A Few Random Things

First of all, congratulations to our friends Chris and Lindsay for running (and finishing) the Boston Marathon!  What an accomplishment!  The Marathon took place on April 18th, which is also Chris' 50th birthday and he and his daughter Lindsay, who goes to Tufts, have been training for this for months.

                                                                                  

Here's a picture of my grandaughter Maeve in the sweater I knit her a few months ago:

    

It's nice to have family members to model for you.  Here's Jamie in one of my Quarters caps:

Here's my progress on my Long Lace Shawl Collared Vest.  Short rows and lace knitting are a bit challenging, but I am making my way through it.  Got to get off this green kick and on to other colors!

                                                                              

                                                                                

And, of course, I have to include another snow scene.  This is my neighbor Ivan raking snow off his roof.  Notice how close he is standing to the roof thanks to the huge snow banks next to our houses.  I may be posting snow pictures for quite awhile!  We are taking bets on when the snow will be gone; I'm guessing early July by the time it is all gone.

 
                                                                                                                                                                          
And it's on to Easter preparations!

                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                    

A Trip to Sacramento

One of my knitting buddies, Cris,  moved to Sacramento a few months ago,  and a couple of us decided to take a trip to visit her.  And yes, stop at a few yarn and bead shops along the way.  Cris and David have been renovating their home and they showed us around.  Here's the dining room with their new lights:

                                                                                              


A view of their backyard, still in progress:

David is a musician and created a wonderful Performance Center where he plays piano:

                                                                                  

    Cris and David seem pretty pleased with how it all worked out:

                                                                                  

                                                                          

                                                                                   

 Headed off to Rocklin to a great yarn shop called Filati:

                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                        
           A few of the samples we saw there:

                                                                                                                                                                
A sweater from Noro called Isabella made with Noro sock yarn.

From Berocco and I didn't get the name...   I think this is the Gaia shawl made with Noro yarn;

                                                                  
            

Fae and Vera at Filati's:

This is me checking out the samples at Filati's:

                                                                                                                                                                      After lunch at a Mercedes Benz dealer across the street (yes, a Mercedes dealer!), we headed off to Babetta's Yarns in Fair Oaks.

                                                                                    

  

Here's Fae with a few skeins of Zauberball for a possible Citron shawl?

At this point we were ready to call it a day, even though there were plenty of other shops to visit; we'll save them for another day.

                                                                                                                                                                            

Oh Joy!

Got a new camera and I'm so excited!  It's not a DSLR, but a more sophisticated version of a Point and Shoot:

                                                                                  
It's a Nikon Coolpix P7000 and I'm still working my way through the manual, which so far has not been too complicated; they really make it easy for any level photographer.  Step One: "Take the Camera Out of the Box".  I can do this!

So here are some random pictures I have been taking in auto mode, and I think the look pretty good:

                                                                                    

This yarn is Azapa  by Araucania Yarns.  Araucania hand dyes their yarns in Chile and I couldn't resist buying this for a project from one of their books:

The pattern, called, Design Twelve:

Here's a few random photos that I took at Green Planet Yarn:

This a Mirasol pattern called Keeley.                                         

Here's a sweater made in Noro Kochoran yarn called Natasha:

  

This is Audrey by Gundrun Johnson:

    

The Firefly Shawl by Kristin Omdahl:

They have a great selection of buttons:

                                                                                          

     If you are in my neck of the woods, enjoy this glorious Spring weather.  You might want to read William Wordsworth's lovely poem about the daffodils.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

A Trip to Capitola

Delightful sunny weather this weekend and we headed off to the coast with some friends to take a walk on the beach and walk around Capitola.

We walked along the ocean on the Old Landing Cove Trail  at Wilder Ranch, just north of Santa Cruz.
Wilder Ranch is an old dairy farm that was started around 1847 and originally included 12,000 acres along the beautiful coastline north of Santa Cruz.  It was saved from development and given to the state and has become a great spot for hiking, biking and horseback riding:

Saw a group of Calla Lillies growing along the bluff.

  

All this brisk walking and sea air made us hungry and ready for lunch at Gayle's, one of my favorite places in Capitola:

Although it is still early in the season, Gayle's had lots of beautiful flowers blooming, much to the envy of everyone visiting:

A mosaic of the Capitola Wharf on the street side of the building:

  

Walked down to the Village of Capitola where they were having a street fair to help out the local merchants who were just about wiped out after the devastating flood of a few weeks ago.  Lots of people showed up to support them and everyone was enjoying the sunny weather:

   Those are the Mouse Houses in the background; small cottages brightly painted in pastel colors and right on the beach!

    

                                                                            

Finished my husband's socks.  First time working with Briar Rose yarns and I was very pleased with the quality of their yarn, Grandma's Blessing, which is a washable merino.  This is a free pattern from Ravelry called Simply Skyp Socks by Adrienne Ku:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

A Few More Snow Scenes

                                                                                
                                                                                      

Greetings from Swiss Lane in Truckee where we had another 8 feet of snow two weeks ago.  The locals are saying this is the most snow they have seen in 30 years and even our governor, Jerry Brown, is declaring the drought is over.    Here's a picture of our street:

                                                                                          
Forget the Fitness Center; if you want a real workout, try shovelling snow for 3 hours. I'm wearing a ski sweater called "A Day At The Slopes" that I made  few years back and from the looks of things, I may be wearing it right through Memorial Day!

Check out our neighbor's house; it's a single story and pretty much buried under all the snow.  The roofing companies have assured us that these houses are built to hold almost 20 feet (yes 20 feet!) of snow and no one seems to be worried about them caving in.

     Here's our driveway; the snow plow service gave up after we had an additional 8 inches and didn't bother to show up.  The thing is, we are running out of space to blow the snow with our snow blower.                                                                                                                                                            

Here's the entrance to our driveway:

                                                                                                                                

Here's the thing; if you are a knitter, you secretly delight in all this.  It's a great chance to stay in the house, sit by the fireplace, have something warm to drink and knit!  Here's my next project for myself:

                                                                              
        As the pattern says, it's a long shawl collared vest from SweaterBabe and I'm going to use the yarn suggested, which is Knit Picks Andean Silk .

                                                                                        
                
 Plan to start working on this tomorrow;  let's see how long it takes to finish it!
                      

Sock Knitting

Since the Trekking Sock KAL started in January, my interest in knitting socks has been on the increase.  Maybe it's all the rainy weather we have had, but socks are a comfort project for me - something warm and comfy to wear, a quick project and easy to tote around.  Everyone seems to be knitting socks and how can you resist with all the great patterns out there and an incredible selection of sock yarns, from self striping to gorgeous hand dyed yarns.  Here are the socks I have been working on for the last few months:

                                                                                     

This is Center of Attention, the January Trekking KAL project from Knit Purl Hunter and the next one is an Opal self striping sock yarn.  Bought this at the Opal booth at Stitches and I could have spent hours there looking at all their yarns.  If you haven't looked at the Opal sock yarns in awhile, I suggest you take at look at their site; they have definitely kicked it up a notch regarding patterns and color.  They have a group of designers who are doing some interesting things with various themes.

These socks are for my husband and I'm using a hand dyed merino yarn from Briar Rose Fibers  called Grandma's Blessing:

   

This was a free pattern I found on Ravelry called Simple Skyp Socks by Adrienne Ku.

Stopped by Green Planet Yarn to see how the Trekking KAL group was doing with the March project.

It's a pair of top down socks done in Trekking XXL:

                                                                                

  It seems that everyone knitting these are getting a different look.  Here is the one Cris Johnson is working on:

Cris was wearing an interesting sweater by Veronique Avery called Oblique:

                                                                                  

                                                                                                                            

Back to my socks!