Cooked Alive

So, it's kinda hot in the Okanagan right now. Just a tad. No really, just a tad. Though, after stating this, I should also comment I'm currently drinking an iced vanilla latte in an air conditioned house. Spoiled person waves sheepishly.

I have had an amazing visit. I've gone to the beach, gone shopping, gone to the farmers market twice, gone for coffee a multitude of times, played pool, gone for drinks, gone out for dinner, gone to my grandparents house, and lots of other things too. Some noteworthy events include

• finding out that the only yarn store in Vernon is closed for 3 weeks (what the hell?) and throwing a hissy fit on the main street. This initially bad event promted my mom to offer to drive me to Kelowna to the two yarn stores there and ohmigoodness, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I shall post the purchases I got that day (whatever you do, do not ask me how much money I spent) and there will be photos, oh yes, there will be photos. Least to say, we are now going to go to Kelowna for our yarn when I make the voyage home. Wheeeeeeeeeee!
• While waiting for my dear friend Jodi to finish her shift at McRonchies, I was just sitting at a table knitting on the second Hedera sock when a woman passed by, then exclaimed 'are you knitting a sock?' I confirmed that yes, indeed, it was a sock, and she ran off and then came back with four children. She told me that she was showing them how to knit the other day and was trying to describe knitting a sock to them. They were really nice children and asked lots of questions and I let them see the sock. That was fun.
• Raspberries. I have eaten so many raspberries here. Mom and I went to the farmers market and I got a container of raspberries and ate it before we had finished the loop. It's all good.
• Hazel. My first kitty that I lives here now. She looks just like Spike but smaller and more ruffled looking. She's been sleeping on the end of my bed and she's so funny. Nothing disturbs this cat! I get up in the morning, turn on the light, make the bed, and she stays in her original position, doesn't move at all. One would think she was dead. This morning she had her tounge sticking out, so cute. And she is so dirty because she's an outside kitty. I would give her a bath but I want her to have happy memories.

Okay, hopefully this whole post comes through. I tried blogging earlier this week but it only blogged half my post and deleted the other half. Bad computer. Soon I shall have photos of the yarn! No worries.

Tomorrow To Do List

I have decided to blog my to do list for tomorrow. Just thought I would clarify my title in case you are drunk and hence confused.

• Clean bathroom (sigh)
• Tidy (put away books, bobby pins, CDs, knitting projects and associated knickknacks {yarn labels, yarn, scissors, knitting magazines, stitch markers}, and my drawing stuff {erasers, pencils, sketchbook, pens [the uber good ones]})
• Put away laundry ie. put clothing in drawers or in closer (hung up). Revolutionary.
  
• Go to work (gimme)
• Write personal letters (3) and mass email to let people know I'm going home for a week.
  

And that is it. Now that I have blogged, maybe I will actually do at least a few of the things on this list.

The Sock

So this is the Hedera sock from Knitty, designed by Cookie A. I'm knitting them with Regia sock yarn, and I can't remember the name of this colour scheme. It's very pretty no? Here The Sock is in the garden with the ribbing and lace done. Oh, and a warning, I don't know how to make blogger agree with me on photos and text so this may be kinda rough.

The next photo is of the heel just being finished. I have a thing about heels, I love knitting them. Slip stitches are interesting because they feel like cheating but they are allowed. It's like in high school when you get a spare class and you leave the schoolgrounds during school hours. Yes, I'm odd. Rah rah rah.












Okay, I'm hoping that the next photo in this line is the photo that has a dark background (arm of couch) and is really poorly focused because I suck at using Jenn's digital camera. This is when I had just finished the gusset and started on the foot. I don't feel like going into it, but I wanted to work on getting detail with the camera then I would show you insane amount of mistakes I made in the decreasing for the gusset. I cheated so much. Even small children would probably look at the sock and say, 'what's up with that?' but I digress. This part seemed to take the longest but I'm sure it wasn't. At this point I had memorized the lace pattern so it wasn't nearly as time consuming as checking off pattern repeats when I did the foot.
And then the finished sock! (Jenn is our lovely foot model today). I am so happy with the toe! I did grafting which is so much fun I'm going to knit all my socks top down in order to save this delicious knitting technique to the last. (Well, I've never tried toe up socks so I'm not going to stand by that last statement). And there is also a detail of the lace pattern on the sock too. And actually you can see some funkiness in that decrease line on the gusset, I think that is where I realized I had forgotten to decrease on the last decrease row so I did a double decrease on this row.

So there it is! My first WEARABLE sock ever! And yes, I've already started the second one. I've decided that while I may have many knitting projects on the go, I can only knit one pair of socks at a time. And since the Bears and I finished Jim's present we started on another one, which is our first adventure into double knitting- and I have to say that I am thoroughly fasincated by this. It's like reversible fair isle. I have many ideas cooking.

I also bought a book the other day, called Theory and Practive of Perspective by G. A. Storey and it was written in 1910. It's rather an intense read and it makes me wonder how humankind ever progressed if this is how they communicated to one another. I like it, I think once I finish this book I will know perspective better than anything else. And also, I used my credit at books & co so it cost me 2$. Mwahaha!

Ramblings

Not much to blog. I mean, the usual.... knitting.... reading (The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory)... buying (Martha Wainwright's new CD-cannot remember the name) .... going out for dinner and forgetting that ice tea has caffeine in it (I had not drank it for ages) so I drank 5 glasses of ice tea and was up till about 3 am talking to myself like a maniac in my bed. In other news, the person who was mean to me is so longer ever an issue. How lovely.

And Jim is getting here today! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm very excited. Jim is an excellent brother in law. The Canadia Bears and I are going to frantically try to finish knitting his Xmas present today but if we can't we will cleverly hide it somewhere in the house. The Bears are also currently reading my biology textbook, they find it very engrossing.

Mom is also in town, hence the spoiling of us. It's also why it's 9am and I've been up for an hour. I'm very productive while my mother is here. Today we are going to the Books and Co which is the most amazing bookstore. I remember working at a fast food joint (a dark, dark period of my life) and having saying that I enjoyed having visits from my Mom and that we had a lot in common, and having somebody, who was a mom herself, kinda sneer at me and say 'well you aren't normal'. That was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. My mom is also an amazing knitter. AMAZING. She knits these massive triangle shawls on tiny needles and I am just flabbergasted when I see them. And get this, she works on one at a time. She only starts another when she has finished the first one. Seriously. Maybe that's something that skips a generation, and my kids will knit like that.

Well, we are headed out soon so I shall depart in order to be decent for once (I am so sick of ponytails, but styling naturally curly hair is quite ambitious). And here is a photo of Chuck, who was so pleased that I clean my room and cleared a space for him on my bookshelf.

Wheee! Mwahahaa!

So, I was having a day. You know, those days, where you don't want to knit, or draw, or read, or watch TV, or phone anybody, or go outside (hot and smokey), and you don't feel overly well because you still aren't over that stupid cold you got two weeks ago and you still cough up a lung every few hours, and basically, you are a big mope. (I mean, I don't even want to play sims!)

I decided to get some productivity done, cause sometimes that helps. So I put away the dishes and put on a load of laundry and swept and made more coffee. Felt a little better, than I decided to just check my email to see if that person who stood me up on Canada has written me an apology email yet (boys can be stupid, no?) and what do I see?

A NEW knitty issue has come out! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (I saw that when I went to check my email because I get an email notification for new issues) I'm so psyched and I wasn't even expecting it so I am doubly thrilled! I'm going to get myself a cup of coffee, fluff the cushions, arrange the fans for opt cooling and read patterns all afternoon! I am so giddy. I first read the article by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, who is the Yarn Harlot, who I have a major blog-crush on. But yes, life is good. The article has tonnes of sock and glove patterns which is crazy because that is my current knitting theme! Sppppoooky. The Bears and I will pick out our favorites and let you know later, I also keep on meaning to blog the picture of my REAL sock that I'm knitting. You know, a sock that will actually fit a human foot. And I'm planning on knitting two of them! (I'm completely serious you know)

Woohoo! Happy happy Wednesday!

Oh, and a belated Happy America Day to my beloved Americans! Hug hug!

In other news...

How sad is it that I kinda don't want to blog because I don't want my incredibly silly and long title to the 06 06 06 post to go away on the sidebar? In other news, I categorized dice today according to the number of sides (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, & 20) and to style of dice (clear, cloudy, marbled, freckled, and solid colours). Yup. Thrilling.

Canada day was bloody awesome (just like I said). I went to the park with Jenn and her friend, who has two darling little girls, and we had a blast. I am apt to find that younger people are more fun to be around more and more (this statement could also be founded on the fact that a friend my age who was suppose to accompany us couldn't because he was still in bed half an hour after he was suppose to show up so.... but still, the girls were lovely). And lo and behold, what do I find in the park? YARN! Beautiful, beautiful yarn. So with my own money I got two skeins of recycled silk sari yarn from Nepal, and with the Xmas money from my grandparents that I had saved for just an occasion I got 22 very long strands of hand dyed hand spun felted wool from Germany!


Couldn't you just die? Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the wonderful Xmas present! It's the prettiest wool EVER!!! I'm thinking (with a lot of Jenn's help), two wallhangings, one a blue underwater theme, and the smaller one very bright sunshine red colours. And again, just to emphasize, a lot of Jenn's help went into that decision.

So I have two days off again. I'm knitting a sock, so I'll post that soon cause I can, and I'm working on some new drawings that I will see if I can get up to the university and scan sometime. I'm not talking to Aspirations right now. I don't like the watercolour part of it at all. I'll fix it somehow.

And yes, I did get the rainbow brite cakepan. And yes, it was very, very good.

(and hopefully, Spike will have blogged tonight, thought I would tell you because he's been rather anti-social as of late)

What day is it?

IT'S CANADA DAY!

Have a bloody awesome day! And kudos to Jim for his first half Canadian Canada day! Wheee!