Saturday, September 29, 2007

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.

Friday, September 28, 2007

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.


Saturday, September 15, 2007

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!

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

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.