San Francisco

So San Francisco is one of the few places other than Cleveland that I’ve been fortunate enough to actually live. We didn’t live there for very long but it was a great experience. We got to drive across the country both ways, visit many beautiful national parks, and perhaps most importantly eat ridiculous amounts of excellent sushi.

Matt and my dad standing outside of the best/cheapest sushi restaurant in town. My parents came out to visit us and we basically took them on a culinary tour of the city. It was so much fun. Also? I forgot how different Matt looked with the shaggy hair!

So there’s many different ways I could have gone with this colorway… but I decided on taking the iconic image approach. And the most iconic image of San Francisco for me is the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog:

I lived there long enough to know to always bring a jacket because when that fog rolls in, man does it get cold.


Pretty, but cold.

Anyways for the yarn I wanted to create the strong orange of the bridge against the grays of the fog. The result was this:


Which will stripe in pairs, just like bridge:


I really like it. It seems like a very guy friendly yarn and yet stripes are fun to knit with!


It’s now available at Destination Yarn.

Edited to add:

Wow! You guys cleaned me out of the first 2 skeins super-quick!!! Thanks! I have 2 more dyed and ready to go but I haven’t finished winding them up yet. I’ll finish it tonight and list them tomorrow or Friday at the latest. Thanks!

Also – there will be an update with a whole bunch more Copenhagen soon…

So much for that “triumphant” part

So I am swimming in unfinished socks. I’m going to ‘fess up. It isn’t pretty.

Paris Test Socks:

I knit one of these to see how the colorway would stripe… and then I kindof stopped. The second one isn’t even half done.


Orsund Test Socks:


So close! I’m literally down to 3 rows and a toe. And yet they lie unfinished while I blog about how I really should finish them.

Pittsburgh-ish Test Socks

These aren’t actually the Pittsburgh colorway. Matt deemed this yarn too red and black. So I figured I’d use the reject skein and throw together a pair of socks for him. Knit on 3’s they had to go fast, right? Yeah. Not if I never work on them they won’t. I never even made it down to the heel on the first sock.

So that’s 3 pairs of unfinished socks. Clearly an unacceptable place to be. So last week I decided to actually finish something. I was all set to not blog until I could present a finished object. But then while digging out all of those unfinished socks I found that yarn I bought at the Great Lakes Fiber Festival… and I’m kindof sick of knitting with only Destination Yarn… and you guys are probably sick of seeing only Destination Yarn stuff on this blog… and before I knew it this happened:

The start of a Hedra-ish pattern in Creatively Dyed luxury sock. Obviously I have a problem.


But at least it’s a pretty problem to have!

Also I had a very busy weekend with the dying – which means that there will be lots more yarn-y travel soon! I’ll even give you some hints – the next place I’m going to take you to is where I discovered my love of sushi. The place after that is the place I’d most like to go back to of anywhere I’ve been. And the last colorway is all about the food.

Any guesses?

Remember that garden thing I used to do?

Sadly because of the new business venture and all of the life that’s been going on lately I haven’t spent nearly as much time in my garden as previous years. Parts of it are looking really sad… But I still have some pretty pictures to share:

Tomatoes – I just have to make sure pick them before Dexter does!

Zinnias – grown from seed. They are finally, finally starting to look good!

Sunflowers – the chipmunks didn’t get them this year!

Dahlias – I can’t wait for these to bloom. Partially because I forget what color I bought.

Coneflowers – these are growing in the no man’s land on the side of my house by my neighbor’s drive. So are these:

No idea what they are, though. Just that they are pretty and low maintenance.

Cilantro – also grown from seed. I’ve given up the dream here and just let it bolt. It will reseed itself and in a week or so I’ll have more usable cilantro.

Lily – So when this bloomed I though - I’ve never seen these before in my life. And then I checked the blog for garden pics from last year and lo and behold it did bloom last year! Crazy, that.

Cosmos – grown from seed. I actually bought one of the seed packets when I was in San Antonio. They are super-special Texas Cosmos. Or something like that.

Rose of Sharon – I have a giant bush of this flower – I love it. Pink and red? Perfect combo for me. And it goes particularly well with the cosmos growing next to it!

Really everything I grew from seed/tuber is rocking it and everything I planted – like the inpatients and peppers – looks pretty sad and pathetic. I’m not sure why this is but I’m guessing it has to do with my less-than-perfect watering habits. Hmmmm….

Knitting content to return, triumphantly, tomorrow!

Melon Colors And The Infinite Randomness

1.) That was a terrible bastardization of an album title.

2.) This creepy melon is actually a Pepino melon. Learn something new every day. Inside it is just like the outside – Yellow with Purple bits:

I was sortof right.

Yeah. None of us were brave enough to actually try this one, though because it smelled like celery. Melons should not smell like celery. Still a fun experiment, though! And always looking for new hits for the band – like Creepy Melon Stand and Purple?

3.) Did you know that hypercolor was back? Uh huh. Apparently it’s not 1988 it’s 1991. Good to know. Because let me tell you I rocked my purple/pink hypercolor sweatshirt in ’91. I was the envy of all of my friends. I don’t know if I could pull it off this time, though…

4.) While I was in Boston we went on a mission to find this bakery, Flour, because it promised homemade Oreos. Yes. Homemade. Oreos. It’s quite possibly the best idea ever. Every bite lived up to my very high bakery expectations:

Amazing.

Sadly to my knowledge no bakery in Cleveland carries such goodness. However thanks to the wonder of the intrentets (and Alisha For linking to it) now I can make my own.

Homemade oreos recipe (you have to scroll down a little)

I can’t wait to try it!

5.) The knitting has been pretty non-existent around here. I’m basically just working on the Orsund socks which are taking way longer than they should… however thanks to my grandpa I’m about to rock the spinning:

He made me my very own tensioned Lazy Kate! So now I won’t have to ball everything up before I ply it!


I also have a bunch of garden pics to share… but I think I’m going to make those their own post.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The Tulle Vortex

So Matt and I had opposite weekends. He was did this:



While I was wedding dress shopping with my good friend, Sarah. Now ok. I definitely belive that you should wear whatever you want on your wedding day. My dress, for example, was covered in beads because well... of course it was.

Close up of the bottom of my dress – just a crappy snap shot not like a professional pic or anything but you get the idea. I love beads.

So if you are all about the tulle princess dress than more power to you. However. Sarah? Not a tulle kindof a girl. So seeing her in this was nothing short of hilarious:

Especially when it twirled:


So we had her try on some that were less poufy:

Seriously. She’s a tiny little thing that would look good in anything – except for a dress with a knee bow apparently. The entire conversation while she was in that dress revolved around how impressive it was that her ass could look so big. That’s perhaps not the image most brides would be going for… we got a little closer with this one:


But eventually decided that we’re not really a David’s Bridal kindof a group. At one point this conversation happened:

Sarah in a totally disgusted and hushed tone: “It’s 100% polyester”
Friend #1: “But that’s what makes it so shiny!”
Friend #2: “And flammable!”
Friend #3: “Nothing says class like polyester!”
Friend #1: “And unfinished seams.”

Shudder. And everything she tried on was ridiculously overpriced for the quality. $700 for off-the-rack polyester? FAIL. You can get a much higher quality dress for that price. Possibly even at David’s but we weren’t willing to look very hard.

We had a lot more fun/luck at a vintage dress shop.

Well the bride didn’t have too much luck but it was fun to try on a huge variety of styles from many different decades. Sadly I couldn’t convince her to go for the Princess Di Sleeves. My friend, Michele, however almost bought this:

It’s an original Sarmi. That would be a designer that designed gowns for Jacki O. Yeah. It’s hand beaded silk. The quality of materials is just out of this world – they really don’t make them like they used to. And seriously to own a Jacki O dress? That’s some kind of rockstar. She still might go back and buy it…



Oh and my friends bought me a present:

Yup. Another creepy mystery melon courtesy of the yuppie grocery store. Luckily LB has a stand just perfect for photographing random produce. We played the “guess the color inside” game again… I guessed purple… what do you think?

Stitch ‘n Pitch

So Stich ‘n Pitch was super fun this year. Perfect weather, great company, and the Indians even won! Here’s all of my pics:






Yeah I kindof failed at the picture taking thing. Perhaps Carolyn will share hers? Hint? Believe me when I say there were knitters everywhere. And nothing’s more fun than that!

Ok this was a really lame post… I have a better one coming soon I promise. Possibly even with some creepy melon content.

#7 Antigua

So right now I’m out of town wedding dress shopping with my good friend. Which means that in the past 2 months I have been to 2 weddings and wedding dress/bridesmaids dress shopping 3 times. Yeah. Vortex of Tulle. Anyways thanks to the superfun blog ahead feature I was able to post my next colorway! Which is actually very appropriate considering all of this wedding talk…

We spent our honeymoon the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda:







So when everyone was commenting on beach colorways as a possibility I knew exactly the image I wanted to use:





Matt thought there should be bits of green in this yarn for the palm trees… but I disagreed. For me the ultimate beach colorway should just be the image of a perfect, clear ocean view:

Pic from here on flickr.

Aqua and sky blue and sand with bits of white where the waves are crashing. Or perhaps for the sail of a boat off in the distance…





Ultimately my idea won out since I was the one actually dying it and all…although I may have to do an Antigua II and realize his vision because I really like this colorway:







That’s all of the new colorways I have ready at the moment… however I do have a bunch more up my sleeve. When I get home I’ll post a Stitch ‘n Pitch recap and possibly some photos of hideous wedding dresses depending on how lucky we are today. I’m hoping for giant piles of tulle that turn my friend into a muffin. Or possibly a hoop skirt. Although I shudder to think what she would make me wear to compliment that.... It probably involves a hat.