Recent Posts

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

tired

some how I feel more tired after the holiday week than normally. I did take a look at my irish hiking scarf. I knitted a bit more, and I realized that I'm suddenly knitting a lot looser than I had been previously. Was I just more stressed out before? Maybe I just got more used to using wood needles... take a look at the difference on the cabling:



I got a little more work done on my flower washcloth last night. I finished the last two petals and joined them all together and started knitting in the round with the yellow cotton yarn. It's a lot larger than I thought it would be!

asha battles the dvd player


dvdPlayer, originally uploaded by lwu81.

from woosterfeed

this is stenciling to a whole different level. it also reminds me of those large sand paintings. They're made from pepper By Pobel

Monday, November 29, 2004

back from holiday hiatus


hideseek, originally uploaded by lwu81.

twas a fun and busy holiday. I got some craftin' done that I've been meaning to take pics of.

I started the flower wash cloth from weekend knits. (I just noticed that asha has been chewing on the corners of this book :( ) I'm using Bernat cotton tots yarn in blue for the petals and yellow for the center.


I also started Sophie with the yarn I dyed

and close up


I really like how the dyed yarn colors are knitting up!

I also recieved my elann order of oxblood colored peruvian wool yarn.


and I started a fun fur scarf for my mom who asked me to knit her a scarf with "fur yarn" like the ones she saw at a holiday fair. It's done with lionbrand fun fur and caron's so soft. By accident I grabbed one skein of fun fur and one skein of joann's brand cello yarn of the same color. The cello has longer fur, and if I knit another scarf like this in the future, I'd probably want to use just cello.


I met Paulie's sister, Erin, and tried to teach her to knit. This is the first person I've ever tried to teach to knit, and I don't know that I did a very good job. I only covered casting on and the knit stitch to get her started. She then went to Michael's with Paulie to buy yarn, needles, and a knitting book for her flight home to Chicago.



I made this necklace for my secret santa



my secret santa likes the comic Lenore, so I made her a Lenore pendant from shrinky dink plastic and some vintage lucite beads.


btw, shrinky dinks are sooooo much fun.

Monday, November 22, 2004

the week of thanksgiving


seeMe, originally uploaded by lwu81.

I've already been to one thanksgiving dinner (my first Vegetarian/Vegan one ever!) 3 more to go!

Asha is celebrating Thanksgiving too by gorging herself and becoming tubbs. On the up side, she now sleeps through the night.

An appliance man is scheduled to come by and check out our stove to see why it may be leaking. I hope it gets fixed so that I can start baking again!

This weekend I didn't knit very much, but I did get a chance to finish the Mondial Hat I'd been making. I likey very much! There may be a very large pom pom in the works for the top of the hat as well, although I can't decide yet if I want to use up the rest of the yarn for that or not.


For anyone who lives near fremont, FunkyFiberFellowship has its meeting tonight at 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm at Jack's Brewing Company on 39176 Argonaut Way
Fremont, CA 64538.

Tonight people will be learning Tunisian Crochet from Jennifer of StichDiva Studios. She uses the stitch for this poncho pattern

Friday, November 19, 2004

For knitters in the Bay Area: Handspun Yarn from Kyrgyzstan

******************************
Hi SF Knitlist,

The afghans for Afghans project recently received a supply of
handspun yarns from Kyrgyzstan. These yarns are for sale, and proceeds support
women spinners in Kyrgyzstan and our organization. The yarns arrived in handsewn
muslin sacks with sealing wax ... as if from another century, not just the
other side of the world.

The Kyrgyz yarns are spun of 100% mohair, mohair-wool blends, and
100% wools. We have single-plys and double-plys. The weights range from lace to
a heavy worsted. Some of the yarn is undyed -- just the beautiful color of
the animal,including some soft creamy whites (mohair and mohair/wool blends)
and a fluffy gray-brown (sheep wool). Some of the yarn is dyed with plants --
such as onion and pomegranate (golden, not red!).

If you dye your own yarns, we also have a few batches of gorgeous
mohair yarn dyed with flowers and misc. yarns that unfortunately did not meet
quality standards -- these would be a treat for those who want to experiment
with over-dyeing, and are priced accordingly.

These yarns may appeal to weavers, as well as knitters and crocheters.

The pricing varies according to quality and supply. These are handspun yarns
with a distinctive look and hand. The yarn does not resemble commercially
produced yarns. The various yarns are in small batches, and you will want to look
through the stock firsthand and select the balls that speak to you(!!!).
We're not set up for mail order or for sending out sample snippets(perhaps in the
future), and it really would be best if you could see the yarn. We are
showing these yarns in the North Beach/Russian Hill S.F. area (near bus #45) --
please email us at afghans4Afghans at aol dot com if you would like to stop by to
take a look. We can set up a mutually convenient time. In particular, we are
available this Saturday and Sunday, as well as M-W before the turkey holiday.

Thanks for reading and for your interest. Best, Ann

PS: If you are interested in helping us sort and pack hand-knit and
crocheted blankets and garments for Afghanistan, please email us, and I will
add you to our volunteer list for the next session. We will also be recruiting
volunteers to help in our booth at Stitches West in February.

**********************************
Ann Rubin
We're making afghans (plus hats, mittens, socks, sweaters, and
vests) ... for
Afghans!
Join us! *Next Due Date: Jan. 14*
http://www.afghansforAfghans.org
Print our PDF flyer and share with friends:
http://www.afghansforafghans.org/afghansforAfghansflyer.pdf
Purchase our Afghan Women Spinner postcards:
http://www.afghansforafghans.org/postcard.html
San Francisco, CA
**********************************

tubbs


gimmeFood, originally uploaded by lwu81.

We have started a new regimen in the house for asha. She was getting really grumpy between feeding times, and very whiney. We're trying to bring her back to the time when we used to let her eat unhindered from a full bowl. Some cats can regulate themselves, and I think Asha used to be ok at it until I started worrying she'd get fat and rationed out her food.

Anyway, so we need to get her used to having a full bowl again. Last night I poured her a whole bowl which is about 6 times as much food as she gets normally in a day. Man she gorged herself and ate for 20 mins straight. It was like she was afraid it would all dissappear. But now it's better. This morning she ate a little bit from the bowl, but wasn't scarfing like last night.

I made some 10.5 size dpns to work on sophie. I was lucky that the dowel I bought at Ace was a 10.5 (I hadn't brought my sizing card with me because it was an impulse trip to Ace). The new dpns are really pretty. I'm not sure if Ace uses a different type of wood from OSH (uses poplar), but the wood felt a little harder, and has a much richer color.

Unfortunately, I got some blisters sanding down my dpns. This now makes it painful to knit :( and my left index finger still is kiling me from when I had my marathon spinning day last week.
So I can't spin or knit right now (w/o some pain), well I guess I could dye some more... Oh speaking of dyeing, I completely forgot to mention what color dyes I used yesterday. I ended up using a mix of Raspberry and Colbalt Blue.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Oh my!

Lisa of Plath's Adventures in Knitting pointed out on her blog that now elann.com is offering BAGS of their Peruvian Highland Wool for $18. *Gasp* elann just really wants me to break my yarn diet I think. But I've been so good! I will resist, but if you can't resist, get your wool here

*cry* I'm weak. before I even finished typing this post, I bought a bag. I went to go look at the link, and then I thought, "well, IF I did buy a bag, what color would I want..." Of course the color I would have wanted (oxblood) only had 12 bags left! Ohno! that means it could be gone soon... AND you get the picture.

most of it will go toward making the yarn harlot poncho I've been wanting to knit.

wanna see how my dye job turned out?


looky:


and here it is hanging up to dry


I think I'm going to use it to make a sophie bag.

I'm dyeing over here


kneadin, originally uploaded by lwu81.

It's a monthaversary day, so ervy and I will be going out to eat tonight (yay!), but that means that again my plans to go to the local SnB have been pushed off till next week (although prolly two weeks from now since next week is turkey week).

Finally gave in to play with some of the Jacquard Procion MX dyes I bought. I really wanted Jacquard acid dyes, but University Arts didn't carry it, and I was too lazy to go over to Accent Art to see if they had it. Anyway, Procion MX should work, I think.







Squeeze out the yarn and put more vinegar on. (vinegar helps set the dye)







ooh pretty






place in microwave bowl and nuke for 2 mins, let rest for 4 mins, nuke for 2, rest for 4, etc

I'll take pics of the finished yarn later. It's resting/cooling before I rinse it :)

The yarn shop's name

I asked my brother for some more details on the yarn shop. It's called Big Sky & Studio Gallery. I googled the info

Big Sky Studio & Gallery
961 Moraga Rd
Lafayette, CA 94549
(925) 284-1020

Here are a couple photos my bro took with his cellphone of the outside of the store. They're not the greatest photos, but I think it's so cute that he tried to do this for me :)



Wednesday, November 17, 2004

my brother rocks

he called me up just to tell me about this neat yarn shop he and his girlfriend went to near my parent's house. Apparently it's in Lafayette, CA and my bro claims they have soooo much yarn and kits and everything. He also even found out about a local Stitch and Bitch they have there.

I'm touched that he thought of me and even went into the yarn store. Very neat. Plus, I'll have something to look forward to checking out next time I go home :)

hehe... yum. yarn. yay.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

secret santa

yay I got my secret santa for the littlebiggirls LJ community! I'm so excited to start planning out my gifties :)

Spongebob and some gorgeous fiber!

On my way to work today I was listening to terri gross on Fresh Air. She was interviewing Tom Kenny, the voice of Sponge Bob Squarepants (and Gary the snail's "meow"), to promote the new sponge bob movie. It's a very entertaining interview as he goes in and out of voices and explains more about the voice acting biz. My favorite part was when he showed how Sponge Bob would sound if you made him 20 lbs fatter or 5 years younger.

You can listen to the interview online athttp://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=4172667

Also, thank you Amie for pointing me to this fabulous fiber resource Spirit Trail Fiberworks. The merino tops and merino blends look yummy! I will have to order some next time I get some money!

we really need to stop giving in to asha


gluttony, originally uploaded by lwu81.

she's becoming too tubby. But she really gets to us with her meows. They're not annoying or anything (in fact they're very cute), but they make us want to make asha happy. Her happiness of course entails us bringing her more food to her food dish... although sometimes she just meows so we'll scratch her under her chin.

Jacqueline asked for some photos of the handpaintedyarn.com order I received yesterday. I actually had taken some photos, but the photos just don't seem to convey the beauty of the yarn. And further, you just won't know it's lovely softness until you FEEL it.

But I love posting pics of yarn, so here it is, my handpaintedyarn.com order of merino worsted weight wool in the Emerald colorway:


and an up close one:



I also finished the motherbearproject.org bear yesterday. Doing the face was difficult for me, I'm not that great at embroidering I guess. The instructions reccommended that I embroider the face after I sewed and stuffed the bear. But, if I had to do it again, I think I'd do the face first for a couple reasons. 1) I could hide the tied on knots better & 2) I wouldn't have to worry about the needle pushing/pulling stuffing through as it went through the knitting.



I am going to start another bear for the project as soon as I get some size 7 needles (this one I did on size 8's with approval from the project coordinators, but it costs them more to send to Africa when the bears are larger, so I should definitely do my next ones on size 7s). Joanns.com has free shipping until tomorrow, so I'll probably put in an order for new needles today while I'm running experiments at the Business School.

Monday, November 15, 2004

I got my handpaintedyarn.com order!

and it is perfection! It is just as buttery smooth and soft as everyone says. It also came in a timely fashion (only 7 days after auction end). I'm so happy. I got it in the emerald colorway. It's merino wool worsted.

I want to hoard it and knit with it at the same time. But I think this will have to go into some christmas knitting.

Knitting update

finally finished my second "ye old stanford armwarmers". I've been distracted with other knititng and thus hadn't gotten around to finishing. My left hand was always cold tho' so I had to finish it up.

see, a pair!




I'm also nearly done with the mother bear project bear. He has arms and is stuffed with polyfill. I'm making him a scarf which should give him better neck definition (red scarf on the needles next to the bear). and I still need to give him facial features.



he has a cabled sweater which was fun to do. He is mostly acrylic with cotton pants. These knitted bears go to children in Africa with HIV or in poor conditions. Basically children who could use a little extra love. If you have a chance, think of giving your time to knit a bear. It's quite an easy pattern, and very fun to make. Read about it on motherbearproject.org

wow. weekend. yeah.


immortalized, originally uploaded by lwu81.

Friday night the group hit Korean BBQ. I'd had a craving ever since I read Norge Thingy's yarn blog that had pictures of her outing to K BBQ. mmm.. It was tasty! We went to Ben and Jerry's afterwards for dessert and I had Oatmeal Cookie ice cream YUM!

Saturday was lovely. We drove around our neighborhood looking for yard sales. I was hoping to find a nice cheap desk. But there were only 2 yard sales that we saw. At one of them Ervy and I picked up three glass Planter's Peanut Jars filled with glass vintage beads for $5 a pop. I'm not sure what I'll do with the beads, but for right now, they all make pretty mantel decoration.

We then went to Costco and found that the seafood people finally had live clams again! We called together a last minute white wine party in celebration of the finding. We had steamed clams and a garlic butter pasta with bell peppers, portabello mushrooms and fresh porcini mushrooms and fresh bread. For dessert, minger made caramelized pears served warm with Marianne's vanilla bean ice cream.

then the night started to get foggy for me. I developed a major headache from drinking my 3 half glasses of wine too quickly, and I retired to the couch/bedroom around 10pm (so damn early). I did come out a couple times to a grand snafu. It was horribly bright, and I just remember Paulie standing on a chair refusing to come down. weird

Sunday the day our friends probably thought we had died. I woke up around 10am, but stayed in bed until 11 when I nudged ervy to wake up. He had promised to take me to the Paly high flea market. Of course, ervy was horribly hung over. I didn't watch his drink count as I had retired early (see Saturday) the night before.

On our way to paly, we stopped at safeway to get bagels and doughnuts. Ervy went to the restroom to puke. We ended up at Paly with ervy looking like a sheet. He was miserable so I made take us home (he was reluctant because he had promised that even if he was sick he would take me to the flea market). We ended up at home around 1pm. We pretty much ended up sleeping the rest of the day because ervy was too sick to do anything else.

wow. weekend. yeah

Saturday, November 13, 2004

knitting hat

I'm knitting a new hat with the mondial merino wool yarn that I got from Knitter's Studio on Halloween. I really like this yarn. It's so sproingy or stretchy. Plus it's uber smooth and buttery!

I'm knitting on circulars but not in the round because it's too long of a circular.


I also made some k and p stitch markers because I am sick of putting my knitting down and forgetting if I'm on knit or purl. I hate tinking. It's so damn tiresome. Any way I just made the markers out of some silver jump rings and alphabet beads I had lying around.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Bay Area Knitter Blog Webring



I've started a webring for Bay Area Knitters. Click on the picture above for more information!

haha silly canadians

MarryAnAmerican - Homepage - No good American will be left behind!

those canadians are willing to help us become canadian citizens :)

As seen on Neophyte Knitter's blog

" Legions of Canadians have already pledged to sacrifice their singlehood to save our southern neighbours from four more years of cowboy conservatism."

response to PsyReality

in reference to Iris Chang's suicide you said:
" She isn't the first and she isn't going to be the last. It's a profession with a very high suicide rate.

She stopped living the illusion of doing something usefull. She stopped being an optimist.

She could not handle the real thing. "


I can't debate the first part as I have no numbers to grapple with.

For the second and third part, I just don't see how you could claim to know what she was thinking or her motivation for doing what she did. I am not judging her for commiting suicide since only she knows what she had to go through, but I don't think it's right that you project onto her your opinions.

And what exactly do you mean by "the real thing"?

posted to asam by asianrenegade

We've Lost a Warrior

...and I've lost a hero.



Author Iris Chang found dead from self-inflicted gunshot in Los Gatos
-
Wednesday, November 10, 2004

(11-10) 18:16 PST LOS GATOS, Calif. (AP) --

Iris Chang, a best-selling author who chronicled the Japanese occupation of China and the history of Chinese immigrants in the United States, has died of a self-inflicted gunshot at age 36.

Chang, who won critical acclaim for her books "The Rape of Nanking" and "The Chinese in America," was found dead in her car just south of Los Gatos, Santa Clara County authorities said Wednesday. On Tuesday morning, a motorist driving on Highway 17 noticed her car parked on a side road, checked the vehicle and called police.

The official cause of death has not been released, but investigators concluded that Chang shot herself in the head, officials said. She lived in San Jose with her husband, Brett Douglas, and their 2-year-old son, Christopher.

Born in Princeton, N.J., in 1968 and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, Chang earned a bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of Illinois and a master's degree in science writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Chang worked briefly as a reporter at The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune before leaving daily journalism to pursue her own writing. At age 25, she published her first book, "Threat of the Silkworm," which tells the story of Tien Hsue-shen, the Chinese-born physicist who pioneered China's missile program after being driven away from the United States during the Cold War.

In 1997, Chang published the international bestseller "The Rape of Nanking," which described the rape, torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former Chinese capital during the 1930s. "The Chinese in America," published last year, is a history of Chinese immigrants and their descendants in the United States.

The late historian Stephen Ambrose described Chang as "maybe the best young historian we've got, because she understands that to communicate history, you've got to tell the story in an interesting way."

Chang suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized during a recent trip researching her fourth book about U.S. soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II, according to her former editor and agent Susan Rabiner.

Chang continued to suffer from depression after she was released from the hospital. In a note to her family, she asked to be remembered as the person she was before she became ill -- "engaged with life, committed to her causes, her writing and her family," Rabiner said.

Iris Chang's Web site: www.irischang.net

it was really odd


head, originally uploaded by lwu81.

discovering that i had comments on my photos from flickr members. I knew that I had made them public, but I didn't really think of flickr as a photo forum like photo.net or the other photo one i used to go to all the time (that i can't remember the name of for the life of me).

I don't mind, it was just strange to realize, but fun to read through as well

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook

Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook

I was especially amused by this part of the quiz:
"What never fails to put you in the mood?
A man with his own OED (Oxford English Dictionary)."



It's done!

and it's beautiful! I haven't calculated the yardage yet, but I'm so pleased with how this yarn turned out. I plied it with a beautiful shiny purple thread.



and a close up:



I surprised myself with how much i liked it. I thought I might sell it at the holiday bazaar my mom was talking about, but I don't know that I could let go of it.

on the needles and spindle

on the needles:



I've finished knitting half the body of the bear for the mother bear project. It's very fun, but I got distracted by my


spindle:


the ocean kelp colored fiber is spinning up beautifully!!! I've put those iridescent peacock feathers in the green parts. I spun so much my left hand is sore (well just my index finger... maybe i pinch the yarn funny). I still haven't finished going through the colored fiber, I should finish today so I can ply and set the yarn. While I was spinning, ervy, paulie, and adam (for a little bit) played Halo 2 on the XBox.

in the morning


food, originally uploaded by lwu81.

When I come out of the bedroom in the morning, asha runs out and plops herself in front of the hall closet, meowing and looking needy. That's where her food is.

She's such a funny kitty. She wants to eat EVERYTHING. She epecially wants to eat whatever any of the humans are eating. ervy always gives her little scraps of turkey or chicken from his sandwiches. We've already seen how she is with my cereal. sheesh!

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Ocean Kelp



You're looking at 1 3/4 oz of hand dyed wool fiber that I'm gonna spin. I dyed it with a combination of koolaids and food coloring with vinegar. I call it ocean kelp (I had to battle with it in several dye loads to not have to call it "chlorine hair"). It's now on my spindle. I'm alternating it with natural grey fiber, and I'll probably ply it with thread afterwards.

Asha is not amused


yarnLoop, originally uploaded by lwu81.

She definitely thinks my yarn problem has gone too far when her mommy makes her wear yarn for photos!

I received my pattern for the mother bear charity project in the mail (motherbearproject.org). I'm really excited to get started, but I don't have size 7 needles. Ok I should have had some, but the damn circulars I ordered off ebay had this weird metal roughness problem that tears whatever yarn i have on it. Boo. I'm tentatively starting the pattern on size 8's until I hear differently from the project coordinators (i emailed to see if that's ok). The pattern is really really simple! I think it will be a fairly quick knit.

I got compliments on my pom pom hat today which made me quite happy!

My throat hurts when I swallow which means I need to load up on zinc and vitamin c so that I don't get sick.

i'm mohair!

You are Mohair
You are Mohair.
You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with
others, doing your share without being too
weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely
refuse to change your position once it is set,
but that's okay since you are good at covering
up your mistakes.


What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Emi's bday gifty

I didn't post this before when I made it (except to the knitting community), but here's the scarf I made for Emi's bday! It's knitted with three yarns held together, dark blue mohair yarn, grey wool-ease, and a greenish blueish goldish lionbrand homespun. I made it nice and long and extra thick. I was quite happy with how it turned out :)




close-up