The Rhinebeck Post

So Rhinebeck. It was nice to get away. I drove up to NYC Thursday night after work to eat at The Chip Shop and get my deep fried twinkie and dinner with friends Friday night. I spent most of Friday wandering around Manhattan.

For anyone who knows of the Japanese bookstore, it used to be a Rockefeller Center. They have now moved to Bryant Park. They're now on 6th Ave between 40th and 41st.

In keeping up with tradition, I was under dressed on a trip to New York (the state). I left the office and forgot my jacket. Hey, at least it isn't January in Ithaca and 20 degrees. And at least there's an H&M every other street in Manhattan. I used to show up week after week in Ithaca dressed in jeans, tank top, and a wool coat. It was a little chilly.

So Rhinebeck. Autumn leaves, chill in the air - it's what autumn is supposed to be. I had a limited budget and I didn't want to buy yarn that I could order from Webs. I also didn't want to buy random yarn off of a farm. I've got enough yarn. I also wasn't looking for generic fiber. It left me with hand dyed/painted rovings. So...

From Briar Rose, I bought a ball of roving. They don't make it out to MD S&W because they haven't been able to get in. They have some really beautiful handpainted yarn but I couldn't justify the purchase to myself.


Four ounces of the "Cottage Garden" colorway in BFL. I've been seeing beautifully spun up fiber in wildly varigated colorways that have knit up beautifully so I wanted to buy something with color to spin.


I wanted to find something from Carolina Homespun and ended up with this pretty thing from Grafton Fibers:

It's my favorite mixture of colors. Red and black mix.

Finally, I had seen an ad on ravelry for Creatively Dyed Yarns. I am normally good on not clicking on the ads but when an ad has beautiful colorways, it draws my attention and I click. So I clicked and saw she would be at Rhinebeck and made it a point to visit the booth. She has some very unique fibers (wool/seacell, milk protein...) and beautiful colorways. so I got:

This is the wool/bamboo blend.

This is the wool/seacell blend. Creatively Dyed will be at Stitches East, but not necessarily with the wool/seacell.

The rest of the photoset from the weekend can be found here.

For anyone who is curious, it's a $100 deposit on a Golding wheel and the official wait is now out 8 years. Mr. Golding thinks the realistic date is 4 years if his son takes over the spindles and he has more time to focus on the wheels. Depending on how you look at it, I either didn't go far beyond my budget since I haven't actually bought the wheel yet, or I went way beyond my budget because I'll be handing over a ridiculous amount of money in 4-8 years for a spinning wheel that spins like buttah!

20 miles

It's nice when the only things on the "To Do" list are:
* 20 miles - run it, walk it, just get through it
* eat
* shower
* nap
* season opener hockey game

Cuz then you are in such a calorie deficit that you can go and enjoy those arena hot dogs that are piled with chili, cheese, onions, and sauerkraut. Mmm, good. Oh, and the introductions to the players and the images of the guys in street clothes with hockey sticks, OMG. Yeah, OMG. My brain just kinda stops there.

And then you go and find that the 20 miles has made you forget how to do math as in algebra and number theory and other things you're going to be tested on in a month. Or maybe it was the image of the Caps in their street clothes. My brain does kinda stop there... Have I said "OMG" yet?

Hmm...

Lorna's Laces Worsted Multi - Amber Rose
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

It's the Jimmy Beans Wool Oct 08 Lorna's Laces exclusive colorway - Amber Rose. I bought 5 skeins in worsted weight to knit a sweater. It came in the mail today and just picture me going: "Hmmm..." (head tilt to left) "Hmmm...." (head tilt to right) ... repeat. It's a lot more bubble gum pink than I was expecting. I'm not sure how I feel about this right now.

Time to think

I was going to go run 17 miles today. Well, it was humid. I felt like crap. And I figured that if you can hear yourself breathe over the music, it is probably not a good sign. So instead I walked 17 miles. I had a lot of time to think. What did I think about?
- The Garden Variety Collection of shawls led me to this blog. I decided to start from the beginning. I came to this post and stopped short. It's a sunflower wreath! The thing is, I've been wanting to make a beaded sunflower wreath. I have a fall berry wreath. I need a wreath for the other 3 seasons! Perfect inspiration. So I worked out how to do the lavender. I've worked out how to do the small sunflowers. I've got an idea on the leaves to do for the wreath. I'm thinking of doing a 3 class set. One for lavender, one for sunflower, one for the wreath. You can pick however many classes you want.
- Work related...I worked out how to start going down a new path for a dialer. I did manage to enforce my self imposed rule of not working outside of the usual hours unless absolutely necessary.
- At knitting, Lisa mentioned she wanted to do the Swallowtail Shawl but as a stole cuz she didn't do the whole triangular shawl thing. Of course, that was like throwing down a challenge for me. The only reason I never truly got into knitted lace design was because I've got too many other damn things to do. However, you want me to modify lace, hell yes, that sounds like fun. So I've been obsessed with this thought and the need to start swatching....even though I have plenty of holiday knitting to get through, Nutkin to finish, and the Maple Leaf Shawl to finish up before the Just Our Yarns trunk show at Bead Obsessions in November.

Compliments

I like compliments. Last weekend, Beth told me of an incident with her mom's orchid. Beth had commissioned a beaded orchid from me last year to give to her mother as a birthday present. Her mother loves orchids. There's a table in her house on which she likes to keep a flowering orchid. When the real ones are bare of flowers, she puts the beaded one out. One day, a friend of hers came over. This friend was also an orchid lover. He saw the orchid sitting on the table and exclaimed "You didn't get that one from me!" She told him to go look at it up close and ta da! No she did not get that one from him.
As a designer, I like hearing that. It means I'm doing something right. I'm not one for abstract flowers. I like to try to stick as close to the real thing as I can.

Whee!

Holiday knitting is moving along. Holiday scarf #1 - one skein down, 2 more to go. Whoo hoo!

Lace Ribbon Scarf

Lace Ribbon Scarf
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

I had sworn off scarves a couple of years ago because it was a never ending repeat. I guess I'm just in need of mindless knitting to do. In combination with short pattern repeats, it's just enough to keep my attention focused. This is coming along and I'm finding that I don't mind knitting it through.

Are you f-ing kidding me?

I am trying to work on the class piece for a new class. I'm making use of those peyote stars. I'm trying to get this into the shop by Oct 1. Well...Thursday night, I start. When I went to trim the tail ends with my thread zapper, the zapper was a little over heated and zapped not only the thread I was trying to trim but thread holding in a row of peyote stitch. I put it aside and go back to my knitting and call it a night. Friday night, I pull apart the previous night's work and start over again with my thread. First a bead snaps from the tension, then another. Finally the thread snaps. Mother f-er. Again, I put it down, pick up some knitting and eventually fall asleep on the couch and call it a night. This afternoon, I've napped and eaten after my run. I settle in and first pull apart the work I did yesterday. I start again on yet another piece of thread. As I'm working through, a bead cracks. I continue. The thread breaks, AGAIN! Seriously, are you f-ing kidding me?

Sahara

I finished. I like bamboo. It's soft.

People are evil

People are evil, taunting me with their yarn. As it is, I probably don't have time to knit through what I need to knit through before the end of this year and therefore, I should not buy more yarn. But of course, evil people are there taunting me with their stores and pictures and blog posts.
Exhibit A: Spritely Goods. I bought a skein of sock yarn from Cloverhill Yarns at MD S&W. I keep thinking about it and I wandered back to the online shop today and can't stop thinking about the yarns. I want some of the to be retired colorways.
Exhibit B: mmmm, green. That is a really awesome shade of green and everytime I see it, I want to go buy some.
Exibit C: F'ing Malabrigo on sale Thanks a lot, just what I need to look at. At least I'm getting good at practicing the art of resisting. However, I think my goal for the fall yarn shopping season is to just buy sweaters worth of Malabrigo. I'll sell off whatever I don't use.

Wash and Block!

Sahara is done. It turns out I didn't need the extra 3 skeins of Be Sweet Bamboo I had bought so I'm going to return those this week. I'll post pictures once this is blocked. I'm hoping that the bamboo does ease out a bit cuz it's at about 0 ease right now.

Why I love beads

In certain lights, the mix of colors is just amazing. These pictures were taken with the purpose of documenting some floral assembly. I'm not going to be using these but I just had to share.

When I make my own...

I will be using larger needles. These are 2.25mm. Those are so not going to work for my hands. When I separated the thumb, my hand feels compressed with these. Eunny either has tiny hands...or she knits loose. Or my gauge is off.

French Beaded Hyacinth

French Beaded Hyacinth
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

And now the pattern writing "fun" begins.

Open flowers, closed flowers, leaves. A bulb and yes, even some beaded roots. I've always had a fascination with beaded bulbs.

Purling...Be (Not) Sweet Bamboo

So Sahara. Knit in the Be Sweet Bamboo. It's nice to work with...when I'm knitting. I'm not liking the purling so much. I really have to pay attention so that I'm not splitting the yarn. Boo!

Design Shop

I've moved my design shop. You could say that I've finally just admitted to myself that I don't want to maintain a website in my spare time because I already spend 9 hours a day, 5 days a week doing that. So, you will now find it here. I've also updated the link over on the side.

Lazy Weekend

Yeah, I used the excuse of the storm yesterday to hide out at home. It was nice. Friday night, I started in on my Christmas knitting. I'm making multiple pairs of the Anemoi Mittens by Eunny Jang. I'm using size 1 (1.25mm) needles and it's a bitch. I'm limiting myself to about 10 rows a day so that I don't kill my hands. My progress so far:

The back of the right mitten

The palm of the right mitten.

It's true, the corrugated rib makes the ribbing quite unstretchy. I can barely get it on my own hand. Good thing that the person this is for has smaller hands than me. Well, she is of a smaller stature so I sure as hell hope her hands are smaller than mine.

It's good to know that it fits!

This is Sahara, knit in Be Sweet Bamboo. It's the first time I've tried it on and I'm glad it fits! My gauge was knitting slightly smaller than what was required but I figured it's not that bad and it's bamboo and it should stretch. Hope to finish it soon, along with the hyacinth. I'm stuck on the hyacinth cuz I ran out of the beads I need and I don't know where the other tube is. Doh!

Marathon running

It's amazing to watch the Olympics and the worlds top marathoners run. I watched the women last week and now the men. After an hour and 40 minutes, the men were somewhere around mile 21. For some perspective...I did 8 miles in about 1 hr 36 minutes. Yeah...I'm slow. I am happy that now that I've now seriously picked back up with the marathon training (really late in the summer), I'm back at the 12 min/mile form of last year. Whee! There is a bit of pressure. I managed to pick up a transfer entry into the Marine Corps Marathon for this year so I'll be doing that at the end of October. In addition, I'll be hitting up Memphis at the beginning of December. Yes, I'm already looking forward the greasy burgers I will be eating for dinner after both races.

Oh, and I really hate all the metro maintenance on the weekends. I was at the Braddock St. metro and was trying to get back to Rosslyn. After the Pentagon stop, I just went "Why is the train crossing the river??? It's not supposed to cross the river!!! OH SHIT!" So that kinda messed with my plans for the afternoon and didn't get to my nap until just after dinner.

Next week, we go for 10 miles and a long nap on the couch.

Finished nightie!

I decided the picture doesn't show THAT much...

But it's done. I haven't blocked it yet, but it's done. It is quite comfy. I really may have to take the balls of lavendar GGH Silk that I have and make a nightie out of that one!