I'm back for real now.

I'm here and I'm posting a somewhat picture heavy catch up post. These are all the things that I'm actively/currently knitting.

This is half of an Eunny Jang Endpaper Mitt. This is my first try at fair-isle, I like it! I'm using the two handed method with one color in each hand, which is also kind of teaching how to knit English style (which I think is the one where you hold the yarn in your right hand) I normally hold the yarn in my left hand. Much more efficient. The yarn is Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift, colors 1020 Nighthawk and 1160 Scotch Broom. I think they might be a little small, so I might end up starting over with bigger needles... Do a gauge swatch next time Katie... Jeeze. I really love this yarn and this pattern. The yarn is just so earthy and sticky and wonderful. The pattern is so classic and beautiful, it's simply complex and complexly simple.

This is Elann.com's Luna Moth Shawl. I'm using Crystal Palace Kid Merino in color 9798 Red Cinnamon.
I haven't done enough to start to see the pattern yet, so it's boring so far. I need to find a better needle for this one, the cable is misbehaving.

This is the Shetland Triangle from Interweave Press' Wrap Style. This shawl is the main reason that I bought the book, I saw it everywhere and it was beautiful.
The yarn is Elann.com's Baby Silk in Aubergine. Remember the Razor Cami I was making? This is that yarn, I got tired of the cami. I originally wanted to frog the cami and make Thermal, but maybe my first sweater should be made of something a little thicker than fingering weight yarn, no? Anyways, this is far along enough to see the pattern and I think it's going to be really beautiful.

News break. I'm going to a friend of mine's prom on May 25. I'm his date! I have a pretty dress and everything! I'll try to get a picture of it for my next post. I'm so pumped for this. I get to see some old friends and dress up and I just, you know... I get to go to prom! I didn't think I would get to. I'm not graduating for another couple of years and I don't really go to a school. I hope to be able to get three proms worth of wear out of this dress, my friend's, my old school (being a date for a girlfriend), and I plan to have my own prom this summer for anyone who didn't get to graduate or just wants to have another chance to wear their dress.

This is yarn that I made with the Ashford Kiwi I got for Christmas. And it's pretty damn good if I do say so myself.
I plan to re-dye it, the color's pretty icky and blah right now. Like a gray sort of lavendery-pink. I was going for lavender, but I think I ran out of blue. I'm not sure yet what I want to make with it. I might just put it on permanent hank-display.

I've been using the leftover hemp from these hats for a scarf/belt/hairband thingy. It's almost done.

I learned Brioche stitch. It's kinda cool. Took me a while to figure out that it can only be done in the round. Well it probably could be done flat, but the directions I was going by were in the round. This is the yarn that was formerly skully mitten.

This is a Clapotis. In Artyarns Ultramerino 6 in color 127 (my dream color and thats a freaking beautiful picture in that link) I think this is kind of a person's rite of passage into the knit-blogging world, if your a knit-blogger, you've probably made a Clapotis.
I've made two drop rows so far. It's a lot of fun.

That must be it for pictures, so I'll give you some more news. I quit my job at the Zoo, because I'm going back to school in may and I would like to be able to have more hours and the Zoo closes at five. I got a new job (within a week, can you believe that?) at The Body Shop in Chinook Mall, I start Tuesday.

Oh and my dad got an awesome new car, I really love it. It's red.

Oh! I've gone vegetarian! It's really great actually. Aside from the health benefits, I'm no longer participating in the cruelty to animals raised for slaughter and I'm no longer risking the effects of poorly regulated meat products. I've taken the PETA 30 day pledge for Vegetarianism, I started on the 28th of March, so I'm officially done on the 27th of this month. I'd like to keep myself vegetarian permanently though. I'm very proud of myself for taking this kind of initiative in something like this, I'm not very good at keeping promises or anything like that so this is a big deal for me. I'm actually starting to miss meat a lot less now, sometimes it even grosses me out. The other day my mother had a steak out on the counter that she made herself for dinner and I just had no desire for it. I've found many really delicious vegetarian recipes with meat substitutes. Like a really wonderful chili that my mom made and she just threw in TVP (textured vegetable protein) instead of the chicken that the recipe called for. For dinner tonight I had this 'Just Add Veggies' kit, it had rice, soy protein nuggets and teriyaki sauce, I added green pepper, broccoli, snap peas and onion to it and it was wonderful!

One thing I could never do is go Vegan, there's just too many things I love about that kind of stuff. I love to bake, and I refuse to use margarine or any kind of milk substitute, it's wrong. Butter is better for you anyways, I don't really drink milk, of any kind, I use soy milk on my cereal because dairy milk makes me feel yucky. I do use dairy milk for hot chocolate and baking like I said. Also, I love wool... All kinds, Alpaca, Merino, Cashmere (I mean it's just basically a haircut, whats the big deal) and I love silk too. I don't really wear leather, except for shoes. Yeah...

I have dreams of owning a Happy Vegetarian farm where animals that would normally be raised for slaughter or labour can be raised as happy companion animals. Cows, horses, pigs (pigs!), chickens, goats, sheep (of course I will shear the sheep), etc. It'll be pretty awesome and I'll probably give tours or something and maybe someday be associated with PETA... Maybe.

Sometimes I don't like the way that PETA talks. They kind of force veganism on you and make you feel guilty for eating meat. They don't really cite their resources either for a lot of the things that they say. They seem to be very preachy at times, they treat you like a bad person if your a meat-eater and even sometimes just a vegetarian, but they treat you like a saint if your a vegan. Those of you who know me know that I am the farthest thing from preachy and I'm very open-mined and I really dislike preachy people.

Veggie rant over I think... :) I like to talk about myself. I guess that's why I have a blog, right?

PS When I have companion animals of my own, They'll be vegan. Just because cats and dogs can't really be just vegetarian, because they don't eat or drink any dairy (cat's shouldn't drink milk, it makes them sick) or, you know, wear leather and knit with wool and stuff.

It is actually more of a challenge to have vegan cats than it is to have vegan dogs.

See dogs are natural Omnivores, so they're okay not eating meat. Cats, on the other hand, are natural raw carnivores. They need the taurine (an amino acid) that is in raw animal flesh. (read that wiki page, the link) They also need more acid than dogs, for urinary health. Urinary problems seem to present more in male cats on vegan diets than females, PHified vegan cat foods are available which give the animal more acid. Vegan cat foods also contain synthetic taurine. Synthetic taurine is often added to animal foods containing meat too, I think the taurine kind of goes away when the meat is cooked. Please go here for more info on cat and dog food.

The reason I would have my companions be vegan is not entirely because of the same reasons I am a vegetarian. It would be because whatever meat the FDA or whomever deems unfit for human consumption, often gets thrown into companion animal food. I would be choosing a vegan diet for my friends for their own safety, I would not want them to eat diseased meat, I would not want them to eat anything that was unsafe for humans. I believe we should treat animals as friends, not things to give your leftovers or scraps to.

This is mostly unrelated, but please visit this site to learn about the cruel acts performed against circus elephants and visit this one to see how they can be living in peace instead of fear.

Also unrelated, check out this cool music video, it's a pretty good song too, and it's knitting related!

Book Meme

"In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of."

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. *Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. *A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. *The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. *Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. *The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. +Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. *Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. *East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. +Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. *Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. *Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. *1984 (Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay) (I've seen the movie, good one)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. *The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. *The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. +Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. *The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. *Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. *Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. *The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. *The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. *A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. *Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. *The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. *The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. *The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. *The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. *Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. *One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. *Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. *The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. *Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. *Shogun (James Clavell)
74. *The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. *The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. +Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen) (again, seen the movie)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. *Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. *The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. +The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
101. *My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)


I just bought The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and The Chrysalids. I'm in the middle of many books right now. Wicked, Life of Pi, The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats, Possessing Genius, to name a few, I'm sure there's more. I seem to get distracted by new books a lot, or I lose the ones I'm reading, or something happens to make me forget about reading for a while and I forget that I'm already reading something the next time I want to read and I pick up something new.


I bought the latest Interweave, and Wrap Style, which I have been wanting for ages. I finally got a look a scarf style, it's just not all that impressive really, maybe one day when I have more money to throw around I'll get it, I think I need to look through it again. I looked through the new Lace Style, it's quite impressive, there's some really beautiful stuff in that one, I think I'll wait till I can get it cheaper though.

I made yarn, from scratch. It's pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I also made a Kate the Cat for the Loganator. As well as a Le'Slouch in teal/turquoise Cascade 220 that was originally meant for a One Skein Wonder, which reminds me, I also made a One Skein Wonder in purple Cascade 220. No pictures today, maybe another day.

I was given a swift as a birthday present from my mother. I just put my name on a waiting list and my mom offered to pay for it as a birthday present. By the way, I turned seventeen on January 14th. Woo.

Holy crap, was that a blog post? I think it was. Don't know where the hell that came from. Bye.

PS Have a kitty!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in and say that, yes, I am still alive. And also to say:

LOOK WHAT I FREAKING GOT!!!!!Bahahahaha... So awesome.... It's and Ashford Kiwi. I even started spinning some wool last night! This was a present (!) from my Grandmother, Grandfather, Aunt Wendy, Uncle Shane and Aunt Kim. BTW: Wendy, that part that Gracie (dog) so lovingly chewed on is the part that keeps the bobbin stationary while the rest of the wheel is spinning. It is important but it still pretty much does it's job anyways, I'll still have to check if i can get a replacement for it. This wheel needs to be finished. (stained/varnished) But I don't know if I need to take the whole thing apart to do that or what. Any ideas?

I'm finding spinning really fun so far, I just need to remember to draft first and Jesus Murphy, don't stop pedalling. It also doesn't work too well on hardwood, it kept sliding away from me last night. I kept having to grab it and pull it back just as I got into a rhythm.

So it's almost Christmas and I only have three presents done... Um. I'll get there I guess.

Anyways, I've been doing some yarn shopping lately. (Gotta love that paycheck... oh yeah, I got a job, that hasn't been mentioned on here yet, has it?) Lets start with the beautiful Artyarns Ultramerino 4:The top is color 141 and the bottom is 114. (weird?) I am absolutely in love with this stuff.... It's so soft and I just love the colors. So autumny... I shall make beautiful socks with this here yarn...

NEXT!
This is Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift. Two balls each of 1020 Nighthawk and 1160 Scotch Broom. These will be used to make Eunny's Endpaper Mitts.

Um kaybyenow.