Ahhh Moving

Okay so as some of you may know I have been in the midst of moving. Well the moving is done YAY. now for the organizing. The sad part is that my internet is down for a while unless i can convince my neighbor to share. I just wanted to share that so none of you think I have fallen into a deep dark pit somewhere with no knitting. This is not the case and I hope to be back to regular posting soon.

Moving and mayhem

So, by the end of March my wife and I will be moved out from our current place and into hopefully our new haven. On our checklist for the new home, a nice kitchen (but not necessary), a bathroom big enough I do not have to turn sideways to get into, and space enough for me to set up a craft ish area (again not necessary but might become so for the sanity of us). I am going to see a place tomorrow morning, its a basement suite. It's ground level so no sunken dark holes for me (even if it was sunken my wonderful mother got me a wonderful ott lite so I would not be knitting in the dark). Fingers crossed it will be the one and we might even get to bring our dogs home. To explain we have been living in one bedroom in a shared house and having two very happy dogs running around with a grumpy old man and an old woman who hasn't gotten any in a long time did not allow for us to have them (the dogs) with us for very long and they (the dogs) have been in care of my dear wonderful mother (yes the same one that got me an ott lite for christmas).

To add to the mayhem, my wife has been sick with a linger cough for about 2 weeks, we are both working full time and one of us will be changing jobs soon. Yay for life and crazyness, thankfully I have my knitting to keep me distracted. I am almost done a sleeve for my father's sweater. The garter stitch yoke for the Feburary lady sweater is nearly done (Thank god) and I have cranked out two sets of baby slippers and now have 2 and a half feet done on my scarf with which i am learning to cable. Yay me. I need to figure out how to post pictures in here so I can show everyone all the fun I get to do. Any ideas???

Well off to knit some more on a sleeve, and then sleep. It's an early morning for me tomorrow.

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.

10 ways to make a knitter love you more

Listen up all you husbands and boyfriends, and  in some cases wives and girlfriends. Valentine's day is coming. This will help you.

1. Call your modest collection of hand knit socks your "real" socks

2. Offer to drive anytime you are in the car together.

3. While driving, offer to stop by a yarn shop, just for fun.

4. Say "Man, I love the smell of wet wool in the morning" and really mean it.

5. Develop a fetish for hand washing things.

6. Get a T shirt that says "Moth Hunter"

7. Claim that you love how cozy your home looks with all this yarn in it.

8. Tell your knitter that you think charts aren't just clever but dead sexy. This, however, will only work if your knitter enjoys them. If they do not, change charts for written instructions.

9. On Valentine's day, know that red sock yarn is cheaper than roses and lasts a lot longer.

10. Knit, but only a little and with your own damn yarn.

Hopes this helps all those who feel left out as their partners play with two sticks and some string.

Post adapted from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee from her book "Free Range Knitter"

Monday.......and library day

It came to my realization today, being that its a monday and it is a day I actually get to sit and think, that I love books......and mondays. 

Weird I know, but here is the thing with my jobs, I am usually working from wednesday to sunday. Thus Monday is my Saturday. And usually a day I either dig out the books and read non stop or a day I knit. Well today so far i have read, knitted on a beret for my sister (see sea urchin beret on ravelry) and crocheted the start of a dishcloth to teach my wife how to crochet. I also get to go to choir (I sing in a semi professional choir of approximately 50 people) and probably knit some more on a sweater (the one for my dad) or the beret. But I might get crazy and finish swatching for the Knit A Long (KAL) that I am doing in Feburary (it is the feburary lady sweater and I am doing it with the knitwits podcast you should definately go check them out. Really. their shownotes are knitwitspodcast.blogspot.com  go right now and then come back). But I am not even close to what else I get to do today. This is the exciting part. I am going to the library.

I love my local library, it may be a bit odd for someone to love a library so much but then again i am only partially normal. My library has a great staff that always make me giggle and here is the best part. They keep track of how many books are being checked out on a specific subject and once the amount has gone up they bring in extra books from other librarys. So since October when i really started knitting, I have been checking out books and getting ideas and maybe photocopying a page or two (or 30) and now there are even MORE knitting books. Its so awesome. 

One that I highjacked from there for about 3 months (the max time i could have it) is an amazing resource. It is called The Knitting Answer Book by Margaret Radcliffe. This little book (its about 5" by 3.5" and maybe an 1.5" thick) is jammed pack with useful tips and how tos. I have learnt SOOOOO much from just flipping through to find the answer to something completely different. Well worth the 16.50 I paid for it. You should go find it and horde your own copy of it. 

Mhmmm here comes my wife, time to teach her the joys of playing with yarn. After that a trip to the library (sqeeee) and to choir. 

A special thanks to mama.zi for deciding im special enough to follow. If i had gold stars you would get one.