more Jalama

Someone (and I'm not mentioning names here) wanted to see more photos from this weekend. So please forgive me if you're sick and tired of Jalama Beach. Many of the photos are of Marius so I figured I'd start out with a couple of me. That's right, the chick in the pics above is me. I know, it's hard to believe given the foreign looking garment I have on the lower half of my body, but it really is me (day-glow legs and all). For fun, check out the difference in skin color between my hands and my legs. It borders on a genetic impossibility.

Okay, everything else is Marius since I had the camera for most of the walk.



Including shots of Marius getting a little annoyed that there will suddenly be many photos of him. He's normally the one with the camera and regularly comments on the huge disparity in photos of each of us. And yet, when I try to rectify the situation, this is what I get:





Some of the kelp that he found so fascinating including a shot of the afore mentioned lady bugs.

Jalama Beach

We went to Jalama Beach this weekend despite the gray skies. The only folks there were the surfers so we had the beach to ourselves for the most part and only had to turn back from our walk when the tide started to come in and threatened to turn our stroll into a swim (and regardless of what you've heard about SoCal weather, it was WAY too cold to swim). Marius became obsessed with the number of lady bugs we found on the washed up kelp. So, if anyone knows why they seem to like kelp (other than just having been blown down from the grass covered bluffs above -my current hypothesis), feel free to comment so I can pass it along to him.

The other thing that happened this weekend is that I finally got an order of knitting books from amazon.com. So of course now I'm working on designing a yoke sweater that incorporates some of the charts from the Fassett book. Like I don't have enough projects to finish already...

The organisms in my life....

So I share my apartment with many other species (most by choice with the exception of the ubiquitous Santa Barbara ant infestation). This week they're giving me fits.

Sam went and got into yet another fight with probably the same cat that sent us to the vet a few weeks ago. I'm only grateful that it looks like he won't develop an edema since the cut is lower this time (directly below the last wound which nicked his jugular). So now he’s sleeping it off after having to deal with me washing the wound and applying antibiotic ointment. We're just waiting on the wonderful Dr. Sellers (http://www.catandbirds.com/bourdoctors/) to call back and let us know if Sam needs to make another trip in to the clinic. I wouldn’t mind that he fights except for the fact that he seems to always lose! He’s not the brightest creature in the world.

On a more cheerful subject, some of my plants are blooming. Two came from the university greenhouse when the collection was thinned out late last year and I have no idea what either of them are since the white flowers are from a plant that was hiding in a pot of another plant and the orange orchid came from some idiot who completely destroyed a potted plant they had and left behind tons of broken off pieces, two of which happily reside in a pot in my window right now.

However, the dark purple orchid is a Maxillovia variabilis that I just got along with a few other plants from a graduate student in our program. His neighbor is one of those crazy collectors with more plants than space and apparently their spouse insisted on a little downsizing. George, the grad student, very kindly brought them in for us to plunder and this lovely little plant was in bud. Thanks George!

Spinning WIP

I promised spinning projects yesterday and I deliver. First is some roving I've got on my wheel. The roving is superwash merino from Royal Hare (grabbed the last bit from their booth at Stitches West, unspun sample first). I can't wait to see what it turns into when I ply it on itself.

















And of course there are all of the all of the dye experiments Thuy and I have been trying out. Everything that isn't the Royal Hare roving up above is wool that we dyed with food coloring. Some of it is from the supermarket and some is Wilton's cake frosting dye. The colors are just amazing although we aren't certain how colorfast it all is.

Towards the bottom is some of it spun up both on one of my Bossie's and in a 2-ply where I just folded what I had in half and let it twist back on itself. The stuff in the shot with the spindle is BFL that I have several pounds of from John and Marsha up in Solvang. The rest is some unknown beasty that Barbara (Monday night spinning group) had in her stash and shared with us. It was dirty and fairly rough stuff but it cleaned up and softened up a bit in the dye bath and more junk came out when I spun up the first sample so it isn't too bad. Barbara was so impressed that she's going to be sending the rest of the stuff our way to play with (thanks Barbara!!!). I'd turn the stuff into fun socks except that food coloring has been known to bleed and dye your skin. I really don't think I need multicolored toes just yet so I'll have to come up with another project for it all.

Finally WIP photos

I know it seems like I just pretend to do fibery things as I have yet to post any evidence. But I have finally decided to silence the un-believers among you with photos of the things I'm working on right now. I'm sure I could drag out many other projects that are on needles but I'm not posting it if I haven't touched it in the last month.

To the left is Sam on the linen stitch (also called woven stitch) cotton throw blanket that I will be working on for forever. I found some great space dyed cotton a few years ago in a sale bin in a shop in Cary, NC. I haven't known what to do with it but I just finished a bag in linen stitch that was also in a space-dyed yarn. Space-dyed yarn does really nice things in linen stitch and so I figured I'd go ahead and try to turn it all into a blanket. I know, it may the project I work on for years, but it will be pretty if I ever finish it. Plus it's great for knitting nights since it's relatively mindless knitting.


I've also nearly finished the front of Marius' first sweater (see earlier post for photo from pattern). I have to redo the ribbing at the bottom and it doesn't look like much as the fun neck work is all done at the very end, but I think it will turn out okay.

The most recently started is the Babette for mom. I sent her the photo of this pattern to suggest I could alter it to match something else she was looking at and she decided she wanted this instead. Since I'm not one to reinvent the wheel, she's getting the babette. I'm just doing the sequins (the spotted looking bands have threads of sequins held together with the yarn) much more subtly by using another yarn with small copper colored sequins.

Tomorrow I'll post my spinning photos.

I GOT IT!!!

I will be employed next spring. Woo-hoo! The head of the department just called, said some lovely, complimentary things and offered me the job. Of course it's not tenure track or anything but that will be the next step. For now it's enough that I have a job that will help my career and I get to live with my husband for a while.

Keep your fingers crossed!

I have my big job interview tomorrow for a contract teaching position in dh's department. Since his contract runs through the end of the next academic year, we thought it might be nice to try and live together for a change.

Claremont will never be the same.





BUT, when I get back on Thursday I'll fill you all in on the fun stuff I've been doing in the copious amounts of free time I have between work and preparing my lecture for the interview.

Okay, okay, real fiber content

Okay, so yes, I really do knit and spin (and a bunch of other things) with fiber. I don't have the digital camera but this is what I'm working on right now for dh. It's a bit boring but it will be the sort of sweater he will acutally wear. What you can't see in the photo is that the middle panel is a broken rib. I should have the front finished by the time I have access to a camera again.

I found this at the Drops/garnstudio website ( www.garnstudio.com ) where they have posted a ton of free patterns from previous issues of Drops. I have printed out nearly ten for my 'to-do' list.

Next will be the river forest gansey from Handknit Holidays and/or Durrow from the October issue of http://www.magknits.com

Durrow is one of those patterns that is plain enough for the picky male but is still interesting to knit. I'm actually a bit jealous of Jodi Green (the designer) for creating it. I'll post photos of those projects when I get them on needles.

My first fiber related post- sorta

The town of Menton apparently had a good crop of citrus fruit and decided that it needed to become REALLY big sculptures. The theme was fairy tales (Cinderella, Snow white etc.) but you'll notice that the wheel is a flyer wheel and so there will be no thirty foot tall, orange and yellow Sleeping Beauty pricking fingers with this one.

I had to throw in the ants as well although I have no idea what fairy tale they are from. These are so odd, I don't even know what to say. It's an acid trip meets my worst nightmare crossed with a children's book sort of image. And yet they somehow manage to be fun.

Chocolate Bunnies

In honor of the upcoming holidays, I bring you –Chocolate Easter Bunnies!

Is it just me or did you play with your chocolate bunnies as a kid and recreate conversations frighteningly like this one?

The image is courtesy of Nancy back in Elmhurst, IL (my old haunt). Miss you Nance!

Yes, I know I have been neglecting the blog since it’s inception but I have officially had the week from hell all because of one very corrupted statistics program. Blech! This upcoming week may be a close second due to the huge backlog of work that this past week generated but I’m going to pretend that’s not the case and hope that I can be super productive without six shots of espresso a day.

You know you’re tired when six shots just don’t do it.

However, Thuy and I have been living it up this weekend. I spent all day yesterday at a lavender farm a couple of hours away and in the evening, Thuy and I dyed roving with food coloring (and ate the first good Thai food I've had since moving to CA). The bummer of it all is that dh is in Joshua Tree this weekend with the digital camera so I can’t show you anything! The roving will wait for the camera at least and the lavender isn’t in bloom yet so those photos would not have been terribly impressive. See, I’m great at rationalizing.

Photos finally!

It's the weekend and I promised photos of Zion, Bryce and Marius (dh).

If you've never been to Zion, go. All of the guidebooks talk about the bad weather during the early spring but it's still pretty and there are relatively few people around. You'll meet folks on any day hike you go on but there aren't crowds like during the warmer months.

These photos were taken during one of our hikes, with us pretending to be outdoorsy people next to pretty rock.We even got into one of the slot canyons at Zion just before the snow turned really bad. The next time we're going in warm enough weather that we don't need dry suits to do the Narrows. I like the snowflakes in the photo.
More of Zion... with the snow melt making the river a pretty green.

And Bryce. Most of the park (all but the visitors center and two pull offs) was closed due to several inches of snow. And of course most of the photos are hazy because it was foggy and/or snowing the entire time we were there. But here's a picture of Marius during a relatively clear period at a scenic "vista." Of course he's all squinty due to the snow glare and wind, but what can you do?And Red Rock State Park which you pass through on your way to Bryce. We just did drive-by tourism through the park as we were hoping to catch better weather up at Bryce. This was of course the only sun or blue sky we saw for the last two days of our trip. We'll be back.

Addendum

For the record (and before dh reads any thing I’ve already written!), the phrase, “less than outdoorsy wimps,” refers not to the fact that we mind sleeping in a tent in inclement weather (‘cause we don’t), but to the fact that we mind taking down a tent in afore mentioned poor weather and then schlepping the wet thing back home draped all over the car and steaming up the windows.

It has begun..

Okay. In order to keep Thuy from saying yet again that I need a blog, I am starting one.

Not that anyone will read it (with the exception of Thuy, my new best friend). But I am okay with that.

At least I will get to unleash my ridiculous travel stories on the unsuspecting public.



Let us begin:

So over dh's spring break, he decided we needed to go camping. Normally I am all in favor of this as I am an outdoorsy sort of gal (okay no one should ever say or write that for public consumption, it's just sad), but he wanted to go camping in Zion National Park.

In mid-March...

With a weather prediction of rain and snow...

...and some more rain and some sleet just in case you missed the snow.

So we went.

And can I just say that Zion must be the most beautiful place on earth??? I loved it. I loved it in the rain, I loved it in the sleet and I loved it in the snow (and I loved it with green eggs and ham).

When the weather got bad we ran, like the less than outdoorsy wimps that we are, to the nearest motel in Springdale just outside of the park. It turns out that there is actually a decent place or two to eat in this itty-bitty town (less itty-bitty during the summer tourist season I'm told). We had a great meal at a noodle and pizza place where we split a pitcher of polygamy porter. It doesn't get much better. Good beer with a better name. If you're in the area and you like your beer black (like your men), I suggest you look for it.

Plus there is a great little coffee place with an extremely friendly owner who does latte art (he made us hearts -awww...) and talks to you as much as you like. Most mornings that would be very little in my case; but when the fellow starts explaining that the town is populated by people who tried that Mormon thing but it didn't stick and decided to stay in town regardless, I can handle a bit of talk before 10am. Add to that the fact that I don't think he once actually said the word "Mormon" but instead referred to followers of the faith as "mo," he even got a slight grin out of me at an hour dh knows intelligent folks wait for the caffeine to kick in before trying to converse with me. I spent the rest of the trip annoying dh by saying "Mo" repeatedly while missing much good scenery because I was knitting in the car.

Sadly, I have no photos to post today. They are all down in Claremont on the desktop with the BIG hard drive. So you all just have to wait (ie. all one of you Thuy!) until later this week and maybe even this weekend to see how beautiful Zion (and Bryce) is and what dh looks like.