Work is a little crazy right now, but I just wanted to tell everyone I could about this etsy store!

A couple weeks ago, I was wandering around downtown Calgary on an extended lunch break, and found a mini craft fair in the park. I wandered by most booths,  but this one drew me in, and I ended up buying earrings and a necklace!

The etsy store is franziskaditter.etsy.com – I heard her telling another customer that she was just starting up, so she’s gotten a lot up very fast!

The earrings I bought had this design, but are circles instead of squares.

I was wearing the jenniethepotter earrings I bought at Sock Summit that day – they’re the same type of jewelery, beautiful ceramic.

I was also very drawn to items from this series of sophisticated black and white:

I couldn’t decide which ones I liked best (she had many variations) so I ended up not buying any of that type.

I just love the swirly designs – my pendant is similar to this blue one, only it is a creamy yellow colour:

Go check out the store. I haven’t contacted her saying I was going to do this, I didn’t even mention I have an etsy store too, when I was at the fair (I know I should have, but it’s hard being that forward!). I just wanted to help out someone starting out on etsy, and whose products I have first-hand experience with. I’ve worn both earrings and pendant a few times since then, and have received great compliments.

As I write this, she’s got 40-odd very well-priced items in her store, so there’s lots to go around!

For my first project of 2009, I’m picking up something that I left half done in 2008; my Druid Mittens.

I “finished” (except for the thumb) one mitten in October, but got discouraged and needed some time away from it. I love the pattern, I love the cables, and the yarn, but I chose the wrong needle size. And I even did a swatch! Although a stockingette swatch for something that has NO stockingette in it wasn’t the best idea Vogue ever had.

The fabric was much to tight, but I was too much in denial to actually stop knitting. I kept telling myself that blocking would fix it. Nope! Still tight, and too small for  my hand. But it is small in an interesting way:

The palm has a different row gauge than the top, so the mitten curls on itself. It can even stand up by itself:

So yes, definitely too small for  me, and odd enough that I wouldn’t want to give them as gifts. For whatever reason it took me ages to realise this, so a few days ago I cast on for mitten #2, with needles 0.5mm bigger, and we’ll see what that does. I haven’t frogged mitten #1 yet though, because I like petting the cables.

I went to a craft fair on Friday. I love craft fairs. I grew up around them, as my mum made teddy bears (and later table linens and Christmas ornaments) and I got to go with her. This fair was one of the big ones, the one held in a huge conference centre, with vendors from all over the country. Some of the people I remember from my childhood are still going, which I find gives a great full-circle feeling to the whole thing.

I bought two things for myself while I was out there, and I am so happy with them, I want to point you guys to the online stores. Today’s item has been used every day since I bought it.

I bought this handbag from mined reCreations. I absolutely love it! All the handbags at this booth were made from recycled materials. Mine is an old wool blanket (complete with label!), an old leather jacket, and a tooled leather belt for the strap. The belt is still functional, so you can lengthen and shorten the strap! With it on the biggest size I can wear the bag across my body, which I like doing.

Seeing the amazing work this lady has done made me think about the pitiful attempts I made at felted sweater purses. I really need to get better at that whole sewing machine thing. I think I donated all those purses to the Goodwill earlier this year when I was having a simplifying fit.

I am going to love this purse a lot. It feels just right for the winters here too, being a wool blanket. I love that patch pocket on the front, and the leather bottom. Oh, and this lovely detail:

A gorgeous vintage button on the back! The link way up at the top of post goes to the website, so you can order online. I highly recommend it, this bag feels so well made, and I feel like I’ll have it a long time. This style is the Shearer style.

One of these pictures contains a hint as to what the next post will be about. Another one of my newest favourite things.

I’ve been baking a lot in the past few months, and I have been thinking about blogging here about it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mix up the crafting and the cooking, but it is all creation, so I think it does go together.

Just as I was thinking of starting my foodie posts here, a friend of mine (my boyfriend’s best friend) asked me if I wanted to be a part of his food blog! So far there’s only the two of us (and, might I add, I am the only one to have posted a recipe so far!) but I think he wants to invite lots of people. His theme was that all the posters must be part of the theatre community.

I think it’ll be interesting, I’m not really sure what I think about a blog with so many possible authors, or a main theme that isn’t a food or technique, but a community. I like to keep things uniform, and there’s been no talk of a format for posts or anything. But as I said: it’s only us two so far, and I posted the first recipe. We’ll see where it goes!

You can find us at Theatre Cooking. All my posts for the next while will involve apples because I am drowning in them!

These are apples from my parent’s apple trees (and cinnamon for the recipe I posted at Theatre Cooking. Yum!). I’ve only used 3, but harvested 8 since I’ve been here; not to mention the large bag of them mum and dad had already picked. For some reason, on Thursday I felt like I didn’t have enough fruit in the house, so I donned the traditional fruit-picking hat:

And went in search of blackberries!

And this was a great time to contrast the two places I grew up. We moved to the city when I was 14; before that we lived in a very rural, isolated area. The main difference between blackberry hunting there, and blackberry hunting here? The MUCH lower chance of finding a bear here. I remember mum, dad, and I out picking blackberries (the first place we lived had an entire blackberry festival) and I was picking along, moving along the bushes, just turning the corner and bam! A bear was also working its way along the bush, also eating berries.

That bucket is 4 litres of blackberries! Five apples from our tree, and dad’s worn out Panama hat. I realised that it was very sunny, and I brought no hats with me. I could’ve taken one of mum’s sun hats, but she has a small head, while mine is quite large, so dad’s fit better.

The sad thing is that I’m feeling so overwhelmed by fruit right now, I think that bucket is just going to go straight into the freezer.

Banff is one of those places I just seem to keep going back to. Summer 2004, summer 2005, Jan-Aug of 2006 and now summer 2008.

I only ever go for work, I’ve never been to Banff for ‘vacation’. The work is fun, I always meet great people, and the mountain scenery is pretty spectacular too. But one of my favourite things about Banff is the wildlife

You can see why this guy is called a Bighorn Sheep.

I was late for work once (in 2006) because there was an elk on the path up the mountain. My roommate and I had to go around the long way. I got to see another elk while I was out there this time, luckily this time I was in a car. It was standing so still I was starting to think it was a statue!

And then, with zoom!

I bought my camera (a Sony DSC-H3) almost entirely because of the 10x optical zoom. 10x! And even more in the digital range, but I don’t use that too often.

And a gratuitous mountain-at-start-of-sunset picture, just because a Banff post wouldn’t be the same without it:

It looks like a painting, doesn’t it? Sometimes I don’t believe it is real.

And in knitting news, my first Annetrelac sock has a heel! I survived the entrelac! More on that in the next post.

You may or may not realise this about me, but I am addicted to lolcats. I check the site pretty much daily to see what funny new grammatically-incorrect cats have to say.

I have now discovered something one better: lolgraphs, otherwise known as GraphJam.com. I love geeking out in Excel almost as much as I love lolcats and to have the two put together? Priceless.

My boyfriend and I just about died laughing at this one:

more graph humor and song chart memes

And I have to admit to immediately going through the site’s entire archives. I only made the boyfriend look at one per page or so.

more graph humor and song chart memes

more graph humor and song chart memes

Still obsessing over Ravelry, I can’t wait till it goes live and even more people are on it. It is just the best resource in the world for knitters and crocheters. Network people, network!
I mean, I was looking at my projects today, and decided to click and see who else has made Monkey socks. That was great, seeing all the colours.
Then I wanted to see what else people have done with Classic Elite Classic silk, what I’m making my $1.50 cardi out of. I found someone else making it with the same yarn! She had put it on hold because of the puckering. I left her a comment on it, saying the puckering on mine blocked out.

It’s just great to see what other people can do with the same pattern, or what else you can do with a certain yarn.

In other wonderful news, I am getting a raise that starts on Monday. Starting Monday I’ll be making $2.00 more per hour. But I’ve promised myself, no more yarn over the summer. Stash only. Only on yarn though, if I can sew a few tops and feel happy, I am free to buy all the fabric I want.

All the Ravelry-ness has also had me go back to CraftMemo. I’ve started putting more stuff in there, and taking the knitting stuff out. I think it works well, as Ravelry is tailored to knitters and is a networking spot. CraftMemo doesn’t have the networking, but when you do stuff, you can create you own categories, which is great for all the random craft stuff I’ve collected over the years. And recently. All my sewing patterns are in there, and if I get the dishes done quick after I post, I may manage to get my fabric in there too.

I survived tech week, the show opened well, we’re back in our own house, mum has come and gone and all is well. Although I have done close to 0 knitting in the time I’ve been “away”. I’m very sad, but I’m back at work now, so hopefully I’ll get some more done. I currently have about half a sleeve of the Dollar and a Half Cardi.

I have been thinking a lot about food an exercise. Now, I am in no way a large person. I hesitate to even call myself a medium person, as most clothes I buy are small (I seem to have outgrown extra-small though, except in some shirts). That said, I eat what I want and I don’t exercise. Sure, I walk to work, but I feel like I need to do more. My thighs and tummy are starting to be a worry. I’m not too big for any of my clothes or anything, but mum always warns me about getting chubby, because at my age, she was much thinner than me and now… isn’t.

While we were out mum saw a purse she wanted to buy, and while she was in the store I spotted these lunchbags in the same line. She bought me one (in the elephant pattern) as we had been talking about good food and eating well. It’s silly how something like a cute lunchbag got me all excited about having healthy foods to put in said lunchbag, but there you are. I just crazy. Later that day we had a quick stop at Wal-mart and I bought some small Gladware thingys for my lunches. Before, we just had sandwich-shaped ones, and bigger ones for leftovers.
Today, I had a salad with greens, grapes, and a chopped up hardboiled egg, some fruit salad (pineapple, mango, peaches, mandarins), and a yogurt. Much better that my usual bagel (blueberry, and therefore not wholewheat) and slathering of cream cheese. I even had less Miniwheats than normal this morning (it will take a while to wean me off those).

I am also on a waitlist for a workout program called Bikini Bootcamp: 8 weeks to fabulous. I really just need that kick in the pants to get moving, and I think if I stick with all 8 weeks, I’ll be used to it and want to continue, although only time will tell.

For me, all this is about being more healthy and more toned, not really about losing weight.

PS: SO EXCITED about Ravelry.

Today I got validation of something I have always believed. I am Hermione Granger.

I used to work in a local independent bookstore. I went in there today to kill some time with my boyfriend before we saw The Producers (so good!). I wandered downstairs to the desk where I used to be, and my old boss was there. We were chatting and he mentioned that they are keeping my resume. I said that I’d let them know if I was free around Christmas to help out. He said that he was thinking more for Harry Potter Day (July 21st!). I let him know that I would LOVE to work that.

Then he looks at me sideways and says ‘I always thought you had a very Hermione look about you’. I laugh, and said I’ve been told I act like her too. To this he laughs and nods (humph!), and then says they are going to be doing a big thing the night before, and then all day that day, and I think I agreed to be Hermione for it! He said he is certainly going to let the other managers know, and make sure my resume is kept nearby.

I think that may just be the coolest thing in the world.
Tomorrow or the next day I think I may follow up with the Kids department manager (it was actually my boss’s last day today, so he won’t be around to remind everyone).

Not to boast, but I think I’d be great. Hermione is me. I am her. I was that kid in school. I mean, they don’t even have to rent me a costume, I’ve got my own uniform still from high school.

So I couldn’t knit yesterday at my boring job because I broke a needle. Today I brought a fixed needle.

But I left the pattern at home.

Usually I ignore all the Mercury in retrograde stuff. Maybe there is some truth in it.

I’ve had a bit more time to think about these now, I think this is do-able.

1. Enjoy my knitting. I’m pretty good at this already, but sometimes I just need to remember that this is a hobby. For fun.
2. Finish one thing per month. I can get pretty busy, just look at me this month. 5 12-hour days, and one 8-hour day per week. Because this can happen, I used the word ‘thing’. This can include anything that gets bound off. In all of March, I just finish one sleeve of a sweater? That’s okay, it’s a thing! One sock? One mitten? All things!
3. I have two sweater’s worth of yarn in my stash at the moment (and one on the way). By the end of the year, I want at least one knitted sweater done. I’m going to cross my fingers for two, but I won’t hold my breath. (see schedule note in R.R. 2)
4. Leave more comments on people’s blogs.
5. Meet knitters in this city, make friends.

This month’s finished thing? Hopefully Clapotis. I’ve dropped 9 stitches so far, and I only need to drop 13 total before I start decreasing. Then it’ll fly.

After some intensive Googling, I got my progress bars to work again. The fix for Blogger Beta is here.
Other question… oh wait. Duh. Just answered own question, never mind.

Having those progress bars up is interesting, because I only have 3 projects going! I suppose some would say that that is enough, but I have seen sidebars full of these things. I don’t think more than one project is wrong. Sometimes you are just in a mood to knit something different. Can you tell I really want to start a new project?
I want to make a sweater, but I don’t feel like working on my Bubbly Jacket. I’m still kinda worried it will make me look like a gorilla.

I’ve been looking at a lot of Rowan patterns. We just got Rowan’s Vintage Knits in at work, and I had a lot of fun leafing through it. There’s lots I want to knit in there. Also, I’ve been browsing the Rowan mags on the internet (at work… shh) and I’ve seen lots in there too. Rowan 40 has lots, and there are even a few in the much-reviled Rowan 39. And I own 38, which has stuff too. And Denim People. Oh, and I want to make something else out of Kidsilk Haze. For me this time.

I have a sweater’s worth of Katia Dianat that I bought way back when. I’m not so in love with it anymore. I’ve been thinking about eBaying it. It is perfectly good yarn, a lovely red, I’m just not feeling the love anymore. Right now, I want tweed, I want semi-solids, I don’t want something that is just RED. A very lovely red though it may be.

Oh well, I should wrap prezzies before Christmas jumps out at me from behind the tree.

Quick apology post, for blogger beta.
I love it, I love that there is a tagging feature. I’ve been going back and editing old posts so they have tags. In some cases, I’ve had to take out the old makeshift way I was tagging my entires, and editing a post, of course, makes it appear on Bloglines. So sorry for the spam.

Or maybe you want to look through my old projects. Crazy person.

I think I may make myself a Christmas stocking this year. I’ve got the material for it already (I went to Value Village today to drop off a bag o’stuff, and left with a red sweater to felt).

Blogger has been improving itself! There is a beta version, and guess what? One of the new features is TAGS! I loved them on LJ (wow, haven’t updated that in…. forever) and was very sad Blogger didn’t have them. I searched the intarweb, and found a few ways around it, and have even been trying to use one, but it just didn’t look pretty. But waiting around worked for once!
Now if only modblog.com hadn’t died before I finished moving all my posts over. I was almost done too.
Of course, this does mean I’m going to have to go back and label every post now.

Still loving CraftMemo. I haven’t found a way to share my stash with you yet, but I emailed CraftMemo to see if it is possible. I put in all my knitting needles tonight. It’s great, although to get the best out of it, you do need a naming convention, so if you set it to show only ‘Needles’ things come up in a good order. I titled things like this: “DPNs 2.5mm” or “Circ 7.0mm/60cm”. Then in the product listing I would note what brand. It seems to work so far, although I may edit them all to put the brand in the title. Not sure yet.

The system has you enter the vendors, so at one point I had to go over the Denise Site, and did you know they’re doing pink sets that support breast cancer research? Cool!

I got my stuff together for Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest today.

The piece is a blanket I started because I wanted some mindless knitting. The yarn was a Bernat Denim yarn, and very soft and lovely. It was a cotton/acrylic mix, I believe. I was going to knit a blanket. As you may or may not be able to tell from the pic, I started in one corner, and somehow thought I could knit something that giant without going mad. I was obviously wrong. So there it is, all packaged up and ready to go. It’s nice to have it off my back, and know it is going to someone who can use it. I included the needles, I don’t need more straight needles.


Oh, and while finding publisher links for my last post, I found my new wallpaper. On Potter Craft‘s website, they have two free wallpapers. And surprisingly, I went with the non-knitting-related one! It works perfectly because I flipped it horizontally, so although you can’t read the book credit any more, it doesn’t matter because the left side is the side my dock is on, so there’s just teddy bears peeking out from under my dock. Very sweet, and the book (Toys to Sew) is adorable and I’d buy it if I could only sew.

Coronet so far. It says to knit until it is 8″ from the bottom of the band, It’s about 5″ right now.

I was listening to the CraftSanity podcast the other day, the one where she is talking to two ladies from KnittaPlease. I really like what they do, I think it’s great fun. Then, I got to actually thinking about it, and it’s not a concept that can work here. When it can get down to -40C or colder overnight, putting a blanket around a pole would not be as appreciated as giving a blanket to a homeless person. The shelters are all full, people do indeed sleep outside in this weather, wondering if they’ll wake up in the morning. If I could knit fast enough, I’d knit a blanket, but it wouldn’t be done until the heat of summer.

I think tomorrow, I bake cookies.

But for now, I answer questions for the Stranded! Knitalong.

What are your projects for this knitalong?
I have just one project, Eunny’s Endpaper Mitts. I posted the yarn for them a few posts below. I’m trying to be good about finishing stuff, so I’m not going to start until I finish my Coronet (pay no attention to that sweater behind the curtain!).

Is this your first colorwork project? If it isn’t, what was your first, and has it survived the test of time?
This was my first colourwork project:

Huntingdon Castle, it’s on the cover of IK fall (or was it winter…) 2004. It got that far, then I ripped it. That was almost two (!!) years ago now, in March of 2005. I think I got the hang of the colourwork, but the yarn was wrong for the pattern, if I remember my knitting was a little loose (it was a bit too drapey), and it has no shaping. That last reason is now the one I cling to when I look at that lovely picture of 1/3 of a sweater, and think about the sleeve that is staring at me from the top of the bookcase…
But yeah, that was my first colourwork, and it didn’t even stand the test of being finished. I haven’t done any since then, so I feel like I’ve never done it before. Also, the yarn for the mitts is much thinner. Although, I always felt with that yarn that it was too defined for colourwork. Colourwork needs a bit of a fuzz, I think. That stuff was like perfectly round rope, but soft. I’ll definitely make something with it, I just don’t know what.

Something very interesting in the Craft: blog today. This article about a woman doing a one-person show, that needs your knitting input! Actually, your unfinished knitting projects. For sending something to her, you get a ‘Set Construction’ credit in the program. After it’s over, the bits get sewn into blankets and given to charities. I’m defnitely going to send her something, it’s my duty as both a knitter and a theatre tech. I wonder if I can put this on my resume…

The other interesting crafty thing of the day is I got my first issue of Craft:! Hurrah! I’ve only flipped through so far, but it seems really great.

I haven’t knit too much more on my Coronet hat, what with making dinners, cleaning, dishes and laundry, but hopefully I’ll get to it soon. I did the grafting, picked up the stitches, and got about 5 rows knitted.

We broke a 110-year old record temperature here today. It was -27C (I think) on the thermometer, and -39C with windchill. DAMN COLD.

I’ve put the sweater aside for bit. It’s SO. DAMN. COLD. here I decided I needed to knit myself a hat. I’m too poor to buy any more yarn (haven’t started those fingerless mitts yet, I’ll explain after some hat-ness), so I went through what I had in my stash.
My original plan was to make a hat out of some alpaca yarn I’ve have for a while. The brand is called ‘alpaca Indiecita’ and I’ve had it since about… *thinks* October 2003, so it’s time it got used. I’ve got some charcoal grey, and some cream. Looking at it, I realised the gauge was pretty small, and if I wanted a hat any time this year, I’d need to double it. I doubled, swatched, and found that it was close enough to the gauge for Coronet from Knitty! So I started. Crappy photos because the sun set at 4:30pm today, so no natural light. You may notice some ends hanging out the sides. Let’s take a closer look at those, shall we?

Now, why would a solid colour band have so many ends? The project that I originally bought this yarn for, and started waaay back in October 2003 was a sideways-knit garter stitch scarf, with a self fringe. In other words, at least a ball of this stuff was in lengths. And as I’m using them doubled, each change is four ends. Each scarf-length did about three repeats of the cable pattern. I’m making the medium size, even though I most definitely have a large head, as that is what my gauge is dictating. I did 17 cable repeats, which fits my head just snugly enough, rather than the 18 the pattern says to.
I think I may knit the body of the hat in reverse stockingette, because I do like the way it looks. I’m also undecided as to whether I will knit any of the cream in with the charcoal. That’s what the swatch I made was. I ripped it out though. I almost always rip out my swatches once I’ve found and noted gauge, I should really stop doing that so I can have something to refer to.

I also really wanted to start those fingerless mitts of Eunny’s, and I wound the one skein into a ball, and dug the end out of the other one (I hate those centre-pull balls! I can never find the end, I dug out about half of the yarn entrails before I found the end), and then was having problems deciding what size I need to make. I’m right between small and medium, so I’m not sure. Also, I thought any sock yarn would do, so I didn’t think of gauge, and I don’t have the yarn with me right now, but I think I’ve got a different size of yarn that Eunny made hers out of, so I’m going to have to think long and hard about that.

In other news, it was -32C outside today. So I didn’t go outside. I think I will weave in some ends now, so I can get some hat going tomorrow.

It’s been a very slow week in blogland with all you American bloggers off stuffing yourselves silly. Come back please? Entertain me with your knitting stories!

Dear Apple,
I love your products, I really do. I’ve had an iPod for over two years now, and an iBook for a year and a half. I have been lusting after the Mighty Mouse for a while now too, especially since it went all sexy and wireless.
But do you have to send me the advertising emails? The MacBooks are calling me, and I have nowhere near enough money to buy one. Nor do I need a new computer, when this one is fine.
I know I could unsubscribe, but then I might miss out on the next new thing. And as head of the Mac section at work, that would be bad.
Just please don’t tempt me so, dear Apple.

Heather