100 Things, part 1

So I'll bite and jump on the bandwagon, but I'll spread out these 100 things, cause I just don't know if I can be interesting 100 times over.

1. I was born on Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving that is, in October, and no pilgrims involved at all.

2. I was born a week late.

3. My older siblings are twins, and a preemie who were born less than 20 months apart (yup, 3 babies in diapers, two of them mobile, my mother was an amazing multi-tasker.)

4. I'm the only Canadian born member of my family.

5. I'm the only French-speaking member of my family.

6. One of my earliest memories is getting blisteringly angry when a Nixon speech interupted Kojak. I loved Kojak.

7. My earliest memory is eating a cherry popsicle with my best friend Johnny.

8. I'm a redhead.

9. My all time favorite movie is The Empire Strikes Back.

10. As a child, I wanted to grow up to be Han Solo (space pirate boo yah!)

Pics!

So I finally figured out how to download photos onto my laptop (and by figuring it out, I mean I finally got The Boy to do it for me, lol.)

I have 4 days off work, starting yesterday, so I very happily sat all day in bed, knitting and listening to BBC radio crime productions (mostly Hercule Poirot.)  Nearly finished The Boy's Dashing gloves, just have the second thumb to work on.  I didn't want to pick up the thumb when I was tired and the light was bad, learned that the hard way from the first on.

Printed out a spreadsheet for Clapotis from Soul Knitting that is absolutely brilliant and really, really helpful.  So I got quite a bit done on the Clap, then dropped a damn stitch and had to frog back about 3-4 rows.  Grr.  I'm hoping that I won't have so much trouble with this pattern once I get past the increase rows.  I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with it.  It's not really a hard pattern, but I just can't knit it on automatic and I'm not used to putting so much concentration into each stitch and row.

I'm really happy with the colour of this yarn, it's for my sis and I think she'll love the colours.  I'm hoping to get it done for her birthday at the end of April, but we'll see.

I'm nearly done the My So Called Scarves I started for Xmas (d'oh!)  I will be giving away the first scarf, but I think I will keep the 2nd one for myself, I've started a Foliage in Malabrigo that matches nicely.  The colour in that photo is awful, it's really a very nice medium pink.

Speaking of which, I have to apologize for the bad photos, but I just really wanted to get some photos up and took these at about 3 am in horrid light.  It's cloudy and crappy out today, but we usually have very bright sun so I should be able to post better, natural light photos of FO's (should I ever have any FO's, I seem to enjoy starting projects, but not the finishing part, lol.)

Hand Made Xmas

It may be a bit early to be talking Christmas already, but I've made a commitment to myself this year that we will have a completely hand-made Xmas this year, so I have to start early.

I've already started my knitting for Xmas, and hope to have it done completely by the middle of November, including gifts and small gift bags I'm going to knit up from cashmere and other luxe fibers.  I'm hoping to do a bit of jewellery making this year, I haven't done that in over a decade, so I'll have to stock up on tools and supplies and will be working on some of that over the summer and fall.

Come December 1st, I want to be starting in on baking and food prep.  I want to do cookies, some soup mixes using organic veggies I dry myself in the dehydrator, and maybe some breads or freezer entrees for the busier people on my list.  Add to that small fabric gift bags, hand-made Xmas ornaments and cards and a few little stocking stuffers of all types and I probably have a years worth of work ahead of me.

I just picked up some Malabrigo worsted to make myself a Foliage hat, and I've just fallen in love with this yarn.  I'm going to make up a bunch of Foliage hats in both worsted and chunky for Xmas, plus a couple of slouchy berets (Ravelry link), then make myself a Rogue pullover in a rich green or maybe red in the Malabrigo.

That sweater will be my reward for losing another 20lbs or so.  I refuse to make myself a beautiful sweater from an expensive wool while I'm 20-30lbs overweight.  The chance to make myself some really nice handknits from beautiful wools and being able to save some money on skeins of wool is a really nice incentive to not dive into that bag of nacho chips.

I Hate Winnipeg

I`m a Winnipeger, born and raised, and like virtually everyone else in this city, I have muttered the title of this blog post more than once (sometimes more than once a day), during our near polar winters.  It`s such a common statement that local band The Weakerthans have written a song unoffically called I Hate Winnipeg (actually called One Great City.)

But reading knitting blogs from around the world, it occurs to me that there may be some knitters out there who might be a tad envious of the 6 month long, 40 below (F or C doesn`t matter, the scale meets up at about -44), colder than Moscow, so cold my eyelids freeze together when I blink kind of winters (seriously, frozen shut!)  I have ample opportunities to knit all sorts of winter gear, and no end of takers for any kind of hand knit I can pump out.  The idea of a teenager turning down a tuque or pair of mittens because they are hand knit or uncool is pretty foreign to me.  I guess there is an upside to living in Winnipeg.

Oh Frabjous Day!

Calloo Callay!

The best yarn store in the city, the one my mom used to go to when I was a kid and she was knitting great Mary Maxim and Buffalo sweaters in the 70`s, the one that moved to the middle of an industrual park and has been virtually inaccesible to me for 20 years, is moving back to the inner city.  And they are moving less than a mile away, next to the Dairy Queen, right down the street from my local grocery and pharmacy.  Across the street from a great girly clothes consignment store and the local Italian grocery.  

So, basically, I`m going to be very happy and very broke for a long time.

On a knitting note, finally figured out the thumb gusset in the round for The Boy`s Dashing gloves, and have finished one.  I`ve got the other down to the start of the cable round and should be finished by the weekend.  

Bought some cheap yarn today to start a Radiating Star Blanket for a co-workers baby who`s due in June or so.  Phentex Chunky, cheap, but still a nice colourway and, most importantly, machine wash and dry-able.  For some strange reason no one had a set of 6mm dpn`s or circs anywhere.  Michael`s only had some really expensive bamboo needles, and I`m not a big fan of bamboo needles, at least not the ones I`ve bought at Michael`s, so no way was I going to spend 30 bucks on needles I`ll hate.  So I bought 6.5 mm, and some chunky yarn to make socks for The Boy.  He`s asked for `soft and big`, so that`s what he`s gonna get.  The yarn is in the other room, and I`m too tired and lazy to get up and check it, so I`ll post about it later.  I do have a pretty good excuse, it as -39 outside today when I went shopping, it hasn`t been that cold for at least a month now, and it`s funny how quickly you forget just how cold 40 below is.  Yikes!

Still working on the camera thing.  Have to find the software for my camera and install it on my laptop (heretofore known as Sheila), and check out how the camera is working.  Hopefully I can have some pictures of my current projects up here within a week.

New blog smell

Because I seem to think that I have too much free time, here I go with the blogging thing again.  My last blog was a homeschooling blog, but since The Boy is going to a brick and mortar school now (for now, fingers crossed), I let that one drop a while ago.  

I gots bitten by the knitting bug again this winter, and I'd really like to produce more than scarves, finally, so I'm hoping that I'll have more than swatches and a few stitch patterns to post here.

Of course, though, my current projects are almost all scarves--2 My So Called Scarves that were supposed to be Xmas presents but working at a restaurant over Xmas turned out to be pretty freaking busy (surprise surprise), so they'll be birthday presents, or early FO's for next Xmas.  One is in Manos in the Caribe colourway, and the other is a baby llama in a pink so pink I'm embarrased to be seen in public with it, but man, is it soft and pretty.

  

Same goes for the Clapotis I'm making for the sis.  She'll be 45 in April, so maybe will make that one quickly, if I can just get it started without making some sort of fatal error and frogging it for the umpteenth time.  I decided to go with a thinner yarn than the pattern called for, a Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Pilsen colourway.

Last nice thing on my needles right now is Dashing for The Boy, a dark green tweedy Irish wool who's name I can't remember.  The wool is pretty scratchy (The Boy doesn't notice things like that, at least, not if he likes the garment, if he doesn't like it, mohair would feel like barbed wire to him), and the colour is really, really dark so it's hard to knit in anything but full sunlight.  Not much of that to go around in the winter, so it's looking like I will have The Boy's winter goodies ready just in time for spring (d'oh!)

The rest of the stuff on my needles right now are the permanent Granny's Favorite Dishcloth that lives on my spare pair of 4.5 mm needles.  I can never have enough dishcloths.  I'm also fiddling around with making some stitch pattern swatches and piecing them together into an afghan next winter.  I've got tons of cheap acrylic worsted sitting around from when I was teaching myself to knit (again) a few years ago, and figure it would make a good blanket for The Boy, one that I wouldn't be too heartbroken if he destroyed it (as he is the Destroyer of All Things.)

Also in my queue of things to do is to either get a new digital camera, or figure out what's wrong with the one I have right now, so I can start posting some pics of what I hope will soon be a giant pile of FO's to show off.