Sara Skates

PCAS recap

It has taken me all week to return and recover and re-enter and catch up!

Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals was a blast.  I got to meet up with old grad school friends of mine and hang out with their kids, visit my alma mater, go to Powell's, and - skate and skate and skate.

I skated in three events - Adult Gold Ladies Championship III, High Figures, and Masters Ladies Interpretive Light Entertainment/Comedy II/III.  All went well.  The figures event though was easily the highlight.  There were 8 people who competed in the High Figures event, and three in the Low Figures event.  We had several practices on Fri and Saturday - it was defintely cool to patch on designated patch sessions - everyone on their own patch of ice, no music - and moreover no dance patterns, MIF patterns, or multi-revolution jumps careening through the figures layouts!

This picture cracks me up.  You may need to embiggen to see it - but the judges are standing still and in focus, I am a ghostly blur.

The event itself was amazing.  They coned off the ends of the ice for warming up, and one by one, folks were called out to lay out each figure (we each did two - first a one-foot 8, then a FI to BO bracket).  I was the 6th person to skate the one-foot 8, and the second person to skate the bracket.  The test levels of the 8 people had a wide range - I have passed my third test on the standard track (there's the preliminary test, and then tests 1-8), my friend Brenda has passed her 2nd test, someone had passed the Adult Silver test (fairly similar to the 2nd standard track test), three folks had passed or taken (and not quite passed) their 8th test, someone had passed her 5th test, etc.  The main "feeling" during the event was more giddy than nervous - judges and competitors alike were really exited to be competing figures!  There was also a huge audience in the stands - more than I expected.

I laid out really nice figures - the one-foot 8 was a few inches wider on the starting side than the other side, but aside from that, it was really nice.  The other side was lined up, the change of edge was clean, and it was nicely traced.  The bracket I did was *great* - I don't think I have ever skated the figure that well!  The two circles were a little offset from each other - but aside from that, it was really nice - the F brackets were clean and nicely shaped, the back brackets were so well traced I couldn't believe it.  I went around for the third bracket and the first two were *right* on top of each other - the third was about an inch away.  I ended up in 4th place for this figure- the top three folks were all 8th test skaters, and they did just a beautiful job - you can totally tell the extra control and edge quality with those extra years of doing figures and testing under their belts.  Rumor has it the skating club will try to put together a figures-only competition next summer (09 sometime) - they'll pick 15 figures, you sign up for the three you want to compete, and whoever wants to do it can.  FX they do it!

  There was this funky hand-operated ice resurfacing thing they used during the event - it covered over the prior tracings and left the ice clean for the next batch - they did it after a few skates to clean up the ice.  Who knows how long that thing has been sitting in storage.

I skated reasonably well for my freestyle event.  My spins were great - and often those suffer when stiff-kneed and nervous.  My footwork went well - I edited one small piece of it (changing a counter turn into a three-turn), and forgot to look up (I am perenially trying to stabilize myself by looking down - it doesn't work and looks bad to boot LOL).  My jumps were so-so - I two-footed the first axel, I popped the lutz of the luzt/loop/loop combination, and fell on the second axel which is supposed to be a combination jump too.  I edited out the third combination jump and turned it into a solo flip - oops.  (Part of a well-balanced program is having both solo jumps and combination jumps).  I placed at the bottom of the entire group of 15 skaters but really?  I'm fairly happy with the skate.  Goals for the next month are to get the jumps solid and not "eek", and work on presentation points.

The interp event was decent too.  I typically am mortified to skate this event - I purposely picked music that is beyond my introverted comfort zone - I skate to some goofy pots-and-pans rhythm music that I pulled from a Sandra Boynton CD, you can preview it here.  Last year I skated it bedecked in kitchen utentils and paraphenalia - measuring cups at the bottom of my shirt that whirled around when I spun, etc.  This year, I wore a chef's coat and a single pot on my head - plus a few wooden (well, plastic) spoons in my hands.  I managed to be much more playful with it - and ended in a three-way tie for 4th place with my friend Brenda and someone else.  Since I've only ever placed at the bottom or very close to the bottom with this program, I was pleased.

Brenda and I after checking the scores -

There was a little bit of yarn shopping too - I looked up Yarnia. 

You pick different strands of yarn and combine them for a custom blend.  The one on the left was aimed at a denim look - it has some silk blend, cotton, and I think wool in it.  The one on the right I was aiming for a coppery yarn - it's mostly a variety of wool blends with a boucle in there I think.

One month to go (a little less really) before Adult Nationals - wheee!

FOs

I have finished a few things that have yet to be ravelried or blogged - this is a catch-up post.

The official last FO of 2007 was Poppy - laid out to block on New Years Eve:

I LOVE this sweater.  I wear it at least once a week, twice if I can get away with it.  It fits well, I love the colors (ahem, I knitted another sweater with the same colorway, and also painted the house the same colorway LOL), and it's soft.  What's not to like.  I had issues with the second sleeve requiring much ripping and re-starting, but it finally worked out.

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I finished this sometime last Fall:

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Hannah *begged* for it - a nosewarmer from Knitty. 

I made a few mods - I used leftover Fleece Artist sock yarn and thus adjusted the number of stitches, and for the band, I knitted an i-cord, and when it was done I threaded some stretchy elastic through it.

Hannah has worn it a lot this winter - Toby's lobbying for one.  It cracks me up.

Hannah's clay sculptures crack me up too.  She has been reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes:

The photo is dark but it's a little gnome figure slicing off the top of a snowman with a chainsaw.  !!!

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I also finished another pair of lobster mitts for Hannah - out of homespun yarn.  I don't have pictures to share as the mittens keep walking out of the house in the morning before I am awake enough to grab the camera.*

This year, I have finished a few things.

These socks:

They're made using a cotton/lycra yarn from Greenwood Fiberworks (though she's not presently showing any for sale).  Grumperina has a  good photo here.  She reviews it here, and lists it as her favorite non-wooly sock yarn here.  While I prefer wool and wool-blend sock yarns, this yarn was not bad for a cotton yarn - the lycra definitely gives it a wooly kind of give.  It's a bit hairy to knit as it shrinks after it's first encounter with water.  I ended up wetting the cuff, measuring the size before and after shrinking (both stitch and row gauge), and sorting out how long to make the foot from that.  It makes a great fabric that hugs your foot and doesn't stretch out like that made with regular cotton yarn.  I have two more skeins of it and will certainly use it again.

I have been working on more things.  These fingerless mitts have given me fits:

The first attempt didn't work b/c I didn't like the stripes clashing with the lacy ribbing of Pomotomous (a sock pattern from knitty, adapted into fingerless mitts; other options here and here).  Notice the thin even striping though - these mitts have also been an exercise in gauge.  I believe I cast on 72 stitches here.

 

This is start #2.  It's Socks that Rock yarn in Monsoon colorway, from the 2007 Sock Club.  I also cast on 72 stitches - in fact, I ripped back to the first row and started there without re-casting on.  I thought I'd try the pattern that came with the socks - and adapt it for fingerless mits.  I liked the cabling and stripes this time - but the pattern makes for a very unforgiving tube of fabric - it was too tight to fit over my forearm muscle.  So it got ripped.  Note the difference in the striping!  The cabling v.s. the ribbing is the only difference - it's the same number of stitches on the same Knitpicks needles.

Try number three is using an X O X O cable pattern.  It is working out well - one mitt is done and the second started.  I'd be well into my second whole PAIR without all the ripping LOL.

I am working on a pair of Pomatomus fingerless mitts too out of other yarn - details in a future blog post.  I have made it past the first pattern repeat and am a little off somehow - to continue the pattern, I'd have to start with a K rather than a P or something (details escape me at the moment).  I'm stuck at figuring out whether to rip and fix it (though I can't figure out where it went off) or just continue merrily along and "read" the knitting rather than making sure the knitting follows the chart.

 

And a gratuitous Hannah and Bassoon shot:

I'm not sure what they're laughing about but they're both having fun being the 5th grade bassoonists.

I leave tomorrow a.m. at the crack of dawn for the Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals - skating here I come!