Hampstead Wreath

Wow.  It has been a while.  This project was finished back in December and sent to my brother well before Christmas.  I thought this was going to be a really straight forward piece of knitting, and really it was, but this project progressed in fits and starts and took longer than it should have.  I didn't buy enough yarn the first time.  I bought too big a wreath form.  I think I knit and frogged the whole thing at least twice.  Needless to say, I was VERY happy when it was done.  Making the pom poms was a nice finish to a finicky project.

Road Trippin

November was a busy month.  Lots of driving.  Lots of Desert.  Lots of camping in the cold.  And lot of climbing.  We initially drove to Las Vegas and climbed at Red Rock National Conservation Area for a few days.  The weather was great during the day and we climbed some fun routes.  On the way back to Utah we drove through Zion National park, which was pretty amazing.  We ended up back at Indian Creek for a day (no pictures) and then spent a day in Kane Springs Canyon, where we climbed the Devil's Golf Ball and scouted out some other small towers.  Super fun trip and well needed break from work.

Road Trippin'- Red Rocks, Zion, and Kane Springs Canyon

Hallo-Creekend

The crew on the South Six Shooter Summit

Halloween at Indian Creek is quickly becoming one of my all time favorite things to do. I mean, who doesn't like climbing amazing cracks in full on Halloween costumes, eating bite sized candy by the campfire, and hanging out and climbing with friends? The highlight of the 2012 Hallo-Creekend was our group ascent of the South Six Shooter... in costumes. Yes, I climbed the whole thing in a T. rex fleece footie pajama ensemble.  Patagonia... why don't you make fleece onesies for adults? They make amazingly comfortable climbing kit.

Jaro setting up the rappels

Carol the ninja attacking 90s Hacker Jon

Ninja Carol with the North Six Shooter in the background

T. rex attacking Jaro

Kolby reaching the summit

T. rex airplane

Half Marathon the Third

I ran my third half marathon last weekend in Moab. What a great race.  Super well organized, great weather, bonfires with coffee and hot chocolate before the start, and mostly importantly a t-shirt AND a pint glass. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so the above is a shamelessly stolen official race pic. I used the Hal Higdon Novice 2 training plan... sort of... in theory... well, for about the first month, then work took over, but still.  I thought it was a great training plan!

Denim Camp Quilt

I've been setting aside old jeans for a while (why is it that they all seem to go at once?) in the hopes that I would some day have enough to make a blanket for the back of the truck. Well, to use when sleeping in the back of the truck. One of Jaro's friends was passing through town last month and brought me four pairs of old jeans. It was time to start working on the denim camp quilt.

I started by cutting up eight pairs of jeans (four pairs of my jeans + four pairs of guys jeans... that belonged to Jaro's fairly tall friend). There were lots of holes, worn areas, dirty tattered cuffs, etc that had to be cut out, but still a surprising amount of fabric. Once I had all the problems areas cut out, I squared up the remaining pieces and started sewing them together.

I managed to salvage a few pockets and work them into the design.

I also discovered that Henrietta really likes to play with sewing.

I sewed all the fabric into strips about 82 inches long. Unfortunately, I'm a few pairs of jeans short to get the quilt as wide as I want. So... it will have to wait for a while.

Lion Lake Hike

About 15 miles roundtrip. Beautiful day in RMNP.

Lion Lake Hike

Socks

I bought this oh so pretty Madeline Tosh Sock Yarn at Home Ec in Iowa City last May and finally decided it should be socks after all. There has been lots of drama with the first sock though. Cast on #1. Sock too big. CO #2 pooling. Rinse. Repeat. Over and over. I finally ended up alternating knitting from either end of the ball of yarn, but now I have an unpleasant jog and a seam I'm unhappy with. So sock #1 is going to hang out for a while and I'm going to quilt. July and August are starting to be my annual quilting season.