Fair-Isle has been conquered.

Colour work is something I had been putting off for quite a while. Last weekend I finally tackled it and now see that it is not as intimidating as I once thought.

Pattern: Fake Isle hat from Magknits which no longer exists.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon and Briggs & Little

This weekend I am going to try to visit my folks in the outskirts of Fredericton. I don't know if it will happen though because of the flooding which is worse than the flood of '73. They have cut power to the downtown core and areas that lie along the river. My parents don't like anywhere near the river, but the transcanada does cross it at Upper Gagetown. Tomorrow night I am going to stay at my boyfriends place in Moncton while he goes to the movies, because he forget I was coming and bought tickets to something he apparently has to see. I have concluded that testosterone somehow inhibits the ability to remember dates, while estrogen enhances the ability to get upset about it.

Happy Earth Day!

To celebrate I will be soldering with lead and RMA flux, both of which are toxic. Later on though, I will be knitting. Knitting is good for the environment right??

Even though I already have 4 projects on the needles, I swatched for Fluid Linen by Ilga Leja on the weekend in Rowan Bamboo Soft. This yarn is so incredibly soft and drapey. I wish the internet had a "touch and feel" feature so you could all feel it. I have high hopes for this shirt.



I recently picked up a new set of Addi Turbos for the purpose of trying magic loop. So far I am enjoying it, as I am also enjoying this Tofutsies yarn that someone was kind enough to pick up for me in New Brunswick last summer. The pattern is Waving Lace from Favorite Socks.



Now for the recent FO's:

Some small socks for my small sister in Knitpicks Essential Tweed. The reason that I have different colored heels and toes is because when I orderd this sock yarn I didn't notice that it came in 50g balls instead of 100g balls and orderd 3 balls of different colored sock yarn. Now I will be knitting two pairs of socks in this style.



A mohair scarf in a slanted open work pattern from my stitch dictionary using Kid Mohair from London-Wul.

New Patterns to Love

Ilga Leja released a beautiful new collection.

www.ilgaleja.com

I want to make them all!

Maybe my "gathering" instinct is a little too good...

Or maybe I just need to be gathering for a clan and not just for myself.

I ordered a new sofabed this weekend. It's a simmons queen size sofabed with a chaise at one end, which will become my knitting sanctuary. Also, it will be a comfy place for company to sleep!

Sooo... if anybody wants a blue microfiber double sofabed. It's not in bad shape. There are no stains or tears, it' s just not the most comfy thing in the world. If somebody would like to take it away, it's free.

The other thing that I gathered this weekend without needing in anyway is this cute pair of shoes! They call them twins because they are similar but not the same. How cute!

I can has new Yarn Harlot book?

Yes I can! I went to the Dartmouth Chapters today to pick it up after seeing on line that they had 10 copies in their inventory. It's not out on the floor yet though, it's out back so you have to ask for it. Will they be totally confused and take forever to find it all the while thinking you are a little nuts? Well, yes. Is it worth it? Yes. I laughed while drinking my latte and looked a little nuts again.

I am satisfying myself by reading about knitting after a few days of numb fingers and burning wrists. They are feeling better now, but I want to let them rest a little bit more.

Proof.

Proof that I have been knitting. I haven't been posting a whole lot lately.

This is the humble beginning of the Dovetail Pullover from the latest issue of Interweave. I had bought this Cascade 220 superwash for another project but it wasn't working out so it has been retasked. I have very little cable experience but so far all is going well.





I have been working on this one a while now. It's the Cleopatra Wrap from Sensual Knits in Alpaca Cloud. Whenever I work on it I can't help thinking that it would be a nice "something blue". Maybe if I pack it away for 20 years it will get it's chance.

Spring is around the bend?

It better be because I have started my spring cleaning. Today I dropped off three bags and a box of stuff to the Salvation Army, and I organized my stash and knitting area (my whole living room). Maybe it is not so much spring cleaning as "my boyfriend is away for the next month and I need something productive to do besides sulk cleaning", but that name is just too long.

I also took a drive out to Tantallon to go to the Basket of Yarn and check it out. I saw on the website that she is doing a Fair Isle class which I have been waiting to learn so I signed up. I have already done my homework. It's a nice little shop and she has a couple things that I have not seen in town, like a good selection of Briggs and Little, laceweight Malabrigo (beautiful!!) and some hand dyed from Chile that I forget the name of. There was also a cat sleeping in a basket.

I finished and photographed my Colinette Jitterbug socks. I have heard that this yarn bleeds very bad when washed. I have not washed or worn them yet, so we shall see how they hold up.


Just as I am writing this my smoke detector goes off because I burnt the pizza I had in the oven. Maybe I should be taking a cooking class too.

The Great Hair Donate of 2008

Before...

The big cut...

After...

I now have 10 inches of hair to donate. Also I am going to see Leonard Cohen in May!!!

Gaspereau Loot

This Saturday I made my first visit to Gaspereau Valley Fibres and found some treasures. I got three skeins of alpaca lace weight that I plan to do the Bleeding Heart Stole from the latest interweave knits. The pattern you see is a shawl pattern for the two skeins of Bison/bamboo from fibre-isle. I also bought my first Addi Turbo! I just started doing some sample knitting for a local designer and she lent me addi turbos for the job. Now I understand what all the fuss is about!



This little shawl pin was too cute to leave behind. It's a tiny little knitting needle!

Spring is here!

Spring Knitty is here. Spring weather comes and goes here on the East coast. I predict a honey comb and yosemite will be in my future.

This weekend I am planning on going to Gaspereau Valley Fibres for the first time ever. I know some of you had a negative experience there, but I have to go see for myself. I'm hoping to stop by the Grand Pre winery while I'm in the neighborhood too, so if any body would like me to pick up some yarn and vino (I highly recommend L'Acadie Blanc) for them let me know. (Applies only to people who know me in real life)

I have been a delinquent blogger or late. It's not that I have not been knitting though, I have just not been photographing. Also, I got a new RPG for the PS2 that has me hooked.

When I go home for easter my cousin is going to cut a 11 or 12 inches of my hair off. Yikes! I am enjoying my last few days with it before it gets a new home in a wig for somebody undergoing chimo. I've been talking about doing this for a while. It's the only reason I have let my hair grow so long, and I am shocked at the amount of people who do NOT say "Wow, that's a really great thing to do". Instead, I here more "Why would you cut your hair?!?" Stay tuned...

Skin of the Sea

IMG_0441, originally uploaded by leclerc_jk.

Two FO's so far this week! Sorry for the second bad DIY picture, but at least I look less evil in this one.

The details : Skin of the Sea by Ilga Leja in Fleece Artist Silk Stream.

This is my first time doing one of Ilga's patterns and she writes amazingly interesting and descriptive patterns. This was a fun one to knit.

Vixen Tank Top

IMG_0438, originally uploaded by leclerc_jk.

After only a week I have pretty much finished up the Vixen Tank from Sensual Knits. I used two skeins of artyarns sock yarn from my stash and little bit of brown sheep chunky weight wool for the band around the top. I still have to buy some ribbon to use as straps. What you see in the photo is the black top I am wearing underneath. If I wasn't wearing that underneath, this would be a photo for a different type of site all together. It came out a little big, but I am very happy with it!

Isabella

IMG_0432, originally uploaded by leclerc_jk.

It was a bittersweet cast off as I finally finished Isabella. This is the Old Shale pattern done in Artyarns Silk Rhapsody on 4.5's. This yarn is so lovely to work with I did not want it to end!!! But I can now enjoy wearing it even more.

Another knitting update: Remember the lace wrap I started knitting last fall? There were some pretty obvious mistakes there, and I got fed up and decided to rip it all back with intentions of starting again and making it better, faster, and stronger this time. It was going to be the million dollar wrap. As I was ripping this back, I made an awful mess of the yarn (or it made an awful mess of itself). I tried to rewind it on my ball winder which just made matters worse. Now it is a hopelessly tangled ball of laceweight that has been banished to a place where it can haunt me no more. (an ikea box) If anybody is sadistic enough to want a tangled ball of merino laceweight (approx. 1300 yds.) message me.

On the road again...

Fred's great grandmother passed away on the weekend so I am on my way to Edmunston for the funeral. Needless to say I will not be at knitting this week.

Also, for those of you who don't know, there are still some good deals on at TS. I managed to snag a couple things. Photos to follow later as well as photos of my recently finished Skin of the Sea and Isabella.

A year in review

I stole this from Moe. I know a lot of you did it last year, but I hadn't been blogging long enough to do it then, so I am trying it now...

Instructions: Copy the first sentence that you posted in each month of 2007.


January
Tristan got me this for Christmas.

February
I finally finished my first sweater!

March
Haven't finished a project in a while.

April
No, this is not said baby.

May
If you are my unborn niece, please look away or the surprise will be ruined!

June
What a weekend I had!

July
I'm two dozen years old today.

August
First off, this happened before vacation, but this is what the Captain gave me for my birthday.

September
The land is not so dry, but I am glad to be back on it just the same!

October
Well, my three week sea trip was cut down to about 3 days and I returned Monday afternoon.

November
As you might know, I went to Labrador for a month back in August/September.

December
I had big plans this weekend of getting caught up on my laundry and housework and also going to the Christmas Open house at Gaspereau Valley Fibres out in the valley.

Not quite the North Pole, but close

There are days that I think my job is great and others that I wish I had just gone to Accounting School and done something safe. Yesterday was one of the latter. The X-band radar on the Hudson developed a leak in the bit of wave guide that connects the antenna to the rest of the wave guide. Water in the wave guide is pretty bad and gives you a giant blob in the middle of the screen, generally not desirable. So, since I am the new person, me and another newish guy had the pleasure of climbing up there to remove the faulty waveguide in the cold yesterday, and we get to go put the new one in today in the even colder weather. Here's hoping there are no frostbite or falling 30 feet type injuries right before Christmas.



Edited to Add:
Re: the mast climbing in -17 weather. A couple of the older guys on the ship's crew have taken to being quite protective of me since I am one of the few young girls around. When they found out that I was up the mast they gave my supervisor an earful for making me go up there in the cold. They also sent a deckhand to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn't need anything. At least I am well taken care of around here.

Skin of the Sea and early Christmas events

This year, some of my Christmas celebrations had to come early as Fred is now at sea for the holidays. Alright, who am I really kidding. I always celebrate Christmas for about 3 months every year. Anyway, he got to spend about a week in Halifax before sailing away. While he was here we made Christmas cookies.



We also went out to dinner at Opa's before exchaning gifts. Here I am in my Christmasy shirt all set to go out.



I started Ilga Leja's Skin of the Sea a couple weeks ago. I reached the blocking stage last night. After this, I will just have to seam the shoulders and pick up some stitched around the collar and down the front. I think I got the guage off because it seems like it is going to be pretty big. It will come down past my hips, which I don't think it's supposed to do.



I also picked up the Perl Grey Imogen sweater kit on the weekend. It's Green/Blue/ Yellow. I am not sure if it the Rainforest or Nova Scotia colourway, but it is lovely.

Charity knitting anyone??

I know you all busy with those last minute Christmas projects right now, but after all that settles down and you are wondering what to do next here is a suggestion.
I went to a meeting last night of the Canadian Cancer Society volunteer organization. I asked if they had any use for donations of knitted hats,etc and they do! Downtown they run a place called the Lodge that Gives. Basically, if you are from out of town and need to have treatments in Halifax this is a place to stay. Not only is it a warm bed, but they organize activities and offer much needed support to patients. They have a gift shop there that sells hand knits and gives profits back to the lodge. I was told dishclothes sell especially fast, as well as hats, mittens and scarves. So, if any of you would like to donate a couple things you could drop them off at the Lodge that Gives or give them to me at KOL and I will see that they get there.

And the amazing luck continues

As many of you know, Halifax got a lot of snow last night and then some rain, so this morning things were a slushy mess. Also, I still have my all seasons on because I store my tires at my folks place and wanted to change then when I was home in November, but my lock nut key had been misplaced. Now I have a new lock nut key (Portland Street Honda Service Dept is great btw), but still not winter tires. I was hoping that the weather would hold off until after christmas like it did last year. Anyway, I was mentally prepared for a hard commute to work this morning. It was slow moving but pretty good. Then when I was coming down the driveway to my workplace and tapped the breaks coming down a little hill I lost control and slid into a snowbank, right outside work. I am glad it was the snowbank and not the oncoming truck. Also, I was amazed while shovelling myself out at the amount of people who drove by and did not stop to help!!! Obviously some people have not seen the Ninja's pay it forward blog posts recently.

Anyway, I have decided not to leave the house anymore.

Here Anna is reinacting my mood this morning.

This weekend was a bust

I had big plans this weekend of getting caught up on my laundry and housework and also going to the Christmas Open house at Gaspereau Valley Fibres out in the valley.  They were forcasting light flurries for Saturday which didn't worry me too much, but as soon as I hit the highway the wind and snow came up and the visibility was nil.  Seeing as I drive a sporty little  car and do not have my snow tires on yet (they are at my folks in a different province right now)  I decided that a yarn sale was not worth the risk and turned around.  Skidding on the Bedford Highway on the way back confirmed my decision was a responsible one.

I got home and decided to do my laundry, first starting with all my bedding, including my duvet cover.  While my clothes were in the washer the one dryer in my building broke, so now I have a basket of wet bedding and a couple old blankets on my bed, not to mention over 2 weeks worth of dirty clothes on the floor.  After these two failures, (oh yes, my internet was down most of Saturday as well) I didn't think anything useful would come out of the day and decided to knit continuously for the rest of it.  I started my Skin of the Sea by Ilga Leja and am done the back already.

Now that the snow is coming down out there, it looks like another good evening for knitting.  I still wish my dryer was working though.