Another gold medal winner in Winnipeg!

Well I may not have a handful of medals like Cindy Klassen, but I've earned my gold in the KO... here's the proof: I'm so thrilled with how it turned out. I squealed with delight as I pulled it out of the washer! It's a *lot* smaller than I thought it would be. With how large it was pre-felting, I was expecting a tote along the same size as my Payless Shoes tote. This one here is about the size of a magazine, and about 5 inches deep. I'm still sitting here grinning like the Cheshire Cat... I GOT FELT!!! YAY!!!

Sprint for the finish line.

Well the timer is red, and my booger is in the wash! I dragged my butt the last few days since I was so tired from work. I picked up an extra shift, since I needed the money, but I didn't seem to get enough sleep. I spent last night finishing up the last strap and sewing up most of my ends. Tonight after I woke up, I sewed in the last two ends, and then sewed on the straps. I ran a basting "thread" through the handles so that they would felt flat. I'm now waiting for the timer to go off so that I can restart the washer in about another 3 minutes. The bag itself is huge, but I'm hoping that it will felt down quite a bit. Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

It's decision time.

Well I finished the bag itself and did up the round of edging while I was at my SnB last night. I started on an I-cord type strap for it, but I'm not sure if that's what I want. If I do the knitted strap, I won't be able to felt it today I think. If I crochet one, I *know* I'll get it done today. I will have a few days drying time regardless, but I just can't make up my mind.

EEP!!! It changed again!!!

Sheesh... it seems like just yesterday that I had posted about it changing to yellow... now it's ORANGE!!! Oh well, I'm now working on the second side, and will be finishing this all up sometime tomorrow. I want to have it felted and started drying before I have to go to work. Did I mention how much I hate my job? I can't wait until the day when I'm rich and famous off of all this stuff I'm doing now, and I can tell my bosses where they can shove the power jack -- preferably done by someone that
*isn't* licenced!!!

And now for the second intermission...

Well I took a small intermission yesterday! I was nearly done the first side of the bag, and I decided that I needed a little diversion. I want to learn how to draw, mainly so that I can sketch out my designs and such. I bought a paint-by-numbers kit that will hopefully help me get more in touch with the artist that {might!} be in there. I spent most of the morning and afternoon getting a few sections done. It's definitely going to be a big time committment, and the painting is only 16x20! I did up my first sketch last night, a rendition of the booger, and it was all that Lyz could do to avoid getting coffee splattered all over her monitor!
While at the dentist's with the kids yesterday I got quite a bit of quality time knitting in. He was a lot more behind than usual, and the kids had no problems that I had to check out. I just finished casting off the first side, and will be picking up the stitches from the provisional cast on as soon as I'm done this post. My SnB is tonight, so I'm hoping to be knitting the strap. I want to sew it on tonight or tomorrow morning and then felt it tomorrow afternoon. I am working Wednesday night, so I really want this to be done by then.

Still stitchin' and snoozin'

Well I didn't make it to the felting show 'n tell at Ram's yesterday. I was just *way* too tired. I slept most of the day, and still didn't feel like I had slept enough! I finished off a ball of cream wool yesterday, and started the second. Right now the length is about double the striped band. I want to go until the striped band is about one third of the width, and then work the sides. My guess is that when I get to McNally's, that I'll be working on the sides. Since I won't be able to think while I'm knitting there, I'll probably bring Alex's sweater along too! I'm working Wednesday night, so that's one night less of knitting for me, but if everything works out correctly, I should be felting it on Thursday or Friday {if not sooner}. I made two cute Team Canada inspired stitch markers. I'm going to make a full set of either four or five, and put them up on the site too.

EEP!!! The timer changed!

Well I just noticed now after waking up from my afternoon nap. My timer has turned to yellow!!! Well as long as I am ready to felt by the time it changes colour again, I should be okay. I think it's really cool actually. Thank you to anny purls for sharing the code with us all, and her hubby for writing it! I didn't get any knitting done today yet, other than the couple of rows at work. When I got home from work I quickly filled out my taxzes since I got my T4 last night. Then I had an errand to run for Derek. By the time I got back home, it was nearly noon, so I just went and lied down on the couch. I got a good solid 4 hour nap, which will be enough if I can squeeze in another hour or two at least before work. I got the last two jerseys for my collection last night. I just need to get the stand, and decide if I'm getting replacements for any of the ones I opened. I also got two of the car window flags this morning. I'll take a pic of one tomorrow and probably post it... it's just way too cool!!! That and Canada got 3 more medals today -- YAY!!! We're now ahead of the US, and tied for 3rd place in medals. I am still in shock that the women's hockey finals *ISN'T* Canada vs. US... WTG Sweden! {You *do* know that you're gonna have to settle for silver in this one don't you???}

Booger the 2nd revealed!

Here's a pic I just took of Booger the 2nd. I think I'm moving right along for having just cast this on late yesterday morning! I have to work tonight, so I won't be doing any marathon knitting this evening. With the way this is going, I can easily take this with me to work, so hopefully I'll get a row or three done on my breaks and at lunch. I'm so much happier with this version than the last... I hope that happiness continues when it comes time to work the sides. Oh! and I still need to figure out what kind of straps I'm going to put on the tote, and how to attach them!

Booger Boogie

Well Booger the 2nd is coming along very nicely. I'm into the green stripe as I write this. Once I've got some cream done to border the last stripe, I'll take a pic and post it here of my progress. This bag is coming along *very* quickly now that I changed the way I'm doing it. I just hope that the way I have in my mind of doing the ends goes as smoothly as the rest of this is. Granted, it *is* all stockinette, but since I'm doing it flat, I'm impressed with how fast I'm travelling.
Derek just about died last night when he got home and saw that I was restarting. I had barely finished the first coloured stripe at that point because I got sidetracked on the KH forum! He said, "you didn't frog *all* that work did you?", to which I replied, "not yet, but I will be!". I showed him the stripes on the first booger, but he still didn't quite get it as to why I was so displeased with it. What was even funnier is that he didn't know why I was calling this a booger! I explained at dinner, and he just shook his head at me... probably wondering what he ever did in a previous life to deserve someone as insane as I!!! After dinner I sat down on the couch for an evening of CSI and Inked and some serious knitting. I got 5 "stripes" done, with only one colour change left until the "sea of cream". Derek wouldn't watch the Olympics, so we missed the hockey last night, but I'm getting caught up with it all this morning.

Knitter down...

Borrowing {yet another} phrase from Stephanie {the Yarn Harlot} . My booger is not turning out at all like I had hoped. It's not just the newbie sloppiness of the colour changes... it's the overall effect that the stranding at the back is having on the front. While I was working it flat, it wasn't too bad, but with working it in the round, the stripes were going really wonky. The gaps and holes in between the stripes were just too horrid. While I haven't frogged it {yet!}, I've started another one. I will give this a day or two and see how it progresses. I know that this may mean that I won't get my gold medal since I've now lost about 5 or 6 days working time... but I want to be pleased with the final result... not just finish it to get a medal. To be honest, I wouldn't really feel like I deserve a medal for it if I just let it go as is. You can't see in this picture what the "problem" with the colour changes is, but I'll post a close-up of it before I frog. For now, I'm just going to content myself with starting over. *sigh*

On a lighter note...

Here's Lissa helping me knit on it last night... she's really good at pointing out my mistakes! She was being silly and so was Derek... Alex was trying to get into the picture too, but I had to crop him out. He was running around in his usual garb, his gotchies, so I couldn't have that up on the web... child pornography and all that garbage ya know.

And we're off!

Well the weekend certainly got away from me quickly! I didn't get as much sleep as I really needed, but it was {barely} enough for me to survive my shifts at work. I'm now working on the sides of my booger. Lyz talked me into using bobbins for the colour changes, and I'm hoping that will go smoother for me. When I got home from work yesterday morning I was exhausted. I helped Lyz for a bit with her buttons on her blog, then promptly passed out on the couch. After I got up and did a bit of tidying up {before Derek got home}, I only had a few minutes left before Derek showed up {early!}. I'm trying to stay away from the pooter at night now, so who knows how much I'll be able to get done here online during the day.

Booger news

Overall, I'm quite pleased with my bag so far. The colour changes are sloppier than I'd like, but this *is* my first real colour change project, so I can't expect perfection... well I *can* expect it, but I can't realistically have it in my first attempt. I'm hoping that the felting process will hide a lot of those imperfections that my eyes can't seem to remove themselves from. Doing the base was a fairly simple process, but doing the sides in the round is proving to have a few more problems than I had originally anticipated. I'm thinking that I will need to knit up to about the 18" mark to get the bag as deep as I'd like. I still need to come up with exactly how I'm going to do the straps of the bag. I have, however, decided what I'm going to do with some of my leftovers from the project. I am going to do the original Booga, but with horizontal HBC stripes. I'm going to use it as a sock tote for taking my socks back and forth to work.

Other news

I've gotten quite a bit done on Alex's sweater at work. It's turning out to be a great "get away from it" project to do alongside the booger. It's sitting at about 6" right now, and looking really good. I've decided to do another one of these for Lissa in the vari pinks I have in my stash. It's Eaton's sayelle, and I got it {with tons more!} at a garage sale two years ago. I think the two of them will look really cute together.

YAY!!! Team Manitoba!

All hail the polar bear for Team Manitoba!!! Thanks so much Janice for pointing me in this direction! I'm too brainless right now to make the changes to my sidebar, but I've got a bunch of updates to do in the morning after I get home from work... toodles till then!

BTW: I decided that taking a pic of my bag before I frogged it wasn't within the spirit of the pledge... because I don't want to dwell on my misfortunes, but my accomplishments.

Stumbling through the starting blocks.

Well I've cast on and gotten a couple rows done of my bag... unfortunately, it's not turning out as nicely as I'd hoped. I'm going to frog it and restart. I will make the stripes slightly more narrow, and make the bag a little smaller proportionally. I just did a few rows of Alex's sweater to restablish my bearings, and will take a pic of what I did so far before I frog it all. In the spirit of the Knitter's Pledge that Stephanie posted today, I will continue on, and not get discouraged.

Here is the pledge, borrowed {without permission!} from Yarn Harlot's site:

The Knitting Olympics Athletes Pledge
I, a knitter of able hands and quick wits, to hereby swear that over the course of these Olympics I will uphold the highest standard of knitterly excellence.
I will be deft of hand and sure of pattern, I will overcome troubles of yarn overs and misplaced decreases. I will use the gifts of intelligence and persistence (as well as caffeine and chocolate) and I will execute my art to the highest form, carrying with me the hope for excellence known to every knitter.
I strive to win. To do my best, and to approach the needles with my own best effort in mind, without comparing myself to my fellow knitters, for they have challenges unique to them.
While I engage in this pursuit of excellence and my own personal, individual best, I also swear that I will continue to engage with my family in conversation, care for my pets, speak kindly with those who would ask me to do something other than knit, and above all, above every stitch thrown or picked, above every cable, every heel stitch, every change of colour, I swear this:
That I will remember that this is not the real Olympics, that I'm supposed to be having fun and that my happiness and self-worth ride not on my success....
but on my trying.

Getting down to the wire here.

Well I just finished binding off the last knit stitches on my Skacel pinwheel sweater... YAY!!! I still have most of the seaming and ends to do, and I want to finish off the bottom edge better... but technically, it's basically done! This thing weighs a ton, and I couldn't wait to finish off the neck. It was a PITA of the worst degree to turn it around as I worked on the cowl!

Final decision on the HBC Booger won't be made until I consult with my guru tomorrow, but I'm leaning more and more towards actually going ahead with it all.

Getting ready to call in the farm team...

Well as I write this, I'm waiting for the swatches to come upstairs. They've been through the washer four times now, and if it's not felted by now, I'm afraid it won't felt at all. I may have to change events at the last minute. I've been wracking my brain since last night to try and figure out what I have here that would qualify as an event. There's the silk waves scarf... but I don't think that even that pattern would be *that* much of a challenge for 16 days. Everything else I have on hand is already started. I had my heart set on the HBC Booger, and I *will* make it... I just don't have the $50+ for different wool until at least the 21st. I'm heartbroken. Earlier today it hit me, I can do Lissa's cabled poncho as a replacement event. It's working with a difficult yarn {I'm assuming}. It's quite a bit of knitting for me for 16 days. It's got cables which I haven't done yet.

and the verdict is...

hung jury. I'll take a pic right away, but I still wouldn't declare it felted. It *is* beginning to start the felting process, so I have a few rays of hope here. There are so many variables involved, and I think that those were going against me today. The loads of laundry I had them in were regular sized loads, so between that, and the small size of the swatches, they may not have gotten the agitation they needed. Even though our hot water tank is very hot, I could add a few kettlefuls of boiling water to make it that much hotter. A little less soap, and a lot less clothes {a couple of towels tops}, and I just may have felt with a bigger amount going into the pillowcover. After this washing, the two swatches are close to the same size now. Not the big difference they had after washing #1 and washing #2. Even the cream Patons is beginning to felt, and it *has* to be bleached with how light it is.

Shrunk, but no felt yet.

The photo on the left is the one I took before the first cycle. The one on the right is the one I took after. You can see that they have shrunk a bit, but there's no felting in sight yet... still nervous here.

A-swatching I will go!

Dangit... blogger won't let me upload photos right now, but I got the swatches done as soon as I woke up this morning. They are in the washer, and I'm having a heck of a time trying to type with my fingers crossed! They are about 3x3 each, and I'm really hoping they will felt. I will post the before and after photos later on today. I did some searching at Ram's, and the only logical replacement for all this would be their Selkirk Wool. Since I'd need about 8 skiens, I'm looking at over $50 to do this... with no guarantees about felting either, since the natural white looks like it may have been bleached as well. I'm just heartbroken. I do have a back-up project, Lissa's cabled poncho, that I can do... but I've got my heart set on the Booger, so anything else just won't be as satisfying.

Countdown to Friday morning

Well I got some done on my pinwheel sweater today. I'm now less than 7 rounds of neckline away from being done the knitting. I still have the seams to do, and I think I'm going to add a round of slip stitch or single crochet around the bottom to neaten up the sloppy {IMO} way the designer had the shaping. This sweater is going to be gorgeous, but personally I'd never make another. There's so many things that could have been done slightly different to make this project more professional looking... such as not having such a sloppy bottom edge. Of course that's just my 2¢ CAD, and we all know that's worth next to nothing with the world exchange rates. Overall, I guess I'd have to say I'm disappointed in it because after investing so much time and money into this sweater, it's not pleasing me as much as the picture in the ad had enticed me.

Knitting Olympics Update

There was a comment today on my post to Team Canada about Peer Gynt behaving more like a superwash wool. Since I'm doing tons of laundry to try and keep up {pitifully} with Derek's cleaning efforts this week, I'll bite the bullet and knit up a small swatch of the yellow wool and try to felt it in one of the loads of laundry tomorrow. If it doesn't felt at all, then I'll have to hit Ram's on Friday morning. If they have no substitute at all, then I'll just use a smaller needle for a thicker fabric and try to felt the cream wool a bit to make it less stretchy. Wish me luck... this is not what I needed to hear less than 48 hours before cast on!

Busy, busy, busy!

Well it's official now, I'm a "sanctioned" member of Team Canada. I even got my best friend, Lyz, talked into joining up! I've been extremely busy the last few days getting things ready for the 16 day marathon. On Sunday, I got the girls to help me divide the last two balls of the Peer Gynt, so all that's left to do to prepare for the KO opening ceremonies is assemble my needles and the scrap yarn for the cast-on. I'll take a pic of it all on Friday morning after work before I cast on. I would use the cool yellow wicker basket I bought on Saturday for its WIPtainer, but this has to go with me everywhere for 2 weeks, so into the Payless tote it goes. Unless I find the spike tote in time... it would be nice to use a tote a made myself! Can you tell that I can't wait for Friday morning?

Some finished, or nearly so...

On Saturday morning I finished the poncho I had been working on for Lissa, which she proudly proclaimed as being "cutie"! I'll have to take a picture of it and let you all decide what is more adorable, the poncho or the sweetie in it. Today, I got the ends woven in on quite a few FOs that I had lying around, including the dreaded Eye Lash kerchief. I *still* haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with it! I'm pretty sure it's going to Lissa, but not sure if it will be for her or a "Bah-bee". I did discover that bouclé is nastier to weave in ends on than it is to knit or even crochet with! Derek helped me to frog the HP scarf on Sunday, so that's another UFO on the extinct list. I've decided that the frogged balls of yarn are going to become hats and scarves for the Parent Centre at the school. The pinwheel sweater is getting closer and closer to being done in time too. I'm now starting the top and bottom shaping for the back, which leaves the seaming and the cowl neck to do next. I really want to have that for my SnB on the 21st, and maybe even the "Felting Show & Tell" at Ram's on the 18th. Once the sweater is done, then I need to count rows on Derek's socks so that I can note that on the pattern itself and get working on the heel for sock #2. I might even get adventurous and frog the Kroy sock... YA RIGHT!!! I might as well say that I'm going to get the Eye Lash cowl done before too!

Some started, or nearly so...

Of course I had to start some projects too... if for no other reason than to test out the new Denise's... which are totally fab BTW!!! I frogged Alex's scrunchable scarf and cast on a small HP for him. On Saturday I discovered that there was a shorter cable that I could have used for it, so I will probably frog it and restart again. As it is right now, it will be close to six inches wide, and that's still a little too wide for what I want. I've only knit about 5 or 6 rows, so it's nothing to frog it.

and Alex's pullover ...

Lately Alex has been asking me whenever I start something new, if it's for him. The look of disappointment on his face when I say, "no, it's for _____" is heart breaking! All he replies is, "oh", and he looks so sad and forlorn! It's obvious the kid wants me to make him something. I decided that I would make him a sweater or a pullover. I knew I'd be finishing Lissa's poncho early on Saturday, so Friday night I looked through a small pile of magazines I had handy to try and find him something before I went to sleep. I found 2 patterns that I kindasorta liked, and made a mental note that I'd need about 600-650 yards of either worsted or bulky/chunky yarn. I decided on a cool shade of RH Kids, and took a chance that 3 balls of it would cover the yardage... why in the hell don't these companies put the yardage as well as the weight on those danged labels??? When I got home I popped on to their website, and actually found what I was looking for {ya, I know... hard to believe on the C&C site!}. It works out that I've got about 750 yards of the yarn, so that's plenty. The pattern for the WW pullover is from the January issue of Creative Knitting. The pattern called for doing the back and fronts separate, but I decided to go ahead and do it in once piece... less seaming later = better chance of becoming an actual FO. I had to frog it twice since I needed to adjust the rib pattern at the side seams a bit, but it's looking good at about 2-3 inches completed. I'll have to take a pic of that too!

Round Ripple Babyghan #2

No, I am not making another one of these for Daryl... the fire already taught me that that blanket was not meant for him. I would know when the time was right to make another one, since I really liked this pattern. Well Sunday morning I got my excuse. My friend and fellow geekette, Sandi, told me she was preggers. Congrats Sandi!!! even though it only took me 20 minutes to figure out what you were saying... what do you expect from me right after work? Anyhoo, I get to make {and probably design too!} all kinds of cool schtuff for her baby-to-be. Before that I have to make a cheap-crap/love-it-to-death acrylic babyghan for her. I'll let her pick the colours out of my stash, and I'll crochet away on it happily... knowing that I get to replace those huge balls of RH Comfort with something smaller, more expensive, and more yarn snobby! More than anything else, it's going to be nice to have a crochet hook in my hands again... I know they'll be very happy to have a different kind of stress on them.

I'm competing in the Olympics!

Today I was cruising the craftster site a bit while my connection to KH wasn't working. I stumbled upon a post about the knitting olympics that Yarn Harlot is hosting. Leave it to a Canadian to think of something like this! *ROFL* I've chosen to do my HBC Booger for my event.
This is my wool before I started prepping it. I got four cream coloured balls of Patons Classic Wool for the main colour. The HBC stripes will be done in Peer Gynt, a wool imported from Norway. I got it all on sale at Ram Wools on Friday along with Lissa's poncho yarn and my silk scarf kit.
I've done a bit of research, but still need to write down everything I will need to do. I may do a small swatch prior to the start of the project so that I can decided on stripe width and such. I got a great suggestion to use a provisional cast on for the beginning of the bottom. I think it will make it easier to pick up my stitches later, as well as making the stripes look great all the way around my bag. I've got two of the balls of Peer Gynt divided in half, and still need to do the other two. I also need to check that I have the needles that I require to make this. I am also going to have to pick up a zippered pillowcase for when I do the felting itself.