Category Archives: Knitting


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procrastinating

Seeing as how I’ve never met a deadline I didn’t like, I’ve got a lot on my knitting plate right now. That still didn’t stop me from throwing some (5!!) new projects into the mix.

Remember those swatches I showed you? They became bunnies!

A friend is in town with her young daughter and I wanted to make her a little something. (I admit to also being influenced by the cuteness of Amy’s swatch bunny and wanting to make one myself).

The pink one is for Rebecca.
This wee little bunny is TINY!
All together only an inch and a half long! Yannick thinks an 18 month old might try to swallow the bunny, so I’ll tell her mother to put it away until she thinks she’s old enough to play with it.

Here’s a link to the free pattern.

I really wanted one for myself too, which led to this little guy:

Isn’t he precious? I followed the pattern as written for each, but modified the ears so they wouldn’t end up too huge. Plus I added a little loop on mine so I can hang it on my keychain.

It will be hard to separate the two- they seem to be getting along quite well!

I don’t know why this photo has me thinking of the Cabbage Patch Kids.


So those are 2 of the 5 new projects. This weekend I also worked on a little something for one of the girls in Jakob’s playgroup. The first of our kids turned 1, and we had a little party for her on Monday. Everyone had agreed “no gifts” but I couldn’t show up empty handed, so I make a quick little cupcake for her. It only took 2 hours to knit, stuff and sew, and I put a bell inside too so that it rattles.

I had wanted to put a “B” on top for Brooklyn, the birthday girl, but after I knit the icord and held it in place, it looked really stupid and bulky (instead of sweet and icing-y like I’d envisioned). Yannick encouraged me to add some sprinkles instead.


The pattern is a free one, from here. I did make a few modifications. Besides not doing the cherry on top, I skipped row 1 and went right into the increase row to avoid the point at the bottom that I saw on some finished ones. I also added an increase row after the first k row of the icing section. I did a *p1, yo, rep from * around” row, and on the following row I purled but every time I got to one of the yarn-overs I purled it through the back loop to close the hole. After purling another row or so I did a *p2tog, repeat from * around” row to get back to the original number of stitches. I wanted the cupcake top to have a puffy look where it joined the cake part. I didn’t stuff it exactly right, but it gives a look closer to what I’d wanted.


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777

To celebrate my blog reaching seven hundred and seventy seven posts, I’m holding a contest.

You’ve heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, right? (Or you’ve at least seen the movie Se7en, with Brad Pitt?) No? Well, the Seven Deadly Sins are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth.
According to the Seven Deadly Sins website, these are how the sins are defined:
Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

 

Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
I started thinking about how these sins could relate to my knitting. I know that they don’t fit exactly, especially with the definitions as stated above. But, I knew that my knitting hobby wasn’t all love and roses either. So here’s my list:
Pride- Knitting Bag with Perfect Pocket. Oh I was so proud of myself! I *knew* I’d designed the PERFECT knitting bag, with exactly the right pockets to hold exactly the right accessories. I’d even created the Perfect Pocket with its specific features and purposes. It was going to be huge! Um…yeah. It’s been in storage so long that I have no clue where it is. It used to be Sam’s favorite sleeping spot, so what was a black felted bag is now really white and hairy. It’s huge- but in a “really big” sense, not a “everyone wants one” sense. And it’s unfinished. I consider my pride a wee bit checked, thanks to this project.
Envy- A swift and a niddy noddy. I’m so jealous of all of you who have one. Do I need them? No. But oh do I want them!
Gluttony-Homespun jacket and hat. Oh the gluttony here! I was in Ottawa and given the opportunity for a rare trip to Michael’s, the craft store. Did I buy something special? No. I bought about 35(!!!) skeins of LionBrand Homespun. I bought enough to make the jacket and hat for myself, plus enough red and black to make Yannick and I each oversized hooded sweatshirts. Well, after knitting with the homespun long enough to make my jacket, I discovered how the yarn releases little tufts of fiber as you knit. I was fed up of knitting with it long before even finishing the jacket, not to mention the way the yarn bunches along itself and has to be eased back down. Oh- and did I mention that I NEVER wear the jacket? It has lived on my mannequin ever since the original photos were taken – in 2006!! This was definitely a case of “eyes bigger than stomach”…in knitting terms, that is.
Lust- The Noro Kureyon striped scarf, as seen at Brooklyn Tweed. Maaike had pointed me over there and when I took one look at the scarf, I was hooked. I had to have one. NOW. I think I ordered the yarn for it in under a week, and not long after that, as soon as we’d finished our “current” projects, we cast on for a knitalong. Ever lust for something and then when you get it, it’s not as good as you thought? This was SO not like that. It was better than I’d thought. The knitting was mindless, the yarn was softer than I’d thought, and the color combination still thrills me. Score one for lust!
Anger- my dad’s thrummed mittens (no completed photo, only some old wip shots there, sorry). I’ve made peace with the mittens, but I’m still a little bitter about them. Of course, I’m mostly angry at myself. I was so looking forwards to knitting with a new technique (the thrums) that I didn’t stop to consider the recipient. Sure, my mom said my dad’s hands were always cold. Sure, nothing would be warmer than thrummed mittens. Sure. Unfortunately I didn’t think about who the gift was for- my dad, the smoker. Mittens have no fingers. You can’t smoke with mittens on. The mittens don’t get worn. Sigh. Moving on…
Greed- Patterns. Oh my- I can’t have enough. And it’s not just the free ones online or magazines, it’s pay ones too! Rogue, the pocket pals books, the wonderful Wallaby…so many patterns have found their way into my grubby little hands. And am I knitting them? Of course not. They are being stored so they can be savored…while I sit here trying to design my own stuff. There’s probably some irony here if I could be bothered to look.
Sloth- the Kosher Sweater. Come on- 3 years sitting in a bag with only 20 stitches waiting to be bound off?? That’s just plain lazy, folks.

So there you have it- my Seven Deadly Knitting Sins. I want to know what yours are. You can send your list by email, you can post it in a comment to this post, or you can post it to your blog and leave me a comment here to go take a look. You can use all words or you can include photos. My only condition is that you list something for each of the seven sins.

The contests starts today, and will end at midnight Wednesday, April 2 2008. That gives you 7 days to play.

Wanna know what you’re playing for?
The winner will get a $30 gift certificate to the online yarn store of their choice. Good luck!

Before I go, here are a few photos:

Mommy with Jakob at 45 weeks. He’s getting so big! This photo isn’t so great ‘cus he looks much chubbier than he is, but you can always go back a few posts and see him in his pjs on the rocking chair to know that he doesn’t have all that pudge. I’m not sure if you can click on the photo to see it bigger, but if you can- look at those teeth! You can also get a look at some family and wedding photos in the screen behind us. 🙂

I actually took this photo a few days ago but never got around to posting it. Since we had our time change so early in the year, there is so much light in the house when I get home from work! I took this photo at 6:30 at night, with no flash, in a room with one big window. I couldn’t get enough of the natural light and so I took this wip photo. Finally I managed to get one photo that shows the colors accurately AND shows the cable. This is the same cardigan front I showed you a few weeks ago.

Tonight there was a West Island Knitters meetup at a local brasserie (tavern) and I finished the front piece. I also helped my cousin Amy finish her swatch bunny. This was her first time seaming, and came right on the heels of her first time purling and her first time following a “pattern”.

It is so cute! Go over to her site to check it out, I’m sure she’ll have FO photos to share. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate- now I want one!

sd


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the one that should have been posted on saturday march 15

Saturday was more of the same sicknesses as Thursday and Friday, with the main difference being that I was able to leave Jakob at home with Yannick when I went to work. This was the first time since Jakob’s birth that he’s been alone with Yannick for more than 3 hours, since the previous times they’d spent the day together I was still breastfeeding and Yannick brought Jakob to me to feed every 3 hours or so. My boys spent the day together on the couch, watching tv while Jakob slept in Yannick’s arms. He (Yannick) loved the feeling so much that he never got off the couch to do any of the tidying up I’d hoped for…but I can’t fault him. As much as it sucks when Jakob is sick, it is really sweet the way he cuddles.
The gastro had the poor kid soiling his clothes so often that we got tired of doing laundry, so for a little while in the morning we gave him breakfast in only a bib and diaper. I can’t get over how tall he looks in this photo. He’s average height, but I find his arms and legs look so long!

Saturday night we went to the Biftheque with my family to celebrate last years’ birthdays. (We’re a bit behind). After dinner they all came back here to open gifts, and I FINALLY was able to give my mom the Montego Bay scarf I’d knit for her. It had been sitting in my drawer since November when I thought I’d be giving it to her on her actual birthday.

In other knitting gift news, my inlaws have both requested socks for Christmas this year. Everytime they were with Yannick when he was wearing his handknit socks, he kept raving about the fit, the comfort, etc. Could it be? Could I finally wind up with some family members (besides Yannick) who *gasp* appreciate my knitting?


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the one that should have been posted friday march 14

BUNNIES!

I tried to knit just one…but you know how they multiply! 🙂

I have an old friend from high school who moved away a few years ago and got married. She came into town recently with her 2 and a half year old daughter, and I had a chance to catch up with her for the first time since she’d moved. I brought Jakob with me and was pleasantly surprised when my friend presented Jakob with a gift. I also felt bad, because I was empty-handed. I emailed her that afternoon to ask what her daughter’s 3 favorite colors were, and I cast on for the bunnies as soon as I heard back with a reply. (It was pink, purple and blue…I think those are the obligatory favorite colors for all girls under the age of 8).

I used Kate’s Bunny pattern, and a 4.5mm needle. (Or a 4mm. Shoot. My notes are downstairs. If anyone really cares, email me and I’ll check). The first one was knit with purple Fun Fur only, and while it was fast and easy to knit, I HATED the seaming. I think I’ve mentioned here before that I enjoy seaming, and my preferred method is to mattress stitch. With this fuzzy yarn mattress stitch is not an option (at least not without some really good light and a magnifying glass), so I had to seam with a whipstitch on the wrong side of the work. It came out ok, but I didn’t want to have to do that again. This wasn’t Kate’s fault, it was mine for forgetting that I hate to seam with Fun Fur.

I also wanted a bigger bunny. The pattern comes in 3 sizes (Baby, Mama and Papa), and the purple one was knit to the Mama size. I didn’t want the Baby bunny to be any smaller than the Mama already was, so I went stash-diving and came up with some white Bernat baby yarn.

This blue bunny was knit to the Papa sized pattern. Same needle size as the purple one, but this time I did 2 rows of the smooth white yarn only, and 2 rows of the white with blue Fun Fur carried along. I wound up with a bunny that was much bigger than the first one (which was what I wanted) and also with a bunny that allowed me to see the stitches so I could work a mattress stitch seam (which was really what I wanted). The nature of knitting fur-type yarns has most of the fur wind up lying on the purl side of the work, which was the wrong side for this pattern. I had the option of turning it inside out before seaming, but I liked the less-fuzz/more-stripes look of the right side.

 

The pink bunny was knit exactly as the blue one, but with (duh) pink Fun Fur carried along. She is also knit to the Papa bunny size.

I was going to give them eyes but I didn’t feel like embroidering them, I don’t know where my sew-on googley eyes are, and sewn-on buttons made the bunnies look dead. So they will remain eyeless.

I tried to get something in the photo that would show scale, but I couldn’t figure out what I owned that would be standard everywhere. (Now that I’m typing this, I am coming up with a ton of items I could have used. Ah well. Hindsight/20/20 and all that). Here you have the Bunny Family with Yannick’s sunglasses.

And yes, it was done deliberately that a blue Papa and pink Mama make a purple Baby. ;]


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the one that should have been posted tuesday march 11

I’m going to try and recreate a week’s worth of posts tonight before I go to bed. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to share but didn’t, and I know if I keep putting it off then I’ll never get around to it, so I’m going to try and get as much out as I can remember.

Last Tuesday Jakob and I left work in the early afternoon to attend the Shiva for the grandmother of one of the other moms in my playgroup. I mean Jakob’s playgroup. Yeah – it’s for him. I mention this because it will become relevant by Thursday. This was my little guy all dressed up for his big day. (Thanks for the vest Debbie!)
p.s. these are Yannick’s legs!!
Anyhoo…Tuesday night was the March MKG meeting.
This month instead of having a topic discussion we were all encouraged to bring some random stash yarn that would add up to a chunky weight, and we were to knit 1 hour hats which would be donated to a charity. I brought these yarns:
I know the thin glitter strand is from my Bubbie’s stash that I inherited. I’m pretty sure the burgundy tweed is from there too, and the peach polar fleece was a thrift store find. The two thicker yarns were not ones I could ever see using on their own, and I threw in the glitz to keep myself awake while I knit the hat. Because I spent most of the meeting helping one of the members with a crochet pattern I didn’t get the hat knit in one hour, but I DID finish it when I got home that night.

Voila-
I wasn’t consistent about what order the yarns landed in on the needle (sometimes the peach was first, other times the darker one) which is why the hat doesn’t have a uniform color. When the peach was first the burgundy became the predominant color on the following row, and vice versa.
It is a simple stockinette stitch hat, knit flat and seamed up the back, with a rolled brim.
This is why I’m glad it will be given to a charity, and is not intended for me to wear. Man I look stupid in hats. :] I’m 1 step away… LOL

(Although I think this one came out kinda cool).


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presenting…

…the swatches! I am so happy with how the yarn turned out! I think I’ve been over using the word “love” lately (I love the yarn, in love with certain patterns, love the way things come out) so I don’t want to sit here and say there’s yet another thing I love. I might have overstated my affection for some other projects. There might be projects that I merely like, projects I wouldn’t mind seeing again, and projects I think I might have a future with. But this yarn? This yarn I really do love!

I did the swatches with a 2.5mm needle (my usual for socks) and on 64 sts, which, depending on the pattern, is roughly my size.
Here’s the Black Cherry. This photo shows a pretty good variation of color, but is lacking the deep tones of wine that permeate every strand, even the deep blacks. This will be stunning with either an open lace or a cable pattern. Yannick would like to claim it for himself but it is mine! This is one side of my Oxford swatch. I took a photo of each side to show you how the yarn will behave on a larger swatch (or a sock). You see how the black-striped section starts at the lower left and moves up on a diagonal to the top right? And how the colored section with no black seems to do the same?
Here’s the other side of the same swatch. # 1 had one dark section in the middle. # 2 has 2 dark sections, one on top and one below, with a lighter middle. What I’m trying to show here is that the two areas of color will spiral around each other, and around the sock.
Look at this! It worked! I can’t believe it worked! I made a self-striping yarn! There is so much I enjoy about this one, especially the palest row of green right above the darkest one. Something about the way one looks near the other really tickles me. If I was to do this again I would only change the concentration of dye to water to try and get another shade in there, as I feel 2 of the rows look the same. It might be related to where I cast on from and how the yarn is wrapping around itself, though.

I have been knitting Bunnies for the last week. The pattern is great, but I’m knitting in Fun Fur which is such a pain! I knit the first one only in the Fun Fur stuff, but seaming it was NOT fun, so I knit the second with the FF held along with a strand of white dk weight acrylic. It made the FF somewhat more bearable.

I’m knitting the Bunnies as a gift for a friend’s 2.5 year old daughter, who brought a gift for Jakob when we introduced them, and I unfortunately showed up empty handed. I found out her favorite colours are pink, purple and blue (is there any 2.5 year old girl who doesn’t have those as her favorite colours?) so I’m knitting a pink mommy bunny, a blue daddy bunny, and a purple baby bunny. As of tonight only the pink is left to knit. Photos tomorrow after the Guild meeting.


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finally the photos of which i spoke

I was going to post this earlier but I had a scary drive in to work this morning and by the time I got there I was a little shaken and distracted. I was in a tunnel that splits in two directions, I was in the middle lane (the middle and left lanes go to the left) and a truck (no container, just the cab part) was in the right (which becomes another tunnel veering off to the right). He lost control, did a bunch of drifting Zs across his lane and mine, then slammed into the right hand wall of the tunnel, bounced back off the wall almost exactly like I did in my car accident two years ago, and crashed into the middle wall of the part that divides the two tunnels. He was no more than 20 ft away from me when he started sliding and I saw it and slowed down to be alert to what he would do next, but by the time he crashed into the middle between the right and middle lanes he was no more than 6 ft away from me. I was so scared that he was going to slide back instead of forwards- if he’d come backwards my car was right in his path and there were cars in the left lane that couldn’t see he was sliding and wouldn’t move away to let me get by. Luckily he came to a stop after hitting the 2nd wall and, although he was 3/4 blocking my lane, I was able to inch around safely. Once I was cleared from the tunnel I called 911 to let them know what had happened, and that was when I started shaking from the shock of what could have been.

Sometimes it’s not good to have a vivid imagination.

So- I’ve decided to put aside some of my current projects to focus on other ones. Jakob’s birthday is coming up in a few months and there is also a contest I want to enter, so I will make those knits my priority for right now. Shawls and stuff can wait until later. In preparation for all that stuff, I’ve gone through my photos from the last week or so and am presenting you with all the outstanding photos. Enjoy.

This is the Marble hooded cardigan. I’m making the 1-2 year size, and hope to have this ready for Jakob for his birthday. It will be too warm and hopefully too big for him in May, but I want to put it together with some other items for his gift.
The colors (and clarity, LOL) are more accurate in the first photo, but the flash obliterated the cable. Here you can see the cable that runs up either side of the middle of the two fronts.

Here’s Mommy with Jakob at 40 weeks. I couldn’t get one of him looking into the camera.
Here’s Yannick and Jakob at last Sunday’s swimming lesson. We tried out this new one-piece bathing suit for the first time (thanks Robyn!) and it worked great! The last few weeks Jakob has started to cry when playing some of the games in the water, and when testing different things in his bath one night we discovered he started to cry when we made him “jump” in and out of the water. We think he was getting cold and that’s what made him cry. I don’t know if that was the exact problem, but this week they even did a part where the kids sit on floatie boards completely out of the water, and he didn’t shed a single tear. Plus he looks like a little skater boy (not sk8tr boi, avril).
These are my dinosaur swatches. See the blue one? That’s the same yarn I used when I knit the dinosaur for my little cousin Oliver. I did the swatch with 20 sts and 20 rows. Next to it is some leftover Homespun from the sweater I made a few years ago. That’s also 20 sts and 20 rows. Nice difference, huh? The dinosaur for Oliver came out to about 20 inches tall, so if this works out according to gauge I’ll end up with a dinosaur over 3 feet tall! I’m going to try to make both dinosaurs from the Family Circle Easy Baby Knits book, hopefully I’ll have them both done in time for his birthday.
Here’s a grin, just because I can’t get enough of them. It’s so sad- he went to take a nap at work yesterday and woke up with a cold. His nose is completely congested and runny, and he coughs every so often…he looks so exhausted half the time just from trying to breathe. At the same time he looks so funny because he’s keeping his mouth open to breathe through it since his nose is blocked, but he’s letting his tongue hang out so he looks like a panting dog!
This is the progress on the Silk Rumple shawl. Everything from the orange marker (middle of the right side) is new. I worked on it last week until I decided to concentrate on Jakob’s projects.

Here’s what I got to see the other day when driving to work. Do you see what I see? No? Here, look closer:
I don’t know if I should be upset that gas is priced so high, or if I should find it amusing that the price of gas was 1.234$.
Here’s another one, just because. He loves to feed himself, and often the only way I can get him to let me feed him something from a spoon is to give him something he can feed himself at the same time. Here he’s enjoying the feel of mashed potatoes between his fingers.
Finally I have a FO that is now more F’d. Remember the Baby Cabled Hoodie? It was done, and looked cute on Jakob, except that (ignoring the whole ineffective hood thing) while the sleeves were too long and the body was big on him, the length was much too short. It barely came to the top of his jeans, and if he raised his arms- forget it. I’d been meaning to fix it for a long time, and this past weekend I finally got around to doing it.
Better eh? I know the zipper doesn’t go down to the bottom, but I can live with that. I had more of the brown Decor in my stash so I picked up sts all the way around, one for each existing stitch, and worked the same cable pattern in reverse. Once I had done a few inches I tried it on him, and when it was at a good length I bound off loosely. I think it even looks like the pattern was always supposed to be this way, and it fits him, and I’m happy.

Now I’m off to watch Big Brother.


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happy day after valentines day

I forgot to mention that I went to see a great show on Wednesday night. I saw Houdini the Musical at the Saidye – whoops, I mean at the Segal Center for the Arts. I met up with a bunch of moms from Jakob’s playgroup, and I brought my mom, and it was so much fun! Our tickets included a “petit souper” (light supper in hors d-oeuvre form) and wine and a raffle. Oh yeah, and I won a prize! $50 gift certificate at a local spa. That will be fun! It was strange seeing these women without our kids but it was so nice to have a little time together as grown ups. We HAVE to do it more often!

Here’s yesterday’s progress on the Silk Rumple. Everything from the orange marker is new. I feel like all these photos look alike, because it is growing so slowly! At least the first ball is showing signs of depletion (the single skein turned out to be 2 smaller ones together).
And here’s the progress on the Noro striped scarf. 144 rows as of last night’s TV watching marathon. Speaking of last night’s TV- any one else super annoyed with which team won on Celebrity Apprentice? Piers or Omarosa need to go home!
In other reality TV complaints- I find I’m kinda irritated at Big Brother for splitting up the real life couple with other “soulmates”. I know they probably did it on purpose to try and trigger some drama, but I still think it’s tacky.


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a contest!

Dianne is having a contest over on her blog, and is looking for your favorite tips or techniques.  Here’s one of mine!

One of my favorite knitting tips that makes my knitting life easier is how to calculate how much yarn you’ll need for a long-tail cast-on. How many times have you ended up with a tail that is much too long, or run out right towards the end? Here’s an easy way to know how much yarn you need:
Let’s say you need to cast on 100 sts. Cast on 10 sts then unravel your cast on and see how much yarn it took. Multiply that length by 10 (10 x 10 = 100) and that will show what length yarn you need. Add a few inches for weaving in (or a longer length for seaming, if necessary), and that’s it!

(Obviously you need to multiply the 10-st-co length by whatever number it will take to give you the number of sts YOU need to cast on).

(If you decide to enter, please leave in the comments that I referred you. Thanks!)


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happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy 10th birthday dear knitting guild, happy birthday to you

First of all, a big apology to those of you who get here directly via http://www.jeloca.com/. I’m sorry it appeared as if my blog had gone bye-bye. Apparently my domain-forwarding-provider decided that since they never sent me a renewal contract, I clearly must no longer be desiring their services, so they dropped me like a hot potato. I swear our phone call went like this:
Me: How come my website isn’t working?
Them: Because you haven’t paid for it.
Me: Well, you never sent me an invoice.
Them: We don’t send invoices until after you pay.
Me: If you don’t send me an invoice, how am I supposed to know it’s time to pay again?
Them: Well, we don’t send invoices until after you pay. Your payment was due in January.
Me: How did you expect me to know that you wanted more money in January?
Them: We sent you an email in December to tell you.
Me: I never got it.
Them: You probably didn’t check your email.
Me: I check my email about 15 times a day. I didn’t get it.
Them: We’re sure it was sent out.
Me: Can you check?
Them: No. The emails are all sent out autmatically and are generated by our system. We can’t check to see who got them. They were sent in December.
Me: But I never got it.
And so on. Ugh…At least everyone is happy now. They have my money, I have a blog that works, and you don’t have to finagle your way here via the http://www.jeloca.blogspot.com/ address. It’s all good.
There was hardly any knitting today, and I might do a few more rows on the Striped Scarf before bed, so I’m saving my row count for tomorrow. Tonight was the 10th anniversary party of the Montreal Knitting Guild, and it was a potluck event. There was so much food! I ate much too much, and knit much too little.
I do have a photo of that Marble Cabled Hoodie thing I mentioned the other day. I’m about 10 rows farther than this, but I’ve put it aside to try and finish the Striped Scarf instead.
Instead of stripes, I leave you with a tutorial on how to eat toast.


Step 1: get toast into mouth


Step 2: get toast into mouth

Step 3: get toast into mouth
Step 4: get toast into mouth
Step 5: grin with accomplishment (and toast in mouth)
Step 6: pose for the camera