Job Interview and plans for another day around downtown:

I got a job interview! 

It's a place I applied for ages ago, and they got back to me and asked if I could come in tomorrow.  The position's part-time, so it won't interfere with my current job.

I'm excited, nervous, and going to try and go to bed right after I finish typing this.

Thing is, I'm meeting someone downtown later, so there's no point in me going home. It makes more sense to hang around and do some of those errands I didn't get to earlier, but even then, I'll have time to kill.

However, I realized I'm going to be close to Lettuce Knit.

I've never been there, and it's convenient that I can go there and sit and knit to kill some time.  There are a good number of little restaurants nearby it that I can get lunch/dinner (hopefully with better luck then last time!), including the place that I originally wanted to go to.

With a bit of luck, I might even be able to clear a project off the needles.  That would be nice.

On another note, I put in another order at EatSleepKnit -- with the Sweet Georgia Superwash Worsted back in stock, I just ordered the last of the remaining yarn for my christmas gifts.

Finally, after all that, the choir at my church is starting back up for the fall, so the first practice is tomorrow evening.  It'll be nice to be singing in the choir again. :)

A Bad Day with A Good Ending

Long Post Warning:  

So I'm writing this under the influence of a rather unhappy stomach.  It's better then it was last night, but, well, let me tell the tale from the beginning.


I had work this morning, then a whole bunch of errands to downtown in afternoon.  Already, I knew this was going to be a long day.

Lets just say I fell on my behind and ended up in a lot of pain, didn't do half the errands I was planning, the place I wanted to go for lunch/dinner was closed (this involved quite a walk), and the place I did go for food. . . well, it disagreed with me.  Violently.

So by the time I got to Knit Night at the Purple Purl, I was nausious, thirsty, and hurty.   Not the best mindset to be knitting in, but actually, it mostly worked out.  Oh, I didn't feel great, but once I had the chance to sit down, sip a mug of tea, and actually re-compose myself, I felt a lot more human.

Thank you!

Ok, so I was actually going to the Purple Purl in search of yarn.  I've been looking for the right yarn for a friend's Christmas gift.  It has to be grey superwash, fingering-weight, wool.

My first choice was the Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label in Charcoal, which is a colourway that Eat.Sleep.Knit doesn't stock.  Of course, unfortunately, the Purple Purl didn't have it either.

However, they did find me yarn that will suit perfectly.

I now have two skeins of Spud and Chloe Fine that will become a Caffinate! Coffee Press cover. 

The pattern calls for worsted weight, but my giftee has a mini-coffee press, and the idea of a mini-dalek made her giggle with delight over the phone, so I'm planning to just scale down the pattern in stitches per inch, work it with fingering-weight yarn, and call it done. I got dimensions out of her, so I should be good to go.

(Also, happily, I discovered in uploading this this morning, that Ravelry will keep stash entries separate if they have separate dye lots.  Well done!)

After getting my yarn, I then settled into work on my knitting at the knit night. I got the index finger done on the Birthday Gloves, (no new pic yet, I haven't had the energy), and started the thumb.

Holy crap, an afterthought thumb in fair-isle is hard!  A lot of the others there were saying that it wouldn't be easy, and they were right.   The bottom nine stitches came together just fine.  The top stitches. . . well, after a lot of cursing everything's on the needles, but it looks a little deformed.

I don't want to do this again in fair-isle.  I'd be a lot happier casting off and picking up.  I might, however, try it again on the left glove and see, however, if part of my frustration and inability was just simply the day I'd had.

So, after that long day, my stomach still lurching somewhat on the streetcar ride home, yes, I have new yarn, but I'm still not feeling that great. . . 

I come home to two boxes sitting in my living room.  One is small, the other big.  My roommate tells me that the post came for me.  No customs fees, no problem, the boxes just simply got dropped off.

So, another order came in from Eat.Sleep.Knit, for starters, and, as well, my Yarn Swift arrived!

I put it to work as a trial immediately, and I -love- this thing!  I'm actually really impressed by the Hornshaw Wood Works.  Their stuff is awesome, shipping was quick, and it was really well packed.

I needed 1 contrast skein for my plans with the Sweet Georgia Merino Silk Aran, and "Hush" seemed like a good contrast colourway.

I also got two skiens of Sweet Georgia Superwash Worsted.  This is me planning ahead -- this is for my Father's Birthday next year (no knitting 3 hours before the deadline again, I hope!)  I usually wouldn't have bothered, except the Superwash Worsted is a Power Boost Yarn, so I might as well buy it now while I get a bonus for it.

So coming home to yarn and a swift really helped perk up my day.

I crawled into bed somewhat soon after that. 

I'm feeling somewhat better now, though breakfast is still a question mark.  But I'll distract myself with knitting, for the moment.

Lucky Lotto!

Wow.

So my final order (for now) from Eat.Sleep.Knit came today.

I got 6 skeins of Sweet Georgia Merino Silk Aran in the Saltwater colourway.  It's another yarn currently on power boost.

It's a little brighter then I thought it would be, but it's still a gorgeous colour.

However, tucked away at the bottom of the box was a Yarn Lotto ticket that ended up being worth 100 dollars of store credit!

This is awesome.  I'm going to send this out tomorrow.  It takes a while to get to them (international mail and all that), so I want to get this out as soon as I can.

Well, there's absolutely nothing wrong with cheap/free yarn. :D

Briggs and Little and Cats!

So, remember that Briggs and Little order I mentioned?

Well, it came today in a big brown bag of yarn.

So I pulled the yarn out to sort it, get photographs for my Ravelry stash, and get it put away.

But first, this happened.

 Kitty number one decided that the brown bag of yarn made a great hidey-hole!

But, that's not all.

Once I had the yarn out, kitty number two went a little nuts. . . apparently she -loves- Briggs and Little!  She didn't do anything other then nuzzle it, so I wasn't too worried.  She had both me and my roommate laughing! 

As you can probably see, she eventually nuzzled all the yarn away from her!

So yeah.  Briggs and Little is apparently definitely kitty-approved.

Briggs and Little, and plans for an experiment:

So, I gave in.

A few posts ago, I commented that I would have to make an order to the Briggs and Little Mill?
I did that today.

It's actually quite a sizable order, given that, like a lot of my recent yarn buying, I was waiting until I had money.

I was going to delay on this further, but my roommate requested a new pair of slippers in Atlantic, (her slippers are holding on with sewing and duct tape!)  and I've been meaning to make myself a new summer cap for a while, since I left the old one behind at a friends house a few weeks ago.  So, I decided that now was the time to do that order.  I also decided to do a bigger order because a) I do have money right now, and b) it saves on shipping.

They were really sweet over the phone, and told me that it will go out in the post tomorrow.   Unlike my previous annoyance with Canada Post (see the bottom of this post), the final price includes taxes and shipping, and shouldn't include any surprises, given that it's shipping in Canada to Canada.

I got a bunch of stuff in a variety of weights, including some Super for a knitting experiment:  Can I knit a winter coat that will stand up to a Toronto Winter?

See, I found a pattern for a Winter Parka (yes, I kid you not!) in an old Patons Leaflet that I inherited. I really like the look, but I don't think it's going to be warm enough on its own.  So, I'm upping the yarn weight from Bulky to Super-Bulky (at the same gauge, so it should be a good, tight, fabric), and I'm going to double-knit a lining into it (I'm currently thinking Blue Sky Alpaca's Techno for the lining).  Then I can also add in something else for warmth if needed (I'm thinking something along the lines of Briggs and Little's Carded Fleece, but that's still being explored).

After this, I really won't need any more yarn (Except the Sweet Georgia Superwash Worsted I've got wait-listed at EatSleepKnit, but that's for Christmas Gifts.)

More yarn!

I just got my second order from Eat.Sleep.Knit.  I ordered 3 more skeins of Lady Godiva, to take advantage of the power boost (you get extra credit for yardage on certain yarns there when you order.)

  

So, this is Lady Godiva in 'Ocean.'

I also got the Welcome Package from Eat.Sleep.Knit.

Inside was a pattern for a mini-sweater (it'll make a good key-chain or Christmas ornament), as well as two mini-skiens.

The first is Malabrigo Arroyo:

and the second is Shibui Knits Linen:

Both are yarns I wouldn't have necessarily gotten on my own.  I do like the malabrigo in particular, but I'm not quite sure what to do with them. I'm suspecting they might end up in the Sock Yarn Blanket I'm working on. (It's not just sock yarn, but the point still stands).

I also won 5 dollars of store credit on their Yarn Lotto!  I'm having really good luck with that!

Only point of annoyance is with Canada Post.  Though the yarn doesn't have duty, thanks to NAFTA, I do have to pay the taxes on it.  That I don't mind.  I don't necessarily like taxes, but I recognize their use and necessity.

Canada post charges a handling fee of 10 dollars, to process about 10 dollars in taxes.   That is not so awesome.  There's no way to not pay this handling fee that's the same cost as the taxes.   That's the part that annoys me.

However, my annoyance didn't last long when I turned to take the box out to the recycling and was faced with this:

Like most cats, my kitty likes boxes.  She's actually gone to sleep in the box at the time of my typing.  I have to eventually disturb her to take the box out, but it can wait for the moment.    I have new yarn to put away first.

Knitting Marathon and a Yarn Order

Hello again all!

So, life's gotten somewhat busier.

1) My role-playing group just started up a new game (we're running a game in the Star Trek setting, after the Dominion War.).  It's the Last Unicorn Games version, which, while a little clunky, is still fun.

2) The new job isn't too crazy, but it is requiring an adjustment given that I haven't been working for a bit.  I'm still having to get in the mindset of 'going to the office.'

3) Given the new job, however, I splurged and got a few more skeins of Lady Godiva from EatSleepKnit.  It's one of their "Power Boost" yarns right now (they change them up once every quarter), where you get additional 'yards' for their loyalty program.  This yarn's going to be a Maddy tank. (Ravelry Pattern link here.)

4) And with all this (or maybe in spite of it), I'm really on a knitting marathon. I -need- to finish the Birthday Socks. I've got two weeks to knit the foot of one sock and all of the second sock.   I can knit during the role-playing session, like always, but I'm actually quite concerned about if I can get these done. So today, I started up season 2 of Babylon 5, (sorry, U.S. link only, also see here) and I'm just going to knit like crazy.

Also, as a useful resource, I found this. It's a shoe size and foot length in inches conversion chart that gives a really good idea of how long you need to make a sock based on shoe size. I needed it for the Birthday Socks.

Ok, that's it for now, now to get back to the knitting.

Fun news!

I figure I should also include the happy news in my early posts, too . . .

I put in a yarn order at Eat.Sleep.Knit, which arrived on the Friday. (I love these folks for stuff my LYS doesn't stock, and shipping has been nice and fast so far!)

Anyway, one of the things that they do is include a scratch-and-win card in every order.  So, I won a skein of Malabrigo!  They even are nice enough to let you pick the base and colour, so I'm going to get a skein of Malabrigo Sock -- I wanted something where 1 skein was enough for a project. 

Even better -- I've yet to use Malabrigo.  I've got 2 skeins of Silkpaca that I got at the Toronto Knitters Frolic stashed away, but I haven't had a chance to try any of their other yarn, so this is perfect!

I've got to mail back the filled-out card, which I'll do on Monday when the post office opens.  So it's going to be a while before I get my yarn, but that's ok -- I don't mind in the slightest.  I can be patient when it comes to free yarn. :)