Friday, August 28, 2009

Car of a thousand clowns

My little Toyota Echo is like one of those VW Beetles that expels a thousand clowns, much to the amazement of the onlookers. I went to an auction tonight and impulse-bought a drop leaf table for my kitchen. Of course, my friends with big cars were not there so I had to figure out a way to get it in my car. And I did. It's like magic. I think the table is bigger than my entire car but it fits inside. Go figure.

BTW, I am a chickenshit. The little log ride at Ontario Place scared the crap out of me. And I almost wet myself on the water slide. Seriously - those are for kids??? I swear we hit 60 km/hour down the water slide, in the pitch dark, and the G-force was extreme. Not for the faint of heart and their four year old son.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Work in progress



All sorts of yucky stuff has happened since I last posted, but it's all turned out A-OK, so I shall ignore it and carry on like it never happened. My apologies to all my dedicated readers.

So, I finished the fateful Buttercup. As expected, it is too small, but I think I can find someone it will fit. The bias is another thing. I blocked the snot out of it and it's still pretty bad, but it might be wearable... WTF, it was fun to knit. I might try it again, on slightly thicker yarn.


I broke down and bought a garter bar forn my machine on eBay (I will NEVER buy from anything other than a reputable vendor on eBay again. It's become a haven of scammers misrepresenting themselves and their products and I feel dirty just being on there. That being said I bought the garter bar from Sunny Choi, about whom who I have nothing but good things to say. Too bad the bad brings down the good.) and now I can (in theory) transfer multiples of stitches at the same time so I can do proper shaping without driving myself mad. Can't wait to try it.

My Dye Version Bamboo socks are almost done. I am knitting toe up since I want to use up ever scrap of yarn. As usual, I weighed the ball, divided it in two by weight, but for some reason not that I'm two inches or so from the top they are wildly different weights. I can't figure out why. Admittedly, the heels get turned separately, but they look the same and I can't see that making so much difference. There must be some weird sock black hole where the extra yarn just disappeared into. The toe up heel-flap heel rocks. I tried the Widdershins method, but I have a different stitch count and it made my head hurt trying to do the math. I found a much better version at Forward Motion. I had to suspend my disbelief, but I did and it worked, much to my surprise. The lycra in the yarn probably helps but these socks fit so well. Much better than the short row heel, simple though it is.

And machine knitting? I love lace.

I had to fix the lace carriage. I had a good look at it and there was something seriously weird going on with the back wheels.
They have a million trillion pieces that all work together, but the one of the bottom plastic thingies was out of whack on both wheels. I took my handy dandy dissecting kit and jimmied it back into place and now it seems to work fine. I don't know if that was what was responsible for the disaster I had before, but I decided to do what I should have before and start from the first lace card and move on. I started with fine fine acrylic and it kept etting hung up on the gatepegs - like it didn't quite transfer enough. I switched to fingering and it was MUCH better. Got hung up a few time, but no much. I'm not sure if the missed holes are due to the gatepeg issue or something else entirely - I don't know how to determine that but I'm sure all will be revealed in time.



Lucky Jack - a whole new binky.

Here's three generations of mummy-made binky. All the same yarn. Try not to be too grossed out.

And a few words about my new office. Not to gloat, but it's better than I could have imagined. It's improved my concentration, my productivity, and my ability to block at work :)



Hey Elvis - I bet it you take a few days off it'll fix you up so you don't have that weird look on your face. On second thought, maybe you need three MONTHS off.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Self-flagellation

101 reasons for my "cool" neighbours to stay away from me:

- I'm fat and wear ugo clothes and don't look like a supermodel
- My kids behave like WWF wrestlers, not princesses
- I'm single
- My house looks closer to Kentucky than House & Home
- My car is cheap and economical rather than glamourous
- Absolutely nothing about me is glamourous
- I practice free-range (aka neglectful) parenting rather than hovering
- I swear too much
- I drink too much (though really, I don't think that's a negative in our 'hood)
- I'm too negative

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Reading is good

I read like a maniac when I was a kid. I could read in grade one and didn't really stop voraciously devouring books until I went to university, where reading was temporarily replaced by drinking. My father was everlastingly grateful that my passion for Harlequin romances stayed behind when I left home. In truth, boy fantasy was replaced by the not so romantic reality of drunken encounters with the opposite sex, but I'm sure he never clued in to that.

Motivated by Crazy Aunt Purl I give you my favourite childhood books, in no particular order: I started with 10 but it grew...

Susannah of the Mounties and a few of the sequels. This was apparently written in 1936! but it had horses, the cool Mounty uniform... I adored it and wanted to be a Mounty (riding side-saddle, no less!) for ages.

Misty of Chincoteague and the related ones. Horses, yum. Again, written in 1947. What was up with that?

Black Beauty. 1887!!!

The Black Stallion 1941. I must have read that a million times and I think there were a billion spin offs that I read even though they were progressively worse and worse.

My Friend Flicka series. (1941 - it must have been a good year for horsey novels). Again, I adored the original and after a few they seemed to deteriorate. I don't know why I'm surprised - how many plotlines can there be about horses in the mountains? This series suffered from the fatal flaw of introducing romantic relationships - I dropped them like hot coals when that happened.

Nurse books. I seemed to read such old fashioned books! All the nurses wore caps (ah, the ritual of graduating from nursing school and having your cap pinned on) and were reverent and deferential to the doctors. They must have been 1950's vintage. Again, eventually they all seemed to fall in love and I became disgusted and stopped reading them.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Loved the first one, lost interest after a few.

Every single Laura Ingalls book. I even tolerated her getting married but I didn't really like it. I wanted her to stay Pa's little girl forever. I wonder how many school pictures show my hair in braids like hers? Lots. Now that TV show was awesome since they didn't follow the books, just made up episodes (at least as far as I could tell).

A Wrinkle in Time. I ADORED this book, though I can't remember why. I should read it again.

Watership Down and Jock of the Bushveld, which my dad read to us. I saw the movie of WatershipDown with my dad and it was the beginning of my disenchantment with movie adaptations of books. One's imagination is so much better, I think.

Enid Blyton, the Fabulous Four, the Fantastic Five, the Secret Seven, Mallory Towers - anything to do with British kids having adventures, going to boarding school, riding horses or - even better - both. They all blur together but I could not get enough of them.

Nancy Dew and the Hardy Boys, though I definitely preferred Nancy Drew. I'll still read these if I come across them. Ned Nickerson was the biggest sap in the universe, and combining Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys into one TV series was a tragically bad idea, although by then I thought Parker Stevenson was cute.

Stubby Amberchuck and the Holy Grail. From my dad, about WWF wrestling, being a lesbian... odd things. But I love it. Still have it, and the note my dad wrote to me when he gave it to me.

And every single harlequin-type romance published between about 1980 and 1985.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Acquisitions

Cheap - eight sock blockers in my favourite style for 25 cents. Two pairs are slightly rusty steel (?) and two pairs are zinc. They must be rust resistant as they are in better shape. Some of these are going to need good homes...


Not so cheap: 4 yards of assorted Riley Blake fabric for $24. Very pink. I wonder what was up with me that day?


Both totally worth it.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

And she sews some more...

Talk about instant gratification.

Miko was wearing this really cute top on Friday and I vowed to steal it and copy it for myself (as it was last years model, of course). She kindly gave it to me at breakfast yesterday and I made the pattern that afternoon and sewed it today.
























Miko's is on the left, mine on the right. It has a few translational errors, but in general it turned out pretty well.

The way I look in it is something else. I don't care though. It's cool.

Karma

When I was a teenager, I dyed some white pants blue in our backroom sink. Hanging above the sink were some white clothes. My mom came in, saw what I was doing and beat the living crap out of me.

I was so angry - I hadn't even got dye on her stupid clothes. There was no way I deserved that and I couldn't understand her rage.

Until now.

The boys were painting in the kitchen. I turned around and they had created an unholy mess of water and huge quantities of paint. It wasn't a big deal, but why do they think they can do this at home when they wouldn't even consider doing it at daycare? Whatever.

I'm giving them breakfast when I notice my new bag (yes, the one I finished last night) has muck-coloured paint splattered all down one side. Nice streaks where the volume was adequate. I scrubbed and scrubbed with all my pent up fury I'm not allowed by law to nleash on my children. I couldn't get it all out.

Suddenly I understand my mother's rage a lot better.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Ah, summer.

Is it here? Will it ever get here? Will it stay more than 30 seconds? Inquiring minds want to know.

We took advantage of the absence of forecasted rain to go to the beach today. I forget how lucky we are having the lake in our back yard. I was whinging how I would love a cottage where the water was nice and shallow and I could just let the kids do their thing... Lake Ontario is even better! No three hour drive, absolutely free - even parking, no groveling to certain people about whether we can use the place. I'm always shocked at how few people go there. OK, there's a fair amount of garbage on the beach, but the water is the same old water that people vacation in all over. A few bad e. coli days here and there but hey, our days usually involve e. coli in some way, shape or form so I'm not complaining. I vow to go more often.I know McDonald's is evil, but this time it tried to eat my child. I almost barfed when I saw what happened, but he barely even cried. I would have been shrieking and I'm supposedly grown up.



Don't try this at home folks:




Sitting on the DVP for a hour, knitting AND taking picture. Officer friendly? Really, I can knit without looking.














And my piece de resistance, another knock off bag, somewhat modified for ease of construction. This one only took an hour, and it would have taken less but I had to recut a piece. I went to town on this and cut from the CENTRE of the piece of fabric, gasp. What would my mother say? It was worth it though, the pattern was perfect there. I am quite pleased.


Please ignore the copy of Breaking Dawn on the table. I am mortified to be caught with it in my possession.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Is a promise different than a threat?

I was going to post about my great long weekend, how productive it was and how decluttered my house is, but then the kids came back and I lost all the zen feelings I had. They didn't list to a word I said all evening until I said:

Fine. I shall unplug the TV until Friday and if your behaviour improves you can have it back and if not, I'll give it away.

I take that as a promise but it's probably a threat and I don't care - it's the only thing that worked.

Anyway...

I love surging. I want to surge up the universe. Here is evil sheddy Wonderwoman cape before:


And after: MAGIC.



Buttercup. The word for this garment is CRAZY.

A. It's going to be tiny due to major miscalculations. Gauge fine, my brain, not so fine.
B. Almost drove myself crazy with hours of math followed by hours transferring stitches on the machine. Gave up eventually and took it off the machine and will handknit the rest.
A. The pattern has very few stitch counts. As i am knitting it upside down, I have to do the reverse math and it's driving me bonkers not having any reference points.
D. Reading a pattern in reverse is difficult.
E. Damn cotton is biasing like a bitch. I guess you get what you pay for. Anyone know a lop-sided twelve year old who'd like Buttercup?


(for you non-knitter out there - you know who you are - biasing is when your knitting leans in one direction, rather than being straight up and down. Very attractive having your side seam crawl across your ample belly...)

Saturday, August 1, 2009

OMG! I just had a machine knitting eureka moment. I had one or two of these in hand knitting - grafting was one and there was another even more blindingly revolutionary but I've forgotten it already.

I have terrible trouble transferring stitches onto the needle beds - whether I am rehanging the knitting or switching from hand knitting to machine knitting. The stitches never want to behave and the loops go everywhere except onto the machine needles. Meanwhile the rest of the garment has gotten itself snarled it the other needles. I never understood how machine knitters could be so cavalier about rehanging, like it was nothing. If the knitting is on waste yarn sometimes I can manage to pull the waste upwards while pulling the fabric down to make a nice loop to stuff on the needle but it's hugely awkward and I practically go blind. I think MK has been mainly responsible for the decline in my vision over the last few months. (Shut up. It is NOT old age.)

Today I was reading the Knitsings blog about knitting a handknit sock on a machine (I tolerate short row heels but they're not my fav so I was all over this) and she said:

    No doubt, this is the hardest, most stressful part of the pattern for me. You are going to rehang the sock and pull needles through the side slipped stitches of the heel flap, just as you would with its hand knit cousin.

PULL the needles through! Of course!!! Instead of trying to stuff the stitch onto the needle, just poke the transfer tool though the stitch, grab the needle and PULL IT THROUGH THE STITCH!

Seriously, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree. Of course this might be one of those items that works really well in my head and not at all in practice but we shall see…

In other news…

I taught Calvin to set things on fire with a magnifying glass. I adore fire and everything to do with it. I used to take candles out into my snow forts and hang out in the candlelight. Make little mini-bonfires and hope not to get caught. He is such a cautious kid he'd never set anything on fire. The first time it worked and he saw the leaf do its little mini-flame/smoke burst, he almost wet himself. Stop, mommy! Stop mommy! Like I was going to set the world on fire. Then he got totally into it, although way more cautious that I ever was. While I am outwardly horrified about him burning bugs, I sort of recall I may have done the same thing myself. A proud parenting moment passing my pyromania on to my child.

The cottage. I shall certainly reevaluate the plans for next year. Let me summarize by saying one night I lay in bed plotting who to kill first in my mass family homicide. I shall not discuss any further. My rage has died down and I do not want it to rekindle.

Surly, eh?

February Viking Sweater is finished! It was a positive pleasure to knit the torturous gull lace pattern rather than dwelling on the situation around me while at the cottage. If you think the pattern is more monotonous than watching paint dry just remember - there are worse things. It acted like a sort of white noise for me and probably saved some lives. Maybe I'll knit another one next summer.

I got two cones of cotton from Le Village months ago - about fingering weight, lots of twist. Sort of like tons of blue string. I had no idea what I could make out of it but it was $3 a cone (~700g each) so I couldn't resist. The other day I realized it would be perfect for Buttercup, so I knit up a test swatch. As I was knitting, I smelled a really musty smell. I hadn't used my machine for at least a month, so I though maybe there was some wet cardboard around it (it's right by a window) but I couldn't find anything. Eventually I realized it was the cone of cotton that stunk so badly. Yikes. Anyway, I washed up my swatch and the water was pretty damn filthy. Hung it in the sun all day to dry and it still smelled. Hmmm. It was much improved though, so I'm going to hope for the best. It does make a really nice fabric, though it biases like mad so don't be surprised w hen I hate the end result. In theory I was going to knit the top (increases, lace) by hand and then transfer it to the machine for the boring part, but it's so tiny I don't think I can stand it. I cast on upside down and might knit the whole think upside down and see how that looks. So little commitment with a machine. I love that.

Also - I bought a new knitting machine. I don't need it and it's not worth knitting with but it's so cute.

I have spent so much money on Etsy lately - all fabric. I am addicted to making little drawstring bags. I shall make as many as I can stand and then decide what to do with them. I think the most pleasing part is my little Lilo tag stuck in them. I'm so vain.

Also spending my entire GDP on junk on eBay - TWO Buzz Lightyears, although they won't play with both it's not worth the initial meltdown buying only one (also - I might have accidentally bid on two and won them both) and two batman video games. My kids are spoiled. Maybe I'll save the games for christmas.

Also - in my hate-on with cancer I have nothing but good news to report. My neighbour got her biopsy results back from her thyroid and is A-OK! (Biotch is moving, but that's another story). And Patrick's being sprung from PMH - I could not be more pleased.

(Of course I will now be struck down with a super-malignant strain of cancer that will leave me fat and bloated in death for daring to declare victory...)

I'd like to say I'll be better at blogging now, but I have a bag or 20 to sew…

Happy long weekend.