Camp Redux

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

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

... 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

*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

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

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

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

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

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

Do your legs hurt?

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

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

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!

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?

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...

...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

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?!

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...

...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!

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

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.