And We're Off (Adriana)

Today is our last day at home for the next month. Naturally, since there is so much to do, I got together with my wedding buddy Kristy and we checked out dresses (one of them has serious potential but I can't find a picture online). We also investigated floral options. I've been struggling to put together a budget so it's good to find out some estimates.

Lately I've been running around like chicken with it's head cut off (which is ok because even headless chickens have their good days) but I've still managed to get in some knitting (of course).

Look! I finished the Endpaper Mitts!

A double layer of wool is perfect for the summertime :)

I'm very proud of these, actually. I haven't done much FI in the past so it's pretty exciting that they actually look like they are supposed to.

The obligatory inside-out shot

Way back in February I bought a cell phone. Naturally I decided to make a cozy for it (loosely based on this pattern). I finished and felted it in one day but I kept forgetting to put on a button until this weekend.

Cute, eh? I used Frog Tree Merino which I had overdyed blue

Lately Pete's been on a kick to keep us from being poisoned by plastic water bottles (weird, huh?) so we recently invested in these pretties. They are great because they don't slowly kill you but they aren't so good at keeping the water cold. Water bottle cozy to the rescue!

This is a pattern I designed myself and knit in a couple of hours. It's in the project details on Rav if you're interested in making one for yourself.

I guess I should get back to packing. I hoping to be able to check email from the road but I won't be able to blog until the second leg of the tour which we are spending at my parents'. I hope everyone has a great rest of June. See you in July!

Yarn on Tour (Adriana)

As I've mentioned before, on June 18th we're leaving to take Pete's show on tour. The first stop is Ottawa, with a brief trip to Montreal. I plan on checking out the yarns stores there but I need to bring some stash with me.

Here are the yarns I'm considering taking:

1) Yarn I dyed 2 years ago. Pools with my usual 64 stitches so would need a pattern with less or more stitches.
2) The Knittery Cashmere sock yarn from Phoe
3) Sunshine Yarns Gryffindor Stripes (stockinette)
4) Handmaiden Casbah with 5) Cherry Tree Hill for heels and toes (this will be stockinette socks for my Granny)
6) Random Regia that I bought a million years ago. I knit half a sock and then ripped it out in a fit of insanity (stockinette or 3x1 ribbing)
7) Yarn dyed by Heather. Pools with stitch count between 60 and 64.
8) Jaywalkers I started a million years ago. I really should finish them since they are so close to being done.

Here's where you come in: yarns 1, 2, and 7 need patterns. The patterns can't be overly complicated since I might only have short bursts of knitting time. I'd prefer them to be memorizable. Thanks!

WIP Thursday (Adriana)

Clearly I've made some progress on the first Endpaper Mitt. I'm always surprised at how fast Fair Isle knits up. This is helping me get over my fear of colourwork and the Jane and I are in negotiations for her to design a mitten for me to knit(yay!!).

I meant to blog this yesterday but then life exploded, except it was in the best way possible. You see, it was my birthday and I had the most terrific day. I worked in the morning and then went to try on wedding dresses with my official Keeper-of-the-Bride's-Sanity (if you think that's a weird title I also have a Bagel-of-Honour. This is such a wacky wedding). After trying on dresses (no winners but I did narrow down the bridesmaid dress colour) I went for a nice long swim at the gym. It was truly delicious (I love swimming!). The perfect day was capped off by a visit from my parents who took Pete, my brother and I out to dinner. I ate so many shrimp! It really want one of the best birthday's I've ever had.

The next time I post I'm going to ask your opinions on what yarn I should take on tour with me. I will definitely be hitting up some yarn stores but I need to bring a supply with me to last until the shopping can begin. I'm thinking socks are the way to go. But what yarn and what patterns? That's where you all will come in :)

Robin's Egg Blue (Adriana)

Well this is my seventh day of blogging everyday and it was both easier and harder than I'd expected. I really thought that I'd be stuck for what to talk about but it was pretty easy to come up with subjects. The hardest part was how time consuming blogging is. I don't think I'll continue this whole blogging everyday thing but I will try to do it more often, at least until we leave on tour. The good things is that for the Toronto leg we'll be staying at my parents' so I'll have easy internet access there and will be able to report back about our adventures (Ottawa has lots of yarn stores!).

Last night I cast off the Ribbed Lace Bolero (no pictures yet). When one project is finished clearly a new one needs to be cast on. But what to knit? Ravelry to the rescue again!

A little while ago Phoe ODed on Palette and sent the remainder my way (many thanks, dear friend). I'd been at a lose for what to do with it until I looked on Ravelry. The number one suggestion under pattern ideas was Eunny's famous Endpaper Mitts. I have enjoyed colourwork in the past but I tend to be a little frightened of it so I decided to go for it.


I had trouble choosing two colours since Phoe had sent me so many beautiful balls of yarn and she had used parts of some of them so yardage was a concern. I decided to do things my way and dye white yarn a light blue to go with the brown. You can see the results at the front of the picture (Pete calls the colour Robin's Egg Blue).

I cast on with the blue as the CC and the brown as the MC. I ended up casting on 3 times for this project (first I had the wrong needles and then the wrong number of stitches - always read the instructions!!). After all that I wasn't able to get very far into the colourwork to show off but I decided to take a picture of it anyways.

I think it's going to be beautiful.

That's all for now. Thanks for keeping up with me this week. I'll be back in a few days.

Summer Plans (Adriana)

Thank you everyone for your kind words. It definitely helped. I've got the ball rolling to fix things but it will take a little while to get everything sorted out. I'm being cryptic because I don't know who is reading my blog. For my regular commenters, if you want to know what's going on just drop me a line.

I think I've already alluded to my very busy summer. I figured that now was as good a time as any to talk about it (this whole blogging every day thing is hard and time consuming, though the frequent comments is a delight). This summer Pete, my fiancé, and I (as his stage manager) are taking his one-man show on tour, hitting up both the Ottawa and Toronto Fringes. This show, Walking the Labyrinth, premiered at the London (Ontario) Fringe Festival last summer.
Here are some of the publicity pictures for the show:





It's a retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur with a twist, making heavy use of electro-acoustic sounds and music. It's pretty cool if I do say so myself. And if you don't believe, check out the video!



We'll be on the road for a month, fortunately staying with my cousin while we're in Ottawa and my parents while in Toronto. Once we're back in London we will be gearing up to premiere another show in the London Fringe, Death!. It's a three-person musical about a man who has just died and needs to come to terms with what has happened and figure out what comes next. We also see those who are left behind, his wife and his best friend, as they sort out how to go on. I think it's going to be quite brilliant. Pete's playing the dead guy and we have high hopes for the actors playing the wife and friend. Though rehearsals haven't started yet, we met with the actors recently to take some pictures for publicity purposes.
I'll set the scene for you: this is at the funeral of the main character which is attended by his wife and best friend while the dead man watches them from a distance.





Happy Friday! I'm off to watch Sex and the City season 6 in preparation for seeing the movie on Sunday!

An Uninspiring Day (Adriana)

Today was not a good day. Work was very frustrating. I need to get some things sorted out before I can feel better. Here's hoping that they get sorted out tomorrow or I'm going to have a miserable weekend. I am uninspired to blog about anything exciting today so you're going to have to make do with a couple of pictures of yarn porn.


Alchemy Haiku from a swap with Lainevierge (she took some fleece off my hands)


Sunshine Yarn's Gryffindor sock yarn! (bought on Ravelry. I love the destash group) I'm not a big Harry Potter fan but I just couldn't resist this yarn.

That's all for today, folks. Happy almost Friday to everyone.

WIP Wednesday (Adriana)

This is my first WIP Wednesday and I think I might be a little too excited about it.

I haven't made any progress on the knee socks since I showed them to you last. I haven't knit on Flannery recently either, but I do think you're owed an updated picture.


Look at that cool cable! I really should pick this project up again. It's a seriously fun knit.

A few days ago I alluded to having cast on something new to break my knee socks monogamy. I randomly decided that I needed a new shrug, and that I should use the Mission Falls yarn from my frogged Tempting. I wandered over to the shrugs section of the pattern page on Ravelry and #4 (the Ribbed Lace Bolero) on the list was perfect for my needs (something quick and easy to memorize). I've been too busy to give this shrug much attention but it's still moving along quite quickly (I knit on it today at working during my occupational H&S training :P).
It doesn't look like much just yet but here it is:


Thanks for all the comments on my colour post yesterday. After putting together all those collages I started to second guess some of my choices. I still love red for a fall wedding but if circumstances dictate a spring wedding then I'm starting to lean towards light purple with blue accents. This way I could put the attendants in purple but the blue would keep it from seeming like we're advertising our Alma Mater. Who knows what tomorrow will bring but that's the plan for tonight :)

Colourful Thoughts (Adriana)

My friends, I am exhausted! Today at the museum I assisted with a children's party, ate way too much cake, worked as security for a press conference with the attorney general, and got hit on by a very creepy guy. My feet are so sore and I'm daydreaming about pretty but expensive shoes that make my feet feel great after a long day.

I had a feeling that I would be tired tonight so I prepared some pictures to show you. As most of you know, I'm engaged!! It is terribly exciting and I am so happy. We haven't set a date yet because I've been busy with school and my placement, and Pete is freaking out over his multiple Fringe shows this summer. We haven't even settled on a time of year yet, though it will be either spring or fall (I dislike hot, muggy weather and our fathers have forbidden a winter wedding). I can't plan anything yet but I can daydream and I've been thinking a lot lately about colour schemes. If we get married in the fall it's easy; I want to work with the colours in fall leaves.
Here is a collection of random pictures that caught my eye:

The top picture is my inspiration for the colour scheme. Also, I have my heart set on a bouquet of red roses.

If we decide to get married in the spring my thoughts aren't as clear. I love the beautiful green of new buds on trees, but green doesn't always look good on people.


I also like yellow, which also doesn't always look good on people.


I have also thought about navy blue with yellow as an accent but I couldn't find any pictures as examples.

So, some help please. I'm totally waffling on this whole spring colour thing. I know that blue would be an obvious choice but too many of my friends used blue as their colour scheme (which was lovely but I want to do something different). Pete is morally opposed to brown in weddings so that's off the table. He's not a big fan of pink, and our Alma Mater's colours are purple and white so purple probably wouldn't work, except that maybe light purple and blue might look nice.
Thoughts please! Advice from people who have chosen their wedding colours would also be greatly appreciated.

Clothes May Make the Man... (Adriana)

But all a sweater needs is buttons!

Do you remember way back in February when I made Trellis for my friend to give to her friend who was having a baby? Well the baby was born in March but the sweater wasn't officially finished until recently. It needed buttons, and not any ordinary buttons would do. They had to be uber cool buttons (says me).

Want to see some magic?

Watch a nice but somewhat boring baby sweater


Become the cutest sweater on earth!

I am so in love with those little bumblebees I even put one on top of the hat.
I didn't want to stop there. I wanted to bedeck this little sweater with millions of bumblebee buttons! Instead I settled for taking some cool pictures of them.


Close up on the buttons lovingly framed by the hourglass cables


Super duper close up on the buttons

Well that's all for today. See you tomorrow! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Various Bits of News (Adriana)

I have various bits of news to share today. For one, I am done school! (Well, sort of.) I'm done the classroom portion and I am one week into my second placement. This one is at the local museum and is very promising. I will be learning a lot about marketing, PR, event planning, and fund raising. I'm very excited about it.

Another piece of news: I am officially dropping out of Mission Possible 2008. I was totally into it until I got sick. A month later, I am just not feeling the love for these projects, and really, what's the point of knitting if you're not having fun.

I have been inspired by Phoe who blogged every day for the month of May. There is no way I could manage a full month of daily blogging (not to mention the logistics are impossible since I'll be out of town for half of June) but I would like to try to blog every day for a week. Today is day 1.

I didn't finish my final essay for school until near the end of last week so I haven't had much time for knitting lately, but I have been strangely monogamous to one project for what little knitting time I've had:

This is Regia Kaffe Fassett sock yarn that my brother gave me for Christmas. I thought it would make perfect knee socks so I got an extra ball. I'm trying to figure out the math to keep them matching perfectly while maximizing yardage.

I couldn't stay monogamous for too long and I started a new project last night, but I'll hold off on showing it for another day (I don't know what I'm going to have to talk about for 7 straight days).

One last bit of news, for those of you on Ravelry I have changed my username. I was never really happy with aphrodidee. I picked it in a hurry in my excitement to get on Ravelry. I've been trying to come up with a new name for the past couple of months but nothing felt right. Last night Pete and I were watching the movie Clue and inspiration struck me. I love that movie. I used to watch it over and over again with my friend Calli. I can still recite parts of it along with the characters (which Pete tolerates). Anyways, to make a long story short ("too late!") my new username on Ravelry is MissScarlet.

I think that's it for now. See you tomorrow!