Knitting Projects and a Surprise Visit

Posted on July 10, 2013 by glenderella

What have I been crafting lately? Well, despite telling myself I wasn’t going to participate in Camp Loopy this year, I am doing it again. The first month’s challenge was to knit something with yarn you hadn’t used before, that was easy enough, but it also had to use at least 375 yards of yarn. I was also on a quest to knit something from one of my MANY knitting books, so I paged through a bunch of them, looking for patterns. I settled on the Lifted Stitch Scarf from Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders, but a few rows into it, I could tell the yarn was not going to play well with this pattern, and I changed to the Ericka Scarf from the same book. The yarn is Desert Vista Dyeworks – Viso Self-Striping in the colorway Spumoni. Yes, it did make me hungry for Spumoni each time I worked on it.

I got it done before the June 30 deadline, because we were going to be gone to SD, and I wanted to finish and take pictures and get it uploaded to the Ravelry website. Here it is!

Ericka Scarf Desert Vista Dyeworks – Viso Self-Striping Spumoni

And a little cat wants to help with the staging of this photograph:

The challenge for the 2nd month was to knit a pattern that has been popular with other knitters, that you haven’t knit before. The project needed to have at least 1000 projects listed (or 1000 queued up) on Ravelry, and it needed to use at least 500 yards, single stranded. I chose the Stripe Study Shawl and am knitting it with Kauni – Wool 8/2 Effekgarn (orange/yellow/red – slow color change) and Cascade – Heritage Sock in Black.

Stripe Study Shawl

It has 12 asymmetric stripes, and I am on stripe number 8, but the stripes get bigger and bigger as they go, so I am only maybe half done. I HOPE I am half done. I really need some good thrilling movie to watch on TV to knit on this, since it is all garter stitch and it is getting kind of monotonous now. Or a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives Marathon.

Didn’t get too much knitting done this weekend, but it was for a great reason. Ken’s brother and his wife and little baby *welll OK, not so little* Owen were trying to fly home from South Dakota to San Francisco on Saturday. Because of the crash of the Asiana flight at the San Francisco airport, they were advised to go ahead and fly the first leg of their flight to Denver, but they weren’t going to be able to get any further than that, so they were stuck at the Mostek B & B for at least Saturday night. Ken got on the road to the airport and I went to the grocery story and got started cooking (overfeeding your guests as much as possible is part of my heritage).

Only one picture of Owen on my camera, this is him trying on my crab hat! Will have to get some of him trying on the “mistake” crocheted hat that I am saving for one of my niece’s dress up trunks, it is pretty hilarious.

We were lucky the house was quite clean since I had my knitting tea party (more on that tomorrow) and then I hadn’t been home much to mess it up, so we weren’t freaking out and vacuuming/mopping when we figured out they were going to be here overnight. Always great to see family, no matter how unexpected! Ken had never met Owen, so it was a real treat for him.

San Francisco Trip Report January 2013, Part III

Posted on July 5, 2013 by glenderella

For lunch, we went to the Crab House at Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf. Oh, this place was amazing. I have been craving crab ever since we ate there.

I had the clams cioppiono, delicious.

My friend S. had something for herself, I no longer remember, but I do know she liked it. AND we shared a 1/2 order of the Killer Crab in their roasted garlic sauce. Amazing.

Then we went and looked at the sea lions at the Wharf. And then we went shopping at the Boudin Bakery gift shop . . . which is when fate brought us together . . .

Me and the . . .

Crab hat!

Of course, I purchased it immediately, and it accompanied us wherever we went.

Ghiradelli chocolate (some chocolate purchases were also made, of course.)

On the trolley. The same TERRIBLE busker was there singing again. I warned S. but this is something you have to hear to believe.

At Lombardi Street.

At Chinatown.

We were in Chinatown because we had a dinner recommendation from another friend to eat at the House of Nanking. It is a small, kind of hole-in-the-wall place, but has a lot of character and really good food.

We had the fried calamari:

This calamari was different than any I ever had before, it was not heavily breaded and it was in pretty big pieces. Good, though!

And then the steamed dumplings:

They were also delicious, but we have never had dumplings as good as the ones at the conveyer-belt sushi place in Spokane….

And then I had the Garlic Ginger Poached Scallops, and S. had something else too, or maybe we were just happy with all of this….apparently I didn’t do as good a job this trip getting pictures of everyone else’s food! Lots of nice greens with these, you can hardly see the scallops.

At the end of a long day, we were very glad to go back to the hotel and crash. Here is all the “loot.”

I like to get edible souvenirs, if you hadn’t noticed. All of those jelly beans, and the ghiradelli chocolate, were wonderful. S. and I did have to traipse all over Chinatown to find that crab magnet again, I greatly appreciate her patience there. I should have purchased it the first time I saw it. The dragon magnet also is springy and bouncy. The cinnamon bread and jalapeno cheddar roll from the Boudin bakery were also great. And I do believe I bought a peanut butter cookie there also, but it was already gone. This trip may have led to a small obsession with peanut butter cookies for a while. And of course the CRAB HAT, best souvenir ever!

S. left the next morning, and I hung around so that my brother-in-law could come get me and I could get to see my newest nephew!

My brother-in-law N. took this picture, and it pretty much sums up how I feel about the nieces and nephews. Awwwwwww.

And a few more projects

Posted on May 16, 2013 by glenderella

It occurred to me to keep a running list on a sidebar of current projects but the very thought of that also kind of makes my head hurt. Because my favorite part of projects is starting a new one. We will see, maybe it would be a wake-up call for me and help me focus. HA HA HA HA! I think we all know better than that.

My niece prompted me to put up pictures of the horse pillowcases I made for her younger sister. I actually made four pillowcases, two for T. for her birthday, and then I thought as long as I was making two, might as well make four, so I made two for the Folsom Bazaar (October) as well. I used the method here at The Twiddletails Blog, it was the first time for me to use French seams, so I learned something as well. These were fun! If any more nieces and nephews want fun pillowcases, I am ready to go!

I am ALWAYS working on at least one pair of these potholders (method at Mielke’s Fiber Arts, LLC). Grandma Clarice used to make these, and they are great, thick potholders. I have used cotton yarn, acrylic, double thickness of acrylic, they all work, just create different textures and thicknesses. These are both cotton. I vary the size of the initial chain depending on the thickness of the yarn. I think I can say that almost everyone who has received a pair of these thinks they are great. They are very durable. Unless you melt them on a burner (don’t ask).

These are some I made for a Miss South Dakota fundraiser, in the school colors of South Dakota State University and University of Nebraska (OR University of South Dakota.)

Here is the second afghan in the works for baby niece L. This pattern is a free pattern from Bizzy Crochet: Faeries Sampler. It is beautiful, but lots of errata, and you should read her blog entry and the comments on it too to pick up some further errata. I still have several rows to go.

I swore I wasn’t going to do Camp Loopy again but my resistance is weak. I have noticed that I like to purchase knitting books, but I don’t actually knit patterns from them very often. So I have made myself a mental promise not to buy another book until I knit a pattern out of one of my existing books. So I am going to use Camp Loopy for that purpose. I am going to use this to knit the Lifted Stitch Scarf by Carol Scott from the Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders book, using this yarn, Desert Vista Dyeworks – Viso Self-Striping in the colorway Spumoni (right). Of course, this is going to have the result of making me want to eat Spumoni. I spend a lot of time in a car in June, going to various meetings, (not driving!), so I think this will be a good car project. I hope. And I will be on the Eastern Plains of Colorado, where Spumoni sources are few and far between, so perhaps that will be safe.

With the yarn on the left, Lorna’s Laces – Shepherd Worsted, colorway River, I am going to make the Twisted Spiral Neckscarf by Judy Warde, from the book One-Skein Wonders, Yarn Shop Favorites. (Purchased both of these from Loopy Ewe, which is about 2 miles from my workplace, which is a dangerous thing.) So that will be another pattern from a book! That means I can buy two new books, correct? But wait, there’s more. I also bought this teal Kid Seta Noir (at Knit Knack), to make the Lace Spiral Scarf by Gail Owens, from Designer One-Skein Wonders.

This is NOT going to be a good car project, as there are yarn-overs, and then knitting into the yarn-overs with this tiny, tiny yarn, and somewhat larger needles to make it lacy, so I am anticipating this will be a challenge.

So I have three projects from three different books! That should mean I get to buy three more books, yes? Well, maybe I should stipulate that I should knit three patterns from books to buy a new book. Or two? Or five? It is hard when you are grown-up and have to make up your own rules. I have problems with how many popsicles I am allowed to have each day as well.

And here is a picture of a little cat, who looks so innocent, but went on, later in the night, to knock over the very nice flower arrangement that Ken got me, spilling water all over the table, narrowly missing the netbook computer. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

After a long hiatus….

Posted on May 15, 2013 by glenderella

Ok! I am back! Sorry it has been so long, life has been crazy. But I must remember that it is good therapy to write on the blog! What have I been up to, you may ask. Well, since the Las Vegas trip, I have been in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Orlando for work as well as some in-state trips, and in South Dakota to be a God-parent to my newest nephew! There were some great restaurants on some of those trips, and I will share those with you over the next few days.

I have also been busy sewing/crocheting/knitting/crafting when I can. With two new nephews and one new niece in the last 5 months, I have been busy. I am glad to say that they each have a crocheted afghan, although I am working on another one for baby L., the youngest, in colors more suitable to her nursery. Then I will get started on the pieced quilts for each of them.

I have no pictures of Nephew O’s blanket from December. Asking his mother to send me some. Sometimes when I get in a tizzy to mail things, I forget to document properly. He also got some “Magic Slippers” baby booties, but again, no picture.

Nephew B received the “November” baby afghan from from the Leisure Arts booklet “A Year of Baby Afghans.” I did this one as a Camp Loopy project last summer, so you may recognize it. I love this afghan, it goes together very quickly, no seaming, and looks lovely.

He ALSO got Magic Slippers booties, with a slight modification and addition of the ribbing/sock top which apparently makes them stay on better. “Camo” colored yarn, which was a fortuitous donation from my friend Judy, when I was looking for sock yarn for this very purpose.

Baby L., born March 1, received the Heirloom Baby Blanket (Coats and Clark, free pattern) – this is the one that nearly drove me crazy. All kinds of errata, but none of it on the original pattern page. You have to dig around Ravelry to find it. Beautiful afghan, though. And she gets a one-of-a-kind because I am never doing THAT again. Plus, that one really isn’t in her nursery colors, so I am working on another one for her. That is the bonus she gets for being the only girl in the latest batch of babies!

She also got some booties (notice Auntie G. running out of yarn and winging it):

And…other than wrapping up baby afghans and mailing them off, what else have I been doing? I FINALLY finished the #359 Nancy One Skein Shrugigan by Lisa Limber, which I believe I started in June 2010. This was a good airplane knit, but then I ran out of yarn, and had to search for yarn in the same dye lot (after tearing my studio apart, of course, being certain I had purchased enough) (apparently I hadn’t). I made it a bit longer than the pattern suggested, and with a different yarn, so that was probably the problem. I LOVE how it turned out, I have worn it several times already, and get compliments on it.

And knitting and crocheting isn’t all there is to life, right?

So JoAnn Fabric had a small flannel sale. These are all destined to be made into Auntie G.’s famous receiving blankets. Some of this has already been made into receiving blankets. I was VERY excited to find the camouflage flannel, and then proceeded to buy a bolt of it at the next store (that was all that I could find within a reasonable radius….) And I was just looking for fish flannel this morning, and I see I have some right there. BONUS!

I decided to do some further color work, and make some mug rugs, foundation strip-piecing. I like how the red/orange one turned out (not quilted yet, though.) I call this one Mango Salsa.

I am also making a brown/white/green one which is supposed to be called “Chocolate Mint,” and already I don’t like it as much as this one. Still in progress, no picture yet.

Andddddd…. last but not least, I always have a pair of crochet potholders going. I was working on one when we went to see the Lady Jackrabbits play in the Division I Tournament in Boulder. The chicken purse approves.

Let me tell you, you could smuggle things into places in the chicken purse, because the chicken purse flummoxes the security guys. They were pretty much stunned.

Thanksgiving Vacation to SD

Posted on November 30, 2012 by glenderella

What did I do on my Thanksgiving vacation?
I spent more time than planned in Wheatland, WY.
I made cream cheese mints.
I watched a football game.
We headed for South Dakota on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Ken had some video he needed to edit, so I drove.

I have a new car mascot. He was very happy to go along for the ride. He does not have a name yet, suggestions welcome.

20121121_100050 We originally were going to stop in Hot Springs and use our friends’ wireless to upload, but Ken was done with the editing pretty early. So we stopped at the Platte County visitor’s center in Wheatland and used their free wireless, which we had located by driving around town a bit. Unfortunately it was not really enough bandwidth for what we needed. The first, short video uploaded just fine in about 20 minutes, but the next one was going to take about 3 hours. I hadn’t really budgeted THAT in my travel time. Ken walked over to Arby’s and got us lunch, and there was still like an hour to go. So I had the great brainstorm of going to the Wheatland library and using their computers. So we tried that. Unfortunately, their computers were EVEN SLOWER, even though they were hardwired. So we gave up and headed to SD, deciding that he could upload the video at my Aunt’s house when we were there for Thanksgiving lunch.
After Ken switched over to driving, I discovered that I DID NOT have the additional yarn I thought I packed for the baby blanket for the 1st new nephew who will be arriving on December 11. I am sure you could hear my anguished shriek all over Wyoming. But I did, fortunately, have yarn for other projects along, and so I worked on those. The afghan is this one, in a different color, with a different border.

This is the pattern I then worked on, using up some sock yarn to make baby booties. They still look a little big for newborns, so I either need to try with smaller needles or reduce my stitches.

We got to the ranch abou 7:30, after we stopped to pick up pizza at Lintz Brothers Pizza in Hermosa. I really wanted the Texas Tornado (hot sauce, red sauce, chicken, onion, green peppers, pineapple and cashews), but I couldn’t remember what it was called, so between what I remembered and what my Mom wrote down when we were on the phone, I had a pizza with barbecue sauce, chicken, and jalapenos. Which was still good. Ken had his usual pepperoni, and Mom and Dad and my uncle shared a Hawiian.
I think that was the only night I got any knitting done. The rest of the time was too filled up with everything else.

The weather was fine on the drive, other than the usual wind in Wyoming.

More on the rest on Monday, hopefully back to a regular blogging schedule.

Friday! And food and crafting stuff

Posted on November 16, 2012 by glenderella

I am continuing to clean up by writing about the photos hanging around on my phone and hard drive – hmmm, lots of them are of food, go figure.

You might think these look like wonderful delightful fried dumplings, but you would be wrong. They were some of the worst dumplings I have ever had. Sad day. I will be avoiding China Wok on Harmony in Fort Collins in the future.

Same thing for the “Special” wonton soup, unfortunately.

I make a crocheted baby afghan, a pieced quilt, and an embroidered quilt for each of my nieces and nephews when they are born (or, hopefully, shortly thereafter, although there is a five-year old who will be getting her embroidered quilt for Christmas this year….). I also offer repair service on these items if they are repairable. This is the latest from my nephew C., age 7.

This was pretty easy to fix.

This one, I am not sure about. It is actually HALF of an afghan I made him (he got two, because he was allergic to one of the yarns in the first one, but he is over that now) – this aghan kept growing each time it got washed, so I cut it in half and finished the edges so he could have two. This one half is having a problem. I am working on unraveling the tangle right now. Considering I don’t even remember which pattern I used to make this one, I may not be able to have it repaired by Christmas.

This is the new pumpkin pie bagel from Panera. Apparently this is a seasonal thing.

Their website describes it as: Pumpkin Pie Bagel NEW! Freshly baked bagel featuring pumpkin and spice with a crumb topping and cinnamon sugar mixture, sprinkled with powdered sugar

I thought I might like it because I love the Cinnamon Crunch bagel (which is the highest in calories of all of their bagels, oy vey). Also – what is the point of Cheesecake flavored cream cheese? I tried it because it was also new, but HUH??? It has some brown bits in it that are supposed to be cinnamony-graham cracker crust flavor, I believe. I will stick with my honey walnut from now on. It was not bad, but not better than the Cinnamon Crunch.

It took me forever to remember where I ate the food in this next photo. It is a good thing that my phone puts a date automatically in the photo properties.

This is a crab omelet (or maybe lobster?) with brie cheese and avocado at the Le Peep near my house. I should learn my lesson, I like over-easy eggs or breakfast. But every now and then I get a wild hair and try something else. This was fine, better with the Hollandaise sauce for dipping. The toast was really QUITE well-done enough for me, I really prefer undercooked toast, I might have to start specifying that.

This was the morning I was to leave for a trip to Houston, and the fact that I had TIME to go out for breakfast bodes well for where my head was when I was packing, but that is another entry……

Leftovers, Anyone?

Posted on March 28, 2012 by glenderella

I was saved by my planning ahead last nigh. Still feeling somewhat nauseous, I wasn’t about to make anything with meat for dinner. Aha, I thought, I have an 8 by 8 pan of lasagna in the freezer from February. So I thawed that out for Ken for dinner and re-heated in the oven (better that way) and I even had a little tiny bit.

Other than that, not much going on. I had a meeting in Denver this morning so worked from home after that. Other than getting kicked off the remote login several times and complaining to our IT contractor about that, it was a quiet day. Went to Knit Knight at Panera Bread, did NOT sample the tortellini as I intended as I did not think my stomach was up to that. Had a very enjoyable time knitting, as usual. Now one day in the office before I go on travel again. At least it sounds like the weather is going to be good and I won’t get snowed in while I am in Chicago.

Since it was my birthday this weekend (which I got to enjoy by being SICK), how about some adorable baby pictures? : )

Two weeks old:

Six weeks old:

Five months old:

Yeah, yeah, I was cute then, what happened? Yada yada yada, I have heard it all. Look how young my parents are! See what (cough) years of me will do to you?

SDSU Jackrabbits and Funeral Food

Posted on March 16, 2012 by glenderella

Well, we enjoyed a rousing basketball game Thursday night, with the SDSU (SOUTH DAKOTA, not San Diego) Jackrabbits giving Baylor a run for their money in their first NCAA appearance. You have to love a team called the Jackrabbits. No one else has that team name, thank you very much.

Our alumni association held a watch party at a downtown bar, and I had told my boss this was very important and I was going to leave at 3:30 to get through the traffic and attend. For a while there, Ken and I were among the 4 oldest people there. Eventually some more people who had graduated before 2000 appeared. We all grouped together and talked. We were NOT the ones doing shots, please note. One of my Facebook friends suggested that we tell stories about the olden days, when you had to look stuff up at the library, and go to division II games. Oh yeah. But it was very fun to be with a group of about 50 people, enjoying the game.

One of the gals there was from Lemmon. And I said, oh, my uncle was married to B.H. from Lemmon (names changed to protect the googleable). And she said, “Was his name R.?” “Why, yes,” I said. “B’s mom is MY mom’s best friend!” she said.

I tell you, South Dakota is one giant small town.Too fun.

Well, then we got to talking with the four of us “more distinguished” alumni, about all-you-can eat lunch buffets (we are from SD, of course we are going to talk about food) and how you aren’t going to make any money on a lunch buffet if you have a high percentage of South Dakotans showing up. Which led me to say we grew up training on church potlucks and funeral luncheons. And I had to tell them my mom and dad had a funeral to go to today, and m & d were talking about just going to the service and not staying for the lunch, and I was shocked, shocked I say, because funeral lunches are good! And one of the guys said “Yeah, you don’t want to miss the egg salad sandwiches!” Which totally cracked me up because I had talked to Mom on the phone and that is what they had! Or that is what she had, my dad had either beef salad or ham salad. My fellow alum said “I haven’t even SEEN ham salad anywhere but SD.”

So I think for my next knitting party I am going to have to make beef salad sandwiches. I don’t have a grinder any more, (we also talked about how you need the big heavy meat grinder) (Mom still has hers that was a wedding present 48 years ago, from Aunt Lucille and Uncle Emil, she thinks) so I will have to try the food processor. This recipe is a pretty good approximation, although I don’t think we ever added anything so fancy as eggs, probably because my dad wouldn’t eat them, and you had to be real careful with the onions if he was eating them too.

http://pamsmidwestkitchenkorner.blogspot.com/2010/11/beef-salad-sandwich.html

So, I am not trying to be disrespectful of anyone’s funeral, but most of the funerals I have attended have been celebrations of life, and I know the deceased would have been happy we enjoyed the food.

Other things common at SD west river funerals (or maybe just Folsom, SD funerals): If there are sandwiches with lunch meat, there will be some with mayo and some with butter. Chips. Relish tray. BARS (how to tell a good cookbook, they have sections for cookies, and cakes, AND BARS!). And every kind of salad you can imagine. Jello with fruit, jello with vegetables, jello with mayo (ugh), Cool Whip in every incarnation imaginable. And KoolAid for the kids, coffee for the grown ups and ice tea if it is summer. I still go for the KoolAid myself.

What am I missing as far as funeral food? What did you grow up eating at funerals?

And, a picture of fancy Jello for your enjoyment.

Yes, I made that, of course.

Left handed steering and sticking your tongue out

Posted on February 24, 2012 by glenderella

It is about the end of the week and my brain is full and tired, so this will be a picture-heavy wrap-up of the week.

A few pictures of us with my brother and his family at Dave and Buster’s last week.

D. (the youngest) won this car race game quite handily, but I don’t know if his Grandpa is going to let him drive the tractor with that steering technique. He is left handed, and I am not sure how exactly he is manipulating that steering wheel but apparently it worked. And nice look of distress on T’s face.

S. demonstrating that hanging your tongue out helps you focus in skee ball.

Kenny demonstrates his perfect form at the football game, just like Elway.

It snowed again Thursday morning, after the wind howled all day (gusts up to 77 mph at our house). Suddenly at about 9:45 the wind just shut off. And then it snowed during the night, which was expected, but in many places it snowed quite a bit more than expected. I was not enthusiastic about driving in the snow for a 2nd time in a week. We need more of a break than that.

I leave on work travel again next week, so this weekend will be a frenzy of getting things done, because I always feel I should do that before I go places. If I get half the things done on my “to do” list I will be doing well. I will probably write some posts in advance so I don’t have to post while I am on my trip, I think I still need to post the final installment of the San Francisco trip, and there will be pictures from the quilt show I attended last weekend, and an update on the newt quilt!

The Conclusion of the Winter Park Trip

Posted on February 23, 2012 by glenderella

You know you have had a good time when a one day trip is blog fodder for 3 days.

Uncle Kenny, D. and S. fooling around with the electronics before dinner.

Uncle Kenny helping D. with a fishing game.

We had a reservation at Smokin’ Moes in Winter Park but we got there a little early and they fit us in early. We had the spicy sausage (which I did not find spicy, but you know me….) and onion rings (which were good) for appetizers. Ken and Wade and I had the ribs, sis-in-law L. and S. had the brisket. D. had chicken strip and and T. had grilled cheese. Maybe it was because I filled up on appetizers and cashews at their house, but I wasn’t wild about the ribs. Ken was though, and says they are just as good warmed up (he got my leftovers, too.) They did have excellent Texas Toast. It is possible to screw that up, so I appreciate it when it is good.

D. had a big rootbeer float.

Ok, see that little white cup there? They give you those for water glasses, and you can take them home. So, sis-in-law L. was dumping out all of the water glasses into one of the big pop cups so they could take them home, and she dumped one that was not a water cup.

It was the kid’s menu crayon cup. Really, don’t they look festive in there? She was quite mortified. I haven’t been that amused since she spilled orange juice on my phone at a character breakfast at Disneyworld and the Mad Hatter came over and yelled at her.

Here is the whole family as Ken and I were getting ready to go, D. hanging upside down off the couch there. I forgot to get a picture of S. wearing the pepper print pants I made her for her birthday – they ended up fitting pretty well. And T. brought her poodle skirt along and I stitched the poodle down (it was an iron on and it was coming back up), so that all worked out. It was great to see them, sounds like they are coming out again over spring break so maybe we will get to see them again (kids want to go to Casa Bonita again, of course.)

It was an interesting drive home on all those twisty roads, and Ken pointed out that it would have been good to clean my headlights off, as they were rather muddy. But we made good time once we made it back onto I-70.

glenderella

Knitting, crocheting and burning down the kitchen.

Category Archives: Family