Dunsmuir Estate

I haven't done much exploring in the southern region of Oakland, but today I got a chance to head down to the Dunsmuir Estate. It's tucked away on the border of Oakland and San Leandro, about 20 minutes away from Berkeley. I was invited by my best friend Emily and her family, who had an extra ticket to tour the house and have afternoon tea. I guess the tea is a special holiday event only held during weekends in December. It was really cute, endless pots of tea with scones, cookies, cucumber sandwiches, lemon tarts, plenty of butter, jam, and even lemon curd.










After tea, we toured the mansion with tons of rooms, lavishly decorated xmas trees in every one. My favorite part was the kitchen: A well-worn floor, humongous wood burning stove complete with gas broiler, and a separate pastry room for baking. It doesn't look large in the picture, but the cast iron skilled and dutch oven look like they would have been weilded by someone very intimidating.
It was a nice day, I even managed to get a little knitting done when we sat down for a bit while chatting. I don't normally go for hoity-toity outings, but the company and pleasant atmosphere was nice for a change.

Knitting in transit

Ok, I've now lost the equivalent of an entire set of DPNs on BART, the plane, and some other mysterious place while in transit to work or home. Today one of my #6 US needles flew out of my hand, out the doors of the train, into the crack between the train and the platform. Damn my clumsiness! At least I still have 5 needles - which means I've now lost an entire set of #6 DPNs on BART, the plane, and some other mysterious place while in transit to work or home. Grrr. I guess this is one of the hazards of transit knitting, and given that the bamboo needles I use are only $3-5 a set, I'll continue to pass the time on BART by knitting. I'll just note to make sure I don't use expensive needles (if I can ever convince myself to buy some) on public transit.

On another note - I love this Riding Hoodie from etsy seller bonspielcreation. It's a tad pricey, but really nice - too bad it's only a small size.

Do these look manly enough?

I had quite a bit of tea today. So much, in fact, that because of the caffeine and the cold weather, I've spend all evening sprawled out in bed with yarn, needles, knitting books, and google. Here's the evening's productivity:
I love these! Look, a real thumb gusset! No more wimpy cheater thumbs. This is a lot easier than picking out waste yarn, and fits a lot better. They are not really perfect, but good enough for a start, and definitely good enough to give as a gift. Woo Hoo, and fast too! Ok, now of to bed.

Knitting Frenzy!

Xmas is upon us, fortunately or unfortunately. Fortunately, I have the week between xmas and new year's off of work, so I'll be driving up to Portland, OR to be with family. And so, I've decided to knit gifts for *cough* twelve people! I'm about 60% done. The rest will be knit in transit, with the exception of the Argyle scarf. Fingerless gloves are perfect BART knitting, and I suspect I'll be knitting in the car on the way up to Portland (not while driving though). The Argyle knitting is quite a bit of fun - intarsia is challenging in a relaxed sort of way, as I actually enjoy repeating the same stitches over and over, but color changes and weaving yarn into the work are keeping it interesting. My enthusiasm for intarsia, however, has been sparked!
I found the basic stitch chart and instructions in Knitter's Handbook, which is an excellent reference book which covers all the basic techniques and has some great stitch patterns. After doing a bit of research on Ravelry and the web, I stumbled across Eunny Jang's work. Oh my god, she is such an amazing knitter / designer. I've been spending all my spare moments today drooling over her colorwork, laces, cables, and some of the best fitting garment designs I have ever seen. Her cabled socks are so elegant, and her colors so perfectly matched that even I (not a girly girl in the slightest) was in awe and envy over her pink and green, argyle, knee-length socks. She has quite a few tutorials in her blog, too - I'll be learning quite a bit from her site. I'm amassing quite a stash as it is, and many projects to follow after holiday knitting is out of the way - but now all I want to do is go out and buy lots of fingering weight yarn in many colors so I too can knit intarsia! Swatches, yes, I will knit lots of swatches, until I figure out exactly what to knit with this technique. For now - back to knitting!

awesome

I Love Philip Glass. I love Sesame Street. What more could you ask for?