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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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!

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...

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

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...

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

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

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!

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

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

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?

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.