Had a good day today. Actually it’s been a good week but I’ve been trying to get to bed early so been posting a bit lazily. Monday had some good news in my knitting class when Nicole (my teacher) offered to lend me one of her knitting machines. Woo hoo! Yannick and I will be heading over on Sunday to pick it up. Tres cool indeed.

Did some knitting on sleeve # 1 of Duffle Coat last night, went through until I was finished the current skein and didn’t have any more near me. Luckily this occured after 11pm so I felt justified in going to bed instead of going into my office to grab another ball.

Tonight went to my first knitting meetup organized through meetup.com. Had a good time! I got there early ‘cus it starts at 7 but I finished work at 6 right around the corner. Good thing about going early is that the meters are free but there are still spots available. I already knew Nadine from the MKG, but I met Mary, Mary, Jennifer, Ada, Cady and shoot another really nice woman who is a friend of Nadine’s and I feel really bad I just blanked out on her name but she was knitting a gorgeous spring colored scarf. I hate forgetting stuff. RRRRR And she was really nice too! In fact, everyone was. I’m looking forwards to going next month!

Managed to finish sleeve #1. Was pleasantly surprised ‘cus I’d checked my Palm yesterday and saw that the “sleeve” directions end on row 165 (the rows being the way I break down the patterns in my database). I was only on direction row 1-0-something so I figured I was in for a spell, when all of a sudden I’m into BOs and decreases. Next thing you know the sleeve was done, just a few short rows later. Turns out instead of adding a direction row “repeat for second sleeve” I’d actually created another set of directions, so both sleeves took until row 165. Was very happy ‘cus I was beginning to think this thing would never be done. Although, it’s only been a week and a half since I was given the yarn and pattern and I’ve finished the back, both fronts and 1 sleeve. Only got 1 more sleeve, the hood, then joining and some ribbed bands. I’m kinda impressed with me here. (Ok, truth time: it’s not too hard to knit fast when the yarn is chunky. Shhh don’t tell anyone!)

Now I’m going to get my 2nd good night’s sleep in a row. TRANSLATION: I’m going to get into bed, play a few games on my Palm, realize that at least an hour has gone by, decide to read for a bit “just to make me sleepy” and finally close the Palm once my eyes are falling, somewhere around 1:15am like usual.

Oh, and if anyone reading knows of an easy way to add mood indicators to blogger templates, please let me know. I’m trying to find something cute without being obnoxious. I’ve found moodsmilies.com but don’t like the final format that it puts on the site.

Had a good day today. Actually it’s been a good week but I’ve been trying to get to bed early so been posting a bit lazily. Monday had some good news in my knitting class when Nicole (my teacher) offered to lend me one of her knitting machines. Woo hoo! Yannick and I will be heading over on Sunday to pick it up. Tres cool indeed.

Did some knitting on sleeve # 1 of Duffle Coat last night, went through until I was finished the current skein and didn’t have any more near me. Luckily this occured after 11pm so I felt justified in going to bed instead of going into my office to grab another ball.

Tonight went to my first knitting meetup organized through meetup.com. Had a good time! I got there early ‘cus it starts at 7 but I finished work at 6 right around the corner. Good thing about going early is that the meters are free but there are still spots available. I already knew Nadine from the MKG, but I met Mary, Mary, Jennifer, Ada, Cady and shoot another really nice woman who is a friend of Nadine’s and I feel really bad I just blanked out on her name but she was knitting a gorgeous spring colored scarf. I hate forgetting stuff. RRRRR And she was really nice too! In fact, everyone was. I’m looking forwards to going next month!

Managed to finish sleeve #1. Was pleasantly surprised ‘cus I’d checked my Palm yesterday and saw that the “sleeve” directions end on row 165 (the rows being the way I break down the patterns in my database). I was only on direction row 1-0-something so I figured I was in for a spell, when all of a sudden I’m into BOs and decreases. Next thing you know the sleeve was done, just a few short rows later. Turns out instead of adding a direction row “repeat for second sleeve” I’d actually created another set of directions, so both sleeves took until row 165. Was very happy ‘cus I was beginning to think this thing would never be done. Although, it’s only been a week and a half since I was given the yarn and pattern and I’ve finished the back, both fronts and 1 sleeve. Only got 1 more sleeve, the hood, then joining and some ribbed bands. I’m kinda impressed with me here. (Ok, truth time: it’s not too hard to knit fast when the yarn is chunky. Shhh don’t tell anyone!)

Now I’m going to get my 2nd good night’s sleep in a row. TRANSLATION: I’m going to get into bed, play a few games on my Palm, realize that at least an hour has gone by, decide to read for a bit “just to make me sleepy” and finally close the Palm once my eyes are falling, somewhere around 1:15am like usual.

Oh, and if anyone reading knows of an easy way to add mood indicators to blogger templates, please let me know. I’m trying to find something cute without being obnoxious. I’ve found moodsmilies.com but don’t like the final format that it puts on the site.

First a FO:
I finished the Sweetheart Mittens that will be Yannick’s Valentine’s Day gift. For those who were absent at that time I didn’t give them to him then ‘cus of personal stuff.

The pic’s not the greatest, but you can see them well enough. I’ll probably give them to Yannick this week.

I also realized when going through my inbox that there were some people who came by and left a note or a “hi” or other pleasant comment, and I forgot to reply. So if you’ve stopped by recently and didn’t receive a personal note in the blog from me, I’m very sorry. I sometimes forget to check my email when blogging to acknowledge everyone who comments.

And I also have another sorry to say about the Knit It! contest I ran yesterday. I really didn’t take into account that some FiberRAOKers read the group emails on the digest and that they might not get the digest until after the contest had closed. As it turned out that’s what happened. So I just wanted to apologize for that error on my part, and next time I run a contest I’ll leave it open for a week so the digest readers can play along too. My bad.

Last night I posted on the FiberRAOK group that I had an extra copy of the (spring?) Knit It! magazine. I really need to keep a log of which issues of what I already bought, ‘cus I tend to buy up knitting stuff when I see it.

I asked group members to email me with a number between 1 and 100. I’d already asked Yannick to pick a number and jotted it down. The deadline was this morning when I got ready to leave for class. I have to leave in 20 minutes, so deadline’s up!

These were the guesses:

Marianne picked 18.
Debbie picked 55.
Allena picked 13.
Natalie B picked 73.

The winning number chosen last night before the contest began is:

Please ignore the model. It’s early and he’s cranky.

Congrats to Natalie B! I’ll be stopping at the post office this morning to send it out.

This is really quick ‘cus it’s late, but I did a whole whack on the Duffle Coat today! (BTW, is it only me who thinks it should be Duffel Coat?) Anyways, not only did I finish the left front, but I am 8 rows away from finishing the right front! This means I did almost an entire back today, if you consider that the two front pieces equal about the size of the back, minus the ribbing. :] Now just the sleeves *sigh* and the hood *groan*.

Friday night after work I managed to finish the back of the Duffle Coat. I’m not posting a pic ‘cus it looks just like the pic from Friday morning but with about 6 more rows done. If you can’t figure out what it looks like…should you really be allowed on the internet?

I also started the first of the 2 front pieces. I’m not posting a pic ‘cus it looks just like a skinnier version of the pic from Friday morning. Or a sleeve. I have a feeling I’ll be really bored by the time I get to the sleeves. It’s not even like it’s a raglan style so I can look forwards to the paired slanting decreases as I work my way up. (I really like decreases. Not such a big fan of increases.) Instead it’s a drop shoulder, so I pretty much make up rectangles. Still, I should be starting the 3rd skein today, so that’s good. But then there’s a hood to do. *sigh*

Wednesday night I had started talking to Yannick about getting a knitting machine. I’m never going to give up hand knitting, but I thought if I could get one that could help me knock out big portions of the stuff I make to sell, fast, then I could have the time to, oh, I dunno…maybe actually make something for myself?? He thought it was a great idea and even offered to buy it for me as my birthday present!!!!!! My birthday isn’t until September, but he’s willing to buy it now! We even went to Wal-Mart because I remembered them having one there, but when we got there it was already sold. I didn’t know anything about it other than the fact that it was on clearance for around $99 CAD.

When I got home that night I spent a while online putting together a word doc of all the stuff I could find reviewing different machines, what they could do, etc… I read through it at work on Thursday and was REALLY disappointed. The reviews made it seem like there really wasn’t much you could do with them, plus they all showed prices of $400-$1000 CAD- MUCH more than I’d given Yannick as an estimate! I decided that a knitting machine probably wasn’t in my future.

When I got home that night I remembered reading about the Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine in a knitting mag. None of the reviews or emails I got after posting questions on knitlist, knittingnovices, knittinginCanada or FiberRAOK really mentioned the USM, other than about 2 positive reviews, and 1 absolutely negative one. I decided to do a search on that as a last resort and found some good info, plus a woman (Amanda) on a knitter’s forum who was looking to sell hers. I took a shot ‘cus the message was only posted a few days previous and emailed her that I might be interested in buying it. She got back to me the same night and YAY it hadn’t been sold. She told me she’d put together some pics and a price and get back to me by Sunday night.

Yannick seemed pretty interested in it too. He wants me to get one so I can actually have some free time to spend with him where I’m not knitting. :}

Friday night we had a nice supper together. Ever since we moved in together we had a funny looking thing in the kitchen. I never knew what it was even though it had recipes written all over the top. He tried explaining it to me but I didn’t get it. Well when we were up north at his parents’ place the last time, we had it for supper. No, not the machine…we used it to make supper. It’s called a Raquelette and it works in the same style as a fondu pot where everyone makes their own food. It kinda looks like a round broiler with that’s open all the way around, and there are 6 or 8 little triangular trays that fit in it. So you put what you want in your tray and then put it in the machine so it sits under the broiler, then wait for your food to be ready. You can put in stuff like sliced potatoes, baby gherkins, baby onions, cheese, dried meats like pancetta or bacon, maybe some salami, etc…or you can whip up some eggs with milk or cream and make a little omelet. The one Yannick’s parents have also has a grill plate on the top, so while you’re cooking inside you can also cook on top, so we also had shrimps, scallops, sausages, beef, chicken and veal with it. Ours just has the inside part. Anyways, I’d set it up on the marble coffee table in our living room, and gave each of us a little plate with all the stuff you could put in, and we watched tv and had supper, and then after cuddled on the couch and watched more tv. The meal takes about an hour ‘cus you’re waiting for your stuff to cook, so it was a nice way to unwind after a long week.

Plus I was excited ‘cus Yannick worked for me on Saturday so I could go to the Suzanne Atkinson workshop with the Montreal Knitting Guild! :] Oh, and he was nice enough to stop by The Wool Shop (my LYS) on his way home from work to pick up the yarn I’d forgotten to buy for tomorrow’s classes. What a doll!

I was going to post a little blurb about Suzanne here but when I went to my January newsletter that has it I realized that I’d cut it out because it was on the back of the registration form for the workshop. Suffice it to say she’s really talented, and really nice.

Oh, I also found out that one of the MKG members, Ruby, reads my blog! Yay! *waving* Hi Ruby! 🙂

The workshop was fun. The morning was spent doing lace. Our project was supposed to be a mini shawl with a border. After learning an eyelet cast on that I admit was a pain to learn but comes out kinda cool, you work up to row 34 of the chart we were given, then do a couple of garter rows and put it on a holder. That’s when you work a border around the shawl to learn how to short row the corners to make a nice turn. I’m glad to have the instructions but didn’t want to start doing the border so I bound off after finishing the garter rows. Voila:

What looks like a row of eyelets then a row or two of single crochet then another row of eyelets at the bottom before the garter rows is actually the whole eyelet cast on row. You make that caterpillar-looking thing like a long piece of i-cord’s bastard cousin, then turn it on it’s side and pick up your sts in one side of the eyelets, leaving the other side to make a nice decoration (or to work the edging in later).

The afternoon was spent on cables, and Suzanne gave out a gorgeous pattern for a cabled seaman’s scarf. It has an exquisite cable, then a section of ribbing to hug the neck, then the cable on the other side. It’s also done really smart because you do a provisional cast on, work 1 side’s cables to the moss stitch border, then pick up from your cast on and work the ribbing then the other side’s cables. That way both cable sections are knit in the same direction and end with a bind off, so they match. Tres cool. It’s not reversible for those who prefer that in their scarves, but it is simply gorgeous! Once I saw it I was so glad I’d picked a color for the yarn that I like for me and bought enough to make the whole thing, ‘cus I can’t wait to finish this for myself! (Ok, with all the projects I have going on it won’t be until next winter, but that’s not the point).

I did about half the cable then spent a bit of time talking to Norma about the pros and cons of a knitting machine. She left me feeling very positive about getting one, and very eager to get home and see if Amanda had emailed me a price yet! (She hadn’t). Here’s what I have on the cables so far:

I’d also like to say thanks to Annette, Angie, Cynthia and Ruby for squeezing me in on the end of their table when I got there a few minutes late and couldn’t find a seat. I had a good time at the workshop, and a big part of that was the company. 🙂 Plus it’s fun looking up every few seconds and seeing how many more inches!! Annette would have done.

Even though my fingers were killing me by the time I got home, I did still use the free time I had to knit up about 20 rows on the Duffle Coat Left Front. That was all I had time for before leaving with Yannick to meet Julie and Richard and Howard for dinner at New Kam Shing. A very yummy dinner was had by all with lots of leftovers for me to go eat today for lunch. Then we all (minus Howard) came back here and played a fun bunch of rounds of poker. After a $2.50 initial cash-in and chips worth $0.10 each, I came out the big winner with not only all $10.00, but also an additional $1 that Yannick used to buy some chips off me. :]

Now off to have lunch then knitknitknit all day. We were supposed to have Yannick’s family’s Family Hockey Game today, on skates!!! I was going to watch the kids, ‘cus really, me on skates? Please. Give me an opportunity to hurt myself and I will. Don’t put me on skates. But since Yannick has to work today and technically so do I (Duffle Coat) we are only going to go to meet them all later at Le Cage Aux Sports (sports-themed restaurant) for dinner. What? I get to avoid skating, knit all day, AND go out for a nice dinner? SCORE! No sports-related pun intended of course. 😉

Shoot I wanted to leave a longer post but my dad just called and said “Leave now!” which means he’s already in his car on his way to work, and I’d better get moving too.

Sorry no post the last few nights, Wed night went on a “date” with Yannick and even though I did some knitting before, only got home late and too tired to post.

Last night stayed up knitting until around midnight, then talked to Yannick a bit about an Ultimate Sweater Machine we might be buying. I’ll get more into that tonight, for now here’s a pic of where I’m at with the Duffle Coat. I’ve already started binding off for the shoulder shapings, and have only a few more rows to go to finish the back. I’m also in the middle of the second skein. The thing is over 17″ long so far.

Today started well. My dad was running a bit late so I got to sleep in. This hasn’t happened much lately so I covet the few times it happens!

Work seemed to fly by, probably because I knew I had a fun event tonight.

Tonight was the March meeting of the Montreal Knitting Guild. I always enjoy the meetings, but was really looking forwards to tonight in particular because 2 of my friends from my knitting class at the LYS were coming to see how they liked it. It was their first meeting, and I hope they liked it enough to join.

I got asked to take on a few things at the meeting, so I might end up handling the website in the future. The person doing it now wants to stop after this year, so I might do it in the future. I was also asked to help with the computer aspect of advertising for an upcoming exposition that we’ll be having.

I did a little bit of knitting while there, now the Duffle Coat looks like this:

I had my knitting class at the LYS this morning. Well- I thought I did, until I got there and it turned out only Suzanne and I were there. I knew Kim was no longer in the class, but Jacqueline and Mia should have been there I think.

Oh, if you’re reading this, hi Suzanne!

I’m very happy, Suzanne and Kim are coming to the Montreal Knitting Guild meeting tomorrow. My evil plan is to slowly but surely bring in tons of new young knitters. Then we’ll take over the world! (Think Pinky & the Brain style mayhem).

I discussed my gauge problems with Nicole, my knitting teacher. She gave me some ideas on how to make it work, so when I got home I called the pet accessories store and let them know I’d be able to get the yarn on Thursday. This gives me both a possible solution and some time to work on the Duffle Coat in the meantime.

Speaking of which….

It’s not that easy to knit when you don’t like what you’re making. I know this was something I risked when letting myself be a KFH (knitter for hire). And there’s nothing really wrong with the pattern, it’s from Sirdar but I’ve already figured out their unique way of writing things out, plus I always go through the patterns when I enter them in my Palm so that was fine. It’s just the yarn…which is nice and soft and thick…but doesn’t quite work with the pattern. The coat is thick, probably not something I’d ever make by choice but just ‘cus it seems too bulky for my taste. I think my problem with it is that the coat has panels of stockinette and cables, but the yarn is a thick blue and white twist, which, once knitted up, becomes too busy for the pattern.

Here’s a pic so far (although I’ll still be knitting through CSI: Miami tonight so I’ll have more finished by bedtime):

I know the pic is busy, but I left the bag in the shot so you can see the yarn in the skein. You can see how you can barely see the panels through the marled color. I think that’s what’s bugging me most. It might as well be all stockinette for all the detail that shows.

Here’s a closeup, for as much as its worth:

Even with the closeup, you still almost need to be told there is a cable there to see it.

Well, it really doesn’t matter if I like it. All that matters is that the granddaughter of the woman I’m knitting it for likes it. She’s who I need to please. I’m just glad it’s an easy 4 row repeat.

I did a bit of work this afternoon on Spoilt Rotten, after completely giving up on the CCA. I didn’t do much, just about 3″. I need to get to 3.75″ on the ribbing before I continue.

That’s all I have though ‘cus we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Now I’m back home and ready for bed after checking over 100 emails. Man the knitting groups are prolific!

Oh, and the addi turbo I’m using to knit the above is currently on the floor under a few phone books after sitting in boiling water (not the joins) ‘cus the curl was driving me nuts! It kept flipping into me or twisting around my hands. It’s the only addi I have that does this. If the curl doesn’t come out after being “blocked” over night, I’m bringing it with me to my LYS tomorrow to see if I can exchange it.