Holiday Knitting Picture Post

I'm a little too busy for words, but here's what I've been up to in the land of holiday knitting. Sorry the pictures aren't formatted here all pretty; however I am meeting my mom at the mall for some Starbucks and a little last minute holiday shopping trip. Happy Holidays everyone! Enjoy yourself and take some time to knit something for yourself. Like the winter cowl and those monkey socks are all mine!

I was Tagged!

I haven't really done a meme in a long time, especially since I haven't really been reading or posting on good ol' LJ. I've lost interest in LJ, I've had approx. 3 journals there, one private with some public posts, another friend's only and my recent being a mixture of private, public and friend's only. I like Blogger better, but I'm thinking I might jump ship to Wordpress. I've noticed a lot of knit bloggers doing so. Don't worry I'll post here if I do :-). Since I've cut down on the LJ posting I'm also debating making this journal to include non-knitting posts because it's so much easier to update one blog. Well that's a few things I've been pondering lately. Onto the meme....

I was tagged by Monica and I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play along because it's fun feel free to do so!

RULES:
1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn’t make sense. NO CHEATING!
4. Tag 5 people.
5. Optional: Give your own comments on how it (the song title) relates to the question.

Opening Credits:
Jackie's Strength - Tori Amos

Waking Up:
Such a Rush - Coldplay

First Day At School:
Stupid - Sarah McLachlan

Falling In Love:
New Year - Death Cab For Cutie

Losing Virginity:
Cornflake Girl - Tori Amos

Fight Song:
Everybody Hurts - REM

Break up:
Idioteque - Radiohead

Prom:
Soma - The Strokes

Life:
Soldiering - David Usher

Mental Breakdown:
Golden - Fall Out Boy

Driving:
The Old Apartment

Flashback:
Criminal - Fiona Apple

Getting Back Together:
Please Call Me Baby - Tom Waits

Wedding:
Understanding - Evanescence

Birth of Child:
One of Those Days - Weird Al

Final Battle:
All My Love - Led Zeppelin

Death Scene:
This is Halloween - The Citizens of Halloween Town (Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack)

Credits:
My Michelle - Guns N' Roses (lol, funny how this come up!)

Sequel Teaser:

Brand New Colony - The Postal Service

Now with my favourites playlist For these I'd thought I'd link to place you can find lyrics. I made sure that any of the sites linked here will allow you to view the page without setting cookies if you don't want them to. I use Firefox and have it set to ask me each time that a site wants to set a cookie and usually deny or just use just for this session. Enjoy!!

Opening Credits:
Smells Like Nirvana - Weird Al

Waking Up:
The Cold Back Key - Azam Ali (from "Where's Neil When You Need Him?")

First Day At School:
Professional Widow (Remix) - Tori Amos

Falling In Love:
Poncho's Lament - Tom Waits (lol you gotta check out the words if you don't know them)

Losing Virginity:
Will He Be Waiting For Me - Sarah Harmer

Fight Song:
Everybody Hurts - REM- ain't that the truth I didn't cheat either and this song showed up for both!! Curious, very curious

Break up:
Emotional Weather Report - Tom Waits

Prom:
Another Postcard (acoustic) - Barenaked Ladies

Life:
Radio - Smashmouth

Mental Breakdown:
In My Place - Coldplay

Driving:
Sinkin' Soon - Norah Jones

Flashback:
Nicotine - Ani DiFranco quite appropriate, me being an ex-smoker

Getting Back Together:
All I Want - Dido

Wedding:
Liberation - Moist

Birth of Child:
Little Fluffy Clouds - The Orb Strange but somewhat fitting considering that shot of demerol that they had given me during labour!

Death Scene:
The Crawl - Smashmouth

Credits:
Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple

Sequel Teaser:

Zero - Smashing Pumpkins

I survived NaKniSweMo and all I got was this..

frackin' beautiful cozy sweater!!!!!!!!1
Here's some pics of my CPH all finished (minus the wooden toogles for enclosures)

Central Park Hoodie - From Knitscene Fall 2006

Designer - Heather Lodinsky
Started November 1, 2007
Finished November 29, 2007
Knitted for myself as part of NaKniSweMo
yarn Cascade Pima Tencel in Moss
Yarn used approx. 10.5 skeins = 1260.0 yards (1152.1m)
Needles used size 3.7US 5) and 4.5 mm (US 7)
Thoughts :
My next CPH (yes, I'm planning to knit another one. I luuurrvveee this sweater) I want use Tatamy Tweed WW, just need to chose the colour and buy the yarn! Also the sleeves a litte tighter because I knit tighter in the round but after a little wear it seems fine

Tea to save the day!!

I got my Ravelry cup'a'tea swap package in the mail today!! It brightened up my mood after surviving a craptastic weekend. Our computer power supply is toasted again!! Plus we had snow all weekend, this is really strange weather for the Lower Mainland. Also I let Maylee play outside in the snow and while getting too close pond she fel in it! Wet, cold dog what fun! To add to the horribleness of it all, I had to frog the almost completed fern panda cotton monkey sock because I ran out of yarn after the first round of decreases at the toe! I frogged and restarted them and I'm using some black panda cotton on the cuff, heel and toe of both socks. Sigh, oh well they look pretty!

Thanks Randomthreads I love everything you sent. They were wrapped up so pretty that I didn't want to opeand Mini-me has stolen the pink eyecord that was used to wrap one of the packages To make life easier I'll list the goodies in a bulleted list as well as pictures below:

• Adagio jasmine bloom tea (yummy enjoying some right now!)
• Cinnamon Plum (black blended tea) and Republic Green Chai from The Republic of Tea (can't wait to try them)
• cute tape measure with a butterfly smelling a rose on top
• letter stitch markers to use with my New Pathways for Sock Knitters Book 1 from hide and sheep on etsy
• tasty honey sticks to stir in tea
• two balls of Maizy in sailor blue!
• two balls of Maizy in Brick Bark!
• sock-shaped point protectors :-D
• cute kitty card, that didn' t sneeze :-)
• beautiful calming sereni-tea mug with the definition inside the rim (n. the absence of stress while drinking tea), I've absolutely gotten some of that this afternoon!
  

NaKniSweMo and Secret Pal 11 Completed!!

So I did it I finished my CPH today!! I want to add wooden toggles and block it, but that can wait till later. This hoodie is still wearable without a closure. I really love it and will be knitting it again! Next sweater though I'm going to go one size up from the size I choose to knit, I like it with negative ease; however it would be nice to have a bit more room to wear layers under this sweater.

I've finished knitting a Quickie Cowl from f.pea's Free pattern fridays. I knit it in about half a hank of yummy Blue Sky Alpaca Cotton in Tomato. It's warm and really pretty, great for the disgusting and unusual weather we've been having in the Lower Mainland for the past month or so. This is a super fast and wonderful knit and a great pattern to use for those last minute holiday gifts.

Another finished item is my ISE pal's scarf it's in SWTC Pure in a dark navy, the dye ran a bit when I washed it in cold water with my regular no dye, no perfume gentle laundry soap, but it still looks pretty good. I just need to get some extras together and get that out as well as my downstream sp's package and my Ravelry Cup'O'Tea Swap package out then I'm done for swaps for a while. I've meet some great people through swaps, but I'm getting a little warn out. So it's time to take a break for a bit.

I also received my final SP package from Mary. I got some balls of Hempathy, some yummy sencha ginger tea, awesome one cup filters (which I've used a few times now!), tasty dark chocolate and a great pair of folding scissors. Pictures are still on the camera and will be loaded and posted sometime this weekend (I'm really hoping to at least, if not next week.) Thanks so much Mary!!

Hmm, here's a look at what's on my needles now

1. Sheldon from Knitty (holiday present for a friend's little one who is named after His Tallest)
2. Another pair of Monkey Socks in Panda Cotton in the fern colourway for me
3. will be casting on a Gir doll for another holiday gift
4. Cable's and O's cardi (I can go back to this now that I'm done my CPH!)
5. will be swatching for the Back to School vest (from Fitted Knits) for mini-me
   

Still Knitting (and crocheting!)

So I've been missing-in-action lately, due to the general winter blahs, lack of sleep, constant frogging and some knitting/crocheting getting done.

So the progress on the CPH is going slower than it should due to the fact that I've frogged the sleeves way too many times to count due to one thing or another. Mostly I've been forgetting to switch to the larger needles after the ribbing. Sleep dep and thinking clearly don't really go well together. I have now completed both sleeves, so all that is left is the button band, hood and some seaming! I can't wait till this is done; however I'm not sure if I'm going to make the NaKniSweMo deadline There are horrible pics of some of the progress over on my flickr. I'm not going to post any of the pics here due to they are poor cell phone camera quality. His Tallest comes back on Saturday so I'll post some real pictures soon!

As for crocheting, I'm crocheting my ISE 5's scarf and I love the yarn I choose; however this yarn should only be knit or crocheted with a much bigger hook. Once the scarf is off to it's new home I'll post some pics. The yarn I'm using is SWTC Pure in this beautiful dark blue. I'm finding this yarn spility and maybe not the best yarn for lace crochet motifs. I only have 7 more motifs to go and it's done, so it's too late now to change my mind. It will drape nicely, which is a bonus for the pattern I'm using.

In other news, I've collected a lot of new yarn in the past month or so. I also noticed a trend in the colours are shades of reds (mostly dark red and burgundy) and blues! Funny thing when I got my wonderful Knitter's Coffee Swap package from Martha because the yummy yarn in the package matched the colour scheme theme I've been buying lately so well. Click here to see. Once again Martha if you are reading, I apologize for the procrastination of getting your swap box out and it will be sent out today or tomorrow I promise!

Happy Knitting everyone and to all those celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend enjoy!

More NaKniSweMo Progress on the CPH

I just popped over to the Central Park Hoodie KAL v 2.0 and saw that Interweave is no longer selling the Fall 2006 issue of Knitscene! I am so happy that I bought a back issue a few months ago instead of waiting. It is sad that they do not plan to make more copies of this issue and there are still lots of knitters out there who want to knit the CPH and didn't order a back issue yet. The designer Heather Lodinsky has asked that those who want to order either a back issue of the magazine or even a copy of the CPH pattern via PDF to send any requests directly to Interweave due to the fact that they own the copyright. Click here for Interweave Press' contact info.

Here's a shot of my progress a few days ago, due to my camera being in China with His Tallest I don't have any up-to-date progress pictures. I have now completed the back piece, and the front right piece. I just have to finish the front left panel from the beginning of the armhole to shoulder shaping, the sleeves, hood and front ribbing. I'm definitely knit the sleeves in the round using magic loop; however they will be knit one sleeve at a time though. I'm now deciding buttons, wooden toggles or zipper. I am leaning towards the wooden toggles and using crochet or eye cord fastenings instead of making button holes. I love the way that would look. What do you all think? Oh and the cute little monkey is from my Monkey Sock Swap Pal, clicky here to see details of my package. He and the rest of the package came all the way from the U.K.

CPH Progress

So the pictures of my Central Park Hoodie where taken the first day of November and I've progressed a lot since then. I have completed 12 inches so far and that's working the body all in one piece, so I'm almost at the point where I have to knit the front panels and back in separately. I did the math and I'm almost at the target amount of stitches for the sweater, wow. Great progress for being day 3 of NaKniSweMo I just need to keep this pace up and I'll have a sweater in a week or two!

Here's the math:
12' at 23 rows per inch = 12*23
Total amount of rows = 276 rows
276 rows at 178 sts. per row = 276*178
Total amount of sts. knitted so far = 49, 128 sts!!!!


Three days of knitting and I'm doing good. I'm amazed at how fast this sweater is knitting up. It must be that I'm used to knitting on my Cables and Os cardi and it's taken forever on small needles with DK weight yarn. I'm loving my CPH so far and can't wait till it's done.

Sadly my camera is on another international trip without me! I sent His Tallest and my camera off to China for a three week business trip. I'm hoping that he gets time to visit the Forbidden City and take pictures and bring back a terra cotta soldier for me! I've always wanted to visit there and I'm slightly jealous -- ok seriously very jealous that he might get a chance to go if work doesn't work him to death there.

Oh this is another thing that came in the mail. I'm so excited it's my copy of Cat Bordhi's new book! I've promised myself that I have to finished my CPH and my ISE pal's scarf before I can dive into this book. I also got the toe-up book that I talked about in my post about toe-up socks which are also on hold *sigh* It will be a while till I get to knit on those again, I know I said no Holiday knitting for me; however I have a friend who would be a happy recipient of hand knitted socks and completely cherish them. He is a male friend; however he is the opposite body shape and height as His Tallest so no elephant length socks for him! I can't forget I also have to do some shopping to complete my Coffee Swap Pal's package and start on my Ravelry Cup O' Tea swaps package. Then after all my current swaps are done I swear there will be no swaps till the Loopy Ewe Swap, which is in progress as I type but the deadline is in Feb. Okay enought of that. Happy Knitting everyone!

NaKniSweMo Day 1

I've started my Central Park Hoodie in Cascade Pima Tencel in Moss and it's going quickly. I've finished the ribbing and almost the first cable repeat. This is the project I've picked for NaKniSweMo. A whole bunch of us adventurous (some may read this as crazy) have taken the challenge of knitting a sweater with 50,000 or more sts.

Are you ready here's the math. I've knit about 6 inches plus I'm knitting the body in one piece. So that's 178 sts. at gauge 23 rows per inch to a total of approx. 6,141 sts out of 50,000. So to meet the target of 50,000 sts in a month one must knit a total of approx. 1, 666 sts per day; however I'm sure that my choosen pattern in the large is much more than 50, 000. If I keep up this pace I'll be done in no time.

I'm putting all my projects aside for this month to complete my sweater/cardi and can't wait to try on the finished object at the end of the month. The only project I'm not going to put down during this time is my International ScarfExchange Pal's scarf I'm crocheting this for my pal in this beautiful blue SWTC pure (soysilk) that I got at one of my LYS. Yep one of my LYS's has soysilk SQQQUUUEEEEEE. So to go on with it, I don't want to include pictures of the progress nor on Ravelry just in case she finds me. She likes a good mystery to solve like I do and I'm sure she is crafty enough in the sleuthing department to put clues together. So this crochet WIP is on super secret lock-down for now.

My Knitter's Tea Swap Package arrived

Thanks Susan for such a wonderful package!! I appreciate the time you spent researching for things for me and spoiling me rotten! :-D

In my package there was some yummy Black and Green's dark chocolate mint cookies, alas they were butter cookies (I'm allergic to lactose, not your fault Susan I even pick up items that I find out later I can't eat!) and my daughter was the happy recipient of all but one that I ate. I regreted eating it later, but it was worth it so tasty :-D Also there was pear green tea mints, how did you know I've been debating trying them and hadn't given in yet. They just as yummy as I thought the would be I'm hooked! The ginger apple chews were delicious and didn't last long I LOVE ginger. Another item in this package was a box of soft maple sugar in the cutest shapes that I almost don't want to put them in my tea.

Onto the teas! There is a cream earl grey, peony white tea, maple tea, sencha fuji, Russian Caravan Popoff and ginger honey crystals. I can't wait to try all the teas, I've been mostly having the ginger honey crystals though because they are the perfect thing to help with my evil allergy symptoms and yet another cold I'm fighting! Opps I forgot the best part beside tasty tea and ginger, flowering teas! I can't wait to try them I love flowering teas; there is Flower Fairy (Jasmine & Lily) and Scent of Orange Osmanthus (Osmanthus and Lily).


Lastly there's the yarn! It's so pretty and soft! It's Berroco Bonsai in a deep purple, it's so pretty I've been petting it for a while.

Once again thanks Susan my thoughts are with you and I hope you enjoy your package as much as I've enjoyed mine!

Happy Halloween!

So I finished the stockinette scarf of helly dOOm aka Mini-me a1st/2nd yr. Ravenclaw scarf last weekend. It turned out pretty good, here are the specs and pics.

1st/2nd yr, Ravenclaw Scarf
Pattern: no pattern
Finished: Near the end of October 2007 (because I'm too lazy to check a calendar right now, but I'm sure it took approx. two weeks or so
Yarn: Red Heart Soft Touch in Grey and Navy

Quickly

So I'm in a rush to get going to a knitting meetup tonight, but I noticed that I haven't posted for a while as well as I wanted to thank my secret pal publicly despite not having pics of my second package that will come when I have some free time!

Thank you Secret Pal!!!! My secret pal send me two hanks of Butterfly 10 in the spring colourway. She said it's enough for a tank top, but it goes well with a yummy brown hank of B10 I have so I have to find a pattern to knit them up together. I wonder if it's enough for a Tomato? I'll have to check later. My Cables and Os cardi from the same book, No Sheep for You is coming along nicely btw. Also with the yarn was pound ( I think...) of some very tasty espresso beans! I LURRVVVEEE coffee just as much as tea :-D Pics to come in the future stay tuned.

What's on my needles

• cables and os cardi - progress is going slowly, but I'm loving it!
• 1st year ravenclaw scarf (my own pattern) for mini-me who is going to be Cho Chang for Halloween

What's off my needles

• yet another pair of socks! I finished the Broadripple socks from Knitty that I'm calling Muddy Bumblebee. I love these socks, cascade fixation is super comfy; however next time I knit this pattern, which I'm sure I will, I will go a needle size down to have a denser fabric.

That's it for now and once life stops being so frackin' busy I'll get some pictures up! Happy Knitting in the meantime and for all those out there I'm still updating Ravelry on a regular basis my user name is nosheep4chelle.

Knitters' Coffee Swap Three

QUESTIONS
1. Whole bean or ground? Whole Bean
2. Fully-loaded or decaf? Fully-loaded!
3. Regular or flavored? regular I flavour on the side
4. How do you drink your coffee? with some soy milk and sugar, sometimes caramel or hazelnut or vanilla flavouring
5. Favorite coffee ever? JJ Bean Caffe Inferno or their Nero Forte espresso beans
6. Are you fussy about your coffee or will any old bean do? I'm somewhat fussy, I like quality beans and fair-trade and/or organic if possible
7. Favorite treats to have with your coffee? sweets - cinnamon rolls, muffins, ginger molasses cookies (mmm love starbuck's for those cookies!)etc...
8. Anything else about your coffee preferences?
9. Yarn/fiber you love? soy silk, silk, corn, bamboo yarns- soft
10. Yarn/fiber you hate? acrylic yarns
11. What's on your needles? Cables and Os cardi (no sheep for you book), Broadripple Socks (Knitty) and a few other things that are in hibernation at the moment
12. Favorite colors? blues, greens, reds, purples, browns
13. Allergies? yes lots...where to start all animal fibers of any percentage, lactose(milk and milk products - usually okay in baked goods in small doses), lemongrass. a lot of perfumes (most smelling like flowers), cats, dogs, cigarette smoke (sensitivity), Petroleum jelly, almost all lip balms don't have issues with burt's bees only one that I haven't gotten chapped and annoyed lips from (funny it's got lanolin but seems fine), products with high glycerol/glycine content cause issues as well, feathers, dust, mold, pollens, beef ( have to be careful because beef lard is in some cookies!, vegetable shortening is my friend!) and there is more to the list but that's all you need to know really
14. Anything you really love, really don't like, or just need to get off your chest? I'm not fond of pastels. It may seem like a pain in the arse, but please, please, please check items you send with the lengthy list of allergies! I thank you lots!!!!

Happy Socktober!

Well it's that time of year again. It's Socktober Fest Month and so far I have managed to complete two pairs of socks! I finished a pair of socks made from Berry Sherbet Cascade Fixation. The pattern is Ribbed Fixation Socks and next time I use this pattern I'm going to use smaller needles because the socks are a little too big for me.


Also I finished my Monkey Sock Swap Pal's socks! They are knit in Panda Cotton in the kiwi-mango. I love Cookie A's Monkey socks and I will probably knit many more of these socks :-D I have named these socks jungle monkey camo socks because the way this colourway pools it looks like camouflage.

Now for more socks that are on the needles. I haven't worked on my two up socks (see the Aloha toe ups post) and I will be taking these along to my knitting meetup tonight since they are no brain knitting. I am working on a second Broadripple sock in fixation colourway I like to call muddy bumblebee, I can't recall the real name nor number of the colourway. If you are on Ravelry you can find all the info on my project page - I'm nosheep4chelle). For all of you out there who haven't gotten your invite yet or those who just don't want to be part of the Ravelry "hype" (trust me, it's worth all the hype it has gotten and more!) I'll update with the full info once I'm finished the socks. I don't have a picture of the completed sock yet, but here's a picture of it right after I finished the gusset.


More socks to come and all other projects are now on hold till the end of Socktober and then it's on to NaNoSweMo yep for my first sweater I'm going to not only knit the Central Park Hoodie, but I'm going to knit it in a month! Or at least try to stay tuned...

K1T2 Swap Package!

I received my k1t2 package in the mail last week. I had already made a fresh pot of tea (see my new bodium aka tea press I bought) but I used the trivet and mug mat (from my K1T2 pal)to go with my tasty Green Kimono (green tea with ginger and pineapple bits) and some tasty HK style almond cookies. All the things I need to do some knit blog reading on a cold rainy day.

My upstream pal is grace from lovin comfort knits. Thanks so much for the wonderful package. The yarn is lion brand organic cotton in pistachio, a cute little photo book, tea ball, tasty raspberry jam, lace dollies, sugar cubes, tea ball, yummy Anna's ginger thins, a linen scented candle in a jar, a knitted mug mat and trivet as well as tea. The tea Grace sent are lovely tins with sachets of Harvey & Sons loose leaf teas: Hot Cinnamon Sunset black tea (it smells divine), Chinese Flower Green Tea, Winter White Earl Grey White Tea and African autumn Herbal Infusion tea (which is a rooibus with cranberries and orange, it smells fantastic making me give rooibus another try!) also the trivet that the tea was on was knit by grace I love the autumn feel the colourway has.

Aloha Toe up Socks!

Life's been so busy that I haven't had time to keep with blogging as well as Ravelry! I've been working on so many projects at once right now and I really need to get those monkey socks finished. I should have finished them long ago, but I keep on ripping them out! I have to rip them out again and start from the very beginning on both socks, arrgg. It's the yarn I'm using it's so busy and I keep knitting on them at knitting meetups and losing my place even though I'm sure I can knit this pattern in my sleep. Thank the goddess the package doesn't need to be shipped till Nov. 1 by the latest. Also I need to rush on those stitch markers for the stitch marker swap. I'm trying a new technique and it's taking me longer to get my butt going then normal beaded markers. Worst thing is my silver rings for the stitch markers are missing, so I need to make an emergency trip to get some more I think this time I'm going to get split rings even though. I'm going to keep my new technique I'm trying top secret because once I'm fully done, there will be a whole post dedicated to it.

I got some Socktina Cotton that I've been waiting forever for (well it seems that way) from the Loopy Ewe this week. It's a self-patterning cotton sock yarn and I thought that it would be better to knit it toe-up. I've never knit socks from the toe-up and I think I really like it; however I had to rip out my progress because I stopped decreasing on the toe later than I should have. I tried it on and it was huge! Here's a picture of it minus a lot of progress I had made before I ripped it.


I used Queen Kahuna's "Aloha" cast on method (warning the link aloha cast on opens as a PDF)for toe up socks. I also ordered her book because one can never have too many sock knitting books! Come on go and try it yourself, it's fun!

Flashing my stash

So my wonderful Hostess with the Mostest, Robyn has asked us for flash our stash for our lasted sp11 contest. So I have taken pictures of all my stash (minus the huge bin o' acrylic and WIP yarn) Warning this post is very picture heavy! EDIT: Sorry Blogger is a pain in the arse and made all (except one)the pictures I loaded small instead of medium! You can click on the picture to see a larger image as well as see them all on my flickr page(link below).

First here is my soysilk and bamboo stash. I love them both!


Below the next three pictures are my sock yarn stash. Because I'm allergic to animal fibers all my sock yarns are cotton blends mostly cotton/elastic and cotton/bamboo/elastic. Also I got my order from BMFA, so my random stripe tube sock kit is there as well.





Next is my cotton stash. All the cotton yarns here are 100% cotton.


This is some more yarn that I found after I had taken pictures of everything in their groups. In this group there is Berroco Touche (dark purple yarn), K1C2 Tartlette (Ribbon yarn) and Cascade Pima Tencel (I got this from my first swap from Papermonkey it was a LJ secret pal swap - I'm still trying to find the perfect project for this yummy and very soft yarn! I should search Ravelry for ideas)


This is my hemp stash. It's Lana Knits' Hemp for Knitting in Sprout and Black(can't recall if the black has a "special colourway" name)


Here are my sweater stash yarns well one is a lacy t-shirt, but hey! There is KnitPicks' Shine Worsted in Grass (Cardigan for Arwen), KnitPicks' Cotlin in Moroccan Red (Cables and Os one of my WIP), Tilli Tomas Pure and Simple with RockStar (Simple Knitted Bodice, Elann Sonata in Tarragon(Josephine Top)and Rowan Calmber in Onyx (undecided)


Next are my silks!! Silk is my favourite luxury yarn. You will find details of the silk yarns I have on my flickr page, here's a link directly to my yarn pics set and to see a larger picture and the description click on the silk stash picture.

Look what the owl has brought me!

I have been a bad blogger and swap partner lately. I’m sorry, school and life has been very busy and my downtime is very limited right now. I am keeping up with e-mails at least, so feel free to e-mail instead of posting comments if you prefer not to wait forever for a reply J

I have received my Hogwarts Sock Swap package from Celestina Trelawney (a.k.a. Yosemite). I love the socks and they are a perfect fit. We tried a Potions experiment together seeing if Soak would make a good itchy potion for those with sensitive skin and I ended up having to take them off right after trying them on and admiring them. I'll take a picture of me wearing them later on. I love the stitch markers as well, especially the ones with the cute daisies and stars! (you can see close-ups on my flickr page.) She also sent the same needles (Addi Lace circs size 2.50 mm US 1)and similar bookmark as I sent her! I wonder if the sorting hat was off the day that they sorted Celestina in Gryffindor because I think she has more Ravenclaw attributes! Due to my allergies and Celestina's hate of colour knitting we came up with using Elann Esprit's Caribbean Surf as a colourway with Ravenclaw colours in it. I love the pattern she used as well, it's Spirals; however the yarn is way too busy to show the neat spiraling. Thank you so much for a fantastic swap Yosemite and I hope we both pass our Owls to attend Hogwarts to enter as second years!

Not enough hours in a day

I'm back from our long weekend trip from Galiano, we had a great time despite the horrible furry children owners that completely ignore the dog on leash on the Point unless your dog is own private property that is fenced (far as I know there is no "real" fencing at all on any of the lots.) We took Maylee (my guide dog) on her first canoe trip and she loved to relax in front of the fire whenever it was light. We noticed this because she would groan with pleasure, while warming on the carpet by the fire.

I got some knitting in. I finished a pair of Fetching out of Rowan Calmer in the denim colourway and I have a pair of socks that are both at the part where you pick up the stitches for the gusset in cascade fixation, I believe the colour is called fruit salad, but I could be wrong. The colours aren't normally colours I'd pick or where, but I'm really liking them. I'll post pictures once I'm done the first week of school. argg

Hogwarts Sock Swap Two Contest Answers

What type of pet do you choose as your companion at Hogwarts? If I was allowed to choose a dragon I would, but since I can't I would choose an owl. I hope I'm not allergic to it!

While shopping in Hogsmeade you stop by Honeydukes for some sweets. What treats do you purchase for yourself? Some dark chocolate frogs, peppermint toads, peppermint humbugs, Pumpkin Pasties, some tasty Honeyduke's fudge, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and some sugar quills.

A potion you are preparing needs an ingredient available only at muggle shops. You don't want to stand out in your wizards robes, so you resort to traditional muggle clothing. Describe your outfit in detail. Since my mom is muggle born I'd be wearing comfy dark blue jeans (boot cut flares), 16 hole bottle green doc martens, brown cotton t-shirt and my (soon-to-be knitted in real life, once my pattern and yarn get here) Central Park Hoodie in Cascade Pima Cotton's Moss colourway.

What is your favorite subject to study at Hogwarts and why? Ancient Runes because I love hieroglyphs, runes and Logograms (ideograms). I can't wait till we learn ancient Chinese logograms so I can decipher some ancient potions, which is my second favourite class tied with Arithmancy.

Likewise, what subject is your least favorite and why? History of Magic. The textbooks are fascinating, except if Professor Binn's reads it *sigh*

Back to the potion you were shopping for ingredients for, what type of potion are you making, what color is it, , what are the ingredients, and precisely what does the potion do? I'm making a potion called dulcis ovis ultionis that allows the a person who is allergic to animal fibers to be able to wear and use BMFA Socks That Rock, Yarn Pirate and other pretty fibery goodness that tickles her/his fancy without having an allergic reaction. One of the side effects of this potion is that all the ladies at the LYS who tried to force animal fibery goodness on you before you took this potion will develop horrible animal fiber allergies. Poor, poor dears. I can't tell you the ingredients because it's a top secret potion that I've developed and it hasn't been patented yet. One thing it does need is a the softest merino wool fiber, which is what I had to get at the Muggle store. Oh and the colour changes to a variegated colourway that is made up of the person who is holding the potion bottle.

Gulf Islands here we come

So I'm getting ready to go to our cabin on Galiano for the long weekend and won't be back till late Monday night. Since our boat is not in the water due some moron stealing the rudder and some maintenance needing to be done, we have to hike to the Point that our cabin is on. It's a strenuous hike on a logging road with nasty switchbacks and it takes me around 45 minutes to an hour depending on the weather and stuff. So I can't really pack the all the knitting I want to *sigh*. I did pack some light knitting in the form of two balls of Cascade Fixation for plain old stockinette socks without a pattern. I want to pack my cables and os cardi to knit on the ferry, but then I'd have to pack it in and back out again.

Here's what I have on the needles. I started to make Fetching, I have one almost done (just need to weave in the ends) and I'll probably work on the second one on the ferry or at the cabin. I used a ball of Rowan Calmer in Denim and it looks like I'll have enough left over to make another pair! I have my Cables and Os cardi that I haven't worked on all week since I've been working on other projects. I knit up then frogged a pair of Monkey socks for my monkey sock swap pal in Panda Cotton. There was a few holes where I picked up the gussets stitches and I didn't notice till I was near the toe *arrgg* Still slowly working on the Montego Bay scarf and my Ravenclaw house scarf is in hibernation for now.

I did finished my Hogwarts Sock Swap Pals socks and they will remain a secret till she has received them! A friend tried to take them home with him and hinted he'd love to have a pair like it in those fantastic (Gryffindor) colours. Lol he even liked the lace pattern, I wonder what his girlfriend would think of that and I should really teach her to knit so she can make him some socks!

My camera is coming back from it's vacation to Germany, I hope that it comes with treats :-D So the days I'm not at school (I'm going 3 days a week), I'll be taken photos and adding the rest of my stash on Ravelry (I'm nosheep4chelle). Happy Knitting and enjoy the long weekend!

Getting ready

I start school again this year. I'm going back to college to learn how to use technology available to people with visual disabilities in a work setting. When I started working as a legal secretary/admin. assistant I was very new to using programs like JAWS (text to speech program) and ZoomText or Magic (screen magnifiers) as well as simple things like a handheld cctv or a desktop cctv, which magnifies text on papers etc... I'm a very quick learner, but stress and dealing with co-workers who would come to my desk to stare at me working on a reverse background screen that is magnified to say "I can't believe you can deal with your screen like that, it's so weird" etc.. So after a few offices like this or so, I decided to take some time off working and dealing with making life easier by using aids and learning to cope with the many stupid and/or ignorant people in this world and their insensitive comments. I tend to bottle up my emotions when dealing with the general public stupidity and after a while I end up being angry, jaded and frustrated that I can't deal with the same questions or remarks over and over again. Here's a few that have been eating at me that I have been trying to learn to just smile and not react to.

• "you don't look blind"
• while working my guide dog "oh you are training the dog"
• I let them know that she's my guide dog and we've recently graduated from training and the common comment is "Oh I'm so sorry, but you are so young. It's so hard you are so strong" or something to that effect
• people giving my dog orders like sit or talking to her when she is working
• "I could never give up a cute dog like that you are so brave to be training the dog and giving it away"
• when I'm giving my dog a correction "she not really a good guide dog is it" seems like people don't realize that these dogs aren't completely perfect especially if they are distracting her" or "don't do that she didn't do anything wrong" etc..
  

The list goes on, but I'm sure you are sick of me whining about the lovely remarks of the general public. I realize that many, many people don't really understand the relationship of a working dog and visually impaired/blind handler and I try to educate people because I hope they will come away with some understanding and talk about it with others, thus educating the masses. There are also many that ask questions, but don't listen to the answer and just reply that's nice then turn to someone else and tell that person exactly the same piece of misinformation that I just explained is incorrect. okay end/rant

I don't mean for this post to be a rant, but I needed to get it out of my system. So going back to school is going to take some knitting time away from me so I've been working on my Hogwarts Sock Swap pals second sock exclusively then I have two more swap deadline projects to knit then I'm going to hold off on any other swaps for a bit. I've also decided not to do any holiday knitting this year to avoid being stressed and rushed.

Here's some good news, I am getting my new laptop so I hope to be able to post here a bit more than I have been lately. Oh and I'm finally getting some Socks That Rock for my very own! I ordered a hank of the new 100% silk as well as a random stripe tube sock kit because I got impatient awaiting for Sock Candy to be put for sale on the site. A while back I e-mailed BMFA inquiring how to get ahold of the prized Sock Candy that has been showing up on blogs here and there and I was told that they are working on getting it up on the website sometime in late summer, early fall. I have a feeling that it's going to be delayed some more for other new BMFA yarns that are not animal fiber allergy friendly. *sigh* Till then I have some lovely silk to make a stole in Lagoon. Cotton Socktina is coming to the Loopy Ewe and I'm excited. I can't wait till the next sneak-up and I'm a Loopy Groupie so I get an e-mail warning about the sneak-up. yay!

BTW hello to all my swap secret pals, you know who you are.

Sockapalooza Socks received

I got my Sockapalooza socks yesterday in the mail! My camera is currently loaned out to one of His Tallest's co-workers and on vacation in Germany, so I'll have to take pictures later. They are a lovely aqua blue ankle socks made of out Cascade Fixation. Pictures to come when my camera comes home from its vacation :-D I miss my camera especially because I can't add pictures of my growing stash on Ravelry nor take pics of my FOs and WIPs

I wanted to say thanks so much to Barb for surviving knitting for someone who has animal fiber allergies and not involving acrylic (makes my feet very unhappy burn and peel -- acrylic that is!) She experienced that listening to a yarn store worker that there is no wool in cotton sock yarn doesn't mean there is no wool in that "cotton" sock yarn and that they haven't read or learned from Yarn Harlot's lesson of the very itchy cotton socks. I always have to read label for anything I eat or any fiber I use; however I had years of training because my dad was a diabetic and you have to look over ingredients labels very carefully. Also thank you for tackling knitting socks with Cascade Fixation for the first time, it can be tricky and takes a little bit to get used to. I like Cascade though it make a nice warm thicker cotton sock when knitted with the right tension for the winter.

Speaking of allergies, I begin my first round of allergy shots today, wish me luck!

Trying to get the Monkey off my back yet again - Monky Sock Swap THREE Questionnaire Answers

Yep I did it signed up for another swap. I thank my sockapalooza upstream pal (yay the socks are in the mail - got your e-mail will reply later!) for being a Monkey Sock Swap enabler. When I was little, my father used to take me to Stanley Park to see the monkeys. Yes Stanley Park back in the old days had Monkeys and I loved them. I'm a little sad still that they are gone. He used to point to them and say look there are your cousins. A family joke because one of my nicknames was monkey, I would do chin lifts on tables at the age of approx. 7 months when I was cruising (when babies start to try to walk by holding onto objects). I was curious (and still can be) and liked to hang around :-)

Monkey Sock Swap THREE Questionnaire

The basics:
Do you consider yourself a beginning sock knitter, an intermediate, or have you been doing this so long you could probably knit a pair in your sleep? between beginner and intermediate

The measurements:
Shoe Size: depending on the shoes it can be a US 6 ½ to 7 1/2
Foot circumference: 8 1/2
Foot length: 9 inches

Yarn Preferences:
What colors do you love? Greens, Blues, Purples, Reds, Browns, Blacks, Greys

Do you prefer solids or variegated? either

Do you prefer wool, cotton or acrylic yarn? Cotton/nylon blend if possible! I’m allergic to wool and allergic socks do bad things to the skin on my feet.

What colors would you never wear? Orange, yellow, most pinks, pastels (have been on occasion but not much), neons

What are your favorite brands of yarn? Panda Cotton and Greenwood Fiber’s Cotton/Lycra Sock Yarn

Are there any new brands you would like to try? BMFA’s Sock Candy (always trying to find more!) and Crystal Palace’s Maizy Sock Yarn

Cookie A. Patterns:
Which of her patterns have you already knit? Monkeys

Which pattern(s) would you like to knit and don’t already own? Twisted Flower Sock, Gothic Spire I have the other free ones printed out already and ready to go once I get the monkey urge of my back, next is the pair for this swap and a pair of mini monkeys. If you want to print out BFF or Twinkle Toes in an easier format then feel free, right now BFF is only accessable via google cache

Other pertinent information:

Would you be willing to have an international Monkey Pal or do you prefer one in the US? Since I’m international I don’t mind sending to either

Do you have any allergies? Loads – all animal fibers (including cats and dogs yep I’m allergic to my dog, but dog hair really doesn’t bug me like cat hair!), most perfume scents, lemongrass, lactose (milk products including milk solids, milk chocolate etc..), Petroleum jelly, almost all lip balms don't have issues with burt's bees only one that I haven't gotten chapped and annoyed lips from (funny it's got lanolin but seems fine), products with high glycerol/glycine content cause issues as well, feathers, dust, mold, pollens, beef ( have to be careful because beef lard is in some cookies!) and I think that’s all you really need to know. Yes I have more allergies and include skin sensitivities that my friends joke that I should live in a bubble.

Will your knitting be exposed to smoke or animals? Animals yes, a cute working (she’s my guide dog) black lab

Are you on Ravelry yet? If you don’t mind having new friends, what is your Ravelry name? yes I have access to crack Ravelry, my name is nosheep4chelle

What's on my needles this week

So I've been a busy little knitter. I finished one sock, the plain ol' stockinette sock in Cascade Fixation. Here's some pics of it. Yes I normally dislike this much pink but I love the purples, blues and whites in this sock enough to forgive the pink.
I've also been working on my cables and os cardi from No Sheep For You in Knitpicks Cotlin in the fantastically wonderful colourway Morrocan red. I like this yarn, but find knitting with it for long periods of time it's a little hard on the hands. I wonder if it's the cotton or the linen? I have gotten pretty far on it even though it's on 3.5mm (US 4 ) This is my first cabling project as well as my first sweater/cardi so I'm very happy with the progress of it. I have put it down to work on other projects with deadlines though. Oh and I did get my geek on and knitted a gauge swatch, see picture is evidence! The stitchmarkers are from Zero on Etsy, they are pretty freshwater pearls and I love them.





I have some other projects going like my Hogwarts Sock Swap pal's Gryffindor socks and the Montego Bay scarf but I'll save those for another post when my internet isn't so sluggish! Happy Knitting!