Thursday, December 17, 2009

Just a Few Images.........

We're back from Vancouver visiting DD. Her and her boyfriend Nathan live in the downtown area which explains the following pictures.I loved this window which was huge. It reminded me of some castle window I might find in England.
We took the new Canada Sky-Train from the airport to the Waterfront Station where the hotel was. This train line was finished in September of this year, and I believe was part of the plan for the Olympic crowds which will be arriving sometime in Jan/Feb. 2010. The view from our hotel room at the Fairmont Waterfront.
In the evening.....We took the SeaBus over to Lonsdale Market in North Vancouver. How much more Christmas can it be watching this children's school choir?
The tugboats outside Lonsdale market.Seabus ride from North Vancouver back to downtown Vancouver...Canada Place in the background to the right.More shopping the next day over at Daiso at Aberdeen Mall in Richmond. Of course we had to check out the wedding dress shop.A perfume shop with a pretty display of samples.A goofy lunch at the mall.Dinner that evening was at Foundation (A view from our table) on Main Street, Vancouver.
After dinner we took a drive around Stanley Park to take a look at the Olympic rings.The shopping highlight of the weekend was when I stopped in at Dressew on Hastings Street. Nashua yarn motherload at $1.99/ball!!!! You know you picked the right man when he can be convinced to stuff yarn in his suitcase until it's near bursting. Thank you Dale you don't know how happy that yarn made me. ;) XOXOMiss you Nathan and Nino!!!!! We had a really good time!!

Monday, December 07, 2009

Baby it's cold outside........

-27 Celsius this morning and the frost was on the windows. No going outside for the kitties today!I just love the lace like effect on windows. When working on my stained glass projects my favourite glass has to be glue-chip which is the same as what frost on a window looks like.
On to my next obsession which is getting some mittens knit up. Drops Design pattern No. 116-7 from Garnstudio.com pattern. Everytime I go on this website I feel like I need to shout it out.....all these designs are free for the taking people!! So I'm rockin' with Drops patterns right now. I'm using Noro Kureyon, colour 194. The long colour changes make for a really interesting mitten. The black is from my stash, Gaella Irish worsted knitting wool. Front view of mitten.
Back view or the palm side of mitten. Still have to finish the thumb and then block it. I've started the second mitt while we were watching the Canadian Curling Olympic play offs here in Edmonton.
Finished project which I blogged about earlier....yup I am finishing stuff around here.
I'm lovin the cables right now, and I would be further along on this if it wouldn't be for the mittens right now...yeah I'll blame it on the mittens ;)
A quick video of who keeps my lap warm while I'm on the computer. My sweet Noodles.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

It was a sewing kind of day today.......

I got started on a nightgown pattern I've had for awhile. McCalls's M5769. The material was also bought from Fabricland awhile ago. I generally don't gravitate to pink clothes, and there's not a pink to be had in any of my home decorating, but for me there's something comforting about wearing pink to bed. Go figure.This is the top half tomorrow I'll finish the bottom half...oh, wait I've got a dentist appt. tomorrow so hopefully Thursday it'll be done. In the meantime I found a new Sandra The Knitting Magazine which I'm happy about. This October 09 issue, which is only $5.25 Cdn. at Chapters/Indigo, is loaded with 32 patterns.

The Filati Edition 38 Fall/Winter 2009/10 has 44 patterns and I couldn't resist the green cabling on the front cover. I've never seen this magazine before and was blown away by the photography and the layout. If you're a lover of the earthy green tones this edition has a total of 11 different sweater patterns dedicated to that colour.

The Interweave Knits Weekend has jacked it up a notch in this edition. Or is it just me? There's several patterns that I'd love to start right NOW! ;) The cutest being the Whirligig Shrug. How cute is that for a little girl!! I like that they've included a couple patterns for the guys as well, and one in green too!In the mail this week came a new order I placed at Elann. Peruvian Sierra Aran colour: Deep Forest, 80%Highland Wool/20% Alpaca, 50gr=83 m/91yd. I ordered this on Nov.11 and received it Monday Nov. 16! That's just phenomenal! I've never had an order delivered that fast which now puts the pressure on. I have a pattern picked out from Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman.This is the closest to the actual colour of the yarn I could get. It's quite dark with some flecks of red. I thought it'll be nice for this Man's Tweed Pullover pattern. I like how the sleeves set right up to the neck.
After spending last week laying around recovering from a flu bug I was in the mood to bring out my bread machine, and make some cinnamon buns. Don't ask me how flu = cinnamon buns, it just does. Anyway I haven't used the machine for a looong time now, and I wasn't sure if it was going to work properly. Either way I had a hankering to do this for awhile, and I had made sure I had fresh ingredients on hand. Well the dough had risen to the point it was lifting up the lid of the bread machine, and of course I forgot to take a picture, but here's evidence of baking.....Time for tea...ttyl :)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

More Spinning......

I was browsing through my blog entries and realized I hadn't posted pictures of the finished navajo plied merino/silk blend from Aurelia. I finished spinning this last month, but with the basement reno and the furnace installs I just plain forgot. Bought this fibre from Aurelia Wool in Merritt, British Columbia, Canada when we were travelling to Vancouver, B.C. to see DD. 80Merino/20Silk, Spun to 12 wpi which on my chart means DK weight. Colour: Pink Parade. Total weight:96gr/3.5oz. Total metres: 211.5m/231yd. This was wonderful to spin. It's sooo soft, and will be wonderful knit up for anything close to the skin. Oh and I discovered something....when you have the flu try to avoid stranded knitting.....I came down with the flu last week Friday and after a couple days laying in bed I decided to try finishing off some Latvian mittens I've been working on. Well after ripping it back three times I thought I was finally on track, but eventually realized after knitting the entire body of the mitt, there was still three huge errors......so again ripped it back all the way and started again. Flu-brain, yuck. Some thumb shotsA week later and I'm still feeling the effects. With regret I'm having to say that we never made it to Phoenix. I was so looking forward to some warm temps and relaxation, but when you're sick you don't want to leave home. I don't know what was worse the flu or letting my DH and my sister and her family down by not going. Either way I'm feeling somewhat normal now, and the flowers from DH did help :) And my other sweetheart that has become even more clingy, and loved having me sick in bed because I was a great source of heat for her. I swear she would love living in a warmer climate.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

I'm holding on.......

to this great weather we've been getting. ;) It's November 4 and the temp today is expected to hit +15C. Our average is around +1C, but hey the shorter winter is around here the better. I've been bitten by the touque bug, and the solution I've found is in 'One Skein' by Leigh Radford. Asymmetrical Cable Hat
I'm using some Drops Alpaca from my stash. Colour 6834, guage 23st x 30 rows, addi dpn's 4.0mm. This is more of a lace weight, but I loved the colour for a man's hat so I used all three skeins stranded together. I still had to increase my cast on to 81sts. to get the right guage for the circumference of the man's hat. This is going out in the mail today to my DD's boyfriend Nathan who is in hospital starting on another round of chemo.

Also in the same book there is a pattern for a baby hat. I have a friend who works in the maternity ward at one of our local hospitals and I thought I would love to do some stash busting and make up some to donate. So again I'm having to play around with gauge and I think I've got it down now.
Last but not least....updates on the basement reno. We've now got it insulated with rigid pink, and pink fibreglass. The framing was put back up along with the electrical back in place, and the vapour barrier. So now DH has been putting up the drywall. Slowly but surely the basement is coming back to us. I'm not sure if it'll be ready for Christmas though.
I have an azalea plant that was given to my mother-in-law back this spring. She lives on Vancouver Island, and didn't want to travel back there with it so she handed it over to me in full bloom. It was beautiful and I thought, oh I'm probably going to kill it with neglect. I generally don't keep houseplants because I'm constantly forgetting to water them. Anyways this thing loves my west facing window in my dinette. It's constantly blooming and it doesn't mind getting dried out. So far it's been the perfect plant! Who knew!
Next post I'll try to blog about our trip to Phoenix coming up this Saturday. I've got several yarn shops located on the GPS so hopefully DH won't mind coming along on my fibre hunt.

**An afterthought......I used Clover's Pom Pom maker to make the pom pom on the above mentioned blue touque. After some initial studying of instructions, and rotating it around and figuring out how it works I started winding the yarn on it. I couldn't contain my amazement at how wonderful that pom pom turned out. I've shown everyone who has been to my house. Like I'm hoping everyone tries this thing out because my exasperation at using half circle cardboard cut outs just never worked for me. So just a heads up if you see one and you've had the same problems making really nice round pom poms...you'll love this thing.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Isn't she pretty..........

She has a nice purr to her. This past week I've been coordinating furnace installations in three different homes. We decided to make the plunge financially to replace the old ones as the government rebates were an incentive to do so. At 96% efficiency we're hoping to see some difference in our gas/power bills. We'll see.
While the furnaces were being installed I managed to do some knitting, and finally got the Latvian mitten figured out. The thumb was a real lesson in patience as I had to rip it down three times before getting the pattern right. Hopefully the second one will go faster. I'm loving knitting these up. The weather here has been rainy with some dense fog. It makes for some great knitting weather.
Just a quick video of Anna and Noodles. It's funny the look that Anna can give when being watched, over the shoulder 'Who me?'

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Busy Busy Weekend........

In between working on the basement I managed to get some knitting done.
Also some spinning was managed. The 80 merino 20 silk fibre from Aurelia is finally done, and I'm navajo plying. I stopped in at Fabricland and picked up some material to make a kitty and scotty dog stuffed animals. Just a little something for DD and Nathan. DD is missing the kitties at home here, and is desperately wanting a pet of her own in Vancouver. She has terrible allergies and I'm thinking somehow maybe this will alleviate those withdrawals of not having a kitty to cuddle. The Scotty dog will be for Nathan. Just because :)
Next came the books I ordered from Knit Picks. They have a book sale going on until November 4 and I couldn't resist. In Cables Untangled, there is some awesome patterns, and reference to cable stitches. Interweaves Knitted Gifts, is wonderful! There's several patterns I'm wanting to knit up, but one in particular 'Ballet Flats' by Marta McCall. Also if you are a Fair Isle Knitter Alice Starmore's book is an awesome reference book as well it has some wonderful timeless patterns.
Saturday was our 25 Wedding Anniversary which was spent out at a concert with some friends. It was different as the kids aren't home anymore and weren't with us to celebrate, but we had a great time anyway. The next day Sunday was our turkey day. The plan was to have our Thanksgiving around 6:00pm but when DH brought the turkey up in the morning something was off. I mean really off. I kept smelling something, and in the pit of my stomach I was hoping what I was smelling wasn't the turkey, but it was. Bugger. I ended up phoning Costco as I bought the thing only the day before from them. Costco's good that way with returning things, and they told me to bring the turkey back with my receipt and I'd get my $ back. Turns out that a half hour before I got there another lady brought her stinking turkey back as well. So I don't know what was going on with the fresh turkey's from Lilydale. After standing in line up there we ran to Superstore and got a frozen turkey, and Thanksgiving supper was served at 8:00pm instead. With a great bottle of Chenin Blanc from Quail's Gate everything tasted great.
Monday was DH's 52 birthday. Again just the two of us celebrated after a day of working in the pit called our basement renovation. Some progress was made after we did a major backtrack with the insulation. We ended up taking down all the framing which we just finished doing to put in pink rigid insulation to bring up the R value to 20. One of those things that we had to do so there'd be no regrets later on. My camera has this neat feature to take panoramic pictures. (Click to Embiggen) Framing is just about finished. Next comes hooking the electrical back up, and then drywall.