Sewing!!

I haven’t sewn in years. I had to dust off the machine after seeing this pattern. I stayed up too late last night and converted this:

into this:

I did use the pattern, but I did modify it significantly.

I widened the strap to 1.5″, so the strip was 3.5″.  I then also cut a strip2″ wide and 23″ long from both the black and the lining to add a gusset.  I sewed the gusset in at the appropriate time and topstitched it on the outside after assembling the outer shell.

I also put the strap in while sewing the top and bottom together by putting it between the right sides of the lining and the outer shell.  I then stiched a box and an x at the end of each strap for strength.

The material is cotton twill. When I make another one, I will use something with a little more body for the outer shell. This buckles a bit much.

If there’s something that’s not clear about what I changed, let me know!

torn

Ever had something that you are really not sure whether you feel good or bad about?

I’m in that spot right now.

D and I are on vacation. We’re snowboarding in a far away place.

The snowboarding is great. The rest is not.

We’re kinda with a group here. We get discounted lift tickets and there are a few on and off mountain events.  Otherwise, we’re on our own (hotel, meals etc.).

The riding has been great, but the interactions with some of the group have left me feeling horrible.

Since most of you are knitters, let’s put this in knitting terms.

Let’s say D and I have gone to MDSW. We’re knitting with the equivalent of Aero straights, everyone else is on Addi Turbos or Harmony interchangables. We’re being told “those Aeros are unsafe” and “why don’t you go out and buy a complete set of Turbos, you’ll knit much faster with them.”  People stopped talking to us when they found out we’re still using straights.Then, even worse, someone assumed that D is a beginner knitter because he’s a boy (OK, D isn’t really a knitter, but it was someone that made a big assumption about me because I am a girl).  There are also free needle trials at this fictional MDSW and I was standing around wiaitng for them, only to be told that the trials were nearly over even though I’d been there waiting to try one specific pair that was not returned on time.

D says I should point out that I’m a better “knitter” than most of the people judging me.

It’s really putting a bad vibe on this vacation. I’m not seeing the best side of humanity.  Being constantly put down, one little comment at a time, by a large group is really demoralizing.  This is a niche sport, we should be inclusive, instead I’m feeling left out for not having Addis.  It’s not that I am not interested in Addis, I just know they cost a lot and I’d like to understand what Addis offer that my old Aeros don’t.  I can’t get straight information, I just get assumptions, biased views and sloughed off comments.I tried to demo the Addis, but there were none in stock for someone who knits light weight like me.

I’m really debating about writing a letter to the people running the event, but it’s hard to put it into words that don’t sound like a whiney child.  They make a living off people buying Addis so why would they care about someone who still uses Aeros?

but I have a blog, so I’ll blog instead.

Socks to be you!

D here! I’m hijacking B’s blog again! What’s the occasion you may ask?

I got a new pair of socks!!!!

Oh, and she also left me alone with the ‘pooter for a few minutes. She’s out with her knitting pals.

So, back to the socks! They are verrry nice! B made up the pattern as she went so they are truly custom made for me. She had me try them on several times during throughout the fabrication process to ensure a perfect fit. Many fancy, high tech features have been incorporated into their design:

• Simultaneous knittage to eliminate “second-sock-angst” and to ensure uniform leg ascention
• Stylish full length power ribbing along the top of the foot. Nothing plain about these bad-boys!
• Super support arch ribbing to prevent unsightly sagging arches
• Ultra smooth texture under heel and ball of foot to virtually eliminate unsightly grooves on sensitive pressure points
• Extreme blue colour scheme – blue is good. I like blue.
• Asymmetrical stitch count (apparently one sock has several more stitches around – but I can’t tell so I think they were supposed to be that way). My ankles must be different circumferences.

These socks rule. B is awesome for making them for me.

That is all. Now back to your regularly scheduled blogger.

d.

It’s not February…

but I have the sweater for it.

I jumped on the bandwagon and knit the February Lady Sweater.  It has 3730 projects on Ravelry.

I used Cascade 220 handpaints in colourway 9930. It used 4 skeins. Every last little bit of 4 skeins.

If I did it again, I would do a few more rows before starting the lace pattern. I think the bunching under the arms is caused by not having enough length there.

Enough writing. You want pictures.

I had to crop my head out. I had horrible expressions as it was about -15C while we were taking pictures.

Life

The world seems to be coming at me really fast these days. So much happening.

Knitting, I finished my February Lady Sweater. Lots of compliments while wearing it today.  D’s socks are fitting this far.

We had a great Secret Santa with my knitting group last week. We decided to do it in January and it was really fun. My secret Santa got me a book I really wanted, Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns. She also gifted me with 2 skeins of handpainted sock yarn it’s the one called Damsel on this page, but it’s much pinker in the dye lot that I now have.  Kim, thank you again. I will take pictures in daylight sometime to show the yarn really well. It’s very pretty and soft.

The book was handed around the group and there are a lot of patterns that willbe knitted around the table I think. Have a look for yourself sometime!

What else. We’re getting back into snowboarding season again. We booked tickets and a hotel in Aspen for February 10-15 (time for the SES again). We did a bit of a photoshoot at MSLM this weekend

Amazing what cropping out everyone else in an image will do for the centre of attention!

That’s me, going against the flow. I’m like a salmon swimming upstream. Note the man doing a great pylon impression. Since he’s on skis, we call him a “go-lon” as go-lons are known to start moving when you least expect it.

This one shows my girlish figure.

This one’s my favourite. Look at me GO!!!

That’s all for now.

Quick question – can you see the links I’ve put into this post? There are four. I noticed the other day that in this template the linked text is not really visible. Perhaps I should change my template?

How the Dress Dilemma Turned Out

We went to a very chilly Saskatoon (high in the mid -30s) and had a marvellous time at D’s brother’s wedding the weekend before Christmas.  I was asked to do a reading, D was the best man (of course!).

I think we looked smashing.

We do clean up well.  I’ve never seen D in a tux before.

D’s mom treated me to a hair styling appointment on the day of the wedding. The put some thickener spray in my hair but didn’t tell me! When I showered the next morning, the suds from the shampoo looked like hot chocolate! Scared the daylights outta me! Had to have D confirm that I was still a brunette (the mirror in the bathroom was too foggy to see!).

The wedding itself was beautiful. The ceremony had laughter and tears. The bride was radiant. I was seated near the podium so I couldn’t see my BIL for the ceremony, but he sure looked happy when he turned to walk down the aisle.

We had a blast.

I’m not crazy

I’ve had an ongoing battle with a major telecommunications provider for the past 2 years. When I moved here with D, I had a cell phone, internet and land phone line. I transferred the land phone line to my former housemate, but kept the internet and cell phone in my name. I had a 6 year relationship with this company when we learned that if we combined my cell, and internet with D’s land line we would get a good discount.  I was already paying all three bills, so this seemed like a good idea.

I filled out the forms and sent them in using my name, account numbers and everything.  To my surprise, the company decided to put all 3 accounts in my husband’s name.  I could no longer communicate with the company, even though I had initiated the paperwork, had a good history and paid the bills.

I tried calling them. No dice. I’m not the “account holder” on the record.  This company only deals with issues like this between 9 am and 5 pm. D works 8:30 till 5:30. He finally found the time to wait the 40 minutes on the phone to get me on as a user about 8 months ago.

Remember my cell phone? I was on a contract that expired in November while we were in Vegas. The company called the cell phone during the day and asked to speak with D. I said no and asked who was calling. They told me they were calling to offer D a new plan, but they couldn’t talk to me as I was not the account holder, I was just a user. I’ve had this phone and contract for over 8 years at that point. They refused to talk to me.

At this point I started using the word chattle to describe myself when I tried to deal with them. I was good enough to pay the bill, I’d had a long relationship with this company, but apparently I was no longer a person of value in the relationship.

We delved a bit deeper into the bill and realised that $150 a month for basic internet, a land line that is rarely used for long distance and a cell phone that is used for less than an hour a month is NOT a good deal. So we transfered to a VOIP phone, cable internet an  the last holdout is my cellphone – we’ve been out of the area on the 22nd of each month since November so I needed to call and give the 20 days notice required to cancel the bill.

I called in and talked with the customer service agent.  Since I ask about how to go about leaving their company they ask why. I started in about not being able to manage the accounts. She explained the company line again (I’m a user, not the account holder). I asked her to look at the history and she agreed that I had a good history, I paid the bills etc. but there was nothing she could do to change the account holder. I asked to put in the 30 days notice and she said she had to transfer me.

I waited on hold for about 3 minutes, then the customer service agent came back on the line, laughing. She said “I’m so sorry about this, but it needs to be the account holder to cancel the service. I hate to do this, I now understand your frustration even more. Is D around to speak to the other agent?”

D got on the phone and explained yet again to the cancellations agent the whole drama and we got the 30 day notice in.

I usually would be annoyed yet again, but the fact the first lady was laughing when she realised exactly why I was annoyed made my day.  If it’s ridiculous enough that she caught it I’m not crazy.

The Dress Dilemma is SOLVED!

Remember my dress dilemma?

It’s solved! We found a great dress in Vegas. It’s great – the colour is festive, the fit is loose so I can eat a lot and I can fit a bra under it (obviously not the bra shown in the picture!!).

Thank you for the good advice everyone. I went with sparkely in the end!

Random Wednesday

I’m tired. too tired to get pictures together, to tired to make this flow, but I have to points out 3 things.

1. How random is it that the 403 (like an urban interstate for the ‘mericans) was closed this morning because of DEER on the highway? They made it through the fences and it was closed at HWY 6. Luckily I noticed it wasn’t moving before I got on so I took the super secret backroad/cyclist knowledge method to get to school, but that would have sucked to have been stuck there. It’s 7 kms from where I get on to where the closure was, and there are no exits in that 7 kms.

2. Mid October, D gets a call from the credit card company. His card’s been “compromised”.  New one to be issued immediately, go pick it up from the bank in 2-3 business days. 3 weeks later he still hadn’t gotten it. Now today, I get the call that my number’s been compromised.  No unusual charges, nothing I didn’t charge on it, but I get to go through the hassle now. I was planning on shopping this weekend and making some online charity donations. Guess D can pay me back for all the stuff I bought him in the weeks he didn’t have a card.

Neither of us have had this happen before. Makes me wonder what we’ve done lately to bring it on…

edited Dec. 5 – less than 24 hours AFTER I called TD VISA I had my new card in my hands. It was shipped to the local branch and I was able to pick it up last night on my way home from school.  That was what was supposed to happen with D’s card, but didn’t. He pays an annual fee for his card (we got a bit of it back for our troubles), I don’t. hmmmm.

3. This article. Read it. It explains so much. I see it all the time at school. A large portion of young women have given up.  I don’t understand the bags and pants with “tna” written all over them. Sure, it’s a company logo, but it’s not a good TLA (Three Letter Acronym). Everything is so shallow, it’s either love or hate. There’s BFFs and nothing else. What about regular friends? What about being smart? What about differences being beautiful?

If that’s not random, I don’t know what is.

7 things I love

I was tagged a few weeks ago by Kim, a fellow sketchy knitter.  I was asked to write about 7 things I love.  I could do the cop out and tell you about how much I love D ( my husband and best friend) and how Fred and Ginger (the cats) are the cutest.  But I’d like to tell you more. I already told you 3 things I love last year.  I need 7 new ones…

Lets see where this goes.

1. Blob.

What is blob? It’s a snack around here. If we’re a bit peckish in the evening, we make a batch of blob. It’s really just some rice krispie squares that underachieved. They didn’t become square. They embraced the entropy of the world and became a blob.

Really, the truth is that we don’t want to wait, so we eat it while it’s still warm and gooey.

2. The couch.

I should have fluffed it better and made it look good for the picture.  D and I are both small people. We live in a small scale house. We looked long and hard to find a couch that fit us and that didn’t overpower the room.  We ended up with this one.

I love the couch because it’s comfortable and it does a lot of good stuff. When I can’t sleep, I come out and read or work on it, then sleep out here.  The other night D couldn’t sleep so he came out to read and sleep and his comment was that the couch is more comfortable than our bed. I think that describes it perfectly.

It also doesn’t stain and the cat hair just wipes off. Horray for microfibre!

3. The Cottage

My grandparents purchased this cottage in the 1950s and we are lucky that it is still in the family.  Currently my Aunt owns it, but we can use it on several occaisions in the summer and fall. It’s so peaceful, a great getaway and gets me back in touch with my family and my childhood.  There are several traditions about the cottage (and D’s trying to start one about jumping in the lake straight from the car!), but my favourite is trying to avoid doing the dishes by going for a canoe paddle right after dinner to “see the sun set”.  It works about 75% of the time (shhh!).

4. Sequence

It’s a board game. It’s got very easy rules. It can be played by 2 to 12 people (OK, numbers that aren’t multiples of 2 or 3, like 5, 7 and 11 don’t work).  It’s great when some players are 3 sheets to the wind.  Get a copy. You won’t regret it.

5. Keens

I have 4 pairs of Keens right now. One pair is only good for wearing in the garden now.

They are so comfy and have a style all their own. Kinda like me?

6. The basement wall.

Without the basement wall our bikes and snowboards would be all over. Yes, those are bikes and boards for 2 people. No, not all the bikes are pictured.

7. The internets.

I’m addicted. That is all.

Have you seen I can has cheezburger? Fred and Ginger now talk like that.

Phew. That was 7. If you read this, consider yourself tagged and leave me a comment to say you’re doing it!