Life is whizzing by...

Here it is, 3 years later (how can that be?), and my resolution to post more often has fallen by the wayside. Honest, my blog friends, I keep thinking about you, and taking pictures to show you things I'm doing, but the actual blogging part...? Not so much. But I'm back, if anyone is actually still out there!

In the last 3 years, I have continued knitting and crocheting and spinning, and added dyeing and weaving to my bag of fiber tricks. I've completed lots of projects, frogged a bunch, acquired yarn and fiber, spun fiber into yarn.

I finally finished the Susie cardigan  (Ravelry link) last October, 5 years and 2 days after I started it. The recipient wore it EVERY DAY for months, except for washing it. I haven't even put the clasps on it because she wouldn't take it off long enough for me to do so! I made it in Dream in Color's Classy in the Good Luck Jade colorway. No hood, just a garter stitch neckline.

Purlescence Yarns continues to be my home-away-from-home. I've gained so many dear friends through my association with them, and people that I now consider to be family. Kevin has just started his Tails of a Sassy Fiber Monkeh blog. Mari has her Just The Food, People blog too. Sandi, Kaye, Nathania -- I love you all!

We had a blast teaming with Pam Haschke for the Halos of Hope-athon, a 24-hour knitathon to create hats for people undergoing cancer treatment. Halos of Hope is an all-volunteer organization that distributes these hats to cancer centers across the US and we're proud to have provided 230 hats in 24 hours. I even pulled an all-nighter, which I hadn't done since college, a thousand years ago.

The 2nd annual Halos-of-Hope-athon will be held June 28-29, 2014, from 10 AM Saturday to 10 AM Sunday. We'll see if I manage to stay up this time, as I will have returned from London just 2 days before that! Hope to see you there.

Stitches West is still our biggest event. I was lucky enough this year to be part of the Purl Up & Dye team, creating color on superwash merino fiber. Such a fun time, playing with color! I bought several braids and am loving spinning that fiber into yarn.



For example, here is my chocolate cherries colorway still wet (top), before the color is set, and the bottom picture is the final spun product, a 3-ply fingering weight. The finished product is more rose-colored than red in real life.

School is as wild and crazy as ever and I still love it. Last year, I got a new part-time librarian and spent time training her. However, she started the job in August 2012 and went on maternity leave at the end of February, so this school year is the first full year she's been present. She's been a great help, with lots of great ideas and energy.

I've started to get more engaged with my own health. Some numbers were heading the wrong way and I just felt pretty blah about myself. So last June, I started working out at the gym that had just opened near school. LOVE IT! I'm working with a personal trainer who keeps me going. In addition to the increased physical activity/strength training, I'm also being more mindful of what I'm eating and how much of it I'm eating at a time. So far, I've lost almost 25 pounds, aiming for maybe another 5-10 more. I've had to buy new clothes (terrible problem to have, really) since I'm down 2 sizes.

Another project that I'm really pleased with is my CustomFit sweater. If you haven't heard of CustomFit by Amy Herzog, and you're a knitter, go check it out right now! You input your measurements, your swatch measurements for whatever yarn/needle size you would like to use, and your design elements (cardigan/pullover/vest, neckline, sleeve type/length, etc.) and CustomFit will return a pattern to you. Simply follow the pattern. It is written out for you. You don't have to figure out which size directions to follow. You don't have to figure out how to modify the shaping to fit your specific needs. AND IT WILL FIT! I will be making more sweaters. The next one will be for Kelli out of the same yarn I used here, Cascade's Eco+ in the Aporto colorway.

Music has also come back into my life in a big way. I had mentioned previously that I was singing with a gospel choir. Well, that group is no longer active. :-( In December, I was watching The Sing-Off, an a cappella competition show. The winning group, Home Free, completely captured my heart, and I'm obsessed by them and their music. (Ask anyone that knows me about the Home Free obsession!) When I heard their album release in January, it made me realize that I truly needed to be singing again. After a few months of searching, I've begun singing with the Peninsula Harmony Chorus, a local a cappella group.

Thanks, Kevin, for reminding me that I have this blog to update. I also post on Facebook as Kathy Lew Clark and on Twitter as PurpleYarnQueen, if you want to follow me at either place.

Finishing my vacation

Okay, I started this blog post last month. Now it's the official end of summer in the US, Labor Day, and I realized that the post still isn't done!

The summer was full of projects and, I think overall, that a lot got done. It just went by really, really quickly!

There has been cleaning and decluttering, and there is more yet to be done. But I'm feeling better about the lower amount of stuff in this house. Some people say there is a feeling of lightness that occurs, and I think I'd have to agree.

However, does that mean I've gotten rid of yarn stash? Not entirely! I am, though, using some stash.

Proof:

The Fall Twist Collective came out, and I immediately fell in love with the Hawthorne shawl. I have some alpaca yarn that I bought several years ago up in the Medford area, from Alpacas at Lone Ranch, and it's knitting up beautifully. It's done, and I just need to get a modelled shot of it.

I've started the Bryony tank by Amy Herzog and am knitting it in BabyBoo, a bamboo/nylon blend. We (Sandi and I) did some customizing of the pattern because the row gauge of the original yarn is very compressed compared to the row gauge I'm getting. And, I'm combining two sizes for the front to accomodate my hips, decreasing down to the appropriate bust size. Back is done and I'm halfway through the front. Love the cable detail on this!

I have about 3000 yards of this beautiful Artfibers Alfabeto (silk/mohair) that Sandi so kindly gifted to me. I started a mindless project to take on vacation up to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, so I came up with the Point Edge Wrap. Show knitting was supposed to be garter stitch with a beautiful edging. However, I failed entirely to manage an 8-stitch lace pattern in the dark.

Hence, a stop at Web*sters in Ashland for yarn for a simple mindless scarf - no yarn overs! I got some Colinette Cadenza in the colorway Marble, 2 skeins became another Scrunchable Scarf. Even better, I had a gift certificate to use!

While in Web*sters, I was in the sale room when I turned around to see this gorgeous braid on the table. They had just gotten this beautiful tri-color BFL in "stained glass" from Frabjous Fibers in Vermont. MUST.HAVE.NOW. So I did.

But I had also bought 8 oz. of gorgeous Mendenhall Merino black fleece from Purlescence. Much of the fiber I buy has to sit and marinate for a while until I decide what it wants to grow up to be. However, this stuff --- yummy! Must. Spin. Now! The locks are almost 3 inches long and the crimp is beautiful and tight. So I washed it, and now it's completely dry, and I want to just spin it right off the locks as is. But I should be good and flick card it first...

And now, I'm taking the SpinU class at Purlescence, so there is a lot more spinning in my future.

That led up to this past Saturday. Rachel and I decided we needed a day to dye. So she brought over some supplies and fiber and yarn and I ransacked my stash, and we spent over 4 hours playing with color in my backyard.

I dyed some light grey colonial top with a mixture of violet & lavender, and another braid with blues, experimented with some tussah silk, and overdyed some Malabrigo worsted. "What!?" I can hear you saying, "But Malabrigo comes in such gorgeous colors!"

"Yes" is my reply, but the ones I bought weren't quite my colors, so now they are! See the Mineral Red skeins in the top left corner? The big picture on the right is the "after" shot, with the addition of mahogany and royal blue.

One very different project occurred before school started when I took a break from my fiber obsession and took a little trip up to San Francisco. Last year when my parents came up this direction, they went to the National Archives in San Bruno and found / copied some documents about my mother's grandfather and his family. Supposedly, he was born in San Francisco in 1878 at 531 Jackson St., the brick building on the corner. Now it's a Chinese restaurant. Some of these documents were transcripts of interviews with him to prove his identity as a native-born citizen. There are addresses of the places where he lived as a child and adult, his work as a laundryman and merchant. So I went up to SF's Chinatown and walked around, trying not to completely look like a tourist, but pulling out my camera at each address I found. He was about 18 years old at the time of the 1906 earthquake, and of course, many of the addresses are newer buildings.

However, I've since found out that not one address in those documents was connected to my great-grandfather at all. Sigh! According to a written history that my grandmother created about the family (that I did not have a few weeks ago), her father-in-law came to this country through Mexico. Since a lot of documents were destroyed during the 1906 earthquake, many Chinese men created stories about their early lives that could not be verified. They had to have every detail in place to "prove" that they were "citizens" and eligible to stay in California. These "Paper Sons" made it difficult to discern what is factual and what is false about their lives. I guess I'm having a hard time reconciling these other documents because I don't want to believe that someone in my family lied, even if it ultimately led to all the other truths that I know about my family.

So, some of my summer projects have been more productive than others, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how much got done.

Now, on to the new school year!

Things I did this weekend:

Drove down to Orange County on Saturday for a BBQ with some high school friends that I haven't seen (in some cases) for more than 25 years, as well as my bestest friend and also a former boyfriend. There was so much smiling and laughter that my face hurts!

Drove back today (Sunday) after breakfast with my family.

Got rear-ended - which *did not* make my day. Luckily, low speed and the bumper did its job.

Decided I needed to take it easy on the way home and decompress by finding my Happy Place, which is on the coast near the water.  Took Pacific Coast Highway between Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach and saw plenty of sights (!) on this 4th of July. I'm now going to channel Laurie with her commute photos!

Apparently there is a pancake breakfast/parade/festival/day-long-party/fireworks show in Huntington Beach. People were setting up their barbeques & tailgate parties for the day (look on the right of this pic).

One of my favorite spots on 101 is north of Ventura where the highway is right next to the shore. When the conditions are just right, the tides are in and the wind blowing just so, south-bound cars can be splashed by the waves.

Wasn't sure whether one of our favorite Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurants was open due to the holiday. It was and that made me happy! If there is no line outside La Super-Rica in Santa Barbara, they're not open. The couple behind me in line were on their honeymoon and had never been there before. The man behind them had just flown into LAX from Connecticut and promptly drove up to SB to see if he could get his Mexican food fix! Both of us told the newlyweds that they could choose anything and it would be fabulous. Due to the seating situation (lack thereof), my new friend and I ate together, and the young couple came and thanked us for the recommendation. They were sooooo cute!


Thing I did not do this weekend - Tour de Fleece. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to have to do a lot of treadling in order to catch up with everyone else! Also got about 10 rows done on my sock - no pic because I was knitting in line. Other than that - no fiber stuff. It's just too hard to spin or knit when you have to be the driver...

Year-end roundup

Annual Christmas merriment with our families are done for another year. It's amazing how quickly the kids are growing and becoming their own personalities. The Dork had fun with his cousins, playing with his camera and trying to corral all the young cousins.

Mom/Aunt Kathy, do you have to take our pictures?! We really hate it when you do! Are you done yet? Teenagers!

There was lots of eating involved! The Hat is one of our favorite places to go, and not just because there is pastrami. The Dork managed, barely, to finish a Pastrami Burger.

 

Enormous portions were consumed. We've learned to share sandwiches and only ask for one order of onion rings.

 

 

 

There was rapid consumption of a wonderful bread pudding souffle at the Palace Grill in Santa Barbara. We've been going there for more than 20 years. Yum!

Oh yes, there has been knitting -  but only one holiday project. I've finished 2 scarves:

Horizontal Rib Scarf (from One More Skein by Leigh Radford)
Mirasol Nuna, 1.3 skeins, approx. 5" x 70" long
Size US 6 needles
Started Dec. 20, finished Dec. 23

Still needs blocking before I can gift it

Another Scrunchable Scarf, a great mindless knitting pattern, each row is the same.

Mirasol K'acha, 3 skeins

Approximately 5"x54"

Size US 8 needles

Started August 28, finished Dec. 28

Socks! 2x2 rib, toe-up, Fleegle heel

Regia Galaxy Saturn, ~ 265 yards (60 grams of the 100 gram ball)

Size US 0 needles

Started August 22, finished Dec. 30

And I started a hat for The Hubby in Cascade's Lana d'Oro paints. I was trying to get it done before midnight, but changed my mind about the pattern and ripped back a couple inches. It should be my first FO of 2010.

Final tally for the year - 23 projects, using just over 12,500 yards of yarn. That's over 3K more yards than I used last year!

3 baby blankets

7 scarves

3 pairs of socks

2 hats

1 crocheted doily

1 pair fingerless gloves

4 shawls (only 1 was lace)

2 sweaters

For this new year, I'm participating in the UFO Smackdown started by Nathania. I will be ripping out a few projects to reclaim the yarn, but this should motivate me to finish 10 UFOs that have been laying around or hiding from me this year. I may discover a few more, but at least 10 will be finished before 2011.

Here's to a wonderful 2010. I hope your New Year brings you and your family much happiness and health and fun!

Tired...

...of hearing bad news. I've just found out about a teacher who passed away from cancer this evening. He'd been ill since May. Another former coworker of mine passed away from a different form of cancer, less than 2 weeks ago - she was a few months younger than I am, and she leaves 2 young children. I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but it's been hard in 2009. In August, a friend's father (cancer) and one of Hubby's cousins (unknown how he died); in May & June, the last of my great-uncles (Alzheimer's complications), my father-in-law (heart and Parkinson's disease), and one of my dad's best friends (cancer).

Please consider supporting the American Cancer Society so we can find some answers to the many forms of this horrible disease.

Also, I'm tired of knitting on my Sea & Shells stole. I'm really close to the end of the skein; in fact, there's only about 10 grams left. If I'd stop playing Bejeweled, I could be done with it tomorrow! I'm not allowing myself to work on either of the sweaters I cast on recently until this is finished. Pictures will be forthcoming when it's finished and blocked.

However, I'm not tired of looking through the paperwork that my parents found when they went to the National Archives in San Bruno looking for information about my great-grandparents' immigration to the US from China. Mom apparently found about 90 pages worth of info, and I've been fascinated by it.

Turns out my great-grandfather was born in San Francisco in the basement of a building that housed his father's shoe store, and a white-owned saloon in the Chinatown area in 1877. We have the transcript of the interview that proved his identity as a native-born US resident, as well as the entrance papers and interview transcripts of his wife, and pictures of his twin daughters (I didn't know they were twins - I never met my great-aunts) and baby son, the great-uncle who died in May. My grandfather was the oldest of the children, and he decided to stay in China with his grandmother.

The transcripts provide a view into the world of Chinatown before the 1906 SF earthquake, and I'd like to map out the addresses given and correlate them with the historical records. I'd also like to try and look for more info on my great-great-grandparents, now that I have their names and when/why they came to the US.

Okay, Kathy - get off the computer. You're also tired and need to go to bed, especially since you are walking with No-blog-Rachel tomorrow morning. And then you need to take The Dork shopping for new pants before his senior portrait session tomorrow afternoon. Okay, now I feel old...

July?!

(Warning - picture-heavy post)

Okay, where did June disappear to?! It's been a busy, busy month, with very little down time, even though school ended during the first week.

Let's see, there have been 2 professional presentations, one each at school and the public library. 3 more are coming up - in about the next 10 days. (But 2 of them are reprises of the one on databases I've already done; one is storytelling.)

We also traveled to SoCal for my father-in-law's funeral. He was 82 and had a good life. Raised 2 great kids, enjoyed his grandkids... This picture was taken 4 years ago, and it's one of my favorites of him and the kids.


DH, his mom and sister, the grandkids and 2 of their cousins. I don't think I've ever had them all in the same place for more than a few minutes!


And yes, there has been knitting!

Finished and delivered the shawl to my friend who needed and loves it!

Pattern: Shawl that Jazz
Yarn: Woobu in Nyame
Needle: size 8 US
Started: May 10, 2009
Finished: June 7, 2009

Finished some socks for me!
Pattern: Fleegle toe-up socks on 56 stitches
Yarn: Socks that rock Lightweight in Peaseblossom
Needles: size 1 US
Started: ?? sometime in the last year
Finished: June 12, 2009

Originally I had knit toe-up Monkeys from this yarn last year, but ripped them out. I like the color striping much better this way.

The Sea & Shells stole is coming along. I think I'm about halfway done with it so far.






Other projects on the needles include 2 new pairs of socks, one is Primavera. The other is CookieA's Summer Sox pattern (no pic of that yet).



Was itching to get back to a crochet project, and oh, gee, darn, shucks, if Purlescence didn't just get some DMC Cebelia thread in! I'm almost done with it - should finish it today.


In other news, the garden is going like gangbusters!

This adorable little pumpkin from 2 weeks ago, is quickly becoming a huge pumpkin. As of this morning, it's about 14 inches across!

Tomatoes










Look, a strawberry!










Several quarts of blackberries were picked.










And an abundance of squash.

Clearly, summer is now upon us in the Bay Area.

The dove nest I posted about last time has unfortunately been abandoned. There are no eggs in it, so I don't know what happened. Maybe next year...


Oh yeah -- I also now officially have a College Student Dork boy. He's taking a summer class at one of the local community colleges before his senior year in high school. I think it will be a good experience for him, and give him some good prep before the real thing in the fall of 2010.

Okay, I guess I now know where June went...

Happy holidays, happy family!

It was a push to get it done last Sunday, but I finally finished the Cleite shawl for my MIL. I knew it was going to take a day (or two) for blocking, and since we left on Wednesday for our annual Christmas pilgrimage to the land of the families (SoCal), I needed to finish it by Sunday at the latest.
She loves it!

Pattern: Cleite
Yarn: Panda Silk in the Berry Smoothie colorway, 5.5 skeins
Needles: US size 4
Started Sept. 25, 2008
Finished Dec. 21, 2008



The other Christmas crafting project was for my 4 y.o. niece G. Her mom (my sis) called me Tuesday to say that G's PB (Polar Bear) needed a new pompom for his hat. So I made a tiny pompom (about 1.5 inches across), and in 15 minutes, a little crocheted scarf to match (1 double-crochet row each of red and white). It was wrapped up as a "Santa gift", with a note from The Man himself. When she got to it and she and I read the note together, the joy on her face was priceless: "Mommy, I got a pompom for PB! Santa got a pompom for PB's hat!" (yelled, while jumping up and down...) " I pulled out a tapestry needle and added the pompom to PB's hat while she still jumped up and down in front of me with the scarf. "Auntie Kathy, he can wear 2 scarves! PB, do you want to wear your new scarf?"

Everyone got what he or she wanted: Dork got an iPod Touch, Hubby got a gift cert for some ceramics classes from a potter in Los Gatos, and I got a Flip Mino. Didn't get any videos worth inflicting on anyone when I was trying it out though. But watch out, I may be videotaping you someday!

According to my sis, G's sister S is into making crocheted chain bracelets, so "I thought you might have some scrap yarn to give her, or some thread or something." HEL-LO! Of course I gave her all the leftover yarn I could scrape up, and then happened to see the 1.5 boxes of embroidery floss from my cross-stitching days. See what she made for me? Another crafty kid in the family! (Her mom sews and scrapbooks, as well as tries to corral her 3 kids...)

The next day, my dad and his youngest grandson, 1 y.o. Baby I, had to take a nap, and I had to take their picture!

Wishing you and your families a wonderful holiday season, whatever your choice of holidays!

Tag, you're it!

Thanks to Jasmin, I have a post, even though it's not related to knitting at all. Which is fine, because nothing is all that new in my knitting life, except the slog through the final 1.5 repeats of my MIL's Cleite shawl.

What I’m supposed to do is find the 4th picture folder on my computer. I’m to put the 4th picture from that folder on my blog and tell 4 facts about it.

Fact 1: Taken at one of my dad's closest friend's son's wedding in China, October 2001. Brian (standing, 2nd from the left next to his bride, and his brother (Curtis), seated on the left) might as well be my cousins.
Fact 2: We were able to go because it was about 4 days before my brother's wedding reception in Singapore. As long as we were going to be in Asia anyway...
Fact 3: Dad is standing behind my mom, seated on the right.
Fact 4: Chinese weddings in China aren't much different from Chinese weddings here - lots of people, tons of food and lots of red clothing. There's just more people speaking a language that I completely mangle and maybe understand about 10% of what they say.

This was also a wonderful trip on many fronts. The Dork was 9 years old and he got to skip 10 days of 4th grade. Everyone agreed that it would be waaaay more educational for him to go on a family history trip than just hang out doing the same stuff every day at school. So the Dork and I traveled with my parents, 2 aunts and uncles on my mom's side, my sister, my "uncle" and "aunt" and another "uncle". My dad was able to travel with 2 of his best friends.

We went to the house my dad grew up in until he was about 9 or so. The house still belongs to him and my cousins. This is Dork, me, Dad & my sister in front of the family altar. The photos are of my grandparents.


We also found the villages that my maternal grandparents came from. In my grandfather's village, we found a woman who remembered him and his brothers - and they left the village in the early 1920s! She showed us the house that she said the family lived in. Of course, a lot of the rural construction is adobe bricks, and the house had fallen down a few years before and was completely overgrown. This woman just clambered into the rubble and pulled up a couple huge earthenware containers and told us to take whatever dishes we wanted. We have no proof that these items belonged to my grandfather's family, but all of us took a few pieces home anyway.


The Hubby met us in Hong Kong to join us for the Singapore portion of the trip. He was working on his Masters' degree and couldn't take a full 10 days off from school. My brother's wedding was a complete contrast to the China part of the trip. This is my brother and SIL in her 2nd of 3 wedding outfits.





This is one of my favorite photos from the trip.

Hmmm, who should I tag? How about No-blog-Rachel, Stacie, Marie and Nathania?