Knit & Play with Fire

Finished!!

Chocolate Socks
They are finished! I finished binding off last night. No pictures yet but I will try and take some tomorrow after I was the socks and before sending them off across the pond to Emma's house in England.

Fire Class
Okay, we did our first live burn Saturday. And real smoke is nothing like you see in the movies. Once the thermal layer develops, a room is pitch black with smoke. The only way you can find the fire is the sound and sometimes a faint orange glow. In the movies and on tv, you can always see things. Not true in real life.

We were kneeling and crawling on the floor. I had one hand on the hose line and I was one arm's length from the person in front of me. I would periodically reach out in front of me and either touch his air bottle or his butt, which ever one my hand came in contact with first. Yeah, you get to grab some one's butt and not get in trouble!

To give you a clue how hard it is too see, we would each take a turn at nozzle and than crawl back down to the end of the line. When the first person in my group was crawling back, I was by the sealed widow so there was a tiny sliver of light. He could not see me. I was at the end of the line. I had my hand out to my side where he could either see the shape or touch it. He couldn't see my hand. I could barely see my hand. I had to reach out and touch him for him to find me.

And surprisingly, it wasn't that hot inside the burn room. And my group was the last group the first time. Because of a minor change in line up, I was moved to the third group for the second burn. At that point the fires had been burning for awhile, but I still didn't think the room was that hot. Not even when I was up front at the nozzle kneeling directly in front of the fire. While not feeling hot is a good thing, it is also one of the down falls of modern turn out gear. We are so well protected that some fire fighters take unnecessary chances.

The afternoon session was when we got to play with the tools. Now for some of the guys in my fire company, one of the scariest things in the world is me operating a chain saw or power saw. I am the person who does not operate a lawn mower. Now I can operate other power tools safely and with ease just not tools that cut. The look on one of the guys face Friday night was really good when he heard that I was actually going to be allowed to operate a chain saw.

One thing about live burns is that you stink afterwords. We burn excelsior because it produces a nice smoke just like the real thing. You get a really nice funk on you afterward though. But that is true of real smoke. To get rid of the smell on your cloths is easy, just wash them on the long cycle. To get the smell out of your hair requires washing it twice and scrubbing your body down with a nice sugar scrub.

But I had fun and I learned that I can do things that I didn't think I could do. But I really don't want to be the one up on your roof venting it with the chain saw. I will leave that to the boys.

I didn't get much knitting done this weekend other than finishing up the socks. Although I did decide to finally check the gauge on the kid's sweater I am making and I need to frog the whole thing and go down a needle size. Why I didn't do this before, I don't know.

I am also posting some more photos of my miniature daffodils. To give you a clue as to how short these things are, I basically have to put my camera almost sitting on the dirt to take a photo of them. Have fun today, I will be cleaning gear this afternoon and studying so no knitting.

ps - I did not take all of the photos. Everyone was having fun with the camera. And that haze is the smoke not your monitor.

The Joy of Giving

My second Clapotis was a variation. I feel in love with the color of the yarn so I decided to make it into a scarf. The color is Art Yarns super merino #109 which is greens and some blues. I do not wear greens but I liked these greens. I made the scarf with no one in mind. That is until it was pointed out to me by one of the teenagers who helps out at the fire hall for bingo that I have never made her anything. She was hoping for a pair of fingerless gloves which she will get.

When I told her that I a scarf that was perfect for her, she was surprised. I ran home and brought it back to give her. She feel in love with the Clapotis scarf. She posed for several pictures where she was having fun including the Rachel. I am posting a few of them here even though Jenna told me to post all of them. She is a hard worker who works on the family farm and is helps out down a the fire hall where it is part of a family tradition for her family.

There will be photos of her in the FO album in the next day or so. And yes the photos were taken in the fire hall kitchen an she was havingg fun.

Finally Photos of Clapotis

Okay, finally some photos of the finished full size Clapotis. A long soak in Retyane followed by a nice bath in Eucalan and she is happy.

This shawl is also warm. Although this one belongs to my mother, I wore it last night when I went out to get haighlights put in my hair. Everyone at the salon loved it. And when I came out the wind was blowing some and I was warm with this around my neck. I did take a close up of the finished product. 

Of course, I still have to finish my scarf variation first before I can start another full size verision. Well, I also have to wait for the yarn to arrive from Fuzzy Mabel. (See previous post for specifics.)

And just for laughs and for Bron. I know how to crochet but I do not like to crochet. Well, a friend called me Tuesday and wanted to know if I could show a friend of her's how to knit. Since I was meeting another person from my knit group Wednesday night, I told her to meet us Wednesday. Her knit actually turned out to be crochet but she already knew how to crochet. She just needed a little bit of help. The friend who had called said that she had no interest in learning. I thought it was strange when I received a page from her last night wanting help learning to crochet! She had actually ppicked up a lot more than she had realized Wednesday night. I was able to talk her through the one little bump over the phone. I think she is hooked! (pun intended)

I will try and post over the weekend depending on how deep the snow gets. But if I don't post, it means that I am knitting while watching some DVDs.