look! knitting content

Aside from my recent yarn acquisitions, you're probably wondering if I got any knitting done during my vacation. My best knitting time was at Sun Peaks and during the 8 hour drive to Calgary. I only brought sock wips and I made decent progress. I finished my blue camo socks on Mon night and then I picked up my Waving Lace sock.


I finished the leg and turned the heel at Sun Peaks.

During the drive to Calgary, I worked on hubby's Noro Kureyon sock. It hasn't seen much action because frankly, I'm bored of it. I managed to knit most of the foot on the drive. I'd say there's less than an inch to go before I start the toe decreases.


I was annoyed to find a knot in the yarn so the colour sequence makes a big jump. There should be some turquoise in the foot and there isn't. Humph. I toyed with the idea of yanking out the yarn until I got to the right spot but it's so far in that I'm afraid I would run out of yarn. So I sucked it up and kept knitting.

I spent most of my time in Golden reading a book that I wanted to finish - Secrets From the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean. I nearly pee'd my pants laughing a coupla times. That man writes really funny stuff. My favourite stories are about Dave.

This is the last vacation blog post. Hope you enjoyed the stories & pictures.

I'm hot

Literally... After a very restless night, I woke up this morning feeling very hot. I took my temperature and the thermometer said 102F. Humph! So I have the flu on top of my cough. I am snuggled in bed with 2 cats, the laptop, and several knitting projects.


I'm making good progress on the Everlasting Bag Stopper. I'll need to stop soon and measure it against a regular plastic shopping bag.


This is a sample for Black Sheep Yarns. The Smooshy is lovely but the pattern is kicking my butt. The pattern is a 4 row repeat but I haven't been able to memorize it because the lace doesn't repeat within the row. Blech.

The sooper seekrit project is also getting a lot of knitting time. It's looking great so far.

My friends (I made them kitty wash cloths and the R2D2 beanie) gave me a gc to a yarn store, Knitopia for Christmas. I drove out there yesterday and redeemed it!


From L to R: 2 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine, Berroco Peruvia Colors, and a skein of West Coast Colour Aurora Borealis. The Aurora Borealis is a spectacular mix of alpaca and mohair. It's black with a small strand of colour that changes from blue to purple. It's stunning in person but so hard to photograph.

I think I'm ready for my afternoon snooze. Nighty night.

my big head and a contest

Since P-la asked, my head is roughly 23" around. Is that big? I think so. When I go hat/helmet shopping, I usually have to buy a large. Most O/S hats are too small. Anyways, the kitty toque is on hold while I wait for my needles to arrive. It seems that all my 3.5mm circs are in use - heh.

I signed up for the Amazing Lace Swap this week. It looks like it's a Ravelry only swap as I cannot find a non-Rav link. It's a pretty simple one with no knitting. I'm saving my knitting time for the upcoming Monkey swap.


I'm ignoring Nancy's sweater for awhile and I thought that I should probably finish up some of my sock WIPs before I cast on a new pair of socks. I picked up my Rivendell's and started working on them again. I'm halfway down the foot and I should have them finished by the end of this weekend. Just in time for my little contest.

It's my second sockiversary. I started knitting socks in Sept. 2006 and last year, I celebrated with a little contest. This year, I'm doing the same thing but the prizes will be bigger and you'll need to do a little work to win one. I'll announce all the details on Mon Sept 1st.

sleeve island

I thought I'd be finished by now but I'm not.


I've had lots of knitting time but the yarn is really kicking my butt. Imagine a 2-ply crochet cotton thread, 8 strands of it, loosely twisted into a yarn. It's rough, splitty, and nasty. The first sleeve wasn't too bad because the yarn was frogged and reknit so it was softer. But this second sleeve is knit from the cone and it's stiff and hard. My fingertips are dry and rough and my hands are cramping.

During one of my "timeouts" from the sleeve, I drove over to the newly opened lys - Black Sheep Yarns. I touched Lamb's Pride for the first time, checked out Asland Trends, and I bought some Wildfoote sock yarn. It's a very nice store with large open spaces and lots of natural lighting. There's even a little patio out front - perfect for summer knit nites.

I should get back to that sleeve. It's not going to knit itself.

my first 2008 FO

I have my first FO for 2008. I picked up a free leaflet yesterday and I had some Bernat Bamboo in the stash so I whipped this up yesterday night.


Pattern: One Skein Scarf by Denise Cozzitorto from Stitch'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker
Yarn: Bernat Bamboo; 3 skeins in colour rosehip
Hook: 6.5mm (K)
Notes: The yarn is ok. I think it's going to fuzz up quite a bit. But it's very soft, glossy, and drapey.

Take a deep breath before you look at the next picture:


Compare it to my WIP picture from this post. I'm obviously getting worse. Eleven of the projects in that post are still WIPs. Yikes! The Bonita shirt doesn't count cuz I did finish it and it turned out too big so I had to frog it.

So here's my list of WIPs and my plans for them:

1. Trekking socks - Finish
2. Louet Gems socks - Finish
3. socks for Pauline (commission) - must Finish
4. Wyvern sock - Finish
5. hubby's CTH socks - not so much a Finish but more of an alteration
6. spiral tube socks - worsted weight socks with no heel?!?!?! What was I thinking? Frog!
7. Canal du Midi socks - Finish
8. Juno Regina - Finish
9. not-a-cable cable scarf - Finish
10. Irish Hiking scarf - not my colour; not needed as a gift; Frog
11. Birch-like shawl of my own design - would like to Frog but it's an ugly mohair blend yarn; Finish since I'm so close to the end
12. Feather and fan shawl - only a few inches knitted; Frog
13. Icarus shawl - ya can't frog mohair so it's a Finish
14. novelty yarn scarf - Frog
15. Lacy Entrelacs scarf - Finish
16. Odessa hat - Frog
17. Endpaper mittens - Finish
18. Brea bag - Finish
19. Bonita shirt - was finished, then frogged because it was too big; Finish
20. Arwen cardigan - Finish
21. Silk Lace Nightie - Finish
22. Afghan - too hard to frog (it's a fuzzy yarn) so maybe Finish? Maybe get my Mom to finish it? She's between projects, right?

So that's 5 frog's, 15 to finish, one alteration, and maybe pass the afghan to my Mom. That's a lot of projects to finish - wish me luck.

guilty as charged

Recently, I bought some stacking bins to help organize my yarn a little. It does not hold all my yarn but keeps it from taking over all available horizontal surfaces (i.e. the couch, ottoman, floor, etc.). While I was collecting all the bits and stuffing them into the bins, I also organized all my UFOs. I duly bagged and tagged everything and put them in the top bin where I would see them and maybe be inspired to finish them. It was a nice thought but for the most part, it hasn't really worked. In an effort to guilt myself into finishing at least one UFO in the near future, I thought full disclosure might help.

From left to right, top to bottom:
Bonita Shirt from IK Summer 2006 - stalled when the weather got too cold; also requires a lot of math because 43" is too small and 48.25" is too big; I'm making it 46"
neck warmer - stalled when the weather got too warm
Wyvern sock - dunno why it's stalled; oh yeah, I'm busy with the CDM sock
Irish Hiking Scarf - not my colour and didn't need it as a 2006 Christmas present after all
Odessa hat by Grumperina - was inspired by Caroline's and then decided it wouldn't look good on me; should be frogged
feather and fan shawl - out of some handspun that I picked up at the thrift store
spiral tube sox - discovered short row heels so never finished the second sock; should be frogged
russian booties - despite casting on way more stitches than the pattern instructions, it still ended up too small. I've only got the one skein and I've used exactly half for the first bootie. These fit my Mom so I'll eventually make the second one.
modified Birch shawl - I am really close to being done. I guess I fell out of love with it
Icarus shawl from IK Summer 2006 - love the shawl, love the yarn, dunno what happened
garter stitch scarf - again, didn't need it as a 2006 Christmas present

Not shown: afghan (too big to photograph), Arwen (too lazy to dig it out for the photograph), and Canal Du Midi sock (see picture below).

I think the project that I want to finish first is the Bonita shirt. I am up to the armholes which is about halfway mark. It would be nice to get it finished and wearable by summer. My only concern is running out of yarn. It's vintage stuff from the thrift store so I can't get anymore of it. I did all the calculations and I should have enough but one is never sure. If I don't think I'll make it, I'll skip the sleeves and convert it to a sleeveless top by working i-cord around the entire armhole.

Or maybe I should finish Arwen before it gets too warm...

Or I could ignore the guilt and work on my CDM sock. Notice how it's still twisting to the left?



PS. The sock is 12g and it's 5" long.