FO: Matching hats!

Pattern: Circular Bicolour Prime Rib (Brioche) Hat by Megan Mills
For baby size, started pattern after first set of decreases (though the adult is pretty small unstretched and actually could have fit him, just very loosely!)

This was fun! Since only one color is used per round (despite the striped appearance), it was fairly easy to pick up and put down as baby allowed. I used Cascade Fixation (the green) and some brown Madil Zaffiro, the other ball of which had become Andy's Coding Gloves. The pattern has a lot of stretch, and the Fixation of course is part elastic, so Malcolm's should grow with him - until it runs out of length! Both father and son needed spring hats, and I'm hoping these will serve for a while.

Next up - gift knitting; not sure what after that. I am trying to knit from stash for a bit as I have more yarn than I really need at the moment (don't we all?).

FOs: SIFfing Gloves

I just finished another smallish project and realized I'm woefully behind on posting my FOs on my blog. I'm pretty good about updating my Projects page on Ravelry, but tend to lag on the blog due to the necessary formatting (does anyone else have issues with getting pictures into the right place in Blogger? I have to drag each one down from the top of the page) and the necessity of adding insightful commentary (or not :). But I do enjoy the blogging once I get around to it.

So, let me present my most tardy FO - completed April 12. I finally finished my half-finger gloves (SIFfing gloves), which were basically started towards the beginning of my first trimester and finished at the end of it. Yes, I was a slow knitter, but thankfully I've picked up the pace! I'm still tired when I get home from work, but have plenty of energy to knit while watching TV :DHere they are showing off the almost-clean stovetop. Hey, it was raining, I was in search of decent light!
Pattern: Serpentine Mitts from Mimknits.com, with my own modification to create the partial fingers (will give directions below). Size 7", though my gauge was a little big. They have a lot of stretch due to the ribbing...
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Seduction (50% merino, 50% tencel), less than one skein (a smidge over half, I think). Loved it! Not itchy at all (well, my wool-sensitive husband says he can tell it's wool, but he tried them on and it didn't drive him crazy...), soft, not splitty, great stitch definition... I'll have to procure some more at some point. This was from the BMFA destashing sale last fall - cheap due to some black dye splotches in the pink, though they were much more evident in the second glove than the first, and even so not too apparent. I'm guessing I will use the rest of the yarn for baby booties or something, though it's probably too girly for the Bip (but I know several folks having girls!)
Here's an outdoor, blurry (not enough light for no flash + one'handed photography - it was raining!) closeup of the cabling and fingers. You can see the dark splotchies in the center light stripe. Here are the details of my mods:

a) made the left and right thumbs symmetric by placing the left thumb before the final purls at the end of the round (rather than immediately at the end of the round) - this was for size 7".

b) crossed the center cable the opposite way for the left glove (because I am a geek!)

c) obviously, the half-fingers. For these, I just continued the ribbing up until the length seemed right to start the pinky. I then set aside 12 stitches from the pinky side (having figured out how to divide it up so it was ~symmetric about the fingers and had an even # of stitches on top and bottom) and knit a couple more rounds on the rest, casting on 2 stitches at pinky/ring boundary. Then I divided up the remaining stitches into groups of 12 - 6 from the top, 6 from the bottom. I had found by swatching that 16 is an ideal number of stitches (in rib) for any finger but the pinky, so added 2 between each (either casting on or picking up the already-cast-on from the neighboring finger), except for the pointer, where I picked up 4 from the 2 cast on next to the middle finger.

OK, I hope that makes sense! I had to fudge the ribbing some, but made sure to continue the ribs from the front and back of the palm. I was happy with how they came out - hey, this pattern modification stuff isn't that hard!

Oh, and I have a funny story associated with this FO - I actually finished the second glove while Andy and I were in the audience at a funky theater downtown for a taping of the radio variety show Live Wire. They had Ursula K. LeGuin on talking about her new book! Anyway, I finished them in the first half of the show, and then wore them up to the inevitable bathroom queue during intermission. What do you know, a woman about 3 people in front of me asked if they were handknit, then, studying them, asked if the yarn was Socks that Rock (BMFA's main socks line). What a guess! Turns out she works at Dublin Bay Knitting Co., a yarn store downtown which we had visited earlier in the day! (it's just down the street from a cafe with the yummiest gelato... so when we are free after dinner in Portland I like to wander by.). I was amazed that she recognized the yarn type, even in a professional capacity. I guess I haven't reached that level of Knitting Zen yet :)

FOs on the docket for writing up - my Eponymous birthday tote from KT's pattern, a stuffed monkey-donkey-thing for my cousin's new baby, and (just finished tonight) a pair of pants for a coworker's baby expected any week now. See, I have been getting stuff done!

FO: 45 and Rainy Vest; and a belly pic stretches my tanktop

Yes, I really did eventually finish my vest, "45 and Rainy" (pattern is "70 and Sunny"). I've worn it a couple of times to work, and it does what I want - adds a nice warm layer to thinner shirts in the office (unfortunately, most of the cute button-down shirts I planned to wear it over are, well, not so much buttoning any more!). The pattern was very nice, easy to follow, and went fairly quickly since we're talking bulky wool (and silk).

But. I chose a slightly larger size than I might have if I hadn't discovered I was pregnant about a week before casting on. This was not a bad idea - but the sari silk I chose also was much bigger than the suggested yarn/gauge (maybe super-bulky?) and ended up pulling down the front. I have to assume that the pattern author's sari silk yarn, from Artfibers (not Knitpicks as I incorrectly wrote originally), is both better quality and more uniform (mine went thin-to-super-thick).

And I think the huge-ness of the silk is what's making me dissatisfied with the eyelet closure - it's really pulling at the front sides (though I do have plenty of ease at my back thanks to the generous sizing). I guess the individual stitches of the silk want to stretch out, rather than pulling the whole garment in. Picture demonstrating this is to the right.

But, but, but... it won't be too long before I'll just wear it open anyway, and like I said, it has been a useful layer, at least over that particular shirt which is pretty thin cotton.

By the way, these pictures were taken by the rosebushes in the interests of having a record of how they looked just a few weeks after pruning. It will be neat to document them growing as I grow!

And speaking of growing... we thought it was time to start taking some belly pictures :D. I don't really have a "before" picture (somehow it felt like it would jinx things to take one the week we found out), but I do have my tank top FO pics from last July. So I figured to start out, I'd put
tank top back on and take a picture.



Now, keep in mind, I'm pretty sure that a worsted-weight, tight-fitting, cabled garment adds at least 4 weeks to a pregnancy. I don't look nearly so huge in somewhat loose clothes (see vest pics)! This was taken at 17weeks 2 days.

One more thing - Sasha also appreciates the vest, especially when I've thrown it on top of the couch. I don't blame her - wool and silk are a nice, warm, cat-friendly combination!

Scooba and misc

Whew, it's been a while since my last post. How did it get to be mid-January already? I have one FO to present, which I actually finished about an hour after my last blog post (I was gunning to get it done in 2007, and succeeded by about 3 hours :)

But first, I have to share how we cleaned our kitchen floor this afternoon (beware, video is loud!):

Scooba's first run from Alison on Vimeo.

And also test out this embedding video thing, in case we ever take any other ones that are interesting. I did watch a Youtube video of a vintage sock making machine the other night (thank you, Ravelry!).

Anyway, I gave Andy a Scooba (robotic floor washer; goes with our Roomba) for Christmas. It was pretty funny, since he gave me a Dyson handheld vac to replace our ailing dustbuster, and we opened them at the same time. Most unromantic gifts ever! The Scooba went out on its first "mission" today - simple kitchen floor cleaning - and did an admirable job. All told, probably about the same amount of effort as mopping, but higher amusement value. It tends to get stuck in a couple of corners and on the vent grate, so we'll have to either block those or not run it unattended. But not a bad little robot!

On to the knitting - Andy had requested a pair of fingerless gloves for his office, which is often cold in the winter. He wanted longish individual fingers up to about the second knuckle, leaving fingertips free for coding. So I took the Knucks pattern from Knitty, removed the knuckle "tattoos", lengthened the fingers, and added a simple diagonal rib to the backs for interest. Oh, and my gauge was off, so I modified the stitch count a teeny bit. I guess I'm getting bolder about pattern modification (after almost exactly one year of knitting) :). These are a good basic glove pattern, and fun - knitting fingers down is interesting. I'm thinking of making a pair for myself, with a different pattern on the back, as I've been noticing my fingers getting cold at work as well.

Here's one under construction (just after joining the thumb):














And the finished product, in use. I told Andy to try to actually code something for the shot (I named the project "Coding Gloves" on Ravelry, but I think he's faking it ;). You can see a terminal window in the shot, though.














Ooh, I also wanted to congratulate my sister-in-law on completing a wonderful birthday hat for her father. She designed the fair-isle layout and completed it in (what seemed to me) an extremely short time. It even has a 3-color section!

Colorwork is something I'd like to try soon, probably on a smallish project to start (I'm thinking a felted cat bed, since Sasha keeps sitting on our jackets, my felted bag, etc - and felting should be forgiving of beginner mistakes). But I also want to knit a pair of Monkeys, and fingerless gloves for me, and and and... (not to mention the vest I'm working on now - here's where I am so far, both front done, just starting the mindless stockinette section of the back...)

Oh well, too much to knit, too little time, what else is new?

And finally - yeah Pats!

Christmas Knitting wrapup

The holidays are almost over (we're just waiting 'til midnight so we can go to bed :). And I finished the major knitting projects of my first Christmas as a knitter! So without further ado...

Carl's hat - has already been posted a couple of times, but here's one more action shot, at the Oregon coast on Christmas eve:

Dad's scarf - I haven't blogged this one before - but I got the yarn in Japan, not knowing what I'd do with it. I never did manage to post part II of my Japan trip travelogue (and wow, that was > 5 months ago now!), but I visited a wonderful "natural dying" yarn store called Mother Earth, which was actually rather near the vendor's factory in Yamanashi. It was pretty funny, having my rather proper male sales engineer (who knew nothing about knitting) translate yarn labels - I really do need to finish blogging it. Anyway, eventually (actually, in Arizona in October)the yarn decided to be a scarf, in a simple lace rib stitch. I held two strands together throughout - always a medium brown, alternating a light tan and dark brown held with it. Hopefully the ribby-ness makes it warmish, although even doubled the yarn was rather thin.
Oh, by the way, if anyone reading this can send me a pic of the scarf stitching closeup, I'd appreciate it - forgot to take one...

Mom's bag - (Ravelry project link) - this is the big, modular project that I couldn't post about since she reads my blog. Many many shells! Pretty easy knit (especially since you don't need to weave in the gazillion ends that well, since it is felted), though a tad tedious. It was odd to be knitting a felted item on only size 8 needles (to keep the stitch pattern visible, I presume), but it worked out fine. Note the blue and gray color scheme, of course (Mom is a huge Civil War buff).

final pose:

Closer up views of it post felting (including one with it next to a felted bowl she made me for Christmas!). I love the bottom of the bag, where the shells come together - so symmetrical!









(did I mention I was running around the house, back and forth to the laundry room, felting it on 12/23 while everyone watched football? And that it blocked (on a bucket balanced on a table lamp on a garbage can!) and mostly dried through Christmas eve night? And it was still a wee bit damp when opened Christmas morning. Talk about last minute finishing!)

Here it is after finishing, but before felting.





Finally, a couple of pics of it under construction. It took basically a little over a month all told, though I wasn't working as hard on it as I could have. I might be tempted to make one for myself after I've had time to knock out a few smaller things :). I like the one one the right, since Mom made me those mitts almost exactly a year ago, right before I started knitting.









and finally, a picture from our impromptu day trip to the coast on Christmas eve. May you have a peaceful and/or exciting New Year!

Odds and ends and holidays!

Well, I'm briefly back from extended blogging hiatus. Referencing the previous post, I finished all the modular pieces (reduced the number of repeats, so it was actually 76 not 84) and most of the finishing on the big modular work. It's actually blocking upstairs, hopefully will dry before Christmas day :).

I got 4 of the minor gift "A" done and shipped off 3 of them (the others will become a New Year's gift instead of Christmas), plus the dragon scarf and gorilla vest. Phew!

Plus, a couple weeks back we went to a geocaching holiday party with a "white elephant" secret santa exchange. We were supposed to bring something <$10 and possibly funny. So I busted into my stash, whipped out the extra-bulky yarn I used for my first scarf, and (using guideline from the book "Knitting Rules" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot)), managed to create a hat that actually was fought over at the gift exchange.

So, FO: White eleph-hat
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-ease thick 'n'quick, ~0.55 skeins oatmeal-ish color, and small amounts of blue and green.
Needles: US 10.5 circular (a longish one to magic loop)
General scheme: CO 48 stitches with MC. Work in 1x1 rib for a couple of inches (I wish I'd done it longer to make it easier to turn up at the brim). Then I did purl rounds in the main color with 8 2-stitch knit vertical stripes alternating green and blue. I did some twists in these, but the yarn is so bulky, they didn't really show. I made bobbins for the vertical stripes, and twisted them with the main color as it went across - sort of a hybrid intarsia / fair isle thing. Knit til it was as tall as Andy's hand, then decreased (K2tog before the stripes) so that the stripes came together at the top of the hat.

Oh, and what did we get in the white elephant gift exchange? Why, a beer mug night light, of course!

Here's the dragon scarf; and I can't show the gorilla vest yet, because there's kind of a cute surprise on it :)

In non-knitting news, my parents and brother are spending the holidays here. We've had a nice dinner downtown, hit Powells books twice now, did a hike, and went to a u-cut tree farm hunting the perfect Christmas Tree. We found it! I don't have a good picture of it all decorated - here is the before shot, though (with Carl cleaning up the result of a small overwatering issue)

And here are a few pics from our hike to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge the other day.

<- Mom and Dad in front of waterfall...

Carl contemplating waterfall (note the hat!) ->


Full view of the waterfall:


And finally, a zoomed shot of Table Mountain, which we had a great view of on the way back down the trail. It's across the gorge on the Washington side, and I'm very pleased with how our new camera's 10x zoom performed.


Happy Holidays!

FO: Peekaboo Cloche from Lace Style

Here she is... finished on Sunday, blocked on Monday (isn't that part of a children's rhyme?). The washing/blocking really made it super-soft and drapey, which is good and bad; I love the softness, but kind of wish it had a little more structure. It's definitely a bit too big; I'm considering folding it in on itself a bit, but will probably test wear it a few times. Should have gone down a needle size! Ah well, I have a small head :)

The only good pictures I could get were in the bathroom (best light) with no flash. So excuse the inanity of this one:

And here is the lovely pentagon decrease at the top:

I've come to the conclusion that I really like lacework - the way the pattern develops, the interesting stitching - but I don't think I'd have the time for anything bigger than this hat. I was coming home from work in the evening and getting 1, maybe 2, lace rows done, which is not conducive to quick finishing by any means. And the rows were only 90 stitches long! (er, wide?). But I look forward to doing more patterns with lace edgings, sleeves, etc. And part of me really wants to try a shawl, and see the transformation from unblocked clump of super-fine yarn to blocked majesty of intricate patterns. But it would take abso-freakin forever. So, probably I'll just live vacariously through lace knitters like Titianknitter, who is also a French Horn teacher!

So here are the stats on this hat:

"Peekaboo Cloche" from Lace Style.
Yarn: Misti International's Misti Alpaca Suri Silk (80% baby alpaca, 20% silk - decadent!). Peridot (green) for the inside, Amethyst (purple) for the outside lace, and Sapphire (blue) for the bottom 1.5" of the inside and top 3" of the outside. It's colorful :)
Needles: For the inside green stockinette: 3mm, which is either US size 2.5 or 3 depending on who you ask. For the outside, purple and then blue lace: US 4 / 3.5 mm.
Gauge: Only the stockinette inner layer gauge was specified, and a I hit stitch gauge at 13 st/2", but was woefully off at 17 rows/2 inches when it should have been 22 rows/2 inches. This was partly why it ended up big (also, as noted above, I have a small head!)

Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf - finished (last month...)

I figure I have enough things to post about to try to do at least 3 posts this week, so I'll continue to clear up the blogging of my recent knitting.

I blogged here about (among other things) the Noro Silk Garden Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf I was making for a charity auction at work. Well I finished it on time, have pictures, and and proud to say that it made more money than the yarn cost, which has to be at least the minimum goal. Not too much more, mind you - big moneywinners in that auction seem to be apple picking with G***** M****, a former CEO and major name in the field (how many people have a "law" named after them?); as well as the ubiquitous "front row parking spot for a year" which seems to go for several hundred dollars at many campuses but isn't offered at mine (we're too practical at my campus...)

Anyway... here are a couple of pictures!

Note the lovely afghan on which this is modeling... a Mom special of course (the largest thing I've knit so far would be my felted bag...)


As for the picture.. ignore the odd fuzziness of the model, aka me... it was raining out and hard to get the lighting conditions right. I ended up tweaking the contrast a bit to make the scarf colors look more true-to-life, which ended up making me look a bit paler-than-life

All in all - a fairly quick, easy knit, definitely recommended if you have a self-striping or variegated yarn with fairly long color changes. The Silk Garden did end up coming out softer in the wash, though the mohair still had a bit of itch to it. And all the hay washed out :)

FOs: Early Christmas hat, baby booties

I've been somewhat delinquent in posting my knitting here recently... some of this is from sheer busyness, some from the problem that KT refers to here, and some because I'm kind of knitting serially at this point and only have one thing at a time that I'm working on.

But I have utilized a unique method to get around the second problem - knit a Christmas gift and then send it early! Since he's received it, here's Andy modeling Carl's Early Christmas hat:


(yes, it came out a little big for Andy, but Mom assures me that Carl has a large head :). Carl, if you're reading this, you can always flip the bottom up for a brim!

Pattern: "Sideways Hat" from Not Just Socks by Sandi Rosner.
Modification: Using a stranded pattern (from Crusoe socks on Knitty) instead of straight stockinette for the body of the hat. Idea stolen from here
Yarn: Knitpicks Memories, "Redwood Forest", now discontinued. I still have one skein left.
Needles: US 2 but really 3.00mm and not the 2.75 that is generally assumed for US 2. Dang metric / US confusion

Notes: A hat with fingering weight yarn on size 2 needles takes a while, but I really enjoyed the stranded pattern and the way the color changes occurred. The yarn is not so much self striping as continually variegated. And I could tell if my gauge changed - I started knitting more tightly in the section to the right in this picture, and suddenly the colors weren't moving diagonally anymore. So I loosened up, and it returned to the nice diagonal movement.

This is the mystery project pictured here and here :)

I sent it early, in hopes that it would be useful for cool fall days and nights on the east coast. He tells me it's warm!

One more quick FO picture, and then it's about bedtime (which for me is normal time tonight, unlike for my East Coast family and friends Red Sox fans, who stayed up past midnight watching them win the World Series!). These are baby booties for a work friend's twins - but I took quite a while to knit/finish them, and I'm a little afraid they won't fit any more. and for obvious reasons, they can't be re-gifted to anyone else!

Pattern: "Easy Toe Up Baby Socks" from The Magic Loop booklet by Bev Galeskas.
Modification: Rather amateurish colorwork to add in their initials. Striping on the cuffs.
Needles: US 3 (I think...), 32" circular.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.
Notes: Took me far too long. Of course, I took a break to knit the diagonal triangle scarf (which I need to blog! It's finished and done and sold for charity!). Hopefully still will fit the twins - I think at least the girl's will; I did hers second and worked a bit more loosely. They're only 14 weeks, but apparently growing fast! I need to just give them to my work friend ASAP, but he works in a different building and I keep forgetting...

I enjoyed the toe-up method (the magic cast on from the booklet is great - you use it and don't have to do any dividing or grafting for the toe), but got gusset holes in the short row heels on all 4 socks, despite knitting my wraps and everything. Next sock I think I'll try a different toe-up heel technique. Anyone have one they love?

Summer FOs

A few small things I've also finished this summer:

Felted Miceys for various kitties. I wanted to knit two and stuff them with local farmers' market catnip for my aforementioned secret santee, so first I made a practice one that looked more like a bug. Cirrus wasn't too interested before the stuffing...

But filled with catnip - yum! (Sasha isn't as into 'nip, but even she has been seen rabbit-kicking it. Powerful stuff!)

The actual gifted mice look much more like mice and less like bugs - and the giftee says her cats are enjoying them as much as C & S seem to like the bug mouse.

I also spent a fair bit of July knitting a pair of ankle socks from a couple skeins of elastic, stretchy Cascade Fixation which I bought at Knot Another Hat in Hood River. After seeing how the colors worked together, I decided they should be Beach House socks for my Mom - so last week they went with her down to VA beach, where the air conditioning is often cranked up. Here are my feet modeling (Mom, feel free to send pics of your feet doing the same, if you like!).

The yarn is so stretchy, I could have done them down a needle size or cast on fewer stitches or something - the tops are a bit baggy as-is in size M. The pattern is free (pdf) - it's just a basic sock pattern, but the ankle socks knit up in ~1 ball of yarn. I adapted it pretty easily from the "on-2-circs" method to magic loop on one circ. I think for my next socks, after I make the mate to my magic loop class sock, should be either toe-up, or lace, or both. I do have 2 skeins of Koigu in my stash, but honestly I was considering a hat or gloves for those - seems a shame to hide the gorgeous colors under shoes. Hm. Suggestions taken :)

Hiking - Skamaniac gift bag - and a stranded mystery

Here's a quick bag I improvised on Sunday morning, after spending the night at Skamania Lodge in the Columbia river gorge, after spending Saturday hiking around Mt. Hood. The trip was fairly spontaneous, so I just threw a bunch of yarn and a couple of inspiration patterns in to my big old knitting bag. I wove in ends for one project as we drove out of cloudy Portland up to the sunny mountain; then, lo and behold, right by the turnoff for the mountain road to take us to the hike, there was a cute little yarn store! (it had a big banner on the side of the A-frame roof that said, simply, "YARN" :). So I picked up a couple skeins of Crystal Palace Kid Merino, for a possible future shawl.

Anyway... we had a wonderful hike, and had been intending to camp, but the bridge to the campsite was washed out, and long story short, the only hotel around that had any vacancies on a sunny Saturday early evening was the local resort. Ah, such tough luck we live with... So we made the most of it, eating lots at the breakfast buffet, staying right up til the noon checkout; and we sat for a good hour in the "lounge", in comfy chairs admiring the river view, Andy websurfing (yes, he brings his computer even when we plan to camp) and me knitting this ridiculous little gift bag out of the silliest yarns imaginable. So I would give it the name "Skamaniac". But it's the perfect size for something small, and it sparkles nicely in the sunlight (or the camera flash)

Oh, and a teaser, when we left at noon and drove up to Mount Saint Helens (unfortunately the only pictures we have from this whole weekend are a few from Andy's cell phone, as we hadn't been able to find the camera before leaving - of course, it was in the back seat of the car, buried under camping stuff....), I cast on for something new, but as it's intended as a gift for someone who might conceivable read this blog, I won't say what. But I'm enjoying the simple slip-stitch pattern, which I stole from Knitty via someone else's blog. It's a variegated sock yarn, but this isn't a sock!

Tank top, finished!

(pictures before the weaving in, as evidenced by the long flyaway in the left picture. Also note Andy's shadow, taking the picture)

Finished last week sometime! The sewing-up was actually kinda fun, once I got into it, though it took longer than I'd hoped. It came out pretty well fitted, overall - I'm glad I made the Small instead of the Medium, even though it was supposed to have 5" negative gauge. Either my gauge loosened up or (more likely) the cotton-acrylic blend stretched a bit. It's easy to find flaws with it, of course - my cables aren't symmetric, the design doesn't have any shaping to the back so it's kinda baggy, and of course, a tank top in worsted-weight is a tad heavy.

But overall I'm happy with it. Yay, first big project, done! and wearable! Let's see what Sasha thinks!

hmm, what is this thing? Oh, of course, it's a cat bed!

Finishing up FOs

Last FO, and from here on out it's all WIP (heh, that's a slightly different acronym at work!) until I actually finish something else. I made a lil lacy bag (pdf) for my Mom - an early mother's day present before my parents went off to Africa to visit my brother in Botswana:

The yarn is Araucania 'Pomaire', a lovely skein of variegated blues given to me for my birthday by my sister-in-law. It's 100% cotton and quite soft. This was my first (and so far only) lace knitting, and I quite enjoyed it once I had finished ripping out the first 5 rows for the third time! (I suspect that is common to first-time lace-knitters worldwide!)

Here's a detail of the stitching - the pattern came out quite nice. Andy (old-school D&D player) likened it to a hip pouch. I haven't heard from Mom yet if she found any small treasures in Africa to store in it.

Next post: WIP! And possibly geocaching, too!

As a preview, let me post a random geocaching/PNW (that's Pacific Northwest, of course) picture from Memorial day weekend. We canoed across a gorgeous mountain lake and found a geocache on the other side...

Finally, congrats to KT on posting her first patterns for sale! They're supercute! I think I need to find some of that yarn...