I should be knitting...

I am SO close to finishing a Christmas present that I can taste it and yet, far enough away that I know I can't finish tonight without knitting into the wee hours which wouldn't be a super smart choice, what with me having small children who get up at the crack of dawn and need to go to school and stuff. And so, with regret, I've decided to put it aside for now. The good news is that it's lookin' good.. it's looking REALLY good. Good enough that I'm wondering how bad it would be for me to wear it at my knitting retreat next week..... hmmmmm.... I guess that would be sort of like buying someone a doughnut and taking a wee bite out of it before you passed it over.. It probably is bad manners and poor taste... sigh....

On the knitting retreat note. I am SOOOO Excited!!! My local yarn store, Make One is hosting an annual knitting retreat at the Delta Lodge in Kananaskis . Three days of knitting, eating, knitting and hanging out with other people who are knitting, some of which are rather famous in the knitting world. Did I mention that this retreat is going to be sans children??? Three whole days without children??? I'm going to miss them (at least a little), but it is going to be bliss..... I can't WAIT!!

I was thinking today....

About what I great kid I have. He's been on his medication for ADHD for nearly two months now and it has really been life changing for us. Sure, we still have our challenges. He is, after all, a seven year old boy with a penchant for chatter, an intense curiosity about everything and the intelligence to make my life difficult when I try to answer his overabundant questions, but over all, our family life is SO much more pleasant and relaxed that I am grateful for the challenges of the last year in school which precipitated his diagnosis. I feel like my years of strict rules with consistent consequences and rewards are finally paying off in the parenting department. Its like a layer has been removed and a bright, shiny, happy, well behaved child was underneath. I knew it was there because I saw it quite often, but it was constantly being lost under the intensity of his shifting moods and behavioral struggles. Now he's quite the reverse, I see glimpses (and sometimes full blown storms) of the moods and behavioral struggles, but they get lost in the brightness of the rest of his personality........

I feel guilty having a whole post about just one of my children, so I'll have to add a bit about my daughter. She is just so easy and sweet and silly and smiley and loving (with a dash of the overdramatic and whiny which all three year old girls seem to possess) that I don't have that much to say...... :)

It has FINALLY happened!!!

This is the day I've been waiting for. A day which I was sure would never, ever happen. My husband, has finally, requested that I knit him a sweater! You could have knocked me over with a ball of mohair! Granted, the aforementioned sweater is to be a plain, boring everyday kind of sweater that he can use at work as a layer (he's a welder, so it will soon have more holes in it than a yarn stash full of moths, but I don't even care). I've been trying to convince him to let me knit him a sweater for years. What sane human being wouldn't like a handknit sweater-o-love from someone they care about? My husband, apparently. He's managed come up with numerous excuses over the years, "they itch, they're too hot, they're too fussy," to name a few and I'd basically given up hope (and had moved on to more worthy victims, er, uhhh... recipients... of my craft), when he decided today, that a hand knit sweater would be just the ticket to keep him warm in our frigid -30C plus Calgary winters. Of course, I immediately knew what I was going to knit him, I've seen it many times on Ravelry, Elizabeth Zimmerman's Seamless Hybrid (I apologize for the link, you can only see the sweater if you have a ravelry account, I'm afraid). It seems like the perfect man's sweater. The only real problem was that I don't actually own the book with the pattern in it (darn it, that's terrible *note: intense sarcasm*). And so, there was only one thing I could do...... I immediately went to Schoolhouse Press to buy EZ's "Knitting without tears" and since I was there already and had ordered one book, I decided that this was the opportune time to purchase Barbara Walkers "Treasury Set," a set of four books of knitting stitches which had also been on my wish list.

Of course, with my current knitting queue, I'm not sure exactly WHEN, I'm going to knit him this sweater..... but that's not the point, really.....

A bit too long...

Goodness! It's been a while since I last posted. Mostly due to the fact that I went to my sister's for the Thanksgiving Weekend, which is an 8.5 hr drive each way. We did have a good weekend though, it was nice to visit with my sister and her boys. I don't see them nearly enough. The kids really enjoyed the visit, mainly due to my sister's many animals. Chey had her first horse ride and Eli rode as well. Chey loved the ride so much that she had a mini-meltdown when it was time to stop (Yay! I see horsies in my future again!!!). We also explored an area that had a really cool old aqueduct (or something) that you can walk through (in the dark).



Here is the entrance of the tunnel... notice the look of concern on Eli's face.. LOL



And the exit..... with Eli looking rather exultant...



Although the visit was nice, it's always nice to be home.......

Due to the busyness of the last week, I haven't done much knitting. One of the Christmas presents I'm knitting hates me though.... I have to rip it out, again! I'm beginning to wonder if the universe is telling me something with this project........

After my frustrated discovery of the aforementioned Christmas-project-gone-wrong, I decided to make Kikx a sweater. I keep my poodles cut short through the winter (or I plan to anyway) and I think Kikx will need this sweater for our walks.... It was super quick to knit (about 5 hrs) and I'm proud of it. It is my first dog sweater and made without a pattern. Here's a picture... I was so excited to try it on him, that I hadn't sewn in the ends yet, but they're done now.... he doesn't look all that impressed, but he didn't seem to mind it when I put it on him again this morning.....

Not much to say (but there are some YOL spoilers)

I'm in the thick of Christmas knitting and in order to keep such things a in a semi-surprise state, I won't be posting any details or pictures other than very vague percentage done-type updates. One project has already been frogged 4 times for really silly mistakes and is only about 10% done, but the other project is going really well. I would say about 25% finished in just a couple of days. I'm going to slow it down a bit by working on my latest Year of Lace project in between bits. I've completed the set up chart and one repeat of the main body chart (a total of about 40 rows). I might be able to knit a bit faster, but I keep stopping to stroke, pet and otherwise fondle the knitted lace material; it's 100% cashmere and so buttery soft, I can't help myself!

I've made two decisions about knitting this shawl. The first is that I will be true to the pattern and do the p2togtbl (that's purl 2 together through the back loops, for those non-knitterly types) instead of the substitute p2tog (purl 2 together) as recommended and because this is patterned lace on every row, alternate rows (the rows of the p2togtbls) cause me to curse and make me wonder why I decided to do that to myself..... The second decision is that I'm definitely going to use lifelines (scroll down to "fixing mistakes" and click the video for "lifelines" to find out what they are and how to use them) for this project. I've never used them before and only rarely have regretted it (listen to me, eh... I sound like I'm an expert in lace and lifelines, but I've only been knitting lace since earlier this year and learned about lifelines around that time), but this time I think it's a necessity. There are very few straight purl rows that would be easy-ish to frog back to and I really don't want to have to start over when (notice I said "when" and not "if") I get distracted and mess it up.

Anyway... here is a picture of my shawl so far:



Purdy, ain't it....

The weather was perfect!

My father and his wife, Caren, came for a visit from BC this weekend and it was great! Saturday was Eli's big Birthday Bash at the local Rollerskating arena and of course, Opa and Carey were invited to attend. Unfortunately for me (I was hoping for an addition source of entertainment, I suppose), neither fell on their behinds, but I do believe that both had a great time. Eli, of course, had a fantastic time, with lots of Cake, presents and friends from school.



Eli with his best friend.



The cake.... it looked amazing and NO, I did not make it.



Eli taking a turn around the rink. He loves rollerskating!


On Sunday, we drove to Banff. I love Banff! I'm not sure why we don't go there more often. It's so beautiful there! I don't even mind (and kinda like) all the tourists and the bustle of the main street. And the WEATHER... it was just perfect. We had lunch in town and then rode the gondola up to the top of Sulphur Mountain.



The kids posing at the bottom of the gondola in front of the gift shop (some of my favorite places are gift shops, for some reason)



Chey doing what she does best.... acting cute.



A great picture of me and the kids, windblown hair and all.......



Group shot at lunch.




And Eli, doing what he does best... pose... LOL.

I did very little knitting this weekend, although I did receive my third Year of Lace subscription designed by the owner of my favorite LYS (and the source of the subscription club). I love it! I'd show some pictures, but I want to wait until everyone receives their kits before I post pictures on my blog. I will post some pictures on my Ravelry page with a spoiler photo for anyone who wants to peek ahead of time. I cast on immediately and knit about 10 or so rows, just enough to see the pattern start to emerge... and it's going to be fantastic!

I also had to frog one of the Christmas presents I'm making, but I can't get into too much detail about that here either.....

The last knitting related activity of the weekend was a sweater that I'm designing for Chey. It's going to be *slightly* similar to Wisteria, although I had this idea in my head before I saw wisteria in the premier issue of Twist Collective. It will be a top down, round yoke sweater with what I hope will be heart inspired cables. I've done gauge swatches and preliminary drawings and measurements, but need to chart out a few things before I can actually cast on. I think it'll be a slow work-in-progress, mostly due to other projects that are currently underway and soon to be underway (more of those pesky Christmas-can't-share-too-much-info type projects). It will be my first true, non-inspired (post inspired doesn't count IMO) sweater design..... if it works... I hope it will work.

I hate to say it, but

"I hate to say it, but it looks a little bad". That's what Eli told me when I modeled my finished Riding to Avalon Hoodie today. What do kids know anyway.. sheesh! LOL

I really like it, although I am hoping it softens a little in the wash for better drape. In the end I used 320 meters (just over 3 of the 4 extra balls that I purchased) more yarn than the pattern called for and my measurements were bang on to the schematics. Final mods were:

1) Shortened the hood (by 2 inches, I'll NEVER wear it and couldn't be bothered to do the full length)
2) Added a 2 inch border of the purl twist stitch to the bottom edge and finished it off with 4 rows of garter (2 garter ridges). I had initially just cast off the purl twist stitch, but it flared and rolled slightly, so I took out the cast off (again, a provisional cast off on the bottom is pure masterful genius!) and did the garter. That worked beautifully.
3) I only used 5 buttons on the sleeves and 3 buttons on the collar flap, so lessened the total button count by 3.

So, all in all, rather minor adjustments. I'm pretty sure this sweater will be worn to death by the end of winter.......