woolythyme

click-clack.....

The needles haven't been flying, but they've been steadily clicking away....

Koto....front and back are finished, worked from the bottom up, in the round, with a multitude of short-rowing that is nothing less than miraculous, because I think it turned out the way the pattern intended.  I'm not always good at blind-faith knitting, but I think this worked.  The sleeves are worked separately, which I found to be a very nice stopping point. 

Time to cast on sock #2.  Sock #1 has been finished for months....maybe years.  It's been hanging on it's sock stretcher on a cupboard so long that it's become part of the decorations; I stopped seeing it eons ago.  I vaguely remember this pattern....cute little picot edge and a decorative heel that I had never done before.  I'm actually excited to finish this.  I'm thinking I stopped because the socks were too big for me, but they were never intended to be MY socks.  DIL I think will love them.

Knitting life is good!

Happy Dance!!

(Blue-footed boobies, Galapagos Islands, September 2018)

balls, balls, and more balls....

Hi, my friends. 

Freddy...finally here.

These sporadic posts are NOT!MY!FAULT!!!

I'd post every day.  I have so much to say, you know. But, computer accessibility is my problem.  Especially, when I GOT!STUCK!IN!CAMP!AGAIN!!!!!!

 

This is getting old. 

Don't get me wrong.  I love my camp counselors.  And the bunk room has an earthy smell that I adore.  It's just not home.  You get it, right?

So, I was reveling in the fact that I was home and feeling that all was right with the world, when I discovered WHY I was in camp.  I am not a happy (former) camper at the moment.

My people went off and spent time with....balls.

That's MY territory. Although currently I'm partial to balls that have treats in them, in my youth I actually chased a ball or two.  I know what they are and what they are for.   THEY!ARE!FOR!FUN!!!!  I like to have fun.

They went here.

And took one of my favorite people with them...instead of me.

(He plans to be famous someday, so he was practicing in front of the camera.)

They met some famous people...

O-M-G!!!

THAT'S!JENNY!FITCH!!!!!SHE'S!SO!BEAUTIFUL!!!!I!LOVE!HER!!!!!!  and just think that could have been ME she was giving a ball to.....(sigh).

And they saw famous friends...

My mommy knows his mommy...which makes us almost brothers; and he went to the same high school as my boy who was there ...and they are both left handed, which makes them almost TWINS! I.CAN'T.BELIEVE.I.MISSED.THIS.

It gets worse.

They got to play with balls.  I can't throw, but I could have chased them and brought them back.  (I don't do this at home, but I know I would have if I was THERE!!!)

 

And look at all those 'ball' people.  There's Jenny again!!!  (be still my beating heart!!!) and John Wall?!? who plays with basketballs, and that short guy? HE just talks about balls...and HEY?!?  What's Bill Dye, the science guy, doing there?!?  Really? 

And, to top it all off.  I missed a ball-related parade.

I'm so depressed, I think I'll just take a nap on the vent.....

maybe dream about...

 

 balls.

 

a monday moment....or two

A long lost friend.  Rusty by Steinunn Birna Gudjonsdottir has been shuffled around in the 'yarn closet' for what seems like years (but since I failed to input a start date in Ravelry, I guess we'll never know how many).  Oh, wait!!! 

rummage--rummage--rummage--FOUND IT!!

 

The invoice from Tolt Yarn and Wool was still in the project bag.  April 2, 2016.  Not so long ago after all.  I'm sure the minute the yarn arrived, I dove into this.  I really, really wanted to make this sweater.  I wonder what happened?

It uses Lopi Plotulopi, an unspun worsted wooly wool that comes in 'plates' (see the grey plate above?) You c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y wind the plate into a ball and then even more C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y begin knitting.  I feel I have a real advantage using this yarn because I'm an extremely loose knitter.  Tight knitters....I think you're toast.  

This yarn breaks if you simply look at it funny.  Tug on it and it seems to dissolve in your hands. I've never used anything quite so fragile. 

In spite of the yarn being worsted, wooly wooly wooly, and finicky, the pieces I've knit are wonderfully light and airy. Because of the long fibers, this yarn is supposed to wear like iron, while remaining soft and making an extremely warm garment. Fingers crossed. 

I haven't exactly been knitting up a storm these days, but I have given this sweater two full days of my attention.  That's a record around here lately. 

I have a deadline. November 28th.

 

Because that's the day I leave for ICELAND!!!!!

and this Icelandic wool sweater is coming with me.

meet lars...

When the weather turned chilly last weekend, I couldn't wait to dive into my WIPs and dig out a sweater.  Idlewild by Julie Hoover was dragged out.  The back was already done!  Happy dance.  I actually marked where I was on the pattern.  Happy, happy dance.  I could recover one of my favorite stitch markers and some of my favorite addi lace needles if I finished this.  Happy, happy, happy dance.  A couple repeats of the pattern and I've shoved this back in the closet. I'm thinking about trading out the stitch marker.

Distracted....again.  (It's really hard having the attention span of a gnat.  We've had this discussion before, right?)

Two--three months ago I signed up for a photography trip to Iceland....December 2018.  And this is just about all I can think about.  I should have dragged out the Icelandic sweater I'm working on....

instead, I started....Lars.

  He's very excited to be going to Iceland.  In fact, he's been looking at cameras so he can participate in the workshop...even though he doesn't have any hands yet.  I've been trying to tell him that the verdict is still out on whether he's actually going on this trip.  He's wearing a BLUE sweater...reason enough to leave him home.  And then, we have my attention span thing going on. What kind of a guarantee is there that he'll even be in any shape to travel, although with 13 months to go I supposed I shouldn't squelch his wanderlust excitement quite yet.

I might have to knit his hands last, though, or he'll have his bags packed before I do.

flying on a jet plane...

My bags are packed....I'm as ready as I'm going to get....and I'm taking along a doozey of a head cold.  Hopefully, I'll leave it in Ghana.  

The Janesville jacket is going to be left at home.  I'm sad about this. For someone who ordinarily hates seed stitch (placing it right up there with linen stitch as something to be avoided whenever possible), this comes as a surprise.  I'm just about finished with one side of the front....one more side to go, a little seaming under the arm, and it will be completed.  Our temps are still hovering around 90 so I'm feeling no real pressure to throw this over my head and cuddle up.  I still have 3 1/2 wedding shawls to knit; they are staying home, too.  Knitting seems to be taking a backseat to other things lately but I'm sure that will change soon.  It always does.  

The other 'things lately'?

High school reunion (a rather big one) which was much fun.  Best part?  Reconnecting with a former European History teacher.  I wish I was as sharp now as he is at 86.  

Lots of fall baseball.  

Three book clubs...lots of reading.

Trying to convince someone that he's going to have a ball at camp.

He's not buying it.

Recovered....

(The itsy bitsy travel knitting kit is a Jelby.  The itty bitty scissors from Fringe.)

 

I'm happy to report that my temporary bout of insanity has apparently passed, I diligently shuffled through the stash, and found --and packed--- the recommended skein of sock yarn. Thanks to all my virtual friends who set me straight. Hubby has the biggest feet in the family, so he gets the socks this trip.

On any trip, I like to get my travel knitting 'started'...so, of course, I cast on.  The yarn is Ferner Wolle in 'Karussell' colorway, an Austrian superwash sock yarn I got last December in a cute little yarn-bombed yarn shop in Melk.

You can just barely see it clutched in my right hand.

If I had known how pretty it was going to knit, I would have knit it up months ago.  As it is, I had a really hard time making myself stop knitting and stuffing it in my backpack.  It may be out of sight, but not out of mind.

 

 

Since it smooshed so nicely into such a small bundle....and I chose a very flat travel journal this time, surely I'll have room....

for just one more skein.  

 

Told you.

I've recovered.

trying to plan ahead...

Can you read that last line...??  !Ghana! I'm excited.

I can hardly believe I'm putting this to print...but I don't think I'm taking any knitting on this trip.  Besides being blazing hot....we're carrying more than usual for the training sessions.  I'm taking a bit more photography equipment. I have my journal. And a book. And all my pens.  Who needs yarn? Anyway, my most current WIP is Janesville jacket....and it's not portable.  (yada yada yada....do I need more excuses?)

Please, someone.  Talk me out of this crazy plan.

 

 

i'm so excited...and, i just can't hide it....

I believe this is my favorite hat pattern of all time....Kate Davies' Neep Heid, knit with my favorite yarn (jamieson spindrift) of all time.  (If you click that link, you can see my first version.)  I just reknit it to officially celebrate signing up for a photography trip to Iceland...in December 2018....a trip I've been dreaming about for the past 10 years.  It took 4 days to make.  I could make 138 more before we leave.

I guess I'm excited.  

take me out to the ballgame.....

We went to the St. Louis Cardinals game----twice----this week....

The first time, we arrived just as they cancelled the game on account of promised, impending storms.  The storms came and we----and the rest of the people planning on going to the game----took shelter at the City Museum.

It was crowded (understatement) and it turns out that hubby and oldest grandson were really too tall to love all the slides.

Camera and I were obviously not ready for the exit from the slide. (that was a Cardinal's sweatshirt zipping down the slide)

So, with the promise of better weather and a raincheck for the next day---we drove the 3 hours home---got up early, and drove the 3 hours again.  (12 hours in the car should have produced more knitting than it did...in fact, so little was produced that it didn't even warrant a Kodak moment; I found myself volunteering to drive...are you seeing something seriously wrong with this knitting scenario?!? Yeah.  Me, too.)

The return trip was sooooooo worth it.

Beautiful, sunny--if cool---day. Our seats were in that sunshine and we were toasty the entire afternoon.  We were Cardinal fans in what appeared to be a very congenial Cubs section, but no one really cared.

Here is the CandyMan...the only Cardinal fan in sight...getting Brett Anderson's autograph.  You can tell this was one ball player to another...Brett with his mitt on his head, and the CandyMan with his sunglasses on backwards.  Both, stylin'.

John Lackey was pitching.

He's really tall.  (6'6")

 

R-E-A-L-L-Y tall.

 

Kyle Schwarber is back in the lineup....

and obviously he and his knee felt good enough to pound a 3-run homer in the seventh to put the 'enemy' in the lead....for good.

We had great seats.

Just not close to the Cardinals!

My camera missed Yadi's moment with the ball stuck to his chest protector...it was pretty funny.

As was fan-watching...

This cutie was entertained the whole game....just people watching.

Me, too.

I love baseball.

                                                                               * * * * * * * * 

 

Could any Cub fan help me out here???

He looks famous.  Maybe it's just the sunglasses.

 

 

home.....but not for long

El Salvador was incredibly beautiful in so many ways....the landscape, the sea, the people.  

We were driving between water sites...going up one volcano down another...this shot was from the top of a mountain, looking out over the two volcanoes we had traversed earlier in the day.  The haze is from the sugar cane being burned below; the smoke filled the whole valley.

 

I learned so much on this trip....this city girl thought cashews grew like peanuts?!? (actually, not sure I ever thought about how they grow!)  Surprise!  No wonder they are so expensive!

Hubby was helping to repair a system in a clinic in Santa Cruz next to the school.  This little guy was heading home for lunch....obviously he had had a rather thirsty morning....three bottles to refill for the afternoon.
 

We visited ACAMS, a women's cooperative (they were distributing toilets that day----how could I have missed that photo op?!?) in Tejutepeque.  Kristina is the operator in charge of the water purification system....this is the unfiltered water tank in her bedroom on the roof of the center that will travel by gravity to the filters and bottling station below.  The water she bottles is distributed throughout the whole community.

This guy was caged in the middle of our lunch stop. I'm hoping he was just another 'pet'....they had cages of parakeets next to him;  one parakeet was sitting at the open front window, greeting diners and overseeing the cooking in the kitchen.

 

Meet Angelique.  She and I played peek while hubby was training her mom and some other new operators in Cinquera.  Beautiful little town that was heavily bombed during the 1980's civil war.

'Trophies' retrieved by the resistance are proudly displayed in the town square.  The church was miraculously untouched here, but about two miles down the road, we saw the skeletal remains of another church.  That community was nearly wiped out because the residents took refuge in the church before it was obliterated.

San Salvador is the current capital of the country, but Suchitoto was briefly the capital immediately following the war. 

This church is the heart of the town...built by the Spaniards in the 18th century to honor St. Lucia.  Nearby is the man-made Suchitlan Lake.

 

We spent only one day at the beach...

more beach glass than I've ever found before...

 

Of course, there was beach knitting... 

and I had great hopes of making major headway on the 17 hour trip home.

 

My needles were confiscated at the airport (in El Salvador)...

 

but, I'm back on track now (with plain old addis...can you believe they got my addi lace ones???!?)

 

(The main purpose of this trip was to network with Salvadoran Rotary members and share information on some of the Living Waters for the World sites in the country.  Our LWW booth looked like any old booth in any old conference center in any place in the world.  I won't bore you. But I do have 400+ more country pictures....just warning you!) 

 

and yes....the suitcases aren't even getting put away this time...shhhhhhh.  Don't tell Freddy.