Drive by

This is going to be quick and dirty. I’m hungry and I need me some supper!

New yarn came in the mail from Yarn Chef. Go and get some of her Minestrone yarn. Glorious colour and loft, but’s that’s not why you need some of this. You need some of this because of just how amazingly soft and squooshy it is. She even included a little colour coordinated stichmarker for each colourway. And, a recipe for….minestrone! Ba da bump! Get it?

The green was a colourway that I had lusted after months ago and when I went to buy it, sadness, had been sold. I kept looking at it and looking at it and then I asked her if she would recreate it. Ta da! Perfection is mine. Thank you Yarn Chef Katy! You rock!

Next, we had our first wee knit-in of Ravelry junkies. It was great! Hmmmm? What’s that? Pictures? Oh, no, sorry. I did take my camera but promptly did not remember to actually take it out and take pictures of everyone enjoying themselves. Sigh. Duh! Louisa was there spindle in hand. What an enabler!

Best yet, I got to meet Lavender finally! How weird is that? All that reading each other’s blogs and emailing back and forth and we’d never met. Then, her and I went to Three Bags Full and I made my visa make little animal noises. I love doing that. I also found a new spindle. This one is much lighter than my standard Ashford and I can spin on it much better. Which is a very good thing. It’s a Houndesign and it’s called a Dervish. Get it? Whirling Dervish. Snort. It’s made of Zebra wood and weighs 37 grams. I love a hobby that is all creative and hippyish but still lets you be anal retentive enough to measure your tools in grams. It’s like Woodstock statisticians.

Lastly but not leastly, here is my first Christmas project of the year. It’s the start of the MIL sock. I’m using Knitpicks Gloss in Pumpkin and . Very nice. It’s no Yarn Chef but it’s pretty sweet. The pattern is Tidepool Socks.

Okay, that’s all I got for now. The spousal unit is making yum yum noises and threatening to eat my arm. Wait until tomorrow! I’ll tell you about the spinning classes that Lavender hooked me up with. Teehee!

That’s what I’m talking about!

An August FO is done.  Okay, yes you’re right, it is October, but it is still done. 

Super dog action shot:

This is the obligatory blinded by the sun shot:

I’m pretty happy with it too.  It’s very comfortable, the fit is great, the colour is good, and I’m even pretty happy with how my set in sleeves look.  About the fit, that whole “make it to match your actual size, not the size you think are”, brilliant.  I did this in the 44″ size and it fits so right it’s the porridge that Goldilocks ate.  That’s bigger than the sizes given in the book, you can go here and email for the extended sizing for the pattern.  You need the original pattern as well, of course.

As an additional bonus, this is in a bunch of crosswalks downtown:

How brilliant is that?  My mom actually taught me to look before I entered a roadway but apparently not everyone’s mom was quite so kind!  Makes me giggle every single morning.

Oh, one last thing, you must go view this cartoon if you have cats.  Brilliant.  Shamelessly stolen from Sarah Hope at whatifknits.  Make sure you turn up the volume, the sound is half the joy.

Have a great night everyone.

So hey, how’s Poppy doing?

Hmmmmm?  Pardon?  Oh, what’s that, over there?

See that?  I totally distracted you with nothing but a bit of string.  The fact that I knew that would work only because it would have totally worked on me is irrelevant.  It is pretty string though, is it not?  That’s Alfebetto from Artfibers.  I believe it’s colour #5.  It is lovely and after fighting the good fight and getting my sleeves safely installed in Poppy I thought I deserved a treat and did a little stash diving.  I’m doing the Montego Bay Scarf from IK, Summer 07.  Very mindless and that is making me happy after the sleeve work.

Just to clarify, the sleeves are in, I’ve learned a tonne of lessons, not least of which is to do short row shoulders (if I ever do another sew it together sweater in my life!), Diane Soucy and Stephanie Japel are my bff’s though.  I’m a sucker for top down sweaters, and now I know why.  Sewing is hard.  I will take some picis of Poppy soon though.  I just have a few more ends to weave in then finish around the neckline and the bottom and she is fini.

I also got some of these in the mail yesterday:

They are super shiny, wicked pointy, and take a bit of getting used to.  Not near as much drag as other wood needles but still more than say and Addi Turbo.  I want to used them some more before I say anything else.  I also got a couple of the fixed Harmony needles in 3.0 mm to try and see if I can get some Kauni gauge.  I’ve been stalking this site for days trying to decide what pattern I want to do my Kauni in.  Scroll down, click on the left hand side you’ll see 4 links to Norwegian Fair Isle.  Some of the charts would be stunning with the Kauni.

Finally, I had noticed that when I get off the train in the mornings there are quite often vendors/company reps giving away free samples of things.  Newspapers, granola bars, etc.  When the new season of Survivor was about to start they were giving out little foil wrapped fortune cookies with the show & tv station logos on them.  Hubby really liked that!  Snort.  This morning, it was a newspaper and a yogurt.

I wish they were there everyday!  I’d never have to pack my breakfast again.  I always eat when I get to work, I just cannot face food at 6:00 in the morning.

As a definite bonus for a Tuesday, the sun came out and the temperature went up to almost 19 Celsius.  Can you imagine?  It was like a summer morning.  So cool, er warm, er, nevermind, you understand.  Here is a pici of the sun coming up from the top floor of my building.  It was amazing to watch.

Then I went and ate my free yogurt. 

In the light of day

Thank you Lizz! You’re exactly right about using short rows instead of stair steps for binding off shoulders. I found this article  by Jenna Wilson at Knitty about it if anyone else is interested. Way smarter and that is what I will be doing next time. Unfortunately, this time, the Patons SWS had felted just a little bit and refused to be frogged so I had to persevere and just find a way of doing it.

I was over-thinking the situation too much as well. Once I realized that if I just chose the colour from one side and seamed in that it would just look like and extension of that side. Duh, you don’t have to use a third colour for the seam, thank you forest for the trees, you’re right, that is incredibly obvious! LOL. I also realized that I was trying to seam too close to the edge and that I should move one row further into the knitting to make it easier and cleaner to deal with the steps. All in all, the shoulders look pretty good now. SWS is not a good thing to seam with though. For the armholes I’m going to use the yarn that Iused in the body. Much stronger and it will be an invisible seam so the colour difference shouldn’t matter.

In pasta news:

 

Nice, right? Yeah, you’ll notice that there are no picis of the cooked product. That’s cause we were too busy inhaling them. They were so good. I think I want to try making homemade lasagna next. Drooling on my chin, just a little bit.

I love me some gadgets

Hubby stopped yesterday and picked up a pasta roller attachment for the Kitchen Aid.  Sweet!  Tonight, chicken mushroom and three cheese ravioli.

Hey mom, you know what this means?  We never have to roll pedahe (perogi) dough.  Yay!  Throw away your rolling pin. 

In knitting news I’m trying desperately to seam up my Poppy but I am not having any success.  I suck at sewing.  I’ve looked up in every book I own and a gazillion websites and it still looks poopy.  The main problems I’m having?  The ‘steps’ in the shoulders are really not fun for seaming and because of the striping of the SWS I’m concerned it will look stupid once seamed.  Top of front & back are each one colour then that single line of the seam is a third colour.  I know, I know, I’m thinking about it too much.  Colour me shocked. 

Okay, gotta help hubby stuff & seal raviolis.  Yummers.

Pressing flowers

And by that I mean that Poppy is finally on the blocking board.  Huzzah!  Now I just have to buy some wine to bolster my courage so that I can start setting in those sleeves.

I also finished My So-Called scarf.  Manos in colourway Melilla.  Amazingly soft and I love her.  Quite long too, like about 9 feet.  I did it over 36 stitches and on 6.5 mm needles so I got a bit tighter weave.  I’m wearing her to work tomorrow.  She’ll look great with my black coat on a grey morning. 

I’m toodling along on my Mr. Greenjeans too.  About 1/2 done the first sleeve.  Forgot to take picis though.  Silly me.  Not much else going on around here.  What are y’all doing?

Mr. Woodman got a Nimbus 2000!

I really have to get out more.  I actually took the wand the hubby made me and turned it into a broomstick for Mr. Woodman.  Okay, wait, let’s back that up.

1.    I had a wand.

2.    I turned it into a broomstick.

3.    After I turned it into a broomstick I carefully wrote “Nimbus 2000″ on it with a tee tiny felt pen.

4.    I’m playing with dolls again.

Wow, which of those is the creepiest?  I think #1 might just be edging out the competition on that one.

Thanksgiving was fabulous.  Way too much turkey, stuffing, and gravy was consumed.  Thank you mom!  You totally rock the turkey cooking.  Today, turkey sandwiches will be on the menu at some point.  Although hubby already had one last night.   Hope everyone else out there had a happy Canada turkey day.  Or tofurkey, if that’s your thing.

Today has so far been spent cleaning bird cages, vacuuming, and laundry.  So, now that I’m feeling all virtuous with myself for having done chores I’m going to make a turkey sandwich then get some knitting done.

Mr. Greenjeans is bound off and I’ll be starting the first sleeve today.  Here are a couple of pictures.

Note to self, stand up straight for heaven’s sake!  Anyways, I’m liking the fit so far.  I will be making the ribbing more than 11 rows though.  I’m thinking more along the lines of 16 – 18.  I don’t want it to look quite so cinched in at the waste and gappy top and bottom.  Know what I mean?  Then I’ll have to find a nice button for it.  I think I have some nice big buttons in the button stash so I’ll have a look later.  I’m also going to be making long sleeves.  I think.  Maybe.  Okay, obviously that decision isn’t made yet! 

Oh God, I also just noticed how many dolls are in the picis above too!  Wicked Witch of the West Barbie and my Dr. Who toys.  You have no idea how excited I was when I got the Dr. Who with radio control K-9.  Over the moon.  I’m such a dork!

As a final note, there is no truth in advertising, particularly on boxes of hair dye.  That is NOT light brown by any stretch of the imagination.  Hubby says he likes it.  I keep startling myself when I go in the bathroom and flick on the light and don’t recognize myself.  Silly woman.

Oh, final, final note!  How loud do you think I screamed when the Canucks scored the winning goal with 4.7 seconds left in overtime on Saturday night?  Brilliant!

I almost forgot

Two things.

Mr. Greenjeans is coming along nicely.  I only have about 1 inch or so of cabling to go and then it’s on to sleeve island.

I’m liking this sweater a lot.  I might just make another one in wool or a wool blend.  Turns out the office is freakin’ cold!

 

And, most importantly, I forgot to show you this:

I spun and plied that all by my little old self.  It’s not very even and my plying definitely needs work but I lurve it sooooooo much.  I used a Kiwi wheel last Wednesday and I quite liked it.  Which is good, because it’s about $300.00 cheaper than the Ashford Joy.  I’m pining for a wheel.  Is that weird?  Nevermind.  Of course y’all are fine with it.  You guys pine for yarn & stuff!  LOL.