Well, I could post pictures of what I've been up to, and all that Jazz, but then we'd be here for a really long time, and that would kind of suck, so instead, I'm going to blog about what I want to knit and how I want to knit in 2009.

My first goal for 2009 is to pretty much go on a stash diet. I'm not going to commit to not buying any yarn for 2009 because well, that will never work, but my first goal is to knit from my stash until it is manageable again. I bought so much yarn that I love, and every time I go into my stash to find something to knit I fall in love with it again and again and remember all of the things I was going to knit from it, that really I just end up sad because I want to cast on like 50 things at a time. So, to keep that from getting worse, the first rule is for now, other than the one sock yarn club I am in (4x a year) I am knitting from my stash.

The second goal is to knit more socks, or at least more things out of sock yarn, be it scarves, shawls, socks, baby clothes, whatever. I have insane amounts of sock yarn and I want to see it used and worn and appreciated.

Third goal, play with colourwork more. I am thrilled with how Leah's gloves have turned out and I totally want to knit me a few pairs of mittens. I may end up having to give some away because really, how many pair of mittens can I wear at once? Or go through in one winter? But I really want to play with it because it is fun.

Fourth goal, finish a sweater. I have yarn for 3 sweaters, have one on the needles, and darn it, I'm going to get one knit this year.

And my final goal is to knit with my handspun. I really enjoy spinning it, but sometimes it just sits around waiting for the right project, so I either want to spin with a project in mind, or try a little harder to make enough yarn that I have some choices for what I want to do with it when I am done.

And that's pretty much it. I don't think it's too insane or unmanageable. It's just about being smarter with what I do do :-)

I've been quiet just about everywhere recently, so I think that it might be time to dust off my long suffering and neglected blog and sort of explain a little bit of why.

While I'm sure that summer being over and going back to school played a huge part in the demise of blogging as I knew it, that wasn't really the whole story.

In September, a day or two past labour day my grandmother was admitted into the hospital because she was extremely dizzy. It turned out that the dizziness was caused by a low platelet count, which we after about 3 weeks of having her in the hospital in isolation, found out was from her having leukemia. The type of leukemia that she had was CLL leukemia, which is terminal, and common in Ashkanazi Jews.

That news pretty much stopped the world for me, and most of my energy went into coping, and spending as much time with her as I could. Which meant putting up with my fear of hospitals, and especially infectious disease controls. But the reality when you are dealing with pretty much any illness is that you are helpless to do anything about it, except provide support to the person who is going through it.

For my grandmother I have to say that I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time out of their schedules and their lives and donated blood and platelets. It wasn't a cure for her, and was never going to be, but it gave us time, and kept her healthy enough that for all but the last few days she wasn't suffering.

But being how this is a craft blog and all, I wanted to talk about more than just her dying. Helplessness for me really sucks. Not being able to do anything to help, or fix anything is a feeling that I can't deal with at all. So, I decided to start knitting.

The first thing that I knit was a hat. I guess in my mind cancer always means chemo, and chemo always means losing your hair. And well, it is just shameful to let one's grandmother go out into the world with a naked head. So, my intention was to knit her the Ogre my ogre hat, complete with ogre stalks. Only, I didn't notice that the ogre stalks needed to be crocheted, so I left them off, and this was the finished product.



Then, when that was done, I didn't know what to do with my hands, and that coincided with about the time that I finished the handspun out of the very first roving that I had ever bought.



That was about 500 m of roughly fingering weight handspun. So I decided to knit a shawl for my grandmother.

I don't really know how to talk about my feelings about this shawl. By the time I started knitting it I knew that she was not in a very good place. We were all hopeful that chemo would give her enough time to have one last chance to do whatever it was she still wanted to do in her life. And I had hoped that it would see her get stronger and work on beating the cancer. I think for me a big part of it was also that between school and life and everything I couldn't be at the hospital nearly as much as I wanted to be, and it was my way of keeping her in my thoughts and doing something constructive as much as I could be no matter where I was. The pattern that I picked was the show your colours shawl. A really simple triangular shawl, mostly stockinette stitch, but it had a few eyelet rows in there for variety.

I don't know, people asked me what I wanted to do with it when she did die, and I always knew the answer was that I wanted the shawl for myself. I'm not sure that I could ever explain why to anyone other than that it felt right and was the only thing that I felt like I could have done.

And so, in the first week of November the shawl was finally done. I got it washed and blocked. It turned out huge. I'd actually run out of wool, and had to spin up a little bit more for the last 7 rows. (They were eyelet rows otherwise I would have finished it off before that point). At that point my grandmother had started chemo, and was starting to suffer some pretty bad side effects. She had lost her voice so she couldn't really communicate with anyone, and had no energy to get out of bed. I can't remember why I wasn't in school that day, it might have been the day class was cancelled, but Leah and I went to go visit her in between Leah having to get to work, and me doing something. We brought her the shawl, and despite her barely being able to speak, she said that it was gorgeous and soft, and sat up in bed so that she could wear it.

It was probably the last time that she had the strength to appreciate it. I remember the last time I went to go visit her in the hospital it really sucked, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to go see her because I couldn't really deal with it, but wanted to be there. Her shawl sat on the back of her chair and I wrapped myself up in it as I sat there while mom and zaida tried to take care of her as best they could.

And even now, when I miss her I just have to wrap myself up in it, and it is like she is still here.

I never really understood the whole idea of a prayer shawl before. I never really understood how just the simple act of knitting something can really and truly bring people together, or heal people, or make a difference. And that has changed. I've learned that being there for someone doesn't mean that you have to constantly be by their side, and that you can do something by just being, without having to do something huge and monumental. So, I don't know. I wish I had a picture of her with the shawl, we brought my camera that day, but she wasn't up to it, so the only picture I have is of me with it. But even though I wish I had one with her too, it's somehow okay. Somehow I think that maybe she knew that the shawl was more about me than her. And maybe that's what it always is. That's why we as knitters do these things, to feed our own need to show our love, the strength that we lend, the shoulder to cry on we provide, and the thoughts that we carry with us for someone. All I know is that despite the fact that I got asked by one friend studying fashion why on earth I would knit a shawl when they are so far out of fashion and style, this is one shawl that isn't going anywhere.

I think I have to revisit these for just a little while:



Remember these?
I never did get around to blogging about the back story behind these socks. My Dad is a computer programmer, decently good at what he does, and he works as a contractor. For the past 3-5 years now he left the company that he helped to found, and has been working in the states. This has had its perks over the years, not the least of which meant that things that were available there but not here, we suddenly had fairly easy access to. This led to generally small things coming across the border, the next Harry Potter book, an ultimate frisbee frisbee, ghiradelli brownie mix (no wait... I think I had to get myself to Buffalo for that one, but anyway....) Anyway, it just so worked out that my Dad had an interview in Chicago for a contract position, was going to be there for the whole day and was looking for something to do to kill time. I decided that he could be my by proxy yarn crawler. My sister and I worked together to make him a google-map of Chicago area yarn stores, which we printed and e-mailed to him and sent him off on his merry way.


View Larger Map

See, it is a map of chicago, where I have never been, with no less than 14(!) yarn stores on it. With the interview place located so he could do a proximity and feasibility study of the map given that he would he there and we would not.

He came home from the interview minus yarn (awful weather) but plus a job which meant that opportunities abounded. Finally about 4 weeks later he had to stay a weekend in Chicago and dedicated a Saturday to my cause. The orders were fairly simple, one skein of a unique Chicago sock yarn (or 2 if it took that much yarn) I wanted something that we couldn't get here, maybe a local independent kind of yarn. The yarn that I would bring back with me if I went there. I warned him not to be shocked when it was $20-$25 and that it was worth it. I told him if he got stuck yarn shop owners are a mostly friendly bunch, and that they would think he was worth his weight in gold for buying yarn for his daughter when he was away. I also happened to mention a hint that they Noro Kureyon sock yarn wasn't so much available here yet, and that that would be a squee worthy yarn if there wasn't anything non-commercially produced.

He messaged me while he was away, after he got back from his excursions telling me that he went to not one but two knitting stores for me, and that he had emerged victorious, sock yarn in hand. I believe he even dropped hints that it was indeed the Noro.

Finally he gets back into town, and it is the weekend to go be at his place. I tear into the sock yarn (I have my priorities ;-) ) and though I am incredibly happy with him for bringing me back yarn, I can't help but get a bit confused, out of all of the colours of Noro available (including rainbow, blues, greens, reds, etc.) he brought me back one of 2 colours that I wouldn't have thought to knit with. Browns. It stunned me for about 30 seconds how anyone when faced with the colours of Noro would pick brown, but then I realized his master plan. He never intended to buy sock yarn for me to make socks for me, it was always intended to be his Chicago socks. After all he had gotten his feet soaked going out in the slush to get the yarn, and if it was wool on his feet they would have been warm. So I did the only thing that any good daughter could do and announced that the yarn would indeed be turned into socks for him.

I think there was something on the needles at the time. I may have been good and finished it, I honestly don't remember. I could have just sat down and cast the sucker on. No clue. Yarn amnesia is a powerful thing. Either way, calculations were discussed and the sock was cast on. I realized almost immediately that I hated this yarn. It was super thin, super twisty, clearly a singles yarn, and the fact that I was knitting it on 2.25 mm needles just felt like torture. Time seemed to slow to a crawl knitting them. I pushed onward, I had no choice. These socks were destined for greater things than me.

I don't think there are any pictures of these socks in progress. I for whatever reason managed to underestimate the length of his foot by about an inch and a half despite having made him take measurements, and I started the heel flap WAY too early. I didn't have a pattern for turning the heel so I made one up, I knit on the neverending gusset until I thought I was going to die, and finally finished it listening to the yarn harlot speak at the North York Central Library. I finished the first sock at my dad's house the following weekend, where he proceeded to spend an almost disturbing amount of time walking around in a single sock.

The second sock seemed to go faster. It may have been that I was no longer operating under any kind of delusions about what these socks were, or it may have been that I gave myself a deadline. I wanted them done for father's day. That seemed pretty doable, the foot was getting close to done, I had a week and a bit left.. I was working on them at work. I get to Dad's house and announce my intentions that they are to be a father's day present, and have that met with..... pouting....

Apparently the fact that he was leaving Tuesday was weighing heavy on him, and he desperately wanted to be able to show off handknit socks to his girlfriend when he went to go visit her. And possibly to his colleagues at ITUG. So, I sighed that inner knitter sigh you get when you take on a deadline, said I'd try my best, and that I didn't promise that he wouldn't have to pick them up from me at work on Tuesday before he left. And then I knit. And Knit. and knit. And eventually sometime Sunday afternoon, I finished them. It was a sock in like.... 3 days, it was impressive. At least for me.

So now fast forward to about almost a month ago now, we're over at his house, and he is wearing his socks, and I ask him if he ever takes them off. The answer is no, not except to wash them... See, he is diabetic (happens when you have no pancreas) and poor circulation tends to be par for the course, he has tried no small number of things to keep his feet warm over the past few years with mixed success, but his reason for wearing the socks non-stop is that it is the first time in years that his feet have been warm. I nearly dropped on the floor from the compliment. Imagine it taking wool socks in 30 degree weather to keep your feet warm. Winter is calling for DK alpaca. Or something warmer...

But the upshot is that I told him if he bought me more sock yarn he stood a 50/50 shot of it turning into socks for him. The idea being that he was supposed to bring me 2 skeins of yarn, one for socks for me, and one for socks for him. I thought this was a great stash-building exercise.

Then, I was finalizing a knitpicks order at his house, I was showing him the sock yarns I was going to buy, and somewhere in there I think he understood that these were really good prices for yarn. Somehow, I don't know what happened, I think I commented that he was going to wear out his socks if he wore them all the time like that, and that he really needed more than one pair... And the next thing I know I'm putting sock yarn in my cart for him, and buying it and ya.....




So much for 50/50

Apparently I just don't manage to blog that much. I have no idea where the time goes, but go it does.

I was trying to take pictures of everything before I updated, but that didn't so much end up happening last night, so I'm trading off actually updating for having pictures of quite everything lol.

( Read more... )

I am holding you socks hostage for a ransom.

Here is the picture of your completed socks taken on a backdrop of my bed so you know that it is a real photo and not a fake:



Contact me in order to find out more information, and remember. I can wear your socks too. The next photo will be of me wearing the socks, and once they have graced my feet there will be no going back.

P.S. Your regularly scheduled knitblogging will return shortly. There is no need to contact the authorities.

P.P.S. No socks were harmed physically or mentally in the kidnapping of said socks.

Due to the fact that I can't get anything to upload onto flickr, the promised shawl post will not be occurring tonight.
Unless I get a chance to post and blog at work tomorrow it probably won't happen tomorrow night either since it is Leah's grad tomorrow night and that is going to suck up most of tomorrow...
And me posting at work is dependent on me getting flickr to upload tonight or tomorrow morning after all.
Grrrrr's
One day I'll have internet?

Or in other words... Instead of looking at yarn pr0n all night I should do something somewhat productive and post about things like spinning wheels and what's on my needles at the moment, and why I need someone to podcast with me.

So first off the most exciting news in the world: I finished Dad's socks!!!!
I even have pictures to prove it ;-)



Which, considering that my goal was to have them done by fathers day on the 15th before my Dad told me that he wasn't going to be here from Tuesday until next Friday I think, and oh ya, could I please have the socks finished before then, thank you very much. So, I did what any reasonable knitter would do. I knit the whole weekend and got them done Saturday night at like... 2 am. They are knit using the new Noro sock yarn Kureyon Sock. My advice is I think it is a really cool yarn, just not for socks. The other skein of it I bought in far more "me" colours is going to become a shawl. Which ought to be cool.

I also just finished the heel gusset of the down the garden path socks, so they'll probably be done by the weekend since my supervisor is out of the office for 2 days this week.

Now, onto the news that I know Bexy has been waiting with baited breath for. The spinning wheel that I have painstakingly chosen that is both cost effective and has all the features that I am looking for in a wheel.

Might I present to you:



It is a Babe's Prodution Flyer Wheel It has a double-treadle which I was looking for, more versatile spinning on the lightweight end which since I am looking to spin sock and lace weight, maybe up to worsted sounded like a good thing, that is why it is a flyer wheel as opposed to a german-tension wheel (a flyer wheel is also known as a scotch tension wheel)

And the exciting news is that since my pay is officially caught up as of today... All I have to do is wait for the checks to clear the bank and then I can order it. *YAY* It's made out of PVC mostly instead of wood which is what makes it cheaper than the 500-600 I'd pay for it if it was made out of wood. There are a couple of options that I may eventually explore with this machine. People are saying it is a good basic wheel to spin recreationally and learn how to spin on, and $300 is about what I'm willing to commit to spinning right now. I'm not looking for a $700 Ashford Traditional. I don't know where on earth I'd put it. (Nevermind where I am going to put this upright wheel) I'm going to e-mail them and double-check that they do ship to Canada and stuff.

I'm torn about spending the extra $10 for the black wheel though.... It's black.... and it's only $10... but I thought only apple charged more money for a black product.... *sighs*

Let me know what you think ;-)

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, which invariably means that something will happen and I won't get a chance to post it tonight, but whatever, at least LJ saves drafts now.

I relearned how to knit about 4 years ago. It was about the yarn then. There was some really chunky (We're talking super bulky here people) yarn at the creative festival, that was going to knit up on size 10 000 needles (Seriously, we used dowling) and one hank which was like $10 was going to be enough to make a hat and a scarf said the ball band. And so even though I'd learned how to knit at the age of 7, learned enough to be working on my first sock at the age of 7, got stuck on the purl stitch and needing to know that for the heel flap, and put it down for the next 8 or 9 years of my life.

Now when I picked it up again, I had to relearn everything. To my grandmother's dismay, my preference for continental (that's the one where you throw the yarn right?) was still largely evident, and I still can't figure out what she does with the picking thing. Her family is from Europe and well, I just don't know. It still eludes me but I'm okay with that.

For a long while the purl stitch still was beyond me, I just couldn't figure out what everyone meant when they said it was the opposite of the knit stitch. Yes when you look at it it looks opposite to the knit stitch, but when you are doing it.... you don't do the opposite of what you are doing. At least not how it makes sense to me anyway. Then I finally got it, and this whole world of knitting opened up to me. The first scarf that I made that had both knit and purl in it was like an incredible evolution (understand, this is at this point I would say maybe a year and a half ago). And then I made a lot of scarves. By which I mean... more scarves than I will ever wear. More scarves than my family will wear. So many, I have a bag in my closet of scarves that I will never wear to give away. It is that bad.

Then I wanted a scarf. It was going to be the most bad-ass scarf on the planet. It was going to have a skull and cross bones and be black and white and so punk that it was going to be amazing. I will have to take pictures of this scarf. It is hard to describe otherwise. So first I tried to do stranded knitting. And, that didn't work out so good. I didn't like that there was a front and a back to my scarf, and the floats on the back were too tight and it just didn't hold its shape well. Plus I had done it in stockinette and didn't understand that a knit border would help it hold its shape better so it curled horribly. Horribly. So I did what any responsible knitter would do. I swore a lot, and I frogged it. And I thought... what can I do to make this better. And then double-knitting caught my eye. Up until this point the most complicated thing I had knit was probably a knit 2-purl 2 ribbed scarf. I saw double-knitting and went... oooh I can do that. No floats and it is reversable! SCORE! And I think that is the moment when I discovered fearless knitting.

It was pretty much a project or 2 or maybe 3 after that that I finally got sick of scarves, and ventured into gloves, and then from then on there was pretty much no stopping me, I became a knitting fanatic. But all of this is to give a history really and isn't really the point of this post.

The post is about giving up your status as a newbie knitter and trying on a slightly more experienced hat. I can't consider myself a newbie knitter anymore. I just finished a pair of stockinette socks and went.... *ugh* If I have to knit another pair of those anytime soon..... Now, that may have something to do with the fact that I fought with the Noro the entire time, and had I been knitting with another yarn I wouldn't have felt quite so underwhelmed and bored by the socks, but nonetheless. But lately I've noticed that I can't consider myself a new knitter or even a novice anymore.

I knit socks.
If you knit socks you understand that socks have a grand total of two tricky bits. The heel, and the toe. Neither one are particularly tricky. You need to be able to knit, purl, knit two together, and increase. If you can do all that (or can handle a thumb gusset) you can knit socks. Easily. But every time I hear someone who knits say "Socks scare me" it reminds me that as much as I know they aren't scary, and seek to reassure the anguished knitter, that means that I have an experience that many knitters don't have.

New techniques don't scare me. Manna would probably laugh at me and say that colourwork scares me, but that isn't true. I need more practice with it, but I'm not scared of it. I understand the technique, I just don't have that many hands. And besides, I did those slip-stitch socks, and they were insane colourwork socks.

But It is strange, I see myself teaching people how to knit, and I wonder how it got to that point. I can spend ridiculous amounts of money on yarn (no really.... that list... I could easily double or triple it if it was everything that I wanted not just things that I wanted for specific purposes) and I can convince others that they need to do the same thing.

Recently I was having a bad day at work. It wasn't horrible, just stressful with lots to do and I couldn't concentrate anymore. I work for the government, but since it is a customer service location it is in a mall. So I took a break, left the office, and walked across the mall to the Zellers. Zellers for those of you in the states is a lot like Target, for those of you not in the states or Canada, think low end department store. They have a yarn section. It's all acrylic or cotton, if it isn't Bernat or most of the time red heart or Phentex forget it, and what they do have is ridiculously expensive. But, I walked there just to look and be around the yarn because... well a) it was out of the office, and b)I like yarn. And just those 15 minutes out of the office helped. But, I went to go look at yarn I had no intention of buying, just because I was stressed, which sort of tells me that now that I have begun knitting, and collecting yarn, and amassing a queue that would take me 3 years to knit through (and I don't knit too terribly slowly) as a way of being and identifying more than just a hobby. I show off my hand-knits to anyone who cares, and more people who don't care. I have offered to teach my co-workers to knit, and have done pretty much everything short of forcing them to buy sticks and string to take up the art. (Though I have repeatedly suggested and reminded that the Zellers does indeed carry everything that they'd need....)

But I think the point is that I can magic-loop, I can dpn, I know the difference. I know how soft alpaca is relative to acrylic, what superwash means, why I shouldn't put my hand knit socks in the dryer. Why the Seasilk that is begging to be knit up is amazing. That quivut won't be bought until I have a real income and am not just a student. And somewhere in learning how to knit I became a knitter. And I think I'm okay with that.

*gasp*
Could it be?
I'm posting again, and it hasn't been a month? What is going on here?


The time has come to post the crazy and insane wishlist of what I think I am spending my yarn/other assorted knitting related goods money on this summer.

It will be long, and probably reposted often as I cross things off of the list as money allows.
Unfortunately... I think the list is going to top $1000... The fact that it includes a spinning wheel, probably doesn't help

For now I'm just putting spinning wheel down sort of generically because I am looking to buy one used, maybe take a class or beg fellow Toronto knitters to let me try their wheels to see what they are like. I'm looking to spend hopefully somewhere around $300 - $350 or less depending on exactly how old of a used wheel I can find. I'm seeing some on Craigslist right now for about 150, but they are antique and I'm guessing need a lot of restoration to work, but, who knows, we'll see what happens. At the moment I'm not really spinning because I'm looking forward to spinning with a wheel too much to be spinning with a drop spindle at the moment. So, we shall see.

For the rest I think I am going to link websites and prices and stuff so that I can look at it and decide what I can afford when I can afford it.

The first thing that I really want is the kit to make the Undulating Waves scarf like the Yarn Harlot knit. It is absolutely gorgeous, and is knit out of sock yarn. It is also one of the few yarn purchases on this list, most of it is books and accessories. $44.75 US + Shipping from Earthfaire

The next thing on there is my KnitPicks shopping list.
Having just looked on the site again, I'm surprised, there are a couple of yarns that I wouldn't mind trying, but mostly what I want, is needles, so they are what is making it on this list. *YAY*

The first thing I want is the Harmony Interchangeable Needle Set It is $70, but I think that they are just too cool. They are also so I have heard absolutely incredible for knitting lace because they have a little hole where you put the key in to tighten them, and when you are knitting lace, if you use dental floss, or a really thin thread, you just thread it through the hole, and it is apparently the world's fastest life-line. I think that that is going to save my ass doing Lace, because there is only so much I can TINK, and if I pull it out, that's it, I've lost the whole thing and I'm starting again. So life-lines, and life lines that are easy to put in are the way to go.

I also want to try their wooden sock needle circulars. They are $5.99 a pair (which is actually really cheap for wooden circs, most metal ones are more expensive than that here) and since I'm dreaming, I'm going for 3 pairs of them one in 2.25mm 2.5mm and 2.0mm (I nearly never knit socks on 2.75 mm needles otherwise they'd be on the list too) so altogether that is $18 in circs.

Bringing my knitpicks wishlist up to $$90 before shipping and their tax/duty collection so it would probably be about $110.

Then there is Elann

I'm planning on making my first for-me sweater out of their superwash worsted weight wool. I don't remember how many balls I need and the pattern is at home, but I remember it was going to be about $30 so it would be 11 or 12 balls of yarn I think...

Then there are the books. Don't get me started on the books. My Amazon saved cart is $130 right now. I think I'm only going to list the knitting books though.

Elizabeth Zimmerman -
Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop
Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac

Stephanie Pearl McPhee (AKA The Yarn Harlot)
Free Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again
Never Not Knitting: Page a Day Calendar (I don't know what I'm doing paying full price for a Calendar before January.... I blame the Yarn fumes....)

Janel Laidman-
The Eclectic Sole

And that is my shopping list.
For now...
It is actually better than I thought it would be... It's only about $330 before the spinning wheel. I'm impressed.

There are a couple of other things that I want, like a big ball of cotton to make dishcloths and washcloths out of, in some solid colour, but that is like a $8 buy at Walmart, so not really something I have to plan for, and I do want to play with cotton sock yarns this summer, but I don't think I'm going to order them on their own from a store online, and I didn't see them at Elann or Knitpicks, so I think I'll just check it out at the local shops around here and pick something. But seriously, I could knit from my stash all summer long and be happy. There is only about $80 worth of yarn here..... And that is for a sweater which I've been planning for a long time (so long people are starting to wonder if it is mythical) and a yarn harlot inspired purchase. (We're ignoring the fact that the yarn harlot purchase is the more expensive one... damn me and my taste LOL)

Anyway, next up will be the patterns that I want to knit this summer. Be prepared for a lot of lace and socks. That is the goal. *YAY*

It may just seem like that since it's been so long since I've last posted.

I figured people were going to start worrying that the wool fumes from the frolic finally got to me. LOL.

For a long time I felt like I've achieved nothing knitting-wise, but then I looked back over the pictures of exactly what I've gotten done this month, and resolved that one day I am going to start blogging more regularly so that I don't have to make such long updates.

( cut because I'm nice like that )

2 posts in a week?!
Gasp, what is this world coming to?

It must be the yarn fumes getting to me.

Well, this weekend was the knitter's frolic, and I had been looking forward to it pretty much ever since I found out about it, and the lady from the Needle Emporium told us that it was like the knitting event of the year in Toronto, or at least as close as Toronto comes to a Sheep and Wool festival lol. (Apparently sheep can be involved, but anyway...)

So the plan was, to get there at some point, drop lots of money on yarn-y goodness, and then walk off completely happy with the stash enhancements.

And then..... Manna wanted to do an 8 am Yoga class (boo early Saturday mornings!)

And then..... TTC went on strike (TTC being the public transit system here...)

Which sort of complicated things a little, because well, I hadn't been planning on TTC-ing to the frolic, but I also hadn't been planning on going up to Richmond Hill to go back down to mid Toronto... But it ended up working out for the better because it meant that we got to meet a very cool Richmond Hill knitter, and give her a ride to the Frolic and back, and get to know her while hanging out with her all day.

So, ya, as much as it sucked that lots of people were stranded by the TTC strike (or had to endure insanely long bike rides to get to the Frolic (yes Anna, you get props, and points for being hardcore on that end of things) ) happily it worked out for us.

So, I'm pretty sure people want to see exactly what the damage from the frolic looks like.... And Sadly I didn't take a picture of it all together, so I guess you get to see the individual close ups.

Okay, I think I'm stealing a decent portion of the goods talk from my Ravelry post so if you saw it there it will have information added, but be essentially the same...

( Way picture heavy )

Okay, I think Manna is going to kill me if I don't get around to updating my blog, so, thusly a month of knitting shall be summed up tonight. Actually that likely won't be too hard, I've been too busy with school to do much in the way of knitting.

Well, apparently I've been busier than I thought I was going to be.
I didn't quite realize that it's been about 3 weeks since I've last updated my blog. *Pets blog* I'm sorry I've neglected you, but it's been crazy and insane around here, not that that is much of an excuse.

Apparently while looking over my pictures in flickr I have committed a grievous (no you don't want to know how long it took me WITH spellcheck on to get that spelled correctly) error. There are 2 projects both completed, that do not have finished pictures posted. Which is horrible, and when I have more energy I shall have to fix this. Same as I shall have to put the wool I got today and last week into my puter on ravelry.

So, let us start from the beginning.
First I made Thrums, which I will post a picture of one day when it isn't 2 am, and I don't have to get up for my placement (which I FINALLY get to start *YAY* (30 minutes down 69.5 hours to go ;-) ) tomorrow
They are pretty and warm, and you'll just have to wait to see what they look like.

Then, to compete for the warmth of my body I made an unoriginal hat.
There was only one problem. It was an incredibly fast knit, taking me only about a day, but, I managed to run out of wool with 2 rows left. So in the middle of a snow storm (nothing says knitters are rational, and we needed groceries anyway) I made mom drive me to Walmart to search for more wool only to find out that Walmart doesn't stock Patons.... Ooops. Undeterred I wore my hat proudly anyway.



Needles and all?
I would never...
I mean.... if Aaron hadn't dared me....

I also continued work on my spring had better hurry up and get here because I am SO damn sick of snow socks.

There are WIP picture's somewhere, but I know that you all love the drama so that is what I'll share.

I'm 5 rows left from finishing the sock, the second sock, and I'm still on the first skein of wool, which in knitter speak means I have feet the size of an an extra-large child. (because any adult is supposed to require 2 skeins) but this is how much yarn I had left.



Surprisingly enough, I made it. It was a shock to me too. But, this is what was left over.



Ya, that plastic thing is the lid off a water bottle.
It was one small ball. I don't think it is even a fish worth (for a sock yarn scrap blanket)

And finally,



The finished socks

So now I'm working on a pair of worsted weight socks. Which are 100% alpaca and were supposed to be my second or third pair of socks ever. Instead they are the first pair of socks that I am designing from the ground up.
I will post the pattern for free once I am finished knitting and testing it. But be warned that since it isn't going to be for sale or anything other than to see how many people I can get to use my pattern on ravelry it may not have the clearest instructions ever. Quite frankly I consider the fact that it has a computer generated lace chart something of a miracle at the moment considering that it took me about an hour at school today to get it done right. Of course, finding the somewhat extensive errata for the book of lace patterns didn't hurt too much either.

So, now bearing in mind that I started these socks this morning, and they aren't the only thing I've knit all day, here is what I've got done on them..



See, its about 1/2 way to the heel. Not bad for a day's work lol.

Especially considering how long this took me



And considering that I came home to this in the mail



This is a box full of yarn which are actually the single balls that I ordered as samples for my first sweater. I'm leaning between the alpaca and the superwash worsted just on feel, but, I'm thinking I'm going to go with the superwash. It's easier to care for, and it's half the price. For a first sweater I don't need to spend $4.50 a ball. Which for alpaca is an amazing price, just... My justification for going for the real wool was that I could get it just as cheap as the acrylic, and.... I want my first sweater to be nice, so I'm even *gag* swatching. And washing my swatches to see how they wash up.

Don't believe me?



This is the alpaca all swatched up.

Anyway,

I think that is pretty much all for now.

It's now officially Tuesday the 25th so.... 7 days until April fools which means going to see the yarn harlot speak, and taking part in some inexplicable knitterly behaviour.
For more information as to what the heck that means, check out www.yarnharlot.com you won't regret it.

And, most of the pictures on today's blog are brought to you by my new digital camera. It's a canon powershot a560. It was my birthday present to me. So say hi, because it may or may not become my new best friend. (Sorry camera, the role of significant other has already been taken, but you can be a friend ;-) )

About 24 hours ago, the drop spindle thing clicked.
I don't know what happened, but it clicked, and I'm afraid that there just is no going back now.
I'm still at that part in my spinning career where I have to start and stop the spindle to get control over it, but now that I understand how the drafting while the thing is moving works (I think....) I might get up the courage to try that tomorrow.

This is not doing good things for my ability to get homework done.

I have spun up a good half of the roving that was left over from Thrums (which I will get around to posting about soon, as well as my hat ;-) There are indeed hat stories)

But it's almost 2 am, I have to work tomorrow, and I'm still up reading about spinning on the interweb.
It started because I was trying to figure out what to make out of my first handspun. I'm thinking I'm going to wind it, and see if I have to ply it or not. If I do, it will likely become a hat of some sort.... I should end up with about 100 m or so by the time I am done, and it would be really cool to have made a hat from start to finish. As a single it would make a really uneven pair of socks... It goes from laceweight (possibly cobweb or thread in some parts) to about a heavy fingering in others, but it's pretty consistant for a first time spinner so I'm pretty happy.

I will post all kinds of pictures when I A) stop being lazy with the camera, and B) finish spinning this roving, it's taking me a long time because there is a lot of it, but since I want to make socks eventually and that takes about 300 meters, I should get used to that...

Well apparently since Montreal got it's own shiny and happy post Niagara Falls has been feeling a little bit left out.

There are massive pictures, so for once I'm going to be nice and put it behind a ( cut )

Now,
Clearly no trip to Montreal can go without souvenir yarn store crawling. It just isn't going to happen.
While Leah was at her audition and waiting to do her theory test I abandoned her to go off in search of the best yarn the city had to offer. Okay fine, maybe not the best yarn because clearly I am a student on a limited budget, but good yarn nonetheless.

So first up I hit a yarn shop that unless it is brand new, although I don't think that it is, I must have driven past this summer when we were in Montreal. It was called Mouliné Fils De Qualité. It was a nice store, but definitely catered to a bit more of an upscale older knitter than myself, but they had lots of sock yarn which was really really cool. And though they did had stuff that I had never seen before in person, there was stuff that I had seen on the net, but not the sock yarn I have been really wanted to try (The Noro Kuryeon or however you spell it sock yarn that I can't seem to find anywhere in Toronto, possibly because I haven't looked that hard)..... But, I did find Manna's knitting present there, which Manna, I did take another picture of it tonight for you and hopefully the colours look a bit more accurate than they did in the dark hotel room from my webcam lol

And her present looks something like this......




Thrums!!
Which are really cool knitted gloves that are actually fleecy on the inside, done by a method called thrumming, that I don't know how to do, but had I realized exactly how these gloves worked when I got them for her I would have got me some too, so they are now on the I want list for the Niagara falls area yarn crawl, which is fine, I'm just coveting and jealous lol.

Then, just around (some) corner from this knitting shop (oh caveat, don't ask me to describe how to get to any of the places, Montreal is one of those weird cities where the directions don't make sense, so, ya, I walked there, I got there, I found it, but no matter how many times I am in Montreal I can't figure out what direction anything is in) I managed to find Ariadne. Now that is a cool knitting store, it opened not too long ago, it's still pretty small in terms of stock, but it's a decent sized space that is really comfortable, having people just drop in to sit and knit and chat with one another. I walked in and though the sock yarn called to me saying "We are cherry tree hill and Lorna's laces, buy us, you know you will love us) there was something that caught my eye that I just couldn't quite manage to ignore. What could that have been you ask?
A drop spindle.

Now I have been wanting to learn how to spin for a few weeks now. Not because I think I need another hobby, not because I think that it will make my yarn habit less expensive, but I guess maybe because it is one step towards one of my many goals of having my own sock yarn club one day. And I guess once you get into the idea of making your own clothing, the idea of starting as close to the source of raising that sheep yourself as possible starts to appeal. So, the idea of spinning and I became friends. So I started asking about hints and tricks, and got told that my first few balls of yarn are going to look like something the cat spat up until I get the hang of it, and I somehow ended up with this walking out of the store with me....



I mean.... Ya, it packaged itself up, handed over my bank card for me and bought itself.
That's the story and I'm sticking to it.

So while I was perusing all of the spinning related goodness, I was offered tea, which sounded wonderful to me, and while I drank my tea, I sat down to kit on the dreaded tea time sock the second. Now, I guess I thought that maybe knitting the sock while drinking tea would calm the beast within it a little bit, but I was wrong. Really, really wrong. Leah messaged me that she had finished her theory test and wanted me to go meet her at the school to get back to the hotel (there was an unfortunate incident involving the term day pass and 3 stations in the whole metro carry it during the winter, and that this little fact had completely escaped my mind even though I knew that before) So I packed up my sock which looked much like this



And headed out onto the Montreal streets to get my sister. Later that night when we settled in at the hotel for the night, I pulled out my sock to work on it some more, and realized that I'd left my pattern sitting on the couch in the store where I was sitting and talking and knitting with everyone. Which, didn't work out so good for the sock. So instead (what kind of a knitter would I be if I wasn't prepared for these kinds of eventualities?) I pulled out the cable knit socks and started working on those. In between talking to Manna and Ryan and Dad and even trying to talk to Mom (but failing) on msn and the exhaustion that just kept plaguing me I got about 3 rows done. But I started the cabled part and now they look like more than just cuffs, not a lot more, but slightly



In the midst of all that I sent off an e-mail to Mary at Ariadne asking her if I had indeed left my pattern there and inquiring about whether or not my car would survive if I brought it down for a quick trip to pick it up, and looked up driving directions on google praying that it would not tell me to do something stupid like go the wrong way down a one way street, or make an illegal turn (you don't want to know the fun driving in Montreal is if you haven't experienced it for yourself).

Before we went to bed yesterday night (still awaiting a reply on the fate of the pattern) Leah and I planned out our morning errands, breakfast near the hotel, up to get montreal bagels to bring home, up to visit the last knitting store on my list, we were going to inquire about a cross stitch store for Leah and me that supposedly carried knitting stuff too but didn't have their hours on their website) and how to pick up the pattern should it be there.

So, it turned out that the cross stitch store was closed, but we did make it to the knitting store where I found my long sought after Montreal souvenir socks
Ta Da!!



They are fleece artist socks in colourway 06260 or at least I think that is the colourway, since I don't see any other number anywhere, but that's okay, and the lady in the shop wound it for me which was really cool watching all the colours whirl around on the swift. And they are crazy colours to remind me of the crazy roads and the crazyness that getting there was.



I also got some practice roving so that I don't screw up the really really pretty stuff because of my incompetence. I was nice socks out of it, it is just going to take practice and some really bad looking wool first...

Then we drove back to Ariadne, and hey look



It's a pattern back home, safe and sound

Now, I am dying to try out this spinning thing so off I go lol. Wish me luck, I know I'm going to need it ;-)
Apparently the first few balls of yarn have lumps for artistic reasons ;-)

Sitting at work watching video's of other people knitting (Okay granted it was for the method used, but still!!!) because I am suffering from withdrawl and wish I was knitting at work, is sad and pathetic no matter how you try to justify it.

*YAY*
It's my first real craftblog post
So, since the last post about the unfortunate incident with the January socks, much has happened.

First of all, after a second attempt at my simple self-striping socks (after which I again realized that I do NOT have the feet of an elephant, and thusly should probably really stop trying to cast on 36 stitches for a toe when 30 or 33 will do me just fine) I finally got somewhere.

I have to say that there were 2 funny moments this week revolving around knitting.

The first one was probably the funnier one.
It was Friday morning, I'm sitting in English class, and I'm turning the heels on my socks. We're talking about parts of speech, and diagramming sentences and all of those really fun things that linguists love to talk about but interpreters really could care less about. Really it doesn't matter that it is a noun phrase with 2 nouns and the first noun is really acting more like an adjective so let's call it that even though it really is a noun. Anyway, most of the class is having a lot of trouble understanding this. And so we are going over it in painstaking detail, so while we are taking up work, I pull out the knitting, after all, the heels aren't going to knit themselves, my teacher doesn't mind because I'm actually participating in her class, and well, it's better that I knit than bounce off the walls like I'd do otherwise. So, eventually she hands out the last sheet of the day, I put down the knitting, and Kim and I do the sheet together before she's done handing them out. I pick the knitting back up again. A few minutes later she comes up to Kim and I to ask if we've noticed that she handed out one last sheet for the day, looks down at my desk with the completed sheet sitting on top, looks at me and say, "Just go back to your knitting". Which, clearly, I did.

The other funny moment comes with pictures.
For Valentine's day I got Manna sock yarn. But not just any sock yarn, wonderful colourful self-striping sock yarn in a variety of colourways. Also known as a sampler. Which meant that I spent the days between when it got here and Valentine's day splicing the yarns together to produce 2 identical balls of yarn for monstersocks (to those unfamiliar with the term... monster socks are when you take all the odds and ends of your sock leftovers and turn them into socks all of their very own. Which makes very random, and cool, looking socks).
So, when I gave it to Manna she immediately pulled out the yarn, arranged it like so....
And we both took pictures for the sake of, it was funny....



See... It's happy to see you!!!

The other momentous occasion of the Valentine's day evening was the Alpaca

Namely, Manna had managed to turn a beautiful skein of alpaca that looked much like this



Into this





Note that these pictures were taken after a good 30 minutes of alpaca detangling

Eventually however, sanity prevailed and the beautiful alpaca was left looking like



Now, I was the one who got stuck with the alpaca detangling, but, Manna bought me good hot chocolate out of it, and there is indeed one other secret that I wasn't about to tell Manna. I actually really enjoy detangling yarn. Not enough to tangle it up just so I can take it apart again, but it is a challenge for me, and a puzzle and I like figuring those kinds of things out. So ya, it really wasn't a big deal, other than the fact that I think her and Ryan got impatient and fell asleep while waiting for me to finish it up already.

So then, I got home, and knit more on the socks, and by the end of the night they were looking much like this



And then of course, I didn't have any homework or anything this weekend, that I clearly wasn't ignoring because we have all kinds of stuff due for midterms this week, and that would just be bad so.... Those socks would never have turned into this....



Clearly not.... I would never do that to my school work....

And then, if I were to have finished the socks, I would never then immediately move to cast on the next pair, of course not. You would never imagine that I might go back to further attempt those red socks that had thwarted me the first time....

I mean.....



I have no idea how that happened......

I have succumbed and decided to start a craft journal for myself, separate from my other livejournal (double_agent15) mostly because I talk about things so differently when I'm crafting from when I am talking about my real life, and I use that livejournal as a safe space for me to work out what is going on in my head most of the time, so it's a little weird for me to see all of the random craft posts interspersed in there.

So.... we now have craft blog

Enjoy :-D