Northern California Adventures: The Places

Last week Mr. Cleaver and I headed out to Northern California to visit my family. The weather was beautiful and we ate enough food for the entire month of January - in fact most of my trip photos were of food, so I'm going to give the eats their own post.

Today I wanted to focus on the last day of our trip when my big brother (hi Luke!) took us to Muir Woods and San Francisco before depositing us at the airport to catch our red eye back to Maine, where it promptly snowed 8 inches on our return.

Luke had suggested we go to Muir Woods, and since Mr. Cleaver had never seen a giant redwood tree, I heartily agreed!

If you're not familiar with redwoods, the coastal redwoods are the tallest living trees in the world and can grow up to 380 ft (115m) high. These amazing trees grow only in a small region of Northern California and the the Pacific Northwest and I visited them often growing up on camping trips with my family.

Perhaps even more amazing is that these giant trees grow from the tiniest pinecones!

Coming from Maine, it was fun to see how green everything was, even if the non-evergreens had lost their leaves.

For a complete 180 from our woodland trekking, we ended the afternoon at Ghiradelli Square and Pier 39 in San Francisco- the epitome of touristy hustle and bustle.

The  Bourdin Sourdough Bakery

Checking out the Sea Lions at Pier 39

Sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge.

2012: A Year in Food

It's not so much a resolution as a a general feeling, but in addition to all the usual crafty things I do (and boy, do I plan to do a lot of them this year), I'd also like to spend more time and mind-space crafting my food. I put a great deal of time and thought into my knitting, sewing, and other crafts, but when it comes to food, I usually take the path of least resistance.

For example, breakfast for me is often a bowl of Trader Joe's Honey-O's. It's not that I crave the taste, it's not that it's the most nutritious, it's just that it's easy. I'm a bit embarrassed when I think of the number of times I've thought that the six minutes it takes to microwave oatmeal is just too long (you have to watch it whole time!), even though I'm always hungry by 10 AM when I eat cereal.

This is not to belittle cereal in any way, it's just about the general mindlessness of the whole thing.

I'm not forswearing any foods, or vowing to only eat things raised within a prescribed mileage. I just want to make and eat food for a reason other than convenience.

It's also not about weight loss or eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

It's about being aware that I live in a place and time that gives me the good fortune to have access to a huge range of food of all varieties. It's making an actual choice about what I'm feeding myself, even if that choice is a bowl of popcorn and some Oreos.  As long as it's an actual decision.

I'll be the first to admit that Mr. Cleaver does more than the lion's share of food shopping and prep in our house, and that I need to step up to the plate more often. 9 to 5 cannot be my excuse for not caring.

So I'm going to care, and plant the veggie garden I didn't get to last year, and do better than the can of soup I've taken to work for three days straight and not eaten.

I'm not promising weekly posts or anything, but if you haven't heard anything in a couple of months you have my permission to bug me about it some. So long as you don't mind reading a little about the stir-fries along with the stitches.

So here's to 2012 and putting as much care into my food as I put into my craft.

...and now that I read this whole post, it's sounds an awful lot like a New Year's Resolution. And that's okay too.

P.S. Can I point out that I drew all the veggies in the logo thingy myself in Adobe Illustrator? I'm still fairly new to the program, so I'm pretty proud! (Yeah I made a logo thingy for this)

Introducing: Bob & Wave Cowl

In September I stopped in PurlDiva and treated myself to two skeins of Misty Alpaca Chunky.

I'm not a big yarn horder, I typically only buy for specific projects, so I had admired and passed on this yarn on a couple different occasions. But on this particular day it had been a long week, and Misty Alpaca feels like soft cuddly air and Purl Diva had it stocked in one of my favorite colors, so how could I resist??

As soon as I had a break from all that November knitting, I turned that yarn into this Bob & Wave cowl. The color reminded me of 1950s Cadillacs, so I wanted do do something with a retro feel and nothing feels more like retro knitting to me than bobbles.

Though it's a small and relatively quick project, there are a lot of fun details. The cowl features an i-cord cast on and bind off. I-cord also appears as the button loops and faux i-cord is created by rows of purl stitches that are pleated horizontally to make the texture really pop. Carefully placed increases and decreases create the scalloped waving background for the bobbles and the fabric manipulation makes for a denser and warmer cowl.

The project uses two skeins of Misti Alpaca or 175 yds of cozy chunky yarn and measures 22”/ 56 cm long, 9”/23cm high.

The pattern is available for purchase for $4.00 USD

or you can queue it up on Ravelry.

To find out about new pattern releases and special offers, sign up for the Ms. Cleaver Mailing List.

More Christmas Makings

Here's a few more things I either made in secret (ornaments) or at the last minute (wreath):

Did you do any Christmas making?

2011 in Review

We became homeowners on Dec 31 of 2010, and a lot of this year was learning the in and outs of being homeowners. We removed what didn't want and started building in what we did. We peeled wallpaper and painted walls.

Shoveled snow and learned the importance of roof-rakes.  (Hint: don't pile that much snow that close to your house)

Perennials were planted in the spring and bulbs were planted in the fall. Lawns were moved and leaves raked. Floors were swept and appliances replaced. And at some point along the way it stopped being their house and started being ours.

Starting the day after we moved in, we filled our home with friends: Pie Day, poker games, dinners and documentaries. The highlight was inviting over all our friends for a summer time barbecue and concert.

And we saw a little doggy online and decided to invite him to stay for the long-haul.

During Lent I wore skirts for 47 days and visited Washington D.C. for the first time.

In sewing, I got my own studio space and made a thing or two.

Fiber-wise, I learned how to dye and needlefelt.

I bought a loom and made a total of one scarf.

I also did a fair amount of spinning, but haven't quite met my knitolution of knitting anything with handspun yet.

Knitwise, this has been a huge year for me. I've released three patterns with Quince & Co., one with Twist Collective, and six on my own. I started a mailing list.

It's amazing to me how much has happened in one year, and how quickly that year has gone. There's snow on the ground outside now and it's a few days to Christmas. It's been a helluva year in the best way possible.

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

A Stocking for Steiny and Other Makings

I was trying to not to be one of the those crazy pet parents who gets their pets Christmas parents (which seems to be a largely American thing - yes?), but I gave in and not only got Steinbeck a gift, I sewed him a stocking.

In my defense, it only took me the baking time of about 2 dozen cookies to get the whole thing done from conception to completion and it's totally cute. The fabric was leftovers from my Valentine's skirt and a wreath I'm still trying to finish up.

In addition to the aforementioned cookies, Ive made my annual batches of dark chocolate mint fudge and peanut brittle.

The goodies are baked, the house decorated, the packets shipped, and the gifts (mostly) wrapped, with three days left, I think I'm good to go!.

Second Annual Ornament Swap

I think by now it's well established that I spend my Tuesday nights (and regularly weekends) in the company of a bunch of creative and talented knitters (not to mention funny and kind).

This past Sunday we held our second-annual holiday party and ornament swap at Aimee and Eric's charming home.

I love the ornament swap because 1) I only have to make one thing for it,

2) these ladies know how to throw an amazing potluck

and mostly 3) everyone's ornaments are different and wonderful. I've managed to pull Lynn's ornaments for the past two years and they have places of honor in home, but I'd be equally happy to have taken any of these home.

As for me, I needlefelted this holiday beaver, complete with stylin' holly accessory. I'm pretty proud of the little dude.

And I may have made a few more ornaments since then, but you'll have to wait a bit longer to see those. :)

Introducing: Dolan

I'm a bit late in introducing this pattern, because honestly it came out mid-November, within a week of threeotherdesigns, and I didn't have another blog post in me that week, but it's no knock against the pattern, because I love this one too.

When I dropped Ferrous off at the quince Offices, I said I was feeling a hat for my next design.  I'm a sucker for textured stitches, so I thought it would be fun to do a sampler hat of knit/purl textures.

I swatched a bunch of patterns in both Lark and Osprey and settled on using Osprey as the bouncy nature of the yarn really makes the texture pop. Also, Osprey is totally my new favorite Quince yarn.

Dolan is knit in the round and uses one skein of Osprey (shown in Leek here). Because of the large gauge (size 9/5.5 mm needles), it's a super quick project - if you have any last minute Christmas gift needs. The pattern can be purchased for $5 USD via Quince & Co or queued up on Ravelry.

(PS - aren't these photos by Carrie Bostick Hoge the dreamiest? I love them!)

Tying Up The Week

Um, wow. How did it get to be Friday already? Heck, I'm not even sure where November went. In any case I wanted to pop in over here say "hi!", and I thought I'd throw in an outfit post, since this one is just about the opposite of the skirty outfits I've posted in the past.

There was a period in high school where I would wear ties all the time, now the only one I own is this one. I like to think of this outfit as the chic girly take on classic grandpa style, with the gray cardi and wool tie. Also, I love my new boots and I'm sure you've all experienced how hard it is to find the perfect boot.

Sweater: Pas de Valse, knit by me.

Button up shirt: Banana Republic Outlet

Tie: John Henry, was my dad's.

Jeans: Old Navy

Boots: Clarks

In other news, I've been busy Christmas decorating and crafting, and I hope to share some of that with you all soon! And oh yeah, I cut off all my hair again.

Happy Friday!

Introducing: Bradac

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here before that I learned to knit from a teddy bear kit in 2005 and many of the first things I made were another bear, an elephant, and a flying pig. Though I moved on from my initial focus on knitting softies, stuffed animals are still knitting comfort food to me.

While my usual excuse for knitting an animal is an impending birth, Bradac is just for me. I got the notion in my head to knit a Polar Bear and I went to Purl Diva in search of some yarn. I wanted a slightly off-white, superwash wool and the Lambs Pride worsted from Brown Sheep fit the bill perfectly.

Named for a college roommate who's fond of the creatures, Bradac is knit seamlessly in the round from nose to tail.  Most details, like the ears, are worked in short rows, while the legs are knit with scrap yarn and then picked up and worked in a similar fashion to an afterthought thumb or heel.

The bear is stuffed as you go and measures approximately 12 inches from nose to tail and takes 200 yards of worsted weight yarn, plus some additional contrast yarn for the face and scarf.

Bradac is available for purchase for $5.00 USD

or you can queue it up on Ravelry.

To find out about pattern releases and sales right as they happen, sign up for the mailing list or follow me on Twitter. Sign up for the mailing list by Dec 15th and get access to an exclusive free pattern.