All This in Just a Week

WARNING! WARNING! PHOTO HEAVY POSTING!



Last Sunday was the annual Knit-Out for one of our local Stich-n-Bitch chapters. I've never attended before, but thought I'd make an exception this year.

It was held at Assiniboine Park (just a hop and a skip from my front door), on a thoroughly dismal, cold and rainy day...



the mood was light and fun despite the rain...



I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to reel off everyone's names, so I'll just say that all were there that were there...



and there was loads of both stitchin'...



and bitchin'...



and a yarn swap too...



there were also door prizes! I won three skiens of Bernat Felting Wool. I'm thinking, perhaps, some cosy slippers for the coming months.



And in reno-land...

Here's our new chimney. Isn't it lovely?

Yes, it is.



The complete and total destruction of what was isn't total or complete yet, but great strides are being made. These are former cabinets...



a former sink...



and wallpaper, uncovered from long ago.



I've been amusing the tradesmen by taken photos of things that are very mundane to them. How come when I go ladder shopping they're all just regular aluminum and not spiffy green ones?



I love the bright colours - makes all the equipment look like toys.



Keeping down the dust.



A look through the main floor.



Here's what was the former computer room...



a view from window, looking into the room it will become...



and now, no more wall...



Here's a lovely view out my window (sorry, I mean, hole in the wall) looking out over the neighbour's back garden...



and then a peek into our own back garden...



I'm not going to bother trying to keep up with the neighbour's this summer.

I promised last post that I'd show a snap of the finished Tangled Yoke Cardigan.



Well, there it is, done. The lighting has been terrible lately, too many black and rainy days.

Also finished is the Stardust Clapotis. How I love this pattern and this yarn...



I think I've made four of these shawls now, I wonder how many it will take before I'm sick of it...

New on the needles,

a striped scarf made from two skiens of Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn.



This is the same as the regular Noro Striped Scarf, but with 63 stitches instead of the 30-some with the worsted weight yarn. I'm using two skiens of colour S95, starting one skien from the outside, and one from the inside. So far, the same colours have only intersected once for a short time (briefly losing the stripe effect). I anticipate a few more intersections, but they should all be brief.

Also begun is the Waves of Grain Scarf by Rosemary Hill. I've been hearing nightmarish accounts of knitting from Rosemary Hill's patterns and have been putting off making this one for a while.



However, so far it seems to be very easy and straight-forward, which is good, because I'm most sincerely not up for any heavy thinking during this home renovation.

The yarn is Cascade Lace by Cherry Tree Hill in colour way "Indian Summer". These are not colours I would normally wear, very amber/orange/salmon, but I think, perhaps, with all the changes going on in the house, it's a good time to try something different.

Just so long as there's no complex thinking...

Still Here

Sorry for the long time between posts, life simply hasn't been running as smoothly as I would like. I could take a chunk of your time and start complaining about our overly sensitive computer (*%$#@%& Vista), but I'm not going to do that, I'll just breath deeply and move on...

The roof is nearly done, the only thing left are shingles, which should arrive next week. There's a beautiful new chimney - which I haven't seen yet, it's living under a tarp until this (*%$#@%&) rain stops. All the tradesmen that saw it tell me it's a beaut. As soon as I can, I`ll post some photos.

I finished the Tangled Yoke Cardi mentioned in this post. It`s blocking and lovely - though not as lovely as the first one I made and ruined. The first I knit with two strands of lace weight yarn held together and it was light as a feather, this one is with a DK weight alpaca and it weighs a TONNE. I thought the needles were going to snap when I was finishing the collar - they didn`t. I shall post pictures of that in my next post. I`ve also nearly finished the Stardust Clapotis mentioned here, photos will follow of that as well.

Knitting is one of the few things keeping me sane right now. Ah, reno-ing...

I can`t believe how long it`s been since I posted...

Nigel and Ian had gone to Chicago this past week to attend Lollapalooza, and lo!, they were captured on film. Here they are at the Dan Deacon concert, they decided to escape the crushing throng at the front of the stage and opted to hang back by the sound booth. Ian`s in a navy shirt and khaki cap and Nigel`s in the grey shirt. I like how Ian leans in to make sure the old man is using the camera properly, and then skips the last part of the tune to check the images Nigel has captured. Hee, hee.

My adorable boys:

Of Mice and Monsters

Pretty flowers in the garden.



This is the new view from the upstairs hall window. Certain views make the reno look enormous, others make it look too small. Perhaps that means that it's JUUUUST right.



Walls being assembled on the second story.



Work is beginning on the rooftop. This is very tricky. The house has sunk a bit on one side (very common around here - did you know Winnipeg was built over underground rivers and an awful lot of swamp land?), every measurement has to be spot on if the reno is going to be level. All day yesterday and today there has been the sound of mad hammering and sawing and then silence as they get out their pencils and papers to calculate the next series of cuts.



Let's all give a round of cheers for professional carpenters who know what they're doing. Hoorah! Worth every penny.

I finished four characters from the Alan Dart Medieval series.



Three knights and the nursemaid.

Here's the nursemaid before:



and after:



Mum fell in love with these little mice and wanted to make them all for Thea and Aaron when they came to visit, but knowing that she couldn't finish them all before yesterday (when they arrived), she instructed me to make a few. Mum made eight, I made just the four. They were tons of work - sewing all those tiny pieces together! Quite sweet though. I've been instructed to send them on to Toronto for their return.

I also finished my creature I had mentioned in this post.



He's made with a wire armature and then a skin is knitted on to his frame (Gads! THAT was fiddly work!). I had had a vision of him in my head for a long time, and as he got closer and closer to being completed I liked him less and less.



Does that make me a terrible mother? If I think my little monster is ugly?

I keep putting him away, then looking at him again a couple of days later to see if I've fallen in like with him. It hasn't happened yet. He's still ugly.

Perhaps he needs bigger buttons for his eyes...I shall think on it...

So as not to dwell on this, I started a new Clapotis. This one is being done in Handmaiden Sea Silk in a colour called Stardust. It's a beautiful, deep, shimmering charcoal-petrol colour. I had ordered the yarn from Wolseley Wardrobe and it took weeks to arrive. They tell me it was specially dyed just for me.



This I know I like.

Cold and Frosty Days

It can be difficult to put into words how cold it is around this neck of the woods, and since I want to keep this blog free of gratuitous swearing, I'll just say that it was -60 Celsius at the airport this morning, and that's just a quick five minute drive for us.

On the upside, the bright sunny days are compensation and frost on the windows (yes, the house has a few draughty spots) is really very pretty...





I'll say no more about the weather, unless of course it doesn't end soon (has it really been five weeks of this?!), and then, well, you'll just have to forgive me if I start to rant.

I finished the tam I was working on last week.



I tried it on when I first finished it and thought it seemed just a little bit on the small side. Not that it didn't fit, it did, but the pattern promised a big slouchy sort of tam, and it seemed a tad meager. However, I blocked it today and now it looks enormous. I'll try it on once it's dry. Here's hoping for perfection.

I've been trying to convince myself to finish all the projects I've begun over the last year (or two) rather than starting anymore new ones, but I just couldn't help myself. I started another Clapotis.



I love this pattern and happened to have some yarn that was calling to me. The pattern recommends a worsted weight yarn, but since it's a scarf you can really use almost any weight of yarn since fit doesn't matter. I chose the laceweight KnitPicks Shimmer in a (now discontinued) colour called Happy Dance.

By the time I finish this project, we should start to see signs of spring, and I think a happy dance just might be in order.