The Fish Knits

Just as I was starting to put together this post the phone rang, and on the other end was my Lydia!! Lydia is one of these two. I haven’t spoken to her in ages, and there she was on the other end of the line, on the other side of the country, telling me she’s coming to Ottawa! Hooray! There is much catching up to be done, as well as new memories to be made, I’m sure. I would put a photo up here of the two (or three) of us together, but I have a sneaking suspicion she may just want to remain visually anonymous. At least when it comes to the old photo evidence…

The other surprise was one which ended up in my mailbox on Wednesday. New Sock Kit!! I wasn’t expecting it until at least next week, so what a nice surprise! And what beautiful yarn! I won’t be an overt spoiler for those who haven’t received their kit, but if you’d like to check it out, here you go!

Isn’t it beautiful? The amazing thing is that in the last 2 days, the lilac tree that the skein is sitting in has twice as many leaves, and also has flower buds! Things move so quickly in the spring. And what spring-y colours in the yarn! Here’s another look.

For those who don’t want to look at the STR yarn from April’s kit, here’s something you can look at. It’s what’s holding me up from starting on the April socks!

My US1 needles are in that sock, so I have to finish it before I can cast on my Grasshoppers. Le sigh. This was my plan before I realized it would be thwarted…

Incidentally, isn’t that a beautiful tea mug in that hidden photo? (Sorry if you didn’t look at it!) My “other mother” Sue gave it to me years and years ago, probably for a birthday, because it reminded her of fish scales, which she thought I’d like. It’s easily one of the most beautiful things I own, and I use it almost every day. Another of the most beautiful things I own is a tea set, designed and made for me as a wedding present, which was comissoned by my family’s close friend Kathy. Coincidentally, it also has a water/fish theme… One of these days I’ll post a photo of it, too. You won’t believe how beautiful!

Now. Off to finish that sock. Sweater? What? Shhhh….!

Hooray! I shook off the lack of motivation and got a move on. And how!

This

now looks like this:

(Well, it’s all balled up now, ready to be knit up into a new sock…) I may have mentioned that I like to buy dpns at Value Village. The only problem with that, and it started recently, is that the people who work there don’t tend to be knitters. They don’t know. What has started is that they package up groups of needles, thinking that they would sell more with more pairs/sets together in a bag. So you can’t easily size the needles. They used to be all in a bin and you would rummage through to find what you wanted. Anyway, as a result I have about 3 sets of 2.5mm dpn’s. My set of what I thought were 1.75mm needles, as it turns out, are only 40% 1.75mm, and 60% 2.0mm. Oy.

In order to make the STR socks, I needed a set of 1.75mm needles. I went to my LYS down the street to find that they’re closed to shuffle stuff around the store. (As an aside here, if you’re going to close a store down would you not want to do it when it would least affect your clientèle? In fact, at MEC where I work, we did our entire reset over a long weekend [hey, didn’t we just have one of those?] and overnight when no one wants to shop. Certainly not from a Wednesday to Friday, when the store usually has its extended opening hours. But back to the story…) So off I go to another store in the city, all in a quest for needles. At VdV I pay a dollar or two for needles. The ones I bought yesterday? $13.99. For goodness sake!

(Okay, so it has been a few days since I started this post. More on that in another entry… Let’s continue)

I have cast on the second sleeve for the Leaf Pullover, and am about 4″ in. It’s trucking along fine, although since I did some funny increasing on the first sleeve (nothing wrong with it, just not how I normally do it so I need to pay attention on the second one to make it match) I’m a little slower on the second one than I was on the first. These things happen. No worries. Not much point in a photo however, since it looks pretty much exactly like the first. As it should!

I am still avoiding Durrow.

The knitting on Eris? Done! And the ends are all woven in, AND I just finished steam blocking it. Woo hoo! Next stop? Pick up a zipper and install it. The plan had been to have it ready for tonight, to debut at the the Guild meeting, but I am thinking that’s a bit of a tall order. Oh! About the guild meeting…

Lucy Neatby is there tonight!! If you’re going to make it to one guild meeting this year, make it tonight’s. It should be awesome!

I hope to see you there. Ciao!

Konrad Ejbich left a message on my phone tonight. Konrad Ejbich!! It’s 12:36 am, I just got in the door and found a message to check the answering machine, and there, on my machine, was Konrad Ejbich. He said “Nice website”…!! Ohmygod. Wha…? How…?

Woah.

And for the record? He says the wine is good. He said it would be good!! Pardon me, I’m a little star struck. How on earth did he get my number??! Dude. I…? Wow.

Check here the back story, in case you have no idea what on earth I’m talking about.

Konrad Ejbich. On my phone. I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight…

I did no knitting whatsoever this past weekend. But Evan would like to say that Easter weekend is Cool!

We had fun at my parents’ place on the lake (which was frozen… not just frozen, actually. It had started to thaw, and then RE-FROZE it was so cold again!), but there was no knitting done. Although, considering what follows, there really ought to have been!

I am adrift in a sea of projects. No really. I am. But here’s the thing. I have run into a roadblock with each one. Sad, but true.

Let’s see now then, shall we?

Durrow Sweater? Neckline needs re-doing. You knew that already? Yeah, well… it’s still not done. I know, I promised to have it finished for Christmas. Then New Year. Then… oh bugger. It’s still sitting there in a heap, waiting for attention. I just need to sit down with a pencil and paper and crank some numbers, then I can forge ahead with full certainty that it’ll work. Except that when it comes to the relationship I have with math, there is no such thing as certainty! The stupid thing is that it’s a great sweater, and it could have been being worn for the winter!

Eris Cardigan? Just waiting for the cuffs. Then blocking and a zip, but that part’s not the issue. So I admit, part of the reason it’s not done is that I enjoy looking at it all displayed on the mannequin… pardon me? Oh, yes. It is still in the exact same spot as it was when I took this photo. You noticed that, did you? Hmm.

Right then! How about my STR socks? I think I have a gauge problem. Need to check that out.

Endpaper mitts? Ditto. (Pardon? Swatch?)

There are my traveling socks (read: no thought required) which I have to actually think about now since I just went mindless on them and forgot to decrease the last pair for the calf (ok, so the knitting is not completely mindless… I have “strong” calves!) but now I’m wondering if I ought to just leave it. That means a decision, and those are not too appealing at the moment.

Leaf sweater for the last post? There has been some progress on that one, although not as much as I thought I’d manage, and even there I have my doubts about the sleeve length. I decided on bracelet length rather than full length as in the pattern, but I’m even questioning that decision. I’ll have to wait till all the pieces are blocked and assembled before I get to try it on and figure out if I like it. So there’s a little bit of anticipation of disappointment going on with the knitting on that one. One sleeve down, one to go though!

There’s a Baby Bolero to assemble, another baby sweater to assemble, buttons to choose and install on the Baby Surprise jacket (yes, that STILL isn’t completely finished, and I was working on that in what, November??) and the Haven thingy to decide what to do with.

Running tally? 9 on the needles. And I think there are more projects in nooks and crannies which are waiting for attention.

Oh wait! The Orenburg style shawl I’m cobbling together (that’s 10), and the Snowdrop Shawl (that’s 11).

Add to that the Ribby Cardi that I want to remake (I’m about half way through ripping out the last iteration) and the 20 or so other projects I am hankering to make, and perhaps it’s becoming clear why I’m feeling a little overwhelmed these days!

There are other reasons I’m feeling overwhelmed. I won’t really go into it here on the blog, since some things need to stay a little closer to the chest that what gets posted here for the world to read, but there are some shake-ups going on in my personal life which leave a person feeling less than energetic about problem solving in knitting. There is a lot of problem solving needing to be done with everything else, you see.

So what do I tackle first? Logically, it would be the Durrow Sweater. Or the Leaf Sweater. The Endpaper mitts are getting a little close to the end of their season (though you wouldn’t really know it, what with the snow in the air outside as I write this…), and the shawls can wait. Socks? Yes, I certainly need to get on with those, especially the STR socks since the next package is aiming to be mailed out in a couple of weeks! (Looking forward to that, of course!)

So… leave me your thoughts! Since I am not in any state to decide for myself, I’ll let you guys do it for me… Of course, comments work too.

(Ed.: This is where there is supposed to be a Blog Poll. Sometimes, it seems, it doesn’t want to come out and play, so if you don’t see it re-load your browser to try again!)

And a last word from Evan.

PEEK!

Well. Would you look at that. It’s been weeks since I last posted, and I had been doing so well! But seriously. Life has taken over in the last few weeks, and sometimes a person just needs to jump ship for a little while.

One reason for the blog absence is that on Friday night a couple of weeks ago we lost my cat Joe. He was a lovely fellow. I adopted him a little over 10 years ago from a shelter in Dorval. I was still living in Beaconsfield at the time. It was before I met my husband. My Dad wasn’t too keen on the idea of a cat in the house, but since I was moving away for school I would take the cat with me, so spending a few months with “it” around wouldn’t be all that bad… Joe turned him around, and he readily admitted that if you have to have a cat, Joe’s the one to have. He instantly fit in with the family. He was laid back, affectionate, not too pushy unless there was lovin’ to be had- then he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He would look after you if you were sick, staying close by until you were better. A few months ago we were told he had a rather severe heart murmur, so it can’t be said that we didn’t see it coming. But still. I’m sad.

I came home from work on Saturday to the news that Joe had died. Joshua had found him, and bundled him up to wait for my instructions (thank goodness it was cold outside). Then Evan came down with the flu, then it was my turn, and something had to be done about Joe. I was too sick, so Joshua took him off to the vet, and I stayed home. It’s funny how I felt like a real cop out over it. On an intellectual level I know that there’s no way I was heading out of the house as sick as I was, but on an emotional level I hate that I had nothing to do with my cat in the end. Damn that over-active sense of guilt!

The good thing is that there are reams of great memories of my Joe, everything from the snuggling to the bath that day that he had escaped from my apartment and come home greasy and filthy, to the heart shaped patch of brown fur on his legs. He was a great cat. Top notch. I’m going to miss him.

And I can’t find my photos of him. So I have delayed posting about it because I really wanted visuals. He was such a handsome cat! That took up about a week and a half of blog absence.

Then I went away to Toronto to coach my girls at Divisionals, which is half the country- the qualifier for Nationals. We were gone from Wednesday to Sunday, and let me tell you, it felt like weeks! Up at 5:30 to get the girls sorted out (hair, makeup etc… this is synchro we’re talking about!) then at the pool till 9:00 at night, collapse into the pullout in the hotel room and do it all over again the next day. But! I’m happy to report that all my routines made Nationals. Congrats girls, if you’re reading this!

But what did I take to knit, you ask? Of course. I’ll show you.

This sweater has become my default Synchro Road Trip Knitting. I took the body to work on last spring, on the way to Tier Championships. I finished it up over the course of the summer, a few rows here and there (it actually goes pretty quickly) but then the weather turned colder and it got put aside for the winter. Now that it’s warming up, here it is again!

So far I have the front and back finished, and I’m getting close to the shoulder shaping on the first sleeve. My (very loose) plan is to have the knitting finished by the end of next week-end. I’m thinking I have E in a program for 2 hours this afternoon (Carpentry for kids! So cool!), Knit Night this Friday, Easter at my parents’ place this weekend (though knitting time when I’m there is hit-and-miss. I tend to get too heavily into the wine and conversation! Especially wine, if I’m knitting on off-white yarn…) another 2 hour program next week, then another competition on the weekend. See? Loads of time! Ha ha.

I know, I know. You’ll believe it when you see it. The race is on!