Spinny Bunt Knits

I've moved...

2008-07-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

Stupid brain

2008-07-03T13:37:00.001-07:00

I need to figure out how to shut my brain off at night. Staying up till three just isn't as much fun as it used to be. I think because there used to be other people up with me and alcohol was involved. I did get to see a really good lightening storm last night though. It was very impressive. We don't usually get such good ones here on the west coast.
But really, I need sleep.
The book is keeping up nights now. There's a website under construction, domain names are parked, software has been bought, and I'm rapidly filling a notebook with ideas. If only I could do it during daylight hours!
Anyhow, because of all this, the blog will soon be moving to a new home and changing it's name. Hopefully this will happen within the next month. I'll put a redirect here when the switch happens.

Lorena send me a great parcel this week. There's some of her handspun and a batt of the same fibre blend of dorset, meerino, silk and mohair in a very pretty green; another of her batts inan alpaca, silk and merino blend; two skeins of Artyarn merino (which is destined to become socks); some chocolates and two citrus infused honeys that I can't wait to try. For some reason, Florida seems to have the best honey I've ever had. Must be all those killer bees.
Thanks Lorena! There's something on it's way to you right now.

Since we finally got some good weather, we've been able to make some improvements around our property. My shop finally doesn't look like a decrepit old hovel anymore. Some paint, a new door and flowers have spruced it right up. I'll spare you the inside view as it's not nearly as nice... yet.
We spent Canada Day doing yardwork, but it was worth it. Everything looks a lot tidier . The kiwi no longer seems to be some west coast variety of kudzu that's trying to dominate everything in it's path, including the neighbour's yard.

Yes, that does look like a different dye lot doesn't it.
Bloody Arucania. I had a sealed bag of ten. Even though there are no dye lots on the stuff, you'd think they'd be from the same batch if they're in the same bag. Obviously, that's not the case. I'm leaving it. It's done and I can move onto to other ufos. It's just a casual hoody, so harm done.

It's the Olive Branch yoga hoody from webs, sort of. I made it a pullover and added ribbing in places. It only took seven hanks of Nature Wool and now I have three more to make a scarf or something.

No pics of Gir this go 'round. He's recovering from tutoring and has asked that there be no photos. So here's one from April, right before I left for Sock Camp. It's my girlfriend and me at the Sidney ferry. She's tall, thin, blonde and funny. Try not to hate her too much, she's really very nice. Besides, I remember her from back in elementary school, when she was tall, thin, had a blonde afro and wire framed glasses. She has to be nice to me. I have photos.

Tamarissa

2008-06-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

I have finally formatted the pattern for this sock!
I've named it Tamarissa after a dear friend that passed away several years ago. She always did what she wanted to do. She built guitars, went to Emily Carr and was an amazing, creative person. She crammed more into her fairly short life than almost anyone else I've ever known.
She loved purple and figuring out how things went together. So I think she would have liked this sock.
I hope to have it up as a pdf in the next little while.

It's been a while

2008-06-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

I admit, blogging is never my first priority. Sometimes, there's just too much to be done offline in the real world.
I managed to get the sock knitter working and cranked out some blanks that are going to be dyed and put up for sale at the Victoria Knit Out on the 22nd. Now all I have to do is get the ribber working and I'll be able to make socks on it. The escapades I've had with the ribber made me put the whole shebang back out in the garage in a time out. If it just can't behave, then it has to go in the corner.
Of course, it's definitely user error. Pretty steep learning curve on these things. I can't believe traveling salesmen used to talk women into buying them. There seems to be an awful lot of maintenance that goes along with them.

Satan's Hand Puppet has been doing what he does best, growing at an alarming rate. And yesterday? He chewed up yarn! And he did it really quietly. I was in the other room and just heard this soft rustling sound. When I decided that he'd been too quiet for too long, I went into the living room to find three balls of yarn, sans labels, artfully strewn across the rug!
He knew it was bad and did it anyway. So very evil.
We had a little "chat" about things that we shouldn't do. Hopefully, he won't do it again. Because he can jump and climb, it's pretty tough to keep things away from him.
So evil.

This is the monkey's idea of mowing the lawn. He's so easily distracted. He decided the tree, that shall not be mentioned because it is the provincial flower and we don't want anyone calling the authorities on us, needed some branches trimmed (and it was just trimmed, we didn't cut it down, everyone relax) and spent about 3 pruning it.
Eventually the mowing was finished. And I breathed a sigh of relief that nothing else caught his eye.

What would one of my posts be without some sort of home reno?
We had the countertops and the bathtub refinished this week. The house still smells like laquer, but it looks very nice. And it was much less expensive than replacing them. I'm fairly certain we would have had to remove an exterior wall to get that tub out.
This was much easier.

There's even potential for knitting content in the next post!
Unless Gir eats it.
So evil.

A Meme (even though I don't do memes)

2008-05-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Since both Debbie and Leslie tagged me for the same meme, I guess I'd better do it. I thought about letting Gir do it, but he still can't control his paws well enough to type. Spike offered, but I had to stop him when I saw what his things to do today were mostly creative ways of disposing of Gir. You don't want to know what he'd do if he was a billionaire. Suffice it to say he's no longer allowed to watch Pinky and the Brain.

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was doing guitar tech work for Washburn and a friend's band.
The monkey and I were doing house renos. We're still doing house renos. Do house renos ever end?
Knitting and needlework were done in the evenings, not as work.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Work up a sock pattern.
Download charting software.
Do some laundry.
Blog.
Write at least one book report for my spinning homework.

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Raspberries! I'd live on them if I could.
Chocolate. See above.
Pita bread and tzatziki.
Pepperoni.
Jujubes.
The list goes on, but I'll stop there.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
I would make sure everyone I care about was in a house and debt free.
I would punk everyone I know. And film it so I could put in on the net.
I would quietly disappear somewhere warm with a laid back government.

5) Places I have lived:
Victoria, BC
Peterborough, ON
Santa Monica, CA (only for a couple of months)
Sechelt, BC
Burnaby, BC
Coquitlam, BC
White Rock, BC

6) Peeps I want to know more about:
Denise. You been tagged twice now Denise, get to it!
Holly. I won't hold my breath, but it's fun to bug her.
Angela
Kerry

And I did sign up for a year of the Cuckoo batts. Lorena gets a big fat enabler award, and some maple candy.

Pitfalls

2008-05-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

This lovely fibre, while not technically a pitfall that has furthered my current state of perpetual procrastination, hasn't helped any either.
It's the last shipment of artfiber that Lorena gifted me with and I'm currently in a mental tug-o-war with myself over whether I need a year of this stuff coming every month, or not.
Pro: I love getting these little parcels of soft yummy fiber every month. I always manage to forget it's coming and then, there it is. It's a nice little surprise.
Con: I have yet to actually spin any of it and there's no shortage of stuff to spin around here.
You can see where this might be a problem for me.

Then of course there's etsy.
I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, but better late than never.
These great little sock bags came from Japanese Handmade Etc.
Gotta love the pretty and functional aspect of these things. Just the right size and the squared off ends seem to make them fairly sturdy.

And yeah, I found some spindles. Wanna make something of it?
The one on the left is multi-coloured plywood from Dragon's Cavern, and the one on the right is an Avi Wasserman made from olivewood, rosewood, ebony and has silver inlay. I already have an Avi, but it's very small and I prefer the slightly larger size of this on. Both spindles spin very nicely.

In the course of catching up with friend's blogs on Monday (procrastination in action and yes, I meant that to be funny), I found this pattern from a link on Kadi's blog. So, I had to make a pair.
The mate to this one is now done, and something that's a gift is on the needles now. It should be done today.
Then there's the long weekend, house painting, new knobs for the cupboards, puppy training, lawn mowing, landscaping...
It's a long list.
But Tuesday, back to spinning homework in earnest as I've wasted so much time already.
The procrastination ends!
On Tuesday.

Why the Cats Hate Me

2008-05-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Satan's hand puppet has a brand new trick.
There are now three fewer cat safe areas in the house and the cats are not amused.
It would appear that the furry little bastard can jump and climb. This is a little surprising for us as Loki (aka the good dog) had to try really hard to get on the couches. It involved a lot of scrambling and usually some human assistance.
Gir (aka Satan's hand puppet) is only just four months old now and can apparently leap tall sofas in a single bound.
Um. Crap.
I must admit though, when he did for the first time on Monday evening, I was pretty excited. I called Mur into the room to see it and made Gir jump onto the futon again and again. It was only later that I realized the problems this will cause.
We're looking for Agility training places now. Unfortunately, they don't seem to let you start with your dog until he's a year old. That's eight freaking months away.
Pray for us.

Banana Chocolate Cherry Cake

2008-04-29T15:50:00.001-07:00

Pat Ashforth (yes, that Pat Ashforth) gave me this recipe back in the days of Compuserve. Before blogging and Ravelry were around. It is the single best use of nasty soft bananas I have ever had. But some words of caution before you go checking the cupboards to see if you have all the ingredients.
The first few times you make it, it will take about an hour of prep. It's not quick and easy and it uses a ton of bowls. Your kitchen will look like the guy in your life cooked when you're through with it.
Don't make it for people you don't like.
They'll come back.
I tend to cook when I'm stressing, so for the last couple of days, my house has smelled like a bakery and I've made two of these cakes in as many days.
My in-laws are coming this weekend.
Friday the cleaning starts.
And yeah, the cake will be gone by the weekend. Just saying...

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup water
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs (separated)
2 medium very ripe bananas
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup maraschina cherries (halved and drained)

Grease and flour a 10" bundt pan.

Melt chocolate chips in 1/4 cup of water over low heat, stirring till smooth. set aside and cool

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder.

In a separate bowl, cream butter with 1 cup of sugar. Add egg yolks and beat well on high speed. Add bananas, sour cream and vanilla to creamed mixture.

At low speed, alternately add dry ingredients and banana mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Blend well and stir in cherries.

Beat egg whites to a soft, not dry mound. Add 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until stiff.

Fold egg white into batter.

Place 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Drizzle in 1/2 of the chocolate. Add 2nd third of batter and drizzle in remaining chocolate. Add rest of batter.

Bake at 350 fo 50-60 minutes, until cake springs back when touched. DO NOT INVERT TO COOL! Cool in pan till barely warm to touch then remove from pan and continue cooling.

Camp Redux

2008-04-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

Just a few more pics from camp, then I'm moving on.

One of the reasons I was looking forward to camp was the chance to meet Leslie. She lives in San Fran, so it's not like I can just hop in the car and go see her. Although, I'm sure we could do some interesting damage at Art Fibers...
It was great to meet her in person and we were actually both wearing the Ribby Pulli at one point.
Random knitting weirdness.

There's been much talk of the camp monkeys. Here's mine and Marti's. Mine's the one with the hat. His name is Ian Sim and he's gone to live at the Monkey's office. Only fitting since he is the monkey's alter ego.
Note his little X'd out button eyes. We decided he was dead inside as his girlfriend had left him for a lemur who had a hot car.
Poor Ian.

Now these have nothing to do with camp, but I've been meaning to blog them for a while. One of the cool gifts that Lorena sent me for Christmas was a subscription to Cuckoo Batts. They've started coming!
Aren't they cool?!
I don't know what I want to make with them yet, but they look gorgeous just hanging out in my office for now.
Thanks Lorena!!

Pictures from Camp

2008-04-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

Blue Moon Sock was last week on Orcas Island. It was as crazy as you might think. There were classes, weird games, and tasty drinks, things I expected, but there were also some things I didn't expect.
Like deer that march up to you and pretty much shake you down for apples.

This one was so focused it actually let Rosie (my roomie) cop a feel.

The one I fed was a little more reserved.
Cell reception around the resort was almost non-existent. The one place we found that was reliable, at least for my cheap burner phone, was way out past the main lodge on a point. It was bloody cold out there too! No shelter and the weather was not very nice.

This pic is proof for the monkey that the short calls he got were due to my hand going numb in the great outdoors, not from me wanting to get back to my drink in the toasty warmth of the bar.
The homework for camp this year was to make a toilet paper cover. At first I balked at the idea. Those things always remind of bad church bazaars (or bizarres as I think they should be called), but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a traditional TP cover was the way I wanted to go. You know the ones I mean, the ones with the fake barbie in the frilly dress that covers the roll.
Of course, everyone has their own take tradition.

This was mine. She won for Scariest even though the motion sensor that made her say, "brains" as people walked by crapped out on me.
There were some really great covers.
This was the one that Cat coveted:

She crawled under a table to steal it. Very entertaining and she did give it back when she got caught.
More on camp in the next post.

Nine out of ten cats agree

2008-04-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

... that puppies are Satan's hand puppets.
Don't get me wrong, Gir is very cute and we love him dearly.
But he's evil. Pure, unadulterated evil.
There are only two times he's quiet, when he's asleep and when he's doing evil. The later happens more often than the former. I know I'm older than when Loki was a pup, but seriously, Loki was a good boy. Very good it seems.
Gir runs around the house at mach 5 like his ass is on fire. A couple of times I had to grab him and check.
And the biting! He's sooooo bitey! If it sticks out, he bites it. You can see where this might cause problems. Especially with the male member of the household.
Cat wrestling/taunting/fur eating is one of his favorite activities. The cats have been unbelievably good natured about it so far. I don't know how long that will last.
I think Spike is planning an "accident" for Gir to have.
We've given him two baths since he arrived and he manages to smell stinky again within 24 hours.
Look:

Proof of bathing.
Pray for us.
I leave for Sock Camp on Saturday. So the monkey will have all the doggie fun for himself. I hope he's still here when I get back.

...and then I cried like a little girl

2008-04-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

*warning to fibre people* this post completely concerned with hockey. Hey, I'm Canadian, be happy it's not all about Tim Horton's, eh?

We knew last Thursday that the Canucks were out of the playoffs. That alone was fairly heartbreaking.
Then all the rumours that Linden was going to retire hit at full force.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it may have been Naslund's last game too. After the way he's played this season, I'm actually glad. I hope he does retire. He made it pretty obvious that he's tired of being here. Some games he looked like he was doing us this huge favour just showing up.
But Linden? That's bad, very bad.
He's been the heart, soul and face of the team for a very long time. He and McLean were the reason the 'Nucks almost won the Cup in '94. Forget about the prima donna Bure, Linden was the power player.
We need him now more than ever. With such an overwhelmingly young team and the captain likely retiring, we need a strong leader that people trust. That's Linden to a tee.
I hope the franchise does the right thing. Offer him whatever he wants to stay for at least another year. Fire Alain, rotating lines every 5 minutes doesn't work. 11th place proves it. Let Naslund go. 6 million for 27 goals? Not worth it. Keep Morrison. He's a hometown boy that grew up with the Canucks and loves them the way we all do. The team needs that.
Maybe Smyl would make a good coach. After this past season, could we do worse? 11th for cripes sake!! It's humiliating.
I don't want to cry at the end of next season... unless it's tears of joy as Trevor Linden hoists the Lord Stanley high over his head.
I'll happily cry for that.

More Cuteness

2008-03-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

Gir's been here a week now and has completely taken over the house.
Spike started playing with him last night which is good, because it gives Gir something to chew on that isn't us. It's also a lot of fun to watch the two of them chase each other around the house.
Now for your viewing pleasure:

Gir after a rousing battle with tissue paper. I'm pretty sure he won. It is sticking out of his mouth after all.
Gir eating on the new kitchen floor.

We did manage to get it in before he arrived. There wasn't even a full board left over when we were done. This is good because it means we don't have left over flooring to store, but it gave me a heart attack when we were almost done and I looked at the tiny pile of remaining boards. Both of us were pleasantly surprised that we didn't have to buy another box.
The floor is engineered cork. It feels great on feet. It's warm and a little cushy. It doesn't seem to show dirt or get scratched from the pets running all over it.
Now there's just the counters, pulls, backsplash, and paint to do and it's all done!

This is some spinning to break up the, "all puppy, all the time" feel. It's 250g of millends from a mill in Ontario. I spun it as a heavyish laceweight and there's well over 1000m of it. No project in mind for it yet. I put the sock beside it for scale. It's a BIG skein. It pretty much filled my wild flyer and took almost eight hours to ply.
Whew!

Warning! Severe cuteness

2008-03-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Gir arrived this afternoon and has made himself right at home. He's chased the cats, peed on the new kitchen floor and been adorable every second.
Uzume doesn't seem to mind him, but Spike is a little out of joint. He's been giving Gir a wide berth and only gets in close when he's asleep. I figure it won't be too long before they're chasing each other around the house. Days maybe. Maybe tomorrow.
We have to give him a registered name and he's from a "D" litter. So far, it looks like he'll be Majekin's Diamond Dog Gir.
Hey, I had a cat named Aladin Sane. Old Bowie fans die hard.
I am willing to entertain other suggestions...
The severe cuteness follows. I will not be held responsible for elevated blood sugar or cavities that result from viewing the following pics.

PS: For scale: the frog is about the size of my hand.

Recovering from Madrona

2008-02-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

Or, "how I spent my week off".
But first, Madrona loot and a quick recap.
I went down to Seattle on Thursday afternoon and met up with Holly who very kindly took me shopping. We bought a few things including a burner phone which has since been dubbed Lara's Crack phone. If you want to know why, you have to watch The Wire.
It's a cheap, anonymous cell that I can use in the states without racking up enormous bills. Very handy.
We went to Tacoma that evening and had dinner with some of the Blue Moon bunch.
Friday I spent with Janet in Seattle getting a colour not known to nature streaked through my hair. Then it was back to Tacoma for dinner with the Blue Moon bunch again.
Saturday was fibre shopping in the Madrona market, lunch with Jean, and dinner with friends.
Sunday I headed back home with Angela and Doug. We spent a good portion of the trip trying to come up with book titles. Lucky Golden Knitting Book was the best that came up (it was Doug's). So as you can tell, we didn't have a lot of luck. A lot of fun and goofing around, but no real book title. Gonna keep working on that one.
I had Kerry as a roomie this year which was a lot of fun, but we didn't get to see much of each other. We were both pretty busy. I think we need to arrange a visit that's just for visiting.
On to the fibre portion of the show:

There's some Crown mountain superwash, some Skacel, mixed batts and some alpaca that Jacqui processed for me. There's quite a bit more of that last one, but you get the idea. The skein is a laceweight I spun from some other batts that Jacqui gave me.
Now for some yarn and such:

Some of this I bought and some was gifted me from Kerry and Denise. The grey skein with the green tag is from Denise. She spun it and it's truly spectacular. The machine knit swatches are actually sock blanks. You knit socks from them by unraveling them as you go. I got some undyed to try as well.
And then there were some spindles:

Another glass one from Sheila, a Spindlewood and a Grafton.
I had to promise Sheila that I would spin with the Do Not Drop spindle. I'm afraid I'll break it, so I'm going to pad up an area before I use it.
I'm home now, but the fibre just keeps coming. In my defense, I bought these fleeces last year and only now am I getting them back from the mill. Lynne was nice enough to bring them by yesterday. She obviously hadn't touched the merino, or I never would have seen it again!

The black and smaller grey are romney x's and the large grey is merino. The merino is soft enough to make underwear out of. I'm pretty happy with it. I think it's destined to become a sport/dk weight 3 ply and then a soft, light cabley sweater. I really want to spin it right now.
But it has to wait because I still have tons of homework to do and I just started this:

Mystery beast millends from a mill in Ontario. I've got about 200g of it, so it's destined to be 2 ply laceweight.
I'm taking lots of breaks while I spin it because I managed to bugger up my knee when I spun the other stuff earlier in the week. Between all the spinning and the three times a week running, I have to take it a little easier.
Still hating the running. Next week we're up to 5k. yippee.

Off to Madrona

2008-02-12T15:29:00.001-08:00

Only one more day till I'm back on the southside of the border.
Holly and I are going to spend the afternoon tooling around Seattle and then we're going down to Tacoma for the Madrona Fiber Festival. I'm not taking any classes this year and I've still managed to be pretty busy.
I made up some stitch markers for my friends. I needed something small because a lot of us are traveling light or have to fly. Not to mention how much more room small gifts leave for yarn and roving. I really like the coloured tiger tail. I'm going to have to find more of it as it makes the beads look even better.

I did some spinning for the first time in ages over the last couple of days. I spun a half pound of superwash merino from Crown Mountain in a 3 ply sport weight. I started sunday night and finished this morning. I haven't washed it yet.
This was a great roving to work with. It drafted easily and smoothly. The colour changes give a very tweedy effect with the 3 ply.
I also made a rather nich discovery about my new Wild Flyer. I can ply a half pound of fibre with it and have no knots!
Woohoo!
That is one very big skein.

Puppy Update:
Gir is still quite a bit smaller than the others but is wagging his tail alot. He's still taking milk from his mom, but is eating kibble as well. Five more weeks till he comes to live with us.

Baby pic

2008-02-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

Gir's first baby photo.
So tiny. So cute.
He'll be living here in about 6 weeks.

Do your legs hurt?

2008-02-01T15:13:00.001-08:00

These are a couple of things that arrived in the mail here this past week. I thought they were good contributions for Friday Freakfest.
The really hideous zombie doll is really knitting content. Trust me she really is. She's going to be involved in a strange knitting project that will be revealed in April. Hopefully, it will be worth the wait. The monkey has ordered the parts I need from Hong Kong. Be afraid.
As for the chocolate voodoo doll. Lorena sent that along with some other great stuff.
I already ate it's yummy legs, so if you're legs feel sore, be prepared for more pain. The voodoo doll still has it's torso, head and arms. Yum!

Friday Freakfest

2008-01-25T12:26:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I know, it's not friday.
I'm off to Oregon tomorrow morning at the crack of it's still dark, so no friday blogging. So while I'm helping a certain someone get a bunch of sock yarn mailed out, you still get to enjoy the scary crap I manage to find on the interwebs.
This little gem was inspired by Holly who posted about how Google had tried to "help" her find Crisp spinning wheels by suggesting she was looking for crispy spider meat.
If you hadn't already guessed, I found a site that's very concerned with crispy spider meat. This guy went to Cambodia and found huge heaping plates of deep fried giant spiders. Not for the faint of heart.
Click Here

Friday Freakfest

2008-01-18T09:15:00.000-08:00

Skinned muppets as coats, clear plastic shirts, and pants that start mid-thigh (no crotch/butt whatsoever). You know you wanna look.
Click Here

It's a Boy!

2008-01-16T10:42:00.000-08:00

Don't freak out. I'm not pregnant. But our new doggie was born on January 7th. I don't have any pics of him yet, but I'll post them when I do. His name is Gir and he has a tail. The breeder was nice enough to ask us if we wanted his tail docked or not and of course we said "NOT!". He'll come out to his new home sometime in mid-March. We can't wait. It's been pretty quiet around here since we lost Loki and Spike has been pulling out his fur in clumps. Hopefully the new pup will perk Spike up again.
There's been the usual amount of knitting going on:

The Digitessa socks are done and ready to go to their new home. They're STR lightweight in Pond Scum, which I find ucky, but she loves.
The scarf is just a simple cable done in LL Butterflies and Bullfrogs periwinkle. It was quick, mindless and not knit on a 2mm needle. All things that felt pretty necessary after the holidays.

I got tired of my plain black techie toys, so I got some skins for them. They look kinda neat now. And I can tell at a glance which ones are mine.

*Soapbox Warning* feel free to skip this...
As I was cruising the breeder's message board for baby photos, I came across this. I've never been a big fan of Peta. Any group that thinks exploiting women is an acceptable way of getting their point across, doesn't rate well with me. Combine that with appalling and frequently abhorrent advertising campaigns and protests, and you've totally lost me. But the numbers on that post are very troubling. Peta says it's members won't wear animals or eat them, but apparently, it's quite alright with killing animals.
We are a very animal friendly household. We feed birds and squirrels (and yes, I like squirrels), the odd raccoon and have a couple of big furry cats. And we eat meat. Not a lot, but still we eat meat. And wear leather. But not fur. In case anyone out there cares.
I also give money to strangers when I go downtown. Especially if they look cold and hungry. I think that charity starts where you live. If you help the people around you, everyone is better for it.
We made the mistake (this is going to sound awful initially, but bear with me) of giving money to the Red Cross to help victims of the tsunami. The monkey's work and the Canadian government were matching donations, so the $100 we gave became $300. It seemed like a good thing to do.
Less than six weeks after we made the donation, I got a call from the Red Cross. This was troubling for two reasons: the donation was supposed to be anonymous; and they wanted more money. The woman who called was very aggressive, to the point of being insulting. She told me that people like me were part of the problem. Only giving in times of crisis, never any other time.
I let her have it with both guns. I've never heard from the Red Cross again. I never plan to give them money again. I know where that $300 went and it sure wasn't to people who needed it. It went to pay staff at their call centres and to pay for the tons of mailing they do to solicit more donations.
Better to give food to your local food bank. It's more likely to go directly where it's needed. Or volunteer.
Stepping down of the soapbox now. Carry on.

Can I breath now?

2008-01-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

December is a crazy month around here. Birthdays, parties and, of course, Christmas. Most of it involves some traveling and if we're lucky, the weather cooperates.
It's always fun and exhausting.
We had fondue, went out to a very nice restaurant (I had duck for my birthday, it was delicious!), decided we were too full from munching stuff from our stockings on Christmas day, so had a ham on Boxing day.
There was a lot of food.
A lot of food.
I may never eat again.
We had fun with our presents and spent untold hours watching tv on dvd. Pretty much just holed ourselves up for 3 days after the big event. The monkey got me a PSP. I spent the morning on ebay finding some skins for it.
Life is quickly resuming normal programming.
Socks are being knit.

These are the Yarnissima Digitessa socks in STR lightweight Pond Scum. I know, I know, I'm just too lazy to add a link today. It's not that hard to find and her other patterns rock too.
And yeah, I'm aware that Pond Scum is very outside my colour preferences and the socks don't fit me. They're not for me. I sent a friend a pair of socks for Christmas and she liked them. Kind of a lot. So much so that she sent me a bunch of yarn in colours she liked. She's so subtle. Looks like she'll get a pair every so often this year. What the hell, I usually knit more socks than I know what to do with in a year anyway.

These socks were a present so I couldn't put them up before now. They're the Embossed Leaf (fer fuks sake google it!) in a rare gems colourway of STR. I love that colour. Love it. Almost regret gifting it.
I'm off to watch the final cut of Blade Runner now. Apparently if I can't figure out if Deckard is a replicant after watching this version, I am a moron.
I really want him to be a replicant.
I am fully aware of my geek status. You don't have to comment on it.
Really.
I totally know.

Time flies...

2007-12-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

...when you're running out of it.
This has been a month of deadlines. Most of them knitting related.
And while corners in my living room and den look like Santa and his slave minions sicked up in them, no decorations are up. I just haven't got it in me.
Hopefully, the tree and house lights will go up this weekend. Holly is here for her class and we're gonna put her to work. *ahem* I mean, get her in holiday spirit with a little tree trimming.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Tree trimming is fun, not work.
Spirits, not the holiday ones (the liquid ones) may be involved.
Of course, there's still gift knitting to do and some test-knitting is apparently on it's way here too.
Hell, I didn't really enjoy sleeping anyway. It's entirely over-rated.
Twelve days is plenty of time to get the rest of this crap done.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Oh yay, the manic laughter has set in. I feel more festive already!
Here.
Enjoy some Christmas knitting for the niece while I try to get the twitching to stop.

This is the Fireside Stocking from the Holiday Gift issue of IK. I decided to fully line it because (I'm crazy) it's all stranded on the inside and I didn't want the fat boy's gifts getting caught on the floats. It took me six days, which isn't bad.

This is a little hoodie made with some sort of kettle dyed wool. It was a project for the Nihon class, so I got a double with this project. Actually, it may be a triple as I might use it for the book too. It was pretty quick as it's only a two year old size, but it still uses all those pesky Japanese techniques.
I still have two projects to finish for the third year. One of them just needs neck trim and the other needs a front and sleeves. Not bad, but in two more classes we're done.
Again with the time running out thing.
I'm going to have to learn to work faster.
Or have some tiny slave labour. Do you think Santa rents them out during the down season?

I really should stop taking these things

2007-12-02T22:58:00.001-08:00

I saw this on Lorena's blog and thought it looked fun. But I guess I should have learned my lesson after taking the Aspie test.
So here are my results. Part of me always wanted to control the universe.

Your Score: Spice Melange

You scored 100% intoxication, 75% hotness, 75% complexity, and 100% craziness!

You are Spice.

You're not from around here, are you? You're extremely valuable. While you resemble mundane cinnamon, you are much more interesting. People fight wars over you, but your giant worms protect you.

You enlighten people; make them aware, prescient, even clairvoyant. Your pure essence can reveal people's true selves, if they survive their encounter with the real you. You're addictive, dangerous, seductive, and above all else, necessary for space travel.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

edited to add: The monkey took the test and he's "saffron". He does not control the universe.

2010 mascots. WTF?!

2007-11-28T17:39:00.002-08:00

If this picture makes you wonder what the hell these things are, you're not alone.
I turned on the news this morning to discover that some marketing genius had decided that these things represent our province and country. I couldn't even tell what they were.
Then they showed a cartoon that had one of them flying, so I figured it must be some sort of bird. It's supposed to be a native spirit that embodies a bird. Makes me wonder which band. But okay,they at least tried to get something that is BCish happening.
But then there's the others.
I couldn't tell what the big one was. It had to be either a beer spokesman or a marmot. Maybe an ewok? A wookie?
The big one is apparently a sasquatch. So I was right about the beer spokesman. Great.
The last one was the most confusing. The only animal in BC that is black and white and has four legs (that I could think of) was a skunk. But it didn't look like a skunk. It looked like a rejected pokemon character. That one is some sort of, get this, sea bear. It has a killer whale fin on it's head.
Seems kinda like Vanoc is pulling stuff out of it's ass.
It pains me to know that tax dollars paid for these things.
I'd like a refund.

Sometimes, day to day...

2007-11-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

...just kicks your ass.
Don't get me wrong, for the most part, things are going fairly smoothly. All the socks sold at the Christmas sale. Gifts we've ordered are starting to arrive. We reworked the den so that it's now a very functional space. It's now an office/library/guest room/music room/exercise area. Small, but with some new bookcases and a small sofabed, it seems to actually look nice and be hugely multipurpose.
If only Ikea would help us out. We want a wall mounted unit for above my new, much smaller computer desk. Seems like a simple and reasonable request right? They carry one that matches the bookcases and have it in stock. There's only one tiny problem. We've tried to put together three different ones and none of them have the holes drilled correctly. Ikea refuses to send us one that they've already made up. They have no problem sending us unit after unit (we've had three now remember)and picking up the defective ones, but they refuse to try and put one together for us.
Now. I think that it's a reasonable thing to ask after we've wasted a few hours trying to have one of these things work. And it would likely wind up costing them less too. As they've had to deliver the thing twice and now and will have to do it again. For a total of three trips out here (we took the first one back ourselves). And hey, after three defective units in a row, I suspect that they've got a bad shipment. Something got off at the factory and no one caught it. We could be putting these things together for weeks and not find a good one.
It's high time that they stepped up and helped us out here. They have our money. Time to make it right.
I was bummed about missing the Blue Moon barn sale last weekend too. Thought I had to be here for something and it turned out that I didn't. So a bunch of my friends were off having fun in Oregon and I was here. In a massive wind storm and power outage. We were lucky and had our power back on in about 12 hours, a lot of people were out for more than 48 hours. We also lost our phone and cable, even after the power came back on. Very sucky.
Okay. That's enough complaining.
It's not all bad around here.
Check this out:

That is the fibrey Christmas that happened here last night. I didn't go to the sale, but my friends made sure that stash enhancement occurred for me anyway.
And yes, some of that stuff is Ravens.
No, you can't have it.
MINE.
I love my friends.
Gives me a big warm fuzzy just looking at that pile of gorgeous Blue Moon.
Thanks guys. You're the best.
Unfortunately, a lot of the fibre stuff happening around here is unbloggable. But I can post these:

A variation on the Firestarter socks in BM lightweight, a rare gem colour. They're toe-up with a really interesting heel configuration. A great knit if you're wanting to make socks and are sick of the ole standby pattern. And the fit is very good. Nice depth through the instep.

Thanks Anne!

2007-11-07T15:19:00.001-08:00

Here's my tea swap parcel all the way from Finland!
My swap partner was Anne and she sent some great stuff.
Chocolate, a mug from where she lives, a candle, stitch markers that she made, candy in a lovely little tin, Regia silk which is so nice to knit with and last but not least a bunch of teas that I can't wait to try!
Thanks Anne, I hope your parcel from me reaches you soon.

Generosity, cat wisdom and deadlines

2007-11-05T16:44:00.001-08:00

Things have been a little hard around here without the doggie. It's getting better, but every once in a while it still sneaks up on me and slaps a crying jag on my ass.
And lately, the generosity of my friends has never been more obvious.
The pic above is what I received from Jacqui today. That blue skein is yarn she handspun! It's lovely! There's gorgeous roving, tea, soap, candies (mmm apple), a wind chime to make happy sounds outside and a row counter that she made.
And there's the Dog Heaven book.
I'll be giving the box of tissues to the monkey before I let him read it.
Jacqui is also the person who got me going on the PIF thing. She needs one more person, so people, please, go sign up on her blog. It's a really worthwhile thing to do and you'll likely meet some great new friends.
There may be a puppy in our new year. I've kept in touch with the breeder that we got Loki from and had been talking to her about a new schippe before we lost him. It looks like we may have a new pup sometime around March/April.
This is a very good thing. Spike is not nearly as enthused with playing with humans as he was with the dog. But he has taught me something very valuable over the last couple of weeks. Taking a few moments to lie in a patch of warm sun on the kitchen floor is very cathartic. I've watched him do it for years. He used to do it with Loki. They'd both lie on the rug in front of the sink in a patch of sunshine for hours. I never thought much of it, but the other day, I decided, "what the hell" and joined him. It felt great! Very relaxing.
Cats are smart.
Humans, less so.
And, as for how I'm making out with deadlines:

These are the socks I got done for a friend's craft sale. I'm a pair short, but nine's not bad. The stuff for the other big deadline is coming along nicely. The deadline was Oct 15th, but I'm almost done and I promise, it'll be worth the wait.
Now off to get the Christmas shopping done!
Nope. I'm not kidding.

Pay it Forward

2007-10-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

Jacqui is doing this on her blog and I thought it was a great idea.
Here's the blurb:
I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.
Now.
I will get it to you before the end of the year, 'cause otherwise I'll forget. I may even ask for colour prefs from you. So leave me a comment and email me with your addy.
I'm on a sock and hat jag right now. So that's likely what will be going out. But I do have a couple of scarfs on the go too. You never know...

SNAFU

2007-10-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

I really want to thank everyone for their nice thoughts about Loki. It's so quiet around here without him, I'm still not used to it. We got his ashes back yesterday and plan to take him for a last walk in the dog park. Seems like something he would like.
We are trying to remember just his happy little foibles. Like the funny "aroo" sound he always made when yawned and the way he would give the human nearest to him a dirty look when he farted and would make a big show of moving away from the stench.
We've also made a funny/gross discovery about our beloved little doggy and his cat. Uzume has been leaving large dingleberries around the house almost daily for the last little while. This is a seemingly new occurrence. We suspect it is NOT a new occurrence, but that Loki was getting a daily cat poop treat courtesy of Uzume. Funny, but kinda nasty too. Ummm, ick?
So. Like the header says, pretty normal around here, but a little effed up too.
I sum up my workpile like this right now: You know how when people are deep, deep, deep in debt and just keep spending like Rockefellers? Because hey, what's another couple hundred when you're in the hole by hundreds of thousands? That's what my deadlines are like right now. I am no longer panic stricken. I care, and things are getting done, but it's not really registering. I'm that deep in the hole.
There are only four more Nihon classes left in year three and I have two garments to complete. I still have a sweater and shawl pattern to write up for immediate publication. That deadline was last week. The crying over that one happened two weeks ago. I have moved on.
I've decided to shelve the master spinner program for the coming year as I want to try to have my book done and published by February 2009. The monkey keeps asking how he can help. I tell him to come up with the money and just smile and nod when I go completely batshit crazy trying to do this next year. No tiger poking.

In other news, my friend Kerry has published some great baby patterns. Go check out her site, Northern Palm Designs.
I had the pleasure of test-kniting this cutie for her:

And on friday, the charming parcel guy delivered a box full of happy from Lorena. The timing was perfect. The only way that it could have been better is if I could have gone to Rhinebeck with the lot of them. Maybe in a couple of years. I think I may be tied up this time next year...

Anyway, it's a great package. There's yarn. Hand-dyed, handpsun AND hand-dyed and a skein of Great Adirondack. It's all gorgeous and I am greatly honoured to have a skein of Lorena's handspun. She sent me her soap too. Which is good because now I don't have to send her a nasty email about how unfair it is that you can only get her handmade soap if you go to their soon-to-be-open shop in Gainsville called Hanks.
There were Disney cookies (the monkey and I ate them first), the now infamous grape jelly that should come in plastic jars, there's lime jelly too, but it's already in the fridge. And, of course, the Florida Gators cold mug. There's tea from Canada, which is amusing, the florida Bud coaster that I had to make sure Holly didn't take home with her, a Lorna's Laces pattern and a bunch of info from the magic kingdom which I assume is to try to lure me down to Epcot.
Like I need to be lured anywhere warm!
Oh! And the Lime Buds! You can try and pry those out of my cold dead hands. Just go ahead and try.

Loki

2007-10-14T12:42:00.001-07:00

1996-2007
He was a wonderful, joyful friend.
We miss him more than we can express.
It wasn't long enough.

Sometimes, life gets in the way...

2007-10-05T10:36:00.002-07:00

...of blogging.
It's been insanely busy and wildly emotional around here for the last few weeks.
I feel like a chipmunk on crack. Can't sleep, no appetite, and often, a complete blithering lack of focus.
But I'm still here. They haven't sent the nice young men with the clean white coats for me yet. So it's all good.
First there was the monkey's birthday. Which involved a fabulous meal at the Harbour House. The next day was our anniversary and the monkey's brother joined us for a nice visit and some sushi.
Then, on friday, blog-challenged Janet and Jill came up from Seattle for a kamekaze visit. We braved rush hour traffic and made it downtown in time for the first seating at Vij's.
After dinner it was on to shoe shopping and I got totally lucky. Found awesome little thinline wedge heels in black satin with cream dots and a peekaboo toe. Last pair. My size. Less than half price. The monkey said I should have bought a lottery ticket.
Then we went on to a cupcake shop. I had no idea these things existed. It was a little surreal. And there was A LOT of pink. But we bought some cupcakes (despite the fact that we all felt like we were going to explode from being so full) and went home.
Where we all crashed. And I learned that since joining Fat Losers and eating in a very healthy way, I have lost my talent for digesting lovely rich food.
It was an unpleasant discovery.
Saturday, we trekked into Richmond and hit the Daiso, the Japanese book store, a yarn store and the Japanese candy shop. Had cheap sushi for lunch and I was pretty much done in.
It was a great visit, but waaaay too short.
I did find myself an excellent new knitting bag:

It was only $20! It's lined, has a zipper and inside pockets!
Can't beat that with a stick.
That was last week. This week has been much more quiet as far as friends, but much more insanely busy because of some looming deadlines.
I can't say much about the deadline stuff yet. I really, really want to, 'cause it's sooooo exciting. But I have to keep mum for another month or so.
I can say that I should have some patterns in print very soon. Yay!
I didn't expect this to happen so fast, but it has and I'm just going with the flow. There's been a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of banging my head on my computer desk. A few Eukeka! moments and a lot ripping stuff out. Had to wrestle one pattern into submission. Damn thing just would not cooperate. If it weren't for the deadline, I would have set fire to it!
Because of all this, I've made a few decisions.
Master Spinner will have to wait a year. I don't see how I can do this and manage to take level 6 next year.
I want to have my book in print by early 2009. No more putting it off. Strike while the iron is hot and all that.
I need to go back to a gym. The fat's coming off, but I feel tired and blob-like. The only remedy for this (other than speed, and the monkey insists that's a bad idea) is exercise. Crap.
Our house is too small. I want to find out if we can put a master suite on top of the existing structure. 'Cause hey, writing a book with a house under construction is such a great idea.
So.
Somehow it's friday again. I thought it was thursday. I have no idea what happened to thursday. It may have been surgically removed from my week. Which would explain the large lump on my head.
There is some knitting fit to show others:

It's not exciting knitting, just the stuff that's been keeping me from going completely postal over the last little while. The gray is soon to be Boot socks for Angela. And yes! Those are the new Harmony needles! I really like them. They're warm, smooth and not bendy.
There's another pair of plain socks from some Lana Grossa that I had to have, a red alpaca hat and a little wool hat for my niece.

And because it is friday, and I missed last week I have another bizarre, yet fascinating link.
Ladies, meet Vincent Gallo.
What a charmer.
Almost makes those pork martinis seem like a good idea...

It's not even noon!

2007-09-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

It wasn't even lunchtime and I'd made grape jelly and seville marmalade. Of course, now I need a little nap, but hey, it was a productive morning.
I made the concorde juice yesterday and let it drip through so I could use it today. I use the low sugar pectin so it's really grapey and not too sweet.
And since I already had all the stuff out and there was sugar all over the counter, I figured I may as well make up some marmalade too. It's prefab from a can. Comes with the pectin already in it, all you add is sugar. Hideous amounts of sugar, but have you ever tasted a seville orange? It's very necessary.
All the jars sealed. Hooray!
Now I go nap.

Friday Freakfest

2007-09-21T13:44:00.001-07:00

I've decided to try out a new blog feature for a couple of weeks and see how it flies. There are some very odd/scary/funny/down right weird things on the 'net and I seem to come across them a fair bit. Or sometimes friends will send them to me.
For some reason, a few people are always trying to gross me out. It rarely works. You think they'd give up already.
But they don't. Which is a good thing because the first Friday Freakfest comes to us courtesy of Holly.
Some people are always in search of the ultimate martini. This is what happens when you get too creative. CLICK HERE Not on the pig.
Bon appetit!

Gah! It's fall!

2007-09-19T10:57:00.002-07:00

See those pretty purpley flowers? Those are fall crocuses. They've ben up since the last week of August. I cheerfully ignored them until now.
I'd walk past them, averting my gaze and singing a little song in my head about how it was still warm and therefore must still be summer.
There's really no point in denying it now. I had to turn the heat back on the other day. It was just too freaking cold. And I have a cold. Or some sort of drippy, virus thing. I don't feel awful, just not quite right. A warm house was necessary to my continued survival.
We did manage to get the house painted. Except for the doors, which we're leaving for now as we're going to replace them. The new ones will get a nice coat (or two) of blue paint. And we found new screen doors that aren't hideously expensive, so I don't have to try to refurbish the old ones yet again.
New flooring for the kitchen has been ordered and the bathroom is almost done.
The house is almost unrecognizable from when we first bought it.
Trust me. That's a really good thing.

The Ribbi Pulli is done! It fits great and I finally timed the completion of a project correctly and it can actually be worn now.
That's the only project I can actually show pics of right now.
News of the others will have to wait until sometime in October.

That's the nice stuff.
Now a small rant about the sort of service our soon to be ex-phone and internet provider gives us.
This first pic is the phone company truck attending to some sort of line maintenance near our house. Keep in mind that he's not actually working on our line. They've never had to work on our line except for the times when they're screwing around near our house and make our line go out. The gap in the trees where you can see the truck is our driveway. That was yesterday. I called the company to complain (again). Got nowhere.

This is today:

I've asked these guys repeatedly to please not block our driveway (they're usually parked like that for a minimum of two hours). Sometimes they move they truck for a few minutes and then move it back. Sometimes they laugh at me. Mostly, they do nothing.
I've called Telus to ask them to please tell the repair techs not to park across our driveway. Most times I get nowhere, but twice, I've had a manager call me back, apologize and promise that it won't happen anymore.
The last time a manager made that promise was less than a month ago. Guess that was a four week promise. So I called again today. Got someone a little higher up the food chain. He wanted the truck's plate number. So I went out to get it and the tech asked me if I needed to get out (of my own driveway). I asked if it should matter. 'Cause frankly? I shouldn't have to ask permission to leave my own bloody house!
Or to get back in my driveway when I return! Cripes! Enough already.
Partly because of this and mostly due to the fact that Telus has surcharged us to death, we are changing providers. Telus obviously doesn't care about their customers at all. And that attitude is loud and clear through their employees.
I once called to ask why I had a $5 charge on my bill for long distance administration when I had no long distance calls that month and the charming fellow at Telus offered to disconnect me. That was his response. He would disconnect my line.
Cute.
My Telus bill looks like this:
$44.73 for basic phone service and 4 calling features
$35.95 for high-speed internet (it started at $16.95, bit of a rate hike there)
$4.95 for long distance administration (whether you actually use it or not)
$3.00 to have a private number (yup, they're billing for a negative service)
$0.13 for 911 service (God forbid the company eat that one)
Those charges don't even include long distance, or 411.
My Shaw bill will look like this:
$55.00 for digital phone service which includes 8 calling features, unlimited long distance in Canada and the US, 1000 minutes of international long distance and no hidden charges. That $55.00 includes the 911 fee, free 411 and keeping a private number.
$32.00 for high-speed internet that is more than twice as fast as the Telus high-speed.
Gee, combine that with Telus' poor customer service that is frequently down right rude, and I wonder why they have any customers left at all.
Hasta la vista Telus!

The Joy of Home Ownership

2007-09-06T11:01:00.001-07:00

We decided earlier in the year that the house was due for an exterior paint job. Of course, right after we thought this was a good idea, the weather got too hot to paint.
Now that it's cooled off (bloody cold if you ask me) we can get to it. As usual, the monkey has grossly underestimated the amount of work this is and only took one day off work. We didn't even manage to get the priming done. So this week I've been at it on my lonesome.
This is the before:

Yeah, I know the purple is cute. But it's been ten years and it's looking a little dirty and old now. Not to mention the fact that I'm just sick of it. I wanted the house outsides to better match all the updating we've done to the house insides.
So now, it's looking like this:

Kinda boring, but I think when we're done it will look really nice and a lot more modern. Clean and tidy too. The wood on the peaks will be gray like the stucco and the trim will be white.
I didn't get all the gray done yesterday as there's an awful lot of it to paint and the monkey bought a ladder that's made out of solid lead. Okay, so it's aluminum, but it's incredibly heavy. He managed to "accidentally" break the other nice light ladder we had by falling off it into the hedge on Monday. Yeah, yeah, he's fine. I say "accidentally" because he's been going on about the mega heavy ladder since he saw it last week. And I mean going on. He was starting to sound like a teenage girl in lust with some insipid boy-band member. It had gotten to the point over the weekend where I just looked at him mooning over the damned ladder and told him to just buy it already before I threw-up.
So now we have a ladder that I can barely carry. And after six hours of painting, the thought of toting that beast around the house so I could do all the cutting in and high up stuff, I almost cried. Instead, I just put everything away until tomorrow when the monkey will be around to tote what I have dubbed "el leado" around the house.
Anyway.
There's this great stuff you can get from Home Hardware that makes cement look nice too, so we'll be doing that to the walkway when we get the house done.
We still have to prep and prime the shop as well. Hopefully, the weather will hold long enough for us to get all this done.

I've gotten to the point with my drop spindles where I don't have room for many more and have most of the ones I want. So. Needed something different to collect.
Voila! Old spindle whorls from the world.
Yup. Crazy. That's me. They are kinda cool though. The ones on the string are from Mali, the bronze one is chinese and the white one is roman lead. Very interesting things. I have to make myself some pointy sticks so I can try some of them out.

I finished my September socks for SAM4 in record time. Still just a boring 64 stitch sock with a short-row heel, but isn't the yarn great? It's Galaxy from Regia. It took a little fiddling to get the pattern to match up, but once you get it going, it works very well.

General Ramblings

2007-08-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

Fibrey stuff first.
Because I am sometimes a brain-dead moron, I joined another thing that forces me to make stuff on a deadline. Lucky for me, this time it's just socks.

These are my August socks for SAM4. My usual plain 56 stitch sock with a lark's eye heel just to keep me from slipping into a coma. They're Sweet Georgia in a yarn and colourway I can't remember and the label has long since disappeared into that strange void where all the stolen dryer socks reside.
There's also new spindley goodness.

It's a KCL made out of maple with the whorl and finial dyed a greenish colour. Customs had it so long that I thought they were gonna keep it. Almost a month and they opened it. I'd love to know what they thought it was for. Maybe that's why they kept it so long.
You may have noticed the poll in the sidebar. If it seems a little pointed this time, that's 'cause it hits pretty close to home. One of our next door neighbors is a complete and utter idiot. He works shift-work and, I suppose, that makes it hard for him to sleep some nights. At least once a week, on a weeknight, he's out in his backyard chopping wood at about 1 am.
He does this on a concrete block patio in a (mostly) quiet residential neighborhood. We don't live in the back and beyond here, it's not quite city, but it's definitely not wilderness.
The noise is loud. Very loud. It is sometimes accompanied by drunken hoots and laughter. As he enjoys weekday wee hours of the morning partying. I lie in bed some nights waiting for him to chop of a toe, or something more necessary, and try to decide if I would help him or not. I know I'd feel guilty if I didn't help him, but maybe it would fade quickly with the quality sleep I would be getting in his absense.
Tough call.
Despite a distinct lack of sleep, things are going reasonably well around here on almost all fronts.
The designing thing is really revving up. Things are happening at a pretty break-neck speed. To say I wasn't prepared for this would be a gross understatement. But this seems to be the way my life has always gone along. I haven't ever really had a career as such. I went to university for a couple of years taking Kinesiology, went to college for a few years learning to build instruments and now the courses in knitting and spinning I've been taking seem to be leading me in another direction.
This road has never been dull. I've met athletes, musicians and creative geniuses. I've always been in the background, but it's still been pretty bloody cool. I wouldn't trade it for a stable desk job that paid me buckets. No way. I do wonder though, how these things always seem to just "happen" to me. I never go looking for it, it just lands on my plate and I have to decide whether to go for it or let it go by.
I'm not a "let it go by" kinda gal. I usually give it a good kick at the very least.
Right now, designing is getting a good kick. I've been getting great feedback and amazing support. Who would have thought there'd almost be more test-knitters than patterns?! WTF? And the ideas just keep coming.
Very cool.
I never would have guessed this was the next phase.

Buses, Trains and Automobiles

2007-08-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

*Note: this post has been edited to allow me to protect just about everyone.*
So, last thursday I got on a bus at a completely ungodly hour to go to Seattle and get on a train to Portland. I took the early bus 'cause it had the best train connection, only half an hour. Sounds good, right?
Hah!
I wound up standing in the Seattle train station long enough to watch people walk straight onto the 10:30 train (mine was supposed to be the 9:45 one) and then watched as that train pulled out. I was still standing in the station waiting for my train to show up.
A bit of a piss off, but finally we pulled out at about 10:50. Things were looking good until the train came to a dead stop in the middle of nowhere, for no reason that I could see. The conductor came on the PA to tell everyone that a track was out of commission and we'd have to stop every so often to let trains go the other way. Greeeeeaaat. 'Cause it's not like we're already really late or anything. So I call Blank and let her know that my train is sucking the hind tit in a rather major way and I will be pretty damned late.
The train got to Portland only an hour late (I don't even want to know how they made up the time. Really. I don't want to know). Blank picks me up and we're off to blank.
Blank is really pretty. I loved it. Very quiet, and full of wildlife. I saw rabbits, deer, ground squirrels, a ton of colourful birds and a bunch of chipmunks on crack. Very twitchy those chipmunks.
It was great to see blank and meet her family. They were nice enough to put me up for a couple of days. Really lovely people. Thursday, Blank and I played with yarn and compared notes on the blank. There was a lot of brain-storming, but it never got overwhelming. Lots of fun!
Cat arrived on Friday and we went to Portland to get the hall set up for her talk and signing. Traffic was awful, making a lot of people late, but it worked out great in the end. And I think everyone had a good time. Cat's new book is pretty inspiring and I loved seeing her again. I think it had been a couple of years since I'd last seen her. She encouraged me to get on with the designs and the book sooner than later. She also said a lot of really nice things about the blank.
Blank introduced me to some fabulous (but sadly, blogless) people from around blank and Seattle. I'm hoping we'll keep in touch and take a trip to the Daiso sometime soon.
Saturday, we all left and let Blank have her house back. I went to stay in Blank with Doug and Angela in a little cottage at an Inn. We just relaxed and knit for the rest of the day.
This is the only picture fit to print:

The Inn had fresh eggs thanks to the chickens running around the grounds. Of course, I was thinking how good this guy would be kentucky fried when he woke me at 4:30 am on Sunday morning.
The drive back was long, but pretty entertaining. I have a great pic of Angela dozing the back seat, but I was mildly threatened into not posting it. She's small, but feisty.

Another great weekend

2007-08-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Holly and Orion and Denise came up from the states this past weekend to eat salmon and dim sum, go to Daiso and laugh at the folly that is the Stash room.
Angela and Doug joined us for salmon bbq and took everyone out to dim sum the next day. It was great. We drank rather a lot and I have pictures to prove it. A couple of them, I don't remember taking. One is down right incriminating.
I may be very wealthy if Angela ever wants to run for office. Mwahahahaha
I should have even better pics after this weekend. I'm off to Oregon for some work and play with more crazy creative people. I get to go to Cat's book signing too. I'm really looking forward to it.
Hopefully there'll be some pictures fit to post!

Makeup fibre heavy post

2007-08-09T09:36:00.001-07:00

I've been a little neglectful lately of the fibrey aspects of the blog. A lot of the work going on around here in the last little while has been of the stealth variety, which makes crappy blog fodder. I have managed to get some regular stuff done though, including getting my spinning book back with a passing grade.
I tried to get this Ruby hoodie by Bee's Knees done in time for the big birthday bash, but it just didn't quite make it. I'll send it in a couple of weeks when all the other birthday stuff is put away. I was worried about it fitting, but it seems pretty roomy, so Aurora should get a a lot of wear out of it. We call it Kermit around here.

This crossover tee also got done somehow. It was too cool to wear it when I finished it and now it's too warm. Go figure.

I've done very little beadwork in the past year, and even though there's supposed to be bead content here, there's been next to none.
So, tada!
A peyote beaded bracelet that's not quite done.
Peyote beading is so cool. You can make a beaded fabric without a loom. It feels like snakeskin.
Hope the intended recipient likes it.

I did buy a little fibre for myself in Olds. This is some of the mill ends that I'm supposed to share with Irene. I have to admit, I was tempted to keep it all. It's so incredibly gorgeous! All natural shades and all very, very soft. I have no idea what's in there (that's half the fun of millends), but it feels wonderful and I can't wait to work with it.
I have to get more design work and spinning homework done first, but then I'm going to use it as a reward.
I really want to spin this stuff!
Thinking a three ply (for the tweedy effect) in a DK weight for a sweater.

Stop poking at your monitor. Touch-o-vision still doesn't exist.

A 22lb Spring with Cake

2007-08-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

As you can see, the monkey was allowed to come home. He only caught one fish, but it's a doozy. 22lbs of wild BC salmon. He smoked half of it yesterday and we'll BBQ the rest with friends this weekend.
I love smoked salmon. I could probably scarf down the entire fish if it was smoked. I'd feel really sick, but I could do it. I'll be making pasta with ginger sauce and smoked salmon tonight. Mmmmmmm
The monkey only had a 28 hour layover at home and he was off to Philadelphia on business. He had cheesesteak, I got a fridge magnet of the Liberty Bell. Pretty sure I got the short end on that one. Although, I bet customs frowns on people bringing greasey bags of sandwich stuff into the country. National security and all.
This past weekend was the niece's first birthday. It went down as you would expect:

Lots of presents.
Birthday girl who had no idea what was going on.
Covered in icing before the inevitable...

Sugar rush and crash.

Peace and beautiful things

2007-07-24T17:40:00.001-07:00

That's a pic of the water lilies at the college in Olds. I think many of us need to see something this lovely and serene right now. For some reason, people seemed to have slipped sideways in the last week and have just gone weird en masse.
So take a deep cleansing breath and look at the pretty flowers and the peaceful water.
Nice isn't it.
I don't read the posts on the Mystery Stole 3 group, but apparently a bunch of people over there haven't been playing well with others. In fact they have been so awful that I doubt Melanie will offer the Mystery Stole again. This is a really nice thing that is offered up free and for fun that some people have chosen to ruin for everyone else.
So, on my behalf and that of all the rest of us who just get our clues and happily knit away, I want to thank Melanie for doing this. And let her know that we really appreciate the time and effort she has put into sharing this great thing with so many people.
Here's my stole so far:

I've finished clue #4 and now have to wait for two weeks to get the next part. Damn Harry Potter!
The Ribby Pulli is almost in one piece. I'm working on the second sleeve for the long sleeve, hooded version with the kangaroo pocket.

I think this will be a good wardrobe staple. I've done it in black cotton, so it's bound to get lots of wear.
I've had to set it aside for some stealth knitting for the time being (niece's 1st birthday coming up). And I'm still waiting on some measurements so I can get a move on the Blue Moon designs.
I've been playing a bit on Ravelry too. It's a daunting thing. I'm not at all sure even where to start with the stash list. And before you offer, I know a bunch of would gladly "help" me with this problem. I know who you are and you're never getting the alarm code.
The monkey is off on his annual fishing trip tomorrow. He knows the drill. No salmon, no come home.

Let's clarify a few things

2007-07-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

This is MY blog. The things I write about are mine. The feelings, frustrations and opinions are MINE.
When others read these things, I equate it with them being guests in my home. If someone is rude, unpleasant or otherwise untoward in my home, I ask them to leave.
If someone came to my home with a bag over their head so I couldn't tell who they were, I would make them leave.
Anonymous comments are not welcome on this blog.
I don't give a flying crap what you have to say if you don't have the balls to identify yourself.
That being said, no one on the internet is truly anonymous. We all leave little trails and I'd like to let everyone who sees this know that every time you visit a blog, the owner can tell a lot about you.
I know when you visited, where you live and/or work, what you looked at on this blog, how long you looked at it, where you were before you came here, and where you went on your way out. Food for thought isn't it?
What this means is, think before you make an unpleasant comment on someone's diary (that's how I feel about my blog). If their blog displeases you, DON'T READ IT.
I have never presented myself as anything other than what I am:
Liberal to the point of what my father would call a "bleeding heart".
Not religious.
Frequently, I swear like a trucker on long haul.
Completely in favor of gay rights. And everyone's rights for that matter.
Strongly, and I mean STRONGLY, against censorship.
If you find that any of these views offend you or upset you in any way, don't come here anymore. That is your right.

Why I don't open my front door

2007-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

I know, it sounds completely antisocial.
And I've been accused by a couple of people in the last little while of being a hermit.
But how the hell else would I ever get this stuff done?!
Anyway, back on subject.
Yesterday two nicely dressed people spent a rather lot of time at the end of my driveway, then one of them came to my front door. Nicely dressed people in my driveway make me suspicious. Very suspicious.
Now. Before you judge me too harshly, and I know you already think I'm completely paranoid, I used to answer the front door. After a while I noticed an alarming trend, everyone who came to my front door wanted something. Money, the insane neighbor (who's "accidental" death I am now configuring) wanting free guitar repairs, or, as in the case of yesterday's visitor, to save my eternal soul from the firey pit of hell in which it currently resides. Quite happily, I might add.
So the nicely dressed visitor knocks politley on my front door as I hide. Loki does the ritual barky thing for her and she pushes this through my mail slot:

I have no problem with people following an organized religion. Many of my friends are spiritual in some way. I like that. It makes for interesting and sometimes animated discussions. People need to have different points of view or we may as well all live in Stepford.
I do have a slight problem with the above tract. When did Jesus start using "the" before his name? Has he been hanging out with The Donald? Does he now refer to himself in that alarming third person way? And hey! What's with the 'do? He looks like the after shot in a Grecian Formula beard ad. He's all clean cut and incredibly white for someone with a middle eastern background from 2000 years ago.
And it immediately brought this to my mind:

Buddy Christ (or should it be "The" Buddy Christ?) from the movie Dogma. He was the new "hipper" persona that the Catholic church thought would bring young people back to the fold. It was supposed to be funny. It wasn't real. It was a movie. Heaven help us, somebody thinks it'll work!
Just look at that tract. Doesn't The Christ look awfully close to giving us all a big thumbs up? Yipes!
So. The end of this tragic tale is this: if you're a friend of mine don't come to the front door. Come around to the back, I have the kettle on.

Home Again

2007-07-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

Well, we got back from Olds (Lynne and I) Saturday night and I've been in hiding ever since.
It's a long drive and Lynne likes to do it in one go. Since I don't feel totally comfy driving her big beast of a car (I drive a teeny weeny sports car) she does the entire thing. I don't know how she does it and I really appreciate it. I make sure she gets food and stuff to drink without driving off the road.
It was a long ten days. Seven of those were class and two were travel days. That left one day of playing in the barn full of fleeces being judged and fibre vendors. I didn't buy too much this year, in fact, most of the stuff I brought back wasn't for me. I sent three fleeces to the mill for processing, brought one home for a friend along with some mill end fibre, some yarn and these:

Two Tabachek spindles in mahogany and ebony, a yew noste and a padauk Forrester with a little spider burnt into the top of it.
Class involved a day of procion dyeing:

And a lot of spinning. I managed to get a number of the samples I need for my notebook done in class. But there are a lot more left to do. We had to spin everything from polyester batting to silk hankies. From very thick and lofty to lace weight. We even had to make our own silk hankies. Those silk worm pupae are very stinky. Blech. Glad I didn't have to do that one at home.

I started the MS3 yesterday. I'm using Alpaca with a Twist's laceweight silk and alpaca with matte gold/mauve/green oilslick beads. I'm only halfway through the first pattern, so I'm definitely going to fall behind on this knitalong. Especially since I have to get back to reality spinning and knitting tomorrow.

I've got four spinning level books that need to be turned in before next March or I won't be able to take the final level next year. I know that sounds like a long time, but the homework for these things is huge.
I still have to write up the pattern for the Firefly tank and start drafting five others.
Yup. the manic laughter is starting again.
Gotta go check the fleece drying on the deck.
I get to put it through the combs for my next level project. Um. Yay?

My Friends went to BSG and all I Got...

2007-06-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Was a bunch of great STR!

Thanks Tina and Ang!
And you thought I was gonna say a t-shirt. Sheesh

Angela was also helping me get this tank done. I know, I know, it's not done. But I leave for Olds in two days and won't be back till the 8th, so take what you can get. It's going to look a lot better when the lace is blocked out.

Yesterday was a bumper fibre day around here. This huge batch of Kauni arrived from the Nederlands. Lucky for me that I found it before a certain someone blogged about it, and got it easily. It's probably the toughest yarn to get on the planet by now. If I didn't like it so much, I'd entertain bids so I could enlarge the Stash room.

There's been a lot of stuff going on around here lately, but most of it's not that interesting. Unless you count my daily meltdowns as interesting. And this top is a result of me not being able to concentrate on anything but Olds prep. Nice mindless summer (not that we've had summer yet) knitting. It'll be a short-sleeved top at some point. If I don't get it done by tomorrow, that point will be waaaay in the future. I still have to make up a bunch of itty bitty skeins for dyeing. Joy. I LOVE labelling dozens of teensy skeins. Just LOVE it.

I had to resort to alternative storage in the Stash room. But it works. See that stuff at the bottom of the pic? That's FLOOR. You heard me FLOOR. I had started to doubt that floor existed in there. The new Kauni and STR have taken up temporary (hopefully temporary) residence on the couch in the living room. They're very pretty. They may become a design feature that I add to every now and then...

And there's one in the spotlight

2007-06-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

he don't look right to me
get him up against the wall

What an amazing show. The sound was superb and Waters was bang on.
I hadn't realized just how influential his lyrics were for me until last night. The stage was set up with a large vid screen as the backdrop and he made very good use of it. Images of war, people in need, greed, pollution and the Palestinian wall were flashed behind him throughout the show and the predominant lighting color was red. It really brought home the sad fact that songs he wrote 25 and even 35 years ago are still very current. Our political situation hasn't changed, only the faces have. Very sobering.
The Fletcher Memorial Home actually made me tear up.
I had The Final Cut in constant play when it first came out. I knew the songs by heart and apparently still do. It was one of the things that made me realize we weren't getting the full story on the nightly news. And it made me very angry. That hasn't changed either. We still don't get the truth and it still pisses me off.
I hope the message wasn't totally lost on the twenty-somethings at the show.

The man's 63 and he still kicks ass.
I'd see him again in a heartbeat.

Watermark

2007-06-20T08:56:00.001-07:00

This week I drowned.
At the Monday morning Fat Losers meeting, the leader asked me if I found my knitting relaxing. She backed away hastily when the manic laughter started.
I didn't make the deadline for the design sample.
I had to send a 3/4 done garment to BSG for Blue Moon. I don't even have a picture.
I can't even use the excuse that zombies ate my brain.
Anyone who knows me will know that this is killing me and making me feel like a giant loser. The only hope I have is that Angela will knit on it like a mad fiend and get it done (or more done) by the time she arrives. She's ever so nice and it helps that it's in her size so she can even wear it if it's finished.
I have everything crossable crossed. The eyes are starting to make me a little dizzy.

But, life goes on and I still get to do cool things even though I botched the deadline.
Tomorrow night the monkey and I are going to this:

It's the monkey's favorite (after Wish You Were Here, but Waters isn't doing that one so the monkey will just have to suck it up).
No progress pics for anything this week. If anyone asks me why I will smack them. Hard.
Just the doggy in his happy place. Sand between his pads and a piece of stinky crab ready to eat.

A side note for anyone wondering about the Olds course I keep ranting about.
It's a six year Master Spinner program done through Olds college in Alberta. Here's more info.

Zombies Bad

2007-06-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

This is going to be my last post. Thank god I barricaded the windows. They've managed to break the glass, but still can't get in. I've moved as much food and water as I can up into the attic, and the pets too. The power has flickered and surged a few times, but still seems to be holding. I don't think it'll last much longer.
Still trying to reach anyone on my cell, but no luck. The signal went down for a while and I think I'm switching through a different tower now.
The bastards have dragged stuff out of my stash onto the lawn and are trying to eat the fibre!
Hopefully, I'll be able to hold out in the attic until some sort of help arrives. I spray painted an SOS on the roof earlier. Wish I had a shotgun. All I have is a baseball bat. It'll have to do.
If this infection simulation is even close to accurate, we are all very screwed.
Good luck everyone. See you on the other side.

Only Canadian zombies polite?

2007-06-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

This can't be a good sign.
The zombies around here are getting more aggressive, but it still doesn't seem to be a big problem. I've boarded up the windows. Thank god for nailguns. Had to use it on some of the neighbors.
Still have power, but there's an awful lot of moaning on the radio and snow on the tv.
Don't know how long I'll be able to hole up in here.
Whenever I connect with anyone on my cell, all I get is moaning and requests for, "braiiiiiiins".
May have to use the nailgun on myself.

I told you this would happen

2007-06-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time.
The zombie's are here and they want our brains.
I've been warning the monkey that this was gonna happen for years now. Damn fool wouldn't listen and has now joined the legions of the shuffling undead. Like there weren't enough zombie programmers already. For that matter, how the hell are we going to tell them apart from the rest? Half the time I only get a sort of mumbling grunt out of him when I ask him a question. Hmm. Maybe he's been a zombie for years and I just didn't notice.
I managed to get a good stock of raw meat in before things got really bad. For the most part, the zombies have been quite polite so far. They knock on the door, ask, "can I has brayns?" and leave quietly when I give them some meat. Most even say, "thanks you".
I did catch one trying to bite Loki in the backyard, but I chased him with a baseball bat and he ran away after the neighbor's cat. You really do have to be careful to stay out of biting range, they don't seem to be able to help themselves.
I think the biggest problem is going to be the bits of people just sort of rotting in the streets. It's a bit of a health risk. The city's trying to keep up with the clean up, but a large part of their staff has been zombified and they have a poor work ethic. Not to mention how easily distracted they are by anyone walking by with a largish head.
I wonder if a certain fast food restaurant will come out with a Mc Brain meal...

Pay no Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

2007-06-08T08:37:00.001-07:00

So. This week has been much better. It wasn't hard to have a better week. Unfortunately, I wasn't alone in my misery, seems the blue moon screwed with a lot of people. Hopefully the crazies are back in their cages now and we can all pretend it didn't happen. Lalalalalala
Yesterday, this arrived via my cheerful parcel guy:

Knitter's Tea Swap goodness from Lorena!
I think we were separated at birth. One of her recent posts shows some of her spinning and it's the same stuff that arrived for me yesterday. It's a little twilight zoney.
The package she sent kicks ass. I'm sitting here writing this, eating toast with key lime jelly on it! Squeeeee!
But I digress.
She sent much good loose tea, fibre in colours I love, a skein of sock yarn that's a great kermit green and really shiny, chocolate (always a good thing around here), Gator napkins, a pin from Disneyworld, cat toys and treats, wonderful citrus smelling bath stuff, two jars of jelly (the post office brutally murdered one jar, we gave it a small service), giant mug, tea book aaaaaaand one of those very cool Adagio Ingenuitea thingys.
Right after I took the pic of bounty, I gave the cats the catnip mice. The mice promptly disappeared. The cats were lying on the bed when I tossed the mice at them and they were still lying on the bed when I came back in half an hour, but the mice were gone. It bothered me when we went to bed, especially since Spike seemed to have popped a vein and gone completely batshit crazy, but we had a peaceful night. The mice are still MIA.
The Ingenuitea does not come with instructions. I looked at it, thought, "hey, it must be totally simple if there aren't directions". Apparently not simple enough. Me, being the brain trust I can occassionally be, wound up with boiling water, vaguely tea flavoured, all over the counter. Doh. The light clicked on for the second attempt. It works great and I spent ten minutes this morning trying to decide if it was too gimpy of me to use teabags in it, just because I want to use it.
Thanks Lorena! I'm mailing your stuff tomorrow. Be afraid.
This week was very productive for a change. I turned some of this cotton roving:

Into these cotton skeins:

I now officially have enough yardage (metrage?) for level 5. I still have to spin the rest of it so I have enough for a project for level 5, but that doesn't have to be done by the 28th of this month. It can wait. Yay!
I dyed this:

With these and some alum:

I transformed my living room from spinning hell (and no, I don't let the monkey see things like this):

Into a finished spinning level notebook (just look how tidy):

These have yet to be transformed, but I thought I'd share some retail fibre therapy.

Yup, that's yet another spindle. Wanna make somethin' of it? The vast quantities of the same colour fibre will be sweaters. Probably for me.
And the last tranformation on this week's pile is me. I have once again joined Fat Losers. Pray for me.
PS: It's a Lemur and the russian spindles are from Viking Santa and I don't know how to use them yet.

Warning: Contains Language Some may Consider Offensive

2007-06-01T13:32:00.001-07:00

You have been warned.
This has been what I generally call a "fuck me gently with a chainsaw week".
A lot of running around.
A lot of hurry up and wait.
A lot of not getting important things done.
All leading up to it being friday and me screaming, "FUCK!!!!".
And yet, here I sit blogging, when I should be spinning *argh* cotton.
Can you say AVOIDANCE, boys and girls? 'Course you can.
This cannot continue or I will be doomed. Doooooomed.

So. With very little getting done around here, this is all I've got to show for my past week. The socks on the left are the pair that Angela gave me. Yay for socks for me that I didn't make! Thanks Ang.
The other three (yeah, I know, I have two feet. You're sooooo funny) I made. There's only one blue one as I ran out of yarn halfway through the other sock. FYI, 100g is NOT always enough for a pair of socks. Fuck. More fibre is on it's way to remedy this little problem.

Behold the joy that is retail therapy. I'm sparing you the sight of the yarn version of retail therapy that arrived today. It just wouldn't be fair to taunt people like that. This is a fimo spindle from Sdlinky on ebay. It spins surprisingly well and it's pretty. Can't beat that with a big stick.

Holly said this little guy gave her nightmares. I think he's just the fleshy version of my week. Any guesses as to what he is?

I still hate cotton

2007-05-23T15:48:00.001-07:00

Let me clarify. I love wearing cotton and I pretty much live in denim. The cotton plant is a remarkable and beautiful thing. I don't mind knitting with the stuff.
BUT...
I hate spinning it. No. I loathe spinning cotton. The fibres are short, it sticks to itself, it's full of husks, I clench just thinking about it.
Now, you're probably thinking this shouldn't be a big deal. There are lots of fibres that aren't cotton that I can spin, so why don't I just shut up and go spin something else. I have to spin about 400m of the hateful stuff for Level 5. I'm about halfway there. It's going to take me the rest of the week to get it all done. And that probably doesn't include setting the twist and skeining it off into the pissy little hanks for the class.

On the up side, this is easily the nicest cotton I've ever had to work with. It's got a fairly long staple and it almost drafts like wool top. Many thanks to Irene for recommending Israeli cotton. It has been better than any of the other cottons I've tried.

Still hate it.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2007-05-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Have a wonderful day! Get out and start enjoying all those senior discounts.
I can say that 'cause I live two whole provinces away and you can't ground me anymore. Nyah nyah.
Lots of love and hugs!

One down, let's not talk about how many more...

2007-05-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

The first garment for year three Nihon is done! Yay!
I'm only about a month behind now.

Feels good to get at least one thing off the to do pile per week. Of course, five more things arrived on the pile this week.
No pressure.
Ack.

Golden hockey fibrey goodness

2007-05-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Canucks may be off playing golf in the sun, but these guys have spent the last three and a half weeks in Russia. Yesterday it all paid off in another World Cup and gold medals all round. It's worth watching that last game against the Fins to see Nash drag a Fin player halfway down the ice to score the clincher goal. Very entertaining!

On Friday, Frauke, Angela and I went out to Fibrefest in Abbotsford. This little show has been steadily growing every year and this was the largest showing yet. It was great to see some new vendors as well as the ones we know and love. And I ran into people I knew every time I turned around! It was great!
Here's the stuff I couldn't resist:

There's alpaca/wool/mohair bumps from Rainbow Forest Acres. It's very soft and I'm looking forward to spinning it when I get rid of the mothball smell which is kinda overpowering right now. I hope they stop storing their fibre like this, it would not encourage me to buy from them again, despite the lovely fibre. Then there's a kilo and a half of two different colours from Aurelia as well as my free blue topknot. Yup, you guessed it Irene, I'm going to make a tweedy three ply at some point with it. Shelley from Fun Knits on Quadra Island was there and I succombed to some of the Sweatermaker laceweight, a ball of sock yarn and a couple of the sock blocker keychains that make such great gifts. I've only recently added some Indigo Moon to the stash, so it was nice to see the distributor had a booth with most of the colours and I added some laceweight silk and sockweight merino to the haul. I think we all had a pretty good time and come home with some nice things to enhance our stashes.

My latest spindle aquisition:

It's got a Koa whorl and an ash shaft. Weighs in at 21g. Made by Fine Wood Arts and bought on ebay. I haven't tried it yet, I'll let you know. For now, it just looks really pretty.

I leave you with a fibrey lady of the evening. Enjoy!

Testing, testing...

2007-05-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

I may not have my spinning stuff done (yet), but I did manage to swatch and draw/write up a pattern today that hopefully will be published. It's kinda strange for me to just do the swatch and pattern without making up the whole garment. Not to mention having to write out some sort of instructions for the knitter. My poor friend who volunteered to do this has NO idea what she's in for. Fingers and toes are currently crossed.
Here's what she'll have to work with:

I'm also working my way through the first third year Nihon sweater. I've got the back done and most of the front. Of course I will still have to write the pattern out so others can understand it. AND size it. Bleh.

At this point, I'll just be happy that it fits me.
So there.

Dammit! oh and the cruise

2007-05-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

Sadly, the Canucks are out of the playoffs. I wasn't able to watch the games on the ship, but the monkey says they played fairly well for the most part.
Guess it's golfing season now. Feh.
The cruise was a pretty good time. I had a great roomie and almost everything went smoothly. This was the view of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise from our cabin balcony:

The gate into Chinatown where we found an awesome restaurant up a very steep hill, down an alley and in a basement:

This was what I had to get into few enough bags to carry by myself:

Please note: If you want to save money on holiday in San Francisco, DO NOT go to Art Fibers. You may wind up selling your ticket home so you can buy more yarn.
The view from our balcony of the Lions at dawn as we were coming home into the Vancouver harbour:

Makes you remember why you live here.
I was a dummy and left my camera on the ship in Victoria, so I don't have any pics of family feeding the ducks at Beacon Hill Park, peacocks with their tails open (even a pure white one!), a very dear friend suffering through yarn shopping with me, and having the best smoked beef sandwich ever with new friends from New Jersey. Use your imagination.
And...

Tada! Fraternal Twins.
I got the Lime n Violet socks done on the cruise. I don't think there was even enough yarn to do one extra row on each sock. Very lucky.
ps: I have finally updated the Gallery. Promise to do it more regularly from now on. Okay, I'll make more of an effort, would you believe that?

Duck is yummy bbqed

2007-04-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

I managed to get home last night after teaching to see the Canucks get two empty netters to clinch the game and go on to the next round. What a great feeling! Those were some very happy hockey players. It was a long series with some incredibly lame reffing. I hope the next one is better. Ducks aren't exactly a pushover.
It's hard to believe it's been 25 years since Roger Neilson hoisted that towel in surrender. I still remember it well. Within a couple of weeks almost everyone at school had a Canucks towel. It's become a symbol and a lot of other teams use it now. But for us, it still brings back Neilson standing up on the bench with his makeshift flag.
Keep winning guys. The Cup really should come home.

Many, many metres of three-ply corrie for the monkey. He still hasn't thought of what he wants his sweater to look like. Hell, I spun the yarn faster than he's making this decision. Men. He'll likely want a plain crew-neck. Bleh.

Jacqui sent me this great stuff. She'd left a comment about wanting to swap socks and I took her up on it. She'll probably be more careful about things like that from now on.
The timing could not be more perfect. I plan to make the mate to this lovely sock (which is Roza's Socks from the spring IK) on the trip next week. I've got some Wildfoote in the Stash (I know, you're sooo surprised), but I haven't actually knit with it yet. It feels really nice. And pretty much everyone knows my major weakness for Opal. But this soap. Damn. I wish I could figure out how to make the blog scratch and sniff. It's spearmint and lemon and I would happily just wander around with around my neck. It smells so good. Thanks Jacqui! You realise, I will be putting Hello Kitty stickers on all out going parcels now.
On a less happy note, we had a bad scare with Loki this past week. He has congenital heart failure and we have him on meds to try to control it and make him happy. But he had built up so much fliud that he looked like a barrel. The vet was very concerned and said we might not have much time left. He drained the excess fluid and we're adding another heart med to his regime. He seems as happy and goofy as ever, so I hope the vet is wrong. Loki's family and I don't know what we'd do without him. Okay, I could do without the appalling farts he lets go. He walks up to you, farts, gives you a dirty look and goes to the other side of the room. Acts like the stench was all you. Clever little beast.

Go Canucks Go!

2007-04-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

I like this man a lot!
And hey, what's not to like? He's italian, but not smarmy, very flexible and he's keeping pucks out of the net. That's huge, the keeping pucks out of the net thing.
Now. If we could just give Sopel a good bath and a haircut...
Oh, and no more seven period games please. I could outskate you guys after seven periods of hockey. It's just not civilized.

The massive egg basket finished and full of stuff I can't tell you about. Soon all will be revealed, but for now, mystery.
The monkey's yarn is done. My tendonitis is less painful than it was a couple of days ago and I drew up two patterns yesterday. Things are chugging along.
Roz and I leave for the Sock Crusie in less than two weeks, so things should maybe be flying rather than chugging, but you take what you can get.
Go Canucks!

How I Spent My Easter Long Weekend

2007-04-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

While the monkey was up at his mom's for the weekend, being pampered, eating ham and chocolate, I was at home doing this:

I've been spinning this corrie for almost a week solid now. I have 6 and a bit of the 10 bumps spun. I've being spinning at a rate of about 80g per day and, at this rate, should be done by Monday at the latest. That'll be almost two pounds of 3 ply double knit weight when it's done. The monkey's trying to think of what sort of sweater he wants.
I anticipate something plainish. Men are sooo dull. He thinks the self-striping sock yarn is "girly".

oooh, aaah...Russian support spindles!
I've been pretty restrained lately when it comes to spindles, but these were just too pretty. One's cocobolo nd the other is tulipwood. I can't wait to see what the plying spindles are like. I've never tried the russian spindles, but I have to now.

Blocking Day

2007-04-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

You thought I was kidding when I said no more plain socks for a while, didn't you.
I had to wait for the sun to make another appearance, because I like blocking outside. Today I got lucky. Monday snow, today 17 C. Go figure. Thought I'd better take advantage of the good weather 'cause who knows how long it will last or what will come next. Tornado? Water funnel? Hate to guess.

Luna Moth Shawl done in Alpaca with a Twist Baby Alpaca. It's a small shawl that took about two and a half balls and just two days of knitting.

Shetland Triangle from Interweave Knits Wrap Style. I saw Melanie's last month and instantly wanted to make one. I even stole her idea of beads along the bottom. I did a few more repeats and still had yarn left, but the pattern is only a ten row repeat and it was getting a little dull. The yarn is a hand dyed bamboo that I got at Fibrefest last year from a weaver. Can't remember which one, but I love the colour. The bamboo was very slippery and a little on the splity side. Feels nice and looks shiny though, so it was worth the struggle. I started this Saturday night during the last period of the game and finished Tuesday afternoon
The spinning for the monkey's three ply corrie gansey has begun!

Uh, WTF?

2007-04-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

I enjoy a good joke as much as anyone, but seriously, this is NOT funny. If it had happened yesterday, I might have seen some humour in it, but come on, it's April 2nd.
Yesterday, the monkey was out doing yard work all afternoon with his new lawn mower and edge trimmer. That trimmer is a scary thing. I tried it and let it dip a little and *poof* the grass in that spot was gone. Nothing left but dirt. Turned a little and the damned thing went through a plastic plant pot like it was butter. Good thing we got what the guy at the store called the wussy one. Can't imagine what the "real" ones would cut through. Yikes.
But, that was yesterday. The sun was shining and I was thinking of switching out the winter clothes for the summer ones. Good thing I waited. Apparently, while we slept, our house was moved up into the freaking artic. Even Loki tried to get back into the house when we were starting off for our walk. Normally, he's waiting for me impatiently on the driveway when I come out with his leash. Not today. He was scratching at the door as I tried to get the harness on him. He kept looking up at me like I was insane to want to go out in that weather. Even when we got to the beach, he didn't want to get out of the car. He was looking at us like, "uh, why don't you guys go and I'll just wait for you here. In the car. Where it's warm and not full of that cold white stuff."

The almost week of sunny warm weather did help me get back on track with some projects more interesting than plain socks. This predrafted BFL got turned into this:

It's more three ply sock yarn, but I promise it won't be plain socks. I have a couple of sock patterns sitting in my head and I think I'll try them out with these last two batches of handspun.
I also started the Shetland triangle saturday night and it should be done later today. Pulled out some corrie that I had processed that's going to be a sweater for the monkey. I'm thinking three ply DK in a gansey. It's a really dark chocolate colour. Very Manly.
Gotta go make some tea now, still a bit frozen from the "bracing" walk on the beach. Hope to thaw out by the end of the week.

Yay! It's finally spring

2007-03-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

Would ya look at that! A cherry tree in full glory. Love it. Means the cold, icky, horrible weather we've had is likely at an end. I was starting to think that we'd never see the giant yellow orb in the sky again. I actually left the house without a jacket today and did not get hypothermia. Not even a goose bump. Yay!
This afternoon was spent spinning with friends. It was great. Lots of laughs and Judy made some really yummy treats and tea to help us keep spinning all afternoon.
This is Judy spinny with her corgi in her lap. They both look pretty relaxed, don't they.

The change in the weather has really helped me be more productive. The plain socks are done, fancier socks are on the needles, the Nihon sweater is designed and cast on, and I pulled out some fiber to spin. I didn't feel like climbing into the wool room (don't ask, Holly peeked in when I opened the door and wound up snickering every time she looked at me for about a half hour), but lucky for me, the Lisa Souza fiber I ordered a while back was right up near the door.

This is BFL in LimenViolet. I split it into three roughly equal sections and predrafted it out. Then made a nice three ply sock weight. Hopefully it will be socks by the next post, but no guarantees.

I want to thank everyone for being so positive about the book, especially you, Denise. Hopefully you'll let me cry on your shoulder every now and then. I think I've come to terms with the fact that it won't be for everyone. It's nice to know that others are as tired of the recent trend in knitting designs as I am. I'm ready to do something about it and you're all welcome to come along for the ride. At the very least, it should be pretty interesting.

Drive by Gnoming

2007-03-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

Holly and her daughter Orion came up for a visit this weekend. There was much shopping, driving and eating. Not necessarily in that order.
We went to the Sewing fest out in Abbotsford which, unfortunately, was very sad. There used to be a mix of booths, sort of half sewing and half crafts. Now it's pretty exclusively sewing. Which is great if you sew, but not so much for the likes of us who do other stuff. It was a little disappointing, but I did manage to get a great deal on a couple of Aussie stumpwork bug books. Even the monkey likes looking at the pics in them.
We decided to pick up assorted coffee influenced beverages at the great coffee corporation on our way home and were treated to this:
Disembodied voice: Welcome to Giant Coffee Corp! Can I take your order?
Holly: Uh yeah, two tall, unsweetened, green tea lemonades...
DV: Two grande sweetened-
H: No, tall, unsweetened
DV: Oh! Extra sweetener-
H: NO, unsweetened!
DV: Okay, two tall, unsweetened green tea lattes-
H: No. Two. Tall. Unsweetened. Green. Tea. Lemonades.
DV: Got it! Two tall, unsweetened, green tea lemonades. Is that all?
H: Nope. One tall mocha frappe light with coconut syrup...
DV: The frappes are iced.
H: I know, I said light.
DV: Okay, with ice.
H: Light!
DV: Iced.
Holly: Light. L. I. G. H. T. Light
DV: Oh! Light! So a grande mocha frappe light...
Holly: Tall. With coconut syrup and a tall java chip frappe.
It went on a little longer and screwier from here but you get the idea. Funny, but kinda not.
They went to dim sum this morning with Angela and her guy, but we begged off. We missed the dim sum so we could put 20 garden gnomes on Angela's front lawn. It was the only way we could do it while she wasn't home and still have Holly get to see it. Of course, I'm a twit and forgot the damn camera. So you'll have to hope Ang or Holly post pics. It was truly weird and her neighbor must think we're nuts. This poor guy was out gardening when we pull up, unwrap almost two dozen garden gnomes and place them around the front yard.
Definitely a drive by gnoming.

I have been unable to get motivated to do anything I really should be doing for a while now. Maybe it's sleep deprivation. I don't know, but it's making me crabby. Feels like I've got all this stuff to do and all these deadlines, and I just don't do it. WTF?!
I've decided to start a pattern book. I'm sick to death of all the "knit it this weekend!" crap out there and want to do something challenging and wearable. There's a certain designer out there who needs someone to slap her and let her know that a 36" bust is NOT a large. No more waify little models, who obviously haven't knit a stitch, wearing knitted skirts on cliffsides with their hair blowing in the breeze. I wanna see knitters. Knitters of all shapes, sizes and ages, doing things that knitters do, perhaps even, god forbid, KNITTING! No more sandwich deprived 15 year olds pinned into garments that some brain trust decided we'd make even though they're only showing the effing collar. (That one's for you Kerry)
The problem is, how challenging can I make it without alienating everyone? It keeps me up at night. I don't want to hold anyone's hand, be a grown-up people. Read the instructions. But will people actually read the instructions? This is going to take me a while to figure out. And I haven't even got to all the legal end stuff and printing and test-knitting and and and and
Crap. Hyperventilated a bit there.
So bear with me. Today I give you a picture of plain socks. It's all I've been capable of lately. Sorry.

Answers, Winners and an FO

2007-03-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

First, the answers to my little quiz:

1. Monty Python. "Spell bolour with a "k"? Kolour! Oh what a silly bunt!" I used spinny to avoid being sued and because it worked for me a bit better. BTW, people have to do something truly appalling for me to spell "bunt" with a "k".

2. Cat hair, but I would have accepted any answer. And Lorinda, it's always been Kirk. I mean, come on! The guy has managed to avoid dying from galactic vd who knows how many times. You've got to admire his resilience if nothing else.

3. A garden shed that may someday soon become his new home so that I could use the old garden supply room as my wool room.

4. Older than me! He will always be older than me. That is the only acceptable answer.

5. Guitar building or Luthiery. And yup, I actually did make a decent living in my chosen field for a little while. Got some REAL interesting stories about musicians too. Ask me sometime.

6. Johnny Depp.

7. Aie ya IS a sentence. I use it in polite company instead of swearing. It manages to convey all sorts of emotions, but mainly horror and disgust.

8. I got tendonitis from knitting for the Vogue Nihon class. My Dr kindly suggested I just stop knitting and spinning for a few months and it would clear up. He then went on to suggest that I knit and spin less to stop it from flaring up. He stopped talking when he saw the look on my face and then suggested tylenol and ice.

9. I am continually treating my addiction with wool. So far, it hasn't let up. Hmm, I wonder why methadone doesn't work...

10. Tubal ligation with a rusty steak knife. Usually after a trip to the mall or mistakenly finding myself in a Chuck E Cheese.

And now, the winners!
Uli - sock yarn
Frauke - bags of mohair
Dad - food stuff
Irene (Rusty) - sock yarn turned into socks
Myriam (via write in vote) - topknot
Lorinda - handspun skein (please email me with your address)
Denise - roving (now you must tell me where you live, mwahahaha)
Anthea - sock book
Kerry - socks ( I KNOW where you live)
Heatherly - laceweight mohair (address please)
Jacqui - sock yarn ( I need your address too please)
I added an extra prize 'cause it seemed silly that only one person wouldn't get something. Ian Sim doesn't count as he is the monkey. Silly bunt thought he was being clever. I think his prize shall be a cuff upside the head. He didn't even get #6 right!

These are the finished monkey socks from the Second Sock Syndrome Swap. Debbie knit the first one for me and now I've got a pair. I like this someone else knitting one sock for me business. Any volunteers? I have a 7.5 foot, it's not that big, doesn't take long to knit a sock for that size foot.

Blogaversary Contest

2007-03-07T10:43:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been almost a year. As usual, it's just whizzed by and I didn't get nearly enough done. It all started with this pic:

In honour of my managing to post on a semi-regular basis without offending a large amount of people, I'm going to give away some of my vast and terrifying stash. There's some of my handspun, a pair of socks, laceweight mohair from Ami Ami, Fancy Image sock yarn, Regia, a topknot, some BFL, the Vintage Sock book and TWO FULL bags of Rhapsody! Before you get all excited, you have to answer a few questions to earn the goods. Everyone can enter, especially my friends! I love sending stuff to my friends. Come on guys, everyone wants free stuff!

These are the prizes. Good incentive? Dad, the red peppers and peppercorns are your prize.
So, here's the deal. Answer one question, answer a few it doesn't matter. I will give points for creativity.

1. Where did I get the idea for the name of my blog? Your answer must include the word "bolour" and the letter "k".

2. What is this?

a) dryer lint I plan to collect and make into a sweater for the monkey.
b) the amount of fur I got off the duvet cover in one day.
c) a desicated tribble that ran out of grain on the Enterprise.

3. Last summer, the monkey built a:
a) garden shed.
b) his new home.
c) a wool room.

4. How old is the monkey?

5. What is the career I actually went to college to learn?

6. Who would I leave the monkey for in a cool second?

7. Use the phrase "aie ya" in a sentence.

8. How did I get tendonitis and what did my doctor suggest would clear it up?

9. Do you think I have a treatable or untreatable fibre addiction?

10. What operation do I threaten to perform on myself?

Have fun! I'll post the winners after March 17th.

What a Great Pal

2007-03-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

It is a small world. My spoiler for the Second Sock Syndrome Swap was my spoilee for SP9. Debbie sent me all kinds of wonderful stuff. There are great smelling candles, a beading mag, a very pretty bracelet, bath stuff, tea, woolwash (a brand I haven't tried yet), and, of course, weird candy. I love weird candy! She found me cackling chocolate eggs. There were a lot more of them, but those sort of things don't last long around here.
The absolute best thing in the parcel was the sock. It's the monkey sock from Knitty done in a bright blue Jitterbug. She claims it is only her 5th sock, but I think she's lying. It's really nice and I plan to make it's mate as soon as I can.
Thanks Debbie! You spoilt me rotten and I had an awful lot of fun opening all the goodies.

Effing Groundhog!!!

2007-03-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

Meet Punxsutawney Phil. He said we'd have an early spring. I say, he'd probably make a tasty stew as this is NOT my idea of an early spring on the Westcoast:

Just yesterday morning, crocuses, snowdrops and even daffodils were blooming. Today, this. Obviously large hole-living rodents aren't accurate predictors of the weather.
On the up side, my Spin to Knit swap pal sent me this beautiful skein, a pair of vanilla candles, some great goodies and a pen the monkey will never steal (it has marabou and a chocolate on the top).

The skein is three ply romney/mohair/merino/silk chunky weight. It's very soft and has a nice little halo that I think will really bloom when it's knit. This one's looking like a chunky ribbed hat for me. Many thanks Jaimie, it's gorgeous!

I think the cats have the right idea. Snug in and sleep till spring comes.

Uh yeah, I needed another hobby

2007-02-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

Since I have oh so much time and never really enough to do, I have decided to try my hand at basketry.
You can all stop laughing now. I am doing this voluntarily, they have not finally come to take me away. Stop. Laughing.
After five weeks of great instruction with Irene (she taught me to spin as well, multitalented lady), this is what I have so far:

The start of an Appalachian egg basket (it's already been mentioned that those must be some big ass eggs), a little wall basket and two little rectangular ones. The tiny rectangle basket isn't quite done yet.
There's been knitting going on as usual. I've actually been working through some of the stuff I got at Madrona. It's been pretty much instant gratification knitting, hats, socks, bags, etc. I still have to get back to the spinning homework, but now that the cotton I have to spin up for dyeing in level 5, I don't have any excuses. And time's running out.

Must go spin and do research!

SP9 The Big Reveal

2007-02-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I am frequently the one you all know. Gotta love the look on the non-tardy owl though, can't you almost hear the, "aw fer cripes sakes"?

My Secret Pal was Maggie. She disects seals. There are pics. No. She's not some sort of weird seal serial killer, she's a vet student. Her blog has lots o' pics. Go check it out. She sent me this great fibre from a local mill. It's mystery mill ends and the colour and feel of this stuff is wonderful. Once again I wish for touch'o'vision. I plan to spin it woolen to keep it fluffy and soft and make something fluffy and soft with it. No idea what yet, but I've been dying to spin with this stuff since it arrived and I haven't been able to because of other stuff that had a deadline. I've had to put it out of my line of sight (and feel) so I could stay focused and not be tempted.

This is the last of the vacation pics as I was unable to get a photo of the body bag coming off the ship when we landed in Miami. Now THAT would have been an interesting picture!
You'll just have to settle for the happy monkey and his new friend the stingray. I don't think I've ever seen the monkey so happy and relaxed. And I have to tell you guys, stingrays are the coolest things ever! They are incredibly gentle and the underside of them feels like velvet. The top side is a bit like elephant hide. This one was very happy to just be supported in our arms and look at us. This stingray place is on an atoll just off Nassau in the Bahamas. They have about ten female stingrays and breed them. The 'rays have all been debarbed and have a fairly large ocean pen to roam around in.
This was easily one of the neatest things we did on the trip.

To Whom it May Concern

2007-02-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Sirs/ Madam,
Please add 4 to 6 hours to every day. As I am currently falling behind at approximately that rate, I think this would help me stay afloat.
I promise to not use any of this most precious "found" time for anything as trivial as sleep or say maintaining a thin pretense of sanity.
Thank you for your attention.

Madrona

2007-01-31T13:24:00.001-08:00

Last weekend was Madrona Fiberfest in Tacoma. Lynne and I drove down on Thurday night and spent the next four days taking classes, eating (lots of good Thai food and martinis), catching up with friends, making new friends and of course, SHOPPING.
Yup. I bought a little bit of fibre. BFL, merino, silk, cashmere, the usual suspects. Check out those batts! I got them from this lady who was very nice, but kept bringing more stuff that was nearly impossible to resist. By day two, we were openly comparing the vendors to crack dealers. "Here little girl, the first bit is free, tell your friends." Insert evil laugh here.

Purchased a small amount of yarn as well. Blue Moon was the first booth to decimate my cash supply, but others quickly joined the fray. I'm nothing if not consistant.

I only bought the two Spindlewood spindles on the left at Madrona, and yes, one of them is square. I did notice. It spins really well despite it's obvious deformity. The two spindles on the right were waiting for me on Monday night. They're the now infamous Bosworths, a featherweight in really deeply coloured pink ivory and ebony and a moosie. They are exquisite. And they're actually here. Amazing.

The other nifty thing waiting for me on Monday was this package from my SpintoKnit pal. It's a large skein of very soft spindle spun merino/silk and some nice teas. I think the yarn needs to be a scarf. Many thanks to the nice person who sent it!

And if you've stuck with this post to the bitter end, here's a pic of the guy who drove our troop carrier (you read that right) in the Dominican Republic. We stopped in a sugar cane field and he whipped out a rather large knife to cut some for us to try. The Dominican Republic was an interesting place. Sugar is their main product for export followed very far behind by rum. Our tour took us to the back of a cafe where two people were making cigars, through huge cane fields and out to a refinery. Every time we stopped, we had to drink some rum. So basically, they got a bunch of tourists loaded and then put them on a boat that felt like it would sink at any moment. Exciting! I especially liked guessing which drunken tourist would puke first. Fortunately, no one did. Not even me. And we made it back to the cruise ship without having to swim for it. A nice and somewhat surprising bonus.

2007-01-24T16:02:00.000-08:00

Last week was very productive.
Things were dyed:
Like this merino/silk for Holly.
Things were knit:
A pair of plain old socks in superwash merino.
Things were reknit:
It's the right size now and we're not to speak of this again.
This is the beach I enhanced my dose of skin cancer on in St Maarten. No one needs to ask why I want to live there anymore do they? Okay, except for the half-naked (as in only swimsuit bottoms) aging tourists, it's pretty much paradise. Be happy I spared you the view of the very large old man wearing nothing but a bright orange string thong that greeted our arrival.

Oh! I almost forgot. Chrissy had posted this on her blog a while back and I think everyone needs to see it. It's real. I know, I couldn't believe it either, but apparently it was made in New Zealand last year and is looking for distribution. I could not stop laughing. Enjoy.

Got Gauge?

2007-01-16T12:43:00.001-08:00

I don't. I am an idiot. I got cocky and didn't swatch and now I have the joy of reknitting the sweater that I had pretty much finished last week.
Crap.

Some retail therapy occurred in the recent past in the form of the CTH New Years Sale, a trip to a sort of local YS and spindle enabling via Kerry. The spindles are a Beeswing and Satinwood Lizzie and a Mahogany and Purpleheart Emily. Both are from Adam 's Woodshop.

After five days at sea with nothing at all around us except half naked europeans and flying fish, we docked in Guadeluope. This island is technically part of France, so I got to subject people to what I remembered of school french. We bought lots of spices and some beautiful fresh fruit and wandered around the town a little. It was off-season there, so it was very quiet. We did go on a tour here to a nature preserve.
The brochure said, "Suspended walkways allow you to wander through the canopy, from one tree to the next at a height of at least 15 metres aboove the ground." This was the reality:

Being tethered by two carabieners to cables so you can inch your way along a pair of 1 x4s didn't seem very condusive to "wandering". Not to mention the fact that a have a fear of heights and spent the entire time staring at my feet so I wouldn't plunge off the tiny pieces of wood to my certain and surely embarrassingly slow death.

Snow, WIP and some FOs

2007-01-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

New new year is already almost two weeks in and I'm behind. How does this happen?! I'm always doing stuff, so how am I so behind? WTF!?! But it's not all bad so far. The monkey finally said, "uncle" and gave up his old beater. This is his new baby. He loves it more than me I suspect. He gets this sappy grin on his face every time he looks at it.
And while dealing with car salesmen was not a treat, it was fun to tell one of them that the monkey's only stipulation was that it be blue. The salesman only paused for a moment, but it was a fun moment.

I have managed to get a few things done. I've got my Second Sock Syndrome package ready to mail. I used STR in the light weight and Sivia's Reptilian Lace pattern from Knitty. My pal wanted to try knitting socks on two circs, hope she likes the colours. Sorry,but I can't remember what that colourway is called. I've also got the first skein for the Spin to knit swap done. I used some Targhee roving that had been dyed in red, purple and brown and spun it to a light DK. That parcel will be ready for mailing by Saturday.

Here's the Kochoran hoodie finally sewn up. This sucker's been sitting on the arm of the couch for over a week. I just didn't want to do it. I have no idea why. I love this sweater. It's huge, soft and really warm, things that I desperately need since it decided to snow again yesterday. I hate snow! St Maarten here I come!

And on the needles right now is the Trinity pullover from CTH in potluck bulky. Weird pattern, it's knit from cuff to cuff and then picked up and knit down for the front and back. It's working up very fast and despite big shade variations in the skeins, it doesn't seem to show in the knitting. Should have it done by Monday. Wonder how long it'll sit on th earm of my chair before I sew it up...

The second stop on our cruise was Tenerife in the Canary Islands. We were a little thrown when we arrived as we'd both expected a quaint tropical island, but it's a modern bustling city. We didn't have a scheduled tour here and spent the first part of the day wandering around. We found a public market and bought spices and fruit and then used my pathetic spanish to take a cab to the other side of the island to a place called "La Casa del los Balconies".
La Casa is a tourist spot where they've restored one of the old houses to the way it was when the missionaries were there. It's sort of like a museum complete with mildly creepy mannequins playing house in the rooms. It was a bit of a disappointment, but the view of the ocean and the volcano from there was great! The cabbie was really nice and took us on a site-seeing tour of that side of the island. Banana plantations, black sand beaches and wild poinsettias everywhere. It's a really pretty place. This pic of the Tenerife parliament building and an old fort called the Black Castle. It's kind of a neat contrast with the ultra modern and the very old side by side.

SSSSwap

2007-01-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

I think this will be the last swap I join for a little while. It is pretty brilliant though, just knit the first sock and send the rest of the stuff on to it's new home. I have no trouble at all making one sock!
Sorry guys, this is yet another questionnaire. A more interesting post tomorrow, involving FOs and the monkeys new wheels.
1. What are you favorite sock yarns?
Trekking ombres, STR, pretty much anything hand-dyed and I'd like to try the new Colinette jitterbug (Kerry, you're such an enabler!)
2. What are your least favorite sock yarns? Anything you just cannot use? I have a rather extreme dislike of acylic for socks and I'm not fond of alpaca for socks either. Don't get me wrong, I love alpaca, I just don't think it wears well for socks and I do WEAR my socks.
3. What method do you prefer to use (DPN's, 2 circs, 1 circ, etc.) I use four dpns. I've tried the other methods and I always go back to four dpns. Creature of habit.
4. Is there any method that you cannot use? Haven't found one yet.
5. What are you favorite colors? Blues, burgundies, purples and anything in-between. Not big on yellow or orange.
6. Are you a beginner, intermediate, or more advanced sock knitter? I guess fairly advanced.
7. Any other info you want to share (such as other likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc) I don't like cooked tomatos or boy bands.
8. Last, but not least, what are your sock measurements? 7.5

Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T14:19:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas Eve on Vancouver Island with my brothers and their families. It was really nice that we could all be together to catch up and exchange gifts. Not to mention to totally spoil the niece! Little bugger's growing at an insane rate and giggles if you so much as look at her. That's a pic of Aurora and Aunt Tiffany.
The monkey and I spent Christmas day together and were going to cook a ham, but were so full of all the crap we'd munched on by noon that we decided to have it Boxing Day. That worked out well and I like the different set of leftovers we can make with ham. Quiche, pea soup, ham and eggs are a nice change from turkey sandwiches and turkey soup.

I've basically spent the last week watching dvds, reading and knitting on the couch. I may have to have my butt sugically removed from it by tomorrow afternoon. My jammies and I are very good friends. I've relegated real clothes (you know anything that involves underwear and socks) to just for dog walks and company. I'm starting to understand the appeal of hermitry.
I have removed a couple of knitting projects from my stash. That's a Jean Wong design hat and a pair of cabled wristlets. They're sitting on my weeklong knitting indulgence, Noro Kochoran hoodie. Mindless, pretty, soft and warm, exactly what I want my comfy couch holiday knitting to be. I won't have it done tonight, but it's pretty close.

The travelogue continues in Barcelona! This was the second day of our cruise and the first stop. We'd had enough of bus tours and decided to just wander around shopping and site-seeing. That's a pic of the Olympic rings in the main harbour. We wandered along the shore and then up the main drag which consisted of two lanes each way with a large boulevard up the middle which was full of little kiosks selling everything from handcrafts to chipmunks. Yeah, I said chipmunks. We stood in front of that kiosk pondering for quite a while!
We found a large open air produce market as well. The monkey and I always wind up in grocery stores and public markets whenever we travel. We find the coolest stuff in them and local produce in foreign countries is so cool. We bought some clementines (I really wish they imported them out here) and dried fruit and really amazing handmade chocolates. People were wonderfully patient with my rudimentary spanish.
We only had a few hours on shore and decided to ride the elevator up the statue in the main square before we went back to the boat. This is the view of the street I just described from the top of the statue:

And yes, I am completely aware of the monkey's obsession with climbing things. At least this one had an elevator!

Crap! I'm old.

2006-12-21T13:14:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was in my last year of high school doing the mental math to see how old I'd be in 2000 and thinking, "damn, I'll be really old." I also remember how ancient I thought my dad was on his 40th birthday. Sorry dad, I was 15, what can I say? If it's any consolation, it seems that the older I get, the less ancient you seem to be to me.
So I turned 40 yesterday. I'm having a little trouble with this. I mean, I still get IDed on a fairly regular basis and the ladies at Safeway still call me "miss", so WTF? Oh well, I guess I'll get used to it in time to turn 50. I refuse to even discuss that inevitability. Lalalalalalalalala I can't hear you!
But, dispite the number, it was a really good birthday. I was taken out for delicious meals, given yarn, sent flowers and just generally spoilt rotten. I loved it. Today is a bit sucky. What with the having to make my own food and all.
These are flowers my dad sent:

Aren't they pretty? And those are pussywillows! How cool is that? Thanks dad!
And my SP sent me a birthday parcel too. It's all made locally in her area. There's a very pretty tealight holder (that will be very handy when our power goes out again), some yummy apricot jam, chocolate dipped orange rind, some jasmine soap, and chocolate crackling elves. The elves are chocolate filled with pop rocks. They amuse me no end. Must find more, everyone I know needs to have some of these. If you can eat them without grinning, there's something wrong with you.
Thanks for the super pressie SP! You have excellent timing.

The travelogue continues with our short stop in Pisa before we boarded the cruise ship. We only had 45minutes in Pisa and sadly, it wasn't long enough for us to go up the leaning tower. But we walked around it and the Duomo and Baptistry as well. When you round the stone wall that surrounds Pisa this is what you see:

It's incredibly beautiful. I was really surprised at the size of the tower. I had always thought it was huge, but as you can see, it's not that tall. Still impressive and will last now that they've reinforced and shored it up. Hopefully we'll make it back there to climb the tower someday.
That was our last day in Italy and I have a fun fact: apparently, you cannot buy Dante in italian in Italy. I went in almost every bookstore we found and no go. We found Dante in spanish, german and english, but no italian. Figure that one out.

Sienna

2006-12-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

The third stop on our trip was Sienna. This was easily one of my favorite places. It's a small medieval town completely surrounded by a large stone wall. Cars are not allowed in Sienna unless you live there and have permission, so the bus dropped us of outside the wall and we walked down through the curved streets to the main square.
The central square slopes down to a castle and is shaped liked a scallop shell. Twice a year horses are raced around the outside of the square bareback. Since the rules are fairly vague, the jockeys are allowed to push each other and often fall off their mounts. Ergo, the first horse across the finish line wins the race, whether he still has a rider or not!
The streets form circles around the square and it's pretty easy to get lost. To preserve the feel of Sienna, all wiring has been run underground, so it still looks mostly as it did hundreds of years ago. We cimbed the bell tower (400 odd steps, the monkey is a bit of a sadist) and had an amazing view of the surrounding countryside.
I found a wool shop in Sienna! Italian yarns at at amazing prices. Pretty sure I peed a little. The poor man running the shop must have thought I was mad. Trying to ask for certain colours in my very stilted Italian and probably looking very much like I'd gone rabid. The monkey couldn't wipe the grin off my face for the rest of the day. The other ladies on the tour were showing off the lovely designer scarves and bags they'd purchased and I would proudly hold open my bag of yarn for them to see. Yup, lots of people think I'm crazy. I've learned to live with it.

And just so no one thinks it's all about the holiday and there's no fibre content any more:

FOs! Bday present socks for a friend and a scarf for SIL. It's okay, both pressies are not surprises.

Since it's the season for gifts and sometimes they're kinda interesting, I give you a short meme:
1) the oddest gift you have ever received (not asked for): bright yellow lacey lingerie from my parents
2) the oddest gift you ever asked for: a large chunk of exotic hardwood and fret wire
3) the oddest gift you ever gave: adult diapers
4) the worst gift you ever got: gift card for a video store we don't have in our area

In case the meme failed to bring a smile, I give you this list on friendship that SIL sent me. I was going to forward it on to my email list, but I thought I'd share it with everyone here instead. Enjoy!
1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad!
2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you!
3. When you smile -- I will know you finally got some!
4. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.
6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.
7. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.
8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass! (I thought you were dancing!)
9. This is my oath..... I pledge it to the end. "Why?" you may ask; "because you are my friend".
Remember... A good friend will help you move... A REALLY good friend will help you move a body... Let me know if you ever need me to bring a shovel.

Friendship is like peeing in your pants, everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth!

WWLWA Pt 2

2006-12-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

Day 2 The Vatican
The Vatican is an entity unto itself. It's really a separate country within the city of Rome. It has it's own police, work force and postal system. Regular Romans must get permission to spend any length of time there. It is completely surrounded by a huge wall with video surveillance. We had a tour guide for the morning and I really wish that we had just gone through the museum on our own. It's vast and I don't think we saw more than a tenth of it. We literally raced through beautiful statues, maps and tapestries. I have quite a few blurred photos of the fabulous ceilings throughout the maze of corridors that leads to the Sistine Chapel.
We were able to spend a little bit of time in the Sistine Chapel and what struck me first was how very small it is. I always pictured it as this huge space with an incredibly ornate ceiling, but it's tiny. The ceiling is amazing and with the recent restoration, the bright colors are almost overwhelming. We were hustled out of there and on to St Peter's. I was struck by the overwhelming display of art and wealth. I'm still not sure what to make of it. The only thing that really felt like it belonged there was the Pieta.
We decided to climb to the top of the cupola in St Peter's. After another stimulating round of "try to find the helpful Italian" (45 minutes that took!), we get in the line to climb the 300 and some odd stairs. Now. You can take an elevator to the base of the dome and then climb, or you can take the stairs. We're stupid. We took the stairs. Please keep in mind that the 340 stairs are just the ones in the cupola. They don't actually tell you how many stairs there are to get up to the cupola. I lost count. We'll just leave it at lots. So by the time we get to the base of the dome, we feel like death on a plate. We take a small breather and then forge on to the dome. The dome is two layers., the inner one with the frescoes that you can see from the inside of the cathedral and the outer one that you can see from almost everywhere in Rome. The stairs wind their way up between the two layers. The distance between the layers gets smaller as you go up. A lot smaller. You cannot change your mind. You have to go up one side and down the other. This is not a good place for anyone with even mild claustrophobia. But, we made it and here's the view of the square from the top of the dome:

See those dark metal things on the side of the dome? Those are candle holders. At some point in history some poor schmuck had to climb out there put candles on those things! Talk about your bad jobs.
We left the Vatican in the early afternoon after visiting the grotto that holds the tombs of past popes. A very strange and beautiful place.
We crossed the Tiber to find food and wound up having pizza in a little outdoor cafe. Took another crazy roman cab back to the hotel so we could crash before setting off for Sienna the next day.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, the monkey and I have caved and put up a tree. Neither of us was feeling very Christmasy and there was nowhere to put the presents. So voila, tree!

Things we learned while abroad Pt1

2006-12-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

We're back! Believe it or not, it was really great to finally be home. We had a very interesting and mostly fun trip, but in the end, there's no place like home. Even if you have to come home from the Bahamas to a foot of snow and below freezing temperatures.
These next few posts are gonna be huge and I don't want to send everyone into mini comas, so I'm going to break up the pics into sections and do it over three or four posts. Nobody wants to see 400 pics of places they aren't familiar with, so I'm just going to pick a few of my faves and hope you like them too.
I'll start in Rome, where finally landed after 36 hours of travelling to discover that our room wasn't ready and we had to sit through an hour of tour orientation. Keep in mind, we haven't slept, we've have had very little to eat and what we did have was plane food. All we wanted to do was grab some food, shower and collapse on nearest flat surface. So instead, we sit through orientation that once again makes me understand the importance of the two week waiting period to get a handgun. When it's over I ask the ladies running the tour if we have a room yet. Nope. No room. And strangely now we can't find our luggage. When we ask where it is, they tell us that it's in our room. We tell them that's great and ask for the keys to our room. They tell us we don't have a room yet. I won't go on here as this conversation went on like this for about 5 minutes and I couldn't find a handy brick to bonk myself over the head with anywhere. It felt like the Italian version of Who's on First. The monkey finally gave up on the tour ladies and talked to the front desk and got us a room key. Guess what awaited us in room. No really, guess. NOTHING! No bags. At this point even the charming even-tempered monkey is cursing. He goes back down to the lobby (pretty sure he was afraid I still had enough strength to commit grievous bodily harm upon the tour guides) and finds our luggage in a hallway at the back of the hotel. I think the tour guide told him it wasn't ready yet. How he managed not to slap her by this point is beyond me.
Day 1, Ancient Rome
Now when we booked this tour they listed off all the things we would see in each place. What they neglected to tell us is that they really mean "see". We drove past them at 60k in a bus. A bus that I managed to throw up in for about 30 minutes, missing part of the tour. The monkey and I are not totally old yet and in reasonable physical condition, so we spent our free time really exploring and going into the places that we'd passed by on the bus. We walked all around the People's Square, the Forum, Pantheon and the Coliseum. It was great. Rome is very interesting as all of the ancient buildings are in the midst of a large and fairly modern city. The size of the old temples was awesome. Incredible to think that they were built with no machines. Everything was stone and brick overlayed with marble and beautifully carved.

We took a cab back to the hotel that night because we so tired and it was a very Roman experience. Roman streets are very narrow and the cars are very small, but there's tons of them. Almost all the cars have scrapes along the sides and numerous dents. We found out why. Italians are insane. Our cabbie had a smoke in one hand and his cell in the other, he passed stopped traffic by driving down the centre line into oncoming traffic and would turn around to say apparently hilarious things to us in rapid fire Italian at about 100k. We managed to catch the words "Mario Andretti" and "Ferrarri". It sounds scary but it was actually fun and really gave a bit of a feel for the city.

And Jen, you're the winner of the blog contest. Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of yarn from Florence, rum from St Maaten, olive oil from Sienna, sugar from Guadeloupe, a leather bracelet from Tenerife, a key chain from the Bahamas and a lovely Costa cruise lines floaty ship pen. Contact me through my hotmail address so I can send you your loot.

Any guesses as to what this sock represents? If you said the amount of knitting I did in the past three weeks, you're right. Sad isn't it. But I read 5 books. Do I get any points for that?

Ciao bellas

2006-11-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it. We leave at an obscenely early hour on Saturday so tomorrow will be spent packing and getting together last minute stuff we'd almost forgot. Or, in my case, freaking out. But I think we're okay. The clothes are finished. I managed to find things to dress up the monkey. And the ipod is almost loaded. I still have to try to figure what can and cannot go in the carry-ons, but that shouldn't take long. What will take a while is me pondering how I can threaten an airplane with eyeshadow.
While I'm off touring ancient Rome and basking in the sun on exotic isles, the blog will likely not be updated. Nobody wants to come home to a three week old post that has no comments. So here's the deal: I will make sure to pick up a few extra weird and wonderful goodies on my travels and will offer them up as prizes. It'll be a random drawing from all the people that comment on this post. Make 'em interesting folks, I'm not pretty when I'm bored!
And as a final note, Sock Wars will end while I'm away. This makes me truly happy. I offed three people with Socks of Doom and will hopefully be dead with my very own pair of socks by the time I get home. I made it into the last hundred alive out of almost eight hundred and a very nice assassin in the UK said she was off to buy yarn for my impending doom today. Hooray! I can't understand why no one wanted to kill me, seems like any number of people around here would line up for that opportunity...

PS: The skeins in the pic are beast and BFL. I haven't been able to concentrate on my knitting much lately so I've been spinning up pretty coloured stuff from my stash. There's another 100g of BFL in reds, browns and purples on the wheel now and I'll ply it off before we leave. I'm really enjoying the sort of tweedy, stripey things these rovings are creating when I ply them back on themselves. It reminds me of the Trekking ombres. With 100g, I can make socks or a couple of hats or mitts, wrist warmers, the list goes on.

SP Goodies!

2006-11-03T12:30:00.001-08:00

My SP for this round sent me this cool kitty basket for Halloween. You'll have to take my word for it that it was full of treats when it arrived. In fact, there were so many little chocolate bars in it that I didn't find the Satsuma body butter for three days! It was a pretty nice surprise when we ate down that far. So, many thanks to my SP and I love the card!

This is the pretty mystery beast fibre currently on the wheel and here is the tequila sunrise stuff plyed, but not washed:

I think I might make a couple of the hats from a previous post with it.

And this, this my friends is the motherlovin' charkha. Not only did it arrive safe and sound, but no duty! This is a very nice change after the chain of unpleasant events earlier this week. In fact, other than the yucky cold I have right now (which has turned me into a sneezy oozing mess) things are actually better.
We don't have plane tickets, but at least we have the flight info. The flights aren't great, but we get to Rome in time which was starting to look kinda doubtful. The monkey even got us seats together for all but one of the flights. And no, the travel agancy had NOT booked us seats. Thanks to the quick-thinking monkey that little disaster was averted.
My dress clothes are almost done. We had to add a fitting, but there's still lots of time and the ladies at Bernardi's (sorry, no website) doing the work have been wonderful. I can't believe anyone would ever buy a ready-made dress when you can have the dress of your dreams handmade for so little. These ladies have been simply amazing and they make you feel really good.
Some of you have expressed concern over me being gone so long and not having anything to do. Not to fear! I have wound off enough yarn for two stoles, assembled the beads for a peyote bag, bought 9 books, and I'm considering taking a cross-stitch as well. Pretty sure that'll keep me covered for three weeks. Especially since I plan to take the Italian lessons offered on the ship. The monkey also got me an 8G ipod and I've spent the last couple of weeks transferring every cd I own (around 300) onto it. Should keep me going.
And oh yeah, enough sock yarn for two pairs for knitting on the plane. I'm open to suggestions from those of you who still think I'll be bored...

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T13:38:00.000-08:00

Loki has been very touched by all the concern expressed over his enlarged heart. He wanted everyone to know that he's not letting it slow him down at all and offered to model for today's blog to let you all know he's doing well.
Loki thought it would be fun to dress up like a cat for Halloween, so I made him the Kitty helmet from Stitch and Bitch. It was a very quick knit. I started it last night and finished it around lunchtime today.

This past weekend was a whirlwind of family. The monkey's brother and his family stopped by for a couple of days and we went over to Victoria to see the new niece, Aurora. Got a great pic of the monkey and the baby. She seems to find the monkey highly amusing.
We're still on plane ticket watch around here. No sign of them yet. Stress levels are reaching Big Bird alert. Funny thing though, the travel agency sent us a lovely form to fill out regarding our thoughts as to their performance. Since we will be needing this vacation more than ever after dealing with these morons, we'll be sure to fill it out and send it back promptly. Not that it will do any good. Perhaps we need to send a more convincing message. Maybe I'll send Guido around to "talk" to them. He just looooves to chat!

Warning: Rant to follow

2006-10-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Life lately has been a little more nausea inducing than usual.
The monkey is taking me on an amazing holiday next month. We start in Italy and then cruise to Barcelona and down through the Canaries, Dominican Republic and then end in Ft Lauderdale. Sounds great, right? Yeah, it would be except for a few small problems.
1. The travel company has yet to send out out plane tickets. We leave in two weeks and I am a little on the anal-retentive side. Give me another week and I'll be looking for someone's head on a plate. I expect the hyperventilating to start any time now.
2. The travel company sent us a notice about our trip to Northern Europe in May. Since we're not planning to go to Northern Europe in May, but rather southern Italy in November, I was a little concerned. Where it says, "a little concerned", in the previous sentence please insert the words, "ready to send hot firey death to every travel agent involved in this debacle".
3. The travel company ignored our wishes about cabin placement and put us, "where ever".
4. Our beloved doggy has severe congestive heart failure. This means he has a REALLY enlarged hert and has to be on meds for the rest of his life. We are fairly upset. He doesn't seem to care at all. We only found out yesterday.
5. Cruises are fancy. VERY FANCY. Again, this likely doesn't sound like a bad thing to most people, but the monkey and I live in jeans and tees. We've had to drop a bundle on clothes just so we'll be able to eat dinner on the ship. It's not a huge problem, but one we didn't forsee and oh, did I mention we leave in two weeks?!
6. The monkey has had to work an extra two days this month and is pretty stressed.
7. The in-laws arrive tomorrow (they didn't bother to say when, just sometime friday). to spend the night and we're supposed to leave Saturday morning to visit the new niece.
8. Mothereffing sock wars. WTF was I thinking when I joined this giant clusterf#$? Why won't it just end? If no one's killed me off by the end of next week, I am committing ritual suicide by sock. Enough already! It's been poorly executed and not even mildly moderated and I will never do this again. There's a special place in hell for people who cause things like this to happen. I think it entails knittng the same pilly ball of scritchy acrylic for all eternity.
The travel stuff wouldn't be so bad if the agency would just answer our questions (or the phone at all) and give us straight answers or at least pretend to know wtf is going on. It been pretty frustrating. I'm having some dress clothes made because it's just too bloody hard to find party dresses at this time of year. Now I just have to find some khakis and a sport jacket for the monkey.
I've had the hair cut and coloured. I've got the makeup and necessities situation in hand. Passports are up to date. Bills will be paid up. And all the usual stuff is on the lists. Yeah, I said LISTS. I'm mildly anal- retentive remember? And okay, maybe a little compulsive, but I don't like surprises. Especially surprises like, "you don't have anywhere to stay in Rome, SURPRISE!".
I can totally live without that.
And hey, I almost forgot, the charkha is actually in transit. The bloody thing finally shipped. Of course, that's all that shipped. No spare spindles, no pre-ordered drop spindles or charkha carry bag. It took two days and six emails just to sort that charming mess out. So, after all was said and done, I decided to be happy that the charkha shipped and not hold my breath on the rest of the stuff. If it comes great, if it doesn't, you'll all hear about it and the company I dealt with. Did I mention that I was a little vindictive?
And to soften the rant for all of you who stuck with it to this point, a pic of the Gem with it's new goodies:

That's Winderwood BFL on there. I'm doing a 2 ply double knit. It reminds of tequila sunrises. Maybe I'll go have one now.

Warm Monkey

2006-10-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

I finally finished the Monkey's Kureyon sweater and he was even willing to model it! I've knit him quite a few sweaters over the years, most of them don't get worn. Not only did he put this one on, he wore it for the rest of the evening. I think he likes it.
In other knitting news, I'm knitting another Sock Wars weapon. I've waited for two weeks for an incomplete weapon to arrive from my last victim, but it hasn't arrived yet. So I got permission from my next victim to make her SOD from scratch. I chose some Fleece Artist BFL in muddy purples and pinks and it looks great. I have enough for at least two pairs of socks, so I may commit sock suicide.
I've got the back of the Wanderlust Hoodie done and the front is on the needles.

My package from Penny, my Tea Swap Pal arrived this week. She sent me some green tea with jasmine (one's from Israel and it's really good), a ball of Trekking in colors I love, a little graph paper notebook, some raspberry filled chocolates and a pretty little bag she made for me. It's been fun emailling with Penny as she wants to learn to spindle and is going to Rhinebeck. One of these years I wanna go to Rhinebeck.
On the spinning front, Lynne ordered some stuff to help me get the Gem working more to my liking and I can't believe the HUGE difference it made. I switched the regular whorl for the fast one, the regular flyer for the lace one and the bobbins for baby bobbins. Thing spins like a dream now. I no longer feel like I'm on a hamster wheel when Im treadling. It's awesome. Totally smooth, fast and just damn nice. I used to tolerate this wheel because it was the best of the portable wheels I'd tried, but now, I actually like it. It's going to make classes much more enjoyable.

the horror, the horror...

2006-10-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

So, I order this yarn off ebay from Uruguay. On my monitor, it looks pretty good. Burgundy, deep green and gold. It's cheap and I can certainly live with the colors. When it arrives, I am faced with this:

A fair bit of swearing ensued.
I tucked it away and pulled it out every so often to try to convince myself it wasn't that bad. It's been a year now and I remain unconvinced. It still makes my butt clench so hard that it moves three inches up my back. Not a happy reaction. A couple of days ago I decided, "screw it, I'll just sell it off cheap". Today I decided, "hell, may as well try dyeing it". Figured it couldn't hurt. If I still didn't like it, I could sell it, if I liked it, well, yay.

I like it.
This I also like:

I can't stop listening to it. I've made the monkey listen to it more than once. I don't think he's quite as enamoured as I am. He's more classic rock or contemporary (insert small involuntary shudder here) rock. But it reminds me of 70's Alice Cooper. I now have a warm squishy spot in my heart for Rob Zombie.
Perhaps he'd like to be my new monkey. Hey, a girl can dream.
Anthea, this is for you:

A few handspun, handknit hats for your sale. More to come. Hope you like 'em.

Rogue is done

2006-10-06T13:00:00.001-07:00

I finsihed all the seaming on Rogue yesterday. All it needs now is a good steam. It's a great sweater that I think I'll get a lot of wear out of once the weather gets a little cooler. It's nice and long and the wool/alpaca blend is pretty toasty. I've already started work on the Wanderlust Hoodie.

I'd forgotten how fast chunky knits up. I've already knit five balls and I just pulled another bag of ten out of the stash closet. I should probably knit up all the chunky out there first. Just think of the gratification! Big holes in the stash cupboards, projects done in record time. Ooooooh, big holes in the stash cupboards, I'm all tingly just thinking about it.

And hey, I haven't forgotten about the monkey's anniversary pressie. I've got the back and about a third of the front done. Now that he's seen it, I don't have to work on it covertly. So I work on it at night when the light is crappy, 'cause it's a boring pattern that I don't really have to pay attention to. It takes 15 balls of Kureyon, so it's making room too!
Sock Wars is slowly moving forward. I've finally heard from my assassin, but now she's dead, and I've killed two warm-footed victims. I'm now waiting for news of my next victim.
As for the Dr enforced weight-loss, I'm down four pounds and have a week and a half before I have to see him again.

OMG!!!!!

2006-10-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

With the sad demise of You Knit What, I have been relegated to finding knitting monstrosities all on my lonesome. I do come across some pretty scary/hilarious stuff, but this one wins and I had to share it:

I found it here and believe or not, she has more. I just thought I'd post the blue one for well, let's face it, obvious reasons.
Hmmm, think she's aiming for the fetish market?

SP9 Questionnaire

2006-10-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I like natural fibres. Wool for winter and soft stuff if it's going to be next to my skin. Acrylic and I are not friends.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
I have numerous folders and bags and a drawers that they mostly live in.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I've been knitting since I was 5. That was a while ago. I guess I'm fairly advanced.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Yup, Amazon.

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
Citrus! I like jasmine too.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
I love chocolate. Chocolate covered apricots are my fave, but they're hard to find.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I spin, do needlework, beadwork and woodworking.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I have fairly odd taste in music. Best to steer clear of me and music.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
I like blue, purple, burgundy, black and charcoal.
I stay clear of yellow, orange and most greens.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
Two cats, one dog and one large domesticated house monkey (aka my guy).

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Yes to the first three and an "omg aren't we done with those things yet?" to the last.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
Sweaters and I use socks as a sort of palette cleanser between big projects.

13. What are you knitting right now?
Three adult sweaters, a baby sweater, a hat, three or four pairs of socks (I lost track), two shawls and a stuffed fish.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Very much.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I usually use addi circs.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
Yes to both.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
I am sooo not telling you that. People in the swap may be younger than it.

18. What is your favorite holiday?
Halloween

19. Is there anything that you collect?
Drop spindles, nosties, comics and of course, yarn and fibre.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
I'd like to try Lisa Souza's stuff, the new Neil Gaiman book, I subscribe to SpinOff.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
Two socks at the same time on two circs.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
Yes. US7.5.

23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd) Dec. 20.

Rogue almost done!

2006-10-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

The body of Rogue is done! I started the sleeves last night and I think I'll have the sweater in one piece in a few days. This thing is knitting up so fast, and the alpaca/wool blend yarn is really soft and warm. The cables are showing up nicely even though I chose a dark color and the yarn does have a bit of a halo. And remember how I said that it was a perfect project 'cause the weather was all drizzley and grey and cold? The day after I started this, we were back to 25-28C days. Like I said before, I have sucky timing. Oh well, soon I will be on to my next project, which I think is going to be this:

I've got a bunch of black Bliss chunky merino that's just screaming to be this sweater. Not to mention how much stash room it would free up. 25 50g balls!! That's a good chunk of space. I get giddy just thinking about it.

I hadn't had any new spindles for weeks and then I suddenly have six new ones in less than a week. It's a conspiracy I tell ya! The spindles are homing in on me and sending themselves here. Now I have to find a storage solution for these things. Anyway, here's another etched Larson and a purpleheart Spindlewood. And no, I still haven't had a chance to test drive any of these spindles.
Where the hell is my charkha!?

Back to regular programming

2006-09-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a sitting duck in Sock Wars right now. No one's come forward to kill me and I can't get the dossier for my next target. I have my second weapon at the ready, but I may use it to commit Sock Wars suicide. So I'm just going to leave the war on the back burner and go back to my semi-normal life.
I'm halfway up the hood on Rogue and the back is almost finished on the monkey's anniversary gift. Our anniversary was Tuesday, but he understands. We went out for possibly the worst meal we've ever had. I admit, there were warning signs which we chose to ignore and in my defense, I did suggest that we leave only minutes after we sat down, but we stayed.
Here's how it went down:
We arrived at the restaurant which is a little place on the beach, very lovely view of the sunset and moonrise. We had reservations, but there wasn't anyone at the maitre d' stand when we arrived. Hmmm. We waited there for a while and then the monkey thought we'd better just go in. We had to walk past the kitchen pass thru and I noticed that the only person working in the kitchen looked about twelveteen. Hmmm, that's not good. The guy behind the bar (who looked shockingly like a male prostitute) said, "Reservations? Aw just sit anywhere." Hmmm, that's not good either. We sat down and discovered that the table we'd chosen switched time zones everytime something was removed or placed on it. Hmmm.... After 5 minutes or so, the bartender(?) brought us menus. Another 5 or so minutes later he brought us water. After another 5 minutes he asked if we wanted anything to drink. Oh yeah, I forgot the giant kareoke screen behind the bar and the fact that the music from Flashdance was playing very loudly through the restaurant. At this point I leaned over the table (making it go thumpity thump) and gently suggested to the monkey that we could probably get a table at our favorite restaurant which wasn't far away. He wanted to, "give the place a chance". I wanted to avoid food poisoning.
We were entertained while waiting by one of the servers making out, with the guy who'd been walking up and down the restaurant with a beer bottle, outside for about 10 minutes. Hmmm, I didn't know there was a floor show.
We ordered and the appys were okay, but our main courses left a bit to be desired. For me, I guess they'd run out of artichokes or possibly Opie in the kitchen didn't know the difference between an artichoke and an avocado. Hey, they both start with the letter "A", he was close. I strongly dislike avocado, so that kinda sucked. The monkey's looked okay, but they had managed to make the asparagus chewy. I'm not sure how you do that, but I could barely cut through the stuff.
We were out of there in less an hour and we're the types that like to linger. We have drinks, we talk, we have desert and tea. We couldn't get out of that place fast enough. The coup de grace was the "We're hiring!" on the bottom of the bill. Charming.
As you may have guessed, not a place we'll be frequenting. Next week we're going to pretend it didn't happen and celebrate our anniversary properly at our favorite restaurant, Giraffe. Those of you who live in White Rock will want to avoid Sideshows.

The spindle fetish continues! This time with the help of Angela and all those who met up with her at OFFF. From left to right: tulipwood by Spindlewood; Mongold; a spindle I got off ebay that is of unknown origin; a Dave Larsen plexi. I plan to give them all a good workout tomorrow.

This a crossbreed lamb fleece I got from an Alberta breeder. It is so pretty. I plan on actually processing this sucker myself. Should be interesting. Might comb it. Stay tuned for the inevitable bitching and swearing this will cause! Non-PG fun I'm sure.

This fleece is part of the reason I'm going to start doing more of my own processing. Don't get me wrong, it was done beautifully and for a good price, but I sent it to the processor in March. I got it back yesterday. They never called or emailed me. I had no idea what was going on. I'm very happy to have it back. It's a New Zealand Polwarth and I can't believe how soft it is. I just want to sink into it. I have almost three pounds so I should be able to make a couple of sweaters. Or maybe a big soft shawl. Mmmm, so soft! I wish the blog had touch-o-vision.

How many people does it take to have a war

2006-09-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

The remaining assassins from Sock Wars are now discovering some interesting things:
1. People have decided not to play and not told anyone. So there are folks out there receiving socks with absolutely no intention of making any for anyone else.
2. Due to forces of nature beyond anyone's control, not everyone got the mailing info for their victim and some of those victims refused to give it up. A lot of warriors wound up dead too soon 'cause their victims were asshats.
3. An online swap of this scale needs more than one person to run it. Poor Yarnmonkey must be cursing herself for starting this by now. There were upwards of 780 people signed up and with the dropouts and flakes, it's becoming a it of a cluster-you-know-what.
I don't know what will happen with my role in this right now. I've killed my initial target and am in the process of trying to get the dossier for my next victim (this actualy made me want to bang my head against the keyboard last night as the person I was dealing with (see 1) couldn't seem to pull her head out of her butt). I haven't heard a peep from my assassin and I suspect she's also a see 1.
It's been mostly fun. My victim's very nice and is taking her socks of doom to guild tonight.
That Motorhead song "Killed by Death" keeps going 'round in my head, only it's "Killed by Socks"...

Say hallo to my leetle friend

2006-09-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

Here is the completed assassination weapon. It leaves tomorrow for it's intended victim. I keep gettting this mental image of sock knitters all over the world not wanting to get their mail. Telling their posties that they won't sign for that package. Game on beetches! Viva la sock wars!

Such a fine line between clever and stupid

2006-09-20T13:35:00.001-07:00

And sometimes that line is an eight lane freeway. I love my new niece, but I just had to her get her this:

I know it's awful, but it's awful in that, "OMG what the hell is wrong with that child", funny sort of way. I think my brother and his girlfriend will get a big kick out out it. Not to mention the great pics they'll have to show prospective boyfriends in about 15 years.
"Oh yes, the overbite was quite extreme, but she's managed to grow into it."
Bwahahaha
Yeah, I know I'm evil. It's the mild snicker-behind-your-hand evil though, so that's okay, right?

I've finally started Rogue. I tried to sign up for the Fall Cables KAL, but I guess they don't like me. Lavender is doing hers so I thought I'd join her. I love knitting this thing. I want to work on it all the time. I wake up in the night and want to go knit on it. I've only been working on it for a couple of days and now I just want finish it and wear it. The weather is back to it's normal blecky self around here. Grey, drizzley, cold and damp. So it's perfect for Rogue. I want to wear this puppy now!

Calliope is almost done. Needs a good blocking, but came out fairly well. Should be a good tank for when the sun comes back around this way in another eight months or so. Timing is everything. I, apparently, have sucky timing.

Diary of a Fat Loser

2006-09-11T15:13:00.001-07:00

My doctor's a sneaky bastard.
I went for my regular physical last week. Oh joy. At least he moves through it at warp speed, so the embarrassment is kept short. All was within acceptable parameters...or so I thought. He came back in after I was clothed and feeling human again.
This is the gist of the conversation:
Dr: "Your weight is down since your last visit. Are you working on it?"
me: " Off and on."
Dr: "What are you doing?"
me: "Oh you know, trying to eat better, walking the dog. Nothing drastic."
Dr: "Hmmm. I think people are more motivated by goals and deadlines. Don't you?"
me: (ohcrapohcrapohcrap) "uh yeah, sure."
Dr: "So how 'bout you come back in 6 weeks and we'll see if you can lose 5 lbs by then."
me: (you sneaky bastard!) "Uh, okay, I can do that."
Don't get me wrong, I know how lucky I am to have a doctor that takes an active interest in my well-being. I know it's rare these days. But he just slid that right in there. Damn. So I've been working out and eating less and I've taken about 2.5lbs off since last Wednesday. I'm aiming to get 10lbs off by my next appointment, a bit of the, "I'll show you" in me I'm afraid. Yeah, I know, I working on it.
On to knitting stuff. The Mystery Stole is done:

I lost a lot of the color as I don't think the Zephyr had been set properly. It's still a nice color, but it's a lot grayer than it started out.
I also finished the Lavold tank. It fits great and I love the color.

And for those of you who wanted to know what I found in my friend's quilting stash, you can find a version of it here. Tam's was rather impressive and I still think we should have left it in there for her mother to find. Tam would have liked that.

My pals were...

2006-09-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

I got my last package with the reveal in it from my SP8 pal today. Her name's Sarah, go check out her blog. Here's what she sent:

-some great Burt's Bees stuff that will help me get my hands back in shape for all the silk I have to spin this fall
-some tea
-a braid of Felicia's BFL (love this color)
-Inspired Cable Knits which has a couple of patterns in it that will go on the todo list
-a cute tape measure 'cause you can never have too many
-and a vintage pattern book with an interesting way of showcasing hats:

Reminds me of the Farside cartoon about the "floating head of death".
But the best thing of all is the lap quilt she made for me! I don't quilt. I had a friend who quilted and when she died, I had to sort through her fabric stash. Scared the bejesus out of me. You guys think the walk-in stash closet is scary, that's nothin'! Of course it also gave me the most amusing way to remember my friend. You would not believe what she had stored in with all that fabric. It ain't PG kids. It's a late night story over a couple of drinks. That way, I get to see the booze shoot out yer nose when I tell ya.
Anyhow, I'm still attracted to fabric (like a crow to shiny things), but I con, er, sweet talk my quilterly friends into making the quilts I want. So this is very, very cool. Thanks so much Sarah! I had a great time, hope you did too.
The pal I was sending to was Kadi. Go say, "hi". She just got back from a couple of weeks in Europe and is starting to post the pics.

How come he gets to go fishing?

2006-09-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

So. The monkey's off having (I'm guessing here, 'cause he hasn't called) a great time fishing and I'm having a great relaxing time at home right?
Um, no.
Yesterday was spent doing laundry and errands. I did spend a few hours with a friend which was so nice, but after that, back to work. Today wasn't much different. But today I had help! Yay!
Lynne came over and spent a big part of her day helping me turn these:

Into these:

As Holly says, the pear tree decided it needed to feed the world this year. We made four batches of jam and barely dented the crop.
Lynne decided I shouldn't loll about and brought me these from the farmer's market:

She is evil!
Tomorrow will be spent making grape jelly from those gorgeous wild grapes she brought me.
Now, I was going to leave you with a wonderful pic of the Mystery Stole blocking in the evening sun, but sadly, the zephyr is leeching dye like a sumbitch.

I am sooo not impressed. This is the third rinse and it's just as colorful as the last ones. It will spend tonight having it's dye set once and for all. Good thing I didn't just press it and throw it on. I'd look like a smurf!
PS: big sale at Knitopia starting Wed. Go help Lynne part with some of that yarn. You know you wanna!