An Exercise in Frustration!

I've had a couple of readers tell me that in recent months, they've not been able to see pictures on my blog anymore. The test earlier this week showed that the Photobucket pictures are visible, but not the Flickr pictures (to these specific readers). I had every intention of going back to the frustration of Photobucket. Had.

When I went there to upload a picture about half an hour ago, I was unable to bring up the upload window. I have a feeling that Photobucket is now beyond the capabilities of my humble, and aging, computer. I apologize, but I'm not going to fight with Photobucket. After half an hour of struggling to get a single picture uploaded, I'm going back to Flickr. It works for me; uploading's simple and it works with my nearly 10 years old system (Windows 98). At this stage in it's life, there's little or no support for this system. Again, I apologize to those of you who can't see the pictures. However, if you're on Ravelry, you will see most of the pictures there. You can find me there as MissChief. ;)

On to knitting. I wanted to spend some time with the Butterfly dress today, and did. I have now finished the front (or back, as the case may be). The second half of the dress (about 1/3 done) is back on the needles and I can now concentrate on it. I'm sure that you, and Stacey, would love to see a picture, so without further ado...

By the time the underarm shaping begins, there are only 45 stitches on the needle. I thought for sure that it would be far too narrow; however, the pattern being lace, it stretches nicely and should fit well. Once the second side is finished, it becomes a matter of sewing the pieces together, picking up for the top bands and making the shoulder straps. Then, a final blocking and the dress will be transferred to it's owner's waiting hands.

This week, I finally received a notice from Canada Post that there was a package waiting for me at the local post office (across the street). My Knitpicks order finally arrived! I've been eagerly awaiting the order. I am so looking forward to knitting with my new KP Harmony needles set! Along with the needles, I also picked up three skeins of KP Gloss Lace (70% merino, 30% silk) in Celery (a lovely light green) that will become Elann's Luna Moth shawl. I googled luna moth and found out that it is a lovely shade of light green and decided that it was the colour I would knit the shawl named for the moth.

Now, back to knitting...

A Few Things

1. Yes, Kristen, you caught a typo... an honest one. It's very hard to edit your own work; that's why newspapers have............ editors! ;)

2. Maria, the Citrus Punch sweater is my own design, one I've never written up. I will be re-creating it in the near future, but at this time, it is unavailable... anywhere.

3. Sharon, how long has it been since you've not been able to see the pics on the blog?. I did switch over to Flickr a while ago as Photobucket was being really slow for me. Might that be why?

Perhaps a test is in order.





One picture or two? The first picture is stored in Photobucket, the second in Flickr.

4. I'll keep you posted as to what happens with the truck and the investigation, as we hear about it.

Now, time to get ready for work.

It Was a Night!

Wow! Where to start?

We were awakened this morning, at about 3:30 a.m., to the sound of shouting and sirens. When I looked out the bedroom window, I saw a truck on fire and the fire truck getting into position to put out the fire. I was instantly awake when I realized the truck was John's work truck!

He had a load of leaves and pine needles in the bed of the truck that needed to go to the dump. It turns out that a couple of teens were seen setting the load on fire. Someone in a vehicle saw the teens, turned around and, realizing what was happening, called the fire department. (I may not be getting all the details straight, as I stayed in the apartment, but am passing on what I was told.) Someone else got out a fire extinguisher, but by the time the tire truck arrived, the fire had already gone down to the bottom of the pile and through the truck bed. The truck (owned by the company John works for) is a total write-off.

Shortly after 4:00 a.m., the truck was towed away and we went back to bed. We've had a spate of arson fires in Kelowna over the last couple of weeks; I can't say that this one was related, but we certainly never expected that we would be the victims of arson. It's more than a little upsetting.

On to other things... (deep cleansing breath)...

I mentioned in my last post that I'll be re-knitting the Citrus Punch sweater for Trinity and that I couldn't find the pictures. Well, I found them. As well, that same week, Kristen took a couple of pictures of Trinity in that sweater.

These two pictures were taken two years ago. At the time, Trinity didn't want to take the sweater off for anything! It is still her favorite sweater, apparently. It seems that the yarn has grown with her and she's still wearing it. I did notice, though, when I was there earlier this year that the yarn has "relaxed" (for lack of a better word) and the sweater has stretched out. (It really should have been knit on smaller needles; lesson learned.)

This picture was taken earlier this week. I love it!

Other knitting has been happening as well around here (surprise, surprise!). One of my bosses commented that she was having a difficult time finding mittens for her 3 year old daughter, especially mittens with a cord. Well, that did it. I found out that one of Sam's favourite colours is pink and I just happened to have some pink in my stash, so...

I've almost done the first mitten now; just the thumb needs finishing. All in all, they're a really simple knit. Over the years, I've knitted a lot of these for my own kids. They're fun to make. The pattern is an old Paton's pattern, long since discontinued. The yarn is a superwash wool with a strand of mohair and silk (like Rowan KidSilk Haze, but a different, less costly, brand), worked on 3.25 mm dpns.

When I found out that Kristen's upcoming arrival will be of the male persuasion (meet Ethan, to be born sometime around the end of January)...

...I started thinking about little boy knits. I started thinking about little boy designs and came up with nothing that I was happy with so I started going through my collection of patterns and came across a book I pick up now and then, drool over, but have never knit anything from.

This time, two patterns struck me. One is a girl's pattern, which I'll do eventually. The other is a boy's pattern. The book? Alice and Jade Starmore's "The Children's Collection". I decided to knit "Western Seas", a gansey inspired boy's sweater that is predominantly stocking stitch, making it great tv knitting.

The yarn for this one is Sandnesgarn "Strompegarn", a superwash sock yarn. The sweater is worked on 3.0 mm needles and I'm knitting the smallest size (2-3 years). I figure that with soon-to-be five grandsons, it will fit one of them and can be passed on to others. I'm enjoying the knitting so much that I've even bought more yarn for another one.

I love the detailing in the ribbing and just above it. Generally, gansey's have a lot of patterning, but this one is simple, yet classy. The ribbing and zigzag detailing are repeated on the sleeve, for just that little touch of interest. The brown of the yarn, which you might think would be boring to knit with, is practical and yet, really nice. It's knitting up kind of tweedy, again, very classy. I think, and I hope, it will see a lot of wear.

Whew! This has turned into a long post; my apologies for that. There was just so much to tell you!

Miscellaneous Stuff

It feels like forever since I've done any updating on the Butterfly dress. I have been working on it. Truly I have. And yesterday, I made good progress on it. The back (or front... they're both the same) is almost to the underarm shaping.

In this picture, I had just finished the decreases to the narrowest point, the waist. It's even longer now. I'm at the point of working the final increase; then it's work straight until the dress measures 31", then start the underarm shaping. Once that's done, there are just a few rows of neck shaping. It finally feels like I'm getting there!

While I was procrastinating with the dress (yes, I really was procrastinating), I finished the Waves of Grain scarf. As a matter of fact, it's around my neck at this very moment. Wanna see?

I love the look and feel of this scarf. The hemp really did soften up with washing, and I'm sure it will soften up even more with subsequent washing. I can definitely recommend hemp. There's only one thing I'm not completely happy with and that's the grafting. I probably should have dug out my grafting instructions before even starting, but I didn't and the first bit of the grafting got turned around a bit and it looks like I purled part of the row rather than knit it. Oh well.... I'm not perfect and neither is the scarf. What can I say? Next time, I'll be more careful.

This past week, I found out that my daughter Kristen (she who is mother to Trinity) will be having a little boy in January. Now, I'll have to dig out my baby patterns and start knitting for Ethan (that's the name she's chosen). I'm already looking forward to that. As well, I now have all the yarn I need to make another Citrus Punch cardigan for Trinity, thanks to 5 balls of Paton's Astra in the perfect lemon yellow that I found at the thrift store. She requested another one, so who am I to argue? Earlier today, I went to Michael's and found the orange and lime green Astra that I needed for the ruffles. I'd repost a picture of Trinity wearing the sweater, but at the moment, I can't find one. If I do come across it, I'll post it. In the interim, I'm re-working the pattern, figuring out the numbers for the ruffles (579 stitches, if my math is correct).

In the meantime, though, there's a dress to finish and various and sundry shawls to complete. I'll be busy for who knows how long! You know me, though... I've never let anything stop me from casting on for another project. :)

Decision Made

For some time now, there's been something on my mind, something I've been trying to decide. This morning, I've made a decision.


Those of you who follow my blog will know that, for a while, I was writing patterns, designing a few things. I've made most of those patterns available for free on my free pattern site. You'll also know that there have been a few patterns I felt were worthy of being offered for sale, and I did sell a few of them through the yarn store I was working in. Well, it's been over a year now since I've been working in the "industry" and those patterns are not really moving (at least, I've received no new orders). For the past few months, I've been debating with myself whether or not I still want to sell the patterns. This morning, I decided I will no longer be offering patterns for sale. Over the next while, as I have time, I will be posting those patterns on the free site.


I could put them there all at once, but where's the fun in that?


One of the patterns that has been quite popular has been the Baby Cable Wrist Warmers. Today, I'll make that pattern available. For the moment, it does not appear on the freebies website, but will in the next day or so (I'll let you know). Right now, you can download it here on the blog.

The link (it's a pdf, incidentally... if your machine, like mine, doesn't like opening pdfs online, right click to save it to your system before opening it) is here.


So, on to other things... what's on Ev's needles these days? Well, the dress is still slowly making progress. I'll be working on it some more this afternoon. Having been under the weather this week, I didn't trust myself to work on anything that demanded that kind of concentration.

I did knit this...

The pattern (found here) is from Drops, #86-10. I used the ubiquitous Malabrigo in a gorgeous variegated purple. The yarn is so cushy and soft with not a rough fibre to be found. I used 4.5 mm needles and followed the pattern as written. I think it would be fair to say that this headband will get lots of use this winter.

I've also been working on the project I teased you with last time. It is the Waves of Grain scarf from Knitty.

I'm using a fingering weight hemp yarn from Lanaknits Hemp for Knitting, on 4.0 mm needles. The pattern on Knitty is ranked as "tangy". I'm finding it a very easy knit, at this point almost mindless. It's been my tv knitting this week. The two halves of the scarf are knit from the bottom up and then grafted together in the middle. I'm making each section about 30" long (before blocking), so the finished scarf will be 5' pre-blocking. The hemp is nice to knit with and, from what I've been told and read, will soften up nicely with washing.

Right now, I'm not sure whether I'll keep this scarf for myself or whether it will become a gift for someone in my family. Just not sure.

Now, it's time for me to get some quality knitting time happening. There's a dress waiting for progress, and I've rambled on long enough.