What am I going to do with a Lace Shawl, anyway?

Well I had a not so terrible trip back. Edmonton was nice. We stayed with Chrys's Dad. He was very welcoming and generous. Its a lot to ask to accept seven houseguests, four of whom are under seven years old, and two of whom aren't related to you at all. I helped with Easter dinner. I hope that goes some ways towards making it up.

Easter was good. I have a two part, really bad video of Ian hunting Easter eggs, which I will post to You tube in short order. I have a lot of pictures as well. I will be waiting to post those items because I have a new computer coming and I think I will just get all that done at the same time.

As soon as I got home, my computer crashed (possibly internet related; the guy fixed it, it seems to be working for now) And then I got the flu. I am not feeling well right now. However, I do believe it is getting better. So that explains the lack of posts. I know it sounds like I am making excuses, but in all honesty it has been a crazy month and I just want to get back into my routine, which includes knitting and blog posting.

I did get quite a lot of knitting finished: a pair of socks for Robert, a pair of Mittens for my Mom, and she got a pair of dishcloths as well, and one dishcloth for Stacey. There's another one coming, I swear. I also got one Sock from Hell done, and am currently stuck at the heel on Sock from Hell Part Deux. There is nothing wrong with this heel, but the first one took eight (8) attempts to get acceptable (note that I did not say correct.) So I kinda have a complex about doing it all over again. I am placing all the blame on the yarn; the socks for Robert were a very wooly Patons Kroy which clung nicely to itself and stayed in place. These Socks from Hell are made from Arequipa sock yarn, which is silky soft and beautiful. And slippery as hell. When I drop a stitch it runs all over the place and the sides of the heels stretched all out of shape and looked like crap. It was partly my fault. I was following a pattern (assuming pattern people know best) and knitting the heel flap like I was told: sl1, k1 to end on front, sl 1 p to end on back. And the one side looked awful. It wasn't so obvious on previous socks because of the nature of the yarn, but with this one being so slippery, it was very clearly bad. So I pulled it back and tried numerous things, including knitting so tight my hand was cramped up for two days, and nothing worked.

So finally I looked it up on the internet. I had looked before, to no avail. But it turned out I wasn't looking for the right thing. A word had come up in some knitting patterns that had punctured my brain, but since it didn't appear in the pattern I was using I figured it wasn't important. That word was "Selvage". I began to suspect that that word had to do with the edge of knitting, and that it may be the key to my problem. So I looked up "Selvage" and lo and behold, some kind lady on some website said you had to knit the last stitch on the purl row, to make the sides neat. I wonder why they wouldn't put that in a pattern? Sometimes I wonder if there isn't some secret conspiracy to keep all the good knitting tricks to the professionals. Geeze. So anyway, I did that and it worked. It doesn't look great, mind you, but it does look acceptable. And by the way, in my process of reknitting the heel for about the 5th time, Chrys says to me, "why don't you try knitting the last stitch on the purl row?" and I just disregard her because I thought she was just a beginner and I knew better. So I am officially apologizing to her for that. Oops.

Anyhoo. I am just not prepared to go through all that again. But I have to. Because I can't knit anything until I finish that sock. And the list of things to knit is no shorter than before. If anything, its longer.

Which brings me to my newest stash acquisition: Misti Alpaca 100% Baby Alpaca Lace 2 ply... Black. 3 Skeins. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, it is beautiful yarn. extremely soft and fine. I just want to rub it against my cheek. But I am absolutely intimidated by the idea of lace. I want to make a shawl, I don't want to hurt my brain doing it, but I want it to look pretty, not just a simple feather and fan type pattern. I don't want to sew on any edging. I don't want to pick up 400 odd edge stitches (I'm still shaking from picking up 15 odd heel stitches) and finally, what on earth am I going to do with it when I am done? In all honesty, I will never, ever, ever use a black lace shawl. Not in a million years. I get dressed up maybe once a year. It's usually winter. I live in Canada. Lace shawls are useless against the winter here. So anyway I guess if I do make it, it will be a gift for someone. But I don't know who I can give it to that will be worth the trouble of making it. (not that nobody is worth it, but it is going to be a pretty special event type of gift) I guess somebody will be surprised. I don't know when, I don't know who, and I don't know how, but its going to happen.

But enough about knitting. Who wants to hear about Ian? I think he's made his career choice. He said to me yesterday: "Mommy, and I want to be a maker."

I replied "You want to be a maker?"
"Yes."
"What do you want to make?" I asked.
"Pie" he said.

Since I would love for him to grow up to be a world famous chef with a tv show and a restaurant, I was pretty pleased with this statement. And that way I would have somewhere to wear my lace shawl!

However, fickle are the dreams of a two year old. Today I asked him what he wanted to be, and he said "a balentine!"

So happy Balentines Day everybody. Hope you have some good pie!

About the lack of posts...

Sorry about the scanty writing. I am still in Alberta, but I am leaving today for Edmonton and will be flying home on Monday night. Something like a normal schedule should resume around about Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have not even been knitting much; I have been in an epic battle of the heels with my brown sock (I knit the heel seven (7) times before I got it right. And now the sock doesn't fit me. I guess someone else will be the lucky recipient! I am very exited to be going to Edmonton, actually. So many unexplored yarn stores! And I will have my co-yarn-conspiritor Chrystal with me. She's one of my converts. Mwahahahaha!

I am really looking forward to getting home and getting back into a normal schedule, but as always, I will miss being close to most of the important people in my life. I really wish I could somehow combine my two "homes" so that everything would be in one place.

Anyway, so please keep posted, and hopefully you all will hear from me soon!

(and there will be a TON of pictures!)

How to Save a Life.... The Fray

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong,
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you

Where did I go wrong,
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong,
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Don't it make your brown sock blue?

I am at the heel in my mysterious brown sock. I turned the heel then I noticed the stitches on one row were on the baggy side. I didn't think that was a good place for a weak spot so I decided to rip the sock back to the heel flap but I didn't realise what a pain in the arse it would be to pick up those wierd slipped stitches on the heel. (What is that called anyway? Does anybody know? Does it have a name??) So I got to pick up stitches and I still had to un-knit two rows to get it back into an area that looked normal. So no more sock tonight.

My Mom and I went to her friends' place for dinner tonight. I promised to leave the knitting bag in the car. After dinner they had the music up really loud and Ian was dancing like a maniac. It was really cute. I wanted to get a video but my camera was in the knitting bag. So you can blame my Mom for that, lol. Actually it wouldn't have made a difference..... no camera cord, remember!

Anyway, BP again tomorrow, so possibly no post. However I will try to get my Guacamole up on the other blog some time in the morning. No guarantees, though. I am not feeling really ambitious right now. G'night!

What to Say

Well, most people know what's gone on here. I know some of you don't know. I might write about it some day but for now I just don't know how to put it all into words. I think I will some day, but I am not quite ready yet. Some people don't know what has gone on, and for those of you who don't please feel free to email or call me and I will tell you all about it but for just now I am not quite ready to put it all up on here.

Adrienne said it much better on her space, but I do want to take this opportunity to thank everybody who did so many things for us during this time. Our family has a great circle of friends and relatives, and it was great to see so many faces I haven't seen in years. I just wish it could have been under different circumstances. Anyway, like I said, Adrienne wrote it better, so have a look at her space, I have a link on the right column of this blog.

So I will give everybody an update on where I am at right now because it is a bit easier to talk about. I have found myself back in Grimshaw again. I do have a ticket back to Halifax for the 24th of March, which will put me in Alberta for nearly a full month. I am feeling very disrupted right now, as I left quite a number of projects on the go around my house, and I have only a few short weeks left to spend with Travis once I get back before he is going to be gone for a long time.

Since I find myself in this Land of Job Opportunity, I am working a few shifts at the good old Boston Pizza. I am pretty happy to be there, actually. Leaving BP was one of the suckiest parts of leaving last year. (I tried to think of a better word than "suckiest" but it really is the least suckiest word for the situation) We kind of picked right back up where we left off here. I am staying with Chrys and Jeremy and the kids. Ian is happy to be back with his good friends. (Well, it seemed like that, until Jordy bashed him in the head with a tractor. Then it was just yelling. Good times.) Leaving Chrys, Jer, and the rest of the noisy rowdy pack was the other sucky part of leaving last year. But I think this time I will be much happier to be back in my own house.

I have been knitting. Actually, with all the hullabaloo around here the last few weeks, I have been knitting in front of all kinds of people. Some of you faithful readers even got to see me in action! (Not so exciting in person, is it?) I also did some Knitting Evangelism, and Spread the Good Yarn News around a bit. And I am sure they will all come to love it as much as I do.

I have completed quite a few projects so far, I finished 3 dishcloths, 2 mittens, a pair of socks I was working on before I left, and I am currently about 6 inches into a beautiful pair of variegated brown merino socks. (Left the ball band at home, sadly. I don't even remember the brand) I have been taking pictures, but I forgot my USB cable at home, so I won't be posting pics until I return. There are a ton, so I will probably do an online album through Facebook and post the link.

Travis was here with me for the first two weeks. I think it really renewed my appreciation for him. He arrived home yesterday. He took Ian to see his parents for the weekend, and I guess they had a nice visit. Ian was gone three nights and it is the longest I have ever been away from him. I was pretty glad to get him back. I missed his witty comments, such as "I had yogurt already! I wanna have a cookie!" (It sounds cute when he says it).

Anyway, its pretty late here. It is after midnight and I am typing this while wearing a sweaty, garlicky BP uniform, and I still have chocolate sauce on my arm. So I think I will maybe have a shower and then head to bed. Stay tuned for more posts!