Yarn Floozies

hangover

2011-08-05T14:02:00.001-07:00

Yep, I am suffering from a Sock Summit hangover. I'm a little out of sorts. There's stuff all over the place and chores to be done but all I want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

I made it home in one piece with Gladys' luggage and her shiny new shoes plus a stroller that got left behind in Portland. It was a leisurely drive home with a stop in Centralia for the outlet stores (didn't buy much), a brief stop in Marysville for a late lunch, and long break in Bellingham to pick up a spinning wheel, a split bearing for my Traveller (which I ended up swapping with the Traditional because the new one was a smidge too big), and a little Finn fiber.

I'm sure you're dying to see what I bought.

I shopped for other people and this is their loot:

This is my yarn purchase plus a set of carbon fiber dpns:

And this is my fiber haul (approx. 3.5lbs):

Most of it is Polwarth except for the Sheep2Shoe kit which is superwash merino and the pencil roving. The white blob is the Finn. On the far left was my biggest splurge - 50% camel/50% silk. I couldn't resist - it's sooooo soft.

My door prize:

And here's the spinning wheel that I picked up for my niece:

It's an Edammertje and a Dutch made wheel. From what I understand, it's a competitor to Louet. The company is no longer in business so if it ever needs repairs, etc., I will have to use parts from other spinning wheel makers. I've cleaned it up and oiled it. It treadles very smoothly but 4 out of the 6 bobbins are incredibly noisy.

There are a few things missing from the pictures like my Sock Summit swag, a coupla t-shirts that I bought hubby from the Saturday market, See's candies, goodies from my Fabric Depot trip, and some clothes that I bought. I didn't exceed my duty free limit ($750) but I was pretty darned close. Phew!

Sock Summit Day 3

2011-07-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day of classes. I had sooooo much fun in my CSM (circular sock machine) class. We made straight tubes, short row heels/toes, and learned how to get the ribber working and switch the needles around. I did not end up with a wearable sock but I couldn't resist trying on my practice piece.

As it happens, two of my practice heels are exactly the length of my foot so I may actually be able to salvage a sock out of my 5 ft long tube.

The CSM wasn't scary to use. A bit tricky at times but not unmanageable. By the end of the 3 hour class my hands were covered in black machine oil. My finger nails look like they belong to a grease monkey rather than a knitter.

I realized this morning that I didn't have my picture taken with any knitting celebrities (aside from Gladys). So I tracked down someone famous and begged for a picture.

This is Caro from splityarn. She's an awesome crafter. I know Caro before she became famous. We used to work together back in the day when we both had desk jobs.

In the afternoon, I showed up at Gladys' lecture with my cow bell and I'm still alive to tell you about it. The lecture was a lot of fun. Many people were inspired and I believe there was a mini stampede to several booths to stock up on pooling yarn. I might've been one of them even though I said I wouldn't do it again.

So that's it for classes. I'll head back to the convention center to pick up my spinning wheel and my door prize!!! Wonder what I won.

knitters are officially crazy

2011-07-30T20:34:00.000-07:00

... and not too bad at dancing!

postcard from Sock Summit 2011

2011-07-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

We and IT are here.

Sock Summit has officially started. Gladys is having a great time teaching and I'm having a great time learning. We definitely feel like we've been transported to another world:

If you don't get the reference, look it up! BTW, the show - in all it's incarnations is filmed just a few kms from where I live.

We are both enjoying the shopping ;) I will take photographs of my stash when I get home but just trust me when I say, "WOW!". As you can probably guess, most of it is spinning fiber :) While I did bring my spinning wheel, I do not have it to try out my new fiber. It is with one of the Fleece to Foot teams and it was be participating in Sunday's competition.

Tomorrow is my last class and Gladys' lecture. My supplies are packed for class and so is my cow bell for the lecture. She is going to KILL me.

finished

2011-07-24T11:25:00.001-07:00

I've crossed the TdF finish line!!! A purple jersey (don't like yellow and I look horrible in it) for me :)

This is a little skein of some mystery stuff that Gail gave me. I've only got 228 yds so I'm not sure what I'll make with it.

After many weeks of wheel searching, I think I've found one for my little niece. Hopefully, it will still be avail on my way back from Sock Summit. Only 4 more sleeps!!!!

Ricky sez, "zzzzzzzzz".

6 more sleeps

2011-07-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

... til Sock Summit 2011!!!

So there's a flurry of activity here. I'm finishing up the Tour de Fleece. One of my goals was to spin thicker and fiddle with my wheel settings a bit more.

This is 4ozs of Falkland spun up into 230yds of 2 ply. Very soft and skwishy.

I've also been spinning on Marilyn, my vintage double drive wheel. Another one of my TdF goals was to make friends with her. I finished filling one bobbin and when I had to switch it out, I couldn't get the whorl off until I remembered that it's lefty tighty, righty loosey. I filled the second bobbin and plied it today. I need to wind it off before I take a beauty shot. The fiber is a mystery as it was a gift from my friend, Gail. So what to spin next? I don't want to start anything new on Clementine or Matilda because all 8 bobbins need to be empty for Sock Summit so that leaves Marilyn. Guess I'll have to toss the stash.

What I really should be doing is getting all my Sock Summit bits together. It's supposed to be summer hot in Portland. None of my summer clothes are out because it's been so cold here. Really - I was wearing long pants last week. I had on wool socks the week before. What I have been doing is working on my shopping list and boy, is it looooooong! Must remember that my duty free limit is only $750 (and I already had stuff shipped to Portland so I have even less to spend at the marketplace). My list so far is a sweater's worth of Socks That Rock Heavyweight (leaning towards one of the Raven colourways). I want to make something like Cassis or Redhook. I might buy a little bit of sock yarn. I mostly want fiber for spinning and a few spinning accessories like a spinner's control card, and a split rear bearing to update Clementine a little. So little time/money, so much to buy.

two months

2011-07-14T08:09:00.001-07:00

It's been pretty close to 2 months since I last wrote up a decent post. There is sooo much that I need to get caught up on that this'll be a quick & dirty update.

FOs

Cinnamon Grace - totally ran out of yarn despite using an overweight skein. Ended up making a 2 hour round trip to buy a 27g leftover from a fellow Raveller. Still ran out of yarn. The lace edging should be wider and have a picot bind off.

Another pair of Monkey socks - my 60th pair of socks

Currently knitting on this:

Swirl skirt from the latest IK. Totally in love with this pattern.

Spinning

The Tour de Fleece is moving along. While the nieces were in town, they insisted on "helping" me so I ended up spinning a lot of junky fiber (included in the purchase of my wheels). But I've had the opportunity to spin some nice stuff, too. This is sample of what I've accomplished so far:

We're leaving for Sock Summit in less than two weeks. I have so much to do to get ready. I'm excited!!!!

Dear Canada Customs

2011-07-07T17:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Canada Customs,

If the label on the package says "Wool Yarn" …

Do you really think that you should be charging customs on Women's Clothing?

On the bright side, the yarn (Wollmeise in Raku Regenbogen and 0-Rh-negativ) was gorgeous, and I've already filled in the refund form so hopefully I'll get it reclassified and refunded.

drive by post

2011-07-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

Crazy busy... The nieces are in town so I'm barely home. Still managing to spin a little each day for the Tour.

I've been spinning this Corriedale. It's all done now - 8oz of 2 ply and I'm hoping it's fingering. I still need to wash & whack.

My youngest niece is completely fascinated with my wheel(s) so I'm having to spin up a bunch of junk fiber to keep her happy so I'm spinning a lot but most of it is throw/give away.

I am sad because I went out on Mon and planted a ton of pansies and then wham - heat wave. The poor plants are totally crispy fried. Not sure they'll survive.

the Tour

2011-07-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in my first Tour de Fleece this year. Today is day 1 and my sister & nieces are in town so I was hauling my wheel around. My youngest niece (aka the knitter) was completely fascinated. She tried drafting but was content to work the treadle while I did the drafting.

We spun a bobbin full of mystery fiber and then plied it up.

I've promised my oldest niece that I'll spin her some yarn, too. And then they're coming over for an afternoon of Kool Aid dyeing. It's either going to be a total disaster or a lot of fun.

O Canada!

2011-07-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Well of course I had to answer Dotty's post with this one. It's pretty cool.

The youtube description says,

"I found the BEST rendition of O Canada - the True North Strong & Free's wonderful National Anthem on an old VHS tape in my basement. An initiative by broadcaster Ross Carlin of Orangeville, Ontario, this was apparently produced for distribution to over 14000 schools across Canada. Sung in both official languages, the clip features over 240 voices representing the musical & cultural diversity of Canada. Made over 15 yrs ago, you might recognize a few faces- like: Rita MacNeil, KD Lang, Murray MacGlaughlin(sp), Luba, Fresh Wes; Tommy Hunter, Gino Vanelli, etc."

Happy Birthday, Canada!

2011-07-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

The funniest part is during the credits at the end. Enjoy!

Markus: Kelowna to Merritt

2011-06-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this knitting blog for a quick trip into the world of a crazy cyclist. Comments in italics belong to me - wife of said crazy cyclist.

ETA: All photographs courtesy of Jacek Kaim (official R2S photographer) except for the last one which is from Gladys' camera.

How did it go? It’s an easy question to ask, but there are so many ways to answer when “it” is a 23 hour day that started in Kelowna and ended in Delta and you spent most of the day on your bicycle. And this year, there’s a new way to answer, how it went compared to last year…

I got up before my alarm went off. It was about 2:08am, I was in a room in the basement of a church which on most other days functions as a day care for small children, but currently served as a dorm for myself and about 5 others. I turned off the alarm, gathered my toiletries in the dark and headed off to see which of the washrooms was available. When I returned, it was still not the 2:30am I had set my alarm for, but the lights were on and everyone was up and preparing for the day.

After breakfast, I brought my overnight bag upstairs and handed it off at the trailer. Then I went back down and brought up my day bag, the one which would be available at each rest stop which I had stocked with all the things I might need during the day. Then I went back to get all the items I was going to wear or carry to start the day and my bicycle. Its really strange to see a church with bicycles lining every possible wall. This is when I discovered that the two gloves I had set aside were in fact both right hand gloves. So out to the trailer and inquire of the volunteers as to whether I can get to my bag. Fortunately it was at the front only under a couple of bags, since they were attempting to pack the bags in the order they would be put out. Each rider has a number, your bag is tagged with your number, and at each rest stop the bags are set out in numerical order. While Tony took pictures and ribbed me about being “that guy” I was able to quickly locate the ziplock containing my gloves, and pull out a left.

After the mayor said some kind words and rang the bell, we were off. At 3:30am, we were leaving half an hour earlier than last year, and with a police escort right at the start, we headed straight for the highway, as compared to the previous year when we turned onto the highway shortly before the bridge over the lake. I was looking back for a nice sunrise, but it was a bit early, and the clouds were not cooperating. A quick spin, and we were already at the first break. Refill a bottle, a couple of things to eat, an “emergency” banana for my back pocket and I was ready to go on.

The road to the next break, takes us a little further south along the lake, then we turn inland to the west. There is a gentle rise, then the road makes a dip across a small valley, and we start up the hill to the Pennask summit.

The dirt road right behind the riders is a runaway lane for trucks going down the hill.

The next break is a chain up area about half way to the summit. I was wearing the same as last year, jersey, vest, and arm warmers, but had decided over the last hour and a bit that wasn’t quite enough. So in my 10 minutes, I managed to strip all the way down, add a wool base layer, put everything back on top, fill my bottle, and eat a couple of things. One of my busier stops.

Markus is in the neon vest on the left pushing the rider in the middle.

The next stop is just past top of the climb. I didn’t remember the road as well as I thought, so I was thinking, around this corner a bit of a straight stretch, and we’re there. And we weren’t. And the next half hour became a series of here? No. There? No. Shut up and spin. Are we there yet? Just spin, you’ll get there. So much of getting through the day, is keeping your head straight, and this was one of the times it got away from me.

The stop at the summit is extremely short, essentially just water and gear. The pullout is too small to accommodate the whole encampment. I added a jacket, and tights. From here to the next break, its rolling terrain at altitude. The jacket is definitely zipped up for the downhills, and things start to unzip as we go up the hills. At the next stop, I don’t add any more clothes, but neither do I take any off. As always, get a couple things to eat, fill the water bottles. Still haven’t needed to use the washroom. Some people say if you don’t need the washroom at every stop, you’re not drinking enough!

Caught drinking and cycling!!!

The next stop is Merritt, our lunch break, even if its only 10am. More rolling terrain between here and there, but the last few km, our following vehicles block both lanes and we have the whole road for our descent to the Information Center. I’m reminded by a ride captain on the way down to keep right if I’m going slow. Perhaps he didn’t see me pass him a ways back… perhaps he doesn’t realize he has the whole lane to my left. Water under the bridge. I move to the right, finish my rest, and when I’m ready to pump down the hill again, move left again and practice my tuck. Two lanes, good pavement, dry roads, an absolute blast. At the information center a police officer and his motorbike have the intersection closed, he’s waving us in, and a cheering crowd!

Markus is busy shovelling food into his face.

I lied

2011-06-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

I thought that I could get hubby to blog a little yesterday but I lied. He spent most of it "recovering" (i.e. sleeping, eating a little, and imitating a starchy tuber on the couch). So the gory ride details will have to wait until I can get him parked in front of a computer. I did snag his camera and uploaded all the pictures.

Here is his sleeping pad the night before the ride - tucked behind the church's piano:

Hubby only managed about 2.5 hrs of sleep.

And his legs full of names:

Photographs from the day of the ride are slowly being added to Flickr. Please take a look. Hubby is rider #39. Here's one of him:

He's on the left in the neon yellow vest giving Graham a push towards the Pennask summit. It is a tough climb - 60kms (12.5mi) long with an elevation increase of about 1328m (4357 ft). And they're doing this climb from 4-7am. They're crazy but I love every one of them.

he's home!

2011-06-19T00:41:00.000-07:00

There he is rolling in (hubby's the big guy right in the middle):

It's 12:45am and we're home. Hubby is taking a much deserved (and necessary) shower and then I'm going to toss him into bed. Hopefully, the Advil will be kicking in soon.

More stories about the ride tomorrow whenever he wakes up.

almost home

2011-06-18T19:02:00.001-07:00

They're getting close. I can almost see them :)

I'm all packed and heading off. I've got a change of clothes for hubby, fresh towels, a thermos of hot chocolate, a thermos of mushroom soup, a bottle of Advil, and a few chinese buns from his favourite bakery. For myself, I'm bringing Gortex, my big rubber boots, and my cow bell! Yahoo!

updates

2011-06-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

Gladys is liveblogging over at the R2S homepage.

Here's a picture of hubby (leftmost with Al & Rebecca) looking semi-awake at pre-dawn o'clock:

Gladys is also updating a Twitter feed. The GPS tracker is up and running.

It's pouring rain at home which is supposed to clear up by this afternoon. I hope that I don't get soaked setting up the welcome in party. Looks like today's WWKIP gathering might be a tad soggy.

and they're off

2011-06-17T17:52:00.001-07:00

I got woken up early (for me) this morning so that I could drop off hubby and all his gear. The things I do for his hobby ;)

If you are in the mood to steal valuable cargo, this would be the semi-trailer to target today:

It has approx. 80 bicycles with an average cost of around $2500 per bike for a total of $200,000! That's a lot of bike!

The Cops for Cancer van was shuttling riders/volunteers & gear from the overnight parking lot to the bus pickup area in front of Cap's Bicycles.

There was a lot of nervous energy as everyone checked and double checked their gear, bought last minute stuff from Cap's, picked up their rider/crew packages, and got their box lunches from Cactus Club (who kindly opened their kitchens at 9am and will stay open extra late tomorrow night and not mind when very dirty, sweaty riders troop through their nice restaurant in clompy cycling shoes to use their washrooms).

There is some very precious cargo in this trailer:

Thousands of crepes, rice cakes (the wet kind), fruit, desserts, salami, soup, chocolate milk (!!!), and other valuables are in there. Each rider will be burning about a week's worth of calories tomorrow so a lot of food is required to keep them going.

One last picture before Graham (rider & cancer survivor) and his daughter, Rebecca (her second time as crew) board the bus:

Good luck to everyone! I will pray for dry weather, calm winds, and a speedy ride. See you at the welcome in party tomorrow night.

Hey Gladys! Are the potties blue this year?

PS. Love you, honey. Can't wait to kiss your salty face :*

Liveblogging the Ride2Survive

2011-06-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

We'll be on the road to Kelowna in about 45 minutes. I've packed two pairs of socks and a sweater to work on for the drive there. Plus an extra two balls of sock yarn in case I run out of yarn. (Hmmm ... should I be packing more?)

If all goes well with my technology, I'll be liveblogging the ride starting tonight, over on the Ride2Survive blog.

Here's a quick video about the ride and what we'll be doing as of 2:30–3 am (yes, AM!!!) tomorrow morning.

you rock!

2011-06-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

Big thanks goes to the bidders and the winners of the scarf auction! Hubby is blown away by everyone's generosity.

We're in the final countdown for the ride. I have to make hubby a portable changing room (aka a towel with ties to go around his waist) since I won't be there to hold his towel. Hubby's washed all his cycling gear and started a packing list. I am very jealous of Gladys who will be part of the crew. I was planning on joining her but I managed to double book myself. I can be so studip sometimes.

Gladys will be live blogging on Sat and we'll post a link to the satellite tracker (updated every 10 mins) so that you can see where the riders are. If anyone is in town and free Sat night, we would love to have you join us at the welcome home party. We will be lining up along Scott Road in Delta between 72nd and 80th. Riders are expected to arrive around 10pm. Bring noise makers (I'll be the one with the obnoxious cow bell) and lots of energy.

Two weeks ago, I teased you with a picture of some singles that I was spinning on my new-to-me wheel, Marilyn.

Lookit what followed me home one day. A solid oak spinning wheel stamped "1978 W.J. Robidoux, Cornwall, Ont, Can". Isn't she pretty?

She has some amazing details. To keep the footman from falling off the crank, there is a small piece of leather held in place with a metal pin. Aside from some doggie teeth marks at the bottom of the footman and a speck of paint on the drive wheel that I can't scrape off, she's in pristine condition. She spins beautifully and I'll make nice yarn once I figure out the tension. Marilyn is my first double drive wheel so there's a bit of a learning curve for me. We're not very good friends at the moment but I'm sure things will work out once we understand each other.

Did I mention that I have an addiction? BTW, the wheel came with a box of stuff that included of all things, a pair of real sheep shears!

Might have to try it out the next time a kitty needs a trim. Come here, Ricky!!!! He's in my bad books today. I was ummm occupied in the bathroom and he came in and put his paws on the plant stand (ignoring my yelling) and knocked the whole thing over. He ran out of there so fast that he smacked into the bathroom door which bounced off the door stop and smacked him in the butt once he rounded the corner. While I was cursing and cleaning up the mess (the plant survived), I heard the door move and Ricky stuck his face in, eyes as big as saucers, to see the aftermath. I have replaced the plant stand with a different one that has a bigger base so that he can't knock it over.

I've been doing lots of spinning. We had a glorious Sunday and after we put up the sun shelter, I sat outside all afternoon (with my lemonade and jelly beans) and spun up half a pound of merino. Don't I look comfy?

your last chance

2011-06-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Today is your last chance to bid on Gladys' woven scarves. There are currently no bids.

Phoebe sez, "I bid one catnip mousie!"

Sorry, Phoebe but the Canadian Cancer Society needs people money to find a cure for cancer. But if they ever decide that catnip works/helps, I will gladly mail them one of your (unused) mousies.

the power of yarn

2011-06-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

A very big thank you to everyone who donated!!!! Hubby is completely blown away by the power of yarn. With the funds raised from the WM auction ($175!!!), the current total is $1000! That is awesome! I am sure you are anxiously awaiting the draw results. Here are the winners (in no particular order): Katie H, Linda R, Debra H, Gail D, Hilary G, Phyllis C, Lynne R, Cynthia L, and Alice C. Congratulations! I will be contacting you via email over the next few days so keep your eyes peeled. You might also want to check your spam folder in case your spam filter snags my email.

There is less than 2 weeks til the big day (Sat Jun 18th) and the riders have completed their last big training ride last Sat (almost 200km). The final push is on to get ready. Bikes are being tuned, riders are making last minute gear purchases, food is being prepared, etc. And fundraising is no exception. We have one last thing to auction (technically, there's 2) to help raise just a little bit more money. The famous I-am-teaching-at-Sock-Summit Gladys and her loom have been busy making two scarves which she has donated. I am auctioning both of them this week.

The first scarf is woven from Noro Kureyon Sock (warp) and a merino/angora blend (weft).

The second scarf is woven from the oh-so-soft Knit Picks Chroma.

These scarves are the perfect little something for yourself or a loved one (it's not too early to start Christmas shopping). Or maybe you just want to own something hand made by a knitting/pooling celebrity ;)

To bid, leave a comment on this post with the amount, some method of contacting you (Rav name or email address), and the name of the scarf you are bidding on.

Don't forget that all donations $25 or over will receive a tax receipt that is valid in Canada and the US.

I'll close the auction at 8pm PDT Mon June 13th.

Thank you again for your generosity. One of these days, a cure for cancer will be found! I am sure of it. Have a good week and happy bidding!

reminder

2011-06-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

Just a quick reminder that the WM auction ends tomorrow at 8pm PDT. The current high bid is $125. And the raffle also ends tomorrow at midnight PDT. The current fundraising total is $750. Hubby is going on his last big training ride tomorrow - 160km/100mi and it's supposed to get pretty hot. I hope he doesn't melt. Only 2 weeks left before the big day!!!

Today, I hung out with my spinning friend, Vicki and we spun a little. This is what I did:

The spinners who read this blog will notice that this flyer is not an Ashford one. More details in an upcoming post...

more prizes

2011-05-29T18:29:00.001-07:00

I want to remind everyone that the Ride2Survive raffle and Wollmeise auction ends next Sat! Hubby has sent me some stats on the current donations. There are 3 entries in the sock/hat/pooling scarf raffle. There are 16 entries in the yarny raffle (and 13 prizes - good odds). Total raised is $80 from 3 donations. We need more! Don't wait - donate now.

For those of you in the US, I have found out some good news. The Canadian Cancer Society is a registered US charity (98-600124). So the tax receipt issued is valid in the US as well as in Canada.

Thanks to some very generous people, I have received additional prize donations.

Hilary (aka yarnpiggy) has donated the following prizes:

Fleece Artist Saldanha (mmmm.... lace)

Yarn Pirate Superwash Merino Sock

Koigu KFM

Thank you, Piggy!!! You are awesome.

And Lynne (aka sockladyspins) has donated a pair of "monster" socks (fits women's size 7-8 shoe). Thank you, Lynne!

These socks are going to be hard to let go (would it be wrong if I entered my own raffle to win these? ;) Lynne knits the most amazing fair isle socks. No two pairs are alike and each one is a work of art. If you click on the above picture, you'll see the details better. Go ahead and check out her blog or her Rav projects. And then go donate for a chance to win this lovely pair!

Ride2Survive Auction: Wollmeise Maharani OR Alisha's Bridal Bouquet

2011-05-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'll be volunteering to help out the riders on the Ride2Survive again this June, and would also like to donate a hard-to-get skein of Wollmeise to help out Dotty's husband in his fundraising effort.

Here's the elevation route that the riders will be travelling — all in one day. That embedded photo? Yeah, that's how many riders get through the ride — with a little help from their friends.

The organizers selected this route because it isn't just long. As you can see, it's also incredibly difficult. But it's not nearly as hard as the journey that people with cancer have faced.

So the least I can do is donate a little bit of yarn, right?

Here are the photos of the yarn, and I do know that they're almost impossible to purchase because they were dyed in such limited quantities.

The winner of the auction will get to choose one of the skeins — either Alisha's Bridal Bouquet or Maharani.

Leave your bid in the comments, so everyone can see what amount they need to beat. (If two people bid the same amount, we'll go by the timestamps to see who the earlier bidder is.)

We'll close the auction next weekend, Saturday, June 4, 2011, at 8 pm (Vancouver time) and announce the winning bidder.

If you're the winning bidder, you'll donate your final bid amount to Markus' donation page at the Canadian Cancer Society's website, and send me your mailing address. And then I'll pop this skein of yarn in the mail to you, along with a few surprise treats!

Oh yeah, and you will get a Canadian charitable contribution tax receipt from the Canadian Cancer Society. (But I think that the tax receipt is good only in Canada.)

ETA: I have been informed that the Canadian Cancer Society has a registered US charity number so US folks can use the receipt for tax purposes. If you don't see it printed on your receipt, let me know and I will forward the charity number to you.

Finally, don't forget to check out Dotty's separate yarn raffle. All of the prizes are awesome. (And if you want to donate a prize, just contact her: yarnfloozy on Ravelry.)

almost frog's hair

2011-05-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

The week has been a blur - mostly lying in bed and then culminating with a trip to the hospital yesterday night. My cold wasn't a cold - it was a virus complete with aches, headache, fever, and chills but no other symptoms. I'm ok now but I learned the hard way what the symptoms are for dehydration. I think hubby got a little freaked out when he saw me fetchingly attired in a hospital gown with various tubes & wires hanging out of me.

Speaking of hospital gowns... The shade of blue that I was wearing can be found in my latest handspun (great segue, eh?):

This is 113g of Rambouillet from Two Sisters Stringworks (formerly known as Yummy Yarn), a local dyer. The LYS where I work sells her fiber. I spun the singles on my Traveller (hereby christened Clementine) and plied on Matilda (love my jumbo flyer!).

Unless I miscounted, that skein is about 728 yds so it's in the laceweight category. That's the thinnest yarn I've spun so far. Now that I've cracked the lace barrier, maybe I should try spinning frog's hair :)

the sicky

2011-05-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

That's me today. My throat is sore, my nose is starting to run, and I feel like I could nap all day long. I'm in bed under a quilt with a chocolate bar, fish bits (prepared dried squid - it's an acquired taste), a bag of throat drops, some sock knitting, a box of tissues, and a cat between my ankles.

The weather's been really crappy the last few weeks so photo ops have been few & far between. I did manage to sneak outside with my latest pair of socks:

My first handspun! My first handspun & handknit socks!!!! I am over the moon. They are very firm & sturdy & a bit too thick to wear in shoes so they'll end up as house socks. I love them soooo much! Aren't they purty?

I am spinning like mad. I've spun and plied about half a pound of undyed merino for a shawl KAL. I have to spin the other half before I can start knitting. I bought some Rambouillet last week and I'm spinning that on the Traveller (still unnamed but I'm leaning towards Clementine). The new wheel has developed a clunk that I'm trying to troubleshoot & fix. Hubby doesn't think I should mess with it but then it doesn't bother him as much as it bothers me.

Writing this post has tired me out. I'm going to slouch down and fall asleep to Glee.

Ride2Survive 2011

2011-05-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Hubby's been training since Feb - riding in the rain and the cold. In 6 short weeks, all that training will pay off when he packs up his cycling gear and joins more than a hundred cyclists and volunteers on their way up to Kelowna for another year of Ride2Survive. Cyclists will ride from Kelowna to Delta in one day - that's 400 kms, 13,000 ft of climbing (2 mountain summits!) in one gruelling 18 hour day, all to raise money for cancer research.

Last year, you helped us raise $2365 through our raffle/auctions and we'd like your help to beat that number this year. We've got some great prizes lined up.

An awesome (if I do say so myself) pooling scarf knit out of non-scratchy Socks That Rock:

A really cool hat also knit out of Socks That Rock in Mustang Sally:

A custom pair of hand knit socks kit from my yarn stash (Wollmeise is a definite possibility :). Check out the pair that I knit for last year's winner:

And here are the yarny prizes:

2 skeins of Sweet Fiber Yarns 100% Merino Sock:

A skein of Wollmeise 80/20 Twin in Baba Jaga:

A skein of Tofutsies:

2 skeins of Panda Cotton:

2 skeins of Louet KidLin:

A skein of Fleece Artist Suri Blue:

A skein of Dyed in the Wool Handmade Fingering Sock:

A skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in the limited edition colorway Bubble Haze:

And last but not least, a skein of my very own handspun:

This was spun on my newest wheel. It's 87g of heavy fingering for a total of approx. 258 yds. It was spun from an Aurelia Topknot, which is a blend of New Zealand wools.

Do you see anything that you like? If yes, then hop on over to the Canadian Cancer Society's donation page (credit cards accepted) and make a donation. Every $5 CDN donated gets you an entry for the yarny prizes. Every $25 CDN donated gets you an entry for the scarf, hat, and socks prizes (awarded separately) and qualifies for the yarn raffle, too. Hubby is notified of every donation so be sure to provide your email address when you donate so that we can reach you if you win a prize.

All donations $25 CDN and over will be issued an official tax receipt ~~(I believe it is only usable by Canadian taxpayers)~~. ETA: The Canadian Cancer Society is a registered US charity (number 98-600124) so the receipt is valid in the US, too. Know that 100% of your donation goes to the Canadian Cancer Society's research programs. Even the credit card fees aren't deducted from your donation amount. The entire ride is covered by the riders, volunteers, and generous sponsors.

The raffle starts today and runs til midnight PDT Sat June 4th. We'll do a random draw on the 5th and notify the winners shortly afterwards. As usual, the first person drawn will get first choice, the second person gets to choose next, and so on.

We will also be auctioning off one and possibly two of Gladys' woven scarves so keep your eyes peeled for the details.

There is one more favour that we ask of you. When the riders are climbing that last hill heading home, battling a vicious headwind, or heads down to keep the snow (it's a possibility) from blinding them, they look down and are reminded of who they are riding for. Written on their legs are the names of the people that have been touched by cancer - a husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father, cousin, co-worker, friend, and the list goes on... It is a tradition that started with the very first ride 6 years ago.

If there is someone who you would like hubby to ride for, please include their name in the "Company Name" field of your donation. We will make sure every name gets written on his legs and at 6'4", he's got a lot of leg real estate.

If you'd like to read about last year's ride, check out the links on the left sidebar. We were lucky enough to do some live blogging and we plan on doing it again this year.

Thank you for your generous support in helping us find a cure for this horrible disease.

a funny thing happened at the store

2011-05-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was out shopping for parts for TNW (The New Wheel). First stop was Home Depot. I found suitable replacement springs for the bobbin brake but they didn't have the right size screw eye or cup/square hooks. The next stop was Lee Valley where I got the screw eye (only used one so I have 99 spares) and after much running around by the clerk, I finally decided on the cup hooks (only used 11 so I have 89 spares). My last stop was Canadian Tire for some fishing line and a metal garbage can (needed something flame-proof to hang the used tung oil rags to dry/cure). This is where my day gets interesting. I know next to nothing about fishing line but there's a harmless looking gentleman looking at fishing rods so I pull out my bobbin brake and approach him.

me: Excuse me. I was wondering if you can help me.
Him: Yes?
me: I'm wondering what weight/thickness this fishing line is
me: ::shows him the bobbin brake::
Him: It depends on what you want to catch. This looks thick enough to catch salmon.
me: No, I don't need the fishing line to catch fish. I need to make a repair with fishing line.
me: ::shows him a spool of 40lb fishing line:: Is this thick enough?
(You are probably thinking that I should hold the old fishing line next to the spool and compare thicknesses. That would work if the spool wasn't shrink wrapped and I could see the individual strands of clear monofilament)
Him: ::gives me a weird look after seeing the fishing line is attached to a screw eye and a spring:: Well, the heavier the line, the bigger the fish that you can catch.
me: ::internal ARGH!:: Thank you very much. You've been very helpful.
me: ::scurries off to pay for the 40lb fishing line::

BTW, 40lb is the right thickness and I can catch salmon with the remaining 199.6 yds.

stop me

2011-05-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

I have a serious problem.

I picked up this little beauty Fri night. Sigh... I couldn't resist. It's so cute. And all the accessories for my other wheel fit this wheel. It's portable so I can take it places.

It definitely needs a little TLC. It's a bit rusty. I'm replacing all of the hooks on the flyer and all the bits for the bobbin tension. It also needs a new treadle/footman connector as the current piece of leather flexes and causes the treadle to clunk. I've wiped the wheel down twice with Murphy's oil soap because it was pretty dirty. It's about 3-4 shades lighter now. I'm going to rub it down with some tung oil tomorrow. I de-gunked the orifice. I started scraping it out with a bamboo skewer but had to resort to some alcohol to get it completely clean. All those years of spinning sure does create build-up. It spins fine despite the fact that there is a slight wobble in the wheel which is not surprising for something that is almost 30 years old. I'm looking forward to spinning on it.

This is it. I'm not buying any more wheels. Cross my heart. Pinky swear. You believe me, don't you?

waxing & ants

2011-04-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Easter is over. We have a ton of leftovers in the fridge (I think we're eating spaghetti squash & ham until the next millenium), I'm catching up on chores (is there such a thing as a laundry fairy?), and I so badly want the weather to clear up so that I can finally get into the garden (it's been frosty every morning for at least a week so my garden is behind, too).

Since I'm stuck inside, I thought I'd do a little waxing - no, not my legs but my new spinning wheel bits.

Unfortunately, I waxed on the dining table so it smells like diesel in there. ICK! I hope it clears up before supper otherwise, we'll be eating elsewhere.

Yesterday, I was out looking for something that I can use to oil the hub on my spinning wheel because I can't reach with my current bottle of oil. One of my stops was Summit Tools and while I was looking around, I spied this really cool LED light.

It straps to my thumb so I can spin in the dark!!!! How cool is that? Sadly, the velcro keeps snagging on my roving so I'll have to replace it with some elastic.

You're probably wondering about the ants... I was sitting in front of my computer when I spied an ant on the edge of the desk. Then I saw a whole pile on the floor and a bunch crawling out of the corner by the door. Eep! I vacuumed them up and grabbed a spoon and the Costco-sized container of ground black pepper. I liberally filled all the cracks with it and waited. I found a few more errant ants within an hour of application but there haven't been any new ones since. Phew! I discovered the ground pepper trick many years ago when there was an ant invasion in the laundry room. I needed something non-toxic and cat resistant and it was either black pepper or cayenne and since I had the black pepper on hand, I used it. Works like a charm!!! And when the ant season is over, you vacuum up the pepper.

I leave you with a picture of tulips cut from my garden - hidden from the kitties so that they don't get nom'd:

all spinning, all the time

2011-04-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Well, that's not entirely true. The house is looking very sparkly and the lawn is getting a lot of attention. Spring cleaning is almost complete. The majority of the dust bunnies have been taken care of. There's still a few areas that I'd like to clean but I'm burnt out. The house is looking much better and just in time for Easter. The in-laws are in town and there's lots of stuff planned.

We hooked the de-thatching blade to the lawn mower last weekend and ripped up about a quarter of our lawn. We don't actually have a lot of thatch but we do have a ton of moss which the blade rakes out. So there's a huge pile of moss in the carport. With the old collection system, we would've filled all 12 garbage cans and put them at the curb for pick up. But the new system only picks up waste in city supplied containers. We are allowed one container for free and you have to pay $100 for every extra container. We bought an extra one so that we have two and they're huge but it's gonna take many weeks to get rid of the stuff and we still have to run the mower over the rest of the lawn. Then there's over-seeding, fertilizing, and lime-ing. Each step is a two pass process so I'm doing a lot of walking. I am very pooped.

The Lendrum has moved onto her permanent home. And she has a name - Lizzy. Her new owner has been spinning like crazy on it. I went over to her house and I showed her how to use her wheel to Andean ply the singles from her drop spindle. Then I got her set up to ply the singles that she'd spun on the wheel. I cut some felt pieces to slip into her lazy kate to add a little tension so that the bobbins don't spin too quickly. I'm going to make the same adjustment to my kate, too.

Before I handed Lizzy over, I spun a little fiber on her.

This is some really scratchy mystery wool from Shades of Narnia. I started spinning some of this on my drop spindle but the colours were a little blah so I put the fiber away. But I decided to finish spinning it on the wheel just to get it used up and out of my fiber trunk.

It didn't turn out too badly. It's 2 ply and approx 84g, 218 yds, and 16 wpi. As you can see, it's a little overplied. I still need to wash & whack it which will make it look better.

I went on a bit of a buying binge after finishing up my 3 ply sock yarn (first sock is almost finished - just need to graft the toe). The owner of a local LYS, Knitopia also dyes fiber. So I headed over there to buy some fluffy stuff and I came home with some superwash BFL.

The colours remind me of Hawaii - the ocean & the mountains. And it spins up into this:

I have 146g and I'm splitting it onto 2 bobbins and hoping that I end up with fingering weight after I ply it. The first bobbin is done and I'll be starting the second bobbin after Easter, taxes, and the lawn.

I've bought a new accessory for Matilda. I splurged and picked up a sliding hook jumbo flyer for my wheel on Wed. I also bought an extra jumbo bobbin. These things are supposed to hold 200g of yarn so 146g should fit nicely. I need to dig out the furniture wax and finish the flyer before I permanently install it.

And I'm sure some of you are wondering if I've been wheel shopping. The answer is yes. I'm trying to tempt Gladys into spinning so I've been keeping an eye out for another folding wheel. I haven't found one yet but I did find a NZ Sleeping Beauty Saxony in great condition (with jumbo flyer & jumbo bobbin) for only $160 last week.

Portland, here we come!

2011-04-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting on this news for a month now, and I've been fit to burst, frankly. (I suck at keeping secrets.)

I'm working with Karla Stuebing, from Texas, on a few planned pooling projects, and the first one to go public is our lecture at Sock Summit!

I knew this collaboration was going to go well when she asked me if it was okay to make our audience laugh, as that's the way she prefers to lecture.

Dotty and I will be travelling to and/or from Portland together, so if you're at Sock Summit, make sure to say hi!

And if you're more local than Portland, I'll be teaching an intimate planned pooling class at 88 Stitches (scroll down for the info), the yarn store in Langley, in just a few weeks. This will be a much smaller setting, and we'll actually sit down with the yarn that the knitters bring to work out customized swatches and the knitter's gauge. (I'm told there's one spot left in the class.)

temporary resident

2011-04-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

I went to a yard sale on Sat. There was a spinning wheel. A folding one. Can you see where this is going? I assembled it and gave it a spin. It came home with me. My living room is looking crowded.

That's a older model single treadle Lendrum - a Canadian made wheel. It came with a lovely carry bag, bobbins, and a lazy kate. I purchased this wheel on behalf of a friend who is looking for one. I couldn't get in touch with her to relay the details so I bit the bullet and bought it anyways. I hope she likes it. Fingers crossed.

I finally knuckled down and cast off my second Summer Flies shawl. I added an extra repeat of one of the charts which really made the the stitch count go way up. It took me 2.5 hours to bind off!

Pattern: Summer Flies by Donna Griffin
Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints; 100g; 427 yds
Needles: 5mm Addi Turbos
Notes: Did an extra repeat of the ridged eyelet before starting the ruffle. Modified the increases to accommodate the different stitch count. Only have 11g of yarn left. Used fingering weight yarn instead of DK (like the first one I made) for a lightweight version.

I let myself cast on another project because I couldn't wait any longer.

I think all my future socks will be handspun and handknit.

spinning out of control

2011-04-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

My last post certainly garnered some interesting comments.

"Ha Ha another one who has joined the slippery slope of spinning. Watch out spinning wheels and fibre can breed. Jan 2010 no wheel. Feb 2010 one wheel and under 500 gms of fibre. Fast forward to April 2011 - 4 raw fleeces to process, large tub of fibre tops and silvers + another box. 2 wheels, 5 spindles and I am heading to wonderwool in wales next weekend... Once you get fibre in the blood watch out....." - Kataatok

Is he/she trying to tell me that in 13 months I'll either be divorced or hubby will be sleeping in the garage?

"You'll be buying fleeces next!! Remember, she who has the most fibre when she dies, wins! Hehehehehehe" - Sharon in Surrey

I already win in the yarn/fabric/shoe stash category. I don't need another win.

This one scares me the most:

"I am awaiting the arrival of wheel #4, which should hopefully be here today. Just letting you know what you're in for :)" - Loren T

So the gist is that I'm doomed? Well then, let's get started!

This is 3 ply, 283 yds (116g) of sportweight spun from some lovely organic Romney/silk that I picked up from Penelope's booth last month (before I bought the wheel ::cough::).

All washed & whacked and ready for the sock needles.

While I was out yesterday, I fell into a yarn store and came home with more roving to spin. Today, I'm falling into another yarn store because 4 bobbins just isn't enough.

When we were in Hawaii, I found a Williams Sonoma store. Never been in one before and it certainly was an eye opener (and a wallet drainer). I want one of everything! But luggage space was tight so I limited myself to a very special set of cookie cutters.

It's an invasion of Storm Troopers! Break out the light sabers!!!!

To be even geekier, I made hubby pose with the Vader cookies wearing a very special t-shirt.

what have I done?

2011-04-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm in big, BIG trouble. As a knitter, it was bad enough that I was hoarding yarn but now I'm able to make it in a big way.

This is Matilda. A slightly used Ashford Traditional spinning wheel. I bought it yesterday with the help of my friend, Vicki. We took it back to her place where I spun a little Romney/silk.

Silk is tricksy to spin. I took the wheel over to Gladys' and both of us spun on it while a little drunk. I switched us to something less tricky - plain old wool. I finished spinning and plying it this morning (while sober).

It's only 50 yds (74g; the rest of it was spun on my drop spindle). It's horribly underspun, overspun, overplied, underplied, and in general, pretty gross. But perfect for my first wheelspun yarn!

hot flash

2011-04-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

Started spring cleaning the whole house about a week ago. I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't seen the top of my dresser in several years. But it's all good now. The entire upstairs has been vacuumed, dusted, and purged. We'll probably shampoo the carpets this year but that'll have to wait until the weather is warmer.

And you know with a big clean, it often looks bad before it gets better. I try to get things cleared up before hubby gets home from work but the yarn keeps piling up in the living room because I've pulled it out of every nook and cranny from upstairs. I think I have a yarn explosion on my hands.

I'll get downstairs done next week and then I don't have to think about it for another 10 years or so ;)

I managed to get a little spinning done. It's so bright that it hurts my eyes but I love it anyways.

It's 100g of NZ corriedale and approx. 143 yds. It's spun on an Ashford Turkish drop spindle. I think there's enough for a pair of fingerless mitts. While plying the singles, one single kept breaking on me. Everything was getting all twisty and when I tried to untwist the single, it broke. Wah! I have to develop a better system for plying large batches of singles that keeps everything under control.

spoiler alert

2011-03-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

March really got away from me. I was recovering from Hawaii and then I got really, really sick. Then there was catching up and wham!, it's the end of March and I'm going to be very late. It was my friend, P-la's birthday last weekend ::waves hi:: and despite my best intentions (i.e. shopping at Fibres West), my plan to have her birthday present arrive on time failed miserably because I didn't really have anything to give her. But I'm making up for it. P-la - if you're reading this, you might want to move on to the next blog and then come back to this post in a few weeks, k?

I spent the week scouring Ravelry for ideas and eventually came up with this:

Pattern: Summer Flies by Donna Griffin
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in col Ms. Taylor (2 skeins; 100g & 225 yds each)
Needles: 5mm Addi Turbos
Notes: Finished size is a little smaller than the original. Next time I make this, I will go up a needle size. Took 3 days to complete (including blocking).

Hope she likes it!

jumping in the pool

2011-03-21T14:52:00.001-07:00

You'd think that having Gladys as a co-blogger would result in some of her pooling genius to rub off on me. Uh no. The effect is stunning but it is way too fiddly for me. Kinda like the difference between baking & cooking. You can be a little loose when measuring or substituting ingredients when cooking but you can't do that with baking which explains why I cook and I don't bake. And that's why this scarf is my first and last pooling project.

Pattern: based on this scarf by statnerd
Yarn: Socks that Rock Mediumweight in two colors - Smoky Blue (the first and last columns) and Farmhouse (the rainbow-y one)
Needles: 4.5mm Addis
Notes: It was very difficult to pool two different colours. Smoky Blue seemed to have a slightly shorter repeat length than Farmhouse. If you look closely, I was able to knit Smoky Blue at my usual gauge but Farmhouse had to be knit more loosely.

I think my cast on is 245 sts. Each section has 8 garter rows.

I was going to give this scarf to hubby for Christmas but he said the yarn was too scratchy to wear against his neck so I'm going to give it away. Hubby's big fundraising bike ride, Ride2Survive is coming up soon so I'm putting this scarf in the raffle. Keep your eyes peeled for further details.

fuzzy wuzzy

2011-03-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair,
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?
- traditional children's poem, author unknown

Pattern: 1267 Gedifra Sombra by Karola Gottwald from Gedifra Highlights 082
Yarn: Gedifra Sombra (col 3008); 14 skeins used
Needle: 9mm
Notes: Pattern called for 13 skeins and I used 14. The sweater is knit to gauge & measurements. I even had to unravel the gauge swatch and use the yarn for seaming. The ball band says 14 skeins for the size of sweater that I made so I think the pattern may not be correct. The sleeves are a smidge too long (darn those tall Europeans) but that's ok because this is meant to be a big cozy sweater. I knit the collar shorter (it's supposed to fold over) because I was running out of yarn. This was the craziest fuzzy yarn that I've ever knit with.

I definitely am very fuzzy when I wear it. Everyone wants to pet me because I look so soft.

You can see how long the sleeves are in the above pic.

My sock mojo is still MIA. I did a little sock knitting in Hawaii because that's all I brought. But once we got home, I immediately cast on a sweater (fuzzy wuzzy was finished before we left). I am knitting hubby (all 6'4" of him) a Dale of Norway sweater - Whistler to be precise. He skis there and when he saw the sweater in a shop last year, he wanted one. I opened my big mouth and offered to knit him one. He bought the sweater kit last year and I've been putting it off (there's a lot of black stockinette and eek! steeking). The lower body is almost complete. I have about 1.5" of black stockinette left and then I get to start the fun stranding. I've enlarged the chart onto 8 sheets of paper which I still need to tape together. Wish me luck!

even more Hawaii

2011-03-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

Are you bored of hearing about Hawaii? I'm going to condense the rest of the trip into this one post just to get it over with and then I can move onto the knitting.

Day 2 in Hawaii saw us driving all over Oahu in our rental car. Starting from Honolulu, we went counter-clockwise.

First stop was at the surf shop so that hubby could register and pay for his surfing lesson. We stopped at the Diamond Head Marketplace & Grill for breakfast:

We stopped at pretty much all the lookouts along the coastal route. We made one detour to have a quick look at the Koko Head Botanical Gardens where I promptly got numerous mosquito bites (whoever told me there are no mosquitoes in Hawaii lied).

We spent part of the afternoon soaking up the rays on Sunset Beach which is at the north end of Oahu. Lemme tell you that the waves can really sneak up on ya:

On Fri, hubby went off to his surfing lesson and I sat on the beach knitting and taking pictures/videos of him falling off. Overall, he did pretty well (for a tall guy according to the photographer sitting next to me).

The vacation went a little downhill after the surf lesson. When we stopped for shaved ice on Waikiki, hubby wasn't feeling so well and got really sick. We grabbed a cab at the nearest hotel and went back to our hotel. Hubby got much sicker. Poor thing spent the next 2 days in bed (or in the bathroom). He had to miss out on his bicycle ride. I walked to the bike store and bought him a store jersey to make him feel better. I also went to the Ala Moana mall - it's huge! I finished the walk along Waikiki beach by myself and found a farmer's market where I bought the most amazing supper - Kahlua pork, chicken, rice, fresh pineapple, and other mysterious & tasty goodies. Yum!

We took it easy for the rest of the trip. I did some shopping without hubby (found a quilt store!) and when he felt better, we went to the Bishop museum and drove out to the Pali Highway lookout (more mosquitoes). On the last day, we hiked up to the top of Diamond Head Crater (even more mosquitoes):

We spent our very last afternoon on the beach and in the water at Ala Moana:

We are definitely going back to Hawaii!!!

Weaving Rainbows

2011-03-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

I'm so many blog posts behind that it's a wonder that Dotty's still speaking to me. Come to think of it, perhaps she isn't. I'm also a ton of knit nights behind because of flu season in this house, on top of working and crafting and getting the kids to their swim and skating lessons. Spring break's next week, and you won't believe how much I'm looking forward to it!

But I do have a few pretty photos to show you! I took a great weaving class at the Madrona Fiber Festival, and came home with a wee Schacht Cricket loom. It's been a lot of fun practicing my new skills (yes, Dotty, I could have been blogging when I was weaving).

And I figured out how to get pooling sock yarns into weaving, as well! Here's my loom, all warped with a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock.

And here's the finished scarf. The weft yarn was Kraemer Silk & Silver, and yes, you can sort of see some of the sparkly silver peeking through the scarf. A typical sock yarn skein width, pooled, gives you about a 6' by 10" woven scarf.

Here's what I had left over — just a smidge of the skein was left, laid out here beside its sibling.

And a family portrait — with the Kraemer spooning at the back.

more Hawaii

2011-03-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry to disappear like that. The week seems to have whipped past me without me noticing. Here's a continuation of our Hawaii adventures...

After spending half a day stomping around Pearl Harbour (and it is a fantastic historical site. We ran out of time so we didn't get to tour the USS Missouri or the submarine. Next time, we'll allot a entire day), we waited, and waited for the shuttle (which never arrived) to take us to the Aloha Stadium swap meet. We ended up hopping in the car and driving over. It's massive. Imagine walking around an entire football stadium full of stalls selling stuff. So. Much. Stuff. And it's all so cheap. Hubby and I bought some Hawaiian hats. We got a couple of Hawaiian shirts. You could buy quilts:

I bought a small cushion cover from this vendor. We also found a bakery stall and I bought some haupia flavoured Hawaiian Pretzels (OMG - deep fried crispy goodness) and hubby picked a coffee cake.

We drove over to Aiea for a little more shopping - hubby went to a bike store and I went to Fabric Mart. Wow. That place is amazing. So many fabrics! I mostly bought Hawaiian prints (for skirts & tops). I think my jaw dropped when I walked in the door.

We headed back to the hotel for their cocktail & entertainment hour (music, shiatsu, drinkies). The drive back took forever. Traffic is a nightmare. The highway is 6 lanes across in each direction and it's jam packed. Even after we got off the H1, it was crazy busy on the side roads all the way back to the hotel. I'll never complain about traffic at home again.

We eventually wandered over to the Hilton across the street in search of some supper. Hubby had a tip about a pizza place that was half decent. We found it and hubby ordered a Hawaiian pizza (ham & pineapple). Only he would eat a Hawaiian pizza in Hawaii. We wandered around the shops after supper and imagine my surprise when I saw this:

It's mounted on the outside of a hotel. The outside. That is completely unheard of out here. In fact, the hotel lobby was completely open to the elements. Don't they worry about critters getting into the building?

That's it - our first full day in Hawaii and it was spectacular.

Pearl Harbour

2011-03-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

Our first stop was a very sobering visit to Pearl Harbour. Almost 70 years later, the impact of the Japanese attack is still very much apparent. I could feel every one of the 1000+ lives lost while standing on the USS Arizona memorial.

The moment of silence that I observe every Remembrance Day will have new meaning to me.

ETA: You can click on the pics for a bigger image. But here's what the above plaque says:

Dear Lord / Lest I continue / My complacent way / Help me to remember
Somehow out there / A man died for me today. / As long as there be war
I then must / Ask and answer / Am I worth dying for?

Poem Eleanor Roosevelt kept in her wallet during World War II

aloha

2011-03-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

We're back from a week in Hawaii. We had a great time but it's good to be back home with our kitties. The day after we got home, I got hit by the flu. Hubby got sick in Hawaii so it was just a matter of time before I got sick, too. I've been flat on my back for three whole days. Today is the first time I've felt vaguely human.

We picked the perfect week to go. Our area experienced record breaking low temps plus a huge dump of snow. Lucky for us, the snow melted and it warmed up before we came home.

I'll be posting more pics and stories about our vacation shortly. Mahalo!

Ricky and the pawbreaker

2011-02-26T21:18:00.000-08:00

Last month, I posted about a new cat toy - the Pawbreaker. Well, I got a video of Ricky playing with it (see - I told you there'd be more cat movies :) You'll have to excuse the poor lighting - Ricky knocked the thing into a dark corner.

Phoebe and the cycling jersey

2011-02-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

Our cats are attracted to some pretty unusual things. For example, Ricky likes the smell of feet & loves sticking his head into a freshly vacated shoe. He'll roll around like he's on a catnip high. And he'll only do it with hubby's shoes. Phoebe has a similar attraction to hubby's clothes. In particular, his stinky cycling stuff - the stinkier the better. Enjoy:

(We got a Flip video camera at Christmas so expect more cat videos)

Hubby must have a scent that the cats find irresistible. He is their favourite lap/sleeping spot/cuddle buddy.

PS. We don't leave clothes all over the floor. I took this video in the bathroom while hubby was showering.

wacky weather

2011-02-19T10:48:00.001-08:00

Thurs was an incredibly crazy weather day. Hail started falling from the sky and kept falling. After about half an hour, my backyard looked like this:

The pellets weren't very big but there was a lot of them and it kept coming down:

It was very localized - starting about 2km to the west of my house and ending about 3km to the east. So drivers weren't prepared and many got into trouble. I had to drive to my weekly quilt meet-up and saw many accidents/stuck cars. There were two Miatas spinning out on the hwy. I got stuck behind a semi waiting to turn left. The road that he was trying to reach was blocked by a semi with a back wheel perched on the center median. The cab was pointing uphill which made it impossible for him to move. I had to drive around the semi waiting in the left turn lane and then drive around the one that was stuck. When I got to the top of the hill, there was a police car blocking the road. A minivan was perpendicular to the road and wasn't able to move out of the way. I was forced to turn left and go the long way around the golf course. You can see pics of the stuck yellow semi and the mini van in the Vancouver Sun's website. My car did fine driving in the mess - love my 4 wheel drive and super fancy snow tires! My Dad asked me on Wed when I was going to take my snow tires off. I think I'll wait until March just to be sure because they're predicting snow for the beginning of next week. Didn't the groundhogs forecast an early spring this year?!?!?!

Not a lot of knitting this week. My sock mojo has up and left me. There are half finished socks all over the house and I have no interest. This is very odd.

I haven't blocked the fuzzy Sasquatch sweater pieces because I don't have anywhere to lay it out to dry. The guest bed is currently occupied - I'm looking at you, Ricky!

I made the necessary repairs to the pink sweater. I shortened and reknit the cuffs on the sleeves. I also took out the ribbing on the body and lengthened it. But when I was done and tried it on, the center cable panel looked "wrong". Like I'd forgotten to cable at the bottom. So I ripped it out again, added an extra cable twist in the appropriate place, and reknit the hem. It's also waiting to be blocked.

Yesterday and today are bright, sunny days and it seems like the hail never even happened. Ricky is very happy about the sunshine.

Awwwwwww!

utter & complete sweater failure

2011-02-14T08:18:00.001-08:00

I finished the Mondo Cable Pulli:

But I can't wear it. The body blocked out to the correct measurements yet my belly button gets drafty when I wear it. The length in the back is fine but I think the cable pulls the fabric up so the front needs to be longer to compensate. Either that or "the girls" are too big. I'm going to rip out the ribbing and add an inch and see how that looks. The second problem is the sleeves. They are very, very looooong. So long that you can't even see my thumbs. Those'll be ripped back and reknit. I am so happy that I didn't weave in all the ends before blocking.

I started another sweater while I was waiting for the pink one to dry. I'm using this crazy super bulky furry yarn called Gedifra Sombra (80% wool, 20% nylon) that will make me look like sasquatch's younger sister when I wear it.

I started knitting Fri - completing the front, the back, and one sleeve over the weekend. The pattern calls for 13 balls of yarn. I was halfway through the 12th ball with one more sleeve (120g) and the collar to knit plus seaming. I double checked my gauge and all my measurements and everything looks right. I even weighed some of the balls to see if any were short.

I knit the second sleeve and half the collar (I don't want it that wide) using the very last bits of the 14th skein this morning. I will have to unravel my 12g gauge swatch for seaming in order to avoid breaking into a 15th ball. Because I used extra yarn, I don't think I have enough to knit my sister's sweater. I got the Sombra at a big sale and I doubt there's any left. Pooh!

better late than never

2011-02-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

Remember last May, Gladys and I had a big fundraiser to help our hubbies raise money for Ride2Survive? One of the prizes was a pair of handknit socks. Linda - you will be pleased to know that your socks are finally done! And I'm going to spoil the surprise by blogging about it.

Pattern: Thelonious by Cookie A.
Yarn: Wollmeise 80/20 Twin Sock in col Stella Polaris
Needles: 2.5mm Addi Turbo circs
Notes: My 58th pair of socks.

It does not normally take me this long to knit a pair of socks. I originally started with a different pattern. After knitting an entire leg (of twisted stitches and complicated cables), heel flap, and heel turn, the sock ended up being way, way too small. I couldn't pull it over my heel so there was no way it was going to fit Linda. The sock was unraveled and the yarn put into time out while I dug around for a different pattern. The next pattern had to be a little more forgiving size-wise (i.e. not twisted sts). In the end, I settled on Thelonious because it's lace & lots of ribbing. Christmas knitting got in the way so I only managed to get one sock knit in 2010 and finished the second sock yesterday night. I hope Linda likes them. And they'd better fit!

hoppy new year

2011-02-06T14:30:00.001-08:00

It's Chinese New Year and the year of the rabbit. I thought it appropriate to knit myself a new sweater in pale pink.

I started the sweater last weekend and was hoping to have it finished this weekend but as you can see, it still needs a sleeve, neckband #3, and a lot of blocking. I've knit the neckband twice but both times it looked horrible. The third time should be a charm. It's superwash yarn and my math says that the body should block out to the correct length but it looks so short on me when I put it on. I'll be biting my nails until I can try it on after blocking.

I like wearing short sleeve t-shirts but sometimes my arms get chilly when I'm sitting still. I had some yarn leftover from the great fingerless mitt knit-a-thon of '10 so I made myself a pair of arm warmers.

Pattern: my own
Yarn: Gedifra Volata Tweed; col 9046; 2 skeins (total 100g; 200m)
Needles: 5.5mm dpns

Ricky has been a bad kitty - stealing Phoebe's sleeping spot. She gets a heated bed for her arthritis and last week's chilly temps meant that he was searching for a warm place to sleep. So I bought him a heating pad. When I got home, I put down an old towel, plugged in the heating pad, and covered it with another towel. I walked away and when I came back, Ricky was lying on it. The heating pad wasn't even warm yet. He loves it. See:

and the winner is...

2011-01-31T08:53:00.001-08:00

I'm so sorry! It totally slipped my mind that I was supposed to draw the winner yesterday. I blame it on sweater brain. I cast on a new sweater (not hubby's) and I was madly knitting on it before & after work yesterday. After last year's sweater fiasco (long story short: I knit a sweater but it's too big because I shrank), I'm knitting a size smaller and I'm dying to find out whether it will fit. The faster I knit, the better it'll fit, right?

Anyways, the correct answer to the contest's skill testing question is 12. I finished a grand total of 12 pairs of socks last year. A very small drop in the bucket compared to Gladys who has knit something like 15 pairs of socks in the last 4 months. I'm sure if we knew how many she knit last year, we'd all swoon with envy.

C., Jade, and pencraftco correctly guessed 12 and the RNG (Ricky is unavailable to assist me; see below) picks pencraftco. Yay! Send me an email at yarnfloozy AT gmail DOT com and I'll get your prize in the mail.

I was grocery shopping last week and had to pick up some cat food for Phoebe. I did a quick browse of the toy section and found Pawbreakers. They're a hard compressed ball of catnip. I threw one of those in my shopping cart.

I had a lot of groceries so it took me multiple trips from the car to get everything into the house. During one of my trips, I found this:

Yes, that is Ricky face-first in the bag hunting around for the Pawbreaker.

After he successfully fished it out of the bag, he proceeded to slobber all over it.

I eventually rescued it from him, wiped the spit off the package, and put the Pawbreaker on the ground. He loves it. It's a little tricky to play with because it rolls really well on the hardwood floors. Phoebe gave it a smack and it rolled clear across the house, through the dining room and ended up under a chair in the living room. So we've quarantined the Pawbreaker in one of their shallow food bowls to keep it from disappearing.

It's a sunny day today so I'll have the opportunity to take pics of my new projects. I hope that sweater fits otherwise, you're getting a picture of frogged yarn.

off the wagon

2011-01-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

I seem to have fallen off the blogging wagon. I don't know how that happened. I'll have to chalk it up to sheer laziness because I do have lots to blog. And even a contest to tell you about.

I have been knitting. All sorts of stuff and I'm battling a bit of startitis. But I resolve to only cast on a new project if I finish an existing one. So far, so good.

Last week, I finished a pair of socks for a Rav KAL and surprised Gladys when I gave them to her for her birthday (a little early).

Pattern: standard top down sock; 64 sts; slipped stitch heel flap
Yarn: Crystal Palace Mini Mochi, col 102; 2 skeins used
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: One skein had two breaks which completely interrupted the colour progression and the other didn't have any knots. The yarn has a slight thick'n thin texture but it's very subtle. It's a very squishy yarn for a single. It's not overspun and I didn't have any biasing issues. It's very soft. My 57th pair of socks.

Thank you to Gladys' hubby for helping me out with the measurements. While Gladys was at knit nite, he photographed a pair of her socks with multiple rulers so that I could read off the numbers that I needed. What a great guy!

I teach classes at my LYS and this year, hats/tams/berets are very popular so I thought that I'd teach a class. I've been auditioning patterns since Dec. One pattern required 4 different sets of needles, there were buying issues with two other patterns, and the latest one was just too tricky for an advanced beginner class. But I loved it so much that I made one for myself anyways.

Pattern: Liffey by Knotting Noodles
Yarn: Blue Moon Socks That Rock Mediumweight in col Mustang Sally

Needles: 3.25mm circs & dpns
Notes: I had some issues with the pattern. See my Rav project notes for details. This hat is a bit on the tall side for me. When I pull it down, it pushes on the temples of my glasses. I'm going to block it wider to see if that pulls the crown down. For the icord edging, I picked up sts along the cast on and did an applied icord. The only advantage is that it's easier to keep the icord from twisting. The yarn bled onto my hands during knitting. My nails are pink and so is the finger holding the yarn. I expect that it'll bleed quite a bit in the wash (these pictures show the hat unblocked).

So I'm looking for my next project to cast on. I've swatched for hubby's Dale of Norway Whistler sweater. I got gauge on 3.5mm needles but I need to block it before making a final decision. The only thing I'm missing is a 3mm circ for casting on.

I'm itching to do something with my Socks That Rock. I really, really, REALLY love this yarn and up til now, I've only used it to make socks. But the hat is making my fingers want to knit more of it but I'm a little tired of socks right now. Maybe I'll dig up that pooling scarf that I started last year. It's been put on the back burner because hubby thinks that it's too scratchy to wear against his neck. Why did I have to marry such a sensitive guy?

Our blogiversary was last week so it makes this blog officially 4 years old! Woo hoo! Now if only I can get Gladys to blog more often. I know she has at least one new pooling pattern to share with you.

To celebrate, I'd like to give some yarn away. Correctly guess how many pairs of socks that I finished in 2010 (remember that two of us blog here) and you'll win a yarny prize (TBD depending on the winner's preferences but it will probably be sock yarn). If more than one person guesses correctly, Ricky will help me pick a winner. Leave a comment on this post with your guess. Only one guess per person, please. Contest ends midnight Sat Jan 29th. I'll announce the winner on Sunday. Good luck!

scrap happy

2011-01-04T13:05:00.000-08:00

I've knit a lot of socks and consequently, I have a lot of leftovers. My feet aren't big so I usually have quite a bit left - not enough to knit another sock but too much to just throw away. Originally, I saved the yarn in case I needed it for repairs but I decided awhile ago that I'd rather knit a new sock than fix an existing one. So my bag of leftover yarn has steadily grown.

My second plan was to knit all the leftovers into "monster" socks. But I have so much good sock yarn that I'd rather knit with. You can see the dilemma that I faced. During a pre-Christmas purge, I looked at the bag of yarn and told myself that if I didn't do something with it, I had to throw it out or give it away.

Looking for inspiration, I came across a scarf that Helen made with leftover yarn. It was knit lengthwise in garter stitch and she used the ends as fringe. This idea appealed to me but she used worsted weight and she had enough matching colours that it looked nice. My scraps were too varied to look good together.

I was also attracted to a linen stitch scarf that was on display at the LYS where I work. It's knit lengthwise, too and the stitch pattern makes the scarf look woven. The quilter in me spoke up and said, "all fabrics go together if they're small enough". If I alternated a solid yarn with the scraps, everything would probably look ok. A quick rummage through the stash yielded a skein of dark purple which would work as the "base" for all the scraps. The result is my scrappy scarf.

Pattern: linen stitch; knit lengthwise
Yarn: one skein (100g) of solid sock yarn; lots and lots of scraps and each scrap needs to be long enough to work 2 rows of linen stitch
Needles: 4mm Addi Turbo Circs

Notes: I cast on using the purple. All rows worked with RS facing you. Leave a long enough tail at the beginning and end of each row to make a fringe. Worked 2 rows in scrap yarn. Worked 2 rows in purple. Repeat these 4 rows until desired width is reached. Bind off.

My original plan to use up my scraps didn't actually turn out well. I used about 50g of scraps plus 50g of the 100g skein of purple yarn which means I added 50g to my leftover bag. My scrap bag weighs exactly the same as before. Sigh.

New Year and new knit

2011-01-02T09:27:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone out there had a great holiday. Ours was filled with family, food, friends, more food, more people, and even more food. We are pooped out and still recovering from lack of sleep.

In between all that running around, I managed to start and finish a quick knit. I can't decide which picture to use so you get all 5.

Pattern: Stockholm Scarf by Knitted Bliss

Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca; 3 skeins (total 645 yds) in col 62171
Needles: 40" Addi Turbo Circs

Notes: The pattern is written for back & forth knitting. I converted it to in the round by switching Row 3 for Row 1 and Row 1 for Row 3 i.e. Row 3, Row 2, Row 1, Row 4. I also eliminated the last "k1, p1" from every round. The pattern recommends a 60" circ but the whole thing fit comfortably on 40" circs.

I love it that you can wear it a bunch of different ways. The pattern is completely reversible (very ingenious) so that no matter how it's wrapped/worn, it looks the same. The yarn is great. I've had problems with alpaca (it makes me itch yet scratchy wool doesn't bother me) but this blend is fine. It did block out very large which makes it have great drape for something so bulky.

I get to wear this for the next week and then it goes to Black Sheep Yarns to be put on display. I'm teaching this in a class. I'll get it back when the class is over. Hopefully, it'll still be cold enough to wear.

Thanks to hubby for helping me take pics. Smooches!

happy hands

2010-12-17T08:48:00.000-08:00

So.Much.Food! My little quilting group held our annual Christmas luncheon yesterday. I am so glad that I wore loose pants. There was a ton of food. We actually ran out of table space and I had to serve the soup from the kitchen. I was so full that I didn't eat supper and had a snack around 9:30pm consisting of a Bakewell tart that was leftover from the party. I brought home cabbage rolls and baked beans, too. Hubby ate all the cabbage rolls (the piggy) and some of the leftover soup. I'm going to tackle the baked beans today.

We also unwrapped our presents to each other which means that I can unveil what I've been working on.

Pattern: Funky Chunky Mitts by Lindsey Williard (Ravelry download)
Yarn: Gedifra Volata Tweed; one skein (50g; 110 yds) per pair
Needles: 5.5mm dpns
Notes: I started knitting in June but ended knitting 9 pairs in the last month. Heh - so much for getting a head start. I am so glad this project is done!

Now that I'm feeling better (thanks for all the get well wishes), baking has begun. It didn't start smoothly. The night before the first batch, I came home and hubby tells me that the oven is broken. He tried heating up a shepherd's pie and it took forever. A quick check of the oven proved that the bottom element wasn't turning on. ACK! Our appliance book (the best $40 we've ever spent) said to check the electrical connections but of course, I loaned my DMM to my Dad and if hubby had called, I would've brought it home with me. Anyways, we assumed that the element was broken and not any of the electrical innards. Hubby ran off to the parts store first thing the next morning and the oven is working again. Yay! The new element gets really hot and we managed to slightly scorch the first batch of cookies. So the rack has been raised and hopefully, things are under control now. We baked 8 doz chocolate cranberry cookies yesterday night and we're baking chocolate meltie cookies today. We're making snickerdoodles tomorrow. I'll be making cookie deliveries all next week.

And just before bed, I managed to kitchener the toe on my Christmas socks.

Pattern: my usual 60 st top down with short row heel; changed colours every 5 rows
Yarn: Diamond Yarn Luxury Collection Foot Loose; 1 sk green and 1 sk multi
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: Pair number 56! I was going to make these for my sister but I'm keeping them for myself. I love manually striped socks because I get to pick which colours to stripe.

This'll be my last post before the 25th so I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Ricky and Phoebe would like to add "Meowy Catmas":

sicko

2010-12-12T17:58:00.001-08:00

That's me in a nutshell for the last 4 days (and counting). I've caught some kind of really nasty bug. Everything hurt so badly that I couldn't even hold up a paperback book while lying in bed. All I could do was moan quietly. Phoebe took pity on me and dragged her furry self off her heated bed to keep me company. Eating has not been possible and it's rough staying adequately hydrated. I'm guzzling flat ginger ale and eating plain white bread. I'm missing out on a cinnamon bun Christmas party today. Pooh!

Not a lot of anything happening. No knitting, cleaning, baking, wrapping, etc. I am soooo behind. I need a magic wand (or an army of elves) to wave at all my Christmas cards otherwise, they'll arrive after Christmas.

Before I got sick, I finally sewed the buttons on L's Christmas present.

Pattern: my own; a combo of Tasia's cardigan and the seamless yoke from "The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns"
Yarn: Nashua Superwash in 3 different colours (dk blue, light blue, yellow) and Dream in Color Classy in Go Go Grassy. I used 2 skeins of dk blue and just small amounts of the other colours.
Needle: 4.5mm for the body and 4.0mm for the button band
Notes: The cardi is supposed to fit a 1-2yo. The recipient is 18mos so I hope it fits ok.

I matched the stripes on the hem and cuffs but I went wild in the yoke. Switching colours whenever I felt like it. There were a bajillion ends to weave in but it's worth it. The pencil buttons came from a friend. She had them in her button stash. I used the DiC Classy because it's the leftover yarn from L's Dad's fingerless mitts (also a Christmas gift). Father and son will match. Awwwww!

December is sneaky

2010-12-03T11:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here updating my day planner and I'm shocked to discover that it's already December. November flew on by and I barely acknowledged it. Is it possible to rewind and play back last month?

Since it's Dec, deadlines are looming and I'm madly scrambling around. Hubby got the outdoor lights up last weekend. The tree is still in the box waiting for me to move living room furniture around to make room for it. We'll get it up this weekend even if it kills me. Today is wrap and mail all international parcels which should've gone out last week. And instead of knitting Christmas prezzies, I've been working on these:

This pooling scarf is going veeeeery slowly. It seems that I'm ripping out half of the stitches I make to get the colours to line up properly. Ugh! But it is looking very nice and worth the effort. Next time, I will choose yarn that is dyed more consistently across the skein.

And this is a new project that I cast on a few days ago when I threw down the pooling scarf in disgust. It's plain ole linen stitch. I wound a skein of dark purple and collected all my sock yarn scraps. I work 2 rows of linen stitch in purple and then I grab a contrasting yarn from the bag and work 2 more rows. I keep switching colours every 2 rows and voila. Pretty scarf.

Off to find empty boxes, packing tape, and look for my stash of Christmas cards. Only 22 days til Christmas...

more white stuff

2010-11-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

It really snowed hard yesterday. I shoveled twice - once in the morning and again in the afternoon. Hubby shoveled late in the afternoon before it started raining. It's still raining but it's going to take awhile before all the snow gets washed away. I whined to my sister who told me to "suck it up, buttercup". She's been suffering through a brutal cold snap. I read that her city was the second coldest place on Earth behind Antarctica. Brrrr - that's cold!!!!

Finally, an FO and a WIP that I can show you. At work, I finished a crochet sample for the yarn shop.

Pattern: Sunflowers Satchel by Asami Kawa
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock; col S279; one skein (100g; 328 yds)
Hook: 3.25mm
Notes: I made the smaller size. This bag will be a store sample. Overall, this was a fast & fun project. I ran into some problems right at the end - the start location of the mesh and the start location of the shoulder strap. I ripped out the mesh twice and started each side of the shoulder strap twice. The first shoulder strap error was completely my fault - I didn't see in the instructions to switch from double crochet to single crochet.

I'm taking a wee break from secret Christmas knitting to show you my attempts at pooling:

This is very boring garter stitch and nothing like what Gladys (the genius that she is) creates. If it turns out well, I might give it to hubby for Christmas.

white stuff

2010-11-20T12:07:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning to 2-3" of snow.

This is one of earliest snowfalls that I can remember where it didn't all melt by morning. It was borderline freezing so I did have to chip a layer of ice off the back steps. It's supposed to stay cold and clear so I expect the snow to last through the week.

One of the prettiest plants in my garden is the Beauty Berry bush out front. It's so pretty covered in snow.

lumpy rain

2010-11-18T22:27:00.001-08:00

Yep, it's that time of year. I encountered freezing rain and wet snow on the way to my LYS tonite. It was wet snowing on the way home. I had to take hubby's SUV (with bald-ish tires) because my Subaru was at home getting the snow tires installed. We've ordered new tires for the SUV but they haven't arrived yet so we'll be sharing my car if the snowy weather continues.

Lots of knitting going on but a lot of it is top secret so I can't blog about it.

Christmas shopping is in full swing. Hubby and I went to our first craft fair on Wed. We're going back tomorrow to look for a few more items.

Since the house is colder, Ricky has created a snuggly sleeping spot for himself.

This is a deep bookshelf in our bedroom that I use to store quilts in. Ricky reached up and pawed at one of the quilts until it fell on the floor leaving this nice little spot for him to curl up in. He's such a special kitty.

what a pain in the butt!!!

2010-11-07T11:24:00.000-08:00

Literally! I went outside yesterday after lunch to throw some tulips into the ground. I'm planting a small cutting garden. I was out there 15 mins tops in heavy sweatpants and the one mosquito in the entire province found me and bit me in the ass. It's November! How can there be any mosquitoes left? My butt itches every time I sit down. You have no idea how annoying that is. I really, really hate mosquitoes.

I've been pretty busy last week - a couple of knitting classes to teach, some homework for an upcoming class, hanging out with my peeps, and going to a book reading.

My manually striped sock is progressing well. I'm past the heel now:

This is Grant Lawrence. He's the author of the book at the book signing. The book is titled - "Adventures in Solitude: What Not To Wear To A Nudist Potluck". It's a memoir of his adventures in Desolation Sound - a boat access only recreational area. I really enjoyed reading it. The book reading was lots of fun. He showed us a short home movie and his wife, Jill Barber sang a few songs. I got my book signed and he graciously posed with my sock for a picture. While I was taking the photo, I heard a laugh behind me and it was Grant's Mom. She told me that Grant learned how to knit when he was young. Maybe holding my sock will inspire him to start knitting again?

Christmas knitting is zooming along. I have just a few finishing touches to make on the yoked sweater - weaving in the remaining ends, knitting the button bands, and sewing on the buttons.

It looks so darned cute!

Hubby is going out of town for a Yahoo conference so we spent most of yesterday catching up on housework and watching a few rental DVDs that I wanted to return today. I didn't feel like working on one of my WIPs so I cast on a new pair of socks for myself.

My MIL gave this alpaca/bamboo blend to me a few Christmases ago. I find alpaca incredibly itchy despite the fact that I'm not sensitive to wool. I've been wanting to make something nice with this yarn but the only place where I can tolerate wearing alpaca is on my feet.

Gladys has been playing around with yarn dyeing so I dragged out a few skeins of yarn this morning to over dye. I had this pretty blah skein - off white & beigey tan. Three packages of Kool Aid later (2 Changin' Cherry and 1 Berry Blast), I've got this:

It reminds me of beach glass in the sand. I like it.

After being terrorized by Ricky this week because her favourite sleeping spot is on the rug right in front of the litter box (Ricky cannot resist smacking Phoebe when she's lying there), Phoebe's found a new favourite sleeping spot.

It's an ootch too small for her butt and her tail & back leg fall off. I should go and get another one and glue them together. Or would that be spoiling her too much?

lotsa knitting going on

2010-11-01T08:49:00.001-07:00

Pattern: Dashing by Cheryl Niamath
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy; 1 skein (100g; 250 yds); col Go Go Grassy
Needles: 4mm dpns
Notes: Another Christmas gift crossed off my list. I have 40g leftover. I knit the larger size on smaller needles for a firmer fabric.

Ignore the fact that they look small on hubby. He's got monster hands and big wrists.

I immediately cast on for a child's sweater.

I'm using the seamless yoke design from The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. The hem, cuffs, and yoke will have stripes. The green is the leftover Classy from the Dashing mitts. Father & son will match!

I joined a CAL on Ravelry and I've picked socks as my project. I've never crocheted socks before so I swatched.

I got gauge on the second attempt. I think this will be fun.

I wound up a few skeins of sock yarn to make another pair of manually striped socks.

I think they look very festive. Hopefully, I'll finish them in time for Christmas.

Dyeing with a knitting loom

2010-10-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

There's a stripey sock KAL going on in one of my ravelry groups, and of course I had to join in.

Part of the discussion involved dyeing your own stripey socks -- and since I picked up a ton of easter egg dye last May, I had to try it out.

Most dyers use some kind of warping board to create their striping patterns. I had received a set of knitting looms from my mother-in-law for Christmas a few years ago, and I wondered if it would work as a warping board.

The answer: perfectly!

I wound my yarn around a section of the knitting loom a few times, then moved onto the next section for a few more rounds. I tried to keep it random, between 5-15 loops per group.

Then into the dye colours they went, purple, green and blue.

Then after a soak and a little time in the microwave, here they are. This looks like a tangled mess, but it's two skeins of yarn, and all the little loops are securely tied in a couple of places.

A little bit of a towel dry, then the loops went back onto the knitting loom to dry overnight.

I wound them off the knitting loom the next day, and they were so pretty!

So of course I had to knit them up.

And wear them.

the dreaded C word

2010-10-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

There's 56 knitting days left til CHRISTMAS. Bet you didn't know (or want to know).

I am looking at my current gift list and trying to figure out how much knitting I'll do for friends/family. To help me decide, I had a quick look at the knitting that I've been doing this year:

11 pairs of socks: 7 pairs for me; 3 pairs given away; one is a Christmas gift
1 short sleeve cardigan for me
1 short sleeve pullover for me (that's too big)
1 baby cardigan: gifted to my newest niece
1 pair of mittens for me
1 pair of fingerless mitts: bday gift for my sister
1 scarf: bday gift for my BFF
2 small shawls: one for me and one sent to my Shawl Wars target
1 mumble-mumble: Christmas gift for P-la
1 mitten: quilt label for Arlene's mitten quilt
1 crocheted scarf: store sample
Finished knitting Nancy's sweater for her

I've actually done a lot of knitting for others this year so I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't do much Christmas knitting. Since some of it is already finished (pats self on back), my current list looks like this:

BFF's hubby - fingerless mitts; 75% done
BFF's child - sweater; have yarn; no pattern picked
2 nieces - Hello Kitty hats; have yarn and pattern
Hubby - I need to frog last year's Tux mittens and reknit them so that the thumb fits.

That doesn't look too bad, does it? Certainly do-able in 56 days.

I have started Christmas shopping, too. My goal every year is to finish by the end of Nov. This year's date might slip a little since Circle Craft (a high end craft show) is scheduled 2 weeks later than usual. While I was out today, I picked up a stocking stuffer for the nieces:

This gift is definitely going to keep me in the "Favourite Auntie" spot.

I am armed

2010-10-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

There is a rodent in our house. After posting yesterday, I heard a scrabbling noise and when I looked up, I saw the soffit insulation M.O.V.E. I yelled and banged on the wall and it ran away and I'm assuming, out of the house. What is scary is that this rodent can potentially get into the rest of the house so we're keeping the doors shut to this area and I've removed all the food (a bag of gummy bears). I'm trying to decide whether to clear out my yarn and fabric (good nesting materials). Anyways, I am armed with my largest cow bell. It seemed to deter last year's roof rat. I am expecting the rodent specialists tomorrow. They will evict whatever's up there and screen off all access points (again).

sunshine and socks

2010-10-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Still on a bit of a sock knitting binge...

Pattern: plain top down sock
Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock; col 180; 2 skeins
Needles: 2mm dpns
Notes: Pair #54. I started these in Jun 2008 and they're finally done! I decided to finish them in time for hubby's bday. These were a bear to knit - 80 sts per round on teeny tiny needles in a colourway that I don't like (hubby went to the store and picked it). And hubby has size 13 feet. He's got 5 pairs of handknit socks now.

I just finished teaching a beginners knitting class and one student completely finished her scarf. Yay! And three students have signed up to take their second class. I'm still teaching my baby sweater class and that is going reasonably well. I'm scheduled to teach a sock class starting next week but no one has signed up so I expect that one will be cancelled. That's ok - more time for me to knit socks.

Pattern: top down sock; picot cuff
Yarn: Trekking XXL; col 126
Needles: 2.25mm bamboo dpns
Notes: Pair #55! I'm going to be matchy-matchy by wearing these socks and the matching mittens at the same time.

I have restarted Linda's R2S raffle socks. The previous sock was not going to fit her (after knitting the entire leg) so I ripped it out and put the yarn in timeout. This was in Aug. I can finally stand to look at the yarn but not the pattern. After some searching, I found something that would work and I've got 3" knit and I'm pretty sure it will fit ok. Fingers crossed!

Ricky doesn't really have anything to say because he's unconscious.

freak

2010-10-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

I'm in a KAL over on Ravelry and it's all about striping socks. I've got a coupla pairs on the go and this is the first one that I've finished:

Pattern: 60 st top down; 2x2 ribbed cuff; short row heel (to preserve striping)
Yarn: Yarn Candy Sweet Fiber's 100% merino sock; 2 skeins unknown colourway; 50g per skein
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: Each stripe is 5 rows. Tried a coupla jogless stripe methods and ended up using the "on the first stitch of the second round, knit into the stitch in the row below". There's a bit of a ridge where the yarn is carried but I'm hoping that will even out after a wash & block. For the heel, I knit the first half of the short row with colour A and then knit the other half of the heel with colour B. It preserved the striping on the instep. Alternated the start colour so that the toes would be different.

And lookit my new "show off hand knit socks" shoes:

I've been looking for a good pair of Mary Jane style shoes for what seems like an eternity. These aren't too dressy but they're not too casual either so I can wear them all the time.

And in the niece knitting news, my sister informs me that my niece took her knitting to bed and fell asleep while working on it. Funny but a little dangerous if she'd rolled over onto a knitting needle (even if they're blunt bamboo ones). Her tension is improving (less squeaking of yarn on the needles) and she's dropping less stitches. Woo hoo!

I look like a freak today. I walked into the bathroom this morning and my left eye is only about half open. There seems to be a bug bite on my eyelid so it's all puffed up and I've got a huge stye that seems to have cropped up in the lower lid. It looks like someone whacked me in the eye. Time to slap a warm compress on my eye and have a little lie down.

burp

2010-10-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Gladys and I are participating in Shawl Wars on Ravelry. Once you receive your death shawl, you are required to post an obituary with at least one picture of the shawl. I had the good fortune to receive a Dover Castle shawl (knit by djduckee) and it was designed by Judy Marples. Lucky me, she's a local. So I contacted her to see if she would help me with my obit pic and she said yes. What did people think of us as they were driving past this:

Clearly, we were slightly insane. But it was so much fun! Judy was a good sport and let me do pretty much anything I wanted. BTW, she brought the knitting-needle-through-the-head prop. She wore it last Halloween.

Both our families came into town for Thanksgiving. My MIL is here for an extended visit and my sis, BIL, nieces, and nephew dogs also dropped by. I missed Thanksgiving with the in-laws because I was babysitting the nieces while my sis & BIL went to her 20 year high school reunion. While they were out, I taught my nieces how to knit. The oldest wasn't really interested but she wanted to try because I was doing it. The youngest really surprised me. I showed her how to hold the needles (she calls them sticks) and wrap the yarn (she calls it string). It only took a few tries for her to accurately execute a knit stitch. When I escorted them to bed, my niece made me promise to knit with her the next day.

When I showed up Sunday morning, my niece immediately pestered me to get out the knitting. She was impatient to get started. She mostly remembered what she needed to do and only needed a few minor corrections. She knit during every spare moment. I was very impressed. I managed to lure her away from the needles when I promised to take her yarn shopping so that she could pick something out to make a scarf. After supper, we knit some more. My sister took a video of us. It's pretty cute.

This is what she made. There are a few "holes" which she told me that she did on purpose. One time, she knit the stitch with the tail instead of the working yarn. Otherwise, it's not too bad for her first piece. I have to work on her tension. She really holds the yarn tightly and you can hear the acrylic squeaking on the needles. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

The boys were downstairs doing this:

Can you spot the two Xboxs? The intense concentration is caused by playing Halo Reach on the Legendary setting.

My nieces loved their Hello Kitty Halloween trick-or-treat bags. I am their favourite Auntie. My sister would point out that I'm their only Auntie.

My sister loves her new fingerless mitts.

Pattern: Fetching by Cheryl Niamath
Yarn: Punta Yarns merisoft Hand Painted Aran; 1 skein (197 yds; 100g) in col HP52
Needles: 4mm dpns
Notes: My sister's hands are tiny! She doesn't even stretch out the ribbing. The cables don't even hug her skinny wrists. If I were to make this again for her, I would leave out one whole pattern repeat (5 sts) to make it fit better.

Dad cooked way too much food (as usual) so I expect to be eating leftovers for many days. And poor hubby has the sniffoos so I should go make him some tea or something. He's shuffling around in his snuggie. Poor baby.

the best Thanksgiving ever!

2010-10-10T12:09:00.001-07:00

My six year old niece is really knitting!!!!! I gave her a quickie lesson yesterday and today she's slowly but surely executing knit stitches. I am so proud!

favourite Auntie status

2010-10-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

How to achieve favourite Auntie status:

You make the nieces Halloween Hello Kitty trick-or-treat bags.

yarn hangover

2010-09-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

Have you started Christmas knitting yet? I have :P

Pattern: your basic top down with a picot cuff and slipped stitch heel
Yarn: SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in col River
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: These are a Christmas gift for someone special but I'm not telling who. Pair #52.

For my birthday, hubby bought me tix to see Harry Connick Jr. The concert was Fri night.

They don't allow pictures inside the theatre so this is all you get. Harry was wonderful even with a huge walking cast on his right leg (something about ripping a calf muscle while exercising). Lucky for us, leg injuries don't impact the lungs or vocal cords. It did limit his movement on stage but he did manage to shake his booty enough to make me drool a little.

Today, I have a bit of yarn hangover. Yesterday, I filled hubby's SUV with 4 other crazee knitters (3 that I'd never met before), a bunch of food, and went on a yarn crawl called Yarn Harvest.

We started out at Black Sheep Yarns (where I work) to witness the MadTosh mosh pit. It was pretty hectic. I didn't buy anything but I think everyone else in my group did. We had a knitting newbie in our group - Meggin and we worked hard at corrupting her. She broke her "only buy yarn for a specific project" rule at the very first store. I'm so proud of her.

After BSY and struggling through some crazy road construction, we made it to Baaad Anna's. Didn't buy anything there. I was saving myself for our next stop - SweetGeorgia!!!!! I was not disappointed. She had racks and racks of yarn and spinning fibre drying in the main room. We headed up to the loft area to do our "real shopping".

I just happened to have a sock WIP in my purse and I asked Felicia to pose with it.

That's vintage SweetGeorgia yarn (in the framboises colour) that she dyed before her hiatus. The picture's blurry because I might've been a little excited to hold the camera steady.

Then we headed east and into Surrey. We took a little break for lunch at Semihamoo Park in White Rock. We decided to skip Penelope's and head to Knitopia. Their new shop in White Rock is teeny tiny so there's yarn stacked right to the ceiling.

Our last stop of the day was 88 Stitches. I was hoping to meet Judy Marples but she'd already left by the time we got there. She's the designer for the Dover Castle shawl which is one of the patterns in Shawl Wars. BTW, Gladys and I are still very much alive.

And this is what the back of the SUV looks like after a yarn crawl:

Hubby's SUV is a Toyota Highlander so that you can understand the scale of our purchases. Not all of it is mine. Just this:

From left to right: 3 skeins of SweetGeorgia; 5 skeins of Yarn Candy; a skein of Berroco Lustra; and a skein of West Coast Fibre Works (the perfect Yarn Harvest colour)

I also bought half a pound of West Coast Fibre Works BFL from Knitopia for spinning:

As we headed to the restaurant to meet all the other Yarn Harvesters for dinner, I realized that I wasn't that hungry. We'd been eating all day - pakoras and chocolate coconut bars (courtesy of Marina), chips & 3 layer dip (Meggin's contribution), and a super yummy chocolate banana bread (love you, Judy).

The dinner was super fun. All these knitters crammed into the private room and spilling out into the restaurant. A lot of us showed off our purchases. The yarn fumes were overwhelming at times. After dinner, the organizers held a draw for all the door prizes.

My number was drawn twice and I won a pattern book and a small notebook for keeping track of yarn/projects i.e. the hard copy version of Ravelry. My friend, Vicki won the grand prize (valued at $275) containing yarn, patterns, Namaste bag, and a gc to Signature Needle Arts.

After being on the road for more than 12 hours, I had just enough energy to drop off everyone and then head home for my bed. I slept for 10 hours straight.

Phoebe says, "The best cure for any hangover is a little catnap on my new cardboard lounger."

stayin' alive

2010-09-20T17:21:00.001-07:00

As of this moment, Gladys and I are still alive in Shawl Wars. That might change when Gladys gets home from work today. My mailman has come & gone and all I got was the phone bill.

Last week, I finished a few things.

Pattern: generic top down sock; picot cuff; short row heel; wedge toe
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted Fingering; 2 skeins in colour Ocean Depth (a lovely gift from P-la)
Needles: 2.25mm bamboo
Notes: These were the socks in all those blurry PNE pictures. 51st pair of finished socks (yes, I'm counting). This yarn is lovely and reminds me of Koigu (especially the yardage). I have size 8 feet and there are a few yards left from each skein. The picot cuff uses more yarn than I'm used to.

And I also finished the Ride2Survive raffle quilt:

I searched high and low for a nice binding fabric. Nothing really suited the look of the quilt. I ended up buying more of the sashing fabric. It looks ok but I still think I prefer a more zingy edge. Hopefully, the recipient will like it. I used one charm pack - Flutterby by Tula Pink. It's about 65" x 70" - a very generous lap quilt. I machine quilted it diagonally using my walking foot. Each pass consists of one gentle wavy line going in one direction and a second pass with the wave going the other way to create leaf/petal shapes. I try to hit a seam where the two quilting lines intersect. This method doesn't require pre-marking the quilt.

I've cast on several knitting projects recently - a Christmas gift (yes, it's that time of year again), something totally crazy but fun, and a special request from my sister. She switched jobs and it seems that her new office is in a very old building. One end of her floor is a sauna and the other end is an icebox. Guess where she's located? Her space heater blew the breaker so she's stuck using an electric blanket to stay warm. But her fingers are still cold and she's requested a pair of fingerless mitts for her birthday. Time to whip up a pair of Fetching for her.

Shawl Wars!

2010-09-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've been doing Shawl Wars with Dotty, and it's definitely been crazy on the knitting front.

My "weapon" was the Springtime Bandit, and it went all the way to England, where it "killed" its target earlier this week.

And we get bonus points in the war for finishing a personal shawl, so I did the Spring Leaves shawl (ravelry link) with a slight modification to the tips, to make them triangular.

It's been fun to just knit an already-written pattern and not worry about pooling or figuring out how a pattern will work. I've got a long list of patterns I want to make, and an even deeper stash to make them all with!

Finally, if you've been wanting to do a pooling project, we've got a Knit-along (KAL) going in the Pooled Knits group in Ravelry. Prize will be something from my stash, and I'll try to pick something that suits the winner's taste in colours. It will likely be a pooling skein unless the winner prefers otherwise!

And last but not least, here's something we did on our summer vacation.

I can't believe we're halfway through September already. The boys are both in school -- though Geoff won't be in fulltime kindergarten until next Monday -- and loving their teachers and really enjoying seeing their friends every day.

end of summer

2010-09-13T17:59:00.001-07:00

Attending the PNE is always bittersweet for me. It's a big attraction that I look forward to all summer long. But when it's on, I know that my summer days are numbered.

I like to see and eat everything at the PNE. This year was no different - Superdogs, RCMP musical ride, giant Clydesdales pulling wagons, Peking acrobats, Motorsport show, and lots and lots of animals. There were a coupla giant bunnies that weighed more than Ricky!

This is a giant eco-sculpture of a Carousel Horse. All the plants are alive. The City of Burnaby makes several of them and they are on display all over the city.

The PNE hosted a sand building competition. This one caught my eye:

If you are a Terry Pratchett/Discworld fan (I am cuz I had one of his books in my backpack), you'll know why I took this picture. He looks just like the Librarian (who through an unfortunate accident was turned into an orangutan). I asked the sculptor if it was the Librarian and she said no. I showed her my book and she promised to look it up.

All the sculptors contributed to a huge display to commemorate the 100th year of the Fair:

It was ginormous!!! And so detailed. I am very glad that we got to see it because it was pouring rain two days later.

So what did we eat? Our weight in mini donuts. I had my choice of deep fried delicacies - butter, jelly beans, and oreos. I've tried the oreos before. The jelly bean reviews weren't favourable. And deep fried butter?!?!? I settled for funnel cake and a whale's tail (a big triangle of deep fried dough with your choice of topping).

Also signalling the end of summer is my raspberries. I picked these today - just over a pound. I'm getting that amount of raspberries every 2-3 days for the last 3 weeks.

This might be the last batch. It is getting rainy and cold outside and it doesn't dry out enough between rain showers so the berries are getting mouldy.

Ricky loves this time of year. It means that his beloved sunshine is back and he can sleep in it again.

catching up

2010-09-11T17:10:00.001-07:00

Hey! I'm back. I didn't actually go anywhere (far away) but I've been busy. This will be the first of several posts while I get the blog caught up. Plus there are good kitty pictures that must be made public!

Today, it is all about the knitting. The last project I posted about was my Claudia Hand Paint socks. I did a lot of knitting on it during the last two weeks in August. There is an annual fair held in Vancouver called the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). This is the 100th year and they had an amazing line up of performers. To open the fair, The Beach Boys and Bryan Adams played at the outdoor football stadium adjacent to the fairgrounds. Sadly, I had to work and missed out. Hubby and I bought fair seasons passes mainly to attend the evening concerts. It was the best $94 I've ever spent.

ETA: There was a Michael Bolton concert but I forgot to bring my camera :(

Huey Lewis and The News:

A family of 3 plopped their chairs right beside our blanket and when I glanced over, I immediately recognized Cat. She's a former knitting student of mine and regularly visits the yarn store where I work. Both our hubbies were quite surprised that we managed to bump into each other by accident. And we brought our knitting:

RCMP Musical Ride:

Spirit of the West:

Jesse Cook - by far the best concert!!!

Cyndi Lauper - she is awesome but even Cyndi Lauper can't make me like the blues:

You can see that I didn't bring my sock to the CL concert. I joined a knitting competition on Ravelry. The goal is to knit as fast as you can and get the finished shawl to your recipient (aka target). I couldn't lose precious knitting minutes so I went to the concert prepared:

I love my portable Ott-Lite.

The day after was our last concert - Steven Page (former lead singer for the Barenaked Ladies):

As you can see, I'm back to sock knitting. The shawl was at home drying.

Pattern: Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborn
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Happy Forest; 1 skein
Needles: 4mm
Notes: 5 repeats of the main chart before edging. Cast on approx 8am Fri & cast off approx 2pm Sat. In the mail @ 10:30am on Sun. As of this post, the shawl still hasn't arrived at its destination

As part of the knitting competition, you can knit a second shawl (to keep) for extra points. I thought I'd take the opportunity to make a Christmas present. I shopped in Gladys' WM stash on Sunday night and found the perfect yarn. I cast on Mon and finished knitting this morning. It's already blocked and looks stunning. I can't post pics or info cuz the recipient reads this blog so I'll leave you with a link to my Rav project.

Not including the Claudia HP sock, I've plowed through approx. 819 yds of fingering yarn last week. No wonder my thumbs hurt.

dropping by to say, "hi"

2010-08-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

Still here... But way too busy to blog much. Don't worry, I'm still knitting and buying yarn.

Long Overdue Ride2Survive Part 2

2010-08-16T21:53:00.002-07:00

Sorry again...I promised I'd post the second half of the Ride2Survive ride and I haven't. Part 1 left off at the summit of the Coquihalla highway...

We hit rain from the old toll booths to the corner near Zopkios Brake check (that's that rest stop just before the big down hill). For those who don't know the area, that's about 3/4 of a mile where it rained. It was a nice cooling rain...not the "oh boy...here we go again" kind of rain.

I'd spent the previous few days on the phone with various authorities responsible for maintaining the highways and getting an update on the construction that was happening on the steep downhill known as "Snowshed Hill". We would have to keep our speed to 60kph/40mph through the construction zone. That may sound fast, but on a 4km/2.5mile stretch of road that is more than 8% downhill, and has parts at 11% that's brake-cookingly slow. We made it down safe and sound and entered the tunnel. Soon after the tunnel the wind we'd been missing for the last 3 hours appeared full force.

We were riding downhill into a ferocious headwind and the group began to split up. Folks at the front were rolling at 35kph, and I had teamed up with Chris to try and pull the back of the group up. The problem was, we couldn't go more than about 32kph. Riders behind me couldn't stay with me if I went any faster, and I couldn't go much faster myself pushing into that headwind. I got on the radio and tried to get the lead pilot car to slow up, but we still couldn't close the gap very quickly. We were most of the way down the hill and the wind was still blowing hard when we finally closed the gap. I was exhausted.

We pulled off onto Othello Road to take the back way into Hope and were finally out of the wind. It's a nice winding road that's generally not very busy because there's a 110kph/65mph highway "just over there" that goes to the same place. The road winds along the river and finally has a nasty little uphill section about 400m/1/4mile at 10% before the gentle "coast" into Hope.

I'd been feeling pretty good up to this point in the ride, and the group's morale had been fantastic. We got real quiet at the bottom of this climb and the words of encouragement were called out to riders struggling as we neared the top. I saw Al pushing Vicki up the last part of the hill and smiled - there's a running joke Vicki and I have about our love for hills. So there we were about 3/4 of the way up this grunt of a hill, and that's where it really stopped going well for me. My right abductor started to cramp. Don't worry if you don't know where that is...I had to cramp it before I found out I had one. Actually you have two. If you put your hand, palm down on the top of your thigh, your thumb lands on the inside of your thigh. That's your abductor. I found myself trying to pedal a bike up this hill while being unable to push the right pedal. I got a little further up the hill pushing with only my left leg and was driving my right thumb into my thigh to stop the cramp. It wasn't working...I called to Al to give me a hand and he started to push me up the hill.

I couldn't pedal any more...my right thigh was cramping up just from being pushed around by the pedal, so I had to ask Al to push me while I stopped pedaling. So there we were...Al pedaling for both of us to get the last 50m over the hill, and I was bruising my thigh to stop a cramp. I pretty-much coasted into Hope with occasional pushes from Al to keep my speed up, and I headed straight for the food after carefully dismounting from my bike. "I must be running out of electrolytes" I thought. (In hindsight, I may have been over-dosed on the electrolytes.) I had some potato chips, some chicken noodle soup, some water...and tried to stretch my cramping leg.

There was a lady from our local community TV channel filming a documentary on the ride. There's a clip of me in the program, sitting on a park bench eating and I'm asked,

"How do you feel?"

"Tired and proud." I reply. Five minutes later, I was sitting on the grass, unable to move either leg. Both my quadriceps and my other abductor were cramping. The wheels had fallen off, and I would not be leaving Hope on my bike.

The picture here sets the scene. Danika is there with her camera to the left. Al's in the foreground with his shoes off and the white socks. I'm sitting on the park bench in the background frantically shoveling food into my face.

The next photo has Dotty taking a picture of Gladys and me. See I'm still smiling.

And then I've tracked down

the Massage Therapist who

was a volunteer on the ride to help. The paramedics have given me a heat pad for my muscle and it's not really helping.

We take a group photo in Hope of all the riders and volunteers together. I couldn't stand up to get myself over there. So, Kelsey, Kerry and

Ray carried me over and set me down in the photo. I'm at the bottom left in the front row.

I was afraid to move for fear of cramping again, and I worried the you-know-what out of my wife. Sorry dear.

After the photo, the riders mount up and head back on the road for the last 140km to home. The wind was blowing still, and I would be doing the next leg in the back of the RV. The ambulance was the only other

choice, and once you get in the ambulance, your ride is done.

I drank a lot of water over the next hour or so...went to the bathroom (that's a good sign - it means you're not dehydrated), and generally had a great time talking to volunteers and relay riders in the RV.

I saw a side of R2S I've never seen before and I was back up and walking about by the next rest stop in Deroche. Right after the stop in Deroche is a 1.5km hill at 11% and it's not the sort of thing one tries to ride up with cold legs that have recently cramped up. I was back into the RV to the Mission rest stop. More water, more bathroom visits and some more food. I was helping unload luggage and handing out food and snacks at the Mission rest stop and cheering riders on as they rolled out. Many asked how I was, and I was feeling fine.

The sunset was beautiful and I changed from the RV to the pickup that was towing the trailer with my bike in it for the next leg. I re-joined the ride in Surrey and rode the final stretch in with the pack. It's a fantastic event and a fantastic thank you to riders, volunteers, family and supporters that were there to welcome us home.

Congratulations to Markus for finishing the ride, and to our wives for surviving the day. Volunteering on this ride is not easy and the riders can't do it without them.

Thank you to you readers too for allowing the annual R2S intrusion into this blog and for your support of the ride. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go put my newly made "STP bike ride" socks away. They're STR Cougar (yes, that's "Socks that Rock" STR) and they were made to replace the pair I wore out. It's very sad when you wear a hole though a favourite pair of socks. But, it's okay when you can buy more yarn and your wife will happily craft a new pair.

Tony.

Watercress Leaves pooling stole

2010-08-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Would you like another pooling pattern? I bound this off last night. It was so much fun to work on. You may recognize the leaves from the Flower Power Stole — the were a little lost in that one, and I loved them so much that I thought they deserved their own full pattern. This one's going to Teri, who donated the gorgeous bags to our Ride2Survive cancer fundraiser — thank you so much, Teri!

The yarn is Wollmeise 100% merino, and the colourway is called Bob. The colour is described as:
Green, yellow and orange like nasturtium (literally "nose-twister" or "nose-tweaker"), as a common name, refers to a genus of flowering plants.

Wikipedia's comment: The name Nasturtium comes from the Latin nasus tortus, meaning "twisted nose", in reference to the effect on the nasal passages of eating the plants.

As an aside: I did think about calling this the Twisted Nose pooling stole, but then I realized that people probably wouldn't want to knit something with that name.

Note: If you're new to the pooling technique, please read the first pattern in this series to get a good idea of how to figure out where your yarn will pool. Also, if you need any additional support, there's now a Pooled Knits discussion group on Ravelry (registration required), which has quite a few people who are experimenting with different pooling projects, and are happy to help out with beginners to this technique.

Watercress Leaves pooling stole

Using an "e" or backwards loop cast-on, cast on 83 stitches onto a US7 needle. Please see my previous posts about figuring out your own "magic number" to cast on, depending on your tension on the needles you've chosen.

Knit garter stitch for 6 rows.

Start working with the chart below. The stitches in orange are your garter edging. My edging had 2 edge stitches on either side (4 total), but your edging will be different depending on your stitch tension, so please add or subtract stitches as you need to.

(Click on the chart to get it in a larger, more printable size.)

End with a Row 1 or Row 7 (to close off a leaf tip).

Knit garter stitch for 6 rows.

Bind off very loosely using a sewn bindoff, to maintain the pooling.

Block and pin out the stole.

the big five-oh

2010-08-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't age a decade in the last month but sometimes it feels like it. We're mostly recovered from the camping trip although our cookie stash is still severely depleted. I made 8 doz chocolate chip pecan cookies and they didn't make it past day 3 of our camping trip. Yes, we're oinkers when it comes to cookies. The nieces definitely helped out.

The other big thing that happened is that we finally figured out why my computer (less than a year old) has been acting flaky the last 8 months - bad RAM. It started out with the odd app error and escalated to full out OS crashing. We ran a diagnostic tool which pointed a big finger at computer memory. I convinced hubby to yank the RAM out of his computer and put it into my computer. We ran the tests again and the RAM passed so at least, we knew it wasn't the onboard memory that was flaky. Hubby did some research and I made him pick out a "better than good" RAM for me to buy. I installed the new memory and I've been crash free for 3 weeks. I don't even want to think about what data might be corrupt on my HD...

Pattern: plain top down 60 sts with picot cuff & short row heel
Yarn: Socks That Rock Lightweight; col unknown (mill end from Sock Summit; might be Spy Say Guacamoly)
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: Number FIFTY!!!! Yes, I have knit 50 pairs of socks. I've been knitting socks for 4 years now and I'm averaging about a pair each month. That's pretty good.

I've been working on another pair of socks which are top secret. But after completing the first leg, I had to rip the whole thing out. I decided that it was too tight in the leg and the row gauge was so far out that the heel wasn't working out. It's one of those Cat Bordhi heels and my row gauge resulted in a too-high instep. I'm going to go up a needle size (to solve the too tight leg) and use the shorter instep heel instructions.

I always need a plain pair of socks to work on. So I dug in my stash (nearly got lost) and pulled some Claudia Hand Paint that P-la gave me for my birthday last year.

The base reminds me of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock which I absolutely love - my second favourite behind STR.

Sadly, I haven't gotten very far. I seem to have hurt the thumb on my right hand. When I grip stuff a certain way - chopsticks, steering wheel, knitting needle - it hurts. I don't know why but it does. So I'm giving my thumb a rest. If I hurts, I won't do it. I haven't knit for 3 days and it does feel better. This self-imposed ban is driving me a little crazy but it's not like I don't have stuff to work on.

I finished sewing on the binding on a quilt top that I rescued.

It's taken me 3 years but it's finally done. Talk about a labour of love. I bought two embroidered tops and carefully took one completely apart. Then I took one strip of blocks from the second top apart because those blocks clearly matched the other quilt top. There was a lot of careful measuring and cutting to get all the blocks the same size. I fixed up some of the embroidery where the knots had come undone or the tails had been pulled to the front. I used Fray Check on some of the places where there wasn't enough tail to make a knot. I hunted high & low until I found the perfect sashing & border fabric (Aunt Grace 30's repro print). I preserved the original layout of the blocks. With one exception - I accidentally turned one the blocks on its side. Oops! The backing is unbleached muslin. It's machine pieced & hand quilted. All that's left is a label. I'm going to see if I can use pre-treated fabric in my new printer otherwise, I'll have to go the iron-on transfer route. I know what the label will say. It will identify the flowers in each block and document the construction of the top. This is one quilt that will hang on a wall to preserve the embroidery.

I've also pulled out my drop spindle. I had some BFL on there and decided to ply it to see how it looked.

I was aiming for fingering but I seem to have lace instead (that's Claudia HP on the right).

That's why the spindle never seemed to fill up no matter how long I was spinning. Oh well... I don't have much of the BFL (and the store that I buy it from no longer has a source) so I'm trying for fingering with another fiber before I return to the BFL. Wish me luck.

Neither cat has been very photogenic lately. Phoebe is sleeping under the bed and Ricky's in a heap on the washing machine. A few days ago, they were standing guard by their food bowls. Every time you got near them, they would dance on their paws and meow at you. When you left, they'd settle down and wait.

Phoebe's sitting on the new step stool that I bought from Ikea. It helps her and Ricky reach the "cat shelf". I used to have a small desk in front of that window but the cats were always sleeping on my stuff and knocking bits onto the floor so I got rid of the desk and installed a shelf for them. I'm well trained, aren't I?

is it a bird? or a plane?

2010-08-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

No, it's paragliders!!!! All pics are clickable if you want to see more detail.

We stopped for a few days to visit hubby's parents and there was a big paragliding competition in town.

We drove out to the landing fields and watched the action from the ground.

This is Peter (already landed) and Hugo (still hovering). They're part of a group that takes the general public out for tandem paragliding flights. They take off from the top of Mount 7 - the leftmost pointy peak just under the rightmost wispy cloud. Each ride lasts about 20 mins long. It's pretty neat to see them floating around for so long.

You can't really see it in the picture but my in-laws live about halfway up Mount 7. If you can spot the 20ft high white cross, that's their place.

While we were waiting to see the pictures & videos from the tandem flights, the competitors took off from the launch site.

I'm not entirely sure how many were in the air simultaneously but each of us counted at least 17 paragliders.

Before we left the landing fields, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the gophers. They were everywhere. My FIL said that someone broke her ankle when her foot got stuck in one of the gopher holes.

We drove up to the top of Mount 7 for a different view of the paragliders. I took this picture the minute we stepped out of the SUV.

I couldn't believe how high up they were after they were in the air for over 15 mins. They were way above our heads and we parked almost at the top. See:

The competitors are given their flight specifics (i.e. gravel pit, then airport, and back to the gravel pit) before take-off. The gliders use GPS to mark their positions and times and the judges use that information when awarding points.

We watched lots of people take off. The landing field is the green/brown patch nearest the Kicking Horse River and directly below the paraglider. Speaking of the river, we went into town the following day and visited our favourite timber-framed pedestrian bridge.

A plaza, garden, and water feature had been added since we'd last been there.

I really liked the ironwork around the plaza. In a few years, the climbing roses will make it look truly spectacular.

A trip through the Rocky Mountains means wildlife sightings. One morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast and a movement just past the flower bed caught my eye. I thought maybe it was a deer or maybe the dog, Jemima. Noooooo! It was a massive black bear. I pointed and shouted, "Bear! Bear! Bear!". Hubby came running followed closely by my MIL. The bear looked at us (probably because I'd been yelling) and then continued up the mountain. My MIL was very impressed and she thinks it's the largest bear she's seen on their property. It's the closest that I've ever been to a wild bear. Of course, there were gophers everywhere. We even saw a gopher sitting on the concrete barricade by the side of the highway on our drive home. Hubby saw a coyote in the slough.

I picked up the cats from the boarders. Phoebe was perched on a shelf way above my head and I couldn't grab her so I had to bribe her down with treats. Ricky was on the shelf above the window and when he saw me wave the cat carrier around, he zoomed down the cat condo and hid in the bottom. When I pulled him out, his tail was all poofed out. Both of them cried the whole way home - one very long hour.

When we got home, Phoebe gave us the usual cold shoulder. Ricky is usually fairly clingy but this time he was super clingy. Followed us everywhere. Both of us were outside doing stuff and he sat at whatever window he could see us from and yelled at the top of his lungs. When we came inside, he'd rush over to us and meow his relief that we came back. I couldn't go anywhere without him driving me nuts. I finally lay down on the bed for a few minutes to see if I could get Ricky to sleep. He jumped up and settled on his blanket and was asleep in seconds. I quietly got up and went downstairs into my sewing room. Less than a minute later, he was crying and pawing at the door. And when I was doing dishes, he head butted the back of my leg and made my knee buckle. I almost fell over. By 10pm, he was exhausted but happy that everyone was in bed. He slept like the dead all night long. I am happy to report that Phoebe is back to loving us and Ricky is sleeping solo on the washing machine.

didya miss me?

2010-07-31T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ah - it's good to be back and sleeping in my nice soft bed instead of the cold hard lumpy ground. I may need to invest in a softer mattress for next year. My body can't take it anymore.

Except for the first day of thundershowers, the rest of our trip was pretty perfect. The nieces had a blast in the water. We had to keep a close eye on the youngest one because she has no fear and would float out into the middle of the lake if we let her.

The adults certainly had fun on (and in) the water. My sister is rescuing my BIL - the dumpee:

Hubby had his usual stick-straight-up-in-the-air hairdo:

Because he was doing a lot of this:

My water experience was a little more sedate:

We spent a lot of quality time with the nieces and we know who their favourite is (hint - it's not me):

Poor Uncle was constantly being harassed by them - "Can you take us to the potty?", "Can you show me where you shower?", "I want to go with Uncle!" (even if it's only across the road to get water).

That's ok - Uncle got his revenge:

The campsite was pretty buggy. I was armed with DEET & an ultra sonic emitter and I still got skeeter bites on my ass. And both of us came home with a little extra souvenir of our trip:

Yep, that's swimmer's itch. Please pass the calamine...

bike widow

2010-07-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

The hubbies are off on another bike adventure this weekend - the annual Seattle to Portland (STP) bike ride. So I've got the house (and the whole bed) to myself!!!

I finally blocked my Annis shawl yesterday.

It is soooo pretty! I am definitely going to knit another one when I can convince myself to do another 300-something stitch cast on.

Phoebe's a little mad at me. Last week, she was denied breakfast because it was her turn to have her teeth cleaned. I dragged her to the vet and signed the appropriate paperwork and as I was handing her over, the vet popped her head out and asked if that was Phoebe. Turns out there was no tech so she couldn't do any dental procedures that day. I took Phoebe home and she gobbled up the food I put down and glared at me when she was done.

Ricky is back to his normal food. No more grinding up his soy kibble and wetting it with water. He's still looking a little patchy:

The shaved bits feel like velvet but he gets nippy when I try to touch his neck or leg. We had to take his collar off because it was bugging his shaved neck. This is kinda annoying because we can't tell where he is by listening for his bell - like when he's going to tackle Phoebe.

too hot to knit

2010-07-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

We're experiencing a heat wave. At 9am this morning, the outdoor thermometer said it was 25C (80F). Yikes! It was really hot yesterday. Thank goodness we have a ceiling fan in the bedroom. I still slept on the family room couch downstairs. So my hands have been too sticky to do much knitting. I did complete a few projects before the heat wave hit.

Pattern: top down, short row heel, rolled cuff
Yarn: Hand Jive Knits Nature's Palette Fingering; 2 skeins (50g; 185 yds each) in an Odd Duck colour (using leftover dyes)
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: My second time using this yarn and I like the base. It was shedding little black bits all over while I was knitting. The dyer uses natural materials (plants, bugs, etc.) so I think it's just dye stuff that will hopefully come out in the first wash. I cast on 64 sts for the leg & decreased down to 60 sts for the foot. It's too loose in the leg. I should stick to 60 sts for the whole sock which is my usual number. These are my 49th pair of finished socks. Which pair will be 50? One of my many sock wips or will I cast on & finish something new? Hmmm....

I bought a cute dress to wear to my bday party and I thought it might be nice to have a little shawl in case it was cool (and it was). I did finish one before the party but did not have enough time to block it. And it's still sitting there unblocked because it's too hot to hunch over it and pin it out on the bed upstairs.

Pattern: Annis by Susanna IC
Yarn: Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash; col Arlene
Needles: 7mm for casting on & 5mm for the body
Notes: Should've cast on more loosely. Don't think the edge is stretchy enough to block well. I used approx. 90g (or 324 yds) of yarn. I like WM for non-sock projects. I don't like it for socks because it doesn't have stretch & bounce. It really reminds me of cotton when I'm knitting with it.

I'm off to sit in front of a fan & maybe have a little nap to catch up on some beauty sleep.

the first (and not the last) anniversary of my 39th birthday

2010-07-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy week and a half. My family came into town and promptly wore out Uncle:

There were presents to unwrap:

I have enough Coach to open my own store. I spent the entire week trying to bribe my youngest niece into telling me what was in the boxes. I almost got her to spill the beans when I up'd the bribe to 5 Tic Tacs but I got caught by my sister.

I threw a big party and the nieces helped by making me a fancy poster:

There was a ton of people and even more food. My quilting friends all bought me polka dot fabric. I got two new Xbox games - 80s Lips & Lego Harry Potter. Hubby bought me tickets to see Harry Connick Jr. in Sept (woo woo - whatta hunk!). I was spoiled rotten.

I think this picture sums up the entire experience:

It's not too bad being 39 again.

Ride2Survive 2010 - Tony's Story

2010-06-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

I've been reading the posts from your regular hosts, and I can assure you, it's almost like being there. As for simulating the riding part, you'd need to run up and down the stairs all day carrying your computer while trying to sit on a chair that gets progressively less comfortable. If you're not interested in DH's on bicycles, you can skip this post.

I want to begin by thanking all our supporters and donors. The knitting community of this blog is now legendary within the R2S group, and I think several of the riders' spouses are now lurking here after being re-directed to the live blogs from the www.r2s.ca page. "Honest dear, I was just keeping up on where you were and how it was going". Next thing you know, it's "ding-dong...hey, there's a package for you at the door!...it's soft and fluffy...MY WOLLMEISE!!..your WHAT?" You know how that goes though. My wife, and kids were amazing while we were out training in the rain, and it was really cool to pull into a rest stop on ride-day and see my wife there. Thank you all for allowing this non-knitting distraction on the blog, and your support, both financial and emotional were most welcome.

This year Ride2Survive looks on-track to raise over $300,000. Again, because of the way the costs of this ride are cover

ed by the riders, and there is no staff or expense budget for advertising. ALL of that total amount will be applied to research to fight Cancer. Well done all!

The energy in the room during the "telling of stories" was fantastic and very motivational.

Gladys cited a few of the more memorable quotes from that time, and after doing this ride for two years now, and having been involved to a much lesser level for the two years prior, I now call most of the people in that room "friend". Every person in that room has a deep, personal motivation for being there and giving of their time and energy to contribute to something terrifically positive. When was the last time you stood in a room with 150 "good people". It is a most rare opportunity to be a part of something like that.

Most of us turned to bed after that...I deliberately didn't say "went to sleep"...personally I lie awake and watch the ceiling until about 12AM before I get to sleep. My alarm goes off at 2:50AM. Get up, get dressed, eat and get on the bike. There was a significant air of relief as

riders detached the fenders they had put on their bikes last night. The sky was only partly cloudy and no sight of the torrential rain that had hammered down during our meeting the previous night, and the temperature

was about 14°C/58°F. Gladys' picture shows the image, but does not capture the sense of impending doom most riders felt upon seeing that rain.

The mayor of Kelowna personally rang the bell to send us on our way at 4:00 AM on the dot, and we were off.

I like the feeling I get at the beginning of a long ride. It's usually early in the day (not this early mind you), so it's cool. There isn't usually any wind, and there's a tranquility. The sounds of a bicycle being pedaled don't disturb that that peace. My legs feel strong, it's still a little cool, but I'm beginning to warm...there's no traffic on the road, just 100 blinking red LEDs mounted to the back of 100 bicycles. The flashing lights reflect off the glass of the store fronts. The road is ahead of us and it is all ours.

After about 10 minutes, we were on Harvey Road and heading over the new Bridge going west out of Kelowna. This next 5km section (3 miles if that suits you better) is one of my favourite

parts of the ride. The reason I like it so much has nothing to do with being about 10 minutes into a 15+ hour ride. If you look back over your right shoulder, you can see the dim lights of Kelowna's downtown as it still sleeps. The sun is just beginning to light the sky, and the string of blinking bicycle LEDs is in a more consistent, organized line. That peace still exists, but the sound of your breathing is rhythmical and rather than disturb it, seems to accentuate it. You can hear the smooth clicking of freewheels as riders coast momentarily.

The local Rotary chapter organizes our first stop at 4:45 at the Westbank Community Centre. These folks greet us warmly with coffee and cheers. Ten minutes to figure out your clothing options for the next hour or so...have a bite to eat...kiss the wife (that one is a new luxury for me this year) and back on the road.

The next hour passes through another of my favourite points on the ride. We head up to the

Coquihalla Connector, past Trepanier Road and begin the climb to the Pennask Summit. This climb is 26km (16 miles) in length and averages about 6.5% (click here for a profile if you are curious). the first 20k is at a solid 6%, the last 5km is at closer to 7% before it eases off for the last km. We stop about half-way up the climb at a chain-up area the truckers use. About 5km into the climb, we hit our rhythm. My breathing is heavy and regular, but I'm not struggling with the effort. The sun is just peeking up over the ridge over our right shoulders.

This year, as a Ride Captain, I have a radio. There are about 10 riders with radios, and the front pilot car, rear pilot car, and the two SAG vehicles have them too. (SAG is the name given to a vehicle that picks up riders that can't continue to ride...they need a rest for a while, or they've had a flat tire or similar "mechanical"). The chatter on the radio is upbeat and we're identifying riders who are struggling with the challenges of the lower portion of this climb. I love the sense of mission I get as we round a curve and we can see where the sun is hitting the road. It's warmer up there. The sun is shining. We want to be there. Keep turning the pedals.

I pulled alongside Cathy as she slows from the pace of the group. Cancer took Cathy's Mom. I reach out with my right and place it in the middle of her back, I push and take some of the load

off her tired legs so she can recover. I glance down at my handle bars and see the readout indicate my heart rate has jumped 10 beats per minute with the increased effort. Another ride captain pulls alongside me and begins to push me as I continue to push Cathy. This is how we get our team over the tough parts of the ride. We help one-another with words of encouragement, with a wheel to follow, and even push when we need it. This ride is a group effort. It is not a race. We start together. We ride together. We finish together.

I talked to several riders as we climbed. Words of encouragement to riders struggling with the effort can work wonders. Soon, we're at the rest stop. Add some clothes. We've climbed to about 1000m/3300' above sea level and even though it's now nearing 6:00AM and the sun is up, it's probably about 8°C/46°F. Refill the water bottles, grab some food, visit the bathroom quickly and we're back on the road.

The next section is the toughest, sustained climb and the highest elevation of the day. It is also

famous for the mosquitoes. At 12kph, the bugs can catch up to you as you ride. The chatter on the radio is gone, replaced by pain in my legs and lungs. The effort of the climb is showing. Riders are needing help at the back, and one-by-one, riders that were pushed lower on the slopes are being picked up by the SAG. The last 5 km of that climb were tough. It feels like it will never end, but the knowledge that it will is what keeps me climbing. The facial expressions of riders around us are ones of pain and effort. Faces wet with sweat and red with the effort.

There it is! The grade eases ahead. One km to go to the next rest stop, and that one will be much easier. The faces dry somewhat...the red fades and is replaced by a smile. We did it.

We pull into a small pullout near the summit and refill our, once again, empty water bottles. We

grab some food and add clothes. The next hour or so is up and down, but mostly down. It's 5°C/40°F and mercifully this year, there's no heavy head-wind like last year. We bundle up and ride into the morning sun. There's a somewhat ironic celebration as we pass the 1728m/5669' summit sign, the location of the pullout has you climbing a very gentle hill for about 500m and then you summit. I joked at my 4oth birthday party last month about knowing I was a cyclist when I got an "Over the Hill" balloon on one of my gifts, and my immediate reaction was "YES!".

On the downhill sections over the next hour, we topped 70kph/45mph. Eat and drink on this section of the ride. It is critical to replace fluids, electrolytes (salts) and calories burned on the climb. There's no headwind this year. It's fantastic. We're flying down the hills and regrouping on the climbs.

We quickly arrive at the chain-off area for another food and water stop...take off some of the clothes because the temperature is back up to what it was at the start back in Kelowna and

we're off for another downhill leg into Merritt. The ride into Merritt has a 5km/3mile descent at most of 70kph. Last year, I was pedalling hard into that wind to hold 38kph. We have a Police escort that meets us at the top of that hill this year and soon enough we're at Merritt; our first long rest stop.

It's 10:06AM. We've ridden about 100km/60 miles. Time for, to quote a famous Hobbit, "second breakfast". Many of us change into a clean pair of cycling shorts and a dry jersey. The temperature in Merritt is about 20°C/68°F, and it will get warmer in the next hour as we ride along the valley floor.

I had second breakfast/early lunch with Gladys and Markus and Dotty. Over the past 4 hours I've burned over 4500 calories; that's more than 2 day's food. Not bad for a morning. All to soon, a 5 minute warning is issued, and we're back on our bikes.

Coldwater road is next. This section was very difficult for me last year, and I don't remember it that well. It was so hard, that I was just focussed on keeping the pedals turning. This year was much nicer. I felt strong and it's really a very beautiful stretch of road. It's mostly uphill, but I've decided I actually like it.

There's a couple of cattle grates across the road on this road, and we slow right down for them. I didn't slow down enough apparently because I broke the cage that hold one of my water bottles as I crossed over the bumpy pipes. Conveniently enough, I have a radio and the SAG wagon has a spare cage they can install at the next stop. How cool is that?

This next stop is at the junction of Coldwater Road

and the Coquihalla Highway. It's a little rest stop by the side of the river, and I decided this year, upon detailed review, I like this stop too. It's beautiful and sunny and warm. And the food is great! It needs an espresso machine, but we can work on that for next year...

Another 10 minute stop, and it's time for Larson hill; 3 km at 6% and then a 1-2% grade for another 40 minutes or so. That "false flat" is the toughest part of the ride. First-time riders fear the Pennask summit. That climb happens early in the ride on fresh legs. The false flat has just enough hill to a rider down, but not enough that it's really perceivable. Last year, this is where the names on my legs (and a few tears along with encouraging words from other riders) were all that got me through it.

This year, for some completely unknown reason it felt far easier. At one point, I commented into the radio that we were all together as a group, travelling 31kph up a 1% climb. That's moving. We pulled into Britton Creek rest stop near where the toll booths used to be. I say "used to be" because they took them out in 2009, and if you're not from around here, when was the last time you heard of anyone taking out toll booths? The toll booths are 200km into the ride and represent the half-way point for distance.

I have no idea if I've gone into more detail here than anyone's interested in, so, seeing as we are at the half-way point, I'll stop here and put together a part 2 of this post. Besides, our ride's volunteer photographer hasn't had a chance to post photos past this point yet. Stay tuned for the 2nd half of the ride...

dental floss PSA

2010-06-27T14:00:00.001-07:00

Never, ever, ever rub your eye with the same hand that just pulled out a length of mint dental floss. It will hurt like hell. Trust me.

recovering

2010-06-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hubby & I are both recovering from the ride. Despite standing all day, my feet didn't hurt (love my Sloggers Premium Clogs; sadly no longer avail locally) but the lack of sleep and all day sun gave me a migraine which took a few days to shake off. I must remember to wear a hat if I'm going to be in the sun that long. Hubby is doing fine. He said that his legs hurt worse after a full day of skiing. His butt is also recovering nicely. Thank goodness the "sitting in a chair" part of his butt isn't the same as the "sitting in the saddle" part.

Hubby did the R2S raffle draw late Monday and I'm pleased to announce the winners (DaveC are you paying attention?). Linda is the lucky winner of a pair of handknit socks. Maureen won the quilt that I donated. And Gail won the quilt that Iris made. Gail is a member of my Wed night knitting group so I surprised her by bringing hubby yesterday night.

Gail was also the successful bidder for the auction quilt.

Thanks to everyone who donated and congrats to the winners.

The poor cats aren't liking me so much right now. After leaving them for 36 hours and then ignoring them the following day, I hauled them off to the vet's first thing Monday morning sans breakfast. I had them scheduled for their annual checkup, vaccinations, a bath, and teeth cleaning. Phoebe didn't get her teeth cleaned because the vet found a grade 4 (graded on a scale of 1 to 6; 6 being high) heart murmur. After a blood test & xrays, Phoebe's heart is enlarged so she's on medication for that. We've never had to pill her before and since this is going to be a long term issue, I bought pill pockets to hide the pill in. Works like a charm. She goes back in 2 weeks for a follow-up and more medication. Phoebe's thyroid is borderline abnormal and she'll need another blood test in 3 months. Poor Phoebe's starting to show her age (16 yo).

Ricky did get his teeth cleaned and one tooth had to be extracted. With the pain meds and recovering post-anesthesia, he was one groggy cat. We called him "dopey boy".

The bandage on his leg didn't help either. He tried to shake it off and then resorted to walking around on 3 legs. Ricky fell down a few steps while trying to run away from me.

I fed them when I got them home and Ricky made growly noises while he ate like he was really enjoying it. I've been told to feed Ricky soft foods for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, the only food he can eat comes in kibble form. I tried wetting it down but he wouldn't touch it. So I'm grinding it up in my food processor, adding a little bit of warm water, and a tiny amount of duck food to make it a bit more appetizing.

For the last few mornings, if Ricky even thinks I'm out to grab him (i.e. go upstairs while jangling my keys; opening & closing lots of doors), he'll run & hide under our bed. I think it's going to take awhile before he forgets that vet visit.

how 'bout some peektures

2010-06-20T10:15:00.001-07:00

It's 10:30am and hubby is still asleep (with both cats - awwwww, they missed us) and I don't want to wake him by banging around so you get to see some pictures from yesterday and a little commentary from me.

We've arrived at the church in Kelowna that is hosting us for the night. Everyone has brought bedding for sleeping on the floor. Hubby brought the heart quilt that I made for him.

There are bikes everywhere!!!! We estimated the value of the church went up by about $300,000 that day.

The volunteers provided us with a hearty spaghetti dinner and afterwards, the riders got to work writing names on legs & arms. It was a very moving experience to watch.

On a knitting note, WWKIP week was well represented. Gladys finished a sock with a teeny bit of yarn to spare and I was working on some fingerless mitts.

And these are the famous blue potties. We spent the day either looking for them at the next rest stop or following them on the road.

I found out that it's really hard to take pre-dawn pictures with my little point'n shoot camera. The guy right in the middle with the white/red/black Specialized bike is my hubby.

It's finally dawn. ::yawn:: We're at the trucker's chain-up area just prior to the Pennask Summit.

And they're still climbing... towards the Pennask summit.

The riders made a brief stop at the summit for water & access to their bags. The rest of the crew continued onto the trucker's brake-check stop on the other side of the summit.

It's a short stop (only 10 mins) so all the food & water/energy drinks must be laid out and easily accessible. And it wasn't just the riders eating a ton of food. The crew were pretty good snacks for the jumbo sized mosquitoes!!!!

And they're back on the road. Next stop - Merritt.

Tony (forefront; second from the left in the blue helmet & orange booties) & my hubby (4th from the left wearing the grey vest) arriving in Merritt.

Merritt was a long lunch stop for the riders (40 mins) so hot food was served to them. On the menu was macaroni & cheese, penne pasta, orzo salad, fruit salad, brownies, date squares, and chicken noodle soup (this is only a sample of the food that was available - there was a lot more). It was a lot of set up because the soup needed to be heated and all the hot food (some of it was donated by a restaurant and the rest of it had been dropped off the day before and heated up by volunteers in Merritt) needed to be pre-assembled onto plates so that they were ready to hand out. I found it hard to eat lunch at 10am. But that's ok because I was pretty much eating all day long.

Hubby's looking pretty good after riding 6 hours.

Hubby took the time to change into some fresh clothes so I had to hold a towel for him while he stripped out of his bib shorts. Once he had the clean ones on, he pulled out his chamois butt'r and gave me that look. As a crew member, I'm supposed to help the riders with anything they might need. But I draw the line at applying cream down there. It doesn't matter that it's hubby's sexy butt.

At Merritt, the riders picked up their police escort. They close down intersections to allow the cyclists to ride straight through. Pretty nice, eh?

At every stop, the riders are given access to their "stuff". We haul out 100 or so bags and lay them out in numerical order so that it's easy for them to find what they need & quickly. Some of these bags are less than light and my sore arms are complaining today.

I couldn't get a picture of all the bags in one photo. This is about half of them. And here's the chaos that occurs at every stop when the riders arrive:

Both this stop (Coldwater/Larson Hill) and Merritt were very hot. I must've drank a liter of water.

There was a short stop at the Britton Creek rest area followed by dinner (4pm) in Hope.

In addition to serving food and helping the riders, the crew is supposed to keep an eye out for riders in distress. While I was fetching some chicken soup and a Pepsi, I saw Tony sitting on the grass, clutching his thigh with a funny look on his face. I immediately stopped and asked what was wrong. He had me fetch one of the medical support people. He developed a severe cramp in his left thigh. The white stuff on his face wasn't sunscreen - it was salt. Tony was completely dehydrated and ended up being hauled on a stretcher to the RV where he had to load up on sodium rich drinks and sit out several legs of the ride. I believe Gladys has pictures of a pretty blonde pressing on Tony's upper thigh.

There were 3 more stops - DeRoche (before the 11% hill), the Mission Visitor's Center, and Maple Ridge before arriving in Delta. It was getting dark so I don't have any pictures. The riders encountered wind just before Hope and battled it the rest of the way home. It slowed them down by over an hour.

It was good to be back home. A good friend met us and brought us a breakfast package for when we rolled out of bed this morning. I've already eaten two of the bagels. If hubby doesn't get up soon, he's stuck with the ~~cinnamon~~ (sorry, Sarah) Nutella swirl cake and granola. And we got a ride to our car from another friend so that I didn't have to walk to it.

It's almost noon now and I have to get going. It's Father's Day and I have a few errands to run before I head over to see Dad.

they did it!

2010-06-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

The ride is officially over. Our hubbies have accomplished something phenomenal today - riding 400 kms and it only took them 19 hours to do it (4am to 11pm). The entire event raised over $250,000. Thanks again for supporting them.

Now, it's off to bed (hubby groaned when he lay down) for both of us. I'm sure the rest of Team Purl Jam are also in their jammies.

We'll post pictures and more detailed stories in the upcoming week.

Mission: Mission

2010-06-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

We're leaving the oddest pitstop of all -- an abandoned gas station in Deroche. There's an abandoned car in the gas fillup lane and a rusty old engine dangling from a chain beside it.

There are just two more quick stops and the Golden Ears bridge.

The riders are exhausted, and currently climbing an 11 percent hill. They are in really good spirits, for the most part, and feeling like they're on the home stretch.

Next stop: Mission

Looking for Hope

2010-06-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

We served bocconcini on sliced tomatoes with fresh basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegar, at the last pit stop. Kerry promised the riders that they'd be fed well -- no kidding!

The good part: they now have a police motorcycle escort.

The not-quite-as-good part: the "heavy humidity" is now closer to rain -- but we seem to be driving towards bluer skies.

We're about 20 minutes behind schedule but this stage is all downhill so we might make it up.

Next stop: Hope!

Follow the potties

2010-06-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Last stop: Coldwater Road. Next stop: Larson Hill

There are drops of rain on our windshield -- we're calling it "heavy humidity."

It's still hot out so the riders probably won't be too inconvenienced by it.

(Post title is because it's easy to find our convoy -- just follow the potties.)

Merritt Badge

2010-06-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

Just finished cleanup from the Merritt stop. The riders were only 5 minutes late to that stop -- a huge difference from last year.

They all look like they're in great shape, though the "come to jesus" stages, as Tony calls them, are still to come.

No headwind this year, and no rain (yet?). It's been hot and sunny and a little buggy.

At the summit

2010-06-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

We're at the Penask Summit. Food prep is done and the riders are coming in 5 minutes.

PS Crepes with nutella are on the menu. Tasty!

PPS Can't believe I'm awake.

nnnnnnnnng

2010-06-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

It's just before 3am and we're up. Urgh! Gotta go catch the shuttle and head over to the church. Hopefully, the riders got some sleep!

Live tracking of the ride

2010-06-18T22:41:00.000-07:00

They've got a GPS riding along in the pilot car. If you want to follow them along the route, you can see the map here.

I've got to be up in 4 hours to get to the church by 3:30'ish for the rollout at 4 am, so I'd better hit a bed now.

If I can get online via someone's bluetooth tomorrow, I'll blog from the road. If not, you'll get tons more photos on Sunday.

A few more snapshots

2010-06-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

The staging location is a local church. Dinner tonight was carbs, carbs and more carbs. Giant platters of pasta, huge tureens of spaghetti sauce and giant tubs of tasty caesar salad.

And of course, carrot cake (this was a huge stack before the 150'ish people got through it).

Kerry, the ride organizer, thanked the kitchen staff profusely for all of their hard work.

And there are expensive bicycles stashed all over the church, between the pews, and everywhere.

Oh, the weather outside is ...

2010-06-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

... a cyclist's nightmare. As the riders and crew meeting began tonight, this is what was happening outside. Fingers crossed for a dry day tomorrow!

It wasn't much drier inside. Riders are now covered in names of the people for whom they're riding, both in memoriam and in recognition of their strength in fighting cancer and surviving it.

Everyone gathered in one big room, and shared their stories of why they're here doing this ride, either as riders or as crew.

One of Tony's sister's closest friends has breast cancer. She has two young children, the same age as our kids. I can't even type that without tearing up.

The young man standing in the centre of the photo, said, "I'm volunteering because I lost my mom when I was 7." There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

There were other quotes:

"I'm here because cancer research saved my son's life."
"I would have died if I'd had cancer 10 years earlier."
"My neighbour, she's dying, and she's got two little kids. Cancer research kept her alive for Mother's Day."
"My mom was given 4 weeks. We lost her when I was flying the woman I would marry to meet her for the first time."
"My stepkids lost their mom when they were 13, 14 and 16. She was 39."

And one rider read out a letter from Lance Armstrong to the group. (Click to make it bigger.)

I'll leave you with a shot of Tony's legs, with many of your loved ones' names on it. There will be more photos in a blog post that he'll be writing.

Landed in Kelowna

2010-06-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

A quick photos post ...

From this morning, waiting for the buses to come and pick us all up. We represented for WWKIP week.

On the bus to Kelowna ...

Ice cream at the stretch-your-legs stop in Merritt.

There's a rubber duckie in our motel bathroom. (We're not in the motel for long; we'll be out of here at 3 am tomorrow morning.)

And back at the church, the bikes are getting unloaded and being re-assembled for the riders behind the 18-wheeler trailer. There's a local community TV crew following the ride this year too, and making a documentary.

I'm off to help with dinner service now -- we'll be back with another post (with legs!) in a few hours!