Okay - Sandra - This is for You!

I finally got to meet Elizabeth!  What a super nice lady. I'm so happy I met her for more than just the little weaving in the ends trick she taught me.  I will tell you her trick - becuase that's what I'm here for - to do stuff for the good of others. 

Okay - I hate anything to do with a needle and thread/yarn. HATE IT. I always make a huge mess of my ends, if I can't hide them in the seam, so what was I to do with the ends of the Very Harlot Poncho I just finished?  Well - let me tell you - she has a little latch hook took, you know the tool that enables you to rug hook?  That one - but much smaller. You loop it though about 5-6 loops, put the end in the little hook part, close it, then yank the end through the 5-6 loops you just went though. And viola - that end is gone in record time. It is clean, neat and above all - if I can find that little tool - I will weave in those damn ends right away.

Elizabeth - did I get it right? 

Sandra - your opinion is invaluable to me. I thank you for your honesty with me last night - advising me to rip, what I call - the Gold Dust scarf, and add another strand of yarn.  I did - as I have some goldie colour wool at home, and started it again, using the swing needles and that little technique - and it looks so much better.

And to save the best for last - I bought 8 balls of Noro Silk Garden in colour 205!  Yeah. I'm actually going to swatch for this sweater, just to make sure I can make gauge - as those of you who know - it is not the cheapest stuff.

Will keep you posted - peace out. Sorry, couldn't help myself - I;m listening to Flow 93.5, Toronto's dance/r&b/pop radio station.

Any SnB'ers Out there?

I'm off to The Naked Sheep tonight. Meet my new found knitting buddies, have some lemonaide, and hopefully have someone teach me how to duplicate stitch the ends of the Very Harlot Poncho. I've made it just in time for the colder weather - which is finally here in Toronto - and I want to wear it. Who wouldn't?

And I've got a secret - which of course I'll tell you - I'm going to buy (hopefully Lorena has some) some Silk Garden tonight for this:

I told myself, I would spend the money on this, because I have way TOO much yarn, I don't have any luck at making sweaters and would I wear it enought to justify the cost?  Well - who cares if I have too much yarn, how can I screw up making four rectangles, and who gives a shit if I will wear it enough - it is beautiful just to look at. So there you have it folks, I've just justified to myself why I should get 8 balls of Noro Silk Garden.  but knowing my luck, now that I've want it the yarn, it won't be available.

Not bad, eh?

I've been knitting - Really

First things first - I have finished Yarn Harlot's Very Harlot Poncho, in this rather light/medium green - and if I do say so myself - it looks pretty good.  But, and as I always say - there is always a but - I have some ends to weave in, and I'm not sure how to do weave them in, considering the stitches are really loose, and I think you will be able to see them on the right side.  Also, there is not a seam in sight to hide them in. They are placed randomly on the wrong side, and I'm not quite sure how to weave them in so they look nice and clean. 

Any pointers?  Suggestions?  If I don't hear anything, I will have to wait until the SnB on Wednesday nights The Naked Sheep - I'm sure there is someone there who can assist me.

Next on the hit list - my good friend's sister sells her hand made jewellery at her work twice a year, and the next sale is in November. I've decided to throw in a 3-4 of my knitted scarves, and this hat, on in the colour you see below and one in black:

What do ya all think?

The Good News - The Naked Sheep

I'm so excited - there is a new yarn shop 15 minutes from my house and they have a SnB on Wednesday nights. It is big, for lots of ladies to knit all night long. The owner is fabulous. She is so nice. And the ladies I met there - FANTASTIC with a huge capital F. Sandra posted about it and asked me to go, so I said - sure, why not? And boy am I glad. This will be my new yarn store. No doubt about it. No convincing. I guess you can tell I'm excited.

I met Kathryn - holy moly batman - is she an amazing knitter. I think she was born with knitting needles in her hand. She is currently working on making a cardigan with trees all on the front and back of the cardigan. I've tried to find a picture on the net, but I can't. But if you have the Vogue Ultimate Knitting Book, you can find it there. Kathryn's friend was there (I'm sorry, I think her name is Trish, yeah that's it). She is SO nice. I met Brenda, who lives in the area and we just recently emailed each other, and now we met face to face. How cool.

Good luck with your knitting - I certainly need it.

You've Got Mail

Don't you love getting mail? I know I do, I remember loving it from a little girl.  There is something about receiving mail at the end of the day that makes you feel so good.  So what did I get in the mail?  THIS:

And THIS: 

I'm so excited.  I love the Hot Knits Book.  I love over half of the designs, and of the half I like, I would make about half of those.  So not bad. Not bad at all.  The Ann Budd book will be good for the future.  I am not that much of a designer by nature, but when you have wool, and no pattern in site for it, it will be nice to turn to that book and make one that will fit the recipient. Yeah for me!

At last nights knitting with Sandra and Corrie, I finished the front of Gina's lace, started and finished the lace section of the first sleeve and on to the straight knitting. Should go fast, considering I am shortening the sleeves by 3".  I don't like full length sleeves, for some reason they make me more hot than I usually am.  Who knows why.   I can't remember a time I've been cold for long. I;m usually extremely hot and have a fan at all places of my office and home.  Anyone else have this horrible internal furnance? I;m sure you are out there.

Report on the new books = check, Knitting progress = check. So that is all folks.  Have a good one.

I'm Still Here

Busy, busy, just like a bee the last couple of days.  My sister in law is due in the next two weeks, so of course, because this is her first, a big ass shower was thrown for her, and little old me was hosting it. Need I say more where my time has been spent? No, thought not.  For those of you who are interested, the shower went off without a hitch. Food was great (if I do say so myself), the guests had a great time, and, because of the hosting the shower, I had the best reason/excuse to clean my house from top to bottom. Man, does it look good.  Well, the main floor anywas. I didn't have time to do the upstairs - that is next.

With the small amount of time I've had to myself, I've been knitting the front of Gina's Lace, and have 10 rows to finish.  I do have a problem - the front is about 1-2 inches wider than the back, so the back will be stretched to make up the difference.  I guess I should have checked my gauge throughout, but I didn't. 

I'm meeting Corrie, Sandra and Jason tonight for knitting, so, I should (please don't be reading this - knitting gods) be able to finish the front tomorrow.

Wish me luck...

SnB

I made it to the SnB at Lettuce Knits last night. Wow, what an amazing amount of woman that go. I'm hoping to go in two weeks, as it was quite a bit of fun. I got to meet some faces behind the blog! Aven, Dani, Kelly, I already know Sandra, as we knit on Tuesday nights. There were other ladies attending that do not have blogs, but just as nice. What is exciting there was a reporter from the National Post who is currently doing an article on Knitting, and she stayed to talk to all us.

I'm about 90% done the front of Gina's Lace, which means - only about 26 rows left! Oh yeah, I have two sleeves to do! Shit. But getting closer, like a turtle, but I am plugging along.

Oh yeah, I've been noticing alot of blogs have this Bloglines on their sites, so I thought I would check it out. Wow!  Once you subscribe to the blogs you read, you only have to go there to check if anyone of them has been updated. Holy cow...It saves so much time. And it is FREE!  So, why not?  I can subscribe to about 98% of the blogs I read, and for the others, I just keep them in my favs to read after I've checked Bloglines. (I believe the other 2% can not be added, as those sites, including mine does not publish RSS feeds. C'est La Vie.  So if you have not done so - DO IT NOW.  You will save an enormous amount of time sitting at the computer.

Have a good day folks.

GTA Knit Blog Ring

Well - We have grown up to 25 sites in our little ring.  We Torontian knitters need to stick together. I have 3 more waiting in the queue, and once their codes are working correctly, we will have 28! WOW - and double wow!  And without further ado - here are the new sites:

Gauge Variant, Little Pear's Workshop, Always Casting On, Knit, Stitch, Click, Knot In My Thread, Chez Chelle, Misadventures In Knitting, PassioKnit, and Needling About .

In the last two months I have added 8 new blogs, and with 3 more waiting in the wings. So in a month and a half, our numbers have grown nicely. Not nearly as large as the Knit Blog Ring, but hey we are not the world.

So, next on the list - SnB tomorrow night at Lettuce Knits - anyone going? I'm going to try again this week, but I've just had a all day session put on my calendar for tomorrow - can you believe it? Thankfully it ends at 3pm, and the SnB is at 7pm, but you know how those corporate all days go - they keeping going and going.

But I'll be there. I'm looking forward to meeting my fellow GTA Knit Bloggers - but if we all go - will there be enough room? Should I bring my folding chair?  I really don't like to stand and knit, even though I can do it!  See ya'll tomorrow - I hope.

I've Got Nothing - do you hear me - Nothing!

Oh well, such as life. My weekend at the cottage was nice - weather wise, but my younger girl, who we all call a firecracker, roadrunner, high energy burner, etc. was in fine form this weekend. Let me just say this - she doesn't sit still, has a hard time focusing and is extremely loud. Now, without alot of sleep, these fine traits are not so fine, and require alot of time and patience to control her and her temper. She is in essence, a shit disturber.

Especially if the adult and/or kid doesn't like what she is doing, she will do it more. And more, and well, let's just say, alot of loud "Madelyns" were heard this weekend. So, what does this have to do with knitting? Hyper shit distubing child equals no knitting time. I finished 20 of the 24 row lace pattern, and that is it. I was hoping to get at least to the boring, mindless stockinette stitch, so I could knit on the car ride home. No such luck.

Well, as I said at the begininning of this post - such as life. I hope you had a good knitting weekend. I will leave you with a picture of my stash re-org that took place a couple of weeks ago:

Before (messy, messy, messy):

After (there has been more additions to this stash since the re-org):

What a bitch to put those steel things together, and I don't think I did a great job at it, as I'm afraid to touch anything in the cubbies. But, at least I can see everything. That's it folks!

And They're Off...

I'm off for the weekend to a cottage up north.  My two girls will have another girl they know quite well to play with. What does that mean to me? Well, I've been demoted from the role of Entertainer to the role of Supervisor, which means - lots of knitting and chatting.  I'm going to attempt the start of Gina's Lace's front and finish this weekend.  I won't, but that's my goal. No harm in hoping. That's how things get done.

I wish I could take a picture of the scarf I made yesterday for older daughter's soccer coach.  I used the stitch pattern Joji kindly wrote out for me. And it looks great. I can't wait to give it to her.  Now - for the bad news - our camera is at the repair shop for at least 6 weeks.  6 freaking long weeks. I can't believe it.  What are they doing?  Making a new one for us? Good god.

My good buds at work - Chris and Rob usually have their camera handy and have said yes to photographing my knitting. You would think if you asked non knitters/non bloggers to do this, they think you are strange and laugh at you, but not these guys-tjey feel my pain. It is too bad I'm leaving their group to go to another. I'll miss them!  But thankfully I will be on the same floor and can bug the hell out of them anytime the mood strikes me.

So next week - pics of the 2 hour scarf will be ready for your viewing pleasure.  BTW-I used the red ball of yarn you can hopefully see here. It's behind the big mass of green yarn.  Oh, and it cost .50 cents. Not bad, eh? 

Have a great one guys...Happy Knitting.