First Post of 2011

Why hello everyone! It has been a while since I have posted. I since my last post I have worked long hours, completed a couple of personal projects, moved and become a year older. So far 2011 has been a busy one.

One thing that I am very excited about taking a Dreamweaver course! So I hope that in a few months from now that I will try a few new trick on this blog. The class is very basic. But I plan on using this site for my final project. I don't really know how this whole thing would work. But it would be nice to show off what I am learning. The class starts off very basic. I learned where menu items were and how to save files. It sounds minor but it also seems that not knowing the basics can cause some really annoying or even major problems.

Craft-wise I was pretty busy at the end of the last year and the beginning of this year. Two of my cousins were pregnant at the same time! Since they were both due in January/February I felt that it would be a good time to work on something small as a gift. The result were two pairs of baby booties. One set for a girl and another for a boy. This was my first time making booties. I used the sock yarn from my diagonal lace socks and Charade. I used the magic slippers pattern. I was pretty close to not having enough yarn but lo-and behold, these bad boys barely use any yarn. These are done in on piece (first the sole and then stitched are picked up for the body of the booties). I am pretty sure that I could have done these two at a time. But I did not. They still worked fast.

This winter I also worked on a couple of hats. The first that I completed was a lace and cable number called the Ashley. I did this project using sport weight yarn. And although it came out pretty good it was also a little on the thin side for me. So of course I decided to work on another hat.


The Selbu Modern came out very nice. This was my first fair isle project. It went fast and it was the first time that I ever knitted while holding yarn in two hands. This hat fit perfectly and was comfortably warm. The sad part of this story is that I lost it! I tried to retrace my steps but I just couldn't find it. I do want to another one. But I feel like i should use a different color. BUT I also don't want to go around buying large skeins of sock yarn and not using it all for one project.Today I started a new Selbu. I am going to use the contract color as the man color for this one. I just hope that I have enough yarn. I forgot how hard it was to start this project. I think that I must knit really tight.

When not knitting, reading, or watching movies I have done a bit of canning. The first thing that I made was apple sauce. I used Macintosh and Honey Crisp for a nice sweet sauce. I spiced it up with cinnamon and brown sugar. This gave it a nice pink color. I think that next time I make applesauce I will add some raspberries. That would have to be good. My second attempt at canning were pears. So far so good. I made the pares last month and so far I have had three out of the five small jars (one pear per jar people). And well so far I have not gotten sick and the paers are still not brown. Yum! My favorite part of canning is hearing the pop made as the cans seal while cooling. That is pretty exciting.


I have a number of projects to finish: Alice lace top, socks, secret gift knit (the secret is what the gift is, not that it exist), a lace stole and well... I hope that is it. I guess my next post will be an "in progress" post. Hopefully THAT wont take me three months to write.

Most recent domestic activities

This winter I bought myself a hand blender for myself as a Christmas present. I bought this so that I could make soups and sauces. The first soup that I made was a wonderful broccoli cheddar soup, recipe from Deborah Madison's "Vegetable Soup". This is a great soup with a slight kick to it. That book has a number of wonderful soups. I have used the soup for two additional recipes:
Tomato bisque

lentil with chickpea (it was supposed to be farro and chickpea but I got the wrong thing)

I know that these soups may not look like anything special but they were damn good. I have to try more.

Aside from cooks I am still knitting. The cold weather this winter kind of inspired me to try something new. So I am working on my second lace project. It is a sampler called the Hanami Stole. I realized very quickly that this might not be the project for me. Ahhh. I messed up on the first pattern. Oh well. I still think that it looks kind of cool. That was really the only reason that I have not ripped anything back.

Since the weather was so chilly at least a couple of days this winter I decided to knit a scarf. The last time that I made as scarf was sometime during college. I made a eight foot long, basket weave and seed stitch scarf. I believe that after I made that scarf I vowed to never make another scarf again. But this year I really wanted a circular/moebius. Those things look so warm and you don't have to worry about tying any loose ends. I also thought that it wouldn't take very long because it would definitely be shorter than the first scarf I made. I am beginning to think that neck wear is the bane of my existence. Why you may ask? Well the patterns become tedious and boring. This is not a reflection on the pattern itself. Its all me. I am currently working on the 5th Avenue. It is a great lacy pattern that hides mistakes pretty easily. I really like how it is coming out. But I do need a little distraction. Since it is getting warm now I think that my goal is to finish by next Winter. I know that is really lazy, but hey, it's still a goal.

This year I made two winter hat. I usually don't make hats because I lose them. But this time I was not knitting it for myself so I am not terribly worried. I made another Nora Gaughan and I also made

a Raleigh Hills Hat. THAT came out cool. I don't usually make cabled beanies (I don't know why. I am not "anti-beanie). It was really fun making in and the yarn was nice to work with. I believe that it is Debbie Bliss "Fez". Which was a change from the Malabrigo that I am using for my other projects. I think that I will use the Fez again to make a hat for myself... maybe I will make one with a pom-pom on the top.

Don't worry, this is not going to become a knitting blog...

I promise that this will not become one of those knitting blogs where all I do is talk about how knitting has taken over my life and how I seem to only attend knitting related events... or even worst how I make everything a knitting related event by bringing a bag of yarn to inappropriate places! There are lots of those out there. Instead I plan on keeping my posts the same as always but with a few additional posts about yarn, needles and kitting books that no one (other than other knitters) would actually care about.


List of Inappropriate places to knit (Part I)


-The bus
-2 Cafes (once while eating carrot cake, always while drinking a vanilla Italian soda)
-Walking back to work after my lunch break (there are advantages to keeping projects in large freezer bags)
-Sitting in my closet (it was the only thing that made me happy while I realized that I had a tone of crap to throw out)
-My cubical (what? it was an emergency!!!)
-While on a date. (Let me correct myself. I bought yarn just before the date and had to hide it in my purse. The four balls of yarn were so big that I had to take my wallet, cellphone and chap stick out so that I would avoid exposing my secret.)

With that said, let me tell you about the problems with knitting on the bus and in cafes. Sure I feel special when people ask me what am I knitting or when I make eye contact with a fellow knitter but the whole traveling knit thing can be expensive. I lost a whole set of stitch markers! I personally can't believe it! I just hope that I can find them one day.

Update on my Ravelry.com (i.e. Facebook for Knitters... but cooler) invite status

• You signed up on March 26, 2008
• You are #133011 on the list.
• 1422 people are ahead of you in line.
• 5021 people are behind you in line.
• 94% of the list has been invited so far

What it's like to be an adult... or at least my version of it... so far

This is a blog entry that I meant to post in the beginning of the month. However, I got a little too ambitious and never quite took all of the pictures that I had planned on taking. So I am going to have to post it as is and add a sideshow or something later on.

There are a lot of things about being an adult that are a mystery to me. Such as... at what point are you really an adult. Some people think that its when you get to the point that your like "dammit I am an adult, a real adult and I am okay with that. I have my own vision of being a young adult.

1. I get to eat whatever I want for dinner. When I used to eat real ice cream I would sometimes have a lunch of Hagengas. Or I can have pancakes for desert. As an adult my eating habits are sometimes a 4 year olds dream. On the other hand, I am coming to terms that I am allergic to dairy. So I am begrudgingly/gradually changing my diet.

2. I get to have my own space. Its wonderful because Little by little I am putting together an apartment that I like. I think that when I was a kid I didn't really think about whether or not I liked the furniture around me. I was just happy knowing that I had furniture. Now that I have my own place I often go without a piece of furniture rather than having something that I don't like. For about four months I didn't have a sofa/futon. Until December I didn't have a kitchen table and chairs. And even today I have my small tv propped up on an storage bin. But eventually I will have all of the furniture that I want and of course by that time it would be about time that i move into a different aparg tment.

3. I am beginning to feel guilty about how little I actually exercise. The crazy thing is that I have books, I've taken classes and all in all I have a relatively active lifestyle. But living in a place where it seems that not going having a gym membership is equivalent of not believing in God and living in small town USA, my lack of actual "workouts"can be shocking. I personally don't have a real urge to do it. By not going to the gym I cut down the possibility of catching nasty skin rashes, bacteria, fungi and other gross stuff that by about 50%. But I do not have a rock hard body and in my opinion Bridget Jones (the literary character) is skinny. However, I still feel a little guilty that I am happy with myself. I'll get back on the horse. I will rejoin my pilates class and once the rain lightens up I will jump back on my bike.

4. Speaking of bike riding! I never really rode a bike as a kid and now I do. I've explored a lot of my neighborhood on my bike and even gone shopping. I can even tackle a couple of hills. Well, I can make it halfway up more hills than I can go down. I think that bike ridding is as close as I will ever get to driving. I'll start driving when gas and car insurance are free.

5. I read boring old dead authors for fun. For a while I have wanted to read some good ChickLit (if your offended by that title too bad I don't care and I don't want to hear/read your complaints). But I have read Bridget Jones multiple times, the Nanny Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, and nearly all of the books in the Shopaholic series. And well, I frankly have no interest in reading anything new. So today I picked up two Jane Austen novels. The crazy thing is that I have spent nearly 6 years of complaining about JA. I think that my enthusiasm to read her has not real barring on my feeling about her works. I like it for what it is. But she is not my favorit author, and I don't have that much respect for her as a novelist (again, I really don't care to hear the complaints about this comment as well). But I think that people who know my feelings about Jane Austen would be happy to know that I voluntarily will read her work without any complaints.

6. I like to have planned activities. I already enjoy knitting, but there is nothing like knitting in a group. So I joined a knitting group that has been meeting for the past four years. All I know is that I am far from being a hardcore knitter. I have never gone to a knitting summit to listen to awesome pro-knitters and believe it or not I do not have a huge stash of yarn that I keep under the floorboards. Well I don't think that I do (but I am cleaning out my closet so who knows what I will find). Last but not least I am not a member of Ravlery.com. Until I attend this group I did not know that not being a member of Ravlery was actually the 8th deadly sin. I am trying to make up for that by getting on the wait list. YES there is a wait list!

Aside from knitting I need to return to my book club and start attending dance classes again. There just really is something about learning new things and having interesting conversations with other people who might be just as odd as you are.

Well thats what being an adult is for me. Its basically trying to do my own thing while also finding my nitch out there in the world. Luckily San Francisco is a place where there are lots of other people who are interested in things that might seem a little boring, odd or just random... and they are willing to meet at least once week.