No fibre pics today

I finally finished spinning and plying the August 2009 Fibre Club fibre from Sweet Georgia. Thank goodness for Ravelry. I had to look up the colourway because I couldn't find the paper description. Copperhead. I would have pics to show but the swine kid took the camera to the fireworks tonight. >:

So, instead, I have pictures of today's lunch and the lunchroom...







Vancouver is such a beautiful city. Just behind the Olympic cauldron there are benches overlooking the water - outside where I work. These aren't your ordinary park benches. They are high back wooden loungers! What amazes me is that every time I've been there, there's hardly anyone there.

Things that makes me happy:
1. Fresh fruit in the summer.
2. Looking forward to squeeing over the new Aug/Oct fibre club offerings from Sweet Georgia.
3. Cell phone cameras - the best invention ever!

More hexagons!

Y'know, these hexagons are not too bad to make. I have thirteen joined together and a whole bunch of crochet bits in various stages of hexagon completion. I've been crocheting them one colour at a time - do a bunch of centre purples, get tired of that and move on to the cream, and so on. It's perfect for mucking around on the computer. I can do a handful while waiting for LFG to pop on WoW. Multitasking at its best.

Hexagon love

I came across this tutorial on how to crochet hexagons and thought to myself...what a great way to use up leftover yarns!

I'm sure for the crochet savy folks, it's a piece of cake. It took me the whole week to make one. But once I got the first one done, it wasn't bad at all. Made a few more and thought I could piece them together to make a little blanket. I estimated I will need 160 hexagons.



So far, I've made six. I will also need more yarn - which defeats the purpose of using up leftovers. And I didn't factor in the bazillion little yarn ends to weave in.

I think the novelty of crocheting will wear off before I get this finished.

Sidenote:

Picked up my new glasses this week. I feel old. I needed bifocals. Yes, you can get them without the lines (which I did) and they're called Progressives. It wasn't too bad adjusting to them.



Happy Thoughts:

1. Extra long weekend! And it's not raining anymore.
2. Love the super lush green colour of the grass.
3. No plans for the long weekend except do eat, knit, sleep, and WoW! Not necessarily in that order.

Joong (or better known as rice wraps at our house)

Many cultures have these. Call them whatever you want but they're the Best Thing Ever. Ok, not as good as chocolate and coffee but pretty darn close. I have 60 of these. :insert happy dance here:

When asked if I wanted 60 of these, I didn't considered the amount of space they will take in my freezer. They take a LOT of space!

Creative uses for a meat mallot...

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my sister about a pair of granny boots I used to have. I wore them until they fell apart and always meant to replace them. We were wandering through a department store shoe section at that time. Her reply was less than flattering about the selection such a store would offer.

So, with that in mind and a free Friday afternoon, I decided to wander through one of my favourite shoe store. I also heard a rumour that they were having a sample shoe sale as well at one of their stores. The store was just too crowded to look properly so I headed to the other store. Found the boots I wanted and they had my size. The only problem was that the arch on one boot was slightly higher than the other. Experience tells me that if I could feel it then, it would irritate my foot after wearing the boots all day. Unfortunately, they only had one pair my size. The other store (the CROWDED store) had two pairs and I really didn't want to walk all the way back. The clerk wasn't able to get in touch with anyone at the other store becuase of the sale and everyone was too busy to answer the phone. Then she did a very nice thing...she offered me a nice discount so I could take the boot to a shoe repair and have them restitch the lining. So I bought them.

When I got home, I took the meat mallet and went Bop! Bop! Bop! on the spot and it worked. I've had these boots for a week now and they still feel great.

Food shopping

A zillion years ago, we lived near 11th & Fraser...not too far from Famous Foods. The Famous Foods then is nothing like the Famous Foods now. This place was recommended by someone who is very particular about what she eats. Now I know where to go for my hard to find baking needs in bulk, although their stock of baking chocolate is not quite as extensive as Gourmet Warehouse. They have organic everything there. Stuff that I wouldn't think you could even get organic!

And I found Greek yogurt there. Organic Greek yogurt. I've been looking for some to try & make my own yogurt. Wish me luck on that. :)

View from the top...

There was no way I was going to say no when asked if I wanted to go up to the ring beam.

View from the freight elevator going up:


View of False Creek and Science World from the ring beam:


View of the hole in the middle of the Stadium roof as they're cutting away the panels:


It was a beautiful day to be up there.

Coffee Bag

Ethical Bean Coffee is a good coffee at a decent price. We drink a lot of coffee which means we go through a lot of bags of coffee. I think these bags are supposed to be recyclable but I couldn't help but wondering if there's something I could make with them. You know - reuse, reduce, etc...

In the spirit of my bag-making phase, I present...

the Coffee Bag!





Things I would do differently next time:
The plastic wrinkled when I turned the bag right side out. I would leave the opening larger so the bag could turn without wrinkling the bag too much. I made zipper tab ends and it added bulk to the end seams - making it very difficult to sew the sides. I think I would prefer to have the air vent facing inside than out. Mylar is slippery to sew so don't rush the sewing. You only get one chance with this material. If you make a mistake, you can't redo the seams...it leaves holes that won't go away.

The bag smells like coffee.

Round two...

I wasn't really happy with the cow bag. The cotton was a bit too soft even with the lining. This was made with some green upholstery fabric I had left over from making a teddy bear.

Oh, did I mentioned that Button Button is just a few blocks away from my new office? This is very handy.

Things you do when you're bored...

I had planned on meeting up with the Twisted tonight but didn't feel great when I got home. I decided to stay home tonight and play a bit of WoW. Tonight I really sucked at healing and wiped the group twice. At lvl 53, it's BRD...a dungeon that I absolutely hated. It was time to go do something else.

Scrounged up a zipper, some fabric, and half an hour later this is what you get...


...a little cow bag. Maybe I should iron out the wrinkles?

BC Place Stadium...end of an era

Now you see it...






Now you don't...

BC Place Stadium's roof was deflated for the final time this morning. I watched it with mixed feelings...a bit of sadness and a bit of excitment for what the next year will bring. I was also sad that not all my Stadium friends were together. We all watched it from various locations. I wish we could have all been together for this.

Hurry up and wait...

Today was Moving Day at work. They're putting in a new roof at work and we all had to leave the building. What doesn't make any sense is that while WE had to leave due to safety concerns, the contract company will be moving in and using our office area. Whatever.

The bright side was that there was a lot of hurry up and wait time. Luckily, I had my knitting with me. Any day that you get to knit on work time is a good day, right?

How Green is Green?

Earth Day 2010

For the most part, our family is pretty green. We do all the usual stuff like recycle anything and everything. We use energy efficient light bulbs. We compost. And lately, our city has a program to compost food scrapes like chicken bones, etc. So I can safely say that we're Green. But one can be a bit more Green if you look around. Lately, at work, I've been putting my sugar and milk in my coffee cup, pour a little bit of coffee, swirl, and then top up my cup with coffee. This is so I don't have to use a wooden stir stick or spoon to stir my coffee. It seemed pointless to dirty a spoon just to mix coffee. Give or take, that will save ~300 stir sticks a year. Not big by global standards but every little bit helps. I've also started bringing my little plastic chopsticks when we go for take-out sushi. No bamboo chopsticks were harmed in the feeding of my sushi cravings. I got this set at one of those Japanese dollar stores. It came with a nice little carrying case with little bunnies on the front. Really cute!

Every little bit helps.

Finding treasure

I was going through some boxes in my junk work room and came across a stash of Rowan Lima that I bought on sale. Finding yarn that I had forgotten is like finding treasure. Going through that room is like digging for treasure sometimes. The original plan was to knit the Alana Cardigan with it but not so sure once I looked over the pattern again and checked out some of the finished projects on Ravelry.

You know what I really want to knit right now? A little sock monkey pouch for my Ipod.

More procrastination

I kinda feel bad...every so often, I get requests for my knitted Waldorf doll pattern and I don't have one...yet. It was one of those pick up your needles and knit until it looked right projects. I've been telling people that I'm going to write out the intructions one of these days.

It took me forever to write up the Sock Monkey pattern. I'm a procrastinator.

Sick

You know that commercial where the gorilla is jumping and beating up on a suitcase? It was to show how tough their luggage can be. Well, I feel like the suitcase...except I'm not as tough. I hate being sick. It's such a waste of time. Even my hair is achy.

Blech!

Ravelympics - Cedar Leaf Shawlette

Well, the 2010 Winter Olympics is more or less over. Paralympics is still to come next week but the hype for that is much less than the regular Olympics. A shame, really. The stadium is now gearing up for the big opening ceremony next Friday. This year really does seem to fly by fast.

During all that I did managed to finish my Ravelympics project.



Pithy Details:
Yarn - handspun Blue Faced Leicester, fibre dyed by Sweet Georgia (Fibre Club), colourway - Foumndation.
Pattern - Cedar Leaf Shawlette - Never Not Knitting

The yarn was probably thicker than what was recommended but it was perfect for what I wanted. A nice thick and soft shawlette. I added an extra row of eyelets before starting the leaf border to better separate the border and the shawl.



Would I knit this again? You betcha!! I'm looking forward to trying this pattern out in different yarns.

2010 Olympics Fever

This was the view that greeted me as I was walking around BC Place on my way to the check-in gate at 6:45AM this morning. It was so breathtakingly beautiful that I had to pull out my cell phone to take a couple of pictures.

The dark objects along the bottom are little Inuksuks along the shoreline. It was really amazing. There must have been at least a hundred or more of them. This just reminded me that I'm lucky to be where I am. It's so easy to forget; being where I am, it's like being in the eye of the hurricane. I forget what's going on around me until I step outside. I'm always surprised at the level of excitment that's in this city right now. Despite the work stress leading up to this point, it is so cool to be part of something this big. This city is going nuts!

Red "O" Mitts - the Reader's Digest Version

I wanted something Olympic-like and functional for those fun times when I'm sitting outside at the check-in tent. My red mittens would be perfect but just can't write with them on. The solution? Half mitts. It only took a couple of hours on Friday. The Friday we had off because they're doing a security sweep of our offices. These mitts are red - same wool as the full sized mittens - but for some reason, looks pinky in this light.

2010 Olympics - a knit-free zone?

Hmmm...going to have to rethink how I'm going to knit my Ravelympic project. Just found out that I may not be able to bring my knitting through the check points for my venue. Which means I won't be able to knit on transit going to & from work. I'm going to have to leave my project in my office.