SailingKnitter

Wow - Last week sure was a full week for me! On Saturday we all rode down to the TKGA Knitting & Crochet show in Oakland on the AMTRAK knitting train. What a great time! Nancie Wiseman was on board to sign her books and hobnob with the group. In the raffle drawing I won one of her books : "Knitted Shawls, Stoles, & Scarves" which amazingly I didn't already own.

As an added bonus, there were several other local
knitting celebrities and entrepreneurs: designer & author Lorna Miser, designer Vicki Suan, Julie - owner of the Knitting Diva, and Lori, owner of Somerset Designs. We all had so much fun gabbing and winning raffle prizes! Even my hubby, Jones, won a prize! What luck - it was an Amtrak Capitol Corridor tote bag with a train on it. Perfect for the boat. He wasn't going to the knitting show - he was (just by luck) going to the Sail Fest show in Oakland too! So we could use our 2-fer-1 Amtrak coupon and both have a fun day.
Then it was off to the TKGA market. Check out the photo of me with Nancie. For any KBTHers out there - I'm wearing out Virtual Conference teeshirt from a couple of years ago. "May the Fleece Be with You". Gawd, I'm a knitting nerd.
Sunday was the great garage sale at our house. There was quite a crowd and we sold a lot. Thank goodness because we sure had a lot of STUFF. Monday was work, Tuesday was a trip down to Berkeley to have our Japanese prints appraised - and - LACIS! I had never been to Lacis - lived here for 14 years and drove past Berkeley many, many times. Lacis is a wonderful textile store/museum. I could have spent hours in there. The out-of-print books! Oh my! They have a copy of Alice Starmores "Celtic Collection" for $40 if anybody is interested. I bought some netting shuttles to make netting for the boat - gonna make some hammocks for us lazy sailors!!! Knit on....

Wednesday, we took out the boat for the "Sea Trial". This is when we first sailed her and checked her out. We hired a surveyor to come with us to check out everything too. Here's a great pic - left to right - Jones, Marshall (the past owner), and Bruce the yacht broker


After the sail on the San Diego Bay, we had her hauled out for the inspection of the bottom, and to have the bottom painted, propeller reworked, and the upper (white) areas buffed and polished.

She's a beauty isn't she? I mean the boat, not the sailingknitter below. Knit/sail on....

Here she is! We took her out sailing yesterday and then over to the boat yard to have her hauled out.

Today is my last day at work and I really have a bunch of stuff to do but I just had to get this photo up of our new baby!!!

The yacht broker made this picture of us yesterday - what a guy!!!

More later.....

This is a genuine potted house cat (feline domesticus).
Well, it sure beats having to go to the home center to pick up some pretty annual flowers. For an old kitty who is 2 months shy of 19 years, it's amazing what he comes up with. We have never seen him in a flower pot before today.

Today was SUNNY and Warm - in the 70's for the first time in months and months of cold rain. Old Niki Kitty has had a wonderful day sleeping out on the rear deck in the sun by the pool.

Bummer - We signed some papers today giving our buyer another 2 weeks to close escrow - delaying it to possibly May 22nd! This really puts a cramp in our plans - but what are we to do? We have sold most of the furniture and are now getting ready for a garage sale. We'll just keep plodding along. Hmmmm....should I change the ticker on my blog?

Well, couldn't leave well enough alone...just had to get out some other colors of Knit Picks Palette yarn and work up another baby sock scheme. I'm calling this puppy "Yipes! Stripes!" because...well..duh.

Actually, this would be a LOT easier to knit up if I had some self-striping yarn with short lengths of color. The yarn ends on this guy were many, many, many.

Did some work today too...finished up & electronically filed my taxes a whole day early, fed the cat, made coffee, vacuumed the master bedroom and made the "bed". The bed is in quotes because all we have left is the top mattress flopped on the floor. We sold the bedroom furniture to a really nice couple in the air force. I'm glad it went to a good home.

My son came over today and took the black leather sofa, curio cabinet, and the coffee table. The house is getting really empty and our voices echo in the space.
Okay - gotta go knit the matching sock to this one before I lose my enthusiasm for the design.

Here's a funky little baby sock for the "Longest Line of Baby Socks" event. This is knit with KnitPick's Palette fingering wool. After knitting with yarn that does its own thing it's nice to get back to being able to control the color again. Albeit, this sock isn't really so much in control, is it?

Started the matching sock so it will be a pair after I get to work on it tonight after work. Only 2.25 more days of work!!! I have to finish out today, and then work 2 more days and then off we go! May 6th is our last day in the house - and in the Sacramento area. We will roll out the driveway and down the road to San Diego and the boat that day - only 23 days to go and counting.

There are workers at the house today doing some repairs on the rear deck - support beams. Finally, it stopped raining for a day so they could get this work done.
We also need to get the boat surveyed this week - Jones is working on getting someone out to the boat to do this for us. Then the boat has to be hauled out of the water for more inspections and to have the anti-fouling paint applied to the bottom.

We've been selling lots of our stuff on eBay and through Craig's List online. What an easy way to get rid of anything that has value!! Craig's List is great and it doesn't cost anything to post your stuff for sale. There's still tons of stuff to sell - so much to do - time to go knit....

Just had to knit up a baby sock from the yarn I dyed last weekend. This is OPAL yarn that was undyed when I bought it. Kinda wild eh? Do you think this might scare a little baby? I like to think of it as a potential toy - the kid could entertain him/herself by staring at these bright colored socks on his/her feet.

I had so much that I needed to do yesterday, so I sat and knit a sock. Yep, that's my favorite time to knit - when I should be doing something else (taxes, cleaning, sorting thru stuff to sell or give away). I take all that pent-up anxiety and let it flow into a tiny baby sock knit with tiny yarn on toothpick sized needles. At least at the end of the day I have something to show for it!!!

Today was a good day. I had two friends over and we dyed sock yarn. It was both of their first times dying yarn and yet they made some BEAUTIFUL skeins!!!

Check out these wild color schemes. We will all have the most beautiful socks!!
These are some small bunchs of yarn that I dyed in rainbow colors - each color group is a separate little bunch of yarn. This is a 2-ply wool yarn that is then on the cone with 3 strands together - not plied. My goal is to use just one 2-ply strand at a time.
Here's a fabulous skein of deep rich colors. When this one was "cooking" it really looked muddy. But when we rinsed it out the different blue, yellow, and pink tones really came through. Can you believe that this was the very first yarn dying that Jessica did???


These are 3 more skeins - the far left is a lace weight that I dyed for a shawl. The center skein is another one of Jessica's creations and the "easter" skein is Vicki's.





Two more skeins - both are Vicki's. I love the vibrant green tones - can you see the socks that can be made with these??? Wow!



More yarn......












So...that's it! Now you know what we will be working on over the next few months/years/decades. What a blast!!!

Creeping down the first sleeve...still have several inches to go before the cuff. If you're not a "FLAKer" then you may think that the sleeve is already too long, but the first 3" of the "sleeve" is actually part of the body. This was kinda hard to get my head wrapped around, but after studying the schematic it made perfect sense.

Made an offer on the boat yesterday!! 50 foot Gulfstar. Whooo Hooooooooo.......

Last night we signed the papers accepting an offer from another buyer. It was a PIVOTAL moment in the course of our lives. Jones already called the yacht broker to talk about making an offer on the boat so that will be happening within a few days.

Whew! Thank you Don Alsey for your expert advice and for all of the open houses and showings!

AND...sent in my check for Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp this summer. I applied for the Retreat 2.75 with a 2nd choice of Camp 2. So excited!! I really hope I'm one of the lucky folks who get to go this year. I save up my pennies and forego all other knitting conventions (Stitches & TKGA, etc except for the markets of course) because Meg's camp is so exceptional and really fits me.

Sailing on....

Got Sock. Finished up the first sock of a new pair last night. Big ole socks for big ole boys.

Well, going back tonight to the LYS to teach a little extra class on turning the heel. We made great progress Monday night - but we just need some more time together. Yeah, like I really need an excuse to drop by Frog Pond Knits!

House Selling Update: Got an offer - really low-balled on the price so we countered - dramatically. The price is great for this area so get over it. Pay or go someplace you can afford (wow - I'm really snarky today). Now I know why folks say "serious offers only" - don't waste my time.

At least someone felt it was worth their time...that's the consolation prize today.

Last night I stopped to grab a sandwich and sat next to a table of 5 men who turned out to be truckers. I was eavesdropping on their conversation which was about the different types of agricultural loads that they haul around California and Nevada (very interesting!). Well, one mentioned that he had just hauled some "wool muffins". One of the other fellows asked what that was and was told it was lambs!!! What a cute name! I love it and thought I'd share.

Whoo hooo! Hi all you Opal Chatters! I just found out that my blog is mentioned in the April newsletter so I figure, if you're like me, y'all are visiting the blogs. So Hi there!!!

And....I get a surprise ball of Opal! Coolness.

I'm teaching Sock Knitting at Frog Pond Knits tonight - class 2 and we're going to knit the heel flap and turn the heel. This is the hard session for new sock knitters, so I'm psyching myself up to deal with their frustrations. But, once they each can yell "Got Sock" at the last class, they'll be in love with the sock and will have forgotten about the pain of turning the heel - kinda like childbirth.

Sock progress: I'm zipping down the gusset in the gray socks for my younger son (see crummy scan/photo). I could have scanned it on the black & white machine as the socks are just grayscale anyway - next time I'm going to sneak in some bits of color. Ooooo...maybe a tad of navy blue???
FLAK progress: Am past the elbow on the sleeve...plod...plod...miles of seed stitch.

Still raining here -was a record year for the number of rainy days in March - 20 days!! The potholes in the roads are increasing in number every day. They can't get out to fix them because its always raining. I feel like I'm driving on an obstacle course - dodge the potholes, avoid the flooded areas, squint to see the lines in the roadway. This is like living in Seattle with all the rain except ya don't get the culture down here in Sacramento "Sacratomatoe".

Sun's gotta come out sometime, house is going to sell, and then on to the new life on the boat. Knit on...