Yarn Over, Pull Through

Extreme Crochet -- Don't Try This At Home!

I found this video in one of my crochet forums.  At first I couldn't figure out what she was doing; but then I realized, omg!, she's crocheting with her body! 

The artist is Inga Dawn Hamilton, and I just discovered she's a member of the International Freeform Crochet forum on Yahoo.  Be sure to check out her website to see some magnificent crochet.

A Belated Happy New Year to Everyone!!

As you can see, I'm getting a slow start on the New Year.  For some reason, I just haven't seemed to be able to work up the energy to post here.  But I did want to say something, seeing as how I only had one post in December (yes, the "Post Police" are counting the number of times I post each month).

Christmas was lovely.  I spent it with my daughter.  She even made Christmas dinner for me.  I didn't think to take any pictures (which she's probably happy about since she thinks I take too many) so none to show here (The "Photo Police" are on my back, too). 

Then the following Monday, I received some very shocking news.  I don't think I've mentioned that I started taking tai chi back in the summer.  My teacher, Pansy Hsu, passed away on the winter solstice, December 21.  She was a vibrant, 83 year-old woman, a veritable force of nature who had been practicing tai chi for 30 years.  An incredible role model and excellent teacher, I want to grow up to be as strong and energetic as she was during the time that I knew her.

I attended her memorial service this past Sunday.  It was a lovely, sad and happy event.  Many members of her family were present, some of whom had traveled all the way from Australia to be with her during her final days.  They shared loving memories of her so that we had a greater understanding of the extraordinary person she was.  I know she will be sorely missed.  The photo on the left was taken during our last class on November 15.  I believe the woman with her in the video is her daughter, Angela Hsu Cantafio, a tai chi master in her own right.

As for crochet, I can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the yellow filet crochet shawl I made before wrapping it (ok, ok, Photo Police, get off my back!).  It turned out very nicely.  I put a picot border around it.  I'm hoping I can get a photo of Ann, a friend of my daughter's who the gift was for, wearing it so I can post it here.

I'm plugging away on my Learn-to-Knit afghan.  I hope to update the project soon on Ravelry so you can see the next set of squares I've  been making (remember, I'm HawaiiHooker).

My last gift to crochet was a "supposedly" 5 1/2 hour throw that I made for another of my daughter's friends.  I found the free pattern at the Lion Brand website. It turned out nicely, too.  I  substituted my trusty Red Heart Super Saver (and some Classic) yarn for the Vanna's Choice the pattern calls for.  It's hard getting yarn here, so often I have to go online to purchase it, and it sometimes takes forever to get here.  I thought this would be an easy, quick gift to make, but it actually took about 11 hours to make.  Crocheting with a P hook and three strands of yarn was hard on my hands and cumbersome.  Don't know if I'll be making it again any time soon.  You can read more about its construction at my page on Ravelry.

I'm getting ready to see my daughter walk across the stage at the Waikiki Shell next Wednesday.  She's graduating from Hawaii Pacific University's School of Nursing.  So I probably won't be posting much until the after that.  Hopefully I'll have a post about a crocheter whose work is "out of this world."  So stay tuned!

Christmas gifts are just about done

Yes, I think I'm about done with my gift making this year, although I'm feeling for some reason that I haven't made enough.  Part of the problem is that it's really easy to crochet and knit gifts for women.  But gift ideas for men have always eluded me.  I made a lot of scarves year before last, and a tie or two, but that's about it.  So for now, the men on my list will be getting gift cards.

No, I did not go out on so-called "Black Friday" (wonder why they call it that?  because retailers hope all the shopping will put them "in the black"?).  I just can't imagine being out there, looking for Christmas presents and bumping into the entire world, not to mention the long lines.  The only person I would actually go out and buy a gift for is my daughter, Adrienne; she usually has a list ready for me months in advance.  But this year, her gift will be her attendance, at my expense, at a study program for the NCLEX exam, which nurses have to take in order to be licensed to practice.  But I will probably buy her a gift or two to put under the tree. 

If you scroll down a bit, you'll see the dishcloths and Biffer duster thingies I made sometime in September, I think it was.  They represent gifts for three people, although I think I need to make one more Biffer duster thingy.

I was tooling around on Ravelry one day in November, just looking at patterns, when I came across this Magic Ball Afghan that Candace (aka "lobster12" on Ravelry) made.  I had a nice time chatting with her about how she made hers and decided to give it a try.  The photo on the left is of the finished piece before I wove the ends in and washed it.  I thought I might leave them out as a design feature, but decided not to.  Here it is on the right with the ends woven in. 

 This will be a gift for a neighbor who is a movie promoter and is always giving me free tickets to see movies.  How cool is that?  Y'all know what a Magic Ball is right?  It consists of scrap yarn tied together to make one big ball.  I used yarn left over from my Babette Blanket project, but I still had to buy one small skein of one color and 4 Super Save skeins of black.  it worked up quickly with a P hook.  I think it turned out nice.

And then there are the gifts I have made that I've never given to anyone.  I was a little surprised to see how many I have (all for women of course).  If I give any of them as gifts, I will have to wash them because they've been in the closet for a couple of years.  Interesting that all the scarves are knitted.  I think I must have been practicing or something.  Not sure what yarn I used for the rust colored Moebius wrap.  The rest are all some kind of acrylic.

 And I can't forget the freeform bag I started several years ago, but never finished because it looks kinda weird.  Not sure what I'm going to do with it.  It needs some kind of strap or handle and lining, but there's no telling when I'll get to that.  I also have a freeform baby afghan that I started several years ago, when I first got into freeform crochet.  Yet another languishing WIP.

Adrienne made some lovely hearts for her two great aunts and grandmother in  the jewelry making class she took this semester.  She seems to really love the jewelry making process, so I'm glad she's found a craft that she can enjoy.

Finally, I've been playing around with Carol's (Elegantcrone on Ravelry) "Sloth and Indulgence Summer Shawl, modeled here by a friend of hers.  I've been looking around for cover-ups that are light and airy since the weather here is always warm, but nights do get cool during the "winter."  A lot of my sweaters are a bit too heavy for this weather, unless I'm somewhere inside, like a movie theater where the air conditioning is blasting.  I really like the look of this shawl.  It's made with a triple crochet filet stitch, and while I can't use Carol's yarn (she bought it at a garage sale), I'm experimenting with Red Heart (yeah, you guessed it) Baby Soft, a "light sport weight" yarn and using an F hook, the size Carol used with her yarn.

So, that's about it for now.  I guess I'll go back to my "Learn-How-To-Knit" afghan that I started bck in September.  Check out the details on my Ravelry page (HawaiiHooker).

Morning Brew, Here We Come!

Yeah!  The Winwardite division of Aloha Knitters finally made it to Morning Brew, a nice coffee shop in downtown Kailua.  A good time was had by all!  There were actually four of us there -- me, Chanda, Kim, and Bethany, an attendance record!  Can't wait for Debbie to join us.

This venue was much quieter than Starbucks in the Borders at Winward Mall, where we used to meet.  We had several problems with the old venue.  First of all, I'm assuming that because it's in Borders, they just have to BLAST music into what is really a rather small space (so you'll be compelled to purchase something, I suppose).  There are speakers EVERYWHERE, and with the coffee machines whirring and people talking, it's hard to hear yourself think much less what people are saying. Secondly, the tables are small (unless we get the long table in the back) and the chairs are pretty uncomfortable (unless we're able to get the big comfortable couch up front, a rare occurrence).

Morning Brew is much quieter, and the upstairs section with the long table is perfect for our needs.  Not to mention the fact that they have real food to eat.  So we're going to make that our Tuesday night meeting place for now. 

Ok, Debbie, we're waiting for you!

Yeah! I've been tagged!

I was telling Barb, who tagged me, that I think this is the first time I've been tagged since I've been blogging for 2.5 years.  Ok, so here goes.

1.  What was I doing 10 years ago?

Oh wow!  In 1998, my oldest Brother, Daniel, died suddenly a day before my birthday.  I was in Cape May, NJ, vactionaing with friends when I heard the news.  It was a pretty rough year, because shortly after that my father started showing signs of dementia.  Can't remember much else about 1998.

2.  What are five (non-work) thinks on my to-do list today?

- Go to Border's to return two books that I bought and can't imagine why I ever did.

- Pay bills

- Crochet

- Watch season finale of "Lost"

- read my romance novel

3.  Snacks I enjoy:

-  red seedless grapes (see, I can be good)

- original Wheat Thins (with all the salt) with strawberry cream cheese

- Pop Secret popcorn (at least the first one was healthy)

4.  Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

- start some kind of foundation to give some of that money away.

- buy a house somewhere in Ahuimanu Hills, furnished to the max with a big flat screen tv.

- buy a fuel-efficient or hybrid car (just 'cause I'm rich doesn't mean I can't be "green").

- pay off my and my daughter's debt

- write the book I've been trying to write for 15 years

- buy a whole lotta yarn and the means to organize it.

5. Places I have lived:

- Washington, DC; Maryland; Hawaii (boy, was I so provincial until a year and a half ago!)

6. Jobs I have had:

- research assistant at the Center for Applied Linguistics

- Clerk typist, EEO Specialist, Personnel Management Specialist, Employee Development Specialist (all government jobs).

- Contractor/consultant (I got out of the government only to have the government as my main client).

7.  Peeps I want to know more about?

- Puanani

- Kelly's Khronicles

- String Theory

Now, if there are any Typepad folk out there who know how to get rid of that extra paragraph html code thingy (you know, the "<p>") that keeps getting inserted TWICE every time I do a hard return, I can make this post a lot shorter.

Mocha Java Night with Aloha Knitters and Crocheters

I'm finally writing a post about a wonderful group of women (no men yet) with whom I try to meet every Thursday evening at the Mocha Java Cafe in downtown Honolulu.  I'm talking about the famous Aloha Knitters and Crocheters.  I'm finally writing about this group because I finally remembered to bring my camera with me so I could take photos to show. 

The cafe has seating kind of in the aisle of the Ward Center and the Mocha Java folk kindly let us line up several tables to accommodate all of us.  I usually carpool with my Kaneohe buddy Debbie Lindsey (hope I spelled your last name right, Deb) who you see here working on socks with those cumbersome (for me) double pointed needles.  She's been known to pull out a crochet hook from time to time and try her hand at an interesting pattern. 

I will  admit, most of the women are knitters, but we do have a few crocheters besides myself and  Debbie.  There's Kai (aka MK Carroll) who, if I'm not mistaken, actually started the group or at least moderates the YahooGroups list.  You might recognize her; she made an appearance on the Knitty Gritty episode, "Sushi for the Bathroom."  No, she doesn't show you how to eat sushi in the bathroom; she demonstrates how to knit a "sushi-inspired toilet-tissue cozy, washcloth, bathmat and tank runner."  Kai destashed at the meeting last Thursday; someone beat me to a nice quantity of rust-colored hemp, so I bought two small skeins of blue hemp (a dollar each; can't beat that price) and got, for free, a big spool of an unidentifiable fiber that Kai said came from a weaver's shop.  Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I'll think of something.

Other members include:

<----Opal, on the right, who does incredible fair isle knitting and ... Angela, seen here hard at work trying to detangle some cool blue yarn.

Barbara who just finished a beautiful blue sweater with lots of cables and other intricate design features.   Barbara crochets from time to time, too.

Michele (or is it Michelle) who is working on a beautiful, brown-tone knitted afghan.

Kim (with the salt and pepper hair) who brought her mother and aunt with her (that's mom's head in the  foreground) all the way from West Virginia.  It was fun helping mom, who was sitting next to me, reaquaint herself with crochet basics. --->

And then there's me scarfing down a plate full of apple pie and vanilla ice cream which made me absolutely sick to my stomach for the rest of the evening.  Way too much sugar!

A lot more people showed up, but I didn't get photos of everyone.  We meet again tonight, so I will be updating this post very soon with correct names to correct faces.  I might even take more photos, and add them to this post, so stay tuned.

What Do You Do When The Lights Go Out?

… Apparently not much.  Well, that isn’t altogether true.  It’s just that you have to pack in as much activity during daylight hours because you really can’t do much at night without electricity.

Last week, the state of Hawai'i experienced a pretty "exciting" 72 hours, from Tuesday through Friday.  High winds and heavy rain came barreling across the state, leaving in their wake lots of downed trees and utility poles and cutting off power to more than 50,000 residents on O’ahu alone.

A few days before, I was a little apprehensive when the weather reports started talking about "wild weather" coming our way.  Looking back, I can admit that it wasn’t as bad as the actual experience felt.  The only thing that continues to plague me is a leaky roof.  This seems to be par for the course on O’ahu, especially the mountainous winward side where rain is almost a daily occurrence during the rainy season which stretches from November to April.  The demand for roof repair must be great because I’ve been waiting for almost a month to get mine fixed.  The leak started after the first big rainfall of the season a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, which dropped 14 inches, according to Kaneohe Marine Corps Base records, in one night.  Fortunately, the leak is in a part of the house that doesn’t impact me too much.

Tuesday afternoon, I spent a few minutes locating candles, flashlights, and batteries just in case we lost electricity.  Hoping for the best, I settled in with my crochet project, a book, and the TV.  Then the power began flickering as the heavens opened up and the winds rose.  The first time the lights went out around 9 pm or so, I steeled myself for a dark evening and night.  But to my surprise and delight, they came back on.   Then 30 minutes later, the power was off again, but again, it came back on.  At that point, I figure I’d better  take a shower so I’d at least have hot water for bathing.  Just as I was drying off, the lights went out for a third time.  After dressing for bed, I reached for my trusty little “miner’s” flashlight, the one that has an elastic band that allows me to wear it on my forehead.  I slipped it around my neck instead and read for an hour or so.  Finally, I decided to go to bed around midnight.

It’s just about impossible to sleep while the wind is raging outside, gusting to over 60 mph.  Several gusts actually shook the house. This is the papaya tree that's in my backyard.  It used to stand upright, but now it's bent from the force of the wind.  And the rain was torrential!  Thankfully, I had my buckets and pots already set out in the den to catch the water dripping down the ceiling beam.  At one point in the night, I got up to check the house to make sure it was still standing.  To my surprise, I stepped in a big puddle of water at the  base of a window in my bedroom.  The wind was so strong that it was blowing rain through the closed slats.  After wiping up the puddle, I placed a towel at the base of the window to catch whatever water got through.

Wednesday, my daughter and I went out in search of coffee and green tea respectively since we still had no power.  Thank the Lord Starbucks had power!  I had prepared and eaten a tuna sandwich earlier – on plain bread, mind you, instead of my preferred toast.  No, I’m not complaining.  I was happy to be able to eat.  I also stored what little food was in my fridge in the freezer section to keep it cold as long as possible.  Starbucks’s green tea hit the spot, and I settled on the couch to do a little knitting.

Late in the afternoon, we got our lunch from the Saigon Noodle House. I don’t even remember what I had for dinner.  What I do remember is sitting in the living room with the shade up over the big picture window to let in the light so I could read.  I just happened to look across the street at my neighbor’s house and noticed they had lights.  Huh?  I didn’t think they had a generator, so I just sat there wondering what was going on.  I’d turned off all of my surge protectors Tuesday night so there wouldn’t be a power surge when the lights eventually came back on.  I got up and looked up the street to see street lights on.  Oh happy day!  I rushed to the kitchen light switch, flipped it, and was showered in the most wonderful artificial light I’d ever experienced.  I think that somewhat exaggerated response was due to the fact that, with the power on, the tension I’d been holding since the storm began melted away.  The lights flickered once more later in the evening, but they’ve been steady ever since.

So, what do you do when the lights go out?  Make sure you're prepared beforehand.  Thankfull, I had a big supply of candles, flashlights, and batteries that I brought with me from the mainland.  I'd stocked up on them after the big hurricane of 2002 that slammed up the east coast and hit Washington DC with a vengeance, toppling huge oak trees and leaving the area without electricity for a week.  I think I'll get some bottled water, too.  A generator would be nice,  but that's not in the budget right now.  Plus, it's good to know that I can function fairly well when the lights go out, at least for a little while.

Requiem (without the music) for a digital camera ...

How could this happen??  I was getting ready to create several new posts about my completed Spiderweb Cardigan, as well as some swatching that I've been doing, and include some fabulous photos in them when, lo and behold, my digital camera wouldn't turn on! 

Hmmm ... maybe it's the batteries, I thought to myself, although I remember replacing them just a few short months ago.  But I went ahead and bought some new ones, put them in so that the pluses and minuses were properly lined up and ... still no camera.  So after only a few years, my camera has made its transition into the digital hereafter.

That means no new photos in this post.  Remeber the cool camera case I made for it??  Guess I'll have to find a new use for that.  The new camera I'm ordering is much smaller, so I don't know if using the old case is going to work, which means I'll get the chance to design  and crochet a new one!

Who would ever have imagined that not having a digital camera would feel like not having ... well ... my cell phone!  I've come to depend so heavily on both.  I don't know if that's good or bad.  But it DOES mean I'll have a lot more to post once the new camera comes (hate that I'm ordering it right at the beginning of a Mercury retrograde ... I've experienced problems already with the order, but I'm pushing ahead regardless).

So stay tuned ...

Long Time, No Post ...

Yes indeed, it has been awhile.  But can you blame me?  I finally moved into a 3-bedroom house that I am renting.  Have I already talked about that?  I don't think so.  It's a block and a half away from where my daughter lives.  So we are close, but not too close, if you know what I mean.  I tried to persuade her to move in with me, but she wisely refused.  I think we would have each cramped the other's style.  Here's a photo of the Ko'olau Mountains viewed from the street that leads to my daughter's house, right around the corner. 

All my stuff, car included, arrived saftely around the last week in February.  I found the house around  the second week, I think, so I had to wait until my stuff arrived before I could move in.  Now I've just about finished unpacking.  Still have the books to do, and that's about 15 or so boxes.  What else have I been doing?  I've been to the beach several times.  Here's a photo of "Flagpole Beach."  Actually, it's a private beach that you can get to by walking down a little pathway between two properties.  It''s one of the many places that I wanted to know how to get to on my own.  Another is the big mall, Ala Moana Mall, in downtown Honolulu.  Haven't gone there by myself yet.  The streets in downtown Honolulu are a little tricky.  I guess I could just drive around and get lost.  That's always an option, especially since there is a yarn store in Honolulu that I want to check out.

And speaking of yarn stores, I've been to the Ben Franklin's in Kailua, a little town on the winward (east) side of Oahu.  But there yarn selection leaves a lot to be desired -- lots of novelty yarns, probably for making crocheted leis, something I'm going to try eventually, as well as the usual selection of Red Heart yarns.  They do have some nice wools and cottons, too.  There's another yarn store in Kaiulua called Yarn and Needlecraft (I think) that I need to find.  So I've got my work cut out for me.

The weather here has been lovely.  It's still the raiiny season, but the rainfall has been less than the average.  For example, Kaneohe, the city where I live, usually gets 11 inches of rain during the rainy season.  So far, it's only rained 4 inches.  I'm not complaining too much.  I'm finding that the rain doesn't  bother me because there's always some part of the island where it isn't raining.  I'm up close to the mountains, so it's cooler and rains more, which is fine, 'cause it can get REAL hot here.  The photo is of Kaneohe Bay from the Likelike (pronounced "li-KAY li-KAY) highway, just as you come out of the tunnel that takes you through the Ko'olau Mountains.

At night, it gets chilly, so my blankets, afghans and lapghans come in handy, as well as these shrugs that I crocheted and knitted just before I left.  I was going to talk about them in a post entitled "Battle of the Shrugs," but I just didn't get to it.  But I wanted to say something about them and show some photos of them.  I knitted the peach one, following a pattern that Myra Wood taught on Knitty Gritty.  It's a sample of different lace stitches and was fun (and pretty easy) to make.  The fuscia one is crocheted in an alternating sc/dc stitch with a picot edge (my own design - hmmm, maybe I'll create a pattern for it).  Both were made from Lily Sugar n' Cream cotton yarn.  I didn't get the gauge exactly right on the knitted shrug, so it's a bit small, but the crocheted shrug fits nicely.

I haven't been doing too much crocheting or knitting since I got here.  I started a crocheted sweater, but I haven't done much with it.  Oh, I did make this little case for my digital camera.  I was inspired by the one my daughter made for her camera.  I did it "freehand" and included a lot of textured stitches, like popcorn, puff, bullion, and seed.

But I think I'm still transitioning from the east coast to Hawaii.  Sometimes I feel so unsettled, like I don't have a firm foundation or mooring yet, but I tell myself that it won't last.  It may take a while to really feel like this is home, but that's ok, too.  It's all about trust, patience, and process. 

And now that I have internet connectivity, I should be posting more.  Stay tuned!

I Made It!!!!!!

I can't believe I'm finally here in windy Kaneohe, HI, the little town on the Winward shore of Oahu where my daughter, Adrienne, lives.  The photo to the left was taken from her front yard.  Clouds moving across the sky are a typical sight here.

I finally closed on the sale of my house last Thursday, a week ago.  The next day the movers came to pack up my house and cart everything, car included, to Hawaii.  The goods should arrive in about 30 days.  The following day, Saturday, I got on a plane and headed over to Oahu.  The flight was pretty nice.  On the last leg, from Las Vegas, NV to Honolulu, I had the entire  row of three seats to myself.  All in all, the 11 hour flight was pretty comfortable.  The landscape you see out of the plane window surrounds Las Vegas.  It looks like a brown lunar landscape.  I was thoroughly intrigued.

Daughter Dearest picked me up at the airport and got me to her house that evening.  One of her roommates was giving a going-away party for two co-workers when I arrived, so I partied and celebrated with them until I finally crashed and went to bed.  That's her standing at the edge of the front yard.  I took another, really nice photo of her, but she warned me not to post it here.  Oh well ... 

I have been seriously jet lagged and on east coast time for the past several days.  Otherwise, I would have blogged sooner.  I actually fell asleep during "Heroes," so you know how tired I've been.  So I have been relaxing and trying to get my strength back.  Also, I spent the first few days just clearing up stuff that I left undone at home, like cancel the water and cable services.

The weather here has been in the upper 70s and extremely windy since Monday.  Adrienne's house is  at the base of the Ko'olau mountains so we have been getting the brunt of the winds.  We spent Monday,Tuesday , and Wendesday with intermittent electricity.  The wind toppled trees, tore roofs off houses and generally made life on Oahu a little difficult.  But I'm not complaining, believe me!  I'm just happy to be here!   

Now it's Thursday, the first day of February, and I'm finally getting more or less settled.  And of course, I've already bought yarn to keep me busy.  I decided to crochet a sweater since it's still the rainy season and it can get a little cool in the evenings, and sometimes durinig the day. I'll post about that as it unfolds.  I had meant to post about some shrugs that I crocheted and knit, but just didn't get to it.  So I'll be posting something about that soon as well.

In any event, it's great to be "home"!  My next big activity is to start apartment hunting.  I'll keep you updated on how that goes.