I’m so happy – just yesterday we ditched the DSL and switched to cable modem, and our internet speed has vastly improved!  I recently learned that Qwest would not be installing their new fiber optic network on our street anytime soon, so we broke down and switched to Comcast.  Turns out it’s really not any more exensive, and the speed is, get this, 10-20 times as fast as what we were getting via DSL.  Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to do anything to help my blogging frequency, but maybe I’ll just enjoy being online so much that it will just a little bit.

My last post was about New Year’s Goals and making this the best year ever.  I never did come back to explain more, but what I was really getting at is that barring any really aweful events, we really do have a lot of control over having that “best” year that I was referring to.  It’s all in how you look at things, what you do with the things that get thrown at you, etc.  So far, there have been a couple of pretty bad things tossed my way this year, but I’m making the best of them.  I’m also continuing to work on other improvements to my life and well-being that hopefully will result in the outcome I’m looking for.  I’ll try to post about this throughout the year in more detail as appropriate.

Now for some fibery goodness.  I went to my third Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat last weekend (it was the event’s 10th anniversary, but only my third).   It was great, as usual.  I took 4 classes this year, and made several passes through the marketplace.  I bought a few skeins of yarn (like I need more yarn!) and bought some wheel accessories and books, but resisted buying much spinning fiber.  I still have fiber I bought last year that’s not been spun yet!  Here’s one example of yummy yarn I purchased though – a ball of yarn that I’m not even sure I can use, it’s so pretty this way:

It’s a ball of Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Sock in the Fuchsienbeet colorway.  According to the image shown on the tag, the socks knit from this will go transition from purple at the top to a firey orange, back to purple toes – one color change per sock.  They look like flames!

Now for the highlights of my classes.  As I have the time over the next few months to explore what I learned, I may write more about some of the techniques:

On Thursday, I took Fat, Fun and Fulled: The Art of Big Yarns from Judith McKenzie McCuin.  I’ve heard more than one person say that they would take a class on how to boil water from Judith – she’s that good of a teacher.  This was a truely enjoyable all-day class.  We learned tips on setting your spinning wheel up for spinning bulkier weight yarn,  what fibers respond best to fulling, the best way to card for fat spinning (for more on this, and Judith’s apparently earth shattering instruction to put the fiber in SIDEWAYS, see the Yarn Harlot’s blog post about it), and how to properly full the yarn so that you can make useable singles.  Here’s sample of some merino/silk that I spun and fulled in the class

On Friday, I had another class with Judith – Just Dying for Socks.  In this class, we got to hand paint some different types of yarn using Judith’s own acid dyes.  I’m actually not real happy with my results so plan on overdying in a week or two to subdue the colors a bit.  I’ll post pictures AFTER the fix!

On Saturday, I had two classes.  In the morning, I got an Initiation to Entrelac Knitting with Joan Schrouder in the morning and Double Up and Around, an introduction to double knitting with Lucy Neatby in the afternoon.  I didn’t have any familiarity with Joan in advance, so didn’t have much in the way of preconceived expectations.  I found the class to be exactly what it was – a good initiation that will get me started on Entrelac knitting on my own.  I think I would have rather had a full day class in this technique though as it’s a bit complicated and fussy to learn.  I was somwhat familiar with Lucy  in all of her technicolor brightness!  However, I had no experience with her as a teacher.  I thought the class was very well done – I must say that Lucy is a really good teacher.  I’m looking forward to experiementing with the double knitting techniques I learned in the class.  I’ll also consider taking more classes from Lucy in the future, or at least investing in some of her instructional DVDs (she has a ton!)  She mentioned that she’s trying to cut back her teaching schedule in order to concentrate more on designing, so we might not see her so often at Madrona in the future. 

Well, it’s been a week, and believe it or not, I haven’t finished unpacking from my Madrona adventures yet, so I best get to work!

Happy New Year!  Now that we’re a few days into 2009, the activity of the holiday season has settled down and it’s time for life to get back to normal  (whatever that is LOL).  This gives me the opportunity to take some time to reflect on the past and make plans for the future, as is common practice with many folks.

Often times, we make RESOLUTIONS for the upcoming year.  Things like ”I will lose weight” or “I will not eat chocolate” or ”I will not spend more than $xxx on BLANK each month,” etc. are spewed forth by optimistic folks who set high hopes for self improvement.  That’s right – self improvement.  What is a resolution other than a statement dedciated to self improvement?  Well, if you look it up in the dictionery, you’ll find that a resolution is the result of the verb “resolve.”  So you loom up the meaning of ”resolve” and find the following listed as the word’s fifth meaning (from www.m-w.com): 

5: to reach a firm decision about <resolve to get more sleep> <resolve disputed points in a text>  

Hmm.  That’s pretty weak if you ask me – not to mention the fact that it’s so far down on the list of definitions for that particular word.  So maybe I shouldn’t make resolutions.  Maybe “GOALS” would be better.  Let’s look that one up:

2: the end toward which effort is directed  

Now that’s more like it.  It seems a lot more concrete to me than the wishy washy “resolution.”  So I’m making goals from now on, instead of resolutions.  As part of our annual evaluations at work, we set goals, and we’re directed to make them results oriented, realistic, and if possible, measurable. 

Upon reflection, and some discussion with others, I’ve decided on one main goal which ultimately can house many mini goals.  It’s a goal that may sound nearly impossible at first, but by breaking it down a bit and defining it, it’s not unsurmountable.  And it’s one I can actually use over and over each year if I want.  So here it is:

My goal for 2009 is to have the best year I’ve ever had.

More on how I’m going to achieve this in my next post!

Today was an important day for many fiber fanatics in the NW (other areas too) – the much anticipated opening of registration for the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.  The Madrona retreat is an annual event that takes place in Tacoma, WA each Februrary, where knitters, spinners, crocheters and weavers gather to take classes from internationally renowned teachers.  It also provides an opportunity to shop at a market filled with vendors from all over the west coast and just commune with folks of a like mind – those who love fiber. 

As luck would have it, the registration opened early – I believe by about 2 hours.  I just happened to notice this at 11:30 this morning (it was scheduled to open at 1:00 pm), so I took the opportunity to sign up for several of my first choice classes with no problems.  Meanwhile, there are many people who waited until the announced time and didn’t get into some or all of the classes they wanted.  Based on what I’m seeing on Ravelry and other online communities, some of these folks are pretty disapppointed – some even mad – about this fact.  Let’s put things in perspective though.

Last year, when Madrona registration suffered a Web traffic jam that literally shut down registration moments after it opened, I had to take 2nd or 3rd choice classes.  I did get into one of my first choices, but otherwise settled with other ones.  But you know what?  I got just as much out of those classes as I might have out of my first choices.  In fact, they  stretched me a little bit outside of my comfort zone – that’s a good thing in my opinion.  So maybe not getting into first choice classes offers one an opportunity to expand their skill set by trying something new.  Or maybe it helps narrow down ones choices!   With so many great classes being offered, I had difficulty making my final choices, and actually made some of them last minute while registering.

Anyway, I realize the system isn’t perfect but no matter what form registration takes moving forward, it’s likely not going to please everyone – no matter what.  I say just be calm, put your name on a waiting list if you have to and hope for the best.  Or just go down to the event to shop and hang out with like-minded crafters, and maybe even attend the banquet, a pretty special event in an of itself.  Hopefully I’ll see you there!

Well, this is certainly an unusual occurance – two posts in as many days!  I just couldn’t resist posting again so soon because I have some pretty exciting news:

I am KNITTER!

I’ll bet you’re wondering why I am announcing this.  Of course she’s a knitter you might say – she’s got a blog (partially) dedicated to knitting and she’s an active member of both Knitter’s Review and Ravelry.   Duh! 

 Yes, these things are all very true.  But you’ll notice that I did not say “I am a knitter” but rather “I am KNITTER” denoting that this is some sort of new name for me.  Nope, didn’t change my name to “KNITTER,” but I did manage to snag the name KNITTER for personalized license plates!  Can you believe it? In this state that’s full of knitters, I am the only one who will have this on my license plates on my beloved Honda Element!  WHOO HOO!  Now that’s something worth celebrating (I am such a geek!)

So this all came about after reading about someone else getting the plates “Knit On” in Arkansas.  This reminded me to do my periodic check to see if any of the names I’d like to have had become available in Washington.  I’ve struggled with this in the past because many of the combinations beginning with “K” are disallowed because they’re reserved for HAM radio operators.  And of course “KNITTER” was never available because someone else had it. 

But alas, yesterday when I checked, it was suddenly available! I shot an excited e-mail off to Mr. VirtualKnitter about it and he responded “grab it fast!”  So, off I trotted to the King County Department of Licensing, where you can apply for personalized plates in person.  I wasn’t sure if things were set up so they could process the application in real time, but I just wanted to make sure I was first in line to get this name reserved.  Turns out they can handle the whole transaction right there, so a few minutes later I was happily the owner of “KNITTER” with my new registration form and temporary paper “plates” – now I just have to wait a few weeks for the real plates to be mailed to me.  The nice man who processed my paperwork suggested that the previous owner either moved out of state or just got tired of paying the extra annual fee for the plates.  Well, whatever the reason, their loss is my gain!

In September, I’m doing the Seattle 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk.  I’ll be walking 60 miles over 3 days with approximately 4000 other walkers. In order to participate, I must raise $2200 towards the cause (Susan B. Koman foundation).  At this point, I’m only about 1/3 of the way to my goal.

Anyway, I’m holding a special raffle for my knitting and spinning friends.  Any of you who donate a minimum of $5, between now and my fundraising deadline of October 10th, will be entered to win a “Winner’s Choice” gift basket.  I’m calling it Winner’s Choice because I’ll create a gift basket with a minimum value of $75 for the lucky winner, based on her/his knitting/spinning preferences!  What could be better than that?

Here’s how you enter.  Go to my personal 3-Day Donation page at http://www.the3day.org/goto/knottyknitter and donate $5 or more.  Contact me via PM or e-mail to let me know you’ve entered (make sure I can match you up to your entry by providing me the name or e-mail address you used when making your donation).  You’ll get one entry into the raffle for each $5 donated.  For each $25, you’ll get one extra ticket (so $25 gets you 6 entries, $50 gets you 12, etc.)  When you contact me, let me know if your preference is knitting or spinning, and tell me a little bit about your fiber, color, and project preferences. 

After the donation center closes, in mid-October, I’ll draw a random winner and notify the winner by e-mail so I can get shipping information for you wonderful gift basket!

This is for a great cause. Not only does it raise much needed funds for breast cancer research and detection, but due to the shear size of the event, it raises public awareness of the need and desire of so many walkers to find a cure.  Good Luck!

 It’s been a looooong time – too long, actually – since I’ve posted.  Well, I’m back.  Work and life are both so busy right now that it’s difficult, but maybe I can get some momentum going to keep on top of things.

 So back to the title of this entry.  You might be wondering what “journey” I’m speaking of.  Well, it’s not a trip – it’s a spinning wheel!  Yup – next week my Journey Wheel is scheduled to come out of production and get shipped to me!  For those of you who don’t already know, the Journey Wheel is a super cool portable spinning wheel made by the Bosworths (also makers of fine spindles, and other spinning tools).  I’ve never actually spun on one, but have seen them on a couple of occassions and became instantly intrigued.  And yes, I’m crazy enough about spinning to order one without ever trying it out.  Well, I know that even if I don’t end up loving it, I can sell it for pretty much the full price I paid for it anyway, so what have I got to lose?

 I ordered it back in February, during the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival.  I saw a couple more Journeys in my classes there, and fell more deeply in love. There’s something that really appeals to me about being able to fold it up into a nice tidy little box – looking nothing like a spinning wheel.  Then, when you’re ready to use it, you just pop it open and within seconds practically, voila, you have a fully functions DOUBLE DRIVE spinning wheel!  Yes, the double drive feature is another thing that appeals to me – to date, this is the only truely portable wheel I’ve come across that comes in double drive. 

 Anyway, back to my tale.  I ordered the wheel in February, which placed me in the schedule for the fall production run to be shipped out in October of this year.  Alas, I received a message from Sheila Bosworth last week asking me if I wanted to move up to the Summer run since they’ve had a few people cancel their orders (I fear this might be an effect of the current state of our economy).  I jumped at the chance to take delivery sooner – the downside is, of course, that I have to pay for the wheel all that much sooner.  Oh well - small price to pay for the added enjoyment I’ll get from having it ahead of schedule.  I’ve just learned today that it should be shipped out on July 30th, with a ship time of approximately 6 days.  So, my Journey wheel is about to begin it’s own little journey across the country!  I’m really looking forward to receiving it – I expect to be posting pictures of it here sometime soon!  Keep your fingers crossed that it gets to me safely!

First off, a blog migration update:

Slowly but surely, I’m moving my comments over to my new blog home.  I have to do it manually (see my lightbulb moment in my last post).  Meanwhile, Wordpress has released their upgrade, and I hope to install that soon, so I don’t want to bother moving the rest of the comments since I’ve just done my pre-upgrade backup . Once I get all the comments moved, I’ll shut down the other blog and redirect any traffic over here.  I’m sure happy with my move so far!

And now the knitting:

As far as knitting goes, I’ve been slowly plugging away at my 2nd stranded knitting project.  I’m knitting the small leaf hat from Ruth Sorensen’s packet of hat patterns that she put together for the Madrona Fiber Arts annual retreat.  I didn’t take her class there – instead, I purchased the patterns at Acorn Street, a local resource for Kauni yarn.  My first stranded project was also from this packet – at this time it’s serving as the header for this site.  Unfortunately, as my first ever stranded knitting project, it ended up being too small.  This is due to the fact that my initial gauge swatch and subsequent calculations were based on flat knit un-stranded stockenette.    Unfortunately, my stranded knitting knit in the round, turned out to be much tighter.   Although I’m very happy with the way it looks, it doens’t really fit my head.  I’ll hang onto it as a sample, but unfortunately will not be able to wear it.  See the photo of both below.

I’ve long wanted to learn stranded knitting but only recently felt ready for it.  Sure, I’ve been knitting for 4 years, but due to my hobby ADD, I’m not a very prolific or focused knitter, so have stayed at a level of just beyond beginner.  Now that I’ve attempted it, I’m hooked.  One reason I want to stick with it is the fact that it really is part of my heritage, being of Norwegian (and Viking) descent.   I’ve always admired the Scandinavian knit motifs so it’s really fun to know that I can recreate them myself!  Now I’m off to continue perusing the “Stranded” group gallery at Ravelry…

Unfortunately, it looks like there isn’t any way I’ll be able to import the comments from my old blog.  I didn’t have many of them, but I’ll miss them anyway.  I tried to use the RSS Feed method to import them, but they came into Wordpress as blog entries.  And there’s no way to create a comment in the Admin panel.  Oh – I have an idea (I need a little lightbulb emoticon!)  I think I can just visit my blog and recreate them by using the comment function and then going into my Wordpress dashboard and editing the time stamp!  I’ll try that and see how it works.

 Meanwhile, I’m not having much luck editing the CSS to fix the bullet issue for muliple line items in a list.  I may just have to work on a work-around.  Or get rid of the custom style for bulleted lists completely.  Anyway, back to the move!

Well, I’m almost moved into my new blog.  If you read down, you’ll see the post called “Wordpress Here I Come” which is actually the last post on my old blog before the move.  I have successfully moved all the posts from Kitty’s Knitterbox over to The Virtual Knitter. There are still a few things I need to do before I’m completely settled including:

1. Manually move the comments from the old blog
2. Resize a few of my photos
3. Physically move some of the photos and update the code in any affected posts so I can completely shut down the other blog – several of them are hosted on that blog’s platform
4. Figure out what to do in the top area of this blog where I have the eyeball picture right now.  I might add a plugin that allows me to put in a random rotation of photos in that spot
5. Change the color of the sidebar type since I’ve changed the header and other colors in this theme.  The redish orange was great with the theme’s original scheme but not the one I’ve got now.  However, the little carrot symbols are actually pieces of art, so I have to do some extra manipulation there.  Maybe I’ll change it out to a different little bullet intead.  Hey, maybe even a ball of yarn!  A really tiny one.  Hmmm.
6. Update the blogroll and some other things in the sidebar that are just left over from the theme I’m adapting for my own use

Migrating my posts from their old location to the new one turned out to be pretty easy once I figured out how to do it.  Simply because it is recommended on on the Wordpress site, I purchased “Wordpress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.  I was quickly able to learn there that my only real choice, other than manually copying all my entries and pasting them here, was to export them via an RSS feed and use the Wordpress tool for importing from a .txt file created from the source code of an RSS feed.  It actually worked really well.  There were only two problems, one of which I was aware of going in.  The one I knew about was that the comments would not import using this method.  The 2nd was that I had a few posts from my old old blog (Kristi Knits) that I had manually migrated over when I started Kitty’s Knitterbox.  Even though I had edited their date stamps so that they reflected when I had originally written them, the came into the RSS feed with the date of when I had moved them.  Fortunately, it was very quick for me to open each of them in Wordpress and edit back to the correct dates.  Otherwise, it worked amazingly well.

So far, I’m pretty impressed with Wordpress. I have a feeling that I’ll be a great Wordpress evangelist!

Stay tuned for more as I move things over from my old blog, Kitty’s Knitterbox.  Happy surfing!