I teach knitting classes
Most popular:
• specialized sock-heel workshops
• plaited cast-on class for socks, hats, and coffee cup cozies
• certified Knit Companion trainer
I travel to book readings and signings.
You can schedule a class or event on my Shoppe page.
Today we arose before five and headed to the Tucson INTERNATIONAL Airport.
Cracks me up. (International. Snort.)
Boys were thrilled.
Mom a little less so, but Dad sat with boys so mom could listen to audiobook and knit. How awesome is THAT!?
After a longish (but pleasant and free-via-miles) set of flights we landed—
—and were picked up by Auntie Suzie. We were able to see Cousin Thom off to a fête in Finland then back to Suz’s to see awesome Artistic Cousin Stacey (who is going to put up her own Etsy store. Aren’t you Stacey?).
Artistic Auntie.
Artistic Stacey.
Lovely weather. It was warm, yes, but there was a breeze. And an umbrella.
And then we got to our hotel for our Farmer’s Market View.
Weekend to come to be filled with more family, more fun, and more wedding festivities. More pics to follow.
A few weeks ago, before the latest onslaught, we were in San Diego. Thing 1, looking contemplative below with his grandpa photographer, had determined that he wanted to go fishing.
Now I like fishing, but I know next to nothing about it. So we got an inexpensive pole (which I was fairly certain wouldn’t be strong enough), a few weights, we read a (useless?) website or two, procured some frozen squid (mmmmm) the night before we headed out, and crossed our fingers.
Our first morning out. We got up at 5am, woke up my poor mother in law, uncovered some sweatshirts because, let’s face it, coming from Arizona—in July—I had not thought of such things, drove to Oceanside, fed the meter, and hoofed it down to a nice spot on the pier. We’ve only ever gone pier fishing, Thing 1 and I.
Normally he’s a pretty chatty character. What you see here in not only quiet boy, but also slightly sunburnt boy. We’d all gotten a touch of the sun the day before at Sea World, having miscalculated the depth of the overcast (or the lack thereof). The quiet boy thing is nice. Rare and nice. It’s one of the reasons I like to go fishing. We have good convos.
There is something about this next picture that I just love. I wish I could put my finger on it. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t surprised. This is just a very unique look 
on the kid. The picture does give you some idea of pier length, too.
See those little blue shacks half way back down the pier? Those are rest rooms. See the little tower with the lights on it further down? It’s looking to be about midway between the bathrooms. Parallel to that tower but on the left, hidden by the bathrooms, is the bait shop on the pier. Where we’re standing is about a little more than halfway out the total length of the pier.
If we were on the Balboa or Newport CA pier, I think we’d already be in the water, having fallen off the end in a fairly unceremonious lump, I’d imagine.
All this is a long way to say: the Oceanside pier is LONG. Really, really LONG.
And very nice.
Very VERY.
The guy who owned the bait shop was just the loveliest um…fisher guy…selling stuff…and coffee. Very hot coffee —actually, everyone on the pier was great. There was an adorable man who both recognized and helped us on our second and third days. Great advice and help with bait when, on our third 5am morning, mom cleverly (sleep deprivedly) left the squid at home.
We’d see a lot of overcast days when we were there. Overcast and cold, especially on the water.
This was taken on day two.
And this is day three. It was raining and really super ungodly cold (okay, it was probably 60 with a brisk breeze).
No, now that I look at this next picture again, it really was cold. The mist zinged us and went through our sweatshirts and jeans. Our hands were icy—the frozen squid wasn’t the only thing in a frozone.
But because of our undaunted natures, we got to see dolphins. Lots of dolphins. The camera phone was slow on the snap and the inability to zoom with any muscle means you pretty much just have to trust me, but there IS a dolphin in this picture—see the black blob midway down the water on the left? Yeah, that’s a dolphin.
There were actually a small pod (we had a tough time counting but it was at least five, could have been eight) that went further and further in, then started surfing. They continued to play in the water for the rest of the time we were there.
And oh yes.
They were playing.
So, the big question: Did we catch anything?
Nope.
Got some good tugs though.
However, we saw some guy catch fish our last morning on a 1, 2, 3 rotation (literally. Hook in. Fish out. Hook in. Fish out. Hook in… it was something else!). We checked out his rig and got lots of good ideas for our Labor Day trip.
Part of our trip to San Diego was to visit the USS Midway, an aircraft city, I mean carrier.
Um. It’s big.
The Things loved it—partly because they got to pilot immovable objects.
However, on the movable object side of things, you may notice Thing 2 in the above picture walking away from Grandpa Photog, Daddy, and Thing 1. That was a theme for the weekend.
Here, let me give you a heart attack.
See Thing 2 at the 4th of July Padres game? (We won.) Doesn’t he look quiet and calm? The picture of a good 6-1/2 year old boy who won’t do anything wrong and always listens.
Don’t be taken in by the cute cuteness.
Here’s what happened 20 minutes later: Thing 2 asks to go to the bathroom. Daddy goes with. Mom talks to Mother in Law. Chatting away, I’m facing away from our aisle. Suddenly my MIL yells out for Thing 2. I look over and there he is, trotting down the aisle towards the field. He turns, sees us, grins, and comes back to his seat.
“Where’s Daddy?” I ask.
He looks sheepish and after more applied verbal pressure admits that Daddy is still back in the bathroom.
I am not a runner—I never was and never will be—but I took off like I had a starting block under my heels. Stairs? Smoked. Distance? Smoked. I was on fire, if I do say so myself. Luckily my husband had only started to have a heart attack.
“I have him,” were, I think, the first words out of my mouth.
So.
The next day we went to the Wild Animal Park. He knew he was busted. He knew he had one more chance to prove he could listen, stay close, and not just leave. In this case it wasn’t wandering off, you understand, it was taking off. I imagine he wanted to be a “big boy” etc, and we discussed how this was not what big boys do—Thing 1 doesn’t wander around the ballpark on his own, yada yada. We explained that we weren’t worried about him (hell, he found his way to us in a stadium). He did launch into tears when realizing that the only reason he made it back was because his Gramma saw him. We had him think about what he would have done if he’d made it to the field and hadn’t found his seat.
That got him.
We thought.
It’s a hard line to parse with kids, no? How much info is too much? “There are bad people out there who might try to take you away from us!” is both true and really terrifying. I think we may have actually gone that far this time (we trust YOU…it’s the other people…). I can’t recall for sure. It was pretty fraught at the time.
So. Wild Animals.
Here’s Thing 1 with the requisite lions.
And here’s Thing 2’s new backpack leash.
He blew his one chance at lunch by wandering off to find Thing 1 at the table he was holding down while we were all ordering. The ordering turned out to be quite a thing for me with the whole gluten mishegas. Evidently Thing 2 got tired of standing, so he just left while I was talking to the girl at one counter, his dad was talking to a guy at a different counter and the g’rents at another (the fung was definitely not shui at this particular eating venue).
It took ages to find him this time and we were really getting worried when he wandered up all blasé blasé.
End of freedom.
I couldn’t find one of those kid-leash-contraptions that would fit a 6-1/2 year old. Gramma, who is an engineer, did a great job, though. Cute lemur backpack with straps held together in the front by Wild Animal Park shoelaces tied end-to-end. Brilliant.
Problem?
He liked it.
Good news: he’s been better ever since, even without the leash. And he’s been voluntarily holding my hand for awhile now.
But we know we were lucky. He might understand that now too…
Alasdair Post-Quinn over at the Twist Collective made a tutorial which–yes, is a little precious and slow but also—is rawther comprehensive regarding an elegant cast on for Double Knitting color work.
Add to that the very clear tutorial at KnittingHelp.com (scroll down for the “Double Knitting” video link near the bottom of the page) and you’ll have learned a ton in under 20 minutes. (Plus Alasdair’s pattern is gorgeous!)
Then get a copy of Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini (thanks Meg!) and pat yourself on the back for only having go so far as to attempt double knitting rather than a Starmore Tudor Rose.
Resist the Tudor.
RESIS
Working on a design, I had to fiddle with weaving in ends as I knit.
And here’s what I wound up doing in the middle of that (to keep my sanity mostly).
Evidently I need to practice with the new template…
cute pic of Thing 2 and robot magnets for yer enjoyment.
…and then there are good days that are made good by bloggers like this.
LOVE the art.
(Heck, love the template, too!)
MamaO is Heather Ordover, author, designer, mother and knitter... not necessarily in that order. You can get posts from this blog sent directly to your inbox by signing up below, Follow her on Twitter and Like her on Facebook if you're feeling friendly-like.
Vogue Knitting Winter 2013/2014
Hugely gratifying beyond my capacity for speech is having Vogue Knitting Winter 2013/14 give praise to my new book, Grounded. Read more...
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