Birthday Musings

Today is my birthday.

Unlike many who view getting older as depressing and don't want to celebrate, I look forward to mine every year. At some point, many years ago, it might have been in high school, I started celebrating the week of my birthday. Later in my twenties, I decided I would celebrate the whole month. Now this may seem a little over the top, and I don't mean that I have birthday cake and blow out candles every day for the entire month, although that doesn't sound like a bad idea. I'd probably be sick of cake after the first week, but maybe not. I do love me some cake. But I digress. My month long celebration is more about being in the birthday spirit.

I see it as an opportunity to consciously celebrate life. My life. It's very easy for all of us to get caught up in day to day routines and responsibilities, taking life for granted. When my birthday comes around, I reflect on the past and wonder about the future. I think about all of the ways in which I am fortunate. And there are many. I feel gratitude for experiencing great joy along with great sadness. For feeling love, friendship, laughter, anger and frustration. Because all of it adds up to the fact that I am alive, right now, at this point in time, in this great big wonderful, and sometimes horrible, world that we live in. It beats the alternative, which is not physically getting younger. That is not possible.

I do not want to be sixteen again. I had some great teenage years, but there were also some growning pains and plenty of heartbreak, not to mention having to be in chemistry at 7:05 am. Nor do I want to revisit my twenties. Yes, I was young and thought I held the world by a string. But those years transitioning into full fledge adulthood had their tough moments that I would rather not relive. No, I think I'll stay right where I'm at.

Many years ago, when I was young and had my whole life ahead of me, I made a decision to embrace getting older. I usually view the glass as half full. It was a good decision.

Today I turned 42. I think it's going to be a very good year. Because along with getting older, I like to think that I'm becoming better. And I still have the rest of my life ahead of me.

A Rainbow of Koigu

This weekend Jeff asked me if I'm still knitting. What?! He said he's asking because I haven't blogged in over a month. I guess I've been knitting more when he's away than when he's at home. I think I'm going to have to post every week, now that I know he's checking in while he's out of town. Isn't that sweet? I'm a lucky gal. He reads my blog, he asks about my knitting and he never complains about my stash. So honey, this one's for you. : )




See that? That's Koigu. I've been collecting it for two years now to make the Babette Blanket and I have 30 skeins. My knitting group is doing a group knit along, I mean crochet along called "Summer of Crochet". It's the perfect time to start Babette. I'm not much of a crocheter, but I've been practicing and I will be when this is finished.


This blanket will be for our little girl whom we are in the process of adopting from China. Adoption is a long journey and not for the faint of heart. We are still a good three years away from meeting our daughter, unless a miracle happens and the wait shortens. I'm hoping for a miracle, but preparing for the long haul. Whenever it happens, she'll have this beautiful blanket to welcome her home.

Project: Dream in Color Tulip Baby Cardigan #3
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy
Needles: KnitPicks Options US Sizes 7 & 9
Start: April 22, 2009
Finish: May 17, 2009

I made another Tulip in the past few weeks. See. There has been some knitting going on. This makes Tulip #3 and it's for my friend Wendy's new baby girl, Pema, who was born on the 9th of this month. I adore Dream in Color Classy. I don't think I'll ever get bored with it. The colors are like candy.




A little luck came my way and I won a raffle! Orinda had a fundraiser for the Roseville String Ensemble, of which she is a part. She had a drawing for everyone who donated and I won the handspun called "Lame Duck". It's 175 yards of Superwash BFL in DK weight spun and donated by Nuttnbunny. Thank you Orinda and Nuttnbunny! It's beautiful!



And last, but not least, I'm hoping to have an awesome tomato crop this summer. Red ones, yellow ones, purple ones.... I can't wait. Grow little seedlings, grow!

I hope your knitting is treating you well! Until next time....

To be, or not to be...

Last year, my knitting group did a group knit along and made the Lenore socks. I cast on and knit about 1.5 inches and that's as far as I got. Since I love wearing my Pomatomus socks, i.e., my only pair of handknit socks, I decided that this year I want to knit more of them. When I took them out of hiding, one of the needles had partially come out and some of the stitches had come undone. This is a lace pattern, so I figured it would be easier to take it out and start again rather than fixing the lost stitches that entailed yarnovers, k2tog, slipping and passing it over. So I did. Now I have about 2.5 inches and I'm stuck. I can't knit anymore.


Do you want to see what can kill your knitting mojo faster than 1970's scratchiest acrylic in the ugliest color you can imagine?







I had wound this skein into a pretty cake. As I was knitting, it was getting harder and harder to pull the yarn from the center. In an effort to pull out the problem so I can fix it, I had to pull half of the middle out. It's a tangled mess. I don't know if my Lenores are meant to be. sigh

I worked on detangling it for awhile, but then I got frustrated. So I cast on Tulip Baby Cardigan #3 for a friend who's having a baby in May.

Oh, I finished Ingenue, but still have to block it. Hopefully I'll have some FO pics soon.

And because I can't resist. Here are my nephews, taken at the park.



Aren't they cute? They're very sweet boys.

I hope you're knitting is making you happy!

I'll raise you two cowls and a dumpling.

I have some FOs that I haven't shared with you. Two were part of the Feel Like a Floozy KAL my knitting group did back in January. Finishing what we cast on with wild abandon wasn't in the rule book, but it is likely that I will eventually finish them all except for one. I frogged the Toasty fingerless gloves. They were knitting up too small. I'm not sure if I'll use the same yarn, or look for something else in my stash. I do want to make myself a pair, but now that spring is here it isn't urgent.





Project: Tamarind Cowl
Yarn: Sundara Aran Silky Merino in Ruby Port
Neddles: KnitPicks Options US Size 7
Start: January 2, 2009
Finish: January 10, 2009
Mods: I only did two repeats of the pattern instead of three because I didn't have enough yarn. I used up the remains of Sundara that I had used for my Shetland Triangle Shawl. I can't think of a better use for it than to be wrapped around my neck. Even though it's shorter than the pattern, it still covers my neck to keep me warm.









Project: Dumpling Bag
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky
Neddles: KnitPicks Options US Size 17
Start: January 7, 2009
Finish: February 22, 2009


Another of my Floozy knits was the Dumpling Bag. This bag is so cute. Why don't I felt more? It's so fun to see the transition from oversized knitted bag to cute little felted dumpling. I knitted this on size 17 needles because I didn't have any needles between size 11-17. The size 11s were too small. I figured if I came out with a bigger dumpling, no problem. But I left it in the wash too long and it's actually a little smaller than the pattern. It's 9.5 x 4.5. The width is comaprable to the pattern, but it came out a lot shorter. Next time I won't leave it in the wash as long. I left it in for 20 minutes, so next time I'll check it at 10. Still, I think it's cute and I'm sending it off to my friend, Teresa, in Florida.

My next dumpling will be pink for Brooke (my friend, Traci's daughter) who will be twelve in May. I'm going to work on improving my dumpling skills. ;)




Project: Tamarind Cowl
Yarn: Malabrigo
Needles: KnitPicks Options US Size 7
Start: March 13, 2009
Finish: March 24, 2009
Notes: My bind-off made this very tight going over the head, so I took it out and bound off again very loosely. It was still kind of tight. Thanks to Mary for teaching me the ssk bind-off (knit two, ssk, knit one, ssk, to the end). It had the perfect amount of stretch to go over the head easily.

Coming home from Stitches with this beautiful Malabrigo, I decided to knit up another Tamarind Cowl as a belated birthday gift for my friend Becky. Becky is one of my very best friends. We've been friends since second grade (I was in second, she was in first). We were girl scouts together, took dancing lessons together, had sleepovers at each others house, etc. As we got older, we went to parties together and tried to alter our I.D.s so that we could buy alcohol underage (unsuccessfully, I might add). People would ask if we were sisters. We look nothing alike, but we spent so much time together that I think we acted alike. We've known all of the boys and men in each other's life and have been there for each other in good times and bad. I have no doubt that we will be friends for the rest of our lives.

And the verdict:






She loves it!



And just for old times....







Here we are in the 80's. Were we stylin' or what?

Love ya Beck!

Still alive and still knitting!

I started the year out with a bang blogging four times in two weeks, and then...well...and then it fizzled like leftover champagne on New Year's Day. Hope is not lost entirely for me to be a more active blogger. I think I will make it a personal goal to increase my number of posts this year comapred to last year.

Despite my absence, I have been knitting a lot. I finished my Le Slouch hat and the Tamarind Cowl. I hope to post some FO pictures soon.

My current focus is my Ingenue sweater. I love knitting this sweater. I think it's the combination of falling hard for the Brooks Farm yarn I am using (color and knitted fabric) and the elegant simplicity of the pattern. It's not so simple that it's boring, but it's straightforward and it's knitting up quick.

I was cruising along and easily could have had the body done last week, but I set it aside for a few days. I needed to make a decision. Do I keep going and ignore the pooling of color that resulted from the waist shaping? Or do I rip it out and alternate two balls of yarn to prevent pooling? Here's a picture:



Sorry about the low lighting. When I used the flash it washed out the fabric and the pooling didn't stand out as much. Here's a closeup:



Yes, those are live stitches at the bottom. 184 to be exact. I decided this morning to rip back to where the waist shaping started and get rid of the pooling effect. I really love how this sweater is knitting up and I want to love the finished product. It's back on the needles with stitch markers in their proper places, waiting for me to continue on.

I went to Stitches West in February! I had a ton of fun and bought lots of beauties, which I'll post about soon.

Happy knitting!

Holy Crap!

Today, I learned my tolerance for traffic that is at a dead stop is roughly two and a half hours. I think this is not bad. I know this because that was my breaking point. That's when the headache came on and when I started cursing at people who were honking when there was clearly no place to go. That was when I nearly broke into tears when Jeff called and I was no further to getting home than I was an hour and half prior to that moment. Okay, I'm exagerating. I was a mile closer. Seriously. It took me an hour and a half to drive a mile east. It took me twenty minutes to drive two hundreths of a mile. I was still in a good mood when I decided to time how much progress I was making. This did include trying to find a better route, but there was standstill traffic everywhere I turned.

The first half of the day was lovely. I went to my knitting group, had lunch with Mary and went to Vroman's, one of the few independent bookstores left in our area. Everything went downhill from there. The freeway was shut down due to an overturned tanker. I think it might have been carrying gasoline. So I had to take the streets home from Pasadena to Claremont. Around 25 miles. Traffic everywhere. In the end, it took me three and a half hours to get home. Jeff's in it now from West LA. He's taking a different freeway, but you know what happens when one freeway shuts down, it creates havoc on the others. He called me at 7:30 pm (2 hours into his drive) and told me he thinks he'll be home by 9pm.

At one point, I was listening to my iPod, I texted Mary because I had to vent and I pulled out my knitting. All things one is not supposed to do while driving, but I would argue with an officer of the law if I would have been pulled over that I wasn't driving. I was sitting in my car. Thankfully, there was no way an officer was going to get anywhere near my car to see that I was doing all of those things. The knitting did calm me down a little.


I worked on Le Slouch. I'm just about ready to start my decreases.

I finished my Tamarind Cowl. I hope to take pictures soon to post.

Today is my boy, Cooper's, first birthday. Here he is in his new favorite napping place. Happy birthday Cooper! We love you!

BTW, thanks for listening. I needed that.

Today I was tempted again by malabrigo. Since I finished my dad's scarf, another skein waiting in front of the line in my stash has been calling out to me. "Pick me, pick me", it pleaded. What was I to do? I missed that buttery fiber running through my fingers.

So, as part of my knitting group's Feel Like a Floozy KAL, I decided to cast-on Gretel. It did not go well. I swatched three times before getting gauge. By then I just wanted to cast-on already. But no. I had to watch the tutorial on the tubular cast-on. Seems pretty straight forward. But then she suggested casting on with a straight needle before transferring the stitches to circulars. I had already pulled out a plethora of circulars and dpns, I didn't want to go digging through my straights.



Plus, I realized I would have to use the Magic Loop method since my dpns aren't long enough for the amount of stitches required. This meant I would have to watch another tutorial because I've never done the Magic Loop before. Forget it. I just wanted to knit. Gretel will have to be for another day. At least I know what size needles to use to get gauge. Maybe a short pair of circulars will work in lieu of the magic loop. I'll have to go needle diving again (another day).

Instead, I cast on Toasty in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.


These look so cozy. We've been having some chilly weather here in SoCal and it seem my hands and arms are always cold when I'm out and about. These should help.

I want to share a great yarn resource with you. Many of you probably already know about it, but for those of you who don't, meet Yarndex. It's an index of yarn information. You can look up a particular yarn and it will give you its weight, fiber content and shades that it comes in. I use it when I want to see if a yarn will work for a specific pattern, get ideas for other yarns I can use, or when I want to see the shade cards. It's a very useful site.

Stay tuned! Will Gretel make it into the Floozy KAL or will she be tossed aside for other enticing knits?