Three bags full, plus film from London!

I was delighted to hear that Sue and her family have found a bigger and better house to buy. It's tough to find just what you want, where you want. So, yay. And we don't even have to be sad that they are moving away, since they are only moving across the street!

However, the prospect of any moving makes people clean up like never before, tossing out all sorts of stuff! And you know, when a knitter gets in this mode, miscellaneous yarn is going to come flying out of the house!

So, Sue, inveterate bargain hunter as well as knitter, appeared at my door with three garbage bags full of yarn! This is, I think, maybe two-thirds of it all! Some I saved for myself, probably thinking all the things Sue thought when she first nabbed it (Oh, lovely scarf; something soft for my daughter; maybe I could make a hat with this), some I saved for knitting with kids in the fall at school (Must have lots of variety of colour and texture!) and some I put back into one of the big bags and listed on Freecycle. Lemme tell ya, when you announce you have a big bag of yarn to give away, everyone is interested!

Arthur grabbed all the novelty bits! A ball of Cha-cha, a scrap of pretty blue Boa, I think, as well as two big soft balls of mohairy loveliness! Give him a pair of needles, and he's off. There's one ball of grey and one of soft brown. If it doesn't make us all weep and sneeze, he'll get a great scarf out of it.

Stephen is in Cambridge for the week, and popped down to London Saturday, to see some museums, eat Indian food on Brick Lane, and catch the start of the Naked Bike Ride. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology and all that, I can bring you a picture of a bunch of bare naked bike riders, waiting for the Horse Guards to pass by. I don't think they got quite the crowd in Toronto, naked bike-wise, but many did celebrate Knit in Public Day on the public transit here!

Some things to look at

Firstly, I must show off the latest in fair winnings. Well, I didn't win anything! Boo hoo. However, my son and heir is off to a good start, with two prizes in the junior photography section. The theme of the fair was "The Barn Door is Open" and this one won first prize!


And in the "Farm Babies" category, this won third.


He put in two others which got "participant" ribbons. Congratulations to Arthur!

I was looking at Dancing Leaf Farm, and saw, among many other great photos and stories, this entry with a cool video. Octogenarians get down!

And I could now complain about the weather, since it's very cold and wet and not at all summery, but that could be a bit tedious...

Summer knitting goals

I see that some people are making lists and setting goals. Hmm, good idea, but you know how these things go! Let's see, what shall I actually accomplish this summer?

1. Finish the Rockpool cardi. By the end of September!
2. Finish the pink blotch socks, which are coming along just fine. Here's the problem, though... I knit socks on a variety of needles, and a variety of numbers of stitches, and some end up saggy-baggy and some end up too tight. Not to mention, children grow... So I'm thinking that now these socks will be too tight on Arthur. (Yes, he chose the yarn, which is not your typical 10-year-old-boy sock yarn.) I want these done soon, just to see if they worked or not! And perhaps take note of stitch count and needle size.
   
3. Grey lacy gloves for me. I won't be wearing these for months, but I'll finish them!
   
4. Use my red and black Stretchwool for a few charity hats.
5. Here's another thing... I started a pink cotton garter stitch square one day when I went out with some non-knitters and needed something mindless. Now I seem to have made it into a log-cabin-esqe baby blanket, although I know no babies right now. I'll finish it, and ... find a recipient! The colour is quite off in this picture. The pink is really that dusty rose colour one used to find in every romantic B&B, which is quite dated now, and the blue is not at all purple, but a clear, nice dark blue. It's a wet, grey morning here, so we must make do with flash pictures indoors.
   
6. Perhaps there's a Kiri in the future, but maybe I'd better finish those 5 things and then check in again! (That link is to a regular blog post with pictures and all; the pdf of the pattern is can be found in the sidebar here.)
   

I heart eye candy

Arthur went on a photographic tour of the garden. He loves the zoom, lemme tell you!

Bleeding heart!

Portulaca!

White things off a hedge!

And this one I took: toothless Elaine!
She's lost her first tooth! Many more to come...

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!

Some wool for you

I'm in a bit of a knitting slump, it seems, so I can only show you wool on the hoof, at Riverdale Farm.

Eye Candy Friday is back

I haven't had any Eye Candy pictures for a while but yesterday, the sun came out! Whoo hoo. So I took the camera out to the back deck, and took a few pictures.

The lilac buds.


The frilly pansies.

The mighty oak. Did I ever tell you the story of this tree? Someone left it in a little pot (it was probably not a foot tall) at the curb, and I rescued it and brought it home. There was a note with it: it was originally given at a wedding, as a little gift from the couple to their guests. I wonder how many of them ended up discarded because no one has room for an oak tree! It's in a pot, but I will have to think of somewhere to set it free before it gets too big. I would love a mighty oak on our street, but will have to find a neighbour to take it, since I already have a big tree. It's got a bit of a bend at the top because I took it inside over the winter and put it on shelves in the bathroom window, and it grew several inches and put out those 4 leaves without me even noticing, and it was scrunched under the shelf! Oops.


And then there's Elaine reading. The magazine is upside-down because I think she was reading the answer to a joke or some such!


And Arthur, surrounded by the "garden," one store-bought pansy and a lot of dirt. The nice weather is supposed to continue, so there'll be a rush at the garden centre this weekend, but we all know in our hearts we can't plant anything till Victoria Day. We'll see!

Blog Against Disablism, May 1

Last year, I stumbled across Blogging Against Disablism, probably via Emma's blog. I followed a few links and found a huge variety of blogs, some very interesting stories and lots and lots to think about. I encourage you all to see what people have to say, May 1. We are lucky in this family, so far, touch wood...

Spring mittens

Aren't we colourful?

Elaine had been wearing big puffy waterproof mittens, but now that it's spring (ha!) she needed smaller, less snowball-fight-worthy mitts, and these knit up in a day or two.

They match not only the carpet, but also her bike helmet, so all is well.

I mean to make myself some more dainty mitts some day soon, but as you may know, my list of things to knit right now is already rather longer than I would like.

I think I've dealt with the wool-eating critters, by putting all the wool out of their reach in my freezer. I'm washing sweaters, vacuuming carpets, bagging closet stuff... I must go vacuum the stairs now, but I'll report more on the knitting front soooooon!

Plague, infestation, disaster!

I was walking home last night, happy as a clam, thinking that I should just finish up my started-long-ago blanket of squares, because I have in mind another blanket of squares I want to make. The one in progress looks like this:

except that it now has about 45 squares, I think, out of possibly 63 or 70, and the one I want to make might end up looking like this:


That's the floor of the Louvre! Six colours of Felted Tweed, parquet squares, ooooooh! (Actually, look at this! All the squares of the Learn to Knit Afghan! Great job!)

So, I look at my pile of yarn and squares, left hopefully out of the closet, in full view (sort of, until it got covered up with other projects, sweaters, dirty laundry...). I lay out the squares, admire my handiwork, pick up the balls of yarn, arrange by colour... and spy a.... a bug! Actually, some sort of tiny caterpillar-like thing. About half a centimeter long, with huge fangs. Well, I don't know about the fangs, but it had left a little chewed trail in the turquoise yarn. Luckily, I don't care much for the turquoise, but still! Again, luckily, we don't have much food in the freezer, so I put the whole blanket project, my stash of Felted Tweed, the half-made Sweater that Makes Me Sneeze and accompanying wool into deep freeze! And I'll see what else I can jam in there, too!

Now, where did I leave that vacuum cleaner?

Back to my usual sedate life

My ears have stopped ringing from the excitement of last week, so let's get back to a few knitting things.

Thing 1. The Thundercloud blanket needs help. Like a new ball of wool! I didn't include the clause about running out of yarn in my original Knit from Stash rules, but since they're my rules, I hereby declare that I can/must go buy another skein. Heaven knows the dyelot situation is dicey anyways with this sort of yarn, so we'll just hope it looks similar enough. This will require another trip to Alterknit, which is always fun. That's part A of this problem. Part B is, do I need two balls? I'm only half-way round, and not even exactly half-way, and I think I will need one full ball and a few meters. Have I been in this situation before, or what? I guess I have to buy two. A blanket with matching wrist-warmers, perhaps?

Thing 2. The sock, the sock. I sure hope the dissertation is going better than the sock.

Since I end up peering over my glasses at this, I prefer to work on it (or not) in the privacy of my own home, which leads us to the portable bus project, Thing 3.




Thing 3. I seem to have started a new long-term project. I've made a couple of squares of leftover sock yarn. Of course, nothing matches, but I assume the total jumble will be riotously colourful and appealing when I'm done. At least it will keep someone warm....

Thing 4. Not knitting related, but thrilling for all those of you in Oxford or Cambridge: the big Boat Race is this coming weekend! Must find ye olde pub in which to watch it!



Thing 5. It snowed again! Last week, we were admiring the daffodils sprouting; today, snow. Grr.

Okay, the grocery store will be closed for 2 of the next 3 days, so I must run out and get a few essentials, like food...

Pointed Sticks!

Friday night Stephen and I went to the Horseshoe Tavern ("where Stompin' Tom and ... uh... lotsa other people have played") to relive our youth and hear the Pointed Sticks, legendary Vancouver shoulda-been-pop-star-punk-cheesy-organ band -- the reunited Pointed Sticks, who, amazingly enough, are the original guys, more or less. The Sticks we knew had Dimwit (Ken Montgomery, RIP) on drums, but Ian Tiles, who played Friday, had also played with them in the old days (and had a marvellous f-band called Buddy Selfish and the Saviours, whose version of Twenty Flight Rock was super-fantastico, not to mention the boots he used to wear were divine. I heart Buddy Selfish)! It was a tad weird to be watching this show, with all the songs we loved when in our early 20s, but it was obviously a bit weird to be singing them, too! There were tongue-in-cheek comments like, "This is a fast one. Now, you can have a mosh pit if you like, as long as no-one gets hurt. We're all responsible parents now!"

We met a couple of friends (Alison and Alison's friend Alison) at the club, who used to see them in Edmonton, and they came and joined us at our table before the show started. "Are you knitting??" they say. Yes, on pointy, straight, 3 mm aluminum needles, but really, I stayed away from the mosh pit. Actually, since most of the audience were responsible parents, too, like us, there really was no mosh pit. No, I don't have a picture of my pointy sticks with the Pointed Sticks. And I only knitted in between sets!

I found our old slides, so let's have a few before and after shots.

Nick Jones, before (at Boating with Bud, 1982)


Nick Jones, 25 years later














Ian Tiles, before, with Bud Luxford himself, waiting to board Boating with Bud. Ian is the guy with the camera, Bud is the guy with the Boating with Bud T-shirt.

Ian Tiles, 25 years later, still with a camera!















And here's the back of the Boating with Bud T-shirt, white version:



















I think Nick Jones was at this point fooling around with Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, since the Pointed Sticks had broken up. Keeping track of those guys is not easy, since they all knew each other and had these crazy mix-and-match bands.

So, history aside, it was a great show! They were clearly having a good time, and we had a great time, too. They are going to be making 7-inch 45s -- yes, vinyl -- so we'll be keeping our eyes out for those!