Snowflakes.

I'm off to school with Older Son, but first, look what I spent most of yesterday doing, when I wasn't on the phone with my mom discussing having to put King Pirate Dog Solomon The Brindled Whippet to sleep today:


The images are based upon two William Bentley snowflake photographs. The carving is very soothing and meditative, something that I need right now as my siblings and I prepare to say goodbye to a very old friend.

Arrowhead Exchange.

The SLC SnB folks are having another winter exchange this year. Last year, everyone bought their own yarn and then gave it to the randomly drawn person knitting for them, and that person decided on a scarf pattern that would best show off the yarn. People ended up with some stunning scarves, I mean really beautiful, and I was mad at myself for opting out (mostly because I figured that I wasn't a good enough knitter and didn't want to disappoint whoever ended up with my knit work). This year, Susan, Heather and I cooked up another exchange, but quite different from last year's. The requirements are that each knitter buys their own yarn but must something utilizing Arrowhead lace in some way, either the big or little pattern. I've never knit with Douceur et Soie before, so I decided to give it a try.

I'm knitting a scarf, probably because that's what I most want right now. The twist in the exchange is that no one knows who they're knitting for. On the appointed day, all knitters will place their item in a paper sack and put them on the table, and then bags will be randomly chosen. Right now, I'm so busy that, even though this is the only knitted project that I'm working, I don't know if I'll finish in time. Maybe I'll have lots of free time during the actual holidays when the spouse is taking lots of time off work and the kids don't have school. That sounds dreamy. I'll post the pattern later, simple as it is, because I really like it.

Friends.

The Winter Knitty is up and I love it. There are a few things I'd actually knit, unlike in the fall edition. I've been looking for an interesting Fair Isle mitten pattern with which to break into stranded colorwork, and Tiffany looks intriguing.

Above is long-overdue documentation of the loot I received for my birthday from my fabulous Stitch'n'Bitch grrrls.

Moving clockwise from the top, Susan gave me "One Skein" in an effort to gently encourage me to actually finish a few projects. She also included an addictive narcotic-level dark chocolate bar and a beautiful lace cotton face cloth, knit by her own self.

Mondo T gave me a skein of her stunning hand-dyed signature colorway sock yarn.

Erin gave me Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day lavender handsoap and some fun little caramel chocolatey candy.

Lark gave me some lovely leafy stitch markers.

Miriam gave me some lovely, soft Knit Picks in green and brown and some divine homemade jam.

Camille, the woman who gave me life, also gave me a necklace she made for me with elephants, a favorite animal of mine.

Heather, who has joined the round, gave me a lovely bead cuff and a Utah chocolate bar.

Eileen gave me the little blue notebook, which I always carry with me and use almost every day.

Karen gave me the red stitch markers, and Jacquie gave me the green ones, also both made by their own selves.

Val gave me the little tiny sweater, which hangs in my kitchen where I see it every time I go anywhere in my house (it's not a huge house).

Last but not least, Margene gave me a coveted skein of Socks That Rock (my first!) in a perfect colorway, the reddish hand-dyed yarn, the incredibly soft green cashmere (2 skeins), the handmade card, AND the raspberry chocolate bar, which in this photo has been stuffed half-eaten back into its paper wrapper for photography purposes.

And later in the month, Laurie gave me 2 skeins of green varigated Manos del Uruguay, and Gwen gave me a dainty Chinese take-out box full of beautiful pink sport weight, perfect for some lovely little baby thing (hint, hint) and Lindt chocolates.

Whew. That's a lot of generosity, my people. Thank you for your gifts of yarn as well as friendship. My life has changed a lot since I started going to SnB in October of 2005. I've learned an incredible amount of stuff from these women (and man) who are now such dear friends, about knitting and everything else under the sun. I never would have gone back to knitting socks if it weren't for them. My life has gotten so busy that I could have even let my knitting go for awhile, let it turn into something I merely dabbled in and picked up only once in a rare while. Instead, it's blossomed into a passion. I knit LACE now. I credit you people for that. Also, my stash would be NOTHING if not for some of you. Your stash sizes make it really easy to justify mine, which is perfectly paltry in comparison (so paltry that I had to move it out of the dining room and into industrial shelving in the basement). Not only that, but you give me a dose of self-confidence about what I can knit every time I feel a little daunted. And you've just become really good friends. Thanks again. You cannot imagine how much I look forward to Tuesday nights.

P.S. I wanted to see to it that this post did not become maudlin. I probably fell down on the job. But at least I posted. MWAH!

I Still Don't Know What Croatoan Means.

We're all back from North Carolina. We didn't take our camera out that often, unfortunately, and I don't have any photos of the waves from the Nor'easter that were threatening to take the house down on our first day after we arrived at 4:00am. I would have posted about it from there, but the cable network got wet in the storm, so there was no way to get online.

Skye and I are on the beach right outside the house after eating turkey but before eating pie. The tide was coming in but the wind felt wonderful after being in the hot house all day. One of my favorite parts of the trip was going to Roanoke Island and visiting the museum and village there. The lost colony has fascinated me since we studied U.S. History in Mrs. Busco's fifth grade class.

Test Tart.

This is a test, but I think that it's going to work. If it does work, I owe Heather a huge debt of gratitude.

This is the tart that I made for mine and Stitch'n'Snitch's birthday celebration with the SnB Grrrls back in September. It's a pear tart with vanilla bean pastry cream and a Maytag blue cheese crust. The recipe is from Deer Valley's "Chocolate Snowball" dessert cookbook, and I loooove it. If this test does go through, I gotta thank all the folks who made that day so wonderful.

Meathead Unto Others.

I hate and I love the holiday season. It's a bit cliched, I know, but sincere. There's always stress involved, especially when one factors in shopping for one's spouse's eight siblings, one's own five siblings, their significant others, and all of the various offspring, including one's own--oh yeah, and parents too. It's enough to make me daydream of the BuyNothingChristmas Mennonite movement to give no gifts except those such as a promise to take someone out for a cup of coffee and conversation, or to give a back rub (these are slightly less puritanical Mennonites). Consequently, I have sworn off holiday gift knitting this year, for my own sanity. But I am really excited about Margene and Carole's Knit Unto Others, for which I already have the yarn and a pattern all lined up. The soft, bulky tomato-colored yarn comes from the Hot Lava cardigan that I made a few years ago and frogged over the weekend. (Shrugs and boleros are out of fashion, yo, hot as they once were.) The pattern is Meathead, from Larissa over at Stitchmarker. She's got a KAL going and will include photos of some of the participants' hats in her new book.

This feels like kicking off the season right. I'll be knitting the hats while flying to and from Nags Head, North Carolina for Thanksgiving. The Neefer's family rented a huge beach house on the outer banks so the whole family could get together for the first time since our own wedding eight years ago. There are cousins my kids have never met, and even though it will be chilly, I'm excited to be on the beach again. I've never dipped my toes in the Atlantic Ocean (I take that back--I did it on the European side, but still), and maybe I'll even get to knit while sitting on the beach, bundled up under the November sun. And we're all praying that there are no more tornadoes. Or hurricanes. Chances seem good.

I'm ba-aaaack.

I deleted the blog that I started at Typepad. I simply didn't have the time to figure out a photo host, although it doesn't appear as though I'm able to upload photos from Picassa the way I used to either. I want to use the little time that I have in actually blogging. I'll get it figured out. I miss blogging. I miss the conversation that blogging opened up. And I've been knitting some beautiful lace, a first for me, and that's been an interesting process as well. So here's to you if you're reading this, and here's to me writing this, and here's to beginning again.

Fiber Festivities

The Great Basin Fiber Fair was fun. It really was. After I let go of all the stress (on Sunday afternoon, two hours before tear-down), I enjoyed myself. Laurie was great company--I NEVER would have done this if it weren't for her gung-ho, fearless attitude, so thanks, babe-- and it was delightful to hang out with The Grrls during the weekend (shout-out to Birdsong who lives near and around my old NorCal stomping grounds; pause while I get all verklempt). Thanks to everyone who came out and bought a shirt or soap or both, and thanks to everyone who came and knit or spun with us. Truly, there was probably more spinning going on than anything else (have you heard? Spinning is the new knitting), and the only knitting that I did the whole weekend was a row on a sock, but still. I did buy a new drop spindle and will try spinning again when I have a spare minute or two (and maybe after I acquire some fiber that will maybe draft a little easier than what I've got). A certain teenager came out to the fair and spun a very respectable two-ply, after buying a t-shirt (probably the only size small I sold--the shirts are tiny). PLUS, she actually wore the shirt the next day. I cannot ask for a bigger endorsement than that, kids. I'm going to start selling the shirts online, probably on eBay to begin with while I figure out an online store configuration that I'll be happy with.

I've been having a lot of problems with Blogger since I switched to their Beta version, so I'm thinking about moving to a different blog host. I tried to post several times last week, and it wouldn't let me upload photos, so what was the point? I'm posting today just because I want to get something up, pictures or no.

Things are good. Fall is finally sort of on its way, the kids (two of them, at least) are in school, the spouse is home from the trip abroad, and I'm fixing to cast on my first big lace project with yarn I over-dyed yesterday, just for kicks. And I'm very clean. My new soap, made by a Jedi soaper, is REALLY nice. It feels oddly decadent to use soap made by someone else.

Turbulence

Right this minute, I feel like I'm on an even keel. I know that as soon as I step out the door of my professional life into the parking garage (I'm working right now, gently toiling in the soothing calm of nonfiction loveliness), everything will suddenly speed up and whoosh all around my head, perhaps a little like that jacked-up scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Willy takes the kids on the boat and it's all psychedelic and gross. But for now, it's good. There's a calm all about, even if it is a forced calm.
I need to print t-shirts this weekend, using an archaic and slow hand-method and oily inks, and I don't know when I'm going to fit it in, but I will. The blank American Apparel t-shirts came today, and while at first I was freaking out because I thought I had ordered too many, now I think I may not have ordered enough. The colors are really nice, better than I expected. C'est la vie.
I had a fit of insomnia last night, awaking at 2 a.m. to put wet laundry into the dryer so that I'd have something clean to wear to work today, and then a fit of panic seized my brain and I couldn't go back to sleep. Instead, I sat at the diningroom table for four hours and played around online on the laptop, enjoying the new wireless connection set up by The Neefer last night before retiring to bed. I watched countless bits of video on YouTube, fantasizing about hooking up with Jon Stewart in a culturally enlightened but still hot three-way with Stephen Colbert (can he be considered hot? Sometimes. Maybe.), and tried to figure out how to speed-clean a basement filled with the detritus of six years of shoving things in the basement instead of throwing them out. The leftover marriage mass programs from my wedding are still down there, for poop's sake. I need the big industrial folding table under all that stuff on which to sell said t-shirts at the Great Basin Fiber Fair. I'm becoming a business woman, ya'll. Sort of like Britney Spears (she's the one I'm quoting, ya'll), but less trashy. And with no, ahem, singing. Oh, so maybe we're exactly the same. Except I've never danced with a snake or slept with K-Fed (thank God for small mercies). But what should I call the fledgling venture? In the middle of the night I thought of "Carpe Knittum" (or Knittem, with an "E"), and right now "Knit`e Diem" also occurs to me, which maybe sounds better. Before that, I was considering:
"Shu-bi-Shu"
"Yellow Shoe Press"
"Tu-Tu"
and some other stuff that I can't remember right now, like:
"Baby Monkey Underwear"
and "Nascar Porn".
What do you think?

P.S. I scored, during a respite-seeking trip to Sam Weller's during last night's Camper Van Beethoven concert at the Gallivan Center, a first edition hardback copy of Barbara G. Walker's "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns". It had come in the day before. I've been looking for this book for a few months. Even better, it was 20% off because of Weller's annual August used and rare book sale. Yippee-skippee! I spent yesterday afternoon wishing that I had the book checked out from the library so that I could check out some lace patterns, and the universe TOTALLY delivered. I take it as a very good sign.

A Case of the Nerves.

I just bought a ton of shirts to print, and I am so freaked out by it. What if I only sell five the whole weekend at the Fiber Fair? What if I got the wrong colors, the wrong sizes? What if, what if, what if? Just gotta take the plunge, I guess. You never get anything good without taking at least a small risk. And maybe the bigger the risk, the greater the reward. Okay, enough hideous cliches for today. But still, it's true.

P.S. The tomato is an heirloom variety from my mother's garden. She has an enormous green thumb. It's literally huge. And green. Literally.

Waiting For Autumn.

I'm feeling the knitting blahs right now. While I have a ton of beautiful yarn in the stash, some of it still relatively new, I just feel unmotivated by it. I don't want to cast on new socks, despite all the lovely sock yarn I seem to have mysteriously acquired, until I finish the pair I have on the needles now (I've gotten bogged down halfway through the second sock). And lace just doesn't appeal right now, even though I've got enough gorgeous yarn for several shawls. What I'm captivated by right now is this short-sleeved sweater from Vogue's Holiday 2005 issue. The yarn called for is Plymouth Yarn's Royal Cashmere, a little pricey for my current budget, and unjustifiable considering my stash size anyway. I'm looking for a good substitute. Inspiration has to hit at some point, as it always does, probably once autumn's tang is sharper felt in the air. The kids start school this week, and that alone will open new possibilities.

And... We're Back.

We're back from an long roadtrip to Northern Idaho and British Columbia. It was a wonderful trip. We celebrated my best friend's birthday by boating on Lake Coeur d'Alene (it was so good to reconnect and hang out in paradise), and I literally stumbled in a back ally onto the studio of Lana Hames, owner and designer of Hemp For Knitting in Nelson, British Columbia (there's a pattern in the latest Knitty by another Nelsonite using her yarn). Sadly, the studio was closed for the day, but I found a retail outlet in town. I only bought three skeins of yarn because I wanted to stay within the trip budget, but I was sorely tempted to buy more. I finished two small projects on the trip (a Panta headband in black Cotton Fleece, and a certain gray fuzzy bonnet-style hat), and frogged a third project about five times. It's good to be back, although I'm not yet completely back in the swing of things because I still have company at the house, and that always makes things a little chaotic. I missed Stitch'n'Bitch last week because of the trip, and I have to miss it again tonight because of a meeting I must attend. That bums me out because I really need a hit of that heady mix of Bruce's forthy drinks, loud conversation, sandwiches, gossip, and delirious yarn-handling. I miss ya, grrrls. More later.

P.S. I'm preparing to print another run of shirts for the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair, at which I've rented a booth with a certain soap-obsessed friend. Hopefully I'll be done with that this weekend to give the shirts plenty of time to cure. Enquire further if you have any questions, like how to get a shirt to me to print for you. You can email me at katherine dot allred at gmail dot com.

Entrelac? How nice to meet you.

I took an entrelac class today! At one of my many L.Y.S.s, and it was great. Hopefully I'll be able to repeat the entrelac process on my own. Anne Carroll Gilmore taught the class, and she included several cool techniques that I know I'll use a lot in the future, including "knitting backwards" instead of turning and purling. It made the process whiz by. The bag on the right is the one I made with Naturespun (which has gotten so effing splitty!), and the bag on the left is the prize I got for finishing my bag first. I really wanted to win the bag because I had planned to give one bag to the older of my children and the other to the second (child). On reflection, however, I think I'll keep the pretty Noro bag for my own self and make another one for the children. Plus, there was a soap ball in the prize bag, and I liked the way it smelled. And I NEVER have soap around here. The impetus for taking the class in the first place was because I wanted to make a Noro Silk Garden neck warmer, like unto this one [scroll down, past the Orange Sky].

I finished the Sunflower Tam yesterday, but I don't really like the way the Silk Garden colors turned out on the top section, so I may frog back to the beginning of the top part and begin knitting with a different part of the skein, maybe repeat the colors on the bottom half which I like.

Answers to questions from previous comments:

Lauren: I did not find a mattress pad at TJMaxxx (or however many freakin' exxes it has), although they did have some mattress covers. I found a nice foam pad at Target though, for not much money. You want to know what I did find at TJMaxxxxx, among lots of other things? Black and white houndstooth Chuck Taylor sneakers. I love them more than an adult should love sneakers.

Suzette: I think one has to apply with some county agency to get on a crew to fight wilderness fires. My sister applied to Utah County's agency, but they travel all over the west. You just have to pass a urine test and a pretty easy written test, and that's it. They provide the training and they continue to hire people late into the season. Incidentally, my sister's been out on a fire for a week and we don't know where she was sent, so I'm a little worried. I know she'll be fine, it's just... you know. Anyway, her birthday is tomorrow, and I hope she can get back for it. It's also Harry Potter's birthday. Random fact lodged into my brain.

She Weren't Much But She Knit a Nice Hat.

I've been remiss in not posting this a week and a half ago. Stitch'n'Snitch made this beautiful and funky Dobby hat and gave it to me at Stitch'n'Bitch. While I love the hat, Babbo LUUURVES it. I tried to take a photo of myself wearing it, but he kept hitting my legs while I was trying to aim the camera at my own head, so I finally just let him have it. He put it on and was happy. Then he ran away and hid in the bathroom shower curtain. I ambushed him with the camera, yanking back the curtain, and finally got the shot. The cuteness overload is practically melting my hard drive. It's good to have friends who knit. You're the best, Madam T, the best. And you DO make a good pie.

P.S. All ya'll who've been talking up T.J. Maxx... I finally went yesterday, was just going to dash in and see if they had foam mattress pads... spent two or four hours, wandering the aisles, muttering, throwing things in the little shopping cart, covering the heads of children sitting in the basket of the cart. As I was checking out, I asked the cashier what she remembered as being the highest a shopper spent there while she was working. Without batting an eye, she said, "A thousand dollars. After that, six hundred." I felt a little tiny bit better after that.

She's a Corker.

Hi. Are you still reading? I've been offline so long that I hardly remember how to hotlink off people's bandwidth anymore. I'm at work right now, and while I normally eschew blogging while on the job, it's a very slow day here in periodicals (I've only looked up one obituary in the last hour, and it was in a paper that hasn't been delivered yet, so I had to deny the patron his desire). My brother and his girlfriend are in town, staying in my basement. The computer is in the basement den, which is where they're sleeping (sleeping in, very late, everyday), so that's preventing me from getting to the computer, even when the modem is actually working, which seems like never these days.

I taught the girlfriend (Cutlass Liz?) how to knit at Stitch'n'Bitch a few days ago, and she's taken off with it. She wanted to make a felted clutch instead of something boring like a scarf, of which she already has a million, so I worked out a pattern for her. She's still essentially knitting a scarf (in stockinette, no less, since she wanted to learn how to purl that first night in addition to the knit stitch), but she's going to fold it in half once it's long enough, seam a long and a short side, and there will be her clutch. I figure maybe after that [***pause while I find the most recent issue of GQ for a refreshingly but not overly polite gentleman***] I'll teach her how to pick up stitches along one side of the open top to make a flap. Cutlass Liz? She's a keeper, even if they break up a year or two down the road, knock wood. What? Hey, what? I'm best friends with my oldest [***gone to find yesterday's Tribune for another dude***] brother's former girlfriend. He's been married two times since their relationship, but she and I are going strong.

I'm almost finished with the Sunflower Tam from Norah Gaughan's "Knitting Nature" for Dinosaur Girl. I'm using an old skein of Silk Garden that I had planned on using for some other ill-advised project (entrelac, I hardly knew ye). This is the first time I've knit with Silk Garden and I really love how it feels going through my fingers. The pattern is also interesting, although it doesn't travel around in my purse as well as a sock does. Thank (the Knitting) God, I have a sock on the needles too.

A Ting-a-ling a Peek-Poe.

This is my youngest sister. I taught Peekapoe how to knit a few years ago and she made a striped garterstitch scarf in Lamb's Pride bulky on size 15 needles that was approximately forty-seven feet long and twelve or eighteen inches wide. It took her forever to finish and she was a little put off knitting after that. Kind of burned out, you could say, though the scarf certainly does keep her warm as she bikes all over Salt Lake City in the wintertime from the University to the West Side on her roadbike--she looks like she's wrapped up to her eyebrows in a small rug. (Sadly, her and her boyfriend's roadbikes were both recently stolen while locked up outside the city library. I don't know how long it will take for her to recover from this loss.) Less than a month ago, Peekapoe decided that she wanted a little felted card and cash wallet and she came to me with her request. But she wanted to make it herself. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, although I didn't want to put her off, so I played it cool, if you know what I mean. I dragged out all of my stash and she combed through it, eventually falling in love with a gray yarn and a goldenrod yarn. I knit a little gauge swatch, decided on 40 stitches, and taught her again how to cast on. After that she was off, remembering how to knit like it was riding a bicycle, something one never forgets. She was even knit the thing on double-points and enjoyed the striped spiral more than knitting back and forth in garterstitch. She finished the next day and brought the tube back to my house where I taught her how to do a three-needle bind off. We felted the wallet in my bathroom sink, and then she stood in front of the full-length mirror saying, "I'll pay for that in cash," and pulling the damp wallet out of her pocket with a flourish. It was gratifying to see Peekapoe enjoying the craft and her finished project so much. She quit her job at the University of Utah print arts department this summer and is fighting wilderness fires instead. This is a picture of her immediately after she came back from her first fire, on the phone telling her boyfriend that she was home. She's out on a fire call right now, and while I know safety is always first and foremost in the minds of her crew, I can't help but worry a little bit. Her boyfriend is on her crew now too (he's done this for four years--she joined because she missed him in the summer too much), so at least they're together. They go out for sixteen days at a time, and I can't wait to see her again. They want to hire her back at the print department in the fall, and I sort of prefer it when the biggest threat her employment presents is a smashed finger.

A Celestial Exchange

From the skies above, from the mouths of lambs, from the cocoons of silk worms, from the air all around, thunders this into my ears:

"What is this I see before mine eyes? What folly, what fickle heart? Wherefore, O Katherine, wherefore thy base abandonment of the fiberart of the gods, lo, verily, even knitting?"

And my heart replies:

"I beg your forgiveness and your mercy, O Great Goddess of Knitting, thou muse of needle and skein; do not curse me for my wandering heart. I toil on but a small quilt--it will only cover part of my nakedness in the eyes of womankind, and still will I need the grace and favor of the knitted sweater, sock, hat and scarf (though never, no never, a knitted bikini, else shall mine eyes be plucked from my head by the craftharpies). Do not desert me, for lo, my heart remains true unto thee, O Knitterly One! Do I not knit, at a minimum, three rows on the Endless Blanket of Baby every night before I retire? Do I not still travel with a faithful sock in my purse, lest I be caught in a long line at the Post Office with nothing to do? Goddess of Knitting, hear me now. You shall remain the first, and the foremost, of my desires. Ever shall I seek your favor, even until I am hobbled by old age and decrepitude and in my senility knit acrylic afghans with hearts* on them and toiletpaper cozies that look like dolls wearing hoop skirts. This quilt is but a dalliance. I am still married, O Goddess, to thee. (Besides, my sewing machine kind of sucks and is SO touchy--who knows if it will be working tomorrow? And the quilt store DOES sell yarn too.)"

*Props to Aima--firm instructions to assasinate the other if ever either of us decends so low.

A Hat. A Sock.

Two Finished Objects in one day! I finished both the sock and the baby hat last night. So satisfying. The sock is the first of its pair (the sock I finished a few days ago is from a different pair and I can't show it to you yet because it is Top Secret until around September--but let me say that it is a stunning sock). This sock is knit from... um, I can't remember because I cast on back in January or February and I've long since lost the ball band. I bought the yarn at Three Wishes. The second one is almost done too, maybe tomorrow while on the way to and from family reunion weirdness in Provo. The socks are done in a simple 2x2 rib, size 2 needles, nothing fancy, just better than lingerie. Oh, you know it's true.

The hat is, as I mentioned before, from Susan's Star of the Day pattern in Dalegarn (from Black Sheep's 50% off bin--yay!) on size 4 needles. I modified the pattern by leaving out the yarnovers that Susan swirled down the sides--this hat is for a baby boy, so I was trying to man it up a little. I loved knitting this hat, both because it was fun to see the star emerge and because I felt like I was knitting blessings into it. Everytime his momma puts this hat on his head, the boy will be blessed. If there's enough yarn leftover, I'll make some socks to go with the hat--he'll be blessed from head to toe. I haven't decided on a pattern yet though. Any ideas? 

Here, My Friends. Here.

Find enlightenment here. Or, if not that, then at least find THE BEST DAMN RIBS IN THE MOTHER-TRUCKING STATE! Comfort food at it's purest and fattiest. 

Heeeeeeere's Pat!

I know this blog has been lacking in knitting content for awhile, but do not think that there is no knitting in my life. Oh-ho, my little kittens, there has been MUCH knitting. Dare I say it, there's a whole lotta knittin' goin' on. (Sorry, Koizumi's visit to Graceland has been on the edge of my mind lately--so surreal.) I finished my FIRST sock (I've turned five heels, but I've never finished before!); I've been working on a beautiful Flower Garden shawl in Collinette Mohair in an unusual colorway; I knit half of and frogged The One Skein Wonder in Noro Silk Garden; and I'm almost done with Susan's Star of the Day Baby Hat. Sadly, I have photos of none of these because my camera was full of other stuff, including this picture of PAT! The Barbecue King! Pat is the proprietor of Pat's Bar B Que at 115 W. Commonwealth Ave. in SLC (just south of 2100 S. and within easy driving distance of my residence, making the temptation all the greater). Does Pat look like a man who knows his way around a barbecue pit? I have to say that at first glance, he doesn't fit the stereotype. But if you decided that he's not serious about meat based on his appearance, you'd be wrong, friend. Dead wrong. I am a hardcore 'cue lover, and Pat's is the best in the whole damn state. I've tasted 'em all, so I know. Forget Q4U, Sugarhouse Barbecue Company, and, God forbid, Famous Dave's--all merely what one must settle for when Pat's is closed. If you are, like I once was, searching for great ribs, brisket and 'slaw (DAMN, their coleslaw is good too), you can call off the dogs. The search is over. You are home, my friend, if home is a place that sells the best f---ing barbecue you've ever had in your life. Plus, they often have a dude in the back playing blues guitar. Can't beat it with a stick.

Questions. For Me and For You.

I cut the baby's hair for the first time yesterday. He still has some curls, but the ones around his shoulders are gone. He still looks cute, but now I hopefully won't get anymore "wow, your little girl sure can scream" comments. Now I'll get "your son just shattered the store's windows with his shrieking--that will be twelve thousand dollars, ma'am" comments.

Soap Questions: If you want to have a little soap tet-a-tet yourself, talk to me and maybe we could set up a time. It was really fun to teach Laurie and Michaele how to do it, and I've taught a couple of other people in the past. Also, if you're interested (hey, Kathy), Susan Miller Cavitch has written two excellent books called The Natural Soap Book and The Soap Maker's Companion. They're a good foundation and offer a lot of recipes as well. There is also a lot of information online. Google cold-process soapmaking or check out Soapcrafters. I get a lot of supplies from them and they offer a lot of support and information as well. You can also start with "melt and pour" glycerin soap, which is sort of soapmaking lite but still educational and fun. And finally, I was holding the Maglight so that I could see the soap--we were using a black pot and we were having some trouble seeing the color we were ending up with, so the light, um, illuminated things a bit.

T-Shirt Questions: I need to do a little market research here. What sizes do people like to wear? What colors do you like? I'm going to buy the blank shirts this week, and I'm trying to figure out how many, what colors, and in what sizes to purchase. After that, it's off to the print studio.

Crafting on the Edge.

Laurie and Michaele came over last night to make soap in my kitchen and eat Indian food from Bombay House (you get hungry with all that endless stirring). Michaele is moving away from our fair berg next week and she wanted a chance to see soap made before she left, and Laurie's been obsessed with the idea of making soap for a while now. Laurie wanted a lavender and rosemary soap, and she decided that she wanted it to be purple too. When the soap traced (a little technical term there) and we poured it into the molds, it was sort of a peachy-cantolope color, much to our surprise. But by this morning it had totally saponified and turned back to purple.

Look what a weird color it turned! After it saponified and cooled though...

Cutting the purple soap with the crinkle cutter.

On the New Yarn Store.

Make One t-shirt update: The interest has been very high, so I'm exploring options for setting up some sort of online store. I have no experience with this and I'm not sure where to start, but I'm looking into it. Details to come when I actually have a way to exchange money for goods and an efficient way of producing the product. I've also already begun the prep work for a new lino cut. Finally, if you attend my local S'n'B and wanted me to print you a shirt but didn't get it to me in time for the first run, I'll try to rectify that as well, and soon.

Yesterday while a bunch of local yahoos traveled en masse to the Estes Park wool market, a few more refined friends and I made our way to Ogden to visit the Haunted Yarn Shack, Needlepoint Joint, and Roosters Brewpub. It was Susan's idea; also along for the ride were Teri, Eliza, Susan's friend Katelyn, and my own dear mother. I have photographs of the wackiness that ensued, but I'll post them tomorrow. Today I bring you fast breaking news about a new yarn shop in the Sugarhouse district. It's called The Red Sweater and it is situated directly across the street from the post office on 1100 East. They carry yarns that aren't already found commonly in the area, which is smart (their shipment of sock yarn was delayed and should arrive Monday--I will investigate further). Their grand opening was Saturday but the proprietors kindly gave me a tour on Friday when I was in the neighborhood. It's a somewhat small though thoughtfully and well-laid out shop. I have to say that we already have an embarrassment of riches in terms of Local Yarn Shops which portends an uphill battle for them, but it's nice to have them so nearby my own residence. Two doors north is Piper's Quilts and Comforts which has always carried yarn but which recently expanded their lines (perhaps they noticed their new neighbors). They now carry a lot of different yarns and pattern books, including Debbie Bliss and Rowan. If that's your bag, baby, take a look.

The 4th Annual Chicken Show.

Miriam's Trekking sock and Emerson the little chicken meet and make good.

On Saturday, the family attended The 4th Annual Chicken Show. We brought along Mim and her sporting husband in order to better expose them a little big city culture and sophistication. What is a chicken show, you perhaps so rightly ask? They may consist of something else in your neck of the woods, but in this case it was pretty much two ten year old girls from W-Man's school demonstrating their ability to walk around with chickens on their heads, the chickens themselves prone with their feet in the air. I think one of the announced "tricks" also included a chicken walking through the backdoor into the house. Here you see the finale before the chicken races (which could more accurately be called chicken IQ tests). The finale consisted of a chicken on top of a pink cowboy hat and a dog biting a rope being swung in circles. Everything was properly announced and chicken trivia imparted to the audience through a bullhorn. Top-notch culture. They did serve good ol' Three Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's (properly taxed at the state border by a crack agent of the UDABC, no doubt about it); during the race intermission, we had most incredible grilled steak, baked beans, coleslaw, green salad, and melon. All for the price of $2 for adults and $1 per child.

Chickens racing. EXCITING! We were betting on Casper and Emerson, neither of whom did very well. W-Man did win some sort of shooter thingy which used little plastic chickens as ammunition for knowing (via Miriam and his parents) various chicken facts.

Feather and Fan Baby Bonnet.

I haven't been doing a ton of knitting this week, just a little here and there, mostly at red lights. But I made this little bonnet last week in about three days. After show and tell tonight at S'n'B, it's bound for Ohio and the head of my unborn neice, sixth child of The Neefer's older sister. I found the pattern via Hello Yarn on Stitch Marker. I should be working solely on a certain pair of Bay Area socks, but I've been slack. Hopefully I'll be forgiven.

Details:
Feather and Fan Lace Bonnet
Mission Falls 1824 cotton, one skein exactly
A little kitchen cotton for the neckband
Size 5 circular needle for the hat
Size 2 double points for the i-cord

Finito.

The t-shirts are done! The process follows, in numbered order (because I'm not a savvy blogger and don't know how to create a multi-photographic post and haven't the patience to figure it out--my time is severely limited and I'd rather knit).

I

Figuring the press height.

II

Mixing the inks. We used a total of three different ink combinations because the shirt colors were so varied; what worked on the white shirts would not work on the black.

III

The shirt was laid on the white table with the inked blocks laid on top, covered by the press board. Then the shirt went under the press. We're not printing a shirt here, we're still setting the press before the run.

IV

Inking the block.

V

Contemplating the test newsprint run before printing the shirts.

VI

All 25 shirts laid out to cure the next day in my livingroom.

Another Close-up.

Aren't they pretty? Don't you want one? If you gave me shirts to print, you'll get them on Tuesday night at Stitch'n'Bitch. Dinosaur Girl wore the shirt I printed for her today when we ran errands, including a stop at Black Sheep Wool Co. (I promise it wasn't planned), and we stumbled on some interested buyers, so I'm thinking I might print more and sell them. Let me know if you're interested.

This is what I did last night...

...Instead of going out with friends to bars or Battles of the Bands. The text says "make one". I carved the "m1" image last summer and the text last night. I'll be putting in studio time this weekend, probably tonight or tomorrow, printing t-shirts. I'm going to blockprint right on the fabric instead of screen printing. It should be a cool effect. I hope.

P.S. Happy World Wide Knit In Public Day.

Thanks and Thanks.

My Dye-O-Rama sock yarn has come to me!

Here's all the stuff from my Dye-O-Rama pal. I got some serious booty, landlubbers. In addition to the yarn, Devri gave me 4 bars of Scharffen Berger chocolate (two of them bittersweet, two of them dark as sin, the way I likes it), three spice mixes, ginger peach black tea and some tea bags, two different kinds of coffee, Spanish saffron, four cobalt blue ramekins, and a recipe for chocolate souffle. I feel very spoiled.

This is my Dye-O-Rama pal Devri. She actually lives in Seattle, but as luck would have it, she came through Salt Lake City this week, so we arranged to meet at Black Sheep Wool Company. The sock yarn she gave is FABULOUS. The ladies at Black Sheep were suitably impressed and envious; Devri not only dyed the yarn herself, she spun it from Blue-faced Leicester. The skein has over 570 yards on it (Devri, did I get that right?), so I just may skip the socks this time and make a shawl. The yarn is so pretty and so perfect for me that I have to do something with it that shows it off.

Apple Upside-down Cake

Michaele brought an incredible hazelnut flourless torte she had made to Stitch'n'Bitch last night, and I could hardly eat it because I had first gone to a family dinner at my mother's. Aima made French onion soup, and while her soups are always amazing, this one was sublime. My forte has always been in the dessert department, so my contribution to the meal was an apple upside-down cake (adapted from a recipe for plum upside-down cake in the "Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts"). As The Neefer always says, life is too short to eat crappy food. (Want to see more Yarnites following the Foodie path? Susan is doing it too.)

Guess what the family did Sunday? If you said, "Attended the Gay Pride parade," you'd be right, and what a good guesser you'd be. This year's theme was "Come As You Are", which I particularly loved. There were at least three floats poking fun at the state's polygamy connection via HBO's "Big Love" and there were also a surprisingly many polititians marching along with all the trannies, queens, bears, and dykes. When the front of the parade began with the SLCPD followed by the Dykes on Bikes, I actually cried. Parades always make my cry. It's all the humanity getting together and creating something--it's sentimental, perhaps, but it makes me tear up, and Pride Day does it most of all. Interestingly, Salt Lake City has one of the biggest (and most family-friendly) Pride Day celebrations in the country. It's a combination of the high percentage of queers per capita combined with the local *ahem* culture, such as it is. My gay friends in more liberal cities say that it doesn't matter much where they live because everyone, including their local gub'ments, have accepted them as a part of society, so there's not much to bang on about. On the other hand, they miss out on a fabulous annual parade. And what we all need is more parades. That's my philosophy.

So much fabulosity.

Aren't they cute?

These are the delusional ones.

All Shiny Clean!

I made another batch of soap today, as I've given all my stash of homemade soap away. I have one measly bar left, besides what's in the shower, and a couple of friends have a birthday celebration coming up. The soap is processing and staying warm in the oven right now while it saponifies. You see here the lovely wooden soap molds that my good friend Uri the Jet-setter gave me for my birthday a few years ago. I can't remember where she ordered them from, but I love working with them. Here's to coming up All Shiny Clean! And thanks again, Uri, for many reasons.

My Shubishu.

It's my lovely home-dyed yarn, my darlings! I love the process of dye-it-yourself yarn in the extreme, and I am so taken with the end result that I leave the hanks propped up casually yet prominantly around the house in case a stranger wanders through and demands that I create more because I am such an ARTISTE! (Much the same way my best friend Shannon and I wandered around London the length of the summer when we were sixteen, spouting Shakespeare in case a casting director from the Royal Shakespeare Company or Kenneth Brannagh, Ian McKellan, or Alan Rickman happened to be in the vicinity and recognized our undeniable dramatic genious.)

The red yarn is Wool2Dye4's worsted weight, and it's really quite nice, although I haven't knit with it yet. I used Gaywool's Tomato and Cranberry sprinkled directly on the yarn while in the pot, and then added a very little bit of Daisy (yellow) and Indigo in random spots. The other two hanks are Wool2Dye4's superwash sock yarn. For the green one I used Ivy and Lucerne, also with a little bit of Daisy and Indigo sparingly sprinkled throughout. Gaywool is a little pricey, but I love how easy and quick it is to use, and a little goes a long way. The middle one is destined for Germany and my Dye-O-Rama exchange pal. I hope she likes it because it's hard for me to part with it.

Who's Sitcomy Now?

Hello, my friends. Do you know what this is? This is the Partially Pre-felted Felted Purse. Undaunted by my Lucy-ness, I got right back on that horse and kept knitting. I felted it (again) on Saturday morning and it was dry when I awoke today, just in time for the kindergarten graduation ceremony (I know, ridiculous, but what can a mom do?). W-Man's teacher loved it. I love it too. How can I not, after all we've been through together? Today's been a dye-o-rama in my kitchen--more on that later. Right now I'm off to Stitch'n'Bitch.