Recent FOs

I recently finished a couple of shawls that I wanted to share with you! Neither of the pictures do the shawls justice, because they are made with Glam sock.  That yarn has silver fiber in it, so in the sun they sparkle like you wouldn't believe! Totally gorgeous, totally me!!

Ishbel by Ysolda Teague
StitchJones Glam Sock "After Midnight"
A nice simple pattern - took me 10 days to knit :) I made this as a shop sample for Sharon of StitchJones and it was really really really hard to let it go!



Echo Flowers Shawl by Jenny Johnson Johnen
StitchJones Glam Sock "Simply Irrisistable"
23 days to finish. I did not have enough yarn for the edge chart, so I just continued with the border chart until the "nupps" came to a point. Instead of making nupps I used beads for extra sparkles.

An Evening with Alicia Paulson

My friend Kathy and I have been long time readers of Alicia's Blog - Posie Gets Cozy. She just came out with a new book Embroidery Companion! When I noticed on her blog that she was having a book signing, I told Kathy that we had to go! I sadly missed her last book signing when Stitched in Time came out because Owen and I were leaving for Hawaii the next morning at 4am. I am still kicking myself for not going.

Kathy met me at my house and we drove downtown to Powell's. There was hardly any traffic and we made it down there so fast we had about an hour to wait around. We picked out front row seats and then we pulled out our knitting! I helped (or maybe didn't help much) with Kathy's shawl, and then worked on my sweater. I ended up having a slight spaghetti incident with the end of the ball of yarn so I spent some time winding from the end into a ball so that it wouldn't be tangled in my bag, and put the sweater away.

Alicia showed up with most of her book samples and Cupcakes!!! Have you ever been to a book signing where there were cupcakes?? Well, I ate one and it was so delicious - Dark Chocolate cake with an almond frosting and 3 blackberries on top!

After setting up, she did a little introduction and then had questions and answers. Of course, I wasn't prepared and couldn't think of anything to ask. One of the main things that I took away from this was that there are no "embroidery police"! Imagine that! If you pick up a needle and thread and just start, no one is going to criticize what you're doing and the back of your work doesn't have to be perfect, it could even have knots if you chose to make them. Whatever gets you started is all that counts.

The Q&A was about an hour and then she signed books. I really thought it was gracious of her to spend time with each person and talk. She signed a very nice short poem in my book and she even took a photo with me. I also got to tell her about her studio inspiring my own office remodel! Thank goodness my camera had the photo of my new yarn cabinet (which I haven't posted here because my office is a mess and I am working on cleaning it so that one day I can show it off).

We stopped over to the sample table to check out the beautiful things she made. Oh my, they are even prettier in person! We were oohing and ahhing over them when Andy Paulson (Alicia's husband) made a comment about the baby bibs being a little small for us. Hehe. Well, he is a talker and we talked about who knows what for about 15 mins (or more probably). He took photos with us, and I made sure to get Alicia's purse in my photo, because 1) it's cute and she made it herself and 2) he was holding it like a nice husband should when a lady is off doing something else!

Afterwards we went and took pictures with the "Powell's Background", we made our book purchases and went home!

And this is for Alicia - Thanks for inspiring me to pick up a hoop and needle & thread for the first time since I was in 8th grade! I made this kitchen towel as my first project from your new book! I will eventually get all of the days done, but my husband likes pie, so I started here:

An Evening with Fran Healy

Friday was my lucky day - I really should have bought a lotto ticket!

So, Owen and I went out on a date, sans Hazel! Thanks mom :) Well, dinner was with mom and Hazel, but the rest of the night we were out on our own! We went to a concert and then to Voodoo Donuts! It was my kind of evening!

First, we had dinner at Tastebud Farm . It was ok, but kind of expensive for pizza, so probably will not go back there. I much prefer Mississippi Pizza or Hotlips. Anyway, we chose this place because it was across from the Aladdin Theater. I had never been there before either, and I was nervous about getting there early enough to get good seats, since the concert was general admission. I kind of worried for nothing, because we got there 10 mins before the doors opened and were the 3rd in line. I was amazed, we got front row seats! I have never gotten front row to any concert. Luckily I had my knitting, because there was an hour waiting for the concert to start. So I got quite a few rows done on my sweater:) The lady next to me was amazed that I had thought to bring something to do, and then she ignored me the rest of the time, I probably scared her.

Ok, so I'm sitting there knitting away and in walks Fran 20 mins before the show started, and he walked right in front of me to get to the backstage area. Wow, that was pretty cool. I wanted to jump up and squeeee, of course I didn't, I played it cool (which will surprise some of you, I know).

I think some back story is in order.

Owen and I have known each other for over 12 years. I've been listening to Fran and his band Travis for about as long. I've seen them 3 times before (all in 2000) - 2x they opened for another band (Oasis) and saw them twice on that tour, the 3rd time they played at the Roseland in Portland (this is one of my favorite concerts of all time). They've been to Portland one other time more recently, but we couldn't go to the concert for some reason. So, their music reminds me a lot of when Owen and I were first dating and living together, because we listened to them all the time. Their album "The Invisible Band" came out when we bought our first car and that stayed in the cd player for MONTHS! That music got me through a lot of stuff, including a 1 hour commute to a job I hated, for 4 months. This time Fran was touring by himself to promote a solo album that is coming out in October. I feel so lucky that he came to Portland, because the tour was only 6 shows.

Back to the story.

Promptly at 8 he comes out and we go wild (well as wild as 100 or so people can get). He decided to ditch the mic and amp and just played acoustic. Oh my, that was a treat! So, instead of being behind a mic, he was right in front of us and it was like a private concert - so so so so cool. Really hard to describe too, because these songs mean a lot to me and this night they seemed so honest and real, just a totally different experience. Oh and he went Storytellers on us and told us stories behind all of the songs he played! My favorite was about the song "Side" and he wrote it originally as a rap song (LOL), but that got nixed and the lyric "a circle only has one side" is from one of his physics teachers - he said his mind was blown away by this fact, and I have to admit when I heard this song the first time my mind was blown too). The song "Rocking Chair" got the tears flowing, because it was written from the point of view of a woman with Alzheimers from a TV interview he watched, all I could think of was my grandmother. He played so many songs - 15 that I can remember, but maybe one or two more, including a few from the new album. Oh I can't wait to hear it! For the encore he admitted that he did not have a set list, and asked if we had requests. Poor guy was bombarded with so many. I am pretty sure I was the only one yelling out "Driftwood", and he played it. That was really special, it has to be my favorite song of all time, and apparently it almost wasn't a song. He said that he was washing dishes and watching Cheers on TV and mulling over a dialog between Norm and Clif about being driftwood. Then he had the melody and went to record it, but instead of recording, he just got footsteps of him leaving the room. He reviewed the tape and at the very end there was him singing a bit of it and voila, Driftwood was not lost forever.

After the show, he didn't leave, he just hopped off the stage to sign autographs. Of course, I was NOT prepared AT ALL :( I didn't think to bring a camera or anything to sign, or even a token gift - stupid stupid stupid! I got a couple of grainy shots with the iphone, yup. Oh well, it was just hard to think of something to say that didn't sound dumb. I mean, at home, you can think of so many things to say to someone whose work you admire, and then you become dumbstruck when you actually meet them in person. I mentioned the commute thing and that he should go to Voodoo Doughnuts afterwards, and that was it. If I could have hogged more of his time, I would have also said that his music means a lot to me (more than he could ever know), that even with an accent he speaks so clearly, that I am also a vegetarian and that I really liked how soft his shirt was.

When he sang "Indefinitely" it was about time not really existing and life is just moments and wanting to live in a moment forever. Well, I really wanted this night to go on forever, I could listen to him sing for about that long.

Well, we had to leave and I didn't want to go home right away, so we went to Voodoo (since I had mentioned it, and that's all I could think about eating) and got a couple of donuts to have for breakfast and one to share on the ride home while we listened to the other song I had wanted to hear "We are Monkeys" A little Travis song that makes me laugh.

Crimson Greenjeans

Here is my assistant helping me with the start of my second sweater. She's checking to make sure I got gauge (I don't care if I did, because gauge is an evil, lying, witch with a B).

I'm making Mr. Greenjeans by Amy Swenson using Stitch Jones' Dyepot Worsted in Crimson. I'm already past dividing off the armholes, so it's going fast!!

Secret Sewing!

I can finally blog about the secret sewing projects I was working on! They were gifts for my friends and did not want to chance it having them read my blog (highly unlikely though). All three projects I had made 2, one for me and one as a gift, and I forgot to get pictures of the recipients' present, so mine will have to do.

First off, a yarn swift bag. I saw an add on ravelry for one of these, and they were kind of expensive, so I decided to make it myself! The tricky part was figuring out how to make it! I googled for wine bags, and yoga mat bags and came up with these instructions that I liked, and used them as guidelines to make it fit my swift. Mine are padded with fleece to give cushion it. The inside is a white fabric. I did not add the webbing hanging loop like I had wanted, but on my friend's bag I used a rope for the drawstring and that seemed strong enough she could use it to hang it if she wanted.



Knitting project bags - don't let the picture fool you, they are approx 20" long, long enough to accomodate long metal needles if I chose to use them. The same friend who I gave the swift bag to, got the pink bag. Actually, she gave me the materials to make the knitting bag for my birthday, but there was enough to make two bags so I made it to give to her for her birthday. That reads very confusingly, but you get the jist. These were made using a Honeybun Jelly Roll - long strips of fabric rolled into a roll, then you sew the strips together to make a larger fabric. It was a pain, but the end results were cool!


Lastly, I'm pretty sure I did not mention this, but for our anniversary Owen gave me a camera! It's a Canon Rebel T-2i DSLR. When we first started dating, I took pictures of everything! I loved going out on walks and taking my camera along. Over the years when digital started getting popular and then the standard, we bought a string of point and shoots. They were ok and took decent pictures, but really not the quality that I wanted. Also, they do poorly in low light or trying to snap pictures of a toddler running around! This new camera is awesome, and I had all but forgotten that I liked taking pictures of stuff other than Hazel. Anyway, the strap that comes with the camera is adequate, but not glamorous. I found a tutorial online from Made by Petchy and followed it for my camera's strap. The first one I made was too small, so I made the second one a little bigger and it fit perfectly! I also made one for my sister-in-law's camera (our cameras are one version different, hers is a T1i) out of a pretty blue fabric with a white "pottery barn" style print. She loves it!



That's all on the sewing front for a while. I have some things that are on the back burner, like a coin purse, but nothing major. Phew!

Junk Mail

About 2 months ago, I was at our local farmer's market and happened across a booth that had information on recycling. I asked a few questions about recycleables that I didn't know if I could recycle or not. Then the lady gave me a pamphlet on decreasing junk mail. At first I didn't think we were getting too much junk mail, but when I got home, I looked at the bin by my desk and realized it's ALWAYS FULL! Right then I decided I was on a mission to cut down on the junk mail we recieve. So I followed the steps in the booklet. It was not too hard to get off of the majority of mailing lists. There were a few annoying ones - like the weekly mailer that has local ads that everyone gets, but eventually those have stopped coming! So, now it's been a couple of months and I have noticed a dramatic decline in mail that we get, because it's not junk mail filling up our box! There are days when we get no mail at all and we'll check a few times during the day to make sure we really didn't get mail.

"Each year about 675 pieces of junk mail end up in every mailbox - a whopping 4 million tons nationwide" (quote from the Metro pamphlet) That's astonishing to me!

I'll share a few resources with you so that you too can help the environment by not contributing to the excess costs of junk mail!

1. Catalog Choice - This is the one that helped the most! It's free to sign up and they have hundreds of catalogs that they will do the legwork and remove you from their lists. This way you are not calling EVERY 800 number from EVERY catalog. This one is really simple. They do suggest you have your catalog handy, so that you can provide your customer number, but it's not really neccessary. You can also remove other members of your household from these catalogs too, so there's no need for multiple accounts. CC does not send very many emails either (once a year maybe?), so no junk email to sift through.

2. If you're getting mail from charities that you no longer want to donate to, or they send too many letters, you can check out their individual websites and most of the time they have a link to remove yourself from their mailing list. Also, you can take the card they send you and write on it "remove me from your mailing list" (or something along those lines) and they usually take you off. However, if you donate to them again, you will be back on their list. I'd like to think you're doing them a favor, because they wont have to waste money on sending you something you're going to end up not opening anyway.

3. Oregon Metro - is where I got the pamphlet originally and they have a lot of numbers for you to call, or websites for you to contact to get off of mailing lists. Included are: Equifax, InfoUSA, Experion Consumer Services, Valassis, Abacus, Acxiom and Cox Target Media (Valpak coupons). Yeah, I've never heard of them either, but apparently they are behind all that junk mail we get!! I would suggest googling those places for their websites, then you don't have to call them up. It might take more leg work on you're part though.

4. Check out the credit bureaus: Transunion, Equifax and Experian at this opt out prescreen site. This stops the credit card offers from coming! We were getting about 1 every day!  The opt-out for life seemed more official, because I sent them a request through their website and a week later, they sent me a form to fill out and mail back to them. I had to sign off that I really did not want offers anymore, I even added Owen's name to the "names I'm known by" and apparently that was ok, because he's not getting them either.  You can also do a 5 year opt out online.

5. Stop junk mail before it starts - Don't fill out forms with your mailing address. Kind of simple if you think about it, but one that I know I'm guilty of. I like to enter into drawings for prizes, but they can turn around and sell your info. Make sure to check the box to opt out of unwanted mailings (if there is one.)

Well, I hope this helps you out and reduce the amount of paper you recycle! Everyone wants to be greener these days and this is one small, mostly easy way to do that!