Close to my Heart

My new companion

If you follow me on Plurk, Twitter, or even Facebook, this is going to be old news, but anyway....

I have a new companion. This companion comes with me to work, to bed, on all my errands, and sometimes even to the bathroom.  It makes me accountable, keeps me organized, and entertains me.  It also helps keep me connected with friends and family.  What is it you may ask?  Well my newest, brightest, and shiniest favourite thing is my Iphone!  What you may wonder, happened to one of last year's bright and shiny items, the Blackberry?  Well let's just say the Blackberry was one of those relationships that were jumped into far too quickly without enough knowledge.  I ddn't really realize what a mistake it was until I met the Ipod Touch earlier this year.  The Touch lured me into deeper things, and convinced me that I needed to take the Apple relationship one step further.  I wished and wished that my cell provider could assist me with this, but they were not acquainted with this deeper need.  That all changed on November 5th when it was determined that these deeper needs of mine could indeed be met.  Local retail outlets were telephone stalked during my lunch break that day, and I could barely wait for quitting time when I would meet my new companion.  You've probably figured out the identity of my new close friend, the most wonderful and awesome Iphone.   Here's the front screen of mine:

 

My most favourite applications are on this first screen.  Social networking, lists, calendar, weather, my weight loss program (23 pounds now!) and even knitting applications.  I can carry knitting patterns in this handy little gadget too, see:

 

(I just learned how to do a screen shot)

The camera is far superior to that of the jilted Blackberry, which of course was tested on a kitty:

This post also marks the beginning of my participation in Photo 365.  I am going to endeavor to blog a picture every day in the next year.  While many will undoubtedly be Iphone photos (Typepad has a nifty IPhone app) I see this as an attempt to blog more regularly in a way that will chronicle my day to day life in the next year.  We'll see how it goes.

The Long Weekend in Pictures

What a lovely long weekend it has been! The weather for the most part cooperated until mid afternoon Monday.  Saturday found me on a little road trip to two yarn stores in the next town over.  Here's one of the stores I stopped at, outside of which the village's annual market days was taking place.  I had fun poking around.

My purchases for the day:

Yarn for a couple baby gift sweaters as well as a pretty skein of sock yarn. 

Sunday afternoon found the cats and I hanging around on our patio.  While I knit and listened to podcasts, the cats had fun exploring:

Truly a lovely weekend!

Manic Purl Swap Package

I probably did my first online swap close to nine years ago, back in the day when I was involved in the early online crochet community.  I got away from swapping for a few years, but lately have participated in a few swaps once again.  Today I received a lovely swap package from Blogless Carla,  my partner in the Manic Purl Podcast Kit It Swap.  The main part of the swap was Patons SWS and a couple potential scarf patterns for my first attempt at entrelac.

 

The extra goodies were a cute little drawstring bag, some lip balm, a kitty pin, and chocolate.  Also included was a catnip toy, and therefore the kitties also got great enjoyment from this awesome swap box.

Buttons Blogs

My Mom can't come to the blog today, so I am writing for her.  She and four other friends have driven to the States to something called Black Friday, and she tells me she is going to start shopping at 4 in the morning and not stop until dinner time.  Crazy, that sounds like prime sleeping time to me!

On the wheel

I have spent a lovely Sunday morning in my jammies, at the wheel, with the sun streaming in the window behind me.  Pure luxury.  Oh, and I had my cute little friend watching:

I was finishing spinning up a lovely BFL/Silk blend that I purchased from Hummingbird Fibre at the Victoria Fibre Fest this past June.

Prior to this weekend, I had already spun and Navajo plied two thirds of this roving.  I set to spinning the second third yesterday afternoon, and finished this morning. 

I will hopefully be able to Navajo ply it tomorrow night.  I always like to wait a day or so after spinning before I ply.

WIP Wednesday: the Handspun Shawl Edition

Well I knit like a madwoman throughout Thanksgiving weekend, and did indeed finish the February Lady Sweater.  It's currently drying from its wet block, so the official Finished Object Pictures will appear once it is dry. 

Onto other things.  Prior to starting the previously mentioned sweater, I finished spinning this yarn, from Louet Northern Lights pencil roving in the Cactus Flower Colourway:

There is about 800 yards of this yarn, so I decided that I wanted to knit a simple large shawl to wrap around me at work when I'm cold this winter.  I have a lovely bright corner office, but it can get rather chilly.  It took the yarn a bit of time to decide what shawl it wanted to be, but it eventually decided it was comfortable with the Feather and Fan comfort shawl.  I snapped this picture last night. 

I have actually not knit on it since before starting the February Lady sweater, but will give it some time and attention in short order.

Of course when one lays knitting out to photograph, a kitty always comes along to investigate.  Here's Buttons checking things out:

Well time to get running, Happy Hump Day everyone!

Happy Canada Day

From Buttons, myself, and my Made in Canada Lendrum wheel.

Knitting with Handspun

A few nights ago, I finished my first item knit with my own wheel spun yarn.  I had previously knit a scarf with a bobbin spun single, but this was so much more enjoyable to work with, and the finished object is so much softer too.  Those of you who read here regularly know that I have a bit of a bag obsession, so it seemed fitting that I chose my first handspun hand knit to be a bag.  I actually found the pattern using Ravelry's great experimental search function where you can search for a pattern based on the type and amount of yarn you have.  It worked great! 

Here's what I made:

I used this pattern (Ravelry link), but cast on less stitches than called for to account for the amount of yarn (had to frog once to find that out though!).  I think  it will make a great small project bag.

I'm excited tonight because I have a four day weekend.  I took tomorrow off and Monday is my regular flex day.  I'm headed down to the Victoria Fibre Fest for a weekend getaway. It will be a weekend filled with fibre, shopping, old friends and (hopefully) new friends (Ravelry meet-up is planned).

Buttons will watch over my wheel while I'm away:

Catch Up

I should have posted much sooner than this, but the last few days I've been knitting somewhat obsessively on my Adamas Shawl (Ravelry Link).  I have 3 1/2 pattern repeats to go before starting the edging.  There are 10 rows in each repeat, and hundreds of stitches on the needle, so it is a bit slow going at this point.  I am hoping to have moved onto the edging by the end of the coming weekend.  It is fairly simple lace, and I'm enjoying knitting this a lot.  I haven't even spun this week since I'm so into this shawl!

I am still however behind in blogging my handspun, so this post will be a bit of a summary.  For more details and pictures, please visit my Ravelry handspun stash page here.

First up is my current favourite handpun.  It's pink, soft and smooshy and I can't wait to knit it:

I have a pattern picked out and plan to cast on tomorrow. 

A few weeks ago, I finished spinning this:

And below,  my worst spinning job yet.  I loved spinning top on my spindle, but it took a lot more getting used to on the wheel.  I would either draft too much and break the fiber, or not enough and it would be too thick:

The only good thing about this handspun is that I learned a lot while spinning it.  I changed how I drafted by the time I finished spinning this yarn (I later learned from one of my spinning books that I am now doing a backwards draft) and as a result, am now spinning significantly thinner yarn, so it's all good!

And for all you kitty lovers out there, I'm happy to report that Frisbee has become much more brave and has moved further way from the doorstep:

A Little Kitty Explores

If you are looking for knitting, spinning, or even paper craft content, sorry, none of that here today.  Today's blog post is all about kitties.  We are enjoying some nicer weather here the last little while, so we've been able to enjoy our little backyard park. Our cats are normally indoor cats, but now that there is a fenced in area right out the living room door, we've been able to open it up and allow the cats to explore.  Well Buttons has surprised us with curious she has been.  She is a little kitty while her "brother" Frisbee is a much larger more muscular cat.  The little one has been much more brave about exploring her new surroundings, as these pictures will show you:

Meanwhile, Frisbee looks on from the more secure setting of the door step:

Regular crafting content returning here soon.