This is the story of many things!

Hello and welcome to my story!

This month is a bit crazy for me.
It is a month of celebrations and traditions.
A few will be shown here and now thanks to iPhone and Hipstamatic photos!

As we all know it is Christmas time. So one of my duties as the office as the Admin/receptionist/law clerk is to decorate for the season. I am Jewish so I always get a kick out of being the decorator for the holidays.

When I arrived in this office there were a whack of ugly things for the tree which I have gradually weeded out and now we have simple white lights, shiny Christmas balls and a few knitted ones as well.

We all know, or maybe I should mention that I love to knit. So I have crafted things for the office most years I'm here. I think its more fun than the traditional commercial stuff out there. I am also a bit of a less is more kind of gal. So here is my contribution this year:

There is one missing from the photo!

Another tradition is working on an outdoor play called The Story

This is part of the awesome cast and crew:

This is the second year. It is a comedic, but not insulting version of the Nativity. People walk through the Evergreen Brickworks and the wetlands in the middle of the Don Valley in Toronto. Choirs sing the crowd to their destinations.  I am the choir shepperd. There is one of 10 different Choirs every night. It's crazy & fun!

Needless to say, working during the day & show in the evenings & weekends is tiring. I do stop work in less than 2 weeks. It's the same day my BFF arrives from Alberta to spend a week here! So lots of awesome & sleep will ensue/

My other fun holiday tradition is driving to Lakefield for Christmas with my Aunt & Uncle. There are always a lot of  family there, so its fun!

In closing I wish to share this picture, just cause its cool. I was cutting peppers last night for the opening reception.

Peace out Homies!

Thoughts for the new year!

Yes  you read the topic correctly.

Next year I am turning 40!
I'm not sad or feeling bad about it. It just is.

But I have decided to do some things for me in the year of 1213!

First off I plan to craft 40 things for me specifically.

I also plan to make 40 lifestyle changes over the year as well.

What it will all become, I'm not sure yet. But I plan to make 40 fantastic!

SHHH don't tell!

So I've made an awesome blanket that I am quite jealous of. It is lovely & I would love to keep it for me!

Alas, it has been destined for someone since its conception.

Here is the beauty:

The funny thing about this blanket is that the colours suit my room, but if I had chosen colours for myself, this would never have been what I would have picked.

Things I learned making this:

1. That working with 9 colours instead of the 17 in the pattern is fun but more manoeuvring is required.
2. That writing down colour combos as you go along as opposed to flying by the seat of your pants is ok. This is where it's good to have mild OCD.
3. After over 100 squares someone tells you that you have placed the stitches in the wrong space but continue as you were, don't even think of ripping things out! It will work itself out!
4. Crocheting various size squares in different combos is very satisfying. I found I grew attached to certain colours.
5. There is a template to sew the squares together. If you sew it together wrong no one will know. The recipient certainly won't. She won't go looking for the pattern and then tell you that section belongs on that side.
6. I can crochet good!

So many more presents to go and then I spend a year of primarily selfish knitting.
I will discuss those details soon!

Love!

Movember reflections!

So it's been a few months and I haven't written you!

I apologize for the lack of entries.

As I head into the new year, more will follow!

I have a lot of thoughts as I hit my 40th year and so I plan to keep this up as part of that.


I will post more of my interesting photos as well.
This was construction at the corner of Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue this summer.

More to come and enjoy!

Peace out!

Trials of a Messy Chick!

Well hello children!

So what's going on in this brain today?
CLEANING!!!

MESS!!!

MY ROOM!

That's right folks, I am one messy chick.
I don't enjoy cleaning. Never have and probably never will.
There are a few reasons for people like me to actually bother cleaning:

1.  Moving - I have no current plans to move at this time.
2. Guests - While I have a no going in my room policy when people come to the house, there was the possibility that my niece was going to stay in my room with me!
3. Guilt - The parents actually going up to your room for some innocuous thing like fixing a running toilet and having a small freak at the state of my room.

For the record, I do feel guilty, but I had already planned to start cleaning up said disaster area!

Is it ironic that my friend Liane and I had a conversation about the same thing a couple of days prior? Maybe. But that conversation was one part of the picture as to why I started to clean again. She had seen one of those cleaning shows that said start by doing 10-15 minutes a day of cleaning, then it seems manageable.

                              I have spent the 5 days of the last week doing 15 - 20 minutes of cleaning. Progress is starting to show! But I have the biggest section left to go. Maybe by next weekend!

Prior to the conversation with Liane came a challenge from my Slytherin group on Ravelry. Specifically Cattiekins (one of my Rav/FB friends also known as Tracy!). She started a get organized month before the crafting game we do gets started. The pictures you see are before shots of the yarn areas only.

So I had actually started organization. Trips to the Dollar store to get containers.

Yesterday I bought more cleaning products, swiffer sheets, garbage and recycling bags.

It is still a work in progress. As I guess my life is still a work in progress. 

Its funny that I have guilt about this. 

Well then why don't I fix it? 

I have no answer at this point. I may never be able to put the connections and issues together. But I think 6 months to my 40th birthday, I would like to keep it clean. I know its a promise I've made before. But I truly want to continue towards clean!

Maybe now that I've outed myself, I can keep it going!

I will show the progress as it comes!

Sorry for the long pause!

It has been a sort of somewhat busy few months.
What did I do? I have no real clue.
I have thought of doing entries and then just not gotten there!

So I am writing this one to get back in the game!
Here is a selection of things I have worked on, have been languishing and are currently in progress.

I have worked on this lovely shawl pattern known as Color Affection.  I think this is a pretty picture taken with Hipstamatic. You can make out the 3 colours quite well. There is grey, a pink that has some variegation in it (for those of you who don't know it means various colour, not one consistent colour) and another pink. It turned out lovely & I can't wait for a nice cold day to wear it.

Moving on to the Languishing. This the cuff of a hoodie sweater coat that I have been working on for almost 2 years. Last year I just didn't pick it up. It is the only thing in my WIP pile (Work In Progress). I have done the main body. I picked it up to start a couple of weeks ago and have found it much easier to work on. I suspect that has to do with the amount of knitting I have been doing for the last few years.  So the plan is to spend August getting as far on this as possible so I can wear it in the fall.  The blue is gorgeous and looks great on me!

The only WIPs I have left other then this are blankets meant to use scrap yarns as I go.
Which leads me to another project:

This is a blanket of small hexagons. You add the hexagons as you go along. It takes me now about 1hour & 15 mins to finish one. The main reason being is that it is starting to get heavy as it gets larger & therefore more to manipulate. Also we are in a crazy heat wave so it slows it down. This will be done someday. Not sure yet when. Probably sometime next year.

This is a sample of my knitting life. I am also beginning to organize the stash. Find and catalogue all the needles. Clean the dying area. So I am on a crafting crazy!

Cheers until next time!

Even the best cowlgirls have Daddy issues!

Good day all!

It's time for another project to work through my issues.

The lucky project is a present for my Dad. Talk about issues to work through.
OK I don't have major Daddy issues, but the quest for perfection for him is something in real life that is sort of there. Most people want to please their parents and keep 'em happy. I am  no exception!

I have named this cowl  as a play on an episode title of one of my favorite TV shows Lost.

A little background on my Dad and my knitting experiences

My Dad is very specific about what he wants. I have knit him things over the years and he loves them all, but sometimes he makes me scream.

Example 1: THE PERFECT SCARF!
 He has spent the majority of my life looking for the perfect winter scarf. Everyone he has had was too long, too short, too wide, not wide enough, not soft enough (you  get the picture!).
So I set out to make him the scarf he wanted.
Firstly, it had to be cashmere! I explained that for what he wanted it would be hundreds of dollars. I brought him an alternative to feel. Alpaca! WE HAVE A WINNER!
Next he think that the machine ones he gets are great and he wants the weave to be just like that  because if there are holes of any kind he will be cold. I explained how knitting worked and that it would be fine. So he wasn't truly convinced but he decided to trust me. I did a seed stitch scarf.
When he got it he loved it. He doesn't wear it too often as the last few winters have not been that cold.
I CALL THIS AN OVER ALL WIN

Example 2: THE NEVER ENDING BLANKET!
Dad liked to have a perfectly square blanket so he doesn't have to think about which is the correct end.
He wanted brick colours
NO HOLES
After 2 years I finally finished the blanket that he totally loved, but  the negotiation to get it done was crazy. He told me he wanted a king size blanket. WHAT? I think he figured out the craziness of that.
After I had given it to him, he wanted me to continue the edging to make it bigger. I told him no that it was done.
NOT SURE ABOUT THIS WIN!

Example 3: THE SOCKS HE DIDN'T KNOW HE WANTED!
So this holiday season, I didn't ask what he wanted and I decided on a pair of plain grey socks.
He loved them, but as I knew already, he only wears one kind of sock. This was a moral victory as he loved them showed them off to everyone and keeps them in his home office in full view.

So that brings us to today.
He has so many specifics, but I am determined to get it right for him.
This will finish knitting up by the end of the weekend. He won't see it until his birthday. So we shall see!

So long blanket!

That's right the blanket is no longer in progress. She was finished today!
What have I learned about myself?
I need to know when to stop. I couldn't let myself stop.
A blanket that was supposed to be 600ish yards turned into 837 yards.
Sometimes letting go is ok.

Here it is on the boardroom table at the office. It is lovely, I have to admit.

Here it is in funky photo mode. Neat colouring!

 Again another iPhone photo. I love that the purple looks pinkish grey.

See I do photos in access too!
Ultimately this is a beautiful baby blanket. The hard work, the effort was worth it.
So lessons learned?
1. Sometimes even if you do too much it's ok if the end product is great
2. Sometimes just going with my gut is the right thing to do. I have to trust that I know what I am doing.
3. Imperfection is part of life. Even with imperfections, something beautiful is before you!

The next project awaits!

iPhone photo+ knitting = AWESOME!

So I am taking a break from blanket & emotional analysis to show off some awesome photos of  a knitting project that I am working on.

This lovely shawl I am working on is called Color Affection. It is knit with one colour then you stripe with a second colour then you add a third colour and knit with short rows. Clear as mud right?

Well here are the photos. Remember these have a cool finish so the colours don't look like that in reality!

So this is a black and white styled photo. What I enjoy with this photo is you can see the subtleties of the three different shades of colours.

The colours are a grey, darker purple-pink with a small amount of variegation and a light pink.
Also of note is the direction of the knitting it self. At the bottom of the right is the all grey. The majority of what you see is the darker pink and grey striped together and then the angled 3 colours together. It is not solely how the fold works that is creating the shape.

So this one shows the colours better but gives it a funkier colour exposure. Even the grey comforter it is sitting on looks cool.

iPhone art and knitting are awesome!

Blanket in progress 4

So I took a couple of days off to craft other things.

Notes on this project:

• It is very easy to pull out and put away. No stress and easy to fix the fewer mistakes. I LOVE LESS STRESS!
• Every time I pick it up, something new as an idea pops into my mind. Too bad they would mean starting all over again. 
• I trust myself, but I need to let go more often and sooner! Then point above would happen less often.
• Weaving in ends are good to do as you go along. I am using superwash so spit felting won't work, but all those ends hanging around seem to create some sort of issue in my brain. Too many ends means too much jumbled mess in my head. Funny how it works that way.
• A couple of years ago this wouldn't have happened. WHY you may ask? I guess I don't trust my instincts or myself entirely, so as I am generally in life getting more comfortable with my self, the free form blanket also becomes more fun and easy going.

Here is the latest shot:

 Here it is with a cool effect from the iPhone:

Blanket in progress 3

Another day in blanket land.

I am bored with white. I have never been a huge fan of white, but I had it and so I wanted to use it up.
Why the aversion to white? I am not sure. It doesn't thrill or excite me, but I use it as its necessary. Maybe one needs the boring to enjoy the rest. To quote the Baker's wife in Into the Woods: "Just remembering you've had an and when you're back to or, makes the or mean more then it did before."

Anywho I am about to move away from the white and into grey. I am psyched for the next step. Still not totally sure where this will lead fully.

I think I'm about  1/3 through the blanket. The stripes equal 10 inches. If I do 2 more sections that makes it approx 30 inches. Add a couple of inches of boarder and voila! a decent sized baby blanket.

Still not sure of the boarder, but I am not there yet. So I will relax and meditate and let the force tell me what its meant to look like.

The plan is to have this done on May 13. Then I will move onto another project to focus on in the blog.

I craft multiple things at a time, so this is only a sampling of what is going on!

Blanket in Progress part 2

So here I am on the 3rd day of the blanket.
Do I know what I am doing entirely? Nope

Am I worried at all? Nope

The biggest thing on my mind is should I weave in the ends?
I'm actually pretty happy that I am not in the least bit stressed how it is going to turn out. Sometimes not having it all mapped out makes it more exciting. Which I guess I could follow through in life.

Here is the photo of where I was yesterday.
I am a bit farther now!

Blanket in progress day One

So I know its been a loooong time.

I think I'm back to trying to be more consistent in my blogging. Another one of my plans for the last year of my 30's.

So for now I am going to chronicle a baby blanket that I am working on. There is no other reason then I feel like it.

This is a free form blanket I started on May 1. There is no baby to take ownership but I am sure I will find one!

May 1, 2012
chosen 3 balls of cascade 220 superwash in white, teal and purple.
Plan stripes of the colours. white, then a purple, then teal, back to purple and white to finish it off.
Cast On 130 stitches in the white
Knit all the rows.
Plan 20 rows of white.
While knitting said row of white realise it might be nice to use the white as an over all boarder. I will add on the  side boarders at the end.
realise that I don't want 20 rows of white. It's too much stop at 16 instead.
Start the purple.
Think: You know it would look really great if I had some blank in there. OOOO 2 rows black with a 8-10 rows of white then 2 rows black and colour
Decide that teal is not what I want
Oooo I have black and grey. Let's make purple the colour and then use the shades in chunks.
Boarder? Oh I'll decide later.

May 2, 2012
Forget part of the design plan, but my new plan will work out better then you might expect.
To be continued..........

I feel like sometimes this is how my brain works, neither good nor bad.
I find myself with great ideas that I am easily swayed by. I sort of plan sort of go with the flow!

 I hope to have this done in a week - 10 days. It's possible. So get ready for some crazy blanket moments.

Street Scenes

So I don't have too much to say.

I wanted to share this photo I took last week.
I was on my way home and the sky was absolutely incredible!
The light on the buildings made them look like they were on fire.
This is Queen Street West in Toronto, if you want to know!

What a lovely night that was!

iPhoto art

So I was photographing my cowl I finished to post online. I am using Hipstagram on my iPhone.  I take regular shots and then try them out in other ways.

Well look what showed up today.

She looks like she is staring to the side looking at someone, maybe a long lost lover, or someone she is  afraid of.

She's a mannequin, so that's what makes it all the more interesting. The dark background with the stark white baldness and the shadows that line her face. Really intriguing.

This is another Hipstagram photo of the same in a different film called kdot.

Not as creepy, but still looks like a woman longing for something.

Wow iPhone art!

Thrum Mittens - The Journey!

DAY 1

So I have a new project that I started last night with a cold. I didn't understand what I was doing.
The project is for my Aunt Pat, who asked me to knit her a pair of thrum mittens from yarn that was her sisters.
COOL! I've always wanted to try Thrumming and I had never had the opportunity.  So I found a pattern and sped off into the wilds of thrumming.
What are thrum mittens you ask?
They are mittens that have pieces of roving (unspun yarn) knit into the mitten.

Roving

Then one rips them into pieces to insert.

Then the fun begins.

So I think I know what I'm doing, but it looks wrong. I read a relatively famous bloggers' take on thrum. Still doesn't work

Thank goodness for YouTube, as I am obviously a look not read for a concept kind of gal!




So here we go off to the races. I have the yarn the roving bits in a bag ready to go!

ripped roving

 

So finally I figure out what I am doing & I drop a stitch somewhere.

Rip out the small amount of work done and start again.

Now on a break and I think it looks cool to see Medusa like roving creeping out o f the top of the mitten.

This may take more time to finish then planned, but I still think its cool.




The alien looking mitts will be awesome and will be loved and that to me is the most important thing!

Alien tentacles rising from the mitten!