Thursday, November 30, 2006

What have I been up to?

Trying to finish the Hourglass for NaNoSweMo, dyeing and dreaming of sock yarn.

So, this is what I did today:


and here's where we're at now:


Pssst. What you can't tell is that I haven't started the second sleeve yet. But since I was less than a third done the body Monday nigiht when I picked it up, s that's pretty good.

To give my wrists a break, I was dyeing the other day.
Here it the yarn all warped up:

It seriously took me 1.5 hours to get the yarn on the warp board. Crazy.
Here it is steaming:

It's pink, black and purple. But it looks really junky all done.
Since the directions for acid dyes talk about putting the powder "in a pot" and throwing all the yarn in, it doesn't really help if you're trying to make stock and use squirt bottles or paintbrushes. I really have no idea what I am doing.

Help anyone?

How do you mix the dyes into a stock??
I've googled it, I've had a flickrmail response from someone who has tried, but it's still not workin' for me. Parts of the yarn are dark w/ colour, parts are not.
ALso, how do you control the bleeding of the colour??

Back to the sleeve, I will hopefully have a finished sweater to show tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Words escape.....




And hubby claimed dibs on this:

I'm a joiner

So there's a guy who's doing some research to show how meme's travel in blogland.
I don't usually do meme's but I like this idea--of researching how info travels in blogland.
So, some knitters started blogging about it, and now here I'm doing it too.

Here's the deal:
Read this.
Link to this from your own blog.

Ping technorati.

that's all.

and now back to the hourglass. I've actually divided for the yoke and have started one sleeve.
Sigh--yawn and sleeep....

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Frogs and Blobs

That's what's been going on here.
I haven't posted because all my knitting looks the same.

I had to frog some of the R2D2 hat because I made a mistake. Apparently I was only following 2 charts instead of 3 and, whoops. I was going to just keep going, but it looked weird so I frogged it.
So now I have this:


Which looks exactly the same as last time. Truth be told, I haven't worked on it since Thursday night.
That's for the frogs.
Now for the blobs:




this is the hourglass. Hm...kinda looks like this:

Yep, it's at the same spot I was before I frogged it. Which is good, but not if I'm going to finish for NaNoSweMo.

So, in other news, I found this at Walmart:

Ecofill yarn, part cotton, part acrylic. It feels really stringy but they've got great colours.
I picked up the free sweater pattern just to see it.
The weird thing is, according to the pattern, you only need 2 balls of yarn to make the sweater.
So, you can make a cotton sweater for less than $7 ?? Something is weird about that to me.
It would be a nice project for a first sweater. The stitch they used, they are calling a "fantasy stitch".
Anyways.

In the things arriving at our house department, look what we got:

2 love seats, an oversized chair, a side table and a coffee table.
All. For. Free.
There's a thing called Freecycle, that we belong to, and someone was offering them up.
They originally were offering just the loveseats, but were getting new furniture and wanted all of it gone.
It's really pretty, stylish and goes with our old Victorian. Truth be told, it's the nicest set of furniture in our entire house.

That's it for me.
Really. boring. post.

Haven't really been doing much. Cleaning the house, entertaining my MIL for the weekend, boring myself silly w/ this Hourglass knitting.
I actually fell asleep sitting up Sunday night with the row after row of stockinette.

I think I will do some sock dyeing tonight to entertain myself.

Oh, and I have bought some more sock yarn. Must. stop.
I have enough for the rest of my life. But, it was fun money from e-bay sales, so I'm not feeling too guilty.
I got some Socks that Rock, Fleece Artist and some Lime and Violet Etsy sock yarn

That's all...and for now.
the laundry, it calls to me....

Duh: I totally forgot about the best part of the weekend.
Went out for coffee on Saturday morning with a friend who is knitting her first sock. She said she needed help w/ the heel--but she's really doing it all on her own.
She jumped in with both feet and decided to make "2 at a time toe-ups on 1 long circular" (just googol that, you'll get the pattern).
Yep, she's given herself a challenge, and she's done it all on her own.
Anyways, after some good coffee, good conversation and some sock knitting we went to find her daughter at the library and stumbled across a Knitting Group meeting in the kids section of the Library. It was a group of older women, but still fun.
Anyways, that could be a refuge if I needed to go and stitch with someone some-day.
Hubby and I also had a "no knit night".
We haven't done anything together in months. The last time we went to a movie was 18months ago and we haven't gone for dinner in a year...Sad.
anyways, I promised not to knit, we got some good burgers and a movie.
the Sentinel" I like Kiefer Sutherland (LOVE 24) and it was pretty good.
The ending was a bit of a let-down. It felt like it was just getting started and then it was over.
If you get the DVD, watch the deleted scenes, there's a REALLY cheesy scene with Kim Basinger's character telling a story about her childhood that was so lame I actually laughed outloud.

So, that was really my weekend. Knitting, coffee, knit group, good burger, movie and time with hubby.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

I can see clearly, now the smudge is gone....

*Must sing that line*

Yep, eye is better.
Not 100% but better and it doesn't hurt anymore.
who'd-a-thunk-it? That an eye could hurt like that?
It's also hard to recover an injured eye, w/out sleeping. Chasing little people around, making forts, pulling babies off of tables and finding lost leggo does not fix an eye.
SO, after dinner last night (I actually made roast with potatoes and carrots--surprisingly easy--just throw it all in and turn on)--I tried to listen to some TV. Bad choice. Little man jumped on my rib cage and yelled "Giddy-up!".
So, I went upstairs to listen to some podcasts and fell asleep at about 7:30pm!
apparently I was tired.

Anyways, the monkey that started it all:

He's a cutie-- but a monkey none the less.

There have been more packages arrive at the house. I feel weird taking pictures of mail, but how else to show off the sock yarn I have been stockpiling


first a knitpicks order-which contained the dye I ordered and some knit picks needles. I have only knit on them for about an hour-and I LOVE them. Almost as good as Addi's.

The Redwood forest sock yarn doesn't yield a good picture, but it's gorgeous.
The Pink stuff is some free yarn I got off a blog. Someone decided she didn't like pink and Princess B was actually at the computer saying "OOOH pink yarn"--the lady was giving it away, and now it's in my house. Princess B saw it yesterday and said "Can you make me a dress". Um, no but how about some socks?

Some Cherry Tree Hill that I got for DIRT cheap on e-bay.

knitting Without Tears book from Destash

I think that's it for mail call.

At one point I actually said "I have no idea what's in this package" when the mail kept showing up.
But, since I sold a bunch of stuff on e-bay, this is not money that is taking away from, y'know feeding the kids, paying the hydro bill.

This stuff I'm really excited about:

There was a LYS owner who died suddenly in March. I had only bought 1 skein of her hand-dyed which I used for Sockapalooza here:

Her friends got together and re-opened her store, calling it a "collective".

WOW!
They space they have is amazing, they have all of what's left of her handpainted stuff (sock yarn and mohair). They've invested in some new stuff (Noro, Euroflax LInen and others) and are really trying to make a go of it. Amy told me about where to find it, and when I was Christmas shopping on Monday I popped in at the end of the day.

Need to say: I LOVE MY HUBBY!

Monday, I slept in (as I had been up until 3am knitting on Christmas gifts).

I woke up to a clean kitchen, toys picked up, dishes done, stove scrubbed (?). He took the kids to get the mail, went to the Library and stumbled upon a playgroup so he stayed. He took them to a play group!!
Came home with lunch and then said "No problem" when I said I wanted/needed to go Christmas shopping to catch some sales and be done with our lists.

I need to publicly blog my appreciation.

And, with that, and as I can hear that the little monkey might actually be sleeping, I will go and test the eye with some knitting.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

No knitty, no posty

i have stuff to share, but can't right now.
Little Man poked me in the eye this morning and according to the hospital, he scratched my cornea.
So, i can't see straight and it hurts to blink.
maybe tomorrow....

Friday, November 17, 2006

More sunshine

Well, not real sunshine, that would be silly.

More mail call--wohoo!

Lookie at what came to my house!

Yeah--I can finally do some dyeing with my warp board.

Silly Canadian customs people. They charged me $10, for the priviledge of having yarn brought into this country.... They didn't open the package and apparently didn't really read the label either.

LOOK WHAT THEY WROTE:

ha ha ha.

Okay, so I did some more spinning last night, and it was so fun.

I did a bit better, but i think i have too much twist. The spindle barely spins before it's trying to reverse itself. I can't even pinch and draft because it's going too fast.

but it looks pretty cool, i think considering i have no idea what I'm doing.

My first attempt apparently wanted to go back to roving because all the twist came out.

i spun it again and it's not too bad either.

I think I'd like to call up the local guild and see if i could go once to get a lesson.

That would be fun!!

Either that or invite one of you nice readers to come to the great white north to teach me!

The home of Mission Falls Yarn is about 20 minutes from here..Not that I know where Mags lives, but still. Any takers?

Oh, and this is for the Giving Flower:


The colours aren't exactly true, but it's pretty close. This is for the Ribbi Cardi that we both are doing.....

Thursday, November 16, 2006

A day without mail is like a day without sunshine

Oh happy day.
Look what I got...

and there's still more to come.

This is both of my Elann orders (Christmas gift yarn and Ribbi Cardi Yarn)

and some sock yarn

from this Etsy seller.

I like it, I call it the Kermit Yarn. She called it "Down by the banks".

I also did some spinning:

This is a Babe Spindle that I bought off of E-bay. I read the directions and tried before but didn't really get anything but thick tangled nubbies (is that a word?).

I still have think and thin nubbies, but it's better. The roving is not very soft, so I'm thinking I needed to do more w/ it before trying to spin. I did pull it apart a bit, but then it just broke off into pieces, which were harder to spin back in.

I found this site, and this one, with more directions.
The video is cool and she makes it look so easy. My spindle is apparenltly 2.2 oz but it feels so light.

Anyways, I"m thinking I want to get some roving and practice.

I just heard about a woman who spins--angora and wool and has all these skeins of yarn and is just now learning to knit.
I can't imagine being surrounded by gorgeous fibres and not being able to do anything with it!

Anyways, any spinning tips would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Stuff stuff stuff

First of all it's 10:46 am and both kids are sleeping. Has this EVER happened to me before??Nope!
Princess B is sleeping in as she's still sick and Little Man has gone down for his morning nap.

Thanks for all your thoughts and get well wishes.
I had her back at the hospital Monday night as despite the cold water baths and Tyelnol/Motrin combo every 4 hours her temp still jumped back up to 103.
The 2nd DR we saw just bit the bullet and prescribed Penicillin for strep, even though we don't have the results back yet
(My sister works in a Pediatricians office and was surprised we don't have a 6 minute test..yeah apparently here it's like a 48 her test...But we've been waiting since Sunday with no results).
So, she's sick of taking medication and she keeps getting all hot and sick in the night still.

Anyways.

I totally forgot to post about how bad I was in buying yarn lately.
Elann, Knit-picks, Lisa Souza.
First of all, most of it is for Christmas presents. (I didn't' even buy any Lisa Souza yarn for me...what was I thinking?)
I did take some money earned and "invested" in buying more dyes and bare yarns for handpainting sock yarn.

For Christmas:
I bought some yarn from
Elann to make Caroline's R2D2 hat for my nephew.
I bought some cashmere to make a cowl for my MIL.
I will be making another
Charlie's Cap for my other nephew.
I will make at least 1
booga bag and might design another purse for some women on my list.

That's not too much.
Oh, and a pink kitty-eared hat for Princess B and maybe something for Little man.
But, none of the yarn has arrived yet, so I'm still working on the hourglass.

And yarn for me:
I finally ordered yarn to make the Ribbi Cardi, that I have been wanting to make for a year.
Lolly of
The Giving Flower gave me the push I needed.
She started one of her own and "enabled" me start one too.
I originally wanted these colours:
Coffee Bean Celadon


but since they didn't have any, and I haven't received ANY e-mail updates that they've ordered more, I went with these colours:
Nutmeg Heather Celery

I think it's going to be purdy....

I will save that knitting until Christmas though.

But for now...I'm off to do some quiet knitting.....quiet......


Edited to add: OH MY WORD, PippiKneeSocks just left a comment on the blog.
That Pippi. The one who makes gorgeous hand-spun.
Wow.
Hi Pippi!

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Socks, Sickness and Stockinette

I can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday. Well, Wednesday was a big day.
There has been much and not much going on around here.

I finished one Embossed Leaf Sock. And I love it!

All except for the cast on edge. It's waaaaaaayyyy too tight.
Has anyone else had this problem? It takes me literally 2 minutes to put my foot in.

This evening I am picking apart the ribbing so I can make it stretch.

I love this pattern, It actually wasn't too hard for me..Which is cool since it's my first lace.
I love the toe:


On to the sickness. Princess B has been sick since Friday. I was watching friends' kids for the day and when they left I convinced her to lay down to watch a movie. She woke up so hot that she was glowing red and basically spent the next 2 days on the couch like this:



Little man thought he'd join the party:


So, today since her fever was still 103F I took her to the Hospital. I thought I would feel better.
Upon getting to the exam room the Nurse says "The Dr wants you to strip her down and put cold cloths on her so she doesn't start having seizures".
WHAT?
Apparently her temperature was above 103 and they were concerned.
Okay, so we sat there for about 1/2 hour with her shivering and wanting to go home.
The Dr comes in, very nice, checks her out--does a throat swab--Comes back in and says:
"Well, I don't THINK it's meningitis"
WHAT???
they think she has a viral infection and strep throat but aren't sure.
Luckily her temperature went down while we were at the hospital and was a nice 97 before bed last night.

So, It's been a lot of movies and quiet times around our place. Not too much knitting either.
The hourglass sweater jumped into the frog pond, and now it's 5 big balls of orange fluffy.
I decided to gamble and go down one size and I knit the fold over hem closed as I went (a new thing for me!) so, I'm hoping it works.
This is the stockinette part--round and round and round of boring stockinette. At least It's mindless and I could watch a movie while doing it.

I'm hoping to get some knitting done tomorrow as hubby is home and I will sit with the sick one. Maybe we will nap together since she's woken me up about every 1/2 hour for three nights now with her breathing, her hallucinations or the heat of her little sick body. Poor baby.

Okay, one more sock picture:

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

I now present...

The Harlot:

Not a bad picture, and LOOK:
I'm holding the sock! And she's holding my sock.
And she's wearing
THE SHAWL!
And she complimented me on my first lace--and my Knitting Olympics Sweater.
And she said I was cool.
And she said that we should have coffee and go to a yarn store, the next time she's in town.
Okay, so she probably says that to everyone, but she still said I was cool--and I got to hold the sock.
She recognized my yarn as being from Spirit Trail right off. Wow, that woman knows her sock yarn.

So a review:
At first there were not a lot of people there and I was worried that she would think that knitters in Kingston didn't love her. The space did fill up and it was a nice crowd.
During quiet moments you could hear the faint "click click" of needles.
She. Is. SO. Funny.
Everybody says it, but it's true. She had us in stitches. (Ha ha pun)
I almost couldn't' knit because I was so enthralled with her speaking and I was so excited that my hands were shaking.
I did knit some and have about 8 rows left to finish the first Embossed Leaf Sock.

Amy was there with her Mom and friend.
Amy was knitting.

Amy met the Harlot.

The Harlot took Amy's picture with her camera--watch for Amy on the blog tomorrow.
(Oh and the sweater? It's Amy's first sweater! Isn't it gorgeous??!!)

I bought the
one book of hers that I didn't own, and had it signed:


Wore my first hand-knit socks.
Drank way too much Starbucks.
Listened to Lime and Violet on the way home.

It was a good night!

(More pictures tomorrow as Blogger just had a fit and won't let me post anymore).

Stephanie, despite what you think and what you tell us--You ARE cool!

I would have coffee and go Yarning with you any day!

Monday, November 06, 2006

Coming soon to a location near me...

Yarn Harlot.

I have no idea where yet, she just dropped that bomb on her website...no details to be found.
my heat actually skipped a beat.
I.
Need.
To.
Go.

Edited to add: Okay I found out where she's going to be. A knit-blog friend told me, and she is going too! (Hi Amy!)

Oh, and SHE e-mailed me. The. Harlot. E-mailed. me.

Did you catch that third line: "Can't wait to meet you"
What??
Yeah, I'm all twirly giggly now...can't wait until Wednesday.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Happy Yarning to me

Sooo....the Rosehaven Farm Store has moved into a new location in town.
Which is now right across from an awesome coffee place and close enough for me to walk!
I have been wondering when the store would open and now it's here!

She opened today at 11am and hubby said at 11:10--"you'd better get going, she's been open for 10 minutes already"
Yeah!! Yarning!
Here's me playing with silk:

So, I was really good and only bought 2 things--Some Koigu (she has a wall of Koigu) and some Eucelan.

This is destined to be Pomotomus' (Pomotomi?)

I accidentally shrunk a wool-ish sweater this week, so I'm thinking it's time to start treating my sweaters properly. I've only knit 2 sweaters none of them are wool, but since I am making the Hourglass Sweater this month and I want to learn Fair Isle, it's time...

I was in yarn overload. I think I am going to go back and get some Cashmere something for my MIL for a Christmas cowl or something.

She's got everything...yarns I have only ever read about online and have never seen before.
Malabrigo, Manos, Araucania, Debbie Bliss, Rowan, Collinette, Sublime, Fleece Artist (REALLY cool felted bag kits).
she has some cool needles coming later... some Swing Needles from River John

She wants to have a little sitting area for reading magazines (and quiet knitting). She also has a whole area downstairs for workshops.

It's cool that every once in a while I run across something that I know. I think Lime and Violet mentioned Studioloo once, and I actually met Cindy Cole the first time I went to Rosehaven.
she was teaching a spinning class and invited me in to see the art yarns they were making.
Fun.
She won't sell any spinning wheels as there is another local seller that does, but she will still have workshops.
Sigh--I love yarn.

I took some money earned recently and "invested" in buying some Kona Superwash for dyeing. I am contemplating buying more dye so I can see if I can actually make some more cool dyed yarn!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

What?

Someone just found my blog by googling "pretty fat" "Ann-Marie".
I've not had THAT much Halloween candy!!

That made me laugh and since it's taken me all of two days to do the Halloween post, laughing at google seaches was just what I needed.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Socktoberfest reflections

It's been a great month full of socks!! (What could be better).
(Blogger ate my first post, so bear with me if this is rambly, it made sense before)

Here's a picture I took for The Giving Flowers blog contest:
Socktoberfest
It's a picture of the the socks I've made for me and received in the past year.

Let's review the month:
Completed socks: 1
Designs:1
Socks on the needles: 3
Pretty good.
I learned about writing up designs and how to do a turkish cast on (I love it!)
I learned to cable w/out a cable needle and how to knit lace socks.

This is the Embossed Leaves sock as of last night:

2 nights on it and it's farther along than I ever got on Pomotomus.

Here are the socks in progress right now:


And in the spirit of Halloween:
Orange hair!!!

And some shoes! I was talking with a friend on Sunday and mentioned that I need some new black shoes. She said she had some and said something about "Mary Janes". WHAT?
I have been googling Mary Janes for about 3 weeks to find shoes to show off my socks!

Aren't they cute! I love them!


Moving on to some gratuitous kid pictures:

Little Man looks a little dopey, but it was the only time he was still all night--all the other picture are blurry)

We went to a church Drop in Centre Party--and it was pretty fun. Friends of ours invited us and if we all weren't there there would have been more staff than kids!
They did pumpkin carving, pinatas, free food, desserts and a full bag of candy for each kid!

Little Candy-Corn actually kept his costume on the whole night and "Queen B" had fun in her outfit.
We went to St Arbucks afterwards for grown up trick or treats and then to the mall. Our mall gives out candy all day long! By the time we got there most places were done but she got a few handfuls. We have a new Ben & Jerry's and they gave a plastic glove full of Gummy-Bears.

Anyways, Socktoberfest has been fun, I've enjoyed seeing all the pictures in the Flickr gallery, I've learned some new things and reviewed my love of socks.
I never had handknit socks until a couple of years ago, but I always loved ugly socks. Not sure why but mustard yellow, bright orange, purple, striped whatever--loved them.
I had to stop when I became "grown up" at work. I remember being at a clients house once, and took off my shoes and had bright purple striped socks--not easy to be the Professional when you have dorky socks on.

My plan for November is to begin the Christmas knitting with some socks still thrown in there.
I need to finish the Hourglass Sweater also.
So...since I'm a joiner, I just joined:

Hosted by: Knitgrrl

And look what hubby made me:

My very own warping board. Now I can pretend I'm Scout and try to make yummy yarn.
Seriously, have you SEEN her yarn? Gorgeous stuff!

Any more knitting things I can get him to make while he's still interested?
Can you make a spinning wheel?