It has arrived!

I got the phone call last week and could hardly wait to pick it up. I was a little surprised at how small the box was, and I kept on asking Pam from Pam's Woolly Shoppe, "Are you sure everything is in here?" So in honour of Amy Singer from Knitty.com I wanted to document what it looks like when getting a wheel. Amy blogged when she received her Ashford Joy, and I loved seeing her pictures.

How it's packed, and the information booklet that is included.

It was neat getting a picture of the person who packed it up in the factory from New Zealand. She did a very good job. Everything in its place.

I chose the unfinished wood versus the lacquered finish on the wheel. The lacquered finish was $100 more and Pam said for a $100 you can save by finishing it yourself. So I took her advise, but a forewarning....it's taken me about a week to get it stained and urethaned. So I've had to bide my time waiting...tick tock tick tock.....no spinning , and I've got some corriedale roving just staring at me, waiting to be practised on.

This is just about finished. It's been fun thinking how I wanted to make it my own. So I decided to stain the legs red, as well as the maid uprights, and maiden bar supports.
*Update* This is now Thurs.Aug.2.
Everything is now thoroughly cured, and as soon as my DH comes home after work we'll be putting it together...more pictures to come.

Still working on the wristwarmers. Hopefully this August long weekend coming up we'll be heading out to the farm, and maybe I'll have the time to finish off a couple of projects that have been sitting in the wings while this wheel's been getting all the attention.

Just a note of amusement.....I was reading Posh Yarns blog, and she has an interesting take on Educating Public Sentiment Aug. 1 post..... I love the sarcasm....Go Posh Go!!

This past weekend was the beginning of a week long event which happens every summer here. So we partook in the activities on Saturday evening....


First was the Chuckwagon races.... Dodge is sponsering a tour of this race that runs throughout Alberta during the summer.

My daughter Nicole's place of employment sponsers one of the riders, and this is a picture of them rounding the barrels. We've never been to see the races before, but meeting the driver, and going behind the scenes gave us a new understanding of how much these animals are loved, and how these thoroughbreds love to run.

Here's one getting washed down in the paddock area.

After the races we went on to walk through the fairway......which is pretty self explanatory. Lots of people, food, noise, lights, music, and did I say food? The rage with most of the crowd is getting a pail of mini dougnuts. Yes I said a pail....it used to be a little bag of 15.

The finale of every evening is the fireworks. It may not be as big as some other cities, but it's a treat and enjoyed by many.

Oh yeah I did manage to get the green "Mrs. Beeton's" wrist warmers done......

Next on the needles are the pink/purple "Mrs. Beetons......

I've made the leap........I've ordered my spinning wheel...... The Ashford Traveller. Double drive, double treadle. Sounds to me like anything double is good.....mwahhhhhh....oh my god...now I have to see if I can spin.....I anticipate a lot of *#!?&@?!^!* while practicing that's until classes start up in October. (Next week eta of wheel)

I've done enough reviewing, reading, scouring libraries, talking to other spinner/knitters that I'm all spun out. Now that I've ordered it all what I've read and learned is probably going to fly out the window. I guess there's nothing better than just doing. Actual spinning whether it's crap or not, it's still practicing......Which brings me to add Urban Dictionaries definition of practice.......

The act of turning admired potential into envied ability. Contrary to popular belief, practice does not make "perfect", it conversely makes "permenant".

"I'd better practice my skating if I want to make enemies on the ice."
by James Bell, Vancouver, BC

Have a great weekend!

I feel like I'm repeating myself with these projects, but here goes.....I'm in the middle of the Victorian wrist warmers called Mrs. Beeton from Knitty.com (Winter 2005). I've been looking forward to working on this pattern because it has the potential to use up a lot of my leftover yarn stash.

Anyway I wanted to post about the joining of the two bell edgings. Apparently it's similar to the three-needle bind off, but instead you'll be knitting the stitches off both needles which will carry on to be the wrist part.












Well I've never done a three needle bind off, but I got the general meaning of what was needed to be done. I had to take a picture of it though......it's kind of a schmahzle*(new word) ;) There's six freakin dpn being used at this point. It sure is pretty though with the mohair and the beads. The pattern keeps my interest going, but I thought maybe it might be intimidating for some. It's slow going with the joining, but once that's over a pair of these warmers could easily be knit up in an evening.

Another batch of lilies that have opened up.....I wanted to also say how happy we are with our camera bought this past May. (I've been going snap happy with the garden this year.) It's a Nikon D80 SLR, and we would recommend it to anyone looking for a new camera.

Well the weekend has come and gone, and it was a mighty hot one. The temp inside our house didn't go below +28C at night and so with everyone heading to work this morning they're all feeling sort of punchy from lack of a good sleep.

This is noodles again hamming it up. She was performing a yawn for me, not a hiss, or a hairball. We were taken with the thought maybe she was really laughing hard at an inside joke. We can only imagine.


On Saturday we headed to Art Walk 2007 on Whyte Avenue. By 4:00pm on Saturday all the artists were pretty well done in by the heat. That's dedication.......or is it determination?


As the day ended we found ourselves strolling through the bussling Strathcona Farmer's Market.


We found ourselves thinking back to our visit to Seattle and Pike's Market. What a lot of colour!


















Here's another of my garden pretties~

Well it's been a long week of hot weather with the same forecast for the next week +30C=90F and I've been trying to water my plants to keep them alive. I was commenting on Maia's blog about her beautiful waterlilies and that my one waterlily was going to bloom, but now it looks like it's going back under the water.
What's not up with that??


Anyway back on the knitting front.....

I haven't been blogging because I've been finishing the Wine and Roses mitts....and I've got them done!!!

Since finishing the mitts I've not been able to contain myself with starting new projects.....I've got two sets of mittens started from the book Selbuvotter Biography of a Knitting Tradition by Terri Shea.



Here's the first pair knit with Briggs and Little wool. Colour orange and red heather. Pattern #13. Also included is a peach schnapps smoothy which doesn't hurt when it's hot. A great drink when knitting outside.





Inside shot with thumb yet to be started.





Next pair on 2.0mm dpn is Briggs and Little 100% wool 1 ply sport. In a more traditional colour for Selbu mitts. Colour Washed White, and Dark Grey.









Next I'm going to cast on the two Victorian styled gauntlets (mentioned in fibre and beads) Mrs. Beeton from Knitty.com designed by Brenda Dayne. I feel like I'm a little out of control with the new start ups but isn't that the best part of a project? Aha there is a name for this affliction...."Startitis" found it on Baad Medicine's blog.

Here's a picture of the latest bloomer in my garden......

I've been reviewing spinning wheels, and have come up with a final few choices. The Majacraft Little Gem and Ashford's Joy and Ashford's Traveller.

My main preferences have been narrowed down to: portability, double drive, double treadle, and of course cost. I've started off loving the 'Little Gem', and then my favourite was 'The Joy', but now I'm thinking 'The Traveller' is first choice with the extra kits I can buy for it to spin just about everything. My list doesn't sound like much for requirements, but I haven't tried spinning yet and I'm going on reviews by other knitter/spinners. Our local guild isn't starting courses until October/07, and I'm an impatient person....I want to start now! I've taken out books, and it seems like it's basically a personal choice for a lot of individual spinners.

So that's what I've come up with so far. What do you think? Any opinions? I'm looking to buy a wheel sometime the end of August. haha I say that now........

It's been another beautiful past couple of days, and a great Canada Day long weekend with the weather being hot and muggy. I've been busy catching up with gardening and unfortunately not posting anything new. I'm still working on the second wine and roses mitt (second mitt syndrome), and the embossed leaf scarf.

For Canada Day weekend we went out to the farm for four days. There was a mother of a storm this past Friday leaving behind a beautiful double rainbow. The photo doesn't show the second rainbow that well. Either way it was around 8:45pm when taking this shot........
..... and facing the other way there was this beautiful amber sky. For some reason whenever looking at the colour of this sunset it reminds me of Gone With The Wind. There's a scene in the movie when there's a big fire and the sky is very similar.

So for now I wanted to update about the farm flower garden and that it's now half done.

I did have some time to knit in between gardening, but not enough to show. Now that we're back home it's all about getting the laundry done.

Peace out