Monday? Seriously?

Wow, time does fly when you're spending it all on Ravelry! Love it. Sign up, wait patiently, you will be invited. I think it took about 3 or 4 weeks from when I signed up until I got my invite. I'm getting all my stuff so very much more organized. I love it.

There was another Sockimus Palimus postcard. Look how pretty!


It's all fishy and shiny. And the best part...it's from Seattle. My sockpal is all over the place! East coast, west coast, England. I'm amazed. Do you think they are a pilot? Then, 3 or 4 hours into a long overseas flight they just put that bit ol' plane into autopilot and knit some socks? That thought appeals to me on so many different levels.

Here's the back. Bit of a philosopher is my Sockimus Palimus. :)


Here is my current progress on my sockpal sock. One more pattern repeat and I'm doing the heel flap. My pal likes her socks not so long.

Sorry for the overexposure. Okay, I'm off. I have to make some bird food and bird bread and get a few things done before work. Happy Monday y'all!

My sock pal gets around

Okay, I've told you about the stalking socking pal I have. There has been another postcard. The first ones were posted from Manchester NH and Pittsburgh PA, respectively. Then I got this one:

Ummmm, it was posted in Greerford/Windsor, in England! Seriously, this is a getting around kind of sock pal. I am utterly amazed and touched by how cool this is. This must truly be the most traveled sock pal in the world. Every day I can't wait to check the mail. It is hilarious! I'm looking so forward to "meeting" this person, you can't imagine. :)

Friday was Vanessa's birthday so we took a little trip. We did a very touristy Vancouver thing and caught the seabus over to North Vancouver for a day of shopping, sightseeing, and FOOD. So much food. There was lattes and cakes, stuffed olives, handmade chocolates, fish and chips, stuffed mushroom caps, a little libation (teehee), and then fresh fruit before we headed home. Here are some random images from the day:

This is not the seabus. Just in case you're wondering.

This is the seabus. :) What did you expect for $2.25?

The ride over.

The Lonsdale Quay/market.

A former fishing boat that now seems to be used for tourists and stuff, I'm guessing, based on the fact that it had a hot tub on the back deck.

Vanessa actually went up and touched one of these, we are still not sure if they were real or not. Bleah!
This was a very dapper gentleman we spotted. I have never seen shinier shoes in my life.

We bought this tea at the Blue Teapot shop. Look what it can do:

Kind of amazing, no? Go check out the Blue Teapot website, they have some other images of it. The tea itself was really mild and ever so slightly aromatic. It is supposed to make me young, have a great liver, and be beautiful. That's a lot for one little cup of tea, right?

Not really going to discuss this. Let's just say that the new public toilet at Main Street might not be the greatest success in the world. Bleach!

Have a great day everyone. I'm off to play on Ravelry. I got my invite! Then I want to knit for an hour before work. No overtime today. Yay!

I have a stalker...

and I kind of like it! My sock pal, sorry, Sockimus Palimus, has been sending me little missives through the mail. First there was this one:


Then there was this one:



This was the most wonderful thing to come home to after a 12 hour shift. I laughed so hard that snorting was heard. It was brilliant! I love my Sockimus Palimus.

The other thing I came how to was this:

A puffy from the Sweet Sheep. So nicely packaged and there is this awesome little pin with the sheepy logo. Very cute! So yeah, yarn diet, that was sooooo yesterday. :)


Here you see some Fleece Artist Sea Wool (squishability factor of 13), Shelridge Farms Handpaint (squishability factor of 12), and Mama C*EYE*BER Fiber (colour factor 1,000,000 - it's called blood orange, swoon).

Okay, shower and back to work. Thanks for coming out kids!

Spring

Yep, it's finally here,

ETA: For Kat - these are Chinese Tree Peonies. You can find out more here. This one is huge, almost 12 inches across.

and here,


and here,



Ah springtime, when a young man's fancy may turn to love but an older man's fancy starts thinking about summer. Then he starts the prep work for a pool. 'Cause he can't handle the heat like her could when he was young!


And he has a helper,


Since the new neighbours moved in behind us this is all you see of the dogs:


She has cookies and kids. All you see is three bums and three wagging tails poking out of the shrubs in the back of the yard. If the dogs are sleeping in the living room they know when the neigbours come home. It's like their pagers all go off at once and boom, they fly out the back door.

And then you have the beautiful Jane, taking a moment to smell the dandelions.

And a nice shiny Stella:

And, finally, a little scrappy dog, all tired out and sleeping on last years pool in the sun. p.s.
Sock 76.a.1 - yeah, that didn't work out. Back to the drawing board! :)

More entries, and a linkfest

The Dulaan contest is getting exciting! Just look at this! Lucy over at Workbasket submitted 16 items. Whoot whoot! I am blown away.

Now go on over there and wish her a happy birthday. :)

And Beth, (who I believe is blogless, but if not, please speak up and let us come to your place!) made this gorgeous steppe sweater for Dulaan. I love the colours and it looks amazingly warm and comfy. I love it. Note to self, must make one of these sweaters.


It's always so exciting to see what other people are creating, especially for something as wonderful as Dulaan. Thanks guys, you rock!

Now, how many of you signed up for Sockapalooza 4 today? I can't wait to get my partner. I want to cast on right now. Sing out in comments if you're in on this. I would love to follow along with all of you on what socks you're making.

Okay, first game of the NHL playoffs tonight. My Canucks are playing the Stars, at home. And...it's Trevor Linden's birthday. Swoon. Everything send some good hockey juju for my boys. They so deserve a Stanley Cup.

The only problem I foresee, my gauge is completely screwy when I'm watching hockey, especially playoffs. Should make for an interesting Poppy.

Oh, before I forget, I also joined Hello Yarn's fibre club. 'Cause I ordered that Spindolyn. Oh crap, another obsessive hobby. Sigh.

Doh!

I forgot to add this link. These are so beautiful! They are called Winding Cable Kneesocks by Chrissy Gardiner. So pretty.

What a week

Whew, am I ever glad it's Sunday. I'm hitting the couch with the knitting so hard today you may be able to see the rising dust cloud from where ever you happen to be!

Had the sedond interview on Friday and met the big mucky muck of the operation. It went well. I should hear about that early next week. There are some tremendously big rumblings at work though so we will have to see how all this shakes out over the next week. I need to make some lists and have some meetings. What is expected of me? What is my role? What can I expect from others? Blah blah blah. I'm too old for work drama. I think I might have like it when I was younger but not now. Home & family provide enough drama, work should not be competing for an Oscar on the drama front.

And poor hubby had a tooth extracted on Friday so he is just miserable and swollen and unhappy. I think he might be sick of Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli too! Bahahaha.

Cats were taken to vets for blood tests and urine tests. They too were very unhappy and very vocal about it.

Tammys were also taken to human vets for yearly checkups and medications fart arounds. I was equally unhappy but much less vocal.

I'm telling you, it's going to be a pretty quiet day at the old homestead. A little rest and recharge before we charge back into the fray tomorrow.

On the knitting front, I'm working on one of my big UFO's. A top down sweater from Knitting Pure and Simple. #241 to be exact. Love their designs. The first sweater I ever knit was from Knitting Pure & Simple. I ran into a little problem though. I was almost finished the first sleeve and tried it on to check the length. Ummm, yeah, the sleeve top was built for Popeye and the forearm was more for Kate Moss. Strangely, I'm somewhere in the middle on that one. So a ripping I did go. Had to frog the whole forearm and go up above the elbow and remove 3 sets of the decreases. Now I'm just going to knit it straight, more like a kimono sleeve.

Then the problem occurs. I don't have enough of this yarn to complete the project because of the wider sleeves. It was a "Oh I have just enough of this yarn in the stash that I bought at Elann 3 years ago!" moment. You know the ones, you've all had them too.

So, stuck between the rock that is the stash diet and the hard place that is the need to get more yarn to finish a year old UFO I hit ebay. Thankfully someone had 3 balls of the exact same dyelot. It was meant to be and I'm not counting it as a slip.

I'm still working on writing up the wee hat pattern. Man, that's work. It is so hard to try to make sure you cover all the questions/issues people will have.

The sock toes have been put on hold. I was really unhappy with the joins on the needles I was using and decided to bite the bullet and order some of the classic circulars from Knitpicks. I'm told the joins are smooth as silk. The website tells me they have been shipped so I should have them next week.

I think that's about all there is to tell from here at Chez Yarn & Dustbunny. Man, I hope that's all I've got. I'm a simple woman and this much stuff in a week is wearing me down. :) Y'all have a good Sunday. If I get the hat pattern done I'll post it up later today.

Oh, and just because it's more fun to have a post with a pici, here's a shot from a couple of summers ago. Stella used to be quite the yarn thief. If the basement door was open she was in there and stealing anything not in a rubbermaid tote. This is me trying to salvage a skeif of sock yarn from Lotusblossom. I eventually just gave up and replaced it, (thankfully she had dyed another lot in the same colour!) there were way too many breaks once Stell was done with it. Up to the left on the fence you can see another skein she got the same day. It too was a writeoff. Aren't dogs great?

The Rundown

Okay, we're gonna be brief because I still feel like a large bag o' poo. These are the beginnings of the first ever toe up socks I've ever made. You MUST go here and check out this technique! This is one of the smartest thing I've ever learned as a knitter. Wicked smart! If you scroll down there is a printer friendly version too. So now I have sock toes and I will make some feet, then I will search for the perfect heel technique.


No-Blog-Rachel is participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. This is a truly huge endeavor so please go over and see her page and help her on her journey if you can. She is going to walk 39 miles over two days. Amazing!

I've also been making these hats for Dulaan. Super easy, I've got half of the pattern written out so I will hopefully share that with y'all this week sometime.


The other big news is that on Friday when I was festering away on the couch the City called about a job. I showered and drugged myself up appropriately and headed out for an interview that afternoon. It went really well, at least it seemed to from my Dayquil addled state. They are calling people back for second interviews and will make their decision early next week. Please cross some fingers. The job sounds really interesting and actually somewhat fulfilling as I would be doing something that actually makes my community a better place.

In knitting news, I actually knit a fair bit this week. I'm almost finished the body of my Knitting Pure & Simple cardi. I'm going to work on the sleeves today to make sure they are done before I finish out the rest of the body. I always worry about coming up short in the yarn department. And, better yet, this has been on the needles for almost a year and the yarn was in the stash for more than a year before that. Sweetness in the stashbusting department.

Okay, I need to get back to depleting the worlds supply of tissues and lozenges. Have a lovely Sunday everyone.

The thought occurs

...that I have never made toe up socks. Therefore, it would only be slightly logical if I actually made a pair before I leapt off the knee sock precipice. Walking before I run and all that.

What this all means, of course, is a change of plans. I'm going to play with some Knitpicks merino and make some regular length toe up socks so I actually understand the the concept before I cast on and make a horse's patooty with my nice new No Blog Rachel yarn.

Huh, I haven't bought yarn in over a month and I'm thinking before acting. Aren't those the first two signs of the apocolypse? Oh my god! I dusted this weekend too! The end must surely by nigh! (Is that spelled right? What a stupid looking word).

Ta Da!

Mock cable socks, off the needles and on my feet! Yay! Knee socks, here I come.

fe fi FO fum

Yeah baby! The pirate hat is done and hubby seems very please with it. Here's a couple of picis of him in it. Sorry for the blurry but we were both laughing too hard to get them in proper focus.
I made him hold the dog in this one.
This is the little scabby dog who adopted us last spring. Seriously, she just showed up and our big dog Jane called her down the driveway. She weighed about 5 pounds, was missing so much fur, hence we called her Wee Scabby Dog for weeks. Once we finally realized we were going to be keeping her we changed her name to Abbie. She was starting to respond to Scabbie and that seemed just too cruel. We got her spayed, she now weighs about 13 pounds, and last weekend we got her groomed to fix all the weird lengths of fur that were growing in and matting up and being nasty. She turned out really cute afterall. We're pretty sure she's Jack Russell/Poodle. A Jackapoo if you will. She's utterly spastic very terrier like. I can't believe how much she has changed since she came to us.

And No-Blog-Rachel had an excellent thought. Trading yarn = not buying yarn! Yes! You cunning little minx. I would totally love to trade yarn with you. Send me a pici of the sock yarn and tell me some of your favourite colours and I will shop the stash for you. I'll zip off an email to you right away and we can begin the yarn extravaganza. Thank you so much for offering this. By the way, what will we call No Blog Rachel when (not I didn't say if) she gets a blog? The blogger formerly known as No Blog Rachel? Bit of a mouthful that!

Okay, back to the UFO's. Next is the mock cable sock. I only have 1/2 a sock to go so that should be no problem. Must not knit tonight during Rome. That didn't work out so good last Sunday. Tension issues and just plain stupid errors abounded.

Oh murphy,

I have an unquenchable urge to knit knee socks for myself. This is a bad thing. I see three problems:

1. I am tall, ergo I have longish legs, ergo more stitches
2. I have pretty fair sized calves, read "meaty"
3. I don't have enough of any one sock yarn to make knee socks for me.

Must not buy yarn, it's been 30 days since my last purchase, doing so well, maybe I could knit them in DK weight? Would that be too bulky on my longish meatyish calves? Oh crap, I'm losing my mind.

I must honestly confess, I had no idea just how much of a role my personal life played in my purchasing yarn. It would seem that when life is difficult (ie work blows goats, or, home is difficult, or, family are giving you the gears, etc.), I add to the stash. Doesn't even matter what I add, I just do it to feel better. It's a knee jerk reaction.

Hey, question, are all of us knitters just a touch OCD about things? Nevermind, stupid question. Of course we are. Okay, I think I've talked my way through another craving. Why isn't there a patch for this! Yarnoderm, now in clear for sensitive skin!

Grumble, mutter, belly ache, whatever. I'm going to go knit now. That's why I bought all that yarn, right?