Tagged Again

candsmon tagged me again!
1, What is your all time favorite yarn to knit with.
This is a tough one. I truly loved knitting Clapotis with Noro's Silk Garden. Lush is like butter. Way back when, I was enraptured with Lopi, though I never made anything with it. Another one that I loved was Henecke's Heaven Sent. It was so soft and buttery. My niece has made good use of the scarf I made with it, and it must taste good because Buddy, her cat, ate part of it.
2, Your favorite needles
I'm not too picky, but the after years of knitting with aluminun, the bamboo had a good feel to it.
3, The worst thing you've ever knit
Hmmm. It must have been the pink socks for my dad. Surprise surprise. He didn't wear them.
4, Your most favorit knit pattern.
I love cables. I knit this sweater for my sister and niece quite a while ago. I don't know if they ever wore their sweaters, but I had fun making it.

5. Most valuable knitting technique
Kitchener stitch.
6. Best knit book or magazine
I love Interweave Knits and books with celtic knits and guernseys. I don't know why someone in Hawaii would want to knit sweaters that are for North Sea fishermen, but the cables fasinate me. Classic British Knits is a book I can look at over and over.
7. Your favorit knit-a-long
Without a doubt, Socktober! Thank again, Lolly for setting it up and Chris for getting me inspired.
8. Your favorit knitblogs (in no particular order)
candsmon
glampyre
Aloha and Oreos
LollyKnitting Around
grumperina
9. Your favorite knitwear or designer
see number 6.
10. The knit item you wear the most
I wear my scarves when I go to the Mainland in winter. Here in Hawaii, I take Clapotis to the movies to snuggle up in.

Puanani you are tagged!

Cleaning up

While Lush is on the needles, I don't seem to have much to say! Is it time to "stay down" ala candsmon?

Cleaning is a perpetual task for me. I suppose if I put everything away after I was done with like my mom kept telling me, things wouldn't pile up and become that trademark clutter of mine. Oh well. Much as I aspired to live life out of a backpack and have a Spartan home, I feel better with a little chaos around me.

Periodically though, I have to clean out. When the harddrive runs slow, it's time to purge all those never used files, adware and defrag. So I'm cleaning out files on my drives and as it always happens, I run in some mp3 hiding in a strange folder. This one was just sitting on the desktop in plain site in a folder called Mix. Apparently I was going to to put this on a disk at some point.

And this is how it happens. I am now sidetracked into listening to Crosby Stills and Nash. Their music figured into a great time of my life-that 11 years I spent on the Mainland getting higher education. Aah, memories. I lived for a while in a house on Harrison Street in Denver, Colorado. I met a some fascinating people there.

I started the second front of Lush Cardigan while waiting in line for my movie, Mirrormask and it is going quickly. The sleeves next! Then what? I feel a yarncrawl coming up unless I can do the sensible thing and knit something from the stash, heh....Well, could happen :P

20 Things About Me

I was tagged by candsmon

20 things about me? Feel free to take a nap before getting to the end;)

1. I love Totoro. Okay I admit I sometimes feel guilty that at my age I still play with dolls, but hey, at least it keeps me off the street!
2. I jumped on the trampoline for fun until age 40
3. I majored in Chemistry in college and loved Organic Chemistry which was a lot like cooking class. I singed my eyebrows off and got quite a scare allowing potassium metal to come in contact with water with explosive results. Potassium is like that, and I’ll never forget it!
4. I used to fantasize that I was going to marry George Harrison.
5. I have never left America. Nope, not even Canada or Mexico. Some think Hawaii is a foreign country.
6. I love movies, especially science fiction, samurai and weird stuff.
7. I have serial addictions. Knitting, sewing, quilting, basket making, stamping, jewelry making, and movie conversions, just to name a few.
8. I have a fireplace in my house, even though I live in Hawaii.
9. I live in the house I grew up in and my folks live next door.
10. All my sisters live on the Mainland. I have 3 of them, and no brothers. I have 2 sons who live with me.
11. I lasted two weeks working in the pineapple cannery. I apparently cannot tell a choice from a fancy pineapple even with the 15 minute training I got. It held me up trying to decide which can to put the fruit in especially during my 3 am shift. I have much admiration for those that could do it.
12. It came as quite a shock to me that my house gets dusty. Apparently my mother was such a premier housekeeper, she hid all the dust from me.
13. I learned so much from my kids. Growing up I was lead to believe parents had everything to do with how kids turned out.
14. Okay, very sad to admit, I was not the breastfeeding champ of my family. The poor starving child was so grateful to get a bottle of formula, he slept through the night. Talk about guilt!!
15. When I was in grade school I thought if I taught myself to be left handed I could change my personality.
16. I hiked into Havasu Canyon with a backpack on my back and made it out to tell the tale.
17. I went to college in Kansas. I saw snow there at age 18 for the first time in my life and it took me 3 years to find out how to stay warm. In retrospect a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was hooked on cotton, and didn’t give wool a chance. Wool is so warm and dyes into such beautiful colors!
18. I recently got divorced after 25 years of marriage.
19. I own 3 sewing machines and one serger. Since I ran off with yarn, they are all very neglected.
20. I did my Family Practice Residency in Kentucky. I made some very good friends had wonderful experiences there, like rafting down the Rock Castle River, Shakertown, visiting Bybee pottery, driving the horse country, the best peach ever, fireflies and John Hartford concerts.

Not Just Socks

Final Fantasy!

Houston, we have lift off! All two of my Socktober socks are done! I named them Gone with the Wind since I read the Go With the Flow pattern chart wrong and they are nice fall colors. I still have some of the yarn left, so I'm going to try and make the booties from the Not Just Socks, book. Maybe I'll knit a bit on Lush. Those #1 and 2 needles drive me crazy. The results are great, though.

Lolly, the illustrious creator of Socktober is in Hawaii and candsmon joined her for some yarncrawling. I hope the weather behaves the rest of the time she's here in Hawaii!

Socktober Sock, One down and one to Go!

My first sock came out way too small. This one came out a little too, big, but close! Now on to number two. I don't know whether to name this sock Mango Foot or Gone with the Wind.

I am not letting that Lush distract me, even though I used my new swift to wind it all up into balls. I got the swift from julipoolies on ebay. It is not that pretty like the ones made out of wood, but very functional. It plays well with my ball winder.

I love the beautiful socks everyone is knitting. Lolly started something really fun.

Socktober Adventure

Sigh. Anyone who has knit Go With the Flow can see, that I did not pay attention to the chart and have knit all the stitches between the pukas (holes) instead of having ribbing between them. I discovered this after I had knit the whole leg and had to frog part of the turn. I contemplated what to do. Frog the whole thing and start over? Pretend I liked it that way. Make jokes about how I'll just go with the flow?

I remember when my son was young he would often wear his T shirt inside out. Now I know it wasn't because the right side was dirty. I had only sisters growing up so having boys was quite an adventure. Someone pointed out to me that some men go around with their T shirts inside out, too. Well I decided to ask my son why? He said very emphatically, "I like it that way."

I suspect the real reason he wore it inside out was that he either didn't notice it and was miffed that I would mention it, or that he was too lazy to turn it inside out. I hope he didn't really like it that way.

One of the great things about crafting is that mistakes sometimes turn out okay. I think the sock looks okay the way it is :) The yarn makes the sock fun. I only hope it fits.

I have lost the label for this yarn. I can't even remember if it had one when I got it. It was sheer impulse buying! Like that swift I just bought.

I blame work for making me read the pattern incorrectly. It couldn't be my vision, heh.

Socktober

Lolly is celebrating sock knitting this month and I decided to join in on the fun. I started sock number 1 last night, and although I pledged to knit a gauge swatch , I didn't. I couldn't wait to see what the pattern would look like. Not much sock yet to tell, but the colors are outrageous!

Happiness is Totoro

Two more Totoros done, except for noses and mouths. I think Totoro #1 is still my favorite. The large acorns are a gift from my traveling sister. The tops are real acorn caps and the body is covered with acorn leaves...Gotcha! If mangos grow on mango trees, and guava's grow on guava trees, why to acorns grow on oaks?

I tried two different ways of knitting in the bib front. The first with 3 separate balls, the next carrying the grey behind. Unfortunately the second method caused the body to shrink and the turn edge was difficult to tighten up and left lines. Oh well.

I used CascadeYarns Pastaza to knit Totoro and will make some blue ones, too! It is a wonderful blend of wool and llama I purchased at Yarn and Friends here in Honolulu.


After reading my little mochi and following her link to these, darn if I didn't order them. They are so cute. Hmmm, now who do I know that needs cupcakes?

Lush Cardigan

The great thing about flying is that it is a great time to knit. The flight to Maui is only 30 minutes so I couldn't knit much in the air, but since I'm always paranoid about the overbooking thing, I usually check in way early. I never flew Island Air before and I didn't check on what kind of plane I was going in, but it is a jet prop and quite small. That equalled small number of passengers, smaller terminal, and plenty of time to knit :) The plane flies lower and slower, so I had a lot more time to enjoy the scenery. The weather was glorious on both Maui and Oahu, so there was lots to see.

I wound one ball of Lush before leaving, by hand, 'cuz it's so "relaxing" and it is a very easy lace pattern.
I knit a couple of Totoro's, experimenting with knitting in his white chest, but will have to post photo's later when they get their eyes. Right now they are blind :( Knitting in Totoro's white front proved challenging, as the changes showed up as lines on the front. I would like to knit him in the round but, duh, how can that be done without adding new balls every row.

The south side of Maui is a different world. There are huge million dollar houses, lots of condos and many transplanted, part time residents. The traffic has quintipled and although there are lots of new roads, the traffic gnarls up in places. Oprah Winfrey has bought a ton of land in Pukalani and Hana. Sitting on the beach and watching sunsets though, I can see why so many people want to live there.

Waaah, vacation is over, and I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Ramblings

Any other crafters with birds? keohinani pointed out that many knitters have cats while she has a yarn eating Rottweiler. I have one peach faced cockatiel and a green canary. Mr. Canary declined to be photographed as he was having a bad feather day. He is old and moulting, which always makes him self conscious. Since he got older, white feathers and all, he doesn't sing like he did, but still likes lettuce and celery.

The cockatiel loves to sit on my shoulder but also has a bad habit of chewing on anything shiny, like my necklaces. She destroyed two chains already. She likes walking around in the craft room finding pins and yarn scraps.

And of course I got fishies! Actually my son caught some tide pool fishes when he was five-ish (he's 21 now) and they are now sashimi size and living in a tank on my patio. I wonder what the lifespan of aholehole and manini is?

I'm off to Maui for a meeting tomorrow. It's been awhile. I loved going to Maui to visit my grandma when I was young. She was able to live at home alone until she was 96 and I miss her so. She made the worlds best Shoyu Chicken! From her I learned that a musubi should never be round (round ones are for funerals!) She also I had an interesting random way of cutting up her vegetables for nishime. I never asked her why. I read some where about it being a Zen thing, but maybe that's just the way her mom did it. She took me to the samurai movies when there were Japanese theaters in downtown Honolulu. Her favorite was Chushingura, a tale of loyalty and obligation that is a Japanese classic. I didn't really understand it as a child, but it has been remade many times and I finally got it.

Best Bead Show

The plan to purge stash and not acquire stash fell my the wayside, but the damage was not too bad, heh. Luckily for me, my partner in crime was on a time table so I only had a 1 1/2 hours.

The red "dice" beads I got from Silk Winds, and I quickly made the bracelet with charms I had, just to see how they would look. I'll wear it for awile since I miss the Peace I had to remove from my Mantra Bracelet. The beads are vintage trade beads, which I so dearly love.

I got the big honking shells because they were so pretty and I have a whole spool of brown leather cord they will hang well on.

I grabbed the turquoise nuggets because the color variations were so cool. I hung one on the Kumahimo leather cord I made at the Bead Gallery class I had. It is a rather short piece. Hmmm, I think I'll make some more of those cords.

The rest of the purchases were findings...ear wires, toggles.

There were some very yummy lampwork beads. I've considered learning to make them, but it requires fire. Ever since I set my hair on fire with that candle at the midnight Christmas candle service I've avoided fire, unless it's in the hibachi or Weber. Luckily the incident did not go as far as the Michael Jackson incident, but it was scary enough!

Totoro, First Attempt

This is my first attempt at knitting Totoro. I'll make his arms are little shorter next time, and will have to work out a good foot pattern. His eyes are a challenge because they are white with black pupils. I used ultrasuede and embroidery floss for this first go around. Ultrasuede is a not that easy to sew on, and I have a thing about glue, so I will either have to find sew on eyes or so other technique. Embroidery is not one of my skills! I will try felt for his white tummy, but I think I'll knit it in next time.

All and all for first attempt, I think he's pretty cute!

Innspiration from past issue of Piecework

I keep the May/June 1998 issue of Piecework because of this jaw dropping masterpiece of lace knitting. A woman named Bridget Rorem knit this wedding veil for her daughter. It is a great labor of love. It is knit of fine Merino wool spun in Italy, weights 8 ounces, and was knit on a size 000 circular needle. It took about a year. She knit in design patterns and words personal to herself and daughter. On the fourth side she knit in the last two lines of a poem by William Yates
"I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh".

I dug that UFO black lace shawl out, Hmmmm. Where did that pattern go?