Yarn Pron for 2010

The New Year here is still 7 hours away. The sky is rather like a black and white movie. There were a few good days for the visiting Obamas. They had the lovely Hanauma Bay to themselves. So far I have not been stuck in any traffic due to security.

The nice wet weather has made my patio sprout. I have mixed feelings about power washing, fungicides and weed killers, and I rather love the green so there it is. It's part of the ebb and flow of the seasons in my little world.

















The mailman's last delivery of the year brought me my Webs order. What a lovely man!



Included in the mosaic: 1. Ultra Alpaca, Redwood Mix 2. Noro Silk Garden lite 3. Plymouth Baby Alpaca, two different shades of red for next year's Red Scarf Project. 4. Madeleinetosh Worsted, Baltic 5. Red Mystery Yarn, destashed by durabledora 6. Beloved Beaverslide, Catbird heather, Christmas gift from my boys.

Catbird heather is earmarked for Central Park Hoodie. Hopefully Chris will be able to find time in her busy life as mom to join Kim and me for a KAL. I really should swatch, sigh. I think I'll do the viking back variation and go for a zipper closure. Anyway that's what the plan is so far. I really love the pocket on Rogue so I'm thinking about a pocket, too.

So I've got my knitting set for the New Year!

As for the store, I may shut down for a while. I learned the hard way one must get the money up front for the special requests, sigh, and I'd rather be knitting:)

Here's to a great 2010!

2009, Coming to the End

I started thinking about this post with a list of rants and whines, things that I want to let go with the end of this year. Either my memory is going or the list was quite short. So...I think I'll ruminate on the list of good things and keep it to myself.

I stopped by the folks es house this am to try and catch their psycho cat Kiko in action with her plastic bag. So far all the toys I've brought for her have been a bust, so I thought she would like a nice Foodland bag. But...she only seems to like this bag from Ruth Chris. She's either very snobby or it's that steak smell, or some other cat reason that I can't fathom.

Kiko and her plastic bag
Originally uploaded by acornbud

I took a plunge and decided to decorate my cell phone. Never mind that it's due for an upgrade and I still don't understand how to turn of the speakerphone. I searched high and low for Totoro decal to no avail, so Hello Kitty won by default.
Perhaps for the New Year I can read the manual and figure out the speakerphone thing instead of accosting total strangers and asking them to turn it off. When my techie devices (ASUS Netbook, Palm TX and Razr) die or if they hold out until I turn the six-0(mg)I will get a droid.

In the FO department there is Raccoon the Afghan. I went crazy after falling in love with Sirdar Foxy for the gnome beards and knit this afghan for my 2 year old niece. It was a very mindless knit, starting with 3 stitches, knitting in garter stitch and increase one at the beginning of every row until I was on the 6th skein, then knitting two rows, and the decreasing one at the beginning of every row until 3 stitches left. I follow directions from blogless deborahduck on Ravelry. She used some 30 skeins and made more then one! I'm so not worthy!Size 11 needles, BTW.

Christmas Eve

The gang got together with the Gnomes and me to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Butternut Squash Totoro is filling in for one Chibi who is off in search of a White Christmas.








For you see, it's just the usual green Christmas here in Hawaii.









Unless you count these caterpillars in black and gold munching on the crown flower plant.

I thank all of you blog friends who have enriched my life experience and inspired me with your creativity and generosity. Life long and prosper!

Knitting on Maui

Leaving Oahu I was lucky enough to have a great view of the inside of Diamond Head crater.

One of my un-retired former co-workers went to a CME meeting in Wailea on Maui so I decided to tag along. How else could I enjoy a half price luxury hotel? It was most relaxing!

I got some reading done. I brought along Julie and Julia, but it wasn't as engaging to me as Sookie Stackhouse. I have found them easy, mindless reads. I think I have four more to go to finish the series.

I also knit more Safed Leaves. The sock yarn ones are on size two, STR medium weight. The largest one is left over Fleece Artist Scotian silk on size 7. I lost count on my decreases on one of the small leaves so it's a bit lopsided but that's quite alright.













Another FO is by Nancy Fry, Twilight Bella's La Push knit hat. The Ultra Alpaca was too soft and silky for this pattern so it came out rather small. The Alpaca is very stretchy. It's a free pattern on Ravelry. I will have to make another with a yarn that has better stitch definition..




















My second snail hat seems to be the same color as my first one. I thought it was a different colorway. Oh well. It's still a fun knit and of the course Noro makes everything all right!


















In between all this knitting, I also had a wonderful Sunday upcountry with friends, touring the lovely castle in the sky he is building on 16 acres and admiring the outstanding sunset over West Maui mountains and Lahaina. I love checking out the amazing fruits and flowers that grow on the side of Haleakala. I also met a variety of cats of kids.

I got to hunt for some Maui specialties...The cinnamon roll French Toast at Ruby's, Krispy Cremes (for the Landcaster, of course) and Guri Guri from Maui Mall where I just also caught this Totoro hanging around.

















Four nights at the Kealani and the sun setting over Molokini with Kahoolawe in the background...I love my Hawaiian vacations:)

Felted Bowl and part 2, Snickerdoodle Mystery

felted bowl
Originally uploaded by acornbud

Pattern: from the book One Skein
Yarn: Hand spun on drop spindle, roving gifted to me by the Akamai knitter. Thanks Opal!

Blogless Sandy who inspired me to knit the gnomes, also inspired me to make this bowl and it is the perfect way to use up my little balls of hand spun. The felting evened out that the thick and thiness of my yarn and melded into a very nice color. My yarn is still not very consistent, but it's much less over spun. The bowl still drying, but Totoro is trying it out. I think it will be his new home.


I've been all about the little knitted projects lately. Not much into sewing. I'm comtemplating on yarn for Central Park Hoodie...I'm pretty sure it will be Beaverslide, but what color? Shall I just order the new color cards or just "chance em".

Part 2: What makes a snickerdoodle a snickerdoodle?


Last year I made snickerdoodles for the first time and they spread out way flat. This year they are round and puffy. So what makes a snickerdoodle and snickerdoodle and not just a sugar cookie? Is it the cinnamon? These are maple snickerdoodles. Mine don't look like the Closet Cooking ones. They taste pretty good though, and in the end, that's what really matters.

Red Scarf Project

red scarf mosaic
Originally uploaded by acornbud

I only had 1.2 skeins for Cascade 220 Superwash in this wonderful Cranberry Red when the call went out for more Red Scarves.

Read more on Norma's Blog.

I loved the pattern stitch from the free Hedgerow Mitts (pattern by Amy Ripton, inspired by Jane Cochran)

Longtail CO 24 stitches. (3 pattern repeat + 4 +2).

Set up row: K1(P4K2) across,K4, end slip last stitch with yarn in front (as if to purl)

From here on slip the last stitch of every row as if to purl, and knit the first stitch of every row through the back.
Row 2: (K2, P1, K1, P2) across, end K2, P1, K1
Row 3: (P1, K1, P2, K2) across, end P1, K1, P2

The pattern looks different but nice on both sides.

After a soak this scarf is drapey and very long but relatively skinny due to the size 10 needle.. I spied a mistake! Too late to fix. Chalk it up to “depth” of the handmade vs machine made item, lol.


(I hope this pattern has not been published somewhere, I didn't research it much)