Sunday, April 27, 2008

Another Week, A Little Closer to Moving

So much has happened this week! So much happened today!

On the home front, my sister came over on Thursday night and helped me sort through more STUFF in preparation for listing. I'm hoping to have the house on the market by this time next week. Every day I get a bit closer with help from sis, Darling, and my friend, Julie, who has been doing a bit of yard work and working some magic indoors, too.

One of the clutter-busting techniques I learned recently is to take photographs of those things that clutter your home (you know, like the 150 sheep that have found their way to your home as if your name is Mary!). Then you can still enjoy the memory of the things, without having them take up cubic feet in your house (or your new house, as is the case for me.) Here are a few special friends I'm prepared to part with. Can you tell I'm a child of the 70s? Extra points if you can name all five!


It was a busy week at work by and large, and there's a meeting on Monday and three agendas to do Monday and Tuesday, so it will be busy there, too.

Today I took Mom and Darling's DIL to the Knitter's Frolic at the Japanese Cultural Centre in Toronto. The members of the Downtown Knit Collective put this show on annually, and at this point I want to give a big WAVE to all the people I saw walking around with Volunteer tags on. It's really a nice day for me: I get to talk to a lot of vendors and knitters, and I get to expose some of my family and friends to some of the great new things on the market for knitters.

I only got to take two pictures at the Frolic, and the one I wanted to post here didn't turn out they way I wanted. I only made one note, but I collected a lot of information on brochures and business cards, and, as always, I met a lot of great new knitting vendors including two from the United States! Oh, and the shopping?

Hmmmm... well, I recently saw the Orkney Pi shawl on the EZ as Pi yahoo group, and I've decided it's a MUST DO, so I bought some deep green laceweight for that. Then there was this young vendor from Keswick just starting out, so I bought a skein of blue laceweight (but could just have easily bought the yellow or the turquoise -- pretty stuff!) from her. In upcoming issues of Gizmos, look for beaded shawl pins, wool wash, knitting bags and a couple other goodies!
While uploading the photos of the Frolic, I came across another 'stash' photo: This one is the ocean-coloured yarn I bought at Wool Trends in St. John's NL the summer before last. It's Briggs & Little Heritage, which I'd never worked with before (unlike their Regal, which I've worked with a LOT). I was going to make Elann.com's pinwheel sweater in the adult size for me because I took the baby version of that pattern to make up on that trip!

Instead, I bought some Heritage in Briggs & Little's Anniversary Twist last November at Mabel Corlett's event in Gananoque. Currently I'm using it to make the "Sleeves in your Pi" shawl/ sweater/ cardigan from the XRX Ponchos book. Hopefully I can get an in-progress shot of this in the coming days. Part of the beauty of blogging is being able to track the progress of your work. Work. That's on tomorrow's agenda, but it's all Guild work, so it will be a lot of fun.
Yes, I know, I wrote this as if it was Saturday, but the post is dated Sunday. Just remember Bell is a four letter word. Our modem is dying and they refuse to acknowledge the fact.
So, stay tuned for today's post. It was going to be much more upbeat until I spent a half hour crawling around under a desk trying to get an internet connection earlier today!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Calling Lace Knitters!



In an earlier post I mentioned some yarn samples I've been doing. One of those samples was Misti Alpaca. It's a laceweight, so check this out:

The pattern is from page 150 of Victorian Lace Today. I mis-read the pattern in two places. One of them is the dark ridge across the middle... it's supposed to be lacy fagotting. The other mistake is one of those classic lace ones... You'll have to find it, 'cause I'm not tellin'.
Close up pics of this lace will appear in the February 2008 issue of Knit Together, along with a black-and-white version of this funky yarn sample. It's San Jose by Needful yarn. Our sample came in the Stitch 'n Pitch bags last summer. It's a cool yarn, and I'm hoping to get a child's hat knitted for the cover of the February issue.
In other news, the swans have flown off to nesting sites, the common mergansers are fighting over the nest box, the bufflehead ducks are all paired up. I've taken a vacation day to get some writing done, so I'd better go!


Saturday, April 12, 2008

Strong Women Dance


It seems hats are about all I'm getting accomplished these days. This one is destined for my good friend Julie, who is having a 'bout' of ovarian cancer. She's the second woman I know who has been afflicted with this disease in the last six months.


Strong Women Dance is the name of this hat. I got the pattern from the Knitting Pattern A Day calendar. It is also posted on the Charitable Crafters blog, http://charitablecrafters.blogspot.com/2008/02/strong-women-dance.html .


Julie has a great sense of humour and she'll love this hat and what it stands for. This isn't a chemo cap, as Julie has 'only' required two round of radiation therapy so far (as if that's not enough). It will be a winter hat which will look great with her red hair! I hope by then she can wear it in good health!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

No, really, I'm trying to get some work done!

It is Sunday. This week my sister's assignments are done. There are no dinners to cook for 8, and Cheryl couldn't make my mercy run to Aurora for drawer handles. So why is Wolfie in this chair, and not me?

Because the phone rang. Twice. So, when Wolfie curled up on my chair during call #2, I snapped this pick of him keeping my seat warm.


Saturday I was too ill to even knit, so today was my window. After taking care of a letter writing issue I had to wrap up, I did get to spend some quality time in that chair on the right. It felt good, even if I was a little jealous that Darling was playing Starries in the next chair.


At 6:30 this morning, I was up feeding this fine fellow and his mate. I'm still trying to get used to the thought that the largest bird in North America is hanging out in my front yard!

So, after a long day, I'm about to sign off for the night... after a quick game of Starries!

For the Love of Knit!

Cynthia