Hat Head

I’ve always had a head full of thick, curly, crazy, unmanageable hair.  Some may say lovely, but I say *&??&%*??$#% 

A couple years ago, I sat in a salon chair for over 5 hours to have it straightened and I had 3 stylists (I kid you not) painstakingly working what smelled like a combination of bleach and chlorine and rotten apples into my hair to make it all glossy and straight.  I walked out of the salon that day a great deal poorer but still feeling like a million bucks because I could actually swish my hair and not have it give me whiplash. 

That lasted a whole 2 weeks and then of course, the roots grew in, wiry, curly, unmanageable.  Ack!!!

Now that my roots have all grown out and I’m back to the way things were unruly and wild, I’m finally cool with it…I think…maybe.  But the downside to having all this hair is that I can’t wear hats, even the lovely handknit kind that I love knitting.  Baseball caps during a bad hair day – big no, no!

Enter the beret for us curly-wurlies, yay!!  I bought some Malabrigo Silky Merino yarn for exactly this purpose and in the perfect colorway that reminded me of wintry skies.  My first attempt at knitting this type headgear, turned out to be this…

Cloudy Skies Beret

Pattern: Spring Beret by Natalie Larson
Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in colorway “Cloudy Sky”
Needles: Size US 10/6 mm
Started 9/21 – Finished 9/25

as always, more pictures on my Ravelry Projects Page

Onto the Sock crazies, fun, fun, fun!!

Posted by & filed under Hats, Rambling. This post has 7 comments.

Les Chausettes

The socks I was talking about last time are done.  The wavy patterning of the stitches makes this a one-size-fits-all kinda socks and lends to what can only be called a “sproingyness” to the fabric.

Deets..

Spring Forward Socks 3

Spring Forward Socks

Pattern: Spring Forward Socks by Linda Welch
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in colorway “Happy Forest”
Needles: Size US 1/2.25 mm
Started 5/27 – Finished 9/21

more pics on my Ravelry Projects Page

No more socks until next month which is just a few days away when many, many, many knitters are going to be knitting socks.  Socktoberfest season is about to begin and this year, I’m joining the pack!

Posted by & filed under Finished Knits, Socks, Socktoberfest. This post has 7 comments.

Sky Shifts

Goodbye summer… Hello fall! 

Goodbye Summer

Yesterday, we had a plans of going on a post-dinner walk with the kids to celebrate the Autumn Equinox.  Hmm, that didn’t happen.  But we will do it one of these evenings just to see how different things look and feel now that crisp autumn days are ahead – cool and sunny at the same time.

We can feel the shift already as the summer weary sun dips below the horizon earlier and earlier each evening and how the parched earth welcomes a spray of cool rain. 

It’s time to embrace knitting not just for the process but also for the warmth.  Functional and fun all rolled into one – lovely hobby this.  Getting stuck into cool weather knitting is going to be wonderful.  That’s why as soon as I finished my Spring Forward Socks, I cast on for the Spring Beret.  Why I keep choosing patterns that have “boing, boing” in their title, I do not know!  Anyways, here’s what we gals were upto this morning.

The bebe catching up on her reading – all of 4 pages and she actually looked through the pictures this time! 

Bebe Book

And me with my knitting and some mmm…coffee.

Beret Knitting

Berets promise instant gratification knitting.  Considering that I’m a knitting slow poke, we’ll have to see.

Posted by & filed under Family, Hats, Rambling. This post has 6 comments.

Walk in the park

This past Saturday, we decided that we had to get out and do something fun together as a family.  Weekend chores like grocery shopping, loads of laundry, library returns, haircuts and all the other things on my list could wait.  The only thing we took care of was the haircut – just a couple of pesky bangs messing with the baby’s vision –  nothing that my kitchen scissors couldn’t fix, so over the bathroom sink it was for a quick snip, snip. 

Pesky Bangs Gone

And then we were off.

We live pretty close to the Golden Ears Provincial Park and so we loaded the kids in the car along with some thrown-together lunch and drove out to hike what is called the “Easy Trail“.  Pretty much flat ground all the way with a few roots sticking out.  Great outdoorsy stuff with very little heavy breathing – just my kinda fun!!!  If Vineet had his way, we’d be rappelling off some cliff and I would be passing out every couple seconds out of sheer fright.  I don’t make secret of my wimpyness and my love for indoor plumbing!  But the food…man, everything tastes so good in the wild, even plain old grilled chicken sandwiches!!

Golden Ears Hike 2jpg

The kids had a great time whooping and running and discovering and making childhood memories.  Memories that they will file away in their minds – the trees, the birdsong, the tide pools – to remember and smile about.

Golden Ears Hike 3

Hope your Saturday was fab too!

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Ishbel

Labor Day weekend for us was blustery, rainy and cold.  But none of that now, summer has held her (his?) ground and demands to rightfully be present for a while yet.  Bright sunshine greeted us early this morning which was a perfect opportunity for me to take a few pictures of my latest knitting achievement.  Yes, I say achievement since the gratification of finishing something knitted seems to be a thing of the distant past.  I was beginning to think that I’ve lost my knitting mojo there for a while.  But all is well in my knitting world because this is what came off my needles recently. 

Ishbel 1

Ishbel

Pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda Teague 
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock Yarn in “Lettuce”
Needles: Size US 6/4 mm
Started 7/21 – Finished 9/6

This is going to be a perfect little scarf to wrap around my neck when the weather turns chilly.  More pictures on my Rav projects page.

It really looks like so many bloggers are losing steam what with micro-blogging and Ravelry around and sometimes I wonder if too I should quit blogging.  The usual drill seems to be ‘I knit this and so I blog about it’.  The in-between times are just plain silence.  But I think about what a joy it is to follow some of my favorite blogs and peek into the daily lives of some really wonderful people.  This blogging, crafting thing is too much fun to give up. 

So, do you have any favorite blogs that make you smile?

Posted by & filed under Lace, Scarves, Shawl. This post has 9 comments.

Yarn War

Knit Wars

I had to laugh when I saw this today.  Knitters are being referred to as ‘Craftivists’ in this article and following a whole lot of knit and crochet graffiti spotted throughout the city, officials are warning knitters of possible knit graffiti fines. 

Bwahahaha!!!!

So the mystery is solved…there is a knit police out there.  And get this, they don’t really care if you check your gauge or not, but if you’re having fun with your craft and it gets strewn on the street, then watch out!

So I knit….peacefully

Knit Peace

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No Socks This Time

It seems like I’m always late to the knitting party.  But, better late than never was my thought for the current project on my needles…Ishbel.  I had some Malabrigo sock yarn in my stash that I didn’t want to turn into a pair of socks but thought that I could try knitting a scarf or some sort of neck-warmer-thingy with.  Ishbel, has the possibility of combining two different sizes to accommodate yardage – or in my case, lack thereof.  The stockinette  bit is done for the smaller size and the lace part for the larger shawl.  Let’s hope that there is no nail-biting finish with this project with the possibility of running out of yarn!!

Ishbel Begun

So, I cast on for this shawlette while we were on vacation in India in between sighting wildlife and lounging by the pool.  Considering that I did so much lounging, I should have been done with this project, but with all of the moving and changes that have been going on around here, I lost momentum with this WIP and all of the others that I managed to stuff into my knitting bag and so all I’ve managed to complete is the stockinette part of the pattern. 

However, things have definitely perked up since I began the lace chart and I am sure that this will be done and blocked soon.  I’m late for the Ishbel party, but I’m determined to be done with this one before summer bids us farewell.

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Summerin’

I had great plans to visit all the LYS-es in our area (and beyond) and probably have tons of time to knit and enjoy the remaining weeks of summer.  But I haven’t done much of that lately thinking that there will be plenty more time for knits and purls and warm woolies soon enough. 

Been blueberry picking though and I think that we’ve had blueberry pie, blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes all in one week.  We picked 50 pounds of blueberries a couple weekends ago and I don’t think that we will run out anytime soon.  The blueberry laden meals have stopped since I think that the past week was just overkill.  No food pictures but don’t these just look delicious.

Blueberries

We’re still living out of suitcases which is such a pain because our stuff arrives only at the end of the week.  We thought that it would take forever to find the right house, but were so fortunate to have all of that sorted and I still can’t get over the amazing view we have from our home.  I don’t think that I will ever tire of looking at those mountains.  Life in suburbia is turning out to be pretty great after all.

Home

Next time…yarn, needles and Ishbel.

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SuperNATURAL

So, we touched down in British Columbia a week ago and I can’t believe that we get to call this home.It feels so good to be back, I’ve missed living in BC soooooo much.

Posted by & filed under Canada, Rambling. This post has 6 comments.

Luscious Silk

** Warning: Picture heavy post

Following a thread on Ravelry about silk yarn in Bangalore got me all curious seeing that this silk was available in my hometown!  My first stop on our summer vacation in India was Bangalore and so the lure of silk yarn seemed too hard to resist.  Armed with some hastily scribbled directions, we took a crazy autorickshaw ride in search of this luxurious yarn and boy was I amazed.  I was looking for a yarn store type establishment but the address got us to a house in the crazy streets of Bengaluru (if anyone’s been to India, you know all about the whacky system of street naming that leaves you going around in dizzy circles).  But once I was at the address, I was not disappointed because in front of me were piles…yes, PILES of skeins of silk yarn in every possible color.

Silk in Bangalore 8

Much petting and fondling and ooohing and aaahing followed much to the embarrassment (I’m sure) of the owners. Vineet was with me (with camera at the ready) and didn’t seem too concerned about what he calls my ‘yarn-yelp’!!

Some of the yarn was so fine that I’m sure that you could only do the finest embroidery with it.  Cobweb silk, I think.

Silk in Bangalore 1

There was silk yarn that is used to make amazing Persian rugs 

Silk in Bangalore 6 

There was sari silk  

Silk in Bangalore 3

and yarn with beads and crystals

Silk in Bangalore 2

and worsted weight silk

Silk in Bangalore 4

and silk that had so many technical terms attached to it that I can’t recall what they were

Silk in Bangalore 5

This is a family run business and the yarn is spun, dyed and skeined by the local people of India in the villages where silk farms abound.  Amazing stuff!!!

Silk in Bangalore 7

It was so hard not to buy a couple skeins of every type of yarn but I had to restrain myself from unleashing the pursestrings seeing that we still have to go and begin life in a new country at the end of the month!  So here’s my mini haul – undyed worsted weight and laceweight in coppery brown

Silk in Bangalore 9

and a bit more laceweight in blue, purple and green.

Silk in Bangalore 10

That’s not all, the folks who run this business go by the Ravatar silkindian right on Ravelry and ship internationally.  My ball winder has not traveled in my suitcase and so I have not wound these babies up, but I am sure that whatever gets knitted out of this yarn will be luscious!

We’re still on vacation and are off early tomorrow morning to Mysore and Kabini for a few days to enjoy the wildlife.  I hope we get to see some tuskers and a spotting a tiger would be fantastic, fingers crossed!!!

Posted by & filed under Vacation, Yarn. This post has 11 comments.