Knittingupastorm

2008-08-14T10:47:00.002-04:00

Hi guys - it has been so long since I last updated -that sentence sounds like I should be in a 12 step program! I have been so busy the last few months and can finally share some exciting news.

I am the proud new owner of the Naked Sheep, located in the Beach, Toronto, Ontario.

This blog will not be updated anymore, but will keep it around for sentimental reasons. Blogging was such a big part of my life and if I wasn't so crazy for it, I wouldn't have known about all the yarn/pattern trends, forums and of course what a wonderful big community the knit world is.

Please check out our website and blog in the next few weeks because they will be ALOT of store changes, sales, new yarns, books, some great classes and workshops I hope will be helpful.

If you are in the Toronto area or are visiting, please drop by, I will be in the store 4pm to close and on weekends. Emily and Sarah will continue to work at the Sheep and I think I would be lost without them! They have welcomed me to the store and have some fabs ideas to make the Sheep the yarn store for you.

To all that have read my blog over the last few years, Thank you so much for taking an interest in my knitting and my life. I have 'met' quite a few other bloggers over the years and will continue to read their blogs.

2008-07-03T13:38:00.002-04:00

Hello, I am still alive but busier than hell. I am working on a big project that hopefully will be officially complete by next week and I will share more with you then.

I am knitting three pairs of socks for my friend who gave me the dining room table and sideboard. I've completed two pairs and working on the first sock of the 3rd pair. Her feet are going to be super duper warm this winter.

At this point, I am thankful I have these plain socks to knit, because my brain is not ready for anything complicated.

2008-06-23T16:19:00.002-04:00

Modelled picture of me wearing Green Gable:

and another one, just for good measure:

Looking at this picture of me reminds me I either a: need to get bangs or b: botox. I understand bangs are cheaper. But boxtox lasts longer.

2008-06-16T09:08:00.002-04:00

FO: Green Gable, Long Sleeved
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease
Needles: 4.5mm Knitpicks Options
Gauge: 4 stitches to the inch. Pattern calls for 5 stitches to the inch
Verdict: LOVE IT!
Mods: Waist decreases and hip increases. Knit long sleeves (pretty obvious!)

Very easy project indeed! I was inspired by Brenda's black inky (ravelry link)- what a copy cat eh?

Want more knitting? I am knitting three pairs of socks for my girlfriend who gave me the lovely table and sideboard. Here is the first sock of the first pair, I am using Austerman Step and what a lovely yarn it is:

I am about to start the heel of the 2nd sock soon. Of course, I forgot my knitting at home, so the heel will have to wait until later. I NEVER leave home without my knitting. NEVER people. First time for everything.

Below are the two skeins I am going to use for her other two pair:

Some Lion Brand Sockease:

and some Arequipa:

Thankfully my girlfriend's feet size are very small, so I can whip these out in no time. When I look at the picture of the sock I can't believe these will fit her, but I had her try it on and it does. Wow. Thankfully she doesn't have giant feet. Whew.

2008-06-03T12:14:00.002-04:00

Holy geez - did you anyone watch the Pittsburgh/Detroit game last night? Maddie and I only made it till 10:30pm, and Chris and Julianna watched the whole game - till
1am! Jay is only 9 years old - I couldn't believe she stayed up so late to watch this amazing game. Even more surprisingly, Chris allowed her to. Must have been one hell of a game.

I have finished one sleeve of my Green Gable and started the 2nd one today. Shouldn't take me too long to finish because the sleeve is only 91 rows long.

Have a good one.

2008-06-02T10:21:00.002-04:00

I am in the home stretch to finish my long sleeved Green Gable:

In other grand news, my friends GAVE me this wonderful table:

and this wonderful sideboard:

I promptly put it in the sitting room in my bedroom, and now this little corner is my craft area!! YEAH!! I am one lucky girl. I haven't moved all my yarn over yet, or organized the book shelf (that was in Chris' office) yet, but that will come.

Time is something I rarely have, so it will get done, when it gets done.

I must be in a nesting/organizing/feel like spending mood. Here is my new bedset:

It matches my couch and furniture perfectly. I have been having great sleeps in my new sheets and blanket.

My neighbourhood was having our annual garage sale day on Saturday so the girls and I went and poked around. They bought a bit of this and that and I bought a beautiful piece of artwork to hang in my new craft room. Once it is up, I'll take a picture to show you.

2008-05-26T10:14:00.002-04:00

Hey guys - thanks for the welcome back. I am getting really bad at replying to comments lately. I think it has a lot to do with lack of motivation to blog. After 4 years of blogging, I guess I am at the point where I might just end updating this blog. I don't find as much joy in it as I once did. No decisions have been made, yet. Anyhoo, here is a nice change. New hair and glasses:

I am going to a new dude - and man does he do a freaking fantastic job. Like it?

2008-05-20T07:33:00.003-04:00

We are back safe and sound from Punta Cana. Whew - what a trip. We had a fantastic time. We are relaxed, rested and NOT looking forward to getting back to our regular routine. I wish I could show pictures to you, but I can't upload pictures from our new camera to flickr.com unless I pay 25.00 buckers to upgrade my account. At this point, I am not interested in doing that.

The resort, water, pool, food, staff and entertainment were just crazy amazing. Trust me. We stayed at the Majestic Colonial - and I totally recommend this resort. It is all around fantastic.

I managed to finish a book, and knit one sock and almost finished the second one:

I am done now.

These were originally for me, however, the yarn I am using - Dyed In The Wool sock yarn is quite drapey on 2.5mm DPNs, so they turned out quite large. Now Chris has a new pair of socks. Good for him, bad for me. It is quite nice yarn, so I will buy some more and will use 2.25mm or 2mm DPNs next time around to get a firmer fabric.

Before I left I finished knitting these, other than the afterthough heel so that I could use the needles for the above socks:

I bought this sock yarn last summer to make socks for my girls and then they decided they didn't want wool socks. So now they are for me. I have one ball and a bit left over which I am going to send to a lady in Macedonia so she can make a pair as well. She can't buy Regia there, so I am happy to send it to her. Also my husband was born in the same city she lives, so I feel it will be going to a good home.

When I came home, I decided it was high time to felt the two hedgehogs I knit for my girls so long ago, I can't remember when I knit them.

Just waiting for them to dry so that I can stuff them and sew on the eyes and noses. I wish I didn't cheap out on the fun fur because they are not very fluffy at all. I want to make another two, so they actually look like hedgehogs.

2008-05-06T08:56:00.002-04:00

Thanks to all for your kind birthday wishes. It was pretty uneventful. I haven't been knitting, posting or reading blogs the last little while, because I feel very burnt out. It is so hard to work up the energy to get ready for work these days, much less anything else.

I don't even have the energy to post about everything that is gone on. Here is a summary:

bought a front loader washer/dryer set. Jury is still out if I like the washer.
Jay made her Atom B team
Chris is now the novice rep team coach, which my younger one will play on
the four of us are going to Punta Cana for a week on Saturday

The last one is pretty cool.

2008-04-29T10:27:00.002-04:00

Well my FIL can not fix the washing machine. Not because of skill, because NO ONE can fix this thing. So Saturday I am going to the stores to buy a washer/dryer front loaders. Lucky me.

Still knitting for the webkinz. Yep, lucky me. All their friends that see them want one. Who am I to say no to kids? I really can't.

Oh yeah, and today is my birthday. I am now 37. Closer to 40 than 30.

2008-04-24T09:09:00.002-04:00

Based on my last post re: riding the crazy train for knitting for corks, it is nice to hear I am not alone. I have stopped though, but only because I don't have any corks to knit for!

I did, however start a new project this morning. The Squirrel and Oak Mitten pattern from Hello Yarn:

I am knitting these mittens on 3mm needles using Patons Kroy sock yarn and some burdgandy mohair yarn I bought at the 2006 MW&SF:

I am trying very hard to knit my stash down - aren't we all? Thankfully it is slowing going down because of all the webkinz sweaters I've been knitting. I've knit a few more sweaters and will take another group shot of the girls' toys soon.

Non knitting news and pretty scary all at the same time is when you come home and walk into the laundry room to witness this:

This is what remains of my washing machine. My husband and his dad took the whole sucker apart to find the part that was causing the leak. Quite a surprise I tell you. It would have been put back together without me having any knowledge of this little adventure, however, they do not have the tool they need. HMMMM...

Guess where I will be on Saturday afternoon? At the laundry mat, just like last Sunday afternoon. Lucky me!

2008-04-18T07:39:00.002-04:00

I think I've bought a ticket to ride the crazy train. I am knitting stuff for corks people - CORKS. I know I'm not riding this train alone because there are 230 other people on the train with me. They are cute, but come on - knitting items for corks? Chris thinks I've lost my mind. Maybe I have.

Cute eh? I think so. I have about 3-4 corks left, so I'll knit stuff for them too.

Sorry for the crappy picture. I had to use my daughter's camera because my big Canon's battery has died and I can't re-charge it. Should do something about that in the new future. And I can't upload pictures to flikr.com with my smallish Canon because I don't have an upgraded account and the quality of the pictures from this camera is too good.

Sigh.

2008-04-17T07:45:00.002-04:00

I am at my limit people - if I knit one more webkinz sweater I think I'll scream. Look at Maddie's pile of webkinz:

And Julianna's pile:

Believe it or not, I have only knit sweaters for 1/2 of their webkinz toys. I do think the amount of webkinz they have is kind of nuts. However, most of them were rewards for hockey accomplishments, b-day presents, and some they bought with their own money. Plus, I really like them and when I see a cute one, I scoop it up. I'm an enabler I guess - webkinz style.

Even though these things are getting quite boring to knit, two things good things have come out of knitting all these sweaters. 1. I am using ALOT of stash yarn for these sweaters. You know all the odd balls us knitters own and don't know what to do with. But we keep just in case. At one point, I was going to Goodwill all these odd balls because they were driving me nuts to look at, but I am glad that I didn't.

The 2nd reason is my girls are so happy. Well, at first they were, now they kind of expect me to knit one for each of their toys. I have to remind them to say thanks now. Sheesh.

2008-04-16T10:12:00.002-04:00

Thanks guys on your congrats of my girls' accomplishment this last weekend. It means a whole lot to me.

All I have been doing is knitting sweaters for webkinz toys. All the freaking time. I don't mind because my girls LOVE them so much. Kids are so great and it doesn't take much to make them happy. Knit them a sweater for their favourite stuffed animal and they are over the moon.

Not only am I knitting for the girls' toys, Julianna asked me to knit some for her friends' toys as well. I've knit two out of the three she requested. Here is the pink poncho I made:

Cute, non?

Once I get most of them done, I will post a picture of them all lined up in their cute little sweaters.

Have a good one.

2008-04-14T06:37:00.001-04:00

May I present the 2008 Ontario Womens Hockey Association Gold Medalists, Novice C division:

My girls rep hockey team competed in the Ontario hockey provinicials this weekend and they went all the way = won all 5 of their games and came home with the gold!

These girls worked hard all year - came in first in the regular season, won two Golds in tournaments, including the tournament their own association hosted! Plus, in the other two tournaments they played and didn't win, they played in the semi finals, but lost. What a feat for this team.

On their rep team, only two girls played rep before, the other 12 were first year rep players. Including my six year old, which earned her place to 'play up' on the team. The novice division is for 7 and 8 year old girls.

My older daughter had a tremedous year and I'm sure if they had a MVP award, she would totally be considered for it. She scored:

50 goals in rep hockey
41 in House League - she is 8 and played up in the 9 and 10 year old division
22 in House League - for the novice division - 8 and unders. But after three games was moved up to the older age group
10 goals at the provincials

For a grand total of 123 goals for the season. Holy crap. We are astonished how well she did. I think she got, maybe 5 goals the year before.

I am so happy for my girls that I could burst with pride.

Bragging over.

More pictures of webkinz sweaters to come this week. What Fun!

2008-04-08T14:14:00.002-04:00

Look what I finished knitting and blocking:

Project: Lady Eleanor, Scarf Style book
Started: March 17th 2008
Ended: April 4th 2008
Yarn: Noro Taiyo - 4 balls
Needles: 5mm
Size: 21" x 60"
Made for: My mom's 70th Birthday

This is a nice close of up of the blocked entrelac:

Full size laid out on the floor:

After knitting the above, I wanted to knit something small and easy. Here are two sweaters I made for my girls' webkinzs:

My girls have an absurd amount of Webkinz, so I will not be surprised if they ask me to knit a sweater for all of them. If they do, that is all you will see for the next little while.

I got this pattern from Cheri at Runs With Needles. Thanks for a great pattern.

2008-03-28T09:35:00.003-04:00

I went to Michael's Art and Craft store last night with my two SILs to buy some 5/8" magnets to make more of these:

They are so much fun to make. However I don't like how the magnet and the marble are the same size. I wanted a 5/8" magnet size, but Michael's didn't have them. Boo hoo.

Oh well. I did get the 5/8" craft punch, so when I find the magnets, I'll be all set. This is where I got the instructions to make these cute little magnets.

I also bought these two knitting bags. Cool non?

and the inside of the bag:

I can fit my medium size knowknit bag which is holding Lady Eleanor, plus all the other stuff I need to tote along with me. It is such a great bag.

I am not sure how well the little sock bag will work for me because I like my little knowknits bag for socks. You can easily stuff it into your purse and it won't take up that much space. We'll see.

2008-03-26T11:21:00.001-04:00

Update picture of Lady Eleanor with an obvious error at the top right hand side of the stole. Oh well. Hopefully blocking will fix that or no one will notice it because I;m NOT ripping it out.

Almost halfway through the third ball:

2008-03-25T09:09:00.002-04:00

Thanks guys on your well wishes on my Lady Eleanor progress. I am about to join ball number 3, so it appears I am about 50% done. I've made a few mistakes, which I haven't ripped out, but compensated for in the next tier. No biggie because this Noro Taiyo yarn is thick and thin it hides quite a bit! I am working on this thing while making dinner, on conference calls at work, in the morning and about any spare moment I have.

I want this sucker to be done ASAP and nothing is going to stop me. Unless I get hit by a bus, and then I'll have bigger things to worry about then finishing a scarf.

Have a good one.

2008-03-22T10:07:00.002-04:00

Wowzers people, look how far I've knit on Lady Eleanor:

I've joined the 2nd ball and am so motoring through this project. It is such mindless knitting, that everytime I finish I rectangle I can't believe how quickly I knit it.

I've received quite a few comments stating Entrelac is on their fearless list, and let me tell you - it shouldn't be. If I can do it without looking at the instructions anyone can do it. It is so freaking easy.

I am using the Scarf Style instructions and find them much clearer than the instructions on the internet. The how to's I found through google seemed very complicated and too wordy. The less points a pattern/instruction states, the better.

Hopefully I finish soon so I won't bore you to tears with pictures and updates.

Have a good weekend.

2008-03-18T10:06:00.002-04:00

Looking at entrelac makes one think it is a pretty complicated process, but guess what? It is so freaking darn easy. For moral support my blogless friend Carol and I sat down at lunch yesterday and read the instructions together as I knit them.

I am surprised how easy it is. Here is my progress so far:

I do hope blocking helps this scarf, which I can't imagine why it wouldn't. It is pretty fun to knit, and I understand the process, which makes this knit so much easier. My mom is turning 70 on April 16th, so this will most likely be a pretty boring blog until I finish it because this is all I will be working on. Trying to meet a deadline is a pain in the ass, but it has to be done. If not, I'll wrap up what I have done and finish it after the date. Lets hope it doesn't have to come to that. I want to start Chris' sweater and I can't do that until this is finished.

2008-03-17T09:22:00.002-04:00

Hello! My mini vacation to Niagara Falls was so much fun! I did get some knitting done, see:

The knititng on Petal is done! Yeah me! I made some modifications - not much, but here goes:

I used the YO for the increase at the raglan to make it less bulky and feminine
Knit the body about an inch longer so it hit at my hips
Knit the short sleeves with a 2x2 ribbing
Gauge at 22 sts versus 20 stitches the pattern states

Yarn: Tess Designer Superwash Merino, Nedles: 4mm

Also I knit a swatch using the Cascade 220 yarn for Chris' sweater. This stuff is quite nice to knit with and I totally can't wait until I get the long sleeve Green Gable sweater done so I can use the 4.5mm needles.

However, I do have to get going on my mom's Lady Eleanor - which is going very slowly. I knit the first set of triangles, which were quite easy. Now, I have to move on to step #2, and I've hit a roadblock. I need to find some quiet time so I can truly understand entrelac. Once I do, I am sure it will be smooth sailing.

One can hope right?

2008-03-11T14:17:00.003-04:00

I am going to Niagara Falls for the next few days to have fun at the waterpark above the Sheraton on the Falls. I think we are going to have SO MUCH FUN.

Hopefully I will have a finished Petal when I return. The sleeves and body have been knit and I just have to pick up the stitches around the neckline and fronts, knit about 8 rows and it will be done, done, done! Yeah.

I swatched for Lady Eleanor this morning before I went to work and am getting 16 stitches per 4" not 14 stitches per 4" as the pattern states. Oh well, it won't be as big, which I don't mind. The person I am knitting it for is only 5'2", so at the stated size, it would look like a huge blanket on her. Hopefully now, it will be more scarf/shawl like.

Have a good week folks.

2008-03-07T09:32:00.002-05:00

Brenda my friend, why oh why did you email me to go Romni yesterday lunch? I ask you WHY? WHY? WHY?

She wanted to go there for size 2.25mm DPNs. She bought them. Guess what I got? Some Noro Taiyo - a new 2008 Noro yarn.

I want to make Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style as a birthday gift for my mom. Her name is Eleanor and I think it will be perfect for her.

This is a surprise gift and I know some of my mom's friends read this blog, so if you are reading this - DO NOT TELL HER!

Next up, Cascade 220 for a sweater for Chris:

I wanted to make Elizabeth Zimmerman's seamless hybrid in a cardi version like Brooklyntweed's. I'm such a copy cat.

I am in the home stretch of finishing the body of Petal and won't start anything else either on the needles or new until I finish this sweater. Hopefully the spring weather comes and when it does I will have a nice new knitted sweater to wear. Yeah!

2008-03-05T15:14:00.003-05:00

Here she is - in all her different moods:

Flipped down collar:

Flipped up collar:

Open collar:

Close Up. Apparently when you buy used yarn at the local thrift shop you can't always get all the same dye lots. Oh well.

Thats a wrap folks.