70. Knit a winter hat for J

So, this happened by accident.

It was freezing cold.

FREEZING...

And J's hat looked more like a beret and she really needed something to cover her ears. So I set out to make her a new toque. That covers her ears.

So, I pulled out my knitting supplies (still not unpacked from our move three years ago...) and dug through my stash and found some leftovers. I love this stuff!

I made the Stitch 'n Bitch Valentine's Hat and Mittens of out it.

See the heart? It was much easier to do that I thought it would be. Good thing...


Flaps! I think I must have swatched this...if I hadn't it would have been all wonky.

The hat. With the braid things. Its supposed to have a heart like the one on the glove in the middle of the forehead, but I decided against that.

These were great for a while. I attached an i-cord to the mittens so that I had lots of options for hot hands when I walked home from work.

Yes. This wool has been around since 2004, although these were a 2005 project.

I'm actually tempted to frog these and make something else. I haven't worn the hat much at all and I have barely worn the mittens since I stopped working somewhere easy to walk home from. Oooh, bad sentence ending with a preposition.

I also made this other hat that is probably something I adapted from a couple of patterns. I hate swatching, but this turned out all right and I wear it a lot. I think I made this in 2005, but this is 2006.


And this is the hat I made J. It's a good thing her head is so much smaller than mine or I would have been tempted to steal it and make her another one. I LOVE IT!


She spent the evening after I made it wearing it around the house. I think she may have even worn it to bed.


Of course, now it's too hot for this hat, but at least she has it for when the evil winter we're supposed to get strikes!


This was such a success and so much fun that I have three (non-baby blanket) projects on the go. Two Christmas gifts and one not Christmas gift. Yes Fiona, I'll post them on Ravelry...soon...

Shannon's 2008 knitting

knitting in progress

• baby blanket one (with no designated recipient). Started fall 2007
  
• baby blanket two (for the cub if it's a girl). Started May 2008
  
• baby blanket three (for the cub if it's a boy). Started May 2008
  
• magic scarf for me
  
• a bag without a handle
  

knitting projects completed

• scarf for Bret (finished just in time for New Years...so technically a 2007 project!)
  
• scarf for Kamiah. Started January 2008, completed May 2008
  
• surprise wedding gift for Christy and Rob. Started November 2006, completed May 2008
  

Holy itsy bitsy teeny tiny!

Check out the miniature knitting. Now, I like to knit, but this is crazy. The smaller the needles, the longer it takes...patience!

Whoa...negative grouch...

Yes, that's me I'm referring to.

I deleted what I just wrote, because, wow, who needs to read that...someone obviously isn't having a great day and definitely was focusing on the bad things...good things must have happened to me today. A wise woman once told me that when someone tells her they had a bad day, she figures either everyone they ever loved has died, their house burnt down, they lost their job, they were diagnosed with a terminal illness, their car was towed etc etc etc all in the same day...OR...they just look at one or two bad events or moments and that makes the ENTIRE day bad. Days can be stressful or difficult, but she figured it must be really hard to have an entirely bad day...so...I'm going to look at the grumpy, bad moments as just moments and look for some good moments in today (which is still not over yet because it's just after 3:00!)

• Finding a long, unopened email from Louise in my inbox that somehow I missed when it arrived on Sunday (and I missed it again on Monday and Tuesday...must be blind)...oh well, email from friends are great!
• Hearing the mail come clunking through the mail slot and finding a letter from Kristine
• Getting my T4 (yes, this is a good thing...) and my RRSP receipts...taxes here I come!
• Touching all the pretty wool* in the very expensive wool* shop where I will never be able to shop because I don't have a platinum credit card and a third mortgage on my house, because that's the kind of $$ it takes to shop there. But you can touch the wool* for free.
• The sun's out...
• The curtains are half done...two down, two to go.
• Five days of no work and then back to the grind!!! Well, part time and partly from home to start, but it's a good start!
• MMMM....lunch....salad and tuna and pita and cheese...mmmm....

There we go, lots of good stuff happened today...maybe I'm not so miserable!

*By wool, I really mean yarn because not all of it was wool, but that's okay.

Happy Birthday Twins...

But not the usual twins I write about. The twins who had a party last night are my Dad's cousins, Raymond and Richard, and they're a bit older than "my" twins.


A bunch of us descended on Christopher's place in False Creek to drink wine, inhale Indian food and eat delicious, if funny looking birthday cake...


Ray is a dentist and there were a number of denture jokes to go along with this birthday party...not just the Pac Man cakes with dentures, but at least one card came complete with a denture grin (and without even knowing about the Pac Man cakes!)

The party was also a chance to give the happy travellers a send off. My world traveller parents, Ray and his wife and four other couples left wintry Vancouver today for two weeks in the jungles and on the beaches of Belize.

We also got to met the newest addition to the Trail Zinio family tree, Cash.


He didn't look this stunned all night...just sometimes...but can you blame him, there were a lot of noisy (Italian) people around!

Cash, Alex and Shannon

And Cash really liked his itty bitty toque - even though it was nice and warm inside.

Cash and his Mom, Alyssa

There was a bit of a return to childhood late in the evening when Andrea and Alyssa played airplane with some cake...


What a fun evening! Alex managed to survive yet another "attack" by the family and seemed to enjoy himself in the process.

New furniture

Last weekend, my aunt and uncle brought us a "new" piece of furniture. We thought it would be a great place to hide the wool I've been stashing (a.k.a. stash) in a variety of places in the house.


Doesn't the wool look just so pretty sitting there in the rather large cubby hole?

I thought so...but then I discovered two things...

1. I have more wool than I thought
2. The cubby is really really deep, so the wool behind the wool at the front is impossible to see and hard to get at...which means I'll forget it's there and just keep adding to the stash...

Sooo...how to fix this problem? Well, there are two huge drawers and what do you know, the yarn fit in them so well...the large hanks actually stand up in them and I can see pretty much everything...


I also found I had a bunch of bits of yarn leftover from projects, so I rolled all of them and they live in the knitting basket. Rolling yarn takes FOREVER...thank goodness for DVDs!


My current projects (of which there are only four this week) and needles and things live in the knitting bag...


Except for this project, which will be a wedding present for Christy and Rob, but it's too big for the knitting bag, so it's got a corner and bag of its own.


The other knitting basket, which has a lid and doubles as a side table has knitting books, finished projects that don't have a home yet, and UFOs in it (that is, UnFinished Objects) that might one day come out to be finished.

So now, our new furniture is set up and arranged and organized and our living room feels more like a living room than it ever did! (the UFO basket is in the front part of the picture)

Shannon's 2007 knitting

There's too much for the side bar, so just like the books and movies, knitting now has its own "page."

knitting in progress

• surprise wedding gift for Christy and Rob
  
• magic scarf for me
  
• a bag without a handle
  
• scarf for Bret
  

knitting projects completed

• mittens and toque for Nicole for Christmas
• itty-bitty baby toque for Jack
• toque for Signe for Christmas
  
• Punk's Christmas 2005 gift (completed in November 2006)
  
• itty-bitty baby toque for Ellery
  
• bigger than itty-bitty toque for Alice
• random itty-bitty toque for unknown baby (which ended up being for Cash)
  
• blue baby blanket for Ryland
  
• mystery object (that is no longer a mystery)
• pretty, soft, pink scarf for Amy for Christmas
  

Eventually I hope to get the knitting blog up and running...it's not really all that functional right now.

our house...

A long time ago we promised some of our friends who live across a continent and an ocean that we would post some pictures of the Blue House, so here they are. They are about a month old with the exception of the three last views of the living room, which I took today. The last one is my view from the couch when I knit. Sorry, there's kind of a lot of pictures here...

Welcome to the Blue House

Come on in!

Shannon LOVES the built in bookcases!

our bedroom

dining room

kitchen

more kitchen

living room as it was

office

guest room aka Kelsey's room

stained glass bathroom

living room as it is

more living room

my view from my favourite knitting spot, the couch

my knitting stash, hidden so that it is not apparent when you enter the room and so that you do NOT mistake it for Alex's knitting stash ;) There's more stash hiding in the table at the other end of the couch!

patience and loneliness

This soft, shiny wool has been sitting in my living room, calling me to it all week, but I've avoided the temptation to create a warm nest of blankets and pillows and tea made with water boiled for a long time and wool and never leave the warm, dry house again.

But at work we have a water cooler. So we don't have to boil the water. We can just drink it straight from the cooler.

I'm patiently waiting for the weekend and the creation of my little knitting nest so I can work with that pretty shiny wool and make even more itty bitty, teensy tiny, cute hats.

Last night was I walked across campus to my class from the SUB, I looked over and saw Gage Towers (yes, that is Gage Towers) all lit up and thought for some reason that it looked SO LONELY...maybe the streaks are what it would look like if you were lonely too? I don't know...it just seemed lonely to me. I don't remember being lonely when I lived there, but last night, it was a lonely place.

more tiny toques and a must-have for vancouverites

Yeah, yeah, I've been quiet for a few days...not like me, I know...

Half of my week and most of my weekend were spend curled up in bed or snuggled under blankets on the couch trying to get rid of the evil flu/cold that I am sure I caught through the telephone from Kelsey in k-town!

Five days inside and being totally swamped at work the last three days means...well, nothing interesting (or even boring) to talk about...if I think it's boring, you'll definitely think I'm boring...

Anyway, while I am cured of my flu/cold, I obviously haven't been cured of my ability to ramble aimlessly...so here's a picture of my second itty bitty toque.

I LOVE TINY TOQUES! Yay for the one evening in front of the television projects...talk about instant gratification!

And here's a shot of something every block in Vancouver should own...a leaf vacuum...okay, so it's just a leaf blower and a mulcher all in one, but it eliminates nasty, slippery leaves AND that disgusting rotting smell that permeates campus otherwise.

Yeah...definitely one for the ramble category!

Amy's adventures while I sit knitting...

While I sat at home this week and battled the flu, my cousin and her boyfriend travelled to four different continents...okay, so not just this week, since August, but still....

Amy and Paul started at a red paperclip party in Saskatchewan and some of their other friends have challenged themselves to 50 state capitals in 50 days...and I made a teeny tiny toque...just to show you how teeny tiny, it's pictured next to that other staple of Canadiana, the HOCKEY PUCK...sigh...I miss travelling...

itsy bitsy teensy tiny toque...(there is a baby boom happening among our friends)

I also made this:

surprise...what am I? Any guesses?

But I can't reveal it until its new owner has claimed it from her mail box.

fun stuff from heddy...

okay...so maybe it's just fun in my world! I added the yarn...It's from our weekend trip to the 'burbs.





Heddy rescued these super duper needles and basket from her aunt who was going to THROW THEM AWAY...but they will be well used at my house!!

it's beyond me...

why a nine year old boy would abandon his knitting when his big cool uncle got out of bed...

to play TABLE HOCKEY?!?!?!

Okay, okay, I'm just kidding...I get it...I probably would have abandoned my knitting when I was nine for table hockey too...

YAY...Trey was knitting...now I just have to work on his uncle!

Leaving the big city...

Alex and I left the big city yesterday and went for a little excursion to the 'burbs.

While Alex pampered himself at the spa, courtesy of a birthday gift certificate from his brother, I had to find other ways to amuse myself.

So I decided to feed my yarn addiction and made my way to the local yarn shop. Once I'd browsed sufficiently, I went in search of a wireless internet connection so that I could do some work. I didn't find a connection, but I found this lovely example (although, very blurry...ummm, yeah, blurry to disguise the identity of the poor children) of bad hair styles in the local Seattle-based, soccer-mom, mega-coffee shop. Both of these children are sporting scary rat tails...

After Alex and I spoiled ourselves, we met Alex's brother and nephew for lunch...which happened to be at a restaurant near the giant "M" craft store...which was good because clearly I NEEDED more yarn.

What a nice Saturday...it ended with a visit to Alex's parents and his nephew, Trey, coming home with us for a sleepover.

knitters of the world...

look at what happens when you knit too much...oh Finnish animation

knitting WIP/UFOs...a great way to procrastinate...

I had a million things to do today - I was working from home and when work was over, I had dining room furniture to assemble and a house to clean and my family was arriving around 6:00 pm...so, being the procrastinator I am, I decided the first thing that needed to be done was organize my knitting bag...

I found way too many wip/UFOs hanging out in my knitting stuff...I'm actually going to classify them all as work-in-progress except the last one...it can be an unfinished object...since it needs to be completely frogged and redone and well, let's just say it was a bit of a disaster.

WIP #1
A baby afghan that has no intended owner. I think I got bored because I ended in mid-row...One day I will finish this, if only because I need the 6mm circulars to make a grown up afghan just for me. This yarn was an inexpensive massive department store sale purchase...but it came with no list of ingredients...pretty sure it's synthetic, but who knows!

Close up of the baby afghan detail:


WIP #2
This pink scarf was intended for a Christmas 2005 gift. I bought something instead. Since it's only October, maybe she'll get it this year. Yarn also purchased the same time as WIP #1 and WIP #3


WIP #3
Purple scarf intended for Christmas 2005 is the sister of WIP #2 - same wool, different colour. Also ended up buying a gift because I didn't finish in time. This one has an eyehole in it to pull the other end through...as requested by intended recipient...who has probably since forgotten she requested a scarf or a scarf with an eyehole.


WIP #4
Baby blanket #2. This one is so soft and the pattern is my favourite baby blanket pattern from the first Stitch 'n Bitch Book. It's Bernat Baby Boucle and I got it really cheap in Osoyoos. I also picked some pretty purple somewhere else...maybe in k-town in July? Also ended in mid-row...maybe it's a baby blanket thing. It's a lot more blue than it looks too.


WIP #5
These cool alligators (from SNB 2) were also a gift for Christmas 2005, but Rebecca got these half finished mittens, wrapped up under the tree. I was up until almost 2:00 with Rebecca on Christmas Eve finishing surprise stockings for Mom and Dad and I just didn't have the wrist power to finish her mitts (plus I needed a little bit of sleep)...and my wrists and hands hurt too much to knit again for three or four weeks...then I tried to amputate my thumb. And then it was summer and I just couldn't knit mitts in the summer. So the goal is to have them done before she goes back to k-town after Thanksgiving on Monday.


WIP #6
I love this WIP...it's my new scarf and I'm not sure how it's going to look because I'm using variegated Patons Shetland Chunky yarn, also made in Canada...so far so good!


UFO
This pink sweater was a disaster. It was my first non scarf/felted bag project. I measured. I remeasured. Mama helped me measure. I knit swatches, my gauge was right, Mama checked the gauge. I thought the pattern was a little short for me, so we added an inch and a half to the front and back...no problemo!

HA!

Now I've started frogging my hard work...after making two fronts and a back, which didn't seem quite right, I started the sleeves. Yeah...they would have been about 2/3 sleeves...not a problem, I don't mind that length, but they were supposed to be full length...and they were so tight at the wrist end of the sleeve that my hands would have turned blue, so there was no way the wrist band would fit around my forearm...and the sweater was just too small overall...

I recounted my stitches...all good...I rechecked my gauge...all good...I recounted my rows...all good plus the additional rows we added...I couldn't figure out what I did wrong until I talked to some fellow knitters...who all tried to make this sweater and no matter how they measured, it was TOO SMALL!

I tried to make the medium I think and I have enough yarn for the extra large, so I'm going to try that and hope it works...this yarn is far to soft and pretty to waste and I want to use it for ME!!!