Fiona Grace

Ms. Fiona Grace became a part of our family at 9:55 pm tonight (April 11th) and you have never and will never come across a more proud aunt! After a grueling 38 hours of labour the decision was finally made to deliver by c-section as no amount of pushing was going to force an eleven pound baby out of my tiny sister!! Yes, that is correct, and even eleven pounds! My amazing sister pushed with all her might for over three hours and impressed and surprised the heck out of the doctors and residents with the progress she was able to manage but Fiona was doing everything in her power to thwart her efforts! But oh is she worth every last bit of that effort!!

She is simply beautiful with intensely deep blue eyes and dark black curly hair. And her cheeks are so large that they may even make up at least three of her eleven pounds! Until we brought the cameras out with the flashes, she was bright eyed and very alert, and quite content to suck on her middle finger! She did “talk” to us when we were holding her however in the softest little noises.

I think I may be glowing and beaming as much as the mother and father….I am positively bursting with joy!! I am so proud of Alana and Adam and I am thrilled to be Auntie Sav!

Fantastic Raffle!

Head over to Peaceangel’s Knitting blog and sponsor her in the Walk Now for Autism event before Saturday!  A ten dollar donation will earn you a ballet in a wonderful raffle full of yarn goodies!  An excellent opportunity to make a donation to a worthy cause and have a chance to win a treat!

I Have Sock!

I successfully finished my very first sock! I began it about a month ago but I did procrastinate at certain portions, mainly before the heel and before the toe. That was just my ego coming out to visit as I didn’t want to try those bits in case I had difficulty. It’s amazing how much neurosis can come into play lol! But I conquered the sock and may now begin a true love affair with these knitted treats!

For this single sock (and yes, it is remaining a single sock as it was strictly for learning purposes) I used the top down sock chumtorial on the Lime & Violet site. I then (as per recommendation in the chumtorial) used the kitchener stitch grafting tutorial on the Knitty site to close up the toe. I will be trying toe-up construction for my first two pairs of socks which will be for the lovely Ms. Shells and wonderful Mr. Nickbee as a much deserved thank you for the swift that I am continuing to go on and on about lol! Please cross your fingers and send good knitting vibes my way so that I may construct something remotely wearable for these two fantastic people!

And now I shall inundate you with pictures of the entire process of the sock construction as I was entirely fascinated watching it come together from an engineering perspective. The coloured backgrounds in the pics are the backs of some of the quilts I have made but ignore the stubby foot near the end! Please cue the sappy life story montage music:

Love At First Spin

I am thoroughly in love with my swift and it was only intensified by the addition today of my brand new ball winder! I truly don’t know how I lived without them in my life! I’ve heard folks say that before and I doubted them; I thought they were being mildly melodramatic. I now completely understand! I want to spread the love that is the swift and ball winder combo!

I accomplished so very much all in the span of an hour. The yarn I wound tonight in that hour would have taken me a minimum of eight hours without these tools and very likely much longer than that. Not to mention how much more enjoyable the tools were to use! I love the yarn cakes that are the result as well.

I am very happy to cross the swift and ball winder off of my list of 101 Things in 1001 days. Not on the list but also acquired with the ball winder…..some Harmony needles! I needed a set of circulars in size six with a 40″ cable for the Mystic Light KAL that I’m about to start as well as some size one dpns for socks I’ll be making for Shells and Nickbee as a thank you for the swift. But I’m afraid I’m getting ahead of myself here lol! So very much to blog about! Here is a close-up pic of the size six needles as the wood is so incredibly beautiful:

I am going to adore knitting with these just from the blast of colour alone!

Clearly I Have the Best Friends in the World.

I have friends that go above and beyond on a daily basis. They listen when I need them to, they make me laugh, they teach me so much, they entertain, they encourage and offer amazing advice and sympathize and share. Well two of them went entirely above and beyond even all of that awesomeness and dipped into the realm of things I do not deserve!

Shells is a knitter/spinner artista, Nickbee is a woodworker extraordinaire and together they conspired to build and ship me my very own swift!! They even kept this secret for a couple of months despite it being lost in the mail and visiting several states lol! It is GORGEOUS! I have been avidly following Nickbee’s woodworking since he first began building Shells’ swift and as amazing as it looks in the pictures, nothing compares to seeing his pieces in person. He truly has a gift. How lucky am I? I can’t even express it in words! How kind are these two? Again, the words I know are not big enough, not deep enough to explain.

No more winding up yarn from hanks stretched around my feet!! Hooray!

Here are some pictures but they barely express how amazing it it…..the wood is so smooth….not a single flaw……and you can see the precision of each cut…..utterly fantastic!:

The swift is made of poplar and has a wonderful tinge of green (that doesn’t show in the light of the pictures) that I just love!

It is perfect for hanks of Koigu KPPPM (which is fantastic as I have several hanks that I have been avoiding winding.

This is just the beginning! Oh the hanks I shall wind!

I cannot thank the pair of you enough! *big hugs*

Wilson, my bestest buddy, I love you.

My dog Wilson, the most loving, stubborn, gentle, hilarious, emotional, cranky, princess-y, beautiful, intelligent, snore-y, incredible dog I have ever known, died today. We found out just last week that he had cancer (a form that couldn’t be treated) but that he wasn’t suffering yet. Thought maybe there would be another month or two with him. We had to make the decision to put him down today though as his health decreased incredibly rapidly. I’m still in shock.

I would like to update this with memories and more pictures of him later; I just can’t right now. This one was from this past summer at Port Burwell on Lake Erie. He loves the water….and sticks logs of course.

Bliss is……

A giant bag of Hershey’s Kisses accompanied by a ginormous Hershey’s Kiss.  And there were TWO of them!  One um….couldn’t be with us this evening…….. .  The regular Kisses also have fun messages on the flags.  Because I am entirely spoiled I also received a beautiful rose plant.   Yes, not cut roses that I can enjoy for a week and then miss them as they wilt but an actual plant that I can transplant into the garden once a more permanent residence has been acquired!  What a sweetheart!

Now I don’t really buy into the Valentine’s Day shmuckola and neither does F but it was still a very much appreciated gesture and a reasonable excuse to do something lovely for each other……..and we both separately included chocolate.  Yes, I’m an addict!

Because I’m a procrastinator I put off taking photos of the chocolate until I could bear it no longer.  One ginormous Kiss already didn’t make it this far.  I can’t wait any longer to dig into that bag however so I felt blogging about it had to happen immediately so that I could indulge.  Now I am off to let some Kisses melt in my mouth as I work on my knitted socks.

I’ve Been A Little Distracted Of Late…

And yes, the knitting has suffered as well! I’ve met someone (F) you see….someone pretty bloody fantastic actually.I truly didn’t think men like him even existed. Chicas, they do, I know that now, so don’t ever settle for anything less than what you truly want. I was so convinced they didn’t exist (based on observations over many years of friends, family, acquaintances, co-workers etc.) that I was fully prepared to be alone permanently. I had stopped looking, I had even stopped wanting to look.Something happened this year however that allowed me to realize I really do want to share my life with someone if the opportunity presented itself, thusly I opened myself up to finding the right person. I’ve been hurt along the way as I am of a more sensitive persuasion than perhaps the average person, but I have had some great coaches as well. Thank you Shells! Thank you Snigs!

After some adventures I have found someone that has real true potential and it has been amazing thus far. Just when I feel as though it couldn’t possibly get any better it actually does. F is perhaps the kindest, most open and honest, compassionate, sweetest, affectionate man I have ever encountered. He happens to be intelligent, hilarious and handsome on top of everything! And so much more as well but I don’t want to gush lol! I have never been treated so well by anyone. Suffice it to say that F just might stand for effing fantastic. Well that and his name of course :-P.

We spent a spectacular weekend in Niagara Falls, the highlight aside from the company being the Butterfly Conservatory that everyone should absolutely experience at some point. It is surreal; you spend the first twenty feet of the pathway through a tropical paradise trying to adjust to the fact that you are being dive-bombed by some of the most delicate and beautiful creatures on the planet. Despite the initial feeling that you are going to trample and crumple them with every movement, you quickly settle in and realize that they are everywhere and you can’t look around without being amazed. Some are camouflaged ingeniously, others are vibrant and vivaciously coloured……all are fascinating. They do however move incredibly quickly so one must be prepared to have a tired camera finger and the patience to comb through many pictures where the butterflies were long gone by the time your reflexes kicked in and took a picture. Here are my favourites:

This is the Owl Butterfly.

But more amazingly this is what the interior wing of the Owl Butterfly looks like.

Oh and uh…we did actually see the falls as well lol!

We have both since agreed that the weekend we spent together couldn’t have possibly been any more fantastic. We squeezed every last second we could out of it only finally leaving the city in opposite directions at the latest possible moment with plans already developing for the next time we could get together. And that happens to be this weekend coming up, also F’s birthday! We have both taken a bit of time off of work to extend our time together. I will be heading south to see him for the first few days and he will be making the northern climb for the last couple in order to meet my family as well.

I must admit folks that this month or two has been quite a challenge for me. He is a giver (remember how I was given the advice of finding a giver like myself?) and I’m not used to receiving at all. I’ve been the designated giver that is perpetually taken advantage of……but not so in this case and it is definitely different! There is quite a learning curve for me in this area because he has so very much to give and I want to give so much in return. He amazes me every day with who he is as a human being and I am ever so thankful that I met him.

Happy New Year!!

I have had a big year; much good and some bad, but I must say that it has ended on a very high note with much promise for the year to come including promotion prospects, relationship prospects, and a new niece or nephew in just a few short months. Just the way it should be really!

2007 saw much more responsibility given to me at work as well as acknowledgment and appreciation for the effort I put in there, a re-learning of a craft that I have simply fallen in love with, a realization that I do want to share my life with someone and some amazing possibilities in that area on the horizon, the beginning of new and growth of old friendships that I can see lasting for a very, very long time, the purchase of my first car and I did it entirely on my own, I’m well on my way to saving to purchase my own home, some new jams came into my life, I’m on my way to losing weight and being in shape, and best of all I feel as though I know myself and what I want better than ever before. Despite some hardships mixed in there along the way, I couldn’t ask for anything more. I just feel exceptionally fortunate.

I had a lovely Christmas with much family and excitement. It went by terribly quickly as I had little time off but I enjoyed every bit of it and spent as much time in my jams as is utterly possible. On a horribly selfish note, a highlight was a super awesome digital camera that my sisters and brother-in-law went in on together for me! This means yarn pr0n any old time I want lol!! I can’t even tell you how many pictures I’ve taken so it is a good thing that my mom picked up an extra memory stick!

Speaking of Mom, part of my present to her was for her to pick out all the ingredients to make her a scarf. She chose Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk yarn and a feather and fan scarf that will have a keyhole to tuck one end of the scarf through the other side. It is a deliciously soft chunky yarn and is coming together quite quickly.

It would be going even faster if I wasn’t also mildly obsessed with my Central Park Hoodie lol!! This is the ribbing completed at the bottom of the back:

And oh isn’t the colour delicious?!

On a side note, the bag in the background is a knitting bag I got for my birthday. Are you sensing a colour theme yet lol? That bag is trucked around with me absolutely everywhere, much to the disdain of my those around me and much to the mocking of my co-workers. But I’m tough, I can take it! They just don’t understand the fabulous feeling of making something by hand, the meditative and soothing aspect of knitting, and the addictive quality of yarn! Speaking of all of that, I’m off to start the main pattern….including the cables, hooray!

P.S. Don’t worry Shells, the knitting meme is coming!

Updates!

I would like to apologize to my non-knitting readers….I’ve become a bit obsessed with knitting you see and it seems to be the only thing I now want to write about. Or perhaps it is just the most interesting thing going on in my life lol!! You don’t want to read about crappy banking, do you?! Well….maybe some of you would prefer that to knitting, though I certainly don’t! As a random aside……..I’ll just say that eHarmony rocks the cat’s ass and leave it at that lol! On to some knitting updates! Oh, and please ignore the faux wood grain all the yarn pr0n is laying on…..I took the pics on the lunch room table at work as it has the best lighting there lol!

Ms. Gilly Bean is now the proud owner of a feather and fan patterned scarf. Hooray! The pictures don’t do the yarn justice; the colours are much more vibrant and the scarf is so soft after steam ironing! I am so pleased with how it turned out and it couldn’t go to a more deserving chica! She made me a lovely tote bag, a mixed CD, and a flax seed and lavender (one of my favourite scents) eye mask. She rocks!

Gilly’s Scarf

I have also made some progress on a couple of other scarves including the bias made with the Fiesta Ballet (this yarn is so amazing):

Bias Scarf

And the one that will be felted made with the Koigu KFM ( I love the green and orange coming out of the pink and purple colourways):

Felted Scarf

Also, Ms. Shells and I have the clap! We are working on the clapotis scarf pattern together…..but she is way ahead of me!!

Sav’s Clapotis

Yep, that’s right, I haven’t even started yet lol!

Finally, I have a treat for myself coming!! I have entirely fallen in love with the Central Park Hoodie and I bought the pattern and some lovely yarn from Knitpicks! I chose an alpaca and silk blend in the “grass” colourway. The yarn should be here in the next week or two and I am so excited. I thoroughly expect to need coaching from the ever vivacious Ms. Shells, my official knitting instructor, as this patterns appears to be muy complicated! I can’t wait!!