Catching Up, and the Pleats From Hell

Sorry about the blog silence- it's been busy here.

On Tuesday, we made the ugliest  Orange Ginger Marmalade in the history of the world- it's opaque and it sort of looks like creamed corn, but it sure tastes good. I did take a picture but I can't find it right now. To make up for the ugly marmalade, I also made a small batch of apple pear butter. Much prettier and equally tasty.

On Wednesday, we went to Santa Barbara, where I taught a class at Loop & Leaf. The store is lovely, the staff is warm and friendly (and Michael made us a fantastic lemon tart), and the students, as always, were geniuses.

In the morning, we worked inside, but in the afternoon, we set up outside, in the lovely shade. Everyone made excellent progress on their Fair Isle Hats (and most of the students worked the adult size, so no one finished, including me). I hope to teach more classes there next time I'm in SoCal.

And I've been knitting in the evenings... also saying bad words and muttering and being really really frustrated by the Pleats From Hell. I've mentioned that I'm knitting a doll set from a gorgeous pattern from Malfrid Gausel. I read the skirt instructions in advance, and even with the translation oddities (more about which later), the process made sense in theory.

Practice was a whole other thing.

In order to knit the pleats, the first 6 sts had to go on one dpn, the next 6 sts on another dpn but twisted, and then they were matched up with the next 6 sts on the circ (which btw, would be too big for the finished rnd, so at the same time, I was switching to a smaller circ). After the needles were lined up, then 3 sts, one from each needle, are knit together, and then the next, working through the 6 sts. That sounds simple, but man oh man, it's not. By the time you get to 2 sts left, the dpns were falling out all over the place and stitches were dropping and I was saying more bad words than My Grands had heard in their entire lives. It was like wrestling with a 5 needle bind off except nothing was bound off. There are 15 pleats in this dad-blasted skirt... it took me over 2 hours to work my way around.

It's beautiful, and once I finish knitting the casing for the elastic waist and block it, it'll be done, and I can move on to the sweater, which will be ever so much easier. I can guarantee that I'll never knit this skirt again...

It's a well that I'm an experienced knitter, otherwise passages like this would have left me scratching my head (and this is an exact quote from the instructions):


You might use ndls a half no less than you use else here and change to the one you use after.


Or this one:

Sew 2 machine seams along each side where the arms come.

It's going to be a gorgeous set, but as I said, I'm glad I'm only knitting it once.

Today, it's a quiet day. This weekend, we're going to a Spinner Faire (woohoo!). Sometime next week, we're going on a short cruise. Time is going by much too quickly.

Class at Loop & Leaf in Santa Barbara

 I am happy to announce that I'll be teaching my All Day Toddler Fair Isle Hat class at Loop & Leaf in Santa Barbara, CA, on Wednesday Feb. 1, 2012.  Celeste hosted a signing for Fearless Fair Isle Knitting at her lovely shop last February, and I am delighted to be going back.

The class hours haven't been settled yet- I'll announce when the time is firm. In the meantime, I'm excited to ride the Amtrak along the beautiful SoCal Ocean Coast again.

Astute readers will deduce that this means I'll be in SoCal  barely two weeks after going to Asheville, NC for the Friends and Fiberworks Winter Retreat (classes are now fully listed and open for registration). I lead a really interesting life, y'all.

Very Busy Tuesday- SoCal Day 5

 We started out the day here, at Element Coffee, for the best coffee I've had in my entire life. Granted, I know almost nothing about coffee, but even I could tell that this was good stuff.

 From there, we went to the train depot. These are the 5 Camarillo Stallions, which decorate the interior of the loading docks. We took the Amtrack Surfliner, from Camarillo to Santa Barbara.

 The train was quiet and comfy, and the seats had a lot more room than your average airline seats.

 I tried to take pictures of the surf on the way to Santa Barbara, but none turned out. We rode right along the shorline for about half of the hour-long trip, and the scenery was gorgeous!

 We got to Santa Barbara with plenty of time for a walking tour of Stearns Wharf.

 Note the hair- it was extremely humid (that's definitely my Summer Frizzies).

 It was gorgeous anyway.

 You can check out any time you like, yadda yadda. We ate lunch at the Santa Barbara Brewing Company, which was excellent (I had fish and chips).

 Then it was time to wander to Loop & Leaf  for my signing/ workshopettes.

Loop & Leaf is a lovely, small shop. I arrived about 15 minutes before the books did, but I would have enjoyed my 3 hours there, even with no books. Celeste and her staff are wonderful, and the knitters there are even moreso. I had a fantastic time, and I intend to take them up on their offer to come back and teach a full class!

 Oh yeah- yarn. I bought yarn (the moratorium is off for appearances). This is Araucania Miloden, and it's going to be heavy socks with a waffle pattern.

While I'm showing yarns off, I bought this Rowan Colourscape Chunky at Athena Fibers in Sioux Falls. It'll eventually be a mitered square hat. Lovely stuff, both yarns.

After the classes were over, we had several hours to kill before the return train, so we wandered some more, and did a beer tasting at Union Ale Brewing. I was especially taken with the Honey Blonde (that might not be exactly the right name- but it did have honey in the title).

After that we wandered a bit more, than hopped on the train for the hour-long trip back to Camarillo. It was a wonderful, exhausting day.

Today? It's raining. We're planning a quiet day, which suits me just fine.