Anemones aren't very holiday-ish, but there you go....

Ok, so I posted my shark pattern, I might as well put up my notes from the anemones I made a few years ago as well, right? I'd love to see other peoples' versions!

These are just loose notes, not a pattern. The size of the finished creature is entirely up to you, based on how many you cast on, and how tall you knit the base. This pattern is super-easy, if you have basic knitting skills and can use DPNs, you can do this!

My colors were used to mimic the Giant Green Anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica) that we see all over our tidepools (since these were designed as presents for my fellow tidepoolologists), but feel free to use any colors that strike your fancy!

These were knit with several leftovers of acrylic worsted/aran yarns. Any yarn will work, and if you don't want to hold yarns doubled, just use bulky weight instead.
The yarns I used were: Caron Wintuk (brown), Lion Brand Wool-Ease worsted (darker green), Lion Brand Jiffy (olive).
For the tentacles, you will need a thin worsted shiny yarn in a contrasting color. I used TLC Cotton Plus.
US 8 (5mm) and US 6 (4mm) double-pointed needles.
Gauge is irrelevant.

Using size 8 needles and one strand brown and one strand olive-green worsted yarns held together, cast on 40 st (or thereabouts). Join in the round, and knit the tube (stockinette) about 4" (or as tall as you want it).

When the stalk is tall enough, wrap one stitch and turn as if to knit a short row. Turn the whole stalk inside out- the reverse stockinette is now the right side (voila- no purling!).

Switch the brown yarn strand for another shade of green, and knit the top of the anemone in stockinette. Use regular decreases, scattered around the row, every other row. Be sure to keep the top flat like a pie crust, rather than curved like a hat crown. A slight bulge is good though, realistic.

Once you have decreased down to about 10 stitches, bind off to form the gullet hole. Anemones have to eat, you know!

Now take your size 6 DPNS and a shiny worsted yarn, and pick up 4 stitches at the top edge (just inside the turning ridge where the stockinette meets the reverse stockinette).
I-cord for about 2.5-3 inches, then decrease 1 stitch to taper the tentacle. Do a few more rows of I-cord and then pull the end of the yarn through the last few stitches and pass it back through the length of the tentacle, tying it to the other end at the base inside the anemone.
Repeat the tentacles all the way around the edge, varying lengths slightly every other tentacle.



Because of the nature of stockinette, this anemone can actually curl in on itself to hide its tentacles, just as real anemones on rocks do when the tide is out!

Hello, summer!

Well now it's officially summer, nearly July. Summers are always amazingly busy times for us, partially because I work odd schedules, but mostly because it's so nice out we have to spend so much time outside working. It is great to be back at work though, I can't believe a month has already flown by! We have a lot of good low tides for tidepool tours this summer (the photos are from South Cove during the amazing minus tides last week: a red-gilled nudibranch and sunflower star). I've successfully led my first try at my new program, a guided hike along the cliffs and through the forest. I've done both my mountain lion & sea otter evening programs (to good-sized audiences), and I'm working on developing my animal tracks one into 2 separate programs, one for kids and one for all ages.

Our garden is going gung-ho, we've already made several harvests of radishes, broccoli rabe, beets, peas, and salad greens. I'll take a photo today to upload whenever I get a chance to post again (don't hold your breath) later. We're also sharing a CSA membership with R's boss this summer, so we're overloaded with veggies! Lots of strawberries too. We went to the master gardeners' plant sale this spring, and found that our tomatoes we had started in the windows of the garage were about 5 times as big as what the "experts" were selling. Currently our tomatoes are blooming! We found a good sale on a pressure cooker the other day, so I hope to get a good batch of tomatoes we can can this fall.

As always in summer, we can't plan any vacations, since I work weekends and it's hard to get days off. But I'm planning to go to my cousin's wedding in Seattle in August, and we've already had visitors twice- Brandy and Evan came down at the beginning of the month and we went camping (in my park, so it didn't feel much like a vacation for me, but was fun all the same); then last weekend my Mom came for a visit and brought be a spinning wheel from my aunt in Cali, exciting! R's boss' sister happened to be up that same weekend, and she taught me to spin, as she has the exact same type of spinning wheel. Serendipitous!

I also bought myself a wetsuit, finally, and am so learning to surf, if the wind and waves ever cooperate. Fall is the best time to surf here, so we'll see. Steph is also a beginning surfer, and her boyfriend has several boards we can borrow.

As for knitting, I finished a pair of socks for R's birthday, and am still working on my aunt's shawl, now that she's actually finished chemo, sigh. I need to finish it soon though, not only to give to her- I need the needles for a jacket I want to wear to the wedding. I'm also working on a "so you think you can dance" sweater (a ballet top knitted while watching that most addicting of summer shows). I dyed the yarn for it myself, it looks pretty cool. I'll put up a pic when it's finished. Here are R's giant socks:


I hope everyone is having an excellent summer and enjoying gorgeous weather! If you aren't, just come visit us here! Oh, and PS- check out the slideshow at the bottom of the blog for photos from Kauai.

Well, now I'm 30

Thanks so much to the people who called or sent birthday emails, it was lovely to know that you all were thinking of me! Sorry I wasn't there to get the phone calls though, I was on my way back up from the Redwoods.

It was a good trip, though it rained the whole way down. We took the dogs for a walk up a hill under the tall, tall trees (it was a closed gravel road, so dogs were ok) and a long walk on the beach. It was nice enough that evening to have a campfire & grill some dinner too. The next morning dawned sunny & clear, and we went to the beach again (briefly) after breakfast ("California Eggs Benedict" with avocado & tomato instead of ham really wasn't that great). Then we visited the HSU Marine Lab where we got to see assorted sea creatures in tanks, including intertidal animals in touch tanks outside. I got to show the boys an urchin's defense mechanism when it senses a sunflower star- it flattens its spines, stick out its pedicellariae, and runs away!

On the way up, Eli & I stopped at the Prehistoric Gardens, but only had enough time to take photos of the dinos you could see from the parking lot. As it is, we got home much later than anticipated, and had to rush around getting things ready for a murder mystery dinner party we were hosting that evening. But everything turned out well in the end (my tiramisu turned out perfect), and we had a lot of fun! I just wish those games allowed you to invite more people- 6 is so limited! We're going to try to write one for ourselves now.

This weekend was pretty rainy, so I had a dye-a-thon. I had bought some cheap Easter egg kits, and used those and food coloring to dye a bunch of yarn.
(please click to see whole pic- blogger doesn't play nice with picasa, even though they are both Google programs).
I used a lot of different methods, including my first time hand-painting (the orange, and another purple one that isn't pictured). Dyeing is fun! My knitting is going slowly- I really need to stop doing patterns with lace repeats in them, they take so long.

Tomorrow I'm babysitting my little friend Emily, whom I used to nanny (she's 6 now). I haven't seen her in a while, so it should be fun. I think we'll go to the yarn shop to kill some time & buy me a pair of needles to make a tank top while in Kauai. I hope I'll actually finish it in time to wear it!

día de los muertos (tiburón y pájaro)

Yeah that's right, I got to dissect a shark at work today (bird was a gift/threat from our campground cat, but the shark washed up on S. Cove). It was a little baby salmon shark, probably 2.5-3 feet long. There were no obvious injuries, and it had fish vertebrae in its stomach, so we don't know why it died. It was cool though, sharks are amazing!

This weekend we worked on the concrete path around the garage in the back yard. We used a mixer & poured cement into a mold which made it into individual bricks. I had the job of packing & smoothing the bricks, and I also did my share of lugging sand & gravel to the mixer. The bricks are a wide variety of shades, unfortunately, and we ran completely out of red coloring by the end, so I'm switching a few around every day to try to make it a bit more blended. I'll put up a picture soon. I know I promised that about my knitting too, so here you go, my 2 anemones (w/ and w/o crab)

and the latest progress on my super-slow sweater:


Tomorrow is my last program of the summer, I'm trying out my new animal tracks (CSI- creature sign investigation) program, but I kind of hope nobody shows up. We've been having pretty bad attendance since the holiday- school started again, and there are no kids at all in camp. Even our all-ages programs have been getting nearly no one, I had one lady on my last tidepool walk. It's sad that it's the end of the summer already, our volunteers have already taken off. Oh well, at least I'm already getting sub work lined up here & there for the next couple months.

The garden is doing well, still putting out occasional peas & lettuce, but now the tomatoes are ripening as well! I'm going to make a savory tart with some of the cherry tomatoes. I'll have to figure out something good to do with the pumpkins.

The tea party last week was awesome. I'll get photos from my coworker & write more about it later. Eh, I had a lot more to write, but I need to go to bed now!

Tidepools & Teaching

I went out to South Cove with Carly & her husband earlier this week, it was the lowest tide I'd ever seen. John and I spent probably an hour crawling around in what is usually underwater when I take people on tours (I hope Carly wasn't too bored waiting). There were purple urchins *everywhere*, and several big red urchins. We saw all the regular stuff, plus 2 sunflower stars, a blood star, a few 6-rayed stars (or possibly 2 different species), and a bat star, which I had never seen before! No nudibranchs though. John took a zillion photos, so I hope they turn out and I can get some.

The HS called with an interesting opportunity- I could sub for a whole trimester for beginning Spanish classes next year. I certainly know enough to do it, but I'm still not sure. I don't have much experience teaching yet, and unless long-term subbing is an extenuating circumstance, it would use up all my allotted sub days (meaning I wouldn't get to do my favorite bio classes). I would also have to leave the park at the end of August rather than working through September, but last summer I ended up doing maintenance & entry-fee booth stuff for the month anyway. I don't know how to decide, and (as usual) the husband is less than helpful in making decisions. Several students really like me as a sub, there are 2 girls and one guy in particular who, each time they walk in the room and see me there, they exclaim "Yay, we have Ms. H today!" The girls almost skipped a field trip just to spend 85 minutes with me (doing boring busywork, so I convinced them to go), and one called the other to say "You picked a bad day to be sick!" when I subbed in field biology on Friday. But that doesn't mean I'd be a great Spanish teacher for 3 months....

I don't know how to decide this one. I guess I still need to call a few people to find out more information. It would be fun, and good experience (and good money), but I don't know.