whoa

Where did last week go? I think I misplaced it somewhere. To be honest, I didn't knit for a few days after I finished Aeolian. I got a little burnt out from 8 days of steady knitting. My next shawl will be Shipwreck but I'm not casting on until I have the beads. This is the yarn that I'm using:


It's Fleece Artist 2/6 merino sock and reminds me of BMFA's Raven series - very dark & moody. I have also found the beads that I want to use:


They're kinda pricey (i.e. more than the yarn) so I'm still shopping. I'm having a hard time locating an online source. The beads have corners but aren't completely square.

I was teaching a beginner's crochet class on Sun. Let me tell you that the students weren't beginners. They all had previous crochet experience so we blew through all the introductory stuff and went straight to the scarf. I'm afraid that they'll finish too early next Sunday so I'm going to bring some kitchen cotton and a tawashi pattern for them to play with. I guess I should make a few samples to take with me. Off to track down some kitchen cotton.

lending my support

I, too know many people that have been touched by this horrible disease. My grandfather passed away from cancer, a good friend of mine lost her second battle with breast cancer shortly after giving birth to her daughter, and yet another friend had both breasts removed to save her life. And these are just a few examples.

To support Tony, I'm offering a raffle prize. If you donate $40CAD or more, your name will be entered to win a pair of hand knit socks made by me. I make great socks!


The winner will get to pick the colours, fibre, and washability. PLUS your donation still counts towards entries in Gladys' yarn raffle. Think about it - for a $40 donation, you get a chance at winning a custom pair of socks AND 8 chances to win some yarn (think Wollmeise!!!!). So go donate and good luck!

Wollmeise, Sea Silk, and more pretties cancer fundraiser raffle!

Last weekend, we lost an amazing man (the father of one of our best friends) to cancer. Bennie Yung was a gentle, cheerful man, and he touched the lives of thousands of people in his community and in Canada, asking nothing for himself, just the betterment of his community. The premier of BC gave him a tribute in the legislative assembly last week, and this weekend, family, friends, community leaders and politicians from all levels of government came together to celebrate his life.

My husband and I, like almost everyone else, have close family members and friends who have fought or are fighting cancer. My mom is a breast cancer survivor, and my husband's dad had surgery last year, and is getting monthly blood tests to find out if he's clear yet.

My husband is doing the Ride2Survive cancer fundraiser this summer, and I've promised to do some destashing in order to help him raise funds in support. It's a 400 km (almost 250 miles) bicycle ride, from Kelowna to Vancouver over 2 mountain passes. The kicker is that it's all done in one day. Yes, he's a little crazy. But he puts up with my yarn obsession, so I support his cycling goals.

The draw prizes are:

One skein of Wollmeise Twin in Maria's Deepest Purple (medium).


One skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk, in rainforest (greens and green/grey)

One skein of Wollmeise Twin in Rotkappchen, a show-stopping red!

Two skeins of Mirasol Cotanani in colour 406, a gorgeous peach
Two balls of Crystal Palace Mini Mochi, in colour #102 (purple/red/orange)

One ball of Tofutsies in colour 800.

If you're a non-knitter, but want to win something, we can enter you into a separate pool to win something handknit by me -- I'll contact that winner to find out favourite colour(s) and ideal prize. Just say "non-knitter entry" somewhere in the form.


Now that I've gotten your attention, here are the details.

Every $5 CDN donation gets you an entry, and here's where to enter -- Tony's Ride2Survive donations page. At the current exchange rates, that's around $4 US for each entry. And yes, they take credit cards.

Tony will get an email from the Canadian Cancer Society's donation page (it's called "kintera.org") when you donate, and record your entry into his spreadsheet. Just make sure that you type in your correct email address into the form so that we'll be able to get in touch with you if you're a winner. (He doesn't get your other contact or financial info from the Canadian Cancer Society, just your name, company name, email address and the amount of your donation.)

If you're Canadian, you'll automatically get a tax receipt for any donation of $25 CDN or more. (Actually, every donation over $25 gets a receipt -- I'm just not sure if non-Canadians can use the receipt for their income taxes.) One final detail: All riders and organizers are volunteers, and all costs for this are donated. This means that 100% of your donation will go to the Canadian Cancer Society for cancer research -- even the percentage that credit card companies charge the Canadian Cancer Society does not touch your donation.

This raffle will run from Sunday, March 29 to Sunday, April 26 at 8 pm PST. That will hopefully give you lots of time to decide to enter. To keep the odds of winning high, I'll also add more yarn to the raffle if there are lots of entries. (If you'd like to donate some additional prizes, contact me at gladyswe@gmail.com or send me a message on ravelry -- id=wenat -- and we'll talk!)

On April 26, we'll do a random draw and the first person drawn will get first choice from all the prizes, then the second person will get second choice, and so on. Get your name in often, and you might even get more than one prize!

One final request. There's a tradition on the race that riders write the names of those touched by cancer on their legs. When the going gets tough, especially on the mountain passes, they look at the names and get inspired to keep going for those people. If you have a name you'd like written on Tony's legs, please enter that name in the "company name" field on the donation form. If we knitters and fibre fanatics manage to fill his legs with names, he'll share those names with others on the Ride to Survive team, so all the names will be on the ride.


For more background information, here's the story of how this ride started, and here's a video they made last year about the journey the riders make. They say that the most amazing part of the ride is when they go past people holding up photos of loved ones affected by cancer. If you'd like to share your stories in the comments, I'll make sure they get to the Ride to Survive organizers.

L.O.V.E.

Blocking (sorry for the poor picture - it was late at night):


And this morning, released from bondage:


Pattern: Aeolian shawl; made the shawlette size
Yarn: Marion's Sock Yarn (light fingering; 80% merino and 20% nylon; 420m; 100g); col unknown (pale bluey-greeny); 1 skein with about 18" of yarn leftover
Beads: 6/0 silver lined clear seed beads
Needle: 3.5mm Addis
Blocked dimensions: 44" at its widest (not along the top edge because it curls); 22" long


Notes: Because I was going to run out of yarn, I did the cast off with only one strand. And since I was using a heavier yarn, I chose to do 5 stitch nupps. The nupps are hardly visible. I also went up a size for the beads. The yarn bled a fair bit when I soaked it but I don't think it's changed the colour any.


If I were to make this again, I'd probably skip the nupps or make the nupps using laceweight.

I am totally in love with this shawl as you can tell by the fact that I knit it in 8 days - I can't even knit socks that quickly. Being sick on the couch/bed helped a lot, too.

five!

Only 5 more rows and then I can cast off!

too busy knitting

Thanks for the get well wishes. I am feeling better now but not 100% of me is working. I hope to recover enough that I can go to a fibre festival tomorrow (the only one local to me).

You get a quick update on Aeolian cuz I'm too busy knitting on it to stop and blog properly.


This picture was taken a few days ago so it's a lot bigger now. I'm about a fifth of the way through the edging charts and the rows are starting to feel really long. Still loving the beads.

infected

I've caught a coupla bugs. I am sick with the flu - fever, chills, & aches. And I must be really sick because I could only eat 2 perogies for supper. Being sick doesn't usually affect my appetite but this time, I just couldn't eat.

I've also got startitis. Thanks to the new edition of Knitty. I love Shipwreck and Aeolian. My need to cast on was so great that I was forced to knit Aeolian because I had a suitable yarn and matching beads on hand.


I am using Marion's Sock Yarn and clear silverlined 6/0 beads. This is my first beaded project and I'm very excited.

Dotty says, "I'm stress knitting"

Isn't it cool that Gladys has an article in Knitty? Apparently, our blog stats are through the roof. And I am so proud of my STR Husky. Because Gladys knit up her skein, she had to borrow mine for the photos in the article. She's lucky that our hubbies bought us the same colour.

I can really crank out the knitting when I'm stressed. There was an "incident" on Tues that had me driving hubby around, sitting at home worrying, and ultimately resulted in a trip to the hospital emergency room. He's ok (for now) but what's really troublesome is that we don't know what's wrong with him. Wah!

The first replacement sock for my sister is almost done. I'm still not sure if she'll like the colours.


A group of us are making squares for an afghan. I was given a bunch of yarn and so far, I've made 5. I loved laying out all the bits of yarn and picking two to knit together. My favourite is the green & orange one. It reminds me of pumpkins. I have to remember to block these today.


I wound up my Americo yarn and started knitting the Lace Ribbon scarf. I've made one before so this is moving quite quickly. I love the yarn and I love the slubbiness of the scarf.


I get the feeling that Phoebe is trying to tell me something. But I can't figure out what.

Welcome, Knitty visitors!

I totally slept in this morning, thanks to daylight savings time, so when I got to work, I was stunned to find out that Knitty came out today, with my article in it! (The link to the socks pattern is to the left, by the way -- and here's part 1.)

Oh, and a knitting update — a photo of my completed Juno Regina stole (rav project link), in the snow. This was so much fun to knit -- the 42" of stockinette just flew by because of the pooling colours of the malabrigo sock yarn.

S.N.O.W.

Whaddya think of my backyard this morning? Pretty spectacular, eh? And today was the day I needed to drive clear across town, pick up documents from the lawyer, drive downtown, drop them off at the probate registry, go to a LYS, stop at Home Depot and pick up a new light fixture, and go to the grocery store. It was slow going but I made it and by the time I got home, the roads were bare and the snow on the sidewalk had melted so I didn't need to shovel.

At the LYS, I bought a pattern, some neat cotton yarn, and some more dpns (I really need to finish up some sock wips). I tried out the Hiya Hiya 9" circs. I knit for about a minute and the base of my left thumb started throbbing. I won't be buying those.

I went to knit nite this evening to drop off the Smooshy sample sock and my Mirasol Hacho and Koigu socks. I got to see the newest additions to the store - Namaste Zuma bag in Eggplant (plus matching needle cases) and Koigu KPPPM. I didn't buy anything but I was sorely, sorely tempted.

The STR socks that I was working on have been frogged. They were pooling horribly so the yarn is in timeout. I cast on a pair of socks that I promised my sister.


Excuse me while I skootch Ricky out of the way...


(excuse the furry thigh) Yay - no pooling! But they may be a little too bright for her.

aaaaaachooooo!

Ugh! I think my spring allergies have kicked in. I'm all stubbed up and sneezey. Blech. Time to break out the drugs!

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. Always carry a spare knitting project. I spent the day visiting my Dad and I took my Twinkle sock. I'd just turned the heel so I figured I'd have plenty of knitting to last me the day. Plus the first sock took forever to knit. I finished the sock at 6:30pm and went to knit nite with nothing to work on. I got bored after half an hour (and much laughing at by the other knitters) and I went home.

Anyways, here's the finished sock (the other sock is at the store):


Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy; colour Wisterious
Needles: 2.5mm dpns
Pattern: Twinkle Sock (Ravelry link) by Monica Nappe; a Dream in Color design
Notes: There is an error in the Gusset instructions. It says to pick up 15 sts on the left side of the heel flap and 19 sts on the right side. That makes no sense to me. When you resume knitting on the instep after picking up the sts, there are 2 sts at the beginning of needle 2 and 2 sts at the end of needle 3 that need to be worked in stockinette otherwise, it doesn't look right. I had to deduce that bit by looking at the picture in the pattern. I love how the back of the sock dips down without any shaping in the pattern. There is 46g of yarn left in the skein!!!! The socks fit a woman's size 7 so if you've got larger feet, one skein should be plenty for a pair of socks. I definitely like this yarn and look forward to knitting with it again. These are my 40th pair of finished socks.

Since my needles were free, I promptly cast on another sock. I'm using STR med in Panzanite (a lovely gift from my friend, P-La).


I think Ricky has something stuck in his teeth, don't you? Speaking of STR, a LYS near me will be stocking it! Yahooo!!! After years of waiting, begging, and pleading, Blue Moon will soon have another Canadian retailer on their list. I'm already saving my money and will probably spend it all the first time I see STR in the store.

My quilting group met at my house today. I went upstairs to get my camera and I found Ricky doing one of these:


Of course, I had to drag everyone upstairs to witness his lack of modesty. I believe he glared at me while I laughed at him. Phoebe was also entertaining us with a little catnip fit. I think everyone got a good dose of cat today.

The weatherman says it might snow this weekend. If you've got heat, send it our way!

drumroll please!

First of all, thanks to everyone for entering our contest. There are some great stories and it proves that we certainly go to extremes for our craft!

I whipped out the handy random number generator and it said the winners are:


Congrats goes to KJo, Kristen, and Jersey. And we've decided to give out an extra prize to that chick. We think she deserves the award for "coldest yarn lover". We will be contacting you shortly for your addresses. Jersey - you need to email us (yarnfloozies AT gmail DOT com) because we don't have a way to contact you.