Seeing Red, Or Maybe Blue.

I am just a wee bit irritated at Canada Post. Okay, that is a major understatement. I am angry at them. Angry as the heat of white hot burning sun. They stole my Knitpicks Harmony needles. The tracking number says it was successfully delivered yesterday. To whom????? Not me. I called Canada Post and they said,"Oh well, it says "delivered". Nothing we can do. Call the company" Knitpicks is sending out another set, but really, is it too much to ask that Canada Post do their job minimally right? Bad enough my tax dollars pay them. Bad enough I still have to pay through the nose when I want to mail something. (just as a sidenote, it costs less to mail something to the U.S. than it does within Canada!) But for them to steal my mail???? I pay them for this????!!!! This is just too much.

I posted a bit of a rant on Ravelry and another lady said that she has had problems with Canada Post saying they have delivered something and then it still takes days to get to her. Hopefully that is right and I will just send back any extra needles I get.

Okay, deep breath...and ....out....

I started my Everlasting Bagstopper/Saturday Market bag hybrid. I decided to do it in stripes to use up a couple of partial skeins I have.

And just to add to my misery, Blogger won't upload pictures. Sigh, I had to grab this from Flickr.

I'm gonna stop trying to do anything now.
Ciao

Now With More String!

I finished another string bag!


This is the Saturday Market String bag. The pattern called for 6 repeats of the lace pattern. I did 8 since it seemed small. I did sub the yarn. I used good old dishcloth cotton. I think it's still on the small side. For comparison:

I knit it in the round. As suggested by a very nice lady on Ravelry. She doesn't appear to have a blog. What I did was just cast on twice the stitches and knit in the round. On the purl row, I knitted and dropped the yo's.

The lace is very nice.

But I didn't like having to seam up the bottom. So the next bag I think will be a cross between Knitty's Everlasting Bagstopper and this one. I'll knit the bottom solid, pick up stitches and knit the lace pattern!

I'm off.

Ciao

I DID Finish One.

I finally finished the yellow Everlasting Bag stopper. It's been knit up for a week. The handles finally got attached last night and I had a little photo shoot this afternoon.

It's not a great picture of me. (I should have put more make-up on!) but it was the best shot of the bag. And since this is a knitting blog, the knitting should shine, not the knitter. Right? That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now to attach the handles to the red Bagstopper.....might be a few days.

Ciao

Taps

Today we went from this:

To this:

Goodbye Elisa's Nest Tote. RIP.

Taps

Day is done, gone the sun,From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
Fading light, dims the sight,And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.
Thanks and praise, for our days,'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, neath the sky;As we go, this we know, God is nigh.
Sun has set, shadows come,Time has fled, Scouts must go to their bedsAlways true to the promise that they made.
While the light fades from sight,And the stars gleaming rays softly send,To thy hands we our souls, Lord, commend

Getting My Ass Kicked

That's right. I am totally getting my ass kicked by the latest string bag pattern I tried! I have frogged it once already. It is about to get frogged again. The pattern is going to be drop-kicked into oblivion and I will try something else. Since, apparently, I can't count to 4 without screwing up.

Grrrr......

It's Fall!

It must be fall. The local fair was this weekend. So of course the hubby and I went. We ate some overpriced fries and pogos. Drank some overpriced pop in teeny tiny cups. We looked at the animals.

There was even a chicken that reminded me of angora bunnies!

There were ponies.

There was piggies!

Naturally there was sheep.

And, of course, there was cotton candy!

And a good time was had by all.

Ciao

APB!!

The new Knitty is up! I repeat Knitty is up!

Some good, some not so good. There is a preponderance of hats. I suppose because it is the fall Knitty. I do like the Cherie Amour and Mr. Greenjeans. Not sure if I will get around to knitting either of them. Christmas knitting is happening, you know. So other knitting will have to wait.

I kinda started 2 string bags at once. You see, the yellow one is from a 1 pound ball of string. That was too much to tote around with me while I was travelling this past weekend. So I started another one from a smaller skein. 2 skeins, to be exact.

This is the one I carried with me on the train and at work for the last few days. It's ready to start the garter stitch final rounds. Then it's off to find ribbon!

Micha has found something very interesting to stare at. Apparently having a camera pointed at her has become old news.

ciao

Doling it Out

Posting number 2 on my weekend. I wonder how long I can stretch out the telling of my weekend?

I have been on the lookout for a men's sweater pattern for a while now. The hubby has requested one. Howevver, he has a very specific type of sweater in mind. An aran, to be exact. Not just any aran, the aran. In his mind. which means Ihave been scouring patterns and books looking for a traditional aran that I can handle knitting up. this weekend past, I wandered by Romni Wools (Sort of accidentally on purpose. You know the drill) and perused their pattern bins. I think I found a winner! At least, the hubby likes it.

It's traditional, I think I can stand to knit it up and he likes it. So, all three requirements are satisfied.

Now, the yarn hunt begins.....non-itchy, easy-care, in cream, as requested. It sounds like I will be looking at some kind of non-natural fibre. I don't have a problem working with non-natural or acrylic fibre. The trick will be one that he likes and I like. In the right colour.

ciao

What I Did This Weekend

I went to the Knitter's Fair in Waterloo. Some yarn was bought. Lovely stuff. I'll show it to you another day when I have nothing to blog about.

While I was there, I saw Curlerchik and Mama E ! got so excited Iforgot to take pictures. Yeah, I know, lame ass excuse. True, though.

On my way home, I saw some of the walkers for The Weekend to End Breat Cancer going by the train station.

My camera was at the bottom of my purse, so by the time I dug it out, this was the best shot I could do! I circled the group's heads in breast cancer-y colours for you....I can't tell if you are in there Mezzodiva, but I said "hi"!

The string bag continues.

This is an easy, fairly fast knit. It would probably go faster if I actually picked it up more, but life (and new books) keep interfering. Having said that, I guess I should actually go knit, right? Of course, there is that book I got at the library....

Ciao

We'reff to See the Wizard....

Okay, maybe not the wizard...but we ARE off to go to the Knitters Fair in Waterloo! I'll be the one in the grey Tomato!

See Ya!

Knitting for Cancer Cure

It's not too late! Go over to the Campanula for the Cure and donate some $$$ and get a really cool sock pattern! You've bought sock patterns before, right? So just donate whatever you think is reasonable for a lovely, lovely sock and the money goes to a really good cause! Go now, I'll wait.

Done? Good. Something else they are doing there is contests. The current one is to come up with 3 ideas where you can "pay it forward". In other words, something you can do that will help or improve y our community, family, friends etc. Here's my 3:

1. Go throught your clothes and pull out everything that you don't wear. If it is in good shape, instead of pitching it in the charity bins at the mall, where it will be re-sold at a second hand shop, give directly to the ones who use it. Give it to your local women's shelter. They will be ecstatic to get gently used clothes. They will also take almost anything else. An old set of pots, that one coffee cup left from a set, mismatched cutlery, children's clothes, towels, sheets........Many of the women in the shelters get there with only the clothes they are standing up in.
2. Go through your books. Pull the ones you don't like, and donate them to the library. Even if the library doesn't put them into the collections,they can sell them at a book sale and use the money for new books.
3. This one seems obvious, but volunteer/donate at your local Humane society. Humane Societies (in Canada at least) do not get ANY government money. So they can always use some help. Or donate Canadian Tire money or newspapers! Often if you call, they can give you a list of unlikely things they can use! Pagan says thnk-you.


As for knitting around here, I decided to strike back against the corporate re-usable bag. I'm knitting my own, thank you very much. I mean, think about it. Bloblaws sells you their nifty bag for $0.99. (which I'm pretty sure makes them a bit of a profit. It might only be 1 cent I have no idea, but still) AND doesn't have to buy plastic bags anymore. The whole drive behind the re-usable bag thing is not because it will save the world. It's because they can save money on supplies and thus improve the bottom line. No corporation, regardless of what it says, is going to do anything that will have a negative impact on the profits. At best, neutral. However, my experience in the corporate world suggests that revenue netral is NOT what they ever do. Ever.

Moving on. I am knitting up the Everlasting Bagstopper from Knitty. Out of stash cotton.



I am sooo pleased with this humble square of cotton. The texture enthralls me. The almost perfection of it's rectangular shape pleases me.



I have no idea why this excites me so much. And yet....

I'm off to knit my perfect texture bag...

ciao

Finished!

I finished the Tomato top! I'm so excited. It turned out wonderfully.

The only thing I might have done different is make it a tad shorter. But I plan on wearing it this coming weekend at the fibre fair in Waterloo,Ontario, so I will know better after I have worn it for a bit. Regardless, it's wonderful!

Stats:

yarn: Estelle 100% silk 50g balls,5.5 balls main colour and 0.5 ball contrast

needles: Denise needles, 4.5mm & 4mm

mods: Made the sleeves longer by 10 rows.

Brush with the Elements

Fire is bad. Yesterday I burned my thumb on the element on the stove. I was reaching over to push a button on the console and brushed an element that was still hot. I know they put the console on the back to keep kids from messing with them, but I would like them on the front, since I have no kids and clearly I can hurt myself! Not long after that happened, this happened:

I reached into the oven to adjust the garlic toast and set my oven mitt on fire! Apparently I brushed another element with my thumb. The scary part is that I didn't notice the mitt was on fire for a few seconds. Which is how I managed to set my tea-towel on fire too.....

I know I didn't pay much for the mitt, but really, shouldn't it be made out of fire-retardant materials? Upon closer inspection, it's just cotton!

In other news, we have neckage!

Now to do some sleevage and I will be able to stick a fork in Tomato because it will be done! I hope to finish it today. Then there will be the baptism and the ritual of drying flat. Which means that, god willing and the creek don't rise, there will be a finished object around here tomorrow! woo hoo!

Ciao