Copying the Knitting Kninja, I made my first Flickr mosaic to play The Game:

(I can never get “Option 1″ to work with WordPress, so to see all the tags and stuff, I’m afraid you’ll have to click yourself through to my photostream)

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you
12. Your Flickr name

It’s fun game if you have a nice long lazy stretch of time to get distracted by all the pretty pretty photos. Let’s see yours!

What The Lady wants, The Lady gets…

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

Sadly, although this meme is not necessarily boring in and of itself, most of my answers are. So I’m going to throw in a few pictures of the results of my acid dyeing adventure down at Lettuce Knit last Friday to try and spice it up a bit, not least because I suffered from the dreaded camnesia during the fun bits, and only have pics of the end result! Can two slightly boring posts come together to make one reasonably interesting post? We’ll see!

1) 10 years ago, I was:

finishing up Grade 12 in high school, which isn’t terribly exciting as back in the day, we went up to OAC (fka Grade 13), so I still had a year to go. Actually, now that I think of it, Grade 12 was a pretty eventful year for me, for kind of strange reasons. A friend of mine started dating this guy, and although the relationship didn’t last, the “merger” of our friendship groups did. At least for me. I rarely see those girlfriends anymore, but I hang out/hear from those “other” friends quite regularly. One of them even came with me to Glasgow where we shared a flat for a year and ate a lot of toast and soup. Pretty awesome.

This is merino/cashmere/nylon roving, dyed with acid dye at Lettuce Knit’s dyeing studio. The pink is 90% red/10% blue, and the green is (I think) 80% yellow and 20% blue. The brown is a mixture of the pink and the green, and the little spots of violet are probably from Brooke’s Aubergine Dream leaking over onto my fibre! I meant to dye my roving with really dark, saturated colours, but since I usually added vinegar to the fibre bath, I totally forgot to add it to the dye solution! I realized this most of the way through the steaming process, so Kim (aka indigodragonfly) and I had to pull it out of the pot and stick it in a warm vinegar bath. Since we were already way overtime, it didn’t get to stay in quite as long as it might have needed for all the dye to exhaust, but I’m perfectly satisfied with how it turned out. It’s a lot more…erm…pink than I expected, tho…I wish the green had been darker and more abundant. Ah well, it’s still pretty. To continue my Unoriginal Colourway Name trend, I have christened this roving Rose Garden. A little more rose than garden, perhaps, but here we are.

2) 5 things on my to-do list for today:

It’s almost bedtime, so I’ll put my To Do list for tomorrow:

Drive Grant to work at 6am (god, we need our own car!)
Write copyediting test
Put first coat of paint on mom’s front room
Spin up the rest of the Rose Garden fibre (and find a good lacy pattern for it!)
Buy a dvd for my parents

3) Snacks I enjoy:

I have recently discovered a deep and abiding love of Pocky, particularly “Men’s” Pocky (bittersweet chocolate). Other things I’ve thought about eating today include Vegetable Thins, strawberries, and Cherry Blasters. I hated salsa as a kid, but now I can’t get enough (especially with multigrain Tostitos!), although pretzels have always been there fore me. Damnit, I knew I shouldn’t have started this list just before dinner!! mmm…ketchup chips…

Here’s some of the fibre, all drafted out and ready to be spun into singles. This picture makes some of the dye look peachy, but there’s no peach in it at all, just paler pinks and browns.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

I could write a really big complicated practical answer, full of plans involving living off interest percentages and real estate investments, but I think what the question is asking is what one would do if given total financial freedom, so I’ll answer it that way.

I’d probably buy a big, open, light-filled studio apartment downtown somewhere where I could keep my (imaginary) Majacraft Rose, (imaginary) pottery wheel (and pottery accoutrements), and my easel and paints. Ooh, I’d probably splash out on oil paints, too (although I do love my pretty acrylics). Oh, and I’d have to have room for a little dyeing studio, and a sewing corner. The place would be totally trashed, but it’d be my heaven.

And we’d have a cottage on a quiet, sparsely-populated lake somewhere, where I’d never have to worry about people spying on me when I went down for my early-morning (/after-dinner/before bedtime) skinny dip!

Hmm, not much charitable work there…I’d have to think about that part some more. Maybe establish and donate another facility like the Cedar Ridge Creative Centre? I loved that place when I went to summer camp there as a kid. God, I just don’t know what I’d do! There’d definitely be some Food Bank donations…probably donations to women’s shelters, too…I really have no idea. And it’s kind of stressing me out to think of it: a billion dollars! And I have to decide what to do with it, and who gets some, and who doesn’t! I’m starting to see why so many rich people are so unhappy…

I’d love the things I listed above, but honestly, I’m very happy as I am. A hell of a lot more privileged than most people on this earth, I know, but what I’ve got is honest, and more than enough. I don’t think I’d buy more yarn, either; I’m serious when I say that having too much of it around weighs on my creative conscience!

5) Places I have lived:

Scarborough, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario
Glasgow, Scotland
Ottawa, Ontario
Melbourne, Australia

6) Jobs I have had:

My dad started working from home as a consultant when I was about 15, and pretty much all of my working experience has been helping him out. Every year I got a little more responsibility, and for the last few years I have been his full-on assistant, organizing the files and putting together submissions to the government etc etc. It’s not necessarily the work I would choose to do, but it’s hard for me to quit since I know how disorganized it gets when I’m not around (despite the other help he’s had in) and how much he needs me. So that’s pretty much my job history, except for a few weeks in Glasgow when I worked at a photo developing shop, which was pretty fun until my last day when I accidentally lost track of a couple of rolls of film from two big (separate) orders (the fact it was my last day was completely separate from the mix-up; it wasn’t my last day because I was fired or anything! Although that would make a funnier story…)

Here’s my first skein of singles, all spun up and washed. I had at first intended to ply the yarn, but I’m afraid it might muddy the colours, so I’m going to keep it as a single. It’s fairly even, ranging between fingering and sport weight, and I figure I’ll have about 500-600 yards when it’s all spun and done. Now I need to find a lace pattern that won’t fight with either the colours or the thicker-and-thinner nature of the yarn (both of which I adore!) I’m thinking either a pretty stole or a small baby blanket. Any suggestions?

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:

The toughest question, by far. Let’s see…I’ll tag my LK dyeing girls (except Indigodragonfly, since like most folk I read, she’s already been tagged):

Giftable

Little Knittin Kitten

aaaaaaand…you. You’re it!! Three of you. There. Five. Done and done.

The best thing about living with my parents while we househunt (cross fingers for good luck this summer!!) is that we’re saving tons of cash on rent. The worst part about living with one’s parents, tho, is that one usually has to wait until they go out of town to do anything fun (and/or potentially messy). Yay for conventions in Las Vegas!

Last Saturday, while my parents were debating the relative merits of the round pool with the fountain vs the smaller pool with the bubbles, I was cajoling the long-suffering Grant into coming with me on a little road trip to Port Hope (a town about an hour’s drive away from where we live) to buy sheep fuzz. Our target: The Black Lamb, an awesome shop stuffed to the gills with yarns and fibres. Small but perfectly formed, as they say. I left with nearly three pounds of undyed fibre: 2 one-pound bags of merino, a half pound of cashmere/merino/nylon blend, and a 225g bag of merino/seacell. At home, I had a 12-pack of Wilton’s food dye, a bunch of roasting pans, a bit of vinegar and a mad gleam in my eye.

I let the yarn soak in a vinegar/water solution for a few hours, mixed my dyes in a bunch of measuring cups until I was satisfied with the colours (read: bored of mixing), and started to pour. With no real plan, of course:

I threw in a bit of pink, too, for extra visual interest. I spooned on the pink to try and keep it from getting too muddy. Also pictured: my awesome StrongBad tshirt.

I was very surprised to see the difference between the wet dye and the baked version:

The pink was surprisingly…pink. I had kind of mixed feelings about the final product.

Of course, I didn’t let it sit for hours to let it cool slowly like you’re supposed to with pure wool fibres. I threw it in a warm SOAK-y bath after only a few impatient minutes and laid it out to dry.

This is probably why it ended up felting a bit. I had to tease apart the fibres before I could spin with it.

After looking at it for a little while, I decided there was a bit too much white left on the fibre, so I grabbed about half of it, threw it back in the roasting pan and, after a quick soak, threw some leftover dye on it, which actually didn’t make the hugest difference evar. I think I was just overloading my roasting pans, which is dangerous with this dyeing method since only the top layer seems to absorb the dye. Ah well.

The next day, it was just about dry enough to start spinning:

The colours became much paler after they dried, and washed out even more when I drafted the fibre. Interesting to note. I’ve been plying one strand of original-dyed yarn with another strand of the twice-dyed stuff, which should help to keep the colours balanced (although now that I’m almost near the end of the fibre, it seems that I have a little bit more of the darker fibre than the lighter stuff. Ah well).

Here’s one of the big balls I have made with it so far:

I’m calling the colourway Sea Glass. Not terribly original, I admit, but it’s what I think of when I look at it.

I haven’t measured the yardage or wpi yet (kind of a long story, but the short version is 1. I don’t have a niddy-noddy yet, and 2. I just grab whatever needles are nearby and look appropriate), but I reckon it’s aran weight, and will eventually be enough for a smallish sweater. I’ll probably knit it with 5mm needles.

I didn’t know what to expect when I started this adventure, but I’m sure I didn’t expect this! Although I do have to say that despite my initial misgivings about the colours, I quite like them all spun up and plied together. I’ve knitted a small “taste testing” swatch, but there are so many colours scattered throughout the yarn that it’ll take a whole garment to reveal them all. Soon, soon…!

In short, my dyeing adventures were triumphant. And not least because the only mess I made was on my hands (gloves, schmoves!)

Which, I am happy to report, completely faded by the end of the day, with no extraordinary effort on my part. Yay food-based dyes! Although I can’t wait for my acid dyeing induction this Friday at LK!! So much fun, so little time…

Oh yeah…I dyed the seacell/merino, too, but I’m going to hold back on that story until my laceweight Golding spindle arrives (seriously, it’s been “any day now” for almost two weeks). So, something else to look forward to!

Seriously, dudes, knitting has been like totally dead to me since spinning came along. Sadly, I only had the one bag of fibre, and it was all spun up in a hour or so. Dag, yo! Then I ordered a whole bunch more fibre from The Internet! And a gorgeous Golding spindle! That tax refund came in the nick of time, lemme tell ya.

I sometimes stumble across a knitblog post in which the blogger laments her (or his) loss of “knitting mojo” and I always laughed a disdainful laugh. “That will never be me,” I would say to the blogger via my powerful brainwaves. “I will never not wish to knit. And I shall never get my comeuppance, either. NO COMEUPPANCE!”

But for the last week, I have been knitting only sporadically and in a desultory manner. Yes! Desultory-ly! It’s true. Instead of knitting, I while away the hours reading Rav threads on spinning and wondering when my fibre will arrive. Oh, yesterday I stalked the pigeonroof Etsy shop hoping for some roving, but it was gone so so fast I didn’t get a single braid! Bleh. Ah well, I didn’t really love the colourways this week. Still, tho, it’s sort of the principle of the thing!

Although I might soon get the chance to dye my own roving at Lettuce Knit…but every day that passes with no word about when that might be makes my monkey crazier!! It is bad, bad I tells ya!

So I haven’t really been knitting. Here is one of the things I should have been knitting:

This is one of the two “button band” lace panels I should be working on for my mum’s Mother’s Day present, a light lacy sweater knit out of Handmaiden Sea Silk. Actually, the yarn is from the Mother’s Day present I was supposed to make last year, a Sarcelle Shawl…buuuuuuut I don’t like knitting scarves. They are so boring to me! The other “button band” lace panel will be a mirror image of this one, and the main body of the sweater is going to be Starlight Lace:

What’s stalling me most is that I have to re-chart the lace for the other side, aaaaaadnakslfjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. Bad bad badb adabdbad daughter, I know.

sigh.

Is my roving here yet??

Rosewood 43g top-whorl spindle. 50g one-of-a-kind Merino “Custom Blend”. Took around 45 mins to spin.

I was going to leave it, because aren’t you supposed to let the twist set or something? Three hours later…

Plying was quick, pulling from both ends of a centre-pull ball. I know I’m not working with much fibre here, but I always thought drop-spindles were timesucks and it would take a year and a half to spin enough yarn to make anything but a knitted bikini (and I am not the knitted bikini kind of girl…not least because it sounds — and looks — like a ridiculous waste of time to me). But even considering I probably made about enough yarn to complete the thong portion of the bikini (ugh, a chunky merino thong!), it went surprisingly quickly. Remember, this was my first time even touching a spindle. I’m pretty damn proud of myself!

I haven’t knit with it yet, though; it’s still under tension in the bathroom.

I need more fibre.

And I need to get good at spinning fast (uh, both as in “a small amount of time” and “performing the task quickly”) because I’ve got about a pound of this stuff on its way to me. *drool* I think I’ve just got time…

Much as I enjoyed the drop spindle today, I’m still filling my imaginary piggy bank with pennies to save up for a wheel. Unfortunately, the balance as of this afternoon is -$160, after the spindle and fibre…and this:

This is why I spent so little at the Frolic last weekend; I’ve been dreaming about a Truffle Cardigan of my own since I first stumbled upon the pattern on Ravelry a couple of months ago. I love Dulle Griet’s grey version (it’s so atmospheric! especially since I always think of this as a late fall/late winter kind of garment) but I just couldn’t resist this red! I’ve been doing my internet homework, and this is the exact shade of Araucania Chunky I wanted most. And I found it! You win this round, The Purple Purl! *shakes fist in a loving way*

So, I finished some more stuff. One for me:

and one for you. And by “you”, I mean my newly-born, not-able-to-read pseudoniece, Alice:

I like mine, but I loooove Alice’s. Actually, it was supposed to be a sweater for Alice’s big almost-two-year-old sister, Sofi, but my chronic case of I-don’t-know-how-big-kids-are combined with not bothering to knit from a pattern equalled a very tiny little sweater. No matter. Her da (my good friend) had requested “something earthy for [the Chilean] fall/winter, in the 3-6 month range”, so his wish was, after all, my command. Maybe I just like Alice’s better because there are no Stupid Faces attached.

Sometimes I try to avoid the Stupid Face curse by turning my back, but then the Pretend And Actual Backfat shows up and ruins everything.

Mostly that is weird fabric rolling, but at least you can see the scalloped hem. Yes! This is Kate Gilbert’s Camellia pattern, knit more or less as Kate wrote it! It is pretty much my best- and favourite-evar FO (so far, anyway!) I’m sure it would have turned out quite a bit cuter in the drapey bamboo called for in the pattern (and would have saved hours and hours of ripping out and trying again to get something resembling gauge), but I had three skeins of Dream In Colour Smooshy, and I wanted to use it! Remember how I made a thousand sleeves before I even started knitting the pattern? I wager that if I hadn’t bothered, I could have knit the whole thing (albeit maybe a teensy bit shorter) with only two skeins of the stuff. Two skeins of sock yarn to make one awesome short-sleeved sweater! Incredible, but true.

Although if I hadn’t knit so many gauge swatches, I probably wouldn’t have made something wearable. There are many nuanced lessons embedded in this knit.

Mods, mods…not many. Apart from using completely inappropriate yarn, I made the sleeves longer (and wider) than the pattern called for (mostly to reconcile the lace chart with the thinner yarn I was using), and threw in quite a lot of waist-shaping and some vertical bust darts under each boob to make it fit properly. Verdict? It is very, very comfortable, and it holds its shape well through a long day of wear. You know how sometimes knits get all saggy and shapeless after a few hours? Not this sucker! I gave it a real trial by fire last Saturday when I wore it to the Downtown Knit Collective’s Knitter’s Frolic in the morning, lounged on a friend’s couch all afternoon (knitting, natch) and then took it out to the Keg for our second wedding anniversary dinner.

Yes, I spent our second wedding anniversary yarn shopping. And yes, I feel kind of bad about it. I can’t decide whether the fact that I didn’t buy much while I was there is good or bad in this context. Here’s my (very small, especially considering the deals that were to be had!) haul:

That’s it. Two little skeins of Mirasol alpaca/silk bulky singles, five balls of Jamieson DK, and two medium-sized bottles of SOAK. Oh, and some handmade clear glass star-shaped buttons (not pictured). I barely broke $100; not for lack of choice, and not even because I was so overwhelmed by the amount of yarn and people and books and notions and everything (although I won’t deny that I was, a bit). It’s not even that I didn’t particularly like any of the yarn I saw; indeed, lots of it was beautiful, and I could have made many a project with the stuff. Could it be that I have reached a saturation point in my stash?? My Ravelry page shows a mere sampling of the yarns I have tucked away here and there. If there was some kind of crazy emergency and I needed to produce a ball of yarn in less than a minute, I’d have 55 seconds to spare. I think my problem (and I use that word loosely) is that I really do have ideas and plans for each skein I buy, and I feel bad for the balls of yarn lying around, unloved and unknit, being nothing but what they are: ordinary little balls of wool. I am so excited to turn each of them into some awesome and inventive project, but…! I just never seem to get around to all of them before I have more amazing projects in my mind (and, more often than not, in my hands)! One of the things I’m looking forward to most when we move (that glorious, unforeseeable orange-coloured day) is a serious destash. They weigh on my mind, these unrealized projects.

Holy crap, that was heavy. And not at all what I’d planned to write. Truth be told, I rarely have a plan, but still. Here’s another closeup of Alice’s sweater to lighten the mood:

This is almost two balls of Noro Silk Garden, colourway #244. I made up the pattern, but it’s basically a round ribbed yoke with a stockinette body and sleeves. Pretty basic, but very cute! I’m wondering how cute it would look a little (okay, a whole lot) bigger, and how many balls of SG I’d need…gaa!! Another new project in my mind, pushing out the old ones!! Bad, bad, bad…

So, ever since her fussy cousin, the groundhog, saw his shadow back in February, Betty Lou the Woodchuck has been impatiently waiting for spring. Coming all the way from Massachusetts up to snowy Ontario didn’t help matters much, I am sad to report. Since her arrival in Toronto last week, Betty Lou has been looking out the window impatiently, waiting for a nice day to go outside and explore her new home.

Finally deciding that it wasn’t going to get much better than today, Betty Lou gave me the nod. She took a deep breath, and we went out into the backyard.

“I guess it’s not so bad up here, near the house” she said cautiously. “I mean, it’s nothing great, but it could be worse. Look over there!”

“Where?” I asked, squinting down the lawn. I’d left my glasses inside, and I was afraid that if I went back in for them, Betty Lou would chicken out altogether. We were all going a bit stir-crazy as it was, and her constant whinging about how much sooner spring came laaaaaaaast year was getting on my nerves a bit.

“Down there,” she gestured impatiently. Exasperated, she hopped down and scampered to the end of the garden.

“See?” she asked triumphantly. “There’s still some bloody snow down here!”

“Oh, don’t be such a n00b,” scoffed Andre from the rhododendrons.

“You’re embarrassing me. She’ll think we have no manners if you carry on like this!”

Betty Lou, abashed, picked her way carefully over to where Andre was, gingerly avoiding the little puddles of snow. “I guess it’s kind of fun,” she ventured, “to be outside in the warm sun and have snow around at the same time.”

“That’s the spirit!” Andre returned wryly, rolling his eyes slightly.

Betty Lou paused, and then, hesitating only a little…

…threw the fingerguns of woodchuck approval!

Andre grinned for real this time. “We’re going to have some good times this summer, Butty Poo! C’mere and let’s get a nice group shot to send to the folks back home. Good times, indeed!”

Although she looked a bit puzzled (I’m not sure she knew whether to try and nip the “Butty Poo” thing in the bud, or just to ignore it and hope it went away on its own), she edged over to the MiniMantis and smiled nicely.

“Say cheese!” I told them, and snapped the picture.

“Hey,” I said, lowering the camera, “Are you guys related, by any chance?”

“As if!” the woodchuck immediately scoffed. “Arthropoda and chordata?? I mean, no offence, Andre, but the idea of a praying mantis and a woodchuck getting it on is just…kind of gross. I mean, maybe things are different in the human world, but it is just not on. At least, not in MY family.” Her disgust was evident.

“Haha, yeah, gross,” echoed Andre a bit lamely…

…but I noticed he wouldn’t look me right in the eye as he said it.

Oh, Andre!

Betty Lou hoofed it back inside shortly after this last picture was taken, but I stayed out a few more minutes. In a happy accident, I came across Kate Gilbert’s very cute short-sleeved pullover pattern Camellia a few days ago, and since I am of course not using the recommended yarn (or even yarn in a similar weight…sometimes I think I am a knitting masochist) I have been happily knitting and re-knitting sleeves as gauge swatches, just to see what I like best.

The smaller ones are a bit cuter, but I think I actually prefer the gargantuan one on the right; it comes down about as far as a girlie tshirt’s sleeves, and flutters tolerably. Like many girls with bigger boobs, I’ve got the arms to match, so the adorable little sleeves in the pattern act a bit more as showcase frames: “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s the ARMFAT!!” Ah well. We’ll see when it comes to the sewing up part which one I like best. If I ever get to it! After three days of casting on and knitting a bit and ripping back and redoing math and squinting, I think I’ve finally cast on a hem I’m happy with (in the round, of course) and am about an inch into the endless stockinette trek to the boobs, where some short-rows should make things (temporarily) a bit more exciting.

I toyed with the idea of changing the neckline a bit, but in the end I think I really quite like it, and will probably leave it as it is. Imagine, me not altering anything substantial in a pattern! Kate Gilbert, you may have bested me…!

Oh, and the yarn? It’s the hundred dollars I spent in Lettuce Yarn during the Yarn Harlot’s Sock Scavenger Hunt last week: Dream In Color Smooshy sock yarn in Blue Lagoon. I’ve got three skeins, which I think will be enough for this project. DiC yarn has FANTASTIC yardage, and is totally worth every cent (imo). The only downside to this yarn (besides how very thin it is, which will be great in a FO but means lots and lots and lots of little teensy titchy little stitches) is that it is making my hands blue. After a couple of hours of knitting with the stuff, my hands look a bit like I’ve been strangling a Smurf! Luckily, rinsing the yarn seems to get rid of most of the excess dye, yet the colour of the rinsed and blocked swatches are just as vivid and breathtaking as it was in the skeins that seduced me at LK (I’d been doing SO SO well up until that point!!)

It’s much more ’solid’ than the Dusky Aurora, which I appreciate. I am such a sucker for semisolids/varigates in the skein, although I find that I often don’t like them so much when I’m doing the knitting up. This is something I’ve been struggling with for awhile now, and I think the answer is to get more into colourwork. If I am gobsmacked by a sock yarn’s colourway, it would probably be more useful for me to translate that colourway into a group of yarns, and knit something using those colours. Especially since I am slowly coming to the realization that I am not a sock knitter or knitted sock wearer, even though I am an avid coveter/collector of sock yarns! I will have to think about this some more…

If a Toronto-wide Sock Scavenger Hunt and Yarn Harlot book launch can’t break me out of my blogging funk, what can?? What can, indeed.

So, yesterday was April Fools’ Day here in Toronto (and, I imagine, in the rest of the world, tho I have only your word on that, Rest Of World). After a brief period of hesitation (”Do I want to run around Toronto taking pictures of socks and generally being ridiculous?”), I decided to finangle the day off and join a few of my fellow Ravellers downtown for Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s book launch and Inexplicable Knitter Behaviour Sock Photo Scavenger Hunt (because I love running around and generally being ridiculous!). Although we didn’t win (or even, to be honest, come close to winning…the first prize winner of the $100 gift certificate got seventysomething points, whereas I think our best team member only got somewhere in the thirties), it was still hella fun. And here are some pictures to prove it!

To start, we have the bonus pic for the GTA Fibrefaces group: The Bemused SO. “You’re spending the day taking pictures of a half-knitted sock with internet strangers?” Note the eyebrow action: it is the essence of bemusity.

“Heck yes I am! And what’s worse, I’m going to spend all day making stupid faces in pictures. To start, check out mah dollahs! Canadian Tire, yo! East Side represent!” And so on.

But enough arsing about. Time to get moving! I jumped on the subway at Kennedy where to my surprise and nervous delight, an off-duty TTC driver ambled onto my car! They were worth 2 points, and although I was in the scavenger hunt for the fun and not the prizes, I thought that passing up an opportunity that had fallen into my lap was foolish indeed. So I girded my (shy) loins and went over to explain the (admittedly crazy) concept of the Sock Scavenger Hunt and to ask if he’d hold my sock and pose for a quick picture. Well, you may conclude from the absence of a TTC driver pic in this post that my request was refused, and you’d be right. Apparently, I might be a terrorist if I took a picture, and he might be fired. The first is a bit silly, but the second is fair enough so, blushing a bit, I went back to my seat, plugged in my iPod and waited for Dufferin station.

It’s been cold here for ages (stupid groundhog seeing his stupid shadow grumble etc etc), but despite the wind, it was pretty warm and sunny when I exited the station and hopped on the bus to go south to Queen St and the Visual Arts Ontario Gallery, our meeting spot. In fact, it was so warm that I was a little annoyed; I’d worn my newly-finished Phllyo Yoked Pullover (made from Dream In Colour Classy in ‘Dusky Aurora’), and was starting to get hot! It won’t upload for some (stupid) reason (probably because it’s stupid), but here’s the Rav link to the pictures in my projects. It’s pretty cute, if I do say so myself (and, clearly, I do)!

Anyway, despite the weather, I got down to Queen just fine…but I didn’t go into the gallery right away. See, the VAO was attached to Woolfits, one of my favourite art stores (although, sadly, too far away to visit often). And they might have the articulated wooden artists’ hand model I’ve been searching for over the last few months to make the trophy for our upcoming Rock Paper Scissors trophy! Apparently, these hands have become something of a rarity, at least in Canada (I could order one from the States, but with taxes and shipping and everything, it would be a lot more money and hassle than it was worth, I thought). Cheekily, I ducked into Woolfits and enquired after the long-sought wooden hand…but no. They didn’t have any. Although…the girl behind the counter gave me a wink and dialled the phone. Success! Aboveground Art had one last hand in stock, and would put it aside for me until I could come and get it! Result!

With victory in my step, I entered the VAO Gallery and immediately found my people: they were the ones giggling and snapping pictures (natch)! There weren’t very many of us, but we felt like a big group as we took over the small gallery and bothered the minions. It was okay, though; the boss lady was One Of Us!

Look at that gorgeous Dream In Colour sweater! It’s a bit hard to see in this picture, but a lovely Saxon Braid (the same one I used to make the brim of my dad’s hat) runs all the way around the front edges (and I think it’s hooded, too…hmm, it’s not listed in her projects, so I can’t check, but anyway, it was gorgeous!) Between us, we sparked the Dream In Colour craze amongst our little group, which later culminated in a trip to Lettuce Knit and me spending $100. But that’s for later.

I did mention bothering the minions, no?

But, of course, it’s all fun and games until somebody learns to knit!

It’s no easy task to make your first knit stitches on tiny DPNs with dark-coloured sock yarn. But he did it (even if this picture doesn’t show it very well)!

Ah, West Side. My natural enemy. But there is no time for revenge today. Today is for hunting.

And what things we found! I won’t post all the (sometimes boring) pictures of something-with-a-sock I’ve got, but here are some highlights:

I mostly looked for entries for the Yarn Harlot’s ‘Freestyle’ category (although I don’t think I have any that can compare to Margaret Atwood…there’s also a rumour of a Gord Downie sock picture, but I haven’t seen that one yet). First up, the hair salon next to Romni Wools:

In that vein, we also passed Stephanie St on the way to Aboveground Art. Harlotastic!

And one last yarn-related signpost: One of the artists who designed the Kensington Market sign on Spadina is named Yanover. Get it? Yanover? Yarnover? Okay, maybe it’s just me.

Another something unexpected was this sculpture of a bike…it’s hard to tell if it is a topiary sculpture this time of year because there are no leaves out yet, but it was cool nonetheless. ‘Walk More’, indeed.

Because of this guy, we decided to walk an extra thousand blocks to find another pub for lunch. Can you see him, behind the reflections in the glass? I’m sure he’s a very nice man, but…

After lunch (complete with Canadian beer…two points!) we finally made it to Lettuce Knit to fondle the Dream In Colour (and the Alchemy, and the STR, and the Handmaiden, and the baby alpaca and and and). While we were there, a delivery of lovely knitting bags arrived to much fanfare and excitement! Unfortunately, the delivery guy was camera shy (and possibly at risk of being fired…by terrorism…or whatever):

By this time it had turned COLD. I was glad not only for my Phyllo, but also for the extra fleece I’d brough. O Spring! Even more my enemy than West Side dwellers! You are a jerk. Meh.

Anyway, by the time we had spent an undeterminable amount of time at Lettuce Knit (the yarn fumes sort of make time irrelevant), it was time to head to the Isabel Bader Theatre to hear Andy Maize and Michael Johnston from the Skydiggers open for Madam Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot herself! The pictures I took at the gig were crap, so I’ll spare you, but it was a fantastic night of music and validation. Of course, she’s preaching to the choir at these things, but it was still pretty magical to be one amongst hundreds of fibre artists of different ages and backgrounds and beliefs and skills and feel that what we did was important and creative and beautiful. I could go on, or I could just advise that you pick up her new book, which is full of pithy and interesting observations like this. So I’ll do that.

Our group (along with many, many others from the gig) descended on the Foxes Den for a drink and something to eat. Although the rumour was that they’d been warned in advance, they were clearly not expecting such a crush on a Tuesday night! I decided to skip the food and go straight to the liquid bread (that’s beer, dudes), since I didn’t know how much time I’d have. My parents were at the Royal Alex for a show and I was planning to grab a ride home with them whenever it was done. But I had a quest: I had boasted to my Selfish Knitters group that I would get a shot of the Yarn Harlot herself for our Travelling Veruca Swap (kind of like a travelling Flat Stanley, but with yarn). My cell phone rang; my parents were pulling out of the parking garage! They were on their way and I hadn’t gotten the picture! Bolstered by my cohorts (and a big slug of beer), I approached Stephanie’s table sheepishly (she’d been up for ages at the back of the pub where most of the knitters had snagged seats and had only recently sat down to her dinner) and, embracing my Inner Dork, explained my predicament to (I think) Joe and Rachel H. Hurrah! Stephanie very graciously hopped up and smiled brightly with Veruca…

…and then convinced her mum to pose, too, explaining (with a wink and a nod) that I got “double points” if she would consent to be in a picture!

Double points with knobs!

The yarn I used for my sock, by the way, is my precious single skein of Socks That Rock ‘Dutch Canyon’ which was a colourway for offer quite awhile ago, but had been phased out by the time I discovered the yarn. Before I got my first skein of Wollmeise, I though it was pretty bright stuff:

The socks are plain vanilla toe-up with a gusset till the ankle, then I switched to garter rib for a bit of visual interest. I’ll post more about them later; I think I’m just about out of words!

Happy Inexplicable Knitter Behaviour, everyone! And thank you to my group of gnomes: Terrie, Cheryl, Nancy, Brooke and our honourary gnome, Kim! You guys made yesterday awesome! Can this be an annual event, please? Kthxbi.

…oh! The wooden hand I got at Aboveground Art? It saw some knitterly action:

Good times, good times.

I am not a cynic, but I am a reasonably sceptical person, so when I first noticed all the fuss around Wollmeise yarn, I thought it was mostly a result of The Allure of the Rare combined with the Harlot Effect (remember last summer when she did a sock in Spice Market and the internet exploded?) But I did admire the colours, so after awhile I joined Ravelry’s Wollmeise group, figured out how to work the site and even managed to get a couple of skeins in the last godless buying frenzy shop update. After the adrenaline faded, though, I experienced a twinge of buyer’s regret, and was afraid I wasn’t going to like what I’d bought.

Then, my package arrived.

The paper bag was cute, and I enjoyed the sensation of opening a present after opening the package (who doesn’t like presents??) I slid the skeins out, and a little packet of Goldbären plopped on top of them. Ich leibe Goldbären!!

After scoffing them, I got a good look at the yarns.

Just…wow.

But my pictures of them sucked!! Stupid cloudy winter days! It’s been snowing for months now, and the light inside can best be described as “dim”. Not so great for capturing the intense colours of my Wollmeise.

“I wish I had a lightbox,” I thought to myself. A bright white background to bounce indirect light onto my subject. But where could I find a bright white background and indirect light??

It took a few seconds to sink in, but then it came to me.

Dude! With the seventeen hundred feet of snow that’s fallen in the last few weeks, outside IS a lightbox!

Meet Emil

and Suzanne!

Please excuse Suzanne’s dandruff, I couldn’t shake off all the snow when I repositioned her. Such is life.

I think I’m going to knit with Suzanne first, I’ve got a really good sock pattern in mind for her: Skyline Chilly’s beautiful Pearl’s Diamond Socks. The pattern can be downloaded from her site for $5, with the proceeds from the sale going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honour of her Aunt Pearl. I think the yarn-over pattern will really complement Wollmeise’s Wild Thing pooling action, and I can’t wait to get started!

But first, I have a lot of unfinished business to attend to…which will have to be addressed in a future post. Today is my lovely mother’s birthday, and I should spend some time with her, especially since the provincial government declared today a new holiday in order to give us a long weekend in the most blah month of the year. Happy Family Day, Ontarians!

So, lately I’ve been making quite small things, maybe to contrast with all the big things I have in my head and on my needles that linger unfinished and unloved (sorry, ufo dudes). One of my favourite things came off the needles last week after four days of almost constant knitting and reknitting:

It’s MagKnit’s Evangeline fingerless gloves! Well, sort of. I adored the cables running up the back of the glove, but I sort of hated the finger/thumb part. I tweaked the pattern a bit and came up with something I really loved, so I decided to write up a little tutorial in case anyone else was looking for a mod for this pattern.

I didn’t use the recommended yarn, or even a yarn that was the same weight as the recommended yarn, so already I was knitting by the seat of my pants. I still had almost a skein and a half of Handmaiden 4-ply cashmere (the same yarn I used to make my Odessa) and I really wanted to make gloves with it. So I grabbed some 3.25 dpns and cast on. My hands are fairly small and the cashmere is fairly stretchy, so using Michelle’s numbers worked fine for me, but it would have been the easiest thing in the world to add (or subtract) any multiple of 4 additional stitches to improve fit.

The first real mod I made, though, was to make the root of the cables match up with the ribbing:

This is a fairly small, nitpicky thing, but it makes me happy every time I look at it, and it was piss easy to do. All I had to do was transpose the pattern over one stitch. That is, after I finished the last round of the K1P2 ribbing, I took the marker off the needles, knit one more stitch, and replaced the marker. This means that the first two knit stitches of the cable pattern occur directly above two knit stitches. A little thing, but a nice thing.

I wanted these gloves to extend quite a few inches beyond my wrists, so I knit four complete repeats of the cable pattern before starting hand shaping. You could wait ten cable repeats before you started hand shaping, or begin the shaping as soon as you started knitting the cables. The point at which you start the hand shaping depends on how many stitches you want to end up with for the thumb, and how long (or short) you want the wrist portion to be, but it’s probably easiest just to start at Row 1 of a new cable repeat. As you can see in this picture, I moved my round marker back three stitches, so the increases start six stitches from the first cable stitch. This centres the pattern more precisely on the arm, and keeps the increases looking nice and neat.

The thumb shaping is exactly the same as described in the Flying Gloves “pattern”: increase one stitch per pattern row, and knit all stitches plain each plain row. Although I only wanted twelve stitches for the thumb, I knit four cable pattern repeats (four repeats x four increases per repeat = 16 extra sts) to give myself some extra ease across the hand, since my gauge was so tight.

Another thing I did to give myself some extra ease across the hand was to perform a few increases on the other side of my hand:

I started these at the beginning of Cable Repeat #7 (aka Repeat 3 of the hand shaping). I stopped increasing here at the same time as I stopped increasing for the thumb gusset, but if you felt like you wanted some more ease for your fingers, you could easily keep increasing here until you were satisfied. Anyway. Eight extra stitches here plus the four extra stitches that were left over after separating out the twelve stitches for the thumb equals twelve extra stitches of ease across the hand, which added to the 40 stitches I originally cast on makes 52 stitches total. It’s important to note that 52 is divisible by 4; however many stitches you increase, be sure it is a multiple of four so your final ribbing turns out nice and even!

The last mod I made to the pattern was to knit a couple extra repeats on the fingers to make them nice and long. I wanted gloves that were kind of more like pseudomitts; the fabric comes down to shield my fingers from the wind, but it doesn’t get in my way when I have to dig around for something.

And if it’s not too cold outside (or I want my fingers free, like for driving), I can fold the ribbing down and the fabric doesn’t get in my way at all:

I picked up four extra stitches for the thumb, and topped it off with some ribbing to make it easier to flip down. Cast off the fingers and the thumb with something extra stretchy (I used the sewn bind-off method, outlined in this great knitty.com article)

Aaaaaaaand that’s about it! I’m not sure if anyone cares, but at the very least I have some “notes” written down in case I ever want to knit these again the same way. And I might; they’re really cute, and very, very easy. And the cashmere makes me feel like a princess every time I wear them! I’ve got two more skeins of Handmaiden cashmere that I don’t have plans for yet; maybe there will be some more modded Evangelines in my future…!