Boomtown Rats Day

aka, "I don't like mondays". Today was a stinker and a half, still feeling oogy-sick-weak from this virus-thingy I have, assignments to finish for school, work piled up and people screaming (literally!) at me for stuff - sorry, I was home practically dead in bed for three days, give me a minute to catch up, willya?

Etc. Blargh. Thank gods November is nearly over, because I'm getting tired of it. End rant.

Start knitting stuff. :) Yesterday I cast on for my Christmas party shawl, which is in Watercolours by Estelle, K1 increase 1, K across, etc. to be a triangle. I did 20 rows yesterday, planning to do 20 more tonight as my "reward" for doing my school assignments. I'm calling the shawl the "Bronze Butterfly" because it's a lovely bronze colour yarn and I bought a butterfly pin to wear with it. So creative, me! (ha ha ha...)

Finished GM's slippers and 1 for the girls, so I have 3 slippers to go by Sunday when Mom goes back East again. No problem. Things are looking up. And, the new Creative Knitting arrived today, so I'm going to browse that before I do assignments. But I must go to bed early, because this virus-thing is really kicking the stuffing out of me. Just want to sleep all the time and everything hurts. Ball of fun - not.

I promise to post less crankiness soon. And more pictures. slippers, when they're done.

1 more FO - Karen's blankie is Done!

So here is my DS #1 (aka Karen)'s Christmas present - done done done! I call it a blankie but really I guess it's a shawl - 6'2" long x 2' wide. It's actually a foot taller (longer) than she is - ha ha!

The pictures don't do it justice, but it's very pretty jewel tones - six balls of Bernat Harmony "gemstones" variegated, knit 60 sts wide on 9mm needles. Very VERY quick - less than a week on this blankie. Big needles are GOOD.

Yet another project has been added to the pre-Christmas knitting, so time for a tally check:

1) DS #1 blankie - done.
2) DS #2 blankie - done.
3) Harry Potter Scarves (4 scarves, for four friends) - done and gifted.
4) Slippers for DD and her 2 "sisters" - one pair down, 2 to go.
5) Scarf for DD's "mom" - done.
6) Shawl for DM - 2/3 done, but may make longer if time permits.
7) Blankie for DMIL2B - yarn in hand, gonna be double-stranded on BIG needles.
8) Scarf for DNeice - done.
9) Toque for DBIL - done.
10) Socks and Hat for DH2B - yarn in hand.
11) Slippers for DGM - 1 done, 1 to go.

Hm. that's only 11 gifts. Must have 12, for the 12 days'o'knitted Christmas. Ah... yes, I'd nearly forgot:

12) Knitted thong of the scratchiest wool I can find in the stash, for my dear DEAR friend Steve.

Not bad, all things considered. I also have to fit my Christmas Party shawl in there somewhere, but I think I'll make everything in time without knitting at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve. I have one month. I can do this!

Off I go to knit the 2nd slipper for DGM - she specifically requested them, which is quite touching, considering she taught me to knit when I was a kid and so traumatized me in the process I hadn't touched needles in over 25 years. Irony!

Insert clever title here...

Sorry, no brain today. Tough day. Meh.

Part of the "no brain" was due to staying up late at the new Harry Potter movie, with my dearest of friends, who you see here. Unfortunately, the lighting totally hides the Ravenclaw (far left, on N8an), but the darkish stripe down his coat is it. Next to him is Dan in Slytherin, which you can just see around his neck. On the right of Dan is our lovely Yumi in Gryffindor, which frames her cleavage nicely (yes, she will kill me for that comment!). And finally we have Bundy, in Hufflepuff, which his dear wife (that would be Yumi) has christened "BumbleBundy" for its black-and-yellowness. They all loved them and that made me very VERY happy.

In other news, the lovely Louise at the LYS (ooh, alliteration!) pointed me to a much simpler approach for my Christmas party shawl, so I'm going to do that on the weekend - garter stitch only, but it shows off the beauty of the yarn without getting into fussy stitch patterns. Tonight though I think I'll work on Karen's blankie because it's easy and moving along quickly, and I want to finish another present this week. Also I have a head full of codeine right now (I said it was a bad day...) so can't do anything patterned.

Mechant Mardi and Blankie. Gotta love Tuesday nights. :)

FO's and UFO's

So, here they are - 4 Harry Potter Scarves - done! (Ok, in these pictures the ends weren't woven in, but they're done now). From left to right in the lengthwise picture: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. Each scarf is 6 1/2 feet in length, plenty long enough to go around and around and around the necks of my dear friends. Tomorrow night (Monday), we all go see the movie. yay!

Those are the FO's. For UFO's this weekend (or WIPs, I guess), I have Mom's shawl, Karen's blankie/shawl, and now a new blankie for DMIL2B, because she's decided she doesn't like knitting that much after all, so the "kit" I'd assembled for her is gone back to stash and I've started a quick blankie on 10mm needles that should be ready in time for Christmas. No pressure.

I also still need to do two pairs of slippers for the girls, a pair of socks for Peter, and my Christmas Party shawl for me. *sigh* And I have assignments due for my correspondence course, which is a big ball of regurgitating - no fun at all. Plus I've got the blues today - just general "blah" feeling, typical of Sunday afternoons, I guess, but that doesn't help in getting things done.

Enough computer today. Knitting time. Got to get Mom's done before she gets back on Wednesday. Yeah, no pressure...

Baby, it's (gonna be) cold outside!

Yes, the weather-people are forecasting for ten centimetres of snow tomorrow. YIKES! So, I must finish my new toque (which is nameless, so I'll just call it the heavyweight toque because it's a heavier weight).

Yesterday I finished two more pair of the easy slippers - black ones for Peter and purple ones for Courtney (one of the three girls in Halifax). The purple is so cute, I can't wait to see how the pink ones and blue ones come out. I'll post pictures when they're all finished.

Also noodled around with a one-skein scarf for the girls' mom, in variegated Harmony (jewel tones), which I'll also be using for DS#1's Christmas blankie. The blankie will be on 8mm circs, probably 100 stitches wide - the scarf I tried at 40 sts on 8mm, but it was too wide, so I ripped it back and am doing 25 sts on 9mm - narrowed it up a bit and should get a good length out of the one ball.

So many projects I want to get started on, more shawls and socks (ok, the first pair of socks, since the pumpkin socks got frogged), and hats for friends, and eventually I really would like to make my sweater, gosh darnit!

First, I must finish my toque. It's going to snow tomorrow. WHEEE! I love snow, but hate cold. There's irony for you. Which makes me think of the argument between Alice and Humpty Dumpty, which I know has, "There's xxxx for you!" as the beginning, but I can't remember how it goes. I must have it printed on a nice poster for easy reference, really I should.

Wow. That was non-sequitor. And probably spelled wrong. I'm losing my English major credentials! Eek!

Go knit, silly wench. (me, not you nice folks reading this).

De-stinking and new projects

The brand of stinky boxes were Sterilite, but I did some research on off-gassing and apparently most plastics will do this to some extent. I've been advised by folks on KnitTalk to use real name-brand Rubbermaid instead, apparently these are "textile-archive" worthy... and there's a chance of staining from the oil in cedarwood (hadn't thought of that - DOH!). So, for Christmas I want Rubbermaid.

In happy news, the de-stinking is coming along fine. A few more days and it should all be fine, thank heavens. To celebrate (and because it's friggin' COLD today!), I'm casting on for a toque for me, in Patons Decor, burgundy and charcoal held together for a "tweedy" effect - I hope. We'll see how it works. And I've shifted the "purple poodle" from a Moebius to a big scarf (only difference is I won't sew it into the loop, really), to go with the new hat.

I know what you're thinking... But, you just finished that lovely Bohemian Dessert Scarf for yourself, didn't you? Yes, I did. But it really does look much nicer with Mom's coat than with mine, and she was coveting it something fierce, so - it's hers. Good karma and all that, she was thrilled to get it. I may get a ball-winder for Christmas now. ;)

Ok, time to start my hat before I go to writing group - hat-knitting goes very well with writing group!

Oops, almost forgot - pair 1 of 3 of the new slippers for "the girls" back east is nearly done; these are so quick to knit, two hockey games = 1 pair. Love 'em!

The stash pictures

This is the Stash, laid out on the pool table. There are over 200 balls, skeins, and parts-of. Okay, I REALLY don't need to buy yarn for awhile. No, really.

Stinky yarn - EEK!

So last night, my computer crashed - because I tried to do a backup. The GeekGods are laughing at me, I'm sure. Fine, says I to myself, I'll just go knit something instead. Off I go to grab some Christmas variegated out of the stash for an ornament idea I have.

The stash stinks. In fact, the area of the basement where the stash is stashed stinks. It smells of propane, so I panic, thinking we've got a gas leak which (a) could kill us all in our sleep, or (b-more importantly) has totally ruined my yarn! Checked the gas lines, checked the intake/output vents, etc. No smell anywhere except the yarn. Dang!

So I drag it out to the family room and dump it out on the pool table (appropriately covered first, of course) to air out. Laid out each ball nice and neat - some smell worse than others. Can't figure it out. Decide to grab a ball of something else (can't remember what now) out of the under-the-pool-table stash boxes, open them up - this yarn stinks too! WHAT?! What the hell is going on here? So, it gets dumped, sorted, tidied, and I have a pool table FULL of yarn. No, really, the whole table is covered. Pictures to follow.

Now, because this stash is stashed nowhere NEAR the other stash, there couldn't be any connection - but the smell is the same. Like propane. DING! Light goes on. The stash boxes are cheap clear plastic. Plastic is made of oil, as is propane. THE STORAGE BOXES ARE MAKING MY YARN STINK! The cheap plastic is offgassing (probably because we now have heat on in the house, it's November) and contaminating the yarn. Some worse than others, probably depending on fibre content. But stinky stinky stink. So, those boxes will NOT be holding my yarn anymore. DH2B is going to build me cedar boxes, milk-crate size, to restash the stash. The size is ideal because then I can sort by project and carry the box from chair to chair, or sort by colour, whatever, and the cubes will be portable and lightweight. Most importantly, they will be cedar. My yarn will smell good.

This was last night. I was very close to what I can only assume is knitter's hell, in this scenario. Tonight, thank the Knitting Gods and Goddesses, the yarn does not stink - as much. Still a bit manky, but another day or two and it should be fine. I have some cedar blocks resting gently atop the sea of yarn to speed the de-stink-i-fying process.

Moral of the story: do not store your yarn in cheap clear storage boxes. It will stink.

Completions and Inspirations

Complete - Beth's Blankie! This picture looks really dark, but the blankie is actually burgundy & cream, about 2'x4' (approx.) - five balls of Bernat Harmony on a 6.5mm circ. DH2B, who is clever, suggested that rather than doing a second stripe pattern, I reserve the last three balls and do pillows for next year. This is why I love this man! So, FO! Ha ha!

Related news: today is mine and Peter's anniversary. 5 years ago tonight we had our first date - he picked me up at 7:30 in the evening and brought me home at 9:30 the following morning. No, we didn't have sex. But we've been inseparable ever since. It's a good thing.

To celebrate, I'm giving him a new Thermos - it's what he wants and it will keep him warm (well, the coffee will keep him warm, anyway). And we're having dinner / hang-out time with our dear dear friends (they for whom I am knitting the Harry Potter scarves), so it will be a lovely relaxed evening. JOY!

Now, inspirations... three nights in a row now, I've dreamt of a checkerboard blankie. As in, actual red and black squares with a border, that one could play actual checkers (or chess, I suppose) on. I'm thinking of a basketweave pattern but not quite sure how the carrying of colours will work, so I need to mull on it a bit. But the funky coincidence is that in my eBay acquisitions I have two HUGE balls of chunky acrylic - one black, one red. So really, it must be tried. The yarn is here and begging for it.

Currently OTN - well, getting closer to Christmas, trying to focus on prezzies. But I like to treat me, too. So:

1) Mom's prayer shawl (in LB Homespun). About 1/2 done now and it's very very pretty, and Jen at SnB last night showed me how to fix a couple of holes without too much stress, so it is very forgiving too!

2) Another pair of slippers for Peter - these in the aforementioned chunky black acrylic - which I tease him by calling them "blackfoot" slippers (he's Mohawk). First one's nearly done.

3) A new Moebius for Me, Me, Me! This in "Cora" by Lang, in purple which, when knit (and stroked), bears a bizarre resemblance to poodle fur texture. Thus, I christen it the Purple Poodle.

4) The last Harry Potter scarf - Slytherin house - which is about 2/3 done. Two weeks until the movie opens, so this is "travel" knitting now, just working it at lunchtimes or when waiting for papers at work.

5) About to cast on for the third and final pair of purse slippers for the girls in Halifax - these should be quick to do (like, within a week).

6) About to cast on for a scarf (also in Bernat Harmony - I like this yarn but getting tired of it!) for the girls' mom. One skein, skinny and quick, I'm thinking.

Once these are done the only Christmas knitting left will be Peter's socks. But before I do his socks, I have to do my socks, as they are the "learning" socks. So, by the end of this month, I should be in sock mode. Except I want to start on that checkerboard, and my sweater is calling to me, and... oh blast, I have no resolve whatsoever. :)