Not Too Bad Of A Day

Things are going pretty well now.  A couple of days ago they weren’t so I didn’t feel like blogging.  Today I feel a bit like Ebony here on MY chair.  I set up my rocking chair in my bedroom under a nice sunny window with my afghan and sweater in case I get cold and she thinks I have created an oasis for her.  Life as a cat must be good.

While I am showing cat pictures here is my other one at the base of my yarn cabinet.

Cleo is older and has been with me since before I met Brendan even.  She seems to be a bit disturbed about my pregnant belly and I am sure she wonders why I am having another loud child who will try to pull her fluffy tail.   Ebony loves to ambush her and there is often hissing in the night when she is telling Ebony off for jumping on her in the dark.  Both love my afghan and wonder when I will be making them another one so they don’t have to share.

On the crochet front I have done some work on the Granny Hex afghan and on Rhys’s sweater.  That leaves Eva, the slippers, and the longies…oh and the other afghan.  Seriously, I am done with afghans.  I have caught myself looking at some patterns and shake my head at my obvious irrational thinking.  The summer I usually make mittens and other small things.  The kids always need mittens and they are a good summer project.  I will have to make some thumb-less ones for the new baby.  I look forward to getting the winter backlog done.

Another One Dives Into The Frog Pond….

The vest had to be frogged.  For those of you who don’t know what frogging is it is ripping something out or back.  “Rip it” sounds like “ribbit” hence the term frog.  Rhys went through a growth spurt.  I had left it wondering what to do and then today I had to face the facts and I frogged it.  I decided to try out a trial pattern maker I saw on someone else’s blog from Ravelry.  It is knitware. I must have got it just in time as when I went to get this link it says it is closed for a few days.  This program can be used for crochet patterns as well and I downloaded the free trial for sweaters.  As it is a trial is appears you cannot save the pattern you make up but have to print it off right away.  I filled in the size, gauge (my gauge), stitch type, styles for the sweater, neckline, and sleeves.  It made me a pattern.  The only minor glitch is that the ribbing it gave me was “single ribbing” which as a crocheter I thought would mean sc in bl ribbing but apparently not.  The ribbing is meant to be worked across the back which would normally be around the post ribbing which is done in dc.  I went for the sc in bl ribbing and made it slightly shorter than the width of the back.  I am making a cardigan hoody as this seems to be Rhys’s favourite style.  I am using the same yarn.  I am not sure if I have enough but we will see.  Hoods take up a lot of yarn.  Anyways, I am testing this pattern maker.  This may be exactly what I am looking for because kids patterns are harder to find.

Winding Yarn

Before Brendan moved to Canada from Germany he got me some Wollemeise yarn last August. There is something like 1500 metres in one skein. This colour is the intense Veilchen (she does three intensities I think of each colourway). It is quite a deal for indie-dyed yarn. I undid the skein and couldn’t find any knots in the yarn itself. When I first started winding I did not have a swift it should be pointed out. This put me in a dilemma. Do I use my ball winder and cut the yarn when it looked like I wouldn’t have to do so while crocheting because there aren’t any knots or do I wind it into one big ball? As you can tell with the first of the two skeins I chose to wind it into a ball. It took forever and I did it in spurts. Finally I got a swift and with the help of my kids (they spun the swift while I wound) we got it done. This is lace weight yarn and I can’t decide what to do with it. It is a heavier lace weight so it might even pass for a light fingering weight. There is sweater pattern in Cozy Crochet a book that came out a few years ago that is an easy pattern and would probably show the colour variation off quite nicely that calls for fingering weight yarn.

This whole thing has got me thinking about yarn. Is there a line where yarn becomes almost art and you don’t want to use it because it is so pretty? I have some sock yarn from Wollemeise too and I don’t even want to undo the hank as it looks so pretty. Where did yarn lose its utilitarian purpose? In the beginning when I started to crochet again it was the project that was important and many times I tried to see how cheaply I could make an item. Then the yarn slowly became more important as certain yarns were much more enjoyable to work with. Now I have started to realize that I am a “wool girl” and pretty much love all kinds of wool. I love the rustic Briggs and Little or Custom Woolen Mills yarns where I have to pick out bits of hay but that it is indestructible. I love the cheap but still good for the price Elann Peruvian Highland which is a bit softer and doesn’t have any hay in it. I also love the indie dyed sock and fingering weight yarn like this Wollemeise. Unfortunately, the first two get used much more often than the indie dyed ones as they look so pretty. My Eva’s shawl is one of the first projects aside from socks where I have used a pretty yarn. In fact, I am inspired to make more Eva’s confident that I will like this shawl and it is worthy of my pretty yarns. LOL. I guess I need to find more patterns like this.

Yes, I Bought A Yarn Reward

I did get myself a yarn reward at the LYS (called Knit Now but the owner is crochet friendly at least to me).  There were only two skeins of this pink left and although I was only going to buy one I thought I couldn’t really leave a lone skein could I?  On top of that I have flagged about half a dozen patterns from the two books so I am probably safer with two skeins to make test swatches.

I didn’t end up getting as many groceries as I thought as Brendan came with me to buy a bed and some bedding for it for when his parents come to visit in just over a month.  The pillows and bedding took up a bit of room.  On top of that I need to have a special appointment with the Obstetrician so they can warn me about having a (another) VBAC .  A c-section is definitely not what I need when I am on my own.  This appointment is in April and I will have to drive again to the doctor.  I will probably do this trip in one day because the light is better and I hate wasting 2 days driving to the doctor.  As this is a visit required of me I get mileage I think.  I probably get my hotel and meals covered so maybe I will see how I am feeling in a little bit and see if I want to stay overnight.  I do get tired with all the driving.  My feet are starting to swell when I sit for too long (blood pressure is text book fine so it is just normal swelling) which isn’t great either.

While I was there I got a new camera.  As I wasn’t spending as much on groceries I thought I could swing a new inexpensive camera.  I have an ancient 3 mega pixel camera that wasn’t very reliable.  With a new baby on the way I thought a new camera would be a good idea.  I was pretty tired though and asked Brendan if he could pick one up for me while he was shopping (he had his own room and I did a few things on my own with the kids so he didn’t get so stressed out with the kids).  I gave him some money.  He chipped in some more and got me a Nikon Coolpix.  It is really nice so far.  The above yarn is taken with it and I am not sure if there is a real difference but taking pictures is way better.  It was also really nice of him to chip in towards it.

Now I just need to get some real crocheting done so I can post some more pictures.

Heading Into The City….

I am heading into Whitehorse tomorrow for another prenatal appointment on Thursday morning.  I am staying at the hotel on the same block as the LYS.  I need to pick up some Eucalan and I am wondering if I should give myself a small yarn budget right now before going in to help prevent me from blowing all my careful budgeting.  In fact, I think I know what I should get.  I have the books Crocheted Aran Sweaters and More Crocheted Aran Sweaters and was going to check out some Lamb’s Pride worsted weight.  I saw a skein of some really pretty pink last time I was in town which would make a nice hat for Hannah and I should have enough for a few swatches for a sweater.  It is just under 200 yards.  It is pretty reasonable.  Yes, I think I will allow this purchase.

The neighbour has water but said he had to turn it off again as his toilet wasn’t working right.  I am glad I am gone for a day or so and don’t have to worry about him.  Apparently, he pulled his toilet and put in a new one but there seems to be a leak.  He thinks it is because his floor is too high.  I didn’t want to point out to him there was a working toilet before and maybe he should have seen what everything looked like when he pulled the toilet.  The little hardware store did have replacement wax seals but he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.  I give up sometimes.  He used the old heating cable that they used to use to keep the lines from freezing (now we have a bleeder going 24/7 for most of the year). The water for the four places is all connected through my basement.  The places were built by a mine and rented out similar to military housing and I guess they saved money by digging less water lines.  So he phoned saying he wanted to come over and turn the water on.  I said I could turn it on.  He said he wanted to look at some things.  I almost said you aren’t touching a thing in my basement buddy but was calm and said it was no problem I would just turn on the water.  I went down there and turned it on.  I saw the heating cable thing and picked up the cord and saw the ends were bare wire.  I set it down and it hit the metal fuel tank that holds the diesel for the furnace that is right there.  Sparks flew everywhere.  I quickly got off the metal step ladder and went upstairs to phone Brendan (a retired electronics technician).  He said he would be right over.  He used a multi-meter and checked everything out and confirmed the wires were live and taped them so they wouldn’t cause problems for the time being.  He has been around electricity so much these things don’t phase him.  He said I was right to call him right away (he knows I am an electrical idiot).  I hate to be the ex-wife calling for every little thing but this was way out of my league and there isn’t an electrician in town.  He went to talk to Weird Neighbour and check what was going on at his end.  It did work to thaw his water line.  Obviously, he still doesn’t have a working toilet.  He didn’t seem to be particularly worried about it.

I have packed all the clothes and need to pack my Lady B crochet bag.  It is a long trip and I am not sure how good the roads are.  I think I will work a bit more on Eva and bring my aran sweater books to take with me to the LYS (yes a bit funny that I call a yarn store 350 km away a LYS but it is the only yarn store in the Yukon and it is easier to say LYS then use some huge explanation every time I talk about it).  Tomorrow I will pack the van with everything and all my empty fuel cans plus the strap I need to hold the full gas cans on the roof.  I plan to do some bulk shopping which means I have to go through the check-out twice because I plan to shop for the next 6 or 7 weeks at once.  You can always tell who is from out of town doing the same thing.  Gas cans on the roof or in the box of the truck and huge amounts of groceries are commonplace.   Some people haul a trailer and fill that too.  I can’t haul a trailer with my van as it would burn out the transmission.  I think after I get all those groceries in I will have earned that skein of yarn.  I am also picking up my dishwasher part.  I can’t wait until that is working!

So I am off to get ready.

Rewarding Yourself With Crochet

There is a post on Ravelry about rewarding yourself with yarn.  Yes, I have a few “rewards” in the mail (bad, bad, bad Rachel) and I have vowed to stop as you can’t eat yarn.  However, I have often rewarded myself with crocheting.  The huge stack of dishes?  I do a bunch and then go crochet.  Dishes are by the way my absolute least favourite chore.  I think I would scoop dog poo over doing dishes.  I really hate doing them.  I have the most dilapidated dishwasher that I got for $25 that I have a part ordered for.  I pick it up this week and maybe I might have a working dishwasher.  Apparently it still works but they adapted it for a built in when it was a portable.  They cut off the unicoupler (the part that you attach to the faucet) so I needed a new one.  I will weep with joy if it washes my dishes for me.

Ok getting back to the rewarding.  I find I can really get myself through a lot of chores using this system.  The other trick is to have some projects that are easy to put down or you spend the whole day crocheting which is not the point.  Also, this does not work with finishing a project which for me is my least favourite part.  Weaving in a hundred ends is not a reward.  In fact, I need to use the same system to help me through finishing a project.  I work on a project and then work on the finishing etc.  Yes, the whole thing can get a bit complicated I guess but it works out in real life.  In the summer I work on little projects when crocheting something big is not as enjoyable.  I take Elizabeth Zimmermann’s advice in her Knitter’s Almanac (a book I have left over when I thought I would enjoy knitting again but I much prefer crochet) and make mittens in the summer.  Mittens are a necessity around here so I keep making them to have multiples in case one inevitably gets lost.  They make great rewards because they are fast and there isn’t a lot of finishing.  So, yes, I use crochet as a reward and it works.

Decorative Crochet….Another Book Review

I first heard of this book on the Tapestry Crochet website (it is from a post from last August).  In Finland there is a tradition of knitting and crocheting special sweaters (Korsnas) and this trilingual book shows you how to do it.  The book is Decorative Crochet.  This is not a book for a beginner crocheter.  It is an english translation and the instructions are not typical North American style pattern instructions. Also, the Korsnas tradition is both knitting and crochet combined so to make the sweaters you need to do both.  In Finland, the tapestry crochet is done in the back loop only (I haven’t found this explained in the book but knew it already) so there isn’t the slant on the patterns like there is in the TC that Carol Ventura does.  There are a couple of completely crocheted mittens in this book that I would love to try.  I think the size hook called for is 1.75 mm to 2 mm and the yarn called for is 2 ply.  They won’t be a quick project to say the least but they are beautiful.  There are also patterns for Latvian style wrist warmers and several little drawstring purses that are completely crocheted.  All the projects that are completely crocheted are small like that.  There aren’t a huge amount of projects but the ones they have are beautiful.  The book is thicker because everything is explained in 3 languages.  I highly recommend this book if you are a fan of Tapestry Crochet (TC) or you are very interested in traditional crochet techniques from other countries.

Took A Break

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty rough so I laid down for the afternoon and rested (I couldn’t let myself sleep with the kids running around).  The house was a minor bomb site afterwards but I did feel a lot better.  The weird neighbour and I share a garage wall.  However, I look after the duplex half that is attached to the weird neighbour’s place.  She phoned me yesterday and I gave her the scoop.  She made a complaint to the Town about him going in the woods.  Today, I saw the town foreman and told him about it and as outhouses aren’t even allowed in town this is definitely not allowed.  He said he would look into it on Monday (his wife is the mayor).  This morning I was woken up again by my dogs when he was heading out into the woods at 6:30am.  The dogs barking isn’t a big deal it is knowing what is going on that makes me upset and then makes it hard for me to sleep.  There are some really nice trails behind my house but I don’t want to use them until things have been cleaned up or decomposed.

Here is a picture of my backyard and you can see part of the trees behind.  There is dog run now because as you can see the dogs have dug up most of the yard and I need to try to get it back in shape so the kids can play.  This is from last summer.  It is completely covered in about a foot or so of snow right now.

Not One Of My Finer Moments

I love my kids and my pets. I do not love my pets more than my kids though which I think is normal. When I first moved to the Yukon I went to the shelter and adopted Pippa my Husky X. I love this dog really I do. Pippa was born feral in October 2005 they think in the Whitehorse area. It took bylaw enforcement a couple of months to catch her litter and she went to the no-kill shelter where I adopted her. She had just been spayed and she seemed really good with Hannah who was only 6 months old. They told me she was good with cats (I have 2 indoor cats) and she was basically trained. Well it could be that she was my first dog (I had a boyfriend with a dog whom I spent a lot of time with but this was my first real dog). Anyways, she kept going after one of my cats and would mess on the beds and the couch. Two months I tried to sort things out and it became clear that we weren’t getting anywhere. My friend was taking care of a litter of puppies her husband saved from being shot in the next town over called Ross River. Ross River does have a dog problem and they have a pile of strays running around free as there isn’t any bylaw enforcement there. I took the male and Rhys named him James to keep Pippa company outside.

Pippa has always tried to escape and is quite good at it too. She never runs away she just gets on the other side of the fence and then barks until I let her back in. She can jump the 5 foot chain link fence with barely a running start. She didn’t do it very often though so we would go through a few days where she kept jumping, I would tie her up, she got the point and then everything was fine again.

Enter my new neighbour. He is a little weird. He doesn’t seem bothered that he doesn’t have any water in his house and asked for a few buckets in the beginning that I NEVER want back. The kids are not allowed in the trees behind our house now because that is the neighbour’s privy it seems. Gross, I know. Anyways the neighbour has several dogs. Pippa continuously jumps the fence to play with these dogs. I had one complaint from someone she then scared afterwards (I was out driving to Ross River getting diesel for the furnace) when she was loose. I ordered the run I was planning on getting so the kids can actually play in the backyard. This is important at this point because the baby will be napping twice a day this summer and the neighbour is pooing in the woods so I expect more bears than usual behind the house (both black and grizzly live around here). Brendan cleaned up the yard and the dogs went into the run. Pippa started jumping that. The neighbour tells me she just wants to play. However, dogs are shot around here when they run loose because there isn’t a vet to put them down so the town just has them shot. I tell him I don’t want my dog killed even if she wants to play. I tied her up. She was tied up too close to the fence though and jumped and nearly hung herself. The yard however, is now covered in poo which is a struggle to clean up because I am 6 months pregnant and the kids are starting to want to play outside. Brendan cleans it up for me. I tied her up in the run and today he comes over to say she jumped it and she is struggling. I go out and undo her. He comes out with a couple of dogs saying I should tie her up where I had her. I said she ripped the one board of the deck off and I want her in the run so the kids can play. He tells me I need to have her tied up to the deck. I am trying to hold back my dog while he is telling me this and finally lose it on him. I am screaming that I have my dog situation under control. My kids have priority with regards to the yard and that I don’t need his advice about what I should be doing. I attach her to a different part of the run close to the ground (so the line is sure to be covered in poo but so be it) and check to see if she can clear the 6 foot chain link dog run wall. He went in his house shaking his head (at least I poo in a toilet) and my kids want to know why I was screaming at the neighbour. I have a fairly long fuse but today was just not a good day.

I then cleaned out my stash cabinet. I feel better now.

The Sweater That Wasn’t Meant To Be

Everyone has a project like this.  I decided I wanted to make my unborn baby a sweater.  The ultrasound tech said it was a boy.  I decided I wanted to use this self-striping sock yarn I had to make it.  I swatched and the stripes pooled badly so it was a distinct blue on one side and green on the other.  I decided to do the Baby It’s Cold Outside (BICO) pattern adjusting the pattern for the finer yarn.  I made all the calculations and things were going fine with no funny colour problems until I got to the sleeve section (the pattern is worked in one piece without separate sleeves).  The yarn was going to drastically change it’s stripe pattern and wouldn’t work.  I found a pattern in the 100 Crochet Projects book that was almost the stitch count I was doing (it was for a girl but gave instructions for doing the front sections for a boy) and had separate sleeves which would help with the sleeve problem.  I left the back where I had ended for the BICO pattern for the time being and started the one front section with a new ball of yarn.  The front of the new sweater formed a v neck in a kimono style wrap design.  If you look the stripes are again separating into the blue and the green.  Now this wouldn’t bother some but it really bothers me.  I put the project away in a drawer but I can’t bring myself to finish it.  It is not going to happen.  I am definitely going to frog it.  Life is too short to work on projects that drive me crazy.  I have started on a longie soaker that I got a pattern for from Ladybugz Farm. I will take a picture when they are a little further along.   They seem to be working out quite well so far (no self-striping yarn).  Here is the sweater to be frogged: