Toe Cozy

I have created....the Toe Cozy! Actually, I successfully turned the toe on my first toe up sock..

Tonight it's off to knit night. Hopefully someone there knows what skpo means in the pattern I'm using! Unless one of y'all do??

Ciao

Fee Fi Fo Fum

I read through the instructions for the toe-up sock I want to do and decided that I had better try the wrap-toe thing first on some scrap yarn.

That, my friends, is a provisional cast-on with a short-rowed wrap-toe sock in worsted weight wool. It's HUGE! However, I am glad I experimented first. There was swearing at the beginning. There were 2 attempts (or was it 3?) at the provisional cast on. But the swearing dwindled away and the loose crochet worked better for the cast on and I was off to the races! Hopefully today I will be trying this with fiddly sock yarn. Also hopefully, there will be an absence of bad words.

Ciao

Staying Young

They say that if you stop learning, you get old. They also say that making your brain do things it hasn't done before keeps it "supple". I'm not sure who "they" are, but it makes sense that if you don't use it, you lose it. However, most of the brain workouts tell you to do pointless things like this:

Read the following colours aloud. Not the word, the colour. Blue Green Red Orange
Just for example.

Yup, the above will make you think, but does it sound like FUN? In an effort to keep what I got and hopefully gain a little bit, in order to exercise MY brain I am going to try toe-up socks. With a short row heel. Two things I have never done. AND it's not pointless. At the end I will have me a new pair of socks! Made out of this:

Talk about yummy....errr...educational, yeah, that's the ticket...

That's Fleece Artist Merino in the colourway "Indian Summer".

And, yup, that boring backdrop is my kitchen counter. With the daylight going so fast, that's about the only place I can take pictures without the flash on. Brace yourselves, that's what you'll be seeing a lot of this winter. But the Fleece Artist yarn makes up for it a little bit. I hope.

Ciao

Rough Notes

What do your patterns look like when you are working on something? Mine look like a kindergarten class went to town with it!

I have stuff scribbled in the margins. I have multiple post-it notes with illegible scribbled mutterings on them. And yet, it all makes a weird sort of sense....

Ciao

Still working on it.

Ta da! Bet you thought I had forgotten about this WIP. Nope, Still slowly plugging away. This is the left front of the cardigan. So that means I just have to finish the right front and seam it. (!) Woo Hoo!

Yet another...

Look! Another set of fingerless gloves!

These are being modeled by the recipient. My hairdresser's assistant. Although I'm not sure assistant is the right word. This woman does everything. Martha (the hairdresser) does everything too. So together they run the shop.

I've also finished my "husband socks", but the camera screwed up and the picture is MIA. So you'll have to wait for me to take another one!

Ciao

EDIT: I fixed the camera! Here are the husband socks!

Ciao

Anniversary Update

My husband is the best! He bought me this to help celebrate our anniversary:

Yup, that's Dom Perignon! Talk about a man with class. That's MY man!

The glass is also cool. That was a Christmas present a few years ago. Here's a close-up:

The stem is the really cool part:

Ciao

My 14th Anniversary!

Yes folks, yours truly has been married for 14 years as of today! My wonderful husband got me a present:

CHOCOLATE!!!!!

Hand made victoria creme to be exact. From Rogers Chocolate. Mmmmmmm...

Ciao!

Ha! Another Christmas giftie done! This is destined for my hairdresser. A "Season's Greetings" if you will.....















I'm off to make another pair in mint green. These are great little gifts. It takes almost no time at all to churn one out. And they look impressive. I say again, HA!

Ciao

Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

*elevator muzac stops*

We interrupt our regular programming to ask you: Do you find some television commercials to be completely stupid or icky?

The first one I find that grates on my nerves is this one: Close-up of a woman's face. She then says "As a mom, I find (product x breakfast spread) to be a tasty and healthy part of breakfast"

Or something very close to that. The irritating part is the "as a mom" part. Ummm, shouldn't a nutritionist be giving me nutritional advice? My pardons to all good moms out there, but I have seen plenty of bad mothering choices over the years. For example: A mother approached my pharmacy counter and asked me " Is there an easier way to get my kid to take Vick's Vaporub?" I asked her what she meant. Turns out that she was giving her kids the stuff on a spoon. To eat!!!!! I am sure that she did this with the best of intentions, but the stuff can actually kill small children!!!

Or the "I'm a (insert cold product here) mom!" Umm do you mean that product got you pregnant???? Bad writing there, eh?

The creepy one is the cough syrup ad that has a person coughing in a bed/classroom etc and their mom just magically appears with the product in hand. My mom might just appear in my vicinity? With no warning? Eww!

And just disturbing is the chocolate bar ad that is set to Beach Boys music and ends "and if a shark should try to bite you, I invite you" while wiggling a chocolate ass in front of said shark. This one I find completely disquieting. On several levels.

Okay, I had to get that off my chest.

I now return to your regularly scheduled programming....
*elevator musac starts*

It's the WEEKEND!

I'm not sure if it's eye candy or "just" a finished object.. But since it's friday, I figure beer is appropriate. This is another little Christmas giftie (the cozy, not the empty beers, silly). Unfortunately, the weather around here has sucked for the last week, so the pic is flash-photography. It makes for difficult pictue taking. Oh well, it's still finished!

Ciao

Re-enactment

Is anyone else waiting for Noah and the Ark to show up soon? So far, in the last 7 days, we have gotten 1 sunny day, 1 mostly overcast/partly sunny day and 5 pouring rain days. Not drizzle, kinda damp days. POURING RAIN. Pretty soon the whole province is going to float away. I find all this rain fairly onerous, since I can't get my hearing aids wet. (electronics and water just don't mix!) This means I have to carry an umbrella, or wear my "paddington bear" hat everywhere. Real fashion statement I tell ya.

As you can see, because of the lack of daylight, I've had to use the flash, resulting in my lovely, porcelain skintone. (otherwise known as pasty white)

sigh

Ciao

Boring and then Delicious

I haven't been boring all of you with my hearing-aid saga. However, my patient,eternally suffering husband has heard enough whining, so you, my gentle readers are stepping up to the plate. If you really don't want to, then skip to the picture at the bottom for the "fun" content.

Lets review: Last June I went to start the process of getting new aids. The first set were analog. They sucked. The second set were digital, wicked expensive and also sucked. The third set were still wicked expensive and worked better than the previous 2 sets, but not as good as my old ones. So now we are on to set number 4. These are Widex Inteo. The fitting process gives me a little (a very little hope). Instead of just programming in your hearing loss as the audiologist tested it, the aids are put in your ears and sounds are piped in through the aids (they call it a sonogram) and you respond if you can hear it or not. Your responses are then used to adjust the sound. These aids also have a number of programs to choose from. To start out, I am going with the all purpose program and one that supposedly makes music better to listen to. The reasoning is that the music program allows more base sounds through the filter. Since most of my hearing loss is in the high pitches, the hope is that this might give me better hearing even if it isn't music.

A funny thing emerged through the sonogram process. My hearing in between some of the traditional pitches used for testing is better than the traditional pitches themselves. This leads to a wonky curve with respect to the amplification of sound. Perhaps this is why the other hearing aids didn't work as well. They assumed a smooth curve of hearing loss. Clearly not the case here.My old set were programmed though a similar program to the sonogram done here.

Here's hoping....

Since this is a fairly boring, dry post, I will now show you a pic of something moist and delicious:

BANANA BREAD!

Ciao

Warning: Too cute, Non-Knitting pics!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled knitting blog to bring you this special announcement:


Cute kittie pictures! Although, there is some knitting content in both. Micha (1st pic) is pretending to sleep on the floor under my orange knitting project bag. Pagan is sleeping on the afghan my MIL gave us a few years ago. If I dare to move the afghan, I get into trouble. Pagan will stand on the floor in front of the chair and meow for hours on end until the blankie is restored to it's place. Makes washing it a bit of a challenge. (yes, I know, I'm being bullied by my cat, what of it???)

It's Magic.

Magic Loop that is.

Last night I was starting another cabled beer cozy for a Christmas present and my dpn's were being a pain in the butt. So I decided to see if I could figure out magic loop knitting. I haven't wanted to try it on socks, since there is a defined front and back and I haven't figured out how to distinguish them. However, the beer cozy is round, no front or back. So I whipped out my Denise kit and started. The beginning is a pain, just like it is on dpn's. But once there was a few rounds done, the knitting stablized and I was just whipping through it. Most excellent. Now I can add Magic Loop to my arsenal.

I didn't feel up to posting yesterday. I had a whopper of a migraine. Mostly because on Friday the day was a beautiful, sunny, blue sky day. I got up Saturday to this:

I find that whenever the weather does a really fast 180, my head hurts. By yesterday evening I was nauseous from the pain. (yes, I was taking pain pills. They just weren't strong enough) Hmmm, maybe the pain pills were making me nauseous. Could be. Either way, my head hurt, my stomach ached and I was not a happy knitter. I went to bed early. Today seems to be better. The head hurts a little, but it's waaaayy better. I'm off to finish the beer cozy before my head decides to explode. (again)

Ciao

It's a Mystery.

Mystery mysterious....

I AM working on something, I promise. But I'm only going to show you a little piece of it right now. I'm not sure if it's going to stay in it's current form. This is the 3rd form tried.....

Ciao

It's back!

For those of you wondering what was happening with the cardigan I was knitting up, I am still working on it. I am pleased to present you this:

The back of the cardi is finished! Not blocked or anything, but done. All that's left (all??!!) is the front. Progress feels like it is glacial though. Mostly due to the fact that I can only work on this for a couple of hours at a time. Max. More than that and my wrists start to complain. Strangely, working with thick yarn is harder on my wrists than knitting with cotton string. Ah well, c'est la vie!

Ciao

What a flap!

Woo hoo! Do I see a heel flap? Yup, I do! Yippee! Okay, not a whole heel flap, but a good start on one. In my mind, that means I am halfway done! I don't know if it's actually true, but it feels like it.

In other news, my 14 year old cat decided last night that she was a kitten and made a mess. You see, I was having a bit of a treat and made myself a strawberry daquiri. I like it more like a slushy, so I need a straw to drink it. I walked across the room to where the hubby was sitting to look at something on the computer he wanted to show me, and the minute I had my back turned, Pagan went after the straw. Naturally this knocked over the drink, spreading sticky pink stuff all over the carpet. AAARRRGGGHHH! I spent half an hour blotting and rinsing, but it looks like I got the pink out of the carpet. That'll teach me to leave a cat toy unattended!

c

A Twofer!

A twofer-one post. Yup, I am the model of efficiency today.

This is a cute kitty pic that my current kitty calender is displaying. For more cute siamese kitty pics, go see Wendy. However, that is not the twofer I referred to. The twofer is this:

1. Friday eye candy!

2. Chappy's Mom wants those of us in the vast, fibery Blogland to post pics of our November calender picture. So this is mine. I am always up for easy memes!

Ciao

Alas and Alack!

Oh woe is me! I have failed in my Socktoberfest quest! Hmmmm, a bit melodramatic, eh? Really, though. I wanted to finish at least 1 pair of socks in Soctober. Never mind that it has heretofore taken weeks for me to finish a pair. I made a HUGE tactical error. I decided my Soctoberfest socks would be for my husband. My, giant-footed husband. *sigh* Lesson learned. This is as far as I got:

I will persevere and hopefully theses will be finished in time for our anniversary. (November 21 if you're curious) (14 years for you curiouser ones..) (remember what curiousity did to the cat)

Ciao