baby, it's even colder....

-33C. There is nothing else I can say. The picture of the river says it all. It's cold and white outside.

baby it's cold outside

I woke up to blowing snow and cold...it's supposed to be -20C or colder today and -26C tomorrow...brrr....good thing I knitted myself some socks. Here are my latest creation in rust. Still a basic sock, but I managed to make the fit better by anally keeping track of how many rows I knit after the gusset decreases. The socks are knit out of Shi Bui. The stuff was wonderful to work with and the socks feel awesome.

THESE ARE NOT THE PERFECT SOCKS....but they are nice socks (I must say that the Buddha head has come in handy for a few pics now...can't help but drool over my new Namaste knitting bag).

So my next sock project will be lace socks. I am still working on the intestine sweater, hopefully I can make some progress with it in knitting class today.

I feel very perturbed. I have been reading other knitting blogs and everyone has like 'cookie of the week' or something uber-domestic. First of all, I don't bake cookies, secondly, if I had cookie of the week, my ass would be the first recipient of all the goodness, and finally, how do people actually manage to make cookies that don't require major surgery to get them off the pan! I am ranting about this because I have a huge craving for cookies right now. The really thin, ginger snap kind. Maybe I will have to go and try some of these 'cookie of the week' recipes and see if they will work for me. I will try to refrain myself from taking artsy pictures of flour in bowls with measuring cups artfully arranged around the bowl a la great Martha.

winter white

It seems to be the week for posting white pictures. I woke up to a beautiful, white, frosty world.

When exactly did knitting become the NEW YOGA?

So my question is – when did knitting become like the hottest trend? I don’t recall Madonna running around with a Lexie Barnes knitting bag with Crystal Palace needles sticking out of whatever is “on the needles”. I mean, she is supposed to be the trend setting queen (ok, the Kabala thing did not really go over too well). Remember yoga pre-Madonna? The general gist was an emaciated vegetarian man wearing a diaper wound up in a pretzel-like pose. Now, thanks to Madonna, the Pretzel Man is charging thousands of dollars to teach a league of Lululemon-clad hoards how to live in the moment. So now – apparently - knitting is the new yoga. Julia Roberts knits. She is even starring in a movie about a woman who knits based on a book by the same name ( The Friday Night Knitting Club). There are uber-avant-garde books on weird people who knit (KnitKnit) all these fantastic artistic things.

Knitting clubs are endearingly called “the stitch and bitch” by knitting devotees and are the latest trend sweeping the developed world as stich’n’bitch clubs are springing across the universe. Knitting and yarn companies are hiring designers to create pattern books reminiscent of lifestyle magazines with high-end photography and svelte (probably yoga-practicing) models gracing the pages.

I don’t know how I missed all these important events. In my last knitting incarnation, I was a young mom with two little male children and was knitting sweaters with pictures of dinosaurs and bears and such (that was 20 years ago – hence why I am having to relearn knitting). I don’t remember there being patterns for grownups (I know the purists out there will argue that there was the Holy Grail – Vogue Knitting – but at the time I lived on Vancouver Island and there was nothing vogue about that) … and lets not forget the ubiquitous ‘buffalo wool sweaters’ that were all the rage. Remember the horrible, itchy sweaters in tans, taupe or grey with pictures of beavers and moose and other Canadiana boldly enhancing their ugliness. Apparently those sweaters are now called “vintage”. I personally call them ugly, smelly old sweaters…but ugly smelly sweaters don’t sell whereas vintage, now THAT sells.

There are also thousands of blogs out there by obsessed crazy knitters with cats (I have a cat, but only one cat…and I am obsessed with knitting more on a sociological horribly fascinated kind of level…so I’m OKAY!!!). Speaking of blogging, and I digress, even the Great Martha the Felon herself has a blog The Great Martha - okay people I can still call her a felon because she has not been pardoned and probably won’t be…to be pardoned in the U.S. you must be a man and out a spy. It’s a good thing!!

Not the PERFECT socks, however...they are socks

So aside from the sucky knitting week, I did manage to get my socks done. Things I learned:

1. Measure carefully...a small sock is an annoying sock
2. This type of heel sucks
3. It is important to finish a project
4. These are NOT the perfect socks...however, they are a pair of finished socks
5. Knitting socks is fun...and
6. ....knitting the perfect pair of socks is a journey

As the yoga people say ...live in the moment

Here are the socks:

I really need to learn to take artsier pictures. There are all these fabulous blogs out there and people are so talented with their pictures. I mean, really, I should have some funky sock inserts inside the socks rather than my legs, which look weird when you take a picture bent over.

On a different note, I started my sweater - my first "sweater-in-the-round". The Babe commented (completely unsolicited I might add) that it looked like some intestines. I rolled my eyes, but after I took a picture and kind of looked at it, I have to secretly agree that he is right...although I will never say that to him. Here is the beginning of the intestine sweater. I am certain (I hope) it will not look like intestines when I am done.

I finally hit the REAL Internet world

I am so excited. I finally made the "big times" in the Internet world and registered www.rainingsheep.com as a private domain name. It's mine, all mine and no one else can use it.

Bad bad knitting week

Maybe I need a break from knitting. This week so far:

1. I frogged a whole sweater
2. I frogged a sock because it did not fit my foot
3. I frogged a sweater because I made a mistake right at the beginning, first row by not making one, hence all the rest of the rows also had errors.....

Time to take a little knitting break me thinks!!

I hate frogging

So up until a few hours ago, this lovely little pile was a completed sweater all sewn together. Regrettably, no one explained the whole swatch/gauge thing when I started it about a month ago and when I put it on the sleeves were down to my knees and the shoulders were at my elbows. Live and learn.

Tomorrow I am starting a new sweater. Here is the starting point. Beautiful wool from the Sheep Shop Yarn company .

Something funny happened at the LYS

So I am getting so smart. I have been checking out all these different knitting blogs and have come to understand that there are knitters' acronyms that are very important to learn - like LYS - which apparently stands for 'local yarn store'. I have a good selection of those near where I live.

So a few days ago I was in one of my LYS. There was only myself and the woman who owns the shop. We were chatting and talking about Koigu yarn , which is kind of like talking about a blessed deity of your choice.

A man walked in with his hair all in braids and a colored, crochet rasta hat on his head. Now, folks, this is Calgary. This kind of apparition might be common-place in like, oh let's say Toronto or New York, but in Calgary a rasta man in a yarn store is highly unusual. He looked around and then in a very loud voice, with a VERY pronounced accent said "Wat you all do hea!!" The Knitting Lady looks at me, looks around the store and says "Uh, pardon?". He repeats "wat you all do hea, what is this plaaaace!" She looks at me again, and I have to admit I am thinking "snapped crayon". The Knitting Lady finally looks around the store again and says "Uh, we sell yarn...and knitting supplies." Big silence from Rasta Man...he then says "Ah, so ... you don't actually do anyting." She looks at me again, and then says, "Well, we sell things - knitting things". Rasta Man then says "so you caan't make my hat, my beautiful hat, I design this hat, it is like noting in Calgary! I want someone to make many many hats for me." We were both looking at each other and then it dawned on us that he was hoping she would knit or crochet his hats so he could sell them. When told this was not possible he chatted some more and left.

We both looked at each other and then absolutely split a gut. On a different note, I did buy some amazing Koigu yarn.



Here it is. I bought three different colors. They look scrumptious under my Buddha head that the Babe gave me for Christmas.

And here is our started bathroom. All ready for tiling after four and a half months of being demolished and three months of being in this state. Well, the shower base got poured a few days ago.



Onward forward.

Okay, here is the damned sock...

Okay so there's the sock...finally. It still has needles in it because I have no clue what the kitchener stitch is. Next week's lesson. I hope the other sock ends up the same size. Apparently that is always a bit of a trick.

I keep meaning to...

I keep meaning to post a picture of the progress on my frickin' sock project, but for some reason I have an aversion to my camera right now. Really, I meant to do it last night and have a whole post in my drafts ready to go...I just need to take the damn picture and post it.

The problem is that I got home and the Italian Tile Guy was there (the Babe and I have a never-ending bathroom reno project going on...only someone in Calgary can understand that it takes three months to find someone to tile your bathroom). The Babe dealt with him because the Italian Tile Guy does not deal with women...well, except for his mother. The tile guy is soooo Italian - you know the kind that has the Italian flag on his business card. He was here doing work on Sunday and called his mother four times - I think he's, like, forty-five!! His cell phone plays some Italian song...can't think of the name right now...however, I am digressing.

So I was lounging on the sofa knitting the 'damned' socks and really was at a point where I should have taken a picture. But it was so nice on that sofa, and I had red wine...I think wine has been featured in almost all of my posts to date...hm, something to really think about here. Anyways, I will take a picture of the 'damned' sock tonight and post my progress. I should maybe post the bathroom too. It actually has a shower floor now since the Italian Tile Guy poured that yesterday and I am so proud that it has progressed to a level where there is something, anything being done.

The journey to the pefect pair of socks...

So I went ice climbing on Saturday...and then on Sunday I lay like the dead on the sofa barely able to move. My boyfriend, "Babe", loves to ice climb and every now and then I decide that some togetherness on a weekend is in order and I haul myself out of bed at some unearthly hour and go climbing with him.

Ice climbing usually involves getting up at 6:30 a.m., packing a huge backpack that is bigger than me, then huffing my way up a steep trail with the said backpack on my back, freezing my butt off once we get to our destination because I got drenched in sweat on the hike in. Then I ice climb up a waterfall with all my awkward climbing gear on, i.e. my harness, crampons, leashes, helmet, ice axes. I propel my tired body upwards on steep ice, then pack up, and hike all the way back (typically down-hill thank god), and am unable to move the next day.

Why do I do it? I don't know. It's kind of like childbirth...you forget the pain and when you find yourself in that same place you ask yourself....why, why, why am I here again!!!Needless to say, my knitting suffers on such weekends. All I want to do is lay on the sofa and drink copious amounts of wine.

Even though my body felt like it was hit by a car, I did go to my weekly drop-in knitting class at Make 1 Yarn . Nothing would prevent me from my perfect sock journey. My dream has always been to knit socks. Why you ask? I don't know. There is something about knitted socks that just spells WOMAN, fiber work, hand-made something that someone might actually wear, nurturing and clothing your family...socks are just plain cool. My sock journey began last weekend and I got my seven inches done in no time. I had to wait till this weekend so Amy at Make 1 Yarn could teach me more. I worked on my sock and turned the heel!!! I will post pictures later.

Now I hope I can remember how to do this for the next sock. I am going to become a sock-knitting maniac. Socks are so fulfilling, unlike other things in life...like cleaning the bathroom for example, which is pointless really. Socks just advance - you have a finished product almost immediately. You gotta love it!!

The thing about knitting....

The thing about knitting is that when you are a beginner, some poor, non-knitting soul, usually a relative, in my case my sister, is gifted with some hideous scarf that she then feels obligated to wear. Last year I made my sister just such a creation, from some wool intermixed with ribbon. I used needles that were too small and instead of achieving an airy, lacy looking piece of wearable art, I managed to create this thick, ugly scarf that probably makes someones neck disappear from their body...or better yet, makes them look like they are wearing a neck brace. Thank goodness I forgot to take a picture and don't need to display it to the world.

I did get better and managed to make some decent scarves. Here are some pictures:

This is done in silk/bamboo. My second project. It was hard. That wool is delicate and it was a lace pattern. Never do a lace pattern as your second knitting project.




This little baby was my first project, also a lace stitch...again, never start with lace as your beginner's knitting project.

This was done in a Debbie Bliss cotton...kind of hard to work with for a beginner.

The problem is I am procrastinating about getting past the scarves. I ventured into making a sweater - it is straight knit and purl after all - but the thing has been sitting there completed and now I need to put it together. I started to...but it's laborious, boring, big fat seams...I am not sure I can handle this kind of angst. So it just has not been sewed together. Thank goodness I have my sock class tomorrow and hopefully I won't spend like a thousand gazillion dollars at the yarn store. These lessons are beginning to cost a lot of money because every time I go, I end up buying yarn, or a pattern, or something.

The Pooping Sheep

My dad is Bulgarian. When I was little we went to visit a friend of his who was an artist. The friend asked me if I would like for him to draw a picture for me and if so, what would I like him to draw. My parents were curious to see what I would say....I was four years old. I said "Please draw me a picture of a sheep that is pooping!" My parents were horrified. I think that somewhere in that past life, there was a subconscious fascination by wool and it did not manifest itself until I was 45 years old.

This Christmas, my obviously sensitive and totally in-the-know boyfriend gave me 10 drop-in knitting lessons at my favorite yarn store here in Calgary, Make 1 Yarn . I had started knitting and made a gazillion scarves but was not able to progress beyond that. Really what he wants is a hand knit cashmere sweater. Ha ha ha ha...he will be waiting forever. I think there is a book about not knitting your boyfriend a sweater until you have "the ring". I secretly swooned at the possibility of being able to knit socks like I had seen on Knitty.

The drop-in classes for normal humans like myself, who work during the week, take place on a Sunday. Last Sunday, I decided to brave the concept of actually knitting in front of others and I went to a class. Amy, the owner of the store and ever-patient teacher, filled me in on the intricacies of knitting on four tiny needles. My god. The things looked a bit like those really nice toothpicks that don't leave slivers in one's teeth...you know the ones, kinda rounded and smooth. Later that night my boyfriend viewed my efforts with great amusement and suggested that he could probably sand down some skewers if I needed extra needles.

I am a woman obsessed. I have knit my 7 inches worth of sock and now must wait until Sunday to learn how to do a heel. Out of sheer desperation I just started knitting another pair of socks. I wish I knew what kind of wool I am using to make these babies...all I know is it's some "sock wool"...very expensive like $24.99 a skein (is that what the ball of wool is called). I seem to recall buying wool when I was 12 like a gazillion years ago at Safeway and it was like $1.99.

The most awesome thing about the classes is the community of women that congregate to learn, encourage each other and just talk. I think my next step is stitch and bitch.