Holy Crap!

WOW! So we were just in Vancouver, about 3 weeks ago. And so we rode around Mount Saint Helens, on our bikes, for about 4 hours! And since I am super-paranoid, all i could think was "oh boy, this volcano's gonna blow. oh man." So what happens??? Three weeks later, activity is reported in the mountain, and they are now saying it is possible there is an explosion in the mail. Read about it here. Creepyness!

Mary Janes

Here we go! Sorry about the bad quality of the photo, but I finished the mary janes this weekend! they are super warm and comfy. Because I didnt have any buttons, I decided to just crochet some and attach! viola!
The one thing im not liking on these, and I didnt realize, was that the seam goes across the top of the foot, so it looks a little funny. I was considering crocheting some appropriately sized flowers and putting those over the mess. Looks like something new to learn! I dont think it can be too hard to crochet some flowers. Oh well! Back to knitting xmas gifts!

Hot Pink Yarn

Wow. So once you really thought the 80's were all said and done, you find a bundle of hot pink yarn yelling out to you from the shelves. A few days ago I took a trip to Arcadia Knitting and I just had this irresistable urge to buy this Brown Sheep Co. Lotus Pink yarn. After pondering for a few days of what exactly I was going to do with this bundle o joy, it suddenly occurred to me.... the mary jane slippers!! See here for pattern. So I finished most of one slipper last night, because of an odd wave of lack of sleep. On top of that, I tried, and tried, crocheted granny squares! I dont know what it is, but i MUST learn how to do them. I have a very old blanket passed down from some gramma or another, all done in crocheted granny squares. i would love to make a bunch of them, especially since crochet is generally easier and faster, once you get the hang of it. I, on the other hand am very inexperienced in crochet, so i think it will be awhile unless i can find someone to show me the ropes! I'm sure if I got off my butt and went to a stitch and bitch meet up one of these days, i would have all my sock making and granny square mishaps solved. Sarah actually lent me the instructions for granny squares in a book called "hip to crochet", so we will see if that takes me anywheres.
Anyways, once i get some pics of the slippers, Ill gladly post them.

purply

Wow so its been awhile since I've posted. I haven't really been knitting or riding too much lately. We went on an awesome ride at Palos this weekend, rather than driving all the way to Michigan. I realized, after climbing 4 hours non stop on a mountain in Oregon, that Palos is EASY. I used to dread the climbs to the "top of the hills" in Palos, but now that I realize that all of the climbs are less than a minute, they became easy and TONS more fun than they used to be. In fact, I feel like going there every day, and just tearing around and climbing up the climbs like no tomarrow. Just after a few rides in Oregon and Washington, I became such a better rider. I can imagine what would happen if I seriously trained!! I was finding myself keeping up with the pack that I rode with most of the time, and it was just such a renewing and confidence inspiring feeling! Like I had finally made it to their level or something. But I think it will take lots more work for me to really get there.
So in the course since last post, I finished one strip of my peruvian scarf, the darker purple one. I am beginning the lilac color, but am now wondering if I should add a third color or if I should leave it with the 2 colors, and just make an extra strip of the darker purple.
Maybe if I have 3 colors it will be too overwhelming with the flowers??? oh well, I will experiment and find out!
Here's some pics of whats going on::



Here is the whole lot of it. I plan on using 3 flower pins, the dark strip of scarf, and that lilac color on the side. I still can't believe how easy those flower pins were!



Here's a close up it.
Sorry for the blurriness!!

Any comments on a 3rd color?

Charlie

Yay! I finally cut my hair! It definately feels great and I didn't realize how much I missed it!
you can check it out here (erika, silly). I think it will stay this way for awhile. I started a new project last night. Thanks to Lauren's suggestion of the softest and prettiest colored yarn EVER, I got a bunch of Caron's simply soft and decided to go to town on mikes other gramma's xmas gift. Its really a bargain when you look at the stuff. So anyways, I have had this urge to create this one scarf that I had seen at a unique gift store, a peruvian scarf. It was the awesomest scarf ever. Well, actually I would never wear it, but I could totally see it as being awesome. It was a bunch of narrow strips, that were connected around the neck and about a foot down to the edges. Then the edges that loosely hung were connected randomly by these crocheted flowers. So I decided since the gift-ee really likes bright colors, to go with 2 shades of purple: a lilac and a bold purple. Then, instead of doing the crocheted flowers, i bought some silk flowers and jewelry pins. Mikes mom and I then proceeded to ravage the silk flowers, cut them off, and hot glue em to the pins. They came out great, and I have enough to use them on other things if I need to! Once i get some progress going, Ill post some images. For now, my mom found out that the awesome vet she takes her cats to has a website on which they list their "clients"! We found her newest baby (she has 3 cats now) on the first client page! Heres a sneak peek!

Charlie looks a little drugged up to me here...
But he is the cutest little cat ever! He is 7 weeks here.

Another project

Well our bikes have finally come home from portland! after fixing them up, I think we are going to head down to fort custer, in michigan, near kalamazoo this weekend. we both need some kind of getaway. My most favorite trails in the world are there, and i tell you, they are pretty friggin awesome. of course they are not like the everlasting climbs and decents at mt hood or the trails off of mt st helens, but they are built so well that it doesnt really matter where you are. they flow so well, its almost like being on a roller coaster. one of my favorite spots on the trail is a small downhill near the lake, that is built up with flat stones. having those stones, plus the steepness and sharp climb that follows, is just amazing! anyways, back to the knitting. i finished another gift! its going smoothly so far. this one was pretty easy and fun to make. i used the seed stitch throughout, and finished with some nice fringe and beautiful indian beads. the color combos are great, although they dont show up so well on the pics!!

here's the whole thing. i love how the colors fade into one another!


here's a close up of the fringe and beads. it was difficult for me to figure out how to get the beads on there in a pretty way. i really wanted to make it less complicated looking, but dealing with the size of the eye in the bead, the large tapestry needle, and thick yarn didnt make it too easy!
oh well, i think its a great solution!
On to another!

CUTE!

I was browsing some of my favorite knitting sites/blogs and came across a link to a cute and easy pattern! I can't wait to try it!! Here is the original, and here is the variation on sugarcubed. i kind of like both, but i think i will try the original version first and give them to my sister for christmas.

Another gramma scarf

I started working on yet another christmas gift last night, for one of mikes grammas. its a seed stitch pattern scarf, using lions homespun in prairie. its got pretty little hints of color in it, that are nice and subtle. when im done, im planning on adding beaded fringes! i think it will give a nice bit of pizazz (sp?) to the thing.



Heres a close up of the stitch and some of the colors.

Its great because it knits up so quick, holding 2 strands together for extra warmth and thickness! hooray!

Portland!

Yay! Here we are, back from Portland. It was totally amazing. Not so much the city, but the surrounding area was just breathtaking. The first day we got there, we scoped out the city a little (not impressive compared to chicago, not to mention the most confusing layout ever), and headed towards the mountains to the east. we were waiting for our bikes to be ups'd to our friends house in beaverton. so we stopped at a towering waterfall, and decided to hike to the top. all kinds of crazy small flowers, and everything was green. I mean GREEN.
We visited a waterfall. There were springs that you could actually drink from. I swear, it tasted cleaner than bottled water. There is a bridge going across about 1/2 way up. it was so breezy up there you could hardly breathe!




Heres me and mike playing around with the furry moss. It was very curious.


Random shot across a bridge.


Here is the biggest slug/snail i have ever seen in my life. apparently they are called "banana slugs" up there. very apparent it is rainforest like up there.


Hilarious ground squirrels that weren't afraid of humans.

So after the antics in the waterfall, we found out our bikes came and went to go build em up. The next day we headed up to the mount hood/hood river area to ride some trails.


Mount Hood at a distance. Craziness.

The trails were so perfectly groomed. We climbed 3,000 feet and descended 3,000 feet in the ride, and rode for 6 hours!! Most of it was just great, especially the decending, but there was a point way into the ride where i thought i was not going to make it, and would have to just stay the night there and get eaten by a bear. climbing the last climb, which was mostly hike a bike up the trail was brutal. Beating sun, desert conditions at the top, loose rock and sandy soil made conditions terrible. but after much affirmation from mike, i did make it and the final decent was so sweet.

Here's a crummy pic of me and mike at the top of our first climb, and i believe the trail was called 8-mile trail. the second part of the ride was 15-mile trail, and somewhere in between were just off shoots of surveyors ridge trail. so crazy. see mount hood in the background?? One of the best rides ever, and i really got to test my limits in this one.
on the way to the hotel, we decided to stop at one of the many orchards along the way, and got the tastiest peaches ive ever had! if i had to pick one place to live, it would definately be there, working on my own orchard, with the mountain looming over me. it was very beautiful.

After that exhausting day, we had a relaxing day, and just decided to drive to the coast. we took route 6 all the way out, and it was beautiful. it was alongside a river the whole way, and in a rainforest like area. when we got to the coast it was almost overwhelming. steep drop offs, an icy violent ocean, and sea lions and birds!

first, we made our way to tillamook, got the famous tillamook cheddar cheese, locked the keys in our car, and saw lambs, alpaca, chickens, etc. there are SO many cows in tillamook. wisconsin, you aint got nothin on the tillamook.

we then made our way up hwy 101 (beautiful scenic drive) to seaside/astoria. a drive along cliffside ocean views can be very unnerving, but the constant TSUNAMI WARNING ZONE signs really made it a lot worse. after realizing there couldnt possibly be a tsunami taking over the town at that point, i relaxed and got to enjoy it.

we stopped in a town called oceanside.





here we are in ocean side, a very pretty town. We have a lot more pictures, but some arent developed yet, and i couldnt very well post the 62 images off the digi camera on the site, now could i?

we stopped at a viewpoint area right around the bend from ocean side before making our way to seaside, and saw the three arches, a beautiful natural rock formation in the ocean that houses many different sea birds. apparently sea lions are supposed to beach there too, but we didnt have any luck in seeing any.




After frolicking on the beach and finding odd shells and rocks, we decided to finish our way up to seaside. we stopped there, and took rest at a hotel. the seafood in that town is amazing. i got a halibut steak at a place called normas, and it was the best thing ever. mike got halibut fish and chips and loved it! we also bought a LOT of taffy and a few presents for people, and found a homemade ice cream shop and decided to stop there. afterwards we got to see the sun set along the ocean and it was perfect. it was very cloudy, looming, overpowering, but beautiful. it was also a tsunami zone. yikes.
after not being able to sleep the whole night because of worry of tsunami (i'm a dweeb) we made our way back to portland via route 12, which was also pretty.
that night we got to visit our friends who recently moved to portland, and that was fun of course. we got to see different parts of the city, and learned a lot of interesting things about it.
Then we stayed in Vancouver, which was pretty but very boring. The next day we rode the Lewis River Trail, which was amazing. Ill pick up the rest soon, as soon as i get the rest of the pictures developed!!