San Francisco, you’re so fine.

Ira’s birthday was last Saturday.  To celebrate we took the train to San Francisco.  I was able to visit an amazing yarn store, ImagiKnit.  It was one of the coolest yarn stores I have ever been in.  They had so much yarn!  I frothed at the mouth and spent too much money, but got some amazing yarn:

Some koigu for socks and malabrigo for hat and mittens.  Woo hoo. Big city yarn stores are sweet.  Ira’s birthday was also nice : )

Love and a Sweater.

This weekend me and mine are celebrating three years together!  Three years and we’re still going strong.  I feel so lucky to have Ira as my boyfriend.  He is such a great person.  He even took these pictures of my complete sweater:

A nice sweater that goes great with my many pair of brown pants.

Now I’m moving full speed ahead on my February Lady Sweater.

Award.

I was nominated for a blog award, by one of my favorite blog writers!  It’s quite flattering, especially considering that I’m barely computer literate.  I guess I’m supposed to answer these questions and then mention my favorite blogs.

1. Where is your cell phone? in my purse, i hope.
2. Where is your significant other? Work.
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? Missoula
5. Your father? Seattle
6. Your favorite thing? making things, especially my own clothes.
7. Your dream last night? Ira and I were visiting Brooklyn, NY but for only one night.
8. Your dream/goal? be a nurse.
9. The room you’re in? living
10. Your hobby? knitting
11. Your fear? cancer, car accidents among millions of other things.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Portland, OR
13. Where were you last night? knitting.
14. What you’re not? confident
15. One of your wish-list items? spinning wheel
16. Where you grew up? mt
17. The last thing you did? ate breakfast.
18. What are you wearing? pajamas
19. Your TV? only gets one channel that’s in spanish.
20. Your pet? Lucy and Scrappy, though they technically belong to my mother.
21. Your computer? mwave
22. Your mood? anxious
23. Missing someone? yeah
24. Your car? 198,000 miles
25. Something you’re not wearing? bra
26. Favorite store? Selvedge Studio
27. Your summer? hot and smelly
28. Love someone? definitely
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When is the last time you laughed? an hour ago.
31. Last time you cried?  August.

And some of my favorite blogs are:

Neat Moth – smart and really good writing.

Half-Assed Knit Blog - very funny and I identify with the title.

Flint Knits – smart, funny, inspiring, and amazing knitting.

Poorly Behaved – my bestest friend, who is funny as hell.

And a monkey I crochetted months ago for a dear friend, Rosie.  Doesn’t he look happy overlooking Missoula?

Splurging.

Shortly after I wrote my previous post mentioning my desire for Dream in Color yarn and a February Lady Sweater out of it, I found some Dream in Color yarn online and on sale at Wool Girl.  It still wasn’t cheap, but I bought enough to make the gorgeous sweater anyhow.  I won’t tell you how much it cost, because I’m ashamed of my extravagance.  Let’s just say, I would never spend that much on a store bought sweater!

The color is called “Cloud Jungle.”  It’s a purply grey with some browns, reds, greens, and blues throughout.  The picture doesn’t do it justice.  I think it is going to be an amazing sweater, worth every penny, and I can’t wait to get started on it!  So of course I am scrambling to finish my current sweater.  Here’s a preview of it:

I’m quite happy with it so far.  I think it’s going to be a great layering sweater, good for cross country skiing.  I will finish one sleave tonight come hell or high water!

Sweater Wearing Weather?????

The high this weekend has been around the 70’s.  I’m disturbed because I think it’s chilly.  I’ve been wearing sweaters and drinking tea all weekend.  I have become acclimated.  I am a Californian wuss. But at least I get to wear sweaters and fingerless mitts!

Speaking of sweaters, I completed my first cardigan.

I am happy with it, though it’s not perfect.  The buttons tend to unbutton themselves.  I have brainstormed some possible remedies for this problem:

1.  Go on a starvation diet to shrink my hefty rack and gut so that they won’t pull the buttons open.

2.  Re-block the sweater and let it dry buttoned up in hopes that this will make it want to stay buttoned.

3.  Replace current buttons with larger buttons.

4.  Follow this smart knitter’s example and sew a ribbon to the back of the button hole band to reinforce it, making it less floppy.

5.  Let go of the imperfection and just check buttons regularly when wearing sweater.

Right now I’m leaning toward #4.  I don’t want to starve myself and really my chest and gut don’t seem to be the problem.  I don’t think re-blocking the sweater will be very effective.  I don’t want to buy bigger buttons. The current, not matching buttons were some I had laying around.  I think the ribbon plan will work and be fun to execute.  But I might just be lazy and opt for #5.  I’m not a perfectionist, in case you haven’t noticed.

Since I am obsessed with sweater knitting right now, I’ve already started this wicked sweater.  Sadly it will be the last sweater from the garage sale find.  I will get three sweaters out of it though and that’s rad!  I have learned a lot about sweater knitting.  My next sweater will unfortunately cost me a bit more.  I’m dreaming of doing The February Lady Sweater in Dream in Color yarn.  It would be so beautiful, but not cheap.  But then maybe I should revisit the many neglected projects waiting sadly on the needles.

Famous last words.

“I should have enough yarn.”  It became obvious that I was not going to have enough yarn to complete my stoplight green cardigan. So I added some stripes to its bottom half.

I think it’s going to work out just fine and the stripes have made the knitting more interesting. I’ve been knitting on it all day long.

Also, I received this guy in the mail today.

My crafty crocheting Aunt sent him to me.  Isn’t he cute?! I’ve already put a dent in the candy corn thanks to my irrepressible sweet tooth.

The Long Lost Spinning Wheel Savings Fund.

Remember when I was saving money for a spinning wheel?  Well the envelope did hold over a hundred dollars at one point, but then money got tight around here with the plane ticket to MT and the 12 days off without pay.  Instead of going toward a spinning wheel, that money ended up helping with groceries and dull things like that.  And instead of reimbursing the envelope, I decided to prioritize paying off my credit card.   A goal I made way back in January, before my fingers ever drafted roving.  I’m happy to say that after this month’s payment my credit card balance will be $200.  In January the balance was $1800.  I used my tax refund, “stimulus check”, and have been making large payments every month.  It will feel good to have it paid off and I hope to not use it, except for in emergencies.  As for the spinning wheel that I still dream of owning, I think I successfully convinced my family to all chip in and get me one for Christmas.  It’s all I want guys.  Pretty please with sugar on top…

Currently I am knitting a short sleeved cardigan with this:

More garage sale wool dyed in my 50 cent crock pot.  I think I will have enough to complete the sweater.  These skeins seem to never end!

The Pink and Brown Sweater.

Here are the photos I promised of me in my latest sweater.

Sorry they are somewhat dark and slightly blurry.

And please forgive my bedhead and skirt that doesn’t match the sweater.  (I get quite lazy on the weekends.)

This was my first Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern.  I enjoyed the freedom the pattern gave me.  I used the garage sale yarn that I dyed pink and some leftover brown I have.  I still have so much garage sale yarn leftover.  I’m already making  another sweater with it.  It’s a great way for me to inexpensively practice sweater knitting.  Yay!

Tree Hugging.

Yesterday Ira and I decided to visit Sequoia National Park.  It is about an hour and a half drive from Fresblow.  We are glad we got out of the house and finally experienced the beauty and splendor of humongous trees.

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The drive was pretty once you were a good distance from turdtown.  You take a winding road up, up, up, and if you don’t watch what you’re doing, you will likely roll down the mountain.  Unfortunately there was a forest fire in the park, so it was smokey and hazy in parts.  This didn’t ruin the day though.  We hiked for about two hours and headed back.  We drove straight through the park and traveled back a different way than we came.  It was seriously beautiful.  I would have taken more photos, but my batteries died.

It’s amazing that those trees are thousands of years old!  If only we aged so well!

I got to wear my California hat too!

It was a good day.

And what did I knit this weekend?

A sweater!  When it is dry from blocking, I will model it and give you the details.  Till then, may the remainder of your Sunday be happy.

Brown and in the Round.

I finished the project that I forbid myself from starting over the weekend, but started anyway.  It’s a hat of course.  It’s the first cotton hat I ever knit.  I adore it and think I might actually be able to wear it in the heat!

I knit it with Araucania Nature Cotton, a gorgeous yarn.  It was fast and fun.  It’s brown and was done in the round.  What more could I ask for?