Oscar? who cares for Oscar...

...while I forgot my notebook with all essential and very much needed knitting information at Lee Ann's. Someone tell me how to fix it to one of my extremities so it won't happen again, please!

And, what's it with the poor nominees having to wait on stage for the opening of the envelope? Presenting the award while standing amidst the audience?

I hate acceptance speeches. Either it sounds like just listing lots of people or it is a sob-story I am not interested in.

I love Julia Roberts when she tries to rescue Clint Eastwood's cheek from lipstick-leftovers. I would give her and him an Oscar every year just because. I feel sorry for Martin Scorsese, but he is in good company. Antonio Banderas should wash and cut his hair and stop singing in public.

When does Johnny Depp get an award? Why is Cate Blanchett wearing yellow when there are dozens of other colours that would compliment her complexion so much better? Thank heavens there is no third "Bridget Jones" book because I couldn't stand watching Renee Zellweger gaining and losing too much weight again for another movie. What's with the strapless dresses?

Why on earth do I think every f§$%ing year that it is worth watching these boring three hours and some minutes of TV?

"Everything is coming up roses" - Black

That's how it seems at the moment.

The back of the cardi is done, all with the short-row shoulder and neck shaping (I have discovered that I love short-rows), it hasn't been blocked and there is a part where I reknitted yarn so it looks like nothing you would want to wear yet.


I am working on both fronts as we speak, so expect more pics soon.

When I went to our knit meeting Thursday night I did not intend to end up with this:


But as you can see the allure of the sock yarn in a lovely light blue shade was too strong and I even pulled out the center of one skein already...I am weak, I admit it, but I love knitting socks.

Then there is this:


I found it last Tuesday and it was very affordable. Under the circumstances it comes in quite handy, don't you agree?


It has lots of nifty accesories - I think I have to start playing around with it soon!

This afternoon I am off to Lee Ann's - she took it upon her to invite some knitters into her house where we are going to "have our cake and knit, too". Thanks for doing this, Lee Ann! Sounds like fun and I intend to bring my camera. Thing is, people are so camera shy (me too) that I promise nothing.

"Moving out" - Billy Joel

YESS! We are moving out of our 3 1/2 apartment to a 6 1/2 in N.D.G. at the end of April.

These are the biggest news I have to tell. I am really excited about this because I am going to get my own "yarn room". Everything seems to fall into place easily. Even though in Montreal the traditional "moving day" is July 1st our landlord found someone who is willing to move in our present apartment at the beginning of May. We looked at the "new" apartment last Monday and knew at once that we wanted it. The size is right, the price is right and talking about "location, location": my husband will be able to walk to work.

Imagine me doing the happy dance!

Now, look at this!

Rank 4,540 (At least that was the number when I posted.)

I really don't know why little things like that entertain me that much, but they do.

Oh, BTW: 22,485 at 7.15 a.m.

Mathematically challenged

When I was in high school I got really sucky marks in math, physics and chemistry, everything scientific was a big "no-no" for me. I was way better with languages. Turns out that the sucky marks for math were well earned and still apply.

I calculated the number of rows for the upper half of my Mackintosh cardi wrong. You don't want to know the exact mistake, trust me. You might want to know that I have frogged three times part of the back and I am feeling exhausted just writing about it. Thus: no photos today either.

I bought the winter issue of "Knitter's" just because it was sitting there at the magazine stand. I had passed it at least three times without being tempted, and I really don't know why I bought it today, maybe just to confirm that I don't need to buy it next time. Which I kinda knew before. "Something special" - my ass. Now I wonder if this irrational behaviour has anything to do with my scientific incompetence or maybe it's just that some of my brain cells are wired the wrong way.

"I don't like Mondays" - Boomtown Rats

They are so right. And it snows again, too. Ugh. I do know that winter in Montreal means snow til the end of March (at least), but my subconscious mind hasn't accepted it wholly.


I also know that this picture looks suspiciously like one or two I have posted before, but trust me, it's brandnew, taken just five minutes ago.

I have been working on my Mackintosh Cardi, there's need for more pictures. Just not today...

I got tagged/Hölzchen gefangen

So you think the weekend will pass by uneventful and then you get tagged! Not that I mind, it's the first time someone named me. Da ich vorher noch nie beworfen wurde, vielen Dank und hier meine Antworten:

1. Wieviele gigantische Bytes an Musik sind auf deinem Computer gespeichert?
Hab mal grade nachgeschaut, da sind genau 11 mp3s zu finden auf meinem PC. Bin was Musik betrifft ungeheuer altmodisch und halte mich an CDs und die Stereoanlage. So, I found 11 songs on my pc, no clue how much bytes that are but for sure forgettable. This oldfashioned lady prefers CDs and the stereo.

2. Die letzte CD, die du gekauft hast...
War für meinen Mann: 2raumwohnung "In Wirklich" - das war im letzten November. The last CD I bought was for my hubby, last November.

3. Welches Lied hast du gerade gehört, als dich der Ruf ereilte?
Das letzte Lied, was ich vor entdecken des Hölzchens gehört habe war "Wir erinnern uns nicht" von 2raumwohnung. The last song I heard before getting tagged was "Wir erinnern uns nicht" by 2raumwohnung.

4. Fünf Lieder, die dir viel bedeuten oder die du oft hörst...
Uh oh, das ist ganz schön schwierig, außerdem ändert sich das ja auch von Zeit zu Zeit. This is a horribly difficult question, let's see if I can think of five or have to name more.

1. "Hunter" von Dido
2. "Mona" von Mike Batt (ja warum wohl??)
3. "Out of Reach" von Gabrielle
4. "I know what love is" von Right Said Fred
5. "Supergirl" von Reamonn

Da gibts aber noch viel mehr...da mache ich lieber gleich Schluß hier. There are lots more - why only five?

5. Wem wirfst du dieses Stöckchen zu (3 Personen) und warum?
Hier wurden so viele Hölzchen geworfen, dass wohl jeder froh ist, wenn er nicht mehr in Deckung gehen braucht... Thanks for tagging me, I think we are all done, so no more of this.

Done with socks for now

I sternly reminded myself that there are a lot of other things to knit - what's more: waiting in my basket to be knit. This "last" pair is for my friend Cerrie who doesn't know that she is going to receive them soon. I also have to think of another way to take a picture of the finished socks or I will bore myself and you readers to death...ideas are very welcome.

At knit's end with Harry Potter

What does the amazon sales ranking tell us? Doh, which book is a bestseller at amazon and which book is not. Or maybe this statement deserves a closer look.

"Harry Potter and the half blood Prince" is No 1 at amazon.ca and amazon.com. This book won't be out till July. I sure hope J.K. Rowling can fulfill the expectations.

Guess what is ranking No 9.300 at amazon.ca?? Yup, another book that's not out yet but will be on March 1st. Why would I mention this? 'Cause it's the Yarn Harlot's "At knit's end" that ranks - at least I think so - amazingly high.

Compared to the number of people who want to get a grip on the next "Harry Potter" the number of knitters must be minimal. I mean, millions of children and adults (do I really care if it's millions or thousands or what) wait for the next instalment of the Hogwarts-saga, how many thousand knitters does it take to propel a non-saga book on rank 9.300??? I wonder...

Now, not to spoil the feel-good-ranking, but what does the number 42.343 tell us? I am not so sure. Either the variety of books sold in the U.S. is much larger than in Canada or the knitters in the U.S. just don't care about the Harlot as much as we north of the border do.

Leaves us the question: If the numbers of HP-fans compared to the knitters is proportional to the sellings of rank 1 and 9.300, is the book ranking 9.300 not the same bestseller as No 1??

I know, I know

Amelie doesn't knit but thinks of strange schemes to get Monsieur Quincampoix, and Riddick's favourite pastime couldn't be further away from mine (and: yes, Wenders, that's Vin Diesel).

But then at the moment I feel more like stuck in a strange scheme than anything else. There is nothing new of knitting to report and I don't want to complain about stupid things, so I have to think really hard what to write about.

Hey, there is a new episode of Gilmore Girls on tonight - did I ever tell you that I am a big GG fan? There you have it - something new after all.

Amelie meets Pitch Black

Ever wondered what Amelie would do when she'd meet Riddick? "You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

We are watching Pitch Black right now on DVD and before we saw Amelie. Nice mixture of light comedy and gruesome horror. Usually I don't like horror, but I must admit I have a thing for Riddick. "Not for me!"

If you don't know what I am talking about: watch the movie.

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good: I like knitting with "Micro". It's soft and knits up in a flash. It only goes a little against my yarn snob grain because it's 100% polyacryl - at least it's "micro-fibre" (whatever that means).

The bad: I started dropping stitches. Even though "Micro" seems slippery they do not unravel as easily as I thought. They sometimes cling together badly.

The ugly: The yarn is spun so loosely that the single plies show in the clingy dropped stitches.

Makes me wonder if I really want to give this Clapotis to my Mom - or am I being anal?


See? (Anyone mind the distortion of the twisted stitches?)

Moi aussi - Clapotis!

I feel a bit like copy-cat even though I am not. Honestly, I started playing around with some yarn I had yesterday morning and decided to knit Clapotis for my Mom's birthday. Then, after I had already started, I read up on Yarn Harlot's blog. I thought myself really clever for NOT using stitch markers (18 are way too fussy) but purl stitches, and now I look like a big plagiarist.

Merde.


J'ai hâte de laisser tomber des mailles...c'est le fun!

I am using "Micro" from Schachenmayr in a lovely apricot I had in my stash. The yarn is shiny and really slippery so dropping and unraveling the stitches will be no problem at all. It is also a bit thinner than what Kate used, so my Clapotis will be a bit smaller. As the scarf is biased so was I about knitting it. Everyone is and was, I am late as usual but I have to admit: it is fun!

They fit

Once again I avoided the single sock dread.

After a couple of hours

my blog doesn't look like any second blog anymore. Not that I could write my own template now but I can tweak and change an existing template in the direction I want. Or so I thought.

Really!

Someone should have warned me that having a blog doesn't mean writing posts only but getting into this HTML-crap and maintaining bothers like side-bars, too. I am also a bit tired of the fact that every second blog on blogger seems to use my template and I can't do anything about it because of the mentioned HTML-crap that eludes me - yet.

As stated, my side-bar needs updating. A lot. Thing is: it will get longer and longer and I don't want that. I want to be able to make new pages you can get to when clicking on "ready to wear" or whatever and therefor have a reasonably long/short side-bar. Come to think of that: I want my own site! Yes, let's think big. No stopping at crappy side-bars, no, heap the HTML-crap of a whole site on my oh so HTML-uneducated head so I can rant even more when I don't get what's going on.

I already have picked the font that I would like to use. Knowing me that's as far as I will get - for the next year or so. Unless by some miracle I will wake up tomorrow and be a HTML-crap-wizard.

Yeah, right.

Getting my groove back

I am slowly easing back into daily habits, i.e. drinking coffee, cooking dinner, knitting and I can prove it:


What's better than starting with socks?

These are for my friend C. who admired the hand knitted socks I gave to people for Christmas and kept dropping hints that she would LOOOVE a pair herself. I am using Pony Pearl dpns which I only recently bought and needed the excercise. The tips are a bit blunt for my taste but the knitting itself is OK. This time I knit the heel differently, with slipped purl stitches - have never tried it before and it should make the heel a bit more durable. I know there are people out there who are not into these variegated sock yarns but I just can't not have some in my stash and use it! This is a 100g ball still from some German stash (Rödel Wolle - used to buy there all the time) and I quite enjoy knitting up the stripes.

See, dear commenters, all the well wishes finally worked. Danke schön! Merci! Gracias! Tack så mycket! Grazie! (I got a bit tired of the Thank-you's, so there you go!)

May I introduce you

...to my new drug of choice:


Powerful stuff that is - but even with powerful stuff it took me a while to resemble a human being again. Lets rejoice: today is the day!

As you can imagine, no knitting news. I promise to do my best to change that in the next couple of days...