Packing for the road

We leave tomorrow morning for the Ride2Survive. This week's been a whirlwind of activity, not counting the R2S activities, so my head is spinning.

(It included Andrew's 7th birthday party last Saturday, working late all week, a Boy Scouts open house on Monday, taking Andrew out to shop for his birthday gift on Wednesday, and taking him out for dinner for his birthday today.)

And tonight, we dropped off Tony's bike into the giant 18-wheeler trailer that will be hauling all of the riders' bikes to Kelowna tomorrow. That's our friend Graham loading bikes into the trailer. The boys got to climb up and wander around for a few minutes -- they liked that part.


The next photo is inside the utility trailer that will be hauling equipment and food. Click on the photo to see a closeup -- I think I'm going to love those heaters on Saturday. It's going to be cold and wet for most of Saturday, according to the current forecast. I've packed fingerless mittens and a winter hat, just in case it actually snows on us.

Apparently I didn't get the best photo of all -- way in the back of the utility trailer is the enormous heater, big enough to blow up a hot air balloon. Hopefully it will be big enough to get 70 cold and wet cyclists a little warmed up at the rest stops.

what to knit next?

The big yarny raffle has ended and Gladys is busy doling out the prizes. Big thanks goes to everyone for donating and to the generous people who provided additional prizes. Big hugs!!! There's still time to enter the sock/quilt raffle and bid on the auction quilt. If you haven't made a donation yet, do so soon!

In one week, we'll be heading out to Kelowna. We went to the last big meeting on Wed and I realized that I don't have enough bug spray to last me the day. We also found out that a lot of the food has cheese in it so hubby needs to bring a big supply of lactase pills. I'm trying to decide what sort of knitting I should be bringing. Or maybe I shouldn't bring anything. I have no clue how much spare time I'll have during the day. Since the shuttle picks me up at the hotel at 3am, maybe I should just concentrate on sleeping when I have spare time (I can sleep pretty much anywhere). Rumour has it that Gladys and I will be riding in the same car. Hmmm... Wonder if we'll freak out anybody when we whip out our knitting needles.

I'm trolling Ravelry and my stash to figure out what sweater-ish project to knit next. I realized that my latest FO is gray. The sweater before that was natural. And the one before that was gray, too. I seem to be in a neutral phase. Kinda boring... So I want to spice things up for my next project. I want to knit something with COLOUR. After tossing the stash, I've come up with these candidates: Cascade Luna in a rich red (for the Cabaret Raglan), Gedifra Airmix in a lilac-y colour, or Rowan Summer Tweed in Smolder (for a short sleeve version of the Mondo Cable Pulli?). What do you think? Maybe the best idea is to finish the Auburn Camp Shirt that I started 2 years ago. Heh.

I've been saving up a bunch of chicken bones in the freezer to make soup/stock with. I pulled them out yesterday and boiled them up and stripped the remaining meat off. We had some lovely chicken salad sandwiches for supper. Ricky loves chicken and will beg and plead and try to steal some for himself. Sadly, chicken doesn't really agree with him so he's not allowed to eat it. Doesn't stop him from trying:


Ricky, "Is that chicken I smell?"


You'd think after the first sandwich, hubby would eat his second one at the table so that he doesn't have to spend his time fending off a drooling cat.

is it summer yet?

Man, the weather just stinks. I've tried turning off the furnace but it gets too cold at night so I turn it back on. But some days, it's warm enough that I turn it off again. And it doesn't seem to stop raining (thank goodness we have a new roof)!!!! My plants are so behind - rain + petunias = ugly!!!!

So I've been inside and plugging away on something that will hopefully bring some sunshine & warm temps so that I can wear it.


Pattern: Lace Saddle Tee by Lisa S. Rowe (IK Summer 2010)
Yarn: Rowan Purelife Organic Cotton DK; 8 skeins (131 yds per 50g); col Logwood
Needles: 3.5mm & 3.25mm Addi Turbos


Notes: Made a bunch of mods (to do with sizing & gauge) which you can read about in my Rav project page. In a moment of panic, I got Gladys to buy me an extra skein (for a total of 10) but I only used 8. This cotton is really soft so I'll probably knit up a coupla washcloths with the leftovers. In the skein, the yarn looks solid but is actually semi-solid. Don't know if you can see it in the pictures or not but you can see the variegation in person. These pictures show the garment unblocked. I could wear it right away but I think the lace would look better if I blocked it properly.

You'll notice that there is sun this afternoon when I took my sweater out for a photo shoot. Guess my sweater knitting karma is working.

Raffle ends this weekend -- and two more prizes!

Thank you all so much for buying virtual raffle tickets! We'll be drawing for the prizes this weekend, and I'll be sending out emails so that people can choose their prizes. (First number drawn gets first pick; second number gets second pick, and so on.)

And I'd like to thank Teri, of Mamas and Munchkins, for donating two more prizes! (She won the auction for the pooling stole; and then wanted to make another donation. Teri, you're awesome!)

The first prize donation is a Lexie Barnes Lady B bag. My favourite part of the description is the 15 pockets for storing things in the bag. Woo hoo!

The second prize that she's donating is a set of Lexie Barnes Accessory Pouches.


Teri's one of the nicest, most generous, people I've met on Ravelry. Thanks so much, Teri, for this amazing donation!

FOs galore

I'm a little behind in posting a few FOs. Driving the cats around sure does suck up a lot of my time.

First up is a scarf that took me two years to make. No, I'm not that slow of a crocheter. Since I only work 2 Saturdays a month at the LYS, those are the only days that I work on it. Take into account that Saturdays are usually busy and that means that I don't actually get much crochet time.


Pattern: The Wavelength by Lime & Violet
Yarn: 1 skein Noro Kureyon Sock in col S195 (I think); used all but a few yards
Hook: 3.5mm
Notes: I learned how to make a stretchy foundation - the foundation single crochet (other variations also exist). It is seriously awesome. Go ahead and Google it - I'll wait while take a look. There was a bit of nail biting near the end. You have to finish the scarf on Row 4. If you don't have enough yarn, you have to rip it back to your previous Row 4. Since the scarf is crocheted lengthwise, that's a lot to rip.

I've been teaching a top-down raglan class at my LYS. I decided to knit the sweater along with the students because I was expecting a new niece (she arrived last Monday).


Pattern: Buttons Cardigan by Cabin Fever
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece; 2 skeins in Cotton Ball
Needles: 3.75mm Addi Turbo circs

Today was the last day of the class so I took a picture of all our sweaters together:


Don't they all look pretty?


Ricky sez, "Rawr!!!! The roofers should be scared of me and my big fangs!"

scaredy cats

I have a pair of scaredy cats on my hands. The roofers started work on Tues which promptly sent both cats hiding under furniture. The first thump actually interrupted Ricky's breakfast and kibble was flying out of his mouth as he ran for cover. I didn't have any warning that they were starting work so I had to scramble to catch them and drive them over to my Dad's.

Even at Dad's place, Ricky is unsure and spends most of his time hiding under the sofa. But he'll eat if I put kibble down.


Phoebe instantly made herself at home.


She's either lounging on the floor in the sunshine or watching the birdies from the armchair. Phoebe's checked every nook and cranny. When she came out from behind the sofa, her face & whiskers were covered in cobwebs. Guess I don't have to vacuum back there.

All these days at Dad's means that I have a lot of knitting time. I've got my entire collection of BBC's Poirot mysteries, a ton of yarn, and a drop spindle & some fiber. I am busy churning out tons of stockinette & trying to spin BFL. I did a lot of quilting on the birdie quilt but I've put it aside to give my arm a break. Many years ago, I gave myself tennis elbow by over-quilting. It took a lot of physical therapy for the pain to go away so I have to be careful.


Ricky sez, "What was that noise? It's out to get me, isn't it?"

Ride2Survive

It's Tony here, guest-blogging to get you updated on the Ride2Survive.

My wife has knit me many pairs of socks and most of them are at the top of the duty cycle...first-out-of-the-laundry-first-back-in if you know what I mean. I have even started wearing some of my favourite socks on my training rides and judging by the comments I get, other riders like them too. My need to have something my wife made for me could be a sign I'm spending too much time training and not enough time with my family; I have certainly been on the bike a fair bit recently, and as I did last year, I want to thank her for her support.

Thanking her publicly at a training ride is like preaching to the choir, so I'll take this opportunity to thank her in front of her friends. I do also want to say a huge thank you to you, the now legendary (at R2S) knitting community. The R2S contact at the Canadian Cancer Society knows me as the "guy whose wife knits".

Last Sunday was one of our two really big training rides. It was planned out as about 11,000 feet of climbing over 185km (about 110 miles). No, I don't know why we measure distance in km and climbing in feet...for those of you in the Vancouver area, the route went from the Alex Fraser over SFU, out to Deep cove and up and down the North shore and up Cypress Bowl (the snowless wonder of Olympics fame) before heading back to the start point.

The forecast was for cloudy with sunny periods and a high temperature of 15 degrees (60F). What we actually got was rain, heavy at times with periods of hail and a high of about 10 degrees (50F). We had two riders who were borderline hypothermic before we even got to the big climb, and with the rain and cold, brakes were a problem on the hills. Fortunately, we had no crashes, but we had to abandon the big climb.

It wasn't safe to ride down a 13km/7 mile hill at 7% grade hitting speeds of 70kph/45mph in a driving rain storm with possible snow at the summit. I returned home to sunny Delta (the forecast was accurate out here) after 155km and 6000' of climbing and felt moved to take a photo of my legs before heading for a long thaw in the bath.

I don't normally take baths, but on this day I made an exception. By the way, I'm not wearing socks...that's how dirty my shins got riding in the "cloudy with sunny periods". I'm just thankful I was wearing regular cycling socks and not a Wenat creation. Otherwise, I'd have some 'splainin' to do.

This past month, Ride2Survive passed $1,000,000 raised over it's 6 years, and this year's total is now over $135,000 and rising quickly. All donations go directly to fund research, and we are making a difference. Thanks to donors like yourselves, supporters and well-wishers too and a tireless group of volunteers who work to get the riders to the destination.

Tony