'Real' Life

I've procrastinated putting this post up for what...two and a half months? See, I took a little trip to meet one of 'you' back in August. 'You' being a friend obtained through this weird, delightful, strange, enlightening world called blogland. 'You' being what some people call 'internet friends' or 'online friends'. Those terms sort of make me twitch--not only am I old enough that it sounds a little dirty, but a friend is a friend in my book no matter what form of communication passes between you.

I procrastinated because I had no idea how to really write what I felt about this trip and about meeting these two. I still don't. Part of this is because driving to meet someone I had never met face to face is so outside my normal limits of comfort that I'm still a little shocked I did it. And I'm still a little shocked that it was such an amazing experience since I am so socially backward and since, superficially at least, we come from very different worlds. Sure, there was a bit of awkwardness to start. I mean, we're talking about me here. But it didn't last long and it took no time to just feel like 3 friends who had known each other for years hanging out. And that statement, while I could go on and on about how amazing these guys are, is about the best compliment I can give someone. And so while I still can't come up with the words to describe the feelings, I can at least post the details of the trip and bring a little bit of the beauty of the Cascades of SW Oregon into your homes!


The trip...Mel and her husband Tad came out to San Fran to visit her brother and were planning on driving north aiming for Portland or Seattle. So we discussed how we could meet up if they got into Oregon. The easiest (and most sensible considering driving distances) was to meet in Portland. Rarely am I sensible. And remember that twitch thing? It also comes with being anywhere close to a big city (realize by big I mean greater than about 12,000 people). I know that Portland is an amazing city, but it's a city nonetheless and I don't deal well with that. So instead I decided to drive a 'little' bit longer and meet up in Grant's Pass, camp a night and then sort of see what we wanted to do the next day and night (mountains or coast)...then I'd end up dropping them off in Portland on my way back home (and a yarn store somewhere in Eugene sort of crept in there as well which was so fun to experience with Mel!).

As you may be able to tell, we ended up at Crater Lake. I've lived in Oregon for over a decade and have never managed to make it to this incredible lake. It's so beautiful it just takes your breath away. The colors in these pictures are real...no enhancement, no processing. Since Mel and Tad had just come from a backpacking trip on the Lost Coast (go see her pictures here, really, you need to), and I had just finished an exhausting bout of fieldwork, we took it easy and played tourist. Driving around the lake, doing just a short walk, stopping at all the overlooks...eating a lunch of peanut butter and home-canned huckleberry jam sandwiches on a picnic table. Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery and most importantly, amazing company. SO worth the drive!


Just to update on the knitting front, I actually have a couple small FO's to post soon. And I finally updated my Ravelry projects page and thus the 'projects in progress' sidebar to reflect the extent of my cast-on-itis of October. A nice mix of small and large, easy and complicated. I'm pretty excited about all the projects. Of course, now I need to put most aside to do a few holiday knits, but I should be able to get in a few rows now and then!
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Now playing: Something More Than This by October Project

Thinking of the New Year

Somehow November is upon us...and while I'm not quite sure how that happened, my internal clock starts thinking Christmas and New Year. Before you start throwing things, let me clarify that. I start thinking of what gifts I'm going to make. The decorations and holiday music that seem to start earlier and earlier every year however, annoy me to no end. Are we still friends? Unfortunately I don't have the time (or honestly the creative energy) this year to go all out with handmade gifts. But there will be a few and I'd like to share one of them from last year that I'll be doing again. I've been meaning to post about this since...well, last Christmas...but I kept forgetting. Last week I was reminded seeing so many beautiful ones pop up around the internets.

Handmade calendars using personal photos.

It's such an easy concept and I guarantee will be appreciated by anyone receiving it. I chose to design my own because it was cheaper and because I just couldn't find the format I wanted on any site I visited. I can be quite picky that way. Since I don't have any way to print color photos, size was dictated by the copy place options...but also by the recipients. I knew the spaces available and personal preferences regarding calendars so knew I wanted it simple and small, but eye catching. This is what I came up with:

Using powerpoint, I made a template for all the months and inserted my own photos representing the seasons (ish). The copy center had a good quality paper sized 11 by 14 available so I chose to use the 11 as the height and put two calendars on one sheet of paper...making my cost about $8 per calendar. I cut up old wire hangers for the top...an idea I had seen somewhere and it stuck. For the front, I simply put together a mosaic of all the photos included for each month. Simple yet striking in my opinion.


I'll be making these again...they were very well received (beyond my expectations) and were requested again for this year (actually I'm not sure request was the right word but I digress).

So, go forth and make your own!
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Now Playing: Staying Alive by the Bee Gees
(sometimes, you just need cheesy, happy music to get you through the day)

Resident Deer

We have upwards of 10 deer that make our property home. This is their favorite spot and will bed here almost daily throughout the year. I've taken quite a number of pictures of them over the years, some good, some not. I took this one last week and like it enough that I thought I'd share. This particular pair is a doe (standing) and one of her twins (not sure where the other twin was this day but it's still around!).

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Now playing: If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out by Cat Stevens

(we saw Harold and Maude the other weekend and I've had this song in my head ever since. If you haven't seen this movie, I'd recommend it).

FO: Very Own Swing Jacket

Really, this is the last one. Don't expect another FO for say, 6 months maybe? Okay, I hope not that long, but there is a reason for all these FO's at once. Like everyone else it seems, I have cast-on-itis this fall. But I had made myself a promise that I wouldn't cast-on anything new until the 3 major things on my needles were done. Amazingly I kept that promise despite great temptation.

Final major FO...presenting the Drops jacket that has a long generic name that I don't feel like looking up at the moment and if you are a knitter I'm almost positive you know this pattern anyway. I personally think it should be called the Drops Swing Jacket since swing it certainly does. Deets on Ravelry.

Let's review the time line on this shall we? Even though it's a knit everyone and their sister knits, I always liked the look of it. And then I saw this version and it brought it to the top of the queue last fall. I found the same yarn greatly reduced in price...but also color options. I chose orange. It was fall. Seemed appropriate. Started the knit and finished the back and one side of the front very quickly. Then put it down for holiday knitting. Picked it back up after the holidays and finished everything but the neck when I ran out of yarn. Oy. Finally tracked down a skein of a different dyelot hoping it would work and amazingly enough it did. Finished the neck back in oh, March maybe? And there it sat cuz the next step was seaming. How to best avoid seaming? Start another sweater. Or two. With the promise I made to myself and thinking fall is definitely the best time to complete an orange sweater, I broke down and seamed the darn thing a couple weeks ago.

By this point I had decided I wasn't going to like the sweater. Color out of my range of comfort and unblocked it just fit horribly. I know blocking can do miracles but I didn't think it was going to work on this sweater. Proven wrong luckily. It's a loose-fitting, VERY comfortable sweater with a dramatic swing thing going on that I actually like (although if I ever knit this again, I think I'll do a smaller size with less decreases to make it a bit less A-line). I honestly don't know if the color works on me and I think most folks would consider it too big, but I love it and have already worn it twice since I pulled it off the blocking board (which is why it is wrinkly).

And since it is autumn, I should include a picture with at least some 'autumnish' color in it.

Casting on has begun!
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Now playing: Simple As It Should Be by Tristan Prettyman

A Walk

There are times when life hits you and the only thing you can do is head to the woods. Or that's the only thing I can do. I didn't take a lot of pictures...not that is wasn't beautiful. But sometimes I don't want to think about composition or what would be a good picture...sometimes I just need to 'be'. But here are a few images that I did take...a taste of NE Oregon for you this Monday morning.

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Now playing: Downpour by Brandi Carlile

FO: Rogue

The last one was so fun, how about another finished object? This be Rogue.

Pattern details on the Ravelry projects page.

Rogue and I have a bit of a history. As usual, I'm late to the party and didn't know Rogue existed until I got into Ravelry and started to troll for patterns. This one stood out from the beginning and I think may have been the first item I marked as 'to queue'. But at the time I certainly didn't have the confidence to start such a complicated sweater and it was placed on that 'when I get more experience' shelf. Hems, and cables, and pockets, and hoods oh my. But finally, after working through socks and lace and cables without too many major issues, I finally got enough confidence to give it a go this year.

This spring when 'life' started to get really rough, I cast on to try and ease some stress. Every time I felt like I was getting to a breaking point I'd stop and knit a few rows on Rogue. I knit the entire thing up to the hood in about 2.5 weeks. Why no, I wasn't under any stress. It worked though...it calmed me down and I loved knitting it. I loved seeing the cables pop up and the beauty of the pocket construction. And couldn't wait to take on the challenge of the hood and grafting up a complicated cable...which by the way, I'm very proud of. But then I left for field work and it got pushed aside for something quicker and more mindless (Heroine). I finally picked it back up this fall and quickly did the sleeves in a matter of days.


Rogue is not only what I feel to be a big step in my knitting competence, but it also helped get me through quite a bit of stress and anxiety during a pretty tough period this year.

And the finished product? Love it. Plain and simple. It's a great, detailed pattern and it fits perfectly. My main modifications were to adjust for a smaller row gauge. I added two extra repeats on the side cable for length and then added 2 extra inches onto the sleeves (I love long sleeves too). I also did a 3-needle bindoff on the shoulders rather than seaming and knit the sleeves on 2 circulars. The yarn I used was bought years ago in Virginia when I first started knitting and was bought for a sweater that I realized I'd never make. I loved the color and figured Rogue would be a good choice for it. However, it was a rough, nappy yarn and I was afraid that it was going to be uncomfortable when wearing. But a good soak before blocking really softened it up and made the stitches more even.

Perfect knitting experience.
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Now playing: Sweet Baby James by James Taylor

FO: Heroine

Finished object alert. Shocking though it may be!


I present you Heroine. General details on the Ravelry projects page. I apologize for the dark pictures but that's sort of a consequence of fall. The coat is dark brown but it's a heather so in the light, reds and oranges shine through.


I have mixed feelings about this knit. It was so quick (granted my timeline wouldn't suggest that but the knitting took no time at all), and it's an easy knit so both of those are positives. I love the style of this pattern...very me. And I like that it was a felted design because it is definitely warm and cozy. BUT...it's felted. Contradictory a little bit? I don't claim to understand all the mechanics of felting but I do know that width versus length, garment size, fiber as well as many other factors can have an affect on how the project will felt. And I realize that when you stick a garment in the machine to felt, it's not a science and sometimes what comes out may not be what you expected.

I knit a medium because the felted size seemed to match what I wanted...an over-sized, but not huge, coat. The problem, and the reason I have mixed feelings, was different parts of the coat felted very differently. It definitely felted more length-wise than width-wise (as was expected but it seems to be extreme...the coat is way too wide relative to the length. The length dimensions match the pattern but the width dimensions are way off...and before someone asks, my stitch gauge and my row gauge were spot on), the main body of the coat felted much more than the arms (not expected), and within the main body, the back shrunk more length-wise than the front pieces (not expected). In addition, the collar shrunk length-wise severely making it a very large neck opening with a very short collar. All these problems makes this coat sort of sloppy to wear. Since it's so wide, it often ends up hanging lopsided and the back always rides up since it is shorter than the front. Some of this is evident in the pictures, but I was trying hard to position the coat on my body correctly.

If you look at the finished coat on the pattern page and look at the definition of knit stitches, the drape of the coat, and how big some of the pieces are (the collar in particular), it certainly appears that they barely felted that version (not something I really paid attention to from the start). Most of the projects on Ravelry are on the 'more felted' side and now that I know what I'm looking for, most seem to have similar 'fit' problems that mine does.

So two things I'd suggest if you are thinking of knitting this coat. If you want the 'look' of the coat on the pattern page, knit a smaller size and felt way less (mine went through almost one full cycle). I also think that felting less would eliminate some of the problems I'm having with the coat. The front and back were the same number of rows before it went into the washing machine so guessing felting less would make this less of an issue.

Complaints aside, I will wear this coat and often cuz I still love the style. And as most who know me can attest...sloppy is sort of the norm in my world.

Final touch...of course these are the buttons I used. And I love them!_ _ _ _ _
Now playing: Carolina In My Mind by Allison Krauss and Jerry Douglas.
(I saw this tribute to James Taylor a year or two ago on OPB. I was hooked as soon as Jerry Douglas started on the dobro. But when Allison Krauss started singing, it literally sent chills down my spine. So periodically I search out the video and listen to it over and over again since they didn't record the song for purchase). This is one of those weeks.

Seasonal Confusion

Remember my autumn manifesto? Remember how I was ready to live in the present and embrace colder mornings and fall rains etc? I am pretty sure that nowhere in that post did I mention the willingness to embrace snow on October 3rd. Okay, it's not a lot of snow and what fell over the weekend has already melted off, but still. I'm not quite prepared for that!

And then what confuses my brain as to what season we are in even more...we planted some asters this year, not really knowing what to expect. We were told they bloomed late, but when September came and they still hadn't bloomed, we figured transplanting probably affected them and next year we'd see the flowers. These opened up last week and are really beautiful, colorful flowers...every time I look at them, my poor little brain think that it's spring!

Okay--enough complaining. I'm hoping to get pictures of Heroine tonight and upload them tonight or tomorrow. I realized that it's been since April that I've had an FO post of any kind, knitting or otherwise. That needs to change.

Finally--please do me a favor today and visit Mel at Pipe Dreams and Purling Plans. Each year her and her husband walk 60 miles in 3 days to honor the memory of her mom and other women who have battled this disease, to raise much needed funds for breast cancer research. The link above takes you to the post giving instructions for donating. For incentive, she is offering a gift certificate to an online yarn shop to one lucky knitter who donates. So consider offering support to Mel and Tad as they battle painful memories, aching joints, and blisters this coming weekend. It's a remarkable thing that they do each year.

You Asked For WY Pictures...

I give you WY pictures. Lots of 'em.

(by the way, thanks so much for the comments on the last post...I will be responding individually, I just haven't had a chance to yet. Also in knitting news since there hasn't been much of that for a long time...I am one half of a sleeve, a few hours of seaming, time to block, and a few minutes to sew on some buttons from being done not 1, not 2, but 3 finished knitting objects. Shocking I know...hopefully can get those things done in the next couple weeks and get some pictures to post!).

Sunlight Valley...location of our accommodations.

So mostly a good trip. The weather was amazing unlike last September when depending on the hour it rained or snowed or hailed on us...temperatures in the 30's and 40's! This year was sunshine every day and temperatures warm enough that we had to shut down a couple afternoons. Too hot for the animals, too hot for the helicopter at that elevation.

The motley crew (left to right)...J, biologist, student, pilot, mugger...me on the ground.

One of the highlights of the trip...J and I were sitting on a hill one morning waiting for the helicopter to come back and pick us up. I saw some movement up the hill about 75 yards and then saw 2 gray wolves dart out from some bushes and jog across the hill. I'm not sure they actually knew we were there. I've seen wolves in the wild but it's still amazing every time.

And then a downside...one of our collared cows ended up getting killed by a griz bear. We went in to track her (via helicopter) and found a griz on her...fairly fresh kill. When we went back for fuel, the PhD student running the project informed me that he wanted me to go in on the cow and collect the data (I'm the only one who can collect what he wanted). I thought he was kidding so I just said no thank you and smiled politely. A few minutes later I find out he is not kidding when he asked me to take pictures of the kill site. The lines I don't cross may be a wee bit different than your average person, but this is a line I will not cross. I simply am not getting dropped off on a hill, walking down 200 yards into the trees onto a grizzly bear on his kill with only a can of bear spray for protection. Do not tell me the helicopter can fly above me and scare it off for the duration...what the helicopter actually would be doing is masking any noise whatsoever (including the radio) so I couldn't hear if it were to come back. I'll add that this request came to me after the same student told me a lovely story the night before about an attack a month before in the same area we were working. Go read that. So yeah, seriously? Dude was asking me to walk in on a griz?!?! Not crossing that line. Grizzlies are amazing creatures and I'm fascinated by them...but I also have a very healthy respect...and let's face it...fear, of them.

Ridge as you go into the Park

Arty shot of the brilliant blue sky and one of the snags left behind after the fire.

Another arty shot of the burned trees, blue sky and vegetation that was just starting to change colors.

Elk girl very happy to be leaving us behind.

Another elk girl happy to leave us...this was on a ridge at about 9500 feet.

Hills outside of Cody, WY in the early morning.

Landscape between Cody and the Park.

Can't drive through the Park at this time of year without the obligatory bison picture. This boy walked right past my truck and his back was higher than my truck. I knew they were big, but holy crap...I didn't realize that big. Impressive animal.

**Public service announcement: Please ignore the highly annoying black smudge that shows up on most of my photos now. It's somewhere within the camera that I can not get to. Will be investing in a new camera this winter at some point so ignore until then. Thank you.

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Now playing: Calling All Angels by The Wailin' Jennys from their new Live album

Autumn

I have to be honest and admit that I'm sort of having trouble moving on and letting go of some of the frustrations and emotions of the summer. It's a major flaw of mine...living in the past rather than the present. So this week, as I was catching up on blogs, I ran into this post of Tracy's and it struck home. It's autumn. One of my favorite times of the year. When temperatures cool down and the air is just crisper and lighter. So in an effort to follow Tracy's path and look forward rather than back...my manifesto...

I am going to look forward to crisp mornings and wearing wool sweaters again. I will return to the oven and bake bread and apple pies and home-made pesto pizza. I will curl up outside with a cup of tea, a blanket draped over my legs and a good book...enjoying the last days when it is warm enough to do this. I will make peach and plum jam and I will savor the last red tomato. I will knit jackets and sweaters and hats and mittens. I will harvest the winter squash, remembering the joys of the garden but rejoicing that it is finally over. I will relish the smell and sound of fall rains. I will take one last trip to the mountains, and I will enjoy waking up to the sun, huddled deep in a sleeping bag with frost melting from the tent. I will cut open a gourd and allow creativity to flow. I will go mushroom picking with the hopes of finding chanterelles. I will take out my camera and capture the gold and orange and red colors of fall. I will not let this season pass me by.

Tell me, what are you looking forward to this season?

**Off to Wyoming for work for a week...when I get back I have an FO to share as well as pictures of a trip to visit friends.
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Now Playing: Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds