Adventures in Paradise

I had a nice trip to the island of Kauai last week. I attended a conference on Infectious Disease put on by UCSF that was quite good. I have many wonderful childhood memories of that island...summer camp at Camp Slogett, visiting uncle and playing in the irrigation ditches, plum picking and camping out with the kids when they were little. Since I was last there, there has been a huge surge in development and and great influx of people from all over the world and lots of changes.

For one thing, there is a lot less glass on Glass Beach. Most of it was just bits of brown and white glass which glistens like sand. The much sought after greens, blues, reds and acquas are getting rare. One of the victims of the world going to plastic.

A must do trip to Hanalei Strings and Things resulted in some yarn acquisition. Apparently I've fallen off my yarn diet. Oh well. The yarn person was not there the two days I was, only the music person but I loved this candy-colored merino silk combo so 3 skeins came home with me. She had some lovely hibiscus-dyed yarn as well, but I have too much sock yarn in stash as it is.

Worth a stop for sure. And very close to Tropical Taco which had nice Ono (like in the fish and the Hawaiian word for tasty) fish sticks and taro fries.

I took my Socks that Rocks Watermelon Tourmaline Medium weight yarn with me but it was very fussy about what it wanted to be. This yarn is becoming a problem!!! I did manage to finish up a truncated version of Wooly Wormhead's Trekking in some handspun. The pattern calls for 18 inches of slouch and I only had 8 inches. It still slouches a bit, and is a beanie with the brim rolled up. Just by chance the only dark blue strip was in the CO edge...and random good thing:)

I finished these socks before the Kauai trip.
Pattern: 3x3 Cable with Moss Stitch by Charlene Schurch from Sensational Knitted Socks
Needles: size 1
Yarn: cabled yarn of handspun with Baruffa Cashwool. Overdyed with Wilton's cake dye in red, purple and blue.
Comments: I ran out on the second sock toe just as I started the decreases. DARN! I frogged back both toes and added another cable repeat, then overdyed some more yarn from my first attempt at spinning cabled yarn. Of course it was impossible to match the colors so the toes are more blue.

Another project finished before the trip
Pattern: Slip-Stitch Cowl by Valerie Zumwalt from Knit Noro: Accessories: 30 Colorful Little Knits
Yarn: Noro Aya and Silk Garden
Mods: This cowl was rather wide for my short neck and is definitely one-sided so I folded it in half and single crocheted the long edge together.

I attempted a Totoro Nook cover with some hand spun. It failed because of the mismatch in the yarn gauges which really accentuated the puckering of my poor two-color knitting technique. I knit it flat as intarsia in the round is still challenging for me, and the seams inside were very thick.

I finally finished my Quilt WIP. I ventured into Kaiumuki Dry Goods and red binding was suggested. I think is really jazzed things up. In the end I quilted in the ditch and left the dark squares empty.

Kauai, The Garden Isle.

Shipwreck Beach

Waimea Canyon

Happy Leap Year!