Mend It--> Mended!

On Monday, I went through my craft box looking for something (I don't remember what) and decided that it needed some serious organizing. Among the various bits of fabric, thread, yarn, needles, hooks, etc., I found some projects that need fixing that have been waiting to be mended for literally five years! The rainbow doily and granny washcloth are recent projects, but the pink doily, gold lame purse, mittens, and skirt all have followed me through several moves in their unfixed state. I set them aside in a mending pile and yesterday I actually mended them all. The "mending" for the doilies was only blocking, but the pink one especially looked like a crumpled up hankie before blocking, so it was useless before.

blocking: pinned and drying

blocked!

purse handle--fixed! you can't even see the stitches in this pic!

blocked--finally! it's so pretty! I wish I'd taken a before shot to show how ugly it was.

T's mittens--fixed!

a close-up of the stitches--invisible from the outside, can't feel them on the inside.

loose gauge granny dishcloth--weaved in the ends. waiting for a crocheted border.

skirt--finally sewed in the zipper by hand.

cute! it looks good with my revamped shoes too!

 It's such a good feeling that they are usable now. :)

Back to the Land of the Living

I had a wonderful, wonderful trip to California last month! I have to say that one big reason is because Tarzan made it so easy for me to go. By that I mean, he assured me that he could take care of himself and the cats, told me to have a good time, and graciously allowed me to spend lots of time and money away from home. Not that I don't deserve all that, but it's nice to be given it all without a fuss.


Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Hisayo, Shiho, and Janie in front of the big fallen tree in Grants Grove. It has been used as a saloon, stable, and cabin in turn.

Janie and Dad hanging on for dear life on the cable car in San Francisco.

Mom, freezing her booty off on the front of the cable car. She looks cute anyway, though.

A nice view of the city from the cable car on the way to Fisherman's Wharf. I like the view of Coit Tower especially.

Me, Shiho, Rie, Hisayo, and Dad in front of the cable car. You can even see a glimpse of our interesting driver. He was cool.

However, in the meantime since I've come back, I've been ridiculously homesick! I miss my family, I miss California, I miss the sunshine! It's gotten better the last few days, but still, I'm starting to feel like I'll be ready to move to the States anytime. Now that I've told my work that I'll be leaving in six months, they're starting to get all sad. "We'll miss you," I was told by my almost teary-eyed boss. I do appreciate the sentiments, but can't they hold off for at least a little while?!


I was supposed to go to class today from noon to 2pm, but my student (also one of our staff) called me and said there was some kind of fire (!) at the station where I transfer and the trains wouldn't resume operation until after noon, maybe around 1pm or so, so she cancelled our lesson. Then I got another call just before I left for my 1 o'clock lesson, and the trains still hadn't started, so I am off the hook for lessons today. The bright side is now I'm showered and (somewhat) dressed, so I can do stuff today, like... blog. It's raining outside, so what else can I do!


I am sooooo excited about my birthday gift from Sus. I know it's still way early, but ever since she's showed it to me, I can't wait to get it! She got some gorgeous sock yarn (that's enough for 2 socks too!) and I'm mentally planning out the lovely socks I can make. I'm still working on my fairisle beauts, and I just turned the heel and picked up stitches for the gusset (which was the most daunting part of it all), so I'm continuing on the rest of the sock. The funny thing is, I was thinking about the new sock yarn and how the current sock project I have is slow-going, difficult, and a pain in the butt. Maybe I should just give it up, I thought, but that thought alone inspired me to get back in there and fight the good fight. I picked up the poor, neglected sock, and realized (like with so many other things in life) that it really wasn't that difficult, it was mostly a mental block that was impeding my progress.


I made a facecloth out of the cotton yarn that I bought in CA and finished it this week. It looks nice, and it was so cool to make. You knit it in a circle with one edge of your knitting being the outside edge and the other the center of the circle. You knit one stitch less every other row, and leave the skipped stitches unworked until the end. Then when you knit them all, you've knit a sort of spiral or curved pie piece sort of shape. After continuously (meaning it's all connected) knitting six more wedges, you bind off and sew the cast on and bound off edges together. I decided to do a provisional cast-on and then use kitchener stitch to seamlessly join them together. It kind of worked, but since the project was in garter stitch and I wasn't very experienced with kitchener stitch, I found it made a few rows of stockinette there at the join. Oh, well. No one knows that but me.

Here it is after 3 wedges are complete. It has a little lace around the edge too, which is pretty cute.

There is so much that I want to say, but I get clammed up when it comes time to write it down. But now that I'm back on the blogging bandwagon, I'll have plenty of time to mull these ideas over before writing them down. It feels good to be back!

My iPod Has Recovered...

...but I'm not sure if I have. I was truly worried that I'd lost all of the movies and music that my sis (who lives 6,000 miles away) so kindly uploaded before the fam sent it to me for Xmas. (It took her something like 2 days to do!) After reading the iPod 9-1-1 site, I found somewhere that if you press and hold the center (select) and menu buttons for 5-10 seconds, it should shut off. Fortunately for me, it did with all files intact.

I have literally spent all afternoon and evening on the computer. (Don't worry--Tarzan got a new baseball game for his PS2, so we haven't seen much of one another face-to-face for the last couple of days. ;-) ) I finally visited that Ravelry site, which is fabulous in an overwhelming sort of way. It's inspired me to upload pics to Flickr, which I've been able to do quite easily since I organized them all the other day. :-p My Flickr ID is kendoempress if you feel like taking a look over there. It's mostly knitting stuff, though.

I'm still working on the tunic for my niece and also the Snowflake Socks from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits. They're my first socks and my first real fairisle (2 color knitting), which is probably a bit ambitious, but I love them so much, I just had to have them.

Here is Snowflake Sock #1. I'm praying I don't get SSS (Second Sock Syndrome), but I'll have to finish the first before we find that out!

Here is the Anouk baby tunic in progress and the yarns I picked to inspire and maybe make another out of. I have most of this (the front) done now.

The addition of my adorable niece to the family has inspired me to make baby stuff, and it seems like my cousins are having babies right and left, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of recipients. Besides, Tarzan and I will hopefully have our own rugrats someday, so it would be nice to have some practice with what looks cute, what's easy to knit/crochet, etc. I don't think I'll be making another baby blanket anytime soon, though. I knit one for a cousin exactly a year ago, and while it went great, my second attempt has been sitting in knitting purgatory for months now in its knitting bag. The sad thing is I'm at least a third of the way through it!

Grandmother's Baby Blanket

At Christmas 2006, my mom gave me a bag full of old skeins of white acrylic fake mohair that my grandmother used to make baby blankets. It also had a partially done blanket out of a cotton-looking yarn that was off the needles, looking forlorn with its open stitches. I decided to connect to my knitting heritage by figuring out the lace pattern (after all, I'd knit at least one or two small swatches of lace--nothing to it!) and making my own version. This one was supposed to be for my niece (the one that was born last November).

The lace pattern itself was pretty simple--just a basic feather and fan--and it seems that my grandmother either improvised or was following a pattern for a border that was just an exaggeration of the basic pattern. So far so good. I thought I was so good, I didn't even need stitch markers to separate the pattern repeats (there were something like 12!). After about 2 rounds of that, I realized that I should listen to the experienced lace knitters on the internet and who write patterns and use some stitch markers to keep track. (That way, if you make a mistake, you'll see it right away.)

And I did make mistakes. Lots and lots and lots of them. I guess because it's lace, hardly anyone but me or another knitter could tell, but I know they're there. I also made the mistake of taking this to Stitch n Bitch meetings, where of course, I made tons of mistakes because I was talking and not paying attention. So, back to the bag. I thought I had made some mistakes, so I was putting off taking it out again, dreading to have to undo my errors. Then a few weeks ago, I thought, "Come on, better take a look at it before I completely forget how to do it," and I gave it a once-over. It turns out I fixed my mistakes and in frustration THEN put the thing away. It was all ready to be worked on. I felt like such a dummy. Now, instead of glancing at it on my wall (hanging in its bag) with knots of guilt in my stomach, I look at it with thoughts of hope and potential in mind (though it still hasn't left its bag or the wall!). Maybe I'll get it done in time for my own kids... or grandkids.