Sketch Club

I've been playing around with a new app on my Ipod - Sketch Club.  I admit to having a fondness for drawing/painting apps - I have three - but this one seems to be my favourite.  I'm really not sure why...all these apps seems to do more or less the same thing.

Diablo III came out last week.  I'm playing a Witch Doctor.  I like the character but the running annimation is strange.  She reminds me of a spider when she runs.  Ick!

The first casualty of Puppy Cas

It's a good thing she's so cute...look at what she did to my alpaca mitten!!

Stuff

It took a while but I think I've figured out how to add my blog to Google+. We went to see Joel Plaskett on Saturday night at the Vogue Theatre. I love seeing concerts there. The nice surprise of the evening was the opening act - David Vertiesi. Normally, opening acts don't thrill me but this guy was really good. Good enough to buy his CD. On the knitting front - not a lot of knitting being done. Still working on the sleeve of the cotton cardigan. It's now taken two weeks to knit one sleeve. Puppy snuggling seems to be the priority in this house now.

Puppy pics and a couple of knitted bunnies

There's not a lot of time to write up anything. Right now, Cas is distracted by her squeeky ball. Thank goodness for squeeky balls! She has a new sleeping area...the shoe crate by the back door. She will crawl into the back, push all the shoes out and make herself a little puppy nest.














Knitted a couple of little bunnies for Easter. Made these before we got the dog. I may not be able to knit for a long time. Cas seems to be fascinated by the knitting needles.

*sigh*

Life has a way of happening on Wednesdays

It seems that life happens on Wednesdays around here. There's some kind of cosmic force that's keeping me from going to meet up with the Twisted group.

This week's distraction is...THE PUPPY!!

Meet Cas, short for Castiel. She's nine weeks old. We weren't expecting her until Saturday but was able to bring her home today.



Once she warmed up to us, we discovered Cas has two modes: sound asleep or running around like a little black ball of mercury.






Yes, Tammy, those puppy ears are very snorgle-able. :)

Puppies

Tonight we went to look at some puppies. Needless to say, one cannot just go "look at puppies" without wanting at least one or two of the cute furry fuzzballs. I remember saying to my hubby that unless these pupplies looked like half-eaten zombie puppies, it's pretty much a given that we're getting one. It was really tough picking out one that all three of us were happy with.

Sorry, no cute puppy pictures. They have to be checked out by the vet, go through all their shots, etc before we can bring one home.

I'm quite excited.

Natural Selection at work here...

We got a new bird feeder. It's one of those squirrel-proof ones...if a squirrel does manage to jump on the ring, the weight of the squirrel pull the ring down and close the feeder. We've been getting flocks of Pine Siskins living in our backyard for the last month or so. They're very aggressive with the other birds and will clean out the whole feeder in about a day or less.

Squirrels love them as these birds will knock the seeds out of the feeder onto the ground. Seconds before I took this picture, there were close to 50 birds covering the trellis and feeder. All that's left are a lot of blurrs and the squirrel on the ground. The squirrel took off a second later.

It seems that we now have a couple of residence falcons using this place as their version of Watership Down.



Whenever the whole flock is spooked and takes off, we know one of the falcons are near. Sometimes there would be the one bird left, pecking away at the seeds on the ground. That one usually ends up being falcon food.

Bunny Chunks

My latest obession may seem a bit odd. I've been drawing little tiny bunnies on a sketch app in my ipod Touch. Instead of knitting on the morning trains, I've been doodling.



Don't ask why that middle bunny is tilted.

Not so instant Instagram

I love the idea of Instagrams and how cool the pictures look. Unfortunately, there is no Instagram for my phone and I do not like the iPhone. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod Touch but just can't see me switching for an iPhone anytime soon. There is a workaround solution. Download Instagram to my Touch, take the picture on my camera phone and email it to myself. Pick it up on the Touch, play around with the Instagram stuff, and email it back to myself. Yeah, I thought it was too much work too.



Apparently, Instagram does not like the higher resolutions. It took me a couple of tries in finding which resolution worked the best.

Despite the bit of rain we've been having, the weather has been gorgeous for the most part. My favourite fall days are the cold, crisp sunny days. Just bundle up in your cozy handknitted woollies and it's all good.

Yesterday we got a really nice treat at work - a tour up on the catwalk. I've been up on the ring beam of the old roof and been up on the old roof before but this was much scarier. Not a place you want to be if you don't like heights.



The stairs and the catwalk are the grated metal kind...the kind where you can see ALL the way down. Ick! I'm usually okay when it comes to heights but this was making me go weak in the knees by the time we got up to the actual catwalk.



Things that makes me happy:
1. I have the next ten days off!
2. My fibre friends welcoming me back into the fold after my long absence.
3. It's December and Christmas shows are back on TV!

It's a perfect day!!

To make up for working last Sunday, I took a couple of hours off today to get my haircut. It's one of those haircut where you trust the stylist and tell her to surprise you...which she did, in a good way. Really happy with the cut. On the way back to work, I stopped off at Sweet Georgia Yarns to pick up my fibre club stuff for October & November. October's fibre is a blend of superwash Merino, bamboo, and nylon. November's fibre is Polworth and silk.

A great hair cut and fibre. You would think that all this would be enough for a perfect day but no, it got better. Got back to the office and there was a message from home that my Hansen minispinner had arrived.




Perfect day!!!!

King of Coffeemakers

My Hansen mini spinner is not here yet but the new coffee maker arrived on Friday. It's a very unusual looking machine this Technivorn Mochamaster. It's handmade...yes, handmade coffee maker. While not quite as awwsome as a mini spinner, it's a pretty amazing coffee maker. What makes it so special is that it actually brews coffee at the right temperature!


On the knitting front, I finished the Stockholm shawl in record time. My motivation was the very cold mornings waiting for the train. Long enough to wrap around twice and wide enough to pull over my head as a hood.


Pithy details: Berroco Ultra Alpaca in dark brown, roughly 3-ish skeins (yarn reclaimed from a project that was destined to be unfinished). 7 mm needles, cast on 252 sts and knitted in the round. Knitted to 16" wide and blocked to 13". Silly me washed it in warm water.

Made it through the dark tunnel...

...and there was light at the other end. I promised myself that I was going to meet up with the Twisted last Wednesday. It was time to get my life back in order, get back the stuff that's important to me.

Sometimes plans change. When I got home from work that Wednesday, fate decided I was going to stay home...and ordered this.

Very much a SQUEEE worthy moment.

Roof from the inside

Nervousness and sleepless nights are all part of the package now. It's about a month to re-opening day and things are really jumping at work. Everyone is walking around with a glazed look.

Our department is slated to move back in two weeks. I'm going to really miss it here at the Waterfront. Miss all the yummy food carts at walking distance...back to the dust, noise, steel toe shoes, and hard hats everyday.

Hot! Hot! HOTHOTHOT!!

It's hot today. It wasn't that hot when I left the house this morning. Cool-ish enough to grab a sweater. By mid-day, it was HOT! Extra hot if you're walking on concrete. And no one felt like cooking today so a decision was made to go out for sushi. The perfect meal for a hot day. Cold raw fish in an air conditioned restaurant. Followed by black sesame ice cream.

Which led me to google black sesame ice cream recipes. Now I have to go find the ice cream maker. :)


No explanation for this picture except that everyone needs a random shadow picture once in a while.

Didn't mean to leave it so long...

I had forgotten my password to log in...it's one of those things when you try too hard to remember something and it just doesn't happen. And then if you leave it for a while, your fingers automatically remembers the right sequence to type and you're in!

Old age will do that to you.

So far, I have no new finished projects. Stuff are on the needle but knitting half-heartedly. Summer has been nice but super busy. Work is getting stressful again. I haven't decided if it's good stress or bad stress. Just a different kind of stress than before. There's so much to do getting a world-class stadium ready & re-open in less than 50 days. It's really REALLY scary!

I did managed to take a few days off and we went on our Annual Trek. The Annaul Trek was a tradition my sister and I started when the kids were teeny. Our usual trek was to ride the Westcoast Express downtown, have breakfast, wander through Science World, BC Mining Museum, etc. It was something we loved doing. Over the years, BC Mining Museum went away and Science World got old. It was hard to come up with something different. This year's trip was to Britannia Mines. I haven't been there since the renovations and it was really a lot of fun.


All the old core samples were kept in trays here. There must be millions and millions of them. The guide was telling us how valuable and extensive this collection was, etc and not to touch. At that point, I looked at the group and most of us had a core sample in our hands and guilty looks on our faces. She might have mentioned that first.


It was a fun day. We wandered around the mine, panned for gold (got some interesting shiny rocks), then drove to Squamish for a tasty lunch. The weather was great and a good time was had by all. Our kids are older now and I'm not sure how many more Annual Treks they'll put up with but I'm hoping there's at least one more.

I got a call Saturday morning from Helen at Black Sheep Yarns. She said that those bags we were drooling over the other day are in...do I still want one? HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!

Within 15 mins I was at the store.


The pockets are really nice and deep so you don't have to worry about things falling out. The inside is HUGE!

And it's reversible too! It will hold a knitting project or more PLUS whatever else you'll need. A beautifully made bag.

Of course, if you have a new knitting bag, you must have new yarn to go with it, right?

Madeline Tosh Light.

I was thinking of a light shawl for that yarn. I even started one today, right after I finsihed Amiga Three. Did about 3 inches and changed my mind.


It's amazing what a difference a sunny day makes. When I took the pictures for My Amiga, it was a very dreary cloudy day. The colour kept looking more green than yellow.



Pithy details on Amiga Three - Louet's Euroflax 100% wet spun linen, knitted on 5.5 mm needles. No real modifications to the pattern except on the front band. I did a simple yarn over eyelet. No buttons. If I decide to add buttons later, I can use the eyelets as buttonholes. No blocking but threw it in the washing machine on a gentle wash, followed by 15 mins in the dryer.

Interesting the lint that came off this yarn...it's like paper.

Gingerbread Cake

Gingerbread Cake...my new favourite. So good with coffee. I need to make a variation of this with chocolate. Gingerbread Brownie Cake has a nice ring to it.

Amiga Too

This is the Amiga Too from the Amiga pattern from Knitty. And I've started a third one. I really don't think I've ever knitted the same sweater pattern three times in a row. Love this pattern. It's a quick simple pattern that is easily adapted to pretty much any type of yarn. This version is more snug fitting than the first version. I added the feather & fan inserts on the bottom and sleeves. The sleeves are tapered to the elbows then flared slightly by the lace. No buttons on this one.

I started Amiga Three in linen. Loving this one so far and can't wait to see it finished.

And just to show that everything is not always about knitting...



Things that makes me happy:
1. It was sunny today. Time to plan more picnic lunches at work!
2. Long weekend coming up and the weather is supposed to be nice.
3. My cellphone. With this phone, I always have a camera with me.

Knitting in April 2011

April turned out to be a bit of a stash busting month. It wasn't really intentional...just so happened that the projects finished this month were knitted from the stash.

Ribwarmer is one of my favourite designs by one of my favourite designers - Elizabeth Zimmerman. This ribwarmer vest is a modification of her design from the Fall 1997 Knitter's magazine. It's done in one piece with no seams if you graft the shoulders together. It's a great pattern for odds & ends of leftover yarn and it really knits up fast.


Well, that's interesting. Blogger is being weird and I'm not able to post another picture.

That's ok. The other sweater was just a plain simple shell knitted from Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool. I love this yarn but it pills if you look at it sideways. I'm sure it's one of the reasons this yarn was discontinued. The pattern is Amiga from Knitty. A great versitile pattern that's good with all different yarns. Just started the second one in a grey wool.