blog local

just found Sarah's blog through a post on Facebook -- Diggin’ the Dirt. and she's only got 2 subscribers including me? that's nuts. go read her!

there are great bloggers all over the world, but all of a sudden, i'm discovering really cool Toronto-based crafty bloggers. which means when they write about resources, i have access to them too! Sarah's one -- she writes about knitting, gardening and cooking [canning especially caught my attention]. Another is Karyn at Make Something who writes as cool a crafting blog as any i've ever seen, and she's local. she also runs a cool sewing studio in town which i've been meaning to check out.

so there. you can eat local and shop local. i say you should also blog local! :-)

quick cold-brew coffee primer for Jacquie

because i miss her. :-)

there are lots of posts all over the web about this. here's a short one, condensed with what i've learned so far and my [simple] methods.

ingredients:
- a French Press coffee pot, which i just happened to have around* the house. you can do the same with a big jar and a fine sieve. i just like having a use for something that was in the basement.

- medium-coarse ground coffee [mine so far is a blend of 1/3 ethopian beans, 2/3 sumatran. supposedly blends make better cold-brew, or so i've read]. if you can grind them just before brewing, that's best

- water

- time

here's what i do:
- grind some beans -- a small handful makes about 2/3c
- measure exactly 2/3c and put it in the bottom of the French Press
- measure exactly 1.5c of water from the Brita pitcher and pour it on top
- i have one of those Nigella scrambly whisks and i mix up the whole mess until all the coffee grounds are wet
- put the plunger lid on top, UNplunged, and leave on the kitchen counter for 12 hours, no more. [more = bitterness]
- push the plunger down and pour the coffee concentrate into another container [i use a glass jar] and put in the fridge

to make my favorite milky, sweet latte, so far the blend is:

1 part coffee concentrate
1 part 2% milk
.5 part sugar-free vanilla syrup

that makes it quite milky and sweet. that's today's mix, anyway -- i will likely fine tune it.

if you like regular coffee, the coffee concentrate should be diluted 1:1 with water. but i don't like regular coffee, so i have no opinion.

---

i make this stuff because i think and work better with one single coffee in me in the morning, and my kitchen is closer than any coffee shop and much cheaper. also, this stuff is really delicious and, as advertised, feels less acidy on the tum [which is something i have to deal with].

*the final irony is that this bodum french press? it came as a gift from Starbucks. i'm not kidding. when the less-big coffee giant first came to Toronto in the late '90s, i was annoyed that there was no website of any sort for Starbucks [that's how long ago it was] where i could find the nearest location. so i started my own. [!]

amusingly, Starbucks head office found out about it and wrote to thank me [again, !!] and ask for my address. they sent me a box of coffee stuff, most of which we still have, and this coffee press was in that box. so my home-brew is courtesy of Starbucks, saving me at least $4 every time i make one myself. :-)

the best bunny story i've read all week

did you know Tina from Blue Moon has recently brought home a new bunny? he's absolutely beautiful. go read her post and i dare you not to melt.

---

i've been messing about with cold-brewed coffee, trying to get the proportions of coffee to milk right. i'm getting closer. the beans are from the Merchants of Green Coffee, in lieu of my most-favorite Stumptown. it's all about proximity, and i can get it freshly roasted, which i'm told is the big dealy key thing. blend so far is 1/3 ethopian beans, 2/3 sumatran.

i like a latte kind of drink, so i am not adding water to the coffee concentrate. i'm closer today than ever, but it's still not right. when i get it right, i'll share the proportions.

oh, and my lattes include sugar-free vanilla syrup. you wanna tell me i'm a coffee wuss? go ahead. try. i like it sweet, and so there.

---

my gretel is on hold. i am trying to knit from stash, not for financial reasons, but because it's just damned greedy to have a good bit of yarn and not look there first for supplies for a project.

sadly, all my stash options are not working out. the closest is a lovely skein of Silk Cotton from [sigh] Handmaiden, in the most beautiful colors of faded yellow to grey [i think it might be Dandelion, but my skein is much more muted than any i see on the web]. except it's probably 25 yards short of being enough to finish the hat. will i be brave enough to cast on, knowing i might not have enough to finish? we'll see!

meanwhile, i am knitting greedily on my new sweater -- Amy's Vintage Office in the Amy Friendly Yarn [bamboo/silk] and i cannot believe how fabulous this yarn is. it's not as slippery as pure silk and it's not as wussy as pure bamboo. it's kind of heaven.

pictures later. right now, work!

much better.

I walked into the salon with my chopped-off mess, removed my baseball cap and, no kidding, everyone in the salon gasped audibly. There was head shaking. My guy came over and ran his fingers through the chopped-up mess and didn't seem worried.

I'd gotten, it seems, one of the technically worst haircuts ever seen. Proportions? Non-existant. I looked like I was losing my hair on the left side [not joking] it was chopped up so unevenly and so short, and I had a big DuranDuran bang that didn't belong anywhere. The before pictures I took [yes, Anonymous, I did take them, but you'll never see them] aren't even clear enough to see how bad it was.

But here are the after pictures. The pink is something I had done ages ago and there's still enough left to see it. [I do love it.]

The bang now makes sense in context with the hair, having been properly layered and angled into the rest of it. Everything else is pretty much Demi Moore in GI Jane, but on purpose this time. I don't look like a 6-year-old hacked at me with blunt scissors.

I can't explain why the same woman who gave my friend J a fabulous, perfectly suited to her, proportional and well-executed cut could mess up so badly on me. But I am grateful that my guy is good natured and likes a challenge. He actually said he was glad I had this done so that he could try super-short on me. That's my boy.

So now if you see me at Rhinebeck, you'll know it's actually me.

I'm off to cast on an Urchin in my handspun. I think my head will be colder this winter than usual. :-)

who is stealing my stuff?!

This is driving me crazy.

First, this shawl, last photographed in its infancy [but actually two full skeins of knitting last time I saw it -- almost done!] is MISSING. I took it with me on the Alaksa cruise and I can't remember seeing it since. This doesn't bode well. I didn't knit much of anything on that cruise, so I was pretty sure the shawl stayed in my bag the whole freaking time. Except it's not there or anywhere.

Second, I just bought replacement size US6 tips for my needles and used them. And now they're missing. And for some ridiculous reason, I have no other size 6 needles in my house. I have ripped up couch cushions, looked under piles and in things that don't even vaguely relate to knitting and NO NEEDLES.

This is putting a serious cramp in my Vintage Office project starting. Grr.

---

Today, I'm doing the unthinkable. I'm going to see a different hairdresser. My guy doesn't read my blog, so it's safe to report this here.

He's a friend and a lovely guy. We're friends with his wife and his kids. But I just need to see someone different after more than 10 years.

I feel like a sleazebag. But I do have a story prepared in case I decide I'm going back to him after the cut today.

And if I don't, how the hell do I handle that, because he still cuts hub's hair. Oh, dangit -- he's the one that moved another half hour further away from us. Am I to blame, really? He forced me into it!

Blue Moon nooz!

Did you wonder how my Blue Moon sweater was going? I can't imagine you did, but for the sake of ongoing knitting content -- and because it's SO GORGEOUS -- here's where I'm at. This picture is quite color accurate -- the colorway is Gypsum, and the yarn is Luscious Silk, a recent addition to the line at Blue Moon! [I get very excited when my favorite yarn companies start adding Amy-friendly yarns to their lines, as you can tell.]


Sadly for me, I didn't start knitting from two different skeins until, well, you can see where I did, and that's just life. It'll make the right front look like an, um, art piece. Yeah, that's just what I meant to do! [snork.] The pattern is Kristi Porter's Sonnet, transfigured into lace to make the yarn I have go further, and because silk is warmer than wool, so solid silk would be steamy to wear! Toes included in the shot for scale.

I'm halfway [or more] through the back and progress is quite speedy. I keep getting motivated to get to the solid-knit row pair in the super-simple lace repeat, which keeps moving me forward.

---

Speaking of all things Blue Moon, have you heard about this? It's going to be so insanely cool. Sounds like a cannot-miss event of a lifetime! I wanna go.

What has happened since last I wrote...

• I became a cover girl [as designer only. Julia is the super-hot model in my knitwear on the ONLY hot day so far this month. And she looked so good in the cowl, I had to give it to her.]
  
  
• Wait, cover? What cover? Don't you know about Knittyspin? This issue, it got its own cover. Dang well about time, too.
  
  
• Yup, fall Knitty came out, and this time, we've got yer printer-friendly pages for ya! This is why I have been a hermit the last month or so.
  
  
• My uke fingers are all soft again. Poo. Haven't been able to touch the thing in a week. Back at it to get my fretting fingers back in shape!
  
  
• I have been knitting behind the scenes for relaxation! Progress is being made on the Luscious Silk lace Sonnet. Photos forthcoming, but don't you dare make me get the camera out again today, okay?

I'm sure there's more, but I can barely see the screen now, so I say byebye. Big love. Sleepies now.

got an hour to kill?

Yup, I done opened my mouth again. This time, the podcast was CraftSanity, and what you'll hear is me sounding more like me than any other interview I've done.

You know how sometimes you know stuff but you haven't had to articulate it so the stuff just floats around your head, all nebulous? Well, in this podcast, Jennifer, the host, got it all out of me.

I'm not one for Mission Statements. I think they're kind of pompous and usually pretty generic. But this podcast is about as close as I'll get to stating Knitty's mission...so if you are interested in why Knitty does things the way we do, give it a listen.

And then come back and tell me what you think, will you?

before there was dood...

there was this stuff. the tv show it goes along with [Swingtown] is amusing enough, but i really am liking the music. serious flashback time.

---

my tour de fleece experience is off the rails. i haven't spun in 3 days, but i have been working hard on Knitty and am cutting myself some slack.

the 2 ounces of tussah is half spun already, so i'm sure i'll finish by the end of the challenge. perhaps that's the problem. set a harder challenge and you can't let it drop without a disaster.

---

also, i'm beading again. i am stuck at how to finish the bands of peyote i've completed so they look professional and are functional without being uncomfortable to wear. i'm expecting a few bead books to arrive up here shortly, and i think they'll help significantly.

and in the downtime since i picked it up last, my large-bead peyote has become tidier [or at least i've figured out how to keep it tidier now]. pictures forthcoming shortly.

---

really, lots of work going on here. thank heavens i didn't plan any travel this summer. i'd be out of my mind if i had to go anywhere beyond the back yard or one of my two LYSs.

a little more of TNNA

So you saw I got to spend a little time with Franklin. Then I read his blog and found the image at left...which was part of the best post on TNNA I've ever read. You must read it. It's here. The cartoons made me snort in my chair. Out loud, even. I believe I scared the rabbits.

As usual, lots of the stuff I got to peek at will become parts of future issues of Knitty, so I can't talk about them here. Here's what I can tell you.

I lost my voice suddenly, while talking to co-zone-of-funner Shannon Okey on Friday night. Yes, the night before the trade show. It just suddenly went pop, and was gone. Some time after this photo was taken. [BTW, I may look pensive in the shot, but really, I'm just thinking. :-)]

This photo shows that I didn't need to have a voice to have fun. This is the gang at the Tip Top again, posing for miss Mim.

Meanwhile, between the shmoozing and the business card swapping and much of what Franklin chronicles in that blog post above, there was also some surprise gifting.

Beth, who owns and operates the delightful Spinning Loft in Howell, MI brought little pouches, branded with her adorable shop logo [my favorite sheepies!] for a whole bunch of us. My pouch was filled with 2 oz of undyed Seacell. Yes, I buried my nose in it. I can't wait to spin it. On a spindle, even. I wrote more about my new love affair with my spindles in my most recent Knittyspin column, in case you missed it. So Beth, thank you for a kickass and super-timely present!

And then there's Abby, she of Abby's Yarns? I have no idea what I did to deserve this [probably nothing :-)], but she gifted me with her handspun. HER. HANDSPUN. There was nearly an embarrassing moment which involved plotzing and the aftermath there of, but I managed to hold it together.

Hang on. You can't really see the yarn [did I mention it is Abby's handspun?] in that shot. Look here:

Laceweight singles so delicious you could eat them with a tiny laceweight-enabled spoon. Public additional thanks [beyond my hugging and stuff] to Abby for this beauteous eye candy.

And now, I've got to run out to The Purple Purl [this is not a hardship, let's be clear on that]. It's time for the June Yarn Roundtable and just WAIT till the knitters see what I've got for them tonight!

[Tomorrow is all about the Harlot, Franklin and knitting in public. Let's hope the rain holds off, because wet knitters make a funny noise when you squeeze them.]

---

p.s.! did you know? The Purple Purl is having a KIP day event tomorrow, too! So after I go nuts at Lettuce Knit, I'll be heading back to the Purl to knit in the park with my girls. Join us!

alive! and More Big Girl Knits launch party nooz!

So it's like this. I came home from Ann Arbor, popped out a Knitty :-) [why does that sound dirty?] and then got in the car with hub and drove to Vermont.

The Mindful Knitting retreat was amazing, eye-opening and huge fun. Full deets are being saved for a future article in the Knitty.

Of course, while relaxing, I got a[nother?] cold. So maybe the post-Florida thing was allergies, because this certainly ain't. I have never gone through so much kleenex in 4 days in my whole life.

---

Super-quick party announcement, aka SAVE THE DATE!

More Big Girl Knits launch party, v 1.0
location: Threadbear Fiber Arts, East Lansing, MI
date: April 13th, 1pm
the boys know how to throw a big party and we can't wait!

More Big Girl Knits launch party v 1.1
location: Lettuce Knit, Toronto, ON
date: April 26th, 7pm [conveniently timed to let you finish up at the Knitter's Frolic and then come and join us in Kensington Market!]

Jillian and I will be at both parties, as well as
- samples from the book [possibly their only appearance en masse as we have to return them to the designers shortly]
- cupcakes
- the new Big Girls book in the flesh [both shops will have them for sale]

and other surprises!

Bring your friends, turn it into a road trip and let's make these parties huge and memorable!

where i am

dateline: venice, FL
beach time: 10 minutes [too crowded]
pool time: hours and hours
skin condition: lightly pink
favorite thing consumed: lemon picked from a tree nearby
current state: sore throat [mild but threatening]
current location: bed

the place my folks rented is decorated in late grocery-store-sale-section, but it's got everything we need, the beds are comfy and the pool is fabulous. i hope i am not really sick so i get to go in again before i have to fly home. more pics here, and more to come when i get them off the camera.

hub is home with a killer cold in snow and freezing rain. that's not fair, but we guess it's better that he didn't fly all the way here to be stuck in bed.

nighty.

blueberry love + flaaaaridaaaaah

way back when my gall bladder and i broke up, the Purlescence girls sent me a get-well love package. it worked! :-)

the sparkly stuff on the right is Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in the deliciously named color Blueberry. i've had it hanging in front of my desk since it arrived and last night, a little lost without a quick-knit sweater to work on, i cracked it open and cast on for the simplest thing ever: a triangular shawl in garter stitch based on the Tuscany silhouette. perfect travel knitting and so beautiful to look at.

---

travel knitting? why, yes. this is very odd to me, but i'm going to florida. this is something many people do every winter, but i've never gotten to be one of them. until this year, when my chicago-based parents got all, "winter is too cold! we must escape!" and rented a place on the gulf side for the whole month. the whole fam has been invited to visit sometime during the span, and my week starts tomorrow.

luckily for me, the house has wi-fi, because i'm full-on into spring Knitty mode and can't stop. but it will be mighty nice to take breaks and such by the pool in the backyard. wow.

so...i'm not into touristy stuff, but is there some amazing fibery thing i can't miss that's gulf-side, an hour or so south of Tampa?

---

hub's staying home to concentrate on programming, watch many boring documentaries and fuss over the bunnies.

---

psst:


yup, that's color accurate. can you stand it?

i'm not saying oy vey, really.

Miko was taking pictures of my Artfibers coat [this is the first one that I finished ages ago] and making me giggle. my eyes get very small when i giggle. Scout thinks it's me saying, "oy vey!"

so here. my finished coat. i do adore it -- it fits well, and my absolute favorite touch was jillian's idea:

the final 4 rows of the collar are knit in my first real handspun [from silk hankies]. it turned out to be a good enough gauge match and there's something about the color that sets off the purple perfectly. jillian, you are a genius.

the other Artfibers sweater turns out not to be so flattering when closed on my frame. here's a closeup of the front:


shawl pin purchased at the Purple Purl to celebrate my finishing! i actually think i'll wear it on the purple coat instead -- it suits it better.


this is the front, closed. again, not the best angle, if you ask me. and here's the back:


it's got that shruggy back construction, because of the way its made. doesn't bother me. notice the length is perfect, despite my neurotic worryings.

i'll try again tonight to get a pretty pic of it from the front, because it CAN look flattering when open.

so there. TWO FO pics in one post. please try not to die from the shock.

Monday morning randomness

My new favorite Podcast: Answer Me This Podcast -- often rude at times and definitely something for not-easily-offended adults listening privately. Helen and Olly speak their minds and they're damned funny. Well, I think so, anyway.

---

Imogen is FINISHED. As Jacquie told me to, I trusted the pattern and it fits really nicely. I realize I owe this blog photos of both my Gypsy projects [Imogen and the purple jacket] and will beg someone at the Purl tomorrow to take them. Pony pants for everyone!

---



I'm back on the long-term laceweight stockinette scarf. It grows easily and doesn't often require me even to look at it as I knit. A perfect KIP project. When [if ever] I finish this one, I'll cast on another with a new skein of laceweight. Because I don't think I could have enough of these scarves, and knitting them is a mindless joy.

done!

it's done. and yeah, my hands are tender.

but it's not blocked yet, in case he wants to wear it in THIS:



and now...back to Imogen!

please don't faint.

This is my current WIP. I'm taking a wee break from Imogen -- almost complete! -- for love. It doesn't look like the kind of yarn I usually use, does it?

See, hub has no winter hat that he'll wear. I was recently in Americo, and couldn't keep my hands off their new dehaired baby llama yarn -- part of their new Eco line [this stuff is natural, as it comes off the llama].


Yes, an animal yarn. [Reminder: I'm allergic to wool, and sensitive to the barbs on all animal fibers.] This one, however, felt quite nice in my hands. Because it was dehaired? Probably. So I went home with one beautiful naturally brown skein, which has been sitting, staring at me for a little while.

And then we were forecasted a snowstorm, and hub's head was cold, and he gave me a PEEEEENK iPod, for heaven's sake! So I just cast on. A little hat for valentine's day for my beloved. The top photo shows me just starting the decreases for the crown using this pattern.

So how is the knitting? Well, keeping in mind that I am accustomed to full-on softness and smoothness running through my fingers as I knit, it's very different. However, it's only a tiny bit uncomfortable from time to time on my princess-and-the-pea fingers. It's just three days of knitting and, at the end, hub will have a wonderful, warm hat, and I will have stretched my fiber boundaries a little. Will I keep knitting with dehaired baby llama? Probably not. But it was nice to know I could.

If it feels this soft to me, I can't imagine what it would feel like to a woolly knitter. Heaven, perhaps?

p.s. In looking for the Americo link, I noticed they now have a yarn catalogue on their website. Please forgive me.

i baked.

it must be one of the signs of the apocalypse: i baked muffins. these muffins, actually. i have had this recipe printed out and magnetted onto my fridge for months, and finally realized i had all of the ingredients [except two] so i started baking. and then sent hub out for the eggs and applesauce. :-)

minor changes: i used regular all-purpose flour instead of half whole wheat. 3 eggs instead of 2 and 2 egg whites [seemed wasteful to me] but everything else as spec'd. it took longer to bake, probably because of my recipe changes, but was very yum. hub, who says he hates pumpkin pie, loves 'em. of course, he doesn't know they're pumpkin muffins. he just said they were nice and moist. i used silicone cupcake liners and, having heard that they stick, used non-stick spray first. bingo, no sticking.

i also did what one of her readers suggested and made soft cookies [see above] out of the rest of the batch, with the addition of a sprinkling more flour.

actually, the only sign of the apocalypse is the current state of my kitchen. pumpkin batter in little blurps everywhere. this is why i don't bake more often.

perl grey makes my head hurt

what kind of deranged mind comes up with sweater construction like this? why, Perl Grey, that's who!

i'm not saying it's not brilliant. it just makes my head hurt trying to envision this sort-of-closing-in cocoon turning into anything wearable. EXCEPT that, before i picked up the sts for the front section of the sweater, which is the part that makes my heart beat faster [not kidding, i love it that much], i tried it on and it fits. so i will trust in the Perl and in Jacquie B who told me, "just keep going. it'll work out." and i believe it will.

can you even tell what you're looking at? it's a side-to-side knitted cardigan with integrated sleeves. i'm just now knitting the fronts and the collar at once, with short rows. [for those who will ask, and i don't blame you, this is discontinued Artfibers Gypsy, colorway 11, which is knitting up at exactly pattern gauge, and doesn't that blow my mind? yes, it does. [Kira tells me that Artfibers Bambusa or Sumo would make good subs.]

i am also driven with the fire of a well-trained team of dragons to finish this baby and get it on me! finishing the duvet covers has reminded me of the pleasures of the FO, and though i do love a good knit as it goes along, i'm all about the FO.

oh. oh. ohhhhhhhh.

i was as a house afire last night. the top was together, and all i had to do was [oh, how simple, right?] overlock the remaining raw seams, attach the top to the twin sheet i bought for the purpose and sew 'em together.

it was as i was struggling with the latter that i remembered why i don't quilt much any more. sewing anything large-scale isn't fun for me, not at all. BUT! this isn't a quilt. it doesn't have to lay perfectly flat front to back. it's simply a big pillowcase for a fluffy duvet. fluffy is forgiving.

so i forged on ahead. discovered some shortcuts to make it easier, and also discovered that they don't really cut sheets on grain [do they? except where else do you get a piece of super-soft 70" wide fabric without a seam, so i sucked it up and kept going].

unwashed, i slipped the cover on the duvet and admired my handiwork. but it wasn't enough. so i slept under it. and i haven't slept that well in ages. there's something about the puffiness of a good duvet [our last one WASN'T a good one] and the inticing crackle of the high-thread-count cotton the duvet is made out of as you move in the night.

it's all mighty, mighty fine. and very, very pretty.

in order to keep motivated, i post no pictures and will not until the second is made and the bed is dressed properly. you want to talk about second-sock syndrome? how's second-duvet-cover syndrome sound??

going! bye!

i ran out of thread!

the duvets arrived earlier this week, so i finished all the rotary cutting of the strips and sat at the bernina for the first time in years. it still purrs like keety.

single duvet top #1 is assembled and most of the seams are faux-serged at the back so they don't fray all over the place. however, i have run out of sewing-weight thread and must go out and replenish if work is to continue.

i am obsessed. must go.

w00t!

you wanna see progress?

i'll give you some progress, baby.



that's about 2-2.5 hours of knitting. see? not so bad at all. i am past the danger zone [aka dropped stitches running right to the cast on and causing me to shave my head], so i just keep a small crochet hook nearby for the occasional stitch that slips off the needle and keep on trucking. it's a great KIP project, and as my imogen sweater gets bigger [i'm at the first sleeve already!], it's much more portable, too.

are you knitting along with me? i've made a button for us that you may feel free to poach and use at will.



free a laceweight prisoner from your stash!
choose one, wind it into a ball and cast on!
just because it's tiny and delicate doesn't mean it won't be fun to knit!

Liberate Your Laceweight!

come. join us. what? my eyes are not all spirally swirls. what are you talking about?

Tivo's been available [the service] in Canada for a while. I went on and on about the convoluted process to obtain the magical Tivo box here.

Well, now you can get the box in Canada without any hoopla or rigamarole. Join us. You know you want to.

don't you call me crazy.

So last night I began the new project. Here are the supplies:



Want a closer look?


Yes, that's correct. Size 0 needles.

Here's what the fabric looks like:


Do you see those perfect, tiny stitches? Well, trust me, they're there.

This is a simple tube, knit as small as the 16" circs would allow, which meant 190 sts. On each side, a faux seam [p1, k1, p1] so that it will lay flat like the inspiration scarf. Both ends will be seamed shut so it will not curl at the bottom, either.

Now all that remains is a year or so of knitting. I can do that. It seems crazy, but it also seems crazy not to even try. It's easy knitting -- I just have to be careful not to drop a stitch, especially at this tender beginning part.

---

p.s. Dear Skacel,
Whyfor you no make Addi Lace Turbos in size 0? Surely lace yarn requires small needles, and there's no more serious need for a tiny needle with a little grip and perfect scoopy points than this project.

I'll be knitting this for a while, so feel free to get on that development wagon and let me know when they're ready. The regular Turbos will have to do for now, but please...save my sanity. Make size 0s, okay?

Love,
Amy



---

Meanwhile, last night's Knitty Yarn Roundtable went very, very well. I can say that because the person responsible for the wellness is not me, it's ms Jacquie, hero of my world. She made everything happen including set up and wound balls of yarn [special props to Keri and Sherri on that count] and take down. Thank you, Jacquie! The Purple Purl hostesses were so sweet to us, and it was just an all-around fuzzy kumbaya kind of evening.

We've got three more scheduled: February, April and May. Dates forthcoming soon.

the complete look

[i snork at myself. that sounds so silly.]

but seriously. you saw the new hair. you heard about the new glasses, bought at my eye doctor's office [which i had to return when their lab did such a horrible job of filling my rx -- and I got a full refund on those because it was so badly screwed up]. well, these are my NEW new glasses, extra special because Denny helped me choose them.




instead of rimless, these are half-rimmed, which are great for progressives. for anyone in Toronto who's a tough, fussy fit like i am, i can highly recommend Crystal Beach Optical @ 416-698-3937. Ted has a fully equipped shop and is a really detail-oriented professional. patient, thorough. nice guy. good selection of frames.

that is all. off to the Yarn Roundtable!

a smack on the head with a can of vegetable juice

that is such a convoluted 70s pop-culture reference, i can't even stand it.

but seriously.

last night, i reached, again, for my new favorite scarf. it looks like this:



clearly, i didn't knit it. i bought it, while in London, at Muji. [it's not on their website...sorry] it's made from recycled cotton, woven into supersoft jersey, and it was cheap and i loved it instantly. it came in the recycled cardboard tube which i re-recycled when i gifted Noah's baby hats to his parents. :-) i wore the scarf everywhere. see?

my husband laughed at me. i'm a knitter, and my favorite scarf is store-bought? ah, poo.

i wore it out for the billionth time again last night to knit night at the Purple Purl. and suddenly realized. i reach for this scarf because it's light, it's cool, it feels good against my neck and it's made of SUPERFINE yarn.

wait a minute. i have lots of laceweight in my stash that i have no idea what to do with. guess what i cracked open when i got home?



i believe this may be an ongoing project of stockinetty love. it will certainly require very small needles. :-)

a nice fresh year

happy around these parts. calm [unusually so.] TNNA is coming up [the big knitting (etc) trade show] and this time, I'm not going. I just need to sit still for a while and work on Knitty from my desk, not from a trade show floor. I feel simultaneously sad [not to see all the knitting peeps I love and missing out on seeing what's new in the biz firsthand] and relieved [knowing I'm taking care of business and my sanity at the same time]. I think I'm a little travelled out. :-)

I've already booked my flight to TNNA Columbus in June, though. I wouldn't miss the June show for anything.

---

Meanwhile, around these parts, things are starting, continuing, finishing, in all the best ways.

- Jan 1, I cast on for Imogen. I'm knitting it in a discontinued yarn that I'm lucky enough to have gotten before it went byebye. It's Artfibers Gypsy [of course - you know how much I love the stuff]. Kira tells me that Artfibers Bambusa or Sumo would make good subs. It's colorway 11 -- they'll likely dye almost any of their yarns in this luscious colorway if you ask nicely.



Imogen looks like it will be my ideal sweater -- cozy but still flattering and adjustable to fit whatever my body throws at it that day. Gypsy is my favorite yarn. Damn, I wish they hadn't discontinued it! [Should we start begging in unison?]

- Incoming Blue Moon goodies! First, I finally got my hands on a skein of the Raven series -- Silk Thread in Valkyrie. It's insanely beautiful and these lame pictures don't even come close to showing the subtlety of color change.



The Charlie Brown gang are looking on in silent awe. No, I'm not sure what this will be just yet.

- More from Blue Moon! They're now offering EZ's surprise jacket-friendly kits in my favorite non-wool sock yarn, Sock Candy!



This stuff is heavenly and I love how Tina puts the colors together. And you can get two jackets from one kit, if you alternate the colors. Brilliant. I'd better get knitting!

- the last thing that's got the fire under my arse are the duvet-covers-in-progress.



This is, I'm guessing, about half of what I'll need to make two twin duvet covers [just the TOPS, mind you -- the bottoms will be nice white sheets]. I'm cutting a bunch of 11.5" wide strips every night, and then will start assembling these strips into random assortments, lengthwise. I need 6 strips per top. I wanted to do 5, but didn't want ridiculously wide strips, and 7 was more piecing and cutting than I'm in the mood for.

I almost sound like I know what I'm doing here, eh? Well, I used to quilt. Rather a lot. In fact, I didn't knit when I was quilting. Here's what I saved up for over two years in the late 1990s:



It's my Bernina. If I'm lucky, it should last me the rest of my life!

One thing, though: just before I veered away from quilting all the time, I bought this fabric at the big October quilting and needlework festival in Toronto.



I love it, and want to get more. I think it would make great pillowcases! Does anyone know where I might find some? Web searches are proving fruitless and there is no identifying text on the selvedge to help me figure out who made it, even. Help?

2007 recap in pictures and short phrases...

...because why not, really?

I'm a little stunned at all that's gone on this year, now that I'm looking back. It certainly explains the current state of my house.


No Sheep for You was published [and I got my preview copy + chocolate early in the year.]


I got to hang, briefly, with the Purlesence girls while at the big knitting trade show, TNNA.


I bought my first Habu kit, which is still in this exact state [though Henry has grown] because my brain can't process the pattern.


Cupcakes came to the beach. I have visited Life is Sweet many times since then.


I finished a sweater and started a new one.



Jillian and I had the final photoshoot for More Big Girl Knits...at the cupcake shop, of course!


The year of speaking engagements/travel began at the DKC!


I got to do Breakfast Television again with the sexiest models ever!


I finally got to visit The Fold and my head exploded.


I re-visited the KW Knitters' Guild and managed not to faint in front of Sally Melville and Debbie New this time. Progress!


Loopy Yarn love in Chicago!


Jillian and I made a pilgrimage to the homeland of her heart...Hill Country Weavers in Austin, TX. I fell in love with the place, despite the shvitz factor.


I knit with steel.


I crocheted. And liked it. Haven't done it since, though.


I discovered Zulugrass and met the kickass Scout on her home turf [Albuquerque] where she dyed me some matching yarn.


I bent sterling silver.


Hub put the dead cedar hedge out of its misery.


Massimo the Vespa joined our family, a gift from Grandma.

The next three sort of blur together in a delicious happy memory:

Bainbridge Island, Washington

Portland, Oregon

The Purlescence girls of Sunnyvale, CA, show me San Francisco and, most importantly...


No picture here. My gallbladder and I broke up, permanently.


While I was healing, Hub had a fence put in our backyard to replace the hedge.


I healed quickly enough to visit Loop in Philadelphia!


I went to SOAR and so did Denny! I can now spin yarn that I'm proud to show off!


Hub and I went to Oslo, Norway, and finally met Theresa!


Hub and I went to London, England!

And then it got nice and quiet. It's been, as you can see, an incredible year. Actually, rather more mind-blowing in retrospect. I have Flickr albums full of memories, many more blogs to follow of new friends met all over the world, and now, one last thing.

One of my favorite things about Norway was...the bedding. Really. Everyone gets their own duvet, even in a shared bed. And in the morning, you get up and fold it in half [the long way] and it looks so very Scandinavian and insanely tidy with zero effort. I loved it. No trying to fluff a huge king-sized duvet. No fighting for covers. Then Theresa made new duvet covers and that was it. I was lost:


I ordered us a pair of basic twin duvets [no, not the Icelandic Eiderdown at $2900/ea -- try the Anniversary]. We didn't get each other presents for whatever holiday it is we're celebrating this time of year, so dang it, we could have them. I have enough Amy Butler fabric and vintage linen put aside to make two perfect covers. And sewing two twin covers well seems much more achievable than sewing one huge king-sized cover, though I could probably have done it...badly.

Guess what I'll be doing this week?

Happy new year, everyone!

whew

ripped.
reknit.
fixed. all better now.

i'm going to have to talk Tina into carrying this colorway [again? did she ever or was it ust an experiment?]. it's amazing.

---

off to the MIL's house to eat the traditional xmas party feast. they're Guyanese-Canadian, so it's a bit of a mishmosh of black-eyed peas [yum], meat-based stuffing, [i don't touch the stuff. the idea of it scares me], black pudding [see previous, times a thousand], probably something macaroni-ish with cheese [yum] and the staple of the meal: KFC. i eat KFC about once a year now, and this is the time. gimme somadat crispy stuff with extra transfat, baby!

meanwhile, i got my jewish holiday fix when i was home with my fam for dad's party/chanukah. i even had a side order of latkes with my breakfast when we went to Max's deli in Highland Park.

so all is right with the world.

----

it's quiet here in bloggy land, but i'm not going anywhere and am thrilled. some of the local knitfolk are having parties to take advantage of their weekday freedom, and the Purple Purl is having a pajama party/knit in on New Year's day that you'd have to chain me to my bed to miss.

oh, and it's pouring rain and 8c outside. and i just don't care. i'm off to eat the Colonel.

complete, utter disaster.

thankfully, almost nothing in knitting is irreparable.

this is the 2nd djevellue i've been trying to knit for a week now. i knit a perfectly lovely one on the first try last month, but for some reason, i'm repeatedly making a mess of this one. over and over. again.

here's the first one [same yarn]:


see? lovely. as intended. definitely recognizable as the same hat in the pattern.

here are the messes i've created:




i knit on this for 3 hours at knit night wednesday, in complete denial.
i now know what i did wrong and why it just didn't seem right. [right? how about sane?]

i will rip. again.

catchup

So we're back. Hub and I returned last night from a week at my folks' place. We celebrated dad's 70th [THAT was a party, let me tell you...no one can organize a shindig better than my mama], ate a lot of really good food and I rediscovered Mr Pibb.

Did you know? They're making it again, except it's now Pibb, and the diet version is Pibb Zero. Whatever.

My sister and I loved this stuff when it was just Mr back when we were kids. This new Pibb incarnation seems to be only available in a portion of the US. It's like Dr Pepper, but more subtle. I love it.

---

So for this trip to Chicago, we drove. We've got a little Subaru [it's a 4wd car], so travel on possibly slippery roads is less scary to us than it might have been. However, we managed to drive on the two driest December days ever, and that was nice.

Because we drove [we usually fly because you just can't count on December weather to behave], we were also able to stay an extra day and avoid the ice storms threatening our travel route home. And hang with the fam and sample my sister's delicious cooking -- a mexican feast this time.

Oh, and we ordered this with our Amazon gift certificates from my sister and her hub. I do not like reading maps and am, therefore, bad at it. Hub hates getting lost. I hate backtracking. This device is a marriage saver. We call it the lady in the box, and the lady in the box got us home stress free. [sidenote: I'd used this exact model when I visited Scout in an Avis rental car in ABQ last June and marvelled at how easy it was to use, had super-quick recalculation when I decided to take an alternate route and never steered me wrong. The Amazon price was significantly lower now than when I last checked in June. Love this thing.]

---

The buns [both of them] are in great shape. They were fawned over at the bunny spa and came home totally relaxed and happy. We're lucky to have such a great vet's office so close to our home.

We'll be keeping an eye on Boeing, of course. But if she doesn't show further symptoms of the bladder stone, there's no reason to remove it. [If she were a boy bunny, that wouldn't be the case.] We also brought home timothy-based pellets, but confusingly, they have the same calcium content [0.8%] as the alfalfa-based ones we'd been using. I'm going to have to look into this.

---

So that's all for now. I've got new tea to sample, lots of catchup work to do on Knitty, and a serious machete needs to be taken to the clutter in our house. But before I go, this:

via Neil Gaiman's Journal, this delicious set of reviews at Amazon.co.uk. Savor them.

when all else fails...

...cut your hair off!



I still have the sticky out parts at the back of my neck, but now have little wee bangs and stuff. I like. Even the hub likes.

p.s. these are the old glasses. the new ones won't come for a few weeks. i do like these, but they're not going to last much longer. frameless are a bit delicate for even careful me.

p.p.s. i had no idea i was copying jacquie until she left her comment. SHE DID IT FIRST, people. though her bangs are much more bangy than mine are. :-) of course, if she'd ever blog, we'd see a picture of her hair and how different it is from mine and i'm blathering now, aren't i?

eee!

this is it. my last stationary day for 3 weeks. i'm off to SOAR tomorrow!

eeee!

freaking out? yes. but happy freaking now.

my suitcase? is not big enough. jillian and carla have filled an entire station wagon with their stuff [and maybe a few things for me :-)], so i guess it's not surprising that i'll need two bags.

eeeee!

i'm *this close* to binding off both sleeves for the Artfibers silk coat and must finish tonight. knitting from 4 cones of yarn at once is not good plane knitting. but i'll bring the pieces with me and hope to come home with a finished coat!

the churning noise my macbook is making now? it's encoding my copy of Lucy Neatby's Knitting Gems Vol. 1, so i can bring it with me on my iPod. why? because she's got a billion different ways to do a button band and all of them are smarter, easier and better looking than knitting a strip and sewing it on. i don't retain new techniques well at first, so it's a real treat to bring Lucy with me so she can show me over and over again until it's locked in my brain.

plane/downtime knitting? new sock. two skeins of Sock Candy in Little Bunny Foo Foo. pattern? in keeping with my love of the mindless, easy knit, something new, spotted first on Harlot's blog, thanks to Presbytera. a sock that starts, toe up, with 8 sts by 8 rows? dear lord, i am in heaven.

did i mention that my suitcase is too small?

eeeeeeeee!

i'll be bringing my portable solution with me, so i can make sure you get a special treat on Tuesday morning.

it may not be an iPhone or even a Treo, but i can use it to blog, view the web in full color on a rather large screen, check e-mail and do all sorts of other stuff. handy, eh?

for now, must sign off. will blog if i can on the road, but mostly, i'll just be having fun with the girls [and boys?] in the UP.

nuit blanche Toronto 2007

a string of diamonds, zone A.

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note to self: you don't like crowds. next time, go to bed at 8pm, get up at 2 and walk through a much quieter, still-cool experience.

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favorite exhibit: the cool drums and percussion on queen, east of dufferin

favorite hands on: making boondoggle [gimp] weavy stuff at Camp Night Owl in Trinity Bellwoods Park

most disappointing payoff after a long wait in line: ghost station [the abandoned subway station under Bay]. it was spooky for about 15 seconds. then it was just loud and dark. hrm.

a few more pics at Flickr for those who also like blurry tiny lights in the night sky.