Curl Curl Revolution

I like to think that Adam and I throw a pretty good party, but our friends Kim & Sinclair are the real masters when it comes to having awesome parties. They both have birthdays in February and this year they decided that the best way to celebrate was a bonspiel! So it was off to London last saturday, and boy was I ever excited. I'm not from a small town and I've never learned to curl, but I've always been fascinated by the game. I finally got my chance to play and you know what? It was not a disappointment. I loved it!


I tried to blend in by wearing my grandfather's 1950's plaid lumberjacket. I didn't exactly fit in but it is one of my favourite mementos of his so I didn't care.


It looked much more appropriate on our friend Mike, who is clearly pulling together a real trailer-park boys theme right now. Dig that facial hair! And that is a rum-and-coke he's drinking, too.


Adam was naturally better at curling than me, but I blame the fact that I was on a team of totally newbies whereas his team had some slightly experienced players and an actual skip.


The winning team even got a trophy! There were six teams of 4 people and Sinclair lead team 5 to the WIN.

Mission Accomplished

My husband did the groceries so now we are fully stocked up with Dry Vermouth and cocktail onions (and a few other food-type items of course). I am vaguely considering throwing a martini-themed house party in the spring, although this time I think I'll wait until they turn the A/C on in our building. And hope for fewer fires than the last time...

I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, a mild sore throat combined with more than a little paranoia about my job situation. I'm kind of in love with my new job and I really, really want it to work out. So now I'm afraid of doing something to mess it up, because that's how I roll sometimes: self-sabotage is my not-so-super power.

My Grocery Issues

I keep a pad of paper on the side of my fridge to jot down groceries on as the week progresses. This is what it currently contains:

Bacon
Eggs
Vermouth
Cocktail Onions
Raspberry jam (Smuckers)
Shampoo
Vanilla

That sure says something about our daily habits, doesn't it? Clearly we ran out of breakfast foods immediately followed by Gibsons (that is a gin martini with a pearl onion instead of an olive for you non-drinkers). Jam, shampoo and vanilla just seem tame in comparison, don't they?

I feel like you can tell a lot about a person by their ongoing grocery list. Do you have one? Share it, and link to it in the comments. I'm starting my very own lame grocery meme.

Gone Curling

I popped over to Flickr to see if I could find an appropriate, creative commons photo of a curling rock to share because I am SO EXCITED to be going curling today. I didn't find any photos that I loved but I have to say that the search results for "curling" are quite lovely.

I also re-discovered this fantastic sweater, owned by Jodi Green who I've been reading for years after I knit one of her sweater patterns as one of my first ever sweaters (Mariah). Apparently someone thought they were tanks.

OH YEAH!!

This is the best thing I've ever seen on FailBlog.

At least I think it is. Its possible the 30 hours of work I've done in the last 36 hours is clouding my judgement. The worst part? I left the office at 11:15pm today saying "I didn't get as much done today as I'd hoped I would".

In other news -- I have a loom!! It is sitting in my foyer being absolutely freaking gorgeous and I can't wait to have some breathing time to play with it. Soon.

Damn Spammers

I've been getting absolutely swamped with comment spam lately, so I've been forced to switch to moderated comments :( This is no fun -- I prefer instant feedback when I comment on a blog, and I assume others want the same! This is just pushing me to finally get on switching over to a fuller-featured Wordpress blog, like I've been meaning to for a few months now.

Anyways, I have no real new knitting content to share but I did want to let everyone (all 6 of my regular readers) know that the Fluevog saga is finally at an end. After 4.5 weeks they finally called me to come and get my boots. When I got there, they had stretched the foot of the boot instead of the calf and they were completely unwearable. I thought I was going to cry, right there in the store full of touristy Sunday shoppers. The nice knitting salesguy came to my rescue when the person I was dealing with actually had the balls to suggest that I wait until the manager came back from his TWO WEEK vacation. I got a full refund on the spot.

Which I went straight out and spent -- for the same money I got a gorgeous messenger bag from Rudsak (40% off!) and an adorable pair of Campers (20% off!). I am wearing the bag and the boots in this photo but it is a bit hard to see the boots. This is what they look like. Its more of a heel than I was planning to get but I love wearing them, and they are Campers so they're actually quite comfortable. It is going to take a little practice to learn to walk fast in heels again but it is fun to wear them so I'll manage.

Finished Object: My Heart (for my Husband)

I simply haven't had as much knitting time lately, and this was extra true of the heart that I decided to knit for my husband for Valentine's day! When the Knitty surprises were released on January 28, I knew I had to make one and I figured I had plenty of time -- more than 2 weeks! The only catch was, I wanted it to be a surprise, so I was only able to knit it while he wasn't around. My commute provided some of the knitting time, but I often don't get a seat as the King streetcar is usually packed full by the time I get on it in the mornings. It isn't that long a ride, either.


So despite working on it daily and putting in a long stint at Drunken Knitting on Friday the 13th, my progress was slow, and I ended up finishing it on Valentine's day out of sight while Adam made our delicious meal.


Pattern & Modifications
Heart by Kristin Ledgett for Knitty.com.

A lovely pattern that I more or less followed. I was on the streetcar when it came time to split for the valves however, and so I kind of just figured out my own way without consulting the pattern. Which is why my second colour valve is the opposite of the original pattern's. I also left out the red stuffing for the exposed ventricles, because I think they look more realistic that way. I did sew in the ends through the bases to keep the regular stuffing from leaking out or showing. I'm very pleased with my results!


Yarn & Needles
I used a few leftover wedding rose yarns to make this -- some tencel threads, a mohair in a deep red, and a mysterious red fingering-weight yarn that someone contributed at the rose-knitting-shower. Held triple-stranded and knit on 2.75mm (US2) needles made for a glossy fabric that I stuffed loosely for maximum squishability.

Timeline
February 1st - 14th, two weeks of extremely intermittent knitting! Followed by 20 minutes of extremely goofy project photography time:

Happy Valentine's Day, Just Barely

I'm completely full of delicious food* that my husband cooked for me. There were stuffed mushroom caps, filet mignon and homemade whipped cream with berries for dessert. I am seriously the luckiest wife ever :)

*None of which contained heart. My heart is what I gave him (say it with me now... awwww)

Finished Object: Rainbow Red Snickets

These socks took a while to knit, but now that they are done they are pretty gorgeous. The yarn is simply beautiful, with deep undertones that make the finished socks seem to almost glow from within. The twisted detail was a bit of a slow knit, but the results are worth it. I'd say my first completed pair of Project Sock Rainbow is a smashing success!

They fit a tiny bit loosely on me after some sizing issues when I first started knitting them, but I don't care. They are cozy to pad around the house in and the bright red colour still makes me smile every time I see them.
Pattern & Modifications
The pattern is Snicket Socks by Sabine Riefler. I tagged this pattern as a "must knit" back when Magknits was still around, so I was thrilled when Sabine shared the pattern as a free Ravelry download following the shut down of Magknits (sad). The only modification I made was subbing a standard slipped-stitch heel-flap construction. I suck at short-row heels and I don't find they fit my feet very well, so I went with the tried and true! Other than that it was a wonderful pattern.

Yarn & Needles
I am completely ashamed to admit that I don't remember what kind of yarn this is. Jeff bought it for me as a super generous gift last summer at the Purl, after Lady Lung Doc pointed it out to me as a great red for my sock rainbow (the original red I chose turned out to be too dark and have too much orange in it to really work). I proceeded to loose the label immediately and all I remember about it is that the label was turquoise and white, and I think it was a Diamond yarn. Anyone know what I'm talking about? It knit up really nicely on 2.75mm (US 3?) needles, so it is a bit of a heavier sock yarn.

Timeline
I cast these on in early September '08, and after a few false starts on smaller needles that made it a very unpleasant knit, I switched up to the 2.75s and knit right along on them. It still took me most of 3 months to finish them because I mostly worked on these for half-hour intervals while riding the recumbent bike at the gym.

Whew!

Boy, I sure do like to follow up 31 straight days of daily blogging with resounding silence, don't I? I've been super busy the past few days with work and so I have to admit I let the blogging slide as soon as I could. I did blog every single day in January, just like the list says!

Anyways, all that work doesn't mean I haven't done anything else... I've made some progress on my vine-lace vest; it is a great simple lace knit that I'm really enjoying, especially since it progresses so quickly! Its funny how lately I'm all about larger yarns and visible progress. I used to think nothing of knitting one pair of socks on 2mm needles (US0) for a month if that was how long it took. So, while I do have a pair of socks on the needles (2.25mm needles to be precise) lately I find myself setting them aside for more gratifying, bulkier-weight projects.

Oh and how could I forget: we're bringing back the TTC Knit-along!! Go join the Ravelry group, and mark your calendars for Saturday, June 6. Joyce and I are spearheading this mission but we've got an awesome group of volunteer team captains, organizational help and a little bit of design help too... no changes have been made to the original blog yet but as soon as we sort out the new logo and registration is ready for action (probably in about a week) I will let you all know!