My Birthday Present

I went back and forth a lot this year... I don't usually buy myself a birthday present, but this year has been tough (well, the last half of it) and I felt like I deserved it... plus I had some money hidden away... I went through many ideas before I finally settled on the thing...

I bought THIS!  It's the yellow and brown on in the corner, and it's actually that exact one.  If you want to see and learn more about Fiveleft go to their website and if you click on the link to his blog, you'll find out that if you watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, you probably have seen his work.  We went to the studio today during the crawl and it was impossible to not get lightheaded with all the amazing work he's done.

So Voila... my pressie to myself (which I haven't picked up yet, otherwise I'd take my own photos.)

Fibre Update in Pictures

Here's an update of my newest acquisitions and a couple of my completed items. 

First up, the two luscious yarns I bought from Sweet Georgia's studio during our Yarnageddon experience.
The first one is CashSilk Fingering in Pomegranate.  The second is Worsted in Militant (a brand new colorway!)

Then we have a splurge that was found on the Yarnageddon trail, but I hemmed and hawed a bit about it before going back to get it.  This is around 1000yards of 100% wool (scratchy and non-superwash) in the rainbow colorway.  It's a brand called Kauni and it's gorgeous!  It's gorgeously long striping and has such beautiful transitions!

Next up is a beautiful 225 yards of silk merino hand dyed by a good friend of mine on Etsy (and fellow Yarnageddon participant) September Yarn.  It's a beautiful semi solid medium dark coral color and ridiculously hard to photograph.  It's a million times more beautiful in person!

 

Lastly, a couple finished items.  The first is my Noro Striped scarf.  It used four balls of Noro Kureyon, both in the blue family.  It blocked out to be 8.5' long and would be longer if I had wet blocked it, but I don't have 8-10' anywhere in my house that I could lay that out until it dried... it would take days!

Another item I made and love is my big huge squishy cowl.  It's made out of a skein of Cascade Magnum and done in seed stitch. The twist comes from twisting the stitches once before you join to knit in the round... pretty clever!  I finished this in about six hours.

And finally, because I can't show you my big accomplishment yet, here's something new I'm working on.  It's made out of 100% wool (Diamond Luxury Lima).  It's a beautiful heathered lavender color and It's going to be so cozy and stylish.  It's bigger now then when the picture was taken, but you can see the pattern very nicely here.  I'll knit it nice and long and then block it wide and it will make a lovely wrap!

And not on a knitting note, but awesome none the less!

The world as it relates to me...

The window display went up at the beginning of September. It looked awesome, but unfortunately all my stuff faded with the hot hot halogen lights pointed at it the entire time so I didn't sell anything and the only thing it did for my 'image' and 'exposure' was to make people think I sell crap, so that wasn't really all that successful. I have dreamt up another avenue for getting my product out into the market, but to be honest, I'm pretty ticked off at the moment and soured on the whole thing so it's sitting on the back burner for the moment. While the fibre and yarn was cooking away in the window, I was cooking away in California! Boy and I put Kitty into the cat hotel (with a window suite this time... he was much happier) and jet set off to Disneyland! Just before we went, our friends from California came to town on their way to a cruise holiday and played with us for the day. We went to many yarn stores, ate fish and chips at a Vancouver institution (not a mental institution, altho as I type this, I feel that would be a nice place for a rest), had an amazing steak dinner at the Keg and generally made merry! It was fantastic to get together and the weather was gorgeous so we weren't running from car to store under umbrellas shreiking... which was also nice! One of the stops that we went to was Sweet Georgia's studio to check out her digs where she dyes all our favorite yarn and fibre. We both did a bit of damage there and both got first dibs at two brand new colorways that no one else had had yet!
So after our playdate in Vancouver we jetted off to Disneyland for six glorious days of sunshine and one on one time together. We both had a great time and it was awesome! When we came back we had a day together to lounge and then we went with our friends to Seattle to eat at the Crab Pot and do some outlet shopping.
Then it was back to work and back to reality... almost. The last thing that I had dumped myself in to in the month of August/September was the Trash to Treasure Fibre (and related goods) swap. We rented a room at a community center and invited anyone and everyone to come with their goods and swap! It was a great afternoon and we ended up raising (through the sale of door prize/raffle tickets and the small admission) the cost of the room back and $40 for the foodbank. I now have a car full of yarn that is to be donated to charity knitting groups, but on Sunday when I was supposed to go out delivering, I ended up coming down with what felt like the black plague and spent the next three days in bed.
I will have some knitting FO's to show in the next couple days... just as soon as I get it together enough to take some pictures and put them online.
Thanks for sticking with me... the updates should be a little more free and easy now that i'm not so busy... altho it just came to me that I committed myself to hosting an art opening in an airplane hangar in November... Good grief!

Waves

So the window is up and I've spent the last week relishing in the fact that I don't have a bunch of stuff hanging over my head to do. Well, that's not entirely true... I have a LOT of stuff to do in the next little while, including making the jewlery, stitch markers, finishing up a couple of projects and cleaning and packing for our holiday. So unfortunately there is little duff sitting on time for me these days, but it's still nice to have that one big project out of the way.

This last weekend was Pat's 30th birthday, so we went out for breakfast and dinner, to the PNE, had a nap, ate too many mini donuts... it was really nice and especially nice because the week before he was off on Saturday, so we've now had two weeks in a ROW to spend a weekend day together... astounding and so enjoyable!
Also on the weekend, I cast on and cast off a Marian in Cascade Magnum yarn, which is absolutely beautiful and I would live in it, only I'd like it to last looking 'just finished' longer than a week, so I restrain myself. It's a GREAT pattern, super easy, mindless and hella fast on US17 needles with that nice big bulky yarn! The seed stitch makes it very classy looking, which is great, because in my opinion, very bulky yarn has a tendancy to make the item look very 'home made' rather than like a beautiful HANDmade piece of clothing!
I am planning on buying two more skeins in a beautiful red color and making some alterations to the pattern so that it has a full hood on it, instead of just being a very wide cowl. I plan to call it Little Red Riding Hood... is that dumb? Anyhow, that probably won't be until middle of October, so don't hold your breath for a while.
I'm also more than half way done my Noro Striped scarf. It's looking gorgeous and I'm loving that it's mostly shades of blue with other colors thrown in for contrast. It should end up about 7' long, which will make it a luxurious winter accessory.
The final thing I've been working on has been my Haruni. I'm now completely done with Chart A! I have to admit, that it did give me a run for my money in certain sections, but really, in order to prevent that much tinking, I could have used stitch markers. I did mention tho, that I intentionally didn't use them because I prefer to know how to read my knitting in order to get the pattern right. With markers I knit mostly on auto pilot and I think being able to see the pattern and the next stitch automatically is a good skill to have. That said, I will be putting markers in for Chart B, as it's entirely different from anything I've ever knit before and the pattern does not repeat, so I'd rather not have to rip it out ten times. It's a pretty complicated set of instructions for it, but it might get easier as I start knitting it... sometimes reading the pattern is super confusing!
This shawl will qualify as the 6th completed shawl that I have done in 2010. The goal is 10 in 2010 and it's part of a contest on Ravelry (the group is 10 shawls in 2010). I've already won twice for shawls I"ve completed (random number generator draw), so it's been a fun way to keep going with my shawls, which I love knitting. My scarf will count as number 7 and I have 8 and 9 cast on already, so I need one more that's not even a twinkle in my eye yet and then I'll have made it! I'd still like to make my upside down cupcake shawl this year, and it has tons of yardage, so that will probably be the winner.
My last bit of news is that I have pledged to get my Girasole done by Dec 18. That means that starting Oct 1, I have to knit two rows (one pattern, one knit) a day for 20 days... then I have to knit 4 border points (min) a day to get it done. I think some days I'll be able to get more than that done, depending on the degree of busy and tired I am, so hopefully it's done well before the 18th. Feel free to harass me about it if you want... Accountability and all that.
Anyway, that's what's going on here at the mo... 5 and a bit more work days left until we go on holiday and I'm earning my holiday every. single. day at this point!

Alive!

I"m alive!  Worry not, for I exist!  Seriously tho, sorry for the serious deliquency!  I've been busy and a bit stressed and a bit sick and basically just too overwhelmed to do anything... including blogging and knitting!

But that's all changing again, as I remember that my free time is mine to do with what I wish, and that I don't have to bring work stress home with me!

So!  With that said, here are a couple new projects that have been cast on in the last little while and a bit of wool that I dyed for the window display.

First up is my version of Akimbo (ravelry link).  I decided once I cast it on that I disliked the m1L and m1R increases, so I switched to yo increases.  I did not frog tho, so there's a small section at the top neck edge that doesn't have the yo increases, but the yarn is fairly fuzzy, so you can't tell... and I didn't feel like frogging it...  The yarn is Cascade Elite Yarns Fresco in a gunmetal gray color. It's 60% wool, 30% Alpaca and 10% Angora, so it's insanely soft.  I'm pairing it with Collinette Jitterbug in Raspberry.  This shawl is going to be insanely soft and a titch expensive... but it already looks like a snuggly treat, so I'm okay with that!

Next up is a project that I've been working on for a while, but I really only knit on it on Monday nights when I get together with my knitting group.  It's my second go round at Multnomah and this time I'm knitting it in my own hand dyed Wollmeise.  It's going to take a LONG time to finish, since i'm sort of ambiguous about it, but I do like it and think it will be beautiful when it's done.

The last thing to show for the day is some very cool thick and thin 'yarn' I got and dyed.  It's from Gedifra and it's called 'Giganto' but it's not in the Ravelry database anywhere.  It was a disgusting light pink and pale yellow when I got it... I like to think I improved it somewhat.  I dyed four skeins... two turned out awesome and two turned out kind of moss like.. I'll put them in the window because there's always someone that likes a color that you don't, but I won't cry if it doesn't sell... Here's the two lovely skeins... it's a bit duller in the picture than real life...

A journey's end

I've worked on this particular project for over a year!  I started it on July 25 of last year.  I wasn't working on it straight, but it did get a lot of attention!  I finally finished the crochet border we decided it needed since the stockinette edge was rolling and today I steamed the edge flat and finally wove in all the ends.  It's been in various stages of 'done' since earlier this year but today it's officially DONE... there's nothing else I can do to it and it's perfect!

Here are a few pictures of it's progress and it's final border

Here it is without it's crochet border

And here it is with it's beautiful crochet border!  It brings the whole thing together an I love it!  Plus, true to the yarn name, its so smooshy!  I love it!

Disappointed

You know... I'm generally about as honest as they come... I do what I say I'm going to do and I'm truthful about what I think i probably can't do.... sounds reasonable right?  Well today I am finally coming to the realization that not everyone is like this.  Some people get themselves in too deep with commitments and then instead of coming clean and being honest, they lie.  And I take them for their word, because I am pretty honest.  And then I get disappointed.  But the person says no no... I'm doing what I said I would do now... minor malfunction, all back on the up... so then I take them for their word and then I get disapppointed again... and when they come back with the next excuse, I think to myself... well they wouldn't KEEP lying, that would be ridiculous, so whatever happened previous must have been a mistake, and THIS TIME they're doing as they say... otherwise, why say it... and then I'm disappointed again... this goes on for going on three months and then I realize that whether they are really going to end up doing what they say in the end or not, i've been lied to and misled and I'm now very disappointed and disillusioned.
I don't understand people who lie... I mean blatantly lie.  Yes, things come up and yes we all have things to deal with that are more important than social obligations... I'm not saying that... but to flat out lie... not nice.  And then I think well, what if they weren't lying... I would hate to slander someone like that... but perhaps if you're not actually lying, you might want to do things like return emails in a timely fashion.  Provide some sort of proof of these outrageous 'circumstances' that are causing the delay.  Communicate! Because if you're feeling lied to and misled... and then on top of that, the person doesn't email you back for weeks... it sort of stops mattering whether what they're saying is honest or not... because the story playing out in your head is your reality.  Make sense?
To sum... Give me my fucking toy!  Seriously!

In other news, my bestee and I went on a photoshoot on Tuesday and did the art for the product tags of my hand dyed roving line.  I can't decide if I want to give you a sneak peak or not.... I was going to post pics of some of the cool shots that she got, but they're not water marked and they're so flippin cool that i'm afraid people (not you my loyal readers, but untowards) will snag them... I should probably watermark the sneak peak as well... just to be safe... so I'll come back with that in a bit.... Okay I'm back... let me know what you think :)

A Fluttering Piece of Delicate Tissue Paper

So some self proclaimed 'diva' on Ravelry, who thinks he can do 'woman' better than me (an actual woman) has declared me a 'fluttering piece of delicate tissue paper'.  Not getting into the whole story, but he decided that because my shawl pattern had one error on it, that he would take a public shit all over it and then get all defensive when told he was being rude.  I understand he's not well liked on Ravelry anyway, so I'm not too concerned, but needless to say, I'm not really in the mood to publish a new at the moment... however if you want an easy peasy toque for winter, let me know and you can test knit for me.... because I just finished the first iteration of a really cute new toque.  It's done in Aslan Trends Ecolana 60% Alpaca and 40% Merino.  It took 49 grams of the 100g ball (so approximately 80meters).  It's a 4-5 stitch/inch gauge on US 7-10.  I admit, I didn't do a gauge swatch... I will do so for the next one I make, because it looks like you can get two hats out of one ball!  Score!

It doesn't photograph well, because of the mixed gray coloring, but it's basically about 10 rows of 2x2 ribbing, about 3" of stockinette, 1.5inches of a 2k1p ribbing (which looks awesome reversed) and then stockinette the rest of the way up.  I love it and I'm pretty sure I love the reverse side with the reverse stockinette and the reverse of the rib the best!  I will attempt to get better pictures when Boy gets home, but for now you get this: (please excuse that it looks bumpy... the only model was my teddy bear and he has a small head and large ears...

My second job

4oz of Superwash Merino in Blood Orange (not for sale ever!) - The photo is kinda funny, cause my camera doesn't like that sort of drastic color change, but it's really got nice smooth color joins.

4.10 oz of Mixed Breed Sliver in 'Berries and Cream'
Due to my inability to format, the following two below are 4oz Merino Corriedale Cross in Irish Landscape and 4oz of Merino Corriedale Cross in Sully.

4oz Mixed Breed in Desert Sunset

Uh... My fingers are pink...

So I decided to do some more dyeing... I have a lot of work to do in this month and I've been slowly chipping away at it... I think by the end of next week I should have a good handle on the roving and be able to move on to the stitch markers and jewelery...

I had a dyeing accident yesterday that required me to do a two part dye, soon to be a three part dye and the end result turned my hands pink.  I will post pictures of that later, once it's done (it's in time out), but today I have a picture of the other skein I did.

4oz Crossbreed Sliver (SO SOFT!) in the colorway 'Fraggles'.  That was Boy's colorway name suggestion because I said it reminded me of something and he said it reminded him of Fraggles.  Please don't sue me Jim Henson!

Please don't mind the flash.  This is pretty color accurate actually.  I'm almost tempted to not put it in the window display and keep it for myself.  Will try to recreate and then revisit whether it gets kept or not ;)

New Bump

Here's the final version of the 4oz of Corriedale in 'Late Summer Hydrangea'  The light is somewhat blue, but this has lots of beautiful shocks of purple and hot pinks and violets in with the more subdued colors of the green and light heathered blues.

A vacation and some work

Well... I call it work, because it's difficult-ish, but it's not 'work-work'.  First the vacay!  Kitty went to stay in the Cat Hotel (www.urbantails.ca - awesome!) and Boy and I went to visit my Dad in Fraser Lake.  We took our fishing rods, packed some food and hopped in the truck on Saturday at 6.  We drove till midnight and then stayed in a fleabag hotel (they're getting a letter!) and drove the rest of the way on Sunday morning.  We had an amazing time... went creek walking, fishing, had a campfire with smores and hot dogs, lazed around, suntanned, went to town and played with the dog... what more could you ask for!
Here are some pictures... don't be jealous ;)... actually... go ahead ;)

So after we got back, I set about getting ready for the window display that I'm taking part in... and I dyed up this wool... I wish I could find some smoother Merino top or something, cause this corriedale is pretty fuzzy and I'd rather have nice smooth roving...
4oz of Corridale in Moss Garden

4 oz of Corriedale in Fish Pond

3.5oz of 50/50 Merino Tencel in 'Late Summer Hydrangea'

3oz of Corridale in Be 'sTeal my heart - sorry about the flash pic.. it's two toned blue and teal.

And finally, altho it's still wet, there's 5oz of Corriedale in 'Late Summer Hydrangea'

I have a LOT of work ahead of me, as I also am doing stitch markers and jewelery for the display (the jewelery might not get done).  Hopefully this is all well recieved.

Progress...

A lot forward, a little backward and then forward again

The state of affairs.. as it relates to the disaster

Well, after a cry and a full on flogging for not putting in a lifeline (which just fyi, I'm still not going to do), I made a plan. Fortunately for my Haruni (now also known as Disasteruni), I went the sane route of un knitting five or so rows of my project. While Hilary's advise of ripping it out would have been my choice route about two pattern repeats ago, I couldn't imagine giving up all that hard work (not hard, just time consuming)... and the idea of dropping all those stitches and then trying to figure out how to bring them back up with all the decreases and increases seemed like a VERY daunting task. So I took my friend PJ's advice and took each stitch out one. at. a. time. I've got one pattern row left to take out before I'm to a spot that I'm SURE is right, and then I will start knitting back up.

The lesson I learned from this is not what you would think. You would think that I was going to put lifelines in at the end of each repeat so that I could just pull the needles out and rip back. But I'm not. I strongly detest lifelines and I only put them in on huge projects that would be impossible to tink back (like my Girasole that has 640 stitches on it. I did tink 320 stitches on that one and even that wasn't too bad... ). I don't like knitting into the next row after the lifeline. The stitches get so tight, the line usually twists itself around the needles and it's ugly.
The lesson also wasn't to use stitch markers. I don't like them. They get in the way, they're a bit annoying and I find I'm more of a robotic knitter when I have them between every repeat. Yes, I make mistakes, but I like the fact that without them, you are forced to pay attention to your pattern and actually engage with your knitting. I remarked to my friend on Monday that I was going to change the name of my shawl to FFS, because I was constantly pulling out a couple stitches to get the repeat right... but it was only because I wasn't following the pattern properly... I like being able to notice that and I like learning the skill of going back and seeing where your mistakes are and then fixing them. Now, not to the point of spending numerous hours unknitting numerous rows, but that brings me to the lesson I actually learned from all this. Ready?
DO NOT KNIT LACE WHEN YOU ARE TOO TIRED TO PAY ATTENTION. Yup... that's the lesson. I knew I was too tired to be knitting... probably right around the beginning of those five rows. I even said how tired I was... I even said that I should put it down... but did I? No. Lesson learned!

Trouble in paradise!

kay... two pictures. In the first picture, you can see the center line outlined in red. very even and straight (shocking for me, I know!).
And you can see the yarnover holes on the stem numbered one through four. Correct. Also mirrored correctly on the other side (but not numbered).
The problem (one of a few) is wtf is going on in the black circle? There's a smooshy bit right above the stem yarnovers that look like stitches twisted over the back of yarnovers and then the yarnovers start back up again! In the blue circle, the decreases have switched direction from / to \, which means that the leaf, if I continued, would look like \ / rather than the tip of a proper leaf / \.
On the second picture you can see that there are way TOO FEW stitches on the right side... right along side the center stitch a new leaf stem is supposed to grow... it's a yo,k,yo stem... you can see the beginning of it in the red circle on the left side... it is clearly not on the right side... There are supposed to be 9 stitches between the purple arrow and the center stitch (marked on the right by the yello arrow).
I don't know what to do! :(

Your Mark... Get set... GO!

So since my two friends and I started this group to knit shawls, I figured I better get on board and start mine... I'm very terrible with deadlines and expectations when it comes to knitting because I prefer to do it for the simple pleasure of doing it... partly why I only knit for myself... because I have no expectations.  But since this group isn't pushy (since we run it) about when things get done, I'm happy enough to knit along...
Here are some pictures of my beginning (which I started twice).

Here are the details if you'd like to join us in this KAL, or knit it on your own.
The group is a Ravelry Group called 3 Country Shawl KAL
The pattern is on Ravelry for free download and it's called Haruni by Emily Ross
The yarn I'm using is Knitpicks Stroll Tonal in Canopy and can be purchased here

Hope to see you in our group.  It's a very easy and dramatic pattern!

My new obsession with Alpaca!

This particular shawl (with a pattern soon to follow) has cemented my love of Alpaca.  It's SO SOFT!  Well, it's baby Alpaca, so that's partially why it's way softer than other Alpaca.  There are very few guard hairs, so it's just simple luxury!  The skein was a Misti Alpaca Worsted Handpaint of 218yards.  I bought it as one of the first skeins of yarn I ever bought and was trying to make some sort of chevron stockinette scarf with it.  I wasn't happy with the pattern, one of the edge stitches or the look of the varigation, so I ripped it out and put the yarn in storage.  This yarn was MADE for garter stitch!
The pattern is a simple garter stitch triangle with a three stitch center spine, which I think adds to the feeling of thick and cuddly.  I put a simple column lace section about 4/5 from the bottom and then finished the skein off in garter stitch.  I think it looks lovely and I wish I had another skein of this to make another!
Please ignore the fact that the column lace in the closeup is off by exactly one stitch from the first row to the last... I saw this and decided not to fix it...
Also, I knit this in four days!  Score!

Doesn't this look CUDDLY??

JOINERS!

Well, I'm a joiner... and since I can never leave well enough alone, I have to then go and take it one step further. I've created a group on Ravelry for my friend PJ (american) and our friend Kate (England) and me (Canadian) to do Knit a longs together because Ravelry doesn't allow messages with more than one recipent. Now we have joiners (yay!) and we're hosting a KAL for more people than just ourselves. If you want to come and join, click this link (you need to have a Ravelry account)
I just found out via a scheduling error, that we are going on holiday in two weeks! SO EXCITED! Boy and I are sending kitty to the cat hotel for a holiday (he hates it, but it's better than the alternative!) and we're going to drive up to my dad's for a few days. I forsee fishing (with guns?), exploring, quadding, dog playing, knitting, tanning, wine, beer, ceasers, bbq, bocce, napping and anything else you can think of to jam into three days at the cabin! I also forsee a knock down, drag out fight over the good chair... I plan on winning this time and I'm not above pinching!
Now, this whole driving for 12 hours thing would normally squick me out because that's a long time to drive, but I have the love of my life to chat with and knitting! I will be doing some of the driving, but I will also be doing some of the passengering. And this means the ability to knit for long continuous bouts... (I hope... I've tried knitting in a car before and it's too vibratey, but maybe on the highway will be better. Granted, one of the times was in a Jeep Wrangler, outfitted for off roading, so that was brutal!). I've already started to plan my projects for both knitting on the road and knitting at the cabin. I will be taking my Haruni KAL project (afore mentioned) with me because, well, since this was sort of partially my doing, I should probably knit along... so I will bring that project, made out of either my hand dyed teal laceweight baby alpaca (no picture yet because I had to have it professionally photographed since I can NOT get the color to show up properly. The complication is that I want that laceweight for a shawl that I want to make but I didn't dye enough... so if I can get another skein to match then it's al going for the big shawl, but if I can't, then the big shawl will have to be out of something different and then I will make the KAL out of the laceweight. Sounds confusing, I know, but I"ll know by Friday afternoon what I'm using. If I have to go with my second choice, then it will be this

This is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Canopy. It's so pretty! So that's one thing going with me for holidays. Then I will take some bulky alpaca so that I can work on my hat if I get tired of the laceweight. And I'm taking the garter stitch shawl that I'm designing (that's a maybe). And then the one I"m probably going to knit in the car will be a simple rectangular shawl that is made out of laceweight and designed by someone I know. And I'm planning on knitting it out of yarn I dyed last year when I was at my dad's. It's 100% baby alpaca laceweight and I dyed it in the Fraser Lake colorway. You'll see it's sort of messy looking below, but that's partly due to how I skeined it and partly due to it being sort of messy. But the lace I'm knitting with it will be very loosely knit, so the yarn shouldn't look like barf... fingers crossed.
So I'm in to dyeing yarn again, and I just got a spinning wheel on the weekend which I need to get set up and start spinning. I think it will give me a different consistency, so I"m going to finish the pink/purple handspun I"m doing on the spindle and start new with something else so that I don't mess up the look. The pink one is the one I"m putting the kitty whiskers in, which will also probably be easier to do with a spindle than on the wheel.
That's about all that's going on lately. I've got the next four days off, so I'm very looking forward to that. Boy is off tomorrow too, so we get to spend our FOURTH day off together in this whole year so far... spoiled, I know!

Spontenaity!

Spontenaity is not something I am personally known for.  I like to plan things.  Not because I like to be in control of them, but because part of the fun of something is planning it for me.  I like the excitement and the discussion and the bandying about of ideas... This is why I start planning my birthday party (which incidentally I throw for myself... does that make me pitiful?) a month in advance.  Because to me it's fun to talk about and plan and change and plan some more.  My sister and I used to plan stuff this way all the time... and then we both got pretty busy and now all of a sudden I find myself doing things like packing THE NIGHT BEFORE to go somewhere WITHOUT A LIST!  Seriously, that type of craziness never existed in my life before.  I like to make lists and then cross things off them...
Anyway, that said, I can be dragged into spontenaity... such as last night when I got a message from Boy saying we were going to go to dinner with a friend of his.  We went for dinner... and then we decided we needed to go to Richmond and have Screamers (Lime crush slurpee with two layers of the best soft serve icecream you've ever had!).  Then we decided we needed to go to the ocean's shore at Iona Park in Richmond... where we frolicked in the sand and then ended up having to leave due to the weird smell and sand fleas.  THEN we decided that we had to go to Queen Elizabeth Park and play in the fountain.  So. much. fun!  I was the only one that stayed dry... and completely by accident.  Jenny (the friend) and I decided (due to my persuasion) to have a race through the full blast jets in the fountain.  Only when we started, the water caught on my flipflop and I had to pull out of the race before I'd even hit the first jet... and she, because she couldn't see me from her lane, ran all the way through, around and back to us and was a soaking wet drenched... and Boy and I were laughing our heads off!  She was a good sport and I really didn't do it on purpose, altho I can see how it may have looked like I did... LOL!  So fun!

We of course have decided to continue having adventure nights and, as Jenny is from Ontario, she has not seen much of the city, so there are loads of other things we can do.  And I will attempt not to 'plan' it, as much as I want to, because spontaneous fun can be as fun as planned fun! (yes, I said it!)

In knitting news, I recast on my Annis and have almost chosen not to do nupps but to do beads instead... big beautiful blue beads that are striking with the red semisolid yarn.  However I keep seeing people's finished projects and lust after their nupps... I think the beads could look nice and flashy, but I like the simple elegance of the nupps.... I'll decide at the last second!  I will also be doing three rows of seed stitch on the top edge because I'm totally not crazy about how the stockinette stitch rolls... I'd rather see a bit of texture at the top (it's laceweight, how noticeable could it be) than a rolled edge.

I'm also about to cast on for a new shawl design with the beautiful pink yarn I got from Sweet Georgia two weeks ago.  I can't WAIT! If it turns out the way I think it will, it will be so cute and a perfect pattern for a perfect skein of sock yarn!

I'm also planning on casting on a super cute hat pattern with a new skein of mixed gray 100% Baby Alpaca... pictures of that to follow just as soon as I figure out how to provisionally cast on for it and decipher the instructions on how to make an adult sized hat from the baby sized pattern!

My friend Siobhan and I are going to the Gibson's Fibre Festival on August 20.  We're just going for the day to enjoy the coast and do a little browsing and then come home.  I'm really looking forward to it and to getting to know her a bit better!  I've also never been to a 'fibre festival' so I'm excited!  And most excited because on Saturday morning I"m picking up a SPINNING WHEEL!  That's right!  Someone I met through the yarn shop is giving her secondary one away and even tho it needs a bit of TLC, we're pretty convinced we can fix it and Boy said I could fill up the last few square inches of the apartment with it!  I'm hoping that it's at least a little portable so that I can go outside and spin when it's nice...

That's about it... I'm off tomorrow because I'm awesome and I have an abundance of holidays so I"m going to go to the vintage button/bead/jewellery/all around awesome shop and probably do some knitting and coffee drinking.  Sound fun?

Oooh... Rainbow!

Here is the Ravelry Link for this pattern - Choose Your Own Ending Shawl  It is also found on the side bar of THIS blog ;) 

Knit in Zauberball by Schoppel-Wolle in color FrischeFrische (if you know what that means, let me know!)

Beeeeooootiful!

My friend Leone is such a sweetheart and nominated me for this award! Even tho I'm not on her blogrolll pppffftttthhhhh ;)

so here goes my list of inane stuff you didn't want to know about me... what is seen can not be unseen!
1. I am a magnet for the road raged. I swear I do nothing to instigate it (however I do honk my horn if you do something stupid like cut me off), but as of yesterday have been 'attacked' in my car twice by deranged lunatics. This last one proved his 'point' to me by spitting on my car and the lurching in reverse toward me stopping a fraction of an inch from my bumper before acting like an even bigger lunatic!
2. I would like to sell my car and get a Vespa... but then I think that if I don't like to be in the rain, the car is nicer than the Vespa for the winter... maybe I'll have both!
3. I would like to live in Singapore or Thailand. I love the food, the atmosphere the people and the way of life. In my Singapore dream I'm also a multi-millionaire... can't hurt to think big!
4. I really really hate it when people assume that they need to be standing four inches from me in order for me to be able to hear them... I have a personal bubble... you should respect it!
5. Speaking of hearing, I'm not that good at it. I say 'Sorry?' a lot! and then after asking a person to repeat themselves two or three times, I get a blank sort of smile on my face and drop it... this does not help when it's directions or something else important that I'm supposed to be hearing.
6. When I'm at work I want to be knitting. When I'm knitting I want to be napping. When I'm napping I think I should be knitting. You see how work gets in the way of those two activities?
7. 20oz dark roast coffee with 2 espresso shots, 2 teaspoons of damarius brown sugar and some cream. That is all!
8. I have an itty bitty 13lb kitty. He's a charm! I try to overlook the claw marks in my scalp, the sleepless nights because he can't eat in the middle of the night without me being awake and the constant worry about him getting into it with a coyote or a car... I loves him!
9. My mind is going a MILE A MINUTE with creative things that I want to try or make or do. Again with the work getting in the way!
10. I've never really known anyone close to me who has died. This scares the shit out of me.
Now, to nominate people. Well, I must be honest and admit that I hardly blogstalk... and those that I do have already done it, so how about this. If you read this and you haven't gotten a nomination, it's probably because you're so awesome people thought you did it already. So go on and nominate yourself and get that list together!