'Wool Gathering"

I'm reading a book by Rose Tremain called "Music & Silence". It is historical fiction set in the court of Denmark in the 1600's. This passage appears on page 10:



Queen Sofie ... loved to be rowed in a little boat to an island "and there sit in the sunshine and indulge in secret in her passion for knitting. This activity had been proscribed throughout the land as tending to induce in women an idle trance of mind, in which their proper thoughts would fly away and be replaced by fancy. Men called this state 'wool gathering'. That the wool itself could be fashioned into useful articles of haberdashery such as stockings or night bonnets made them no less superstitiously afraid of the knitting craze. They believed that any knitted night bonnet might contain among its million stitches the longings of their wives that they could never satisfy and which in consequence would give them nightmares of the darkest kind."

Flowers are forever

Experimenting with Reverse Bloom wash cloths from the Weekend Knitting book.



The peach and cream flower is made of very inexpensive dishcloth cotton, which I dislike because my fingers hurt while knitting with it. However, the finished product is soft.



The bright pink flower to the left of it is made with Rowan cotton tape. (colour 549) I modified the pattern to make each petal smaller because I was worried about running out of yarn. The flower you see here took exactly one skein of the cotton tape. This was much easier to knit with than the dish cloth cotton and is very soft to use. I got the Rowan on sale, but still it was 6 times more expensive than the dish cloth cotton.



The tiny blue flower WIP is made with a very thin silky cotton by Schoeller Esslinger called "Palma". I bought it for really cheap at a big box craft store (shhhh). I think it is discontinued. The gauge is much smaller, obviously, so the flower will be smaller. This suits me just fine, since the others are a bit big to use as face cloths. The cost of this yarn is between the Rowan and the dish cloth cotton.



The pattern in the book is extremely clear and well written. These flowers are a joy to knit, especially when storm-stayed due to blizzard conditions. In fact, we are under a blizzard warning again today. This will be the 3rd major storm in 8 days. Hmmm, it must be winter :)

"W" stands for "wrong"

Each mosaic square is a photo of an American service man or woman who has been killed in Iraq, in the war that violates international law. The original mosaic in larger sizes can be found here:

Canadian, eh

You Know You're From Canada When...

You're not offended by the term, "Homo Milk." You understand the phrase, "Could you pass me a serviette, I just dropped my poutine, on the chesterfield." You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars. You drink pop, not soda. You know what a Mickey and 2-4 mean. You don't care about the fuss with Cuba. It's a cheap place to go for your holidays, with good cigars. You know that a pike is a type of fish, not part of a highway. You drive on a highway, not a freeway. You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers. You know that Casey and Finnegan were not part of a Celtic musical group. You get excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada. You brag to Americans that: Shania Twain, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion and many more are Canadians. You know that the C.E.O. of American Airlines is a Canadian! You know what a touque is. You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is always pronounced "Zed" not "Zee". You understand the Labatt Blue commercials. You know how to pronounce and spell "Saskatchewan." You perk up when you hear the theme song from "Hockey Night in Canada." You were in grade 12, not the 12th grade. "Eh?" is a very important part of your vocabulary and more polite than, "Huh?" Winter. Whenever you want it. And then some. There's German food, Italian food, Chinese food, Armenian food, American food, but NO Canadian food. You call a "mouse" a "moose". You like the Americans a little because they don't want Quebec either. Contests run by anyone other than the government have "skill-testing questions" that winners must answer correctly before they can claim a prize. Everything is labelled in English and French. Milk comes in plastic bags as well as cartons and plastic jugs. Mountain Dew has no caffeine. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Canada.

Get Your Own "You Know You're From" Meme Here





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Lucky Winner

There were only three entrants in the yarn draw. I wrote each name on a separate piece of paper fanned them in my hand like cards, then asked my husband to draw one. He made a big production of choosing but finally settled on one and drew the winner. And the yarn goes to ..... Dorothy! Woo Hoo! Congratulations! Please send me your mailing address on the private email so I can pop this in the mail to you, k? Thanks to everyone for playing along.

That's all and Good Night.

Left Overs

Blue Loretta was made for my mom-in-law for Christmas. By all accounts, she likes it. (We live thousands of miles apart, so I didn't get to see her open it). Anyway, notice the lack of fringe. As a result, I have yarn left over and wish to give it away. Scroll past the photo for details.





The yarn is a boucle, from Bernat, called Illusions: 98% acrylic, 2% polyester. Each skein is 5 oz. or 140 g. The main colour is multiple blues with flecks of green, called "Carnival". The contrast colour is navy blue. Each skein is 195 yards, or 178 meters. Go here for yarn details and a better photo of the colours on the Bernat site



I am giving away 4 full skeins of the multi blue and a half skein of the navy blue. If you want this yarn, just leave me a comment and I'll add you to the draw. Entries will be accepted until midnight EST on Monday, January 10. Winner to be announced sometime Tuesday.



Cheers!