Bespoke By Brouhaha!

…part of the loveliness courtesy of Michaels Craft Superstore!

We scored lots of goodies there yesterday.  For example, since I didn’t already nearly have enough beads for knitting…

… I needed to pick up some more.  Approximately 12,000 more by my calculation:

And what am I going to do with all these beads, you ask, shaking your head?  Well, a girl can never have too many chartreuse beads, can she?

These ones are intended to replace the gold beads I bought for the Moroccan Days shawl kit:

…which calls for 5,000 or so.  However, I poached some of the gold beads for the Sherwood I’m working on now:

(which I’ve decided, by the way, will be my mother’s belated present for Mother’s Day.  Hi, Mom!)

And these ones?

Well, I think they’ll go quite well with this Handmaiden Sea Silk in the Ocean colourway:

This, by the way, is the Ocean that I just had to have last August.  Yes, it’s still in the stash.  I’ve earmarked it for a “stealth project” (as Soo would say).  Stay tuned.

In keeping with the oceanic theme, I also picked up some sea glass:

It looks like pastel ice!

But don’t worry, JJ didn’t come home emptyhanded.  The reason for the trip in the first place so that he could pick up some stuff for the seasonal door decoration.  Here it is:

Isn’t it lovely?  Almost as lovely as this stuff…

Happy Sunday - and a happy Mother’s Day to those brave souls out there who have earned that title.

Well, gang - being as it’s Saturday and I’m recovering from a drinking session with the gnomes busy at housework, I thought I’d reprise a post that I put up on another blog I started in a blog binge last month.

So, if any of you have read it on the other blog, my apologies and I’ll be back tomorrow with more gnome adventures (there’s a new member of the Gnome family!!!) and maybe even some photos of knitting.

And, JJ and I are off later today on a trip to Michael’s craft superstore.  Yippee!

Now for my little fable.  WARNING/AVERTISSEMENT/ACHTUNG: if you are a member of the Conservative Party… well, read at your peril.  And don’t whine to me that you weren’t warned!

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There is a land far, far north of where most people live, and in that land is a little fiefdom called Kanadha. Many people flocked to Kanadha, even though it was a fiefdom, because it was one of the best and brightest places in the world.

However, Kanadha mostly exists in the shadow to its neighbour to the south, Murca. Murca is far larger than Kanadha and is run by a group of dictators known as the Archconservative Party. This is their leader, Exalted Ruler Godfrey. However, Mr. Godfrey prefers to be known as “God” - and this is what most of his people call him (although some of them give him the surname “Damn” underneath their breath).

This is a rare photo of God wearing evening dress. God doesn’t like wearing tuxedos, actually, because he likes to pretend to be a man of the people. However, from time to time he finds his tuxedo a useful tool to intimidate visiting dignitaries, such as The Right Honourable Steve.

Oops, sorry - wrong photo. This is actually the Father of Confederation, Sir John Eh?. However, the new guy, Steve is the current Supreme Lord and Master of Kanadha. He spends most of his time drinking, lying to his serfs and forcing the other nobility to keep silent about whatever it is he is up to, for example, hanging out with suspicious characters:

This is his way of emulating God, with whom he pretends to be best friends. No one is sure whether he actually believes this to be the case or not.

One thing is certain though - Steve has allowed God to scare him about the possibility of harm from this man, Lucifer.

Now, no one knows very much about Lucifer at all. According to God and Steve, Lucifer is a lawless type who hates Murca and should therefore be extinguished. However, people in Kanadha and Murca are not quite sure where he lives, what he believes in, and even whether this army exists or not. (God and Steve might actually know the truth - but if they do, they certainly have not been sharing it with their people).

Despite this, lots of money is spent every year by both Murca and Kanadha to engage in combat like activity far, far away in countries where Lucifer may or may not be found.

In Kanadha, they get the money for this fighting from people like this:

This is taxpayer John Doe. He is just one of millions of Kanadhonians who pay lots of tax money every year to Steve and the rest of the lords. He doesn’t really know where all of that money goes, as that is secret information known only to Steve and his Inner Circle of other nobility.

(It should be noted that In Kanatha, there is currently no right for taxpayers like John to vote. John doesn’t really think that is a big deal because he never voted when it was allowed anyway. Having said that, he does like complaining, though.

People like John, however, typically do not complain about the people in charge, because it’s easier to blame other people like themselves for all the problems in Kanadhian society. Steve encourages this, because it distracts the people and helps them forget that they are actually living in a fiefdom.)

Here are some other taxpayers, Quack and Daisy Duck:

You may have noticed that Quack and Daisy look quite different from one another, and from John Doe. This is because Kanadha is a multicultural fiefdom, although the Lords and Masters all still look like Steve (and like God, for that matter).

Quack and Daisy are hardworking types who don’t really have a lot of time to question what is going on in the wider world. Or maybe they just don’t care.

But that’s not a very kind thing to suggest, really, because I’m sure they’re busy looking after their two kids.

First up: Tina Duck.

Tina is still a young, naive little thing who doesn’t quite understand yet how the world works. Sometimes, especially after being picked on at school because her parents look different from one another, she wonders why everyone just can’t get along.

Everyone, that is, except her and her little brother, that is:

This is Brat Duck. He’s prone to stealing Tina’s crown and running around with it for kicks. He also squawks loudly, sometimes incessantly. This makes him potentially much better suited to get on in the fierdom and the wider world than Tina, unfortunately.

And finally, there is me, your humble chronicler, (Kris)tina.

I live in a place very much like Kanadha. It’s called Trana.

In Trana, unlike in Kanatha and Murca, there is no supreme being. Oh, wait, I’m wrong: of course there is a supreme being in Trana - the Almighty D*llar.

And here I must confess that I actually misled you a bit above. In fact, the Almighty D*llar is also the Supreme Being in both Kanadha and Murca. God and Steve just pretend to be the top entities, really.

I’m not allowed to show you photos here, just as I am not allowed to type out the name in full without changing a letter. However, in Kanadha one version of the Almighty D*llar looks like this, and in Murca like this. The version that you buy things with is referred to as a “dollar”.

As you can see, the Almighty D*llar is a shapeshifter which presents Itself amongst the rulers and mortals who spend their lives in search of it in various forms. And these days, you need at least one hundred of them to buy anything that you need.)

Trana is not a fiefdom, but some - nay, most - days it’s hard for me to believe that.

So, I just content myself with fondling luxury silk yarn, smoking cigarettes and indulging in general apathy like everyone else surrounding me.

Sigh.

Well, it’s not quite the CN Tower…

… but pretty impressive all the same.

I present to you - the world’s tallest Lego tower!!!

It was built in the Legoland Windsor theme park in the U.K. of 500,000 LEGO bricks - man, I only wish my mother would have let me have so much Lego when I was a kid!

At just under 100 feet high, it breaks the old record of 96.1 feet from August 2007 by more than three feet.

Colourful, and amusing: kind of like this Bollywood spoof of Barack Obama’s campaign that someone sent me yesterday, called Barack O’Bollywood. “Bollywood”, if you haven’t heard this term, is shorthand for a certain style of musical movies made in India, very cheesy and camp but with fab dancing. So, even if you don’t like Obama, check this out!

(I think he’s rather hot myself. Don’t tell JJ, eh?)

I’m a happy camper today because two seasons’ worth of Fry and Laurie DVDs came my way courtesy of the interlibrary loan system!

Which meant that I laughed my @$$ off all last night while watching them. I’d never seen the series before.

In case one of these guys looks familiar but you can’t place him - it’s Dr. House on the right above, and the left here:

Nice shirt, eh?

Anyway, that’s about it for me. No huge plans for the weekend… but it’s JJs PayDay, meaning large food shopping. I know you’ll be looking forward to that particular post!

Happy Friday!

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Well, summer is coming (says she, groaning at the thought of venturing out into a miserable cold rainy day) and the summertime knits are parading along right in front of it!

Ever wanted to make your own Converse sneakers? Here’s the pattern.
And don’t say I never gave you anything!

(I love Craft Magazine!)

I also like this pattern in the Interweave Knits Summer 2008 edition:

The pattern is by Barbara Gregory, a local designer and artist who also created the fabulous Bacardi cardigan:

As for Vogue Knitting, none of the patterns in the current issue really spoke to me (probably a good thing as I might start speaking back and people would look at me funny). However, check out this rib/cable pattern!

The instructions are available for free on their website here.

But what am I plotting? Well, I’m still awaiting my order from Blue Moon - in typical indecisive style, I changed my request for Sapphire to (love the name!) Lover’s Leap:

(What I really wanted to do, of course, is write back and say “Just give me one… no, make that two… of everything please. But I haven’t won the lottery. Yet. It won’t be very long until I’m famous though, as I’m sure the phone will be ringing off the hook today with calls from publishers who have seen my letter to the editor today and want to offer me a book deal.)

As well, in addition to the Sherwood, I’m working on the lovely Moonshadow stole by Sivia Harding (the kit is available at Earthfaire online):

I’ve picked a different colourway, Velvet Turquoise from Liius yarns, a wool mohair blend:

It’s lovely stuff.

I’m also trying to decide whether I should make one of these for myself.

But actually, on second thought, it probably won’t work unless I get the name of her makeup artist as well.

Miaow. I invite you to put your caption for this photo in the comments section.

Happy Thursday!

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I’ve been looking for some inspiration of late to get back into mosaic work…and just had to take another look at some photos of Park Guell:

It’s a park built using primarily very funky mosaics and unusual building shapes.

The project is located in Barcelona. It was the brainchild of architects Antonio Gaudi and Josep Maria Jujel.

Imagine walking past this to get to work every day!

Now, although the project is now a municipal park, it was apparently built originally as an idealistic housing project.

Here, by contrast, is what your typical housing project looks like in Toronto:

Hmm.

There are also lots of sources of inspiration for mosaic artists in religious buildings. This is a photo of a shrine in Afghanistan:

… and this photo depicts restoration work being done on the Cosmati pavement in front of Westminster Abbey in London.

This, on the other hand, shows a typical religious shrine in Toronto:

North Americans certainly lack creativity, from the look of it.

Sigh.

Happy Wednesday!

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Well, summer has arrived!!!

How do I know? Because the LCBO has come out with its early summer issue of the Food and Drink magazine!

Now, this has got to be the best free mag going! Not only does it have lots of free yummy recipes:

(A note: if you’re trying to diet, never, ever look at this magazine. Although the photos look so good that you could probably end up eating the paper they’re printed on…)

…but also lots of important lifestyle tips. I mean, I don’t know how much longer I can survive without buying some chocolate covered sunflower seeds:

…Dufflet chocolate bark:

…or a $32.00 lemon juicer!

(But here, gentle reader, I must confess that I actually now own one of these. In my defence, JJ bought it for me as a gift, knowing how much I love lemon, and it cost quite a bit less than $32.00 where he got it.)

And, here’s the perfect hostess gift for the next time you need one: a “chip ‘n dip” set

Only $240.00!! (Hmmm… how many bags of chips could I actually buy with that, though - and hey, they taste the same coming right out of the bag, no?).

Now, the only reason that the LCBO can actually offer this mag for free (which, by the way, has in past inspired a complaint to the Ombudsman from companies which actually sell their magazines) is that it is government controlled.

That’s right, folks - here in Ontario the government sells us our liquor. At a premium, of course.

What cheeses me off more though of late is that we’re also paying to get lectured while buying booze these days. For example, the LCBO used to have plastic bags like this:

Now, let me tell you, these bags were famous. They were the best plastic bags ever. This was the topic of many of those banal smoking area or elevator chats. Seriously. You could have a whole five minute conversation on “Don’t the LCBO have the best bags?”. I even know one landlord rep who used them as briefcases!

Well, alas, no more. Seemingly overnight, they discontinued the plastic bags in order to save the environment. So, instead, you can get either a free (paper) bag - great if you’ve driven in your gaz guzzling SUV to the liquor store, not so great if you are walking any distance - or, you can have one of these “enviro-bags”:

…which costs $1.95.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a good idea to do away with plastic bags. However, because they didn’t bother to announce that they were doing this but landed it on us, I was actually forced to buy one of their bags when I stopped in on the way home from work one day.

But then perhaps whinging like this is not socially responsible of me. As a consumer, however, I’m just getting tired of corporations taking the moral high ground, lecturing me about my (lack of) commitment to the environment, then turning a profit from it.

It strikes me that if the LCBO were really serious about encouraging people to use these bags (rather than paper, which as I understand it, involves trees being cut down), they would sell them at cost. And although I don’t know for certain I would venture to say that the LCBO does not itself pay $1.95 for each bag.

I mean, it’s not as though they’re hurting any!

The LCBO transferred a record $1.275-billion dividend, not including taxes, to the Ontario government in fiscal 2006-07. It is the 13th straight year the LCBO has increased its dividend to the province and the fourth consecutive year the dividend has topped $1 billion.

I’d love to know how much of next year’s billion plus “dividend” (is this a fancy word for “profit”?) relates to the sale of enviro-bags, myself.

And is it “socially responsible”, pray tell, to hawk $240 chip bowls rather than encouraging people to donate that kind of money to - oh, I don’t know - Mothers Against Drunk Driving, perhaps?!

Humph.

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… and I’m living proof - because I have not one, but two finished objects to share which were knitted from start to finish at a tenant advocate conference I attended earlier today!

They were both one skein projects - but then what the hell do you expect from me?!?

First up, number 1. I’m calling it “Feudal Forest”.

It was knitted with a yarn called Estelle 12 which I picked up at Knitomatic.

The yarn was advertised as 12 yarns in one. And I think that was correct, although I lost count. Finished scarf is 47″ by 5″, knitted on 10mm needles.

This one was just a simple garter stitch, but knitted lengthwise. I can’t tell you how many stitches I cast on. In fact, I freaked out a couple of coworkers because I had started knitting this from the short end but didn’t like how it looked, so just ripped back the whole thing, having knitted about 8″ worth. Two people at least at this point gave me the “what the hell are you doing?!?!?!” sign language …

And here is a photo with the proud (for now) owner.

And now for number 2, which I will call “Purple Prose” for this exercise.

This was knitted with one skein of Berocco Quest on 9mm needles.

Again, I cast on lengthwise (the needles were 24″ length and I just cast on as many stitches as fit). The pattern is as follows:

Row 1: K1, (K2TOG, yo) x whatever it needs to get to the last stitch, then K1

Row 2: P all

Yes, yes, I know the ends aren’t darned in. But I knit two scarves in five hours!!! What more do you want from me?!?

Finished size = 38″ x 6″ or so.

Oh, I should note that I lied slightly above when I said I knit all of this at the conference. In fact, I finished the purple one at the pub… but this is only because (a) I had to rip out the first scarf; and (b) I had to spend the lunch hour scouting the pub location for after the festivities with my trusty social co-convenor, J.

And here’s a photo with the proud owner of Purple Prose.

Now, put this all together with the fact that today I wore my Crazed Harlequin Dress:

…together with my Tuscany:

… and I know I came across as some knitting eccentric. But then again, apparently I’ve gained some fame in the wider admin law/poverty law circle… a lecturer today whom I’ve never met approached me and said “You’re the knitting lawyer, aren’t you?? I’ve heard of you!”

Hey, I’ve been called worse in my time.

Happy Tuesday!

A burning question: if April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring?

The answer: gloom and doom, with a beacon of hope.

I don’t know how people live in a climate where it rains all the time. I can’t stand three days in a row of rain, myself! Not to mention the damp chill.

So, I had to take some photos in the forest to remind myself that there is hope of regrowth after all.

And what did I find? Dead trees…

…and more dead trees.

Auuuggghhh!

But then I decided to take the glass half full approach to life for once, and was able to notice signs of life after all:

…both real and metaphorical!

And another shot of the Toronto forest (as opposed to Sherwood):

So, how is Sherwood anyway? Well, he’s ticking along quite merrily - as did Robin Hood and his men, apparently.

Gotta love these beads (there will be 1300 or so in the finished object, or so I’m told)! The yarn is Misti Alpaca Handpaints laceweight in the prosaically named “EZ05″ colourway. I’m calling it Sunset in the Forest, myself.

And here’s the money shot:

Not bad, eh? It will be approximately 16″ wide when finished and I don’t know how long, but suffice it to say there are many, many more pattern repeats to go.

But now off to gather my materials for the big all-day legal training session I’m attending today…

Luckily I’m not presenting, which means that I might actually have the time to whip up a scarf!

Happy Monday!

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I tend to refrain from shopping for yarn on Sunday, preferring instead to clean the house laze about, go out for coffee, knit, etc.  It is, after all, meant to be a day of rest (I am a subscriber of the “take what you like and leave the rest” school of religion, obviously).

Which meant, of course, that I had to go trolling for yarn yesterday!

Yes, yes - I was unfaithful to the Handmaiden yet again! I should be hanging my head in shame, not gloating about it over the Internet, I suppose.

But in my defence, I had the car yesterday and was in the mood to explore. So I headed up to a shop I had heard about some time back called The Enchanted Needle.

This shop is located in a city called Woodbridge, just north of Toronto:

Woodbridge used to look like this, apparently:

Now it looks more like this:

And it’s full of these:

Argh.  Let me tell you that the Enchanted Needle was the only beacon of light in what otherwise seems to be Strip Mall Hell.  It is a great shop, primarily focusing on needlepoints and tapestries.  I saw some kits for pieces like this:

I had to avert my eyes, because the last thing I need is another expensive and time-consuming hobby.  So, instead, I headed upstairs to the smaller space where they sell knitting yarns.

It is there that I found the Misti Alpaca Handpaints depicted above there.  Blue, turquoise and lime green - what’s not to like?!  I won’t tell you how many skeins I got there.  Suffice it to say that if I were to tie all the skeins together, affix one end to the doorknob in my apartment building and venture out on foot in Toronto, there are few places I couldn’t find my way back from.

For good measure, I threw these in:

2.25 mm knitting needles!  If you had told me I’d be buying such a skinny pair of needles a year ago, I would tell you that you had taken leave of your senses.  Instead, the senseless one is I.

I guess having new kilometres of yarn in the stash wasn’t enough, as I promptly arrived home and ordered the following from Blue Moon Fiber Arts: Blue Moonstone…

…and Star Sapphire.

Why did I have to take up lace knitting! It requires kilometres of yarn and every project takes a long time to finish.  This ensures that the stash will grow to brobdignanian proportions.

On that note, I think it’s time to go off and re-organize the stash.

But not before I explain the photo at the top.  That is a photo of Melina Mercouri, who was a famous Greek actress and singer:

The film she is probably known most for here in North America is Never On Sunday…

… where she played a hooker with a heart of gold who organized all the other hookers in Athens to stand up to the big bad bossman pimp, and led them in a strike!

A woman after my own pinko heart, clearly.  She later became a Minister of Parliament and they’ve even made stamps with her on it!

The whole country mourned when she died some time back.

Vale Melina.  I want to be you when I grow up.

Happy Sunday!

My wish for you this weekend: that you have lots of time to..

Huh?

Well, courtesy of Gawker, I bring you these fabulous photos of bygone times, when people seemed oh so happy and funloving.

For example, they seemed to take pleasure from the smallest little humdrum things:

“Look, honey, Saran wrap!!!! AND enough sandwiches to feed a small army!!! Whoo-hoo!”

Great and inexpensive transportation methods…

“Hey gang!  See how fun it is to drive to the ball game in these newfangled convertible thingies? But I’m wondering if I should have bought the pickup truck instead…”

Women enjoyed all sorts of exotic delights and pleasures not available to us today…

“Ooooooh!  Fabulous pink shampoo!  I think I’ll use that and then go out and order myself a big old Pink Lady!

“And maybe after five or six of those, I’ll meet a great guy who will want to stroke my silky smooth pink shampooed hair!”

Now, I know that they lacked certain creature comforts in that era, such as personal computers and TiVos.  But hey, who needed the Internet when you could have a fancy dan car stereo?!

And 8 track technology to boot!  Wow, man.

So, why not take a step back in time into the late 60s and have yourself some guid old fashioned fun?

I’ll even provide you with the step guide.  Loud orange shirt not included though.  Sorry.

Happy weekend!