Knight's Ferry And Yosemite: ERT2014 Day1

It's been a week since I've been back from Mum and my epic road trip of 2014 (or ERT2014). We drove over 1,300 miles (2,092 km) and hiked over 27 miles (43 km) in a week. I came back with enough bug bites, bruises, blisters, and sunburn to know that I had a fantastic time! Over the next few days I thought I'd share this week with you all.

Day 1

Have you ever passed a place so many times and said, "One day we'll stop to have a look." On our road trip, Mum and I finally stopped at Knight's Ferry; the site of the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi. We didn't realize that the bridge was still there. Although it is now closed to cars, people can still cross it. They have a great visitor center as well. It's completely worth a visit.

After our little detour, we continued onwards to Yosemite. As we neared our destination of Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, we took a moment at Olmsted Point to have a look at the beast we were going to conquer the next day: Cloud's Rest. Of course when I took this picture, I didn't see those two girls photobombing us. As we had a look at the surrounding view of Cloud's Rest and Half Dome, we heard our names being called. It sure is a small world. A minute difference, and we wouldn't have run into our friends. They were on their way to Tuolumne Meadows and had stopped at the point to have a look.

We drove past Tuolumne Meadows on our way to the lodge. And by lodge, I mean canvas tents that are at the mercy of the outdoor temperature. There were wood burning stoves in each tent. Mum told me that she "preferred the smell of the air as is" so I didn't light it. We obviously have different body temperatures. Mum slept without socks. I slept in a thick wool sweater. The next morning at breakfast, the workers commented on how cold it was that night. (There was thick frost covering the car, so it was pretty cold.) And the people we ate breakfast with (meals are communal there) said that the best part of the tents is the fire. Next time it will happen! 

Western Blue Flag flowers in front of our tent

Police Box Sox

It's been some time coming, but I have a new pattern out: Police Box Sox. I've knit several pairs of Tardis-inspired sock patterns, but each time I had to add many modifications to get them to fit my foot. I thought it was high time I write my own version.

These socks feature a 60 and 72 stitch count. But around the stranded color work portion of the sock, the stitches are increased to help accommodate how tight stranded knitting is compared to stockinette. The sock is knit top down with a heel flap, but other heel styles can be used in place of the suggested heel.

And the best part is the price: Free! The pattern can be found on bear-ears.com or on ravelry.

Also, I want to give a shout out to my buddy, Kiwipurler for the Knitsch yarn she gave me for my birthday that went into these socks. It is aptly named "Tennant."

The Velveteen Scooter

Sometimes I wonder why Scooter's body puts so much emphasis on hair growth. I gave him a great haircut in March. Come June, it's back to fluffy.

He's getting ready for his haircut nap

Luckily he sits very nicely for his hair cuts. We sit out in the backyard and he falls asleep as I trim away with a pair of scissors. Isn't he handsome. If only you all could reach through the screen and feel how velvety he is now. And because all that hair is gone, he gets a little cooler in the evenings, which means we wants to cuddle!

He's all nice and clean because he will be staying with a friend for bit while my Mum and I go on a little trip. I'm hoping to get some neat pictures to share when I get back.

Blending Of The Yarn

Move over stockinette hell, I am in a lacy sweater hell. I have learned once again why you have to blend yarns from indie dyers... even on sleeves. I didn't really want to blend two balls of yarn together, so my brilliant idea was to take the bluer skein and knit that the cuffs and collar of the sweater. The browner skein would become the main portion of the sleeve. So that is what I did for the sleeve on the right. It was late and I didn't see how different it was until the next morning. Then I ignored it, because I'm a rebel. Later on at knit night Tyler said, "Whoa. Different dye lots?" Sigh....

The sleeve on the left is what it looks like when you do a round with one ball and a round with the second. I finally broke down and started blending when I held the right sleeve against the rest of the sweater and realized that it would have never worked.

Speaking of the rest of the sweater, I ended up taking out a repeat of the pattern along the top of the sweater because the armholes ended practically under my bust. Not a hot look.

I started this sweater in the middle of April and it has been nothing but trouble. Part of it is because of my modifications, some of which were necessary in order to get this sweater to fit me. Also, most of my sweaters roll forward on me, so this last knit night, Carol explained to me why. (In the most counterintuitive move, the back neckline needs to be lower so that it doesn't travel up my back. Weird.) I am so sick of knitting and ripping this sweater that we devised a clever, but crazily complicated way of making the collar that should accommodate the neckline issue. I really hope it works. I'm still really excited to wear this sweater. But I am really, really, really ready to be done knitting it.

Stockinette Hell

Last post I showed all my recent yarn acquisitions and Alicia asked what in the world all that Shelter and Loft would become. Well... when Tyler, Christine, Cathy, and I went to A Verb For Keeping Warm last month to look at the Wool People 7 trunk show, I tried on Coda and Pente. (I look good in both.) But the Pente looked particularly good on me. Of course when you are in a crowd of enablers, you aren't going to leave without yarn. So I bought enough to make the sweater, despite Cathy saying, "You know that you are going to be in stockinette hell, right?" Well, the power of wool is strong. Cathy tried on Pente, also looked great in it, and was at the register with her sweater's amount of Loft when I said, "What about stockinette hell?" To which Cathy replied, "Damn."
Long story short, everyone but Tyler is going to make this sweater. We are having an unofficial KAL, starting tomorrow. Cathy has already cheated and started. (I don't care what your justification is, Cathy. You totally started a week early.)

As for the Shelter, these four greys are to test out a blanket design idea I have. All going well, I'll need more yarn. But I thought I'd just get a skein of each to start. It is Snowbound, Sweatshirt, Soot, and Cast Iron.

And this lovely skein of Shelter, in Long Johns, I got to see if I really liked the color enough to make a sweater out of it. They were out at Verb, and my color card can only tell me so much, so I ordered online. I do like it. I probably will make a sweater out of it. But I'll finish some other projects before buying more.

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.