Bring Back Blog?

Clearly I’m not much of a blogger.  But, I’ve been thinking about trying again.

So, it’s been a couple years and a lot has changed.  Quick review:

1) Still in Seattle

2) Now married (I’m still JDub on ravelry, but perhaps JessFar is a more appropriate handle.  We’ll cross that bridge eventually)

3) Baby girl is 2 1/2

4) Still knitting, spinning & sewing

5) Still working, but a new job.

6) No more kitties, but there’s now a dog in the house.

Maybe it’s not so different after all!

Anyway, I’ve joined up on a Tour de Fleece team for 2014, so I think that’s a VERY good reason to resume blogging.  And we’ve joined a CSA with local farm, so I’m embarking on new journeys in the kitchen with cooking and menu prep.

Yup.  I’ll try blogging again.  It’s worth a go, right?

It’s the end of May??!! Already?

Yeah, I don’t know where the time went. I feel bad because I haven’t posted in forever….

Craziness.

It’s been pure craziness. I’ve been working like a crazy lady, and knitting, and still working on the quilt…

Here are some photos from the past few months of what I’ve been up to.

1) Been going to baseball games lately. In the past week I went to a game with an old roomate & his wife

AND a game with Jen, Steve and Rick. Jen and I made a new friend while we were there

2) I went to the Madrona festival with Sharyn & Kristina. We met Cat Bordhi a little by accident, and a little by stalking and she signed a book for our friend Simon. I came back with yarn, fiber and a loom.

While we were in Tacoma, we stopped to check out some glass….

3) Been knitting sweaters this winter & spring. Here are the finished ones:

I think I tried 4 necklines before I settled on this rollneck. It was a frustrating process that started Christmas Eve and ended in March

Looks better when it’s not all wrinkled. Dang cotton!

4) I’ve been knitting lots of socks

I made a pair of these for my brother

The start of Jen’s birthday socks. Now finished, but I forgot to photograph the finished product. They looked sooo pretty – I used a mistake rib pattern with some STR I picked up at Madrona.

Sparkle socks for my mom for Mother’s Day. The leg is a 2×2 rib, it’s not really that skinny!

Lacy leafy socks for me…I only have one finished, and the other is about 3/4 finished.

More socks for me – STR Guppy. I have been oddly drawn to orange…

5) I just re-signed my lease on my apartment and am staying another year. Because I renewed early and haggled, I’m actually now paying slightly less in rent than I paid for my place in Phoenix. I have an accent wall in my living room that is currently painted “latte beige” and I’m considering a new paint color. In the meantime, I’m working on a wall hanging to add a little color to my walls.

Still has a lot of assembly to do, and more ends to tuck in than I care to talk about. Either way, I’m pretty happy so far. And it’s clearing a bag of Noro out of the yarn closet.

6) I’ve been pretending to be a biologist lately at work. I’ve spent several days out in eastern Washington doing bird mortality surveys. This involves a lot of walking under wind turbines on rolling hills looking for dead birds. Last Thursday I had my first find….

Yup. It’s a bat. I named him Ozzy.

Such a cute face!
My time pretending to be a biologist is almost over. Next week I’m going clamming for work.

I have a sneaking suspicion this summer is going to turn into a repeat of this spring….quiet at first, then flying past faster than I could imagine.

That’s it for now….

Seattle Snowpocalypse

That was almost week ago.  Before it was way cold

Here’s what the same scene looks like tonight.  Note:  There is a pretty good layer of ice below all this snow now.

Thursday it started snowing in the wee hours of the morning and the big freeze really started to hit hard.  I stayed home from work after watching the morning news and seeing all the traffic backups and accidents around the greater Seattle area.  By the end of the workday, it was amazing how many articulated busses had jacknifed or gotten stuck on the side of the road. 

Friday I decided to brave the elements go into the office.  I dressed in quite a few layers, including sock liners and some handknit wool socks (which need to be photographed still….).  I decided to try and catch the 7:30 am bus leaving my neighborhood.  Knowing that everything was running behind, I tried to cut my losses by literally leaving my house at 7:30 for the 1 block walk up a steep incline (I believe it’s about a 15% grade).  The bus came at 7:50 – not too bad by my estimation, and I commented on it to one of my neighbors waiting at the busstop.  He had been waiting for the bus for about an hour – he was trying to catch the 7:00 bus.  I actually got to work at 8:30.

There were few people at the office and I worked a half day, figuring that leaving early, I would have a pretty good shot at getting home before dark.  I left at 2pm, walked across the street to Westlake Center, and waited for the 24.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And got to talking with some of the other bus riders waiting on the same bus.  One older woman, who I recognize as living on my block, had been waiting for nearly two hours for the 24 to arrive.  At that point, I had been there for only about an hour-fifteen.  We continued to wait after we saw the 33 stop, passengers board, and then leave.  The 33 runs to my neighborhood, but runs along the bottom of the hill.  We could have taken the 33 home – and enjoyed an 8 block walk up that 15% grade. 

My time outside was now approaching 2 hours.  I was cold.  My toes numb, my fingers numb…..and the older woman would not stop shivering.  And I kept thinking about what I’d been reading earlier in the week about hypothermia, frostbite and cold stress when planning some field work for next week.  This wasn’t good for either of us, but especially her.  I gave in and went to the coffee shop on the corner about a half block from our bus stop, and tried to get her to come with me, just to warm up for a few minutes, but she was convinced that the bus would come as soon as we left.  I went anyway and got myself a hot cup of coffee and her a cup of hot chocolate. 

She seemed amazed that I would bring her hot chocolate and tried to refuse my offering.  I asked her to please just hold it and warm up her hands.  She’d been wearing gloves earlier, but her fingers got so cold she took them off and shoved her hands through the opposite sleeves of her winter coat to try and warm up.  She’d barely made the decision to start drinking the cocoa  and our bus arrived.

We were packed in like sardines – so many people on a little bus, all cold, a little grumpy, and very grateful to be on their way home.  I’ve never seen so many people loaded into a single bus.

Tomorrow I’ll actually leave my apartment and snap some more photos to share.  Tonight, I’m watching movies, knitting some new mittens, and snuggling with kitties.

Post about FOs

Crap. It’s been a month. Where did the time go?

Oh. Yeah. I’ve been knitting. Here are my latest completed projects (Thanks S for the photography!)

Bog Jacket (from Birthday bog-a-long) DONE

It’s Fall! (McQueen Sweater from Sensual Knits – I substituted malabrigo) DONE

I’ve got 2 pairs of socks on the needles – one pair for my nephew, the other for myself, I have a simple top-down raglan v-neck in progress, and I have a green lace sweater (don’t ask what possessed me) that needs some blocking, assembly and a neckband. I’d post photos of them, but by the time I get around to uploading the photos all this might be finished.

Last Saturday was a beautiful fall day. It was pretty clear too. So I took a little trip out to Magnolia Bluff and Smith Cove Park….here are some pictures (by the way, on clear days, I see all of this from the bus on my ride into work in the morning)




Yup. I finally got a picture of Rainier.

Knitting is just an excuse – this is the real reason I haven’t blogged.

Bogcats on the new sofa

Bought a sofa last Saturday. It arrived Wednesday afternoon. Lighting sucks, but it’s really brown, I promise.

And I’ve been too busy working on my bog jacket for the Birthday Bog-a-long. Kiki’s already won. I’m slowly cranking along, but making good progress. now that i’m working on the upper back section across the sleeves it’s taking a while. Here’s a glimpse and my bottom edge so everyone can see my crazy color choices and my crazier stitch choice (linen stitch).

The kitties love the new sofa but are still knitting pests. I can’t get them to cooperate for a photo op with my knitting on the sofa. Oh well.

Back to my knitting! 🙂

I need a new sofa

I need a new sofa. I only have a Poang chair from IKEA at the moment and it’s getting a little overwhelming trying to sit and knit in my favorite chair with two cats fighting for lap space. I need a new sofa so they can sit with me while I knit and not be in my face.

Here are some options I’m considering. I would appreciate comments/votes/suggestions.

#1
Found this at Dania furniture. I like it, it’s comfy, I like it as shown below in brown leather. There’s also a matching chair I’m considering

#2
Found this at Cost Plus/World Market. Again, comfy. This is a bit smaller – a little larger than a loveseat, but not the full size of a sofa. There is a matching recliner chair to it as well

Those are just the first two I’ve found that I am seriously considering. Both are about the same price as well. I’m on the lookout.

I need a new sofa

Labor Day Weekend photos

This is one of my latest yarn purchases – sock yarn! Alki Reflection handpainted fingering from Hazel Knits

The sock I was working on during the Route 24 Knitting adventure

Immediately following the bus trip, Sharyn and I hoofed it down to the Ferry Terminal….and saw the West Seattle water taxi coming in to the adjacent pier

Here I am. The wind was blowing and the ferry was just pulling away. It was actually a little chilly and pretty sunny.

And there’s the skyline view on the way back from Bainbridge Island

On Sunday we took a roadtrip to see sheepies. I was “goosed” by an alpaca.

I was working on a little project on the road trip to Auburn. I finished it shortly after we got back to Seattle (and before drinking coffee-tinis).

Aris is pretty pleased with her new Bog Jacket to ward off the evening chill. The construction is a bit sloppy, but you can see I did take the time to trim it with I-cord. I used a linen stitch to keep curling to a minimum and reduce bulk on her petite frame.

I bought some Spindrift at Churchmouse (the yarn and tea shop on Bainbridge Island) on Saturday. There’s more than shown in the photo.

And on Monday while I caught up on DVR’d episodes of Shear Genius I worked on a glove. I chose Annemor #8 in Selbuvotter. I love how it’s turning out and am so excited to finish the pair in time for winter!

Not Labor Day Weekend related….

Route 24 knitting club

Late Saturday morning I was waiting for the bus to get downtown, knitting a sock, minding my own business. An older woman joins me at the bus stop, and within 30 seconds asks what I’m knitting and wants a closer look. This happens from time to time, but surprisingly not that often considering how often I do knit on the bus or at the bus stop. Anyway, she was very complimentary about the yarn I was using and my even stitches and had a lot of questions about knitting socks from the toe up. It was my lucky day – I found another knitter.

The bus was about 10 minutes late, and it was just the two of us hanging out at the bus shelter, so we had time to chat. She’s a lifelong knitter and a part-time Seattle resident. When she’s not living here, she lives in her native Norway. She told me about learning to knit as a six year old in school – “the boys had to learn too. We would start by knitting squares for washclothes, then scarves. The next year we would learn how to make mittens and hats” She told me about how knitting was a VERY social activity there and it’s just what you did when you had a group of friends or family together.

So I’ve been starting to get really interested in traditional scandanavian patterns recently (proof would be in the list of library books I currently have checked out) and I was actually on my way into downtown to catch up with Sharyn and take the ferry out to Bainbridge Island for yarn shopping. (I’ve since started a pair of gloves from Selbuvotter). So I started asking her questions, and next thing I know, we’re boarding the bus and I have a list of more books to check out and local museums and exhibits about nordic knitting. I’m ecstatic.

Still on the bus, she and I are still talking about knitting. And another woman already on the bus when we boarded, has moved to sit by us. Yup – found another knitter. Again my sock in progress is inspected and she’s telling us all about this afghan she’s been working on. It was such a neat experience finding two long-time knitters in the course of a half hour waiting for and riding the bus. How often does that happend?

Progress

This is what I came home to on Friday of scarf week. Note the culprit of such a mess in the photo.

I did come back and finish the scarf – no major damage done, it was all salvageable. Both scarves are finished. Yay!

I also started in on a new project I’ve never attempted before. Because I needed a new hobby about as much as a gunshot to the head.

4 blocks done, 68 to go (as of last night)

Work has had ups and downs, but is is on upswing today. Finally!

Scarf week

This week is shark week on Discovery Channel.  At my house it’s scarf week.  I need to bust out a few sweaters, but scarves are fun, easy and don’t require me to inventory the stash or cast on a crapload of stitches.

Here’s one I started just before the move:

 

Crystal Palace Taos in Mesa.  100% wool, begs to be felted in another form….I’m so happy with the colors and they show off pretty nice in a boring 2×2 rib

 

I heard a rumor that when the sky is clear, you can see mountains from my balcony.  I don’t have a great view cause I’m about 1 floor too low for the really awesome views.  But sure enough Sunday morning, I was peeking out my living room window and look what I spotted over the roof of the building across the parking lot.

Had a visitor Sunday – my first to the new shack!  She had never seen a spinning wheel before and asked about mine which had been reassembled mere hours before her arrival.  So I started spinning up some fiber.  Spritely Goods Special Edition Melon Medley (merino 64s).

 
Such yummy colors make me think of watermelon, strawberries, cantalope and mango.  I stayed up late Sunday night spinning and plying the first bobbinful.  And I thought it might make a fun scarf as well.  So….entrelac it is because it’s been a while and doesn’t require as much thought as lace. 

 

Scarf week shall continue, hopefully ending with finished pieces!  Quite sadly I don’t think my bus trips to and from work will be very productive though.  Maybe in the morning, but in the evenings the bus is PACKED FULL.

FYI – after some phone calls and IMs with homefolk I am in a better mood this evening.  The lingering bitterness is keeping me at home tonight so I don’t alienate strangers at SnB.  Hopefully next Tuesday will work out better.  If I can get license plates on my car.

The license plate story:

Weeks before leaving AZ, I requested a copy of the electronic title for my car because I needed it to register the car in WA.  I requested said title through my lienholder, who had to request it through the state of AZ because they didn’t have any kind of hardcopy of such document.  Well, AZ has yet to produce said document.  My AZ tags expire tonight.  WA says no title no tags.  Thank god I have a bus pass.  (Dear lord baby jesus, we thank you for this bountiful harvest of cranberry blood orange tea, grilled cheese sandwich, spinach salad, and the case of lo-carb monster energy drink living in my fridge.  Please, please, please, help the state of AZ get their ass in gear and give me my blessed title to my blessed car so I might register it, get new plates, install new plate holder on the front bumper, and legally drive it.  I’m low on booze and I got a good lead on a good market for microbrews.  But it’s not on my bus route.)