Pengie Penguin

Not much to talk about, except my little penguin who has all his cross stitch done.

All he needs now is his backstitching and his french knot eyes and he'll be done!

Gotta love giveaways

Just a quick post to say that you should check out Stitchwraith's blog where she's having a blogivversary blowout and you can win one of two prizes (depending on where you live).

Why I love to Teach

When it comes to fibre crafts, I'm a teacher. I love to show people how to start a project, watch as they learn the steps, and see the joy of whatever craft they're doing take hold.

I've got two students right now, one for cross stitch, who is also now asking me to remind her how to cast on so she can make a cowl, and one for knitting.

They are both hooked now, with the cross stitcher planning on making ornaments for Christmas, and picking up the needles again to knit, and the knitter bringing some friends, one of whom would like to learn, to our next knit night on Friday.

It's just such a warm and fuzzy feeling to see people learn something new and find a love in it.

I also love taking pictures of first projects in progress. Those hands are so unsure right now, but as they go on they will be filled with muscle memory and pretty soon will be flying through projects!

In other news, the penguin is becoming more apparent.

The Stitching goes on

Good morning,

Not much to write about today, I've finished the body on my bulky sweater, have the toe done on my socks, need to get started on the herringbone pattern for them, and got the hat done on my penguin.

And have pictures of none of it. The husband took my iPod last night and didn't put it back in my purse.

Luckily, I have a stash of cute cat pictures to draw from, so have a picture of Peari being queen of the castle.

The Rules of the Wall of Shame

As with this blog, I've come to the realization that in order for me to actually go through the wall of shame and complete it, I must give myself guidelines. Therefore, the rules.

1. I am not allowed to buy yarn for any new project until everything on the wall of shame is completed or frogged. The exception to this is yarn for socks for my Grandpa. I can buy yarn if it is to finish a wall of shame project, because otherwise it would be redundant.

2. I am only allowed to work on one WoS project during the week. I must choose the project, put it in my bag, and that is it! I am not allowed to hopscotch around the projects because then I'll fall back into my usual trap and nothing will get done. Once a WoS project is off the needles (doesn't need to be blocked), I can then go to the pile and grab another one.

3. In addition to the WoS project, I am allowed to have 2 other projects on the go, the first is a simple project that doesn't require a pattern, because sometimes my laptop's dead, or I just can't focus on a difficult pattern. Having a pair of vanilla, or close to vanilla, socks on the needles will allow me to continue to knit no matte the circumstances. I'm also allowed to work on a single cross stitch pattern. I'm not going to have a million UFO's for cross stitch (yet). So I have to keep it to small, fun designs.

4. On the weekends I'm allowed to pick up this monstrosity and add to its bulk.

Peari decided to help me show off it's size.

This is a sock yarn blanket based off of Shelly Kang's blankie. It's going to be big enough to fit on my queen sized bed. It's currently at the proper width, but needs a lot more squares to reach it's proper height. This will take me a while, but is rather too bulky to take with me everywhere. So I'm going to work on it on Fridays at knit club, and then possibly on the weekends at home, if I'm at home. I'll do Monday blankie updates I think.

This past weekend I only added about 3 small squares, but I was teaching someone to knit, and I was only home for a couple of hours in the morning on Saturday and Sunday each, so cut me a little slack.

The current WoS project is this difficult to see pile of ribbing.

This started life as a baby blanket for a boy. I originally thought that the yarn was gold with lovely maroons and burgundies, but when I brought it out into real light I realized it was rather more pink and violet than what I thought, so not so good for a young lad. However, I had been smart enough to make it fairly wide, and folding it in half allowed it to become a sweater for me! I'm almost done with the body, then it's just a matter of knitting up the sleeves, and once again I'm a bit worries about the amount of yarn I have.

Are you noticing a theme?

My cross stitch project is the penguin card from The World of Cross Stitch magazine.

I started with the white and sand colours. I learned a while ago (the hard way) that when doing small projects like this, it's often a good idea to start with the lightest colours, or your whites get all muddled by the other colours. Right now it's fairly boring, but with luck I can get some more colour into it so the next time I show you it will be pretty.

So that's that, hopefully I can continue the FO brigade of the WoS and soon have some pretty stash acquisitions to show you.

Weekend Roundup

Good Morning!

Welcome to Fall, one of the best times of the year for knitters!

Today comes to you in a quick weekend round up because I have a new pretty that has caught my attention.

First up, I finished the Spring Thaw Shawl.

It's not blocked yet, I'll do a full post about it once it's done, but this is another Wall of Shame off the needles. I'll be talking about the wall of shame tomorrow, but for now, work on it continues!

I was down to the wire on this yarn again. I first had to rip out an entire repeat of the lace pattern, and even with that, once I got the edging finished, this was all I had left.

And picture with a helpful cat for scale.

I also picked up some reading material, which I'm not allowed to pick up until I finish the Yarn Harlot's book that I'm reading right now.

This is book two in the series, the first being The Name of the Star, an absolutely amazing young adult novel. This book was released in February, and my library doesn't have it available, and I couldn't wait, so with a few extra dollars in hand, I bought myself the hardcover. I can't wait to dive into this one, but as with crafty projects, I need to limit myself on which books I'm reading or I'll start 20 and finish maybe 1 of them.

In other news, I got a beautiful magazine for Cross Stitching:

I was looking through all the options my local book store had (and there were close to 10 different selections), but I have pretty high criteria. 

For example, if I can't see the patterns because it's cling wrapped, you'd best have good gifts, and a number of cute patterns on the cover. This one did, there's the little penguin card that I'm working on, a beautiful sampler (though I will use less neon colours), not to mention the kindle holder, the geisha, the hedgehogs... this one caught my interest. I'm not one for kitschy cross stitch, I like beautiful stuff I can put on the wall and it doesn't look like it was made a century ago.

So far I have over 50% of the charts in here that have either caught my attention or that I want to make RIGHT NOW! So this one is a success.

The unfortunate thing is that it is made in the UK, and I haven't been able to find shipping cost for subscriptions to Canada, but I'll just have to dig a bit deeper. 

Getting Ready for Fall

Fall for me is not just knitting and coloured leaves and cool air and wonderfulness.

Fall means that I'm starting to get busy, and after a very busy summer, that's not always something I'm looking forward to.

Fall also means that it's my birthday and Canadian Thanksgiving all in one weekend.

Fall means that I have my annual Trick or Canning event to organize.

Fall means that Christmas is coming and I have work events to organize and presents to knit and a company building and home to decorate and a charity dinner to help out with.

You can see why I start to get busy.

So to start off, Trick or Canning is a charity food drive I do every year. I love trick or treating, but I realize that I am much to old to go out and collect candy, and I don't have a child yet to drag around with me. So I decided that rather than asking for candy, I would ask for food for the food bank. The first year we went out, we had 7 people, hit 3 streets, and got 130 lbs of food. Last year, we had about 20 people, and also ran a food drive at my work, and hit up almost our entire subdivision, and we got 668 lbs of food.

This year we're aiming for 700 lbs.

I really want to spread this idea out around through all areas that have Halloween and trick or treating, and with that in mind, I have set up a Facebook page here, with the thought that I can give advice on how to start up your own Trick or Canning group, and see how much of a cumulative total of food we can gather across North America.

Thanksgiving in Canada is coming up in a couple of weeks, which means my birthday. Last year was a big number for me, so this year won't be near as big of a party, but it'll still be nice. My husband is always very good at making sure I have a good day.

Everything else is either work or friend related (including the Christmas charity dinner, which I just help out with rather than organize thank goodness), so I don't have to worry too much about it.

My favourite part of fall though?

I get to wear this again:

I love this jacket that I knit out of left over Doctor Who Scarf yarn with added black. It's probably my most worn knit object. I'm so glad the mornings are cool enough for me to pull this out again.