Love is knitting a sweater twice.

So today is Father's Day. And my 19th birthday. The odvious solution to this clash of festivities was for my dad and I to go out for beers together, which was much fun. I really need to do that more often. He has to travel a lot for his work, and with me at uni, we aren't always home at the same time. He came up to York a few times during the year and took me out for dinner, but we have yet to find a good place to go. The off campus choices are Kelseys and Eastside Mario's. Thrilling I know. We went to Paupers Pub on Bloor St and sat on the patio. I wanted to sit on the rooftop patio, but only the ground floor was open.

I have discovered that either my boyfriend knows me very well, or I'm really easy to read, because Trevor got me the perfect gift. 1m of white crinkly fabric, 2m of teal paisley fabric, three balls of yarn, big dangly blue earings and a candle. The perfect crafty-ness. He leaves to work at an overnight camp near Haliburton on Saturday for the whole summer, so now I can make something and think of him. I think a skirt with the paisley and a shirt with the white.

My mom gave me the Stitch 'n Bitch knitter's diary, which is very cool. It has everything. It's perfect for travelling because it has a whole reference section at the back of techniques. Which is good for when you just need to know one thing, but don't want to lug around the entire regular book.

I also recieved some other stuff, but it's not as crafty, so not as interesting. Except for the pastel set my aunt gave me. It has a sketchbook, 8 oil pastels and a 144 page information and technique book. Very cool. I've never really used pastel, so now I can work on that.

In actual knitting news, I've started my World Cup project on Thursday. It's a few days late, but I'm giving myself an extra day and a bit to work on it. My deadline is the 11th of July, instead of the 9th. I'm re-kitting my skullie sweater. Oh don't make that face! I had a few issues with it that really bugged me, even though I loved the thing. I'm using a smaller gauge, which means that I had to do math to figure everything out. I'm almost to the point where I section off the sleeves, so we won't know if my math is right until then. I also wanted a bit more fabric in the back section, and I'm doing m1 increases instead of yo. I'm hoping it goes well.

Happy Fathers Day to everyone, I hope it was crafty. Or you know, not. Whatever floats your boat really.

Finishing

So I have decided that I must finish some projects before I start the Pomotamus socks. I'm almost done the Jaywalker socks, I only need about an inch more and then the toe on one, and I think I'm going to rip the toe back on the other one and add another centimetre in length. They were a bit short when I tried them on last. Luckily I left a very long tail when I had to find the right spot to start the second one and have the stripes match, so I can just continue with that. I'm also going to finish my Branching Out scarf, which only needs one more repeat and blocking. I may just leave it unblocked though, it looks very nice just the way it is.

yummy yarn

My Grandparents arrived today, for my cousin's grade 6 graduation. With them came my e-bay yarn! Woot. It is sitting beside me... tempting me. I want to cast on, but I need my needles to finish my second Jaywalker sock. I think I'm going to make some Pomotomopus.

I turned the heel of the Jaywalker on Friday while waiting for Trevor and his friends to get out of a play. I was not in the theatre because I was late. This is an example of how knitting saved my sanity. If I hadn't happened to have thrown it into my bag at the last minute, then I would have gone simply batty waiting for two hours in the lobby all by myself.

I also finished all the knitting parts of the Nautie for Mira. In the end I only knit three tenticles and didn't give it eyes. It looks pretty cool, and has already been given to her. She totally knew what it was, even though everyone else was a little confused. However, I now have a massive bag of stuffing in my room. Apparently Fabricland only sells it in size massive. At first I was shocked, but then I realised that it was 50% off with my membership, so I think I won.

I also knit a chunk in the waiting room of the doctor's office before my appointment this morning. I'm still okay! hahahaha. I don't have to have another check up for a year. I also found out that I completely missed the freshman 15 (to gain 15 pounds and drop 15 % in grades) as I am only just over a pound heavier than last year. Which kicks ass. There was a woman in the waiting room with her husband who was very large. When she came back from being weighed by the nurse she said that she had stepped on the scale twice. The second time she was a full kilogram lighter because she had taken off her sweater. That is one heavy sweater.

Naughty Nautie

I have finally finished the i-pod case for my brother's friend. Thank God. That thing was starting to be the bane of my existance. I won't even try to photograph it or scan it or anything, it is the most butt ugly thing ever. I had to duplicate stitch wings on the top, but it made it really stiff. But I hope the guy likes it.

I started Nautie from this issue of Knitty for Mira's birthday. I'm doing it in Cotton instead of acrylic, since that's what I have. It's green and yellow Bernat that Meegwun gave me from his Aunt who used to crochet. I've almost finished the shell, only 8 more repeats left! However, I have run out of stuffing, so I'm going to go now and get some more. I must say, it's looking vair cool. I think I'm going to make a bunch of stuffed animals for the craft fair that I'm doing in August. I'm really sick of doing i-pod cases.


My brother just came in from school and said that the kid wants a different symbol on the front because the wings look like a bra when they are upside down. fucker. But he'll pay me 5 bucks more, so I'll do it at some point this weekend. If anyone ever asks me for another case, I'm only letting two colours.

Too Hot.

This heat has brought out all my summer skirts and dresses. Which I love love love wearing. I think in the summer I'll sew a lot more instead of knit, it's much cooler. Our sewing machines are in the basement, where it's nice and cool. I live in an old house where the only kind of air conditioning we could get is window units, and those don't do much for the overall house temperature. The house is too old to easily put in anything else. Plus our yard is small and we have nowhere to put that unit thing that goes outside. We survive with fans. The heat has completely killed my knitting spirit though, it's far too hot for wool. I think I may knit a cotton shawl for the knitting world cup, which starts in 10 days, and runs for a month. I must participate!

My Butt hurts ... a lot.

I just went on the most brutal bike ride of my life. We biked for 12km along the waterfront, all the way to past Jane subway station. That was sort of bad, but bearably. Then my dad decided that it would be faster and easier to bike along the Humber River trail. It wasn't. There are some really brutal hills there that he runs up when he does hill training for triathalons. Holy crap does my butt hurt. We ended up biking for about 27 km total. Holy macaroni struedel Batman, I hope I don't have to do that again for a very long time. I think I'll watch TV tonight, and knit something for me instead of all the stuff I should do for other people. I deserve it!

oh crap.

So I finally went to Romni's today and bought the blue yarn I needed for the I-pod case my brother's friend asked me to make. In the store I thought that it looked a bit purple, but I couldn't see anything bluer, and the label said Nordic Blue. I bought it and chalked it up the the lighting. I went to my friend Claire's house and knit through four episodes of The OC on DVD. I got home and pulled it out to show my brother for approval. I said I know it's a bit purple-y, but ... he said that he thought it was pretty purple, but shrugged it off. So I went up to my room and pulled out the yarn that I had bought a few weeks ago, just to compare. Well you know that ball of yarn that didn't have a ball band? That decidedly purple ball of yarn? Well turns out that it's the same colour. Suddenly purple is the new blue. So tomorrow I'm going to go back and try to find something that is actually blue. I'm really not in a purple mood right now because I found the other balls I had bought and I am really not digging the Purple Splendor either. I'll keep the Nordic Blue that I already started, it's not a bad colour, but I don't need two balls. These i-pod cases take very little yarn, and I can't imagine knitting enough to neccitate two balls of almost blue yarn. Bah. I was so looking forward to being done with this. Oh well. I'll just have to deal.