Life's a Stitch

More colours of spring:

Evening cherry trees in my son's neighbourhood. They're a month late!

Another Crescent Moon and Zauberball.

Vancouver's famous Elms of East 6th Avenue. Save our Elms!

Pattern: Citron  I'm #6785 to post this on Ravelry.

Yarn: Malabrigo Lace (1 skein) and I'm 13,975th to use this yarn on Ravelry. Nothing like being late to the party.

Modifications: Knit a wider, heavier border to keep it from rolling. Looks like it worked.

Thoughts: Meh. Underwhelmed with the finished product, the yarn (and to think I was so desperate for it at the time) and the eyelets created by the increases. The plus side is that it's so light you hardly notice it's there keeping you warm. I give this one a C+.

Apologies for the delay, I'm still here, buried under grant writing deadlines. Working in the non-profit world of severe funding cuts, my job has degenerated to filling out forms – funding applications and their subsequent accountability forms. It's not as fun as it used to be. The good part? The people I work with makes it worth it. 

And I'm back from a quick trip to Edmonton to share in the excitement of a first house purchase by my daughter and her husband. We were joined by my other daughter who had just finished all her last exam for the coursework part of her Master's in Medical Physics. A lot of joy packed into that weekend. 

Two steps forward? Thanks to a cortisone shot in the wrist, I'm knitting a bit again. And of course, two recent finished projects count as forward movement. Here's one, the crocheted scarf:

Pattern: Scarlet Evening Shawl, written in Russian by Julia Michanka. It comes with an excellent chart and photos, so Russian is not a prereq. 

Yarn: Zauberball Crazy, Tropical Fish colourway, 1 skein.

Modifications: Completed 4.5 levels of squares, reserving 20 gms of yarn for the added shamrock fringe. 

Thoughts: Quick and easy enough, a perfect 450 yard sock weight project. It comes out to nearly an equilateral triangle, not my favourite shape for a shawl, but I made it small enough that folded over a bit along the top, and wrapped around the neck, it gives the look I want. Will definitely do this one again.

Two steps backwards. Does this pain you?

Before and after:

Really, it doesn't hurt me too much. I wasn't wearing the sweater as the cabled trim was too heavy and it hung all wrong. Plus I hated the seam where the trim met, right smack in the middle of the back edge. What pains me is this:

All those little teensy balls as the result of indiscriminant scissor snipping. Oops, that wasn't a seam stitch. And why is it that you end up with one less skein than you started with? The seaming couldn't have taken that much. All's well, I found the discontinued Tahki New Tweed on e-bay and it's a Mr. Greenjeans in progress. I guess that would be a Mr. Oatmealjeans.

I did it. After many years of good intentions I am officially Diet Coke and caffeine free. Both cold turkey. My method? Remember that bout of food borne illness? As long as I wasn't consuming anything, good or bad, it was an opportunity to quit some vices and not notice the withdrawal symptoms. This was a BIG step for me. For many years Diet Coke was my breakfast drink of choice. And lunch. And dinner…

As a person who used to work in addictions I know that something has to be substituted for the offending chemicals. Nothing drastic as newfound religion or a career change for me. My substitutes are club soda, an occasional diet ginger ale, and a morning decaf espresso. I should note in all honesty, a perfectly reasonable amount of red wine is still in my repertoire of vices.

My other accomplishment was blocking two projects in one weekend:

More on those projects later. Unrelated question: Has anyone tried Great Valley Ancient Grain medly from Costco? I bought some last night and realized the back label with cooking instructions is missing. Does anyone know how to cook them –  as in the water to grain ratio? Great Valley has no website.

Next time they predict a La Nina year, if I'm still living in the in the rainforest I'm running the other way. There was way too much rain for my brain. When the clouds lifted from the sky and the fog from my head, there was still snow on the Lions.

The cherry trees started to bloom:

And the magnolias popped:

My favourite harbinger of springtime is the song of the Varied Thrush. Make sure you click on the "listen" button. Thrushes are here all year round, but when the cloud lifts from the sky their police whistle call multiplies.

 

Meet the Zauberball. Translates to Crazy Ball and the colour translation is Tropical Fish. To complicate matters, this particular style is called Crazy Zauberball, meaning Crazy Crazy Ball. It fits:

I had always wanted to try the Zauberball, but couldn't justify the going price. Blogless Masha and I lucked into two balls in the sale bin at Hellen's in Mount Vernon, WA. It reminds me of Kauni yarn, only much softer. This ball is magically turning into a crocheted scarfy/kerchief version of the Scarlet Evening Shawl. Don't let the Russian writing scare you, the diagram and photos are easy to follow.

I am appropriately crazy about this yarn – very high in the just one more row factor.

Isn't this a clever invention? Just in time for April showers, a birthday gift from my daughter. It saves lots of time toweling off Ms.Grace in our rainy climate.

Look, her belly hair is coming  back! No more post ultrasound nakedness. She looked so embarrassed with that pink piggy tummy. The best part is – she's healthy.

Thank goodness I'm over that bout of illness. I thought, in the past, that I might have had food poisoning. I know now that I didn't. And I hope I never have to experience it again. Thanks to you all for the get well and birthday wishes. 

When sick, and unable to avail yourself of homemade chicken soup, I think North America is divided into two camps when it comes to salty noodly soup. I am a Campbell's person. My kids are all Lipton's. Recently I have discovered Campbell's "Homestyle" chicken noodle soup – less chicken (don't ask me how they can pack any less chicken into that can and still call it chicken noodle soup) and more noodles, the short skinny kind found in Lipton's. Where do you fall?

I managed pitifully few rows of knitting over the past week, but I do have a knitting related picture, from a recent walk on our nearby seawall. A yarn bomb:

 

 

 

Label this one under "poor me," a 100% feeling sorry for myself post. I went to San Francisco and all I came back with was a severe case of food poisoning. Thank goodness I was under the care of my daughter, the nurse, and had an understanding hotel manager who let us stay in the room for five hours past checkout. And now it's my birthday and I'm eating bagels, bananas and ginger ale. There are a lot worse things in the world right now than food poisoning, but when you're in the thick of it it's difficult to think of anything farther than the bathroom. Blecchhh.

Apologies for an unplanned absence. The formula of airfare bargain + opportunity for a few days off = a trip south to meet with childhood friends, a highlight of which was a visit to the Southeastern Guide Dogs:

I think this was where the expression puppy love, in its most literal sense, was invented.

One of their mottos is "Hug a Puppy, you'll both feel better."

It definitely distracted me from my miserable sinuses:

Look at Rosie's shirt, you can tell she's a dog lover:

The school, run entirely through fund raising, is where guide dogs are bred, trained and matched with their visually impaired person. We met working dog, Troy:

He's one of the last Australian Shepards to be trained. Their most successful guide dogs are "Goldadors," half Golden Retreiver and half Labrador. And they are very specific which half is which. I believe the males must be the Golden, but I could be wrong.

And can I relate dogs to knitting? You bet I can. This is my birthday gift from Rosie, perfect for an ipad and an on-the-run knitting project:

In the sharply divided world of animal lovers, I align with the dog people. That is, unless I meet a cat who behaves like a dog. I think you know what I mean.

In the world of needlework, I align with the knitting, but if I find crochet that behaves like a knitted object, I'm in. Just what does that mean? I had always associated crochet with worsted weight acrylic, stitches with a certain firmness. Nothing wrong with that. It's hardy and washable. There are plenty of knitting projects that fit that bill, too. My recent love is lace weight with drape. This week I've found my crochet project that acts like knitting:

It's the Seraphina Shawl  (link for Raveler's) or free pattern here (for anyone), in Malabrigo Lace. In certain yarns and colours it might be reminiscent of Charlotte's Web's spine and scallop patterning. This is mine from way back when. And another one from not quite as long ago. My next Seraphina might just be done in Koigu KPPM for old time's sake.