Yarn Smaug And Moth Bilbo

So after the excitement that was knit/crochet blog week and then a trip to see a friend (amongst other things) I found myself pretty worn out on the blogging front. However, knitting has continued and I have a finished object to show off. Behold, a pair of socks out of Canon Hand Dyes Charles Base in the color Fall Leaves. This was the first skein Canon Hand Dyes that I bought. 

I love them. I wish it were cool enough to wear them. But it's been shorts and sandals weather and it doesn't look like it is going to let up any time soon.

As usual, the universe likes to balance out my stash. So since I finished one pair of socks out of Canon Hand Dyes, I obviously had to replace it with two new skeins. Both skeins are Canon Hand Dyes in the Charles base. On the left is Yoga For Elephants with a grey heel/toe skein. It's themed after a Babar picture. On the right is a Wes Anderson's Life Aquatic themed skein called "What Would Be The Scientific Purpose Of Killing It?"

But let's get real. The universe clearly wants me to have a giant stash. This is what has really been bought recently. I feel like a yarn Smaug with a hoard of fiber. (Last night a moth flew a little too close to my room. Let's call him Bilbo. He didn't make it.)

In other, slightly ironic news, I've started to pull out a lot of yarn and fiber out of my stash. There are skeins and roving that once made me happy, but my taste has changed and it has started to feel overwhelming. I'm now deciding how to go about selling/offloading/redistributing or otherwise not having the skeins and fiber in my room anymore.

Drakes Beach

For Jackie's birthday, we went to Drakes Beach at Point Reyes. The day started well. We got food, made sandwiches, and drove out to get a fire permit. Drakes Beach was recommended to us by the person who gave us the fire permit. And I have to say, it is a lovely area. (Bonus: there is an excellent bathroom that was unlocked even though the visitor center was closed)

While exploring the area, we found this grotto with a cross dedicated to Sir Frances Drake's landing in the area. While looking at the cross, a turkey vulture flew to a nearby tree and tried to eat a rodent it had caught. Eventually it accidentally dropped its meal and looked rather embarrassed.

While exploring the beach, I dug into the sand by the surf to see if we could find any sand crabs. What ended up happening is that every scoop of sand contained dozens of sand crabs. They were just everywhere. 

After scouting out a spot for our fire, Laurel started building up a little teepee. Jackie and Karl looked for tinder while I worked on stabilizing our seating situation. We ended up burning up almost all of our tinder without getting a stable fire. Sadness set in as we realized that there was a good chance we might not be able to light a fire. But guacamole saved the day. I went over to where the food was, ate some guac, looked over at our supplies, and realized that we had a whole roll of paper towels. It only took one or two to get the fire going.

Laurel exclaimed, " We could totally survive in the wilderness!" To which Karl replied, "If we had a lighter." And I added, "And paper towels."

With the fire lit, we set out to stuff ourselves full of food. Hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, s'mores. We didn't even get to the watermelon; there was just too much good stuff.

As we looked up into the heavens, I was lucky enough to see a shooting star. The constellation Scorpio was prominent in the sky.

It took awhile to put out the fire. One of the bigger logs refused to stop steaming despite the amount of water we poured onto it. Beach curfew neared, so we threw the log into the ocean. On the way back from the surf, I stepped onto what I thought was sand but turned out to be the tide coming in. My sandals squeaked as we headed back to the car.

5th Knit Crochet Blog Week - Bonus Day 8 - Other Blogs

Knit Crochet Blog Week concluded last week, but I wanted to share some of my favorite posts from other blogs.

For Day 4, Bapsi drew an adorable comic related to weaving in ends. Go have a look at her blog. If ever you've used a tapestry needle, this has happened to you.

For Day 5, All She Wants To Do Is Knit has an adorable Bingo game that you can use at a fiber festival. If you are going with a group to somewhere like Rhinebeck, I think that you'd have to do this. Perhaps everyone could chip in for a fiber prize for the first person to bingo.

For Day 6, I liked two different posts quite a bit. Polkadots & Sparkles put up one of those memes about what people think you do. Of course it's about knitting. Go look and have a laugh.

Disorderly Twinings put up a really neat info graphics about traits she likes in bloggers/podcasters as well as a similar graphic on how she sees herself. I didn't know about some of the people she likes, so it was fun to discover some fun new people.

Does anyone else have favorite Knit/Crochet blog week entries? I'd love to hear about them.

Looking Back, Looking Forward - 5KCBWDAY7

Today is the last day of knit/crochet blog week. Here's the prompt: If you took part in last year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, look back on your Day Seven post. Did any of the techniques, ideas and hopes for the last 12 months that you wrote about at that time ever make it onto the hook or needles? 

And there is also time to look forward again: One year from now, when the 6th Knitting & Crochet Blog Week rolls around, where do you hope your crafting will have taken you to? What new skills, projects and experiences do you hope you might have conquered or tried? Do you have any wishes for your blogging that you’d like to follow?

Last year I talked about wishing I felt more confident with grading capped sleeves. Since then I've taken a drafting/sewing class on making sleeve caps. I also am knitting a Pomme de Pin, which has set in sleeves. I know that I wouldn't be very fast at it, but I do feel like I have a better chance at making a successful pattern that has set in sleeves. I still hope to design a sweater that needs set in sleeves at some point although I have yet to think up a sweater where that sleeve style would be the best choice.

Pomme De Pin - It's getting there

As for next year, I feel like there are big changes coming, although I do not know what they are. My goal is not really knitting or blogging oriented. I just hope that I can be brave and embrace whatever comes my way.

View Of Yourself, View Of Others - 5KCBWDAY6

Today's prompt is: Write about another knitter or crocheter that you admire. This could be someone you know or used to know.

Next, think about if anyone has ever told you how they feel about your knitting, positive or negative. 

Like some other people who have done knit/crochet blog week in the past, I noticed there was a similar prompt in 2012. I talked about my Oma. So I will talk about how someone reacted to me knitting in public instead.

Earlier this year I was with my father sorting out an issue with the internet bill at the internet company's nearby location. We drew a ticket and braced ourselves for a long wait. I wasn't worried; I had my knitting. So I pulled out my project and a man asked what I was up to. I told him knitting and he said, "I didn't know anyone did that any more." To which my Dad immediately replied, "Oh yes! There are many knitters." He then educated the man on all the neat things knitters do and how yarn has gotten better. I didn't even have to say a word.

My father with his birthday sweater

For the record, I like knitting in public and am fine with telling people what I'm up to. But I think it's pretty neat how enthusiastic my father got. He is most definitely knitworthy.

Something A Bit Different - 5KCBWDAY5

For Day 5 of knit/crochet blog week the prompt is: It’s the annual challenge to blog in a way different to how you normally blog.

I've decided to do a yarn binge retrospective. I'm considering a yarn binge any time I've bought a bunch of yarn at the same time for multiple unrelated projects. (It isn't a yarn binge when I go out and buy a bunch of skeins for a single sweater.) I'll be covering all recorded yarn binges since January 2013, starting at the earliest date and moving towards the present day.

Stitches West 2013: Clearly I need to knit and spin up more from this stash enhancement. The blue Cephalopod became Southern Skies and the grey-green BMF yarn became a pair of socks. The green Cephalopod yarn is my current WIP, a Pomme de Pin. As of this writing, I'm starting on the sleeves of the sweater. The braid of Greenwood Fiberworks is also and active spinning WIP. I have one ply to go before spinning up a three ply yarn.

New Zealand yarn day 2013: I'm seeing a trend of me not knitting up my yarn binges really fast. The top step is full of gifts from Wei Siew. I did knit up the grey-blue yarn into a Robin Hoodie that I wear quite often. The bottom two skeins of Knitsch became a pair of Leyburns.

October Yarn Crawl 2013: Oh thank goodness. It looks like I do knit some of the things I buy. The left green skein was put into Beyond The Pines, the blue Tosh became a Deep Sea Wanderer, and the blue and orange skeins became Velomeisters.

Knitting Lab 2013: My excuse for this was the Canon Hand Dyes was at Knitting Lab and it isn't often one gets to choose her skeins in person. The top cake of Knitted Wit became a hat and the bottom four skeins became socks. (The leftmost 2 skeins were knit into the same socks.) Socks 1, Socks 2, and Socks 3.

Stitches West 2014: This is a really doozy. This year was the first year that I went all four days. I only bought things three days because I purposely went as everyone was closing up on the fourth day. (I had to go retrieve some samples.) The pink/purple Canon Hand Dyes is currently being knit by Tyler. I wore socks that he made me on so many knit nights in a row that I managed to convince him that I am knit worthy and deserve new socks. And the black/white skeins of Koigu have been knit up into a currently unreleased pattern.

Anzula Trunk Show: I shouldn't have gone. I knew that if I went to "just look", I'd leave with skeins. The two skeins that are marked are also in a still-to-be-released design.

I started this post as a fun way to see what I've knit up. But now having written everything out... it's a little sobering. The good news is that I have a tremendous amount of self control in all the other aspects of my life. I guess the lack of self control had to emerge somewhere. At least you can make things out of yarn.

If anyone else does a yarn binge retrospective, I'd love to see it. I'm sure I'm not alone... right?

Conversation Between Workers - 5KCBWDAY4

Today is Day 4 of Knit Crochet Blog week and the topic is to write a dialogue between yourself and [a tool you use for your craft]. Rather than follow the topic exactly as written, I'm just going to use it as jumping off point. I'll be writing writing a letter to my favorite crafting tool: yarn.

Dear sock yarn,

I love you more than I ought to. I only wish that I could knit you faster so I could buy more friends to join you in your cubby.

-Audry

P.S. You guys probably already know this, but I can't help myself when it comes to sock yarn. You'll have some new friends joining you shortly.