Pogona

IMG_1758
Originally uploaded by johannedeleeuw

I really like this picture.

I like the actual wrap. Sort of. I enjoyed knitting it. Sort of. But I really like this picture.

Liam

Don't get me wrong. I love both of my nephews equally. They are amazing, wonderful little people. But Liam .... ah, Liam. He is such a fascinating little man. I hope that he will always amaze and entertain me the way he does now. I hope it isn't just something he has when he's 4 (and when he was 2 and 3 as well, to be honest). I hope it never gets squished out of him by people and situations that curb his uniqueness.

We spent the day together today and here is a random sampling of the things he did that just crack me up -

He looked around the house and then dragged a chair up to the sink in the kitchen and announced that he was going to wash some dishes. After cleaning a spoon and a spatula, he decided that he was done.

We were under the covers, hiding from the imaginary monster and he told me I should get up and turn the lights on, because he was pretty sure that I was much braver than he is.

He insisted that we take the stale bread out to the backyard and throw it around to feed the birds and the squirrels. I told him I thought it was too cold and rainy, but he said they were probably still hungry.

While we were having lunch at the mall, he asked if he could have the fortune cookie that came with my Chinese food. Before opening it, he guessed that the fortune would say " This mall is going to self-destruct in 10 minutes, so you better eat fast."

When we were getting groceries at the Safeway, he was amazed to discover that there were kids toy cars on the shelf right next to the cat food. He surmised that this was probably so that while you were buying cat food, you might decide to get something for a little kid too, just because ...

He spead out the mats I use for blocking my knitting on the floor, in a long line and then asked me to sit down on them and "show him my moves". I guess he was thinking of yoga. I had to inform him that "Auntie Jo doesn't have any moves".

Funny little dude.

Rings of Koigu

Rings of Koigu
Originally uploaded by johannedeleeuw

It's great to get back to some sock knitting again. I did a ton of lace this year and I've missed my socks. So ... pair one of the self-impossed sock club (ala The Yarn Harlot). The pattern is Burning Rings of Fire by Kristin Kapur, in Koigu KPPPM. It's sort of turning into a Koigu socks club, since I'm on my third pair of Koigu socks now, and I have an awful lot of it laying around in my office. I think I could easily knit nothing but Koigu socks for at least a year. But then, of course, my Wollmeise would languish and get sad. So that won't happen.

Already??

It's that time of year - I'm starting to think about Christmas knitting. I thought I should make a little list, since it's the only way to keep straight everything I need to knit for my overly large family:

Carolyn - Green Hat
Mom - Socks
Dad - Don't know yet
Sandy - Don't know yet
Kim - Fingerless Gloves
Kevin - Fingerless Gloves
Dick - Fingerless Gloves?
Sandra - Noro Scarf
Vera - Don't know yet

Hmmm ... too many "don't know yet"s. Better start figuring it out. God bless them for all being such great appreciators of hand-knit gifts, but there are just way too many of them - and that's not even all of them. Soon I will have to start knitting for the nephews too. And then there are the stepsons and their families. And Tim.

I need to lie down now.

New Socks!

I started the first pair of socks from my self-imposed sock club (ala The Yarn Harlot). I got Tim to pick the bag for me from the shelf, so as not to in any way be able to influence the choice of what pair I am knitting.

The socks are Burning Ring of Fire, in a lovely orange/pink/crimson Koigu. I'll post pictures at some point this weekend.

Stealing a great idea.

I've been reading on The Yarn Harlot's blog about her self-imposed sock club, and it seems like such a great idea that I just had to set one up for myself. So last evening I gathered up a dozen patterns that I've had lying around all printed up, or languishing in my Ravelry queue, for ages, and I took a bunch of sock yarns that have also been lying around for ages and I put them all in a big pile. This evening I printed off a couple of the patterns and wound the few skeins that hadn't been wound months and months ago (I love winding pretty balls of yarn, so I sometime get stuck winding something and then it sits for months and months and months because I don't have a project for it). I matched yarns to the various patterns - solids for patterns that looked like they needed solids, varigated for the same, colours that seemed to roughly match my feelings about each pattern, and then put each pattern in a ziplock with it's yarn. Now I have 12 patterns with yarn in seperate ziplocks on a shelf in my office, waiting for me to randomly pick a pattern each month to knit. Very exciting.

I've been negligent in my sock knitting this year. I did so many pairs last year and this year I got a little shawl crazy. But I miss my socks and this is a great way to ensure that I always have a pair on the needles. (I'm just happily ignoring the 4 or 5 WIP hiding in the basket, that I lost interest in - or were going too slow and ended up being unsatisfying.)

I can't wait to start the first pair next month. I'm thinking that I will get Tim to pull a baggie for me each month, saving myself the temptation of playing favorites in some way.

Thanks Stephanie. What an awesome idea!!

I'm a bad blogger. I should post a lot more often than I do. I actually tried to set this damn thing up on my iPhone so I could blog from my phone, but that didn't seem to work. But I'll get it figured out. In the meantime, here's a picture from my 10 days on the road with Tim - well, a couple of pictures, actually. We had an excellent time. The first picture is of Sasquatch Park just outside of Harrison Hot Springs in BC. Gorgeous. The second picture is of the cute little anklettes I made while on the road - the pattern is ZaZa. Or the other way around - I cant figure out how to place the pictures where I want them to go!

I feel virtuous this morning.

Since I've been working at the Kids Fest the past 2 weeks, I've been getting up early and going in to work for 9am every day. It's been a long time since I've done that. Consequently, I woke up at 8 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, even though it's Saturday. But, since it's finally really spring and the weather is gorgeous, I got up and went out and ran me errands. All done and back home by 11:30am. Wow. That's so not my norm (ask my mom, who has spent my WHOLE LIFE trying to get me to get up early). But it was lovely, and it made me realize how much I like the spring and summer and just how much I HATE the winter. Getting up and going out when it's cold and dark just seems so very very wrong to me. I need to live in a warmer, sunnier climate. I think it would help me to be more productive and healthier.

Anyhow, I went on my favorite Saturday morning shopping run - The Farmer's Market, followed by Community Natural Foods and ending with Safeway. Fresh meat, cheese, bread, fruit and vegetables from the market first. I got lots of fresh blueberries, blackberries and strawberries for breakfasts this week and some lovely fresh corn and green beans. And fresh lamb burgers for dinner on the BBQ tonight. He mixed them up for me while I waited and they smell FANTASTIC! And some apple streudel from the Ukranian Bakery that Tim and I had with coffee when I got home. Yum.

After the market, I like to go to Community for a few things, like Liberte yogurt, which we're addicted to, a few grain products and canned things, and some Truffle Pig chocolate bars (maybe the best chocolate bars EVER), made by this little company in BC.

And last, Safeway, for the few little things I can't get at the market or Community. I love that I can get one little bag of stuff from Safeway these days. Some new Glad containers, cat food, some frozen fish (since we still haven't found a decent fish market to replace Billingsgate), some sliced smoked turkey for sandwiches, and that's about it.

Oh yeah, and I trip to Fair is Fair to resell some old books. I try to take a bag back about once every 2 months or so. And I love that they will buy back any books you originally bought from them. I'm trying so hard to whittle down the incredible pile of "books to read" piled on the bookcase, in front of the other books on the shelves there. There are, and I kid you not, about 80 books in that pile. And I'm a slow reader, so pretty much I shouldn't have to buy a new book for about 10 years. Not that means I won't ever buy another book. I bought one today with some of the store credit at Fair is Fair. But only one, not 5, so that's an improvement. It's much like my yarn stash - I have enough yarn to knit for the rest of my life without buying anything new, but I still buy more yarn from time to time.

I'm just trying really hard to make those times few and far between these days, instead of every other day.

There, I knew it would come around to knitting eventually. Speaking of which, I'm going to go and work on my Arabella now.

I wish I could figure out more about how to format this stupid blog. I feel like such an idiot when it comes to this. I can't get my pictures to line up right. And I know so very little about Html so I can't custom anything. Sigh.

Anyhow .... I'm working on yet another shawl, thing one a little more lacy. It's the pattern Arabella. And I'm knitting it out of the prettiest Sanguine Gryphon merino lace in a bright yellow/gold that makes me feel like I'm knitting with sunshine. I like the pattern a lot, although I wish that it was going a little faster at this point. I'm about half way through and I'm at the point where repeats are starting to take a long time.

I might have to cast on some socks sometime soon. I made so many pairs of socks last year and I kind of socked my self out. But it's been about 3 months since I've worked on a pair of socks and I'm starting to miss it. I think when this shawl is done it's time to finish my Bex and start a new pair of sock.

I finished the Citron shawl that I was making. I love the colour (Wollmeise, of course) but it's a bit small for me to wear. Now I'm working on a Cedar Leaves Shawlette in Bugga, which should be more like a scarf. I'm finding that the one skein triangle shawls are a little small for me to wear and feel confidant that they look good. But I ordered quite a bit more lace this past week, so I should be able to make a few bigger shawls.

My Boneyard Shawl

I finally finished a project! It's a Boneyard Shawl in Wollmeise, from the pattern by Stephen West. It's the first thing I've finished since Christmas. I've had serious "start-itis" for the past few months. And, true to form, when I finished this shawl, instead of going to work on finishing something else - like the sweater I REALLY need to finish for Laura - I cast on a Citron shawl, also in Wollmeise. Anyhow, the weather was great in Monday so I went out and took some good photos on my new shawl. I love it!

Wow. 2010 must be the year of change for me. At least so far.

Starting at the beginning of the month, when I quit my job. I've never quit a job before. It's scary. Especially since I don't already have another job to go to. It's just this big blind leap of faith. I'm not all that good at those. But we'll see.

It was past time. I need something that has less stress and more security, at least in terms of health benefits and EI and all that stuff. So, I guess I'm quitting theatre, at least for a while. Which is what I've done pretty much all my life. But I don't think I'm going to find a theatre gig that will fit the bill. More as the job search begins ....

In other news - my car has finally bitten the bullet. Sigh. I love my little car and it's done me good over the years, but it had fatal break problems and it's not worth it to spend all the money it would cost to fix the breaks, so bye-bye car. We're now a one car family again for the first time in about 10 years.

Plans for 2010

IMG_0546, originally uploaded by johannedeleeuw.

Well, I've cast on a lot of new projects in the past few days. My favorite right now are Cookie A's BEX socks, which I started this morning. They're a challenge - the most complicated pattern I've made to date, but so far so good. I just love the color of the Wollmeise - it's Olio Vergine, or Olive Oil and it glows like brass in the light. I'm doing these babies 2 at a time so that I won't risk the second sock syndrome. I was worried that with the fact that these socks are complicated and will likely take me quite a while, if I did just one at a time I would never get them both finished in a month.