Freeze at the Graeagle Frostee when we made it back down. 

One of those brownish spots by the other set of mountains is where the Frostee is

We had a relaxing afternoon followed by a tasty dinner. And in the evening we walked out to the train bridge nearby Camp Layman. It's a bit of a tradition to walk out to the bridge. If you are lucky a train might go by. There was no train, but I enjoyed the smell of the pines and watching the bats flit by in the dusk.

The next morning we headed back home. But since we were passing the Frostee, I suggested that we order one last Orange Freeze. It was a perfect end to a really fun roadtrip.