Cat Dome

This looks like a good idea, doesn't it? If your cat is like mine, she can throw litter clear across the room. A friend refers to her cat's Olympic Litter Throwing talent. My cat not only spreads the litter for everyone to step in, whether we like it or not, but she doesn't have the best, er, aim when it comes to doing her business. I don't actually have this dome featured in this photo, my friend Ellie does, and I thought "gosh, that looks like a good idea". Where does one find such a thing? Ellie had her father drag this on the plane from Toronto, but I'm hoping I can find something similar in this province. It would be nice to have something that is not only contained but also esthetically pleasing. If you know about things like this, please get in touch!

my other blog

For those of you not on Facebook or Twitter, I have started a second blog. I have long been searching out The Perfect Coffee, and go out of my way to find local roasters. This new blog, called Dark Roast Vancouver Island. will be reviewing each dark roast coffee I find here on the Island. My first review was of a Starbucks blend, but I do have at least five others lined up. Local roasteries seem to leaping up all over the place and with all the good coffee available on the Island, it's time they got some press! 

This week: on/off the needles/hook

The BMW and Dan's birthday sock combo. Turned the heel, and am just about ready to start the intarsia for the BMW logo. This ain't gonna be easy...

 For some reason I can't get text into the Sideways Single Crochet Scarf. I finished it last night, added tassels this morning. I have a sensitivity to wool against the skin around my neck, so I'm not sure I'll actually be able to wear it.

The next photo is the Candy Poncho, on which I have not made much progress in the last week. 

Two photos above is the Brother Amos Hellfire Lace sock pattern using Malabrigo sock yarn. A pattern from Brenda of Cast On, I started these in, Oh, I don't remember now, August? And I really need to get back to them. At the very least, because I need the needles for other projects.

And last, is a pair of stranded mittens using pink silk/merino and white aran wool. The first one fits my right hand perfectly, I did the top decrease to exactly fit the shape of my pinky finger and then the rest of the fingers. The second one... well you know how it is when you are making up a pattern as you go, finish one thing of the pair, and then weeks pass before you get to the second one. Then you wish you had made notes at least for how many stitches to cast on... So the mitt on the right will be frogged this week and then restarted. I hope it happens this week. I want to get most of these projects finished inside this month so I can spend February and March knitting Cookie A socks in preparation for the Cookie A Sock Retreat in Tofino in April. Haven't yet decided what patterns to knit but I have a lovely selection of sock yarn to choose from.

Something I sewed: a project bag

I probably should have ironed this before photographing but see this way you get the real thing. I'm working on a pair of socks (two pairs of socks, really) using the 2-at-a-time method made famous by Melissa Morgan Oakes. Because there is so much yarn and so many pointy ends and the potential for unraveling, I decided it was time I assembled a project bag for these socks. It so happened I had just the right amount of yellow fabric. Why yellow? It's a nice cheerful colour in this dark winter...

horoscopes

Every month on the first of the month, Susan Miller posts her horoscopes for every sign. Sometimes, it's mind-blowing how accurate she can be.

In the Aries horoscope for this month, she says something about January 4th being a big day, with a solar eclipse in the new moon. And it was true. A whole schwack of stuff happened for us that day revolving around jobs, money, fame, etc. I'm not at liberty to say what the results were yet, especially since we haven't landed the jobs yet, but many opportunities came our way that day.

Anyway, even if you don't believe in astrology, it's worth a read.

This week: on/off the needles/hook

Bulky Purple hat with pompom

 I am going to attempt to keep up with my knitting/crocheting (yes! crocheting! me!) and post regular updates about my progress. This is inspired by Ursa over at Dyer in the Rough  who has (until the Christmas/cold season took over) been faithfully updating her blog with her progress.

  So this here purple hat came together in an evening, twice. I received this yarn as a gift for Christmas, and as soon as the gift-opening bonanza was over, I set to work on knitting up a hat. I got out my 7mm dpns, cast on 60 stitches, and went in a 1x1 rib until I ran out of yarn.

  It was fun to wear as  a beanie, but it didn't cover my ears. A few days later, I frogged it and re-knit it with the same needles, but with only 48 stitches. This time it is a much better fit, and I had enough yarn left over for a pompom, which I didn't know I even liked until now.

   This Sideways Single Crochet scarf is inspired by Amanda from Nerdy Together.  I met her on a Twitter chat last week hosted by Natalie from the Cloudy with a Chance of Fiber podcast. Amanda has an ambitious project: to create 365 scarves in 2011, and photograph/blog about them every day. January 2nd's entry inspired me to bust some of my stash, as I am in desperate need of more scarves that match my growing hat collection. This is as it sounds, Chain something like 200 stitches or so, and keep going in single crochet until you have either run out of yarn or the scarf is as wide as you want it! I'm hoping to get done this today.

  I'm calling this my candy poncho. I got this yarn from Rosemarie, who is the aunt of Ursa (above Dyer in the Rough). Rosemarie invited me to come help her destash her attic last month, I came home with several bags of yarn. As in "it's a good thing we have a pick up truck" amounts. This yarn is called Fluff, and is 80% acrylic and 20% mohair. Normally I would scoff at such a high acrylic content (if at all), but as this is my first foray into knitting with mohair (I was very afraid), and the yarn came free, I have been knitting with reckless abandon. (Actually, the other night I had some friends over who came without their knitting. Lucky I had several projects on the go I could dole out my knitting! But that's another story).  

  I have miles of this blue hemp/wool yarn. It was almost a blanket. I had three strips of 6 feet by 16 inches - the third panel was almost finished when I decided I didn't like the way this blanket was turning out, that I'm a much better knitter than when I started five years previous, and frogged the whole darn thing. This yarn's fate is to become a million dishcloths. I must confess here that I only cast on and knit a few rows of this, as on the above mentioned evening of Stacey's Knitting Sweatshop, my friend T worked the majority of this. 

  The Socks that Took Forever. Are taking forever. The black one will one day be a pair of socks with a BMW logo on it. The self-patterning will be socks for Dan. I lost my sock knitting mojo a while back and it is only now returning. 

  I am at the point where I need to turn the heel. When I have a few hours of uninterrupted time, I'll do that. 

  Then I can get going on the BMW logo. I haven't charted it out yet, but I do have the blue and white yarn for it. I'll embroider the letters on afterward; it's too complicated otherwise.

  I forgot to get a photo of the slippers, but they are in the process of being felted at the moment. They were a hard grind to get done, which almost involved tears, and may therefore warrant a separate post of their own. Stay tuned.

Something I sewed: a Bag bag

It might not look like much but it is actually an important storage solution for me. These became pretty popular (as I recall) in the 90s. You stuff the plastic grocery bag in the top, and when you need one, pull it out from the bottom. I have never made one before but had a rough idea of how they worked. It needed a handle, a rectangle, and two bits of elastic. The elastic at the bottom is smaller than the bit at the top. I didn't bother with finishing it nicely because a) I was in a hurry and wanted it NOW, and b) this was my first attempt and didn't care too much if it looked messy.

  See, I got a sewing machine from My Sweety for Christmas 2009 and because all my sewing stuff has been buried and disorganized, I haven't done much sewing. But with the big clean-up we did prior to his family coming to visit for Christmas, things got a bit more organized and I even got a sewing basket for Christmas this year from Dan's mom. Now I *have* to get organized and do more sewing. It's good - it's a skill I want to develop. I have several bins worth of fabric I got for free or cheap, and I'd like to tune my creative mojo into that skill as well. Stay tuned, I'm hoping to get a number of items for the home done each week, which naturally I will photograph and post about here.