Did I mention he can cook, too?

Before I address the titleof this post, I have to mention that I got two more pieces finished for Knit Together today! Goodie! I still have two to do for the February issue, but I got one more done for it, and I got one done for the soon-to-follow (I hope and pray) May issue!

Now, about dinner. Darling is not only quite the naturalist, studying birds and ducks and all, but he's also quite a handyman... he's been working on a carport for his car and my Miss Mac'Ntyre from white pine logs he harvested off a lot he used to own. And he can cook. I must be the luckiest woman on the planet!

On days when I'm glued to the computer trying to make up for lost time due to real estate agents and commuting, he usually makes a nice dinner, and often lunch, too, not to mention those Saturday morning breakfasts. Well, he excelled tonight! He took his mother's recipe for sweet-and-sour spare ribs (which as it happens is the same as my mother's recipe for them) and he tweaked it with some smoky barbecue sauce, a little worcestershire sauce and tabasco. OMG, what a meal! I hope he wrote down what he did so he can do it again!

Back at the carport, he was telling my dad yesterday about squaring off the logs with a chainsaw, and buying a hand adze to smooth them down. Dad says, "I've got an adze up in the garage," and within minutes he pulled down a bona-fide family heirloom adze, sans handle. While Darling and I were out, Dad cleaned and sharpened the old artifact, and we brought it home. By noon today, Darling had carved a handle for it and was practicing.

"pung, pung, pung" I heard from the back stoop. Instantly I recognized this as an ancient noise. I have a theory about ancient noises and modern noises. Our ears can tolerate ancient noises far more easily than modern ones. The low moos of cows, the soft pung, pung, of an adze striking wood and the 'ffp' of the ensuing chips hitting dry leaves, or the quiet squeak of a spinning wheel are each more tolerable, and for longer lengths of time, than the sound of a neighbour's stereo, a far-off chainsaw, or sea-doos out on the bay. Anyway, that's the theory that I have.

At 'coffee break' this morning we sat out in the back yard. It was too cool to sit out front by the water, so we parked a pair of lawn chairs out back in the shelter of the house. I've concluded that there is no bad view around here...currently the trilliums are in full bloom, and even when you're sitting just west of the septic field, you've still got a view.

That wasn't so bad, was it?

In the last post I advised I was a little beyond the armholes of my Sleeves in your Pi sweater...well, after I wrote that, I discovered I had two extra stitches in one of the repeats. Being an experienced knitter, I thought, "No problem, I'll just pull back the section." Well, kids, that doesn't always work.


After two nights and much muttering under my breath, and after several posts on the related knitting lists doing the equivalent of crying in my beer, I decided to resign myself to the 'frog pond.' So, one night after work, when the light was still bright in the living room, I sat down on the floor and started pulling.


It turned out extremely well. I only had to tear back to the waste yarn for the sleeves. There was still a problem before that, but it was just a couple of rounds down, so the experience kicked in and I was able to fix it. The problem was less 'fixable' because of the slanting arrowhead design of that point of the piece.



The recent blocking helped the stitches to keep their shape well: I was able to get all of the stitches picked up before dinner was ready. (at 48 sts per repeat, that's just under 300 sts).

So, now I'm only one row beyond the armholes again, but I still have hair left in my head.

The moral of the story is sometimes ripping back can be more efficient than a 'sectional fix.'

In other news: I've been e-mailing back and forth with our featured designer for the next issue of Knit Together, and after two showings, I got an offer on my house!

In the beginning...

This is it. This is the sweater that started it all. It is my first serious contribution to the knitting world. In one way it is the first sweater I ever completed, and in another way, it is a 30 year old UFO. Allow me to digress...

In 1978 I was a freshly-engaged young woman who was staring down a ten-day stay in hospital. "I'm going to need something to do," I thought. So I decided to take up knitting again. I went to the LYS and bought a nice red case containing every size of Aero needles and enough yarn to make matching sweaters for me and the man I was engaged to. As you can see, I chose a rather complex Norwegian pattern from a current Paton's leaflet of the day.

Seven years and several other projects later I finished his sweater, which he wore on occasion, even though the sleeves were a little short. Then I began the sweater for myself, and that's when this became a UFO...so, technically this is part of the second sweater I ever attempted, but it is an exact replica of the first one. Oh, and the yarn? It was Paton's, too. Astra, of all things! The yarn for the other pieces of this sweater eventually became a Christmas tree sweater and matching leggings for a baby. It has worked out well for all of us, I think. That colour of red looks awful on me, anyway!

Last post I promised to include a shot of the Sleeves in your Pi sweater I'm working on. Here's how it looked when I blocked the back to measure for the sleeve placement. I'm about 4 cm beyond that point now. Isn't it pretty?

Yesterday was another big day on the old home front. The listing was finalized, and the sign will be up by the time I post this. The end of a 22.5 year era!

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!

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!

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!

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