It’s after the 4th of July, I’m exhausted, back to work but filled with joy!!  I don’t think that this post could even convey the awesomeness of this past weekend.

You see, some people got a little mad at me for ‘not revealing’ my birthday this year and hence started to plan a crazy awesome weekend for me.  This past weekend, now known as the birthday weekend, which happens to be on the 4th of July 2010 weekend, also now called Kenny’s WICKED weekend took place in the fabulous city of San Francisco.

I arrived Thursday night only to be greeted so welcomingly by John and Kyle.  Then we drove to the other terminal to pick up Chuck.  All this is happening while Chuck Chuck (John’s Chuck) and Gregg (Kyle’s Chuck) were at home doing something…. I don’t know what.

Anyways, we were all so happy to be with each other again, since Puerto Vallarta in January.  Things started by the unveiling of THE WICKED CAPES.  I was horrified, not by the beauty of the capes, but what they were going to make me do with the capes.

It took John and Kyle a whole month to hand make these capes.  Yes, they were hand sewn and everything.

With the event embroidered into it!!

These were black opera capes with the skyline of San Francisco on the inside in green sequined cloth.  This came with a pair of Emerald City Green glasses and a top hat.  As you can already tell, these boys are over the top, and it’s just Thursday.

So we take a break from all this cape business and went yarn shopping all of Friday.  Another fabulicious time with the boys, even the non knitters and WonderMike, our gracious host for the day.

Then the day ends, and it’s Saturday where I start to panic because we were going to play dress up to go to the show – WICKED at the Orpheum in San Francisco.

And then there was no words for the show.  Most magnificent show I’ve ever seen in my LIFE!!!!!!!!

Then exhausted, we went home with capes and all and then spent the next day in the Dolores Park, having a grand old picnic.

Happy Belated Birthday to Me and I love all my boys!!!!!  Couldn’t have had a better celebration!  Over the top!  Thanks guys!

I am seriously going insane.  Remember this yarn shop I was talking about, Knitting in the Loop?  I swear, it’s killing me.  One brand a day, 50% off, for 7 days!  Thank God I’m working tomorrow and won’t be able to go.  But will my enablers help me?

Today it was Mirasol and Araucania.

So, I got myself some Mirasol Nuna and some Araucania Trauco (%100 Cashmere!)

Do I have to work the streets now?

What a refreshing feeling when the first thing that wakes you up on a Saturday morning, the morning after a whole hell week at work, is the UPS man!  Ok, he wasn’t in my bed and did not wake me up that way.  Get your minds out of the gutter!!!

The doorbell rang and there was a Saturday delivery with some fiber goodies!

And like that’s not enough.  I had to quickly hop into the shower after that and rush to a 9 am yarn shop opening who was having the 1st day of their summer sale.  One brand a day – 50% off!!!  I hate that!  The anxiety and anticipation and the mad rush!

However, I got out with these little puppies – Louisa Harding’s Kashmir Baby

So, all in all, a really fun, fibery Saturday!  Now off to knit.

Ya know, I’ve been traveling so much (well, it’s a lot for me!), that I am forgetting what week or what month I’m currently in.  Even more so, what have I blogged about and not blogged about and where have I been and in what order.  Terribly frustrating you know.  I mean I could sit down and open up my calendar and figure it all out, but who has the time these days.

So, as I was looking at my Ravelry page last night, I saw that I actually acquired some stash along with my travels but have made no mention of them whatsoever.  So here, let me tell you all about all the exciting places that I’ve been and what has been collected on the way….. in no particular order.

I think I’m going to try and show you the pictures gallery style……. a feature of WordPress that I hadn’t really played around with much.

So, starting from Left to Right, Top to Bottom…… my visits, the events and the stash that came with it!  The first 2 pictures are part of the gallery…… they are just logos from the shops that I’ve been.  You will see.

1. WEBS, America’s Yarn Store (yes, I was physically there during my trip to the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat.  North Hampton, Massachusetts – Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 ply.
2. WEBS in North Hampton Massachusetts – Plymouth Happy Feet
3. WEBS in North Hampton Massachusetts – JaggerSpun, Zephyr
4. MSKR 2010 at Easton Mountain, New York – Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Wool Cotton
5. Balls & Skeins in Sebastopol, California – Misti Alpaca Tonos Pima Silk
6. Cast Away in Santa Rosa, California – Be Sweet Bamboo

Yummy stuff huh?

Oh, and the 2 yarn shops in California, they are the cutest little yarn shops that I’ve ever been too.  Check out their website and hopefully they have some pictures of the store.

I have pictures of the labels…..

So, that’s at least a little update you guys get from me for now.  I’m still here, not going anywhere, no exciting new publications….. so I tend to be a little quiet, because….. there’s not much to tell ya folks.

But still, stop by, check on me, send me messages and comments because I just love all ya’ll.

So, what do you write about when you’ve just started 2 projects and their in such a state where there is nothing really much to show?  Well, I guess I should just post them on here!

See. nothing much but a pile of knitted-looking WIP’s.

I will though, be having a fun weekend…… I’m headed to the Russian River tomorrow!  I’ll be hanging out with my bestest knitting buddies Chuck, John and Kyle!  We will be watching a comedian Friday night and the rest of the weekend is some real deserved R&R.

I think there will be lots of pool time, knitting time, hiking time and sitting-around-doing-nothing time….. the perfect short getaway.

What are you guys doing this weekend?

Did I mention that I don’t have a single project going on right now?  Well, I don’t; and the last post was about swatching for various projects to start on.  So, on the drawing board, you have seen that I want to do something with the Plymouth Happy Feet yarn and the Na Craga sweater which I can hopefully turn into a cardigan.

Another swatch that I’ve been working on is the famous Henry by Mareike Sattler from Knitty Fall 2007.  I heard that it’s probably one of the most tedious projects out there but also one that gives a really rewarding finished object.

And now I digress, since I’m sorta starting projectless, I’d like to  talk a little bit about my ‘project picking’ process.  I tend to categorize things, like a typical scientifico braino engineering person would do.  I’m not smart or anything, I just think that way.

2 types of categories come to my mind: the type of item and the type of technique.  So, now as of today, I would like a scarf, a shawl and a sweater.  That’s easy there, nothing much else I can do.

On to techniques, I would like to have a mindless project, a lace project, and a cable project.

Combining the two, I think I might have found my happy medium.

1. Plymouth Happy Feet – Mananita Shawl by Meg Swansen (Shawl and Lace)
2. Naturally Merino Fine – Na Craga by Alice Starmore (Cardigan/Sweater and Cables)’
3. Skacel Trekking – Henry by Mareike Sattler (Scarf and mindless)

So, there you go.  So far, I’ve blogged about the shawl and the sweater, but it took some time to refine the Henry project.

From sources all over, I have heard that while this is a nice pattern, the edgings suck.  Mainly the cast on and the bind off don’t match.  So I decided to test that theory and they were right.  Look at it.

The Cast on is wobbly and the bind off is bumpy and they don’t match. In addition to that, do you notice the slight difference between the lower half and the upper half?  The upper half is using a size 2.5 mm needle and the lower half is using a size 3.0 mm needle.  I’ve asked around the yarn shops and am getting a 50-50 split in opinion.  Now I ask my web readers, which do you like better, the tighter weave or the looser weave?  I know you can’t feel or touch it but….try your best please. 

Back to Sattler’s instructions, it looks like she is trying direct us to perform a tubular cast on and a tubular bind off. Maybe she does it her way so perfectly that it works for her, but hey, it ain’t working for me.

So, I decided fine, I’ll stick with her theory but perform my own version of the tubular cast on and the tubular bind off and see what I get.  100% better.

My bind off still needs some work, but I’ll get there.  I had to do a practice swatch over gigantic yarn and contrasting thread, but I think l got it.

Now hopefully when I get there, I’ll be able to bind off as pretty as this for 700 odd stitches!!!

So, based on all the varibles, this is what I have decided.

With the yarn I’m using, I’ll cast on tubularly via the stockinette method on a size 3.5 mm needle.  And then knit the main body with a 3.0 mm needle.

I plan to increase the length of the scarf to 80”. So based on my swatch, I got 4” to about 36 sts, thus I have to cast on a total of 720 sts. Yes, INSANE, I know, but oh well. Will update more after a week, because it probably will take me that long to finish the cast on!!!

So, I think I’m happy now.  The thing about this project is setting it up.  After that, I think it will get pretty mindless.  So, there you go, my last project, the mindless one!

Have a great Memorial Day everyone!!

I’m now officially PROJECT-LESS.

I don’t think we can let that happen, so it is now swatching time.  I had acquired some lovely Happy Feet by Plymouth Yarns during our roadtrip to WEBS and this is the swatch made out of it.  Normally, I do not like variegation, but this one is nice, it’s an all over variegation without pooling and such.

Can you guess what I’m going to make, the needle sized used are 6 US, 8 US and 10 US.  Bear in mind, this is a sock weight yarn.

The next swatch is using a size 7 US on Naturally Merino Fine – a discontinued yarn.

I plan to use this for Alice Starmore’s Na Craga from Aran Knitting.

It was a little stiff at first, but after washing, it came out BEAUTIFULLY SOFT.  I am still trying to think how I can redo Na Craga into a cardigan instead.  Just because I think cardigans are much easier to deal with in Houston.

Any suggestions?

Well folks, if you don’t read me, have a great Holiday Weekend!!

Ok, first of all my Socks Appeal Boxer post was meh…… sort of a Debbie Downer.  However, it was actually the highlight of an event that I attended this past weekend.  I’ve just been so tired getting back from it and trying to assimilate back into real life.  Just a peak at what I mean…

Once again, 3 times in a row attendee now mind you – The Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat 2010.  So many people have already blogged about it and I’ve read all of them and I just don’t know what else I can add.  As you guys probably remember, there was MSKR 2008, MSKR 2009 and now MSKR 2010.  Not only in the Spring, but there were also the fall retreats MFKR 2008 and MFKR 2009.  5 great great retreats so far.

So, how can I trump what the others have said…… I can’t.  Just that I had one of the bestest weekends again……

With bestest of friends:

The Good Side -

And the Bad Side -

Show and Tell:

The at the end – FOND MEMORIES TOGETHER!

Pattern: Socks Appeal Boxers by Skacel
Book: Skacel Pattern Leaflet

Yarn Brand: Berroco
Yarn Name: Sox
Yarn Colorway: 1483 Purple (1 skein), 1482 Green (2 skeins)

Needle: Size 3 US (3.0 mm) and Size 1.5 US US (2.5 mm)
Size: Medium

Hello world!  As some of you might know, I was just in sunny Sunnyvale, California.   Last week was a real intense work week for me, but of course, I HAD to find a yarn shop.  It’s tradition for me.  Everywhere I visit, it WILL be on my to do list to find a Local Yarn Shop and of course, get a little something different that I don’t have here in Texas.

So a short GOOGLE search landed me to Purlescense Yarns which was only like a 5 minutes drive from the hotel.  It’s a SIGN!

I was immediately met by the owner Kaye.  It so happens that Thursday nights, they open till 9 PM for Knit Night.  It was a cute little shop!  I sat around and browsed and left with this.

And on my way out, I got a little knitting bag to remember my visit.  Nice!