Daniel's Socks, Part 2

Here is the continuation of the Pictures of Daniel's Sock Yarn in progress. For those who need a refresher, it is a yarn composed of one ply of alpaca carded with an olivey heathered merino/ silk roving (my guess is that it is an Ashland Bay roving... it looks like one of their colorways), and one ply of just the merino/silk roving.

Here is a pic of my Majacraft Susie wheel holding a partially filled bobbin of just the roving:




And here is the final yarn, already on the niddy-noddy! I should have taken a photo on the bobbin before I wound it off:

And another shot, so you can see the colors better. It's pretty muted, but I figured Daniel would want some sort of "quiet", "manly" sock color. He tends towards very bright orange and red shirts, but his socks are pretty much either black Navy issue or white athletic socks.

So, I am very excited! Finally, a yarn full of love! ;-) It was a very different experience spinning this one than spinning the yarns that I sell at Milagro in Baltimore... it was more of an "I want to get this done!" feeling rather than "I have to get this done."... :-) (although I do love spinning for the appreciative folks in Baltimore!)

My next step is to split the yarn in half. Then I am going to spin up what is left of the roving (which is about 2.5 - 3 oz) and see where that leaves me. I may have to invoke some millspun yarn into this project (gasp! ;-) )

I am loving socks. I just bought the new Cat Bordhi sock book...something about Socks doing their thing with 8 different sock architectures.... oh, if you search on Amazon, you'll see it. She is my new Sock Queen. Although I also want to get...well, I want ALL the books, but I want to get the "Knitting Vintage Socks" book, and also the Twisted Sisters sweater book (though I realize that is not a sock book ;-) )...

Daniel's Socks - Part 1

When I first started dating The Boy (heretofore known as Daniel), I decided I wanted to make him a pair of socks, using my own handspun. However, I knew there might be consequences. I had made a pair of Knitty.com's "Cigar" gloves for my ex, and he hated them, and called them "gay"....however, my brother loves them. So There!! And I am well aware of the "Boyfriend Curse", so I figured socks would happen more quickly than a sweater ;-)



Anyway, it's been, what, nine months and I haven't gotten around to this yet. I had picked up some alpaca at a fiber sale on Whidbey (Whidby?) Island (which he had taken me to) back in the springtime, and I wanted to blend that with some manly-colored wool for some nice dress-socks for him.



I bought a merino/silk blend roving from the Weaving Works (one of my local yarn stores), in an olivey-heather tone. Here is a picture of it next to the alpaca down:







Here is a picture of both fibers next to my Strauch handcarders:

I carded the alpaca with the merino/silk roving and started spinning it pretty finely onto my Majacraft Susie wheel. Here you can see the very beginnings of the bobbin:

Here is a shot of me drafting the alpaca rolag:

And here is the finished bobbin of alpaca/roving blend. I then made another ply of just the roving (since I have a whole 4 oz of roving):

The other pictures will be in the "Part 2" post. This site wouldn't let me post all the pictures in one blog (probably too big of an upload time)...

My First Sock is done!

Yay! My first knit sock ever is off the needles!

I used the Simple Sock pattern from Cat Bordhi's book, "Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles". I used Zitron Trekking XXL yarn for it, and knit it on two circular size 3 bamboo needles from Clover.

My only regret is not buying the Addi Natura needles; the joins on the Clovers leave a little to be desired.

Here is Picture 1:

Another picture off the foot:

And, of course it's out of order, but this is a picture of the sock in progress last week. I zoomed down the foot because it's a chunk of "mindless knitting" and then did the toe decreases yesterday and today on the ferry. I came home with only the Kitchener stitch grafting across the toe to do. I looked it up in one of Debbie Stoller's "Stitch 'N Bitch" knitting books (I have both knitting books and the crochet one, too), and though I didn't really understand what I was doing, I followed her directions and it came out great!

I also love that Trekking XXL really gives you a TON of yarn for the money, and it knits up very well; no weird split stitches like some yarns.

A Labor Day weekend cold...and fun!

I have been fighting the effects of a cold I caught from my friend Kris for the last week or so. I've been hacking, and my voice sounds like a cross between Bea Arthur and Chewbacca. But otherwise I feel fine. I did choose to work from home today, though - both to protect my voice, and not spread the germs to my coworkers. No need for me to be in an office full of old sick guys!

But I managed to make the most of the extended weekend. I chose to take two 3-day weekends instead of a four-day weekend with my 9/80 day off, so I telecommuted Friday. It was just as well. The boy was working a duty shift, so I had the afternoon to myself. I can't recall if I went to look at the Ballard Locks (their official name is the Hiram M. Chittendam Locks) on Thursday or Friday, but I went and looked at the salmon running upstream through the salmon ladder. It is really amazing - I forgot how big most salmon are! I think if the waters were calmer right there, you could latch onto one and have it take you for a ride... :-)

So I believe I spent Friday night with myself. Saturday morning I picked up the boy from the ferry, and we had a little time to ourselves before he organized and met up with his friends who were visiting from Texas. I really enjoyed meeting them; they are thinking of moving here with their currently 2 year old son in a couple of years. I hope they do! :-) We left them around 9 PM, after dinner, and came back to my place. Sunday we ended up sleeping in far later than normal (for me, anyway) - I slept till 10:45! This is pretty unusual for me, since I usually "sleep in" till a whopping 7:00 or 7:30 AM on the weekends, but I figured I was sick and the boy loves to sleep in till I won't let him anymore. ;-) We hung out in the afternoon, rented "Idiocracy", starring Luke Wilson - a dumb but hilarious movie - and then had an early dinner with my friends Adam and Liz. They were nice enough to drop us off at the ferry terminal afterwards, too, so we hightailed it to the boy's house and slept there for the night.

I took the 6:20 AM ferry back to Seattle, and met my friend Kris for an early breakfast and shopping expedition. I think we were out a total of 10 hours hoofing it through downtown Seattle. Oh my. I did good, though - I only bought food, some chocolate nibs, a couple of bath bombs from Lush, and a 10 lb bouquet of flowers from Pike Place Market (you really can't beat 'em for fresh color and fragrance (if you're lucky). Kris made off with an all-white bouquet that had a tuberose spray in it, and I bought a white and purple bouquet that had a centerpiece of a 10" dahlia in it!)

So that was the extent of my weekend: boyfriend, friends, fun, shopping, and LOTS of eating. :) Oh yes, and I managed to squeeze into a size 8 at Banana Republic! :) (Not that it actually looked good, but it did close, which is a step in the right direction. :) )

Better Living Through Chemistry?

I must admit, my "chemical exodus" hasn't been entirely successful.

This last month has been particularly stressful for me, in terms of my job, which coupled with the wonky un-summer-ish weather, didn't let me go biking as often as I liked, so I gained a couple of pounds, my face broke out, I got a horrid cold and I got an abnormal medical test result. YAY.

I dealt with the medical test (by going back for an additional, briefly-but-intensely painful test, after which the doctor pronounced the area 'uninteresting', which is nice to hear sometimes ;-) ), but I have had to reign in my eating, and went to Target in search of my old-faithful ProActiv replacement kit (which was about half the price). I found something interesting by Neutrogena; basically a salicylic acid face wash, 2.5% benzoyl peroxide face lotion, and a moisturizing lotion. I am surprised they did not include a toner, but I have a hyaluronic acid (sp?) toner I like. So I have said "Bollocks to Lush face care (for now)!" and have been using that. I also bought Burt's Bees Blemish Stick, which is basically SD-alcohol 40 with a bunch of healing oils (everything from fennel to tea tree oils). My face is finally (!) calming down, after about 3 weeks.

In terms of eating, I had become fond of having a cup (10 0z) of home-French-Pressed coffee every day, with full-on cream and 2 tsp real sugar. The whole thing fit into my 12 oz coffee mug, but I know that, since I'm not on Atkins, the cream just was too much fat for my inactivity, plus the dairy was probably messing with my face, and the sugar was...unnecessary (though I did start measuring it, which definitely helps rather than just dumping it in from the bag!). I gave up the stuff about two weeks ago, and have fallen back to mostly herbal teas, although I am trying to use up my stash of Market Spice's signature tea (SO good..but caffeine-riddled because it's black tea). I also stopped buying the odd pint of ice cream.

Most of these changes are OK for me. The coffee was not a big deal, as I was never really addicted to caffeine, and I was just getting fond of being able to have dessert at restaurants and not see a waist-size increase. Ah well.

To remedy this situation, I am looking for an indoor cycling (or spinning) class. I figure this will help to keep me in shape through the winter, too. I tried to sign up for a pole-dancing class, but they are all full through November. My teacher got a very favorable review in the "Best of Seattle" issue of Seattle Weekly, so I can understand why! :-) (I wish she was more underground, though! ;-) it'd be easier to get in!)

As for my cold... well, thanks Mom for all the herbs you've supplied me with. Here is the twice-daily ritual:

1 tsp astragalus extract
1 tsp Cat's Claw
1 tsp echinacea extract
2 drops oregano oil (BLAH!)

Then I have a constant feed of Chlor-Trimeton and Robitussin DM to quell the post-nasal drip and coughing, as well as Ricola drops whenever I feel the need, and Yogi Tea's "Throat Comfort" tea - it is pretty effective, I gotta admit. I also have the Yogi Tea "Ginger" tea on hand, too.

Between the Yogi tea and fizzy water / iced tea, I am in the bathroom every 20 minutes. Thank god I am working from home! :-)

Backtracking

Back in June, my family decided to meet up in North Carolina for a well-deserved family vacation. We were trying to get everyone to go, but my sister-in-law was out in Canada at the time, visiting her birth parents, and my brother had too many rehearsals imposed by his band's CO, so it was my parents, me, my sister, and my brother-in-law.

Here is a picture of us (with two strangers in our boat plus our raft guide, Nicole) in the French Broad river outside of Asheville. It was our first whitewater rafting experience, for any of us! We also learned that the French Broad is the third oldest river in the world, behind the Nile and the Nu rivers. It makes sense, since the Smoky Mountains are so rounded; our guide told us that they are one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth.


(L-R: Me, my sister Rosanne, our guide Nicole, my dad (behind the lady in the front), my mom, Paul (brother in law), and guy in front


This is a picture of me and my dad enjoying a beer in a German restaurant in Georgia. We stopped off at Helen, GA on our way back to the Atlanta airport (where my parents would drop me off). This is significant because my dad never (hardly ever) drinks anything alcoholic...

Fast Forward!

This next picture is me and my pasty coworkers. This was taken when we took our intern, Derek, out for lunch on his last day here at Boeing before he went back to school to finish his masters degree.

I had to throw in my Simpsons avatar in here ;-) (you can make your own at www.simpsonsmovie.com if you are so inclined):

And finally, here is a picture I pulled off the web of my sister practicing intubating someone at the Johns Hopkins simulated operating room area-thing-a-ma-bobber. She is currently a resident in the anesthesiology department.

The Angler

I thought this was a particularly thought-provoking piece of work. A Washington Post series on Dick Cheney.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney