… or even ‘hello’?

The title refers to a song called “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills and Nash.  It’s in my head because I’m transcribing it for my choir.  I’m taking someone else’s recording of it and writing out the parts for my little choir to sing… it’s fun but I’m tired right now

Well, I’ve been working away at my February Lady Sweater.  What, you didn’t know that I even started it?  Well that would be because I’m a bad blogger!  I don’t know what it is, but I just haven’t been keeping up with this, although I always have material in my head.  I am going to blame it on me writing up my thesis right now

My February Lady Sweater Story (FLSS?).  I’ve wanted to knit the FLS pretty much since I joined Ravelry.  I just never really got around to it til now.  I was inspired about a month ago when I stopped in at Urban Yarns, and saw one of the staff knitting up her own FLS in SweetGeorgia worsted yarn.  Hers was a beautiful deep greeny colour, but I ended up finding the same yarn in a beautiful burgundy hue that I couldn’t resist.  And so was born my FLS project.

I’m most of the way through the body as we speak.  I haven’t been knitting at a terrible speed (I know it’s a terrible excuse but I’ve been stressed with the PhD and all!), but it’s still been progressing pretty steadily.  I love projects that do that!  Anyway I leave you with some photos of said sweater, and a couple of extras

(last one is a beautiful hat knit by a friend!!  It looked so cute on, I must knit it soon )

Well I’ve started a new project, and am finally blogging about it!  It’s winter now, and I haven’t blogged all fall.  But here we go, a new project that I’m quite excited about.  I first saw this on Jared Flood’s blog, and figured out a pattern based on his description + photos.   See his post for more details about the design.

It’s been an entire season since I last posted – here’s what has come and passed:

It’s been a busy semester full of trying to get things accomplished at work and trying to figure out what to do after I’m done.  Lots of pondering about the future and the past, and trying to enjoy the moment as well.  I signed up for a 10k running clinic, and although I quit halfway through because I got absolutely fed up with running in the dark and freezing cold rain for the 5th week in a row, I did manage to force myself to run up to 8k without dying.  I really did push myself for those few weeks I was diligent, and now I know that a 10k race is totally doable, and might even be fun.  I’ll sign up for another clinic in the spring, starting march or april… when the rain promises to let up at least a bit.

I saw several concerts and shows over the past months, including the Vinyl Cafe live with Jill Barber and Mat Andersen.   I got a pic with Stuart McLean after the show, and I realized afterwards I should have had him sign a book for me or something.  Ah well, next time.

All in all things are going well and I’m looking forward to going home for the holidays, and to getting my thesis written and the analysis finalized (how long have I been saying that now?…  too long, I think!).   And knitting!  Looking forward to lots and lots more knitting

Well it’s been a while.  I’ve had a lot going on in the past few months, but that’s not really an excuse for not posting at ALL   Let’s see… what have I been up to?  Well I’m trying pretty hard right now to get back into knitting, after taking a long break from it.  My last post was in July, and it’s October now.  Since then, I’ve moved into a new apartment which is much better than my old one.  I’ve also gotten out in the mountains a fair bit, and made some progress on my thesis.

I’m not going to post any knitting stuff right now – that will come soon.  For now, here’s a summary of what I got up to for the rest of the summer:

First of all, I now have an apartment with a bedroom (I used to be in a studio) and a balcony!  I have some herbs and flowers, and also a little barbecue and some patio furniture.

I went up to the LZT (Large Zenith Telescope) out in Pitt Meadows, while a friend observed.  It’s pretty cool, since it’s a liquid mirror telescope, which works by spinning a ton of mercury at a specific frequency to create a parabolic mirror.  When it needs to be cleaned or restarted, that’s when the gas masks come out!  Don’t I look like Darth Vader?

I finally got up to Garibaldi Lake this summer.  I had been wanting to do that hike for years, but hadn’t gotten around to it.  It was as gorgeous as I’d hoped, and we even got to swim in the glacier-fed lake.  So pretty!

The next hike I did this summer was up to Brandywine Meadows.  The glacier melts in late summer, causing rushing streams of water to run through the plain, and in August the meadows are filled with wildflowers.

The hike up to the Lions was breathtaking.  We did the Howe Sound Crest Trail from Cypress mountain over to the lions.  The route follows ridges the whole way and there are spectacular views of the Howe Sound.  We didn’t end up climbing up the West lion, as we may have done, but instead we opted for a prolonged, restful lunch just before.  Look, I’m pushing them apart!

I hiked up to the first peak of the Stawmus Chief twice in the past month or so.  The first time was for my and Alice’s birthdays, and the second was with some of the new grad students in the astro department.  Both days had beautiful weather, although the second time was a bit windy.

And of course my lovely cousin got married in September, so I went home for that.  Aw, don’t they look happy?  It was a beautiful wedding.

Anyway I think that’s pretty much everything that I’ve been up to these days.  I’ve been trying to get some work done on my Debbie Bliss Cabled Cardigan (the blue one with cables that I started about 2 years ago!).  Also I’m going to Vegas in two days, with my aunt and uncle and sister, which should be fun.  I’ll try to get some knitting stuff updated soon!

Finally, some photos of my current lace project!  I’m making steady progress on my lace shawl, and although I’m happy with the way it’s turning out, I do have some modifications I’d like to make to the lace chart before sharing it.  I did, however, choose a name for the pattern, and that is Aphaia.  According to Wikipedia, Aphaia is a goddess of fertility and agriculture who was worshipped solely at one temple on the Greek island of Aigina.

I chose this name because I did a lot of the knitting for this pattern on my (previously-blogged-about) trip home to the prairies, where there were vast open fields of wheat and other crops. Also, the colourway is named ‘straw melange’ and the lace motif is leaf-and-vine inspired.  So it all seemed to fit.

I went home to Winnipeg for a week, and although I did get a bit of knitting done on my shawl, the highlight of the trip was a road trip to Swan River to visit a friend from Vancouver.  It was a six-hour drive each way, but luckily the weather was nice enough that I didn’t have to worry about rain or strong winds.

I’ve been working away on my shawl, and I’ll show a photo of my progress in the next post, I promise!  For now here’s some pics from the road trip!

Barn on the side of the road:

Margaret Laurence’s former home in Neepawa, Manitoba.  I stopped in Neepawa on the way back to Winnipeg as well, and had planned on going to see the stone angel from her famous novel, but I ended up locking myself out of my car when I’d stopped at Safeway to pick up some fruit.  So that caused a bit of a setback and after that I just wanted to get back on the road!

The large swan in Swan River

Tawsh took me to the Swan River Historical Museum, where there were lots of old buildings and farm equipment set up:

Throughout the museum, we saw at least 5 spinning wheels!

These are thrashers.

A view from Tawsh’s backyard.  They had a lovely view of the river from their dining room.

Driving back home: a field of canola.

I stopped for a photo of the Happy Rock, who welcomes you into Gladstone, Manitoba.

Lots of birds around – this, I believe, is a female red-winged blackbird (unless it’s not) – the males got really upset when i got out of my car to take photos… I must have been near a nest!

OK, so knitting photos tomorrow, I promise!

I know this isn’t a knitting project, but I thought I would share with you the jersey wrap top I made last night.  I’ve been meaning to do it for a while now, basically since I picked up the material from Dressew.  But I finally actually did something with it, yay!

I just made this up – I used a zippered lycra cardigan I own as a template, and basically did trial and error.  Thanks to Nicole who took these photos outside the physics building this afternoon.

I’ve been doing my homework for my spinning class, and I figured I should share the results.  So far I’m obviously not a great spinner but I am improving.  So that’s good   Picture-wise, I’ve started with this week’s homework: plying.  I started with a 3-ply yarn (with three seperate colours so that I could more easily monitor my plying).

I used the remaining red and purple singles to create a plied 2-ply.  I think I did at least one step too tightly.  But we’ll see.

These next skeins are from my first week (which we plied at last week’s class).  This undyed one is obviously uneven, and the greeny-blue one is also quite uneven.  The purple one is getting better, and more controlled.  So I was happy to see progress.  I’m looking forward to this week’s class!

So I’ve been making some headway on my shawl design – i haven’t ripped it out in a while, so that’s a good sign.  I like this particular shade of lace yarn for a summer shawl – doesn’t it go nicely with the grass and baby flowers?  Anyway I’m converging on a lace pattern that will work out.

Also, re: my last post including a fuzzy, underexposed photo of a robin in a tree… I happened upon a couple of them today in bright sunlight!  So I got a couple of nice shots.  (Note: they could have been nicer, had I brought along my ‘regular’ zoom lens.. but that one is slightly broken (not in a serious way) so I just had my little 50mm with me).  Note that one of them has a worm in its beak!

Well it’s back to the drawing board for me.  I wanted to tweak my current lace design project, and I ended up deciding that I’d better start knitting from the beginning again.  So I made up a new lace chart over a couple of hours last night, and tore out all my hard work knitting, and this is where I’m at right now:

I’ve since cast on again, and will see how this one goes.  Onward!

I’ve also been practicing spinning with the wheel I took home from Sweetgeorgia.  I spun all my homework fleece, and continued on with some stuff I’d purchased a couple of months ago (in the hopes of using it wiht my drop spindle).  It’s going nicely, although I’ve definitely got some consistency and over-spinning issues.  Meh, guess that’s what practice is for.  I’ll just knit up a chunky hat or something with my first skein of handspun, I’m sure it will end up looking alright.

I’ve got my second spinning class tonight, and I’m looking forward to it

And here’s a shot of a robin in a tree from the other day.  He ended up evading me, and I didn’t end up with any really great shots, but this is one of the more-or-less-in-focus, well-exposed ones:

Well yesterday was quite the day!  In the afternoon I went to the yarn sale at Urban Yarns and picked up some Rowan 4-ply merino for an argyle vest.  I also got a couple of skeins in red and beige to make baby booties for a friend who’s expecting.  I’m excited to put ladybug buttons on them!  I had gone to the sale with a friend, and she bought some yarn to make Sheldon the turtle

I also had my first spinning class at sweetgeorgia studio last night.  Fun!  I get to bring home the spinning wheel to practice this week.  I don’t have it yet since I went to a Danny Michel concert right afterwards (photo below!) and didn’t want to take it to a seedy club – that could only end badly.  But I’ve decided spinning using a wheel is way better than using a drop spindle.  Hm.  Maybe I want a spinning wheel for my graduation present from my parents?  We’ll see.

Flowers outside my apartment door:

Danny Michel:

I’ve been working on designing a lace scarf.  I don’t know how well this one in particular will work out, but I have definitely been learning a fair bit about how lace design works, and I hope to make a few designs over the next few months.  This is what I’ve got so far, but I haven’t even finished one repeat yet so I still don’t know what it’s going to look like.  I’m excited to see how it turns out.

And one last thing – Here’s what I woke up to outside my bedroom window today.  I’ve actually got TWO fully blossoming rose bushes right outside my windows.  Amazing.