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So what if it's a bit more than a week still until my birthday! Tracy sent me a birthday package, which arrived on Thursday. A happy addition to a beautiful sunshine-filled day! I opened the box, and inside I found several wrapped items. This is the box with everything in it, no longer wrapped... ;)
There on the upper left side is a ball of Knit Picks Parade yarn, currently being swatched on the included #5 Addi Turbos. There are five balls of that yarn for me to play with! I love how it's going to stripe itself - FUN!! And those Addi Turbos ... Oh. My. Gosh. I LOVE them! So fabulous! (So you know, on the package for the Addi's, there is a warning which states "if used by untrained persons this tool may cause bodily harm." I'm not THAT much of a klutz!
On the lower left part of the box is the brown leather (or leather-like) zip case, which contains ...
Tadaaaa! The Boye Circular set! (The proper name is something like "Boye NeedleMaster Interchangeable Needle Set" or ... something.) All sizes I'll ever need to try stuff out, apparently! How utterly rad is that?!
Now, this yarn. This yarn I absolutely love. LOVE! The colours are so wonderful! Tracy included two, er, hanks? (knitterology totally escapes me right now) of this yarn. What am I going to do with it, you ask? I am going to admire it.
See? It'll be very easy to just admire this yarn for awhile. It doesn't need to be made into anything yet. It only needs to exist.
Tracy also included a hank of Malabrigo Worsted Merino Wool. The card says Emerald, but it looks more Seafoam in colour. I think it will need a pink/purple/blue type of colour with it.
That baby blue yarn you see underneath everything? That wasn't part of my birthday present; it was just yarn that nobody down Tracy's way wanted. From how T talked about this yarn with such disdain, I think I am either going to hate it, or be stubborn enough to make it work for SOMETHING. It is a very furry yarn that appears to tangle quite easily. "USE LARGE NEEDLES" is what I was told. We'll see what happens!
Also included in the box is a cute stationary (or is it stationery? I really don't remember... to the horror of all those years of schooling I've had.) set which includes a small spiral-bound notebook, a pencil, the cutest holepunch I've ever seen, a lil' stapler, and little clips to clip papers or anything else you may want to clip! Also with this is a cute pencil holder which MAY be used to hold things other than pencils...
Now for my Wednesday and Friday evening shopping experiences at Sierra Knitting Co., located in Cameron Park. (I have to keep plugging these guys - they're wonderful!)
On Wednesday I went in looking for a soft something to make a new hat out of. I felt up a lot of yarn... and found Misti Alpaca's 100% wonderful Baby Alpaca! It's so amazingly soft ... I'm just in heaven! It's a medium-dark green with tiny slivers of orangish throughout. And so soft. SO soft!
THEN, on Friday, I had to go back to the store again (oh darn!) to pick up the dpns I'll need for the size circs I bought on Wednesday (to go with the yarn...). And then bought more dpns to round out the sizes I will likely need in the not-too-distant future.
(See the bag? Sierra Knitting Co. Have I told you I like them? And? And?! They may be expanding their store, which may include an area to just come in and KNIT!!!)
Oh, I also bought new stitch markers, because I am housesitting and left that kind of stuff at home. I bought them for their colours ... bright green and purple. How could I resist!? But now I'm home posting pics for y'all, and will grab my stitch markers (I think they may be more flat than the ones I just picked up, which will be perfect for the Knit Picks project; I'll use my new ones for the baby alpaca project.), my measuring tape, and anything else I may need for my 9 remaining days of housesitting. Whew!
(And so you know, this is a record for me. Two projects kind of going at once. WOW! I feel the need to do aran-style cables on the knit picks yarn/hat. I am looking SO forward to seeing how that yarn stripes up in a hat, and am also looking forward to using the Addi's!)
Another quick note: Sierra Knitting Co. is hopefully going to start carrying those Addi Turbos pretty soon. Yay! As if I don't spend enough money on my horse and for gas for the truck...!
:) I'm so happy with these new additions to my Knitting Stuff. Don't I have one of the best cousins ever?! Tracy, thank you SO MUCH!!! And see, I may take a long break from knitting, but I come back! ;)
My hat is done! I had the last part of my class yesterday (transfering to dpn's and finishing the hat). I felt like I had grown an extra five fingers that kept getting in the way, but at least I didn't have to worry about the dpn's falling out of the stitches since I knit tightly. I had fun doing this hat ... my first time using circulars (which I accidentally left at the knitting shop ... they called and told me that, so I guess I have another excuse to go in there sooner than I was planning), my first time using dpn's, and my first time tying in a new ball of yarn the way Tracy recommended (which worked really well, btw).
So, here it is. Many thanks to my model, a Kirkland roll of paper towels.
And while at my friend's house last night, I started working on a practise run of the Aran Cable. It doesn't show up as well here as it does in person, but it still doesn't show up greatly in person either. I started it a few rows up, and instead of using just the 12 st width in the pattern, I should've made it wider just so there was more run out along the sides. I think that would've made the cables stand out better. But there you go, live and learn!
So, we've been getting rain. Our total up here is now about 55" (35" is about normal for us). That's a lot of freaking rain. I've been staying at my brother & sister-in-law's since Monday (only two nights, not bad). Came home late tonight, happily knowing I'd be in my own bed.
Some facts you need to know: I live on the second floor. The windows in my hall face the mountainside. There is only air between the windows and the dirt/rock of the hill. Meaning, there are no trees back there.
Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but those look like leaves. "But ... [pause] ... I don't have a tree back there."
Well, dude, there's a bloody tree there now!
Super.
Just bloody super.
Here's the downstairs: Wet carpet (mud must be about 4-5' deep behind the house in order for water to get in back there), and mud crashed through the back door (that leads to the back of the house, where septic is) into our garage / laundry room.
Again, not much more to say than Super. Just bloody super. See, we've always had to worry about the water coming up from the front (the river flooding), not the mud, rocks, and trees coming down from behind. Okay, not entirely true. We've had to worry about falling trees (200' Ponderosa Pines). They make a very distinctive sound when they crack that you never forget. And the pause before the thud when it hits ground, and the shake of the ground. Very interesting and unwelcome. Anyway, don't know how much damage that will have to be replaced because of the mud. The carpet may have to be replaced. It'll at least have to be pulled up to dry, while a torpedo heater does its magic. We don't know the damage of the sheetrock. It's cinder block wall on the other side of the sheetrock for 4-5' high along the whole backside of the house.
Needless to say, I haven't gotten any further on my knitting... Still ready to tie in the second ball to start the decreasing on my hat. Hopefully tomorrow evening I'll do that. I should be home relatively early.
Yes indeedy, I learned how to do circulars today! Today was the first of two lessons in my hat knitting class. I was the only one in my class. :) I knew that before showing up today; the original class had filled up, and I was the only one to sign up for the extra class, so they cancelled it but didn't want me to lose out - so they said "come in when you can on Saturday, and we'll get you started!" Okay! I'm s'posed to knit this baby up 10" before I start my decreasing. Seems excessive to me, but that's okay. I can roll or fold up the bottom part and be happy. If it's cold, I can pull it down way over my ears. I told them from the start that I'm a very tight knitter (just in case it mattered .... but it only matters to my right index finger, apparently, where the blister is forming). A few inches into my knitting, one of the owners came over and said, "Oh, you ARE a tight knitter! But it looks so good, and you have very nice even tension in your knitting." Thank you, I guess?
I really like the colour of the yarn I picked out. Pink with very light purple and very light orangish colour. It's striping nicely. The owners of this knitting shop are really, really kind, and have the kind of personality I get along with fabulously. :) (Sierra Knitting Co. in Cameron Park, CA - go visit them!!) While I was knit knit knitting, Lorna of Lorna's Laces came in - she's very kind, too. I love nice people. They make the world such a wonderful place!
After that, I went over to a new friend's house and taught her and her friend how to do cables and knit in the round. It's after midnight, and I just got home! We had a fabulous time, and after my lesson next Saturday I will teach them how to finish their hats. Whew! What a knitting day! It is SO past my bedtime! (Though if I wait 40 minutes, it'll be midnight again...)
[Edited @ 10:30a to tell you I'm retarded. I always get the Fall Back / Spring Ahead things mixed up. So, it wouldn't be midnight again, it would be 2a instead! Earth to Kalah... Earth to Kalah!]
