Distractions

Try as I may, it's hard to stay focused. So much is going on these days, and I keep getting distracted. The land of knitting keeps drifting away. It's been a few weeks now...so so sorry to those of you who are waiting to hear back from me on emails - I finally got to it today, thanks for your patience.

For the questions that came through Blogger comments, most of them are related to the striped scarf. Since I can't reply to you directly (good ol' Blogger!), I'll try to cover the answers here with some proper details.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't keep the labels for the Silk Garden, so I can't tell you exactly which colours I used. My best guess is colourways 201 (I'm pretty sure about that one) and 230...but it's just so hard to tell with Noro. 36 stitches wide on 4.5mm needles (7 US), 1x1 rib, alternating balls every 2nd row, 4 balls in total. I'd say 4 balls is about right for a scarf in Silk Garden. My goal when I chose the colours was to pick two skeins with lots of greys and browns, and two that were more colourful.

For the rest of you wondering where I've been? Oh, so distracted. Besides fighting off the urge to craft craft craft (putting off wanting to learn to weave, sewing, quilting, learning to silkscreen...oh, if only there were more time in a day!), I've got two major projects in the running in the moment.

Fabulous design like this makes wedding planning almost ok

Getting hitched!...and learning the fiddle. Rob and I decided back in May that we were ready to jump in and tie the knot. We hadn't given the actual wedding much thought until the new year when our families and friends started in on us. Since then, we've been in full-force planning mode, preparing for the big day: August 25.

I wasn't really all that into it at first, I'm fairly anti-wedding and all the consumerism that comes with them, so I found the whole idea pretty daunting at first. But, then I started to get into it. It started slowly with Martha, with a short detour into the land of bride-y magazines (yecch...great for millionaires), and then miraculously, after ages of feeling like I couldn't relate to anything out there, I found weddings in blog land.

What a relief! Such great things out there. I'm all for a great big party with fabulous decorations, but sweet lord, spare me the chocolate fountains, hummer limos, satin bows and chair covers and give me something with some AESTHETIC! Glad to have finally found it. I was seriously worried that there wasn't anything beyond indiebride out there.

For those of you on the same road, or even just planning a giant dinner party, may I point you to some of these great finds:

• Something Old Something Blue
• Oh Joy! here comes the bride
• DIYBride
• Love Made Visible
• The Hostess with the Mostess (more of a host resource, but still applicable)
• Style Me Pretty
• Off-beat Bride
  

As for the fiddle? A distraction as well...hard to tackle something like this without jumping all in. I decided it was time to put my grandfather's fiddle to use, and keep its heritage alive. Much to the dismay of my neighbours, I'm afraid.

And knitting? Let's just say there's lots to catch up on.

I dream of empty baskets

I came home in a fury today. I've been finishing up projects behind the scenes (details soon), and I've hit a roadblock on what to start next.

Thing is, something of a stash is holding everything in limbo. Honestly, I can't do it. I can't buy more yarn, I can't, I can't, I can't. I won't. You'd think it would be freeing to have loads of yarn, but if you ask me, it's an absolute burden.

It's everywhere, and most of it has no purpose at all. I find it stifling to have this much yarn, and even more bothersome trying to come up with what to do with it.

Odds and ends: your time has come.

So, in a fury of stash frustration today, I walked in the door and went straight to every basket, box and drawer in the house. I dumped everything out on the dining room table and divided yarn out into assigned projects, a charity pile, and odds and ends.

But before I get to the fun projects, this one or two balls business has got to go. Every last bit of the odds and ends went into this basket. No more nicely arranged, carefully packaged and stored with coordinating weights and colours. Nope. Organized and out of sight - no more!

I mean business, this has got to end. This basket is going to sit and stare me in the face, right there on my coffee table (sorry, Rob) until I figure out what to do with it. And if it sits there forever?

It won't.

A dozen days: day one

This, I think is a fun idea - shoot and share twelve or more pictures throughout the year, one picture for each month. Tag and share your photos in the 007 - Snap a Dozen Days Flickr group photo pool, and you're done. I love it. A project that can be completed in 20 minutes or less? Yes, please, sign me up.

So, January 2007 - here you are. Cold and snowy, with winter coats everywhere.

Cold. Snowy. January.

I walked past this coat a number of times this weekend while in Toronto on a quick road trip. I find the idea of a coat hung on a fence absurd in these cold January days, and suffered the cold to take take the shot. Winter came on with a bang this year; before this recent drop in weather, I was beginning to doubt it would ever come. But, after weeks of backwards weather and the first green Christmas in my lifetime, January proved to be winter worthy indeed.

A bit overdue on this one... I made this simple scarf for Rob before Christmas with two different colours of brown and grey-ish Noro Silk Garden to match his winter coat.

1x1 alternating rib scarf in Noro Silk Garden

While it does match his winter coat, this scarf has spent much more time complementing my winter coat. A simple but satisfying knit to say the least. 4 balls of silk garden, 1x1 rib, alternating every second row with a fringe. No cables, no stranding, no fancy stitches, just plain and simple.

Really, it's just a wee blog.

Reading AT Chicago today, I discovered that it's delurking week in blog land. It got me thinking about the blogs I read, and about my own blog.

I'm not a super regular reader of any blogs, but I try to keep up here and there. There are far too many out there for me to properly follow, and I'm such a curious one that I can't just stop at what I've found...I'm constantly on the hunt for something new. Lately, I've been all over the Norwegian blogs, falling in love with some of the most beautiful work out there - even though I can only really understand the pictures. As part of delurking week, I'll make an effort to comment this week, I promise.

Regarding my own blog, really it is just a wee blog. I started it up at a time when I had a high volume of spare time, and had been doing a lot of knitting. Along with knitting, I discovered a whole new world of crafters, knitalongs and swaps, and wanted in on all the fun.

There's a more nerdy reason behind this blog though, which I've not ever really fessed up to. I love the internet. I'm 100% fascinated by how its evolving. I'll spare you the specifics of my internet love, but will say that one of the reasons this blog came to be is because I wanted to see how far a complete novice could go with a free blog. I fell for Blogger not because I loved its layout or publishing capabilities (far from it, though they're improving), but because with a minor tutorial in CSS (and maybe a pre-made template as a base), you can really push the customization boundaries with Blogger. And they let you. I like that, and I'm glad I did it.

Anyway, nerdiness aside, this really really is just a little blip in the big world of blogs. Every now again, I add a thing or two to keep record of what I've been doing, and I try to stay in touch with others out there. I'm ever surprised by the number of people who pass through here on a regular basis (raise your hand if you're from Turkey or Japan!), even when I have nothing to say.

So, allow me to reverse delurk and formally thank all of you for stopping by. Anyone know how to say lovely in Norwegian?

Surfing away my life

Ohhh, I love it. The internet, love love love it. Mr. Clickety Click and I bought a laptop during the holidays, and I've been glued to it ever since. I think I've had more at-home computer activity in the past week than in the past six months.

I love discovering something new, and I think this one's a gem: thisnext.com. I've long looked for a placeholder for all my online shop-a-holic-ing, and I think this might be it. It's brilliant I tell you, b-r-i-l-l-i-a-n-t! How have I not heard about this yet?

I just put together a list of all the shoes I'd buy in my rich and fabulous pretend life. All from Gravity Pope's Boxing Week Sale. Some good sales, and they have online shopping.

I'm not much for blind shoe buying, but If I lived in the west coast, I'd be all over this sale. Sadly Ottawa is filled with Aldo, Aldo, more Aldo, and other shoe stores with different names, but owned by Aldo. Oh well, the wallet wins this time.

Forget anything productive for a while, I think there's some surfing to catch up on.

Two-double-oh-seven: welcome

Happy new year everyone. Quietly now, let's start out the new year. Guhhhh.

There's been some baby knitting going on behind the scenes, the first of which found its owners last night. With snow finally on the ground, and temperatures dropping, the timing was right for a newborn hat and mitts.

Retro flying helmet and thumbless baby mitts
Helmet pattern: Sublime leaflet Mittens: My own, made up on the fly
Yarn: Luxury Collection Superwash Merino (teal?) and Debbie Bliss wool cotton (white)

The pattern's from a great leaflet for Sublime's uber luxury baby cashmere merino silk line (what baby needs cashmere, merino, and silk??). I normally only like one or two patterns from any one source, but I think all five in this booklet are solid bets for baby gifts. The baby's father has his pilot's license, I coudln't resist.

Anyway, I think off to recover now from the new year's eve-ing... p.s. - I love that blogger has finally added labels and categories. Look at that: