My house still stands!

Oh… I’m super happy.  There is no damage to houses in my neighborhood and there is no police standing guard so I think I’ll be able to go home tonight.  Yesterday and today I’ve spent at my aunt’s house anxiously watching the TV for news of my house or my parents’ house.  My parents are also lucky.  Their house is still intact. There is a police squad guarding houses in their neighborhood to prevent looting.  My mom says she saw one man handcuffed and being put in a police car.  A tragedy like this brings out both the best and the worst in people.  So if I can go home tonight I will. Others in Westwood are not so lucky.

Over 1000 homes in San Diego have been destroyed by these wildfires.  Many people are still under mandatory evacuation.  Hundreds of thousands of acres have been burned.  This place looks like a war zone.

News people are swarming all over the place.  My mom almost got interviewed while she was standing in line to get in her house.  To get to her house, she had to wait over an hour to get a police escort into the house.  And she was given 5 minutes to collect her medications that she needed.  Otherwise, the police wouldn’t let her take anything else.  I’m so glad that they are doing this to prevent looters.  At least I don’t have to worry about my or my family’s things being stolen.  It’s so sad that some people would take advantage of people who’s houses have been destroyed.

I hope everyone is ok and safe.  If you need help, the American Red Cross is available.  Shelters are open and stocked.  If there is anything I can do for anyone, let me know.

Wildfires. Please be careful

If you live in San Diego, you’ve heard the news. There are 5 wildfires burning in San Diego and they are 0% contained. Please take care of yourself. I evacuated this morning and there are fires burning on the side of Interstate 15. It’s spreading to Westwood and the news is showing houses burning in my parents’ neighborhood. I evacuated at 6:30 am and am in Mira Mesa. Hopefully the fires do not spread south to hear.

All my friends in San Diego, please stay safe. Evacuate as soon as you can. And if the police or fire department come banging on your door or sound the bullhorn, get out now. Gather your kids, your pets and your belongings and get leave with what is important.  Please send good thoughts. I’m hoping that my house does not burn down right now.

Finished pics of Lucy #2

Here are a few pics of Lucy #2. I think I figured out how to felt in my washing machine. Warm water instead of hot and use the 12 minute cycle with the cold rinse. It came out much better than my first one. The fabric isn’t as thick. Which is a good thing.

The color doesn’t show very well but it’s a deep purple.

Here’s my new project

It’s the Vintage Baby Blanket from Vogue Knitting on the go: Baby Blankets Two. It’s made in four squares that you join together later and knit the edging. I swore I would never knit another baby blanket but this is super fun. The stitches change constantly and keeps your attention. I finished one square and am working on the next. It calls for Baby Blatt which is a DK yarn but I’m using Lion Brand Baby Soft. I wanted something machine washable. Thanks for reading

Lucy #2

Thanks for all the congrats on my engagement. Since I’ve been engaged, the most common question has been “When are you getting married?” I get to tell them “I have no idea”. I still haven’t gotten used to calling Matt my “fiance”. I still call him my boyfriend in most conversations. I have to think about the title fiance. Old habits die hard especially when I have been calling him my boyfriend for the last five years. But I’ll get there.

Here’s a picture of Lucy #2 unfelted. It’s made with two and a tad skeins of Paton’s Classic Merino Wool. I know you can’t tell in the picture but it’s purple. Hopefully the light is better in the daytime so it won’t look so washed out. I made it all the way thru the long strap with 2 skeins then i had to dive into the third skein for the short strap. So I have almost a whole skein of yarn left. I plan on hanging on to random feltable wool so I can knit a huge felted bag.

I just took the bag out of the wash and it appears to have felted perfectly. I am holding off posting a finished pic until it’s completely dry to call it a success. I don’t want to jinks myself.

I just ordered a Charlotte’s Web kit from Threadbear. Matt is putting together color combos and I got the Tickled Flush kit. Yeah!!! Koigu is mine. Hahaha… I love it.

8 random things

I was tagged by my friend Elizabeth

The Rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. I have two bachelor’s degrees. My first one is in Industrial Engineering. I got that one in 1999 from Cal Poly, SLO. My second one is in Nursing. I graduated last year from Michigan State University.
2. I love eating good food. I wish Matt was a chef. I would be in heaven if I could eat wonderful creations everyday. My favorite dessert has to be the Salty Pistachio Crumble that I had at Bar Marmont. I am too lazy to figure it out. My other all time ultimate favorite thing to eat is crispy french fries with ranch dressing. I know… healthy things to be eating as a nurse.
3. I hate exercising. I know it’s good for you. I know I need to do it. I make resolutions everyday to start. In fact, I made one for today.
4. I love the beach but hardly ever go in San Diego. The ocean temperature is super cold. About 50 degrees except for the hottest days in summer. In fact the last time I swam in the ocean was when I was on vacation in Hawaii 6 years ago. But I was at the beach last week to watch the sunset.
5. I love trashy TV. I watch dumb shows like “I love New York 2” . I discovered these kind of shows on my days off.
6. I like the smell of dog. I sometimes bury my face in my dogs’ fur and take a good sniff.
7. My favorite colors are pink and purple. Funny thing is I don’t look good in either color. I look best in neutrals and red. I still wear both though.
8. Matt and I got engaged last Friday 🙂

I’m tagging these knit bloggers: George Anne, Yarn Hog, Dirty Sue, Susan D. , What If Knits, Drop Stitch Knitter, Ruth, Rob

Circular Knitting

How do you knit in the round?  For a long time, I’ve knit socks, hats, and sweater sleeves w/ the extra long circular needles using the magic loop method.  I initially learned how to knit in a circle using double pointed needles but that method soon soured on me as I lost needle after needle.   DPN work with either 4 or 5 needles but once you lose 2 out of your set, you can’t use them anymore.  I was buying countless sets of needles on a penniless nursing student’s budget.  And I didn’t like the fact that size 0 and 1 look like I’m knitting with super long toothpicks.

So I turned to magic loop.  How wonderful was that discovery?   I could knit any diameter in the round and didn’t need to be on the look out for rogue needles.  I happily knit socks and hats like that for years.

The other night, I decided to cast on for Simply Lovely Lacy Socks from Interweave Spring 2006 using size 1 Crystal Palace needles.  I just reached for them instead of my customary Addi 40 in.  And I’m finding that I like knitting with DPN’s again.  Hopefully, I won’t lose one and have DPNs be tainted to me again.

Ravelry is quite fun.  I put a few of my projects up and loaded my queue with future projects.  It is quite the organizational tool and one could literally spend hours cataloging stash and projects.  I will of course log my new yarns and projects.  But putting past stuff in… I may have to have a week off to do that.  LOL.  I don’t like that you have to use flickr to upload photos.  I have a flickr account but have been using photobucket to load pics to this blog.  Hopefully, it won’t be too much of a pain to switch to flickr.

So… I’m back to knitting on two projects.  I’m working on a Lucy bag and those Lacy Socks.  I’ll post progress pics tomorrow.

Ravelry!

I’m now part of the cool crowd.  I’m off to see what ravelry has to offer.   My screen name is yarnnut if that means anything to anybody right now.

Lucy bag

Yeah… I think I successfully felted something. It came out a bit smaller than I hoped but it’s much better than my first one. Here’s a summary of the project.

Pattern: Lucy bag from Two Old Bags

Yarn: Paton’s Classic Wool

Needles: Size 10 Clover DPN’s and Denise Interchangeable Circs

Time to knit: about 2 weeks.

Thoughts: I bought this pattern about a year ago back in Michigan after appearing in their newsletter picture modeling the bag. Here I am.

This was a really quick knit. I’m not sure why I didn’t knit it sooner. It did come out smaller than I thought it would. I think I am going to use the “normal” agitation cycle instead of “vigorous” and warm instead of hot water. That way I can control the felting a bit better. Here are some pictures of the project pre felting.

And here is the bag after it was felted. What do you think?

I love the striping of this yarn. I plan on donating this bag to the Susan B. Komen foundation. They are doing a sale of knitted items at the Race for the Cure in Balboa park on Nov 3. So if you’re wanting to have this bag, you can buy it there and know that you’re helping to find a cure for breast cancer.