What to do, what to do ....

Okay folks, I need your help. Finally got a bunch of pictures done today and I need to make some decisions. I have two new mystery knitalongs starting, one today and the other next Friday. Both are lace, both are stoles. The problem is, I have swatched for both stoles with two types of yarn. Now I want your opinion on which yarn to use for which stole. I think I have made the decision already but I am curious as to what others think.

The first stole is the Secret of Chrysopolis which started today. Too bad I am not yet finished MS3, I really should do that before starting something else, shouldn't I? Anyway, here are the swatches. Swatch #1 is done in Lane Borgosesia, color ecru on size 4 Knit Picks Harmony Options. I like this one a lot although the photo does not do it justice since it was not properly blocked.

Swatch #2 is done in Knit Picks Shadow, colorway Redwood Forest. This is also done on size 4 Knit Picks Harmony Options and this one was properly blocked. Well, at least relatively so.

Option #3 is also Knit Picks Shadow but done in the Campfire colorway, all other details the same. So, what do you think?

Of course, only three swatches would be too easy, don't you think? The other stole, starting next week, is Secret of the Stole. I think I already showed you the one swatch for that done in Lane Borgosesia but what the heck, you can never see enough pretty yarn, can you? Here is that swatch again.
My other swatch for Secret of the Stole is done in Knit Picks Shadow Redwood Forest. It is not properly blocked but you can see anyway. Do me a favor and please leave me a comment as to which yarn seems to cry out for which pattern. I think I already know but .... Oh, one more thing, I need to find beads for Secret of the Stole. I will find time somewhere for that, I hope. Maybe tomorrow at the TKGA show in Oakland. Hope to get a chance to do some shopping over there if I don't fall asleep between getting off work and getting my buns over there. More pictures coming in the not so distant future, I hope. Nap time now.

Update on stuff in general

Hmm, seems like life has been very busy and yet I don't seem to be accomplishing much. I still have 10 rows to go on clue 6 (of 7) on MS3 and I have to get it done soon. Not only is the birthday it is intended to be a gift for coming up but Secret of Chrysopolis starts this Friday and Secret of the Stole starts next Friday. What was I thinking? I can't finish one stole during the summer with lots of time available and now I am signed up for two? Oh well, challenges make life interesting, don't you think?

One of the things that has been eating into knitting time is knitting related. Ravelry. If you already belong, you know what I mean. I think it was the Yarn Harlot who mentioned what a time-sucker that site could be. She was right! So many things to see and check out. I have posted a couple of projects and just a couple of yarns to my stash (stuff I already had pictures of since I haven't had time to take and download anymore). Two of my projects were adaptations of patterns from Exquisite Little Knits. When I couldn't find the projects already on Ravelry, I added them to the site. Wonder of wonders, I got an email asking if they could use my photos as featured photos of those patterns. How cool is that?

Work is going okay but just when I figure I am getting a particular job down pat, I manage to screw something up. No, it's not major or life-threatening but it is discouraging. Not only does it cause my partner to lose trust in my abilities, it causes me to doubt my abilities, bigtime! I am sure I beat myself up over these mistakes far more than I need to but it is frustrating. I am used to being able to do things and do them fairly well without having to doubt myself all the time. Oh well, I am sure things will get better with time.

On the Renaissance Faire front, Saturday was cancelled due to the major rainstorm that blew through. It rained so hard Friday night that water flowed into my daughter's tent and trashed her phone. What a bummer! I left mine for her as an alarm clock this morning and apparently she took it to work with her. Not good, since we don't have a landline. Good thing I didn't need to desperately reach someone today. But I digress. I drove down to the fair site on Saturday despite the cancellation. It was nice to have time to just visit with all the participants. Very relaxing. I learned a new game called Octiles. Kind of like adult Chutes and Ladders where you create your own chutes. At least that was how Moira described it. Sunday dawned bright and sunny and we had a huge crowd all happy to come out and play. I had to leave at two in order to get home and sleep before going to work but I still got a chance to take in a little bit of the joust before I left.

Today was spent catching up on sleep. Better get some laundry started and get back to MS3. Times a wasting!

Ooooh, ooooh, it came! it came!

Finally, I have my invite to Ravelry! I was suffering from severe letdown yesterday. Checked first thing in the morning, 395 people in front, a little later, 220, then 110, then 10 ..... and then it stopped. There were 10 people in front of me at 1:30 Sunday afternoon and still 10 people in front of me at 10:00 this morning, no matter how many times I refreshed the page! Fiddled around trying to get the knitting pictures up for you to see and decided to take one last look at my inbox before going to bed (I work nights, if I haven't mentioned it before). Hmm, 1 email in the junk mail, could it be? Yes! I have signed in and my name will be stlwatrs, like everywhere else. I wouldn't want to confuse myself by having to remember another name. Now, the dilemna. There is so much I want to see and do but I really, really need to get some sleep. I guess if I have waited this long ( signed up on July 4th) a little longer won't hurt anything, will it? I'll let you know how it all turns out. Night night.

Finally, some knitting pictures!!

First and foremost, I do have my swatch done for Secret of the Stole (check the button on the left, you can still join up till Oct 4). Here is my swatch, made of Lane Borgosesia Cashwool, ever so fine but oh, so yummy. The swatch was knit on size 4 Knitpicks Options. I think I like the size just fine but I have some of the new Harmony points on order so I am dying to see how that will affect the feel when knitting.

Here is a closeup of the swatch, I love how fine it is yet it is fairly easy to knit with.

A couple more pictures to share. My college knitting class (yes, they do exist if you are really, really lucky) decided that this year's charity knitting should be a show of good will from our college to the students of Virginia Tech. We found out their school colors are burnt orange and Chicago maroon (whatever that is) so I found the closest approximation I could and have been working on a couple of scarves.


The one on the left is knit end to end, 200 stitches on size 11 Knitpicks options, 6 rows of garter stitch per stripe. The one on the right is 14 stitches across on the same size 11s, the burgundy is garter stitch and the orange is seed stitch. Since I figured a college student would not want to worry about handwashing, etc. I did the scarves in TLC Essentials, colors Claret and Persimmon. What do you think?

On the job front, all is going well. Automation seems to be pretty much under control and now I am learning how to do nixies as well as working on box mail whenever needed. It's a whole different world from what I was used to but I like it and am looking forward to the side benefit of weight loss .

First week at work, first weekend at Ren Faire

I did it! I survived my first week at the new job. You would think that as you moved through training, everything would come easier. Instead, it seemed as though the volume of mail built each day until Friday when we processed over 85,000 pieces of mail, handling each piece at least twice as it must be run twice in order to get it in delivery point sequence. I was one tired puppy when we finished, let me tell you! It caused me to make a tactical mistake when I got home. I was supposed to drive straight down to Hollister for the opening weekend of the Renaissance Faire (at Casa de Fruta every weekend from now till Oct 14). Instead, I decided that I really needed just an hour of sleep. Can you see where I am going from here? One hour stretched in to two, then I hit the snooze a couple of times ..... Oh well, I did promise Terri I would be there to work for her on Saturday. Finally made it out of town by about 3 and down to Casa about 5:00.

It was good to see everybody and renew old acquaintances. Most of us see each other only twice a year, the six weeks of Northern and then many of the same folks work at the Dickens Fair held at the Cow Palace each year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I arrived too late on Saturday to be of much help but worked the breakfast run Sunday morning. Breakfast is for the workers at the faire prior to the gates opening. Have no idea how many people we fed but I know that I alone cut up about a dozen cantaloupe, made copious gallons of orange juice and cracked about 2 1/2 crates of eggs! (I think there are six flats per crate so what is that? about 15 dozen or 180 eggs! Yikes) Lest that sound like I was doing all the prep, there were at least a dozen people in the kitchen so my contribution was only a small part of the whole. Left early to come home and catch some sleep before going in to work tonight at 00:45. Needless to say, I still don't have any knitting pictures. As a matter of fact, I have barely picked up the needles in the last week. I do have Ren Faire related pictures though.


This is me working at the chocolate booth back in 2005. Unfortunately, Steve no longer comes to our faire since he moved to Arizona. Too bad, it was a rough job but someone had to do it.




This is my daughter, Jen, with Zeus, a black percheron gelding used for jousting by the Knights of Avalon, whose pictures follow:



Last, but by no means least, this is Jen with King, the English Shire gelding who drew her back to the troupe as mentioned in a previous post. She adores King and the feeling is mutual. He is a lovely boy and hopefully he will end up healthy once the vets finally figure out what is the matter with him.

Oh my aching everything!

Okay, I did it. I made it through my first day of a very physical job. Not that I have any objection to physical, I rather like it but the last 12 years have been spent in a terminal staring at a computer screen. This morning, I started off "dropping" 6 cages of flats to carrier stations. For those of you at the plant or at stations, you will understand what that means. For the rest of you, let's just say it involves multiple trips (minimum 100+) carrying mail tubs ranging from probably 20 to 30 lbs. Not bad by themselves but boy, do they add up! After that, it was box mail, both flats and letters. Easy enough, except when the boxes are full and the contents need to be bundled and tagged. Everyone was very friendly and I think I will have no problems with the job. One major faux pas, my watch stopped and I worked 20 minutes overtime without realizing it. Good for the pay check but looks bad when you do unauthorized overtime.

I was worried about being able to knit after packing all those tubs but my hands do not feel tooooo bad. Thank heaven for gloves (says the person who detests wearing gloves). It's my feet that hurt the most. Stopped at the drugstore on the way home for a new watch and something for the muscle aches. Pharmacist recommended Tylenol or Alleve so I bought a huge bottle of extra-strenth Tylenol and some new gel inserts for my shoes. Took two Tylenol and fell in to bed. Now, some 5 hrs later, I managed to crawl out without too many ill effects. We will see how I feel later.

Still no knitting pictures but how about something to think cool, instead of whatever inhuman temperature it is out there right now. This is me and my daughter panning for gold in Alaska this past May. My friend Toney took the picture. While it was cool enough to have a sweatshirt on (for a short while), I barely got the chance to wear the sweater I knit just for the trip cuz it was too darn warm. Of course, for me, I would be happy if the temp stayed below 72 degrees all the time, but hey! You expect to be able to wear a sweater in Alaska, don't you?