Finished Object: Topographic Cowl

This knit started out as an emergency knitting project a few weeks ago when I realized I'd forgotten my knitting at home and wouldn't have time to go back before drunken knitting. Naturally, I did have time to hit the Purple Purl to buy some new Malabrigo and Addi Turbo Lace needles in a 5mm and cast on a completely new project!


Pattern & Modifications
The pattern is Topographie from knitty, only I pretty much ignored everything but the instructions on when to purl and made a big tube-style cowl/neckwarmer. I replaced the ribbing with a few rounds of garter stitch, knit and purled as the yarn told me to until I was starting to run low on yarn, and then did another few rounds of garter stitch. The results are stunning -- this was super easy and its easily one my favourite recent FO's. Not that there are that many of those these days, silly job taking away all my knitting time ;)

Needles & Yarn
The yarn is the always delicious Malabrigo Worsted in colourway Loro Barranquero. Knit on 5mm needles this yielded a perfectly balanced fabric that is cozy and yet drapey and soft.

Timeline
I cast on March 13 (drunken knitters!) and finished this up on March 21st, so just over a week. Not bad considering how little time I actually spend knitting lately.

Genius

This is one of the funniest and most beautiful thing I've seen in a while. I can only imagine how hilarious this would have been to actually DO.

Happy St Paddy's Day!

Look! A Puppy!

Meet Sandy, my Dad's new puppy. This is her meeting my new Keens, in July. (Deep breath, Steph & Jacquie & Amy, I rescued them right after taking this picture and they are completely undamaged)

I am waaaay behind on processing photos at the moment. I'm still plugging away at our honeymoon stuff as well -- I have about a billion awesome photos of iguanas running around the resort that I need to finish sorting through as well.

I've realized something fundamental about why it takes me so long to get photos up after I shoot them: I need some time/distance in order to edit effectively; and by edit I mean cutting down the 100+ photos I may have taken in any one day down to maybe 20 good ones. Otherwise I fall in love with capturing every detail instead of focusing on just the great photos, and I end up with 60-photo sets.

At heart I think I'm a storyteller though, so its tough to decide. Sometimes even a crap photograph captures a part of the event that I want to remember/document. I don't think I'll ever be a true photo artist... but I can live with that. My user name is what it is, after all.

I'm a Weaver

Finally the big reveal... I've now had my loom for well over 2 weeks but only just got around to moving it into my "craft room" where it now basically uses all the available floor space. After a certain amount of research and guess-work, I have come to the conclusion that this is an Artisat loom. It folds front and back (although when warped this releases the tension so I don't know that I'll be doing it that often).


I've already warped it and woven a bit, using some coned yarn I picked up in the Romni basement a few months ago for another project, and I've been weaving using sock-yarn scraps I have a big bag of so there are some wacky colours happening and my selvedges are terrible. I really need to find some time to take a class or coerce some of my experienced weaver friends to come to my house and give me some pointers. At this point I'm totally winging it based on the little information I was able to find on the internet and my own innate sense of mechanics.


It seems to be in very good shape and was obviously well cared for by the previous owner. All the parts move easily, there is no visible rust on the reed or heddles, and it actually still smells like wood (I LOVE the way my loom smells, when I walk in my craft room now I take a big deep breath of the delicious smell of maple).


It came with a 12-dent reed (that is 12 slots per inch) which works for some of the super fine yarn I'm using to warp it right now but probably won't work for heavier weight yarns. So I guess I'm going to have to spend a little more money on a reed with fewer dents -- I'm thinking an 8-dent for sock-weight and either a 6- or 4-dent to accommodate up to worsted weight. If anyone with some weaving experience can suggest a more appropriate reed size for sock weight and worsted yarns that would be awesome :) I want to be able to make big cushy woven blankets and I have visions of cozy plaid baby blankets for all of my friends' babies.

33 Things About Me

I originally began this post in 2006. It was supposed to be 100 things about me, but for some reason I kept getting stuck around 20-something and giving up. I have now accepted that I will never be able to say 100 things about myself that will be true for more than 5 minutes, so now it is 33 things and a picture:

1. I am Canadian and proud of it
   
2. I was born in the 70's
   
3. I love my job, it is as close to my dream job as I can imagine
4. And yet it still drives me utterly insane sometimes
5. I love knitting
6. I love taking photos
7. I hate shaving my legs
8. Thank god for wax ;)
   
9. I am weirdly in love with my natural hair colour now, after over 15 years of dying it various colours
   
10. Because I'm Canadian and somewhat compulsive, I insist on spelling colour, behaviour & neighbour with a 'u' and it drives me crazy when other Canadians don't. I blame MS Word's auto-spellchecker for ruining the spelling habits of many of my less compulsive fellow Canadians
11. Of course I am prone to accidentally ending words in -ien instead of -ian (Canadien, Italien) but I blame my Québecoise heritage for that
    
12. My favourite colours swing back and forth between red & orange
13. I have 3 tattoos, the youngest of which is still more than 10 years old
14. I've been meaning to get a new tattoo for a while now
15. In my life I've had approximately 20+ body piercings
16. Currently I only have a few, and mostly in my ears
17. My husband and I have been together for over 10 years now
18. But we only just got married 5 months ago!
    
19. We have 2 cats and no plans to have babies
    
20. I go to the gym 3-5 times a week, and I started a weight-lifting program 6 weeks ago
21. I've dropped 3 pants sizes since starting
    
22. I'm back down to where I was about 5 years ago, before I decided to quit smoking and after many years of practically zero physical activity
23. I have become good friends with a neighbour (also a knitter!) from going to the gym
24. Its kind of cool to have someone to borrow a cup of sugar from if I need it!
    
25. I never would have thought I'd become a gym person but I've kind of grown to love going, especially now that I'm lifting weights
    
26. I'm not quite back into the kind of shape I was in at age 20
27. But I don't really have the motivation to start cycling 20-30km every day like I did back then
28. Lately I have been missing my youth a tiny bit though
29. Which is why I've been listening to a lot of old punk and industrial music on my mp3-player
30. Sometimes I feel like I'm in disguise
31. I couldn't possibly be that woman wearing the conservative wool coat, heels and giant sunglasses
32. Listening to the Forgotten Rebels or KMFDM at 8:30 in the morning on my commute through the financial district helps a little
33. I certainly don't feel like someone who just bought a used floor-loom so I could start weaving my own cloth!