potpourri

It's been a long time since I've written, but I'm popping in with some catch-up!

I released my October Pins & Lace Club pattern yesterday. (Don't miss the sign-ups for 2013!)

I've called it Firebird, in thanks to the amazingly brave and wonderful firefighters who saved us over the summer fire season.

The full club kit came with a nickel shawl pin (an impressionistic take on wings), a sample of my favorite wool wash Kookaburra, and Spark lace yarn from Little Red Bicycle. It was a special color called Scarlet Sentinel in wool, silk and stellina metallic, which adds just a subtle sparkle to the yarn. 

The sample shown here is knit in The Grinning Gargoyle's lovely Divine Lace in Signature Red, as the mail gods conspired against my receiving Didi's yarn on time.

The shawl starts in the center (in the round) and is divided later

as part of it is bound off

and the two sides are worked into wings.

I used Rosemarie's belly button start for the center, which I love love love. But I am admitting here - to all of you who have similar troubles - I always have to start several times when I knit laceweight yarn in the round. Usually, I start and rip about 4 or 5 times, sometimes more. One of these days, I'll post a video of me starting and having all the needles fall out, just so you can all have a laugh!

A couple weekends ago, at the Carson City pool complex (indoor; Olympic-sized), Reno/Sparks teams hosted a meet and my little one, The Bear, got two JO times! This means he qualifies for a championship meet (Junior Olympics) and he cannot wait to go!

We are super excited for him. He is one positive little guy. (I wish that we could move his elder brother in the positive direction, but he seems determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Someone please tell me I am not alone here. It's so painful to watch him defeat himself.)

Last Friday, it was Nevada Day, which meant no school. It was also our 16th wedding anniversary. We all piled in the car to go up to Granlibakken and pick up a Clemes & Clemes wheel that had traveled down to SOAR via Tracy and Tom from Diane in Eugene, OR. What nice people! Spinners and knitters are truly the kindest people. Here she is. (I am sure she is a she, but I'm not sure why I think so.)

While I was at SOAR - only for about an hour total - I made a whirlwind tour of the market tent (yes - tent - and apparently not bear-proof) and stopped by the Verb for Keeping Warm booth to see two shivering friends (Kristine and Aday) from the California Bay Area. I will admit to having made some good-natured fun of them. And I had to snap a pic.

I stopped by Karen's booth and she insisted I take some of her lovely yarn. I couldn't refuse. So I chose two skeins for a new two color design.

I got a much needed niddy noddy from Clemes and Clemes.
I had wanted to replace the orifice hook on my new wheel,

but they hadn't brought any hooks with them. So this past weekend, Mr. Romi and I did a tandem project.

I love it.

In other news, Otto the Dog has a new necklace. (He can take it off, as well as put it on all by himself.)

We finally installed our new doorbell.

And...look at the splash of color up on the mountain!

There must be a seep or a running spring up there, and look at the lovely grove of aspens. We've been watching them change color as fall progresses.