purl this!

Holiday Knits

2009-12-31T22:23:00.002-05:00

The Chevalier mittens knit up quite quickly - I really should knit more with bulky yarn.

The cuff is some Silk Mountain I recieved in a Secret Pal exchange a few years ago, and the body of the mitten is some Lamb's Pride Bulky that I picked up on clearance at some Toronto yarn shop (possibly the predecessor to the ill-fated In The Loop; I've forgotten what the original shop was named)

The cuff is reverse stockinette; I actually like the way it looks when the cuff is folded up.

I've got about half a skein of the Lamb's Pride left, as well as 1.5 skeins of the Silk Mountain (FYI - the yardage estimates for the book Knitting New Mittens and Gloves are VERY GENEROUS!!!). I was planning on knitting up a matching hat with the leftovers today (my last full day off before I head back to work tomorrow evening), but when the Gambler and I braved the "cold" (-15 and they call a cold weather alert in Toronto; I talk to my Mom in Winnipeg and she tells me how it was very cold for a few days, but now it's not too bad, because the temperature has gone up to -15) to go see a movie a few days ago, he bemoaned the fact that he doesn't have a scarf that he can wrap around his neck 3 times.

This is the first 2 feet of what is going to end up being about 8 feet of 1x1 rib. It's being knit out of some Mille Colori. Because it's 55 stitches across, the striping isn't as well defined as when I knit a narrower scarf using the same yarn. With the length of these colour repeats, it's probably preferable to be 41 or less stitches across to avoid colour changes within a stripe.

And I am proud to say that both of these projects are from stash yarns - one of my goals for next year is to actually get around to knitting up some of those skeins that are stowed in various nooks and crannies around the house.

Lovely weather we're having...

2009-12-20T17:24:00.003-05:00

The Gambler and I arrived in the Dominican Republic yesterday, ahead of the storm that is screwing up other people's travel plans. Nothing like watching scenes of snow filled streets while you are putting on sunscreen.

In addition to a stack of books, I did bring some knitting with me - it is a secret project which conveniently uses a yarn suitable for warm weather.

I ended up needing a last minute gift for someone, so last week I quickly knit up a cowl out of some Noro Kochoran that was sitting in my stash:

It's called the Wave Cowl, and because of the short rows, it works nicely with long colour repeats.

I have another skein of some Noro yarn (silver thaw?) sitting in the stash; when I get back I might knit another one of these cowls for myself. Somewhat uncharacteristically, I will have several days off after I return from holiday; I hope to at least start the second sleeve on my Poppy sweater, as well as knit up a pair of Chevalier (from the book Knitting New Mittens and Gloves)out of some Lamb's Pride Bulky that I have.

Speaking of that book, the Hand Hoodies that I knit last year have worked like a charm:

My fingers are sheltered from the wind unlike with regular fingerless gloves. I highly recommend them. Just in case you miss your flight to the Caribbean...

We'll have a Green Christmas...

2009-12-06T21:12:00.003-05:00

The Gambler and I decided to deal with holiday stress by taking evasive action this year; on December 19 we leave for the Dominican Republic for a week.

This gives us an excuse to not bother with putting up the Christmas tree this year (I don't remember what last year's excuse was...)

So instead I knit a Christmas tree out of some Manos:

With cat for scale:

Decorated with vintage buttons (I inherited The Gambler's Nana's button collection):

The pattern is available at Kniterary, my LYS away from home.

Next year I might just knit 2 of these out of some bulky yarn and make festive touques for myself and The Gambler.

Knit a sweater in November - hahah that's a good one!

2009-11-18T22:40:00.003-05:00

I am so out of the loop that I did not even realize it is National Cram an Insane Amount of Activity Into Thirty Days Month (NaCrInAmAcInThMo?) until I was dropping in on a SnB that I don't usually attend and someone mentioned that they were on track to knit their target number of stitches for the month. The person suggested that one could still meet a goal of 15,000 by knitting 1,000 stitches per day.

Right now there are some weeks where I might be lucky to get 100 stitches in. Luckily, I have been off since Saturday, and between naps I have had the time to do some work on Poppy.

I have started to do some decreases, and am quite happy with how the sleeve is fitting at this point.

I'm very happy to have reached the point where I can perceive actual progress on the sleeve. Unfortunately, I am wondering if my somewhat irregular "jogs" where I switch skeins are too obvious, meaning that I should rip it back and start over:

Does it look too Frankensweaterish?

Getting ready for The Games

2009-11-08T19:47:00.001-05:00

Somerset and Greedo are hoping to make the synchronized napping team...

If I could knit during meetings, I'd have a drawer full of sweaters!

2009-11-07T19:38:00.005-05:00

Sigh.

Happenings of late have led to many meetings that I must attend - sometimes 2 or 3 a day. There is much need for contingency planning and trouble-shooting right now. And then there's that whole providing patient care schtick; it does tend to cut into my knitting time. Heck - it's cutting into my sleeping time - yesterday was the start of 3 days off, and my afternoon was spent taking a 4 hour nap.

This weekend's project is socks:

(I really really need to start taking pictures with my real camera rather than just with my Blackberry)
These are socks for The Gambler that I started knitting while we were on holiday in September - I am calling them Tweedmanaire - the pattern is Luminaire, the yarn is Regia Tweed which Glenna passed on to me. I've just finished the foot of the first sock, and I am halfway through the heel of the second sock. The second sock is that far along because I got to a part of the sock where I had to refer to the pattern, so I slipped the stitches onto waste yarn and resumed work on the first sock to make it more transit knitting appropriate.

Poppy is proceeding at a slow pace - the first sleeve is in a black hole phase where I knit and knit but it doesn't get any longer. (I'm not working on it this weekend because it is sitting at the condo - I brought it with me to Wednesday's SnB, and then stayed at the condo that night so that I could make it to the hospital at the crack of dawn.) I've already found my post-Poppy project: The Diagonal-Front Jacket from Debbie Bliss Home

Of course it's that time of year where I am starting to think about Christmas presents...maybe this year will be a good year to give books!

Special Delivery

2009-10-24T13:48:00.002-04:00

I ordered some yarn from Serendipitous Ewe a little while ago. In addition to some of her Sock Summit colourways, I also got a custom colourway:

Hmmm - what's this?

There's something about this colourway that looks familiar...

Call to Arms

2009-10-23T14:58:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I had 2 days that I could devote chunks of time to knitting.

This was the result:

It's now resembling an actual garment! Only the sleeves remain.

As the pattern is written, I should be knitting them from the cuff up, but I am going to try pickinng up stitches around the armhole and knitting them top down using the technique described in Wendy Bernard's book Custom Knits. My only concern is that it involves short row shaping at the top of the sleeve. Since I have at least 4 different dyelots (it is entirely possible that each of the 6+ skeins I have comes from a different dyelot), I am going to have to figure out how I can alternate skeins while doing short rows.

Then there's that whole matter of all those ends at the bottom...

Picking up Poppy

2009-10-11T13:54:00.002-04:00

Next week my parents are coming to visit us. Visits from my parents are always a great incentive to try to tidy up our place a bit. On Friday The Gambler decided to attack our loft, which functions as our office and also stores many books. It's also where I have a few plastic drawer units that contain yarn. Non sock yarn tends to go up into the office.

When I came home (the joy of my new position is having to attend meetings at work that are held on my days off), he pointed out that there was much yarn in the loft which was not in a drawer. There was yarn in bags, yarn in the closet, and yarn in bins in the closet.

Sigh. I don't want to count how many sweaters I have the yarn for that are just waiting to be knit up. So I am really really really going to make an effort to curtail the aquisition of new yarn, and start using up what I have.

I hung out with Glenna yesterday; we had lunch and then went to The Purple Purl. I mentioned to her that amongst all that yarn up in the study was the bottom panel of a Poppy I started 2 years ago. She pointed out that if I had completed the bottom, that was a huge chunk of the sweater already completed.

So last night, I picked up Poppy for the first time since we moved.

The body was knit with Cascade 220 and Mission Falls, and the remainder of the sweater is being knit out of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Black Purl. Now, there is a bit of a story behind the Shepherd Worsted. Initially I got 2 skeins in exchange in a swap through the knitty board - it was a bit of a screwup, because I sent the other person sock weight yarn not realizing that she was trading worsted weight yarn. I subsequently sent her more yarn to make up for the difference.

When I decided to knit Poppy using the Black Purl instead of Silk Garden, I tried to find more Black Purl. That was when the colourway was at the height of it's popularity, so I ended up doing another swap or 2 through the knittyboard, and one person was kind enough to send me several balls that she had leftover from a previous project. Needless to say, the yarns come from many different dye lots.

So I am going to be switching between skeins very regularly (sometimes every row), and am going to have to try and balance out the amounts of some of the outlier skeins to keep some degree of homogeneity in this sweater. I guess it could be worse - it could be a solid colour yarn!

I did promise some yarn pr0n; this was some yarn that I picked up in Italy at a little yarn shop in a small town called Monte San Savino. 1400 metres of laceweight wool for an astoundingly low price - I think it cost about 5 euros.

The colours are great - purples with blue, red, and some bronze and green thrown in as well.

I will have to find a nice place in the loft to store it.

Slow news day

2009-10-09T18:28:00.003-04:00

Nope, nothing of note happening today...
No siree Bob.

Have your toddler bring his driver's licence...

2009-10-07T08:02:00.002-04:00

Oh dear, another one of those "Yes, almost a whole month has gone by since my last post, and even though there has been travelling and knitting and cute cat pics, I am quickly posting a picture I took with my Blackberry" posts.

I do have a bit of an excuse - I have been promoted at work to Lead Intensivist, which translates into the person who makes the call schedules, attends all sorts of meetings, and tries to recruit new people to join our team so that I can have more time to knit.
It also involves putting up with a not insignificant amount of crap from the person who was recently fired from the position, but that could be a blog unto its own.

Will try to get some Actual Knitting Photos and even some yarn pr0n up this weekend.

Shawl and a Class promo

2009-09-10T22:29:00.004-04:00

I did not manage to get much work done on the Roman Wedding Shawl while I was on call:

Cat shown for scale. And because he is so cute.

However, since finishing ICU call last Sunday morning, I have made much progress.

I really should link directly to the Morning Surf Scarf pattern I guess. Although you can't go wrong checking out Random Cyn's blog.

As written, the "seafoam" sections are separated by stockinette - I eliminated a single row so that it alternates between stockinette and reverse stockinette. I have realized that the pattern is a) very forgiving and b) a bit of a pain to frog, so I am not worried about the errors - some less obvious than others. This "no-Frog" plan has accelerated the rate at which this is shawl is growing. It actually turns out that just one skein won't be enough - so this week I picked up a second skein. I imagine that I will have enough left over to do a proper fringe on it (once I get home that is - I still am holding out hope that I can get it done in time for the wedding)

Gratuitous cute cat shot.

And for the class promo:

The lovely ladies at Passionknit are holding an inaugural Beginner Crochet Class on the last Monday in September. The class project is a Noro Granny Square in your choice of yarn. Above is a Kureyon Sock Square. Below is a Kureyon Classic Square.

The class will be held in the afternoon, and one or two spots remain. Contact Passionknit if you are interested.

Roman Wedding Shawl

2009-09-02T10:02:00.001-04:00

I can't remember if I have mentioned that we are going on a trip ~~in September~~ this month

OK, who stole August? I swear that last week was the first week of August. I hate getting older.

Anyways, the reason for the trip is a wedding that is going to be held in Rome. Unless, dear blog reader, you work for Revenue Canada - in that case, the entire purpose of this trip is for me to attend the European Respiratory Meeting in Vienna.

One of The Gambler's good friends is getting married there. On the 11th (one of the cheapest days to fly), we travel first to Vienna, and then on the 16th we go to Rome for the wedding, which is a few days later. Since there is no way that I could finish my Ella Freezes Over prior to the wedding, I am attempting to knit a "quick" stole out of some Americo Cotton Flame that I got in exchange for an extra skein of Americo Cotton Alpaca yarn that I purchased so that I'd have enough yarn for the Mumble Cardigan.

Background info for non Greater Toronto Area readers - Americo is a shop in downtown Toronto with its own line of yarns. Cotton Flame is a thick/think cotton yarn that is wonderfully silky.

There is a popular (in the GTA) pattern called Roman Holiday which uses 3 skeins of Cotton Flame. Since I am at short least 1.5 skeins and a few months of knitting time to attempt that, I decided to try knitting a Morning Surf Scarf

Here's the start - it's an easy enough pattern, although not completely mindless; I have had to rip the odd row back because I was off by a few stitches at the end of the row. I hope to get a fair amount of it done while waiting in the airport and on the plane. In addition to however much I am able to knit between now and the 11th, that is.

A New Old LYS

2009-08-27T22:35:00.004-04:00

I am now officially spoiled.

Before, I envied those who lived mere steps from a nice friendly neighborhood LYS.
Now I did live close to a shop which sold yarn, but the customer service there left much to be desired. (Remember the Seinfeld episode where they went to get soup? Enough said)
If I wanted to go visit a yarn shop and just hang out for a while, I would have to travel anywhere from 20 - 45 minutes by either car or public transit.

But lo and behold, the other day I noticed a thread on Ravelry about that nearby Yarn Shop having new management!

It turns out that the "new" Passionknit is a super friendly place. And slowly but surely it is filling up with lovely yarns.

As you can see, they are one delivery away from completing their Wall of Bliss!

Word is that there will be a Monday night SnB starting some time this fall - and loads of classes too. I can hardly wait!!

I have really got to start making some headway on stash reduction!

Decisions Decisions

2009-08-25T20:30:00.003-04:00

A few days ago I went to pick a few things up at the grocery store. Milk was of course at the top of the list (even though I am a big fan of variety in meals, I can eat the same cereal for breakfast every single day - I'm never sure what to make of this.) I am sure that I stood in front of the milk setion of the dairy aisle for a good 5 minutes, trying to decide what to get. Ultrafiltered. Calcium enriched. Omega 3 enriched. Skim Plus (with extra milk solids so that it tastes like 1% milk).

I was paralyzed with indecision. Completely immobilized. Could not for the life of me make a decision as to what type of milk to buy.*

So I bought the soy milk that was on sale because it was cheaper than all of them.

This was the first iteration of the Rorschach Socks: unfortunately, the "diamonds" don't really show up well against the colour changes. The yarn does stripe nicely, however. I can also already tell that the sock will be a bit bigger than I prefer.

So I ripped back to the point where the toe was 64 stitches, and started knitting Monos Locos/Toe Up Monkeys. But I didn't like the way that the yarn was spiralling.

Now I was using 2.75 mm needles, so I thought that perhaps I should go down a needle size - that way I could do a 72 stitch sock and not have the fit/spiralling issues.

I managed to decide** between a 2mm and 2.25 mm addi lace needle and started knitting Unholey Monkeys with a 2mm needle. The stitch pattern doesn't get totally lost (you can see a bit of it above my foot stigmata there)...

But the stripes are definitely spiralling. Sigh. Maybe I should have gone with the 2.25 mm circs. Or maybe 2.5 mm is the way to go...

*A few years ago, I read a book called The Paradox of Choice; here's a link to a lecture by the author.

** Of course, the milk crisis may have been triggered by the fact that I am a Libra - one of the nurses at work (who has a birthday a few days before me) and I have a running joke about how we can agonize over meaningless decisions - she had the hardest time choosing which background to go with for her son's school pictures, and many a time I have to ask The Gambler to pick which pair of shoes/top/etc I should wear for a particular occasion.

The Tenacity of Beauty

2009-08-24T09:01:00.003-04:00

As I walked down our street the other day, I looked down into the gutter.

It looked like someone had dropped a plant onto the road.

But on closer inspection, it appears that this plant is rooted in the organic matter that has built up on the street. In other parts of our neighborhood, there are weeds of all sorts that are thriving in the gutter. I don't know if this is a normal occurence, or if this is a byproduct of our recent municipal strike - maybe we missed a few street cleanings?

The streets beautify themselves.

Maybe next year I'll toss some sunflower seeds onto the street and see what happens.

Better than drugs

2009-08-23T08:03:00.001-04:00

Anti-inflammatories did squat, P#rcoc@t makes me sleepy, and Lyrica makes me feel drunk (without the hangover at least).

So right now I am spelling relief T-R-A-C-T-I-O-N. That thing in the lower left corner of the photograph is a bag holding 20 lbs of water, which is hanging from a pulley that is hanging from the door to our main floor bathroom.

I sit like this for 10-30 minutes several times a day. The idea is to take the pressure off of the cervical spine so that there is less pressure on the disc. The cats find it quite fascinating.

I posted these photos on Flickr because I took them with my Blackberry - if they end up being "faved" by some bondage ~~freakshows~~ enthusiasts, this post will disappear. So enjoy my frog imitation while you can.

New socks!

2009-08-22T20:43:00.000-04:00

I finished the Close Your Eyes And Think of England Socks:

You have to love that Lorna's Laces yardage; I still have 20g of yarn remaining.

So tonight I plan to cast on for my next pair with this yarn:

It's Flat Feet by Conjoined Creations - I picked it up in Alaska during the Sea Socks Cruise last year. Because each flat is an original, so there are no real colourways. I have taken the liberty of labelling it "Rorschach's Blue Period". The pattern I plan to use is Diamante; I selected it because the designer has large feet, so I know for certain that the pattern should fit me as written (plus it is toe up; . It's going to be interesting to see how this knits up The flat is about 100 stitches across, (and the sock is 72 stiches) so it's really hard to predict. I guess that the green is pretty likely to pool, but I have no idea what is going to happen with the purple/blue/white bits. I'm christening them "Rorschach Socks"; hopefully they will help me to maintain my sanity.

It could be worse...

2009-08-22T18:06:00.005-04:00

The issue with my neck (a prolapsed C6/7 disk) is unfortunate, but at least the big old tree in our backyard* made it through Friday's storm OK.

This house is about 8 doors down from us:

This side street is a block and a bit away:

These people have been without power for 40+ hours;

And 2.5 blocks away from us there was this carnage:

Luckily, the only damage was downed power lines

As I walked by, I heard a father reassure his small daughter "It's OK, the wires can't shock you - they aren't electrified anymore"

It must have been quite the sound when this tree limb was ripped off by the wind.

And we didn't even get hit by the tornados that touched down north of the city.

*This tree is right beside our garage, and is taller than our house. If it toppled over it would take out 2 garages at minimum, and could easily hit one of 4 houses. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Trifecta of misery

2009-08-21T13:13:00.002-04:00

Right now, I am dealing with
- Seeing The Blue Screen Of Death every time I turn on my new laptop
- Pain in my right arm due to a prolapsed disc in my neck*
- The Gambler being out of town until the end of next week

Wah.

This neck collar wasn't able to provide adequate traction, so now I intemittently hook myself up to a contraption that involves pulleys and straps and a bag that contains 20 lbs of water. The cats find it quite fascinating.

I am very tempted to buy myself some yarn from Indigodragonfly.

Or maybe I'll just spread the word about her offerings so that no yarn will remain by the time I make a selection...

* Rest assured that I can still knit (what else am I supposed to do while I'm sitting in the traction device?) Luckily I have not lost any strength or coordination; I just have to deal with a constant aching pain in my forearm and numbness in my index and middle fingers.

Goings on

2009-08-03T08:48:00.004-04:00

My but this summer has flown by! Sadly, this has been partly because I have been working more than I should (We really really really need to hire another 2 doctors to work in our ICU).

However, I am in the midst of a short stretch of days off (it was supposed to be 10 days, but that shrank down to 6 all of a sudden - grrrrr), so I have been able to get out a bit.

Thursday evening The Gambler and I were finally able to sit down and celebrate our anniversary together. So we cracked open a bottle of wine.

Literally.

This wasn't even a bottle of wine that had travelled cross country during one of our moves - he had picked it up less than 2 weeks ago!

On Friday I hung out with Glenna and Kim (who is a very talented dyer: check out her wares here and here); we had lunch, then visited The Naked Sheep and The Purple Purl.

There were many pretty yarns to see, but all in all, this was the most beautiful thing I saw that day:

The 5+ week long civic workers strike is over! Garbage cleanup has begun!!!

And I have even had some time for knitting - I picked up Ella Freezes Over after ohaboutayearandahalforso.

Note to self - converting a shawl pattern from worsted weight on 6mm needles to laceweight on 3mm needles may seem like a good idea, but it is not. Going from a gauge of 20 st/24 rows to 32 st/40 rows does not make for a quick knit.

3287 days and counting...

2009-07-22T22:51:00.002-04:00

There was a special delivery for me at work today:

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. Sadly, I won't see the Gambler until Monday because I am staying at the condo near the hospital during my 7 day on call stint. In past years we have managed to celebrate the day properly, but I don't have to see him to know that this was the start of something awesome.

I love you sweetie.

You're the best.

These are the cat days of summer...

2009-07-21T19:44:00.002-04:00

I have always associated the phrase "the dog days of summer" with long hot days where the air is thick, and all you want to do is find a cool place in the shade to stretch out for a nap.

So far, we haven't had any of those type of days (or if we did, I was stuck in a windowless overly airconditioned building for more hours than is healthy). If anything, the weather is generally pretty conducive to napping with ~~mini heat sources~~ cats. Actually, I have been quite happy with the summer weather we are having this year: warm enough in the daytime so that you can wear summer clothes, but not so hot and sticky that you could stand to take several showers per day; cool at night so you can sleep, with enough rain that our outdoor plants will survive without frequent watering.

As has been the case so often of late, work is stealing much time from the rest of my life. Not enough time for sleeping, let alone all of the fun stuff, like knitting.

This was what I accomplished this weekend:

Magic slippers to match the BSC. Knit out of leftover Kureyon sock because I couldn't find the rest of the Regia yarn that was leftover. It's a nice little pattern which is easily memorized: I will probably knit another pair that is a bit larger, since I still have more leftover Kureyon sock. They will be packed up soon and delivered to the intended recipient some time in the next few weeks. Hopefully.

By the way, as I entered this project into Ravelry, I discovered that there is now the option to enter data to allow one to calculate the actual product cost!!! Quelle horreur!
Interestingly, the default currency looks to be Icelandic krona - maybe the total won't seem so bad in a currency one is totally unfamiliar with.

Seven Score

2009-07-10T18:43:00.003-04:00

You know how you sometimes get very caught up in weird conversations?
As we were driving home from the cottage, the subject of birthdays came up. The Gambler said that maybe he would turn 40 this year (rather than 2 years from now) to get it over with.

I made the comment that the only reason why the ages of 20, 30, 40, 50 etc caused so much angst was that they ended in zeros. I pointed out that if our numbering system was base 7 rather than base 10, that we would have totally different milestone years to dread.

(I have no idea why I picked base 7 *- maybe it was fate)

We then got in an ~~argument~~ heated debate over what base 10 number was the equivalent of 100 in base 7. The Gambler said it was 70, I said it was 49. To try to prove my point, I counted out loud in base 7 as I kept track of the (base 10) number of digits I had spoken with my fingers. Which is harder to do than you would think it might be. We were still doing the
"70" "No, 49" "No, it's 70" thing when I started to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Anyways. Pictures. Knitting. How about some pictures of knitting?

Not my knitting - here are 2 knit garments on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum. They were from an exhibition of the collections of the 2008 Royal Collage of Art Fashion graduates.

This dress was knit out of triple stranded Rowan Polar; the designer used the custom made needles shown behind the garment to knit it.

I wonder how large her tension swatch was.

This dress is machine knit. The neat thing about it is that the trompe l'oeil zipper is not printed onto the fabric, but it was programmed into the actual design using 4 different shades of yarn (apparently the maximum number of separate yarns that can be used with this particular knitting machine). So theoretically, it could be reproduced in handknitting using either stranded or intarsia techniques. Which is cool. To me at least. But then again, I get all worked up about wacky things like numbers.

*I never did watch more than a single episode of Dr Who in my formative years - I was more into Monty Python. Which is a good thing, since I don't know how long it would take me to knit the requisite scarf.

More England

2009-07-08T19:13:00.004-04:00

Sadly, my attempts to post every day in July has been foiled by dodgy wireless coverage at the cottage we are staying at this week.

These shots are from our last night in England - we ate at a seaside restaurant near Dover. This gull was on the beachside pathway.

The fellow who created this beach pebble art told us that one of his previous creations was a life-sized caravan.
Apparently finding pebbles of the appropriate colour can be a challenge at times. Afterwards I regretted not having asked him if the red stone had inspired him to do the gull, or if that was his plan from the start.