Sunday, May 09, 2010

Renegotiating

Some days it feels like spring. Some days it's still winter. You know how everyone from any state will say "you don't like the weather here, wait a minute and it will change?" Well, Nevada isn't quite like that, but it is unpredictable from day to day. Last week we had freezing days and warm days. By August it will be sunny, sunny, sunny, but for now we just don't know.

Jacque, Brian (the guy I've been seeing--for those of you who haven't yet heard), and I headed up to City of Rocks, which is across the border in Idaho. We checked the weather before we left and decided to believe the Weather Channel rather than noaa.gov. Wishful thinking. We all slept in Brian's old, giant Suburban, thank goodness. When we woke up in the morning, the truck windows were fogged up, but you could see ice and frost on them. Brian was hoping it was just because it was warm in the truck and cold outside. Nope. An hour later, when we really woke up, there was an inch of snow on the ground. So even though we were supposed to meet a whole group of people for a rock climbing weekend, we didn't want to hang out in the snow all day and so returned home.

We did climb in Lamoille Canyon all weekend, which was nice.


All this iffy weather makes it hard to settle on a project. I ordered yarn for a sweater, but it hasn't come yet. I've been making smaller things in the meanwhile, including the Daybreak I'm working on now.

I've finished two hats: Pasha and a basic hat with flower and a little something special. Pasha was fun, and I didn't have any trouble with the lace. I used Plymouth Yarn Dye For Me Baby Llama Glow that I bought in Portland. The sparkly bits add something to this already great pattern.


I've been wanting to try incorporating some LEDs into my knitting, so I ordered a kit from the Maker Shed. I knit a basic hat from some cotton (so I can wear it, yay!) and then used some of the yarn left over from Pasha to make a flower. The center of the flower is the LED. I wanted the battery to be at the top of the hat, but it was too far for the conductive thread. It's now on the inside of the hat behind the flower. Surprisingly, it doesn't bother my head. I can unsnap the flower, but I can't detach it. The flower is too floppy so I tacked it down. When I snap the flower to the hat, the light comes on. I'm thinking of an emergency-light beanie next. There are so many times when we climb late but have forgotten our headlamps. A beanie with some bright LEDs might be just the trick.