Life's a Stitch

Thank goodness I'm over that bout of illness. I thought, in the past, that I might have had food poisoning. I know now that I didn't. And I hope I never have to experience it again. Thanks to you all for the get well and birthday wishes. 

When sick, and unable to avail yourself of homemade chicken soup, I think North America is divided into two camps when it comes to salty noodly soup. I am a Campbell's person. My kids are all Lipton's. Recently I have discovered Campbell's "Homestyle" chicken noodle soup – less chicken (don't ask me how they can pack any less chicken into that can and still call it chicken noodle soup) and more noodles, the short skinny kind found in Lipton's. Where do you fall?

I managed pitifully few rows of knitting over the past week, but I do have a knitting related picture, from a recent walk on our nearby seawall. A yarn bomb:

 

 

 

Label this one under "poor me," a 100% feeling sorry for myself post. I went to San Francisco and all I came back with was a severe case of food poisoning. Thank goodness I was under the care of my daughter, the nurse, and had an understanding hotel manager who let us stay in the room for five hours past checkout. And now it's my birthday and I'm eating bagels, bananas and ginger ale. There are a lot worse things in the world right now than food poisoning, but when you're in the thick of it it's difficult to think of anything farther than the bathroom. Blecchhh.

Apologies for an unplanned absence. The formula of airfare bargain + opportunity for a few days off = a trip south to meet with childhood friends, a highlight of which was a visit to the Southeastern Guide Dogs:

I think this was where the expression puppy love, in its most literal sense, was invented.

One of their mottos is "Hug a Puppy, you'll both feel better."

It definitely distracted me from my miserable sinuses:

Look at Rosie's shirt, you can tell she's a dog lover:

The school, run entirely through fund raising, is where guide dogs are bred, trained and matched with their visually impaired person. We met working dog, Troy:

He's one of the last Australian Shepards to be trained. Their most successful guide dogs are "Goldadors," half Golden Retreiver and half Labrador. And they are very specific which half is which. I believe the males must be the Golden, but I could be wrong.

And can I relate dogs to knitting? You bet I can. This is my birthday gift from Rosie, perfect for an ipad and an on-the-run knitting project:

In the sharply divided world of animal lovers, I align with the dog people. That is, unless I meet a cat who behaves like a dog. I think you know what I mean.

In the world of needlework, I align with the knitting, but if I find crochet that behaves like a knitted object, I'm in. Just what does that mean? I had always associated crochet with worsted weight acrylic, stitches with a certain firmness. Nothing wrong with that. It's hardy and washable. There are plenty of knitting projects that fit that bill, too. My recent love is lace weight with drape. This week I've found my crochet project that acts like knitting:

It's the Seraphina Shawl  (link for Raveler's) or free pattern here (for anyone), in Malabrigo Lace. In certain yarns and colours it might be reminiscent of Charlotte's Web's spine and scallop patterning. This is mine from way back when. And another one from not quite as long ago. My next Seraphina might just be done in Koigu KPPM for old time's sake. 

It's a La Nina year weatherwise. It means more rain but spectacular quickly changing skies. We call them Steven Spielberg skies after the beginning of the movie, ET, where the clouds moved quickly overhead. His was a special effect. Ours are real.

From our street on Wednesday, I took these pictures, all within about two minutes, turning and snapping in three directions. No cropping, no editing at all:

And when La Nina blows the clouds away, this is what we see five blocks from here. Remember Vancouver's Lions? They were covered in fog in a previous post.

Here they are, up close and personal:

After living here for 26 years I think I'm still in love. It's got to be love to say that in a La Nina year.

First things first. A couple of you asked for a picture of a banana slug and as they are colourful creatures they will be included in this post:

Yukk, eh?

And considering the comments from my Noro review, many of us are in it for the colour. We're willing to sacrifice a bit of softness, putting up with straw and fluff, all for the sake of a colourfest. Here's my colourfest du jour:

This pattern is designed for use with Wollmeise, but have never been lucky enough to find yarn in stock on their website. I covet Wollmeise, but not enough to succomb to the sin of excessive spending or stoop to nasty e-bay sniping. A survey of the stash produced just enough Mountain Colours Barefoot in two different dyelots:

Reminds me of our sunset from the other night:

Gracee likes colour, too:

Only she likes to chew it.

Do you remember that line? How about the Ministry of Silly Walks? I used to have to have TV to watch Monty Python, but now, TV-less me, can catch glimpses of those classic scenes on Youtube without commercials. But this post is different because I have been heavily into the knitting and yarn content, and for the present post, will take a break. 

When I grew up in NY, near the Big Apple, we would say we were going "into the city." Here in North Vancouver we say we are going "over town." When we visit our apartment in Washington, we refer to it as going "to the States." But my favourite directional euphemism refers to our weekend hiking activity, going "up the mountain." 

Going up the mountain, into our rain forest, I wrote about that recently. I like to go because for me it means Geocaching. C comes along, not totally enamoured with the caching, he calls it hiking. Our forays into the forest mean encounters with interesting creatures like the one eyed rock giant:

And fearsome drooling wood beasts:

I'll spare you the photos of actual foot long banana slugs. It's not too much of an exaggeration. 

I especially love my rain forest in oxymoronic dry weather:

And tonight, driving by our old neighbourhood, also close to the rainforest, I was wishing I had a camera. Sitting on a fence right in front of us was a huge Barred Owl.  Although I've heard their "Who cooks the food" call, it was the first time I'd ever seen one in the wild. 

Couldn't sleep last night. So I got up at 4:00a.m. and did some math. It's about Noro Silk Garden.

Problem: If one knitter, myself, knit eleven projects out of said yarn, 42 skeins of conventional Silk Garden and eight of Silk Garden Sock yarn, how many silken gardeny miles were knit? 

Answer: 4.1 miles or 6.6 kilometers = 7217 yards or 6600 meters. 

And I have 26 skeins left in my stash. We're not going to do a cost analysis because most were bought on sale or on ebay, but still, it's frightening to even think about it.

Now, with all this Noro experience, I thought I'd write a review of sorts. The pros and cons of Noro Silk Garden:

Pros: 

• A multitude of colours – it's like knitting with a rainbow. Particularly beautiful for entrelac, diagonal designs and modular techniques. Just look at that photo above. Remember my first oversized Lady Eleanor AKA my office blankie? Those colours make my knitting glands salivate. Here's another one.  And another, in the same colours.
• Can often be found on sale.
• It scores high on the drape factor.

Cons:

• Knots – up to four per skein. I hear that that's the acceptable limit according to their quality control standards. However, along with the knots come abrupt colour changes sometimes necessitating adjustments to the order of colours being used, requiring the joining of a different skein and leaving more ends to weave that anticipated.
• Detritus – straw, twigs, bits of fluff.
• Disintegrating yarn – occasional sections of unspun fluff that pulls apart with the tiniest of tugs.
• Thick and thin qualities – most people really hate this, but I don't mind the varied texture it produces.
• The finer the yarn, the rougher the feel. Regular Silk Garden is softer than the sock yarn. It does soften with age and washing.

I look at these lists and wonder why anyone would bother to knit with it.  What can I say? Its beauty trumps its shortcomings. And writing this was an alternative to counting sheep. Good night.

That last post seemed to leave you relatively speechless. Is it the crocheting? Or did I offend you with my boy comment from the previous post? Is it those time suckers, AKA Ravelry or Facebook? Maybe I haven't been a good commenter myself.  Really though, it looks pretty slow in blogland, even the Harlot only had 54 comments so far today. I hope you are spending your time in fruitful knitting.

Back to the crocheting. I'm finding the knitting hard on my still braced (from its Hana, Hawaii hiking accident) wrist, so I'll warn you in advance. There's another Crescent Moon Scarf in the works. A blue moon.

And regarding the boy comment, Chuck and I have come up with our own version. We've known each other now for over 30 years. Recently we were asked about an event of our long ago and far away past. He started the story and I filled in the blanks. We agreed the details were pretty accurate. Relating it to the boy thing, our version is: one spouse – half a memory, two spouses – one memory. Works for us.

True to form, when I find a pattern I like, I repeat it. 

This was the first one, no so long ago. The current one is done in the same yarn, just a different colour.

Pattern: Cresent Moon Shawl from Easy Crochet, Complete in Three Days (In your dreams Three Days).

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock Yarn, colourway 252, 185 grams (just under two skeins). 

Hooks: Scarf – 4.0mm Edging: 3.0mm

Modifications: Due to Noro's thick and thin qualities, I adjusted the puff stitches according to yarn thickness, anywhere from three to five pull-throughs of the yarn. 

Thoughts: It is impossible to knit with Noro yarns and not have to adjust the colour sequence. I tell myself I won't give in, but sometimes it's necessary whether due to knots causing sudden colour changes or the way the colours pool in a particular project. This time I cut out two sequences of the bright green, leaving me short for the picot edge. An old Noro Silk Garden scrap came to my rescue.

(Note to Katy and anyone else who has requested my Herringbone Rib Scarf pattern, but hasn't received one: Thanks for your your pattern request, but your comment, submitted through your Typepad profile, doesn't contain an e-mail address. If you leave another comment outside your profile, it will ask for an e-mail address that won't be published and I'll get it to you right away.)