And now for a public service announcement:

Just a reminder to all Canadians to get out and cast a ballot today. Voter turnout is pitiful in this country and I think this election more than ever we all need to have our say. Remember, you can't bitch if you don't vote (and four years is a long time to stay mumm about the government).

I actually had a really hard time deciding who to vote for this time around. I'm feeling completely dissilusioned with the Federal government these past few months so I decided to think locally when casting my ballot. It's been interesting to see how the local campaign has been run. Party A's candidate visited my home personally, was seen in the building on other occasions, handed out his own fliers personally that spoke about how his constituents would be represented in the capital and was generally around for questions and comments. Party B's candidate mailed two fliers out, neither of which included anything other than party propoganda (basically all about what the party leader would do as PM) and nothing about how he would represent us in Ottawa. Party C delivered one flier, the day before the election which didn't even have candidate C's name on it but just some info about the party leader. Wanna guess who I'm sending to Ottawa?

All right, with that said on with the knitting....

I cast on again for my ISE scarf, I'm knitting it the long way (read: 265 stitches on a 100cm needle) I must be nuts because it's driving me crazy with all those stitches crammed together. If nothing else it's almost done so I can have this commitment nightmare over, the pressure is just too much.

What an absolutely horrible day. I spent more than five hours in the dentist chair today and another two almost passed out in pain. Let me biging by saying I am TERRIFIED of dentists in general (sorry A, you're the exception I promise) and I haven't been for cash flow reasons in a while but I had a toothache that started last week and I was getting to the end of my rope. So I went on Tuesday for xrays and such and the news wasn't good and I had to come back today to have some cavities filled. So they were filled and DR. M told me that I had avoided a root canal, fine so I went on my merry way glad that it was taken care of...until the freezing wore off and I was in ten times the pain I was at the start of this whole affair. So I had to drag O back from the office to take me back for an almost four hour dental marathon to have the root canal done. Needless to say my jaw is sore from having my mouth propped open so long and neck pain from sitting in the chair (and to add insult to injury I have to go back on Tuesday to have it more permanently filled).

In other news I've entered the Knitting Olympics, I'm hoping to knit Kiri in KSH, I must be out of my mind to think I can get it done in sixteen days. Well, it's all about the challenge right? There are a few others knitting it too so there should be some solidarity in our craziness if nothing else.

In less encouraging news I'm still not decided on my ISE scarf and the deadline is flying towards us at incredible speed....wish me luck.

SP7 starts at the end of the week and I'm getting excited!

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? I’ll have to admit that I am. I prefer natural fibers to man-mades but I don’t have to have the most expensive thing either (I loooove Knitpicks). A nice basic all purpose yarn is great no matter what natural fiber it is.

2. Do you spin? Crochet? I can crochet but haven’t in years and don’t have any projects planned. I’m learning to spin with a drop spindle.

3. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? I have a roll up case for my dpn’s, my few straights and my addi collection are in large ziplock bags.

4. How long have you been knitting? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I leared to knit about twenty years ago but have just come back to it in a serious way in the last two years. I’d say I’m intermediate to advanced and I’m always trying new things to try and improve my skills. Luckily being on maternity leave gives me lots of time to work on it.

5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? No.

6. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.) I like vanilla and spicy sort of scents.

7. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Any sort of junk food is wonderful, I’d love to say I’m not a junk eater but it would be a total lie. Any candy is good candy.

8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? I'm almost finished a patchwork quilt for my son but I don't see myself doing another one anytime soon.

9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) It’s probably easier to say that I don’t like country or Opera, other than that I’ll listen to it. Our cd collection is very diverse. Yes, I can play MP3s.

10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand? My favorite colour is green like my eyes but I love any intense or vibrant (read: non-pastel) colours, earth and natural tones are great too. I really don’t like yellow much.

11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I’m married with a six month old son. No pets.

12. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? Yes, yes, yes and no.

13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? My current fav is Artyarns followed closely by Koigu and Noro. I use a lot of vareigated yarns.

14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? The more I work with it the less I like superwash wool, acrylics.

15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s? Basically just knitting in general. I’ll go through a sock phase, then a scarf phase then I’ll knit baby clothes intensely for a while, then lace…. I have knitting ADD.

16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I’m really loving lace and socks right now.

17. What are you knitting right now? The flower basket shawl from Fall 2004 Interweave and the backyard leaves scarf from Scarf Style among other smaller projects.

18. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? I love being given something someone spent their time on, to me that is the ultimate expression of caring.

19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? I mostly work with circs (I’m building an Addi collection) but I find them a bit too fast for lace work so I want to start getting some bamboo circs. Dpn’s are cool too.

20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I prefer bamboo and aluminum.

21. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Both.

22. How did you learn to knit? My aunt Val taught me to knit and purl when I was about seven or eight but I hadn’t knit in years, I picked it back up when I was pregnant and have taught myself tons with books and knittinghelp.com.

23. How old is your oldest UFO? Thanks to the WIP along blog it’s only about 3 months old, a cardigan for myself in Manos del Uruguay. The girls have encouraged me to clear the backlog a fair bit.

24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird? Monkeys!

25. What is your favorite holiday? I’m a Christmas person, I love giving gifts.

26. Is there anything that you collect? Clay Chinese teapots, it’s a staple Christmas and brithday gift from my husband every year and I so look forward to them.

27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I get Interweave Knits but I usually buy Vogue and Spin-Off from the newstand.

28. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? Any lace books or stitch dictionary sort of books, I drool over them in my LYS. I’d love to try SWTC’s soy silk or anything from Alchemy, I can’t seem to find them anywhere local. I love Fibertrends lace patterns too. I'm longing to try Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace, maybe with my income tax refund....

29. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I’d like to get better at Fair Isle and try a steeked sweater.

30. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I love knitting socks but I like to do them with great dk and worsted yarns for cozy warm feet. I wear a European shoe size 39.5.

31. When is your birthday? (mm/dd) December 12th.

So keeping to my resolution I've had my yarn buying day for this month. S and I met and hit Lettuce Knit, Romni and Knitomatic yesterday in a yarny whirlwind few hours. I actually bought very little (for me): some SWTC Bamboo way on sale, supermarino for my ISE knitting (more about this later) and some KPPPM for me for socks. My first trip to Lettuce Knit and it may have to be a monthly adventure I think.

So I've finally bowed to the pressure and started my ISE scarf. Just to preface this, although I often knit for gifts I have yet to knit for a knitter. I was having a terrible time deciding on yarn and pattern, the pressure was too much! Something for DH or DS is always appreciated but they don't have the same critical eye for knitting (and luckily also for knitting mistakes) that a fellow woman of wool might. Looking at all the pics of everyone's progress on the blog was a lot of pressure to preform and I don't knit well when I'm being "forced" to knit. So at this point I've bought three different lots of yarn and swatched more patterns than I can count trying to come up with the just perfect combination of SSS (soft, stylish and snuggly). In the end even the most recent yarn purchase (see supermarino above which will now become socks for me) didn't make the grade, I've pulled something out of the stash that was bought for a project for me to use and after much agonizing the pattern is starting to make some sense too. I'm working on my first two charted patterns right now and it's taking some getting used to. Now that it's getting down to the wire though I'm nervous I won't get the scarf done on time to mail to it's destination as something I mailed to the USA in the Holiday SP round took almost a month to arrive. The only thing that's making me feel better about my procrastination is that my scarf hasn't arrived yet either.

I spent half the evening pureeing "real people food" for M. More applesauce and some carrots. I have visions of little gobs of orange mush everywhere because he thinks it's really funny to blow on the spoon when it's almost in his mouth and spraying me with little drops of his dinner.

Happy Half-Year Birthday to little M!!! I can't believe just six months ago I was as big as a house. People can tell you the time goes so fast but until you've been there you don't really realize, it's zoomed by.

Mommy and Daddy eagerly awaiting the little person's arrival.


With Grandpa on his second day in the world, my poor dad looked so nervous.


I didn't think it was possible that I could love him more than I did on the day that he was born but I find that every day my heart gets a little bit more full. A big thanks to O for giving me such an incredible gift.

So glad the holidays are over, time to unwind. O and I have spent just about every waking moment watching 24 which we've become totally addicted to (I'm having dreams, or is that nightmares, with the ticking clock in them). We caught a marathon on A&E on Boxing day having never seen it before and since we've watched two entire seasons. I can't wait for the new season to start next week.

I've decided to make som resoclutions of the knitting kind, I need to get this stash under control so I'm going to try and post some trades on Knitty to get rid of some of the stuff I'm never going to use. I'm also going to limit my yarn buying to one day per month, I can buy what I want on that day provided I have the cash to pay for it. I'm hoping that this'll make me less prone to impulse purchases and make me think a bit more carefully about what I buy (plus less buying days means more knitting days so hopefully I'll knit up some of what I'm storing). I actually cast on for my Flower Basket Shawl I've been wanting to do for a while with stash yarn thins morning. MY fist adventure in charts so we'll see how it goes.

In other knitting news SP7 starts next week so I'm looking forward to that, I had such a good time last time both spoiling and being spoiled rotten! I'm obsessively checking my e-mail box for my pal's info.

The munchkin started fruit this past week, O bought a book with baby food recipies so I made him some applesauce. He was pretty resistant to it at first but now he doesn't seem to mind. Another week and I'll start him on some carrots I think.