WIP Wednesday

Let's see now, what's the state of the WIP pile? Growing, I'm sorry to say!

Yeah, we have the Rockpool green cardi, and we have the socks, which have progressed another couple of inches since that picture was taken. Those give me a tiny bit of green, pink and yellow for Project Spectrum. I also am fiddling with a square of pink cotton garter stitch that might one day be the centre of a baby blanket.

And I have a few more ideas...

I'd love to make these gloves.

Oops, I just cast on a bit... This is a colour picture, by the way! An ancient knitting book, grey yarn and needles. Very elegant, don't you think?

I figure I can get a pair of gloves out of 50g of sock yarn, since they are quite a bit smaller than socks. Right??

And I love a cabled vest.... Which one should I make, the old Vogue Knitting one on the left, or the new Interweave Knits one on the right? Maybe I'll wait a bit before choosing, but what do you think? I was sorely tempted to buy yarn for such a project the other day, but didn't have the pattern and yarn specs. Oh, and I'm not supposed to be buying yarn....

Hmm, since we won one single bed blanket, maybe I should finish another? I've got to lay my squares all out again and have a look at what I really have. I'll save that for another day, since I have to find the squares first!

Not so much "works in progress" as "ideas outta control"!

A winning weekend!

Yay for me; I finished Stephen's socks!

And yay for him; he won the school blanket!

It was quite funny when I was showing off the blanket in front of the stage, and the principal pulled Stephen's name out of the box... He and Elaine had gone home, so I had to say, "That's my husband!" Last year another knitter's daughter won so I guess we know who buys a lot of tickets! We also managed to win mini-raffles of some kid books and a "movie night" basket with a few DVDs, lots of popcorn and some movie passes! AND I won a competition on Alison's blog! I think that'll likely be all the winning for a few years around here.

So, those two projects are out of the way, and I've got two "new" ones on the go:


It looks like a green blob, but it's really the cardigan I wanted finished for last fall, which might be done for this fall!


And a pair of bright, plain socks! I just got the recent Interweave Knits, which has an article about toe-up socks, so that'll be my next sock project. I'd like to learn how to do that, since I think it'd be useful when one has limited yarn!

Okay, I think I've used more exclamation marks today than ever before. Enough.

Can't get enough of these pansies

Aren't they yellow!?

And, yeah, I'll get around to some knitting news someday soon. Must have the socks done by next week, and then it'll be June, time for a new batch of Project Spectrum colours... all I've done lately is knit grey, and I'm looking forward to thinking of red, black and metallic for two months! Actually, I just put some golden yarn in the school rummage sale... I do have some delightful red and black squooshy stuff, though! Must study stash....

Long weekend

We have a big street party every May long weekend, and Stephen is the designated fireworks guy. This is the best picture I got with "fireworks" mode on the camera.

There was a bicycle parade, crazy Survivor games, a rummage sale and a huge potluck supper.


And of course, a Peace Tower sized flag hanging down over the street!

Wow!

I stopped by at Anne's blog today, although it's been months since she actually posted anything. And wowee wow wow! Things happen!

First, she's shutting down the blog, which is very sad. Her stories about life at university have been brilliant -- I shall always treasure the excuses from her students who didn't get work in on time.

And second, she linked to this! I must say I have actually flown kites in the exact same park in Vancouver, and it is a wonderful place to fly a kite, though I never did anything at all like that! Great sound track, too!

Maybe Anne will take up kite flying instead of blogging....

Now *this* could be bloggable

Here are the socks.

And here is the terrible tale explaining why these socks are no bigger today than they were yesterday.

Last evening I had to sit in an office for an hour while Arthur had a lesson. Elaine came with us, and she spent the time hogging reading the only decent thing in the place, a Calvin and Hobbes treasury. But, ah, I had my knitting, didn't I?

I had my finished sock, and my unfinished sock, and the yarn attached to the sock, and the three needles holding the stitches of the sock.... and no fourth needle. Curses! No knitting and no Calvin and Hobbes. So, I thought I would wile away a few minutes rewinding my half-used ball of sock yarn into a new, nice, neat ball.... This took 45 minutes. I realised I was in trouble after about 10. I knew I was a bad blogger because I didn't have my camera and couldn't even photograph the tangle of yarn all over the floor, the other parent looking at me funny from across the room... Sigh.

Once I heard someone talk about the number of "I'm stupid, but, look, I can knit" books that have come out recently, and I think I have just added a wee bit to the literature....

The other day's moaning about the boring old blogosphere got me several funny comments. Okay, Lisa, you're off the hook, since writing a PhD dissertation takes precedence over blogging. Alison, your present industriousness is an inspiration to us all, and Liz, sorry, no way Jose am I following all those instructions! Tag seven people!? That's even more work than the "italic this and bold that" meme that's going around! Thanks for trying, but I think what will get me more keen on blogging is... something thrilling happening. Can't buy yarn, must finish socks, want to finish old cardigan, want to start something new and thrilling... I had to take all the yarn out of the freezer the other day -- maybe I should sort through looking for bug corpses... or take up sewing. Adriana, I can, if pushed, sew a straight line, but haven't done so in a long time. Now I wouldn't mind whipping up a few little things for Elaine, so we'll see if that happens this summer.

Onward and upward!

I think it's not just me

I've been not posting so much lately, just getting one little thing up a week sometimes. And I go around my favourite blogs, and notice that a lot of people are slowing down. Is it spring? Is it the end of the world? Is everyone writing secret knitblog books? Who knows... If knitting blogs are getting boring, may I recommend the Daily Photo sites, London (3 times, 1, 2, 3!), Paris, Venice... wherever you like!

I have a little knitting news, which I'll get to. And I could talk about other things, like the big thunder and lightning storm of last night, but I have no splendid pictures of lightning hitting the CN Tower or anything like that.

We've been digging in our garden and using up a tiny fraction of the wood we just got.

Before, crumbling concrete blocks









Step 1










Step 2, nice-ish wood wall








Now we need a bit more wood, a bit of dirt, some plants that like shade and crappy soil, and we're set. For that part of the garden, at least... there's more! Last night's rain will give the remaining weeds that extra boost, and next weekend's work will be all the more difficult!



My Retro Ribs! At last, the end is in sight. Or at least the foot is... I'm looking forward to simpler* socks in wilder colours, but I'm sure these will be well-used by Stephen, who is not a wild socks kinda guy.

*These socks are not really challenging to knit. Very straightforward 4-row pattern. But sometimes I just hate having to think, do I twist the stitch on this row, oh, my, do I have to purl here.... It's stocking stitch for the next pair!


And look, our poor neglected volunteer lilac is actually giving us a flower this year! There are two, in fact! The fate of this lilac is unknown. One day it will get too big for the little box it planted itself in... Move it to the shady front yard? Put it in another box? Give it to someone with more space??

And that's all the news that fits, today.

Spring fever

Phew, what a week... Yesterday especially was super busy, starting at 8 am when a truck arrived with enough wood to build a deck and frame our front garden. After much futzing around, the driver decided that he would break either our fence or our tree if he tried to put the wood in the back yard, so he left it in the lane. Hmm, I say, someone will run into this and damage either the wood or their car or even themselves, or perhaps someone will just decide they want some of it. So, I started carrying it in, even though I knew there were 12-foot-long 6x6s on the bottom of the pile. Pretty soon I realised I should call someone... MothMan to the rescue! With those extra muscles, the wood was all brought in in jig time and is now taking up our entire back yard. I'm taking bets on when it will all be in place, either in the front or the deck! (By the way, the deck will be on the top of our house, 2 flights up!)

Meanwhile, Elaine was moaning and feeling crappy, due to an ear infection. So, that entailed a bike ride to the doctor after lunch. And then Arthur has a class in the evening, so that entailed a walk there and back again. I slept quite well last night!

On the weekend I was busy with blankets! One of the kids took this picture, and saved me the trouble of cropping!

We got both sewn together, one has now been bordered and beautified by the queen of such things, and ticket sales should start tonight.

I think they'll look splendido! Last year a knitter's daughter won, so this year I'd say it was my turn!

I think we can stop complaining about the cold and slow spring now. It's supposed to get to 26C today!

Flowers (on the sunny side of the house) are out and leaves are opening on trees all over.

Green for Project Spectrum!

Actual knitting! And yarn!

I have been knitting! I finished the blanket, but have not yet blocked it, and I want to enter it in a fair this spring.

Look at this sunshine!

When I last talked about this blanket, I was stuck in the middle of the border, I think. My friend initially gave me the yarn, and I think the last ball I used was not full, because it only made up a bit less than half the border.

So I bought myself 2 skeins of the lovely Malabrigo to finish it off, and ultimately only used one (with even a bit left over to use for a stripe in a hat or something).

Soooo, I had to return the unused skein to the shop, didn't I? And then exchange it for something else, right?

Lucky me, a ball of Austermann Step sock yarn is about the same cost as a ball of Malabrigo, so I got this beautiful green stuff to make a pair of gloves for me. Well, I hope so, anyways.

I am still sitting and staring at the Retro Rib socks, but they are not really thrilling me. I will plug away, though.

Mostly what I have been thinking about, knitwise, is the school blankets. We will be sewing them together this weekend, the Fibre Floozie herself will be adding jazzy borders, and then we'll raffle them off at the end of May. I think I want the pink/grey one!