August in BC, Canada

I'm not very good at keeping up this blog. And of course I don't write down patterns, or give any knitting hints, which I probably could do to help out others. Maybe at this time in my life, I just need a place to write down my thoughts about knitting and whatever is going on around me.

I recently finished the Cindy pattern from Berroco which was a KAL for the group on Ravelry for people who's names were related to Cindy.

I attended the PicKnit on Saturday, August 9th at the Surrey Museum in Cloverdale. I wandered around, met up with old knitting buddies that I haven't seen for awhile and even met some new knitting buddies that I only knew from Ravelry. It was a wet, damp and rainy day, but then it does things like that in August in BC.

I'm working on the Luna Moth shawl which is a free pattern from elann.com and I'm making it out of some Tussah Sea from Handmaiden that I purchased at Urban Yarns in Vancouver. It is slow going but lately I've found myself actually being able to follow the chart and know how many repeats I need to do before I get to the centre stitch. I have lifelines in place at specific spots so if I do end up with the wrong number of stitches and can't figure out where I made my mistake, I can rip back to the lifeline and continue on. I swear by lifelines for any lace knitting and I also used them for my Branching Out scarf that I just finished blocking.

I think I've convinced my husband that a sweater out of the light weight, #3 or dk and alpaca will stretch out of shape on him. I was trying to create a sweater, sorta follow a pattern and make it to fit him via my sweater wizard. It was just becoming too much work for me and trying to concentrate with a puppy around isn't easy. So now I'm going to make another swatch and he did pick out a sweater from a library book that I'd picked up of men's sweaters. I'd rather use this beautiful grey alpaca for a beautiful shawl, but then working with it is hard enough for me. I don't like to work with black because my eyes just can't focus on it and it strains my eyes. While this yarn is grey and cost a lot of money, I do think that if I can get the gauge for this pattern, I'll just stick with that. He may get it for Christmas but then again, he may not.

With my eldest son, daughter-in-law and my grandson, who will be almost 23 months old in September when they arrive from Japan, I think I'll be back to making Heagen sweaters. I have yarn to make him several sweaters, but the last item that I made for him was too tight so it will be easier to have him present so I can measure him myself.

My daughter has moved back home to save money as she continues studies at UBC and she has been a big help around the house. She works and is taking one class this summer, but she cooks many of our dinners and that is a major help to me.

What is going to be strange is having all three of my adult children plus my daughter-in-law and grandson and Millie, our 4 month old puppy all under the same roof. At least until my eldest son can find a job here that he wants. Hopefully it won't take him long to find something in management either school related or just a position that uses all of his abilities and experience. He has taken a Canadian Labour Law course by distance in Japan so that should help in some ways. He is also talking about getting a MBA. He doesn't want to have to live with us for long, but they have a lot of paper work to finish and deal with, plus job interviews.

I still go to 88 Stitches in Langley each Friday to sit and chat and knit. My husband comes home for lunch on that day so Millie isn't left in her crate for more than an hour or two. She is getting two walks per day now and she loves to meet people and other dogs. She is walking very well on her leash since I started watching the show, End-of-my-leash and incorporating some of his hints into her training.

I plan to take one knitting class in the Fall at 88 Stitches and since it is in the daytime, that helps me as I don't do well with a class in the evenings although I did it last Spring to learn about lace knitting.

My mindless knitting was the eye-of-the-partridge shawl and even with that, I had many lifelines. My trip to California was great but it was far too hot for me and I messed up one stitch and tried to fix it and ended up having to rip back one stitch at a time to fix my error. I didn't have a lifeline in place so after that I made sure I had several.

No problems with needles on Air Alaska and my friend and I both knitted on the plane and we hit as many yarn shops as we could in the Redlands, Lake Arrowhead, and Riverside areas. I did buy too much yarn as usual but I only bought yarn that I can't get in Canada easily and I was focusing on sock yarn or fingering weight yarns for shawls.

When I get over my desire to do lace knitting, I will have a lot of yarn for socks or whatever else hits me to make. I'm really sick of making scarves, but they do make nice Christmas gifts. The problem is that I've given my family fingerless gloves and scarves and hats for several years now and I guess I'm going to have to return to making felted clogs and sweaters.

I did cast on the vest for my daughter. It is the Ski Lodge Sloop vest from the 12 Months of Knitting and one that she liked. I'm using green malabrigo and changing the yarn every two rows as it is kettle dyed.

This constant shift in weather isn't doing much for my fibromyalgia nor my energy levels, but hopefully it will settle down in September. I love the Fall here in BC and I'm enjoying walking Millie and she had her first car ride without being in the crate because she was too big to fit into it. She was a tad nervous but she managed just fine as I had two quick errands to run, it wasn't too hot outside and I had the windows down and the air conditioning on when I was driving. She was shy about entering a new pet store but once she was in it and saw toys and a fake dog, she went up to the dog and wanted to play. It was quite amusing to see her all submissive to a statue. She just keeps getting better and better and I don't have to get up every single night to take her outside. That is a blessing and she is still sleeping at the end of our bed and not bothering me. My husband is the one who wanted her there and yet she does tend to sleep on his legs. I'm sure he'll change his mind when she is bigger. She sleeps in with me and is a horrible alarm clock.

With Millie at almost 6 months and Heagen at almost 23 months in September, it ought to be interesting to see them together. He is used to his Japanese grandparents' dog so I'm sure he won't be scared of Millie, and we're working with her to keep her from jumping up on people. Something that doesn't go over well with my 90 year old mother-in-law or at least it doesn't sit well with me. Mum just tolerates it.

Back to knitting and watching the Olympics.