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.

Infected

Yep.  I caught it.  The Color Affection shawl infection like a gazillion other knitters.  Here are some pics of my version in cascade alpaca lace.  

Socks... that don't match

I finally finished my second pair of log cabin socks... and uh... they don't match. Actually, I caught the mismatch before they were done and was just too lazy to frog and reknit. I mean... no one is going to SEE the mistake right? That part of my foot will be in a shoe. : ) I think I like the right foot version better than the left foot. I knit the right foot first.

But really... I knit these socks with the thought in mind that I would wear them with my Birkenstock clogs since they have this neato cable pattern running down the back of the heel. This picture is kind of dark, and wonky, and shows how dirty my kitchen floor is, but you can kind of get the idea of the pattern.

Shit. I just noticed another mismatch in the heel. Hmm. Maybe I should pay more attention to the knitting and less to the TV. I must have been watching something fascinating.

Details: Log Cabin Sock from Handknit Holidays, knit in Cascade 220 superwash shade 1910.

So Much Sand

I climbed my first desert tower (well, mini-tower) last weekend. Super windy and lots of blowing sand, but spectacular views of the desert below.