Finished project.

Finished project.
Originally uploaded by oneroompalace

Alright, so I have finally finished my sweater (we will ignore the fact that I still don;t know where the original buttons that I wanted to add are and that I need to steam block the whole thing again)! But I have finally taken a picture and will share with everyone the crassness that is my BIG ORANGE SWEATER. I don;t think that it is that crazy when now that it is done. As painful and time consuming it was to complete this thing I do feel ready to tackle some other "top down" sweater patterns.

My night with the "Beautiful People"

Yesterday (Sept. 13) I decided that I needed to do something. I needed to plan a nice evening in which I did something a little out of the ordinary. Luckily a buddy of mine told me about the website Flavorpill just two days earlier. I went to my Google reader (I love that thing!) to see what was going on this weekend... that was free. Amid alot of shows with bands that I had never heard of (and events the required money) saw that there was a gallery opening. Huzzah! I can do that. I mean how many people who be there really? I also planned on going to the yarn store to pick up some temporary buttons for my sweater because I lost the set that I bought in Portland. I also figured that since I was out of the house I would to a check on a fall jacket that I've been eying I would also go eat sushi near my house. All in all I felt pretty proud of my Saturday planes. It would be one of my more productive weekends (I had showered and dressed by 11:30am!).

The opening was for Shepard Fairey at the White Walls Gallery. Before I went to this show i didn't know anything about Fairey (other than the fact that he did the Obama "HOPE" pictures). Unfortunately there weren't any artist bio's available so I still know nothing about him. But I guess that is ok because I was able to have a relatively unbiased first viewing. Here is some of the art. I took the pictures with my phone. They aren't half bad, I think.

!!! I am officially finished working with the orange yarn of death. Well, its not that bad. I am actually surprised how well it came out. Anyway, it dried just right but someone one side appears to be loner than the other. It might take some manipulating to get the completly fixed but I like how it looks now. I just wish that I found those darn bottons. The sweather fits and it is warm, so what else can I ask for?My current project is going fairly well. It's the first time that I am using lace weight yarn. It wa scary at first but now things are moving along fairly well. I still don't know way I choose to make the not a hat... maybe I am turning into a crazy knitting woman. Hummnnmmm

Super lazy post

I have a lot of posts that I need to put up here. To make sure that I don't just stay in the house all day blogging I have decided to just put up a large series of small entries. This is the first of several.

When I went to Portland, OR for my vacation I dragged my travel buddy to a yarn shop. I had a lot of fun at the Yarn Garden and even picked up a couple of buttons for my Gathered Cardi (which is very close to completion now). Here are a few pictures that I know knitters might find entertaining.

Here's a short update and some pictures from my vacation

OKay, So between me and my travel buddy (aka colleges roomie) we have about 200 pictures. I still don't have hers so basically I only have the pictures that I took before I lost track of my camera bag (later I found it in my knitting bag)... This also explains why there aren't any pictures of myself sweating it out in nature. Once I get those I will post them in a sideshow.



The trip was great. The highlight of the whole thing was our ride. Oh yea, two hot chicks driving a sexy read Kia Sedona. If you aren't familiar with the awesome Sedona check the 2008 specks here.

My trip started off in the Redwoods north of Eureka. There we saw lots of moose, two ponies in a shutdown Motel 6, Paul Bunyn and trees. The roads out there were crazy!! Basically all dirt roads that are really 1 1/2 lanes rather than two. This wasn't too bad unless some California hillbilly came speeding around a blind turn while your going in the opposite direction. All in all it was great! We spent the firs night in a regular campgrounds but the two nights afterwards we were on a beach sight. I think that form here on out I am going to try to find beach campsites. Sleeping on sand is way better than sleeping on rocks.

On both days of the trip we were able to take hikes through the forests were crazy! The trees are huge and you feel like a dinosaur can pop out at any minute. It was almost enough to forget that our hikes were about 4 miles long... but then I would remember once my heart would visibly start beating out of my chest. We also had time to go to a tied pool. That was nice just because there was hardly anyone there. The only other person that we saw at the beach other than the park ranger was some guy who was poking things with a stick. THAT was entertaining. While the ranger was standing next to him he seemed fine. You know, listening intently and all that. But once she left he had a stick in his hand and he was going to town. Now I don't know about you but I can poke sea anemones for only so long before I begin to feel like maybe I should stop. This guy looked like he was not leaving until he got every anemone on the beach. For all I know he's still there!!!

After three days in the redwoods Emmy and I drove up to Portland. I think that i took pitures there... I will post about that later...

During the tirp I was able to make a lot of progress on my sweater. It actually looks like a piece of clothing now! Pretty much every night I set a sight some time to work on it. Currently I am set back a little because of a minor bike accident. So sad.

Soo much to say

Right now I am writing this entry from my hotel in Portland. I love my hotel sooo much. I kinda don't want to leave. Portland has been great. The weather is really nice and the buses and light rail have arrived at an amazing frequency.  Today I went to a coffee shop, the Yarn Garden (which is not an actual garden), went to the Japanese Garden (an actual garden) and saw Avenue Q. It was a great day really. Portland is relatively easy to get around in. Today while looking for Washington Park I learned that the light rail train going to NW 24th does a loop and doesn't actually go to the park. Oh well, it did stop right in front of the hotel. 

Visiting the redwoods on the CA/OR border was great. I took a lot of pictures but I think that they might all look the same...green. The roads to the camp grounds are crazy. But luckily Emmy (my travel buddy) can manage the driving a KIA Sedona (aka the KIA Sedona-mess-with-us) like a pro. Tomorrow we head back down south to Crater lake. So sad. I will miss Portland. 

Flipping Droped Stitch!!!!!

Sorry to say this, but I am not making an effort to clean up my language. In fact after discovering a huge knitting boo boo it may get worse for a couple of days. So all this weekend I was on a knitting marathon. I really wanted to get the yoke of my sweater done before I left for my trip. HA! not happening. Before I began to divide the yoke (i.e. separate the armholes from the body) I counted the number of stitches in each section. To my surprise I realized that I was about four stitches off in all but one section. That means that I somehow dropped about 16 stitches!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!! That is not good. I don't even think that I can fudge it by just making 16 in the last row. Damnit, so I guess that means that I will not start working on the body of my sweater this week... and I will do some major forgging tonight.

2008 Attempt at Orange sweater

Alright. There are a lot of people who remember the joy that I had at my first attempt to knit a sweater last year. And I am sure that there are plenty of people who remember how sad I was when I realized that it was not going to work out. I am pretty sure that I was angry, depressed and hated the yarn that I used for a solid six months. But it took me over a year to get up the c0urage to look at the darn thing. I knew that there was no way that I was going to re-due the sweater and fix it. The fact that the original orange sweater used four different stitches was enough to turn me off from that idea. I mean come on now, even re-duing a sleeve would be enough to make me waant to slit my wrists with a couple of US 1 dpns. So instead I am taring the whole thing apart to make a new (and way more simple) sweater.

So I started on the Gathered Cardi (pattern from Knit.1 magazine) on Tuesday and so far I think that I have made a great amount of progress. I finished the collar and I am working on the increase rows (I am already changing the pattern by adding two buttons rather than one. That way I will have one of them a litter higher than the original pattern suggest). Although I am getting a little bored with the project already I am curious to see how it will come out. The pattern suggests using cotton yarn. I am using merino wool (but I have felt to guilty about have $100+ of yearn sitting in a bag for a year) so I really have no idea it my completed project is even going to really shape the same way. Well. I am starting it now and I plan on taking my porject of my vacation. Yes! I will show pictures of yarn in many inappropriate places such as tents, moving vehicles, possibly brewpubs and definitely in a hotel room. Hopefully I will be able to make it out to a yarn shop while in Portland. I really want to take advantage of the fact that they don't have sales tax.