Anyone remember that little challenge I gave myself...

I think it was over a year ago now. I was going to get back into dance shape and kind of push myself a bit. We all know where the road to good intentions go...

But I'm quite pleased with myself today. Today marks my third go round with my noisys (ie hardshoes) since the move :) And each session has been at least an hour :)

Have to give credit where credit's due: it's the new place making this possible. Not only has my daily to and from work gone from 12.2km down to 2.6km, giving me actual energy to dance after 8 hours on my feet, but there is a lovely unfinished basement. A concrete floor just begging for stomps and stamps, trebles and toe-jumps :)

Ah, it feels good after nearly 3 years away from it. Haven't tried anything softshoe; a little concerned about the hard floor and only having ghillies between it and my toes.

So for now, I'm trying to do one day a week for at least an hour. I've even got the Oracle out and been tackling not only good ol' St. Patrick's Day (steps 1 & 2 for now; my stamina is gone!!! how did I ever survive 1-5??), but I've dusted off the stampy Hornpipe (heehee, still picture David clapping to this) and Bernadette's Mayhem, the first (only?) treble jig I ever remembered mostly what I was supposed to do :) It feels good to be back at it :) I know my technique has gone to pot and my turn out is atrocious, but I'm working at it and maybe, maybe mind you, with a little perseverance I can get back to looking like a "real" dancer again. Or at least feel like one.

 TTFN

They say bad luck comes in 3s...

Oh dear. Where to start? As someone (Lewis Carroll?) once wrote, start and at the beginning and when you come to the end, stop. So here goes.

The 12th of January saw melting in the morning on my way to work. By lunchtime it was freezing rain and light snow was falling by the time I got off at 2. My first mistake was thinking it was fine to walk home. The second was taking the little cut through by the Bare Mountain trail. I fell. And once again landed on my left hand. Only this time I felt a pop. I took off my mitten to reveal the already bruising and swelling hand. Uh oh. I picked myself off, texted Roomie I was on my way back up the hill to go to the Emergency and slowly made my way back up passed work. Long story short, I cracked a bone in my hand and spent 11days in a splint/half cast and a further 4 weeks in a full cast. There was also soft tissue damage, again. Have to wear a tensor bandage around it if I'm at work still. Cast has been off 12 days today.

As if January wasn't sucking enough, there was heavy rains on the 25th. And with the ground frozen guess where the water decided to go? The joys of a basement apartment :( We got about 2" of water, which wasn't as bad as some but still bad enough. And I was at work when it happened. With a two-day-old full cast on my dominant hand. Oy. Long story short on this: we wound up moving to a lovely semi detached in a much more central location (15-20mins to work instead of an hour- hour+10).

As you can maybe guess, January was *not* my favorite month.  And enter February. Not too bad until the cast came off. Because of soft tissue damage taking longer to heal, I have a tensor wrapped around that hand/wrist at work. And two days after the cast came off I was hurrying to fill an order for several hot chocolates (mini rant: why do people come through drive thru and order huge orders?? Seriously, up to 4 drinks, fine. But 12? 15? And then complain that service is slow? You try doing your order, buddy. Let's see if you can fill it in under 2mins. Bet it would take you 10! Sorry, readers. end rant). Here's an interesting thing about hot chocolate: it's hot. And when it splashes back on a bandaged hand, it burns. And continues burning until the bandage can be pulled off and hand plunged under cold water. And an ice bath *will* prevent further damage but nasty blisters do form. Guess who gets hot chocolate burn scars down her thumb? Oy very.

2015 hasn't been too kind so far, but we're settling in and making the new place a home. The cats love the big windows and running up and down stairs (it's two stories plus full basement). I decided yesterday I was going to use the wool wash on two projects that got soaked in the flood and maybe work on one. I had tried to dry them in the damp apartment but not much luck so had put them back in their respective project bags (also soaked) and put both into a plastic bag *with* my bottle of Eucalan. And yesterday I made a discovery: that plastic bag never made it here :( It must've gotten shifted in all the confusion and wound up on the garbage pile :( So my lovely Carson shawl is no more :(

Even worse, the bag I was using for it was the bag I knit in 1999 to carry my softshoes, notebook and pen when I first started taking Irish dance. My lovely pale blue cabled bag that Ita (my first dance teacher, who passed from cancer in 2004) thought was such a clever thing and never failed to show people.

Ok, 2015, enough bad things. Can we now get on with the good stuff? Maybe a lottery win? Hint hint lol

New Year and new things happening!!

Happy 2015, everyone :) Hope the new year is treating everyone well.

So today's my first day off of the new year and I figured it's high time I got my patterns more exposure. I've been thinking on this for quite a while to be honest. And in December I started having some major doubts, thanks in no small part to the VATMOSS deal happening in the EU. It's not a great time to be thinking about jumping into designing patterns for sale, especially since the... he individuals who put this mess in place didn't have the foggiest clue they were potentially harming microbusinesses around the globe. I digress. We'll leave it at: the whole confused and quite frankly scares me a bit.

But I have 3 lovely patterns available already. All of them free, so not in any danger from VATMOSS or Darth Vader or whatever other baddie might be lurking. And they're on the blog here, linked to pattern pages on Ravelry and that's all good. But, and isn't that a word of great meaning for only being 3 letters long?, what of the wonderful piece I came up with this past summer that has yet to see the light of day? And the other little nuggets in my head?

I put a simple query out to the twitterverse this morning: what app(s) do you recommend for turning patterns into PDFs? I was answered fairly quickly but the lovely @plutoniummuffin :) And after a bit of fiddling and tweaking, I had Anchors and Ropes into a PDF and into my "store" on Ravelry. Both MVP and Pyewacket followed suit. My whole collection is available to the Ravelry masses.

I admit, I used a copy, cut and paste method with these three. The text is a bit wonky from page to page, I admit. But everything is there that should be and I included pictures.

Today I launched Knit-Dance-Repeat designs :) And I hope once things have become clearer with regards to VATMESS, I'll be adding to the collection!

2015 is going to be a year of changes. They're already starting :)

TTFN
Síle

End of 2014 roundup

So, to start off, I wrote a post back in Oct, using the app, that apparently never published :( *sigh* Have I ever explained that technology doesn't like me very much?

Anywho, I was checking Ravelry this morning, trying to decide what WIP(s) to work on when I figured I should check this year's FO total. Can I have a drumroll, please? ;)

7!! Admittedly, they're all small things, but I completed 7 projects in 2014 :) Which means I passed my knitting goal :) Lovely feeling that.

My other goals didn't fair so well. I seemed to have been sick more often than not this year (just over a 4 day bout of flu) so my dance practice goal was never in the running. And my weight loss has been slim to none, although everyone says I look smaller. The common assumption is I've gained muscle. Whatever's going on, I'm still hovering around that last 20lbs I wanted to lose.

Now, as all good end of year posts do, I must look towards 2015 is the New Year and muse about what I can accomplish.

On the knitting side: I don't think 5 projects of a little more substance is out of line. Especially if I get some of these WIPs out of the way ;) Daydreams in Lace jacket, I'm looking at you. You too, Carson shawl.

Dance and weight loss: I'm lumping these two together because I firmly believe they are key to one another. Roomies and I have a budget and plan in place to be living in Town before September. And that will mean Síle back in a dance studio working her tootsies off :) And that combined with walking around the pretty city, I think, is going to help me get the weight under control :) Also, I'm much happier when I dance and that inspires me to be creative in my knitting and other things too. It's all good :)

So, that's my basic hopes for 2015 :) I want to wish everyone a great New Year and may all your projects turn out as planned ;)

TTFN

Here's What's Keepin' Me Outta Trouble

My latest project has been the "Carson" shawl by Rosemary (Romi) Hill :) What a gorgeous pattern! And it's not difficult, just very effective: two color(yarn), there's also a three color option, piece using a slip st pattern. I'm well into it (row 128, I think) and still enjoying it. For the main color I chose Online SuperSocke100 in multi-shades of purple (color 1464) and for the contrast KnitPicks Palette in black.
TTFN; pics to follow

My Precious

I did it! As of just before 10am (NDT), I completed my totally awesome new design :)

So now I need to knit one from my notes in a non-discontinued yarn to test the pattern.

This is one of those times I wish my laptop weren't on the fritz. I have no way to turn the pattern into a pdf to submit it to anyone. sigh

She's done but for a test knit and hopefully I can get this available to people soon as I think it'll catch some attention.

That's all from my little corner of the Rock on this sunny Wednesday morning :)

TTFN

How's about some books?

Oops. Got a little sidetracked what with the whole laryngitis/fever/dizzy thing I came down with a few weeks ago.
But happily in the midst of that, my order from the lovely folks at Knit Picks arrived :) And what came was books :) Knitting books :)
Sadly, the bulk of my knitting books are still in Saskatchewan so I'm trying to build a small library here without duplicating what's back West.
So I have two titles here to ramble about today: The Magic of Shetland Lace Knitting by Elizabeth Lovick and Folks Socks (updated) by Nancy Bush :)
I love lace knitting. I love the stitches and the histories of different areas where it has become an art. I was immediately drawn to The Magic of Shetland Lace Knitting. This book is excellent. The opening chapter gives a lovely overview of the history of knitting in the Shetland islands. There is an essential skills chapter that explains techniques step-by-step. There are even six projects with suggestions on substitute lace patterns to try. My favorite part is the stitch dictionary. Organized by stitch and row count, it's easy to find just the right stitch to set off your current WIP. I'm currently working "Queen's Lace" onto a project! I love how this book is laid out. It's clear and concise. Just what a novice knitter needs to jump into the world of yos and K2togs :) While I'm no novice, the stitch dictionary and the history were of great interest to me. An excellent addition to my library.
Onto Folk Socks by Nancy Bush :) I wanted this book the first time it was out. And before I had a chance to get my hands on it, it was out of print. But now it's back and better :) And I have my own copy! This is such a great book. The history chapters alone are worth the price of admission! Then there are the lovely patterns, updated with more current yarn choices. I have several of Ms. Bush's sock books and have knit several pairs of socks from them. I don't see this one being any different. I especially want a pair of the kilthose! Another fabulous addition to my little library :)
And at nearly 1am (NDT) I think that about wraps things up. Two new books full of possibilities :) I shall dream of FOs ;) And WIPs of course. lol A girl can't forget those.
TTFN