Category Archives: Project Spectrum

Project Spectrum, Those Cats

In search of red and pink

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Margene sent us out to find the red and pink in our homes as part of Project Spectrum. I have to confess that I didn’t find very much red and pink… and there’s a definite theme to what I did find. I wonder if you’ll figure it out?

Here’s SRM from back in January when he was still red and pink (i.e., before Chaos pulled off his little pink ears):

Here’s a red sparkly ball that TB sent for Chaos when we exchanged mix cds recently:

Here’s a little Red Tango bowling bag that’s great for a sock project:

And a much larger Laurel Burch bag that’s holding a bunch of WIPs:

There’s the Christmas stocking that my sister-in-law got for Chaos a year or two ago:

Some postcards and magnets from my fridge:

A cute little vintage card that’s also on my fridge:

And a lovely Noro Tubu rug that Jeanne knitted – Chaos spends lot of time on this rug, since it’s in front of the cabinet in which the cat food is stored.

“Hello? Can you put that dang camera down and get on with something important, like feeding me? Can’t you tell I’m looking all scrawny and wan here?!”

So… did you detect the theme in my red and pink?!

Project Spectrum, See the Sights

The Midwest Master’s Seminar

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April 29 – 30, 2006, will find me in Neenah, Wisconsin, participating in the Midwest Master’s Seminar. I’ll be taking Rainbow Dyeing in the Microwave (Merike Saarniit), Exotic Stitches for More than One Color (Anna Zilboorg), and Twisted Traveling Stitches (Anna Zilboorg). I’ve taken a class from Anna Zilboorg before, right after Knitting for Anarchists came out, and learned a lot. Looking foward to learning even more this time!

Is anyone else going to be at the Midwest Master’s? Anyone need a roommate?!

Yesterday I drove to St. Peter, Minnesota, for the day to visit a friend. It wasn’t the greatest driving weather. Although the roads were just wet and not slippery, it was very foggy coming home last night.

The view from my front window right before I got on the road yesterday.

While I was in St. Peter, I stopped at Mary Lue’s Yarn and Quilt Shop, which has a cute shop cat:

Here’s a picture for the spinners:

And these made me think of Project Spectrum:

“What’s with all this being gone?! I’m starting to think this knitting stuff is not in my best interest.”
Knitting, Project Spectrum, Randonymity, Reading

A mystery and a meme, but no tagging

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Thank you all so much for your fabulous and sweet comments of yesterday! *sniff* Love you guys.

*collects self*

Ok, in the interest of actually having some knitting content, here’s what I’m working on these days:


What? You can’t tell what it is? Excellent! It’s a secret project, so you shouldn’t be able to figure it out yet. Hopefully it’s at least a bit Project Spectrumesque.

Carrie K tagged me for another book meme. I like book memes. 🙂

Name five of your favourite books, in no particular order. (This is subject to change, depending on what I can remember at any given moment.)
To Say Nothing of the Dog, or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last by Connie Willis. Come on, it’s science fiction written in the form of a Victorian novel, inspired by Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog! (1889) – what’s not to like? You must keep reading past the first 100 pages, even if you’re confused. The narrator’s confused. You’re in his headspace.

Bellwether by Connie Willis. Light-hearted satire about a trends researcher. There are sheep in it.

Someplace To Be Flying by Charles de Lint. What can I say… I want to be a Crow Girl.

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. Not only is it a good read, it takes place in Minneapolis.

The Bee-Keeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King. I like most of the books in this series. It’s a great take on Sherlock Holmes.

What was the last book you bought?
I bought several books last weekend at Magers & Quinn and Booksmart (about 8 blocks from my condo – I love Uptown, Minneapolis!): Kafka on the Shore, Quicksilver, Separation Anxiety, and Women Who Love Cats Too Much.

What was the last book you read?
Dying to Sell by Maggie Sefton. I thought it was another one of her knitting mysteries when I reserved it at the library. Turns out it’s a realtor mystery and not that great… but I read it anyway. Right now I’m reading S is for Silence by Sue Grafton.

List five books that have been particularly meaningful to you.
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami. I read this shortly after 9/11 and the parts about terrorism resonated.

Egalia’s Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Gerd Brantenberg. Turns some of our basic perceptions of male and female roles topsy turvy and makes very effective points in doing so. I particularly liked “hysterical” being changed to “testerical.”

The Control of Nature by John McPhee. Looks at several places where humans are trying to control nature, including the Mississippi in Louisiana and the mudslide-prone areas in southern California. Written in 1990…

White Noise by Don DeLillo. Nails life in America in these modern times…

Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmermann. This is the book that demystified knitting for me.

Name some books you want to read but just haven’t gotten around to yet.
Kafka on the Shore, Quicksilver, Lambs of God, Blue Shoe, Julie and Julia… I could go on and on.

“Hey, I’m just hanging out on my tissue paper, thinking about a snack. Leave me alone. Go find SRM. That might make me less cranky.”
Project Spectrum, Randonymity, Those Cats

Is this the end of my Stashalong road?

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This week, while I was sick, several packages arrived for me at work. Three, to be exact. In the interest of not boring you to tears, the arrival excitement has been distilled down to this:

“Oh boy, someone sent me toys!” (shhhh… I’ll break it to him later that this isn’t for him…)

The first two packages were part of stuff swaps. I sent Anmiryam copies of some very obscure out-of-print patterns and she said she’d send me “something fun”! Indeed – it’s the gorgeous Cherry Tree Hill Supersock on the right below (color Dusk). Thanks, Anmiryam! (Please ignore the blob, which was not received in any of the aforementioned packages.)

After I got my new digital camera, I swapped my old digital camera with Eileen for “something fun.” What she sent me is on the left side of the picture above. (Mostly – the two amazingly decadent looking Legacy Chocolates truffles are tucked into my freezer, waiting my return to tiptop health.) Near the top, you will note a lovely reddish-pinkish ball of Cherry Tree Hill laceweight mohair silk, which will handily take care of the first color challenge (red & pink) in Project Spectrum!

The pattern and Clown sock yarn are for a sock yarn baby sweater – I’m on a quest to find the perfect sock yarn baby sweater, as Eileen is well aware, since that quest led to our “meeting” here in blogland! Additionally, that Clown sock yarn might take care of the second Project Spectrum color challenge (orange & yellow). Bless you, Eileen!

“This isn’t really what I thought a Clown was. How puzzling…”

And the last package… Well, Kim, this is the one that might have me out of Stashalong. Two skeins of black Brooks Fiber Farm Four Play wool silk blend.

I had five skeins of this yarn, ordered at the end of December with the rough idea of making a sweater for myself from it at some point and without realizing that I had the bare minimum yardage to make a sweater from it. When I started swatching for the Hourglass Sweater (my project in the Knitting Olympics), I started with yarns that I had plenty of in my stash. Alas, I either couldn’t get gauge or couldn’t get a pleasing fabric with those yarns. Finally I wound up a skein of the Four Play, swatched, and knew I would be using it for this project.

By the pattern, I would have exactly enough yarn for the sweater. Unfortunately, even the pattern corrections mentioned that some people found themselves running significantly short on yarn… Oh oh. When Kim posted a list of Stashalong clarifications, I thought, well, maybe it would be ok… I contacted Brooks Fiber Farm to see if they had any skeins of the same dye lot left. They did, but just two or three, making it pretty much then or never to get more yarn for this project… So I ordered it.

Do I stay or do I go?