A Brief Diversion

Ladies and gentlemen, we interupt our reguarly scheduled knitting program to bring you this exciting announcement: I went scuba diving!

The best part of the story is the part where I was learning to scuba dive, so I'll save that for last. But I did learn, got temporarily certified and left Puerto Vallarta for an island region called Marietas. Did I mention I'm at a physics conference? A group of nerds went, including one of the lecturers, who is also the advisor of several of the people I went with. Also, I met the girl pictured here, who has just invented this very interesting crochet pet carrier. She's got a patent and everything. I did knit a little on the way out, which is how we started talking, but I was not feeling particularly steady on the boat, so I didn't do much. Okay, mostly I tried to put my head down and not move at all. I did manage to lift my head up in time to see a giant sea turtle swimming by. But as soon as we stopped, I felt better and the islands were ridiculously beautiful.

So you know how you see those Jacques Cousteau films and they flip backwards out of the boat? Surely, you think, there must be a more modern, efficient way to do this. You're wrong. That's exactly what happens. You can barely walk with the huge scuba tank on your back, and you just sit on the edge of the boat and fall backwards. That may have been the scariest part. Well, that and the sinking to the bottom of the ocean part.

The other girl, who may have been even more scared than I was, and I were completely last on the sinking part. The dive master (although I prefer the name "dive dude," which is how I shall refer to him from now on) held on to us and made us sink. We clung for dear life to the rope on the way down. Eventually, you realize there are a lot of cool things to look at down there, and you start being more interested than scared. I swam over to dive dude #2 (who, incidentally, looked good in a wet suit, and that's really saying something), and dug my fingers into his hand. He led me around for a while, and I wouldn't have let go, except that the other girl let go of dive dude #1, and that guilted me into it. It was really beautiful down there, the water was the perfect temperature, and everything was completely calm. We saw all sorts of interesting rocks, coral, shiny tropical fish. It was like being in a fish tank. The other group of more experienced divers got to see an octupus and several blowfish, but I was pretty happy with just staying alive.
After the first dive and little snack break, we went out to a pristine sandy beach on a little island. We played around on the shore a little bit. The water comes in really fast. If you're sitting right on the water line, a big wave can knock you over. I rolled around in the sand like a little kid, and wandered around and looked at some cool crabs. One of the guys on the boat caught a little one.
Now, my dad is quite a fisherman. I've seen a lot of fish that he's caught. Most of them have teeth. Add to this that I was once bit by a fish in a small lake, the guy throwing bread to the fish just outside the boat did not make me happy. While I was swimming the surface over to the dive dude, they swished away. When I was in the water, they seemed to think I was just some big weird fish and seemed mildly interested in me. Especially the big, thin silver onces that kind of look like they had teeth. Did you know it's possible to scream under water? However, you're the only one that will hear you. Once we got under the fish, it got insanely beautiful once again. There were walls of rock covered in colorful plants and exotic fish. We saw a huge eel (I screamed once again) and a blowfish (but it was far enough away).

The starfish were about the size of my head. It was definitely fun, and I'm glad I did it, but I'm not sure I'll ever do more than beginner trips. We were down at about 50 - 60 feet, and 40 is all you can recover from if you don't go slowly. I'm not sure I need to do more than that. Especially since I needed to cling to the dive dude just to handle descent and ascent. Still, it was a lot of fun, and I might go on another beginner trip.

Now, back to the beginning. I had to be trained in the hotel pool to be able to go on the official trip. I waited for two of the people I was with to go through their training, and then it was my turn. There's a huge pavillion area right by the beach and pools are right next to it. As I was having my training, they were setting up for a wedding. Then they performed the wedding. I saw the ceremony from the pool in my scuba gear. The wedding reception started and lots of people were taking pictures. The crazy guy (Max) I was training with and I decided it would be great to get a picture of the wedding in the scuba gear. So we hopped out of the pool like frog men and got a picture with the reception in the background. We, and the guests, thought this was hysterical, so someone went and got the bride and groom. We got several pictures with the bride and groom, who were very good sports about this, and even the official wedding photographer came and got our picture. I love the thought of being in this nice young Mexican couple's wedding album for the rest of their lives. It's a good story all around. Pictures will come as soon as I get a copy of them.

Knitting on the Beach

They don't have a drink named for it yet, but they should.

Ha ha!

I'm in Mexico and you're not.

Is Needle Felting for You?

A quick online quiz:

1. Would you enjoy stabbing something repeatedly with a sharp object?

If you answered yes, you might enjoy needle felting!

I just took Veronica's class at Fringe on how to needle felt a little pumpkin for fall. I'd never needle felted before, but it turns out it is exactly as described above. You start with roving (or even yarn, if you really want) and stab it with a special felting needle. The needle is special because it is extremely sharp and it has little barbs on it. This make it both painful when you stab yourself, and useful for grabbing the individual fibers and encouraging them to lock together. Veronica dyed all the pretty orange roving for us, and produced the rest out of a magic box.
So here is the absurdly adorable pumpkin I made on Tuesday. We formed the base with some paper towels, then built up the rest of the pumpkin with roving. The grooves were formed by stabbing in the lines particularly hard and repeatedly. Absorb the cuteness.

But it gets cuter.
Inside lives a little brown mouse.

And he has collected an autumn leaf,

a walnut shell (not the best picture, but I swear it's cute in real life),

and an acorn.

Here he is with all his loot in his little home.

As cute as he is, I think he's going to my mom as an autumn gift. I'm not really into decorations. For years, my Christmas tree has been a neon light in the shape of a Christmas tree. It's not that I don't like holidays, I love them in fact. But I create enough clutter in my daily life that I really don't need to add seasonal clutter to it as well. Anyway, she'll appreciate it (although I hope she appreciates it $55 worth). (Also, it's a really good thing I don't factor labor into these things. The woman has her own knitting sweat shop.)

Birthday Hat

In unrelated news, I turned 22 last Sunday. And new friend Jim turned 23 two days before that. I thought he needed a hat to mark the occasion. He's the brother of a friend of mine, a friend who has an enormous head. Fortunately, his head is not quite so big. It's not small, but it doesn't have its own gravitational pull.
The yarn is Rowan's lovely Cashsoft Aran (57% extrafine merino, 33% microfiber, 10% cashmere) in black (a safe guy color) on size 7 needles (ones I know I have). I kind of made up the pattern as I went along, with no idea of the actual size of his head. I did okay, but it's a little wide. I can take that in though. In general, it's a k2, p4 rib until the shaping, with a little flip-up brim.
Here it is on me. The hat looks cute, but it's surprisingly hard to take an attractive picture of yourself. I'm determined to get a picture of it on him as well. I don't actually know if he likes the hat, but I'm getting a picture of him either way.

MMMMMMmmmmalabrigo

Now that the cold weather has hit, and hit hard, it's time to break out my brand new sweater.
It's the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The last one was a shop sample, this one is all mine. It's not colors I would have chosen, except that the malabrigo was on sale.
My gauge must have been a little off, because the sweater wound up about a size too big. Not that there's anything wrong with big comfy sweaters, it's just that this was supposed to be a sexy one. I'm debating taking it in, but then again, I'm wearing it now, and it's soft, warm and comfortable. Really, I think that's all you can ask from a sweater. I'll get reviews at the yarn shop later.
It took considerably longer than the last hourglass sweater, but I'm a very understanding customer. Total cost was around $50, I think. I ran out of yarn unexpectedly through it, and barely made it through with the extra I purchased, which should have been my first clue that it would be a little big.
I'm proud of it, but I'm not sure I can wear it myself. We'll see how it goes.

Socks of Doom

I wore the Socks of Doom today. I think it was appropriate.

Dead and Loving It

*Cough cough*

It's the end of Sock Wars for me. I didn't even realize it started until the other day, and I'm dead already. Well, here are the International Socks of Doom. They're very lovely, Handsome Pete. You were a worthy opponent. Maybe next year I'll take down one opponent....

Who knows, maybe some day I'll actually finish a pair of attractive socks? Wouldn't that be interesting?

Done enough to blog about

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the Rectangle Bobble Bag of the Geometric Accessory Bags from One Skein. It really is just one skein, with a little left over. I'm done with all the crocheting, but I still need to put a zipper in before I can actually use it. I probably didn't need to tell you that, and could have just pretended it was done here, but that would be lazy and wrong. Instead, I'll just stick with lazy.

This is some of the yarn that I dyed in Veronica's class. It's just plain old Lamb's Pride worsted, originally natural, then dyed with Kool Aid. I think the stitch pattern shows the colors off really well, though the flash from my camera doesn't.
I'm getting creative with the photos here. I think this one is a bobble garden.
I highly recommend the book, and this pattern in particular. I'm tempted to make the other little bags in the series too.
It's a vicious cycle, really. Find a great yarn, so then you have to find a good pattern for it. Then you find another good pattern, and you have to find the right yarn. On and on it goes, until yarn and pattern books are taking over your wallet and apartment like a pervasive creeper moss. Oh well. I surrender.

Sock Wars!

I'm so going to get killed soon. I didn't even realize Sock Wars started Friday until today! I was browsing blogs, and people are already saying they have their first socks done. Yipe! I'm a little short on knitting time too, and I have sock issues.
But....I'll try. I really will. And I'll get a pair of socks out of it.

Finally

Those of you (Mom) who have been following my blog since the beginning may remember this scarf. You may ask why I have just finally finished it.
Because it was tedious. Painfully so. Worfy apparently likes it, as he wouldn't get out of the picture.
At first, I was fully enamored of double knitting. Both sides of a fabric at one time! How cool! This enthusiasm lasted only for about the first four inches. Then I realized that it combined all the pain of ribbing (moving the yarn from back to front) with all the pain of Fair Isle (twisted color strands).

I have to admit, it is really cool looking. I'm glad I did it. But I couldn't stand to knit more than an inch or so at a time on it. The pattern is Iris Schreier's Double Knit Striped Scarf, bought as a stand-alone pattern. (It's not in Modular Knits, though I do have and love that book.) The yarn is, I believe, Rowan Cotton, a 50/50 cotton/wool blend, one skein of each color. I lost the ball bands so long ago, I really don't remember. I know it's some kind of natural cotton blend though, and I bought it at Sheep's Clothing. It took me about 6 months to finish, but only because of my 6 minute attention span. I have absolutely no memory of what it cost, but I want to say it was about $30 including the pattern. Will I be making it again? NO. But I may pass it on to an unsuspecting friend.
*Edit* That friend is Amanda. Muahahaha.

Just in time for the cold weather

I sold my hats last night! I meant to take a picture of them, but I finished the second one while I was at the bar, and gave them both to Angel right away. He's thrilled, though, and says they fit perfectly.
I really didn't know how much to charge for the hats until I talked to Nancy at the yarn shop. She said 2-3 times the cost of the yarn. The yarn, one skein of Malabrigo and one of Aurora 8, cost about $20, and I sold the two hats for a $25 each, exactly 2.5 times the cost of the yarn. I guess I'm good at taking instruction. I probably could have asked for more, but I'm such a sucker when I actually like the person I'm selling to.
Still, in the end, it's all profit. I bought the yarn on store credit I earned knitting for the shop. Now if I can only find more people like him to sell hats to...
Actually, I am working on a crochet shawl for a woman I met through the shop. I'll be sure to get a picture of this one. It will be very colorful and unique. But she's a massage therapist, and has offered to pay me in massages. Sounds awfully good to me.
Does this make me some kind of fashion designer? Well, in my daydreams it does, anyway.

No longer failures

Passing through the region on my way to a football game (we're not going to discuss which one, or how much we lost by), I stopped at my parents' house for a night. As entertaining as it always is, this is one of the more interesting visits in recent memory.
I woke up in the morning, and stumbled into the kitchen, deperate for something caffeinated. I found a cat staring into the space between the cabinet and the wall. I looked too. It was a second mouse. My dad came into the kitchen a few moments later and asked what I was doing. I informed him about the mouse situation, and he snapped awake. "Keep him there!" he said excitedly. What am I, a cat? He burst into the garage, and reemerged with a 5' tall, 1" diameter copper pipe and a large flashlight.
The flashlight, of course, was too see the dark mouse in the shadows. The giant piece of plumbing was apparently to root it out. He poked in the corner for a while, and the mouse came racing out. I had no idea those things moved so fast. Apparently, it ran across his foot, because he screamed like a little girl. (Please, take a moment to picture this. This is my father. 6' 2", 230 lbs., ex-marine)
The mouse ran into the opposite corner of the room, hidden behind an apron. The cats went wild. I told my dad to catch the mouse, and he responded, " Oh yeah, like I want to get bit!" "Catch it with something," I insisted, gesturing at the plethora of containers available in the kitchen. He reached for an oven mitt and a plastic dish. When he scooped at it, the mouse leaped at least two feet into the air. I didn't know how fast mice moved, but I also didn't know they could fly. This thing was airborne.
It made it across the kitchen and under the fridge somehow. My dad, determined to catch this mouse once and for all, decided to move the fridge. "Here," he thrust the pole at me, "Hold the pike." He backed the fridge out, and the mouse reemerged, moving so fast it was almost blurry. The cats chased it under the kitchen table, one gumming it for a second, then it ran across the dining room into the living room and under the couch.
Not to be outdone, my dad bolted into the living room, and started shaking the couch. The mouse was apparently on to our dirty tricks, because he disappeared. Or so we thought.
I saw it once later in the day, and tried to catch it, but they really do move like bullets. If the cats, who are much more nimble, better equipped, and less in need of caffeinated beverages than I could not catch it, I had no chance.
I left for a football game (which we're not going to talk about), and didn't return until late. I wound up getting stopped in traffic, and the normally one-hour trip took three. I do mean stopped; a double-trailer semi had turned over and was blocking the entire road. Everyone shut their cars off and were walking around. That's not the point. The point is that I was really, really tired when I got home, and just wanted to get into bed.
Except that there was a dead mouse in it.
I burst into the hallway and announced, "There's a dead mouse in my bed and I'm not dealing with it!" Despite my parents' roaring laughter, my dad actually did go take care of the mouse. I insisted he take the comforter it was lying on too.
I'm sure this was a present from one my parents' dear cats to show me how much they missed me. I made sure to pet them very nicely in the morning. But next time, cats, I could really just use a gift card.

Tee Party

As you know, I am madly in love with the Ballet T pattern, and I begged Nancy and Veronica at Fringe to let me teach a class on it. They had an even better idea. Since the T can be mostly finished in a matter of hours, why not up the sense of instant gratification by making it a special day to pamper yourself? Enter the masseuse.
Yes, that's right. Included in the cost of the knitting class was a 20 minute chair massage. Are these girls brilliant or what? Dawna, our masseuse, was fantastic. *When I get all her information I will edit this post and put it in. The woman deserves more business.*
And the tees came out lovely as well.
Valerie barely needed me at all. Here she is with her tee made out of Trendsetter's Dune. I think she used about 7 skeins, not a bad investment. She's committed to knitting things that are "over the top," and I think she succeeded.

Here's newcomer Karen, making the tee for herself in Cotton Fleece (just two skeins needed). She got about halfway done with hers when the class was over, and is coming back in to finish it up. She plans to make more, including one for her adorable little girl.

And this is Jeanne, with hers in Aurora 8 doubled. It really looks great in that yarn. She was past most of the shaping when she left.

And here's my little start. This is a random yarn I picked up in Prague. It has little bits of leather and several different yarns held together. It made it a serious pain to work with; the different yarns kept getting tangled all over the place. I even had to cut it and restart once. I had no idea how much yardage I had, due to the nature of the store I bought it in and my inability to speak Czech. I had hoped it was enough to make a full Ballet T out of it, but it isn't looking like it. However, I had the idea of making it empire waisted and including and eyelet row and cord. The trouble will just be finding the right yarn to finish it in. The deep, deep navy blue is kind of elasticy, and the turquoise is a cotton tape, both of which will be really hard colors and styles to find. Ah well, we'll see how it goes.

Overall, I'd say the class was an amazing success. Lots of people have seen looking at the tee in the shop since then, and lots of others have been asking about the massage. Hopefully, we'll do both again. Though if you want to put in a good word for me at Fringe, feel free.

So Freakin' Cute

It's probably not legal to be this cute. This is the Sock Monkey blanket and hat from the Happy Hooker. It's on a size N hook, so it went really fast. Normally I get really bored with granny squares, but these were big enough that I didn't mind. And there are only 16 of them, so that minimizes the sewing up. The monkeys were made separately and sewn on afterward, but they were so cute, I didn't mind. Worfy wasn't all that thrilled though.
I actually made two hats, one of which is going to go to my friend Steph, who loves monkeys and has a hope chest.

The yarn is Bernat Softee Chunky for the plain colors and Denim Style for the sock monkey color (it's called Rodeo Tan, but I think Sock Monkey would be far more appropriate). I think I got most of it at Walmart, which is wrong because it's both acrylic and from Walmart, but it's actually what the pattern called for. I'm not normally a stickler for that, but if they're going to call for cheap but not too nasty yarn, I'm going to go for it. I don't know where else I would have gotten a color that good.
Of course, I've forgotten how much it actually cost. I bought it a long time ago and never got around to making it because I didn't have the hook that big. In the interest of cleaning up the stash a little, and because it was ridiculously cute at the trunk show at Fringe, I finally got it done. I'm glad I did.

Take that, computer languages!

Please note the shiny new link setup on the right hand bar. I did that all by myself by messing around with the template. I don't know anything else about html. I'm pretty darn proud of myself. That is all.

I knew this thing would come back to haunt me

I just didn't think it would be this soon. Sure, my friends have teased me about it. But since there are about 5 people that read this regularly (hi, Veronica), I thought I was pretty safe in my nerdiness.
That is until recently. I've been (ahem) talking with this guy, and we got the bright idea to google each other. Now, my last name appears absolutely nowhere on this blog, yet somehow, he found it on a simple google search. And it's pretty obvious that physics + knitting + sarah = me. There aren't too many other people that fit that equation.
Generally, when one has an intense interest in a hobby (some might say obsession), one introduces it to new people slowly. You sneak up on these things kind of quietly, like with a nervous dog. I was going to work my way up to the blog. But no, right at his fingertips are six months of knitting frenzy. His response? "Wow, you really like to knit..." Yes. Yes, I do.
At least the ladies at the yarn shop were sympathetic. To quote Veronica, "That's like 5th - date, sleeping - together information!" She said it, not me. Ah well, the truth is out.
Note to guy: Yes, I'm blogging this and I'm aware you might read it. The knitting public has a right to know. Just remember I have the video clip now.

Can you find the cat in this picture?

I'll give you a hint: it's that lump in the middle. I actually made my bed this morning (the bedroom being the only clean room in my apartment), and when I went back to get some socks, this is what I saw. Worf always likes to hide under the covers, but this was particularly cute. When you disturb him, he gets all confused and meows. Naturally, I do that every chance I get.

Ballet T (encore)

I finished yet another Ballet T about a week ago. I think this is the 7th one I've made, but seriously, how can you resist something cute you can finish in three hours? This is using a cool cotton tape yarn I got in Prague. It took a lot less than I imagined. I still have a little over half of what I bought of it left, and I'm not sure what to do with it. Sure, I could do a matching hat and/or scarf, and I may actually do that with part of the leftovers, but that seems a little cheesy. I don't think I'd actually wear them together. I could make another Ballet T out of it, and give it to someone, but then I lose that whole one-of-a-kind thing I've got going on. I guess it just goes back in the stash unless someone has a good suggestion.

I couldn't figure out how to take a picture of myself wearing it, so here's Hello Kitty. It fits me a little better than it does her. And these are the cute purple flats I'm going to wear it with ($2.99 at Goodwill). The picture didn't come out so well, but I promise, it's adorable together.

Need mouse traps....

I was back visiting my parents yesterday. Although they have three cats, they evidently still have a mouse problem. As my mom and I were leaving go shopping, we found that my dad had left this note: