One Crazy Fiber Lady

I finally have my first real finished knitted item.  I finished my first sweater of 2013!

The pattern is Caramel, which I found on Ravelry.  The yarn is Wyndham Worsted from Into the Whirled, the solid was Stark and the multi is Queen of France.  I opted for a shorter sleeve as I push the darned things up anyway.  I also carried the unused yarn on the inside between stripes so I had minimal ends to bury.   We know how much I love finishing work!  This will get a nice blocking over the weekend and hopefully a beauty shot.  Now to maybe finish off that sock.

On the exercise front, I took a break from running this morning.  Last night I dug my bike out from where dad had hidden it in the garage.  After tightening the handlebars and filling the tires with air, I was ready to add riding to the morning exercise regime.  So this morning at 6:15 I headed out for my first real ride (not counting pedaling through the park 2 years ago with the little ones who were new to 2 wheelers and no training wheels).

Not great, but not too shabby.  I’m restarting the C25k but outside tomorrow and will alternate that with bike rides.    This getting healthy and active thing is addictive!

Craft on!

I’ve almost got the first sock of the year done.  So close!

I went for my first morning outside run today.  Did better than previous outside runs, but not as far or as fast as I do on the treadmill. 

I’m learning there’s a big difference between treadmills and the outdoors!  I’m more than a little tempted to restart the C25K outside.  I think I’ll do that tomorrow.  Now to come up with activities for the “rest” days.  Might be time to pull out and tune up the bike I bought last summer but have never ridden 😉

Craft on!

It shouldn’t come as news, particularly to those who know me well, that I’m usually in motion!  These days, I’m up early and go go go.  This morning was no different.  I was up and on the treadmill early.  I did my first 5k!

The early slow bits was my warm up walk.  In the future, I’ll do the warm up walk, then start up my Nike+ SportWatch to track the running.  I’m quite pleased with my performance this morning!  Not too shabby for someone who couldn’t run a block to catch a train or who got shin splints if walking “too fast”. 

Color me surprised too! 

Since I had so much activity this morning, I decided the afternoon was for knitting.  I finished knitting the body of Caramel. 

I tried it on and decided that I’m not going to do long sleeves on this, but just above the elbows. I might soon have my second finished object of 2013!

Craft on!

I mentioned the new running thing.   Since I’ve been running inside on the treadmill for the winter, I figured it was time to move outside.  We won’t mention that I bought myself a Nike+ SportWatch with GPS and needed to be out side to calibrate the shoe pod correctly.  I tested it initially on the treadmill and the readings were so far off that outside was the only fix.  So000 Thursday at lunchtime, I hit the mall near the office.  Nice new Adidas store with helpful nice employees.  First they showed me a new sneaker.  I know I just bought some Asics on Zappos, but they put me in a pair of Boost that had my feet singing.  I sent the Asics back to Zappos this morning.  Another plus is that the Boost has that foot pod compartment in the sole so I don’t have to worry about attaching it to the laces somehow.  After the sneaks, I bought some outdoor clothes, maybe not the choicest ones, but they’ll get use. 

Anyway, Friday afternoon I took the act outside.  It was cold, overcast sort of day.  I had bundled up, compression capris, long pants, t-shirt, pullover, jacket.  I sadly forgot a hat and gloves.  I did my warm up walk and then got to business.  I needed a half mile to get the watch GPS/foot pod thing sorted out.  I was hoping to go farther, but it wasn’t to be.  Evidently I ran faster outside than I normally do on the treadmill.  My C25K training had been at 4mph for the run (jog) but out on the street, my watch paced me at 6mph.  Which is what I’m aiming for for the triathlon!  Go me.  I fizzled out at .52 miles though as my lungs were burning and my hands/ears were freezing.  All in all, an excellent first effort.

Saturday, I hit up a few more stores and picked up better winter wear.  Timely shopping as the stores are packing away or putting on clearance the winter gear since the calendar is reading almost spring.  We’ll ignore that the forecast has snow this afternoon.  Sigh.  With stops at Sports Authority, Lady Foot Locker and Old Navy, I’ve enough gear for the remainder of the winter and into spring.  I went back outside in some new Nike Dri Fit stuff, a lands end hat and running gloves.  I decided that instead of a straight out run, I’d do outside 5K training with the routine from RunMeter.  It was pretty awesome. 

I had the biggest surprise Saturday morning when I woke up with a headache.  My first thought was to wonder if a run would get rid of the headache.  I was totally amazed.  I guess that means I’m a runner now!  How fast was that transition?!  Anyway, I’m not thrilled with the Lands End hat and since I’d read somewhere that a wool hat was best, I figured I could do something about that.  The knitter would take care of the runner!  I dipped into the stash after surfing through the patterns in my Ravelry library and got busy knitting up my first Turn a Square.

I know the solid pink is some Cascade 220.  Not sure about the multi stuff.  I could be that or maybe some Lornas.  I started this Saturday night and finished it last night.  Next outside run will be the tester, though with the weather early this week, it probably won’t be for a few days.  I don’t know how I’ve avoided knitting this hat before.  Its a nifty little pattern!  I’ll have to make more of them 🙂

This hat is also my first completed knit object for this year.  I can’t remember the last time that it took until mid—March to finish something!  Oy.  Someday this pair of socks will be done.

I took the above while my computer rebooted this morning at the office.  Stupid thing wasn’t ready to come back from the weekend.  I wasn’t so much either, but since I didn’t have a choice, neither did it!  I can’t imagine why the cuff is striping differently than the foot unless my gauge is different (not usual) or my stitch count changed after the short row heel (probably).  Curious.  I just counted.  Its the gauge that changed.  Very weird.  Though, I did knit the bulk of the foot while in warmer climates on a cruise ship and not while waiting for computer things to happen!

Craft on!

or rather the new normal…

Coming back from vacation is usually a challenge.  Honestly I can’t believe that it is over and that the next cruise is going to be July 2014.  My parents will be celebrating their 50th anniversary and taking all us kids and grandkids on a cruise!   We booked it while aboard the ship this time, much like this year’s cruise was booked aboard last year.  It is a wonderful vacation and other than one day when the sea was a bit rough due to a cold front, I managed fine with no nausea and a set of pressure point bracelets.  No patch for me this year, I didn’t enjoy the withdrawal symptoms last year.  They were awful!

Anyway…while I no longer have the train commute to knit, I also no longer have 2+ hours of commuting either.  My round trip is under an hour.  I know.  Still makes me giddy.  I have an additional hour at home now!  Last night I used that hour in a very familiar way:

Yes, that’s a Kindle Paperwhite under that there sock in progress.  I have to say that while I wasn’t overly impressed with the Kindle Touch, I do very much like the Paperwhite.  I don’t have any of the issues with it that I did with either the Touch or the dopey Nook version.

The sock is more Into the Whirled monthly yarn club yarn, this time in Sterrennacht, the Jan 2013 color.   I might not be cranking them out as quickly as I used to.   This sock has been around as I had it on the ship too, and it goes back and forth to work should I get stuck in a traffic jam or something.  Most of my knitting time recently has been on this:

The project is Caramel, and the yarn is also Into the Whirled, but her worsted weight stuff.  Colors are Stark (grey) and Queen of France (multi).  Love love love this.

In other news that hasn’t been posted here, in January, I bought a treadmill

and started the Couch-to-5k.  I even ran on the ship while we were on vacation.  I have to say, it was beautiful early one morning, running on the treadmill, while the ship pulled in an moored in Dominican Republic off Samana.  I graduated from the program this week and am now doing interval training to pick up my speed and endurance.  I’ve lost 7lbs and 2” and am watching what I eat.  I’m signed up to do a triathlon sprint distance with my sister in July where I’ll run the 5k.

Since I started running, I’ve been sleeping better and overall feeling better.  Even my craptastic ankles are doing better!  Whodathunk that!  I’m even getting up earlier than normal and hitting the treadmill before work!  I’m honestly gobsmacked.  I hated with a capital H running prior to starting this.

So that should bring us closer to being up to date.  I’ve got to get back to coding stuff.  More shortly. 

Craft on!

Its been one of those periods where I’ve meant to blog, but just haven’t.  One thing or another has kept me from doing so.  Mostly it is an allergy to computers.  I’ve hit the point where I spent all day in front of the computer for the day job or the side job, that I just don’t want to spend additional time.  Work is busy busy busy these days.  I might have complained over the summer about not having anything to do at work but that is surely not a problem now.  I’m putting in a 45+ hour week (and getting paid for every one of those hours – G-d bless being a consultant) so that’s why blogging is srsly reduced.

Tuesday we got back from the yearly cruise to the Caribbean.  Not too much to write now that I haven’t written in the past three years.   We took the same ship out of the same port on the same itinerary as the past years from 2/24 thru 3/5.  It was a wonderful 10 day break from the daily grind.  I brought a couple of my dearly treasured new Golding spindles with me.  Here’s my Tibetan Flower peaking at the harbor in St. Thomas.

We took an outing to Trunk Bay in St. John to do some snorkeling.  My spindle (and I) really loved the beach there!

We then went to that pretty little island in the bay near Samana, Dominican Republic were we went two years ago, Cayo Levantado.  Tibetan Flower was joined by her sister, Moon Cats for that excursion.

The final stop was Labadee in Haiti. I thought I had a beach picture like the above, but I lost my mind in all that sun and warm.  Best I managed:

The spindles (and the kids) and I had a lovely trip.  Slowly getting back to normal.  The snow outside is NOT helping 😉

Craft on!