Another New Years Tradition

New Years day at our place has been the same for years.  Wake up whenever we feel like it, have Irish cream in our coffees, start a fire, and kick back to watch whatever marathon is on that we are interested in.  It is a day for just us to do absolutely nothing, and do it together.

This year was no exception.  Toasty fire, tasty champagne, and 9 hours of Pawn Stars and 3 hours of Museum Secrets.  Amazing.

It seems though, that another tradition is springing up around this time.  Since I'm going to have hours and hours of knitting time, I've taken to going yarn shopping a day or so before New Years, lest I run out of things to knit.  Stop laughing André.  Just because there is wool in the house does not mean that it is the right wool for the job at hand.  Unless you want your new hat to be knit out of recycled silk.  Didn't think so.

This year, the tasks at hand are 2 baby outfits and a new hat for André.  One baby outfit I've got the yarn for, so we're good there (see André, stash is useful, otherwise I would have had to spend more money).  And so, chaperoned by the darling hubby, I came home on Monday afternoon with this:

That's a whole pile of Cascade Yarns Cherub and more Cascade sport.  It's not all in the picture, seeing as the second I walked in the door I promptly cast on one of the projects.  The sport is going to be a new hat for André... apparently the one I knit for him last year isn't quite right.  The Cherub on the other hand is going to be the ARRR! Baby Set from Knit.1 Winter 06/07.

Multiples of hours of knitting later:

Front and back done.  Now on to sleeves and pants!  Although I bought WAY too much yarn... maybe a hat to go with?  We'll see. 

Stealth Stockings

After the adventure of knitting a lace shawl in two months, I realized that Christmas was only a month away.  And I had plans for knit Christmas gifts! 

The original plan looked something like this:
- Socks for Amy
- Socks for dear friend
- Baby jacket for Goddaughter
- Baby outfit for friend of André's (baby due in January)
- Maybe socks for second sister
- Baby outfit for Aunt of Goddaughter who is expecting in March

Right. 

What actually happened by Christmas:
- Socks for Amy - Check!
- Socks for dear friend for my father.  Yes, singular
- Baby jacket for Goddaughter - pattern and yarn picked. 
- Baby outfit for friend of André's (baby due in January) - pattern picked, yarn I think will need buying.
- Maybe socks for second sister - her birthday is in March... store bought gift for Christmas
- Baby outfit for Aunt of Goddaughter who is expecting in March - um... right. 

So I give you what I got done, and hopefully I can work on the rest of the list over new years. 

First, socks for Amy.  Way back in February I went down to visit my darling sister, and picked up two beautiful yarns which were to be converted into knitwear for her.  The first became wrist warmers.  Just.

The second was a gorgeous sock pair from Turtle Purl in Gothic Plum, destined to be a second pair of wrist warmers.  Which apparently I was going to design from scratch, and because I didn't know how long the yarn would go, I wanted to knit from the fingers down. 

Or Amy could ask for socks while we were visiting her in Toronto a few weeks ago.  So socks it was!

They are in fact Chimaera from Knitty.  Toe up, which was essential - Amy is quite tall, and I wanted to get every inch I could without having to pull back and rip out the leg to have enough for the toes.  Although, having the balls pre-divided was probably the smartest thing I have ever heard of!


Added benefit (and the reason that Turtle Purl is my current knitting HERO) - the balls are dyed to match each other exactly.  Start in the same spot and you get identical socks.  No kidding.  These are my first pair of identical socks from self striping yarn!

I wasn't sure how the slipped stitch pattern would look over the leg and foot in the self striping yarn, but the longer I knit, the more I LOVED it.  Also, the gusset detail?  Amazing!

Super amazingly happy with these, and Amy loves them too. 


These socks went so fast, I thought for sure I would have time to knit another pair.  Especially after talking to my other sister Alison and finding out that apparently socks would be a good gift for my father.  Although I think his wife meant store bought ones, but oh well.

A quick peak in the stash revealed a denim coloured self striping ball perfect for simple ribbed socks for Dad.  

Suffice to say, Christmas Eve came around and here's what I had completed...

Update: by the end of Christmas Eve I had the gusset finished. Christmas morning saw the heal turned.  But by the time it came to go to my Father's for Christmas lunch, there was only one sock wrapped up. 

More on that story later. 

In the mean time, I'm tossing the stash for baby outfit yarns.  One picked, another might warrant a trip out in the cold.  We'll see. 

Merry Christmas dear blog, and we'll see you in the New Year!

Crazy Pi? Yes Please!

I've been working at a retail job for just over two years.  When university ends, life must go on and that means that bills must be paid.  I got really really lucky with this job, and landed in a place where the work is fun and interesting, and the gang of people around me are some of the best.  Both at their jobs, and as people to hang out with for 8 hours a day.

Every year the store has, what I'm told, are epic Christmas parties.  And up to this year I hadn't gone to any of them.

I'm not much of one for office parties to start with - it's that fine balancing act of hanging out with people from work in a social setting all the while trying desperately to come up with something to talk about that isn't work.  Add to the mix that these Christmas parties are semi-formal-ish - guys in suits and ladies in dresses (or suits), and I'm way out of my comfort level.  Heck, I only own two dresses (and one of them I'm not ever likely to wear again, being my wedding dress and all), and it's only by a miracle that I haven't broken an ankle in the few times I've worn high heals.

So my first year I didn't go.  I'd only been there two months, didn't really know the gang, and wasn't sure how much longer I'd be around (because I still foolishly thought I could get somewhere with my grad degree). The next year, I thought about going, but we had a curling Christmas party the same night, and I really like those guys.

This year though, apparently I had no choice.  One of the guys even bought me a ticket to make sure I went.

Now, the dress that I would be wearing is sleeveless.  And the party is in December.  And since I'm not much of a dancer, I was expecting to get cold.  I do have a pashmina wrap in the perfect colour to match the dress, but I figured that if I was going get kidnapped asked to go to this party, I might as well take this as a chance to do something that I've been meaning to do for a long time.

I was going to knit myself a black lace shawl.

I've wanted one since my high school prom.  So much classier than the typical matching-fabric-wraps that come with most dresses.  And the vintage look is something that I love.

The party was set for December 1st.  I was informed that I was attending October 2nd.  Two months to knit a lace shawl?  No problem!

Do I sound crazy yet?

October 3rd I came home with Dropps lace silk/alpaca blend from Wool Thyme in a beautiful shiny black.  Even Andre got into the game.  I turn around for two minutes and look what happens:

He's too good to me!

After poking around for a while I settled on a tribute to Elizabeth Zimmermann with the EZ 100th Anniversary PI Shawl: Camping.

This pattern was super easy to follow, and fun to knit (once I got a few rounds in and stopped dropping my needles).  And for the first few weeks I thought I was going to make it with piles of time to spare.

Note to self, when a shawl pattern starts with CO9 and and ends with BO867, it's going to slow down each time you double the stitches.  As pretty as it is, I was about ready to strangle myself with the yarn while working through the vines. 

Thankfully, Andre and I had planned a week in Toronto in early November, and while I didn't get much knitting time while we were there, there was still the train ride out and home to put serious length on this thing.

And on November 27th, there it lay on the bed with a couple hundred pins in it, blocking away happily to itself. With two whole days to spare!

I made a few small changes to the pattern.  Firstly I used true lace weight yarn rather than the fingering weight called for.  The biggest difference (other than the damage to my eyesight from trying to see lace knitting in black yarn on a train at night) is that it came out about 4' across rather than the 5' + indicated by the pattern.  Which worked out really nicely because it hangs perfectly to my elbows and stays out of the way when I'm sitting down.

Change #2 - the spiral wheel was written to be entirely done with ssk.  Not my favourite thing to do, especially since it takes longer per stitch than K2tog.  So I reversed the pattern, K2tog-ing happily around and now the spirals twist the opposite direction.

And while I do love the rounded edges in the original pattern, I was a little bit pressed for time, so I left the edging with points rather than scrounging another several hundred pins.  You know what?  I love it.

So two days latter, off I toddled in my high heals, dress, and shawl to the Christmas party, and had fantastic time.  Turns out most of my worries of work place Christmas parties were unfounded.  My department and my store are both packed with awesome fun loving people, and we had a blast.

Now to figure out what to knit to wear next year...

A Little Fruity, A Little Loopy

Fall has always been like New Years for me.  It's back to school time, and while I haven't been heading back for 2 years now, it still seems like the time of year for fresh starts.  Especially for knitting! 

Summer's had a few last kicks at the can, and the last few days have been warm and sunny, but there have also been a few where the temperature has dipped, and the chill in the air makes me want to reach for wooly warm-ness.

About this time last year I was stash diving and pulled out some brightly coloured clearance sock yarn that I'd picked up I don't remember where (Micheal's I think) or when (Boxing Day sale a few years ago maybe?).  The colour way was Crayon, and it sure lived up to its name.  I wanted a small project that I could carry around that would be easy to just pick up whenever I found a few spare minutes - so onto the needles it went to become just plain old socks. 

Cute eh? And yes, the are fraternal sock-mates.  I don't have the patience to try and get self striping sock yarn to make identical twins. 

Knitting away in the lunch room at work, one of the other ladies was just enthralled with the colours.  Obsessed even.  Like the yarn, she's beautiful with a bright sunny outlook on everything.  I didn't really have a plan for the socks once they were done, other than to toss them in the last-minute-gift box.  And they suited her so perfectly.  And coincidentally they were even in her size. 

So as soon as they were finished they landed quietly on her desk carefully wrapped with a care instructions sticker (horray for machine washable yarns!).  Imagine the hug that I got when she came back in from her break!  And she even offered to pay for them.  Silly sunshine :)

Fast forward to August and she stops by my desk one morning.  She loves her socks and was super grateful for them that particular morning with the threats of early fall frost.  Turns out, that her daughter loves her socks too, and keeps stealing them... And would I mind knitting another pair if she dropped off some yarn?  Said daughter's birthday was in a month, and she'd just love her own pair.  Only if it wouldn't been any trouble, and only if I had time. 

Now, free yarn to knit socks with and a whole month to do it? Yeah man!  Never mind that I could never say no to sunshine. 

A few days later a ball of bright pink yarn appeared on my desk.  While I had originally been thinking that these socks were going to be plain socks from self striping yarn like the previous, this yarn was more painted looking.  Mostly pink with shots of purple and green.  The second I saw it, I knew.  This yarn wasn't going to be plain old boring socks.  It was the absolute PERFECT colour way for Fruit Loop from knitty. 

And look how awesome they turned out!

While shopping for goodie bag stuff for a baby shower a while back, I discovered that the local dollar store had the most perfect sock gift bags.  Brightly coloured and three for a buck.  And available in pink.  So off these little treasures were packed, and dropped off with sunshine almost a week before my deadline. 

I love seeing finished projects, and I admit to oogling these fellas for about 5 minutes.  Then the empty needles beckoned me back. 

Here's how I spent my weekend evenings.  That's sock number one of SlipStream, also from Knitty knit with Lorna's Laces in a colour way I'll have to find the tag to identify.  Size medium. 

I love fall!

Wheels, but not the spinning kind

I'm up a little early this Sunday morning.  Something exciting is about to happen. 

Today, I am driving myself to work.

No, it's not the actual driving itself that's got me awake without excessive caffination, it's the what I'll be driving.

Friday morning, after weeks of searching, I picked up this:

My very own car.

Think I look a wee bit excited?  Naw... flipping ecstatic might be a better way to put it.

For a long time, we didn't have a car at all.  Then 5 years ago we got a truck.  It was a short lease, and the price was right.  But the freedom! 

Then we bought the next truck.  And then André opened his business.  So much for me getting to drive much.  And once I started working retail again, it was either walk, take the bus (more expensive, and since I'd have to transfer or walk half the distance anyway, I just walked), or hope that André could give me a ride.  And errands like groceries took forever or got delayed because he'd be late at work. 

Let me tell you, André is not a morning person.  Days like today wouldn't be too bad, but 5.30 AM is not a time that he's terribly pleased to be awake, let alone be in the process of heading home having already dropped me off.

Today however, I'm going to go and get my work stuff on, grab my lunch and my keys and drive myself in.  And still leave André the truck for his work this afternoon.

Who knows, I might even go yarn shopping this afternoon.  Just because I can.

Top 30 - Take 2

They say 30 is the new 20, a time when one must figure out what is going on in life - who they are, where they're going, and how on earth they are going to get there.  Forget the mid-life crisis, the younger generations are partaking in the growing trend of the quarter-life crisis.  We are young, energetic, educated, and full of the promises of our childhood - work hard and you can be anything you want to be.

Well, I'm still not an astronaut, but that's probably more to do with my lack of interest in being spun in a centrifuge at 6G, or being locked up in a space station not much larger than a few school buses for months on end, or moving to Huston to join NASA/CSA (ugh summer all year long), than a lack of ability to try.

But that was my 10 year old self watching Star Trek with my parents and reading books on the solar system day dreaming about how cool it would be to visit other planets like Pluto.  Childhood dream crusher #2, Pluto's not even a planet any more!

Fast forward another 10 years, and me at 20 had everything all figured out.  By 30 I would have the following things: husband, house, car, PhD, career in teaching, and our very own addition to the family on the way (if not already arrived).

Well, I've got some of those things off the list - husband and house, check.  The house could use some work, and we could really really use more space (at least a garage), but they are there.  Car?  Sort of... we've got a truck, but it's André's really, he needs it for work.  The train wreck that was my career?  Yeah, still not ready to talk about that one, but suffice to say, it's unlikely that I'll ever wind up teaching.  And the family?  Again, now that I'm at the age where I had originally thought that I would like to have kids, in truth I'm enjoying my life on my own too much to want to settle down and raise a family.  I've still got a couple of years to figure that out right?

In the mean time, I've been thinking.  I've done some pretty cool things in 30 years of life, but there are a pile more things that I would still like to do.  So, in honour of my quarter-life crisis, and still trying to figure everything out, I give you Top 30 - Take 2 - 30 things that I will do in the next 30 years (or so).

1. Go north again - this time in the winter, and see the Northern Lights above the Arctic Circle.  Nunavut again would be nice, but there are 2 other territories I haven't been to yet!  Speaking of which, I'm going to cross the rest of those provinces and territories off my traveling list.  And revisit some of the others, this time with André in tow.
2. Go back to Newfoundland.  Yes, it sounds like a repeat of #1, but this time we go for like a month and tour the place properly.  And take our time doing it.  Maybe with an RV.  
3. I'm going to venture out into the world at large.  There's not many places outside of Canada that I'd like to visit but there are a few.  Alaska, New Orleans, Australia and New Zealand (more sheep than people!).  First though, I'm going to need a passport...
4. We are going to design and build a new home.  Maybe not the next one, but there will be one.  From brain to paper to blueprint to land to house.  All of it by ourselves.  Although by "by ourselves" I don't mean that I am going to dig the foundation myself.  More that after designing the foundation I am going to point at the ground and a guy with some seriously heavy equipment will make the hole happen the way I said it should. 
5. In the mean time, I am going to flip a house.  Buy it, reno it, and sell it for profit.  Sounds easy eh?  Wish me luck. 
6. Thinking about buying a rental/investment property too.  The more likely scenario would be buying us a bigger place and just renting out the place we're in now.  I'm cool with that. 
7. One day I'm going to quit working retail and work with André full time.  There is a plan. 
8. And with all the spare time that's going to give me I'm going to learn how to use a lathe properly.  
9. And then I'm going to turn my own knitting needles.  
10. With the rest of the spare time, I'm going to buy some alpacas and board them with my sister's herd (which she doesn't have yet, but again, there is a plan!). 
11. I am going to learn how to sheer a sheep.  Then maybe I'll tackle an alpaca. 
12. Which of course means that I need to learn to spin.  I've got a working wheel and everything... I just can't piece together the time (see #7).
13. I am going to design a knitting pattern for my own hand-spun yarn.  And then publish it. 
14. I am going to combine points 8-13 and go back-to-back.  Off the fuzzy back of my alpaca (or sheep) in the spring, and on to my own for the fall.
15. On the topic of one to another, I'd like to go from tree to furniture.  Chain saws and I get along well, and it would be really cool to have furniture that I build from a tree that I felled. 
16. While I'm making things, I'm going to make a quilt.  I haven't sewn in years, but it's something I've wanted to do since I was a kid and watched my mom made quilts. 
17. I am going to quit smoking. 
18. Which is hopefully going to help me be the best curler I can be.  I am going to get better, and I really want to be some sort of good.  I would love to play on an A team, even for one season, and not feel like a liability to them. 
19. I am going to the Brier Men's Championship.  Seen the Scotties, but I'm more of a men's curling fan.  (Although this list did once include taking an "I [heart] Hart" sign.  But since Richard Hart formerly of Team Howard has retired from competitive curling, I'll just have to come up with something else suitably witty).
20. On the same lines as quitting smoking and curling, I'd like to take up the bagpipes.  Might have to have a house with no direct neighbours before I actually start that one though.  
21. I'm going to get a dog.  Big dog like a retriever or lab or Sheppard. 
22. I am going to write the Mensa test.  But I'm not going to tell anybody that I'm doing it until it's done.  Too much pressure.  Hell, I might have even done it already ;)
23. Speaking of writing things, I am going to write a book.  Getting it published would be amazing, but I think I'll be happy that I did the writing. 
24. I'm going to put even more effort into this blog.  One day I am going to get comments (hint hint).  Then another even more distant day I'm going to get a comment from someone famous in the knitting world.  Actually, I'll start with even just one comment from someone that I don't already know.  Writing a blog is a lot more work that I thought it would be, any my admiration for those that have hugely amazingly successful blogs grows every day. 
25. More blogging means that I'm going to need to knit more to keep the blog fed.  See also points 8 - 14.
26. I am going to get my yarn stash under control.  I would like to have a stash where I know where everything is so there are no more cases of me turning entire rooms upside down looking for that ball of sock yarn that I swear was there just last week.  And I need to loose some of the dead weight yarn - the stuff that was bought at garage sales for $2 for the whole box.  I was young and desperate.  Stop laughing André or I will post pictures of your shop.  
27. I'm going to get a motorcycle.  A nice touring bike.  Maybe a Harley.  Maybe not.  We'll see.  
28. One day I am going to retire.  Not to say that I'm going to stop working, because André and I are both the type of people that will work until the day we die.  Rather, in the next 30 years I am going to get to a point where I don't have to work if I don't want to or where it doesn't matter what the job pays, rather how much I enjoy doing it. 
29. Before I can retire I have to keep working hard.  Our business is growing, and I have to work harder every week.  But it will be worth it.  One day our business will be large enough that I can have minions employees to do things like payroll and accounting, so that I can get on with the stuff that I really like to do - project managing and problem solving. 
30. Every now and then I'm going to do something completely and solely for me.  Last year I bought a Christmas tree.  We hadn't had one in forever, and André's rather indifferent to them, but dammit I wanted a Christmas tree.  Little things like that.  

I am going to spend the next 30 years crossing things off this list, and I'm going to do it all with André and the rest of my friends and family at my side. Who wants to come along for the ride?

Top 30

Today I have the glorious distinction of leaving my 20's behind.  No longer do I get to consider myself a carefree young adult.  I'm loosing the title of young, leaving me just an adult, with all the rights, responsibilities, and duties that entails.  There's just no more societal safety net of, "she's young! She'll learn". 

While today is my actual birthday, it can be hard to get family and friends together on a Tuesday afternoon following a long weekend.  So instead we partied Sunday night.  And what a party it was!  Friends and family from town, and even some from further out!  Amy came up for a 24 hour Ottawa stop over!!  And a huge crew of my in-laws came down, bringing with them one of the newest additions to our little crew - baby Jaxson.  One of the only babies I know that doesn't freak right out when I'm around.  In fact he laughed when I picked him up.  Of course now my in-laws are reminding me that I'm about to be not young any more and they would kind of like a little grandbaby of their own.  We shall see.


Birthdays, especially milestone birthdays like a new decade, seem to cause an interesting reaction in people.  If they are past that age they'll usually tell you it's not going to be as bad as you think it will, rather that it was really fun, and then regale you with some anecdote of their time at that age.  Or some accomplishment at or around that milestone.  Sometimes it can be intimidating to hear what others had managed by this age. 

It got me thinking.  Could I come up with a list of my most important 30 events and memories from the last 30 years?  True, I haven't sky-dived yet (and probably never will) but I have dog-sledded on Frobisher bay, and that, my friends, was pretty damn cool. 


So, I give you, the Top 30 of Jen's 30.

1.  I have been on or in all three oceans that border our country.  Swimming in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and dog sledded on the Arctic.  It's still frozen in May, so swimming, kind of not possible.
    
2. I have visited 6 provinces (Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, British Colombia, PEI, and Newfoundland) and 1 territory (Nunavut). 
   
   
3. I have seen the Midnight Sun (and been burned by it).
   
   
4. I have hiked the West Coast Trail and looked out and known that there was nothing further west until Asia.  I have stood at Signal Hill and looked out and known that there was nothing further east until Europe. 
   
   
5. I finished high school, got an undergraduate and then a Master's degree.
   
   
6. I have published in peer reviewed scientific journals. 
   
   
7. I have loved and lost, and learned to love again.
   
   
8. I have watched 2 beautiful younger sisters and a sister-in-law go from girls to young women, to adults and make remarkable accomplishments of their own.  And I couldn't be prouder.
   
   
9. I bought a house.  And a truck.  I don't actually own either free and clear yet, but it will happen.  Eventually. 
   
   
10. I have been told that I have inspired someone.
    
    
11. I co-founded a business which is growing almost faster than we can keep up.
    
    
12. I ran an organization with hundreds of volunteers, that reached thousands of kids a year, all to make science fun.
    
    
13. I have been walked on by butterflies.  And one very, very large moth. 
    
    
14. I have laughed so hard that I cried.  And just kept laughing. 
    
    
15. I have been shocked speechless.  And every time it's been because of an act of love. 
    
    
16. I have survived 30 years without breaking a bone in my body.  A dislocated jaw, but no breaks.  Sorry mom, apparently that wasn't enough to wire my 16 year old mouth shut for a month.  I know you were hoping they would.
    
    
17. I learned to curl, and met some of the best friends of my life doing it.
    
    
18. In 30 years, I have never been arrested. 
    
    
19. Although I still get asked for ID when I go out. 
    
    
20. I have learned that I can't sing, dance, or swim.  Not that I don't still do the first two, I just do it where nobody else has to suffer for it.
    
    
21. I learned how to play the flute, oboe, piccolo, and piano. 
    
    
22. I survived Ice Storm 1998.  And Y2K.  And remember them. 
    
    
23. I have skated the entire length of the Ottawa Canal.  And back again.
    
    
24. I fell in love.  I got married.  And every day I wake up next to my best friend and partner in business, life, and love.  And every day I love him more. 
    
    
25. I gained more family that I can shake a stick at when I got married.  And while I thought there were a lot of them 12 years ago, every so often they go and add another one.  And I have seen that family celebrate and love every member. 
    
    
26. I taught myself to knit.
    
    
27. I have been told by an 80 year old man that holding my yarn while I wind a ball makes him feel like a kid again.  How he remembered being 5 years old and doing exactly the same for his mother all those years ago. 
    
    
28. I've heard regret from the family that I didn't have the chance to meet Andre's Nanny.  Apparently we are remarkably alike.  Something to do with knitting all the time.   
    
    
29. I have survived times when I was so tired and broke and hopeless that it was all I could do to just put one foot in front of another.  Times when "one more day" just seemed almost too long.  But I did take one more step, and one more day went by, and then another and another. 
    
    
30. And I now live in a time where I am happy.  Things are not perfect.  Things are still hard.  I still worry.  But it doesn't matter.  I can always take one more step, and I will always get through one more day.

So to all those people out there that I have met over the last 30 years, thanks.  There are a lot of these things on this list that couldn't have happened with out you.