*cough cough*

Cherished readers, I feel like sh*t today. I can't even make me knit because my hands are cold, clammy and quite useless. Everytime I cough it feels like I am going to spit my brains out (sorry for the imagery and I am not really sure how that could actually happen), I have used more kleenexes than anyone on earth could count (thank heavens for the 6-pack ultrasoft we bought two weeks ago) and I alternate between two bedcovers and sitting around in a t-shirt. As you can see I am trying not to lose my sense of humor - though I don't know how long I can keep it up. So thanks again for all your comments and well-wishes, I am going to make good use of them.

Deborah, should you read this: I added a comment with an instruction for the neck-thingie on the Man-model, model-man post.

You've got mail

The "you" would be me. Today I got an e-mail from my sister thanking me for the TTT and telling me that she liked it a lot and was already wearing it. Phew. Now, knowing my sister I am pretty sure she would have told me if she didn't like it, so it's safe to say no looming"interesting" here.

Last night I got the shivers - three covers were not enough to get me warm, and shortly after, of course, I was way too hot. All that's left today is a short night (three hours of sleep, caught up on this morning), stuffed sinuses and a nasty cough. I think I can handle that. Thanks for the good wishes, my faithful commenters!

Model-Man, Man-Model

The latest FOs modeled by hubby:


And, since I know that knitters want to see everything close up:


As you can see I made a very simple hat, that's how he wanted it. The "scarf" is k1,p1 rib, with a tubular cast-on and cast-off. First time I did the tubular cast-off and I think I have it down. Yay.

He loves the hat but couldn't get fast enough out of the scarf-thingie (does anyone know how it's called?), apparently it itches like hell. It is alpaca - how can it itch???

My throat itches, too. And I hurt all over. Blech, I think I kind of opened Pandora's box last Saturday when I proclaimed that so far I hadn't gotten ill this winter...

I wanted to

...but I cannot show you the hat I knitted for Rolf. He is wearing it already. Which tells me that he likes it.

Talking about people liking what you knit: My Mom received the "Two-tone-top with a twist" ca. 10 days ago, she phoned me when the package arrived. "So," I asked "how do you like it?" She answered that it is "interesting". Oh dear, knowing my Mom I got a bad feeling at once. Interesting in her language means more or less: "what was she thinking? Does she really want me to wear this? maybe I'll give it a try..." Bad Karma, I can tell you. She said, however, that she liked the colours.

Last week I got another call: this time she seemed a bit more excited about it, she told me that she washed it and it lengthened a bit (I didn't have the time to give it a rinse, look how late it arrived anyway and I sent it off in the last week of November!) which seemed to make her like it more. Hmm...

So now I am waiting for the third call (three time's a charm, right?) to confirm that the looming "interesting" is gone for good.

The other TTT went to my sister. I haven't heard anything from her yet. I do know that the package arrived because the socks for her boyfriend were received well. I don't mean to be a stickler for big thank you notes, but an acknowledgement of my work in some form would be appropriate, don't you think?

People with brooms

Warning, long non-knitting content follows!

We braved the cold and went curling. The following picture is about half an hour into the event, we are still content, warm and smiling. With me is Peter, a professor at the chemistry department at Concordia, and also green-stripey-sock-recipient.


It was mainly I who got (after three hours) not-smiling, cold and malcontent (a little bit). It is hell to go from a cold curling rink into the colder outside...but, wait, we're still there, so here it goes:


This year only one my right knee is a bit "ouch" to the touch - it's the one I was on when pushing or throwing (?) the stone. Like I did in this picture. I can't make myself to put on one of these slidy thingies - I am afraid that I would end up on my arse a lot, so it looks really unprofessional but I don't care.



Blame my hubby for a blurry picture. This is me waiting for the embarrassing outcome of my throw. Mostly the stone veers off the lane or I don't push hard enough to even reach the target with it.


So, back there is the target area, and we are waiting for one of our stones to come by. When it's in motion you have to decide if to brush or not, sometimes a hard decision because a little too much brushing and the stone shoots over the area where it is supposed to land. Actually, that happened a lot - even without brushing. That's when you hear the professional teams on TV yell "HAAAAARD" - not so much at our event. (Any professional curler reading this might get a laughing fit, again: I don't care!)

Suffice it to say, we didn't win the tournament since we sucked big time. It was fun nonetheless, though cold fun.

Later that evening I finished my first fair-isle sock. I am dreading the weaving in of the ends since I despise doing it.

What is she doing?

You might think when you see this picture.


This is the left-over from a brioche stitch alpaca scarf I knitted for my then boyfriend Rolf at least ten years ago. (I bet it's been longer.) When you have tried brioche stitch you know that it is a very slow way of knitting things and a labour of love. Even though it's bad-ass cold here in Montreal Rolf won't wear the scarf. He would wear a hat, though.

I am sure once I have frogged the whole thing I will have enough yarn for a manly hat and a tubular thingie Rolf prefers to wear instead of a scarf.

Let me tell you, this is the first time I am unravelling something I have knitted long ago and it feels a bit unsettling. Maybe when I am done with the new hat I will feel better...

See, Véronik, I am taking your advice: hmm, alpaca!!

Socks aplenty

Yeah, yeah, here we go again. Another sock. And all because I am too lazy to frog part of the back of the Mackintosh cardi so I can re-knit it correctly. It's in front of me, I see it and wail "I don'wanna!". Okay, so I don't whine out loud, just silently to myself, but nonetheless.


The single sock dread has to be avoided, so:


The weather here is once again extremely cold. Tomorrow we are supposed to go curling. In my lifetime I have done that twice. Last year and the year before last. Yes, it's an annual event, and it's followed by a "soup-tasting" or potluck dinner at one of the participant's house. With all the cold outside I really don't feel like joining a sport in the cold inside. Especially when I know that I will most probably end up with black and blue knees. Did I mention that I am not really good at curling?

Shopping spree - not yarn!

Yesterday I took a temporary break from knitting - from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Véronik and I went shopping. I know, I have mentioned that I don't have money for yarn, but when your clothes start looking "well worn" and are falling apart you cannot but buy new ones. And, I do not particularly like clothes-shopping for me.

There are a lot of things on sale right now, and so I was lucky. Or I should figure myself lucky since I found a sweater, a blouse and a camisole, I just wish the two first mentioned were an inch or two longer. They are not and so I have to "go with the flow" - i.e. make the best of it.


You might have guessed it by now: I like green. (Yes, the camisole is green, too.) Not to forget the fact that except for green there was a lot of pink, and I don't feel comfortable in pink. It doesen't work with my complexion, it makes me look really red in the face. I would go for blue, but since there was green and I don't like black - you catch my drift?

If it wasn't for the apricot coloured bra and some panties I also bought, Véronik might have used the word "obsessed with green" when asked what she thinks about my shopping habits. Which is absolutely NOT true, since I am obsessed with apricot! (I won't post a picture of the underwear, duh, even if it is my favourite colour.)

It has been a while since I have done this last and I forgot how tiring shopping is. I was a lot of fun though, and I hope we do it again some time soon.

As you might have seen I added a new category in my side-bar. I thought it would be nice to tell you a bit more about me - so now you can see what kind of music I like and what I am listening to when knitting. There is of course lots more, and as my faves change time after time so will the info.

Being "productive"

Wanna see what I "worked" on last night?


I found out that the percentage of green pins in my little box is higher than any other colour - and that I have to stock up on white. What? You think I could have used the time better? What d'ya know, I thought so, too! It's not that I haven't done anything else - it's just that it didn't amount to anything useful.


I have done this. Maybe when I've decided what it is going to be I will let you know.

"Beautiful Knitting Patterns"

That's where the pattern comes from. (This is for Lee Ann who explicitly asked.) I could've used any ol' sock yarn but I thought the silky one would go well with the lace pattern. I was right and it's really nice to knit with.


I finished it yesterday and now I want to knit another sock. No, not the second one, another sock. The possibility of ending up with a lot of single socks slowly creeps into my life.

Guess what?

I am knitting socks. Again. But this time I am knitting a lacy leaf pattern with Regia Silk. Enjoy:

Cars and Girls

Of the formerly mentioned the car is the more expensive one. At least in this household.

Rolf brought the car to get the flat tire fixed. Turns out there were more flaws than one flat tire. We needed some repairs, the total cost was more than 700$. That's all I have to say about that.

I am a bit disappointed that the CSI murder case didn't get any attention on the blogs I read. This leads me to believe that not a lot of knitters watch this show, I read the wrong blogs or they just don't care. Or maybe they have enough sense not to read more into a TV-show than it's worth...

I fell in love last night. I discovered a colour of Noro Silk Garden I won't be able to withstand for long:

Tones of orange and turquoise in one ball?? Brilliant. I am sure I can think of an appropriate project. (In case you wondered: it's #35)

Talking about projects, I am not really happy with mine at the moment. The teal socks bore me, and I need to design the intarsia for my Mackintosh cardi. Hey, wait a minute, I only have two WIPs?? Ah, let's not forget the other sock (for any kind of travelling or visiting or needing a small project to carry with me) and all the swatches for my ideas I am working on. Darn that stupid car - how am I supposed to finangle money for yarn from hubby when there is none? There you have it, now my yarn diet is official.

Update at 3.40 p.m. The other sock is no longer. The cast-on turned out to be not stretchy enough, so I frogged it.

CSI New York

Before I read any other blogs today I have to post about yesterday's CSI NY. I bet it'll be all over the knit blogs that a knitter *gasp* has committed murder - accidentally, but nonetheless murder! Suffice it to say that the shows creative consultants (or whoever is responsible for the props etc.) neglected her/his research, the knitting needles seemed a bit too pointy and the shown knitting, well, wasn't exactly "knitting", was it now?

Whatever. I found it highly amusing and entertaining that even a crime show tries to jump the train to knit-town.

What others think: CSI NY on Knitter's Review

Update - on what exactly??

I started the second sock and managed to finish the cuff and the necessary increases for the cables. I haven't knit one cable yet. Otherwise there are no knitting news.

Maybe you are interested in the weather here in Montreal? It's strange. After having minus 10° this morning the temperature is up to minus 4° (says my hubby) and it's raining ICE. Again. Hopefully it will warm up a bit more so we don't have to scratch a centimeter thick ice covering from our car. Which was stuck in a snow heap (which covered the ice from our last ice-storm) the last couple of days, so Rolf bought those nifty thingies one puts under the tires to get grip and get out of the snow heap. That worked. But then we discovered that the left back tire was flat. That's when I got a bit anxious, because I wanted to take the car to get to our knit-out yesterday. I couldn't. I ran for the last 63 bus - almost missed it, but the driver was friendly enough to wait for me. I made it, huffing and puffing. Which didn't help to increase my already bad mood because I felt reminded of the bad shape I am in. Thank goodness I have a really bad memory regarding "look at the bad shape I am in" and when I arrived at the café I had recovered what was left of my usual "aloofness" (haha, I just like the word, I am no Steven Hyde by all means!). Lets just say I bitch a bit and then I get over it. Works most of the time. It helps a lot when one doesn't have to carry a grudge against anything and everything. I know some people who really should try it. But I digress. Wait. No, "isch'abe fertisch"! ("I am finished" in German with bad Italian accent, German soccer fans will know what I am talking about, right?)

Finally

A picture:


The teal sock from Lang "JaWoll" - size and recipient unknown.

I tried to capture the cables in detail but my capabilities as a photographer are a bit limited:


It's a cable across six stitches but one cables only four stitches at a time.

Now I obviously have to finish the second sock, how exciting.

Is it...

really January 5th already?

Seems I am starting the new year with slacking on my blog. But then I don't have any knitting news - that is I just figure you wouldn't be too interested in yet another pair of socks.

I finished the first teal coloured sock with cables in Lang "JaWoll", pic follows.

I love the Lang sock yarn, I love the concept of them putting a spool of reinforcement yarn into each ball (though I hardly ever use it, did so for the heel on this sock), I just can't abide the price they expect me to pay here in North-America.

Quite a while ago - I figure it must be 10 years - my Mom knit a cardi from Lang "JaWoll". She used it double stranded and due to the quality of the yarn you can imagine how well the cardi held up. I remember my brothers prying the "baby" (that's how they called them) out of each and every ball of yarn and playing with them. Believe it or not, I still have some of the same spools from my Mom's cardi - ready to be used as reinforcement in any sock heel or toe I want. Don't you just love the fact that yarn doesn't have a "best before" date when properly kept?

BTW - you mustn't think just because I don't write about big desasters and donating on my blog that I don't care about things like that. I am as any other person horrified about what happened and couldn't agree more that donating is the right thing to do.

...and the yarn goes to

Thanks to the three people who guessed. That made finding the winner really easy.

The correct answer is b) 12.022 sts

Congratulations to Lee Ann who can start knitting socks now!

Sorry Jo (also for keeping you waiting) and Wenders, maybe you'll have more luck next time.