Uli's Creative Corner

I should just space my pictures out over the week because I don't get time to take pictures every day and when I do, I take a bunch at a time but then I'm always so excited to show them.  That makes for one picture heavy posts and then a bunch of boring text posts.  Ah well.... today I'll show it all anyways.

Let's start off with the most recently finished pair of socks made with Regia Jubilee.  They look way more red in the picture than they are.  The colours in real are a bit more muted I think.

Having put everything I took pictures of yesterday onto a yellow piece of play foam doesn't help the colour brightness, does it?

I started the second sleeve of the puzzle sweater but as I thought, it's not going as quickly.  I only had maybe 1/2 hour of knitting time last night and that wasn't an uniterrupted 1/2 hour.  Here are the finished pieces laid out on the table.  You'll notice the many threads that are visible - well, there are many more that aren't visible.

I managed to get the sleeve to where the dark orange puzzle piece starts.  It's a rainy day today so we're likely to stay inside tonight.  That should help my puzzle sweater progress.  I think I have to go straight from knitting to finishing with this one or it might never be finished.  It's cute though, isn't it?

Now how about taking a peek at Candace 2?  Just the buttons are missing.  This is the 6-12 month size and I used a fun shade Opal Lollipop and a solid red from the Elann Sock-It-To-Me Collection.

And finally, I took some pictures of my hanging baskets.  The first three hang in our backyard along the fence.  The last one is my pride and joy as I plant it myself every year and tend it and hope it grows into a big mass of flowers.  2 years ago it was just beautiful.  Last year the mix of flowers I had chosen didn't quite produce the desired effect.  I hope this year I picked a good mix of plants and that I'll treat it kindly so that it grows and its blooms will adorn our front steps for the whole summer.

Bloom where you're planted!!!

It's rainy on the west coast today............. so I'll enjoy these pictures throughout the day.

Well, of course I made it to the basement - lots of times at that - to do laundry - but I never did bring up the big rubbermaid tub with all my blanket squares, the yarn and the one border.  I still do want to do that some day soon though.  You never know when there will be another baby in need of a comfy, cozy blanket.  Erika is on the hugest blanket kick right now.  Prior to being 3 1/2 she's never needed a "blankie" before and all of a sudden she's carting this fleece Winnie the Pooh blanket around.  She sleeps with it, she takes it to daycare and she wants it with her generally 24/7.  Kind of strange how that developed.  And then she's waiting for her quilt that I started a long time ago.  She thinks I can just finish it "like that".  I do really need to get back to that sewing machine.

This weekend, in terms of knitting, was all about the puzzle shirt for me.   This is a fun knit and I just noticed that on the web site they now have an upsized version for an adult sweater.  Not quite in my size range but then I'm not so keen on having Mommy and Erika matching clothes.  I finished the front and it took me very little time to knit one sleeve.  I cast on for the sleeve before dinner last night and by bed time (and I didn't sit and knit for all that time - actually for very little time) I was almost finished.  I think I'm about 4 rows shy of having the first sleeve done.  That means the second sleeve shouldn't take long either but then there's a bunch of finishing that needs to be done.  The puzzle pieces are outlined either by embroidering or crocheting a chain stitch around the edges.  I'm leaning towards the crochet method because I think it's faster but I'm not sure yet.  I'll have to try out how it goes.  Of course, with all the colour starts and stops there are lots of ends to weave in.  Yippeee!!! NOT.....

I've been trying so hard to pick out a colour of the Elann Endless Summer Collection Lara to make the Eylet Ribed Top they are showing with the yarn.  And I'm going back and forth and back and forth.  I just can't seem to settle on a particular colour.  Kind of frustrating because I really want to order some.  I guess when it comes right down to it, I'd like to order more than one colour. :-)  I'm leaning towards the colour Claret.  Evan thought I should go for Tangerine or Brick.  Another friend suggested Sapphire and yet another friend picked Tiffany Rose for me.  What do you think? 

We bought 3 hanging baskets for our backyard this weekend.  They are gorgeous.  I'm very pleased with them.  Brightens up our rather dreary backyard.  I also planted some cherry tomato plants.  I was going to put them in containers but in the end, I stuck them in the flower bed because we don't have many plants in the flower bed and I don't think that will change much this year.  We're having a landscape consultation done but not until the end of June by that time, planting season will really be over so whatever we come up through this consultation will probably be a next year's project.  We have a postage sized backyard and we need some major work.  Drainage issues are paramount.  Then we have to deal with enlarging our deck and still have the yard somewhat useful etc. etc.  We didn't know where to start so we're asking someone to help us create a plan and then we can pick and chose the things we might consider having professionally done (like dealing with the drainage issue) and the things we can do ourselves.

Well, knitting news will probably center all around the puzzle shirt this week.  I let this one sit for a long time after finishing the front but now that I'm close to finishing, I'm back to it in a big way.  Things might linger in the knitting basket when they are halfway done but when I'm really close to finishing, all my energies get devoted to it.  Then sometimes I get all the knitting done but the finishing details will take forever or especially when it comes to putting buttons on things.... that can take ages.  I have the prettiest cardigan upstairs for Erika that I think she has outgrown now without ever having it worn once because Mommy just didn't have the energy to put the buttons on.  How bad is that?

Have a great week.  Hope to have some pics tomorrow.

Wow, another weekend upon us.  Why does it always seem that the short week following a long weekend is longer than any normal 5-day week.  Well, this one seemed longer.  In our neck of the woods, the long weekend was pretty much a wash out (literally) in terms of the weather.  And then as soon as we headed back to work, the weather also improved.  So much that the last couple of days it has been really warm.  You could even say hot!!!  I love hot and sunny weather but it can make for long days at the office.

I haven't knitted much this week.  We've been out and about, watering the plants every night, going for walks, playing in the nice weather and by the time we come inside, I'm tired.  Especially last night, I was exhausted.  It was 9 pm and I could hardly keep my eyes open.  The puzzle shirt is slowly growing and I'm getting close to having half the front done.  I want to make that my main project this weekend.  Tomorrow night Erika and I will be by ourselves since Evan is going out with a friend and his finace to see Star Wars.  The original plan was for Evan to head out with his friend to see Star Wars.  Fine.... no problem.  I don't really care to see the movie.  But now that I have to clean the house, come up with a dinner to serve Evan's friend and his fiance and then see them go off for a fun night, I'm not so happy any more, especially since Erika seems like she's going to make it a tough night for me - she already said she doesn't want Daddy to go away by himself.... we'll see how it goes.  I hope we can go for a walk and the pop in a DVD and enjoy ourselves.  That would mean progress on the puzzle sweater.

I got an idea to resurrect and old project.  A baby blanket I started for a friend years ago.  Then I put it down and tried to resurrect it when I was pregnant with Erika.  I got all the squares knitted and I remember working on the border (it's knitted sepeartely in 4 pieces) while waiting in the EI office to apply for my maternity leave benefits.  I got one border piece done and much to my dismay did I realize that the border turned out way too big for the squares I had.  Not quite big enough to add a whole row of sqaures, not "close enough" to just stretch the sqaures.  I didn't feel like ripping the border to make it shorter.  Well, after some tinkering and grumbling I put the whole thing away again.  Here's a picture of the blanket from the pattern book.

This little blanket was a lot of work.  What's difficult to see in this picture is that many blocks are intarsia blocks with little fish and other sea life motives. So recently I had an idea!!!  Light bulb moment.  In my Knitting Pattern A Day desk calendar there was a pattern for a baby blanket and the way they joined the sqaures was by picking up stitches along one edge of the square and then the same number on the next square and then joining them via the 3-needle bind off.  And the suggestion was that you could knit a few rows on either side of the square and then do the 3-needle bind of to create some space between the individual patches.  Hey.... I need to create some space between the patches to make the total width big enough to fit the border.  How about that???  I think it might just work.  I just have to do some measuring.  The pattern and the squares and all my extra yarn are stashed away in the basement but I think I'll try.  We'll see where it takes me but the idea is perfect - or so I think.

Other than that, the weekend shall be filled with more gardening.  I need to plant (or buy) 3 more hanging baskets for the back yard and then I need to fake it with some annuals.  We're getting a landscape consultation for our postage stamp sized backyard.  We have some significant issues that we don't know how to tackle ourselves.  One is drainage, the other is a patio and the other is just generally structuring the yard so that it's somewhat useful.  We will probably end up doing the work ourselves but it doesn't help to get some expert advice on how to best go about doing it.  Unfortunately, we left it late to call this particular company so the consultation isn't until the end of June.  This means we will probably limp along with most of our existing yard for most of the summer.  So I'm planting annuals in the back flower bed so that we can take the advice of the landscape consultant into consideration when it comes to the type of perennial plants and bushes to plant etc.

Enjoy the sun!

Do you like to iron?  Do you do it a lot?  I don't like ironing and the irony about it all is that 90% of my clothes don't require any ironing especially when I make sure to get them out of the dryer right away.  But yet, I do lots of ironing.  Yes, it comes with the territory of having a husband who works in the field of finance and accounting where they haven't adopted casual business dress.  (mind you, we haven't either here at work except for Fridays but I still buy clothes that don't need to be ironed if careful).  Oh, and you might say... let him iron his own shirts but he claims great big ignorance when it comes to the field of ironing saying that his Mom wasn't able to teach him because she is right handed and he is left handed.  Yeah right.... come on.  I tried to teach him one day and it got on my nerves so fast that I re-claimed the iron and the ironing board very quickly.  And to be fair, we have a very well divided chore list and if it wasn't for the ironing I think I actually have the better end of the stick when it comes to who is responsible for what chores.  I haven't done dishes in ages nor have I ever changed the litter box nor do I take the garbage out and god forbid........ I might have only used our central vaccuum in the new house (we've lived here for over 2 years) 3 or 4 times.  I do all the bathrooms, most of the laundry, the ironing, general tidying, dusting, making beds etc.  Where am I going with this?  Well, I had stacks and stacks of ironing to do this weekend.  I carved out Sunday afternoon for that chore and I found myself uncommonly serene and reflective while getting into the rythmic motions of doing dress shirt after dress shirt.  And all of a sudden it hit me.......... I iron in my sewing room.  I have a little TV in my sewing room so I was watching TLC Trading Spaces.  And I was facing my wall of yarn.  Yes, I was ironing but I wasn't even really thinking how much ironing really is a time sucker.  I enjoyed the view of my stash and I was dreaming away at all the possibilities and the "maybe I'll do this project next" or "I could make such and such with this".  Ironically, the time passed in a flash and I had a couple of hours of mental fun by evaluating my stash and planning out my upcoming knitting projects.  It's all good.  Next time when I swear about how much ironing there is to do, I'll just try to remember that I get to look at the possibilities of what my yarn stash can become.  Certainly not a waste of time now, is it?

Last night I had another revelation......... more the revelation that there are certain muscles in my body I had forgotten about.  Planting and gardening got my muscles started.  Then yesterday I did a big workout at lunch time at the "Y".  Then I went for a walk with my gang around the neigbourhood last night and by the time it was bed time I could hardly move.  Today I'm only going to go for a nice and easy walk at lunch.  Tomorrow it's back to the 'Y" again though.  Trying to get back into my routine. 

I worked a bit on Dancing Vines last night and I got a start on the front of the Puzzle shirt for Erika.  I'm bored by intarsia knitting now so I'm ready for that project to be finished.  I'll keep plugging away at it this week in the hopes that I can get it finished soon.

Here's my last completed pair of socks.  They were a surprise gift so I couldn't show them any sooner.

The yarn is Opal Batik, a heavier weight yarn (6-ply).  It's lovely and soft.  They were fun to knit.  I would quote where the pattern is from but I can't think of the title of the book right now.

Enjoy the sunshine!!!  if it's sunny where you are...........

Long weekends are great.  And I made it a little longer by taking half of Friday off.  Evan took all of Friday off and the biggest benefit to that was that when I came home a larg proportion of the tidying up and a bunch of the laundry were already all taken care of.  Evan was sitting around watching one of the Star Wars movies (forgive me but I'm not a huge fan so I wouldn't even know what it was called - just know that it's the most recent one prior to this current one that's in theatres now) in preparation to go see this current one.  So while he was doing that, I puttered around uupstairs in my sewing room and then I came down to do some knitting.  He went off to get Erika and I had a lovely time just hanging out with the TV and my knitting.  It was a really relaxing afternoon.

Saturday was a bit busier but great car sock knitting time as we were driving around a lot.  See my unmatched finished socks.  One is Regia Jubilee and the other is Regia Tip Top Colour cotton.  The Regia Jubilee will soon have its partner.  The Regia Tip Top's partner hasn't been started yet.

Candace 2 is blocking.  Soooo cute!!!

I also revived Dancing Vines.  Here is a little look of almost everything I managed to get done on that project this weekend.  Doesn't look like a lot, does it?  Yet, a lot of time went into that.  It's quite an addictive pattern but I haven't even got one pattern repeat done and I worked on it a lot this weekend.  It's so hard to capture the pattern well with this cream coloured yarn.

The sun finally decided to make an appearance yesterday afternoon so off we went to buy plants to plant my big basket.  2 summers ago, it was beautiful.  Just covered in blooms, very lush and gorgeous.  Seems that last summer I didn't buy the right mix of trailing plants to upright plants and it never looked as full and lush and covered in blooms.  Maybe I also didn't fertilize quite as well.  So I'm hoping that this year, I picked the right plants and arranged them in a way that I will, once again, have one of those awesome lush baskets that I managed to create 2 years ago.

Here is my garden helper all decked out in her gardening equipment:

Enjoy the day.  It's a short week for me!!!

Yeah........... I'm happier today.  It's the long weekend after all!!!  And I'm on a 1/2 day vacation today so I'm a happy camper.

I'm looking to do various things this weekend but I hope it involves some knitting and the visit to a LYS where I haven't been before.  I also wish I could drop in on Shelley's sock yarn sale at Fun Knits but that will have to wait until we get up there this summer for holidays.

Got to the armhole shaping of Candace 2 while watching the Apprentice last night.  I want to bring this little project to completion this weekend and then I want to get back to the puzzle sweater for Erika.

I'm going to show the swing coat to an experienced knitter friend and get her opinion to see if she thinks that blocking will even out the back of the coat.  If not, I won't bother finishing it.  It will become something different come winter time.

Well, I'd better get going.  There's lots to do!!!

Quiet around here these days, isn't it?  I feel a bit lonely.

But I guess I'm a bit boring these days.  I'm dragging myself around a bit and I feel like everything I'm working on is going very slowly.  Part of that is that I'm just not sitting down as much and when I do sit down I've been responding to Erika's need to just sit and hang out with me.  Part of that is because we've all not been feeling very well.

But, having said that, Candace 2 is proceeding nicely.  I'm about 25 rows away from the armhole shaping for the back.  And remember, the back is my last piece.  I would like to finish this over the course of the weekend.

For Erika's Phil Eponge tank, I can't decide if I should put the little zipper in.  It works without the zipper and I doubt we'd ever zip it.  It would be there for decoration only.  I'm a bit frustrated because Erika sure isn't interested in that little top.  I know, I know........... a 3-year old.

Other than little knits, I can't seem to get the energy together for anything big.  I cast on for Dancing Vines again but I haven't really worked on it and the Top Down Swing Coat is sitting there without sleeves.  I think I'm so disappointed partially in how the back flips out at the bottom that I can't motivate myself to invest the time in adding sleeves if the end result will be a rip fest.  Will it block flat and stay flat?  Who knows?

The puzzle shirt........... can't ruffle up enough energy to start the front of that one.  See a trend?

Okay, what is the one project that will excite me?  That's the one I have to put some energy into.  And I have the feeling it will be another "little knit".  Probably Ruby from Beesknees Knits.  In purples, of course.  Except I don't have enough yarn.  I hope to pick up the rest of the yarn I need during our summer vacation and visit to Fun Knits.

I've never had allergies and I've never had a sinus infection.  But since last night I'm trying to figure out if what's bothering me is one or the other.  It's very frustrating and very tiring.  It just seems to make my whole head very heavy.  But I'm not feeling really sick.  Just irritated.

It's a long weekend coming up and I'm taking 1/2 day vacation tomorrow.  I'm so excited.  I wish I could take the whole day off but I don't have enough vacation time left this year to do that.  Luckily that July 1 isn't that far off because that's when I get my next bit of vacation time credited.

I might get to check out a LYS this weekend that I haven't been to before.  Maybe something will speak to me there. 

Hope you're having a great week.

Not much going on here.  I finished the sleeve of Candace 2 last night and I wound my remaining ball of the solid into two balls weighing the skein to get them about even.  That way I can start doing the stripe up the back without starting another ball unless I absolutely need to.  I can't wait to put that little sweater all together.

Other than that, Erika and I pretty much just cuddled on the couch.  Cuddling is a good thing.  As she grows up we do it less and less so it was all good.  And she's been okay about Evan taking her to bed and reading stories more often so it has given me just a bit of a break.

I'm tired and cranky today so I'd better just go.  Work is busy.  I'll be away tomorrow.

Weekends are good even when you're busy............. they just have one big fault about them - they end a bit too quickly.  Unfrotunately I picked up Erika's cold along the way so I was feeling quite out of sorts yesterday.  I'm here at work today because I have some balls to juggle.  If I juggle most of them without dropping any in the next couple of hours I might  call it a sick afternoon.  It's one of those days when I got up and jumped in the shower against my better judgement.....  but onward and upward - I don't whine about colds.

Yesterday was a lot of fun because I got to open a little present from a German friend.  I participated on a sock exchange through one of the German sock knitting lists I'm on.  It was so much fun to knit a pair of patterend socks and to receive one in return.  One of the stipulations was that we couldn't open our socks until yesterday.  Today I can show off the socks that I knit for my sock partner:

The Yarn: Fleece Artist 100% Merino Sock Kit

The Pattern: From Knit Socks

Neat thing about these: The pattern was fun to work and I enjoyed working the lace pattern right through to the tip of the toe

Here is the pair that lucke me received:

Aren't hose awesome?  And they are purple!!! And the fit perfectly!!!

But what was really nice is that Erika also received a little something - 2 little German story books.  I was so excited, especially since Evan and I had just been talking about ways to get more German kids books.  Erika has been showing such an interest in the few that I have from when I was a child and picking up words so quickly that I want to keep her interested and learning.  So this was perfect.  So here she is checking out one of her new books:

I did the finishing work on the Phildar Eponge tank.  Something feels a bit out of proportion on it.  The hood seems long and/or it makes it feel heavy.  I tried to get Erika to put it on and she did but then she immediately ripped it off again.  Hmmm........ verdict is that I'm not sure how much I like it or whether it will get a lot of wear out of it.  There's no way I'm going to try and re-use that yarn though.  I don't think it would rip very well.  In the picture I'm about to show, the armhole finishing wasn't done yet but I still finished that last night.  All that's left now is to sew in a short little zipper in the front vent.

Other than that, I worked a bit on Candace 2 and I almost have sleeve #2 done.  The back comes last.  I kind of hope to get this out of the way this week.  I also cast on for Dancing Vines again but I only knitted the set-up row checking very carefully for twists and turns.  I hope I have none this time around.  So it was a bit of this and a bit of that around here this weekend.  I also cleaned out 6 garbage bags filled with clothes from my closet.  It feels so much better now.  I did shed a few tears about one item in particular.  When I did my MBA, just after I graduated, I was at my lowest weight ever.  During the 2nd year of the MBA program I was also losing weight big time.  I was in the gym at least once a day, eating really healthy and all that good stuff. Just after I graduated, I went shopping with a friend and I fell for a red suede leather dress.  Cherry red.  Short.  Pretty.  I had no reason to wear such a dress.  My grad party was just over.  Nothing new formal on the horizon.  I bought it.  Just because it fit.  It was the smallest size of garment I probably had ever bought since Grade 7 (or something ridiculous like that).  Unfortunately, I never did get even one chance to wear that dress.  I carried it around with me all these years and I always set my sights on wearing that dress at some point.  I faced it.............. it's not going to happen.  Yes, I will lose weight and yes, I will probably fit into some smaller sizes again but I think it's not a reasonable goal to ever fit into something that tiny again and by the time I do, I'll be too old to wear something youthful like that.  Evan figures I should just buy new stuff anyways and it's true that the leather was showing signs of its age even though it had never been worn.  So my dream of this little red dress got tossed out this weekend and it was hard to see it go.  Shows you how ruthless I was being.

Not sure what this week will bring.  The weather doesn't look too promising.

..........Friday before a rainy weekend or so the weather forecasters say.  What's up with that?  The during the week weather seems to be nicer than the weekend weather.  Something is just so wrong with that.  It does however allow us to not do our gardening chores.  Whether that's a good thing or not, who knows..... but the procrastinator in me doesn't mind that.  There is so much work to do out there that it's overwhelming.  But maybe it won't rain all weekend and at least I can get a little bit done.  As I said before, the threat of a rainy weekend means closet clean-up.  I'm not sure that it wouldn't be more fun to procrastinate that away, too but in the end it will be such a relief to have it done and it will be such a great feeling when everything is all neatly hung and folded. But what else will it mean?  It will mean that we will all be able to see how little clothes I really have that fit me and that I can wear on a daily basis.  It truly is a little sad.  We'll see how it goes.

Tonight is swimming lessons......... or sock knitting opportunity.  I will have to cast on for sock #2 of a pair of Regia Jubilee I'm making.  They turned out quite cute.

Candace 2 is cruising right along with the first sleeve almost finished.

And no, I did not buy any yarn yesterday.  For some reason I just couldn't justify it to myself.  I wanted to but.......... I have yarn spending plans for this summer as I'm planning to visit some stores during our summer vacation to Vancouver Island and especially, I'm looking forward to visiting Shelley of Fun Knits and going to her shop with Brenda and playing in all the yarn and of course, buying some.  I'm also planning on putting in an order with KnitPicks to check out some of their yarns.  I've had a chance to see and touch and feel a few of them and I have some of thei sock yarn and now I want more.  I want to take opprotunity of the free shipping over $30 in the US and my MIL is heading to the States in June so I can have my order shipped to my SIL's house and then have my MIL stash the goodies in her suitcase and bring them back up for me.

So that's where I see myself spending my yarn $s in the next little while.

This weekend I really want to try and cast on for Dancing Vines again.  If I don't do that soon, it will never happen.

Time to head out and get started for the day.  Have a great weekend.