Helping With the Stash

The last post was about additions to the stash. Most of them are skeins which will have to be wound before they can become socks or shawls. This is an occupation for movie watching and something I do by myself - all requests for help from the other occupants of the house being refused. So I treated myself to this as an early Christmas present from my husband.



A Boye Electric Yarn Ball Winder

I bought it at Michaels and I used a 40% off coupon which made the price much more reasonable.

I love it. I tried it out on some yarn that I was in the process of unpicking and then I went onto a lace weight yarn. It was yarn that I had already wound by hand but was unhappy with the way I had wound it. Next, I wound yarn from a skein. I had to hold the skein between my hands as I do not have any sort of yarn holder or swift, and having the skein on the back of a chair which I would do for hand winding did not work with this machine. But it is so quick that I wasn't holding skeins for long.

When I was looking for pictures of this machine (I ended up taking my own photos for this post), I found some reviews. The common complaint was that the balls were wound too loosely. I had this problem at first but found that if the yarn is tensioned before going into the machine, the resultant ball of yarn is more compact. The machine does not produce a cake like those produced by a hand winding machine. The final shape is much more like the put ups from Red Heart.

I love this machine so much that I am winding all my balls of yarn before I use them.

In The Stash

This post is courtesy of my husband. I showed him the yarn I bought in Denver and he said I should put it on my blog. Apparently, as I write about what comes out of the stash I should write about what goes in the stash.

We moved from Denver about 4 1/2 years ago and in that time some yarn stores have closed and some new ones have opened. During my trip, I visited 4 yarn shops, plus Joanne's, Michaels and Hobby Lobby. The stores I visited were chosen solely based on their location.

The first place I visited was I Love Knitting, opened since I moved away. This shop was at a disadvantage being the first place I visited as I hadn't really decided what sort of yarn purchases I intended to make this trip. I was the only (potential) customer and the proprietor (I assume) acknowledged me and I said I was just looking. She let me look without talking to me further. I was very good and didn't buy anything just because I was there.

The next shop I visited was Colorful Yarns. I have a feeling that it might have opened before I left Denver. It is in a strange location and I am glad I phoned for directions. It is not in a position where shoppers would drop in as they are doing other shopping so you know everyone is in there because it is their intention. I decided that I wasn't going to waste my time just looking at the same yarn in yarn stores, so when I walked in and the proprietor asked if I needed help, despite there being many other customers she came up to me to ask me this, I told her I was visiting and was wondering if she had any yarn that was specific to the area. She showed me sock yarn dyed by a woman in Morrison. The name of her studio is Red Rocks Fiber Works. That seemed very local so I bought a skein. The other local yarn I bought was a mix of yak down and fine como. This came from a yak ranch in Elbert near where the boy child went to scout camp. I shall have to decide very soon if this will become a hat or a scarf as it is already cold here in Calgary. (Spot the post I wrote but took forever to finish.) I really liked this shop, the helpfulness of the owner and all the different yarn so I just had to buy more. I have decided that the easiest yarn to buy is sock yarn as I know how much is needed for a pair of socks. To the local yarns I added yarn from a dyer in Portland, Oregon. This is where Him Indoors grew up, so it seemed appropriate. I chose the Mount Hood Rose colorway. Then there was all the yarn that I had read about in the Ravelry sock group so I bought a skein of Madeline Tosh and a skein of Smooshy by Dream in Color. Oh and I got some needles – for sock knitting and some gifts to give with the WCOBBS blankets.

Here's a picture of the yarn. (Minus the yak/como which must be so special that I don't want people to see it?)

You would have thought that would be enough except there was a new yarn store I wanted to see. My next trip was to Lamb Shoppe. This is in a nice setting in an older part of town, just north of Cherry Creek North, if that makes sense. I was tempted by some sock yarn that had been dyed in Elbert, not the same place as the yak yarn, but I came to my senses because there weren't any colours I liked so I would really have been purchasing because it was independent and local and not because I liked the yarn. I ended up buying some more sock yarn – Panda - as well as the Noro I showed you in a previous post.

Well that really should have been it. Except I surprised myself and went to Knitty Cat. I hadn't planned to visit but I went to a liquor store in the same complex. (As an aside, I went to the liquor store to purchase Canadian Whiskey. Whiskey that is imported from Canada to the US which I would take back to Canada because it is way cheaper in the US. Go figure.) The reason I was surprised that I visited Knitty Cat is because I hadn't been too keen on the store when I lived in Denver. The owner always came across as aloof with her favourites and cliques. This visit she was very friendly and helpful and even offered the swift and ball winder to wind the yarn I had purchased - Araucania Ranco Solid and Alpaca Sox.

All in all a very successful trip.

I Need to Finish Something, Anything

The other day as I entered a new project into Ravelry, I noticed that l now had 5 unfinished projects. How did that happen? Looking at them I had a reasonable excuse for each of them being in a not quite finished state. Firstly there was the crocheted baby hat. It needed ribbon. I still haven't made up my mind whether to use white that I already have or buy some to match the yarn colour. Then there is the skirt. Just needs the elastic for the waistband. I have some but it is narrower than called for in the pattern. Really I should make a trip to the fabric store and buy ribbon and elastic and finish these two things.

And then there is the really-have-to-concentrate shawl. This is the item where I ran out of yarn during cast off. I now have yarn so just need a simple movie and the shawl will be finished.

Then there are the socks, possibly the only unfinished item for which I have an excuse. They are a mystery knit. Clues (rows) are published once a week. I say "possibly" because all the rows have been published so I should be well on my way to finishing. If I was I would have a reasonable excuse for casting on the last item which started this introspection. I started a baby blanket. The reason? I was worried that if I didn't start, I would keep on putting it off until the last minute. Now I am glad that I have started, I have received an invitation to the shower in the middle of October. I should finish the blanket by then but all the aforementioned items will have to go on the back burner until the blanket is finished.

So Close And Yet So Far

My oldest project is a complicated lacy thing. Complicated because it requires concentration so it is my movie project although only regular movies not the artsy fartsy foreign language with sub titles stuff we like to watch. So as you can imagine this project has been going on for a while. But that's OK, it has kept me happy on Saturday night. It's amazing how much faster the knitting went when I added stitch markers between pattern repeats so that I wasn`t constantly counting stitches. A week ago I stopped I had just one more row to go – the cast off row. I was so excited to be there and finally see what this lace blob was going to look like.

Casting off in lace has to be very loose. For previous projects, I have increased needle size by lots or I have increased stitches. This particular pattern had a different way of casting off and the yarn was used double. After a few repeats I could see that the cast off edge was going to be loose enough so I continued as set. Except throughout the movie I had two mantras: "I don't like that girl" (character in movie) and "I don't think I have enough yarn". And low and behold I didn't have enough yarn (and I didn't like the character throughout the whole movie). How could I get this far and this close and still not be able to finish? Unpicking and redoing the cast off was not an option. Once I had gone through the fiddly process I would still have to work a very loose cast off so there was no guarantee that I would have enough yarn. I posted on Ravelry but no response so I found an online store that had the colour I needed. (A result of combining their Canadian and US operations. So I was lucky to find it as the colour is not shown on the manufacturer's website.) The colour was on sale so the cost of postage brought it up to normal price.

And that was what I wrote yesterday but hadn't got around to publishing so now this post is turning into a real whine. I ordered the yarn on Sunday night and received an automatic response. Then this afternoon I received an email from the company telling me the yarn was out of stock and they wouldn't be getting anymore. How could this be they had a number of skeins in stock when I placed my order and I only ordered one. So I responded to them with that question.

I then Googled the yarn because it obviously wasn't going to be easy to find. I clicked on a link that Google came up with and it took me to that website. (I hadn't realised as the site name and shop name are different.) And guess what? They still show 5 skeins in stock. So Customer Service who emailed me this afternoon didn`t think to update their website. And let me add here this is a well known on line store that yarnies rave about. Hurumph is all I can say.

Holiday Knitting

Had a slightly different vacation this year. I took boy child to Denver, where we used to live, as a graduation present. The spousal unit stayed at home to keep the cats company and look after my garden. Yes, I really piled the pressure on.

As is usual with holiday knitting, I wanted something easy and something new. A week before we went away one of the organisers of Western Canada Odd Ball Blanket Society put forward the idea of knitting themed squares for new blankets. I do admire her as she offered to sew them together. The themes were bugs, flowers, boy themed. I decided to make one square in each theme, as I would just need to take two balls of yarn (from my stash no less) 1 pair of needles and my notions case.

I did take other yarn with me which I'll tell you about after the photos of my squares.

The yarn used for all of the squares was Vanna's Choice which I had purchased when on sale at Michaels; needle size 5.5 mm.



The pattern was from here.




This is the pattern. I cast on fewer stitches and made the border smaller and worked fewer rows at beginning and end so this square would come out close to the required size.



This pattern was from the Yahoo Group so I cannot give a direct link. It is a rectangular design so I blocked it to make it a square.

I could have made all three squares from one ball of yarn but decided that the boy themed should be blue.

I did take other yarn and a pattern and needles with me but I had already been yarn shopping by the time I'd finished all three squares so I cast on some of the yarn I bought instead. I can't say what the pattern is yet as the Spousal Unit is supposed to be guessing, but here is a picture of the yarn.

Heel We Go

The options for June for the Sock Knitting Group were
Technique: Design Your Own Or Vintage Patterns
Designer: Stephanie Van Der Linden

I decided against designing my own pattern as I knew there would be too many choices to make so for June I opted to make a Stephanie Van Der Linden pattern. I chose Grün ist die Hoffnung as it started with knitting lace in the round and then continued into a sock. I used Fleece Artist Merino in a softly variegated green.

You work the lace medallion first, continue on one side to create a short row toe, work the sole in stocking stitch while picking up stitches on two sides of the square, continue in the round on all stitches until foot is long enough, work a short row heel, continue in the round until leg is the required length. And there’s your sock.

The written pattern by Stephanie Van Der Linden was very short and easy to follow except I was not sure what she meant for her short row instructions, so for the first toe I worked a standard wrap and turn that I have used many times for heels. Except when completed I was not sure I really liked the look of it, as I had 3 more opportunities of working short rows in this pattern I decided to try other methods to compare and which I liked best for future reference.

Here is the picture of the first wrap and turn toe.



For the heel, I searched for instructions on how to do the double stitch method referred to in the pattern. This is a photo of just one side. I found plenty of instructions for working this on the purl row but not for working on a knit row. So I am not convinced that I worked it correctly on knit rows.



The second toe, I worked without wraps and picking up a stitch at the side when working back along the rows. This is a picture of the nicer side. With this method I had to really make sure I had picked up the correct stitch.



I had found two clips on You Tube for short row heels that involved knitting two together and making a stitch on the return rows. As I had just one heel left, I chose to go with this method.
This is a picture of what it looked like.



The end result of my experimentation (apart from a pair of socks) is that I decided that my original wrap and turn toe did not look as bad as I first thought; the final method is the one I like best but I will need to make some modifications to ensure both sides of the heel look the same; there are more methods out there for me to try.

Here are the finished socks.

I Hope He Didn’t Find That In A Dumpster

Yesterday we went out for coffee before facing the supermarket. We must look like trustworthy souls as a guy sitting opposite us asked to watch his bag. I made the typical girl comment that is wasn't safe if it contained chocolate. (I don't know why I say things like that when I don't even eat chocolate very often.)

Anyway, he comes back, takes a container out of his backpack, and says "chocolate". My immediate response, "that's not chocolate, that's Hershey's." "I know", says he " but I found it." Hmm, wonder whose chocolate he's stolen.

The spousal unit then asks about the book he's reading. The guy says he found it in a dumpster when looking for bottles. "it's amazing what people throw away, this is in brand new condition."

So now I'm worried where he found the chocolate.

Blogging in Starbucks

So here I am a lonely person on my laptop in Starbucks.

The reason being that I am on vacation and the power is out in the hotel. So in need of coffee I decided to take the computer with me and catch up on a few things.

I was surprised when I walked in that most of the tables were occupied by one person on their computer so I didn't need to worry that I would be the only one. The tables that were used by more than one person were meetings, I don't think anyone is in here with a friend just being sociable.

The point of this post is to ask about the etiquette of using your computer at Starbucks.

Starbucks provides free internet and you don't even have to log in and provide an email address. Very easy. The person sitting next to me came in after me and plugged her laptop into a power socket and is working away, I don't know if she is using the internet. That's OK other patrons are using Starbucks' power but..... she isn't a patron she hasn't purchased a thing. Considering a coffee is less than US $2.00 it strikes me as being rude to use Starbucks facilities without making a purchase. I am sure it has not occurred to her that if we all did that Starbucks would stop the free service and would become like the fast food places where you only get the key to the bathroom if you purchase something.

The Mystery Continues

After knitting two pairs of socks in April, I was ready for May's challenge:
Cables and/or Traveling Stitches
Cat Bordhi
Mystery Sock designed by Cookie A

Having knitted a number of Cookie A's socks, I couldn't resist a mystery by her. The yarn is S R Kertzer's On Your Toes Bamboo. A yarn with a lovely feel and had great stitch definition but was horribly splitty so the joy of the feel for knitting was spoiled by the splitting.

But I am really pleased with the end result. I finished with about 5g of yarn remaining. So very close but at least I don't have to worry about what to do with the left overs.

April's Socks

I've been trying to decide whether to post about my socks or the group on Ravelry I have joined which is "making" me knit socks, in case any of you are wondering why I need a group to tell me what to knit.

I'm going for the socks as I knit two pairs in April. The theme in April was Technique: Socks from a currently published online Magazine
Designer: Cookie A
so I chose 2 patterns from knitty.com and used yarn from my stash.

This is the first pattern.


I used Patons Stretch Socks which is not the best for showing the pattern off but as there had been comments about the tight fit, I thought a stretch yarn would be good for the pattern. They do fit remarkably well. Here is a link to the pattern so that you can see how good it looks in striping yarn. I would be tempted to make this pattern again in a self-striping yarn.

And here is the other pair I made using Lana Grosa Meilenweit Seta/Cashmere yarn which has cashmere and silk and felt lovely to knit with.


I wore these to book club and I have never had so many comments about my hand knitted socks before, which was rather nice as they are lovely looking socks. Of course, now I want to make the shawl the pattern was based on; Eugen Beugler's Frost Flowers and Leaves which is published in A Gathering of Lace. There are parts of the pattern which could be better written and there are notes on my Ravelry page.

The Great Sock Mystery

In my last post I mentioned a sock knitters group on Ravelry that I had joined. Every odd month they have a mystery pattern where "clues" are published once a week for four weeks. March was the first month I participated. The pattern was by Kristi Geraci and after the mystery was complete there was a competition to name the pattern and it is now named Belle Vitini.

The Year of the Sock

Last Year was The Year of the Dishcloth and this year is turning into The Year of Socks. For the simple reason that despite already having sock yarn I bought more last year. At the beginning of the year I had enough yarn to knit 11 pairs of socks. I have knitted 5 pairs of socks and am working on another pair so I should have yarn enough for 5 pairs of socks - enough to take me through to the end of the year. Wrong! I bought some sock yarn - just one ball, was given some sock yarn and the spousal unit bought me some when he was in Finland. But if I continue knitting at least one pair a month I will finish the year with much less sock yarn than I started the year.

To help me use all this sock yarn, I joined a group on Ravelry called Sock Knitters Anonymous for those addicted to sock yarn and maybe knitting a sock sometimes. Each month there is a theme and a chance to win (knitterly) prizes. The good thing about this group is the amazing patterns that other members reference or make; the bad thing about this group is the amazing patterns that other members reference or make.

To give you an idea, here's a (poor) picture of the sock I am currently working on.

Yes It's a Dishcloth

At the beginning of January I updated you with the last of the dishcloths. A good thing that I wrote in that post

But I doubt it will be the end for knitting dishcloths.

as I knitted another one this week.

I had the bright idea to make a dishcloth for a colleague - an Easter dishcloth. I came up with the idea on Tuesday, my last day in the office this week was Wednesday; so Tuesday night was spent knitting a dishcloth (and catching up with posts on Ravelry). The only good idea behind this exercise was using a pattern that I had knitted before. I made an illusion cloth that I had made as part of the mystery group last year.

Yes I did finish it and gave it to my colleague on Wednesday and she loved it.

The pictures aren't brilliant as I had to take them in lamplight.

Why Did You Pinch Me?

Last Wednesday was St. Patrick's Day. Which seems to be celebrated more outside of Ireland with many large North American cities having parades. There is also the ancient custom of inflicting pain on a person who does not wear green on that day. The first I had ever heard of this was when someone actually pinched me at work for not wearing green. In the litigious world of the US I should have sued them for physical and mental pain. Being British I had never heard of this let alone believed that a grown woman would pinch a temporary member of staff.

Fast forward a few years to Calgary, Starbucks and knitting group on 16 March. Discussion about what people would be wearing the next day, when our American pops her head up from her knitting on DPNs (we are so proud of her) and wants to know what the crazy canucks are talking about this time. It turns out that this east coast girl from Maine had never heard of wearing green and being pinched if you don't.

The next day at work I carried out a random survey of one and asked a guy, originally from Toronto, if he knew about the wearing of green and being pinched. He'd never heard of it. So is this something that started in the mid-west and spread west or did it start on the west coast and is spreading east?

Of course, like most traditions, no one knows how this started and the opinions on the internet range from it being started by school children to being a political statement.

The Olympics, Canada and the National Anthem

Well that's it for 2 years. The Olympics have finished. As they were in the country where I live, there was 24-hour coverage and I could watch most events live. Normally I watch NBC's Olympic coverage as I have found it to be superior to other networks but my feed was from Seattle, which didn't start until 9.00 in the evening (they had some daytime coverage). So I'm sorry Bob (Costas) I didn't get to watch you this year. Hope to see you in 2012.

There was much blogging and online news articles about the organization of the events. Many of them having no idea of the history of the Olympics and using their electronic forum to mis-informatively rant. For example, there was the English-speaking Canadian complaining about Michaelle Jean speaking in French at the opening of the games. And, of course, complaints about practicing. All I can say, is read your history before complaining.

The other interesting aspect of the reporting of these games were the complaints about Canadians celebrating. So many other nationalities took offense to Canadians celebrating when a medal was won. I didn't get that. Are other countries allowed to celebrate wins but Canada isn't? The Olympics were held in Canada, were the regular citizens expected to carry on with their lives and ignore what was going on in Vancouver/Whistler? it was as if the foreign press and bloggers had a picture of Canadians and when they didn't conform to someone else's expectation they were vilified.

If you have never been to a sporting event in Canada, you cannot imagine what it is like to hear the National Anthem. Everybody sings it, and they mean it and believe in their country. They know they live in the best country in the world. And sure if you want to move here we'll make you welcome. It is very hard to describe the atmosphere if you have not experienced it. And that was the one thing that the non-Canadian announcers deemed OK for the Canadians. You can celebrate Gold only by belting out your National Anthem.

Fire in the Sock Chimney

I have waxed lyrical previously about the wonders of the internet and how you can found out something about anything. Through this marvelous means I was directed to Lucy Neatby and her method for finishing sock toes. Her method is to start in the middle of the toe and work to each edge. The web page had photos with explanations - seemed straight forward. So one afternoon I sat in a sunny window and finished my sock.

Here is a picture of the sock with the rows of waste yarn

and here is a picture of the finished toe.

Did you spot that there's something wrong? The toe isn't finished. I managed to get the stitches back on the needles and finished the toe. No damage.

So when I finished the second sock (remember I always knit two) I decided to have another go at the sock chimney. I made a couple of changes; as I tend to knit my socks inside out I continued working this way and worked only a couple of rows in waste yarn and left the stitches on the needles.
I was hoping by doing this I would be able to see more clearly where to sew. I opened the web page and followed the directions again but after a few stitches I realised where I had gone wrong previously - in following the waste yarn I had followed the line of the first row of scrap yarn whereas I should have been going into the stitches of the last row of main yarn. I took out my yarn and started again and ended up with this nice toe.



I like this method of finishing but don't like the three ends that have to be sewn in. It is definitely easier to work from the wrong side and it is not easier if you keep the stitches on the needles.

And here is the finished sock.





The pattern is Rick from Cookie A's new sock book and the yarn is Regia 4 Ply worked on 2.75 mm dpns.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

OR: How Happy Can One Girl Be Over A Bag?

There are so many knitting and crochet books available these days which is a huge change in the last 10 to 15 years. I frequently have a quick perusal of the books in the library as I nearly always find a book new to me. One of these books was Not Your Mama's Crochet which was edited by (at that time) a local designer. One of the designs was a bag made from what I call carrier bags, the plastic part of the now redundant question "paper or plastic?"

I duly saved the required number of bags but didn't do anything with them. Mainly because I didn't want to go to the work of cutting them up and crocheting them to end up with something embarrassingly awful. But in the interests of using up my stash (used bags count as stash?) and because I didn't crochet at all in 2009, I decided to go ahead with the project.

Basically there were three parts:- cutting the bags into strips, joining the strips and crocheting the bag.

So let the excitement begin.
Here we have the bags waiting to be cut up. In the interests of full disclosure they are from the Co-op but they are not the current design. These ones have green and some black print. I used my rotary cutter and three was the best number to cut together. They were very staticy (is that a word?) and clung together.



Here are the bags now cut into strips.




I was full of grand ideas and I was going to join the strips into one big ball before starting to crochet but that soon got boring. I'm not sure how many I joined before I started, but once started I joined strips in as needed. I put all the strips into a bag and just took them out as they came, I didn't plan the order of the pattern. At one point, I joined a new strip at the beginning of the round so I counted how many strips were needed for a round, I then put three times that number to one side for the handle round and the rounds after. Except as you know the best laid plans.....when I ran out of strips instead of unpicking my work back to the beginning of the round, I took some strips from my saved pile to finish the round, thinking it wouldn't matter as I had over estimated. No such luck! I needed a few more strips to finish the last round and the bags I had used were old so what was I going to use, but in the bottom of the bag where I keep carrier bags I found some old design Co-op bags to save the day.

So here it is in all its glory.




The finished size is approx. 25 cm width and 19 cm depth and I used just over 18 bags. The handles were purchased at a fabric store.

Last of the Dishcloths

When I had finished December's dishcloths I started on the ones I had missed during the year. There were three. One I had unpicked and not restarted and the other two had been "clued" when I was away.

This was the one I had started and given up, I think because it was too big. So this time I cast on less stitches to work 2 pattern repeats instead of 3 and worked slightly fewer rows. the pattern was originally for a washcloth and I think it would work well for that; not that I have ever made a washcloth. (Face flannel for the UK readers.)




Don't you love this one? It's not very big and works fine for washing-up but not cleaning but who cares when it is cute. Added bonus it takes very little yarn.



This is the last one. it is hard to see what it says when you see it in the flesh so I don't know how well you will be able to see in this photograph. It says Thank You and the other part is supposed to be a rose.




I have decided not to make the dishcloths from the Yahoo Group this year. After all how many cloths does one house need? But I doubt it will be the end for knitting dishcloths. I still have some balls of yarn untouched as well as a load of left overs. Despite having made this decision, I had to stop myself from buying dishcloth cotton in Zellers just because it was on sale.

Photo Round Up

I caught up with posting photos of my projects made in 2009 and just have to post photos of projects finished near the end of the year.

Firstly here are a couple of pictures of the baby blanket I made for a colleague. The first is the finished blanket and the second is a close up when it was in progress so that you can see the pattern and yarn more easily.




And here are a couple of scarves. The first one I called Really-Using-Up-The-Stash as I had used yarn left over from a larger project to make gloves and then the yarn left over from the gloves was used to make the scarf.



This scarf was made with the same yarn as these gloves but I added in some multi-coloured thread to give some colour to the yarn.

Resolution Time Again

This year I have decided to make some resolutions. I am going to read all the books and knit all the patterns on my lists. To achieve this I am going to give up work and sleeping.

OK so that's not going to happen; although it would be nice to be able to knit and read whenever the mood took me but in reality this has never happened. The periods of my life where I have not worked, I have felt guilty whenever I took a break during the day and I find that I actually read and knit more now that I am working.

Looking back at what I have written in previous years I have to laugh at what I wrote last year about it getting boring knitting scarves. How come I still managed to knit 5 in 2009?

My aim for this year is to use the yarn I bought in 2009. Not sure how this will work in practise as I purchased quite a few balls of sock yarn in the sales and as I like to knit patterned socks they are not a quick knit any longer. I will continue to use the odds and ends of stash yarn that have been around for a while.

And I'll continue to read and look after the house and love my family. (And hibernate in the winter.)

The Year in Review

So as we come to the end of another year it is time to reflect and consider on the last 365 days. According to Ravelry.com I had 40 projects for 2009 and despite my intermittent posts, I have posted photos of most of them on this blog.

Let me start with what I didn't do in 2009 - crochet. I don't crochet very much but this year, I didn't crochet one thing. Not sure why this was apart from the obvious, if I'd really wanted to crochet I would have.

Of the 40 items, there was one I started and completely unpicked just before I finished; one I started in 2008 and still isn't finished; and there were a couple of items started right at the end of 2008 that were finished in 2009.

And I have already lost one glove from a pair I knitted.

The Dishcloth group I belong to has instructions for 2 dishcloths each month. Out of a total of 24 I made 21 cloths with another currently on the needles.

So to sum up my 40 items are as follows:
21 dishcloths, all for my house;
4 pairs of socks, one pair still in progress, one pair for spousal unit;
5 scarves or wraps, all for me which sounds a bit excessive when counted up!;
3 pairs of gloves or mittens, one pair for spousal unit and one glove has been lost already;
1 hat for me;
1 bag for me;
1 sweater for spousal unit;
1 tea cosy, a gift;
1 baby jacket; unpicked;
1 baby blanket, gift;
1 shawl, still in progress;
Oh and I've remembered the charity sweater I knitted this fall.

It is surprising looking at this list as I felt that all I have knitted this year are dishcloths but it would appear that I have made a lot of things for myself. Didn't realise how many scarves I had made although one is still wrapped around Winnie the Pooh.

The other thing that this list doesn't show is how much stash yarn was used or, in other words, how little new yarn I bought for these projects. And when I bought new yarn, any yarn left over was immediately used for another project. The yarn for the sweater was purchased especially for that item and the left over yarn was immediately used for the bag. One of the scarves and pairs of gloves were from yarn left over from old projects; another scarf was from yarn left over from gloves; another pair of gloves was from yarn left over from socks. It actually feels good to use up yarn rather than put it into the stash for who-knows-when. The only other yarn I bought was dish cloth cotton when it went on sale and the yarn for the baby blanket.

Currently on the needles are a dishcloth (which would be finished except I'm on the computer!), a shawl, a sock, and a sweater for charity. Although this frightens me to think I have so many projects on the go, they range from super easy to need lots of concentration so they each have their place.

On the reading front, to save you counting all the books on my bookshelf, I have read 103 books. Not quite 2 books a week but that number includes picture books which shouldn't really count as a whole number for each.

And on a personal note for the year, I still have a wonderful husband. Happy anniversary dear one.

Year End Dishcloths

Here are the dishcloths from November and December.

November had a Christmas theme with a tree and an angel. I like the tree but am not sure how practical the angel will be. It is hand size so may turn out to be useful.



This cloth is a simple cloth that turns into a gift bag but I will be keeping it for myself - note the Christmas yarn which I also used for the pattern for mid-December.


I like this pattern although I dislike patterns which produce a curved cast on edge and a straight cast off edge. This pattern would look very nice in a scarf if you knitted two halves and joined in the centre.

Nothing Like a Sale To Force a Decision

A little while ago I wrote about wanting a new stove and how hard it was to make a decision. When we went out yesterday, I suggested going to Future Shop "just to see what was on sale". They had some stoves that were on sale for just two days. Thanks to all my research I knew which one I wanted and now I have a new stove. (Well almost I have to wait a couple of weeks for delivery.)

Oh and I did buy some sock yarn on sale but more about that later.

Boxing Day

Today in Canada like many other countries of the Commonwealth is Boxing Day. Which is the day for sales but I'm thinking it is a day to stay indoors and do your own thing. The sales will still be there tomorrow.

We had a really nice day yesterday; at one point, boy child was playing PS3, spousal unit was reading a book on art and I was knitting a sock. All happy doing our own thing and then getting together periodically to play games. I stomped on the opposition in a word game but was truly beaten in monopoly.

The cats slept through the whole thing.

Happy Christmas

There's More to Life Than Dishcloths

So I've brought you up to date with dishcloths but surely I must have made something else?

Checking my blog and Ravelry, there's a hat, two scarves and a pair of socks that you don't know about.

One scarf is really lacey and started before the baby blanket, otherwise the others are easy projects that act as a peon to the holes. I don't have a decent picture of the lacey scarf so I'll post later.




Knitted from this pattern although as I was using totally different yarn I had to make changes to stitches and row count. The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly 4-ply that I had bought in a closing down sale. I started a baby jacket that I really didn't like and unpicked when I had almost finished. Not wanting to put it back in the stash where I knew it would lie for a very long time, I immediately cast on the scarf. I like the scarf but I think it would look really nice in a thick yarn as suggested in the pattern.




I needed something easy to make but with a bit of interest and this fit the bill. And I used yarn from the stash. I used two colours of Brown Sheep Worsted that I had left over from a bag I made a while ago. I just kept knitting until the hat fit. I wore it when we had our first snow and it is going to be really warm when the cold weather sets in.

And finally a pair of socks knitted while on holiday this summer. I don't knit socks very often these days as I like my socks to have patterns so they are no longer a mindless project. I used this pattern and the yarn is Patons Stretch Socks. The yarn is really comfortable to wear, unfortunately the pattern doesn't show very well with this yarn.





And that's it until I find the urge to link "this" again.

Too Much Choice

Or if I tell you what I want will you get it for me?

I need a new stove. Some may argue that as I already have a functioning stove I don't actually need a new one. So I desperately want a new stove. (For my truly English speaking public a stove is a cooker.)

When we moved into this house we needed a new stove because the one with the house was pretty disgusting. We saw one on sale at Home Depot and bought it. It wasn't self-cleaning and in my naivete I decided that was not a problem. Nearly 4 years later I am sick and tired, literally, of sticking my head in an oven with loads of chemicals.

The first port of call was the website for the store where I bought a fridge. (We really needed a new fridge as the old one was leaking and choosing a new one was easy as they don't make many small fridges with freezers on the bottom so I had the grand choice of 2.)

A few must haves - electric (no gas in the kitchen), smooth top and the all important self-cleaning oven and a decent manufacturer. I did find one I liked and as it wasn't on sale I looked at another store to check their price which turned out to be quite a bit cheaper but I didn't know delivery fees or fee for taking away old stove also I hadn't bought anything from this store before.

I asked a colleague and she said the store had a bad reputation and suggested another place so I looked at their website and it is a much bigger store so has much more choice which is way too confusing for me because what is the difference between stove a and stove b apart from the price. It is hard to tell the difference between products from the same manufacturer. I should just go back to my original choice as it is a small store with limited options and less confusing.

At this point I need to comment on spousal harmony. I do really like my husband apart from one thing - he's an engineer. In other words he just doesn't think the way most normal people do. Dear husband, you are not going to live a long and happy life by asking what makes the oven dirty.