Ask and ye shall receive, eh?

I'm back from my (too) short visit with my Dad and step-mum Margot, and I've got STUFF to share with you! And some of it is knit-related too! I KNOW, right? Actual knitting content on a knitting blog! Weird...

After Dad and Margot picked me up at Toronto's Union Station, we settled in for the leisurely 2-hour drive up to their house (I can't even begin to tell you how much I'm NOT going to miss them living so far away!), and stopped in the lovely little town of Belfountain to do a little shopping and all-important beer purchasing.

I'm really trying to keep an eye on my spending habits (no - REALLY!), but this stuff was just too good to pass up. Besides, they were having a sale!


First up, I picked up this awesome market/knitting bag, 30% off. As soon as I saw it, I pictured it overflowing with yummy yarn and cozy works-in-progress. *Sigh*

I also picked up a couple of novelty ice-cube trays. The first one makes ice shaped like brains (you can sort of see it in the first picture), and this is the second one:

Space Invaders ice cubes!!! How friggin' COOL is that (no pun intended)? My inner geek and spaz just could not resist these beauties.

And finally, just as my purchases were being rung up, I noticed this cute sheep key-chain.

As you can see, not ONLY is it cute and sheep-y, it's also multi-functional! It doubles as a mini (OK, very mini) flashlight AND it Baaaaahs! So I can blind potential muggers while simultaneously disorienting them with farm animal sounds. Sweet!

OK, to knitting. I knew I was nearing the finish-line on both my active WIPs this weekend (which I'll share in a later post), and I was wondering what to cast on for next, especially since I knew I had a nice, long train-ride ahead of me (un-interrupted knitting time during the day!!! Unheard of!!!). I was craving lace, but I didn't have a clear idea what to cast on for: Les Abeilles? Merope? What? I was drifting amongst too many possibilities.

That's when the Knitting Fates intervened and my Summer Year of Lace package arrived. And who am I to argue with Fate?


I didn't touch the Spring package, so I decided to take this package as a sign and wound up the yarn (BMFA Geisha) the night before I left for Toronto, and it's going swimmingly. Not really looking forward to knitting the edging though (664 stitches on the needles!!! Aaaaaaack!), but that's another story!

Happy Knitting Everyone! Hopefully I'll have some FO pictures to share my next post.

Constantly in motion

It's 2:00 PM on Saturday, July 10th, and I'm sitting on a train bound for Toronto, which might not be as cool as a midnight train to Georgia, but is still pretty frickin' neat. I'm blogging from a train!!! My inner geek finds this to be incredibly satisfying.

I had a very knitty post planned for today, but of course, I forgot my camera, and while I may be psyched at the prospect of blogging from a moving train, turns out I'm not psyched enough to use the laptop's Webcam to take pictures of my knitting in front of my fellow passengers. I've already been the object of more than a few curious glances (or unabashed stares), friendly remarks and - yes - un-sollicited conversations...

[About that - why is it that people feel they can just talk to knitters, anyway? Why do the rules of society: avoid eye contact, respect personal space, and above al else - pretense, pretense, pretense - why do these things seem to just vanish like cashmere at a fiber festival when we have pointy sticks and some string in our hands?]

So why am I on a train? (I'm on a train! I'm on a train!) I was supposed to be running a race in Toronto tomorrow morning, but I'm sadly un-prepared for it (that might have something to do with the fact that I haven't been... you know.... running?). However, the train tickets were non-refundable and non-exchangeable ('natch), so I'm taking a quick trip to visit my Dad and step-mum Margot in what will soon be their old house (they're moving closer to us! Yay!).

So far I've finished a pair of socks, and have knit one pattern repeat on my newly cast-on lace shawl. Dudes, trains really are the more civilized way to travel.

Happy Knitting Everyone!

A day of serendipity, part 2

Picking up where I last left off, after watching the sunrise and having breakfast with our friends (who were somewhat perplexed to see us, heh), it was time to head to the airport (again). We weren't very optimistic about our chances of making our connecting flight (remember, we had a 50 minute window to: disembark, collect our luggage, go through customs, re-check our luggage, go through security, and haul major arse to our gate), but we figured Chicago was closer to home than Cabo...

The airline had thoughtfully seated us at the front of the aircraft, the idea being that we would then be able to disembark a little faster (and every minute counts!). When we got on the plane, we saw that the flight wasn't full, and that there were two empty seats right at the bulkhead. It didn't take long for us to stake our claim, let me tell you!

Once we were good and settled and we had taken off, I pulled out my knitting (of course). I was knitting along, quite happily I might add (sandy beaches - to say nothing of muy margaritas! - aren't very conducive to knitting...), when one of the flight attendants comes up to me and starts oooh-ing and aaah-ing over my knitting. I smile, thank her for the compliment, and keep on knitting. Then she tells me she just learned to knit a few days ago, and could she get a few pointers from me? "Um... sure! I'd love to help!" I say.

Every so often she'd walk by and ask me something about what I was doing, how I was holding my yarn (I knit English style, and evidently she had been taught with the Continental technique). This went on for about an hour, and when she finally had a minute, this is what we saw:

This woman was interested in learning to KNIT, I tell you, and she was not going to let some minor detail like being 32,000 feet in the air (not to mention that I was a complete stranger!) get in her way!

Now - and I feel terrible for saying this, because I gave her the link to my blog, and I hope to heck she's reading - she was falling into the trap that all newbie knitters fall for. She was using a novelty, bumpy acrylic with big-ass needles that made it really difficult to work the stitches; she was planning to knit this stuff into a SHAWL, and she was planning to trim this shawl in - WAIT FOR IT - EYELASH YARN.

I Just. About. Lost. It.

"Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!" I wanted to shout at her. "Stay AWAY from crappy acrylic and for God's SAKE woman, put the eyelash and fun fur DOWN!" But then I thought "Who the heck am I to judge? Maybe she's allergic to wool? Maybe she can't afford to knit with anything else? Maybe she doesn't want to invest in something she's not sure she's going to enjoy?" Even so - if I'd had any spare merino in my bag (that's what I get for packing sensibly for the first time in my life), I would have given it to her in a heartbeat. And a copy of the Harlot's The Secret Life of a Knitter as well.

Well, I didn't have any of that, so I gave it a look, showed her both techniques, and tried to help her figure this whole "making fabric out of string" thing out.

She had mentioned before we got started that her knitting was so horrendous, I'd need a glass of wine. I just laughed it off and told her I was sure it wasn't THAT bad, but maybe she ought to hold off on the wine until AFTER the lesson... Sure enough, once she had packed up her knitting...

I gots me my wine :)

It never ceases to amaze me where knitters (or newbie knitters!) will pop up. I never got your name, lovely lady, but if you're reading this, I hope you stick with it. There are plenty of knitters in the sky to give you pointers along the way :)

Happy Knitting Everyone!

ps: Oh, in case you were wondering: we made our connecting flight with time to spare. I've never run through an airport so fast in my entire LIFE! We got home late, but we collected the kids and were glad to have the entire family at home.

A day of serendipity, part 1

Well, we're back in our casa sweet casa. Getting here didn't go quite as we had planned, of course, but that's what you get for having a 6-day getaway without the kids, right? You've got to pay for it at some point, heh.

Our original travel arrangements had us flying out of Cabo on a 7:30 AM flight to Houston, then catching an afternoon flight to Montreal after a cushy 3 hour layover. However, a little dude with a bug up his arse had other ideas. His name is Alex, maybe you've heard of him?

Diligent, prepared, seasoned travelers that we are, we arrived at the airport at 5 AM, only to find out our flight had been canceled (something about Houston airport being completely flooded... wimps!). Luckily, they were able to put us on a flight to Chicago at 1 PM, but the catch was that we would only have a 50 minute window to: get off the plane, pick up our luggage, go through customs, re-check in our luggage, then find our gate.

Yeah....

Well, what the heck, right? We confirmed the new travel arrangements, then caught a taxi back to our hotel... We did NOT want to spend 7 hours in the airport! We begged them to give us our room key back (check-out wasn't until noon, after all), made ourselves a cup of coffee, and headed down to the beach to watch the sun rise. And dudes.... it was worth it.


I don't know about you, but I rarely get to watch the sun rise over the crashing waves of the sea of Cortez... I'm glad for the opportunity (even if I DID have to wake up at 4:35 AM....)

This isn't the end of the story, the day had a few more surprises up it's sleeve... But it's late, I'm beat, and I need the blog fodder, heh.

Happy Knitting Everyone!

Olà!

Since apparently I can't be bothered to blog about knitting (insert sheepish grin here), how 'bout we talk about traveling?


Greetings from sunny, beautiful (and friggin' HOT) Mexico!!! Phil and I are in Cabo San Lucas for a kite festival, and while he's been flying kites, I've been focusing on getting some sun whilst looking fabulous, sipping the occasional margarita.... and EATING!



We arrived here on Tuesday afternoon, and have been having a lovely time with Phil's kiting friends. The weather is magnificent, the ocean is lovely if somewhat foreboding (can you say strong undertow???) and the food is wonderful. Ahh..... all-inclusive resorts, where have you been all my life?



We fly back to reality tomorrow. See you soon!

What else...

Well, now that I’m done being a drama queen, how ‘bout we talk about knitting?

Feeling the way I have lately, I’m rather surprised there isn’t more knitting progress to share, to tell you the truth. You’d think I’d be embracing the soothing familiarity of it and projects would be flying off the needles, right?

Still, there are a few things in the works. I finished the first Wednesday sock and am about halfway through the leg of the second one. These are definitely going to be getting a primo place in the sock rotation when they’re done. The colour, the stitch pattern, the yarn… there’s NOTHING I don’t like about these socks. And the fit! It’s like they were MADE for me! (Knitter humour – Hah!)

Much as I adore them, they’ve been moved to the back-burner in favour of a more pressing project: a new cardigan for Émilie.


The Tiny Tea Leaves cardigan, using Dream in Color Classy in the Cool Fire colourway. Simple, elegant, and by all rights it should be a quick knit. And no seaming! Who doesn’t love THAT?

Happy Knitting Everyone!

On time...

I think Albert Einstein was onto something with his Theory of Relativity (Hear that? That’s the sound of the scientific community screeching to a halt and waiting with bated breath to hear what I’ve got to say on the subject). Time really IS relative, you know? Depending on what your perspective, it can go by REALLY fast or incredibly slooooooooowly.

A few examples:

• Working on Subject headings or Authority Records (librarian speak)? Slow time.
• School year about to end? Dude, that’s crazy-fast-time.
• Knitting a cardigan with lace-weight yarn and 2.0 mm needles? Mind-numbingly-slow-time.
• Whadaya know it’s been almost a month since I last posted? OMG-where’d-it-go-it-went-by-so-fast-time.

So yeah, Einstein was right. Either that, or there’s something seriously wonky going on with the space-time continuum, and we need Scotty to figure something out STAT.

All that to say, it’s been busy, and I’m starting to feel the strain of trying to frantically keep all the spinning plates in the air. I want to just stand still for a while, collect my thoughts, ponder my next move, and make sure it’s the right one for me. As excessive as I tend to be with my passions (and I’ve got the stash to prove it, heh), I also tend to be excessive when I’ve had enough. I don’t just cut back and take a breather. I peter out, I lose interest, I put it down and walk away. And while I’ll concede that that might be letting the pendulum swing a tad bit too far in the opposite direction, that’s just the way I am. I’m a work in progress, and it’s beginning to sink in that I’ve still got a LONG way to go. As Buffy said “I’m still cookie dough”.

I’ve kept quiet for the past few weeks mainly because it’s very important to me to put out “good” posts. Yes, my readers are important to me (and you are, and I know you’ve been wondering where I’ve been), but I’VE got to be happy and satisfied with what I put out there. And the magic spark just plain old hasn’t been there lately. I don’t feel like blathering on about how I’m just trying to keep my head above water. Talking about laundry and groceries and the normal goings-on of everyday life just isn’t inspiring me right now.

I’m still here though, still knitting (albeit less than I used to). And I haven’t forgotten you. Thanks for not forgetting me.

Happy Knitting, Everyone.