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.

February's desktop

It's the year of the Tiger so I thought this screenshot would be appropriate for Feb/March desktop.

Mittens

I want a pair of red mittens but didn't like the acrylic store bought ones. So I made my own. It was also to keep me from casting on the Cedar Leaf Shawlette. The mittens only took a couple of days to knit. While these mittens are not the Red Olympic Mitten pattern, they're close (I mean, mittens are mittens) so I made a donation.

Want to see something incredible? Knitters have raised over $1,000,000 for Doctors Without Borders.

And if you're interested in knitting your own mittens, Swatchless has the Red Olympic mitten pattern. The proceeds are going to Penguins Can Fly.

I will now have to find something else to knit for the next two weeks.

Ravelry's Knitting Olympics 2010

It's countdown time to the 2010 Winter Olympics. I have mixed feelings about this Olympics. Normally, I'm all over it, especially with this one being in our own backyard...literally. Working at one of the venues can be really exciting but it has been so stressful. Every time I think or hear about the Olympics, I get heart palpitations. I wasn't sure if I was going to do the knitting Olympics this year. But then, I thought...how often does this comes around? It might be just the thing to de-stress things a bit.

So, I joined Team Canada Ravelry group and picked my project and yarn.

Cedar Leaf Shawlette. Something nice and uncomplicated that won't make me want to poke my eyes out with my needles. The yarn is the Blue Face Leicester that I spun up last summer. Fibre is from Sweet Georgia's fibre club...Foundation colourway. I've been trying to think of something special to use this yarn for and when I saw the pattern, I knew it was right.



I'm all set to go. I've been knitting like a crazy person to finish up my Almost-Cassidy cardigan just so I could get that done and out of the way so I wouldn't break my resolution of finishing things before starting new projects. The main pieces of the cardie just came off the needles tonight. This weekend, I will sew them together, knit the band and I will be done just in time to start the shawlette for Feb 12th.

Things I'm thankful for:
1. A cool bunch of friends at work.
2. New knitting projects
3. Books

2010 New Year Resolution (despite my objections to making resolutions)

Normally, I'm not big on New Year Resolutions. For me to make resolutions is pretty much condemming me to failure. I start things and I never finish things. I have lots of ideas for projects and things to do but once I get started on them, if it takes more than 10 minutes, my interest has moved on to the next shiny thing. Very easily distracted.


I would like to change that. I'm going to start small. Give myself a few things to finish so I wouldn't get discouraged.

1. Finish the grey cable cardigan. Yes, that cardigan is still not finished. It's all knitted but still need to be sewn together. I promise I will do that this year. I think giving myself a year is good except I'm also a procrastinator. I will most likely wait until December and think maybe no one will remember that I put that on my blog to finish. It's getting silly...I finished knitting the sweater in December 2007.

2. Finish the hair on my Waldorf doll. She still only have half a head of hair. And she still needs clothes. Maybe I should list the half-finished sweater that I'm knitting for her here too.

3. Finish my cashfern scarf. Honestly! I only have 1 repeat left to do! It's sititng in a margarine tub somewhere in my wool room.

4. Finish the finglerless gloves I promised my niece. I promise to have them finished by next winter. You will get them eventually.

Happiness is...

...yarn sale at your local yarn shop and coming home with a sweater's worth of Rowan Lima.

Yum!

We have cake!

A few weeks ago, we discovered a mouse living in the back of our laundry room. No real damage but a box of instant mash potato powder was chewed into. We completely forgotten that box was there. The real casualty was an electronic rice cooker that was a present from my mom a few Christmases ago. There were a few droppings along the top of the cooker and inside the vent. Even if I could clean it up, I would never ever feel comfortable using it...so it went in the garbage.

We have several rice cookers and the one we use daily is in the kitchen. It's nice small one that makes enough for the three of us. The one the mouse contaminated was a bigger one that makes congee (mushy rice). We don't use it often but it's so handy to have. I can cook congee on the stove top but it's so handy with the cooker. You throw in the ingredients, press a button, and go away until it's done. I was bemoaning about how I would miss that cooker. One of the boxes under our tree this year was a replacement rice cooker from hubby. The box said it cooks white rice, brown rice, sushi rice, sticky rice, congee, soup, and cake. Yes, cake.

I was intrigued by the cake function and had to try it out.



The instruction booklet suggested using a boxed cake mix but I used a simple cake recipe I found online. The recipe made more than what was recommended so I had to hit the cake setting twice in order for it to bake properly. The result was a tasty cake, a little on the dense side - that's my fault...I should have separated the batter into two batches.

So, yes, you can bake a cake in a rice cooker. Who knew.

Christmas is coming!

It's Monday morning and I'm home. I have two days off. Normally, this would make me very happy but this is the first year that I am not taking time off between Christmas and New Year. To coin a phrase from a coworker...it's cuckoo banana heads at work right now. I'm not denying that I'm not excited with all the Olympic stuff happening around me but it just doesn't feel like Christmas is 4 days away. Presents are ready & waiting to be wrapped, tree is up and decorated. A new Christmas puzzle sitting in the box. Same as every other year but this time it feels different. The 2010 Olympics have overshadowed Christmas for me. :(

In order to get that Christmas-y feeling back, we made a trip to Granville Island on Saturday afternoon before heading over to the Festival of Lights at Vandusen Gardens later. I love that place! They did a fantastic job on the lights. Despite the large crowds, it was still a lot of fun!


A dark and ugly picture but unless you're planning on bringing a tripod & such, pictures will turn out dark and ugly. These were the most amazing lights! They're the plastic top part of water bottles cut into flower and star shapes! There must have been bazillion of these all over the garden. In the dark, with the lights, they look like coloured ice flowers!

And here's another picture that turned out without a lot of effort.

Happy Christmas to all!

It's cold outside

Last summer, during that long heat wave, I said I wasn't going to complain when it got cold in the winter. But that was before I knew how cold it was going to get! It's FREAKIN' COLD here!!!

The up side is that I got to wear all my hand knitted hats, scarves, mittens. I just didn't expect to have to wear everything all at the same time.

It's in the forecast to snow tomorrow and all through the weekend. I have mixed feelings about wanting a white Christmas. This is the first year in a long time that we're not shutting down for the holidays.

Mini Santa

The perfect accessory for any computer desk. I'm going to bring this in to work for my desk...on Wednesday.

ETA: Did I mentioned I have two days off? Wheeee!!!

A very productive weekend...

It took me the whole weekend but I made a picture.



It's not much but I can proudly say "I did this myself" I've been playing around with the Adobe Illustrator and there is so much to play with! Every step was a challenge, right down to trying to figure out how to save this as a jpeg to post here.

Just because I can.

Things that makes me happy:
1. Playing with new toys.
2. Making things - even if it is just a picture on the computer.
3. Christmas music.

I got nothin'

Well, I've been knitting and doing a bit of spinning. Not much excitment here. Started a pair of fingerless mitts today. Got a new camera but it's been too rainy and cold to go outside to try it out. Not really feeling motivated to do much this weekend. It's been a long busy couple of months at work and I feel I need some decompression time.

I've been playing around with Illustrator on the computer making calendars. I found a place that sells mini jewel CD cases. The difference between the regular CD ones and the calendar ones is that the calendar case cover flips back. I ordered 200. Husband asked what am I going to do with 200 calendar cases. I dunno...I guess I'll make 200 calendars. I don't think I even know 200 people to give calendars to.

My knitted Waldorf doll is still waiting for the rest of her hair. She still needs clothes.

Things that makes me happy:
1. Christmas music.
2. Wool socks FTW!!
3. More Christmas music!