Cool - me in a nutshell

So cool :) Go to http://www.snapshirts.com/index.php and enter in your blog information. You will get something like this:



Muwahaha! Minions made the cut!

Must finish... in record time

And no, for once I am not talking about knitting.

This was waiting for me at the library this afternoon:



I cannot even get into how addicted I am to this series. This is something like the nineteenth book with same characters - but I still love them. Andrew likes them as well - although he says he just skims over certain scenes... or so he says...

But I have to finish off the book well before the Knitting Olympics begin - because trust me, I have no willpower when it comes to books I like. I will sacrifice sleep without a moment's regret (well, maybe a bit of regret the next morning when I am groggy beyond all understanding).

I ended up ripping out the plain vest I had started for myself. Then I turned my eye toward a bunch of other half-finished projects and ripped out the lot of them as well. I was worried that I wouldn't know exactly where I was in a pattern and would mess it up anyway - and who knows about tension... Then I cast on (from a previously ripped project) a raglan sweater in a red/orange/yellow/magenta variegation. The sweater will be too big for Willow (it is the 28" chest size), so I might just add that to the Dulaan pile (which I will mail off someday - I'm so motivated now after seeing the pictures on

http://www.nwkniterati.com/movabletype/archives/MossyCottage/001591.html

Sometimes I just wish I could knit faster.

Cousins

Here is a picture of Willow and her cousins:



Joy is on the left and she is 18 months older than Willow. Grace is on the right and she is a little over 4 years older than Willow. They are only back in the US for a few months - their family lives in China, where their parents are learning Mandarin. Willow had so much fun with them these last few days and was very sad to see them go.

Stay tuned...

I haven't abandoned you - never fear! My sister-in-law and two nieces are here visiting this week, so my knitting time has been temporarily replaced by play time. Willow's cousins, Joy and Grace, are 1.5 and 4 years older than her respectively, but she is having a ball with them. Pictures to come later.

Citizenship decree

Okay - check the sidebar - the Yarn Harlot herself, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, decreed that I have to go with my citizenship on this one...

So I am playing for



Yay team!

She Thinks She'll Keep Him

Look what Andrew brought me when he came home last night:



Forgive my poor photography skills - it was night time and if I had taken the picture in the window the flash would have reflected and the photo would have looked worse. Even better than getting roses, these flowers even smell! My mother-in-law has many flower/seed catalogs, and whenever I see a page with roses and the write-up says 'faint scent' or 'light scent', I lose all interest. I want my roses to come on strong. Thank you, Andrew!

Oh - WW update - make that 24.8 pounds to go :) Yes, I write that as I savour my Symphony bar with almonds and toffee chips. Don't judge me!

I have made my decision and handed in my intention to finish Veste Everest for the Yarn Harlot's Olympics Challenge. To see a picture of what the finish object will look like, check out:

http://www.royalyarns.com/ptrn/ITW/ITW-Fall-2005/09-veste-everest.html

As always, I am making a few alterations. I have read a few blogs of people who have already finished this project, and I am going to do one extra set of cable repeats to lengthen the body a bit. Not that I am particularly long or tall - just, uh, chesty. I am making the largest size (52" chest) even though that will be too big for me because I tend to knit tight and I would rather have the vest be more on the loose side. And I will be making it out of some royal heather blue Wool Ease so my husband can throw it in the washer and dryer with impunity.

Confessions and Options

I don't have a real project going on right now - I have little things that I can finish up in a day or two, but nothing that will sustain me through a few SnBs and nights watching American Idol.

My name is Jo and I am an American Idol addict.

I watched this show in the hospital less than 24 hours after I had given birth to Willow! I don't vote - I know the chances of my vote making a difference in a world of teenyboppers with cellphones paid for by Mummy and Daddy... And when I was in Canada, I have even seen a few episodes of the Canadian offshoot, Canadian Idol. Catchy title, that.

Back to my point - I need something larger than mittens, hat, or baby sweater to work on. Two tempting things have come up, but the time frame doesn't fit well. First, at the Yarn Harlot's site ( http://www.yarnharlot.ca ) she has proposed an Olympic Challenge - to knit something you have never attempted - or a using a technique you have never tried - to finish an entire project during the time of the Olympics - which isn't until mid-February. I haven't signed up yet because I am trying to think of something new to work on. I know I resolved to make something functional with cables - and I am pretty sure I could finish a cableknit scarf in 16 days - but I'm not really inspired to do that. I have enough yarn to make a man's sweater (again, something I have never tried before) and to make myself Veste Everest (but I honestly don't know if I could pull that off in 16 days - I would be ignoring my family more than usual and feeding them Kraft Dinner and hot dogs on alternate nights).

However, starting a project in mid-February isn't going to do anything about me jonesing to start something new now.

Then the other potential project I came across was the Red Scarf project on Amy Singer's Knitty blog ( http://knitty.com/blog/ ). Of course, the first thing that came to mind was knitting a red cableknit scarf! But then that would take this project out of the running for the Olympic challenge because cables would have lost their amateur status. I do have a Einstein Bagels not far from my house - maybe I can grab my SnB buddy some Saturday morning and we can score free bagels and have an impromptu SnB there.

Sigh.

What do I do?

Weight Watchers Update

Make that 25.8 to go :)

Mittens and Minions

Last Saturday I knit my first pair of mittens. Despite the fact that they were supposed to be women-sized and fit Willow *now*, I'm quite happy with my accomplishment. I had always been a bit skittish over the thumbs, but now I realize there isn't much to it. The yarn is the super-bulky wool from Handpaintedyarn.com in the 'Little Lovely' colourway and the pattern free from the Knitting Pure and Simple website. The mittens took less than 5 hours to complete.

The model, while loving the mittens, was not into modeling said mittens:



And here is the mittens up against my ubiquitous beige sofa background:



Yes, one is pointier than the other and I'm not really sure the reason for that - but since Willow loves wearing them, I'm not going to complain.

My LYS, Garden of Yarn, is having their yearly everything-on-sale sale right now. I managed to get into work 45 minutes early this morning so I could hit the sale not long after they opened... only to find out that the little old knitting ladies must have camped outside the store! The shelves were nearly devoid of the deeply discounted sale stuff by the time I got there. I did manage to get 10 skeins of dark charcoal Encore Worsted to make Andrew a sweater. It has to be this yarn because he loves throwing things into the washing machine.

And as for minions? Apparently people don't care to be called that.

Only Twenty-seven point Six To Go...

I wanted to let you all know that I weighed in a WW this morning and was delighted to learn I had lost 2.4 pounds... I'm only 27.6 pounds away from my next goal. Look at me go!

Really - the underwear pic on the fridge works.

Rest, Irving.

I knew there had to be some other reason I was upset today. I went to the CBC website to catch up on my daily Canadiana and came across this:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/01/04/Layton-Obit.html

The man, the poet, from whom I derived this blog's title, died today. I'm sure he was a lecherous old man given his poetry, but I loved him anyway.

An excerpt from 'Look, The Lambs Are All Around Us'

"Your figure, love,
curves itself
into a man's memory;
or to put it the way
a junior prof
at Mount Allison might,
Helen with her thick
absconding limbs
about the waist
of Paris
did no better."

And to finish with a line from Irving Layton's 'Compositions in Late Spring'

Rest, Irving.

"Death is a name for beauty not in use."

Resolute at New Year's

I'm feeling kind of serious right now. Don't get me wrong - not depressed - but I have enough things on my plate right now that I feel the need to just cozy up on the sofa, read my fluffy book and ignore the world at large.

But, I suppose I need to come up with some resolutions first.

First, a photo:



Isn't my Mom amazing? She knit this sweater for Willow for Christmas and it is gorgeous - hooded cardigan with cables throughout. You can't even see where she seamed it all up. I feel like I muddle through my knitting compared to her.

So, my first New Year's resolution?

1. Learn to knit cables. Functionally - in a garment - not on a 3 inch swatch to prove you *can* theoretically do it.

I'm also a bit put off by my size right now. I'm a person who has weighed a lot more than I currently do - and certainly have no desire to hit that personal best (cough!) again... but there is this apathy that is so easy to slip in to. I went to Weight Watchers on Friday night, and despite the fact that I had lost 2 pounds over Christmas (something I am entirely attributing to the fact that I was sick because I was certainly not very healthy in my eating habits)... the last time I was at the weight I at now... I was about five months pregnant. I'm not impressed by that. So, I have kept on plan this week, posted a picture of myself in my bra and panties on the refrigerator as a snacking deterrent (oh, and it works!), and have exercised every day.

So, number two:

2. Lose 30 pounds.

Number three is harder to lay down, so I'm not getting into it yet.

I have goals, but I don't consider them in the same category as resolutions. Resolutions infer than you have a determining hand in the matter. My goals this year include to get promoted to the next level in my job, have Willow start reading, and to move into a home of our own.