the day went really well and I’m sure it’s becuse of your good thoughts and well wishes. I met some nice folks, found the bathrooms and the lunchroom, and didn’t get lost. Not even once. I also went to the Roots store on my lunch break and fell in love with a purse. So pretty. So expensive. Yeah, maybe after a few pay cheques!
Okay, gotta go call mom and let her know how the day went and eat some dinner. I’m starvin’ like Marvin.
Posted in job search, life
Tomorrow I start the new big job. Wicked nervous. Like I just might throw up nervous. My clothes are pressed, my knitting for the train is packed, and a back up book is also packed. Just waiting for morning to come. And hoping that dinner doesn’t come back up too! 
Posted in job search, life
Single mom & two kids living in the laurels of our side yard. Pretty much right outside the window beside Stella’s house. Now wonder she goes spare all night! Note: they don’t actually have devil eyes. If they did the dog would have totally lost her mind by now.
Sorry I haven’t been about lately, I’ve been pretending to be on holidays before the new job starts on Monday. I am more than ready to go back to work. Turns out I’m not a stay at home person. Who knew?
I’ve also been working on some August UFO’s. Here’s the Flickr group. Some really pretty things are getting all finished. I’ve finished crocheting & assembling my Larger Than Life Bag. I just have to take it shopping for some lining fabric. I want a double thick bag so I need something plain to show through the squares and something scary loud for the interior. I’m leaning towards drapery ties or premade handles of some sort. I really don’t want fabric or crocheted so I’ll have to work on that one.
I’ve finally got my tushy in gear on the Monkeys. Starting my second pattern repeat. Am I the only one who has a tremendous problem when the first stitch is a purl when working on dpn’s or on two circulars? I’m finding it very difficult and I gotta say, I’m not thrilled with that first stitch. It looks sort of loose and wobbly.
And, last but not least, Birkeland Bros has posted up their class schedule for this fall. I’m all signed up for beginner spinning. I can take the class on their wheels so I can see which one I like before I buy. I do really like the look of the Louet’s though. I really like that almost solid wheel. If I have anything with spokes I just know that various animals will stick bits of themselves in it while it is spinning.
Posted in August UFO's, life, socks, spinning
I was participating in Zoe’s Yarn in a Tea Cup Swap and my lovely partner Suzanne totally spoiled me. Look! She sent Koigu! Very excited, I’ve never knit with Koigu before. I know, I know, it’s Canadian, I’m Canadian, how did happen? Well, it’s just not available in the area and every time I find a place that sells it online, its sold out.
Here are picis of all the wonderful goodies.
The chocolate? Amazing! Years ago my friend and I would get a craving and be crossing the border at three in the morning to go to AM/PM in Blaine for Dove ice cream bars. The border guard thought we were a bit sad but that’s okay. Now I have a whole bar of that chocolate! Okay, not a whole bar anymore, ’cause I already ate some. Hey, at least I took the picture before I ripped it open!
Suzanne also sent me lovely tea time napkins and a box of Black Ceylon tea with Vanilla in it. It smells wonderful.
Here’s another pici of the cup so you can see how pretty it is. Please ignore the dust & pollen. This is out on the deck and let’s be honest, the house is lucky if it gets dusted so we’re not even going to talk about the furniture on the deck getting a regular dusting. Now that I’ve show the world this I do feel a bit obligated to maybe tidy that up a bit. Mom’s shaking her head right now thinking “That is NOT how I raised you!”
Thank you so much Suzanne! You have exquisite taste in yarn, teacups, and of course chocolate.
I also want to get your opinion about this:
I’ve knit a second sleeve using Leanne’s suggestion of using two skeins. I took it even further and actually worked from three and four skeins. The orginal sleeve is on the left and the new on is on the right. I used a lot less of the really dark almost black colour and tried to make the stripes longer and shorter than the standard repeat was in the skein. That and make the colours appear out of order. What do you think?
I’m lucky that I don’t find SWS to be itchy like Danielle does but I am worried about how well it will wear and how bad it may pill. We shall see I suppose. Oh, and Jenny, we can totally hook you up and get you knitting, I promise. We are always looking to bring more people over to the dark side! It all starts with a scarf or a dishcloth and then, before you know it, boom, you have stash.
Posted in addiction, August UFO's, knitting, yarn
Wow, after two years of constant applications, innumerable tests, unbelievably boring interviews, and gosh knows what else, I have been offered not one but two loverly jobs. One is at the RCMP headquarters and one is with Transport Canada. I could just plotz I’m so excited. Then I had to decide which one. Thanks, I love huge life changing decisions and all the possibilities of failure and mistakes that they bring along! LOL. Anyway, I’m going to take the Transport Canada position. I’m just waiting for my security clearance to be finalized and I’m in like Flynn.
In knitting news, thank you so much for all your suggestions about my Poppy sleeve issue! Love that you can just quest out for knitting help and bang, it’s right there for you. Using a melding of ideas I’ve put the current sleeve on hold on a bit o’ yarn and cast on a second sleeve. I’m going to try Leanne’s suggestion of knitting from two skeins and alternate every few rows. I will then compare the two sleeves and see which I like better. If the new one doesn’t work out I’m going to do as Kmkat, Jenny, and Elan say and just plunge ahead with the original sleeve and make it a mate and call it a day. Essentially, I will be knitting three sleeves to ensure that I like two of them. My mother is right, I am a difficult child. Hi mom! I know you’re reading this!
I also forgot to say what the pattern my sock-pal used for my Sockapalooza socks was. The are Go With the Flow Socks from Evelyn Clark’s book Favorite Socks. Here is the link for Amazon.com for those of you in the US. They are lovely and I really like them a lot. I keep squooshing them just for fun.
My Kauni is stalled while I wait for new needles to be delivered. My gauge was too far off to ignore and I had to order some new bamboos from Elann. And one final thing, go read Earthchick’s blog entry for July 15. Then go kiss your loved ones and tell them you love them. Wow.
Mom, Dad, I love you guys, and I know we just never say it enough. Maybe we should get tattoos of it or something? Just a thought. Mom would never go for that.
Okay, the August UFO’s are going great guns. Except…I’m not sure if I’m very happy with this:
You see, it’s that peachy colour in there that is making me feel a bit blech. Oh, and the absolutely formulaic colour repeating of the Patons SWS. I’m really noticing these things now because the sleeve is all about the SWS and I’m not sure how I feel about how it’s going.
Looking for some feedback here people. Hate it? It’s okay? Oh my god that’s hideous, don’t even frog it just burn it! You know, opinions. I know you knitters have them. Thanks, I’m going to put Poppy in a drawer now so I don’t keep staring at it and obsessing. I anxiously await your input.
Posted in August UFO's, knitting, yarn
You know how I’ve been posting picis of my around the world postcards from my Sockimus Palimus? I kept thinking, wow, great sense of humour here, very creative, can’t wait to meet them! Well, today I received my wonderful bundle from my Sockimus Palimus and I can add fabulous knitter and incredibly generous to that description.
I am, for lack of a better term, gobsmacked. I’m so knocked over that I took a tonne of picis and uploaded to Flickr as a set because I simply don’t have words for all that is wonderful here. You’ve gotta see it for yourself. I’ve put notes all over the place too. Sorry, couldn’t wait, loooookkkkkkk! If you click though you can see all the cool notes I put on everything. (Why yes, I am just learning how to use Flickr and just noticed the note function yesterday. Be forewarned, I’m like a kid with a label maker now, everything will have little notes.)
First off, introductions are in order, readers, this is Danielle. Danielle, this is everyone else. We are both West Coast babies, just with the 49th parallel between us. She’s also got an Etsy shop and in that Etsy shop are the most amazing wee sock bags and gorgeous stitch markers. Go look, I’ll wait. You’ll be blown away, I promise! And look, the sock bags come with a set of stitch markers, and a basic sock pattern, kitchener instructions, and a needle to weave in the toe & ends. How cunning is that? The bags are reversible too. So you can be all cool and collected or sock monkey mad depending on your mood. I love it.
The socks that she made me are amazing and beautiful and fit my big ol’ feet perfectly. Fleece Artist Sea Wool in the most amazing shades of copper and chocolate. All the colours of fall. And there’s spinning fiber from Aurelia Wool. It has glittery bits in it too. And Jasmine Pearl green tea and fruity candies. I feel like the queen of the world I tell you. So much wonderfulness I don’t even know how to express my thanks properly. This has been a wonderful Sockapalooza Danielle! You are so creative and funny and I’m so glad that this sock exchange has let me meet you. Thank you thank you thank you. I’ll be stalking your blog you know!
Posted in sockapalooza, sockpal, socks, yarn
This is a great idea and I’m playing along. It’s UFO August and here is what I want to get done this month:
Poppy. Then I uploaded this pici and noticed that I had picked up my picked up the back stitches on the wrong side and that my graft was in the front. Doh! Needless to say I’ve removed the offending back and it will be moved to where it belongs, the back.
Monkey socks. These are Vanessa’s birthday socks. Her birthday was June 2. That is unacceptable. They yarn? Gypsy Girl in the Goblin colourway. Really nice, you can find it at the Sweet Sheep.
Larger than Life Bag. I finished all the squares this afternoon and wove in all the ends. Tomorrow I’ll block them all to size and work on the gusset. I still have to find some fabric for the inside though. I do rather like this and this though.
Oh, and this is my Stella. So helpful. 
She’s special. Look at those pretty eyes though. How can you say no to that little face.
In addition to all that I will be working on the Kauni. My two handed knitting it getting a bit better and I’m still farting around with my swatch. Oh, and I will be working on washcloths for Rabbitch too. These make the best transit knitting. I’ve found that if I have pointy sticks, people give me more room on skytrain.
I’m heading back to the hubby. I’m still trying to talk him into Agrifair. I want a corn dog!!!!!!! Sorry, bit of a whine and a foot stomp there.
Briefly. Did you go look Pat? Was it loverly? She didn’t have all the scans up yesterday when I was there. I’ve been swatching in the original pattern but now that I’ve seen the variation I’ve been grinding through all my stitch pattern books looking at other options. It might be nice to do one a bit different. I’m torn!
But hey, the sun is out, the yard is waiting and I’m taking me and a few of my current projects out of doors for the day. I even went over to Librivox yesterday and got some new books for Sally the ipod. Jermoe K. Jerome! Love it.
It’s a long weekend here and I’m feeling extra lazy. Happy BC Day. Wow, that was a lot of links for such a short post. Oh, but here’s one more. I’m trying to talk hubby into going to Agrifair this weekend too. So far no luck. I want to go pet the sheep & llamas and eat a corndog.
Here’s a Canadian source for Kauni! Bahahahahahaha, my plan for world domination continues apace.
