Bzzz

Tomorrow, I'd like to be busy busy busy. I've finished my schoolweek so I'd like to take tomorrow to bake all day. Mom and I are going grocery shopping when she gets home tonight. I'm getting ingredients for lemon curd (so excited), Lemon and Almond cake (if I can't find something just lemons) and I'm going to try to find some frosting for some cake mixes that I plan to use up, they've been sitting in the pantry for years. I think I'll make the butter pecan mix, do the Betty Crocker officials make butter pecan icing? I imagine I'll find something that will work. Boy, I'm excited.

I've been doing a lot of recipe hunting lately, everything good I find seems to be English (as in British-English). It's all grams and ounces and odd ingredients that I've never heard of. Although, part of the reason I've never heard of these things is because I'm not very experienced in the kitchen. I do love to bake though. My dad and I just had a conversation on how much 350g of butter was in any Canadian form of measuring. I know were supposed to be metric, but I use cups and such. I used google calculator (just type the conversion you want into the regular google field, eg: 3 inches in cm) and it tells me that 350g is about 0.77 lbs, so my dad says 2/3 of a lbs might be right. My math is just atrocious. And whats golden syrup? What's it made of? I discovered the other day, what caster/castor sugar is, it's called superfine here (much less elegant, if you ask me) and my mom tells me it can be a trial to find. I think maybe almond essence and extract are the same thing, but who knows, maybe essence is different? It sounds a little bit more magical. I don't think this is an English-specific thing but I thought raisins and sultana's were the same thing, like sultana raisins (I think it's just my food ignorance, when I first read sultanas, I thought of saltines). And I still always smile when I see 'bicarbonate of soda,' I'm just so Canadian, you know?

In knitting news, I've finished the project of the DB Cashmerino yarn, it made me nervous too, I really thought I was going to run out of yarn. I've also casted on for a pair of orange socks, just for me. More yarn that was originally bought for a Christmas present, this time for some socks for dad, but I decided that was too ambitious and now I'm making them for myself! I need to do more things for myself every once in a while. I'll try to have a picture of them next post.

I've been having trouble with my left eye since yesterday. My vision through it has been tunnel-like in that I can only clearly see a spot and everything else is blurry. Maybe my vision is going in that eye (boo!) but I just happened to see this episode of House on TV the other day with this Autistic kid who ended up having a parasite and his vision was all screwy and he was choking and throwing up (only my vision has been screwy) but this is just me being silly. It's probably just a sty. I'm fairly sure it isn't just something in my eye because I've been trying to get it out for two days with no success. But a sty sounds right because my eye has actually developed a puffy red spot now... yay, I need to find my eye stuff... Now I'm just talking to myself.

I'm done for today, I need to go make myself dinner, mom won't be home to eat with me tonight, she's busy doing all kinds of stuff, none of which I can remember...

Brr

Calgary has had it's first official snow today... or last night maybe.I'm not ready! I need to finish the project on my size three needles so I can make my other skully mitten! That and I need to find some winter boots, I have a pair, but I'm starting to really not like them so I think I'll return them. Boo.

Christmas Yarn! Christmas Yarn! C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S Yarn Yarn Yarn!

Black and orange Debbie Bliss Cashmerino (I figure it's okay to tell you the brand as long as I keep the weight a secret)

Does it look too Halloweeny? Snark, I hope it doesn't. Maybe it's just because it's that time of the year. Maybe it won't look so Halloweeny at Christmas. This yarn is really nice to work with, and it's so velvety soft knitted up!

Acrylic/Wool/Alpaca/Viscose blend. Grey-blue color with little flecks throughout.

This stuff is soooo coooool...
It's 50/50 Wool/Acrylic. There's a special technique to knitting with it, you stick your needle right into the tape! The technique is actually a little tedious, but I hope it will be easier.

That's it for today, just a wee one. Ba-Bye!

I'm alive! Come back!

Okay, I may have been gone a while but I'm back, armed with a turkey sandwich (with lotsa Frank's Red Hot sauce) and I'm ready to talk.

A lot of crap has happened lately, I switched schools for starters. I've just finished my first week of Discovering Choices, an alternative high school program. It's going pretty good, it's hard to judge it yet, only being a week in, but I have a good feeling about it.

I've also been doing a tonne of knitting, but I can't blog about most of it because it's Christmas knitting.

(damn that sandwich was good)

Here's the stuff I can tell you about.

Remember this stuff?
Well it's not Christmas Yarn anymore, I originally wanted to use it to make a felted bag for my sister, but I'm not up to designing anything this year, too much work. I've already got a replacement in mind. This yarn is now becoming and Aran Pillow. It's going quite well so far.
This picture shows the actual color oo the yarn much better. This one is with the variegated stuff, I'll be making one in the plain green too. You can't really see the cables in this picture, maybe I'll get one in natural light another day. You see the chevrons on the side? I never even noticed that until I took the picture, neat huh?

I finally found a use for one of the first yarns I ever bought, Madge! This pattern is written specifically for handspun yarn, so I figured thick and thin yarn would be perfect. Here's version 1.
I lost the ball band for this stuff eons ago. I think I saw it at Gina Brown's though so I'll check it out and let you know. I really love the color, limey-green with brown spots. It's soft too, unfortunately, the hat it a tad short... It still looks okay though.

Then I figured, well this pattern is made for handspun, why don't I use handspun? So I did, I used the biggest skein of handspun that I got from my aunt Wendy. (remember this post? it's number one in the picture)Pretty! Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn three tiny friggin rows from being done. I swtiched to another handspun yarn in the same-ish color family that Wendy gave me (number 10) and finished it off.It looks.... nipple-like.... I'm hoping that, if I dye the 'nipple' with some ice blue kool-aid, it'll blend in better. Weird...

Now for some Christmas Yarn!

Some dark-bright blue 100% Superwash Wool (superwash means it's machine-washable) Already half-way through a ball (I got three) on it's project.

Some abso-friggin-lutely gorgeous hand-dyed, pink, 100% Alpaca... soooo soft. The project for this yarn is completely finsihed, except for maybe a little steam-blocking. This stuff is like butta!

Last, as I promised, a picture of my baby blanket scarf and the brooch I gave my granny together. They just seem to go...

Tomorrow I should be getting the last three sets of yarn from Gina Brown's for presents.

Oh yeah, Gina Brown's isn't hiring right now either...

Bye