Mathgirl Knits

Final SP12 package

2008-10-02T13:34:00.002-05:00

Hello all of you out there in the blogosphere! I'm sorry that I've largely disappeared but I wanted you to know that I am alive and well. I've just been dying a bit under the start of grad school. I've earned a day off today so I'm finally starting getting back to some things. Hopefully there will be updates on my knitting here very soon but in the mean time I have send out a thank you to my secret pal! I received her final package last week:

A crochet hook key chain (I can totally use that!), a pattern for baby Mary Janes which I've been eyeing and some Zig Zag sock yarn. What a great pal she's been. Now I just need to find time in the knitting queue for all the sock yarn she sent... :) Thank you very much Amy!

No more monkeys doing yoga on the bed!

2008-08-02T20:46:00.002-05:00

Hello all! Lots to share with you guys as I've been very productive in this past week or so. However, I have the new and shiny syndrome and the earlier FOs will have to wait for the one I did this afternoon. This would be a sewing FO that I've been wanting to do for months and months now but particularly since I ordered the most fun fabric ever last month that just screamed to be used. So here is my latest sewing creation finished in basically an afternoon:

The pattern is based on Amy Karol's "Simple Tote" from Bend The Rules Sewing. The main fabric is aptly called Yoga Monkeys, aww. I made a few mods to the pattern. Namely I reversed the the wide and length dimensions on the tote and used the same fabric for the entire outside. I made different handles to have the outside fabric on the outside and the lining fabric on the inside of the handles too. I also did not put in a pocket.
I see lots of these my future and highly recommend them to others who are getting into sewing (super simple!). It's the perfect size for a sock WIP!

SP strikes again!

2008-07-25T22:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I got to come home to a wonderful surprise in the mail:

The yarn is Hacho and made in Peru. I've used the brand before but never in the sock yarn variety so it'll be fun to play with. And aren't the stitch markers cute? My name and a heart, awww! And don't they look suspiciously like the stitch markers I ordered previously from Robyn's Nest (packaged the same way too!). My pal is Canadian so I have a sneaking suspicion that might be where they came from... hmm... Anyways, I love them!
Thanks SP!

Warm babies

2008-07-22T22:56:00.002-05:00

I don't remember when the last time it was mentioned on the blog, and I'm certain you've seen hardly any progress shots but last night I finished the Duffel Coat from Debbie Bliss' Essential Baby. And the best news of all? I finished it before the baby outgrew it! Hooray! But of course, you don't really want to hear me talk, you want the cute baby pics so I'll leave it at the fact that it was knit with Debbie Bliss Rialto on size 7 and 3 needles.

Isn't that cute? And to add to the photo-y goodness, look what came to my house today! Unfortunately, only 2 skeins are for me (though a 3rd I'm doing the knitting on, just not keeping it) :( Guess which ones

Baby bib cuteness

2008-07-17T16:23:00.003-05:00

Just something to brighten up your day. One of several of my knitting pieces to be gifted sans photo was a baby bib o' love given to baby J of the blue cabled blanket fame. I'm told by his mom that they are absolutely wonderful and fit better than any other bib she has. And as a treat she's given me some photos to share with you all of the bib in action:

Who can resist that face?

Lettuce Knits

2008-07-15T22:13:00.002-05:00

While I was in Toronto mainly to do this

(That's graph theory for any one curious. My talk was on random graphs and the probabilistic method and the picture is the sample space for all graphs of order 3), I'm sure you are wondering what kind of yarn I walked away with.
While I had every intention of spending Saturday afternoon durring the free time yarn shopping a group of my friend's was going to Wonderland and as I love big scary rides to death, I just could not pass up the opportunity to go. So I was left with about an hour of shopping time Sunday morning before I left. I dug up the phone book and as it turns out there was a yarn store just a few blocks from where I was staying that I walked mere meters from on several occassions. And of all the yarn stores in Toronto I happened to luck out and have it be this one

It was quite the honour to get to go inside. Unfortunately it really is about the size of a large closet and there was a class going on so I couldn't see the back half of the store where all the dk+ size yarn was but I did get to swoon over all the beautiful sock and lace yarn they had. It was rather amusing because just after I stepped in two ladies came in from out of town and one looked to the other and said "I can't believe I'm actually in this store", lol. I tried to explain that to the other conference goers and exactly what a "legendary" yarn store is but they really didn't buy it. But we know :) There were three things that walked away with me.

Some koigu. I've been wanting to buy koigu again for a long while but every store whose had it has never had colours that really inspired me. These ones absolutely did. Then there was more sock yarn

Socks That Rock lightweight in Atomic #6. Yes, I know I have an order of STR coming my way but I couldn't pass it up. It spoke to me and so I had to take it home. And then immediately cast on for another pair of socks (help! I have so many unfinished pairs!)

Not what I was expecting at all once knit up but I dig it :)
Then there was a kit. Not just any kit. But THE kit for the Tulip baby sweater made out of Dream In Colour Classy. It takes quite a few colours so they wind off just enough of each colour for you so that it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. I've been feverishly knitting on it since I got home and in three days it looks like this (please ignore all the yarn bits hanging out)

Now, it's supposed to be 6-9 months but we all know I'm a reckless knitter who never swatches yet always uses the recommended needle size despite the fact that I know I knit ridiculously tight. So it looks more new born-ish. Thankfully there's a girl baby coming in September. I hear that babies tend to come newborn sized so it should be just great :)
So yes, that was the most important part of my trip to Toronto. Fun no?

SP 12 question backlog

2008-07-14T17:20:00.002-05:00

Hmm... it seems I have a backlog of secret 12 pal questions to answer. I had all sorts of great posts planned for the past week and then I get to my conference and there's absolutely no internet access. None at all for the whole 5 days. Needless to say there were many unimpressed students over that fact. (Though the rest of the conference was just lovely! I had a splendid time) So I feel that i should catch up on posting by giving the question answers first:

Question 3: What do you consider the perfect amount of stash?
Well, that's a very hard question because there are lots of things to consider. Firstly, I need to be able to store it in my room which has room for about a shelf and two plastic bins of yarn. It should have all the main colour families in every weight of yarn. And in those weights, the appropriate amount for a project of that type (i.e. a sweater's worth of worsted, 1200ish yards of laceweight for a shawl). And ofcourse bonus sock yarn in all the funky colours.

Questions 4: What yarn (that you don't have/haven't used) would make your stash "complete"?
I'm sure it's a pipe dream but I'm love some Wollemeise sock yarn and enough sea silk for a decent sized shawl.

What yarn do you never want to be without?
In sock yarn, Lovesticks and Yarntini. In other weights, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, I go to yarn of choice.

Question 5: Where is your favourite place to go for vacation/holiday?
Me, I'm a fan of the cruises. Once you've been on one, it's hard to not want all of your holidays to be on one. I've been on two caribbean, a Mexican Riviera and a Greek Island cruise.

Where is one place you'd like to go?
Just one place? I suppose the top of my list would have to be Paris. I love French and am a hopeless romantic.

SP package!

2008-07-07T00:02:00.003-05:00

Hello all you readers of my dreadfully neglected blog these past few weeks :( But I have some fun posts lined up for the next week. But before that, I got some definitely awesome mail the other day from my secret pal. Hooray! Totally made my day.

From top left, clockwise: gum balls, cat door hanger, kitty playing cards, cat figurine, DIC Smooshy, coloured pens, cat stickies, a basket and floating candles.
What a great package! Thank you so very much SP. I especially adore the DIC. I happen to have a skein of that colour in the stash so perhaps this will be destined as a pair of Cookie A. knee highs? Who knows, but I'm excited!

Montreal

2008-06-23T11:13:00.003-05:00

*Warning, long picture heavy post*
Well, it seems like it's finally time for a long over due post on my trip down to Montreal with the side trip to Kingston as it's definitely been a highlight of the year so far. I must say that getting there was adventure enough. Straight from convocation I went to the airport and hopped on a plane to Toronto. In Toronto I hopped on the down town shuttle bus and went to the bus depot. AT 9:15 pm I got on a bus and arrived in Ottawa at 2:00 am where I had to transfer buses. By 4:30 am I was sufficiently sleep deprived but safely in Montreal. After blindly turning down streets I managed to find the residences on pure lucky guesses wanting no more than to sleep, only to find that they'd lost my reservation for the first night despite the fact that I had the confirmation saying I was book from the 1st and an email conversation with the place informing them of my odd arrival time. The night clerk was kind enough to eventually give me a room on the condition that I came down to sort things out with the day clerk as soon as I woke up.
The first two days I spent at the Canadian Mathematical Society summer meeting attending and chairing meetings. Not terribly exciting but I enjoy the people that I'm working with so all's good. The Tuesday night we got to go to the student social which was a boat cruise. It was nice enough but spoiled a little but by rain and the fact that the music sounded like it came from a bad nineties prom, but I digress :) Afterwards we found a sports bar just in time for the last 3 seconds of the third period hockey playoff game but were treated to two and a half periods of exciting over time so that was fabulous.
But the really exciting day was Wednesday. At about 10:00 in the morning I was waiting to be picked up by Robyn when I was spotted by her friend Angela who she was also picking up. We'd never seen pictures of each other but apparently my bag full of yarn was a dead give away, lol. I then got the lovely privilege of visiting her online yarn store in person at her house. We picked up her sister Amy, and off we went t Kingston to visit the Yarn Harlot.
In Kingston we first stopped off at the Michaels as they apparently do not exist in Quebec. I was very confused at first why they were so excited about this specific Michaels, but that made sense. As it turns out, there is reason to be excited about that specific Michaels as it sells fat quarters. Who knew? I stocked up on fabric :) We then went to the LYS where I picked up some On Your Toes sock yarn in a bamboo blend, some new sock yarn and some Misti Alpaca Lace. Yum.
Now, while that was all very exciting, the real exciting part came next. Chapters!!!! We arrive at the Chapters an hour early for the event and go check out the set up. Please try to contain your giggles, but this is how many chairs they had set up:

Yah... right. As people filled the seats like hot cakes the store eventually caught on that they might just need a few more chairs. They managed to about triple the number of chairs and started telling the still droves of people coming that they had no more chairs. Somehow they managed to find another 20 or so chairs but people were still sitting on the floor and standing.
After much waiting

The moment finally arrived

It was the Harlot. And I have to say that she was everything that I ever expected and so much more. She's witty and endearing. I got to hear her say arse :) But more than anything, she was very relatable. She sounded like she was having a casual conversation with all of us which I totally appreciated. It was amazing at one point when someone asked how many of us were knitting socks and almost the entire crowd raised a sock. This whole knitting subculture still baffles me at times. The sock I was knitting on, featured a bit below, attracted much attention from the older ladies sitting around me and the girl beside me asked if she could feel it at one point durring the talk, lol. Only amongst knitters...
Afterwards as Robyn had her little one with her we got to get out books signed first and I got my photo taken with the Harlot

Hooray!
Then it was time to pack up and say good bye to some very fine knitters whom I'm very glad to have met in real life:

Me and Robyn

Sean, Amy and Robyn

Magda (who joined us at the Chapters event) and Robyn
There was also Angela who I don't have a picture of from that night but played tour guide for me the next day and took me yarn shopping at Ariadne Knits. We got to stay around on the couch all afternoon and knit. It's a very lovely store and the owners are super nice. I highly recommend stopping by if you're ever in Montreal.

Angela

Me and my sock

The sock

My haul! Hooray!
Looks like a yarn filled trip no? Thanks to all the hospitable Montreal knitters who made my experience so much better! For anyone who wants more pics go see Robyn's entry.

SP12 Question of the week #2

2008-06-23T00:03:00.002-05:00

As a kid, what did you look forward to most about summer vacation/break/holiday?

I'd have to say that the part of the summer I always looked most forward to is summer camp. I used to go to Girl Guide Camp every summer and positively loved it. The crafting, the singing, the campfires, the hiking and the canoing. Oh the canoing! How I desperately missed doing that. The food was always delicious and every year I made really great friends.

As I got older I think the one thing I looked most forward to is, and I'm told lots of people relate so no laughing, buying school supplies. I'd drive my parents insane bugging them to go as early as possible. All the new pens, fresh paper, clean binders, it's inspiring. I still adore that like crazy.

Quilt love

2008-06-15T00:21:00.002-05:00

Today's scheduled blog post of my Montreal forays has been pre-empted yet another time because of a very special piece of mail that arrived at my house today.
As any regular blog reader knows, I've recently started quilting but as early as last fall I started wanting to learn how to sew and went looking for sewing blogs. While not many have held my interest there are two that I love and follow closely. The first is Amy Karol's Angry Chicken which is very popular in the sewing circles. The other I found by link hopping through sites, Jody's Because I'm Me.
She's a mother of 5 with a sixth on the way who she home schools. She's also a crafter, mostly quilts and baby garments, for herself and for her etsy store . There are many reasons why I love reading her blog. One would totally be about me. I'm an only child who's always dreamed of a big family. I love ready about their outings, trips and family traditions. She speaks of them always so fondly and I find it very heart warming. I love her blog because I think her quilts are gorgeous. They are fun in style, design and colour. But I also love her blog because of the great sense of humility she gives in her writing. She's not afraid of talking about what is going wrong, and I don't mean in a venty way, but in an honest discussion of her hurdles as a crafter. The outcome is always spectacular, but she talks about her work in such a way that I relate as a new quilter/sewer and I don't feel intimidated. I do believe that it's well worth the read for any one here.
But what does that have to do with today? Back in March she was blogging about a quilt that had been giving her a particularly large amount of trouble mostly due to an appliqued butterfly. From the last blog entry about it (the first linked entry), she was a bit disheartened with how it turned out. But I was absolutely captivated by it since the first time it was mentioned on her blog. She first considered giving it away in a blog contest and I must admit that my heart dropped a bit knowing that it would be going out into the world and the chances were slim that it was going to me. Then I didn't win the blog contest but as it turned out she gave away a new prize and this quilt wound up in her etsy store.
I kept telling myself that I shouldn't be spending the money. But I kept going back to the etsy site and there it was every time. And each time I longed for this quilt. And that's not usually how I am to still be thinking about it two months later. It soon became clear that the world was doing every thing in it's power to get me this quilt :) and I would never be happy with myself unless I bought it. So today this showed up:

And I'm not letting it out of my sight. I absolutely adore it. My favourite things in life are funky socks, sweaters and blankets. All comfort items. I really don't know what it is about this quilt but I can't think of a single I've bought that I've been this enamoured with.
Thank you so much Jody for making this quilt, it may not have turned out how you wanted it, but I thinks it's perfect.

SP12 Question the week #1

2008-06-15T00:19:00.002-05:00

SP12 question of the week #1 (Canadian spelling version!):

What is your favourite summer time drink?
Strawberry margarita hands down. But on a cold day, hot lemonade :)

2008-06-10T18:18:00.003-05:00

I know I have other posts to make, but I couldn't resist this meme that Amy and Robyn were doing:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name? Jenna
2. What is your favorite food? Perogies
3. What high school did you go to? Westwood
4. What is your favorite color? blue "Just another...."
5. Who is your celebrity crush? patrick dempsey
6. Favorite drink? strawberry margarita
7. Dream vacation? Europe http://www.flickr.com/photos/massimiliano_peana/235118816/
8. Favorite dessert? mint choclate chip ice cream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? professor
10. What do you love most in life? freedom
11. One word to describe you. independent
12. Your flickr name. mathgirl85 (searched for as math girl 85)

1. jenna, 2. perogies, 3. The Big Tree, 4. Just another...., 5. McDreamy getting dreamy, 6. Tipsy, 7. "La mia casa è il mare e con un fiume no, non la posso cambiare", 8. Mint Chocolate-Chip, 9. beauty = truth, etc., 10. zero gravity, 11. ms. independent, 12. 100 Ways of a Wanderluster

I'm back!

2008-06-09T17:32:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm back from my wonderful trip to Montreal and back into the daily grind. Lots has happened in the last week. Grad, traveling, knitting icons, meetings, new socks, quilting, knit bloggers, yarn purchases, fabric purchases,... and I just don't know where to start. So we'll try to break this up into several posts over the week. Consider this a re-entry hello and I'll give you a few samplers of what's to come :)
First, this is the last record of me pre-being a university graduate:

Awww! And here is me having just received my degrees and medals from the chancellor, the dean of science and our president/vice-chancellor Lloyd Axworthy (of the ex-minister of foreign affairs fame):

And we ofcourse can't forgot the obligatory pic with the family:

So yeah! I now have my degrees. I only wish I could say I was at the half way point to being finished university but I'm not, atleast 6 years left until the PhD and counting!
Straight from graduation I hopped on a plane and headed off to Montreal where I had a wonderful time at the Canadian Mathematical Society Summer Meeting and general sight seeing. As I've been there doing the tourist-y thing 3 times before I really didn't take any pictures of Montreal itself except this one which I fell in love with on the first day as I walked to the conference from the residences, I think it's incredibly sweet:

So much to say but I can't possibly say it all in one post so here's a sneak peek at what to expect this week her chez mathgirlknits:

But that's not for right now. I'll tide you over with a meme I was tagged for by Robyn:

1. What I was doing 10 years ago: Just about finished grade 7, very interesting right? I imagine studying for exams and counting down the days until band camp.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
-Go to step/body link at the Y
-Read more of the bridge book
-Mail off papers to the U of M
-Sew two more strips onto the quilt blocks
-Blog (check!)

3. Snacks I enjoy:
Fuzzy peahces, sour cream and bacon chips, dill pickles, freezies

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire:
Travel, move out of the city, get more cats :)

5. Places I have lived:
Winnipeg, Manitoba

P.S. Big hello to my upstream secret pal if you're hanging out blog stalking!

Two squares down, 22 to go

2008-05-30T23:50:00.002-05:00

I must admit a piece of shocking news. There has not been a stitch knit chez moi for the last week. And it feels horrible :( But I've been super busy with the quilting and finishing my homework. And now I have two weeks to sew all of the blocks. One week will be gone as I'll be in Montreal all of next week for a conference. That means lots of knitting travel time. I'm also staying an additional few days to sight see and get to two special knitters. I assure you it will be a barrel of fun and I can't wait to tell about all the antics that I'm sure me and Robyn will get into :)
But the quilt! So prior to my wednesday class we remember that it was my homework to cut all of the strips for the quilt. Which took forever. And possibly a tiny chunk of my finger with it as I should totally not be allowed to use anything as sharp as a rotary cutter but what can you do right? Here is how this all looked:

There were pieces of things everywhere I tell you! I don't I'll ever get all the fabrics bits out of the trailer (I spent the week at the cabin for some piece and quiet). Then this past Wednesday was the class where we learned about the actual piecing of the quilt. I unfortunately forgot my camera for the class so there are no WIP shots of the first few blocks being made but I promise that for the upcoming few. As she wanted us to piece an entire square in front of her in class I did the first two squares on their own piece by piece. And I have to say, I heart the 1/4' foot on my dewing machine. I don't think I'd have any hope of sewing a straight line otherwise. These are the first two squares:

I'm still sticking with the diamond pattern so a little peek at just two sitting next to each other to give a bit of flavour:

I do love how these colours are working up together. I think it will be a very beautiful first quilt for me. Outside of my usual colour zone but I truly do like it. And for those who want a peek at the back side:

The next 22 squares are being done at once assembly line style. We'll leave you hanging with what exactly that means and I'll give a little step by step when I get back.
Mean time, wish me luck at convocation on Sunday and a safe trip to Montreal. I might not update until I'm back on the 7th but hopefully I can sneak something in. Have a great weekend!

SP12 Questionaire

2008-05-29T13:49:00.002-05:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? MY favourite yarns are pretty much anything by Debbie Bliss, Lovesticks Self Striping sock yarn, Yartini and I like trying things with different blends. I freely admit to being a yarn snob and as a general rule of thumb do not use acrylic.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? At the moment, scattered in boxes all over my room. I was given a needle holder for christmas that I need to find...

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? Intermediate. I'm self taught since June of '06

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? I have an amazon and Loopy Ewe wishlist which you can email me for the link if you'd so like.

5. What's your favorite scent? Vanilla, lavender. I can't handle overly floral smells.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Huge sweet tooth. Too many favourites to name. Let's see: Jelly Belly jelly beans, fuzzy peaches, pop rocks, toffiffee, chocolate covered pretty much anything, sour soothers, red licorice,...

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I also crochet and am learning to sew and quilt which is quickly turning into an obsession. I have a drop spindle but have had disasterous results trying to teach myself and will need someone to show me.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I will listen to pretty much anything but have a soft spot for jazz, broadway and lounge music (think Billy Joel)

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? Blue, pink, purple, black are my favourites. I can't stand orange, yellow on it's own, brown or bright greens.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? Live with my parents and two cats: Misty & Mittens.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? Everything but ponchos.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? It's probably not a hard guess from my blog that the answer there is socks.

13. What are you knitting right now? Socks, finishing Mystery Stole 3, baby sweaters

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Absolutely

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? Circular, aluminum or metal

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes to both

17. How old is your oldest UFO? Since the great room clean I think the oldest that's survived is from last summer

18. What is your favorite holiday? Whacking Day and Christmas

19. Is there anything that you collect? Fabric, cat figurines, small flutes, Le Petit Prince in foreign languages, yarn :)

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? Fitted Kits, Classic Knits by Erika Knight, any of the vogue Stitchionaries

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? Fair Isle

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? Yeppers. I have a women's size 8 foot. 9 inches long.

23. When is your birthday? May 10th

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? mathgirl

Let the quilting begin

2008-05-22T23:26:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the late in the week post, I've been staying at the cabin and didn't get pictures lined up in advance. It was a nice week, relaxing. If not cold in the unheated cabin when the temperatures were dipping below zero at night... But I'll live with that as long as I have ample comforters and lots of peace and quiet. The mail today brought me some good news. On June 1st is my convocation and I found out that I'll be getting the gold medal in mathematics (honours) and the gold medal in statistics (4-year). Something to smile about. I don't get people who don't go to their convocations. I wouldn't dream of missing mine. After killing myself for five years to lead up to this point, I want to be handed those degrees, not get them with bills in the mail...
I'd say there was lots of knitting going on but that would be a lie as I've been playing with my new toy, the sewing machine. This weekend after butchering a yard of two kinds of fabric because I was completely unable to measure the pieces correctly I have wound up with a cute little clutch purse. The button fastener is a little off centre but other than that I am extremely happy with it. It's really more of a little girl's purse but I do have a little girl in mind that will hopefully love it. It's all flannel fabric so it's very soft. The pattern is the "Artsy Clutch" from the Bend The Rules Sewing book by Amy Karol. Cute no?

Now, having had the machine for just over two weeks that must only mean one thing, I started my quilting class yesterday!!! Oh it was wonderful. There are 8 of us in the class, though one lady won't be coming until next week. I believe that I'm the youngest by atleast 20 years but they're all so nice. And the instructor is wonderful too. Today was very much so the math lesson. The quilt we're making is a log cabin quilt. Therefore it's a little math figuring the make sure you're cutting the pieces in the appropriate size increases. We learned how to figure how many strips we'd get per metre of fabric so how wide of fabric of each kind. I'm doing my blocks in four colours with two shades of each of the main colours. Well, five colours I suppose as I have a centre block in a different colour. Here's the sketch of each of my blocks (note, not really using orange, that was just the only other shade of red in the pack of pencil crayons)

See the fun calculations? Most people are doing two colours but as I was done all the calculator work much before the others I was able to play around with colours and noticed that with rotations I could get a cute triangular pattern, this is how it'll look pieced together:

There are 24 blocks (4 by 6) each nine inches square. Needless to say that it's a lap blanket size for my very first quilt. Some are tackling like double or queen sized bed sized blankets. Considering that we get two weeks to sew all of our blocks (and I will be gone for 6 of those days), that is so far out of my reach at the moment, I don't want to think about it. but I'm happy with what I've done. Here's a sneak peek at the colours:

Homework for this week: Wash and press the fabrics, pre-cut all of my strips and sort by strip letter. I'm excited!

Winner!

2008-05-14T21:46:00.002-05:00

Hi all! It's the post that you've all been waiting for, the results from my birthday contest! But first, you don't get away that easy. It must be preceded by a statistics lesson :)
While most people pick winners with crazy random number generators (actually, they're generating pseudo random numbers but that's a whole other lesson). I am more of an old school girl and prefer my book of random numbers.

That there is one of my prized possessions. The contents are exactly what it describes. 400 pages of straight random numbers followed by more pages of random normal deviates. i.e. random number tables. For extra fun, check out the amazon.com reviews of this book, hilarious. The way one uses such a table is they randomly flip to a page and pick a column in the table (I like to do this with my eyes closed but I'm just geeky that way). Then you read the numbers down the columns until you get a usable number. As we had 10 commentors we can't just use 1-10 as that would require two numbers to get 10 and only one for the others which puts 10 at a disadvantage. So we instead use 01, 02,...,09,10 giving double digits to the first numbers. This may mean a while before we get a useable number but luckily for us, I happened upon a number on the second try:

So congrats commentor #9, pioggia! I don't have an email address for you and you don't have a blogger i.d. so please send me an email to mathgirlknits*at*gmail*dot*com with your mailing address and I'll get you your yarn :)
On my knitting front I was in a bib mood this weekend and for good measure made another boy bib. If my supervisor's wife has a boy it's for them, otherwise for baby J (I had to cover my bases for whatever they might have right?). Seriously, you all need to start knitting baby bibs. They are super addicting and such a quick knit.

There's a UFO that's been resurrected too today. Any guesses?

Happy Whacking Day!

2008-05-10T17:39:00.002-05:00

Happy Whacking Day all!!!! Isn't it a great day? Wow, 23rd birthday. This should be an age I can remember. I think that 22, the number itself not the age, is a very forgettable number and without thinking I would always try to say I was 21. But I really like the number 23 so it should stay in. Speaking of my birthday, you have until tonight to enter the contest on my last blog entry. The winner will receive this lovely skein of Mama Llama Monterey 4 ply (70/30 Merino, Seacell) in Deepest Purple that came in my Woolgirl order, feel free to ooh and ahh

On the knitting front I have started to make a duffel coat for baby J but currently only have a bunch of rows of garter stitch so it doesn't look all that interesting and isn't worth much mentioning. On my trip to the conference I also got quite a bit of knitting done on my second Monkey sock and have passed the heel and am working down the instep. It was amazing how fascinated all the guys were watching me knit at night trying to figure out how it all worked. I'm surprised at how much seeing a heel impressed one of them, lol.
In the pictured knitting front yesterday I came home to find that my huge order of dishcloth cotton came in, all 16 skeins of it. And with shipping it was only $38. You absolutely can't argue with that. So late yesterday afternoon and early evening, too tired to do much else, I cozied up on the couch and made another baby bib in a cute pink colourway (this is the first girl bib I've made) and I casted on for a green bib but am only a few rows in. Should my supervisor's wife have a girl the bib is ear marked for them otherwise it will be for my friend's baby in September. Yes, as of yesterday still no baby to go with the bunting I made. I'm crossing my fingers they'll have a Whacking Day baby today :) Their kid can only hope to be so lucky! But I digress, here's the bib

(Susan, if you haven't already started, I do highly recommend these Baby Bibs O' Love from Mason Dixon Knitting, super cute and super addictive)
Now, being the crafty person I am, you must be wondering what I got for my birthday (combined grad gift). Well, I am grinning from ear to ear because today my father took me out and ordered me this

An Elna 7200 sewing machine which is designed specifically for quilting. It will be in in a week and comes with three free lessons on its use. The lady who helped us was so nice and I'll get to take the lessons from her. I've also signed up for her class on log cabin quilting that begins the week after my machine arrives to get me started. I can't wait! Expect to see quilting action as well as knitting in the near future!
Have an excellent weekend!

Socks and gnomes

2008-05-05T21:50:00.002-05:00

I'm so out of the habit of blogging now... it's really bad :( But for all who keep reading this post, to make up for it there'll be a blog contest to celebrate my upcoming birthday so keep reading!
This past week has been devoted to two thing knitting wise. The first was my project for while I was out of it on pain killers after getting my wisdom teeth out. With nothing to do but sit and watch tv all weekend I decided to start something quick that would be quickly gratifying. So I pulled out the Socks That Rock Medium Weight in the Backstabber colourway and did some plain, toe-up, stockinette socks. I must say, that after some practice, I liked it much better this time toe up than in previous attempts. I absolutely could not believe how quickly the suckers knit up with the slightly thicker yarn. And the fabric is nice and dense making the most warm and cozy socks I've ever done. Aren't they cute?

And no pooling for me, just this super cute striping. It isn't striping yarn but I happened to hit the gauge and stitch number sweet spot for it to do just that. I love it!
I also happily finished the baby bunting and today, after taking it to work and trying to dry it all day in the common room, I was able to give it to my supervisor who seemed to really like and think his wife would too. Unfortunately, I stupidly didn't take a picture of it once it was finished. He's promised me that he'll get me a picture but it could be a while, you know, baby imminently about to arrive and all. She's due today so I'm very happy that the baby was able to hold up long enough for me to finish knitting their present. I kept telling him that she wasn't allowed to go into labour until Tuesday, it'll be quite amusing if she does. Maybe the knitting gods like me again?
I have also spent the last week doing a major cleaning of my room. You see, up until now I've had two tiny shelves for books that only can hold paperback sized books. so needless to say, at this point in my academic career, my room's been over taken by textbooks, pleasure reading books, knitting books and binders of class notes. It was a total disaster. So we managed to get two bookshelves in there and I've taken to re-organizing the rest of the room and re-arranging the furniture. It still looks like a disaster as stuff is being sorted out in piles but trust me, it's come miles and miles. I think I've thrown out about 7 garbage bags worth of stuff and a stack of magazines that went up to about my chest. Lots and lots got tossed. In the re-org, I cleared off a shelf from my knick knack display shelves for fabric, sock yarn and roving. I can't believe how much sock yarn there is, yikes! Let's kindly forget that I have an order from Woolgirl coming, shh!

I think that's yarn for 36 pairs I count in that picture? Maybe more? Still a pittance compared to some though.
But of course, what you really want to know about is the blog contest! This Saturday is my 23rd birthday and it also happens to be the best holiday in the year, Whacking Day (don't worry, innocent holiday and link)! You have no idea how much I squealed when I heard Kent Brockman announce that it occurred on every May 10th in the episode. For a skein of to be determined sock yarn you need only leave a comment with your favourite obscure holiday and its date. Leave comments by Saturday May 10th 11:59 p.m. and I will use my book of random numbers to pick a winner. Good luck!
And just to amuse you:

2008-04-24T16:48:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's been just over two weeks since last posting... but I have good news on that front. I'm back to the land of the living!!! As of 1:30 Tuesday after I finished all of my degree requirements and had received all of my grades for my undergrad degrees. Yes, Tuesday was the big 45 minute thesis presentation and then oral exam. And I have to say that I couldn't happier about how it went. There were so many people there supporting me, it meant so much. All of the faculty were there except 3. My boss and the desk man at the tutoring centre where I work (the latter of which knows nothing about stats) were there, an alumni friend came, quite a few students and my parents too. And the examining committee even took me and my parents out for lunch post talk/pre oral exam on the department which I thought was incredibly nice. You will also be happy to know that I managed to include a slide about sock knitting!

I knew I just had to incorporate knitting in somehow as I'm so well known for it in my department.
In swappy news I received me package from my Ravelry College Swap pal ravelrayah.

Notice the cute knitted top she made for the bear?

And as she's received her package, this also means that I can share with you the knitted garment I made her, a calorimetry from Knitty:

I unfortunately fell into the ongoing plague of huge calorimetries so I attached a second button to the other end so that it could be adjusted from both sides. And I think it's still super cute. If only I had one for myself now :(
Having had 2 days off so far, the knitting has picked up full swing but I shall perhaps leave that for another post as I can't give everything away at once when I need to start posting more often now can I?

Checking in

2008-04-08T21:05:00.000-05:00

Not a long entry but checking in to let you know that I'm still living. I got my honours thesis handed in on Thursday even if it nearly killed me to do so. Wrote my first exam today and will continue to write them into next week.
In stolen moments and a Jenna day post thesis handing in I did some of the following knitting:

Monkey socks made out of Yarntini in the Sangria colourway. I've had this wound for casting on since probably back in December, atleast. Now I can finally have them. The knitting is going really quickly. The pattern is just so easy to get into the knitting zone with.
Then there's the baby bib that I've been saying that I wanted to try. And yes, I made it from the Mason Dixon knitting book, the baby bib of love I believe it's called. Super cute, just perfect for baby J.

There's also been a small project for my Ravelry college knitters swap. It's not a secret swap so I best not be saying what it is or posting pictures. Though I will say that I've never knit it before and that I wound up like two rows short of yarn and had to go back to the yarn store today to buy a new skein. (Funny story too, I walk in to the yarn store and right in front of me is my department head at the university with another professor. She convinced him to let her stop on their way to lunch. It was fun, we gabbed about knitting. But I told the dept. head that he was definitely the last person I ever expected to see in the yarn store, weird. Math is everywhere I tell you!)
Oh, and work continues on the bunting. It will be finished in good course for the first week of May as long as the mother doesn't go into labour too early but I've been lucky so far. Wish me luck getting through these last few weeks so that I can get back to posting and finishing VIP knitting projects.

I heart committee 177

2008-03-22T15:32:00.003-05:00

Well, if it hasn't been a week of good news mixed in with my sleepless nights of work filled delirium! I am alive and many big things have been happening for me. First:
My Sock It To Me Twice socks swaps socks arrived:

They are super cute fraternal self patterning socks in all of my favourite colours! I totally love them. My wonderful partner this whole time has been CynicalKnittingGal a.k.a. AJ. Thank you very much AJ! I'm not too sure what the yarn is so perhaps you could let us know? :) Misty also sends her approval. No word from my downstream pal yet so I assume she hasn't received the socks yet. I'll keep you posted!
Next, I got some of the best news I've ever been given and just at the right time when I need that extra bit of motivation to get through what will be a brutal last two weeks of term:

I *heart* committee 177! I received my NSERC Canadian Graduate Scholarship for my masters degree, woo hoo!!!! I'm all set for grad school. It's worth $17,500 and is renewable for a second year pending continued academic performance and no sudden slashes to the budget. Hooray! You should have seen me jumping up and down and screaming on Thursday when this arrived. The poor kitties were terrified :)
On the knitting front I am almost done one half of the front of the baby bunting so that's well on its way for the due date of early May. Last night I was over at my friend Corey's house for a craft night and decided to make some baby socks from Debbie Bliss' Essential Baby. Now, the troubles just knew no end. I somehow didn't realize the socks were supposed to be knit flat and then seamed down the center of the foot and up the back. So when I started purling on top of knit stitches when the picture clearly was in stockinette I knew that was a sign something was wrong. So I ripped it and decided to modify the sock to knit in the round as I hate seaming and don't think babies really want seams on the bottoms of their feet. I keep knitting, cabled three cables in the wrong direction which results in ripping. Then in the picture, it has the top of the socks rolled over with the pattern facing outward. As I knit them in the round, I suddenly realized several repeats after where you roll it, that my sock would be inside out if rolled. Ripped the extra repeats and decided mine would be an unrolled top so fewer repeats. Did the heel, only it came out funny with all the decreases straight across. So I ripped, started again modifying the heel when I realized that the seam was down the middle so those direction were for only half the heel. Rip back the heel flap to double the number of stitches. This time I modify the heel for the appropriate number of stitches but realize I failed to do the heel flap. Rip again. Knit the heel flap, knit the heel and then the rest of the sock was easy sailing. 5 hours later I had accomplished a single baby sock:

Now it's a very pretty sock except one thing. I have no idea what planet Debbie Bliss lives on but there's no way these would ever fit a 3-6 month old. And before anyone starts shouting gauge at me, I was getting 6.5 stitches to the inch, the gauge in the pattern was 5.5 stitches to the inch so I was actually knitting at a tighter gauge and came up with smaller socks that the pattern called for (and yes, I took off two stitches to allow for the fact that I eliminated the seam). So, I don't quite know what to do. I will steal a baby at the university on Monday and see how terribly off these are but I'm guessing the answer is... very. *sigh* Do I really need my knits revolting on me right now?

1,2,3,4,5,6 SWITCH!

2008-03-10T22:15:00.003-05:00

So, if anyone wants to start taking bets on when I fall asleep mid walk, now would be a good time to start :) If there's been no blogging here, it's because there's been no sleeping either. Usually 4 hours a night if I'm lucky for a good two weeks now. There is just that much work to do between now and the last day of classes April 4th. I could work 24/7 and I'm having my doubts that all would get done. But I will persevere. I may die trying, but I'll try none the less!
Whilst I wait for my baking for the bake sale to cook so that I can go to bed, here is what's been going on in the very rare stolen moments:
1) I finished my Sock It To Me Twice swap socks and they've been mailed off. I love them to death and wish they were mine but alas, it's just not meant to be. They're too big for me anyways. I love how they turned out and cannot wait for my partner to get them. Pretty no?

I have also been getting tempted by Robyn on her blog. Last week she kept talking about cucumber sandwhiches which happen to be a great love of mine. I always feel posh and English when I eat them, like I'm straight out of "The Importance of Being Earnest". Now having no time myself to go to the store, I did convince the parents to pick up the cucumber and creme cheese for me. Here's proof I did feed myself at some point last week (ignore the horrid cutting job, the bread wasn't anything near what I'd consider fresh):

And as a little day brightener, I got a little present about two weeks ago from my knitting partner in crime from the university Julie. I adore it

Awwww!
Well, I hope that you are all having a better time no going crazy than I am. I will return with more frequent content and some sanity come the end of the month, until then, excuse the sporadicness of my posting.

Presents!

2008-02-25T21:39:00.002-06:00

I've been bad. Last week was reading week and I got so bogged down in work that I didn't get to post about the lovely presents that found their way to my doorstep!

My Sock It To Me Twice pal sent my these lovely gifties as a Valentines Day gift. There was stationary, cute kitty kleenex, candy hearts, pens, body lotion and unpictured is yummy chocolate and another tape measure (good thing, I lose them like crazy!). It was just the perfect pick me up gift in the middle of a crazy week. Thank you!!!!
Plus I've also received word that my socks are done, eek! Thanks so much pal, can't wait to see them!

Thinking to spring

2008-02-17T13:47:00.002-06:00

As I get bogged down in two promises of socks (though I have nothing but warm and fuzzy feelings for the recipients and do wish to finish them), I can't help but let my mind wander to the projects that I want to get accomplished once those are done. Come mid-April I will actually have real time to myself and all my knitting can get restarted in earnest again (it was confirmed unofficially Friday that I got my summer research grant so I'm secure in my day job for the summer, hooray!). Here's what's in the plans for post sock finishing:
1) Baby bunting for my supervisor's baby-to-be which I have blogged about before. I'm about 1/3 of the way done right now but not touching it again until all is out of the way.
2) Baby bibs. I found another friend having a baby and a growing stash of discloth cotton so I'll be making her some bibs and a few test bib's for Baby J who received the cabled baby blanket.
3)A Baby Surprise Jacket. Seeing all the crazy pictures of its construction I'm dying to try it out so I bought a kit for it from Blue Moon Fibre Arts. The colours are for a girl so hopefully one of the two upcoming babies will be a little girl to wear it. Isn't the yarn too cute?

4) Next socks on my list to make are some Monkeys from Yarntini in "Sangria"

5) Embossed leaves in some newly acquired Socks That Rock (You really didn't think I couldn't order from them and not get any STR did you?) in the Backstabber colourway

6) Finish the mystery stole from last summer (oops!)
7) The start of a long term mitered square blanket project
Hopefully that will be keeping me occupied for a while. I'm sure there will be many other socks and various sundry baby things thrown out but it keeps me with something to look forward to as an incentive to finish the two gift socks. Wish me luck!

Happy V-Day!

2008-02-14T18:22:00.002-06:00

If there wasn't an odder holiday than Valentine's Day... After elementary school it falls off the radar, and then once you're old enough that you celebrate it again most people are either cynical of relationships or the commericalization of the holiday. And I'm sure not many of us have all that many memories of making Valentine's as children. So it might have been a challenge to do this week's contest for the Sock It To Me Twice Swap, share a memorable Valentine's Day memory. As far as the actual day is concerned, I have a very vague memory of being in elementary school and not remembering who I'd already given cards to which hardly counts, and since then I only remember one Valentine's Day. But it would happen to be one of the dearest memories I hold.
5 years ago I was a senior in high school. Valentine's Day was coming up in several weeks and I was tired of not being able to celebrate it. No boyfriends to speak of yet at that point so celebrating from that vantage point was a lost cause. So I decided to reclaim from the vantage point of my childhood. For several weeks leading up to the holiday I was hyping it like crazy. Reminding people about the holiday on a pretty much daily basis and cooking up schemes for a big celebration, most of which revolved around my french teacher Mr. A.
Now, you have to understand what a soft spot we had for him. I doubt there was a teacher that spent more time looking out for us than him. He was also our IB co-ordinator, grad committee advisor and fashion show advisor. We were constantly in his room. And we were a class of all girls except one guy. He was by far our favourite teacher. But he always liked to play this rough tough persona about hating holidays (every Christmas he'd hang a Santa by its neck from his cieling, I always said it wasn't really Christmas until it was up), so let's not get started about what he had to say about Valentine's Day.
A few days before the holiday a whole group of my friends and I got together and we made tons of decorations. Lots of cut out hearts, a heart mobile, everything bright pink and red. And all the hearts had ridiculous sayings like "Big IB thinks you're sexy" "Nothing says I love you like Monopoly". The night before V-Day we got a janitor to let us in to his room and we plastered it with decorations, heart confetti, candy hearts, you name it, we put it up. And the doorway into his room we hung heart garland all around it.
The next day on Valentines, I wore the brightest pink dress that you could possibly imagine and my tiara (which still holds a special spot in my heart). I brought all sorts of hershey's kisses to school. My friends all brought the kids Valentine's Day cards. We were giving them out all over the school.
But it was absolutely priceless on the way to first period walking by Mr A's room on my way to first period. Every day he stood in that hallway, perfectly straight, arms crossed on his chest. But that day he was surrounded by so much pink. I can only imagine what the students not in on it thought. Ofcourse it didn't take long for it to be pinpointed on me :) Then when we had french later that day, we walked into the room and announced to him that we were going to have a Valentine's Day party. We had drinks, baking, cd player, music, etc... and just started setting up. And I have to say that it's a true testament to the fondness that he had for our class that he didn't say a word and let us take over whatever class he had planned for us and let us have our party on what's probably his least favourite day of the year. We danced and danced to the cheesiest music. Best Valentine's Day party ever.
One of the best days I've had. The next day, I even had a different teacher pull me aside after class and thank me for what I did on Valentine's Day. We created a real celebration and different mood all throughout the school. This over commercialized, whatever holiday, took on something new that year. It was about fun and friendship and smiles.
And to this day, when I go to visit Mr A, he still has several of the hearts we made around his room, including one on his computer on his desk. I think that we perhaps gave him just as memorable of a Valentine's Day too...

Really, still alive

2008-02-11T22:01:00.000-06:00

This is horrible! I haven't even posted this month. This is perhaps because I've been sucked back into the swamp vortex that is the end of the year stretch. Two months left of courses before I'm done my degrees. And the way I see it, I pretty much have to spend every remaining waking hour working if I want to get everything done that needs to be :) No pressure or anything...
There has been a bit of knitting going on. I was able to tick all that kitchenering off of my to do list since the last post. And my dad's first sock is done with the second one cast on the needles. (Though I fear the second will languish until April, oops). You can take a peek at the non woven in ends

(Julie, they almost fit the sock blocker but are a touch too big. Then again, my dad has smaller feet so that might not be the best indication)
I also got around to biting the bullet and finishing the mitt I cast on for months and months ago. It's super warm made from Blue Sky Alpaca's Melange (%100 baby alpaca). The mitt isn't too terribly nice but it's warm and soft and that's all I care about. The real question is, will I get the second one done before it's summer?

I've also gotten past the heel on my first SITMT Swap sock. This is quite the accomplishment as I had to rip the entire heel flap and heel about 3 times much to my total dismay as I was completely unable to follow the pattern. I seriously wanted to cry at the third ripping but all seems to be going well. My only fear is that I will be so tired of the ribbing by the end that I'll not want to knit these socks again for a very long time and I really want a pair for myself (I've had the yarn picked bought since the summer). Let's cross our fingers that come the end of April when I have real time again the tiring will pass.
If you worry for my sanity, please be aware that Mittens is protecting all of those intro calc students from having their papers graded when I'm delirious of angry. Good kitty!

P.S. Please be aware that Crazy Aunt Purl has put us all on notice that she's sending V.D. through the internet

Time to graft

2008-01-27T16:47:00.000-06:00

Methinks that it's about time that I take out my darning needle and get grafting. In the last week while avoiding school work from a motivational slump, I managed to get to the end of two socks. And then promptly didn't bother to graft the toe. But that should be done soon.
The first sock to get to that point is my father's sock. Though perhaps I'm avoiding the grafting there because it'll mean that I'll have to cast on the second one which I'm not exactly dying to do. It's 70 stitches around on 2.25 needles (US 1) and the ribbing goes on forever. He really likes how they're turning out but they just aren't that fun to knit. I must tell myself that the quicker I finish, the quicker I never have to have anything to do with them again...
The second sock is one that's been hiding a bit. My Salt Water Taffy socks that I cast on for in Cuba. I'm doing these in plain stockinette and not following any sort of pattern or recipe. Just using the common sense from all the other socks I've knit. It's really nice to be at that point where I can just knit socks and not be tied to any sort of pattern. I'm also amazed at how fast the stockinette goes. The yarn has a BFL base and I don't know how I feel about it. I generally have very even stitches and they seem to being going funky all over the place on this yarn. And it's not the best feeling ever to knit with. I am hoping that blocking will even out the stitches, BUT despite all of that, the socks feel heavenly on my feet. So I will love the yarn base anyways because nothing tops that!

In the last week I've also cast on for my Sock It To Me Twice socks. These need to be done by the end of March so hopefully I will have the first one done by reading week (mid February) and I'll get most of the second one done durring reading week. The pattern is from Favorite Socks by Interweave Knits (best sock book ever!) and is mainly a 2x1 ribbing with cables going down either side. If you recall it's made out of Dream In Color Smooshy and boy is it smooshy :)

I'm now bringing my socks to my calc lab to knit on while they do their quizzes. It provides entertainment for them and an extra hour of knitting in a week. And, in the fit more knitting time in quest, it is now light enough durring the drive home to knit again (when I'm the passenger, not the driver ofcourse!). So even more knitting time. I love when it's finally somewhat light out on the return as for several months I rarely see daylight durring the week as I get to the university in the morning in the pitch black and return home late in the pitch black. Hooray for natural sunlight!
But perhaps I should stop avoiding work and get those assignments done and tests marked :( sigh. Hope you had a great weekend!

Acceptance

2008-01-24T22:32:00.000-06:00

Tonight I was out with my community band playing a concert for Robbie Burns Day (officially tomorrow) but before that I received a happy letter in the mail :

I am officially accepted into the University of Manitoba and going to grad school in the fall, hooray! And only two weeks after putting in my application too so very little waiting. Though truth be told, I wasn't exactly concerned about getting accepted as I've had an intended supervisor and the department's been aware of the project he'd like to do with me for half a year already but still. I'm going to be a grad student! Where in the world has the time gone? There's only a few short months left of my undergrad and it's all going by so fast. I'm trying really hard to hold onto and enjoy this last little bit of time but it seems an impossible feat. I've had a wonderful time where I am and wouldn't trade it for anything but I guess life is telling me that it's time for a new adventure...
In the "in the mail" department, I finally received the change purse that I ordered. As I said, the only real problem with my new wristlet system was the money all loose about inside but all those problems have been solved and it's the perfect solution:

Ain't it cute? And bright red lining on the inside :)
In commentary on knitterly life, I sometimes wonder if the knitting makes us forgot non-knitter etiquette. For example, around knitters it's almost expected that if someone is knitting something new for people to walk up and start petting and examining it. However, it's not exactly something that's encouraged by the non-knitters. See, today after class I was having a conversation with two of my classmates in the hallway as we were getting ready to leave for the day. One of the guys was talking and gesturing with his hands when I was completely distracted by the mitts on his hands that looked hand knit. Without thinking about it, I walked right up and starting starring at his mitts, mostly to his utmost confusion and surprise. Totally derailed his train of thought :P I realized the strange behaviour and asked if they were handknit which as it turns out they were, by his mother, awww... Warms my heart. But I really have to find less socially awkward ways of examining handknits in the wild...

Cuba

2008-01-22T23:39:00.000-06:00

I've been saving this for a day when I just can't bring myself to write something interesting to post, so after much waiting, here are some of my favourite pics from Cuba:

Taking count

2008-01-15T16:42:00.001-06:00

Perhaps my last post made it seem like I had relatively few things on the needles and it was nothing to worry about. I understand your pish posh there Susan. But those are the works that I'm actively knitting on on a mostly daily basis. If we want a true and honest account of what's on my needles it would (as far as i can remember casting things on):

Father Socks
Baby bunting
Salt Water Taffy Socks
Laguna Waves Socks
Eiffel
SITMT Sock Swap Socks
Baby Alpaca Mitts
Sweet Pea Socks
Lemonade Stand Socks
Black knee high socks
Mystery Stole
Snowdrop Shawl
Buried Sweater from before I realized there was actual yarn made of things other than acrylic that came from Walmart
Some Regia Socks on a long circs
Granny Squares with intentions of a blanket
Technically still on the needles but earmarked for frogging, the socks that shall not be named from Sockapalooza

Without being at home to actually check, I think that about exhausts everything that is currently on needles but it seems there's high chances that at this point I could've forgotten something. Hmmm 7/15 are socks. Perhaps I have a sock problem?
What I really wanted to share with you today is my latest aquisition. You might remember my wristlet that was purchased a while back out of jealousy of the one I bought my secret pal (oops!). Well I have since abandoned my huge honking purse and down sized to just using the wristlet which can stay stuck to my wrist and I never have to worry about it. I tell you, it is truly liberating. I can't fit more than necessities in, the are no non-broken purses in my house so I have to carry just the basics around. For anyone who feels their life is too cluttered, I recommend this move. The rest of my life is a huge mess of junk strewn about, but this one little piece of peace is making all the difference. So ofcourse I bought another one from Midnight Creations . Now I'm just waiting for the change purse I ordered as my only complaint is it's hard to find the loose change milling about inside. Here it is:

Isn't it cute? The service is great and she does custom orders too!
And in the realm of strange random stories, I had an odd knitting moment the other day. I was in the office of one of my professors for absolutely non-crafting related reasons when they mentioned that they saw my knit blog. Apparently he was googling some totally unrelated to knitting subject and by chance, out of all the websites in the world it could have taken him, he wound up on my blog. He never even knew I knit (don't know how any one could not know that, but I digress) but the post on the page had my picture on it. As it turns out his wife is a big knitter and by osmosis he's learned lots about styles, colours, materials, yarn contents, etc... And I ended up having an hour long conversation about knitting with him. And he promised me a book about alpacas. Who knew?
Well, that's all for today. Tonight is knit night, woo hoo!

Polygamy

2008-01-13T22:31:00.001-06:00

The knitting post. I fear that this might turn out to be almost embarassing. I have developed the worst case of project polygamy that I have ever had in my knitting career. I can not knit on the same thing more than two days in a row. In the last three days I have knit on four different projects. And it is taking every ounce of strength I have to not cast on about half a dozen new projects. Perhaps it's all the knitting deadlines that have suddenly appeared before me when I promised myself to cut back on the deadline knitting and knit more for myself. I do feel excessively guilty looking at all the WIPs that surround me. And I think that's why I can't bear to keep picking them up, trying to ignore their pleas. But, like a good knit blogger, I will fess up.
The first is the project that I feel most guilty about. My father's Christmas socks. Though, in my defense I had to stop knitting on them after like the first day of my vacation because I had serious doubts whether they'd fit and had no circular needles to test them out on my father. They still aren't done because I keep knitting on other things. As predicted, I ripped out the heel. It was a bit too snug and he didn't like the ridge on the bottom of the heel. So I just improvised a traditional short row heel and all is well. I mean, it was a very cool technique the dutch heel, just not very practical. They are now long enough to display properly on the sock blockers so here's a better look at them:

The next item on the list (with a little less guilt) is a UFO that's been sitting on my dresser and haunting me since the summer. You may or may not remember that I was making some Laguna Wave toe-up socks out of Duet Sock Yarn back in like June/July. I finished one sock and got about 1/3 of the way through the second. There's really no excuse for this as they're made out of DK weight yarn and the knitting it ridiculously fast. I re-learned how to do the toe-up short row heel and am now traveling up the leg of the sock. Hopefully there will be a pair by the end of the week. I'm not too happy with how the short rows look but it's an improvement over the first sock. We'll do a compare and contrast once they're done. But to jog your memory, here it is so far:

What fun bright colours she dyes up for Duets huh?
Next is the "Hooded Baby Carrying Sack" for my supervisor's child to be. Or as I call it, the baby bunting (seriously, who came up with that really overly utilitarian name 'carrying sack'?). The body at the moment is 22.5 inches long and I'm into the sleeves. The entire thing, front, back, sleeves, hood and all is knitted in one big piece so it's interesting to see how the shape is going to develop.

I was really a bit concerned when I got to the directions for starting the arms. Just CO 36 stitches at the beginning of the next two rows. Seriously? I was just befuddled wondering how that could possibly look good. Seeing as how I usually do all my cast ons long tail, I wasn't too sure what might work best. I suspected a knitted cast on but messaged a lady on ravelry who'd knitted the same pattern and asked her what she used. As it turns out, a knitted cast on is what she used so I plowed on. And I must say, I am truly amazed at how nice it looks. Practically seamless. I guess we all need to learn to have a bit more faith sometimes in our projects don't we?

The other project I was knitting was... well I cast on for Eiffel. But only did about 3 repeats of the lace on the sleeve which isn't saying much as it's a 4 row repeat. I just couldn't help myself. The yarn is too soft and I'm desperate to get working on a new sweater. But at the same time I am fighting off the urge. There is no picture yet as there isn't much progress. And if I can help myself, there won't be any progress until I finish other things. I'm hoping that giving in to casting on will satisfy my sweater urge, even if only for a bit.
There's other things to say but I fear I've let too much build and I've said too much already for one post. So I'll just have to do another one on Tuesday perhaps :) Blog more often right? Right! Have a great week.

A New Year

2008-01-11T19:52:00.001-06:00

In the long list of things I've been meaning to do but haven't, one of them is a post about the New Year. I was even supposed to for the SITM contest, but I've now missed that boat. But there's no time like the present and you're never too late. A knitting update post to follow later this weekend. I'm in a list like mood, so I'm going to make lists :)

Knitting Projects I want to make in 2008:

-Eiffel

-Tubey

-German Stockings (by Cookie A)

-Granny Square Afghan

-Begin a Mitered Square Blanket

-Cap Shawl from Victorian Lace Today

Personal Goals:

-Write more letters (used to hand write one letter a week)

-Go to the gym three time a week (up from two in the fall)

-Go to sleep earlier during the week

-Write on my thesis every week

-Blog more often

-Save money for my trip to Montreal

-Spend more time outside in the summer

Things to look forward to:

-Trip to Montreal in June and Toronto in July

-Graduation

-Starting grad school

-Summer Research Job

-Learning to sew with a new sewing machine in the spring

My favourite online finds of 2007:

-The Loopy Ewe

-Midnight Creations

-XKCD

-PhD Comics

-Dinosaur Comics

-Knitters Uncensored

-Ravelry

And that's that. Knitting content to follow...

Socks ring in 2008

2008-01-04T15:34:00.000-06:00

Hi all! Happy New Year and merry belated Christmas!!!! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I was busy sitting on a beach in Cuba so there wasn't so much in the way of holiday season for me but I was having a well needed break. Ofcourse this is why there's been nada in the way of blogging around here lately. I did get back on Monday but I've been a bit tired running around with the start of school so hopefully you will forgive me. Here is the knitting that went on whilst in Cuba:

My Hula Punch socks are finally finished!!! Well, the knitting is done, the ends need to be woven in. But I can finally have socks to call my own. My last two pairs previous were for other people so it's nice to get a pair for me churned out. And they are in the most fantabulous colourway so what's a girl not to love?
The trip also involved lots and lots of casting on. Firstly there are the socks for my father that I had to abandon as they have a funky heel and I'm dead certain they're now too small but didn't have a circular needle to get my dad to try them on at the time. It's the Men's Elegant Winter Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush made with Patons Kroy:

If you're wondering what kind of funky heel, it's a Dutch heel. And not only is it narrow, I don't know how comfy it would be either :S And to have socks for me on the needles, my Salt Water Taffy Socks:

These are just knit in plain stockinetter on 2.5mm needles. I really hope that if I block these socks it will cure all sins because there's some really ugly bits in my stockinette that are in serious need of smoothing out and I hope that they aren't there to stay :( Maybe this is why I never make plain stockinette socks?
And yes, you know there's another sock coming. It is just the cuff of the sock for my Sock It To Me Twice Pal just to show off the colour:

The yarn is Dream In Color Smooshy and oh my! This must be the best yarn I have ever gotten to knit with. I have never knit with anything that has the sproing of this stuff. The name absolutely says it all. I will sacrifice a good base yarn if the colour's good enough but there is no sacrificing going on here. I bought it for the colour, knitting for the texture. I highly recommend it to anyone out there who's been thinking of jumping on the DIC train.
But ofcourse, I can't let you think that it's only socks now. Today I stopped by the Ram Wools sale to buy yarn for the present for my supervisor's kid to be. But I will save the details for when I get some knitting done on it. Hopefully soon. Until then, happy 2008!

2007-12-22T16:18:00.001-06:00

Christmas miracles are happening everywhere around the world of knit blogging and somehow I am not the exception. I thought it was hopeless to get my aunt's Christmas socks done in time for her house sitting on Monday but not only did I finish them, I finished them with several days to spare. I surprised even myself by completing the pair between Tuesday evening and Friday evening. And to make it even more impressive, they weren't the socks I was originally making her. Those turned out to be hideously too small and were abandoned in a fit of frustration half way down the leg. So real panic set in and I had muchos incentive to work like crazy on her socks. I'm very happy with how they turned out:

They are clearly Jaywalker socks made from sKnitches Syncopation self-striping sock yarn in the Mittens colourway, the November offering of the Sweet Sheep Self-striping Sock Club. I did a few modifications making a garter ridge heel, widening the heel at the heel turn and a few minor mods on the toe. The yarn gave really wonderful stitch definition and there was nice colour transitions. My only complaint would be that there were some blobs that look like unmixed dye splashed on it in a few places but it's mostly on the sole of the foot so I won't worry.
Ofcourse, the Christmas knitting isn't done. I still have the socks for my father. Clearly I won't get a whole pair done by Christmas but hopefully I'll finish one this weekend to give him as a down payment. I'm getting sooo excited for Cuba! We leave at the crack of dawn Monday morning and I can't wait to get out on the beach. The kitties seem a bit non-plussed at the leaving. Mittens is guarding my suit case:

And Misty is giving me those sad little kitty eyes:

You'd almost forget that they won't care we're not here as soon as their auntie gets here and spoils them rotten all week...

A FO atlast!

2007-12-18T00:37:00.000-06:00

Hooray!!! Exams finished on Thursday for me and I could not be happier. You can imagine what that's meant for me. And if you guessed finally knitting and a FO (it's about time already!) you would be absolutely correct. In the realm of HUGE reliefs, I finished the Wayward Mathematician Socks for Mrs P. and they will be mailed out tomorrow. (One Christmas deadline met, two more to go, gulp). Here they are posing nonchalantly against the mini Christmas tree in preparation for The Loopy Ewe socks in trees photo gallery.

Aww, what cute sheepy sock blockers. I tell you, it's much easier to take pictures of them on the blockers than on my own feet (I got them from the Loopy Ewe). Now, you will remember the peril I was in with having enough yarn leftover from the first sock. I can't seem to find the leftovers so it was super important that I had enough yarn in the second skein for the second sock. I figured there was just enough left over last time to not worry. Well, that was the first sign that things were very close to going up in flames. When I got to the toe my heart was literally pounding a million miles a minute. Afterdoing the end this is how much yarn I had left over (including the extra bit left over after weaving in the cuff yarn):

So Andrea, would you like these leftovers for your blankie ;)
I'm adventurously into the leg of the sock present for my aunt but I will show you those photos after tomorrow when I get a bit more time put in on it (I have two knitting meetups tomorrow, heaven!). But I will prod you all to go buy yarn from my all time favourite-est dyer ever Lovesticks (I just recently found out that she has a blog and it has a contest for a chance to win a skein of her yarn, go! now!). Her yarn went up a few days ago at The Sweet Sheep (a Canadian store) and as opposed to buying from the US the shipping is super speedy. How do I know that? Well, I already fell off the wagon a bit when she posted a picture of the Saltwater Taffy colourway on her blog and I had to get it. But this is it! I swear! You may as well enjoy the picture though:

(You know I'm pointedly eyeing you Andrea to get over there!)

Mail, oh my!

2007-12-09T18:09:00.001-06:00

Today I just got home from London Ontario to find not one but two packages waiting for me, both from wonderful exchange partners. It's like an early Christmas at my house today :)
First there was a lovely first package from my Sock It To Me Twice Pal:

Included was some chocolate (yum yum!), Regia Sock Wool in some really pretty colours, gorgeous little stitch markers which I love to pieces because they're the perfect size for sock needles (not the usual big needle variety), a funky tongue in cheek notepad (I think Knock Knock notepads are hilarious) and some kitty treats. Misty sends her thanks:

Thank you so much SITMT Pal! It's such a wonderful treat to have right in the middle of exams.
Then, came the big box that I have been eagerly anticipating for months and months now... my ISE5 scarf! Eeek!!! The package arrived from the wonderful Marisol. The colour, the feel, the goodies. I couldn't be more spoiled! (And don't worry Marisol, I didn't have you figured out and was completely surprised!) Here is what I pulled out of the box:

Note the cute caption on the card "I saw three sheep come sailing in". This is what was immediately replaced by the package inside the box:

Misty also sends you her thanks! Upon unwrapping here is what I found:

Beautiful scarf, angel pin, fun tape measure that I'm in desperate need of (I promise to try to not lose it but I don't know how credible that promise is given the black-hole-i-ness of my room but I will try very hard anyways!), notepad, gingerbread cookies, gummy frogs, sours candies, chocolates and leftover yarn (Cascade Dolce) which will perhaps become some mitts or a matching hat. Here's the scarf on me (how convenient that I was wearing black!):

Doesn't it suit me well? I love, love, love, love, love it!!!! Thank you so much Marisol!!!!!! You can bet that I'll be wearing it tomorrow and showing it to everyone I see! Thank you!

yummy overload!

2007-12-05T23:48:00.000-06:00

Oh my! There's just so much to show today. And while there is much yarn and knitting acoutrements, I must admit there's no actual knitting to show. Tonight at knit night was the first time in atleast a week that I picked up my needles to my great horror and sadness because of exams, marking, and essay madness. What I actually cast on will have to remain a mystery until I get a bit more done but I will tell you that it's from Cat Bordhi's new book :)
But before I get to my mirade of knitting photos I thought that I'd give another parking lot update. The lot was just plowed yesterday and this is the snow pile of all the snow removed:

You can imagine how big that snow pile gets by the end of the season, lol. Driving has been an absolute death trap down a main road by my house. Going to university this morning, in like a three block span I saw two cars over the median (seperate accidents) and one over the side walk and smashed in a post. Coming home from knit night at almost the same spot I saw three cars so smashed in together they may as well have been one car on side of the road and another over the curb and in a snow bank on the other. Emergency vehicles detouring traffic. This is not a good sign. No matter how careful I am, I'm twice as worried about other drivers spinning out around me...
But enough of snow troubles, on with the yarn-y goodness! First and foremost, my ball winder and swift, hooray!! I wound up three 100g hanks today in half the time it took me before to wind a 50g skein. And I have to say that I was entirely too amused watching the swift fly around and around and the yarn come spinning off of it. Kid in a candy store I tell you :) And by the luck of the draw it turns out that there is only one counter in my house thin enough to secure the swift on to:

Why yes, that would be the oven! With the swift taking up the oven I'm unable to secure the ballwinder down but I don't mind. They suggest holding it in your hands anyways. Seriously, I have no idea what I did before this. Here is what was ball-i-fied today:

The next three socks I intend to cast on. From left to right (or top to bottom if you prefer): Lime & Violet Summer Blush (I believe that's what it's called...) as a christmas gift, Yartini Sangria (monkeys for me) and Dream in Colour Smooshy for my Sock It To Me Twice Pal. Aren't they cute?
Now, I hope you are sitting down without anything pointy in your hands as these next pictures might put you into yarn porn overload, my Wollemeise Lace came in today!!! 1700+yards of delicious peacock colour goodness:

*drools* I must find the perfect project for this. Nothing less than the absolute best project will do. Mmmm... wollemeise.
Oh, and it might be possible that I acquired some sheepy sock blockerse (shh!)

Hmm... I really think this will be the last of yarn spending for a long while (well, exception for the Ram Wools post New Year 30% off sale to pick up yarn for a project for my supervisor's baby to be). But so much yummy stuff to work with, no complaining here!
Tomorrow I'm off to London Ontario for the Canadian Mathematical Society winter meeting so I won't be around for the next few days. Then an exam shortly afterwards. Hopefully I'll get a post in before two weekends from now. But know I'm thinking of knitting in spirit.
Enjoy the rest of the week!
P.S. To my ISE5 and SITMT pals, no sign of your packages yet. I'll stay on alert and let you know as soon as they arrive.

I quit winter

2007-11-29T21:45:00.000-06:00

That's it. I quit winter. I am refusing to participate. This is getting ridiculous. I was playing at a concert tonight and was told there was "ample parking" which was apparently swahili for "lot will be filled up half an hour before, good luck parking anywhere near the building". Now, I don't mind the walking. I mind the fact that in the time it took me to walk from my car to the concert my face was stinging from the cold, my eyes were watering and the air was so cold it was almost hard to breathe. -21 celcius but -32 with the windchill (-6 and -26 fahrenheit respectively). I was not made for the weather and you would never guess I've lived here since I was born.
This is what my car looked like the other day:

Bye bye windows! And here is the view of the parking lot from the other side:

Please triple the amount of snow in the picture to acurately portray its current state. Any one in need of some extra snow?
In terms of the deadline knitting, I finished knitting the chevron scarf on Sunday (Monday?) and it's currently blocking in my room as such:

Assuming it's dry it should be winging its way out of the country on Saturday. Phew! I was concerned about making that deadline. And at the same time I absolutely can't wait for my scarf to arrive from my pal (please postals gods, send it quick, I'm dying in the cold!).
Now I need to focus on finishing the wayward mathematician socks for Mrs P (hopefully by the time exams are done on the 13th) and then I plan on doing the impossible. Namely knitting two pairs of socks between the 14th and 24th of December. One for my aunt and one for my dad. My aunt's absolutely need to be done. My fathers can be finished during the Cuba trip if need be as we aren't officially having Christmas this year but I do hope to have them done for Christmas day. We'll see how that goes.
I also happened to get my very exciting knitpicks order in this past week but you will have to wait until atleast the weekend for pics so just try to contain your excitement won't you ;) Hope you've all had a good week and wish me luck as I write the Putnam (6 hour math problem solving test written by top math students across Canada and US, in any given year the median mark is usually zero which is probably a good indication of how hard it is) contest on Saturday! Go math!

Thankful

2007-11-23T18:38:00.000-06:00

For the Sock It To Me Twice Swap, in honour of the American Thanksgiving, we've been asked to post a list of the things we are thankful for. And with the craziness that's been my life lately, I think it's a great time to stop and think about that.

1. My family for always loving me and encouraging to grasp every opportunity I'm presented in life.

2. My kitties who are always there to give me a cuddle at the end of a hard day and always give so much more love back for every bit you give them.

3. Having a place to play my music every single week with people who love it just as much.

4. All the teachers and professors I have had that have shown me an incredible amount of support and encouragement as I battle my way to one day having a PhD.

5. As much as I complain, living in a place with four seasons where there is always snow at Christmas.

6. Wonderful friends who accept all of my craziness and love me anyways.

7. My knitting as an escape from the stress of every day life.

8. Being able to spend my life working and doing what I love, math and statistics which at some times is completely unbelievable to me. Every day this summer I came to work to do research unbelievably grateful that I was being paid to do something I love so much.

(my contributiong to the math/stats bake sale last year!)

9. The simple pleasures in life like a hot bath at the end of the day or a chocolate treat just because it makes me happy.

10. Living in a country where I have the luxury and freedom to do whatever I want in life without being limited by being a woman.

New toy!

2007-11-18T11:29:00.000-06:00

I can not begin to tell you all how thrilled I am today! Last night I got my early Christmas present that I've been dying for for months. As I just mentioned yesterday, we're going to Cuba over Christmas which basically means not really anything in the way of Christmas presents. But long before a Christmas vacation was decided on I had been dying for and soliloquizing about wanting nothing but a new digital camera. Convincing my father that it would be a total travesty to take the old camera to Cuba, they decided to go halfers with me on a camera. Hooray! Our old one is from 2002 and so obsolete that my dad decided to inherit it but it needs a new battery and the guys at The Source had never seen the battery and took forever trying to look it up to special order it, ha ha. My old camera is one of the first digital cameras ever and very not up to snuff. But my new one is heaven! And I'm going all sepia crazy. Here are the kitties all sepia'd up:

Awww. I think I will be a picture taking maniac for the next while. Well, as soon as I get a new memory card. The one they sold me isn't compatible with the camera (what great knowledgeable staff huh?) and the internal memory card I'm using only holds 8 pictures. Hopefully I'll get back there soon (they need the original debit card so I must wait for my father to be free and go with me).
But what I love most about it at the moment is what it's done for capturing the colours in my variegated socks. Remember my waving lace socks that always looked like crap every time I tried to photograph them? The pattern/texture would get obscured and lumpy and the colour was all wrong? Well let's take a second look at them:

Mmm... socks. I definitely couldn't do that before! And look at the last one there. I am so happy with the clean line I was getting along the decreases. It was always a struggle with my first few socks but I'm actually able to see an improvement. And that makes me smile. I have no idea why I'm so concerned about stagnating in my sock knitting, maybe it's my eternal self-competitiveness showing up in my knitting. But the socks are a gift so I'm glad that they're the prettiest edges I've ever knit.
Long story short, expect more pictures in the near future :)

Sock It To Me Twice Questionnaire

2007-11-17T22:27:00.000-06:00

1. How long have you been knitting? Do you consider yourself beginner, intermediate, advanced? 1.5 years, intermediate
2. How long have you been knitting socks? Just under a year
3. What are your favorite fibers to work with? Alpaca, cashmere, merino
4. What is your favorite color? Blue but I adore pink in a sock
5. What are your current WIPs (works in progress)? Umm... chevron scarf, mitts, 6 pairs of socks, mystery stole 3, eiffel. But very actively only working on the chevron scarf and two pairs of socks
6. Name your favorite yarns, (brand, fibers, colors, etc.). Debbie Bliss (particularly cashmerino), Yarntini, The Knittery, Claudia Hand Painted, Rowan Calmer, Blue Sky Alpaca, and my absolute favourite dyer Lovesticks in the self striping colourways
7. What are some yarns/fibers that you stay away from. I openly admit to being a yarn snob and avoid acrylic
8. What is your family situation? (Married, kids, pets?) Live at home with my parents and my two princess kitties Misty & Mittens
9. Name some of your hobbies. I play flute/piccolo in a community and German band, I dable in playwrighting, enjoy cross stitching, crochet and am learning to sew. I would also consider math a hobby :)
10. Name some of your favorite movies? Love Actually, Shakespear in Love, Dead Poet's Society, About Schmidt, 28 Days
11. Do you like to read? I love to read and have a subscription at Audible
12. Do you collect anything? Flutes/recorders, cat figurines, tiaras, yarn, Le Petit Prince in foreign languages and by the state of my wardrobe apparently cat fur
13. Do you own an iPod or mp3 player? Yes, an mp3 player
14. What are your favorite type of knitting needles? Addi Turbos, I only have 2, wish all my non-dpn's were addi's *sigh*
15. What knitting notion could you not live without? Once it arrives on my doorstep I'm sure the answer will be the yarn winder and swift. At the moment I'm learning that I can't live without my tape measures that I compulsively lose
16. Who are some of your favorite designers? Debbie Bliss, Cookie A.
17. Do you subscribe to any magazines? (Knitting or otherwise.) CRUX Mathematicorum, the CMS Notes (yes, my name doesn't lie about me being a math geek)
18. When is your birthday? May 10th, 1985 (Whacking Day!)
19. Do you have a "wishlist", (on Ravelry, Froogle, or Amazon)? Loopy Ewe, Amazon
20. Do you have a Ravelry ID? mathgirl
21. If you had a sheep, what would you name it? Probably Lambert after that childhood cartoon who's theme song I still haven't gotten out of my head to this day ("Laaaaambert the sheepish lion, Laaaambert is always trying to be a wild and wooly sheep oh Laaaaaambert, the sheepish lion")

7 things

2007-11-16T16:57:00.000-06:00

For the longest time I've seen the seven things about me-ish meme's going around the knit-blogosphere and I've always been meaning to do one. Well, today super awesome downstream Secret Pal Amy got her reveal package (hi Amy!) and perhaps I should tell a bit more about myself now that I don't have to worry about ruining my identity. And I just joined up for the Sockittome Twice swap so I should have an upstream pal lurker around here any day now (hi!). So here we go, 7 interesting things about me:

1) I continually exasperate my parents with my book requests on my Christmas list which have included Preston Manning's autobiography Think Big: My Life in Politics (great book even if I don't support his party!) and A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates which as the name implies is just a huge book of random numbers (and a prized possession of mine!)
2) From grade 2-6 I was in the wrestling club and wrestled at several tournaments
3) I have a strong aversion to foods that mix fruit and meat particularly if the fruit is lemon or orange. The one exception is apricot chicken.
4) I can still do a back bend and put both my feet behind my head :P
5) I have traveld to: the US, Mexico, Jamaica, Grand Caymens, Morroco, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Greece. And this year over Christmas I'll be adding Cuba to that list (woo hoo!)
6) I have never watched the Sound of Music (apparently this shocks people).
7) I used to occassionally wear a tiara to school in my senior year of high school and desperately miss that. I have the tiara I wore to grad prominently displayed in my room.

So there you go, some new facts about moi. And just because I'd feel sad about an update without a picture, here's some yarn I've acquired, Yartini in the Strawberry Daquiri colourway, yum!

2007-11-14T18:07:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I came home after a very crappy day for many reasons. I was rather fed up with everything and wanted nothing to do with anything. It seemed very clear that no good was going to come out of yesterday. Then I got to the mail. And to my utmost surprise and delight was the November shipment of the Sweet Sheep Self Striping Sock Club!
The colourway is so pretty and called Mittens. The yarn is a thick two ply but with such a strong twist in it that it gives this really funky texture to it. This month's dyer is sKNITches and I love it. I just sat down feeling sad, petted the yarn for a while and immediately started to feel better. I really don't know what non-knitters do without pretty yarn to pet when they're sad. Here is the pretty skein :)

There has not been much new on the knitting front. Mainly because I need to start kicking my butt to get my chevron ISE5 scarf done by the December 2nd deadline. I figure that if I spend my relaxing hours before bed knitting it every day and throw in a few extra hours on the weekend I should have it done in time. And just to prove that it has gotten longer since last showing:

It's about 2/3's of my wing span at the moment. And, for anyone out there who has knit this before, could you maybe reassure me that post-blocking it won't pull in at the center so dramatically? I had to keep smoothing it to make it lay flat and that makes me nervous... (well, lots of things make me nervous but I could use one less thing to worry about at the moment).
And, to spread the pretty things to look at joy, I had a $25 credit in my Loopy Ewe account so I succumbed to the Sneak Up and bought some Wollemeise Lace in the colourway Pfauenauge. You must go see that picture. I think I might die a little when it arrives. If only it wasn't taking 3-4 weeks for anything to arrive from the US, *sigh*

Another one

2007-11-09T16:50:00.000-06:00

As my knitting turns increasingly baby oriented, some of you may worry that I will run out of babies to make things for (they grow at alarming rates don't they?). Well this was a growing concern for me as well. But thankfully my fears will be delayed for atleast another half year as there is another little one on the way for me to keep cozy in hand knits! I found out last night that my honours thesis (and soon to be masters) supervisor's wife is having another kid in the spring. After failed attempts at correctly guessing sock size of his daughter (they were my first baby socks, you must cut me some slack), I assured him today that I will make the next ones bigger with the possibility of fitting :) Though I hope that I'm not letting all this baby knitting affect my sanity as I just bought a new book Wednesday "Debbie Bliss Essential Baby" and I'm now getting the urge to knit the stroller blanket in that book. You'd think I'd have learned by now how crazy long it takes to knit baby blankets...
In the FO department I did meet my deadline for the Pixie Hat and I'm as pleased as punch with the results. (And the fact that there's enough yarn leftover that I should wind up getting a total of a hat and 2 socks out of the skeins!). Here it is on a willing and then less willing model:

Tomorrow the hat should be delivered to baby J and his mom. And he he will thankfully have his knitted hat before the snow's here to stay.
Not entirely knitting related but I want to do a small plug for an etsy store I recently bought from. While buying a wristlet for my SP, I decided that I really, really wanted one for myself (actually, I found myself buying two of an alarming number of things I bought for my SP... shh!). Mine arrived in the mail today and I adore it. It's from the Midnight Creations etsy store, made by Sandy O'Brien.

I absolutely needed something small to take out with me when I don't want to carry my gigantic purse with a million and one items in it.
And, just as an ending confession, I decided to bite the bullet and put an order in today for a ball winder and swift from Knitpicks. I am very tired of windng hanks by hand and I think this is a well worth investment as I mostly knit socks made from yarn sold in hanks. So, yeah! And while I was there I saw they had Cat Bordhi's new book for only $19 and somewhat cents so I threw that in as well (I'm dying to get my paws on that book!).
Have a great weekend all and wish me luck tomorrow when I write the NCS team math contest paper!

Knitter to the rescue!

2007-11-05T21:20:00.000-06:00

Friday evening I was sitting at home, ruminating over how darn cold it was and how sad the snow made me (yes, this is a long drawn out theme around this time every year, don't be surprised) whilst looking at pictures on Facebook when I saw one of Baby J (blue cabled blanket baby) wearing a hat. I was suddenly filled with alarm that it was so cold outside and that he didn't have knitted hats to wear. So naturally I raced to the stash and immediately cast on for a hat. Now, I realized in hindsight that it was all rather bizarre as I'm sure his mother isn't going to let her newborn out without proper winter clothing regardless of whether I knit a hat or not. The panic all seemed rather irrational and I stopped myself from abandoning all homework and other important knitting to madly finish a hat. Is that what having babies in your life does? Previous to little Baby J coming around, I could probably count the number of hours I've spent in the presence of babies in my whole life on one hand. Having him around is totally melting my heart and every Monday I look forward to when his mother tutors at the same time as me so that I can steal him for a bit while she works with students. He's the only one who'll listen to me go on and on about my knitting non stop :) But, I am hoping to have the hat done by the end of the weekend. Here's what it looks like so far:

Eventually the hat will be kind of shaped like a santa hat with a pompom on the end. The pattern is the Pixie Hat from the Debbie Bliss "Simply Baby" book. Too adorable. The colours are matching to the socks that I knit for him previously.
In other teeny tiny knits, last Thursday/Friday in spare moments I whipped up a little sock to fit a sock blocker key chain. I wish that I was claiming it as my own so that I could put my sock blocker key chain with my keys but this one is going out to my Secret Pal who has one. It's almost time to send off the reveal package which I'm very excited for as she's been such a great downstream pal and I can't wait for her to find out who I am. So here is the mini sock I will be coveting in her package:

The yarn is leftovers from my Rocker Girl Jaywalkers. There's still tons left so I'll definitely be making one for myself. Who wouldn't want such a cute and tiny sock?

Sound the funeral march

2007-11-01T16:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked a very scary day in my city. And it had nothing to do with the holiday. It is a well known fact that in my city you need to design hallowe'en costumes to be worn over winter clothes because October 31st seems to be Mother Nature's unofficial deadline. All across the city people were in denial and I heard many people saying, "Don't say the "s" word." But all the wishing and hoping it to go away didn't change anything. It was the first snow fall of the year. Granted, it melted as soon as it hit the ground and there's no sign of it's arrival today but this marks the beginning of a slippery slope. Namely the path to not seeing ground until late April/May. Now I love snow just as much as the next person but after 6/7 months of it, my patience begins to draw really thin. Please think your warmest and wooliest thoughts for my poor little city and hopefully we'll squeeze a week more out of the clear ground weather. As much as I love my kittyville hat, I hope it stays away for as long as possible.
On the good news topic, today I finished the first of the Waving Lace socks which is a very big accomplishment. It's just a touch snug on me so I'm hoping it'll be just the right fit for Mrs P when they get to her. Here are some better pictures than what I've been showing:

And I have no idea what i did to deserve this but instead of having to go on a hunt for more of the same dyelot, there was this left over:

Half a teaspoon of yarn left. That shouldn't have happened. Fitting sweaters, extra yarn? Who has stolen the knitting gods and replaced them with these benevolent over-see-ers? Or perhaps the better question, who has angered them so bad that they've stopped playing around with me all together? I feel very sorry for who ever that person is.
And by request, my reward yarn:

12 skeins of Debbie Bliss cashmerino in a pale pink colour. I got a good deal as the store had just marked them down by like 2 dollars a ball to adjust for the better exchange rate plus a 10% off full bag discount. Oh how I love cashmerino. It's just so nice on the hands and so squishy. I could just sit around mindlessly petting it all night :) The plans are to use it for Eiffel.
But I must now go to my class at the Y then off to band and hopefully forgetting that anything fell from the sky yesterday...

Sweater Goodness!

2007-10-29T20:08:00.000-05:00

It's with great exuberance and pride that I get to share with you my just yesterday finished object: my very first sweater!!!!!!!

(Perhaps I should remember to pull it down before taking photos shouldn't I?)

The pattern is the "Bardot Sweater" from Debbie Bliss Book Four. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Merino DK in the deep turqoise colourway on US 3 and US 5 circular needles.

I have to say that I am absolutely, positively in love with this sweater. And the chances of that were pretty nil. I have never made a sweater before and have no concept of adjusting shaping. I can barely get a store bought to fit me at the best of time because of my.... um, "unusual size requirements". So what were the chance of my reckless, swatchless sweater fitting? I don't know but I must have some really good knitting karma built up. The colour is also gorgeous and suits me very well. I don't think I could be more happy with a first sweater!

If you're wondering how I got the time to knit a sweater, it was actually knit and seamed all in the two weeks after my summer job ended/before school started. But knitting that much sweater in such a short period of time meant that I was very tired of it by the end and couldn't bring myself to weave in the ends until just recently. And I'm happy I waited because now I have nothing but warm and fuzzy thoughts towards it and they certainly weren't so warm and fuzzy after two weeks of 8 hours of stockinette a day :)

Now to break out my reward yarn, heh heh heh...

2007-10-25T23:55:00.000-05:00

Hmm... I really didn't think that it had been this long since my last post. Well, we'll take that as a sign that I really have been way too busy. I feel like I should be getting people to send me helpful reminders to do such things as "sleep", "eat", "brush my hair", "watch where I'm walking so that you don't mow people down getting from place to place". You can safely imagine the state I've been in :)
Things on the knitting front have been slowly plotting through. I've been working on my Waving Lace a.k.a. "Thank you for hosting wayward mathematicians" socks and am nearly at the toe for the first one. They clearly won't be done by the end of the month but so is life. You also may have remembered me mentioning a secret project back in August. Well, it was supposed to be a surprise thing for the first day of university. While I did successfully knit it in the two weeks before classes started, I did so much knitting on it in such a little time that I couldn't bring myself to do the finishing. I am 7 ends in need of weaving away from being able to block and then show it. The plan is to do that tomorrow evening and hopefully I can sport it for Monday! What was my incentive to finish it? An entire sweaters worth of yarn purchased with the extra tutoring money I've been making. I have the pattern all picked out and I'm itching to cast on but I won't until this project is done. So close!
This past little while I've also been trying to challenge myself to push my boundaries and try some new things knitting wise. In particular in my sock knitting. I've gotten in a very comfortable groove with my dpns and can knit socks without a pattern now. Any who knows me would know that some good words for me would be "perfectionist", a bit "neurotic" and definitely "overachiever". I just hate thinking that there are all these other techniques out there that other sock knitters can do that I haven't even tried to look into. So I've set out to do some socks using other techniques. This aren't major knitting projects, but pick at when I get the time to try things out and just to learn.
The first sock is being made out of Duets "Lemonade Stand" on two US3 circular needles:

And then two socks on one circ magic loop style made out of Regia in the Kaffe Fassett line:

The socks on two circs are working out just fine. Though I am definitely not sold on the method. Though I think that may be because I'm not using the best needles and the cords are a bit long. It gets tiring pulling the knitting down the needles constantly and the extra points keep flapping and hitting eachother making insane clicking noises. Though that may be because I have yet to find a comfortable method of holding them too. But I promise to plod on. The knitting does look good and I'm not getting any ladders. And I also appreciate being able to try them on at all points while knitting (which I've always thought to be the main advantage why one would want to use two circs... oh, and it's much harder to lose a needle, lol).
The two socks magic loop are going a bit more...interesting. My cast on is too loose so there's some pretty gaping stitches. My m1's are leaving huge holes in the first round. This I attribute to it being my first time with the technique. I do have every intention of eventually ripping and re-knitting but I figure I should give myself time to get used to the method before I try again to hopefully avoid some of the folly the second time around. But my biggest problem would be that everytime I start a fresh round the two working yarns are twisted around eachother and I have to pick up one of the balls to untwist it (particularly unpleasant as I also have the yarn vomit to move at the moment too). Are there any ardent two socks at once on magic looper's out there who can tell me what I should do to avoid this? Any advice is appreciated.
I'm glad that I'm keeping myself on my knitting toes so to speak. I would also like to get my hand on Cat Bordhi's new book to try out new sock archetypes. However I'm at a bit of a road block as Chapters and Amazon.ca don't carry it. Any Canadians know how I can get my paws on it? I'm just dying to try it all out. All this talk of lettered stitch markers is too intriguing!
But it's late I should get to some sleeping. Hopefully I'll have my big project to show you Monday. Have a happy Friday all!

2007-10-16T23:16:00.000-05:00

If anyone would like to know what I have been doing the last few days the acceptable answers would be a)marking or b)not sleeping. From Saturday afternoon to this morning I managed to mark about 100 assignments/tests. I would feel comforted in the fact that it's all done if it wasn't for the fact that I will get about that many again this upcoming weekend :P But I will survive. I may not sleep as much as I like but I will mark. And with any luck squeeze in some knitting.
Yesterday when I was at near gouging my eyes out with the knitting needles stress levels I had a lovely gift arrive in the mail to help take the edge off. It's the October mail out of the Sweet Sheep Self Striping Sock Yarn Club. Hooray! The yarn this month is by my current favourite indie dyer "Lovesticks" and is in the funnest colourway: "Frankensocks" and came with an adorable Frankenstein rubber ducky key chain. I kept it in front of the computer and petted it whenever I felt the need for a bit of stress relief. This is the super cool yarn I got to look at:

I'm sure you can see why it's so suitably named :)
Sunday afternoon my mother and I took a trip to visit my cousin, meet the baby for the first time and gift her with the baby blanket I had made. The little one is so adorable and such a good baby. She slept through mostly the entire visit but I held her while she slept for most of the time so I got some good baby cuddling in (which is also a big help in the stress department, I highly recomment it! Though I don't recommend picking up stranger babies, mothers don't tend to like that... I'm just saying). But what really warmed my heart is that apparently she had no idea I was making the blanket. I had told my aunt and grandma but they never passed that info on. My cousin mentioned that not too long before I arrived she had commented to her husband that her other two kids all had people knit for them and the new little one didn't have any handknits of her own and had to use her siblings knits. She was absolutely thrilled that I had taken the time to knit for her baby. So I promised that there would be more handknits in the future, there is no way that any little babies in my life are going to grow up with out wooly goodness to comfort them!
In the knitting department I have finished the first Hula Punch Jaywalker and have not yet cast on for the second. Hopefully that will be remedied by the end of the week. My real knitting progress has been on the Wavy Lace Socks as I'm determined to have them finished this month and there's less than two weeks left to do that in. I've just passed the heel on the first one and I'm loving the pattern. However I have hit a major concern. It's beginning to look less and less likely that I will indeed have enough yarn to finish it. For now I will keep blindly trucking ahead hoping the knitting gods don't feel any urge to smack me at the moment and pray for a miracle. If the miracle doesn't pull through I'll have to decide whether I want to rip back and remove repeats from the leg or if I want to engage in a hunt for more of this yarn in the same dyelot. It's Claudia Handpainted so it's atleast a very common and accessible yarn but it totally smacks of the kind that could have big variation between dyelots and that's not something I think I want to risk. What's a girl to do? Please think some good thoughts for the sock :) Oh, and the sock also seems to have something against being photographed. The colour just will not register with the camera. After many attempts I will leave you with the least crappiest of all the pictures, happy knitting this week!

SP11 Package #1

2007-10-13T18:10:00.000-05:00

Uh oh!

What did Mittens find? Nothing less than a fabulous package from my clearly equally as fabulous upstream pal. It was a lengthy battle trying to will the post office to get it delivered in under three weeks but we have success :) Take a peak at all the awesome things I received:

In there we have:
-2 skeins of Sugar 'n Cream
-2 dishcloth patterns
-Fall themed scrapbooking bits
-Cross stitch kit
-4 skeins of gorgeously coloured Debbie Bless Merino Aran
-Candy
-A cd of Broadway songs
-A stitch dictionary
Awwww. It feels like Christmas, lol. Thank you so much upstream pal!!!
(P.S. To the Canadian Border Services Agency: Packages clearly marked as gifts under $50 fall under the tax exemption for gifts under $50. Hence you can imagine why I might be ticked that you charged me $8.83 to receive my package. Expect a phone call during business hours and an appeal form from me.)

Back to blogging

2007-10-08T15:18:00.000-05:00

Oh my, I really didn't realize that it had been almost two weeks since my last blogging. Ofcourse this means a whole pile up of accomplished knitting that needs to be talked about. I am amazed at how much I do have to show you because the reason for the lack of blogging is that I've been swamped with school/marking and this long weekend I have made it my goal to not do anything until today and enjoy the empty house that always comes with Thanksgiving (Happy Turkey Day to all my Canadian friends!).
The first thing to show you is a super huge accomplishment... the second baby blanket is done!!! It is such a huge relief to get the blankets out of the way so that I can finally focus on some various Christmas & sock knitting that I've been dying to get around to. So without further ado, here is Ducky modeling the baby blanket made out of a free pattern on the Bernat website:

I still haven't gotten to see this baby yet but my mother and I are hoping to go visit this upcoming weekend. I can't wait to meet her :)
Then there are some baby socks for the recently born baby boy to my friend. I had promised her baby socks but needed to wait until I knew the gender because the two toned socks really do need to be more so colour co-ordinated. I still can't get over how adorable little baby socks are. Hopefully because they're rather small they will fit him soon and I can finally see some of the socks I've made on real live babies:

Then, I'm not entirely sure if I've mentioned it (though I suspect I haven't), I've signed up for round 5 of the International Scarf Exchange. I've been dying to try making a Chevron Scarf so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. And I must say that I am loving it and cannot wait to make one for myself. I suspect that mine will be made out of my Yarntini. But that's in the future, right now I must be dedicated to making the scarf for my most excellent downstream pal. It's being made out of Cherry Tree Hill in "Winterberry" and Shibui Knits in a colourway I cannot remember at the moment. The goal was bright and funky and I'm sure you'll agree that this definitely qualifies:

I'm hoping she loves it as she definitely seems like that type of girl. And she also hails from a warmer climate than me so I think sock yarn will make it cool enough that it's not unwearable due to probability of heat stroke :) I think that's always a good quality in a scarf.
On the Christmas knitting front I have started some socks for my friend Ashley's mom who put us up for the night on the way back from Vancouver this summer. I agreed to make socks in exchange for the room and board. She picked out the yarn a good two and half months ago now but I told her that they wouldn't be started until after baby blanket completion. These are being made out of Claudia Handpainted in the colourway "Just Plum" on 2.75mm dpn's in the "Waving Lace Socks" pattern from "Favourite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave" (have I mentioned that I totally heart this book?). There's not much done yet but here is the start:

(Sorry for the sudden change in picture size, all the photos of it seem to have come out a bit blurry unless I decrease the size, hopefully there will be a better pic when I get further along.
And just to prove I am still making something for myself, the current state of the Hula Punch socks:

Happy Turkey Day!
P.S. To my SP, your package still hasn't arrived but there's no mail today because of the holiday, hopefully it'll come tomorrow, I can't wait!

Craziness abound

2007-09-27T16:02:00.000-05:00

It's very nearly the end of the week and I can't believe that I've made it through. I'm sorry for the lack of postings but things on my end this past week have been both stressful and sad (Randy Sitter if you remember is one of the leaders in my research area and I had my travel sock take a picture outside his office door earlier this summer). I also had my first econ test today which was abruptly stopped when the fire alarm was pulled, we were all evacuated and then tied up trying to re-enter because they had to re-backpack search everyone. So it's now a take home test. I wouldn't mind so much except that I was doing really good on it. Why couldn't that every happen on a test I'm doing poorly on? *sigh* But things have pulled through and with some good news.
My cousin had a baby girl this past weekend and I'm quickly trying to finish up this for her:

And my friend who was receiving the blue baby blanket just had a baby boy yesterday. So the colour was fortuitous. So many babies to knit for now, hooray! And this also means that the double baby blanket project is in the home stretch and I can go back to paying attention to my other knitting.
In total guilt Monday night I cast on for the second of my Laguna waves socks which saw the first one being finished in oh... June/July. So if you want to see some newish knitting, here's a toe for your enjoyment

And though I'm still waiting on my first secret pal parcel, I did receive my first secret pal-ish mailing from my wonderful group hostess Robyn. I won the second contest she ran for her group so in the mail today I got this super funky card with coupons for free blockbuster movie rentals and popcorn (Guess what I'm doing tomorrow night!)

Thank you so much Robyn, you're a wonderful hostess!!!!
Not much else to mention on the knitting front except I'm really antsy to get a whole bunch of socks started. My sock yarn stashed has grown at ridiculous rates and the Favourite Socks from Interweave Knits is calling my name desperately. So many things to knit but I need to finish that baby blanket. Hopefully Friday night's the night!

Is it really done?

2007-09-18T17:43:00.000-05:00

What's that? Could it be that the baby blanket is actually done and before the baby's arrived? Well... yes and no. The knitting was done at about 10:30 Sunday evening (so right on the weekend deadline). However, that was followed by this:

(Which is a way more accurate portrayal of the colour) which lead to my bedroom floor borrowing a carpet and looking like this:

(Why yes that is the third season of Grey's Anatomy that I knit the last third of the blanket to). Unfortunately it is now Tuesday evening, my floor still looks like that and the blanket doesn't seem to have any intention of drying any time soon. This morning it wasn't even damp. It was still wet. I'm beginning to think that drying hand knits is a lost cause. I made a point of telling the baby today that they need to stay in just a bit longer (I love how I somehow feel my friend's pregnancy should be prolonged because of my knitting needs, but in my defense the baby isn't due for another week and a half so atleast there's an expectation on the mother's part that the baby should stay in a bit longer). I do absolutely love the blanket and can't wait until I get to see a baby wrapped up in it :)
In the world of sock knitting I've started to knit up that famed Hula Punch yarn that I've been raving about. Take a peek at how it looks knit up in Jaywalkers:

Isn't it as lovely as I predicted it would be? I can't wait until I can get these ones on my feet though I feel that'll be a long way off yet. This weekend I need to spend it trying to knit baby blanket #2 (actually, it's more like baby blanket #1 that got put aside as I hated the needles I was working it on. Maybe it's the same size as the cable blanket and I can just switch needles now...). It's been so long since I've knit on it that it'll be hard getting back in the groove. But on the bright side, it doesn't need wet blocking, hooray!
And I should mention that I also made a baby hat this weekend for a baby shower for my friend's sister (who I made those pink socks for a while back). It was my first time seeing the baby and she was so adorable. The hat was a big hit, the pattern coming from last minute knitted gifts. And as a bonus it only took 3 hours to make. So now I know a quick baby pattern. I unfortunately forgot to take a picture but as soon as I see if any one the two upcoming babies are girls I'll be making more so I'll have to remember to take a picture of the next one I make.
But, it's back to work. Must do homework, mark and tutor tonight. The math never stops :) Happy knitting!

2007-09-12T18:22:00.000-05:00

The second week of university is almost done. How in the world did that happen? Where did my summer go? And I really mean where did my summer go because it's been getting cold again here in my windy city. I've seen many people taking out the scarves and I got out the fingerless mitts today. This really isn't a good sign if it's getting cold already. We had such a brutal winter last year and it would break my heart to have another one like that :( But if nothing else, I can always look on the bright side and just think that cold weather just means getting to wear my kitty hat again! Hooray!

This past week while I've been a very good imposter economics student, I have also been a pretty bad knitter. I've gotten a few more cable twists on the cabled baby blanket. However, now that I see my friend at school regularly it is starting to put me on edge knitting wise because this baby looks like it's coming out any minute. A veritable knitting time bomb that kid is, lol. But I hope that I'll have it finished by the end of this weekend. I also made an executive decision to cut about 10 inches off the second blanket. I figure that if 32 inches is good enough for one blanket, it's certainly good enough for another. And with that I regain hope of finishing by the end of September.

I do however have one finished object to report. My Rocker Girl Jaywalkers are now done, done, done!!! I finished them Sunday at my friend Jojo's place where they were sniffed, licked and generally okay-ed by 6 of the 7 animals running around her house (I have never been so completely covered in pet hair as I was when I left!) and happily wore them all day Monday. I love them to death, they are my favourite pair by far. The only mod I made to the pattern was that I didn't do the slip stitch down the sides of the instep and I used 2.5mm (US 1.5) dpn's that I received from my Sockapalooza Pal. Here they are:

There's also been some mail coming through my house but the one I've been most excited for is the Hula Punch I was talking about from The Sweet Sheep. This yarn is so yummy and I plan on winding it and casting on for a new pair of Jaywalkers as soon as I'm done writing this. Enjoy the yarn and cross your fingers that I have a baby blanket to show you by Sunday:

Blog guilt

2007-09-01T22:59:00.000-05:00

I confess, I have blog guilt :( I wish I was posting a bit more often but most of the knitting I'm doing is for my big secret project and I don't want to show pictures until it is a FO photo. Plus it's been crazy trying to get ready for classes starting at university Tuesday (how in the world is it September already?) and I've been trying to spend time out at the cabin. This is all just not conducive to blogging. So the long and short of it is that I have nothing brand new to show you. However, I am not without things to share.
For any Canadians out there who want to be buying sock/laceyarn but want something in Canadian prices and cheaper shipping because it's coming from Canada, I have found the place for you: The Sweet Sheep Shop. This store has an amzing selection of all sorts of indie dyers. There are always sock and fibre clubs starting, mystery dyed yarns and other fun things for the adventurous knitter as well. Yesterday they stocked up on Lovesticks self striping yarn and I had to get some because I've been dying to try the Hula Punch colourway ever since I saw someones FO shot of it on Flickr. Mmm... So yes, go check it out!
And with all of my talk of being busy, you must realize that the fact that I'm writing this means that I'm procrastinating something else. Namely finishing the great back to school room clean out. I've pretty much gone through everything however it's now all sorted in piles on my floor waiting to be put back and actually looks worse than it did before. See what I get to deal with:

And just as a treat to make up for current knitting shots, here is a picture of the first thing I knitted. I started off by buying one of those really gawdy kid crafting kits for a pillow. I will love it as being my first piece of knitting but would never in a million years hang on to anything ever again that came out looking like this:

What was your first piece of knitting?
And to just answer a few questions:
1) My Queen of Cups socks have been taken off the needles and are needing to be frogged. They looked absolutely hideous on my feet and I have no intentions of ever attempting them again.
2) Because I'm sure you all are very concerned about this matter, let the record state that I have never been nor do I intend to ever visit ronaldreagan.com (though I'm sure it's a very nice site).
Enjoy the rest of your long weekend!

Almost back from the beach

2007-08-25T17:24:00.000-05:00

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of posting as of late. Well, some what sorry. I haven't been posting because I've been holed up at the cabin for the last 8 days with limited internet access. I've only had quick internet jaunts while zipping in to the university to collect computer output and run new programs (the joys of being a research assistant, lol). I'm still not officially back home until tomorrow evening so news of my latest project will have to wait. Actually, it'll have to wait a few days more than that because it's top secret. In my beach isolation I have done massive amounts of knitting trying to finish this huge project before school starts next week and things are looking hopeful. Cross your fingers for me! I won't say what it is but will reveal that it's made in the colour of this yarn (though this isn't the exact yarn I'm using):

Mmmm... turquoise. My favourite of all the colours which I unfortunately own next to nothing in. I'll have to work at changing that.
Last weekend I also had a great knitting diversion. There was a big Knit Out at The Forks and knitters from all across the city came out to knit on the grass near the river. I was knitting my Jaywalkers which were a big hit with everyone coming to see the yarn. I'm so close to being done them, I can't wait to get them on my feet. And I have to admit, as amusing as we were to all the passerbyers, they were a hundred times more amusing to us. Watching them walk down the steps, notice us, stop dead in their tracks and and excitedly pointing at us was priceless. I really felt like I was part of some sort of exhibition. It was a nice day and a great time meeting other knitters in the city.
And for the Secret Pal 11 contest, here are my answers:

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?
Crochet hook to fix those mistakes I always notice 6 rows too late.
2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you? If so, how much and what type of project?
Absolutely. The last trip I had three bags full of knitting but that isn't typical. I'd say two pairs of socks and one bigger project.
3. Where have you travelled to that you'd consider your favorite spot?
The theatre off the side of the mountain at the Oracle in Delphi in Greece.
4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?
I am currently in love with Favourite Socks from Interweave Knits and have many of the patterns queued up for knitting onceI clear some needles.
5. Do you listen to podcasts? Which is your favorite(s)?
Knitters Uncensored, Cast On, Stash and Burn, Lime & Violet
6. If you could only knit with 1 color for the rest of your life, what color would that be?
Pink
7. If you were far into a project and then noticed a mistake near the beginning what would you do?
Try to fix it by dropping back stitches (and I am pretty willing to do massive knit backwards surgery), if that won't work if I can live with it and it won't severely alter the outcome I would leave it. if the mistake is hideous and completely throws off the rest of the pattern I would rip.
8. Where is the most unsual spot you've ever knit?
I don't think I've ever knit anywhere that you would classify as unusual per say. Though the place I got the most reaction was knitting a sock while standing up in line at the Smoothie place.

Sorry for the lack of knitting to show you but I'll have my camera back and access to the computer starting tomorrow and I plan to get in as much knitting as I can before school starts again and I give my soul back over to the university. Hope there's sunshine where you are!

Fell off the sock wagon

2007-08-15T18:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, I admit it, I'm bad. I fell off the sock wagon. After I was so good knitting only on the baby blanket last week, I cracked. The Rocker Girl yarn was too much. It's "Knit Me Right This Instance" vibes were way too much for me to handle. The yarn practically put itself on my needles and I couldn't help but knit it once it was already on the needles now could I? So that's what happens, a small lapse in attention and three days later you have this:

I must admire at how quickly it knit up. And it fits much better than the last attempt at Jaywalkers that went horribly wrong. This yarn has much more give and stretch to it. While there's a bit of resistance getting it on at the heel, it is not a full on struggle and I am happy. Actually, these are probably the best fit socks I have ever made for myself. Ofcourse this now mean s I'll never get back to the baby blanket until I make the second sock. The yarn is too pretty, too demanding of my time. It needs to be appeased. This will absolutely be my favourite pair of socks I've ever made.
There's also been some stash enhancing going on around here. While I won't admit to all of it I do absolutely have to show you my Yartini that I finally scored from the Loopy Ewe after months and months of trying to get some. And the colours are absolutely everything I have always wanted and expected. Pardon me while I drool a bit:

Cosmopolitan Colourway (above)
Sangria Colourway (below)

And just because I am in the mood to oggle all the pretty sock yarn there is out there I also have a new find: The Knittery, Petals colourway. This yarn is so luscious. The colour has oh so subtle variation in such a gorgeous sheen. The softest yarn I've ever had. Prepare yourself for the photo, though nothing compares to seeing it up close. I only dream of when I find the perfect pattern to knit this yarn with because it won't be used for anything other than the absolute best:

Mmmm...
I also thought that I'd mention a great relatively new podcast out there called Knitters Uncensored that I've just listened to all 6 episodes of. Sometimes podcasts start out pretty shaky but I love this one from the first episode. It's hosted by three ex-pats living in Germany, only one of whom speaks German. They talk about yarn, knitterly ideas, German knitting terminology and about getting used to live in the new country. The episodes are on the long side now but I don't mind because they are so well done. I definitely recommend anyone who listens to podcasts check it out.
And before I get sucked back into the next Jaywalker I have two quick shout outs. I can finally announce who my wonderful downstream Sockapalooza4 Pal is: Susan! I got word today (well, you can check it out in last entry's comments) that she has received and opened my package and loves the socks. *Phew* I tried very hard and I'm glad those socks found a great and loving home. I also have word that her various other house mates love their giftees too. I found one really cute book for her son. It's a Canadian alphabet book. Z is for Zamboni :) I loved it.
Also a quick hi to my Secret Pal if you happen to be lurking around the blog *waves*.
That's about it. Blogging might be limited last week as I'm staying out at the beach. Have a good week of knitting all!

What's this?

2007-08-09T23:55:00.000-05:00

Okay, let's do a post office recap:
Thursday (the 2nd): I mail my Sockapalooza Package at the post office
Friday: I get "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" in the mail. Accepted by my mother at the house.
Monday: Stat Holiday, no mail.
Tuesday: "Wendy Knits" arrives in the mail and I got to the post office
Wednesday: My Rocker Girl sock yarn arrives in the mail, I go to the post office and nearly murder the cashier.
Thursday (today): Package delivery notice comes in the mail. I make my now habitual trip to the post office expecting my Loopy Ewe order. The lady pulls out a square parcel wrapped in brown paper. I think to myself that it's very odd that they'd ship the yarn like that. Then I look at the return address. Quebec?!?! This can't be my package so I check the name it's being sent to. Yep, there's my name. Then it suddenly clicks... MY SOCKAPALOOZA SOCKS ARRIVED!!!!!!
I raced to the car to open the package. First I resisted all temptation and opened the card. My socks were made for me by a wonderful woman named Frieda who happens to live in Quebec, my most favouritest of places. I couldn't have gotten a more wonderful sock pal if I tried! At the top of the package were these wonderful "extras":

Notice the Fleece Artist Sea Wool? I adore this yarn. And in such a pretty pink colour. It's not entirely solid but has ever so subtle different shades of pink. The nicest part of the yarn? She wound it into a ball for me :) Thank you!!!!! You do not want to see my current method for winding yarn by hand by myself!
Then, what I've been waiting for all this time, THE socks:

They were made out of Opal sock yarn in the neon colourway. And I found it all too perfect that she picked a pattern for me with the name "Math Whiz" :) Someone clearly knows what will get me giddy, lol. They fit me absolutely perfectly which is amazing because my feet are pretty square and the toes are almost always too tight but not these! I totally *heart* them. I wish so much that it wasn't so hot outside and so completely impractical to be wearing socks. The first cold rainy day we have (and with the good weather we've been having, one can't be far away) these are hopping right onto my feet.
Thank you so much Frieda!!! I love them!!!!
(Now let's just see if my Loopy Ewe order comes in tomorrow warranting another trip to the post office this week...)

Oom-pa-pa

2007-08-09T16:58:00.000-05:00

Oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa! Holy polkas Batman! Sorry for the lack of postings but for the past four nights and for the next three I've been playing at the German Pavilion in Folklorama with the German Club Band. For non-locals it's a huge festival every year where dozens of different cultural groups around the city host shows displaying their culture, serve their traditional food and wear the traditional dress. Like this:

Though I must tell you that those photos aren't from this year's Folklorama. My drindl was heart breakingly taken back by the lady who gave them to my friend who in turn let me have one. So I am currently drindl-less :( So if anyone happens to know where I can get a nice drindl without paying 100s of dollars...
But it's been tons of fun. And I've gotten some knitting done between the shows. I am currently working strictly on the cabled baby blanket until it finished. I'm over half done though so that's encouraging. However, it doesn't exactly make for interesting blog posts to see it just get a bit bigger each day. So I'll have to satisfy you with some yarn porn:

This would be the skein I just acquired of Skinny Duets in the "Rocker Girl" colourway. And I have to tell you. I am in love. And all because of this yarn it is killing me to only work on that blanket. Forever I've been thinking how I wanted yarn in black, hot pink and white and searching and searching. Then this gets updated to the dyers homepage last week. And while I wasn't a fan of the yarn base of the regular Duets Yarn (DK weight), the yarn base for the skinny yarn (fingering weight) is so soft and smooshy. *swoons* I highly suggest people head over to A Swell Yarn Shop and look at her yarn. The shipping was very fast. It took just a week and it's coming from the States to Canada so that's a good deal.
Speaking of parcels, I've been to the post office last Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday, & Today. A package also came on Friday but someone was home to accept it. I've been getting tons of mail. Some books from Chapters and two yarn orders. And I must tell you, I'm not all too pleased with some of the employees. The other day there was three people plus a lady already being served in front of me. two people were working. It took them 20 minutes before they served me. Argh! hopefully for putting up with that my Sockapalooza Socks will arrive to their recipient post haste (package tracking says they atleast arrived to the destination country, and they used that terminology too). So hooray!
Wish me luck at the show tonight and I'll show you the Yarntini that I'm off to the post office to pick up later :)

SP11 Questionnaire

2007-08-06T23:41:00.000-05:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with?
Debbie Bliss, Rowan, Claudia Handpainted
What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
acrylic, fun fur, really tweedy yarn
2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
A really bad system. An old sour cream container that's too smal and constantly gets knocked over. And my floor ;)
3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn?
Just over a year
Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
Intermediate
4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
No
5. What's your favorite scent?
Vanilla, lavender
6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
Absolutely!!! Milk chocolate, fuzzy peaches, jelly beans, sour soothers, cherry blasters, jolly ranchers, clod hoppers, lollipops, I could really go on for a long time :)
7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do?
Crochet, cross stitch, just started to teach myself to sew
Do you spin?
No
8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I have very eclectic tastes and will listen to almost anything that isn't heavy metal. Though I am extra partial to jazz, musical theatre and lounge music.
9. What's your favorite color(s)?
Pink, blues, turquoise, black
Any colors you just can't stand?
Orange, bright green, brown, bright yellow
10. What is your family situation?
I live at home with my parents, and I'm an only child.
Do you have any pets?
Two cats, Misty & Mittens.
11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Considering that winters in my city can go past -40 and winters drag on from about November to mid-April, I get tons of use out of scarves, hats of the toque variety and mittens. You wouldn't however catch me dead in a poncho.
12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
Socks, baby items, lace
13. What are you knitting right now?
4/5 pairs of socks, two baby blankets, two lace shawls and pretending to still be actively knitting a sweater
14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
I love it
15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles?
Straight, though if I could afford to stock my set with Addis I would probably switch to circs
Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
aluminum
16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
No, but sure wish I did.
17. How old is your oldest UFO?
However long ago I cast on that sweater, so since December maybe?
18. What is your favorite holiday?
Whacking Day!!!! (my birthday happens to fall on the famed Simpsons holiday). But other than that, Christmas.
19. Is there anything that you collect?
Flutes/recorders, cat figurines, Le Petit Prince in foreign languages, yarn :)
20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on?
I am just itching to try some Yarn Pirate sock yarn and Socks That Rock sock yarn. I also need a stitch dictionary
What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
None
21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
Next on my list is intarsia or fair isle knitting
22. Are you a sock knitter?
Obsessively so!
What are your foot measurements?
9 inches from heel to toe, 8.5 around. Size 8 shows.
23. When is your birthday?
May 10th, 1985
24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID?
Yes. ID is mathgirl

I vanquished the socks!

2007-07-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

Three cheers for my Sockapalooza4 Socks being finished by the deadline!!!! And with a few days to spare too. Hole-ing myself up at the cabin for the weekend doing nothing but knitting paid off and they are done. And I so hope that my pal will love them. She's a super lady who I've been emailing back and forth with. She made some pretty amazing socks for her partner and deserves really great socks herself. I hope that I can deliver for her *fingers crossed*. I can't wait for her to find out who I am either and see the rest of the great package I put together for her.

So, here they are:

Pattern: Basket Weave from "More Sensational Knitted Socks"

Yarn: Stone Barn Fibers in "Ominous Skies"

Needles: set of 5 US 1 dpns

They must be mailed by the 7th and rest assured that I'll update you as soon as I hear from my pal and point you to her fabulous blog which is well worth the read and stop by!

In other knitting news I was plugging away at the cable baby blanket and at the Mystery Stole. But I needed a quick fix and made some adorable baby socks (the ones I made before and stupidly forgot to photograph). They're for my friend's new born niece and they are just too cute for words. I can't wait for more babies to knit for in September :) The pattern was "Two toned socks" from Debbie Bliss' "Simply Baby"

Can I have an "Awwwww"? They're just so pink and fun. And tiny. Unbelievably tiny! But what I can't believe is for two socks that are so small that they could possibly have so many ends to weave in:

I think I counted like 18 or something crazy like that! They also happen to be the only thing I've ever done in two colours. That's something that I hope to fix this fall. Perhaps starting with a hat and moving on to gloves in more than one colour... But that's miles away at the moment because my mind is firmly on baby knits and how to acquire more baby patterns, lol.

But it's time to go and upload more into Ravelry. So I will leave you with a picture of a sign that was up at the university that made me go "huh?"

While I can surmise what they meant, the obviously unintentional meanings that could be taken from that are much more amusing. Happy Monday!

Yeah Ravelry!

2007-07-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

Wow, I've been back for four days now. After a years worth of planning for that trip I can't believe it's over. But I'm back to work so it must be. And yes, perhaps I am at work but I'm waiting for a program to compile so I figure I should make the promised blog post instead of twiddling my thumbs while I'm at this temporary stand still :)
Just like I predicted, the day after I left for my trip I got my Ravelry invite. *sigh* It was a very long wait but I have to tell you that it is so worth it. Anyone who hasn't joined the waitlist should head on over there ASAP and get on it and check out the amazing screen shots they have posted. You can find me there under the username Mathgirl
Needless to say that I've spent the last few nights uploading pictures for the "My Projects" section and Wednesday night I photographed my entire stash. Luckily I've just been knitting for a year so it was still manageable. But while I've photographed everything, only half the pictures & info has been uploaded. The rest are for next week. But I did take a picture of my stash all layed out afterwards:
It's just a wee stash at the moment but in time it'll grow. (And speaking of growing stashes, you must see this blog post about a ladies gigantic stash room. Try not faint!)
In actually accomplished knitting news I just did the gusset on my 2nd sock pal sock. This weekend would be the do or die weekend to finish it. Nothing else is allowed to be done until it's been accomplished. And seeing as how I'll be at the cabin, I should be able to discipline myself into doing it sans computer available to waste time on. And that also means that in the next two-three weeks i'll get the socks someone is making for me. Awww... I keep forgetting that I'll have some arriving too. too exciting!
On the Mystery Stole front here is what it looked like after clue three two weekends ago because I never got pictures up:
Considering how huge clue 4 is and my sock obligations I probably won't be done it by the time clue 5 gets posted next Friday but we'll see.
Hope you have a great weekend all!

Back home!

2007-07-25T21:42:00.000-05:00

After a crazy week with way too much time in my car I'm finally home, hooray! By the time I got home Monday night my legs were pretty much threatening a revolt after we drove about 6000 kms in 8 days. I tell you, I really don't think it's all that good for the circulation. It really was an amazing time and I learned a lot. And I got to give my first talk at a conference :) On Robust Parameter Designs in the Split-Plot Setting! Something no one else at the conference knew anything about (it was a stats talk at a mainly math conference) but I did have some of the few other stats people out representing! And it was great because Simon Frasier University (where the conference was) is where some of the big researchers in the area are. My traveling sock just couldn't take the excitement as featured below:

I was giving a talk on a paper co-written by them. Am I not a total geek or what? And do you know how hard it was to get this picture without people seeing me? Lucky for me the math folk were too engrossed in their work to notice me literally a few feet away from them.
I must admit there wasn't a great deal of knitting done this trip despite all the best of intentions. It turns out that sleep took too much priority. But I guarantee that my Sockapalooza sock had tons of fun. Too much fun as I now have about a week to finish it. But I'm almost at the heel so it's all good. Here's some highlights:
Playing cards:

Being contemplated by confused conference go-ers:

Sleeping over night in a car in the parking lot outside a five star hotel (If you happen to be a concerned parent, read that last sentence as "Happily camping a tent in Protection Mountain that we arrived to in broad daylight with plenty of time for setup"):

Driving through the mountains:

Trying to be a bad influence:

Getting in touch with the "animals":But my favourite would be when we stayed the night at my driving buddy's father's place. Before we left I insisted I get a photo of the sock and his dad didn't question me at all and was all excited to find the best spot to show it off. A true friend of knitters!:

As you can see, it was quite an adventure for the sock. You can see the complete sock on vacation collection here if you like :) I sincerely hope that my sock pal will be able to convince him to lead a quiet suburban lifestyle after all of this excitement.
So yes, a great trip, lots of yarn was acquired, lots of mathy inspiration but I'm still not caught up on my sleep. Off to bed and more news on yarn, mystery stoles and perhaps some avelry-Ray news tomorrow!

Off to knit... I mean do math

2007-07-16T10:20:00.000-05:00

It's been a very busy last few days as I've been anxiously awaiting today. And what's so special about today? I leave for Vancouver!!!! Hooray!!!! The car is all packed up and I'm ready to leave with a fellow math partner in crime to attend the Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. Now I think he might be aware that I do "some" knitting but then again maybe he's totally unaware. One way or another I am sure he is unprepared for the three big bags full of yarn/projects/patterns/supplies I have brought with me. Never mind what he'll think when I stop to take pictures of my socks-in-progress with the mountain scenerary for the Summer of Socks "Socks on Vacation" contest! Oh well, I have a beyond geeky reputation so this can't make all that much of a difference and it'll be amusing for me :)

On the personal knitting front I got another sock finished. I haven't divulged the purchase before but after my post about wanting to try Duets sock yarn I found another shop that sold it and put it in with an order of yarn for my friend's mom. Though I'm not sold on the toe-up sock, this is yarn that clearly needs a toe-up pattern to get a full heel in the contrasting colour. The pattern was mostly from an easy toe-up pattern in More Sensational Knitted Socks. I must say though that I like her short-row heel better than Wendy's. Here's what the first one looks like:

I think it's lots of fun. And a super quick knit because it's a DK thickness yarn. The colourway is called Laguna Waves and I knitted it on size 3 dpn with 56 stitiches. If you're interested in the yarn I found the dyers web page at A Swell Yarn Shop. If you hurry there, their sock club just went on sale! I can't wait to get the second sock done.

I also got my clue #3 of the mystery stole finished Saturday afternoon. I freely admit to being a very impatient Taurus and I knit it the second I had a chance and didn't stop until I was finished. Now I'm trying real hard to wait until Friday so that I can keep knitting when clue #4 comes out. Atleast I have the conference to keep me pre-occupied. I don't have a picture for you at the moment because I was too busy last night preparing for the trip to dig out pins to pin out the stole. But I can say there are definitely flowers appearing in the pattern, interesting...

Oh! They finally have a program up on ravelry to see where you are on the waiting list. I'm #171 in line. Hooray! They said last week their goal was to get up to the May 28th signups which was my signup date (I hope they meant inclusive!). But ofcourse this means my invite is going to come while I'm away and I'll have to wait a whole week to actually play around on the site, Boo-urns :( Oh well, can't get everything I guess :)

Here's the trip knitting wish list (in this order):

-Redo toe on Sockapalooza sock & knit second sockapalooza sock

-Knit up 2 more balls worth of the cabled baby blanket to put me at 2/3's done

-Knit some cute pink baby socks in hopes of encouraging my friend's baby to be a girl so that I can knit girly outfits for her :)

-Knit second Duet sock

-Finish first Sweetpea sock and start the next.

That should keep me oocupied though there's more knitting if need be. It'll be a long trip (2.5 days) in both directions so there's lots of potential. And I signed up at Audible so for my first book download I loaded "The Notebook" up on my mp3 player to listen to it whilst knitting. Have a great week and enjoy Harry Potter 7! I'll leave you with a picture of Misty getting in on the sock knitting action:

More bandwagons

2007-07-10T21:55:00.000-05:00

Another week and we finally got some sunshine in the city. So after a bad weather induced knitting funk, these past few days I have been a knitting machine fueled on sunshine :)

While a lot of my knitting time was taken up by a (I can't believe I'm saying it) new project, first and foremost I must mention my sock progress for the Summer of Socks. Normally, I would've waited until tomorrow because of a bad blogging error on my part but I must get this updated for my blog reader (Hi Jen!).

My sock accomplishment of the week was the completion of my very first toe up sock! Only I made the mistake of making it on four needles (all my five needle sets were in use) and so I couldn't try it on as I was going. If I had I would've noticed that they're a bit more than snug. I am a very tight knitter and that came back to bite me. Especially the bind off. After ripping it three times because there was no way it was getting on my foot, I went up two needle sizes on the bind off, tried my hardest not to tighten anything at all and it's still on the tight side. *sigh* So I decided to wash and pin in hopes of stretching them. My fatal blogging error being that I soaked and pinned them before photographing. So here is my very first toe up sock all pinned out on the futon:

This sock was made in Cherry Tree Hill's "Brights" colourway using Wendy's general toe-up formula on size 1 dpn. I think my toe is pretty cute but my heel has some definite issues. Like bad hole issues. I'm finding the double wraps on the stitches impossible to pick up (particularly on the purl side) with the stitch and am wondering if I'm doing it right... Maybe it just takes practice in the form of the second sock? Also, you might notice some dye issues on this sock. My hank was a bit defective with some odd black patched in it. In the end I decided against returning it (though that was offered to me). Just some sock eccentricity right?

This past week I've also been working more on the cabled baby blanket (September is fast approaching!) and it is several repeats bigger than the last picture but still looks very much the same :) But the big new project is (and I'm sure anyone who's been paying attention to the latest knitting bandwagon can guess) Mystery Stole 3! The premise being that every Friday Melanie releases a "clue" in the form of a part of the pattern for a stole (except the Harry Potter release weekend). We have no clue what it will look like in the end. There's a bead option which I'm foregoing though. I started almost a week late last Thursday so Thursday through Saturday I was madly knitting up clue #1 & #2. I've tried a bit of lace but nothing like this before. Here's how it's looking so far:

Maybe it's just me but that kind of reminds me of a scarab. Perhaps an Egyptian theme? There's muchos theme guessing going on in the discussion group at the moment. The only thing we've been given is that Melanie suggests that it might not be appropriate for a wedding gift, hmm...

Well, this week will most likely include a toe for the second toe up sock and more baby blanket with the weekend for lace. I must pace myself for the following week when I road trip out to a math conference with a fellow math geek. That's 30+ hours in each direction so there will be lots to knit. And with all my projects on the needle, well, I doubt I'll be running out of things to knit on the trip :)

Hope you're enjoying the summer!

Back in the city

2007-07-02T23:37:00.000-05:00

Well, it's back in the city at the house for me. There's been no blogging around here not because of a lack of knitting (minus a mid week no knitting funk last week), but because I've been mostly living at the cabin. It is very convenient because my cabin is equally as far from my day job at the university as my house is so I can stay out there durring the week if I want. Which is heaven in June because my parents are only there on the weekend so I have a nice place to relax and destress. I mostly watched bad reality television and ate take out Chinese food. Not very productive but occassionally good for the soul.

Since the great Sockapalooza sock disaster in my last post, most of the knitting time has been devoted to making a new sock for my pal. And trust me, getting something was once again not easy. I settled on the ominous sky yarn but getting the pattern was something else. I tried a whole bunch of designs from More Sensational Knitted Socks. The first one I tried I realized after one repeat that there was no way I was going to put up with it for two socks. The pattern was nice but I had to M1 and M1R all over the place and it was driving me batty. The next few attempts were axed because you couldn't see the pattern. The yarn is variegated in such a way that the colour changes at a lightning pace and all detail gets buried. So I ended up settling on a very simple Basket Weave pattern. It's not plain but still visibile amongst the yarn. Clearly these socks were meant to be about the yarn, not the pattern so I'm happy with that. Here they are right at the toe (I had to stop because I'd left my pal's foot measurements at home and didn't want to make them too short. However, being home with her info, I now feel foolish as her her feet are the same length as mine).

I do hope that my pal will love them. It's very hard to judge for me because they're outside my colour palette (her favourite colour list looked pretty much like my colours I really don't want list except the blue). But my mother keeps asking to have them and fawning over them so that must be a good sign. Any thoughts from people out there who like blue/brown/grey dark colours and no lace? I plan to finish this one Wednesday and the save the second sock for my road trip mid-July.

On the needles for myself for the Summer of Socks KAL I cast on for the Sweetpea Socks from the Summer Knitty with my Claudia Handpaint in the Carousel colourway. These socks are so much fun because all the bright colours keep me entertained as I knit. And I absolutely cannot say enough about the cuff of these socks. They start by casting on 120 stitches and then instead of K3P2 on the first row you K2TOG(x3)P2TOG(x2) and you get this super funky ruffle. I didn't really capture it in this picture but I'll deinfitely highlight it after the first finished sock picture. This sock I think will become a definite must knit. Here is what it looks like just after starting the gusset

Notice the coke can above modeling the sock :) I really want some sock blockers however I have now come to a dilemma. Ordering yarn without sock blockers makes it come in an envelope and I escape paying customs. Ordering with makes it come in a box and that makes me pay customs (an extra about $20). And as much as I want them, I don't know how I can justify basically doubling the price... But they are on my to acquire list. And in my search for new sock yarns the next ones high on my list of wants are: Duets, Yarn Pirate, Yartini, Tofutsies and Socks that Rock. While the rest I had heard of, in the last sneak up the Loopy Ewe had posted some Duets and the colours were amazing. It's called Duets because it's a variegated yarn but it also comes with a small amount of a solid yarn in co-ordinating colours for the heel/toe. Isn't that smart? I'll have to wait until the next time it's stocked...

But it's late and I'm off to go dream about the rest of the socks in my future and try to forget the ever quickening arrival of two babies I'm knitting blankets for that keep getting cast aside for socks...

More sighs for the socks

2007-06-19T17:44:00.000-05:00

Exhibit A: Socks from hell

Okay, this weekend was full of great sadness and many sighs over my sockapalooza socks. I got to my cabin Friday night dead set on finishing sock #1 and being well on my way through sock two by the end of the weekend. I get to the cabin late Friday so there's only minor knitting. Saturday I sit down and the sock is about 1/2 of the way through the instep. So like any consciencious knitter I try on the sock. Well... once it's on my foot it fits like an absolute glove. However, this involved major struggling to get it on and even worse struggling to get it off. And my pals feet are a bit wider than mine. Clearly that wouldn't do.

So being the good little sock knitter that I am I did the only right thing. I had a moment to myself and then ripped the whole thing back. Hours of work gone in a matter of seconds. I then immediately cast on again for the larger size. Undaunted I knit furiously. Sunday evening I am at about a third of the way through the instep. I try on the sock. The socks are not a single bit bigger. I can clearly tell they used more wool because of where the "fresh" yarn started but they are a fight on. The only difference I see is a slight bagging at the top of the heel flap from its extra length.

After all the trouble I went through to find this yarn I know that it won't survive another ripping. So I'm left with no choice but to abandon them as sockapalooza socks. While they aren't my colours, I do think they're knitting up gorgeously so they probably will end up in my collection.

So what to do now? Well, the plan for the ominous sky yarn (from the last entry) was to send it with the package to my pal so instead it's becoming her socks. I've done some swatching and picked an entirely new pattern from "More Sensational Knitted Socks". I am however waiting until the start of the summer of socks to cast them on. And everyone, if you could please cross your fingers for me? Perhaps I should make a sacrifice to the knitting gods... just in case.

Exhibit B: Hopefully not yarn from hell

Yarn porn

2007-06-13T18:46:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to get posting for several days now but I've been feeling a bit like doing nothing in the evening lately. I've not been particularly inspired. Perhaps because I had people in from out of town the other week and I was going out almost every night (which I never do) and things were exciting and there was lots of people to spend time with. And now that's mostly died off, though I do have one last night out tonight before my last friend heads back home. So I should post before it hits even harder.

Since my last post I have acquired a considerable amount of yarn. My LYS was having a 50% off sell and it's possible that I might have bought a totally obscene amount of baby yarn to make the second baby blanket and a hooded jacket. But this is mere speculation so no need to show it until it's being knitted (and there is such a photo to follow).

Then, if that wasn't enough I got a second order from the Loopy Ewe all in preparation for the Summer of Socks KAL which I'm very pumped for. And the best part was that the yarn was shipped in an envelope so the customs people didn't charge me. Ha! Take that Canadian government, I so swindled you out of $20 :) Here's the haul:

From left to right we have:
-sKNITches Bebop Sock variegated sock yarn in "Showgirl", 440 yds 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon
-Gypsy Knits BFL Superwash Fingering Wool in "Sweet dreams", 330 yds
-Stond Barn Fibres in "Ominous Skies" 200 yds/hank, 100% merino wool
-All Things Heather in "Bubblegum", 360yds superwash merino
-Claudia Handpaint in "Carousel", 180 yds/hank, 100% merino

Like I'm sure I mentioned, I'm trying to just try as many different dyers as possible to see what I like and find out what's all out there (though Claudia Hand paint is in a huge lead at the moment). I can't wait to knit it all up. Except the Ominous skies which is going to someone else as a present.

In the world of actual knitting content, I finished my monkey socks for my friend's birthday and must now get ready to mail it off. I'm very happy with how they turned out and wish I could keep them for myself :(

It was knitted on size 2 dpn in the Claudia Hand Paint "Jill's Pink" colourway. I hope she loves them! I've also passed the gusset on my Sockapalooza Pal's socks but unfortunately I stupidly left the bag it's in at home so that'll have to wait for next update for pictures. But I assure you the sock looks just spiffy!

And then, we have the start of baby blanket #2. It's being knitted in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in the "Cable Blanket" patten from the Debbie Bliss book "Simply Baby". I decided to knit both at the same time so that I could alternate as my attention wanes from one. And the best part of this pattern is that it's extremely simple to memorize so unlike the other one I don't need a pattern constantly by my side and can knit it in other places. Here it is:

Aww... baby blanket. Seriously, baby's get all the cool knitted stuff!

I believe that's all there's been from me. My goal is to finish the first Sockapalooza sock by then end of next week and get a good chunk of the blue baby blanket done this weekend. Hope the plan turns out. Happy Wednesday all!

We have scarf-age!

2007-06-03T22:46:00.000-05:00

After much anticipation, the day I've been waiting for all of May finally arrived, my ISE4 scarf arrived from the wonderful Melissa (stickchick)!!! Saturday morning I was half asleep and in pyjamas when the buzzer rang. I was totally perplexed. It was the mailman with my package. On a Saturday... Maybe Canada post is starting to feel guilty about hating me so much? *shrugs*

But, needless to say, I quickly ripped through all the tape. But I was good and left the scarf for last, looking at all the other very generous goodies my pal sent me. Minus the scarf, this is what I opened first:

(The chocolate was eaten by the time I got the camera out, that would just be the wrapper!). She really picked out excellent choices for me (my family could take a lesson from her). I've been interested in making some dishclothes and completely curious about this Peaches & Creme yarn everyone tells me about and now I have the yarn and patterns. Some excellent knitting mojo there :) And I'm also a huge stationary and hand letter writing fan so that was very special for me too.

Then came... the scarf! My pal made me a wide scarf/wrap out of some amazingly soft baby alpaca yarn. She said that her original plans were much different but she was inspired by my kittyville hat pictures to change plans. And in crazy cosmic timing, it just so happened that I was going to a fancy banquet that evening for the Canadian Mathematics Society meeting and the wrap went perfectly with my dress. (And it turned out that I really needed it because the venue was freezing!) My friend Val ever so delightfully obliged to take a picture of me fancied up with the scarf:

I absolutely love it! Thank you oh so much Melissa! I'm not entirely sure on the pattern though(care to help me out here pal?).

In the sock department I've decided to try my very first toe up sock using Wendy's general toe-up pattern. I've only gotten a few rows past the toe as most of my knitting time tonight was spent winding the yarn. Ducky, my Spanish duck, ever so graciously modeled it for me

And the other socks continue. This afternoon I was attending the university's science/education convocation. Sitting by myself, for three hours, in a ceremony where I was really only there for about 5 minutes of it, I wasn't about to sit without some socks, so my Monkey socks kept me company. Afterwards I was talking to one of the professors in attendance (they were on the floor with the graduates, I was up in risers with hundreds of family/friends) at the reception. And apparently, they not only spotted me in all that audience but were able to identify that I was knitting. And, as they seem to take my knitting as being another indication of my strangeness (in the more endearing, not crazy nut job way, I don't take offense) I think that I will be reminded of this fact...often. So, now that it's an infamous sock, here's what it looked like after the ceremony:

It's now well on its way to being done by the end of next week to ship off to one of the best friends a girl could ask for, for her birthday. I think it's been a good knitting weekend :)

Back to the blanket

2007-05-30T17:25:00.000-05:00

Another week and where exactly has the month of May gone to? I have absolutely no idea because I can't see any way that I've actually been at my job for nearly four weeks now. The summer research is by far the best job I have ever had and it's such a pleasure to go in to work every single day. That ofcourse leaves me inspired for lots of knitting time in the evening!

After the massive amounts of guilt I've been feeling about the baby blanket, this weekend I bought the first two seasons of Grey's Anatomy and spent most of the weekend just knitting the blanket and watching Greys. It took me until last night to finish it. And I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop until I knew that Meredith got back together with Dr McDreamy. I have to stop falling for series where the heroine is constantly getting screwed over by love because I was crying way more than should be normal for a tv series. But I was ever so impressed when for two episodes they should the main characters knitting. Izzie even gave her boyfriend a hand knit sweater, then he died. Really puts a new spin on the "never knit your boyfriend a sweater" legend doesn't it? So this is what the baby blanket currently looks like:

It's about 22 inches at the moment so just another 22 to go before I reach the 44 inch mark, hooray! This two baby blankets thing is looking more and more do-able.

After the massive amount of blanket knitting I took the last two nights off from it and mostly was picking at the second Monkey sock. I have about two weeks to finish them before the go and get mailed off for a birthday. Completely do-able!

And I may or may not have placed in another order at The Loopy Ewe. Shh! I caught the sneak up last week. It's really hard to explain to your ride why they have to hold on so that you can order yarn at 7:15 in the morning so that it's not all gone by the time everyone gets to the site. I got all different brands from what I ordered last time with the exception of another Claudia Hand Paint because I am absolutely in love with how it's knitting up on the Monkey's and because I saw a picture on the Sockapalooza Pligg of someone knitting with it in the Carousel colourway and knew that I needed it.

As I read through my regular knitting blogs and through the Pligg, I cannot believe the amount of people knitting Monkey socks at the moment. It seems like just about every second blog has someone knitting them or talking about imminently needing to knit them. The blog-o-sphere really has added a slightly crazy dynamic to the world of knitting by starting "crazes". The "popular" pattern of the day. I only hope that it doesn't have the same effect as it does on most commercial goods. It's a big fad and then it gets tossed and forgotten about real quickly. Some of the crazes are for really gorgeous patterns and it would be a shame for them to get tossed because of the internet created "novelty" to wear off... Just some thoughts.

And, in a bit of exciting news, I'm waiting rather impatiently for the post office to deliver my ISE4 scarf. I heard from my upstream pal last week who says it's on its way. That was a week ago so it could be here any time now. I just have to forget how much the post office seems to hate me and with any luck it might be here by the end of the week *knocks on wood*. I promise lots of pictures when it arrives!

Happy knitting :)

Socks socks and more socks

2007-05-22T18:12:00.000-05:00

It's been about a week and a half since last posting, and just when I was getting good at this, oh well :P This has actually been a really productive week knitting wise for me and I set a personal record for sock finishing so I can't complain at all.

First and foremost, I finally settled on a pattern for my Sockapalooza4 Pal and have started knitting it up. After all the talk I've heard about them while pattern searching I decided to try my first pair of Jaywalkers by Grumperina. My pal specifically requested no lace so I think that this pattern satisfies that requirement perfectly and it seems to show off the yarn quite well so I am happy. I just wish slipping those two stiches over was a little easier on my bamboo needles... Here's what the sock looks like with the yarn attached:

I'm actually surprised at just how dominant the brown is. I didn't think the brown to other colour ratio would be so high before I wound it. But it's definitely on the brown side. The picture clearly doesn't capture this but what is so nice about the Fleece Artist is the gorgeous sheen to the yarn. It just seems to radiate so I'm very happy with it.

On the finishing socks fast front, with all the Monkey fever that's been going around, I decided to cast on with my new Claudia Handpaint in Jill's Pink. At first I was being selfish and wanting them for myself but after seeing the colour knit up, I know that they're destined to be sent to a dear dear friend of mine for her birthday next month. There really couldn't be a sock better suited to her. I'm just in love with the luscious softness of the yarn and can't wait to finish the second.

How could anyone not just fall in love with Monkey socks? How I do wish these could have been destined for me though *sigh*

And it seems that I somehow managed to not have a FO shot of the Hedera socks so here they are:

I am exceedingly happy with how they turned out. I was wearing them last week to university with a skirt. There was just no way I could hide them under pants all day. Though I must admit that I spent most of the day without the shoes on and was happily getting out of my shoes to show them to fellow knitters and fans of knitters in the math department. Who really needs shows anyways?

In the interests of full disclosure, the baby blanket hasn't been touched. This has now become exceedingly alarming as I just found out that a friend of mine from school is also having a baby in September so she'll absolutely need a baby blanket. Right... My cousin better not be having twins or I am seriously screwed. Perhaps all my built up sock karma will make the knitting Gods smile in my favour? Maybe?

Oh! On Sunday there were two new additions to my family. After the long anticipated death of my over 3.5 year (extremely!) old betta fish, two new goldfish joined the house. Pythagoras in tan and Hypatia in orange:

And just so that Mittens doesn't get jealous of the fish :) a pic of kitty in the knitting

Going Loopy

2007-05-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday was a pretty amazing day here. Not only was it my 22nd birthday, and not only was it Whacking Day (a perfectly innocent link and holiday, no worries), but it was the day that I received my first order from The Loopy Ewe which must be nothing short of the most fabulous sock yarn store in the entire world. I just about died looking at all of the gorgeous yarn. And when it arrived, I had to be reminded that I had band and had to stop continually petting the yarn that came (fibre addiction anyone?). And everything wonderful anyone has heard about the owner Sheri is 100% true. She was great emailing me back and forth making special arrangements for my money order and answering all of my questions. The package came so quickly and it included a hand written note that she puts in every order. Here is what I got:

From left to right we have:
-Cherry Tree Hill in "Winterberry" 420 yds 100% superwash merino fingering weight
-Cherry Tree Hill in "Brights" 420 yds 100% superwash merino fingering weight
-Apple Laine in "Strawberry Jam" 2 190 yd skeins 50% wool, 20% mohair, 20% silk, 10% nylon

-Regia in a mystery colour (there may be a colour but I don't read ...German is it?) 210 m per ball, 75% new wool, 25% Polyamide
-Claudia Hand Painted Yards in Jill's Pink, 180 yds/skein, 100% merino wool
But I have to say what's the most exciting thing about this order. The Regia. Mostly because I did not order it. Sheri always includes goodies in the packages, and sometimes it's yarn. I got enough for a full pair of socks. How is that for customer service? So yes, I highly recommend that every one who has never visited goes and takes a look at her store from my link above or by the image on the sidebar of my blog. It is well worth the trip.
In my personal knitting, the shawl is a bit bigger, the baby blanket is... the exact same size. I have mostly been focusing on the 2nd Hedera sock to free up needles to try my new sock yarn. Here's the Hedera thus far:

Hopefully they'll be done soon and the needles will be all mine!
I'm still at a loss for a pattern for my Sockapalooza Pal that I'm knitting for. No lace...hmm... I guess that leaves me with a pretty cabled sock. Now to only find a nice cabled sock pattern... If any one has any suggestions, I'm all for them at the moment!
And, in a little piece of excitement for myself, I've been blogged! Tuesdays on the Sockapalooza Knittpligg you are supposed to write blog stories about others socks you've seen. My post about the Fleece Artist wool choice was written about on this blog (aren't I a geek!). And if anyone would like to see the package I sent my ISE4 pal, you can read Sharon's post on her blog. It's really bizarre to see my knitting on another person's blog across the world... I really don't think I ever knew what a huge and amazing world I was getting myself into when I was introduced to the world of knit blogging. One crazy rabbit hole indeed...

Sockapalooza4 Yarn

2007-05-07T18:49:00.000-05:00

After this weekend's trip to the yarn store I also picked up the yarn for my pal. It's the Fleece Artist Sea Wool in the colour Seastorm. Since starting on my Hedera socks I've fall in love with this yarn and I can't see how my pal wouldn't either. And some experimenting in colours you wouldn't normally see chez Jenna so it will be a great adventure. Now if I could only settle on a pattern for the yarn...

It'll just take some more searching. But the yarn is very lovely and there has to be the perfect pattern out there somewhere!

More yarn

2007-05-07T18:07:00.000-05:00

More yarn for me! It's my birthday this Thursday so I've been treating myself to some yarn. Well, lots of yarn actually, but let's not try to argue semantics here :) On Saturday I took a trip over to Ram Wools and got mostly yarn essentials and a treat.

The treat for me was 1260yds of "Fiddlesticks Knitting" lace weight yarn (50% Merino wool, 50% tussah silk) in the colour indigo. I've been wanting to make myself a shawl for forever and I figure birthday yarn is a good excuse. I settled on making the Snowdrop Shawl by the Yarn Harlot. I think that it's definitely manageable for a first lace attempt and it's easy to memorize. I'm making good use of lifelines in the pattern and taking a good lesson on the fiddliness of lace. It's crap to unknit :) But I'm a trooper. Here's my progress so far:

I keep reminding myself that lace is meant to be blocked and then I'm happy with it. Though I must say that I'm rather alarmed at the number of people who are seeing it and asking if I'm making underwear :S

As mentioned before, my cousin is having a baby this summer and I'm in mid baby blanket (it looks the same, only longer, so no picture this time). Now about a month ago I bought a Debbie Bliss Baby book and fell in love with all the adorable patterns. As she still doesn't know the baby's sex, I can't make any clothes for them. But, I couldn't resist. So I made some baby socks for my research supervisor's daughter. But I apparently have no concept of baby sizes and blindly follow book guidelines so they might be too small. But he has hopes they might just fit for a bit (here's to hoping). I stupidly forgot to take a picture this morning so there's no picture of them. But I assure you that I'll knit more because they're too cute. And my first time using more than one colour. So I was very proud of them.

But my weekend wasn't all fun and knitting games. I nearly threw a tantrum at my yarn. The lace weight yarn, very near the start of the ball had a HUGE honking matt/tangle. I spent 2 hours trying to salvage it but it wasn't working. The yarn was literally like fused together and had I eventually seperated it, the yarn would have been so frayed that it would have become unuseable. Here's one knot that I couldn't get out:Remember, this is lace weight yarn (you can see how thin the one strangling piece is) so that should tell you just how badly it's knotted in the middle there.

Then, comes my Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino for the socks. All I had to two was 4 rounds of 32 stitches on the cuff in one colour and then I got to change. Practically an inch from where I had to switch colours (and all would have been fine):

They kindly decided to tie on a new piece of yarn right there. So there goes the first few yards of the ball, all for not. I understand that this happens, but right at the start of the ball making it totally unuseable?!?! These were both expensive yarns so I would expect better, but I digress...

For non-Sockapaloozers on here, you might be quite impressed to know that our group, with 1000 sock makers "broke blogger" . There were so many sock knitters on the blog that it couldn't handle it so they've had to move the message board on to a program called Digg. It is really cool. It basically involves people posting stories from different blogs instead of it all being on one blog. Any one can go read look at all the cool sock posts here. So that means seperate posts on my blog for sock stuff.
(More on the other yarn I've acquired when it arrives sometime this week

I will never get the post office

2007-04-30T22:48:00.000-05:00

First off, I'd like to begin tonight's blog entry off by giving a huge hello to my ISE4 scarfee Sharon *waves*. By miracle upon miracle, the post office managed to get my parcel not only to Australia but to her house in only 6 business days. Considering it's taken them over two weeks to send a letter express post two provinces over, I take this be nothing short of a miracle! I'm so glad that she loves the scarf and that her daughters are excited for the treats I left them in the parcel. It's always scary making something for someone else when they have no clue what it is. I think colour is an extremely personal choice and luckily I was able to pick something she loves. Which is exactly what she deserves as she's not only my scarfee but happens to be the very capable organizer of the whole exchange which is no small task!

And in some crazy cosmic timing, on the exact day that my ISE4 pal gets her scarf, I received the info for my Sockapaloooza4 pal. Reading their profile, this will be really different for me. Their colour choices and design likes are so far from mine, it will be very un-Jenna like knitting. A good challenge for me, but even harder to make sure it's something they like. I'll have to do some serious blog reading to get ideas!

Today I went to my friend Joanne's house for some extra fun knitting and chatter. Plus some quality time with her many pets whom I adore. While there I finished sock #1 from my Fleece Artist Sea Wool in the Hedera pattern from Knitty. I am quite in love with them. And the pattern is very easy to remember in a 4 row repeat so it's good travel knitting or when you can't give %100 concentration. Here's what sock #1 looks like:

I find these pictures are pretty true to colour, but they are in fact a bit darker and shinier in real life. Not entirely unrelated, and maybe it's just me, but does anyone else find looking into the "gut" of a sock to be a bit obscene?

I always feel like I should be averting my eyes or something *shrugs*.

And, just to prove that I'm equal opportunity with using my kitties to hold my papers, here's Misty from the other day:

They're very insistent on where they want to sleep. And if it happens to be in the middle of my papers, that's fine as long as they don't mind "joining the pile" which they clearly don't :)

Tomorrow I start my summer research job at the university. Think good thoughts for me!

Twinkletoes

2007-04-24T16:44:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I decided that I needed a bit of a break from the baby blanket. It was starting to get to me (which is probably a bad sign seeing as how it's only 1/5 of the way done) so I figured a quick knit pick-me-up project was what the doctor ordered (I really never learned the whole delaying gratification lesson I'm afraid). A while back I bought the yarn to make Twinkletoes from Winter 2006 Knitty so no time like the present right? I am very happy with how they turned out. Rowan Calmer is not only soft to work with but I can't even begin to describe how soft it is against your skin. If there was ever a yarn made for slippers, this was it. Here's how it turned out:

My favourite part by far is the ballerina ties on them. Were I to make them again (and I most definitely will) I would add 2-4 more rows of stockinette. It stretches well but I still find it a bit of a reach to keep the heel in place. And I would also add length to the ties. They look much longer in the pictures on Knitty than my turned out. My mother really wants a pair for her birthday and I think that I'll be making these as Christmas gifts this year.

Now, I know that I promised my Queen of Cups socks once they fit on my feet, but the pictures didn't turn out very well, you can't quite discern the pattern and they aren't very flattering to my ankles so instead I'll distract you with a picture of Mittens sleeping in my knitting.

If you look you should see: the baby blanket, twinkletoes in progress, Queen of Cups in progress, finished Monkey socks and a finished scarf (oh! And the lid to Cookie Dough ice cream). And yes, I shamelessly use my sleeping kitties as pattern holders. They like it, I swear!

Done!

2007-04-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

I am done, done, done, done, done classes and exams. Hooray! And at the same time I have also managed to finish up my ISE4 scarf and the package. Here is the artsy picture of the scarf (my first attempt at artsy knitting shots, so please be kind):

I am very happy with how this scarf turned out and it is soooo soft from the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. I totally love it. I really hope that my recepient will love it too. It is currently in the mail and off to Australia. I think the post office was trying to be amusing. They gave me an "option" of surface or air mail. Surface was half the price but could take up to 3 months to get there while air mail took 1.5-3 weeks. Needless to say I got the air mail.

Things got a little bit interesting with the blocking of the scarf though which I hate to think about reliving this experience in the future:

Notice what it's being blocked on? Astroturf. *sigh* That was murder trying to get the pins to stay in. My scarfee is allergic to pet hair so the only way to avoid cats walking all over it was to block in out on the balcony. My poor little Mittens sounding like she was dying with all her meowing when my dad went outside after supper and she wasn't allowed out.

I also have another FO under my belt. About two weeks ago my friend Justyna mentioned that she was having a get together for her birthday last weekend and was hinting that she liked my fingerless mitts. So I nod and smile and continue on with my day. It wasn't until the next night when I was sitting at home when I realized that, "Crap! She invited me to her birthday. That means she's having a birthday and needs a present!" With only a week and a half and three exams in the mean time I had to settle for what I had in the house. I had bought the yarn to make Fetching from Knitty not that long ago so I tearfully gave it up and made her mitts out of my precious Rowan Cashsoft Aran (but don't be too sad for me, I went back to the LYS after the exams and bought myself another skein). It was a madhouse trying to make them while studying. And as fate would have it, her party got pushed back a week and is tomorrow. So I could've had lots of time. Just my luck. But here they are, I hope she likes them:

In the mean time I've also gotten more done on the baby blanket and my Queen of Cups socks which I'll show once they're at the point that I can get them on my feet (which shouldn't be long!). Happy weekend!

Back to your regularly scheduled knitting

2007-04-15T13:15:00.000-05:00

Well, the worst of my exams are over. I just have one more next week and then I'm free of school work for about 4.5 months. And do you know what that means? Knitting time! Actually, since Friday night I've gotten quite a bit of knitting done and watched an obscene amount of 7th Heaven at the exact same time (I bought the first couple of seasons as a reward for all the extra hours I've been working).

Firstly, while I was whispering about starting another sock last time, it seems that I've somehow managed to have another sock jump on the needles. But I swear that the Queen of Cups is for at home knitting while the other sock has a simple enough pattern that Ican use it as a travelling sock. Without further ado, my super cute new sock made from the coveted Fleece Artist Sea Wool:

Yes, it's a bit dark. I'm still crossing my fingers for a new camera for my birthday next month :)

My Queen of Cups socks are starting to come along, but they've been mostly cast aside for my two big projects (after they felt so special that I was cheating on the Monkey socks for them, I suddenly cast them aside for something new too, classic). I'm still loving the bamboo needles and still totally paranoid over breaking them. I don't know how I could ever think of travelling with them...

And your final picture for today is the baby blanket after almost 1.5 repeats of the pattern. I am absolutely loving how it's turning out and I think the colours are absolutely adorable. I can't wait for when my cousin sees this when it's done. I can't think of anything that gets more love than a baby blanket.

My ISE 4 scarf continues. I figure that I'll get more done before another picture. I finished the first half last night and then had to pickup the stitches from the provisional caston to start the second half. That was murder. It was so slow going picking out the crochet. And I fear that I used too small of waste yarn because I could barely get the stitches on the needle they were so tight. I got to try my hand at the picot bind off as well which turned out better than I was hoping so that's excellent.

Now, if I could only supress my urge to start knitting miters after reading all these fabulous blogs with people making mitered squares...

Still living

2007-04-04T18:03:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am still living. How well and how much is debatable but the point is I'm breathing and not entirely comatose so all is as well as can be expected durring exam time.

There hasn't been incredible amounts of progress over on my end in the knitting department as I went about a week straight with no knitting due to the huge volumes of work keeping me up until 3am every night (I know, I'm just as horrified at that thought as you are!). But here is what's been going on:

This is my ISE4 scarf after the 4th repeat of the pattern. It looks rather dense because it really does need to be blocked when finished (it doesn't look anywhere near this flat when not stretched out). The cashmerino is soft on the hands! Knitting it up is just heaven. I'm just hoping that I'll have enough yarn because I'm using a slightly heavier weight yarn than in the pattern. We'll see how that turns out.

In the world of Monkey socks, the second one is nearly done (yes, they are taking forever!). Here I am modeling them today whilst on the toe shaping:

I do believe that I'll try my hardest to finish them tonight because I really want to wear them now after all of this waiting. And once they're done, I may or may not have another pair of socks on the needles...

Shhh!

The long stretch begins

2007-03-23T18:18:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been about a week and half since last update. I admit, I've been bad. I blame school. I'm sure that come April this blog will get more interesting as I get more quality knitting time done.

I do have a FO to report, my fingerless mitts that i've been coveting these past two weeks are finally done, hooray! Despite some painful frogging on the second glove due to a misplaced cable, I managed to get them done mostly in the car and between tutoring appointments, here they are in all their yummy yarn glory:

I adore them and wear them as much as I can now. and it just happens to be the perfect weather for them now as well as spring is just starting to happen here. (Actually the weather seems to be having some personality disorder issues and keeps going from 20 below to above 0 with no notice whatsoever and then suddenly back down to way too cold temperatures. No rhyme or reason.) I even wore them to band last night and they kept my hands nice and warm while I piccoloed away!

But we ask ourselves, why has "the lond stretch begun"? My next two bigs projects I think will take a very long time and will need lots of dedication on my part. The first is my International Scarf Exchange scarf! I'm just so incredibly excited. I've heard from the woman knitting for me (hello there secret pal if you're reading this *waves*) and I've received my match. And I absolutely can't wait to spoil her.

Yesterday I took a trip down to my LYS and picked out some super luscious wool. Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino 55% merion wool 33% microfibre and 12% cashmere in the color Eggplant, a gorgeous deep purple (which my camera truly can't capture the beauty of well enough). I'm making the "Oak Leaf and Acorn Scarf" from Fibre Trends. It's done with a provisional cast on which took a try or two and I can't figure how to do it without manualing having to untwist all the stitches for the first row... But it worked. Here it is after the first repeat (though it's a lace pattern so it won't look the way it should until post blocking, alas) and ignore the pink waste yarn :)

And the second long project, a baby blanket. My cousion is due in September so I figure I have plenty of time. I decided to be a masochist and throw all advice to the wind and knit it instead of crocheting. I just hope that it doesn't come back to haunt me because the doctor thinks she might be having twins and I'm now concerned that I'll be stuck having to finish two blankets now that I'm commited to one. But, I will be happy to do it. There's something really special about baby blankets. I'm making it out of Bernat Satin in the color Bahamas (the most gender neutral but still baby color I could find):

Oh, and there's a slight chance that while picking up the scarf wool this on sale discontinued color yarn may have found it's way into my purchases:

A change of heart

2007-03-12T18:28:00.000-05:00

So after knitting my fingerless mitts for a few days I've had a change of heart. I am just so in love with them that I think I have to make the Fetching next. And when I went to check out what yarn it needed it just happened to list one skein of Cashsoft Aran from Rowan. Clearly it's a sign of fate that I should use it to make fetching and be satisfied with the two skeins I already have set aside for the Calorimetry.
Though there was a bit of a sad moment today making the Dashing right mitt, namely a misplaced cable... 6/7 rows back *sniff* It was really disheartening to have to spend all that time ripping it back. I'm just too impatient and desperately want them done now.
I also failed to mention that in my trip to the LYS store I invested in a set of size 1 DPN made from bamboo. So I tried a few rows of the next socks. And while the needles were so nice to work with, I kept having nightmares of my snapping them in half from putting too much pressure on them (my metal dpn are noticeably bent where I hold them). So let's cross our fingers that I can manage to not break something I own. I'd show how the socks started to knit up but ofcourse there was a mistake so I just took it right off the needles. But it was only like 2.5 rows which I did merely to test out the needles ( I can't have the Monkey socks thinking I forgot about them!).
But it's off to study, complex analysis is calling my name for my test tomorrow (stupid test cutting into my knitting time, blah)

Yarn yarn everywhere

2007-03-11T14:23:00.000-05:00

So, today's update will be mostly concerning yarn porn and the various projects I have lined up for myself. I spent yesterday scavenging through my LYS, spending much more than any non-knitter would think was necessary and already got through half a project. Not bad for half a day is it?

First we'll start with the project that I couldn't wait to get on the needles, Dashing from the spring knitty. And here it is (Misty supervised as it was my first attempt ever at cabling):

You can see a close up at right of my first cables, *Awww*. It started to go much better after the first cabling row in which I was dropping stitches like there was no tomorrow and my house was filled with the sounds of needles dropping to the floor every ten seconds. (You can see why I needed kitty supervision!). Though I really do have to work on getting the tension at the twist spot even because some are much tighter than others. But for a first try, I'm happy with it.

The yarn used was this:

Tahki Yarns "New Tweed" %70 merino, %15 Silk %11 Cotton and %4 Viscose. 103 yds/50 g. 2 skeins. Not the yarn the pattern called for because my LYS doesn't have it but I did stay true to the tweed intentions even though it's something I normally wouldn't buy.

Then next on the list is my yarn for the thing I've most been coveting for a while, a Calorimetry from Knitty Winter 2006. I have several yarns to make it from:

Featured to the left is Linnie 157 Tessa yarn from %100 Virgin Wool 85m/50g most likely for present making. To the right is some truly luscious Rowan Cashsoft Aran made from %57 extra fine merion %33 microfibre and %10 cashmere 95yd/50g. Oh so soft and totally destined to be my first calorimetry, woo hoo!

Next we move on to some slippers, namely Twinkletoes from Knitty Winter 2006 to be made out of this:

Rowam Calmer 75% cotton %25 acrylic/microfibre 175yds/50g with quite the nice feel to it. So I'm happy.

And ofcourse, my next sock project Queen of Cups from (any wild guesses here?) Knitty Spring 2007. Made from this:

Rowan 4-ply soft %100 merino wool 191yds/50g. And I can't tell you how unbelievably excited I am to get these on the needles. But ofcourse that means getting monkey sock #2 off the needles. And because it seems my blog update wouldn't be complete without a WIP of the socks:

And that's all she wrote folks!

One monkey down

2007-03-04T23:26:00.000-06:00

So hooray! I've finished sock one of my knitty Monkey socks. And I absolutely love the way that it turned out and the colours. It just feels so nice on my foot and I only wish that the sock fairies would magically knit the other one over night so that I can wear them asap (unfortunately I think the knitting fairies are in cohoots with the homework fairies who also refuse to do all my work when I'm asleep as well *sigh*). And in case you can still take more pictures of the same socks, here is the FO:

And in wonderful news, all of my Christmas knitting is now given out! My aunt finally came over on Saturday and I gave her her leg warmers. But it also happened to be her birthday and I felt bad about giving her a Christmas gift on her birthday so I also did a quick knit up of hat she wanted. I made one for my cousin several months back and she really wanted one herself. Luckily it was a very quick basically straight stockinette hat that took next to no time. The look on her face was just great. I'm so happy that she likes them after all the happened to get them done. Here it is, modelled by Mittens who "just had" to include chunks of fur in the hat for her favourite aunt:

Last week I was doing some bedtime reading and picked up the book "Yarn Harlot" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and I have to say that I really loved it. You know that you've officially crossed that line when you find yourself identifying with a woman who and non-knitter would probably read her book and think she was crazy. My favourite chapter was the one with the lost tape measurers. I was laughing so hard that I was scaring Mittens who was curled up beside me and I started coughing I was laughing so hard. I think it's a definite fun read for any knitter.

Once again, not great knitting time prospects for the upcoming week but I'll be sure to cast on for sock #2 so that I have some car knitting for the week before I go to bed and I plan to sketch out a pattern for a crocheted bandana that I have flying around in my head. Can't wait! Have a great week :)

The Koigu Won

2007-02-26T17:52:00.000-06:00

So much work to do in my life, so little time to do it all in. Every day as term goes by I'm more and more thankful that I've found my knitting moments to keep me sane.

Now, I may as well make a confession, though I tried to keep it stowed away in the bag I got it in, the Koigu put up too good of a fight and it ended up on spare set of dpn. (It has a mind of its own I tell you). So despite my (mostly) best efforts otherwise I am in the middle of another pair of socks even though my sweater is not done. But the socks are just so exciting, have a looksie:

I'm loving how the colours are turning out. The picture is actually pretty true to life in colour (shockingly enough). I wasn't expecting it to be that dark or to have so much in the way of greens. But I am not disappointed at all. So far there has only been one major mishap, a misplaced yo that I didn't catch until 6 rows too late. That was very tedious unknitting. The pattern itself is the Monkey sock pattern from Knitty Winter 2006. They yarn they call for has slightly more yardage so I cut out two repeats of the lace on the cuff to hopefully not run out of wool. And I'm glad it turned out that way because I think 6 repeats would've been too much anyways.

But, to make up for the sock fascination again, I did spend some time with my sweater. It's an off the shoulder sweater from the Bernat website. I'm finished the back and front piece and am on to the arms. After that, it's the round piece that flips over the shoulder. It's a very shotty pick, but here's the back and a bit of an arm:

I would link the pattern but I seem to be totally unable to find it any more on the Bernat website. Hmmm... I better make sure I don't lose the one that I printed off.

So lately, I've started to knitting in public to get more knitting time in. And I must say that I find it quite enjoyable. While I enjoy the zen solitude of knitting, I also feel strongly that nothing is worth doing if you can't share it. And I like it when people ask what I'm doing or come and share their knitting stories. And I'm finding more and more people I know knit. Some I never suspected suddenly come out of the cracks when they see me knitting. I like the feel of connection that art brings. Meeting people who know why I find it so incredibly addictive.

FO's for all

2007-02-16T23:25:00.000-06:00

Tonight was an extravaganza of FOs. I figure that if I could get all the small projects out of the way that I might actually start to focus on getting my off the shoulder sweater finished (though that new Koigu wool is going to make it extra hard to not spend all of my time making more socks). Without further ado, here they are:

These are the leg warmers I promised my aunt for Christmas and promptly had to remake. But now I assure you that they are both 100% the exact same size as, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a difference of several inches in the circumferences of my aunts calves. They're made from Bernat's Satin wool. Just a K1P1 rib at the top, stockinette body and garter stitch at the bottom. Notice the obligatory pointed dancer toes pose in the picture :) I am now officially super jealous and wish I could have them for myself.

The second FO would have to be... my first pair of socks!!!

These were made from Sirdar Snuggly wool in the colour Party Pink on size 3 dpn. I must say that the second one I made looks much nicer than the first and was much easier. I think I may become a sock knitting addict. The kitchener stitch also went much nicer the second time around. I kept messing up and dropping stitches all over the place on the first sock but for the second I couldn't remember what I found so hard. I'm moving up in my knitting I guess.

And before I forget, welcome to the new visitors to my site. I knew something was up when suddenly I found three comments in an entry for the first time. Clearly, it was the working of Jewels from the university who got me started on the blogging. It was extra nice to see comments.

But back to work. Reading week is almost up and I have tons of work left to do. But on an end note, Misty did approve of my studying break to finish the knitting:

Back

2007-02-12T17:17:00.000-06:00

So it's been a few weeks since last I posted. Mostly due to a lack of time to knit or sleep really. In the span of a week and a half there I had to mark about 150 assignments/tests, do 4 assignments myself and write 2 tests back to back. Just about died (well... not really, but my head sure felt like it).

Not that there isn't lots to do this week over reading week, but I have more time. I spent the whole weekend knitting. Unfortunately it was mostly do to the fact that I was rather medicated and slighlty out of it on pain medication and didn't have to attention span to do school work. But no complaints from me if it gets me knitting.

I first finished this gold evening purse which is a birthday present for my friend Leslie which she'll get sometime this week. Unfortunately the lining of it took me just as long to do as the actual purse. Hand sewing really isn't my cup of tea. But I tried very hard to make it the best I possibly could for her. Here's the result:

I apologize for the crappy camera which is about 6 years old. The details on the purse didn't come out very well. And I should mention that it was crocheted ofcourse.

Today I took a trip down to my LYS and was in my happy place completely. It's so tempting to buy everything you wanted. I settled on picking on the yarn I need to make my friend the devil eared equivalent of my kitty hat that she asked me for, some Paton's Brilliant in silver that my mom wanted so that she could knit a purse too but I did buy myself one special splurging present:

It's Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino. 100% Merino, 50g/175 yds. But it was popular that I couldn't get two from the same exact dye lot (they're made in lots of only about 20 or less). But, apart from dye lot numbers they also have dye codes for wools with similar colours so I had to settle for two with similar dye codes. But I figure that they're bought to make funky socks so slightly off colours won't hurt anything.

In other news, I expect imminent completion of my first pair of socks and to do the emergency fixing of my aunt's Christmas present before she returns to the city on Friday (I accidently made her leg warmers two different sizes, oops! I blame the stress of exams). Happy knitting all :)

Slow knitting week

2007-01-26T18:21:00.000-06:00

So it's been a slow week on the knitting scene as I tried to devote myself to school work and sleep. And unfortunately it didn't accomplish much school so I gave up knitting time for nothing really. Well, school work did get done, just not more than I would have any other week. So I miss my knitting terribly, a half hour here and there really wasn't enough to satisfy my cravings. (I really am addicted aren't I?)

But I thought I'd post to show a picture of that black hat I finished last Friday made on size 10 needles with Bernats Softee Chunky. I'd been promising it for about half a year now and he didn't think I was seriously going to make him a hat. But I did. And he looks a bit like a cat burglar in it, but it's fun:

And, I also continued to get compliments on my kitty ears which I'm proudly wearing every time I leave the house. That's about the only advantage to living in a freezer of a city like mine, you get lots of use for your winter wear. Have a great weekend!

I sprouted ears!

2007-01-21T22:51:00.000-06:00

Today is definitely one of those days that makes me so thrilled to be knitting. Friday night I finished one of my half year long UFO's that I've been promising a friend, a classic black toque for a guy, so I decided to make something I've been pining for, for myself. The official Kittyville hat! Since the first time I saw a picture in a blog I've been dying to have one of my own. I got the pattern and the yarn two weeks ago and after two days of dedicated work... I HAVE MY HAT!!!!

In the process of making it I learned some very important lessons. Namely to make sure your first row isn't twisted when you're using circular needles. Unfortunately, I learned that one about an hour into the hat *sigh* But atleast it was a painful enough lesson that I'll never make that mistake twice.

The pompoms were also quite fun to make. However, my cat Mittens was a little too excited about the project and the constant threading of the yarn through the hole made her way to stimulated and she was constantly batting at it. It's really hard to keep yarn without holes in it when your cat is sleeping with her head in your lap. I often find mysterious slightly slobery breaks in yarn I accidently leave out. But I love them.

This week and next weekend look like they're going to be crazy with school work, marking work other commitments. Hopefully I'll find some time to get some progress on a bag I'm making that needs to be done in two weeks. And who knows how intact my sanity will be if I don't find a few minutes to de-stress and knit... Here's to hoping!

2007-01-19T18:32:00.000-06:00

And so begins the start of my first knitting blog. So it seems the people who read my personal blog really aren't knitters and don't quite appreciate as much as I'd hope my entries about buying yarn and my journey of learning to use dpns :P

I'm a fourth year math and statistics student in university and took up knitting this past summer as something fun to do and way to temporarily forget that I've sold myself and my life to school for probably another 7 years when I go to grad school. And there was also the perfectionist in me who remembers my mother's attempt long ago to teach me to knit which failed hopelessly. But, this time around, success! Ofcourse, as the story goes, I became hopelessly addicted and it's become a bit more of an obsession than a hobby. And after discovering several people in the department who knit and crochet, I can talk knit durring the day too and quite enjoy it. This past Christmas I also learned to crochet which only gave me more excuses to start more projects.

Currently I'm working two hats for a friend and an aunt. And a legwarmer. Apparently knitting while you're in the middle of exams is not the best idea as I somehow ended up making two completely different sizes and am now remaking her Christmas present. I also have a sweater on the go and a second sock.

Speaking of socks, I am extra proud of my latest creation: a sock! It took a bit like forever as I learned to use dpn, how to pick up stiches and grafting. And it's in the color party pink (another love of mine is bright colored socks)! I've just started sock number two and I hope that it will go quicker now that I've gotten the hang of things.

Some other recently completed are two scarfs. The first in a wavy rib pattern made from Soy Wool Stripes, a super soft and gorgeous wool supplied by Patons. It's a 70% wool, 30% soy blend. I used three skeins of the color denimon size 8 needles. It's become my staple scarf and I usually don't take it off during the day indoors.

The other scarf was my second crochet pattern found in Debbie Stoller's "Happy Hooker" book. It was made with one skein of Paton's Classic Merino with a 6.5mm hook. You can never have enough scarves. Especially when your city just went through a speel of 30-40 degrees celcius below zero spell.

And, just because I can't resist, the contents of my latest yarn buying expedition when my lys had a 30% off the entire store New Years sale. The contents:

-"Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook" by Debbie Stoller. Particularly for the Kittyville hat pattern. (Cute hat with earflaps and cat ears)

-2 skeins Snuggly 4-ply (Sirdar). 247 yards each. 55% Nylon/ 45% acrylic in Party Pink http://www.ramwools.com/index.cfmpageID=3§ion=475&prodID=3202#colorDrop

-2 skeins Brilliant (Paton) 166 yards. 69% acrylic/19% Nylon/12% Polyester in Sparkling Rose http://www.ramwools.com/index.cfm?pageID=3§ion=40&prodID=3588

-2 skeins Cotton Viscose (Garnstudio) 110 metres. 54% egyptian cotton/46% viscose in Magenta http://www.ramwools.com/index.cfm?pageID=3§ion=411&prodID=3579#colorDrop

-3 skeins Summer (Lano Gatto) slightly ambiguous yardage. 50%cotton/50% acrylic. Seemingly unlisted on the web site. Will be used to make my Kittyville hat.

And I think that about covers it for today. I'm off to get one of those hats finished.