Uli's Creative Corner

The beautiful westcoast fall sunshine was replaced by a dark, dreary and rainy day today.  Today the kids at daycare have a field trip to the pumpkin patch.  I wish the trip could have been yesterday.  But they will all still have a blast.  Little kids sure don't seem to be as sensitive to the wet weather as we seem to become as adults.  When you're a kid, puddles are fun and puddles are there to be jumped and splashed in.  The thought of wet feet to me now is just so uncomfortable.  So I dressed Erika warmly, made sure there were hats and mittens in her bag for her as well as her rain boots and I'm sure they are almost on the bus already.  She is supposed to get her own, Erika sized pumpkin.

When I came home last night, the house was still empty even though I epxected Erika and Evan to be home already.  I didn't get much of a chance for quiet time though because as soon as I changed into my comfy clothes, they drove in.  Boring knitting this week because all I'm doing is mitered squares.  11 more squares to go.

I was thinking about my Christmas gift list and I think I'm going to just start alternating X-mas knitting and my own knitting.  I'll switch off each night.  I'll be starting that once that magical mitered vest is finished.  I'm determined now.  That's a plan......... isn't it?

Have a great Thursday.

Do I dare talk about this yet? We're thinking of coming up with a plan so that I can go to Stitches West next February. I don't stay up on these events and festivals as I never think that I would be able to attend any of them anyways. But somewhere I made the link between San Jose and Santa Clara and how close those two places really are. Santa Clara is where Stitches West 2005 will be held. San Jose is where my SIL and her family live. We had been talking about visiting them in the spring of 2005. Well, in California, February is almost like spring. I asked my SIL whether it would be okay if we came around that time of the year and then I mentioned it to Evan. He's been hopping the web sites to check out flights and cost. I'm thinking along the lines that we really shouldn't afford it and that it's not a smart idea just to spend over $1000 on airplane tickets for me to be able to go to an event like that. But we would combine it with a family visit and Erika love seeing her cousins. So we'll see what develops.

Here are pictures of my goodies that I described yesterday:

Kathleen's lovely contest prize:

And the lovely RAOK from Wendy:

I was delighted by everyon'es thoughtfulness. It does make you feel very special.

Yesterday, I received a couple of things in the mail from Elann. Just two patterns:

Catch a Knitted Star by Maddy Laine and Saturday Morning by Christine Bylsma Designs. I love the idea of the Saturday Morning comfortable shirt. I'm going to keep my eyes out for just the right combination of yarns to use.

Now, I'm obsessed with my Magical Mitered Vest. I want it done so I've been working on it almost every evening. I've 13 more squares to go. I don't manage more than about 1 or 1 1/2 sqaures a night. I think (with all the disruptions) one square takes me about an hour to complete. So I have a bit more time to invest into this vest but I can see the end. If I could do 2 sqaures a night from tonight forward, I could be done by early next week. That would be a good thing I think so I'll just keep going.

My baby blanket needs to get finished. The baby is due November 8th but they think he/she might make an early arrival. I'm not too far off now though. I'm about 75% of the way done. I only pick it up here and there. If I picked it up and worked on it for an hour or an hour and a half, I'd be done.

I also managed to stitch another car on the car sweater. Only 5 more to go. I won't get home before night falls tonight and tomorrow night so no stitched cars. Hopefully I can finish stitching those suckers on the weekend and start the process of finishing. I have not enjoyed the duplicate stitch experience. The cars look great from a distance but close up, I'm so disappointed at my quality of work. But I have done the best I can. I've ripped, I've re-done, I've tried different things. If I was duplicate stitching with a nice wool yarn or something similar, it would work out better. It's this cotton that splits and the plies shift and shuffle as the yarn gets pulled through the stitch. I'll stop complaining and not worry about it too much. Erika seems to really enjoy it.

I have to go to a retirment function tonight. I love what I do and I'm glad I'm still nowhere near retirment but this person retiring to me still looks very youthful and energetic and she has some really neat plans for her retirment. So I wonder what it would be like not to have to go through the daily grind of work, pressures, deadlines and office politics. I went kind of stir crazy toward the end of my 1-year maternity leave so I definitely know that I would have to have other things to keep me busy and happy.

I can't believe it but I had two more surprises in my mailbox last night when I came home after a long day.  My first package came from Kathleen over at Katyknits.  Katy's son drew my name as the winner of a blog contest she ran some time ago.  I could not believe my luck and love the purple fibery goodness that arrived in my package (I'll have some pics tomorrow).  But to top it off, she also sent a Thomas train and car along for Erika.  I won't get a picture of those as Erika got a hold of them right away and put them right on the tracks and decided that those were definitely hers.  Thank you so much!!!

Seondly, I was RAOK'd one more time.  It came from Wendy over at Catknits.  This little package contained a skein of cotton Sockotta sock yarn in an awesome navy blue colour combo and a lovely scented candle.  What a wonderful surprise.  Thank you so much Wendy.

As I said, I'll post the pics tomorrow.  I took some pictures right away but I didn't have the energy last night to upload them to the computer and then to the server.  I was just too tired.

I'm making slow car sweater progress.  I got home a little early last night and with Erika's help (or "un" help) I managed to stitch up one more car.  I now have 6 cars left to go.  Maybe by next weekend I can put it all together.

I then went to work on my Top Down Swing Coat a bit.  Even though on chunky yarn, it is a fairly slow knit.  Garter stitch seems to go more slowly in the first place (the rows don't grow as fast) and I'm finding it fairly hard on my hands.  But I made a bit of progress before switching back to my magical mitered vest.  I just keep trying to plug away at it so it can be completed soon.  I'm 3 sqaures into piece #2. 

Although I've made a list of my Christmas projects, I need to now pick yarn and possible patterns for the various socks I want to make.  I'm trying to get the yarn right to match the recipient.  Those aren't easy choices.

Hope you'll have a great day.

I couldn't believe it when I came home on Friday after a long day and a session of swimming lessons at the pool and went to the mailbox there were, not one but two, RAOKs in my mailbox. How awesome is that? It really made the end of a very long and busy week for me.

Carolyn sent me a love Scrabble stitch marker with the letter U. That's such a neat, original idea. I will find lots of use for it and really enjoy it. Thanks Carolyn.

And my second RAOK was from Li. She sent a wonderful card and a change purse heart. The heart is meant to symbolize the love and caring I have for my family. What a beautiful symbol and a lovely thought.

Thanks to both, Li and Carolyn. From the bottom of my heart.............. you couldn't have ended a long week in a better way for me. I truly appreciate your kindness.

For a FO, here are my October socks for the German patterned sock KAL I'm part of. Aren't these beautiful socks. I am glad they are done though because I need to gear up for Christmas knitting.

This weekend, I decided to work on that old WIP, the magical mitered vest. The first half is now finished. And last night I started the second half. I want to get these old WIPs cleared out so that they don't become the ever dreaded UFO that's been sitting around for years and years and nobody pays any attention to it.

We went to a lovely spot yesterday with GreatGrandma. Evan's grandma and Erika's greatgrandma. We had a lovely lunch and then we visited a little store that I wanted to go to. It's a little craft store that carries some yarn (but nothing fancy) but of all places among the Bernat and Patons they carry Opal sock yarn. I wanted to see if they had any of the new Elements line but they didn't have any of it.  I was a bit disappointed although I have some great sources of Opal on-line now.  Sometimes it is nice to see the yarn in person first.  So I looked a bit more and I saw a store model of this kid's sweater.  It's made in Bernat Velour.  A new, very chenille like, very bulky yarn.  The little girl's sweater looks really cute and it looks like a fast knit.  I ended up with colour 61315, purple pleasers.  Erika picked it out herself.  I actually quickly cast on last night.  It's not a fun knit.  It's really, really bulky and hard on the hands but the sweater will be soft, cuddly, warm and cute.  It should take me no more than a few hours total to knit that thing. 

Today will be back to stitching cars and trying to make some progress on the magical mitered vest.

Have a great Sunday.  I won't be updating tomorrow.

Good it's Friday again.  WW was okay last night.  I stayed even.  I have to admit that I'm having a really tough time with it.  Every weekend something else happens that throws me off the plan and then I spend the rest of the week trying to make it up again.  It feels like 1 step forward and 2 steps back.  I just don't do well in restaurants and with big meals.  Too much temptation.  The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has always proven difficult for me with all the festivities.  I'm just going to have to work extra hard.

I bought some 2.5 mm Brittaney Birch DPNs last night.  I had heard lots of things about them so I thought I'd give them a try.  I haven't tried yet but I will put a sock on them soon.  I also picked up a 5 mm 16" Addi Turbo.  How boring is that for yarn store shopping.  No yarn for me.....

It's a busy weekend coming up.  Tomorrow we'll be in the car lots.  I'll let Evan do the driving and that will mean that I will make some progress on at least one of my pairs of socks.  I've got 3 in progress socks.  All of them basically with one sock finished and the second one to get started, except for my German pattern sock KAL sock and that one I just turned the heel on the second sock.  I think I'll try and finish that one over the course of today and tomorrow.  The other sock is just a plain Opal stocking stitch sock for me so I'm not rushed with that one.  The third is my pair of Fluted Bannister socks.  One sock was finished before the adult pattern even came out - I just went ahead and started early.  So I have to do sock #2 still.  Those ones are a X-mas gift so getting those done will help the X-mas gift knitting.

I finished the back of MIL's cardigan now.  I'm going to put that on hold until I see her next and I can measure the length.  If it's too long for her, I'd rather know now than after I've already finished the front pieces.

I must confess to starting something............ I started another poncho for Erika.  It's a Knitting Pure & Simple child's poncho pattern.  I only just cast on and knitted maybe 8 rounds.  It's a top-down.  But this weekend, when I'm home............ priority will be on finishing that silly car sweater.  I think I'm also ready to start picking up my Phil'Onde shirt I have been working on for ever and ever.  Right now would be the perfect time to wear it.

Brenda was asking the question whether our anticipated projects keep us from enjoying your current ones to their fullest.  I was thinking about that as I was standing in front of my "wall of stash" in my room.  I love looking at my yarns thinking about what I'd like to start next.  I don't think anticipating new projects keeps me from enjoying my current projects.  Most times it helps me try and move them along more quickly.  I get frustrated with the projects that have been lingering for a long time though.  I feel an obligation to finish them and I, for the most part, want to finish them but the desire and anticipation to start something new is often greater and wins out over those older projects that seem to have become boring.  And then they get put back on the back burner again.  That's why I'm currently trying to get the older ones finished before diving into any of the projects that I really want to work on.  But, as you all know, with this blog life we lead, new ideas and newer and greater projects always seem to come up and find their way into our minds and hearts and then onto our needles and fingers.

Have an awesome weekend.  I know I will.  Part of tomorrow will involve a quick trip into a store with Opal sock yarn.......... my beloved Opal!!!  There's another LYS in that neighbourhood where I'll be tomorrow and I'd love to go but it's the one I told myself I'd never visit again because I got such crappy service there about a year ago.  We'll see.  We don't have a ton of time anyways.

I'll try and post this weekend.  If I don't you'll be without me on Monday morning as I'll be off spending my work day in meetings at a hotel again.  These meetings stopped in June and now we are trying to resume again.

Enjoy the weekend.

I started a hat in Noro Kureyon last night - colour #148 - a blend of browns, pinks and purples.  When I ordered it, I wasn't really aware there would be so much brown in it and at first thought I didn't think I like it.  But as you knit and the colours unfold, it's neat to see what develops.  Aside from the fact that Kureyon is a fairly chunky yarn on 5 mm needles, it knits up so quickly because we just want to keep knitting to see what stripe comes next.  How big is the next stripe?  What colour will it be? How will it look with the rest of the colours?  It's fun to watch it grow.  Sometimes hard to put down.  This little project (which is only the first of my Noro Christmas projects) is re-affirming that I'd really like to make a cardigan or sweater out of some Kureyon or Silk Garden.  I'll have to save up a bit though.

I'm having a better day today.  I wasn't any earlier today than I was yesterday but things went more smoothly.  My whole day didn't really improve at all.  The "most fun" I had when I found out that some documents I had edited (with red pen - so no electronic record of it) had been thrown in the garbage by the reviewer and so had not been typed up by the secretary.  I had to do it all over again.  This time I didn't rely on anyone.  I did the edits on the electronic copy of the document.  It wasn't a ton of work but my mood didn't benefit from that yesterday.

I got a bit side tracked by the Noro hat so I didn't get too much knitting done on the MIL cardigan.  I had to take Erika to bed about 2 rows before finishing the back.  I'm finishing the back and then I'm leaving the project until I see my MIL the next time and I can hold the piece up to her and see if she feels it's too long on her.  The length would be just right for me but I'm quite a bit taller than her so I'm not sure how she'll feel about it.

I have cold hands this morning.  I have now turned the heat on in the office.  I hate typing with cold hands.

Have a wonderful Thursday.  The weekend is almost upon us.

Ohhhhhhhh, I'm cranky today............. so I'd better keep this short.  I just got my day off to the wrong start.  Some days it's a real challenge getting the family ready and out the door in time to still be on time yourself.  I can't figure out something at work

Evan took Erika to the clinic last night to check out that pesky little cough.  The doctor didn't find anything wrong.  She figured it was maybe post nasal drip from the remnants of a virus that may have passed through her.  We didn't expect much else but it's better to have her chest listened to just to be sure.  I'm generally big on female doctors, especially for myself.  But I must say that in this particular clinic (not our family doctor) the male doctors have much better bedside manners and are much more personable than the female doctor on staff and that's who was on shift last night.  But, fortunately, Erika didn't seem to mind.  She came home and told me all about how the doctor tickled her back with the stethoscope.  So you'd think that I got a little bit of peace and quiet - and I did - almost an hour.  What did I do?  Iron all of Evan's dress shirts............... at least I got to do that in my yarn room.... I got to look at all my lovely stash and think about what to do with it.

Speaking of stash............ I'm still loving Noro Kureyon, Colour #57 (see yesterday's post).  But today at Elann, there's a nice pattern.  I think it's a lovely pattern.  It's called "Catch a Knitted Star".  Promptly I checked if Elann might have some yarn that could work and I came up with Schachenmeyer Micro Big Shine - maybe in the Lavender colour.  Isn't it pretty?  Oh, to have unlimited amounts of time and money............

The mail carrier may make me less grumpy when I come home tonight............. I hope he or she leaves me something nice.

Thanks for all the great comments on the poncho.  I sure like it, too and I love having had all the positive feedback.  I took it to work today to show to a couple of people around the office and everybody thinks my niece will like it - so let's hope that she does.  I have two more ponchos waiting in the wings.  One is for Erika and one is for my other niece for Christmas.  By then, I'm sure that I'll be ponchoed out.

When I first came home last night, I stitched up a little bit more on a car for the car sweater.  I had to frog quite a bit to get it right (and it's still not perfect) so I didn't make a whole lot of progress in the half hour that I had to do this in peace and quiet.

This week, I'm trying to tackle just a bit more of my MIL cardigan.  28 more rows or so and the back will be finished.  Then it's on to the fronts.  Don't you sometimes feel that the 2 fronts of a cardigan work up faster than one big back piece.  I hope this will be the same for this cardigan.  It would be nice if I could finish it soon.  This cardigan pattern works the front pockets in a different manner than I have ever done before.  First I thought I would scrap their way of doing it and do it in my own way, the way I've done it every time that I've inserted front pockets into a cardigan.  But I read the pattern again last night and it seems quite an interesting way of doing it so I think I will try.  I'll let you know how they were done and whether I liked the method once I've tried it and have a way of comparing the two methods.

I think I have to run to the grocery store tonight.  Yuck.... serves me right for not going this weekend.  We're already out of milk and have no more fruit.  I'll try and sneak out right after dinner or maybe I'll even try and get a few essentials before I even go home tonight.  I have to go to the post office on the way home anyways and there's a grocery store in that little mall.  I'll see how I feel at the end of the day.  So, if I get any time to knit tonight, I'll probably work on the MIL cardigan again just to get the back finished.

I'm in love with this colour of Noro Kureyon: Colour #57.  I just love those shades.  I can't justify the purchase, especially without a particular project in mind.  So now, I've been cruising around to see what I might like to make with Colour #57..... I love Klaralund but I don't quite think it's right for me.  First I'd have to upsize it a bit and I'm not so much for wearing Noro unless I have a shirt or turtleneck underneath and I don't think Klaralund works for that.  I love Butterfly but the sizing on that one is a bit small for me, too.  Not sure if I could pull it off.  Fitzgerald might me a nice choice for me or even a basic raglan, maybe fromt he top down using a Knitting Pure & Simple pattern.  I doubt I'll own any of colour #57 any time soon unless I come up with a really, really, really good reason why I need it.  Help me out........... give me some really, really, really good reason or pattern suggestions.

Gotta start Christmas knitting, gotta start Christmas knitting, gotta start Christmas knitting soon......

It's Monday morning and I can show you the finished poncho for my niece.  I'd love to know how you like it - it's for an 8-year old girl with blond hair.

After I gave up on the colour work, it became a fast and very satisfying project.  The pattern is from the Fall/Winter Phildar Pitchoun '04 magazine.  The colours I used are identical with one substitution.  The yarn is a combination of Phildar Pegase+ and Phildar Frenesie.  I changed the finishing and added an edging of fun fur rather than using a pre-purchased fake fur type fabric as they had used in the pattern.  I think it looks quite nice.  I'm happy with this project.

We had a busy weekend so I didn't do much knitting.  I spent most of my time working on the finishing of the poncho.  I worked a bit more on duplicate stitching cars on Erika's car sweater.  It's so slow going and so frustrating.  The worst thing is that the cotton yarn is just individual plies that aren't twisted very tightly.  As a result, often one ply doesn't pull through as tightly as the others, leaving unsightly looking snags etc. and it's very hard to get it just right.  The sweater is so cute, the experience very frustrating.  I'm going to spend a bit of time on it every evening this week so I can come closer to completion.  I want this out of my finishing basket.

You can see, I added a Christmas knitting list to my sidebar.  I'm sure it will change and evolve as time moves along but for now, that's what it looks like.  I don't want to grow it much more than that.  I have to start integrating my Christmas projects into my regular knitting and I also want to make an effort to bring forward my oldest UFOs and at least devote a little bit of time each week to getting them finished.  I'm trying to keep myself from casting on anything new right now.

I'm late today so I'd best get going.   

Friday mornings can be rough at our house............ a week of too little sleep for Erika, by Friday usually isn't a pretty picture.  Erika's clock works on 9:30 pm to 9:00 am of sleep.  Well, she never can sleep until 9:00 am because I have to wake her up at 6:30 in order to get her to daycare on time.  And she never goes to sleep any earlier at night.  Believe me.............. we've tried.  So by Friday, it's usually tough to get up in the morning.  Today wasn't any different.  Actually it was worse and Ms. sleepyhead didn't wake up at all.  I sat her on the couch to have her milk and she slept through that.  We got her jacket and shoes on and stuffed her in the car.  Then she demanded her bottle (that's the only time of the day she gets one - first thing in the morning - we haven't got her out of that habit yet).  So Evan goes back into the house and gets it out of the fridge for her.  Then we leave the house.  About 5 minutes down the road, Evan realizes that he forgot his wallett and glasses so we do a U-turn back home.  Erika is sleeping through all of this.  Now we're late.  We get to daycare and wake Erika up but she is still hard to wake up.  We get into the daycare and our one rule is that she can't take that bottle into the daycare.  Well, all hell breaks loose.  So after about 10 or 15 minutes of letting her have her temper tantrum and trying to get her to settle down we had to leave.  We're now really late.  I drop Evan off at skytrain to get to his office and then I go to my office.  Now I'm unsettled - and late......... so this will be short.  We don't usually commute together but it was most convenient today because we need to go straight to swimming lessons after work and daycare.  I hope she'll settle down and still have a good day.

The Chatelaine article I mentioned yesterday is in the current issue of the magazine.  I just got my subscription last week.  I think it's the November issue. 

I got some yarn yesterday........... yummy.  Just sock yarn and mostly for Christmas gifts.  I had better start knitting more socks.

I didn't get much time to knit last night but when I did I worked a bit on the top-down swing coat.  It's a nice project but even on quite big needles, it seems to be moving slowly.  I find garter stitch shows progress more slowly than stocking stitch or other stitch patterns.

This weekend, I'm going to finish Madeline's poncho.

Have a great weekend.  I should have some nice photos to show on Monday.