Ravellenic Games

It seems like every time the Olympics come up, I have deadline knitting to do. This year is no different. The amount of knitting I have to do makes it too difficult to do both the deadline knitting and knit along with the games, and I don't care to combine the two. So although I've skipped participating in past Ravellenic games, this year I decided (spur of the moment) that I'm going to spin during the games. Since it was a last minute, I'm not a part of any team. But that's ok with me. 

So here's the plan: I'm going to spin up 4oz of Greenwood Fiberworks Hand Painted Sock Roving in the Enchanted color way using a drop spindle. It will eventually become a three ply sock yarn. And to add to the fun, I'm doing a color experiment. I divided up the braid into three even lengths. Then I took one of those lengths and divided it up into 6ths. So this skein will have a fractal component to it.

Do I think I can do it? Well, someone on instagram admired my ambition. I haven't spun on my spindle in so long that I'm not really sure if I am a little crazy or not. I thought it was reasonable. So here is one day of spinning. There is a lot of fiber on the spindle, but the first ball of fiber seems like it hasn't shrunk at all.

Meanwhile, this is what I'm knitting. It is a fingering weight infinity scarf with all the constellations as seen from the equator. I'm going to need test knitters and it will be a quick turnaround. i.e. I need to know if it works by Feb 18th so that it can be real eased in time for Stitches West. It's taking me about 5 days to knit. Yardage looks like it will hit in the 300-400yd range. The pattern should be ready to send out by Monday. Any takers?

Yarn Enabling And Trip Recap

The good news is that I got my two pegs from IKEA and my room is starting to sort itself out. I have more things than I thought I did (or was admitting to myself)... so it's taking awhile. 

Anyways, I thought I'd share a few highlights from my recent trip to Oregon. I had a trunk show along with Alexandra's Crafts at Middleford Yarn Co. I think my most favorite part of hanging out at a yarn shop is enabling other people. Here is Jennie with her new collection. I'm responsible for the bottom two balls. Heh heh.

After doing all our family and yarn stuff, Mum and I headed back down the coast. We decided to take two days to make it more relaxing. The bonus is that we crossed a bunch of "One day we'll do this..." goals off of our list. Whenever we pass by She She's in Gasquet, I hope its open so we can try it out. This time it was. I had a BLT. It was quite good.

We spent the night in Fort Bragg. I got a little knitting in while enjoying the lovely view from our hotel.

We hardly made it out of Fort Bragg when we passed a sign for Mendocino. Mum said, "That's where Murder, She Wrote was filmed." I reacted by pointing wildly towards the turn and saying, "WE HAVE TO GO!" Here's me in front of Jessica Fletcher's house.

I didn't even know there was a yarn shop in Mendocino, but while looking for Jessica's house we passed a sign that said "Yarn". Let me tell you, the Mendocino Yarn Shop is lovely. Good selection of yarn and everyone was quite friendly. And they now carry Lit Knits, so stop by to get a copy if you are in the area. I think that I'll be stopping by to do a trunk show here at some point in the future. 

I managed to get in one more yarn shop before we got home. In Santa Rosa, we stopped by Cast Away. They've recently moved, although the move was only across the street and around the corner. I really enjoyed seeing their yarn boat.

Write Hard And Clear

Last Friday I got back from my trip and trunk show up in Oregon. It was a great trip. I talked to lots of people who, perhaps without knowing it, helped give me a better idea of what I want to do with myself next. I have pictures and things to talk about in regards to the trip. But for whatever reason, I've had a really difficult time getting back to the blog to talk about anything. Today while trying to regain some motivation, I read an Ernest Hemmingway quote: "Write hard and clear about what hurts." 

Right now I'm overwhelmed. I'm preparing for Stitches West and against some hard knitting deadlines. I had the flu right before I went up to Oregon, so I'm still a bit tired from all that. But the most frustrating thing I'm dealing with (which is mildly silly, but still bothering me) is that I'm 2 pegs short from completing my IKEA cubbie bookcase.

My room looks like a tornado has been through it. (I didn't photograph that bit.) Today was going to be the day that I put everything back in its place. Instead tomorrow I have to go back to IKEA and see if I can get two more pegs. I'm not sure how difficult that will be, but I'm stressed out about it. I really needed the time for knit design stuff, not getting two pegs.

Anyways, I did finish one design and it is off with test knitters. The next design is coming along. (Although I'll need test knitters for that as well. It'll be a fingering weight infinity scarf with some beading.) And hopefully I'll start feeling much better once the bookcase is up and everything is picked up off of the floor. I know Scooter will appreciate it. He isn't a fan of the construction zone.

How is everyone's week going. Any silly (or not so silly) stressors going on at the moment?

16 Rows

Just the other day I read an interesting article on Why Procrastinators Procrastinate and the follow up article, How To Beat Procrastination. I really like how the author talks about how each task can be broken down into "bricks." Although I'm not a habitual procrastinator, I do find myself dragging my feet on things when I haven't figured out how to break them down into smaller chunks, or bricks.
I've been working on a new design, but I had a difficult time getting things going, which is why I have the 16 rows rule in place. Before I can do anything fun, I have to knit 16 rows of this shawl. The rule might change to 12 rows since each row is over 200 stitches.

But the design is going well. It uses Spincycle Yarns' Dyed In The Wool in the July, July! color way alongside cascade 220 fingering in mossy rock. But the shawl is designed to look good using handspun or a yarn with long color repeats like mini mochi.

I'm hoping to be done with the knitting in the next week or so. If anyone is interested in testing a shawl out, let me know. The final yardage is to be determined, but I think it will be under 500 yard/ 450 meter range.

Annual Goal List: 2013-2014 Edition

2013 was a year of completing big goals and getting well. I had pushed myself so long and hard that I was chronically exhausted. The second half of the year was dedicated to treating myself well, eating better, and addressing issues that had been pushed to the wayside. Apparently cookies are not the way to improve energy levels. Green drinks are.

Moving on.... here are a few of this year's highlights. (Finishing Lit Knits is a given and won't be on the list.)

Actually, this might be a life highlight: I got to have a pint at the Green Dragon in Hobbiton. It is as cool as you think it is.

Me and Miss Pickles at the Green Dragon

I met Rachael, who is my new adventure buddy. We have gone hiking and biking to all sorts of places that I've wanted to go but wouldn't have without someone. Such trips include biking over the Golden Gate to Sausalito and taking the ferry back, seeing the Monterey Bay Aquarium, hiking to the top of Angel Island, hiking the Pinnacles, biking from Fort Ord to Monterey and back.

Biking by Fort Ord

I got to visit my brother in LA. The whole family went to the La Brea Tar Pits. My brother and I went to Disneyland the next day. He lost his sunglasses on the Matterhorn and my jeans got soaking wet in Splash Mountain and stayed wet for hours. It was awesome.

At the tar pits

Here's a recap of last years goals.

Goals for 2013:
1. Finish knitting the last knit.
Status: Complete. All the knitting got done in time to do the remaining photo shoots.
2. Finish the last 5 photo shoots.
Status: Complete. The last pictures to be taken were Down The Rabbit Hole. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to get flowers in the background. I was wrong. Thank goodness!
3. Hire a tech editor. Edit The Book.
Status: Complete. I ended up hiring a tech editor and copy editor. The Book was better for it.
4. Layout The Book.
Status: Complete. I thought I would have a couple months to work on the layout. I ended up having closer to a week. Nothing like a deadline to get things moving.
5. Get test knitters lined up. Test the knits.
Status: Complete. Most of my Friday night knit group tested out the book. There were others like kiwipurler who were kind enough to test as well. You guys made the instructions so much more clear. I'm grateful to all of you.
6. Knit a sister shawl to Celestarium. This one will have the constellations of the southern hemisphere.
Status: Complete. Not only did I finish the shawl, I was able to photograph it in the southern hemisphere. And the ever lovely kiwipurler modeled for me. (We visited yarn shops afterwards, which was tons of fun.)
I had also mentioned that I wanted The Book in my hand by August if possible. I did reach that goal in a way. I did complete the book by August. But then I decided to do a print run instead of print on demand. So I got the books in my hand by November. The digital copy of the book was available in August.

To sum it up, even though I completed everything, I feel like I cheated with this goal list. They were all things that had to get done and although they were difficult, I don't feel like it was a diverse enough list. Mind you, I didn't have time to do anything else. Anyways, I've been thinking about this year's goal list all week. (I know... usually I post a little closer to the New Year. My official excuse is computer trouble. The unofficial excuse is that I was also having fun doing other things.)

Goals for 2014:
1. Knit up more of the yarn kiwipurler has gifted me. I love the yarn. But every time I get close to knitting some of it, some other deadline gets in the way. Not this year. I will knit up at least 300 grams of the fingering weight.
2. Borrowing from the 2011 goal list, I'm putting the spin for a large project back on the list. Specifically, I've been spinning for a blanket since 2011. I have about a pound of wool left before I meet the 7 pounds of yarn required for the blanket size I'm hoping for. Then I plan to take the yarn to a weaver and have the blanket woven.
3. Knit Justin his socks that I promised him several years ago. It needs to happen.
4. Find a community outside of knitting to spend time with. Don't get me wrong, I love knit nights and yarn. But I think my life would be more balanced if it included non-knitters in it at times.
5. Choose a new job and do it. This is the first year in quite some time where I don't have a big goal to keep me occupied. It's a bit frightening. I just need to choose a new thing and go for it. This is much more difficult than it seems like it should be.
6. Sew myself a dress. Or in lieu of that, sew a project bag. I want to make a little something this year.

I'm horribly behind on blog reading at the moment. I was bereft of computer for the beginning of this year and it looks like I won't have a good solid time to catch up for another week. But I'm looking forward to reading everyone's goals for the year. Feel free to link up a blog post in the comments. I'd love to see it.

2013 Creative Recap

And now it's time for the annual creative recap. This year I knit a lot. I didn't realize how much until I took this screencap of my ravelry project page. I posted up 20 projects. And as with every year, not every project made it up. This year I made 9 pairs of socks, 4 sweaters (which included a Dad sized sweater and a fingering weight sweater), 2 shawls, 2 infinity scarves, 1 regular scarf, 1 hat, and 1 ornament. There is a pretty good chance that I knit a half million stitches this year. (Actually, I know that I did. Most of what I knit gets partially ripped multiple times before it is completed.)

As for design work, I put out the companion shawl to Celestarium, the Southern Skies. And then I released Lit Knits. I still can't believe that the book is finished.

So what will this next year hold? Well, I had a look at my stash today, and it looks like I need to knit up a lot more socks. I'm definitely not keeping up with my sock yarn acquisitions. I also have a few designs in the works. But after finishing the book, I think this year will be more about selfish knitting.

What are your guys' knitting plans for the upcoming year? And do you have a particular weight of yarn that you can't keep up with?

Pinnacles Or The Lonely Mountain

On the 29th was my 4th blog anniversary. For the last three years, I've gone to Green Planet Yarn. Like many great traditions, it ended up broken, but for good reason. Rachael invited me to go hike at Pinnacles National Park, which was a tough offer to pass up. The weather was perfect. This area gets pretty hot, so it's better to go in winter. But it's also tough when it is wet. This has been the driest year in California since records have been taken. So although we need more rain, it has been a great hiking year.

It should be noted that there are many trails and loops. But they are not for a casual hiker. We did the 8 mile loop, which ended up being closer to 10 miles since we did some exploring. But you can't beat the view. This is where we had lunch. Although it is difficult to see in the picture, just past my feet is a steep cliff.

Then there was the trail that was called "Steep And Narrow." It's not a misnomer. There were parts where the rocks came out so far that you had to hike leaning 45 degrees to get past.

I stole this from Rachael. Rarely do we get a picture of the both of us on an adventure.

There are California Condors that live in the area. They are an endangered bird, and according to Rachael, a big deal for bird watchers. We did see some soaring above us later on in the hike. I wish we had gotten to see them a little closer.

As we hiked on, we noticed that some of the rocks had pretty distinct forms. This one looked like Smaug the dragon to me. The left side has a bit of a snout and nostril. And it has a wicked looking smile. It's neck arches over the top of the main rock.

But, by far, the neatest part of the hike was where we got to go through a cave. Bear Gulch was closed, so we went through the Balconies cave. I accidentally took a picture while I was fiddling with the flashlight. Here's what the inside of a cave looks like.

Once you emerge from the darkness, you eventually end up in an area where giant boulders have wedged themselves in fissures of the mountain. They kind of reminded me of dragon eggs. Both Rachael and I decided that it would be a terrible place to be if there was an earthquake. Also, we felt a bit like we were in Lord of the Rings. Possibly the Mines of Moria.

When we left the cave area, we realized that we had probably been under that dragon looking mountain from earlier. So perhaps Smaug is actually a girl and we were in the Lonely Mountain. It was by far the neatest hike I'd ever been in. I'm looking forward to hiking it again.