With two weeks to go

I am sadly behind in all the knitting I had planned for gifts.

I have decided to gift myself this year, the gift of taking it easy, my hand now no longer hurts, and it feels good to say that, so instead of rushing right back in and ending right where I was two months ago, I have decided not to worry about gifts, those that need to be posted will just have to be late, those that are for people here will just have to wait. If anyone ever wants handmade crap from me again, they will have to wait.

I don't want surgery!!!!

I am however busy making a pioneer costume for Eliz, she visits a pioneer school on wednesday (is there something wrong with how that is spelled? Spell check is highlighting it) she is really into all this stuff, I think in most part because of my involvement with the Burr House, spinning and weaving and of course the knitting.
They get to eat a proper lunch, mason jars and home made bread, LOL, I am making her some bread in a neat little kit I found at a store.
Photo's will follow, I just don't have any right now.

It has been so long since I have posted pictures that I will have to do a big photo post, I have lots of FO's to show, so soon hopefully.

Passing the torch along

Ok so I apologize to the like, one reader of my blog, that I haven't posted in over a month.
We had internet issues for 2 days, 2DAYS man, I got over it pretty quickly, still seething at bell a bit, but we soon figured out what to do with no computer, problem is I got to into not doing computer, and I am now just getting back to reading blogs, etc, but still not totally into it.

Tomorrow is my tenth wedding anniversary. My gift is a new digital camera, I so loved my old Olympus digital that I went with another, this one is a 6.0 MP, I am stoked, tomorrow the old will pass along it's approval to the new. I am not opening it until then, but hopefully will get piccies up soon after that.

I have of course been busy knitting, what on earth else would I do with no computer. I finished my moms shawl the green moss from HK's simply stunning line.
I have made socks, a shrug is almost finished, I have spun, I have done lots of weaving, I have plans to make a FLAK for Ron, I made a lace baby booty.
I have been busy, but perhaps the biggest thing in my news recently is that I start work again this week. Part time, in a shop, it is exactly what I wanted, Katherine is still only part time school, so I want a care free job until she is in school full time. In those two years I want to finish my architecture diploma and hopefully do a course with Humber college for Building inspection, I really should have a few other ideas if that doesn't work out.
History seems to be my second biggest interest next to knitting, that and architecture go hand in hand so I think I should also look down that avenue.

My hand is still hurting, I finished a month of anti-inflammatories, they helped but not completely, so I have another two month supply, at least the burning sensation has all but stopped.
I am finding it hard to completely stop knitting to let them heal. My other hobbies hurt just as much. The last resort is a major jigsaw puzzle. I don't particularly want to end up having surgery for it, so I should stop knitting, but I have things I need to finish, others can wait, it's these few things I need to finish that are bothering me.

Anyway, more tomorrow hopefully, don't hold me to it though, as I know that I uually don't post for a month when I say something like that.

Weaving, like I needed more things to do.

I have been so busy over the past 5 weeks. I took my very first weaving class, it ended this tuesday, having woven 4 placemats you would think I would have pretty much had my fill of weaving for a while, that is if you know me, that I really didn't have much interest in weaving going into this, it was supposed to just leapfrog me into being able to hold my own at an upcoming linen weaving class at Burr house, date yet to be set.
Well, that plan of not weaving much more completely went to pot, I wove a small stole for Katherine, and have enough warp left to do one for Elizabeth. I am currently warping my loom for some stripe work, I only have a table loom, so can't fit a full size tea towel on it, I figured at 2/3rd size I was also pushing it, so plopped onto the idea of doing little towels for the kitchen, the girls are always driving me crazy looking for towels in the kitchen, so thought 6 little things would be nice, my towel draw is full to bursting, but all it takes is one time for Katherine to get her paws on the drawer to empty it completely. Too many towels is never enough.

This is the stole on the loom.
















This is the placemats.















Since I last posted, I have passed along the baby blanket to the lady that ordered it, she was very pleased with the blanket, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.















In future when I am blocking I shall take a picture, and I shall look at picture to see if the thing looks remotely like the shape it is supposed to be.

A visit, an FO and a pain.

Wannietta came to our spinners guild last week. I t was so great to finally meet her. She is as bubbly as she appears on her blog, she is as into knitting as you would expect, she is also a very nice person, and can knit like a devil........

I felt insanely slow knitting next to her, I can't imagine how one could get any faster than that.

Her talk about the speed competition was great, I would like to go to the Creative Festival now this year just to see the speed knitting.
I may well have to teach a bit of spinning to Wannietta too, this is cool, I love to share spinning with people, while I am no expert (nowhere close) just a spin to knit kinda person actually, I really enjoy the feeling of creating my own yarn. It gives me an opportunity to meet Wannietta again too, which I suspect could be a lot more fun than the meeting at the guild where we didn't get much opportunity to talk.

I did see a bit of a secret project, and what I saw I liked, but it wasn't enough to give away anything, so I too have to wait!


I finally finished my Fair isle cardi, it dressed out nicely, but needs a bit of a firmer dressing in the sleeves, which I suspect I may have to alter before I am totally happy.














I wound some balls of the cobweb silk I have ready to knit the wedding ring shawl from Heirloom knitting, it took almost 45 minutes to wind these two little balls, thats a lot of yarn in those two little bundles. I am busting a gut to start the shawl but desperately want to finish the Princess before I start another huge project, so Princess has been dragged out, kicking and screaming, to the top of the lace basket, which is currently quite full.
I just couldn't let go of wanting to start a new lace project, so I started another simply stunning project, the Jade shawl in yellow, it is looking good so far, so this is project three on the needles of Heirloom knittings. Yet I still kept going back to the wedding ring shawl, wanting to start, I got as far as checking needle sizes, I found my 2.25 mm needles after a bit of hunting, they are in my Unst stole! That's project 4 of HK's designs..... I should finish at least one before I put the big project onto the needles, it will be hard. I have a birthday coming up, and was sure I was going to order the Cora shawl kit as a pressie to myself, but here's the bitch, it's another HK design, and while I obviously adore her designs, I also just as obviously have issues with finishing them. While I have finished lots of them having 4 on the needle right now isn't sitting too well with me.


Here is some Princess progress, and a kind of marker for me to see how much I do in months to come.

Another busy week.

Two weeks ago I got a call asking if I had any baby blankets I could sell, I didn't so so the next question was if I would make one. After heitating for a while I agreed to it.
I couldn't pick a pattern, so decided to make one from my own rather busy little mind.

I finished last night.

I have to block it as it is to go to it's new home tomorrow I hope.














In the time I made the blanket, I also made a number of mindless pieces, scarfs and dishcloths really, I have been eyeing this sari silk stuff for a while and finally caved and bought a skein. I wasn't impressed..... Tree trunk needles equal burning hands for me, as it turns out most things on the needles for me right now are on big needles. Not fun. I need some tiny lace to correct my poor fingies.












I will be starting back on the indigo top this week, also my fairisle cardi that is languishing again. Two or three other lace projects fill in the gaps, and scarfs are the sealers.















Last week Babydoll had a birthday. She was 4! Big girl now, she can beat me on the gamecube, draw really cool pictures, dry dishes, help to cook dinner, she is growing in leaps and bounds.















This week is proving to be busy too. I have weaving again today, lesson 3/5. The weaving bit! Wahooooo.

Tomorrow is guild meeting night, Wannietta is coming to visit with us and talk about her knitting title. This is turning out to be good timing, I had forgotten that the Needlework festival is later this month, this is where Wannietta got her title at.

I hope the title stays just where it is.

I was supposed to go to a yarn sale on saturday, but just couldn't make it, considering the stash busting I am supposed to be doing, it's probably a good thing.

I am back to not having anything on the box to watch, I have a few dvd's I never have watched, Elizabeth, Katherine, and their aunt and Uncle watched one of them on Saturday, they enjoyed it, so I guess I should now too. It was the new Pink Panther movie with Steve Martin. I have held back on watching this as I really love the old movies of the Pink Panther, and nobody but Sellers in my mind could be the Pink Panther. We shall see....
I keep seeing Pink Panther DVD's everywhere, I may well cave and get the box set!


Anyway, back to fibre things, I may well remember to take my camera with me to the lesson today, so will post back with news on how it went tomorrow. Hopefully I remember to take a picture of the baby blanket after blocking.

Something more

Than my usual rambling, today we have pictures! woohoo!!!!

I will get to more photo's again later, but for now there are my Babydoll's first day at school pictures. I was so proud of her.

Here she is just about to go into class, still looking rather worried. Note the purple buttons on the blue cardigan, yes the birthday cardi turned into the first day of school cardi, the button band needs to be recast off, it's a bit snug. Katherine was given final decision on pattern, yarn and buttons, I tried hard to convince her, but she was adamant that the purple were the buttons she needed. They aren't too bad.


















Here she is at the end of the day with her new friend, a girl we didn't even know that lives about 3 houses away from us, and is even in Katherine's class. Behind the two new buds is Elizabeth, the bus buddy!!! How grown up she is now. Somewhere behind her is her friend Andrew, I think he is cute on her.





















I was so confused yesterday morning, it was the first time in more than 8 years I haven't had a child running around during the day time, sure there has been occasional days when Ron has had the two out for the day, but yesterday was different. the first few hours of the morning I was sneaking around trying not to disturb Katherine sleeping, only to remember she wasn't in bed. My Babydoll can sleep, I was concerned about her staying awake at school. Sleep is a bad thing to her, she doesn't like to go to bed, but once she is asleep she can go down for a very long time. If she doesn't get enough sleep at night she is sleepy and drowsy in the morning if woken up, but if she is left to sleep it out then she is fine.

Eventually I got used to the idea of having no child to hold me back, and went to the guild to card some wool (yeah, exciting) only to discover that the drum carder was broken, so I took it home for Ron to fix, which he did, then I spent a few hours carding last night, and finally did a bit of spinning.

So who is gonna win Rockstar??????????????

I have been following supernova since week 3, and said Magni straight off the bat, but after the rather uninspiring performance last night I have to think the fans may go off a bit, the other choice for me is Toby, Ron doesn't like him though, we both love Lukas though, he is brilliant, and as a performer I would love to see more of him, just not with Supernova I don't think, he is the local boy and I should show support for him I guess, but I just think Magni has got it. Ron who hasn't watched much of the show agree's with me. He seems to suit the band to a tee!
I don't usually watch reality shows, but I started watching this when Cheryl my sis was here from the UK, her fave was Lukas.
Unfortunately for me it is guild night tonight, and I am meeting a woman there that I know from a knitting list I am on. I will miss the show~~~~~
Thank goodness for Rogers digital terminals, I get the show in different time zones, yeah, so I think I will get to see it at west coast time.


Katherine has been growing tomato's, we have had no rain all summer, the tomato's really suffered for it, but on Sunday Katherine finally got here tomato! This has been tomato watch 2006, it seemed like forever, and poor Babe was losing interest until they finally changed colour.


















Finally on a little knitting news, I caved, big time, and started another knit your own mystery Pi shawl. I am almost done clue two, 3 will be out on friday, the first few clue's get knit up quickly, the start of a Pi shawl is always pretty fast, here is clue one, looks like nothing right now, but it is already on a circular, when clue 2 is done I will post another piccie.



















I have so many things I have on needles, or expectantly waiting to be started that I think I am suffering for it, I can't make my mind up what I will work on. I have done little quick things for the past few days, then a bt here, a bit there on lot's of different things, to then turn to start another thing only to stop myself again.
I did take to heart something that another blogger had said.
Wannietta, it's all your fault, LOL, you have to love an enabler, and that is indeed what the wicked woman has done to me.
I loved her post about indigo yarn, so much that when I fell across a pattern in a box at the guild, for a indigo yarn item, it felt pre determined that I would make this. So off I went and got yarn enough for the item, turns out the LYS was having a yarn sale that week ( I had no idea) I got the yarn half off, returned home to start the item, it was a vest, I don't wear vests, don't even ask why I wanted to make it. I couldn't find the pattern, and I knew I didn't have enough yarn for a sweater, so I started one, LOL!
It's gorgeous, but on return to the store to get more yarn I found that it had all gone. order, wait, no phone call, worry, finally I got fed up and called them. It will be in later this week with a bit of luck, crisis averted.

The sweater is gorgeous, it isn't the same Rowan denim that Wannietta used, but it is still gorgeous, and certainly leaves a lot of blue on the old mitts. I can't wait to finish and wash it for the first time. I haven't been so excited about a knitting item since, well, the last one I cast on.


Finally, I just had to post this link, I left it to Wannietta in the comments, but I don't think it was possible to get the whole link from there.

F1 article

Nuff said!

Urmmm....Update!

Well, I am a week past all my company leaving, and as great as it was to have them all here, they left my all tuckered out, which is why I am only just getting around to the blog now. Last week was a blur, bank holiday monday, followed by back to school on tuesday for Elizabeth, and an orientation session for Babydoll, who starts Junior Kinder this coming tuesday, wednesday was the start of the guild year, and since I am now on the executive committee I figured I should be there. That meeting added a whole slew of new activities for the upcoming months, including meeting with Wannietta at the October meeting, the OHS seminar, the sheep to shawl, a Try something new event in town and so many other things that my mind is a blank.
Today I found out that one of the women on the knitting in canada group I am on (where I first met Wannietta) is in the same town as me, so now I think a meeting is inevitable here. AWESOME!! Finally a network of knitters may emerge in this ever expanding town just north of the big T.O!

Photo's? I have lots, but not of enough things, and to be honest I couldn't care less about posting them right now, they are in a mess, just as my mind feels it too is a mess. I didn't take some piccies of the few FO's that went back to Britain, including one of those lovely Heirloom knitting SImply stunning shawls! I can get pictures later though, no worries. I will do a post on photo's maybe tueday, I have a whole day to myself!!!!!!!!! (yippee)

Thought of the day, (other than shabby mind!) Utter glee, Michael Schumacher retiring not only from Ferrari, but also from the F1 circuit.
I was never a fan, a fan can't get me to say he wasn't a damn good driver, as he obviously was, but I never liked him. He's had his day, move over and let the young ones gain some glory.