Ooh, that smell...

Last week, Mrs. TSMK and I set about trying to find something unusual to do over the weekend. And so we began to look at local happenings.

Without question, the most intriguing local event was happening in the town of Everett – which is north of Seattle. For this weekend was the annual Everett Sausage Fest.

We haven’t been to this festival before, and Mrs. TSMK was intrigued. I was less excited about the opportunity. You see, I have something of a one-penis rule. And the fact that we have three sons and two male dogs would already seem to be something of a violation of that rule. No, indeed - unless and until I got additional information about precisely what kinds of activities might take place at the Sausage Fest I wasn’t prepared to attend.

Lacking that essential information, and given that our oldest boy has never met a tube meat he didn’t hate, we decided to pass on the occasion.

So, instead of heading east toward what I hoped would simply be bratwurst, we headed west. Specifically, this weekend we found ourselves in the small town of Sequim – which is located on the uppermost part of the Olympic peninsula.

Sequim has the unique feature of being in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountains, meaning that it is often a bright sunny spot in the middle of our typical mist and gloom.  Also, I'm told it is the lavender capital of North America.

This sunshine and feels good on your face. But it comes at a price – and that price is confusion. For if you wander into Sequim unprepared you may find yourself wondering if you’ve stepped into a time machine. “Sequim” is an English adaptation of a Klallam word.  I’m not sure of the exact translation – but believe it is something like: “Land of the Early Bird Special.” According to the 2000 census, the median age of residents is just under 60. And I’m here to tell you that it hasn’t gotten any younger in the last 10 years.

Now seeing as Mrs. TSMK and I grew up in Florida – we actually found Sequim’s demographics rather comforting. But the look on the face of our poor waitress at lunch suggested that not everyone shares that view. She was approximately 20 years old – and clearly the youngest person in the restaurant (apart from our three boys). And we were the youngest patrons by at least 30 years. As she moved from table to table in the restaurant, attempting to drown out the piped in elevator music versions of 1950s and 1960s pop music, the poor girl seemed like she was about to crack under the strain. She looked, in short, like someone who was praying for death.

But I digress.

We went to Sequim not to feel young. But rather to attend my first fiber arts festival. It was small, but very cool. I met a number of amazing knitters. And I walked away with some great additions to the stash – about 750 yards of some wonderful hand-painted laceweight alpaca and about 600 yards of locally produced wool from a Sequim sheep.

I did, however, pass on one particular offering.  I know that there are many who enjoy spinning chiengora.  And I too may give it a shot at some point.  But I draw the line at buying a bag of dog.

Now, to figure out what to do with the alpaca.  I may need to use some of that for a Christmas present...

~TSMK

The Importance of Pacing

By my calculation, there are 88 days between today and Christmas. 

Also by my calculations, I have approximately 88 things I'd like to make people this year.

So - given that I have not yet figured out how to consistently manipulate the space-time continuum, I'm need to pare down my own expectations.  That means that I've decided to focus on one hand-made item for each person on a relatively short list of family and friends.  As in prior years, however, I make no claims that I'll be able to stick to that approach for some people on the list.

The good news is that I've already finished one item.  The bad news is that I can't post terribly revealing photos of any Christmas items I might finish here before the holiday itself, because all the people for whom I'm going to knit this year are aware of the blog.  But I can post extremely close-up photos of objects in various states of completion.  And, as long as I don't say who the item is for (or even what the item is), I feel like the secret is maintained.

With that in mind, here is the item currently on the needles.  Made from Misti Alpaca Baby Suri Silk, it is extremely soft and is proving to be quite nice to knit.  This one should be done within a few days, at which point I'll move on. 

Must stay on pace.






~TSMK

The Christmas Gift

Have you ever tried to make something for someone that lives in your own house without them knowing about it? This happened to me late last November.

I wandered into my local yarn shop (Churchmouse Yarns & Teas on Bainbridge Island - fantastic shop and highly recommended), and hunted around for ideas. I wanted to make Mrs. TSMK a Christmas gift, but hadn't decided on the item. One of the shop samples caught my eye. It was a really nice shawl with a drop stitch pattern. After chatting a bit with one of the ladies in the shop, I learned that it was a called a Clapotis (pattern here: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall04/PATTclapotis.html) - done in Misti Alpaca handpainted baby suri silk. This, I thought, would be something Mrs. TSMK would enjoy. I picked out some yarn, went home and surreptitiously printed out the pattern, and hid yarn and pattern away from prying eyes.


Christmas was a short four weeks away, and I needed to move fast. I carried the project with me every work day, knitting as possible on the ferry and at lunch in a quiet (read: deserted) coffeeshop blocks from my office. Every weekend, I would disappear to "run errands," always ending up either at Churchmouse or some other local spot where I could knit. Every night, I patiently waited for Mrs. TSMK to get sleepy so that she would wander upstairs to bed, allowing me to work on the gift undisturbed.


Gradually, I began to panic. The pattern isn't especially complicated, but it is a lot of knitting. Mrs. TSMK started asking me why I wasn't coming to bed until the early hours of the morning. She began trying to sit up later every evening, so that we might have some time together without the kids. I countered by controlling the remote control and turning to the most boring, sleep-inducing programs I could find. On December 22, just before midnight, I knit the last stitch.


Now, this pattern demonstrates that there are at least two kinds of people. Those who will unravel all the dropped stitches as they go, and those who will wait until the end to unravel all the dropped stitches in the finished piece. I waited to the end. I put the piece in my satchel, and headed off to bed, planning to unravel the dropped stitches the following day.

The next morning, on the ferry, disaster revealed itself. I had failed to drop a critical stitch, about 3 inches from the end of the piece. I was crushed. I searched around for advice from knitting friends, as well as the Churchmouse staff. I looked on Ravelry for suggestions from anyone who might have committed this sin before. There was unanimous agreement that the only true way to fix it, was to rip back to the mistake, and reknit. And so that's what I did. I finished the piece, wrapped it and put it under the tree for Mrs. TSMK at around 1:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. -TSMK


Here is the finished product: