Celtic Mitts

Here's the link to my pattern for the Celtic Mitts!



Please let me know if you have any trouble accessing the pattern - it's the first time I'm using Google Docs to share a pdf!

Thanks for your interest, and good luck!

April Fools!

And here we thought spring was actually around the corner....NOT!

I'm going to Singapore!

I'm getting sent there for work, and since I only technically need to be there for 2 days, they're really encouraging me to go early, to help with the jet lag and to make sure that I'll be in top form when I get to the client site!
Which means that they're flying me into Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), where I'll stay and hang out with a friend for 4 days, before hopping over to Singapore. I'll have a day and a bit to myself in Singapore, spend 2 days with the client (and 2 evenings to myself), spend another day there writing the report and then fly back home again.
I'm SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And what with the weather we've had the past few days, we might even still have snow when I leave. Which will make going somewhere tropical that much more appealing! And if there is still snow, maybe, just maybe, it'll all have melted by the time I get back home.

Or maybe that's wishful thinking...

Had to share this...

I saw this on a fellow blogger's blog, and I had to share!


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Book List

BBC’s Book List
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Copy the list into a Note and put an ‘x‘ after those you have read, count ‘em up, compare tallies. This should be easy. Strutting and preening is optional.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x times a lot)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (x)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (it's on my bookshelf, just waiting for me)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (x)

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (x)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (x)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (x - the abridged version, in French)


Wow - the average person has only read 6? I guess 18 isn't doing too badly, then, hey? :)

Check it out

I was going through some baby pictures with my parents today, and look what we found!
My dad used to work on a farm when he was younger, and this was towards the end of one of those summers.
This is me and my cousin being carried around by my dad at the cottage when we were about 2 years old!

It's Almost Christmas!!

...which means that I've smuggled in my illegal Christmas tree!
Because I've mentioned that I have a purple theme going on with my decorations, I thought I'd take a photo and prove it. :)
While I love that we've finally gotten a decent amount of show (although I'd love to see more), I could definitely use a break from this cold snap. Here's hoping that the temperature warms up a little soon!
(It's been -3o (ish) for the past 4 days, with windchills between -35 and -45!!! Right now it's -22, sunny, with very little windchill...things might be looking up!)

SYTYCD Canada - Last Dance-off tonight!

I can't wait! It's going to be awesome!!
I really hope they use the same format as the US show, and have each of the top 4 dance with the other 3 - I think it will be amazing to see Miles and Nico dance with each other, and likewise Natali and Allie.
I might even break out the phone and vote tonight!!!
:)

(image courtesy Winnipeg Sun)

100 things

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd borrow this meme making it's rounds through the blogosphere these days...

Things I've Done (In Bold)

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars - in a tent, yes
3. Played in a band - does concert band in high school count?
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world - Yes, EuroDisney in France
8. Climbed a mountain - a small mountain not requiring any special gear...
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightening at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch - does 2-handed knitting count?
15. Adopted a child - through Foster Parent's Plan...
16. Had food poisoning - probably, haven't we all?
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables - (herbs, yes. veggies, no.)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill - come on, we've all done this, right?
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon - a small marathon, the SuperRun
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (I've been to Venice, but couldn't afford €100 for a gondola ride)
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (ice climbing? yes. Rock, no.)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (I never did make it to the one here before it closed down...)
55. Been in a movie (nope, but I did watch them filming one. Or, 2, actually.)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business - sort of...I'm starting slow.
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason (Does buying them for yourself count? lol)
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma - althoughI can't anymore, because of having been in Europe for too long during the mad cow thing
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job - but it was a waitressing job that I'd had for only one month, and wasn't planning on keeping for very long anyway, and there was a pretty big personality clash
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous - I met Keifer Sutherland when he was in town for Canada Day a while back...we talked about how ride the table next to us at the restaurant was being (they were heckling him...)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone - yup, and it's my only phone!
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Rode an elephant

42 out of 100 - not bad!

My Weenie came!!!

Yes, the package from my weenie came today! (it's a knitty thing)

Check it out!!!



There's 3 different kinds of yarn, some mango tea, a few individual packets of hot chocolate and coffee, 2 project bags (handmade by my weenie!) and a Great Pumpkin notebook and post-it notes!
It's all awesome, and I can't wait for my next SnB to show off all my loot!
:)

I'm a Bette

Considering the quiz only has 2 questions, it's surprisingly accurate!

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Bette!

You are a Bette -- "I must be strong"

Bettes are direct, self-reliant, self-confident, and protective.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Stand up for yourself... and me.


• * Be confident, strong, and direct.


• * Don't gossip about me or betray my trust.


• * Be vulnerable and share your feelings. See and acknowledge my tender, vulnerable side.


• * Give me space to be alone.


• * Acknowledge the contributions I make, but don't flatter me.


• * I often speak in an assertive way. Don't automatically assume it's a personal attack.


• * When I scream, curse, and stomp around, try to remember that's just the way I am.

What I Like About Being a Bette

• * being independent and self-reliant


• * being able to take charge and meet challenges head on


• * being courageous, straightforward, and honest


• * getting all the enjoyment I can out of life


• * supporting, empowering, and protecting those close to me


• * upholding just causes

What's Hard About Being a Bette

• * overwhelming people with my bluntness; scaring them away when I don't intend to


• * being restless and impatient with others' incompetence


• * sticking my neck out for people and receiving no appreciation for it


• * never forgetting injuries or injustices


• * putting too much pressure on myself


• * getting high blood pressure when people don't obey the rules or when things don't go right

Bettes as Children Often

• * are independent; have an inner strength and a fighting spirit


• * are sometimes loners


• * seize control so they won't be controlled


• * figure out others' weaknesses


• * attack verbally or physically when provoked


• * take charge in the family because they perceive themselves as the strongest, or grow up in difficult or abusive surroundings

Bettes as Parents

• * are often loyal, caring, involved, and devoted


• * are sometimes overprotective


• * can be demanding, controlling, and rigid

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Halloween knitting!

I know it's been a long time, and I'm not planning on updating this too often, but I thought I'd share some photos of halloweenie things I made for my knitty weenie!

First, a wee ghostie finger puppet!



And a skull dishcloth!




Also, a photo of my brother with his horse, Decker. Just because I really like this photo I took of him - he's such a cowboy! :)

New Stitch Marker Design!

I've been experimenting with wire stitch markers, and this is what I've come up with!
They're selling for $3 (on average, although sometimes it could be more, depending on the bead I use), and I hope to have some up in my Etsy store soon!!!

My first SP package finally came!

Man, the post office took it's sweet time in delivering this package! (And is taking even longer with another package I'm expecting, but that's another story.)

I got the first of 2 packages from my Summer Lovin' SP from the knitty boards!
I didn't even wait to get home before I opened it up, so I don't have any photos of the unopened package.
Here is what I got:

The backside of the note she (he?) wrote me (are the seashells a hint as to where she's from?):


Some super soft fibre samples:







Some handspun! What shall I make with this...something for me, for sure!!




And some samples of hand lotions, shampoo, conditioner and perfume!


I haven't used any of the lotion samples yet, but I think I'll save them for when I'm travelling. They're nice and small, and won't leak (unless, I guess, they get really squished...).
I have no idea if I'll ever do anything with the fibre samples - I just like having them to touch and rub in my fingers! (It's rather fitting that I grew up to be a knitter. My "thing" when I was a kid was lace: I'd use it as my "blankie", and rub it between my fingers. I really liked the texture, and I had a pretty big collection of lace bits!) I'm going to take the fibre samples to my Stitch n Bitch tonight and show them off to all the other girls. Mmmmmm...alpaca.

Thanks SP!

Moratorium on Blogging

So, I think I've lost the oomph to blog.
I've liked sharing this with you, but I just don't have the time or energy to put into it right now.
I'll still keep the address active for things like knitty swaps and the occasional post, but Facebook and Ravelry have taken the place that blogging once did.

Ta for now!

Finally, a proper kitchen light

Why is it that I'm always most productive after 10pm?
After 5 years of living in my apartment, I finally went out and picked up a proper fluorescent light for over my kitchen sink. I got home from the store at about 6pm on Saturday, made supper, and then started working on a present that I have to have done in early August. When it was tine for bed, I decided that rather than go to bed, as I should have, I would break out the drill and install that fluorescent light!
2 holes, and 2 screws later, voila!

With the light off:



With the light on:



Yay! Now I can see properly when washing dishes!

Folk Fest!

I'm off to Folk Fest in a couple of days...!
I can't wait - it's the first time I've camped out and will be attending all 4 days of the festival since volunteering there 5 or 6 years ago! (wow - I hadn't realized that it was that long ago!)
I'll be sure to post photos when I get back next week!

Summer is here, and blogging is going to suffer

Yes, it's been a while. It's because I've been busy - like, *really* busy.
I had a table at a craft show this past Wednesday night and I had so much to do to get ready for it. I didn't have any stitch markers made, since I had sold them all to local shops, so I had to make a bunch of those. And I had to finish up all of the project bags that I had bought material for (I ended up making about 12 bags), and make a bunch of pattern magnets. I did decide not to make any more photo cards, though, which was one less thing to do. I sold quite a few of those ones, though, and mostly the local ones, which means I'll have to make more of those soon.
I did fairly well at the show - I made back my table money, plus a little extra, so I'm happy about that. And now I have a bunch of stock, so that next show, I don't have to worry about rushing to get a bunch made, which is really nice. Especially considering I'm probably going to have a standing table at a local farmer's market this summer, and don't want to have to do more than play catch-up. Of course, I have a ton of beads, so I'm not going to stop making things, I just won't have to rush.
Check out my table:


I've also started spinning!!!
I got my first spindle in the mail on Friday, at work, which was perfect timing, as I have a 4-day weekend this weekend. This is the spindle and my handspun, made from pin-roving I bought on our SnB field trip to Sheeples, a local sheep farm and yarn mill.


And then, this morning, I got my other spindle in the mail! Yes, Canada Post delivered it to my door at 11:00 am on a Sunday morning. Wooohoooo!
This roving is the "normal" kind, which means I have to split and draft it before spinning it.


This undyed roving is supposed to be my "practice" roving, which is nice, because the fibre length of this roving is much longer than that of the pin roving.
Now I just have to decide about plying. Do I have to ply?
Everything I've read/watched on the interwebs has told me that I don't have to - in fact, pretty much all of the hand-spinning tutorials say to unwind your spindle onto a chair/niddy noddy and make a skein right away (to set the twist in hot water). But Kim, at Sheeples, said that we should be plying our handspun.
What to do, what to do.
I kind of like the pink/blue pin-roving spun as is, and am not sure that I'd want to ply that, unless I plied it with something like a charcoal or black roving. I think it would lose something if I plied it with itself.
But what about the plain white? Or the blue, or green, or handpainted roving that came with the second spindle?
I'll have to think about that...

Sad news

Wendy just wrote on her blog that Carrie, the person that she was making the afghan for, passed away.
Wendy wasn't able to finish the afghan for Carrie, but is going to put it together for her grandchild/children, as she would like to give the blanket to the family as planned. It was intended to wrap Carrie in love, and now it will wrap her family in that love, which is what Wendy feels that Carrie would have wanted.

I haven't been online much lately - work has been a little busier lately (and I was in charge of the office last week, which meant that I had a few issues to deal with that I wouldn't normally), and in my downtime I've been preparing for the Cordially Yours Craft Sale and Rock Show, which I have a table at!
It's Wednesday June 25th, from 5pm to 2am, at the Cavern (the basement of the Toad in the Hole Pub in my hometown).
I'm super excited about it, and am looking forward to seeing what sort of crowd comes out. I just hope that I do better than the first craft show I was at (the spring show in Beausejour) and that it's enough to make my table fee back!

I'll post pictures of the show later in the week...

Another square for Dame Wendy

This one was knit with yarn that came from my Grandma, and is the yarn that I wanted to use in the first place, but I was just too impatient to wait for my mom to get it to me.
I've already sent Wendy the first square, but I'm going to send this one too, and she can either choose one of the 2 to put into the blanket, or she can use both. It's up to her. This one is acrylic, and isn't nearly as nice a yarn as the merino (I think) that I used for the first one, but this one means more and has more history, so it's a toss up!