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Hi, Jan,

I’ve done it. I’ve cast on for my version of Forest Darkness and I’ve accepted the new position. The scale of both are challenging.

Deep into the Forest, as I’m calling my sweater, is knit at 8.5 st/inch and something on the order of 13-14 rows per inch. It’s like knitting 3 sweaters from worsted weight - instead of something like 36 st/square inch, you have 120 stitches per square inch. One row took me over 15 minutes, but I’m hoping it is because it is in ribbing and it was the cast on row, which is always a lot slower to knit, especially at tiny gauge. And the yoke increases to over twice in diameter before you start straight knitting. I’m figuring somewhere around 4 hours per inch and the sweater is about 24 inches, so maybe 100 hours to knit this sweater? But add in for a bit more sleeve length and the slower pace on the yoke - I am going to guess 130. It will be either fun or crazy-making to keep track.

(What knucklehead chose black as the background color? I will need good light on this baby.)

The scale of my new group is large rather than tiny, and definitely daunting. (Not to mention, I am leaving some very, very good friends behind in the old group and actually moving to a different building (Jeanne, we’ll get together for lunch, really!).)

I’m going from indirect management of lots of small projects to managing a group of somewhere around 15 - 18 people who each have very big projects. I’ve lucked out in that performance appraisals are just being done for the group, so I have a year before I have to face that challenge. Still, it is a giant change for me. I am happy about it, as I see my real value for the company to be my management skills, but I am a bit terrified.

At least Deep into the Forest doesn’t terrify me. (Perhaps I shouldn’t speak too soon.)

Love,

Ellen

Dear Ellen,

It was good talking to you today. I do think we need to plan our mini-break in celebration of the upcoming milestone. Something involving fiber would be fun, but any time we get to hang out will be fine with me. Let’s see what we can come up with.

Remember my asking about the curliness of your hair when you were in DC for Marie’s wedding? Well, I got mine trimmed the other day and the stylist asked if she could have some fun and “encourage my curls” during the blow-dry. I gave her the go ahead and here’s the result. I think it’s pretty cute…and can do it myself, but my usual habit is to pull it back or put it up when I get out of the shower — this will be fun for special events though.

What do you think this is?

Hint: it’s not a Baby Surprise.

See if you can work it out and I’ll tell you at the end of the post.

I finished the socks I worked on during part of our trip west. I’m quite pleased with them now, but they really drove me crazy during the process of completing them. I finished the first one and bound it off and then decided It was too short. Here’s the saga — Okay, the second sock is already on the needles, so I’ll knit it to a better length and then go back and add on to the other. The ends aren’t yet woven in, so at least it won’t be too hard to frog back to the last row of knitting. Okay, this length is much better. Now to try it on…What? Crap, what was I thinking…this is a standard-bind off instead of an elastic bind-off. I’m going to have to redo it…but not tonight. Okay, it’s a new day, let’s get that bind-off fixed. Gee, in my hand this bind-off is fairly elastic, strange that it was so unforgiving on my foot. Well, it’s redone now, let’s try it on. What the @#%$??!! Double crap! I just redid the bind-off on the sock that was too short! Good grief, that sock will end up with three bind-offs by the time I’m done with it. Okay, settle down and pick up the LONG SOCK. This is definitely it…redo the bind-off and now it fits great. Now, pick up the SHORT SOCK and frog back to the meandering rib pattern and add four more repeats and then bind-off using an elastic bind-off. Am I out of yarn already? Oh brother! I picked up the wrong leftover yarn to add on to the sock…now I have to add yet another length of yarn. Back to business…and FINALLY finished. And they do fit perfectly, so in the end it’s worth it. I like the pattern stitch. I made it up on the fly when I decided I didn’t want just plain ribbing to the top…I’m sure it’s in some stitch dictionary, but I’m calling it meandering rib and think it looks like a nuance of mock-cable.

Figure it out yet? Here’s another picture in process to help you guess. At this point it should be fairly easy. And here’s a shot of how the dogs have stolen it for a bit of a romp. (I confess, this shot is only included because I love the look of Ruby galloping.)

We had a really great morning yesterday. We got up pretty early for a Saturday and headed over to Barr Mountain. The dogs came along for what turned out to be a three hour tour hike. (Did you hear the theme song to Gilligan’s Island as you read that?) It was GORGEOUS. We started out with Max christening the trail head — his own form of adoption. (BTW, did you know that this area has the highest population of Wiccans in the country?) Every time you turned a switchback you saw another view of the foothills leading up to the Rocky Mountains. And the trail was bordered by some very impressive boulders. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife (after all there we’re many hikers), but I did spot this hummingbird. It kindly lit on this tree to let me take its picture. After we had been on the trail for a while (passing and being passed by many other hikers, some of whom had their dogs off leash), we decided to try Ruby off leash. We thought she’d be unlikely to charge off without us as she was sticking pretty close. She did great…seemed to love the extra bit of liberation and did stay with us very nicely. She even followed instruction when we would call her to the side to let a runner go by. (Comment on the runners — they’re insane. The trail was very rocky in places, lots of “ankle grabbers,” and in places quite steep. The one guy on the mountain bike…forget it!) Based on her fine performance we let Max off lead as well and he did nearly as well as Ruby. We stopped for water and to climb some rocks…the dogs thought they were king and queen of the world! When we got back to the car we were all pretty well bushed, but Dale and I didn’t have the option of just crashing like someone else.

Yes, you’re right! It is a doggy bone! It has the sound device from one of the dog’s favorite toys inside…they loved that toy so much that when it totally fell apart I decided I’d have to knit a replacement of some sort. I used nylon cording to try to make it as non-destructible as possible and I modified a commercial pattern for a felted dog bone. Ruby is quite appreciative, but she has a bit of trouble picking it up. Max carries around quite nicely, but wouldn’t let me get a picture of him doing so.

Enough for now back to working on my first Baby Surprise.

Love, Jan

Dear Ellen,

Like Christina, I am not tagging anyone as I do believe I’m out of bloggers.  Herewith, my answers:

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:

Doing research and analysis as an associate fellow on the Chief of Naval Operations’ Strategic Studies Group.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Go see the quarters that have been assigned to us (the current resident invited us).   Take the doggies on their morning walk (see previous post).  Take my first block of training as an event assessor (watch officer in the command center).  Finish one of my wavy ribs socks (I did, but was clearly in a brain fog when I did a standard bind-off on these toe up socks….now taking the bind-off out and redoing it is on tomorrow’s to-do list.)  Give Dale many kisses.  (I could have bored you with many other work things…the kisses were more fun.)

3. Snacks I enjoy:

sushi, sugar-free Popsicles, pretzels and hummus, almonds, tangelos, Ritter Sport; peanut buster parfait

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Support cancer research, lobby for better immigration laws (supporting opportunities for citizenship), establish an education foundation dedicated to making good and creative education available to all, build a gathering place — a home in which to live with room for friends and family to come and stay and play and create and be with nature.

5. Places I have lived:

Medina, OH; Gainesville, FL; Fayetteville, NC; Spring Lake, NC; Cheltenham, MD; Alexandria, VA; Aiea, HI; Billerica, MA; Kingston, MA; West Point, NY; Burke, VA; Norfolk, VA; Middletown, RI; Jacksonville, FL; Arco Felice, Italy; Vienna, VA; Norfolk, VA; Portsmouth, VA; Colorado Springs, CO

Love, Jan

Hi, Jan,

What a prolific blogging period we’re having! It must be the long days.

A few more beans are up in the garden. So far, the golden brown beans are much more enthusiastic, but today I spied a few seedlings in the rows that were planted with the chestnut red seeds. The plants shown are from the golden seeds, in fact, the same as yesterday just a little further along.

The blooms for the day are Geranium sylvaticum ‘Silva’. They resemble the cranesbill geranium that grows in the forest, hence Silva is an appropriate varietal. They’ve done nicely in my garden, which means they do well left to their own devices.

Finally - another taste of Bohus knitting. I have just about decided to knit my Forest Darkness kit as a cardigan as I’ll get a lot more use out of it if I can slip it on and off at work. I wanted to see how it would be to knit the patterns back and forth instead of in the round, so I’m using my leftover yarn from the Blue Shimmer Wristlets to knit a little swatch with which I will cover an old hair clip after I check my gauge. While it was a little awkward at times knitting back and forth, I wasn’t highly annoyed, so I think I’ll move forward as planned. And I found the knitting every bit as addictive as the first time. Watch for Forest Darkness to appear on the needles soon!

Annelis tagged me a couple of days ago, so here are my answers to the current meme:

The Rules - Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

OK, let’s see:

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:

Just finishing my first year working full time as a product developer. I believe I spent much of that summer going in to work on weekends to count mold colonies on challenge studies. Good times.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Try to get back on Minnesota time after several days in Vancouver (some yawns, but pretty much OK), attack the 120+ emails that came in while I was traveling (cleared over 100!), initiate intellectual property discussions with a university professor (got a start, anyway), pick up my new bite wing (seems I’ve been grinding my teeth off at night), study Spanish (next on my list after I finish here).

3. Snacks I enjoy:

roasted pumpkin seeds, gin and tonic (what, that isn’t a snack?), sourdough pretzels, hummus and pita chips

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire:

Fund environmental research, buy land for conservation purposes, help kids get college educations, design and build the perfect tiny house on the perfect bit of land
5. Places I have lived:

Medina, OH; Columbus, OH; Wickliffe, OH; Willowick, OH; Lakewood, OH; Blacksburg, VA; Harrisonburg, VA; Columbus, OH; Minnetonka, MN

I tag:

Jan

Cheryl

Karen

Christina

Marianne

Robyn

Dear Ellen,

Now starts a series of posts to catch you up on our comings and goings. Of course, you know we’re already in Colorado Springs (the Springs, or COS for short), but as we haven’t talked and I’ve been pathetic about posting, you don’t have any of the fun details of how we got here.

After we finished packing out our household goods, John and Betsy K. were our very gracious host and hostess for our last week in Norfolk. I can’t believe I didn’t get pictures of our dogs together (they have a cute little shelty), but at least I got some shots of the human folks. We really enjoyed staying with them and doing stuff like going to the Greek Fest, just hanging out and relaxing. I did have to work, but I didn’t have to worry about preparing for the pack out since it was already done. And it’s one of the more stressful aspects of a move for me. We made it a point to get together with Kathy and Jim N. at our favorite brunch spot (Brutti’s on Court Street in Portsmouth!) — so nice to have such great friends.

I also intrigued Betsy with knitting to the point where she decided she wanted to give it a shot. (She had been thinking about it for a while.)  We went to Ewe Knit Kits and Yarn and picked out some great Merino Otto in the shadow colorway and after I made her practice on some cheap acrylic economical basic yarn, we got her started on her first project. It’s a ribbed scarf…I either blogged about this before or am experiencing deja vu. (As disoriented as I’ve been lately, I wouldn’t be surprised!) I think she’s doing quite well…a real natural knitter — and look at that concentration!  I’m hoping for an update soon. I finished Mark G’s sock and a half, but didn’t get it mailed before we left. (Okay, so I haven’t gotten around to mailing it yet!)

We had a wonderful time with good friends and hated to say goodbye, but the time did come and we got on the road. It was something of a tight squeeze, what with two large humans, a goodly quantity of luggage and our two furry friends. They were great travelers and didn’t complain once about the cramped quarters. I think they knew they were on the way to see their boy down at the Navy Supply School in Athens, Georgia.

Tomorrow…Allen graduates from Supply School…and what you see on the way to COS.

Love, Jan