Category Entries for Holiday USA
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Thursday October 25, 2007
Hedonistic Heels
Alison took me for a pedicure. It was wonderful and comparatively inexpensive. Lovely Vietnamese American ladies fussed over our feet,while the chairs we sat in gave us a vigorous back massage!
I would love to be able to have these regularly - apart from the pleasure, it must be so good for your circulation as the whole lower leg is scrubbed and massaged. However, in the UK, I am afraid the experience is more expensive and less rewarding. Age concern recently raised a debate about the lack of NHS foot-care services, pointing out that when you cannot care for your own feet, it is no longer a beauty treatment but a health issue.
Posted on October 25, 2007 at 3:16 PM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Sunday October 21, 2007
Back to reality
Two items left on the itinerary: kumihimo braiding and .... underwater knitting. Yes... you heard that right.
I was keen to try the braiding using the polystyrene circle tool, and it seemed to work out just fine; it produced the same kind of braid as my marudai, and the plastic bobbins seem very handy - could be used for intarsia - except I'm never doing that again(!). I hope to be able to use this method with thicker wools to make corded bag handles - to go with all those other bag handles I have bought in my time.... If you use thicker wools though, it will distort the polystyrene, making it unsuitable for further use with finer threads.
The under water knitting was really amusing - as the weather was so good, we did want to try it, and Alison managed to jolly a lot of people into it, even though the last thing she felt like was a dip in the pool. The rules were made easier for us, so you could chose full immersion or not, and only the knitting had to be under the water; some chose to stay at the side and some had snorkels...!
Alison was declared the winner, being first to 4 rows with her speedy continental style! Below is the winning knitting - Alison's in stocking stitch on the right and mine in garter on the left.
Finally it was all over, and we had to say good bye to everyone, and goodbye to our lovely room with the view of the sea, and set off for home. It was a thoroughly enjoyable few days, excellent value for money, and just the sort of break Alison and I wanted it to be. Hollis and her colleagues put a lot of effort into making it a great weekend - thanks to them, and looking forward to next year (or maybe the one after that...).
Posted on October 21, 2007 at 9:06 PM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Saturday October 20, 2007
Carmel by the Sea
To breakfast, (and for most of the morning truth to tell), I wore what I now think of as my very luxurious Rowan bedjacket (Carolina - magazine 39) - a good opportunity to show off, I thought, - and our group of knitters did not disappoint with their nice comments. The seminar this morning was on shadow knitting; this is a method of knitting stripes in a combination of plain and purl stitches such that, when viewed at an angle, a "secret" pattern can be seen. There are entire books devoted to the subject, but I preferred the more abstract cushion covers over any form of clothing. We had a choice of what to knit - I did the "piano keys" scarf, and Alison chose the "DNA" scarf.
For lunch we adjourned to the Forge in the Forest - which is neither a forge nor in a forest - but does (as they advertise) love dogs - the dogs provided some unwanted distraction for our group. I think knitters are mainly cat people.... it seems inevitable.
After lunch, we went en masse to the woolshop, "Knitting by the Sea", conveniently situated across the road from the restaurant. I bought some wonderful Italian wool - wildly rich in colour and now definitely destined to be Pattern of the Month for December... I was also captivated by some buttons they had in a set of four with the playing card suits on them (heart, club, diamond, spade). This inspires in me some sort of memory - these card or gambling motifs are very fifties, James Bond etc and I think there a lot of retro patterns featuring them. Whether I find anything suitable is another matter; both Alison and I are agreed that any motif in the knitting should be very low key. I was so enamoured of Hollis' merino knitting wool which we used this morning that I plan to buy a cardigan's worth in black perhaps to use on such a project with these buttons....
Alison and I then spent the afternoon chilling out - buying patent cold remedies (Alison), buying sun glasses, (me), and sunning ourselves on a handy bench in the town.
In the evening it was back to work with the "short rows" clinic.
We tried 3 methods of essentially wrapping the stitches when knitting back on a short row (such as you might do, say,when turning a heel on a sock). I preferred the conventional method that I am used to, and the second method produced the same result with a slightly different technique. The third Japanese method seemed overly complicated for very little benefit - but some of the group thought it was less visible on the right side of the work (but much more visible from the wrong side). The continental knitters had some difficulty in getting the stitches twisted into the right orientation - but any short row pattern will inevitably be slower to knit than just whizzing away with plain stitches.
Note: this isn't Alison's new design for a knee warmer, it's the three methods of short row knitting. Can't really see a difference can you?
Posted on October 20, 2007 at 9:52 PM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Friday October 19, 2007
Knitting Camp
With great excitement we set off for our weekend at the Full Thread Ahead Retreat in Carmel. After a dubious start to my holiday (rain), the weather is all set to be beautiful for the next few days. On the way to Carmel, we stopped off at Capitola for lunch, which turned out to be quite substantial ["I always eat a light lunch"] - I ate a kind of Chinese duck in a wrap served with a marmalade sauce - no really - delicious.
We arrived at 3 pm to find one other person already there, Trish, who was very friendly and waved her knitting at us from the seminar room windows. Our room - our suite of rooms! - was simply lovely with a full view of the sea from our balcony.
People were arriving throughout the rest of the afternoon, and we slipped out for a pre-prandial stroll via the Coach outlet, as per our itinerary, and popped in for a little aperitif at the Hogs Breath Inn before our pot-luck dinners.
There was a ton of food and we could see there was unlikely to be any necessity to actually go out in the evenings hereafter. Once we had knitted, introduced ourselves, and our projects, (which was actually really interesting - being one who copies rather than designs, I love seeing what other people are doing), we moved on to the "class" for the evening. We dyed 3 small skeins of wool, by micro-waving with KoolAid, and food colourings; I was very smitten by the brick-like red colour unexpectedly produced by the morello cherry drink.... Alison bravely managed to stay the course despite not being well, and we retired at about 9, and hung our skeins to dry on our towel rails in the room.
Kumihimo fingers. [We haven't learnt how to do this yet but I am sure this is close...]
We did not buy any coach bags but Robi bought the most wonderful.... well to call it a "tote" does not do it justice. It really was fabulous and - the best part - it was a thousand dollar bag sold for 250.
Posted on October 19, 2007 at 10:43 PM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Thursday October 18, 2007
Saratoga Knitting Arts
Already visited Yarndogs in Los Gatos and bought some lovely sock wool ("Wildfoote"); I would have bought more but they had only 2 balls left - still, that's enough for socks eh?
Today we went shopping in Saratoga. The wool shop there is wonderful, and I bought a great bargain pack of mixed wool, which I am hoping to use on Pattern of the Month for December.
I also purchased some buttons - two to match the wool pack, and two for my latest project.
We also did some clothes shopping (for my benefit really - although Alison picked up some camouflage clothing and boots for the boys). Despite Alison's best efforts, after we had tried Nordstrom Rack and Favorite Footwear, we ended up in Ross "Dress-for-Less". We were looking for some cheap T-shirts that we can use this weekend in case the dyeing class gets splashy. Here we were successful - and I also bought a splendid 1950s/60s styled short jacket in loose weave plaid, and a rather busy patterned shirt for work (which I instantly mutilated when I got home in order to remove the pockets, which, to quote Alison, "might look nice if they were actually on the bosom rather than under the armpits" - at $7 mutilation seemed acceptable).
Posted on October 18, 2007 at 11:56 PM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Sunday October 14, 2007
Santa Cruz
Day one and the whole family (and me!) were off to Santa Cruz for lunch.
We started with a little walk to get our apetites up.
Despite distractions on the way, the boys found the walk a bit too long but they were encouraged by the promise of seeing a surfing competition.
In fact we didn't get a very good view of the surfers (lots of onlookers) - but I was delighted with a really good view of a cormorant, who wasn't the least bit bothered by 3 adults and two small boys standing within touching distance.
Lunch was great and I ate the traditional sand dabs - yum.
Posted on October 14, 2007 at 9:50 PM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Saturday October 13, 2007
Jiggedy Jig
I can't tell you how great it was to be here again. Alison and Finlay met me at the airport, and I was delighted to see them, [...and mightily relieved to have got through customs without having to have had to explain the various imported Christmas goods in my luggage (like that there is no actual meat in "mincemeat")].
My room is lovely and the weather is sunny and just .... perfect.
There was much excited talk of our planned weekend in Carmel, and I eagerly claimed the Knit Picks needles that Alison had ordered for me.
They are circular wires with interchangeable needle sizes. Such a good idea, and very nice to use. Discovered this almost right away by casting on for my next project.
Posted on October 13, 2007 at 11:21 PM
Comments
Just perfick!
Posted by: Alison on October 22, 2007 2:33 AM
« Previous entry | Main | Next entry »Do you know the way to San Jose?
Yes.
Posted on October 13, 2007 at 9:52 AM
