in which i am sheepish....no pun intended

Ok....it's been waaay too long since I've posted. I throw myself upon your mercy (if there are any of you left checking this blog) and apologize whole-heartedly....although I have a sneaking suspicion that your lives have gone on perfectly fine without my blathering entries....still-- so sorry my friends. I have been reading your blogs and posting comments when I could, just not keeping up with things around By Hook or By Crook! I vow to be better in the future, and will try to post at least once a week, pinky swear. No real excuses on my part, except to say that life has been weird....chaotic, strange...much like this picture:



All this crap was on my little table beside the couch....I snapped this picture when I was feeling fed up one day and realized I felt it was how my brain probably looked at that moment.

Of course there's yarn in it, what did you expect?


I won't go on ad-nauseum about what I've been up to since March, but here's a couple things I did.....

I got up close and personal with our resident chipmunk, whom I called Theo.....well, as close as me taking this picture through our back screen door...

Here he is telling me to put down the damn camera and bring him some peanuts already, jeez, I'm slow!

Then one day while keeping a watch out for our ducks, I spotted this little guy out front eating plants and had a little conversation with him:


A little bit hard to see on account of his natural camoflage I suppose, but it's a little bunny!! I dubbed him Buster, as in "Hey Buster!! Stop eatin' my green thingies!!" Don't you just love my technical gardening jargon? I am still flabbergasted as to why all these wild critters keep showing up around our place, it's not like we're out in the middle of nowhere...unless "nowhere" is in the middle of a busy street in a smallish city....

One thing I didn't do was sign up with Twitter....maybe I'm getting old (maybe??) but I just don't see the point....or maybe my life isn't that exciting that I need to be updating my status every 20 minutes....

I have been doing a lot of knitting and crocheting (duh!) and will post more pictures in the following entries...don't want to bore you all at once now...what fun would that be!

Cee's brother practically begged me on his hands and knees asked me if I could make him some socks like I had made for cee so I happily obliged him. No pictures as I used the Mock Wave Cable pattern from Favorite Socks that I've shown here previously, and aside from being a relatively fun pattern to knit, in dark grey they are hopelessly boring. I do love the pattern though, and from the last pair I'd made Cee I had almost 2/3 of a skein left, so decided to just use the same colour.....can you tell where this is going??

Cee came with me to buy the yarn, and just happened to be wearing his socks, so when I held the skein up to his socks and saw that the skein was much darker, I figured "Oh, it's faded in the wash...it should be okay"....famous last words. I bought two skeins of Patons Gentry Grey kroy socks and got to knitting. I finished the first sock and was about half way through the second when I needed the partial skein of yarn....so off I went to dig it out.....that's when I realized.....

Can you tell the BIG difference in colour? Cee's socks hadn't faded at all....same colour, same yarn, different label...WAY different shade....sigh. So back to the store I went. Then I finished the sock and realized that even though Cee's brother's feet are much smaller than his, I had way less yarn leftover.....wtf? Then I had a bit closer look at both labels....

Those sneaky Patons so-and-so's have decreased the yardage from 192 to 166! or 175 to 152 metres....man, that sucks! I notice they also haven't listed the weight on the new label.....sneaky sneaky petes!

Anyway, I got over the trauma of the kroy socks and coasted into summer feeling pretty good...and then it happened. And no, I'm not talking about the death of a certain pop king, although that was tragic and weird. I got hit with Sciatica....or at least that's what they think it is/was.

In early July I was completely minding my own business (like I always do, snort!) and getting out of the shower, dried off and hanging up the towel (oh no, did I put an image in your brain? Sorry!) and doing nothing in particularly special at all and all of a sudden I felt like someone had plunged a knife into my lower back/side (top of my rear basically--oh no, another image!) Very soon it became apparent that something was seriously wrong...mostly because every time I put my left foot down on the floor I screamed in pain.... The pain travelled down my leg and very quickly I couldn't walk or even stand up straight. This was the scene for about 4 or 5 days....couldn't stand, couldn't sit, lean, lay, get comfortable, sit, do much of anything except cry in frustration and take anti-inflamatories that never really took the pain away and depend upon my knight in shining armour Cee to take care of me, which he did, very brilliantly. Every day it seemed to get just a little bit better, and I kept trying to do a bit more and push through the pain when I could, and now six weeks later I am very much improved, although I have to take it slow at times on the stairs and not sit or lay in one spot too long....there is a little numbness around my knee region too, which is also frustrating...I am told it can take up to 3 months to completely recover....Cee's aunt has had it off and on for a year and a half...../me shudders!!

The worst part of this is I have no amusing or entertaining anecdote as to how it all happened, I mean, taking a shower? Man, I should have been base jumping or something! Like that would ever happen...but seriously, that's as bad as walking and breaking your hip....I hate getting old! This didn't just come out of the blue, I have had issues with sciatic pain going back to my mid twenties, but nothing as bad as what I went through this summer.

Let's hope the Fall season will bring a bit more normalcy for all of us.

Until next time, don't make fun of that old lady on tv that says she's fallen and can't get up, it might come back to bite you in the ass one day!

a major prize, a major prize!!

The beautiful and wonderfully multi-talented Sharon, of Chickenlips Knitting, and the gorgeous Stitchjones yarns has bestowed upon yours truly a most awesome award:




How wicked is that?! Thank you so much, Sharon, and just in case no one has told you today, you are the best!

It's now up to me to pass on the love, as this award comes with responsibilities....

Here are the rules for the nominees:

1. Copy the award to your site. (Save it to your own server).

2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.

3. Nominate 8 other bloggers.

4. Link to those on your blog.

5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

Since anyone who reads this blog is obviously extremely intelligent and awesome, I nominate you all, with special attention to:

Lexa from Just in the Knit of Time
Cute kids, adorable dogs, and awesome knitted objects, who could ask for anything more?

Vik from Like Grandma
Vik blogs from Argentina about her beautiful crochet and knit items and her cuter-than cute Scottie dog.

Cass from Shut Up, I'm Counting
Home-schooling accident-prone pet-sitting, knit-loving vegan hilarious mom...that's Cass.

And lastly, Sharon, I'm sending this back to you, because, my dear, you are the most "Kreativ Blogger" I know! Love ya!


I have no pictures of knitterly or crochety things today, mostly because I'm in various stages on all my projects right now. I'm working on the February Lady sweater (who isn't?) and I've had to restart it a few times, because I haven't liked a few things on it (like the eyelet increase row) and I decided I should make a smaller size than the one I was making...at this point I really don't know if it will get finished...we'll see. I'm also making a pair of socks for Cee's brother, boring dark grey ribbed...those seem to take forever....I don't know why men don't seem to like wearing funky coloured socks...

In a related vein...does anyone know why all my pictures are looking so funky lately? They seem to get cut off on the right side....I'm sure it's something I'm doing, I just don't know what....I'm not that tech savvy, so you'll have to dumb it down for me.

Time for me to head off into the sunshine (it is actually sunny today) and survey the damage the winter has done to our yard.

a cowl-tionary tale...

Yet again this year Winter still has us in its icy grip...and even despite a whirlwind trip to Ottawa by rock star President Obama, we are still suffering those winter blues...I myself absolutely refuse to even think about shovelling any more snow...so it better just stop.

By the way, is it just me, or is it kind of ironic/scary that people flocked to Ottawa from all over the country to catch a fleeting glimpse of Obama, most of them not even knowing if they would see even his limo, much less the man himself. They waited for hours and hours in bitterly cold weather, brought their children, and cheerfully stood and cried when his car came down the road, and every Canadian TV channel pre-empted coverage all bleeding day so that they could chatter on ad-nauseum about the lunch menu that would be presented to the president, or wondering if he would even bother to come out and wave hello. I'm glad he did, but hey, part of me is ashamed because in my whole life I've never seen anyone do that for one of our politicians...even Trudeau....not that everyone liked him, but still...what does that say about us? Or him, or the times we are living in? I think that Obama has a lot to live up to, and I hope for his sake that he can, but all this worshipping of him is kind of troublesome to me.

Since Spring won't come to me, I came to it, in a matter of speaking. I finally finished my daisy square afghan that I've been working on and off (mostly off) for the last two years or so. And here it is....you may need sunglasses...



Like wow, man...groovy...or something like that. I used up a lot (although not all, much to my chagrin) of my variegated acrylics. It's a large one, fitting the top of a queen size, so it would make a suitable double coverlet. Not sure what I will do with it...it may get donated, I haven't decided.

This daisy square is cute and really fun to make, and call me crazy (and believe me, a lot of people do!!) but I like it just as much from the back/wrong side:

Then, since I have been the recipient of a large amount of inherited yarn from different sources lately (it seems like word gets out when you knit, and all of a sudden yarn starts appearing from this aunt or someone's grandma or cousin, not that I'm complaining) I decided to try a little cowl with some yarn (no label, no idea what it is...probably acrylic, I think it wants to be mohair-like)....

It knitted up so well, and the pattern came so easily for me (since I seem to be brain-dead about knitting lacy patterns) I knew it was too good to be true...and I was right...because, dear friends, this is what happens when you knit with gifted yarn and you're not sure how much you have, and you try to be careful with your tension and not knit too loosely in case you run out, and then you make it to the very end and are casting off and feel very smug about your victory....

And then you run out of yarn with 30 stitches left to bind off....Sigh.

I will probably frog it and make it into yet another beret (another one!?) because while I was knitting it, it reminded me so much of the colour of Martha's tam in the Doctor Who episode "Human Nature"--I know, GEEK!!!!

If you wanted to get the charity daisy square (it's crochet) you can contact Krystal via her blog
Krochet Krystal The pattern is free but she does ask that you make one square and send it to her for her charity afghans.

The cowl pattern I used is called A Noble Cowl. A lovely pattern, that is a fun knit. You can find it for free as a Ravelry download.

six. more. weeks.

Oh yeah, that's right...the fat rat up in Wiarton, Ontario predicted six more weeks of Winter today...I don't know why I was so upset...oh yeah, that's right, I do...'cause winter sucks!! I thought last year was bad, but we must have been extra bad again this year. Sigh, oh well, it does no good to whine about it, and it doesn't even make me feel better. I thank Heaven everyday for our neighbour who bought the snowblower and does our sidewalk and driveway for us every time we get a dump, he's an angel, to be sure.

Aside from not blogging regularly (sorry!) I've totally been in to fair-isle/stranded knitting! I am currently making the "We call them pirates" mittens--sorry, no pics yet, I'm only half-way through one of them... but took a break to make up a couple of hats for Cee's elderly second cousin in the UK...sounds like she will need them soon because they got 30 cm of snow in London today...I think that much would shut the city down for sure.

The first hat I made was Shedir, from Knitty, this was a bit of a challenge for me, all the cables and twisties...


It didn't help that it called for dk weight and I just used worsted...the tension was a bit tight on the 3.25 mm needles...but at least it will be warm! The colour choice is hers....I'm not a fan of beige yarn...for some reason it brings out the anger in me....it's not rational I know, but neither am I most of the time! She made the request by phone, and when I repeated the colour and style choices she wanted, she pronounced she couldn't understand me because 'my accent was too strong'....I guffawed laughing at that, because I've never been accused of having any kind of accent before, so I handed the phone back to Cee's mum and she 'translated'...I swear she didn't say it any different than I, but for some reason, her cousin understood....

My favourite part is the top of the hat, which reminds me of a Clematis flower or a Pointsettia. I think I did screw up a bit towards the top, as not all of the lines are meeting up as they should, and some of the twisties aren't that even, but I don't think she will care all that much.

She has a very small head (or so she says, I've never met her) so I whipped up a 3 am Cable hat for her as well. Talk about a fast knit.

You can see them side by side here...the 3 am is so much smaller than the Shedir, but it stretches like crazy, so hopefully it will be okay for her.

And lastly, my most favourite, made purely for the fun of it and not for an elderly British cousin:

If you are in to Doctor Who, you will recognize the Blue T.A.R.D.I.S. and the grey Daleks, with their metallic cries of "EXTERMINATE!!!" If you aren't into Doctor Who...my sympathies, as it's a most excellent show...you should watch it, you'll like it! Or not, no biggie.

You can find all the patterns I used by clicking:

Shedir, 3 am Cabled Hat, Exterminate

'merry christmas, movie house!!'

Just wanted to drop by and wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year! Thanks to you all for reading and commenting, and sticking with me in the non posting times! In the spirit of the season, I've brought back one of my own personal favourite and most terrifying holiday gif files:



Don't you just want some bleach for your eyes/brain now???? I hope you all won't be up late crocheting/knitting/crafting or tearing your hair out tonight! I have only made 2 gifts this year and finished the last yesterday (n'yah n'yah phffft).

Take care and as always, eat too much, drink too much, and laugh too loud!! And don't forget to dance.

I leave you with the immortal words of Clark W. Griswold, from my Dad's favourite Christmas movie, "Christmas Vacation":

"And when Santa squeezes his fat, wide ass down the chimney tonight, he's going to find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!!"

I can still hear him laughing.

the most wonderful time of the year?

Is it really almost Christmas time? It doesn't feel like it to me...am I the only one? Every year it seems to come sooner, and every year it feels less and less like it...maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety.....maybe I'm becoming more like my mother, God Bless her, who was not fond of Christmas, and despite working in a mall, left all her shopping, be it gift or food, until the very last possible minute, and made me wrap everything (once I grew old enough), even sometimes my own presents ("don't look in this box before you wrap it!!") all the while baking and cleaning house and complaining the whole time that we had too much, didn't appreciate it, and as Christmas dinner wore on and the wine disappeared, telling us how ungrateful we all were....we in turn kept filling her wine glass, because we liked "drunk mum"--she was funny, and said weird things!--and she only drank that one day a year...what can I say, we're a bunch of strange folks in my family. Anyway as I get older I can appreciate what my mother had to go through, all the work, cooking, shopping, cleaning (not so much wrapping as I said earlier, I was the "wrapping beeyotch") and all for one day a year.

My mom was a legendary baker....she made so many good things, like peanut butter logs, and marshmallow rolls, and butter tarts (Oh! the butter tarts!!!) I don't have one favourite, they were all so good! I remember one year (I was about 7 or 8) my mother baked early (in October or November) and put everything, squares, cookies, tarts, goodies, you name it, in the freezer, all nicely packed and ready to pull out Christmas evening. She really had everything organized and all ready to go. After dinner, she went to the freezer to pull out a few tasties for a dessert tray, only to find out that my teenage brother and his teenage friends had been steadily raiding the deep freeze of all the goodies and there were none left for us to eat!....I'm sure she drained an extra bottle that year.

If you have a favourite Christmas memory, can you share it with me? Maybe that will get me into the Christmas spirit...

I've been knitting berets a lot lately....don't know why. I'm not really a hat person, they don't look good on me, but berets, well I can handle one of them...harkens back to my old "Brownie" days I guess. Still, I only have one head, and just how many of them do I need??? One more, apparently:




This is the "Sweet Honey Beret" by Faina Goberstein, from the Winter 2008 issue of Interweave Knits. I have to say I love the honeycomb pattern, even though it took me a while to get used to it (let's face it, it doesn't take much to confuse me!)

And there's the flip side. My first attempt was in a grey(gray?gris?) yarn, which I ran out of on almost the last row, and in trying to 'stretch' said yarn to finish, dropped a stitch and completely arsed it up so bad I frogged it and tried it with this multi-coloured yarn.

Here it is perched on a bowl for an almost 'real head shot'...I made this with a larger needle (more out of necessity than anything else...the needle the pattern called for has a sweater on it currently, so I went a size up) and I made it extra slouchy (like me!) 'cause that's how I like it.

i've never liked politicians,

Although I'm sure they have nothing but good things to say about me....snort, whatever...but still, the crap that's going on with our government right now is ludicrous. I won't bore anyone by going into details, just say our politicians seem to have gone insane, along with a good number of our citizens, apparently. We just had an election barely six weeks ago, and now the opposition leader, who no-one in Canada wanted to be Prime Minister, is on the verge of becoming just that, thanks to a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc Quebeqois, which is a truely frightening prospect to me, and anyone else who doesn't think that the leader of a party that wants to separate the province of Quebec from Canada should have any power over the rest of Canada. Arrrgh, I don't even want to talk about it. If it's not gloom and doom about the economy it's this new palaver about our "leaders"....no wonder I don't want to watch the news anymore....here's some fibre for your diet:



This is a relatively bad picture of a flower afghan that's been ongoing for about a year...I seem to only want to work on afghans in the winter, small wonder.

And here are some glovey-mitteys I made, from the pattern in the Creative Knitting January 2008 issue:



I also tried the Mystery Beret from Wooly Wormhead (you can find the pattern at Ravelry, they have dubbed it: "Meret"):




And here's the flip side....I did the rolled/ribbed brim, which I really like...I suppose now I should block it, so you can see the lacey pattern better:



Sorry for ranting about the govt....the only potential good thing this mess has done is galvanized the country towards their politics....it's made Canadian politics sexy again....

a moment in time

At the 11th hour,

On the 11th day,

Of the 11th month,

We remember.

We remember the ones that went before. The men and women who gave their lives so that we can live and enjoy ours. We wear red poppies on our left lapels to signify that they are not, will never be, forgotten.


In Flander's Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Lt.-Col. John McCrae

We remember....that freedom is not free.

ode to my red oblique cardigan

Please indulge my dorkiness.....

(To the tune of "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes", by Edison Lighthouse)....

It looks kinda dozy,

but it's so warm and cosy,

this sweater that was made by me...

Oh, and love grows where my Red Oblique goes,

and nobody knows like me.

Sure I made a few gaffes,
But it keeps out the cold drafts,
and others know it's plain to see...

Oh, that love grows where my Red Oblique goes,
and nobody knows like me.

The sleeves have stretched to just past my knees,
still it keeps out the breeze,
when I walk out the door....

It lengthens every time that it's worn,
but I scoff at the scorn,
'cause like never before.....

I can say "I did it!"
and people know I've knit it,
it's just so wonderful to me..

Oh, 'cause love grows where my Red Oblique goes,
and nobody knows like me.

Oh, yes, love grows where my Red Oblique goes,
and nobody knows like me.

Dear Red Oblique sweater:



I love you,

Love, me.

Pattern: Oblique by Veronik Avery, Knitty: Fall, 2007

what the...???

Hey....where did all my blog posts for the last two months go??? Oh yeah, that's right...I didn't do any. Apologies. Life has been....weird, to say the least. I won't go into a lot of detail, I'll just say that a lot has happened....not a lot of it good, but not all of it bad. Some of it funny, some of it terrifying. Some things may or may not be resolved, so I'll leave it there for now. I may not be posting very often for the next while, so if you get tired of checking here, I understand.

I've been knitting a lot, save for about a two-week break during which I thought about knitting and crocheting, but didn't do any. I finished a sweater (which I have no picture of yet, but have worn a lot) and for a few days, became engrossed in knitting tiny little socks, hence this picture:
The pattern is mini stockings, which you can find on Ravelry, I believe it's by Little Cotton Rabbits.

I also started the domino potholder from Interweave Knits site, except I'm not using dk weight, just bernat handicrafter, which I assume is worsted weight. I'm thinking I'll have to make it less squares or my potholder would come out tea towel size. These little guys are fun to make and go fast:

And I also finished a present for one of Cee's friends who is expecting a baby with his wife in January. I'm taking a bit of a risk posting here because she is aware of my blog, but what the heck, I like to live life on the wild side:

The picture kind of sucks, but it's a little teddy bear all-in-one. Super soft and cozy, and the whole time I was knitting it I found myself singing "Teddy Bear's Picnic" which drove Cee crazy (and me, too, if I'm honest). But a very quick knit (I did it after my sweater, which took months) I completed this little guy in under a week at the 6 months size.

A little closer look. Since I have no baby to model, and the killer shih-tzu was just not cooperating, I took a picture of the pattern picture on the Mary Maxim catalogue so you can see what it looks like filled with a baby:

You get the idea. The cuteness factor is large, there was much "oohing and ahhhing" when I showed it 'round. I do hope they like it. They live in Illinois and I'm not sure, but I think they get pretty cold winters there. It will be put to good use.

I will try not to make it too long before I post again. Take care all.

"At six o'clock their mummies and daddies will take them home to bed, because they're tired little Teddy Bears...."