RIP, memory card.

I’ve wanted to blog for a few days, now, but my memory card has completely had the biscuit and I can’t take any pictures until I get a new one. I don’t know if it’s my card reader that did the damage or if the card itself that just fried spontaneously. When I get a new one next week I’ll use the cord and read it with the camera, maybe that’ll help. Until then, though, no pictures!

I finished the Owls cardigan (save for one of the button bands that I have to re-do. It’s the first cardigan I’ve ever knit and I’m in love <3<3<3 It fits great and looks awesome, and I’m really proud of it. I calculated and knit all my own waist shaping and short-row bust and put it all together with the owls  yoke. It looks fantastic! I have to rip the button band with the buttonholes because I didn’t pick up enough stitches and it pulled way too much. Despite having knit it so quickly without mistakes, having to reknit the button band frustrated the heck out of me and I needed to get the whole thing out of my sight before I burned it with fires.

I’m still working on my mitred squares blanket, on the fourth block (out of like a million). This is going to be a very long-term project, something that’ll be around for a long time for when I’m sick of what I’m really working on. It’ll get done, though, it’s the perfect project for that yarn.

I needed the needles I was using for my nature dyed hat for a Swallowtail shawl I decided I would knit out of purple handspun. It’s my first lace and I hope it turns out nice.

Still working on the Clapotis, that’s the one I’m just trying to finish now. I’ve done the “section 3″ repeat four times and I’m just wanting it to be over so I can wear it. The stitch-dropping is so addictive, it’s what keeps me knitting it.

I dyed a bunch of yarn the other day – I over-dyed some nature-dyed yarn with navy, and then over again with a turquoise/teal, I dyed a sock blank and two skeins of sportweight sock yarn that I got great greens with, but when I went to wind them into balls, I found that the skeins weren’t tied properly. One is now a giant pile of tangled mess that nearly had me in rage-tears the other day.

My 6 balls of chocolate brown sock yarn and my Laguna bag came two days after I ordered them, which also happened to be the same day that I received my Sweet Libertine makeup. The Laguna bag is amazing, just my style. I love it!!!

Once I get a new memory card I’ll post pictures of everything, promise.

I’m really missing having black hair and I’m thinking of bringing it back, we’ll see!

Update of Photographic Obesity

The following update is not for the dial-up internet faint of heart.

Last Wednesday Barb and I piled our things into her car and we drove. And drove. And drove. We got about half-way to Kamloops and decided to crash at our Level 1 instructor’s (the beautiful and talented Ellen Munroe) house and spent the evening with her. She has the most amazing property ever, I’ve always pictured my dream house to be just like hers – endless crooks and nannies for hiding things, rooms and rooms full of bags of fibre. There were strangeties and odditles hanging from anywhere and everywhere. She even had a robot made from tin cans. I was in love.

The next day we made our way through Jasper Park and I saw about a million elk, and some mountain goats just chillin on a cliff face.

See? ELK! More in my Flickr

Once we were in the area in a little town near Kamloops called Barriere (once ravaged completely by fire, apparently), we stopped at this awesome antique store. It wasn’t like any antique store I’d ever seen. It wasn’t full of prententious expensive furniture, it was full of fancies and trinkets that people actually owned and used. It was amazing. There were ancient spinning wheels and coffee grinders and pots and pans.. amazing. I found the perfect birthday present for Alex there – a straight razor with a buffalo horn handle from the 1920’s, a vintage Old Spice shaving dish, an authentic razor strop and a boar bristle brush – just what he’s be bugging for. It was perfect and awesome and I was so excited.

We finally made it to Kamloops and Erynn let us stay with her the night before we checked in to the resort village. We stayed in Heffley Boutique Inn at Sun Peaks and took our Fair Isle class that Barb taught. The village was beautiful, like a little alpine neighborhood nestled in the mountains.

It was so awesome to see Katelyn again! We caught up and enjoyed ourselves immensely. During the day, we surprised ourselves over and over with how quickly we took to stranded knitting thanks to the wonderful instruction.. and during the evening we laughed until our sides hurt. It was the best weekend I’ve had in too long.

You forget how much you miss someone until you see them again. Two days together after a year of absence felt like teasing.

I bullied her one evening into ganking a romance novel from some random cabinet in the hotel and reading it to me in a Stephen Hawkings voice while I took photographic evidence. This photo has one of the highest hit counts of all of my flickr photos.

During the Fair Isle class, we knit a bag in lopi, practising our new techniques. We learned to anchor our floats properly, strand the color over top, steek, purl in Fair Isle and do ribbing in two different colours (which is much harder than it looks, but I may just have been over-tired ) By the end of it, we ended up with cute little “goofy bags” that we couldn’t help but squeal with glee over. Katelyn and I are known for our enthusiasm, but she is far more reserved than I, or so everyone says. Once in a while we would just kind of gasp in quiet desperation and freeze until the other came by to rescue, that’s just how we work.

Here’s my Goofy Bag!

The buttons were a gift from Ellen. Her husband Stanley chopped up some found deer antlers and drilled holes in them. Perfect.

Going to the knitting retreat and seeing Katelyn again has re-ignited my interest in knitting to a degree I haven’t yet experienced. I feel like I’m going through an awakening, a creating phase, probably related to the reawakening of life with Spring. I bought an insane amount of yarn from Erynn’s shop and have plans to knit 3 sweaters, an afghan and at least one shawl this year.

My swaaaaag!

This is some gray Lopi that is the beginnings of the Owls sweater, though I plan on converting it to a cardigan.

Chunky sock kit that came in our conference bags!

These sock yarns were the perfect weight and yardage to be the little birds (blue) and the vines (blue, green and brown variegated) for my Little Birds sweater from Twist Collective. I just ordered the dark coffee brown I’ll use for the main color, and it’s on its way to me now!

This was the most gorgeous laceweight I’ve spotted in a while. It’s and angora/silk blend and feels like happiness and love. As soon as I saw it, it struck me as a Claude Monet’s Bridge over Lily Pond. I was compelled to buy it, though I have somewhat of a collection of unused laceweight at this point. I couldn’t resist. This will be a shawl of some sort at a whopping 1400yds.

This Lopi from Custom Woollen Mills will be a sweater for Alex that I’ll somehow come up with the design for. All I know is that he wants it to incorporate allover 2×2 ribbing. He said so himself. Oookay man. Oh, and that’s my sweetie, Virtue.

And, finally, I’m making a mitred squares afghan from my 2200yds of nature dyed yarn that I did up for my Level One which is now completely finished. I’m just waiting impatiently for my mark. Eep!

What are you excited about knitting?!

(PS: I was extra bad and bought this bag I’ve been wanting for SIX MONTHS. Tell me now what a great decision I made! GO! NOW! GO!)