I made it to the finish line

DONE!!  By the time I left work yesterday I had my sweater finished.  The plan was to take a picture of me wearing it today.  Unfortunately I woke up with a headache and didn't feel like putting on makeup for a picture.  I will definitely get one this week.

Why do I have a headache today?  Last night we went and played Bingo. Yes, you are reading that correctly.  When we were younger we often went and played.  It wasn't as much fun as I remembered.  Fourteen of us went and we kept getting in trouble for talking.  Concentrating on the numbers and not missing anything was just too much.  It could be another twenty years before I go again.

I am dressed in my Olympic sweatshirt (Roots 2002-Salt Lake City when we won the gold in hockey) waiting for the hockey game to begin.  Please let it be a good game that we win.  :)

Blocking again

This is how my Clapotis has looked for the past few months.  The ends did not lie flat and I was always trying to flatten them as I was wearing the scarf.

I brought in the blocked version this morning.  Now the scarf lies flat and I am much happier with how it looks.

The pattern is from Knitty.com.  I used 2 balls of Silk Garden Sock on 4mm needles.

If I was to make this again I would make it half as wide-it is almost too wide for a scarf and not wide enough for a shawl.

My Olympic sweater is finished.  Okay, the knitting, blocking and seaming is done.  Now I am sewing in the ends.  That should take me the rest of the afternoon-for some reason there are a million ends!!!

Victory

Absolutely nothing was accomplished on my Olympic sweater last night. I had three rows to finish my sleeve but I didn't take it out of the bag. The sleeve is done now and I am ready to start sewing.  The crunch is on and I need to get moving!!!

More new yarn.

This is Victory from Trendsetter. We have all colours in stock. The yarn is made up of 77% nylon and 23% cotton.

Barry (the owner of Trendsetter yarns) did a great job on the patterns for Victory.

The cropped lace cardigan is very cute.

Dropped stitch cardigan using the yarn double strand.  How quick will this be to knit up?

Lace sun top.

These patterns are available in Trendsetters booklet 4001.

Lace cabled cardigan.

Blocking

After blocking Ishbel I decided it was time to block my Clapotis.  I have been wearing the scarf but in my heart I knew that it needed a good blocking.

Here it is laying out in my bathroom on a piece of styrofoam.

I have pinned it down, slightly stretching it, with Knitters Pins (from Clover) and then a wet towel is placed over top.

This is the end that has been blocked.  The scarf is very long so I am blocking it in sections.

And the unblocked end.  It is hard to see in the picture but there is a big difference between blocked and unblocked.  The blocked lays nice and flat.

I was going to talk about the surprise shipments from yesterday and then a shipment arrived today that makes me very happy.

Yesterday-Tanis Fiber Arts-more Fiddlehead Mitten kits.

The mittens shown are knit in Aqua.

Pinks.

Greens.

And then from one of my favourite companies-Offhand Designs.

This is Gatsby in Judy.  It will look very nice going home with me tonight.  :)

Gatsby in Carlotta.

Circular needle cases.

I really need to take a few home and get my circular needles in order.  They are currently in a box and that doesn't make it easy to find the size that I need.

The end is in sight for my Olympic knitting.  I am at the shaping for the top of sleeve two.  Hopefully I can get the shoulder seams and neck band done before I go home today.  Then I can block tonight and finish sewing tomorrow.  Since there isn't a lot of time I will pin out my sweater and use my steamer.

What a great day for Canadians at the Olympics yesterday.  Speedskating, short track and bobsleigh.  Our women were great!!  The hockey team didn't do too bad either.

Is anyone watching American Idol?  The past two nights have been awful.  Please pick better songs!!  Why so boring??

Wool Tops

I received a comment on my scarf yesterday asking for the name of the pattern and the yarn.  Sorry about this.  I guess from now on when I post a finished project I should put all that information.

The pattern is Ishbel.   This link will take you to Ravelry and you can buy the pattern there.

The yarn is Sekku from Noro.  I used one ball of colour 6.

While I was at TNNA I ordered some wool tops from Lorna's Laces-great for spinning and needle felting.

This is Wool Top-100% combed wool top-10oz.

Shepherd Wool Top-100% superwash merino-5oz.


We just received a shipment of fleece from Fleece Artist as well.
Blue Face Leicester Sliver-100% wool-50 grams
Kid Sliver-100% Kid Mohair-50 grams

We received two packages today.  One was from Wannietta and it contained this great cardigan.  It is knit in Noro Kureyon and the pattern can be found in Jenny Watson's Noro Catwalk 2.  I need to sew on the buttons but wanted a picture so it is hanging right now with a glass shawl pin from Moving Mud.

The second box was from Tanis Fiber Arts.  I am going to save the contents until tomorrow.

Last night I finished the first sleeve on my Olympic sweater.  There are only four days left so I better get going!!

Blocked

Ishbel has been blocked and is back in the store.

I did the small stocking stitch with the large lace to make it a bit longer.

I said a few weeks ago that I like the new feature in Blogger for adding pictures.  Today it is not cooperating with me.  I add a picture and then my words move to the wrong spot.  Come on Blogger, work with me.

There are two bright orange tennis balls in the back yard but we couldn't find them for Roko.  Beth took the shovel and started digging through the snow but no go.  Beth did find the frisbee though.

Roko isn't the brightest dog.  Once the frisbee was thrown for him he total forgot about the tennis balls.  Melo decided that he wanted to play as well.

For Roko we can throw the frisbee to the end of the yard and he will chase it.  For Melo you need to throw it right at him.  If the throw isn't perfect he won't even try to catch it.  He did catch it here and now Roko is mad because he wants it.

Skating last night was great.  On a normal night you couldn't make me watch Ice Dancing but we were glued to the TV.  Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were amazing.

Hockey tonight is going to be a nail biter.

Grey's Anatomy

It is a snowy Monday afternoon and I am in the store.  My day was supposed to include going to Toronto to get more shopping bags for the store.  Of course that would have included a stop at Yorkdale.  The radio told me we were going to get snow so I decided to put that off until next week.  I did head out to Burlington to do some errands for Beth.  The weather turned ugly, I went home, got my computer and knitting and came to the store so that Jane could head home.  She has about a half hour drive over a bad stretch of highway so I wanted her to start her journey before the snow got really bad.

Last night Beth and I were going to watch one episode of Grey's Anatomy (after that horrible hockey game we weren't ready to go to bed) but ended up watching three because we had to find out what was going to happen.  Season 2 is now done.  Denny has died, Izzy just quit and Burke has been shot.  What is going to happen next?  While on my errands this morning I picked up Season 3, 4 and 5.  Now we can do some serious watching tonight.

The front is done on my sweater and I am about to cast on the first sleeve.  The end is in sight.

I made it home but we had a lot of snow and it is still coming down.  The main roads were plowed but the side streets left a lot to be desired.  Dinner is done and I have laid out Ishbel and it is blocking.  I should have proper pictures later this week.

Poor Roko.  His ball is buried under the snow and he can't find it.  He is standing at the back door begging to go out and look.

Almost at the halfway point

It is a beautiful, sunny day out today and I took advantage of it to get some pictures of my knitting.

The back is done and the front is almost to the halfway point.

I spent last night knitting and watching TV.  The Olympics are a good reason to do nothing.  :)  After the coverage was over we watching four episodes of Grey's Anatomy.  Season two is almost finished.

Today is going to be a busy day.  Hopefully Beth comes upstairs to look after the converter so I can keep up a good knitting pace.  Olympics, Olympics, Olympics, (three different channels and if we need more coverage we can always try NBC) Nascar and more Olympics.  The Canadian hockey team needs a much better game than the last one if they are going to win.

Revive

Here is another two day post.  I started writing yesterday but got busy and thought I would finish when I got home.  My car made a small detour on the way home to the nail shop.  Now I have nicely painted, good lucking nails again.  I walked in the door, had dinner and moved upstairs to knit.

I have been knitting as much as possible at work.  Unfortunately I decided that the store needed to be 'Springed Up' so I have been busy moving everything around and putting spring garments out.  This is going to take a few days yet but should be done next week.

We received a shipment from Handmaiden and Fleece Artist this week.

Sea Silk-70% silk and 30% Seacell.
There are 400m on a 100gram skein.  One skein will make a scarf or two skeins for a shawl.

Mini Maiden
50% silk and 50% wool
500m on a 100gram skein

Three different Rovings were in the box as well.

A special box from Rowan was waiting for me when I got to work.  This is Shallot knit in the new Rowan recycled yarn-Revive.

I considered making this for my Olympic project.  It looks cute in the book and even better in person.

Here is a close up of the stitch pattern.

How about Survivor?  I am loving the Villains.  Boston Rob and Russell.  This is going to get interesting!!

And then there was that hockey game last night.  Wow.  Canada came very close to blowing that.

The back of my sweater is done and I am about an inch up the front.  My battery is about to die so I am going to sign off for now and knit.

Calypso

I am almost done the back of my sweater.  A bit of knitting was done last night but I was too busy changing channels to knit.  The hockey game was boring me.  The first period nothing and then the blowout started.  I will take more of an interest once we get closer to the medal round.  I was continually flipping channels because I didn't want to miss Patrick Chan skate.  Unfortunately it wasn't good but he is still young.  Did you see Johnny Weir??  That is all I am going to say on the subject-my dad always told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all.

A big box arrived from Prism yesterday.  I am so in love with Laura's colours.  There were 10 colours of lace weight, 10 colours of Saki (sock yarn) and a brand new yarn.

Calypso:  80 % cotton, 20% rayon   
8oz/130m (145 yds)   
suggested gauge: 11 sts = 4" on 9mm needles   9 sts = 4" on 10mm needles

From the Prism website
"Here is a wonderfully textured, chunky but not too heavy cotton rayon blend perfect for summer in the north or for those who don't care for wool. It knits up quickly and smoothly on large needles, and we love it in a cute hoodie vest or big slouchy sweatshirt. It would also make a fabulous throw or baby blanket! I threw a large swatch into the machine and dryer with other clothes, with no loss of color intensity or shrinkage."

Three or four skeins of Calypso will make this vest.

You can wear the collar down or button it up and wear it as a hood.

Seven colours arrived-six are pictured here.

Firefly

Classic Elite has introduced a new yarn for spring called Firefly.  Korey is working on getting this onto the website.  If you go to the Classic Elite website they show the yarn like a shade card.  This doesn't work for my website because we show squares of colour.  I take the yarn and scan it into my computer, then it is emailed to Korey and he crops the picture for the website.  I know that this seems crazy (I think that as I am scanning the yarn) but it keeps the website uniform.

The yarn is used in the new book Picnic.

The fringed scarf takes two balls.  Yes, I do want to knit this but can't start it yet.  There might be a knitter free soon who can make it for me.

The strappy tank takes 4-6 balls.  Very cute for the summer.

25% Linen and 75% Viscose.  The shine is great.  On the label the suggested tension is 24 stitches to 4".

Colour 7706 Linum

Thoughts of Ishbel are swimming in my head.  Very dressy!!

Britannia colour 7777

Corsica 7755

7735 Capri

Delos 7760

Venice 7732

7754 Hyacinth

So far no knitting today.  I have been unpacking many boxes-Prism, Crystal Palace and Hand Maiden.

The back of my Olympic knitting is about 18" long and I need to get to 27".  I should make it tonight!?!