Monday, June 29, 2009

Saturday: Sunny and Rhapsody

I'm at Row 86, and in the second round of decreases on the Rhiannon sock. No pics as yet, just knitting along merrily. The pattern has small multi-column tables where you look up your ankle size to determine the number of rows to make decreases on. Somehow, though, I'm supposed to end up with 88 stitches for my size, and it looks like I will end up with 82 this time, and the first sock, I ended up with 76. May have to adjust a bit when I get there.

Saturday, I went to the Moss St. market and explored around; picked up some yarn I'd ordered from Boutique de Laine - it's Artyarns Silk Rhapsody intended for projects in my queue since 2-3 years from the Lacy Little Knits book. Both Boutique de Laine and Button and Needlework have started to carry the artyarns line; unfortunately, both purchased only the silk rhapsody glitter, instead of the plain silk rhapsody which is very soft and smooth and does not have the rougher glitter piece in it.

Here's the pink and brown:
2 Artyarns Silk Rhapsody #161 Pic 2

and the blue and brown:

2 Artyarns Silk Rhapsody #157

After BdeL, I headed back downtown and caught the end of the Strawberry Festival at Bastion Square. Very yummy and sweet local strawberries - Mmmmmmm.

Yesterday was sunny and warm. I had a lovely massage at Silk Road - I looove their massages - very definitely relaxing and well worth the money. After the massage, I wandered around the sunday market (mostly crafts and usable art - bags/clothes) and had a snack, then, walked through Chinatown and picked up a mango bubble tea with coconut jelly. It was the perfect day for it. I also found a fab parking spot in front of Opus Art, and guess what ? They were having their once yearly inventory sale. Found a couple of items that never go on sale.

For dinner, I met with friends and we made our own sushi, which was fun and easy, and oh so inexpensive. I found a package of bbq'd eel at Fujiya, so I used that. I'll definitely try making my own sushi again.

I decided last week that I'm on a yarn diet, but didn't decide exactly when I should start. I think I wouldn't stay very well on it right now as there are a lot of sales, and I am still in acquisition mode. One of the gals in my tuesday group asked me if I would knit all my stash, and I told her that I'm more collecting, than knitting. That has happened with other hobbies too. At least I am "collecting" quality yarn (yarn snob that I am !) and not the cheap acrylic stuff.

Speaking of diet, I cancelled my yarn pirate subscription. The last few months have been somewhat of a disappointment. It seems like the colors are recycling through from previous months, and nothing is earth-shatteringly gorgeous.

May 2009 was called Zephyr, and looks like this:
Yarn Pirate Zephyr (Back). A bit of blue, green, and some yellow-ish gold, reminiscent of the hope from jan. I haven't decided if I will keep it or not.

Destashed Zinnia (June 2009) on Rav.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Rhiannon Sock Progress

I finally took pictures of the Rhiannon sock pair I'm working on.
Here's Sock 1:

Rhiannon Sock 1 (full)

and the detail of the sock from cuff and calf:
Rhiannon Sock 1 (Cuff)

to mid-leg (back showing horseshoe cable along the bottom back ridge of the sock)
Rhiannon Sock 1 (Horseshoe cable back)

to the foot:

Rhiannon Sock 1 (foot)

Oriented to look at the front

Here's the cuff:
Rhiannon Sock 1 (Cuff and Calf)

mid-section:
Rhiannon Sock 1(Mid- Leg)

and foot:
Rhiannon Sock 1 (mid-lower)

Sock 2:

After a few false starts, the second sock is underway
Rhiannon Sock 2 (Back)

and the celtic cable:
Rhiannon Sock 2 (cuff and cable)

knitted from the cuff down in yarn pirate icicle (merino-tencel).

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Wollmeise True Love

This week, I received a fabulous surprise - my Wollmeise package, the last and final one for the Wollmeise Sock Club which I was lucky enough to receive this past year.

This quarter's theme was Friendship. The yarn came in two gorgeous colours - True Love and Blue Bell, with a pattern to make with the Blue Bell, and some lovely phrases and poems about Friendship.

Wollmeise Summer 09

True Love is so perfectly my colour - It's red, a red-purple, and almost pink - definitely my colour combinations. Blue Bell is bright blue, darker blue, and almost a navy colour. Both red amd blue combinations are hard to take with my digital camera, so this is the closest I could get the colours to be:

Wollmeise

and a side shot:
Wollmeise (side)

I will miss receiving these lovely Wollmeise packages - apparently, the Wollmeise Sock Club is no more, but there will be more surprises in store in coming months.

black friday

I've updated the sale page with some key sales for Black Friday. I'm not doing a lot of yarn buying these days, so these are the on...