Killer Peach

where to start...

I've been in the Netherlands for around a year and four months - since April 2008 - and haven't told you about it at all. That means there is a heckuva lot of stuff to tell you about. It will probably take a while to get to everything so lets keep it simple for now with a quick summary:

• I brought my pup and two kitties over last year. It was a whirl-wind trip to Austin last October that didn't give me enough time to see everyone I wanted to see nor enough time to spend with those I did see.
• I started working at the beginning of January at a small start-up company. It's very international and I'm glad to be working. Nine months not working is hard on any relationship. We made it through, though, and finances are definitely starting to improve.
• We don't have a car and work is only 5 kilometers away so I bike there and back every day. I hate riding the bus (not close by, takes a long time, inconsistent service) so my only option for getting to work is on the bike, which has been nice. It's easy to make excuses for not exercising but when I have to get to work, I have to get on the bike. I helps that biking over here is a dream. There are more bike paths than sidewalks and it's very safe, unlike the States and most other places.
• Food.
• • The Good: Walking a couple blocks to the bakery for fresh bread is a good thing, nothing remotely similar to store bought bread back home. I've been cooking more Indian food because it's easier to get spices and supplies.
  • The Bad: There is nothing like Austin 'comfort food' over here. No good tortillas and queso. No bean and cheese tacos. No good breakfast places like Kirby and Magnolia. No green chilies, chipotle peppers, or Mexican vanilla. 
• Learning a language is difficult and I feel like my English is getting worse. I think much more carefully about what I say because there's a "will this translate easily" filter in my head now.

Enough of that. The list could go on and on and on but that's all I feel like saying at the moment.

An good friend asked what I've been knitting lately so here are a couple pics (two finished - Miralda from Nancy Bush and Dracula's Bride from Goddess Knitting - and one in progress - Autumn Arbor from KnitSpot):

And the big one, Princess Shawl from Heirloom Knitting:

There was a lovely trip to London that I need to tell you about, too, but not right this moment.

proof

My sister, Katy, is visiting me this week and we are running around the Netherlands. Yesterday we went to Utrecht (totally fell in love with that town and actually have some pics to prove it!) and we're leaving for Amsterdam in a couple minutes so I have to keep this quick.

From Paris about a few weekends ago:

You might notice a bandage on my left elbow...we will speak of such things later. For now, just know it's almost completely healed.

Here's my guy and a gargoyle (in that order):

And my sis and my favorite pic from yesterday in Utrecht:

Both the sister and guy will be departing for far away places on Saturday from the Amsterdam airport. Katy will be going back to Austin and Mark will be going to Japan for a five week business trip. I might go to Japan for a week to visit him but if I'm holding my own at home (by myself, eeeek!), I may decide not to go. Since we'll be using 'miles' and not 'moolahh', I think there is a bit of time to make that decision.

I'm actually looking forward to some time by myself because M took last week off from work and with the sis here this week, there hasn't been much quiet time to myself. Also, with the briefly mentioned injury, I haven't been spinning or knitting much for the past two weeks and I'll be able to get back to that on Saturday.

Gotta go catch a train!

hallo!

The Netherlands move is complete and all is well. I've been here for two and a half weeks and am adjusting nicely. I'm certainly looking forward to the arrival of our sea-shipment from the States in three or four weeks because it has more furniture and good stuff like wool and my drum carder and yarn. Right now it feels a bit like we are camping in our new place. We have an airbed and camp chairs until we can get permanent stuff. Happily, there is an Ikea delivery that should happen tomorrow so we will have a couch and dining room table and chairs. The kitchen has all the essentials so we're able to cook at home, which is nice, though not having an oven or freezer will take some time to get used to.

We have a lovely, if rather unruly, garden that I enjoy. There are frequent new surprises to be discovered regularly as spring unfolds and flowers bloom.

Picture from the back door:

The 'unruly'-ness:

A few close-ups:


I have a pup to keep me company:

And my wheel to keep my hands busy:


There is, of course, much more to report but this is all the time I have right now. We don't have internet at the house, yet, and have to go to various hotspots around town to get connected. We should have internet at home next week, though, so email and blog postings can happen with predictable frequency.

leaving on a jet plane

I know. I know. It's been deathly quiet over here. There's been good reason, though. A big decision making process has been in the works over the past few months. The boyfriend was offered a job and we had to decide if I would be going with him. After lots of hobnobbing and wrestling (mental wrestling, wink wink, nudge nudge), the final call was affirmative.

Hints:

He'll be leaving April 9 and I'll be joining him April 25.

Sadly, due to lack of allowable shipping kilos and space restraints, I can't take my entire stash. We hashed out exactly how much I could bring with me and while it is only a teensy weensy fraction of my fibery goodness, I know I'll survive. My sister came to my apartment last night to lend moral support in the Great Stash Roundup and it was welcome and oh so needed. I decided today that instead of tossing it all into storage, it can live at her place and if there is something she would like to knit from it, she is more than welcome to. After all, I'll never miss a few skeins of sock yarn and this way, if I want something, it will be easy for her to ship it to me. It is a damn good incentive to get everything loaded into Ravelry so I can easily see what is waiting for me and plan projects with my far-away-easily-mailable stash.

More hints from the city we will be living in:

My boyfriend is most excited about the first pic.

You can expect the blog to become more active again after the move because I'm taking a couple months off from work to explore and play. I've been dreaming of lots of wool knits to keep us toasty warm. Lots more details to follow in the coming days!

new toy...or two

The wheel arrived and has been a fabulous friend for the past month or so. I've made quite a few delightful sample skeins and finally finished my first 4oz project tonight - a 50/50 Merino Tencel blend in the colorway Scorched from Twisted on Etsy. Her colors are fabulous and have sucked me into purchases I had no intention of making.

As the yumminess is still on the bobbin, I have no idea how many yards I managed to get out of the 4 ounces or the wpi, though I suspect it's between a fingering and lace weight. My spinning strategy: split the roving in two, spun one half and split the second half into fourths. That gave me one ply with very long color repeats and the second ply with much shorter color repeats. I originally thought I would try and match stripes by spinning the two halves the same but when I realized I could simply buy striping sock yarn in the same colorway from Meg, it seemed foolish so I went for something that would be more barber-poling.

My other project for the evening involved starting the process for creating yarn for a friend's wedding shawl. She wanted a very particular color for her shawl - pale gold, not white, not yellow, but pale gold. Being part of the search team, I can say that it hasn't been easy to find pale gold yarn, especially not in a heavy lace weight/fingering weight. But as it turned out Outback Fibers had the perfect two fibers. We went on a field trip there a couple weeks ago while we were on the way to buy Toy Number Two from Fire Ant Ranch.

Tonight's product is a blend of 75% cream and 25% maize. I think it's quite lovely and will try and get Suna's approval in the next couple days because the picture isn't completely accurate, of course. I spun a sample the day of our excursion by holding the two rovings together. She posted a picture of the yarn and it seems much more golden than what I blended tonight so approval will certainly be in order. But since the fiber was acquired locally, it shouldn't be a problem to get more and Outback Fibers was fabulous (a studio in a home but overflowing with fiber delights enough to get me thinking about felting) so going back would certainly not be a bad thing.

In other news, my first shawl from hand spun yarn (the green stuff from the last post) is almost complete. I'm trying to finish a boring scarf for a friend before I let myself finish it but with any luck, that will be done in the next few days. {fingers crossed}

super crazy big news!

Several weeks ago, Suna and I went to the Kid n Ewe and Lamas, Too festival. In addition to the yarn buying and running into people we recognized, I seemed to have found the penchant for spinning. When I got home from the festival, I set about tweaking the dormant Ashford Traddi that was generously loaned to my by Jessica. After a good dose of oil and a couple screw tightenings, it was treadling smoothly and whirring along nicely.

I was amazed at the amount of roving I had strewn about my apartment from my initial spinning foray. There was one bag of Lincoln wool roving that I bought at Rhinebeck that disappointed me greatly by being completely felted and unusable. But I didn't spend much on it so it wasn't overly disappointing.

My first project was to spin a bag of unknown wool from Rhinebeck.

I ended up with two skeins - 345 yards / 4 ounces and 225 yard / 2.7 ounces. That means that the first has 86.5 yds/oz & the second has 83.3 yds/oz, which seems fairly consistent considering it was my first substantial spinning project. The final yarn is kind of fuzzy and the plying isn't perfect but I'm very very happy with it.

Current project:

The singles are already more consistent than the first stuff, probably because the batts I'm spinning from are a smoother wool blend.

I've been doing more fiber shopping than I would readily admit to. Most of it hasn't arrived so I'm expecting a deluge any day now. It's going to be so fun!!! With the six days off for Christmas and four days off for New Years, the wheel and I are going to become very close friends.

But an even more fabulous shipment will be on it's way to me from New Zealand this week. Impatience will abound over the next weeks while I wait! The purchase was more than a bit compulsive but not one that I'm going to regret. Until Rose arrives, the Traddi and I will be getting along just fine. .

The beasts didn't show much excitement when I told them the news:

But I could tell that deep down, they were happy for me.

SQUEEEEEEE!!!

I was unbelievably excited to receive the email letting me know she had been re-released. And it seems that she's not a limited release this time either or at least there's nothing to indicate a limited release.

Pattern ordered: check

Yarn ordered: check  (black or navy or I have white but continue to fantasize about white's sister, bordeaux

Tape ordered: check

Update: Needles (circs and dpns) ordered: check

• Does anyone have experience with HiyaHiya needles? I remember hearing good things about them...I think. The joins need to be Addi quality. I will be greatly amused if my packages from England arrive before my US package.

I think I have the needles. Um. Probably. 000 and 0 (1.5 and 2.0mm) Addi Turbo for swatching because sadly, Knitpicks doesn't make needles in this range. {Does Addi seriously not make a 1.75mm needle??? What's up with that? They have double points but I'm not finding circs. Egads!} I will need double points in the appropriate size when I get to the border but that won't be for quite a long time. Swatching will be in order when yarn arrives; I'll probably use Wedding Ring Shawl to figure out needle size/yarn combo.

I know the black or navy might cause blindness and I'm willing to accept that for the sake of my art. Or perhaps I won't be and I'll knit in another color.

Also, Typepad is being flaky about sending me comment email so I apologize for not responding if I don't get your email. Though, I'll admit to being sadly lax about comment replying.

i'm cold!

I'm wearing Nattroje today and I'm sitting at work cold! This should not be happening people!

My guess is that it's because I have my hair pulled back and my neck is exposed, a chilled neck makes for a chilled me. Doh! for not having a scarf.

I think the last time I wore this sweater was at Rhinebeck last year. It's been great fun to read about everyone's trip this year, even though there's been more than a bit of yearning to join in the wooly fun. The yarn is beginning to swamp my apartment, though, so there is completely no need to add to wool masses.

In other news, I've been doing some yarn dyeing and having a hella good time with that. Perhaps I'll even whip out the camera one of these days and take a couple pics for the woefully neglected blog.

i can has post?

There's been knitting going on. Here's what I owe you pictures of:

• Ogee from Knitting Nature, only highly modified because as written, the plunging neck comes to just above your belly button and no one wants that. The pic for this sweater is nothing like the written directions. And as for the tunic thing, didn't do that either, it's fitted and stuff.
• Mentionable from Knit and Tonic: freaking love this top. The short row directions were helpful and happy inducing.
• Shetland Garden Shawl from Sivia Harding: my major thing with this shawl is what's up with not having a knit on edge? Fabulous shawl that's finished with a couple rows of garter stitch? I think not! With an edging, it looks much more finished. You'll just have to trust me for now.
• Spring Shawl from Heirloom Knitting: one of my true loves

And from Victorian Lace Today, A Curved Shawl (could there be a more generic name?) and the page 90 scarf. Curved Shawl was knit with Lacey Lamb (very nice stuff) and the scarf from Alchemy mohair. Both were for the yarn shop, which makes me happy because they will be well appreciated there.

Close-ups:

As for current projects, I've been doing some dyeing. At the moment, I'm experimenting with colors, dyeing small skeins. Eventually I'll move up to more substanial stuff because my apartment is housing a helluva lot of yarn. I'm making the switch from superwash wool to zephyr today and have high hopes that there will be no felting and no removing of shiny goodness from the silk because of cooking at temps that are too high.

I have Spider Queen on the needles. I'm using JaggerSpun Super Lamb, color Merlot, on size 1 needles. It's been a fun and easy knit so far. I need to pick up for the border next. The plan it to knit the border in the round, even though it's in garter stitch (so every other row will be purled and that's a lot of purling) because that's how the Wedding Ring Shawl is knit and I'd like to work up to that a bit.

And, uh, I may also have a level 70 undead warlock in World of Warcraft. Perhaps...

You must go to this link now: http://www.explosm.net/comics/953/. It will make you laugh. Promise.

in the mail tomorrow

There was an email sent to the Austin Stitch and Bitch group several weeks ago from Vickie Howell (founder of the Austin SnB) wanting to know if anyone was interested in knitting for Southwest Trading Company because they would be releasing her new line of yarn soon and needed samples knit. Admittedly, I don't actually go to the Austin Stitch and Bitch but I am on their email list and found the prospect of knitting with new yarn for a kick ass company who would pay me would be a decidedly good thing. In my email to Jonelle, I mentioned that I was a lace knitter, not expecting that they would be in need of such a skill but since it's what I do, I figured I'd mention it. It turns out that Mariposa is one of their most popular patterns.

I must admit, I wasn't impressed when I saw the picture. It just didn't seem like crisp lace and that's what I love. Somehow it seemed sloppy and off-putting. But I had the yarn - Indulgence - a nice blend of soysilk and alpaca and got the needles going.

Now that it's finished, I couldn't be happier.

 

 

I'm going to drop this in the mail tomorrow. Sadly. But I think I'll be knitting one of my own because I like it so damn much! One of the best features of this shawl is the ribbing tube on the left side that the point of the right side goes through to keep the shawl around your shoulders. No shawl pin needed in the least. It's fabulous!

There are a couple of things I found odd about the pattern - not major things and nothing that would impair a moderately experienced knitter but things that I think would significantly decrease the finished product of a new lace knitter. There are two repeat sections to the pattern, the frost flowers and the pebbles. For the pebbles, for some reason I don't understand, the designer only allows for a selvage stitch on one edge instead of both. I disregarded that and added a slip stitch selvage to both sides for symmetry and aesthetics. The pattern also never explains what a selvage stitch is or how to execute it. The other thing that wasn't mentioned in the pattern is blocking, something vital to lace knitting. There's also some decreasing needed for the points as you are knitting the pebble pattern and that was a bit tricky and I had to rip it so some clarification would be nice there but I can't find fault with the designer for that.

In other news, I've been knitting. Lots. There will be fo's coming. Some of the best stuff I've ever knit. There's even a sweater that's >< close to being finished. (>< means that I need to finish the neck, which means deciding how I want to finish the neck, sewing in about 5 ends, and blocking).