There’s iron pyrite in them thar hills!

This past weekend Peter and I went to Colorado to attend the wedding of one of my oldest and dearest friends. “Oh, did you know Jeanine in college?” I was asked by other guests at the wedding. No. I went to high school with her. When I think about that, I’m amazed—it’s been 19 years since Jeanine and I were in school together.

Thankfully for Peter, we did more than just wedding stuff over the weekend. On two days, we went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. The weather was brilliant and we had a great time even though my heart and lungs—spoiled by oxygen-rich sea-level air—had a hard time when we went up some of the steeper, rockier trails.

We found gold iron pyrite in a stream.


We fed some aggressive animals. (Seriously, they were aggressive! A chipmunk climbed on my lap because I wasn’t feeding him fast enough. [If you click on the duck photo you read see a description that I added. Raise your hand if you understand the reference.])


We hiked to a waterfall


and a snowbound lake.


And Science happened!


The Science that happened inspired me to run a contest. It’s a two-part quiz, whoever gets both questions right will be entered in a drawing for this sock yarn.
1) What happened to the bottle above? (Explain in detail—no partial credit if your answer is iffy, I’m not counting it correct.)
2) Why did I get excited enough about the bottle to take a photo of it?

Send your answers to ScoutP(at)gmail(dot)com
Scout will be judging the correctness of the second question.
Answers accepted until noon Central time on my birthday (that's Sunday for those of you who don't stalk me).

Many Words on Many Things

I’m taking a cue from S t a c i and doing a fast-changing topic Thursday. (She does Fast-Changing Topic Fridays, but I suspect that that’s a trademarked phrase.)

Groveling, Travel, and Email
First of all, I’ve been lame again and haven’t been answering my blog comments. Very bad me. And now I’m about to go on a four-day vacation and I’m not taking my computer (gasp!)—on purpose (double gasp!). So, don’t hate me if I haven’t responded to your comments. I also having problems finding the email address of people who leave comments so even when I do try to answer them, I can’t. :(

Monochrome
Debby once asked me to take a photo of all my pink yarn. I finally got around to photographing my stash and realized that I didn’t have as much pink yarn stashed as I had imagined. I guess I knit up pink yarn so fast that it doesn’t really hang out in the stash for long. So for you Debby, my pink and red stash. Because you had to wait so long for it, my pink and red finished object gallery is shown below, too. Click on the mosaics to get details about each photo.

Graceful Self-Striping Laceweight
Darling Thomasina and Sweet Rachel both think that I should make the Forest Path Stole with my Graceful yarn. Amy, on the other hand, expressed doubts about whether that pattern would be appropriate. I have doubts about the stole, too—but only because I worry about the fiddliness of the pattern. But really, FPS is one of the patterns that I considered—self-striping yarns and entrelac are a magical combination.

Terby suggested the lovely Hamani Stole—which I LOVE—and that is a contender, too.

The last contender is one that goes against one of the pattern qualifications that I set down because it has a knit-on border. However, I like the pattern because the body of the shawl is a simple repeating lace pattern that I think will show off the self-striping yarn to a great advantage. It’s the Myrtle Leaf Shawl for Victorian Lace Today. Amanda is working on this pattern right now.

Oh and for those curious: Kristie has some photos of a different colorway of Graceful knit up.

I’m a swinger! part 2
Yes, I did get search engine hits from people looking for swingers.

Super-Secret Knitting
The knitting for Kristen is done and has been sent off. The second project involved cables.


Seven Random Things
Apparently, most people were only interested in two of my seven things. Either that or they just read the first thing and then were immediately distracted by the photos on the last thing and skipped all the stuff in the middle. Except for Rachel. Rachel loves me and reads everything that I write. (Cordelia read the stuff in the middle, too, but I have to set Rachel apart because Rachel may turn on me if I don’t.)

Oh and I don’t play my pretty cello anymore. I’m considering taking lessons again—you’ll know when I do because I’ll suddenly stop knitting. Can you find me in the photo? Click the photo for a biggie view and the answer.

And delayed tagging for the meme: I tag S t a c i (okay, I tagged her last week and she's already done the meme) and Drew.

Seven Random Things

Debby and Amanda both tagged me with the "seven random things" meme. I'd better answer the meme before I get more tags!

1. I'm irrationally afraid of bees*. And I do mean irrationally. I know that bees won't bother me if I don't bother them but that knowledge is not enough for me to cease freaking out when a bee is near me. I don't get spastic or anything--I just completely freeze up. I won't move because if I don't move, the bee can't possibly think that I'm bothering it and it won't bother me, right? If the bee doesn't move along quickly enough, I'll start to cry. Luckily, most times that a bee is near me, Peter is also near me and he knows to shoo the bee away or to stand between me and the bee and drag me away. Every time Peter does this, he gets exasperated with me and lectures me on the lack of bee danger. Hello Peter?! You've known me for nearly 15 years, you know that I'm never going to get over it. What part of "irrational" don't you understand?

2. I've never been stung by a bee. (Did I tell you that my fear is irrational?)

3. I got married in Disney World. I'm not a Disney fanatic--in fact, neither Peter nor I had ever been to Disney World before we went there to get married. I picked Disney World because it was easy and cheap and the honeymoon was included.

4. My brother is 1 year, 1 day, 20 hours, and 5 minutes older than I am. However, when we were growing up, many people thought we were twins. I hated that because if we WERE twins that would mean that either he was smarter than I was and got put ahead a grade or I was really stupid and got held back. It was a no-win situation for me.

5. My first pet was a dog whose official name was Winston Churchill III. I always assumed that Winston Churchill "the first" was THAT guy, but I could never figure out who Winston Churchill "the second" was.

6. I told my Modern Physics professor that I didn't believe in quarks. I can't remember what prompted me to say that, but I do remember his reaction. I expected him to blow off the comment or to laugh at me (as did the other students who were in the room), but instead be was very fascinated by my claim. The professor and I then proceeded to have a conversation about why I couldn't accept quarks as real but I "knew" that protons, neutrons, and electrons were real. I earned an A– in his class even though I did not buy into one of the fundamental theories of the class.

7. I have a pretty cello.

I don't know who to tag. Let me think about it :)

* For me, the word "bees" means wasps, hornets, yellow-jackets, honeybees, bumblebees, and all other bee-like insects. Don't click that link if you are squeamish about seeing close-up photos of bugs.

I’m a swinger!

(I wonder what kind of search engine hits I’ll get with that title?)

When I began Morrigan, I had every intention to be monogamous to her. For better, for worse, until finished object do us part. Just before I started Morrigan I had begun a Flower Basket Shawl. FBS has joined Lotus in the “who? what?” pile in the yarn room because of my undying love for Morrigan.

But then something happened to cause me to be unfaithful to Morrigan. It’s nothing bad—Morrigan understands and is being patient. She’s not angry with me for doing a little wife- project-swapping.

Months before I met Morrigan, I had promised the delightful Kristen that I would do some knitting for her. The knitting is somewhat time-sensitive and well, it’s a job of sorts, so work before play for me. I’ve finished one of my projects for Kristen—both are super-secret so I can’t show you very much. But I will say this much about the first project: It involved pompoms.

I have started the second project and hopefully it will go as fast as the first. And then it’s back to blissful harmony and cable crossings on every row. I miss you Morrigan!

Meanwhile:

Yarn happened.

I won—or rather Scout won—a contest over at This Kitten Knits and Jacque sent me the most delicious prizes. RED yarn and PINK stitch markers. How in the world did she know that those were my favorite colors? Is it obvious? Do I use those colors a lot? The yarn is from HandpaintedYarn.com and is wonderfully soft. It should make a good hat for someone who likes red. Hmmm...I wonder who that could be? Thanks Jacque! I love the yarn and the pretty markers.

I bought some interesting laceweight when I was in Austin last month. It's Yarn Palace Graceful. Check it out! Self-striping laceweight! I was quite excited when I bought the yarn. But now I'm having conniptions over what to make. My feeling is that the self-striping nature of the yarn will be a feature of a shawl but could possibly be distracting as well. Triangular, circular, and square shawls are all out because the number of stitches increases, which would make the stripes irregular (more narrow as you go along). A long, rectangular sampler shawl (such as the Song of Hiawatha shawl) wouldn't work because the stripes will interrupt the beauty of the differing horizontal lace patterns. A rectangular shawl with a knitted-on border will be problematic because the stripes in the border will not match up with the stripes in the center. *sigh* I do have one candidate, but am still looking for other options.

Then Kristen sent me three hanks of Fleece Artist Bluefaced Leciester yarn in Raspberry. It’s my payment for the super-secret knitting. Each hank is as big as Scout. Yes it’s extremely pink. I didn’t think it would be so…well…bright. But hey, I still love it and will still revel in its softness. (Note to self: Laptop monitor makes colors appear less bright. Always check colors on desktop monitor.)

And finally, because blog entries sometimes need a good animal photo: I always thought that opossums were some of the ugliest creatures known to man. But OMG! CUTE! Baby opossums are pretty adorable. Even Scout thinks so.

Ravelry!

The secret is out! Ravelry is here and open-ish for business. What is Ravelry? It's a knit and crochet community that's amazing. Thanks to S t a c i , I was privileged enough to be one of the early beta testers. I could go on an on about how wonderful the site is, but well, Rachel beat me to it. I told her about it, she joined (of course, she's copying me again), and now she's telling the world so that she looks way more cool than I am (perhaps because she is, but for now I can complain a little). Anyway, you can read Rachel's wonderful description of the site on her blog.

As for me, the only coolness that I can share is this:

Yup. that's me. For now, the #2 Raveler.

To join this great community go to this page to sign up!

Short on words, long on photos

I went to Austin at the end of April. I had a class with the fabulous Jillian Moreno.


I watched Amy Singer knit with silk and steel.


I schmoozed with Amy. (Yes I stuck my name tag to my chest. I wasn't going to stick it on my silk top!)


I met Ana for lunch and got more stitch markers.


I played with my in-law's dogs Max


and Sophie.


I knit on Morrigan.


I also owe a lot of people emails. You will be hearing from me soon!