heylucy

just in time

We finally had a really good snow storm this past weekend. Luckily, on Saturday morning I finished up a pair of mitts that I had started the previous weekend.

Here they are being professionally hand-modeled:

I think you can kind of tell how soft the yarn is, but to give you a better idea, it's a blend of alpaca, silk, cashmere, and camel. That also makes them toasty warm. I tested them out during my early morning walk with Winston to enjoy the snow before the hordes of tourists arrived to play in it. Yep, my hands were pretty warm.

Of course, since this is California, when I emailed my boss this morning that I was shoveling the snow from my driveway so I could get to work, he graciously suggested that I just work from home today. It's especially fun to be snowed in from work when the office is about two miles from the beach. So, since I saved myself a couple hours of driving time today, I was able to quit work at 4:30 and immediately start knitting, so I finished the first of a pair of Paraphanalia socks. 

I think these are going to be super cozy and delicious. The yarn is Madelinetosh Tosh Sock, which is about the most expensive sock yarn I've ever bought, but it's really lovely. These are pretty thick, and then that beautiful cable makes them even thicker and more cushy. I can't wait to finish the second one!

applesauce

Taken with GorillaCam app, edited with Tiltshift Generator

A little over a year ago I had this great idea for a blog all about iPhone apps, that was focused more on women and creative sorts, you know, people like me and you (I'm pretty sure most Hey Lucy visitors are women and creative, except for my brothers, who are men, of course, but still creative, and iPhone users). I had an iPhone and found all sorts of app review sites, but they were mostly by men and mostly about games. I like games, but I've got Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and Bejeweled, and that's about all I really need at the moment. So I started a blog called Applesauce, and posted a whole bunch of app reviews and iphone photos, and it was a lot of fun. And developers were constantly sending me their apps, but there were kind of a lot of crappy apps being sent and it was not always easy to find the time and energy to keep up with everything, and then, a few weeks ago I managed to break the whole site. Also, I had a really good deal on web hosting for the first year, but that ran out and it was starting to cost more money and I couldn't figure out how to fix the site and I really didn't think I could keep it up all on my own, so I finally came to the decision to just let it all go. So if you were an applesauce visitor, I'm sorry that it's not there any more.

I have good news, though! I thought it would be fun to post the occasional review or photo here now, instead! I hope you won't mind, and really, it just means more posts! Recently, Mr. Heylucy's sad little mobile phone died, so we had to upgrade. I gave him my old 3gs iPhone and upgraded to an iPhone 4. Now that I have an even better camera, I need a little push to start playing around with it more and taking pictures every day. I'm still always on the lookout for nifty, well-designed apps, so I'll tell you about them and some of my old favorites that I wrote about before on Applesauce. I'll tag all app related posts applesauce, so if you are interested, you'll be able to easily find them. I hope you won't mind, and I promise this won't become an all-iPhone-all-the-time blog. 

success and failure

I just had a four and a half day weekend, and not much happened and it was fantastic. In fact, I barely left the house, and when I did, it was purely on foot, with Winston, to walk through the frosty meadow in the middle of our little valley. I didn't drive anywhere once I got home Friday afternoon. I made sure to run all my errands, and did lots of grocery shopping on Friday so we were well provisioned. Saturday was an official pajama day, so I made a hearty breakfast of bacon, potatoes, and eggs, and then a good, warm pot of soup for dinner (sausage and kale, a favorite around here). There was a nap and a lot of knitting while sitting on the couch watching Netflix. I might have accidentally cast on three new projects, as well as working on that one existing one, but I will save all that for another post. They are all pretty quick projects and one is almost done, so I don't feel bad.  

Sunday morning, we woke up to the sound of the snow plows scraping the street. Finally, we had our first snow storm of the season! It came down heavily all morning, so we decided it would be wise to stay put, and there was still soup to eat, and I also discovered that Downton Abbey was available to watch instantly on Netflix. Have you seen it? Why did they leave us hanging like that? I was happy to read that there will be a second season. If you love a good BBC costume drama, and you haven't seen it, watch it soon, so good! 

So, with all this free time, I spent a lot of Monday and Tuesday in my little house studio doing some general cleaning up, but also a little sewing. I've been keeping all my DPNs collected together in a little ceramic pot, which looks really cute, but is super annoying when I actually want to use a set, and have to shuffle through and find a whole set in the same size. So I made a case that I can easily tuck into my knitting bag, and now I will always have the right size needles as soon as I need them. 

The new case is the one on the left. On the right is my much-loved case for regular needles from Yvonne from one of our annual Christmas swaps ages ago. And underneath is a binder with page protectors where I keep all of my recently-organized circular needles. Cute, right? Let me tell you about all the things I did wrong with my cute, new case. I should have made some sort of flap to go over the needles, because now, if you turn it upside down, they all fall out. I sewed a piece of ribbon on both short edges, which means that when it's rolled up, one is uselessly rolled up inside.

I didn't do the best job on my little labels. They're just scrap fabric, with the numbers stamped on. I cut them out rather unevenly, but they are just tacked in place with a tiny bit of fabric glue, so I'm thinking I might remove them and stamp the numbers directly onto the polka dot fabric. Ah well, I can just make sure to store it upright, and the one ribbon is long enough to wrap all the way around to keep it closed, and the number labels are still kind of appealing in their wonkiness. Not every project can come out perfect, and sometimes I can just be happy with 'good enough,' and I really like my new little case, despite it's shortcomings resulting from my inability to think it all through before I sewed it. And it turns out that I have four sets of size 7 needles and no eights or nines. 

 Project number two was to make a batch of marmalade, which is one of Mr. Heylucy's favorite things ever, apparently. I didn't realize he liked it so much, but when I brought home a bag full of citrus on Friday, and told him my plan, he asked me multiple times every day when I was going to make the marmalade. I was greatly inspired by this post from Putting up with the Turnbulls. Heart-shaped bits of peel? Yes, please! I had some organic Meyer Lemons and some mandarins, so I went to work. My heart cutter wasn't quite as cute, but it was just as tiny and blister-inducing, but totally worth the effort.

So I set to cutting and cooking. I didn't add the cinnamon hearts, I just wanted to do a simple marmalade for my first time. I cooked and cooked and tested to see if it was set. I checked the internet and read that it would set once it reached 220 degrees, so I got out my candy thermometer and watched the tempurature carefully. The recommended 30 minutes passed. I waited another 15 minutes, and still, we were only at 210 degrees. Another ten minutes, and it crept up to 216. Then it started looking a little too golden, and then it was sticking to the pan. Oh no! I stopped immediately, and got it into the jars, and then I processed them to seal. I had been licking spoons and tasting regularly and it was really, really delicious. I made myself some toast this morning, and eagerly opened a jar. Not only had it set, it was set more than any other jam or marmalade I had ever had. I could scoop it out with my knife, but it was kind of hard to spread so I just made due with a few evenly spaced chunks. So, another not-quite-a-success. It does taste delicious, but I obviously need more preserving practice. I think my thermometer is not quite accurate, it's the same one I used to make three batches of caramel, and the first two batches didn't work either. I also wonder if the tempurature thing has to do with our altitude at all. I know water boils at a lower tempurature, so maybe I'll try cooking it to 210 or so next time. I will keep experimenting and figure this out! So it was another failure, but a delicious one, and I will keep trying. 

finish-itis

A while back, the Yarn Harlot wrote about a serious condition she called finishitupitis, wherein she felt a need to finish everything in her unfinished object (UFO) basket. I'm not sure how that virus traveled from Canada to California, but travel it did. To the detriment of almost all other activities, I am determined to Get Stuff Done and get rid of projects I have no interest in finishing and clean out the yarn that I will never use. So yes, I finished yet another project. Yay!

Juneberry is a surprisingly fast knit, and it was interesting the whole way through. I loved this pattern, and I want to make it again in something soft and silky and drape-y. Shelter is none of those things. That's not at all a criticism, however, it's just a very different yarn for me. Had I come across it in a yarn store, I don't know that I would have been eager to buy it. I think that most of the yarn I have worked with has been worsted-spun yarn, rather than woolen-spun, as this is. Briefly, worsted-spun means that the fibers are long, and the yarn is spun with the fibers parallel along the length of the yarn. Woolen-spun, on the other hand, is made with shorter fibers, which are more perpendicular or in all different directions. The result is a much lighter yarn because there is more air trapped between the fibers. This also means that it's warmer, as I could tell as soon as I flung this shawl around my shoulders. 

Shelter feels very dry, and not at all soft when it comes off the skein. It has almost a crunchy texture, I kept wanting to compare it to styrofoam when I was working with it. I didn't have any problems with breakage while I was knitting, but when I did want to break the yarn, it did so very easily. Part of the dryness, for want of a better word, makes it really show off the stitches, which I think you can see, are very clearly defined. It blocked up beautifully, and softened a bit. It's still a bit too scratchy to wear right up against bare neck skin, so this will be better worn as a true shawl, around my shoulders, rather than bunched up around my neck like a scarf. 

So, if you'll be knitting something with lots of cables or other interesting surface textures, I highly recommend trying out Shelter. I think it's the perfect yarn for many patterns from Brooklyn Tweed, so kudos to Jared Flood for creating this yarn! 

So now that I'm down to just one project in my knitting bag, I've decided to go through the abandoned project bags and either finish something that's been hibernating, or ripping it out and using the yarn for something else. I'm just going to try to keep alternating between new and old. Last night I had a look at one of the first lace projects I attempted (in 2007! sheesh!). I knew there was a mistake in it somewhere, and I had been so frustrated that I stopped knitting right in the middle of a row, threw it in a bag and never looked at it again. Fast-forward to last night, when I un-knit several rows, but still didn't seem to be able to discover exactly where I went wrong.  I tried knitting a row, but I soon realized the my little size 3 bamboo needles were nowhere near pointy enough to deal with this extremely fine lace yarn. So I ripped the whole thing out and I think I'm going to use it for a very simple, lacy, beaded shawl, and I'll be using bigger needles with nice sharp points. I still love the yarn, and I love the pattern, just not together in the same project. 

One last thing, I have a thrifty knitting tip to share. With the last few lace projects I've been making, I thought it would be really nice to have some blocking wires. One of my local yarn stores had some that you could buy individually for a couple dollars a piece. Another local yarn store had a set for over thirty dollars! I didn't notice how many there were in a set, but still, it was a lot of money. I went to my local Ace Hardware, which is one of my favorite stores ever, because you can ask them anything and they'll help you find an answer. I told them what I was looking for and they sent me to look at some steel rods they had. They were great, but a little heavy, and covered with gunk from the manufacturing process that I would have had to clean off. Then they guy remembered something from the welding section. I had a look, and thought they would be perfect, and they were less than $6 for a set of six 36" copper colored rods. They're packaged in this handy tube, required no cleaning, and were nice and sturdy without being too thick. 

I have no idea what they are supposed to be used for, but I've used them to block three shawls so far, and they worked great!

Wait, I lied, one more last thing: 

Winston says Hi!

potions

Ages and ages ago I bookmarked a post from Angry Chicken about making your own deodorant. Honestly, I had my doubts. I've tried all sorts of natural deodorants before, and when they ultimately didn't work, I went back to my aluminium-laden Dove or Secret. There's nothing worse than sitting at a desk all day and catching a whiff of yourself smelling like you just finished a strenuous hike. Then, a few months ago I found this post, and realized that I had all the ingredients and finally got around to mixing up a batch (the silver tins contain the deodorant and my coconut oil moisterizer). 

There's good news and bad news, but I'm hopeful that it will all work out in the end. I started using it, and it was amazing! It smelled really nice, lightly scented, but not perfume-y, and I didn't smell at all. Even when I did my usual skip-a-shower Saturday, no B.O.! It worked even better than any storebought deodorant I've used. After about ten days, however, I noticed a little bit of a rash under one arm. I just thought maybe something was chafing, and continued using my new favorite deodorant. Well, the rash started resembling a bad sunburn and then appeared on the other side (sorry if this is TMI! I think we should all be able to discuss our armpit rashes without judgement!). Eventually it even peeled like a sunburn. I stopped using the deodorant and went back to my old tube of Dove [sad face]. 

I really think and hope that it is the grapefruit essential oil that I'm allergic to. I'm going to try again, and just leave that out, and I'll report back on the presence or absence of a rash. I've used coconut oil as my facial moisterizer for several months now, and haven't had any bad reactions at all. A quick Google search didn't reveal any widespread arrowroot or baking soda allergies. So I'm crossing my fingers that it will work without the essential oil. 

Fresh from the (almost) successful deodorant experiment, I started looking around for some other natural products to make. I read all about oil cleansing and whipped up a quick batch (in the blue bottle, above). My skin tends to be a little drier in the winter, so I did a 10% Castor Oil/90% Sunflower Oil combination, and added a couple drops of lavendar oil for scent. I've only used it a couple times, but it does make my skin feel lovely and soft, and I haven't had any breaking out at all. I'd like to find something I can make and keep in the shower for every day use, but so far, most of the ideas I've seen involve ingredients that are better stored in the refrigerator. I don't want to have to remember to get it out every time I take a shower. 

Then of course, I got super ambitious, and decided to make some lotion, which is all kinds of awesome. For the water I used a combination of rose water and chamomile tea. For the oils I used a combination of beeswax, sunflower oil, and a little coconut oil. It was magical to make it in my blender, and watch it emulsifying, going from frothy water to creamy and thick lotion.  It smells so good, mostly like honey, but you can smell a little hint of roses and chamomile too. It takes a minute to soak in all the way, but leaves my hands feeling nice and soft and not at all greasy. I'd like to try it with some different combinations of ingredients and might try adding some vitamin E oil next time. Overall, though, I'd call it a success. Has anyone else had good luck making beauty products in the kitchen? 

And just a tiny bit of knitting for today, I finished my Pyroclastic socks:

I didn't capture the color very well, they're a very deep purple, it's such a pretty shade. It's the same yarn as my Abrazo shawl, but I guess my camera just sees it as lighter and brighter out in the daylight. They were a fun, quick knit, and I'll probably be making them again.

A very long time ago I favorited this photo on flickr and set a goal to have a sock drawer like it someday. I'm keeping these to add to it, since I keep giving socks away. I can't help it, though, I want everyone to have handknit socks to keep their feet nice and warm!

I'm also just about done with my Juneberry shawl, and after that I will only have one work-in-progress on the needles (although there are a few things hibernating in various bags and drawers), so I better decide what to cast on next! Or maybe pull something out of hibernation. But that doesn't sound as fun. 

 

interim

I'm working on a post all about some natural skincare things I've been making and using, but it's taking a little time, so here is some more knitting. Do you mind? Are you tired of knitting? Because it seems that I am not. 

I want to find a knitting group, so I tried one out this past weekend at a local yarn store and made a hat:

It's pretty darn cute, and was fun to knit. The only downside, which isn't really a downside, just my own disatisfaction was that I used the exact yarn in the exact colors called for in the pattern, which is great, it just makes it feel a little less creative. Know what I mean? It's a silly complaint, and I love the finished hat. In fact, I'll be making the matching mittens, so maybe I should just stopping whining. It's the perfect yarn in the perfect colors, so I don't know what I think I want. The pattern for the hat and matching mittens is from The Red Collection, which is a really cute bunch of patterns. I want to make the ziggity hat and mittens too. As for the knitting group, there were just a few people, but I found out about another, large group that meets at a nearby Panera on the second Wednesday of the month, so I'll be trying that out this week. Maybe there will be some readers there, so I'll find a book group too. Or maybe I'm just overly optimistic. 

I also whipped up a baby sweater for a co-worker. I've made this pattern before, it's not particularly exciting, but it's a nice, classic look for a little boy, I think. It's from The Baby Knits Book by Debbie Bliss, which has lots of good, basic patterns. It's a quick knit too!

It's been awhile since I've done any seaming, it was good to practice. 

I spent a few hours on Saturday waiting while one of our cars was in the shop, so I used those hours for reading and finished Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. It's my second non-fiction book for the year, and it was really amazing. Louis Zamparini grew up in Torrence, California, where he was a Troublemaker-with-a-capital-T. With some help from his older brother and best friend, he became a track star, breaking records and accomplishing brilliant feats of speed around the track. He even went to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He had big plans to attend the 1940 Olympics, where his increased maturity would certainly make him a contender for a gold medal. And then, World War II broke out and the Olympics were cancelled. 

So he joined the Army Air Corps and became part of the crew of a B-24 Bomber. What follows is an amazing story of endurance, optimism and redemption. It might sound a little cliché, and I know there are probably more WW II stories like this that will never be told, but that doesn't make this one any less worth reading. I won't spoil it for you, just recommend that you pick it up soon and read it. Laura Hillenbrand, the author, has obviously done extensive research and spent a lot of time interviewing Louis, who is still alive. I really appreciated her obvious admiration for him, although her writing is at times a little dry. She has a journalistic style, which I think that I, as a fiction reader, am not used to reading, it's not quite as 'literary' as I am used to (not that I'm some literary snob, I'm in the middle of a slightly cheesey mystery novel at the moment), so that's not even really a criticism. 

 Just for fun, as is my habit, let's have a look at the one-star reviews, shall we? I wasn't sure how anyone could rate this story one-star, but right now, there are eleven who did. It seems that a common complaint is that the book is overly-dramatic. Really? A man survives unbelievable odds for years during a major war, and you don't think it should be dramatic? That's pretty funny. I can kind of, sort of understand not loving the writing style, but I really don't see how this story is anything less than amazing. 

knitter's toolbox

I'm still knitting away here. It's cold and windy tonight, so I am curled up with a plain little baby sweater. I need some straight stockinette stitch so I can start getting through the backlog of foreign films in my Netflix queue. I think I'll start with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, for a nice two-and-a-half hour knitting marathon.

Oh, and my Juneberry shawl is moving right along, it's just not a foreign film sort of project. I've completed the body and am working on the edging, which I suspect will take as long as the rest of the shawl did. I'll write more about it and the yarn when I'm done, but it's been a really fun project. The heavier yarn means that it knits up super fast, and the pattern is interesting, but not difficult. I was a little worried at first, since there are pattern rows on the right and wrong sides, but it really hasn't been hard. I tried to get some in-progress pictures, but it pretty much just looks like a big pile 'o yarn. Still, the color is pretty accurate, and you can see the beginning of the edging (in the lower right corner). 

All this nesting knitting I've been doing lately has made me be a little more organized. My little studio, where I keep all my knitting and sewing supplies, is a short walk out the back door, but when the low is supposed to be 19 degrees, like it is tonight, I'd like to avoid having to venture out in search of a tape measure or stitch marker. So I've put together a toolkit of knitting essentials that I keep nearby at all times, and thought I'd share. You certainly don't need everything here, but most of what I've got are just things I've collected here and there, and are things I use regularly.

I labelled everything on flickr, so you can click the image to see all the notes. A little pouch is handy for keeping all the smaller items together, and if you're working on multiple projects, it's easy to move it from one bag or basket to another.

• Scissors are useful, but a yarn cutter will do in a pinch. 
• Stitch markers are necessary for many projects and I like these Clover markers that work like a safety pin, so they can be removed in the middle of the row. I'd love to make some small beaded markers for smaller projects. Maybe one day I'll get to that. 
• A retractable tape measure stays neat.
• I hate it when my hands are dry, so I keep some rose salve and lotion nearby. I just made the lotion in that little tin (under the rose salve), I'll tell you more about that in an upcoming post, it's pretty cool!
• Post it notes are essential when I'm following a charted pattern
• I finally thought ahead and added a couple different weights of waste yarn. I used a wooden spool and a yarn bobbin to keep them neat. 
• I don't use my row counter too often, but I figure it's a good idea to tuck it in anyway, since it takes almost no space. 
• Cable needles in various sizes and configurations make large or elaborate cables much easier.
• A pencil for writing notes on patterns. Essential for calculations and reading patterns.
• Crochet hooks are great for everything from picking up dropped stitches to doing a provisional cast on. 
• Nothing works as well as a bent-tipped yarn needle for weaving in ends. A chibi (the yellow case) and a wooden fish are cases for keeping my collection of needles safe until I am ready to use them. 
• I have a set of the Zephyr clear acrylic needles from Knit Picks, so a needle gauge is used every time I start a new project, to make sure I've picked up the right size needles. 

Oh, and I nearly forgot, a little chocolate is never a bad idea. You have to keep your strength up when you settle in for a marathon knitting session. What are some of your essential knitting tools?