On the Block

Well, I'm very proud of myself. I seem to have managed to blog once a week for several weeks in a row. I hope I can keep it up. I'm officially on vacation right now, which is excellent news for me, because it means there's lots of time for knitting. I've been plugging away at socks mostly in preparation for my trip to my parents' place in Mississauga. Socks make such great bus knitting, but I'm easily bored, so I have three socks ready to go.

First up is the Azure socks:

You might remember, I started theses socks initially for sitting in waiting rooms. This didn't actually happen. I forgot to bring the sock, and as it turns out, didn't actually wind up waiting long enough to knit anything even if I had brought it. Yay. So dental xrays are done with no significant problems which makes me very happy and my bank account even happier. And my driver's license has been renewed which means I can drive my parents' kick ass car over the holidays!

Next up:

Southwestern Socks by Wendy at WendyKnits. This is the first sock. I still have to wind the second skein so I can start the second sock. Which I will do. Despite the seeming case of startitis I'm nursing. It looks like startitis, but really, I'm being prepared. The yarn is the Mirasol Hacho I bought at vendors night at the Knitting Guild. It's a sport/DK weight, so these socks are turning out really well.

Next in line, and final sock on the block:

This is Cairi's Sweetheart designed by Bronte. I tried to put a link to this, but for some reason doing so kept kicking me out of the internet. Thank goodness Blogger autosaves now. Anyway, the yarn is some Regia-4 ply I had kicking around. It's knitting up pretty well. I love the colour. It even matches the mattress on my spare bed. It's the small things, I know.

Speaking of blocking:

I finally got around to blocking the body of my Not-So-Khaki Cables. Here they are looking all pretty. The yarn has softened up dramatically, and I'm no longer afraid of putting it on my body. Hopefully it'll fit. So this process was in preparation for knitting on the button band this week because I can't work on all those socks if I want to take them on my trip. The sweater will be too ungainly to pack though, so I can work on it to my heart's content. I can't wait for it to dry. You might be able to see at the top of the picture why my Caleb is also known as el Plumpo. He's been told to keep off the black sweater. So far, so good. He's got better things to do.

Like this:

Birdwatching. That puffed up bird in the tree is a source of endless entertainment. Anyway, with that, I'll go off to find something to do that doesn't involve knitting socks. Hmmm, what to do...

Yarn Haul

It's amazing how much can happen in a month's time. Since my last post, I've finished the body portions of my not-so-kakhi cables cardigan, and am most of the way finished on the sleeves. It's pretty boring stuff though, so I won't post pictures. I knit Shedir from Knitty's special breast cancer issue, but forgot to take pictures. Oops. But I also made some additions to my stash! It's going to be pretty photo heavy now, so bear with me.

This is Briggs & Little Tuffy:

The colour is Blue Jean, and while the photo is blurry, the shot on the right shows the colour pretty well. I got this while on a yarn crawl with a fellow knitter prior to a volunteer stint for the Ottawa Knitting Guild at a fibre festival at the textile museum in Almonte. We stopped at The Real Wool Shop in Carleton Place where I acquired 6 skeins of the Tuffy first, then at the Mississippi Blacksheep Gallery where I got this:

This is about 1900 yards of silk/yak laceweight. Possibly even cobweb, it's pretty fine. It's also so soft, I actually walked several blocks to find a bank machine in order to bring it home with me. Mississippi Blacksheep Gallery is really nice, but they don't take debit. Bear that in mind if you plan to visit. And you should, especially if you're a weaver.

Then there were my lovely parents who I love. They went to Australia in September (without me, which I don't love) and brought me back some yarn!!!

This is what seems to be DK weight yarn (21 st to 10 cm). It's 8 ply in 50 g balls, of which I have 10. They're natural colour spun from black sheep. It's a really pretty brownish grey colour that is hard to make out in the picture. I would have tried for more shots, but the wind was blowing really hard on my balcony and I still had more yarn to photograph. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with this, but it has to be really special. The fact that my folks not only tracked down yarn while in Australia, but also hauled it home with them, makes this the most special yarn in my stash. And considering that silk/yak stuff, that's saying a lot.

After that was the Knitting Guild's vendors night. I spent less than I budgeted, for that I am proud and I got a great haul:

This is Hacho from the Mirasol project which means that a portion of the money goes towards building schools for the children of Peruvian shepherds who are responsible for the sheep whose wool made this yarn. The colour is called Coral Reef. Pretty worthy cause and some really pretty yarn.

Koigu KPPM. I've read lots of blogs where the joys of Koigu have been described, and when I saw some available, I had to have it. The colour is P436 and is so pretty, I can't even begin to tell you.

Finally, this is hand dyed by a new company called Sweet Paprika Designs. This is their Messa di Voce sock yarn in the Blood Orange colourway. So pretty! It was really hard to choose a colour. I wish I could have bought all of them. Such is life, and I still need to find the funding for blocking wires so I can show you Swan Lake (previously known as Mystery Stole 3), plus the possibility of Yule knitting. Yikes, is it really almost the end of October?

Anyway, that's all for now. I wish I had some actual knitting to show off. I swear I have been knitting! Really. I have. I'll show you next time. Until then, here's some naughty critters:

I know they don't look terribly naughty here, but I'm sure Caleb is off to get into something or other. Possibly my knitting. That's all, I'm off.

Wings and Toes

Well, MS3 is winding down. The final clue is released tomorrow. I'm unsure how I feel about that. It's kind of like how I felt when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released. I don't want the knit-along to be over, but I want to see how the whole thing comes together. Personally I'm hoping for lots and lots of beads. I suspect that lace and beads may be my newest obsession. Ah well, it could be worse. And hey, I've got pictures! So on with it.

Clue 5 completed.

Just the wing portion of clue 5:

Close-up on the feathers in the wing:

And because I also have shots of clue 6 coming up, I thought a page break was in order. Behold the absolute cutest little tootsies:

Also, behold the amount of cat hair on my couch. Blech! Are we ready? No? Okay, something else to keep you going.... hmmm. How about this?

This was just one of the pies that my cousin John baked at the cottage. They were phenomenal!

Okay, enough dawdling. Here it is. My stole is up to date, even if my blog hasn't been. My finished clue 6:

I think it's looking pretty good. The line where the wing meets the body of the stole is a little harsh, but I don't think I mind too much. I love the feathers! But I've been working on Icarus off and on for a while, so that's a given. I just wish I had thought to add beads to it. Ah well, next time.

So I'm ready for clue 7 tomorrow, except I'm going out of town this weekend, and will be spending most of the day tomorrow on the road. No internet! Waaaaah! On the plus side, my parents (whose home I'm crashing) have a colour printer, so I can say goodbye to my pink highlighter. I won't be taking the stole with me, though. It's gotten far too large. It is, in fact as wide as my couch is deep, and who knows how long. I wonder how I'm going to block it. I'll worry about that later.

That's it for now. There has been a minor stash enhancement, but I forgot to take pictures of it. I was too busy admiring little pink toesies. I'll get to that next time.

Oops, I did it again... again...

For the record, I am not nor have I ever been a fan of Britney Spears.

Okay, now that that is on record, here goes again. My internet shut down mid post before, so...

I went yarn shopping. Again. Yay me!

So I got this:

Bernat Sox in Lime Hot. This says it's new. It's certainly new to me, and I hope it's okay. It's an acrylic nylon blend which is kinda, meh. But it's lime green! And even more important, it was under $3!!! Which is good because I also got this:

Regia Cotton Tip & Top Color in the 4085 colourway. I can't find what the actual name of the colour is and after the crash, I can't be bothered finding out right now. Maybe when I actually knit it. I also got these:

Regia 4-ply in Raspberry (1258) and Turquoise (1255). Regia needs to get more creative in the names of their colours. My yellow one from the other day is "Yellow."

So then after satifying my need to bulk up my sock yarn stash in preparation for summer knitting (I sadly only had 3 pairs worth stashed), I splurged on this:

This is only two of the six balls I bought of Filatura di Crosa Luxury 100% silk! The colour is called Natural and has been discontinued. I have no idea what I'm going to make out of this except that it will be a summer shell tank. I can't wait.

Now just to prove that I haven't been sitting idly, with nothing but shopping going on, I have progress shots of the second of my Meilenweit cotton Jaywalkers and the left front of my Not-so-Kakhi Cables cardi:

Gratuitous kitty shot:

And as if my babies weren't eye candy enough, the Eiffel tower in the late afternoon:

I have other Paris shots which I can share later, but I couldn't resist these two pictures taken from our hotel room. This was on the windowsill, just outside.

Two pats of butter and a partially eaten piece of cheese. Mmmm, just in case the guests get hungry, the hotel finds a way to get past the lack of mini-fridge in the room.

Just beyond that tasty snack (which, incidentally, we left for the next lucky visitor) was what was lovingly referred to as the jaccuzi:

Also, not so lovingly, as the cesspool. The roof of the building next door. I could have climbed out my window into it. Pretty gross. Luckily, we didn't spend much time in the hotel, cause... Paris!

Anyway, I've posted more pictures than ever in this post I think, so I will leave you with those lovely pictures. Me, I'm going to play with silk!

Yay Pictures!

Just not knitting ones. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong when I tried to add pictures to the blog. You'll never guess... I forgot to click in the box that says I agree with the rules. What. An. Idiot.

Oh well, I've got it now.

It turns out that all of the pictures I had taken of my knitting in the last year were absoulute crap. You couldn't see anything. Not colour. Not stitch definition. Not even what the FO actually is in some cases. Blah. I'm going to play with the existing pics and see if they can be salvaged, but in the meantime, I'd like to introduce my reasons for living:

Zara

Caleb

In these photos you can see the atrocious housekeeper that is me, but I've got better things to do with my time than housework. Like knitting. Oh yeah, no knitting photos. I bought a new camera today, so as soon as there's light to take pictures by, there will be knitting photos. Yay!