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OK, OK, some of the pants from the back of my closet don’t fit anymore, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s the sweater I’m knitting, silly.

And if you don’t believe me, here’s the previous picture I took of it:

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it looks like some hoosier v-neck t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Be not afraid, I would never wear something like that in public with you. I would never put you in the situation of me asking “What do you think of my hand-knit sweater? It took me hours upon hours to complete” and you would say “… wow, it’s really… great.” Once I finish the body of the sweater I knit the sleeves on, and then I add a ribbed edging to the collar and bottom of the sweater. No worries. In the end it’s supposed to look like this:

A couple of observations:

1. Stockinette in the round for a sweater really is kind of boring
2. But at least it’s brainless and I can knit even while watching Lost
3. Knitting a sweater in one piece does get kind of heavy and unwieldy, I can understand why travelling knitters knit sweaters in pieces

Hey do you like the new della Q bag I’m keeping the sweater in?

Click here to see what’s for lunch today!

Thanks for the well-wishes on the blog-birth-versary! Just paid the renewals$! I guess I’ll keep it up for awhile :)

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I think hummingbirds are great. There really is something magical about them, don’t you think? I think I have a special connection with hummingbirds. They have shown up at unexpected times. I see and hear them when no one else seems to hear or pay attention them. Do you know what a hummingbird sounds like? It’s so unique! As much as I lamented having to leave our previous apartment with the garden that we dug by hand, grew from seed, and nurtured for food,

this new place has more hummingbirds. There is a bottlebrush tree in the backyard they seem to like and I always see and hear them zipping around. I decided to put up the feeder so we could watch them up close:

They found it within an hour or so. Sometimes I hear their “tzit…..tzit….tzit…” before I see them at the feeder. Maybe one of these days I will catch them on camera. Til then, I’ll enjoy them all to myself!

See this Wikipedia entry for instructions on making your own sugar solution for hummingbirds. Be sure to change it once a week or more!

And by the way, we tried to plant a garden at the new place, but the slugs ate EVERYTHING. There isn’t enough sun anyway. *sigh* Maybe someday…

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Hey! I missed the 1 year anniversary of my blog! Happy birthday blog! Sorry I don’t have anything exciting to show for it, but maybe in celebration of my first year or so of knitting and blogging, you can look at my completed knitting projects in the sidebar if you haven’t already. Now that the snowcamping excitement has passed I can get back to some knitting. That is, after I unpack and clean up all my backpacking gear.

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and had a great time!

Photo by Mark S.

I slept like crap because I was cold or hot and had to pee 4x a night, but the weather was amazing and I didn’t break anything, so 2 out of 3 isn’t bad! It was a great feeling to try something challenging & new and to enjoy it.

This was a two night backcountry skiing/snowcamping trip with the Sierra Club.
For the whole story, click here.

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I think it was warmer outside than it was in our snow trench. We were sleeping in a refrigerator! I didn’t sleep very well. We’re scrapping the snow trench idea on the next trip, stay tuned. You don’t believe me when I say it was warm? It was so hot on the hike out, one of our comrades was wearing shorts!

Guess I didn’t need to carry that gigantic down parka.
I have been making slow progress on my sweater, but I am too lazy to take a picture and upload it at the moment. For now you can just enjoy the view:

Click on the picture on the left to see the tiny people standing on Dewey Point.

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(view photo on Flickr to see notes)

Go! (not going to forget boots this time).
Ok now I have to go pick up the rented snowshoes!

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I went for a massage yesterday to enhance the circulation. I don’t know if that actually occurs, but it’s worth a try. If I’m convinced, that’s all that matters, right? It included a foot treatment that involved wrapping warm towels around my feet. She also used a warm neck pillow and peppermint oil (my favorite), hooray! Spafinder gift certificates are the *best* way to use those credit card points!!

I made banana bread:

Makes a tasty breakfast treat when traveling. From New Best Recipe by Cook’s Illustrated, but I used 1/2 wheat flour, added more bananas, added cinnamon.

I washed the raingear to renew water repellency and remove stink (enough stink is involved with backpacking, it is good to remove all traces before the start).

Possibly maybe I went a bit overboard with the toe-warmers:

Especially the full-foot ones. Considering I do have down booties this time. I wanted to see what they were like, though! My brain kept saying “just one more pair.” I think there are more hiding somewhere that I couldn’t find…

Tonight? I shop for moleskin and hot cocoa. Then, I pack.

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of scarves…

You’ve seen all of these scarves before, but here they are on their recipients. Receiving this picture across the miles put a smile on my face! The colors look amazing! And it’s good to know I’m helping keep the fambly warm.

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That’s what it’s been around here. Chilly and rainy. It is the rainy season, after all. Rain is good since that probably means snow in the mountains. We’re going snowcamping the next two weekends, so we need snow. There has been so little snow in the Sierras lately that I’m not sure we’ll have enough snow to dig a snow trench to sleep in. A snow trench is much warmer and quieter than sleeping in a tent. Our lightweight tent is very small, even for summer camping, so I can’t imagine it would be very comfortable wearing all kinds of winter clothing. But I’m *way* off topic here.

Since it’s been so chilly, my hands were getting cold knitting the sweater. These wrist warmers have been waiting patiently for almost a year to be completed. Click here to see a funny comment someone left on this one. I guess they had to be a necessity before I felt the urge to finish them. The color isn’t really thrilling me, but they sure are soft and warm (it’s Koigu, you know). I don’t even think they were intended for me at first, but hey, my hands were cold. The only other hand-knitted item I have to my name is the pair of Thuja socks. Oh and that Meema’s tote. And a garter stitch scarf. Moving right along…

Pattern: Hand/Wrist warmers (boy’s version) from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson
If you are cheap, you can get the pattern online from this “Canadian Living” magazine article.

Yarn: Koigu Kersti Merino Crepe, 100% wool

Needles: Two 8″ Clover plastic circular needles size 6 . They do make your hands a bit crampy, I’m sure you could magic-loop it or use two circulars, or double pointed needles.

Oh, and p.s., don’t leave these things sitting around a year, your gauge will really be off when you pick it up again. Ask me how I know. The top of one is looser than the other (to rip or not to rip?).

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Saturday I attended Stitches West in Santa Clara, California. I guess you would call it a knitter’s conference. They had classes and a very large knitter’s marketplace vendor hall.

I’ll say it, as I’m sure many other knitters have before me:

“I’ve never seen so much yarn in one place!”

And I mean good yarn, too. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures for you, because they don’t allow photographs inside the marketplace. I suppose that’s to protect people’s designs, etc. If you really want to see some of the action, you can click here to see a 2005 quicktime movie from the website. You can see knitters in all their glory.

I took copious notes with yarn and pattern ideas:

A few observations. Upon entering the building, I was visually assaulted by a bunch of people on the escalator in succession all wearing the same… what do you call those things.. capelets? You know, one of those things on the cover of “Wrap Style” except it was striped. For a brief moment I thought it might be an acceptable thing to wear, but then I came to my senses. *shiver*
We did see a beautiful Koigu Oriental Jacket that we discovered was knitted and worn by a yarn store owner. I mean, who else could afford that much Koigu?? Here are a few pictures I could find of the pattern on the web: Pic1 Pic2 Pic3. Although it’s beautiful, I probably shouldn’t wear one of those either. There were quite a few people with carry-on sized rolling suitcases, I assume to tote around their yarn purchases.

I was pretty good. I only purchased a book and a bag-o-yarn. Here is the book that I had signed by the author, Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush:

And then I was able to check that “orangey yarn” off the list when I found this Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk at a very affordable price:

I’m thinking of the wrap cardigan or shaped cardigan from Knitting Pure and Simple. Unfortunately, the Blue Moon Fiber Arts “Socks That Rock” booth was basically sold out of their wool sock yarn by the time I got there. I knew I should have found it earlier! Oh well, I don’t really need *more* sock yarn right now.

Here are some websites of vendors I liked that you might want to check out:

http://www.pickupsticksonline.com/
http://lisaknit.com/
http://stores.ceallachdyes.com/StoreFront.bok
http://www.twistedsistersknitting.com/
http://www.curiouscreek.com/
http://www.cherryyarn.com/
http://www.claudiaco.com/
http://www.hempforknitting.com/
http://www.soysilk.com/
http://www.pagewoodfarm.com/robinmain.html
http://www.yarndogs.com/
http://interlacementsyarns.com/
http://www.terilynneedleart.com/