Sunday, July 27, 2008

Ah, children

It's been another busy weekend! Appart from the now requisit time in the lab, my sort-of-step-daughter Katie (long story) came over for a sleepover. Fun was had by all.



First thing on Saturday we (just me and Katie, Andre's stuck at work for weekends for the rest of the summer) went to see the new Pixar movie Wall-E. Oh my goodness, what an awesome sweet makes you want to melt movie!!! It makes you just want to take the little trash-compacting robot and all his friends home and cuddle them all! Litterally half the movie was spent going "awwwwww", or giggling at the antics. It really was a great movie, not as much of a laugh out loud funny like most of Pixar's previous offerings, but much more heart warming.

After the movie was dinner with Andre and a trip to the store via the park for some treats. Followed promptly by a bath. Seriously, kid, swing, flipflops, its been raining all week. Big time messy! The morning's been pretty lazy, french toast breakfast, and now she's kicking MarioKart behinds on our Wii. It'll be off back to Grammie's in an hour or so as I head out to a baby shower.


The trouble with knitting for kids is that they grow out of things so darned fast!!! 2 Christmas' ago I knit her a big coat-like sweatery thing. It was my first attempt at taking a pattern (from one of my ubiquitous magazines), and trying to make it out of completely different yarn. Basically I was only using the pattern to make sure that I got all the pieces the right size, the guage was SO different. It wasn't even like I could just cast on a larger or smaller size, things would have been all wrong. Between a multitude of moves (4 I think, but I might have missed one, we haven't moved, but she and her mom do) and gaining several inches, she's still got it, and it almost still fits. She definately can't pull it on over a winter outfit to keep cosy, but as something to throw on over shorts and a t-shirt to ward off the chill of the theater (why are they always so darned cold???).







Katie in her Jen knit sweater. And yes, her t-shirt says "Parents for sale, buy 1 get 1 free".



Something about that cat of ours... seems to worm his way into every shoot. We do love him so.

I always have fun knittng for Katie since she's young (8 and a HALF, can't forget the half) and is still into bright colours and fun patterns. Give her 5 years, then she'll be too cool for us, but until then, I'll knit her cute things. Appart from something I made for her as a thank you for being the FloweRing Girl for our wedding (the name was coined by Andre in a moment of brilliance since she carried a bouquet and our rings for us) that I'll post once we've given it to her, she wants a pair of socks. (And slippers and mittens and hat and scarf..) Well, ask and you shall receive, and as luck would have it, I have just the thing!

A local craft store went out of business just after Christmas, and had all of they yarns for 50 cents to $2 a ball. Oh, the money I spent. I picked up some pink/purple/white self striping sock yarn for just such a request. I'm still on the hunt for a really good kids knee-high sock pattern but I'm sure I'll find something.

But first... must... finish... baby... blanket...
(Insert shoulder-devil) But socks!!! New fun pattern!!!
(Insert conscience kicking shoulder-angel here). Right then, back to blanket. *sigh*

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Wine and Babies

Andre and I got to do one of our favourite things on Tuesday morning. Despite the title, it was not trying to make babies. We got to bottle wine! We've been brewing our own wine for years now. This is the first time we've had a chance to make wine since brewing our wedding wine a year and a half ago. We bottled the long time favourite patio wine - a sweet Rasberry Merlot, and a new Reisling. I can't wait to try them! (Ok, so we tried them as we bottled, and I know it was 10am, but it's 5 o'clock somewhere right?)

After bottling I was reminded that 2 of our close friends are having babies in the IMMEDIATE future (end of August and middle of September). In fact one shower is this weekend, and the other passed while we were away on our mini-honeymoon. Generally, when I pick up a baby pattern to knit I knit one boy, one girl, one gender safe. That way I always have something incase of surprise showers or other projects preventing new knitting.

So, friend #1 doesn't know if she's having a boy or a girl (and doesn't want to know, but she's carrying so high, my money is on boy), and thus gender safe colours are needed. The evening after bottling wine I started (yes she leaves work on Aug 1st for mat-leave, I have till then) a green/white blanket. It's a pattern I pulled off the internet (here). Again copyright, so I'm not going to post the pattern, but I'll show it off once I'm done. It is, however, becoming a huge hit with friends, so I suspect that I'll be making many more in the future (and the patter is so easy and SOOO pretty!).

Friend #2 is having her shower this weekend. She's having a boy named Taden (I think that's how she's spelling it...). Fortunately, due to a rash of baby girls from friends in the past year or so, I have both a complete jacket/bootie/cap set and a cotton blanket for a boy that no-one has laid claim to yet. I just need to wrap them up, and pass on the love! I'm still working on my own patterns, both are from a page-a-day knitting calender that my sister gets for me every christmas. So no patterns, but pictures for sure! (For those that really love it, the blanket is a mitred corner dish cloth, just bigger-any blanket pattern that starts with CO3 is awesome with me!)




Baby blue cap, booties, and jacket!


Mitred corner raw cotton blanket!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Sea of No Cares

What a busy weekend! (Ok a few weeks ago, but busy since too!)

My wonderful in-laws got me and Andre tickets to see Great Big Sea at the local BluesFest (they, the in-laws, came too)! They (GBS) have got to be the bestest best live show ever!! (Ok, I've heard the Garth Brooks puts on one hell of a show, but I've never seen it *glares at Andre who HAS!*). The fantastic music, awesome crowd, and undescribably perfect show, it is still easy to pick out the two most perfect moments of the night.

One: At the start of the show GBS opened withmy favouritest song by them: Consequence Free. The sun had finally set, and the sky was just getting dark. The stages are set out in a generally unused field at the west end of downtown, and for the whole song the bright spot lights from the stage were hitting all of these crazy fireflies that were wondering where all these poeple came from. It was almost as good as Canada Day fireworks!

Two: Andre and I (trying) to dance in front of our seats to an amazing acoustic version Sea of No Cares. Married life is good. It might only be improved if Andre could actually sing. I love him anyway, cause I can't either.

Eight hours after returning to my bed, I was not only up, but out at the country's largest beach volleyball fest -HOPE. I got lucky this year, and there was space on a team that a friend on mine plays on. In all, music-not nearly as good as the night before, but the rest of the day was amazing! We went 4-1, losing only our first game as we learned how we played together.
Back to knitting. I'm always looking for something to do with my hands that lets me stay social, hence my obsession with knitting. When at home watching TV there are no worries about carrying everything I need around with me. Afgan? No problem! Crazy chart to follow? Not worried. When visiting friends and family, the project get smaller and simpler. Crazy chart, not so much. Sweater pieces? Absolutely. Shall? Baby stuff? Perfect. But what do you take out to a music festival or beach vollyball tournament?

It must be small, portable, simple, easy to pick up and drop at a moments notice. For once the challange of a complex pattern would be a nightmare. Simple is your friend. My variation on simple is a crochet granny-square throw that I've been working for lord knows how many years. Simple, fast, fun, EASY.

Basically the pattern is a whole whack of 2x2 inch squares of assorted colours, arranged and stitched into appropriate pattern. This particular pattern was the first crochetting project I undertook. Surprise! I'm not done. It's from a Leasure Arts Little Book of patterns that I picked up at the local bigbox store. Along with all the acrylic yarn to go with. So I can't actually give you the pattern (copyright and all), but I've posted some shots of where I am, after years of toil.
In all, between the Great Big Sea concert and my day at HOPE I got about 30 new navy blue squares to add to my bag of bits to attach. Eventually it will be done. Really.

Granny Patch Blanket, so far:


It will eventually be 4 3x3 blue squares across by 5 long. Once its all together, I'll edge the whole thing with another round of navy blue squares. That's the theory anyway.

Ah, Coal. If you ever want to find the cat, lay something out flat. Turn away for 30 seconds. By the time you look back, there he is!





Friday, July 11, 2008

There, see? I finally did it.

It seems that major changes in life lead to more changes and crazy new ideas. In the past 3 months I've passed my PhD entrance exam and gotten married. Now with all the extra time on my hands (since the planning and prep for both events had taken over my LIFE) I thought I'd start a blog.

For any and all that don't know me, I've been described in a variety of ways (not all kind, but it's my blog, so only the good here), including as the lab "google", and as a "rabid" knitter. It's true, my two passions in life are (apart from my darling husband and fantastic career as a science student) trivia and knitting. And when at all possible I combine any and all of the above (yes, my profs will tell you that I knit in class, and there is nothing better than a nice evening at home, drinking wine and sitting, knitting next to the hubby while we watch Jeopardy).

So, I'm starting a knitting blog. In fact, I was even going to call it "The Rabid Knitter", but believe it or not it was already taken! So the wonderful hubby of mine suggested cashing in on the "Whisperer" craze. Really, first it was the Horse Whisperer (movie), now on the National Geograohic Chanel is the Dog Whisperer (TV show).... Nothing is safe, Andre's favourite pasttime is sitting catching up on this week's episode of "The Wood Whisperer" (podcasts)!

In the time to follow I'll dig out and show off the projects I've started (some, there are way too many to post them all), some of the things I'd like to do, exclaim loudly if I ever manage to finish anything, and maybe, just maybe, if I'm brave enough, post a pattern or two of my own. In time I'll share other antics, like my soon to be attempted foray into the world of spinning. Once Andre builds me my spinning wheel. I may even confess to the occational crochetting adventure.

Any now, ladies and gentleman (cause really, the only guy I expect will be reading this for a long while is Andre, but please, let me know if I'm wrong), with this post I give you the birth of

THE WOOL WHISPERER