double-knit moebius

I just found out that there are two World Wide Knit In Public days this year! Find out why at this link.

Also, if your access to the interwebs suddenly slows to a crawl at 10:00 AM PDT on Tuesday, 05/26/09… registration for Sock Summit opens then. (Are you coming?)

And, finally, Deb Accuardi of Mount Hood Fibers and the wonderful podcast At The Kitchen Table is starting a Community Sock Club. Participants need to be close to Portland, Oregon, because every other month there will be a meeting at Gino’s Restaurant for lunch, sock knitting, and a chance to meet the dyers, designers, and knitters. I was thrilled when Deb asked me if I would like to design a little sock for the club. Can’t wait, because it sounds like so much fun!

The picture is a second double-knit Moebius Klein bottle that I finished last month and gifted to a special friend. It felt too weird to have a blog post with no picture. So there you are!

Larissa Brown and Martin Brown, authors of the lovely book Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together are hosting a Barn Raising Quilt charity knitalong. During Sock Summit 2009 the finished works of art will be auctioned or raffled as a fund raiser for Doctors Without Borders.

The Barn Raising Quilt pattern is being offered free during the KAL. They are looking for volunteers to knit squares and then sew them together. This is a really fun, quick to knit pattern, and what better thing to do with all those bits of leftover sock yarn? Squares must be mailed in by June 9th, or local Portland knitters may drop them off at Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks.

You can find out more information on the Knitalong site, or on Ravelry in this discussion thread. (If you’re not on Ravelry yet… why not?)

Of course, the pattern is also available in Knitalong. If you have not had the chance to look at this book, I really encourage you to do so. Not only does it have 20 fun-to-knit projects, but it’s a warm, loving celebration of knitting together; how our knitting brings us closer; and how it connects us with other knitters near and far, past and present. It’s one of my very favorite knitting books.

So… #1 Son had this little mishap with his car (everyone is OK, car is not). Work sort of blew up into this massive amount of… well… work (go figure). There’s this little book thing that’s sort of taking over every spare minute of my waking life (and much of my sleep, as it turns out). And I’m frantically trying to get ready to teach two classes I’ve never taught before (or are at least in a new format) before the lovely Sock Summit organizers (bless them for taking that on!) email me and ask for stuff that I’m not ready yet to give them.

So… I guess it will come as no surprise that I’m sort of on hiatus here at PI. I mean, it’s kinda obvious that I’m not posting much. So I’m making the hiatus official. For the next three months, I will be posting on a very infrequent basis, and only when something special comes along that I really want to talk with you about. I am managing to tweet a bit, so feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I can be found as JudyBecker (I’m so clever with names, aren’t I?). I do try to check Ravelry every day. And the old e-mail in box is always open. I will return. I just need one part of my life to calm down just a little bit.

But today, I also have something special to tell you about!

And I’m doing that in the next post, so it doesn’t get mixed up with this one.

fossil tree

This flu thing… it really got me down, gentle reader. But I am finally on the mend, and heartily glad! Hopefully I will have energy now for little things like, well… blog posting. I was even too sick to go to my 40th 8th grade graduation, which bummed me out to no end.

And it’s been hard, you see, to talk about knitting. This project — can’t talk about it because it’s secret. And I can’t tell you about that project either because — it’s secret. And there’s a third project I can’t tell you about because (do I sound like a broken record?) — it’s secret. So I am having to wait until secret projects get finished and to their intended recipients before I can show them to you. And that makes for boring blogging.

I did go to the annual auction with my MIL a while back. But, alas, the economy held me back. I bid on only a few items in the silent auction this year, and I didn’t bid at all during the out-loud auction. Of all of the things I bid on, this little tree is the only one that I was high bidder. It was my favorite thing I bid on, so I’m glad it came home with me. All of the little leaves are pieces of petrified wood, and the base is a fossil ammonite. It makes my inner geek feel all warm and fuzzy.

blue Spirogyra

There is one secret project that I am able to show you. These mitts went to my friend L last Friday. She’s modeling them. She wears several rings, so gloves are out. But fingerless mitts just fit the bill. And she loves glittery, shiny things. I wish that the Glam Sock sparkles photographed better.

Yes, it really is that blue!

The Particulars:

• Yarn: Stitchjones Glam Sock (63% superwash merino, 20% silk, 14% nylon, 2% silver), 420 yds per 3.5 oz/100 g skein, in colorway Marine — I used a fraction of the total and have tons left.
• Needles: a pair of Addi Turbo 24″ circulars, US#3 (3.25 mm) and a pair of Addi Lace 24″ circulars, US#2 (3.00 mm)
• Pattern: Spirogyra by Lynne Vogel
• Modifications: none. Really.

the Alamo – or at least the church

You will remember, gentle reader, that a couple of weeks ago (less a weekend) I headed off, bright and shiny and finally (I thought) over the plague that had struck me down, along with many of my coworkers. I headed off for a little business trip to San Antonio. I have never visited the fair city of San Antonio, but I was looking forward to three days spent looking at the inside of some nameless ballroom in some nameless hotel watching a series of oh-so-spicy PowerPoint presentations on scintillating subjects that I won’t go into here.

Yeah. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I was well equipped. I took knitting with me: the Snake River #2 socks, which I knit on a fair bit and got up to the ankles on; and the Jub Jub Bird socks, which I totally ignored. I had hand-knit shawls with me, lest the conference rooms become chilly. I had plenty hand-knit socks with me, which turned out to be… overkill. I had very warm feet because the weather was glorious — 80 F and sunny. I ate every meal sitting outside, soaking up the warm rays and glad for a few days of spring. Although I was well prepared with various types of product, my hair grew to enormous proportions. Ah, well. I can forgive much for that kind of weather.

One night we made it to a place called Rudy’s for dinner. It bills itself as the worst bar-b-que in Texas. Whatever. I will admit to eating an enormous amount of chicken, brisket, ribs, sausage, turkey, beans, potato salad, and creamed corn, all shared by a dozen or so colleagues, and enjoying it very much. We ordered so much they gave us an entire loaf of white bread. (I have since learned that white bread is a necessary part of any barbecue. I don’t know why.) Rudy’s had the most amazing barbecue sauce – supposedly developed by Doc Holliday at the OK coral (can’t you picture this… Doc: hold your fire there, pardner, while I rustle up a mess of ma special recipe bar-b-que sauce. I’m feelin’ a might peckish... ) I tried really hard to figure out how to get some of it home. But, with bag check costing $15, I finally had to pass.

The hotel was quite far away from central San Antonio. I was disappointed by this, as I really wanted to see the Alamo. So I didn’t bring my camera. But one night there were buses to take us down to Riverwalk. Since that’s only a short way from the Alamo, I got to at least see the outside of it (it was closed for the night). I have to admit – pretty cool! With no camera, I had to be content with a shot from my iPhone.

Knitwit bangle

I arrived home and almost instantly came down with the plague again. Joy. On Monday I was supposed to go to the Dentist to get started on those two crowns I need on the teeth that were root-canalled just before Madrona (remember that?). I canceled the dentist appointment and went to the doctor instead. There I was informed that I have bronchitis and given prescriptions for antibiotics and a little something to help with the coughing so I could get some sleep.

All week, my days went like this: crawl out of bed… drink coffee, hoping to wake up a little; dial into work and stare at the screen waiting for coffee to kick in try to accomplish a few things; wonder if I really have to eat lunch and decide the instructions take with food are probably not kidding; eat the minimum lunch I think I can get away with; dial into work and try to accomplish a few things; skip dinner; go to bed.

The week wasn’t totally horrid, though. One day I found this bangle in the mail, and I was oh, so pleased! Isn’t this just the coolest thing you’ve ever seen? It’s an 8mm plastic, sliver-glitter-covered, knitting needle that’s been made into a bangle. These are made exclusively by Liana Kabel. The link goes to her Etsy shop, so you can order your own. Despite the long miles traveled – all the way from Australia – it arrived quickly and in perfect condition. Love it, love it, love it, and can’t wait to be well enough to wear it somewhere that people will actually see it!

could spring be far behind?

Although I did wear it outside today so I could take a pic with the sun making the glitter all sparkly and stuff.

I wore it outside without a coat on… and… I was barefoot. Yeah. I really wasn’t outside that long and I didn’t get chilled or anything. It was a bit cold on the old toes, but so nice to feel the earth under my soles. I’m a barefoot girl, no doubt about it. (I can vividly remember Mama giving me what-for because I took the garbage out across the back yard to the alley through two feet of snow barefoot. It didn’t stop me from doing it again.)

And this was what I saw on my cherry tree.

Yes, the camellia is blooming — poor, confused thing. It was supposed to bloom at Christmas, but snow and ice nipped it in the bud and only a few blossoms made it through. The crocus are blooming, too. And the daylilies and tulips are poking their little arms up.

Can spring be far behind?

First and foremost and always, I would like to thank Tina, Stephanie and Cat for the wonderfulness and amazement that is the Sock Summit teachers list. I am truly, truly humbled to be in such company.

I learned that I was teaching when Stephanie called me. I was on the ferry on my way to Friday Harbor. The ferry was in the middle of Puget Sound. If you’re not sure where that is, gentle reader, feel free to consult google maps. I’ll wait right here.

Notice how there’s a lot of water between Friday Harbor and, oh, just about anything else? Who knew that you could get cell phone service out there! But, as I calmly knitted on the ferry, chatting with a few other knitters, my phone rang. And it was The Yarn Harlot herself. And through the whole conversation I kept thinking… oh holy $@%* what if I lose this cell phone signal and hang up on the Harlot. Which, fortunately, did not happen. So I knew that I was teaching most likely. But I was sworn to utter secrecy. And I had no idea who else was teaching. And I was excited by the whole idea and it sounded really fun, in an unreal sort of way.

Then I saw the list.

And oh my! What a list! There’s a huge amount of sockerly and knitterly knowledge represented by that list. There are people on the list I value as friends. And people whose feet I would like to sit at and just soak up any tiny pearls of wisdom that might come my way. And people I would die to take a class from myself. And all are people who I admire a huge, huge amount. When all of the people on that list are gathered together in the Convention Center, I’m afraid that the fiberish energy will cause a rip in the space-time continuum and a wormhole will open and we will all be sucked into it and end up in either Star Trek or Firefly (hopefully the latter because I think they had better knitwear).

I gasped when I read that list. Because all of a sudden it started to feel real. Really real. And I started to feel sort of sick to my stomach.

And I thought that maybe I was over-reacting just a little bit. Because excitement and nerves usually do not make me throw up.

And then I realized that I was sick to my stomach because I was, actually, sick. Felled by the virus that is going around. Sick as a dog.

So I started knitting.

Harmonia's Rings

This is Harmonia’s Rings by Sivia Harding. It was a really fun, fast knit and kept me busy while I started down the road to recovery. If I look happy, it’s because I am. (Sorry for the blurry self-portrait, it is apparently possible, although perhaps not advisable, to take your own picture with your eyes close.) I love this cowl. It’s warm and cozy and just perfect.

Yes, my hair looks like that when it’s wet. It looks about the same when it’s dry, except expanded. What can I say.

The Particulars:

• Pattern: Harmonia’s Rings by Sivia Harding
• Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious Single Silk (50% Merino/50% Silk, 500yds/457m per 8 oz/226g hank) in colorway Bleck
• Needles: US #9 (5.5mm) from my Denise kit
• Modifications: I knit one extra stitch pattern repeat, with increases. Sivia is a tiny little slip of a thing. I, decidedly, am not.