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?

Silent Night

I took this photo when I stopped to get the mail. It's incredible how quiet it can be up here on the side of the hill. Dark too - there are no streetlights, except for the newest development down the road from our place. There's fresh snow, and fog starting about 2 streets downhill from us; both have amazing sound insulating properties. This is one of the Ponderosa Pine trees that is behind our mail box. The snow is quite damp, so the branches are drooping.

A little me time...

Blogger is having a better day today, so I can show you what will be going on the needles once I finish Kyle's "Da Bears" (tm Bezzie) Socks: These 2 skeins of yarn are destined to become this hat: The previously secret project made it to it's destination, so here it is in all of it's glory. It's a modification of Ev's Tentacao Toque pattern. The top shaping is lifted from the clapotis cap pattern I used Paton's Classic Merino and Katia Mexico; the brim is knit with a strand of each, and the remainder was knit with 2 strands together of the Classic Merino. The 2 yarns coordinated so well that I couldn't resist picking them up and knitting something with them. Luckily I know someone who looks good in pale blue. These yarns are going to be a brioche stitch scarf: This was the last skein of KidLin in this color at the LYS (I don't know what it is about me and orphan skeins), and the silk/merino yarn was the perfect match. It's going to be interesting to see what the texture of the final product is going to be. It is taking all of my willpower to stick to the socks before starting one of these projects. I think the fact that both of them will require hauling out the swift to wind the skeins into balls is my saving grace.

Burnout

Argh. Blogger doesn't want to upload photos. Maybe Blogger hasn't had a real vacation since February (a vacation that didn't involve going somewhere else to work), and is starting to resent having demands made on it's time. Perhaps Blogger is starting to feel flashes of rage when totally reasonable requests are made of it. And the fact that Blogger's next real day off isn't until the 28 or 29th of December probably isn't helping. Or maybe Blogger is just grumpy this morning because Blogger's pager went off at 3:46 AM when a patient decided to pull a tube out of his chest that Blogger had taken the time to carefully insert yesterday afternoon. And the insult added to Blogger's injury is that the on call guy didn't answer the initial page, which lead the nurse to decide to page Blogger, despite the fact that Blogger just finished a very busy call week. Which of course made it difficult for Blogger to get back to sleep, since Blogger was recalling the many many nights when Blogger got woken from sleep because of wackiness that was going on with the other guy's patients.

Socks on the brain

I am officially getting sick of knitting these socks. But I press on, hoping to get them done by the 25th. The cats are making a contribution to the socks; I think there are a few strands of my hair knitted into it as well. Here's a hat that I made way back when I first learned to knit (2001 or so). It's knit out of tapestry yarn; you use 2 strands per row, and change one of the colours each row. I haven't blocked it yet; I haven't even woven in the strand of yarn that pulled the top stitches together. I don't think there were many (if any) decreases at the top, so there's a bit of a hole because there were so many stitches in the last row. I should probably top it off with a pompom, but what colour(s)?

Christas Meme

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. Right now I am drinking some XCOLATL, which is a hot chocolate mix with a hint of chili powder 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? I can't wrap worth a damn, so if it comes in a nice looking box, or if I get around to getting a gift bag, it is covered. Otherwise it appears naked on Christmas Day. We're not bothering to do presents this year - other than the socks I am knitting for Kyle. 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White lights - our artificial tree comes equipped with them. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? No 5. When do you put your decorations up? The last 2 years it happened the day of the Department Christmas Party that we hosted. 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Kutya - it's traditionally served as the first dish on Ukrainian Christmas Eve. It's made by soaking cracked wheat with poppyseeds, honey, and nuts, and then boiling it until it thickens. 7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Sorry - don't have one. 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember. 9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We did that once or twice when I was young, but generally not. 10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Last year we used dice ornaments. This year, the only decorations are some bows that remained from last year. 11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love skiing on it, I hate being unable to drive up our access road because of it. 12. Can you ice skate? I took adult beginner lessons when I was 20, so I can get by. 13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Kyle gave me an engagement ring Christmas 1998. 14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? It's not really that big of a deal for me. So I guess the most important thing is to try to plan a beach holiday just before Christmas so that I can miss out on the craziness. 15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Gingerbread cookies. 16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Kyle and I haven't developed any of them yet. 17. What tops your tree? Nothing this year. 18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? I get a kick out of giving. 19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Бог предвічний. 20. Candy Canes? No thanks - although I once came across some candy canes that were chocolate flavoured.

This post is brought to you by the letter S

Seasonal Affective Disorder inducing Saturday Sky From December thru March, it is unusual to have a sunny day here because of temperature inversions... -------------------------------------------- Sensational Sunrise...but some days are less cloudy than others -------------------------------------------- Silly SomersetWhat's a post without a cat photo? Somerset can be quite weird at times - one of her favorite things to do is to rub her face against zippers; I wasn't quick enough to catch a shot of her with her head entirely inside my purse. -------------------------------------------- Spousal Socks They are striping nicely, with only occasional colour overlap. It seems to me like my progress is really slow, because my mind doesn't seem to grasp the concept that it should take twice as long as working on one sock. If I was doing one sock at a time, I'd be about to start turning the heel. ------------------------------------------- Snazzy Silver Skate Ski Shoes I have decided that I will start cross country skiing again. Come January, while I am between jobs, I plan to pop over to the loal trails a few times a week.

How do you like them apples?

When we decorated our Christmas tree last year, we used some dice ornaments that we picked up at the drugstore. We had a bunch of more traditional ball ornaments, and it seemed a shame not to use them. So I ended up doing this: Since apples come in the same colours that these ornaments did, it seemed fitting to put them in this ornamental "fruit crate". Since we didn't have enough ornaments to completely fill it, there is some yarn on the bottom of the box. No, I'm not hiding it, it's just being stored out of site in a spot that nobody would expect to find yarn.

6 postings of separation

Yesterday's weirdness: I saw my SP9 downstream pal left a comment on the blog of someone I virtually know. That and realizing that I got lipstick on my shoe when I walked uphill from the road. Now I can understand a lipstick possibly falling out of someone's purse, but an open lipstick???

Sock o' the Month

My 2007 resolution is to knit a pair of socks per month. I am currently deciding which of my many sock yarns I will use. Right now the plan is: January - resolution socks. Finish off a pair of Trekking Socks that I started in September (about 3 cm of sock A done so far)- ribbed sock pattern from a Paton's booklet February - the shortest month, the shortest socks - either anklets or possibly "sockettes" (if I can find a pattern - I saw a pair on a blog once which referred to a pattern off of a Regia Pamphlet). I don't have any red or pink yarn, so they will probably get knitted out of a yarn I just bought online from a shop that was going out of business - they only had one skein left of the colourway, so I of course had to buy the orphan skein. March - Regia Sock yarn that my Colourswap pal Jane sent me - it is selfstriping, white with several shades of green. Might finally do the Jaywalker pattern with these. April - Some Trekking XXL that looks like it was dyed by spattering blue dye over white yarn; these will be the April Showers Socks, which will lead to... May - Wildflower socks in Peaseblossom STR (...May flowers) June - Regia Bamboo socks, possibly in a lacey pattern for summer. July - A pair of socks for Kyle as a birthday gift(he's a Leo - early August). Yarn TBA; I do have some sock yarn that is black with short segments of brown that might do well for him. August - Tex Mex Sox. Sock yarn that I bought in Seattle -inspired by the American Southwest. The colours are shades of turquoise, terracotta, gold and brown. September - September Sunset Socks - Jolene's Sunset sock yarn by Claudia October - Java CTH socks November - Alpacaaaah socks - sock yarn that I bought at the Interior Provincial Exhibition ... December - White Christmas socks -Opal Zebra (white with black stripes). In a pattern other than Jaywalker!!

Sock progress

I've started using the Sweet Sheep yarn - here's where I got to yesterday. It's looking like there won't be much pooling. Kyle took this photo of me knitting the other evening. Check out my right hand. I always thought that I knit English style. Maybe it's actually Italian.

Third time's the charm

Yes, third time - casting on an extra 6 stitches wasn't enough, so I frogged, added yet another 6 stitches, and this time it fit over Kyle's heel. (I know, I probably could have swatched in the time it took me to do the first 2 attempts, but I always have difficulty measuring my stitch gauge correctly, and I likely would have had to do at least 2 tries anyways.) Here's a napping Somerset modelling the current progress. Thanks for the comments on the sky shots - I actually don't have a tripod; I use whatever stationary object is nearby to steady the camera. This shot was taken this evening when I stopped to pick up the mail utilizing the roof of my car as a support. I have a relatively old Canon PowerShot S110, which has only 2.1 megapixels. I'd like to replace it, but I am currently trying to decide between another small camera that I can fit into my purse, or a larger one that has more flexibility. I'll probably keep using this one until it finally dies. Just like my cell phone.

Christmas Sock-ing

I decided to knit both Kyle's socks at the same time on once circular. Because he has size 11 feet, I decided to use contrasting yarn for the ribbing/toes/heels to make my sock yarn go further. To get a bit of practice, I started swatching the 2 yarns on the same circ, and quickly discovered that not only was the colour matching off: But the 4 ply Kroy was also a bit thicker than the Sweet Sheep yarn. Friday I went to my LYS, and wasn't able to find any yarn that would be a good contrast. Since I had some time to kill (despite Friday being a day off, I had done a quick procedure on a somewhat fragile patient, and I wanted to stay near the hospital until I knew that she'd recover enough to go home that afternoon - lucky I did, because I ended up having to admit her overnight), I went to the other yarn store in town. Their stock is a bit more traditional, and there were several solid coloured yarns; I found this Sisu sock yarn that is perfect in thickness and colour: I cast on, and worked on it Friday evening. By Saturday morning, I had gotten this much done. Got Kyle to try them on, and it was pretty tough to get them over his heel. Sigh. Frogged them, cast on an extra 6 stitches per sock, and started over. I think I'm going to use the "ribbing of doom" pattern, because I want to do something nice and simple to minimize the chance of getting screwed up.

A month of Skies

I realize that the point of Saturday skies is to post a photo on Saturday of that Saturday's sky. Well, blogging in a timely fashion is not a strength of mine. Here are some Fall skies for your viewing pleasure (in no specific order): Fly me a River Purple Sky Red Moon at Night Leaving the West Sky Bridge under Troubled Skies Mist off the Lake Peak-a-boo Sky Diamond Sky That's right, I said Diamond.

Oh my word, it's December!

Could someone tell me where the year has gone? I woke up early this morning, and as I was laying in bed trying to decide whether or not to get up or attempt to go back to sleep, I realized that I hadn't thought of a Chrismas present for Kyle. Last year we agreed not to buy each other Christmas presents because we had bought ourselves ski equipment that fall. We haven't even talked about it yet. This might be the incentive I need to get started on his Chicago Bears socks. This week's blogstalking assignment is: What do you do Friday night to kick off the weekend? I took today off(because I'm on call next week and my next day off after Sunday will be December 16), and we'll probably spend this evening decorating/tidying up for the Xmas party tomorrow, and then watch a few episodes of Lost on DVD. So I have decided that my weekend was kicked off last night, when I went to knit at Blenz. Our Blenz knitting group is very small - we now meet on Thursdays, and the most knitters that have attended is 3. There are knitting classes at our LYS on Tuesday night that are kind of SnBish as well - that's usually 6-8 knitters. But even though we are small in numbers, we have alot of knitting energy. Plus Blenz has awesome ginger cookies! This photo is actually from a few weeks ago: Ev is on the right(she works at our LYS and has designed several of the items I have knit lately), and Susan is on the left. Susan just started knitting this year, and it's amazing how much progress she has made. She started with scarves and mitts, and is now doing Christmas stockings, felted slippers, Noni bags, and last night I helped her to start the tam pattern from the winter IK. It's kind of fussy right at the start because you are casting on 8 stitches on the dpns, and placing markers between each stitch {which seems kind of silly to me, because you then double the amount of stitches right away by doing an m1 after each stitch, so why bother with the markers until you are up to 16 stitches.} I was relieved to see that I hadn't twisted it because it was so awkward to work with until I had done about 4 or 5 repeat rows. She's using Rowan Felted Tweed, which has a bit of a halo to it, which made it difficult for me to tell that things weren't twisted. It also would have been impossible to see the ladders to pick up to do all the m1's, but I just substituted kfb's for the increase (I have yet to figure out how to twist the m1 so that it doesn't leave an eyelet)Susan's great; she's so enthusiastic and full of wonder about knitting - the other week she said "These needles really are sanity sticks, aren't they?" Here's Janice and me (wearing my mobius). She just moved here from the Coast (near Vancouver). The first time I met her she was knitting a cashmere scarf as a gift - you have to respect that! A new knitter who makes something that scrumptious for someone else! She's been doing some totally cute felted purses, and powered through her first maryella in less than a week!