Mothlady

Furry creatures

First of all, thank you for your kind words on my previous post. I really appreciate them. Bettina was diagnosed with chronic renal failure about ten years ago and we knew it was a steadily progressive disease, but it still came as a shock how quickly her condition deteriorated in the end. We're just sorry she got to spend only a little over three weeks in our new home. She loved the backyard garden and went for walks on leash, even on the last day. No-one would believe she was 18 years old. If you look at the picture in my previous post, she was sixteen at the time. She got a few grey hairs and got skinnier over the years, but that was all.

Finally, here's one of my favourite pictures of her when she had been with us just a little over a month.

Notice the chewed up plant on the left, with two young cats and one kitten there wasn't a live plant in our household for years. (More cute pictures in this old entry.)

- - - - - - - - - -

Last week I noticed some holes in our tiny front yard and said - half-jokingly - to my SO that two animals dug such holes, rabbits and rats. He didn't pay any attention to it at the time, but on Monday morning when he was ready to leave for work, he opened the door and saw "something big and dark" (his words) scurry into the hole. He was quite shaken by the encounter and was soon contemplating between selling the house and buying a shotgun. With his *cough, cough* comprehensive knowledge of biology, I knew it could have been anything between a field mouse and a beaver, but I must admit that the idea of a RAT made me a tad nervous. A friend of ours said that it could be a water vole, which sounded much better. It's also called a water rat, but it is a vole nonetheless. I wanted to see the culprit, so for the last few days every time I've gone out, I've followed this routine: I slam open the door and eye the ground suspiciously, then I cautiously step out and stomp my feet a few times. I've had no luck yet on seeing the RAT rodent, but the neighbours are starting to eye me suspiciously. I'm sure it's just some harmless creature (who really needs to get a snorkel ASAP with the rains we've had lately, the holes are full of water), but the idea of RATS furry creatures skulking on our doorstep gives me the creeps.

The house feels so empty now

Bettina

June 19, 1989 - September 11, 2007

You know you've been working too much...

...when you keep checking the calendar every 15 minutes just to see what day it is.

It's Sunday, I woke up at 8 AM (gah!) and I've got a deadline tomorrow. (In fact I've got three deadlines, but let's not get into that.) I just wanted to show you these:

They are the keys to our new home (Our. New. Home. I feel slightly dizzy just thinking about it.) that we bought on Friday. I just realized that they're on top of Shedir (a PDF!) which I used to knit to get rid of the whole stress of house-hunting. How's that for irony? I've been keeping you in the dark because I was afraid I would jinx the whole thing by blabbing too soon about it. This was the third time we made an offer on a house and we lost the two previous ones to a higher bidder, so I guess I was waiting for it to happen this time, too. Also, it happened really fast: we bought it just 11 days after we saw it for the first time, and in that time we even had a guy to test the place for moisture (just to be on the safe side). We were hoping to get a house with a big yard but the prices were so ridiculously high that we decided to settle for a single-storey terraced house (a row house).

The local parish has rented it out for the last 30 years and it's been empty since February, so it needs quite a bit of renovation, but the rooms are spacious, the backyard is lovely and the price was right for us. When the area was built in the 70s, it was quite a novelty: cars use the streets on the outskirts and in the centre there is a labyrinth of paths for the pedestrians to use. (If you haven't figured this out by now, we try to be as ecological as possible and we walk, cycle or take the bus everywhere. We don't have a car, but my SO would like to get a scooter.) Our house is on the perimeter of the area, so there's a park, some woods and a duck pond nearby. We love it.

I won't bore you with pictures of more or less drab rooms, but here's one photo of the backyard (Instead of the London flower show report I promised last time, sorry about that. Things have been kind of hectic here.). There are some roses, rhododendrons and a myriad of flowers I have no idea what they are, but for the most part it looks like this:

As soon as we get settled, I need to attack it with a machete and a shovel.

Must dash now, but I'll try to get some pictures when we start painting the walls. Woohoo!

Just to let you know...

I'm back from London, full report with pictures will follow later this week.

Black hole

I've been away for a long time and the reason is that we've been sucked into the black hole of house-hunting. Yes, the prices are very high at the moment and yes, everybody is saying that the housing market is so overheated that It. Must. Crash. At. Any. Moment. That's what they said a year ago, and then the prices went up another ten per cent. So it's the worst possible moment to be looking for a new home, but we're fed up with our current apartment. The neighbours are noisy, the bugs are eating my wool and we need more space. So we went to the bank.

I'm sure we're not the first couple who got their nest egg by playing casino games and poker but we didn't want to take any chances, so we took extra care to remove any telltale signs before going to the bank. (You know, the Party Poker hats and the BetGameDay T-shirts.) We met the bank guy, he gave us the green light and off we went house-hunting.

Pretty soon I noticed certain things about me. I can be patience itself when I knit something (it's the process, not the product etc.). Unlike some people, I don't mind being short-stacked at a poker table and I very rarely go on tilt. But trying to find a new home for us is driving me bananas. Thank goodness going through the ads is fairly easy nowadays thanks to the Internet, but after that things get complicated. What kind of house are we looking for? And where? How far are we willing to move? Should we make an offer and if so, how much? And what about home inspections, renovations, bus routes and neighbours? The list goes on and on. Argh. We find it very curious that people are willing to make a snap decision after seeing the place only once. (Usually houses for sale are held open between 45 minutes and one hour, but sometimes it's just 30 minutes.) I guess that's overheated market for you. Of course, if we were to find our dream house we would be ready to make an offer right away, but it seems that the houses in our price range (we absolutely refuse to pay a ridiculous amount of money, we're only willing to pay a slightly ridiculous amount) always have a catch or two. So you have to be careful. We just heard of a friend who's going to court after having bought a house which turned out to be mouldy.

All in all I'm pretty stressed-out right now, so I've been trying to relax by knitting.

I finally got pictures of mom's scarf.

The pattern is Here and There Cables from Pam Allen's Scarf Style. The pattern is ingenious, it consists of six identical rows and one cable row so it's a perfect project whenever you need mindless knitting.

I used five balls of Online Linie 170 Kim (75% merino wool, 25% silk). The lady in the yarn shop said that it would turn out to be a luxurious scarf and she was right. I'm tempted to do one for myself, too.

Here is Aranmor's back (minus one shoulder).

Handsome, eh? Just looking at it makes me want to cast on for the front.

I've finished the back of Cable-trim Jacket and started the left front.

And I started the second Pomatomus sock.

I may have also started something else entirely. *cough, cough*

What is it about purple cables that is so soothing?

Much to Bettina's joy, our local pet store now sells Greenies.

She thinks they are very yummy. She also had her biannual checkup and everything is okay, or as okay you can expect with a 17 year old cat.

The sun is shining and I don't have a job deadline today. I think I'll do my blog rounds now for the first time in ages.

Update

Well. When I wrote in my last post that I don't want to finish Aranmor too soon, I didn't have this in mind. In the last few weeks I've only knitted for maybe four hours. To make a long story short, I had a fun work project but totally underestimated the time it would take. So basically I did four weeks work in two weeks (ouch!), and this week I've been doing everything else I didn't have time to do then (laundry, cleaning up and other boring stuff).

Aranmor looks about the same as last time (only longer), so I won't bother with a picture. But I did finish the first Pomatomus sock.

The remarkable thing is that it fits even though I used Fleece Artist Merino (28st/4'') instead of Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra Fingering Weight (32st/4'').

Either I have bigger feet than I thought or I'm a tight knitter. I'd like to think it's the latter :)

As soon as I finished the sock I felt the first symptoms of Second Sock Syndrome, so to alleviate the pain I started the Sapporo 2007 Nordic World Ski Championships (22 Feb - 4 Mar) project.

It is the Cable-Trim Jacket from Classic Knits for Real Women, I'm using a super soft yarn called Schachenmayr Boston. And because Japan has a different timezone from ours I'm watching cross-country skiing in the mornings (and knitting at the same time), so it's not a bad way to start the day. Although Aranmor will still be my number one project, I expect to finish the jacket fairly quickly because I'm using 8mm needles.

I'm also going to London with a friend in May. After talking about it for 15 years or so, we're finally going to the Chelsea Flower Show! Woohoo!

Not a portable knitting project

There are several reasons why Aranmor is not a portable project.

1. Yarn

1.2 kilos of pure Shetland wool. A very nice yarn to knit, apart from the fact that like almost every dark-coloured yarn I've knit with it leaves stains on my fingers.

2. Needles

 

4.5 mm straight needles which will poke other passengers if I try to knit on the train. And a cable needle which I will promptly lose if I try to knit somewhere else besides on the sofa. (I lose the cable needle there too, but at least it's easy not very hard to find.

3. Charts

I'm using six charts at the moment (I covered them to avoid any copyright issues). Notice the state-of-the-art system of yellow sticky-notes.

I can't remember the last time I've been this keen on knitting something. At the same time I'm holding myself back, I don't want to finish it too quickly because... Well, you all will think I'm insane but the truth is that right after the ribbing I felt sad because I knew this project would come to an end some day. Have you ever had that feeling? That a knitting project is so wonderful that you wouldn't like to let go of it, ever. I guess this question applies only to process knitters :) And I think my opinion will probably change somewhat once I find myself on sleeve island.

But I am enjoying every moment now and although it seems I've only knit a couple of rows each day, I'm already more than half-way through the front before neck shaping begins. It's all bunched up when it's on one needle, but my calculations turned out to be exactly right (all those additional courses in high school math paid off after all) and the size is perfect.

Now, if only I could be absolutely sure I've got enough yarn...

Miscellaneous links

I finished Here and There Cables scarf from Scarf Style in time for mom's birthday and she seemed genuinely pleased. After that we ohhed and ahhed over my Aranmor (she said it might be the best thing I've knit so far - ooh!) and then we went through her stash (which fits in one very large basket - she's so restrained when compared to me). It's nice to have a mother who understands these things :)

I did have my camera with me to take pictures of the finished scarf, but the battery was dead. Duh. Oh well, I'll take pictures next time.

Although I've been unusually tired and very busy with work (hence no blogging) I've still been able to knit quite a bit. But it's slow going with Aranmor. The purl side rows are fairly easy because you don't need the cable needle, but the knit rows... I never knew I could be so happy about purl rows.

So, no pictures this time but here are a couple of interesting links I've come across lately.

It seems we're not the only ones with a moth problem. Even the royalty have difficulty in getting rid of them. (In fact, our moth problem hasn't been so bad lately. Could it have something to do with the fact that the hall where there's usually been moths (because of the woolly mittens, hats and scarves we keep there) was painted in May? I don't know, I'm just glad that there are less of those greedy little wool-eating buggers. And in case anyone's wondering, we've done everything: washing, freezing, airing, cedarwood, moth repellants etc. And I keep all my yarn in airtight containers.

Remember that beautiful shawl Icarus from last summer? (Yarn Harlot's version was very pretty.) I for one didn't manage to get that issue of Interweave Knit Magazine, but you can buy the pattern now.

And if you're looking for free patterns, how about that cute ballband dishcloth in Mason-Dixon Knitting? The pattern can be found here.

I think most of you might have already read it, but here's a hilarious story about a new bra by Yarn-a-Go-Go. Snort. That was funny.

P.S. Pssst, want some pure, uncut muskox wool? Canadians and Americans have their own qiviut pushers, but here's a European connection. Now go get your fix, the secret password is "Do you take Visa".

Old and new projects

Beginning of January (Okay, it's already mid-January, but let's not dwell on that. I've had a lot of work stacking up.) feels like a good time for an overview, so here are some old projects that I finished late last year (but never had the time to blog about) and some new ones that I'm working on now.

This small crocheted basket didn't turn out the way I thought it would be. Here it is before and after felting.

I used one skein of Zitron Turmalin and, as you can see, it looked better before because it felted unevenly. I was going to use it to hold all the knick-knacks on my work desk, but now it's in my highly organized knitting needle box (ahem) and I keep my darning needles, needle gauges etc. in it.

This is something I really needed.

I took some old yarn from stash (this is actually the same colour I used a tiny amount for the kitty bed) and crocheted until it was large enough to hold a knitting project.

Or, if the sides are up, I can fill it with yarn.

This scarf will bring colour to bleak winter days.

It's a simple rib scarf knitted with one skein of Harmony (55% kid mohair, 22.5% wool, 22.5% silk). It's luxuriously soft, but it sheds all over the place (like all mohair). Brooks Farm is once again selling some "widows and orphans" at a discounted price, so take a look there if you're interested. I still have about a sweater's worth of this yarn.

This was my last FO of 2006, Besotted Scarf. I used every inch of Lamb's Pride worsted (the colour is Prairie Fire) I had left from Banff. (See? Stash yarn again! I'm not so hopeless as you all think.)

It was a nice simple project and, just like Alyssa said, a great way to practice cabling without a cable needle :)

BTW, I always find it very difficult to take pictures of scarves. How are you supposed to do it without ending up with photos that look... well, silly. Here are some examples. (Once again, click on the pictures if you want to see them bigger.) The one above is The Log.

The Letter A.

The Diaper.

The Toilet Paper.

But I digress, let's move on to some of my current projects. (I should really count all my WIPs and UFOs. I wonder if the number has gone up to two digits?) Here's the bleu-blanc-rouge trio, and I'm very excited about each one of them.

Bleu - Aranmor sweater.

Blanc - Here and There Cables Scarf, a birthday present for mom.

Rouge - Pomatomus socks.

Knitter's revenge and other Christmas presents

I hope you all have enjoyed the holidays. I was still tired after my hospital visit, so I decided to take it easy this year. I wanted to knit socks for mom, so I started the Pomatomus socks with Fleece Artist merino in the colourway Burgundy. It's a wonderful pattern, now I know what all the excitement is about.

I got this far with the first sock when I began to worry that it might not be ideal for mom. You see, she had a bad allergic reaction to a dressing on her leg and it's still bothering her, so the long cuff might irritate the wound. I was also afraid that I might run out of yarn (again!).

I knew she liked the Fuzzyfeet slippers I gave her last Christmas, so much so that she had darned them several times. Being my boring, repetitive self I decided to make her new ones. The floors are quite chilly at her place, so she wears slippers all the time.

Last time they felted almost too much, so I made the cuff 6 inches long (the pattern suggests 3 inches) and the instep even longer this time. Despite all this I giggled hysterically when I took the slippers out of the washing machine: they looked like they would fit a five year old. Severe stretching and tugging ensued, and they turned out quite nice after I'd let them dry on my feet.

The yarn is from stash, some leftover Alaska in green and red.

Back in October Twig asked what my mom was going to do with the Fleece Artist yarn I gave her. Well, now we know :)

I had to use a flash, so the colours are a bit off. The feel of this yarn is wonderful, and the socks are surprisingly warm despite the thinness of the yarn. Thanks, mom!

Here's a long story. Back in summer I bought some cotton-acrylic yarn although I normally wouldn't touch it (I prefer wool). But it was cheap and it reminded me of linen, so I decided to give it a try.

I finished the body of the sweater and it looked okay. The neckline was even stylish. (The pattern can be found here.) So far so good, although the shiny yarn was beginning to get on my nerves. And it always got snagged on my nails and needles.

When I started the sleeves, I began to doubt.

Roadkill octopuses. What on earth was I thinking when I bought this yarn? Still I plugged along. I finished the sleeves and sewed the seams. This is how they looked like.

Nice holes, baby. I got furious and frogged the whole thing.

Here it is in its shiny fugly glory.

But I wasn't done with this yarn just yet. I wanted my revenge. And what's a knitter's revenge? Crochet.

I decided to crochet a thick blanket and toss it on the bathroom floor. That would be my sweet revenge, poetic justice. Because, frankly speaking, this yarn was so horrible that it was only fitting to have it under your feet. No-one would like it. No-one would even touch this thing.

Oh... I see.

Let's just say she got to pick her Christmas present this year.

I also got myself a Christmas present, a swift and a ball winder.

It may be second-hand and old, but boy is this thing fast!

I may have gotten a bit carried away with my new toy.

Tee-hee.