Friday, August 22, 2003

 

I went to the knit meetup on Wednesday and had a good time talking to the other knitters and seeing what they were up too. There are some seriously talented beginners out there, bravely substituting yarns and doing gauge swatches and modifying patterns to make lovely sweaters. It's nice to see that the craft will continue on despite the "I can't even purl" luxury yarn scarf makers out there. (You know who I mean, right Daryl?).

I got to do some work on my felted backpack and am now doing the i-cords for the ties and hope to get a good start on the straps tonight.

This is a great pattern and I want to make more of them already. I think I'll size it down and make one for Emma out of the leftovers from her gumdrop hat. The Cascade 220 is great to work with. I've only ever felted stuff with it, but am thinking of making someone a sweater out of it sometime.

I'm also going to get my mouse-a-thon mousies into the mail this weekend. I've made 6 and will likely do a couple more (I have one on the needles). Mine look kinda dark and boring in black, plum and oatmeal but I have no idea what cats like (since I don't have any) so maybe they'll think they're great. The catnip will help too, no doubt!

11:35 AM

Thursday, August 21, 2003

 

We interrupt this knitting for a political statement:

Dear Mr. Mills

I am a constituent in your riding and am writing to express my full support for same sex marriages. I feel it is an important equality issue for Canadians and want my gay and lesbian friends to enjoy the same rights to marriage as I do.

As my elected representative I expect you to represent the views of your riding and not religious convictions as this is a multi-faith and diverse community. For me this is a civil, not a religious issue, and it is about recognizing gays and lesbians as full and equal members of Canadian society. This means that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry in the same manner as heterosexual couples, not civil unions or some separate form of union. We would not condone a separate kind of marriage for heterosexual couples of different ethnic backgrounds or religions and gay and lesbian marriage should be no different.

I sincerely hope you will vote for equality for all Canadians.

Sincerely, ...

*************************************************************

In case you don't know, a number of provincial courts have stated that gays and lesbians should have the same right to marry as straight couples. The Canadian government has now drafted legislation to legalize gay and lesbian marriage across Canada. Unsurprisingly it is a contentious issue. I decided that it's important for me to let my member of parliament know my views since I'm hearing a lot of the "majority" feeling they should decide "minority rights". I thought I'd post to encourage other supporters to let their views known.

If you have some intolerant views about this, keep them off my blog, alright. This is my space, if you have something to say about it, use your own.

We will return to regular knitting programming shortly....

9:16 AM

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

 

I had a great day yesterday. I actually got to the gym and had a good workout. Then, I met an old high school chum, Leslie, for lunch and she decided to come along to Romni wools with me. I haven't been in about 5 years and am sorry to have foresaken it for sooooooo long. I love it in there. They have everything (well almost, they were out of kureyon but are expecting it soon). Leslie, who has knit lopi-type sweaters in the past, felt the urge to knit take over as she helped me fondle all the fibers. She left with two skeins of gorgeous ribbon to make a scarf and me ever the enabler just helped her along! I found this for my mystery project:

It's a very soft 100% merino wool by Lana Gatto called wool gatto. I also added to my circular needle collection with a 16" 3.5mm addi. I could have bought a bunch more, but my budgetary head prevailed. I'll be back though.

I'm contemplating a Denise set, but love addis so much I'm not sure about it. If I could actually touch one (or give it a whirl) before I buy it would be best. And to add to my shopping mania, Amy writes about a half price sale at Joann.com. I rush over and find a magicord maker that would save me making all that i-cord for my felted daypack that I can get for half price. My credit card's ready and then, sigh, I find out they don't deliver to Canada. Pooh. Probably a good thing, but I'm bummed nonetheless.

In knitting news, I got the first green stripe done on my day pack and the heel turned on my first toe-up broadripple sock. I want to revise my mystery project chart and get going, but tonight is Knit Meetup so I'll be doing one of my easy projects instead.

And in energy news, I'm trying to be a good citizen and conserve my electricity so we can avoid rolling blackouts. In Ontario there isn't enough power to meet normal demands yet and we're being encouraged to conserve. I'm doing the laundry in the late evening, keeping the air conditioners off and cooking a lot less. But it's HOT today. I've got my bedroom air conditioning on because I can't take it any more--I have to work in here all day. I won't cook at all today or do laundry or run the dishwasher, or use my downstairs air conditioner; so if there's a power outage--it's not my fault--I hope.

9:34 AM

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

 

Startitis has attacked me. Instead of working on the 4 perfectly good projects I have on the go, I start another one. The yahoo knitalong group is starting on felted bags and ever the joiner, I thought: "I have a pattern and yarn waiting to be a felted daypack!" and off I went. It's a neat pattern from Two Old Bags that I got from Threadbear and I'm using Cascade 220 in purple (9345) and green (9451) which you can see in my poor photo below:

And, if my lunch plans don't go too long I'm off to Romni Wools to get some new yarn for my mystery projects. Romni is Toronto's largest yarn shop with a vast and eclectic mix of fibers. I haven't been there in almost 5 years for one reason or another, so I'm hyped. Hopefully my poor credit card can handle this.

8:50 AM

Monday, August 18, 2003

 

I'm sure everyone's already talked about it, but here's my blackout story: The power went out around 4:10 as I was getting ready to go to the grocery store. I figured it was a work crew in the neighbourhood and went out anyway. The car radio informed me that it was a "major cascade failure" so I decided to get the kids at daycare and get home. That was uneventful though the traffic was getting crazy. Craig managed to bum a ride most of the way home and we all camped out at home eating peanut butter sandwiches and hot dogs and getting our meagre supplies together. I learned that I shouldn't wait so long between food shops, I need to have a store of batteries and WORKING flashlights and I need to keep the non-cordless phone.

Once we put the kids to bed we sat on the deck and enjoyed actually being able to see the stars in the city. I got a tiny booklight and knit under the stars. Here I am:

And here's what it looked like without the flash:

I managed to do 6 mouse-a-thon toys!

The next morning we still didn't have power so we cleaned out the fridge and freezer and packed up and went to the cottage (where there was power). We had a great weekend but had to come home to the post-blackout mess late last night. There may still be blackouts today--yikes. It does make you appreciate electricity and I'm trying to be more conservationist than normal--whether it lasts for me and my fellow citizens is the real question.

10:05 AM