Its COMING!!!!

Oh my stars and garters.. I broke down and made the call. The Saeco Gran Crema is on its way. I just spoke to the loveliest of men (hey.. whoever fills my coffee needs is a lovely whatever ok?) at :

www.espressotec.com

and he assured me that DHL will be picking it up in 30 or so minutes than it will be whizzing off to me. Thank all the deities. The coffee I have been subsisting on is wicked strong. ;)

Why did this take so long for me to decide you ask? Well I had a rotten case of food poisoning this weekend (5 pounds gone in 12 hours bad ok??) and coffee was nearly the last thing on my mind. I was so queasy that I couldn't even KNIT. I KNOW. Madness you say.. and I agree.

The sweater is coming along still. Not nearly as fast as the last one, but I am blaming that on the poison too. It was a knit free weekend. Weird.

The weather is turning nasty here, I am watching the gusts blow down the street sideways. Yucky ducky.

Stay warm Possums!!

I've got a case of the Fridays

Which is far better than the Mondays right? Maybe I just need more pieces of flair? Mm. In any case...

The Good!

I made another etailer order this past week. From an awesome little site called Skindecent!

http://www.skindecent.com/index.php

Now you all know I am a product ho enthusiast right? well this little lady blew me out of the water with her outstanding customer service and more importantly.. her PRODUCTS! Wowsa! I ordered a 3 pack of her Foaming Bath Butter and having just got out of the shower and using her Fresh Baked Ginger Snaps scent I am in LOVE. I also got them in Sultry as Sin and Brown Sugar. The liquid Shea came to me in Brown Sugar as well and French Apple Pastry (which made my mouth fill with drool when I smelled it) and is resting comfortably on my skin right now! I also tried her Eau De Parfum in Brown Sugar (are you seeing the theme yet?) and Sultry as Sin. I'm wearing the Brown Sugar layered with the French Apple pastry and I am making myself hungry. Fantastic site, can't recommend her enough! She even emailed me to tell me I forgot to include what scents I want for my FREEBIES! Marliss.. you rock my world you do. I love supporting small business and what a bonus if its Canadian! LONG LIVE SKINDECENT!

Last night was a UFC Fight Night (I LOVE YOU SPIKE TV), A new Ep of Inside the UFC and 90 minutes of The Office. Does TV get any better? Well maybe tonight I will catch up on my Supernatural (no laughing) and then it will be perfect. I get so excited watching the UFC, Chris just laughs. He is a lucky man isn't he?

THE BAD

My boyfriend died. No really. My beloved espresso machine starting shooting water out of what I assume is a broken seal and gave it up after EXACTLY one month of use. Rotten bastard. Back he goes and I am now in the market for a new love. A Saeco maybe.. like this one..

I hate being let down. Meh to you stupid espresso machine. London Drugs better be co-operative about this.. I'd hate to have to smack a bitch. Or would I? Any recommendations are appreciated. After I cry myself to sleep, I'll start looking for a new love.

THE UGLY!!

Nope no ugly here! I am cracking along on Chris' sweater and should maybe have some progress pix for ya'll soon. Damn he is TALL so it goes a little slower I say.

I am working tomorrow so if anyone is yarn hoing about I'll be there minding the shop and having a yarntastic day. Good weekend all...

xoxoxo!

FRIDAY!!!!

Not that Friday really means much to someone who doesn't work the Monday to Friday grind, but it seems there is so much fun in the weekends... Like this weekend for example. We have a superexcellentfun birthday Fete to hit which will involve much drinking and dancing. Tomorrow is the FIRST Make 1 Yarns pub night! Now that Calgary has totally made the leap into the next century and banned all public smoking in bars, it is safe to take yer knitting and booze it up. I sound a right lush eh? Well those days are over, I am an official lightweight nowadays. I mean I have exception to the rule times, but mostly, its a few drinks and I'm schonckered. God I love beer.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

-Max is on a carpet. A dirty really needs to be cleaned carpet, but yes, a carpet.

-The foaming wand (that sounds DIRTY) on my boyfriend espresso machine works like a hot diggity damn. Hence my obsession with lattes right now. I had a cinnamon one this am. Mmmmm........

-Max does indeed have superpowers. The power to super grovel, the power to melt all hearts with a square km, and the power to kill with teh cute. Oh and the power to annoy me mightily when I want to sleep. His weaknesses are limited to terrier kryptonite (cookies and all people food, which have all the power in the world over him) and bigger scarier dogs in the alley. VIVA LA MAX!

-Max will maybe one day have his own skul sweater. MAYBE.

KNITTING NEWS

I have finished the Malabrigo sweater. No modelled shots right now, I really can't take the pics of myself, it looks so My space :P So this is it! It was a dream to knit up, even if I did have to rip it back a few times to tweak it.

As you can see I am still hooked on the ribbed sleeves, Yup. The colour is just called Burgundy (how dull!) but Chris thinks it looks like wood grain, and I think it looks like Mars. I'd call it Red Planet if I was the Malabrigo peeps but alas, I am not. What do you think?

NEXT UP:

See this? How cool is this? I am the luckiest of the lucky to have gotten such a wonderfully coolio bag. AND that yarn? That yarn (Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in EMBERS) is right now at this very minute being turned into a v-neck sweater for Chris. Yum yum yum! Now in case you missed it:

Skulls!! Sorry for the craptastic picture, I don't know how to work the camera that good yet. Hells, I am lucky to have figgered out how to d/l the pics I take and re size em.

I hope you all have safe and happy weekend.. and I need to give a big virtual hug to our Morgan. You know you are loved sweet girl. Happy birthday!!

Quick one...

MAX!!!!

It is COLD here. So cold in fact I have taken to putting a little jacket on the wee dogga when he goes outside. I think he likes the attention as he seems to want to pee a lot more than usual ;) And that has nothing to do with the frozen chicken breast he scavenged from the garbage and had confiscated. He was not pleased about that.

Still..

Please.. where did the chicken go???

Please drive through

I know, I know.. I've heard all the complaints. Ok from the like 4 of you all who care how often I update but I have an excuse. Or a reason, or something I think. I left it laying around here somewhere. Under a pile of wrapping paper or maybe in the recycling, but never mind, I'm back!

Giftmas breakdown:

Have I mentioned my coffee love? If you know me at all (IRL or other) this is no surprise. I am crazy mad in love in with this bad boy! He makes me hot (coffee dirty minds!) and keeps me happy. With the addition of the sugar free syrups I have found, I am set. SET I TELL YOU!

Nope not hand knit. Just rocking anyhoo. Mine is red though, like the colour of SIN! heh heh.

Knitting breakdown in chronological order:

Top down Skul Cardigan.

Done with Blue Sky Worsted in Olive and Red. This was so unreal to knit with. It feels like cotton it does, and has a beautiful heavy drape to it. I went with a 3/4 sleeve as I really wanted a sweater I could wear with a wristband or bracelet. Silly.. maybe but I love it. The skul was fun and easy to do, I charted him out myself (keep an eye for him appearing in other places!) and am really happy with this.

Unikat Cardigan with thumbholes.

Another scrummy yarn to work with I have to say. This time I actually used waist shaping to get a nice fitted look and made super long 2x1 ribbed sleeves with thumb holes to keep the sleeves down when its cold. Great feature if I do say so myself and I see many more of these in my future. Unikat has a really nifty texture, almost kinda spongy, but so so so soft and absolutely next to the skin nice. I really loved working with this and am excited to see the new colours when they come in.

Debbil Hat for Jake

This is NOT the first time I have worked with this awesome novelty yarn (called PUNK.. how apropos huh?) but it is version 2.0 and the one that turned out the best. See I made a maroon version with ears for me (I call it my scabby hat), but Jake took one look and I knew I had to either make one for him or it would go *missing* (like my stripey arm warmers I knitted but really that is another story innit?) so I asked his preferences (Black Mom.. Duh. With devil horns) and whipped this up for him. Mine now looks slightly shoddy and the ears need to be re-done, so that pic will have to wait ok? He loves it, and has been threatened under pain of death not to give this away no matter how cute the girl. We'll see... right?

As of now I am working on a pullover (knock me down!) out of Malabrigo in Burgundy. When Amy and I opened up the box in we looked at each other and grinned like fools. "hello my next sweater!" She said.. I completely agreed and set off. It is scrumpdillyisious too. Even though I had a small hiccup that involved frogging a massive amount of work. See I did something I have never done before. I dropped a stitch (I have done that plenty before) but didn't notice until I had knit about 12-13 inches. When I laddered it up like a good girl, it went all weird and tight and made a HUGE pucker. I tried steaming it out. I tried wetting and pinning, I even tried dropping the damn stitch again. Nope. Amy was right (as usual) and so it was frogged. Whatever. It was a titch too big when I tried it on and I changed the waist shaping so all is well that ends well. Maybe. This will be my first pull over since my disgusting first sweater and I am excited to finish it.

Maybe another reason I'm excited to get it done is the luscious Lornas Laces in Ember I have waiting to knit. It came in last week and I had set aside enough to do a sweater for me when Chris came in the shop to pick me up. He wandered over to the back and called me over when he saw this yummy stuff and asked who it was for. "Me" I said. He gave me a look. You know.. a LOOK and I asked if he wanted a sweater made out of it. He was very enthusiastic about it. I also made him swear he would wear it and if he didn't I would NEVER KNIT FOR HIM EVER AGAIN. He gets it now. He really does. See I a little unresolved guilt about knitting for Chris. After the vest that never ended finally did, it was too big. I considered many options (asking him gain a lot of weight was tossed about, but eventually discarded as mean) and thought a wee bit of judicious felting may work. Guess what?

NOPE

It might fit a fat little toddler as a dress, but as a vest? Uh no. It shrunk a whopping 2 feet in length, and NOT ONE BIT in width. The strange thing? It did it in about 2 minutes. Oh well.. I was overdue a massive disaster. Lets just end the year that way eh?

I DO NOT make News Year's resolutions, but I am going to try to post more frequently ok? Think happy thoughts and I hope everyone had a fabulous Holiday season.

Happy New Years!!