Second Stop: Saturday

Continuing on our Saturday travel day posts; our next stop is Solvang, CA. This was a first time visit for all of us and we arrived at around 1pm. Lots of traffic into town but Hector's parking karma kicks in and he finds a great spot. :)

We spent about 2 hours here browsing shops with a lunch stop. For my souvenir shopping, I look for yarn and this trip did not disappoint. Solvang has 2 places for yarn and I found some yarn that I haven't knit with before so I bought some. That way I can associate the unique yarn to the place that I bought it at.

We found a great pizza spot called Tower Pizza by the windmill on Mission. Yummy thin crust crispy pizza. We know where to go next time. You know it's good when Hector talked about it for the rest of the weekend. :)

Another find was the aebelkivver...just a few doors from where we parked there is a restaurant with a walk up window with a constant line of people getting this yummy dessert. Of course, I didn't get any pictures of it because we dove right into it. It consists of 3 mandarin orange sized donut hole type things topped with raspberry jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar. It was very good. I even convinced Josh to try some even though he shies away from jam for the most part. He tried some and after that he didn't refuse a bite. Next time I will try the a la mode version...with ice cream.

Weekend: part 1

Phew, we had a jam packed weekend!! We started driving heading north and stopping in some random and designated spots. The traffic was stop n go in parts of the 101/1 and we barely missed being in 2 accidents. Seriously. You can ask Hector for the details because I got freaked out about it/them. Thank you God, for Hector's driving skills and my gasping skills. :)

So, of course along the way someone has to use the restroom (Hector) so we pulled off because he thought he saw a Carl Jr. which turned out to be a business building not a fast food stop. :) But there was a park area with a baseball field with  restrooms. There also was some trails leading to the coast so we thought it was a nice idea to stretch our legs. Just a short 1/4 mile path with people walking with their  dogs.

The kids ready for vacation.



Baby bunny.



Ocean view from the bluff.

Lizard sunbathing on a rock.

View of the hills.

My favorite guys.

Bonding.

Stay tuned for more....

More Waves

There seems to be a "wave" theme going on lately which is totally a coincidence. I had to run back out to take more pics of Tyler's socks since I keep forgetting in the afternoons when Tyler is home from school.

I modelled them on my feet which are too small but you get the idea...you can check out the other photos on my Flickr photostream. :)

Sock Photoshoot

I found the correct sock blockers so outside I went to take more photographs of the recent socks I made. I prefer to photograph the socks on real feet and unfortunately, these are too small for my feet (otherwise, I'd keep them). :)

Toe close up of Cadence socks.

This wilted hibiscus flower matched the sock colors exactly. Pretty!

I found a new prop to display the socks. Our run down, termite eaten fence.

The combo of the yarns and patterns I used elevated these socks into mini-works of art. That's what I like to think of them as. I hope the recipients will treasure them and actually wear them instead of tucking them into a drawer never to see the light of day.

It just shows that the right yarn will highlight the pattern and not overpower it.

Pomatomus toe close up.

Now that I finished 2 pairs in the last 5 days, I can focus on using leftover sock yarn in the next pair of socks. Ooh, that reminds me I should take more pictures of Tyler's wavy socks outside.

Off I go again...

Wavy socks

I'm making my way through my WIPs!! Yesterday I finished another pair that has been hibernating...Tyler's Citrus Wave socks.

Tyler chose the bright mix of colored sock yarn for his pair of knitted socks for Christmas. It is bright apple green, orange with some bright pink and white. At first I just knit them but it was a tad too colorful for an 11 year old boy so I frogged them and restarted again this time with a reticulated pattern that is pretty cool and shows off the the colors to their advantage.



These socks were conceived 12-31-10 and had a long gestation period where  last weekend, I picked them up.

Voila, they are finished! Tyler LOVES them and claims they feel so good which is awesome to hear. Of course, he won't get that much use out of them since summer is around the corner but I did make them with some growing room for later this year (I hope, fingers crossed).

I took these pics at night but add about 5 times to this for the brightness factor.

There are little mistakes but that what makes them precious and special. :)

Weekend Recap

So much activity this weekend. :)

Recap in photos:



Delicious treats at Get Shaved.


I'm posting photos out of order but you'll get the idea.

Sunset at Redondo Beach pier.

Pelicans waiting for fish guts.

My Artichoke Socks. A mystery pattern with beads.

Public skating time.

Josh had another ice hockey outing and this time, the kids were organized into teams for some scrimmage. Joshua really got into it and was busy skating back n forth playing offense and defense. He ended scoring 5 goals but the teams were evenly matched so it ended pretty much tied. :)

Too Many Projects

I have a serious problem. I love starting new projects. There are just so many cool/beautiful items just begging to be knit. My problem is that I'm sort of slow so finishing a project takes a ton of determination and willpower to stick with it until the end.

So my resolution is to not start any more projects until I finish half of the projects that are already on the needles. You may have seen from a previous post of several projects in progress and may think, "That's not so bad." It's more, way more.

Another wrench is that I pick projects that use fine thinner yarn like fingering/laceweight so that just ups the time factor. I do like worsted weight but after a week or so, my wrists start acting up so that's no good.

Okay, enough of my being boo-hoo, poor me, I have too many things to knit. I'll show some progress pics so I have some light at the end of the tunnel.

Pomatomus socks. Reminds me of waves/ripples.

My attempt at making paper stars. I found some origami paper that matched the sock pattern exactly !

Kusha Kusha scarf still in progress. If it didn't take so long, I'd make one for all of my girlfriends.

Sister, I'm a Poet

Is evil something you are or something you do?

Impromptu

I'm trying to challenge myself with photography. It doesn't always turn out the way I would like but there is always something to learn.

This afternoon, Amber gave me 3 little wildflowers that she picked on the way to the park. They were tiny, what most people would barely look at but I took them home. I attached the macro lens and put the little flowers in water and played around with it.

I put the gorilla-pod on but it didn't work, I was too close. So I improvised by propping the mini tripod against my chest and moved the flower into focus. I was by the kitchen sink so I used the off-white curtains as a backdrop.

These are the ones that I liked.

This reminds of a impressionist painting.

I loved how the petals were tinged pink.

I used my hanging avocado green dish towel as the backdrop.

The underside.

The flower beckons...

Blustery Day

I made it out today to see how the beach/coastline looked after the rains. It sure is windy and chilly today but beautiful. I started at Torrance beach and drove up the hill to Palos Verdes with stops along the way ending with Point Vicente.

Checking In

Nothing new to report although we had a super busy weekend where everyone had activities throughout Saturday and Sunday was spent cleaning my MIL's kitchen. Nuff said on that subject.

I was exhausted from the weekend hoopla so I stayed home Monday/Tuesday to do laundry and get caught up with our normal things.

Tuesday was free admission day to the Botanic garden near us but a late spring storm interrupted that fun.

Today is more wind and possible rain mixed in with the need to do grocery shopping. Fun day stored ahead for me. :)

I did catch up on some TV watching like Doctor Who, The Tourist and Gattica. Can you believe that Hector and I haven't seen the 1st 20 minutes of Gattica even though we've seen the rest of the movie lots of times.?..  Wow, it makes the movie come together when you see the whole thing! :)

Nyeh!

Some Nerf action.

Unique

I've had my eye on  a Kusha Kusha scarf for a while and finally decided to take the plunge. I found it online at Knit Purl who has excellent customer service btw and it arrived Wednesday.

I call it yarn although its appearance is more like thread. I showed the yarn to Hector and he replied, "That's not yarn." :) True. But the ultra cool thing is that one of the yarn is a stainless steel blend with wool.

This makes the scarf/garment malleable and it stays in the position. Knit it with another yarn then later lightly felt it to produce a unique artistic item. Remember the yarn is super thin and this is supposed to be a scarf so I have a long, long way to go.

Here are some photos to get you started.

I chose a lavender and charcoal gray.

up close view but looks shimmery silver from far away.

Abstract

The bouquet that Carlos sent me for Mother's Day is in full bloom so I whipped out the macro lens to get very close. I like these shots although I need to try again with a tripod. These are not as sharp as I'd like but I still like the blurry ones.

The side of the loveseat makes a nice backdrop.

Love the color, lines and texture. I just need to work on the sharpness.

Self Portrait: lighting

Second challenge of self protraits...lighting. I used one on MANY  of our LED flashlights laying around the house and converted the photo to BW. Voila.

Not the best but the best of what I got! :)

Amped and Ready

Yesterday, The Coffee Bean was giving away 3 flavors of ice blendeds between 4-7pm, thanks to an update from Hannah on FB.
The kids (Josh) wanted to go inline skating at the park but I postponed that idea for a bit to hustle and grab some ice blendeds. Tyler ordered a pom-blueberry drink before I could tell him that wasn't on the list of free drinks but hey, 2 out of 3 drinks free isn't bad. Joshua got cookies n cream and I tried the mocha chocolate chip. The cashier was kind enough to offer decaf for Joshua and I didn't think of doing the same for my drink. Doh!!

Oh well, our drinks was delicious and it was time to get active in the park. It always take time to get Joshua in all his safety gear but worth it while Tyler opted for his electric scooter.

Here are some pictures....

My boys are growing fast.

Josh waving.

Concentration.

Happy kid.