Posting TMI*, late in the day

My mind has not been on writing witty things for the blog lately. It is just a bit more than a year since my operation, so today I had to go get checked out. Yesterday and today I was totally concerned with my internal organs, which, I am pleased to say, are just fine, actually.

Maybe I can find a piece of medical humour for you... 

from here

Close enough, and totally true!

*TMI = too much information

Knitted and crocheted song and dance

Here's a bit of knitted silliness for you all. I think I came across this via Twitter or something. I just wish they'd made a "making of" video at the same time! Imagine...


Seventeen Evergreen - Polarity Song from Lucky Number Music on Vimeo.

As an aside, every day, I publish my blog, and then have to go back to add the nablopomo tag. Sheesh, I'll try harder tomorrow!

14 miscellaneous ideas today

1. It is 49 days before Christmas, I understand.
2. The grocery store is lightly decorated, and the baking section is fully stocked.
3. In Canada, we have nothing else to think of between Halloween and Christmas, unlike the Americans, who have Thanksgiving to divert them.
4. A friend and I were discussing shortbread. I insist on brown sugar, while she is not offended by icing sugar, which of course, doesn't really make real shortbread like brown sugar does. 
5. I had to make some proper Christmas shortbread to prove it. 
6. One cup of brown sugar, two cups of butter, four cups of flour. Knead it up, chill in logs, slice and bake for 30 minutes or so in a slow oven, about 275ºF.
7. Well, then I had whole lot of shortbread, and it is not really Christmas yet.
8. So I put a couple of dozen pieces in a box and mailed them off to my parents.
9. I specially stopped on my way to the post office to buy some real Earl Grey tea, since it is my dad's favourite.
10. I forgot to put the tea in the package, so now what? They will have an imperfect tea party.
11. I also stopped by at the library, and got a book by Martha Grimes, whose books I hardly ever read. Any opinions? I think of her as churning them out, but maybe I am mistaken.
12. Oh, dear, it seems it's a sequel to something. Maybe I have to rethink this. It's called Dakota.
13. I also got Hoopla: the art of unexpected embroidery. It looks pretty entertaining. I will read that tonight. 
14. I am still knitting on Botticelli.

A different kind of dog sweater

This is Somebody's Dad, in a great "vintage" picture sweater. The noble hunting doggy and the crossed guns.

(More examples of phone photography; not very impressive. And the room wasn't very brightly lit.)

Those mismatched lines on the shoulders would have driven me nuts if I'd made this. I was going to add a "but..."  here, but I really can't. Yeah, I find them jarring. But I love the dog and his shadow!

My new phone has a camera

It is so fun to have a camera-phone, don't you think?

One feels like a spy, or something. Somehow it is more important, taking a picture with a phone -- so urgent I can't stop to deal with my real camera.

The very first picture I took with my phone was at Peace, Love and Misunderstanding at the film festival. Up there is Bruce Beresford! And the cute little guy, whatshisname... Nat Wolff.  He said that he really liked doing this movie because he got to pretend to get stoned with Jane Fonda, and who wouldn't, really? Thing #1 I learned here: the camera makes a terrible shutter noise! Luckily, Arthur figured out how to turn it off.

Then I took a bunch of pictures that made it clear to me that this is not a very super camera. Things across the street are too blurry. Lighting has to have attention paid to it. And so on...

But, it did capture the lovely purpleness of this boss car. It was a Dodge Charger, purply-pink, and for a couple of days it was parked down the street. This, as you might guess, is where you put the gas in. See me and Elaine reflected!

And this morning, just before the thing beeped at me to tell me I had too many pictures and needed to download them off the phone, I took this! The colours of this bush were amazing, all the way from pale yellow through to brightest red. The sky was clear and blue and it was all just gorgeous.

So, like some sort of superhero (or big dork, whatever) I stopped on my way to get groceries to take a picture of the pretty bush.

When I got home, indeed, I had to get Arthur to mutter encouraging things while I learned to get the pictures onto the computer! Oh, I'd best be sure to keep that cable somewhere safe...

I need a November square

My block-a-month group is using these last months of 2011 to finish up blankets, but my blanket needs a few more squares, so I must soldier on alone and find a square to knit!

This is called Eyelet and Flame Chevron, from the Vogue Knitting stitch-a-day calendar for 2010. Clever placement of yarnovers and decreases; about the right size without a lot of fiddling; all one colour this month, I think; no cables!

(Indoor/no-flash photo off somewhat glossy paper, with photographer's shadow and inexpertly boosted colour!)

Now, I am not going to just jump right in and knit this, though I have vague plans to get it done shortly. I have started the other front of the Botticelli, and I do love it so. Tomorrow night I have to go hang around while Arthur plays Dungeons & Dragons, so perhaps I'll take the square then.

(An aside: if you had a pattern-a-day calendar and were leaving your cosy home to knit, would you rip out the page you were knitting from, risking losing it and messing up the calendar; carry the whole block of pages, a desk calendar from last year, around with you, looking a bit crazy; or copy the 24-row pattern out on a piece of paper? The block is not really convenient to knit from, as it doesn't stay open to the desired page without a cup of tea or something to weigh it down. Not a great design, in my mind.)

A few pictures of stuff

This is my little baby avocado. It just sprouted a while ago, and you can see it is taking after its pal, growing super tall and not at all bushy. I think they don't get enough light, and just stretch and stretch trying to reach the sky.  Poor deluded things.

Another crazy horticultural marvel... Long, long ago (what, 5 or 6 months ago?) I scattered some seeds that were supposed to grow flowers that would attract butterflies. Well, it is now November, and my one cosmos flower is finally in bloom. It is very lovely, but I rather expected more of them, and perhaps a few months ago! Who knows what is going on?

Now, finally, a second piece of knitting. The left front of the Botticelli is done, and (phew) it is the same length as the back. (It's kind of rolled up at the bottom, but really, it's good.)

I really love the "wrong" side of striped stocking stitch. For a while, I considered making it the "right" side, and so didn't weave my ends in. I think, though, smooth side out. One more front to do, and then we tackle the sleeves. I'm still fretting about matching the stripes at the top of the sleeve, thinking about a little stripey cuff and mostly plain brown sleeve?

After-Halloween stuff

Our neighbourhood association organizes a pumpkin patch party in the park every November 1. We bring our jack o'lanterns and set them all in a line along a path, and they look cool.

That's it, really!

We had our usual good weather on Halloween. It's customary for us to sit on the front porch with a glass of wine, watching the kids go by and giving out treats. The costumes are always interesting! This year, way more Harry Potters than one would expect, plus Angry Birds!

Tomorrow: knitting, I'm almost sure!

The first of the month

This year, I will once again attempt to post every day in November. Sometimes the posts will, of course, be about my knitting, but I am working on the Botticelli these days and it's just the same stocking stitch stripes over and over. I think I am almost finished a piece, so perhaps pics of that soon!

But first, I will show you this how-to video, which some of you will undoubtedly have seen:




This first appeared on the guy's blog where he gives the following instructions:

Step One: Knit.
Step Two: Keep knitting.
Step Three: Finish knitting and open an Etsy shop to sell your wares.

Ha ha ha ha.

I was out with some friends the other day, and had my felted buttonhole bag with me. They were all oooh and aaaah, and, of course, said "you could make those and sell them!" So we had the time/materials/cost discussion again. Would you spend $150 for a felted purse? Not me, though I would spend the time making one.

Pumpkin pie, anyone?

Happy Halloween, and see you in November for NaBloPoMo!

Knit or crochet?

Are these knitted or crocheted? So clever, whatever!

That shawl

Finally this has reached its destination so I can blog about it!

Oh, my! This was fun to knit (although I ignored it for a while, when something new took my fancy -- can't remember what, now!).

The pattern calls for knitting each module onto the next one, but then cut the yarn at the end of each, and work in horizontal rows. I followed hints found on Ravelry and just knit the diagonal rows from bottom to top, picking up stitches for the next shell along the side of the shell I had just finished. I had two colourways of Kureyon sock, and mainly just let the colours flow, but did occasionally change things up. I don't think it looks diagonally striped at all, does it?

flash!

I finished it a couple of weeks ago now and mailed it off to my sister-in-law in BC for her 50th birthday! Stephen cleverly packed it in an iPad box, just to tease, and took it off to the post office. The fellow at the counter told him it'd be there "on Wednesday," which of course costs more than "sometime in the next couple of weeks."

When her birthday came and went, and our tracking information showed that in a week it had got about 5 miles, we contacted the post office and had moments of panic, thinking something terrible had happened, but it did show up where it was supposed to be the very next day, and only a week later than our cheerful salesman had suggested!

I've been promised pictures of it in use, so do stay tuned for that!

Me in 2040

Borrowed from someone who borrowed from someone on Facebook. 

I love the pink teacup.

October square

The October square is done!

 

It looks similar to other squares I have done, with the sort of framed dips, but they are all different enough, I think!

I think I might be in for a surprise when I finally block them all and see if they will really fit together neatly. That's what "sashing" is for, I guess!

I am aiming for 16 squares in total. I think the KAL group on Ravelry was based on a blanket of 8 or 9 square patterns, and according to the master plan, one should knit each in 3 colours. Well, that didn't happen here. This square is from a different pattern, so I guess the original set is done! I shall see what the group does in November, and if there is no "assigned" square, I am sure I can come up with something. And I shall have a finished little blanket for next fall.

A cool thing I found

I came across this on Pinterest the other day: a sky scarf.

You gather some blue, grey and white yarns, and each day for a whole year, you knit a garter ridge in the colour of the sky (although more research on Ravelry shows that some people throw in pink or yellow on occasion, and some people keep track of moods rather than skies).

You'd have to pick a time of day to choose your colour, I think, since some mornings are clear blue and their afternoons are grey and thundery! The pattern does call for mixing two strands, so I guess you could do clear blue and grey together.

White for snowfall, or just for white sky? Should one have a wonderful pink, just for those days when one sees a great sunset?

Although this just involves 2 rows a day, I have a few wee things to get out of the way before I jump in. I think it would be fun, simple and a cool way to chart progress through the year. Maybe I will chart 2012.

This picture, by the way, is from the project page of the designer, leafcutter, on Ravelry. You can see it much better on Flickr.

It's October now, time to get ready for winter!?

It's been beautiful and sunny for a while. Cold nights and mornings, leaves starting to turn. Definitely fall and not summer, but warm during the day. Very nice, indeed. And time to think of the coming seasons.

I have recently discovered Pinterest, which is a very big time-sink and it also shows me all sorts of things I wouldn't otherwise trouble myself with, like Halloween wreaths! Now, a Halloween wreath seems like a very silly thing to me, but a wreath for the door around Christmastime is a fine thing, and anything other than the cedar circles from the grocery store is even better.

First, you get a ring -- remember the lampshade project? I have a bucketload of lampshade rings that just need old glue and guck taken off, and then they are perfect for this.

Then you need some tulle, and I just happened to have a wee bit of white in a bag, so we cut that up and looped it on. It only covered about a third of the ring, so we had to do some thinking. I had some black, which was not quite the right texture and we weren't sure we wanted the Cruella DeVille look, either. So, new plan.

I happened to be out near Value Village, which was full of stuff for Halloween -- the wedding dresses with stains on the front which are only good for costumes, the out-of-season things they'd like to get rid of, the ... costumes and weird exotic funny things! I was in a rush, but ran through one rack and came up with a few options, ultimately deciding on a toddler-sized dress with three layers of tulle, in white and icy blue!

(At several points in the making of this, I said, "Hmm, I should have taken a picture for the blog." I don't even have a picture of the dress before we cut it up.)

knotted on the ring

The clear white is the original stuff we had, and the yellowed white is from the dress. Under the layer of white there were two layers of blue. It was a very cute size 2T dress with a halter top, an elastic waist in the back and a full skirt to go over the diapers! And perhaps it was even floor-length, though my understanding of what a two-year-old looks like is a bit misty these days.

Maybe we will attach more lace, and a big snowflake?

The Chia Pet is delighted.

We need to add a few details, find a ribbon to hang it, and sit back and wait for the snow, I guess!

(This took much longer to compose than it should have, because I am using Blogger's new template thingy and to get the pictures in the right places and not crazy looking I had to keep going back and forth to tweak the HTML. I think they wanted to make it easier, but they didn't!)

Yellowness and knitting

After my yellowish September square, knitting has not been very yellow at all. Last bits of summer flowers, however, provide us with a bit of the Project Spectrum colour of the month.

The knitting might not be really yellow, but it is almost every other colour! Green, purple, pink, turquoise, brown...

This is the fan shawl I started some time ago (hmm, in January, it seems!). This will be super stunning, I am sure!

Perhaps it will be done this coming weekend, and I will spread it out and the sun will shine and we will all sigh and admire it.

A bit of excitement

Once upon a time, I grew a big, tall avocado plant. It continued on, putting out a few leaves, dropping a few leaves, getting taller and crazier looking.

I had another pit, and just shoved it in the dirt without starting it in water. Then, the other day, in a lame attempt to force the tall plant to do something, I cut its top off. I think there was one leaf.

So I was pleased to notice that the neglected second pit has exerted itself to put out a little stick! 

The much taller stick seems to have some proto-leaves at its top, too, so we may see some action there, or I may have discouraged it too much. I'll get a picture, if anything really develops!

And that's all the news from us. 

I saw three movies

(Added after I checked my links: If you click on a picture, you get that horrible black background with picture thing. To get back to the blog, you don't click the back arrow, but you have to X out the picture page: top right-hand corner. Oh, change....) 


The Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF to us insiders, is a big annual film fest. Lots and lots of movies, movie stars all over the place (so I hear, anyways)... and I usually just let it pass me by. (My dentist's receptionist literally bumped into Sylvester Stallone one year, or so she says!)

This time around, a friend had some extra tickets. She had got a packet of 20 vouchers for shows that start before 5 pm, but this year her kids are not just both up the street at daycare as they were last year, but one is at school over heeeeere and one is in daycare up theeeeeere and what with dropping off and picking up and, I assume, making a stab at doing her regular job, she had some extra vouchers she couldn't use.

Wednesday, I saw Peace, Love and Misunderstanding, a movie with Jane Fonda, directed by Bruce Beresford. You will hear more about this one! It takes place in Woodstock NY and is full of hippy rainbows and drums and rallies. Lucky for us, Jane Fonda has a blog, so you can see some pictures. Fun fun fun. The actors were great, including Elizabeth Olsen and the other newbie kids. Catherine Keener was brilliant as well, as the conservative lawyer daughter of the Jane Fonda character.

Guess what? It has a happy ending.

Thursday I was back in line to see Jeff, who Lives at Home. Again, funny, charming, exciting, with the brilliant Susan Sarandon as the mom of Jeff and his slightly more socially capable brother. Jeff goes in search of his destiny, and a buddy movie/comedy/family angst movie follows. Wow, said I, that was great!

Jeff gets the phone call that sets the day in motion.

Then, Friday: it's hard not to use the word "climax" for Hysteria. It was the best of the three, for sheer enjoyment and fun. Who wants a troubling movie at 11 in the morning? Not me.

Costume drama, romantic comedy, walk in the park.

Next year, I might just get more tickets! Or maybe volunteer! Anyways, I am keen!

And I must tell you about my in-line knitting project! Clearly, standing in line for an hour before each movie gave me lots of time, but I was standing in line, so there was no pattern-reading or colour-changing or cable-making. Circular needle, simple pattern, stash yarn.

It was to be a big circular cowl/scarf, like the Gaptastic, but maybe not so huge. But right at the very beginning, I made a fatal error: "join, taking care stitches are not twisted." This is what happens if your stitches are twisted but you keep on knitting without realising:

I kind of wonder how it will look if I do keep going. I think I will not take it off the needles just yet, but keep it in hand in case I'm looking for ... a scarf with a twist in it!

I made my friend a loaf of banana bread, but maybe she deserves a scarf... Too bad I couldn't finish this one for her, in line!

Oh, ohhh, ohhhhhh

Saw this movie today at the film festival.

Oh, yesssss.

It was so funny.

(Oh, why doesn't it fit on my page nicely?)




A real feel-good movie. Coming soon, one hopes, to a theatre near you.