I am a Designer!

I did it! I wrote my first pattern and listed it for free on Ravelry. It is a cute and cozy pet bed. It is also a fabulous stash buster. I have made 4 beds and used up a significant 4,000 yards of the acrylic and eyelash yarn that invaded my house not too long ago.

I have had a severe case of startitis lately. I want to make my first Baby Surprise Jacket and I want to make a scarf from malabrigo eaither in a moss knit stitch or a mesh crochet stitch; I haven't decided yet. I haven't picked up my cabled sock since I got home from Gibsons or my drop stitch scarf since I got home from Port McNeill. I did finish my second ever pair of socks and a cute pair of slippers though.

Right now my main focus is to finish a pair of socks I promised my co-worker for her son. I almost have the leg done on the first pair. I am doing it in a twisted rib but I have made several mistakes. I keep telling myself that he is 10 and wont care but the urge to rip it out and start over keeps getting stronger.

Amongst all this knitting and crocheting I have even managed to get all my homework done. At the last minute of course but done with an average of 78%. So I am quite pleased. I suppose I should probably go work on it now...

Cali

Road Trip = 12 hours of guilt-free knitting

Last weekend we packed up the car and my husband, dog and I all went to visit my parents in Port McNeill. McNeill is a teeny tiny town on the north end of Vancouver Island. I graduated from the highschool there and dont get back to visit too often. Its been about 3 years since my last visit but everything was still the same.

One of the best things about a road trip is all the knitting time I get. 2 hours each way on the ferry and 4 hours each way driving. That is 12 hours! I didn't make the best use of this time as I did nap a little but I still got about a foot of my latest project knitted.

I am making a drop stitch stole, I have never done a dropped stitch before (at least not on purpose) so it took a few tries to get the hang of it. First I had to wind my yarn into a ball. I picked a pretty purple, black and green yarn that I got from my Unwind Yarns Sock Club. I love these colours. I think they will match my new jacket quite nicely. Then I started knitting. The drop stitch was pretty easy and the pattern didn't take long to memorize. I am a little unsure how it is going to turn out though. I think it will take some severe blocking before it looks good.

The visit with my parents was good. We took my dog, Jack, to the beach. He has never seen the ocean before. He was afraid of the crashing waves at first. It was so funny to see such a huge dog (120 lbs) backing away with his tail between his legs. It didn't take long before he was fetching every stick and log my dad threw into the water for him. It was so cute to watch my parents and Jack playing together.

But every holiday has to end and now we are back home...

Cali

Sigh... Yarn... Sigh... School...

Well, I have had a few wonderful, fibreful days.

My good friend Shannon is having a sale on her website, 30% off all yarn if you type in the coupon code SCHOOL (ends Sept 14). So I had to buy a bunch more yarn, 'cause, well, sale.





I tried my hand at making my own stitch markers. They turned out all right. Not perfect but not bad for my first attempt. I got the beads at Gibsons Fibre Festival. Aren't the little ladybugs too cute?





Then yesterday was Unwind Yarns debut selling yarn at the Coquitlam Farmer's Market. So I went to help her sell yarn. It was so much fun. The atmosphere at the market is just fabulous. There were so many dogs there. It seems to be the place to bring your dog.



Tonight I went to Monday Knit Night at Black Sheep Yarns. What fun! There was at least 16 of us there. The store is beautiful. I finally got on the Malabrigo Wagon and brought home 3 skeins of laceweight to match my new kiwi green Stormtech jacket.

But now, I really need to stop procrastinating and do some school work. I started a course this semester: Advanced Corporate Finance. It is my third-to-last CGA course towards my designation. It is an awfully scary, hard course, so I have been distracting myself with all the wonderful fibre-y-ness but I suppose I should start reading that horribly boring no-pictures-no-colour text book...

Sigh...

Cali

Back from the Sunshine Coast...

Wow! I had so much fun in Gibsons! But it is nice to be home. The Gibsons Landing Fibre Festival was amazing. It was a crazy 5 days!


We spent 4 of the days setting up and manning the Unwind Yarns booth. It was so much fun selling yarn to all the wonderful fibre-y people.

I got to spend 4 days solid fondling yarn and making friends with all our booth-neighbours.

I bought a basket from Africa first and then proceeded to fill it up with yarn, fabric and beads. I bought fabric and I don't even sew. Crazy I am. But it was SO pretty and one day I might use it.

I even did some designing while we were there. I made a pretty shawl brooch out of this funky bead I bought the first day. The lady who sold the beads was so impressed with my idea she made more of them and gave me a bag of free beads for "inventing" the brooch. So that night I designed a set of stitch markers with my free beads. I had to use a few of Shannon's beads too. Then Shannon did the wire bending part and added a jump ring and voila! stitchmarkers. They are little flowers, they even have dirt! Notice the pretty backgrounds in my pics... that is some of the fabric I bought. See, isn't it pretty?

We had such a fabulous time. I can't wait until next year!

Getting Ready for Gibsons!

Next week is Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival! 4 days of wonderful fibre-y fun!

Shannon is going to be selling her yarn at the merchant mall and is letting me tag along to help! So, I took a few days off work and we are leaving for Gibsons on Tuesday night and coming back on Sunday. I am so excited for this little holiday!

I have been helping Shannon as much as I can to get ready. I learned to reskein yarn. I love untangling the tangled hanks. I haven't quite figured out how to turn the hanks into the tidy twists like Shannon does but no biggy... This weekend we had a reskeining sleep-over. I labelled 68 skeins of yarn. It was so much fun getting to play with all that pretty fibre! Here is a sneak peek of some of the colours.

Today, Sunday, I have spent the day making book marks, we are going to attach a stitchmarker that Shannon has made and sell them at the festival. It has been a lot of cutting and gluing but I got 70 made.

Tomorrow I will do laundry and pack and the next day we will be heading out! Woo Hoo! I am so excited for Gibsons!

Hopefully I'll see you there...

Cali

Acrylic Invasion...

I finally got my last 3 garbage bags (and one little container) of yarn out of storage, and oh my I have a lot of nasty acrylic yarn. I will warn you now: this is going to be an image heavy post.

I know I should be working on my Ravelympics projects but how can I resist all the temptation of sorting through this mess and finding homes for this yarn.

I found one of my very first crochet projects, a large green granny square blanket made from red heart. I started this about 10 years ago. It looks like I got quite a few squares done. I even remember what pattern book the pattern was in so one day I may just finish this blanket. I found another patterned blanket kit I bought from Mary Maxim with cats in nice neutral shades of taupe, grey and black. I even have the matching latchook rug kit (what was I thinking). These each went into their own rubbermaid bucket and tucked into a corner out of sight.

Ever heard of Cloudspun by Mary Maxim? It is a bulky weight acrylic. I have 44 skeins of it. 25 skeins in a charcoal colour 14 skeins in varying shades of rose and almost 5 skeins in bright red. I have no recollection of buying this stuff or being given it. But its enough to make something with it, one day, maybe...

The next treasure I found was a scrapghan. I had no idea it was big enough to call complete. I have been working on it for years. I started it about 8 years ago and crocheted the last row about 4 years ago. When ever I had a little bit of yarn leftover from a project I would add it to the pile. I changed colours every other row. I thought the blanket was about 3 feet long but when I unfolded it it was actually over 5 feet. I think it must have crocheted itself all this time that it was stuck in storage. I will donate this blanket to charity.

I found this cute little doll kit. This was one of the first things I ever knitted. I was so proud of myself for making the first outfit but I never got around to making the other two... one of these days I will get it done.

When I first learned to knit those hideous eyelash scarves were the trendy thing. In fact my first knitting project ever was scarf with a 5-stitch garter stitch border around stockinette. I knitted it in dark blue Bernat boa on dark blue needles. That project was doomed from the very beginning. I couldn't see the stitches; all the dark colours blended together. But when I finally finished it I was so proud I thought I would make boa scarves for everyone so I bought enough yarn to make 8 scarves and I finished 3. I still have yarn for 5 more scarves and now eyelash is not so trendy anymore. Sigh...

I finished sorting all the yarn into acrylic and cotton that I may use one day and acrylic that I will never ever use. The never-ever-yarn is in a take-to-goodwill pile with the scrapghan. The might-use-one-day-yarn is now occupying two cubes of my Expedit shelf. And I am still left with a whole bunch of acrylic that will make about fifty wonderful Mother Bear Project bears. I sent two bears off to Africa last year and would love to find the time to make several more.

I learned today that there is a big difference in 20 year old acrylic and present day acrylic. The old stuff is nasty itchy and yucky. The new stuff can be soft and very pretty. If someone offers you some of their old acrylic stash say "No thank you, I really haven't got anywhere to put it." Trust me, you don't want it. Same goes for novelty yarns, if its got tinsel, plastic or eyelashes in it just say no. These yarns are like spandex, they are trendy for a brief moment in time and then the memories haunt you for the rest of your life.

I should really get back to my Ravelympic Projects...

Cali

Going Cruising!

OMG OMG OMG! I am going on a cruise! This cruise to be exact.

I clicked on a Ravelry Ad one day and it took me to Craft Cruises. So I looked through all the cruising options; there was one up the Canadian East Coast, one to Hawaii, and many more. Some have a knitting focus or a crocheting focus. I picked the 1 week Alaska cruise because it departs from Seattle which is the easiest for me to get to, living on the west coast and all.

There will be knitting and beading classes on this cruise so I am looking forward to learning a bit of both. I have been emailing back and forth with Melissa at Craft Cruises and she has said this cruise is great because there are 3 days at sea so lots of time for crafty classes.

I have never been on a holiday like this before, Hubby doesn't think he will like cruises so he has no desire to go on one. But he said I can go!!! Its too bad its over a year away. This is really going to teach me some patience...

Cali