November: redux

It's time for my monthly gasp... how is it the end of November already?????
There... got that over with.

Here's what I've been up to:

knitting... That's the big one. I signed up for NaKniSweMo... the goal being to knit 50,000 stitches in the month of November. I succeeded. Big time. Like a boss. (yikes! I've been hanging out with my teenagers too much, I think!)

Both of these cardigans are built upon the same basic model... top-down, contiguous (meaning that they look like set-in sleeves, but they're knit all in one piece), and seamless. Ellie is wearing the Tomboy Cardigan, slightly modified, and mine is the Romy Cardigan (with added cabling).

This is a huge accomplishment for me... til now, it's taken me upwards of 6 months to complete an adult-sized sweater.

being sick... not an illness in sight all year (it feels like), and suddenly this month I come down with a two-day fever-thing followed by a UTI. Not fun. On the bright side, though, it did allow me to indulge in the following:

reading... all of the Sharpe novels by Bernard Cromwell. All. of. them. That would be 24 books (including 3 short stories). Why yes, I am a fast reader. Why do you ask?

schooling... it is such a joy to teach a child who has realized that things are easier and more fun if you choose to be cheerful about them. One day, Ellie just decided to enjoy copywork... something that she'd complained bitterly about every single day. Now she loves it. And it was her own decision. She's amazing!!

pinteresting... filling up my pin boards like nobody's business. And actually doing stuff, too. I love that place.

enjoying... a lot of lovely weather. Yes, we've had a lot of rain, and even a storm and some snow, but we've also been blessed with a lot of sunshine. I'm grateful for it.

Ellie and I went for a walk, only to find the path ending abruptly in a small lake... proof that we have indeed had lots of rain to go along with the sunshine.

cooking... I seem to have gotten a bit of my kitchen mojo back again. For a while there I just couldn't think of anything to make. But lately, there's been lots of good things appearing on the table... some of it in my own pottery dishes, too!!

apple-almond pudding in my pie plate.

planning for next month... Christmas, naturally. A thing that, frankly, fills me with a bit of dread. I dislike shopping... I prefer being solitary to attending large gatherings of people... Christmas as it is commonly practiced is not my cup of tea. But I do like to make my family happy, so I do what needs to be done, and try to make it a joyful occasion.  (I feel like such a curmudgeon, even putting this out in type... oh well.)

So, that's November. On to the next month...

(linking up to Megan at SortaCrunchy)

NaKniSweMo

I've gone and done something ambitious.

Rather than sign up to write a novel in the month of November, I've signed up to knit a sweater. Or, more precisely, fifty thousand stitches.

So far so good. I cast on a Tomboy Cardigan for Ellie... I'm making it with long sleeves, and cabling the front panels. Of course, I didn't buy enough yarn for that... so I knit up all that I had and ordered some more.

And then I took a good look at what I'd done so far. I hated the cables. They just looked sloppy. so I laddered them back to the beginning, and re-knit them. Fun times!!

the original cabling

yarn spaghetti!!

I hate trying to knit with little short bits of yarn!

that's better!!

how it looks so far.

So that's approximately 16,000 stitches done by Friday.

On Saturday, I cast on for the other half of my big project - a cardigan for me... only, in typical wendy fashion, knit from the top down, seamlessly. Not from the bottom up, in pieces as the pattern is written.

So I knit and knit and knit and knit... and didn't like it. The yarn is just wrong for the pattern. It looks good, but it's just too thin, and I want a cozy cardigan. So I'll be trying that pattern with something different some other time, and using this stuff for a different cardi.

shawl collar and cables

cables... I love them so much.

needles out...

... and... all gone

what??

So, it seems that spring has arrived at last.

The weather has been glorious... I've gardened, I've hung the laundry out on the line to dry... I'm loving it.

And what have I been doing in between all of those spring-time activities?

Knitting.

Seriously.

For months, even during prime Christmas gift-knitting time, I couldn't bring myself to pick up the needles. Wasn't inspired, didn't care.

And now... now that there are so many other things that you might think would hold my attention... now suddenly I can't hold myself back.

The tea cozy pattern is a free download, found at Ravelry. That one was knit up during game two of the Canuck vs. Sharks Conference finals. All those lovely Canucks goals kept me knitting rather quickly, I must say.

The beaded necklace/bracelet/headband/whatever-you-want-to-wrap-it-around thingy is a very fun project from Nelkin Designs. Once I'd finished stringing on the almost-600 beads (sooooo much fun, especially while waiting for the freezing to wear off after a lovely dentist visit!), it knit up rather quickly, and since it's essentially a two-row pattern, and uses a minimal amount of yarn, it's wonderfully portable. I do advise that you check your yarn for itchiness *before* you start stringing beads, though...

picture day

Today I spent part of Ellie's ballet class time wandering through the hazel farm on which the studio is located. The snow makes everything look so different and mysterious.

After I got sufficiently chilled, I spent the rest of the time indoors working on a new sweater... knit in an alpaca blend, it should keep me warm. I sure do hope so!

failure is always an option - days 5-8

It was a busy busy weekend!

I'm working on a test-knit for Kristen... not only will it be a pretty shawl for me, it'll work beautifully as part of my costume in Pride&Prejudice.

More bread was baked. I'm starting to suspect my kids of purposely leaving leftover porridge in the mornings just so that I'll make more bread. It's just that good.

Hearts were crocheted. These are so fun and so cute! Well, actually, I'm not really looking forward to weaving in the ends - I hate doing that. But really, aren't they sweet?

Hot chocolate was drunk. Seriously, this is the best hot chocolate I've ever ever tasted. I like my chocolate spicy, and this stuff has chunks of chili peppers in it. You *can* strain them out, but it's way more exciting to chew them on the way down! It's the Aztec Chocolate spice blend from Made with Love Delectable Edibles. It's made in Kamloops, BC, and I've just recently found a place where I can buy it here in town!!!

A piano was acquired!!!!!!!!!!
I've been keyboard-less for a few months now. This sweet little console piano was given to us by some friends who had no use for it any longer. It had been stored in their atrium, which had also housed their birds... consequently, the inside of the piano was full of mouse nests and birdseed; and all of the felts had been chewed up by the mice. We've ordered replacement parts, and will be restoring the piano. Surprisingly, it's still mostly in tune and has a very nice tone, so I'm excited to have it in good working condition again.

failure is always an option - day 4

Just a quick drive-by post this  evening... I've got a cranky snotty girl who won't let me be too far away for too long.

I painted some pages today, and cut out and started sewing a cloak - a gorgeous black wool/cashmere blend for the outer, and a silk broadcloth for the lining. Yum!

I'm also starting another knitting project - I'm test-knitting a shawl for Kristen.

And can you believe these flowers??? They're growing right outside my front door. The crocuses I can almost fathom, but the snapdragon? Really???

in which she pokes her head back up for a moment

Hey.  Here I am.
I hate January.
Too much rain and clouds and dreariness.
I tend to just want to hibernate.

I found the most amusing entertainment... a ball of Noro Kureyon yarn. I really wish I had taken pictures of everything that I made it into. First there was a stripey hat - cute, but not really the right size. Next, I tried a tea cozy. It would've fit my tea pot, mug, and a plate of cookies. Tooooo big! Besides, I really wanted to *wear* that yarn. Then I remembered a hat pattern that I love - I had made a whole bunch of them for Christmas presents. I started it, and knit and knit and knit until I ran out of yarn. I had a bit of Kureyon left from another project, only it was red... the main yarn was mostly green and blue-grey. I thought 'what the heck' and added it in. And as I kept knitting, it started reminding me of something. Something not entirely pleasant. Well, at least not for putting on my head. It looked like a baboon butt. Rrrriiiiipppppp. Try again. So I pasted the red yarn randomly into the other yarn ball, and started knitting stripes, alternating using both ends of the yarn. Muuuuch better!


And in other news, my yarn ball for the swap has made its way safely to Sarah in the UK, so I can post the pictures here now.



I knew, from reading her blog, that there was a particular yarn that she'd been hoping to find whilst on a visit to the Seattle area recently; so I ordered a ball of it for her.  I stuffed it with a whole assortment of stationery stuff, and Burt's Bees things, and chocolate, and a sweet little knitted hedgehog pincushion; and tied it all up in a red ribbon and a pearly letter 'S'.

True confessions time: I wrapped everything up, and then realized that I had, yet again, forgotten to take pictures; so I unrolled the yarn, took the pictures, and then rolled it all up again. Yep.

Anyhow, it's safely there, and I'm so excited to get mine soon, and I'd do this swap again in a heartbeat! It has definitely brightened my January!

sneak peak

A while back, I signed up for a magic yarn ball swap, hosted by t does wool.

What you do is to pick out a whole bunch of cool little goodies, and a ball of yarn, and wrap them all up together to make a magical goodie-filled yarn ball (hence the name...) and send them off to their intended recipient, who may either unwind the entire thing on the spot, or slowly knit it out, depending on their personality type.

I got paired up with Sarah, and sent off her lumpy bumpy rattly yarn ball this morning. Fingers crossed it gets to her quickly and safely... and that she likes all the things I wrapped up! I'll post my pics of what's inside after she's got it - no need to spoil the surprise!

December 11

Almost missed it today!!!

I've had my hands full of knitting and icosahedrons.

And watching the snowfall that never happened. Seriously, the weather people hype it up so much, and then we get a few flakes that just blow away as if they never existed... oh well. Fingers crossed that we do get some snow soon. Or else Ellie will start thinking that I'm lying to her.

matchbox by Jill Smalley

December 4

Note: my Giveaway is still open for a few days :)

Happy National Cookie Day!
I'm not celebrating that event... but I did inadvertently take part in National Wear-Brown-Shoes Day today. Who knew???

matchbox by Glenda McNeil

And, just for the record, top-down mittens patterns ROCK! Especially if you knit the thumb from the other end of the yarn before you finish knitting the wrist part! I made the pattern up, and it does need a bit of tweaking, but the mittens are lovely and cosy, and now I can send them away in the mail!

One more thing done, a million-minus-one to go!

One down!

I finished the first christmas present for this year's gifting!!!

Obviously, I'm not going to divulge what it is, or for whom. You're welcome to make guesses though...

Please, Mama, teach me to knit

Just finger-knitting for now... but she still wants to learn to knit with sticks. That's my girl!

*that* sort of day

Ramblings of an upset mind

Today I found out that I've been kind-of-blacklisted at a local yarn store.

I KNOW! A yarn store, right? Knitters are supposed to be kindly, easygoing people. Or so I thought.

But I was the subject of some (apparently) rather catty remarks. It doesn't feel very good.

swift: zanyshani 

What did I do to bring that upon myself? I asked (ASKED!) if I could use their swift and ballwinder to wind some yarn that I had bought online.

That's it.

When I went into the store, there were a few ladies sitting around knitting, and the store employees were chatting with them. The swift and winder were sitting idle. Nobody was even shopping at the time.

ballwinder: LollyKnit

I asked if I could wind my yarn, and was told that it would be okay, as long as it was yarn purchased at that store. I said that it hadn't been, and was told that then I couldn't wind it there. Okay, then. That's fine. And then the woman I was speaking to implied that if I came back some other time, when there weren't any other customers present, that it would be alright for me to wind my yarn then.

But apparently, after I left, there was great discussion about how I could even think that it might be okay, and what kind of a rude person I must be, and how *could* that employee  even consider my request.

So I went in again this morning, to the now-empty store, and asked if it would be okay for me to wind my yarn. That's when I heard all about the kerfuffle I'd caused.

Black Water Abbey yarn: feydesigns

I totally understand that they want to keep the swift and winder for their customers' use... but I AM their customer. I buy most of my wool there. The only reason I'd bought this particular yarn online is because it simply isn't sold in stores, and "my" store didn't have a substitute.

Now I feel uncomfortable going back to that store. Which means that I'm that much more likely to buy more stuff online instead of locally. Which is kind of sad.

One down, one to go

The sewing machine is in the shop ... again... so I'm glad I signed up for Death By Socks - gives me something to do instead of moping around my empty sewing cabinet.

Also (and this is not necessarily a good thing) it has introduced me to the yummiest sock yarn in the whole wide world. Cascade Heritage, in case you are wondering. It's soft, smooth, springy, and easy to knit, and it feels sooooo nice. Now I want to buy all the colours and make lots of socks, and maybe a shawl. Like I said, not a good thing :)

Okay... off to start the second sock. Hopefully I can make it past the first round this time, unlike my Sock Wars experience.

Frustration

What do you do when you're feeling full of creativity, and you walk into your studio (aka the laundry room) and you're greeted with this???














$1000 at IKEA would let me whip this room into shape, so there'd be a place for everything (whether it would all be in its place is another matter)... problem is, a thousand bucks is exactly what I don't have.

So, what did I do this afternoon?
Did I clean up?
Noooooo....
No. I didn't.
Instead I did another pattern repeat on the Tweedy Vest from the fall/winter 2005 issue of knitscene.
I started it back in November.
At this rate, it'll be finished by next fall...

The funny thing is that I hesitated for months about making this vest because I didn't want one with cables. But it was the only one I could find with a scooped neck (which I wanted), so I finally gave in.

It wasn't till I was almost finished the first 8 rows that I realized it isn't a cabled vest.

I'm so dumb sometimes.