Yarn Crawl

Back when Karen, Polly, Jean and I did a yarn crawl to shops in the town of Sonoma and one in Marin county, I bought some Lana Grossa Merino 2000 yarn for a scarf at Bella Yarns of Sonoma. As I've started working on it, I decided I didn't have enough and so sorta stopped working on it while I concentrated on my Socks for Soldiers (you can read more about this project in my LIS blog).

A month or so ago, I took my friend Pat to Sonoma Yarn to pick out some beginner knitter things for a holiday present for her niece. Pat last knit 40 years ago, when there wasn't yarns like there are yarns today. She was amazed at the variety of fibers, colors, textures, and patterns, and subsequently dug out her own ancient needles and picked up a starter project of her own to get back into it.

Well, today she is officially back into it! I wanted to also show her Bella Yarns, and their splendid collection of silk and bamboo yarns in addition to the "usual" yummy wool, alpaca and cashmere yarns. (Okay, and cotton and linen, too.)

Here's Betza with Bella's sheep:



What?! You were expecting real sheep??

Very taken with one of the lovely silky bamboos (remarking that the bamboo growing in her back yard feels nothing like the luscious bamboo yarns in her hands), Pat has decided to knit her son and daughter-in-law-to-be a throw for her wedding present. After discussing some possibilities, and ways to make it Irish without complicating things by figuring out how to include shamrocks in it, we came up with a feather-and-fan pattern, using lots of different yarns in shades of green.

This photo (blurred again ::sigh::) does not do the yarns, with their varied textures and sheen and depth, justice:




Bella was out of stock of the circular needles and some other things we needed, so we stopped by Sonoma Yarn on our way home. As I was getting out of my car at Sonoma Yarn, I remembered something, and reached back in to get something for one of Sonoma Yarn's owners, Frances Purl: doggie jerky!

Here's Frances and Betza. You'll note Frances is looking a bit puzzled. I at first tried placing Betza on the chair seat right next to Frances, but Frances decided Betza was just another treat for her from me. After I rescued Betza from Frances' mouth (thank goodness Ms. Purl is as small as she is or it could have been real ugly, not to speak of messy), I placed Betza on the table, as that was the one place Frances couldn't get to her.




Well, this may be the last of the photos in any of my blogs for a while. On the off chance that the blurring may be the camera and not me. I am having a problem with the flash on one setting, so there may be something else going on, she said, voice full of likely-to-be-misplaced-hope. Keep your fingers crossed that whatever ain't working, will start working properly.

And Chickie Made Two...Briefly

Last weekend, we went out for dinner for Karen's husband's birthday. Unfortunately, my shakes and tremors continued, so there are few photos, and of the two here, only one is any good. Fortunately, that's the one of the back of Karen's head, again showing how, while she doesn't listen to me, I listen to her when she doesn't want to have her picture taken. (Of course, I never want mine taken, so perhaps it is not a far comparison...). Whatever.

Here's Jim, unfortunately somehow overlit as well as blurry, but that's okay, because now you can't see the mean things he's mouthing at me because he realized the camera is pointing at him.



Here's Karen's head, as we were driving home.



Present at dinner was Jim & Karen's niece, Grace. Grace loves small things, and was taken with Betza and her hat. She asked if I would make her a hat for a chicken egg, which, while larger than my tortoise's eggs, is still small enough to be considered, well, small.

Last night, I dug out some stripey pink yarn, and knit a little hat. For some reason, I felt the hat should have a large pompom on top, and so now it does! Here's Grace's hat and Betza in her new hat:

Road Trip I: Wine Tasting

On the last Saturday of 2006, Betza got her first road trip! Betza, Karen, Polly, Ed and I took off for an afternoon of wining and fressing. In November, Karen and her cousin, Swanee, visited several new-to-us wineries, a couple of which Karen really liked and wanted to share with Polly and I. Ed, Polly's husband, decided to accept Polly's invitation to come along with us, so our day was extra special.

On our way north to the first winery, I looked over Karen's first attempt at knitting a sock. Unfortunately, despite my having cast it on and worked the first couple of rows for her, it was hopelessly messed up (and I'm being very polite here) and needed to be frogged (ripped out) and redone. Since none of us had the needle I needed to cast it on again, we decided to stop first at A Good Yarn in Windsor, a yarn store that was already on our list to visit to get a pair of needles for Karen and get up close and personal with some luscious yarns.

While Karen and Polly were making their purchases, I sat for a bit with Betza, and took her first ever road trip photo next to an unfelted clog and its felted mate.



You'll note that Betza's little poncho has been folded back to make a little hat. I think she's happier this way.

Next we took off for Healdsburg and Seghesio Family Vineyards. I'm afraid I can't personally say much about the wine. The high dose antibiotic protocol I've been on for three months has pretty much killed my taste for wine, not to speak of causing recurring nausea. And, as I found out when I uploaded the photos taken during the day, causes a lot of microtremors, so most of my photos did not come out. Even the best of them are far below my usual quality, but that isn't going to stop me from inflicting them on you because, after all, we must celebrate Betza's first trip!

So, the first thing you probably do NOT think of when you think of "Sonoma Wine Country" is venom. While I was looking around all the shirts and wine-drinking paraphernalia for sale at Seghesio while Karen, Ed, Polly and Betza were enjoying the wine and banter with the very nice Seghesio folks, I spotted a black ball cap with a serpentine design embroidered on it, with a single word: Venom.



No, no one here is a big fan of the Pacific rattler. One of their vineyards is on Rattlesnake Hill in the Alexander Valley, The hat sits next to a large interior window that overlooks a barrel room:




The humans in our party quite enjoyed their wines, and both signed up for Seghesio's wine club, so I'm hoping that by the time we next visit (hey! picking up one's shipment in person is a great way to ensure some quality time in the country on the rare day off!), both my palate and fine motor control systems will have recovered.



On our way back to the car, Betza wanted a moment to commune with nature a bit so she settled down in a pansy bed for a while.




Next we went to Mauritson Wines, also in Healdsburg. Here are Polly, Karen and Ed chatting with Jan.




Here's a photo from the other side of the bar. You'll note that, unlike Karen, I honor her request to not be photographed when she doesn't want to be photographed. Here, she is artfully concealed by the decorative branches.


Here's looking towards the outside of the tasting room, to the patio area where we had a bite to eat along with some Mauritson wines before heading into the tasting room during a lull to chat about the wines with Jan.



Here's the southeast (I think east - definitely south) view from their patio.



Here's the same view, peopled and Egged. Polly, Ed, and Karen are snacking on cheese and crackers, kalamata and black olives tossed with goat feta, and my lox and cream cheese spread, while Betza enjoys the company and the sun and the fact that deviled eggs were not on the menu.





Next on our wine itinerary was our old favorite, Teldeschi Winery, home of the lovely Terra Nova, one of the Dan Teldeschi's lovely wines. Dan himself beards a resemblence to my late husband, so it can be disconcerting looking at him, but not so much when Dan looks, as he so often does, like a mad scientist or anarchist about to blow something up.



Teldeschi's tasting room is tiny, intimate, the atmosphere relaxed and informal. It reminds me of the wineries I visited in Italy back in the early 1970s, as does the countryside around there. You can see some of my favorite Teldeschi views in my November 2005 Black Friday blog. (For those of you new to my blogs, you can also see what my photos normally look like, quality wise, instead of how icky they are right now... ::sigh::)

Here's Betza, rather over-exposed, hanging out under Ed's watchful eye. He was quite concerned that she would sneak some wine herself, and otherwise be corrupted by hanging out with Polly, Karen and I. While Ed has known Karen for years, he didn't realize until this day how truly wacked she is, especially so when the three of us are together and pretty much feed each other's inner crazy person.



Fortuntely, Dan's pretty wacked himself, as can be seen by one of the winery's t-shirts:



It was not as beautiful out this day as it sometimes is out this way. As the sun started sinking behind the hills, the early evening grew misty and cold.


At day's end, we dropped Karen off at her home as her hubby wasn't feeling well enough to go out for dinner. Polly and Ed took Betza and I to dinner at Hunter's. Here Betza is wearing one of Sist's hand-me-down sweaters, the one with the scarf, since it got too cold for her to wear just the hat.



Throughout the road trip, Betza road up front with Polly and Ed. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a photo of them together, so I guess we'll just have to go winery road tripping again!

Hark! What's that I hear? ::groan:: ::plop::

Look what I found when I went into the iguana room Christmas morning!




Betza has arrived!

She is smaller than Uova and Sist were:




For now, Betza will be resting, and getting ready for her first road trip in January.

In the mean time, I will have to dig up U&S's hats and sweaters...or knit some new ones! Well, now, there's a thought!

Actually, I do have some yarn stashed away that I've been saving to knit something. Natalie sent me some of the yarn left over from her Suck Up To The Mother-In-Law scarf she knit for, well, her MIL. I whipped up this fetching, ah, poncho? fashion scarf? for Betza tonight. Seeing as how the yarn is a luscious 45% qiviut (musk ox)/45% wool/10% silk, Betza will be warm indeed during these cold winter months.

Oeufs Still Stinky

For those who have been checking in looking for an update, why, thanks!

Eggs have been spending the summer quietly in the refrigerator because their primary chauffeur and nanny (that would be moi) has had a pretty crappy summer, health-wise. Spending the months in cold climes has retarded the encroaching creptitude but has not staved it off completely.

On the bright side, Fall is approaching and so, too, is tortoise egging season. So, Eggs may have a successor or two. Or, y'know, not. Time will tell.

After having taken a hiatus from tiny knitting, I have made two sweaters this week.

This first one is made in memory of Suzanna Marie Somerville, who died August 31, at age 98. Her daughter and granddaughter are not themselves knitters or crocheters, unlike Marie (as she was called) who, it seems, was always working one something: knitting, crocheting, crewel and embroidery, beading, and making things for small dolls.

When going through Marie's things, deciding what to keep and what to give away, Cory, Marie's granddaughter, came upon a small scrap of crochet work. Since we couldn't find anything it went with, Cory was going to throw it away. I offered instead to make a little sweater for it, to donate to Canine Companions for Independence, for their annual holiday fundraiser tree at Coddingtown Mall. (The handmade ornaments are donated to CCI; shoppers who donate $10 to CCI get to pick out an ornament to take, and the donors' names are put on the tree in place of the ornaments. The tree goes up in early December, so if you're in the area shopping, please stop by and give a little.)

The crocheted scrap was made from a white yarn. I unraveled it, and combined it with some of Marie's red yarn to create a small sweater. Here is the body of the sweater, with the needles holding the picked up stitches from which I will make one of the sleeves.




Here's the finished sweater:



The basic pattern I used was from one of Betty Lampden's Miniature Sweaters books.

This next sweater I knit using a pattern local alpaca rancher Vicki Arns shared with the knitting guild last year. Here it is, in blue and white, laying atop Marie's red and white sweater:



Wooo! Pretty small, eh? Here's a shot of the sweaters and quarter lined up:



Vicki's sweater (here worked with fingering yarn on size 1 & 3 needles) is available online in a PDF file at the Sonoma County Knitting Guild's site. You'll find a whole page of links to patterns for tiny and very small holiday ornaments at the guild's Tiny Holiday Ornaments page.

The 'Marie' sweater, while it would fit one of the Eggs, is instead going to be kept, along with other tiny sweaters I'll be knitting over the next several weeks, in an stinky-Egg-free zone, ready to pass along to CCI.

Note: If you think these sweaters are small, check out Althea Merback's miniature knitting creations at her BugKnits site.

Oeufs dans le réfrigérateur

With the weather heating up as much as it has, and the Eggs already, uhm, aging rapidly, I sent them to live in a cooler clime until I get around to knitting them string bikinis or some other suitable summer wear.

(Oh! Can you see it? Eggs on a Cruise!)

(It's okay. You can resume breathing. Eggs aren't going to be doing any cruising unless one of you takes them. Hmmmmm...maybe a houseboat on a lake? Uhm, Karen, can we talk?)

Anyway, just in case anyone was wondering where Eggs are, they are here:




That's them, in their carpeted carseat/condo, sitting on top of a glass dish holding a couple of pinkies (for Sluggo), which in turn is sitting on a couple of yogurt containers, sandwiched between the milk and juice container filled with ice tea.



You may recognize their "carpet" - it's the yarn I used for my grandnephew's sweater.

Bon apeti-- er, avoir un grand été!

Memorial Day 2006

David Cole's Knitting Machine. 2005.

Old Age Approaches...

Well, while their bain may have staved off the rapidity with which old age is approaching, the therapeutic waters were not therapeutic enough to stave off encroaching decreptitude entirely.

Eggs did go on a field trip in late April, which was good. But spending 14 hours in an un-air conditioned car while on the road was not.

Eggs are distinctly....fragrant.

Here they are relaxing with us the evening of our arrival in Tulelake. We gathered on the porch of the house we rented through Fe's Bed & Breakfast.

I supplied the grilled proscuitto-wrapped shrimp, bacon-wrapped shrimp, and shrimp with my favorite dipping sauce, a cocktail sauce spiced up with lemon juice and Tulelake horseradish (of course!) while friends Karen & Jim supplied our ever favorite Teldeschi Winery wines.

It being a warm night, Eggs disrobed and hung out al fresco, so to speak.

As you can see from the red ball thrower on the left side of the table, Sidney the Wonder(ful) Dog was there, too. What you don't see is the puddle of saliva gathering on the porch floor as Sidney awaits his share of the appetizers.

After filling up on all the augmented shrimp and wine, Karen, Sidney and I took a walk down the street. At 9:30 PM, it was as dark as it gets in the town of Tulelake. Karen brought her spotting scope, so we did a bit of star and planet watching.

About 10 PM, still needing to stretch out a bit after the ride up there, we put the scope away and walked across town. Mind you, this was Friday night. At 10 PM. We encountered not one car driving through town during our 45 minute walk which basically bisected the entire town.

Did I mention we really like Tulelake?

And did I mention there was NO graffiti? Anywhere? Well, except on and in the box cars of the trains that rumbled through on their way to bigger, but not particulary better, placed.

A final photo: Sundown in Tulelake.

I have put in an online album some of the photos from our drive to and from Tulelake, if you'd like to see them. When I get the other photos fiddled with and uploaded, I'll put a link to that album here, too.

Les Oeufs Prennent un Bain

Or, more prosaically, Eggs Take a Bath.

Why?

Because they are getting a wee bit....fragrant.

I noticed it when we were last out. Since they've been sitting stashed in their carrier on my desk, all padded by their blankie and latest hats and I-cord O-rings, and my desk sits in the coldest place in my house (unless it's in the middle of summer, in which case it is the hottest place, besides the always heated iguana room), any molecular exchange between Eggs and my Nose has been limited.

So, a bath.

Here they are in their covered hot tub:



And here they are with the cover removed:

Eggs in Stocking Caps

There is a very nice woman in our local knitting group whose name is Nita. Nita has a thing for socks. Sock earrings, sock scarves, sock socks, and at least one sock hat that I've seen. She also does a wonderful sock display she sets up at our annual Knit Out day.* So it was no surprise that, when browsing through the latest issue of Knitty and seeing the photo for a Real Stocking Cap pattern, I thought of her.

And I thought of Eggs. Atter all, some of their hats are made up of sock yarn I've used to make socks for me and others (and a few cats, who get theirs stuffed with catnip) (and a sweater with matching scarf for Sist Egg). So I decided to honor Nita's creativity, and those of other real stocking hat makers, by knitting some stocking caps for Eggs.




Here is an in-progress look at Sist's hat.




Here are are both hats. Note, too, the new I-cord o-rings I made for Eggs since they are getting sort of...floppy. Not soft, but as their innards dry out, it makes them unevenly weighted. So, Eggs now have Stands, too!




Here's a closeup of Uova's hat...





...and Sist's.


All dressed up and no road trip in sight!

* The Knit Out (which includes crocheters, too) started as an impromtu group of knitters meeting in New York's Central Park after September 11. Since then, knitting groups across the country have been staging their own Knit Outs during September-October. The Craft Yarn Council serves as a sort of clearinghouse of KO events around the country. You can check their site for KOs in your area, or, if you get your own KO going, let them know and they can list it on their site.

Eggs In Scale

Karen pointed out that many of you may not realize how small Eggs are, so I shot some nekkid photos of them alongside a couple of things most people can easily recognize: two sizes of paperclips, and a dime. Here they are with their latest hats... And here are their (only, at this point) sweaters... So, while they are the smallest things I've ever knitted, smaller even that the little socks I knit and fill with catnip for catty friends, they are the smallest things I think I shall ever knit. To see some incredible knitted things that are would make the dime and paperclips look huge, check out Islandknitter's Knitted Garden and the incredible Bugknit's Nano Knits.

Sashimi and Saki and Eggs, oh, my!

Karen, Eggs and I went out to celebrate my birthday dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant, Shogun. We gorged on a small order of shrimp and vegetable tempura to start, followed by a large platter of mixed sashimi, followed by a softshell crab (Karen's first) and an order of unagi (smoked eel sushi, also a first for Karen). This was leisurely washed down with several large cups of green tea and several carafes of hot saki.
















Here are Eggs in front of the sashimi platter containing white (albacore), red (ahi) and yellow (yellowtail) tuna, sea bass, and red snapper, along with (my favorite garnishes) mounds of daikon threads and ginger.

Eggs wore their new hats, and also got to show off their some of their sweaters (the blue with the scarf, and the bright light green and purple) to the very nice server.

Everything was great, other than the fact that Karen kept referring to Sist as the "terrorist egg" because of the proclivity of some of that ilk cravenly hiding their identity behind balaclavas.

After dinner (and did I mention lots of saki?), we let Sidney out of the car, where, alas, he had to stay, burrowed under my Sidney blankets, while we ate dinner. He decided it was way too cold to read the news around the parking lot, so he quickly got back into the car, and off we went to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream for us and to take home to Karen's hubby.

Karen's waffle cone was sort of disintegrating while we were still in the store, so the nice fellow who was handling our order gave Karen a cup to put her scoops in should the cone give way before we got home. It did give way, so Karen managed to invert the cone over the cup without running into the center median. Sidney, the lucky boy, got to eat the waffle cone. He then decided that I must not want my waffle cone, either, and so poked his snout repeatedly in my cheek to make it as easy as possible for me to hand over the cone. Which, seeing as how my cone was still filled with Mississippi Mud ice cream, I did not.

When we got to Karen's, I dished out some Truffles in Paradise ice cream for Jim, topped my own cone with a dab (well, I had to make sure TiP tasted good!), and we hung out for a while, 'we' meaning Karen, Jim, Eggs, Sid, Jack the cat, and I. Sid, while waiting for me to get tired of my cone, cleaned up and shredded Karen's cup. Once he at the last inch of my cone, he grabbed his large (faintly obscene) Nylabone Double Action Chew toy, and began teasing me with it, offering it to me, then pulling it out of my hands. We played for a while, watching a movie, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Jack observing us from his place, stretched out in front of the fire.

Karen then drove me home (did I mention lots of saki?) where, still warm from the saki, I eventually went to bed and slept well. Well, until 4 AM when The Thing returned to its place Under The Tub.

Thank you, Karen and Jim and Sidney and Eggs (and Shogun), for a very yummy birthday!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

It is frickin' cold here. After a week or so of sunny, bright, mild-to-almost warmish days, and nights ranging from brisk to nearly balmy, we are smack in the middle of winter again. A COLD winter. Here, for example, is a photo of the outdoor thermometer, taken this afternoon around 2:30 PM. The window it is on is on the south side of the house:



Here's a temperature/dewpoint chart reflecting the past 24 hours (well, from 7:50 PM last night to tonight). See??? Cold!



There was even snow here in Sonoma County, in one area enough to make a snowman that stuck around.

I don't care what it is in Wisconsin or Maine or British Columbia or anywhere else it is cold. It is supPOSsed to be cold in those places. Not cold like that here. This is coastal California, by gosh, and we just do not do cold here. So, make it go away!

But not until you see Eggs' new hats.

Well, Eggs get cold, too, and so need some warm new hats to get through these COLD days.



Here is Uova in her smart red-and-flecked number. The red is the Cascade 220 I'm using for Sidney's dog sweater. The flecky stuff is...something. Juliette gave me a leftover ball of it that had been knocking around the shop after she finished something, so I've had it in my stash for about a year. To make the hat, I ribbed a 5" long strip, grafted the two ends together, and then picked up stitches and knit them in the round to the top. Uova was happy with the hat, but Sist wanted something offering more coverage.


So, I made her this little chenille balaclava. All they need are some leg warmers (well, and some legs) and they could hit the slopes at Torino and catch some Olympic action.

As for me, I think I'm going to go sink into some flannel and down with a hot cuppa.

Proper Intros, Pillow Talk, and Signs of Things to Come

I thought that, before we go on much farther, you'd like to meet Eggs up close and personal. Taking advantage of their naptime today, I took their pictures. Here is Uova...


















..and here is Sist.


















As you can see, they are beginning to look a bit...aged. They've been living in the den, whose average daily temperature during the winter is in the mid-50s, so they are being quite well preserved, considering they are, er, uhm, raw.

Did you notice that hint of green behind them, in their individual photos? Those are pillows!!! Their Aunt Darry made them each a pillow, very much like the larger iguana pillow she made for Mikey the Cycie. She also made those cute little drawstring bags you see.















Now Eggs will be able to rest in comfort while I plot, er, plan their new finery. I've been busy lately making scarf gifts which have finally been sent off, and so I'm catching up on knitting some more squares for the Sonoma Blanket Project, and a new scarf for myself, having belatedly realize I have no purple scarves.

But, I digress... I am planning on using some of the left over purple scarf yarns to make something for Eggs, but more importantly, I have been thinking about how to use another gift Eggs received, this from Knatolee. Knat, who designs and makes spectacular rugs (my faves being the Albino Axolotl on page 1, and the Fintistic Fishies on page 2), also knits and does other crafty things. She recently drove herself crazy knitting a lace scarf for her mother-in-law, out of a wonderful foresty qiviut (musk ox)/wool/silk blend. Knat sent Eggs the remaining yarn!

So, while working on other projects, I've been giving serious thought about what to make out of this luxurious yarn. A lacy poncho, perhaps? A shawl and hat? Hmmmm......

Oh! Want to see the yarn? Yum....














Here's a close-up for you.

















So much to knit! Only two hands!