Catch up

Not the tomato kind, the slacker blogger kind. So I'll dive right in :)

The Superstar had her 12th birthday party last weekend. She took 4 friends bowling. They had a great time throwing balls around in the dark. (It was really hard to get good pictures down there, they all turned out blurry) We played for about an hour and a half which thankfully turned out to be the perfect amount of time for 2 games before the natives got restless.

We also stopped at a Halloween store in the mall above the bowling alley and bought some costumes. The Superstar is a Sassy Devil (I hope to snap a picture of her at some point on Sunday) and Misterman is Spiderman. The overly muscled version!

The girls came home and made their own pizzas and drank floats and watched movies and slept over all in a pile on the living room floor. Very funny at 7am. Tempting to jump on, which is what Misterman did when we weren't looking!

When I was in the city I returned some yarn from the Cottonwood Sweater (I'll blog about that soon) and bought a skein of hand dyed orange fingering weight to knit up a little pumpkin hat. I forgot how slow the knitting can be when you use light yarn and small needles! I'll try to get a picture of my progress when the light is better. I've joined a KAL on the Itty Bitty Forum on Ravelry in the hopes that I could whip this up and have it finished in a few days.

 And I could if I wasn't so horribly distracted by everything else! I'm blaming all sorts of things from the weather, we were hit by a "weather bomb" to the crazy goodness that is my queue lately to kids activities like volleyball and skating for Misterman starting on Monday.

I'm working on some gift mittens that I'll blog about later and I started some fingerless mittens that Susan B Anderson posted about on the Spud and Chloe Blog. I love these already, I may have to keep them! I especially love that I'm using stash mohair and they are looking fabulous!!!

Happy Friday to you all!

Saturday Junior Girls Volleyball Tourney

Yup. That's how I spent my Saturday, surrounded by young volleyball players in a tiny town called Southey.

The superstar and her team played against 4 others and I think they did very well for their first big tournament. If I sound like a Mom, well, that's because I am. While they didn't win, they did improve every game and by the end they won a set and held their own for the second set.

I was proud to see some of them serve and get it over the net, and amazed by how many of them were actually setting up plays and volleying and bumping like pros. They will be a team to be reckoned with in a few years that's for sure!

I love the way the superstar is all bent over and the ball is flying in the opposite direction. This happened a lot all day, for everyone really. You had to keep your eyes open for flying balls! A parental hazard!

We are off on Thursday to Southey again for another away game. I'll be there, resident mom and driver... I can't wait to see them play! Maybe I'll actually get some knitting in this time!

PS - Happy birthday superstar! I know it was yesterday but now it's here forever on my blog! I can't believe you're 12! Wow! Quit growing... slow down... I need to catch up.

Friday Favorites

A time to share my favorite thing or things from the week that just past

Another trip to the PFRA... (heavy on the autumn nature pictures)

I am so grateful for the last few weeks of amazing weather! It has been truly lovely and just the thing I need before the cold settles in.

My current knitting reflects the knowledge that winter is just around the corner. I'm all about big warm sweaters and bulky cardigans right now.

I still need to bring the hat bin and snow gear up from the basement but today looks just like last weekend and so I'm going to put it off for another few days.

Happy Friday!

Starksy

I have been wearing this sweater every day this week. I'm not sure if I love it or not, but I'm sure glad it's officially done and off my needles.

I started this project back in march. It shouldn't have taken me so long especially as it's knit up on 6mm and with a bulky Knit Picks Wool of the Andes yarn. The colourway is called Caribou and I'm not sold on it. I've gotten a ton of compliments though, people really like this shade of brown.

If I was to knit this again I'd add at least another inch to the length. Funny how I always find my sweaters are too short. I do like the belt, I wasn't sure about it at first and the cable Banana Leaf motif isn't bad. I actually kind of like it.

 I really like that I've got another sweater done this year and soon (hopefully really soon) I'll have my Cottonwood done as well.

Then on to mittens... winter is just around the corner!

The Dream Satchel

Hi everyone! Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all my Canuck friends, and happy Saturday to everyone else!

I'm pretty excited to share a UFO (unfinished object) that may just be my oldest one. I started working on this bag early last summer as a knit along (or kal) in the Folklore and Fairy Tales Group on Ravelry. Every season they pick a story to read together and participants are encouraged to create a project that is inspired by the tale. Last year it was A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

I picked a free pattern from the online knitting magazine Knitty. The pattern is called Satchel by Stephanie Shiman. I like how easy it is to vary this design, add pockets, alter the sizing and adjust the straps. It's been knit in a rainbow of colours with the addition of colour work, embroidery and buttons.

I tend to like the plain and simple with touches of bold and fun. So I ordered some chocolate Knit Picks Wool of the Andes and held it double. It knit up quickly and felted well in my washing machine. I think I only ran it through 2 cycles and then 2 without soap. It took a few days to dry. It was very fuzzy. B gave me the weirdest looks as I sat a the kitchen table with a disposable razor and began to shave the bag. My little pile of wool fuzz grew to a good size ball. I sewed the strap on (separately knit and felted) and at this point the bag was done. The whole process only took a week at the most.

I threw it in a WIPs (works in progress) pile and forgot about it.

The blossoms on the bag were from my spider plant and I thought they were very pretty. I tried to embroider them that fall and it turned out much as I had imagined.

I had a great liner made up for this bag. I really wanted to add it but the felt is really thick and the sewing machine wouldn't go through it. I tried to hand sew it but my skills in that area leave a lot to be desired. My friend Sheryl said just use it. So I ripped out the liner took it outside and took some pictures yesterday.

I'm amazed and a bit embarrassed that this sat for almost another year until I showed Sheryl. Thank goodness for friends!

Friday Favorites

A time to share my favorite thing or things from the week that just past

The Superstar's volleyball team was in Paris last week.

Cabled Wine Cardigan

So while my Starsky is blocking...

I thought I'd share one of the projects on my needles with you. I've called it the Cabled Wine Cardigan. The pattern is from a German magazine called Rebecca. I fell in love with this sweater when I saw Mimsie's version on Ravelry. I've had it in my queue for literally years and finally bought the yarn and pattern about 6 months ago. The yarn I'm using is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in a colourway called wine - 013.

The sweater in the magazine is very cropped and is actually called "06 Cropped Sweater". Um, yeah, I don't do cropped anything, so I'm adding a fair bit of length. Like another 20cms (I've gotten so used to knitting in inches that the centimeter thing makes me scratch my head for a minute until I remember that I actually know how to use cms!).

I found it hard to figure out how to get gauge when the pattern says "slightly stretched". How much is slightly? So I decided to knit a sleeve to see if that would work for gauge. I figured the sleeves are pretty small and wouldn't hurt too much to frog if I was using the wrong size needle. Luckily I had a nice tight knit fabric with the 4mm's and I'm just going for it. I have a lot of wriggle room with blocking if I need to adjust the size.

So far everything looks great. I'm finished one sleeve, the back and most of one side of the front. I bet if I knit for a few solid days I'll be at the blocking stage. I've been careful to do a selvaged edge to make seaming easier. Hopefully things will go smoothly.

I've done a few minor mods, like lengthening the entire sweater. I've also done a 2x2 rib instead of the 1x1. I like the look of it. I hope it works for the front edging. I'd hate to find out later that I should have done a 1x1 after all!

I love this cable pattern. It's super fun to knit and very easy to memorize. I like that I can put it down for days (or longer) and pick it up and start again without loosing my place. The repeats go fast and the fabric is sproingy and soft. I think this is going to be a great bit of clothing for work. I already have a few tank/t-shirt type tops that will work really well under this.

And have I mentioned that I love the colour?

Friday Favorites

A time to share my favorite thing or things from the week that just past

Happy Friday!