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Recent (Birthday) Yarn Acquisitions

As I mentioned previously, my birthday was a week ago.  I turned 29 (for the first time). So this is my last year in my twenties! Between that and the high school reunion a couple weeks ago, I am feeling, well, adult. I didn’t do anything for my birthday except force the family to take me to Country Waffles for breakfast. I generally don’t do much for my birthday because my friends aren’t in town, though next year I might have a party or something since my birthday still falls on a three day weekend (if you’re lucky – when the 4th of July falls on the weekend, you either get the friday or monday off, and since my birthday is the 5th, I often get a holiday weekend out of it).

But anyway so all I did for my birthday was go out ot breakfast, get presents from my parents, sister and granddad, and then went out and spent birthday money at the Yarn Boutique in Lafayette.

My mom had fun ordering my birthday present from Knitpicks.  Sometimes they just give money but this year I said that I wanted “stuff.” Sometimes it’s just fun to open presents.

So my mom got me some blocking blocks and wires, and some delightful yarn:

Birthday Yarn

That’s Knitpicks Essential in dark green, african violet, and tuscany, and some Knitpicks Gloss in mermaid. I can tell you right now that the gloss is destined to be a shawl of some sort, possibly Laminaria. And I’ve always liked the purple; I made some socks for Sarah out of that, that I always kind of regretted giving away because they were just that nice. 😛 Knitpicks Essential is a great yarn, very soft and seems to hold up well.  I’ve used it a few times for gift socks but I’ve never used it for myself.

Anyway, so after I collected presents from the familia (Abby also updated my Netflix account for another six months – yay!) I stopped at Jason’s where I picked up some cold hard cash. I would have stayed to chat but he shooed me out.  He had tripped on his oxygen cord a few days earlier and fallen on his face and frankly looked like he had lost a prize fight, so he probably didn’t want to be bothered by yappy grandchildren.

Thanking him profusely for the Benjamin now in my hot little hands I headed over to the Yarn Boutique to spend it. (What, wait for my Las Vegas trip? Oh, how you jest! Unlike my father, who has saved birthday and Christmas money for years in anticipation of a flat screen TV, my birthday/Christmas money is normally spent within if not hours, at least days of acquisition.)

I got a copy of Evelyn Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles and some awesome yarn:

Birthday Yarn

Jason has great taste. 😉

Dream in Color Classy in Blue Lagoon and Dream in Color Baby in Happy Forest. The Baby is destined to be a shawl too.

THEN I got an email from the Loopy Ewe with one of their sneak-ups and bought myself a birthday present with my own money.

Birthday Yarn

They got a big order of Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 sock which is one of my absolute favorite sock yarns – I knit the Kai Mei socks out of it and was really impressed. I ordered two skeins of Smoke (yes, another destiny as a shawl), one of Moss and another of Pumpkin.

I have to stop buying orange now because I apparently like exactly the same shade of orange. I have similar colors now in the above Fleece Artist, Miss Babs and Sanguine Gryphon Eidos (not to mention the Terracotta Malabrigo sock I made the Ishbel out of). Oops.

And now I promise I will be good and stop buying yarn for awhile.

Like… October? Can I last that long? Could I even last until… Stitches West in February 2010? A lofty if not unattainable goal (though kind of unrealistic, let’s face it).

Let’s start with October. I think that’s doable. Also there is the sheep and wool festival thing I’m going to in Dixon on the 3rd.

And, I am going to Vegas, and the King Tut Exhibit ($32.50/person!!!1) and Disneyland again probably in September or October, so I really need to behave myself money wise anyway.

At least this time I can justify it as being a birthday present. 😉

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Cranking Out Shawls

So, having pretty much lost the sock mojo currently (except for a single sock swap I’m doing with a pal back east – no pics till we swap, though!) I am fully invested in shawls, shawls all the time. Except for the one sock. Heh.

And so I present the Aeolian Shawl:

FO - Aeolian Shawl

Some closeups:

aeolianmosaic

It’s pretty much the best thing I’ve ever made, really.

Stats:
Pattern: Aeolian Shawl from Knitty
Needle: US 6 Addi Turbo 40″ lace needle
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in two different dye lots of Solis
Beads: Lots

So, major props and a huge thank you to my friend Malvina who I asked if she could maybe get me some more beads at the bead store in her city, where I do not live and couldn’t get to when I needed them. If she couldn’t, I would have totally understood but no. She went to the bead store WITH A FEVER and got me my beads and handed them off at the reunion.

I have the best friends, you guys.
*tears up a little*

ANYWAY:

The pattern uses way more beads than you might think. I used almost three whole tubes of Size 6 glass Czech beads in a fabulous turquoise color. (Hence the needing 2 more tubes from U Bead It in Sacramento!) As a result, when I make my sister’s version, I will be a little more prepared. Hers I will make a little differently so they aren’t completely identical.

The pattern is Estonian Lace which is so pretty. It’s constructed in an interesting way in that there is the first lace pattern, Yucca, which can be knit as many times as you want as long as it’s an even number of repeats. I had decided to knit the shoulderette version which has 4 repeats, and then I decided that I wanted it a little bigger so I decided to knit 6 repeats. But then I noticed how the beads were getting eaten up just by the first lace pattern, so I went back to 4.

The shoulderette version calls for 4 repeats of the Yucca pattern and NO repeats of the Agave pattern, which comes in between the Transition chart and the Final Agave Chart. You can actually knit as many Agave patterns as you want, though they are not technically part of the smaller pattern. Since I had decided on sticking with the 4 Yucca repeats but I wanted a longer shawl, I added an Agave repeat.

By the way, I LOVE nupps, so I totally used them. Some people replace nupps with beads, but not I!

DSC02758

Anyway, so last weekend was my birthday and I got a bunch of yarn – my mom ordered a bunch of stuff from Knitpicks for me, including some awesome Gloss lace yarn, which is a merino/silk blend. She also got the blocking blocks (there has to be a better name for that!) and blocking wires that I used to block the shawl. I liked using the blocks a lot, and lord knows that block wires negate having to use so many pins.

Up next is the leaf lace shawl from Evelyn Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles. I’m knitting that out of Rio de la Plata Merino Sock in “dusky green” which is kind of a bright (almost neon) green mixed with turquoisey bits, really fab. I’ve had it in my stash for awhile.

So, summer of shawls continues! Plus, there’s still enough left of the second skein of the Malabrigo sock used in the Aeolian shawl to use for another Ishbel I think.

Mostly I need to finish the swap sock because I’m going on vacation in two weeks to Las Vegas and also my sister and I are going to see King Tut’s treasure at the De Young that week.

Fun times ahead!

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CHS 1998 11 Year Reunion



CHS 1998 11 Year Reunion, originally uploaded by Pynnski.

So, last Saturday was my school’s 11 year reunion. Why not 10 year? I have no idea. We’re procrastinators, I guess. (our reunion website is late4class.com)

I have to admit, I was ultimately underwhelmed with the whole thing. I’m not someone who looks back and wishes they were still in high school – I was a hormonal wreck, completely out of my mind, didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself and was a complete and total dork.

So, I have pretty much blocked most of high school from my head. And college, too. What came out of my school experiences were ultimately wonderful and lasting friendships. In the picture above, I have known all those girls a minimum of 15 years, and Jen I’ve known for almost 20 (OMG). (I’m sitting next to Jen on the right; she’s the one with the fab pink hair.)

Sure, there’s a certain amount of curiosity I retained about people I went to school with, but alas, the people I was most curious about didn’t come. And now, I definitely feel like I’ve come full circle and have closed that chapter of my life.

Anyway, the shindig was at the Pyramid Alehouse in Walnut Creek, and it was loud and the air conditioning was broken. Now, I still retain my Texas heat shields, but this was way too effing hot with way too many people in the same room. At one point I went to use the restroom and it was a blissful 68 degrees. I caught the photographer in there and she admitted that she had gone in there on purpose just to get cool.

The food was hor d’eourves, various stuff, pretty tasty, and there was an open beer/wine bar. I had an apple cider beer that was pretty good. Also: cold. And there was a really good chocolate cake thing for dessert.

I wonder if because it was an alehouse they kept the temp down so you would enjoy (and order more) ice cold beers? If so, fail.

Anyway, the other thing that happened was that one of the people who had been quite popular back in the day was *I SWEAR* on something because he was a little too fidgety a little too early on the day; i.e., dude was totally tweaking.

But yeah, I did talk to a few people I was pleased to catch up with (Steve the Pirate King, his wife, Mark, Kirsten) though ultimately it was the most expensive “hang out with my friends” I’ve ever accomplished. THOUGH: props to the coordinators of the event. While I was kinda bored with the scene, it had nothing to do with their efforts and I think they did a great job considering the time constraints and our lackadaisical class.

SO: Here’s to us, Concord High Class of 1998! Now I never have to look at most of you ever again!

Maybe.