I might not mind

I almost wrote about how I fell asleep while waiting for these pics to load, but that would be whining. Instead, I'll show you a picture of a praying mantis that DD#2 took today.


DD#1 has come and gone. Only one friend came instead of three. I made lasagna and broccoli salad, changed the bed sheets, ignored the other mess, went to the fabric store, and sewed a pair of curtains. I'm still staying up too late, but at least I don't feel as drugged today.

I've also been knitting.

Here's start #1 of my Coriolis sock . It's only start #1 because I have ripped it out to start again on smaller needles. Not doing a gauge swatch....I used #6 needles as suggested by the pattern. This makes the sock too loose. (I don't even feel that guilty about the ignored swatch. Socks have to be tried on to see if they fit, anyway.)



The yarn is Knitpicks dye-yourself merino sock yarn. The sock is knit with 2 strands held together. Increases are done by knitting one stitch into each strand (just genius!) and the spiral is in place of the gusset. The scrap of paper says "instep" so I don't get lost.



It's so much fun to knit, I might not mind that I'm essentially knitting three socks!

They'll be so busy...

I've been travelling home the last couple of days. Left on Friday, got to PA Sat. morning to pick up the kids at my dad's, drove 7 hours home on Sunday. The vacation was great, (forgot the camera to take luau pictures--sorry), but now I'm smack dab into reality.

No food is in the house, there might be some clean clothing around, but it's hard to find. The house is a mess, and....DD#1 is coming home tonight with 3 friends.

"We'll be so busy they won't even look at the house."

Even though I'm sceptical, I'm going to choose to believe that statement. Otherwise, I'll have to clean continuously to get it in shape. There's a late night expected arrival time, so I still have several hours left. Who wants to spend them cleaning, though?

I'm still in Hawaii time, 6 hours behind here, and I really want a nap. If I can't nap, I want to keep knitting the Coriolis socks by Cat Bordi that I've finally started.

But who wants to clean?

They'll be so busy they won't even look at the house.
They'll be so busy they won't even look at the house.
They'll be so busy they won't even look at the house.
They'll be so busy they won't even look at the house.

Time for a nap.

Tuesday tour

Since I'm going to be losing internet connection for a couple of days, I thought I'd load on my Tuesday tour pictures. (My apologies to anyone that has trouble loading the pictures. I have a fast connection here and am going a bit picture happy. I've tried to downsize the pics, but I'm not sure how successful I am. I'm check it out at home with my r....e.....a.....l.....l.....y s.....l......o.....w connection.)

(Also, while I'm on apologies, let me just state that on my computer at home, my blog colors look good together. On other computers, however, they look rather harsh. I'll have to change that.....)

Here's the Kamehameha Statue. Read more about King Kamehameha here. (Google is my friend.)



We saw several different buildings in Honolulu (I'll spare you the pictures), then went to the Foster Botanical Gardens.

A flower that I can recognize: the Bird of Paradise. (My job has taught me something!)



This is the Cannonball tree that both flowers and grows....cannonballs.



This tree flowers only once in it's lifetime, then it's lifecycle is over. It's flowering right now.



A pretty tree. (You know how you hear the tree's name, repeat it several times to yourself so you don't forget it, then still can't remember that? The whole day was like that.)

Clueless

Clueless. It even says so on the bottom of my badge.



It's handy for walking the exhibition hall. No one has asked me a technical question yet.

I've been clueless in other ways, though. For instance, I've been here for one week, and this is the first day I've run across my friend from home. That's right. Seven days. (She's only been here for five. Still, that's plenty of days to meet up and hang out.)

Finally, here we are.


It would've been bad if we had come all this way and never even saw each other.

She came along at just the right time to take a picture of my completed Clapotis.



Long enough, do you think? :)

My friend and I hung out for awhile, then she mentioned the penguins.

"Penguins?" I said. "Where did you go to see them?"

"Here, at the hotel," she said.




Did I mention how clueless I am? I've been at the hotel for one week (7 days) and didn't even know there were penguins on the premises.

Sure, I saw the penguin signs, but did I read them? Nope.

Here's the sign describing the penguin. (If you click on the picture, you should be able to read it.)






There they were, just swimming around with the turtles.





In my defense, even though I'm clueless in many ways, I knew how to find the cheap souvenirs! And what could be more important than that!

Almost done / good deals

To blog about finishing the Clapotis, or to actually finish the Clapotis, that is the question.

I'm so close to being done that it's hard to stop long enough to blog. But if I don't blog now, it may not get done today. (I have that rigorous schedule again: pool, nap, beach, LUAU!)

See? It seems long enough, so I've started the decreasing. On the right you can see the corner. All that's left is to finish the other corner.



(Hmm....right here I should have a concluding sentence, then a segue into the next topic.)

The end.

Moving on. (Rather creative, aren't I?)

This is our beach. Check out the umbrella and two chairs that can be rented for $65. There are plenty of rich people at the beach since they generally run out of sets to be rented.



I, however, believe in saving my money for things like souvenirs and food.

Check out my tube floaty that I bought at Walmart for $2.38. (Walmart is my friend. It's supposed to be the biggest Walmart in the world. The Sam's club is located on the 3rd floor and there is a parking garage just dedicated to Walmart that located smack in the middle of the city.) If I can get it deflated, it'll fit in my suitcase to be used at home.


The bag was free from DH's convention (well, not free, but came with the registration. I also get breakfast every day, that if I wait long enough, I can call it lunch. The time I did that, though, they ran out of banana bread and coffee. Good thing I already had 2 cups in my room.)

The towel is free for use (about the only thing around the hotel that doesn't have a stiff fee attached to it.) The sarong that's all scrunched up was actually brought from home that I got at our church's annual clothing exchange. (We bring in all our used, no longer wanted clothing and bring home someone else's. I've gotten tons of good stuff this way.) The sarong was most likely bought in Hawaii, but not by me.

I leave you with this picture of a purple orchid,taken on yesterday's tour. (more later--the Clapotis is calling me).

Touring the Island

Yesterday was lovely. Our friend David and his fiancee Amy drove me around the island. (DH was working....)

These pictures are taken from the The Nuuanu Pali Lookout.

"The Nuuanu Pali Lookout is a perennial favorite stop among visitors to Oahu. The panoramic views of the Windward side of the island from this expansive cliff will blow you away. Just make sure the winds don’t blow you away, either.

Located at Nuuanu Pali State Park, the lookout overlooks the 985-foot cliffs of the Koolau Mountain Range. (Translated, "pali" means "cliffs.") And yes, it is extremely windy. The trade winds blow through the valley between the high mountains on either side, forming a strong wind tunnel of sorts. On extra windy days, you can even lean into the wind and let the gusts hold you up. "

It was windy, but nothing got blown away.






My gracious tour guides for the day:



It was fun going with them, because they would point out the sites, then say whether they've been there and what they did and other tidbits of information. That's where they filmed "Lost", that's where they filmed "Gilligan's Island", that's where they filmed "51st Dates". That's where my brothers climbed up the side of the mountain basically using a ladder with ropes to hang on to. That's where the best shrimp is. This is the best place to buy souvenirs. (They took me to a swap meet where there were rows and rows and rows of vendor booths. I had to stop myself--only 'cause I was running out of money.)

We drove around the North Shore where the waves are huge. I'm sure everyone has seen surfing pictures like this from the Pipeline:



Only, apparently the waves are seasonal, so yesterday the waves looked like this:



Yep, only in the winter months do they have those huge waves.



They did, however, have this big rock where people jump off it. Really. (David's done this a bunch of times. Amy's much wiser.)



Then they climb back up the rock to do it again. Not a chance that I would do that, even in my teenage days.



Knitting? I've caught up from the day before. There's still plenty of yarn left, but it's looking quite long. I'm hoping to finish soon and move on. After all, I have 3 more projects to do. (At this rate, I won't have to resort to the yarn section in Walmart. Yes, I've already located it.)

7-7-07

There were 7 weddings/receptions at our hotel today on 7-7-07. Apparently it's a much desired day to get married. Here's a couple of pictures:

Outside our window they were setting up for a reception:



Here's a wedding party at the bottom of our hotel (the bride has her elbow up, but I couldn't really just stand there and take lots of pictures. That might look weird.)


A different wedding reception.


Several weddings were on the beach. I worked hard on walking around a wedding party so I wouldn't get in the pictures in my swimsuit.

Here's a picture of the beach, a better view from our hotel. (It's not all construction and wedding receptions.)



DH has been working, so I've been spending lots of time here.


The evening show by one of the pools.


Knitting content: (Thought I wouldn't get there, didn't you?)

I have no picture to show since I knitted for awhile on my Clapotis (after the beach and a nap), but then I ripped out all the afternoon's work. Since it now looks the same as yesterday, just check out yesterday's picture, and that's what it looks like.

Aloha

Aloha and greetings from Hawaii! My blogging will be done from here for the next week or so, in between trips to the beach, shopping, and taking naps. I have 4 knitting projects with me, and while DH has been teasing me that my carry-on bag had nothing knitting projects, I'm a bit worried that I'll run out.

We had a wonderful flight here. We had enough miles that we upgraded to first class. This may be the only time we'll get here, so we're pampering ourselves a bit.

I was greeted with a lei (ordered ahead of time by DH--what a nice way to start the vacation.)(Vacation for me, that is. Work for DH.)


(That's my knit/purl shirt under the lei. Gotta advertise when I can.)

This is the view from our balcony. If you look past the construction, you can see the Pacific Ocean. I've been in twice already. There's a beach just outside our hotel lobby.



The Clapotis was my sole knitting project on the flight over. It's to the point where I measure it every 12 rows (That's every time that I drop a stitch to make the run.) to see if it's long enough. Not yet, and there's plenty more yarn so I might as well keep going for awhile (but I'm starting to get impatient.)


Gotta go, it's time for my nap.

This is what I found

A couple of updates:

1. I finally was able to finish reading Alison's new book "Wrapped in Comfort, Knitted Lace Shawls". It was as good as I thought it would be. I might even have to make one someday. The family has continued to eat (sometimes leftovers are better the second day).

2. The glasses have been found. Right....err....ummm....where I had left them. The camera was then promptly lost.

3. The soakers are dry and are in the mail. (I was "Queen of Delagating" today. Whoever came near me got a job to do, and one had the "going to the post office" job.) The pattern is mine (but not written up, sorry). The handspun was purchased from a member of the wool_soaker_group, so not mass produced by any means. It's a nice Corriedale.

4. So that I don't keep confusing Diane, let me just say that while I'm not dyeing any yarn tonight, I did wind some. Plus, I need to collect several projects and locate the patterns and needles. Plenty of last things to do since tomorrow is my trip.


On to the pictures.

A couple of days ago DH asked me if I had looked at my pictures in my camera lately. (NO.) He also made the comment that I have 6-7 places in the house that's not covered with my knitting.

Hmmm...I'd better see what he's up to.

Then, the camera was lost. Then the camera was found--again-right where I had left it.

This is what I found:






























I should've included a picture of the floor just so that you can see that I can actually find my floor amidst that mess!

Soakers

Yarn has been dyed.



Don't worry--I'm STILL not going on a trip tomorrow. However, I needed to knit this BEFORE my trip, so it's still crunch time.

I'm actually making a couple of soakers. A former customer who bought one of my first soakers asked for a couple of customs. Here they are:

This is the pansy soaker. It's Fisherman's wool that I've dyed. (I remembered my rubber gloves, so my hands are the normal color.) Measurements are:
Waist: 16-20", Rise: 19", Legs: 7.5-11".



Here's the second soaker. It's handspun wool, spun "in the grease" to keep the natural lanolin. It actually had so much lanolin that I had to wash it twice before it could be knitted. Measurements: Waist: 16-20". Rise: 19.5", Legs: 8-11".



All measurements are approximate since they haven't been blocked yet, but they should stay close to the same.

These were fun to make! (Isn't all knitting fun?)