If it's Wednesday this must be Oakland

We arrived in Oakland on Monday and we're having a good visit with our friends here.  The sand and surf socks are for our friend Dave, so we had a fitting the first night, and now I'm well into the second sock.  Here are the socks posing in the front yard.  It looks like an arid landscape suits them as well as a beach, which is good, since this is where they'll be living!

I've been knitting these socks using the magic loop method, on a needle that I bought at The Neverending Yarn in Vernon.  It's a Chiao Goo Red, and I love it.  The points are pointy, the steel and joins are very smooth, and the cable is wonderfully flexible.   The price is good too, and I strongly recommend them.

I got to try Judy's spinning wheel last night and it is lovely!  It's a Schacht Matchless, and it has great weighting and was easy to use even though I haven't done much wheel spinning, and not for some time.  It was fun!  There may well be a spinning wheel in my future, when the right one comes along!

California Knitting

Here is a photo of my sock-in-progress posing in the lemon tree in my sister-in-law's backyard in Gilroy.  This was a couple of days ago, so it did grow a few more inches in the car yesterday as we sped down the I-5 to "SoCal" (that's Southern California to most of us!).

I bought the yarn for these socks at Websters in Ashland.  It's Opal 2010 Cotton and it's knitting up very nicely.  We might need to stop on our way home and get some more!

We also went to Carmel that afternoon, and visited Knitting by the Sea.  We bought some Tofootsie to make my niece some socks, and also a skein of Noro Kochoran to make her this bag that she fell in love with.  She totally wanted to learn to knit after seeing this shop, which was fun, but there wasn't enough time on this trip to fit that in.

Here she is with the sample purse.  She really likes it, can you tell?  We got the same colourway for her bag.

Greetings from Mendocino

To make up for the silence I took some socks to the beach in northern California for a photo shoot!  Here are the socks that I finished in late June but I have left lingering this long without a photograph.  Don't they look happy?

Next up is a sock that I finished in Ashland, Oregon a couple of days ago.  I started this one the last weekend in June.  It got to be knit on the I5, and in all kinds of interesting places.

I very rarely leave a pair of socks unfinished to start a new one, but I've held off on the second blue stripey one in order to start this next one.  This pair will be for a friend that we're going to be staying with in Oakland next week.  It's a cotton blend, since it doesn't get cold in Oakland, and I found the yarn in Ashland the other day.

Finally, Dave wanted me to show you a picture of the pair of socks he just finished.  These just had the second toe grafted shut on Highway 101 today, because they were dying for a photo op - we ended up giving them their moment to shine in Trinidad.  They much enjoyed the sand and surf!

Oh yes, I did finish knitting my cardigan just before we left on our holiday.  Unfortunately I didn't get all the ends darned in or the sweater blocked in time so it had to miss out on its chance to keep me warm in San Francisco.  I think it has come out well, though, and I look forward to wearing it in the fall.

Summertime...

School has ended for another year, and summer has begun.  I've spent several days trying not to work my brain too hard, and the weather has been conducive to knitting, and occasionally to gardening, so we're off to a good start.

I have been working hard on my cardigan for the last few days and feel like I'm making good progress.  This evening I joined the sleeves to the body to begin the yoke, so the end is in sight now.  I'm still hoping to be finished in time to wear this in the San Francisco fogs, so I have about 10 days!

We bought a new camera the other day, and we are very pleased with it so far.  This picture doesn't do the camera justice.  It turns out that the camera doesn't talk to iPhoto very well without its own software interceding, but it's too late in the evening for me to fiddle around with that, so you'll have to take my word for it that this picture looks a lot better on the camera!  It does show you a cardigan yoke in progress, though, which will do for now.  Now just one more row before bed time!

Cardigan progress update

I've been able to work pretty steadily on my Hempwol Cardi.  I'm almost up to the bottom of the v-neck on the body, which is worked in the round.  The amount of lace to be worked has been decreasing every six rounds, so it's almost completely stocking stitch now and is therefore moving along rather well.  I have done both sleeves almost all the way to where they join the yoke.  I'm debating whether they need to get a bit wider than they are currently around the upper arm.  If I decide that they do then I'll have to rip back a bit and re-knit, because the increases stop a few inches before the join with the body.  It'll be a quick fix though, if it's needed, as the tops of the sleeves are stocking stitch as well and not many more stitches around than for a sock.

Speaking of socks, I am finally getting close to the end of the second Twice Striped Toe-up socks.  The socks usually get worked on when I'm out and about, but there hasn't been a whole lot of that kind of knitting lately and so these socks feel like they're dragging a bit.  Maybe I'll make a push on them this weekend and get them finished.  I'm kind of itching to knit another pair of Monkey socks, and I don't let myself start a new sock until the last pair is finished (with very rare exceptions, where a complicated sock is on the needles, and I need something simple for a car ride or because I've used up all my brain power by the time I get to my knitting!).  I'm not much of a victim to second sock-itis, but I don't want to tempt fate by having unfinished socks around!

Yum!

When Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day came out I lined up for it at the library, and had fun reading it and drooling over the recipes, however as someone who can't eat wheat at the moment there was not much more I could do with the book.  However, the authors have now come out with Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, complete with gluten-free recipes!  I have it out from the library at the moment, but I plan to buy this one, and there will be much baking around here this summer, I do believe!  I can't wait to get the necessary ingredients, and a stone to bake the bread on, because I'm a huge fan of crusty bread!

Pretty Pattern - Good Cause

 Dave and I were at Urban Yarns last weekend and we saw the Brandywine Shawl knit up and on display.  It's one of those clever little shawls that can be made from the same amount of yarn as a pair of socks, so you can make a lovely little project for a good price.  The pattern is $6.50 to download (available from ravelry too), and Romi is giving $5 from each purchase to Doctors Without Borders for Haiti Relief.  She has already donate $12,000 from the sale of this pattern!