Ten Thousand Dancing Stars

My mother-in-law lives in the Green Community in Dubai and she is all on her own for the summer. She invited us to spend Friday night with her and naturally for us it meant having a barbecue.

Bernie and I drove back home after photography class to pack up some stuff and then headed to the shops to pick up the items for our barbecue. Good thing it wasn’t Ramadan yet. It was just after mid day when we got there along with my brother-in-law Larry and his family.

It was hot so we spent time indoors until the sun was about to set. I also managed to put in 3 loads of laundry which would otherwise have been sitting at home in Sharjah all through the weekend and we’d end up without any clean clothes!

I unfortunately have no photos of dinner, which was relished quite faster than anyone anticipated. The pork was tender and yummy, the fish was excellent and the sweetened banana dessert and coffee were the perfect end to a great meal. After the table was cleared, we decided to take a stroll with the sole purpose of taking photographs.

A sharp image is always desirable in photography but I like this blurry photo of a back-street which I took on manual settings and with my husband asking me to hurry up. There’s an air of eeriness about it.
Apparently there is a light and water display in the area near the tennis courts so we headed that way. There were a couple of guys playing tennis and I really don’t get why they do because it was really hot that evening.

It turns out the colourful lights get switched off at 10pm and we got there just after that, so we stuck to other areas instead. Not a total loss if you ask me.
The entrance between the Green Community and the Marriott Courtyard has this water feature with lights and a gazebo. It was just begging to be photographed! I cannot remember all the settings but this was shot using my Sigma 70mm lens, Manual mode, 20 seconds, ISO 100, f2.8.
I didn’t like the colour so I adjusted the white balance to Shade I think and increased the shutter speed to 30 seconds and aperture to f5. Unfortunately the auto-timer on the lights kicked in too so this is not as bright as I would have liked.
I then moved my attention to one of the lit towers across the garden path. This was just at 2 seconds on f2.8. I like the low lights best esp the green glow of the grass.
My mother-in-law’s place is home to three furry friends. It was difficult photographing them as they kept on moving. I now have a renewed respect for people with pets. Yes, Lee, that includes you my dear friend.

This here is the cat Snowy. He came out at the start of the evening when the barbecue was being fired up. Probably hoping he could catch a few morsels.
Gotcha! He was in for some tuna treat hence the tongue.
Meet Shandi, not really sure what breed he is but he was so cute.And this is his friend, Snowy. Yes, I know my mom-in-law’s kids are not very creative when it comes to names. This furball is quite cute, don’t you think?Even his nose is irresistable!

This Friday, our photography class is going to the Dubai Heritage Village for our first outdoor event and practical evaluation. We are expected to shoot in full manual mode, JPG only and no post-processing. Yikes!

I signed up for the KAL on Ravelry with a different colourway (Love) which unfortunately didn’t impress me so much. The striping was alright but when it got to the Cotty lace pattern, I lost all interest. Looks like I will end up knitting a Gathered Scarf with this skein after all.
I also didn’t quite like the unstretchiness of the picot cuff. After looking at a few project pages, it seems like a 1×1 rib is suitable for this pattern so I just had to decide on a replacement colourway. I bought 4 skeins of STR Mediumweight in Jasper in the hopes of knitting my daughter a February Lady Sweater. It actually turned out to be too thin a yarn so that plan was scrapped.

Because Jasper is in the purple family and Eileen loves purple, I decided to knit this pair of socks for her. Our feet are mostly the same size and shape and with a bit of adjustment I could knit it so that she won’t complain about the socks being too tight or loose.
I turned the heel of the first sock without so much as a hiccup, just occassionally glancing at the pattern to guide me but basically just gliding along happily.

It would have been finished sooner had we not spent the weekend at my mother-in-law’s place where we had amazing barbecue. Yes, I blame the barbecue.

However as soon as we go back home around midday I worked on the gusset decrease and the foot right up until dinner. I worked some more on the foot while watching a DVD and then started the toe decreases as I sat on the edge of my seat during part 2 of Torchwood: Children of Earth.

I do not recommend knitting when watching something as exciting as Capt. Jack Harkness handcuffed to a wall sans clothes. still the socks turned out very well. Pardon the ginormous calves.
I love the colourway. Purple and shades of it will always fascinate me. I love the yarn. Blue Moon Fiber Arts knows their fiber and Tina Newton knows her colours. I’m beginning to like the mediumweight more and more, which would explain the 8 skeins currently in my BMFA cart.
Since I didn’t do long socks, I had a hefty bit of yarn left which will contribute to the Ruffles That Rock for Eileen.
I love this toe. I know some knitters hate grafting but I like it. I just recite the Kitchener Mantra in my head as I go: knit off, purl leave, purl off, knit leave. Oh and yes, this is my eleventh pair of socks this year.
Project: Eileen’s Cotty
Pattern: Cotty Socks by Carrie Sullivan (aka Irishgirlieknits)
Yarn: Socks That Rock Mediumweight
Colourway: Jasper
Needles: 2.5mm
Cast on: 20 Aug 2009
Cast off: 23 Aug 2009
Notes: Cast on using double long tail method which makes it super stretchy. I used 1×1 rib for 15 rows on the cuff.

Cot, a small boat; cotty. *definition according to Irish Local Names Vocabulary*

Yesterday, we spent time at my mother-in-law’s place at the Green Community. In between doing a couple batches of laundry, getting the barbecue ready and knitting on my socks, I managed to take some photos of flowers around the garden.

I have no idea what this flower is called but there were lots of them when I was in elementary school.
Of course I had to whip out the extension tubes and attempt some macro shots! This poor bud is one of the first victims.
While her sister came next. I find this lack of colour a bit frustrating but I got some water droplets so I’m cool.
Okay, let’s zoom in a bit more, shall we? There.This is from the next pot and again I think it’s a bit washed out but the bright pink makes up for it.
Finally, some colour! Sunshine yellow too!And a couple of little pink ones.
Okay so these are not flowers but I couldn’t resist. We had these grilled for dinner. Yum.

I saw the email from Sheri Berger first before reading the blog post announcing the names of the winners.

The Loopy Ewe, one of my favourite purveyors of yarn, is celebrating their 3rd year anniversary this month and Sheri is running contests that, funny enough, involves the number 3. All you had to do was comment on her contest blog post and the Almighty Random Number Generator Thing will pick a number, or two, or five. One of those random numbers belong to my blog comment.

Sheri announced the winners here. Yes, that’s my name right there. I think I am the only Loopy Groupie in Dubai.

What did I win? Apparently 3 skeins of yarna nd 3 accessories are m aking their way from Missouri to Dubai right about now.

Someone wipe this stupid grin from my face before I get a cramp. Or not!

Thanks agian, Sheri!

This means that I am only two pairs away from achieving my personal target of 12 pairs of socks for 2009. Woo-hoo!

I had problems with this pattern in the beginning, not because of the design but because of my own shortcomings, apparently despite over 14 years of schooling, I don’t understand plain English. My eyes read something and my brain hears something else altogether! I got there in the end with great help from fellow STR knitters. Thank you, you know who you are!

And if you don’t that’s you Nartian and LynneE, and of course the pattern designer Hunter.I always block my socks and this one grew a bit in height which is fine for me. Perfect fit too! I knitted it as per the pattern, only discarding the KTBL’s and knitting them all plain. The dipper stitch and the 4 YOs are knitted through the back loops though.
I bought this wool wash in the local Carrefour called Earth Choice and it comes in a very nice eucalyptus scent. The water bled red though which alarmed me a bit. Not sure if the finished socks look a bit faded or if it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me. I like it though even the brighter red streaks that breaks up the darker tones.
I think every STR skein is actually a bit more than the 350 yards printed on the ball band because despite working a fairly large pair of socks I still have this much left.

Project: Dippers
Pattern: Dippers by Hunter Hammersen
Yarn: Socks That Rock Lightweight
Colourway: Mustang Sally
Needles: 2.25mm for foot, 2.5mm for leg
Cast on: 29 July 2009
Cast off: 18 Aug 2009
Notes: Dropped the KTBLs and knitted them plain. I misread the gusset decrease instructions so my gusset does not look anything like the original design, but I like it anyway. I kitchenered the last 11 stitches of the toes.

She introduced me to a series penned by mother and daughter writing tandem, P C Cast and Kristin Cast. I hunted for the book as soon as our knitting meet was finished and ended up with this copy when I got home. I admit it’s written for young adults but it is really engaging. I just haven’t read so much of it yet but the story is getting really interesting now that Zoey is in the House of Night.

Thanks for the rec, Lindsay!
I recently bought a set of the Friends DVDs and the other night found this episode where Monica was knitting, Chandler was being the swift and Rachel was winding the ball. Knitting on TV – how cool is that? Monica is a thrower by the way.
More knitting news. I bought Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways for Sock Knitters a few months ago and started reading but then we went on holiday and the book went into a box. I didn’t find the book until very recently and started reading it again. I so wanted to learn one of her architectures, Riverbed in particular but decided to ‘Trust Cat. Her formula works’, DPUTiger‘s words, not mine.

So I followed Cat’s advice and knitted the learning socks at the beginning of the book. I picked out the yarn and the needle to get gauge and had it sitting on top of a table in the bedroom for at least a week and a half. It kept taunting me and teasing me and wagging its finger at me so I decided to just take a break from the sock on the needle and just follow what the book says.

Little Sky is the first learning sock and is done from the cuff down. It creates this lovely inverted V from the leg down to the instep where the increases are created on either side. The top of the foot is neat and smooths down to the toe.
The second learning sock is done toe-up and called Little Coriolis, something that I have been dying to try out because the bias that travels up the legs is so neat and simple and is enough of a design element that you don’t need any other stitch pattern. The Whirlpool Toe was a bit of a problem in the beginning but once you have enough stitches it works out okay.This sock architecture seems to create a really snug sock and with perfect measurement it would feel more like gloves on your feet than socks. The bias mimics the Coriolis Effect, which you would see if I finish knitting the other sock!

I’m loving Cat Bordhi’s techniques so far. The needle position and stitch arrangements get me confused a bit but I try to work out the orientation in my own head and not linger too much on how the book describes it.

I read the other architectures as well and decided to take baby steps. The Riverbed Architecture is something that I have been dying to try, but I’m taking it slow. So I dug out 2 skeins of Shibui Knit Sock yarns that I used to knit my first pair of socks, done two-at-a-time, last year, which ended up being too big because I just knit on the fly and didn’t bother reading up some more so I frogged them and now look like curly noodles.

Anyway, I chose Bartholomew’s Tantalizing Socks as my first adult-sized Cat Bordhi socks. Watch me soar!
Yes, the finished sock is supposed to look like that. I am loving the linen stitch, see how it nicely breaks up the colours and gives a really nice texture? Yeah baby, I am knitting a Cat Bordhi sock! Somebody pinch me.More sock news, I finished the first one of the Dippers for the Socks That Rawk Q3 KAL. I had to frog the toe decrease because I was questioning the pattern, but then decided to just trust the pattern and knit as it is on the chart. Guess what, it worked! I love this sock. The second sock is now on the second repeat on the leg.
And yet more sock news, and in particular the same STR Q3 KAL. I decided to sign up for the Cotty KAL as well. It’s a nice little pair of girly socks designed by Carrie. I have her to thank for introducing me to the wonderful colourways by Tina and the beautiful yarns from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Her February Lady Sweater is something of a legend in the knitting community.

This lovely skein of pinks and reds in STR Mediumweight (colourway: Love) will be knit up as my very own pair of Cotty Socks.I’m getting a really bad case of startitis again, people! Time for an intervention?

Nah! Whoa re we kidding, right?

I promise some other content coming soon, mostly about photography and the kids I think. I chatted with them via webcam today and I just realised again how much I am missing my children.

Take care all and enjoy your weekend.