Finally! Fran Knitting!

Countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, France!

2010-04-25T22:46:00.004-04:00

Where did the last month go? I swear, I meant to blog more frequently.

In five days, we leave for France and there is still so much I have to do before we leave.

On the knitting front, I’ve gotten back to work on our friends’ baby blanket. No new photo to show of the blanket yet though. I have finished my daughter’s matching mittens to go with her hat. We’re happy. In other personal news, I got my tattoo on April 6. It's amazing how much bigger 3" seems when it's actually on your skin! It’s healing quite well and I’m ecstatic that I got it!
I’m sure I’ll have tons of pictures when I get back. I’m quite worried about how long it will take me to sort through it all - eek.

Mega Milestone Year

2010-03-21T16:07:00.006-04:00

Sorry I haven’t been blogging or blog reading in a while but there has been so much that has gone on since I last blogged and will be going on this year, I’ll have to give you the more interesting snippets in a nutshell; there’s just too much. I haven’t even been knitting as much as a result; something had to give. My compensation: improved health, reduced stress and ability to handle stressful situations SO MUCH better, an activity we can do as a family (my husband just joined us in family karate a couple of weeks ago), and improved self image. It hasn't been an all up year, I'm just not going to focus on the downs.

Knitting
Friends’ Baby Blanket

Daughter’s Dragon Hat – (mitts to follow)

Personal
My husband and I are both turning 40.

It’s our 15th wedding anniversary on May 6th so we’re going to France the first two weeks in May. I’ll be leaving my children for the first time since they’ve been born. My husband’s father and step-mother have been kind enough to offer to come and stay with the kids. They really are wonderful people.

I got my yellow belt in karate! My grading was on January 29th. I will be getting a yellow dragon tattoo (my first ever). Yellow is for the belt and the dragon symbolizes Goju Ryu karate.

I’ve dropped yoga because of time constraints. Karate takes a decent amount of training time. And I’ve started kobudo; gee, do I love martial arts or what. That will definitely take me a lot longer to make progress in; working with weapons changes a lot. I do miss the benefits of yoga for my back. Karate just can’t do that for me, so I practice certain yoga stretches and home and that seems to work. Like I said, a milestone year.

Karate Cake and Knitting

2009-12-12T23:45:00.003-05:00

To answer yarndork’s question on where I got the pattern for my niece’s sweater, it came from a Sirdar pattern book: Gorgeous Babies Knitting Book 264

The pattern for the blanket I’m knitting right is free from the Lion Brand website. I had to register first before they let me download it. It’s called the Heirloom Baby Blanket. I hope to have something to show soon.

Today was the dojo’s Christmas party. I baked a Bundt cake using my Nordic Ware Castle cake pan and it turned out quite well. Then my husband thought of a game he bought last week which had martial arts related pieces in it. It’s called Ghost Stories and he thought it would be cool if we could put the game pieces on the cake; so we did. People loved it!
It’s a brown sugar pound cake which I downloaded from the food network.

Niece’s Snuggly Sweater is Finally Done!

2009-12-06T14:22:00.002-05:00

I’m still alive but barely knitting. I’m not ignoring anyone’s blog because of a lack of interest – please don’t take offense. I haven’t even touched mine for 2 months.

I’m LOVING LOVING LOVING karate and am considering dropping yoga because of my huge time commitment to exercise and the lack of knitting. I know the exercise is a healthier option; I’m trying to find balance between my leisure activities and work. I’m also now afraid I won’t finish that huge stack of UFO’s and unstarted projects with pending yarn in my closet before I die (some 60 years from now if I’m lucky). It’s scary. You think I exaggerate but when I look at my UFO’s that are over 10 years old and I haven’t touched them, you’ll understand why a mere 6 decades (if I’m healthy enough to do anything) is a cause for alarm.

I had these grand plans of knitting things for my kids every and am feeling like a bad mother because I haven’t made them special hats, scarves, mitts or sweaters in the past 2 years. Okay, I made them dinosaurs last winter, but it’s a small drop in the bucket of what I would like to do for them.

It took me a little over 5 months to complete my niece’s sweater doing no other knitting projects – that’s gotta be the longest it’s taken me to do a single item. Anyways, I’m happy with the results; I think my sister’s family will be, too.

I’m on to a new project, not my UFO’s. Friends of ours had a baby not too long ago and were promised a blanket. I better get cracking and hope it doesn’t take me another 6 months to finish a project.

Scrabble™

2009-10-03T23:02:00.004-04:00

Here’s one of my UFO’s (unfinished objects). It’s a Scrabble™ bag and it will say “Fran’s Game” on it (it is my favourite game after all).

I really haven’t knitted much since my last blog; hence, I’m forced t resort to unfinished objects. I’m pathetic, I know. I’m working tomorrow, too. Now, it seems my spare time is going to karate and yoga. That OK. I think it’s a healthier life style for me. I know I feel and look better. Their motto is “Energize Your Life” and it truly does. I do leave there felling stress relieved an energized.

My kids just got their yellow belts on Tuesday and that’s why we took them out for dinner yesterday and a movie this afternoon (because I need to work tomorrow). The movie was “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”. It was really good! I’m so proud of them.

Back to the Yarn

2009-09-13T09:15:00.005-04:00

It’s about time that this knitting blog became a knitting blog again. I know; I’ve been pathetic in my knitting. Truthfully, I haven’t really had time to knit since coming back from vacation. Almost three months after starting, I have about half a sweater for my niece; so slow.

I just started taking a family karate class with the kids this past week. The style we’re doing is Goju Ryu (hard/soft). It was so nice to get back to it. The last time I took karate was 15 years ago when I was doing my Master’s degree. That time, I took Shotokan (hard). There are some similarities. Sensei and one other helper there said it looked like my former training was still with me (which was very nice to hear). I can’t tell you how wonderfully stress relieving and therapeutic it is to be allowed to hit someone!

Actually, I was very soft because I don't like hurting people. They kept telling me to strike harder; that's hard to get used to. Honestly, just punching empty air and the warm up before practice is very stress relieving.

My veggie garden is slowly coming to an end. Oh well, it had to happen sooner or later. I also have some interesting sunflower shots again. My son’s largest sunflower had small buds along the stalk a little while ago. Those little buds turned into flowers. I was very surprised; I didn’t know his sunflower variety was capable of that.

This sunflower’s stem was partially snapped in one of our storms. It’s amazing how resilient this flower is. Notice that it just kept on growing from where the stem snapped and curved upward again.

I really wish I had more interesting knitting things to show. I guess I’m going to have to start showing my UFO’s which got put to the wayside when higher priorities came along.

Mr. Golden Sun

2009-08-28T00:39:00.011-04:00

Vacation was great! I needed another couple of weeks. We went to Alberta to visit my husband’s and his family. The cooler, rainy weather in Ontario followed me to Alberta and now back again to Ontario. A storm we had last week snapped the head off one of my son’s sunflowers. They are remarkably resilient. I’m amazed this one survived given it’s head is very weekly attached to it’s stalk.

One of the things we wanted to see this time around was the Columbia Icefield. To that end, we headed toward Red Deer and camped there for a couple of nights. It was the first time the children and I had ever been camping. The icefield was breathtaking. It is very odd to have to bundle up in the middle of summer to go onto an ice field. We even drank glacier water!

We went to Jasper in the Rockies to camp that night. It’s bear country. Luckily, the only wild life we saw was bighorn sheep.

On the way back to High River, we stopped by Sunwapta Falls and saw a very interesting van.

The next day, we went to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. It’s a UNESCO national heritage site and has a fabulous visitor centre.And here’s my favourite rainbow picture to date.

It was a good vacation but it was really good to be home again.

Timely Vacation – A Month without Knitting

2009-08-01T22:39:00.004-04:00

I have absolutely no knitting pictures. It was another 200+ hour month and my daughter’s birthday in between. I haven’t touched the needles since my last posting; pathetic, I know. My garden has run amok. I’ve spent the better part of today trying to tame it again.

Last week-end was the first time we were able to do some harvesting. We dined on some zucchini, buttercrunch lettuce, and green beans that night. My daughter’s Nasturtiums are doing very well, too.

Today is the first day of my two week vacation. We’ll be flying out to Alberta this year as well. I won’t be blogging during that time but I will be spending some of my vacation knitting and catching up on other people’s blogs. I haven’t been deliberately ignoring you. I haven’t lost interest in your blogs. Thank you to readers who haven’t given up on my blog yet. Hopefully, I will get some interesting pictures to write about when we get back. It feels so strange to have free evenings again where I turn on the computer for leisure and not work.

Stake Anyone?

2009-07-05T22:47:00.005-04:00

The garden is coming along quite nicely. It was a very rainy week so the garden was happy. I didn’t think it had grown much height wise but boy was I wrong when I went to out to take a closer look. They had just grown along the ground and everything is flowering so I should have some nice veggies pretty soon. My son’s first green bean plant already has 5 beans on it. It seems the marigolds are working for keeping the pests away. Rush visit to Canadian Tire to get some stakes. And voilà!
I don’t think I’ve seen my lavender so lavenderAnd a little unexpected surprise. I've never had a plant growing in a downspout before.

The sweater’s coming along nicely, too. It’s been pretty plain stocking stitch up until now.

A Day at the Zoo, and Knitting Too

2009-06-28T22:22:00.006-04:00

My Dad won a special Father’s Day Package for the Metro Toronto Zoo by listening to CHFI FM98.1. It was for him and three other guests. Being the person he is, he thought his grand-kids would love to go, and since my Mother wasn’t particularly interested, he gave the whole package to us. It entitled us to a barbeque lunch in a special area with other winners of the draw. There were buskers and a special animal visitor. We also got free parking, free entry to the zoo, free zoo-rail pass for the day, and free face painting the kids (or adults if you wished). What a great way to spend Father’s Day!

Peacock in Tree

Giraffes - always a favouriteJellyfish – Believe it or notKangaroos and Wallabies – Oh MyI’m now doing my Mother a favour. Over a year ago, she bought some Sirdar Snuggly yarn and a pattern book to make my other niece a sweater. She hasn’t touched it because the yarn, in her opinion, is expensive and she’s too afraid of screwing up. So she’s asked me to do the knitting. I wasn’t going to accept any requests from other family members for a while and REALLY FOCUS on finishing some of my existing UFO’s, but I thought, if I didn’t do it now, there wouldn’t be enough yarn to knit my niece a sweater later. After all, it’s already been over a year. By my standards, the pattern is a simple one but my Mother was still intimidated by it. I don’t get it; she used to knit cables when we were kids. It looks simple now; the cabling only comes in the upper bodice area and there’s really not much of it. You’ll see as I go along.

Coming Up Roses

2009-06-13T23:40:00.009-04:00

I put the buttons on my niece’s sweater today. I went with something pretty neutral – it’s more to my sister-in-law’s taste I think. She tends to go for gender neutral things. She also plans to use it for her forthcoming son so I couldn’t use some cute daisy buttons I found at Michael’s.

The garden is doing quite well. My patio rose tree is blooming nicely.

My daughter’s nasturtiums are emerging.

And the marigolds seem to be keeping the rabbits at bay.

Knitting Accomplished! And new shoes, too.

2009-06-07T01:38:00.005-04:00

I finished my niece’s sweater but I still need to put buttons on it. I still have to go buy buttons. Here’s a picture anyways; I couldn’t help myself.

I also bought shoes today! I only went to buy one black pair to go with my suit. Instead, I bought three. The additional two pairs were on sale! I couldn’t pass that up. They were just too good to resist. Can you believe that the shoe sizes from left to right in the picture below are 9, 8.5, and 8? And they all fit perfectly.

I didn’t want to want to buy anything too plain even if it was for a business suit; that just wouldn’t be me. So, I got the black shoes with gold heels and little studs. I purchased them at NINE WEST which seems to be the only place I can find heels that are actually comfortable.

The other two pairs came from STYLESENSE and are just all out funky; very me. The lavender floral shoes are so cute and comfy and way too pretty. Just look at the underside of the shoe.

It’s as pretty as the inside. I don’t want to walk on them because they’re so pretty. Well, I’m sure I can find a way to convince myself.

Finally! Fran Gardening?

2009-05-31T17:48:00.003-04:00

Knitting taking a back seat? Unthinkable! But true.

I must admit that gardening has taken precedence in my life; sadly, by necessity. It’s that time of year when you have to plant and weed before nature runs amok in your backyard. Well, we were too late so there was a lot to be done. I started my seedlings indoors too early and they died before I got to plant them or maybe I didn’t know how to sustain them properly once they’d sprouted. So, we’ve bought more plants and I’ve done some direct planting of seeds and we’ll see what happens.

We made a nice little vegetable patch, which I hope will get enough sunlight, and hubby put in stepping stones to get to the water faucet. It’s a solid plan, now let’s see if it will work. It’s been one day and the plants seem to be intact so I guess the marigolds are doing their job.

Excited About Something Not Yarn?!

2009-05-24T00:32:00.004-04:00

I am typing this entry on my new Dell Studio 17 laptop! I was so excited about it, I thought it definitely deserving of a blog entry. It’s absolutely gorgeous and extremely practical not to mention powerful. My hubby prepared the specifications for the order since I’m a bit tech un-savvy in the hardware department.

The design is called New World 4 and it’s by Joseph Amedokpo in support of the PRODUCT (RED) initiative to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

Just when you thought screens couldn’t get any better or clearer, they did. The quality of the images is getting extremely close to the level of my HDTV. This laptop also comes with a separate number pad (nice), but that means my hands are a little off-centre on the keyboard initially. I’ve been automatically placing my hands one position to the right of where they should be (laugh to myself about it every time I have to look down and think of where to put my fingers). And Vista DEFINITELY takes some getting used to.

I had to get a cool green laser mouse to go with the laptop and they work perfectly with the funky pink laptop case which DH got me for Christmas 2006.

Spring has Finally Sprung!

2009-05-15T22:45:00.004-04:00

Warmer weather is here at last. But with my flowers:

Come the weeds. Good thing our friend, baby rabbit, comes by from time to time to help out by eating the dandelions. Unfortunately, he can’t eat them all fast enough. It’s incredible; our yard has been overrun by weeds in a week!

And I got some knitting done. Voilà, the sleeves!

STAR TREK is Awesome!

2009-05-09T23:59:00.002-04:00

Wednesday was our 14th wedding anniversary. Tomorrow’s Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers out there!

To celebrate both, we saw the new STAR TREK movie today and it was fabulous. So many tear-jerkers, action packed, unexpected twists and turns, great special effects, and great acting. What’s not to like?

Work’s still very busy – not much time to knit. Today was a day we set aside for ourselves.

Busy, busy

2009-04-26T22:48:00.003-04:00

It was a hectic week-end with sister’s family coming to visit. What started as a beautiful Saturday ended up with a freak thunderstorm that took our gazebo aloft even though we had cinder blocks on the posts. We tied those cinder blocks to the posts now and I’ve put big planter boxes on them too.

I finished the front of the sweater for my niece. I made one slight alteration to the pattern. On the front placket, instead of casting on stitches for the right side of the placket and then having to sew it to the inside of the sweater, I picked up and knit stitches from the back of the left placket.

I Got Knitting Done!

2009-04-09T21:43:00.002-04:00

Woo hoo! I finished the back of a sweater for my niece. It’s from Elsebeth Lavold’s book, The Sentimental Journey Collection. The pattern is called Jasper Child.

I messed up a little on the pattern repeat, though. There should be more cable repetition vertically but I misread the pattern – oops. Oh well, I’m still happy with it.

Spring is in the Air – Not!

2009-04-05T23:41:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday, I started some seeds with the kids. I couldn’t believe how fast they started sprouting. The kids are so excited. This is the first time I’ve started anything successfully from seeds. Those peat pellets are amazing!

Up until now, the weather has been nice and spring-like. We haven’t had snow since the end of February. So naturally, tomorrow the forecast is calling for some wet snow. They’re forecasting a cold week in general – wee.

In other news, I couldn’t make it to the Yarn Factory Outlet sale in Listowel this year because of the number of hours we’ve had to work the past few months. Luckily, a friend of mine could go and was willing to pick up some goodies for me. There was only one thing of interest to me – Bernat GLOW IN THE DARK yarn. I scored big time!

I really hope they’re not serious about discontinuing this yarn as the website indicates. I haven’t heard any other news supporting that. I want to make more glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs for my niece and nephew. My kids also have some ideas of "other things" they want to see glow in the dark.

Gazebo

2009-03-29T19:58:00.004-04:00

We finally got a gazebo! We bought it off a family nearby who needed to get rid of it so our timing was very fortuitous. Although we bought it last Sunday, we didn’t get around to putting up the curtains on it until today. I like the double curtain idea. The inner curtain is just a mesh for insect protection and the outer one is opaque for more privacy. I can’t wait to use it.

I was really worried about drilling into our concrete patio to anchor it. My husband went to the Home Depot and ended up talking to a nice lady there who told him she just anchored hers with cinder blocks since you’re supposed to put it away in the winter. I like this idea much better. It also allows us the flexibility to move it elsewhere on the property should we change our minds.

Now I just need a patio set to put under it.

St. George’s Cross Baby Blanket Finished!

2009-03-21T23:24:00.006-04:00

It’s done! At long last, it’s done!

It’s not that it was hard, on the contrary. It was just a lack of time that prevented progress. I’m pleased with the results and how flat my mitred corners lie.

The final dimensions are approximately 30” x 36”. It’s not blocked. I mean, why bother when it’s going to be stretched over a baby carrier or pulled by tiny fists or chewed on by tiny gums.

To recap, I picked up stitches all around the edge of the St. George’s cross portion using 4 circular needles.

I kept knitting using directional mitred increases at the corners and incorporating the Inverness Diamond pattern into the blue border.

I ended by using an I-cord edging which was useful in binding off simultaneously. What do I mean by this? When I was ready to bind off (this begins at a corner in my case), I cast on three stitches on the left needle where I already had stitches. *Knit the first two stitches individually, slip the third, knit the next stitch on the left needle. Insert the left needle in front of last two stitches on the right needle and knit them together. Pass all three stitches back onto the left needle. Repeat from *. By doing this, you are casting off your stitches one at a time but creating a smooth I-cord edging while you’re doing it. This is my modified version of a method in Nicky Epstein’s book, Knitting Over The Edge: Unique Ribs Cords Appliques Color Eclectic - The Second Essential Collection of Decorative Borders.

To neatly finish off the I-cord edging, I used Kitchener Stitch to graft the beginning to the end seamlessly. Aside from the knitty link I have here for the Kitchener Stitch, there are many internet resources like YouTube that demonstrate it.

Yup, I have to say, I’m quite pleased with the results.

She’s back - and wants to thank everyone!

2009-03-15T16:38:00.005-04:00

Holy cow! I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I’ve blogged. Thank you all for your patience. This is the first week-end my husband and I have been at home together in quite a while. I forgot what it was like to spend time as a family. My husband’s trip went well. While he was gone, I got sick and have been sick and sleep deprived for the past two weeks. I finally got some rest (and some knitting done – thank god!) this week-end.

I would like to thank lara griffiths, cornchowder, and Domie’s mom for nominating me on February 24 and 25, 2009 for a Kreativ Blogger Award. I would also like to thank hopieknits for nominating me on Feb. 9, 2009 for a Kreativ Blogger Award. That makes 32 people (8 per nomination) that I would be required to nominate. I would like to thank Mr. Spooky for tagging me on Jan. 28, 2009 and Steffi for tagging me on Oct. 3, 2008. I would have to tag eight people (four people for each). That brings the total number of people I would have to nominate/tag up to 40. I believe that covers most of the list of bloggers in my right side bar. I was so touched by the supportive comments I received on my “Venting” post, and honoured by the three subsequent Kreativ Blogger Award nominations I received on that post, that I was tempted to break my own rule of “I don’t do chains (tag, mail, etc.)” because I didn’t want to insult the wonderful people that nominated me. But to break that rule would have been unfair to Steffi, Mr. Spooky, and hopieknits to whom I had already explained that “I don’t do chains” and who were very kind and understanding about it. Thank you all for reading my blog and being so supportive.

I’m here with “Rocky” (one of my daughter’s rocks) and some fresh guacamole my husband just made from a Julia Child recipe. My daughter said Rocky wanted to watch me work on the computer. My husband arranged the corn chips to (in his words), “…look like the sunflower that you are”. They’re so cute!

I had to show you the beautiful gifts my hubby brought me from his trip. The hotel his course was held at overlooks Harvard and MIT. Naturally, the tote bag became a knitting bag. The silver and purple bead earrings are awesome!

The rat race begins again tomorrow. Two weeks to a very tight deadline on March 30 so we can’t take time off to spend March break with our children. The two weeks following that being a pretty intense time with inspectors on site.

Venting

2009-02-22T22:07:00.002-05:00

Sorry, no pictures today. I’m just venting. I have nothing to show because I have had almost no time to knit since work is sucking our life away at the moment. I know it’s only temporary but every time we go through it, it seem like an eternity. My husband is working the “insane” hours while I’m doing the only “very heavy” hours since I’m taking care of the kids most times. That’s okay; I’d rather have it that way. That’s the only reason I managed to get any knitting done yesterday and it felt so good. That and that I bought some International Delight Southern Butter Pecan to go in my coffee – mmmm, flavoured coffee and knitting.

At the end of this coming week, hubby has to go away on a course for two days. He’s extending it to a third day since he’s never visited this place before. As a result, I’m also going to miss my yoga class which is my only other stress outlet aside from knitting. My other crafts and hobbies don’t provide me with the same de-stressing ability, not that I’ve had time to touch them anyway. I always say I’m grumpier when I haven’t had time to knit, can you imagine me by the end of Saturday?

I’m drinking a glass of red wine and watching the third Lord of the Rings movie while I do this; it helps. Any time I’ve not blogged for a while, the sole cause is work. I’ve always been afraid of venting on my blog because I was afraid some of the people I work with might discover my complaints. Oh well, I guess I'm past caring (to a certain extent). I just had to vent.

Fearless Tobogganers

2009-02-16T00:55:00.006-05:00

Sadly, my very busy work schedule has infringed upon my precious free knitting time. I’ve only managed to knit one day this past week and not much the week before and boy does my overall mood show it. I get pretty cranky when I don’t get my knitting stress relief. So today, I’m going to share a couple of shots of the recent past.

All hats in these pictures were hand knitted by me. Unfortunately, you can’t see the details in my hubby’s hat but it’s from Elsebeth Lavold’s Viking Patterns for Knitting. The pattern is called Harald.

The hats my daughter and I are wearing were inspired by Anna Zilboorg’s 45 Fine & Fanciful Hats to Knit. Mine is the Egyptian style but I put in my own motifs. On my daughter’s, I used the motif that was in the book for cone hats, but I added earflaps with I-cord ties, which none of the hats in the book have.

My son’s hat is my own original design which I covered in previous blog posts under the labels “dragon” and “dragon scarf”.

Over the past couple of weeks, virtually all our snow has melted, although I hear we will have a snowstorm on Wednesday. Winter is far from over.

And the Mitre Goes On

2009-02-01T00:33:00.003-05:00

So far so good. The pattern I chose for the border is called the Inverness Diamond from my 365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar. The pattern can be found on the December 13 page.

I’m doing directional increases to make the mitre while avoiding creating any holes or gaps. Translation: the increased stitch on the right corner will slant to the right, the increased stitch on the left corner will slant to the left.

To make the right slanting increase, I brought the tip of the left hand needle under the strand between the stitches on the left hand and right hand needles, from back to front. Then I knit this loop (that I created by picking up the strand) through the front.

To make the left slanting increase, I brought the tip of the left hand needle under the strand between the stitches on the left hand and right hand needles, from front to back. Then I knit this loop (that I created by picking up the strand) through the back.

“Un-Hole-y” Mitred Increases

2009-01-24T18:11:00.001-05:00

In this entry, I will respond to yarndork’s comment on my last blog entry on how I could make an increasing mitre. She made a suggestion that maybe I could do a YO, K, YO. That is true, I could. I didn’t because the practical engineer in me didn’t want my nephew’s baby fingers getting stuck in holes. For that reason too, I’m not going with a lacy background or edging; the pattern I picked is a solid texture.

Of course, then you have to figure out how frequently you have to do the corner increases – every row, every other row? Too frequently, it’ll bunch up in the corner. Not frequently enough, it’ll pull into a more circular form. The math geek in me did some calculations to figure out how many stitches to increase over the number of rows I’d be working to reach my desired blanket according to my gauge swatch. Theoretically, I should be increasing 16 stitches per side per 12 rows of pattern repeat. I say “theoretically” because even though I do a gauge swatch and calculations, the real deal always ends up being a little different.

Bordering St. George

2009-01-18T15:56:00.002-05:00

I finally started the blanket border; unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to knit this week.

The approach I decided to take was to pick up and knit the border all the way around while mitring the corners. Don’t know how that will work. This is the first time I’m mitring up instead of down and over a considerably larger area. I have four circular needles on it right now; one per side. I could have certainly picked up and knit one side at a time but then I wouldn’t have had mitred corners. I’m not revealing the border pattern yet. We’ll see what next week brings.

Rule Britannia

2009-01-11T22:26:00.003-05:00

I’m making a baby blanket for my new nephew. My sister requested a St. George’s Cross surrounded by navy blue. Gotta love simple knitting!

I still haven’t quite figured out how I will do the navy blue background yet, but it will comprise approximately 2/3 of the total area of the blanket.

“Why?” one might ask, would my sister make such a request? Simple, my brother-in-law is from England; it's part of my nephew's heritage.

Has Anyone Seen This Man?

2009-01-04T23:05:00.002-05:00

Funny how a month can just slip by because of the holidays and work. They can really suck up your free knitting time. At long last, I have a finished item to show.

The hubby’s scarf is finally finished! Six days straight of working really long hours and this is how he models a scarf.

Nice to know he hasn’t lost his quirky sense of humour. Now, for some close up detail.

The scarf is so lusciously soft. I used a full two skeins for it which is quite fitting for a man his size.

It’s back to the daily grind tomorrow. For now, I’m enjoying a glass of ice wine and working on a new project (which I hope to reveal soon) desperately holding on to my last moments of the holidays and the small bit of worry free relaxation I enjoyed for a short time.

Dinosaur Village

2008-12-07T17:28:00.002-05:00

The next week in Christmas Village Oakville, something astonishing happened. A stegosaurus showed up. Her name was Didi Honey Mommy. Peanut Butter was so happy to have a new friend. It was hard for Peanut Butter to find playmates in the village because of his size.

Together, the new friends built giant snow-people (see snow-people behind dinosaurs). This was great because they removed a ton of snow from the streets to build the snow-people thus clearing the roads for the cars to drive on. The village was very happy, too.

Dinosaur Sighted in Christmas Village

2008-11-30T01:01:00.003-05:00

A Brontosaurus was spotted in a small Christmas Village in Oakville! This is what I’ve been up to the last little while.

Meet Peanut Butter (love the name), my son’s stuffed dinosaur knit with Bernat’s Glow In The Dark Yarn that I purchased at Michaels. The pattern is available for free at http://www.xtreme-knitting.com/photos-dinosaurs.htm as well as in the Ravelry pattern database.

I love these sorts of projects because they’re so quick and easy and give so much joy. The yarn really does glow in the dark but unfortunately, doesn’t photograph too well in the dark so I’m afraid I can’t show you how COOL this really is. How could I resist yarn that really glows in the dark!

On to knit my daughter’s dinosaur.

Winter Splendour – Linda’s Hat

2008-11-16T17:38:00.004-05:00

After seeing my Autumn Glory Hat, my friend Linda asked me to make her one. I said, “Sure, but I could make you any design or colour you want. You don’t have to have something exactly the same as mine.” So Linda picked the yarn colours and concept she wanted and I went from there. The result was quite different and still pleasing. Thank you, Linda, for letting me put your picture on my site.

I was amazed at what I came up with when I raided my yarn stash. For the background colour, I held two strands together: Grignasco Flash, colour 241, and Madil Denim, colour 043. For the fluffy snowflake part, I used Bernat Bling Bling in colour 65122. It was all knit on 4.5 mm needles. I love working on hats – they go so quickly.

It looks like I’ll need another skein of yarn for my husband’s scarf. I’ve checked four local yarn stores and nobody carries the yarn I need so I asked Serenity Knits in Newmarket to mail me a skein (I bought it there when I attended the Brandon Mably workshop on October 10th).

Hip to be Square

2008-10-31T22:38:00.003-04:00

While I was visiting Serenity Knits after the Brandon Mably workshop, I picked up a couple of small items. One of them is a luscious skein of Hand Maiden Casbah in the Midnight colour way. It’s 80% merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon. A 115 gram ball has 325 metres on it and would typically knit up at about 26 stitches = 4 inches on 3 mm needles. My gauge is always on the tighter side and is different because of the pattern I’m doing. I thought it would make a great dressy scarf for my hubby. He has a warm winter scarf but it’s kind of ratty because he really only uses it for shovelling and snow blowing. I thought he could use a nicer scarf for dressier occasions. The softness of the merino and cashmere against the skin is heavenly.

I thought the colour way was appropriately masculine and sophisticated. The pattern I’m using is of my own design. I wanted it to look like dimensional blocks. The picture gives you a better idea (that's just a gauge swatch - his scarf will be bigger). It’s all stocking alternating with reverse stocking in an attempt to get the scarf to lie as flat as possible. I could have used garter in places to make it lie flat but garter stitch has a very different gauge and uses more yarn than stocking stitch. That’s me, always thinking practically and frugally.

Divine Twist of Fate – I met Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably!

2008-10-16T19:27:00.004-04:00

Boy, where to begin with this one and not sound like I’m babbling incoherently. Okay; here goes.

Main St. Yarns in Milton was hosting a colour work shop conducted Brandon Mably with Kaffe Fassett doing a book signing afterward in Fergus on Monday, October 13; a.k.a. Canadian Thanksgiving. Needless to say, with these two names on the venue, I ended up being third on the waiting list since it filled up in no time. Then my husband got roped into working on Thanksgiving Monday and I thought, “Oh well, I couldn’t have gone anyways”.

On Monday, October 6, my husband and I arranged to take Friday, October 10 off so my hubby could have some semblance of a long week-end after working 4 week-ends straight.

On Tuesday, October 7, Carolyn from Main St. Yarns was a sweetheart and phoned me to let me know that a store in Newmarket, Serenity Knits, was hosting the same Brandon Mably workshop on the Friday I had just arranged to take off and they still had spaces available. They’ve only been in two years and hence I had never heard of them. Great store! Lovely people! Kaffe was doing a presentation Thursday night but there was no way I could make that one without a teleporter. My immediate reaction was, “AAAAAAHHHHH!!!” I made it in! It’s an hour from my home, but then again, so is Fergus.

The next day, my husband finds out our client has cancelled their week-end work so we have a beautiful four day long week-end which gives us enough time to do a trip to Quebec to see my mother-in-law right after Newmarket. Frantic packing on Thursday night because I don’t have a list prepared, my husband takes the kids to the Ontario Science Centre (which is not too far from Newmarket and one of the children’s most favourite places on the planet) for the day to keep them occupied while I knit for 7 hours (heaven), then he picks me up, we go to the book signing at the shop, then the almost 8 hour drive to Quebec (because of rush hour combined with a long week-end).

The workshop was so much fun and it was great to meet and get insight from a great designer like Brandon. He has a great sense of humour and is very down to earth. He tried to get us to think outside our “colour box”, experiment, not be afraid to make mistakes, and combine colours fearlessly. It was really fascinating to see all the colour combinations from the different minds in the group. Mine is second from the right and second from the top. I bought Brandon's book, Knitting Color: Design Inspiration from Around the World, and he signed it for me, too. They were a great group to be with; I have been so fortunate.

My dear husband realizes how important an event like this is in my life that he didn’t want me to miss it even to have extra time with his mother (whom I happen to get along with very well, by the way). So it was a hellishly long driving day for my poor hubby, but hey, how many times in your life do you get to meet Brandon Mably and Kaffe Fassett and have them both sign your books and you get your picture taken with them and I won one of the door prizes! Kaffe’s latest book, Kaffe Knits Again, with yarn to make the Caterpillar Sweater in it!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHH!!!! Was the long driving day worth it? What drive? I was floating on a cloud, babbling to my husband for hours about what Brandon said. I think I owe him a big one. Happy Thanksgiving!

Catching My Breath and Getting Organized

2008-10-05T19:42:00.002-04:00

My husband finally had a week-end off and we got to go out with the kids, shop, relax, and enjoy life once again.

IKEA is a dangerous place. You always end up walking out with more stuff than you intended, but at least they’re practical goods. We only went there to get my son a desk for his room so he could have a quiet place to do his homework. We ended up getting him a nice book case to go with that desk and a few other handy knick-knacks for the kitchen as well.

The best part for me was getting some lovely yarn storage units! The stacked cardboard boxes, an example of which you see at the base of the closet, really didn’t cut it (so much for my attempt to be frugal). I was considering giving the hanging storage unit on the side, which used to house the yarn, to the kids but then I thought, “I can use that to store the quilting fabric!”

The hanging storage unit and 6 drawer unit are mirrored in the other half of the closet, except that the other hanging unit has art supplies and a little quilt fabric in it. I even got a couple of magazine storage boxes to handle my book shelf overflow. I will eventually get around to putting those away. It’s so nice to be able to see the floor of my hobby room again.

I will also get to listing more sites I visit on my blog and populating my projects section of Ravelry. If only I didn’t have to sleep, I could get things done in a timely manner.

I Won the Knit Purse Competition! Now I can finish that Quilt

2008-09-21T23:07:00.004-04:00

Slight digression from knitting today; we’re going to talk a bit about quilting.

First of all, I won the knit purse competition held by Ruti’s Needlebed; I’m so happy! I’m going to put that $100 gift certificate for Ruti’s Needlebed toward the purchase of a new sewing/quilting machine. I’ll be getting the Brother QC-1000. I went to try it out yesterday. Ni-i-i-i-ce. Some of the wonderful features are that it’s computerized with a big LCD screen, does alphabets, lots of different types of stitches, 22”x16” extra-wide table is a standard accessory, automatic needle threading, bobbin loading’s a breeze, and automatic backstitching and cutting of thread (if you so choose) just to name a few.

When I get it, I can finish that quilt I started 8 years ago when I first learned piecing. I don’t know if you can tell, but the fabric has an Egyptian theme; I love things Egyptian. The course I had taken was a different piecing method a week. I had decided back then that I would hand quilt it being the traditionalist that I am. Well, it’s been 8 years. I did a tiny section of hand quilting (which I wasn’t crazy about appearance-wise). Being the perfectionist that I am, I couldn’t do a half-baked, inconsistent job. It took me quite a while to do that small area, too.

Note that the intense basting is because I was intending to hand quilt and I used polyester batting. Ruthie suggested that I use cotton instead of polyester batting. She said that in her experience, there’s (what she believes to be) a static build up with the polyester that causes the sewing machine to miss stitches. I tried doing a net search on this with not much success. In fact, a lot of sites were still advocating using polyester batting. I don’t know if anyone else has knowledge in this area. She was also disappointed in the way I had folded the backing edge over the front and pinned it down. She said I was not supposed to do that. I said, it depends what book you’re reading, but reassured her that that was not going to be my binding and I just rolled it over and pinned it down to keep it out of my way; that I was going to make a separate binding strip and attach it. That appeased her.

After my short experience with hand quilting, I thought then that maybe machine quilting wasn’t so bad after all. I made a small sample of something else to try it on. It was then that I discovered that the sewing machine I have, my husband’s grand-mother’s 50+ year old sewing machine, is not the best for this task.

It has several mechanical…issues. When I got it, the thread tension knob was already not working properly. I thought that rather than destroy what’s left functional of this precious machine, I should just get a new one; hence, the decision to buy a new machine. Let’s see if I can finish that quilt anytime soon.

Autumn Splendour

2008-09-13T20:25:00.002-04:00

Work’s been so CRAZY that I wasn’t able to blog last week. I’ve been holding off posting this for a while because I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but I must say, I’m quite happy with the results. It's an original design by yours truly, moi.

I love hats! One day, I noticed that in my varied assortment of hats, I didn’t have one that also covered my ears. I also have a lot of purple present in my other hats and decided I needed to expand my color range to better accommodate my fall wardrobe.

I created this bulbous beret to cover my ears. I found this wonderful variegated ball of yellow/green/gold yarn (Berroco Idol in color: 1548 (Princess Grace)) and immediately thought of leaves in the fall, hence the motif of the hat. The background colour is Mission Falls 1824 wool in color: 010 (raisin). It’s wonderfully warm while still being light and extremely comfortable to wear. I knit it on smaller needles than the ball bands recommended deliberately to get a dense, warm hat. The hat is knit in the round as a Fair Isle pattern which enhances its warmth.

Pyramid Purse Complete

2008-08-30T01:56:00.003-04:00

I can’t believe I’m finally done, and none too soon. The deadline for the purse competition is the 31st, but the store isn’t open then so it’s really today.

It feels like it’s been forever since I completed something. I even managed to line the purse with fabric covered cardboard. It really was necessary so the purse could stand up and have a definite shape.

I went a little simpler on the closure than I was originally planning because of time constraints. I made bobbles with buttonholes – nothing fancy. No time to make a purse strap either; oh well, I guess it will have to be a clutch. Overall, I’m pleased with the results.

I'm on Ravelry Now!

2008-08-26T19:08:00.002-04:00

I almost forgot to tell everyone that I am a member of Ravelry now. I am the "adamantiumknitter". Voila!

Go West! –High River Vacation 2008

2008-08-24T23:46:00.008-04:00

What a wonderful vacation we had this year. It’s good to be home, but was so hard going back to work. The weather in Alberta was what summer should have been here - warm, dry and sunny. We had a miserably wet summer here. Anyways, here are some of the highlights from the vacation.

Bar U Ranch
The Bar U Ranch National Historic Site is located in Longview, Alberta by Pekisko Creek. We had a nice carriage ride around the site, visited the saddlery, cookhouse, post office, and blacksmith buildings (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ab/baru/index_E.asp). We had coffee and tea made for us around a campfire where the chuck wagon was and fresh out of the oven gingerbread cookies in the cookhouse. It turned out that the blacksmith knows my father-in-law and made us a souvenir on that authentic 1800’s forge to take home – what an honour! The plains of Alberta are beautiful. I love the green open land and clear blue sky.

Calgary Zoo
Although it’s not as big or elaborate as the Toronto and Granby zoos, there’s still plenty of animals, fun and interesting stuff for the kids (http://www.calgaryzoo.org/).

Drumheller
We are dinosaur nuts so for us, this is one of the coolest places on earth! In my own opinion, their dinosaur museum is the best museum, period, that I have ever been to. After our museum visit, we took one of the walking trails through the Bad Lands. They are incredibly beautiful (http://www.dinosaurvalley.com/).

Nanton
In this small town not far from High River, there’s the Nanton Lancaster Air Museum and an incredible train shop devoted to Thomas the Train. At the back of the shop, they have an incredible garden railway (http://www.town.nanton.ab.ca/).

Cape Spear Coverlet Yarn Requirements

2008-08-18T22:15:00.002-04:00

Thanks for your comment, Kelly. I’ve put myself on the waiting list for an invitation to join Ravelry; it seems there are quite a few people on the waiting list ahead of me. I’m sorry I can’t post to a thread right now, but hopefully in the near future, I can.

The pattern I purchased is not in a book but a 2 page brochure. It seems to me that they wrote this to simulate the cover but not exactly reproduce it. They call for South Maid or Coates no. 40 crochet cotton, but they don’t state a yardage requirement, they state a weight; 4 kg for a double bed and 2 kg for a single. The pattern recommends using 2mm or 2-1/4mm needles. The resulting shell would be 3.8 cm (1.5” from top to bottom) and 4.4 cm (1.75” from side to side). It says you need to make 1,536 shells for a double bed or 800 for a single bed.

This shell dimension seems to me to be much smaller than the shells I see in the coverlet on the bed in my blog dated May 11, 2008 or the Yarn Harlot’s blog dated August 7, 2008. When I tried to estimate the count I could see in the picture, I get 510.

I’m doing my own thing on this. I’m using the Butterfly Super - 10 mercerized cotton and 3.75mm needles to produce a shell measuring 8.5 cm (3.3” from top to bottom) and 16.5 cm (6.5” from side to side). Each skein is 125 grams, 230 metres. I purchased 12 skeins for a total of 2,760 metres or 3,018 yards, 1.5 kg. At the time, I had estimated that with the dimensions of my shells, I would require approximately 500 shells for my bed. I now have a larger bed and probably not enough yarn – oh well. I’m considering buying more even though the die lot is different, but using it to border shells in the centre. We’ll see; I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Hope this helps!

Cape Spear Coverlet Pattern Attainment Information

2008-08-08T15:58:00.002-04:00

In response to Shelley and yarndork, below is some information where you might be able to get the pattern for the Cape Spear Coverlet.

The website is http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/spear/visit/Services_e.asp and the contact information is:
Cape Spear National Historic Site
P.O. Box 1268
St John's, NL
Canada A1C 5M9
Tel: 709-772-5367
Fax: 709-772-6302
Email: cape.spear@pc.gc.ca

I wish you luck getting the pattern; I hope this works out for you. I purchased the hard copy of this pattern 13 years ago when I was on my honeymoon from a gift shop that I can’t even remember the name of now. Needless to say, there was no contact information on the pattern itself; the internet then wasn’t what it is now. So, I am really grateful to someone named Denise who posted the information above in the comments section of the Yarn Harlot’s blog dated August 7, 2008 where she is actually visiting Cape Spear and viewing the original coverlet.

Failing that, I would advise trying your local public library and look for a motif compendium. I remember seeing one about a decade ago when I was living in Mississauga. In it was a triangular motif similar in principle to the scallop motif with the alternating knitting and purling sections (stockinet stitch for 4 rows, reverse stockinet stitch for 4 rows). When I saw that, I realized how that pattern could be adapted to make different shapes. I wish I had taken down that book’s information now. I think in a future blog, I will take a closer picture of the piece so you can get a general idea of the construction of the motif.

And thank you, Linda, for your recent comment where I posted my pictures of the coverlet pieces I’m currently working on.
http://finallyfranknitting.blogspot.com/2008/05/iron-man-and-cape-spear-coverlet.html

Pyramid Construction Progressing

2008-08-04T10:00:00.002-04:00

I love long week-ends. They enable me to do a blog on a Monday. As of the end of the day Friday, I’m officially on vacation for two weeks!

We had a nice picnic in Stratford with some shopping thrown in on Saturday. Next Saturday, we’ll be flying out to Alberta to visit the hubby’s family. We’ll probably end up visiting Banff, the Columbia Icefields, and the zoo, amongst other things.
Now, on to the purse. I have both the front and back done now. I am currently working on creating the bottom and sides. I ran out of the medium shade of blue that I used in the purse and only have the darkest and palest shade left. I have other blues in my bag of blues, but the textures are very different and I didn’t think they would work as well. So I’m trying to make do with what I have. I used an open cast on (a.ka. provisional cast on) with the darkest shade so I could just pick up the stitches on the other side and start knitting again. Instead of using a different yarn to hold the stitches and help me cast on, I used a stitch holder.

I was eventually planning on lining the purse and adding a zipper or two, but I don’t know if I can make it in time now. Oh well.

I have to figure out what knitting I will pack in the suitcase to take with me. Tough one; it has to be small, yet enough to keep me busy. The hubby’s family will probably keep us so busy, I won’t have time to pick up the needles (which is what usually happens on these types of family trips), but a week without yarn – unthinkable!

Tea Bag/Spoon Rest Complete

2008-07-26T22:25:00.002-04:00

Well, here it is. Finally complete. I was disappointed with my first use of it though. The heat from the tea bag dissolved the shellac. Oh well, spoon rest it is.

I really need to get back to my knitting. The hubby and I have been so busy with overtime work, I have found I hard to focus on creating the purse pattern I’m working on. I'm very much looking forward to going on vacation in a week.

Crochet Garment Bag and Special Cake

2008-07-20T18:01:00.004-04:00

I love how fast crochet goes. I finished the laundry garment bag. My daughter’s stuffed animals are in it to demonstrate. I laced some cord through the top for closing the bag.

My daughter will be four on Tuesday so I made her a special cake for this week-end. Family will be over next week-end to celebrate but I don’t have time to make anything special before they come over, hence the private celebration now with a cake made by Mom. Her favourite colour is purple. The icing roses were bought pre-made from the bulk barn, but the rest was all me.
I also finally painted the tea pot shaped tea bag/spoon rest. It’s now drying with Krylon satin varnish sprayed on it; pictures next week.

Crochet Garment Bag

2008-07-13T19:10:00.003-04:00

Some years ago (less than 8; wish I could remember), I crocheted a garment bag for laundry purposes. I made it out of 100% cotton. Well, it finally died.

I thought, this time, I will make it out of a yarn and hope that lasts longer. I chose Baycrest 100% acrylic (manufactured for the Bay) because it’s synthetic, I’m not using it for anything else, and I have way too much of it. If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of this, it’s because my Mom bought a lot of it many, many, many years ago to make an afghan and abandoned the idea. So, as with a lot of things she no longer has any use for, it makes its way to me.

I picked up my 4.5 mm hook and my wonderful The Harmony Guide to Crocheting: Techniques and Stitches, and began searching for a motif for my garment bag. Whilst I was doing this, my daughter spotted a lovely orange star in the book which she asked me to make for her; I’m such a push-over. The motif I chose to begin my garment bag is the Cranesbill Lace Square.

My son liked the motif I made for my daughter, so naturally, he has to have a motif all his own. I promised him I would make him the motif of his choice, too, once I had my own square done. I guess that will have to wait till another blog.

Canada Day

2008-07-02T22:44:00.002-04:00

First, an apology for not posting on the week-end, but it was our first opportunity at a vacation since Christmas! We took an extra day off for the Canada Day week-end and went to visit my mother-in-law in Quebec; she just finished moving into a new house that could accommodate our family visits.

It was also the end of the school year. My hubby has a buddy who is a school teacher and had to throw a party to celebrate the end of the school year. Fine food (he’s quite a chef), fine wine (not getting drunk but pleasantly “happy”), and getting my ass kicked at a card game called Kung Fu Fighting (hilarious).

The kids were so good on the trip that I got to do some reading in the van. The co-op student working for me right now suggested two books by the author Khaled Hosseini; The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I finished reading the latter before the trip and got two thirds of the former read since. He is a fabulously talented author both for his moving stories as well as his ability to tell it beautifully.

In between relaxing, shopping with my mother-in-law, assembling furniture, and playing board games, I didn’t get much knitting done. I didn’t even get to paint the tea bag/spoon rest I made last week-end. Oh well, here’s a picture of the unpainted object on my son’s now broken clay canons.

Knit Purse Progress

2008-06-22T14:07:00.002-04:00

I’m happy to say that I have completed the front half of the purse.

Here’s a close-up detailing the brick stitch I used to give dimension to the pyramid.

This was a bit of a crafty week-end; I love those types of week-ends. The kids and I were playing with modelling clay and water paints. My son is becoming quite the artist. He made an impressive pirate ship, canons, and pirate hats. The tea obsessed person that I am made tea bag/spoon rest. I can’t do just decorative; everything always has to have some utilitarian purpose. I don’t think I’ll have time to paint it today so I think I’ll post pictures on that next week.

Pyramid Purse Continued

2008-06-15T18:05:00.004-04:00

This was nothing short of a miracle. It was the week-end in I don’t know how long that my hubby and I didn’t have to work, we didn’t have to go anywhere, and we didn’t have anyone coming over. Translation: we had a week-end to ourselves where we could actually relax and do what we wanted.

Saturday, we went to Medieval Times for the first time. They’re having a special promotion on now. It’s one kid free per every full priced adult. What a blast! My son and I had our own fun putting on a pre-dinner sword fighting show with strobe lighting swords while my daughter, the princess, did her interpretive dance in between. My hubby very kindly held our drinks and other paraphernalia.

On the knitting side, I received good news from the proprietor of Ruti’s Needlebed. Not only do I not have to keep to a Streetsville history theme, I don’t even have to keep to a history theme. She said that was really more for the quilters. Yeah!!!! So it’s full steam ahead for my pyramid purse. Here’s where I am now.

Knit Purse Competition

2008-06-08T15:43:00.002-04:00

Last week, I was distracted by bunnies. Not much knitting. Before I get into the knitting, I have to say that we saw Kung Fu Panda at the SilverCity Mississauga yesterday and it was AWESOME! We’re definitely buying it when it comes out on DVD.

I have started swatching for the purse. I have done a few different things because I’m using various different yarns with various different gauges so I plan to change needles when I change colours. I have mentioned before that the theme for the purse competition at Ruti’s Needlebed is “History Lives”. The one thing I’m not sure about is, does it have to be Streetsville’s history? Right now, my purse wouldn’t be. If it does have to be that, that certainly constrains the design a lot and I don’t think I could meet that design criteria. Oh well, we’ll see. Here’s the swatch.

Bunny Love

2008-06-01T21:43:00.004-04:00

With the weather being as lousy as it has been in the month of May, I hadn’t gone out to do yard work for quite a while. About two weeks ago, I went out to inspect the yard. I noticed a clump of animal fur in our back yard under the platform area of the children’s slide.

The fur looked like rabbit to me. I thought to myself, there could only be one reason a rabbit would deposit that amount of fur in one area; a warren. Last Sunday, I decided to take a peek under the fluff covering. I saw a tiny head with tiny ears surrounded by other fur bodies. I covered it back up because I didn’t want to disturb them. The next day, I saw some of the fluff covering had been removed. I went to look. There were at least five bunnies that I could count; still huddled cosily together in their warren.

The following day, they were out of the warren. There were seven of the cutest baby bunnies you have ever seen.

They only stayed with us for one day after they came out of the warren. I was so sad to see them go. I had come to think of myself as their surrogate mother. Kids grow up so fast.

The New Seven Wonders of the World

2008-05-25T00:39:00.002-04:00

In trying to come up with a title for this blog, I solicited my husband’s opinion. He suggested something related to the Seven Wonders of the World. So I did a little digging to make sure the title would be justified. I came across this article dated July 9, 2007 at the National Geographic website. Apparently, a phone and internet vote was conducted to pick the new human-made Seven Wonders of the World. The results of the vote were released on July 7, 2007 (07-07-07; coincidence, I think not).

The winners are (in no particular order):

The 105-foot-tall (38-meter-tall) "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The Colosseum in Rome
India's Taj Mahal
The Great Wall of China
Jordan's ancient city of Petra
The Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru
The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico

To my chagrin, The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, was not in this list. There was some kafuffle with the Egyptians who were insulted that there was even a contest over this. So, competition organizers withdrew the Pyramids and granted them "honorary wonder" status. As far as I’m concerned, it is still a wonder of the world; seven is too small a number. What about Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The list goes on and is too lengthy to discuss here.

Believe it or not, this is all related to my current knitting project. A while ago, I mentioned that Ruti’s Needlebed is having a knit or crochet purse contest where the theme is “History Lives” in honour of Streetsville’s 150th anniversary. It is interesting to note that of all the items on the original list of ancient wonders, The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only remaining survivor. I would call that “History Lives”. And hence the idea for my purse; pictures to follow next week.

Knitting and a Movie

2008-05-18T16:57:00.004-04:00

It looks like May will be our month for watching movies in the theatre. Due to timing constraints of our Victoria Day week-end schedule, we found ourselves going back to the SilverCity in Oakville again (see last week's comments on the theatre), but this time with the kids (and hence no VIP seating) to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

First, the Movie
The movie was definitely entertaining. Great special effects. I would have to say it’s even better than Disney’s first Narnia movie (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe).

Second, the Theatre
I hope the seating in this theatre is not indicative of a future trend towards smaller seats in movie theatres. I felt compressed in the seat again. The arm-rests, with cup-holders on the ends, were way too short. I had to pull my arm in and up to grab my cup; not comfortable. Once again, this theatre was disappointing. We’re definitely not going back.

When the Coliseum in Mississauga and the Winston Churchill 24 (AMC) Oakville opened, the trend was towards larger, more comfortable seats. For the amount of money we now have to pay to see a movie, why shouldn’t we be comfortable? Heck, the Winston Churchill AMC calls their high-backed seats "loveseats" because the arms in the chair fold back so that couples can snuggle together; brilliant idea.

Third, the Knitting
Just did my first pattern submission today. That’s a huge weight off my shoulders. No idea if it will be accepted and won’t know for a few months until a decision is made.

I haven’t been able to work on any personal knitting because I was focussing on this submission and now on a project for another contest. At least for that, they don’t need to have a written pattern; they just want the final product.

I don’t have anything new to display, so maybe I will show you what is to date, my greatest knitting accomplishment. I knit the Katherine Howard sweater which was designed by Jade Starmore (one of my favourite designers; her mother, Alice Starmore, is another) and can be found in the book Tudor Roses. I made sure I finished the sweater before my son was born because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to finish it afterward. The total time period it was in execution from start to finish was 2.5 years. The tedium of certain areas of the pattern got to me and I put it on the side for too long.

Here it is on display in the Mississauga Central Library in August 2005 alongside a lovely sweater I made in 1992 from the Spring/Summer 1992 issue of Vogue Knitting.

The original sweater called for Classic Elite “Willough” which is a cotton/silk blend. Being a poor university student at the time, I bought an inexpensive 100% cotton yarn and thought, what’s the difference? Thus, I received my first practical lesson in how certain fibres give a garment drape and certain fibres don’t. It still ended up being a beautiful sweater.

IRON MAN and the Cape Spear Coverlet

2008-05-11T17:54:00.005-04:00

What do IRON MAN and a knit Cape Spear Coverlet have in common? My wedding anniversary! That’s right; Tuesday, May 6th was my 13th wedding anniversary so the hubby and I went to see IRON MAN last Saturday (May 3rd) at the new SilverCity with three VIP theatres in Oakville.

First, the Movie
IRON MAN totally rocks! It is far and away one of the best movies I have ever seen. I would highly recommend it to anybody.

Second, the Theatre
I believe the SilverCity in Oakville is the largest digital movie theatre in Canada. It has Dolby Digital Surround Sound, a licensed VIP lounge, and food and drink orders delivered directly to (what they call) plush oversized leather seats in the VIP screening rooms. More details can be found in this review by The Hamilton Spectator which prompted us to go there in the first place. Baby sitting is offered for children from 4 – 10 but my daughter is just shy of 4 so we were lucky a couple of friends volunteered to take care of our munchkins. The actual overall dimension of the seat space seemed to be no different than a regular SilverCity theatre. The “plush” definitely not oversized leather seat actually decreased the internal seat size so I actually felt a bit constricted in my seat and I’m not a large person by any account.

The more sophisticated food offered in the VIP area includes chicken strips, sushi rolls, bruschetta, mac and cheese wedges, onion scoops, ranging in price from $4 to $11 for a tray for two (that’s what they call it – it wouldn’t come close to filling my 3 year old daughter). My hubby tried the mac and cheese wedges for $4. It came in a glossy black cardboard box approximately 3” x 3” x 5”. Inside were a measly 5 deep-fried equilateral triangles approximately 1.5” per side and no more than 3/8” thick.

Desserts include Rockslide Brownie and Passion Mango Cheesecake at about $6. We didn’t bother with dessert after the mac and cheese disappointment. The supposed “side table that swings up to hold snacks” was not existent. There was some sort of wooden armature in between my husband and myself that could not be moved (I would hardly call it a table) so we couldn’t snuggle. The resultant effect was that I was actually sitting closer to the woman beside me than my own husband.

There was no air conditioning; so for the first time ever, I was actually sweating in a movie theatre while wearing a thin dress blouse.

‘Nuf said.

Third, the Coverlet
I bought this pattern when we were on our honeymoon and passing some historical sites in Newfoundland. History and knitting together – must grab. The coverlet was made during the Victorian era and consists of 1,536 shell pieces (triangles when joined together create this lovely scalloped shape). It is in a light house at Cape Spear.

The pattern uses very fine crochet cotton. I decided to do my own thing and substitute with a yarn of my choosing knowing my scallop triangles would be bigger but hopefully much quicker to knit.

Ten years ago, I bought the yarn to do it. It is a lovely Butterfly Super 10 100% mercerized cotton manufactured in Greece. The colour is Ecru. A whopping 125 gram skein has 230 metres of yarn in it.

Today, I have 21 knit unattached pieces and 5 knit joined pieces.

I’m not sure I’ll get it done by my 20th anniversary at this rate! I know; it’s pathetic. As lovely as this pattern is, the amount of repetition has made it tedious and hence a bit boring which is not a good thing for me when I’m knitting. So, I keep dropping it for more interesting patterns. I will eventually get it done (I’m sure).

So much yarn, so little time…

2008-04-27T18:34:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I went and bought lots of yarn and saved tons of money doing it (as if I didn’t have enough yarn already and no time to knit it). A YARN SALE must be taken advantage of! My justification for this is that I'm making purchases for my children and hubby, not for me (yeah, right).

So here’s the scoop. Ruti’s Needlebed in Streetsville, Mecca for quilters and yarn enthusiasts, is having an anniversary sale and competition. It’s their 10th anniversary and Streetsville’s 150th. Ruthie’s got $10/bag of yarn! Most of these bags contain 10 balls each of good quality yarn. One exception was the Noro bag, which I seized without a second thought, which contained 5 balls in it. Still, $2/ball of Noro (stunned look of disbelief, mouth gaping open, heavy breathing, palpitations); no brainer! Just look at all the stuff I got!

She’s got other great deals on fabrics and yarns; it’s worth checking out.

There is a quilting competition and a knit purse competition. The prize for the purse competition is a $100 gift certificate for use in Ruti’s. Any entry submitted gets some sort of prize. The theme is “History Lives!” reflecting Streetsville’s anniversary celebration. I’m going to try and come up with a purse for submission by August 31 (deadline).

So much to knit, so little time…

2008-04-20T15:32:00.007-04:00

Okay, this is really frustrating. It’s not like I haven’t been knitting, I have but it has to be top secret if I want to get my pattern(s?) published; that’s one of the conditions for submission. AAARGH! Of course, my pattern(s?) has to be accepted, too. No guarantees.

There; I got that out of my system, now I feel better (well, only minutely and only for a short amount of time). This is supposed to be primarily (though not exclusively) a knitting blog so I would really like to bring the focus back there at some point which means I might have to show some existing UFOs (unfinished objects) for a while interspersed with other crafts / activities.

This week-end, we finally had some nice weather with no risk of frost so I could plant some new plants and bulbs and attempt to clean up the yard. It finally looks like civilized people live here now.

What I was particularly excited about was putting up my new bird feeder with new pole to hang it on. Cardinals are rare to see so I was especially fortunate to get a pair this time. The male was eating some seeds on the patio that he had extracted from my new feeder. The female was a little farther off on the fence so I had to blow up the picture of her hence the slightly grainier appearance.

Now, for Something Completely Different

2008-04-06T21:33:00.004-04:00

As the description under my blog title says, “a few other crafts thrown in for good measure”; this one is macramé.

My kids have me wrapped around their little finger. Anything they want Mommy to make, Mommy can do it (well almost – I had to decline the request for a knitted a Spider-Man outfit for Halloween because of the whole "day job" thing).

My daughter requested a bracelet be made from her seashell bracelet/necklace kit with a few other miscellaneous beads thrown in. My son got in on the beading action, too (I'm so proud of him). I did the macramé knotting. Notice my thrifty use of a cushion actually intended for bobbin lace making (I will get to that hobby one day, really I will; I have the tools and books and everything).

Why am I using a bandage to hold the macramé down? Because someone had me open a bandage for no good reason so rather than throw out the unused, now non-sterile bandage, I gave it a purpose. Sometimes, my thriftiness is a scary thing. The adhesive on the bandage is great to hold the other end of the work down and has been re-used several times already just for this purpose (no humans were injured to use the bandage).

I’m using the read bead at the end as a clasp. Ta da! The recipient is quite happy.

Silent Night, Earth Hour Night

2008-03-30T21:37:00.003-04:00

Saturday, March 29, 2008 from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm was Earth Hour. What a blissful hour that was. The kids loved that “camping” feeling. We sat at our dining table with flashlights for bathroom runs and candles in essential house hold places and had a family game of Gulo Gulo (Latin for wolverine).

This is a fabulous family game for kids of all ages. Even my 3.5 year old can understand the instructions. Everybody chooses a wolverine and tries to steal eggs from a nest without setting off the alarm (egg on the pole). Such a simple yet effective device – pure genius. The kids usually beat the adults because their tiny fingers are much more adept at grabbing the eggs from the nest. I’m lucky that my long nails (claws) provide me with a fighting chance against the young’uns. My 6’4”, 310 pound husband with his proportionately sized paws usually loses. (We didn’t have the lights on; it was the flash of my camera that illuminated this so well).

The kids didn’t want to turn on the lights afterward because they were having so much fun but it was bedtime and we had already let them stay up late to enjoy Earth Hour. We definitely plan to do this more often.

Lacy Diamond Wrist Warmer Pattern

2008-03-15T22:31:00.008-04:00

As I was driving to work one day, I noticed that as my hands reach up to my steering wheel, my jacket sleeve goes down leaving my wrist area exposed and feeling somewhat chilly. That’s what prompted me to make these wrist warmers. I used the left over Mirasol (shade 309) I had from my fingerless glove project . I tailored these wrist warmers so they would taper to the narrowest part of my wrist instead of being a cylindrical cuff. The finished circumference at the narrowest part is 6” to fit my 6.5” wrist. This is not tight at all because of the amount of stretch the yarn has.

I took a lace diamond pattern from the Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches, Volume 1, p.67 and modified it slightly.

Where it says “sl 1, k1, psso”, I use a ssk (slip slip knit); it’s a personal preference. I also knit the wrist warmers in the round on double pointed needles so all the purl rows became knit rows. Since the Mirasol is such a loud yarn, you don’t see the lacy diamond as well. I’m still happy with the outcome of my little project. The pattern follows below.

Gauge: 25 sts / 38 rows = 4” on 4 mm needles knit in the round in pattern

Pattern Notes: PM = place marker (I use a marker to mark the 16 stitch pattern section; the pattern has a 16 round repeat so I work 32 rounds)
yo = yarn over
ssk = slip slip knit
k2tog = knit 2 together
sl 1 = slip 1 stitch knitwise
psso = pass slipped stitch over

Directions: Cast on 44 sts. Join and work in the round on 4 mm double pointed needles.

Work in K2, P2 rib for 2 rounds. Start panel pattern.

Round 1: K14; PM, k5, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k5, PM; K14
Rounds 2, 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 20, 24, 26, 30, 32: Knit.
Round 3: K14; k3, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k4; K14
Round 4: K12, ssk; k16; k2tog, k12 (42 stitches in round)
Round 5: K13; k2, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k3; k13
Round 7: K13; k1, k2tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k2; k13
Round 9: K13; k2tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k1; k13
Round 10: K11, ssk; k16; k2tog, k11 (40 stitches in round)
Round 11: K12; k2, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, yo, k2tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k2tog; k12
Round 13: K12; k3, yo, ssk, k2, yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k2; k12
Round 15: K12; k4, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k1, k2tog, yo, k3; k12
Round 16: K10, ssk; k16; k2tog, k10 (38 stitches in round)
Round 17: K11; k5, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k5; K11
Round 19: K11; k3, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k4; K11
Round 21: K11; k2, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k3; k11
Round 22: K9, ssk; k16; k2tog, k9 (36 stitches in round)
Round 23: K10; k1, k2tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k2; k10
Round 25: K10; k2tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k1; k10
Round 27: K10; k2, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, yo, k2tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k2tog; k10
Round 28: K8, ssk; k16; k2tog, k8 (34 stitches in round)
Round 29: K9; k3, yo, ssk, k2, yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k2; k9
Round 31: K9; k4, yo, ssk, k2, yo, ssk, k1, k2tog, yo, k3; k9

Work in K2, P2 rib for 1 round (you will end in k2 because of the number of stitches, i.e. you will have 4 knit stitches together, 2 at the beginning of the round and 2 at the end of the round). Cast off in ribbing. Work second cuff identically.

Happy knitting!

Pink and Purple Monstrosity

2008-03-08T22:37:00.003-05:00

I went back to one of my UFOs (unfinished objects). I dubbed it the Pink and Purple Monstrosity because it was to be a cacophony on oddballs of pink and purple yarns of various gauges and textures from my stash (okay, I went and bought a few more balls to aid the balance of colour)

shaped into a work of art. I love mitred squares!

Do you think Fran is really short for Frankenstein?

This project got started so I could use a new pair of pink, 5.5 mm, KNITLITE knitting needles I had received for Christmas from my mother-in-law. This was my experiment with knitting with pure feeling “free” from thought, patterns, and gauge considerations. Okay, so it wasn’t totally “free” because the anal, planning engineer that I am couldn’t let go of her controlling tendencies and went and bought more yarn to balance colour. It was initially supposed to be a shawl for me but the kids have convinced me that we need it as an afghan more; they love to snuggle up to it.

Moebius Scarf Complete

2008-03-02T17:51:00.003-05:00

Here we have a very happy Dora wearing her new moebius scarf. I’m very pleased with the results.

I now find myself at that awful point at the intersection of EUPHORIA at the successful completion of a project and ANGST wondering what to do next. Hmm, is it time to start that cross-stitch project? Finish that first quilt I started 7 years ago? (I finished my second quilt in about a year and started my third quilt about 2.5 years ago) It’s not that I don’t have enough UFOs (unfinished objects) or backlog of projects I want to start, but they’re all pretty big and/or intense. Small quick projects would definitely give me better weekly blog material. And then there’s the designs I’m working on which means I’m not knitting the backlogged projects if I’m designing. Lastly, there’s the day job which pays the bills. If only I didn’t need to sleep; then maybe I could get things done in a decent amount of time.

Mastering the Moebius

2008-02-24T18:09:00.002-05:00

It got ‘slightly’ easier to move stitches around the needle to more I knit but it was still difficult because you are using only one needle and I had two cable connectors in there which have a “grabby” tendency. I am glad I that I did attempt and succeed at using this method, but I want to make rapid progress on this project so I need to modify my methodology.

I am now using three cable needles, two holding the moebius ring (half a ring each) and the third to knit with. It’s working very well and I’m now making rapid progress. The three 4.5 mm circular needles are: one regular circular 32” in length, one Denise circular which still has a connector joining a 16” and a 9” cable, another Denise circular which still has a connector joining a 12” and 14” cable. The Denise kit on comes with two needle tips of each size, but that’s really all I need. Only one tip, the one you are actively knitting with, determines the gauge so that end is 4.5 mm and the other end I’ve made 4 mm so it’s easier to slide the stitches off the needle (that was a Cat Bordhi tip).

At this rate, I’m hoping to have the scarf finished by next week-end.

Dragon Scarf Complete!

2008-02-17T13:59:00.004-05:00

A long week-end in February! Family Day is Monday, February 18 – rejoice! We really needed this after last week-end. We were too busy with my son’s birthday party going on for knitting (or much of anything else) to have any presence.

I pleased to announce that I have finally completed my son’s Dragon Scarf! I’m very happy with the results. You will notice the lovely blue tuft of hair which my son wanted his dragon scarf to have. It’s Bernat’s Disco.
You will also notice two slits above the hair. I was trying to come up with something that would make it easy for a child to fasten and unfasten a scarf. Buttons can be tricky as well as long ties. With two slits there, he can slide the tail of the dragon through. It didn’t work as well as I had planned though. Apparently, it comes undone a little too easily for him now. I told him to just pull it through a little further so the scales could lock it in place. We’ll see how it goes.
I thought it would be nice if the dragon had glowing eyes that stood out. I used some yellow yarn in a satin stitch and red beads for the pupils. The puffs of smoke are just four strands of white yarn I fringed through two holes I made for nostrils.
On to a Moebius Scarf for my mother-in-law and hopefully some more knitting time.

Conquering Moebius

2008-02-02T18:43:00.000-05:00

I’m proud to say that I have succeeded in doing the Moebius cast on from Cat Bordhi’s book, A Treasury of Magical Knitting. Not only that, I have knit one complete row. It was hard as all hell but it has been quite a learning experience. Cat's instructions were spot on; the trouble was me.
I received my pink Denise Interchangeable needle set on January 22 and my fingers had been itching since then to try something, but what to try? Contemplating it while knitting my son’s dragon scarf, dreaming about it at night, can you tell I’m a little knitting obsessed? Okay, finally settled on a golden colour Décor with 4.5 mm needles. If I had been smart and thought about it, I would have put a smaller needle on the left hand side as the book and website suggested to make sliding stitches off the needle easier but in my haste, I of course wasn’t thinking logically. Another thing I did which made this more difficult was that I made my needle length 58” instead of 47” (the book suggests 47-60). The finished garment I’m attempting will be ~48” in circumference; some might now see my problem. I am now reminded of one of the reasons I never liked using a circular; my garment circumference is smaller than my needle circumference and I had extra cable to push and shove my knitting over to get to knit it. Once again, in my haste, I was not reasoning too well. Given that this was my first attempt too, if I had cast on and knit a bit more loosely, that might also have helped. I’m hoping that as I keep knitting (your work actually expands in between the cable ring; you are essentially knitting from the spine of the moebius outward), the extra material in between will allow me to shift my stitches on the needle more easily.

Oh well, live and learn. For now, back to finishing my son’s dragon scarf.

Fear of Cutting?

2008-01-26T14:20:00.000-05:00

The dragon scarf is progressing nicely now that I’ve had some time to knit. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Two pictures, even better:
This design has evolved from my original concept. I was originally going to do ordinary mitred squares but then I thought, “It would be nice to get a dragon scale overlapping effect”. I recalled seeing other garment pictures with irregularly shaped mitred squares, partial shapes, and some inlaid within the other. I thought I can do that. So I devised my method.

In the centre, I have a straight needle working the small, solid coloured, mitred square. The centre square is the only place I cut yarn. I pick up 7 stitches along the edge of the right mitred square, take the loop left from the square below, then pick up 7 stitches along the edge of the left mitred square, which I can’t do if I leave yarn attached on my last stitch.

You will notice in the picture above that I have one circular needle active on each variegated mitred square with yarn still attached; I never cut yarn on these squares. Let’s take the right square as an example. Once my small teal square in the centre is complete, I start the right square. I have 15 stitches on the needle, I cast on 7 more. I knit working the mitred decrease, then pick up and KNIT another 7 along the edge of the teal triangle I just completed. I purl the entire next row, but after that, I keep working the mitred square as a garter stitch square decreasing until I get down to 15 stitches again ending with the right side facing; then that side goes on hold and I work on the left side. I was hoping the bit of stockinette in between would help distinguish the individual “scales” (without having to cut and join yarn).

Because I end with the right side facing on the left mitred square, I turn the work so that the wrong side is facing me and do a pick up and PURL along the left edge of the centre square. I then turn the work so that I have my right side facing me to begin knitting again. I knit across, working the mitred decrease and finish knitting the row. I turn my work and cast on 7 stitches; I then purl the row. I continue working the garter stitch square as above until I’m down to 15 stitches again. All this so I don’t have to cut and rejoin yarn again. I’m even working from both ends of the ball at the same time; I like going for maximum efficiency.

Would it be simpler to just cut my yarn each time and rejoin it so I could start knitting from the right side? Probably; but I gotta be me.

My Tiny Bit of Fame

2008-01-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

I got Joanne Yordanou’s book. I love it! I knitted the lace pillows on page 102 (Joanne did the lining and stuffing) which are also shown on the back cover of the book and I’m given credit in the acknowledgement section. I’m thrilled. It was really exciting to have been a part of this even though my part was small.

The layout of the book is beautiful and Joanne writes so eloquently. My favourites are the cable patterns. If I had to pick just one, I would have to say my favourite is the sleeveless white wrap cable sweater also shown on the back cover. Too many projects, too little time.

As an aside, my son's dragon scarf is coming along well (though slowly). Hopefully, I will have something to post on that next week.

New Addition to the Family

2008-01-12T22:02:00.000-05:00

We got a pet today! It’s a blue Siamese Fighting fish (Betta); blue being my son’s favourite colour, it just had to have blue in it. We’ve named our new pet, Blue Dragon.

Ironically, I’ve finished the blue dragon hat, too. It was my son who came up with the name for the fish. Okay, I guess I influenced him somewhat. Before looking at fish, he thought he would like to call the new pet, Mr. Fish. I said I liked “Dragon” considering the breed we were contemplating getting. So he said, “Mr. Dragon Fish”. My hubby in his wisdom said, “Why don’t we look at the fish first and then decide”. So we went to get “the fish”. When we got it, I asked again, “What do you want to call it”? He said, “Blue Dragon”. There was no argument from anyone. Let’s hope we can keep this fish alive. We’re new at this.

Cat Bordhi - Genius

2008-01-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

Well, I didn’t much knitting done over Christmas but I scored in the book department. I got Jan Messent’s Knitted Gardens (an exceptionally fine work of art) and Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters and A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting at Christmas time. I could not put these books down. Cat is a genius and her instructions are fantastic. It is pretty intense reading. I needed a nice quiet place to concentrate and absorb all the techniques I was presented. It was so exciting and enlightening; I went to sleep dreaming about all the creations I had seen. If I had the right needles with me, you just know I would hardly have slept that night because I would have been knitting. You definitely get your money’s worth out of these books.

Another designer I would consider to be in this genius category is Debbie New. I’ve had her book Unexpected Knitting for a few years now and look at it quite often. Refreshing, ingenious, fine art; enough said.

I could babble on but I’m trying to keep this short. In future blogs, I’m sure I will be mentioning other designer’s I admire and/or who have inspired me.

What I think is a shame is that Cat Bordhi, Debbie New, and other ingenious designers like them aren’t recognized as much as some other designer’s are because of marketing or maybe not “being in the right place at the right time”. At least, that’s how it appears to me. I feel there are some truly gifted designers / innovators out there who aren’t getting the accolades they deserve. It’s also a reflection of my personal taste; there are designers I’m not crazy about but other people adore.

Another book I’m looking forward to is Joanne Yordanou’s 12 Months of Knitting due out January 8, 2008. I was one of the test knitters for the book. I’m so excited!

Almost Christmas

2007-12-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

This will be my last blog entry for the holidays. Work has been so crazy, I’m amazed I had any time to knit. I’m proud to say that the balaclava is done with the exception of the fins on top, which my son reminded me about a few times today. I haven’t worked out the logistics of that yet. It’s been quite the experience, designing as I go, putting it on his head each step of the way and altering my original conceived pattern as required. When I got to the crown, I felt I wanted it to come down further on his forehead so I picked up stitches along the front sides of the face as I worked back and forth instead of in the round. I’m very happy with the results so far and what I have accomplished. Modelling this fine garment today is ninja racoon.
Happy holidays everyone!

Snowed In

2007-12-16T15:30:00.001-05:00

Friday night was the first chance I had to knit all week!!! How I survived and kept my sanity, I don’t know; must be the underlying work pressure weighing on my mind. We have a pretty heavy project going on at work that we’re trying to get done by Christmas, but due to equipment problems, that won’t be happening. Nothing we can do about that but try and get our stuff cleared so we can take some time off around New Year. So, here I am with not much knitting to show. This is the beginnings of the balaclava.

I finally got Christmas the cards out. Now there are presents to wrap. It seems my husband does the bulk of the shopping while I take care of the kids and I do the wrapping. Thank goodness for on-line shopping. That’s the only way we could have done it this year. He got the rest of the in-store shopping done yesterday before the snow started in.

We’re getting a big storm this week-end. The hubby’s out with the snow blower and the kids are out having fun, too. At last, I can blog. This is the perfect type of week-end for baking comforting Christmassy treats! We bought a pre-baked gingerbread that has to be pieced together; we’re doing that just before Christmas. But that doesn’t prevent us from baking gingerbread cookies now. I didn’t bother making my icing this year so things went quicker. With the pre-made icing in tubes, I can attach all these wonderful decorator tips. My son requested that his gingerbread man have a guitar. I must say, I’m really impressed with what I pulled off this time.

The Dragon Returneth

2007-12-09T17:04:00.000-05:00

I caved and went yarn shopping for my son’s dragon hat and scarf. The yarn in my stash was either not the right colour or texture. At least I convinced him that his hat scarf should match his hat. My initial thought was to go for a lovely merino. I started phoning around to see what stores were carrying. On store was very helpful and suggested that maybe I would like to use an acrylic or acrylic blend because it was for a child and acrylic wouldn’t shrink in the wash. I knew then this was the store I had to go to; Main St. Yarns. I lucked out in that Friday night, they were participating in a special event with some other downtown Milton stores. They were open from 7-11 pm with specials on. I didn’t know how special till I got there; everything was 50% off. I was going to stick to my budget as I always do but my lovely husband convinced me that at 50%, I had to take advantage of the sale. Okay, so I exceeded my budget but under the sale circumstances, can I be blamed? I picked up some lovely yarn to do a stole from Louisa Harding’s Hummingbirds called Kohl Mexicana.

During the week, I was developing a balaclava pattern to use for my son’s dragon hat. I figured, it’s really not that much different from a sock. I did a small scale version with some yarn I had at home and was quite pleased with what I had come up with. The decreases I ended up working are different from what I would use for a sock but effective.

I then had to find a small doll to try this on. And thus it was that my daughter’s Princess Dora became Ninja Dora.

Here’s a bit of swatching I was doing as practice for the scarf. The yarn I’m using is from S.R. Kertzer and is called Northern. The mitred square is for dragon scales adn the in the round is for the balaclava.

Procrastination continueth…

2007-12-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

The second glove done in a week. Got the fingers done during the week and got the whole thing knitted and finished on Saturday! Unbelievable since my husband was gone all day to TABSCon (his quarterly outing to play board games and socialize all day in Toronto). I was home with the kids all day, so it is rather miraculous that I got this thing knit so fast. To their credit, my children were very good that day. We had a lovely afternoon with my daughter serving me tea in her little tea set while I was knitting and my son was playing quietly with his toys while we watched TV. After that, I threw in a movie, gave them some popcorn and some chocolate milk while I kept sipping away at my real tea. That bought me some more uninterrupted knitting time; again, a very pleasant way to spend time with the kids. And here is the finished product.

Then it hit me. Oh oh, what do I do next? Go back to the 5 year old dragon sweater I designed? Go to the multicoloured but generally pink and purple shawl I’m designing as I go? My son’s anxious to cover himself with it since it’s so nice and soft – he thinks it’s a blanket. Then I see my kids playing in the snow and realize their hats and mitts are getting too small for them. Guess we’ll have to put off that dragon sweater for a while; again.

My poor daughter will get her older brother’s hat, mitts and scarf. I feel bad about that. I wanted to make her something pink and/or purple and furry. My hubby and the practical side of me think otherwise; no she can use her brother’s stuff when it’s still in good condition. I don’t carry this policy with their cardigans or sweaters. Those I make just for them and it goes to no one else; so she gets to wear girly sweaters not her brother’s. I didn’t want to have all hand-me-downs; she deserves to have things that were made just for her.

So I ask my son what he wants his hat and scarf to look like (he has water resistant store bought mitts now). I thought he might be a little indifferent. Maybe want to mull it over a bit, but no. Without a second’s hesitation, he gave me an answer. I was astonished by his memory. He wants a red dragon scarf and a blue dragon hat (blue’s his favourite colour; I’m still trying to convince him to go green). Where did he come up with this? A while back, I showed him this awesome dragon scarf that Morehouse Merino came out with that I would love to have for myself even if people would laugh at me as I walk down the street with it. I wasn’t intending on doing mail order from the USA. I’m trying to avoid buying yarn and use up my stash so I was just going to do my own version of it. He’s all gung ho about me doing my version of this scarf for him. Needless to say, I will have to do some similar creative work for his hat. Their hats, scarves, and mitts should get them through this season. I’m doing this now so I can have them ready for next winter. With any luck, he can start wearing them this winter. Now if only I can convince him to let me use burgundy and green, that would really help use up my stash.

Half Way There

2007-11-25T21:04:00.000-05:00

Finally, one glove done! I made another modification to the pattern. I did a regular cast off instead of the ones recommended in the pattern. I’m impatient and I want to get my gloves done. I’m quite happy with the results. It looks good and feels great. I've included a close-up of the knitted product.

That work thing kind of gets in the way of me knitting. This coming Thursday will be the last knitting class I teach for the term so that should free up some time. The week after will be my last yoga class and the last family swim class. I don’t know what I’ll do with all that free time – work, Christmas shop, work, knit a bit, work, try to get some sleep, work, try to keep my sanity with the approaching holiday season…hmm Bailey’s.

Queen of Procrastination

2007-11-18T16:58:00.000-05:00

I guess it was inevitable. I said I was going to work on the dragon sweater, and for a whole week, I did. Then, as usually happens, something more important and/or critical comes up. So what’s the delay this time? Answer: my hands. As has so often happened in the past, my hands get really cold in my office when winter approaches and I’ve been meaning to make myself a pair of fingerless gloves for a while but I was trying to find the right pattern for me. There are so many beautiful ones out now. I finally picked one from a Knitty summer 2006 pattern. It’s hard to believe that in my yarn stash, I didn’t have enough of the right gauge yarn. I made a trip to the Wool Bin in Oakville and picked up a lovely yarn made in Peru, Mirasol Hacho. It’s hand dyed merino, colour 302, 50 g/125 m, and very reasonably priced. I like supporting a good cause, too. This supports their local Andean shepherds. It’s a particularly long story which I encourage you to read at the website. The yarn feels wonderful against the skin and knits up well.

The yarn has a slightly larger gauge than the pattern asks for but I thought it would work for me since I’m a tight knitter. Using the needles the pattern recommended, I did in fact achieve the gauge stipulated in the pattern. I intended to knit the pattern as is, but once again, I found something to change. When I did my stocking stitch gauge swatch in the round, I found the edge curled. I was concerned about the fingerless part of the mitten pattern because it made no mention of doing a different stitch after you cast on. Then it occurred to me, one of the fundamentals of knitting that had temporarily slipped my mind, ribbing along a border to prevent curling. So for the first three rows of the fingers, I did a 1x1 rib and problem solved. These gloves are knit from the top down in case you’re wondering why I’m worried about curling. The pattern was originally for embroidered gloves but since I ended up getting a variegated yarn, I think I’ll skip the embroidery. My son thinks I should still do the embroidery as shown in the gloves hanging from the tree in the Knitty pattern. We’ll see. I think you might drown the beauty of the variegated colour by embroidering.

Useless yarn?

2007-11-10T21:36:00.000-05:00

I could not believe my husband would dare to utter these words in my presence. This from the man who is normally so supportive and understanding about yarn and knitting. Bite your tongue. There is no such thing. This is very different from my husband’s opinion. He’s even threatening to post about it. What spurred this debate – a yarn containing silver. The yarn is called Sterling and is produced by Kraemer Yarns. The yarn’s composition is 63% superwash Merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon, and 2% silver. A detailed review of this yarn can be found in the August 16, 2007 Knitter’s Review newsletter.

There are some truly novel yarns out there, bamboo, silk stainless steel (Habu Textiles in New York). Funny, he never quipped about the stainless steel bit but he got his feathers all ruffled up about silver in yarn. Why? The first thing that came to both our minds was, “but won’t that tarnish?” I haven’t had experience with this yarn and I don’t know the grade of silver or manufacturing process that went into this that might prevent tarnish. Another reason is because some people believe the antimicrobial properties of silver will carry over into the yarn and might prevent some foot odor. I’m not convinced that will be the case; again, I have no evidence either way. Is there an environmental impact to doing this? I don’t know if anyone has evaluated that aspect. Aren’t there other better uses for silver? I would have to say yes, but that argument could be made about the use of silver for jewelry as well.

All that being said, I’m really not sure why they put silver in yarn. I am sure that to me, there is no such thing as useless yarn (yet; never say never).

A Suitable Accompaniment to Knitting

2007-11-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

Today’s blog post is a little different. I was inspired by what Wannietta wrote today as well as something my hubby recently brought home. It’s called Bénédictine. It’s a sweet cognac-based liqueur flavored with various aromatics. It was first made to a recipe dating to 1510, originally to combat malaria, at Fécamp Abbey in France. It was supposedly rediscovered by one of the monastery's lawyers and went into commercial production. Ingredients in the secret recipe include juniper, myrrh, angelica, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla, tea, fruit peels, herbs and honey. You can really taste the spices that went into it. It's so smooth and goes down so easy; that’s what makes it downright dangerous. The alcohol content is 40%. Definitely something you want to have as a once in a while treat and reserve for special occasions. Works well in coffee too when you just want to celebrate a little quiet time to yourself.

Enter the Dragon...(sweater that is)

2007-10-28T20:25:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that I do like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat and well choreographed martial arts movies in general, that’s not what this entry is about. This entry is really knitting related.

I started knitting this dragon sweater of my own design just before my son was born; that was five and a half years ago. I kept leaving it for “higher priorities” I told myself. The truth, I guess I wasn’t happy with the way it was going. I hit a design mental block of how I wanted the final product to look and being the perfectionist that I am, I didn’t want to do a second rate job with it. I have yet to design the back of the sweater. My husband suffered in aggravation because he liked what I was designing, we spent a good amount of money on good yarn and he wanted to see me make good use of it. As he reads over my shoulder, he adds, “And I think it’s going to be amazing, too”. No pressure at all there. With such high expectations, I think one might understand my trepidation.

What was my reason for embarking on this venture? My mother-in-law gave me a lovely red purse once. I decided I had to make a red sweater to co-ordinate with it – any excuse to knit/buy yarn. The yarn I’m using looks like satin and it reminded me of the lovely sheen traditional Chinese jackets have. I used that style of jacket as my inspiration for this design. Below is the beginnings of a swatch I had done.

The red and green yarns are Lang Opal, the gold is Lang Opal-Maxi.

Halloween Sweater - Completed!

2007-10-21T21:39:00.000-04:00

It's done! I finally finished the beading and the sewing. When I tried taking a picture with the flash, the flash reflected off the beads so much, they looked like neon lights. My wonderful OTT-LITE was not a good choice for light source in this case. The second attempt without the OTT-LITE still glowed quite a bit. The next attempt was without a flash, but the picture quality was so so. The final attempt was by my fabulous husband who used the macro setting on the camera to get good quality close-ups, so I actually have decent pictures to post.

This is the final sweater, unbeaded, unbuttoned:

Here is the final product with some close up details. Notice that in the picture above, the cuffs are not folded over. While sewing the beads onto the cuff, I had to turn the cuff over at one point and loved the way the beads appeared when the cuff was turned over so that's the way it's staying.

Halloween Sweater

2007-10-14T17:25:00.000-04:00

What's on the needles? I’m attempting to finish a sweater for my daughter to wear for Halloween that will compliment her costume but that she could still use on a daily basis; she’s going to be a fairy princess. I’m starting off with an Elsebeth Lavold pattern, Herdis, but will embellish it a bit with beads. The yarn I’m using is very different from what’s called for in the pattern. I seldom follow a pattern exactly the way it’s written and will try to use yarn from my stash before I resort to shopping. The yarn called for is Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Wool (65% wool, 35% silk, 100% gorgeous; ~22 sts/4” on 4mm needles) and I’m using Phildar Canelis (67% acrylic, 33% rayon, also gorgeous; ~26 sts/4” on 3mm needles); very different yarns. The Canelis is a discontinued yarn I bought on sale many years ago when they were trying to clear stock (I will buy yarn on sale and figure out what to do with it later). So how did I pull this pattern off?

I did my gauge swatch to determine what tension I was knitting to and then picked a size whose finished dimensions according to my gauge would fit my daughter (stretching it a bit during blocking didn’t hurt either). I’m pleased to say that it has blocked very well.

See the unblocked example below:

See the blocked examples below:

Welcome to my first blog post

2007-10-14T16:55:00.000-04:00

So why did I start this blog? I may be a chemical engineer by profession but I'm passionate about knitting. I'm very artistic in general and love other crafts too, which I might feature from time to time on my blog.

The past two years have been full of monumental events/changes in my life both personally and professionally. I feel I'm at a critical turning point in my life and it's time to stop thinking about doing a blog and start doing a blog. Hence the title, "Finally! Fran Knitting!

I used to be part of the Mississauga Knitting Guild but the meeting times unfortunately don’t work with my schedule any more. I thought this blog might be a good way to keep in touch with current knitting buddies (I do miss them) and meet some new ones. I found the sharing of information enriching and support from the friends I’ve made invaluable.

Recent changes in my life, I’ve started teaching a beginners knitting class at night at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. I love it!

Much thanks and appreciation go out to friends and family members who have supported and encouraged me to follow my dreams.