Previous FO

To distract you from the fact that I have nothing to photograph. Here is a hat I made, in fact it was my first (and so far only) colourwork project. I just did this in February so it is not that long ago.

This is hat is very warm. Over the ears there is 4 layers of fabric (plus all the stranding). I thought it was great to learn stranding work with since it is lined you never have to worry about how big your floats are. (A more experienced blogger would have thought to take a picture of the inside of the hat.)

Pattern: Sweedish Bubblemosa from School House Press
Yarn: Misti Alpaca worsted weight - 5 balls (yes this hat takes approxiamately 450 yrds
Needles: 3.5 mm (US Size 4)
Mods: I left out one motif, near the top. I don't think I would have had enough yarn without.

My face normally doesn't look this jaundice - honest.

AHHHHHH

I just posted to realize that something with my template got F-ed up and I lost all the styles and stuff.
CRAP CRAP CRAP.

It will take me a bit to pull it all together again.

Finished Jaywalkers

Pattern: Jaywalker by Grumperina
Mods: Changed to a picot edge cuff from Amelia
Needles: 2.25 mm (US1)
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport - Iris colourway purchased from Knit-A-Bit


The Jaywalkers are my first FO since starting the blog. I was able to finish them Saturday morning while getting the oil changed in my car (except for the toe grafting). I do enjoy how they feel, as I was finishing them up I realized this is the first pair of socks that I have made for myself that are not just plain stockinette. All the pattern ones that I have made up until know have been given away as gifts. I will continue to make pattern socks for myself, as I just love how they feel.

I might make myself some anklet socks from the leftovers, or maybe get a skein of coordinating green or purple to make a full pair of socks. I think I have enough leftover yarn for 1 sock. So one more skein should get me another pair. However I am sure the leftovers will go into my stash and linger there for a while. Stash is like wine it improves with age.

I thought I had a better picture - I'll try to get one to better show off the pattern.

Edited to add: Here are a couple of new photos of the Jaywalkers.

Back to NJ

So back in NJ, the trip down was uneventful, hardly anyone was on the roads.The more I make the drive the easier it is. That being said however I really don’t want to do the drive much any more.I want to finish school, and move back to Ontario for good.

Completed the gusset in the second Jaywalker – should be able to finish these this weekend.I think then for my next socks I am going to make my husband a pair out of the grey Trekking XXL I got at Rhinebeck. I don’t have the colourway in front of me so I can’t tell you what number it is. I am going to do a toe up pattern in a waffle rib. I am beginning to be a fan of doing a simple rib in socks as it allows the socks to have the little bit more of a fit. The toe up as I have learnt for men’s socks is great – this can give them a longer leg with ribbing for their calves without the dread of running out of yarn. Did that once – PITA!!

The sleeves of the Samus are sitting again in time out. The sleeve that I ripped out and was making smaller –with the yarn from the originally sleeve – not enough yarn – WTF. Smaller sleeves should require less yarn. I was knitting in denial for about ½ the sleeve. I was thinking – I am not going to have enough yarn, - that can’t be right I should have extra the ball must be deceiving me. Denial, denial, denial. When I finally accepted the fact I decided to continue to knit it to see how much I would be short – 10 rows, yes 10 rows. I don’t know how. I am going to double check my gauge. I am on the same needles. Is it because yarn properties are drastically different after blocking? Does the yarn bend some sort of physics rule? Is the sleeve actually bigger than before and I just haven’t realized it yet. These questions and more are yet to be answered.

House issues – just trying to get property insurance, finalize electrical quotes and all that boring mundane stuff that is very important. I have a whole list of things I want to do on the house, which 90% will wait until I have a job. Somehow it is just easier to get things accomplished with a pay cheque.

Internet woes

As either Blogger or my internet connection is not allowing me to directly post the photos on the blog, I have to add them from Flickr. I am getting very sick of all the time outs this internet connection gives me. Crappy crappy crappy. We have VoIP and several times, if I make a phone call, I can hear the other person but they can't here me. It is like I am stalking them. Since the connection is crystal clear on my end, I can't tell I am going to have this problem until I speak.

On the knitting front, I ripped out one sleeve of Samus including some of the cable. I then changed the rate of increases and started the sleeve cap about 3 cm before I did before. The yarn shouldn't grow anymore - correct - since while I was doing this third sleeve, I realized that I am still following for the length pretty close to what I did before - it is just blocking caused it to grow in length. I didn't bother taking pictures of the sleeves, you have seen them.. Making them a little smaller doesn't make them any different in photos.


This is half the hemp bag. I as I have run out of yarn this is where it is going ot stay. It is about half done.


I promised you photos the other day of the house, here is one of the kitchen from the dining room. (It really is all the same room). I am thinking of painting it dark green - the same green as in the my Denby dishes. I had always planned on having a mustard yellow kitchen to go with all my cobalt blue stuff but I think with this woodwork and tiling it won't look good. I do think the dark green will set everything off. We are going to move the island, and make it more of a peninsula.

I haven't posted in a few days so I thought I should update everyone on what is going on.

The house inspection went well, most of the major issues were things we already knew about. The electrical system is not up to code, the grading in the back yard needs to be changed as water should not run towards the house. There were a few minor things that fixing will be better in the long run - putting silicone caulk between the tile and tub join in the bathroom instead of just tile grout. I say this however after a couple of days. Going through the house with the inspector was a different story. All the minor things seemed major, this despite the fact that he kept saying this house is solid, the house is in great shape etc. I did have a feeling of "what am I getting into". We should get the final report tomorrow.

We also had a couple of electricians in to give us a quote to update the electrical system and move the meter outside. The first electrican didn't listen to what I wanted at all, I think his quote will be the lower of the two, but he also didn't look through the entire house. He was looking at cheap ways to do the job. "There is a lot of things that two prong outlets is fine - lamps, clocks etc- you don't need to update all of the wiring." Um, I want to update the wiring, there isn't enough outlets in the rooms, so I want more outlets added. He was suggesting doing half of a job instead of doing the full job and I don 't think the difference will be half the cost.
Hopefully we get the quotes tomorrow. The electrical utility will give us a rebate for moving the meter outside which will be helpful.

We have until Wednesday to finalize the deal, except that I am driving back to NJ that day so we should do it on Tuesday. Our lawyer came back from vacation yesterday and so should look over the paperwork tomorrow. Did I mention the closing date is April 28, in some fronts very soon in otherwise not soon enough.

On the fibre front. I havent' done anything on Samus, I do need to rip out the sleeves still. I may work on that this afternoon. My second jaywalker is started but not worth posting a photo of.
The hemp bag though - is almost done- which actually where it might stay for awhile. I am pleased with how it is turning out. However I only bought one skein of the yarn, I realized afterwards I should have bought at least two skeins. I wanted to wait to see if I needed one or two skeins more, and before I bought more if my idea would actually work. I haven't figured out what to do for handles yet, this yarn is very stiff, and I don't know if I can get I-cord to look nice with this yarn or if I should knit garter handles. The issue is also the strongest way to attach the handles, I have a feeling the hemp yarn is stronger than a simpler join and I want this bag to be able to withstand some weight for a period of time.

Spent the day yesterday with my brother, SIL and nephews. Lots of fun and we discussed homeownership and closing fees etc.

I was going to post some photos of the different rooms, but I am having problems uploading them.

Samus sleeves

I have one sleeve seemed in to the body of the sweater, I thought this would be an exciting time. My first sweater is almost wearable and this would push me on to finish. However, I am not happy. The sleeve seemed to grow with blocking which the body didn't. While the sleeves were blocking, I thought maybe I just didn't pay close enought attention to the change in the body, it did seem a little longer. I think I am going to rip out the sleeves although I will be leaving it for a day, for the final decision.

Problems with the sleeves

1. The cuff is huge. I would just like to say, how much it flares is not evident when the sleeve is flat.
   
2. The sleeve is too long- the first sleeve I knitted I got carried away knitting before the sleeve cap decreases, I had to remove 5 cm of knitting. I still think it is at least 3 cm too long - maybe more.
   
3. The sleeve cap kind of puffs up some, in reminescent of 80's fashion - I was thinking I would just try to block this out, but since I have other issues with the fit I might as well disclose this as well. It probably is not near as bad as the 80's but it still bothers me, when I was going for clean lines.

So the question is, should I just make the sleeves for the small size instead of the medium size - the body of the sweater is medium?

Stuff I have learnt in the past 24 hours:

1) If you put an offer in on a house during spring break expect everyone to be on vacation - even if they don't have school aged kids - lawyer, loan manager.

2) If you drop a 4L jug of milk on the floor in the grocery store after you have bought it, there will be milk everywhere- you get a nice clean slit on the bottom of the container.

3) You do get a creamier rice pudding when made with medium grain rice and not long grain.

4) Jaywalkers do not like to play in the blustering snow, - maybe it will do better once there is a pair






















Our conditional offer has been accepted, signing the paper work this afternoon and handing over the deposit cheque. The home inspections and the electrical quotes are scheduled for Thursday.

Google Bomb

I meant to do this before - even though the internet has successfuly Google bombed Bill Napoli I wanted to add it to my page as well.
Even you don't know what google bombing is or why we are doing this to this A**hole please see this post.

Offerings

Here is the body of Samus blocking, I added waist shaping to the pattern and was happy after my second attempt. My first attempt I did the increases to quickly and so there was very little shaped area.

I finished the second sleeve on Samus, the sleeves are blocking before seaming and the addition of applied I-cord. I have to get a zipper this week so I can finish it up. I don't think the applied I cord should take much to finish. Although I probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

We decided to put an offer in on a house, I'll post more once we know whether it has been accepted or not. Our lawyer is away on vacation this week, so we postponed this morning on what we were going to do, we put in a clause that states that the offer is conditional on the laywer approving the contract.

It was such a beautiful day yesterday - t-shirt weather - but not today pouring rain and very dismal. Tomorrow snow!

More houses

So I looked at a couple more houses yesterday. Just a comment to anyone who is planning on selling their house. If you are on the phone when the potential buyer comes to the door. Get off the phone. Don't make them stand outside for 10 minutes. Since in that time, they will have a good opportunity to check the brick work, windows and foundation, and no matter what the photos of the inside are like, will walk away and not want to see the inside. So that is my little piece of advice.

Today back to look at one of the houses that I saw earlier in the week and my husband saw a couple of weeks ago. It is not perfect, but are houses ever really. It is the best house that either of us have seen.

Now onto to knitting content. I halfway done the heel flap on my Jaywalker. I forgot to mention yesterday that I am knitting these on 2.25 mm (US1) and added a picot edge instead of ribbing.


I am also working on Samus from Fall '05 Knitty. I am using Cascade 220, on a 5mm (US8) Addi Turbo. The body and one sleeve is done so here is the what I have done of the second sleeve. Hopefully before the weekend is done I can have this blocking, to sew up later.

So I did it

I finally started a blog!! I am not promising a blog that will be updated often with beautiful comments on techniques, or a blog that entertains the masses and is given a book deal. I just thought I would start a blog for the amusement of myself and maybe my friends, since I can be horrible at correspondence.
Some of the things that I'll be discussing on this blog is my knitting, buying a house (and all the stuff that goes with that), I am also looking for a job but I think I'll keep info on that off of the blogsphere.
So that is what this blog will be all about. I do think I should find a pic of something that I am working on to put up. Maybe my Jaywalker in LL Shepard Sport colourway Iris, thanks to Grumperina for the wonderful pattern.


In interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I need a new digital camera. We have had this one for a couple of years, and have never been completely happy. I guess I'll add that to my wish list. The colours in the first photo are more similar to the actual yarn then in the second photo. (That is why I have the blurry photo). In both photos the purple looked magenta on the cameras LCD - so I never know what I am going to get until I download the photos to my computer.

Kitchener Waterloo Knitters Guild

This is the page for the management of the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters Guild. If you have any questions please email me at houseofwool at gmail.com or leave me a comment.

Guidelines

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  4. You are responsible for making chages to your blog information (new url, new email, new blog name).
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