2006 Roundup

Tally for 2006: (in no specific order) 1 pair pedicure socks, 1 pair anklets, 3 pairs socks, tivoli, Kyle's cap, Kyle's 'moozhies', Melinda's cap, maryella x 4, sari scarf, baby cable mitts, clapotis, Kitty Pi, felted bowl, felted backpack, fetching. I don't have photos of all of them, but here's a selection for your viewing pleasure: .  Oh yeah, and I finished this hat tonight: Happy New Year everyone! Resolutions go up tomorrow.

Da moment you've been waiting for...

Done!! Da Socks fit Kyle well, now all I have to do is weave in all of the ends by 10 AM tomorrow morning (that's when the Bears game starts). Da Stats: Cast on Dec 1, cast off Dec 30. Knit with 2/3 of a skein of Sweet Sheep sock yarn as the main colour, and about 40g of a skein of Sisu sock yarn as contrast (about 1 g of cat hair got knit into it as well, I think.) A variation of the Sock Wars pattern, using an afterthought heel. Both socks knit at the same time on a 2mm Addi Circ, with Crystal Palace 2 mm bamboo dpns used for the heels. Random thoughts about this project: I love the way that the areas with less dye made secondary stripes. I don't know if that's what Michelle intended, but it looks cool. Once you cast on and get the first 2 rows of knitting done without twisting things, it's really easy to knit 2 socks on one circ. I hate the Sisu yarn; the colour was perfect, but it splits and sheds fuzz and strands of yarn end up being tied together by fuzz knots. Yarn bras would be a very good idea when knitting 2 socks at the same time - especially when using contrast yarn on the heels; there was some macrame action going on with the various strands wrapping around each other. Large feet means that the socks seem like they will never be done; moreso if you are knitting 2 socks at the same time. I can do kitchener stitch perfectly if I hold the needles so they are pointing upwards, rather than horizontally. The afterthought heel is easy, but I should have done decreases every row for the last 6-8 rows to minimize the "corners" on the heels. Grafting with yarn that splits/fuzzes causes grey hair. Did I mention I hate the Sisu yarn? It is possible to warp size 0 addis inadvertently by applying constant pressure to them.

Last Saturday of the year Sky

Da Suspense is killing me!

Socks are now off the circ; I'm waiting for Kyle to wake up so that he can try them on.

New WIP

Da toes of Da Socks just need to be grafted, so I cast on for my new toque last night  It's such a treat to knit with yarn that is soft and thick! I'm loving how the colours are working out - the Malabrigo has more subtle and irregular colour variations than the Mexico does, so I never know what the next row is going to look like.

SP9 Christmas package

Today I went to the post office and picked up my Christmas package from my SP9 - it actually arrived on Friday, but sinc nobody was home, it then went to our local postal outlet to be picked up after 1 PM the next day. Today was the first day that I had a chance to get it (the outlet closes early). So it was like Christmas all over again... ...complete with stocking! There's a scented sachet, some bath salts, some chocolate covered cherries and blueberries, a chocolate bar with candy cane bits, a great blank book, and not one, but 2 knitting books!! My first Elizabeth Zimmerman book! And, what's Christmas without yarn? She handpainted some yarn in some blue-green/teal colours especially for me! And courtesy of an unusually sunny day: Yarn Pron!

So close I can taste it

Da Socks are very close to completion. I cannot believe I married a man with such long toes. And he's got the freakish 2nd-toe-longer-than-the-big-toe-thing-happening, so I have to add an extra little bit of length to accomodate for that.

I'm ready for my closeup...

The film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel The Painted Veil opens tomorrow! I'm very excited, as he is my favourite author. I think that I might even take a trip to Vancouver to see it if it isn't playing in any of the local theatres.

Last day of school

I am about to (temporarily) become a woman of leisure. Today is my last day on call, then tomorrow and the day after I will just have a few patients to see, some dictations to do, and that's it. I'm not renewing my licence in this province, so I won't be back to work until I start at my new position in March. I haven't gone for 2 months without working since...ummm...let's see, I got my first job when I was 16... To tell you the truth, it doesn't seem like it's something that will actually happen; it's more like an abstraction. And it also seems like an it's going to be an incredibly short time before I'll have to rejoin the real world.    Just in case there was any doubt about how great my husband is; he recreated my photo database file by file last night, so the multiphoto posts will be back soon.

New Photo Management Software!

This was Dec 24 in the morning The Picasa software seems to be the least user hostile, so I'm giving it a try. Now I just have to figure out how to post more than one picture at a time. I woke up early (again) this morning, so I wound my malabrigo into a skein, and cast on for my new toque. I was so looking forward to knitting something with a gauge of 3 stitches per inch. I had almost completed the first round when I realized that I had somehow managed to snag a stitch a ways back and then knit into it. So I went to work, and this evening started back on Da Socks.

So close...

I thought that I might be able to finish Da Socks today - I woke up early this morning, and decided that I might as well work on them before going to the hospital. So I was able to start the toes after I got home from work. I started doing a decrease every other row, and knitted merrily away. About 8:30, Kyle tried them on so that I could see how much more I had to do, and the toe was too narrow. So it has been ripped back, and I'm starting over again. No photos today - the Canon photo management software isn't working. Will have to see what Adobe Photoshop can do for me.

Dobryj vechir, Sviaty vechir. Dobrym liudiam na zdorovja*

*Good evening, Holy evening. To good people for good health. Traditional Ukrainian Christmas Carol Merry Christmas Everyone!

Down to the wire

If Da Socks were meant for me, I'd be set: Sadly, Kyle's a Men's size 11, not a Women's size 11. I spent much of yesterday sitting on the couch and knitting, and it feels like I made no progress. I think I got about an inch done on each sock. So much for my hope that I'd have them ready to wear for the Bears game today. Having them ready for Christmas Day isn't looking very good right now either. Doesn't help that I am on call today and will be spending part of my day seeing patients. Exactly how was it that the Yarn Harlot managed to crank out a sock a day for a while there? I grafted the second heel this morning, and I think that I didn't muck up the Kitchener stitch yesterday; I think I pulled the stitches too tight, BECAUSE THIS SEAM LOOKS LIKE A ROW OF PURL AS WELL!!!!!! Sigh. Zonda asked how I like the afterthought heel; I like it, but have some reservations - it does mean double the grafting, and there are also little "corners" at the ends of the grafted seam - I suspect that I should have switched to doing decreases every round for the last few rounds. But other than those 2 things, it does look nice and seems to fit Kyle's heel well. Anyways, gotta get back to Da Socks.

Recipe for Snow

All you people who are bemoaning your lack of a White Christmas: visit Nederlass's blog to find out how to get these flakes on your blog. In one of those cases of Life imitating the Internet, I looked over from my Blogger window to my Living Room window and saw this sky: With the flash on, you can see that the haze it isn't fog - it's snow:

multitasking

I used a plastic bowl to block the tapestry yarn hat. Kyle saw it sitting on the kitchen counter, and found a use for it. So should I lightly felt it and cut an opening into it so it can take on a new life as a tea cosy? On the sock progress front, in 20 days Da Socks went from this: to this: The next evening I finished heel#1: And yesterday morning I woke up early, so I grafted heel #1 closed. I did heel #2 yesterday afternoon/evening, and just need to graft it closed. I don't have a photo of it, because my camera macro function wouldn't be able to handle the closeup, but I managed to kitchener stitch heel #1 closed purlwise. With the Vogue Knitting book open on my lap the whole way through. What happened was that I was afraid that I was looping the yarn over itself, so I would "correct" it as I went along. I'm going to try to do it correctly for heel #2.

Rationalization

Somewhere out there, some wanker is now convinced that his Hummer purchase was justified. Note the presence of available horizontal parking spots.

Afterthought

I started working on the afterthought heel on Da Socks yesterday. Picking out the waste yarn was much more niggly than I expected. Only one stitch got dropped. I'm using this technique, which essentially has me knitting around the opening, and then doing a k2tog or ssk every second row at either side of the heel; kind of like knitting a toe. When I am done, I will then graft the 2 sides shut. I had been under the impression that the afterthought heel would be a short row heel, but there's probably more than one way to do it. I'm using the 2mm Crystal Palace Bamboo needles that my SP9 sent me(both socks are still on the addi circ). It's a bit of a guessing game regarding the number of rows that I will do before the heel is completed; I'd really rather not take it off the dpns for Kyle to try it on, because I only have one 2mm circ, and it will be a royal pain in the butt to re-insert the needles if I put it onto waste yarn. Speaking of pains in the butt, this project now consists of 2 balls of yarn, 3 strands of yarn, 2 dangling circ ends, and 5 dpns. This photo was taken during the only 5 millisecond interval last evening where Somerset wasn't trying to chew on some part of the project.

Knitivity

This nativity scene was knitted by one of the customers who frequents my LYS. I have come up with knitted baby gifts that will use stash yarn; I am going to use some Butterfly cotton to knit up some of the Bibs and Burpees from Mason Dixon knits, and will use sock yarn to knit Candace (as a Christmas 2007 present). Now I just have to decide which of my many sock yarns I will use.

Sock update

I put the Calorimetry on hold after 1 row, so most of the weekend (10 hours of which was spent on airplanes) I worked on Da Socks. The waste yarn is marking where the afterthought heels are going to be. I think I will switch to DPNs to do the heels; I'll need to do them before I finish the foot so that I can figure out how long to make them. Still haven't found a house - there was one that looked promising enough for us to put in an initial offer. After we recieved the counter offer, we took another look at the place and felt that it wasn't worth it. The location is awesome, but there are alot of things missing from the house (like a fireplace, for instance) which we would want to have for the kind of $$ we'd be paying.

I have the self restraint of a hotel heiress on crack*

{*TM Nora Young} You may recall that I said I wasn't going to start anything until I finished Da Bears Socks? Well, this is going to be a Calorimetry. I was doing fine with my knitting monogamay until Ev asked me "would you like me to wind this into a ball for you?" as she rung up my yarn purchase... So would I be able to make it through the Knit from your Stash KAL? I'm thinking of personalizing the Knit From Your Stash 2007 rules to the following: 1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start February 12**, 2007 and run through October 18, 2007 -- a period of nine months. **This will be suspended during the Sea Socks Cruise, so it's going to start a week early. 2. I will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions: 2.a. Sock yarn does not count, nor do orphan skeins. Let's face it, they don't take up all that much room in the stash. 2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that I really and truly do not have the yarn for, I may buy yarn to knit that gift. 2.c. If I am knitting something and run out of yarn, I may purchase enough to complete the project. 2.d. If I am making something felted, and have at least 75% of the yarn requirements in the stash, I can purchase enough yarn of the same brand to complete the project. This is to avoid felting mishaps. 3. I am allowed to receive and give gifts of yarn, and swaps are fair game. 4. If I do break down and buy something, I will get rid of the equivalent amount of yarn as a RAK/donation to charity. I'm postponing the start of the yarn fast for 2 reasons - the first is to have it end on my birthday. The second is because my new Sister-in-law is going to be having a baby in June, and I need to figure out what I am going to knit for it. My stash doesn't realy run to baby type colours, so I might need to pick up something. However, I will try my best to come up with something that will use stash yarn.

Can you tell the difference?

She can't tell the difference. But if you lay the socks side by side and look at the "stripes" of white, there's a minor difference in the spacing at one point. Luckily I totally don't give a crap, because I'm just happy that there is no pooling to speak of, and I am not a perfectionist knitter. In fact, I think I am the anti-perfectionist; I constantly try to convince other knitters that they really don't need to rip back because it's going to be felted anyways/it's not going to show in that location/it's only one stitch/the yarn color or texture will hide the mistake, etc... Hee hee! For once in my life I am a bad influence! I think I'll get to work on my "Knitting Loopholes" manuscript now. In other news, for the first time ever, I have been "tagged" in a meme. (I manage to fly under the radar to the point of getting a bit of a complex about it. I was one of the few people who didn't receive the "I Love You Virus" email, and felt like a bit of a loser because it obviously meant that my email address wasn't in enough address books). Jacquie s the source for this: THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.” Six weird things about me: 1. The first time I ever went into a bar, I was 19 years old, a full year older than the legal drinking age for the province in which I lived. 2. I take great pains to avoid having a dangling participle at the end of a sentence, regardless of whether or not it is written or spoken. (see #1) 3. Despite having perfectionistic tendencies in some areas of my life, in other areas of my life I am a total slacker 4. I have three moles on the front of my left thigh that form a triangle that's about 4 cm across. (Granted, any 3 points form a triangle if they don't form a straight line, but this triangle is small enough that I always see it). At one point in time, I had a mole in front of each ear; they weren't perfectly symmetric. They were removed because at one point or another, each of them changed a wee bit (probably due to a pimple forming under them), and my family doctor thought it was safest to have them whapped off. 5. Even though I have introvert tendencies, and hate public speaking, I secretly dream of being a stand up comedienne. 6. I use my cell phone almost exclusively for outgoing calls; the rest of the time it is usually turned off. About the only time that I will leave it on will be if I forget my pager at home on a workday (That whole bit about cell phones in hospitals? Pure crap, unless you are standing immediately beside a heart monitor), or if I specifically need to be reachable by Kyle, or someone I am meeting up with (and even those times I occasionally forget that the phone has to be on). It takes me a long time to learn a new cell phone number because I give it out so infrequently. I'm tagging Bezzie, Melinda, Marie Jose, Zonda, Lynn from Seattle, and Lynn from Texas

Today's Saturday, and this is a sky.

Granted, it's not today's sky, but I just took an overnight flight (complete with crying baby) that took me 2/3 of the way across the country so that I can spend a good part of the day trying to decide which horridly expensive house I want to call home a few months from now, so this is what you are getting. Jet lag and a perky real estate agent - it could get ugly...

More Christmas Decorations

As I listen to people stress about how much they had to do to get ready for Christmas, it really hits home that I don't get into the season very much. I'm not entirely sure if that's a good or a bad thing...It certainly doesn't give me much fodder for this week's Blogstalking assignment. My copy of the latest A Needle Pulling Thread came in the mail, and it included an article with instructions to needle felt this little guy. Maybe next year?