Catching Up on News

I have a few things to post about today!

First up, I have a new name for my mossy cable scarf. Sandra says it looks like sea rocks. She's right. So that is the new name. Sea Rocks scarf. Much prettier. Still masculine too. Good all around.

Next up, Christmas lights. My neighbour has added to his Christmas light decor. Yup, like it needed it! See...

I know the shot is kinda blurry. Trust me, it's better that way. In comparison, MY house:

The lights in the window actually flash from yellow to red to blue. The photo caught the yellow phase. Still, not quite as garish as the other guy, eh?

There IS knitting news. I finished sock number 1!

Had to use the flash. Even though it is "daylight" here. Believe me, I use the term loosely, there is not enough light to take a picture!

Ciao

I have finished my mossy cable scarf. I just made that up. I wanted the scarf to be wide enough to cover your neck comfortably, but not so long it would peek out under your jacket. Voila!

It's 6 stitches of moss stitch on either side and 4 stitches cabled in the middle. Final dimensions are 44 inches long, 7 inches wide. The wool used is Woolly Bully. Up close it looks like this:

I wasn't sure how the cable would turn out, since the yarn is a thick 'n thin, but it looks just fine. I'm thinking this will be a gift for a male cousin. The colours and pattern turned out well for a masculine scarf, I think.

In other news, the green eyed kitty is improving daily. Her eye is no longer goopy and is almost open to its normal extent. So the trip to the vet and it's accompanying bill was worth it.

Cute story from work the other day. I was ringing up a sale for a child's antibiotic and her mom had said she could have some Skittles since she behaved well at the walk-in medical clinic. I rang up the Skittles, gave them to the little girl and her mother prompted her sotto voce "say thank you to the lady". At which the little girl promptly said "Thank you, lady". Too funny.

I then finished the sale, closed the cash register drawer and caught the end of my long necklace in the till. I had to call the pharmacy technician over to open the till! ( I didn't know how since I was just there for the day and only had a grasp of basic till functions) Did I feel silly!

Seriously.

This post is not going to be funny or entertaining.

Every time at this point in the year, we are inundated by requests for charity donations. Please make sure that the charity of your choice spends most of it's money on charitable works. By "most" I mean at least 60%. Many large charities ( I won't mention names, but if you research the net, there is info out there) employ professional fundraisers (including telemarketers). These companies keep 70-90 cents on every dollar they collect! So you might think that you are donating to ABC charity, but you are really keeping Fundraising Incorporated afloat. Ask the person at your door if they are a volunteer. Get info on the way the charity spends it's donations.

Keep the charity alive and accountable. Don't pay for fundraisers!

Ciao

Christmas Nightlight

I like Christmas lights. They are pretty and add some sparkle to early, dreary evenings in December.

I do have a problem. The wingnut who designed our house put the master bedroom at the front of the house. This did not present a problem until the last couple of years. The old neighbour across the street moved out and a new one moved in. He has a rather large Christmas light display. See:

I know it's not as big as some, but it generates enough light that I can read a book in my bedroom. With our lights off! I have put heavy duty hotel-grade light blocking liner on our curtains. There is still lots of light leaking around the curtain edges. Short of tacking the curtain directly to the wall, this is as good as it gets.

So this is a plea to all home builders out there-please pu the master bedroom at the BACK of the house! I know that is going to be a feature I look for in the next home I live in.

Ciao

P.S. The reindeer with his head up? It moves. Very creepy....

Money Evapourates

Well folks, the furnace is fixed! apparently the thermocouple broke. If the temperature drops because the pilot light is out, it doesn't let gas into the furnace (when it is working correctly). Apparently mine just decided not to let gas into the furnace....At any rate, the landlord is $299 lighter. And I am many degrees warmer.

However, MY wallet is also a little lighter. My Pagan kitty got an eye infection. So I took her to the vet where they did a fluorescein test to see if it really was an infection. Yup. $99 later...

The weird part is, the test turned her eye green:

Temporary, but still strange looking! Look out! The alien kitty is coming to get you....(sorry about the blurry pic, she was NOT in the mood to have her picture taken)

Ah well, a few bucks lighter, but the family's health is important!

The sock doesn't look much different,so I'm not going to bother with a picture.

In completely unrelated news, Melrose did NOT win "America's Next Top Model". Yippee! Something about that girl struck me as off-kilter. She was a little too practiced, a little too manipulative. Go Caridee!

Ciao

Using the Handknits

Yup, I am using several of my handknits all at once. The furnace broke. It's 2 degrees Celsius outside. (that's 35.6F for the Americans) It's 17 degrees inside. (62) And dropping like a rock. In the last hour the temp dropped 4 degrees. The repair guy is coming. Even better,the landlord is footing the bill. So I am wearing my wool shawl, my blankie,my fingerless gloves and my hat. Hopefully he comes soon, if he doesn't I may pile up the stash and just burrow into it. It's wool, right? So it will keep me warm....and maybe I will knit some of it out of boredom.

Therefore, the toe-up sock progress will not be modelled today. I took a "lie there and do nothing" kind of picture. Just to prove that I AM working on it. Here it is:

The furnace dispatch people said that I was next on the call list. I sure hope so. The kitties have fur coats. I don't. But I DO have the handknits...

Ciao

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful..

But the fire is so delightful, we've no place to go, let it snow let it snow let it snow! Sing all together now!

This is the view from my backdoor. Hard to believe all we got is a dusting when so many other places got buried. Convenient for me, though.

The work on the toe-up sock continues. More pics of that tomorrow.

I think I'm in love....

I love toe-up socks! it gets rid of the fiddly picking up of stitches at the heel flap AND the weird bit at the beginning of a cuff before you have a couple of rows of knitting to stabilize it. You do have the slightly fiddly unzipping of the provisional cast on, but hey, nothing in life is perfect, right? I also have a bit of a hole at the end of the turned heel where I started back in on the pattern, but that can be fixed. Although if anyone knows why it did that, I would be interested in knowing.....This is a picture of the sock so far. It's also cool how you can see that it is actually a sock long before it is finished.This is a pic of the lace pattern. It's pretty cool too! Oh yeah, here's a link to the pattern itself.

I'm off to knit some more sock! Yippee! Tralalala!

Ciao

Making it Work

I decided to try out the lace pattern for my sock on big yarn. Mostly because I decreased the number of stitches since I have a small, delicate ladies foot. Ok, it's a size 6, that's still small, right? Good thing I did because I found an omission in the pattern! There are some normal stockintte stitches before and after the lace pattern. I figured I would just decrease those and the lace would remain untouched. A good plan. As I was working my through the pattern, I realized that on the last line, the "filler" stockinette stitches were missing! I added them in and it worked fine. Whew! Dodged that one. I can't imagine trying to figure it out on fiddly sock yarn... So here's a pic of the lace:

There are actually 2 lace patterns on this sock. On the upper right of the pic is the cat-face. On the lower left is the paw-print. It doesn't show up great in this yarn, but that wasn't the point of using this yarn anyway! It should be good in the sock yarn.

Ciao

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

Trick or Treat!

The candy is mine! Mine I tell you! Mwah ha ha!

Is it Easter?

There seems to be a theme going on around here. It is decidedly not Halloween-y, though. It appears to be more Easter-y. What makes me say that? Why, this!

I told you that I had bunnies in the backyard!

Actually, this is the bunny pattern that I cribbed the ears for my slippers from. I used some stash yarn. Cheap-o Red Heart to be exact. That way the bunny can be washed if need be. I may or may not have a very young cousin coming over at Christmas, so I figured that I would whip this up so as to be prepared. If the cousin doesn't show, I can always donate it to one of the women's shelters here in town for one of the kids that they have. They are always looking for presents around Christmas time, so this way, someone will enjoy the bunny!

Ciao

Cecisions, Decisions!

I have made a decision! I know, shocking. Okay, maybe not. But enough dithering, here is the final product, warts and all:

My "embroidery" is enough to make a cat laugh, but the idea is there, and since they are intended to be worn around the house, I say they are cute!

I got the idea for the bunny ears from here.

Ciao

Eye candy Friday