Monthly Archives: November 2006

random and pictureless

It is rainy and grey and I don’t want to make the trek (50 minutes) down to school for one class. Blegh. But, it’s my man’s 22nd birthday and I will meet up with him downtown. So all is good. And since it’s warm, I can wear my new(ish) Gore-Tex jacket.

I ran out of one colour of the log cabin (a random ball of blue with a bit of red from long ago) as I was binding off that section. So I subbed in some other blue (which was leftover, not enough to do a section) for the bind off. Realization: the bind off yarn doesn’t show from the right side! Good good.

I still can’t decide between mitred squares and mini log cabins for the STR blanket. Not that I’m going to be starting it anytime soon. Did I mention that we got in a shipment of Socks that Rock lightweight at lettuce knit? You can call Denny today and do mail order! *ducks* Call or go soon, it’s going be sold out fast!

After more than a week of the elimination diet, my skin is finally starting to look better. Just starting, mind you – definitely not spectaular results yet. But I guess it’s giving me a bit of encouragement when I’m really, really starting to get tired of this. I want EVERYTHING. Even things I didn’t eat much before, like French toast. Mmmmmm, french toast. And eggs. And fake bacon.

As soon as my yarn arrives I’m going to start the cabled little jacket thing (#15, I think it is?) from the latest Vogue. In cream Andean Silk – that thing calls for a LOT of yarn – 9 skeins of Cascade 220 for a 35″ (which, by the way, is the biggest size. Bummer, man). So I ordered 20 balls.

I also bought some dupioni silk from Fabricland, way on sale – 30% off $18.99/m. I bought both a chocolate brown and a nice rose-y pink-y colour for holiday skirts. So this year I won’t just be wearing my usual red top and black pants! Cream sweater and brown skirt = awesome. I’m going to just jump into a skirt pattern without making a muslin, but I have used the pattern before and hey, I know how to make a skirt. I’m hoping for fairly long but I only bought 2 m, so I might have to go back and get some more. Maybe get megan to serge the insides of the seams for me (I usually just zigzag ’em but since she’s got the fancy serger it would look super!).

Well, that got long eh? I’ve got 2 big papers (10 and 20 pages), a poster session, and two exams before I’m free of school for the rest of the month. I’m out on the 14th. So a lot of this will have to wait until then!

squares are eating my brain

Ah, squares. So soothing and easy and fun. I’ve been planning a blanket out of the Pakucho organic cotton I’ve got, and here’s the start. Well, “planning” is a stretch; I’m just going to knit random squares until I run out of yarn. I only have a few skeins of the green (yeah, it’s green) so I’m doing striped ones with that, and then the rest will be solid cream. It’s going to be great.

Aaaaand again it’s the end of the weekend, and I’m tired and stressed and somewhat hungry (although I did have a big supper – roasted veg, veggie sushi, squash). I’m sort of wanting to cast on a new sweater, but at the same time wanting all my other projects to be done already! At the moment I’m finishing up a toe on a sock, which has been long neglected.

The grey cabled cardi has all its pieces done; it just needs tobe sewn up and the collar knit. I should do that soon, since although it’s very warm this week (16 C on Wednesday!) it’s going down to freezing and below by next weekend.

I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by the stash and the stack o’ projects, and yet I just keep being more inspired and adding stuff to the stash! Anyway, here’s an opinion question for you all – I’m going to knit a blankie (yeah, it’s a blankie epidemic over here) out of Socks that Rock from the stash. It’s all kind of random colourways, but I think it’ll work all together.

So – what kind of blankie do I do?
a) log cabin – one big square
b) log cabin – small squares
c) mitred squares
d) something else?

insert creative title

The log cabin blankie is growing; it’s really quite large now. I have this feeling that I might not stop until it’s actually big enough for say, the bed, but on the other hand I have a set amount of yarn now, and maybe I’ll just stop when it runs out.

Someone asked for a shot of the back – here tis:

Not too bad, where the ends are concerned. I’m knitting in half of the ends as I go – when I start a block, I knit in the tail from the new yarn. So when I’m done I’ll just chop those off and weave in the other half of the ends.

I don’t have much time to work on it right now, but I did finish that pink block on the right while my lentils were cooking last night. That yarn is not the greatest, but it was one of my earlier wheel efforts. Not bad, not bad.

I have so little of the grey cabled cardi to finish, but I don’t know when it’ll get done…I have so much to do!! Plus I just keep adding sweaters to my “to-knit” list. It’s nuts, I tells ya.

Skin and diet stuff:
Thanks for all the encouragement and stories. I’ve been going to doctors and using topical prescriptions for my entire life (that’s a whole lotta steroids) and decided it was time for a change. So off to the clinic at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine I went (they have great rates btw). This diet was prescribed by my doctor there, and I’ll be on it for two weeks. It’s been three days (today’s the fourth) and my hands already look better – it’s going to be interesting reintroducing the foods to see what makes them worse.

I’ve bought a lot of food to try and have stuff on hand for when I want to eat, but it’s been pretty tough. Especially resisting the cookies at last night’s snb! I did finally find something to help satisfy my sweet tooth (it appears I’m hopelessly addicted to sugar..): blueberries! Yum. Anyway, it’s going to be a big fat challenge, along with knitting and school deadlines, but hey, week one is half over.