Spring... Summer?

We had spring for about 3 days and the WHAM-O all of a sudden it was over 80°! So yesterday and today were pretty freaking hot, but it's fun having a mini summer :) It's supposed to cool down and maybe rain tomorrow, but that's ok... it is only April, after all.
Last weekend I worked at my friend's house and she has a cherry orchard. Cherries are in full bloom right now, so I finally got to see hers with flowers. They are beautiful, but I really do love pink more than white, so I can't wait for the apples to bloom next month! More amazing than the flowers, though, is the sound the bees make. It's a really amazing feeling to be standing in the middle of thousands of bees, even right next to them, and know that you'll have to REALLY piss them off to be stung. They're so excited about the flower :)




She and I also went for a little hike on the Sage Hills trail. I didn't really get any good pictures, but it was such a nice hike.
I have really been knitting, too. I'm knitting some heavy weight socks, but I'm soooooo sick of them. So I started knitting Ripple. Pandorasslave gave me a bunch of single skeins of purple yarn. They go together really well, so I added one more purple yarn I already had and knit the squares of the pattern cycling the different colors. I just started the ruffle edge and I'm really liking it.

Aircarft Carrier

My brother is in training with the Naval Shipyard to become some kind of Nuclear Engineer (it has a special name which I of course forgot as soon as he told me) and over the last year he's been sent to work on a couple of aircraft carriers. Basically the shipyard needs guys trained in working on the nuclear system on aircraft carriers, but until right now there hadn't been any there, so he had to go first to San Diego and then to Everett. Now the ship he worked on in Everett is at the shipyard, so I think he will continue to work/learn on it.
Last Thursday the USS Abraham Lincoln had a family day cruise, so I got to see what they're really like! It's definitely huge, but I think I had an image of something unfathomably large, so it actually didn't seem quite as big as I'd expected. Nonetheless, the flight deck is 4.5 acres!
Some specs about the Lincoln:
Commissioned: November 11th, 1989
Length: 1,092 feet
Height (keel to mast): 206 feet, 6 inches
Breadth at flight deck: 257 feet, 5 inches
Propulsion: 2 nuclear power plants (this is the part my brother works on)
Anchors: 2 at 30 tons each
Anchor chains: 1,082 feet, each link weights 385 pounds
Complement including air wing: almost 5,500
Loaves of bread baked daily: 600-800
Haircuts given daily: 250
We got to watch an airshow from the flight deck. It was no Blue Angels air show with colored smoke and fancy flying formations - this was strictly a navy air show. They did Top Gun style fly-bys and touch downs no more than 30 feet from where we were standing! It was incredibly loud, so I didn't take a ton of pictures...
I'm pretty sure it goes without saying that I did not knit last Thursday :)
In line to get on the ship before 0500

Flight Deck approximately 0600 - looks like it goes on forever!

Mikaela, Yvonne, Mom, Me on the flight deck

Mom looking through the giant binoculars

The Olympic at about 0730. Coast Guard boats paced us for the entire trip.

Really high above the flight deck

Framed Olympics and Coast Guard boat

Me holding a giant gun. This was supposed to be my war face, but I kept giggling. Looks like the gunman thought it was funny, too. Don't expect this ever again.

A few 385lb chain links

Lots of people observing the mountains through the giant elevator door (the cover outside is one of the plane elevators)

Watching one of the planes fly by for the first time

Port Angeles

Fort Casey

Leaning into the wind on the flight deck when we were cooking along (maybe 20 knots? I don't know). Mom missed the memo about leaning into the wind and looks like she's going to blow over. Clark is a much better reference. It felt like we we hiking up hill just to walk to the end of the flight deck (which remained flat) in the wind.

one of the 3 tug boats that guided the massive carrier back into port

Flowers!

The first cherry blossom of the spring :)

Product Knitter

In the great debate of product vs. process knitters, I'm decidedly a product knitter. I also have a fairly short attention span (which in the world of non-knitters may actually be considered a fairly long attention span considering how long it takes to complete even the smallest of projects...). That means I stick to small projects or big projects with small parts that seem like major accomplishments with the completion of each one. Now I don't wonder why I love knitting socks and hats so much :)
I made another hedgehog yesterday. They are so fast that there is no question that they provide instant gratification. This one is going to my coworker to put in her son's Easter Basket. I love that idea! Might have to implement it for my own kids someday. He's drying in the tub after making a couple of trips through the washer.
I also started Tessa's hat. She bought yarn while we were in CA and said she wanted a slouchy hat (as confirmed this morning, a really slouchy hat). It's really fun to knit. I'm working seed stitch which I don't think I've ever done! I love the look and might replace some otherwise-would-be stockinette projects with it.


Drew is now in Glendive, MT preparing to fish for giant prehistoric fish. I got some Regia to make him a nice pair of thicker socks. I also had him pick a project and yarn for it before he left - he picked some Pagewood Farms sock yarn in "Forrest Camo" and asked me to make a hat. I thought about doing his hat in seed stitch, too, but I found a diamond pattern that I might even like better.
Finally a quick note about how to take care of non-machine washable socks:
Fill the sink with cool soapy water (Woolite isn't the best, but it's what I've got so I use it, you can also use shampoo or a fancy extra mild no-rinse-required soap designed for washing your extra delicate items)
Put your socks in the water and let them soak a while. I usually forget about them, so they soak at least 30 minutes, but I don't think it's really necessary for them to be there that long!
Squish them and swish them just enough to knock out some of the dirt.
Drain the water.
Refill the sink, but don't add any more soap.
Let your socks soak a few more minutes (I usually forget about them on this step as well...).
Squish them and swish them again.
If the water is clean, then drain the sink, squish out most of the extra water (don't wring!), and hang them to dry.
If the water isn't clean, repeat the refill-soak-drain steps until the water is clean.
Here are some all lined up like sardines looking clean

Hand dying and a New Knitter

Ah, finally! Getting out the pictures of our foray in dying yarn. Kate and I had a blast in her kitchen, but realized that outside might be better option in the future :) It's a pretty messy project and we did our best to keep her house from turning rainbow colors. I think there might be a yellow spot on the floor or a blue spot on the counter... Here we go:
We do look a little like Mad Scientists... or Michael Jackson.



Then the yarn went in and we felt more like mad scientists! The yellow orange is kettle dyeing - basically put yarn in hot water, pour on the dye and let it soak in for about an hour. The jars w/ forks sticking out are, uh, some other kind of dyeing where you put different colors in the different jars and let the yarn soak up the colors. We didn't put the jars over heat, though we should have. I think it would have set the dye more evenly and helped it wick up the yarn. Instead we pushed the white bits down into the colors to force some of the dye on, those sections just aren't as bright.


And check out the newest knitter to the Brandon family!

Mikaela said that if I were knitting the entire time we were in CA that she might be bored and wishing for something to do. I had nothing to do in forcing her, she asked me to teach her :) She's got an awfully wide Lamb's Pride worsted scarf going there. I told her to cast on a few too many stitches, but it will be really nice for next winter. I only hope that she finishes it and feels the sense of accomplishment, I don't believe she'll be the obsessed knit blogging type that I am, but I love that she asked to learn a bit about it.
She tried to hide the evidence here, but you can see a bit of yarn stuck to the couch :)

And just for fun, we got to feed the birds! Drew and I skied at Stevens Pass yesterday and the Camp Robber birds were out in force trying to steal lunches... so we fed them some of ours.

I'm not dead yet!

I feel happy! And I have been knitting.

I went for a visit to San Jose to visit family and of course couldn't resist buying some yarn no matter how much I told myself I wasn't going to. It wasn't a huge purchase, fortunately. Just some yarn I'm hoping my friend will love enough to want to trade it for some of her yarn and this.

It made this totally wild scarf and I LOVED knitting it! I only really like the rainbow ladder yarn in the detail, so I left it with Grandma because she really liked it.

I guess it has been quite a while since I posted last, but not for lack of knitting. See?



I shipped off the gloves to Michael this morning. I also sent a hat to a friend, but it's part of the secret knittah project, so no pics for a while.
The gold thing is going to become a beach cover up for the recycled art show at work.
The hat beginning is the remake of the chemo hat that didn't work out the first time.
In other news Kate & I did some dying a few weeks ago and I taught my sister in law to knit, but I will put pictures of that up next time. Might get a bit much if I did it all right now!

Hey Cupcake

We are having a gala w/ our symphony concert tonight and the members were asked to bring some "sweet treats." Since I love baking mini cupcakes I'm totally in! I haven't gotten to experiment enough w/ icing, so I went to town making little music notes on each one! I had leftover lemon butter cream from the last time I baked cupcakes, so I whipped up some chocolate icing to frost them w/ then put the notes on that. I just hope they are small enough that you don't get a weird taste of lemon w/ the chocolate. But if they do, oh well! I'm sure people will love them since they're completely adorable :)

My cupcake book also has a recipe for making rolled fondant and petal past. In the future I need to test those for really making sugar toppings. They require liquid gelatin, though, which my little grocery store down the street almost definitely doesn't have! I did find that my new tea strainer doubles really well as a sifter. I've been trying to find ways of not using a sifter since I neither have one nor a place to put one if I got one... The tea strainer method is a bit slow, but gets the job done! It's not like I'm making mini cupcakes for an army anyway.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sleigh ride

Flowers & Wine

Almost Valentines Day!

I wanted to make a dress for going out on Valentine's Day w/ Drew :)
Here it is:



Pattern: New Look 6865
View: E
Size: 12
Mods: none
I really wanted to make a gathered neck, puffy raglan sleeve, sack dress and it took a little while to find this pattern. Glad I did! Despite it being completely shapeless it's exactly what I wanted :) Now I just need to get a nice big black belt. I'll wear it with my nice black knee high boots and tights.
We are going on a sleigh ride and out to dinner, so I just hope I don't get too cold!

I may die of Foot-in-Mouth Disease, but I hope not.

Sometimes when I'm reading blogs and talking to people I start thinking that they are snarky and sarcastic all the time. And when I'm reading things or talking to them it's all really funny, so then I think it's totally ok to be like that all the time. The truth is very likely that they are not like that all the time, but only in the moments that I happen to commit to memory. This leads me to my next point. I should not use examples of various moments created by many different people strung together to create an acceptable attitude for myself.
Note to self: less snark, more romance, lightheartedness, and a grasp on reality.

Ok, that said (necessary or not), it has little to do with knitting. Sorry! And I have no new pictures.
Good news. I'm in the middle of Odessa and it's SOOO much better for that yarn than the Pi thing was! Pi would probably work really well in a solid wool which is decidedly not what I'm knitting with at the moment. I hope to finish the hat over the weekend or on Monday in order to get it on its way to the recipient. I'm not going to hand deliver it or even mail it. I'm going to send it with our Symphony manager since she goes for visits regularly.

Chemo Hats

Mikael's hat is done and looks as good as purple and gold can. I think he'll love it. I really like how the brim folds up and stays - we can thank the cotton for that. Might have to have Kris dye some more and make one for myself :) Wonder if she can handle crimson and gray?
Mom is going to give Mikael's mom the hat whenever she sees her next, but she's not sure when that will be. So hopefully soon I'll be able to report what he thinks.

I received the yarn for Sarah's hat. I was really hoping that it would be more tropical looking, but it's not quite what I had hoped; beautiful yes, just not what I'd hoped.
I started knitting the Pi Chemo Cap from Elann for this, but the cotton/bamboo blend shows all of the increases too distinctly; even with the busy yarn the increases still looked awful. Plus the construction was too weird for me. I like to gradually increase the crown of a hat to create a pattern or make them hard to see. Anyway, I'm now using Odessa by Grumperina. (You can find it on Ravelry, but it used to be on MagKnits and that doesn't exist anymore)

Winter is still here

How to tell if your skin is dry:
flaky skin
brittle nails
cracking lips
Excema
Kinda sounds like side effects of drugs advertised on TV! I only know they're not since I'm not taking any of them...

Causes:
dry winter air
heaters recirculating said dry air

Solutions:
drink lots of water
lotion
boil water or use a humidifier
become a Snowbird and move temporarily to Florida

It's been cold and dry and almost without snow for all of January. It's getting old! Someday it will be June!

Sunday Crafternoon

I busted out the sewing machine yesterday. Finally! I made that needle case and I love it! It fits all of my needles perfectly and has just the right number of pockets for different sizes. The top pockets are too close to the top for needles, so they can hold other notions. I didn't end up using the brown floral, but I'm totally in love with the green and white and the birds! THE BIRDS!


I just started the Husky hat for Mikael. Kris did an awesome job dying and it is going to work perfectly for the pattern. I'm just doing a basic hat pattern from My Knitter's Handy Guide to Patterns. The colors seem to be stacking alternately with almost no pooling or overlap of the same color - maybe less than 5 stitches at a time.

If these pictures are terrible, I'm sorry. The sun is out and it's been in hiding for the last EON, so I had to acknowledge it.

Booya!

Fabric!! And it's adorable. Not sure what I'm going to do w/ the owls yet, but I had to have it :)

And I'm going to use this floral to make the needle case. I'm going to try and incorporate the other florals in, too, but I'm not sure yet how it's all going to come together.

Since I am home during daylight, I have this for you, too!

I haven't gotten the hat yarns yet. I expect the yarn to come from Kris tomorrow and the Etsy yarn to come early next week. They should be quick to knit and hopefully ready by next weekend or early the following week.