Monthly Archives: July 2012

Happy Olympics!

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Olympic outfit!

Happy Olympics everyone! I am not a sports fan, maybe I’m even an anti-sports fan most of the time, but when the Olympics are on, I am glued to the TV. As much as I can be. I have to say, I’m working a little too much during these Olympics for my liking.

I chose my outfit carefully this morning, and pulled out that tiny old Union Jack purse of mine. Can I just take a moment to say how freeing it is to carry such a tiny purse around? Normally I have this giant bag, but today I felt so free and easy and light. I had my phone, my wallet, and my keys. That’s it. It was awesome.

Yes, those are little blue mice on my feet. They’re that jelly material, I bought them last year and had ever worn them out because they made farting sounds when I walked. Last week I finally got rid of that by taking my hole punch and punching a couple holes on the inner instep (right where your arch is) on each shoe. That gave the air somewhere to escape that wasn’t around my foot, and voila! No more fart-walking.

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Calgary had a ceremonial raising of a Union Jack outside City Hall this afternoon, to show solidarity with London, as we too are a former Olympic city. The Mayor and the British Consul General participated.

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I love the Olympics, I love Britain, I’m very excited. Although, I’m afraid to say I’m not expecting anything as all-star amazing as the Vancouver Olympics were. We might be great at ice hockey, but that leaves no time to devote to field hockey (which I played for years in school, and mostly enjoyed). I’m looking forward to watching the rowing (something else I used to do) and the diving most I think.

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And yes, I did cast on a project today. More on that later.

Zombie Pocket

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This is one of the very first yarns I spun on my wheel:

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It is very chunky, and in other places very thin. I was poking through my fibre bin the other night, which is also where finished handspun lives, and decided I wanted to knit something chunky and quick. Something about working on a laceweight sweater…

At the time, I was watching Stockinette Zombies, a video podcast by two ladies that I met at SSK. I’m one of those people who won’t jump in in the middle of a podcast, I have to catch up from the beginning, and it really worked out! In the episode that was on, Amy was talking about a pattern she’d just designed called the Zombie Envelope. It is a gadget cozy in a few sizes, and it called for chunky yarn! I immediately cast on for the iPad size. After an inch or two I tried it on my iPad, and realized that I needed 40 stitches, not 46, so I pulled it out and did it again. I finished it that night! I didn’t have enough yarn for a flap, so I searched through my button jar:

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I wasn’t sure if I wanted a one-button closure, or more buttons, I let what I find dictate that.

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I chose two buttons, and sewed them on and made the button loops from some matching green Cascade 220 I had lying around. Good thing I like green!

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No seriously, I really like green!

Does my iPad need a cozy? Probably not, but it was a very satisfying knit, and even that little break from the laceweight sweater has put wind back in my sails for that project.

Heather’s Dilemma

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I mentioned in the SSK Yarn Haul video, but in case you didn’t watch it, I had spent all the cash I was allowed at the marketplace when I found a braid of beautiful fibre called ‘Heather’s Dilemma’. As it literally had my name on it, I decided it was ok to break out the credit card and purchase it. It looked like this in fibre form:

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I started spinning it right after I bought it, as that was also the first day of Tour De Fleece.

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A couple nights ago, I finished the second bobbin of singles, and then put both bobbins on to my lovely 3-prong, tensioned lazy Kate! (thanks mum!)

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After a lot of plying, I had this! I had split the fibre down the middle, and was hoping to get a mostly self-striping yarn, with bits of barber-poling in between the solid coloured sections. I obviously didn’t do a good job of splitting it (probably because it went something like ‘Look what I bought! Wheee! *Rip*) so this is more of a barber-pole yarn with a few solid bits.

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This is the water in the bathroom sink after it had been soaking for about 15 minutes! That dye didn’t transfer to the yarn (or the sink!) luckily, and the yarn doesn’t look paler than it was.

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342 yards of yummy sport-weight yarn! I was waffling about what to make with it, and then I watched my friend (from SSK!) Sam’s latest podcast, and she is going to be doing a KAL of the Wingspan scarf for the next month and a half or so. I have just about the amount needed for that, and she was there when I started spinning this yarn, so it seems appropriate.

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I had some singles left on one bobbin (see above re: not splitting it in actual halves) so I practiced Navajo plying that I learned from Lynn at SSK. Lynn was an amazing teacher, I feel like I learned a ton of stuff in her class. I can see the improvement already in both these skeins. Particularly in the n-ply tiny skein, because when I tried that once before, I basically tied myself to the wheel by accident.

I haven’t been perfect about spinning every day during TDF, but I’ve been pretty ok. Random extra travel day on July 1st didn’t help, but I’ve done as much as I could. I really want to try to spin at least 15 minutes every day for the rest of it, and hopefully that will get the habit ingrained in me. I also don’t want to forget all the amazing things I learned!

Stampede Knitting – Again

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Two years ago, I knit the Evenstar shawl specifically to enter in to the Creative Arts & Crafts competition at the Calgary Stampede. Last year I was eaten up by wedding planning/wedding blogging so I didn’t even try. This past year I knit what I wanted to for me, then when Stampede time rolled around again, I had to look back and figure out what, if anything, I deemed worthy. I decided that the best thing I’d knitted was my not-going-to-Rhinebeck sweater.

Last Friday the husband and I were on the grounds to catch an Our Lady Peace concert, and I made him look around the knitting displays first.

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Third place! Sadly, not Third in in the whole Knitting section (that would mean $100!) but 3rd in Stockinette/Garter stitch sweaters isn’t too shaby! The awards are tiered like that – the top 3 knitted things out of all the entries get 1st/2nd/3rd in Section, plus cash prizes, and then the top 3 things in each class (lace accessories/stockinette sweaters/etc) get ribbons. I had to explain that to a non-knitter lady who was there taking pictures for her knitter-sister and texting her that she won $125. I felt bad, but figured it was better to tell her than not.

A few days later, one of my friends texted me this photo:

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My friends are awesome.

Sillily, I forgot to take any pictures of the winning items, but I did take some pictures that you might be able to help me identify:

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I love both these shawls, but don’t know the patterns! The pictures aren’t the clearest, what with iPhones & the glass cases, but I thought I’d throw it out there.

The purple/green was in ‘Stockinette/Garter Stitch Accessory’ and the blue was in ‘Embellished Item (knit with beads, sequins, etc)’. The beads are on every cross of the lattice section.

Any ideas?

Build-a-Batt with Tempted

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There were many cool things at SSK, but one extra-cool thing was Tempted Fiber’s Build-a-Batt station. One of the tables in Tempted’s booth was devoted to little bins full of various colours and types of fibre, and you could pull off whatever you wanted, put it in a bag with your name on it, and come back later to your own personalized spinning batt!

These are the fibres I chose:

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Some teal, some rainbow, some sparkle. Not very much, as I was on a budget (both cash-wise and suitcase-space-wise).

I was number 9 that day, and I left the booth for a while, then came back just in time to see Becky making my batt!

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You make a little wooly sammich, then turn the crank on the instrument of torture drum carder.

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And all those tiny teeth comb everything together.

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A few turns through the carder, then you break into it so you can pull it off. Looks like troll hair, doesn’t it?

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My finished 0.9oz batt!

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Glamour shot! I love it. I think I want to corespin it, but not until I get some more practice. This is so special and pretty that I don’t want to mess it up. I’m so happy with how the rainbow fibre mixed in with the teal. I want a drum carder more than a little bit now, it was such a magical process!

Hot Times In Nashville

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Friends, I went to the Super Summer Knitogether in Nashville last week, and it was amazing. And HOT. I’ve never experienced 45C weather unless I was sitting in a sauna. But it was so worth the sweating to meet everyone who was there, I am SO glad I went.

I’ve got lots of new stash enhancements to show y’all (I ate collard greens and drank sweet tea – I can say “y’all” now.) but so many people boggled at the fact I carried on all my luggage on the plane, including my wheel and stash enhancements, that I took a few photos of the unpacking process to prove it:

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It is an Osprey Transporter 46, the smallest of the series (we also have the next size up and love that one too). It is the maximum carry-on size on larger aircraft.

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I unzipped it and it poofed open.

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Under that bag was a layer of fibre to protect the wheel. See? I needed to buy yarn and fibre, they’re packing materials!

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The top half of my spinning wheel is in that shopping bag. (An American Lamb shopping bag, yes I bought it from a butcher to use for knitting purposes.)

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Half of the spinning wheel unpacked.

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Then there was another padding layer between the top half of the wheel and the bottom half.

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I slip the drive wheel/treadle part of the spinning wheel into an old pillowcase for protection against scratches.

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One tiny spinning wheel! (A Majacraft Little Gem)

Drawbacks to this method of travel:

  • It’s the maximum carry-on size on planes that have 3 people sitting either side of the aisle. Only one of my 4 flights was this type of plane, so I actually had to “sky check” the bag on the other 3. Everything seems to have survived intact, although I would still never check this bag to go deep into the belly of the plane. With sky checking you get it back as you get off the plane, it doesn’t get sent on all the conveyor belts with the rest of the luggage.
  • It gets heavy after a while, and I missed a connection, so I spent a few hours lugging this around Chicago O’Hare, and my shoulders are a little sore.

Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to check it in a hard-sided big suitcase into the bottom of the plane, but not yet.

Stash enhancement post to come soon!

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