We're Back!

~~ From a quick jaunt to LA followed by some relaxing by a lake, a serene lake west of Berkeley. Much knitting was done in the car and many pictures were taken. I'll post them soon. In the mean time I have a birthday to celebrate and farmers market to get to!

Also, here's a post worth reading. It cracked me up, possibly because I use many public bathrooms while working in cafes and wondering about town... and because I'm seriously perplexed as to how women are so capable of missing the target! come on people, get your act together :-D

Shedir is done!

~hehe~ that picture was taken with Photo Booth, a fun new program that came with my computer. It's great for taking head shots while sitting in front of the screen. Watch out for more pictures of my head in the future!

Pattern - Shedir from the Knitty Fall '04 Surprise. Can be found here.
Yarn - Rowan Calmer

So ~ I love this pattern and I LOVE Rowam Calmer, although, there I have to make some adjustments the next time I knit it. I'm sure there will be a next time because I really want a Shedir for myself, but this one might not be it.

As I mentioned before, I started Shedir using an alpaca yarn (see pic below), but it just wasn't working out. I wasn't getting the stitch definition I wanted and the yarn wasn't as stretchy as Calmer. So, when I was Article Pract last week, I picked up some Calmer that was on sale and the rest is history. Calmer is great! I only started knitting with cotton yarns about one month ago. I found cotton to be ok, but without as much stretch or pull as I was used to. That all changed when I touched Calmer. It's perfect for a hat like this that should be able to give a little bit in order to fit snugly on your head.
~Shedir in Alpaca~


As for the pattern. My head is BIG. I followed the instructions to a T, but next time I'm going to add a few more rows of ribbing at the bottom and possibly another repeat section in the middle of the pattern. If you have a head that you consider even a bit larger than average you may want to adjust the pattern. I think I'm going to have to use this hat (because it's chilly out here!), but then donate it to a kid or small-headed adult.

Now, onto a hat for DoC and Sarcelle!

Still Chugging away on...

My Shedir hat. I'm hoping to have it done in the next day or so because we've had some chilly evenings here. Although ~ threatens to hold it for ransom until he gets a new hat.

We had a fun couple of evenings. around 10:30 on Friday evening we found out that there was a Cyndi Lauper concert going on just blocks from our place. So we hopped on our bikes and were able to get into the encore for free!! And of course, that's when she played True Colors and Girls Just Want to Have Fun! We have an amazing view. Seriously.

Yesterday we decided to bike up into the Berkeley Hills to check out Anza Lake and the sunset. The bike ride was incredibly strenuous, but we had a great time and the sunset was amazing.

Here's a shot half-way up the hill - do you see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background?

Here's a sunset shot:


THEN we went to a bar where we saw this:

Oops, even though I'm trying to be sneaky, I guess we need flash:


Hilarious!!! It's a mullet and a mohawk!

dead flower header

Introduction to the Garden

We're settling into our Berkeley digs nicely. While there's been a lot of work, I've also had some time for exploring!

The exploring started with a haircut at Tique Salon, followed by a visit to Article Pract.

Article Pract is a GREAT yarn shop. If you're anywhere near the Berkeley, San Fran, Oakland area, check it out. I found the shop online, and since it's the closest place to me, I decided to bike over and check them out. My whole visit to the store was a treat! I think they have a perfect mix of yarns, covering a wide variety of labels, fibers, colors, etc. If this were the only yarn store around I'd be completely satisfied (although, I know there are some great ones in San Fran that I have to get to). This is different than my Boston yarn shopping, where I have to go to one store for sock yarn, another for nice cottons, and on and on.

Article Pract is having a HUGE sale. Huge as in about a quarter of their yarns were 25% off and a whole other section of yarn was 45-50% off. I resisted the urge to buy everything and just stuck with a few specific purchases ~~ I needed some Rowan Calmer to make a couple of Shedir hats.

I started Shedir using an alpaca yarn, while it felt nice and soft, it didn't look that great. Shedir is a cabled pattern and with the fuzzy/splitty alpaca, the cables didn't show up. But now, with Calmer, the hat is perfect! This just goes to show that having the right type of yarn can really change the final results (i'll post some alpaca vs calmer pics when I'm done with the hat).

Other Purchases:

Some Malabrigo baby merino wool in the Glazed Carrot colorway. I'm going to use it to make Sarcelle.

Some Araucania Nature Wool in a greenish/yellowish color that I'm going to use to make another Clapotis. I'm really excited about the color, but I'm not as sure about how it will feel and drape as a scarf. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So, after my stop to the yarn shop, I have plenty of yarn to keep my fingers busy. And, with the cool Berkeley weather, I'm excited to have a few new scarves/wraps and a hat to keep me cozy.

Here are some shots from the gardens around our building:

Check out the intense orange of these guys ~


We have some grapefruit growing!


And these are the sweetest plums ever!!


As always, there's more to share, but I'll save it for later posts!

Road Trip Update #5

We're here!! I'm hanging out in Berkeley, land of free wireless ;-). Seriously, first there's wireless in our co-op, then there's wireless in the pizza place where I had lunch, then there's wireless in the cafe where I'm sitting now. I'm sure there's probably wireless in the gym, yoga studio and yarn shops! haha, I'm kidding, but you never know!

Speaking of yoga and yarn and all things fun. I've begun to explore Berkeley online ~ finding all of the fun places I want to check out and hand out while I'm here. I realized that the perfect way to find all of my destinations is to make a Google Map! Have you tried this yet? Go to google.com/maps, then click on "my maps". You can use this site to make a personalized map. As soon as I have one with all of the fun spots in Berkeley on it, I'll share it with you!

We had a fun time making a "possibilities" map for our road trip and it really helped us with the planning. We plotted all of the possible sites that we wanted to visit and then we picked a route which made the most sense for our time and interests. I'll share that map too when I have a chance!

Speaking of sharing, I have more pictures to share, but they're on my other computer. That is not my NEW fantabulous macbook which arrived in the mail on Friday!

In knitting news, I've started Sarcelle (I'll link to it later). It's a fun, creative shawl, but I'm making a smaller, scarf version!

Oh so crafty!

So, I was going to wait to do another post this afternoon. I have more pictures on my camera, but haven't had a chance to upload them yet. Anyway, I just couldn't wait. There's so much great crafting going on that I just wanted to post. Here it is with other pics from our travels.

First - how amazingly cute are these onesies?

In other baby news - check out this hat pattern. There are a few more babies on the way and I'm sure they can all use a pointy hat. I particularly like Fricknits' version.

Then there's this coffee cozy. I've been meaning to felt one, but I like this even more!

Look at the cool painted fridge that was in the bathroom of the Aztec Cafe in Santa Fe:

If you're in Santa Fe for a day and need some good coffee, breakfast burrito, or free internet, definitely check out Aztec. We spent a couple hours there just relaxing and checking in with world online and it was perfect.

Here are a couple of other pics from the road trip folder~
An old car we found parked at a diner outside of the Ozarks:
A close up of the dwellings at Mesa Verde:
Balancing Rock in Arches (check out the tiny people to the right for scale):

In food news, we went to the farmers' market on Saturday and have been eating like kings ever since. Elk steaks, simple salads, fresh pastas, beets, yum.

I made up this recipe for roasted beets, and we loved it so much that I thought I'd share it. Since it was just an experiment, you should adjust the recipe to your taste!
Roasted Beets::
-Rinse and peel 1lb of beets
-Cut into quarters (if the beets are small), or into eighths (if large). The key is to try to be consistent with the size of the pieces so that you get fairly even roasting.
-Toss into a baking dish with 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar, dash of salt, two cloves of crushed garlic and 2 teaspoons of crushed rosemary.
~Let the beets roast in an over at 350 (could do 375) until soft.
**Beware ~ after eating the beets, your pee will not be yellow. And if you eat a lot of beets, it will look like you poured koolaid in the toilet. I was shocked.