Friday, November 11, 2011

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

#7 Not Argyle

This blanket was knit with five skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca 100% cotton- blue, brown, pink, orange, and white. I followed a basic entrelac pattern with 3 sections of 18 stitches. I repeated every colour but blue twice, but then crocheted a blue edge. It turned out rectangle-ish and quite large. The cool thing is is that Julia picked out the yarn and the colours when I first moved to Vancouver four years ago with the idea that one day I would knit it into a baby blanket. It's pretty awesome that we get to wrap her baby in them now.

Monday, November 07, 2011

#6 Grr Argh

Sorry About Yesterday

I have no idea how I forgot to blog yesterday. Until now I thought I had blogged. That is so weird. Blogger didn't eat it or anything- I didn't blog. I just... didn't blog. Weird. Anyhoo- moving on.

I hung out at home tonight hoping to get called for work tomorrow. I didn't which is super stupid. Means I'll probably get called tomorrow either at 5:30am or I'll get a call right at 9am and have to panic out the door. Or I won't get called. Which is the stupidest option of all. Don't people know I have students loans?

Right! Blog entry topic back on track. Debt angst off to the side for now. So yeah, I'm sitting watching the back to back Come Dine With Me Canada episodes and knitting. I stick a safety pin in where I start so I can better see my progress. It worked beautifully.
You know, detailing I was making poached salmon (a success! Hazah!), emailing, playing with the kitten, and cleaning, I feel I got a lot done. I also made myself a few martinis along the way. I had pomegranate juice that needed to be finished and hey- I'm not about to let the world's most expensive pomegranate juice go to waste. Oh look- vodka and limes. Mm. Anyhoo, great- look at all this knitting.Look at how much of the sweater I've gotten done! Finish this sleeve then it's the yoke, steeking, collar, and button band! Wow.
Hm. That's interesting. Did you see it? Here's a close up. (It's not the kitten)
Yeah.
No more martinis while reading charts.

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Friday, November 04, 2011

Zen


The most stressful part of my travel was my fear of flying. After the first take off from Vancouver I managed to enter a state of semi-comatose, zen-wannabe state that I kept until I landed back in Vancouver. Well, on land I was as normal as one with jet lag in a new city can be, for the flights I was zen.

The Answers

So, I posted these questions in the Baby Shower post. Here they are again if you want to do a quick scroll through...
1. Please do not go. We'll eat you up. We love you so.

2. And she loved a boy very, very much- even more than she loved herself.

3. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

4. Elizabeth was a beautiful princess. She lived in a castle and had expensive princess clothes. She was going to marry a prince named Ronald.

5. 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.'

6. It do not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

7. It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you can ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

8. Things may happen and often do to people as brainsy and footsy as you

9. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

10. But the eye is blind. One must look with the heart.

Aaaaaaaand the answers (I'm really tired so this is a lazy, lazy, lazy, blog entry)...

1. Please do not go. We'll eat you up. We love you so.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

2. And she loved a boy very, very much- even more than she loved herself.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

3. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

4. Elizabeth was a beautiful princess. She lived in a castle and had expensive princess clothes. She was going to marry a prince named Ronald.
The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munch

5. 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.'
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Bianco

6. It do not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling

7. It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you can ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Matilda by Roald Dahl

8. Things may happen and often do to people as brainsy and footsy as you.
Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss

9. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

10. But the eye is blind. One must look with the heart.
The Little Prince by Antione de Saint-Exupery

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Happy Diwali!

A week or so ago yes but still, rest easy knowing good persevered over evil and I hoped you ate many gulab jamun.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Snuggles

Baby Hazel

Beeb Hazel is almost two months, she'll be two months in 11 days. CRAZINESS!!!
You may have already seen this photo but hey, she's a cute baby. We threw her baby shower last weekend. We all agree that baby showers should be when the beeb is here cause hey, BEEB!

Here are the happy parents. Jason walked the beeb over in her stroller from far away and had someone yell out 'Hello Hazel!' at them. Baby Hazel brings great notoriety in Vancouver.

The theme of the shower was Books and Bums.
Books galore! I lost my mind and if it wasn't my niece's shower I would have stolen many of them.

Mom and Dad came and family friends who have known Julia since her birth.
It was a super nice time. Lots of great people, good food, and such an awesome baby. Jess hosted the event in her lovely place and made all the food and drinks. I decorated with baby clothing.
And the last photo is of the six prizes (hazelnut chocolate bars (the good kind)) for the game. We had two activities, one was writing messages for Hazel that she gets to open on different birthdays, and the other was a book game. Basically we concluded that the elementary teacher shouldn't make book games. I managed to narrow down a selection of my favorite children/young adult books to ten and wrote down a quote from each one. I read out the quote and people had to guess the title of the book and the author. The highest score was 11/20 and the lowest was 0.

So basically I'm going to put the quotes here and you can see how many you answer without cheating! Pencil and paper and note down the author and the title. I'll put the answers tomorrow though when you are done you can google them if you can't wait. 2 points possible per questions, one for author one for title.

Cheers!

1. Please do not go. We'll eat you up. We love you so.

2. And she loved a boy very, very much- even more than she loved herself.

3. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

4. Elizabeth was a beautiful princess. She lived in a castle and had expensive princess clothes. She was going to marry a prince named Ronald.

5. 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.'

6. It do not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

7. It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you can ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

8. Things may happen and often do to people as brainsy and footsy as you

9. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

10. But the eye is blind. One must look with the heart.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Self Portrait

Oh Right! I went to NY!

Let's start November blogging off with a bang shall we? Well, when I say that, I realize it's kinda a stupid saying and also, it's a lie. It's quarter past ten. I'm going to bed very soon. Mostly pictures. No bang at all.

So yeah, I'll be blogging every day in November. I like saying that like it's really going to happen. Twice even. One will be a single picture post, one will be a regular post. But let's start off with New York. I'd just like to say that I went to NY for five days for 740 dollars. Canadian. Including airfare. That all said and boasting aside, next time I go, I'd like to spend a lot more.

Anyhoo, on to the pictures!

Firstly, Ozzie: the star of Brooklyn. I love this cat.
And my first real day in NYC we went to the fashion district (kinda dirty really) but got to meet Swatch! Who is kind of a bad dog at times. But still! Swatch!
While at Mood I bought some beautiful silk charmeuse for Hazel. It's stupidly soft.
We also went to the Daphne Guiness exhibition at FIT. I'd link but I'm really tired. It's completely worth googling. This woman basically wears insanity on a daily basis. Some of her outfits are beautiful and inspiring, some are scary, some are stupid, but they are all very entertaining.
On the last day we walked around Chelsea and Soho and Madison and Fifth and Central Park. Lots of fun. In no particular order we saw dinosaur bones...
giant crucifix (this was actually on my last day there right in a cemetery right by the wall street occupation but it's such a hassle to move photos)
we went to the folk museum and saw awesome quilts. This one was my favorite.
look at this! INSANE!
Purl soho where I bought the most scrumptious madeline tosh light and managed not to buy liberty fabric for 36$ a metre.
Oh, and one morning we all just got dressed up in coloured tights. That's Dory on the left, she is who Kat and I stayed with in NY. Lovely lady. Great hair.
Here are my tights while I was walking through a little water fountain on the highline.
These sculptures are all around NY subways and are too awesome.
Here is the highline. It's an old railroad about two stories up that has been converted into a green space. It's nice. At first I didn't get what all the fuss was about but after walking around NYC for a bit I understood the need for more green space. It had some really nice spots to sit and watch the water or the traffic below.
Rhinebeck! Woo! It was fun and frankly, those apple cider doughnuts made the whole trip for me foodwise. There was a lot to look at and we didn't even get through all the tents. Lots of fleece but I haven't spun for ages and still have my sweet georgia panda to get through.
Lara! We got to spend time fondling yarn and talking all things fibre just like old times. I sure miss her! It was great getting to see her. I mauled her in the middle of the food lines I was so happy.
Okay, upstate NY is so ridiculously different from NYC it's, yeah, ridiculous.
The first place we went to had this amazing silk/merino yarn that I desired so bad. It's called Raspberry Souffle by Periwinkle Sheep. She's so nice I had to link to her. I didn't want to blow my Rhinebeck budget on the first place we went to so I left the four skeins lovingly behind. I almost think this was the wrong place to start with because it set our expectations so high for everything else. There were a lot of great vendors there but I was just comparing everything to Periwinkle Sheep. We went to two nice, but somewhat underwhelming tents and I freaked out and was like... we have to go back for the Raspberry Souffle! (haha- I typed souggle!) Thankfully on our way back we passed some amazing stalls that made me gasp and fondle yarn so that was good. Regardless, we went back and I could only find two skeins of the yarn. I wanted enough to make a sweater. I asked the owner if she had any more and she said she didn't but then, I spotted in a tub that wasn't suppose to be holding the silk yarn two more skeins of the Raspberry Souffle! I was so happy that I made lots of stupid high pitched noises and did a little dance. Due to the embarrassing display of fibre love the owner gave me a discount on all four! So nice. The yarn is so lovely it sits on top of the TV in honor.

The other yarns I got from Rhinebeck were from Dirty Water and are a gorgeous orange and dark blue/purple. The brilliant purple there is my tosh light which is halfway knit into a shawl right now. It's like butter.

Well, that was New York. There was amazing pulled pork, guys singing on the subway, people discretely asking us if we wanted to follow them to buy designer purses (we didn't), dressed up dogs, and a whole lot of culture, noise, and good times. It rocked. I want to go back. Rhinebeck 2013 folks! Yeah!