Where does time go???

Wow last post feb 9th. Here it is the 28th. Life got away with me, but while i was gone on the wild adventures known as my life I did get some wonderful knitting done. Fingerless gloves for my sister are DONE!!! YAY!!! Well i just have to weave in the ends and adjust the width of one, but that will take me at most half an hour. My big man sweater for my dad, I'm 3/4ths done the first sleeve. Its great being able to lay out the pieces and seeing how they will go together. My feburary lady sweater. Still in the garter stitch yoke, UGH. But i did finish my first skein, hoping to highjack my wifes hands and get her to help me wind another skein into a ball. Should be past the yoke soon and then i can dive into the lace part. Should be interesting. I am contemplating going up a needle size or two for the lace because when i did the test swatch of the lace pattern, not so much lace went on even though i stretched ALOT.

I had my dear sister in law come and see me at work one day this past week and reminded me that in 5 WEEKS she is due. Which isnt much time to get things done. It's her and my brother's first child and since i know they don't read this blog I can tell you that I am going to be knitting up some booties with ties for the lil guy or gal (they decided to not find out the sex). I am contemplating also a yoda bottle cover because I saw it and started giggling till my sides hurt and i was snorting. But alas I dont have the right colors and neither does my LYS, so I then thought i could change it to be a smurf. Still kicking around that idea but will most definately let you know what I have decided. I was able to get some time over the week and cranked out TWO sets of booties (just need to do the ties now) One is for my brother and his wife and the other is for the lady that plays the piano for our choir. She is due about 5 to 7 days before my sister in law.

So recently, just before valentines day, my LYS had a sale. Clearance and massive discounts to get the old stuff moved out and space made for the pretty summer yarns. Well at this sale I found some lovely noro vintage which will become a marvelous toque for me and my darling wife said make sure you buy some red yarn from me, for you. And i did. I found the last skein of some yummy lace weight malabringo in the colourway sealing wax. Sooooooo soft soooo yuummmmyy Now i know what the fuss is about. I also found some lovely noro vintage on sale and that will become a hat for me, possibly a cabled one. The weather here has gotten cold and snowy, I started a cabled scarf yesterday and am now about 6 inches into it. I love having days off where I can hide away from the world and just knit.

I have a few more hours of solitude and thought I better get back on here before anyone thought that something horrible happened to me. Nothing horrible i promise just life going nuts with work and being forced to move out by the end of march. So with that I shall say adieu for now and go back to my quiet time,

Better late than never........we think

So first off sorry for such a delay in writing. Have you ever noticed how life will throw stuff at you at the worst possible time??? The bills come after you already had your shopping day, or your kids come running into the room screaming and yelling as you lose a dpn (double pointed needle for those new to this fun called knitting).
It happens and its how we deal with it that make it either crazy or just a mild annoyance. I think as a knitter, this may apply to all knitters, that I have developed a higher patience. I use to never be able to do anything that I wasn't good at because I hated the idea of having to redo anything. Now I am making up my own patterns and unripping, sometimes over 20 rows, without the bat of an eyelash.
In all of my knitting I have discovered one thing. Swatch. I was one of those that thought them a waste of time and why the heck would i need one. I was wrong. even if you do a few rows of 20 stitches and it takes you 5 minutes, thats saving you like.....4 hours of painful unripping and reknitting that you might have to do. I am making a sweater for my father. My first sweater and my first major project other than hats. Guess what I have an equivalent yarn to the pattern and I have a set of needles that are close to the same size as called for. Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear devices. I put the back up against my fathers back and let out a moan of dispair. It comes down approximately 4 inches longer than its suppose to and it wraps it around, past where the side seams should be by 2 inches. Heart broken, I went to my life advisor (aka my wonderful mother) and whimpered what do i do. She said keep going. Your father loves you and loves that your making him a sweater and he will wear it proudly even if it is to big. So that is what I am doing. Back is done, the left and right fronts are done, Now onto the sleeves. The sweater is.....consistently big. And it is done with love. And the patience and wisdom i have learned while doing 16 miles of stockinette stitch is astronomical. I have also learnt how to knit from left to right so i dont have to turn my work. Its AMAZING.

And just so you aren't worried about me carrying on without guage swatches, I have learned my lesson. The sweater I am doing for myself had 3 gauge swatches, all wash blocked and dried before taking any measurements.

Best friends

So have you ever noticed how sometimes in life you are given a best friend, that is for lack of a better description is the bestest best friend you have ever had?? They are the ones you can laugh with, argue with, grow older and sometimes become more mature. Sometimes.

I have one such friend. R is his name. Never met him in person, but would like to. (The never meeting in person is due to the wonderful ness of ravelry and the internet. Where you can find people with similar interest and have them halfway across the world) R lives in pittsburgh, where evidently Canada is infiltrating. I have been told that there is a Tim hortons down there near him. (for those unlucky enough to live somewhere other than in Canada, Tim Hortons is a coffe/donut/some quickly made sandwich place that offer cheap good food and coffee). So R and I met through a group on Ravelry called Got Friends? We ended up doing a card exchange around Christmas. It was great getting cards and treats from all over. I sent R a card with some random handspun hand dyed yarn from a local spinner. It wasn't much but R got so excited when he saw it he was determined to use it in something. Just a few weeks ago he finished a scarf and added 2 rows of this yarn on each end. Anyways R is a great guy that i get to talk knitting with, as well as life and annoyances and things we really really like together. He is helpful too.

R once made a scarf that had approximately 180 ends to weave in. Any knitter that has completed anything with stripes knows how much a pain weaving in ends can be. Well he said to himself there has got to be some way of making this easier. So R in his ultimate wisdom and desire to do things as easy as possible went on the hunt. This is what he found. It is so amazing that i feel as if i spent time with the dhala lama. It's a way to knit the ends in as you go. AMAZING and definitely worth a try.

So thanks to R I have a wonderful friend and a new way to knit in the ends YAY. Ps he was also the one that convinced me to blog.