Friday, April 28, 2006

I was amazed to read this story, The dying sea it disturbs me, I am not a religious person, but for some reason recently I have been drawn to books about the early years of Jesus, and first century AD Israel. I don't think I am getting all religious or anything, I went through an Egyptian phase prior to that, and a Japanese phase before that. I love historical fiction. One book I just finished was Kathy Reichs cross bones, awesome book, I really want to read more of hers now. I am currently reading Lamb

Don't ask me why I ended up here, it seems strange, not really in my line of reading, but I love Christopher Moore books. I have read Fluke, The island of the Squined love Nun and The lust lizard of Melancholy cove. I didn't totally love the love nun, but the lust lizard was hilarious, fluke took me a while to get into purely I think because it was the first time I had read a Moore book. Lamb, well, it's simply brilliant. I have laughed so hard through a lot of it, and I am not yet half way through.

I also ended up reading the Jesus Christ book by Anne Rice. I am a huge fan of Rice, I have read all of the Vampire/witches books. I didn't see how Rice could go from the ghoulish to the religious without losing her charm, but she did, I loved the Christ the Lord I simply wanted more, I would love for there to be another part, her style of writing in the book is beautiful, actually it always is, I still can't quite grasp how I fell for the charms of Lestat in the Vampire books, but I did, and I think the less said about that the better!

I have become good friends with a Lady in my local bookstore, we did a book trade recently, she read all my Sano Ichiro books by Laura Joh Rowland She also got a few other books and read them. I think it's funny how we both like the same kind of books. Our friendship started out when I just couldn't decide what to buy at the store, I was sick of the completely mainstream stuff I had been reading, I wanted something different. Rebecca found lots of books for me to read, I loved all of them.


Anyway, enough about books for now.

The new mystery clues are up, and I can't decide what to use for the green shawl. I might use a pattern from one or two, because nothing pops out at me from the new clues, but I have decided what to use for my purple shawl, so I should go and do some, it won't knit itself!!!

Thursday, April 27, 2006

More blabbering

Not really anything exciting to post again, I just feel like blabbering some, had an odd week, not much of anything though, so whatever...

First I wanted to show the pretty yarns I got a few weeks ago.


Knitpicks merino sweetpeas, paint your own, three yellows from the pallette line and a box of DMC #80 cotton for Princess.














I started two Pi shawls in the mystery Pi KAL, one is using the sweetpeas yarn the other I dyed the paint your own.

This is the sweet peas at clue two.














This is the paint your own at clue two.















The green is being knit on 3mm needles, the purple on 3.75. Here is a comparison piccie of the two together, there is going to be a good difference in size when finished.













Finally a picture of the Princess shawl, here is a close up of a pattern repeat, there is eleven repeats, it's going to be big!











I still haven't got around to blocking Daffodil, but it has to get done by next wednesday.

Pictures coming soon.

I am almost, like 15 rows, done my socks, I can't wait to finish them.


Last week I popped up to gemini fibres in Mount Albert Ontario. What a lovely shop, I so enjoyed my trip up there. Bought some bits and pieces, but most importantly I got The opinionated knitter by EZ.

I finally got around to sitting down and looking through the book yesterday. I started my first surprise baby jacket yesterday, and today it will be finished. I have no doubt I will start another one very soon. I love so much in the book, I am sure I will make many things over and over again from the book. Well worth the money.


Well, it's getting close to dinner time, so I guess I should make some.
More later, the next clue on the mystery KAL is out late tonight/early tomorrow, so I will be busy knitting for the next few days, don't expect to hear anything from me!

Monday, April 17, 2006

Too long

You would think I had something to say after so long between posts. Well I don't really have much to say, which is actually why I haven't been posting.

I finished the Daffodil, but haven't blocked it. The teen top is finished but needs adjusting. The Unst hasn't been worked on much at all, and I finally got some new yarns, which I have been using, I am making two knit your own mystery Pi shawls on the EZasPi yahoo list. The knit along started on friday, so we only have one clue up so far. I am making a regular Pi, and a PiR2.
Some yarn I ordered was from the UK, 9 balls of #80 DMC cotton thread, it arrived very promptly, but the colour is so far out from the little balls I am currently using for the Princess shawl that I still have to use the wee little 5 gram balls until I get to the laurel leaf break along the top end of the border, which by my reckoning means I need to buy another 5 gram ball, possibly two. I have made progress with that shawl, putting a grand total of 16 rows on it in less than a week. This is progress as there is about 865 stitches per row. There is a total of 220 rows in the border, so I am getting close to the half way point on it. I wish I could remember how many rows to a ball I have been getting.
Anyway, my 20 gram balls arrived, and I really want to get to using them, so have been furiously plugging away at the Princess it is so slow a progress though that it feels that I am getting nowhere. It is very difficult to get a picture of the work in progress as well since it is so large and on straight needles, the longer it gets though, the easier it will be to get a somewhere near decent picture.

I got some paint your own knit picks yarn for the Pi KAL, I dyed it some lovely spring like colours, and can't wait to get to use it on the Pi, I am using a green right now, but will add in the multi colour in the third pattern ring I think. Elizabeth wants the shawl to be hers, so I can't make it too big since she is just a little squid still. Little isn't quite accurate, she is over 4 feet tall, but a Pi shawl can be very big, so I have to keep an eye on how big it is getting.

I also ordered some of the Pallette yarns from knitpicks, I am tempted to do the fairisle pallette cardigan that uses all but the white and cream colours from the pallette line, I got the pattern and a few balls, just to check out the yarn, and it is lovely. So I think I might just order up the rest of the colours, get a start on the cardi early.

I haven't done much spinning recently, the Princess took over, but I plan to get some spinning done this week, I am trying to spin up stuff to put in the guilds shop for the big spring pottery sale, sales are high that weekend. Since our dear friend Ann has been ill the weaving stuff has been severely lacking in the shop. We all need to add in a bit more to fill the empty spaces.