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.

Need more yarn!

It's been hell the past couple of weeks at work. Knitting has saved many lives this week. It really did keep me from killing stupid people.

How can I possibly want more yarn when I have more than any sane person should have? I admit to having a fibre stash, yarn stash, fabric stash, button stash, paper stash. Basically, it's a you-name-it-I-probably-have-it stash.

We have a friend who visits regularly. He flies in from Toronto on business about 4 or 5 times a year and usually spends a night or two at our house. We usually get advance warning and I clear out the room just enough for an inflatable mattress plus a bit of wiggle room. This week, he came unannounced (2 days warning) and I had no time to clear out the room. He was stunned at how much stuff was in the room. He had no idea how much fibre & crap I keep in that room!

The Silky Wool was going to be a scarf but my heart was not in it. I started the scarf several times but finally decided on a hat. But I kept thinking of Kelly's idea of making socks with this yarn. I can see it would make wonderful socks. I have yarn left over from the hat. In order to use up this leftover yarn, I need to buy more yarn to make socks. That makes sense...buy more yarn just to use up the remainder.

Tammy, you don't want to hear about how wonderful this stuff is! :D

I stopped by a LYS to pick up the Paton's Street Smart pattern booklet. I love the Urban Aran sweater and seen that a few people have made it into a cardigan. The pattern looks like it should be easily converted to a zippered cardigan.

Good thing I wasn't on any kind of yarn diet. A couple balls of sock yarns and two skeins of Elizabeth Lavold's silky wool came home with me. The idea was to make myself a hat with silky wool. I don't know why becuase I don't wear hats. I think they must put something in the air at the store because, for the life of me, I really don't know why that idea came to mind. Anyhow, there's enough to do a scarf. Most likely, it will just go into the stash for a few years.

Another reply to Gillian

Yeah, that's the one thing I don't like about Blogger is that they don't let me reply to comments diretly. You can always email me at thymeformomAThotmailDOTcom.

I was at the local garden centre (Art Knapps) today and asked about the paperwhites. Apparently, there are different types. Some are more fragrant than others. She showed me one that had bigger flowers but really didn't smell all that pleasant. Unfortunately, I don't know which variety I had.

Raised binding

There's not a lot of knitting happening in my life at the moment.

That's not quite true...it's more like re-knitting or un-knitting. The Mucking-Out-The-Barn sweater is now going to be a cowl. After finishing the back, I finally admitted to myself that it would be a waste to make this yarn into a sweater. The yarn is very soft with bits of silk waste blended in and loosely spun. It was pilling even as I knit. By finish, it would be one giant ball of pill. I un-knitted it and thought it would be much better off as a cowl. As for the BPT hoodie, it's a bit harder. I have two options - re-knit in a larger size or lose 25 pounds. Knowing myself, it would be faster and easier to re-knit but I can't bring myself to pull it apart. That project will sit a while longer.

The sewing frame worked really well but it will take a bit of practice to use it. I kept banging into the top bar as I sewed. It took a bit to get used to not being able to constantly turn the book while sewing. The first attempt came out ok - the tension was a bit uneven but I'm hoping that will improve with practice.

The holes in the covers were punched out with a die cutter and the threads were looped through and tied off. The knots were dabbed with glue to keep them from unraveling.

Book Specs:
24 lb bond acid free sheets - 25% cotton, watermarked
Cotton yarn ties
Green waxed linen thread

In reply to Gillian re: Paperwhites

I'm not sure about why your paperwhites "stunk". I hope I'm not insulting you by asking if you've checked to make sure the bulbs are really paperwhite bulbs. It's possible that you may just not like the scent of them. Kinda like not everyone appreciates the smell of coffee. Me, that's one of the best smell in the world but I know people who gag if they catch a whiff of brewing coffee. The bulbs for this year were planted in dirt but I've forced them in just water before and have not noticed any difference in the scent.

This is Vancouver, for Pete's Sakes!

Trying hard to remember when was the last time we had 3 major snowfalls in one winter! This is the view from the driveway, down the street this morning. I love snow but then, I wasn't one of the ones skidding on the icy roads yesterday.

Paperwhites are the most amazing flowers ever! The bulbs were started indoors back in October. The flowers bloomed just in time for Christmas and have been going strong since. The fragrance is wonderful! A cross between jasmine & orange, I think.

There's a million things you can use 30 foam brushes for. The local Michael's was having a Dollar Day sale and the brushes were only 10 for $1.00. I use them mostly for gluing. At this price, I'm not going to sweat it if I forget once in a while to wash them before the glue dries. The poor cashier had to ring them in one at a time.

Life is Bizarre

For those of you who know where I work and what's been happening, I'm ok. I was still on holidays. No one was hurt, thank God!!

Sometimes I'm such an idiot!!

I knew today is Wednesday yesterday. But for some reason, I kept thinking it's only Tuesday today. I blame the garbage men. They usually pick up on Tuesday but because of New Year's Day, they picked up today...Wednesday. So all day long, I thought it was Tuesday. And being that I'm still on vacation, I'm all turned around.

I had a nice quiet day puttering around, working on my sewing frame. My wood working skills really does leave a lot to be desired but this will do until I make a better one. Better than paying $109 US plus shipping. I won't show the close up pics of the toothpicks jammed in with the posts to keep them straight. Total cost: $10.00 for the hardware. The wood was odds & ends from the garage...and that was free stuff I got from work. Not fancy but it'll do the job. The plans are in the Keith Smith books but I didn't follow the exact measurements. I just used whatever wood bits found in the garage. I only had to make one cut. The less cuts made, the less chances of me cutting my fingers off.

We drove out to North Vancouver & stopped off at Centennial Bookbinding for a few things. I picked up some watered silk end papers. Really nice. Also made a quick stop at Capilano Rock & Gem and picked up more amber chips for incense. We decided to stay out there and have dinner before heading home. And now I remembered it's not Tuesday and I missed my Wednesday night spinning group. Darn!

This is my new friend - a mix of silk waste & shetland. Ever since I saw Susan Forsythe's "garbage batt" sweater, I've been saving my fibre odds & ends. Most of the silk was supplemented by the silk waste from Treenway Silks. This is batt #3, fresh off the drum carder. I have a total of 18 to blend.

Meet batts #1 & 2 - destined to become a cardigan of some type. Nothing special - cast on a whole bunch of stitches, knit to where the armhole should go, cast off a couple of stitches for armhole shaping, knit to shoulders & shape neck. For the front, cast on half the back stitches for each of the front, knit to where the armholes should go, etc.

I'll write it all down later but just wanted to knit this yarn NOW! I didn't set the twist on this yarn so I'm hoping that I won't be surprised later. It seems pretty nicely balance right now. Anyhow, it's going to be another barn sweater...the kind I would wear to muck out the barn if I had one.

Fish Book

I really liked the fish print cotton. I had originally used this print in another hardbound book but thought it should be used for something with a more natural look to it. The exposed spine gives the book a more organic feel and the fish print seems to suit it well. The signatures inside are covered with the kozo/banana paper. The end papers are made with a different colour kozo/banana paper and the deckled edges extend to attach to the first chapter. This seems to work well because it gives the book more stabilty like a hardbound book but still will open flat.

Specs:
140 pages
7 signatures
4 1/2" x 5 3/4"
Cover - cotton print fabric and black bookbinding cloth
Paper - unbleached 30% recycled paper, Thai Kozo w/banana fibre inclusions
Bindings - black waxed linen thread, linen tape