Samantha is really an amazing woman. I met her at one of the monthly Women's Only Climbing Clinics at Go Vertical. First impressions say a lot. She was bald, tattooed, and an amazing climber. I thought she was a hard core chick, not a cancer patient. From what I recall, Sam had just finished her last chemo treatment when I met her. Her hair still hadn't grown back, so her dragon tattoo was posed perfectly on the back of her head. She got me on my first 5.9 climb. I loved it.

Fast forward to this past weekend: Sam, Taramin and I journeyed to Sterling, VA for the kickoff of the Climb4Life event in the DC Metro area. It's quite the month-long event. For a $25 donation you get 2 free days of climbing at each of the six (count 'em six) climbing gyms in DC. The kickoff was fun. They had several clinic, lots of climbing and some really sharp Black Diamond chalk bags for the first 100 people who came. (Well.. it was more fun for Sam and I... Taramin was having a good time until she rolled her ankle during the Dyno clinic. Luckily.. Taramin is an understanding climber... so she was happy to continue knitting her hat with her ankle on ice while Sam and I climbed for a couple more hours.

Reps from a bunch of companies were there: Montrail, Mad Rock and Stonewear Designs. It was great to try out the various climbing shoes. I tried both the Montrail Index and the Montrail Method, and I love the look of the Stonewear Designs clothing.... I'll write up my thoughts on those separately...

Climb4Life is a non-profit organization sponsoring Ovarian cancer. Truly -- the perfect fit for Sam: A climber who survived stage 2c ovarian cancer. (Can I just say "wow" ?!). If you're feeling a little generous, you can make a donation to our team: Team Bury the Dragon (named in honor of Sam's hair growing back over her dragon tattoo). But save your big donations for the Climb4Life event in Salt Lake City this September!

...And as the badge on the back of Sam's shirt says: Fuck Cancer!

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Posted by Jessica on March 8, 2006 9:38:42 AM EST #

After buying our house I got crafty inspired. I need a rug for my upstairs bathroom, and being the knitting-crochet-crafty-overanxious-geek that I am... I wanted to make one myself.

I found this book: Quick Crochet: Huge Hooks that has a great pattern for a rag rug.

You'll have to get the full pattern from the book. But the basic idea is you get a bunch of cotton fabric and rip it into 1"-ish strips. Then crochet them in the round (or in my case in an oval) with a massive crochet hook.

Starting this project was fun. Going to the fabric store is something I rarely do. So it was neat to play with a different medium. Picking out various colors that would work together was a nice challenge for the right (or is it left?) side of my brain. Prepping all the "yarn" for this project was a great stress reliever. Here -- take this fabric and rip it up. Gee darn, if I must....

Working with such a large hook and such flat yarn was challenging at first. Particularly for the thick denim strips. I have to be careful to fold the dark side of the fabric out, so that I get a consistent look.

I'm almost done. And I've got TONS of fabric strips left -- ISo I think I'll make another one eventually. My bathroom upstairs is pretty narrow -- so I'm just making this til it fits in the spot. I want the outer edge to be denim so that it gives the rug a nice tough edge. I'm a bit worried how flat the edge will lie. Hopefully with time it will relax. Its not like I can really "block" something this thick... although a daily stepping after the shower should help.

• pattern: "Circle Rag Rug" from Sally Harding's Quick Crochet: Huge Hooks
• materials:
  • yarn: cotton fabric of various colors torn into 1" strips. I used dark denim, a bright green flannel, a light purple, light blue and a bright green/blue/purple plaid.
  • hook: Size Q (aka as thick as your thumb)
• modifications: As the name of the pattern indicates, this is meant to be a circular rug. I made it into an oval so that it would fit better in my bathroom. To do this I simply treated the pattern as two halves of a circle and added 6 single crochet (sc) stitches between the two halves to make it wider. I also use a half-double crochet (hdc) stitch at the long ends of the rug to make it a bit more oval-y.

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Posted by Jessica on March 8, 2006 9:09:22 AM EST #

So, I really don't know what makes a scarf a "boy" scarf. Something dark, and simple and not too foo-foo, I guess. I got the color-scheme right... and its not textured or frilly... and this is going to be a mighty-warm scarf... but I don't know where I rank on the "foo" scale with all the fair-isle pattern that its got going on.

This is a pattern I'm making up as I go. I'm using double-knitting to make the scarf warm... plus its just a neat technique to play with, and gets my brain involved in the whole knit-purl process.

For those of you not familiar with double knitting -- you basically knit two sides of the fabric at the same time. And every where the color changes along the same row -- the two sides get locked together. On the back of every green stitch on the front, is a white stitch on the back. Both sides have knit stitches facing out, all the purl stitches hide on the inside. There's no rules like in fair-isle knitting where you can only carry the yarn a max of 5 stitches or so... but having said that, if you do a 1x1 stripe -- it doesn't look so well. So -- what double knitting gives you is a reversible garment with opposite colors on each side.

• materials:
  • yarn: 2 balls of worsted weight yarn in contrasting colors. I used Lion's Brand Wool-Ease in Wheat and Loden (I'm pretty sure those are the colors.... its actually scrap yarn and I can't find the exact info...)
  • needles: size 9 needle
• pattern:
  • Cast on 40 stitches in color A (the scarf will only be 20 stitches wide, but you need double the stitches to cast on both the front and back)
  • Row 1: Pick up color B. * Knit one stitch with Color A, purl the next stitch with color B. Repeat from * to the end of the row. When knitting be sure to bring BOTH strands of yarn to the back and when purling be sure to bring BOTH strands of yarn to the front. Check out the double knitting video on knittinghelp.com to learn more about the technique.
  • Row 2: Knit all of color B's stitches with Color B, Purl all of color A's stitches with Color A. This will continue each side of the fabric in its own color.
  • Row 3: Knit all of color A's stitches with Color A, purl all of color B's stitches with Color B.
  • Row 4: repeat row 2
  • Row 5: repeat row 3
  • Row 6 and beyond: have fun! Play with the color and make some neat patterns
  • Bind off when you're happy with the length of the scarf

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Posted by Jessica on March 8, 2006 8:56:42 AM EST #