Kitmonster Knits

Mondays can, in fact, be productive

2010-02-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

And this Monday is no exception. Today, I have done many things. I have made wontons. I made lunch. I did three loads (or was it four? No. Three.) of laundry. One of them is still in the drier, but it still counts. I finished six sets of stitch markers (though I haven't taken pictures of them, or the last few sets either). I did a few more rows on Erin's Deep V vest. I guess I didn't mention that I'd started that, did I? Well, I have now. Cascade 220 in heathered blue and green. AND (and this is the amazing part) I actually had to go up a needle size to get gauge. I know, crazy, hey? It was moderately exciting. Anyways. There are no pictures yet of the vest. It's currently sitting in the corner of the couch, awaiting the next few rows.

So while I have something on the needles, I'm going to keep going in chronological order here. Seems I did a whack of knitting for other people. And I managed to do most of it with yarn that I did not buy myself. Excellent. After the pair of lace ribbon scarves, there were a pair of hats.

The hats were for an ex-coworker, Matt. We got together for coffee after not having talked in at least a year, maybe 2. Anyways, I had the Noro hat on, and he joked about how I was still always knitting. I think at the time I was working on a hat from the Venezia chart, with the Noro leftovers. I was at an amazing bright blue section in the Noro. And so Matt asked if I would knit him a hat. I jokingly told him that if he went and picked up the yarn, then I would knit a hat for him. Unlined, unlike the last one, which would apparently do him well in Siberia.

I didn't think much of it until I got a text a few days later, asking where I'd gotten the blue yarn (I gave him a piece to take with, for colour comparison's sake) because Dressew didn't have anything like it. After a quick laugh, because one should never start at Dressew when looking for good yarn, I sent him up to Three Bags. The next day, I was informed that he had yarn for me. And would I please knit a hat for his sister, too? I acquiesced, and picked up the yarn. One skein of Malabrigo Chunky in violet, and one skein of Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in Saltwater.

The Malabrigo was turned into a Dean Street Hat (rav link). There are no pictures. Not even on my camera. I'm sorry. The SweetGeorgia is now a Koolhaas. There are 47 grams left. Not quite enough to make another one :( This is in fact an important fact, because despite my best intentions, the hat is too small. So either it needs to come back from Australia, where it was sent to, or I need to obtain some more yarn. The second option, as much of a pain as it is, is probably the way it's going to go.

But enough of me talking. I may as well show you the pictures.

Apologies for the blurry. I no longer have a tripod, because I gave it back to Makr.

This is the top. I love the way the decreases come together.

Also, I have to teach people that if they are getting me yarn for a specific purpose, and it comes in a skein, then they should get it wound into a ball. Nevermind that it looks nicer in the skein. 100 grams of sock yarn is a LOT to wind by hand. Even if it does look alright after winding...

Next in line

2010-02-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

So it would appear as though I've already failed at regular blogging; my goal was to have one post every week, and clearly that hasn't happened. However, I still have a backlog of projects to get through, so I think I'll keep trying anyways. After the hat, there was in fact some Christmas knitting. Despite the fact that I'd already decided I wasn't going to knit for anyone this year. Because mom handed me a ball of yarn and said "this is my Christmas present. Can you make me a lacy scarf?" What's a girl to do when her mom asks for handknits? And then hands over the yarn, to boot? So then I spent a week trying to find a suitable lace pattern for a high-contrast hand-dyed yarn. Something where the lace wouldn't be obscured by all the changing colours. (For reference, this was Fibranatura's "Yummy" in Navajo) I finally ended up with Lace Ribbon after much searching on Ravelry, and settled in to knit. I think I memorized the lace pattern after 2 repeats.... Anyways, some time between two weeks and a month later, there was a lacy scarf, desperately in need of blocking. And so block I did.

I'm thinking t-pins would be a good investment...

I used some leftover white broadcloth with a wool blanket (the first aid kind) under it to give me something to pin to. It actually worked pretty well except for when the scarf grew longer than the blanket... But the carpet had no complaints about being pinned into.

Apologies for the blurry; I was taking no-flash pictures inside. Colours and pattern turned out well, though, hey?

In any case, I cast off mom's scarf on the bus on my way out to Richmond one day, and was then without a knitting project. Very unfortunate. So I stopped in at Wool and Wicker and picked up more yarn. For another scarf, of course. Same pattern, same size yarn, same size needles... But this time it was Handmaiden Casbah. In a sort of teal and blue variegated. Topaz, I think. In any case, I started a scarf for Puzzle. Who I nearly always get something pink for, but decided against it this time. Because nobody really needs a pink lacy scarf, and it clashes with more things than teal does :p

I'm only sad that the "inside" YO's didn't open up more, because that would have been neat. Sort of... bubbly.

Anyways, that was probably one of the fastest things I've ever knit. I love fast knitting :) It's also been blocked, but is still waiting to be gifted, because I fail at actually seeing people over the holidays... But it might come with me this weekend and go to its rightful owner.

Project notes for anyone still reading, and wanting the condensed version:
Pattern: Lace Ribbon (Knitty, spring 2008)
Yarn: Fibranatura Yummy in Navajo, approx 70 grams, and Handmaiden Casbah in Topaz, approx 70 grams
Needles: 3.5 mm
Notes: Fastest. Project. Ever. The pattern is easy to memorize, and works up quickly. I worked three repeats of the lace pattern (45 sts) instead of the 4 repeats dictated by the pattern because mom asked for a narrow scarf (it ended up being about 6.5 inches after blocking) I really need to remember to swatch and block for lace things though because they grow so unpredictably...

A pretty little hat

2010-01-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

And so begins the catch-up progress on the Great Backlog of projects since October. It may or may not be a good thing; you decide :)

So after knitting the grey hat for Marksman, I decided I wanted a geometric hat of my own. I'd looked through a bunch of the patterns in Mostly Mittens, and there were a large number that wouldn't work at a worsted-to-bulky gauge, like the grey hat, but that would be great knit in a finer gauge. Say, fingering weight. (If you think about it, this does make sense. They are, after all, mitten patterns, and colourwork mittens at that.) So I pulled out some of the sock yarn stash (because it is massive) and realized that I had a really nice ball of Noro Kureyon sock that I didn't really want to make socks with (would you?) and proceeded to procrastinate. A few days later, armed with my printer/scanner, some scissors and some tape, I came to the conclusion that the pattern in the book wasn't a continuous repeat; there was no way for me to line up the chart as-printed so that I would have continuous patterning all the way around. So I almost gave up. Which would have been sad. But then I remembered that I have a fabulous tool at my disposal for charting. And it's not graph paper. Graph paper is a great thing, but when you're working on a 36-stitch, 70-some odd row chart, it;s not going to happen. Instead, I use a program called Pixen. It's a bitmap graphics application (it's apparently excellent for sprite creation) but it comes in handy when I want to make colour charts, too, because I can display the pixel grid (and zoom as close as required). Even if it always reminds me of the stamp tool in KidPix... In any case, an hour or so later, armed with a now-complete-and-repeating chart, I cast on. And ignored the chart for a few days. I've now fallen in love with corrugated ribbing; I love the way that the colours pop against each other. No matter that it's not as stretchy/clingy as plain ribbing. It looks prettier. After the ribbing was long enough, I started in on my chart. And it worked beautifully.

I love the way the colours change, all by themselves...

I need to find another ball or two of this Kureyon Sock colorway; I'm a child of the 80's and as such I am subject to rainbow-attraction.

I love me some bright colours...

I think the hardest part of the whole hat-making process was when I discovered that I wasn't going to use the entire chart; even in sock yarn, 70 rows is quite a lot. I adjusted the chart on the fly, and finished it a few days later. This was back in November, and it's quickly become my very favourite hat. I'm smitten. I even love the way the inside looks.

This is the inside.

I almost want to knit it in reverse now.

The way things go

2010-01-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

It would seem as though I'm an absentee blogger; I don't remember the last time I actually checked up on blog traffic (because I like knowing if anybody comes to read this thing), and while it's not so much that I don't care, I haven't found the time to put into it. Or something like that. Marksman and I were talking about what we want to do or be last night, and this thing came up. I was talking about how I think it would be kind of nice to actually use my etsy store, and post knitting and fiber-related things. Or sell things directly from here (though it'd require a POS.) I have a stash of things for making pretty stitch markers, which I know is an overdeveloped market, but there are a few patterns kicking around on my computer, that I've never published. There's also all of the fingerweaving stuff that's lain dormant, that I could probably turn into a micro tutorial for the blog, and expand more on in some kind of PDF document. Those are all things I would love to do (because, well, I am still lacking in the full-time work dept) but I have to actually sit down and schedule them into my life. And then remember to take pictures of them. THat seems to be the hard part; I have a bunch of (finished) projects up on Ravelry right now with no pictures. Because I just haven't gotten around to it, it seems. Sort of unfortunate. Anyways, what this may come to mean is that instead of posting 6 projects at once, whatever was done since the last post, I might end up posting things in bits and pieces. Like, one project at a time sort of thing, so that the knitting and finishing times don't necessarily align with when it goes on the blog. I'm not sure I like the concept (I'm definitely a fan of the real-time progress postings) but I might give it a shot, at least for now, while I am working on a few projects that may prove to be photo-worthy, but I'm not sure. We'll see how it goes.

Cold and Miserable (but only outside)

2009-10-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's well and truly Fall now. It's been raining on and off for the last two weeks, and the temperature has dropped below 10°C more than a few times. It's time to crank up the needles and knit warm woollies, obviously. If you really want to know about the canoe adventure, leave a comment and I will write it up, but seeing as nobody asked, I'll leave it be. I've got a written record at home of it anyways... Besides, the blog is due for some actual knitting content, so I might as well get on with it. First there's a pair of socks.

They're either the Noah's Ark or The Ants Go Marching socks. Because all 8 inches of the leg is 2x2 ribbing. I couldn't get away with the cables on the Crossovers, so I decided to suck it up and just do a ton of 2x2 rib in hopes that it would accommodate Marksman's skinny ankles. They were both knit at the same time on a 1.5mm or 1.75mm addi turbo lace needle. I actually like the method, though I'm not sure when the next time I will use it is; I like the striping on my socks to go in the same direction on both socks, and this pair is inverted. Perhaps when I have two balls of yarn instead of one. In any case, they have been secret knitting since I started, and they were supposed to be "discovered" in the sock drawer unawares, but the day I finished them he was out of socks, so I handed them over. He likes them and they fit, so I should be off the "please can I have some socks" hook for a bit. The yarn came from the sale bin at Steveston Crafts and More, so I'm not entirely sure what it is, having lost the ballband ages ago.

Next, there are some tiny aliens.

I discovered them on Ravelry, and I love them dearly. Each takes about 40 minutes from start to finish and the pattern is super simple. They're all made of scrap worsted I have sitting about, some wool, some acrylic. I'm debating making more and turning them into christmas ornaments...

I've also got a new pair of Jaywalkers in progress, in Lana Grossa MegaBoots Stretch.

So far, so good, except that the colours didn't land where I wanted them to. Oh well. Better luck on the next sock, perhaps. These were actually started ages ago, but I ripped and restarted earlier in October because my pattern mods weren't working how I had originally planned.

Then, there are the as-yet unfelted Fiber Trends Felted Clogs, made from Patons Classic Merino in grey and teal.

I pretty much love this pattern. Other than the annoying counting part, it was super fun to knit, and I love how the sole becomes the sole; it's quite ingenious really. I made the womens' large, because when I started the medium it was coming out far smaller than I expected it to. So they still need a trip through the washer, which I will probably have to go and visit Jake and Susan for, because I don't want to do them in the washer at home, nor the laundromat.

I have two more, and then I think I've totally caught up on all the knitting. There's been no spinning lately, so I should be clear on that one anyways... In any case. There's a scarf which may or may not ever get finished, and a hat, which is complete and got worn for the first time today even though it was still a little damp from last night's blocking party.

The hat is for Marksman, because he lost his toque back in early February on the bus. I had started a new one for him, intending for it to be finished in time to go to Rovent. That didn't happen. The weather got warmer, and the toque imperative was lost. And then it started to get cold again... So I dug out the hat I had started, and determined I didn't like the way it was looking, and started a new one. I've got Charlene Schurch's Mostly Mittens from the library right now, and pulled a mitten chart I liked and turned it into a hat. I actually started with one, and then he tried it on and it was too small, so everything got ripped and restarted. (Those two words seem to be the theme for October's knitting, more on that later.) I ended up using pattern #26, after finding the repeat instead of just the mitten section.

The in-progress photo is more accurate for colour's sake... I forgot to change the white balance when I was taking pictures inside last night.

Two shades of grey might not seem like the best idea for a geometric patter but they worked out nicely. And it's subtle and manly enough that he likes it, which is the important part. I ended up using leftovers from a bunch of different things on this one. Dark grey from the felted clogs, light grey from a bunch of different things (Emily's mittens, Dad's gloves, and Tristan's jacket are all the same yarn) and the semi-solid grey Smooshy from Marksman's first socks. Now I want to knit myself a new hat, but colourful.

Last but not least, though definitely the oldest, is the Shifting Sands scarf.

That's going to need a good blocking before it's presentable...

I started this ages and ages ago, back in Australia, and it was far too wide the way it was. So I started it over again, because when we went to my grandparents' for Thanksgiving it ended up being a pretty cold evening, and Marksman asked very nicely if he could have a scarf. I jokingly told him I would teach him to knit and he could make his own, which might still happen, but this one is on the needles just in case. It's a "triple-knit" weight (chunky, I guess?) so I'm not using the pattern exactly as written, but the cable pattern is still the same. It's 8 inches wide and so far about 10 inches long, though of course that will change. Hopefully sooner as opposed to later. But that, friends, is all the knitting :)

More summer...

2009-08-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Pictures are coming soon, I hope. I'm having computer issues.

So I suppose I should pick up where I left off on that last post. I still have harvest and a death to talk about, that I mentioned earlier, but now there's another wedding, a long walk that wasn't walked, a canoe trip and new socks to add to the list. Let's work in chronological order again, shall we?

Officially, harvest comes first in the grand scheme of things, I think. I've now had a chance for the growing things on my patio to have become edible. There was been a bountiful harvest of lettuce and bok choi (the lettuce is done, but I really should harvest more bok choi before it all gets eaten by bugs) and the peppers have turned out to be orange ones, and not green like I thought. I still haven't picked any though. I'm waiting for the right time. Maybe later on this week. There's also been harvest of cherries (back in July) plus apples and figs at the Richmond house. Apples and figs were the most recent; they got picked (just a couple of each) when I was out there last week taking care of Resha. I'm out there again at the end of the month, so maybe I will do some more harvesting.

On that sort of bright note, I have some sad news to report. I learned at the end of July that Hippolyta and Oberon's mom lost her fight with breast cancer. I haven't really talked to the twins since highschool, but it made me sad. Susie was always an amazing person. But I guess sometimes the worst things in our lives are the ones that catalyze some of the best ones. By this I mean to say that the news of Susie's passing made me actually go out and do something instead of just thinking about it. See, for the past while (I would say about a month or so prior) Rafiki has been trying to get me (and Marksman, in a roundabout sort of way) interested in volunteering/crewing the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. And I kept saying "not this year, but maybe next. I'll think about it." But then the Breast Cancer beast reared its ugly head, and it made me want to be a part of the solution. So I waited about a week, and thought about things, and made sure I wasn't being completely rash, and then registered to crew the Vancouver Weekend. I may have left it a little late. I registered on Monday, and the Walk was the following weekend... But I didn't register Marksman until Tuesday :p I ended up on the Caboose team, the crew of cyclists that try to keep the organizers up to date on what's happening on the route. And then Wednesday rolled around, and the crew coach (the staff member in charge of the Crew; crew are all-weekend people, vs volunteers who mostly do partial-weekend stuff) sent out a note to the Caboose. Which was a "hi, welcome to the team" note, but also let us know that we didn't yet have a captain. Captains are handy people to have. They tend to be organized and stuff, and sort of know what's going on. So I waited until Thursday evening to volunteer. Because I had Friday off, having finished a building in excellent time. On Friday morning I call the office, and volunteer, and all is well. I do some running around, picking up a rack for the road bike (aka Shelly) that doesn't require any braze-on mounting points on my frame. Which means I'm stuck with a seatpost-mounted rack, that I have determined I don't really like at all. It wobbles too much when I have my panniers on it. In any case. Crew meeting that night, the captains all introduce themselves, all goes well. I meet up with the rest of my team, we figure out (mostly) what we're doing, and head on our merry way. I am the last captain to get to the t-shirt table. This is very unfortunate, because all that is left on the table by the time I get there is XL shirts. I am most definitely not an XL. So I put one of my shirts on anyways, and debate the sanity of turning it into a dress overnight, and then come up with a brilliant idea; I will turn it into a cycling unitard! Originally the plan was to do the quick and dirty version, with maybe three seams. I ended up doing a somewhat more tailored incarnation. Eventually, I might do it again with a plain shirt and write up a tutorial, for the fun and the fashion... (...just for the passion? 10 points if you can tell me what song that came from) And really, I know the point of the cycling uni is so you don't have a waist band on your bike shorts, but it was still fun.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Anyways, post unitard-sewing (it took about an hour, I think) it was bedtime, and the morning came along far too early, because we were picked up just after 0500. And then went to the starting point (that I really want to just call the staging area, but it was more than that) and waited. And waited. And waited. I decorated Shelly while I waited. Borrowed some pink flagging tape from the moto safety guys. My front forks and top tube are still pink. I should get around to fixing that... Anyways, met up with my team, and got everyone organized, and got on our way. There are no really interesting stories from the walk, really. Though I did get to hang out with Chad, who is semi-famous in the world of the Weekend, because he's done 34 walks to date, and this year is doing every single walk in Canada. Clearly the man is crazy. Anyways. We come in to Closing Ceremonies, and do all that stuff, and then go on our way. I talk Rafiki into going past the Unitarian church on the way home, because Susie's memorial started at 1430, and I want to see if anyone is still there, nevermind the fact that I am still in bike shorts, unitard, and "Victory" (aka we finished) shirt from the Weekend. I should mention that it is now almost 1700. I did not really expect to see anyone, but we pull into the parking lot, and it appears that things have just ended, because there are people milling about, so I find the twins, and chat a bit, and give hugs all around. Eventually I get dropped off at home. Where things need to get madly underway for the next thing.

You see, when I registered for the WEBC, I already had plans for the weekend. My stepsister's wedding was on the Monday. In Kelowna. Marksman and I were going to drive up on Saturday, and make a bit of a trip out of it. That didn't end up happening, clearly. Instead, we came home on Sunday, and tried to pack madly and get on our way. I think we made it out of the house by about 1930. We got to our hotel in Kelowna just after midnight. Not bad, really. We sort of just fell into bed. There might have been showers first, but I'm not totally sure about that one. The next day was the wedding, very pretty, outside in the park. As far as I know, everything went as planned, except maybe the scowling flowergirl. Afterwards there was dinner, and then we went back to the hotel, for a quick swim, and then bed.

Tuesday, we slept in for the first time in what felt like a week. It may well have been. We packed our stuff, and loaded the Tracker, and went for breakfast. And then for yarn, because I asked nicely. I came home with some really nice Louet Northern Lights and some sock yarn, in a nice green-brown colourway. We stopped on the way home to take the Tracker through AirCare, and much to our chagrin it failed. We'll have to fix it before we can insure it really long-term. (We can get three months for now) Also on the way home, I finished some socks! Originally there were for Marksman, but when I made him try on the first on (for length) I discovered he couldn't get them on. So they're for me, instead. Dream in Color Smooshy in Nightwatch. Pattern is my own, and I might write it up if anyone is interested. I've dubbed them the Crossovers socks. (They crossed over from him to be, and they're full of cables, and they've been worked over many journeys) They fit me just fine :) (they don't fit The Feet quite as well, but well enough to model for pictures)

Of course, after new socks and trips it's time to get back to work, so we did. For a bit. And then came something that's sort of been on the radar all summer. The Canoe Trip with the new Venturers. But that, I think, is a post unto itself. So you'll just have to wait.

2009-08-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

It's funny how the world keeps on happening even when I'm not paying attention to it, and not asking anyone else to pay attention to it either, although I suppose writing a blog, especially as infrequently as I do, is a pretty passive form of asking people to pay attention to the world. I just read over my last two posts. I didn't quite realize how long it's been. (I seem to say that, every time I write. Maybe I should just get over it, and write something every week, even if I feel there is nothing to say. Something will come up, I'm sure, and it might even be interesting, but mostly it feels like the same things happen over again every week and it just gets boring. Then all of a sudden two months have gone by and it's a little bit nuts trying to catch up.

I guess all sorts of things have happened since the beginning of June. Harvest, camping, staying out until the morning (more than once), a wedding, a birth, a death, some fireworks... Work, of course. There will always be work. There just hasn't been much knitting. Some, because there's always knitting going on in the background. I guess this is going to be one of those "I want to show you things, and maybe keep interest in this thing going" posts. I wish I could avoid it, but that's the way it stands. I suppose I might as well go in chronological order.

First, Monster was born. Her official name is Sara, though for a little while she was Sara(h) because Jemmy &co could not decide on the H. Her sweater was finished in time to take to the hospital when we went to visit. I dressed up the ferry as a small child again, because apparently the ferry is the place to finish baby clothes...

It fits for now, and should into the fall, providing her arms do not grow faster than the rest of her. And I thought they were long, too. Apparently not.

Next, there was the first batch of staying up until the morning. It actually started as a weekend that was just plain busy, and then evolved. First, I was working in Yaletown on Friday, and working for Mom on Saturday, and then going to the East Vancouver Area year-end dinner on Saturday night. So I left home on Friday and went to work, and then stayed at mom's that night. We worked on a catering gig until 4, then mom left to deliver it while I helped Auntie Deb clean up. And then (eventually) I got dropped off at the bus (we ended up chasing the 49 for a bit, so that I could catch it) so that I could get to dinner. Dinner was at 1800. I got off the bus at 10 to, with all my stuff in hand, half a block from home. I made it to dinner for 1805. Changed and everything. Anyways, dinner was tasty, and the speeches were (mostly) short, and I'm now the Assistant Area Commissioner for Rovers. Aka I'm supposed to come up with things for us to do. In any case, Marksman was away for the weekend, and I had nothing to do, and had sat with Rafiki for all of dinner, (as much as you can sit with any one individual during an even that includes 100+ people) and we had gotten to talking and didn't really want to go home. So instead, we went to Stanley Park. I got to drive around the park :) I haven't otherwise driven a car since I was 16... In any case, we wandered around the park as well, and walked onto the bridge and back. Eventually I got dropped off at home. I think it was almost 4 in the morning. But I got some fun pictures, like this one.

Plus I discovered the "when you think there is nothing else" phone in the middle of the bridge. It's yellow. Now I want to know if there are others, on other bridges. Like maybe the Golden Ears?

I think that wraps up June, for the most part. July, on the other hand, was busier. It started with a camping trip. Marksman and I went out to Gold River on the Island, with his family, and the Cowichan Valley Metis. The theory was that it was a youth event (youth here meaning anyone under the age of 30) and their families could come too, handy when you're less than 15 or so... Instead, it ended up being a mostly-adult event, with the under-30 crowd making up less than half of the participants. We found out that's pretty normal. We stayed for a week, and got some climbing in at Strathcona park, though all my pictures turned out shoddy. We also did some beading, and some weaving, and some making of drums, which was pretty sweet, though I still need to make myself a drumstick. I should get on that. Other than the fact that it rained for the first three days, it was a pretty good camping trip. It was good to get out into the green again for a bit, even if we had to drive for 4 hours both ways to get there. (Well, 4 hours there. 3 and a half home. It was late, and we wanted to go to bed. Or at least Marksman did. He was driving.) I would show you pictures, but there aren't really any :p

After arriving back in civilization, there was a wedding. Two scouting friends got married after almost 5 years. The wedding was lovely, the girls looked good, and the boys looked even better. (The wedding party boys were all kilted. I have a soft spot for boys in kilts.) Even Tristan came in a kilt, which entertains me to no end :) It was good to catch up with everyone, and good to hear stories about friends. I wish them long happiness and joy, and all manner of other good things. Marksman still maintains that he's going to be the first of the "Wild Ones" (the title this group of friends maintains) to do things in the traditional order... (every one of the rest of them, just about, already has a kid. Dale and Sam were the first; Naomi was their flower girl.) The cake topper was pretty awesome, though.

And then we came home. Work started up again, things fell back into that same old routine. You know how it goes. So then fast forward two weeks. It's now the middle of July, before the heat wave hit (the weekend before, to be precise) but still pretty hot. A bunch of us went to go play paintball and had a blast, though I've still got battle wounds; bare-skin hits from 5 feet or less tend to break skin. We all went home after playing, with plans to maybe bike down to the fireworks later. So we got home, and not 10 minutes later, it starts bucketing down rain. And I'm talking an inch in 10 minutes kind of rain, the very best kind of rainstorm there is, complete with lightning and thunder, but devoid of wind, for the most part. So the plans to ride bikes to the fireworks are scrapped, but Rafiki and I decide to go anyways. What's a little rain, anyways? And of course, it's still raining, and there's still lightning, but it seems to have moved off a little, or at least away from my place... Turns out that it's moved towards downtown, where the fireworks are. The fireworks were competing with the lightning for viewing time, I think. But the rain kept all but the most insane of us away, so we were able to park under the Burrard bridge, and walk down to English bay. We sat on the rocks, less than 10 feet from the water. Normally, this would never happen. Too many people. I bemoan the fact that I can't just leave the shutter on my camera open, so as to take theoretically awesome pictures of lightning, but I managed to get one.

It's not awesome, but it's still nifty. At the end of the show (the staged portion, at least) we end up driving around. I don't remember where. I do know that we ended up at Ambleside, and took pictures of the Lions Gate with the lights off. That doesn't happen very often at all. At this point, we discover that the other camera that's with us has an extended exposure setting, up to 60 seconds, maybe more but we didn't test it. So there's some goofing around with exposure times, and some attempts at taking pictures of the stars, because the sky is starting to clear up. We must have sat and stood and wandered and talked for about 4 hours, I think... At which point we decided to find somewhere to watch the sun come up. Burnaby mountain seemed the logical choice, so we went there, and discovered, just in time for sunrise, that there are far too many trees to get a good view of the horizon. And then we went home. By this point the rain had stopped, and the lightning had moved on, and the sky was pretty much clear. It was also 530 in the morning... Oops.

And then another week goes by, better than the one before. A friend got his Masters in Archeology on Monday, after 4 years of work. (I'm not going to say 4 years of hard work necessarily, but 4 years nonetheless.) I donated blood on Tuesday, which was supposed to be a Rover event but failed to be. That's ok. Sometimes that's just how it goes. I missed the last time, so now I've caught up :p The rest of the week was pretty standard. Work, and then weekend. The last of the fireworks (HSBC Festival of Light) was on Saturday, and the weather was cooperative, so Rafiki and Marksman and I all rode down to them from Cliffhanger. No spots on the beach this time, so we stayed up on the road and leaned on our bikes. Sadly there was no wind, not even a breeze, so the pall of smoke over the whole thing made it harder to see, but all in all it was a good show. Afterwards, we went looking for food. And looking for food. And looking for food. Things were too busy close to English Bay, and by the time we got out of the area, things were starting to close already. We finally found food on Robson, at sometime after midnight. (The fireworks ended at 2230 or so) All hail the White Tower restaurant on Robson, for being open to 0300 on Saturdays :) Fed and watered, spirits were high, and we went for a ride around Stanley Park. Yes, we're heading into another episode of the late-night crazies. In any case, the ride was good, and we stopped to try and put out a beach fire (and then waited for the Fire Dept to do it) and then eventually got back to the truck to go home. By the time we got dropped off it was between 430 and 445. We offered the couch to R, who declined in favour of his own bed, which he arrived at at 515 (I know, because we told him to let us know when he got home safe), though the next day it was admitted that denying the couch had not been the smartest of plans.

Sunday I worked at the gym, for the 5 most boring working hours I have ever passed. I folded and sorted the tshirts from the back is how quiet it was. I don't think we ever had more than 10 people there, including staff. It was nice, but a little strange. This is what happens on a nice Sunday before a holiday Monday, I guess.

(That doesn't wrap this up, but over a week has passed, so I'll write more in the next post)

Moving? done. Moving in? Not so much...

2009-06-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

So we officially moved at the beginning of May. Ie. the lease at the old place ended, and we started living full time at the new place. The week after we moved in, we had the rovers over for a meeting. There was a rush of unpacking, and we got a lot of boxes emptied, and stashed the rest up against the wall. And now, a month later, they're still stacked up against the wall. Somehow, we've unearthed all the daily use things, and the things that were sorted before packing, but everything else is still just sitting. In the meantime, there has been a camping trip, and a new job, and a spinning workshop. There have been house guests, and baby plants. There has even been laundry, with a trip to the laundromat. But the boxes are still stacked against the wall of the living room. I'm almost resigned to it. We have nowhere to put all the stuff. Or at least, nowhere that seems reasonable. Apparently, we don't need all of this stuff. I'm tempted to throw it all away. It just seems irresponsible, economically and environmentally, to do it. Anybody have any brilliant ideas as to what to do with all the random trappings of life, short of stashing them in boxes in the living room?

On a better note, I did finish the yarn I was working on, though not in time to ply it before I needed the bobbins for the workshop. I wound the singles into balls to ply later, instead. This seems not to have affected the finished yarn, which I love. It's probably not going to be for socks, though. I agree with sweetgeorgia on that one. Hard to turn handspun into something to put on your feet, stuffed inside shoes all day. It might be mittens instead. It is, after all, the "winter camping" colourway. Never mind that I don't really wear mittens.

(click on any of the included photos to see bigger versions)

The workshop, Fiber Prep with Kim McKenna, was good too. I was probably the youngest person there by about 25 years, but apparently that's normal for the Fort Langley guild. I did get a large bag of sample fluff, and learned some interesting things, though I don't currently have the tools to use the knowledge. If anyone wanted to lend me a set of wool combs, or a hackle and a comb, that would be cool.

Lately, I've been having issues with spinning, though. My hands have been really rough and dry from work. Since as of the May long weekend (the Canadian one, not the American one) I wash windows on highrises. It's actually pretty awesome. My first day, I did a 12 story drop. Second day (and the rest of that week) was a 27 story building. And now I have pretty much no issues whatsoever with any size building, though going over the edge is still tricky on at least the first drop on whatever I'm working on. But I get some excellent views, and some fun photo ops.

So all is well, as soon as I find a really good moisturizer, and my hands are at least back to normal, if not optimal spinning condition. At least I can still knit, right?

Besides, if I can't spin, I can tend my "garden", right? I spent the Saturday before Mothers' day with my mom doing garden type things. We went to the UBC plant sale, and I got a pepper plant, and two strawberries. And got peas and bok choi seeds and two baby lettuces from mom. So I planted them in a box on my deck (a planter box, not a shoebox or anything) and now I have plant babies! Though one of the peas has kinda shriveled in last week's heat wave (25 and up, all week) so I only have 2 for now. I think I will have to plant more. But I have lots of baby bok choi.

Just one more thing, and I promise it's pretty. I got stash enhancement for my birthday! I have a sock blank and a dye sampler from my aunt, and from my Puzzle, I have some awesome soft pretties. Two skeins of merino lace from sweetgeorgia, in Tourmaline,

and part of a skein of Speed Demon, in a colourway I want to call either Pink Lemonade, or Camp Chair.

See what I mean? And I got me some Wensleydale in green and yellow, which is how I discovered my hands are too rough to spin right now. But I love the colours.

Moving, mostly.

2009-04-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

This post is mostly text. If you want pictures, skip to the end :)

So yeah, ok, I fail at keeping people entertained on these here internets. I'm sorry. However, it's not my fault you're waiting on me for entertainment. In any case, I haven't been particularly busy since the last post, except for house hunting. I hate house hunting. I'm pretty sure I hate it almost as much as moving. (actually, it's debatable which one I dislike the most... They both stress me out and make me be a fair bit more ruthless than I might normally be inclined to be, and then a hell of a lot more lenient-"oh, we'll work around that weird kitchen", and "ugh, I don't care anymore :: stuffs random things into boxes and then does not label the boxes ::" come to mind.) In any case, we (Marksman and I, N having decided that he can afford to live by himself now) found a place that we quite liked two weekends ago, and got the keys last Thursday. The moving of large things and whatever was already packed (so, the books) happened on Saturday. It was an interesting day. Started early, to pack the aforementioned books. Filled all the boxes we had, so I wandered into Kerrisdale to get more, presumably from the liquor store. That's where you get good boxes from, right? Well, they didn't have any. So I went to London Drugs. They had one. By this point, the guys had shown up to help us move the couch and the freezer, plus the rubbermaid bins and the boxes of books. So I went to the bakery, where a girl from highschool is the manager, and bought the guys lunch, and got a box from there too. Last stop was the paint store, for a putty knife and some drywall filler, for the holes I put in the closet for my shelves, and the weird spot by the desk where the wall seems to be falling apart. They gave me two boxes. Got home, gave the boys their lunch, kept packing books while they convoyed out to the new place (it's about 1/2 an hour away). About the time I have wondered how things are going, I get a phone call from Marksman. Says he: "the couch won't fit through the door."
"No way," say I, "have you tried going diagonally?"
"No. We measured the couch. We measured the doorway. We measured the doorway with the door off. There is no way to do the math such that the couch fits through the door, hun,"says he, sounding resigned. "What should we do with it?" I tell him (and the guys) to see if they can donate it to somewhere, or if all else fails, take it to the transfer station. I start researching couches. I need a break from packing anyways.

About an hour later, I get a message. The transfer station won't take the couch-it;s too big. The guys have left it in our parking spot at the new place. Marksman has already started home by this point. the couch goes on Craigslist, for free. While perusing the free section, I spot some bookshelves similar to the ones we own, in a different colour. I call the guy, and he says they're still available. Marksman gets home, has a quick snack, and I send him away again, to pick up the shelves. What we have won't fill them, but having empty bookshelves is license to buy more books.

Meanwhile, the others still haven't gotten back. I give them a call, and discover they're not coming. Apparently they're feeling a little sick. It might have something to do with the fact that with the couch in the back, they couldn't close the back window, and fumes have been coming in. Oh well. They did at least help get the freezer in...

The rest of the day continues in this disjointed fashion, and eventually we've moved everything we can for the day without making another trip. We stop for a microwave and a toaster. N owns the ones we're using now. Eventually, we get everything up to the new place, and two people have called me about the couch. Both end up falling through, but at least there's interest. We decide to go and acquire a new couch, and pick up some things from my aunt's while we're out that way. A plan is hatched to see if she and my uncle will come for sushi, and meet us halfway, and maybe even bring the stuff. So I call, and am given a distinct "no" on sushi. There's a Nascar race on. I should know better. But in the ensuing conversation, it comes up that there is a couch sitting in their kitchen, that my mom left behind when she moved "out" into an apartment downtown. Perhaps I should call and ask about it? Turns out that she in fact has no plans for the couch, and we are welcome to have it in return for helping her finish moving her stuff out. It's a deal. So the couch is unearthed, and measured (we decided it would be good to check) and loaded into the van. We go "home" to the new place, and hump the couch up the stairs (did I mention it's a two-story walk up?) but it at least fits though the door. And there are people who want the old one, too. Excellent. All couches in their respective places, it's time for dinner. Very first delivery to the new place. I think my pizza is still in the fridge over there. I meant to eat it, really.

Sunday, we took over a few more things. The coffee table, my bikes, the kitchen table, one more bookshelf. The rest will go over next weekend. After we've finished packing, and have finished all the laundry.

In any case, I did promise pictures. So here you go-this is what I've been knitting in the midst of all this (I know that I promised pictures, but I can't find the camera cable, as it is likely packed somewhere, but these ones were waiting for me to put them up):

1) Rocketry for Monster (it was going to be a secret, but I give up. I am too tired to have secret knitting from Jemmy & co.) It is still lacking a sleeve and buttons. But I still theoretically have two months. I just wish it had a row gauge listed.

2) The socks that were supposed to be for Marksman, but which he can't quite get on his feet, and thus belong to me now. I have started the second sock, but only have about an inch or so done. It's going slowly.

3) My sky-green ankle socks, which are progressing even slower than the others. I think this is because for once I am actually following a pattern, and not making it up as I go. So I need to have it in front of me.

Plus, I have been spinning (and should do more, so I can empty the bobbins before the workshop I am doing on the 2nd of May.) It's some very nice Sweet Georgia panda superwash, blue and green, that is going to be a fingering-sport weight. Maybe for socks.

Last, I have also been weaving, with the intention of writing up a tutorial, but it will have to wait for a later date, because I should stop writing and head off to Rovers now. Hopefully the rest of moving goes smoothly.

About the sash...

2009-03-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

Hokay, so I was thinking about posting this yesterday, inside the spinning post, but I thought better of it, because what I'm going to post about now, while still having nothing to do with knitting, also has nothing to do with spinning, other than it uses yarn. Mostly because I am a little crazy with tracking who reads this thing (by location, and how they got here; I'm not crazy enough to need to know who you actually are) I've been noticing something of an odd trend in visitors. Probably once every week or so, someone stumbles in looking for information, or pictures, or instructions on how to make a Métis sash. Originally, I thought it was a little odd, but at this point I've gotten used to it; it's all because of this post almost a year ago. But now, I've decided to indulge all those people who patiently put up with a knitting blog in search of some kind of intellectual content. Well, maybe I can't promise intellectual content, but I can promise much sash. On to the pictures, shall we?

First of all, there's the sash I was wearing when I met the Lieutenant Governor in March last year. It's the most basic of the "Métis" sashes, and the most common. They're loom-woven, more than one sash wide, and cut and serged along what would normally be the selvedges. The ends are just knotted and left fringy.

Next, there's a variation on the basic, and it's one of Marksman's sashes; this one is the same pattern as the one above, but with blue in the weft instead of red. It's made the same way, though.

Now comes the fun part. When I was in Australia (of all places, I know) I got bored in the hostel in a small town in the Blue Mountains, during a rainy day. So I decided to make myself a hat band, and fingerwove it out of embroidery floss, in all the (Canadian) scout colours. I don't have a picture of it here, but when I got home, I started to do more weaving. In wool, this time, because it holds the weave better, unlike slippery cotton. So I have a couple of examples of finger weaving experiments and practice. First, the basic chevron. It's a simple V, but you can build a lot of things from just a V.

Next, comes the basis of the Assomption sash, the lightning pattern. This is not a good rendition of it, but I'm still learning.

And then I got bored, and started something a little different... This is (essentially) a chevron band, with simple diagonal bands to either side. Occasionally the two sections switch, and the outside becomes the inside. I like it. I want to to something similar, I think, on a larger scale. Now I just have to find the patience.

For anyone who's interested in learning how to finger weave, I have 2 books to suggest, both of which I've used. The best I've found so far is actually also the most compact, but it has the best illustrations and photos, with the clearest most concise directions. It's Carol James' Fingerweaving Untangled and while compact it's also brilliant, with tips about classic beginner mistakes. The other book is Gerald Findley's Fingerweaving Basics which is also a decent reference, again with colour pictures and illustrations, but some of them are less clear than Carol's. In any case, there's nothing to do bu try, right?

In which I do not discuss knitting

2009-03-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not talking about knitting, because I haven't really been doing any. I get up, go to work, come home from work, look at other people's knitting (aka Ravelry, and those blogs over there --> ) and troll the internet, and go to bed. Some days there are also other things, like going to Rovers or maybe spinning, or checking out other parts of the internet. But not a lot of knitting lately. So instead of continuing to blather, I will show you what I've been spinning.

This weekend I managed to finish some more yarn. (I started it at the beginning of the month, and then ignored it for a bit...) It's more wool (mmm, woolly goodness), from Fleece Artist in a nice colourway, that I didn't take a picture of before I pre-drafted it... Oops. Anyways, there was a single splodge of yellow in the whole braid, so I decided to pre-draft into chunks and save myself some swearing later because the colours weren't behaving... And then it looked like this:

I've been spinning fairly fine, and saw no reason to not continue to do so (I spin because I like to, not for any other reason, and I figure the longer I can make the fiber last, the better, so spinning fine is effective) and ended up with a bobbin full of this:

(I moved all but one of the hooks on my flyer to one side, so I can fill the bobbin more effectively. So far it's working. I just have to keep playing with the tension now)

Yesterday, I spun the last of the singles, and navajo plied it because the colours were so pretty, and I didn't want to make mud. Finished that, checked the... gauge? Is that what you call it when spinning? And it came up a lot finer than I expected. Because I decided I wanted something heavy enough to turn into a hat. So I threw the whole thing back through the wheel, and added more twist. Then went to bed. Got up this morning, navajo-plied the whole thing again (so that's now 9 plies, for anyone that's counting) and ended up with this.

It's about a sport weight, which will be excellent for the hat I've decided to turn it into. All told, it's 54 grams and a little over 100 yards. Just enough :)

This is not an FO parade...

2009-01-25T00:42:00.000-08:00

I found the cable for the camera. It was on the bookshelf. I think I unearthed it from the desk and then buried it again on the bookshelf, but I did move all the pictures off of my camera, so I have some stuff to show, instead of just words. Because we all know that pictures are way more fun that words.

First, the gloves for Tim:

These are a revamp of the ones I made almost a year ago (down at the bottom of the post), but with a longer cuff, because I asked if there was anything that he would like to change. I inspected the old ones when we went over for Christmas, and had these ready for his birthday. Elann Superwash Worsted in grey, 75 grams.

Then, a jacket for Tristan.

I didn't have a ferry to model for me this time, so I made do with a Kolorkin

Tristan, as I mentioned earlier, is Bubbles' baby, who was born at the end of December. He is getting this nifty Baby Surprise Jacket, which I decided to make in ENTIRELY different yarn than I had originally planned. (The thought was to use some Dream in Color Classy that I got at the Three Bags summer sale. It didn't happen.) Instead, more Elann Superwash Worsted, grey and forest green (same green as my kilt hose), about 40 grams of green and 70 grey. I was using leftovers from a bunch of projects for the grey, so I don't have a really accurate number. Alas, I have no scale. The stripes are two ridges grey, one green, with all shaping done on the inside, because I think the other side looks nicer. I decided to get all crafty and make a tag for the inside, mostly because I could, and I LOVE the buttons.

Plus, there are those Jaywalker socks, version 2, that I didn't show before.

I like the way they look, and the way they fit, though one of them is tighter than the other. It'll be ok, I think. The colourway/stripe pattern still confuses me, and I feel as though it is trying to defeat me when I try to figure out where the repeat is. I'm pretty sure what happened is that all four plies are different colours, and while they usually change uniformly (and consistently), this is not always the case, with the end result being similar but not identical colour progressions. Which is kinda cool.

The stress-relieving/mindless knitting is a new pair of socks for Marksman, which have not yet seen the camera, but they are cabled (simple cables) in Dream in Color Smooshy, in a blue-green-purple-brown shade. I haven't yet decided if it is too girly, but he seems to be ok with it.

In non-knitting news, the van is fixed for now. There's a long story attached to that, but it's not worth telling. Suffice to say we're allowed to put fuel in it again. This is good news. We may or may not do some more work and make it more functional (we've got one tank out of 2 right now) but that might have to wait until we have a little more liquid funding. And that's ok.

Also, does anyone know how I can make it so that my pictures don't get cut off by the sidebar? (Basically, I'm asking if anyone can tell me where the control for the width of the "posts" section is. Because I can't tell...)

Guh

2009-01-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

So, maybe I was wrong when I said I was going to knit for myself again. It hasn't happened. I did make gloves for Tim (Marksman's dad) in time for his birthday on the 3rd. And then I found out that Bubbles had her baby, and his name is Tristan, so I'm most of the way through a green and grey Surprise Jacket for him. And there's also some secret knitting, too. Of course. It's more fn that way. Maybe when I find my camera cable (it was rounded up in the Great Living Space Cleanup a couple weeks ago) I will post mystery knitting pictures and leave it to y'all to guess what it is. And I found a scarf project that I started about 6 months ago and then put down... From Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but I can't remember what the name of it is. It's wavy, and made of Kauni EQ, and I'm going to work on it until I get bored, and then (for once!) block it properly just to see what happens. Maybe I will see if I can borrow some of Jemmy's floor tile-things to do so. She has those puzzle-square foam things. So all I'd need is pins.

However, I am currently at a loss for a Mindless Stress-relieving Knitting project. I want something fast that I do not have to think very hard about. Because my (stupid, gorram) van once again needs to go into the shop. It still runs, thank A'Tuin, but we're not sure how long it will continue to do so. Because the bleeder valve on the tank (the van runs on propane) is sticky. We didn't think this was a problem until yesterday, when the attendant at the gas station wasn't able to close it right away when the tank was full. So it spewed propane all over the place, and then the valve froze open, and he had to thaw it with hot water and... Basically we're not allowed to get gas at Superstore (which is on the way to/from work) anymore. So it needs to be fixed. And we aren't driving so that we know we will have enough gas to get to the garage when we have a chance to do so. I do not need this right now. Like, at all. Because it means that we need to take the bus to work tomorrow. It's an hour and a half on the bus.
It's only an hour driving. Plus, when we drive, we have all our tools, and all the random things we didn't expect to need for the day, and... You know how it goes. Why can't things just work? (This is only the most recent in things not going particularly smoothly, but it's the most frustrating right now. I won't regale you with the rest.)

Whew! Time to knit for me again!

2008-12-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

I am really really glad that the season for gift-knitting is pretty much over. I might make a new pair of fingerless gloves for dad for his birthday, but I have not actually offered any yet, and the ones he has are doing not too badly. Getting fuzzy, though... In any case, I think I've found the right people to give knitted things to. Marksman's family had much better reactions to their knitted things than my family ever has. Granted, I think this most recent crop of knitted things has been of a somewhat higher quality than the last few batches. No tea cosy hats this time round. Anyways, apparently December is the month for finishing projects. Seeing as how I managed to finish all the gift-knitting (*just* in time) and also finish up a pair of socks for me that had been languishing. So now I can show you pictures (well, of most of it. My socks didn't make it out of the bag before the camera got plugged in, so you'll just have to wait.)

In order of cast on:

(Mom likes the blue side better, it seems)

The November Blues cowl.
Pattern: Tapestry Cowl, via Pepperknit
Needle: Aero 12" circ, 2.25mm
Yarn: Dream in Colour Smooshy, in November Muse and Deep Seaflower

Mods: I cut off about... 20 rows of the chart, I think. The first mod was done about a month ago, when I realized that the thing was going to be huge, due to a lack of checking row gauge, and the second was done on Christmas Eve in the morning (I got up really really early so I could get the knitting finished) when I determined that 1) it was going to be long/tall enough anyways, and 2) if I didn't, I wouldn't get it finished on time. The grafting together of all 220 stitches took some time, so I am glad I like grafting. Yes, that's right, I LIKE grafting. I suppose you'll have to shun me now? Also, I've decided I really don't like the aero circs in smaller sizes. The joins leave a lot to be desired. I had to do a lot of pushing and shoving stitches while I was knitting. The whole thing got steam blocked/lightly ironed after I finished
so that I could wrap it.

Erin's socks

Basic socks for my sister (the same one who got that Monteagle Purse) because when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she answered, in what we, her family, call the "feed me voice," "Can I have some socks? Like, thick ones I can use like slippers but are not slippers?" So she got socks. They were easy to knit, and she really likes them (and they fit perfect, apparently) so all is well in the world.

Double stranding jacquard-dyed yarn is hard

Details:
Pattern: made up on the fly. Basic toe up sock with short-row toes and heels, with a reverse-stockinette sole (went over really well; she likes the smooth inside) with some extra depth built in around the heel and the instep.
Needle: 3.5mm bamboo, which I used to have 2 sets of (4 each) but now only have 5 needles total. I am bad for breaking needles.
Yarn: Patons Kroy Socks, in Natural and some Jacquard multi (don't know where the ball bands are, too lazy to hunt right now), all double stranded, using the natural for the heels and toes and cuffs. Weaving in that many ends (14 per sock-each strand was done separately even though the yarn was used double) was the most painful part. I made some sock blockers out of wire coat hangers to stretch them out a little, mostly for looks, since they were curling funny due to the reverse-stockinette soles.

Paisley Mitts (aka Susan mitts)

Please excuse the pathetic attempt at embroidery

Really simple fingerless mitts made for Susan, to match the toque Marksman found for her.
Pattern: made up
Needles: 3.5 and 3.0 mm knitpicks 47" circs (nickel)
Yarn: some mystery brown acrylic from the days of buying cheap yarn, and some Elann Baby Silk in natural to make up for it.
Notes: I'd do these differently next time. Like line up the thumb increases along the side of the hand, instead of the side of the thumb, and probably use nicer yarn to begin with. Also need to find a REALLY stretchy bind off (I'm using a modified tubular bind off, but I'm still not happy with it) though the non-stretchy ness of the yarn might have been a factor as well (the cuffs are a tiny bit snug, but not problematic)

Emily Mittens

This was the very last project to get started, and also therefore the last one to be finished. I really liked doing them though, once I had gotten them to a suitable size and mucked through the gusset a couple times.
Pattern: generic mitten? similar to the Susan mittens, with the intended modifications (mostly the moving the increases part) and some stripes to make it interesting.
Needle: 3mm knitpicks 47" nickel circ
Yarn: Elann Superwash worsted in grey, far less than I had expected (less than a full ball) and Koigu Premium Merino in sky blue and lime green
Notes: I had an interesting time working in the thumb gusset, so I could switch colours tidily and not have colours "move up" a row while increasing (I knit into the stitch below-a "raised increase" according to the Readers' Digest Needlework Companion) as well as I had to try a couple times to get the gusset length right. The top of the mitten was easier, though I might try a few patterns to make my math work better. I am also lucky that Em's hands are just a tiny bit smaller than mine (good thing to keep note of...) because they were a little snug on me.

Finally, I've also finished the second pair of Jaywalkers (the Trekking XXL in the crazy long-repeat colourway) so I've now cast on for some Bartholomew's Tantalizing socks from New Pathways for Sock Knitters with the green Indigo Moon yarn I got this summer in the Knitters on Belay swap.

And I got new yarn, and a new book. Jemmy gave me the Anticraft book (whee!) and I got some really nice OnLine sock yarn, and some really pretty 2-ply that we (we meaning Auntie Thea) think is Romney in natural, that I think I might have to take up to Sweet Georgia to dye. Maybe. Now I get to knit for me again, and spin, too! (Also I am allowed to give myself my christmas present, of some superwash bamboo from Sweet Georgia that I bought the day I waited for the van to get fixed)

Shameless promotion

2008-12-20T14:08:00.000-08:00

(0f my mom :p)

So, some of you know (and most of you likely don't) that my mom is a personal chef. She mostly does in-home cooking for people, that they can freeze or store, and also runs the Gilmore United Church community meal every Thursday. Of course, she's been the Biscotti Queen since long before that. (Biscotti is the holiday mainstay of the whole operation, I think. I've helped package the past two weekends. Lots of sealing packages and tying nice bows.)

Yesterday, on the Global 6pm news (Vancouver local) she was featured by the Savvy Shopper, Elaine Yong, for a quick and easy homemade food gift. Now, anyone who has ever tried to make biscotti knows that it is not a quick and easy process. So the featured recipe was Cracker Toffee, which is pretty much the easiest treat to make, ever. (Except for maybe Erin's microwave fudge.) All you need is regular soda crackers (salted tops-like the kind you get with your soup), brown sugar, butter, and chocolate. It's fast and easy, and you might not actually want to give it away....

Recipe and instructions here. Enjoy!

Giving up

2008-12-18T19:51:00.001-08:00

I hereby give up on actually posting regularly. I was trying (or at least pretending to try) and then... It felt like every week, I had no knitting content to post. See previous two posts for reference material... So instead of making an attempt to placate my prose-hungry fingers, I'm going to make them knit instead.

However, I have been knitting. None of it is secret, but I don't have any recent pictures of most of it. I have managed to finish the Monteagle Purse, with a very nice green lining and a zipper, and it's going to be stuffed with socks (one pair handknit, that hasn't even made it to Ravelry yet) and two pairs bought, because I'm not insane.

that was a lot of handstitching... worth it, though

I'm still working on the November Blues cowl, which feels like it is never going to be finished on time. I am a little less than halfway through the (self-modified due to row gauge issues) chart. I am working on finishing a pair of fingerless mitts for Susan (Marksman's brother's gf), to go with the nice toque we got her. There might be mittens in the works for Emily, and possibly her partner. My family is not getting knitted things this year, except for the purse recipient, because I've never since seen the ones they've already got. Or that's what I'm telling myself, anyways. Might as well warm up a new crop of people, anyways :p

Also, last weekend there was a cookie extravaganza. Me, and Jemmy, and Amanda got together and made many many gingerbread. And also some sugar cookies. I took pictures, too. (Please excuse my infatuation with the macro function on my camera. I like how things look from closer than usual.)

Mmm... fresh gingerbread. Not quite ready yet, though.

We used ALL the cookie cutters. Except the butterfly.

What happens when you're determined to use every last bit of dough. (That cookie cutter is about loonie-sized)

I can mix fast :)

Yellow stars, green trees, and red girls (no, they are not scarlet women)

I actually couldn't get all of the cookies in one shot. We have about 8 baking sheets (standard consumer size, about 4 commercial size) of cookies. That's... a lot of cookies.

Oh, and it snowed. Lysander was not impressed.

Does he look impressed to you?

If you've actually gotten to the end of this post and you want to see more (god forbid) the rest are on Flickr; click on any of the above pictures to get there.

Out of the world for a spell

2008-12-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

Once again, with the apologizing. However, until Desert Bus ends, it's stupidly addictive to watch/interact with. (So addictive that Icola [the geek-star roomate] got home at 2am the other day from work, and didn't go to bed until 8am, because of it).

For those who don't know, Desert Bus for Hope (2008) is a video-game marathon for charity. Child's Play, to be exact. It's run by Loading Ready Run, a sketch comedy group out of Victoria, that posts a weekly video (well, except for this week, so far, because they're to busy raising money for charity) Of course, this is no ordinary video game. It's the most absolutely boring video game EVER. However, I am bad at this whole paraphrasing thing, so I'll just send you to the Press Release. Clearly, someone can do this better than I can.

In any case, this is why I probably won't have much to show, in the way of knitting or spinning or craft-related things. At least until Wednesday... (When they are playing until, at the time of posting)

Because I refuse to do this on Facebook...

2008-11-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

I thought that I could just tell people what I wanted for Christmas when they asked. I really did. But then I realized that I never actually remember when people ask me. And I have online wishlists kicking around all over, too. So. An amalgamation, or something like that.

Inspiration, Instructions:
Craft (zine) any of issues 1-8 or a subscription. (6 and 8 are the ones that intrigue me the most at this point)
Knits, Cloth Paper Scissors, or PieceWork (from Interweave)
Last-Minute Knitted or Patchwork and Quilted Gifts (Joelle Hoverson)
Mason-Dixon Knitting (or M-D K Outside the Lines) (Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne)

Ingredients, Parts, Materials:
Lilypad E-Sewing Kit (from the Maker SHED)
Actually, just about any of the Craft kits from the Maker SHED
Yarn (colours are good)
Spinning Fibre

Toys and Tools
Size 0 (2mm) or smaller circular needles in ≥40" lengths
Metolius Portable Power Grips (I found them at MEC)
A compass (preferably with decent sighting funtionality)
A couple of those awesome surgical brushes (the Lee Valley kind)
Extra Robertson bits (#2 and #3 are the most useful, in ≥2" lengths, so I can fit them in my screwdriver)
A good seam/stitch ripper (like this one)
Fabric Scissors (because I am now old enough to take care of them)
Board Games (Carcassone, or Settlers of Catan, or brain-type games)

Enjoyable Authors (fiction)
Guy Gavriel Kay (I have the Fionavar Tapestry, as well as Last Light of the Sun)
Terry Pratchett (Anything but the first 5 Discworld books)
Jack Whyte
Diana Gabaldon (I have the whole Outlander series to date)
Jasper Fforde

Places I like to shop
Amazon
MEC
Elann.com
Chapters
Lee Valley
Three Bags Full (the yarn store on Main Street)
(I have wishlists at MEC and Amazon.com (but not .ca))

I'm pretty sure that covers it. Now, what's on YOUR wishlist?

Stupid Weather Gods

2008-11-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

So. I should be just getting home now from a hiking trip, soaked to the skin, but fairly pleased about getting out into the green, and making a summit attempt of a local mountain. However. This is not the case. I came home yesterday morning. Because we got (essentially) flooded out. The trail we were hiking (we were trying to get up to Alder Flats, in Golden Ears park, for anyone that cares) was alternately a trail and a creek. Or at least so it seemed. There was lots of rain (plus the previous week's worth, making its way down) and some trail marking issues. We ended up coming back to where the rest of our group (all of 2 people) were holding down the fort for the weekend, in the car-camping area of the park. One of our guys' stuff was absolutely soaked, so he went home, and dragged marksman along too, to play video games. The rest of us stuck it out for the night (it stopped raining about an hour after we got into camp, until after we went to bed) and came home the next morning. So, instead of minor amounts of knitting on Jaywalkers numero dos, I instead have some Jaywalker knitting *and* some spinning. I finished the green stuff that was on the wheel, which I've decided to call Tollana, after one of those comfortably Pacific-Northwestern (well, Southwestern to us Canadians :p) planets of Stargate SG-1, Tollana being the one that's mostly set at the SFU campus. It's named after that because it's well, comfortably Pacific Northwestern-coloured. Green, with wee bits of browniness and blue. Oh, wait. I took pictures. I could just show you those...

This is the single, before plying. It's not the *most* even thing I've ever spun, but it's not bad, considering it's been done over the span of a few months.

This is the finished 3-ply. That's a penny there, off to the side, as an attempt to show the size of the yarn...

Details on the yarn: I have three skeins of varying sizes, depending on how comfortable I was with how full the bobbin full of singles was. The first is 170 yards, the second was 205 and the most recent one is 255. I have about 25 grams left, I'd say, out of 200. I'm not sure I care enough to spin it up. I might just keep it for some kind of carding experiment later. It's all 100% merino roving that I bought from Birkeland Brothers a while back (after that purple stuff, actually...) in the colour English Garden.

Not having yet set the twist, this will probably sit in the lazy kate box until I'm ready to do something with it. But I do have a new project on the wheel. It's Yummy Yarns' 50/50 merino soysilk, in some colourway that reminds me somehow of sugarplums. I have no pictures to show you yet, but I started it on my aunt's wheel at Thanksgiving, filled a bobbin, and then went back to the green stuff. I don't have any pictures of it yet, because I put it back on the wheel *after* clearing the camera and was too lazy to take more pictures. Even though I know now that they turn out ok, even when I am inside, because I can set my own white balance. Awesome tool, that...

Crisp fall morning for the win!

2008-10-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

For once, I took advanteage of the fact that it was morning, and nice, and that Marksman was still asleep to take pictures of knitting. Because daylight is just best for that. Though I forgot I had pics of the (knitting finished, but project itself not quite yet) Monteagle Purse kicking around, that I took indoor. So here we go:

1) Monteagle Purse

specs: Bernat Handicrafter cotton "naturals" in Avocado, some amount inconsequential to the giant-size ball. 3.5 mm needles, because instead of swatching I figured I'd just go for it. Since I normally knit all loose-like. That would be the reason it's purse-sized, and thus, will be a Christmas present for some lucky family member. After it gets a lining and a zipper. (For a sense of scale, it's being stretched out by a 4L milk jug full of water. It's not very big)

2) Jaywalker socks, numero dos:

specs: Zitron Trekking XXL in some crazy long-repeat colourway. Like, 2/3 of the foot crazy long-repeat colourway. Size 1.5 or 1.75 mm needles. Probably the 1.5's. These have been on the needles for ages and have been relegated to bus or "sitting and waiting for short periods" knitting. The kind where I don't have the time to pull out the chart for the

3) November Blues (Tapestry Cowl)

specs: Dream in Color Smooshy, November Muse and Deep Seaflower. Size 2.25mm needle, because 2mm was just a wee bit small. (Like, for the first time in my entire life...) This is going to be for Mom (the one that lives on the Island, not the one I'm related to) because she is always cold. I may or may not alter the chart a little to make it shorter, because my row gauge is worrying me (8sts=1") and I don't want it to be giant. (there are 67 rows of chart, plus the 18 rows of plain knitting before and after. You do the math).

4) Monteagle Bag, for real this time. (well, maybe. We'll see)

specs: Value Village 97-cent yarn that I can't currently find the ballband for. Lily Naturale? All I kow is the dye is making my fingertips blue. Size 5.5 mm needle. Should work out to be be properly bag-sized this time. We'll see.

5) Checkerboard teacozy, made on a whim

worsted acrylic yarn, double stranded. 5 or 6 mm needles, which one escapes me right now. I totally need to make a taxi version of this...

Now back to your regularly sceduled inactivity? (here's hoping not.)

2008-10-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

In absence of actual knitting content, because I haven't had any daylight to take pictures of it lately* ('cause I'm all about colour-correctness, and I live in a basement with fluorescent lighting...), I give you this:

*I would actually have knitting content, too. Since the kilt hose (of DOOM) got finished, I have allowed myself to have many projects at once again. So there's a Tapestry Cowl, and a Monteagle Bag, and a Monteagle purse, and the second pair of Jaywalker socks... Yeah. I need to take pictures this weekend.

Home From Camp

2008-09-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

So. I did not quite finish the socks on time. Not really. They made me feel like I knit tremendously slowly... I finally finished them up yesterday afternoon, in time to wear them around camp a bit before the dance, and then I wore them today until we got home. I am already thinking about what I will change for the next ones.

From the inside

From the outside

1) They will be in a sport or fingering weight yarn. Worsted is great and all, but it is too coarse on the inside to be comfortable for very long
2) there will be some thought put into how to keep them up. Tied garters are nice and all, but there's got to be a better way
3) I will think of some way to centre the cable on the leg. These are ok but I'm not huge on them.
4) I will measure better, and take distortion (length for width) into account so they fit better.

Now, I can start new stuff :p

Oh, was I supposed to knit, too?

2008-09-21T22:16:00.001-07:00

The last couple weekends have been full of crafting, but there has been very little knitting. This is because I have had the same knitting project for the last month-and-a-bit, those friggin kilt hose, and while they are now SOCLOSE to being done, and will in fact be done for the upcoming weekend, there were other things that needed doing too. That I can't do in the car on the way to work. So.

Last weekend, I made a kilt. Kinda. Master Marksman wanted a kilt for the upcoming Rover/Venturer camp (aka Mardi Gras) for which the theme is the Highland Games. Understandable to want a kilt, then. He spent a lot of time wondering if it was worth it to go Utilikilt, and then decided to buy an iPod instead. Fair enough. He's used the iPod every day since he bought it; he would not have gotten the same kind of usage from a kilt. But that left him kiltless. So I said I'd make him one. All well and good. We went fabric shopping, bought fabric and a pattern for both a kilt and a shirt. And it sat in the livingroom until the weekend, when I started sewing. Originally, I was going to go kinda half-assed in the kiltmaking, and not pleat it "properly", and follow the costume pattern. But then I decided to make it look nice. So I ended up hand-pleating just about 5 yards of (not quite) tartan fabric.

And then I basted it.

And pressed it.

And tapered it from hips to waist.

Pressed it. And then sewed down EVERY SINGLE ONE of the pleats in the hip to waist stretch. About 8 inches or so.

There were occasions that I was sewing through about 14 layers of fabric at once, because of how the pleating worked out.

Yikes. Luckily, the sewing machine took it in stride. I'm going to make another one one of these days. Out of real wool.

And then I worked all week. Got maybe 10 rows of knitting in between working and dinner and Rovers and what-have-you. Turned heels on Friday night at Jenny's.

Yesterday I made the shirt to go with the kilt. It seemed to take longer than the kilt did, though it might just be because I actually used the pattern this time, and traced my pattern pieces instead of cutting them out directly, and did a little extra work on the seams... (all the torso seams are self-bound (maybe that's the right word? I basically turned a narrow hem with the seam allowance so there are no raw edges to get frayed or itchy)) It still needs a little work (and we need to find the buttons) but it looks good.

Today, I made the Prima Nocta Playset. One of the scavenger hunt items for MG is Prima Nocta. We joked about offering up Christina, but apparently it's too late for that. So the next best thing, of course, is a diorama. I love that I still have diorama-making opportunities... It's awesome. I was all set to be diorama making, with pipecleaner people and everything. There was going to be a castle cutaway, with a bed, mostly made of foamcore... And then I realized that before I could start drafting plans for furniture, I needed to make the actual figures first. One trip to the dollar store later, I had everything, set everything up, started crafting. And then... I finished making the people. And didn't really want to make a castle. And none of the Warhammer ones were the right size. Thus was born the playset. I made a quick cardboard and hot glue bed, with fabric scraps for bedlinens, and took everything outside to take pictures. Including the not-to scale Warhammer castle. Everything then got dumped into Photoshop, and the composite of 5 images gave me the front of a toy package. Glued onto a cereal box, with some text-only filler on the other 5 sides, I present:

It's going to be a giveaway to whoever is judging. They'd better like it.

Knitting will continue as scheduled for the rest of this week. I hope.

Uhm, oops

2008-08-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

I forgot about my blog for a while, there. Apologies to anyone that actually reads it, though there can't be many. Self indulgence to the max... Anyways. I finished the BSJ two weekends ago, with about 18 inches of yarn to spare. I'd have taken a picture (or the leftovers) but, well... Lazy, I guess. We were on the Island at Marksman's parents' place, for Mom's birthday. I did all the main body knitting while we were there, and then went out to Nanaimo for edging yarn, having become disenchanted with the bubblegum pink I'd originally chosen. Found a nice green, and some kickass buttons. Started a single crochet border. Came back to the house (after birthday dinner) to realize the cat had found the knitting and dragged it across the house, undoing single crochet in the process. That was ok, it didn't look too hot to begin with. So I went for applied i-cord instead. I'm still not sure if I like it or not, but it's not necessarily bad. Finished it on the ferry home, and then I dressed up the ferry like a small child. See?

Ok, enough with the silliness and I'll get to a better picture. This would be some rocking i-cord and those awesome buttons.

And this is the whole thing, not too close, to reveal how I got the ferry to cooperate.

Anyways, since then, I have moved on to a new adult-sized project, of kilt hose for me, which even have a deadline, because the theme for Mardi Gras is the Highland Games! And I've been wanting some decent kilt hose for a while now, and it seemed like a good time to do it. I'm knitting them both at the same time on one of those 47" knitpicks needles (3mm) because I want them to be the SAME. Which is all well and good until you realize (like I did, last night) that despite all efforts the calf shaping is in the wrong place, and you have to rip back the last week worth of knitting. To be fair, it was only about 3-4 inches, so not such a big deal, but still. Picking up stitches in the right row was a pain. I'm making these up as I go along, but there might be a pattern at some point, if I can remember to put it together. I am at least writing things down as I go. But, so far, so good. The cables are a little bit close to the front of my leg but that will get better as they move down and the leg gets smaller around.

I think it looks better when actually on a leg, though, as opposed to a fence

Finally, there was a yarn sale at Three Bags Full today. It goes until tomorrow, but they had sock yarn for 50% off (well, some of it). So obviously I had to go this morning. And I got... two balls of Dream in Color Smooshy,

two Dream in Colour Classy,

and then some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock that I paired with Koigu KPM to do Christmas knitting:

The Smooshy is, I think, going to become a hat, and the Classy will be another baby sweater. Maybe a BSJ for Chantelle and Sharp, or maybe something different for Maria. Time to go knit some more :)

And I've already started new things...

2008-07-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

I finally finished Marksman's socks. I decided, after much thought, not to duplicate-stitch "i am not a work sock" onto them, and instead (hopefully) firmly impressed this upon him. even if he is not allowed to subject them to his work boots (for a while, anyways) he is still pretty happy with them. See?

After finishing that, I proceeded to cast on immediately for a new pair of Jaywalkers, even though I have a drawer full of unworn handknit socks right now, because it is the summer and I wear slightly-too-big steel toes to work, and have to compensate with really thick socks. On the weekends, there are no socks to be seen. For good reason. But I will have plenty when it cools off again. I'm using the yarn I got the last time I was in Victoria, from the beehive, the Trekking XXL in the really bright colourway. It turns out that it also has a crazy long repeat; I have now gotten so far as the heel flap, and have yet to find the end of the repeat. I'm starting to wonder if it actually exists. It's a 4-ply yarn, and the plies change colours one at a time, so there are a crazy number of options when it comes to tweedy, subtle colour changes. In any case. They look good, so that's all I'm gonna worry about.

Also, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I have a new cousin! Her name is Maria, and she has infected me with a need to knit a BSJ. I bought the pattern and the yarn (Dream in Color Classy) about a week and a half ago, only to discover I didn't have the right needles in stock. So I ordered some from Knitpicks (the 47" circs, because, well, it's really hard to have too much cable) and they came today! I cast on when marksman was in the shower, and then again after my shower, and then again after a snack. It's been a very long time since I had to count more than 80 stitches all at once... But progress has now been made, and I have about 10 rows done. More to follow post-posting. And pictures soon :)

Cackles of glee

2008-06-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

This post? Lots and lots of pictures. Just a warning...
(also, I am about a week or so late in posting all the details. Many apologies)

So I'm part of this group on Ravelry, Knitters on Belay. For those of us climbing types. Anyways, there was a swap posted on the message board. I got to thinking "hey, I've never done this before, could be fun." So. The theme: my town. (Where I, the sender, live, not the play) Included also? Knitting and climbing, obviously. The start date came around, and I got my buddy's name and address, and lo and behold! She lives in Vancouver. Hmmm, thinks Kit. This is going to be harder than I thought.... In any case. After much ado, and not much else, besides getting used to the new job, and climbing some, and knitting some, and finishing up the old job, I finally got everything together, and rocked out some hand delivery on Sunday.

All together there was:
A hand strength/stress ball
A Vancouver touristy keychain
A climbing and knitting map of Vancouver, Richmond, and North Van
A (fun and reversible) little bag
Some Elann Esprit
And some Skacel Merino Lace
Plus a fun little tape measure
and some stitch markers, climbing themed.

The markers were something I wasn't planning to do, but that worked out nicely. The original throught was to use retired (used, and not wanted/useful any more) "protection" (things that can keep you from falling to your death) to make stitch markers. Things like cam lobes, hexes, stoppers, stuff like that, in small sizes. But nobody responded to my notes on message boards in time for me to get things dealt with. So I turned to the Fimo (yay, fimo) and made my own. After finding the paint, and comandeering a paintbrush (because the old landlord still has mine from before moving) it was easy to make distictive and fun markers. Whee!

And then Wednesday, I got home to a package on the steps!

I was so very excited that I did not even go into the house; I took it out to the lawn and opened it there, still in my work clothes, covered in drywall dust, stucco and silicon, and took pictures. Sarah is definitely amazing, and I'm pretty sure we're kindred spirits. Everything was individually wrapped, with semi-cryptic notes attached, all bundled together in a 5.10 shoe box.

After much cutting of tape (lots of tape. It seemed like a whole roll) I now have a whole bunch of new toys, all of them green. As follows: A quickdraw, some soap, nail clippers, candy rocks (mostly consumed by Marksman, but I let him), yarn needles, sheep notebook, chocolate, Indigo Moon yarn, stitch markers, chocolate (not consumed yet), seeds for a garden full of pacific-northwestern plants, a magnet with a picture of The Chief, and a handy cloth shopping bag. Isn't it pretty?

Like I said before, kindred spirits, but also, mind-readers? Because this is stuff that I likely wouldn't spoil myself with, but would look at, say "ooh, pretty," and catalogue for another time. The yarn, especially, because it is a colourway that I love, and a beautiful yarn in and of itself, but I'm not prone to treating myself to things like small-batch handdyes, or anything like that. I tend to hang on to my wallet (or hand it to the boy) and buy similar things; large-mill brightly coloured sock yarn, mostly. And so for a small-mill/small-batch/local yarn to end up in my stash is fortuitous indeed, and Sarah is a goddess. Now I just have to wait for the time to come when I can plant my own garden, and see what's in the package waiting to sprout! The current lack of garden is due to a few things, mostly the kids upstairs (I live in a basement) being somewhat unruly, and me not wanting them to kick things over if I have a potted garden at the top of my stairs, and the fact that I moved in in May, well after the time for spring planting had passed. So now I wait patiently for an opportunity to have green things again. And while I wait, I will make green socks, instead.

(Though I still have to finish Marksman's grey ones... I have about 3 inches left, including all the decreasing for the toe. The second one is suffering from the distinct lack of bus-knitting I am currently engaged in. Which is to say none.)

A game?

2008-05-31T23:37:00.000-07:00

A game to play :) more details where that came from.

2008-05-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm bad at posting. Like, kind of a lot. I apologize. Some things are new and some things aren't but I suppose it's time to proceed ahead. First of all, I managed to lose Marksman's socks. Like, absolutely, entirely GONE, including the bag they were in and the needles I was using. I'm not sure how I managed that, but nonetheless, it's how things stand. Oh well. Worse things have happened. I might still uncover them as I unpack boxes. Though I sort of doubt it, since I didn't find them when I was packing up. I have since started anew, with different yarn, and new needles (picked up by M, on a break from work in Victoria) and things are progressing much better this time. He picked the colour this time, so no more green, but grey instead. And amazing grey with purples and blues and greens and a hint of pink thrown in too.

See? I love the play of light and dark and mixed up-ness this yarn has. I've now finished the first sock, and I'm onto the second, because I picked up the Ender series again, and it's become "what I do on the bus", as opposed to knitting. I think I will get the second sock done anyways, as I 1) am knitting for someone else, and 2) have more sock yarn to contemplate. I have some green stuff from my aunt, and some "Lipstick Lava" Smooshy which will probably be something cable-y, and some koolaid-bright Araucania that Marksman got while he was picking up needles for me (smart, smart boy) and some Trekking XXL in a really bright colourway that I think will turn into more Jaywalkers. On top of this, I still have done no baby knitting, plus have incentive to get some REALLY nice kilt hose done by the end of the summer. The theme for Mardi Gras this year is the Highland games, and what're games with no hose? I think I am going to be busy. I also think that this is good.

Moving on. I was reminded of the spinning itch about a week ago, after finding my third bobbin, and have been doing some spinning too. (Another reason there is no knitting being done :p) I even took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to sit outside and ply, plus get a tiny bit of a tan at the same time. I was working with Wild Rose Fibres' Northern Lights in Grape Jelly. And while normally I'm not big on purple, this was really nice. I've decided that Merino is way better to play with that Corriedale. Way better. Easier to draft, nicer on the hands, a little more even to spin as well... So now I have about 115 yds of a 2-ply dk-ish weight in a blue-y purple-y mix, and no idea what to do with it. Other than give it back to my aunt, who gave me the fibre to begin with. Any ideas?

This:

turns into this:

and then this:

Oh, and since I've now managed to take pictures of the pink Jaywalkers, I might as well show them to you, too. (And by now, I mean NOW, as in I got up off my ass, grabbed The Feet and the socks and went outside and took pictures.) They would be tiptoeing through the tulips if I had tulips, or shoes that fit them.

2008-04-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

Jaywalkers=done! Fastest. Socks. Ever. Just over 2 weeks, I think? I don't have any pictures yet, because I finished them on Sunday, in time to wear them to work on Monday, and then worked all day (pretty much until it was dark) on Tuesday. Today, they are in the laundry, plus the weather has gotten all grey again. Not good picture-taking weather at all. Oh well. Have started the Marksman socks, in some Dream in Colour Smooshy in Good Luck Jade. Nice green and brown variations, and no icky pooling. Something about veil-dyeing or somesuch, so it says on they website. Got to the foot after the gusset a couple days ago, and got him to try it on. Had to frog and re-knit after that. Apparently there needed to be more heel flap. Oh well. I'm back to where I was, and then some, now. So all is well. Though, there is a tiny niggling voice that's trying to tell me I'm not going to have enough yarn. This is the problem with knitting for someone with bigger feet than me, I suppose. I guess I will just have to wait and see. And hope for the best. And while I was hoping to be able to post pictures of random things from the last few days, taken while it was sunny and stuff, such is not to be. Because I can't find the cable for my camera... Darn. Though I *have* been meaning to post some sewing pictures, because I'm randomly other-than-knitting crafty like that. Thus, I present:

Edo Temari, from "Omiyage" (which looks amazingly like the "puzzle ball" in Last-Minute Gifts...) Random printed poly/cotton blend, some cotton twill, leftover poly batting torn into chunks, and cotton embroidery floss.

This one is hand sewn. There is another one in pieces scattered about my living room, which I did on the machine. It's a little bigger, but both are likely to go to my newest cousin, who is not here yet, but should be here sometime in June. It means I get to do baby knitting, too. I'm entirely willing to tackle the BSJ. I just need to find good yarn for it. Or I might do something else, as there are kits and stuff kicking around at Three Bags Full. (Yup. I might buy a kit. Craziness.)

And this is Marksman's birthday present, new dice, with a happy home for them:
Crepe-back satin, some fusible interfacing, and some old denim for structure.

(I know, something of an unfortunate-looking shot... Here, try this one...)
\

Combination of hand and machine sewn. The general shape was done on the machine and the lining was done by hand. The numbers, too.

In which we discuss sick people, and new socks

2008-03-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

Things are progressing well since the glove-gifting incident. I still haven't started on the second stripey sock, but it's only a matter of time. I almost did on Saturday, but then decided to start something else instead. I moved away from my basic plain old stockinette socks and started on Jaywalkers. They were originally going to be Primaveras, but then I didn't like how they were turning out. I've never been a huge fan of reverse-stockinette... Marksman seemed rather astonished when I was digging around in my backpack on the bus and had to shuffle around three projects, though. One of these

had about 10 rows of ribbing left (obviously done now), one was the second stripey sock, and one was theoretically going to be Primavera. You understand why there were three, right? We were on the way to family dinner, at which there is always knitting, because anywhere from 4 to 8 of us have projects going semi-continuously. I finished the ribbing on the one sock on the Skytrain and cast on for a new project before we got to my Pohpoh's. Where I was handed a sleeve to seam for my aunt. Who has a dearth of finishing skills. Me and my cousin both rock at seaming, apparently, though she is faster than I am. At one point, there were four of us working on one person's projects. Two of us seaming, and two working on a way to rip back 2 inches of pinwheel-blanket edging without tears. I don't think they ended up getting as far as taking the needles out, though. But. Back to what's currently on the needles. I managed to get a little bit of knitting in around the seaming, and then got home and decided I hated it. Spent all of Sunday (or most of Sunday) like this:

For anyone who wants to know, that's Marksman's head in my lap. (It only made the knitting *slightly* more awkward. I am so glad I knit continental.) He's been sick coming up on two weeks now, with a fever (though that's gone now) and sore throat and sore head and general discomfort. Which manifests as childish needy "I need you to pay attention to me" behaviour. Which I can handle in small doses. Luckily, he's getting past it (finally) and is coming to terms with the fact that I am not his mom. Though I did talk to her about it, and apparently this is just what happens when he's sick. Hrm.

Through all that, I finished one Jaywalker (which I would take pictures of if I had better light) and I love it. I managed not to run into the "too tight" problem I've seen running around the internet, likely because I knit stupidly loosely. I'm casting on for the next one as soon as this post is done :) For colour's sake, this is the yarn:

Also? I LOVE the Joby tripod I'm borrowing from Makr. It makes good macro shots easy. And I can put it anywhere! That, and the feet I've been using as sock models. Can you tell I was an art student once upon a time?

Metis sash = +5 charisma

2008-03-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

ETA, March 21 2009: If you are looking for Métis sash stuff, go to this post instead. I promise it will be better.

So I've gotten back into my knitting groove, I think. I've been knitting a whole lot lately. I made (finally) a bunch of new dishcloths, and I think that's what sparked it. Surprisingly enough, this is the very first time I've tried the ever-popular Ballband Dishcloth from Peaches and Creme, eternalized in Mason-Dixon Knitting. But, I was bored, and wanted something easy to knit, that looked good, and we needed dishcloths. So. I learned that I have HORRENDOUSLY loose gauge. I used 34 stitches on 3.5 mm needles, with Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, and still managed to turn out a 9x9-ish dishcloth. (For anyone that doesn't know, the pattern calls for 45 stitches. Though I don't know necessarily how the Bernat compares to the Peaches.) But anyways. No pictures of that, because they're just dishcloths. But then. I picked up the PJ socks again. (I might have done this earlier, actually. Like, back when I posted about starting socks from the top again, to see if I finish more of them) The first one of the last pair is now done, and I like the way it looks. I might need to get ahold of a scale, though, to make sure I have enough yarn left to do the last one. It worked out nicely, and I'm looking forward to doing the next one. The tops and toes and heels are all done un-striped. Well, as much as they can be, considering I'm using self-striping yarn to begin with.

The inside and the outside of the heel and the gusset. I like it. A lot. I didn't really think about the fact that the colour sections would line up the way they did, but it's good. I'm pleased, and I'm hoping that the next one works as well as this one did. (No, I do not have bigger pictures, because I fail at taking pictures that are non-blurry when they are bigger than these ones)

And more knitting, even. Last time Sir Marksman and me were on the Island, for birthday celebrations, I pulled out the sock in progress. The one you just saw pictures of. And Tim peeked over my shoulder and asked, oh-so-nonchalantly, "do you knit gloves?" And I said that, well, I suppose I could, but I'd never done it before. Which prompted a discussion, where we talked about how a forestry engineer can't wear real gloves, because they need their fingertips too often. And ended with me getting hand measurements so as to knit some fingerless gloves. I debated making Cigar, from Knitty, but that didn't pan out. So, I did a gauge swatch (gasp!) and wrote my own pattern. It took me three tries to get it right, but it worked out nicely. It was also pretty much the quickest project ever that was not a hat or a dishcloth. (It turns out I work well on a deadline.) And yesterday was the BC-Yukon Queen's Venturer Ceremony out at Government House in Victoria. I had, in the morning, only just finished the ribbing on the second glove. But I had a 2 hour ferry ride and 40 minute drive and a LONG ceremony to sit through. And at the end of the ceremony, I had two fingers left. To knit, that is. And it looked like we weren't going to make it to the 5pm ferry anyways, and the 7pm from Nanaimo was going to be the new Coastal Renaissance, so Andrew suggested heading up-island instead of waiting around. Me, being the resourceful Rover I am, asked if we could make a quick stop enroute. Ladysmith is, after all, on the way from Victoria to Nanaimo. And I had at least an hour to finish two fingers and weave in some ends. And so we made a surprise visit, and I dropped off some fingerless gloves, and we caught the new ferry home. The gloves turned out surprisingly well, I think, considering I've only done mitten-type things before, closely following a pattern. And I have a new favourite increase. Knitting into the stitch below (either before or after your current stitch) is going to be my standby for a while I think. I like it a whole lot more than m1's (mine always leave holes, even if I use the m1a (picking up the "bar" between stitches) method, and I've never really liked the way a kfb looks. So I decided to try something new, and behold! It works!
No holes, and no untidy purl-esque stitches. I am a happy knitter. And Tim is a very happy forestry engineer, who hopefully no longer has cold hands. I forget how fulfilling gift-knitting is.

For the sake of it, because I suppose I should write these things down somewhere, that was two strands of Four Seasons "sockenwolle" on 3mm needles, with a gauge of 5.5 stitches per inch. In navy blue, from some kind of kit my aunt bought and gave me the solid coloured yarn from. I think it went to good use.

And that sash, in the first glove picture, is the Metis sash from Marksman back in October. We've determined it's a +3 conversation starter and a +5 charisma when the person you're talking to is either a) of aboriginal descent or b) knows what it is (probably because of a). Case in point? When Hon. Steven Point, Lieutentant Governor of BC, and the very first Aboriginal to hold said position, was finished with the official-type picture taking yesterday, he came over to talk to me. Because I was wearing my sash. And Marg-mom, when I dropped off the gloves, gave me a new/shiny/clean one, because "if [I was} going to wear one, it shouldn't be one of [Marksman's] old beat-up ones. Wheeha.

A wishlist, of sorts.

2008-03-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

I hate not having money. It pretty much sucks. I just about always have something that fits into the "oh, I wish I could afford..." Currently, said something is yarn. I'm on a yarn kick. (Maybe a little bit of a fabric one as well, brought on by Omiyage, from the library on Monday, and a trip to Dressew this morning.) And you know what I'd most like to have? Superwash, pretty-coloured, possibly sock-weight yarn. As much of it as I can fit into a rubbermaid bin. Because we all know I don't have enough of those already. I'm thinking enough to make Clessidra, or similar tall socks suitable for wearing whilst kilted, and then some yarn that is suitably coloured for some socks for the Boy, and then... I could go on. This is the problem, of course, with being a sock-knitter. In some cases/by some definitions, I do not have a lot of "stash". I just have... Yarn. You know it's bad when you start drooling over the BMFC colourways. Sigh.

Socks. By the bajillion

2008-02-28T11:46:00.000-08:00

Today, I decided to take pictures of socks. Because socks are awesome. It's what I knit the very most of. And I use the most simple sock pattern out there. Toe-up, short-row heel, plain stockinette socks. I'm a fan of simplicity. I don't really like textured socks, because they feel funny. The most I'll put up with in my socks is cables. But I have a problem with the whole "finishing" thing. I am REALLY bad at weaving in the ends of my socks when I am finished. I think it's time for an intervention. Obviously, I need to start working socks top-down. Because then I will *have* to have a needle in my bag for grafting the toes, and since that end is already there, I might as well weave it in, and then... maybe I will even weave in the top end, since I have the needle in my hand anyways. It's worth a shot. Because the pile of unfinished socks is getting unruly. Not that it means I don't wear them. The tails are just getting a little... fuzzy.