Who knew knitting could be like skydiving??

Of course, I've never actually GONE skydiving, nor would I ever choose to do so. My idea of an intense adrenaline rush is trying to merge on the Deerfoot. If you live in Calgary, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

In the knitting adrenaline department, I'd have to say that lace knitting is right up there. Especially the last few rows of a shawl when you're knitting 400 stitches or more per row and you feel like the end is finally in sight... then you look at your yarn and realize that it's disappearing faster than you thought and maybe, just maybe, you won't have enough to finish the project as written...... Tonight was such a ride. I finally finished the third installment of Make One Yarn's Year of Lace for 2008 (the link is for 2009, but it's closed now so if you're interested you'll have to wait until 2010); Amy Swenson's Silver Birches shawl. It is a thing of loveliness, but it was a heart pounding adrenaline ride to the finish. It all started about half way through the shawl. I'd just started the second ball of yarn (there were 2, so I knew I had to be at least 50% finished) and was either just starting or halfway through the last of the body chart repeats and I thought to myself... "Wow, I only have the edging chart left and I've still got half my yarn.... yikes! I must be knitting tighter than I thought!.... I wonder if I should add another body repeat to make up for it??"... so I did.... and that decision set off the exciting finish that I just mentioned..... I knit the first portion of the edging chart and moved on to the second part when it struck me that my ball of yarn was looking rather thin..... VERY thin, in fact..... I knit another row and my thin ball got dramatically thinner.... I weighed my yarn... 3g. 3g is not a lot of yarn..... I knit a row and measured again... still 3 g, although the ball was noticebly smaller.... hmmmm... perhaps my scale isn't quite accurate enough for cashmere lace yarn, so I decided to bind off..... with 6 rows left of the chart..... It then occurred to me that I might not even have enough to bind off..... but I soldered on and with the tiniest amount of yarn left (enough for perhaps 3/4 of the next row or less) I finished the last bind off stitch. I finished this last stitch during Eli's Karate class and although I really wanted to run hooting and hollering through the gym, showing it to every man, woman and child there, I managed to somewhat control myself and only shove it in the face of the poor person next to me. I then calmly and politely folded it neatly and put it away to be blocked immediately on home entry.

Voila! Here it IS!!!!




On a rather less dramatic note, I also finished a hat that I designed. I have even written up the pattern and plan to test knit Chey's size and then I'm going to offer it (for free, I don't know what the heck I'm doing and I'm not charging for it) on Ravelry. Here is a picture of that.....




And on the spinning front. I think it's going well. I had a lesson from a friend (I hope I can call her that) who really helped me ease through the stuff I would have had to fight through on my own. I'm hoping to ply this stuff in the next day or so..... I'm going to test it as a 2ply and as a Navajo ply. I think 2 ply will be too thin. Using the spinner's gauge, it looks like a 2 ply will be a (thickish) laceweight and 3ply will be closer to sport... but we'll see




AND I made a new orifice hook. I wanted something pretty and this is, however I really need to remake it with a stronger wire with a longer hook section, but I'll have to order the wire to do it... in the meantime, this one works and it's pretty....

25 things....

There has been this "thing" going around on Facebook lately. You are supposed to post 25 random things about yourself and then tag 25 people. I've been tagged several times and haven't bothered to post my 25 things, mainly because, although I love to READ that stuff, I absolutely hate, hate, hate bugging others. I truly feel that "read this and pass it on" type email and posting is the online equivalent of coughing without covering your mouth.... who knows what you've just passed on to the next person in line.....

I am going to post my 25 random things here though.... without a "pass it on" ending.

1. I wasn't going to do this, but Christina made me...
2. I knit, crochet and now spin (like Sleeping Beauty, not like riding a stationary bike... and no comments from the peanut gallery about my comparison to Sleeping Beauty)
3. Even though I'm almost 36, I can still *almost* get one leg behind my head... and yes, I tried it to make sure...
4. I can also touch the base of my nose with my tongue
5. I have 2 dogs, a standard poodle and a toy poodle... and I think poodles RAWK.
6. 80% of the TV I watch is documentary-ish
7. My son has ADHD and he's gifted, which means he talks at about 5,000 miles an hour and soon he'll be able to out think me....
8. My son was 3lbs 5 oz and 15 inches long when he was born
9. I also have an adopted daughter who is my sun, moon and stars
10. I once broke a boat and made an ex-boyfriend and my friend paddle us to help....
11. I have NEVER been to a concert
12. I'm basically a big ole scaredy cat. I am scared of EVERYTHING
13. I went to college/university for 4 yrs and have nothing to show for it (except the student loan debt which took foreva to pay off!).. sigh.
14. My son just informed me that being a Mom is not a REAL job... I hope he clones himself and stays at home to find out for himself....
15. I went to a 3 day knitting retreat in November and loved it.....
16. I went to 7 different schools growing up.
17. I still occasionally dream that I'm in high school...
18. I once walked straight into a light standard and nearly knocked myself on my ass. Did I mention that I was wearing a short skirt and high heels at the time... oh and it was RIGHT in front of a pub in Whistler, full of mountain biking HOT guys.....???
19. I was somewhat known in college for my car... the Blue Demon.... as in "OH?? You're the girl with THAT car".... and it wasn't a positive "Oh".
20. I have a very sick and dirty sense of humor.
21. I like books that hurt my brain, but I read lots of junk food in between to keep me sane. At least I used to like those books, now all I do is knit.
22. Dale and I have been together for nearly 16 years and I even still like him most of the time
23. I walk almost every day
24. I write a blog and people actually read it, amazing!
25. Facebook keeps crashing when I try to publish this note.. I wonder what THAT means?? LOL....

Thank goodness January is nearly done....

I dislike January immensely. Christmas is over and it feels like spring is forever and a day away. It's usually cold, dark and blech..... This year even the chinooks (a warm wind that causes the temperature in and around Calgary to rise dramatically, sometimes from the -30Cs to the +teensC) just make me mad. Why oh why would the weather make me think that spring is just around the corner when the reality is that spring is 2-3 more months away???

I haven't even been knitting or spinning much (and I certainly have been feeling much to negative to blog). I spun a quckie little bit of yarn to make this bunny (what a great idea and tutorial!) for Chey as an inspiration for Eli's next project and also for my nephew's first knitting project. It turned out quite cutely if I do say so myself and I might just keep my gauge swatches from now and to make an entire bunny family.....



I also knit this top out of some Jade Sapphire Cashmere (that's Chey hoping to be a part of the photo).




I am still working on my September Year of Lace project, but am determined (ha!) not to start anything else until it's finished! My resolve is strong! I can almost block out the sound of the other the projects I want to make, crying and begging in their rather pathetic manner.... almost.... I think I can do it.... Did I mention that I have a couple of great ideas for actual "designs" that I'd like to try my hand at????

And finally, I finished one lonely sock that I started as my travel sock over Christmas. Travel sock it was not..... The sock is lovely and the pattern was interesting and easy, but not so easy that I could mindlessly knit it, which is kinda what I want in a travel project.....



I have to finish (or rather start) the other sock before I can begin a new travel project. Which will be my first ever Notorious Sock Knitters World Domination Tour (gawd! I LOOOOOVEEEE that name!) project for the 2009 club. I won't post any pictures of the kit for a bit so that I don't ruin it for others, but it's lovely yarn......

I've also decided what to do about next January... plan a trip! Yesterday I booked a trip to Denver to visit a friend in March and almost immediately felt the fog lift..... something to look forward to!!

Lightbulb moment.

As I've mentioned before, my darling hubby bought me a spinning wheel for Christmas, knowing that I wanted to learn, but without me asking for (or even hinting at) one. And because I had guessed what it was, he decided to give it to me early (I should mention that he was not very impressed that I guessed, but it was his own damn fault... he gave away the size and it was the only thing I could think of that would be bigger than a bread box).

I immediately ran out to buy some roving and attempted to learn to spin, on my own with a book, as I've learned so many other things (knitting included)...... The Wheel defeated me, completely blew the air right out of my tires...... First of all, it took me hours and hours to figure out that you don't use a double drive and a scotch brake at the same time, but by the time I had figured it out, I had a big knotted mess of crap that used to look like some lovely roving from Louet, called Northern Lights. Secondly, I couldn't seem to draft, the roving would resist and then break. I watched videos, I read about drafting, but I still could NOT get it to work for me. I decided, at that point, that perhaps I needed lessons this time, but that they would have to wait until after Christmas (Christmas knitting and all that). While I was on Vancouver Island over Christmas and visited The Loom in Duncan, I picked up a book (or two) on spinning and a Drop Spindle from Make One when I returned home and tried again. I had a bit more success with the drop spindle, but something still wasn't right (I was still struggling with drafting) and although I didn't expect it to look as easy as the multitude of videos that I had watched on YouTube, I did expect it to be *slightly* easier......

Here is my first attempt with the drop spindle.



Today, when I was browsing one of my books on spinning, I found a neat little notation..... (I'm going to paraphrase here).... Some Commercial Roving drafts easier from one end than the other, so if you are finding drafting difficult, try the other end...... Voila! My lightbulb moment!!! I pulled out my spinning wheel, flipped over the roving and BAM! the magic began...... My first single is far from perfect, I'm pretty sure it's overspun and the diameter changes dramatically from a very fine cobweb, to almost a fingering weight in some places, but it's mine.... and it was (all things being relative) simple. Far, far simpler than my earlier attempts would have me believe..... I plan to spin another single in the next couple of days and then I'll try to ply it and see if that helps with the overspinning a bit (I've read that plying can help?).

My first single.... about half done, it even looks a bit like real yarn!






Damn, I love figuring stuff out on my own......

Our Christmas Adventure.....

My Dad and his wife invited us to their new house on Vancouver Island for Christmas this year and so I planned for a Vancouver Island "Green Christmas". I had grandiose plans of visiting every yarn shop in the Duncan, Sidney and Victoria area, beach combing with the kids, walks along country roads in pleasant and mild +5C or higher temperatures, with, perhaps at worst, some rain to contend with. I did NOT, in any way, plan for this



or this



or this



Notice the steel grey colour of the water??? It's not frozen.... it's floating snow... there was so much snow that it couldn't melt in the water and just sat there.... oh and did I mention this was only the FIRST big snowfall after I arrived??? There was another on Christmas Eve that was at least as much..... I think the Grand tally of snow for the week that I was there was around 60cms.... that's around 2ft, but there was some on the ground before. When I played in the snow with Chey on Christmas Eve and stepped into the untouched snow (which had melted and compacted in between snowfalls) it was almost mid-thigh, which on me, is slightly over 2ft. The best part of the snow was that it was great for building stuff (and I'm sure the kids would have enjoyed it more had I brought their snowpants, but snowpants were not in my plan damn it!... good thing Dale brought them when he flew out on Christmas Eve morning).....The kids did play in the snow in their pants one day and made snow angels and when the snowpants arrived Chey and I built a polar bear.....




In the newspaper on Christmas Eve, it stated that there was more snow in Victoria than at the North Pole and being as we were slightly North of Victoria, I believe we had even more.

In between bouts of snow, we did manage to take a day trip into Victoria, where we HAD to stop to see the BC Legislature buildings (Eli made a specific request, on the plane.... He wanted to see the government). We also made a trip to the Royal BC Museum, which was enjoyed by all...... The kids are standing in front of the Legislature buildings and in front of a partially frozen fountain in front of the Legislature.. the last picture is in the Museum.




We were very lucky on Christmas Eve that Dale managed to arrive on one of only TWO planes that were allowed to land in Victoria all day.... every other arrival/departure was cancelled for the full day...... And Christmas Eve was a yummy fondue, followed by the feeding of the reindeer and the sleepless (at least it was for me... I get very excited about Christmas) night before Santa came....

Christmas morning was a blast. The kids got spoiled and I got yarn and roving...... Dale got a few bits, but his main present was a new guitar that was left back at home.

The weather finally co-operated a bit on the 27th and we managed to go for a tour on my Dad's boat. It was a beautiful day and made even more complete by a viewing of a sea otter and a couple of seals......

Here is a picture of Chey with her two most favorite presents... a crocodile and dinosaur puppet.. she spent the next couple of days terrorizing the household with her "puffets"



and a great picture of Eli and my Dad on his boat



and do you recognize this sailboat??? It's the sailboat in the ocean picture above..... amazing eh??



I even made it to a yarn store.... It's called The Loom and let me tell you.... it is packed... JAM packed full of yarn, yarn stacked in boxes, with baskets of yarn on top and more baskets or bags or boxes of yarn stacked on those in all of the isles and on top of the yarn stuffed into shelving. This apparent lack of organization would normally send me running the other direction (I'm not a super neat freak, but I'm pretty neat most of the time), in this case though, I found it enormously entertaining and kind of like hunting treasure (she had lots and lots of treasures to be found) and asked if I could take pictures to show you.......




All in all, it was a fantastic eight days..... even if getting home wasn't *quite* as easy as getting there..... it involved cancelled flights (for Dale), sitting on the tarmac for three hours (again, poor Dale) and waiting for luggage for three hours after a direct flight which I still can't figure out how that happened (that was me and the kids) and then having one suitcase lost (again... can't quite get my head wrapped around a lost bag on a direct flight).... the one with frozen fish that my Dad had given us...... fortunately it was still frozen when the airline found and returned the bag the next day......

Merry Christmas to ME!!

I was pretty sure I knew what Dale (and his mom) were getting me for Christmas..... Dale gave it away on the day he bought it (never give away the size of a gift when nothing even remotely to related to that size was asked for or needed... just for future reference), but I wasn't 100% sure until this past week when Dale was home from his away-work rotation. He kept mentioning that he wanted to show me this place he had found, but if he did, I would be 100% certain of the gift he got me for Christmas. I knew immediately that he wanted to show me a yarn/spinning store that is close to our house. He was just so proud of himself for finding this place on his own that I didn't want to ruin it for him right away...... so after the, perhaps, 20th mention, I finally put him out of his misery and said "Honey.... I've already been to Shuttleworks, remember??? I told you about the horrific wind storm I got caught in on the drive home from there????" He couldn't keep it a secret any longer and swore at me (in a loving way, I'm sure) for guessing the gift...... Can you guess??? He couldn't even keep it hidden after that and put it together yesterday......


Here it is...... my new Ashford Traveller Double Drive spinning wheel (don't ask me what that means, 'cause I haven't the foggiest idea..... even after reading all about it)




I'm am so excited to learn to spin... and even though I KNOW I'm not going to have time to learn until AFTER Christmas, I couldn't control myself and immediately purchased more roving than I can expect to spin any time in the near future......




I did make an attempt (attempt is perhaps an understatement, considering I was at it for at least 4 hours, probably more) to spin.... but I didn't figure out until I was extremely frustrated and annoyed and wondering if spinning and I were ever going to be friends, that I could use it either as a double drive OR with a scotch brake, but not both... I think... at least that's what I'm hoping I learned...... I did finally admit defeat after going through quite a bit of my new roving... I should have taken a picture of that mess..... but I wasn't thinking clearly and the evidence is now gone.......

And now, even though I REALLY want to call Make One to ask for help over the phone, I'm going to TRY to resist and go back to plan A.... learn to spin in the New Year... with Lessons...... Think I can do it????

Did I mention that Winter has struck Calgary with a vengance??? Last weekend we got, something like, 16 cms of snow.... Here are a few pictures of the kids playing in it... and one of the post-snow TV watching.....

I know I have a problem now...

Today was a great day. Chey went to my neighbour's dayhome for a playday and Dale and I went shopping together, just for us. No Christmas presents, no kid shopping, just shopping for us. It was lovely..... During this excursion, I decided to look at wedding bands. I'd really love a new wedding ring. My original was purchased on a shoestring budget and is very, very thin and my engagement ring tangles up and catches in yarn when I knit, so I never wear them. I occasionally think it might be nice to advertise that I am, indeed, married. Anyway, I found one I really liked. It was a beautiful ring, but to be sure...... I pulled out my knitting (a pair of slippers at an unrecognizable stage of knitting) and knit a couple of stitches... right there in front of the jewelry salesman..... To his credit, he barely batted an eye.......

Downside was that the ring I loved won't work with my knitting...... sigh....