First Ear Warmer Finished

I've been slowly knitting my ear warmers and I've finally finished the first one. There's no way I'll get the other one done by the end of the Tour but it was nice to do some knitting.

Tour de France KAL Intermediate Sprint #2

Oh dear, I didn't read the challenge very carefully and we were supposed to make a regional dish and I just made something French. A French baguette that is. Well Wikipedia says that ”baguettes are closely connected to France and especially to Paris,” so maybe it will do. It actually wasn't very crusty though it tasted quite good. I didn't have the correct tempurature and that probably affected the outcome. I don't know if it was because there was milk in it instead of water but I liked it and will try to make it again. I used this recipe from have cake, will travel.

TdF KAL Intermediate Sprint

Though doing only a row a day keeps the doctor away, it sure doesn't get you very far in your knitting. I decided to knit the ear warmers in the round. The rings are to remind me where to decrease, the safety pins to purl a stitch on the edges so it will lie flat and the word relax is to remind me to relax my hands and shoulders so I don't tense up.

The Tour de France KAL is having an intermediate sprint challenge and I've decide to answer each option.

Knitting Option
My Tour de France project has to do with cycling, so that's the tour connection. The French connection? Hm...

Cycling Option
I don't remember learning to ride a bike as it was so long ago. I think it was an adult bike though. I do remember one day when I was with my youngest sister when she was learning to ride a bike. I was holding onto the back of the seat and noticed that actually she was cycling quite well, so I thought that I'd let go. She was going fine until she noticed that I wasn't holding on anymore. She went off the curb, wobbled across the street (fortunately no cars were coming), went up the curb on the other side of the road and crashed into a mailbox that was the only thing around. I don't remember if she asked me for riding help again.

France Option
I would like to visit France one day. Especially the outdoor booksellers along the Seine in Paris because it was one place my grandmother told me that she would like to see. She was a bookworm like me, though she reads books in French too.

T de F KAL: Day 1

I'm back where I started from. I had decided for today just to rip out the scarf who's yarn I wanted to use for my ear warmers and caste on, but accidentally started knitting the first row of ribbing and noticed that I hadn't cast on the correct number of stitches. Has it really been that long?

Unfortunately there's an illness in the family of the woman who was suppose to be the leader for our team. I had already said that I could be a back-up if needed, so I'm the new leader for our team. I hope it isn't too difficult with members being in many time zones.

The Tour de France KAL is Starting Again

What a long time it has been. I haven't been doing any crafts because of my frozen shoulder and the resulting nerve that is being pinched. I suppose I could sew but I haven't found anything that I would like to make. The Tour de France Knit Along is starting tomorrow, and even though I know that I shouldn't knit, I'm going to make something small. I'm hoping that I'll be able to knit the Bike Helmet Ear Warmers. I'm aiming for a few stitches a day but I don't know how many yet.

Yarnival!!!

Welcome to April 2008's edition of Yarnival.

A nticipation
P rojects
R eality
I nforming
L ace

Anticipation

Shelly signed up a few months ago for the Blue Moon Fiber's Rockin' Sock Club. What happened when she finally received the postal slip saying that her first package had arrived? Read her post to see what difficulties she had getting the parcel!

Projects

Linda has finished some Torotos. What are they? Check out her blog.

Need a bit of shaping? With negative and positive ease Not Hip ends up with an hourglass figure.

Still snow on the ground? There is one way to get spring flowers. Rhonda finished her Tulips for Women.

No sunshine yet? See how Monika brought some sunshine into her life.

Deb gives a Juno to her finished Cables and Os. Will she be tempted to knit another one?

If yarn doesn't touch your stash, does it exist? Terhi was able to crochet something she wanted, aided by some helpful people.

Reality

It wasn't New Year's Eve but Michaele had a few glasses of wine, drew up a list of things she wanted to knit and even ordered most of the yarn too. But what about reality? Does a summer baby need a bobbled hat and shorts from 100% wool?

Informing

Do you need matching buttons for your projects? Sarah shows us how to crochet some and loops to go with them.

Lucy lost a lot of weight and wanted to make her unfinished kauni cardigan smaller. Would you dare to cut pieces off of it?

You never know who's reading your blog. Who was it who read about Natalie's broken needle? Natalie has done us a service by contacting several needle manufactures to see what their replacement needle policies are.

Have you seen a pullover pattern you'd like to knit but wish it were a cardigan? Pamela not only tells us how to change the pattern but how she made Wicked into a cardigan.

Lace

Trish started her lace cardigan 2 years ago. Besides problems with the pattern and the yarn splitting, in the middle of everything she decides to change it from a large to a medium . How does she do it?

Nichole finished and blocked a lovely lace shawl destined to be a gift the next day. Then she found two dropped stitches. Did she rip back and reknit it?

Laurie tends not to use lifelines but she did with this shawl because she didn't want to start over again. It was worth the effort, wasn't it?

Thanks for reading this issue of Yarnival. Please send submissions for future editions on the submission form.

Yarnival: Call For Submissions

Well it sure has been awhile. I even had to check what my password was (I guess my old age is showing! or is it that I have too many passwords?). I should get around to making a proper header before hosting April's Yarnival Carnival.

Yarnival, originated by Eve at The Needle Exchange is hosted once a month by different guest editors. It has posts that are submitted by bloggers and can have anything to do with yarn and fibre that has happened in the past month or so. You can visit new or familiar blogs and maybe learn a few things along the way as you visit each entry.

Please submit the blog post you would like featured by April 12th (date changed) for a publishing date of April 15th. Any blog posts, funny or sad, inspirational or instructional, or anything you would like us to know about your knitting/yarn world should be submitted to me on the Yarnival Carnival submission form at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_417.html. Show us your work and your blog!

My Isabeau Purse

Knitting
I finally finished the Isabeau purse. I like it and it was easy to knit. Or at least I remember it being easy to knit! It was so long ago when I knit the main part. I used the knitted piece as the pattern for the lining. It has one small pocket on the side of the lining. Now I just have to learn to use a purse.


Global Warning
Place: Finland Observation: Not the cold north
Date: January 17. 2008 Observation: No snow
Time: 13.00 Observation: No sun

A New Bracelet

In December I won a lovely bracelet that Shelby made. She's the daughter of Alisha from Tales from a Self Taught Knitter . It arrived the other day and I've been waiting for the sun to shine enough to take a better picture but that hasn't happened.

Knitting

I've dug out my Isabeau purse to get it finished because Ali at Skeins Her Way is having a finish a UFO contest. I hadn't realized that I hadn't worked on the purse since August 2006. Good thing that I wrote about it on my blog or I would have assumed that I had knit it last year. I have to sew it together, make and attach a lining, handle and button strap.

I'm trying to knit a pair of wristwarmers for my sister D. They were suppose to be Composed Mitts from Interweave Knits but I realized that not only am I not very fond of knitting Fair Isle but I'm not very good at it either. So I'm making it up as I go and only doing designs that are 3 stitches wide at the most so I can try to avoid having to catch floats. Here I've tried my own slipped stitch design but that didn't turn out how I thought, so it's gone too.

Food
We don't eat eggs very often and I seem to have to throw more and more away because the best before date comes and goes before I notice. So I'm going to try doing eggless baking and see how that goes. These Almond Cookies from Veganfood.net were really good. I only put almonds on a few of them so we could see how they were that way. We didn't really notice them. Next time I'll grind up more almonds for the batter and skip the ones on top.