Life's a Stitch

I work for a social service agency located in a shopping mall. It's good for the clients, accessibility-wise and bad for the employees spending-wise. A mall is like a little city and all that comes with it. Monday there was a fire, necessitating a two hour evacuation. Tuesday there was a flood. We were betting on Wednesday. Cue the locusts.

Managing a social service agency involves looking after funding equating to 28 employee's jobs and  contributing to a workplace that encourages good mental health practices. Other than knitting, my personal coping skill involves food and the mall has a food court. Need I say more? I allow myself the indulgence of stress induced eating, several times per year.

So this week, with a fire and a flood, we're managing over $100,000 in funding cuts. And I ate poutine. The epitome of Canadian junk food, fries with melted stringy cheese and brown gravy. Yumm. And I sought comfort in another Little Girl's Shrug:

Chuck woke up and told me his dream:

“I was travelling on public transit. Worried about getting off at the correct stop.

Got off at the next stop, not sure which direction to go. First downhill then uphill.

(Hold on knitters, this is where it gets exciting.)

As I was going uphill I was retrieving yarn, two strands at a time, intended to be knit together, but I had to keep the yarn separated.

I had the opportunity to buy more yarn, but in order to carry it, it had to be knit first and I realized….

I don`t know how to cast on.“

Oooh, I can turn that nightmare into a good dream. I can make your dreams come true, baby.

First you start with needles. Now it turns into my real life knitting dream come true. Thanks to a contact in Germany I have all the reasonably priced Addi needles one could ever want, at least if you are a North American knitter.

Then there are those European sizes that have no US equivalent. Take the 7mm, what would be a US size 10.75. I find that one especially useful. I find too big a jump between 10.5's and 11's, and have difficulty getting gauge with chunky yarn. Lacking a 7mm 24" Addi, and no trip to Germany planned in the near future, I turned to e-bay.

This is a Hong Kong vendor advertising in Australian dollars, and the shipping comes to more than the needles (I find it a deceitful practice that some e-bay vendors have, making up for low prices in shipping fees), but in this case it was still a bargain.

And if you have no Addis, are tired of the flaws of interchangables, and are ready to to invest in the needles of your dreams, look at this vendor.

Sweet dreams.

Blogless Marsha inspired me. You see, over four years ago I was travelling for work. It was that infamous trip, unfortunately timed with my birthday, where I broke my leg. But that's another story, already told. On the way to my destination I stopped to visit my daughter in Edmonton for a couple of days, having the opportunity to shop at Pam's Woolley Shop in Stoney Plain, AB. And shop I did.

That's where Blogless Marsha comes in. She and I were enamoured with Sirdar Denim Ultra and I bought enough for the both of us, having to borrow an extra piece of luggage from the daughter in order to shlep the stuff home. Well, my purchase gave me plenty of knitting entertainment – said yarn was used on three different Sirdar patterns. The first one was too small, the second too baggy, the third looked like it might be juuuuust right.

A couple of weeks ago Marsha showed me her nearly complete Sirdar Denim Ultra cardigan. It was enough inspiration to get me going again. Four and a half years later, here it is:

Pattern: Jacket in Sirdar Denim Ultra #8849

Yarn: Sirdar Denim Ultra – 7.5 skeins Needles: 10mm (US size 15)

Notes: Well, where do I start? Fours years = an unplanned increase in bust size. I added two rows of single crochet edging all the way around to accommodate the additional, ahem, circumference. It allowed me to add a nice buttonhole, as the one I tried to knit in looked like a gaping mouth. No wonder the pattern suggests a snap. 

Negatives? There's always something. It's not a major one, but the seed stitch collar is so drapey it bunches a bit at the back of the neck. I might try reinforcing the base with some more crochet. Yes, yes, yes, you may quote me from prior posts and comments, the artist is her own worst critic. 

And for those of you who request modelling shots, although I'm not at all a fan of self portraiture, here you go. My arms aren't long enough for the typical pose, so you get the mirror shot. 

Maybe it's because it took over four years, but it's kind of grown on me. So to speak.

This post rated Y for yukk.

I warned you.

The Urban Dictionary defines the meaning of the title sentence:
"Phrase employed to sarcastically imply that the answer to the question being posed is indubitably 'yes'."
Someone needs to tell the bear because for the past three weeks our front yard is home to the bear's potty.

BTW Bears don't leave little tootsie rolls for evidence; I've left Gracee's deflated ball in the picture for scale. And that bit of lighter dead grass? That belongs to the bear, too.

Same location.

Three weeks in a row.

Tuesday nights.

View if you dare:

Finally! Do you ever have a project you're dying to share on the knitting blog, but if you do you risk wrecking a surprise? The recipient of my project received her package in the mail today, so the cat's officially out of the bag.

My niece in Wisconsin had baby girl a while back. Dad, a university of Wisconsin  Badger's fan, took one look at his long little baby, and exclaimed "It's a girl!" followed by something akin to "She's going to save me a lot of money. No college tuition for her, she's going to be on a full ride basketball scholarship." That's all Auntie Lifesastich needed for inspiration. Here's Baby Badger's varsity jacket:

Pattern: Top down raglan baby sweater by Carole Barenys (free) with added collar.

Update: I’ve had many questions as to how I did the collar. Using the pattern above, I just added more rows to the collar section, making it longer. I show have made it longer yet and then it would have stayed folded over better.

Yarn: Red Heart Soft Touch, my favourite washable acrylic yarn for baby projects.

Needles: Size 9 and 7

Comments: Looked long and hard for the basketball buttons, but they were in my own back yard – the Knit 'n Stitch in West Vancouver.

 

I'm liking this new camera 😉

There are regional variations throughout the world…what you say following the reading of a fortune cookie fortune. "In bed," "between the sheets," it all refers to the same thing ;-)  It gets funnier (?) with age. 

Tonight we went out to dinner to our LCR (local Chinese restaurant) with four friends, half of them retired and the rest of us within five years. The fortune cookies arrive.

"What's my fortune, I can't read It."

"Ah ha ha ha," chuckle the pre-retirees.

Then we start the between the sheets stuff.

"People learn little from success, but much from failure"…between the sheets.

"It's a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness" …between the sheets.

Flip the fortune over, " Learn Chinese – quench one's thirst" …between the sheets.

And the one most relevant to real life: "A sense of humour is one of your greatest assets" …between the sheets and everywhere else.

I needed a sense of humour when I missed up my Hanami, but I'm on the road again:

You know what they say about everybody having a twin? While in Maryland, Chuck comes running into the house one morning.

Come here. I don't know how it happened! he said frantically.

What happened? I'm imagining a broken into rental car.

I don't know how she got here.

How who got here?

We're 3000 miles from home, but Gracee's outside.

I guess the twin thing applies to dogs, too. They looked and acted amazingly alike. Here they are, first our friends' neighbour's Lucy and then our Gracee. Lucy, Gracee, Lucy, Gracee:

 

Apparently knitting projects also have a twin, this time the fraternal twin (soon to be tripleted 😉 ) of the project in my previous post:

Pattern: Little Girl's Shrug (Knitting Pure and Simple)

Yarn: one skein of Rowan Calmer – I hear you either love or hate this yarn. I love it, especially so since it was on clearance.

Needles: US Size 8 and 6

Modifications: made the lace portion a bit longer.

So cute and fast. Now, if the intended recipient has a girl, we're all set. Otherwise it goes into the gift drawer.

Pattern: Little Girl's Shrug (Knitting Pure and Simple)
Yarn: Feza Nirvana 100% Bamboo
Modifications: Not a one – no changes to the pattern, yarn was a good choice. This is a quick and easy one skein gift project.

(Update: OK, I gave in and made a change. After completing a second shrug I realized I had enough yarn to make this one just a tad longer. So I did. Pictures are of the original one. Now to find a cute button.)

Back view:

Probably not. During and after our trip I realize the regionality of everyday sounds. Where I live there is no night noise, at least in terms of crickety froggy chirps. Nor are there mosquitoes buzzing my ears.

At home I have been stirred from sleep by the snorts of a bear or the crash of them tipping the garbage bin, though last night I slept through the entire event. We hear the noon whistle to the tune of Oh-Can-a-duhhhhhhh and the blast of the "9:00 Gun," a cannon located in Stanley Park. On weekend afternoons we hear the alto horns of departing cruise ships and if the night winds are right there is the heavy bang of humping trains. Really, that is the technical term for it. Tonight I heard our neighbours calling for their dog in their unique manner, "Whooo-hoo-hooooo." Don't ask me, the dog's name is Shadow.

When I moved to Vancouver I noticed a conspicuous lack of church bells. Turns out in 1943, a city bylaw was introduced ending the noise of church bells. Very sad.

Besides the night sounds of Maryland, the one that sticks out for me the most is the knock knock knocking of crab hammers at restaurants, probably followed by our squeals of delight at the prices. All you can eat for under $20. Of course, there were the birds. We have hummingbirds here, but you hear their buzz as they approach, feed and leave. There, there was an absence of sound in the middle as they stopped to rest and eat. I had never seen a hummingbird at rest. One posed for a picture:

Bryant came home late the other night, smiled and said "I knew you were home, I could hear your needles clicking."