Friday, June 30, 2006

orange alert

it's a long forgotten project.
it the dropped stitch tank from lionbrand that i started about 3 summers ago.
the pattern had a mistake in it (at the time) and since that affected how the dropped stitches were dropped and that i couldn't bear to frog it and knit the whole boring stockinette stich thing again, it's been sitting in a pile.
the yarn is just some cheap cotton really-big-bag-for-nothing, yarn.
my sister made the same tank in the same yarn, only in purple.
i pulled it out and thought "how hard could this be?"
i've been reading some back posts of the harlot's and since she had a think for tanks, it got me thinking it might actually wear this.
so what did i do first? took the tank outside for a photo shoot.

again, princess b wanted her feet in the picture


here's a picture that shows the skinny-ness (word??) of the front strap.

this doesn't look like a strap to me, more like a big orange snake or slimey the worm.
by the way--have you seen annypurls slimey??
isn't it awesome???!!!!

back to the tank: so far i have picked up and knit the ribbing bands on the front and back.
now,i just have to figure out what on earth is wrong with the strap.
if there is a mistake, then i am done. see--you have to drop the stitched as you bind of the neck edge. if there is a mistake with finishing the strap then i have to rip back all the neck shaping but i can't get the dropped stitched back...i can't even fathom having to pick them up with a crochet hook...aaah.

oh well--we'll see what happens.
but on another note: i'm sooooo excited.
i am getting my first knitpicks order!! i had the stuff sent to my sister as she lives in the states and would qualify for free shipping!!!
she's coming today and i hope the stuff gets there in time. i have been stalking the UPS tracker code and it might just make it.
i bought some andean silk to make the hourglass sweater. i could not justify buying the noro cash iroha--with the cost of the yarn i've seen lately, it would cost me $150 to make it.
since i am always the one spilling stuff on myself, $150 is way too much.
i also ordered the mason-dixon knitting book as i couldn't resist. i've been fascinated by all the dishcloths being knit over on the KAL site.

since my family is coming for the weekend, i might not be posting anything for a while. my sister is 15 minutes staying at the camp and my dad/step-mom/step-sister will be here for the weekend.
the evening service are prime knitting time though!! 2 hours with no kids! wohoo!!!

tomorrow is canada day and we hope to get to the kids carnival in town. hubby is in hot-dog eating contest to raise money for the $500,000 sk8park that is coming to town. he's the president of the committee--so he 'gets to" do all of these event.
last year was gross--to watch grown men scarf down as many hot-dogs as they can eat in 10 minutes--dipping the hotdogs in water to soften the bread...yucky..

anyways. this was a big post, and that was a lot of links. are you still here??
i am learning that there are some people reading!!
hello people!!
more later....

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

nothing to see here...

yes, yet again i am destined to unravel knots in my yarn.
my lovely kool-aid yarn---i wrapped it so carefully. i held it ever so gently...i didn't fiddle with it.
i even looped spare yarn around it so if i set it down to tend to the children it wouldn't get wrecked.
but still---BIG tangles.
i spent the last 2 hours unravelling enough to do about 10 turns of the ball winder...
sigh---it is my destiny.
maybe i should just have a professional ball winder....i remember "the harlot" blogging about having a "yarn boy" for the cover of her book shoot...(side note: i have recently gone back to read the original posts of the harlot's blog--spent two nights reading the first 3 months of posts. all i can say is---WOW she's funny...just crazy funny)

anyways, yarn boy...
nice...
someone to fetch coffee, wind yarn, tend to the screaming children that need tending too (we have a 3 y/old who hasn't had a good nights sleep in a couple of weeks and a 14 month old who is getting 5 teeth--yes i said 5.....4 molars and an eye tooth..makes me want to cry...can Mommy take the tempra too???)
i will show you something so that you all dont' die of boredom or remove me from your blog roll..
wait, does anyone have me on a blog roll??
i know one person does...if you're reading this and you live in the same hometown that produced avril lavigne --HELLO!!!!

okay so pictures--i also recently read that the harlot likes to take pictures of her yarn in and amongst her flowers etc, which makes the neighbours think she's even more of a nut.

my neighbourhood is kinda strange--we've lived here 3 years and i've seen the woman next door 1 time--not even met her, just seen her.
i met the nice ladies on the other side one day when the dog locked me out of the house (yes, it's true--try explaining that to the locksmith).
so my neighbour across the street is the lawyer that helped us buy our house--seen her about 5 times and the other neighbours...
well let's just say there's a 40-ish year old man who for some reason (insert various drugs here) has many many teenagers who like to hang around his house. i'm not yet sure who actually lives there as the tenants seem to change almost weekly.
i do know that there are many cars that "stop-by" for a few minutes at all hours of the day and night...my favourite times are when the 17-ish boy screams really horrible names at his little 14-ish year old g/friend at 3 am.

so, basically i could shear a sheep on my front lawn and no-one who is sober would be around to witness it...
so on friday i did this:

princess b ate a popsicle and stared at me quizzically. she wanted her feet in the picture.
i had a friend drop by and was trying to briefly explain "kool aid yarn" and the need to photograph it in good light...
the response was "okay"

oh well....
this is my yarn:


this is my yarn on my dutchman's pipe:

(which would be a different pipe than my neighbours have)

i can't stop with the drug jokes, i just can't. i thought at first maybe it was mean, like maybe i had horribly misjudged them and i should bring over muffins or something...but then after i had it somewhat confirmed that it was a drug house..i just can't help but say "a-ha, i knew it!!"

yeah, so that's about the longest non-knitting related rant i have ever posted.
most of the time i dont' post if i am feeling guilty for not having accomplished anything.
it's just been too hot to do anything and while having untangelled so much yarn might make me feel great when it's all over who really wants to see a picture of a wound up ball of yarn???

wendy has created some utterly amazing fair isle sweater in the time it has taken me to play with kool-aid and unravel some knots.

i'm wound up---i need to go to sleep. i started this post while waiting up for hubby as he is away
"working' at Canada's Wonderland with his teens (he is a Youth Pastor)..well i guess it is work.
when you get up at 5:30am to drive 3 hours with about 80 teenagers, that is work.
now that i am boring myself with this post..i will go...

Friday, June 23, 2006

yummy yarn

okay...here it is:
finally my kool-aid dying adventure!
i started this at 10:30 or so last night.
i wound and wound for a while (since my yarn got tangled i rolled it into balls, but they aren't the same size, so i just did 60 repeats and hope it was good):

unrolling the balls was actually fun. it just ran through my fingers rather than having to unwind a hank (finally something easy!!!)
action shot:

then i measured the thirds--as i had three colours. i was going to do 4, but realized that the ch-ch-changing cherry meant green (!!) not pink.
after the math, i took a snack break:

then i did some rinsing while i prepared the colours:


the yellow wasn't very bright, but they didn't have yellow kool-aid so i used crystal lite--which might have sugar in it.


i nuked it for 2 minutes checked it and repeated a few times. i ended up microwaving for 8 minutes total. then i hung it and gently squeezed the water out.



i remembered not to put any cold water on it, for fear of felting. after it had cooled, i rinsed and put it back on the chairs to dry.

this morning i started to wind it into a skein (the oldfashioned way, on my arm) but didn't get a chance to finish yet.

here's what i have:

sorry about the crappy picture.

i will skein it properly and then have a photo session outside to admire all the pretty colours.
the orange is brighter/darker than i thought it would be and the yellow is not dark enough..but for a first try, i'm pretty happy.
i soooo could get obsessed with this...

i just love the smell of kool-aid in the morning.

can anyone guess what that is a take-off of?? a really, really, bad mixed up quote?

okay--there will be pictures posted here..later.
we have a dr's appointment for little man this morning...but there will be happy, exciting pictures.
i stayed up way to late, and did some:
winding, measuring, rinsing, dunking, microwaving, rinsing and drying.
did you guess??
i'll give you a hint...

you'll have to see later...

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

30 things about me:

Saw this over at Kerri's blog (scroll down to june 09th) and since i'm never sure if anyone reads this but me (sad) i don't get tagged for meme's so I tagged myself (even more sad).

30 things about me:
  1. I Love to start my day with coffee.
  2. I would love to start my day with lots of coffee but have been caffeine-phobic since being pregnant.
  3. I don’t like breakfast but force myself to eat it.
  4. I go by my middle name. (It’s a family thing—my Mom and sister too)
  5. I love getting my hair cut (I’d do it every day if I could)
  6. I love orange.
  7. I once wore orange for 42 days in a row in college (different items of clothing).
  8. I love ugly socks (mustard yellow, weird green, elfish stripes, bright orange)
  9. Wool makes me itch, but I’m trying to get used to it.
  10. I love to garden but I’m not very good at it.
  11. I love to read, but don’t get much time. (too much knitting)
  12. I have been knitting since I was 5 but only recently have become re-obsessed with it.
  13. I get obsessed about a lot of things (guitar, sewing, gardening)
  14. I love movies and would stay up way too late every night to watch them.
  15. My little girl looks just like me as a kid.
  16. My little boy has the curly hair.
  17. I like to cook/bake.
  18. I hate cleaning up.
  19. I like to sing.
  20. I like to sing silly songs with my kids and my sister
  21. I miss my Mom.
  22. I quit my job last month to stay home with my kids.
  23. I used to be shy and sometimes I still think I am.
  24. I was a loud-mouth one day, and that’s how I met my husband
  25. I can say the alphabet backwards in about 5 seconds (I just timed myself)
  26. I have dyed my hair weird colours (white blonde, orange-ish, stop-light red, purple)
  27. I have taught myself HTML in order to do this blog.
  28. I am going to Kenya in 3 weeks, a life-long dream.
  29. I have a house with a pool.
  30. and I have a dog.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

I went!

I finally went to rosehaven farms!!!


I decided to just go with the kids and fondle the yarn.
the owner wasn't when we first got there but they were having a spinning class and we got to see them spin novelty yarns. princess b got a kick out of seeing them "make yarn".
she was cute, we walked in the yarn shop and she says "What's that smell". It smelled like wool...nice earthy smell-so I said "it' smells like yarn".

I got to see yarn that I have only ever read about and not ever seen before: rowan, noro: (cash iroha which I might but to make the hourglass sweater), kureyon, silk garden, malabrigo, manos, fleece artist, debbie bliss and on and on.
and the coolest thing?
we got to meet the ram that "donated" the fleece used by the toronto spiders in the back to back wool challenge!
I had read about it on
wannietta's blog.

the owner is a hoot!


she showed us all around, showed us the barn and talked about the property a bit. it's up for sale but she wants to keep the yarn store and move into town (closer to me!! ha ha).
I will go back--I just was overwhelmed with all the stuff I have never seen before.

so this is all I bought:

and closer:


oooh I love it!!!

I need to do some research on my patterns and see what I else I should make. I still have that birthday money that is burning a hole in my pocket.

I also may buy some lamb cuts which kinda feels wrong...but I want to try everything.

this is also the place that will have mags kandis of mission falls fame there (oh yes, I said there) for a workshop in the fall..I might need to go.
she also said she can order special colours of things, or get some rowan denim if I want...

i her

Friday, June 16, 2006

some progress..

i won't bore you with a picture of a ball of yarn (um, yeah that sounds weird on a knitting blog)--but i have made progress on untangling the hanks. i am almost finished the second one, so i should be able to dye tonight..
princess b has been very patient just asking every day if she can "do something special" with me.
we bought more pink kool aid, and since it's strawberry kiwi, it might actually be pink not red.
we'll see.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

bad murphys law....

as i don't believe in karma..it's just my luck.
i started to wind the yarn around some chairs as i have seen in a few tutorials.
i get 2 loops around and of, course....wait for it:
my yarn is in knots.

what are the odds that i get knotted yarn with every ball i touch. i held the hank gently, i didn't play with it, nothing!!!
i started the one, got 2 loops around saw the knots and went directly to the other hank....
same problem.

what do i do now??? any thoughts???
i have a ball winder but not a swift...
i will either have to wrap the whole thing into a ball then back around the chairs or....what???
i don't know what else.
i don't want to cut it, as it seems the layers of yarn just wrap around eachother in the hank....

argggghhhh.
i so wanted to dye yarn tonight..instead i see myself spending more hours unravelling knots.
like so many times before.

sniff sniff.

knitting, no pictures

I have been knitting and working on the toe-up baby jays all weekend but their not finished yet.
I had some tangles (what would my knitting be w/out tangles) and some frogging to do.
I found a slight mistake in the pattern (I think) and I didn't get the proper increases.
I also made the foot too long before starting the heel. little man was sleeping but I know that his foot was not THAT big.
I also tried doing 2 at once, but that didn't work so well.
anyways...I have finally caught my groove, figured out what to do, I just need measure little man's feet and I keep forgetting to do that.
I also received my dye-your-own-superwash-merino from stick-chick.
I have never dyed anything before so I am very excited.
princess b is excited too--she REALLY wants to help. she even picked out some pink kool-aid (cherry) as she wants to dye some too!
(I don't know who is more excited, me or her! we were going to do it today, but since there were some bedtime-discipline issues, we have to wait until we have "obeyed")
I really want to rip into it now...but I will wait.

Friday, June 09, 2006

by the way whoever you are in calgary that has visited me like 100 times...hello!!!
i am always interested to see who is out there.
drop me a line!!!

updates and the blahs...

r
i've finished my ankle socks a la alison, in fact i've been wearing them almost every day.
i like them alot!
if i made them again i think i'd make them a bit taller..maybe do a toe up pattern.
i have a little ball left over, but not enough to do anything with.

i started some
toe-up baby jays (baby jaywalkers) for little man. i got one half finished last night during a movie and was thinking they'd be way too big, but then remembered how fat his feet are.
they are cute and i can't wait to get them finished!!

tomorrow is
world wide knit in public day and i might have an opportunity to KIP.
hubby has his
annual sk8boarding competition tomorrow and will be gone all day but i've already warmed him up to the idea of me sneaking out at 7am to Tim's to sit and have coffee and knit a sock.

it's about all i can do.
that's it for me for now...

i haven't done much this week. i think it's the weather. the constant rain just makes me want to sleep and right now i am not anxiously awaiting another knitting project...the blahs have set in.

we did some work in the garden and then it turned into more work.
i was about to put my vegetables in and wondered why i kept striking rock. i thought there was something weird last year but didn't investigate enough.
apparently there are large cement slab sections under our garden in the middle of the yard?
i asked hubby if they were some foundation for the shed or the pool..but he doesn't think so.
luckily they were in such a place that we dug them into walkways!
here is hub and princess B "helping"


more sock progress tomorrow.....

Friday, June 02, 2006

There has been knitting...

There just hasn't been any posting about it.
I have been finishing off alison's ankle socks with my koigu. I have one done and the other I've started twice.
silly me wanted to try something new, but then realized you shouldn't switch patterns between the socks...They're supposed to match, silly.
I guess I will have to buy more koigu to try something new!!!
I still have to get to that shop...My sister and I tried on the weekend but she was not there.
it's so much more fun to go to a yarn store with someone who actually knits.
don't 'cha think?
hubby wouldn't appreciate the amazing colours of koigu, or the yarns that I've only ever read about and never seen.
the kids would just be wrangy and then I couldn't enjoy myself...