A Strand in the Hand: March 2007

So, not that I was any kind of stellar blogger anyway, but now I'm afraid that I'll have even less time for it, for a couple of reasons. I'm going to commit to posting every Sunday, lest my SP thinks I've dropped off the face of the earth or something.

There is just SO MUCH going on in my life right now. One major item is that I am the Chair of this, and that I just started a new job here as their Environmental Education Coordinator. The job should be pretty exciting... working with the public with an emphasis on the Native community, in the areas of subsistence fishing, ethnobotany, and organic gardening. It's a bit of a departure from similar positions I've had in the past, which were more bio-/ecology based. Should be fun! I'll for sure be sharing all kinds of cool pics of me in the garden, out in the boat, up in the hills, etc... most likely with some kind of knitting with me ;-)

Being one of those leftie-liberal-treehugging-wacko types with a strong affinity toward the wild coast of the Pacific Ocean, I thought for sure that I would feel out of place when traveling back East. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case at all... in fact, what I loved about associating with other like-minded people there is that, frankly, the leftie-liberal-treehugging-wacko types of the East are much less annoying that most of us in the west. It's kinda like they aren't trying so hard. Or trying to outdo one another in their crunchiness. What a nice change.

All that aside, I had a wonderful journey. We stayed with my new brother/sister-in-law in Easton, about 30 min south of Boston. Affter being stuck on an island for so long, even this little suburban hamlet seemed like the urban jungle. There were Actual Thai Restaurants, for one thing. Oh, and even though I live in a fishing town in AK, there was more seafood available (there's a whole other story about how much of our seafood is sold overseas, then sold back to us. But, that's for another time...) I personally put at least 3 dozen live cherystones to a swift death involving hot sauce and my gullet. YUM. My hubby has more pics of the trip on his blog, so here is the link if you actually give a shit. Frankly, being back on my wild little island= slow interwebs. Therefore, I like to minimize how many pics I actually have to upload to the blog. There are many pictures of me eating wonderful food, and one memorable shot on me passed out on the train back to Easton after getting absolutely sloppy on Jameson and Guinness on St. Paddy's. That was a memorable night- at least, what I can remember of it.

One would think that I would have gotten TONS of knitting done on a 2.5 week vacation, but sadly, that was not the case. I started a sock for my dad's b-day as we were beginning our journey. His birthday was on the 22nd, so ummm.... this is now for Father's Day.

Here is a picture of the sock in progress:

I'm knitting it using Cascade 220 on 3.25 mm needles. Gauge is 6 st/inch and I'm using the sock patt from the Handy Book o' Patterns. No way was I using sock yarn for his big-ass feet. Even on worsted weight I couldn't get much done!

And as for the entrelac bag... well, it should be finished, but this is all I have. Plus about 17.4 miles of I-cord for the straps.

I did somehow manage to make a spiral scarf using the yarn "Estrus" that I spun a bit back.

So little knitting. Staying with the fam also meant being around my adorable new nieces, rambunctious retrievers, and all sorts of other wonderfulness. Therefore, my priorities went beyond needles and yarn. Plus, it's hard to knit when there are cute children hanging off of you. How the hell do people with kids find any time to knit at all? This just furthers my opinion that (most) parents just straight-up kick ass.

What else? Well, I did make it to one yarn store when we we driving to Newport, RI (one of the most beautiful places in the world). My husband painted one of the lighthouses there. How neat is that? For shizzle. We made a detour into Tiverton, RI to find a place called Sakonnet Purls. Wow, what a nice shop, with a very nice staff. They were very excited to hear that I came all the way from AK- and that I worked at a yarn shop there as well. The Husband stayed in the car the whole time, and no, I don't feel badly that my already long experience in the yarn shop was augmented by a 20 min conversation with these fab ladies. I will be ordering online from them, that is for sure!

During our trip to the shop, my Husband (a Boston native) mentioned that Tiverton is "Swamp Yankee" country... meaning, that a lot of the old families who intitally stole land from the Natives in that region are still there and that, they are referred to as "Swamp Yankees". I'm not sure if this is a disparaging term or not, so if it is, I apologize. I was so taken by the phrase however, that on Sat, I carded a batt using the colors of the region in winter and spun it up yesterday with snippets of boucle, some other random novelty yarn, and trade beads/ glass leaves. I present:

"Sakonnet Swamp Yankee"- 90 yds, 3.5 wpi. Love it!

And, there is another yarn in the works. Let's just say that "pimp" is part of the title, velour fabric is part of the fiber, and leave it at that for now...