A visit to Plymouth Rock with Sparky*

Plymouth Rock isn't my favorite landmark that Camp Chaos has hit but a day with Sparky* makes it more then memorable and bumps the day way up on the list of favorites. We've been friends since the last century and have endured ups, downs and a lot of turns.

These days a visit with Sparky is filled with great conversations, a bit of history, silliness and a bit of yarn in some form.

LL Bean back in 2004

Sparky* bought me my first set of knitting needles and my first yarn (I still have both) and she attempted to teach me how to knit on her visit to Maine in 2004 but I wasn't quite ready. I eeked out 3" of a swiss cheese scarf and tucked it away. When I unearthed it in 2010 I was ready to learn, by that time I was in Colorado and she was in the Pacific Northwest so I resorted to youtube videos. She's always been my knitting mentor and I love being able to have that be a part of our friendship story. 

The original needles and yarn on my deck in Colorado in 2010. 

 A lot of knitter's have stashes of yarn- some of this is for yarn that's "next in the queue" but some of it's sentimental  I have small balls of yarn from my early projects, the first yarn I got from Sparky and now some yarn my uncle found from my grandmother's collection.

Canadian wool- it was the preferred yarn requested by her kids. I can see why- there's some balls of acrylic in there which are very scratchy! There was also a set of metal dps (double pointed needles) tucked away in the stash.

It was great to be able to add this to my stash of memories...

my uncle, Dave and Kendra all dressed up for a walk in the Maine woods 

Tinker Toys and Yarn Swifts

Life at campchaos has been spinning quickly and the last few weekends have been full of cool nights in the tent, duck tours with Elvis,  puppy adventures, a weekend upta camp and the parking lot that is I-95 Southbound on a summer Sunday. We've managed to stay in place for a weekend and I was finally able to tackle some yarn that's needed to be wound. Dave helped me out on Friday night and held the skein and suffered through 400 yards of sock yarn. He was a good sport but I could tell that he'd rather be petting the pups instead of watching yarn slowly spin.

The next night I searched for alternatives to aid in the project and found this site, which used old school Tinker Toys to make a DIY Yarn Swift. I hadn't been a huge tinker toy fan as a kid but my sister loves them. It just so happened that Dave had a box of tinker toys from 1983 laying around so he blew off decades of attic dust and quickly went into construction mode.

We referenced the how to but also modified the design here and there. Dave even had a little Tinker Toy Guy that became the center piece of the swift.

We started out with a small base and tested a good size skein of yarn.

The moment of truth... would I end up with a ball or a tangled mess?

Between my hand crank ball winder and the tinker toy swift we made short work and I was quickly able to wind a half dozen cakes of yarn before taking the swift apart and stashing it in my knitting bag... for you non-knitters out there- a normal knitting swift is a really cool umbrella like contraption that retails at least $65. That's a lot of yarn back in this knitter's budget, plus the tinker toys break down for easy storage. Now I can get back to my knitting...

Here's the swift in action after a couple of design modifications.

Valley Adventures and Spring Meltdowns

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a great tromp through the woods with the pups in the early afternoon sunshine.

It was a beautiful Winter day and the pups relished in the early March sunshine and snow. The sun was just right and hitting their golden fur to make highlights that even Bliss couldn't achieve.

Chaos dreams of summer swimming while Mayhem eats a bit of snow.

And I enjoyed my new pink hat that I had knitted out of a fat ball of Rasta by Malabrigo.

It's true knitting has trumped blogging this year... by a lot. At some point I'll have to do a project rundown of the hats, sweaters, socks and other worsted goodies that have flown off my needles but today's all about meltdowns...
This weekend temps crept higher and the snow softened...

we enjoyed some time on the hill with this guy...

and this gal...

in the warm spring sunshine. Then a funny thing happened- temperatures didn't drop back to normal but kept creeping higher.  We pulled out a few pairs of shorts and sported them with our mud boots for an afternoon walk in the sunshine.

And realized that we could have worn chacos.

The pups didn't mind and went for a swim in the river.

Today I wore my chacos everywhere.... I walked in the woods and through a melting iceberg.

The water that skimmed the iceberg on the trail was almost warm and the air felt like an afternoon in June. At no point did I regret my shoe choice as I skimmed along the trail over dry ground, mud, ice and hardpack snow. I should have- this is March in New England. Water on top of melting ice should be COLD. The air temperature should have turned my toes bright red and shot pain through them. But it didn't. I was warm in my shorts, t-shirt and Chacos on a shady trail at 5:30pm in March. 

Another great day for playing ball and enjoying golden hues dancing in the sunshine. It's bittersweet, winter was short as was the snowfall and while we're enjoying this odd weather it's not ideal for a ski resort.

Anyone wanna go play in the river soon? I hear the boating is great and the bike trails are gonna be drying like spilled water in the Sahara.

Sweater #3

weekends are for playing

We finally hit a weekend where the only plan was to roll with it. The weather's turned from full on summer to July Monsoon season where rain and or thunderstorms roll in most afternoons. Our rain jackets are constantly with us and usually on by 2pm. On Saturday we cruised to town to let the dogs swim in the raging San Miguel and surf a few rapids then Dave hit the golf course with a few friends while I had a quiet afternoon with the tired pups.  I managed to hem a few pairs of pants and make this snazzy holder for my knitting needle stash, a side for my double pointed needles (dpn's) and a side for my circular needles. 

From Knitting

From Knitting

 

From Knitting

Today we grabbed the dogs, rain jackets and climbing gear and met Dave and Sally by Society Turn for a bit of climbing while avoiding the storms. You can see all photo's from this weekend here...

summer and the 4th of July

It's officially summer here, meaning we haven't had snow in over two weeks and have been sporting the flip flops consistently. Last week I took the dogs swimming on a rainy afternoon and today we hit the 4th of July Parade in Telluride. It's not a small affair as our town of 2,000 grows with folks coming from all over to enjoy the iconic Main Street Parade. Our friends had grabbed a spot early and when we came in to town 90 minutes before the parade all the prime spots had been snagged. Elaine and Emory just had their first baby and even little Rocco came out (after the loud fire trucks had passed). After we got the text last Tuesday about Rocco joining the Telluride pose I dug through my yarn stash and picked out the colors for his first homemade sweater to go with his collection of k8 knit caps.

From Priest Lake and Happy Birthday USA Day

Then I whipped up this hat for Emory so they could match...

From Priest Lake and Happy Birthday USA Day

Thankfully it was much to hot for Rocco to try on his sweater today. We're hoping it fits by the time some classic late summer festivals hit town along with the cool nights.
Wanna see more? Watch the slideshow or click here.

beyond hats

Somehow last week I mustered up the courage to start looking at knitting patterns for things beyond hats. I decided to start small and knock off a baby shower gift at the same time. I found a simple sweater pattern and whipped up a sweater (size 6 months) in under a week.

From Knitting

It came out much better then expected and I've got to go through my yarn stash to see how big my next sweater will be...

whirlwind trips

Last week we booked a flight on Sunday and boarded a plane on Monday bound for Boston. In less then 24 hours we had cleaned the house, packed our bags and figured out a plan for the dogs and the grumpy kitty to be well cared for. I had made time to stop for some gluten free snacks before we dropped the car off to get new brakes (much needed) and caught a courtesy ride to the airport and was grateful for these all day- especially at the ATL airport... scary.... so scary...
 Thankfully I had packed a good supply of yarn, all of our chargers for phones and ipods and a clean shirt for each of us as our checked bag arrived on Thursday afternoon, a mere 4 days after us. Thanks Delta! It was an exciting moment to be able to have wardrobe options again plus a more pragmatic pair of shoes then the Danskos I wore traveling and the flip flops I had tucked in my carry on as area was getting pounded with snow and the snowbanks stood 5 feet high.  I had lots of time to work on my knitting and finished a few projects during our visit.

From Droid think outside

On Saturday we packed up and jumped on a bus down to Boston- the roads were getting slick and our early flight on Sunday didn't leave much of a margin for error. We packed our bags with my gluten free snack festival and headed into a hotel near the airport. We checked in and asked about area dining and if the in house restaurant had a gluten free menu- the uncertain look had Dave convinced that my idea of heading to PF Chang's wasn't so crazy after all.

From Droid think outside

 I had used my droid navigation while on the bus to figure out that we could easily take the hotel shuttle to a T stop on the blue line and swap to the green line and end up a block away from PF Chang's. It was a Saturday night and the place had a 50 minute wait so we opted to eat at the bar so we could make it to bed at a decent hour. We even walked through the city a bit after dinner, grabbed Dave breakfast donuts at Dunkin's and made it back to to hotel within 3 hours. There wasn't much time for sleep as we were up at 3:30am and on a shuttle soon after.

From Droid think outside

The best part about our 6am flight on Sunday from BOS to ATL to MTJ was that all worked out we arrived by noon in the mountain time zone, hit a quick food shop were reunited with our monster puppies back in Telluride before the lifts closed at 4pm. Now comes the fun part of readjusting to work, altitude and life after a week away.

visits from Summit then more hats on quiet nights

Meghan and Sam came down for a quick visit last weekend and we had a good day on the mountain and a evening snowshoe with all 4 goldens. I'm also happy to share that I can now eat food at our apres hangout- The Hop Garden. Telluride Ski Resort is now offering true gluten free options for people like me. 

A philly cheese steak may seem like a simple sandwich but being able to eat a real meal instead of pocket snacks is a big deal in my glutarded world. 

will knit for wine, bring me the yarn and a bottle of red and you'll see a hat out of the deal- like this creation in green and yellow. The thickest yarn and fastest hat yet. (Burly spun Brown Sheep Company yarn, size 13 circulars, 59 stitches cast on)

Kids hat with big Poms- lots of yarn for crazy thick poms which are then trimmed to create a pretty and uniform look. (Merino Blend, size 9 circulars, 96 cast on)

 

A finally finished Christmas gift, for Big Dave  swapped to doubled pointed to finish the top for the first time and wow- not going back to trying to finish on circulars! (Mini Mochi by Crystal Palace, size 8, cast on 120) 

Dave's now on grooming life and my nights are now filled with adventures to tire out the dogs so I can work on my knitted creations. I even took time to hit a crochet class at Needlerock but it really just proved that I like knitting better. I'm stuck on hats and have lost track how many I've done now. I'm also doing multiple projects at once and have 3 hats currently cast on and in various stages of progress. I like to mix it up with needle sizes and degree of difficulty so I can swap out as needed based on energy level, attention span, color preference or ease of carry for knitting during long meetings which abound this time of year.