To Do List

I have about a billion things that were either requested or I am planning to make for people (in no particular order):

1. Socks for Travis
2. Mitts for Travis
3. Socks for Ian
4. Mitts for Ian
5. Fleece Artist socks for me
6. Socks for Lillian
7. Hat for Lillian
8. Mitts for Reynelle
9. Mitts for Lloyd
10. Mitts for my Mom and Dad
11. Socks for my Mom and Dad
12. 5 pairs of slippers for the Johnsons
13. Tea cozy for Beth
14. Clean the bathroom and laundry room.

(Ok, the last one isn't knitting, but it is at the top of my list of things to do around the house so I thought I would include it. )

I also think I should take Ian to the park. Yep, that sounds like the best activity for today!

I wonder if I am over reaching myself?

Desk Job

Some of you people out there who know me for some reason think I am some kind of clean freak. But I have a dirty little secret. Kind of like a Monica Closet. It's a box of unsorted papers that just keeps getting bigger and bigger until it weighs on my every waking moment. (all you people who think I am such a clean freak can gasp in shock now. You know who you are.)

So anyway:

Have a look under my desk.....

And tell me what you see.

Nothing, right? I mean a couple cords and a rummoli board. But no boxes of crap. Not a one. No files to be filed, junk to be shredded, or random pieces of unopened mail dating back to 1997.
Yep, you heard me right. 1997. I have been lugging that ever increasing pile of junk from house to house for over a decade. When we moved in here we had six (6) boxes of crap. When I finally sorted, shredded, and filed the last box yesterday it was almost disintegrated. But isn't it great? I can stretch my feet out under my desk. I vacumed the dust bunnies and tidied all the cords and now I feel like I have accomplished one of my life goals.

And as for the other camp, the ones who think my house is a foul and filthy cesspool, you too can gasp in shock now. (you know who you are)

(File under P for Pretty Darn Cute ^)

That's SO Not Fair (Isle)

My socks are done! Woo hoo! Don't they look nice?
And so comfy! I've been wearing them. Maybe too
much. I better wash them I guess. What? It's not like
they smell or anything.



I have also completed my Honeycomb Mittens: They are so very very wooly. I had some problems with
the tips, when I followed the pattern it looked like a
circus tent. I forgot to take a picture, which is a real
shame because they looked really goofy. So I frogged
it back and added another repeat of the honeycomb
pattern and then used my own concoction of
decreases to come up with the tip you see above.
Anyway, I have a ton of yarn left over, I will start with a
reverse version, and make them a little bigger. They
are a really simple slipped stitch pattern, basically like
knitting my Mason-Dixon dishcloths in the round with a
thumb thrown in to mix it up a bit. More or less. I got
the pattern with the Lismore kit, but you can find the
same mittens all over the internet by Googling Newfie
Mitts.

Having mastered mittens and socks, I figured I was
some kind of master knitter and ready for something
harder.... real colourwork (slipped stitch doesn't count
as colourwork, its just playing tricks with stripes)
Just in time for my Knew Knitting Knowledge, I
recieved this:

And a request for a hat. It is Mission Falls cotton. (Only
some of it is in this picture. There was like 8 colours
there.) So I started the hat in question, and so far I
have this:My very first attempt at fair isle and it looks like some
kind of deranged monkey did it. I have crazy uneven
tension, the fair isle row is so tense you can't even see
the colours, and worst of all look at this:

The ends! Alas and alack! There will be ends to be
woven in until the end of time. And then to top it off, it is
two flat pieces sewn together. I. Hate. Sewing.

So I am going to fix the pattern up a bit to be knit in the
round (no sewing...sweet!....Well, less sewing anyway.
Hmmm.) And since the end of one round will be the
begining of the next, the ends will run up the inside,
and I won't have to keep cutting them. So less ends.
Woo hoo! I plan on doing a 3 needle bind off accross
the top/middle bit, and then knitting the ties in the
round again. Etc. And the final benefit? NO PURLING!!
It's not that I have anything against purling, but when I
knit flat stockinette my purls are a fair bit looser than
my knits, so it means I will have a much nicer fabric to
begin with.

So what to do with the coloured thing I made so far?
It's a swim in the frog pond, I guess. What a waste of 2
hours.
Yesterday we went out to Uncle Lloyd's to give him his
scarf. I forgot the bag with the scarf, snow clothes,
change of clothes for Ian, and camera. I'm such a dork.
I was going to take pictures of the kids playing
together, they looked so cute. Especially after Ian peed
his pants. We didn't have any other pants there so he
wore some purple and pink floral longjohns for a bit
while we waited for his clothes to dry. I REALLY
missed the camera then. He looked almost as silly as
he did this day:

(I really can't wait until he brings his first girlfriend
over...mwahahahahahahahahaha!)

Don't you hate it when...

... you sneeze and pee a little?





(maybe I should change the name of this blog to Leoal's Overshare)

Checkin In

I wore myself out on my other blog. You can read it here. Tomorrow I will have a great tale of sock and mitten woe. But until then, here's a picture of Ian torturing the cat. People who have met my cat will never believe it!

Just A Few Things I Wanted To Mention...

1. It's Not Just Me

Moments ago I heard the unmistakable noise of tires squealing trying to get into an uphill driveway and thought to myself "that sounds like me parking!"
But no! It was my neighbor-lady parking. In her driveway. And she almost hit her own house.

Mwahahaha!

Ahem.

Maybe I shouldn't laugh. At least she wasn't in the driveway at a 45 degree angle. Like someone we won't mention.

2. TP

It used to be that the toilet paper had to be placed facing the correct way on the roll. You know what? I don't even remember what way that is. Because now I have to hide the roll. Not only that, I have to speak to Travis in code about where said roll is, because otherwise, the Devil Child (ahem, I meant to say light of my life) Ian will flush any and all toilet paper down the toilet, regardless of how many times I explain that we only flush the toilet paper we have used to wipe our bums. Guaranteed, if the kid is being quiet, it is because he found a roll of toilet paper which he believes requires a burial at sea.

3. Speaking of the Devil Child (ahem, I meant to say light of my life)

Does he like bananas or not? I mean seriously. I buy the bananas. *The next morning I ask him if he wants a banana. He says no. I peel a banana for him. He won't eat it. So I end up eating it. (I hate bananas) So for 5 days, he won't eat his bananas and they slowly turn black on the counter. And the very SECOND I throw the bananas in the freezer or the green bin, he wants a banana! "Mama, have nana peese?" 3 to 4 times a day. Then when we go to the store, he wants a banana. He CRIES for a banana. So I say, "they're cheap, and healthy."

And so I buy the bananas.

Rep pattern from * an infinite number of times.

4. Knitting Content

My sock is almost done. I have literally like 4 rounds to go. I would have taken a picture but meh. I'm lazy. So there. Maybe tomorrow.

The End

Ian Likes to Read.....Yessssssss!

I was so worried about that actually. He's such an
active boy, I have always had such a difficult time
getting him to sit long enough to read a story to him.
but lately I haven't been having such a hard time with it.
We read him books every day. He loves Goodnight
Moon, Hop on Pop, and Green Eggs and Ham. I don't
know what Trav has been reading to him. He even
looks at his books by himself. I am so glad he likes his
books. When he is older, I can't wait to read some of
my favourites to him, like The Phantom Tollbooth,
Black Stallion, Narnia , Alice in Wonderland, and Little
House on the Prairie. (ok, the last one is a little girly.
What can I say? I'm a girl!)

It's been really cold here the last few days. We went
for a walk yesterday but I think even all bundled up, Ian
was too cold. I know I was! So we will be staying in for
a few days. Maybe I will think of some kind of out of the
house/indoor activity we can do in a few days. Maybe
the Discovery Centre? We took Ian to that last year and
he really liked it. Maybe we'll go again. Who knows.
Maybe I should ask Ian. Ian do you want to go to the
Discovery Centre? Yah! I excited? Well, I guess its a
go. See how excited he is?

In knitting news, I took Ian to the library on Saturday
and brought my Scarf in Progress with me because it
needed to be done that day. When we went out to
Uncle Lloyd's birthday party, it wasn't done, but I did
notice I was short one needle and one cable needle, so
I couldn't even work on it. Aargh. So I did finish it on
Sunday, as I have another pair. They were like twice as
long, though, and so it kept banging into the arm of the
couch. It was driving me crazy. Here is the finished
scarf, modeled by Ian!

And since we are in a modeling mood, here is my
Poncho I finished a couple of weeks ago. Modeled by
me.

And then, modeled by the floor:

And then, just for fun, modeled by my little boy:

I used Red Heart Cozy Wool and I got the pattern
here. It is the knit version of that Martha Stewart
poncho. I used big needles and big yarn, but the same
pattern, so I got this huge, cozy, wintery poncho. I'm
pretty happy with it, actually.

As far as the second sock goes, here it is.

The heel is done, the gussets are decreased, and it is just inch
after inch of foot. The ribbing on the top of the foot actually helps
break it up a bit. So it's fun. I did have to rip back the whole heel on it once, because I didn't like how it looked, and then Ian tried to climb up me while I tried to pick up itty bitty stitches. But otherwise, it hasn't lost its charm at all. So there.

I got some other books from the liberry for myself, I got
this one:

this one:and this one:
As far as the Stitchonary is concerned, I would love to
have it for my collection, along with numbers 2 and 1.
Are there more? I should look that up. Hm. Lots of cool
things in there I could piece together into a unique and
ongoing afghan project.

The Yarn Harlot's book was a really good read. (See
right for a link to her blog.) It made me laugh, it made
me cry. I don't really see myself reading it over and
over, though. So I've crossed it off my Wish List. I will
read the others and see how they are as well.

Favourite Socks is really awesome. I am dying to try
out some of the patterns in there. I am tempted to keep
the book forever and forego all future Liberry rights.
But I won't. Because that would be silly. However I
would just like to say for the record that the Liberry is
a great place to get books to read, but a bad place to
get reference books you want to keep forever. It can
only lead to much overspending at Chapters. Sigh.
Before the Liberry, we went to the Farmer's market
and LK Yarns. I have acquired these things for the
stash:

The orange one is from Lismore Sheep Farms. I was
hoping it would match Trav's scarf but as you can see,
the colours are a little... off.


(I had to use the scrap yarn to demonstrate because
Trav took the scarf with him to work. Anyway, I know they look the same but believe me I took like 30 pictures and I just can't get it to look as different as it looks in real life.)

I thought some nice warm wool mitts would
help keep his hands warm. Oh well. Who says I can't
make them anyway? They don't need to match! I am going to look for a nice
pattern for fingerless gloves where the mitten flips.
over top. It is the same yarn I bought last year for
honeycomb mittens. Have a look:

Won't those be pretty? If I ever get around to making
them. Unfortunately, the socks have sucked me in. The
pink yarn I got is Fleece Artist, and I got it to go with my
other fleece artist. I think I will put some pink stripes at
the top and some pink heels and toes. Which should
stretch the peacock colour out so I can get full size
socks. Which I won't be sharing. Mwahahaha. See how
pretty they look together?

I do have some housework to do today. Alas, it's not all
fun and games around here. And yummy Pizza Pasta
for supper tonight too. So I guess I have that to look
forward to. Yummo!

If Knitting is Encoded in your DNA

Now tell me you don't totally want to make This!

WIP's

Well lots of knitting getting done around here. I finished a scarf for Travis.

It is my first cabled project, as well as the first thing I made for him. The pattern is from:

By Debbie Stoller. I used thicker yarn than the pattern called for, because I wanted a warm scarf, not a dainty scarf. I used Bernat Berella "4" which claims to be the Afghan yarn. I can't really speak for that. I really like the pattern because as you can see, the cabling is reversable. I hate one-sided scarves.

I have completed my first sock, here:

I know the cuff looks stupid but I don't have smaller needles to knit the cuff on. I will know for next time, though. I am using Opal Sock yarn in Petticoat colour 1296. The pattern is from Vogue Knitting on the Go Socks 2 which I got at the Liberry. It was the only sock book Sackville library had at the time, although a couple days later I went to the one on Lacewood and got this:

Which i am officially in love with.

I know I have been warned about the perils of Second Sock Syndrome. And no, I have not completed the second sock, here:

however I have an excuse. I have Second Scarf Syndrome.

I have to make a second scarf for a gift (mainly because I couldn't think of anything better to make on such short notice and with the yarn I have available. However, the Second Sock is my First Love.

And in other Sock news, I have recieved this super fantabulous Fleece Artist sock yarn as a gift (from myself) I got it out of the discount bin. Who knew?? Anyway, isn't it pretty?

Look at the colours!

It is not quite enough for a full size pair of socks, which leads me to these options: knit ankle socks for myself (not cool as I don't really like ankle socks) knit socks for a kid (not cool as kids don't appreciate hand knit socks made from Fleece Artist sock yarn. ) knit ankle socks for someone else as a gift (bye socks :( I'll miss you) wait until I get a contrasting colour of yarn and make striped socks or some kind of a contrasting heel/toe/cuff situation (my favourite option) or make something else entirely (any suggestions?)

Here are some reasons Fleece Artist is cool: 1. Soooo soft. Not even a little scratchy. 2. Stunning colour. Each skein is unique. 3. It smells nice... like a really clean sheep. 4. It is a Nova Scotia company, which means not only is it fantastic on its own, I am also supporting the local economy. Woot!

Ian of course has developed an unnatural addiction to knitting needles. Not a good hobby for a 2 year old. Especially when his first choice in needles is always the one with the live stitches. I had to pick up the stitches twice now on the Second Sock. That's why it looks like this.

It's not wrong exactly. Just baggy and rough. So in frustration I sent him outside to play on the deck yesterday. He sure looks cute.

Fixed my mad right up.

Welcome all to the New Blog

Howdy folks and welcome to my new blog. Sorry about the time it has taken me to do this. As I said on my MSN Space :

"Well folks, I have finally completed the long, drawn out, and tedious job of moving this blog to its new home. I didn't just grab my stuff and go, like so many others. NOpe, I went whole hog, copied and pasted every single entry in this blog into the new one, manually and one at a time, including the photos. I couldn't just move the photos, either, I had to find them on my computer and upload them to the new spot. It took a little longer than it should have, but in my defence I was very busy with work and then I was gone to Alberta for several months, and couln't access my computer (and therefore my files) I didn't want to post to the new blog until I finished so my posts would be in order, and I didn't want to post to the old one lest I have more to move. Thus the long Hiatus."

(I didn't want to type it all again. What can I say)

So I am sure you are all wondering what has been going on with me since last summer. So here's a quick list of things I did:

1. Trav was gone a lot of the summer, so Ian and I did fun Nova Scotia stuff like go to the beach and pull weeds in the yard.

2. Trav came back and we hung out, and did fun stuff like swimming at the Commons and driving around the countryside.

3. Trav had to go again so I went to Alberta for 4 months. Ian and I did fun stuff like eat lunch with Chrys at the Mile Zero and enjoyed the fantastic Northern Alberta Autumn (it almost lasted 3 whole days this year, wow!) Chrys and I got to hang out and potty train two 2yr old boys... Fun! We went trick or treating with 4 kids, and threw out 90 percent of her belongings. I left Teletech to go out there and had a great time working at Boston Pizza in Peace River.

4. Came home, and had a great Christmas with all 3 of us. But now I have no job. So we are on a "budget". However, I refuse to take another job I hate as much as I hated the last one, so I will keep looking until the right thing comes along for me.

5. The plus side is I have more time for Ian, Knitting, and blogging. (My cooking might suffer a bit, as some of my better meals are a bit...pricy)

So that's that. Take some time and read the archives and check out my links. Hopefully this blog will grow as time goes on and become the dynamic place I always dreamed it would be.