In a Spin

I'm still not entirely sure how it happened.  I was in Romni Wools, picking up some yarn for a very special project (not sure if I can blog about it yet) and I wandered down to the basement.  This is where the sales rooms are, full of bins and boxes that you can dig and dive through in hopes of finding treasure.  On the way to the sales rooms, you pass by the spinning supplies: wheels, roving, spindles, and miscellaneous mysterious gadgets.  I rarely give these a second glance, beyond making sure my sleeve doesn't catch on anything as I move along.

So I still don't really know how I came to be standing at the checkout, paying for this:



And this:



I haven't been really all that interested in spinning. It just seemed the slow way to get yarn.  But I'm finding that I'm enjoying the movement and the feel of the fibre in my hands.  And it's rewarding to start with a bag of fuzzy blue intestines, and end up with a cute little skein like this.

Clover

As usual in my world ‘tomorrow’ is a flexible term.


So, the most lasting memory of the cottage? Was one I brought back with me in a very real, very physical form.



This is Clover.

When we arrived at the cottage, there was a box of cat food and a note left on the kitchen island. “Please feed the stray cat and call the Humane Society”. Various clues led us to believe that the cottage owners probably don’t visit the place between renters, and so the note was most likely from the group who had rented the cottage the week previous.

The stray cat in question showed up that day, and he was a very friendly, warm kitty. The next day he brought his girl. And the day after that, we’d apparently cleared the security check, and they brought the kids.




We were in the back of beyond, not close to any municipality that had a humane society, and we know that they don’t come to pick up strays anymore in any case. So we just continued to feed them and let them hang out on the deck with us.



A few days into the week, the grey kitten wasn’t around anymore. There was no one in any of the nearby cottages, so we were left to conclude that something had happened to her.

At the end of the week, I couldn’t stand to leave the second kitten to a similar fate. So Clover came home with me.



But Sebastian is a one-cat cat. And he’s that cat. A new home was found for Clover after only a week. It was hard to see her go, but I’m confident that the person who came to pick her up will give her a wonderful, loving home.



So all’s well that ends well. I just hope our next cottage doesn’t come with similar residents. It’s too hard on my heart.

Home Again, Home Again

I'm back from the cottage now, and working on getting used to things as they are. No lake view, no whispering pines, no friends waiting in the living room.


Sigh. Back to the noise and limited views of my little neighbourhood.
But it's still nice to get home.

It was a great time away. We all spent a lot of time reading, and Charlotte and I played with our sticks and string. I finished my one project, and started three more. Apparently, the limited attention span that develops while on vacation can prompt a wicked case of startitis.

Charlotte may also have done a little recruiting.



We had one evening enlivened by a visit from this little guy.



We were very brave for city folk, and did manage to drive him back out the patio door. Unfortunately, we also succeeded in inviting in several hundred mosquitoes during the fracas. I was tempted to invite the bat back in to deal with it.

Charlotte and I also spent lots of time playing with our cameras.



There was plenty to snap.





But the most tangible memory of the weekend is one I'll share tomorrow. All that relaxing has worn me out and it's time for me to get to bed. My own lovely, soft bed.

Sunset Number One

We're surreptitiously using wifi from an unknown source, so I won't upload all the pictures I'm taking until I get home, but here's a taste of our first evening here.



We're in the Kawarthas this year, and it's lovely so far. We drove in through the rain, but it cleared up a bit later. Today's been a bit overcast, and we're waiting out a thunderstorm right now, but before then, it was nice enough for a quick dip in the lake.

Happy Sunday!

Noro in Zigzag

I am heading off today to our second annual week at the cottage! I am excited to bits, and just hoping we get at least some decent weather. But am packing lots of decks of cards, books, board games, dvds, and - of course - knitting projects just in case we are housebound. I don't think we'll be all that heartbroken to have to sit inside to do nothing some of the time.

Just in time to get it posted before leaving, I finished my first pair for the Summer of Socks.



These are destined to be a birthday gift for a friend. She already knows about them, so no stealth required.



As a matter of fact, she's even tried one on. This lead to the discovery that I was knitting them too short in the foot. So I added an extra pattern repeat to the second sock, by then in progress, and finally ripped out and reknit the first sock's toe. Hence the different toe colours. Up to that point, I was so matchy-matchy it made me giddy.



I love all the colours, but it's the little punch of copper at the heel that really pleases me the most.



Pattern: Zigzag Socks, by Christine Walter, from the Vogue Ultimate Sock Book.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock, colourway S40
Mods: None.

I like this pattern. I also like this yarn. It's a bit rough while knitting up, but I didn't have too much vegetable matter - maybe four little bits in total, and nothing that jabbed me. It is a bit thick/thin in places, which took some getting used to. But none of that is noticeable in the finished socks, so it's all good.

It's also quite a generous skein. after completing the two socks, I still have just about another full colour repeat, meaning I could (should I choose to) get a third sock out of this skein. I'm thinking baby bootees, maybe.

Have a fabulous week! I'll be hitting the road soon, and if all goes well, might be back once or twice to tease with some fabulous pictures.

Go. Now.

Just in case you've somehow managed to be on the internet and not have heard about it, I must direct you to Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. There are not words for how awesome and amazing and funny it is, and you only have until tomorrow to see it free online. You can also buy all three episodes from iTunes, and the DVD will be available later, with all kinds of ooey gooey good extras.



Know that it's Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Filion and singing and supervillians.

Aw - my first commercial blog entry. Sniff. It's a very geeky moment for me.

Dabbling and Dangling in Randomnicityness

I'm doing it again. I get a gap in the blogging thing, and then I feel like I have to do something special and interesting to get back into it, but I don't have time for that (I have much to play with the internet and yarn and such) and so I don't post at all.

So here's some randomness.

A few weeks ago, I went to the Dundas Busker's Festival with some friends. It was one of the first truly summer-type days.


I celebrated with my very first case of heatstroke. (Sunstroke? Are they the same?) I don't recommend it, in any case. Ugh.


But there were people doing interesting and dangerous-seeming things, and here are some pictures.


Dundas is a pretty little town, and still has some nice architecture. I got to look at this building for quite a while, since it was across from my 'recovery bench' in the shade.

I like getting out to little celebrations and seeing different communities put on a show. There are so many places that host events in the summer, it's hard not to stumble on a few. Looking back over the years, I've been to the CornFest, Freedom Festival, Strawberry Festival, Art in the Park, Art by the Marina, the Mudcat Festival, Taste of Windsor, Carousel of Nations, and the Harrow Fair.

The best, though, in terms of food at least, is the Tecumseh corn fest. Or, not even so much the corn festival itself, but the corn. The corn from Essex county is the best corn there is. You may think you have had great corn, but if you haven't had it from Essex county, you haven't had the best. I'm wrong about many, many things, but I have yet to be proven wrong about this.

In the summer, it was always a wonderful treat to go out 'into the county' to one of the fields hosting a corn stand. You'd stand in line and wait, first of all, because there was always a line. And that was okay. Because you were waiting for more corn to be brought directly from the field to the little shack. People in back would shuck, and hand off to people inside, who would dump the cobs into giant, bubbling cauldrons. A couple of minutes later, the cobs were fished out and dipped into big pots of melted butter, before being handed over to you on rapidly disintegrating paper plate along with a salt shaker. Heaven.

I think I need to plan a visit home soon. I think it's corn season.

Thrills! Chills! Secrets and Cables!

I am not a perfectionist. "Good enough", or "that'll do" are things I often say. This extends to my knitting, too, in most cases. Have an extra stitch at the end of a row? Well, looky here - if I knit this one and this other one together, problem solved! Good enough! No one will ever know. And I'll stop looking at that spot eventually, I'm sure.

But sometimes, "good enough" just doesn't work out. Sometimes it's an unforgivable, unmistakable, uh - mistake. For me, that usually means ripping out the entire thing and starting from scratch. I do that a lot. It tends to make any knitters nearby blanch and clutch their chests, but I've got enough "Process Knitter" in me that I don't mind it much. (Mind you, one time someone actually grabbed the project away from me before I could completely frog it and picked up all my stitches. It was interesting. And great.)

But sometimes the project has just gone too far for that. And then things like this happen:

That's six dpns and my Denise circular tenuously holding together a secret project. Kind of makes you hold your breath just looking at it, doesn't it? Like the climax of a scary book or movie, where you're pretty sure everyone will come out alive, but you don't know absolutely for sure.

This story does have a happy ending, though. Behold.

All better!

Back to "good enough" for me.

Up, Up and Away

I celebrated WWKIP day by completely forgetting about it, due to other things going on. Like getting my father in a helicopter for the first time in his life.

It was my mum's idea initially, and I totally and shamelessly took it over. I researched it, booked it, and even ended up driving us all to the - what - heliport? That sounds like a real word, right? And things turned out in such a way that the whole thing ended up a complete surprise revealed only at the moment we pulled into the parking lot in Niagara Falls.



When we got there, we were informed that the weather was a bit cloudy, so we'd be delayed. It was barely enough time for a quick ice cream break, then my dad was getting in the helicopter.




Then he was in the air, looking down on the falls and the whirlpool and the river.






The flight was only nine minutes, but my father loved it and can't wait to go again. During those nine minutes, I KIP'd, unwittingly keeping the spirit of the day. Then the helicopter was back, and my dad couldn't stop smiling.



This was followed by some time in Niagara on the Lake, where I knit in a pub, then on a bench. Then a visit to Fort George, where I knit on a picnic table. And then, because no family visit is complete without some sort of medical emergency, a visit to the urgent care centre, where I knit in an examination area, and then the imaging waiting room. We discovered that my father had cracked a bone in his toe when he bumped it on my air conditioner the previous evening. (He's doing okay - there's nothing to be done but wait for healing.)

Happy belated WWKIP and Father's days!

The Start of Summer Knitting

Summer has descended on Toronto suddenly. We had a long, cool spring after a longer, soul-crushing winter. Then, suddenly, last Friday, we were plunged into the 3 H's. Hot, hazy, humid. We even had a humidex warning to celebrate our first summery day.

Sticky, hot weather means small, no-lap-contact projects. Luckily, there are lots and lots of babies in my life and periphery. Some have already arrived, and some are still baking. Either way, it means I get to make cute little things like this.



I love the Saartje bootees. This is the second pair I've knit, and they're ridiculously fast, and so, so adorable. And to go with them, I thought a little hat would be perfect.



This is the Vine Lace baby hat, by Sandi Wiseheart. (Ravelry links there) Another cute, fast knit.

This was all made from the leftover yarn from my Coupling socks. It's from Sunnyside Ellen's Etsy shop, and it's really lovely stuff. And obviously a generous skein! This little set was a gift for baby Emma, the new addition to the family of a friend-of-a-friend. Any excuse to knit baby things is a good excuse.

I already have a little sweater on the needles that will be a Christmas present, and a couple of other little sweaters set to go when those needles are free. I'm trying to finish up the current sweater first, mainly because I'm really enjoying the project and don't want to put it down now that I'm nearing the end. Despite a little snag. Details soon. It's not pretty.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Right?

How about a really pretty FO to make up for the time away? Something... lacy? Soft? Maybe a little... seasilk?

Okay then - I present the Shetland Triangle, from Wrap Style, pattern by Evelyn Clark.


This was a surprisingly quick and easy knit, and the perfect use for the single skein of seasilk that I won from a contest on Kirsty's blog last year.

Thanks to great notes on purlparable's Shetland Triangle project in Ravelry, I knew I'd likely get 11 pattern repeats out of the skein. And I was left with only a few metres of yarn at the end, so it worked out just perfectly. Not to the point where I was panicking that I'd run out before finishing the edging, but not with so much left over that I felt like I'd wasted any of the precious, precious seasilk.
The lace pattern was easy to internalize, and turned out very, very pretty.




The yarn has a lovely sheen to it, and it was just so wonderful to knit with.

This started out as a project for me, but when I saw how beautifully it turned out, I thought it should be a gift. This declaration was met with such severe scolding from my knitting group that I "reluctantly" acquiesced, and I've been enjoying wearing this on these many cool spring days.



It was fun to wear to the Knitter's Frolic. It seemed everyone jumped on the opportunity to show off their beautiful work to people who would appreciate it, and I almost wished for a 'show and tell' session, where I could see everything more closely, and it all could be probably admired.

My First Knitter's Frolic

Overall, the damage wasn't too bad. Especially considering the total sensory overload I experienced when I walked into the building and saw more yarn, and more knitters in one place than I'd ever seen in real life.

I went in with cash, weakly resolving not to pull out any kind of plastic. That did last until the very end, when people were starting to pack things up, and a fellow customer convinced me to take both of the colours I was waffling between. The wonderful and evil woman didn't even try. She's good.

I was hoping to pick up a nice bag - ideally one of those fancy pants bags that works as a purse and a knitting bag. And there were some of those in evidence, but none that I fell in love with, so that's been left as a "someday" shopping goal. Which is probably good, considering my credit cards at the moment. I'm also lucky in that I am currently waiting for a Knitpicks order, that will fulfill many of my current project needs.

I do have moments when I regret not grabbing some of that fabulous colourway of Socks that Rock from Lettuce Knit, or picking up one of those amazing skeins of laceweight silk that was such an unbelievable deal.



But I got lots of fun new things to play with, and even a belated birthday present in the latest Yarn Harlot book. (Thanks, Jen!)

This will definitely be a must-see next year.

The Short Life of a Cute Cookie

My coworker is pregnant.

I found a ridiculously cute pregnant-lady cookie when visiting the Queen of Tarts a couple of weeks ago. I presented the cookie the next day.


Now, this is a friend who absolutely hates to use the dishcloths I knit for her, because she doesn't want them to get dirty. I figured the cookie would never get to achieve its cookie destiny, and would instead be kept on a shelf and admired as a cute memento.


I did not account for pregnancy hunger. Twenty minutes after gifting the cookie, I was informed that it was not long for this world, and if I wanted pictures, I'd better come running with my camera.

The carnage was somewhat disturbing. I think I got an arm.


Next up will be pics of my (relatively minor, I must admit) Knitter's Frolic haul.

Knitting by Candlelight

Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes. One fun advantage to being on Facebook, in Ravelry, and part of the blogosphere is all the extra people sending happy birthdays.

On Saturday, I joined in with all the other people around the world who turned off the lights for Earth Hour. Before eight o'clock, I had been sitting in the twilight, knitting and goofing around on the laptop. At five to, (ironically) I had to turn on the lights to run around and find candles and matches.



At first, I sat in the candlelight and kept goofing around on the laptop - running on the battery. But that didn't really feel like I was getting into the spirit of the thing, and so after a few minutes, I shut down and picked up my knitting.



I had plenty of candles and lanterns, but it was still kind of dark for knitting. Luckily, these are the Pomatomus socks being reknit, so I don't need to see what I'm doing very closely, or check the chart very often.



It was very peaceful, sitting in the quiet, dim light. I ended the evening without turning on any lights, reading by candlelight before falling asleep early. I may have to unplug more often. If nothing else, just to use my candles and lanterns more often.

The Socks that Ravelry Saved

I started these socks a while back. I was heading to Minneapolis for a work meeting, and I knew I'd have lots of plane and airport time. I liked the pattern, and I liked the yarn, but I didn't feel like they were playing well together.



I set the sock's status to 'hibernating' in my Ravelry projects, stuck the sock itself in an easily-forgotten corner of my stash shelves, and moved on. But a funny thing happened on the way to the frog pond. Somebody 'favourited' the sock. The sight of that little heart in the corner gave me pause, but didn't really change my mind. I still wasn't entirely happy with the yarn/pattern combo, and didn't want to let one random person's click change my decision.

But then someone else favourited it. And then so did another person. (And then someone 'un-favourited', but by then the damage was done.)

So here are the finished Little Pumpkins socks.


I think I was too hard on them. They've turned out quite nice. And a rarity for my socks that I knit for myself - they fit perfectly!

I screwed up the toes when I forgot what I'd done exactly to finish the first off and made a (bad) guess at how to finish the second. But that's one of those things that will only ever be noticed by me. And only then when I have my shoes off. I can live with it.



Pattern: Little Pumpkins Socks (that's a pdf link) by Sabine Ruppert (Sabi on Ravelry).
Yarn: Austermann Step in colourway 12
Mods: Just the toe, which I finished with a bit of Kitchenering, rather than pulling the last stitches together and tying off. (I... I like Kitchener stitch. There! I admitted it!)