May is Green

If you're in Seattle.

No pictures this month... (wow, I'd intended that statement to refer only to Project Spectrum, but I just checked and I truly didn't post any pictures at all during the month of May (or at least I haven't yet and since I don't intend to do so today...))

I have, however been participating in Project Spectrum:

I sent of my Dye Swap yarn early with a box of goodies for the recipient. I haven't received my May yarn yet, but look forward to finding it in my mailbox at some point in the not too distant future.

Mostly I've been taking project spectrum on as a mindfullness project this month. It's been raining quite a bit around here and that means it's been GREEN.
Everywhere I look there are green growing things. Grass, trees, flowers... mold.
I've noticed quite a few green non-growing things too. The dots on books that say they're mine, the walls of the room I'm sitting in right now, a house I passed on my way home from a doctor's appointment the other day, and my car.

It's my Birthday... Part 2

So, it's my birthday.

I'm having a lovely slow day at home with my sweeties and working on a tye-dyed pointy kitty (link to be added later on today)

I've moved quite a bit of my yarn stash to storage in preparation for moving to Virginia later this summer. Mostly it gets it out of the house so we can find homes for stuff that is staying here after I leave and get us some more space to work at packing my other stuff in.

I've gotten a handful of packages in the last few days, pictures will follow shortly.
Thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes and presents.

It's been lovely finding things in my mailbox.

In other news I now know who my SP7 was... The package was delayed by a side trip to her sisters house care of the USPS (no clue why they thought it wanted to go there...) and there will be a post about the wonderful woman who was my last SP shortly)

It's my birthday...

And in year's past, a bunch of stuff happened on this date.

* 1328 - Philip VI is crowned King of France.
* 1703 - Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
* 1813 - War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
* 1849 - The Great Hall of Euston station, London opened.
* 1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification.
* 1883 - Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
* 1895 - Oscar Wilde is sent to prison for sodomy.
* 1896 - The F4-strength St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and incurring $2.9 billion in damages (1997USD).
* 1901 - In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
* 1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
* 1907 - A Bubonic plague outbreak begins in San Francisco, California.
* 1919 - The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
* 1923 - The first 24 hours of Le Mans race ends.
* 1924 - The Music Corporation of America (MCA) is founded.
* 1927 - The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacturing the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make Ford Model As.
* 1930 - The 1,046 feet (319 meters) tall Chrysler Building in New York (tallest man-made structure at the time) opens to the public.
* 1932 - The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
* 1933 - New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
* 1933 - The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
* 1933 - The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago, Illinois.
* 1935 - New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in the case A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).
* 1936 - The RMS Queen Mary begins her maiden voyage.
* 1937 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County.
* 1939 - DC Comics publishes its second superhero in Detective Comics #27; he is Batman, one of the most topical comic book superheroes of all time.
* 1940 - World War II: 97 out of 99 members of a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are massacred while trying to surrender at Dunkirk. The German commander, Captain Fritz Knoechlein, is eventually hanged for war crimes.
* 1941 - World War II: U.S. President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency".
* 1941 - World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300 men.
* 1942 - World War II: Operation Anthropoid - assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.
* 1960 - In Turkey, General Cemal Gürsel leads a military coup d'état removing President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government.
* 1963 - Folk music singer Bob Dylan releases The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album, which features "Blowin' in the Wind" and several other of his best-known songs.
* 1964 - Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru dies in office.
* 1965 - Vietnam War: United States warships begin bombardments of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam for the first time.
* 1968 - Future U.S. president George W. Bush enlists in the Texas Air National Guard.
* 1974 - Jacques Chirac becomes Prime Minister of France.
* 1980 - The Gwangju Massacre: airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.
* 1995 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
* 1996 - First Chechnya War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire in the war.
* 1997 - The F5-strength Jarrell Tornado slams into the small town of Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
* 1998 - Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
* 1999 - The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.


Births

* 1332 - Ibn Khaldun, Tunisian historian (d. 1406)
* 1519 - Girolamo Mei, Italian humanist historian (d. 1594)
* 1576 - Caspar Schoppe, German scholar (d. 1649)
* 1623 - William Petty, English scientist and philosopher (d. 1687)
* 1626 - William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
* 1651 - Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de Noailles, French cardinal (d. 1729)
* 1652 - Liselotte von der Pfalz, Duchess of Orléans (d. 1722)
* 1738 - Nathaniel Gorham, American politician (d. 1796)
* 1756 - King Maximilian I of Bavaria (d. 1825)
* 1794 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (d. 1877)
* 1819 - Julia Ward Howe, American composer (d. 1910)
* 1836 - Jay Gould, American financier (d. 1892)
* 1837 - Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (d. 1876)
* 1864 - Ante Trumbić, Croatian politician (d. 1938)
* 1867 - Arnold Bennett, British novelist (d. 1931)
* 1871 - Georges Rouault, French painter and graphic artist (d. 1958)
* 1876 - Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, Polish writer (d. 1945)
* 1877 - Isadora Duncan, American dancer (d. 1927)
* 1884 - Max Brod, Austrian author (d. 1968)
* 1888 - Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
* 1894 - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (d. 1961)
* 1894 - Dashiell Hammett, American author (d. 1961)
* 1897 - John Cockcroft, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
* 1904 - Chuhei Nambu, Japanese athlete (b. 1997)
* 1907 - Rachel Carson, American ecologist (d. 1964)
* 1911 - Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President of the United States (d. 1978)
* 1911 - Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem
* 1911 - Vincent Price, American actor (d. 1993)
* 1912 - John Cheever, American author (d. 1982)
* 1912 - Sam Snead, American golfer (d. 2002)
* 1913 - Wols, German painter
* 1915 - Herman Wouk, American writer
* 1917 - Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister of Japan
* 1922 - Christopher Lee, English actor
* 1923 - Henry Kissinger, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* 1923 - Sumner Redstone, American entrepreneur
* 1925 - Tony Hillerman, American writer
* 1930 - John Barth, American novelist
* 1933 - Ted Rogers, Canadian entrepreneur
* 1934 - Harlan Ellison, American author
* 1935 - Lee Meriwether, American beauty queen and actress
* 1936 - Louis Gossett Jr., American actor
* 1937 - Allan Carr, American film producer and writer (d. 1999)
* 1943 - Cilla Black, English singer
* 1943 - Bruce Weitz, American actor
* 1945 - Bruce Cockburn, Canadian musician
* 1946 - Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish musician (d. 2005)
* 1947 - Branko Oblak, Slovenian football player
* 1955 - Eric Bischoff, American professional wrestling personality
* 1957 - Siouxsie Sioux, English musician (Siouxsie and the Banshees )
* 1958 - Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
* 1958 - Linnea Quigley, American actress
* 1961 - Peri Gilpin, American actress
* 1964 - Adam Carolla, American comedian and radio/television personality
* 1967 - Paul Gascoigne, former British footballer
* 1968 - Jeff Bagwell, baseball player
* 1968 - Frank Thomas, baseball player
* 1970 - Tim Farron, British politician
* 1970 - Joseph Fiennes, English actor
* 1971 - Paul Bettany, English actor
* 1971 - Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, American singer (d. 2002)
* 1974 - Derek Webb, American singer and songwriter (Caedmon's Call)
* 1974 - Danny Wuerffel, American football player
* 1975 - Andre 3000, American musician (OutKast)
* 1975 - Jamie Oliver, British chef and television personality


Deaths

* 366 - Procopius, Roman usurper (executed)
* 866 - Ordoño I, King of Asturias
* 927 - Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria
* 1444 - John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English military leader (b. 1404)
* 1508 - Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1452)
* 1525 - Thomas Muentzer, German rebel leader
* 1541 - Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury (executed) (b. 1473)
* 1564 - John Calvin, French religious reformer (b. 1509)
* 1610 - François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (b. 1578)
* 1661 - Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish religious dissident (executed) (b. 1607)
* 1675 - Gaspard Dughet, French painter (b. 1613)
* 1690 - Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian composer (b. 1626)
* 1702 - Dominique Bouhours, French critic (b. 1628)
* 1707 - Marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (b. 1641)
* 1781 - Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist (b. 1716)
* 1797 - François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary and early socialist (b. 1760)
* 1831 - Jedediah Smith, American explorer (b. 1799)
* 1840 - Nicolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
* 1896 - Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov, Russian physicist (b. 1839)
* 1910 - Robert Koch, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1843)
* 1926 - Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian poet (b. 1904)
* 1960 - James Montgomery Flagg, American illustrator (b. 1877)
* 1964 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian politician (b. 1889)
* 1986 - Isma'il Raji' al-Faruqi, Palestinian-born philosopher and comparative religion scholar (b. 1921)
* 1987 - John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
* 1989 - Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet (b. 1907)
* 1991 - Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (b. 1904)
* 1991 - Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, assassinated by Tamil terrorists (b. 1944)
* 1992 - Uncle Charlie Osborne, fiddler (b. 1890)
* 1993 - Mary Philbin, American actress (b. 1903
* 1993 - Werner Stocker, German actor (b. 1955)
* 2000 - Crawford Murray MacLehose of Beoch, British Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1917)
* 2000 - Maurice Richard, Canadian hockey player (b. 1921)
* 2001 - Ramon Bieri, American actor (b. 1929)
* 2003 - Luciano Berio, Italian composer (b. 1925)


Holidays and observances

* Lag Ba'omer in Judaism (2005)
* Feast day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church:
o Venerable Bede
o Julius
o Pope John I
o Hildebert
o Bruno, Bishop of Würzburg
o Eutropius

Wedding Knitting

I brought a sock to knit at a wedding figuring that since I was only just past the gusset there was absolutely no way I'd run out of yarn before the day was over.
Boy was I wrong...

I got to the toe by the end of the ceremony (a lovely short ceremony to be sure). When I sat down at the reception to knit the toe I realized I had a problem. I'm following a Nancy Bush pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks and I only photocopied one page of the pattern. The page I copied did not contain the entire toe...

I knit what I could, but I may need to take what I knit of the toe out anyways since it may be too short to wear comfortably. I'm unfamiliar with how much length this toe adds and didn't have a handy way to measure, so I started it where it seemed right and hopefully it will work out.
I won't find out until after I get home because the rest of the pattern is two states away. What sort of monkey leaves the state with only a partial knitting pattern? Apparently the sort of monkey that I am.

The good news: I have 3 other projects with me.
One of them is samples for a super-secret commissioned project that I will be showing to the requester at some point in the near future. I hope they fit the bill because I'm looking forward to doing that sort of work again.
An other is the feather and fan "swatch" that has been on the needles since the beginning of time... okay really only since last summer.
Last, but not least is the pair of wristies that will be part of my NWRSA fiber exchange ensemble. I'll easily finish them on this trip and need to figure out what I'm going to do with the last half of this ball of yarn...

SP8 Questionnaire

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

Favorite yarns include Koigu (for socks and shawls), Nashua's Creative Focus as a good basic for felting and such, it's just a bit softer than Lambs' Pride (another favorite), Regia's new silk-blend sock yarn (not too keen on their scratchier wool/nylon blends, but the one with silk is fabulous.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

Whatever I can lay my hands on! Different things for different needles. I use old button tubes for my larger dpn's and crochet hooks, ziploc baggies for some of my small dpn's, the original packaging for my small Crystal Palace dpn's, a strange binder sized plastic box for my circulars, and a zippered cloth bag for my single points.

3. How long have you been knitting? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

My mom taught me to throw when I was little. About 5 years ago, I picked knitting back up and taught myself to pick continental style. I'm a convert and will not willingly go back. I consider my skill level intermediate, which is to say that I am comfortable tackling almost any project with a pattern (the only thing keeping me from completing them is time and follow-through), and designing my own small things on the fly (sometimes without documentation, a bad habit that causes my second socks to differ from their earlier cousins).
For some reason I can teach throwing, but I have not yet figured out how to teach picking.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

I do, ask me where to find it and I'll let you know

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.)

I don't do scented bath products so much. I do, however enjoy trying a new tea.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

Dark chocolate. Rapunzel brand is a current favorite. It's suprisingly good dipped in a bit of a chipotle chili sauce.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I spin (often), I weave (infrequently), I dye (with enthusiasm), I braid (when a plied cord just won't cut it), I crochet (more frequently this year than last), I lucet (only at RennFaire), I sew (poorly).
I do not draw.
(I used to say, "I can't draw," but then I decided to earn a BA in Art and had to do a couple of prerequisite courses that involved drawing. Now I am firm in the opinion that I don't draw. If I wanted to spend the time to learn how to do it better, I could. I choose not to!)

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I like lots of music, rock, folk, indie, world, celtic, indian, some country, minimal pop, some classical.
My computer is perfectly capable of playing MP3s, (I think I even have a CD player somewhere that will play them, though I may be wrong about that... and besides, I've been thinking about getting an iPod)

9. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand?

I like from green all the way around the color wheel to the near side of red. Or rather, green, blue, purple and the cooler reds. Orange and yellow don't really do anything for me, either when I'm wearing them or looking at them.
Favorite color would have to be green. I'm identified around the house by green polka dots on things and that's just fine with me. It makes finding my stuff much easier. (This will be a moot point next year when I've moved off to school and my own apartment, but for now it's very convenient and I won't mind having the green dots follow me around.)

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I live with my best friend and her husband. We share a dog named Zhenya who will become mine when I take him with me to school next fall.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

Scarves, hats and mittens, yes.
Ponchos, no.
Not that I wouldn't wear the right poncho, it's just that it'd really have to be the right poncho...

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Socks...
Or at least that's what my project basket would tell you. I seem to have at least a few of them on needles at any given point in time.
Sweaters are my favorite things to have knitted, they're much more impressive and get complimented more than socks.
Lace is my favorite thing to knit. I enjoy being asked to pay a little more attention to my knitting than I normally manage. (I find reading charts much easier than following verbose lace instructions.)

13. What are you knitting right now?

I plead the fifth...
The projects that have been following me around are:
A sock in regia's new silk blend, a felted evening bag for the shop, a lace weight mohair scarf for the shop, the handspun hat for the NWRSA swap, some spinning fiber, a commercial sweater I'm ripping for yarn, and the chart for my first cross-stitch project in ages.
I suppose those aren't all technically knitting, but I don't really care.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

Yes, they're lots of fun and often give a bit more information about the giver than a purchased gift would.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

Circular for anything I can't fit on a 7" or shorter straight needle. Bamboo for wool, Addi turbos for cotton... or, more honestly, I'll use any needle I can find when I want to start a project, with the exception that I won't use long straight needles for anything at all and I'd really rather avoid aluminium.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

Yes, both.
Actually there are two ball winders in the house, one swift and an assortment of niddy noddies.
What we do not have is a skein winder, though we do have a warping board and a couple inkle looms that will do the job if necessary.

17. How did you learn to knit?

My mother taught me when I was little. I gave it up when I got bored and picked it up again in college when I couldn't find any crochet patterns worth their salt.
(I love that phrase. It's such a gem of an image from a time gone by. My mother once showed me a book all about the history of salt (Beneath the Salt, I believe the title was).)

18. How old is your oldest UFO?

Much younger now that I sewed up that sweater I knit in 2003.

19. What is your favorite holiday?

And the trite and slightly snide answer to this question is:
Memorial day.
Because it's the reason I often get a 3 day weekend for my birthday!

20. Is there anything that you collect?

Books, yarn, state quarters, unfinished projects...
Um, right now I'm moving and don't need any more knick-knacks.

21. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Books I want: Poetry in Stitches, One Skein, Mason-Dixon
Magazines I get: Interweave Knits, Spin-Off

22. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Well, I learned intarsia last night at Knit'n'Knuth.
And knitting backwards down the row to avoid purling at work that afternoon.
Mostly I pick up new techniques as they are required for a project I want to do. I'm not really intimidated by them.
I suspect entrelac is next.

23. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

Yes.
Um... I'm going to cop out on this one.
It's listed in my SP7 posting
I wear a size 9.5 women's shoe.

24. When is your birthday? (mm/dd)

5/27