There and There and Back Again

I was there

and there

and now I'm back again.
(I would guess that everybody will recognize the bridge. The light house is the Pigeon Point Lighthouse a couple of miles North of San Fransisco)

Mostly work, but as you can see I did get off a little bit for sight seeing and shopping (not to forget the shopping, shall we :)) The weather was great, even if it was a bit on the chilly side (and windy)
The flights were long (over 10 hours each) and full and next to me two guys sat with bladders of steel (if any .. I don't know), at least they barely moved from their seats trapping me in my little corner at the window (on the other hand, I like my window seats, so I can't really complain)

Snowdrop

And a new edition of the SKK today ;)

I finished the snowdrop shawl in nine days including blocking the whole thing (on my guest bed - I was quite surprised how well it worked). I have to say it was great fun and even though I have no clear idea what I ever gonna do with those kind of shawls I know I'm going to make more. It's quite addictive.

And it turned out pretty pretty too (even though the photos didn't so much as I had to make them in the hotel room in Dresden)

(urgh, sorry about that carpet ...)
It ended up to be 2 m wide (6ft 8, if I'm not mistaken) and 1.2 m (4ft) from tip to neck line.


I did follow the pattern for most parts, but I did add little golden beads on the tip of each point (which are not really visible in the photo)

Hmmm, if I don't wear it, I still can use it as home decoration ...

One extra picture from my neighbors. After some intense study (looking it up in wikipedia) I'm convinced now that it's a pair of kestrels (Turmfalken in German)


(my parents thought it's an eagle-owl (Uhu), but look at that face. It's not even close)


I'll packed my bags and after a fairly short night I'll be off for a week of San Fransisco tomorrow morning - for work, but still, hey, it's SF!!!

New Neighbors

Look who moved in into the next house over:

I saw them the other day and again today, so I decided to see if I can get a shot.

I was laying in wait for over an hour when she finally came out (it was raining like crazy at that moment - after the rain she hid again)


He only showed up once and was not very willing to pose for me, so that's the best shot I've got (so far at least)

As there's obviously a nest over there, I will keep my eyes open and maybe I'll get some more pictures. Of course, I have the feeling now that my human neighbors in the appartment underneath the nest think I might be a peeping pervert as I pointed with a pretty big tele lens on the general direction of their bed room window for over an hour ...

Practically Nothing

I think I need to rename the 'Sapphire's Stitching Stanza' into 'Sapphire's Knitting Klub' at least for the moment (and, yes, I know club is written with a 'c' in English, but then I'm German and I like the allitaration ....)

Last time I was in Japan I picked up some 2 plyed yarn (the yellowish yarn in the middle of this post --> There's wool in Japan)
After knitting the cardigan and some squares of the Lizzard Ridge Afghan, I wanted to do something different. I did start on a pair of socks, but wasn't happy with it, so I ribbed it back up. I was looking at various shawl pattern, an finally decided to try my hands on this pattern here.
It's the snowdrop shawl by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot of blog and book fame.
The pattern asks for 1200m of lace weight yarn - I've got about 1100m.
Still I decided to give it a try.


After a quick start, the rows got longer and longer and eventually I've had about 240 stitches to a row. Still, it's loads of fun, so much fun in fact, that I couldn't wait to get home after work (or rather the hotel I was staying in) just so I could knit a bit more on it.

Looks a bit bumpy at the moment, but after blocking it should look much better.


I finished the main body so far and working on the edging.

And ... I'm close to the end of the third skein (out of the five I have) and I guess that I'll end up with using roughly 800m.
At 25gr per skein, the whole thing will weight less than 100gr - practically nothing.

Seventeen Down, Seven To Go

I finished the seventeenth square for the Lizard Ridge afghan.


Sideway's view as I've stacked them on the table
Pretty colors :)
I still enjoy to knit those squares, and the fact that I'm only 7 squares away from the end does feel good. At the moment I've got only two complete skeins of Noro left and a couple of ends from other skeins.

I believe those are good for another two to three squares. So I'll need to buy two, maybe three more skeins and than that's it.
I'll got to San Francisco in two weeks and already checked out possible yarn stores, so I will buy what I need there. The current dollar to euro exchange rate is really looking good for us, and I guess there will be some more yarn to end up with me.

After the cardigan was done, I finally got around to work a bit more on the Castle Sampler, so a progress picture here: