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!

Waaahooooo!

I am POSITIVE that you are sick of hearing about Smungkee!  Positive!  too bad!  Because he's getting to be a rather popular little creature and I have some new news on him.  But first, a note about copyright!  FUN!

Copyright, in regards to knitting (and I'm sure other things) is ridiculously controversial!  Like seriously knock down, drag out fights over who has the right to do what with what where.  For instance... if you knit something from a pattern you purchased (or got for free because it was free), what are you legally entitled to do with it?  Simple answer you think, right?  WRONG!  While you THINK that you should be allowed to wear it... give it away... light it on fire (okay, I did do that), or sell it, you would be WRONG WRONG WRONG!  Well, let me rephrase that!  You would be wrong as according to a good number of people who think that you have limited rights as to what you can do with your finished item.  I am not one of those people.  I feel that if I pay for a pattern the price the designer feels fair (since designers set their own prices), then whatever I do with the item I made with the pattern is mine for the whatevering!  I bought my own yarn, my own needles, my own finishing notions and used my own time and expertise to follow your pattern, which I paid for.  So why then would someone feel like they had a direct say over what I CAN'T do with it.  Because they feel that if I sell my 'thing', then I am essentially stealing profit away from them.  Rubbish!  If I sell my 'thing' to a non knitter for $50, what have I gained and what has the designer lost?  Let's investigate.

My shawl cost me $40 in yarn and the pattern itself cost me $5US.  That's $45.  Let's assume that the needles and notions have already paid for themselves and they're not needing to be calculated in.  That leaves me with a difference before knitting a thing, of $5 if I'm charging you $50 for it.  Let's assume it takes me 10 hours (I think it took longer).  That's 50cents an hour.  What exactly have I gained here?  Not much.  What has the designer lost?  Nothing, because the person wasn't going to knit it themselves (therefore, no $5 from the pattern regardless of my sale), and there's nothing in the law that states that I have to give her a percentage of my sale.  So I stupidly made $5 for myself, and she made $5 for herself.  Now.  What if I sold it for $500?  That's a good profit margin right there.  Does that then entitle her to money from me?  Why should it?  If she wanted $500 for her pattern, she should have asked for it.  Now, if we assume she DOES have a say over whether I can sell it or not, what ELSE does she have a say over?  Does she have some sort of legal right over the item?  Can she decide at any time that she doesn't want the pattern to be for use anymore and then run around the country and take back all the items made from it?  That puts us crafters on a shaky ground don't you think?  do you think people would spend hundreds of hours and dollars to make things, only to know that legally, someone else has a right to the finished product?  No, that's ridiculous!

The other thing that people have a terrible time with is trying to copyright their pattern for something that isn't original.  You can't copyright the knit or purl stitch or any combination of them.  You can't copyright icons, things that are already copywritten, shapes or textures.  That means that you can not copyright a teddy bear.  If you have a pattern that has a unique teddybear design, you can copyright that, but you can't say no one can ever make something even remotely similar or appearing to be a teddy bear.

The reason all this comes up is that I bought a pattern for Smungkee from a lady that was selling it.  And then when I got the pattern, I changed pretty much everything about it.  She wanted the pieces knit flat and seamed and I'm in no way ever going to seam that much knitting so I knit it in the round.  I changed the direction of the stitches, the method of the ears and mouth, the yarn and needle size and the finishing technique.  And then I wrote it down.  And I gave it to someone to make my version of the monkey.  I believe that my monkey pattern is completely different than hers, and while I will give her credit for inspiration, I will not acquiesce that my monkey pattern is the same as hers. And if someone takes my monkey pattern and finds a way to change it to make it their own, all the power to them.  If someone takes my upcoming hat pattern and makes it different enough to be considered a different item then that's fine too.  the one thing about copyright I do agree with is that the actual piece of paper pattern (or e version) is not to be given out with someone else's name on it, or handed around to your friends indefinitely.  That takes money away from the designer and even if it's free, it's rather rude.  I like to see how many people downloaded my free pattern... giving it to your friend, while not actually taking money away from me prevents me from being able to see who downloaded it.  I wouldn't say very strong words about passing free patterns around tho, because really, it makes little to no difference in the world.

Now!  The reason that I'm saying all this is because I am publishing my monkey pattern for sale and I am teaching (teachers assistant) a class on how to make him!  I'm so excited for this and I'm thrilled to be able to assist others in making one for themselves, because he's cool!

And yes, I did mention the hat pattern that I'm designing.  It's going to be awesome!

What's goin' on....

I've come to realize that I'm much faster at knitting things than I was even a few months ago, so my applicable pattern selection has increased exponentially. Especially since I've lifted the ban on purling. I continue to try and put beads on things. I think it gives that little bit extra and it really makes the item unique. 2000 people can knit the same pattern and some might even end up knitting it out of yarn that I knit it out of in the color I choose, but once i add beads, that drastically decreases the likelihood that it will be the exact same as someone elses. Boy said the other day that I attempt to bead everything. While not exactly true, I do mention it a lot... the latest thing I was going to try and bead is my Annis Shawl... I even knit a swatch to see if the beads would look good and figured they had better because I paid $30 for them... well they did not. They looked okay on the tips and that's where I left them but they sort of screwed around with the pattern and therefore didn't look very good... My ambition tells me to dye a skein of my own yarn the color I want and then bead something with that...

This weekend I knit two hats. Last year in November my bestee and I went shopping in the US and both fell in love with a beautiful deep burgundy chunky weight baby alpaca yarn from Misti Alpaca. It sat in the stash for some time because neither of us bought enough to make anything... and then I ran across the cutest hat pattern (pictured on the last post modelled by my bear) and thought that I would knit up a nice chic hat for her with the skein of yarn she bought. And then it turned into another hat, and a need to go buy expensive buttons and the desire to make more and more and more! I put an electric blue button on mine and by a whim decided to sew it on with bright yellow embroidery thread and I'm in love with it! I even wore it out yesterday! I'm using the left overs to make a sweater for my bear. He's 21 and he deserves a sweater... he's been a good friend and companion and he's getting a little worse for the wear, so I thought I'd give him something warm and cozy to wear.

My KnitPicks order should be coming today too, which means I can get started on my hat design! You're going to LOVE it! It's super cute (in my head) and it should be quick and easy! Famous last words!

Today while I was spending time writing this, I got called to one of my job sites. A job I've been working on since last September... A job I worked really really hard on... it's all done and the manager of the area in question informed me how great it looked and for such 'little effort on my part'. NICE! Jerk! I think it looks beautiful and I refuse to let her bring me down... Jerk!

Here's a picture of my hat that matches my bestee's!  

Hello Mr. Bear... what a lovely hat you have!

Choose your own Ending Shawl Pattern

The design is up! Please be kind, as this is my first design, but it's very much up to you how to big or small your shawl ends up! You get to pick the yarn and needles to get a gauge and size you like. You can knit a lot or a little bit, depending on how much yarn, patience and time you have. You can put as many eyelet rows or as few as you like. It's really a Choose your own Adventure shawl and I'm so thrilled to be able to publish it and get feedback on it.

I'm available via Ravelry (yarnballa) or here for comments, help and feedback, so please don't hesitate!

Download Pattern PDF

Goal accomplished?

I am many things in this world. I am a woman. I'm a girlfriend. A sister, a daughter, a friend. I'm also a knitter, a wannabe crocheter, a spinner and now apparently a pattern designer! Yes, that's right! I've written and published a knitwear pattern. It's not the most complicated pattern ever, but its still valid that I wrote it out, knit it and it works. It's sort of a test run for an actual pattern that I'm going to write for a hat that I want to make. I've looked high and low and can't find the perfect hat pattern that I can see in my head. So I decided that I would make it myself and then if it worked out, publish the pattern. I'm also reverse engineering a stuffed animal that I've seen in a magazine that I can't find the pattern for. I've named him Mr. Wrinkles and I can't wait to get started on knitting him up. The shawl pattern which I just finished will be put up on Ravelry for free and the hat is probably going to be free for now, however if it turns out awesome, I'd like to sell it via Knitpicks in their $1.99 pattern section. I'm using their yarn to make it up, so it makes sense to get it sold on that forum. Mr. Wrinkles will probably be a Ravelry paid download because I suspect that he's going to be somewhat difficult to engineer. If you want to test knit and you haven't already let me know on Ravelry, please leave a comment with how I can get in touch with you and I will offer you both Mr. Wrinkles and/or the hat to test knit. I would just ask that you provide decent photos of your finished project. I've heard somewhere that sometimes people ask you to pay for the yarn and knit the thing and then they want the item. I most certainly don't want your item. If you're local and you want me to photograph it, I'd be happy to, but the item and pattern is yours to keep.

In other news, I'm in for another rough two weeks. My manager, who is also a friend of mine just suffered the tragic and sudden loss of her father in a very unpleasant situation. The week that it happened, she was at work and altho it really didn't affect me personally, it was very taxing trying to keep the junk off her desk, people away from her office and attempt to comfort her in an appropriate and professional way. She's been away for a few days and now she's back for a week and a half before she goes back to Ontario again. I'm again tasked with taking care of her workwise as well as again attempting to provide comfort, distraction, some laughter and an over all feeling of safety for her. It's exhausting. I would do it for the rest of my life for someone I cared about if it was required, but that doesn't take away the fact that it's a difficult function to perform, made all the more complicated by the fact that we work together, so it's not like I can just drag her to a coffee shop or a lounge and chat and drink away the afternoon. (which would be nice!)

I got started on working on another WIP (work in progress) that has been languishing since last March... it's a beautiful beaded stole and I can't wait for it to be done... unfortunately in the year that it was hanging around not getting any attention, I guess it got angry and the entire ball of almost 1000 yards of yarn turned itself into one gigantic loopy knot. I can't do anything about it (because I'm not ept for detangling), so I emailed a fellow knitter who LOVES to detangle stuff (there are a LOT of those types of people out there!) and she's going to fix it for me. In the meantime, since I don't have any other projects in progress that can be 'on the go' or 'mindless knitting', I am casting on my ribbed legwarmers! My friend Sara is teaching me how to knit two things at once on one circular needle... exciting! I'm waiting to cast on any type of lacey something (which is almost exclusively what I knit) because I'm waiting for my 700 yards of Sweet Georgia Merino Silk Laceweight to show up so I can start Echo Flower. Girasole is on hold until my kp order shows up so I can use the bigger needles for the rest of it, and the crochet portion of my round shawl is stalled indefinately because there is NOTHING for me to wear it with any time soon, so it will just go in the heirloom knitting box. I've just initiated a KAL (knit-a-long, wherein everyone knits on their own version of the same thing at the same time) to do the new Knitty pattern Annis. It involves casting on 363 stitches, but I think once we get over that trauma, it will work out nicely and it's a really really pretty pattern. It will also help because on my fantastic Echo Flower, I need to do nupps and I've never done them, so I'll practice on this... it's relatively cheap yarn I'm using (not the quality, which is great, but the actual monetary cost) and then be wicked awesome for the big times!

Oh... and also??

Helllloooooo Kitty!

Yes!  I did knit a Hello Kitty Hat!  In fact I knit the hat portion (and the ears) last August and then I got bored and decided it was dumb.  So I tried to throw it out.  It got rescued from the throw away bin and then I entered a contest where you have to finish something started ages ago. I figured that last August was ages ago so I knit her bow, wove in all the ends (OMG, the ends!) and put her face on.  I like it good enough, but I'm sending it to my friend.  Maybe she'll wear it, take pictures and then send it to her friend who can take pics with it and then send it to her friend....because lets be honest... NO ONE needs a Hello Kitty hat in their wardrobe for keeps.  Or she can keep it... I don't mind!

What we did today...

I went... and then I came back... more after my nap

Here's a picture to place hold this post for what we did today in the United States of America.

Rip... Rip... Riiiiiiip....

OMG, I am so glad that I have good and supportive knitting friends and that they are aware of the trials and tribulations of taking on a HUGE project!  I made a HUGE mistake in my blankie that I'm making and it was one that couldn't be hidden.... all the lacey holes were in a beautiful left hand facing slant and then all of a sudden, I got a case of the stupids and the next round of lacey holes were two stitches too far to the right... hence, no more nicely lining up slant.  The only thing to do in such a case is to take the knitting out back to the offending row and fix it.  That particular chart in the pattern is fairly central and it would have been SO noticible. Plus, like Boy says, do I really want to spend hundreds of hours on this project, only to have a glaring mistake?  Um, no, I don't... so I went to Starbucks at six pm yesterday where it was bright and sunny and quiet (ya, it was oddly quiet) and spent a pain staking thirty minutes taking each stitch out individually and placing it back on my needle... I managed to do it all without screwing the thing up worse and being forced to rip out 16 rows down to my last lifeline (lifeline: a piece of cotton or other string that you put through all your stitches so that if you have to unravel, you can unravel safely down to that spot and then all your stitches hang on the cotton until you can put them back on your needle.  It saves ripping the ENTIRE thing apart when you make a mistake...).  I"m now well on my way again, and I'm more committed to my blankie than I was originally because I've now invested time in it going backwards, which makes it more valuable to me for some reason.  I've been trying to think why that would make it more valuable, but I can't think of a single reason, other than in my heart I feel like I love it more now... Is it weird to talk about a blanket in terms of how much you feel for it in your heart?

I'm getting all my hair chopped off in 4.5 hours!  Yay!  I'm thinking that I'd like it quite short and a nice chocolatey brown color, but I think I'll go for short and my own color.  It seems silly to dye my hair dark in the middle of summer... then the sun makes your head hotter!

Sorry, no pictures today... maybe I'll post pictures of our epic adventure to the United States of America tomorrow... epic!  I have to get up at FOUR THIRTY IN THE MORNING!  Enough said!

Shitty weather? Time for Knitting Bread

Woops... did I say knitting bread?  I meant knitting... and baking bread!  Or did I?

Last night I whipped up the second batch of dough from my Artisan bread in five minutes cook book.  It's sitting on the counter rising as we speak... I'm perfecting the recipe... what I mean by that is this time I put in enough yeast, but the lid on the container I bought doesn't seal well, so the dough became a bit dried out while in the fridge overnight.  I've combatted that in the meantime with plastic wrap, but I really should just get a proper dough bucket... apparently they have them at Williams-Sonoma.... and because I am physically made of money, that is exactly where I will buy my dough bucket... NOT!  LOL... I will try walmart first!

I've also been epically knitting along on my blanket.... partially because I want to get it done and partially because I did something yesterday that shall not be spoken of, but requires that I finish the damn thing quicker than originally hoped for... way to go me!

I have to put the dough baby in the oven in five minutes, so I'm off to clean up my kitchen and play with the blankie while it bakes... but I shall leave you with this:


Knitting with dough, while difficult is do-able... I did three backwards loop castons and one and a half rows of garter stitch.... and then the whole thing stuck to my plastic needles and I got mad and ripped it off.  Evidence suggests that you can also weave with dough... so I did... note the fringe!

Oh and I'm doing this for a contest I'm in... I'm not really nuts.... sort of!

                                                                               

You want a hand knit lace stole??

I'm stealing this from Yarnpiggy because she's smart and I don't have time to go around finding cool things to repost... So thanks Hilary!

Okay, so go HERE and put a bid on one of the most beautiful shawls you ever did see!  It's lace and it's Wollmiese, which for you knitters need not be described, but for you non knitters, just know that it's one of the most sought after and ridiculously hard to get items out there.  They're fundraising for the Ride2ConquerCancer and both their hubby's are riding hundreds of miles a day in order to raise this money!
So, get over there and make a donation.  Not only will you win the stole if you're the highest bidder, but you'll get a tax reciept and the fabulous feeling of making a contribution to a disease that touches everyone, regardless of borders, economic status and gender.  Screw Cancer!  Now go!

Sometimes what you pay for is awesome!

Okay, you know the saying 'you get what you pay for?'.  Usually it's said with negative connotation that you didn't pay enough for the 'thing' and therefore you deserve it's crappy quality.  Uh, not so with Knitpicks yarn.  Lemme tell you, it's some NICE yarn for very little $'s.  I knit up my Gaenor, shown below in my first skein of it, which was hand dyed by a friend.  The hand dyeing would do nothing to change the quality of the yarn, so I'm convinced that it was essentially exactly like it was off the warehouse shelf.  It's soft, it's springy, it's even and it's not splitty.  I loved knitting with it!  It was 75% merino and 25% nylon, which would give a nice durability to socks... It's also superwash, which means that it will be more difficult to felt.  I say 'more difficult' because I wouldn't put anything past me!  The cost of the 462 yards of fingering is $6.29.  Not too shabby!

So on the heels of that I am VERY excited to knit with my new Knitpicks Tonals.  They've gone above and beyond and delved into the realm of semisolid (forgive me if they already had that... I'm new!).  I bought one skein of the Stroll Tonal, shown here in Canopy to make Undine.  The yarn is absolutely gorgeous and unbeliveably well priced at $9.99 for 462 yards.  It will have the same percentage of merino to nylon in it and it's also superwash.  It's a bit more blue in the picture than in real life where it's a gorgeous deep green.

I also bought two skeins of my very first laceweight yarn ever! (not including the cashmere ball that my friend in Florida sent me, but lets not talk about that because it makes the other yarn jealous! ) I don't know what I'm going to make with this but the colors were too amazing to pass up!  It's Shadow in Gypsy and I bought 440 yards of it for $4.29 (well I bought two skeins... details!).  it's gorgeous and I can't wait to make something amazing with it!

Part of me wants to put a black streak in it, but I don't think I will....

Now, don't get me wrong, there are a MILLION yarns that I'm in love with that Knit Picks doesn't have and never will, but they're really awesome for some stuff and you certainly get a LOT more than what you pay for.  I recently bought the yarn to make knee high ribbed legwarmers which are on the cover of the Joy of Sox book... the Alpaca that they call for would have been over $50 but I got 100% wool from Knitpicks for less than $18US!  Plus, I think Alpaca will sag, and I'm not interested in saggy baggy legwarmers.  I also got some wonderful bulky weight yarn for my friend in Manitoba to make me a crocheted Totoro toy.  While I now know the basics of crochet, I'm not good at it enough to make this toy and she really wanted to crochet him, so for the cost of a ball of sock yarn, she's making me my toy!  I'm so excited for him!

Here's a wee picture of the cartoon.  I don't think mine is having teeth...

That's all in my world... except for that I'm sticking to my plan of knitting one pair of rows of Girasole every day... in fact, I'm five days ahead of schedule since I've been knitting two pairs a day... wish me luck to keep going.. the thing is getting heavy!  when it's done it's going to weigh 2.2 POUNDS!  Yikes!  That'll be a sucker to wash and block... lucky I think I'm doing it at my friend's house and then we're taking it to her studio to pin...she has a washer, which should make the whole thing easier... and it won't take a week to dry!



Oh, and something new... please go sign the Guestbook... 

Two in one day??

Just came back from a lovely evening out.  We went out of sushi at our favorite sushi restaurant Tokyo One on W 10th and Trimble.  It was great.  We know the owners and they're fantastic!   Anyway, right beside there is the new Urban Yarns shop, so we went in and hung out with the ladies for their grand opening in the new store!  The new store is beautiful!  There's a crystal chandelier and the walls are a lovely icy blue with a HUGE painting of the Eiffel Tower hanging behind the register.  They have their yarn beautifully organized into sections (such as the 'sock section' and the 'Sirdar section', so things are super easy to find and there's WAY more room in there!  Love it!  That's the location that Smungkee Bean hung out in for a week and the minute I walked in the door they asked for him to come back. I agreed, since he is pretty cool and his job of holding down and protecting the knitting area can probably be taken care of by me and the cat for a duration.

I also finished another shawl, as mentioned below, so I thought I would post a couple pictures.  Please ignore the hole I knit into the shawl...it was an accident and I will probably try and fix it (hide it) at some point...

It was 3'6" wide and 16" deep when I took it off the needles and it was 6' wide and 2' deep when I took it off the blocking board.  It's sprung back a bit with wearing, but it's superwash, so I knew it would.  The color is true in the top picture.

My friend and I are going for a walk around the Stanley Park Seawall tomorrow... 10km at the crack of dawn... can't wait!

Challenges and Chastising

I have now had one 20oz dark roast coffee with two shots of espresso in it and one 12oz Americano... I'm trying to use caffiene to scrub from my mind that I was chastised about my knitting at 8am this morning. Okay, well it's not as bad as it sounds, and to be honest, it did give me a thought provoking moment, but at the very second that the words were flung, I sort of wanted to lunge out of my chair and attack the offender...

So in the last two months... well since March 25 till now, which is a month and a half, I have finished two WIPS and started and finished two more shawls.... I now have a stack of shawls and scarves to pick from each day. Which I think is just awesome! And I have enough yarn to make a million more, but I got to thinking... even tho it's an enjoyable thing to churn out shawls, am I not ready to learn something new? Or try something harder? The problem for me is that I subscribe to the philosophy that if the pattern is well written, I can make it. Not clothes, because I'm not mentally ready to make clothes, but any lace shawl/blanket/stole is just a combination of two stitches and some placement of yarn, so it's not as tho any pattern feels out of my reach. Anyway, the chastising was along those lines. Someone from my office remarked that I am now speeding along with my knitting and perhaps I wasn't doing anything particularly difficult if I could start and finish items so quickly. That perhaps I should knit a lace tablecloth... I mentioned that I have no desire to knit a table cloth because you need to knit it with cotton or linen and I don't like knitting with them because they're not stretchy and the remark of note was 'I guess you're just not willing to challenge yourself'.
I did think about that.... the last thing I made was a garter stitch shawl with a knitted lace border. It's amazing and quite large, but it realistically only took me about 10 days of actually working on it to be done... Purling really slows me down, but I don't find it difficult, so it's not like stockinette is a challenge... I've been easing more purling into my knitting projects... there are whole chunks of stockinette on my WM shawl and I made two Feather and Fan patterns that involve purling, so it's not like I never do it...
So I continued to think about what would be a challenge for me... how could I challenge myself in my craft. And the answer was already sort of decided for me/by me last week when I decided to finish everything on the needles before starting new projects. That means I have to finish my WM shawl with the purling and the ridiculously twisty yarn, the 7' bulky weight lace blanket that will soon have 640 stitches around, the crochet on my round shawl, the silk scarf for my sister and the beaded lace shawl I started in June last year. I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't start new projects or buy more yarn until these were done. Now, to be fair, the blankie won't be done until around July or August, so that one, so long as I'm working on it diligently can be a WIP ongoing, but the rest of this stuff is getting done! It annoys me that I can finish a 6' wide triangular shawl in 10 days but I've let the beaded lace (with no purling btw) languish for almost a year... that I really wanted to snuggle under my blankie this winter, but it wasn't done...
So my challenge to me is to finish these things that for some reason or another have sat around for some time... some longer than others but none ever having had dedicated attention. That blankie would have been perfect this winter if last year I had set my 2 rounds a day goal. I will grant myself that I am faster and more proficient now than I was then, but even if it had taken me ten times as long, it would have still been done.
This brings me to a bit of an analogy in my life. Every day that I agree to be unhappy (if you're not disagreeing, you're agreeing) with my weight and my health is another day that goes by... nothing happens when you don't make stuff happen, and every day that I didn't knit on my blanket, was a day longer that it wasn't done. and every day that I don't get up and go for a walk is another day that nothing happens... so it stands to reason that I will challenge myself... because if you don't challenge yourself, aren't you just standing still?

Not just a pretty knitter

But a BAKER too!  Well... I don't know if you can call it that, but I did make bread!  Two loaves in fact.  Unfortunately I added 1/4 less yeast than I was supposed to, so it should have been lighter and fluffier, but it tasted GREAT!  Wanna see a picture?  Okay!  I have a lot more dough in the fridge and many plans for making more wonderfully yummy things! I got the recipe and the inspiration to be a bread baker from the book 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day'  Basically, without giving the value of the book away (and that would be hard to do since there are hundreds of recipes in it) is that you make a no-knead dough with five ingredients (water, yeast, salt, flour and cornmeal for the bottom), put it in a dough bucket or similar storage device and it keeps for 2 weeks.  As it keeps, it ages until nearer the two week mark there is some serious sourdough wonderfulness going on.  When it's baking time, you hack off a chunk (very dainty huh?), make it round and smooth with the method they show you in the book, let it rest for 40 min and then throw it into the oven on a hot pizza stone with a tray of water below and bake for 30 min.  Done.  Seriously, it's SO easy and the bread is amazingly yummy (if a little heavy, given the lack of yeast... my fault!).  I'm tempted to make more right now, but I'd like to get somewhere near the two week mark to see if the sourdough is yummy or not.  Go buy the book!

So that was the first part of my very productive Sunday.  The second part of my very productive Sunday, which the entire 'productive Sunday' didn't start till 5pm, was that I decided to make wool soup.  Well, not exactly... I decided to dye some roving. I bought this roving with my first spindle when I was in the states last year at Northwest Handspun Yarns.  They have a great little shop, lots of beautiful yarn and TONS of beautiful fibre and spinning wheels.  The selection of spindles sucked bobo, so I bought a super huge Ashford plying spindle (little did I know)... wait... I don't think it did suck actually... I think the girl told me that the spindle I wanted (nice) was too expendy... well anyway.  The reason I bought the spindle in the first place was because about two months before that I bought about 6oz of this beautiful yellow tussah (pronounced tuss aw)/merino blend because I was feeling bad, and it made me feel better, but then I decided I should learn how to spin it... Anyway, I am positive I've told this story on here before... so at the time I bought my spindle, I bought some roving to learn on.... and THAT is what I dyed this Sunday.  I pulled off 2.9 oz (because I got a digital scale from Canadian tire for $15 this weekend also!) soaked it in vinegar water, heated some water and then put it in the pot with the water (and more vinegar) and then poured my dye mixtures over top (with more vinegar).  The end result wasn't as blue as I was going for... I used teal, sky blue and green and it came out mostly green... note to self... more sky blue... less green... a LOT less!.  So I decided that if I wasn't going to spin it (which I knew in the next foreseeable future, given the amount of amazing roving I have to spin), that I would sell it.  So I threw it up (threw up... hahah!) on the destash fibre board and went to bed.  And by morning I had an offer on it, so I'm selling it to a nice lady that lives in North Carolina.  I think she has a wheel, which will make spinning this much easier... I'm selling her the other 3oz of undyed.  Altho I'm a little sad because I kind of wanted to dye it orange and pink... but she probably didn't want me to ;)

And lastly, I HAVE to rave about the most wonderful thing I got in the mail today!  It's called a Bubu Bag and it's from a company called Element Botanicals.  They don't have a link to the Bubu bag on their site, but she'll send you one if you email her.  Here's what the description on the hangtag says:

This incredibly comforting bag has been stuffed with oganically grown

flax, rice, lavender and peppermint.  Wam it up or freeze to help alleviate muscle strain,

headaches, migraines, nausea, stiffness, cramps, hangovers, sleeplessness and more!

Now!  If you know me at ALL!  You know that this is like the cure for everything that ails me!  It's SO amazing smelling and strong and refreshing that my mailbox smells good!  It permeates with mint and lavender and is soothing just to smell!  The girl (Amber) that owns it picked out fabric for me based on what I described as liking, because they have tons of nice options and what I got was a pink backing (I love pink!) and a blue front with little space people!  It's very retro and SO cute!  Just what you would think of when you were thinking of your Bubu bag!  (pronounced booboo as far as I know).

 If you're wondering, the round box behind the Bubu Bag is my new Thai jewelery box.  It's made out of smoked mango wood and you can actually open it up and take a huge whiff of this most amazing smoked mango scent!  Sometimes I put predrafted bits of roving in it so that when I'm spinning, it smells yummy!  If you're in Vancouver, you can find all the amazing imported Thai home accessories at Spirithouse on Main Street.

they have amazing lighting options, small accessories, thai massage items, art, furniture... it made me sad that we haven't gone back to Thailand in a long time because I LOVED it there! 

I hope you find something interesting from this blog post... either a bubu bag, a cookbook, some thai home decor or maybe you're inspired to dye your own roving. Or you want me to dye it for you... which can also be arranged ;)

That was kind of rude, don't you think?

Okay… so I went to an art opening tonight.. it was a blast. While we were standing outside under the tent (inside was blazing hot) we happened to be standing in front of a sewing ‘lounge’ type place that is going to open this month… we were sort of chatting and I was looking through the door to see what they were doing… they had tons of nice fabrics and stuff already… anyway, after standing around for about an hour, my friends convinced me that it would be okay to knock on the door, since we could see the two women inside. And this is what transpired:
Me: Hi! I just was noticing your store and was wondering when you were opening. I have had this idea to do a similar thing with a knitting lounge where people could bring their wheels and spin or sit and knit etc… it’s a great idea you have and a great space.
Her: Uh, ya… thanks. Here’s a card. (sort of ushers me out the door)
…..
They paper up the fricken window on the door so that we can no longer see inside!
Obviously she was less than interested in having people show an interest or talking to people, but it was super rude I thought to then go to the effort of papering up your window… I was rather offended.
Then the following conversation took place between our group of people as to whether me trying to show common ground by saying I wanted to do a ‘fibre lounge’ was rude, or that they were just not interested. Thoughts?
All I know is that I have no real intention of patronizing their shop when they open… and I sort of want to say who they are here, but that seems rude…

Aside from that, the opening was fabulous, I loved all (most) of the art, I met some nice people, we had some great (apparently obnoxious) laughs and I drank a LOT of hoppy beer!  

WHAT? Really?

Okay... I failed miserably on the blog week thing... I got three out of seven done... not even 50%. In my defense, I hardly ever write more than once or twice a week, so it was a success in that. but then I got bored of the questions and when I wanted to copy and paste sections out of other people's blogs, that's when I knew that I was probably tired of doing it.
Boy finally got a day off that was also my day off... Except for one day in February, we haven't seen eachother during the day since Boxing Day. Let me do the math for you. Prior to yesterday, we got to see eachother ONE day in 19 weeks! NINETEEN! That means that I hang out by myself on Saturday and Sunday until five or so and he hangs out by himself on Tuesdays and Thursdays until I get home around five or so and then the other days we both work till five or so... it makes quality time hard to come by... and this makes me sad :(

Anyway, we DID get to hang out together yesterday and it was great. I got up at the crack of dawn tho and got all ready to go out to sit in a lineup and knit with my friend Leone for a few hours before the craft fair we were going to opened. The first 30 people in line were to get a skookim swag bag with items in it from each vendor in a hand made bag... When we got there at 745 (the show opened at 10), there were already over fourty people in line... FOURTY! That's crazy. I mean crazy as in completely ridiculous! The first batch of people had been there since SIX AM! Now, I know we were planning on being there early and waiting in line and for both of us, it was more for the social aspect.. quiet morning, nice cup of coffee and some knitting and chatter. When we walked in, there were already so many people it felt like we were half asleep and they were shouting 'party's started!!!'. So anyway, there were a goodly chunk of people that waited in line for FOUR HOURS to get this freebee. In my personal and slightly hostile opinion, I hope the people that showed up there at six am were wildly disappointed! Not because I think the freebies should have sucked, because they shouldn't, but being THAT competitive sort of sucks the joy out of the whole thing. We found out that person 30 and 31 actually sprinted... as in RACED to get the 30th spot. Um, what? Come on! Anyway, Leone and I left and went to Bon's for breakfast and since their service is rather slow, we managed to get our coffee inspired knitting on...

At tenish I went home to pick Boy up and we went back to the craft fair, hit up another one, went down to Chinatown, Downtown Vancouver, Main St and then out to Coquitlam to get my car ( which now doesn't drive like it has a square tire) and I had a nap, we had dinner, watched a bit of tele and then went to bed. All in all, a very nice day that we spent together!

Now. Here's my other beef about something that happened yesterday at the craft show. When we were waiting to get our admission, there was a woman there who was doing a fund raiser for VoKra (Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Assc.). This woman was the editor or owner or employee or something of the Vancouver Fashion magazine (which I've never heard of). Anyway, she was selling a magazine she paid her own money to print and all the proceeds went to Vokra. Nice idea and how generous!. Except! She said she printed two years of the magazine into one copy as a limited edition thingy and that's what she was selling. Um, two years of fashion? Really? Because fashion changes quarterly if not faster and I do not understand how you can print two years of fashion... unless it was the last two, in which case, why would you want that? Is she pioneering enough to know what fashion is going to be in two years? Is she psychic? Is the the one that decides what fashion trends are going to look like? Because if not, why would I want a two year subscription to a fashion magazine all printed up three months ago? I don't get it. I would have gotten it if she said 'here's a double issue' or 'here's a look at where we think fashion is going based on the europeans' or something, but what she said is she printed up two years worth of fashion... No thanks!

There's a chance I'm being a big jerk, but I sort of dont' care. I mean I"m not a jerk, obviously, but I feel like being snippy today!

In knitting news, I'm knitting what may possibly be the most fabulous shawl you've ever seen! The yarn (dyed by my friend), the color, the gauge, the pattern and everything are working perfectly to give me what appears to my eyes (maybe not someone that can predict two years of fashion trends) a fabulously vintage shawl. Honestly, it's my consuming passion at this point! Loving it!

The weirdest thing just happened. I sit on the sixth floor of a six floor building. The wind just blew a delivery slip for the Globe and Mail onto my window sill and then held it there, against the window... for like a minute... how bizzare!

You are my inspiration!

Well, today's topic is to talk about a great knitter that inspires you. I don't think I can answer that...I can't. Honestly, I have never read a Barbara Walter's book or an Elizabeth Zimmerman book and I have no real idea as to why they're considered so amazing. (not that I don't think they are, it's just that I am not aware of any of their work specifically...my own doing I guess). I am interested in the modern evolution of knitting (which i know is borne from the past) and the modern inspirations that are made very much available to us in this technological age. I like seeing the pictures of new designs from new designers... I like seeing the yarn and pattern combinations that are endless and amazing on Ravelry. This is what inspires me...I am also wildly inspired by people around me.... Yarnpiggy did a similar sort of entry to this topic and I think she's right on. (not to mention, SmungkeeBean is on her blog! He's flattered!). I am inspired by people in my knitting group that have an amazing appreciation for the tool of our trade, yarn. There are girls (sorry boys, I haven't met any of you yet) who can identify a yarn just by seeing it. There are girls that can hold two different colored yarns together and make bacon! (well bacon scarves, but seriously, it's pretty awesome!). There are girls that make entire Cowichin inspired sweaters in two weeks. Girls that make shawls and lacey veils and socks! Oh so many socks! If I had to pick which of these people I was most inspired by, I would have to say that it's anyone in my group (or in the world in general) that can do an immpecable job on colorwork. One of the girls has made argyle socks on the smallest needles i've ever seen. In a black background... BLACK!



I think the most inspiring thing about knitters that I know is that they've taken a craft that has a stereotype of being for seniors and somewhat untrendy (in both product and in theory) and turned it into a chic, trendy expression of their artistic talent. The patterns they pull off are amazing, their talent for the craft is amazing, their willingness to share and teach and mentor and help and encourage is amazing and they're all inspiring to me in different ways.


Unfortunately none of you inspire me enough to link your Ravelry profiles or blogs because I'm lazy and I'm at work... You all know how to find eachother!

Aspirations...

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!

Up until last week I would have said that I was wanting to learn crochet, but I did that this weekend. I think I would have to go with Cardigan. I'm not fussy about which one, but I'd really like to make a nice cardigan. Anything that might use up more than one skein of yarn... well, that's not fair I guess because I have made things that used more than one skein, but nothing really wearable. Lots of nice accessories and heirloom knitting, but I'm moving to wanting to have something amazing. I think I might try the Central Park Hoodie... I have the skills for the cabling, so that's not the problem, and I"m learning to embrace purling, which I don't cherish, but I think the thing that's going to be the stumbling block is the calculations for measurement, waist shaping, etc... I suppose part of the problem is that I'm not happy with my current body shape/weight so I don't want to make something for that body... but I know from experience that isn't a good way to get where you want to go... I'm going to make it I'm sure and then even if I lose weight (when, not if) then it will just be a snuggly oversized sweater. I was planning on making it in KP City Tweed Heavy Weight also, which will require a bit of saving...I think the thing would cost almost a hundred bux in that yarn. I guess the other thing I would want to learn would be short rows. The funny thing is that I'm saying that these things are obstacles for me, but really, everything is an obstacle before you learn how to do it. I didn't know how to knit a year ago and I learned... cables, or short rows or kitchener, or 3 needle bind off can't be any harder than learing to knit from scratch because they're all things done one stitch at a time... it's just a matter of how that stitch is manipulated... and then the next and the next...



So I'd say my aspiration is to make an article of clothing. Definately doable!

Knit and Crochet Blog Week

Starting Out - How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda? 

So you'll be getting 7 blogs in seven days out of me!  I've decided since I now know how to knit AND crochet, that I will join in Knit and Crochet Blog Week... get those bloggy juices flowing

So... how did I begin knitting?  I wandered into a local yarn store on a spontaneous walk through a neighborhood other than our own one night and it just happened to be late night knitting night.  I wandered in, gazed in awe at all the yarns and then decided then and there that if I didn't know how to work with the yarn, I couldn't HAVE the yarn... so I signed up for a class and the rest is history... well, not exactly... The class got cancelled three times (post poned) and by then I'd already gotten my very first two balls of yarn (Noro Silk something or other... I now know not to throw the tags out, and Malabrigo Worsted) and my needles.  So I sat down with my laptop and taught myself to knit using youtube.  Not too shabby if I do say so!  of course the day I went to my class finally, the instructor asked what the H I was doing, because apparently I was yanking on the yarn and choking the needles with every stitch... as soon as I loosened that up, I was flying!


How did I learn to Crochet?  Well that was just a mere three days ago!  My friend Lara from our knitting group kindly sat with me in a coffee shop for 5 hours and taught me how to crochet so I could put the border on an otherwise semi-successful piece of knitting.  I'm now half way around the circle for the second of three times, and it's going well!  I have big plans to make a throw, and crochet in laceweight and and and... apparently my ability to stop myself from dreaming wasn't squelched by my new artistic output.
No one in my family knits... that I know of.  My mom crocheted a giant granny square blanket when I was a kid... white and peach... I wonder if she still has it.  My aunt made this awesome blanket and footstool cover out of some type of crochet flower generator thingy that I'm still trying to find... and that's it.  Oh, and my sister tried to learn while she was quitting smoking and by the third row on anything I understand that it was so tight she couldn't get her needle into the next stitch... she may have made a misshapen dishcloth...

So that's the beginning... it all happened March 2009 and if you look in the archives here you'll see a selection of items that I've made between then and now in my first year of knitting... not to shabby!

See you tomorrow! 

How about a Hip Hip Hooray for the right tools?!?

Okay, so last post I talked about how good I got at spinning... which is true... all of a sudden, it just clicked.  Well guess what happened today when I bought a spindle designed for the yarn I was trying to make.  Magic is what happened that's what!  This spindle feels like butter, weighs nothing and is the new favorite in the 'tools' section of KnittingLand.  Previous faves have included my Harmony interchangeable needles and my lace project bag from my friend PJ!
The spindle is made out of Zebrawood and weighs 30grams.  It's got a 2" diameter top whorl and a walnut or zebrawood shaft and it's amazing!  I also got some new spinning fibre.  Both these items were purchased locally and both are made locally by local artisans.  So while I wasn't exactly crazy about spending that kind of cash, it's made my spinning life much much more joyful (and it was already pretty joyful) and it's put money back into the local artisan community, which is very important to me!
Here's my new fibre.  It's called Panda by SweetGeorgia and it feels like I think a Panda should feel.  It's 60% superwash merino (no felting... yay!), 30% bamboo and 10% nylon.  That kind of makeup will make it durable (nylon), give it a shimmer (bamboo) and make it an easier care finished product (superwash).  It would make nice socks I would think, but we all know I don't make socks and there's no way I'm spinning a beautiful fingering weight yarn only to turn it into something I'm going to stuff into my shoes.  I don't even LIKE socks!

Here's a picture of the fibre... awesome looking no?

Here's a picture of the spindle...That's looking down on it from the top... pretty!

Okay, now your task for today is to go over to my friend Hilary's site and vote in her contest...
She needs awesome ideas for a mediumish intermediate shawl/stole... not triangular tho!
Merci Beaucoup and stay tuned for pictures of my newly spun yarn on my new spindle... because I know that's what you're all dying for!

Holy crap, I got GOOD!

So it's come to my attention that I have a switch loose in my head and it causes me to want to have forty billion projects on the go at once... but not all the same... nooooo.... I need to have a couple knitting projects going, and some beading things, and apparently I feel the need to make buttons (very fabulous thing coming up that I can't tell you about yet, because of the 'IdeaStealers'), and apparently buying yarn isn't good enough for me (altho, some yarn?  very very good!), so I've decided to spin my own.  Just so you know, the valid next step is to put a couple sheep in the backyard, but lucky for us, we're not quite there yet.

Anyhow, I bought this roving (for you non knitters, roving is the sheep's hair, cleaned up and in my case, dyed) before I even had a thought about being able to spin... I was going to knit with it (yes, you can!)... and then I found this OTHER roving that I can only describe as the fiber equivalent to the cream cheese icing I make for my home made carrot cake!

It was silk and wool in the most beautiful butter yellow color... So, being me and being that I know that unless you know what to do with something, you can't have the something, I immediately bought it and a spindle and some 'test roving' and set about learning how to spin yarn.  Well let me tell you something... garbage in, garbage out.  I used that 'test' roving and it was the crappiest, curliest, ugliest thing in the world.  I don't know what posessed me to get undyed, but it was cream and brown and not in a good way.  So I spun and spun and cursed and cursed and then gave up.  Knitting came so easily to me, and I could not figure out why spinning wasn't the same.

Then one day I stumbled upon my very first roving... the stuff I was going to knit with and thought maybe trying to spin with a quality product would be a good idea... since I learned to knit on Malabrigo and Noro... LOL! (very expensive luxury yarn)
And it seemed to work better, but I still sucked and I couldn't get that 'click' that comes when you finally get the hang of something... until tonight!

Tonight I got GOOD!  I took a tiny piece of advice I'd asked for and used it and my common sense and it worked!  I spun a GORGEOUS length of really even, really pretty, really fine yarn!  And the color is unparalleled...

Now that I'm on the road to glory with my spinning, I've decided that I need to take a jewelery making class in order to get 'good' at beading and wire wraps... Apparently if you want to solder the sterling silver jewelery pieces, you need to use a blow torch... that was all I needed to hear!

So tomorrow, I"m going to my knitting group and I'm going to get someone to help me with joining the pieces of roving and then I'm going to spin and spin until I can't spin anymore!  yipee! I like getting good at stuff!  It's awesome!

I've arrived... where I'm not exactly sure..

So last year when I began knitting, I did it because I wanted to buy a ball of yarn, but I couldn't justify the purchase without knowing what to do with it. (on this note, youd' think I would be able to say I couldn't buy another ball of yarn without having something specific to knit with it, but it doesn't not work that way apparently!)  Anyway!  So I went in to the yarn store and enquired about classes... I admit to having it in the back of my mind that this would be like the time I took a pottery class... I'm no potter, so we should all be able to figure out how that turned out!  I thought I'd take this class... muddle along and then be done with it in my never ending search for a hobby.  Turns out, I'm a teeny tiny bit proficient at knitting.  I was a GOOD student.  Prior to the class (which they delayed twice, and I almost cancelled out of once), I bought my yarn (turns out, my first yarn to knit with was one of the most luxurious yarns out there and there's a whole cult following), bought my needles and turned on youtube.  Taught myself how to cast on (how to get the first row of stitches hanging on to the needles for all you non-knitters) and how to make the knit stitch.  Practiced for a few days and then found out that my manager at work is a VERY good knitter so I dragged all my stuff to work on a Thursday and we shut the door for my one hour 1:1 weekly meeting, blazed through the work stuff and then she showed me two other ways to cast on (there are at least 4 dozen) and helped me....
When it came to the class, I had already known how to cast on and knit, so I was a good student.... I sort of thought this might be something that I would keep up... altho again, in the back of my head, since i was/am a slow knitter, I knew enough about myself to know that I'd probably get bored and frustrated by the slow rate of production and gratificaton and give it up. 
Apparently that wasn't true either, as I've spent MONTHS knitting things... maybe only a row at a time, or maybe a full day stranded in the airport, but either way I knit almost every day and I'm happy to see my items grow and I'm happy to put the work into them every day to see them progress.... Maybe I don't know myself as well as I thought I did.
Fast forward one year.  I've made 3 cabled handbags, 3 lace scarves; 2as gifts (2 of my three ONLY gifts except for whatever Boy wants), 3 lace cowls (two of which have been repurposed, one of which was the third gift... one as a hot water bottle cover and one as a really weird looking tea cozy) 3 triangular lacey shawls (one of which I burned a hole in back in October... good thing I was drunk when it happened... it's fixed now tho) 1 hat that I made up the pattern for, 1 pair of fingerless cabled mittens, 1 round lace shawl (LOVE), a 2.5' sock monkey and I'm working on a large lace stole (wide scarf), a 7' lace blanket and about to start a new triangle shawl and about three dozen cat toys for the spca.

Anyway!  All this is to say that while I knew I wanted to learn to knit, I also didn't think I'd keep it up and now, look at me!
The icing on this year of knitted cake is that yesterday I was down at my local yarn store and I brought Smungkee in to show them... and he's now sitting in the front window of the store!  MY MONKEY!  is in the window of the biggest and best knitting store in Vancouver!  What the hell!?!
Here's a couple pictures of him and then below some pictures of my year of knitting... because I like to toot my own horn!

Below is the round lace shawl... I worked on it for about 8 months off and on.  Below that is a triangle lace shawl that I wear every day... below that is a cabled handbag I made and lined and below that is a close up of a scarf I made my mom for her birthday in which I hand strung hundreds of beads so that it was prettier... the yarn is 100% Angora... BUNNNEEEEEEEE

So there you have it... My little buddy is in the window of a yarn store... a little buddy that I thought a year ago I'd never get anywhere close to making... pretty friggen cool!

Holidaaaaay!

Bonjour World... why yes, I am on holidays, why do you ask? ;)

It's BEAUTIFUL here right now... cold, but beautiful!

The flight here was epic!  It's a 55 min flight at the most and it took me NINE HOURS!  Apparently the airline pilots can land in the dark, but they can't land in the fog... what I don't understand is why they wouldn't have grounded the flight on the Vancouver end instead of sending us up in the air to fly into a fog bank that was there for hours prior and for a while afterwards.  It's only a one hour flight, so its not like a ton would change between our take off and arrival... but they sent us up, circled us around and then sent us back to Vancouver.  That was 2.5 hours... then they told us that it would be 10-15 min to get our new flights for later in the day booked, but 'please don't leave the lounge area, it will only be 10 min'.  Over ONE HOUR later, they finally called us up to get our new flights... Uh, I would have liked to go to the bathroom, but since it was only '10 min' I figured I could hold it... jerks!
Anyway, they put me on the 310 flight, which landed at 425 (we took off late).  That means that since I was at the airport at 7am, I didn't get released into the non secure area of the PG airport for 9.5 hours... and then we had to drive 2 hours to get here... I was TIRED by the time we finally got here!

Got up at 730 on Thursday morning... weird!  We built a fire in the woodstove and watched Ceaser Milan for a while and then went for a long walk with the doggy where we found a deer hoof and a dead squirrel.
My dad's friend came over for a visit while my dad made strawberry apple wine and I knit.  Got TWO projects finished since I've been here!  Had a nap, had dinner and watched tv and then went to bed.  This morning we went to visit the neighbors, went to town and I had TWO naps!  Tonight for dinner we made a camp fire and made hot dogs and then ate rice krispie squares I made yesterday.  I'm now drinking tea with honey and trying to figure out how to get the smoke smell out of my clothes...

We're having turkey dinner tomorrow and pancakes and waffles (maybe or... not sure).
That is all!

Oh Hell!

Looks like I didn't do such a good job this last couple of weeks with keeping this updated...I'll try to do better...

What's new... well I put myself on a yarn budget/spending plan because I think my stash is getting too crazy and I'm not knitting fast enough.. so now I can spend between $20 and $40 per month.  The kicker is, that I can spend that ONCE. So if I buy something in March and it's only $30, the ten bux is lost.  This is because I'm terrible at remembering how much I've spent, so I would end up going over by incorrectly adding the purchases.  So it's once per month and once only.  Also, the $40 does not carry over if I choose/end up not spending the money that month.  I tried to go yarn shopping yesterday, but I couldn't find a single thing I wanted bad enough to spend my allotment.  It's hard to shop now that I know that I'll have to wait until next month if I buy the 'wrong' thing... I'm looking for some gray/dark gray sock yarn to make Akimbo with... I traded someone for some really awesome colorful sock yarn for the contrast stripes, so now I need the body... I'm thinking something super soft and cuddly, but I couldn't find anything yesterday.  Altho in my head, it's Alpaca... 

I won a bet on Ravelry a few weeks ago and the offer was a skein of cashmere... well I got that in the mail from MakoShark this week and it's insanely gorgeous.  It's in a deep pink in laceweight and it's 100% cashmere.  I've never felt anything so soft in my life!  It barely weighs anything and I love it!  I'm afraid if I add it to my stash, it's going to make the rest of the yarn jealous.... I think it's about 600-1000 yards, so I can make a really beautiful shawl when I find the perfect pattern.  I was thinking Laminaria, but it doesn't seem to fit the color... 

I'm going to my dad's on holiday in a week and a bit!  I'm so excited!  I haven't seen him since November and I need a little break from work.  I'm taking plenty of knitting and going to get plenty of Ceaser mix and vodka and having myself a nice little time!  hoping for some good food, good company and decent weather, altho I'm knitting like a maniac on my Multnomah in order to be able to wear it when I'm there.  I'm also hoping that my friend can fix my Canadian Mint before I leave so I can wear it too... It's a real bummer that i lit that sucker on fire!

I ordered my February yarn from Yarntopia Treasures and I can't wait for it to come.  I'm feeling stupid for the color I ordered because after I placed the order, I saw a beautiful red color that I want, but I'm sure it'll be around so I can get it later.  It's 60% silk and 40% Merino and it's in Seaweed colorway.  I'm thinking THAT is going to be my Laminaria.

I'm having a TERRIBLE time with cramps again.  I thought I was done with them three weeks ago, but I was laying in bed this afternoon howling and writhing around... Luckily I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and maybe she can give me some insight.  I go to Dr. Ed's every two weeks, but even tho I was just there  yesterday I'm considering begging him to see me on Monday also... 

That's pretty much it.

D

EXCEPT FOR THIS!