AtomicKnits

Crescent City Weekend

For New Year's this year, Justin's parents came to visit.  They look us for a long weekend to Crescent City, California.  We stayed at a cute hotel right across the street from the harbor.  It was the first time I saw both redwood trees and wild sea lions!  Here are some highlights...

Sunlight at the coast.

Arthur, Emily, Me and Justin in the redwood groves.

Me and Emily at the coast.

Harbor sea lions!!!

Aw LOOK AT THEM!!

I got so close to them!

Emily and Arthur at Pebble Beach.

And, finally, the obligatory photo of me hugging a giant redwood!  You can see the rest of the pictures here.

We made it to Eugene!

3000 miles and 10 days later, we are in our new home in Eugene, Oregon!  I will post pictures of our new place as soon as it looks a little better on the inside.  So far, I really like it here.  I still need to get back on a regular yoga schedule and find a cool knitting group, but I think this place will be a great new home.  Below are some pictures from our trip!

Me & Justin at Rocky Mountain National Park.

An elk we saw in the Rockies.

Me and Justin and his Aunt and Uncle, Wanda and Gene at the Estes Park Brewery in Estes Park, CO.

A whole group of us and Justin's good friends at Red Iguana in Salt Lake City, UT.

A prairie dog in Wyoming.

A deer sitting right in the backyard of our new place!

Our trip was really tiring, but it was really fun, and I'm looking forward to exploring all that Eugene has to offer!  You can see the rest of the pictures here.

77. Go on a weekend trip with just Santina. - Complete!

This weekend, Santina and I went to Lewes, Delaware to spend a fun weekend at the beach!  It POURED on Friday and Sunday, but we had an awesome sunny day on Saturday.

We spent most of the day at the beach swimming and laying in the sun at Cape Henlopen State Park.  We got there pretty early in the morning, so it wasn't crowded for a good amount of our time there. We even saw some dolphins swimming about.

By the afternoon, it was getting pretty crowded, so we packed it in and went back to our awesome bed and breakfast!

We stayed at the Savannah Inn for both nights and it was awesome!  Our room was so nice, especially the shower, and the living room and common areas are all gorgeous as well.

We did get to go to a yarn store while we were in Lewes.  We went to Ginger Moon Yarn.  This store was pretty boutique-ey and had a lot of high end yarns.  We both splurged and bought this crazy yarn that changed fibers along the way and huge needles, so we could knit our scarves that night.  I will post more about this knitting project tomorrow.

The next day we went to Rehobeth Beach, and we took some pictures of our awesome scarves during a break in the EPIC DOWNPOUR.  I had such a good time this weekend!  The Delaware beaches are so nice and it was nice to spend that time with Santina.  I'm glad we got to do this.  I wish we could have stayed for longer!  You can see the rest of the pictures here.

The Big Move - Preface: You're doing what now, and going where?

It's decided.  Justin and I are moving OUT of West Chester, PA and straight to Eugene, OR.  Justin has been wanting to move back out west for some time now, and our two trips out there for the river trip, and last Thanksgiving sealed the deal for me.  I used to be really scared of moving so far away from my family, but I think I am ready, and this is definitely something I want to do.  We are lucky to live during a time when we can just get on a plane and be anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours.  I will miss my family a lot, but I'm hoping they will travel to see me as well as me going home occasionally to visit.

I'm glad I moved to West Chester to be with Justin, but it didn't take me long to realize that this is not the place for me for a variety of reasons. I'm so happy that we made this decision to move to Eugene together.  My cousin Emily and Justin's brother Arthur (Emily and Arthur are married) live there, and we are excited to be able to hang out with them! Ideally, we will be driving out of West Chester on August 22nd.  I plan to document this adventure as much as I can and share it here.

62. Go on a knitting retreat - Mindful Knitting Retreat - Greensboro, VT - March 2009

This past weekend I attending the Mindful Knitting Retreat with Tara Jon Manning in Greensboro, VT.  THIS RETREAT WAS SO AWESOME.  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go.  It far surpassed all of my expectations and I honestly don't think I could have had a better time.  The retreat was at the Highland Lodge in Greensboro which is a small inn right on a bunch of cross-country ski trails.  The Lodge also has a WONDERFUL restaurant that serves amazing food made from local ingredients.

My friend, Jessica, and I drove up to Greensboro last Thursday just in time for the opening dinner.

We stayed in this awesome cottage that overlooked Lake Caspian and had its own little gas fireplace stove thing which kept the cottage nice and toasty.  One of the best things about this place was that there were no TV's, phones, or cell service in any of the rooms.  The Lodge had a phone in the office, but that was it.  It was great, because everyone there was very relaxed and focused on our activities.

Friday and Saturday were filled with awesome activities.  We had a couple of mindful meditation and knitting workshops that were great.  I had never really used my knitting has a way to disconnect and relax for a little bit, but I totally see its benefits.  I want to keep up with a little bit of a routine meditation practice.  I think it would help me a lot in all aspects of my life.  We also had restorative yoga classes, and our teacher played her flute for us while were in savasana.  In the afternoons we had more teaching workshops.  One of the coolest workshops was on Friday where Tara tricked us all into learning double fisted fair isle knitting. She didn't tell us we would be learning this until we started!  This lesson was doubled with a charity project where everyone would knit a child's hat out of donated O Wool which would be donated to a local women's shelter.  First, she made us knit a bunch of plain rounds in the opposite way we usually knit.  I am an English/American knitter, so I had to begin this hat using the Continental knitting technique.  BLECH.  It sucked, no one was enjoying themselves at this point.  Then, Tara passed out the pattern, and we saw there were simple colorwork charts on it and it clicked!  We were going to be knitting our hats in lots of colors using two hands and BOTH techniques.  How cool!!  Everyone was so psyched to be able to do this, and we didn't even know we'd be learning this cool new thing! Also, the yarn was wound into fist sized balls, and we had to pick our colors by closing our eyes and reaching into the basket!  You had to work with what you got, it was so cool.

This is what my child's hat turned out to look like.  Isn't it awesome!?  I'm so proud of it.  I've never knit fair isle this nice, and I'm so excited to do more fair isle knitting now.

Margaret Klein Wilson who owns Mostly Merino was also there.  She was so cool to hang out with and I loved listening to her stories.  She brought a ton of yarn and patterns and set up a mini yarn store for us.  I did treat myself and bought three skeins of her singles yarn in three different colors.

On Saturday, Margaret lead a workshop where we broke into small groups and learned or taught something to our peers.  In this we celebrated the oral tradition of passing down knitting knowledge and techniques.  It was really cool.

This was the goodie bag I came home with!  The 3 skeins of yarn on the right hand side are the singles from Mostly Merino.

Of course here's the obligatory group photo.  You can see all of the photos I took this weekend here.  I would HIGHLY recommend this retreat to anyone who is thinking about going.  It is more than worth and price and the travel time.  The Highland Lodge is a really special space, and the food is AMAZING (seriously, like I can't even explain how good it is).  I'm so glad I got to go to this while I am still a resonable distance away.  I feel very rested and recharged to really take control of my life and be as happy as possible.

11. Visit the West Coast 5 Times - Thanksgiving in Manzanita, Oregon

I just got back from an awesome Thanksgiving vacation on the Oregon Coast.  Justin's Dad rented a house on the beach in Manzanita, Oregon to surprise their mom for her birthday and the Thanksgiving holiday.  The whole family was there including Emily (my cousin) and Justin's siblings Arthur & Karen, and their parents, John & Nancy.  Emily is married to Arthur (it's not as weird as it sounds).  I HAD SUCH A GOOD TIME.  This post will be picture heavy, because I got a lot of good ones, and we did a lot of things.

The day after we arrived, we had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner cooked by Arthur & Justin.

The next day was pretty rainy and gray, so we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory in Tillamook, Oregon.  It was REALLY COOL.  We took the self guided tour and had lunch, and, of course, bought a fair amount of cheese.

They had an observation area where you could watch the cheese being made and packaged down the assembly line.  It was like real life Mr. Rogers.  This visit made me want to visit more factories.

The next day was my favorite day, and it was pretty perfect.  In the morning, Emily and I went down to the beach and practiced yoga.  I really liked doing yoga with Emily.  We took pictures of each other being awesome, so now we have plently of Facebook fodder.

During the middle of the day we went for a 5 mile hike at Cape Falcon.  It was pretty easy and very muddy, but really beautiful.

This is a picture of me and Emily at the "top" of Cape Falcon.

After dinner we went to the beach and enjoyed one of the prettiest sunsets ever.  I am really pleased with all of the pictures I took during this sunset!  An awesome end to an awesome day.

The next day we ventured out to Newport and stopped to see the Cape Meares Lighthouse along the way.  We ate lunch at the Rogue Brewery before visiting the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

The aquarium was really cool.  It was raining and cold, so there were hardly any people there.  We got wet, but we got prime veiwing for the seals and sea lion feeding.  They also have a sea otter exhibit and the sea otters are SO CUTE.  There was one right next to the glass who was bathing himself and man, SO CUTE.  I bought a t-shirt with a sea otter on it.

The indoor exhibits were also really cool.  They even had touch pools where you could pet little sharks, stingrays, starfish, sea urchins, and anemones.  I did all of those things!

We spent our final day in Cannon Beach seeing the Haystack (that huge rock behind us) and shopping and the souvenir shops.  We did find a few yarn shops, and I did buy some stuff!  I also found a few Christmas gifts, which was great too.

I did get some knitting done, and I will post about that in the next few days.  I had so much fun on this trip. Oregon is such an awesome place and I can't wait to go back!   You can see the rest of my pictures here!

A cozy project for my Plattsburgh visit

This whole week I have been working and spending time in my hometown of Plattsburgh, NY.  The great thing about working from home is that you can do it anywhere.  No matter now much I complain about my job, I always try to come back to this great benefit. During my free time I have been knitting mostly.  I have a short cue of holiday gifts that I want to get done before Christmas.  One of them is a gift for Justin's mom for her birthday.  I started and finished this gift during this week I've been visiting my family.  I decided to make her some felted bowls.

Here are the two felted bowls before felting.

Here is the 40 Years Felted Bowl before felting.  I didn't knit the sides nearly as high as the pattern called for, mostly because I didn't have enough yarn, but I did do the i-cord bind-off.

Here is the set after felting.  It took about 50 minutes in the hot agitation setting in the washer to get them to felt this much, but I am very pleased with the results.  The two bowls are pretty sturdy and stand by themselves, and the 40 Years "platter" lays flat nicely and I love how it looks.  I really hope Justin's mom likes them!  I really want to make one of the bowls for myself.

Felted Bowl Set
Pattern Source: Spring Colored Felted Bowl from About.com & 40 Years Felted Bowl from Knit with KT
Yarn: Felted Bowls - Reynolds Lopi, colorways 0451 & 0452.  40 Years Felted Bowl - Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, colorways Dynamite Blue & Blue Flannel, a remnant of a ball of yarn I bought at the Troy Farmer's Market, Cascade 220, colorway 8401
Needles: Felted Bowls - US 11. 40 Years Felted Bowl - US 9.

My weekend with Tim & Beth

This past weekend I went down to the Washington DC area to visit Tim & Beth.  It was really fun!  I got to see their new place, go into DC for one day, watch the entire Spaced series, and eat some good food.

On Saturday, we took the Metro into DC and went to the Air & Space museum.  I hadn't been since I was a little kid, and it was neat to see all of the space stuff. It really looks like all it takes to get into space is tin foil and duct tape.

After the museum we went over to the capitol building to walk up the stairs and go inside and do that whole thing.  We were really disappointed, because we could only get this far.  Apparently, they have closed the capitol building to they can build the stage for the 2009 inauguration.  Do they really have to build a whole new stage for that?  They are just going to take it down right after!  Talk about an instance when they should use a scalpel or a hatchet, a money hatchet!!

I had a really good time with Tim & Beth this weekend.  I'm glad Fakesgiving is coming up soon!

I'm in the mood to knit socks

This never happens.  I am never in the mood to knit socks.  Last week I kind of dove into trying to write my own pattern, and completed the first iteration.  I will still work on the pattern, and I want to share it with you in a little while.  I don't know why, but after I was done fiddling with my first prototype, I really wanted to knit some socks.  So, I cast on these socks called Hugs 'n Kisses, the February 2008 pattern from the Tofutsies Sock Club in the corresponding yarn.  You can't really tell by the picture, but the cables make little X's and O's. Get it? Charming!

I went away last weekend to the Baltimore area to attend Megan & Adam's wedding (congrats you guys!).  One of the cool things we did was take a little trip to the Baltimore National Aquarium on Saturday before the festivities.  It was really cool!  Below are some pictures I took from the aquarium.  A Moment of Zen, if you will.

Weekend at Beth's 2008

Another Labor Day came and went and Weekend at Beth's 2008 came and went too.  Every year, my friend Beth's family invites our group of college friends to go to their country house, Casa Saffron in Blue Ridge Summit, PA.  I was really excited that I got to go this year after missing it last year for my cousin Emily's wedding.  I loved seeing all of my friends again as well as Beth's family and meeting some new people too.  There were many beers drank...

...there were many games played (Balloon Cup pictured above), and there were many priceless arguments.  I am hoping that this tradition lives on for more years to come.  I didn't take very many pictures this weekend (probably for the best), but I put all of them here.