Running towards the finish line

This has been a productive sock month yes? The fabulous garter toe socks.. inspired by Morgan and Lucy Neatby I reckon. I cannot believe how fast these knit up. Really it was quite astonishing. Hacho by Mirasol knit on um.. 2.25 mm needles. Super comfy with the garter heels! In fact Chris has requested the exact same pattern for his next socks (which I am almost done the first one of! GO ME!) and may become a standard for me.

Speaking of the next sock, I was pretty excited to start them for Chris, see they are truly a collaborative effort. Dana dyed the yarn, Morgan spun it and I am knitting it! They are payment of a sort. For refining and making out logo better. A fair trade I would say :)

I told you I was being pushed toward the spinning yes? Well.. maybe it might take. Just a little bit. I have a Louet Victoria in my possession right now and wow! She is a joy to work on. Even if my feeble attempts look like they came out of a monkeys butt. haha.

breathe.

The dogs were napping this morning and I just had to snap them in repose. Pickles hides in his Pickles only clubhouse and Max wedges himself in the sofa corner so deep you can barely see him. Oh my dogs!!

Socks are my crack. No really. These are just plain ol' toe ups done out of some really nifty yarn. STRIPEY GOODNESS!! I mean who doesn't need more stripey socks? Not Quite Knee Highs because I got tired of knitting ribbing. :)

The colour is called Near Dark. Cute innit? NICE! Now I am the lucky recipient of yet more yarn/fibre this week. This travelled all the way from Salt Spring Island for me.. oh and BY THE WAY.. NEW FREE PATTERN from kfb. Salt Spring Waves. Wow!! Look at us go :) Anyways, this is the bootay!

Mmm pink. I think REAL knee highs might be needed..

And some really nice close up of the pretty fibre. I think there are a couple of people really pushing the spinning eh? ;)









Wow huh? This whets my wet felting appetite something terrible. Need some silk... Now for what I've been working on:








Like WHOA! I went to Gina Browns this weekend and found this new beautiful stuff. Hacho by Mirasol. The price point is not to be believed (7.99 a skein!! OMG!) and it is truly scrumptious. Like STR nice. She had more by Mirasol including gorgeous sweater weights and they were silly good priced as well. I maybe see another trip soon.




I'm doing a garter stitch toe and heel pattern. So cushy, so sqooshy. I am in heaven. Mmm..

I usually try to keep things very light and breezy on here, in fact as I have explained before, I try to only blog happiness. But some significant changes have happened to our little house and I have to acknowledge them. Jake has moved up to Edmonton to live with his Dad. Not his idea, but we have all had a really rough time of it for the last 9 months + and it was with a heavy heart the decision was made for him. I'm hoping this will help him on his journey and give him some very desperately needed distance to figure stuff out. As it stands, we will all be able to take a breath now.

Knock wood for all of us ok?

Betty Cable!

Here they are!! Cabled and oh so yummy. I have to say that alpaca socks are not the worlds most practical socks, no superwash here, but soft? Oh the soft!

Done out of 2 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca sport weight, on 2.5 mm needles. These worked up really quickly. I would have had them done sooner but as I was making the pattern as I was going along I learned this cable wouldn't work up the back as it made the sock too rigid to get on. It may have been the yarn, but I just did a rib up the back instead. It worked just fine!

Socktacular aren't they?

There is another free pattern up at kfb! Its the felted slipper pattern! Its not PDF-ed quite yet, but keep your eyes peeled. A new logo is on its way too.. cool huh??

We had a fun weekend with the seeeeeester Angie and her SO (stinky odour? NO! heh hehe Ang!) Jeff. Had some Wii time, some beers, some laughs, what else is there?

Pickles is SMRT! He has learned sit, down, sit up, and shake a paw! Now if only it was that easy to train a teenager..

Lap dog

Pickles likes nothing more than to sit on my lap as I peck away on the laptop in the kitchen. Max was never a lapdog like this! In fact he is sitting here right now making all sorts of grunty puppy noises. Resting his head on my arm as I type. Silly beasty.

It was turkey day this weekend and we three (5 if you count the dogs who got turkey gravy on their kibble!) had a nice little dinner. Thank you Butterball for the prefrozen stuffed turkey breast that you can just pop in the oven! Mmm.. mashed sweet potatoes and veg, pumpkin pie! Nice and not really much in the way of leftovers. Jake took some to one of his pals who wasn't having a turkey day so that resolved nicely. :)

In knitting news... almost done a pair of cabled socks out of Blue Sky Alapaca sport weight. I don't think they will be the most practical socks, but they certainly are YUMMEH!

We have guests coming this weekend!! Chris' sister (my seeeeeester!~) Angie and her SO Jeff. It will be awesome to see them and I so hope Ang has planned for at least a teeny bit of shopping. I so need to show her Sephora!!

Stay tuned for another free pattern.. it is SOCKTOBER right?

Free at last!!

Ok I really should get my head together a little better no? Announcing the first FREE PATTERN from me and knitfrontandback.

Uzumaki socks!!!

We are hoping to have a pattern up once a week during Socktoberfest. Stay tuned for more free goodness (the best kind of all dontcha think?) soon.

I think I made the best soup ever last night from leftover pot roast and veg. I cubed my leftover roast, and left the potatoes and carrots whole, they were both just babies see? Added the leftover gravy (which was not thick like gravy, just what was in the slow cooker apres cooking) and a litre of beef stock to a soup pot, tossed in a handful of pearl barley with everything, generously peppered and salted it, pitched in a few tbsp of freeze dried mixed herbs and OMG. It was heavenly. Served it with slightly stale pita bread (work with whatcha got) that was great for dipping and YUM!

It went really well with my favorite cobbler that I have been making quite often too. My preference is strawberry rhubarb, but have done it with blackberry pear apple, and would like to try some peach something one day. I take all this luscious fruit (usually frozen cause who has all this fruit in the house at once fresh? Not me! And I usually try have have organic frozen fruit on hand)I bag of each say strawberries and rhubarb, toss it in a big bowl and add a tbsp or 2 of cornstarch, a whack ( a couple of tbsp) of cinnamon and splenda (see I am still trying to maintain a modicum of healthy, no way do I wanna gain any weight back thanks.) but you could use sugar for sure, I don't measure so much as see what looks right. Toss all together. pour into a 9 x 13 backing dish. Add say a cup of rolled oats (steel cut would be nice) a few big spoons of organic brown flour, more cinnamon and splenda to a bowl. Cut in about a 1/3 cup Omega 3 margarine or (YUM!) butter until its really dispersed through the mixture. I use a fork and just mash it all up. :) Sprinkle topping over the fruit evenly and back in a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour 20 min or until fruit is all bubbly and topping is brown.

I forgot to add splenda to the topping the last time I made this, and when I realised it, I tossed splenda brown sugar blend all over the top with some maple sugar flakes and popped it under the broiler for a few minutes until the sugar began to melt. OMG IT WAS AWESOME. Little crunchy bits of brown sugar goodness.

I usually serve this with a dixie cup of ice cream (serving size ya'll!) and everyone LOVES IT. mmm...

Rock it, Sock it.

Well well well.. its up and its going. Look here:

knitfrontandback!.

This has been in the works for a looong time now and with the down time I have made for myself its time to spring it on the rest of the world.

We hope to have more free patterns and other goodies up very soon. Why hide our collective lights under a bushel? Welcome to the world of knitfrontandback.

Now for happy sock yes?

Please understand I was screaming at Chris.."Take the picture! How long do you think I can hold my legs up like this?!?" He took his sweet time he did. Mystery sock yarn from Morgan that I have no idea what it is, if its superwash, or anything. But I likey the stripes and I really like the mismatched-ness. Haha.

Please note cam ho Pickles. I swear he sees the camera is and all HAY GUISE!! Sheesh.