Not a lot to see...

It may not look like much but this is the blood, sweat, & tears of my first weaving class. Winding warp was not as easy as it looked.

I had a great time and so looking forward to the next class. We're putting the warps on real looms!

Excited...

I'm excited and can't sleep. My first weaving class tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to this. It's something that I knew I've always wanted to try.

Husband just reminded me that I'm not to buy a loom.

Rainy Sunday

It's raining today...

I really don't mind the rain. The garden could use the water. Tomatoes might not care for it...they tend to split with all the excess moisture.

I'm so tired today. I really don't like working Saturdays...especially for stuff like football. I just don't get football. What a waste of a weekend.

I was going to go to the LYS on my way to work yesterday. I wanted to pick up some hemp yarn for a vest. At the last minute I decided to go to Lougheed Mall instead. Bad idea. How can someone miss a shopping mall the size of six city blocks? Next thing I knew I was in Vancouver and I knew I've gone past the mall.

Bad idea #2. I wasn't in the mood to turn around to find the mall so I thought I would do a bit of Shoe Shopping downtown. It's been a long time since I've been Shoe Shopping. Now, I've gone shopping and bought shoes but there's a difference between Shoe Shopping, with a captial "S" and buying shoes while shopping because you need them. Three pairs of Fluvog shoes later, I felt much better. Heh! One pair was actually practical and I can wear them at work. It's all good.

I need more yarn

I have to work this Saturday. Bah! I told them that I'm not going in to work at the crack of dawn. If they need anything, it has to be done by Friday 3:30pm. I'll be there on Saturday at 4pm and that's it. No more crap like last year. That's ok...I'm planning a detour to a LYS on my way to work this Saturday. :D

The grey cable cardigan is coming along quite nicely. I'm more than halfway up the two front pieces now. The patterns are easy enough to do without carrying around the charts with me, making it a good travelling project.

These are the most amazing tomatoes! Cherry tomatoes that grows in hanging baskets and they're so good! I usually don't eat tomatoes but I love homegrown ones. Storebought tomatoes are too acidic for me. I've been popping these like candy.

A little bit of knitting...

The back of the cabled cardigan is done and I've casted on for the front pieces today. The cables are straightforward enough that I don't need to have the charts with me. It's knitting up fairly quickly once I stop procrastinating with other projects.

This is the earless monkey. The sample ear is just pinned to the head. I think the ear should be smaller and rounder. There's not enough yarn left so I have to pick apart all the sample ears to re-knit.



Ravelry

I take heart that there's 8316 people behind me on the waiting list but it's daunting to see there's another 11652 people before me. I've given up kicking myself for not taking that invite. I'm glad the person it went to, used it...no hard feelings. :)

Sock Monkey ears

I'm running out of grey for the Sock Monkey ear experiments. I've tried 3 different styles and not really liking any of them. My son thinks the problem is not with the ears but the head is too small. I think he might be right. This might mean a Sock Monkey head re-knit this weekend.

Last week was my 20 year anniversary at work. I got another clock (4th one now - wonder if they're trying to tell me something?) and a pretty good gift certificate. When asked what store would I like, I thought of several LYSs, Maiwa, Opus, even Treenway. I ended up with Sears. It was easy for my boss to get to. I was asked if I could really spend that much on yarn. Hahahaha!!!!

To Angela re: resin - I don't have a lot of resources for resin but you can buy liquid resin at Michael's and Opus. I got the idea from Crafty Chica. Opus has the set with the resin and catalyst all together as one package. With Michael's you have to buy each separately. I worked out the prices and it works out more or less equal. I think buttons would be a cool project to try. I've been thinking of what moulds would be good. Or, if you just pour the resin on a smooth surface, it would be too runny...unless you let it sit a few minutes first and let it thicken. It's a thought. If you make buttons, I'd love to hear how that worked out.

Lists

I've always made lists...lists of things to do, lists of things to pack for holidays, lists for gift giving, etc. It wasn't until Amber brought up the subject one night at our Twisted group, that I gave it more thought. It was just something I do. It was one way of keeping myself organized so I wouldn't forget things. I'm a very forgetful person. If I don't write it down, I will forget it.

I came across this site today...Listography where you can create lists for just about anything. Shopping lists, list of favourite music, list of songs you love, list of songs you hate - you get the picture.

For me, it's not practical using an online list. I barely remember to update my electronic daytimer for work. I still prefer the old fashioned way of writing things down.

Post-Vacation blahs

The three weeks was wonderful! I think that even if it was three months it would still be not enough.

Whistler was fun. The weather was nice for the most part but it doesn't matter. Rain never bothered me. Kinda felt bad for the hubby who had to run in it, though. He was up at the peak running and I was snug in the hotel room, watching the rain make its way down the mountain. :)

The List:

1. Still spinning the silk for the MS3. I think I'm just going to spin up the silk and save it for something else. I have some nice laceweight merino that I could use if I still want to knit the stole.

2. Silk noil plyed and waiting for a project.

3. Decided to card the Corriedale into batts instead of the indigo merino. I have 12 batts completed. The weather was too nice to be indoors carding.

4. Started the cardigan with the Kauni yarn. I decided against the Kauni Cardigan. As much as I like the pattern, let's face it...I'll never finish it. I like my sweaters plain and fuss-free. It is now going to be simple top-down cardigan.

5. Almost finish the miniature rug. I still have to decide on the fringe.

6. Made the ice cube ornaments. I also found a couple of plastic trays at the dollar store that will make interesting molds. Maybe this weekend?

7. Didn't make more soap.

8. No brownies still but made ice cream and banana bread. Three loaves of banana bread barely lasted a day and half here.

9. Still working on the grey cable cardigan. I'm really liking this merino/alpaca yarn.

10. Changed my mind on the Orenburg-ish shawl swatch. I think I will have to rework the pattern. It's too fussy.

11. Annual Trek was fun!

12. Made an appointment to get my eyes checked.

13. The Modern Masters exhibition was really enjoyable but crowded.

14. I still love the Museum of Anthropology! When I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who was a good friend of Bill Reid. He took the class to visit Bill Reid a few times and watched him work on the Raven and the First Men sculpture. It was amazing to listen to him talk about Haida art.

15. Signed up for weaving. I'm really exited about this!

Other things not on the list:

Sock monkey is almost finished - just trying to figure out the ears. I've made 2 sets but they don't look right. The consensus is that the head is too small. It will have to be picked open and reknit.

That's about it. I think I relaxed too much on vacation. My brain still feels like mush. People come up and talk at me and I have no idea what they're blabbering about. I'm sure my work-brain will come back soon.

Vacation update

So far, I'm at the 2/3 mark of my vacation. It's been really nice and relaxing. Spent a lot of time perfecting the perfect iced coffee. The secret is use coffee ice cubes. Reading my favourite books over and over again. Watching my favourite movies over and over again. When I say "over and over again" I meant it. I think I've watched Howl's Moving Castle at least 5 times in the last two weeks. Still love that movie. Yeah, I get a little obsessive sometimes. The book is much better than the movie. Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favourite authors.

It was nice to visit with the Twisted By Choice ladies on Wednesday night. It was one of those rare occasions that we were all together, with the exception of Rose. No one had to work late, no one had to teach that night, no one was away. It was just a nice night spent with friends, talking fibre.

Amber brought her natural dye project to show us. I'm really impressed with the depth of colours you can get with natural dyes. I wish I had my camera with me that night. Maybe next Wednesday, Amber?

So, it's a done deal...I signed up for Weaving classes at Place des Arts. I'm looking forward to this. Weaving was always something I knew I wanted to try.

My new needles should arrive any day now. Can't wait to see them. :D

I still have to decide on how I want to do the Kauni cardigan. As much as I love how everyone else's sweater looks, I'm not a big fan of knitting with two yarns...and steeks. I think that's what stopping me from jumping in. Just the thought of all that steeking is making me stick with the cable cardigan.

Next week is the trip to the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Museum of Anthropology. Followed by Whistler and then back to work. ugh.

I think, by most people's definition of vacation, mine is pretty boring but it suits me fine.

Resin Cubes

The resin ice cube experiment is sort of going well.

Things to remember:

1. Food colouring is an inexpensive alternative to the very expensive resin dyes. The little green cube in the photo was tinted with a drop of green food colouring. You need to really make sure the colouring is well mixed unless you want tiny blobs of dye imbedded in the cube.

2. When you pour the first layer of resin, the mixture is still quite runny. All the embellishments sank to the bottom (which will be the top of the cube once inverted). You have to let it sit for 5 minutes. Any longer will result in a too thick gelatenous goop. You can push your embellishment through the goop but it may cause ripples in your final product.

3. The little paper stars kept floating because of the air inside. Make sure all the air is taken out or use solid embellishment. Another thing is to coat the item first before laying it in the goop. Tiny air bubbles can be trapped on the object.

4. The tall narrow ice cube tray was not so great for resin cubes. The narrowness of the cube made it hard to add embellishments properly. I need to find a tray with flat wide cubes.

If you click on the picture, you can see all my mistakes. The cube in front had all the stars floated up and almost out of the cube.

*giggle* Skinny monkey butt

I'm juvenille enough to laugh at skinny monkey butts. At the start of my vacation, I made up a list of things to do...none of which was to make a sock monkey. It's one of those things that if you don't do it, horrible things will happen. The world will come to an end if I don't make this sock monkey.

This is actually the monkey's second butt. The first one was red and pointy. *snort*
This butt is a bit more refined, I think.

And since I'm deviating from my list, it's banana bread instead of brownies. Does it count if I put chocolate in there?

Thai food

I love Thai food and my husband doesn't care for it at all. That's because he's never had REAL good Thai food. There's a new Thai restraunt in Coquitlam that's been getting a lot of buzz lately - Chada Thai. Well worth a visit to this restraunt. A tiny little place (used to be a vitamin store) across from Taco Bell, next to a fish & chip shop. If you blink, you'll walk right past it. The food was amazing! At the end of the meal, I asked hubby what he thought and he said he really enjoyed the food and wouldn't mind coming back! Yah! Finally a Thai restraunt that serves good Thai food and it's close to home!

Annual Trek

It was absolutely exhausting but fun! Every year, my sister and I grab our kids and head out for the day. Part of the fun is that we just never know where we'll end up at any point.

It was a trip to Vancouver on the Westcoast Express, Aquarium, lunch, more Aquarium, shopping on Robson, Chapters, Granville Island - Opus, Maiwa, etc...the full deal, Hon's for dinner, and finishing up with a trip to Michaels. Keep in mind that we either walked or took the bus. Yeah, it was exhausting! My feet are still hurting right now.

What amazed me was after all that, I came home with only 1 little wooden stamp from Maiwa and a little tube of glitter from Michaels. Oh, there were brownies and banana breads and other goodies consumed along the way but stuff-wise? This is it.

Kauni Goodness!

I met up with Shelly from Fun Knits Yarn Shop today and picked up the wool for the Kauni cardigan. We had a nice visit and she showed me her Kauni cardigan in its final stages...casting off the body and just about to steek. Yikes!

According to the pattern, I should be good with 3 balls but I got 5 just in case. Nothing worse than running out of wool. If I have leftovers, I can make a hat or scarf or mitts. The great thing about this wool is that it doesn't matter what the colours are. All the colours repeat themselves. As long as you start one ball on a different colour repeat from the other ball, you're ok. Fair Isle effect without the zillions of ends to darn in at the end.

I am not going to start this until I've done at least 10" of the cardigan. And I'm waiting for my new needles to arrive.

Yup.

Edited to add:

The silk noil nicely plyed...

I could just kick myself!

A while ago, I got an invite to join Ravelry. I didn't know what Ravelry was and never got around to checking it out. I've heard of people talking about it but thought I really didn't have time to join another on-line community. The knitting buddy who sent me the invite finally convinced me to go check it out. Now I'm on the waiting list with 15126 people ahead of me.

Poo!

Computer is fixed!

This is why it's good to have a teenage kid! Tell him that it may take weeks before you'll have time to look into the computer problem and he will fix it out of desperation. Heh!

This is the silk I'm hoping to spin up for the Mystery Stole but I'm not sure if I want something varigated for the stole. I have some plain white laceweight merino that I was thinking of using instead.


I've knitted another 10 rows since this picture was taken. I'm not sure why I'm not all that interested in this sweater right now. Usually I'm all over cables. This is the Merino/Alpaca from Sweaterkit.com

Something is missing...

...from my computer. Some kind of drive is missing from our computer and it's not working again. Weird because it was working fine and suddenly, it's not working. Somehow, a drive has up and ran off. yeah.

So that means it's back to the laptop. I've been busy taking pictures of stuff to post but can't now. I guess I'll have to break down and load the photo program on the laptop now.

Anyhoo...I'm on vacation for 3 weeks. Any day I'm not at work is a good day. Small talk at the office always have people asking each other what are they doing on their vacations. It's hard to explain to people my plans for the 3 weeks.

1. Finish spinning the yarn for the Mystery stole so I can start knitting before the end of the summer.

2. Ply the 2 bobbins of silk noil that took forever to spin.

3. Finish carding the indigo dyed wool into batts. I'm not optimistic enough to add spinning this as well.

4. Pick up the Kauni yarn for my Kauni cardigan. I couldn't help myself.

5. A miniature rug to finish.

6. Make the ice cube ornaments.

7. Make more soap.

8. Make brownies.

9. Force myself to knit the cable cardigan some more - hopefully finish the back and start the front. Considering that I'm only knitting 1 or 2 rows every couple of days, this could really take years!

10. Finish at least one pattern repeat on the Orenburg shawl so I can see if I like it enough to continue.

11. Annual Trek - not sure where we're going this year. The kids are getting tired of Science World. This is our 8th Annual Trek.

12. Make an appointment to get my eyes checked.

13. Go see the Modern Masters exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

14. Spend a day at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. I love that place!

15. Sign up for a weaving class at Place des Art. Yes, that's right. I've gone over to the dark side. Considering the gals I've been hanging out with, it was just a matter of time.

Computers are evil...

...but necessary.

*sigh*

We got a new motherboard. It's much faster and the graphics are much clearer and cooler, according to my son. But we (I) have to reconfigure all our email accounts again. I voted to not bother and just read our emails from the host website. It wasn't a big hit with the rest of the family. So we (I) have to find time to call up the provider and get all the necessary gobblygook from them. I also have to re-load the program for my camera so I can upload pictures. I have to find the disk first.

I've been spinning some tussah that I dyed a few weeks ago for the Mystery Stole #3. At the rate I'm going, it will be winter before I get to the knitting part. I think we're at clue #5 or something and I haven't even started.

Michael's is having a sale on Paton's Classic Merino this week! The down side is that the wool is shipped in 4 balls dye lots. Instead of worrying about matching dye lots, I just bought a whole bunch of different colours. I could either knit a colourful sweater or a bunch of different coloured hats. It's all good.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

WOW!!

JK Rowling outdid herself on this book!

Bad news - Good news

Bad news - my computer died last week. It's the motherboard and it's completely fried. We had just bought a larger external hard drive to back up stuff but hadn't done it yet.

Good news - the mother board will be replace with a faster better one and it's done by my cousin (cheap but reliable). We're not sure if everything will be intact until the new board goes in.

...fun stuff...

I finally sew the buttons and button holes on my green cardigan. I'm using the good ol' standby - shell buttons. I'm still thinking of re-knitting the collar and shortening the sleeves. It's not hard to do...just need time.

One more day (ok, 2 days) to the new Harry Potter book. We're going to head over to Chapters Friday night to eat their cookies and treats and line up for midnight. We didn't do that for the other books but this is the LAST BOOK! I heard that someone scanned the book and posted it online. I'm not even tempted to go look. It's not the same reading it off the computer.

Marvellous weekend of dyeing

I had the most marvellous weekend of fibre and dyeing.

Saturday was the Twisted By Choice Dye Day. We worked with Procion H and silk. The colours came out brilliant. I've never used Procion H before and bought the starter kit last year. This was a good opportunity to play with something new. The process was quick and easy. I like the fact the colours are in liquid and it took very little prep time. The skeins are drying right now and we're going to get together again on Wed to do the steaming. Silly me forgot my camera but I took a couple of pictures with Teal's camera.

Sunday morning was a short trip to Granville Island. One of the few rare times that I'm there and not pick up any silk fibre from the Weaving Studio. I did pick up another kit of Procion H plus a few extra colours to play with. The rest of the afternoon was spent mixing colours, re-skeining some of the silk floss to prepare them for dyeing, and working on my swatch for the Mystery Stole #3.

Something about mucking about with all that fibre makes me very happy. And now I sit here at work, thinking of all my fun stuff at home. It's going to be a long Monday.

P.S. Tammy...punch needle embroidery is really fun. Really fast too. Costco in Burnaby has a kit with three patterns, floss, & needle for $10.00. :D

Kwik-E-Mart Madness

We couldn't help ourselves. They transformed one of the local 7-Eleven stores into the Simpson's Kwik-E-Mart and we had to go see. It was so crowded there! I think every kid within the area was there buying Squishies and do-nuts.

More reasons to love needlepunch embroidery!

It's smaller than rug hooking. Talk about instant gratification! Compare to knitting a sweater, it takes no time at all. It's something you can do in the summer when it's too hot to knit and certaintly too hot to rug hook. Ok, it wasn't that hot today but I'm anticpating that it will be a very hot summer. And rug hooking patterns in minature works well for needlepunch embroidery.

The finished size for this project is 3.5" square. No sweaty hands. No heavy wool fabric or scratchy burlap draped over you. In this piece, I tried playing with different loop lengths to get the watermelon and the heart to "pop" out more. The ouline was done on the lowest setting to create a bit of shadow between the main objects and the background.

I tried the technique here on the snowman one the left but not sure the results was what I wanted.

The snowman on the right was done increasing the loops each row going towards the inside, making the body rounded. It was much better but you can't really tell from the picture.

Happy Canada Day!

I have lots of reason to say I'm proud to be a Canadian and I wrote and rewrote a post about today but nothing sounded right. I think it would take me a lifetime to go through all my reasons...my lifetime, to be exact.

So...Happy Canada Day, everyone. I'm going to sit on my deck and think of what it means to be Canadian for my family.

Cheers!

Needlepunch Embroidery needles

Ok, keep in mind that the following are just my opinions on different punch needles. I'm in no way an expert on needle punch embroidery.

The first needle is the inexpensive needle from Dimensions at Michaels. I purchased the kit & needle separately but I just found out recently that Costco has a kit containing 3 patterns, floss, & needle for half the price I paid for just the kit. The needle was comfortable to use - it has a rubber grip - but the needle had a small burr on the tip. I sanded that off with fine sandpaper and it worked better but still catches slightly. I like the clear body of the needle so you can see how much floss you have left. The down side is you can't change the needle and it only comes in one size - 3 strand. You can't change the length of the loops as well.

The second needles are the Igolochkoy needles. The needles are smooth and goes into different fabrics nicely. Easy to make small even stitches and loops. Definitely a quality needle. The needles can be replaced easily if needed. It comes in 1-, 3-, & 6-strand needles. The loops can be adjusted but you have to cut the plastic sleeve to adjust the lengths. Not hard to do but finicky as you have to measure and cut the sleeves. Another thing is that if the sleeves didn't fit snug, it slides down as you're punching and that will change the lengths of your loops. The needles are small and were good for precise details but not comfortable to use for filling in large areas. It was hurting my hand after a while.

The third needle is the Cameo needle. The point is nice and sharp. The needles can be replaced and you can get different size needles like the Igolochkoy needles. The body of the holder is pen shaped, like the Dimension needle. Unlike the Dimension and the Igolochkoy needle, you can adjust the length of the loops easily with a slight twist. No little sleeves to cut and adjust. I can use this needle as long as I want without my wrist hurting. The downside is that you can't see inside so it's hard to tell how much floss you have left.

Oh Phooey!

I was not one of the fortunate few that got into the Maiwa workshop of her choice today. Not even second choice. Barely made it to the wait list. Bah! I was all set with my usual routine but at 9:55, I was called away from my desk and did not get back until almost 10:30. By then, it was too late. The phone lines were jammed for hours and I didn't get through until close to 2pm. Way too late. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone will pull out.

Things to do on the first day of Summer...

Photos curtesy of my son...dog helped.

Knitters are wonderful people!

There are so many wonderful knitters out there. I'm not just talking about knitter who knit beautifully but knitters who are caring and kind.

Check out the Rebuilding Greensburg project!

Fuzzy goodness

It's Saturday and I had to go into work today. There was an orientation for the new staff...all 125 of them. My bit only takes 20 minutes but I dreaded it since I hate speaking in front of a large crowd. To make myself feel better, I stopped off at Shan's Needleworks in New Westminster on the way home. I think this store is fast becoming my favourite LYS. That's really saying a lot considering there are a number of good LYS nearby.

A month ago, I picked up some Merino/Alpaca from Shan's and it was so wonderful to work with! The label just say Merino/Alpaca Super Soft Yarn. They're based in Ontario. Anyway, the yarn knited up really nicely. I made a little teddy bear for a friend's baby shower. It was really hard to give that away. Sorry, no pics...didn't have time. It was one of those times when you procrastinated and had to knit like crazy all night long to finish it for the next day. I seem to do my best work that way.

Since then, I've been thinking how wonderful this yarn would be as a cardigan. The most the store had was 10 balls of any dye lot. Deep down I knew it wasn't enough for a sweater but I managed to convinced myself otherwise. I'm good at that. I bought all 10 balls of the very soft blue/grey merino/alpaca. I got home and my brain cleared. The total yardage is 1100. It's not even close...not for a cable sweater. I think this might become a snuggly shawl or something like the EZ Rib Warmers.

Merino & Alpaca in all its fuzzy goodness.

7 Random facts about me...

1. I remembered watching Kennedy's funeral on TV when I was two years old. We were still living in Hong Kong at that time. I remembered my parents waking me up in the middle of the night to go to my grandparent's house.

2. Caffine doesn't seem to affect me. I can have a cup of coffee right before going to bed and will sleep soundly.

3. I don't like price labels on my can goods. I peel them off before putting the groceries away.

4. I always wash new clothes before wearing.

5. I'm right-handed but play a lot of sports left-handed, thanks to my brother.

6. I love to read. When I was 8, I decided to read every single book in the school library. Fortunately, it was a small school library. I started at one end of the room and went through the shelves systematically. I probably missed a few books here & there but for the most part, I did read everything I could...including encylopedias.

7. I've never watched a football game. This fact is amazing considering that I work for a major football arena. The most I've seen is the last 5 minutes of a Grey Cup game.

Recycled bag

Look what you can do with 12" of leftover pant legs! The material was cut off from the pants I hemmed up last week. Ok...I "hemmed" them up to capri length so there was a LOT of material removed. Enough to make a bag to show off my needlepunch sheep. Even the strap is recycled. It's the drawstring from the waist band. There's still a bit of material left that I was thinking of making a little change purse.

It would have been such a waste not to use the leftover material.

Sunny Sunday

Everything is growing and loving this early summer heat. According to the Weather Net site, the hottest it got today around here was 26 deg C but the "feels like" temp was 32. Too hot for this time of the year. I'm actually looking forward to a bit of rain this coming week. The garden will be happy.

Things are growing well, with the exception of the tomato plants. Not sure what happened this year. The plants are a little on the small side but we transplanted them anyway. We still have 6 left - 3 hanging cherry tomatoes and 3 zebra tomatoes - that need a good home.

St. Johnswort is one of my favourite herbal plant. To others, it's an invasive weed that causes more harm than good. The little black spots are not bugs but pores filled with oil. Thus the name, Hypericum Perforatum. This particular strain is grown for its high yeild in this oil.

When it starts to flower, I'll harvest the flowers and leaves for the oil. It will be used for skin ointments for bruises & scratches. The oil itself is wonderful for any skin irritations. I've heard that it's a good dye plant as well but I've never dyed with this.

Not much knitting and spinning was accomplished this weekend. Everything stuck to my sweaty hands. This morning we stopped by the local Farmer's market for fresh veggies. There was someone selling homespun yarn. Not bad stuff. She's mostly self-taught from the internet. She was interested in the local spinning community so I told her all about the classes at Place des Art and the Coquitlam Weavers & Spinners guild. Heh!

Posting for the sake of Posting

Nothing new and exciting.

Saturday was spent at Eat! Vancouver. A trade show devoted to food and all things food related. Stuffed ourselves full of free samples there. Rolled home and spent the rest of the day doing nothing.

Sunday was spent doing laundry and a bit of house cleaning. Hubby was inspired by the big BBQs and Smokers at the show and decided to roast a duck on his BBQ. The cookbook said one hour...which translate to almost 3 hours real time. Needless to say, dinner was very late. Delicious but late. The meal was roasted duck with lemon glace, grilled asparagus, and sauted morel mushrooms with garlic.

Shuttleworks is fantastic! I ordered my new frame on Thursday and it arrived Monday! Love getting packages at work. Hate forgetting packages at work. I was looking forward to putting together my new gripper frame tonight.

Work is going ok. I think I'm slowly settling into this new position. I picked up a new flash drive last week. It's briefcase of the new millenium, I think. Stuff files into that thing and you can bring work home. yay. Actually, I don't mind bringing some stuff home. It takes me 10 minutes to do something at home that would have taken me a couple of hours to do at work with all the interuptions from the phone and people.

Tammy tagged me for a meme. I have to come up with 7 random facts about me. Have to think about this one...

Back to work!

It's Monday night and it's back to work tomorrow. I really need to win the lottery. Long weekends are just not long enough.

What did I accomplished this weekend?

1. Road trip to Quiltopia. It's a fun place! Almost tempted to try quilting again but had to tell myself over and over again that I have an unfinished quilt at home. I did find out about a place nearby that will machine stitch my quilt.

2. Didn't spin any more of the linen but worked on my silk noil and carded some more of the Shetland on the drum carder.

3. Accomplished 1 & half sleeves on the green cardigan. Still half a sleeve to go.

4. Did not even touch the books needing binding.

5. Did not come up with a project for the fibre challenge. Help!

What else did I do?

1. Bought some wool fabric - Fabricana was having a sale! Beautiful wool melton on sale! I picked up a metre of tweed for texture and 2 metres of a pale baby blue (ick!) - they didn't have any white or beige in the weight I wanted.

2. Felted, dyed, & separated the wool fabric. Some of the pieces will be overdyed for accents at another time.

3. Drew out my pattern for another rug.

4. Hemmed up 2 pairs of pants that have been around since last summer.

5. Started a pair of chevron socks for my take-along knitting with the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn I got at Fibre Fest. I really love the Chevron pattern from Elan. It's easy to remember and make socks less boring to knit than stockinette stitch. It's also easier to keep track of rows too. Every pattern is two rows...just count the YO's. No need to carry around a row counter. Perfect for a take-along project.

On the bright side...

...the new issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors arrived today! Along with my new Moo cards! Yeah, I jumped on the Moo bandwagon. The cards were too cute to pass up. They're about half the size of a regular business cards. You can have whatever you want printed on the back. The front is an assortment of your photos...or you can have them all the same.

Work was crazy today so it was great to come to find stuff in the mail.

This weekend is the May long weekend. I have plans.

1. Road trip to Quiltopia.
2. Spin some more linen.
3. Finish the sleeves on the green sweater.
4. Finish binding the three books sitting on my work table for the past two months.
5. Think of a project for my skein for the Fibre Challenge.

Woohoo! Look! It's linen!

Ugly linen but it's linen! The roving was all prepared so you don't have to do anything to it but spin it. Exactly what I was looking for. I've never tried the preparation process with flax but have done it with nettle for papermaking. Dew retting takes forever (months). A process that's interesting to try it at least once and that's about it.

Colleen at Wild Rose sugggested wrapping the roving in a towel. The moisture from your hands will gum the fibres together. I found some more tips on the internet. Spin counter-clockwise, low twist and very little tension. Wet spinning is not a problem as that's how I spin my paper. All that moisture does make your fingers chapped and wrinkled. You can spin this roving wet or dry but wet will give you a smoother thread.

It took a long time to spin this little bit! Well, I was looking for a new fibre challenge and this stuff is really a challenge. I feel like I should go spin some cotton to make me feel better...just kidding.

Total fibre weekend!

As usual, Fibre Fest was an absolute blast! What I love about Fibre Fest (aside from the obvious fibre) is the people. There is no such thing as a stranger there. You pick up a skein of yarn or a bag of roving and someone will come up and start talking to you. Total strangers will become enablers.

This year's Fibre Fest was a little different because it was combined with the Country Life show. I think it worked because it gave my poor husband something to look at other than fibre. I did noticed that there seemed to be more yarn and a little less raw fibre than previous years. There were certainly more animals! I fell in love with a beautiful alpaca named Louis.

Total haul for today:

4 bags of prepared flax rovings, ready for spinning from Wild Rose
1 bag of Fox Fire organic cotton from Wild Rose.
1 skein of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn kit
1 Sock blocker key chain with mini Opal yarn
2 skeins of Laura Fry's handdyed bamboo
1 bag of alpaca/silk with Angelina fibre from Princess Farms



The little sock blocker and mini Opal was too cute to pass up! I think I'll keep the Opal intact and use some of my leftover sock yarns to knit the mini sock. Is it strange to want to change the sock on my keychain to match the socks I'm wearing?

In addition to the Fibre Fest stuff today, I picked up 4 skeins of linen at the Guild meeting on Thursday night. It was all Rusty's fault...I was doing so well not buying anything until she calls out that there's no tax! I'm only human.

On the way home, we stopped off to pick up a package at the post office...

It's a fabric cutter from Harry M. Fraser & Co. It comes with your choice of a cutter head and I ordered two additional cutters. I used to have an old one - not a Fraser cutter. It was a very old plastic thing that didn't cut very well. The cutter can't be sharpened. It was something I picked up secondhand long time ago. It was so annoying having to go over all the cuts by hand because it never cut all the way through. I always wanted a good one. These things are handy to have around.

So, yeah, I missed Friday with my friends but I think I did quite well fibre-wise. :D

Well, that sucks!

Everyone is off today and tomorrow for some kind of conference. So I'm working Friday because we have a newbie and a temp in. That means no Fibre Fest for me on Friday. People who are going on Friday, don't buy everything up...save some fibre for me. I'll be there Saturday but it's not the same. All my friends will be there on Friday.

:whine:
:whine:

The Spin-in will be on Saturday afternoon. I'm thinking of bringing my wheel but I may be too busy shopping. Shopping for fibre always makes me feel better. :D

My Igolochkoy needles have arrived!

My Igolochkoy punch needles arrived today! I can't wait to try them out. The needles are really well made - no burrs to catch on the fabric. I was going to wait until I finished my green sweater first but just had to try these needles out. Gail Bird at http://www.gailbird.com/ is really fast! I just ordered the needles last week!

It's four or five sleeps to Fiber Fest - four sleeps if I go on Friday and five sleeps if I go on Saturday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's going to be Friday. This will depend on how things go at work this week.

Another one!

Looks like a couple of the loops are out of place. That's ok...I can just nudge them back with a needle. This one is 2.5"x2.5". The fabric is Irish linen. I read somewhere that you shouldn't use 100% cotton as the needle will cut the fabric instead of punching through. I only had 100% cotton Aida or Irish linen. I thought the linen would be stronger. It was difficult to work with as the needle did cut the fabric strands. I had to make sure the needle punched between. If I were to use linen again for punchneedle, I think it would be better to wash the fabric first. It was really stiff to work with. Good for cross stitch but not so good for punchneedle.

Gillian, thanks for the info on your rug. It sounds like yarn was used instead for bigger rugs. I can't imagine how long it would take to make something that size with embroidery floss! :0

Punchneedle Embroidery

Look at what I made!



It's punchneedle embroidery. Last week, I saw that Quiltopia is offering a workshop on punchneedle embroidery. I did a web search and came up with a lot of references & instructions. It doesn't look that hard. Serendipity (aka local newspaper) brought a Michael's 40% off coupon to my door and pretty soon, I was punching away on this kit. As long as you don't look at it close up, it looks fine. The back is really messy but not bad for my first effort, I think. It doesn't look finished with the background plain so I might do something about that.

Things to remember:

Punchneedle work is done on a small scale. Finished pieces are usually no bigger than 5". Small is good.

Get a good needle. The one Michael's sell is ok and cheap but if you're interested in doing this more than once, invest in a good needle. The tiny burr at the end of my needle kept catching on the fabric. The two that seems to be preferred by other punchneedle enthusiasts are Cameo and Igolochkoy. Locally, Quiltopia and Shan's Needleworks sells Cameos.

The suggested fabric is weaver's cloth. I'm not sure what that is. The fabric in the kit looks similar to a 28 count Aida cotton. Possibly even 32 count.

Things to do...

...at the crack of dawn Saturday morning...



...while watching English Premier League soccer.

That's the tussah silk noil that I've been picking through for a while now. No matter how thorough you are picking out chunks of VM, you always find more as you're spinning. I carry a small ziplock baggie of the noil with me and pick through it whenever I have a few minutes. It's actually better than knitting for short spurts of free time. No worries about finishing the row.

Midweek blahs

I really need to take a picture of the purple cardigan before I frog the trim. Yes, the sleeves are all sewn in but I'm not happy with them...the sewing looks a bit sloppy even after blocking. I really need to work on my finishing techniques. The trim is a picot edge all around the sweater. It looks good lying on the blocking board but not so good on me. I think I'll put this away for now. Maybe when I feel up to it, I'll knit a cable rib around the sweater.

Good thing Fiber Fest is less than 3 weeks away...I need pick-me-up. Kris's last day is the same day as Fiber Fest. I'm really going to miss her. We've been working together for a lot of years.

Just cuz...

In case you ever need to make your own cow...

Mine is sitting by my computer. Heh!

What day is it?

All week long, I've been a day off. Short weeks are great if your workload is shorten to match the short week. Another busy week over. It looks like another two months to go before things will settle down.

One month to Fibre Festival!

The sleeves for purple cardie are still not sewn in yet. I'm seriously considering re-knitting the sleeves right on the sweater. I've never knitted a set-in sleeve right to sweater before. I've done top-down sweaters with raglan sleeves but not sleeves needing shoulder shaping. I did find a couple of website with some good suggestions - Morehouse Farm's knitting tips for armholes and Heartstrings Fiber Arts seamless shoulder-down sleeves.

Am I crazy? I would rather re-knit the darn sleeves than sew them in.

Spring has sprung!

All the Magnolia buds have thrown off their fuzzy little jackets to enjoy the sunshine! The tree is packed full of pink and white flowers!

PURPLE CARDIGAN V1.3 (aka Fall Cable KAL project)

The plan for this glorious super long Easter weekend? Sew the sleeves to the body and decide on how I would like to finish the edges.

Right now I'm leaning towards quick & easy (crochet edge all around). But this is version 3 of my Fall Cable KAL, in previous reincarnations have been Knitty's BPT and partially knitted Paton's Urban Aran, and I feel slightly guilty that there's not one speck of cable anywhere on this cardigan.

I'm not sure I want to mention what Plan B is...it involves a lot of math and another 50 years of knitting.

Not for the faint of heart...

Being not of sound mind and body on Friday, I decided to tackle one of my WIP boxes.


After close to three hours of untangling and rewinding, I got this...


Not all the WIPs have been reclained but at least, everything is untangled. Amber, I really could have used your help on Friday.

Nothing new or exciting here...

It's another rainy Saturday and Crazy Man is out running. Nothing new or exciting here today. Just doing a bit of laundry & knitting. The sleeves are almost done for the purple sweater. No pictures since it's so dark and dreary outside and I don't want to set up the lights.

Maybe I'll wander up to the LYS later & see if there's anything interesting there. :D

Happy St. Patty's Day!

For those of us living in the Lower Mainland of BC, here's something to look forward to. It's ugly out there today.



Just a reminder that it's going to get better.

It was unexpected that I have the house all to myself today. Son was called in to work early and Hubby went running. Yeah, he's crazy that way.

My plan for today will be to continue on with my list from yesterday. I can cross off a few things on yesterday's list. Finally finished the top of the cardigan and started the sleeves. Soap is done and curing.

One day is just not enough!

I have today off from work and here's a list of things I wanted to do.

1. Make a batch of liquid soap. Not sure if this is a good idea. It takes 4 hours of simmering but too late to change my mind...it's on the stove now.

2. Finally finish the top of my cardigan so I can start the sleeves. I still have ~2" to go. All the knitting I'm doing on this cardigan seems disappear into the black hole of knitting. I think it doesn't help that I get bored of this after two or three rows.

3. Finish spinning the fibre on my wheel.

4. Make some 1" art squares. I've been meaning to do this since December. I have all the stuff and I have a plan. I just didn't have the time.

5. Carve out my rubber stamps. The blocks are sketched out and ready to be carved. I found all my knives and everything is ready to go. Again, need time. I don't like distractions when I'm carving. I always worry that I'm going to cut myself.

5. Clessidria socks - ok, that one has been on my mind for the last few days. I'm been phoning around to see if any of the LYS has Regia Silk in stock. I have 4 - 1/2lb skeins of superwash merino fingering weight in natural white. One skein is ~112o yds. That might be enough for a pair of socks. I could dye that to use for the socks.

6. Replace the zipper on my jacket. This shouldn't take long since I've already done the tedious work of removing the old zipper.

Did anyone noticed that there's not one mention on this list of cleaning or laundry? :D

Knitty's Clessidra

It's been a while since anything on Knitty got me this excited! I think I've found my next sock project. I don't just want to knit them now - I want to wear them now!!!

I'm excited enough to post twice in one day!

:D

Spring Ahead already

The one thing (and only one thing) that I used to hated about Spring is Daylight Savings. We lose an hour of our precious weekend. I don't mind when we get the hour back in the Fall. To make matters worse, it's now earlier (today) because WE (not me but our government) wanted to sync up with the US. It's really mucking up the electronics in the house. My cell phone is just not syncing up and it's supposed to do that automatically.

I really don't have anything new or exciting to say. Work is busy. It's a busy time of the year for us. One good thing was that I met Angela of Food and Yarn. She's found a new source of Icelandic fleece! I love running into Knitters at work!

A Wet and Dreary Day!



The Weather Guys weren't kidding when they said it was going to rain all weekend. What you can't see is the rain coming down by the buckets! Nice weather if you're a duck. It's nasty out there today. It's good for the plants, though.

My plan for today is to make a big pot of chicken soup, bake some bread, and try to finish the top of my cardigan. And start the sleeves.

My (crazy) husband's plan is go hit golf balls. He's trying to convince our son to join him. Heh!

a bit of fibre therapy...

Let's just say, so far, this year has been a very strange year as far as work goes and leave it like that.

Last weekend I went through some of my fibre buckets and found a bag of the Cotswold/silk blend from last year's Fibrefest. I started spinning it and it's really wonderful to spin a beautiful fibre that's so well prepared. Last summer, I had spun up a small sample of this fibre. I found it needed a lot of twist and the single was very stiff and wirey. I wasn't sure I liked it. But after plying, the resulting yarn was much softer and knits up very nicely. I love silk blends in my wool. Silk gives the fabric a nice shine but really hard to photograph.

I'm hoping it will rain all Sunday so I can feel justified in spinning all day long.

This is a Fuzzy Dozen from Fuzzy Mabel. I love it! You buy 12 skiens and they send you 13. Free wool. It's all good. Not sure what this will be yet...just yarn therapy for the moment. I usually have my packages deliverd to me at work. This saves me from having to make a special trip to the post office. In the middle of a bad day, a package of yarn arrives. How cool is that? There's more than enough for a sweater of some sort, eventually.

Our pre-spring weather here has been strange - warm one day and snow the next. The plants don't seem to be affected by temperature fluctuations and continued to do what they do best.

Alive & kicking!

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Or buried beneath mounds of fibre in my workroom. It's just an ordinary mundane thing like work. Lately, it's been taking up way too much of my time. There is an end in sight and all is good...at least, it's getting manageable.

Fibre-wise, I've started a Feel-Good sweater. Quick easy mindless knitting. Sometimes you need something like that.

Tomatoes & Barenaked Ladies

Tumbler Cherry tomatoes are the best tomatoes in the world. They are so easy to grow. They can be grown from hanging baskets. The tomatoes are huge, ranging from 1&1/2" to 2" in diameters. There is only a small amount of seeds in each package but every seed usually germinates. We plant about 12 pots each year and end up with way too many tomatoes.

Another great thing about these tomatoes is that they germinate quickly. The seeds were planted 2 weeks ago and now they're 2" tall, starting their secondary leaves. It's not too early to start them indoors. They should be ready to planted outside in early May.

Not much to see yet but this little one is a Zebra Tomato planted a week ago. I came across someone selling Zebra tomatoes at the Farmer's Market last year. She suggested saving the seeds for this year. I saved 12 seeds and wasn't sure if they would germinate. So far, there are 3 little seedlings popping up.

Barenaked Ladies

Great concert! Worth all the stress of getting there! When we bought the tickets last year, I thought the date looked familiar. It turned out it was the same night as another major event at work. Saturday was busy...ran into work, did what I needed to do, and out of there by 5pm. Quick dinner at Calypso on Robson (it was ok - my lamb was good but hubby's wasn't and the beer was flat.) and then on to the show!

The Barenaked Ladies really put on a great show. A good time was had by all. What was really cool was that there were tables set up by the various causes the band supports. You gotta admire these guys...great musicians and environmentally conscientious too.