I'm back from vacation. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video should be worth a million.

I'll be back with those pictures soon.

I've heard this all before

At Tuesday's Knit night, the conversation once again came around to knitting on Airplanes. Since I am planning a trip soon, I was interested and had already thought of ways to sneak my bamboo dpns on board with me. I knew they wouldn't set off any alarms as I went through the metal scanner but I had not thought of the random pat-downs. Five hours on a plane with no knitting seemed to be in my future.

January 20, the regulations were adjusted.* I can take my knitting!!! My latest sock project falls under the category of "knitting needles (when wool is present)"

Does this mean that if I attempt to bring Phentex on the plane with me that I will be hauled off never to be seen again?

Does this mean that knitting needles by themselves are dangerous and it is the wool that calms them? Sound like a good reason to add the stash on a particularly stressful day. I can justify purchases by saying that Transport Canada made me buy this yarn.

I was surprised to read that knitting is not considered part of your carry-on luggage and is to be carried separately rather than packed in a larger bag. Knitting needles might look like weapons in x-ray scans. Perhaps too many knitters were getting cranky when the security people carelessly pulled their knitting off the needles in attempt to see what those 14" metal single points actually were.

I will be taking knitting on my next flight. I won't be knitting "Whistler".


*for a full list, check Calgaryairport I am now allowed to take my Tuba too...as long as it's in its case, but my knitting bag is too big to be considered a purse.

I get some of my best ideas while enjoying a glass of wine. The next day, I realise that someone should have stopped me.

Flashback to 2005.
I was in London and chatting with my friend and travelling companion about other travel possibilities. Wine was involved. We discussed the possibility of walking across England. The Holiday company would ferry our main luggage to various B&B's. We would only have to carry our day packs which would of course have our prepared lunches in them and very little else.
When I arrived home and told Mr.B of the wonderful plan, he told me I that I had lost all semblance of sanity and for once, I agreed with him.

Fast forward to 2010.
Somehow, late last year, the idea of walking across England was brought up for discussion again. Wine may have been involved. We did not hear the "Your crazy!" response.

We paid our deposit and in September will be walking. Eight days of walking. West coast to East coast. Our day packs will have to hold more than our lunches.

Obviously, training is necessary. Sitting on the couch and knitting, unfortunately does not count as training.. Last weekend, Mr. B and I walked the ravine from MacEwan to the Edgemont superstore. We have walked this route many times. In the summer, it takes about 45 minutes to walk up the hill to the store. and slightly less to get home...down hill the whole way. The paths were snow covered and icy. We needed to find a better route.

Yesterday, we thought we would tackle Nose Hill. After all. the Chinook had been around for an additional week. There would be less snow up on top of the hill since the wind would have blown much of it away. and the warm sunshine would have melted the rest of it off of the paths.

It was a great day for a walk.
The sunshine was warm. There was no wind which is unusual for the top of the hill.

Our theories about the paths being clear were wrong.

Two and half hours later, we had walked from 14th st at 64th Ave to the Edgemont parking lot and back again. We took the scenic route back as we headed north and were close to the Beddington parking lot before we turned south and walked on deer trails and coyote paths to get back to our car.

We checked the map when we got home. Close to 6 miles was covered. Many feet of elevation were involved. I missed the descriptive part of "Nose Hill"

Today we are looking for a shorter path...on level ground. Are the bike paths by the river still covered in ice?

We're leaving Nose Hill until March.

Training is cutting into my knitting time.

In January 2009, I thought it would be fun to join some sock clubs. I checked sites out on Ravelry. I asked other knitters. I looked at colors in Etsy shops.

I signed up for a few sock clubs. I signed up for a few lace clubs too but that is a different post. I heard alot about the number of sock clubs that I had joined from my knitting friends.
I also got emergency phone calls.
"XYZ is having sign ups for their knitting club in 20 minutes. You have to sign up. Their yarn is great!"
I signed up. I got purple yarn. Nice yarn but purple. Tangledarts is now the happy owner of that purple yarn and strangely enough, she is also the person who phoned to tell me about the sign up. hmmmnnn???

Some of the yarn came with extra goodies. I now have a fabulous collection of stitch markers, project bags, notebooks, magnets and various other knitting gadgets. I also have many more patterns for socks and other small projects.

But my main reason for joining sock clubs was for the yarn. I got some fabulous yarns from dyers that I didn't know about before.

These are people who dye yarn who have a great sense of how colors work together. They also realise that you can't just throw dye on yarn and make good yarn.

The colors are vibrant and clear and made me want to cast on a new pair of socks immediately.

Other dyers are not so good. These skeins remind me my the first skeins that I dyed in class last July. My thought then was that I needed to re-dye my yarn and I feel the same way about these skeins.

I recognise that we all have our own likes and dislikes and that someone may actually like these colors but I don't.

And there is not a speck of purple in those three skeins.

Colors I like and want to knit can be vibrant or pale. If you check the top photo, not only is there purple in one skein, the other one is completely, totally unapologetic purple. It has a future as the cuff and toes for the matching sock yarn.

I have recently signed up for 2010 sock clubs. The number is smaller.

On January 14th, I finished a Christmas Gift.

I started knitting back in December, got side tracked by Christmas, changed my mind about who should get these socks, started a sweater, finished a wrap and changed my mind again about who should receive these socks.
Can you tell that they are not my favorites?

Now this....

is my favorite.*

I knit this wrap once before. I was reminded that while I was knitting the first one, I complained bitterly. I hated knitting all those little squares. Constantly picking up stitches and knitting short rows and turning my work drove me batty.

This time I enjoyed knitting it. It was a good project to pick up and knit after a busy day.

I will admit that I was not happy to rip it out and restart it after I was on the third ball of yarn because I skipped a row of the instructions. I wasn't happy all the other times when I thought I knew what direction that I was knitting in and had to rip out more rows. I wasn't happy when I knit one ball of yarn four times.

But I am happy now. I love the colour. I love the yarn. I love the slight halo and the softness that I got by throwing it in the dryer (wet knitting, towel, dryer balls and no heat for 20 minutes)

I'm keeping this one.

* The color in the photo is off. There is no purple in this wrap. I think I need a new camera, or perhaps a filter. Do they make filters to block purple?

2009 Replay

It was a busy year. There was a new baby. There was a wedding. There were trips down south to visit Grandchildren, and a trip to Portland to take part in the first ever Sock Summit.

As the year began, I thought I was was going to be joining the unemployed. I kept showing up at work, no one sent me home and I still got paid. I guess you could say that I'm still working.

In many ways, the more that things changed this past year, the more they stay the same. I knit through it all.
Totals for the year:
18 pairs of socks
5 shawls
3 adult sweaters
5 little people sweaters
2 baby blankets
1 Hat and 1 pair of fingerless mitts.
1 shawl lost*


And just in case you were keeping track of really stupid resolutions that I may or may not have made back in January 1009, I broke them all. I am still procrastinating.

*I'm missing my Red Flirty Ruffles Shawl. I have a suspicion that I lent it to someone. Any Ideas????

Whistler has been ripped out. Back to the beginning. Back to square one.

No, I didn't twist my stitches as I joined them to knit in the round. That would have been an understandable mistake.

I miscounted when I first cast on. I didn't find my error until I was at the first row of colourwork. I was so busy checking to make sure that my stitches weren't twisted that I didn't notice that I had too many stitches.

Now I realise that you are all thinking that I am too much of a perfectionist and that I could have just knit two together to get rid of a couple of stitches and moved on.

I thought of that. But, I could not get rid of 50....yes I said Fifty extra stitches. I had placed markers as I cast on in groups of 50 and somehow forgot how to count to five. I had cast on one extra group.

I thought about making a larger size sweater but in the end, I knew I had to start again.

I am happy that I realised my mistake when I got to the first row of colourwork. I wonder how far I would have knit if the numbers on that first row had worked out.

And with fewer stitches on the needle, my tension has relaxed and the whole sweater should be much quicker to knit.

The scariest part about ripping this back was that one of my first thoughts was "Now I have something to blog about."
I'll be back when I have pictures that are more than rows and rows of Black stockinette.

The Olympics are coming and I'm Panicking

I've started my sweater. Originally, it sounded like a good idea. I would start on January 1 and have lots of time to finish my sweater before the opening Ceremonies in Vancouver.

I got my pattern on January 4. I got my yarn that day as well.

The knitting has been slow.

But my Christmas tree is put away and I am ninety percent done my latest Targello.

I may spend the next three weeks thinking up more excuses as to why my Whistler isn't finished.