...and so is my new pattern.
...and so is my new pattern.
When I found out that my little sister was pregnant, I delayed posting because it was before the time one is allowed to make those kinds of announcements publicly. Of course, at the time I was also a delinquent blogger so it fell off my radar until the nights started cooling off here in SD and I began to remember that even though it really doesn't feel like Fall, my sister's due date is right around the corner. She is officially due at the end of December, but if I've learned anything from my older sister, she could probably deliver any time in the window between November and January. This means I am extremely far behind in my knitting.
Because the baby will be born into a cold, Canadian winter. I am tempted to knit baby (we don't know the gender - it's a surprise) a bunting bag, like the one from the purl bee.
I'm completely in love with it but have no idea how to put in a zipper, which I think is the only thing holding me back. This surprises me a little bit because not knowing how to do something is usually my impetus to pick a project. I think I may be a bit tentative about deciding what to make because I really want it all to be perfect.
Of course, I also vainly want everyone at the baby shower to be blown away. The pressure is killing me!
One day on my ride in, I met a co-worker who was also cycling. We began chatting and I learned that not only was the man I had previously only exchanged nods with in the hall named Chris, but that he had at one time worked in Toronto. In fact, that was where he began cycling to work. I was impressed. Of course I was curious whether he had biked in the winter, but he was quick to tell me that it was only a summer thing. After all, who would cycle in Canadian winter? That's when I told him about Richard.
My father has been cycling to work since his bum knees kept him from jogging and he noticed a little more volume around his waist line than he cared for. Soon, he was cycling Spring, Summer and Fall. He even had his children ride with him to work when they helped out at his office in the summer.But as soon as the snow fell, he felt the pudge began to creep back. The year of the Olympics in Lillehammer, Richard had an epiphany. While watching one of the events he reasoned, if these athletes could train year-round and perform their sport in the winter, why couldn't he?
To put this in context, I should tell you that my father lives with my mother in Sudbury, Ontario, which is 400 km north of Toronto. It is cold there in the winter and there is a lot of snow. My father was undeterred by the weather. Donning his ski outfit, complete with goggles borrowed from my younger sister (hot pink) and a snowboarding helmet, he set off on one of his heavier bikes, equipped with snow tires.
The weather conditions aren't the only thing that is adverse in Northern Ontario, so are the attitudes of its residents. This is a place where I saw a comic who had the following bit in his act:
Down in Toronto, if you see a guy biking in the winter, you think, "Good for him", "What an athete!". In Sudbury, if you see a guy go by on his bike in the winter, you think, "Oh, Joe lost his license again. That drunk. I told him not to drive home. That must be his third DIU now."
I wonder how much ribbing my father had to endure to keep up his beloved cycle to work. Richard was such an eccentric sight on his bicycle in the winter that one of the local newspapers did a piece about him. Of course, Richard insisted that the reporter test out his route to get the full experience. I pitied that poor woman - my father's route is hard enough in the summer when you are in shape. I can only hope he didn't make her brave Cardiac Hill.
On Monday, Chris stopped me in the hall after our usual exchange of nods to tell me that he had told someone else about Richard. During one of his teleconferences to a colleague in Canada the subject of cycling came up. He accepted a bit of praise for cycling here in San Diego, but then jumped in with the tale of a man in Northern Ontario who cycled to work, get this, in the winter.
I can only hope that one day someone will tell me the Legend of Richard upon finding out that I am Canadian or that I cycle to work. Even better would be to overhear a young cyclist telling a buddy the tale of a man in Canada who bikes in the winter as they ride by me. Best of all, though, would be if someone told Richard the Legend of Richard, not knowing, of course, that he is The Richard.
Last weekend, Costin and I traveled to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to celebrate the marriage of our friends, Jess & Steve.
I've known Jessica since I was 16. Even though we didn't go to high school together, we were still close friends. When we went off to university, we still lived close enough to keep in touch or accidentally wake up in the other's city after a night of partying . I don't usually cry at weddings, but when Kelly, Jessica's best friend and maid of honour, began to toast her, the waterworks started. Jessica is all of the things that Kelly mentioned in her speech, but she is also a lot more. Jessica is the kind of friend who will take out your contacts or hold up a puke bucket for you if you've had too much to drink. She will drop everything and hop on a bus to Toronto if you say the words "free backstage passes" and "Warped Tour" in the same sentence. She knows all of the words to Meatloaf's
Paradise by the Dashboard Light and will perform it at the drop of a hat. She is the best air guitarist I've ever seen and once schooled my little brother in the fine art. (I'm sure that that performance is one of the reasons I suspect my brother will hold her up as the standard against which to measure all women.) Not only is she built like a swimsuit model, but she's smart (as evidenced by her iron ring), witty and can drink most men I know under the table. She is a woman who will represent, who will take one for the team and who will never, ever accept that mint and chocolate is a good flavour combination.
Jess, I wish you and Steve a long and happy life together.
CONGRATULATIONS!
A few months ago, we were lucky enough to get a long visit from our friend, and my cuz, JS. One night, we took him to an outdoor patio in Del Mar, that overlooks to the ocean, to watch the sunset. After a few glasses of wine, we were all basking in the glorious San Diego weather watching the hummingbirds flit from flower basket to flower basket when JS asked,
"Is that a bird or a moth?"
"Definitely a bird. It's huge!"
"But it has a proboscis, like a moth..."
During the debate, we baptized the creature Both (aka. bird/moth) and, like true scientists, began to hatch a plan to trap one in order to study it further. The debate was finally settled when JS successfully took a photograph of the creature. It was a moth. I present the Hummingbird Moth, also known as the Hawk Moth.
My first thought was do these moths eat yarn? Check out the caterpillars!
With skulls on the brain, you can imagine my excitement when I saw the teaser photo for SpillyJane’s newest mitten/sock pattern.
(photo by spillyjane)
You may recall that I loved her Swedish Fish (aka Ranch) pattern so much, I knit it exclusively for few days and gave myself a shoulder injury. Better get some ice packs…
Last Fall, I was obsessed with skulls. We had only been living in SD a short time and, with our close proximity to Mexico, had already been inundated with Day of the Dead images and paraphernalia. I really wanted to knit some Day of the Dead themed mittens for Kristin for Christmas. I don't normally knit Christmas presents for my friends, but she had designed the banner for my shop and deserved something special. Besides, she digs skulls. Now there are a lot of skull patterns out there, but nothing that really did it for me. That's when I had a brilliant idea...I'll design my own skull pattern! I thought I was a genius. I would design the pattern, knit the sample and release it into the world right before Halloween (it was only a few weeks away). Ha! Now it's July and I'm still working on that mitten pattern. In the meantime, I started a spin-off arm warmer pattern. I figured that the arm warmers would be a faster knit and I wouldn't have to worry about the fiddly thumb. Besides, Kristin likes arm warmers (right?). I didn't meet the Christmas deadline either. There was more to this designing thing than I thought.
Then things got busy. I started a new job and a line of photography props. I was so busy that I hardly thought about those balls of black and white yarn languishing at the bottom of my stash. That is, until I booked my flight to Toronto for a summer visit. I had a new deadline: June 20th. I decided that the only way to get these done was to employ all of the goal achievement and time management strategies I had learned in my thirty years on this Earth. I broke my big goal into little goals and mapped out those little goals on my calendar (i.e. Friday: "Knit one motif"; Saturday: "Figure out that f*#$ing thumb"). Every night, amidst long hours at the office and a long list of Pinch Knits orders, I knit a little bit on the arm warmers and despite all of the frogging and re-knitting, they were done with plenty of time left for me to write up the pattern for you.
$4.00
My friend, Stephanie Robin, just had her photographs incorporated into an ad campaign in Norway!
You can read more about it on her blog. Congratulations, Steph! Your photos are amazing (especially that hanging shot).