Vicky M's Got Sleeves!

I've just finished blocking Vicky M's sleeves! Hooray! Do you know what that means?? Uh huh....I'm finished knitting my Tempest pieces [SQUEAL!]

The sleeves are drying as I type, and they won't take long in this heat.

Later tonight I will start putting her together. Ohmigosh! It's so exciting. It's like I'm creating this "entity", not just a cardigan.... Yeah, I know I'm nucking futs!

Earlier tonight is the Ravelry get-together at Wortley Roadhouse, so I think I'll take my Pink Confetti Hoodie project - that doesn't require great concentration.

Would I Knit a Hood?

If I could, I would.....

And I should.

So, yes! Yes I will knit a hood....

And a good hood it will be!

But only because my 3.4 year old niece, Jaycee Mae, is such a sweetie, and I’m her Aunty and Godmother and love her!

Mission assigned, my pattern search on Ravelry began. Hours later I had it – Kid’s Hoodie designed by Betsy Westman. And lookie here….what a coincidence….one of the categories in the 157th Ilderton Fall Fair's hand knitting division is for a Child’s Hooded Sweater! Hah! What a kwinky dink!!!

Yup, yup, yup….I’m one of THOSE people that *loves* country fall fairs. Every year for the last five, I’ve entered my baking, violets and knitting! I’ve got a whack of ribbons and prizes, but the ONE category I strive to win is the Country Fair Baking Contest. This year I’m going for the “hat trick” with my Black Forest Cherry Cake. In 2003 & 2004 I won 1st place ribbons. Then in 2005 I won a 2nd place (and deservedly so). In 2006 & 2007 I made a comeback and won 1st place ribbons. And now it’s 2008 – my second chance to score the trifecta!

Black Forest Cherry Cake 2007

Oops! Got a bit side-tracked there. Now getting back to the hoodie... My next search was for the perfect yarn. The pattern called for a worsted weight Lana Grossa yarn, but I decided to sub the yarn for Cascade 220. And what colour is Jaycee Mae’s favourite colour? Ugh! PINK! Well of course it is….

Since the hoodie is knit in stockinette stitch, I decided that a variegated yarn would be much nicer than a solid colour, so I phoned my LYS and picked up some Cascade 220 Dip Dyed Confetti #601 [ya, ya….fancy for variegated pink]. I wound the skeins last night, and swatched straight away. Perfect tension! I cast on while enjoying a re-run mini marathon of Sex and The City, and despite the colour, the pink is looking rather … nice … EEK! Did I just write that? [note to self: don’t ever let me year you say that pink is nice again!].

I’m making a little change to the pattern - professional rib cast-ons for all the ribbings using smaller sized needles instead of the usual cast-on method and the same sized needle as for the body.

Thus far:

Knit 1, Split 2, Curse 3 ...

As the dust in my lounge-room is settling, and the tips of my circs are cooling, I am nibbling on my super cold KitKat, lounging out on my recliner, and smiling A BIG SMILE.

I AM SMUG. YES I AM. I DID IT!

There were many doubting Thomases [including me at one point], but somehow I managed to knit like greased lightning and finished Sonia’s Socks of Aggression Kindness in time for her birthday. Actually her birthday isn’t until 16th August, but since I have to post her gift to Australia, I always have to allow two weeks for delivery.

I really enjoyed the socks of kindness pattern; it was easy to memorize despite the 12 row repeat. What wasn’t enjoyable was the very sharp 2.25mm KnitPicks Options circular knitting needles. The yarn I used was Fleece Artist Merino Sock 2/6 - an absolutely beautiful yarn. But, together with the very pointy needles, it split awfully when I was doing some of the SSKs and K2togs. If I’d been knitting on dpns or one circ things mightn’t have been so bad. But, I was knitting two socks at a time on circs, and believe me, one does not want to tink backwards on two circs!

In hindsight, I wouldn’t use such a strongly variegated yarn again for the socks of kindness. The lovely pattern was almost completely lost in the bright variegated shades of purple. Since the yarn is so amazing on its own, I’m going to choose a much simpler pattern [or none at all!] when I knit socks again from Fleece Artist Merino.

I also found that the Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 does not have as much stretch in it as other sock yarns. Even though I had the same number of stitches [I’m a 60st sock gal], the sock knit up a little bigger than usual. This could of course be attributed to the lacy pattern….

I began these socks on 1st July and sewed the toes together on 1st August. Not bad considering I have also been knitting furiously on Vicky M Tempest and my French Market Bag. All in all, a job well done [yup, I’m gonna pat myself on the back. Hip, hip, hooray. Jolly good show old chap! Carry on and all that rot!].

I Love her Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

VICKY M

There once was a Tempest from Knitty,
With stripes in colours so pretty,
The brown was boss
The green like moss
She's not finished yet; what a pity!

---

Despite not being finished yet, the good news is that the two front halves are done – blocked and all! Vicky M is looking awesome! I love her, and I love the blend of colours.

Yesterday I cast on the first sleeve. Normally I would knit two sleeves at once from two skeins of yarn. However, Vicky M has stripes, and I have to loosely carry the yarn not in use up one side. The thought of using four skeins evoked a strong sense of angst, so I decided to steer clear of an eminent tangled mess.

Here’s my progress photo:

Oportunistic...Moi?

I love graphics! I love Photoshop! I love manipulating graphics using Photoshop! I guess it’s fair to say that I’m somewhat of a digital image junkie, and as such, I love dpi! Lots and lots of dpi …. high resolution images; nothing less. Raw pixels. Mmm…. Mmm…. Mmm….

So, do you remember a few weeks ago when I had a good whine about the Kodak digital camera I got in March? This Kodak camera didn’t come with a Lithium-ion battery. I had to buy a charger and special AA rechargeable batteries. I hesitated about getting a camera that would only take AA batteries….and as they say “she who hesitates is lost”. Bugger!

I’ve owned two Kodaks between March 2001 and March 2008; both were great. Both used Lithium-ion batteries. The 2008 purchase was a 7MP [my previous camera was 5MP and the one before that was 3MP]. After getting the new camera home, I whined that the photos were not clear, that colours were wishy washy, and that every time I picked the darn thing up, the batteries were flat.

Surprise, surprise…. I was recently been told that for some perfectly plausible reason insanely long and ridiculous explanation the Kodak camera I bought [upgrade model?…. my ass!] was incompatible with the rechargeable batteries! Of course I had already discovered this months ago because whenever I took photos a week apart, the batteries would go flat in between! [double grrr…..]

Well, like any proud parent, I like to photograph my knitting projects. And I like to capture on film each special moment of my knitting’s growth. How am I supposed to do that with a crappy camera and flat batteries?

Sometimes when you whine loudly enough and for long enough, somebody somewhere hears you and says “why don’t you just go buy another camera?” Crikey, you don’t have to say that twice!

Exit stage left: crappy Kodak EasyShare. Enter stage right: new swanky doo Sony DSC-H50B Cyber-shot. She’s a little beauty. I love her already!

Beauty is definitely in the details of this camera. What I love most is the Lithium-ion battery; [woo bloody hoo] 15x optical zoom; smile shutter technology (captures smiles the moment they happen); infrared night-shot function; double anti-blur function; 3inch tilting LCD, and 300 photos per battery charge!

SWEET!

So, I guess you could say that opportunity knocked on my door. I grabbed it with both hands and FLEW like the wind! Am I opportunistic? You betcha [laughing].

Here are some pics I snapped during the last few days:

Grandma's Pond

Water Hyacinth

Goldfish

Baby Birds

Sandi & Shelby

Sonia's Socks of Kindness

Needle Emporium's Tent Sale

We had counted down the sleeps for weeks, and finally the 8th July, 2008 arrived! Woo hoo!! Road trip, road trip! The London knitters were embarking on their annual pilgrimage to the Needle Emporium in Ancaster, Ontario.

Long had I heard glorious tales about the super amazing deals to be found at the NE tent sale. I was sooooo excited - could I snag a "you beaut" yarn deal too? Kata and Wil picked me up around 3:30pm and our road trip began... Nadine and Kat were already en-route - about 40mins ahead of us.

It was just after 5pm when we arrived at our venue (incidetally the tent sale was held in a church hall this year). Nowhere to park, and inside frenzied yarn shoppers. All I could see as I entered the hall were full bags of yarn hanging off every delighted shoppers arm.

We were greeted by friendly staff offering us three yarn bag sizes: $40 small bag, $75 medium bag or $150 large bag. Kat and I looked at each other, laughed and grabbed a $150 bag! The deal was that you could stuff your bag with whatever yarn you wanted to. Yowza! There were a few exceptions: collinette yarn was $10 and patterns and needles were priced too.

Off I set not knowing what to shove into my big bag. First stop - sock yarn. I only grabbed two lots of sock yarn cos I have so darn much already - one Lana Grossa and one ONline went into my bag. Next stop for me was the Jamieson aran weight yarn. I snagged three skeins in gorgeous teal and teal/heather blends. From there I moved on to four skeins of Lamb's Pride worsted for some felting. By the time I hit the Noro bin all that was left was a few yarn wrappers! Boo, bugger, hoo!

Next I spotted some Dalegarn Heilo yarn that would make great mittens for my niece Emily. And right beside that, some Zara yarn that would make great mittens for my niece Karlia.

I spotted a skein of collinette sock yarn and figured that for $10 it would make a great pair of socks for somebody. In my bag it went too. THEN I hit the Rowan table. Oh my God. There was just so much darn Rowan. I grabbed ten skeins of rowanspun 4ply.

I went round and round all the tables, and in the end I was satisfied with my lot. Best part was I squeezed it all into a $75 bag! Yippee, what a haul.

The trunk of Kat's car!

My haul

Our next stop was the Needle Emporium store itself. We spent quite a bit of time in that store, but I didn't buy anything more.

From there we had dinner at a pub in Ancaster, and bumped into other tent sale shoppers! What a small world.

All in all a fabulous road trip! Now the countdown begins for the Kitchener/Waterloo Knitters Fair!

Vicky M has Form!

In between the frogging of the Jaywalkers, the start of the Socks of Kindness, and the snoozing of the Son of Felted Bonza Bag, I've been chipping away at Vicky M Tempest.

As Kata commented, she *really* is going to be one very pretty girl! And I'm delighted to write that she has form! I've completed the back and have started the left front [awww yeah....what a little rippa!]

DRUM ROLL please......

Without further ado, I present Vicky M's back:



Woo hoo! Go Vicky....go Vicky....go Vicky!

Jaywalkers Should Always Look Both Ways...

I want to start this post by saying that the penalty for "jaywalking" in the merry old land of Oz is "thirty bucks". Furthermore, a jaywalker may also be held fully or partially responsible if involved in an "accident" with a "vehicle"!

So, in the above paragraph, let's substitute the word "jaywalking" with the words "a crappy jaywalker", and the words "thirty bucks" with the word "frogging". And let's substitute the words "accident" and "vehicle" with the words "altercation" and "knitter".

Thus the paragraph now reads: I want to start this post by saying that the penalty for a crappy jaywalker in the merry old land of Oz is frogging. Furthermore, a jaywalker may also be held fully or partially responsible if involved in an altercation with a knitter!

Simply put, my Aussie Jaywalker socks were yuck (through no fault of my own), and were frogged this morning. I blame them - not just a little - but A LOT. Not only were they going to be way too big, but the pattern was insane to knit on 2.25mm needles. C'mon guys....really....sl2tog knitwise, k1, psso slipped stitches over.... Do you have any idea how difficult this is with pointy addi turbos? The wool kept splitting, the stitches were too tight, my finger tips resembled a pin cushion, and I kept dropping the slipped stitches instead of passing them over!! Argh! Stupid jaywalkers...

Amidst the despair, somewhat colourful language, and quite honestly....gleeful frogging of those horrid jaywalker socks.... arose a new pair of socks. Ironically they are the Socks of Kindness by Chawne. I am knitting them on size 2.5mm addis and so far, so good.

So, if you're gonna be a jaywalker in Oz, for pete's sake step up to the plate and be the best bonza sock you can be!