Thoughts for 01/29/07

Yay, my sore throat is gone, and it's about time! I'm sure the Throat Coat helped. You know how the doc tells you to continue to take a medication even after the symptoms have gone away? Well, I applied the same principle and continued to drink the tea after my throat felt better. It couldn't hurt, right?

DH has worked hard at putting out some fires at work, which included long weekend hours and numerous conference calls (as early as 4am!). Things have settled down a bit now, so the higher ups told him he needed to treat himself to something expensive. He told them he'd take a day off. They told him something more than that. So I thought, how about staying at a B&B during our little February getaway? My MIL was originally going to take M for 2 nights in Feb, but then she "wimped out", as DH put it, and said she would do it for 1 night as a trial period since this would be M's first night away from home. So I spent some time trying to find a nice B&B in the Monterey, CA area. Ran into some difficulties which I thought was the last minute planning, but then discovered that it was Presidents Day holiday weekend! I didn't realize that. I only knew it was Chinese New Year weekend. As a result, many places are requiring a 2 or 3 night minimum stay. Well, that won't work with us since MIL is only available to take M for 1 night. Sigh... I was hoping to stay at Grand View Inn (now called the Beach House of Seven Gables Inn). We have stayed in their Julia's and Seal Rocks rooms, the latter being slightly better. Looked at various places in Pacific Grove, Monterey, & Carmel area and didn't come up with anything. Then I realized that we didn't have to go south. It originally seemed like the logical thing to do since we would have to drive south from SF to Fremont (to drop off M). But there really is no reason why we can't head back up north. So I looked into lodgings in Healdsburg, CA (Sonoma wine country) at our other favorite B&B, Grape Leaf Inn. We've stayed in the Chardonnay Suite twice. This time I wanted to try a different room, Roussanne, but it doesn't look like we will be able to stay in that room. They have a 3-night minimum, and since that room is still open for Sat & Sun, they want to make it available to anyone else who may want that room for 3 nights. So, we're going to get Mourvedre instead. BTW, the breakfast at Grape Leaf Inn is awesome! I'm thinking we can drop off M at the inlaws, then head up north to have lunch at Zachary's Pizza in Oakland/Berkeley before checking in at the inn.

Now the next question is what knitting project will I bring with me?

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It's interesting how our knitting preferences changes over time. When I first started to knit about 2 years ago, I saw many feather & fan patterns and thought wow, this is really nice! But I've seen so many now that I must admit I have no desire to knit something with F&F. It's still a lovely pattern though...

I've also noticed a predilection for garter stitch borders with lacy designs and seed stitch borders with non-lacy designs... hence the garter stitch borders in most of my lacy cloths and the seed stitch border on my Persephone Scarf. The seed stitch borders with lace just isn't doing it for me. Another thing I noticed is that I prefer to slip the 1st stitch on the garter stitch borders, but not on the seed stitch borders. I kinda like the more "rugged" edge on the seed stitch border.

As easy as plain knit/purl stitches are, I find them tedious to work. Perhaps that's partly another factor why I prefer garter stitch borders. I'm just lazy with passing the yarn back & forth between front & back.

I used thicker yarns (worsted & chunky weights) when I started to learn how to knit. Now I'm seem to prefer lighter weight yarns in the fingerling/DK weights. I know this seems strange because it takes longer to knit with the lighter weight yarn, and you'd think I'd stick with chunky yarn given my limited knitting time. Coupled with my slow knitting, it really takes me a long time to finish something! I still use worsted weight yarn mostly for the chemo caps for the Cap Karma chemo cap project.

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Don't know if you have noticed but.... I tend to favor cable & lace patterns. I finally got my hands on a copy of this book, The Craft of Cable-Stitch Knitting, so I can take a lookie and see what it was all about. There is an Amazon reviewer who wrote:

According to the copyright page, it was printed in 1971 Barbara G. Walker. This book was originally published as part of "A Treasury of Knitting Patterns" and "A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns".

Well, after having a chance to peruse this book along with BW1 & BW2, I have to agree with that reviewer. It contains the exact same info. Most of the patterns are even in the same order, some in a different order, but they are all there. Even the introductory text to each section is identical, they just amalgamated the intro from both books. I was hoping for some new information, new tips, new stitch patterns, new something. Now knowing that it is the exact same info as what is already contained in the other two books, I know I do not need to own a copy of this. The only possible reason I would want to get this book (maybe if I happened to find it at bargain prices somewhere) would be to have the convenience of seeing just the cable patterns all in one place, in one book.

Knowing what I know about this book, I'm willing to bet that her Craft of Lace Knitting book is exactly the same with no new info.

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Knitterly things on my mind....

-- Finishing up that hat for mom, hopefully before winter is over! I think it will be amusing to see my mom and DD wearing the same hat pattern in the same pink yarn, will try to take a pic of both of them in their hats.
-- Starting that maple leaf cloth for T. I've been meaning to do this for months, but I need to find some time where I can concentrate on this type of pattern.
-- Finishing one mitt for DD. I know I need to make a pair, but I'd be really happy if I could just finish one!
-- Posting my Dayflower Cloth pattern. It is already typed up, I just need to post it when I'm feeling less apprehensive about doing so.
-- Typing up my Miranda Cable Scarf and Ariel Cable Scarf patterns.
-- Typing up the pattern for my 3AM Cable Scarf (to match my 3AM Cable Hat).
-- Tweaking my 4 Embossed Hearts cloth pattern. I've got several versions going and need to decide which one I like best. I really want to design a cloth with a more solid fabric (viz. non-lacy) cuz I know that is what most people prefer.

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Jayne: I will have to seek out the tea you mentioned, Traditional Medicinals Echinacea Plus. The last time I went to Safeway, they only had 2 types of TM teas, Throat Coat and Smoove Move. I'll have to look elsewhere. There is an effective zinc lozenge made by Quantum which also has echinacea in it. The stuff works great. Unfortunately they're hard to find as they're not sold in the ubiquitous supermarkets/drug stores. I used to get them at a little health food store downtown near where I used to work.

Melissa: You asked about cables without a cable needle. Please see my response to that in this post. As for the Elann Highland Silk yarn I used for the Persephone Scarf, I believe it is only available directly from Elann.

Marit, and others, have mentioned that I should put my cloths together to make some sort of baby blanket or afghan. I don't see this happening anytime in the near future since I absolutely hate hate hate seaming. I don't know how to seam very well and it will look very bad. I would like to learn how to seam someday, but there are other things I'd like to learn first, like knitting socks! :-)

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Yay! DH has taken today off. So I'm off to spend more quality time with my family... :-) We're hoping to go out for lunch, but it needs to work around M's naptime. That's always the tricky part. She's getting more and more resistant to napping...


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