i'm away

ok, just a quick update that i'm in mexico doing fieldwork for my dissertation and will be away until august.

right now the weather is pretty nice here - much better than in tucson. at night it is even a bit chilly. but by august, things will change. july is going to be tough. i've done it before and can do it again, so i'm confident i can make it work.

no knitting for now, but i have a sock in progress back in tucson. it's socks that rock in a really pretty colorway that i can't remember, maybe it's called 'downpour'. it has greys and browns and other pretty neutral colors.

that's it for now. more in august.

my favorite sock yarn (sort of)

finally a post about the hand-dyed sock yarn.
let me give you a recap on the vitals:
bare merino wool in fingering weight from knitpicks
procion dye from dharma trading company
i used two colors to make this: turquoise and some crazy red color (i think it was jungle red)



this is half of the yarn cake of this stuff. (the other half is in the sock!)



and above is the first sock.

i used ann norling's adult basic socks pattern. it's my old faithful for socks. i prefer this kind of heel than a short-row heel.



i really like the subtle striping that is happening in this yarn.

i have one more skein of this yarn and i think i should come up with a boyish colorway and knit steve another pair of socks.

puerto libertad is not liberty cove

ok, maybe the title of this post does not make sense, but just give me a minute to explain. while writing out my budget for this summer's fieldwork trip, i wanted to find the mileage between tucson and puerto libertad. at first, i came across this site from wildsonora. this site talks about issues that are considered threatening to the attempts at keeping sonora "wild". ok, that's cool with me. i was particularly interested in the articles about development in puerto libertad and the coastal highway project. in the past, i have heard so many rumors about the coastal highway project, but wasn't sure how much of it was serious. the link from the wildsonora website to this site made me cringe. liberty cove seems to be some investor's wet dream of how to sell even more vacation property along the coast of the sea of cortez (because, let's face it, rocky point is just too full). the intro page to the liberty cove website is a joke. the liberty cove developers are sneakily hiding one little thing.
--> check out the photo on the wildsonora page or look at the similar one here. is that what you want in your backyard? the smoke trail from those smokestacks goes on forever. puerto libertad is a sleepy little fishing community with the exception of the natural gas operation they have going on there.

who's that with an ACD?

who knew that owen wilson had an australian cattle dog named garcia.
check out this link from people for proof.

finally another post

steve is away and he took the digital camera with him. before he left i forgot to take photos of stuff i wanted to share. for instance, we dyed more sock yarn last week. i ended up using a total of two colors to get a beautiful, sorta striping sock yarn. steve has a great stash of procion dyes from dharma that he has used for dying clothes. although it's not the best thing for dying wool, it does the job. i picked out two colors: jungle red (i think) and turquoise. we used the two jar method (instead of three) and the middle lump got a watered down version of the turquoise-red mix. i also had a much smaller skein than what is desired for "true" self-striping yarn, but it is nevertheless turning into something really beautiful. pictures of that next time.

i also wanted to mention something that i discovered after arguing with steve about dye safety. i was under the impression that non-food-worthy dyes were really unsafe and that whatever comes in contact with the dye should not be eaten off of, etc. i was being obsessively careful about this when steve got annoyed with me and decided to look up the material data safety sheet. we were using fiber-reactive dyes NOT acid dyes. fiber-reactive dyes in their powder form are not exactly safe (ie, you shouldn't inhale them or eat them and they shouldn't come into contact with your skin). BUT, they are so much safer than acid dyes. even though we have a separate dye pot and all that, i think it's important to mention that fiber-reactive dyes might be a safer alternative to acid dyes and offer better color choices than kool-aid or food dyes.

on another note, i finished some socks for steve out of wildfoote sock yarn in the "zane grey" colorway. pictures to come.

hodgepodge of potpourri

still no finished pictures of the sienna cardigan. i found an old tweed vest at a thrift store and stole the fake leather buttons off of it, but sewing those suckers on is another story. in the meantime, i made a sock for steve. i will reveal them when they are both done.

i also picked this guy up at the thrift store:



it's a drip glaze platter from an old company in ohio.

my chile seedlings are doing well:



the photo is, as usual, crappy, but check out those little guys!

also, no need to put away the cross-country gear yet. looks like we'll have a snowy weekend.

finito

it's the end of the weekend and i have a few things to say, but no real pics to post. that will happen later in the week.
i finished the sienna cardigan, sans buttons and i still have to wash it. i need to go on a thrift store search for an old sweater with good buttons or a jar full of them.
i went cross country skiing twice this weekend, but only one time really counts. i went to delaware park the first time with patty by myself. patty threw a fit and just wanted to go back to the car after only a little bit. but this was a good test of my new skis/poles/shoes because the baskets on my poles hadn't been attached very well. that was my own fault.
today we went to hunters creek (see some info here about it). this was our second time there and patty had a blast. it was fun for us too, but next time we have to plan for a longer trip to make it worth it. we're still figuring out the trails.
even after two miles of running through the snow patty isn't tired.



next time we'll have to bring one of the cameras and snap some skiing shots.