Marched to the Finish

It's finally done - 1200 yards of Malabrigo Worsted, 5 wooden buttons from Blue Moon, excellent instructions from Custom Knits for top down set in sleeves, and I present the Lettuce Coat....

I did very few changes to the pattern; omitting the buttons on the sleeves, adding a "SuperHero Boob Mask" and some short rows in the back because the coat is designed for androgynous women without curves. It doesn't flatter my hiney in the least but it's so snuggly and warm that I don't care! And it snowed yesterday so I can still wear it! Yay! For the amount of work involved I would recommend using a yarn that will wear better than Malabrigo, perhaps DIC Classy?

Bang Bang....

Drive by blog post.

Someone pointed out that I haven't posted to the blog lately. Eyup, that would be true.
Primarily because I try to keep this a knitting blog (try) and life has been full of tedious, tiresome non-knitting things. What knitting I have done seems to have consisted primarily of reknitting the same 150 yds 4 times. Namely yards 750 to 900 of the 1100 total in the project. So there will be finished project before the temps break the 50s, but it's gonna be close.

One non tiresome thing I did accomplish was watching Planet Earth disc one. This is amazing. File under "Must See". When you watch it, in the first episode "From Pole to Pole" at the 22 minute mark there is a segment about the Birds of Paradise and their mating dances. I laughed so hard, it just really cheers you up. I even found myself thinking of this bird, polishing a branch, at work and smiling.

Knitting wise, I got a new toy. Excuse me, I actually got a new phone because TAO...well, let's not delve too deeply. But I got the Touch Pro, and while I can't make it do all the sundry things it's supposed to do (yet), I did learn how to store a PDF knitting pattern on it for easy reference, and the photo shows my Cloche pattern in use. I have also mastered the keeping of my Ravelry Stash Excel on it, and listening to audiobooks through it. All of which is knitting related, of course.

Hope all of you are healthy and well. I'm off to do more non knitting things.

First on the March

Starting March off right.


This is the Jenny Cloche again. It has a permanent spot in my queue of "Favourite Patterns". However, I skipped the bow this time, and instead opted for Nicky Epstein's felted Angel Rose. Other changes included using Berkshire in a single strand (red purple colourway), as the alpaca warms this hat right up. I probably should have used Berkshire Bulky, but ordered the wrong thing. No matter, the hat fits perfectly.

March to the Finish

Over on the Stash and Burn boards of Ravelry we're doing March to the Finish. Picking up those projects that fell to wayside during the holiday frenzy to finish gifts, perform bookkeeping, and tax time. One thing that will not be "marching" anywhere, (except a corner) are these socks.


This yarn has been cast on 6 different times, 5 as socks, once as a scarf. It's been queued as being owned by multiple people, but only one person as yet has finished anything, which were indeed swirly socks. So I have cast it aside in favour of well behaved projects, hoping that I will come across whatever will unlock it's inner colour vision. Perhaps the "Chevron Scarf"?

The dreaded swirls

It all started with this a great colour way that shall remain nameless until I stop squirreling it up.

It was so pretty in the hank, then the ball, that it was driving passion to cast on socks. (It was either the yarn, or the need to distract myself from outside stressors; I'm sayin' it was the yarn) I even put a pattern onto the foot, something I rarely do. Then I noticed the big swirl. No, no, No! I say unto you No. No swirls.

Frog, frog, frog. Tried two different skeins, which despite starting at different points on the dye pattern soon ran neck in neck. Tink, Tink, Tink. I think this is when I lost my lovely stitch marker Try it knit from both ends of the ball - same piece of string, worked opposite ways, must not match up, right? Within 2 rows.

Rip, Rip, Rip. Try a different number of stitches. Hmmn, now the sock is too big, and the colours have divided evenly with all the blues on one half, and the oranges on the other. I don't want to go down a needle size because I'm already on 1s. Rather than deal with the bookkeeping/taxes/work stress, I think I'll peruse knitting patterns until I find something that will wiggle it's way out of the spirals.

Because that's what mature sane people do, right? Distract themselves with something else. That's why TV is so popular.

Unutterably Rude.

A while back the fabulous Chelle (with the great hair) sent me a care package.


Which I, of course, opened before doing any of the mature mail opening. I may have even rolled on the Alpaca, played Jedi KNIghT with the shawl pin, and performed sundry other welcoming rituals.

What I did not do was post it on the blog with a huge THANK YOU. I took a picture so that I could, and then suffered the crash of '08. But here it is.

Thank you Chelle. I love the colour of the yarn, it's so perfectly me. And the stitch markers are currently working hard on the lettuce coat. Smooches.

Bleah on Maturity....

Have you ever had on of those patterns that just "oh, oh, I have to make that. NOW? The new Knitty Surprise pattern is one of those for me. It fits in perfectly with my work, and I know just the person to give it to, they would get the joke but still honor the knitting work. And it looks like Fun.

But........

My stash is there and I am here. (Picture map of any scale with two dots very far from each other.)

I probably have yarn in the stash I could use for this. You know the kind, inexpensive but good yarn, perfect for a gag gift; leftover from some other project. I can wait 5 weeks until the stash and I are together, however I would no longer work with the receiptent. I can attempt to communicate with TAO and hope the right yarn arrives. (For the record...previous attempts at this have not been wildly successful. It's like asking me to get the ogee router bit.)

I could use one of my 4 project-deal-a-meal cards. But that's like using your cheat points to eat butter on brussel sprouts, you want to save it for a caramel vanilla dessert instead. It was easier when I would have either waited or just bought the yarn.

I could skip the whole thing. I do think it's funny that the pattern calls the aorta and pulmonary arteries "valves" instead of vessels.

Hmmn, what to do, what to do.

Laguna's baby sister

TAOs Raincheck gift arrived! From the Loopy Ewe of course.








The back view,




She is a little wider across the beam than the Laguna, and more solidly structured. Without an inside divider.





Laguna sized next to Zuma







What was inside for the photos; 21 ounce waterbottle, full size hand cream, phone, sock project, lipstick.<

Moving without motion

No, I'm not talking Meta-Zen. It's a long story with very little (sadly) knitting so if you came to fulfill fiber fantasies...move along.

TAO and I moved 11 times in 7 years. We've been at the 12th place 5 years now. I am FINALLY going to get my new floors.

Of course, that means now is the perfect time to paint - you don't have to worry about drips. Unfortunately, TAO took that to mean...don't worry about drips anywhere...but that's another story. So we painted. There's nothing like a marathon painting session to make you wonder why you have such a big house. I mean, that's alot of Ceiling.

Back to the moving thingy - The astute among you will realise that in order to install flooring, they must remove the old flooring, which means nothing can be on the floor. Hmmn, it's -18F in the garage, perhaps it's a good thing we have such a big house after all, because 3 rooms of furniture and counters has to go somewhere.

Since we had to displace everything, it was decided that we should shift it as though we are Moving. Really look at things and ask ourselves "Would you pay money for someone else to move this? Would you carry it up and down flights of stairs in order to keep it?" Of course there is some chaos in this as I am only home 2 days this month.

Still...it's liberating. TAO and I hoard. Especially since we've stopped purging for moving. When I come home between assignments I tend to dump/reload, leaving items behind. When TAO can't find something, he gets another one. Right now the focus is on the part of the house that is being renovated, but it feels so good that we are already mapping out changes to the garage and workshop when the weather is nice. The largest single item to go: the sofa. We meet people out in town for socializing; guarding our home space jealously. We don't cuddle there either, for a date night we build a picnic on the floor with piles of cushions and quilts and snacks. The messiest part was the pantry; sorting the food, checking dates, pitching, recycling glass, etc.

Think how relaxing it will be when it's all done. How about you...what are you holding onto that you "wouldn't pay someone to move"?

More "Free" Knitting

So I am apparently starting the year off with more "no stash acquistion" knitting. I knit this great sweater, even did some really tricky things......

For instance.......












I repaired this hole that was in the sweater from
things that went awry while traveling.
Lovely job eh?




Of course I meant to cut those ends, but figured I do that later.




Then there was the great seaming job, I mean, really look at this......















Worth every penny of a Lucy Neatby video.













Unfortunately, the finished sweater looked hideous, yes hideous, drawing attention to my flaws and downplaying my assets. Even the TAO looked and only said "Did You make That?" (because of course, it's perfectly acceptable to buy ugly clothing).

I decided that rather than have it guiltily shoved in the back somewhere I would reclaim the wool immediately. Because 6 skeins of slightly fuzzy yarn is better than bad sweater mojo. So I watched TV and unraveled the entire thing. (Angel food cake helped, Loopy on the other hand hid). Now, in 2010/2011 when I decide to make something from this yarn, it will be ready.

Counting down 2008

Knitwise of course:

10. Kauni Effektgarn Wool. Slightly scratchy, great colour repeats, and wonderful for steeking. I bought mine at Little Knits, and sing the praises of their customer service. They're actually so nice that I joined their board on Ravelry just to hang on the fringes.

9. The tidbits from Lucy Neatby. The Astrophysics of Knitting.

8. Korres Lipgloss in Nude. Not knitting, but a girl has got to look good doing it. And have soft lips in case TAO is around.

7. The incredible colour artistry from Bob at Winderwood Farms. Such lovely spinning fibers.

6. The great sock yarns and fibers from Leah at Yarn or a Tale

5. Little Loopy. Knitting needs a mascot, and life needs a smiling face to put on your monitor.

4. Harmony Options. Again, not new for 2008, but I didn't get any until this year.

3. Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. Following my usual pattern I picked this up at the library. What was unusual was that I loved so many patterns from it that I promptly bought my own copy. The instructions for a top down set in sleeve...Amazing!

2. Namaste's Cali Collection. My Laguna is perfect for me. Soft, lightweight, sturdy, cleanable. And a Zuma was ordered by TAO for my birthday. Rich, I tell ya', I'm rich

1. Ravelry. Yes it wasn't new in 2008, but still my favorite tool. Patterns, yarn, friends, forums, queues, rubbernecking. Love it.