Where Are My Royalties?

Way back in 2006 I posted about making bread in my bread machine and how I didn't like the hole left in the bread by the paddle.

Recently I had to purchase a new machine as my old one was leaking. I liked the features on my machine especially the delay option, and the size both of the machine and the loaves made. So I was looking for something similar. Considering that Superstore is my shop of choice I was a little dismayed that they did not sell bread machines. Yikes that meant going somewhere else - in the winter. I was soon appeased as Canadian Tire had a sale on some bread machines.

A new machine was purchased. The same make as I had before. Two functions that my old machine had that I miss on this machine, are letting you know where you are when going through all the options and letting you know where it is in the dough/baking cycle.

But what it does have that is an improvement on the old, the paddles drops during baking. No more big holes. So come on Breadman surely I'm owed something for my idea!

Winter

In December I posted photos of hat and mittens to show that I was ready for winter but I haven't commented on the weather to let you know that winter is here. Our first big snowfall and freeze hit the night of 15 November and temperatures stayed cold and it continued to snow most days for a good week and a half. We have had a number of snowfalls since then of varying amounts. Last weekend it was very windy. We didn't have much snow but Monday I cleared about a foot of snow from the driveway that had been blown there over the weekend.

Here is a photo of the trees in our front yard after we had an inch or so of snow one night in December and then there is a photo of a Chinook after Christmas.

Starting the Year Off Right

On 1st of January l finished a second sock. I had been really trying to finish it by 31 December but the last rows of ribbing had to wait for the New Year. Here is a photo of them being worn and then a photo to show the pattern close up. The pattern is easier than it looks although rather fiddly as there was much manipulation of stitches. Not something that I could work on while watching a subtitled film.


......

Pattern details.

Pattern: The pattern is by Caoua Coffee and available on Ravelry.com

Yarn: Classic Elite Yarns, Alpaca Sox. Bought in Denver - see bottom photo in this post.

I have started and finished two other projects this year already - photos to follow. And the oldest project I have was started when l went to Texas so I am not doing badly for completing projects; although I have a new lace project on the needles which will be a long term project.

New Year, New Resolutions

Unfortunately Not

I am going to reference this post. Especially this sentence:- "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." Just one problem with that, I bought more sock yarn. So not only is this year The Year of the Sock it is also The Year of Not Buying Sock Yarn. As well as socks, I am going to try to use up all the dishcloth cotton stashed away. I have a few unused balls but it is mainly part balls left over from all the dishcloths I made in 2009. It will be nice to use up most of it. And as I completed the lace shawl I have started another lace project which will be my long term project.

A Year in Review

According to my projects listed on Ravelry, I have 31 items for 2010. Of these, there is one I unpicked, 2 that I started in 2009 and 1 I started in 2008, and 2 projects that are not finished. Of those 31 projects, 9 are pairs of socks, 4 are dishcloths, 8 are for charity, 1 baby blanket, 5 shawls or scarves, 1 skirt, 1 bag, 1 hat, 1 pair of mittens. Fewer projects than in 2009, but last year I made way more dishcloths. 3 of the items were gifts, everything else was made for me, the advantage of this is that I know I am going to like the finished item and if I don't then I am not hurting anyone's feelings by unpicking it or giving it away. I am pleased to say that everything mentioned in this post has been completed.

I have worn the skirt a couple of times and really like it. This is the pattern. It can be easily adapted for any yarn and I would not be surprised if I made some more. Will post some photos when I can persuade someone to take a decent one of me wearing it.

Here are photos of the mystery socks for September and November. I really enjoyed the patterns for both of these and am grateful that both designers gave of their time to provide these free patterns for the group.

What I haven't talked about are the blankets I have worked on for Western Canadian Odd-ball Baby Blanket Society. Information on this group which incorporated as an official non-profit charitable society this year can be found here.

The stash did increase rather this year with the shopping trip in Denver and a yarn crawl with other like minded people from my neck of the woods. More about plans for the stash to follow.

On the book front, I read 97 books this year. This surprised me as I thought that I wasn't reading as much. Some of these books were children's books and graphic novels. As usual my reading is across the board but does tend to avoid science fiction and fantasy. Books that I have read are shown on my shelf on this blog.

On the personal front; the boy child graduated high school this June and spent the last three months of the year in Denver although he plans to come back to Calgary to study or work. Our beautiful white cat has an idiopathic chylothorax. The first visit involved draining over 400 ml of fluid from her chest. Subsequent vet visits drained over 300 ml each visit. The last visit was a month ago but I am religiously giving her supplements twice a day.

And as usual, as today is our anniversary, I thank my husband for another wonderful year.

Ready For Winter

In October I told you about the yarn my husband had bought in Finland. He had purchased the yarn with a hat in mind, so as winter was knocking I started knitting and this is the hat.



The pattern is from Shawl and Scarves: The Best of Knitters Magazine. I used about one and half balls so decided to make the matching mittens.



After completing one mitten I weighed the remaining wool. I have a balance scale and with the mitten on one side and the remaining wool on the other, the scale balanced. I had no room for error.

There was just enough yarn. Which means no extra in the stash - yea.

A word about the pattern for the mittens. I achieved gauge and the hat fit fine; as written the mittens were enormous. No wonder they were photographed flat. I rewrote the pattern to fit my hands.

Do you like the snow effect in the photos?

Baby Blanket

I recently completed a blanket for an ex-colleague whose baby is due 1 January 2011. I didn't rush to start a blanket as I had plenty of time. I had had an idea of the blanket I wanted to make and even had the yarn in my stash but for whatever reason I chose not to make it and started looking in all my books for something that I thought would work. The next pattern I chose was knitted with elephants on it but decided against this one as the crochet blanket with giraffes was given to a colleague at the same work place and I didn't want my friend to think I was fixated on African mammals.

Eventually I decided on a pattern from Vogue Knitting on the Go: Baby Blankets Two. A bit of a risk I know as these books are riddled with errors but I checked on Ravelry and Sixth and Spring's website and couldn't find any errors. Having made a decision on the pattern, the next job was to find the right yarn. I felt that a flat colour wouldn't work with this pattern and I needed a variegated yarn or yarn with a bit of texture. I eventually bought Sirdar Snuggly Tiny Tots. This is a great yarn as it comes in non-traditional baby colours. i.e. there are colours other than pastels in the range. I chose dark pink. I bought the yarn at the end of August and started the blanket on 7 September. It was an easy pattern to memorise, the only bug bear was on one row you worked knit 4 together and then knit 4 together thorough back of loops. I was in pain after that row as I was gritting my teeth so tightly. I had to come up with a solution if I wanted the knitting to be an enjoyable experience. So on the row prior to the decrease, I wrapped the yarn twice round the needle for one of the stitches in each set of 4. This gave me just a little extra yarn and made it easier to get the needle in the stitches for the decreases. I'm glad I came up with this solution as it made the knitting much easier and enjoyable. Which was a good thing as I thought I had plenty of time to complete the blanket, but my friend decided to have her shower on 21 October. I suppose I could have turned up without a gift and given her the blanket later but she knew I'd be knitting a blanket and I didn't want to disappoint her. I exclusively worked on the blanket and finished it completely on 12 October.


This is the yarn I used.

The finished blanket.

And a close up.

Eating Animals

I'm not talking about vegetarians versus meat eaters. This is much more important - sweets in the shape of animals.

Do you ever give a second thought to chewing a gummy bear and a gummy worm is just a longer bear, right? Personally I like the blue gummy sharks. And I have even cooked cat shaped pasta for my son.

On Monday when I was doing the food shopping, I noticed some liquorice in an animal shape. There is a limit to the shapes I will eat. I'm sorry I cannot eat black cats.

Coping With Texas’s Air Conditioning

So my last post was about the cold of Texas despite the warm temperatures. Today's post is about how I was able to improve the situation.

Just a few days before I went away I finished a shawl. Not just any shawl but my oldest UFO. The shawl was started on 3 July 2008 and the final blocking completed on 19 October 2010. The yarn was left over from knitting the shawl for my Mother-in-Law which is photographed here. It is also the item for which I needed more yarn.

I wasn't working on this shawl continuously from start to finish. It was put on hold many times when I had other projects that had to be finished. I finished it at just the right time as it was really useful in Texas. Here are some photos of it in its many stages. The pattern is Laminaria from Knitty.com

Air Conditioning

This post is dedicated to my friend Myrna. She and I have a friendly difference about the need for air conditioning in Calgary. It does not get hot enough or humid enough here to necessitate air conditioning. True, the sun beating in through a window can cause an unnatural spike to the temperature but I have found that there is usually air movement ranging from a gentle breeze to near hurricane so just open some windows and the air cools down. Myrna, who, incidentally, has no meat on her bones, thinks that above 25^o C is hot and air conditioning in Calgary is an absolute must.

The purpose of this post is not to point out Myrna's temperature foibles (although I am sure she thinks she is the normal one and I am the one with issues) but to talk about air conditioning in the US. I have visited our southern friends twice this year. In the summer I went to Denver. Having lived there I knew I would not have any problems with the temperatures. I loved the 90 degree weather (note speaking American now) and restaurants were not over cooled so that you did not need to add clothes when you went inside. I have just returned from a trip to Texas, specifically Houston and the hill country. Conditions are a little different there. They love their air conditioning. It was hot, high 80s, loved it although my feet in new shoes weren't so happy. But everywhere indoors was cold. One hotel was so cold we had to have all the blankets on the bed. And I knew Myrna would have been contented so I wonder how she is getting on in Egypt which I am sure is not so heavily air conditioned. Although if you check out her blog she is having a great time.

Non-English Speaking Yarn

Earlier this year hubby went to Finland (and was stuck there a few extra days courtesy of Eyjafjallajökull). I asked him to buy me some Finnish yarn. The only stipulation being that he had to buy enough to make something. I had visions of him returning with balls of yarn that would make one glove or one sock. To assist with my request I told him where there was a yarn shop in the town where he was staying. Information I had obtained from a Finnish group on Ravelry.

Being the dutiful husband that he is he went to the shop and bought yarn. I am impressed that the person who helped him was able to describe in English to a non-knitter what each of the yarns were suited for. She told him that there is not much of a demand for Finnish yarns as the locals want yarn from elsewhere which I totally understood because they are looking for something different.

He managed to come home with a ball of Finnish sock yarn and 3 balls of Létt-Lopi from Iceland.

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.