Saturday, October 23, 2010

Two Festivals in Two Days!

22nd October, 2010

I was invited by my friend Glen to accompany her on a bus trip to CreativFestival.  This event is held twice a year at the Metro Toronto Convention Center.

It was obviously the place to be on Friday.  I've never seen so many frenzied crafters under one roof in my life!  The place was totally packed.  Buggies, trollies and people everywhere.  The heat was stifling, and the shuffle was at snail's pace.  Heaven forbid if you stopped - I didn't see any road kill, but I'm sure there was some [LOL].  But none of that prevented the the cash from freely flying out of my hands and into another's!

My interest in the festival was mostly knitting related.  I didn't have a shopping list, but I had a short wish list - knitting books, an addi circular needle and perhaps a lovely new bag.

The heavens smiled down on me, and granted my three wishes.  I found some great books at a great price - 40% off!  I found a suitable addi turbo needle, and then.....there it was!  The most beautiful bag I've ever seen! 

Exterior pockets?  Check.
Interior pockets?  Check.
Zippered interior divider and detachable shoulder strap?  Check.  Check.
Strong magnetic closures and metal feet on the bottom?  Check.  Check.

Soooo beautiful!  I had to have it.  I'm now the proud owner of a RED Namaste Laguna Bag.  Soft as a baby's bottom,  PVC-free, animal-friendly faux leather, adjustable strap length of 30" to 53", and a whopping 17 1/2" W x 16" H x 7 1/2" D.

My Laguna

23rd October, 2010
 
Another early morning start, and this time off to Woodstock to the annual Fleece Festival held at the Woodstock Fair Grounds.
 
Although it began a little slowly, it really got busy from about 11am onwards.  So many fabulous vendors.  Yarn and fiber galore!  Alpaca, angora, mohair, merino, cashmere...oh boy!  I was looking for and found some alpaca roving and yarn to knit Thrummed Mittens.  Thrummed mittens (or fleece-lined mittens) originated from Newfoundland and Labrador.  Twisted bits of unspun, carded fleece are knitted into the mitten to create a cozy lining.  With wear and use, the fleece inside felts into an insulating layer.
 
I also wanted another couple of fairisle mitten kits.  These kits contain a 50/50 yarn blend of mohair and wool.  Super soft and warm.  These will be Christmas gifts.
 
And finally I saw some lovely yarn in darkest brown and heathered brown that would be perfect for a fairisle hat.  The yarn is 60% Black Welsh Mountain Sheep and 40% Cotswold/Dorset cross.  It's a wonderful 3-ply yarn in natural colours.

AND NOW I'M POOPED!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

In One Hand and Out the Other

Money, that is!  And lots of it [grumble, grumble].

The last two weeks have been crazy!  Savings have taken flight - gobbled up as quickly as I consume chocolate!

First there was the electric hot water heater, then there was the pressure tank for the well.  On the heels of those two followed the plumbing for the greenhouse and the fuse block and wiring harness for the van [ouch!].  Towards the end of the week, the cats went to the vet for their annual wellness check-ups and vaccinations.  I swear it'd be cheaper to tuck 'em under my jumper and go to my regular doctor!  And the salt in the wound was a leak in the ceilings of the bathroom and hallway that required drywall repairs and re-painting.

Bathroom (before)

Bathroom (after)

Hallway (before)

Hallway (after)

Now I need a bank error in my favour [LOL].

I did manage some knitting in amongst all the household drama.  I knit socks for Mum for Christmas.  I modified the Easygoing pattern by Linda Fisher to include and extra cable repeat down the front of the sock.  I also alternated two different cables throughout the sock.  This sock was knit from Tanis Fiber Arts Purple Label Cashmere Sock.  What an absolute delight to knit with this yarn!

Easygoing with a Twist

I am halfway through socks for Dad's birthday.  The pattern is Alpaca Sox Socks by Joan from the Little Red Mitten.  I'm knitting these socks using Classic Elite Yarns Alpaca Sox in the blue gray colorway.  Another lovely yarn to knit with.

And finally, I am about a third of the way through Seneca, a Jared Flood Pullover.  I'm using Cascade Yarns 220 Heathers.  Like some other knitters, I found that the gauge for this pullover was not accurate.  I knit a swatch and measured it, and was right on with gauge (as usual).  I knit the usual size 38, but it was massive!  I dropped down to a size 36 AND I dropped down a needle size!

Bring on the weekend!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Another Fair Bites the Dust

As I've done in years gone by, so I did this year. I entered 13 items in the 2010 Ilderton Fall Fair. There was one minor difference this year - ten items were knitted and only three were baked! A sign of the times - just a little too busy with the business to bake for two days.

There is always so much to see and do at an old fashioned country fair....but only when the weather co-operates. And this year it was cold, wet and muddy. Barb and I, like many others, braved the wet and cold with winter coats and umbrellas. Attendance was understandably below average, and many rides were not running, but the Arena was buzzing with activity. All kinds of arts and crafts, baking, flowers and handwork.

I was really pleased with my efforts this year - a whole bunch of ribbons to add to my collection!

Here are the knitted items:

FIRST PLACE
Rogue Hoodie
FIRST PLACE
Cell Phone Cozy
FIRST PLACE
Geometer's Sketchpad Felted Bag
FIRST PLACE

Newfie Mittens and Hat

FIRST PLACE
Andean Hat and Mittens
FIRST PLACE
Preemie Blanket and Hat
SECOND PLACE
Caramello Hilja Vest
SECOND PLACE
Hunter's Hoodie
THIRD PLACE

Here are the baked items:

FIRST PLACE
Blackforest Cherry Cake
FIRST PLACE
Egg and Vegie Casserole
SECOND PLACE
Blackforest Cherry Trifle
Not a bad haul huh?

Only one item didn't get a placing - that was a baby set.

Now I'm gonna go cut myself a HUGE slice of that winning Blackforest Cherry Cake!  Mmmm......

Monday, September 27, 2010

A Fish, Some Birds and a Hoodie

So what do all these things have in common?  Nothing but ME and my camera.......

I have a sick fish - a koi in fact.  She's been a member of our fishy family for about 7 years now, so it's sad that she's dying.  And what's sadder is that there's nothing I can do to comfort her or heal her.  I can only watch and hope she passes very soon.

She has a condition known as Dropsey.  It's such a nasty infection and almost always fatal.  It's basically an infection of an internal organ, often the kidney.  My koi is no longer able to process her fluids.  They build up inside her causing severe bloat.  What makes dropsy so hard to diagnose in time to treat it is that the symptoms do not show up until the fish has entered the final stages of the disease.  The fish literally blows up like a balloon.  Its scales stick out, making the fish resemble a pinecone.  The eyes will bulge out from the trapped fluids beneath, and fin rot, ulcers and red streaks appear.

I'm not going to display a photo - it's not a pretty sight.

...............

In other news...

Every year about this time, we have a zillion little black birds fill our trees and make one helluva racket like you wouldn't believe.  Kinda reminds me of galahs back home in Australia.  Just try to imagine thousands of parrots talking at the same time!  The trees were totally covered.  Then the birds lifted together and swooped down at the same time to Mega Pond for what I presume was a last drink.  Then they all lifted up at the same time and continued on their migration.  Wish I knew what they are.....

Black birds

.................

And finally, a hoodie for my nephew, Hunter.

It turned out really well in the end. No knitting issues, but I did run out of yarn - completely!  I had to seam it up with some left over yarn from another project that closely matched the colour!  Thank goodness for stashed leftovers!
 
Hunter's Hoodie

Hunter's Hoodie

I learned a new sleeve seaming technique with this hoodie.  I was having trouble seaming the raglan sleeves so that you could see the double knit stitching.  I found a great website that offered a brilliant solution.  I used a crochet hook and slip stitch crochet stitch to join the seams together.  It worked so well and made such a nice finish on the inside, that I crocheted the hood to the sweater in the same way!

Genius!  Thank you Bonne Marie Burns!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Christmas in September

On 11th September I went on a fabulous road trip to the Kitchener/Waterloo Knitters' Fair.  Our driver was Laurie, and the passenger list was supposed to be rounded out with Barb and Erinkate.  Unfortunately, after counting down the sleeps to the big event, Erinkate had a small family emergency and couldn't make it.  If I were Erinkate, I'd have been totally devastated!

Laurie blogged wonderfully about the Fair here.

I couldn't imagine not attending the Knitters' Fair.  It's truly like Christmas in September!  When I was little, Christmas was steeped in tradition with few gifts, great merriment and much to be thankful for.  For me, the Knitter's Fair is just like that...BUT....all the Chrissie pressies under the tree have my name on them!

This year, I adopted a conservative approach to yarn shopping at the Fair, having just attended the Needle Emporium's Tent Sale a few weeks prior.  In fact, I was overheard mumbling something about "going to look and touch only".  See, my intentions were good :-)

BUT who can resist a bargain??  And there were some good ones to be had if you searched hard enough.

Here's my little Fair haul:

Knitters' Fair Haul

So, the two giant skeins of natural yarn (left) are Blue Faced Leicester 2/8 from Gemini Fibres.  Each has 1000yds and I got them for $18 each!!!!  $18!!  That was a steal.  When I bought this yarn two years ago (to knit Vicky Tempest), I paid $37.98 per skein!

The longer brown skein (middle) is alpaca lace from Alpaca Acres.  This is destined to become a cowl - I already have the pattern for it.

The two smaller natural coloured balls and the lighter brown one (middle) are alpaca DK from Inca.  They are destined to become a stranded hat.

The plastic bag containing the teal blue and coffee coloured skeins (right front) are 50/50 mohair/merino from Wellington Fibres.  This kit has a pattern included for a stranded pair of mittens.  I went back to their booth after lunch to get a second kit, but alas....they were sold out.

And the lovely little kit wrapped in cellophane (top right) contains two skeins of gray alpaca, some bamboo dpns, some lavender hand lotion and a little coth bag filled with soap nuts.  Soap nuts are the laundry soap and fabric softener made by Mother Nature!

My day at the Fair was wonderful.  Thank you Laurie and Barb!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Archilles Heel on my Hat!!

Last week I thoroughly enjoyed reading a blog post by my lovely friend Laurie entitled "Going through a Phase".  In her knitting post Laurie wrote about issues with Noro Blankie and the resulting fall-out they had to work through.

I commented to her that I had a similar experience with my China Blue Andean Hat.  I'd knit it up super fast, blocked and dried it, photographed it and posted pictures on Ravelry.  As I was admiring my hat, my husband happened along and laughed at the grumpy face Andean pattern.  Hmm...I hadn't noticed it whilst knitting.  We joked that I should rename my hat accordingly.

Later that day, I excitedly cast on the matching China Blue Andean Mittens.  I knit them up super fast too since the stranded pattern is only twenty rows and quite easy.  Once the Andean pattern was complete, I admired the stranded work, but just couldn't see the grumpy face in the pattern.

UH OH......

Yup, you guessed it!  There was a grumpy face on the Andean hat because I'd mistakenly omitted a row of the pattern!  And not just any row either.  It was row 3 of course.....right at the beginning of the chart and the hat.

What to do?  Rip and re-knit?  I figured there had to be another way.  Frogging the entire hat seemed the very long way around the error.....as well as being VERY annoying.

So I thought I'd be clever.  Yes, I know what you're all thinking.......  wipe those smirks of your faces!

Here's what the erroneous hat looked like:

Andean Hat - Mark I

See the first orange/yellow stripe at the brim?  Well, just above that - the fourth row of the pattern looks like a grumpy smile.  See it?  It's where I didn't close the blue box pattern.

So what I did was to snip the blue yarn above the Andean pattern and unravel one row.  This left me with two pieces - the blue crown to the left of me, and the stranded body to the right.  The blue crown had a long squiggley bit of yarn attached to it.....that was the row I'd unravelled.

I then ripped back the stranded work and re-knit the pattern properly.  Worked brilliantly!

I carefully slipped all 98 stitches from the crown piece onto two needles being certain not to twist the stitches.

This is where I think I made the mistake.  Instead of snipping off the squiggley bit of blue yarn (where I unravelled the crown from the body) I decided to knit one more crown round so as not to waste the yarn.

I then proceeded to graft the two pieces together.  It coulda worked!  And it did actually, except I had a row of twisted stitches!  And the join was of course very noticeable.

Where did I go wrong?  I should NOT have knit the extra round on the crown.  In hindsight, I knit that row from the top down.....whereas the body of the hat was knit from the bottom up.  So of course the stitches would be twisted!!  DOH!

Lesson learned - the hard way as usual - as all good lessons are.

Darn this hat.  There was nothing left to do but rip the crown back and re-knit it.  I figured it would be faster than undoing the grafting and that extra row I knit on the crown.

I present to you the correct version of the Andean Hat:

Andean Hat - Mark II

And YES to those who I'd spoken with.....the uneven knitting from the squiggley yarn blocked out without too much effort!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Projects Flying off Needles

My needles have been busy!  Clickety clack, clickety clack. 

Now that the business season is slowing down, I have a little more time between customers to knit.

Projects are truly flying off my needles.

The first project is my Silva Eki Riva Scarf.  The pattern is called Mead Scarf by Elizabeth Morrison.  I bought this yarn in Australia during my last visit.  It is Supreme Fingering, 4 ply, 100% Alpaca by Eki Riva.

Silva Eki Riva Scarf

This next project is one I designed.  It's a felted and lined bag.  This bag turned out fairly well. The only problem was that the cream coloured Lamb’s Pride Bulky did not want to felt very well. So the bag is a little lop-sided.


Geometer's Sketchpad

This next project is a favourite mitten and hat set.  Every year during September I knit for charity. The Newfie Mitts and Hat are for the Women's Resource Centre.  I made up the pattern for the hat, and the instructions for knitting it can be found here.

Newfie Mittens

Newfie Hat

This next project was completed for my friend Kanna who is expecting a baby in October!  This pattern is called Cable Cardigan and Hat SRK 164 by Sandi Prosser.

Cable Cardigan and Hat

I'm currently working on a few projects that I'll post next week hopefully :-)

Friday, August 20, 2010

Crikey Nora! Not More Yarn!

Ya know how shortly after you get married you set aside a room in the house for a special addition to the family?  A sweet little room that would make a lovely nursery?

Well, I've never had a room like that in my house!

That's not to say I didn't want one!  It just never happened for me.  And now I've been married far too long and round the block far too many times to want one!

But there is a spare room in the house.  It's called the guest room which is quite silly of course because there are so rarely guests.  Despite the guest room being mostly guestless, it is fully occupied.  With YARN that is!  And everthing yarnie....swift, ball winder, patterns, books, niddy noddy, rovings, spindles, needles AND cupboards and boxes of yarn.

Can one ever have too much yarn?  Well, I must admit that in my case the answer is a resounding ...YES.

As testament to the above admission, I think back to my husband's exlamation last night when I came home fully laden "Aww gawd, not more bloody yarn.  You'll be knitting in your sleep!"

And he's right.  Jerk.

Well the way I see it - I don't smoke, drink, gamble or do drugs (although sometimes I'm sure people wonder about that last one).  So I'm addicted to yarn and chocolate.  And in my own self defense, I do knit for my Mum, sister, sister in law, mother in law, three nieces and friends.  And the chocolate is sustenance - energy required to knit! [hehehe].

So what was it that prompted my husband's outburst?

Ta daaa:


I see two sweaters, a cowl, a bag, a scarf and maybe mittens!  What do you see?