Olympic Spirit!

Hi everyone! Jamie and I are in Vancouver, enjoying ourselves at the Olympics. Today, we're taking a little break from traipsing around the city to chill out and relax at my cousin's place in Surrey. They've been kind enough to let us stay with them for the entire time that we're here for the games, and honestly we couldn't have made this trip without them. Thank you, Joe and Patty!

So, since I'm chilling out and doing a little bit of knitting, I thought I'd update a little bit and tell you guys how this trip has been going so far. I'll update about my knitting in another post.

DAY 1 - Monday Feb 22, 2010
The vibe in downtown Vancouver is awesome - I really don't know how to describe it. So many happy people from all over the world, lots to see, and lots of great energy. The city itself has decked itself out with so much Canadiana, it's hard not to share in the national pride.

We first hit Robson Square to pick up some event tickets, and just looked around at all the stuff they had there. Everything is so lively with all the stages, music, pavillions, and I love it!

Watching some newscasts from home, we heard about what is apparently an institution here in Vancouver: the Japadog. What is a Japadog? It's a hot dog with a Japanese twist. Our cousins told us that they're really famous around Vancouver, so Jamie and I decided we needed to try one. They've got two stands, and our cousins tipped us off that one of them was less busy than the other, so that's where we went.

Even still, we waited in line for a half an hour; we were told that the line really wasn't bad at all.

Can you spot me, the pregnant lady in a red coat?

Here's the dog that Jamie got; I got the same one, just with some extra seaweed on top.

It's their okonomi dog - kurobuta (apparently this is a very high quality type of Japanese pork) dog, cabbage, okonomi sauce, mayo, and bonito flakes (fish flakes). Very, very yummy. In fact, these hot dogs are so unique that some news people decided to come and check things out.

This is the lady who interviewed me and Jamie after we sat down to eat our hot dogs. They even asked to film close-ups of us eating. How embarrassing! No idea if any news agencies decided to use that clip at all, but it was a pretty hilarious experience.

After our hot dog, it was off to the Olympic Cauldron!

The organizers still have a fence around the cauldron, but they've cut a swath out of it and put plexiglass in so that people can take photos.


After that, we just walked around downtown to do a little shopping, and just soak everything in. We spotted this car during our walk.

They were getting people to sign their car, which I thought was pretty amusing. But yikes; to drive from Halifax to Vancouver? Oh man. For anyone who doesn't know, that means these guys drove from one end of the country to the other; East Coast to West Coast. I wonder if their car is on its last legs, and if it'll make it from Vancouver back to Halifax.

And those were more or less our highlights from Day 1. We passed Lloyd Robertson on the street, which was kinda cool (he's a news anchor for one of Canada's news stations). We stuck around the CTV news tent on the street to see if we could get on the evening news as part of the cheering crowd. I think my jacket made it in a shot that the cameramen took of a baby that was next to me.

Coming soon: Day 2 - Our first live Olympic event!! And knitting. Yes, I haven't forgotten that this is supposed to be knit-blog.

Dark, brown, and handsome

A while back, I knitted up a little something for Anand and Andrea's baby boy, Ethan. To tell you the truth, I was taking my time on it until I heard from my friend Will that they would be moving to New York in January. Well, I knitted like the wind, and finished it before the end of December. Wrote to Andrea to find out when I could stop by their place to drop it off, only to find that they had moved to Waterloo to stay with Andrea's parents earlier in December. Whoops! Well, that at least gave me the time to take some pictures for the blog, and now I'm going to mail it off to them in New York.


Meet yet another Baby Bobbi Bear, done in a dark brown instead of the usual light. I used Blue Sky Alpaca cotton for the bear, and some gray superwash worsted for the features. I feel that after the experience I've gained making other toys, the face on this one wound up better than the first Baby Bobbi Bear I ever made.

Coming soon: updates on more baby knitting. Just not necessarily for my own baby.

Ravelympics? Yes or No?

Back in 2008, I decided to be a part of Team Canada for the Summer Olympics. It was great fun, and I managed to knock off 2 WIPs that had been lurking in my stash. Well, before I knew it, Vancouver 2010 is just around the corner, and I haven't decided if I want to be part of it again. Normally, I would dive right in without any hesitation, but there are a couple things that are complicating my decision this year.

The first complicating issue is the fact that the hubby and I are actually, physically GOING to the Olympics for one week. While I can take knitting with me, we all know that it's just that much harder now to bring all the little things that you never know if you'll need when you're finishing a project. That said, I suppose I could always just be less ambitious with my project, and aim to finish it during the first week of the Olympics.

The other thing is that, and I suppose this is the big news that I haven't really talked about here yet, is the fact that we're expecting our first baby in the spring! Remember that Classy that I mentioned before? Well, that's being slated for a baby sweater for the little one on the way. I know many of you are probably saying that this may be perfect for the Ravelympics -- something to spur me on to finish some goodies for the forthcoming baby. I considered that too, and it's not without its merits. However, I have to admit that this pregnancy is taking its toll on my knitting time. It takes me just a little longer to do just about everything now, and after work I have a hard time staying awake past 9 or 10pm.

I honestly keep waffling back and forth between whether I join or not. Sometimes having a deadline, even if it's a friendly one, is nice to keep me on track. Sometimes, it stresses me out. Then again, maybe the fact that the baby is going to enter this world whether the sweater is ready or not should be deadline enough? I still can't seem to decide.

How about all of you? Any of you planning to join the Ravelympics?

And since there haven't been any photos in this post, here's a random one of some cute kitties.

Long time no post!

Sorry for the lack of posting! Things have been pretty busy, and I have to admit that knitting has kinda fallen to the wayside. I'm still working on a baby blanket for a friend, but I really don't think it'll be ready by the time she has her baby. Oh well. We'll keep plugging away at it. Might take pictures of it someday.

However, this post is about something else completely. As a reward to myself for finishing up a pretty major (non-knitting) project, I went to Lettuce Knit for some goodies.
First up, some lovely sock yarn.

Koigu is always a crowd-pleaser.

I really liked the sparkly bits in this Dream in Color Starry.

And lastly, some lovely Dream in Color Classy.

The sock yarn is actually going to be for socks. The Classy is going to be for something else, which I'll likely write about soon.

Remember way back when I ranted about losing some socks and patterns? Well, almost 2 years after losing it, guess what I found?

Tah dah! The pattern that I couldn't find no matter where I looked! Haha! Funny how things pop out of the wood work!

Lastly, and this will probably only interest Adrienne, but I'm gonna write about it anyway. Did any of you happen to notice the unfamiliar piece of furniture that I've been photographing all my new stash on? It's something that arrived at our house just last month after a lot of heel dragging on my part.

Yup, the Chang family piano has now arrived at the Chang-Wells home. I was really excited about it, and have actually played it a few times since it's gotten here. Jamie tells me that it's possible to hear it a bit on the outside, so I'm a little self conscious about playing now. I'm so out of practice that I actually want to start out by playing scales and exercises again, and that'll probably be really boring for other people to listen to. Oh well.

It's fat! It's thin! It's still the same piece of yarn!

Last Sunday, I headed over to Lettuce Knit for my first class of Learn to Drop Spindle, taught by the ever funny and charming Denny McMillan. I had a great time playing with the lovely fiber that came in our little kit - so soft and cozy! Granted, it was probably one of the hottest days we've had here in Toronto for a long time, but it was still grand.


This is the lovely Ashford top-whorl spindle that came in our kit. Denny showed us how to use it as a bottom-whorl one, just so we'd have played with it both ways. As you can probably tell from this photo, the thickness of my yarn isn't exactly consistent yet. But you know what they say - practice makes perfect!

Here's a better look at how uneven my yarn is:


I haven't quite got the hang of drafting and spinning at the same time just yet; it really is kinda like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. I'm quite proficient at doing the head/tummy thing, but somehow I can't quite get the hang of draft/spin just yet. I'm wondering just how much of a crime would it be to pre-draft everything that I want to spin with!

A few things

With a few babies just entering the world, I managed to polish off a couple things.

There's the finished Helena for Kim's baby. I think in the future, I might make i-cord ties instead of the flat ones they have in the pattern.

And with Janice's new baby boy, I made a vest. She mentioned to me that vests were really easy to put on Anderson, so I thought I'd make one for Carter.

This is the Owl Baby Vest. I had a fun time knitting this one, but i have to say that the instructions for this needed some interpretation. But it's still a pretty fun little knit.

I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out. Hope the kids they're destined for enjoy them too.

A little stash enhancement

I went to Lettuce Knit to sign up for a class the other day - Learn to Drop Spindle! Yay! It looks like fun, and I've always been curious about making my own yarn, so I figure why not!

Of course, at trip to the yarn store would not be complete with out a few purchases.

A little mediumweight Socks that Rock for the Milkweed shawl. I've started this already and am really loving it already. I missed lace knitting.

I also got a pattern to make a shrug out of Dream In Color yarn.

Remember way back when I wanted to make Talia, and was sabotaged by the cats? Well, I don't think I can really return to that project thanks to the bad mojo. So, I got this new pattern; I'll probably frog the partially done Talia in a few weeks or so.

The last thing I got was totally spur of the moment. Lettuce Knit was having a 50% off Lexie Barnes sale. In a moment of weakness, I got myself this.

A Lady B in Utopia. It's too big for me to use as a day to day bag, but I really like it for all sorts of other reasons. With the new house, I've got all sorts of rooms where I can knit, so I actually use it to haul all my knitting gear around - from the garden, to the sunroom, to the couch by the TV, to upstairs. The bag holds pretty much all the knitting and crochet needles that I own, and a whole lotta yarn for whatever project I feel like working on at the moment. I can see this bag being great for drives to Ottawa. Only downside is that the Lady B is so nice and roomy that the temptation to cram it full is always there, which leads to a really heavy bag. I tried it out as my day-to-day bag once, and really did cram it full. My arms and shoulders weren't happy with me afterward.

I'll have some photos of my Milkweed in progress when I get a bit further along!