Not dead yet

Just up to our tushies in renos.  In the last 9 days we have completed the following in our livingroom:

-    laid a new subfloor (Floor underneath carpet, not so good.  Actually very bad.  We had to buy a belt sander and some killer sandpaper to take out the humps in that nasty floor.  I totally rocked the skilsaw and the drill.  Go me!)

-    finished the drywall around the new door

-    two coats of paint on the ceiling

-    two coats of primer on all walls.  Okay, in a couple of places where the colours were VERY 1994 burgundy we did three coats of primer.

-    two coats of paint (gorgeous soft pale brown like chocolate cake batter.  yum!)

-    pulled up part of the new subfloor in the entryway because we decided to tile there and it would be too much of a height difference between the new floor and old floor, subfloor, and then the tile.

-    laid the new very pretty floor.

Why did we do so much all at once?  Duh, because our new couches are arriving tomorrow and we’ve been procrastinating. 

It is so lovely and it is so dark out that I couldn’t get any picis tonight.  It will have to wait until tomorrow or Saturday.  I’m going to bed now.  I’m beat.

Right, must remember that bit

Spin the loose sections a bit tighter, spin the tight sections a bit looser.

Yes, logically I know what to do I’m just not quite there there.    It sure is soft though.  Gorgeous stuff.  Fleece Artist, Blue Faced Leicester, 50 gms Mermaid/50 gms Amethyst.  Spun worsted, ’cause I know what that means now.

So cool

Two co-workers and myself got to take a tour through Vancouver International Airport today. All kinds of behind the scenes stuff and it was very cool. We were allowed to take picis and I got a bunch. Which means, you get to see a bunch. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

The one thing I didn’t get a pici of was the two story saltwater aquarium. Duh, right? It was gorgeous but I was too busy being gobsmacked and forgot to take any pictures of it. Sorry! Here are some things I did see:

Of course we saw The Spirit of Haida Gwai by Bill Reid. Amazing.

It’s even on our currency.

And there was one section that was like a small river running indoors and populated by all these wonderful creatures.

A seal

A crab

I’m assuming a Thunderbird.

Ducks

and frogs.

With one big creature overlooking them all:

That bird was HUGE!

Under the belly of the beast.

Some more carvings:

This one was really big too. About 18 feet across. Gorgeous.

It was all pretty amazing. That place is massive and my legs are some kind of sore with all the walking we did today!

There has also been some spinning in the last little while. Here is 50 gms of Fleece Artist Blue Faced Leicester in the Mermaid colour. This is some very nice fibre. Oh so soft and lovely.

I also spun up 50 gms of BFL in Amethyst, which is all shades of purple. Of course I failed to get a picture of that one. I plied the two together and the result is now drying in the bathroom. I’ll try to get a pici this weekend.

Finally, I’m going to be bowling in the Bowl for Big Brothers Classic this Saturday. It’s my fourth year and it’s a lot of fun. If you’re interested in sponsoring me you can visit my page over here. There’s also a pici of some of our team from last year. Unfortunately I don’t have any picis of me last year, I was too busy taking them and not being in them. Have a great night everyone!

C is for crazy making

I’ve wanted to spin for a long time. A couple of years ago I got the bug really bad and hubby made me a drop spindle. It and I did not get along. At all. Then hubby worked on making me a spinning wheel. He’s very mechanically inclined and basically wanted to see if he could do it. Using bits and pieces from the garage he cobbled together a very fair wheel. The only things he/we couldn’t seem to figure out was the tensioning and getting the ratios correct.

We both got bored and it ended up in the basement, neglected. The spinning bug reared its head again last spring. It was much stronger than before. I kept seeing the pretty yarn and fibre from Hello Yarn and I was oh so smitten. I joined Adrian’s fibre club last spring, still didn’t have a wheel but I wanted some of her fibre and if I was in the club I was guaranteed to get me some!

About six months later I signed up for beginner lessons at Birkeland Bros and our instructor was Louisa. Most excellent spinner that she is! Also, very patient and positive. After four weeks using their wheels (Ashford traditional, very nice – Ashford Joy, so sweet! – Louet S10, not a great fit for me) and learning how to use a drop spindle (still not my favourite thing to do, that’s for sure), I got a Lendrum DT.

She’s lovely and I’m learning new stuff all the time with her. I didn’t want to use my “good” fibres on her until I got better at spinning so I turned to the two pound bag of New Zealand crossbreed fibre I had leftover from lessons. Hmm, what shall I do with this, thought I? I know, I’ll spin enough to make a sweater, because that totally makes sense and of course my first real spinning project should be enough for an entire 46″ pullover. Yep, you bet.

Well, I did it. Last night I plied the last two bobbins and put it all in the bath for a good soaking. There is a definite difference in the yarn I spun in November to what I spun last week. There are also some definite thick and thin bits. I don’t care, I’m totally going to make a sweater with it. A good sturdy sweater for walking the dogs in the fall. Something utilitarian and comfortable. If we had a barn I’d say it was a barn sweater, but we don’t. So, how about a garden shed sweater?

C is for Crazymaking

I still can’t believe that I spun up 2 pounds of yarn, about 1000 metres. It didn’t seem like all that much until I put it all together last night in the tub. Then it really did seem like a fair bit. And, it weighed a tonne when it was wet! It should all be dry by tomorrow and I will be ready to wind it all up into balls this weekend.

In other news I’m almost done the EZ Brookes sweater. I’m very pleased with it so far. I’m doing a 3×3 ribbing for the collar but I’m not sure it I’m going to be in love with that or not. We’ll see. I contemplated a hemmed neckline like the cuffs & bottom but I wanted something a little different. I’ve got class tomorrow, guild on Thursday (Happy Valentine’s Day!), and a crop on Friday so I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it until Saturday at the earliest.

Last but not least, here is my stripey Romney out of her bath and feeling all fresh and stripey:

Stripey Yarn

Tried a bit of Navajo plying this past week.  The fibre is from the Hello Yarn fibre club and is 4 ozs of Romney called Baked Alaska.  Lovely stuff.  I got about a bobbin and a half of singles and then I decided that I wanted stripey yarn and I should just figure out how to Navajo ply.  Youtube to the rescue.  After a few false starts it was actually working and I was doing it!  I wasn’t doing it particularly well but I was doing it nonetheless.

Things I learned:

1.    Navajo plying seems to like a very even single.  My singles are getting better but they really aren’t good enough for this.

2.    I was treadling WAY to fast and overplied the heck out of that yarn.    I really have to concentrate to make myself treadle slowly.  I get excited and just start booking it and away I go.

3.    Running it back through your wheel in the opposite direction will take out some of that overtwist.  Ta Da!

I only have bobbin and niddy picis right now as it’s in the tub having a second soak after I did that slight unspin to correct my overply.

We also managed to finally agree on flooring for the living room.  Wow, that only took a year or so.  It should be here in about a week.  Between now and then we need to empty the living room, sand & fill holes, primer, finish out the new doorway, and choose our paint colours.  Hey, let’s dream big, we’ll get the room painted too!  Snort!

I’m off to knit with the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers tomorrow.  Should be fun!

Oh, and for Ginger, ‘case she’s cheeky:

WANTED:

 

This woman is not to be allowed to buy any more yarn.

Stop her before she shops again! 

The thought occurs

Although I keep calling my basement sanctuary my fibre room it hadn’t actually contained any fibre.  We fixed that this weekend.

Yep, that’s how it starts.  A single shelf unit, a bit of fibre, some tools, and then…well…you know how that story ends. 

If you see me in a yarn store,

drag me kicking and screaming out of it. You may slap me if I resist. I have too much yarn, I have no business buying anymore, that is all there is to it. There, I’ve said it.

Hubby and I were having an early spring cleaning this weekend. All new shelving units, all new totes, cleaning up, and organizing. We are going to work on the living room renovation next so we decided that we should clean out the basement and seriously thin out our collections of stuff. We started with the stash. Now I know why I always organize my stash alone. It was embarrassing, really embarrassing. I felt like every impulse buy, every “oh I had such an awful day, yarn will make me feel better”, and of course the, “but it’s so cheap! how can I not buy it?”, and “but look how pretty that is!” moments were on display. Felt just a bit vulnerable. Sort of like I was waiting for the morning train during rush hour, but in my underwear…and they had a tear in them…and an ex-boyfriend just happened walk by. That kind of embarrrassing.

Hubby was really nice though and didn’t make any judgemental noises, I don’t know how he kept it in. Yikes. So, must seriously massage the stash over the year. On the plus side, I found some really nice things that I might have forgotten that I had. Like a couple skeins of Fleece Artist cashmere, a wee Noro Kureyon stash, and some really pretty sock yarns. Not good when you’ve forgotten, (read: blocked out), yarn expenditures.

On the plus side, the basement is really coming along and should be done this week. Then we’ll be able to pack up everything in the living room and bring it downstairs so we can paint, get new windows, tile over the incredibly ugly 1977 brick wall around our fireplace, install a gas fireplace, and then lay the new flooring. Phew, I’m exhausted just thinking about all that.

On a not so plus side, while we were working downstairs today hubby heard water dripping. The hot water heater – not long for this world. We’ll be getting that replaced tomorrow. It is over 17 years old though so really, we can’t complain about that.

I also forgot a blog yesterday. I know I was only allowed 10, but this one really needs to be mentioned. Sarah-Hope over at whatifknits writes the most brilliant things and makes me laugh. She also knit this beauty and this one too, showed me this video that I still like to watch and giggle over, and best yet, is not afraid to admit that she went and saw this show. See? How could I not have an 11th blog for my list of 10.

Okay, I’m going to go check the hot water tank again and then watch the last episode of Jekyll. I’m distraught that it is a show of only 6 episodes but at the same time, wow, what an amazing 6 episodes.

Here’s to a brilliant week.

Almost forgot

It’s St. Brigid’s day, and you know what that means, poetry. Sorry it’s not very upbeat but it is my favourite poem of all.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden

Blushing

Student extraordinaire and sushi lover Leone chose me as one of her blogs that make her day:

How cool is that?  Check out her blog, she’s wicked smart and can make a drop spindle absolutely sing.  Plus, she spun, dyed, and knit up the coolest pirate scarf last fall when we were in spinning classes together.

The blogs that make my day?  Not including Leone’s, and in no particular order (lie, they are alphabetical!):

Always Casting On – love Michelle’s knits.  I found her blog last year during the Kauni craze and the ribbing she did on hers is still my favourite.  Plus, she’s Canadian too.

 Chrissy’s Random Life – is a sock junkie, and that is something I can totally get behind.  Check out her mini vacation/yarn crawl to California.  Gotta love folks who will travel for their addiction.  Plus, she’s a local girl.

Damselfly’s Delights – Louisa taught me to spin and for that I am eternally grateful.  She has this beaded beret and wrist warmers knit from her handspun that I so very much want to steal everytime I see her.  She is also a sock junkie, as evidenced by the amount of sock yarn she has accumulated in the last month!    Obviously another local girl and one of the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers.

*Note:  We’re meeting again next Sunday at The Grind on Main Street, around 1:00 pm, come on down!

Hello Yarn – Adrian makes very pretty things, knitted, spun, and dyed.  All gorgeous.  I joined her fibre club 6 months before I even learned how to spin because I was so smitten with her stuff and wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything.  Now that I’m spinning I love her stuff even more and I’m really glad I keep renewing my fibre club membership because her store updates sell out so fast!

Lectio – Heather is another Canadian who is studying philosophy (I have to respect that, me and Philosophy did not make a great connection two years ago!), and can make a sweater appear off of her needles in what seems like two days.  Amazing.  She also takes the most wonderful pictures.

kmkat - a knitter, a CPA, and a librarian?  Swoon!  Consider most of my geek buttons pushed.  Sometimes, she dresses up in costumes and walks in parades.  She also finds the neatest stuff on the ‘net and posts it up for our amusement.

Lavenderknits – yet another Canadian.  I swear, it’s not a CRTC thing and I’m forced to have Canadian content, I just seem to gravitate to the north.  Lavender knits (obviously), spins, weaves, makes books, needle punches, does everything!  We “met” through our blogs a year or two ago and now she’s my official enabler.  She really wants me to start weaving.  So far, I am resisting.  She also hooked me up with a local spinning and weaving guild, very cool.

Pat’s Knitting and Quilting – Pat is an artist of epic proportions.  Her handknits and quilts are gorgeous.  She inspires me to try a little harder with my handcrafts and make them just that little bit nicer.  Gorgeous stuff!  She’s having some shoulder trouble right now and is taking a break from knitting.  Hoping all will be well with her shoulder!

Slightly Off Topic – Vanessa and I “met” last year via a tea cup & yarn swap.  She makes me smile and her kids are so very cute!  She’s a knitter and a reader and like me is so easily swept away by a pretty yarn.  Plus, she’s a dog lover and we really kind of connected on that point.

stereotypical single woman – Sara is another one that pushes a whole bunch of my geek buttons, knitter, spinner, librarian, crazy cat lady, and a fabulous potty mouth.  Her blog just makes me happy on so many levels it’s hard to describe them all.

So, there you have it.  The ones that make me laugh, inspire me, get me thinking, and are just plain good reading.  Oh, and 50% Canadian and 50% American.  Interesting.