Saturday, January 26, 2008

I made the cut...

...and chopped off my ponytail for Pantene's Beautiful Lengths. I've been playing around with the idea of cutting my hair short, and I thought that this year would be the time (I'm turning 30 in July, and figured chopping my hair would be less permanent than a tattoo).

Before:


After:


I LOVE it! Getting over a foot cut off your hair is very liberating, and it's for a great cause!

Now I have the urge to knit turtlenecks and scarves!

TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Some people are incomprehensible...

I am absolutely incensed! I get to the library and waiting for me is a copy of Interweave Knits which has a pattern I wanted to look at, and some inconsiderate schmuck (I can't believe it's a knitter since a real knitter would never be so rude) has ripped out an entire pattern from the magazine! Fortunately it wasn't the pattern I was looking for, but still... The library is nice enough to purchase a subscription to the magazine so everyone can enjoy it, and you are going to be selfish and steal (yes, steal) a section of it. I've been on the Interweave Knits website and if they no longer have a certain copy in print, they suggest checking if your local library has a copy so they have no objection to you using the pattern in a library copy. If you have to return the magazine before you are done with it, photocopy the pattern...the library charges 10 cents a copy, given that you tore out about 6 pages it would have cost you 60 cents and then everyone would still have a chance to use the pattern. Ugh!

Okay...I'm done ranting...



In happy news, the postman brought me lots of goodies.

Stitchmarkers from:

Liz:

Aren't they cute! They came from the UK and she tempted me with chocolate (I may have to move to England to satisfy my chocoholism). I didn't resist.

From Kena:

These make me think of summer (which is a good thing, since we're supposed to get more snow today).

and from Melissa:

Pretty little sparklies!


I also got my order from The Loopy Ewe:

Two bottles of Soak in the limited edition "Celebration" scent. This stuff smells so yummy, I can't wait to wash my hand knits!


I also got my Knitpicks Winter catalogue, and after posting this, I may do some shopping.


Speaking of shopping, I scored a sweet deal on some wool from Robyn's Nest (don't bother trying to get some, she's sold out). I picked up some Briggs & Little Heritage in the limited edition Anniversary colourway (I like limited editions) at a special anniversary price of $1.50 a skein! Getting excited yet? What if I tell you that each hank contains 215 yards of lovely pure wool? Ah...I thought that might make you jealous! I bought 10 skeins of it, and can't wait for it to arrive. Which leads me to a dilemma...do any of my readers understand Finnish? See, I found this great pattern on Ravelry that reminds me of the Hugs and Kisses sweater I made for my boyfriend. The problem is the free pattern is only available in Finnish. I tried using an online translator, but it only translates every other word or so, and none of the words are the important ones. Sigh...I guess I'll see if the Finnish-English dictionary I placed on request will help me, or I'll just have to try something else.


Last but not least, I found a new blog to read: Rose-Kim Knits. It's entertaining especially on Thursdays. Why Thursdays you may ask? Because on Thursdays she has this regular post entitled Thursdays are for what the hell is this... in which she posts about wacky, unusual, and downright insane knits and patterns she has found while perusing the net. Today's posting was about a knitted replica of a dissected frog. It's really quite impressive!



TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!

Monday, January 7, 2008

Finished Project and a new KAL (of sorts)...

Actually it's a read-a-long, plus secret pal scarf exchange. It's The Miss Marple KAL and you can find info/sign-up here. It sounds like a lot of fun since I'm a huge Miss Marple fan (more than likely due to her knitting prowess, as well as her being one really cool "lady of a certain age"), plus one can never have too many scarves.

On to the finished project:

TA DA! One finished pair of Minnesota Mittens from Folk Mittens by Marcia Lewandowski. Hope my boyfriend likes them (not that he really needs them right now, it's supposed to be relatively warm for the better part of this week).

I started a new pair of socks, Spey Valley from Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush. I'm going to be doing them in Super Soxx Color by Lang & Co:

It's hard to see in this pic, but the colour is kind of a blend of olive green and merlot red.
ARRGH!!! It feels like I'm living above a night club since the dude in the apartment below us is blaring his music again. He does this every night, but I can't complain since he does turn it off around 10pm. I just grab myself a drink and my knitting and have myself a knitnite at the "bar". It wouldn't be so bad if he had a larger repertoire than the same six songs played over, and over again. Plus he seems to have an affinity to Hillary Duff. EEKK!!! (nothing against Hillary, but I'm more of a Jazz/Hard Rock kinda girl).
Ah well...I'll deal.
TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It's 2008!...

and I spent the first day of the new year in true Canuck fashion:



Watching the Winter Classic Hockey Game,



During a snowstorm.

It might have been the beer I was drinking, but I found this very amusing:



Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller with a toque on his helmet.

Here's a closer look:



During the game I managed to get some knitting done:



Yes folks, we have a pinkie on my boyfriend's mitten! So far I am enjoying this pattern, and once I figure out how to do the rest of the fingers I'll be set.

Okay, this is the time of year for resolutions, so here goes:

I would like to eat healthier and hopefully lose some weight
I would like to knit more and attend the Ottawa Knitnites on a more regular basis
I want to learn how to use my sewing machine
and finally I want to blog at least once a week. (This one should be easy since I got this new laptop)

Oh...I just thought of another one...I want to learn how to spin.
I should be able to keep these resolutions, I hope.

Anyway, off to work on one of them: Knit more.

TTFN and KEEP KNITTING!