Knitting and a Movie

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

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…

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…

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

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

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

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!