Glove Love!

It's been a while since I've posted, and in that time I've managed to finish two things. One was my shrug (picture to follow when I get someone to take a picture of me wearing it), and the other was a glove!

The story of the glove begins on a train to Montreal...

Itty bitty thumb hat!

(incidentally, this is probably my most well documented knitting project *ever*)

By the end of the first train ride, I had an interesting knitting needles/yarn/fingers sculpture


While staying at Dee's aunt and uncle's place, I managed to knit a tiny bit more...

*quack*

On the train ride back to Toronto, I got all the fingers done!


Then started to work on the hand of the glove...


By the end of the train ride, I had enough of knitting... and staying awake


But I perservered and kept knitting, and today I finished the glove! *applause*


One down, one to go. And then (if I have enough yarn), a matching beret! *squee!*

Neglecting the ol' blog

I have stuff to blog about, really, I just don't have any pictures. I am a lazy photographer in this digital age. I mean, I don't even have to leave my apartment anymore! Still, excuses, excuses :)

What have I been knitting?

Let's see ... I'm almost done a shrug. I think it's called the Retro Redux Shrug from Lace Style. Dee had knit one up and I borrowed it when we saw Avenue Q (the theatre was *cold*) and loved how it fit, so I decided to make one for myself.

someone else's shrug
see previous comment about too lazy to take my own pictures

What else? Well, one of my co-workers is pregnant, so I'm working on a surprise project for her (I don't know if she reads this blog or not) and a not-so surprise present which will hopefully end up looking like this:

The pattern is for free here

Only mine will be a solid colour (orangey) with dark dark blue trim.

I'm also going to start on my very own ski hat ... with ear flap and probably ears :) It'll be dark brown with a pale blue trim to match my new ski jacket. The pattern is called Thorpe (Rav link) and it looks like this:


Still gotta do a gauge swatch for this one. I doubt the hat will be done by my next ski trip in early February. Oh well :)


This concludes the blog post about what I've been up to, knitting-wise.

Adventures in Toronto

*Warning: This will be a picture heavy post (because I'm lazy and just took lots of these pictures off my camera now)*

Back in July (I think it was in July - that was a busy month and most of it is a blur), Dee came to Toronto to visit. So, of course, Heather and I took her on a yarn crawl.


While walking, we passed an old building that I adore. If I ever in my life get a chance to build a building, it's going to look like this:

Here we are having fun at Romni Wool...

The red ball of yarn was sooooooooooooooooooo soft...

Heather thinks I'm nuts

My Noro! Mine!

And after dropping Dee off, Heather and I strolled about for a bit and spotted two moose. Remember those moose statues that were scattered around Toronto? Well, we found two

On someone's balcony.

Then in August (August 5th to be exact) was the 2nd Annual Stitch N Pitch! We had quite the crowd come this year - Nancy, Heather, Mike, me, Richard, Jane, and Dave ... and I bought a ticket for Sarah, but unfortunately she had to rescue her boyfriend in Pickering and missed the game :(

Take me out to the ball game...

Heather and Nancy

Modeling my nearly completed Noro sweater... I love Taiyo!

Me and Jane (and Jane's mitten)

Me and Richard (who actually came to watch the game... go figure)

Oh, and for the record, the Jays won against the Oakland A's 4-3 at the bottom of the ninth. Way to wait until the very last minute!

Scavenger Hunt and Book Launch

Oh my, was yesterday ever an eventful day!

I'll post details later with pictures (once I get them from Heather), but the long and short of it is this:

I used my lieu day at work to spend the day running around Toronto doing a sock scavenger hunt from the Yarn Harlot, to celebrate her book launch. Essentially, there was a list of places and things to take pictures of while holding a sock-in-progress.

Heather and I started around 10am, and finished about 6:15pm (with only one and a half breaks!)

We went from Casa Loma, to Ontario Place, to the CN Tower / Rogers Centre / Steamwhistle Brewery / Union Station, to the St Lawrence Market, and back up to the ROM with a detour in China Town, pausing a dozen times on the way.

Oh, the blisters on my feet! And now, I'm off to the gym. I hope my trainer has pity on me.

And, of course, yesterday was a blustery blustery day, and while the wind wasn't so bad in the early afteroon, by 5pm it was *frigid* and we were *exhausted* and *cranky*.

But it was totally worth it. We won 4th prize - sock yarn.

(Oh yeah. The book launch itself was awesome. I love reading the Yarn Harlot, but hearing her speak in person was fantastic. She's a truly funny lady. I can't wait to have her at the library!)

Pictures later - maybe even later this morning!!

In which Heather and I are bad influences

Yesterday Heather and I went to Romni Wools. They're having a 20% off sale certain weights of yarn, which happened to be the right yarns I needed for a few projects I want to start.

Project #1: Squarey
Essentially, a pillow with a striped bottom half, an embroidered face, and arms and legs. I decided to make one 14" pillow and two 10" pillows of different colours so they can all sit together on my couch (or higher up if Hamlet decides he likes them)

I bought Cascade 220 yarn in lots of fun colours (two shades of purple, blue, green, and gray) to go with the two skeins of pink that Ru and Mel graciously gave to me (I'm using stash yarn!). While watching Star Wars Episode IV and V last night with Heather and Mike, I got through a good portion of one piece of a small Squarey.

Project #2: Fuzzy Lamb
I saw this pattern on Ravelry and fell in love with how cute the little lamb was. I'd never tried making a toy before (other than the alligator I started and never finished - I wonder where he went?) and I thought this guy would be a good place to start.

So for him, I bought three balls of Debbie Bliss cashmerino astrakhan (which Heather says will cause me to swear several times while knitting it) in an oatmealy colour (x2) and a dark brown. So cute! I can't wait to start on this guy!


And since things were on sale (and we all know I'm a sucker for the word 'sale'), I also bought a nice big ball of Rowan big wool fusion in lilac to make another cable hat, and two balls of Noro Taiyo (it's a cotton/silk/wool/nylon blend - but mostly cotton! COTTON!)

Then we went a bought pillow forms for my Squareys. All in all, a satisfying and expensive day for me. But I have such pretty pretty yarns now (to add to my growing collection of pretty pretty yarns)

Pictures will follow (eventually) of the projects and yarns... and eventually I'll also add them to my stash on Ravelry. But not right now. I have to get ready for work.

Sometimes complaining pays off!

Whining about my paltry yarn stash paid off!

Thanks to Ru and Mel who graciously donated some yarn to me (and my knitting group at work). I hadn't had the chance to blog about it until now (I wanted to wait to get pictures on Ravlery first)

So, thanks! And there are pictures on Ravelry!

:D

Dinos and Yarn

It was a fun weekend of friends, yarn, and dinosaurs.

Dee and Pete came for a visit, and we headed to Lettuce Knits for a 30% off sale (whee!). After taking pictures of my stash and putting it on Ravelry, I decided that I needed to stock up on more yarn... so I did :)

I love this Misti Alpaca. It reminds me of vegetables, for some reason. Even though it will shed a great deal on my black coat (like my other alpaca scarf does), I'm going to knit it into a scarf. But first, I'm making a hat out of this:

It's called Fatty, so I'm making a Fatty Hatty :) And I'm learning to cable! So it's a steep learning curve for me, since I'm knitting this on DPNs (when I usually knit in the round) and I'm doing cables. But I LOVE knitting with this yarn. It sticks to needles. It's fantastic.

So, back to the ROM. I guess it was the first weekend for the re-opened dinosaur exhibit, because when we got there, we found a looong line.

That's only part of it. And I'm still unimpressed by the addition to the ROM. It seems weird to me (and thank you to the few people who agree with me)

So we got in to see the dinosaurs. There were lots of nice bones and fossils, but it was crowded. I think I'll go back in a few months when things have settled down some and try again.

I remember this dinosaur from the old exhibit!

JAZZ HANDS!