Sticks & Stones

One down...

Well, tonight was my wonderful, smart, handsome son's high school graduation.  What a relief to have the evening over with.  Believe me when I tell you to start planning for this moment from the day your little ones are born.  It will come around way quicker than you think.  Enjoy every single moment of their growing up.  And really, don't sweat the small stuff.  And love, love, love them because they will be going away to college way too fast!  So it's never too early to start planning those party favors today...hehe...

This is just a quick post as I'll be quite busy for the next month packing and sending off the aforementioned son to college.  He will be winging his way across the Pacific all the way to Phoenix, Arizona.  Be kind to him, world!  Thank you... 

I have managed to get in some crafting and am a few rows shy of finishing the last strap for the French Market bag.  I also created a few pieces of jewelry.  These are for a swap.  It's a suprise so I will not mention to whom they are intended.

   

And these I really like, I'm thinking of making a pair for myself...

And I did manage to find time to do my favorite thing...cyber-shop.  Check out this great pendant I found at Queenthings.  It's a handmade miniature piece of artwork by Jenny.  I love her blog and I'm definitely looking forward to picking up more of her artwork. 

Isn't it gorgeous?!  I have an idea of how I want to incorporate it into a necklace.  And speaking of lovely things, I also received my order from lovelydesign.  I've always had a great love for paper.  I was so happy to have this package in my hands. 

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of summer.  I'll try to post as often as something blog worthy comes up...

Busy as a bee...

And it's crunch-time as they say...my son will be graduating in less than 2 weeks and leaving for college a month after.  Where does the time go?  I feel emotional.  Happy and proud that he is such an awesome human being.  But also very sad that he will be leaving "the nest" so soon.  I find myself crying at the drop of a hat.  How is it that parents deal with this?!  It's insane.

The knitting helps keep my mind off of things.  I'm almost done with the French Market Bag.  I want to make it a bit deeper than some of the other bags I've seen around.  And maybe adding some sort of closure/button.  I haven't taken any progress pictures.  It just looks like a blob of stockinette stitches at this point.

Also having my daughter around will help to keep me in the present.  I had the honor of chaperoning her class to the Honolulu Academy of Arts this week.  It was fun and quite interesting to observe the children's reactions to the various collections.  My daughter was so excited to be able to see a painting by Vincent van Gogh.  She has always been fascinated by his art and life.   

The most fun was had at the Art Center.  We were shown a film about color, value, and hue.  I was equally intrigued by the whole retro-ness of the A/V projector and circa 1970's film.  I felt as if I were back in grade school myself.  We were then taken to the workshop where we were given a quick lesson in how-to-paint and color theory.  Armed with a palette of primary colors and some white tempra, we were told to paint something abstract, and have a go at mixing color. 

It was fascinating.  I could have spent hours mixing and remixing the paints over and over trying to achieve just the perfect shade.  It was so exciting to discover how easy it was to create color.  Okay, not always so easy.  I found that getting a perfect orange was very difficult.  I could only manage a salmon orange.  Well, after an hour of fun, this is my finished "painting"...

   

This is Olivia's...

   

Don't forget everyone that Saturday, June 10th is the World Wide Knit in Public Day !

Aloha Knitters has organized an event and it will be taking place in Waikiki.  There are even t-shirts and other goodies to support this event.  If there isn't one in your area, it's easy to organize one yourself.  Because of work obligations, I will be unable to attend.  But you can be sure that I will be knitting in public on my break!

For love of wool...

And all things knitterly, I drove through Honolulu traffic and squelched my fear of driving.  It was all worth it, as I finally arrived safely in the parking garage below Isle Knits.  Even before I stepped into the elevator to take me up to the 14th floor, I felt accomplished.  My obsession took me from one side of Oahu into the heart of the Honolulu business district.  Not the easiest journey for me.  But look what I brought home with me...

 

The shop proprietress, Sue, was qite helpful.  Sue showed me her new shipment of wool and talked to me about future yarns.  Namely, new colorways for Noro yarns coming out soon.  I found some Kid Merino, Debbie Bliss Silk, Patagonia Nature Cotton, and more Cotton Chenille. I had to force myself to leave.  I already want to go back.  Nothing like love to help overcome our fears, eh? 

So I finished that washcloth.  And instead of using a basic chain bind-off, I tried the crochet kind I saw on this episode of Knitty Gritty with Vickie Howell.  I like this method very much.  It's worked in very much the same way as a chain bind-off, except you are using a crochet hook.  It was loose enough without being too messy.  And very quick.  Just make sure your crochet hook size matches your knitting needles used. 

And now I am working on the French Market Bag.  Remember this goodie from several Knitty issues ago?  I'm using Peruvian Highland Wool that I was originally slated for use on another felted bag.  I've been wanting to knit this since I saw Amy's version at the first meeting of Aloha Knitters back in May of 2004.  This picture was taken two days ago when I was transfering from dpn's to circulars.  I've reached the "increase to 200 stitches" portion of the pattern.  Nine more rows and I will switch colors/yarn.  Still trying to decide on whether I want to continue using the Highland wool or switch to some Noro Kureyon as I did here with Hello Yarn's tote. 

Speaking of Aloha Knitters, check out this button that Momachet created...

It was created to represent "Operation Harlot in Hawaii"(thanks to Keohinani for actually giving name to our madness!)  We love our wool here in Hawaii.  Very interesting reading at MK Carroll's blog on this very subject.  MK, who is most likely Hawaii's most well-known knitter/designer with her creation of the wool womb has a special affinity for Peace Fleece.  Peace Fleece with it's wonderul story and beautiful colorways is also on my list of top three yarns.  I believe there may be a general misconception that not much knitting goes on here or perhaps that there really is no real need for knitted wools here.  Wrong, wrong, wrong...

We live in tropical weather and we love knitting!  Especially knitting with wool...