World Wide Spin in Public Day

Our view:

A view of us:

It was lovely and warm and sunny and windy.  All of which seems to created a perfect storm sunburn.  Oh yeah, I look great.

No time like the present,

Instead of prcrastinating on that whole plying thing, I decided to git ‘er done!  Said in my best Larry the Cable Guy voice.  WIthout further ado, here she be:

I don’t even know the yardage/metrage yet.  I know that I”m quite smitten with it though, so that’s good.  I’ll give it a soak and hang it to dry tonight.  8+ ozs will take a fair bit o’ time to dry I should think.

The big skein is 8+ ozs of two ply, prolly about a sport/dk weight.  That wee skein is the leftover from the last bobbin, about an ounce and a half that I did up in Navajo ply.  I love the look of the n-ply but it’s just too much work for me to do for an entire pound plus of yarn!  Plus, I don’t think I could N-ply for that length of time.  I get a bit spastic when I N-ply and tend to treadle so fast it’s insane, giving my yarn a wicked over twist that soaking and hanging almost doesn’t deal with.

Okay, that’s enough of that.  Today was a bit challenging, as in I think that pre-pubescent boys should not be allowed on transit unless on a leash or in a box, so I’m going to go have a nice bath now.    Happy Tuesday all!

In a spin

That whole Knit in Public Day that I missed?  Well, it wasn’t a total loss.  Mr. B worked on Saturday and then was fighting a nasty cold on Sunday so I had a weekend off.    Sweet!  Look, I spun up a little over 9 ozs of IGOR.

83% Island Grown Organic Romney and 17% silk.  You may remember it looked like this last year when I acquired it from Hummingbird Fibre Arts (sadly, no website):

This stuff was fun to spin.  I had 2 x 250 grams of it.  Turns out they will be more fraternal than identical, but that’s totally okay.  Now I just have to ply all that up.  Sigh.

World wide knit in public day?

Um, yeah, every day on transit is knit in public day.  Today, I just could not face taking transit for more than an hour each way to hit the sort of local WWKIP event.  I know all my knitting peeps (gosh, I’m so hip) were all there.   Me?  I was here:

Spinning this;

I also had some company:

Then later, there was more company:

Then I was overwhelmed with company:

Turns out, I’m wicked popular with the four legged/hairy set!  I think it’s  because my opposable thumbs can open their bags of treats.

Oh yeah, we also built the final kitchen island the other day:

We ended up rotating that far right cabinet and made it into a drawer cabinet instead of a shelf cabinet.  Now we have a place near the fridge for pop…and chips…and pretzels…and cookies…damn, I just gave away the snack drawer.  Didn’t I?

Island?  Um no, that’s a continent.  I’m going to call it Australia.  Wait, that’s not been used, hasn’t it?  Hmmmm, okay, how about Beentsylvania?  Right, I like it.    Today we built some drawers and stuff and now it looks like this:

That’s my favourite spot to sit and read, Internet, snack, everything really.  I’ve spent more time in the kitchen in the last week than I have in the last year.  It’s just so much nicer than it was before and I’m deeply, madly, passionately in love with this little corner of it.

There are shelves and doors for the left hand open space and an end cover piece for that light coloured bit on the right.  The entire thing is something like 6 feet by 5.5 feet.  We’re prolly going to cut it down to about 5.5 by 5.5 feet.  That seems somewhat more logical for a household of two people!  That way we can seat 6 comfortably.  ‘Cause we’re always having dinner parties for 6.  ANYWAY…

We absolutely over planned and over built this entire kitchen.  Story of our lives.  You should see when I make chili.  I could feed a football team.

Okay, I’m going back outside to spin some more.  I have 8 ozs of that fibre and it is calling me and begging to be made into yarn so I can knit it up for something lovely.

I’m a bad person

I forgot to take the late spring blog contest prizes with me to work this morning so I could post them on my lunch.  Mind you, it was so busy I didn’t get lunch anyway.  I’m sorry guys.  I shall remember them tomorrow for sure.  See, they are already in my bag!  This ensure I shall not fail tomorrow.

What else?  Hmm, oh yes, the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers met up yesterday for an afternoon of food (and champagne!),

very cute socks by Mrs. Quimby:

And attempts to nick skeins of yarn the size of, well, about 40 weeks actually:

A wonderful time was had by all.  Everyone brought amazingly yummy food and then we had a wee yarn sale & swap and I came home with a completely different bag of yarn than I took there.  Total win!  The festivities were held at Damselfly’s abode.  A veritable garden of Eden in an urban city.  It was gorgeous and I so want to go and live with her.  I didn’t get picis of her looms & wheels, because I was all gobsmacked with fibrey lust.  It was basically Disneyland for fibre junkies.  I kid you not!

Then when I got home from work today it was a fibre bonanza from Canada Post!  Thank heavens, seeing as today was a dentist day!

Anyway, there was a puffy package waiting for me.  A most spectacular gift from Heather.  We’ve done a couple of fibre trades, dontcha know.    You must check out her spinning!  I don’t know how she does such gorgeous work, particularly considering that she has a wee one on her lap sometimes when she’s doing it!  Look at the pretty she sent me:

Mmmmmmmm!  Finn!  In all the colours of the sunrise!  Heather, how did you know my colours!  LOL.  Thank you so much, I love it, love it, love it!  I sense it becoming something wonderful and firey for winter wear.    It’s from Gnomespun.  I’m so jealous, he’s in her knitting group!  Can you imagine having access to that level of lovely in your knitting group?  We’d be eating mac & cheese every day!  Okay, dinner time, must go.

I knew this day had to come…

I’m 40.  There.  I’ve said it and I’m just going to have to suck it up buttercup.    Actually, it’s been a pretty good day.  This morning I finished my essay and sent it off to be graded.  The mailman brought me this:

click to see notes

And then I went to Toys R Us and got this:

Because secretly I’m five and I love my Nintendo DS and I’m sick of Mario Kart

Had some lunch at Taco del Mar with the spousal unit.  Yummers.  Then on the way home we stopped and picked up this:

Mmmmmm, Treatzza Pizza in the peanut and chocolate fudge flavour.  Hubby got a Skor one.  Whatever, peanut and chocolate fudge is where it’s at.

And I have this all ready to be spun up on my wheel:

Mmmmmm, 4 ozs of BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) in Mahogany from Spunky Eclectic’s fibre club.

Now, it’s 4:30, homework is done, dinner is dealt with (by way of a very late lunch), dessert is in the freezer, sock yarn on the couch, new game for the DS, and some lovely fibre ready for the wheel.  Truly, everyday should be a birthday.  OH!  I just got an email from amazon.ca that my book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has shipped!  Sweet!  It is truly the most perfect of perfect days.

Certified? Why yes I am!

For first aid that is. 

100% on the wee written test and I seemed to excel at telling people in a loud and bossy manner “You!  Call 911, report that we have an unconscious casualty who is not breathing.  Give them our location and then report back to me!”  Oh yes, bossy, bossy, bossy.  It was fabulous.  This weekend I plan to just wander around the city, looking for places where I can put my bossy first aid skills to use.  Snort!

In other news, I did some spinning.  100% Corriedale from Spunky Eclectic’s fibre club.  This is the February 2009 club offering called New Day.  Once I had predrafted it I thought it looked a lot more like Shirley Temples or maybe Tequila Sunrises, for those tea totalers out there.

Then I spun it up and Navajo plied it.  Here is the first 4 ozs ( I have 8 ozs in total):

It’s 85 metres/93 yards.  Not sure what I’ll make out of it or how I’ll spin that second 4 ozs.  I still have to give this a good soak and then I’m sure it’s going to fluff up even more.  Okay, I’m off.  It’s guilty pleasure tv night and that can only mean one thing – Survivor and knitting.  I love Thursdays.  So civilized.

In case you think that all I ever do is ride transit…

Not true!  Sometimes I get some other stuff done too.  Last week I actually wrote my first paper of the semester with a minimum of gnashing of teeth.  We’ll see how that affects my mark. Gnashing of teeth might be what’s needed for me to get a good grade.

I also ordered Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  Can not wait!  I totally blame Heather for this one.  I was just thinking of pre-ordering it but she had already done so and then we were emailing about what other classics would be good with zombies and boom.  I’d pressed the checkout button and it’ll be here soon.  Oh, the other classics?  She’s leaning towards The Great Gatsby and Zombies.  Me?  I’d like to see Hamlet and Zombies or a Midsommer Night’s Dream and Zombies.  Snork!

I also got some spinning done.  Remember this fibre that I got last year at the Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival?

I finally got going on it.  I had two huge hanks of it, 83% IGOR (Island Grown Organic Romney), 17% silk, 250 gms per hank.  I’ve finished spinning up the first hank and it looks a little bit like this:

And now the obligatory photos with the small dog in them:

Now I just have another 250 grams to spin and ply.  No problem!  I’m really happy with it though.  It’s got that shine from the silk.  I ended up with about 422 yards and I must have been doing better at moving the slider on one bobbin than the other because I have almost 1/4 of a bobbin left unplied.  The only thing that sort of bummed me out was there are sections where the indigo barber poled with the gold and it reminds me just a little bit of my grade 7 soccer uniforms.  I can live with it though. 

It’s a festivus miracle!

The snow finally stopped yesterday and it looked a little like this:

That’s 21 inches for those of you keeping track at home.

So much for Lotus Land.  Note small helpful dog under the table.  The snow is about 6 inches taller than she is.  Hilarity ensues when the dogs are in the yard.  She so wants to play like the big dogs but she can only run along behind them where they’ve made a path.  Good times.

Then at about 4:30 am the power went out and the house, she got pretty cold.  Thankfully it came back on about 15 minutes ago and the furnace and the coffeemaker are working to make the day a happier place!

Merry whatever you celebrate everyone.  I’m hitting the couch and knitting/spinning/reading all day long.

White Christmas?

We haz it!

Even the bird house is overwhelmed in wintery goodness.

That little picket fence on the right?  Yeah, that’s the fence around our raised garden which means that there is about 60 cms/24 inches of snow over there.  Hubby and I have both started listening to make sure the roof  of the house isn’t making any creaking/groaning noises.  Our house is 60 years old after all.  She may not be up to all this.  Mind you, I’d probably be even more worried in one of the new monster houses they built down the road.  There was some sketchy building practices going on there.

Time now for some knitting and maybe a little spinning followed closely by a bit of reading.  Mmmmmmm.  I’m totally taking a snow day!