The Power of 6

First things first.  I've been tagged by my good friend Jennith at The Blog Bog of the Tundra.

This is the 6th photo from the 6th folder in My Pictures:

 

A couple of friends and I were lurking inside the Chateau Laurier Hotel being silly.  This bunny ears thing has become a bit of a trend of late.  Juvenile, but oh so fun :)  I don't think Mr. Lennon minds too much.  Mr. Trudeau is equally unlikely to be offended.  Yoko, on the other hand, if you happen to see this blog, all apologies.  No offense intended :)

The rules:

1. Go to your documents. (Or if you are a Mac user, go to your pictures folder)

2. Go to your 6th folder.

3. Go to your 6th picture.

4. Blog about it.

5. Tag six others to do the same.

I don't have many bloggy friends to tag, so if anyone reads this and want to play along please feel free.  Just let me know.  Incidentally, if you have a chance check out Jennith's photography.  It's phenomenal.  Just sayin.

Onward.  Knitting stuff.  This is still a knitting blog.  Behold:

Oh, wait.  Zara, get out of the gorram shot!

Thank you.  Now.  Finished Mosey legwarmers from Knitty.  These were designed by Susan Power and are one of the first projects I have actually used to suggested yarn.  They are knit from Patons Classic Wool Merino on 4.5 mm needles.  I love these, but suspect I won't be getting much wear out of them for a while.  It is currently -15 outside with a windchill making it feel life -23.  Note those temperatures are in Centigrade, for those unfamiliar with that scale, -23 is -9 F.  Legwarmers ain't gonna cut it around here :P  In the meantime, a couple more shots of them before they get put away:

     

Again, I can't stress how much I love these, but continuing on:

Reglisse is finished.  I'm going to have to mail it, but the Ottawa bus drivers are on strike (STILL) and I can't get to the post office.  Thank goodness 2 year olds don't have a huge concept of stuff like late birthday presents.  I hope...

Here it is.  I'm pretty pleased with it.  I just hope it fits.  If I understand it correctly, this kid is enormous.  I knit the 3 year old size, but to my untrained eye, it looks really small.  Here's hoping right.  Here's a shot of the zigzag motif down the sleeve:

So, to recap, this is Reglisse.  It's from an old vintage Phildar book that was my mother's.  It's knit from Lang Jawoll Silk which was chosen in part for it's colour (Reglisse is licorice in French), as well as for the fact that it is supposedly superwash.  And it is knit on 2.5 mm needles.  Yikes!  This yarn is gorgeous.  I have enough left over to make socks for me, yay!

So on the whole, ufos are becoming fos, and with any luck, I'll continue to have stuff to share.  I did a big chunk of the Serendipity Stole (remember that?) today, and will hopefully be able to share the second last clue with you shortly.  In the meantime, try and stay warm.  Knitting helps :)

Happy New Year!

Belatedly :)

So it's another year.  Hopefully it will be full of lots of knitty goodness, and I'll have lots to show for it.  First, though I'll cap off the projects from 2008.  This is my final Finished Object (or Objects to be more precise) of 2008:

Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  I followed her instructions, with no changes, and came out with a perfect little jacket, who knew?

This shot is a better representation of the colour.  The yarn is Sublime  Superwash Merino, in a really pretty green shade that I used previously for a coworker's blanket.  This time it's for a very good friend of mine who is expecting her second in May (I think it's May, I'm not good at the baby stuff).  

The booties are Saartje's Bootees in the same yarn.  Here's a better shot:

Again, the colour is best in the previous picture.  I'm in love with these booties.  I've seen them all over the blogosphere, and always thought they were pretty cute, but seriously, until I actually had one finished in my hand, I had no idea.  Hopefully this little ensemble will fit, I'll have to wait and see.  Might also have to force myself into disgusting newborn presence in order to acquire photographic proof.  Blah, what can you do?

In other projects, I've almost finished the Reglisse pullover it's knit, just unassembled.  Soon, I promise.  Also, I have finished my Mosey legwarmers.  They are fabulous, but have yet to be photographed due to a combination of laziness on my part, frigid temperatures that are far beyond the possibility of legwarmers being enough to keep limbs from falling off, and a bus strike here in Ottawa that has reduced me (as an individual who chooses the more environmental public transportation system over owning a vehicle) to becoming a creature that lives in the dark.  Hopefully, I'll get some pictures soon.

Secrets revealed

I seem to have been more secure in my speed knitting abilities when, in my last post, I suggested finished Moseys, but in my defense, I've been working on time sensitive projects.  The one that was all stealthy has been gifted, so now I can reveal it here:

Jared Flood's Druid Mittens.  I loved these on the cover of Vogue Knitting this fall, and wanted to make them for me, but when I bought the magazine, a friend of mine loved them too.  So, she's got them.  They're knit in the specified yarn in the exact same colourway.  That being Jamieson's Spindrift in Leprechaun.  These were a really fun knit, and I have yarn to knit some for me too, in a turquoise colour.  

But I have other projects to finish first.  The most pressing is this one:

The Reglisse pullover.  This is the picture from the vintage magazine.  Love the collar and bowl haircut.  You can's see it clearly, but on the next page, the same little boy is also wearing knitted pants.  I decided to resist trying those out :)

Here's my progress so far.  It's getting pretty close to the wire, but three year olds aren't very big, and hopefully the sleeves won't be too heinous.  I still have to figure out how to adapt them into the round.  It might be faster to just knit them flat and deal with the seam.  We'll see.  My nephew's birthday is on January 3, so I have a small time cushion, but not enough for me to relax quite yet.   How about a close-up:

It's pretty dark, but with the licorice coloured yarn, the flash just doesn't work.  I'm actually loving this yarn and the pattern.  Who knew knitting in the round in reverse stocking stitch would be so enjoyable?  Anyway, I'm flying to my parents' place tomorrow morning, so I'd better get a move on and find out whether Porter allows knitting needles on the flight.  

Happy holidays all, whatever they may be, and peace be with you.

This just in...

Yay!  There has been success!  I've been fighting with my Internet Explorer for the last little while.  It seems to insist on shutting down every time I close a popup window.  The photo installation window for Blogger, for example.  So now I'm using Safari.  And lo, pictures:

First up, the third section of the Serendipity (aka Mystery 4) stole.  I'm still plugging along on this, very slowly, but I'm determined to finish it before the new year.  Next up:

  

The first of the Mosey legwarmers.  So far, These are turning out pretty well.  I'm actually more than half way finished the second one since this picture was taken, but couldn't be bothered photographing it.  By the next post, theoretically I should be finished them.  Now for the priorities:

This is holiday knitting.  I wasn't going to post it until after the holidays, but I'm sure that the individual who will receive this doesn't read my blog.  I doubt very much that their mother does either :)  So I know it doesn't look like much, but by some miracle, or possibly merely knitting genius:

That weird piece of knitted fabric becomes this.  Elizabeth Zimmerman's brilliant, and always popular Baby Surprise Jacket.  The yarn is Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK, and I used it for a blanket for another expectant mother.  This one is for an as yet gender-determined baby due in the spring.  I still had yarn left over so I thought these would be fun:

Saartje's Bootees.  Also in the same Sublime yarn.  I have knit both, but haven't done the seaming yet.  They are pretty sweet.  Next I need to walk to the notions store and get some buttons for both the jacket and the booties.  I hope she likes them.  I suspect that baby won't care one way or another.  Baby does, however have a big brother, and I can't knit a sweater for one and not the other.  So:

Three balls of Lang Jawoll Silk.  This is planning on being a vintage sweater found in an old Phildar book.  Phildar Mailles Enfants No. 54.  I can't find a date on it, but it screams 1970s.  The sweater is called Reglisse which I think means Licorice.  So the colour is a deep charcoal grey with some lighter grey flecks in it.  I'm done the ribbing at the bottom of the body, and have begun the main body of it.  It's mostly reverse stockingette stitch, and I'm doing it in the round.  I might be insane to knit an entire sweater in purl.  We'll see how it goes.

There may or may not be other stealth knitting going on, but that's all you get for now :)  I did manage to stumble across a great deal on yarn for charity projects.  I don't particularly like working with acrylics, but each one of these bags cost me a whopping $2.09.  I'm seeing lap rugs and possibly hats:

I did some researching in the rest of the yarn section at the Zellers store I was at and determined that the bag on the left (blue and lavender) is TLC Amore, and the three bags on the right are Phentex Chunky.  That's what I've got for now.  I'd better get that holiday knitting out of the way, and then I can think about what I'll do with this.

Peer pressure

First up, I'd like to apologize for the horrifying lack of pictures lately. It's not as if I haven't been knitting. I have, if only sporadically. It's not as if I haven't taken photographs of the knitting I have done. I got a shot of my completed Seredipity Stole clue 3 the other day. The problem is my new printer. Huh? Yeah. I got my printer connected to my computer which had me very excited as it allowed me to actually print out an assignment in order to turn it in to my Astronomy professor. Turns out, professors like it when you turn in your assignments. Go figure. It's a great printer. It prints in colour, it scans (an excellent feature for tricky knitting charts in magazines you don't want to bugger up), it might even make julienne fries. Unfortunately, its software seems to have bunged up my computer's ability to recognize my camera or its software! So. I'm focussed on medieval Japan for now (for which I need my printer), but hopefully I can figure out the problem and show pictures soon.

As for peer pressure, the Yarn Harlot has been cranking out scarves of late. I've been admiring her lovely scarves thinking "those are pretty, but I don't feel a need to knit one." I thought the same thing when I saw Brooklyn Tweed's scarf. Now, while I don't need a new scarf, and I can't think of anyone else who could use one right now, I'm finding myself thinking something new. Now it's all about "Must. Knit. Scarf" Damn good thing I have no Noro in my stash at the moment, or I might be in serious trouble.

With any luck, I'll get the pictures sorted out soon. Until then, I'll keep knitting.

I'm it

I've been tagged. My first ever meme. Anneh has asked me to share 7 random facts about myself.

The rules:
-Link to your tagger and list these rules
-Share 7 facts about yourself (random or unusual)
-Tag 7 other people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs
-Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

So here goes:
1. I eat everything separate. I'll eat all of one thing, then another, and another, until I'm done everything. In a specific order, too. Vegetables, potato, meat. I also really don't like it when things come into contact with each other either. Lots of jokes have been made at my expense regarding baby plates with divided sections.
2. I don't like chick movies. I like movies with lots of death, violence and gore. I truly loathed the Notebook.
3. I hate silence. It doesn't matter what I'm doing in my house, the tv or stereo are always on. Failing that, I'll talk to myself. I try not to do that in public, but I'm almost never without my iPod. I don't know what I'll do when it gives up the ghost.
4. I'm a Witch. Seriously. Wiccan is the preferred term, but it's tantamount to the same thing. I don't spend a lot of time on it, though. I'm kinda like Catholics that go to mass on christmas and easter.
5. I'm back in school after 8 years away. My degree is in English Literature, which anyone who knew me in high school would find hilarious. I took grade 12 English twice, and OAC English 3 times. In my defense, most of that was because I didn't get on with my teacher, and dropped it a couple of times. Still, doesn't lend me to an English scholar :)
6. I don't like children. Babies give me the creeps, and ultrasound pictures gross me out. They look like little aliens or something. Shudder.
7. I love sorting things. My mother had a big box full of miscellaneous loose buttons, and I would dump it out on the living room floor and sort them regularly. Then, when I was done, I would dump them all back in the box so I could sort them again next time. It didn't come as much of a surprise when I became a cataloguer. I guess I was born for library work.

So there you have it. If it wasn't clear before that I'm a little off, it must be crystal now. I'm not going to pass this on. If anyone reads this and wants to play along, feel free. Just let me know in the comments.

My Serendipity Stole is coming along nicely. I'm done my second clue 3, and will get pictures up asap. Until then, I hope this has been entertaining :)

Progress Report

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm still here. I've been finding that my knitting has been sadly affected by my educational situation. Professors are so rude. They assign papers, and assignments and exams willy nilly with no respect for a person's knitting time. What can you do? I have been finding some time, but not so much for blogging. So if I actually have anybody still with me, here is the payoff :)

Mystery Stole 4 has been named. It will henceforth be known as the Serendipity Stole. And here is my progress:

Clues 1 through 6. That's all of them. This is, however only half of the stole. This has been set aside so I can go back and knit clues 1 through 5 again. Then comes the grafting fun. How bout some shots of this section?

This makes it hard to see the beads, but I like how the stitches pop.

Some diamonds. Cat hair is extra ;)

This makes me think of fish. I don't know if that was the intent, but there could be a seaweed, underwater thing going on with this stole. I love how the edges are all wavy.

So I've finished knitting clue 1 again, and have started on clue 2. Hopefully I'll get through that one by the end of the weekend (2.5 hours of Coronation Street on Sundays are prime knitting time) and can get on to clue 3. I think that's where we left off before, so that's where I'll try and get back to photographing it. I'm hoping that I can get it ready to be worn during the festive season. Crossing fingers. I have two assignments due in November, so we'll see. Knitting is excellent for procrastination.

In other project news, I got nothing. I'm pretty much focused on the Serendipity Stole for now. One project at a time makes for slow blogging, but it's about all I can handle right now. Hasn't stopped me from shopping though:

Tidepool Heather, and Green Tea Heather

Eggplant and Sweet Potato. All Knit Picks Palette. These are planning on being some mittens, gloves and or socks. Someday.

I will admit to some stealth knitting which will get some blogtime in December or the new year. Enough about that for now. Never know who's reading. So. Back to work.